Big Bend to get wilderness protection?

I totally support the idea of getting federal wilderness protection for a big chunk of Big Bend National Park, but that's not the only thing that needs addressing.

There's light pollution from increased gas flaring at the southern end of the Permian leading into the park. The last time I was there was Christmas 2019, and it was ridiculous. Wayne Christian (or Wayne-o NOT) at the Railroad Commission says his org is cutting the problem, but, yeah, sure. 

Also, based on my most recent previous visit, there's the risk of increased light pollution across the river at Boquillas (no, really) with reliable regular electricity and night lighting. Big Bend itself, as well as Big Bend Ranch State Park, have International Dark Sky designation, but none of the Mexican preserves across the river do.

Why Congress never adopted the original 1978 NPS recommendation within the park, that said, I don't know. Actually, per the story and my own knowledge of NPS, I do know. It was apparently just a pro forma ask that NPS never pushed further.

At Olympic, as I noted last year, the Park Service, and not just local staff, opposed wilderness designation for much of that park. (Fortunately, creosote bushes aren't eyeballed for commercial logging.) Meanwhile, when we do get wilderness designation, the NPS wants to de-wild it as much as possible. That's why Carsten Lien, the author of the book about Olympic's woes that was behind the first link, wanted a "U.S. Wilderness Service" to be formed — the NPS was too much of a sellout. And, per that second link, we don't need more cellphone towers being built in designated wilderness areas.

And, seeing the expansion of cellphone towers in national parks, and other things, "pristineness," more than "just" wilderness, is what's needed. Beyond wilderness, we also, as part of pristineness, need to cut way back on the whole issue of corporate sponsors of and partners with the NPS.

Coronavirus, Week 103: 1 million dead, or 20

Yes, as of late last week, that's the quasi-official and surely undercounted, probably highly undercounted, US death toll from COVID-19.

President Joe Biden, who claimed that sombody as COVID incompetent as his predecessor, Donald Trump, should be voted out office for that reason alone, has continued to dodge eating his words with many of the BlueAnon faithful by dodging the tough issues.

Hospitalizations instead of cases the new metric.

Talking about getting closer to endemic, and even trotting out St. Anthony of Fauci to push that message, even as the latest variant in Europe may hit our shores.

Cutting back on public testing. Hey, those free at home test kits are great to try to calm some of the worried public, and for taking privately generated positive test results out of the public sphere.

That's even as money gets tighter for antivirals and other issues, and Biden's failure last fall to have multiple arrows in his quiver is another issue.

That's as we have one of the highest death/case rates of any country in the world. (There are some countries, like India and China, whose numbers I don't trust on government principle.)

But, carry on.

You do have health insurance, don't you? And, with a low deductible?

We may indeed get to endemic. But, with a US having 3 times the population of 1920, and interconnected much more with a global population 4 times that of a century ago, it will take a lot longer than it did with the Spanish flu. And, "endemic" won't look the same.

==

Meanwhile, as you read this, China has its financial capital and largest metro, Shanghai, in the middle of a two-part lockdown. China, even with its swifter, yet more draconian, true lockdowns than anything in Western Europe, and true lockdowns (which the US never really had, shut up COVID contrarians), has long been trying to avoid this. The Beeb piece cites China's zero-COVID policy (which the US has never had, shut up, COVID contrarians, Great Barrington crack smokers, etc.) is considered by some within to be overblown against Omicron and may even be getting pushback. Alert the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-aid peddlers that the Maximum Leader is being questioned.

==

Per the header, and the latter number? That's the likely global mortality from COVID. And, the excess mortality method shows that Asia didn't deal as well with COVID as some claim. Alerting the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-aid peddlers.

Russia-Ukraine thoughts, week 3: Now linguistics is politicized

We start with President Biden explicitly calling for regime change in Russia. Tom Nichols, warhawk at the Atlantic, calls it an "unforced error," then mildly turd-polishes. Dan Froomkin, whom I thought was better than this, more strongly turd-polishes by attacking the NYT messenger who used the world "inarticulate," claiming the MSM never used that about Shrub Bush or Trump. What rock have you been under? I found it in multiple media stories and even one book by a media person, about Shrub, and not words like "inarticulate," but the actual word. Now, we can discuss the idea of whether or not Biden WAS inarticulate. I take him as being straight up, and will say "Freudian slip" rather than "unforced error."

