By the Numbers: C&J poll results from Jan.-March
Percent of Kossacks who thought we were "definitely" or "probably" in a recession as of January 4, 2008: 79%
Percent of Kossacks who have always been Democrats: 57%
Percent who think Oprah would beat Chuck Norris in a no-holds-barred cage match: 73%
Percent who think dying patients should have access to experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA: 87%
Percent who subscribe to a daily newspaper: 42%
Percent who are "not worried at all" about John McCain being the Republican party's candidate for president: 30%
Percent who are "mostly" or "completely" happy with their lives: 47%
Percent who are not happy one bit: 11%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The Dawgs of Winter
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Cheers and Jeers 2008 Flashback: January
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CHEERS to the biggest winner. The Iowa Caucus was a major test for an African-American who was unproven on the national stage of American politics. Many dismissed the campaign as a fool's errand. Others crowed about the unstoppable Clinton juggernaut. But in the end, the voters spoke loud and clear: "You're damn right Oprah matters!!" The skinny guy with the funny name did okay, too.
JEERS to the essence of today's GOP. Digby watched last night's Fox debate so you didn’t have to. And, as usual, you didn’t miss much:
[I] listened to all of them (except for Ron Paul) enthusiastically sign on to the Bush Doctrine and war without end against the islamofasciterrorists and anybody else who looks at America sideways.
And then the candidates, including the three out of six who are wealthy cancer survivors, all agreed that we have the best health care system in the world, people should buy their own policies and if someone doesn't do that, he shouldn't be allowed to be a free rider. We also need to round up and jail the criminal illegals and put the rest of them at the back of the line.
Vote Republican: We'll cull the herd.
In assless chaps.
CHEERS to the Comeback Kid. Wow, it feels like 1992 all over again. After filling her back with daggers, stealing her purse and dumping her body into the Piscataqua River, Hillary Clinton clawed her way back in the New Hampshire primary and took revenge against her naysayers (39 percent to Obama's 36). Kudos to the New Hampshire voters who sent a message to America: "Never take us for granite." (Ha Ha Ha Ha---Igneus rock humor.)
JEERS to the old man. My friends, less than 30 seconds after the polls closed, John McCain was declared the winner in New Hampshire, upon which he emerged to give one of the most boring and clumsily-delivered victory speeches in history. And guess what else, my friends? Like the groundhog seeing its shadow, McCain's win means six more weeks of Lieberman stuck to him like glue. Aren't we lucky.
JEERS to the world's worst ambassador. President Bush is in Israel today, spending some quality time with "my good friends the Israelians." Place your bets on how long it'll take him to ask "where's the propeller?" when they give him a yarmulke. Oh, and fifty bucks to anyone who can grab his passport and shred it.
CHEERS to carnage reduction. If these numbers are to be believed (who knows?), the civilian death toll in the three years after Bush launched his petty war-to-avenge-Daddy was only 151,000, contradicting other surveys that put the number higher. What a relief. For a while there I thought the death toll would be shocking and tragic and senseless.
JEERS to bailouts that should've never been necessary. Bank of America is buying America's largest and least gravity-proof mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, for six billion dollars. No, wait...five billion dollars. No, wait...four billion dollars. No, wait...five dollars and a ham sandwich. Quick---somebody sign the goddam papers already!!
CHEERS to the adventurer who peaked early. Sir Edmund Hillary has died at 88. Fifty five years ago he and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay---dressed in nothing but shorts and burlap earmuffs---became the first non-mountain goats to reach the top of Mount Everest. I hope they remember to bury him with a rope and an ice pick---he'll no doubt want to forgo the escalator and take the hard way up to the hereafter.
JEERS to the most divisive political movement ever. You guessed it: Unity '08. They're going in a new direction. Instead of uniting ordinary Americans to tackle the pressing issues of the day that the other parties are ignoring, they've decided instead to unite the billions of dollars belonging to Michael Bloomberg with an ego-fueled, palm-greasing presidential campaign. I'm glad they found their moral compass before it was too late. (Many of the peasants rarely bathe, you know).
