Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

Posted On May 3, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

Morning Vonnegut Blogging

Indiana-born Kurt Vonnegut, who matched his time between this cosmo and the alter ones of his initiation, died 13 years ago the coming week, damned it. Wrote Dinitia Smith in her New York Times obituary 😛 TAGEND

Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut exercised laughter to tackle the basic questions of human macrocosm: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding representation to make sense of all this, a divinity who in the end, despite concluding parties suffer, pleases them well? […]

Not all Mr. Vonnegut’s themes were metaphysical. With a mixture of vernacular writing, science fiction, jokes and thinking, he too wrote about the banalities of buyer culture, for example, or the demolition of the environment.

A good time to remind ourselves why he was…well…Kurt Vonnegut 😛 TAGEND

Continued…

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and populace. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years now. There’s simply one ruler that I know of, babies–‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were going drink on petroleum.”

”I am, incidentally, honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

“It’s perfectly everyday to be a socialist. It’s completely normal to be in favor of fire departments.”

“There is no reason why good cannot achievement as often as evil. The succes of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”

“We had a memorial service for Asimov a while back, and at one point I said,’ Isaac is up in Heaven now.’ That was the funniest thing I could have said to an gathering of Humanists. I reeled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before line-up was restored.”

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or mumble or repute at some degree, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

“Those who think it is telekinetics, heighten my hand.”

And perhaps the best from-the-great-beyond summation of the gaggle of morons currently in charge of things 😛 TAGEND

“True terror is to wake up one morning and is found that your high school class is running the country.”

And now we are.

And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 9, 2020

Note: Hi, friends! Bill in Portland Maine here. Folks, when it comes to preserving your state for years to come, choosy Republicans espouse fish tank water! From simple backache to rickets to contusions large and small and even mystery viruses, reach for the antidote that even the fish swear by. Now available in three yummy spices: carp spleen with lemon, catfish liver with sage, and trout snout& onion. Fish barrel liquid: picking some up today and feel fine. This word brought to you by the Fish Tank Water Producers Association of America. Mainly because their check cleared.

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By the Numbers 😛 TAGEND

7 days!!!

Days ’til Save the Elephant Day: 7

Estimated number of Americans expected to die from COVID-1 9 between now and August, according to brand-new simulate from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine: 82,000

What that symbolizes in terms of fewer hospice plots needed: 121,000

Percent of Louisiana residents who approve of Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards’ handling of the COVID-1 9 crisis: 68%

Percent of Trump voters who judge the economy’s in the crapper, according to Navigator polling: 75%

Number of governorships up for election this year: 11

Percent of Americans who believe Alexander Hamilton was a president, according to Washington University in St. Louis: 71%

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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment 😛 TAGEND

How nice to hear from that sweetened Trent Lott and Tom DeLay again, who hinted Tom Daschle was unpatriotic where reference is said it was OK to ask questions( choke !) about the direction of the war.

Now available on home video. Great way to pass a duo hours during a lockdown.

“Disgusting, ” said DeLay in a one-word press release about Daschle’s statements. Lott said, “How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terror, extremely when we have corps in the field? ” Gosh, who was that disguised soldier from Mississippi who used to criticize President Clinton in the most vile language while we had corps on the field in Bosnia and Kosovo? Anyone remember his list?

You may recall that Clinton accomplished cruise missiles to take out a terrorist training camp in August of 1998 –missed bucket Laden by a couple of hours. Several Republican then loyally suggested that the attack, retaliation for the bombarding of American delegations in Africa, was nothing more than a tactic to take people’s subconscious off Monica Lewinsky. Now that’s supporting your President.

–April 2002

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Puppy Pic of the Day: A scoring naming composers would kill for …

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CHEERS to game changers. With over 425,000 cases of COVID-1 9 in the U.S. and 15,000 deaths, our 2020 “Pearl Harbor Week” continues unabated. But there are a few inklings of hope 😛 TAGEND

New York : Microbiologists at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine are taking COVID-1 9 antibodies from recovered patients and injecting them into patients who still have the virus. The procedure isn’t new( it was used during previous flu pandemics ), but their screening methods are more wowie-zowie, so they can identify the cherished bodily fluid donors who have the kick-assiest antibodies.

