Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Political rants
Here’s what’s up with the Duggars.
Hmm. My sitemeter stats say folks are busy this weekend digging for Duggars. I even got a hit from someone searching for “Prairie Muffin pornography,” which gave me an idea or three, all of them puerile and scatological.
You remember the Duggars. Ma Duggar popped out baby Prairie Muffin #16 (Johanna Faith Duggar. All Duggar kids have J names. Isn’t that cuuuute?) on October 12, 2005. Not even the prolific Michelle Duggar can produce a #17 this soon, can she? Unless the baby is premature. Damn. I really hope that isn’t the reason for these hits.
Nope. Pheew. I did a Google blog search on the Duggars (thanks for the idea, Blue Gal), and found this post by Work at Home Dad. Guess what: soon, we’ll have another Duggar TV special to snark upon! From Work at Home Dad,
Discovery Health Channel will be running their newest show on the Duggars, “Raising 16 Children.” Here are the air dates (all times Eastern):
March 15, 2006 at 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm
March 19, 2006 at 3:00 pm
March 26, 2006 at 9:00 pm
March 27, 2006 at 12:00 amTLC will be running their newest show on the Duggars, “16 Children and Moving In.” Here are the air dates (all times Eastern):
March 11, 2006 at 9:00 pm
March 12, 2006 at 12:00 am
March 13, 2006 at 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm
March 19, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Get this: Karen knew about this, and she didn’t tell me.
For those of you who need to play catch up, here’s a convenient list of my Duggar & Prairie Muffin posts.
How Many is Too Many? An introduction to the Quiverfull movement in general, and the Duggars in particular, with a focus on the Duggar parenting system.
So you want to be a Prairie Muffin . . . An intensive study of the Muffin Manifesto.
Banned Books Week: the Muffin POV. And you thought book burnings were a bad thing?
I’m wondering what I can do next. Possibilities include,
Not tonight, I’m having your baby: Muffin sexual etiquette.
Cooking for 16+ Cafeteria cooking good enough to eat!
Animals do it outside. Why can’t you? Surviving with 18 family members and 2 1/2 bathrooms.
I’m raising an army of blonde white clones to ensure the primacy of the Aryan Race. And what are you doing to make the world a better place?
Suggestions welcomed.
D.
It dawned on me tonight
*Recommend my diary over at Daily Kos*Â
Many of the folks who wander into Balls and Walnuts will see either the top post (and not much else) or some ancient post (and not much else). Thus, if I blog about kidnaped American journalist Jill Carroll, the post will be visible for a day or two before getting buried and pushed out of sight.
BUT. If I put her on the sidebar, no one will miss her. As you can see, the Christian Science Monitor recently published an update. It’s even a tiny bit heartening.
Take a look, and let me know if I have screwed anything up on your browser. B&W still looks fine to me here in Firefox. By the way, you can’t imagine how stoked I am that I was able to fiddle with the sidebar this much and not totally fluff it up.
D.
If Napoli were napolied, would he let himself have an abortion?
Particularly if Bill Napoli were napolied but good. I mean, one hella napoli.
From the brilliant and beautiful Smart Bitch Candy,
Bill Napoli
napoli (not to be confused with the proper noun, which indicates the Italian city)
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): napolied
Pronunciation: nA’poli1. To brutalize and rape, sodomize as bad as you can possibly make it, a young, religious virgin woman who was saving herself for marriage.
2. To hella rape somebody.Etymology: From State Senator Bill Napoli’s (R-SD) description of an acceptable rape that would merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban.
For this little google bomb to work, we need as many folks linking to the napoli page as possible. Candy explains all.
D.
Your evening armchair activism
People for the American Way has an instafax set up to mail the following to your Senators and Representative:
I believe your oath of office, to protect the Constitution, compels you take seriously possible violations of the 4th Amendment and congressional laws by the executive branch, through its program to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens using the NSA, and possibly other agencies.
That is why I expect you to refuse to support current efforts to pass legislation that would rubber stamp these programs and legalize warrantless surveillance by the executive branch.
Sincerely,
If you would like to join in, go to PFAW’s No Rubber Stamp page. If you think this is a worthwhile endeavour and not a circle jerk, post this stuff on your blog, too.
Honestly, I’m not sure any of this does any good. Oregon’s Republican Senator, Gordon Smith, always responds to my letters with a scarcely diluted version of the Administration’s latest talking points. He gets away with this in a state that is so left, Stephen Colbert thinks we’re part of Canada. Although . . . wait a sec. You Canucks aren’t as left as you used to be. We’re even lefter than you!
D.
Jill Carroll: shout her to the rafters, people
A few weeks ago, I followed Blue Gal’s lead in drawing your attention to the plight of reporter Jill Carroll. Jill was kidnapped in Iraq and is still being held hostage. Three deadlines have passed for her released. I’ve been remiss lately in banging the drum, but Jurassic Pork’s Assclowns of the Week fired me up.
Hey, I don’t want to be an assclown. Not even a liberal assclown.