JEERS to the leader of the free world. While President Bush is overseas checkin' up on his oil and selling missiles to the Saudis by the billion$, the rest of the world continues to despise the guy. According to a new Harris Interactive survey, Bush's approval rating is 8 percent in Italy, 7 percent in Britain, 7 percent in Spain, 5 percent in Germany and 3 percent in France. Meanwhile here in the Land of Applebee's, the latest CBS News/New York Times poll pegs him at a robust 29 percent. But never fear! His handlers say he'll surge to 45 percent before he leaves office. Because there's nothing like an endless war and a deep recession to make a guy lovable.
CHEERS to crashing the gate! Who cares if it's the other team's gate, we did it!!! Thanks to Daily Kos's aggressive get-out-the-Democratic-vote campaign, Republican Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary yesterday, denying presumptive winner John McCain a second consecutive win...and saving the rest of us from having to hear another horrible victory speech dribble out of his mouth. Now the whole damn GOP shootin' match is a toss-up. Next: how do we get Fred Thompson crowned prom king in South Carolina?
CHEERS to the Savior of the Universe! Secretary of State Condi Rice flew in to Baghdad steep, fast and unannounced to assure Iraq that she is still committed to pretending she has a clue about what's going on there. She stayed for about 20 minutes to sip tea and play a few Joplin rags before going out the way she came in---via the back stairs under the cover of darkness. Her baby grand only suffered minor shrapnel damage.
JEERS to an inconvenient re-entry. The Department of Homeland Security---where "Hey, don’t stick that in your ear" is heard more often than in any other federal agency---will be imposing stricter ID standards for border crossing from Canada or Mexico into the U.S. Starting January 31, you'll need stronger proof that you're an American. Like a passport. Or a drivers license and birth certificate. Or not being able to locate Canada or Mexico on a map.
CHEERS to a great time to start drinking. Merrill Lynch posts billions in losses. Citigroup posts billions in losses. Housing construction is down 25 percent. Inflation is at its worst level in 17 years. The Dow is down 14% for the year. Employment is soft. Krispy Kreme is on the ropes again. And the solution to this crisis, which any idiot could see coming at least a year ago? Free money for mostly everyone!!! Even better, our grandkids get to pay for it down the road! God Bless America---Land of Foresight. (I'd like my rebate check in Euros, please.)
JEERS to the joke of the day:
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Ralph.
Ralph who?
Ralph Nader in '08.
Hey, I didn't say it was a funny one.
JEERS to the dream-crusher. GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson hung up his jowls yesterday and slouched back to wherever he came from. So I guess the GOP hope-clingers now have their answer: "No, he ain’t the second coming of Ronald Reagan." But I hear he does a pretty good imitation of Paul Harvey.
JEERS to the #1 lesson of life. You can have all the money, all the fame, all the friends, all the family, all the everything your heart desires. You can be on top of the world and at the top of your game. You can look and feel invincible and immortal. But even if your name is Heath Ledger, you can still drop dead anytime...even at 28. Hug your kids, Kossacks.
CHEERS to brilliant deduction. Experts have finished their investigation into what caused the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis to collapse in August of '07. Their conclusion: there was something wrong with it. It's like they have a sixth sense for these things.
CHEERS to the talk of Tinseltown. The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday. Even though some really good flicks (Into the Wild, Zodiac) were snubbed in favor of overrated affairs like There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton and Atonement, what a kick to see old-timers Hal Holbrook and Ruby Dee get their first nods. And kudos to the Academy for recognizing some strong documentaries, including Sicko and No End in Sight. C&J's entry, Clogging Toward Gomorrah, failed to make the cut.
CHEERS to liveblogging. Here are some of our real-time thoughts as Bush's last State of the Union speech unfolded:
The last time the applause meter registered this low was back in 1892 when Benjamin Harrison delivered his last State of the Union in mime.
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"I believe Americans can produce lead-tainted toys and poisoned dog food as well or better than the Chinese. We can and we will!"
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"We must deal with climate change, and the best way to do that is with petroleum-based products.
