From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead
Monday Europe wakes up to find that France has a new president: Francois Hollande, a socialist. Austerity pushers across Europe and the U.S. recoil in horror at the news, knowing that Hollande will soon add more proof that they've been full of crap all along.
Ron Paul does a happy dance after finding out that his supporters totally owned Maine's Republican state convention over the weekend, snatching 20 of 24 national delegates. In a brief moment of bipartisan unity, Democrats lace up their tap shoes and join in from the sidelines.
Brits get the day off because of a rare event called a "Bank Holiday." (Please note that the traditional Bank Holiday cheese rolling event on Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire has been moved to June 4). Here in America, meanwhile, the big banks will observe their usual holiday tradition of worshipping themselves on days that end in y.
Tuesday Election day! Voters in Indiana will likely send 149-year-old Senator Dick Lugar packing. Voters in North Carolina will decide if discrimination should be written into their state constitution. And with 60 percent of the races either unfilled or uncontested, voters in West Virginia will mostly show up at the polls for the free doughnuts.
The House Financial Services subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology holds a hearing on ways to improve the Federal Reserve. Proposals expected to receive unanimous support: "Taco Tuesdays," new air fresheners in the bathrooms, and a fresh row of marble columns.
Wednesday The penguin that bit Newt Gingrich dies of Newt Gingrich poisoning.
Lint screens fly at half staff for National Lost Sock Memorial Day. They left us too early, darn them.
Thursday The Labor Department announces jobless claims for the week. Once again, the #1 claim is, "Once again, I'm jobless for the #!&#@!! week."
Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's dog, Otis, comes out publicly against forced high-speed canine car roof incarceration.
The Netroots Nation convention begins one month from today. Repairing the hole in the ceiling from firing the starter bazooka begins one month and one minute from today.
Friday The University of Michigan's May consumer sentiment report comes out. Economists express optimism as the mood climbs from "flamboyantly indifferent" to "outlandishly nonplussed."
Mother's Day is two days away. That's your reminder. You're welcome.
It's dawn.
Saddle up.
We ride.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, May 7, 2012
Note: Yes! Obamacare covers Supermoon burn. Visit Lunarbooboo.gov for details.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day in NC. WV and IN: 1
Days 'til Eat What You Want Day: 4
Average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage, the lowest in nearly 60 years: 3.84%
(Source: Fannie Mae)
Percent increase since 2006 in the number of people going to emergency rooms for routine dental problems: 16%
(Source: Harper's Index)
Cost in Europe to release one metric ton of carbon dioxide into the air, according to the EU's cap-and-trade program that works well: $10.50
(Source: The Atlantic)
Amount the top 17 airlines charged during the first three quarters of 2011 for cancellation and re-booking fees: $1.8 billion
(Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
Rank of Track & Field, basketball and volleyball in terms of popularity with high school girls: #1, #2, #3
(Source: USA Today)
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NEW! Revvin' Up for Rhode Island!
Brought to you by the 2012 Netroots Nation Convention in Providence, June 7-10. Don’t look now, but I'm about to rock your world with some---[Whooosh!!!]---Census Bureau Quickfacts!!!
Population, 2011 estimate: 1,051,302
Population, percent change, 2000-2010: 0.4%
Female persons, percent, 2010: 51.7%
Mean travel time to work: 22.9 minutes
Median household income, 2006-2010: $54,902
Pretty intense, huh.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Summer on the horizon
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CHEERS to mayhem in Maine! Two years ago the Republican state convention got hijacked by the tea party, which turned the party platform into a paean to paranoia. This year there was pandemonium of a different kind when Ron Paul supporters took control and dominated the delegates. The Romney campaign, naturally, took it all in stride as it…
…dispatched its top lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, to Maine. Ginsberg was President George W. Bush's lawyer during the 2000 election recount. Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster said this morning that the Mitt Romney campaign will contest the results and attempt to have them thrown out. The Romney campaign will argue that the vote didn’t take place in an open forum, Webster said. After Paul supporters were elected into power Saturday the convention was tossed into chaos.
Typical Republicans. Experts at creating chaos. Stumblebums at getting out of it.
CHEERS to storming the Bastille of austerity. The Mitterrand days are back, mon ami! Francois Hollande was voted in yesterday as the first socialist president there since 1995. And now here's a random quote I found at Le Monde, which I hope sums up the election but doesn’t contain any cuss words on account of I can't read French and this is a family blog: "ne pas se démobiliser : il y a encore beaucoup à faire dans les mois qui viennent, et d'abord donner une majorité au président de la République". So now a major European player is going to get the continent talking about the opposite of austerity. Yay. Oh, and since Francois Mitterrand was the last socialist president, I looked him up on the Wiki Borg. Check this out:
Overall, as President, Mitterrand maintained the “basic characteristic of a strong welfare base underpinned by a strong state.” A United Nations Human Development report concluded that, from 1979 to 1989, France was the only country in the OECD (apart from Portugal) in which income inequalities did not get worse.
