Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Makes sense to me

The Rude Pundit gets chill:

[L]et's just say this as Barack Obama introduces his national security team and people huff and puff about whether they're hawks or not progressive enough or problem children or disappointing or what the fuck ever: Ultimately, the cabinet does the bidding of the president. Sure, they offer ideas and guide the departments. But they are policy implementers. Nothing less and nothing more. You have to be willing to go along with the boss to do the job, or you don't take it. And it's all a political game. If we know anything at all about Barack Obama, it's that he's one crafty motherfucker in the realm of politics.

If you wanted to, say, change the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our strategic relationships around the globe, who's gonna do it without pissing people off? Secretary of Defense Dennis Kucinich? Fuck no. You get the guys and gals who were proponents of the war in at least some way or have cozy goddamn Capitol Hill relationships. If the great and glorious David Petraeus and the shiny Robert Gates are saying, "Bring the troops home," then you've defused your enemies. It ain't Clintonian triangulation, which involved embracing a watered-down version of your opponents' beliefs. It's just fuckin' smart. The same goes for economic policy and it will go for domestic.

Yeah, if Obama lets his hawks run the place and make him break his promises, then we can squawk. But for now, can we just take a breath and see how it all works out?

You just watch---by 2012 even Bill Kristol will be walking around with a briefcase made out of hemp.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Note:  Something fiduciary is going on here and I intend to get to the bottom of it.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Inauguration Day: 49
Percent of 2008 that's over: 92%
Number of houses sitting vacant in the U.S.: 18.6 million (a record)
(Source: The Week)
Total tax increases and spending cuts Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to enact in CA: $8.9 billion
(Source: USA Today)
Beats per minute in Stayin' Alive: 103
Recommended beats per minute when reviving someone via CPR: 103
(Source: Annals of Emergency Medicine via Parade)
Admission to the Christmas Story House & Museum: $7.50

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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:

We are being inundated by the medias with news that Obama is going to begin with a bang; and has lots of things he intends to do immediately/

While we are uncertain what and how he is going to act.

The honey moon period is nearing.

Beware! Deadly processes are at work.

---commenter "geologist" at FreeRepublic (h/t noweasels)

 
All together now: One...two...three... Classy!!!

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Puppy Pic of the Day:  Luuuuuuucy!!!

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CHEERS to Senator-elect Jim Martin.  I like the sound of that, don’t you?  Today we'll find out if he has the mojo to knock Saxby Chambliss off his perch in a runoff election in Georgia.  As always, it boils down to three words: turnout, turnout, and Yanni.  (Don’t ask---it's a long story.)

CHEERS to Sheriff Obama and his new deputies.  After proving they had no skeletons in their closets and could sink a three-pointer from 50 feet (it took Bob Gates 250 tries), President-elect Obama announced his national security team yesterday:

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton
Attorney General Eric Holder
Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano
UN Secretary Susan Rice
Sec. of Defense Bob Gates
Nat'l Security Advisor Jim Jones

I'll have more on this tomorrow, but suffice it to say there could be trouble on the horizon.  Obama's a Leo and three of his new team are Scorpios.  Memo to the White House hospitality crew: keep 'em away from the good china.

JEERS to mirth denied.  Fewer American employees will have a chance to get plastered at holiday parties this year, because only 77 percent of companies will be having them---down from 95% in 2005, thanks to the tanking economy.  If your office suffers such a frivolity deficit, may we suggest dumping a bottle of vodka in the water cooler?  (Then keep an eye on Gladys in accounting....and keep your camera phone handy.)

JEERS to being there.  In my childhood days---circa late 2007---the question always arose: "Are we in a recession yet? Are we in a recession yet? Are we in a recession yet?"  It became a mantra akin to "Are we there yet?" on the annoyance scale.  Well, the answer, dear reader, is yes...as of yesterday we now know that we've been in a recession for an entire year.  So now you may commence with the new mantra: "Are we in a depression yet?  Are we in a depression yet?  Are we in a depression yet?"

CHEERS to slaying Ann Coulter's idol.  Fifty four years ago today, on December 2nd, 1954, the Senate voted 67-22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."  Three years later the bitter, broken man would be dead of cirrhosis of the liver.  Moral: Play nice.

WHAAA...??? to Mr. Brokaw's Neighborhood.  So this is what it's come to on Meet the Press:

Mr. Brokaw: Ted, I know how much you love the land.  You've got a lot of it and I know how much you love the anthems to the land.  This is a special edition of Meet the Press.  We've never done this before, but could you sing one verse of "Home on the Range" for us?

Ted Turner (Singing): Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Be sure to tune in next week when Arlen Specter wows America with his plate-spinning skills!

P.S. The new host has just been announced and it is...David Gregory.  Great...now I can take up a hobby on Sunday mornings.  Or maybe just sleep in.  RIP, MTP.

CHEERS to one patient I wouldn’t want to piss off.  Down in Houston, 83 year-old Barbara Bush is recovering from surgery to fix an ulcer.  She's doing so well that she's now on a finely-calibrated liquid diet.  It's very precise: she gets 3 ice cubes with her scotch, and 4 ice cubes with her gin and tonic.

JEERS to ass picking.  Four years ago---gosh, it seems like only 48 months---President Bush tapped former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as head of Homeland Security.  Before the sweat from Bush's handshake had time to evaporate, Kerik withdrew his name, having realized that his closet was---oh, what's the phrase---full of skeletons.  Looking back on it now with the benefit of a sober analysis of the facts, I think it's fair to say: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

CHEERS to home vegetation.  Out on DVD today: The Chronicles of Narnia II: Narnia Harder, Will Farrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers, the "Ultimate Collector's Edition" of Casablanca (from which the blogger catchphrase, "I'm shocked. Shocked!" comes from), and season 4 of Saturday Night Live.  Just a wild guess, but I doubt there will be any special edition DVDs commemorating the presidency of George W. Bush in anyone's stocking this year.  Well, unless they're repackaged as Frisbees.

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Three years ago in C&J: December 2, 2005

CHEERS to executing an exit strategy.  Bulgaria and Ukraine show us how they plan to do it with their combined 1,256 troops this month:  Step 1---Pack up your shit.  Step 2---Wave bye-bye.  And, of course, Step 3---Never, ever, EVER believe George W. Bush again.

JEERS to Ginsu Airlines.  Looks like the folks in charge of security at our nation's airports will now allow passengers to carry a variety of sharp objects on board with them.  The list of approved items includes "garden spades."  Because there's nothing as soothing as planting a row of posies in your lap at 30-thousand feet.

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And just one more...

CHEERS to the wind beneath C&J's wings.  Happy Birthday and blessings on his camels today to Michael, my partner of 15½ years (oh, how that pisses off the religious right).  Today my little blossom flower turns [redacted].  He shares it with Britney Spears (27), Harry Reid (69), Al Haig (84) and Stone Phillips (54).  And if they're true to form, I'll get a call from the police station around 2am, and shortly thereafter I'll give my sweetie his annual present: bail.

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Oh, and if you're gonna be a thief, please don’t be a sloppy one.  It's unseemly.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

I hereby deem thee to be an Honorary Jew.  Anybody who goes out for Chinese for holiday repasts has to be at least an honorary Jew!  So sayeth The Law.

---SciMathGuy
11/28/08.

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