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Praising ... [applause!] ... the ... [applause!] ... troops ... [applause!] ... is ... [applause!] ... the ... [applause!] ... one ... [applause!] ... sure ... [applause!] ... way ... [applause!] ... to ... [applause!] ... get ... [applause!] ... lots ... [applause!] ... of ... [applause!] ... applause.
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"Iraqis are taking control of their future. And they've decided that raw sewage runnin' through the streets and three hours of electricity a day is the kind of future they want. We will not stand in the way of their vision." [applause!]
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Bush just changed into his jammies. It's over. Somebody wake up Cheney---gently.
Well, that was fun. But let's be sure not do it again with this guy.
CHEERS to nail-biting suspense. We're so preoccupied with the U.S. election that we forgot to mention the results from Cuba---the first "election" since Fidel turned over the reins to that his brother Raul. Anyway, 614 Communist party candidates ran, and 614 Communist party candidates won. Must've been the persuasive lawn signs.
CHEERS to bowing out gracefully. John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani both suspended their presidential campaigns, leaving some to lament the exit of a true progressive (Edwards), and others wondering who the hell that nutty space alien was who obsessed about the numbers nine and eleven. But C&J didn’t fail to notice that they both made their decisions mere hours apart. Which can only mean one thing: they're up to something.
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February
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CHEERS to record snappin'. It was bound to happen. New York denied New England a perfect season last night at the Super Bowl, but only because the Giants had a hundred players on the field during the game (or so it seemed), and Tom Brady had a little trouble staying upright. Memo to halftime entertainment Tom Petty: Nice Dennis Hopper impression. Now get a haircut.
JEERS to misplaced priorities. President Bush unveiled his new budget totaling $3.1 fucking trillion dollars. There's lots of cash for guns, but not much for butter. The president explains:
"Butter's bad, see? Butter's got the cholesterol. Cholesterol's bad. It clogs the arteries. In other words, it causes arterial cloggerization. Guns have the opposite effect, see? Guns bring about free societies. In other words, they introduce free societivity. Guns are like Lipitor for evildoers. Minus the anal leakage. HehHehHeh."
He's comforting.
CHEERS to a day at the races. On Super Tuesday, Democratic voters went to the polls in twenty-something states and cast their votes for: Hillary, Obama, Obama, Hillary, Obama, Hillary, Obama, Obama, Hillary, Obama, Hillary, Hillary, Obama, Obama, Hillary, Obama, Obama, Hillary, Obama, Obama, Hillary and Obama. Conclusion: I don’t think we're in 2004 anymore, Toto.
JEERS to America's achin' 401(k)'s. File this under "Don’t jump!" The Dow Industrials lost nearly 400 points yesterday, which means somebody took a bunch of money away from you, doused it in gasoline, lit a match, and turned months and months of hard work to ashes. Somebody remind me again: why didn't we turn Social Security over to Wall Street?
CHEERS to defying gravity to touch...the face...of GOD! Does anybody get excited about space shuttle launches anymore? If the weather cooperates and the mini-bar is fully stocked, Atlantis will launch at around 2:45. By the way, wouldn’t it be wild if God actually appeared during a launch and the shuttle bumped into her boobie and made a little "honk" sound? That's why I love science---the possibilities.
CHEERS to second chances. If 2008 hasn't gotten off to a good enough start for ya, here's your opportunity for a do-over. Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year. Specifically, the year of the rat. I checked and, amazingly, Joe Lieberman is not a rat. He was born in 1942, which makes him a part of the horse family. Guess which part?
CHEERS to the weekend's most important election result. Kossack jnhobbs wins a Grammy for Album of the Year (along with newbie Vince Gill and a gaggle of other talented musicians and producers) for "These Days." Amazing how the most deserving people win when the Supreme Court keeps their nose out of it.
JEERS to going out in style...if by style you mean as a fear-mongering asshole. Mitt Romney cut and ran yesterday like the yellow-bellied, lily-livered coward we always suspected he was. In a classic moment of projection, he said that he was surrendering because he was scared that he might, um, have to surrender. Chickenhawks are so tedious.
