From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
BREAKING: Amish Resolve Oil Spill Crisis
NEW ORLEANS---While BP, Transocean and federal and state disaster officials attempted one futile solution after another to stem the flow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, another group quietly solved the problem over the course of a single day: the Amish.
"As you English might say, it was no big deal," said project coordinator Samuel Lapp of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lapp traveled to Louisiana with a group of volunteers from several Amish communities after he heard about the spill, which threatened to become the worst oil disaster in history. "To solve a complex problem, one must think simply, and rely on the old ways. Your complicated modern ways were not getting it done," Lapp said. "I know this sounds a little strange coming from us, but we simply ran out of patience."
At a morning press conference, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar expressed amazement, not only at how quickly the Amish team stopped the leak, but also how efficiently they sopped up the massive oil slick and took care of the affected wildlife and marsh areas. "I've seen a lot of things in my life, but this leaves me flat-out gobsmacked," he said.
Lapp and his team began their work yesterday morning on the shoreline several miles south of New Orleans by raising a large, leak-proof barn with a 12-inch-wide pipe fitting in the roof. After breaking for lunch, the team boarded an oversized wooden skiff, rowed out to the site of the spill, attached a flexible five-thousand-foot hose to the pipe fitting, and gently lowered the structure over the leak. Nearby oil tankers then began pumping the crude into their holds.
Meanwhile, a second Amish team used a mixture of straw and corn starch wrapped in cloth rolls to absorb the remaining oil on the surface while several others stayed on shore to clean up affected wildlife and marshland areas.
When the operation was finished, their caravan of buggies quietly headed back to Lancaster at sundown, arriving just in time for morning milking. "They didn't ask for a thing in return," said Secretary Salazar. "Just a nod and a firm handshake and they were gone."
British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward expressed his relief at the Amish operation's success. "I trust we can now put this episode behind us and focus on the main task ahead: beefing up our legal team to ensure we pay as little as possible in damages and lawsuit judgments." Moments later, Hayward got pooped on by a brown pelican circling overhead.
Senator Mary Landrieu expressed her relief also. "I know I was for deep-water offshore drilling before public outrage over this spill turned me against it. But now that it's all back to normal, I'm for it again!" She, too, was targeted by what appeared to be the same brown pelican, whom local Gulf residents have since adopted as their official mascot and good-luck charm.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Note: Today we are all Los Suns
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the elections in Britain: One!!!!!
Days `til the Northern New England Home, Garden and Flower Show in Fryeburg, Maine: 9
Age of the Chevy Suburban as of Monday: 75
Percent of Americans who had a high opinion of France in, respectively, 2003 and 2009: 29%, 42%
(Source: Harper’s Index)
Percent chance that Joe Sestak appears to be gaining momentum in the PA senate primary race: 100%
(Source: TPM)
The last time April in Maine was as warm as it was this year: 1941
(Source: National Weather Service via The Portland Daily Sun)
Cost to buy a condo in the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago: $2.9 million
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 173 (including 1 "Supernatural" and, via Kossack Vicki, 1 Absolutely-Not-A-Joke "Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey"). 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: "The need to help heal seems to be inherent in dogs."
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CHEERS to Cinco de Mayo. Today is the one day a year when we can legally re-enact the Battle of Puebla using live ammunition. At Casa de C&J we'll observe our usual custom of planting a Mexican flag in our neighbor's yard and then taking them prisoner. Finally, after beating our Archduke Maximilian piñata (now on sale at Costco) senseless, we'll dig in to some fine authentic Irish nachos. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year??? Hardly, amigo.
JEERS to an explosion of predictability. If I look a little bedraggled today, it's because I've spent the last 48 hours beating myself over the head with a two-by-four in the hopes of rendering myself unconscious so I don’t have to hear the utterly by-the-numbers reaction to the failed bomb attempt in Times Square. From the posturing politicians to the neo-con complaints that the suspect---an American citizen, no less---shouldn’t be read his rights. Oh, and the endless cable news hollering, of course. (Although when a bunch of people actually do get blown up in a single day by bombs in Iraq, it warrants only the briefest of mentions.) All of which contributes to---surprise!---ginned up feelings of terror across the land when mere concern is all that's necessary. What I mean is: we will never, ever be free from attempted attacks like this---so let's be as vigilant as we can, understand that life is finite and not without risk, and then get on with it. [Steps down from soap box] Thank goodness there's at least one voice of sanity out there:
"[Shahzad] has all the rights under the Constitution. We don’t shred the Constitution when it is popular. We do the right thing."
---Glenn Beck
What's that they say about a stopped clock?
CHEERS to "The Voice of the Tigers." When I worked at WGER-FM in Saginaw, Michigan---just up the road from Detroit---a couple decades ago, we'd get reel-to-reel tapes every now and then with ads voiced by longtime Tigers play-by-play announcer Ernie Harwell. Even when he was hawking boats and RVs he always classed up our airwaves. He was one of those rare birds known by all as "a great human being." And I'da given anything for his pipes. Harwell, who called the action for 42 seasons, was 92 when he died yesterday. He'd been married for 68 years. We'll file his life story under: Grand Slam.
