Car review: Nissan Rogue

Since I used to do this as part of the day job at one newspaper group, I'm qualified. Not sure why I haven't been blogging reviews of vacation car rentals before, but better late than never.

I've had the option of a Rogue on one previous vacation among mid-sized rentals and ultimately went with a Hyundai Santa Fe.

It turned out to be Rogue vs Jeep Compass this time, and I already knew the Compass was shorter and since my current version of car camping is to turn a mid-sized SUV into a temporary RV, the Compass was going to be too short.

Nissan has shortened the Rogue in the last couple of years.

And, for 2022, dropped a 3-cylinder engine under the hood as the base option. You read that right. I even popped the hood once to see if that's what I had, because I wasn't sure I had a 2022 model. Well, there was so much in the way of heavy metal foil covering various inputs to the engine that I couldn't even find plug wires to count to either "three" or "four." But,  given that the I-3 is paired with an 8-speed tranny, and on mountain roads of the southern Rockies, I was doing a lot of short upshifts in climbing, I venture that's what I had.

Plus? Especially when I found the "Eco" button, gas mileage was good. Between state and US highways on those mountains and some interstates, I was pushing 35mpg. This was an AWD, but I rarely had that turned on.

Minus of sorts? Downsizing. At my height, it was a bit tight on that car camping at times. Related? After you drop the second seat, it rides higher than the back floorboard, and it takes some funky configuration and use of suitcases or backpacks underneath that "floorboard" to even this out.

Definite minuses? Cheapness up front for the driver. 

The rearview mirror does not auto-dim at night.

The rearview mirror does not have a digital compass readout built into a corner.

The driver's seat is totally manual. Yep, nothing on power adjustments. And the manual adjustments are only six-way: forward-back, tilt-nontilt on seat back, and lumbar. And, the lumbar was cheap compared to my 20-year old Camry, which is also power on the other four-way control options PLUS it's eight-way, also having tilt-nontilt on the seat "butt" as well as back. Yes, this was the SE top-line Camry, but also, it's 20 years old, and it also has the other two above options.

So, if you are interested in a 2022 Rogue, on the last list of issues, you'll probably want to look beyond a base version.

RIP Mr. Driving without a License Michael Badnarik

Ballot Access News alerted me yesterday to the death of the 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, and what's in the header was what I immediately thought about because that's what he was known for at the time.

Wikipedia reminds me, per the first commenter at BAN, Andy, that Badnarik was indeed a true-blue Libertarian nutter in one other way, namely, in that he believed the 16th Amendment had never been properly ratified.

Also in comments there, No. 2 person said that Greens appreciated him for the investigation of alleged vote fraud in Ohio in 2004. I use the word alleged, which said commenter did not, because there was no actual fraud. Unethical vote suppression by Ohio's then Secretary of State? Plenty. Anything fraudulent? No. Mark Hertsgaard has the facts.

Well, Libertarians got butt-hurt about my takedown comments. I replied that, to riff on Liberty Valance, here at this blog, I'd rather repeat the truth before post-mortem hagiography gets set in stone. I noted I'd written takedown obits here of warmonger John McCain, warmonger and NATO-monger Madeleine Albright, First Amendment mocker Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and others, for precisely that reason.

And, per a pre-demise post he wrote at his own website, and comments therein, you're a big old gun nut if you have to take a hogleg to a medical conference. That's amplified by having a vertical called "gun friendly restaurants" at the top of the website.

And, his idea of American history was full of shit, as he claims the Civil War didn't exist, and (naturally) uses the secessionist "War of Northern Aggression" instead.

Finally, on current politics, though rightly calling out the departure of Trump, it's typical wingnut bullshit to talk about Americans who "voted for and supported Marxist/socialist legislation." It's a lie. If Badnarik, like many Republican wingnuts, knew it was a lie, then he was part of the problem on both the coarsening of American political discourse and the shifting of Overton windows, and ultimately, to hoist him by his own petard, himself a cancer on the political world. If he truly believed this bullshit, he was an even bigger idiot than the previous post about the Civil War indicates.

