Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Political rants
Forgive me a little victory dance . . .
AP Tally: Obama Clinches Democratic Nomination
In other words, it’s
Obama ’08!
Below the fold: nine reasons to run far, far away from John McCain.
My political compass
This was fun. I’m somewhat more libertarian than Ghandi, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Dalai Lama. I can live with that!
Economic Left/Right: -5.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.36
Here’s the comparison:
I have one concern: how did they get George W. Bush to answer all those questions? Some of those words had two, maybe even three syllables.
D.
Hillary’s Sunset Boulevard
If you’re not familiar with the ending of Sunset Boulevard, you might want to check this YouTube video first.
From the incredibly talented Lisa Nova, Hillary’s Sunset Boulevard.
Let’s say it all together . . .
Bwahahaahaaahaaa!
D.
It’s all over but the crying
Garbage, It’s All Over But the Crying . . .
It’s all over but the crying
Fade to black I’m sick of trying
Took too much and now I’m done
It’s all over but the cryingBaby we’re done
From Karen: “Except with Hillary, it would be, ‘It’s all over but the screaming.'” Hissssssss!
D.
Asshat of the day
From National Defense, via Sadly, No (hat tip to Daily Kos):
Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.
The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference.
Oh, those brilliant SF authors! However can we thank them for their altruism? And there’s no telling what gems they might come up with. After all, the late Arthur C. Clarke thought up geosynchronous satellites, and Jules Verne predicted “helicopters, submarines, projectors, jukeboxes, and other later devices.” Larry Niven gets credit for a variety of innovations such as the ramjet spacecraft, which propels itself between stars using intersellar hydrogen for its fuel.
Speaking of Niven . . .
Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld†and “Lucifer’s Hammer,†which he co-wrote with SIGMA member Jerry Pournelle.
Niven and Pournelle are on this group? Awesome! I can’t wait to hear —
Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
Whaaaaa?
So Larry Niven channels Robin Cook, and he has the ear of Homeland Security. Lovely. Guess it was too much to ask that he would offer solutions to our dependence on foreign oil, global warming, or the world food shortage. No, all Niven has to give us is a healthcare crisis solution that has been with us for as long as there have been social classes: kill the poor.
Larry, I never liked your books. Ringworld, your “masterpiece,” is a bloated, boring dreckfest populated with secondrate cartoon characters. You and Jerry used Inferno to take potshots at an author whose belches were more engaging than your best work, and Mote in God’s Eye went on and on and on, with an ending that hardly seemed worth the bother. Oh, and don’t forget more characterizations straight from the back of a box of Captain Crunch. And that was you in your prime, Larry. Well, guess what, you just jumped the Puppeteer. Time to put up your feet, drink your Budweiser, and kvetch about those kids today, cuz that’s all you’re good for. STFU already and go to Hell, where you can be buried like you buried Vonnegut, beneath a gravestone reading “He went to an ER for a simple case of appendicitis, and they removed his liver and kidneys.”
Vile. Absolutely vile.
D.
Big B&W Welcome to Guest Blogger, Cindy McCain
Balls and Walnuts gets lots of lurkers — mostly folks with a professional interest in cleavage and camel toes, but a few food fanatics, too. First Lady Hopeful Cindy McCain is one of those lurkers. Who knew?!
Hoping to calm the waters after her recent flap over plagiarized recipes, Cindy contacted us to see if she could post one of those folksy family recipes handed down to her from Great Grandma Hensley. “This one’s been a Sabbath Sunday favorite for the Hensley clan ever since the 1920s,” Cindy said. “For realsies.”
Always eager to oblige recovered drug addicts and verbally abused spouses of irate politicians, we at Balls and Walnuts happily agreed to Mrs. Senator McCain’s request. I’m sure you’ll agree her recipe is “Cinsational”!!!
First they fear you
And eventually, they just laugh at you. (Sorry, can’t remember the full quote.*)
Hillary Clinton’s Path to Victory
I don’t know if I’ll be back tonight . . . I have to do a bit of reading tonight.
D.
*Found it. The quote isn’t appropos, I’m afraid.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mohandas Gandhi
4000
US death toll in Iraq hits 4000.
. . . which does not count the number of US soldiers injured.
. . . which does not count the friends and family members of those dead or injured soldiers, folks whose lives have been harmed or ruined.
. . . which does not count dead Iraqi civilians, their friends, their family members.
. . . which does not count the enormous drain on society and the world: think of all the good ways there are to spend a trillion dollars.
Peace.
D.
Hillary is Jesus and other hyperbolic metaphors
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama yesterday. Richardson, twice appointed to high level positions under President Clinton, was thought to be firmly in the Clinton camp. How did the Clinton folks respond?
“An act of betrayal,†said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.
“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,†Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.
In related news, Senator Clinton’s chief pollster Mark Penn called Richardson’s endorsement “. . . treacherous, but insignificant. More like Axis Sally than Judas, if you ask me.” Political strategist Harold Ickes compared Richardson’s actions “. . . to the despicable behavior of Bobby Klinefelter. In sixth grade, Bobby used to lure me into the janitor’s closet with the promise of a bag of a Cheetos. Then he’d sucker-punch me in the neck and steal my lunch money, the bastard.”
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright quipped that Richardson’s endorsement was easily worth less than the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, while former candidate for Vice President, friend of the campaign, and recent HRC Finance Committee member Geraldine Ferraro said, “Frankly, I wouldn’t expect any better from that [expletive and racial epithet deleted.]”
***
Sorry about the snarky short. All hell is breaking loose out here, and this is all I got. I do have one question for y’all.
Is 2008 ever going to get any better?
We’ll see about live-blogging tonight. Guess it’ll be pretty obvious if I’m here when you’re here.
D.
The Speech
(Hate politics? Skip to the kitty.)
Read the full text or watch the video of Barack Obama’s speech here.
The man belted this one straight out of the park. I haven’t been this moved by a political speech since Edwards dropped out of the race — and, no, I don’t think Edwards could have given a speech like this.
As usual, other people have said it a lot better than I can. The empathy, the honesty, the intelligence, the logic of the speech floored me. What a relief from the foul winds we’ve been breathing for the last seven years — for decades, really.
Anyway, here is my inarticulate praise, which I posted at Daily Kos:
Effective, moving, logical
LOGICAL. The product of a brain not running on corn meal mush and twine with little twisty-ties holding one part to the other part and rubber bands for a power source.
I loved it.
***
Sorry about the political post. I know MOST of you don’t come here for politics. So here’s a pooty.
And because none of you want to talk politics (just guessin’), here’s my question for the evening:
How many of your grandparents were fond of spewing embarrassing racial slurs, ethnic epithets, or other random bits of nasty prejudicial slime?
I’ll kick it off. One of my grandmothers once said, “I hate those Chinese . . . ever since Pearl Harbor.”
D.