Rare and beautiful

Photographer accidentally snaps rare bird: ‘It’s mind-blowing’

Michael Sanchez was setting up his new camera to capture a waterfall at Oregon’s Hug Point at sunrise when he spotted a little bird hopping around. He snapped a few photos, and didn’t think much more of it.

A week later, those snapshots have made him the star – and the envy – of the local birding community. 

Sanchez, who is from Vancouver, Washington, may have inadvertently captured the first images of an extremely rare blue rock-thrush in North America....

Speaking of animals: Miracle cat shipped to California and survives

Republicans and animals

Nick Anderson

Thanks to Daily Kos

‘She’s DOA’: Noem’s dog tale sinks chances of being Trump’s VP

The story keeps getting worse.

See also "Trump hates animals" and Trump’s War on Endangered Species.

We're number two!

The 10 U.S. Cities With the Best Public Transportation:

1. New York
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Jersey City
5. Washington D.C.
6. Philadelphia
7. Chicago
8. Newark
9. Seattle
10. Arlington

Biden's "small ball" strategy throws strikes

President with Ketanji Brown Jackson and V.P. Harris

Kevin Drum on President Biden's "small ball" politics:

1. Hearing aids. Allows low-cost hearing aids to be purchased without a prescription.

2. Insulin. Limits the cost of insulin to $35 per month for people on Medicare and for most people with private insurance.

3. Junk fees. Widespread efforts to rein in the hidden fees charged by banks, airlines, hotels and hundreds of other industries.

4. Overtime. Makes overtime pay mandatory for salaried workers earning up to $58,000. Affects about 4 million workers.

5. Robocalls. New rule cuts down on illegal overseas robocalls.

6. Surprise health care billing. Bans hospitals from charging huge fees for out-of-network specialists.

7. Late fees. Cuts the typical credit card late payment fee from $32 to $8.

8. Airline refunds. Requires airlines to automatically make refunds if flights are delayed or canceled.

9. Noncompetes. Bans employers from requiring noncompete agreements when they hire workers.

10. "Click to cancel." Proposed rule that makes it as easy to cancel an online service as it is to sign up.

11. Ticket fees up front. Requires ticket sellers to disclose all fees up front, not late in the purchase process.

Rob's comment:

As a former catcher, l see Biden throwing lots of called strikes.

Civil War

Daily Kos

Trump Juror Excuses

The Brits and Trump

The Roots of Donald Trump

Nate White on why Brits don't like Trump:

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace, all qualities with which his predecessor was generously blessed. For us the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. While Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. 

And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility. For us to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is. His idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. 

Trump is neither plucky nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches down – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people....

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people and many other people, too; his faults seem pretty hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit....

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people, too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump....

After 60 years, full JFK assassination story still under wraps

The Mary Ferrell Foundation

See also The assassination of JFK: Case not closed

Bible-thumping MAGA

Oh, the humanity!

Message to Iran

In today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

Re “Israel Strikes Iran, but Scope of Attack Appears Limited”:

If Israel has to send drones into Iran again, it should drop leaflets saying, in Persian, English and Hebrew:

“Israel stands with the people of Iran! Overthrow your authoritarian government, stop funding Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Houthi terrorism, and rejoin the community of nations as our partners in peace.”

Stephen A. Silver

San Francisco

After pointless Repug delay, aid for Ukraine

Kevin Drum:

The Ukraine vote was 311-112, and that was the closest of the four. All of this was massively popular and bipartisan, but it still took months just to get a vote.

And yet—the bills did eventually pass. It's appalling that it took so long thanks to a small band of malcontents, but they did pass. 

Somehow, in our usual chaotic, backhanded, slapdash way, the United States once again has managed to do something big. This keeps happening despite everything. 

We keep saying that the country is ungovernable these days, but in the end, usually after thrashing around for an embarrassingly long time, we govern.

So what's the point? As best as I can tell, the end result is this: (a) we get as much done as we ever have, but (b) a lot more people get pissed off about it. 

I don't even know if this is a conscious strategy, but it's what the Republican Party has been all about ever since Newt Gingrich took over....

