Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Verified, but limited!

The revolution will be supervised.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

This is how realignments happen…

Han shot first.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The math demands it!

I’m going back to the respite thread.

Mission Accomplished!

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

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

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

How has Obama failed you today?

Yes we did.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

We can agree to disagree, but i’m right.

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday/Wednesday, Nov. 24-25

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On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – An Evening by the Red Cliffs

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🐾BillinGlendaleCA

About a month ago, I was asked to take over as organizer for the local photography group. So for my first photoshoot, I decided to take a small group(10 people) out to Red Rock Canyon State Park to shoot star trails beneath the Red Cliffs. I, however, was not shooting star trails, since I’ve shot them a number of times at that location. Instead I took my sky tracker and had 3 goals: the North American nebula, the California nebula, and a astro-landscape shot of the Orion complex over the hills at Red Rock. I had difficulty finding the North American nebula, so I soon switched my attention to the California nebula and shot it for a hour(60 one minute exposures), since the Pleiades were close to the California nebula, I pointed my camera at them next and shot for half a hour(30 one minute exposures). By this time Orion was a bit above the horizon and I planned to shoot it for a half hour. Half way though, the battery in my camera died and I had to replace it leading to 2 exposures of Orion, one 15 minutes and the second 16 minutes.

Remember any photo you see in one of my On The Road posts is available for purchase at my store: http://www.billinglendaleca.com. They make excellent Christmas gifts. I also have a Patreon if you like my work and want to see it continue: https://www.patreon.com/BillinGlendaleCA.

On The Road - 🐾BillinGlendaleCA - An Evening by the Red Cliffs 3
Red Rock Canyon State Park, CANovember 14, 2020

The stars in the Pleiades excit the surrounding gas clouds to produce a blue glow.

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The Selfishness of It All

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The Selfishness of It All

According to the TSA, idiot nation is ignoring the plague and going home for turkey and to kill gram and gramps:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recorded its highest number of weekend passengers since the coronavirus pandemic began in March, with over 3 million people traveling in the past three days. The surge comes despite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance advising against Thanksgiving travel because of mounting covid-19 cases across the nation.

Sunday was the busiest travel day since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to TSA spokesman Daniel Velez, with 1,047,934 passengers. TSA screenings surpassed a now-rare amount of 1 million screenings on both Friday and Sunday; Friday was a slightly lower travel day with 1,019,836 travelers screened. On Saturday, TSA saw 984,369 travelers.

Hospitals are already overwhelmed in many places, close in others, and the death rate is climbing as we all know that it is hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators. It’s going to be an awful couple of months, and there literally is no help on the way because the Senate is not going to do anything and the current administration is more worthless than breasts on men. So, yay.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that the people traveling are all people of privilege. If you are flying across country for a three day holiday, you are de facto middle class or higher. Poor people don’t do this. So people who are already in a position of privilege are simply incapable of denying themselves the luxury of going home for the holidays, and their actions will, as always, wreak havoc on those less fortunate or who have no say. The virus will hit the old, the weak, communities of color, the immune suppressed, the medical community, and, of course, the working class.

The very same working class who, unlike those in the middle and upper middle class, won’t be getting to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with their families even without travel. Why? Because they are all having Thanksgiving today, or tomorrow, and likely early in the day or late at night, because they have eat before their midnight shift or after they get home from their swing shift. They’ll gather around the table at noon today and then head off to fucking Walmart or the gas station or the Walgreens or whatever restaurant they work at. Just like they fucking do every year.

And such that it is.

We’re a profoundly stupid and selfish and unempathetic nation, for the most part. Other than some masturbatory rhetoric early on about “essential workers” and “our heroes in the medical community,” we’ve basically done fuck all to make their lives easier. It was basically empty rhetoric, a sort of act of auto-erotic patriotism and the performative dance version of a war effort. None of this is surprising- it’s who we have been conditioned to be. In the last twenty years we’ve financed several wars and multiple tax cuts for the rich on the backs of the kids being crushed economically right now, and instead of being asked to sacrifice during wartime we were instead told to go out and shop. So it’s no surprise that asking people to turn down nonna’s cranberry sauce during a plague is just a bridge too fucking far.

We don’t give a fuck about anyone but ourselves, and the selfish pricks traveling this week and the assholes hosting them are the fucking worst of the worst.

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On The Road – Dagaetch – Fall in MA

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Dagaetch

Maybe it’s just because I was able to get out more than usual (having finally finished grad school, yay), but I felt like the colors this year were as good as I’ve ever seen them. Even the trees at the side of the highways were glorious for a few days. Considering the anxiety I’ve been feeling over *gestures broadly*, it was awfully nice to spend a few hours each weekend just going somewhere with my camera and not thinking about anything else.

On The Road - Dagaetch - Fall in MA 7
Wahconah Falls State Park, Dalton, MA

I’d never been here before, but had it marked as a possible location. What a beautiful place…I spent a very happy hour maneuvering around the rocks and fallen logs to take different views.

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Thanksgiving Balloon Juice Zoom, Anyone?

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Our esteemed, napping, naked-mopping blog lord wondered if we might like to have a Balloon Juice Zoom on Thanksgiving, since many of us won’t be participating in our usual celebration activities.

People could participate with either video or just audio.

Anyone interested?   Bueller?   Bueller?

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Preznit I.R. Turkee

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Preznit Turkee

(John Deering via GoComics.com)
.

From the Urban Dictionary:

Corncob: Someone who has been brutally owned, yet insists that they are victorious in the online discourse despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary…

Speaking of pwned turkeys… look who’s back, it’s Mr. But the Deficit!, via Politico:

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