From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
The day was sultry. And the late-night snark hung in the air like Spanish Moss off a Savannah oak tree...
"More Americans can name the three stooges than the three branches of government. Well, that's because the three stooges are more likely to get something done."
---David Letterman
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"Republican Senator [and] possible '08 presidential candidate George Allen of Virginia... was pointing out that his opponent in the Senate race, James Webb had sent someone to videotape all of George Allen's appearances. Which is not a very nice thing to do because George Allen says some really stupid shit. Like, 'Let's all welcome macaca over here to America.' Although in Allen's defense, he didn't know that the gentleman was already a citizen and didn't need to be welcomed to America, or that his name wasn't 'macaca.' I think Allen just assumed the gentleman looked macaca-ish."
---Jon Stewart
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"Did you have trouble at the airport this week? I had to throw away all my make-up. They said it's because of this terrorist plot they foiled over in England. I believe it's an elaborate ruse perpetrated by the big cosmetics industry. Maybe it's not terrorism. Maybe it's Maybelline."
---Jimmy Kimmel
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"According to reports, Fidel Castro is alert and being briefed. And I'm thinking, why didn't we get a president like that?"
---Letterman
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And just for the nostalgia value, this golden nugget circa one year ago from Assrocket at the World's Most Bestest Swell Blog, Powerline (cue the out-of-tune lute):
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
I assume that when he says "masterpiece" he means the sauce you pour on dead meat.
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Weekend already? Why, I'm barely finished with Tuesday. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, August 18, 2006
Note: Whoever switched the office tea service from Tetley to Salada, hear me now and believe me later: I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and make you pay for your blunder.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til the mid-term elections: 81
Days `til Rosh Hashanah: 35
Length of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision striking down the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program: 43
Number of homes, businesses and churches threatened with eminent-domain seizure for private development after the Supreme Court's Kelo vs. City of New London Supreme Court ruling in June 2005: 5,700
Number of similar seizure attempts between 1998-2002: 10,000
(Source: Parade)
Number of Dunkin' Donuts stores west of the Mississippi: 60
Number of stores east of the Mississippi: 4,840
(Source: Fortune)
And from the Department of No-Land Security:
Days the color-coded federal terror alert system has been in place: 1,614
Days spent at terror alert level Blue or Green: 0
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Your Puppy Pic of the Day: (Encore from last year) Canine Marine: "This is my ball. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My ball is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My ball, without me, is useless. Without my ball, I am useless. I must fetch my ball true. I must run faster than my enemy who is trying to fetch my ball before me. I must beat him before he beats me. I WILL."
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CHEERS to putting some starch in the Constitution's shorts. A judge---whom right-wingers claim is really Osama bin Laden with glasses---struck down President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program yesterday. Rumor has it that George W. Bush threw his crown down so hard it ended up in Dick Cheney's bunker.
P.S. To answer the question that you're dying to ask: Of course I had an orgasm.
JEERS to burying the lede. A pox on all the media outlets who made the red-hot NSA ruling secondary to the cold-as-ice Ramsey story yesterday. Let's see... The U.S. Constitution is saved from destruction, or the mystery behind a 10 year-old murder still isn't solved. Gee, that'd send any editor straight to the Pepcid AC cabinet.
CHEERS to Russ Feingold. The Wisconsin senator goes positively batshit looney (heh) over the NSA ruling:
"Today's district court ruling is a strong rebuke of this administration's illegal wiretapping program. The President must return to the Constitution and follow the statutes passed by Congress. We all want our government to monitor suspected terrorists, but there is no reason for it to break the law to do so. The administration went too far with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. Today's federal court decision is an important step toward checking the President's power grab."
And the next time you see Preznit on TV, feel free to give him a little of the ol' crotch-grab.
JEERS to the worst bedside manner in America. A doctor in New Hampshire---DR. TERRY BENNETT---was recently let off the hook for...oh, here's one example:
The complaints included charges that Bennett "stunned, shocked, embarrassed (and) humiliated" a woman by telling her she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men. In 2001, a female patient said he suggested she shoot herself to end her suffering.
I guess that explains his 100% A+++ Blue Ribbon rating from the HMO industry.
CHEERS to people with great first names. Happy Birthday, Bill Clinton! `42' turns 60 tomorrow. Our fantasy birthday present: a way around that pesky 22nd amendment. (But we'll settle for a few campaign appearances with Ned Lamont.)
CHEERS to Grrrl Power. 86 years ago today, in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution---which would give women the right to vote---was ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification needed to make it the law. And all we can say is...how utterly shocking that it happened so late in our history. Stupid White Men...
