Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

The lights are all blinking red.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

This really is a full service blog.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

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

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Welcome White Sands

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  5. 5.

    Raven

    My grandmother had just passed away in LA, our car blew up in Tucson after limping back from a trip to Guaymas and we were driving a “driveaway” car back to Illinois from Socal. All of our shit was in Tucson so we had to violate the prescribed route and there were inspection stations on 66 in New Mexico so we decided “fuck it” and drove up through White Sands and Almagordo to the Texas Panhandle. I know it was a Sunday because I was listening to Marv Hubbard crying because the Steelers beat them again in the playoffs (must haVE BEEN 74). Because it was Sunday and Texas was dry I wasn’t drinking (as I usually did) when a Texas State Trooper pulled us over. We only had one bag of weed and that asshole searched every inch of the car except my wife’s drawers! He was so dumb he didn’t read the documentation that said it was a Federal Crime to deviate from the route and he let us go. And that, boys and girls, is my story of White Sands!

  8. 8.

    FlyingToaster

    @Raven: Okay, I’m clearly not old enough.

    “driveaway car”?

    “prescribed route”?

    I’m used to prescribed routes for hazardous materials and for getting 52′ semis into/outof Boston, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you were doing.

  12. 12.

    LivinginExile

    PegiSue and I spent a winter in Almagordo.  We liked that area, because it was a short drive up into the mountains to cloudcroft, and it was a total change of scenery.  A strong wind out of the west would cover everything with white dust.  That was the downside.

  15. 15.

    SalterWobchak

    I’ve been to White Sands at night during a full moon.  You want to talk about cool!  That is a lot of fun.

  18. 18.

    FlyingToaster

    @Raven: Again, no, but I was born in the last two weeks of the Eisenhower administration.  Just barely a ‘boomer, most of my cultural touchpoints are with the GenXers, and most of my jargon is computer related, or very specific to the Hub of the Universe.

    Also, I’m an airline brat, so the only reason I would drive a car for significant distances is because I inherit it.  I did that in ’89, and have no intention of ever doing that again.

  19. 19.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @trollhattan: How long before Cliven Bundy declares it as his?

    Ha ha let the fucker try. He and his merry band of Sovereign Citizens would make it about 10 hours before they ran screaming home to lick their 2nd degree sunburns, maybe a while longer in winter but it’d be ridiculously easy to flush them out of the site since there’s no water once you get past the entry gate. Every year we sadly hear about some poor tourist who got lost and perished within a ridiculously short period of time because they got confused by the rolling dunes or grossly underestimated how much water they’d need.

    And this place doesn’t have quite the amenities of Malheuer Refuge unless you like horrifically smelly porta-potties and Flintstones brontasaurus rib-like picnic tables in the middle of nowhere. No nicely stocked communal kitchens and overnighter bunks here, no computers and the worse cell phone service evah.

    Seriously, though, it’s a truly gorgeous place and the natural history about how it came to be is amazing. Every minute of the day is another incredible photo opp with the lighting changes. We particularly love the Full Moon Nights and usually go once or twice a year. And Doggos LUVLUVLUV it there!!

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @Raven: Are you so pleased with yesterday’s good news that you are celebrating by capitalizing your nym?  Or is this a different Raven?

  21. 21.

    Raven

    @FlyingToaster:
    Close your eyes & create the sound
    Open your hands & rebuild the ground
    We are egg snatchers –
    Flashin’ sunshine children
    Bunch of diamond thieves

    You unleash the dogs
    Of a grade-b movie star governor’s war
    While you sit in the dark –
    Insane with the fear of dying
    We’ll ball in your parks
    Insane with the flash of living

  22. 22.

    Another Scott

    Nice.  Thanks.

    In other news, BlueVirginia:

    […]

    Finally, here are some graphics from JHK Forecasts, which claims that it “back tested” its presidential model for 2016 had an electoral-weighted “Brier Score” (“measures the accuracy of probabilistic predictions,” where “the lower the Brier score is for a set of predictions, the better the predictions are calibrated”) of 0.0873, better than 538.com’s “Polls-Plus” (0.0928), the New York Times (0.1208), Daily Kos (0.1439), etc. Now, I can’t independently verify this, but CNU Professor Rachel Bitecofer seems to think highly of JHK Forecasts, as she recently tweeted out its latest update and confirmed to me that she thinks they do solid work. Still…feel free to disagree, but keep in mind what this is exactly — polls-based probability forecasts, nothing more or less. With that…here are the latest forecasts nationally and also specifically for Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary.

    First off, JHK has Joe Biden with a 48.6% probability of winning the Democratic nomination, followed by Bernie Sanders (19.1%), Elizabeth Warren (14.7%), Pete Buttigieg (7.4%), Michael Bloomberg (3.1%), Andrew Yang (2.1%), Amy Klobuchar (1.9%), Cory Booker (1.4%) and Tom Steyer (1.2%).

