Just Dropping In to Say Hello
This afternoon, at 3:48 ET, the Perseverance probe—complete with attached drone helicopter— will drop down from the skies over the red planet, briefly sending Martian NORAD to Defcon 1 before touching down after “7 minutes of terror” next to the McGillicutty homestead in the Jezero Crater. Roughly 10 minutes later, NASA will receive the first Polaroids and share them with humanity back here on the blue dot. Today’s historic event is what our current president—the first one since the last one to not treat science like a four-letter word—would categorize as "a big f*cking deal."
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More on the mission here at NASA’s digs. If you need me today I'll be in survival bunker D clutching my lucky John Glenn bobblehead and holding my breath.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, February 18, 2021
Note: Here's your Johns Hopkins Medical Center Helpful Health Tip of the Day: bubble wrap everything, especially your groin area. Now go out into the world and be super.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Daylight Saving Time kicks in: 24
President Biden's approval rating in the new Morning Consult-Politico poll: 62%
Date through which the Biden administration is extending both the COVID foreclosure moratorium and the mortgage payment forbearance enrollment window: 6/30/21
Percent of independents polled by Gallup who say they want to have a third party to join that's not Democrats or Republicans: 70%
Number of states in 1993 and 2021, respectively, that had split-party Senate delegations: 21 / 6
Recreational marijuana sales from Maine's 15 licensed dispensaries in January, resulting in $247,000 tax revenue for the state: $2.5 million
Average cost of an eighth of an ounce, enough for 14 cigarette-size joints: $52
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
One of the things that concerns a lot of Americans lately is the increase in plain old nastiness in our political discussion. It comes from a number of sources, but Rush Limbaugh is a major carrier.
I should explain that I am not without bias in this matter. I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. [...]
I wouldn’t say that dittoheads, as a group, lack the ability to reason. It’s just that whenever I run across one, he seems to be at a low ebb in reasoning skills. Poor ol’ Bill Sarpalius, one of our dimmer Panhandle congressmen, was once trying to explain to a town hall meeting of his constituents that Limbaugh was wrong when he convinced his listeners that Bill Clinton’s tax package contained a tax increase on the middle class. (It increased taxes only on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.) A dittohead in the crowd rose to protest: “We don’t send you to Washington to make responsible decisions. We send you there to represent us.”
—May 1995
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A rancher's work is never done…
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CHEERS to clusterfucks for dummies. I admit, I wasn't aware that Texas—that bastion of energy-producing brilliance, so I've been told a million times by Texas—had such a weird, spit-and-bailing-twine electric grid. In fact, it's taken me a few days to absorb just how bad it is as the Arctic-o-pocalypse continues to reveal a system—ERCOT, the R standing uproariously for "reliability"—seemingly created by the shortest-term thinkers anywhere. Yesterday in the C&J comments, Grandma Ada revealed why, while also putting the crisis in language even I can now understand:
They buy energy the DAY BEFORE, even when a storm is coming! Also, since they are set up to only buy what they think is needed, many energy generators don’t produce in winter because they either can’t sell it or it’s too low in price. When summer comes, everyone is producing.
I heard a U of Houston prof give a good analogy: ERCOT is like fielding a baseball team but you only pay the ten who play, so the benchwarmers don’t show up. If a player is hurt, you have no backup. Of course Abbott et al are trying to blame wind turbines, solar farms, Jewish space lasers etc., but the Board that failed us was the one he appointed! Come on 2022!
Wow. That's just all kinds of messed up. But, being a stickler for facts, we do have one minor correction: Texas has an exclusive contract with the Southern Baptist space lasers.
P.S. Stay classy, Rusty...
To be fair, he needs the rest. I hear that inciting an insurrection really takes it outta ya.
CHEERS to the birth of a new metaphor. Yesterday morning, a little after 9, this once-proud bastion of hookers and blow, where the aroma of cigarette smoke and bleach wafted through the air in equal measure…
...took a faceplant:
We’ll all want to bookmark that tweet. I have a feeling it’s going to come in handy. Especially after the readings of verdicts.
CHEERS to stalling for America's future. 180 years ago today, on February 18, 1841, the first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11. Before you read about the details below, you might want to whip up a li’l Filibuster cocktail. Good—let us proceed:
Until the late 1830s, the filibuster remained a solely theoretical option, never actually exercised. The first Senate filibuster occurred in 1837.
In 1841, a defining moment came during debate on a bill to charter the Second Bank of the United States. Senator Henry Clay tried to end the debate via majority vote, and Senator William R. King threatened a filibuster, saying that Clay "may make his arrangements at his boarding house for the winter." Other senators sided with King, and Clay backed down. The word “filibuster” was derived from the Dutch word meaning “pirate.”
One thing we'll never have to worry about—a politician running out of words.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to great discoveries. As we’re waiting for Perseverance to take the spotlight, it’s worth a mention that on this date in 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered a new "dwarf planet" waaaay out at the outer rim of our solar system. A few summers ago the New Horizons probe flew by and took some Polaroids, and you can keep track of its further adventures here. Here's a wild image from the Griffith Observatory that shows what the sphere (and its adorbs heart-shaped region) would look like if it was just a wee bit closer to earth:
By the way, Tombaugh called it “Pluto.” Republican ideas still prefer to call it “Home.”
CHEERS to today's edition of What Dang Fool Thing Has Joe Done Now? This is a two-fer. On Tuesday, President Biden climbed the steps to Air Force One to travel to Wisconsin. If you can stomach it, here's the footage:
Did you catch that? He failed to have any toilet paper on the bottom of his shoe, and then he delivered a crisp military salute that shows he actually takes being Commander-in-Chief seriously. With that kind of behavior, it’s gonna be a long eight years. By which I of course mean an incredibly short eight years.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 18, 2011
CHEERS to something that looks really awesome on a resume. President Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to several recipients Tuesday at the White House. The awards are given out for "An especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." This year's gaggle:
Maya Angelou
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Congressman John Lewis
John H. Adams
Warren Buffett
Jasper Johns
Gerda Weissmann Klein
Dr. Tom Little (Posthumous)
President George H. W. Bush
Yo-Yo Ma
Sylvia Mendez
Stan "The Man" Musial
Bill Russell
Jean Kennedy Smith
John J. Sweeney
Some nice pics at Blackwaterdog's digs. Each honoree gets the medal, a ribbon, a tie clip, and command of their own infantry division.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to processions with punch. Gotta give a shout-out to my homies (I assume over there they’re called “hausies”) in Dusseldorf, Germany, which was my playground as a kid for five years back in the 70s. Earlier this week they had their annual (though scaled-down) carnival-related Rose Monday parade, for which they create outrageous floats that lampoon politicians the world over. You can see some of them here, but I’ll highlight one I love: Joe Biden's predecessor being roasted like a pig over a "Make America Great Again" camp fire. A fine swan song:
The red-hatted cultists quickly condemned the float, saying it was unnecessarily inflammatory to compare the 45th president to a pig. But not before all the pigs signed a petition condemning the float, saying it was unnecessarily inflammatory to compare them to the 45th president.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
”Highest-Resolution Images of Bill in Portland Maine Reveal He's Surprisingly Jiggly”
—Gizmodo
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