CHEERS to "The End." Quills are being sharpened across the country in anticipation of the imminent end of the writers strike. We're thrilled that the professional scripters will soon be back to their normal routine: chain smoking, pacing back and forth, fidgeting in their chair, grinding their teeth, clenching their toes, playing with the dog, pulling their hair, biting their nails, staring off into space, and writing and deleting the same sentence ten times in a row. And the next 60 seconds are even worse.
CHEERS to the Big O. Yesterday Barack Obama swept the primaries in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, thus putting a cork in Hillary Clinton's contention that she's the primary queen while he's the caucus king (although Clinton still looks strong in the must-win state of Ohio). But the real lessons of the day---once again---are that a) judging by the record turnout, Democrats are more energized than Republicans by a factor of at least two-to-one, and b) we've still got two great candidates in the race, and the other team still has four shitty ones. Up next: Hawaii and Wisconsin. Guess which one reporters will be begging to get assigned to?
CHEERS to Surge Mania! It's working so well that yesterday close to 50 Iraqi civilians surged all the way to the hereafter via a sudden stoppage of breathing. And not a single thank you for General Petraeus from any of 'em. Dead people---with them it's always about me me me me me.
CHEERS to pulling out the Nerf knives. Last night Hillary and Barack hacked away at each other during their last debate. My observations:
Tense exchange: "I believe in universal health care!" "So do I!" "So do I!" "So do I!" "So do I!" "So do I!" I don't know who to believe!
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Obama says we "gotta" do things. Twenty five million things, to be exact. Number one: no lead in toys. Number two: Fix NAFTA. Then lunch.
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Oh!!! Headbutt!!! Pearls to the groin!! The folding chair is airborne!!! Brian Williams goes down!!!
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Hillary: Barack is renouncing, but he's not rejecting. (He's also softening his hands as he does dishes.) Barack promises to renounce and reject. I remain confused.
And then I passed out, having decided beforehand to take a swig any time a candidate said "Here's what I meant by that..." All my dreams were in red, white and blue. And Tim Russert kept demanding my tax records.
CHEERS and JEERS to William F. Buckley, Jr. The "Poobah of Conservative Thought" had an interesting ideological arc over his lifetime. He started out as an advocate of Joe McCarthy and promoted segregation in his magazine, Woman's Day. [Note to self: fact check that. Might be Good Housekeeping.] Calling for the tattooing of AIDS patients was hideously cruel. But as the years unfolded he seemed to mellow with age while his own party became more and more unhinged. In the end, they didn’t really know what to make of him. Mainly because they didn't know the meaning of half the words he used. Buckley, Jr. was 82. Many of his ideas were 750.
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March
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While I was on vacation:
The traditional media kept shouting at me that it's all Howard Dean's fault that a small group of idiots in Florida and Michigan screwed primary voters by breaking party rules, that Howard Dean should pay for do-overs with his own MasterCard, and that Howard Dean single-handedly caused global warming and AIDS in Africa. I won't believe it until Wikipedia confirms it.
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A phone rang in the White House at 3am. Bush handed it to Laura and told her to take a message.
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Condi Rice fucked up peace talks in the Middle East. Again.
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Iran's president was greeted with sweets and flowers in Iraq.
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Southwest Airlines and managers in the FAA were busted for blowing off safety inspections of their aircraft. (Naturally, no one has actually been fired yet even though 44 planes have since been grounded). Whistleblowers said their first clue was when the airline purchased a hundred thousand rolls of duct tape.
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The price of oil rose to the point where it's now sold exclusively through the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog.
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China announced that it now has enough long-range, nuclear-powered hovercraft to transport its entire one-billion-man army across the Pacific Ocean. In response, the Pentagon immediately requested another trillion dollars for the war in Iraq.
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New York governor Eliot Spitzer resigned for spending up to $5,500 an hour screwing hookers with gold-plated vaginas and diamond-encrusted nipples. Republican Senator David Vitter was taken to the hospital with a life-threatening bout of convulsive laughter.
