From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Just this:
My annual posting of this exchange on Real Time with Bill Maher from April, 2011, because oh my god:
Bill Maher: The tea party is not all Republican?
Former RNC Wrecker Michael Steele: No, it's not! I don’t know the exact percentage, but it is not all Republicans.
And since you've been such a great audience, here's some bonus Michael Steele circa 2009, as he struggles with what current RNC Wrecker Reince Priebus now calls "rebranding":
"The GOP is a hat. Some people wear a hat frontwards, others cocked to the left. Some wear it backwards because that’s how they roll. The strength of the party is in this: the fact that you’re willing to put the damn thing on. The problem we’ve had as a party is: too many of our friends, neighbors, colleagues are taking the hat off, because we’ve decided we don’t like the way they wear it... The GOP is not about how you wear the hat, but the fact that you want to wear the hat."
Well, in fairness, not every Republican who leaves the party just stopped wearing the hat. For a lot of 'em it's because they stopped breathing.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Note: Handy links for info or to make a donation to the relief effort:
Nepal-related site from USAID
Nepal-related Shelterbox post.
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til David Letterman's last show:
3
Days 'til the
Rooster Days Festival in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma:
9
Date on which Microsoft will stop offering technical and security support for Windows Server 2003:
7/14/15
Estimated number of computers still running Server 2003 worldwide:
12 million
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Rank of Switzerland, Iceland and Denmark on the latest list of happiest countries among 158 surveyed:
#1, #2, #3
Rank of the U.S., one notch below Mexico:
#15
(Source:
United Nations via Time)
Year Tyson Foods estimates it will stop using antibiotics in its chickens:
2017
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 181 (including 5 Nuclear Nations and 1 70's-era secret cold war bunker with $4 billion in cash). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Squirrel haiku by Dog
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JEERS to strong words falling on deaf ears. But kudos anyway to President Obama for interrupting his presser with the Japanese prime minister yesterday to give a 15-minute soliloquy on America's ever-festering racism epidemic in general and the unrest in Baltimore in particular:
Strong words. But don't expect
any government help, Baltimore.
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“There are police departments that have to do some soul-searching. I think there are some communities that have to do some soul-searching. But I think we as a country have to do some soul-searching. This is not new. It’s been going on for decades.” […]
“If we think that we’re just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ --- then we’re not going to solve this problem.” Obama said. “And we’re going to go through the same cycles of periodic violence, and the occasional riots in the streets, and everybody will feign concern until it goes away, and then we go about our business as usual.”
As for getting any kind of support from the federal government, Obama said, “I’m under no illusion, that out of this Congress we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities.” Responded Republicans: "Hey! We agree with the president on something!" Then they slunk away to their offices to look up the word "soul."
CHEERS to A Supreme-ly busy day. Oral arguments were made yesterday at the Supreme Court, with marriage rights for same-sex couples the topic of pleasant conversation (if you don’t count Clarence Thomas who said nothing or the protester in the chamber who started screaming that gays are going to hell). NBC News' Pete Williams has as good a roundup as any here, but if you just want the Cliffs Notes version of what we know for sure after digesting all the back-and-forth between the justices and the lawyers, here you go:
Please join us in two months for the hatching.
CHEERS to exactly the right word. 163 years ago, Roget's Thesaurus was first published. And for that I am truly grateful; thankful; affording pleasure or comfort; fulfilled; appreciative; obliged; down with that; sweet on it; fist bump-ready; engorged with the sweet nectar of gratification in a small cabin in Saskatchewan where the only sound is the bugling of the elk. Roget was lonely.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Science Daily asks: Is the universe a hologram?
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to Hillary's moral compass. He's doin' it! Tomorrow Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is announcing that he wants his to be the next butt parked behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office:
Tomorrow Bernie makes it official.
Sanders' entry into the Democratic race ensures that Hillary Clinton will face a challenge to win the support of the liberal wing of the party.
Sanders' basic message will be that the middle class in America has been decimated in the past two decades while wealthy people and corporations have flourished. His opposition to a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (T.P.P.) shows how he plans to frame this key issue of his campaign.
On paper he's a
freakin' dream candidate. In fact, I'm trying to think real hard of a policy misstep that Bernie has made in his entire House and Senate career. But not too hard because my brain has a habit of short-circuiting. (Hence the note I keep on the refrigerator door reminding Michael where we keep the extra fuses.)
JEERS to Nazi Nuptials. Adolf and Eva got hitched in der Bunker 70 years ago today. Instead of a ring der Fuhrer presented his bride with an iron Cross. It pretty much went downhill after that. By the way, the 70th anniversary present for a dead Nazi is 70 more years in Hell. (And Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 29, 2005
CHEERS to doing The Hustle. Somebody spotted a flying saucer hovering over the White House, so George W. Bush was shoved downstairs into his bunker. His last words before shutting the door: "Save the GameBoy! Save the GameBoy!"
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And just one more…
Apparently the Tony
Award is a tiny gong.
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CHEERS to jolly good shows. These days awards season never ends. Yesterday it was Broadway's turn, announcing its nominations for the Tony Awards. You can see the whole list---in dazzling
COLOR!---
here. The Big winners were
Fun Home and the revival of
An American in Paris. Among the actors who got the call: Bradley Cooper and Patricia Clarkson (
The Elephant Man), Helen Mirren (
The Audience), Chita Rivera (
The Visit) and Bill Nighy (
Skylight). The Tony's of course, honor people for the dedication they put into carefully creating alternate realities on a stage, with performers reading carefully-crafted and memorized lines that fool the audience into believing what they're seeing and hearing is true when it's all just an illusion created as an opportunity to take their money. It's like a conservative political convention except with jazz hands.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"For the first time, we have imaged the continuous volcanic plumbing system under the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool. That includes the upper crustal pie chamber we have seen previously plus a lower crustal pie reservoir that has never been imaged before."
---Hsin-Hua Huang
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