My views on politics, life, death, the army, and other things too miscellaneous to mention here. This is a personal blog. This blog is 100% factual.
Bill Duckwing
Poet, Author, Journalist
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Your Super-Cute Daily Terror Alert Update Will Be Forevermore:
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"There are some myths and untruths surrounding the role God plays in our daily lives. To say that religion and politics do not mix, is certainly a myth, unless you ask a liberal. Anything that affects a Christian (and voting is one of them) — enters into the religious realm. Trying to separate the two is like trying to separate oil from a glass of water, it's impossible to do. "
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Thursday, October 06, 2011
This Concludes the Apple Coda
The king is dead. Long live the King.
-duckwing, at 12:24 AM
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Friday, October 24, 2008
Sarah Palin is God
The genius of the Republican Party is occasionally a hard thing to figure. But sometimes, a figure emerges, a single strand of wheat glimpsed from the throngs of chafe and socialism. A blinding light reflected against a sea darkened by the reeds. A white blue-collared Christian point of order against a vast sea of unwash. A Hockey Mom, against a rink around the collards.
The Divine Sarah, so many Victorian journalists proclaimed, not knowing they were fluffing the carpet for the 21st century.
CNN makes it so.
-duckwing, at 11:31 PM
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Friday, September 26, 2008
The Funniest Election
In a way, it is. I mean, the fact the Sarah Palin really is the Vice Presidential candidate to a 72ish old man with scary skin cancer is both confusing and hysterically funny. But it's only funny in the way that the first day of the sun changing course and rising in the west would be funny. In the long run, I don't know what to say, except I'm glad this particular type of political insanity seems to be contained in America, for now.
Worthless conservative idiot Rod Dreher (via Andrew Sullivan, who still bothers to read these people regularly) says:
She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.
I'm reminded of when Nixon picked Agnew to be his Vice President, and how he was still able to win, even though almost everyone, including most Republicans, considered it the craziest thing to ever happen in American politics. Check out this ad from the 1968 campaign. Now, I'm not going to draw a historical comparison here, because hontestly I think the Palin pick is much worse than Agnew, and the Republican party brand is shit right now. But also realize that Agnew was a big part of the reason why the cultural conservatives flocked to the Republican brand, why the culture wars have dominated American politics for the last 40 years, and why using logic and reason to argue politics is still considered to be bad form.
-duckwing, at 3:18 PM
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
There Will Be Blood
 Hi, I'm Bill. American Politics, as many of you may know, is a bloodsport. Desperate. Passionate. Profound. Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.
We're a few days off from the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, and several weeks into a General Election Campaign that is so chaotic and unpredictable that no doubt we'll be wondering who will be proclaimed the next President of the United States for many weeks after the the dust has settled and the blood has coagulated from the events of November 4th.
During the next few weeks, many legions will be raised, and many talents will be spent before the bloodbath that now must surely ensue, when we finally reach that sacred date In The Year of Our Lord, 2008. Novermber 4th. A date that shall live on in infamy. A date in which many of us in our evangelical communites will turn their lonely eyes to our great country and ask, "what turmoil now hath man wroth?"
It is to our cable news media pundits that our eyes will then turn. To explain. And I fully now intend to return to their number. Since 2006, I've been but a paltry observer: always listening, caring not. But I now return, for a month and a half, to dole out my finest and most astute political wisdom and reasoned commentary, to this political election, in the year 2008.
I will remain humble and only offer the most objective and discernable political observations during this season of blood and carnage. No new events, no matter how tiny to the untrained eye, will escaple my all-knowing sight, no wrinkles in the dress of our nation's narrative will avoid the pulse of my tender analytical touch.
You are in good hands with Bill Duckwing. Tune in on Friday night, where I will be observing, and indeed, commenting, on the greatest ravaging and dismemberment modern American political campaigning has ever seen. Right here at the Apple Coda!