JEERS to the cliché whisperer. I don’t know what Pat Buchanan deserves more for this: a finger-wagging or an eye-roll. So we'll play it safe and give him both, plus a middle-finger salute as a bonus. In his latest column he trots out a badly-fraying old line:
In a particularly offensive smear, Mexican President Felipe Calderon charged Arizona with opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." And what was the reaction of the Great Apologist to this slander of an American state by the leader of a neighboring nation?
None. One wonders if Barack Obama will ever stand up to foreign leaders' abusing the nation that awarded him its highest honor. Or has he been marinated since birth in the "Blame America First" mindset of the San Francisco Democrats who sneer at the real America?
I've been looking for a reason to call up a great post by Kos from a few years back, when Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of the city. So here we go...
Since O'Reilly boycotts everything he hates, I look forward to his boycott of all Bay Area-origin products. Same with every conservative who bashes San Francisco and the Bay Area. So no iPods or anything Apple. No HP computers. No Google. No Yahoo. No eBay. Those conservative bloggers using Blogspot, MovableType, or TypePad? Sorry. Those products are Bay Area-based.
Also no Adobe or Macromedia products. No computers, either, since most run on AMD or Intel. No tax preparation using Intuit products. Cancel your Netflix subscription. Cancel your TiVo subscription. Remove your Network Associates or Symantec virus protection software from your computer. Unplug your Netgear wifi router.
Don't wear Levis (or any kind of jeans), Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, or buy your kids Gymboree. Avoid LeapFrog learning toys. Boycott Pixar movies. Boycott any movie using George Lucas' ILM special effects shop. Stay away from Treos and other Palm devices. Don't let Charles Schwab manage your portfolio. Don't bank at Wells Fargo.
Yeah, those "San Francisco values" sure are dragging the region down. Making it weak as it falls behind the rest of the country---the parts that don't share "San Francisco values"---economically and socially.
Or, maybe---just maybe---it's made the region a magnet for the world's smartest, most innovative, most entrepreneurial individuals and an incubator of the world's most dramatic technological advances.
Thanks, Pat, for being a very useful idiot.
CHEERS to connecting the docs. The American Medical Association was formed 163 years ago today. Medical professionals from 22 states and 28 medical schools attended to hear such topics as, "How to Smoke a Stogie Properly Over an Open Wound"; "Why Drugs Will Never Replace A Good Hot Poultice"; and Ether: Your After-hours Friend. On their first day they unanimously approved the association's motto which is still in place today: "You really should get that thing checked out. Like, seriously."
JEERS to the shrinking supply of A Girl's Best Friend. DeBeers says the supply of diamonds is dwindling, so they're cutting back on production. Dear God! What will Goldman Sachs executives bathe in now???
CHEERS to the new Eye-Rolling'est Excuse Ever. Sorry, "Dog ate my homework" and "Car wouldn't start" and "Bus was late" and "I was hiking the Appalaichian Trail," you've all just been replaced by Family Research Council founder and ex-gay-therapy asshole Dr. George Reker's "I had to hire that male hooker from 'Rentboy.com' to accompany me on a 10-day all-expenses-paid trip to Europe because I have a bad back, you see, and I needed someone to carry my bags." In related news, "I need someone to carry my bags" has also just become America's new #1 sexual euphemism. Film at 11.
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Five years ago in C&J: May 5, 2005
JEERS to the first lady of family values. Alert the FCC! In remarks at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, Laura "Pottymouth" Bush "joked" about 1) jerking off a horse, 2) comparing her mother-in-law to a mafia killer, and 3) going to strip clubs while her husband sleeps. Then she lied about watching `Desperate Housewives' (she's never seen it). We suggest you stick to your day job, ma'am.
P.S. Extra jeer for this slap in the face: "Kennebunkport [Maine] is like Crawford, but without the nightlife." Well then, ma'am, maybe you should convince your in-laws to sell their compound and get out. We hear the cow-tipping's more fulfilling down yonder anyway.
CHEERS to democracy in action. Britain holds its elections today. And just as Americans gave George Bush a pass on the Iraq debacle in November, so too will the stiffupperlippians give Prime Minister Tony Blair---despite new evidence the war was illegal---a resounding, "Eh, why not." But don't be expecting any invitations for tea from the commoners anytime soon, Sir Earl of Lapdog.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to your Wednesday morning Moment of Zen. So...have you heard about Eric Whitacre's "Virtual Choir"? He auditioned people from 12 countries via You Tube clips and tapped 185 of them to record their parts individually for his piece, Lux Aurumque. (I believe that's Latin for "The wheels on the bus go round and round.") Assembling them all into one chorus and adding some nifty visual flair, it comes to amazing online life. If you're sick of oil spills and "Papers, please" laws and Goldman Sachs and terrorist bomb plots and GOP filibuster threats, click here and chill. Oh, and first person to make a 'needs more cowbell' joke gets a wedgie. I swear.
Have a positive day within the normal bounds of reason. And if I may say: Owie. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill in Portland Maine draws the line at nudity
---People
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