Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 30, 2008
Note: Oh my God...I can hear the lambs screaming, Clarice! They're slaughtering the lambs! I can't bear to listen to it!
Oops, my bad. I'm standing on the cat.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the general election: 5
Days `til the Days of the Dead in Mexico: 2
Percent of voters who used electronic voting machines in 2004: 50%
Percent who will be using them this year: 36%
Number of states where punch-card voting machines are still used: 1 (Idaho)
(Source: The Week)
Ratio of waving Obama watches sold vs. waving McCain watches sold at ElectionWatches.com: 4:1
Estimated percent change since last year in U.S. sales of golf carts for purposes other than golf: +215%
(Source: Harper's Index)
The Phillies win the World Series 4 games to 1, their first in 28 years.
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I say unto you, you do not know what courage is until you have sat in the basement of a Holiday Inn in Fritters, Alabama, with seven brave souls, led by a librarian, who are fixing to form a chapter of the Ay Cee Ell You. They are always driven to this extreme by local pinheads who not only don’t get the Bill of Rights but are eager to trash it.
I have been called in through the American Library Association on some bizarre cases: say, the local Christian fundamentalists have decided talking animals are satanic, and consequently, they demand The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Wind in the Willows be removed from the town library.
---From Bill of Wrongs (with Lou Dubose, Random House, 2008)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Sic 'em, Bruce Lunsford pooches...!!"
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CHEERS to 1-800-IMSOLD. He slices! He dices! He makes perfect julienne fries and omelets in seconds---all without rubbing, buffing or scrubbing! How much would you pay to have your very own Barack Obama in the White House? Don’t answer yet! Because if you act now, you'll also get improved health care, a better environment, fiscal sanity, tax relief for the middle class and common-sense foreign policy! So throw out the old maverick and the incompetent frat boy! Get your very own all-new President Barack Obama! Not for a thousand dollars or 750 dollars or even 500 dollars...No! It's all yours for the low, low price of only 270 electoral votes. Hurry and vote---all sales are final and this offer ends November 4th!
CHEERS to a touch of interest. We Portland, Mainers don’t mean to brag or anything, but...we can't help it:
The city has broken its four-year-old record for absentee balloting in an election year. City Clerk Linda Cohen said as of 9:20 a.m. [yesterday], 10,259 voters had requested absentee ballots. The previous record, set during the 2004 presidential election, stood at 10,003. ... Nearly 164,000 voters statewide requested absentee ballots by this morning, according to the Secretary of State's office.
Meanwhile the latest poll numbers have Obama ahead of McCain in Maine 52% to 33%. The bad news: Tom Allen trails Susan Collins by...aw, let's not ruin the moment.
P.S. Allen and Howard Dean will make a joint appearance (yes, they'll totally be smoking weed) at Obama headquarters in Portland---1037 Forest Ave.---this morning at 9:30. Anyone feel like being the back half of my donkey costume?
JEERS to throwing your teammate an anchor. A fine running mate you chose there, Senator McCain. Sarah Palin's so over you and your anemic campaign that she's publicly laying out plans to be the chief GOP poo-flinger in 2012. But don't be too sad, sir---maybe she'll pick you to be her vice president!
CHEERS to old soldiers from whom McCain could learn a thing or two. Fifty five years ago today, on October 30, 1953, General George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Said he:
"There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war. Today, as Chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission, it is my duty to supervise the construction and maintenance of military cemeteries in many countries overseas, particularly in Western Europe. The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war. Almost daily I hear from the wives, or mothers, or families of the fallen. The tragedy of the aftermath is almost constantly before me."
Yeah. I think a few of us know the feeling.
JEERS to weird welcomes. The last time Ted Stevens left Alaska for Washington, D.C. he was merely a senator. But when he returned home last night, he was a full-fledged crook. It made no difference to his constituents, for whom denial is apparently just a river in Egypt:
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Ted Stevens Receives a Hero’s Welcome in Alaska
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This morning his campaign will unveil its new slogan: "Stevens: He May Be A Convicted Felon, But He's OUR Convicted Felon!" Catchy.
JEERS to the stench of desperation. All I can figure is that Bob Dole has basically checked out, because I can't imagine how he could let his wife air a smear ad accusing her Democratic rival for the U.S. Senate, Kay Hagan, of being a "godless American":
"I am absolutely appalled at Elizabeth Dole's vile tactics," Hagan said. "This is politics of the worst kind, and I know it has been rejected by North Carolinians at every level. It is so unbecoming of a woman like Elizabeth Dole. This is a fabricated, pathetic ad."
Hagan went on to strongly defend her faith: "I am a Sunday school teacher, I am an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, my family has been going to this church for over 100 years, I have raised my children there. I have been involved in youth missions."
