Why Japan’s Bullet Train Is Simply the Best On the Planet

Above, a Tokaido Shinkansen train arrives at Atami Station. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Anyone visiting Japan has to put one item on their "bucket list" of things to do.

That is taking a ride on Japan's Shinkansen, or Bullet Train.

I have ridden aboard several bullet trains over the years and found them to be comfortable and relaxing. If one is lucky, views of Mount Fuji can be seen from the Tokaido Shinkansen.

Above, Mount Fuji from the Tokaido Shinkansen. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The Los Angeles Times has posted a guide to riding the speedy Shinkansen.

They begin it with:

It begins as a gentle rumble as you see motion out of the window: that slight lurching forward. With a steady gait, the train leaves the station, passing a crisscross melange of different city and regional rail lines also staking out on their journeys. Through the maze of tunnels, trestles, flyovers and what feels like one million buildings, the sleek N700 hums evermore to life, as speed limits start to ease and the endlessness of Tokyo … well, ends.

And then, without exactly knowing how it happened or even feeling it, you realize you are traveling at around 175 miles per hour and the world is flying by.

To read more, go here. 

NRA Standing Up For Trans Rights

The trial balloon floated by the Trump Department of Justice calling for the stripping of Second Amendment rights of transgender people was foolish. 

There's an old poem that aptly applies here:

“First They Came” by Pastor Martin Niemöller. He was a German Lutheran pastor who initially supported Hitler but later opposed the Nazi regime and was imprisoned in concentration camps.

Here is the most well-known version of the poem:

**“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”**

The message is clear: when injustice is ignored because it doesn’t personally affect someone, it will eventually grow until it does.

This is certainly the case of the trial balloon. Who would be next if trans people got their Second Amendment rights stripped from them? 

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Given the tsunami of news demanding your attention you might have missed an interesting trial balloon launched by the Department of Justice last week. Officials briefed reporters on preliminary discussions among the department’s top brass to ban transgender people from buying guns. This was in the wake of last month’s horrendous Minneapolis church shooting by a deranged killer who identified as trans and who murdered two children and injured at least 17 others.

The first outlet to report on the talks was the very Trump-friendly Daily Wire. The salient political issue, according to reporter Mary Margaret Olohan, was that, “The move would undoubtedly infuriate those on the left who believe that men can become women and women can become men — and that people who identify as transgender are not mentally ill but merely living in the wrong body.”

It’s certainly true that the trial balloon irked many on the left. GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign and similar groups from the civil rights community were also appalled.

Among the bothered was a very different kind of civil rights group. The National Rifle Assn., which describes itself as America’s “longest-standing civil rights organization,” responded in a statement: “The NRA supports the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans to purchase, possess and use firearms. NRA does not, and will not, support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.”

I agree with the NRA. Fortunately, this hare-brained idea won't be going anywhere.

To read more, go here. 

Chile Pepper Harvest Season

Above, the chile peppers I bought yesterday. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The New Mexico chile harvest season is now upon us. This year is seeing a good crop.

I bought some Hatch chile peppers yesterday and I will be making the chile relleno casserole on Wednesday that I made last year. 

I spent some time this afternoon roasting them on the barbecue. The aroma the roasted peppers are giving off is great. Yum!

This year is a good one for the chile harvest indicators say. It is likely due to the winter snowfall and the monsoon rains we've been getting.

The Los Angeles Times posted:

Though there have been efforts to mechanize the green chile harvest, they haven’t been successful, says Kelly Urig, a native New Mexican who wrote “New Mexico Chiles: History, Legend And Lore,” which explores four centuries of chile agriculture in New Mexico. Chiles can only be mechanically harvested when they turn red; at that stage it’s OK to have some damage to the fruit, she says, due to it being ground down anyway. The red chile season lasts about only a month after the green chile season.

Last year’s harvest was poor, severely affected by a record-breaking heat wave, which, Urig says, made the crop more susceptible to disease.

