Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

One Big Happy...

While journalists, pundits and bloggers with big fancy degrees and lots of "experience" pore over the resumes and records of Barack Obama's proposed cabinet, I've decided to tap a different well to get a truer feeling for how the team will get along with their boss. It all starts with this:

Obama is a Leo.

I'm a Leo, too, so I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'll be a thoughtful, courageous, compassionate, even-handed and action-oriented leader. But how will he get along with cabinet members who fall under different astrological signs? According to what I read on the first astrology web site I found using The Google (being a Leo, my first instinct is always correct), the future is mixed:

Obama and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (Scorpio): "Career match-ups are not favorable here, since the kinds of relaxed attitudes that are typical between these two rarely bring people forward in the professional and business worlds. Leo-Scorpio partners interested in making a success of their endeavors will have to push themselves a bit more."

Obama and Sec. of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano & Sec. of Commerce Bill Richardson & VP Joe Biden (Sagittarius): Working relationships between these two are seldom successful except at the highest executive levels, where innovation may be most appreciated.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (Aquarius): Work relationships between these partners can work out in the short term, but will rarely succeed in establishing a lasting financial or ideological basis. Enterprises involving media, public relations, publishing and the arts are particularly favored here. In the long run, Aquarius business partners may demand too much attention for Leo's taste, and may have too little psychological understanding of their colleague to keep him or her happy.

Obama and Sec. of Defense Bob Gates (Libra): As boss-employee pairs or co-workers in a team effort, Libras are likely to give direction and purpose to projects that feature the near boundless energy of Leo. Efficiency and planning will figure prominently in such efforts, for these two tend to be well prepared when they go into battle.

Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (Uh oh...another Leo): Co-worker match-ups between two Leos are strong, dependable and therefore of great value to the company of which they form a part. Occasional battles are inevitable between them, however, with Leo fur flying in all directions. Little if any quarter is generally given in such combat; nor is it advisable to come between Leo adversaries---they must be left to settle things alone, whether physically or verbally.

Well, at least we know this: it'll never be boring.

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

Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Note:  Due to a tragic accident last night involving a ceiling fan, our soup of the day in the C&J cafeteria is Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge Stew.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Hanukah & Yule/Festivus/Christmas/Kwanzaa: 18/20/22/23
Days `til the Holiday Fair in Greenville, South Carolina: 1
The last time a president appointed a major political rival to head the State Dept.: 1881 (Garfield appointed James Blaine)
Average price of a pack of cigarettes in New York: $8.66
Cost for a pack in South Carolina: $3.33
(Source: Forbes via The Week)
Percent of teenagers who say they like text messaging because "I don’t have to talk in person": 36%
(Source: USA Today)
Increase in items purchased when someone is accompanied by a child versus shopping alone: 40%
(Source: Parade)

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Mid-week Rapture Index: 158 (including 3 Kings of the East and Anita Baker getting all caught up in it).  Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Aw, go ahead...bite his ankles.

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CHEERS to rounding up the rabble.  Two words that strike fear into the hearts of saloonkeepers everywhere: Kossack Meetup!!!  From AnneElizabeth:

Come help us celebrate the holidays---Christmas, Hannukah, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Festivus, THE LAST FULL MONTH OF GEORGE W. EFFING BUSH'S REIGN OF IDIOCY AND TERROR---at the New England Kossacks Holiday Meet-up Lunch, Saturday, December 20th at 1pm at the Portsmouth Brewery.

For those of you interested in micro-brews (the Portsmouth Brew Pub is home to the Smuttynose line of microbrews), there will be a tour of the brewery part of the pub at 3pm.  The food here is quite inventive for a brew pub, with a lot of vegetarian dishes.

If you plan on coming or have a question, please email me your confirmation at [e-mail]

Hope you can make it.  I'll be there with bells on.  (You won’t  believe where they're hangin' from.)

CHEERS to Pine Tree State roots.  Oh, about our new Ambassador to the U.N., Susan "Not Condi" Rice.  Turns out she's practically my sister:

Rice, a foreign policy expert who worked in the Clinton administration and advised Obama during his campaign, is the daughter of Lois Dickson Rice, a noteworthy Maine native who grew up in a prominent Portland family.  Susan Rice often visits Maine, where the family has a summer home in Lincolnville. She was in Portland in January, when she was keynote speaker at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Celebration. ...

In appointing Rice to be his envoy to the United Nations, Obama elevated the post to a Cabinet position.  He has called Rice a close and trusted adviser who knows the global challenges faced by the United States.

Once again I feel an obligation---driven by patriotism---to invoke the Palin Principle of expertise by osmosis: Ms. Rice has Maine ties + I have Maine ties = I am now a member of Obama's cabinet.  I prefer a corner suite but I'll settle for a cubicle in the Oval Office.

JEERS to thinking too small.  America's major newsweeklies, in an apparent effort to upstage each other's attempts to cure anything and everything that ails us, go head-to-head in their latest cover stories...but one of them comes up short.  TIME's cover story: How to Fix America's Schools.  Newsweek's cover story: How to Fix THE WORLD!  Memo to Richard Stengel: don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

CHEERS to the Land Of Lincoln and Obama.  Happy Birthday, Illinois---190 years old today!  The name means "Tribe of superior men."  Donald Rumsfeld is also from Illinois.  Oh well...every village has its idiot.