Who is that disguise subject ???

California : Governor Gavin Newsom, having had enough of Trump’s bullshit, seceded from the Union and is now time be pulling in 200 million concealments per month for the nation-state’s hospices, and sharing them with other states.

Nationwide : Chef Jose Andres saves on doing that Chef Jose Andres thing Chef Jose Andres does.

Nationwide : Some chap who runs an “influential” model tracking the virus now says social distancing is doing its thing, and that could mean a lower death toll and a need for fewer hospital beds.

Also: new CNN polling indicates a solid majority of Americans are finally starting to wise up and understand that the Trump administration’s response has been shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. So poke that in your fish tank and alcohol it, Donny.

CHEERS to knowing when to fold. Man, the news cycle’s getting so short these days that a fella can’t even waste a couple hours defrauding mansions, price-gouging toilet paper on the black market, stealing kids’ lollipops, and rigging electric road-construction signeds to blink “YOUR BUTT SMELLS HA HA” without missing some earth-shaking event like Bernie Sanders dropping out of the Democratic primary. But People magazine don’t lie–the Democratic primary is officially over and Joe Biden is the last one tolerate 😛 TAGEND

In the end–as with his 2020 bid–Sanders failed to sufficiently expand his core organization of young and extremely radical voters, though he saw increased Hispanic support in his second primary campaign.

Bernie and Biden: still close friends and ready to billow the Trump administration off the nearest bridge.

While running in 2020, he continued to press the progressive letters that had constructed him apolitical idol of the left and pushed plans like universal health care and tuition-free college into the center of the Democratic Party. […]

Sanders verified impetu for his grassroots safarus begin to slow beginning in sometime February, as Biden surged back on the coattails of a litany of endorsements, support from the party’s moderate voters and a big turnout from African Americans, who organized a crucial bedrock of Biden’s support.

Kudos to Bernie for bowing out with class after passing an honorable, well-fought campaign. Now the Democratic defendant and its candidate have the time they need to switch into general election mode with the members of the mission of dislodging the worst president in U.S.history. As of this morning, it’s all handwritings on deck. Six feet apart, please.

CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil fighting. Big anniversary today–in fact, it oughtta has become a federal holiday. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee called it ceases and surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively intent the southern traitors’ War for the Preservation of Owning Humans for Forced Labor.

Tell the prejudiced a violet nurple, Ulysses.

Several years ago a demographic historian concluded that the death toll of the fighting was much higher than primarily believed — 750,000 versus the original 620,000. Sadly, another list has also been extended far beyond its original approximation: the number of years it’s taking too many white people in the South to admit they lost and put away that damn henchman debate pennant. As Congressman James Clyburn( D-SC) reminded them a few years back, even slave owner and avowed prejudiced treason-monger Lee got enough self-awareness to concern himself with post-war optics 😛 TAGEND

“When Robert E. Lee surrendered he asked all of his adherents to furl this flag. Stow it away, he said. Put it in your lofts, ” Clyburn continued. “He refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform. His family refused to allow anyone dressed in the henchman dres to attend his funeral. “Why? Because Robert E. Lee said he considered this emblem to be a symbol of treason.”

He also didn’t require any effigies of him been put forward, any such requests that descended on deafen ears as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy erected the thousands of them( of Lee and other CSA icons, including a fresh quantity in the 1960 s to prompt the civil rights movement to remember “their place”) as a nature of living in denial of their treason. I’ll give the hangers-on credit for one thing: they sure picked the claim theme song. “Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.” Mission accomplished.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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Social Isolation, Day 23 Kids: We’re booooored! What can we do? Wife* emptying basement *: What are we ever going to do with these Simpsons Halloween costumes we only wore formerly? Me: pic.twitter.com/ 6oLiyvdcWu

AC/ AA Joel A. Sutherland (@ joelasutherland) April 8, 2020

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to making your missiles and going home. Strange thing about an antagonist that’s too small to shoot: it tends to kick you in the ass. And that’s what’s happening inside the domestic terrorist organization known as the Natsional’naia strelkovaia assotsiatsiia, aka the National Rifle Association:

The National Rifle Association has laid off more than 60 employees in recent weeks, according to three parties with knowledge of the matter.

