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
But party leaders say once they’re back home, the conversation shifts dramatically. In interviews, many state party chairs, candidates and elected officials did not name AIPAC or Israel funding as a top-three concern they’re hearing from rank-and-file voters. Instead, it’s the nuts and bolts of the economy that are weighing down their constituencies, they say, with the cost of housing and food and the availability of health care all top of mind.
Really? Inflation isn't caused in part by high gas prices caused by a war against Iran waged at the instigation of Israel? And, at least part of your grassroots constituents know that.
I mean, later on, the story even directly calls out national Democraps' lie by omission:
During recent focus groups observed by NBC News (produced by Syracuse University and the research firms Engagious and Sago), Democrats in Michigan and Maine voiced significant criticism of Israel’s government around its conduct in the war with Hamas in Gaza, with a handful calling Israel’s actions “genocide.”
The lies were called out more explicitly by one of their own Congresscritters, for doorknob's sake! THIS:
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., said she polled her own district after the contentious March primary, and her internal survey showed 80% of respondents had heard of AIPAC. “It’s higher than some members of Congress’ name ID in their own districts,” she said.
Ramirez, of Chicago, said the average voter in her district is mostly concerned about the cost of gas and groceries as well as immigration enforcement overreach. But the “more informed voter,” she said, is agitating against any Democratic alliance with AIPAC. She said DNC leaders would be wise to reconsider how its handling the issue, particularly as it attempts to cultivate a younger generation of leaders.
Denial is a river that doesn't just flow through 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I guess. Neither is peeing on someone's leg and telling them it's raining.
It's called gaslighting, like that by the Democratic Majority for Israel that I told to fuck off on Substack:
“We’re pleased that the DNC Rules Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions. These measures would be a gift to Republicans, would further fracture our party, and do nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to peace," Democratic Majority for Israel president and CEO Brian Romick said in a statement. "The DNC and party advocates need to keep focus where it belongs — on building a united Democratic Party that can win back Congress this November.”
It's "divisive" because Zionist genocidalists make it so while appealing to duopoly tribalism.
There you are. And, it's why I said "duopoly exit" on Substack while telling Romick et al to fuck off.
Not the TV show, nor the 20 Mule Team brand of borax that sponsored it, but we'll tie that in soon enough.
I got two and a half days of recent spring vacation time crammed into Death Valley. It was the first time I had been there in a decade. That trip, I think, had just two days even. And, before that, although some part of my mind says I had a brief visit, photo albums show the last visit before that was three days in 2006.
It was time. It was more than time.
Dayum, I shot a LOT of photos there and created a LOT of small albums.
And, I shot a decent amount of video, too.
I think I finally really realized how much I had missed not being there for a full decade on Day 3 of my visit, when I got to Keane Wonder Mine and saw a pair of chuckwallas getting ready to do the "muskrat love." I'd seen chuckwallas, or a lone male, once before, 20 years ago — at Keane Wonder Mine.
Oh, my god.
With that, let's dig in, with albums in general order, and a pullout picture from some of them to whet your appetite.
Badwater Day 1. I came in from Pahrump, Nevada, in part to squeeze in every molecule I could of Nevada-priced gas. The side benefit was coming in to Badwater quicker this way, with one of the lovely shots that I like shooting where a highway invites you into the scene.
I had no idea that the reincarnation of the prehistoric Lake Manly was still in place, but there it was. Heaven or nearly so; one of those "I've seen this and can die in peace moments" while embracing the heat, at about 105.5°F, or 41.5°C at 3:30-4 p.m., as the massive heat wave that had started a week earlier was not dissipating yet.
I was reminded of ice floes at salt crystals emerged from the drying, evaporating lake. The stylized photo shows that.
Day 2 started in Mosaic Canyon. I got there early in the morning to get strong colors when the sun was still largely below the canyon rim. One close-up photo in the album will show the actual mosaic nature.
Salt Creek to see desert pupfish. Here's one of those critters:
While dodging deerfly-like biting flies, I also saw a birding lifer, a pipit. Photos of it and the contrast of Salt Creek, saltier than the ocean, with the bits of green that grow along it, are in the album.
