Following-up, "Nasty SoCal Weather."
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Nasty SoCal Weather
Bunch of highways closed over night, not least of all the I-5 over the Grapevine.
I'm glad I'm not traveling.
I'm glad I'm not traveling.
A fast-moving winter storm barreled into Southern California early today, bringing snow that closed the 5 Freeway in the Grapevine, Angeles Crest Highway and the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass and rain that flooded freeways across L.A. County. https://t.co/81bdle4bLh
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 26, 2019
Grapevine/Tehachapi: I-5 Grapevine remains CLOSED from 3 mi north of the Jct of SR 126 /at Parker Rd/ to 5 mi south of the Jct of SR 99 /at Grapevine Rd. State Route 58 remains CLOSED from 4.1 mi east of Edison at Towerline Rd to 1 mi west of Mojave. No estimated time of opening pic.twitter.com/RkdBS7NYSd
— Caltrans District 6 (@CaltransDist6) December 26, 2019
Can a Family of Four Enjoy a Major Sporting Event in Orange County/Los Angeles for $100 for Tickets, Food, and Parking?
My favorite games are Saturday nights at Anaheim Stadium, where Angels games are followed by fireworks. We sit up on the top deck usually, and tickets are about $50 bucks for the whole family, sometimes less. (Once in a while we'll get field level, but my wife likes sitting up top, as she's not craning her neck every which way for foul balls and what not.) I get hot dogs, peanuts, and beer --- then I hand my wallet over to the family for the rest of the night, lol.
In any case, a great piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Good luck getting a family of four into a professional sport for $100 — not in good seats, but any seats":
In any case, a great piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Good luck getting a family of four into a professional sport for $100 — not in good seats, but any seats":
The Games Are Too Damn Expensive: As ticket prices for pro sports rise, teams risk losing the next generation of fans. In an era when kids might prefer video games anyway, families are increasingly priced out of live sports. https://t.co/IGTOWUGXDQ
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) December 26, 2019
A lifetime of sports fandom often starts with that first vision of the towering stadium before you, that first peek at the vibrant green grass of a ballpark, that first chance to see star players up close on the court and even closer on a gigantic video screen, that first moment to stand and scream for your team.Keep reading.
“We do remember that first ballgame our parents, our friend, our Scout troop might have taken us to,” said Andy Dolich, who has run marketing operations for teams in all five major North American sports. “It’s one of those indelible memories for tens of millions of people.”
That experience has become all but unaffordable for the typical family in the Los Angeles area.
As teams focus on maximizing revenue from the current generation of fans, they risk losing a future generation of fans, particularly at a time when kids limited to experiencing games on a screen might well prefer Fortnite to ESPN.
The arms race to turn athletic venues into opulent cash machines — with gourmet dining, finely appointed luxury suites, VIP seats within sweating distance of the action, and video boards suited for Hollywood premieres — has all but left the common fan behind. Good luck getting a family of four into a game for $100 — not in good seats, mind you, but in any seats.
Dolich is a former chief operating officer of the San Francisco 49ers and Golden State Warriors and a former president of business operations for the Memphis Grizzlies. He now runs a sports consultant firm, and he is worried for an industry in which kids are increasingly priced out.
“You’re not yelling. You’re not screaming. You’re just not going,” Dolich said. “That, I think, is the most pernicious part of it.”
The median income for a family of four in Los Angeles County is $78,673, according to the USC Price Center for Social Innovation. After accounting for the costs of housing, child care, health care, food, transportation and taxes, that family would be left with $3,413 in discretionary income for the year, $284 per month.
Elly Schoen, data and project manager at the Price Center, said it would be “reasonable” to consider $100 as a price point for a family day at a sporting event.
“You’re thinking about going out to one or two games a year,” Schoen said, “and you’re thinking about spending about half your monthly discretionary income on that kind of family outing.”
The Times asked the 11 major professional teams that call Los Angeles and Orange County home whether a family of four could attend a weekend game for $100 — tickets, parking, and something to eat and drink. When prices exceeded that amount, The Times asked teams what the most affordable option for a family might be.
The Angels are the only team that guarantees any family can get to a weekend game for that amount. The team offers a $44 family pack that includes four field-level tickets, four hot dogs, and four soft drinks. Parking at Angel Stadium is $10.
The Sparks offer a $100 family pack that includes tickets, food and autograph vouchers, with parking for an additional $10. The Galaxy offer a family deal for $128, including a $10 concession credit and souvenirs but not food or parking.