I anticipate Sparky here is the only guy left.

The move comes as the handgun privileges group faces acute fiscal challenges during the course of its economic crunch caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The association recently took a large financial touch when the pandemic made the NRA to cancel its big annual see. The group often moves hundreds of thousands of dollars off the happening, from the costs beings pay to attend to the funds caused from the requirements of the convention. Its abandonment appears to have wiped out that revenue.

Thoughts and tee-hees.

CHEERS to greenbacks for a greener globe. Catching up on some preferably large-scale information from earlier this year. The CEO of world’s largest asset administration company BlackRock wrote to the CEOs of the companies in which he vests providing information that cleaning up the planet is now his top priority, and that’s where his money–trillions of dollars–will be moving 😛 TAGEND

“Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects, ”[ Larry] Fink wrote in his character. “Last September, when millions of beings took to the streets to demand activity on climate change, many of them emphasized the significant and lasting impact that it will have on financial expansion and prosperity–a risk that business to date have been slower to reflect. But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”

This means that before stimulating speculation decisions, BlackRock will require companies to disclose any climate-related probabilities for their own future, as well as plans for how they would operate under limits or constraints that could arise from Paris Agreement targets to keep warming under 2 measures Celsius.

BlackRock will likewise drop shares from firms in its portfolios who administer 25% of their rich from coal yield or utilization, which previously expenses in countless arranges 50 -1 00% more to maintain and construct than renewables.

While he’s dumping all those shares from dirty business, he should also do what he can to drop their grimy CEOs. I propose a propel near an active volcano.

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Ten years ago in C& J: April 9, 2010

JEERS to cutting and running…from yourself. What a learn ruin of a gift John McCain is leaving for himself. The only thing he exceeds at these days is flying into a foaming savagery as he VERY LOUDLY gets things…wrong. And now he’s literally vacating his alter ego, saying: “I never considered myself a maverick.” That’s like Bruce Wayne saying, “Batman? Never heard of him.” Or Peter Parker saying, “Spidey? Moi? ” Anyway, satisfy make a note to stop considering John McCain a dissenter. It’ll be the easiest thing you do all day.

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And really one more 😛 TAGEND

JEERS to the topple seen ’round the world. Remember all the hullabaloo when that Baghdad statue of Deposed iraqi president saddam hussein was attracted down shortly after we shocked ‘n awed Iraq? Believe it or not, that was 17 years ago today. I recollect cowering when a U.S. soldier, unfamiliar with the concept of “How Things Look from the Liberated Folks’ Perspective, ” tried to tie an American pennant around Saddam’s head. I also remember drumming my digits on my table as the Iraqis took for freakin’ ever to try and yank the statue down by hand.( It didn’t help that live video sucked on the internet in 2003, so the buffering time was insane .) They lastly decided to let our corps affix a tether from Saddam’s finger to a tank, which gathered it down in merely seconds as the crowd prepared crude fart sounds( demonstrated that , no matter what country you’re from, that laugh never comes old ). Then they beat it with shoes as it was dragged around the square like a “cat-o-nine-tail” toy.

But, as with so many aspects of that war( like the reason for starting it ), things weren’t accurately as they seemed. The press performed it look like the entire city was there celebrating. In reality, it gazed more like the size of House Freedom Caucus representation at a MENSA meeting 😛 TAGEND

No sweets , no heydays, and hardly no folks.

If you’re hyperventilating from the surprise of being misled by the media, breathe into a paper sacking for a few minutes. It’ll pass.

Have a nice Thursday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and sneering about today?

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Today’s Shameless C& J Testimonial

Bill in Portland Maine assures fretted Heartens and Jeers readers that it’s safe to go in the kiddie pool…while dressed in head-to-toe protective gear

—Mediaite

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