From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
The Week Ahead
Monday Eighteen months after regulatory inaction helped to nearly destroy America, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner goes to the American Enterprise Institute to talk about how urgently the country needs to enact financial regulatory reform. He doesn't help his case when he yawns 16 times during his speech.
Healthcare reform moves to the Senate, which is now tasked with not dropping the ball, thus explaining why neither the House nor the President popped any champagne corks last night.
Tuesday Numbers are released on February sales of existing homes. Numbers are also released on sales of imaginary homes and, once again, it's one hundred percent!!!
FCC Chairman "Orange" Julius Genachowski goes in front of a Senate committee to explain what the national broadband plan is all about. I can save him the time: it's all about downloading porn faster, silly.
Wednesday Numbers Numbers Numbers!!! Durable goods orders for February (buggy whips are expected to take a hit for the 1,349th month in a row) and sales of new homes. Plus the House Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing on China's exchange rate policy...very, very politely.
Thursday Atrios informs us of how many "lucky duckies" have filed for jobless claims. Place your bets on whether he deems them "still high," "still not good" or "Yikes."
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke delivers remarks on jobs to DLC members. The most frequently-asked question from the audience: "Can I have one?"
Friday "School's out, Schools out! Teacher let the monkeys out!" Congresscritters head home for spring break with their badminton racquets, which they'll use not to play badminton, but to protect themselves against roving bands of teabaggers.
More numbers! The actual GDP numbers for the fourth quarter, and the University of Michigan's consumer "sentiment index" for March. The sentiment will be expressed in numerical form, since the actual words will be unprintable.
Buckle up. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, March 22, 2010
Note: We have a dozen-plus-two confirmations so far for the New England Kossack meetup this Saturday, March 27th at the Portsmouth Brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We have room for 20 at the Bloggers' Round Table table, so if you're planning on joining us, please RSVP rightnowthisinstant to cuckolds [at] maine [dot] rr [dot] com. It's a great time to eat there, by the way. The cheeseburgers are in season.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Easter: 13
Days `til the National Spelling Bee: 74
Number of online videos Americans watched in December, and their average length: 33.2 billion, 4.1 minutes
Combined length of time that represents: 250,000 years
(Source: The Week)
Number of DMV offices in Oregon that dropped their subscriptions to Muzak: 13
Percent chance that they dropped it due to customer complaints, not the $160 per-month fee: 100%
(Source: The Oregonian)
Number of months since C&J's inception before a Kossack wrote the Magic Secret Phrase "friable loam" in a comment (Congrats, mcmom, and also happy birthday and blessings on your camels): 75
(Source: Daily Kos)
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Your Monday "Nevada Nugget"
Brought to you by the Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas July 22-25, starring Senator Al Franken and Governor Brian Schweitzer:
Nevada was made famous by the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the richest known U.S. silver deposit, in 1859.
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Construction worker hard hats were first invented specifically for workers on the Hoover Dam in 1933.
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In Death Valley, the Kangaroo Rat can live its entire life without drinking a drop of liquid.
---Legends of America.
Coincidentally, so can Dick Cheney.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Let me guess...it's Monday.
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CHEERS in SIX INCH HIGH LETTERS to the Nailbiter Heard Round the World. So, uh...kinduva squeaker, huh. But WE GOT HEALTHCARE REFORM, BABY, WE GOT IT!!!* And what a collection of "moments" we saw...from Stupak's moment in the sun, to John Dingell showing off his gavel (if ya know what I mean...), to the House leadership locking arms and walking through a canopy of teabaggers like the protagonists of The Wizard of Oz skipping down the yellow brick road, to the hecklers that created mass hysteria (Barney Frank's term), and finally the moment that nobody wanted to arrive because they were all having so much darn fun: the final vote shortly before midnight. In a rare show of unity, Democrats and Republicans issued a joint statement shortly afterward: "Zzzzzzzzzzzz."
*Some Senate assembly required. Not responsible for parliamentary shenanigans by Republicans. Batteries not included.
JEERS to the not-so-noble opposition. And at the very end, their rhetorical ammo spent, the Republican party's hyperventilating far-right base's argument against healthcare reform boiled down to two words that have been threatening to burst out of their reptilian brains since January 20, 2009: "Nigger!" "Faggot!" Gee, I can't understand why they failed to sway any additional Democrats to their side with such impressive debate skills. Perhaps next time they should put it in a PowerPoint presentation?
P.S. The Republican congressman who shouted "Baby killer!" on the House floor toward the end of the evening added a touch of class to the proceedings. The sad part: once he's identified, he'll sit back and watch as the campaign contributions pour in.