-duckwing, at 3:59 PM
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Monday, November 06, 2006
Predictions on the Midterms
House: I'm not going to bother with calling any individual races, but of course I'll go with the convention wisdom and predict that the house will end up under Democratic control. My breakdown: 223 (D), 212 (R).
The Senate, I'll assume that the seats polled this year as "Safe" seats are in fact "Safe" and just pick the winners for the races most people have put in the "tossup" category:
Rhode Island
Chafee (R) - 51%
Whitehouse (D) - 49%
The Islanders really like Chafee, and don't hate Bush quite enough to make Chafee pay for it.
Tennessee
Corker (R) - 54%
Ford (D) - 46%
Ford was a very good candidate, and I keep wanting to place this in the "win" category, but if you're consistenly trailing in the polls by a 8-12 point margin -it's kinda like being a Republican and believing Santorum could conceivably eck out a win in Pennslyvania.
Virginia
Webb (D) - 52%
Allen (R) - 48%
Virgina's politics have changed. I figure if Tim Kaine can win a governorship in Virginia against Jerry Kilgore, a guy that had a less than checkered past, then Webb should certainly beat George Allen, a guy who has done everything possible to destroy his canidacy. My only cavet is that Allen was an insanely popular politician in Virginia for the last decade or so, especially when he was Governor of Virginia. When Webb won the the primary the initial polls showed Allen ahead about 20 points. Webb will still squeak by here.
Montana
Tester (D) - 50.5%
Burns (R) - 49.5%
Okay, this is me totally ignoring the momentum shift of the past week and just going with my gut. Truth is, I don't see how a man like Conrad Burns could possibly beat a guy like Jon Tester. It breaks the laws of humanity, or something. Still, this race probably won't be decided until Wednesday.
Missouri
Talent (R) - 53%
McCaskill (D) - 47%
I know the Democrats have improved the GOTV machinery in this state in particular, but I don't think it's going to be a straight Democratic sweep with the tossups, and I think Missouri is still a solid Republican state and most of them are probably going to okay with keeping Talent in charge.
Ohio
Brown (D) - 56%
DeWine (R) - 44%
Um...DeWine certainly doesn't inspire Republicans to vote, thats for sure. Ohio, a huge blue collar state, is obviously really ticked off at the 'Pubs this year, and the burning effigies of Republican House members displayed on so many grass lawns all over the state really drive home the... well at least that's what the polls seem to show at this point. I don't have a reason not to believe Brown will win this when every poll has Brown over DeWine by at least 8 points.
Pennslyvania
Casey (D) - 59%
Santorum (R) - 41%
I'm approaching almost a 20 point gap here. There is no way, short of massive Diebold fraud taking place in Pennslyvania, that Santorum can win re-election.
New Jersey
Menendez (D) - 53%
Kean (R) - 47%
This race will tighten up, with Kean probably winning a majority of the undecideds tomorrow. But Menedez has polled consistantly ahead of Kean through the campaign, and I don't think New Jersey Republicans have the machinery in place to pull this off for Kean. I think if the Republicans had any idea this race could've been competitive a year ago the race would've been a lot more interesting.
Maryland
Steele (R) - 51%
Cardin (D) - 49%
Honestly, I think Steele just ran a better campaign here -and he would probably beat Cardin overwhelmingly if this wasn't also a referendum on Iraq and G.W. Bush. Maryland is still a Democratic stonghold, but I think the issue here is kind of the same problem with why Dem voters in RI are uncomfortable with ousting Chafee. I think that "blue states" generally tend to vote far more meritocratically, rather than toe a party line. While I do think the Bush thing tempers that sentiment down quite a bit, I still think Steele is going to win a narrow victory here. (I also think that Republican Erlich is going to be re-elected as Governor here, don't aske me why).
Arizona
Kyl (R) - 51%
Penderson (D) - 49%
There has been a surge in the past week for Penderson, enough that many strategists are thinking this could be the surprise swing state of the election. While I agree that the momentum shift is astonishing here, I don't really see any reason for the shift, and wouldn't be surprised if the latest polls are outliers. I do think there is some Dem mo' going on here, but I think it's probably too sudden and too much of a shock for Democrats to capitalize here.