How come all the excitement happens when I'm gone?
CHEERS to the great disappearing pundit act. Woo hoo! Well, it only took several years of sucky ratings and thoughtless comments for MSNBC to finally give Tucker Carlson the boot. He'll be replaced Monday by NBC White House correspondent David Gregory. Thanks, but I'll stick to my normal 6-7pm routine of stabbing myself in the neck with pencils. It hurts less.
P.S. John Gibson's TV show on Fox News has also been cancelled, which means he'll be spending more time around the house. Our sympathies to the missus.
JEERS to big bid'ness. So here's what I think happened over the last 24 hours: Bear Stearns had gobs of money lying around their offices, but they forgot to tell the new cleaning crew that they should just vacuum around it. And then...Vooooop! Money gone! So JP Morgan Chase and the gub'ment sent over several semi-loads of cash to replace the vacuumed cash and everything is okay!!! Yaaay!!!! Unless Bear Stearns doesn’t come up with its own replacement cash in 28 days, in which case its managers will start swan-diving out of their office windows. Personally I blame David Oreck---his vacuums leave nothing behind.
CHEERS to the Barack Heard Round the World. Well, that was quite the speech on race. Even the conservatives gave Obama a polite golf clap. In a nutshell, this was our next president's response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy: "People we love and respect sometimes say stupid things. Duh!" Okay then.
JEERS to John McCain. Last night I went out and asked every six year-old I could find whether or not the Sunni members of al Qaeda were going to the Shiite Iranians for guns and training. They all said, "No, you twit---any idiot knows that!" Well apparently not John "Twit" McCain, who had to be corrected by Joe Lieberman. Wow, imagine that: shocking ignorance on a vital national security issue. If he ends up succeeding George Bush, at least we know the transition will be seamless.
CHEERS to the Rocket Man. Author Arthur C. Clarke has died at 90. He got an Oscar nomination for adapting his 1951 short story into the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which a bunch of apes break things and the viewer is taken for a long, scary, incomprehensible ride. How he foresaw the rise of modern conservatism so early is beyond me.
JEERS to the government of, by and for Dick Cheney. The evil one told us all to shut our pieholes yesterday:
Cheney: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.
Martha Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
Cheney: So?
Martha Raddatz: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No.
I'm not sure if he said that before or after he commemorated the Iraq war anniversary by going fishing from aboard the Sultan of Oman's 60-foot royal yacht. He's a busy boy.
JEERS to sleeping at the switch. Oh, boo hoo. General Motors' Vice-Admiral in Charge of Cluelessness finally admitted that not making a hybrid vehicle sooner was a mistake that led to a spectacular implosion of the company, costing countless employees their jobs and jeopardizing thousands more. Even worse, it's affected his golf game.
JEERS to tall tarmac tales. Look, normally I would at least consider the possibility that Hillary wasn't lying about her trip to Bosnia. But she seemed to recall the event with such finality:
"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia..."
"I remember particularly a trip to Bosnia..."
That's what worries me: candidates who remember things perfectly---as in perfectly wrong---and then get all huffy about it. But on the bright side, extra points to the senator for teaching Gandhi the fundamentals of civil disobedience back in the 1920s. (Living History, page 72. Ha---made ya look.)
CHEERS to Exxon Mobil. In yer face, PetroChina!
Exxon Mobil Corp. regained the mantle as the world's biggest company by market value... The company raked in $40.6 billion in profit last year, the most ever for any U.S. corporation. Exxon Mobil's 2007 revenue of $358.6 billion exceeded the gross national products of all but 20 nations.
If greed was an Olympic sport, we'd be standing on the tallest block, hands on our hearts, fake-mumbling the words to our national anthem. And you know it's "driving" Beijing crazy. Heh...petrohumor.
JEERS to unexpected departures. Whoa...a giant sheet of Antarctic ice the size of Connecticut has just left its parent ice shelf. It's coming to New York to make it as a dancer. I just hope its prepared to wait on tables for the first three to five years.
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Part Two on Monday. Have a great weekend!
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