Point of Inquiry, Your Billyness
I've cleared it with DK, Inc.—aka the sprawling industry known as Big Kos—to make tonight's C&J a rare front-page event known as "Ask Me Anything." I'm highly unprepared to unleash a mighty trickle of knowledge and wisdom upon you by answering any questions you might have about anything. Home repair, food, relationships, going Galt, mutant creatures living under your house, blogger etiquette, molecular biology...I know almost everything about making stuff up about anything, and tonight I'm willing to prove it. One small caveat: I don't know a thing about what's going on here at this web site.
Keep in mind that the longer the evening wears on, the less coherent my answers will be. So please allow those with urgent medical needs and/or dinner plans to go first.
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, August 6, 2021
Note: Sunday is World Cat Day. Here...open your gifs and purr.
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By the Numbers:
Sunday!
Days 'til the start of Rosh Hashanah: 31
Days 'til National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day: 2
Percent of unvaccinated Americans surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation who believe getting the vaccine is worse than getting Covid-19: 53%
Date by which Tyson Foods employees, less than half of whom are now vaccinated, must get the shot: 11/1/21
Age of Rihanna, now the world's most successful female musical artist/businesswoman with a net worth of $1.7 billion: 33
Lifetime production of honey by a worker bee: 1/12th teaspoon
Shelf life of a fast-food ketchup packet: 6 months
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Looks like the dog days are upon us…
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CHEERS to the right to keep and bear our republic. As we wait for Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to get their hineys in gear and come up with something they can live with that will prevent Republicans from stealing every future election they can get their power-mad hands on, a group of real Democratic legislators has come up with a voting rights bill that covers all Americans with the broadest protection possible. Gold stars to Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), and their Right to Vote Act, which would…
Great. Now that it's written, passing the bill is simple. All we need to do is spend the next six months kissing Joe Manchin's and Kyrsten Sinema's hineys. Remember: if you grease up with Chap Stick beforehand, you'll create a thin barrier between your lips and their butt flesh when it comes time to pucker up. Thank you for your sacrifice. I’m sure there’s a future Medal of Freedom with your name on it.
CHEERS to order in the courts. Speaking of the long arm of the law, here's a trio of developments for which the judicial branch deserves some props:
Tonight in the C&J cafeteria: order in the cordon bleu with jurisprudence pudding.
JEERS to America the Gullible. Fool us once: On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson a big fat stick to wield while dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces. It was all crap—the attacks never happened but we bought it anyway. Fool us twice: four decades later George W. Bush did virtually the same thing by ginning up bullshit documents and other phony evidence to concoct a bogus case for invading Iraq, but we (well, not we we but they we) bought it anyway. Lesson learned: our wars need to come with a stronger refund policy.
CHEERS to great moments in human dampness. On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first American woman to swim the English Channel. It took her 14½ hours. Know why? Because she kept stopping to check her makeup! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! This misogynist message brought to you by the National Consortium of Republican-Controlled State Legislatures, whose members just snorted milk out their noses. And Andrew Cuomo.
CHEERS to home vegetation. I have some serious DVR tube-age to catch up on this weekend: Judge Judy, Judge Cristina, People’s Court, Divorce Court, Hot Bench, all the Star Treks—oh, the work of a political scholar is never done.
Or ditch the TV and take a nice August weekend snooze.
What else is on? Well, after Chris Hayes and the vacationing Rachel Maddow’s guest host digest the latest Friday news dump, Bill Maher jawbones with Tavis Smiley, Olympic gold medalist Donna de Varona of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, and right-wing cult leader Ben Shapiro. If you're looking for the latest home video options, you can check 'em out at Rotten Tomatoes. The baseball schedule is here, and all the Olympic coverage will be on NBC basically around the clock. (Closing ceremonies are Sunday night at 8, during which an unforeseen glitch in the master computer console will result in the destruction of Tokyo by an 80-foot-tall fire-breathing Pikachu. It happens.) And there’s a new edition of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Sunday at 11. Other than that, slim pickins.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 6, 2011
CHEERS to climate change—the good kind! As the Republican-controlled House builds a rickety retaining wall of predictable arguments to protect America from the catastrophe of granting gay couples federal recognition of state-approved marriages, the icebergs of public opinion are melting faster than ever, raising acceptance levels to historic highs (via 365Gay.com):
In response, Maggie Gallagher, director of the National Organization for Marriage, issued a brief statement: "Is McDonald's still hiring?"
