Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

And now, our feature presentation…

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Note: Today is National Middle Child’s Day.  Everybody say the official motto with me: “Oh, Marcia Marcia Marcia!!!”

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til Labor Day: 20

Days ’til the Bristol Harbor Festival & Blessing of the Fleet in Rhode Island: 4

Estimated inflation rate when new numbers come out today, according to Bank of America and Goldman Sachs: 3.1%

Amount stolen from low-income households by the EPA after it canceled grants for solar power projects that were approved by the Biden administration and Congress: $7 billion

Percent chance that Germany is now openly criticizing Israel for acting too Holocaust-ish against the Gazans: 100%

Estimated age of the meteorite fragments that fell through a Georgia man’s roof in June and left a big dent in his floor: 4.56 billion years

Age of Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell when he died Friday: 97

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Puppy Pic of the Day: And the 2025 winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest is…not that ugly.

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JEERS to another dumb week. Since I’m both “America‘s Sweetheart” and “America‘s Most Trusted News Source,” it’s up to me to keep you informed on what the current brain-dead zombie clown running Planet Earth is up to these days. I’ll keep it brief:

❀  He’s meeting with puppetmaster Putin in Alaska on Friday. Also: he’s all over the Justice Department’s files pertaining to the pedophile sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein.

❀  He’s tackling the most pressing issue in Washington D.C.: sending in troops to deal with the horror of our nation’s capital having the lowest crime rate in 30 years. Also: he’s still ordering his inner circle to make the Epstein pedophilia scandal go away.

❀  He’s redecorating the White House and its grounds in fake gold that will be immediately removed by his successor. Also: the MAGA universe is growing increasingly hostile towards him for his massive, administration-wide cover-up of the Epstein scandal.

Join us tomorrow for our next brain-dead zombie clown update, sponsored by He Knew Exactly What Epstein Was Doing And Did Nothing About It miracle stain non-remover. (Now available in a refreshing ketchup scent.)

CHEERS to today’s Tariffs Update. I’m late for my Pilates class disruption-related activities, so just a quick moment to toss out the latest Republican tariffs and what they mean:

Tariff 1: 45%

What it Means: You’ll be paying 45% more for items from these countries.

Tariff 2: 15%

What it Means: You’ll be paying 15% more for items from these countries.

Tariff 3: 50%

What it Means: You’ll be paying 50% more for items from these countries.

Tariff 4: 0%

What it Means: You lucky bastard, you won’t have to pay anything extra to have—[checks notes]—deliveries of fish guts from this country dumped on your lawn.

Figures. Trump always did like that country with all the fish guts best.

CHEERS to compassionate conservatism.  70 years ago today, on August 12, 1955, that liberal fringe kook President Dwight Eisenhower raised the hourly minimum wage from 75¢ to a dollar.  Or, as Republicans today would call it: “a dollar too much.”

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to great advances in libationology.  136 years ago this week, in 1889, Dan Rylands patented the screw cap for bottles. Our rule: if it doesn’t curl your nose hairs when you twist it off and sniff it, send it back to the bartender.

CHEERS to cool science. Exciting news to share in the world of the dreaded “c-word.” Sounds like researchers are getting close to winning the war against one of the most insidious cancers:

In an early trial, a one-size-fits-all vaccine showed promise in preventing hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers from coming back. Pancreatic cancer is of particular concern. The five-year survival rate is about 13%, and up to 80% of pancreatic cancers may come back.

The vaccine targets one of the most common genetic drivers of cancer: KRAS gene mutations.

KRAS mutations occur in about one-quarter of all cancers, including as much as 90%of pancreatic cancers and about 40% of colorectal cancers. Their ubiquity makes KRAS mutations a great target for cancer therapies, but the mutations have long been considered impossible to target with drugs. To accomplish this, the vaccine uses short chains of amino acids called peptides that teach immune cells to recognize and attack cells with KRAS mutations.

Doctors say three things have to happen in order to roll out the new vaccine: expand the testing, modify the serum for maximum effectiveness and, most important, make sure that RFK Jr. never gets near it.

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Ten years ago in C&J: August 12, 2015

JEERS to the sanctity of marriage.  Taking my cue from the right-wingers, who are still in the throes of their post-Supreme-Court-ruling hissy fit, I shall now cherry-pick a story that proves heterosexuals are sullying the institution and should be banned from it:

A newlywed Mississippi couple who were arrested on the way to the airport for a trip to Syria to join the Islamic State were ordered held without bail on Tuesday.  The couple, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 22, were on their way to the airport in Columbus, Miss., on Saturday when they were arrested by F.B.I. agents after unwittingly making travel plans with undercover federal agents on social media that included discussing a trip to Syria via Greece and Turkey as a honeymoon ruse.

Sickos. And God only knows what they do in bed.

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And just one more…

JEERS to the silence of the modems. It was a nightly ritual back in the day. After supper was supped and the dishes were washed, we’d disconnect the phone and hook the line up to our 45-pound laptop. What happened next will shock you: through the miracle of technical innovation and a loud screeching noise, we would “log on” to AOL and explore the shiny new universe known as the World Wide Web. It was our introduction to such cultural icons as the dancing hamsters, the dancing baby, and the dancing wheel that told us our signal was “buffering.” And now that nightly experience is about to officially become little more than misty watercolor memories of the way we surfed:

In the hazy impressions of memory, some may even recall it fondly: The AOL dial-up internet service that those of a certain age associate with the World Wide Web is coming to a close.

The company, also known by its “You’ve got mail” greeting and the CD trial discs—so many CDs—made the announcement on its website. […]

AOL, now part of Yahoo, said the dial-up service, along with the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, will be discontinued on Sept. 30.

Congratulations to us old timers. We drove the internet’s Model T and lived to tell the tale. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch six streaming services simultaneously, sort through my 50,000-song iTunes playlist, and finish using my AI programs to write the next great American novel. Just as soon as the pop-up ads stop freezing my laptop.

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

“The deeper reality is that Cheers and Jeers, as the portal to the digital metasphere, has rewired how an entire generation thinks, feels, and relates to the world. There’s no undo button.”

—Colby Hall

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