FINAL SENATE TALLY: 52 (R) - 46 (D) - 2 (I -Lieberman and Sanders, who will vote with the Dems)
Gov'ner Tally - 27 (D), 23 (R)
What'cha think?
Update: Weirdly enough, Bob Novak has the exact same picks for the Senate races that I have here. He even throws in the oddly similar comparison of Ohio voters being a sort of GOP lynch mob this time around. I'll just chalk it up to Bob's optimism and my extreme pessimism, and hope that my picks are tainted by misgivings caused by the 2004 elections.
Update Numero 2: Cardin projected to win over Steele -with 0% of the votes counted so far. My first bad pick (sniff...no, not really).
Update 3: O'Malley beats Ehrlich for Governor of Maryland, and Whitehouse is projected to beat Chafee for the RI Senate seat -fuck (no, not really...) Chafee, you should've turned blue, man. Our loss.
-duckwing, at 9:36 PM
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Monday, October 16, 2006
Enjoy the Rush, But Seriously Start Planning Ahead for the Next Two Years
I've been following the politics with much more interest lately with the coming election and all. And I really hate being the contrarian here, but maybe the Democrats winning both branches of Congress isn't quite the best idea right now. Not with Bush in the White House at least.
I know, I know. Like I said, it seems needlessly contrarian, probably even insane. I wouldn't say that it's conclusion that I have set in stone or anything. But looking at the most likely scenario, I'm guessing that Democrats would probably pick up bare majorities in both the House and the Senate, and suddenly Bush becomes MR. VETO, picking apart legislation passed by the Democratic Congress and pretty much shitting all over it. And by giving him a chance to be an open critic for the American People against an opposing party that he feels is not acting in the People's Best Interest, I start getting flashbacks of Caesar vs. the Roman Senate dancing in my head. And seriously, I hate acid flashbacks.
Seriously, do you think it's inconceivable that Bush will just flat out veto everything? And Fox News and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon and turning Bush's flat out stubbornness into some sort of some sort of protectorate of the American people?
I'm sorry -I know the Democrats are really riding the momentum wave here. But waves eventually break, and the idea that we have to really be prepared for what lies ahead I think is obvious. I think W's obvious gift is that he is able to skirt compromise through sheer whining. I mean, if the wave's big enough to win Super Majorities in Congress, hey, I'll eat my hat. I think at the very least we'll lose the conservative Bush bashers, as they'll again rouse themselves to defend Bush now that the Republican party won't be the only factor in the equation to fuck shit up.
And I know that there are already tons of people and think tanks already banging their heads together and coming up with dozens of solutions to handling a slim Congressional Democratic majority for the next two years until the 2008 Election. To all of those proposals I offer only two suggestions. 1. Keep it fucking consistent, and 2. You guys have absolutely no idea what you're going to be up against. I mean, of course you know, but no, you really don't. The fact remains that, despite the vocal opposition against the government on things like the Iraq War and the change in public perception, it remains true that we have not had a say in our own government for over 5 years. In that time, we've been having nifty debates about things like our government's right to torture prisoners in secret detention camps, and wiretapping American citizens without warrants.
Given that, and assuming Democrats even do win the majority, I think it'd only be natural for Democrats will re-enter the Washington political machine with shaky and inexperienced hands. Still, better learn to still those hands quickly, guys.
-duckwing, at 7:53 PM
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The First Veto
I haven't blogged in about a month or so. Call it taking a break or just plain old "taking it easy" relaxation, but I have to tell you that I'm absolutely floored by the fact that we have a President of the United States exercising his first veto on funding research that could actually prolong and eliminate the suffering of countless numbers of his constituents, possibly within his own lifetime.
Some people have really left their humanity at the coat check during this past generation or so.