CHEERS to the brilliance of brevity.  Robert Marsh of Sanford writes a classic letter to the Portland Press Herald:

If there is a modicum of truth in letter writer Karen Libby's "fact" that Bill Ayers helped launch Barack Obama's political career ("Many things said about Obama," Nov. 25), all of us should send Ayers a thank-you note.

Oh, the irony: after seven years of non-stop Republican fearmongering, bullying and restricting our civil rights in the name of fighting terrorists, they got their asses kicked by a terrorist armed with nothing more than a Rolodex and a coffee pot.  My sides...they hurt.

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Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda...GONG!!!

We interrupt our broadcast with breaking news.  Let's go live to Chet in Minnesota for this live report on the senatorial race...

"Thanks, Bill.  Ladies and gentlemen, I'm speaking to you from the Mall of America, where the Eyewitness News Team, acting on a hot tip from a viewer, has sedated Senator Norm Coleman and strapped him to a table here in food court #16.  We're now in the process of conducting what I believe is the first evidentiary anal probe of a sitting senator, and...  Wait!  I feel something already!  Why, yes, it's...it's...a ballot!  A ballot with a vote for Al Franken!  Hang on...here's another ballot for Franken!  And another!  And another!  And...ungghhh...this one's lodged in there tight...ANOTHER Franken vote!!!  Why, there must be 37 uncounted Franken votes inside Norm Coleman's ass!  And this may be just the beginning, folks.  Election officials are now on their way to lend a hand.  Consider this a developing story, ladies and gentlemen.  Back to you, Bill."

Thanks, Chet.  To repeat our breaking story: Norm Coleman's ass may be in the process of costing him his Senate seat.  Coming up: projectile vomiting strikes patrons of a local food court, and Melanie Flooginhoople has the weather.

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda...GONG!!!

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JEERS to a teenager's worst nightmare.  Oh, speaking of malls, this might be a good time to sit down with your kid, gently slide an Orange Julius in their hand, and break the bad news:

Chicago-based General Growth Properties, the nation's second-largest shopping mall owner, has been hit hard by the deteriorating U.S. economy and problems at struggling U.S. retailers.  Analysts are unsure whether new managers, installed in late October, will be able to keep the company afloat given its staggering debt load.

"It will be incredibly difficult for General Growth to deal with the mountain of obligations that are coming due next year," said Benjamin Yang, an analyst at research firm Green Street Advisors, in an e-mail.

Be patient, Mom 'n Pop.  Grief always takes time to heal.

CHEERS to---A-ooooga!!!---seeing up close.  On this date in 1621, Galileo finished inventing the telescope.  The following day the lady next door came up with an invention of her own: window blinds.

JEERS to instant bailouts with no money down!  Disgraced muckety mucks from the Wee 3 automakers, who wisely carpooled to D.C. in a Mini Cooper this time, dragged their sorry asses in front of Congress again to beg for your money.  In exchange, they say they'll cut executive pay (a symbolic move that will have no real effect on the company's or their own personal financial health), and then slash employees like crazy, close dealerships and effectively neuter the unions.  And if that doesn’t work?  GM COO Snerdley McUnderstatement sums up the situation: "There is no Plan B."  Oh, and he'd like his bailout in pallets of C-notes, please, if that's not too much trouble.  Just pile it in the U-Haul parked out back.

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One year ago in C&J: December 3, 2007

CHEERS to the predictableness of unpredictability.  Earlier this year: "Romney, Clinton Expected to Coast to Iowa Victory."  Today: Huckabee, Obama Take Iowa Lead.  Next month: "Edwards, McCain enjoy last laugh?"

CHEERS and JEERS to hallucinations denied.  Leave it to the gub'ment to take the fun out of drinking.  Absinthe is being sold again in the U.S., but the muckety mucks here say it can't contain the magic ingredient---thujone---that lets you see purple giraffes and disembodied Fred Thompson heads floating around your living room.  Now breathing a sigh of relief: 'shroom dealers.

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And just one more...

CHEERS to getting the last laugh.  Some evil Kossacks never miss a chance to kick me in the teeth and toss me to the curb when I make "craaaazy" predictions, like the one I made on April 16:

"Dirigibles are poised to make a comeback."

"Ha Ha Ha," they said.  "Look at Billy the stupid nosepicker clown talking like a nincompoop, always embarrassing us and the integrity of this site."  Well, suck on this, my fetid friends:

A resurgence of the era of the Zeppelin is under way on the Moffett Field tarmac, 71 years after the Hindenburg cast the last airship shadow over the United States before going down in flames.  Airship Ventures, founded by Los Gatos residents Alexandra and Brian Hall, imported a 246-foot-long Zeppelin NT from Germany in late October. ...

The Halls hope to chart a return to "an era of magic," said Alexandra Hall before a media flight on Nov. 7.  She added that this venture aims to restore "the same quality of exploration and adventure and luxury travel" created early in the 20th century.

Care for a little A1 sauce with your crow?

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Oh, and worms are totally chill.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

Bill in Portland is a gateway drug.  responsible for the addiction of an incredibly high percentage of users here.  Yes, users.  He should be illegal!

---Cosmic Debris
11/29/08

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