Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

This is a big f—–g deal.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

We still have time to mess this up!

Also, too.

Mission Accomplished!

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

Too inconsequential to be sued

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Wetsuit optional.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Just a few bad apples.

I can see Russia from this blog!

All your base are belong to Tunch.

How has Obama failed you today?

Women: They Get Shit Done

Lighten up, Francis.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Word salad with all caps

The Math Demands It!

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Readership Capture

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: YES QUEEN!

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And too also:


“Wanna find out if I still have those ball bats in my office, boys?”

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Seasonal Open Thread: Simple Gifts

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Local news subs (assuming you have a local paper) make good gifts, too.


Free for downloading, at the link. The motto patterns are pretty simple — they could be worked up in a couple of hours, even by a beginner. You could even use waste canvas to cross-stitch them onto a sweatshirt or the back of a denim jacket…

(If I can ever find my cross-stitch pattern books, I may work up ‘Capitalism without rules is theft’ in a florid pseudo-Victorian script. Which is not the Warren style, but the concept pleases me.)

Anybody want to share gift suggestions?

******
Or if you’re looking for a *gag* gift… emphasis on the gag…


(Not a big makeup consumer, but as I understand it, concealer is properly used for small areas, to disguise dark undereye circles or hide blemishes. Normal users would cover the patch with a dusting of foundation, like blending paint over spackle. If the Occupant is too lazy or too ignorant not to slather it on like street-mime slap, that would help explain why it looks so extraordinarily unnatural.)

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Happy Thanksgiving

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And a little holiday uplift, for those of us who grew up believing it wasn’t a real celebration till the shouting started…


Cuccinelli really has worked hard to deracinate himself — the Italian-American families *I* grew up with would’ve disowned a member who walked away from a fight with one mouthy mick. And probably cemented the disinheritance with a beating about the head & shoulders from the alpha nonna present.

… The two political polar opposites crossed paths Wednesday night at the Dubliner, a Capitol Hill Irish pub popular on Thanksgiving Eve with Gonzaga High School graduates. Both men attended the school, graduating five years apart in the 1980s…

Cuccinelli did not immediately respond to a requests for comment. O’Malley declined a request for a phone interview, but gave his version of events via text. He disputed Arnold’s account on one point: He said he wasn’t shouting, but raised his voice “just to be heard” in the pub.

O’Malley, a former Baltimore mayor who was Maryland governor from 2006 to 2014 and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, said he was at the Dubliner with members of his Gonzaga class…

“We all let him know how we felt about him putting refugee immigrant kids in cages – certainly not what we were taught by the Jesuits at Gonzaga,” O’Malley texted.

In another text, he called Cuccinelli “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.”

“We all let him know how we felt about him putting refugee immigrant kids in cages – certainly not what we were taught by the Jesuits at Gonzaga,” O’Malley texted…

(Suspect the Gonzaga Jesuits wouldn’t have approved, either. Backing away from an argument is *not* a Jesuit practice.)

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Readership Capture

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… “Everybody needs to chill out about the candidates, but gin up about the prospect of rallying behind whoever emerges from this process,” Obama said after a lengthy answer that defend the arduous primary process that Democrats are currently in.

Obama, until recently, rarely commented on the 2020 field, but at a fundraiser here in Silicon Valley on Thursday the President cheered on the vigorous debate happening inside the party while stressing the need to get elected and warned about some of the obstacles the numerous women candidates and one gay candidate will likely face…

The former President added it was important to draw a line between contentious arguments playing out inside the party and the need to get elected, decrying “purity tests” because “the country’s complicated.”
“Those are good arguments to have,” he said about debates of health care and climate change, “but you got to win the election.”

He also cautioned Democratic voters from getting too wrapped up in the issues they have with individual candidates, telling the audience in California that people’s “flaws are magnified” during a primary.

“The field will narrow and there’s going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don’t agree with and you don’t find them completely inspiring the way you’d like, I don’t care,” Obama said bluntly, “because the choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this race.”…

The event benefits the DNC’s Democratic Unity Fund, a cache of money that will is being raised to eventually benefit the party’s general election campaign. This is Obama’s first event of the cycle for the DNC…

A number of Democratic candidates — including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — have made fighting income inequality central to their campaigns and Obama said he believes it’s one area where there is more room now for Democrats to go big.