Daniel Dennett

From Daniel Dennett's obituary in today's NY Times:

An outspoken atheist, he at times seemed to denigrate religion. “There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion,” he said in a 2013 interview with The New York Times.

According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times...

Rob's comment:

"Seemed"? That's pseudo-objectivity, since Dennett made it clear he was an atheist. Maybe you can be an atheist without "denigrating religion," but how much intellectual respect should religion get from atheists? None, actually.

Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. James Comer

 James Comer refuses to learn anything from investigating Biden

Nobody knows more than Trump

Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

From Axios by Haley Britzky

Campaign finance: "I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I'm the biggest contributor." (1999.)

TV ratings: "I know more about people who get ratings than anyone." (October 2012.)

ISIS: "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." (November 2015.)

Social media: "I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost anybody, based on my results, right?" (November 2015.)

Courts: "I know more about courts than any human being on Earth." (November 2015.)

Lawsuits: "[W]ho knows more about lawsuits than I do? I'm the king." (January 2016.)

Politicians: "I understand politicians better than anybody." (no link)

The visa system: "[N]obody knows the system better than me. I know the H1B. I know the H2B. ... Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me." (March 2016.)

Trade: "Nobody knows more about trade than me." (March 2016.)

The U.S. government system: "[N]obody knows the system better than I do." (April 2016.)

Renewable energy: "I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." (April 2016.)

Taxes: "I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world." (May 2016.)

Debt: "I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me." (June 2016.)

Money: "I understand money better than anybody." (June 2016.)

Infrastructure: "[L]ook, as a builder, nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump." (July 2016.)

Sen. Cory Booker: "I know more about Cory than he knows about himself." (July 2016.)

Borders: Trump said in 2016 that Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he was endorsing him for president because "you know more about this stuff than anybody."

Democrats: "I think I know more about the other side than almost anybody." (November 2016.)

Construction: "[N]obody knows more about construction than I do." (May 2018.)

The economy: "I think I know about it better than [the Federal Reserve]." (October 2018.)

Technology: "Technology — nobody knows more about technology than me." (December 2018.)

Drones: "I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have." (January 2019.)

Drone technology: "Having a drone fly overhead — and I think nobody knows much more about technology, this type of technology certainly, than I do." (January 2019.)

Blaming Newsom

Mayor Newsom harassed in 2007

Kevin Drum on Governor Newsom: Blame Gavin Newsom!

The 99 Cents Only chain is closing up shop. LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano headed out to talk to a few customers about it:

“I blame [Gavin] Newsom,” said Rick Juarez, 53, referencing the California governor as he entered the store to stock up on batteries. He had shopped at this location for “at least” 20 years. “Too many taxes, too high the minimum wage. These companies just can’t compete, and so they have to close. And it’s poor people like us who end up suffering.”

I know, I know: this is just one random guy. Who cares? But it's hard to get so many things wrong in such a short comment: California's corporate tax rate is 8.84% and hasn't changed in 30 years. Newsom temporarily lowered corporate taxes in 2021 and swatted down a proposed tax hike last year.

California's minimum wage is tied to inflation. Newsom has nothing to do with it. And anyway, 99 Cents Only operates all over the west, not just in California.

But sure, blame Newsom. Why not? Someone on the radio probably says everything is all his fault.

Later: Newsom does share the blame for the state's dumb high-speed rail project: Newsom on high-speed rail: Same old crap. So does President Biden.

Kevin Drum, on the other hand, has always been good on the issue: California’s train to nowhere is such a dumb waste of money.

Rob's comment:

Here in San Francisco, I've posted about Gavin Newsom for years. Mostly I supported him after he tackled the city's homeless problem that helped him become mayor in days of yore.

City progressives never forgave Newsom, a liberal Democrat, for successfully beating them to the punch on an issue on which city residents clearly wanted action from city hall.

Pictured above is a one of the more creative anti-Newsom demonstrations in 2007. 

One thing you can say about Newsom: he can take criticism, which he got a lot of here in Progressive Land, almost all of which came from the city's left.