The Ducks have a weekend family pack at $120, not including parking. The Kings have a family pack at $220, which includes family activities before Saturday games and a skating session at the team’s training facility.
LAFC offers 200 first-come, first-served tickets at $22 each, with discounted food and drinks in that section.
The Clippers sell $10 tickets at Staples Center on game day — first come, first served, with 50 to 200 tickets available for each game. They also provide the 120,000 participants in their Jr. Clippers youth basketball program with a free ticket to one game each season; parents pay for their game tickets.
The Lakers suggested the option of their minor league affiliate, the South Bay Lakers. The team plays at the Lakers’ team headquarters in El Segundo, where parking is free, and a $125 family pack includes $40 in food and beverage credit.
The Chargers and Rams both noted that training camp is free, often with interactive activities designed for families. The lowest single-game price this season is $35 for the Rams and $70 for the Chargers, although the Chargers anticipate a lower price when they move into the larger Sofi Stadium next season.
The Dodgers declined requests to participate in the survey. According to the initial 2020 single-game prices posted on the team website last month, the Dodgers are selling tickets for as low as $10 to the two midweek Freeway Series exhibition games. The Dodgers are selling $21 tickets for only one weekend game next season; the minimum price for all others is $30...
How Sam Mendes Made '1917'
I'd go see this one, but it's in limited release until January.
I love war films.
At NYT:
I love war films.
At NYT:
“We would laugh at him,” the director recalled, “until I asked my dad, ‘Why does Granddad Alfie wash his hands so much?’ And he said, ‘Oh, he remembers the mud of the trenches during the war, and the fact that he could never get clean.’” https://t.co/BC3VWPFnVc— NYT At War (@NYTimesAtWar) December 24, 2019
When the director Sam Mendes was a young boy, he and his father often traveled to the West Indies to visit his grandfather Alfred Mendes, a novelist. Sam, who had been brought up in North London, found his grandfather to be quite exotic: The small and wiry World War I veteran would sing opera in a booming Trinidadian accent, traipse around his creaky Colonial house in shorts and flip-flops and vigorously greet each morning with a pre-dawn plunge into the sea.
Alfred Mendes also had a tendency to obsessively wash his hands, always for several minutes at a time, to the point where Sam and his cousins noticed that above all his other quirks. “We would laugh at him,” the director recalled, “until I asked my dad, ‘Why does Granddad Alfie wash his hands so much?’ And he said, ‘Oh, he remembers the mud of the trenches during the war, and the fact that he could never get clean.’”
That’s when the boys stopped laughing at their grandfather. It’s also when they began asking what happened when, at age 19, Alfred Mendes enlisted and fought on behalf of Britain in what would become one of the world’s deadliest conflicts.
“We expected, I suppose, conventional stories of heroism and bravery,” Mendes said. “We certainly didn’t expect what he told us, which was unbelievably shocking and quite graphic tales of utter futility and chaos.”
There was the wounded soldier his grandfather carried back to the trench under enemy fire, only to discover once he arrived that the man was dead, his body having absorbed a bullet meant for Alfred. Another story involved a German soldier whose head was lost in an explosion, though his body somehow carried on running.
And then there was the mission that Alfred Mendes volunteered for on Oct. 12, 1917, after nearly a third of the men in his battalion had been killed in the Battle of Poelcappelle. The survivors were stranded across many miles, and Alfred, who had been trained as a signaler, was sent to rescue them and lead them back to his camp.
“That tiny man in the midst of that vast expanse of death, that was the thing I could never get out of my mind,” said Mendes.
It is the image that inspired the new film “1917,” directed and co-written by Mendes, about two British lance corporals who must make their way across miles of battleground to deliver an urgent message that could save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers from a massacre. Still, though the stories his grandfather told him had never been far from Mendes’s mind, that didn’t mean making a movie like this came easily...
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Katie Bell's Christmas Wishes
On Twitter:
Merry Christmas! xoxo ❤️ pic.twitter.com/gVkFjGa5Aj
— Katie Bell🦋 (@katieeeeebell) December 25, 2019
Danielle Gersh's Christmas Forecast
I hope all my readers have a wonderful and warm Christmas.
Here's the spectacular Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
Here's the spectacular Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
The Main Issue of 2020 Will Be Trump, Not the Economy
It's old Bill Schnieder, who was CNN's top political analyst in the 1990s (when Judy Woodruff and Bernard Shaw used to anchor), at the Hill, "Impeached, with a solid base and no apologies — Trump becomes the only issue of 2020."