The biggest problem with Biden's statement (especially when seen via the "Freudian slip" angle) is that it makes a negotiated settlement end to the war even harder to achieve. And, contra US / NATO warhawks, it's what's needed. Ending the idea of more pushing of Putin to the wall is NOT "appeasement," it's sensible reality.

==

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo's Zionism-defending head honcho (egregious? yes! true? also yes, as in, he's not gotten the Peter Beinart memo), has decided to politicize linguistics, in my opinion, by babbling about how the origin of Proto-Indo-European was in today's Ukraine. He's either wrong or Not.Even.Wrong., perhaps. First, as Wiki notes, there are several hypotheses for the origin of PIE. Second, IF Marija Gimbutas and the "Kurgan hypothesis" IS correct, guess what? Kurgan culture covered what is today southeastern European Russia as well as Ukraine; indeed, Gimbutas' first era of Kurgan culture includes what is called the Samara culture. Today's city of that name? On the Volga, well inside Russia.. "Shock me" that a nat sec, nut sack, bipartisan foreign policy establishment guy like Marshall would pull this. "Shock me" that at the Texas blogging level, somebody like Kuff would latch on to that.

And, yes, you're politicizing it, Josh. There's no other reason you would just "happen" to write about this issue right now. 

Besides, per my original piece on the war, and others, we have to remember that today's Ukraine isn't necessarily "the" linguistic or ethnic boundaries of historic Ukraine, not just for the last century but the last 10.

UPdate: A NATO-touter warmonger type from the Marshall Center wants Ukraine to go to the Latin alphabet.

Question: After the war has been won, should #Ukraine stop using the Cyrillics and switch to the Latin alphabet? I know it’s not a burning issue at this point but it would symbolize where the Ukrainian nation wants to be — with the West. I ask this especially of our UKR friends.

— Andrew A. Michta (@andrewmichta) March 30, 2022

THAT will teach Putin! (And open the door a bit on Coca-colonialization.)

==

The "Russian POWs" that was trending at the start of the week and even had some bloggers note it, is a reminder that both sides are committing war crimes, not just Russia. And, it's "interesting" that the immediate reaction by many was to claim this was either a Russian false flag, or less macabre, faked by Russia. Gateway Pundit's analysis may be right on one point — some Ukrainians hope to provoke a Russian reaction that will draw the ire of the West far more than what Ukraine did to provoke this. "Flypaper." Ukraine was chided more than three weeks ago for putting prisoners on TV, also a Geneva Conventions violation.

==

Speaking of flypaper, Greenwald says that the US may view the whole Ukraine conflict as just that.

==

Hungary's president Viktor Orban is being attacked for keeping his country neutral. His right, and Ukraine isn't a NATO member. "Hungary is on Hungary's side" is a legitimate stance. If Biden said, "The US is on the US's side," Tom Nichols would call it an "unforced error," but no more.

==

Speaking of, just a week after saying he accepted Ukraine would never be part of NATO, Zelensky now wants NATO weapons. And, behind that ask is surely the hope to draw NATO in more directly. More on that here. Buried near the bottom? Zelensky, like Putin, is criminalizing media reporting on military details. In both cases, the law covers foreign as well as domestic media. At least Zelensky got the Rada to pass this and it's not by fiat.

==

When your communications is less secure than al Qaeda (which used burner phones when it used cellphones for communication) yes, Russian troops, you're making yourself sitting ducks.

My thought on why so many Russian generals are getting killed? It's due to one thing written about elsewhere — their crappy NCOs, which are due to crappy training of them, etc. Between this and the insecure communications, they're commanding close to the front. And, with the insecure communications, becoming easy targets.

Texas Progressives also talk elections news

I was getting enough in this week's Roundup that I decided to split it into two.

Beto-Bob, aka R.F. O'Rourke, known long ago in these pages as part of an El Paso real estate grifting family, is playing up his background as a small business owner.

Is Kelcey Warren's lawsuit against Beto-Bob a gift? The Observer says yes, as do other outlets, which call it either a gift to O'Rourke or an encumbrance to Strangeabbott.  

ConservaDem Filemon Vela, who already announced he wouldn't seek re-election, has decided to cash in his neoliberal capitalist chips early and is leaving now, to work for Washington über-lobbyist Akin Gump. Due to timing issues, per this follow-up, it's almost like Vela wanted to hand Strangeabbott a gift on the special election call.