Next on the agenda? Harmony Borax Works, complete with "20 mule team" wagons and the borax refining ruins. The photo shows it with part of Mustard Canyon's colors in the background.
In the album, I've got two descriptor signs giving you the lay of the land.
If that's not enough, here's a narrative video:
And, after that? It was off to the West Side Road, on the west side of Badwater Basin.
It's amazing how the various salts can color the water, like various chemical compounds can color the rocks and sand in "painted desert" fashion. Here's the album.
Then, back to Badwater itself, looking for different angles than Day 1. Here's the results.
It was even hotter than the day before?
"How hot was it?" per old Tonight Show joke?
This:
At the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, official National Weather Service measurement, 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 25.
To cool off? Climb to nearly 6,000 feet, or 1,800 meters, of elevation, to Dante's View, where I had never been before. I got a very good sunset — not quite great, because of lack of clouds — with a high-level view of Lake Manly:
And, it was 30 degrees F cooler. And windy, windy, as the video will attest.
Getting into the spirit of desert photography, I decided to start the morning going out to the original well at Death Valley once enough Anglos started setting there. The well was eventually marked with a stovepipe, so travelers would find it and it wouldn't be hidden by blowing sand. Stovepipe well? Yes, that's now Stovepipe Wells village.
Next, after some putzing around in the area around the Hells Gate highway intersection, it was off to the Keene Wonder Mine. God, what a blast. Second time in my life to see chuckwallas. First time? Solo male 20 years ago, right on this spot, after hiking up the mountainside to the top of the ore tramway. I think at this point I was realizing just how much I'd missed Death Valley in not being here in a decade.
And, here's a male-female pair getting ready to do the muskrat love:
Then, off to Titus Canyon. To hike, not drive through by car. This semi-slot canyon is an iconic place within Death Valley. One photo will show you why:
From here, it's a mad dash back out of the park to the east, to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
Why? Well, the possibility of seeking spring migratory waterfowl, though birding there, even with allowances for cramming in just 90 minutes or a little more of pre-sunset time, wasn't that good.
But, also to see this:
As in, a very, very rare Amargosa pupfish. Given low light conditions and other things, not bad.
The full album has information and links on the nuttery that led to this becoming an NWR.
==
How did I deal with the heat, some may wonder? That's especially since I'm not 21 or even 41 any more.
First, on my first and second days, I did shorter hiking, especially from noon-5 pm, than on Day 3. Titus Canyon, especially in the shade, was probably 2.5 miles/4 km or a bit more round trip. And, after 5 p.m. day 3, at the wildlife refuge, I did at least that much.
I did feel a touch slightly woozy, to be honest, late afternoon of Day 2; that was when hiking the Natural Bridge trail, if but briefly, then getting out and doing short hiking for better photo angles in a brief album of Artists Palette. It was as much sitting in a vehicle (even with air conditioning generally turned off) but then getting up from a sitting position, getting outside into that heat, and starting to move. (I still at times, at a height of 6-5 or 1.95 meters, have postural hypotension and the heat surely aggravates that whenever I have it.) So, I would stop for a minute and take an extra slug of water before moving on. Ten years ago, and certainly 20, I might have tried to do more — while presumably having some sense of pacing still.
Now, I'll use the climate of Death Valley to transition into a bit about its natural history and geology.
Other than the evaporative humidity of Lake Manly, especially at these temperatures, Death Valley is not just dry, it's VERY dry. In addition to fame for often being the hottest point on the planet, and containing the lowest spot in North America, it's there with the Atacama Desert, Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter and a couple of other spots for driest place, going by relative humidity. (As Lake Manly shows, it does get a full 2 inches/50 mm of rain per year on average even at Badwater.)
The love of Death Valley is in large part the love of geology. And, Death Valley is one of the best places in the world to look at so many different gnarly metamorphic rocks!
That geology is also why it's so dry. Four mountain ranges in all stand between the actual valley and the Pacific Ocean to the west. In the main Sierra Nevada, Mount Whitney at 14,494 feet, or 4418 meters, is about 55 miles or so due west of Badwater. The Panamint Mountains, the easternmost of the four? Telescope Peak (still snowcapped at top in photo and video from Badwater Day 2) is 11,043 feet, or 3366 meters, and only 15 miles, or 25 km, west of Badwater Basin.