"Impeached, with a solid base and no apologies — Trump becomes the only issue of 2020" via @TheHillOpinion https://t.co/RNulfef9A7 pic.twitter.com/nC0wwkxk3C
— The Hill (@thehill) December 23, 2019
Very Merry
Not sure if this is a Christmas photo, but it's nice.
— Gym Motivation HQ Ⓜ️ Model Magazine (@LGHQmagazine) December 25, 2019
Black Rifle Coffee Lady
I meant to post this earlier.
Been busy, understandably.
At Amazon, Light Roast Silencer Smooth by Black Rifle Coffee Company - 12 oz Bag of Coffee Grounds - Premium Gourmet Coffee - Perfect Coffee Lovers Gift.
Been busy, understandably.
At Amazon, Light Roast Silencer Smooth by Black Rifle Coffee Company - 12 oz Bag of Coffee Grounds - Premium Gourmet Coffee - Perfect Coffee Lovers Gift.
Perfect 🙏 pic.twitter.com/MozzpG9kLo
— Country Girls (@DownHomeGirls) December 23, 2019
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Jennifer Delacruz's Christmas Eve Forecast
It's going to be chilly tonight.
Snuggle up by the fire and sip some hot chocolate before you tuck the kids in for the night.
Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Snuggle up by the fire and sip some hot chocolate before you tuck the kids in for the night.
Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Evangelical Newspaper War
I saw this earlier, at the Daily Beast, via Memeorandum, "Editor Quits Amid Evangelical Newspaper Civil War Over Trump."
Here's the latest, at Christian Post, "Christianity Today and the problem with ‘Christian Elitism’."
And on Twitter, the background:
Here's the latest, at Christian Post, "Christianity Today and the problem with ‘Christian Elitism’."
And on Twitter, the background:
From Christianity Today’s editor in chief https://t.co/NVdQjg4odC
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 19, 2019
Following CT's editorial on Trump, our president @TimDalrymple_ answers some questions about our ministry and why we see this discussion as so important.
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 22, 2019
We are planting a flag and setting a table. Fellow evangelicals, we invite you to join us. https://t.co/2rvz2WDXzu
Gisele Bündchen Out for Fashion
Well, Tom Brady's getting a mouthful at night, I guess.
She looks fresh.
At Drunken Stepfather, "GISELE BUNDCHEN TITS OUT FOR FASHION OF THE DAY."
She looks fresh.
At Drunken Stepfather, "GISELE BUNDCHEN TITS OUT FOR FASHION OF THE DAY."
Emma Watson Fashionista
At Celeb Jihad, "EMMA WATSON’S NUDE TITTIES FOR FUTURISTIC FASHION."
"This is why they call me the bag lady..." Vegan deodorant, reusable make-up pads, Nutella and a copy of Toni Morrison's ‘Beloved’ are just some of the items that #BritishVogue cover star @EmmaWatson carries in her bag. Take a look inside here: https://t.co/wksSrFhPYF pic.twitter.com/8uZrgqMCAZ
— British Vogue (@BritishVogue) December 12, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
Olga's Rainy Weather Forecast
The lovely Olga Ospina, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles, a lot of rain in the Southland.
BONUS: At ABC News 10 San Diego, "Megan Parry's Monday Forecast."
BONUS: At ABC News 10 San Diego, "Megan Parry's Monday Forecast."
Christmas Gift Ideas
At Amazon, Top Gift Ideas.
Also, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.
Plus, TAHARI Deluxe Automatic Open Wood Handle & Shaft Umbrella (Black).
More, Premium Horny Goat Weed Extract with Maca & Tribulus, Enhanced Energy Complex for Men & Women, 1000mg Epimedium with Icariins, Veggie Capsules.
More here, MusclePharm Combat Protein Powder - Essential blend of Whey, Isolate, Casein and Egg Protein with BCAA's and Glutamine for Recovery, Chocolate Milk, 4 Pound.
Plus here, MTech USA Xtreme MX-8054 Series Fixed Blade Tactical Knife, Tanto Blade, G10 Handle, 11-Inch Overall.
BONUS: Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.
Also, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.
Plus, TAHARI Deluxe Automatic Open Wood Handle & Shaft Umbrella (Black).
More, Premium Horny Goat Weed Extract with Maca & Tribulus, Enhanced Energy Complex for Men & Women, 1000mg Epimedium with Icariins, Veggie Capsules.
More here, MusclePharm Combat Protein Powder - Essential blend of Whey, Isolate, Casein and Egg Protein with BCAA's and Glutamine for Recovery, Chocolate Milk, 4 Pound.
Plus here, MTech USA Xtreme MX-8054 Series Fixed Blade Tactical Knife, Tanto Blade, G10 Handle, 11-Inch Overall.