Both Rethugs and Democraps are in runoffs to success Pee Bush as land commish. The Observer asks, in essence riffing on the title of friend Chris Tomlinson's book, if whoever wins can't "Forget the Alamo" and focus on other things. Sadly, the author of the piece ignores third-party candidates. Since Greeny starts with environmentalism, leaving Alfred Molison Jr. off the list is not acceptable. She and the Observer have been informed on Twitter.

Michael Li cannot believe the SCOTUS redistricting order in Wisconsin.

Texas Progressives talk oil and more

More oil from the Permian? Not so fast. The Trib has some of the obvious reasons why, not only that Wall Street lost its shirt on previous fracking, but that the oil patch also has its problem with supply chain shortages and the price of steel had sent drill stem costs into the the stratosphere. It doesn't mention what you'll find elsewhere, that many already-fracked sites are owned by the Wall Street investors who previously lost their shirts and see $100/bbl oil out of the current wells as a great way to recoup some of those losses. The piece is also wrong (I think) on claiming that Permian production has exceeded pre-pandemic levels. I know that statewide and national production has NOT.

Meanwhile, President Biden's explicit call Saturday night for regime change in Russia certainly won't help short-term oil prices. And, what's really going to be affected is diesel fuel, from what I've heard. Last week, Tom Kloza of Platt's says he expects it will go over $6 a gallon.

Off the Kuff writes about lawsuits filed by two abortion funds in Texas against SB8 aggressors.

SocrsticGadfly offers up a non-MSM obituary of Madeleine Albright.

Responsibility and moral hazard, family division. Yes, 14 isn't adulthood, but it isn't toddlerhood, either. Should the 14-year-old, who was 6-5 and 340 pounds, who died on the Icon ride in Orlando, be faulted in part, in addition to park members who let him in on that ride? I say yes. His father called him "bright" and an "honor student." The story also notes that multiple other rides at the park had rejected him on height/weight reasons. 

The US District Court for the Western District of Texas has ruled that the lawsuit by Wendy Davis et al against the traffic-disrupting MAGAts, aka the Texas Trump Train lawsuit, can proceed. It said they violated the federal Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 as well as Texas state law.

Juanita sighs about having to fight the same fights from 50 years ago, but that won't stop her.

Siddharth Kurana lists the US counties with the largest populations of specific Asian ethnicities.

Jef Rouner presents six poisonous rap songs that spread disinformation and bigotry.

Billions from billionaires, but not one cent for health care

To modernize the slogan from 225 years ago about "millions for defense, not one cent for tribute," that's my take on the latest news about President Joe Biden.

Biden has promised a minimum tax for billionaires, which would actually be for centimillionaires and above, to include taxing at least some of their investment income like ordinary income. The AP has more.

Problem? Well, yes, one biggie.

Like his former boss, Dear Leader Obama, and like the Slickster, Biden is focused on cleaning up Republican budget deficit and national debt messes with the extra income. Addressing national health care, or even a significantly better Obamacare, isn't in the mix. So, Rethuglican rhetoric aside, the idea is "nice."

In fact, as I type this, David Sirota's newest landing pad says that the Biden Admin is forcing more and more Medicare recipients into private market plans without their informed consent! And, it's a plan started by Team Trump, which again shows that on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, there's a thin dime's difference, if not quite the proverbial "not a dime's worth of difference," between the two duopoly parties. Indeed, the Sirota site piece argues that Team Biden has expanded the original Trump program. 

Common Dreams was even on this late last year. And, in some ways, its piece is even harder hitting.

The biggie? The wiggle room to start "pilot programs" like this was in Obamacare. And, with people like "Mod Max" Baucus writing that bill, that language didn't get there by accident.

And, it links to a column by Chronicle columnist and friend Chris Tomlinson which sharply calls out Biden, calling his neoliberal idea that the private sector can run Medicare better "demonstrably untrue."

Oh, hell no, the Cards just did it and signed Pujols

On my blog post about "Quo Vadis Albert Pujols," Dave Minn asked about why I thought Phat Albert Pujols was at least one year older, if not two, than his officially stated age? I gave some details, then went into a longer description beyond that piece, even, in a second blog post, about why he deserved nothing more than an MLB minimum contract, if that, and only with a team that had desperate need for a platooned DH.

