From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
It's Netroots Nation Scholarship Time!
We'll have a full NN14 update later this week (spoiler alert: all the cats are being herded quite well so far), but I didn't want three more days to go by before making sure you know about this. Over to you, Executive Director Raven Brooks…
Winners get free registration
and hotel digs at NN14.
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To help 30 people get to Detroit (July 17-20), we're once again partnering with Democracy for America to offer scholarships to deserving activists, organizers and bloggers from across the country who might not have the resources to attend otherwise.
The scholarship program is designed to send the movement’s best and brightest to the biggest progressive conference of the year. This is your chance to tout what you're doing to make your community a more progressive, inclusive place.
The five applicants with the most votes overall will automatically win a scholarship covering the cost of registration and lodging. The remaining 25 spots will be chosen by a selection committee.
Good luck!
For
more details and to enter, click here. That link
also lets you nominate someone you know who you believe is deserving of a scholarship.
The competition ends at 11:59pm on Monday, May 12th.
Note: as always, inhabitants of our cousin planet Keplar-186f are also eligible. Remember, progressive Keplarian hopefuls: one lantern in the International Space Station window means you're in. Two lanterns means sorry, try again next year.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 21, 2014
Note: Due to the Patriots' Day holiday, Monday trash pickup in Maine and Massachusetts will be happening today, tomorrow or last Saturday. A message from your friends at the Department of Unhelpful Municipal Reminders.
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5 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next
partial solar eclipse:
8
Days 'til the
Central Railroad Festival in South Carolina:
5
Percent chance that Overland Park, Kansas shooter F. Glenn Miller was forbidden from owning a gun because he was a convicted felon:
100%
(Source:
The Kansas City Star)
Number of countries from which the
80 people sworn in as new American citizens Friday in Portland, Maine came:
30
Increase in newspaper circulation revenue in 2013:
3.7%
Decrease in newspaper ad revenue in 2013:
6.5%
(Source: Newspaper Association of America)
Maximum number of twists required to solve a standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube puzzle:
20
(Source:
Parade)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: That's usin' the ol' beans!
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CHEERS to timely updates. As we start a new week, here's where things stand in the world:
Ukraine: tense.
Syria: bloody.
"Cockadoodle yadda yadda..."
Nigeria: bloodier.
Mount Everest: sad.
Flight 370: ???
South Korea ferry: !!!
Keystone XL pipeline approval: happily going nowhere.
Immigration reform: sadly going nowhere.
Jobs: stuck in neutral.
Fox News: stuck in reverse.
Sun: rising.
Gold: falling.
Obama: leading.
Boehner: bronzing.
I believe it's all downhill from here.
JEERS to talking out of both sides of your ass. Here, in a nutshell, is why ABC needs to stop booking grifters from the religious right on their flagship "This Week" program. This is what happens to Ralph Reed (Time magazine's "Right Hand of God" cover boy) when he is lightly challenged by Cokie Roberts on adoption by same sex couples:
Gee, I wonder what he's
doing with his left hand.
Reed: The social science is irrefutable: a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present [fares worse].
Cokie Roberts: “But the social science is also irrefutable that a child raised in an orphanage is in much worse shape than a child raised in a home, and the fact that people are willing to take these children and raise them, and raise them in a loving way, is clearly better for these children.” […]
Reed: “I think the social science is just simply not in yet on same-sex couples.”
This is what happens when the god squad attempts to rely on junk science versus
credible science. They lose the narrative so fast that they end up swallowing their own tail. I actually respect the odious Franklin Graham, who was part of the same roundtable discussion yesterday, for at least having the stones to be a bald-faced bigot without hiding behind the "science" window dressing. His "irrefutable" fact: fags recruit children to be fags and God hates fags and they're going to hell because Bible. If ever the devil wrote poetry…
"Go, bebbeh, go!"
CHEERS to babies and bunnies and Obamas, oh my! It's widely known in beltway circles that the single most important criteria by which to judge a presidency is its Easter Egg Rolls. Today history will again witness
the annual spectacle hosted by the President and First Lady on the south lawn of the White House. This year, the child who finds the coveted "golden egg" wins the grand prize: ten minutes at the NSA listening to what comes through the hidden microphone in Angela Merkel's study as she takes her weekly tuba lesson.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Liz Dwyer at TakePart.com asks: Could Creating a Methane-Free Cow Help Stop Climate Change?
Moobetcha!
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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It's their big day!
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CHEERS to being patriotismier than thou. Today is Patriot's Day (yes, that's where the apostrophe
goes up here), a commemoration of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that sparked our War of Independence 239 years ago. Only three states are flagpinny enough to make it an official holiday: Maine, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. The big event today is the 118th
Boston Marathon. As usual, I'll go out on a limb and predict that the winners will be the Obama-trained Kenyans. Unless the nerd from MIT perfects his rocket shoes in time...and someone can achieve the impossible by waking him up before noon.
CHEERS to wurds. 186 yeers agow tooday, Noah Webster puhbilshed the fuhrst (frist??) Amarrican dikshunery. It hellpd peeple spull bettor. (Sorry about that...this is the one day of the year that we let our spellchecker have the keys to the liquor cabinet.)
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Five years ago in C&J: April 21, 2009
CHEERS to pressing the flesh. You've already read about how President Obama was man enough to shake Hugo Chavez's hand and live to tell the tale. But what you may not have seen---and what Republicans will deny ever took place---is the lecture Chavez got from Obama afterward. I believe he actually sent the Venezuelan leader to bed without supper. Although he was allowed to be tucked in with his stuffed Fidel Castro doll. (It's life-size. Creepy.)
CHEERS to a speedy recovery. Sixty seven year-old Stephen Hawking is in the hospital with a chest infection. We'll get an update on his health this morning. Please keep him in your thoughts. The day we lose him is the day the world's IQ drops by a third.
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And just one more…
This year she got some
tootsie warmers from
Mary, Queen of Socks.
CHEERS to Queen Elizabeth. Now playing on her iPod:
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday, Dear Mum, Ma'am, Your Highness
Happy Birthday to you!
I'm a little busy today, so I'm counting on you to spank her 88 times. (And don't forget to give her "a pinch to grow an inch." Then run like hell.)
Oh, and speaking of royals: we feel it necessary to bow to King Henry VIII on this, the 505th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Mainly because we're rather fond of keeping our head---oh, what's the word?---attached. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Study: Bill in Portland Maine is not a living fossil
---News24
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