Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

This fight is for everything.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Bark louder, little dog.

The willow is too close to the house.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

No one could have predicted…

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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On The Road

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Balloon Juicers who are on the road, travelling, etc. and wish to share notes, links, pictures, stories, etc. from their escapades. As the US mainland begins the end of the Earth day as we measure it, many of us rise to read about our friends and their transient locales.

So, please, speak up and share some of your adventures, observations, and sights as you explore, no matter where you are. By concentrating travel updates here, it’s easier for all to keep up-to-date on the adventures of our fellow Commentariat. And it makes finding some travel tips or ideas from 6 months ago so much easier to find…

Have at ’em, and have a safe day of travels!

 

Should you have any pictures (tasteful, relevant, etc….) you can email them to [email protected] or just use this nifty link to start an email: Start an Email to send a Picture to Post on Balloon Juice

 

Hope you had a refreshing weekend, pics after the fold!

More great stuff from Le Comte de Monte Crist fka Edmund Dantes:

This was a nice little snorkel trip and rest stop at a place accessible only by boat, as I remember.

My camera battery kept crapping out (didn’t do it anywhere else on the trip, just in the catacombs). Once the Paris cemeteries filled up, all the older bodies were exhumed and the bones lined up underground in a macabre setting. I took several lousy dark photos without flash (camera lighting is prohibited in order to preserve the bones), but with the battery issues the camera shut down on me. The first time it happened, I didn’t think to check the settings on restore, and it defaulted to flash. This is my single illegal photo, one which actually shows the walls as they are.

 

When: April 2010
Where: St Sulpice

This is the plaque marking the Rose Line (the old Prime Meridian) in This classic Paris church. This was featured in the DaVinci Code.

Funny story – I got to see the gypsy shift change here. My wife and her sister had gone to meet their aunt and her husband at the Pompidou for lunch and to arrange a dinner time family get-together (they lived in Igny at the time, and have sense moved to Strasbourg).  Me, the brother in law and kids were supposed to catch up with them at St Sulpice and got the schedule botched. Our first try at the church it was 2 pm, we saw a woman begging with an English lettered beggar sign, and she had a child that was filthy, two or three years old that you would not want anywhere close to your pockets (I watched the kid scrabbling at tourist pockets).  Anyway, shortly before 3 pm, we came back. At a couple of minutes before three, we are standing outside. Up comes a hound gypsy woman with a hand lettered beggar sign in English. First gypsy girl leaves and the second one takes her place. Kid does a double shift.

Too damned funny.

 

When – August 2012
Where: Key West

This was on the Western Union, a cable layer which no longer sails. I was on a guy’s diving trip.
Evenings aboard her were magical. They’d serve food and drinks and play sea chantys.
That evening, while stars were in the sky, we saw a thunderstorm about 10 nm away.

 

When – October 2009 (I think)
Where- Churchill, Manitoba, Canada
This was a Natural Habitat trip. It was kind of a beast to get to – it was as far to Churchill as it is from home to Venezuela.  It isn’t quite to the Arctic Circle, but it is on the Churchill River/Hudson Bay confluence just south of the boundary to Nunavut.
In Churchill prior to the ice forming on Hudsons Bay, the polar bears get super hungry. They come into town to scavenge.  When that happens, they tranquilize them and helicopter them about 50 miles away. There was a mother and child this time dangling under the helo.

 

Much more tomorrow and later this week. Have a good one, travel safely, and do send in pictures from your adventures and the sights you see. We all grow from that sharing.

Reader Interactions

19Comments

  3. 3.

    satby

    Great pictures Le Comte! You’re really well travelled, so I was wondering what places are still on your bucket list you hadn’t been to yet?

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    By the way Alain,

    did you not like the pics of the Catedral de Santa María de Palma de Mallorca I sent you back on 3/31? Or did you lose them? Or, by far the most likely, did I screw up the sending of them and you somehow, someway, never received them?

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Speaking of Cambodia, our daughter got to work on a dig in a freshly cleared minefield at Angkor Wat, under the supervision of a French archaeologist. That was a bit of a beast – took three governments to approve on that one, which the wife somehow accomplished.

    One note – that top photo was at the Chat and Chill in Exuma.

    I have lots on my bucket list – I’m headed for a scuba liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef next month, and we may be substituting an Africa trip for Italy in the fall. I’ve yet to step foot in South America (Argentina and Child are on my list) and definitely want to experience the Galapagos. Definitely want to experience some of the same adventures the wife has in Cambodia and Myanmar (you should see her photos – they put mine to shame. She’s been to six of the seven continents extensively). The one thing I’ve always wanted to do that she said “ok, I guess I’ll go, but am not crazy about it” is Antarctica. Apparently, the getting there tends to be a whirlwind of stomach-churning waves.

  11. 11.

    Alain the site fixer

    @OzarkHillbilly: they’re running tomorrow. With a full Easter belly last evening, I didn’t scratch the reserves too far. So yes, Mallorca tomorrow!

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Another fun fact about Churchill – you get to see the Northern Lights there.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Alain the site fixer: Heh, OK, thanx. I was beginning to worry I had f’d up again. (which I have, I accidentally clicked on something in the lower right corner of the computer and changed the screen entirely. The wife spent 2 hrs yesterday trying to fix it, finally gave up and configured a work around)

  16. 16.

    frosty

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’ve been to Chile and Bolivia. La Paz has the most amazing setting of any city I’ve ever seen. The town of Sorata with 2 20,000 foot mountains, perched on a hillside above a valley, with terraced farms going up the slopes was the most speactacular scenery I’ve ever seen. It beat Switzerland and Colorado.

    The bus ride there was on a narrow mountain road but fortunately not the Road of Death to Coroico, which has finally been replaced.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Green is the most common color.

    The color of the aurora depends on the wavelength of the light emitted. This is determined by the specific atmospheric gas and its electrical state, and the energy of the particle that hits the atmospheric gas. The atmosphere consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, which emit the characteristic colors of their respective line spectra. Atomic oxygen is responsible for the two main colors of green (wavelength of 557.7 nm) and red (630.0 nm). Nitrogen causes blue and deep red hues.

    Most of the auroral features are greenish-yellow, but sometimes the tall rays will turn red at their tops and along their lower edges. On rare occasions, sunlight will hit the top part of the auroral rays to create a faint blue color. On very rare occasions (once every 10 years or so) the aurora can be a deep blood red color from top to bottom. Pink hues may also be seen in the lower area of the aurora. In addition to producing light, the energetic auroral collisions transmit heat. The heat is dissipated by infrared radiation, or transported away by strong winds in the upper atmosphere.

    I recall seeing some red but never any blue. I have to say “recall” because that was 40 years ago.

  18. 18.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I stood outside next to where we were staying, in a group (had to because of the threat of bears, which was a real life, no shit thing), sipping Jameson’s and enjoying the show. It was sort of sparkling, the way I was seeing it.

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