This:

They have converted the United States into a communist nation – sometime unintentionally, but often deliberately.

would be fucking laughable if Badnarik didn't mean it quite seriously.

And, of course, and shock me, I googled his blogging for COVID, and as you would expect, he rejected the idea of government actions in the name of public health, even to the point of threats of violence.

You bring the syringe, I’ll bring my .45, and we’ll see who leaves a bigger hole.

(Some Libertarian! [For non-Libertarians, the issue of war, but also somewhat of violence in general and its use, has been a contentious issue within the party.]) And, per him listing that quote elsewhere, I'll take him as a general antivaxxer.

And, as for the Andys of the world, just click the "obits" tab and you'll see plenty of them. I even wrote a semi-takedown of one of my most-liked authors of the past 25 years, David Roberts.

So, goodbye, Badnarik and you won't be missed in this corner of the non-duopoly world. You're the biggest nutter Texas Libertarians, at a minimum, have produced until Dan "Taxation is Theft because Me and My Poopy Pants Don't Like Paying Taxes" Behrman, and given Danny Boy's political takes, you were in the same house on COVID nuttery, too, and presumably on gunz and other lunacies.

Pujols' likely end lines

As we look at the career of Albert Pujols, aka Phat Albert, aka The Machine, and his announced retirement after this year, although he has said he doesn't care about counting marks, where will he end up?

He almost certainly falls short the 17 homers to tie Alex Rodriguez let alone 21 to hit 700.

He'll almost certainly possibly pass Willie Mays for career total bases, and likely maybe also Cardinals icon Stan Musial, leaving him second only to  Henry Aaron. He'll remain third behind Aaron and Babe Ruth on RBIs. (I started working on this post not too long after the Cards signed him, with plans on publishing it in May. I've had plenty of other stuff to run, and thanks to Sports-Ref banning me [eat me] and FanGraphs slouching toward professional-writers-only Gomorrah, have dropped interest in baseball blogging. Meanwhile, we've seen Pujols in the clown car of position players pitching, not once but twice, and as for his batting, suck worse than he did last year with the Angels before they released him, despite only platooning this year, as he did with the Dodgers. Hence, the updated language, with the crossouts of the original. Also below.

Currently 12th in hits, he'll likely possibly pass Eddie Collins and Paul Molitor into 10th.

And, that will be about it on big moves. 

One of them will be interesting.

What if the date when Pujols is expected to pass Musial on total bases is a Cardinals home game? How will the team celebrate it?

Meanwhile, the Cardinals fight to hold on to a lead in the anemic NL Central, where it looks like the division winner will be the only team to advance to the expanded postseason.

BUT? He's shown a stellar new career as a reliever.

New Mexico: The Land of Disenchantment strikes again

New Mexico, a blue(ish) state, may be a haven, or heaven, for liberal Texas women seeking abortion in a post-Dobbs world, but that's about all it is.

Having grown up in Gallup, I know whereof I speak when I call it the Mississippi or West Virginia of the west, only with less water. It bills itself as "The Land of Enchantment," but many know better.

A Democratic governor has refused to adequately fund the state's Environment Department to crack down on oil and gas wellhead leaking, methane flaring, etc. Sounds like the RRC, eh?

NM's Department of Transportation can't even get the right info on its website as to what state rest areas are open or not. Meanwhile, even as other "blue" areas move forward into a COVID-future world, it keeps the rest area on I-40 near Gallup closed. I understand Navajo fears, but, the rest area isn't even on the Big Rez. (I wonder if that's why the Acomita Rest Area, near Sky City, is closed despite the state claiming it's open. That said, Taos Pueblo reopened to the public during my trip.)

And, the rest area by the stunning Rio Grande Gorge bridge near Taos? They lock the restrooms at night. Kind of makes it useless. That said, it IS the Mississippi or West Virginia of the west, only with less water. Signs there say that rest area water is for visitors only — as in, NOT for locals with wells running dry.

And, I Tweeteed NM DOT about all of this.

