Updates on the "new" Southwest

The "new Southwest" has unveiled what will happen after May 28 in some cases, next year on others.

First, the whole front half of the plane will have some sort of premium seat pricing. This won't start being sold until the second half of this year and won't go into effect until 2026.

Second, the "basic" tier will have a NON-transferable credit, should you change flights, and it will expire in 6 months, not 1 year. So, if you "jump" on basic fares, be forewarned.

Related to that? I've heard that these fares will be offered at the start of new dates for a flight route, to judge demand to set variable pricing after that.

Third? And most sneaky? This is NOT NOT NOT something MORE basic than the current bottom-line "Wanna Get Away," it IS that, just renamed. 

Fourth, joining Rapid Rewards will not itself help you with your bag costs. But? If you buy a Rapid Rewards credit card, one of you bags fly free. And, "buy" is the term; most basic consumer card has a $69 annual fee.

So, unless you fly more than 2x a year on vacations of one full week or more, getting the card probably isn't worth it, especially if your current primary card is some sort of cashback / rewards card.

Habemus papam! And, what's up with the style of Leo XIV?

Habemus papam! Wonder what was behind the "style" of Leo XIV? 

 

It may be because Leo XIII was known as Pope of the Workers.

 

Contra non-Pope Donald blathering about this being an honor for Merikkka, the former Cardinal Prevost stands for nothing he does. Most of his pre-Vatican ecclesiastical life was spent in Peru and he even has Peruvian citizenship. 

 

Wiki already has a page up on the former Robert Prevost. First thing to note? He's only 69. So, like his stylistic predecessor, who was the third-longest serving pope, he could be around a while. He also was hand-picked by Francis to get his cardinal's hat, and per the paragraph above, will continue down various social justice roads, while not necessarily having the same emphasis as Francis. In other words, contra the cliche, which is trite and not really true (see also Benedict XVI following John Paul II) "a fat pope followed a fat pope." 

 

His insider background, per Wiki's info? In 2019, Francis named him to the Congregation of the Clergy. That oversees matters related to "secular" versus "regular" clergy. A year later, named to the Congregation for Bishops, which oversees their appointment. So, he has a network that would have been building up for the past five years. That will have increased when he was named prefect, or overseer, of the organization in early 2023. (It should be noted that, a year earlier, Francis appointed the first women to the organization.)

 

In February of this year, he gets his cardinal's biretta. Remember that Francis is already hitting the finish line here, and the appointment would have certainly elevated his standing. The conclave CAN elect non-cardinals, but really, that doesn't happen. So, the elevation, and the timing, were certainly a papal kiss.

Prevost is not perfect. He's certainly not perfect on sexual abuse scandal issues, as Wiki notes. And, per the Pope Crave account on Shitter, he might not be as "good" as Francis on sexual orientation issues and matters related. A respondent to Pope Crave also notes that he's not as good, apparently, on handling of sexual abuse issues as his defenders suspect.

 

Final note: Prevost is on Shitter himself. And bagged on Bagger Vance three months ago:

 

JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others https://t.co/hDKPKuMXmu via @NCRonline

— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) February 3, 2025

So, there you go.

 

That said, for fundamental mainline Protestants who still follow Martin Luther or John Calvin on this? We have a new holder of the office of antichrist! Actually, per the link, as I've said before, good Lutheran or Calvinist theology would actually call the papacy "the man of lawlessness," and good biblical criticism distinguishes between that person, antichrist and the Beast of 666.

Texas Progressives talk Legislature ethics, candidates

Off the Kuff noted two new names being mentioned as possible Democratic candidates for Senate next year. (Rump Fuck O'Rourke as a retread would be as laughable as Jill Stein as a retread. Terry Vierts, contra one Kuff commenter? Aridzona ran an astronaut without previous electoral experience and it worked; New Mexico and Ohio did so long ago.)

SocraticGadfly, off his Substack, offered a roundup of May Day thoughts.

Franklin Strong notes how wingnut school board members, especially those backed by Patriot Mobile, took a drubbing last Saturday.