On the mountains? The highest ones on the east side, like that Dante's View or higher, can get up to 6500 feet or 2000 meters. So, a pressure system that would come in from the east can't bring much rain either.
On the geology, it's an extreme example of the entire "Basin and Range province," all slip-strike type faulting, then collapses on fault lines, in the period between the formation of the Rocky Mountains and that of the Sierra Nevada. Beyond embracing the general existential nature, it's just a fascinating place to stare at rocks in all sorts of different light levels.
So, on an unseasonable 110F in late March, or a semi-normal 125F in July? Your relative humidity will not just be below 20 percent. It will probably be below 15 percent, and maybe down to a flat 10 percent.
And that, combined with no shade from no trees, is how an extreme desert can kill. You lose water not just from perspiration, but respiration out your lungs.
It's also why the third wagon on the borax train was a water wagon. Even with mules' conservativism with water versus horses, you needed to haul that much for them, plus the people driving the wagon.
As for the ruggedness of the rock in general, California has some other good sites for that, like Point Reyes, but nothing compares overall to Death Valley. Big Bend here in Texas is the one other larger-scale landscape that's halfway in the same ballpark.
Get an overview of the now-open Palo Pinto Mountains State Park.
Yes, it's too bad the NM Lege gets nothing more than a per diem. But also yes, paying NM Legiscritters $64K a year as though they were working a serious full-time job is laughable. I hope voters there reject that in November.
Elmo Musk wants part of a national wildlife refuge; the exchange would also include a bit of the Palmito Battlefield National Historic Site. Sadly, the Barbed Wire, which linked to that story, was too late; comment period expired March 31.
For 53 state House Democrats, a question: Was it worth it being fined more than $8K each for your walkout last summer? Bonus question for those of you talking about not paying: Will it be worth it to have your member budget cut 30 percent next year, at least if you can't prove Dannie Goeb right?
The State Board of Ed still wants to force public school kids to read the bible, and yeah, with background of Kelly Hancock being sued over vouchers, this is a First Amendment suit waiting to happen.
Will pigs fly? The CCA overturned a death sentence.
This is an update and expansion on updates to my piece last week, the one about Trump TACOing on his planned war crimes against Iran.
With the breakdown of talks, Trump says he will blockade Hormuz, now underway, and based that threat on a lie, the lie that Iran had "promised" to
reopen it. Will this bring him into a direct collision with China? That
might just be called a half-lie, given Iran's and the United States'
differing interpretations of what was agreed to before the talks in
Islamabad.
Claiming other states will help with the blockade is an even
bigger, and fuller, lie, though. It's one that in Britain, Der Starmer has already rejected.
And, did two US vessels already sail
through, early Sunday time in Iran, per the story
on the talks failing? I kind o doubt that one, too, especially since the claim comes from Trump's Zionist flunky in the media, Barak Ravid. Then there's the
lie by implication that this blockade would happen immediately, when in
reality, Trump admitted Sunday morning US time to Maria Bartiromo that it wasn't so.
Later Sunday, Trump them said it wasn't the Strait, just Iranian ports that would be blockaded. Good luck with even that.
In an April 13 piece,
Mearsheimer says that not only with the blockade not work physically in
the way Trump claims, but that economically, it will actually
backfire.
First of all, if Washington establishmentarians like the idea, there must be something seriously wrong with it
Bingo.
The piece also reminds us, which the normal Nat-sec Nutsacks™ like Dennis Ross, quoted, don't, that this itself illegal under international law. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, with his international control idea for the strait, is wanting to further violate international law.
==
A major part of the breakdown? Iran claims that Israel's newest strikes on Lebanon are a violation, per this AP story.
Therefore, it has closed Hormuz again. It has also said that any
reopening will be under the management of its military. That said, Trump
and "Glory be to Satan" Pete Hegseth claim Lebanon is not part of any
cease-fire. Meanwhile, Trump and Karoline Unchristian Leavitt (she
refuses to adopt her husband's surname like a good submissive married
Christian woman) appear to disagree on what to think about Iran's
earlier 10-point proposal.