Old Town Albuquerque can't keep restaurants open on the plaza. The two oldies, La Placita and Hacienda, were both closed what, four-five years ago, my last visit? Now, La Placita admits it's COVID permanent. Hacienda has no such sign. The former street taco place a block east of the plaza? Closed. There's a hole in the wall in a calle a half-block north, but it shuts at 9 p.m. even Friday and Saturday. Ditto for a bar with selected eats another block north. 

That, in turn, was something I also saw in Taos. Restaurants close at 9 p.m. even on weekend nights.

Meanwhile, there ARE plenty of wine or wine-and-spirits tasting bars on the plaza for the hooch-focused.

Add in that the WiFi at the airport didn't work and there you go.

Texas Progressives talk nuttery and grifting

SocraticGadfly offers a mini-roundup of thoughts on several recent Texas news items: Three Percenters, Alex Jones, TxDOT and Ike Dike. 

Off the Kuff has updates on the voter purge lawsuit and one of the lawsuits against the big voter suppression law from last year.

The state wants to extend one sliver of Medicaid coverage — some maternal coverage — while excluding women who have had past abortions. Maybe HHS hasn't rejected it yet, but it surely will. 

Strangeabbott of course knew that Austin PD thug Justin Berry had been indicted before appointing him to TCOLE. It's high-octane dog whistling.

Texas Dems in the US House will soon have a chance to show whether they're ConservaDems or not on climate change. Most, not just Cuellar, will likely come out as ConservaDems.

Trump  got Stalinesque support numbers at CPAC. Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, wasn't far behind.

There's a new book out debunking bite marks and other junk criminal forensic "science" much espoused by Texas law enforcement and prosecutors.

Wolfforth, drag queen capital of West Texas.

Texans leaving Texas. Nuff said, Rethuglican and ConservaDem Texas exceptionalists.

The Kansas abortion referendum turned out a lot of younger voters. Maybe there IS a demographic revolution of some sort? (If Dems don't botch it, or if it remains confined to special issues.) 

Saliha Bayrak introduces you to Travis County Civil District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.

Robert Rivard hopes to finally see justice for the family of Cameron Redus.

The Dallas Observer tells the story of Buc-ee's and one of the guys from Jackass.

Space City Weather gives an early August update on the tropics and the likelihood of storm activity in the near future.

Orac: Still a tribalist on COVID — Coronavirus week 117

Orac, David Gorski. He's not a pseudoskeptic in the way that Michael Shermer is, confusing libertarianism with skepticism.

He IS a pseudoskeptic in confusing tribalism with skepticism, though. And he just can't get over it on COVID.

After waiting for months, even a year, for him to talk seriously about the lab-leak hypothesis at Wuhan Institute of Virology, I simply stopped waiting.

And, then, yesterday, lo and behold, he writes about it!

Only to go into tribalist bullshit.

To put it bluntly, his heater, "Is the lab leak conspiracy theory dead?" is a lie. There's no other word for it, because Orac operates willfully on the scientifically unproven idea that all discussion of the lab leak is conspiracy theorizing.

And, yes, he needs to be called a liar.

As I told him on Twitter, he entirely ignores Jamie Metzl's discussion of the issue. He notes he caught the attention of Beijing (land of 2 million deaths) enough that he's been attacked by name. Scott Gottlieb also thinks it's plausible. Contra the well-written book she did with Matt Ridley, he insinuates (though won't say directly) that Alina Chen is a crank. Instead, he cherry-picks a couple of new studies that he says vindicate him and people like him. He also doesn't even mention Ridley as coauthor.

I'll give him credit for linking to a Chen blog piece on Medium, even though he probably expects tribalist leaders to buy his thinking. She tore to shreds a previous, pre-print essay in Science in February by the same authors of a July piece who pretty much claim they've nailed it. Here's details Orac probably doesn't want you to read:

• She notes they backed off of things like "incontrovertible" in the July peer-reviewed print, and elsewhere notes this does not "establish" origin.
  
• They added a "Study Limitations" section.
• She says, contra Orac, that the piece still isn't free of ascertainment bias, and rejects the lead author's claims that they're free of it.
• And questions their explainer behind the "two strains" theory.

Read the whole thing, or at least give it a decent grok.

