Look — an unsquashed armadillo! I know they dig up golf courses and flower beds, but I’ve always liked these odd looking critters. They’re easy to sneak up on too — maybe their hearing or eyesight or both are poor?
I’m not the most stealthy person ever, but I’ve come close enough to scoop up an armadillo lots of times. (I have never actually done so out of respect for their personal space. And claws.) They always seem really surprised to see me when they finally notice I’m there.
Please feel free to discuss whatever.
Redshirt
I just had three large turkeys (one female, the mom I assume, and two males) hanging out on a rock wall in front of my house. I took some not great photos from inside my house, but of course the minute I stepped outside for a better shot, bang! They’re gone.
I need a better lens.
tybee
possum on the half shell.
and they will destroy your garden.
bill d
Where’s his Lone Star beer bottle?
wmd
Armadillos can be host to Hansen’s disease. They are the primary source of new cases of leprosy in the US. Don’t let one sneeze on you!
different-church-lady
Worst trolling of GG fans ever.
Betty Cracker
@wmd: Now I have another reason not to pick one up!
MikeJ
@wmd:
Even worse you could catch Hanson’s disease. You’ll walk around singing Mmmbop all day. A fate worse than leprosy.
bill d
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve always wanted to livee in a colony.
bill d
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve always wanted to live in a colony.
Citizen_X
Good.
I once–and I know this is bad–managed to grab an armadillo by the tail, just before he made it into a hole. He let out a little “Squeee!”, like a tiny pig.
Apologies to all armadillo-Americans.
wmd
@Betty Cracker: But then you could move to Molokai.
Tone in DC
Some stuff I found at the DN! website. Interesting.
ARI BERMAN: …John Roberts, when he was a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, led the fight against another part of the Voting Rights Act. He lost that fight. But it’s clear that when Roberts got on the court, this was going to be an issue that he wanted to deal with. He wanted to be able to undo what he couldn’t do in the 1980s.
And you look at inside the conservative movement today. There is a group called the Project on Fair Representation, which brought this case, which found the plaintiff, which paid for the lawyers. They are funded by the largest members in the conservative movement, by a group called Donors Trust, which receives money from the Koch brothers and so many other large conservative funders. That allowed the Project on Fair Representation and other conservative groups to have the resources to find these challenges, to bring them to the court, to get them before a receptive audience. We don’t know—if it wasn’t for this one group, the Project on Fair Representation, this challenge may never have even come to the court. So, really, this is not an accident. It’s really a determined movement by conservatives to gut the most important civil rights law in the last 50 years.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Can you speak specifically—the group that you’re talking about—the role of Ed Blum?
ARI BERMAN: Ed Blum runs the Project on Fair Representation. He is a conservative who lost a seat for Congress in the 1990s. He believed he was the victim of unfair racial gerrymandering that was mandated by the Voting Rights Act, so he then devoted his life to basically lessening the use of race in public policy, as he said. He founded the Project on Fair Representation with the help of the American Enterprise Institute in 2005 to challenge a 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. He lost that battle overwhelmingly. Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to zero in the Senate—margins that we just don’t see on anything today. And when Blum lost in Congress, he decided to go for the courts. And when John Roberts became chief justice, he knew he had an ideological ally on the court.
…And one of the big stories—I think the biggest story—in the South right now is the tension between demographic change and voter suppression. A third of the country lives in the South right now. One of the consequences of the Voting Rights Act was that it turned the South from Democratic to Republican. It’s shifting back now Democratic. If you look at Barack Obama, he won three states of the Old Confederacy. Republicans are aware of that. That’s why they’ve redistricted so aggressively since the 2010 election, and that’s why states like North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, etc., are rushing to pass new voting restrictions now. And without Section 5, it’s going to be open season in the South to try to pass new laws that can thwart the impact of demographic changes.
Tone in DC
This is more from DN!
The last of today’s copy pasta, promise.
This is from a university admissions case. It’s long, but worth reading, I think.
