(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cheers and Jeers: Thursday [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2023-04-06 Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 6, 2023 Note: Today is C&J's annual Random Religious Objection Day. How it works is, you each get to draw one random religious objection from the God Jar and then sue everyone over it. It’s fun! I'll go first. [Draws from God Jar] It says your incessant biological need to breathe air goes against my sincerely-held religious beliefs. See you in court, gaspers. - By the Numbers: 9 days!!! Days 'til Earth Day: 16 Days 'til the Show-Me Gourd Society Art Festival in Springfield, Missouri: 9 Job openings in February, down from 10.6 million in January: 9.9 million Factor by which Russia's border with NATO member countries increased after Finland was admitted: 2x Percent drop in 60 Minutes viewership during the edition with Marjorie Taylor-Greene, making the second-least-watched of the season: 33% Percent of Americans surveyed by WalletHub who believe the Easter Bunny came before the Easter egg: 52% Points by which Judge Janet Protasiewicz beat Dan Kelly in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, a landslide of epic proportions that stunned the nation: 11 - Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment: As more and more rich people cheat on their taxes, the IRS is increasingly unable to go after them because it is so poorly funded. For all this, we can thank the Republican Party. Every year at this time, conservatives moan and groan and tell us how terribly, terribly overburdened we are by taxes. We wouldn't be overburdened if the tax code hadn't been rewritten by Republicans, and if Republicans hadn't weakened the IRS so much it can barely function. Damn right, this is a partisan effort. And damn right, I'm bitter about it. We don't need to raise taxes in this country, we need to collect them. We need tax cuts that don't favor the obscenely rich. You are getting screwed. —April 2005 - Puppy Pic of the Day: Mop ‘n Glo... - CHEERS to basking in the afterglow. For those of you just waking up from a pre-Tuesday bender, let me get you up to speed: the 45th president of the United States was indicted in a Manhattan courtroom on 34 felony counts of being a terrible, horrible, no-good lying biological unit, and he faces a potential century-and-a-half behind bars. I know what you're thinking: Hey Billeh! Are there perhaps some takeaways that were helpfully provided by the media? Why yes, yes there are… All very fine and useful. But the only takeaway I'll be looking for is the one that also includes the words “him” and "to prison." CHEERS to Matzoh Fever. Passover (aka "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat") began yesterday at sundown. The holiday commemorates Moses's exodus from Egypt three thousand years ago, including his Oscar-winning parting of the Red Sea. I'm not Jewish (my roulette wheel stopped on Episcopalian), but I still like to commemorate it with an abbreviated seder during which I go straight to the four glasses of wine. Which is why in our house the holiday is known as Passout. CHEERS to little reminders. Forty-three years ago today, Post-It Notes were introduced by 3M. The road to market was a textbook case of serendipity. Little-known fact: A Post-It Note will play a central role in archiving our 45th president’s accomplishments at his Presidential Grift Shop: Took Oath. Broke Stuff. Got impeached twice. Lost. Pouted. Died. Buried along with his name. Nobody came. Meanwhile 85 years ago, in 1938, Roy Plunkett invented Teflon. It has saved many a meal...and many a presidency. - BRIEF SANITY BREAK - x The @NASA Artemis II crewed mission around the Moon will inspire the next generation of explorers, and show every child – in America, in Canada, and across the world – that if they can dream it, they can be it. pic.twitter.com/X8q3GLTBiQ — President Biden (@POTUS) April 3, 2023 - END BRIEF SANITY BREAK - JEERS to swirling eyes of evil. If it's April, it must be hurricane season…or, to be more specific, hurricane prediction season. First out of the gate is AccuWeather, the Pennsylvania-based private company that in 2005 lined Senator Rick Santorum's campaign coffers in exchange for his promise to try and neuter the government’s National Weather Service and eliminate them as a forecasting competitor. What a dick move. But they have some decent meteorologists, so it's worth hearing what they have to say about the upcoming season: U.S. private forecaster AccuWeather expects a near-average to below-average 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1, according to a forecast issued on Wednesday. AccuWeather said it expects between 11-15 named tropical storms, 4-8 hurricanes and between one and three major hurricanes to form in the Atlantic Ocean before the season ends on Nov. 30. The canvas is now blank, soon to be filled with 2023’s squiggly lines of doom. AccuWeather expects possible increasing wind shear across the southern United States and the central Atlantic will break up storms fueled by warmer than average sea surface temperatures. "We think El Nino will drive this season," said Dan Kottlowski, lead hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather. The names for 2023's tropical storms are listed here. As always, if you're named after a storm this year, you're in charge of the cleanup. (It’s only fair.) CHEERS to great moments in synthetics. On April 6, 1869, the first form of plastic—celluloid—was patented. 153 years later, the talking heads at Fox News swear by it for their almost-lifelike appearance. Memo to Hannity: time to order another case—you're sagging again. - Ten years ago in C&J: April 6, 2013 CHEERS to the movie critic for the masses. He was such an icon that one of the index tabs along the top of the Chicago Sun Times web site—sitting between "Travel" and "Classifieds"—says, simply, "Ebert." Of course, we were all just as comfortable calling him Roger. What makes his death at 70 especially sad is that his Tuesday blog post, in which he announced his cancer had come back, also indicated that he had ambitious plans for his future once he beat it. So now his opening paragraph stands out as a de facto farewell: Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and columns and even written to me since that time. Others were introduced to my film criticism through the television show, my books, the website, the film festival, or the Ebert Club and newsletter. However you came to know me, I'm glad you did and thank you for being the best readers any film critic could ask for. When Siskel and Ebert were on, anybody who got between me and the TV got a popcorn bowl to the head. Those two, more than anyone, made me love movies—so much, in fact, that I have saved all my ticket stubs from 1980 onward and kept 'em in a big glass jar. Roger's later social commentaries helped shape my moral perspective, and his embrace of twitter made him seem like he was a next-door neighbor. For a life that was never dull and writing that was always worth reading, we give Ebert—as he would say—"Two Thumbs Up…Way Up!" - And just one more… CHEERS and JEERS to hippity-hoppin' on the People’s Lawn. It's the most Paaserrific time of the year—Easter! And for the second post-pandemic year in a row, the White House Easter Egg Roll is a go. This year the child who finds the golden egg wins the most coveted prize in all the land: a front-row seat at a your choice of Trump trial. (Remember kids: no biting, kicking, or stuffing other children into trash bins while trying to find it—and that goes for you, too, not just your parents.) And right on schedule, the made-in-Maine souvenir wooden Easter Egg Roll eggs that I've collected since I was knee-high to a grasshopper are available at the White House Historical Association gift shop. (Don't be fooled by the vultures on eBay who are already doing that price-gouging thing they do.) But if you really want an amazing and unique memento that you'll pass down through the generations, you can take advantage of EXCLUSIVE CHEERS AND JEERS CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY. Here's a pic of this year's eggs, complete with woozle Commander and pootie Willow: Worthless on its own, yes. But when I label it a "Non Fungible Token" and you print it out for your very own? You got yourself a set of collector's eggs worth a cool $250,000 on the crypto market. And that's no yolk! Thank you and good night! Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today? - Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial Some blog posts are more than just a story, they’re a world—and “Cheers and Jeers” is a world worth visiting. —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle - [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/6/2162083/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Thursday 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/