Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Republicans to the Rescue

I'm just a simple caveman. I need things to be spelled out in grade-school terms so they can penetrate the soft, gooey, walnut-size center of my brain. Here's the Republicans' short-term solution for dealing with today's gas prices in language everyone can understand. Aaaand...GO!

August September October November (2008 election) December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December

Leasing for offshore drilling begins. Awesome!

January February March April May June July August September October November (2012 election) December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November (2016 election) December

Production begins. Spirits soar!

January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November (2020 election) December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November (2024 election) December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November (2028 election) December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August

Twenty two years later, pennies worth of immediate relief at the pump. Thanks, GOP!

Beep Beep!

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

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Note: All I'm suggesting is that James Garfield couldn't have been assassinated because he sent his look-alike to the train station that day.  'Before' and 'After' photos clearly show that the moles don’t match.  Was the whole thing staged like the moon landing?  I don’t know...but why was Garfield spotted three times at a poker table in Deadwood between 1883 and 1885?  Yeah, it's finally sinking in, isn’t it?

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Christmas: 135
Days `til the new season of Real Time with Bill Maher: 17
Number of times the summer Olympics have been held in Asia: 3
Number of times the summer Olympics have been held in North America: 6
Number of times the summer Olympics have been held in South America or Africa: 0
(Source: USA Today)
Number of time zones in China: 1
Amount of Mick Jagger's weekly pension, now that he's turned 65: $180
(Source: The Week)

U.S. Olympic gold medal count: 7

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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:

In my small city in Ohio, population 20,000, it seems that I can't turn a corner without seeing poor people.  It seems much worse lately.  I just came from the grocery store they were in there filling their cart(s) and buying their beer. They'll be partying on the porches tonight and for days. ... I'm so tired of "poor" people!  Are they where you live also?  You see them, they don't work but they cover themselves with tattoos, smoke cigarettes, pot and crack cocaine, buy new clothes and jewelry and have nothing to do except commit crimes and procreate children who they pass on their lifestyle.

---Reaganator at FreeRepublic.  (h/t Kossack noweasels)

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

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Puppy Pic of the Day: "And as president of the United States, I promise less talk and more Tok!"

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CHEERS to pushing back.  Obama's own 'celebrity' ad is good---especially the loving embraces between McCain and Bush.  But this won't be played endlessly on cable.  It's a Johnny-come-lately defense maneuver against McCain's offense.  Obama needs to hit McCain in a new way that seems fresh and snarky.  Maybe like this:

John McCain promised to run an honorable campaign...and then he ran away.

He promised to be different.  Then he ran away and hired Karl Rove's people to run his campaign on sleaze and distortions.

As America struggles through war and a weak economy, John McCain abandoned his moderate positions to appease corporate lobbyists and the far-right fringe.

Sad.  Disappointing.  Politics as usual.  Shame on you, John McCain.  When America needed you to run with honor...you just ran away.

I'd approve that message.

CHEERS to inadvertently appropriate words.  You know that city-wide fireworks display during the Olympic opening ceremonies in Peking that made everyone go "Ooh" and "Aah" and "If they can pull this off, maybe they're not so bad after all"?  Turns out it was just fake digital effects.  They had to go with computer graphics "because of the city’s hazy, smoggy skies, which made such a complicated display at night too difficult to pull off successfully."  Here's what the head of the FX bamboozle team said about the pyrotechnics that people thought were there but which weren't really:

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," [Gao] Xiaolong said in comments that appeared in the Daily Telegraph. "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live---so that was mission accomplished."

Even freakier: he was on an aircraft carrier when he said it.

JEERS to Mr. Freeze.  Four years ago today, while appearing on Larry King Live, George W. Bush said he stayed in the classroom on 9/11 after being told "America is under attack" because "I was collecting my thoughts and I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish."  Uh huh, right.  Bill Maher responded:

This was a moment a President should have imagined a thousand times.  There is no time in the nuclear age for a President to sit like Forrest Gump 'gathering thoughts' after an attack has begun.  Plus...it would take him a lot longer than 7 minutes to gather one, anyway.

Somehow we've gotta figure out a way to find the chair he was sitting in that day and, very quietly, smuggle it into the lobby of his presidential library.  It'll be like, "How come there's more Democrats visiting here than Republicans, but they just sit in the lobby takin' pictures all day and laughin' their asses off?"  Gee, I can't imagine.

