Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Note: Today is Wednesday the 13th. No need to take any special precautions, but it might be as good a day as any to take a few minutes and re-alphabetize the porn collection in your panic room.

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By the Numbers:

Days 'til Super Bowl XLIV: 25

Days `til the Oregon Truffle Festival in Eugene: 16

Average per-employee compensation at Goldman Sachs in 2009: $595,000

(Source: Hardball)

Average federal worker's pay: $71,206

Average private sector employee's pay: $40,331

(Source: The Week)

Amount of money the six Harry Potter movies have made so far: $5.4 billion

(Source: Entertainment Weekly)

Amount the one Avatar movie has made so far: $1.35 billion

(Source: Box Office Mojo)

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Mid-week Rapture Index: 171 (including 3 Date Settings and... Whoops! Better make that 4!) 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: "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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CHEERS to hucksters on the hot seat. Today the ten members of the Congressionally-appointed "Drag Their Crooked Asses Through A Briar Patch" Committee will hear testimony from the CEOs of four major banks to find out just how they brought America to the brink of a second great depression. It's an attempt to duplicate the crackdown of the '30s:

Lawmakers say the commission was modeled after the Pecora Commission, a panel that was convened after the 1929 Wall Street crash and other events leading to the Great Depression. The Pecora panel's findings led to an overhaul of federal banking laws, including the creation of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Glass-Steagall divided investment banking from government-insured commercial banking; ending that separation in the 1990s was seen by some critics as contributing to the current crisis.

As others far smarter than me (read: anyone with a pulse) have pointed out, Wall Street is a lot different today than it was 50 years ago...a hydra whose every head is a lawyer, and each one that gets cut off is replaced by two more. Given the non-seriousness of banking reform thus far, I'm not expecting much beyond some You Tube-worthy "gotcha" moments. But if they add the right clown music, I'll take it.

JEERS to messy morning math. Haiti + lots of people + lots of buildings made of very weak materials + seismic event x 7.0 = Ugly Situation. It's hard writing about disasters so soon after they happen, because chances are the real death toll and damage report will be much much higher by the time we write tomorrow's update. Thrilled to be proven wrong.

P.S. Dallasdoc's multi-updated diary has info on the quake and how Kossacks can help out. Thanks.

JEERS to Little Miss Victimhood. I get so tired of fetching the paper from the front porch, opening it up, and finding another whiny article about how Olympia Snowe feels like a victim in the healthcare reform debate. She's so---[sniff]---frustrated by all the partisanship, Democrat and Republican! Yeah, boohoo, lady---here's a quarter, call someone who cares. Every single goddam member of her goon squad decided from Day 1 that their only contribution to healthcare reform would amount to extending their middle finger and trying to choke us with it---a mindset that can be summed up in two sentences from her colleague, Jim DeMint: "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Now kindly go back to your Parcheesi game with Senator Collins, ma'am, and Get. Off. My. Newspaper.

CHEERS to discus lite. Wham-O began producing the "Frisbee" 53 years ago on January 13, 1957. Ever wonder where the name comes from?

The Frisbie Baking Company (1871-1958) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, made pies that were sold to many New England colleges. Hungry college students soon discovered that the empty pie tins could be tossed and caught, providing endless hours of game and sport. Many colleges have claimed to be the home of 'he who was first to fling.' Yale College has even argued that in 1820, a Yale undergraduate named Elihu Frisbie grabbed a passing collection tray from the chapel and flung it out into the campus, thereby becoming the true inventor of the Frisbie and winning glory for Yale. That tale is unlikely to be true since the words 'Frisbie's Pies' was embossed in all the original pie tins and from the word 'Frisbie' was coined the common name for the toy.

Frisbees remind me of the Republican party: Lightweight, logic as contorted as a no-look reverse-flick backhanded corkscrew air bounce, and the only thing that keeps it aloft is spin.