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And just one more…
CHEERS to site #1. Be sure to raise a glass to the internet today. It’s the 30th anniversary of the first web site. As The Independent wrote on the 25th:
It’s something like 1.2 billion sites now. You can see that first web page in all its geeky glory here. Today the United States ranks 20th in terms of overall internet speed and 20-somethingth in mobile internet speed, which is pretty embarrassing. (How’s that infrastructure bill coming along?) But anyway…on behalf of the porn industry, pootie lovers, Tik Tokking teens, and all five million widows of Nigerian foreign ministers who desperately want to give you millions of dollars if you'll just give them your bank account number, America would just like to say…
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
...TY LOL.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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I've cleared it with DK, Inc.—aka the sprawling industry known as Big Kos—to make tonight's C&J a rare front-page event known as "Ask Me Anything." I'm highly unprepared to unleash a mighty trickle of knowledge and wisdom upon you by answering any questions you might have about anything. Home repair, food, relationships, going Galt, mutant creatures living under your house, blogger etiquette, molecular biology...I know almost everything about making stuff up about anything, and tonight I'm willing to prove it. One small caveat: I don't know a thing about what's going on here at this web site.
Keep in mind that the longer the evening wears on, the less coherent my answers will be. So please allow those with urgent medical needs and/or dinner plans to go first.
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, August 6, 2021
Note: Sunday is World Cat Day. Here...open your gifs and purr.
-
By the Numbers:
Sunday!
Days 'til the start of Rosh Hashanah: 31
Days 'til National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day: 2
Percent of unvaccinated Americans surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation who believe getting the vaccine is worse than getting Covid-19: 53%
Date by which Tyson Foods employees, less than half of whom are now vaccinated, must get the shot: 11/1/21
Age of Rihanna, now the world's most successful female musical artist/businesswoman with a net worth of $1.7 billion: 33
Lifetime production of honey by a worker bee: 1/12th teaspoon
Shelf life of a fast-food ketchup packet: 6 months
-
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Looks like the dog days are upon us…
-
CHEERS to the right to keep and bear our republic. As we wait for Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to get their hineys in gear and come up with something they can live with that will prevent Republicans from stealing every future election they can get their power-mad hands on, a group of real Democratic legislators has come up with a voting rights bill that covers all Americans with the broadest protection possible. Gold stars to Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), and their Right to Vote Act, which would…
...affirm Americans’ right to vote by declaring election laws or rules that pose a “severe or discriminatory burden” to be illegitimate―unless the jurisdiction in question can prove that its proposed law or rule furthers a governmental interest and is the “least restrictive means” of doing so. […]
Georgian Jon Ossoff enters the fight for voting rights.
“Jurisdictions up until this point have gotten away with murder in terms of positing voter fraud that they are never asked to substantiate,” Jones said. His bill, if enacted, would require jurisdictions to provide such proof.
This Right to Vote Act is meant to fill the gap in voters’ ability to challenge voting restrictions, previously limited by judicial interpretations of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Great. Now that it's written, passing the bill is simple. All we need to do is spend the next six months kissing Joe Manchin's and Kyrsten Sinema's hineys. Remember: if you grease up with Chap Stick beforehand, you'll create a thin barrier between your lips and their butt flesh when it comes time to pucker up. Thank you for your sacrifice. I’m sure there’s a future Medal of Freedom with your name on it.
CHEERS to order in the courts. Speaking of the long arm of the law, here's a trio of developments for which the judicial branch deserves some props:
Texas U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone told Gov. Greg Abbott to take his executive order banning ground transportation for migrants and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Which, if you've ever been in the vicinity of Greg Abbott, means anywhere in the vicinity of Greg Abbott.
Judge Neureiter SMASH.