AARON MATÉ: With just days before the summer recess, the Supreme Court has handed down the first of four major decisions on issues of civil rights, discrimination and equality. On Monday, the court ruled on a challenge to the use of race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions. The petitioner in the case, Abigail Fisher, is a white woman who accused the University of Texas of discrimination for rejecting her application. Many had expected the court’s conservative members to seize upon the case as part of a right-wing effort to end affirmative action for good. But instead, the court came down with an opinion that gives both sides reasons to cheer.
In a seven-to-one decision, justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court and told it to consider affirmative action under a harsher standard. But they also refused to overturn the 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which rejected the use of racial quotas in college admissions but allowed for less direct methods of affirmative action.
AMY GOODMAN: Although affirmative action in college admissions stays alive for now, it continues to face an uncertain future. It’s long been a target of right-wing groups, and Monday’s ruling could lead to more lawsuits in the next year.
Meanwhile, another major decision on racial equality could come as early as today. The court is set to rule on a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires several states and counties with a history of racial discrimination to clear election-related changes with the federal government.
For more, we’re joined by Damon Hewitt, director of the Education Practice Group at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The group filed a number of amicus briefs in the Texas case on behalf of the Black Student Alliance at the University of Texas-Austin.
I want to welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you start off by saying, Damon, what your response is to the Supreme Court ruling? It surprised many.
DAMON HEWITT: Well, it certainly did surprise many, but we weren’t totally surprised. What the court essentially told us is that the lower courts should more faithfully apply the existing standard. There really is no new law coming out of yesterday’s decision. It’s essentially the same strict scrutiny standard that always applied. But, at base, we think that this is really a victory for supporters of diversity and opportunity in higher education, and it’s certainly a loss, certainly, at this point, for Abigail Fisher’s counsel, who really thought that they would really get to a chance to undo what’s been settled precedent for some time.
AARON MATÉ: Damon, I wanted to get your response to Justice Clarence Thomas. He wrote in a concurring opinion the case—he wrote in a concurring opinion that was longer than the majority opinion. Justice Thomas said he wanted the court to, quote, “hold that a State’s use of race in higher education admissions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause.” He compared the arguments in favor of affirmative action to those used to support segregation, calling them, quote, “virtually identical.” He added, quote, “The use of race has little to do with the alleged educational benefits of diversity,” and said, quote, “Slaveholders argued that slavery was a ‘positive good’ that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life.” Can you respond? And can you also talk about what you expect to happen once this case moves back down to the appeals court?
DAMON HEWITT: Certainly. You know, in that—that opinion really assumes facts not in evidence. It assumes social science that simply doesn’t exist. If it does exist, it’s basically junk science. Really, it contemplates a world that ignores the fact that the Supreme Court upheld race-conscious affirmative action programs in Grutter v. Bollinger. I think the chief frustration that that opinion suggests or conveys is that the court didn’t overrule Grutter, or that it decided Grutter in the first place. If you even look at the citations to all of the different types of so-called evidence indicated in that opinion, it’s actually information that predates the court’s ruling in Grutter. So it’s really not dealing with contemporary realities. It’s not even dealing with contemporary law. And frankly, to compare chattel slavery and legally mandated segregation to race-conscious affirmative action programs really defies logic. And we believe not only have most of the justices rejected that, because no other justices joined that opinion, but most Americans would eject—reject, rather, that kind of logic, as well. In terms—
AMY GOODMAN: Damon, the petitioner in the case is Abigail Fisher, the woman who says she was rejected by the University of Texas because she’s white. In this online video, Fisher billed her lawsuit against affirmative action as a challenge to discrimination.
