From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Greetings! I am Speaking To You As A Pirate!"
Mornin', me hearrrrties! The most important day of the year is here: Talk Like A Pirate Day. C&J primes the annual pump:
Winston Churchill: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest arrr!'"
General Motors: "Take yerself fer a spin in our new electric carrr!"
American worker: "Thanks to those greedy bastards on Wall Street, I may never get to retarrr!"
Phil Mickelson: "Parrr!"
Democratic strategist: "Keep your eye on San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. He's a rising starrr!"
"I can't have pirates working here,
I'm running for office for Pete's sake!"
Postal abbreviation of Bill Clinton's home state: AR!!!!
Mitt Romney: Gosh, I think Talk Like A Pirate Day is a swell idea! It's a lighthearted reminder that the moochers who support President Obama are filling their "treasure chests" with taxpayer "pieces of eight"---that's the money they used back then, you see---and burying it on some deserted island, like the Cayman Islands which Ann and I love so dearly. And if we get four more years of big-spending liberal "plundering," it will surely "shiver our timbers." I think Obama should "walk the plank," my friends, for the reasons I've just described in some detail. But seriously, I love Pirate Land, ladies and gentlemen. The peg legs are the right height, lemme tell ya. Ten thousand dollar bet that Polly wants a cracker? Ten thousand dollar bet???
And a bonus:
"There is a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing---that's what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they'd be your relatives. But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter 'D'? Because it's a grade that means 'good enough, but just barely.' You know why the Republican symbol is 'R'? Because it's the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark."
---Bill Marrrr
C'mon down and splash in the pirate lagoon. There's an open barrrr! Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Note: The Netroots Nation Fall Auction is now OPEN! Bid early and bid often except stuff I'm bidding on…
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Halloween: 42
Days 'til the first annual Arlington Apple Festival and Corn Hole Tournament in Kentucky: 10
Percent of Americans who are moochers, victims and freeloaders: 47%
(Source: The Republican nominee for President of the United States)
Percent of likely voters in Colorado who support a ballot measure to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana: 51%
(Source: SurveyUSA via The Denver Post)
Portion of workers in Ohio who are tied to the auto industry: 1-in-8
Number of iPhone 5s sold in the first 24 hours of pre-sale activity: 2 million
(Source: MSNBC)
Number of doughnut shops in America, an increase of two percent from last year: 14,000
(Source: The Portland Press Herald)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 4 Inflations and 1 cosmically shiny penny). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Fallon becomes a new puppy dad.
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CHEERS to getting nowhere. Mitt Romney's presidential bid has become so hapless that there are apparently no more wheels left to fall off his campaign bus. It's so bad that Intrade has downgraded his chances from "Unlikely" to "Quixotic." A summary of his Disaster Summer is warranted, I think, for posterity and because I'm starting to lose track of all the incompetence. This, ladies and gentleman, is the three-month record of the most organized campaigner who ever lived (just ask him):
The Soviet threat. The #1 threat to America, say Mitt and his surrogates, is a country that no longer exists. The unicorns are plentiful there, we hear.
His taxes. Imagine how bad they could be. They're worse.
The disastrous overseas trip. This week conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron said the ill-will against Mitt's visit was so lasting that the United Kingdom is now united against him. And did you know Jews are rich? I do now, thanks to Mitt telling me that from Israel.
"You didn't build that"/"Welfare recipients just collect their checks" ads. 100% bullshit and the media unabashedly said so. If these ads were hawking a consumer product under the purview of the FTC, they'd be forced off the air.
The GOP convention. No one will remember a thing about this creepy event except Clint Eastwood's conversation with an empty chair.
$250,000 is "middle class." Dude. Seriously?
The Libya statement. Before anyone knew what was really happening, Romney inserted himself into American foreign policy, thus making a bad situation even worse. Falsely accusing Obama of "apologizing for America" reveals desperate campaign eager to throw anything at the wall to see if it sticks.
The "47 Percent" tirade. At the home of a fellow venture capitalist and sexcapade organizer, Romney goes the Full Versailles, unloading on seniors, veterans, the poor and the unemployed. On the upside: his millionaire/billionaire donors were very pleased.
No solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It looks difficult to Mitt, so let's go boating on Lake Winnipesauke instead.
Other than that, he's running a fantastic campaign and doing very well in the polls. Obama, I mean.