“It is something we were aware of in 2008 and we wanted to do more about, but the first thing was putting out a big fire to make sure we didn’t have a great depression,” Obama said of the issue…

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On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Orion

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Welcome to the new On The Road! It’s been a long time coming, and I’m excited that we’re back.

I’m still deep in the moving/unpacking process. To explain the long time this is taking – I’m moving two houses (my mother’s and mine) into my newly-purchased home. And my house has 1.5 houses worth of stuff from our inability to throw things away combined with my mother-in-law’s stuff we inherited. So it’s not as simple as “put everything in a box” – in some cases, we have three, even four, of an item, but they aren’t together. So as we pack things or reveal things to be packed, we often have to put an item aside until we can get to the other house to group similar items.

Coincidentally, I now live right near a feature called Red Rocks.

And now onto Bill!

I’ve made a couple of trips up to Red Rock to take advantage of it’s dark skies this past month. The first trip I concentrated on the Orion nebula, a wide shot of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, and a wide shot of the Orion nebula complex. I was quite unhappy with the later and returned to reshoot it(with a wider 30mm lens). I also wanted to shoot a narrow shot of the Triangulum galaxy but the battery on my sky tracker ran out of juice. On the way back though Mojave the CHP had blocked off the road for a truck carrying a very long, eh, something to the Mojave Spaceport.

Technical Note: The two Orion photos have the notation “LRGB Processing”, this method of processing a photo separates the luminosity and the color in a photo and processes them separately.

On The Road - 🐾BillinGlendaleCA - Orion 3
Red Rock Canyon State Park, CANovember 5, 2019

Star Trails at the Red Cliffs.

When I shoot at a place with an interesting foreground, I’ll set up one camera and shoot star trails. They’re easy to shoot and due to the relative lack of air traffic at Red Rock, easy to process as well.

On The Road - 🐾BillinGlendaleCA - Orion 2
Red Rock Canyon State Park, CANovember 5, 2019

Orion Nebula Complex(LRGB processing)

The area in and around the Orion constilation contain a large number of nebula. The Great Orion nebula shines brightly to the right of center. On each side of the bottom star in Orion’s belt are the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula. Surrounding these nebula and reaching to blue Rigel is Barnards Loop. Above Rigel is the faint Witchhead Nebula. At the bottom left is the Cone Nebula and Rosette Nebula.

On The Road - 🐾BillinGlendaleCA - Orion 1
Red Rock Canyon State Park, CAOctober 26, 2019

Great Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula(LRGB processing)

I’ve posted pictures of the Great Orion nebula that I’ve shot here in town, Red Rock is a dark place and more detail is visible up there. There’s a bit of pattern noise that showed up at the bottom, I’ve since figured a way to remedy that. I’ve added in a meteor that was caught in one of the first exposures, you can see it(it’s the green line at the bottom left).

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Trolls 1, John Cole 0: Revisiting the Commenting policy

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The commenting policy as laid out on Thursday is as follows:

Things that will get you an immediate timeout:

1.) Sexism, racism, ageism; homophobic outbursts, targeting of marginalized groups, etc. We’re not going to put up with personal attacks beyond a joking nature, nor will we tolerate targeted harassment of commenters. Take your shit somewhere else.
2.) Explicit calls for violence. Obviously things said in jest such as “guillotines” or nonsense like that are recognized for the hyperbole they are. But direct, actionable threats or calls for violence are out, for obvious reasons.
3.) Targeted harassment of other commenters or front pagers.
4.) Intentional disinformation campaigns.
5.) Posting links to inappropriate websites or sites that compromise a user’s security.
6.) Divulging personal information about a commenter or front pager (real name, address, place of work, etc.)
7.) I am sure you idiots will think of something else so I will just leave this here.

Apparently we need to discuss, in detail, item #4. Intentional disinformation campaigns include anything that is known to be false with the slightest bit of knowledge and or research. These include things like:

1.) Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.
2.) Climate change is a hoax.
3.) Vaccines cause autism.
4.) The world is flat.
5.) Nicotine is not addictive.
6.) Iraq had WMD
7.) The DNC stole the 2016 election from Bernie
8.) Chemtrails
9.) Seth Rich was murdered by the DNC
10.) Sandy Hook was a false flag operation.