THAT then said, Iran's Supreme National
Security Council is dreaming if it thinks the US has agreed to
compensate it for war damages.
So, per Mearsheimer, myself and
many others, yes, Trump has his ass in a crack. But, not necessarily as
deep a crack as Iran thinks.
==
Second, via The Dissident, negative views of Israel in the US have increased since the start of the war, per Pew Research. A big takeaway? Probably in part from the "manosphere," 57 percent of Republicans 18-49 now have negative views of Israel.
Also via The Dissident, Daniel Levy said on Democracy Now
that Trump must be made of less serious stuff than previous presidents,
being dragged into this war by Netanyahu. Per Hegseth probably being
behind the "glory be to god" of Trump's one Lies Social blast, how much
did Bibi triangulate off him?
Breaking off talks, and lying about nuclear weapons being the cause of the Iran war, and of the end of talks, show that Trump remains Satanyahu's sock puppet.
==
Will Trump go beyond a blockade, as in boots on the ground?
Not unless he's a bigger idiot than he has shown himself to be, even for himself.
Via Jeff St. Clair's installment last week of his Friday Roaming Charges, climate change, despite being denied by Trump, may be another reason he wants an early exit from the Iran War:
And,
US troops would be weighted down with much more kit than their Iranian
counterparts. In addition, how would US machinery like the craptacular,
sucktacular F-35 perform in these conditions?
That said, while the Pentagon may be thinking of this, would this actually sway Trump?
==
Also, per Jeff, how
are Conservative Cafeteria Catholics in the US accepting, or rejecting,
Pope Leo XIV's statements on the war to date, including, though not by name, the callout of the likes of Hegseth and also Trump's "Glory be to god"? His latest callout includes "the idolatry of the self." Gee, who is THAT about? Yes, per the unChristian Karoline Levitt, US Catholics broke for Trump in 2024, but not by a huge margin, and I suspect he's underwater on them today.
Since then, Trump has attacked Leo, claiming he's "soft on crime" (really? other than past financial crimes, what crimes are there in the Vatican?) and also once again lying about how the war on Iran is about nuclear weapons.
==
CNN says China is going to supply air defense systems to Iran. I told you who benefited from the two weeks, didn't I, in that original story? That said, Chinese Foreign Ministry spox Guo Jiakun says that's totally untrue. If they're laundered through third parties, per the next graf?
Specifically,
if true, it's MANPAD shoulder-launched missiles like the one that shot
down the F-15. In further shades of Afghanistan, US intelligence claims
the sales will be laundered through third-party countries.
Per the Responsible Statecraft piece above? Would China really escort its own tankers with the Chinese Navy? Boy, I'd find that hard to believe. That said, RS notes that Trump has an already-delayed meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping set for early May. Delaying it again would be a spicy Szechuan TACO.
That's of course Lite Guv Dan Patrick, that Dannie Goeb.
Yours truly's take on Goeb's lament, at the Trib?
I think this is a mix of trying to low-key kneecap Kenny Boy Paxton
before the primary runoff with Big John Cornyn, shaking the money trees
for yet more moolah, and real worry, especially should Paxton prevail.
First, he's speaking specifically about the Texas Huose, meaning that this is a callout to Speaker Dustin Burrows. Remember that Goeb is quick with a side-eye, followed by being quick with a shiv.
Second, this is all contingent on whether or not the loser of the Senate runoff endorses the winner.
It's not clear how much Goeb is worried about Paxton as standard-bearer should he win and Big John endorse. BUT? Per point the first, it's a side-eye to Kenny Boy should he win, with endorsement, and a shiv should he lose and not endorse.
So, pre-runoff result, it's 20 percent actual worry, 30 percent shaking the money tree and 50 percent the rest. Don't be fooled into thinking Danny Boy is that alarmist.
Two snapshots, which I will explain in more detail, in all likelihood, over at Substack.
First, the major drought that hit the Colorado River basin from the start of the year on, if not already late last year, was massively exacerbated, in terms of snow water, by the major heat-up in March.