BONUS: Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.
Both Sides Dig In Over Senate Trial
Noah Feldman, who testified during the House impeachment hearings (before Nadler's Judiciary Committee), posted something of a bombshell piece at Bloomberg the other day, "If Trump's Impeached, Then Why Can't a Senate Start Now?"
The whole delay is totally predictable. The Dems are losing the debate over impeachment, which went down on straight party lines. Trump's approval ratings are at the highest points of his presidency. Some House Democrats were grumbling about how they only wanted to "censure" the president, not impeach. Blah, blah.
It's going to the Senate one way or another, mainly because the American people aren't going to stand for the left's shenanigans too much longer.
In any case, at LAT, "Trump impeachment trial: Squaring off in the Senate":
The whole delay is totally predictable. The Dems are losing the debate over impeachment, which went down on straight party lines. Trump's approval ratings are at the highest points of his presidency. Some House Democrats were grumbling about how they only wanted to "censure" the president, not impeach. Blah, blah.
It's going to the Senate one way or another, mainly because the American people aren't going to stand for the left's shenanigans too much longer.
In any case, at LAT, "Trump impeachment trial: Squaring off in the Senate":
Trump impeachment trial: Squaring off in the Senate https://t.co/Gsi93DcVku— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 23, 2019
WASHINGTON — A senior White House official and leading Senate Republicans predicted Sunday that congressional Democrats would fail in their bid to force the Senate to summon witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.More at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Impeachment live updates: McConnell, Pelosi dig in on impasse over Trump's Senate trial."
Democrats countered by asking why, if Trump were innocent, he would block the testimony of top aides with direct knowledge of his dealings with Ukraine — actions that led the House of Representatives to approve two articles of impeachment against the president last week.
Following Wednesday’s vote, only the third time in history that the House has impeached a president, Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not immediately forward the articles to the Senate for trial.
Democrats said that, in light of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to work in close concert with the White House, they were not satisfied the proceedings would be conducted fairly and impartially. Pelosi said she wanted clarity about what rules the Senate planned to follow before deciding which members of the House would act as the prosecutors, known as managers, of the case in the Senate.
Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is expected to send the articles to the Senate after the holiday recess. Senior White House aide Marc Short said he expected Republicans would make no concessions in return, even though Trump says he wants a quick trial in the GOP-controlled Senate.
“We’re confident this position is untenable, and she’s going to move it along,” Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and a former White House legislative director, told “Fox News Sunday.”
“She will yield — there’s no way she can hold this position,” he said, referring to Pelosi.
The White House’s current opposition to witnesses in the Senate marks an about-face. Until recently, Trump was insisting he wanted extensive witnesses. He hoped to turn a trial into an opportunity for his lawyers to call prominent Democrats and force them to answer questions about his so-far-groundless allegations of misconduct among that party’s members. McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate Republicans opposed that idea and appeared to have convinced Trump to drop it.
Democratic lawmakers defended Pelosi’s delay.
“I think what she’s just trying to do is make sure the best possible case for a fair trial happens,” said Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Addressing Trump directly, Booker said: “If you’re innocent, have acting Chief of Staff [Mick] Mulvaney come before the Senate, swear to an oath — settle this whole thing.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Pelosi was doing “exactly the right thing” in “focusing a spotlight on the need to have a fair trial in the United States Senate.”
Since an impeachment inquiry began nearly three months ago, Trump has refused any cooperation by the executive branch. The blanket rejection of subpoenas for documents and squelching of appearances by key figures such as Mulvaney and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo formed the basis for one of the two articles of impeachment, alleging obstruction of Congress. The other accuses Trump of abuse of power.
More than a dozen diplomats and current or former administration officials defied Trump’s instructions and testified in the House proceedings. Those witnesses helped House Democrats make their case that the president withheld crucial military aid and a coveted White House meeting as a means of pressuring Ukraine’s newly elected leader to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Trump, who has never consistently accepted U.S. intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, also asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in that election on behalf of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent.
Although new evidence continues to emerge, Democrats say it is impossible to establish key details of what transpired if Trump blocks testimony by senior aides...
President Trump's an Existential Threat to the Regime Party
From Roger Kimball, at American Greatness, "The ‘Impeachment’ of Donald Trump":
Many commentators, myself included, have warned that the House was playing a dangerous game by taking the box marked “impeachment” down from the shelf and beginning to bat those balls around when there were no plausible grounds—none—for playing the game to begin with. Impeachment—again, as many commentators, myself included, have pointed out—was intended by the Founders to be a remedy of last resort, an in-case-of-fire-break-glass option when every other recourse had failed.
