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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

A Pic and a Poll

If you good folks in Raleigh, North Carolina have felt tremors in the last week, I think we may have isolated the source:

North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms' grave with a newspaper announcing that gay marriage has arrived in North Carolina.  October, 2014
I believe that's what's referred to as "closure." Or, if you prefer, "karma," "payback" or "what's comin' to ya." Here in the BiPM household, we're calling it "The pic that's going up on our fridge forever."

The poll, meanwhile, represents about one percent of the whackadoody coming out of the mouths of supposedly full-grown adults who are influential in determining where the country is headed. Some of 'em are perfectly stoppable this election season. Let's do that.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Note: I'm thinking of a number between one and a thousand.  Now I'm thinking of rutabagas.  And now...nothing but static.
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The Krewe of Boo (New Orleans) logo
16 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the midterm elections: 3
Days 'til the Krewe of Boo! Parade in New Orleans: 16
Number of girls attending schools in Afghanistan when the U.S. invaded in 2001: 5,000
Number attending there now: 3 million
(Source: The Week)
Number of vehicles expected to be recalled this year for one damn fool reason or another: 41.2 million
(Source: FiveThirtyEight)
Estimated number of people who go to the Red Cross tent for medical treatment during Munich's Oktoberfest: 7k-10k
(Source: The Guardian)

MLB Championship Playoffs
San Francisco Giants tied with the St. Louis Cardinals 1 game to 1
Kansas City Royals lead the Baltimore Orioles 2 games to 0

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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:

People of the the United States of America,
Will somebody,anybody please come up with Obama's original authentic Kenyan
Birth Certificate and College records that prove he's not an American Citizen so we can end this sham of a Presidency!!!
---Commenter Ironman3 at World Net Daily
All together now: 1…2…3… Nah.

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Puppy Pic of the Day:  Vet-bound…with bonus pooties

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CHEERS to throwing the deficit scolds an anchor.  I agree with jem6x, this Agenda Project/Action Fund ad clobbers Republican budget-cutters over the head for starving the CDC:

This is the work of the same outfit---led by Erica Payne, a regular Netroots Nation attendee---that produced the provocative 2011 Throw Granny Off the Cliff ad.  If the ebola ad works as intended, it'll be all over the news and Republicans will react as if someone just jabbed a metal pick into one of their cavities.  (Republicans also love defunding dental care.)  In other words: sit back…this oughtta be fun to watch.

CHEERS to gettin' outta Dodge.  The sanctions are working as intended.  Russian He-Man Vladimir Putin is reportedly pulling his forces away from the Ukraine border:

Still of Warner bros. cartoon character leaving in a cloud of dust.
Putin's troops: fleeing.
The troop pullout came before an expected meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko in Milan next week.  The West has introduced a wide range of sanctions against Russian banks, energy companies and individuals for Moscow's role in the Ukrainian conflict, which has claimed the lives of over 3,000 people.
And I heard Pootey-Poot exclaim as he drove his tank out of sight, "I'll be back, Obama! But for now, to all a good night."

Get 'im, Susie B!
JEERS to Democratic brain farts we'd like to forget.  109 years ago today, in 1905, former president Grover Cleveland wrote an article for 'Ladies Home Journal,' opposing women's voting rights.  His words:
"We all know how much further women go than men in their social rivalries and jealousies...sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.  The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."
I believe the relative position of his wife's rolling pin that night was right between the eyes.

CHEERS to Election Central.  I know most of you depend on me for up-to-the-second data on how things are swinging as we look ahead to the midterms just 21 days from now.  Here's a quick summary of my current predictions for some key races:

Vote Button
Iowa Senate: Tossup
South Dakota Senate: Coin flip
Michigan governor: On the edge
Maine governor: Could go either way
Kansas Senate: Too close to call
NH-01: Fifty-fifty
Remember: if you bet using my data, I get 10 percent of your winnings.

CHEERS to swift veterans.  On this date 67 years ago, U.S. Air Force Captain Charles Yeager---still kickin' at 91---rode The X-1 into history as the first person to break the sound barrier---662 freakin' miles an hour:

Chuck Yeager's X-1 aircraft, which broke the sound barrier in 1947.
"Whaddya mean there's
no beverage service???"
[I]n 1947, the golden age of flight, Yeager was dropped in an experimental rocket-propelled Bell X1 jet from a B-29 bomber at an altitude of 45,000 feet.  "That's the only way we could do it," he said.

"It took the British, French and the Soviet Union another five years to find out that trick. It gave us a quantum jump" in aviation advancement, he said.

His wife's first words after Yeager landed: "How come you're never that quick to mow the lawn?"

"I want to rock and roll all night.
And starve you every day."
JEERS to the return of the Pyongyang Pipsqueak.  He's baaaack!  Looking a hale and hearty 66, 31-year-old North Korean dictator Kim Jong Eraserhead emerged after undergoing over a month's worth of surgeries to remove a quarter of the country's GDP in Swiss cheese from his body.  Clutched in his hand: a new hickory walking stick.  And if you thought his generals were nervous around him before…

CHEERS to sweet victory!  The Cubs win the World Series!  The Cubs win the World Series!  The Cubs win the World
Series! Mark it down in the history books---October 14.
1908.  Man, that musta been great.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 14, 2009

CHEERS to a bouncing rubber baby Baucus bill!  Holy mother of zebra stripes, that was a difficult labor.  Yesterday the Senate Finance Committee finally passed a healthcare bill.  Now Congress can go about the mundane task of mostly ignoring it as the two Senate bills and three House bills are seamlessly woven together into a security blanket that consumers can use to protect themselves from the icy coldness of the insurance companies.  (Plus it doubles as a hospital gown!)  Prediction: Olympia Snowe---the lone Republican who voted for the bill---will also vote for the final bill along with two or three other legacy-conscious Republicans, and President Obama will praise all involved for a job well done as he signs the bill---with its robust public option---into law on Christmas morning.  And people thought P.T. Barnum was a showman...  [10/14/14 Update: Other than the part about Olympia Snowe and the part about the public option and the part about signing it on Christmas morning?  Nailed it!]

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And just one more…

CHEERS to a foliage-free fall.  Chances are your heart was in your throat two  years ago today when Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil who never met a law of gravity he didn’t love, headed 24 miles up to the fringe of space in a giant balloon…and then jumped:  

What followed was a plunge reaching a speed of 843 mph that had millions of viewers pearl-clutching and sweating bullets of uncertainty bordering on panic, but all ended well when the charismatic hero used his smarts and competence to inject confidence into the situation, avoiding a crash and landing in the winner's circle as cheers of victory drowned out the naysayers who had prematurely written his epitaph.  It was a good day for Baumgartner.  It was an even better day for political and financial-sector metaphors.

Have a tolerable Tuesday.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

NASA finds methane hot spot over Cheers and Jeers
---High Country News

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Tags

Poll

Which of these recent Republican assertions is looniest?

17%564 votes
2%92 votes
17%583 votes
3%107 votes
7%246 votes
2%73 votes
9%306 votes
5%194 votes
3%118 votes
11%361 votes
4%158 votes
14%457 votes

| 3261 votes | Vote | Results

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