ABIGAIL FISHER: There were people in my class with lower grades who weren’t in all the activities I was in who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin. A good start to stopping discrimination would be getting rid of the boxes on applications—male, female, race, whatever. Those don’t tell the admissions people what type of student you are or how involved you are. All they do is put you into a box. Get rid of the box.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Abigail Fisher. Officially, she’s the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, but that’s not the whole story. What’s not widely known is that the case was in fact spearheaded by a man named Edward Blum. A former stockbroker, he recruited Fisher after a long search for a student who could challenge affirmative action in court. He came across her because she happens to be the daughter of one of his old friends. Backed by the secretive right-wing group Donors Trust, Blum has ensured that wealthy right-wing donors are covering Fisher’s legal bills. In this video from 2008, Blum makes an open appeal for Texas students to join his cause against affirmative action.
EDWARD BLUM: This student here in Houston and thousands of other students throughout the state of Texas have been unfairly punished after UT decided to reintroduce race-based affirmative action. It’s time for UT to stop. I encourage all high school students who have been rejected from UT to visit at utnotfair.org, tell us your story, contact us. If you’ve been rejected from UT, we want your story, and we want to try to help you.
TaMara (BHF)
That was my exact thought when I saw it!
Hey, since it’s an open thread I wanted to let you know I’ve started up the weekly menu posts again. Trying for every Monday – full dinner menu, recipes and shopping lists.
Today is Greek Wraps
ranchandsyrup
Mmmmmmmm armadillo eggs are tasty. I have no idea how the jalapeno, cheese, etc. gets in there prior to the amadillo laying them fully fried, but maybe I don’t want to know.
allrecipes.com/recipe/armadillo-eggs/
Violet
@tybee: Was putting the cover on the bbq grill on Saturday night and heard a crash. There was a baby possum balancing on an old fence post. I think it heard us and got scared, tried to run away via the hummingbird feeder, which then crashed down. It was utterly terrified.
Plenty off possums around in our area. Can’t do anything about them except maybe get a dog. Even then, if the dog is put up at night, the possums roam free.
Comrade Mary
I heard this (sad but fictional) armadillo story on the radio years ago. It’s brilliant. (But sad.)
Villago Delenda Est
Don’t squash armadillos…squash Villager vermin!
Redshirt
I finally got my bird book (Sibley Guide, Eastern US) and I’m digging in. Helped me identify the male and female turkeys this morning. Now, bring on the small, colorful birds! And Blue Jays, enough!
Ultraviolet Thunder
I only see clobbered ones in person. Driving from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa today I saw two. Kinda surprised to see them in a moist climate. I thought they favored dry environments.
Lee
Both.
We have ‘dillos that used to come through the neighborhood digging up yards every month or so. I have a trap I set up that we catch/release (miles away in a more rural area).
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet:
I have a family of Possums who come and eat the cat food at the front door every night. They are fascinating to watch.
Betty Cracker
@Ultraviolet Thunder: There are tons of them in Florida, so they must not object to the humidity too much.
wmd
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
No, armadillos like warm wet environments. They’ve got issues with heat regulation due to armor and low body fat and dry environments are difficult for them. That’s why they aren’t common in New Mexico and Arizona.
Fun armadillo fact: they don’t implant their fertilized egg for up to 4 months after fertilization. One the egg is implanted it immediately divides into 4 embryos each with its own placenta.
There’s got to be something objectionable for the fetus people in this.
R-Jud
We have a hedgehog visiting us at night again. He comes in under the fence, trundles up the lawn, and placidly munches on things in the compost heap. It’s pretty funny to watch the cats checking him out. They sit on opposite fences and chirp at one another.
“Go touch it.”
“I’m not touching it. You touch it.”
“Nuh-uh. You first.”
mclaren
Excellent discussion about how badly the Obama maladministration is fucking up the ACA non-reform law in its increasingly botched implementation over at nakedcapitalism:
But the worst part of the ACA non-reform is the lie that it will end the vile insurance practice of recission, AKA “You paid for health insurance for 20 years, but now that you’ve gotten sick we’ve decided not to pay for your treatment. Go away and die — and if you sue us, you’ll be dead before your case gets to court, sucker!”
Source: “ObamaCare Rollout: Punts on Income Verification and Employer Insurance Checks, Setting Stage for Insurers to Call Mistakes “Fraud” and Rescind Policies,” nakedcapitalism.com, 8 July 2013.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
They’re range is gradually moving northward. This is the first year we’ve had em here in Central Misery. I’ve seen em 10 miles south of here for a year or so.
