A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments
First, the Fifth Circuit screwed illegal immigrants by saying their advocates lacked standing to fight Texas law allowing state and local cops to make arrests.
ICE has, in turn, just arrested an interpreter of Indo-Pakistani languages.
Speaking
of, how big a portion of a city's budget are these public safety grants
that Abbott has threatened to cut unless cities kowtow to him on having police cooperate with ICE? In Austin's case, $2.5 million is 0.04 percent of $6.5 billion. For Dallas and Houston, it may be bigger, but still. Since part of Dallas' money is World Cup security related, why not just call Strangeabbott's bluff?
Sy Hersh said Thursday that he heard speculation Trump would pay $25 billion to reopen Hormuz.
Tosh on that actually happening, IF the speculation is true. I saw it May 1 — May Day, or Mayday? — and nothing had happened. That's a lifetime for weathervane Trump. Second, without actual concessions, Trump can't bribe Iran like that.
Weirder yet? The info is from Tel Aviv, not DC:
“He wants out,” the Israeli insider told me, and the Israeli leadership “is very upset because Trump”—in his fear of the political cost to him of a continuing blockade of the strait “has shown a willingness to ignore Israeli interests and desires.” People in the Israeli leadership “say he’s lost it. He doesn’t think of the consequences. You cannot do negotiations with Iran because every step we make he immediately broadcasts it on his social media posts. He is so obtuse.”
Sure. Sure, Sy.
There's then this:
The president is said not to share Israel’s existential concern about the need to destroy or neutralize the large depot of partially enriched uranium that is allegedly stored in at least three deep tunnels in Iran. Iran as a member of the world’s nuclear club may be an existential threat for the Israeli leadership, but not for the president of the United States.
Trump, weathervane and all, would never, ever confess to that, IMO, not even in private if he thought it would be leaked. Plus, already in his first term, he derided Obama's deal and killed it.
Is Sy being played? We know that's happened before.
Is someone in Tel Aviv floating a trial balloon? If so, there's people there stupider than I would have thought.
Maybe Sy discussed that further below his paywall. That's harder to tell in opinion, let alone speculation pieces than it is in straight news.
It also doesn't accord with what we know of Trump's psychology, in my opinion. And, on his psychology, two things from childhood are key, as I said on Mearsheimer's site.
One is his desire to impress his dad with how much tougher he was than his siblings.
The other is their attending Norman Vincent Peale's church and drinking deeply from the proto-New Agey "The Power of Positive Thinking." Trump to this day believes that if he believes something hard enough, it is or will be true. Period. It's also, if you will, an updated version of Schopenhauer and his "The World as Will and Idea." (I still like the old version of the title in English.) This goes back to WWII, where Hitler thought Stalin had reversed the tide of Barbarossa at Moscow, then, unevenly at first, rolled it back — he had a stronger belief, and passed this on to his generals, than German generals did. (Hitler never examined what this said, in his system, about the power of HIS belief!) That said, Stalin engaged in this too, in the late spring of 1941, thinking that if he believed hard enough, Hitler wouldn't invade.
Anyway, because Sy is a raconteur, I doubt he actually delved deeply into analyzing the story he was told and why he was told it.
My guess? Someone at least halfway close to Bibi feared Trump might actually be thinking along these lines and wanted to cut it off at the pass.
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Related? Having been rebuffed once, he's again begging for "allied" help to clear the strait.
Second? He needs billions to repair the damage Iran has done to US military bases in the Middle East. NBC reports that's the estimated cost. CNN concurs, saying Iran has damaged 16 US sites — a majority.
Meanwhile, NBC reports — per Jeff St. Clair, breaking news that CBS used to break, pre-Bari Weiss — Iran is digging out old weapons.
One? This should be the date that "Labor Day" is celebrated. It's the date of International Workers' Day.
It's the date that the American Federation of Labor called for the
eight-hour day to be implemented, in 1886. And, that exact date is the
day the Haymarket rally started.
