From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Stand Back, Please
You're just in time to see the traditional test-squeeze of the honorary starter marmoset with sinusitis as we prepare to kick off the annual Netroots Nation fall online auction. In three... two... one…
Yay, it works. Bidding starts promptly at 9am ET and there's something for everyone. On this year's virtual auction block:
• Collectibles from the U.S. Mint, including the SOLD OUT John F. Kennedy & Jackie dollar coin and First Lady Medal
• A one-on-one presence & authenticity training session with the legendary Joel Silberman
• Artwork with a message that will class up your home or office as it lowers your blood pressure
• A cool cedar and copper-wire basket perfect for storing food, toys or deplorables
• A purple uterus fedora donated by Lizz Winstead
• Star Wars bobbleheads (of course)
• A set of Maine-made White House Easter eggs
Proceeds go to fund both the annual Netroots Nation convention and its regional events. New goodies will be added throughout the auction, so check back often. And if you have an item or two you'd like to donate, the process is simple---just click here to get started.
When the auction starts, bid early, bid often, bid with vigah! Auction ends on Tuesday the 27th. Good luck!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Note: A personal message to the "Intelligent Designer": Who designed you, smartypants?
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By the Numbers:
Months as of today that President Obama has left in office: 4
Days 'til the North Carolina LGBT Pride Festival in Raleigh-Durham: 4
Years since the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement: 5
Number of cheeseburgers Americans eat every year: 50 billion
Drop in Maine high school football participation over the last decade, in part because of concerns about head injuries, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram: 9.6%
Number of "vast" tents set up for the 183rd Oktoberfest in Munich: 14
Year of the first Oktoberfest, commemorating the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Theresa of Saxony: 1810
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
How do the commenters at Breitbart appreciate Chuck Todd correctly pointing out that the birther campaign was started by the right and fueled non-stop by Donald Trump?
“What a POS...get lost tubby.”
“Chuckie needs to swallow some teeth, if ya know what I mean.”
“NBC - Nothing But Commies”
“Guess what? I STILL question Obama's birthplace!”
“And I suspect Trump does too--he said what he had to say to take the issue off the table- BRILLIANT!”
“Chuck Todd, you liberal butthole.”
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I have no idea what breed this is. Do you?
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CHEERS to world peace...or a semi-close approximation thereof. If it's autumn in New York, that means it's General Assembly time! All the leaders of the universe are assembled at the United Nations this week (including President Obama, who will address the refugee problem) in an annual contest to see which one can be the biggest public nuisance. Although I have to say it's not quite as looney-toons as it was back when we had some real unstable goofballs wandering its hallways: Hugo Chavez (dead), Mahmud Ahmadinejahd (term-limited out), George W. Bush (currently painting pooties in the bathtub). I guess the best we can hope for is Benjamin Netanyahu stepping up to the lectern again with his cartoon bomb out of Wile E. Coyote's Acme catalog. But perhaps the lack of nutty showboaters might mean something constructive may actually get done---a boy can dream. Then, as custom now dictates, the General Assembly will close by honoring the memory of Muammar Gadaffi with a moment of silence lasting zero seconds.
CHEERS to staying calm and carrying on. A dumpster with a one-star rating from Airbnb ("small, smelly, but the food ain't bad") explodes and sends 29 to the hospital, all released mere hours later. In New Jersey someone blows up a trashcan. Later police find other un-exploded explosives. The culprit (caught less than a day-and-a-half later sleeping in the doorway of a freaking deli) appears to be---as so many Mohammad Atta wannabes are---a clumsy American dumbass with fantasies of something something something, who knows. And the reaction is predictable: media hyperventilating, Republicans freaking out, and Democrats calmly calling for stones to be overturned, facts found and arrests made. As usual during these unnecessary freakouts, I turn to Atrios (Duncan Black) for some perspective:
Things blow up in Philly sometimes. Gas leak, transformer, etc.
If they happen in a central location there's some concern, because central locations can have lots of people in them, but I've never thought, "small explosion 3/4 of a mile away! I'd better stay in my house!"
An explosion "over there" doesn't mean the rest of the city is about to fall to North Korean invaders or whatever.
I saw a couple conservative idiots on the twitter last night writing things like "New York is under attack!" Well, no, it really wasn't.
And while our fellow Americans on the right---the side that's armed to the teeth with their "second amendment remedies"---are the ones beating their chests loudest and spouting the angriest platitudes about how they'd stand up to those dastardly evildoers, a new Quinnipiac poll reveals something interesting: 7-in-10 Republicans say they're scared that they'll die in a terrorist attack versus 7-in-10 Democrats who say they aren't. I guess that explains all those campaign contributions to the GOP by the adult diaper industry. I'm sorry…that was rude. I’ll apologize on November 9th.