I said "no" to Cards fans all schoolgirl giddy about the prospect of signing Pujols. In part for that reason, both at the first piece and now the second.

Many of them are probably even more giddy now, picturing that picture at left happening again, since the St. Louis Cardinals just announced they're signing him for a MLB contract, and at $2.5 million. (Update: Looking at that picture at left, vs the one above, Albert's neck is what, at least 1 full inch bigger in circumference. Probably 1.5-2 inches. Now that can happen in part from building up muscle due to more MLB-level weight training etc. [NOT roids; I'll kick you in the nads] but part of that is surely due to added weight over the years, and a non-insignificant amount of it.)

Basically, this smacks of being a turnstiles gimmick, if Pujols hits some career milestones. The team has said he'll be used like he was with the Dodgers; DH against lefty batters and an occasional pinch-hitter.

This doesn't really help team needs

As I said on the Quo Vadis piece, the Cards are lefty-light, not counting a couple of switchers. I had recommended Jonathan Villar, a switcher, as a much better upgrade than Pujols, and I stick by that even with the universal DH. As I noted, many teams today in the AL do NOT go the David Ortiz route. Rather, the DH spot is used to give position players a rest. Or, it's a mix; you have a lefty who sucks against lefties platooning there for 60-65 percent of the spot's at-bats, then you rotate position players in there for the rest of the time. Especially if Villar could learn a rudimentary 1B glove, along with the other three infield spots he already plays, that gives you time off to DH for both Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. You can still add a regular "masher" type who might fit the lefty platoon angle, if one is relatively cheap, and sign that person (whoever it is) and Villar both.

As for those "regular mashers" who bat lefty? Per what I wrote when the lockout lifted? Kyle Schwarber was out there and would have perfectly fit the bill. Anthony Rizzo might cost a bit more (actually was less), but is another ex-Cubbie who'd fill the need, if Mozeliak could get DeWitt to break open DeWallet. And, in this case, Villar doesn't have to learn 1B. (Why nobody's tried to get Schwarber to do that, I don't know.) Kyle Seager would likely cost not much more than Schwarber and could probably be taught 1B as well as 3B plus DHing.

(With Schwarber and Rizzo both signed now, Seager is arguably the best lefty bat, especially among ones with at least bits of power, left available, per Spotrac.) 

And, with the Cardinals signing Corey Dickerson [why?] they're probably out of the Seager running.

Villar would have offered even better infield depth, of course, and speed that neither Dickerson nor Seager have. And, at $4.5M for one year plus a buyout on an option with more details here, vs $5M for a  year in Dickerson, he didn't cost that much more money.

But, no, "we're" signing Phat Albert. The universal DH was already turning me off. A gimmick signing, even more.With Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina's retiring this year? Yep. Ticket sales. Tchotchkes out the wazoo. Average fans spending money to help millionaires and billionaires both get richer. (And, he says it's his "last ride," so I'm assuming neither of other two Amigos or Musketeers sticks around. That said, as reported by Derrick Goold, Waino's was firmly noncommittal on retirement at the team presser officially announcing Pujols' return.)

Side note: It's interesting that the Cards fell to fourth in the NL in attendance last year. That's the first time since 2012 they've been that low, and even in that year, they still broke 3 million. That only reinforces to me what's driving this.

To put it another way, the Pujols plus Dickerson salaries, plus possibly an additional $1-2 million, could have signed Villar and Seager and given the Cards much better infield defense flexibility, batting flexibility and speed.

Or spent for a semi-big bat like Rizzo then signed Pujols for all the marketing dinero to pay for that?

I'll have my annual team prediction blog post in a few days. Just how much this doesn't actually help, and how much the need is, will be part of that.

And, holy fucking shit, blind hogs and acorns time! Redbird Rants agrees with me, and gets something right, when it says the signing is a "punt on 2022 season." Well, actually, ONE RR writer agrees; the next one, at their links at the bottom, claims the Cards "expect him to help their club."

UPDATE: David Schoenfield comps this to Seattle bringing back Ken Griffey Jr.. However, Griff had 0.6 WAR his first year back. Pujols last year had 0.1 for the Dodgers. He'll be lucky to do that in St. Louis. (I think B-Ref's projection of 392 PAs is high, especially if it's right on a projected OPS of .680 — which I think IS right.)