I don’t want to presume whose side God is really on, but shortly after the ad started running a locust-control van was seen parked in Dole's driveway.
CHEERS and JEERS to pennies from Heaven We The People. Banks are starting to get their cut of $125 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout checks this week. I believe you're now supposed to go borrow your money from these fine institutions and then pay it back with interest. Just make sure they live up to their end of the bargain and throw in the free "Biker Babes of Boise" calendar like they promised.
CHEERS to #2. And happy 273rd birthday to John Adams, born October 30, 1735. Here are a few toasts from his colleagues:
"He's actually insane!" (Sec. of War James McHenry)
"Sometimes absolutely mad!" (Ben Franklin)
"He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men." (Thomas Jefferson)
Okay, well, that was fun. Pay your respects here. But watch your words---he still thinks the Alien and Sedition Acts are in effect.
CHEERS to boob tube politics. Author Stephen King writes in this week's entertaining Entertainment Weekly that the Obama-McCain showdown has parallels with the Kennedy-Nixon battle. Specifically, one's a natural on TV and the other...um...should probably stick with radio:
The biggest contrast that TV rams home isn't the candidates' different skin colors; it's that one has an intuitive grasp of TV's elemental power and the other does not. McCain grimaces, fidgets, and flashes frequent grins of reptilian unpleasantness. He avoids the camera and looks at his notes or TelePrompTer instead of his audience. Obama, although far from classically handsome (those ears), projects warmth, intelligence, and concern. You'd trust him to give you bad news. And the camera rarely catches him looking half-asleep as he scribbles notes. More important, Obama has a knack for TV-stillness when someone else is speaking; he rarely annoys by upstaging a questioner or an opponent. McCain can't seem to help it.
Also: McCain's a wanderer. No wonder floor directors across the country are unanimously breaking for the other guy. ("Camera one! Camera two! Back to camera one! Aw, fuck it, just go wide!")
JEERS to cherry-picking. Gee, which Gallup poll numbers will Matt Drudge focus on today? Registered voters? Traditional likely voters? Expanded likely voters? Answer: whichever ones favor John McCain most. I'm beginning to doubt the lad's impartiality. I intend to file a complaint.
CHEERS to theatre of the mind. Seventy years ago today, on October 30, 1938, Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds aired on CBS radio. By using fake news reports with deadpan seriousness, the broadcast caused a panic among listeners who thought the reports of a Martian invasion were true. To this day it's Dick Cheney's favorite bedtime story.
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One Year Ago in C&J: October 30, 2007...
CHEERS to the Rumble in the Philadelphiungle. Tonight! All 29 Democratic candidates will fight to be the party’s nominee for President...of the United States of America! Obama promises that this will be the night he pulls Hillary’s pigtails and puts a frog down her pants. Dennis Kucinich will be grateful that someone else is getting picked on, and Joe Biden will find it all so beneath him. Meanwhile one of Josh Marshall’s readers has a mild suggestion: maybe tonight would be a good time to, like, start rocking the Republicans back on their heels:
[A]t this late date, after all that has happened in Iraq, why are the neocons not on the defensive within the context of this presidential season? Given current public opinion polling, the neocons should be hiding under a rock, and the Democratic candidates for president should be the ones who put them there.
As for tonight's drinking game, it's pretty simple: take a swig every time someone disagrees with someone else "profoundly." See ya on the living room floor in about 12 hours!
CHEERS to drawing a line in the shrapnel-encrusted sand. Afghan president Hamid Karzai says enough is enough. After six years of occupation, U.S. air strikes have got to stop, mainly because we keep blowing up their women and children. The U.S. military/industrial complex plans to issue a joint statement addressing the seriousness of Karzai's request. Just as soon as their CEOs stop laughing.
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CHEERS to lending a helping claw. Tough times here in Maine for our lobstermen and women. Prices are way down, due in large part to decreased demand by out-of-staters. To help out, we locals are buyin' 'em up and snarfing 'em down:
"I've had to hire a few people just to keep up on the volume," said Ben Lindner, owner of Fishermen's Net in Portland. Sales have been up about 50 percent from this time last year, he said.
"All summer long, we didn't see as many locals," said Sarah Millington, manager at Three Sons Lobster and Fish Portland. "Now people are coming in and saying, 'We want to support the lobstermen.' They're definitely helping."
Economic experts believe it's the first bailout in U.S. history to be described as "succulent."
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Oh, and I nominate Charles in Boulder, Colorado to be President Obama's Secretary of Awesome. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Deep down, John McCain knows his economic theories don't work. By next week he'll be calling me a secret communist because I shared my toys in Cheers and Jeers."
---Barack Obama
10/29/08.
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