Richard Nixon, unquestionably one of the most loathsome Presidents in the previous generation, still felt a need to "throw a bone" to the public every once in awhile. After all, he did sign the bill that allowed young people (18+) to vote, and after all it was his administration that offered expanded welfare to those in need through the introduction of food stamps and the like. That we still considered the impeachment of Richard Nixon for his crimes a serious option, despite those bones that he threw at us, for me speaks of a far saner country than the one I live in presently.
In Bush, we have a man who is obviously far more interested in playing out a shallow revenge drama and in flipping off his political enemies than he is in furthering any agenda of progress for humanity or our country. I was once on the fence between whether this man's moral vacancy was due to his own lack of empathy, or if he had in happy ignorance allowed himself to be a token of the right-wing's goals and ideals, whatever those could possibly be. His first veto, done against the protests of such progressives as Nancy Reagan, whose husband was both the vanguard of this new right wing craziness and also its victim, and Orrin Hatch, who I won't even attempt to caricature here, can suggest nothing other than this.
He's just an asshole.
-duckwing, at 10:35 PM
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Thursday, June 08, 2006
Spoofing
I add to my blogroll the adorable Scrutator, which might be the most horribly facile website content I've ever seen, but still...just the blantant right wing spoofing is pretty cute.
I won't claim to be one of the originators of right wing spoofing, but I was definitely doing it well before it became the epidemic it's become. Nowadays, things are so weird in the blog community that actual left wing commenters will spoof right wing talking points in order to troll popular left wing websites. The point for any of this is anyone's guess. The comments made to posts at Scrutator, for instance, leave behind a clusterfuck of confused and angry fake confrontation, mostly made to mock...well, your guess is as good as mine...most likely people like me who are actually interested in why sites like these spring up in the first place...
I bring this up, because I was going to do a spoof Apple Coda template for a day or so, because of the Zarqawi thingy. I was planning to rename the blog, "CLAPPING FOR MORE PICTURES OF CORPSES!!" and yes, present every possible link and picture of Zarqawi's corpse, and other corpse crazy pics from Rotten, or Ogrish. I decided against it, not from tact, but from laziness -it would've taken me a few hours to revamp the site for what woud obviously only last a day or so at the most. You're welcome.
I have done things like this before. I did do a very special communist Apple Coda, with my avatar behind makeshift mspainted bars, and I affected a obvious and stilted writing style for posts. Also for some reason a very brief David Hasselboff pictoral with pink and light purple backgrounds. Don't ask me why!
But as you'll probably not take note of, I haven't spoofed the Bush administration in a very long time. And the reason for this, of course, is that when I do revert back into the silly conservative spoof, I do it in an attempt to tackle issues that might actually be controversial. See the estate tax riff a couple posts below, although who the fuck knows why that was controversial.
I mean, anyone attempting to defend Bush without any reservations these days is immediately laughed off as a spoof. Still, the scru's are, in their own way, kinda neat...
-duckwing, at 7:03 PM
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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
What the Hell is Populism, Anyway???
I know this seems like a facetious question, given the three question marks and the "what's love got to do with it?" like vibe to the title, but I'm kinda mystified by idea of populism, except as a political tool to work over those who believe that nations inherently have a permanent silent majority.
I mean, I like John Tester, the challanger to Conrad Burns for the Senate seat in Montana. But in what way exactly is he a "populist candidate?" -Do the views of organic farmers represent the majority of Americans?? Are we all former organic famers in the same sort of mystical Americana dream, like the cowboy or the western outlaw??
I mean, really. The previous historic populist benchmarks include Teddy Roosevelt, a nut-job conversationalist, and William Jennings Bryan, a Jesus freak who still commands the respect of legions of the intellectually challanged intelligent design enthusiasts.
I mean, can't we liberals just get on the side of honesty this time around and admit that practicality and common sense just don't register to the majority? Why do we have to pretend?
-duckwing, at 9:54 PM
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Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Being Taxed 2 Death...
