(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2023-02-01 Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, February 1, 2023 Note: Please sign here...[Scribble Scribble]...and here... [Scribble Scribble]...and initial here... [Scribble Scribble]. Congratulations, you now own Bed, Bath & Beyond. - By the Numbers: 9 days!!! Days 'til Abraham Lincoln's birthday: 10 Days 'til the PBS Wisconsin Garden & Landscape Expo in Madison: 9 Expected electricity generation from renewables by next year (up from 24% now): 26% Number of original Biden Cabinet secretaries who have left their post after two years: 0 Number of Gov. Youngkin’s coveted bills restricting abortion rights that state Democrats in Virginia voted down in a Senate committee last week: 3 Percent by which the murder rate in red states (led by LA, MS, AL, and MO) outpaced the murder rate in blue states over the last 20 years: 23% Age of Pong as of this year: 51 - Mid-week Rapture Index: 187 (including 5 gogs and 1 easy way to make the Super Bowl even worse). Soul Protection Factor LVII lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today. - Puppy Pic of the Day: In Mercedes, Texas……Saved!!! - CHEERS to February! Hooray—we finally made it to the third and last month of meteorological winter in the northern hemisphere. For the shortest month, it sure packs a lot of goodies in it. Some of the highlights: Use a sharpie to write events and appointments directly on your screen with this handy online calendar, provided courtesy of C&J. Black History Month (if the Republicans haven't canceled it yet), more daylight, Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney (tomorrow), Waitangi Day in New Zealand, Heritage Day in Canada, Dia de la Bandera in Mexico, Cordova Ice Worm Day in Alaska, and Valentine's Day at fine retailers everywhere. President Biden continues making decisions, issuing executive orders, cutting ribbons at massive new infrastructure projects, and nominating judges that PolitiFact confirms are making America great again after the previous guy made it shitty again. Plus there's George & Abe's awesome storewide mattress sales, Charles Dickens Day, full "snow moon" on the 5th, Create A Vacuum Day (chaired this year by George Santos because his cranial cavity contains the biggest black hole on the planet), and National Pancake Day. Greatest living composer John Williams turns 91 on the 8th, mere weeks after receiving his 53rd Oscar nomination (for scoring The Fabelmans). And, lest we forget, multiple investigations into the crimey business of Donald Crimey’s businesses continue and may break wide open this month. I'll say this: we may live in a crumbling republic on a planet beset by fire and parasites…but at least it's never dull. CHEERS to—[Fires confetti cannon]—Infrastructure Week!!! Hooray for President Biden and his bottomless bag of putting-stuff-back-together projects. You've heard about all the roads and bridges and water pipes and airports and EV charging stations. "But what about the tunnels?" you might be asking yourself as you pour your 8thbowl of Cocoa Puffs. Joe's got yer tunnel upgrade right here, pal… With the ancient, dimly lit Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel behind him, President Joe Biden touted job creation and labor agreements Monday during a visit to Baltimore to highlight replacement of the tunnel, which has come to symbolize America’s crumbling infrastructure. President Biden on Monday. The B&P Tunnel will be renamed the Frederick Douglass Tunnel. The White House billed the speech as a “kickoff event” for a $6 billion, federally funded project to replace a 4-mile section of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, including the mile-long, 19th-century B&P Tunnel, with two tubes that will allow trains to travel at 100 mph. […] The old tunnel, built during the post-Civil War administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, is considered a bottleneck for Amtrak and MARC commuter trains because it forces them to creep along at 30 mph or less. That was Monday. Yesterday Biden was in New York heralding the latest phase of work on the Hudson Tunnel. And today he'll get a glimpse through the biggest tunnel in Washington D.C.—the one that runs between Kevin McCarthy's ear holes. JEERS to throwing your hydrogen bomb in the ring. The 45thpresident of the United States, twice impeached and thrown out of office after one measly term, launched his campaign for a second term over the weekend. His message could hardly be more inspiring to a nation finally recovering and rebounding from his first four years in office: "We’re at the brink of World War III, just in case anybody doesn’t know it." Oh, we definitely know we're on the brink of World War III, sir, we all say with tears in our eyes. Our first clue: you're running for president again. - BRIEF SANITY BREAK - - END BRIEF SANITY BREAK - My dad was an engineer who used a slide rule for decades. When calculators came out he nearly wept with joy. CHEERS to "slide-rule portability." Tech geeks, fall to your knees and grovel before “the world’s first pocket calculator.” On February 1, 1972, the hand-held HP-35 ("challenges a computer!") made its debut. Cost: a mere $395. And it was made the old-fashioned way—in the USA. Today's calculators are solar-powered, mainly because Detroit and the oil companies could never figure out a way to power 'em with internal combustion. If you get bored today (and if you made it this far down into C&J you must be): punch in 5318008, turn it upside down, call a phone number at random and read what you see to the person on the other end. But be mature about it. CHEERS to the confectioners of our lives. Sad news to report this morning, I'm afraid. The man who figured out how to mass-produce marshmallow Peeps has died. Bob Born, a Coolidge baby, was 98: In 1953, Just Born acquired Rodda Candy Co., a jelly bean maker that had a side business producing shaped marshmallow candies by hand. At the time, it took about 27 hours to make the marshmallows. Bob Born also gave us the gift of Hot Tamales. Bob Born saw the candies’ potential, so he and an engineer at the company designed and built a machine to make them in less than six minutes. The company's current machines, which are still based on Bob Born's design, now pump out 5.5 million Peeps per day. In his honor, for 24 hours all Peeps will be microwaved by mischievous kids at half power. - Ten years ago in C&J: February 1, 2013 JEERS to the Catholic Rules. Today's rule is very simple: Fetuses are people…unless you're a Catholic hospital and there's a lawsuit against you involving fetuses who may have died on account of your negligence and could cost you a bundle of joy money, in which case fetuses are definitely not people. We trust this clears up any confusion. - And just one more… CHEERS to Maine's matchless movie maker. Happy 129th Birthday to director and Portland native (and son of immigrants) John Ford. He launched John Wayne's career and defined the classic American western with Stagecoach, The Searchers, the cavalry trilogy and gobs more. And then there's The Grapes of Wrath, which is in a class all by its amazing self: - Ford proclaimed in 1967: "I am a liberal Democrat and a rebel." Well, of course he was. He had intelligence and talent. Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today? - Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial "To say that the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool is comfortable would be a serious understatement. In fact, I’d argue that it's the most comfortable kiddie pool I’ve ever had the pleasure of splashing in." —Amanda Tarlton - [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/1/2150176/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Wednesday Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/