JEERS to the nexus of fear and politics. Speaking of national security... On today's date in 2001, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was named by President Bush to head the new Office of Homeland Security. During his tenure the color-coded terror alert system was created and, depending on which Tom Ridge you believe, the system was either manipulated by the Bush administration to influence the outcome of the 2004 election or not manipulated by the Bush administration to influence the outcome of the 2004 election. (Hint: The second Tom Ridge has tied up the first Tom Ridge and locked him away in the attic with a rubber ball in his mouth.)
JEERS to the least-surprising big surprise of the week. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie---that wily former prosecutor who can argue his way out of anything (except sales pitches to supersize his McDonald's order Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!)---swore on a platter of ribs that he knew nothing…nnnnothing!...about the politically-motivated (not "traffic study"-related) George Washington Bridge slowdown. And yesterday we found out that, yeah, he did:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) knew that members of his administration were involved in a dangerous and vindictive plan to shut down lanes of the busy George Washington Bridge in 2013, prosecutors said Monday.
The U.S. attorney’s office made the allegation Monday for the first time, in the opening of a trial for two Christie administration officials accused of carrying out the plot and then covering up, The New York Times reported. The aides’ lawyers have also said Christie knew what they were doing as it was happening, which Christie denies.
Federal prosecutors said David Wildstein---a former Port Authority official and Christie ally---will testify that he told the governor about the scheme to close the lanes while it was all happening, NJ.com reported.
If it pans out, there'll only be one thing left to say: "Quick, New Jersey! To the Impeachmobile!!!"
JEERS to the new arrival. If you hated chikungunya virus…if you loathed the zika virus, you'll really despise the new virus that might be making its way north. Already scaring doctors in Haiti, let's give a warm-mosquito-habitat welcome to…the Mayaro virus!
[I]t is closely related to chikungunya virus and was first isolated in Trinidad in 1954. Most reported cases, however, have been confined to small outbreaks in the Amazon. Whether this case signals the start of a new outbreak in the Caribbean region is currently unknown.
"While current attention has been focused on the Zika virus, the finding of yet another mosquito-borne virus which may be starting to circulate in the Caribbean is of concern," said Glenn Morris, M.D., M.P.H., director of the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute. "Hopefully we will not see the same massive epidemics that we saw with chikungunya, dengue and now Zika. However, these findings underscore the fact that there are additional viruses 'waiting in the wings' that may pose threats in the future, and for which we need to be watching."
CDC officials are already calling it a potential health concern. Pollsters are already calling it "more popular than Donald Trump."
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 20, 2006
JEERS to spending one more Friedman Unit in Hell. Very sneaky, you guys. General John Abizaid says troop levels in Iraq will stay the same or go up for at least 6 more months. See what they're doing? As the Iraqis stand up, we'll keep standing up, too, thus faking out the insurgents, who will see our massive numbers and flee to the outskirts of Baghdad and get trapped in the city's new Halliburton moat. Democracy will break out and Sparky Ahmadinejad will flee Iran in his space pod. And to think we doubted our leaders. Tsk.
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And just one more…
JEERS to looking out for number 1---literally. In Philadelphia something weird is going on. Apparently a Bonnie and Clyde duo with burrr-gulry on the brain has been going around stealing ones and zeroes off of people's house numbers:
[A] walk around the general vicinity shows at least 20 homes have had a “1” or a “0” missing, a gaping hole or a blank ending standing out boldly.
So far, it seems, it’s just those two digits our potential thief is after. The focus of this weird crime spree seem to be concentrated on the 2200- and 2300-blocks of Amber Street, the 2000- and 2100-blocks of East Susquehanna Avenue and the 2000- and 2100- blocks of East Dauphin Street. And every home targeted had an address marker that was in one way or another jutting out of their house. “We’re just very upset and frustrated and confused,” [resident Meghan] Haley said. “And why is it only 1s and 0s?”
What is clear is that the rash of theft of the numbers didn’t happen all at once. Word of the thefts started to spread in neighborhood circles more than a week ago.
Police are now looking for the suspects, and have narrowed the list down to either petty thieves or "the most old-school binary code programmers in the world."
And this just in: Hillary’s got this. 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:
“I believe Bill in Portland Maine had someone who told him that he wasn’t worth dirt and someone who told him that he was the second coming of the baby Jesus, and he believed ‘em both."
---Bruce Springsteen
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