From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Top Hat Fails to Stem Flow of Late Night Snark...
"BP is saying that the oil leak is bigger than they estimated. In a related story, the executives at BP are far bigger idiots than we estimated."
---Jay Leno
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"James Cameron has been called in to help BP stop the oil spill. Soon they'll be failing in 3-D."
---Stephen Colbert
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"[Rand Paul] thinks Obama, because he went to Copenhagen where they were talking about global warming, is apologizing for the industrial revolution. He's against the Americans With Disabilities Act. He says restaurants should be able to refuse service to black people. And today, he said Obama was un-American for getting on BP's case for the oil spill. I tell you, the shit doesn't fall far from the bat. ... Every time this guy opens his mouth, it gets a little crazier. Today he angrily demanded that the liberal media stop quoting him in context."
---Bill Maher
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"Dell has announced that it's releasing a competitor for the iPad. It’s a great alternative for people that own an iPad but are fed up with it working all the time."
---Craig Ferguson
And this from The Daily Show:
Jon Stewart: This next statement by Charles Krauthammer may be the stupidest fucking thing anyone's ever said about the Middle East ever...
Krauthammer: "What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. There's no one starving in Gaza."
Stewart: Y'know, whatever you may think of the respective leaderships, the Israelis or Hamas, whatever Gods you pray to or whatever direction you may pray to them in, if you can't even look at Gaza, and agree that there is suffering there that needs to be alleviated, no matter who's to blame for it, then your heart is so dead tourists flock there to float on their backs in it.
(Watch it in BruinKid's diary)
Or, as Jane Lynch said this week on Glee: "Even your breath stinks of mediocrity...and it's making me sick."
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, June 4, 2010
Note: iTunes customer, circa 1808: "Dammit! Why do I have to buy Beethoven's entire 6th Symphony for $13.99 when all I want is the damn joyful village folk cut for 99 cents? This blows!"
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til David Hasselhoff returns to The Young and the Restless as Dr. William "Snapper" Foster for 5 episodes: 11
Days `til Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park: 63
Percent of Americans surveyed by Findlaw.com who couldn't name a single Supreme Court justice: 65%
(Source: Hardball)
Percent of married women who say they'd prefer watching a movie, reading a book or catching an extra hour of sleep rather than have sex with hubbie: 63%
(Source: iVillage via The Week)
Number of divorced U.S. presidents: 1 (St. Ronnie)
Number of registered Kossacks as of yesterday morning: 245,164
(Source: Jotter)
Number of trolls banned since Daily Kos debuted in May, 2002: 8,123
(Source: Kos)
And from the Department of Homeland Security:
Days the color-coded federal terror alert system has been in place: 3,006
Days spent at terror alert level Blue or Green: 0
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Puppy Pic of the Day: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Boston terrier?
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CHEERS to the Fickle Fussbucket State. Mainers go to the polls Tuesday to choose their gubernatorial (huh huh...he said goober) candidates, and the race is so up in the air that you need an oxygen mask to analyze it. How wide open is it? Consider this: four Democratic candidates are running, and yet 62 percent of Maine Democrats [raises hand] are still undecided. I asked Dkos front-page poll watcher Steve Singiser if that was unusual, and he wrote back:
Wide-open is the word for it, my friend. When neither party has someone breaking 20%? I don’t know that I have ever seen that six days out from primary day. Absolutely unreal!!
In the rival camp there are seven Republicans on the ballot, and 47 percent of GOoPers are undecided---also high. (Meaning the number is high, not the GOoPers, although we're certain some do enjoy the reefer on occasion.) You know the phrase, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation"? I hope you're in the mood for paralyzing indecision, 'cause that's apparently how our door swings up here these days.
JEERS to Day [we've lost count]. Today's developments: The suspense was palpable. The stakes were high. The pipe had been sheared off, more or less cleanly, and the stove hat pipe thingee was lowered on top of the blowout preventer. And up on the deck of a waiting tanker, nervous engineers stared at the dry end of the 5,000-foot hose. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And then... Um... More waiting. Then, finally, the magic moment...
ploink
Whoooo!!! Successsssss!!! (Disclaimer: Success relative to the zero percent success rate BP has achieved so far ---mgt.). Meanwhile, Kossack SAQuestor pointed me to a web site that shows you how much area the Oilpocalypse would cover if it happened in your town. We are all tarballs now.