Memo to the EU: how ya like them baguettes!
CHEERS to hangin' with the Great Orange Satanistas. The weather cooperated Saturday for our Kossack meetup in Massachusetts at the home of Brillig and Mik. (Thank you!) The afternoon was spent talking about the looming Netroots Nation fun in Providence, playing games of Pin the Personality on the Romney, and bidding bon voyage to Kossack Virgomusic and her husband, Mcdoc, who are setting down new roots in Pittsburgh. Thanks to everyone who turned out, including Sardonyx, Nauticalknots and Linda, Ed Tracey, Moody Loner and Mrs. Loner, AnotherMassachusettsLiberal and his daughter, DtheO, BiPM (me!) and Common Sense Mainer---plus five kids as our chaperones and two dogs as our beer fetchers. And let me just say this pre-emptively: any photos that might make it onto TMZ or some other sleazy gossip site purporting to show me passed out face-down in a bowl of hummus are totally fake. From what I'm told it was mac and cheese.
JEERS to tactics of the lowlife. OMG!!! I saw a billboard by the Heartland Institute with a HUGE picture of the Unabomber that says: "I still believe in global warming. Do you?" So I got to thinkin' real hard, and…dang. If that's the case---if Ted Kaczynski really still believes in global warming---well, then, I can't believe in global warming anymore! Cuz if the Unabomber believes in it, and I believe in it, then that would mean I'M A UNABOMBER, TOO AND I'M NOT!!! Thank you, Heartland Institute, for posting that billboard. Without false equivalence I'd be lost.
CHEERS to lime, tangerine, strawberry, blueberry and grape. The rainbow-colored "flavors" of the new iMac were unveiled 14 years ago:
"We'll sell lots of them. This is the sexiest computer I've ever seen," said Jim Halpin, president and CEO of CompUSA. … The iMac will also be the first Mac to feature USB (universal serial bus) technology. This is important since the iMac is slotless. In other words, it does not offer the ability to add new features via circuit boards that typically plug into slots inside the computer; most computers come with these slots. Instead, Apple claims the USB technology will allow users to add devices externally through the USB connection. Apple has made another radical design decision: the iMac won't ship with a floppy disk drive or serial port connector.
Not to be outdone, PCs still come in a variety of cool colors, too: beige, black and gray. Mine is both black and gray. What can I say…I was born to be wild.
JEERS to the Grinchurian candidate. His fiendish plot unfolds. This was Barack HUSSEIN Obama on April 28 at the White House Correspondents Dinner:
In my second term, I will win the war on Christmas.
See? I
told you it was real! And now his fiendish plot is
unfolding right on schedule:
'Transplant shock' claims life of National Christmas Tree
The Colorado blue spruce passed away "due to complications resulting from transplant shock" just 14 months after it was planted in the Ellipse field outside the White House, the National Park Service said May 4, 2012.
Was it
really transplant shock? Or was it
muhderrrr??? Stay tuned to Fox News for updates. And someone get Kringle to an undisclosed location…stat!
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Five years ago in C&J: May 7, 2007
SACRE BLEU! to new blood in Old Europe. And the new keeper of the liberté, égalité and fraternité is conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. C&J's initial reaction: not impressed...he looks French. [5/7/12 Update: If you click the link you'll notice it says, "This page is not available." After getting drubbed yesterday by Francois Hollande, neither is Sarkozy.]
JEERS to bringing up baby. All you parents-to-be might want to sit down for this. According to Newsweek, it costs $1.6 million to raise a middle-class kid to adulthood. Puppy, anyone?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to defining the disease. Six months (as of yesterday) before Election Day 2012, Karl Rove and his gang of attack orcs are swarming to blame President Obama of everything from being a thoughtless warmonger to stealing lollipops from children. Of course, Obama has done neither, but Rove and his former bosses sure did. Two years ago, Jon Stewart identified the disease now afflicting Rove:
"Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, once two of the most powerful men in this country, are now suffering from Ballsheimer's disease. Ballsheimer's is a terrible illness that attacks the memory and gives its victims the balls to attack others for things they themselves made a career of. There is no known cure."
---Jon Stewart
But it's definitely contagious. Just ask Mitt Romney.
Have a nice Monday. And farewell, George Lindsay...you were always the One True Goober. 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 this year has been overwhelmingly negative
McClatchy News
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