JEERS to the flip-flop of the day.  For those of you keeping track of such things, you can add this to the growing trail of steaming maverick turds lining the road to the White House: John McCain was against Americans getting lung cancer until he was for it.  The Straight Talk Express rolls on...

CHEERS to a vanishing species making it through another year.  On August 12, 1889, William Gray patented the payphone.  In the last seven years---thank you, cellphones---over half of America's payphones have disappeared.  Which definitely makes it more challenging to call people anonymously in the middle of the night to arrange ransom drops.  Freelancing's a bitch.

JEERS to making sense of it all.  For those of you who are confused about the current conflict between Russia and Georgia, here's what's going on in a nutshell:  A bunch of dickheads got pissed off at a bunch of other dickheads and they went running to the Big Dickhead who got all dicked off and sent a bunch of dickheads to teach the other dickheads a lesson about who the real alpha dickhead is.  This caused a bunch of American Dickheads---led by Dickhead Dick and Dickhead McCain---to make a bunch of dickhead statements at the Big Dickhead and his little dickhead puppet president who warned our dickheads not to mess with his dickheads.  Meanwhile, the Dickhead Decider had this to say about Big Dickhead:

"I looked the Big Dickhead in the eye.  I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.  I was able to get a sense of his Big Dickhead soul."

And the poor civilians who are stuck in the middle of this carnage?  They get dick.

CHEERS to mmmmmmoney!!!  53 years ago, on August 12, 1955, that dirty fucking hippie Dwight Eisenhower raised the hourly minimum wage from 75¢ to a dollar.  Or, as Republicans today would call it, "a dollar too much."

JEERS to water, water everywhere.  Frustration in Maine this summer as rain and thunderstorms continually derail our outdoor plans.  Just a fluke...or could it be something more insidious?

Add heavy rainfall to the litany of expected bad news due to climate change.  Along with the likelihood of more intense heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes, a new study released today reports that extreme precipitation events are already increasing as the globe warms.  This is the first actual, observed evidence that scientists say confirms the link between global warming and more powerful rainstorms.

First person to tell us "it's just liquid sunshine!" gets a wedgie.  (We're a little cranky.  Crotchety even.)

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One Year Ago in C&J: August 12, 2007:

JEERS to a picture that says a thousand unprintable words.  TIME magazine's latest cover offers a devastating indictment of how a city was lost through human neglect. The headline:

Two years after Katrina this floodwall is all that stands between New Orleans and the next hurricane.

It's pathetic.

How a perfect storm of big-money politics, shoddy engineering and environmental ignorance is setting up the city for another catastrophe.

In today's must-read---if you can stomach it---Michael Grunwald drops a two-ton bowling ball on the Army Corps of Engineers and eviscerates the palm-greasers and pork gluttons who have allowed New Orleans to languish for two years.  Would somebody PLEASE get on the phone with Effing Europe already??!

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And just one more...

CHEERS to Hawaii-YAH!!!  Over the weekend I watched Cokie Roberts of ABC News insult a great American state on national TV without batting an eye.  By calling Hawaii "foreign" and "exotic" in the context of Barack Obama's candidacy (he must be foreign and exotic too!), she proved that she's willing to regurgitate official GOP talking points at the expense of her fellow citizens who, I'm sure, she would encourage to "eat cake."  So it's funny as hell that exotic U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka just towel-snapped her with a studded leather lei:

"Saying our 50th state is somehow 'foreign,' does a great disservice to the hard working, patriotic Americans who call Hawaii home.  For months people have been asking me, 'when is Sen. Obama going to come home?'  I'm so glad he found time to visit his sister and his grandmother, show his daughters more of his home state, and relax a little.  Hawaii is a great U.S. destination, just ask the 5.5 million Americans who visited last year for business and pleasure."

Aloha ha ha.

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Ladies and gentleman: welcome to the modern-day Republican party.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

"What's inside of that sandwich?  It is a stinking...stinky, hot, steamy crap sandwich.  It is a stinky, hot...it is a steaming, hot pile of crap wedged between two pieces of bread.  That is what Bill in Portland Maine is.  He is a steamy crap sandwich."
---Chris Krok
8/7/08.

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