    Now, here’s JHK’s forecast specifically for Virginia’s March 3 Democratic Presidential primary: Joe Biden with a 64.1% chance of winning it, followed by Bernie Sanders (10.4%), Elizabeth Warren (8.9%), Pete Buttigieg (5.8%), Michael Bloomberg (2.7%), Amy Klobuchar (2.5%), Cory Booker (1.8%, Andrew Yang (1.7%) and Tom Steyer (1.8%). As for projected delegates coming out of Virginia, JHK has it at Biden 88, Sanders 6, Warren 4, Buttigieg 1 and everyone else at zero.

    Now, it’s quite possible that a LOT could change between now and when the caucuses/primaries start (February 3 – Iowa caucuses; February 11 – New Hampshire primary; February 22 – Nevada caucuses; February 29 – South Carolina primary; March 3 – “Super Tuesday,” including Virginia’s primary), so take all this with a grain of salt. For instance, recall that at this point in 2007, Hillary Clinton was nearly 20 points ahead of Barack Obama. And at this point in 2003, it was Howard Dean at 31%, followed by Dick Gephardt at 9%, Joe Lieberman at 8%, and…finally, John Kerry at 8%. The bottom line right now is that most Democratic voters aren’t solidly committed to any particular candidate, meaning there can be a lot of shifting around, depending on a bunch of stuff, including who wins Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, etc. So we’ll see.

    They’re also predicting the Senate will be red at 51:49.

    Those are up-to-the-minute numbers, but I don’t see anything on the JHKForecasts Politics site indicating when and how the numbers were arrived at. More at the link(s).

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    MazeDancer

    Yay, White Sands for the upgrade.

    Though, have to confess I thought it already was a National Park. But now see it was only a “Monument”. Hope it gets more something for being a park, now.

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    @MazeDancer:

    History is when a monument or wilderness or national forest becomes a national park interest in and visitation jump significantly. This is a two-edged sword, of course, since the Park Service is horribly underfunded and developing guest accommodations inevitably falls short of serving the increased traffic.

    Still, it’s an assurance that resource extraction can’t occur within the boundaries.

  29. 29.

    RAM

    We visited there about a decade ago on our way back to Illinois from visiting friends in AZ. It was at the end of the school year, there were a bunch of high school buses there, and the kids were all snowboarding and skiing down the dunes. The wind was blowing hard and it was really hot. There were picnic tables scattered around with steel windbreaks on them that had been polished to mirror brightness by the combination of the wind and whatever that “sand” is. It felt more like Boraxo than sand to me. But it was a fascinating place to visit, and so am glad they’re committed to protecting it–at least until Trump figures out how he or his kids can make a few bucks off of it.

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    OT – Me: Four days till Christmas, 49 degrees, fuck the what?

    My friend: Santa is skinny dipping this Christmas

  44. 44.

    Jay

    The local sheriff on the case of WA state senator accused of domestic terrorism: charge him with “domestic terrorism, if not treason” but won’t arrest him for “fear of bloodshed.” This is absolutely insane. https://t.co/758buJrOhX— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) December 21, 2019

    That’s how bad it’s gotten. The Cops are afraid of Cow ISIL.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    Trump re-election adviser told Wisconsin Republicans the party “traditionally” relied on voter suppression to compete in battleground states but will be able to “start playing offense” due to relaxed Election Day rules, according to audio obtained by AP. https://t.co/kfpukgAhM2— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 21, 2019

  50. 50.

    ThresherK

    Just in at the Celebration Bowl, Alcorn State scored a touchdown and was lining up for the PAT, which would bring them to within 10 of NC A&T.

    (The mere fact that I’m writing it this way suggests something crazy happened. Well…)

    The snap on the convert was air-mailed, the one kicking team guy couldn’t fall on the ball, and the Aggies got a 90+ yard return the other way for the two.

    What would have been a 10-point lead is now 13.

    No rooting interest, but I do enjoy me the mayhem during Bowl Season.

  53. 53.

    Jager

    @raven:

    My college roommate got stopped for doing 85 in a 55, Tom and his girlfriend both had open bottles of beer. Tom put on an academy award performance, including tears, for the cop about losing his ROTC commission if he got a DUI. The cop let him off. The funny part was he’d quit ROTC after the 2nd required year. Tom is now retired after an extremely successful career as a liquor salesman. BTW, he was driving a red 65 Impala SS convertible

  55. 55.

    germy

    I really do love this time of year — the Christmas music, the twinkle lights, the woman in front of me in line at Costco who just told her husband, “We can give your cousin a pile of dog shit for all I care.”
    — Melissa Hunter (@melissaFTW) December 20, 2019

  58. 58.

    schrodingers_cat

    BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s most populous states and the state with one of the highest percentages of Muslims is seeing unprecedented violence mainly perpetrated by the official machinery against its Muslim citizens.

    BJP is using its weaponized online trolling operation using American platforms Twitter and WhatsApp as its Radio Rwanda in addition to several Fox-like TV channels that are in its pockets.

    Never again is happening again.

    Please amplify this as BJP is shutting down the internet in many parts of Uttar Pradesh because it does not want the truth to get out. 20 people have died in the protests so far.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @RAM: It felt more like Boraxo than sand to me.

    It’s gypsum – that’s why it’s so white. (Regular sand is mostly quartz.)