CHEERS to Day 2. It's hard not to feel increasingly rah-rah'ish over the job that Ted Olson and David Boies are doing in federal court as they argue to get California's Proposition 8 declared unconstitutional. (A succinct summary of yesterday's testimony is here at Pam's place, and watch Rachel's Tuesday interview with The Odd Couple here.) And whether you agree with their timing or not, there's something good happening across the country now as a result of the visibility of this case: if nothing else, lots of people are having a dialogue about the meaning of marriage in America---the responsibilities, the status it bestows, the benefits that come with it, the depth of the bond that it signifies, and who exactly should be eligible and why. The holes in the opposition's arguments are big enough to drive a catering van through, and Olson is having a field day arguing for gay marriage through a conservative megaphone, and don't think for a second that he's not scaring the pants off organizations like the Family Research Council and NOM. Today: months of practice pay off during the big Bollywood dance number!

CHEERS to altering our collective birth certificate. Cool new discovery in Poland suggests that we made the transition "from fin to foot" faster than originally thought:

A team headed by tetrapod expert Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, Sweden, report in the British weekly journal Nature the finding of a dozen distinctive "hand" and "foot" prints from a creature that lived around 395 million years ago. This means that they are 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod fossils found yet, and 10 million years earlier than the first known elpistostegids. ... The find blows all traditional thought out of the water since it implies that tetrapods emerged much earlier than was previously thought. ... The prints "force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish-tetrapod transition, as well as the completeness of the body fossil record," says the study.

Interesting fact: On their way up the evolutionary chain they'd developed their extremities to the point where they were able to wave at the creationists on their way down.

CHEERS to kickin' the tires and checkin' under the hood. The Detroit Auto Show is underway in, of all places, Detroit. It's a shorter and more low-key affair, although not as bad as last year when one vendor said, "I've been to funerals with more smiles." We do have one fearless prediction, though: history will deem the Nissan "Leaf" the lamest vehicle name since the Ford "Hairball." ("Hey, I drive a Leaf!" "Sure ya do. And I drive a twig. You need a ride back to the infirmary, dear?")

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Five years ago in C&J: January 13, 2005

CHEERS to Howard Dean. He formally throws his stethoscope in the ring as candidate for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, vowing to rebuild the party from the ground up. Kudos for this bit of common sense: "The Democratic Party needs a vibrant, forward-thinking, long-term presence in every single state...We can only win when we show up." Just not Wednesday night, please. The West Wing's on.

JEERS to the price of maintaining a pulse. Oh this is beautiful. Spending on health care in 2003 slowed for the first time in 7 years (to $1.7 Trillion)...but only because it was harder for the poor, the elderly and the handicapped to get it. Well, that and one ungodly massive goiter extraction ("Cleanup in O.R. 6--and bring the hose!")

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And just one more...

CHEERS to proving the dummy wrong. I got an URGENT(!!!) email yesterday from some conservative hack who wanted me to know something very important. It's---as most of these conspiratorial screeds are---very long, but here's the Crazy Clifs Notes version. Being a fan of alliteration, the first sentence gave me goosebumps:

The discredited, democrat funded 'DailyKos' web site continues with it's daily doctored, dishonest, democrat funded pro-Obama polling numbers. Today's doctored poll shows Obama's approval numbers a full EIGHT points higher than the average of all the respected, neutral, trusted polls and a full TEN points higher than the respected CBS News poll released earlier today. Let's be clear, Kos is taking money from democrats to doctor opinion polls and the boot-lickers and sycophants that support Kos are afraid to challenge Kos. Remember, dissenting opinion, debate and argument are not allowed on the Kos web site. If you disagree with Kos you are not allowed to post articles on the democrat funded Kos web site so none of the information regarding doctored Kos polls and other Kos lies will ever appear on his web site. Much like the low rated Olbermann program, dissent on the 'DailyKos' is forbidden! The evidence and history of the phony doctored polls on the democrat funded DailyKos irrefutable and striking, unfortunately the anonymous so-called writers that post stories on Kos are not allowed to criticize him or they'll be banned for life.

And this is where yours truly takes the "democrat funded" risk of a lifetime, steps off the ledge, and tests the emailer's grand theory. As a Daily Kos "bootlicker" this is difficult, but here goes: Markos, you are a butthead! The rest...is in God's hands. Please pray for my soul.

Have a nice Wednesday. Stay classy. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

Vatican Says 'Cheers and Jeers' Is No Masterpiece

AP

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