Trump has created a second border military zone, this east of El Paso. It and the one in New Mexico will surely face a Posse Comitatus Act challenge eventually. Since the act of illegal entry is itself civil, what Trump is doing is creating a pretext for a criminal charge.

Muskville is now an official city.

The wingnuts-squared in the Lege have now officially voted to "protect" kids from their parents. And, to "protect" kids from libraries, of course. An author who testified at the House hearing said that an iconic Texas book like "Lonesome Dove" could be banned without recourse.

Related? Students at UT and A&M told Rethuglicans to "go drag themselves."

The Lege wants to violate the Constitution again with the Ten Commandments in classrooms bill and is so religiously ignorant it hasn't even asked WHOSE Ten Commandments — Catholic? Calvinist/Anabaptist? Lutheran? https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/30/texas-testify-house-committee-ten-commandments/

Strangeabbott wants to keep people in jail forever, stealing a page from Trump.

The Barbed Wire reports on the continued chaos of the Lege's abortion bills.

Your Local Epidemiologist participated in a frank conversation with MAHA types.

In the Pink Texas tries to put 100 days into some perspective.

Olivia Julianna will not be silenced by a thug in the White House.

Law Dork observes a Trump-appointed judge learning through experience that this administration cannot be trusted.

The San Antonio Report wishes Coach Pop a fond farewell.

WWII VE Day political tussles cut both ways

The European Union has said that any "candidate states" that attend Russia's Victory Day (known in the US as VE Day because of the ongoing Pacific War that Russia jumped into belatedly three months later) will be excluded from further EU consideration.

Isn't this confirmation that the EU is more and more the European political adjunct of NATO?

At the same time, doesn't this expose more and more the hypocrisy of the EU not giving Turkey/Turkiye official candidate status?

Yes and yes.

At the same time, for tankies and tankies 2.0 that celebrate the effort of the USSR under Glorious Comrade, Vozhd and Generalissimo Joseph Stalin, as shown by all the Soviet war dead? (Stalin may have been iffy about being called Vozhd as it's a direct equivalent of Führer or Duce.)

Both the civilian and military deaths could have been halved if you eliminate both of those. Even with the Red Army purges, better prep for the invasion could have been cut by at least one quarter if not one third. 

And, per the blue lines, if adjusted, that means the USSR would have had lower deaths, by percentage of population, than did Germany. As is, the USSR is below both Poland and Lithuania.

And, of course, we haven't even mentioned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that gave Stalin more than 18 months to prepare, and that left Britain holding the bag for more than a year after the fall of France. Nor have we mentioned the Red Army's struggles in invading "its half" of Poland, or against Finland in the Winter War, that gave Stalin warning he needed to speed up preparations. Nor have we talked about the repeated warnings from both spies and the British government that Barbarossa was indeed coming. Nor does Wikipedia, the image's source, make clear how much of the casualties in Poland and the Baltics was due to Hitler and how much was due to Stalin.

So, celebrate what, again, tankies? Stalin's stupidity? Stalin using human wave tactics that resemble those of Khomenei's Iran in the Iran-Iraq War? Stalin having the Politburo so cowed that, when Beria, Kaganovich et al approached him after his near-nervous breakdown, he thought it was a coup — and it should have been a coup but they were too cowed? Stalin, like Hitler, following Schopenhauer's "World as Will and Idea" and thinking that if he believed away the idea that Hitler was about to invade, it would actually go away?

Beyond that, even Stalin would admit at times that certain elements of Lend-Lease were vital to the Soviet war effort. The good old American Jeep was one. The original Jeep, with its light weight and large tires, could float over the "roads" that General Mud often left in those lands. Neither the Soviets nor the Nazis had anything similar. 

Canadian elections winner: Canadian exceptionalism

This expands on my initial quick take last week on the Canadian election, and my much longer snark off snark on the Canadian political system.

First, yes, "Canadian exceptionalism" exists.