CHEERS to Nancy Pelosi. She said this to me personally last night via mass email:
I cannot thank you enough for making this historic moment possible. Whether you were sharing your own stories of struggle, spreading the word to your friends and neighbors, or generously contributing to help our courageous House Democrats under attack, you fought this fight every step of way. I truly cannot express my gratitude enough for all the work you did.
This legislation will take its place in history beside the passage of Social Security and Medicare. It will end the days of being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. It will help seniors finally afford their lifesaving prescription drugs by closing the donut hole in Medicare. It will end the days of hardworking families and small businesses being priced out of the care they need in the name of insurance company profits. And it will reduce the deficit by more than a trillion dollars over the next two decades.
You realized that this was our moment to fix health care in America and for that, I just wanted to say: Thank you.
Oh, tweren't nothin', Ma'am. I had help from a few of my friends.
JEERS to the Minority Whiner. Drama queen John Boehner last night: "I stand here tonight with a sad and heavy heart." Yup, but you have a gold-plated taxpayer-funded healthcare plan to take care of it, sir. And now millions of Americans will find out what it's like to have basic coverage for their hearts and everything else. If that's the kind of thing that makes your heart heavy, sir, perhaps you need someone to take a look inside your head.
CHEERS to profiling. I'm all for it now, thanks to the latest capture of a terrorist suspect. From now on, all blond-haired white women should have to go through a special line and be thoroughly searched and interrogated by TSA officials, since they've become so dangerous. There'll be a special line for Fox News anchors so they don’t clog the regular lines.
CHEERS and JEERS to money matters. Just a li'l snapshot of the economy from recent headlines to help us get our bearings as we start a new week:
Joblessness unlikely to decline soon
Home construction snarled by February's snowstorms
Interest rates to remain at record lows
Boeing to ramp up production of 747, 777 planes
Hotels in 'Survival Mode'
Saved GM dealers are ready
Don’t expect a raise soon
Dow out of the dumps
S&P takes Greece off credit watching, easing market fears
Wholesale inflation declines 0.6 percent in February
Economy grows without inflation or jobs
As ever, happy days for Wall Street. The rest of us...not so much. (But with a little single-malt scotch, the crumbs taste better.)
CHEERS to a day under nature's heat lamp. I'm not sure what Maine did to deserve it, but the first day of spring Saturday was unbelievable---the clouds skedaddled, the mercury hit 70, the flowers bloomed (the crocuses, anyway), the trees budded, and an ice cream truck even rolled by our house. Tomorrow we're getting hammered by a nor'easter and this coming weekend the wind chills will be back in the teens. Put another way---New England is to Mother Nature as Cat toy is to cat.
JEERS to unnecessary roughness. Well, that didn’t take long. News last week that Bernie Madoff got beat up in jail last December. At issue: money. Slow learner.
CHEERS to 60's TV icons. Today is the late Werner "Colonel Klink" Klemperer's 85th birthday. (Hogan's Heroes has a permanent spot in my personal TV Hall of Fame.) Meanwhile, William "Kirk" Shatner---very much alive---turns 79. In honor of TV's good old days, we'll put down the remote and go change the channel manually.
Update: Oh, my achin' flab. That was painful. We lived like animals in the old days. Animals!!!
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Five years ago in C&J: March 22, 2005
CHEERS to hitting the snooze button. News of U.S. District Judge James Whittemore's ruling that Terry Schiavo's feeding tube should not be re-inserted came at 6:25 this morning. The religious radicals who normally hold a carefully-staged "vigil" outside her window thought the announcement would happen at 8 or 9, so the background during network news coverage consisted of abandoned signs haphazardly leaning up against a fence. What, the Lord couldn't have given y'all a wake-up call? [3/22/10 Update: No, but Judge Whittemore sure did.]
CHEERS to---whaaaaa?---the New York Post?? Yup, even the rabid right-wing media sees federal intervention in the Schiavo case for what it is:
"...the idea of Congress convening a weekend session to push through a potentially precedent-setting law for one single individual, with little regard to the long-term consequences, is profoundly troubling. Political opportunism? No question about it."
But don't get your hopes up...they'll be foaming at the mouth again tomorrow.
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And just one more...
JEERS to really tight living quarters. A woman in Chicago got two census forms in the mail---one for her condo and one for her parking space. She kept the one for her condo and threw the one for the parking space out, so now a Census Poobah will be dispatched---it's the law 'n all---to check it out in person. If the lady's not home to explain, they'll just go to the spot in question and read between the lines.
Have a nice Monday, and remember: spelling counts. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
'Cheers and Jeers'---Here come the insults and cliches
---Claudia Puig
USA Today
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