Per the first link, ConservaDem
President Grover Cleveland pushed for the September Labor Day date
precisely to "defang" it and remove Haymarket connections.
Even worse? Per that page, Ike, Mr. "one nation UNDER GOD" Pledge of Allegiance president, declared May 1 to be Loyalty Day. Because "godless Communism," of course.
Remember that the American imperial class will co-opt anything they can, then claim America is "classless," then get many American people to buy it.
Once again, no, we don't actually need yet another Communist Party.
Beyond Marxism being pseudoscience, with more on that here, with the degree Marx was locked into the exploitation of the natural world ideas of capitalism, we don't need any form of Marxism in today's climate crisis.
It had been at least as long for me to visit Sequoia National Park as it had been to visit Death Valley. One problem of sorts with doing the two on the same vacation is of course that there is no road THROUGH the Sierras from the southern tip and Walker Pass until the Tioga Pass Road through Upper Yosemite.
I putzed around the morning of Friday, March 27 in the Lake Isabella area after leaving Death Valley. I'd done this briefly once, but more this time, with about 3 hours total. I did see one lifer bird, that theoretically I should be able to see in North Texas — the northern house wren. I saw some bright western bluebirds and spotted California poppies, so I didn't have to worry about skipping Antelope Valley.
And, I hauled ass for Sequoia, where I got about 6 hours or a little more of visitation time, but it was worth it.
Traffic is one issue. I'd driven up through Porterville once, long ago, and long after sunset. Today, early afternoon, through it and Visalia, gack!
That said, I did get the semi-cloying — not quite cloying, but not non-cloying, either — smell of orange blossoms from the groves. Picture orange scented dish soap, aerosolized, with a lighter orange smell, a much lighter, but existent, soap smell, and hints of related smells.
Finally, Sequoia!
I have half as many photo albums as Death Valley. That said, not all are place-based. The "water" album includes not only the rapids of the Middle Kaweah, but a ribbon fall higher in, and water and moss in the heart of the park.
That would be:
That. I posted that instead of a rapids photo, because, I do like shooting rapids video, like this:
That was about 3 miles above the Foothills Visitor Center.
Next, it's off to the good old general — General Sherman. Either I didn't have an ultrawide on my last trip to Sequoia, or I didn't go to the Sherman on that trip. I did this time. With these, like with coastal redwoods, it's the way to shoot. (I didn't think of shooting a brief "pan" video; the day was rushed and of course the site was semi-crowded. It's not like Redwood National Park, where you have to get a permit for the Tall Trees Grove, and the drive to that trailhead is an unpaved road, and the hike to that is a dirt, unpaved trail, all of which control visitation levels.)
Anyway, I went on to shoot other pictures of sequoias, in their own small album, in the Congress Grove and elsewhere, of sequoias, toppled sequoia roots, sequoias burned by the 2021 KNP Complex Fire and more. (I also shot things besides sequoias here, but hang on to that.)
That would lead to the "other flora and fauna" album. I saw a turkey hen just inside the visitor center. I saw several California tortoiseshell butterflies on the Congress Trail, and got a decent photo of one. I heard, then saw, an incessantly chirpy fox sparrow. I saw a bush-like, not tree-like, western redbud among the flora while driving.
There's the General; it embiggens and is much bigger in the album.
Speaking of generals? I was rushing to get to the General Grant grove before full dark.
You could also see damage from the KNP, which is mentioned specifically in the link above. While editing my photos, and realizing I had not looked for a name for this spot while there, I at the same time realized how much I missed a decade or more of not visiting Sequoia, and even felt a bit sad about rushing the trip. It is different from Redwood State and National in that you have no coast, but you do have mountains. And, as of this point in my life, Lower Yose is just too overrun, plus, even though it's part of nature, the bark beetle deaths near the Wawona Tunnel are a turn-off. Upper Yose is nice, but I think another trip into Kings Canyon, not yet open, but even more sparsely visited than Upper Yose, is my next desire for the Sierras. (I've seen bits of the northern Sierras outside of national parks.)