JEERS to a reminder of why you can't spell wanker without "W." Obama ruined the economy, huh? Really? Let's peek back three years to the Census Bureau report on Bush II's record, and see if we can spot any clues as to why he's persona non grata in the Republican party:
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked.
Nietzsche said, "What does not destroy me makes me stronger." I guess that explains why, after eight years of Bush, I can still go outside anytime I want and bench press an SUV.
CHEERS to a (mostly) happy ending. The Chicago teachers strike is over!!!
Six months later, Billy had
diagrammed the sentence
The contract offer gives teachers, on average, a 17.6 percent pay raise over the next four years, as well as retaining other salary bumps for experience and pursuing a graduate degree. The offer also includes tougher job evaluations where teachers are rated, in part, on how well their students performed on standardized tests and, for the first time, a re-hire pool for teachers who’ve been laid off because the district closed their schools.
All the kids are pouring into classes this morning. And all the parents are pouring mimosas into glasses this morning.
JEERS to deep-sixing #20. On September 19, 1881, President James Garfield died 80 days after some disgruntled jerk whipped out a couple guns and shot him in the back. True story: Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet using his new invention, the metal detector, but the steel springs in Garfield's bed rendered it useless. It's also unfortunate that his doctors weren't terribly familiar with the word "hygiene." Someday we'll be able to joke about it. But not today---after only 131 years, it's all still too raw.
CHEERS to a noble Endeavour. I'm full 'o nostalgia this morning, knowing that I won’t be writing about the Space Shuttle program in real time for much longer. All that's left is for two more to head to their respective museums. [Sigh.] As you read this, the Shuttle Endeavour is traveling from the Kennedy Space Center to Los Angeles (with a pit stop, I believe, in Texas), where it will go on display at the California Science Center:
Happy 747 humpday, Endeavour
While we are building Endeavour's permanent home, a new addition to the Science Center called the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, Endeavour will be on display in the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, opening October 30, 2012. Along with the orbiter, the pavilion will feature video experiences and significant artifacts such as the Spacehab flown in Endeavour's payload bay on shuttle mission STS-118. The California Story gallery will also feature components that flew into space with Endeavour,
such as Endeavour's potty, galley and the tires from STS-134, Endeavour's final mission.
The dance floor will go to the Smithsonian.
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Five years ago in C&J: September 19, 2007
CHEERS to irrational exuberance. The Federal reserve cut interest rates by a half a percentage point yesterday, and the Dow soared 336 points. So you know what that means? YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car and YOU get a car...!!! And they'll all come with a roll of diamond-encrusted toilet paper. Yeeeeee haw! [9/19/12 Update: And then we lost it all when Wall Street fucked us over and now the Fed can't cut interest rates anymore because they're at zero percent and…DAMN YOU OBAMA FOR CAUSING ALL THIS WHEN YOU WEREN'T PRESIDENT!!!]
CHEERS to Doc Clinton. I'm not saying it's the greatest thing since leeches came on the scene, but Hillary's health care plan (and, to be fair, other candidates', too) has language that gives me warm fuzzies. Like this: "Coverage would continue despite job loss, major illness." And this: "No discrimination for pre-existing conditions." Europe and Canada are no doubt tittering as we wet our pants over these common-sense issues, to which we respond: Oh yeah? At least we're smart enough to put our cheese in individual plastic sleeves. (That oughtta shut 'em up.)
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And just one more…
Stupid bus
to taking a dump in our bed. The giant gas-guzzling "You Didn’t Build That!" bus sponsored by Americans for Prosperity---the tea party astroturf outfit funded by the Koch brothers---trundled into downtown Portland, Maine on Monday. They came to educate people in one of the most intelligent and liberal (sorry for the redundancy) American cities on all the reasons why we should hate that intelligent, liberal President Obama. But the bus parked awkwardly just off of Congress Street in Monument Square, making it difficult for people to get by and impossible to park, and it just sat there stinking like a big turd, doors shut, belching fumes. So now everyone in Portland, Maine hates Americans for Prosperity because of their stinky stupid monster bus. Heckuva job.
Have a not stinky, not stupid Wednesday! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"The essential problem is that every time Bill in Portland Maine touches Cheers and Jeers, he breaks things. "
---Nicholas Kristoff
9/16/12
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