They will dig up your garden: very destructive. And they can move fast when they want to, I’ve tried catching em and they can haul when they want to.
As said above, don’t handle em unless you’d like to potentially contract a good old fashioned Biblical-esque disease, ie. leprosy.
“Penny for an ex-leper?”
Jay C
@Redshirt:
Up here in the Scenic Berkshires ™ wild turkeys are a common sight: usually they go around in little family groups – a tom, a hen or two, and a line of chicks following: but so far this year, I’ve only had one sighting: a lone hen, with half-a-dozen chicks (this was in early June: the little guys were really little) poking around in our meadow. Which is as lush as I’ve ever seen it with all the rain we’ve had (I’m taking a break from gardening due to a passing rainstorm: so of course, I immediate log on to Balloon Juice: pathetic, or what?).
Heywood J.
Sorry for the OT, but just wanted to remind, free downloads of my newest guitar book for Kindle until midnight tonight. Cat foto at the link as recompense for your time, gracias.
srv
Is anyone else just hankering for an XL pipeline demonstration like Lac Megantic Quebec?
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: Several years ago I saw a mother with a full set of babies hanging off each side. I think there were seven in total. Really cool to see, although I’m not a fan of possums. They can be destructive.
Arclite
I guess when you’re all armored up like that, you can afford to have poor eyesight and hearing.
henqiguai
@Top
And salmonella; let’s not forget the possibility of salmonella transfer to the hands. Not the kind of contact high you want to be gettin’
SiubhanDuinne
I’ve always like armadillos too, I think as much as anything because my very favourite Just-So Story was the one about “The Beginning of the Armadillos.”
“Can’t curl but can swim,
Slow-Solid, that’s him.
Can curl but can’t swim,
Stickly-Prickly, that’s him.”
Hungry Joe
If you get a chance, see (order!) “The Healthcare Movie.” Description (from the website): “The Healthcare Movie reveals the intensity of the political struggle that led to the universal medical care system in Canada, and the public relations campaigns that have been prevalent for almost a century to dissuade the public from supporting national health care in the United States.”
Fascinating, infuriating, very well done. I learned about it at the San Diego BJ’ers meetup, at which a very nice lurker told me about a documentary his sister had co-produced. Then he lent me a copy. Highly recommended.
Comrade Mary
@srv: Huh? If you can show how the pipeline would be capable of crashing into the middle of a small town in the middle of the night, blowing up several blocks, and killing dozens of people (many of whom were so totally cremated that it may be a long time before they are ever identified), please let us know.
I know that pipelines carry genuine risks, but the train crash and horrific explosions are actually being used up here to argue FOR the pipeline.
Roger Moore
@wmd:
That is interesting. I know that delayed implantation is fairly common among carnivores, but I hadn’t heard about it happening in armadillos.
Dr. Squid
Back when Ann Richards was Texas governor, their state maps that they gave out at rest stops read, “Texas is so fun, even their animals look like practical jokes,” with a picture of an armadillo.
That was very Ann Richards.
Just Some Fuckhead
Whenever we see an armadillo, we sing the armadillo song.
Dr. Squid
Great. We have a thread about armadillos and one of the naked cap glibertarian cranks is posting conspiracy theories.
Roger Moore
@Dr. Squid:
Mclaren isn’t a glibertarian crank. She’s a
holiermore liberal than thou firebagger.a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Violet: And they have bajillions of teeth. A naturalist told me they have more than any other mammal.
Thread needs moar fawns. Spotted on the lawn next door yesterday. Happy Birthday BGinChi.
Dr. Squid
@Roger Moore: In other words, still a crank, and naked cap is a very libertarian source. The enemy of my enemy and all that.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Sorry one too many links in a post. Consolation photo, taken yesterday. Happy Birthday BGinChi in case I don’t make it our of moderation with twin pics.