OK, obviously I wouldn't have much light left for the other general. In fact, it was twilight or nearly so when I got there, and as also noted in the very brief album, I didn't actually see the General Grant. On the trail to it, I missed some sign or something. No worries, I had seen it before. And, what I saw was nice, and tranquil, and quiet, with the bonus of bits of moonlight at about half-phase.
But, also, the above-average, though perhaps below record-setting at this point, hotting up of the Sierras was cooling off a fair amount with darkness.
But? I've skipped something, saving the best for last.
I hiked a fair portion of the Congress Trail, the trail that wends generally southward from the General Sherman. And, on the way back, thanks in part I think to quiet hiking, my rushed trip was all paid off on the matter of timing.
There you are.
It's the third time for me to see a sooty grouse. I've also spotted them at Lassen and Rainier. I do think they're almost as "tame" around people as the stereotypically tame spruce grouse. But, as I note in my small album, a lot of people hike less quietly and less observantly. Had I not shushed other hikers on the trail and then pointed, they might not have gotten enjoyment.
Enjoy a still of this lovely bird below.
And, that's a wrap of that trip, but not of the reflections.
I checked through old vacation notes, and sure enough, it had been even longer since my last visit than Death Valley, which I last hit in 2016.
Sequoia, last visit was 2015, then an 11-year gap before that, to 2004. And, 2004 as well as 2003 was one day, no more. The 2015 trip was fire-season challenged. Kings Canyon was closed.
SocraticGadfly read The New Republic's interview of George Conway, and realized that Never Trumper Republicans and Blue Anon Democrats remain largely clueless about the actuality of the 25th Amendment.
The Monthly rightly wonders why Trump running his border wall through the National Butterfly Center (on my visit wish list) has not attracted the same level of outrage as running it through Big Bend. You may not even be able to get in it!
[Executive director Stephanie] Lopez has met with CBP lawyers about design plans—there isn’t yet even a guarantee that the barrier will include a gate for visitors to pass through—and the center is consulting its own lawyers about what recourse it may have.
Santa Ana NWR, also mentioned in the story, is also on my visit wish list.
The state is about to execute another potentially innocent man, one convicted in part because of unconstitutional jury strikes.
Neil at the Houston Democracy Project offered six observations from the gutting of the ICE/City of Houston ordinance. At bottom line, there is no abuse from our authoritarian, white-supremacist state & federal governments that will cause Houston city government to meaningfully advocate for our rights.
Steve Vladeck breaks down the moment when SCOTUS decided that the rules no longer applied to it.
Law Dork digs into the disgraceful indictments of the SPLC filed by the Trump Justice Department.
Second, per Hansen, its likely effects are not only another wakeup call for the planet in general, and a wakeup call for wingnuts and denialists who won't listen, they're a wakeup call for climate change Obamiacs or climate change neoliberals (I use both terms), like Michael Mann, who have accused the likes of Hansen of being alarmist.
This:
Even a moderately strong El Niño during the next 12 to 18 months could drive the average global temperature to about 1.7 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level, climate scientist James Hansen told Inside Climate News. Hansen doubts the world will meaningfully cool back down to below the 1.5 degree Celsius mark after the El Niño fades.
Is the reality.
The kumbaya that Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, Bob Kopp and others want to sing is not. And, like head-faking canaries in a coal mine, they keep singing.
And, the further part of the reality is that this is likely to be a strong one, not just a moderately strong one.
Per Live Science, the World Meteorological Organization has already issued a 61 percent of a "strong" El Niño, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a 25 percent chance of a "very strong" one by November. (Cue somebody in the Trump Admin to try to quash that.)
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James Hansen says that due to increases in forcing, with an accelerating rate of global warming (discussed by me briefly here last month) this is likely to be a record year even without an El Niño.
