Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 24, 2022
Observe: How come Hershey by no means comes up with vaccines? Or Nestle? Or Cadbury? Or Whitman’s? Or Ghirardelli? Please signal the petition and drive their R&D departments to proper this huge fallacious earlier than all of us want our second booster shot. Thx. —We The Folks.
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By the Numbers:
Days ’til the 51st Earth Day: 29
Days ’til the beginning of Natural Week 2022 in Washington, D.C.: 4
Variety of Supreme Court docket nominees out of the 17 rated by the American Bar Affiliation over the past 36 years who had been deemed “well-qualified” (together with Ketanji Brown Jackson): 16
P.c likelihood that Clarence Thomas is the one who acquired a lesser “certified” ranking: 100%
Quantity Individuals are anticipated to spend on “good wearable” gadgets this yr: $100 billion
P.c likelihood that press secretary Jen Psaki has now held extra press briefings than all of Trump’s press secretaries mixed: 100%
Quantity Andy Warhol’s 1964 Marilyn Monroe print “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” is predicted to promote for, making it the most costly portray of the 20th century offered at public sale: $200 million
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Second:
At this level, the administration would in all probability be delighted if it might discover the WMDs the Reagan administration gave Saddam Hussein. A minimum of it might level to some WMDs. […]
You do not have to be an professional on WMDs within the Center East to know that when the administration begins spreading the phrase that “it would not actually make any distinction if there have been WMDs or not,” it is apprehensive about not discovering any. […]
Perhaps the American folks might be brainwashed into forgetting why we supposedly went to struggle. Close to as I can inform, our nationwide reminiscence span is right down to about two weeks, and the media have been spectacularly unskeptical on this subject. However the remainder of the world isn’t going to neglect that WMDs had been our main motive for an unprovoked, pre-emptive struggle.
—April 2003, one month after Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq sixteen years in the past this week. No WMDs had been ever discovered.
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Pet Pic of the Day: On break…
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JEERS to maddening, morbid milestones. Bear in mind when the earlier president—a Republican whose followers nonetheless insist was chosen by God—assured us when Covid-19 broke out that “You may have 15 folks, and the 15 inside a few days goes to be down to shut to zero”? After which bear in mind once we hit 50,000 deaths in April of 2020, and the earlier president (plus all of the Republican governors not situated within the northeast) mentioned chill out, all the pieces’s underneath management so long as all of us simply shove some UV mild up our asses, inject some bleach into our veins, burn our masks, and swallow some livestock de-worming paste? And for causes nobody can clarify, bear in mind the way it all spiraled uncontrolled? A refresher…
Could 2020: 100,000 deaths
September 2020: 200,000 deaths
December 2020: 300,000 deaths
January 2021: 400,000 deaths
February 2021: 500,000 deaths
June 2021: 600,000 deaths
November 2021: 700,000 deaths
December 2021: 800,000 deaths
February 2022: 900,000 deaths
And now, two years later, right here we’re: as of at this time there have been 1 million deaths from Covid-19 within the United States, roughly the equal of the inhabitants of our 10th-largest metropolis (San Jose), and largely taking dimwit Republicans who selected the least-effective vaccine referred to as “Jesus.” Which, not coincidentally, is the phrase I will be muttering to myself additionally for the millionth time at this time.
JEERS to the unwinnable slog. In the meantime, let’s hearth up the BiPM 2000 house telescope (thanks for letting me hack your bank card to pay for it, Mr. Bezos!) for the newest satellite tv for pc view of how the Russo-Ukraine Conflict goes:
Our subsequent replace tomorrow. Spoiler alert: It is going to look very very similar to at this time’s.
