From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead
Monday SpaceX makes history by launching a Dragon cargo pod destined for the Space Station and saving the reusable stage-1 rocket booster by landing it on a tiny platform in the Atlantic Ocean. It'll be a big win for the space industry, and an even bigger win for the motivational metaphor poster industry.
HILLARY marco CLINTON rubio ENTERED enters THE the RACE race YESTERDAY today.
Also this week: one of
these may poink in Maine.
Tuesday Today is Equal Pay Day, symbolizing how women have to work 16 months to earn what men earned in the twelve months of 2014. Or, as Phyllis Schlafly calls it: "If You Spent Your Time Improving The Job Prospects For The Men In Your Lives, You Wouldn’t Have To Worry About Equal Pay Day Day."
Hope and optimism sweep across America today right up until the moment we all realize that Congress is back in session.
Wednesday Today is the day you need to make sure you've sent enough money to the IRS to pay your income taxes. If you're in the top one percent, today is the day you need to make sure you've sent enough money to the Cayman Islands to dodge your income taxes.
The state of the economy takes center stage as the Federal Reserve unveils its latest "Beige Book," aka the "Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions" based on anecdotal information. Spoiler alert: in one of the anecdotes, a priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar and halve the deficit.
Thursday America's conservative punditry issues a joint statement of apology after they realize they've gone a full day without comparing transgender and gay people to Hitler and/or Satan.
Rand Paul announces a new policy of only allowing Rand Paul to interview Rand Paul.
Friday The spring fiddlehead forecast is released and, once again, experts are torn between "sauteed" and "pickled."
Opening in theaters today: Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. It'll be great opportunity to relive the fun of doing whatever I was doing when I wasn't going to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop 1.
Saddle up. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 13, 2015
Note: Today is Monday the 13th. Less unlucky than Friday, but definitely more Mondayish.
-
9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Earth Day:
9
Days 'til the
FIRST Tech Challenge student robotics competition in St. Louis:
9
Effective federal tax rate paid by President Obama and VP Biden in 2014:
19.6%, 23.3%
Percent chance that Saudi Arabia's ally Pakistan will help it dislodge the rebels in Yemen:
0%
(Source: Unanimous vote in the Pakistani parliament)
Amount Idaho may now lose in federal child-support funding because a House panel killed a bill over concerns that it would bring Sharia law to the state:
$46 million
Amount of change abandoned in plastic TSA-screening bins at Boston's
Logan Airport last year:
$13,000
(Source:
Boston Globe)
The Dow's close on Friday:
18,057
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Getting comfy
-
CHEERS to a pleasant thaw. President Obama decided to slice him off a chunk of American history over the weekend by spending some face time with Cuba's president. And it sounds like they had a pleasant little chat:
"Howdly doo!" "Hey dee ho!"
"Obviously there are still going to be deep and significant differences between our two governments," Obama told Castro as they met in Panama, where they both attended a summit of leaders from across the Americas. The U.S. president said he believed both sides could raise their concerns about the other's policies yet still work together to boost commercial, travel and diplomatic ties. "The Cold War is over ... Cuba is not a threat to the United States," Obama later told reporters, pointing out that at 53, he wasn't even born when Castro and his brother Fidel seized power in the 1959 Cuban revolution. …
The last time the leaders of the two countries held a substantive meeting was in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower was U.S. president and Fulgencio Batista was the U.S.-backed dictator in power in Havana.
Full transcript
is here. I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama got a little bump in the polls among Republicans. After all, he finally did something that took us back to the 1950s.
CHEERS to an appropriate re-introduction. I'm not sure who was more interested in watching Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential announcement…Democrats looking for fresh reasons to love her, or Republicans looking for fresh reasons to hate her. For a while there, both camps were unified in a message of "what is taking her so damn long?!" But in the early afternoon, the video hat was tossed in the You Tube ring:
Democrats love it because it's happy, heartfelt and hopeful. Republicans hate it because it's Hillary.
CHEERS to #3. Happy 272nd birthday to founding father and President Thomas Jefferson. Cormac O'Brien's book Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents sums up the "Sage of Monticello" rather well (although we're quick to do a facepalm over his ownership and treatment of slaves):
Happy Birthday, Jeff...
Thomas Jefferson was the walking, talking embodiment of the Enlightenment, a polymath whose list of achievements is as long as it is incredibly varied. As if penning the Declaration of Independence, sitting as governor of Virginia during the Revolution, and serving as Secretary of State in George Washington's first term weren't enough, he went on to do much more---architecture, linguistics, agriculture, philosophy, music, prose, you name it. While others dabbled, Jefferson mastered.
Pay your respects
here. Jefferson, by the way, was also "fond of greeting ambassadors in his pajamas." If you ring our doorbell tonight, I'll treat ya to a free reenactment.
JEERS to the War of Wingnut Aggression. Focus On The Family's James Dobson says that gays getting the right to marry could lead to another Civil War. No problem, Jimmy. We know which side will win that conflict, and we'd be happy to kick your side's ass again. And this time we'll burn all your damn flags and ban your statues. Like we shoulda done the first time.
CHEERS to a golfer who left us spiethless. The 2015 wearer of the Green Technicolor Dreamcoat was decided at the Masters golf tournament yesterday. Jordan Spieth, 21, won all the marbles. Our condolences to second-place finishers Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose, who limp away from Augusta with only $880,000. Some days it's all you can do to pay the rent.
CHEERS to happy endings. 45 years ago today, en route to the moon, Apollo 13 commander Tom Hanks Jim Lovell announced, "Houston, we've got a problem" after an oxygen tank exploded. Through sheer brilliance on the part of NASA's team and the crew, they returned safely four days later. A "successful failure" is what they called that mission. Or as it's also known: a "day in the life of Fox & Friends."
-
Ten years ago in C&J: April 13, 2005
CHEERS to jeers. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer's Bush-ass-kissing book, 'Taking Heat,' appears to be selling so poorly that the publisher is looking to dump copies for pennies on the dollar. I guess people just aren't in the mood for fiction right now.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to Kodak moments. If Ronald Reagan's presidential photographer had ever gotten a shot like this, it would be hanging on every Republican's living room wall as a totally-real example of his divine awesomeness. Instead, a different president's photographer (the great Pete Souza) got the shot and Republicans can't stop mocking it seven ways to Sunday:
Won't that look nice on the living room wall.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
A blob of warm water in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool may be to blame for some of the bizarre weather in the United States this year, a new study suggests.
---Christian Science Monitor
-