From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Things I Pledge to Do for Mother Earth
Today is the 45th Earth Day, a worldwide event we celebrate every year to remind ourselves that we are, though we don't have to be, the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun. To mark the occasion, this year I pledge to...
Change the channel any time one of those lying oil company commercials claiming environmental responsibility comes on. (Note to BP: you'd walk away from your obligations to clean up the Gulf in a heartbeat if you thought you could get away with it. Thank god the government still has its boot on your neck, you upper-class twits.)
Rent a chopper and drop thousands of large plastic bins over the city to remind people that Portland recycles.
We live on the Ritz-Carlton of the universe.
And we're turning it into a flea-bitten dive.
Fart only on odd-numbered days. (This one'll be tough. I may need to attend support group meetings.)
Vote for Democrats.
Retrofit the car with hybrid technology so it only runs on gas when the team of kittens gets too tired to pull it.
Use only the sun and a magnifying glass to light up my bong. Er…uh…"water pipe."
Restrict my use of "fracking" to its handiness as an adjective paired with the word "idiots" to describe people who displease me.
Contribute to healthy forests by teaching tea partiers that watering trees with the blood of
tyrants actually kills them. Fracking idiots.
Close down tar sands sites by making spooky noises so the owners think they're haunted and run away.
Dispose of my spent fuel rods properly instead of selling them as glowsticks at raves.
And as an inhabitant of this spectacular planet, I'll continue to try and treat it with the respect it deserves, mostly by following the Four Rs: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Redouble my efforts in my basement lab to create a clone army of Bill McKibbens, James Hansens and Rachel Carsons." (Good news: I'm halfway there. Bad news: they're only half an inch tall.)
Meanwhile, Republicans will spend this Earth Day at national parks. Mostly to look for locations that are ripe for sinking drill bits.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Note: Today's C&J is written with 100% recycled pixels. But please---PLEASE!---don’t ask what they're recycled from.
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10 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on same-sex marriage:
6
Days 'til the
Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan:
10
Percent of U.S. businesses now forecasting higher sales for the 2nd quarter, up from 68% in January:
74%
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Year that
American Political Items Collectors was founded:
1945
Percent by which California almond grower water use exceeds that of the state's indoor household use:
22%
(Source: University of California research)
Percent of Americans who believe it's no longer practical for the Supreme Court to ban same-sex marriages because so
many states have legalized them:
51%
Percent who disagree:
35%
(Source:
USA Today/Suffolk University poll)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 179 (including 3 floods and 1 Ceiling Cat returning to save the chosen pooties). Soul Protection Factor 9 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Final season for Miss Babe Ruth
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CHEERS to the end of Holder's holding pattern. Looks like our current Attorney General will finally get to move on to greener pastures. Like a schoolyard bully eventually tires of batting his victim around like a cat toy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided he'd strung along the confirmation vote for Loretta Lynch long enough and…
Okay, NOW you can start
measuring the drapes.
…announced Tuesday that negotiators had reached a "bipartisan" deal on the anti-human trafficking bill, clearing the way for a vote to confirm attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch in the coming days. An agreement would end the latest Washington standoff, which has tied the Senate in knots for weeks. A skirmish over a provision in the anti-human trafficking bill quickly grew into a larger debate over abortion and race that resulted in the longest delay of an attorney general nominee in decades.
Said Democrats: "That was a ridiculous display of obstruction." Said McConnell: "That was
fun! [
Clapclapclapclapclap] Let's do it again!"
Purty, huh.
CHEERS to POTUS on the roadus. To commemorate Earth Day, President Obama straps on
Jetpack One and zips down
to Florida's Everglades. Here's a sneak preview of his speech:
"Hey, Governor Scott! Climate change climate change climate change climate change climate change climate change climate change climate change..."
And if he has time, he'll toss in a few global warmings.
CHEERS to rebuffing rabid Republicans. Sixty-one years ago today, the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began. The villain was Ann Coulter's hero (really, seriously)---a first-class jerk and pre-Ted-Cruz Ted Cruz named Joseph McCarthy---for whom it went very badly (and who died three years later after guzzling booze like a Hummer guzzles gas). May Ms. Coulter one day get laughed off the public stage in a similar fashion: "At long last have you left no sense of decency?" I know, I know...when pigs fly.
JEERS to steamroller politics. If I cared a whit about them, I might pity the poor dumb bastard Republican presidential candidates not named Bush. That's because Jebya plans to turn his Super PAC over to a team of his cronies, who will then "independently" run most of his campaign:
Hurricane Jeb
The concept, in development for months as the former Florida governor has raised tens of millions of dollars for his Right to Rise super PAC, would endow that organization not just with advertising on Bush's behalf, but with many of the duties typically conducted by a campaign. Should Bush move ahead as his team intends, it is possible that for the first time a super PAC created to support a single candidate would spend more than the candidate's campaign itself---at least through the primaries. Some of Bush's donors believe that to be more than likely. […]
"This isn't the product of some genius thinking," said a Republican familiar with the strategy. "This is the natural progression of the rules as they are set out by the FEC."
Wow, this is truly astonishing and totally amazing. I'm shocked. The FEC still has
rules???
JEERS to Dicks who should've been put in the dock. Richard Nixon---aka #37---died twenty-one years ago today at the age of 80-something. Whoever chose the color of his headstone knew what they were doing. But we'll be kind to his memory today and just replay the high point of his life:
Oh, I wish we coulda socked it to ya, Dick. Thanks for spoiling our fun, Gerald.
CHEERS to the miracle workers the boss can't live without. Today is Administrative Professionals Day. It's been around, by different names, for a long time. You might say it's evolved…
The first National Secretaries Week was organized in 1952 in conjunction with the United States Department of Commerce and various office supply and equipment manufacturers. The Wednesday of that week became known as National Secretaries Day. As the organization gained international recognition, the events became known as Professional Secretaries Week and Professional Secretaries Day. In 2000, IAAP announced that names of the week and the day were changed to Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professionals Day to keep pace with changing job titles and expanding responsibilities of the modern administrative workforce.
Here at C&J, we have one administrative professional, and we couldn’t maintain our sanity without her. Later this morning we'll show our appreciation by presenting her with a fresh bone and squeaky toy. Or else.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 22, 2005
JEERS to sto...pand...gotraff...ic. The Institute of Transportation Engineers says that the traffic light system in most American cities really really sucks. Poor timing of lights wastes gas and time, while increasing pollution. Doesn't affect this household...we always considered them more of a guide, anyway.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to U.S. Mint-y freshness. Woo hoo! The new America the Beautiful Series state quarter gets its big release today, and it hails from the
Great State of Louisiana:
A formal coin release event will take place [today] at the Alexandria Riverfront Center, with representatives from the U.S. Mint and U.S. Forest Service on hand. Everyone age 18 and younger in attendance will receive a free Kisatchie quarter. … The quarter’s design features a wild turkey in flight over a patch of blue stem grass with long leaf pines in the background.
Kisatchie National Forest is one of five national forests selected for the series of coins. … The Kisatchie National Forest, headquartered in Pineville, spans seven parishes covering 604,000 acres and was first established as a national site June 3, 1936.
You can tell a Louisiana turkey by its distinctive call: "Jindal for president? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Jindal for president? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!"
Have a wild Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill in Portland Maine’s Distinct Red Bottom does not have as much Influence as Scientists earlier thought
---NewsMaine.net
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