As recently as this March, Nancy Pelosi had insisted that impeachment had to be a bipartisan decision, only employed to address the most serious crimes. In endorsing the House charade, she shelved that scruple along with all her other ones. The result, as Andy McCarthy and others have pointed out, will be to make impeachment much more common. The price of “trivializing” impeachment, as the House has just done, will likely be to make it the “new normal.”
Indeed, the legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a prominent critic of the president, but one who has not therefore tainted his reason, pointed out that by the standards employed against Donald Trump, every living president could have been impeached. Turley was particularly troubled by the charge that the president was guilty of obstructing Congress. Why? Because all the president did was go to court to challenge House demands for certain evidence. The House, Turley noted, “set an abbreviated period for investigation, arguably the shortest investigation of any presidential impeachment.”
And then they said if you don’t turn over the evidence during that period, you’re obstructing Congress. Well, President Trump went to court to challenge the necessity of handing over that material. Both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon were allowed to go all the way to the Supreme Court—they ultimately lost, and Nixon resigned soon after. My concern is that this really does seem like you are making an appeal to the court into a high crime or a misdemeanor (my emphasis).I think there are two takeaways from this sad affair. One concerns the future place of impeachment in our system of government. I think that Andy McCarthy is right in suggesting that the ultimate sanction of impeachment has more and more been been routinely threatened because the usual checks and balances have been more or less neutered by the growing power of the so-called administrative state. “The problem,” McCarthy writes, is that
after a century of progressive governance . . . these checks do not work anymore. The federal government and its administrative state have grown monstrously big. Federal money is now as much tied to social welfare as to traditional government functions. Budgeting is slap-dash and dysfunctional. To threaten to deny funds or leave agencies leaderless is to be seen, not as reining in executive excess, but as heartlessly harming this or that interest group. Lawmakers would rather run up tens of trillions in debt than be portrayed that wayA lot more could be said about the growth of administrative power, which is essentially executive power, in the face of the paralysis or abdication of responsibility of Congress to fulfill its core responsibilities.
But in the context of our present Trump-centric drama, I suspect that the chief issue is a deeper, structural deformation. I mean the gradual transformation of our government from a vigorous two-party system into a one-and-a-half party system. I’ve written about this before. The idea is not mine but something I crib from conversations with the commentator James Piereson of the William E. Simon Foundation.
The bottom line is that, for many decades now, no matter which party has been in office, the real center of power has resided in the regime party, the party that government itself evolved into. Although plenty of Republicans have sat around this table, happy to engorge themselves on the attendant spoils, the regime party has always been the Democratic party. They encouraged an agenda of dependency that they could simultaneously cater to, exploit, and manage—an agenda that resulted not only in that bloated administrative apparatus that is staffed primarily by Democrats but also a sort of professional underclass of clients of this apparatus. Until the election of Donald Trump, the fealty of this underclass was reliably Democratic. Now there are cracks in the edifice, a terrifying prospect for their managers.
This is the thing to keep in mind. Donald Trump represents an existential threat to this status quo. Which is why he had to be stopped. On January 20, 2017, 19 minutes after Trump was inaugurated, the Washington Post announced in a headline “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.” Indeed, there were calls for Trump’s impeachment even before he was sworn in. Al Green (D-Texas) put it with admirable clarity when he said, back in 2017 (reiterating the sentiment in 2018) that “I am concerned that if we do not impeach this president, then he will get reelected.”
Trump’s real crime, in other words, was having been elected in the first place.
The point is that Donald Trump had to be impeached not because of anything he had done or had failed to do but because of who he was, what he represented: an existential threat to string-pullers of our one-and-a-half-party system. That is why the Democrats can ride roughshod over the rule of law, to say nothing of precedent and tradition, ruining who knows how many lives, tying up the business of government with preposterous special counsel investigations, House hearings, and the like, while the Republicans mostly vibrate in impotent fury and they emerge from the turmoil scot-free.
Again, there are some signs of fissures in this decades-on Democratic dispensation. The pugilistic response of the president himself is one such sign (“Cet animal est très méchant: quand on l’attaque il se défend”—“This animal is very mean: it defends itself when attacked”). Another sign of change is the stalwartness of Mitch McConnell and the doggedness of U.S. Attorney John Durham and his boss, Attorney General William Barr. My own guess is that we’ll know real progress has been made when—or rather if—a raft of indictments are handed down in the business of the deep-state effort to take down the Trump campaign and then his presidency...
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