Etc. You get the idea. Also, another example of said behavior is the right wing (and lunatic fringe left) claim that there was no Russian interference in the 2016 election. There was. That is undeniable.

The only thing really up for debate is he extent of HOW MUCH COOPERATION the Russians received from the campaign, because the President and those around him have lied repeatedly about it (and are now convicted felons in several cases).

Take that bullshit to reddit or 8chan or whatever.

Trolls 1, John Cole 0: Revisiting the Commenting policyPost + Comments (223)

Commenting Policy for the New Balloon Juice

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Here goes:

First and foremost, Balloon Juice is a community, so our commenting policy is a combination of objective standards as well as some more subjective community standards for decency. So while there will be some very clear lines over which not to cross, there will also be some fuzzy areas that we will deal with when we get to them. It’s not a black and white world, and this is a liberal blog, so you will just have to deal with some nuance.

Punishments:
First Offense: 3 day timeout
Second Offense: 1 week timeout
Third offense: 1 month timeout
Beyond that- Banned.

Things that will get you an immediate timeout:
1.) Any of the ism’s- sexism, racism, homophobic outbursts, targeting marginalized groups, etc. We’re not going to put up with personal attacks beyond a joking nature, nor will we tolerate targeted harassment of commenters. Take your shit somewhere else.
2.) Explicit calls for violence. Obviously things said in jest such as “guillotines” or nonsense like that are recognized for the hyperbole they are. But direct, actionable threats or calls for violence are out, for obvious reasons.
3.) Targeted harassment of other commenters or front pagers.
4.) Posting links to inappropriate websites, or sites that compromise a user’s security.
5.) Divulging personal information about a commenter or front pager (real name, address, place of work, etc.)
6.) I am sure you idiots will think of something else so I will just leave this here.

Things you should avoid that may lead to punishment:
1.) Just generally being a no life asshole who derails every thread with your own personal hobby horse. Yes, we have the pie filter, but some people don’t like to use it. They shouldn’t have to suffer because some idiot has come in and posted 75 comments on an 80 comment thread that has nothing to do with the original post.
2.) Repeated attempts to derail a conversation. Unlike yours truly, we have actual experts here- Adam, Cheryl, Dave, and others are good at what they do. Weare lucky to have them. When they are trying to have a serious conversation and you are just trolling or being a jerk, you take away from the rest of us. You are stealing a valuable asset- their time and wisdom. It’s selfish, irritating, and I don’t want to see it.
3.) Again, left blank here for other things you all will inevitably come up with.

Process for Bans:
If you have been flagged for inappropriate behavior, one of the front pagers will spam your comment. Once that has been done, they will email me, give me a link, and I will figure out what to do. I will consult with them, but I will have the final say, so direct your venom and incoherent tweets and emails at me.

A Closing Note:

I absolutely hate that I even have to have these policies, but there it is. I don’t expect it will be too big of a problem, because most of the people self select out and go somewhere else where their nonsense is appreciated (reddit incel forums? Red State? Who knows? Who cares?)

For the most part, you are free to talk about whatever you want. Just don’t be a dick. Treat people decently (I’d say treat them the way you want to be treated but I know some of you self-loathing idiots will take advantage of that), and you will find that people will be good to you in return. A lot of us have known each other for a good long while. We want new people to feel the same way. This is a community. Treat it like one.

This is subject to editing and changes.

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Welcome To the New 2019 Edition of Balloon Juice

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That’s right, we’re rolling in the new website with the soothing tones of Barry Manilow.

First off, I’d like to thank all of you for showing an alarming amount of patience during the never-ending rebuild and for your help testing, and especially the people who just shut the fuck up and didn’t do anything- you, people, are the true heroes.

I’d also like to thank the OG crew of folks who did the initial selection of the web developer.

And of course Watergirl, who carried this baby to completion.

I’d also like to thank Alain and crew, who literally performed miracles for the past two years keeping this puppy afloat. I don’t know the specifics, but I know we were like umpteen updates behind and Alain was constantly hotfixing stuff because the database was so wrecked we could not even recreate the website on a test server. We really would have been up shit’s creek without them. Thanks, man. I’m glad to have you onboard as a front page poster and super happy to take this burden off of you.

I would also like to ANNOUNCE SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL and something I am super excited about. Please welcome commenter Ruemara to the front page. I am so surprised I managed to not blab this before. WELCOME ABOARD RUE!

