COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday / Wednesday, April 26-27Post + Comments (25)
Archives for April 2022
On The Road – ?BillinGlendaleCA – Malibu Creek State Park
BillinGlendaleCA
Two weeks ago, when I shared my visits to the M*A*S*H production site, I began with this:
Malibu Creek State Park was established in 1976, protecting the watershed of Malibu Creek from the Malibu Dam to it’s mouth in Santa Monica Bay. In it’s previous life it had been a private club and then for 40 years the 20th Century Fox movie ranch. My father and I hiked in the park a couple of times in 1977 and there were still quite a few old movie sets dotting the landscape including a large Chinese structure, some sets for Planet of the Apes, and some western buildings including a fort.
These photos were from both trips to the park, though mostly from the first trip, the exception being the fort site. There is little indication in the park of where many of the structures I saw and photographed 45 years ago were, I had to look at aerial photos of the area(h/t to Framefinder at UCSB). In addition to the now/then photos, I’ve also included a couple of shots giving an overview of the park.
On The Road – ?BillinGlendaleCA – Malibu Creek State ParkPost + Comments (8)
Chinese type of structure, I think this may have been used for the Kung Fu TV series.
Late Night Open Thread: Count on the National Review to Make RWNJ Motives Transparent
Hmmmm what happened in the mid 1800s that you believe caused America to get worse. https://t.co/RSZesgoI9u
— The Substack of Boba Fett (@agraybee) April 26, 2022
Counterpoint: 17th,18th, & early 19th century Americans had arguably the world's highest standards of living before the development of widespread public education. https://t.co/nleUUBPqo1
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 26, 2022
… And everyone not a white male with decently prosperous parents knew their place!
War for Ukraine Update 62: The Defense of Ukraine on the 36th Anniversary of the Chornobyl Disaster
(Drawing of Patron by Chetyrina Kate)
Before we get going with tonight’s update, I think we need to take a minute and discuss something. Specifically, if you feel the urge to be anything but polite to commenter Gin&Tonic stop, take a deep breath, and just don’t do it. So that he does not have to once again explain, G&T has relatives in Ukraine in harm’s way. One of them is in the Ukrainian Army and is currently deployed fighting the Russians who have reinvaded Ukraine. If he tells you something about Ukraine it is because he’s a Ukrainian who is also an American. I get it, it’s Balloon Juice where people will argue about anything for any reason and we pride ourselves on maintaining the tradition of the not forgotten commenter efgoldman in terms of how we communicate. But in this case just don’t do it. Given what he’s dealing with in terms of uncertainty around his relatives’ safety and well being when we’re lucky enough that he decides to comment in a post about Ukraine, which is usually to provide insider insight just take it in. Maybe tell him you’re keeping good thoughts for his family. Maybe thank him for the insight he’s providing. I’d like to believe I won’t have to post something like this again, but let’s be honest with ourselves about who we are. This is the place where people show up in the recipe posts to tell me or TaMara that we’re not making whatever recipe we’ve posted correctly. You know who you are…
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the video of President Zelenskyy’s address to Ukraine from earlier this evening. Subtitled as always with the transcript to follow the jump.
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Republican ‘Leaders’, Showing Us All Their… Incapabilities
Hours after pro-Trump mob stormed Capitol, McConnell told @jmartNYT he was "exhilarated" Trump had "thoroughly discredited" himself. “He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Couldn’t have happened at a better time.” On THIS WILL NOT PASS: https://t.co/kYDHL5OnSm
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) April 25, 2022
#MoscowMitch, the Human Speed Bump:
… “What do you hear about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?” he asked [NYT reporter Jonathan] Martin, eager for intelligence about whether the Cabinet and vice president might remove Trump from office, according to the book. Then McConnell said, according to the book, that he had spoken to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about issuing a joint statement telling Trump to stay away from the inauguration. A McConnell spokesman declined to comment on the book…
The portions of the book reviewed by The Post detail how leading Washington Republicans loathed or were skeptical of Trump behind the scenes — yet capitulated repeatedly to his demands, fearful of his powerful and loyal base and his ability to damage them politically. The book also illustrates how there were miscalculations by other Republicans about Trump and his ability to hold a grip on the party after the Jan. 6 deadly riot from a pro-Trump mob — and a misguided sense that the proverbial political fever would break…
That night, with the attack seared in his mind, McConnell took a strident tone against Trump and his desire to slash his influence going forward, according to the book. Citing the 2014 midterm elections, where McConnell attacked some of the fringe far-right candidates, he said he would take Trump and his ilk down in the 2022 midterms.
McConnell tells his staff that Trump is a “despicable person” and says he will take him on politically.
“We crushed the sons of b—-es,” he said to Martin, according to the book, “and that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.”
McConnell has dialed back his criticisms of Trump since and has said he would even support Trump if he was the Republican nominee in 2024…
Odds and Ends Open Thread
VP Harris tested positive for COVID-19. She doesn’t have any symptoms and is working from home, according to her press secretary. She’ll be back in the White House when she tests negative.
Coincidentally, the most careful person I personally know also tested positive recently, with mild symptoms. She and Harris will be fine. They’re relatively young and healthy, and both have access to great healthcare.
In other news, things are going to shit in Florida so fast I am just shaking my head in amazement and no longer have the heart to talk about it.
Turning once again to national news, I mentioned this WaPo article in the morning thread, “Fears mount inside White House that Manchin won’t agree to any deal.” An excerpt:
White House officials are confronting the “real fear” that they will fail to reach any deal with Manchin — even one that leaves out most of what Biden had initially hoped to accomplish, according to three senior administration officials and three outside advisers in communication with the White House, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment on internal talks. A year after Biden introduced his climate and social spending plans, the White House is running out of time to get Manchin onboard, with many lawmakers in Congress viewing July 4 as a crucial deadline for action.
Maybe there’s some upside to this. Perhaps the paucity of legislative achievements to tout despite holding a (not really) power trifecta will inspire Democrats to focus more on the global struggle between authoritarianism and democracy, explicitly laying claim to their role as the good guys and saying out loud who the bad guys are, abroad and at home.
I think it’s a pretty compelling story: Republicans’ de facto leader kissed Putin’s authoritarian ass for four years, corruptly attempted to extort Ukraine, then banded together with Republican lawmakers and assorted kooks to do a coup. The upcoming January 6th hearings could be an opportunity to start banging this drum and keep right on banging it until November.
The kitchen table issues consultants say Dems should focus on will either take care of themselves or they won’t. Since we don’t really have a governing majority, we can’t do a whole lot to fix them. But we’re the only party left that still believes in democracy. That’s a big fucking deal, and I’m hoping to hear more about it in the months ahead.
Open thread!
On The Road – way2blue – Massi Mara, Kenya in July 1 of 6
way2blue
I’d long wanted to hike in the Tsavo National Parks of Kenya and finally booked a two-week trek for August 2020. Which of course was postponed till 2021. International CoVID-19 protocol was confusing but I managed to navigate several glitchy websites to obtain the required documents for flying to Nairobi via Dubai. Plus lots of vaccines. When the safari folks reviewed our itinerary—with an extra five days in Nairobi before the trek—they suggested instead a side trip to the Maasi Mara to catch the beginning of the wildebeest migration. Yes! I’ve organized a series of six OTR submissions by day.
On The Road – way2blue – Massi Mara, Kenya in July 1 of 6Post + Comments (24)
Our flight from Wilson Airport to the Musiara Airstrip hopscotched west from Nairobi, stopping at several airstrips, making me nervous I might miss getting off at the correct one