Colorado Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter took two lawyers behind the woodshed for filing a class-action lawsuit attempting to get the results of the 2020 election overturned. Said Judge Neureiter: “The lawsuit put into or repeated into the public record highly inflammatory and damaging allegations that could have put individuals’ safety in danger. Doing so without a valid legal basis or serious independent personal investigation into the facts was the height of recklessness.” The penalty for the two Trump cultists: they have to pay the defendants' legal fees and spend the rest of their lives in small claims court defending litigants in dog poop-related disputes.
Washington D.C. President Biden continues popping out federal judicial nominees like a human Pez dispenser. Among them: Beth Robinson, who would be the first openly LGBTQ woman to ever serve on any U.S. appeals court. So far Biden has nominated 35 judicial nominees at a speed not seen in eons and of a diversity not seen since ever.
Tonight in the C&J cafeteria: order in the cordon bleu with jurisprudence pudding.
JEERS to America the Gullible. Fool us once: On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson a big fat stick to wield while dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces. It was all crap—the attacks never happened but we bought it anyway. Fool us twice: four decades later George W. Bush did virtually the same thing by ginning up bullshit documents and other phony evidence to concoct a bogus case for invading Iraq, but we (well, not we we but they we) bought it anyway. Lesson learned: our wars need to come with a stronger refund policy.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to great moments in human dampness. On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first American woman to swim the English Channel. It took her 14½ hours. Know why? Because she kept stopping to check her makeup! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! This misogynist message brought to you by the National Consortium of Republican-Controlled State Legislatures, whose members just snorted milk out their noses. And Andrew Cuomo.
CHEERS to home vegetation. I have some serious DVR tube-age to catch up on this weekend: Judge Judy, Judge Cristina, People’s Court, Divorce Court, Hot Bench, all the Star Treks—oh, the work of a political scholar is never done.
Or ditch the TV and take a nice August weekend snooze.
What else is on? Well, after Chris Hayes and the vacationing Rachel Maddow’s guest host digest the latest Friday news dump, Bill Maher jawbones with Tavis Smiley, Olympic gold medalist Donna de Varona of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, and right-wing cult leader Ben Shapiro. If you're looking for the latest home video options, you can check 'em out at Rotten Tomatoes. The baseball schedule is here, and all the Olympic coverage will be on NBC basically around the clock. (Closing ceremonies are Sunday night at 8, during which an unforeseen glitch in the master computer console will result in the destruction of Tokyo by an 80-foot-tall fire-breathing Pikachu. It happens.) And there’s a new edition of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Sunday at 11. Other than that, slim pickins.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Doc Fauci.
Also: Dick Nixon will hit all the Sunday shows to wonder what the hell is going on down here.
Face the Nation: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona; Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools Alberto Carvalho; Gov. Asa Hutchinson (Cult-AR); former FDA director Scott Gottlieb.
CNN's State of the Union: Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO); Senator and chair of the Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin (D-IL); White House senior adviser Anita Dunn; Sen. Bill Cassidy (Cult-LA).
This Week: TBA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sssssssenator Rick Ssssssscott (Cult-FL) discusses the issues with Chris Wallace from his warm rock in the sun.
Happy viewing!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: August 6, 2011
CHEERS to climate change—the good kind! As the Republican-controlled House builds a rickety retaining wall of predictable arguments to protect America from the catastrophe of granting gay couples federal recognition of state-approved marriages, the icebergs of public opinion are melting faster than ever, raising acceptance levels to historic highs (via 365Gay.com):
In response, Maggie Gallagher, director of the National Organization for Marriage, issued a brief statement: "Is McDonald's still hiring?"
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to site #1. Be sure to raise a glass to the internet today. It’s the 30th anniversary of the first web site. As The Independent wrote on the 25th:
It’s something like 1.2 billion sites now. You can see that first web page in all its geeky glory here. Today the United States ranks 20th in terms of overall internet speed and 20-somethingth in mobile internet speed, which is pretty embarrassing. (How’s that infrastructure bill coming along?) But anyway…on behalf of the porn industry, pootie lovers, Tik Tokking teens, and all five million widows of Nigerian foreign ministers who desperately want to give you millions of dollars if you'll just give them your bank account number, America would just like to say…
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
[Buffering…]
...TY LOL.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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