I'll be one of the first to admit that being taxed by this government is not the funniest things to laff about in this crude sin-cursed world. I mean, if it comes to a nuke-fest with Iran, I'd, at the very least, would like a little extra moolah to put a down payment on some sort of make-shift fallout shelter in somebody's attic where I could store a smorgasborg of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Cloud soup. I could then spend most of my evenings painstakingly painting images of those soup cans, place them in a New York Soho gallery, and pay a house band with my excess earnings to reinvent rock n roll.
But the only problem with this vision, assuming that the Liberal Senate does indeed reject the current proposal to void the estate tax once and for all, is that -given the fact that I have completely reinvented art, and also rock n' roll, is that my children will indeed receive less of my assets once I do indeed pass on. And if that does indeed happen, I mean ...fuck that. I'm totally fucking selling that piece of shit house band I financed with my own money down the river, and I'm also taking those soup can paintings, which have totally fucking reinvented modern fucking art, to fucking Montana. Where my canvasses will provide plenty of insulation for the mail bombs I plan to use to voice my opposition to the opposition to the personal freedom the estate tax attempts to overcome.
We shall overcome, my brothers and sisters. I was thinking that maybe Republicans had got it all wrong...calling it the "death tax" is way too un-evocative. Instead, maybe we should call it the "shit tax." Because while death may create an unpleasant odour to the uninitiated, I'll be the first to admit that exposed human feces takes a skill to ignore far beyond the ranks of the uninitiated.
But remember, my brothers. If we do decide to call the estate tax the "shit tax" -I totally own the rights to that. TM, dudes, TM. And please don't forget to unload your assets to me in your wills...
-duckwing, at 9:22 PM
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Monday, June 05, 2006
Tales of Grizzly Adventure
Now, I'm not the most dedicated hip hop adventurer, goodness knows, but I picked up the Gnarls Barkley on a whim the other day, and while I think it's a fantastic album that pretty much deserves all the accolates it's been getting, I was a bit unnerved to note that there is a track on the album in which the singer, Cee Low, does do an impersonation of Dracula ("The Boogie Monster"). I note this only because the only hip hop album I've bought and enjoyed in recent years was 2003's OutKast album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which was also another excellent album that I probably allowed the hot laser eye in my CD play to burn a few freaking holes into it whilst dancing to with headphones alone in my apartment. And my point is that indeed The Love Below disc also has a song about Dracula ("Dracula's Wedding"). And I guess I figured that twice in one millennia is too much of a coincidence to ignore.
 And by no means do I want to generalize. But, after acknowledging that hip-hop bands like Gnarls Barkley basically get enjoy exposure in Europe in order to placate thirty-something white urban male professionals who believe that the hip-hop golden age ended with the death of Public Enemy, I still have to express concern over the vampire boogey shit in modern hip hop. Not that I really think that it's a trend, but in my very limited knowledge of contempoary hip-hop, I'm still a little bothered by the notion that maybe the RIAA missed the boat and anchored their salaries against the nutty idea that modern yuppies equate Ann Rice and boogiemen with "edgy."
And I'm not claiming to be the ultimate arbitor of cool musical discretion or anything like that, either. I completely and profoundly rescind those medals, goodness knows. And goodness knows, I've been a fine and upstanding model of the upright citizens brigade lately, goodness knows, and I haven't taken the Lord's Name in Vain lately, and I wipe my brow with my hand from sweat, knowing that it will never cool me, and that when my Lord calls me my brow with be crowned by both bloody thorns, but also by a rising feverish temperature...
I was acosted by a grizzly bear the other day. It stood on it's hind legs and waved a paw in my line of sight, but all the same never looking at me directly in middle of the thicket. I know not where it went. And I am always concerned as to what event will influence the fluctuation of my internal body temperature. But I shall not want. Father, no...not you, grizzly bear....I commend my spirit. But I mean, c'mon, look at the mess you're making...think of the trashmen who will occupy this space in the morning...you need to think of the others before yourself...father....
-duckwing, at 9:39 PM
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