As a result? The Upper Colorado is down to just 25 percent of its median normal on snowpack water equivalent. For people unfamiliar with what this means, normally, there's snow melting in the upper Rockies in May and June that's filling the river, and more importantly, the river's damned lakes behind its damned dams, above all Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam.
There will be little to no such snow this year. What snow is currently left will probably not be bulked up by any major new snowfall before the end of this month. The snow still left was already heated up, as was the surrounding ground, now snow-bare, and therefore it will melt off earlier.
This is going to be problematic, especially for Powell.
How problematic?
EVERY dam has one red-line point that even a few non-Westerners may have heard of: Dead pool, also the title of a book by James Powell about Lake Powell. That's the point where what's left of water in a damned lake is below the outlet holes in a dam. Short of drilling new holes, that means what you have is something that's in the process of becoming a big silty mud puddle, absent major new water input.
Hydroelectric dams have a second red-line point. That's called "power pool."
That's where water in a lake falls below the top of penstock openings in a dam — the penstocks that feed turbines that generate electricity. This is problematic in two ways. One is the loss of electricity itself. The second is that the penstocks must be monitored for things like cavitation, should something like a major flash flood hit the lake and its drainage area and threaten to send lots of water through air-open feedways. Cavitation is what happened to Glen Canyon Dam's emergency water feed holes in the early 1980s when it had no choice but to draw down water as rapidly as possible. Marc Reisner discussed that in "Cadillac Desert."
That leads to our second issue.
Per BuRec, the old Bureau of Reclamation itself, there's a good chance Powell hits power pool by this August, even as the current Colorado River Compact ends later this year and the squabbling over renewal is only heating up. For government bureaucrats to issue a worry this openly pessimistic is huge.
In March, before the big heat-up, BuRec said Powell might hit power pool
by this December. With that heat-up, it's advanced that to August.
Before the Compact expired and also, for Phoenicians of Aridzona, before
the summer expires. That means no more cheap electricity for AC in 105
or 110 F heat.
Per the story, they have two main options. First is opening the gates at Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River, the Colorado's main tributary, as much as possible. Flaming Gorge Reservoir is in northeast Utah and backs into southwest Wyoming. Both states oppose maximum drawdown but probably have little choice. Second is cutting the release of water out of Powell to Mead to the minimum allowable.
But outside agencies say even that won't be enough:
“Those two tools taken together at those levels are not sufficient to prevent Lake Powell from going below 3,500, according to these most recent forecasts,” said Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the University of Colorado’s Getches-Wilkinson Center.
There you are.
Also, at a water height still slightly above power pool, the story notes, damage to the dam is possible.
For more on power pool and dead pool, complete with graphics, go here.
BuRec promises another update later this month and you'll get more from me.
Longer term? The "panic button" has always been that one of the two dams has to die, and per private entities like Glen Canyon Institute, Glen Canyon Dam has always been the preferred option in the big picture, though the option vociferously opposed in Aridzona.
Now, per BuRec, Congress has technically said no to that idea.
Because of the many significant benefits provided by Lake Powell, Congress continues to include a direct prohibition concerning any planning actions or expenditure of public funds related to consideration or actions toward draining Lake Powell. Former Reclamation Commissioner, John W. Keys III said, "Previous administrations of both political parties, as well as the U.S. Congress, have said that Glen Canyon Dam is here to stay because it is serving millions of people in the Southwestern United States. Congress, through the passage of the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992, clearly stated that the dam and reservoir have a place in the tapestry of the country." Reclamation is committed to operating Glen Canyon Dam in accordance with the Law of the River and all applicable environmental laws.
But, not all of Congress nor all of Trump's Norman Vincent Peale can get rid of this reality.
On electric juice, about all of Glen Canyon Dam's goes to Aridzona, while Mead's generally goes to California and Nevada. That Glen Canyon juice not only runs the AC in Phoenix, but pushes Central Arizona Project water uphill from the lower Colorado to farms in southern Arizona, and cities in greater Phoenix and Tucson.
BuRec's apparent pessimism is itself a shocker. Per another story from the Salt Lake Trib, the bureau usually pulls its punches on Colorado River water supply issues.
If you live there, like my sis and brother-in-law, really, you should be moving. Really really, you should already have moved.
