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Cheers and Jeers: Thursday [1]
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Date: 2023-05-18
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, May 18, 2023
Note: Thius mornbing I'm blogging in myy new Wells Lamont worjk glovges. Looik! No more callkuses!
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By the Numbers:
7 days!!!
Days 'til Memorial Day: 11
Days 'til the Kodiak Crab Festival in Alaska: 7
Increase in industrial production for April, led by gains in vehicles and vehicle parts: 0.5%
Increase in retail sales for April versus April 2022: 1.6%
Weeks of paid family leave Maine workers would get to care for a newborn or sick/disabled family member if a bill being considered in our legislature passes: 12
Biden-Trump 2024 matchup numbers among registered voters polled by Reuters: 44% - 38%
Percent of self-described independents in the poll who say they're less likely to support a presidential candidate who backs severe restrictions on abortion: 73%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The other day at the Southern Legislators Conference, as I was attempting to point out that Canada has a sane, effective and cheap system of national health insurance, I was told: “Canada practices low-tech medicine. Why, in Thunder Bay, women have to have babies with no anesthetic.” Right there in Norfolk, Virginia, I thought I heard the sound of several million Canadians politely choking. (Canadians are almost always polite.) It takes a lot to startle a Canadian. Understatement is their national art form, calmness is their national mode, and their national motto is “Now, let’s not get excited.” Canada, Land of Low Blood Pressure. I think they even have a law against rolling their eyes. Even so, I wish you could have heard the reactions over the phone from successive layers of bureaucrats at McKellar Hospital in Thunder Bay, Ontario, when I called to ask if the assertion were true. They variously and politely gasped, strangled, wheezed and giggled. —August 1994
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Belated Happy 31st Birthday, Bobi! (And many blessings on your squeaky toys.)
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CHEERS to industrial-strength get togethers. President Biden strapped on Jetpack One and rocketed over to Japan where he'll be pressing the flesh, talking policy, and flashing that Biden no-malarkey grin:
The G-7 summit of leading industrial nations, which runs Friday through Sunday, is expected to focus on blunting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and curbing China’s sway in the Pacific. Participants include leaders from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with the European Union. Biden will be only the second sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. His former boss was the first, in 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin rattled other nations by moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus amid the grinding conflict. By hosting the summit in Hiroshima—a city leveled by an American atom bomb in World War II—Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wanted to remind world leaders of the devastation wrought by nuclear weapons, analysts said. On Friday, Biden will join Kishida and the other G-7 leaders at the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum, whose message is “No More Hiroshimas.”
Unfortunately, Biden is canceling later stops in Australia and Papua New Guinea because he wants to be stateside for debt ceiling stuff. He prefers to tell Republicans to fuck off in person. (Doing it via Zoom is so impersonal.)
JEERS to hostage showdown: Thursday. Here's the latest on the debt ceiling crisis: the debt ceiling crisis—which should not be a crisis at all, but Republicans want it to be—is still going on. Yesterday I said I'd bring cookies to make reading today's debt crisis update worth it. But I forgot, so I brought a giant slab of raw cookie dough instead, but then I remembered that people sometimes get salmonella poisoning from raw cookie dough, and I'd hate to be responsible for giving you diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps, since that's being more readily accomplished by Congress via the debt ceiling crisis. So, in lieu of that, I brought you a lovely set of matching bracket bookends: {your books go here!}. Join us tomorrow for our next debt ceiling crisis update, which will be the same as today's except lower on the list of priorities on account of the giant asteroid.
CHEERS to happy outcomes. 171 years ago today Massachusetts ruled that all school-age children must attend school, and that turned out okay. Nineteen years ago yesterday, same-sex couples started getting married there, and that's turned out okay, too. And three years ago I read that Massachusetts still has one of the lowest divorce rates in the country. (Unlike Colorado, where Lauren Boebert is leading a movement to make divorce mandatory, according to something I read and/or dreamt.) I think I've figured it out: red states don’t really hate "liberal" Massachusetts—they're just jealous.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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x Elephants in Cambodia have learned to exploit their right of way and stop passing sugar cane trucks to steal a snack. pic.twitter.com/CaXcp6tzxp — Interesting As Fuck (@InterestingsAsF) May 15, 2023
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to folks who did more than just make nifty furniture. 249 years ago this week, in 1774, the first Shakers, led by Ann Lee, sailed to America from England. During the Revolution they refused to fight and were jailed, making them our newborn nation’s first conscientious objectors. I looked it up recently and there are two remaining Shakers. Both live in Maine. I’m parachuting one into Israel and one into Palestine to sort all that shit out over there. Don’t worry—I’ll be sure to feed the goat.
CHEERS to the long arm of the law. Got him! It's gonna be two years of lonely confinement for the former president. I know you don’t want to believe it because he's gotten away with everything else during his life, but rest assured he's going to finally—finally—pay for his corruption and influence peddling with incarceration. And that's not me saying it, it's a bona fide appeals court saying it! He'll now be shamed and ostracized…his political comeback prospects shattered into a thousand pieces. Good riddance, former president Sarkozy. And your little beret, too.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 18, 2013
CHEERS to Lucky Number 7. That's Congressman Ed Markey’s current lead in the latest PPP poll over his scandal-plagued Republican challenger in the Massachusetts race to fill John Kerry's old Senate seat. The previous poll released 14 days ago had Ed up by four. So, according to some back-of-my-cocktail-napkin math, if he continues at this pace until the June 25 election, he should be ahead in the polls by…[scribble scribbles cribble]…82 points. I'd stake my reputation on it, but I seem to have lost it. Mind if I borrow yours?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to home sweet home. U.S. News & World Report is out with its latest list of the Best Places to Live in the United States. The 150-town list is populated by cities like Green Bay WI, Colorado Springs CO (now with its first Black mayor), Raleigh/Durham NC…and this humble Maine hamlet of only 66,000 on the northeast Atlantic coast checking in at #7:
For the people of Maine, there is only one Portland. Maine's largest metro area and economic hub features cobblestone streets and ships sheltered within the island-specked waters of Casco Bay. We even have our own flatiron building. Artful living and farm-to-table dining are not just trends in Portland—they have been a way of life for years. A "do it yourself" spirit resonates throughout the region, so don't be surprised if a neighbor offers you extra produce from a community garden, home-brewed beer or knitting tips. All around Portland, you'll find dozens of local entrepreneurs offering homegrown or homemade products, from mittens to coffee.
Sounds right to me. Then again, I’ve only lived here for 29 blissful years. And eight months. And six days. More study is needed.
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 “Bill in Portland Maine is a fraud and a liar, and he needs to be expelled from the kiddie pool.” —Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
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[END]
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