From JP’s post:
These guys give Christianity a bad name
Politics. Nothing but politics. Maybe because it’s the end of a rough week, or I pushed myself hard at the gym today, or I had too much sake at the NWTEC Internet Cafe tonight mit mein frau. Or maybe I’m just itching to have y’all tell me I’m full o’ kaka.
Sign Senator Byrd’s petition
Psssst.
Hey, you Americans. I know y’all have nothing to hide, but do you really want the same people who shoot their friends in the face at point blank range to be listening to your phone conversations?
Sign Senator Byrd’s petition calling for “a nonpartisan, independent commission to investigate and determine the legality of the President’s actions.” Think about it: if the President has nothing to be afraid of, he shouldn’t mind having an independent commission looking into his affairs. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, no?
Please, sign the petition, and go the extra mile to shout it out on your blog.
No politics this evening, I promise.
D.
Lying down, or stepping forward
I pinched this picture of Sproul Plaza from ollin.net. Of his Berkeley experience, the author writes,
I was attracted to the idea of going to U.C. Berkeley for the reputation it has around the world for being politically radical and a place of great intellectual stimulation. That and the fact that I had lived in Los Angeles all of my life. I wanted something new, I wanted to experience less oppressive living conditions than those that I faced while I lived in Watts and commuted to school in the more affluent westside of Los Angeles.
I could have written something similar, except instead of Watts yatta yatta yatta I would have to substitute “my parent’s household.” But, still. Berkeley was “the bird sanctuary,” as my ultra-conservative calculus teacher put it; and if the town had given him the willies, I would be right at home.
And, I was.
I went hunting for a picture of Sproul Plaza because my last post got me thinking about Berkeley in the early 80s. Sad to say, the Young Republicans were the fastest growing group on campus. The student body was swinging to the right, even though the city was (and still is) firmly at the polar left.
True, when Reagan won the election in ’80, people flocked to the streets for candlelight marches. And, true, the threat of a draft followed (or preceded) by an imperialistic invasion of El Salvador or Nicaragua brought us out into Sproul Plaza by the hundreds. But the heyday of UC Berkeley protest had passed. Without the Vietnam War or the draft to galvanize the student body, our activism could and would only go so far. Even Insane Anglo Warlord (a rearrangement of Ronald Wilson Reagan, popular at the time) and the threat of unilateral aggression against Central America couldn’t push us as far as we should have been pushed.
Daniel Ellsberg spoke to us one day in Sproul Plaza, a noontime demonstration in protest of America’s policies towards El Salvador. Towards the end of the protest, he instructed the students to lie down and play dead. I didn’t understand the image at the time, and I still don’t. Did he mean to provide a living illustration of the dead and injured which would follow from a Central American invasion? I don’t know. I laid down with everyone else (peer pressure, what can I say) while the Feds milled around at the edges of the crowd, snapping pictures.
The next day, activist Stoney Burke gathered a crowd (as he usually did, and as he apparently still does. Nice to see that Stoney is still giving ’em hell!) He surprised us by railing against Ellsberg who, as you might imagine, was one of our heroes. But Stoney couldn’t forgive him for having us all lie down. As best I can recall, what he said was: That’s what they want you to do — lie down — and that’s exactly the last thing you should do.
Back then, me and the other guys talked a lot about what we would or wouldn’t do. Should we put in our names for Selective Service? Burn the forms? How public should we be about it?
Should we step forward, or lie down?
I feel like I’ve been lying down most of my life, and I’m sick to death of it.
There’s something swirling in this head of mine, something that feels like activism. Maybe I’m thinking along these lines because I received my copy of Crashing the Gates today, and the more of it I read, the angrier I get. Or maybe I’m still thinking of V.
From Alan Moore’s foreword to V for Vendetta:
Naïveté can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England towards fascism . . . .
It’s 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken Conservative leadership well into the next century. My youngest daughter is seven and the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras mounted on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality, even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I’m thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It’s cold and it’s mean spirited and I don’t like it here anymore.
It’s a new century, and the times are far worse than depicted in this, Moore’s 1988 time capsule. As we watch Bush and his cronies wriggle out of one fiasco after another, whether it be something as subtle as spying on your political critics, as disdainful of human life as the bungling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, as flagrantly treasonous as outing a CIA operative for political payback, or as crass as shooting your hunting buddy-slash-campaign contributor in the face at ten paces — yeah, I could go on, I haven’t even touched on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo — it would be easy to give in to hopelessness.
And yet I feel hopeful. Why? Because we’re in the majority, and thanks to the blogosphere, we have a voice. We’re getting organized, smart . . . and active.
We’re not going away. We’re not lying down.
D.
Have a Dowdy morning
My favorite Guerilla Woman from Tennessee has posted the full text of Maureen Dowd’s column, Hunting for a Straight Shooter. Dowd neatly summarizes the Shape of Things to Come vis a vis the Plame Affair:
It was at the end of his interview with Brit Hume, when Shooter talked about Scooter, that his eagerness to share important facts with the press and public — a well-concealed trait in recent days, years and decades — burst forth. He pronounced himself a Great Declassifier.