And that’s it. Obviously there are going to be some wrinkles, we are going to be doing some tweaking here and there, and we really need to make the site as ADA compliant and screen reader friendly as possible (AND ONCE AGAIN, FRONT PAGERS, PLEASE ADD ALT TEXT TO IMAGES FROM HERE ON OUT), but that is it.

I’m only mildly compelled to tell you all to go fuck yourselves, so I am going to call this a victory. I’m going to head out to get something to eat.

I really hope you enjoy the new website. We worked very hard to add as much of the things you guys wanted, while also keeping the “blog” feel to the joint. We’re also spending a LOT more on hosting to speed things up, and I hope it works out for you all. Have fun.

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On The Road: Finishing Up

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Good Morning Everyone,

 

Today we’re finishing up HinTN’s long-lost, then re-sent submissions from an amazing trip to Utah. So far, it’s been wonder after wonder, and I know you’ll just love today’s offering!

But…this brief resurrection of On The Road is now over, and so OTR will return when the new site launches.  When it does, please use the new form that will be available on the new site to make submissions. As soon as I have one, I’ll begin the new On The Road.  One issue with the new form and site is that the old OTR content will not be edited to look like the new OTR stuff, so layout, etc. will be very different. It looks good and works well, clean and simple – I can’t wait for the first submission and post!

That plus my moving is why I’m fine with having a hiatus – there will be a clean break between old and new content and layout, etc. and I don’t have a lot of time for the next couple of weeks. I’m still mid-craziness, though things are getting better by the day.

 

Continuing the series from HinTN.

 

 

The only one from Dead Horse Point State Park.

Dead Horse Point – Colorado River View from Ryans Bench

Dead Horse Point State Park is a small slice of the hugeness that is Islands in the Sky, but it is especially beautiful in its overlooking of the Colorado River. This photograph is from the location of a bench placed in honor of a young man who loved these lands, worked at the park, and died much too young.

 

 

And then there’s Arches NP. Wow, just WOW!

The first of five from Arches National Park.

Arches – North and South Arch

This is more or less what I thought Arches was going to be about, but I was delighted to discover how much more there is to this small park.

Arches – Sand Dune Arch

Sand Dune Arch was located in an enclosed space reached by passing through a narrow defile. Sand collected in the space, creating a beach you could sink your bare feet into satisfyingly cool sand and kids could play underneath and on top of the arch itself.

 

Arches – Broken Arch Across the Desert

Emerging from the beach at Sand Dune, the trek across the desert to Broken Arch beckoned with this vista.

 

 

Arches – Arches in the Making Part 2

One of the most interesting aspects of being in Arches, indeed in all these parks, was the immediacy of the vastness of geologic time. Both water and wind work ever so slowly and inexorably on the seemingly immutable land. These “arches in the making” were exemplars of this work.

 

Arches – Landscape Arch and its Replacement

It was a brisk one hour round trip out to Landscape Arch, which in geologic time is probably not much longer for this world. Luckily, it has a replacement close to hand. If you look closely you can see how it’s growing wider.

Also too, Moab was a delightful town.

 

Wow, just wow. Utah has amazing geology and I’m so thankful you could share some of it with us. In the late ‘oughts, I did a couple of solo roadtrips from Colorado into Utah. Out West, I just love to drive and see, just see everything. So I went to Arches and did a couple of brief, hour hikes and took some (not so good!) photos and saw enough of Canyonlands to know I wanted to go and really explore and spend some time. Since then, I’ve learned of lots of interesting remains in Canyonlands, things left over from explorers, outlaws, hermits, Native tribes, etc. You could spend a lifetime exploring its entirety just on the geology, flora, and fauna, but with archaeology added, it really should be on folks’ “don’t-miss” list.

 

Have a great day, Halloween, and related holidays. I hope the Great Pumpkin is kind to you and yours.

It’s comforting that my mother died on All Soul’s Day/Dia de los Muertos. I’ve been a light collector/fan of Day of the Dead artwork, sculptures, and figurines for over 20 years now, but this year everything is packed; pre-Christmas, decorating isn’t a priority right now!

 

On that note, OTR shall return with the new site, take care, all!

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On The Road: Another Day

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Good morning, everybody and Happy Friday!

