From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Things I Learned from Republicans in May…
The giant, pulsating Bin-O-Edumacation is once again full to the brim. To quote the great Colin Powell: "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." So…let's go!
Rape victims should be thrilled if they get pregnant with their attacker's baby---it's a "silver lining." (Missouri State Rep. Tila Hubrecht)
You could legalize rape if you called it "The Civil Rights Act of 2016." (Rush Limbaugh)
Defaulting on our national debt is a smart way to cut our deficit. (Donald Trump)
There is no drought in California (Trump again)
Donald Trump is "a golden wrecking ball." (Sarah Palin)
President Obama's directive on school guidelines for transgender students means men will become women one day and then switch back to being men the next. (TX Attorney General Ken Paxton)
In the wake of the EgyptAir disaster, TSA screeners should now be tested to make sure they don’t believe in Sharia or Islamic supremacy. (Newt Gingrich)
NASA has no business constructing gay space colonies. (Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert)
It only took 25 years to defeat slavery. (Heidi Cruz)
America is controlled by America-hating Jewish supremacists and they should all vote for Donald Trump. (Trump goodwill ambassador David Duke)
Vote to reelect Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson because he's just like the "Let's roll!" guy from 9/11. (Sen. Ron Johnson)
And the best thing I learned this month:
We will never have a Republican president ever again. (Glenn Beck)
Yay happy dance. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Note: We hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend. As promised, here are my fresh Jarts wounds: here….here…here here and here. Final score, as usual: 0-0.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the primaries in CA, NJ, MT, ND and SD: 7
Days 'til the Great Beer Expo in Philadelphia: 5
Number of consecutive weeks the U.S. has gone with sub-300k unemployment claims, the lowest since 1973: 64
Length of time a tornado blazed a path through Kansas last Wednesday, when the average time is under ten minutes, according to the Storm Prediction Center: 90 minutes
Jump in container shipping activity over the last five years at Portland Maine's waterfront, according to the Maine International Trade Center: 1,300%
Metal bands per million people in Finland, Sweden and the U.S., according to FiveThirtyEight: 630 / 428 / 72
Rate at which Americans snarf down hot dogs between Memorial Day and Labor Day: 818 per second
NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 7:
Golden State Warriors 96 Oklahoma City Thunder 88
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Of course the Breitbart commenters have thoughts on President Obama's visit to Hiroshima to promote a nuclear-free world:
"Obama is the MOST Anti-American President in history..period. America chooses Donald TRUMP..a true Patriot..period."
"End Time!!! Google Rosary of the Unborn!!!"
“Obama hates American exceptionalism, hates the Constitution, hates capitalism, hates traditional Christian Values/Mosaic Law, hates the military and really really hates white people of all stripes. He just doesn't have the guts to say it. That's his gig.”
"It's what we get for electing a h o mo for President instead of an American. And now 39% of the electorate - including dead democrats - want another h o m o. Will we ever learn?"
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Click for your morning delivery….
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CHEERS to a party that would like you to please take seriously. The Libertarians had their annual hootenanny over the weekend, and apparently their new platform is "flabby individualism":
They chose former Republican New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson as their nominee. Afterward, everybody went home and vowed to do nothing in the run-up to the election because to work together would be socialist collectivism. Thus explaining their new slogan: “There Is No Team In I.”
JEERS to Groundhog Day: horrible birth defects edition. Does this look familiar I’m guessing it does:
Congress took off from Washington Wednesday afternoon without voting to appropriate any of the $1.9 billion the Obama administration has asked for to fight Zika and leaving top health officials feeling a little desperate. Zika continues its spread across Latin America and the Caribbean, racking up a growing number of birth defects. Cases are piling up in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and southern states from Texas to Florida are bracing for smaller outbreaks as mosquito season approaches.
That's actually from their Easter break in March. Last week the Republican-led Congress did it again, adjourning for another two weeks of booze and beaches and barbeques after dithering during an increasingly ominous Zika crisis. Pro-life party? Hardly. More like the life-of-the-party party.