Asked by the Fox News anchor if a vice president had the authority to declassify secrets, Mr. Cheney replied that there’s an executive order giving him that power, adding: “I’ve certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions.” This neatly set up a defense for Scooter, who testified that “superiors” had authorized him to leak classified information on Valerie Plame.
President Bush signed Executive Order 13292 on March 25, 2003, amending a Clinton-era order, to grant the vice president the same power as the president on top-secret material. W. must have been concerned that Vice didn’t have enough power to abuse.
Earlier this week at Daily Kos, georgia10 reported on this maneuver. I don’t know how many Kossacks there are in the audience, but georgia10 consistently amazes me. According to her blog, she’s a 23-year-old law student. But she writes like no 23-year-old I’ve ever read. I anticipate great things from this woman.
But what to do, what to do? Will Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney wriggle out of the Plame Affair thanks to dubya’s wand-wave? Can an Executive Order trump reason? The overall tone of discussion in response to georgia10’s article was grim. Our only hope, the commenters seemed to be saying, is that the American people will at last smell a skunk.
Most already have. As Tennessee Guerilla Woman reports, Bush’s approval rating is lower than ever. But it’s not enough. Impeach now? No, not while the Republicans control Congress, and impeachment would be toothless.
Between now and November, I’m aiming my donations towards key elections across the country. We need to unseat Republicans wherever they are vulnerable, and we need to unseat Vichy Democrats wherever possible, too. Want a good place to start? Visit ActBlue and contribute what you can. I’ve contributed to Ciro Rodgriguez and Ned Lamont.
D.
Technorati tags:
Maureen Dowd Bush Dick Cheney King George Republican Propaganda Impeach Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Dowd
Bare Rump weighs in on the Dick Cheney human-hunting fiasco
Walnut asked me to comment on your Vice President’s foray into the delightful and rewarding avocation of human-hunting, since I have, after all, become quite skilled in that regard —
Oh, please don’t look at me like that. Don’t you think I’d rather be preying upon livestock and such? Can I help it if humans taste better than cows? I assure you, I have only been eating soulless folks who won’t be missed, like telemarketers, boy bands, and petroleum industry executives. Does that make you feel better?
When last we spoke — in November, as I recall — I had just discovered the human sex toy industry. Lord Valor (my sweetie) was none too pleased by that post. “You’re getting distracted. You need to focus on your task here on Earth, Tina.” (He calls me Tina. He is so sweet.) “Make your way to the US President. Establish proper diplomatic relations between your people and the humans.”
But how to get close to the most powerful man in your world? That was my problem. Then, one day while watching the brouhaha over that rakish fellow Jack Abramoff (he looks yummy in his fedora and trenchcoat. When I see a coating like that, I can’t wait to taste the filling!), it dawned on me: Money.
Why shouldn’t I use my ample funds to buy myself an audience with President Bush? That seems to be the way it’s done in your world. And so, I began meeting with Republican fundraisers across the country. Talk about soulless. I would have eaten more of them, but my triglycerides began soaring like you wouldn’t believe.
To make a long story short, a certain Katherine Armstrong invited me to her ranch, stating that for a price she would introduce me to Harry Whittington, who in turn would introduce me to Dick Cheney.
I demurred. “It’s George Bush I need to meet, not some second-rate flunky.”
“Honey,” said Kath (she lets me call her Kath), “Dick’s the top in that relationship. Got it?”
The top. Yes, remembering how my ill-fated relationships had turned out, I indeed understood the top.
What I have been trying to tell you in my roundabout way is that I was an eyewitness to Dick Cheney’s human-hunting expedition. Um . . . that’s not entirely honest. Eyewitness is far too passive. I’m afraid I suggested it to Dick.
Not in any direct way, mind you. When I saw him staggering about the ranch, waving his big, big gun at those teensy, teensy birds, I said, “Gee, Mr. Vice President. It would take an awful lot of those quail to satisfy this girl’s appetite.”
“Graaaahr,” he said. He says that rather a lot. “Grr gaaak graaaahr?”
“Dick says, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?'” said Mr. Whittington. “Wants to know what you been eatin’.”
“A trio of HMO administrators,” I replied.
“Gr-graak?” said Mr. Cheney. “Aaar graaahr graaahr! Heheheheheh.” Then he turned to one of his Secret Service men and said, “Grr graaahr grak grrr,” and the Secret Service man ran off into the brush.
With a sudden premonition of dread, I put a leg on Mr. Whittington’s shoulder. “What’s happening, Harry?”
“Dick says, ‘Human flesh, eh?’ Then he asked his boy to go rustle up some illegals.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. “Um, sir? That’s just not right.”
“Graaaharrr.”
“Dick says, ‘Don’t gimme no double standards.'”
“You see, sir, I try to make the world a better place by eating people.”
“Grrka graarhr.”
Mr. Whittington wouldn’t look me in the eyes. His voice seemed to catch in his throat. “Dick says, ‘Me too.'”
Well, you know the rest. I’m happy to report that no illegal aliens were injured on Dick Cheney’s human-hunt, but Mr. Whittington did not fare as well. I do hope he recovers quickly!
Bare Rump
Technorati tags: Whittington, Bush, Cheney