P.S. I don’t necessarily want you to click on the next link to see truly awful photos released yesterday of oil-soaked birds. I'm simply preserving it for future reference as the day BP's PR machine went kaflooey. On the other hand, you might want to click to see the heroic work the wildlife rescuers are doing to clean 'em up. You don't mind a few dozen pelicans roosting in your basement for a while, do ya? You are most awesome---they're on their way. And they'll need 500 pounds of fish a day. Did I mention you're awesome?
CHEERS to D-Day. The 66th anniversary of the largest amphibious landing in history is Sunday, and President Obama will no doubt deliver a moving tribute to the rapidly-dwindling number of veterans who waded ashore on that horrific yet awe-inspiring day. George W. Bush is still a little confused as to why we went through all the trouble---after all, the intelligence was accurate, the threat was real, and there wasn't any oil there. Crazy.
CHEERS to the awesomeness of creation! [Flash!] [Ka-BOOM!] The finest minds, the deepest thinkers, the fastest human calculators, the sharpest analysts---all collaborated on solving the most incredible mystery ever: the very formation and nature of the universe! For the sake of humankind, we must all stop and absorb their extraordinary revelation. This may be as close as we come to extending our fingers and touching the face of GOD:
The finding concerns the behavior of neutrinos, ghost-like particles that travel at the speed of light. In the new experiment, physicists captured a muon neutrino in the process of transforming into a tau neutrino. The new finding is important because in the theories now used to explain the behavior of fundamental particles, called the Standard Model, neutrinos have no mass. But if they have no mass, they cannot oscillate between muon and tau forms. The fact that they do oscillate indicates that they have mass and that the fundamentals of the Standard Model need some reworking, at the very least.
[stony silence] Or...we could go in the other room and watch Wheel of Fortune. Dibs on the beanbag chair.
CHEERS to The Preeecious. Thirty three years ago, on June 4, 1977, one of the first mass-produced personal computers---the Apple II---went on sale. I'm guessing that, in today's dollars, it would probably cost around $8,000. Their original ads seem quaint today. Our favorite one stars founding blogger Ben Franklin. The copy is priceless:
What kind of man owns his own computer?
Rather revolutionary, the whole idea of owning your own computer? Not if you're a diplomat, printer, scientist...or a kite designer. Today there's Apple Computer. It's designed to be a personal computer. To uncomplicated your life. And make you more effective. ...
Apple is a real computer, right to the core. So just like big computers, it manages data, crunches numbers, keeps records, processes your information And prints reports. You concentrate on what you do best. And let Apple do the rest. Apple makes that easy with three programming languages---including Pascal---that let you be your own software expert.
Time waiting for access to your company's big mainframe is time wasted. What you need in your department---on your desk---is a computer that answers only to you...Apple Computer. It's less expensive than time sharing. More dependable than distributed processing. Far more flexible than centralized EDP. And, at less than $2,500, downright affordable.
Funny. My PC just gave me a pop-message that reads, "Oh, Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple!!! What does Apple got that I ain't got?!" Um...a lack of worms and viruses and trojan horses? Um...a variety of cool colors instead of just black and beige? Awww, now it's shorting out...I made it cry.
JEERS to America's #1 war criminal. Here's a little primer (a word I learned from MAD magazine, by the way, but I digress) on how justice works in these here United States:
Thief: "I stole the jewels!" Authorities: "You're under arrest!"
Kidnapper: "I snatched the kid!" Authorities: "You're under arrest!"
Street thug: "I robbed the convenience store!" Authorities: "You're under arrest!"
George W. Bush: "I authorized torture!" Authorities: [Yawn] "Let's not rehash the past...let's focus on the future."
In or out of office, it's good to be the chimp.