Nominally, all independent nation-states have some such thing. In a place like Belgium, it may be more "Flanders exceptionalism" vs "Walloon exceptionalism," and in places like, say Poland among "western" countries, it may be more muted. Among most post-colonial countries in sub-Saharan Africa, it's weakened by how they came into being.

But, French exceptionalism, off the trio of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," certainly exists. British exceptionalism, if nothing more than the "stiff upper lip," though often far more than that, exists. German and Japanese exceptionalism may often be muted and expressed sideways after World War II, but it's there. Chinese exceptionalism has come back to life after 1949 and continues to grow. Etc., etc.

In other words, none of these folks is as boisterous as American exceptionalism, which is part and parcel of the "noisy American" in general, even when not expressly an "ugly American."

With Canada, it's part and parcel of stereotypical Canadian cultural DNA.

It's often "nice and polite." Given Canada's relationship to the Great Colossus (Merikkka) it often slipstreams in the wake of American exceptionalism. But, it's there.

Part of it is pretending to be better than the USofA on some things. Like being better on environmentalism, even though Canada's two full parties are whored out to the tar sands of Alberta, the vanishing NDP is not much better, and who knows on the Bloc?

Part of it is pretending not to be so nationalistic. That's even though Canada has been aggressive on what it claims as territorial waters in the Arctic, even as loss of Arctic ice opens up more and more of the Northwest Passage.

With the Liberals staying in power, this sort of triangulation will surely only continue. On the two issues above, Mark Carney already cancelled by a Canadian version of executive order Canada's modest carbon tax. And per that National Post link, he acted more like a U.S. president than is common north of the border. (This shift happened in the UK in the Tony Blair era of "New Labour.") And, that will only help disappear more Arctic ice.

That said, details of the carbon fuel tax don't impress me. From what I understand, and Wiki confirms, it's rebated as a direct rebate. That removes most of its bite, rather than reinvesting it into support for mass transit, solar power, wind power, etc. I've said this down here in the States before, to people like Chris Tomlinson.

So, in other words, Canajans were pretty much bitching about nothing. And Carney rewarded them. 

Per Adam McPhee's post-election roundup and this linked piece about what the NDP really needs to do, there is a sliver of hope for something new in Canada if the post-Singh NDP can get its ass together. That piece specifically calls out faux nationalism. In this other piece, Kwame Eff, whom I am now following, looks more at the NDP, and specifically, possible new leader Matthew Green.

Measles — future Texas and national-global outbreaks likely will be worse

Documented Texas measles cases from the current epidemic were 683 at the end of last week.

Texas outbreaks will likely get worse if a Texas House bill that passed out of committee last week to make it easier to get vaccine exemptions becomes law.

National and global outbreaks will get worse if vaccine expert Paul Offut is right, in recent observation, that we're past herd immunity.

Most popular pieces in April

As is normal, not all pieces are from April, and will so be noted, but these were the most read pieces here last month.

10. In February, I doubled down on new Texas Court of Criminal Appeals justice David Schenck's call for judicial reform with my call for real judicial reform.

9. A January Texas Progressives roundup talked mainly about a Texas Lege preview.

8. I talked about the moderators at r/MLB's subreddit kowtowing a second time on all things Trump.

7. Coming into new prominence with the Trump-Zelensky rare earths deal, I looked in detail at North Korea's military aid to Russia.

6. My January piece about updating my blogroll and why continues to get attention. And, I still generally don't miss the people that haven't been carried over.

5. In March, I said The Resistance 2.0 still wants to relitigate Russiagate 1.0.

4. I noted in February that Quorum Report founder Harvey Kronberg was pissed off. He surely is even more so, two-plus months later.

3. A Texas Progressives roundup from February reminds us of the start of the Texas measles epidemic and other things.

2. I'm sure you'll see this one here on the next popular pieces roundup in a month: My thoughts on the death of Pope Francis.

1. A Texas Progressives roundup from last month gave a snapshot on the expansion of measles, along with Lege nuttery on water and Kenny Boy Paxton nuttery.