JEERS to the opposite modern-day black plague apart from covid. Thirty-three years in the past, at 12:04 am on March 24, 1989, Captain Joseph Hazelwood was dreaming joyful goals when his tanker, the Exxon Valdez, was working aground and spilling 11.3 million gallons of crude throughout Prince William Sound. After greater than three many years of false guarantees to “put issues proper” and countless authorized wrangling on the a part of the oil large to attenuate its legal responsibility, a easy lifting of most any shoreline rock reveals that the harm continues to be readily obvious. Conservation author Tim Lydon wrote on the 30th anniversary:
Dig a shallow gap into sure seashores alongside Alaska’s Prince William Sound and you’ll nonetheless discover oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. As your shovel scrapes via gravel, the crude will combine with the water seeping into the small gap.
The primary time I did this was 9 years in the past, whereas visiting researchers learning the spill’s lingering impacts. Holding an oil-stained stone in my gloved hand, my thoughts flashed to March 24, 1989, after I first heard the information that the Exxon Valdez, a 300-meter tanker, had run aground on Bligh Reef. […]
Because the spill recedes right into a extra distant previous and local weather change accelerates, it turns into more durable to tease out the catastrophe’s persevering with results. Much less debatable is the lingering harm to the world’s wilderness useful resource, particularly amid the 8,000 sq. kilometers of western Prince William Sound that fall inside America’s largest congressionally designated wilderness examine space. With oil beneath seashores, sure species unrecovered, deserted buildings, and rubbish nonetheless current, the wilderness stays injured.
In reality, time has just about elevated a principle right into a regulation as immutable as any Newton ever got here up with: the solely factor you may belief an oil firm to do is one thing horrible.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to nice white information from the nice white north, eh. We now have a fast coda to the sorry sight of these brainwashed right-wing Canadian truckers attempting shut down provide strains and oust Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a result of Covid vaccines are tyranny. You will by no means guess—they failed spectacularly:
Justin Trudeau has brokered a take care of the left-leaning New Democrats that can hold his minority Liberal authorities in energy till 2025.
The Canadian prime minister introduced Tuesday a proper entente that can see the NDP vote together with his Liberal minority authorities on shared goals till the Home of Commons rises in June 2025. Canada’s subsequent mounted election date is Oct. 25, 2025. […
The agreement covers a wide range of issues, including the creation of dental care for low-income Canadians, more progress on a national pharmacare program, additional investments in Indigenous housing, and identifying ways to further accelerate Canada’s path to net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
We hear the conservatives in the Canadian Parliament got so angry they spent the day drinking beers without using a coaster.
CHEERS to those meddling maple leafers. Oh, hey, eh, speaking of Canada: 85 years ago this week, in 1837 and 78 years before our Supreme Court finally cleared a “theoretically”-unobstructed path to the voting booth—the ever-sensible Canadians gave black people the right to vote. It happened in Nova Scotia, where government-designated black communities were settled. And although they still weren’t fully included in government decision-making, it gave them the impetus to develop their own ideas on leadership. During the next century Canada would beat us by two years in letting the womenfolk cast ballots. But when it comes to putting idiots on the ballot, our Republicans clean their clock.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 24, 2012
CHEERS to an endorsement that fits the candidate. Well, it’s official: the “smart” Bush—Jeb—finally drank enough bourbon to shut off enough of his brain activity so he could endorse a candidate—Mitt Romney—for president. If you’re curious, C&J has an exclusive look at Jeb’s first draft that one of our associates found when he accidentally tripped and fell into Bush’s trash and gravity forced it into his pocket:
Vote
enthusiasticallyfor Mitt Romney. He is agreat
very good
reasonably competentcandidate who is
exciting
bold
full of fresh ideasthe right height.
At least that’s what it appears to say. Hard to read through the tear stains.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Thursday morning fun wipey happy time! Time to play a game (patent pending) that I created a decade ago…you’ll love it! I call it “President…or Hand Towel?” The rules are simple: just watch the clip below and then decide whether Bill Clinton is a president…or a hand towel::
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If you guessed president and hand towel, you win an extra helping of disgust at war criminal George W. Bush. Lucky you.
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
During the first day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked the Supreme Court nominee if she aims to insert Cheers and Jeers into the country’s legal system.
—Mediaite
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