CHEERS to whacko wedding bells. Sanctity-of-marriage crusader Rush Limbaugh ("If you want a successful marriage, let your husband do what he wants to do") is getting sanctifitiously married tomorrow for the fourth time---to a woman 26 years younger. They would've tied the knot sooner, but they had to work out a few details. She finally agreed to a pre-nup. He finally agreed that she could keep her blindfold on.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Looks like a dreary weekend for Maine, so the immediate area around the TV will be our playground. The Scripps National Spelling Bee is tonight at 8 on ABC. (Don’t forget the 'e' at the end of potatoe, kids!) On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher has a great lineup tonight: Katrina vanden Huevel, Van vanden Jones, Andrew vanden Sullivan and Judd vanden Apatow. New DVD releases include Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and The Wolfman. In sports, the Belmont Stakes Horsey Ride is tomorrow, the NHL and NBA seasons desperately try to wrap up, and the Booing of the Umpires will take place in ballparks across the country. On 60 Minutes: Anderson Cooper swims with sharks in South Africa...and flashes some hot creamy-white Anderson bod as he suits up. [BiPM takes a moment to regain composure...] And here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with our EXCLUSIVE Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan:
Meet the Press: The French Open airs instead, which means David Gregory gets to sleep. This will affect his normal Sunday morning routine not a whit. Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan results: Bzzt!!!
Face the Nation: Admiral Thad Allen; Sen. Bill Nelson. Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan results: Bzzt!!!
The McLaughlin Group: Monica Crowley exercises her second amendment rights by pulling out a lady derringer. Eleanor Clift exercises her second amendment rights by whipping out a rocket launcher. Point: Clift. Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan results: Bzzt!!!
Fox Pity Party with Chris Wallace: Admiral Thad Allen; MS Governor Haley Barbour (I wonder if he'll repeat his famous assertion that "Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous"?); and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren explains his side of the catastrophic commando raid...but apparently Fox couldn’t find anyone to represent the opposing side. Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan results: Bzzt!!!
This Week: Dueling Senator Johns...Kerry vs. Cornyn. Roundtable with George Will, Liz Cheney, Arianna Huffington---and Markos Moulitsas! Markos Moulitsas Bad Tie Scan results: Ahoooogah!!! Ahoooogah!!! Sunglasses on!!! This is not a drill!!!
Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: June 4, 2005
CHEERS to the Art of Snark. Senate minority leader Harry Reid is getting to be quite a pro at giving verbal wedgies. Like this exchange in the new issue of Rolling Stone:
Rolling Stone: You've called Bush a loser.
Reid: And a liar.
Rolling Stone: You apologized for the loser comment.
Reid: But never for the liar, have I?
And all in 10 words. He's good.
CHEERS to Howard! Howard! Howard! At the Campaign for America's Future meeting, "the [DNC] chairman...called for changes to election laws, making Election Day a holiday or moving it from Tuesday and making it easier for everyone to vote. He said he supports establishing a law `that says you cannot use a voting machine unless it can be recounted by hand.'" Man, how do we Democrats STAND the way that guy runs his mouth off??
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And just one more...
JEERS to one very bad day in a decade full of very bad days. Forty two years ago Sunday, 42 year-old Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles (the New York Times account is here), just after he'd won the California primary. I was only four at the time, and have no recollection of it. But this bit from the Washington Post's 1968 tribute expresses in no uncertain terms that we lost more than a man, we lost a movement:
As for power, he sought it endlessly, but not for itself. For he was, above all, a compassionate man who wanted to improve the lot of other men. He wanted to move the country, to break new ground in response to new challenges as he saw them, and political power was the instrument he needed to do what he thought would be good---for cruelly neglected Indian children, for the people of the ghetto, for the disadvantaged here and everywhere. Like his older brother, he scorned the slow pace of the Senate and the diluted influence of a Senator for this did not fit his temper. He reached with restless energy, and some logic, for the Presidency because that is where the political power is. ...
Still only 35 when he became Attorney General in his brother's Cabinet, he applied himself to that assignment with the same intensity and with an increasingly skillful hand. ... In a short span, he revitalized the Department's attack on organized crime and established greater control over the FBI than had been exercised in many years. From Montgomery to Oxford to Tuscaloosa he led the hard campaign against racial discrimination with tough-minded determination and skill.
Which brings us to the most frustrating game ever invented in the history of the universe: "What if..." Damn you, Parker Brothers.
And on a happier note---Happy 76th Birthday tomorrow to the Towering Titan of Tournalism (sorry, I'm very strict about my alliteration) Bill Moyers. There's a reason Fox News quickly stopped picking fights with him. (And what a noble first name!) Have a super weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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