Besides tribalism being in his personal cultural DNA, I think Orac is a tribalist on this issue because, per the 2 million deaths link, he still takes the Chinese government, Chinese CDC, etc., at way too close to face value. That, in turn, shows how much he's a pseudoskeptic.

As I noted on "still a tribalist" and also tweeted to him? John Horgan had his number six years ago. Aong with the Novella brothers and others. COVID just gave Gorski new room to let his tribalism run rampant.

Muslims being targeted in Albuquerque?

Are Muslim men being targeted for murder in Albuquerque? Color me a little bit more skeptical than the Albuquerque Journal reporting, or the Albuquerque PD, which because of being under a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, has reasons to want to pursue the death of four Muslim men as targeted killings and hate crimes.

First, one of the killings happened last November vs the other three in the last month or two. Is this one really connected? 

Second, the three recent ones, in two the victim has the same last name. Now, "Hussain" is of course a common Middle Eastern last name, and even more in the spelling "Hussein," the name of the third victim. Are they related? The Journal's relatively poor story (boy, that paper has declined) says nothing about whether they are, or are not. That should be SOP in reporting a story like this.

Third, maybe they are targeted, but not as hate crimes. Are they all immigrants, or were any American-born? The Journal says almost nothing, eventually noting that the most recent victim became a naturalized citizen a few weeks ago.

Seriously, it's possible all three are from Afghanistan, or Af-Pak, they helped the US in the war in some way, and they're now being targeted by a Taliban hit squad, either official or unofficial. And, it's possible that the victim last November then was a target without this being a hate crime.

Maybe these are hate crimes, tis true. But, I think other options need to be explored.

Meanwhile, Votemonger Joe has bigfooted his way into the hate-crimes killing angle.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

My suspicious were correct. A man of Middle Eastern heritage, and most likely Muslim himself, Muhammad Syed, has been arrested in connection with the killings. He is expected to be charged with two of the three killings of a week ago, and may be charged with the third, as well as the one last November.

The APD says:

Detectives discovered evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent and an interpersonal conflict may have led to the shootings

It adds that a gun used in at least those two shootings where he will be charged was found at Syed's residence, and that he's got a history of legal run-ins. There you go.

But, wrongful wokeness had to raise its head first.

Russia Ukraine week 18: The drip, drip, drip of Ukrainian ethical corruption

As of late July, despite attempts to downplay it, and to downplay the concerns of Ukrainian-born Congresscritter Victoria Spartz, Warmonger Joe and the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ are STILL concerned about Ukrainian corruption, AP reports.

Spartz's Wiki page details more of her concerns (as well as detailing she's a loose-cannon MAGA wingnut). But, contra Huckleberry J. Butchmeup and others, at least some of her concerns appear legit. 

Related to that, a House special panel, primarily of Foreign Affairs Committee members, that visited Ukraine deliberately didn't invite Spartz, but she invited herself, per a CNN story from Friday. Being uninvited, she had to pay her own way. Probably guaranteed to make her criticism more acerbic.

The CNN piece also has the nutsacks admitting Ukrainian corruption is still a problem. JCS head Gen. Mark Milley is among the admitters.

Warmongers in both parties are questioning where she gets some of her information. Maybe they should keep reading what I read, like ....

===

Meanwhile, another brouhaha erupted Friday when Amnesty International said Ukraine may be committing war crimes by deliberately stationing troops near hospitals, schools etc. And, the Ukrainian government got hugely offended. Plus, Amnesty's Ukraine office doubled-down on blank-check nationalism 110 percent, even to the point of defending the Ukrainian military's non-response to the Amnesty report.

NPR, in its story, says that it was able to confirm at least some of Amnesty's complaints.

More and more, the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™and the Ukrainian corrupt apparatchiks they defend remind me, per Pat Buchanan, of Zionists and their (also-Zionist) amen corner here in the US. Say ANYTHING bad about Ukraine or Israel and you get accused of either whataboutism (as you do if you mention Palestinians period) or false equivalennce.

And now, AI's Ukraine head, Oksana Pokalchuk, has resigned over that report. Shock me.