Today we continue with some fantastic submissions from HinTN that I’d lost but have been re-sent. We’ll continue Monday, and that may be it until the new site. I very much wanted to run these as the last ones before my hiatus so I’m so glad HinTN reached out and re-sent them to me – I felt horrible being unable to retrieve them, and am thankful for gracious people.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

 

These are from Canyonlands NP.

Canyonlands – Green River Overlook

Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse Point SP share the same space near Moab, UT Dead Horse Point is tiny; Canyonlands NP is huge. It has three contiguous but very distinct areas, all of which overlook from various elevations the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers. We only got to visit Island in the Sky, which shares space with Dead Horse Point State Park. The view south over the Green River is amazing because the drop from the overlook to that tableland is about 1,000 feet. Then wherever the water ran the land is just carved away into the drainage for the Green River.

 

 

Canyonlands – View through Mesa Arch

This photo looks east through the Mesa Arch, over the Colorado River to the Lasale Mountains.

 

Canyonlands – Jeep Trip Hammer Formation

We took a jeep trip at Canyonlands, too, and along the way we saw more of Thor’s Hammers.

 

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On The Road: A Brief Return!

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Good morning, everybody!

 

This is a brief return of OTR. These are pictures I’d hoped to run a few weeks back, so I’m glad to finally be able to run them. I will continue tomorrow and Monday, and we’ll see how  things stand then.

The move is going well, but slowly. It’s a complicated situation but the end is in sight and normal life should re-commence in a couple of weeks.

Without further ado, enjoy the pictures and the day!

 

These are a continuation from HinTN, long-overdue thanks to yours truly losing them and then access to my old email. The delay is 100% my lame-ass fault.

 

These are from Capitol Reef  National Park.

Capitol Reef – Approach from Boulder Mountain

 

As you drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef NP you cross Boulder Mountain, which affords a first look at the area around Capitol Reef.  It is primarily a long geologic feature called the Waterpocket Fold, a huge sandstone formation that runs north and south to the west of the Henry Mountains.

 

Capitol Reef – Arch in the Making

 

The park is so big that we took a four hour jeep ride just to try and get a sense of the land.  Of course we saw a nascent arch.  They are everywhere in this area when you start looking.

 

 

Capitol Reef – Petroglyphs

 

The park includes a very hospitable river bottom with lush grasses and fruit

 

 

I just love seeing petroglyphs, it’s an amazing way to touch mankind from ages past. Looking at them you can almost see a bare arm scratching on the walls during a smoky, boring night or rainy day.

 

Have a great day, everyone. We’ll return to Utah tomorrow!

On The Road: A Brief Return!Post + Comments (15)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Readership Capture

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Elsewhere:

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Day of the Girl (Year of the Felons)

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Elsewhere…

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On The Road: On Hiatus

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Folks,

Today is the last regular post for a few weeks as I have to focus on packing and moving and unpacking and a bunch of related things. Our offer was accepted and things are moving fast!

I had hoped the new site would be live and the new submission function would be functional and so we’d have a bunch of content lined up, but that’s not the case and I don’t have the time to deal with email submissions right now, so please accept my apologies.  I’ll try to post something here and there, but I don’t expect I’ll be back to a regular schedule until next month, unless the new site comes on before then.

 

Today’s picture is the view, a 5-10 minute walk from my soon-to-be front door. I’m so very excited to be so close to the river as I spent age 7-30 minus college near this same river but miles downstream. I spent countless hours along and in it, exploring, learning, fishing, partying, and in general, playing with Nature. I’m glad I’ll have such access again – being able to walk to the river from home is such a nice thing, it becomes a companion, a refuge from home and the stressors of life that you can almost stumble to, instead of having to drive somewhere and deal with all that hassle.

Looks like I can eat 1-3 fish per month (depending on species) from this part of the river, which is so much better than where I used to live downstream – fish are verboten for those who care and it always breaks my heart to see so many immigrant laborers fishing to feed their families in the late afternoons and evenings. I get it, and I love to eat fish, so I fish to eat, not just for sport, but it saddens me seeing them feed their families a significant part of their weekly protein from not-so-good waters. The fish that far downstream have heavy metals and nasty chemicals in them, but fresh, “free” protein is undeniable as is the joy of some good time outside catching dinner.

 

 

Have a great rest of the week, everybody!

On The Road: On HiatusPost + Comments (23)