    (sigh) And of course Dr Rofer got their first (#43). Why do I even bother? Anyhow, Wiki sez it is “the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard/sidewalk chalk, and drywall.” No wonder it felt funky.

  66. 66.

    raven

    JFC, we’ve been waiting all day for the dopes who do the closing to show up for a refi we don’t want to, but have to, do. The mortgage guy has been in touch but zip from the weenies who actually are going to do the deed.

  67. 67.

    Mary G

    Maybe it was just the mood I was in, but this Alexandra Petri column in the WaPo where she ranks Christmas activities made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt.

    12. Ice skating

    For me, the experience of ice skating always starts with the following steps: (1) Propose ice skating. (2) Put on skates, stride confidently to the ice rink. (3) Realize, the second you arrive on the ice, that you have entirely forgotten how to ice skate.

    A moment ago, you were a confident adult suggesting an afternoon of fun, and now you are helpless, like a cat on a recently waxed floor. Why have you gone to stand on a sheet of ice, voluntarily? You will surely fall and hurt yourself. If you fall on your front it will hurt, and if you fall on your back it will hurt, and you are not so young as you used to be. All of your mental images of how to propel yourself forward turn out to be incorrect. Your friends look at you with concern as you stand there, flapping your arms. “I understand the physics of it, of course,” you say, in a tone in which even you can detect a note of hysteria. You demonstrate this by leaning forward, which does nothing.
    Whose idea of a good time is it to be cold and also to be slipping and sliding around very slowly in a circle? If you wanted to slip and slide around in a circle and be in danger of banging your coccyx, you could go home and mop, which you have never before desired to do.

    Plus the mopping injury made me think of John.

  69. 69.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Just FYI, civilians are allowed on the first Saturdays of April or October to enter the normally-restricted White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo (well north of the National now-Park) in order to visit Trinity Site, where the first manmade nuclear explosion occurred on 16 July 1945. It’s quite safe – most of the radioactive green-gray fused sand (“trinitite”) has been removed & the remnants buried under sufficient sand. The military lines the cars up in a kind of convoy, you drive like hell with cameras & cell phones put away until you reach the site. I did this one year, driving down from FantaSe with my host Philip. He is a polio sufferer & can’t really get around without a motorized chair, so we took his van with chair in the rear, & he managed surprisingly well, visiting Ground Zero and the McDonald Ranch House, where “the active components of the Trinity test “gadget”, a plutonium Fat Man-type bomb similar to that later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, were assembled … on July 13, 1945.”

  71. 71.

    Quinerly

    Poco gives White Sands 4 paws up! He has romped in the gypsum on 2 different trips. The last trip was in 2017. The government shut down had just ended, and we were the second car in. Park had been closed, plus there had been a wind storm. No tracks, no footprints. We had the park to ourselves and never saw the first car in or any other cars. Cold January morning. Surreal. Otherworldly.

  73. 73.

    LivingInExile

    I had forgotten that it was gypsum.  After a windstorm it was a bugger to wash off your vehicle.  Sheetrock dust.

  75. 75.

    Mary G

    @eclare:

    @WaterGirl:

    Here’s another Petri Christmas column:

    The famous song, in thank-you notes.

    First Day of Christmas

    Dear True Love,

    Thank you so much for the partridge! What a lovely thought. You know how much I love birds. It looks great in the pear tree. I have named it Ronald.

    Have a wonderful Christmas!

    Fifth Day of Christmas

    Dear True Love,

    I so enjoyed our lunch today and your gift of five gold rings.

    Please tell me it is not true that you came by the house while I was gone and dropped off four more calling birds, three additional French hens, two more turtle doves, and another partridge. I explicitly told you not to. I am a little frightened to go home.

    Really, your presence is gift enough.

  76. 76.

    trollhattan

    @LivingInExile:

    We can always tell the cars returning from Burning Man when they pass through town. Whatever the hell that playa is composed of seems to form a permanent gray shell–they look like rolling ghosts. God knows what their lungs look like.

  77. 77.

    raven

    @trollhattan: I remember a bunch of us falling asleep on camo nets in the back of a 2 1/2 coming back from the field on dirt roads and when we slowed down going through the ville people freaked out at the ghosts in the back of the truck!

  83. 83.

    stinger

    Decades ago, I climbed up and down a few dunes at White Sands while visiting friends who were stationed there.

    Same trip, I ate at La Posta de Mesilla. Two memorable places!

  84. 84.

    emjayay

    @MazeDancer: Most national monuments are run under the National Park Service. Not sure about White Sands. Anyway if it was already NPS the change in designation does not mean much. National Parks are designated by Congress. National Monuments by the President. This was to quickly protect Indian sites being looted by declaring them Monuments without waiting for Congress.

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @Yarrow: This is exciting! Back in my e-commerce days, our biggest customer was White Sands Trading Post – they needed a particular kind of sled for that sand-sledding, no other would do, and it was easier for them to get them from us (Giant Hardware Corp) than it was from the manufacturers (Biggi Dicki). I always loved the photos of the area and I *definitely* want to visit! I am amazed that we get any new parks at all under the GOP Reign of (T)error!

Comments are closed.