Daily Kos

Identity Crisis

Buried frescos uncovered

Nice abs, dude

Frescoes buried by volcano uncovered in ancient Pompeii

Where condors soar

From the Washington Post:

Biden will expand two national monuments in California

President Biden plans to expand the boundaries of two national monuments in California in the coming weeks, aiming to bolster his conservation record and increase access to nature for disadvantaged communities, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Biden is expected to sign proclamations expanding the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, both of which were originally designated by President Barack Obama, the two people said. The exact timing and location of the announcement has not yet been finalized, although it could coincide with Earth Day on April 22, they said.

John D. Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy, suggested that the expansions were imminent during a climate summit Thursday hosted by Washington Post Live.

“I worked for President Clinton, for President Obama. They both had tremendous conservation records,” Podesta said. “President Biden is just surpassing that in terms of what he’s able to do in the first term. And I think we’ve got more to come, including better use and better protection of public lands.”

Conservation groups, Native American tribes and California lawmakers have all called on Biden to expand these monuments. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) have championed legislation to enlarge the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, east of Los Angeles, but the measure has stalled in the divided Congress. 

Biden plans to use his executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to bypass the gridlock on Capitol Hill.

Legislation from Padilla and Chu would increase the monument’s size by a third, adding 109,167 acres of Angeles National Forest land to the 346,179-acre monument. It is unclear whether the presidential proclamation would propose the same boundaries as the lawmakers’ bill.

The measure seeks to improve access to nature for Latino and low-income communities in eastern Los Angeles, which lacks parks and other green spaces. The Angeles National Forest is within a 90-minute drive for 18 million people, and it receives more than 4.6 million visitors annually — more than Yosemite, according to Forest Service data. 

On clear winter days, its trails offer stunning vistas of snow-studded peaks for hikers, mountain bikers and campers.

“The national forest provides a critical respite for escaping the urban blight and getting into the outdoors,” said Daniel Rossman, Southern California mountains landscape director for the Wilderness Society, which supports the monument expansion.

In November, the Agriculture Department held a public hearing on the proposed expansion — typically a precursor to a presidential proclamation. Most of the roughly 250 attendees voiced strong support for the proposal, saying it would protect scenic rivers and other sensitive landscapes for generations to come.

“The San Gabriel Mountains are among the most pristine and beautiful public lands in the country, with more visitors annually than Yellowstone, and they are right next to one of the nation’s densest and most park-deprived population centers,” Chu said in an emailed statement.

Chu, who stood beside Obama when he designated the monument in 2014, added that she would be “absolutely elated” for Biden to expand its boundaries and unlock “additional federal support and resources.”

The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and other Native American tribes have spearheaded the campaign to expand the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. They have called for adding roughly 3,925 acres and changing the name of the additional area from “Walker Ridge” to “Molok Luyuk,” which means “Condor Ridge” in the Patwin language.

Molok Luyuk and surrounding lands were part of the ancestral homeland of the Hill Patwin people. Condors once soared in the skies there, but their population has declined due to lead poisoning, habitat destruction and poaching.

Reps. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) have led legislation to enlarge the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and allow for tribal co-management of the site. The measure passed the House in 2022, when Democrats controlled the chamber, but has since stalled.

Biden has set an ambitious goal of conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030. He has designated five new national monuments, many of which are on lands that area tribes consider sacred. 

Most recently, the president in August created the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument near the Grand Canyon, safeguarding the site from new uranium mining.

The California Condor: Rescued from the brink of extinction

The eclipse: Who cares?

Okay, I understand why astronomers, astrologists, journalists and those who study the cosmos have to care, but the rest of us? Nope. A big fucking Ho, and a big fucking Hum.

The movement of the planets has never been of any interest to me, since that process has no human significance. 

Landing a man on the moon was a great technical achievement, but, in the humble opinion of this earthling, a cosmic waste of money.

Hitler complains about traffic in L.A.

Buttigieg and electric vehicles

"Monstrous": Israel destroys an aid convoy

Did Israel deliberately destroy an aid convoy?

Kevin Drum doesn't want to believe it:

...I can hardly bring myself to believe it was deliberate. That would be monstrous. On the other hand, Israel's ongoing efforts to starve the Gazan population have been pretty monstrous. What's more, their recent acquiescence to increasing aid shipments has been very much against their will. 