CHEERS to David Broder. Sure, he doesn't make sense half the time, but he does influence a lot of the 75-and-under robots inside the beltway. So we were pleasantly surprised to read the forecast for the Great Democratic Earthquake of `06:
I had dinner one night with a group of Ohio Republicans, all with many years of experience in state politics and none directly engaged in this year's gubernatorial race. One of them said, "I'm afraid this could be another 1982," a year when recession pushed unemployment to 15 percent and cost the Republicans the governorship. Another said, "I'd settle right now for another 1982. I'm afraid it will be another 1974," the year of the Watergate election, when Democrats swept everything in sight. [...]
[S]ervice in this Congress has turned out to be a handicap rather than a benefit to their chances of advancement. The reason was explained in blunt terms by the Republican governor of one of the states where a congressman of his party is struggling for statewide office. "What has this Congress done that anyone should applaud?" he asked scornfully. "Nothing on immigration, nothing on health care, nothing on energy---and nothing on the war. They deserve a good kick in the pants, and that's what they're going to get."
And I know the perfect shoes to wear. Bend over, Santorum, Burns, Fitzpatrick, Allen, Weldon, Lieberman...
JEERS to abstinence-only -sometimes education. In a Canton, Ohio school district they've gone back to a broader sex ed. program. Why, you ask? Because the "just say no" approach was spittin' out too many babies. Darn kids. Why can't they just suppress their 195,000 year-old primal instincts like they're told? Yer all grounded!
JEERS to Macaca Republicans. The GOP hoof-in-mouth disease epidemic continues, this time in Colorado:
Just a day after Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez announced his running mate would be Mesa County commissioner Janet Rowland, the ticket is in "deep damage control" after Democrats released a transcript of a March TV interview in which Rowland compared same-sex marriage to bestiality.
Appearing March 17 on the PBS program ''Colorado State of Mind,'' Rowland said homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle. ''For some people, the alternative lifestyle is bestiality," she went on to say. "Do we allow a man to marry a sheep?''
Rowland defended herself by saying she has gay friends. If so they must be blind, deaf and very dumb.
CHEERS to looking half your age. Only two men in the world can pull that off: me and Robert Redford. Happy 69th birthday, you boyish tree-hugger, you.
JEERS to working yourself to death. As if I didn't already respect and admire Maine's fishermen and women: CNNMoney is out with its list of the most dangerous jobs. Those who work on the water fare the worst:
[F]ishermen in 2005 [had] a fatality rate of 118.4 per 100,000---nearly 30 times higher than the rate of the average worker.
Fishermen go out to the sea in ships in some terrible weather conditions, especially in heavy New England seas and Aleutian Island storms, and a fall overboard often results in death by drowning. They also work with dangerous power tools such as huge winches and hoists, as well as heavy nets and cages, all of which can turn into lethal missiles on a slippery wet or icy deck in heavy seas.
Loggers were the second-most-endangered professional group. Followed closely behind by Republicans.
(((((JEERS to the JonBenet Ramsey suspect. Oh my god, he broke my Creep-O-Meter; in fact I refuse to even post a link to his ferretface. But I still ain't buyin' this idiot's sick "confession." In fact, the whole overhyped story gets a rare "5 Parentheses" on our who-cares scale.)))))
CHEERS to the Top Ten Words of this Weekend: "Get these MUTHA FUCKIN' SNAKES off my MUTHA FUCKIN' PLANE!" One word of advice when the theatre lights go down: check those Twizzlers twice before you put `em in your mouth.
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One Year Ago in C&J: August 18, 2005...
CHEERS to "a message from God in this." Lovely story. A diamond merchant in a hurry to catch a plane at LaGuardia Airport left an unmarked bag filled with of jewels worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in a cab. Fortunately he had accidentally dropped one of his business cards in the back seat. The cab driver matched the bag with the card and returned the jewels. The jeweler is Jewish...the cab driver is a Muslim. Maybe there's hope after all.
JEERS to Buckeye bamboozlers. I weep for my home state today. Governor Bob "Daft" Taft is charged with 4 criminal misdemeanors...the first time an Ohio governor has been charged with a crime. John Glenn, if you're not busy would you go kick his ass for me?
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And just one more...
CHEERS to today's pop quiz. Which of these two people was born and raised in Virginia? Hint: the guy with the walnut for a brain and two-thirds of Virginians staring at him in disgust is the imposter. Okay, enough book-learnin' for today... Last one on the playground's a rotten egg!
Floor's open... What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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