CHEERS to feeling the breeze. A few years back Maine's fossil-fuel-loving governor Paul LePage threw so many wrenches into the plans of a Norwegian company that wanted to build a state-of-the-art wind farm off the coast of Maine that it packed up its gear and instead went to work on building the world's largest offshore wind farm in Scotland. So it gives me great pleasure to know that our idiot governor's plans to thwart clean-energy progress have been scuttled once again, thanks to the federal government:
U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced that Maine’s New England Aqua Ventus I floating offshore wind demonstration project, designed by a University of Maine-led consortium, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in the Offshore Wind Advanced Technology Demonstration program.
New England Aqua Ventus I will now be one of up to three leading projects that are each eligible for up to $39.9 million in additional funding over three years for the construction phase of the demonstration program.
“Today’s decision by the Department of Energy puts Maine firmly on the map of America’s emerging offshore wind industry,” Collins and King said in a joint statement. “With the project’s innovative and cutting-edge floating design, the University of Maine has once again catapulted our state to the forefront of clean energy innovation through advanced technologies that could harness and deploy the vast wind resources off our nation’s coast."
The offshore project will be join the several inland projects where winds are sufficient to keep the massive turbine blades turning, including Mars Hill, Oakfield, Kibby, Bull Hill and, ironically, behind the governor's desk.
JEERS to turbulent times ahead. Soeaking of wind, enjoy the next 16 hours, all you gulf- and east-coasters. Hurricane season starts Wednesday. The hot-off-the-press NOAA forecast is predicting an average year:
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, will most likely be near-normal, but forecast uncertainty in the climate signals that influence the formation of Atlantic storms make predicting this season particularly difficult.
NOAA predicts a 70 percent likelihood of 10 to 16 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 4 to 8 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 1 to 4 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher).
“This is a more challenging hurricane season outlook than most because it’s difficult to determine whether there will be reinforcing or competing climate influences on tropical storm development,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
As a reminder, here are the names associated with the Hurricane Class of 2016 in an easy-to-remember format: Alex Trebek, Bonnie Raitt, Colin Quinn, Danielle Steele, Earl Scruggs, Fiona Apple, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Hermine from the German translation of the Harry Potter books, Ian Reifowitz, Julia Child, Karl---of course---Marx, Lisa Simpson, Matthew McConaughey , Nicole Kidman, Otto the bus driver from The Simpsons, Paula Poundstone, Richard the Third, Shary shoes, Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development, Take me back to old Virginie and Walter (aka "Radar") O'Reilly. If the last two letters of the alphabet are needed, NOAA will use the usual "You've Gotta Be Shitting Me, Another One???" and "Zombie Hurricane Season from Hell!"
CHEERS to solving problems over brewskis. Speaking of oceans, how cool to see that someone finally figured out how eliminate one of the man-made scourges of the sea: those plastic six-pack rings that cause nothing but trouble for the creatures we share this planet with. The solution: make ‘em edible...
Saltwater Brewery in Florida now wants the entire beer industry to adopt the edible rings, which have the extra benefit of being biodegradable in landfills. It's win-win. Cool. Now let’s work on wine bottles made out of candy corn.
CHEERS to knowing where there is. The 26th annual National Geography Bee wrapped up in Washington, D.C. last week and the winner is 12 year-old Rishi Nair from Florida. He gets a cool $50,000 in scholarship money and a free trip to who-knows-where. So here's the final question:
Which East African lake that drains into the Ruzizi River contains large quantities of dissolved methane gas that could generate electricity for millions of people?
The winning answer is Lake Kivu. Unless you're a Republican, in which case your winning answer is, of course, always Benghazi.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 31, 2006
JEERS to a lovely afternoon spoiled. In Afghanistan, mayhem, anger and death yesterday as rioters took aim at foreigners. Seems one of our military cargo trucks careened out of control, plowed into a bunch of tin cans that pass for cars over there, and killed 5 people. Probably not a good time to discuss the finer points of no-fault insurance, huh.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a guy who classed up the republic. Here's your brain food for the day, courtesy of birthday boy Walt Whitman, born May 31, 1819:
“This is what you shall do;
Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
Whew. I think I need a cigarette.
Okay, back to the grind. Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Everyone’s heard of Cheers and Jeers, and if you’re not a physicist or a liar, you can probably admit that you don’t really get it.
---Tulsa World
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