Deliberately destroying an aid convoy would certainly be a very effective way of continuing their starvation policy by the simple expedient of scaring off humanitarian organizations. 

Finally, in addition to all this, it's just very hard to believe that an operation so precisely calculated and carried out was due merely to sloppy intel or a careless fog-of-war mistake....

Did Israel deliberately destroy an aid convoy?

See also The banality of moral and intellectual evil.

Trump Derangement Syndrome.

This guy is pranking his parents who own the place he's plastering with Trump's repellant image while they're not home. So the prank's really targeted at Mom and Dad, who I like to think are Trump supporters.

Very likely that Mom and Dad and Son have some relationship issues. But they have to give him credit for how much work he put into this, which surely is some kind of love, right? That's what he can tell his therapist, anyhow, while he looks for a place to live. 

It's amusing for the rest of us, which is probably why he made the video. while he worked to in effect make the world a little better by making people laugh. He hasn't toiled in vain!

Gaza and the sky-god cults

Philip Munger on Daily Kos last year:

Watching the world come closer to spinning out of control hour by hour is worse than watching it spin out of control week by week.

I have a few friends who are atheists.

I have many, many, many friends who are Christians. Although baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran, I'm not even close to Christianity anymore. 

I came to a point where I couldn't recite the Apostles' Creed or Nicene Creed anymore, because they are false statements. Jesus did not rise from the dead. There's no such thing as the father, son and Holy Ghost, literally or figuratively.

I have many friends who are Jewish. I'm not even close.

I have several friends who are Muslim. I'm not even close.

I regard all your faiths as cults, pure and simple.

That was okay until your hatreds toward one another spiraled into what we are now witnessing. Your superstitions and weird rituals might have once served to advance civilization. The Aztecs and Mayans also built monuments as awesome as the Notre Dame Cathedral, but they were built as platforms to cut out human hearts.

I call Judaism, Christianity and Islam "The three interconnected Abrahamic Vengeful Male Sky God Cults."

The basis of these cults are myths with no more substance in reality than Jason and the Golden Fleece or King Arthur. King David is a myth, yet every day of the week Christians and Jews venerate him as an epochal empire builder. They call the hymns known as Psalms the Psalms of David, yet nobody has ever shown that to be factual. 

Abraham, the interconnecting tissue of these superstitions, is a myth. However, his supposed home, Hebron, is a bedeviled city of warped hatreds between two cults fighting over what that myth means.

Like the Aztecs of 1500, the Christians of 1500 sacrificed people, mostly women who were midwives or healers. Unlike the Aztecs who quickly killed their victims, the Catholic and Protestant executioners watched their victims slowly roast as they screamed. Like the Aztecs, this was all done in front of large crowds to warn them.

Imagine living in Gaza right now. It has been an open air prison since Hamas took over 17 years ago. Not that it was much less of a prison before that. Hamas, which has become a boil on the flesh of every person in that prison, has picked this particular time to put a collective suicide vest on every person living in that hellhole.

And so another branch of the vengeful male sky god cult (Judaism) has convinced the third branch of the cult (Christianity) to accept what's going to happen over the next several weeks live on TV to warn us all.

I'm not blaming one of these cults more than the other. You are all, if you believe these dangerous superstitions, responsible for enabling this, either by rooting for one of the cults or by idly standing by as thousands of kids die without even understanding why they are offered up on the altar of Moloch.

The reality is that your superstitions are keeping us from preventing the entire planet from becoming unlivable. Own it!

Rob's comment:

I took the liberty of doing a little editing of the mostly outstanding original.

Easter message

Freedom From Religion

Stuck on Stupid

History lesson

Daily Kos

Bridge failures in the US

Kevin Drum on bridge failures:

There's no trend either up or down. It's perhaps also worth noting that virtually none of these failures were due to age or bad design. The vast majority failed due to floods, being hit by trucks, being hit by barges, or by construction work.

Rob's comment:

In other words, it's all bullshit. Bridges rarely fail.

Bridges Over Troubled Water – How Waterway Bridges are Built, How They Fail

Joe Biden's State Of The Union