Betty Cracker
@R-Jud: For more hedgehog fun, see #19 here.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
She claims to be a holier-than-thou firebagger, but she’s actually a libertarian crank. Follow her healthcare links sometime: they all link to libertarian foundations.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I have long cherished a theory, with absolutely no hard evidence to back it up, that there is a narrow (say, 20-25 miles wide) east-west band running across the southern tier of states that essentially separates both the roadkill of choice (possums vs. armadillos) and the arboreal parasite of choice (kudzu vs. Spanish moss).
Roger Moore
@Dr. Squid:
Still a crank, but one with severe Obama Derangement Syndrome and consequently willing to listen to any source that will make him look bad, even one that otherwise disagrees with her political philosophy.
SiubhanDuinne
@R-Jud:
I’m also very partial to hedgehogs. I blame Beatrix Potter.
Have you ever visited the wildlife rescue hospital in Haddenham, Bucks., called Saint Tiggywinkle’s? It’s on my must-see list next time I’m in the UK.
SiubhanDuinne
@srv:
Actually, what happened at Lac Megantic is a pretty good argument in favour of KXL Pipeline. As long as we’re going to use fossil fuels anyhow….
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne: Also, what
@Comrade Mary said.
SiubhanDuinne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
This one?
catclub
@SiubhanDuinne: How the Elephant got its Trunk.
“and now, O best beloved…”
“… down to the great, grey-green, greasy, Limpopo river, all set about with fever trees, to ask the crocodile what he ate for dinner.”
NickT
Speaking of archaic lifeforms prone to spreading leprosy, it appears that Shitty Ricky Bangbang has thrown in the towel:
livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gov-rick-perry-will-not-seek-reelection?ref=fpa
TaosJohn
Nearly blind for sure. I was watching one once by the side of a road just south of Austin. Suddenly it reversed direction and ran right between my legs!
SiubhanDuinne
@catclub: I love that one too. I love all the stories that take place in the High and Far-Off Times (not to mention in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes) because, like the Elephant’s Child, I am afflicted with ‘satiable curtiosity.
Schlemizel
Why did the armadillo cross the road? To prove to his relatives it IS possible!
BTW – did you know the little buggers are a carrier for leprosy?
Currants
@Redshirt: iBird Pro is a good app that can help id birds, and Cornell’s ornithology site, too.
Mac from Oregon
Saw my first live and dead armadillos this month on a trip through the south. Weird critters.
2liberal
in 2003 the Patriots drafted two Texas A&M grads , resulting in a bunch of aggie jokes in one column from a local sportswriter. The one i remember: “how many aggies does it take to eat an armadillo? {wait for it…} three – one to do the eating and two to watch out for cars”
John Weiss
@Dr. Squid: Dr. You’re right. I loved Ann (but not in the biblical way).
John Weiss
@TaosJohn: Armadillos have poor eyesight and poor hearing. I’ve scared up many of them and watched them run into trees, rocks and so on. But can they dig!
robuzo
Armadillo eat fire ants. Armadillo good. uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/faqans.html#armadillo
tybee
@Violet:
a semi-amusing story, perhaps bordering on animal cruelty:
back yard has a 6ft privacy fence containing a 35lb elk hound/chow mix.
winter evenings, possums would walk the fence at night, driving the dog nuts.
i had a 14 foot long home made push pole – the thingee one uses to push a skiff through shallow water – that had a pvc “U” shaped end.
we could walk up to the fence that had atop the snarling, salivating and teefs gnashing possum, put the “U” under its belly and with a swift upwards motion, launch said possum off the fence.
a loud thump and the possum would wander away and the mutt would stifle.
some nights we could launch two or three possums before 10pm.
redneck entertainment at its finest.
Original Lee
One of the sociology professors at college had a collection of armadillo p3nis bones that he used as cocktail stirrers. Fortunately for me, I heard about this before I went to a soiree at his home.
Ecks
@bill d: Join the Republican party, you’ll get to within a ‘y’ of it.