The outcome of this year’s green chile harvest won’t be clear until fall, but Urig and other industry observers are already predicting a very good year.

“This year is going great,” says Urig, whose family once farmed chile in Hatch and now helps process it. “All signs say this harvest season is going to be a very good crop as far as taste and as far as commercial viability.”

Urig, who now lives in San Diego but has much of her family in New Mexico, says she has a plentiful supply in her freezer but still gets excited when she can get freshly roasted chiles. She often buys from her cousins, who operate the Hatch Chile Store.

Urig urges New Mexico chile lovers to avoid getting duped by pepper counterfeiters and support New Mexico farmers by looking for the “New Mexico certified chile” mark on the chile pepper package.

To read the full article, go here. 

"Godzilla x Kong" Earns $80 Million

The Easter weekend opening of Godzilla x Kong left smiles on the faces of Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. The giant monster flick exceeded box office expectations.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” smashed its box-office competition this weekend, soaring past expectations with estimated domestic ticket sales of $80 million and delivering the second best opening of the year, just behind another Warner Bros. and Legendary film, “Dune: Part Two.”

Premium formats such as Imax and Dolby Cinema made up 48% of the film’s business. The movie also made $114 in international markets, bringing its global weekend haul to $194 million, according to Warner Bros.

To read more, go here. 

Nella Domenici Reaches Required Ballot Signatures, Etc.

Last evening, I received an email from the Nella Domenici for U.S. Senate campaign which reads in part:

Fellow American,

I am incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support I received from New Mexicans like you in the first 24 hours of our campaign to put our state back on track.

In just the first four hours after launching our Senate campaign, we hit the required number of nominating petition signatures to get us on the ballot!


The people of New Mexico are clearly ready for change, and we’re going to deliver for them.

Looks like Domenici's campaign is off to a good start.

ETC.

One thing about Nella Domenici, besides being the daughter of former New Mexico U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, her first name jogged a memory from 46 years ago. Even though they are spelled different.

Back then, I worked at a subscription "boiler room" or telephone bank in Redondo Beach for the Los Angeles Times. I was attending CSULB at the time. Next door was a camera and projector repair shop, Torbica's Camera Repair (I believe it was). The owners were immigrants from an Eastern European country. They had a daughter, Nela. She attended Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes. I remember Nela was quite pretty as was her mother. They overhauled my Bell & Howell 8mm movie projector. It still works good to this day.

I did some digging in my photo albums and found this one in the one marked 1978-1979. It is of Nela and her brother on bikes in the parking lot at work. I hadn't heard from her since I started working in insurance claims in 1979. I did hear a rumor that her mother was killed in a car accident. But that was never verified. I don't remember who told me.

Interesting how names, places, music and other things will jog a memory.

Judge Overturns California State Ban On Gun Shows

Above, a recent gun show in Gallup, New Mexico. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Years ago (around 30 years ago), the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors banned gun shows at county-owned facilities. This ban directly affected the popular Great Western Gun Show that was held at the Fairplex (Los Angeles County Fairgrounds) in Pomona.

We fought this ban, but were unsuccessful.

The state of California enacted a similar law. Now, a judge overturned this ban. 

From the Los Angeles Times:

It’s been two years since the Orange County fairgrounds hosted a gun show — due to a law prohibiting firearm and ammunition sales on the state-owned property that opened the door to a statewide ban — but that could soon change.

A federal judge this week granted a preliminary injunction overturning Senate Bill 264, which prohibited gun shows at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds beginning in 2022, and Senate Bill 915, which extended the prohibitions to all state-owned lands this January.

The order halts the statewide ban and calls upon operators of the county fairgrounds to immediately resume scheduling legal gun shows at the site.

To read more, go here. 

Poll: 4 In 10 Californians Considering Leaving State

Above, a gas station a mile from LAX. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The exodus out of California continues.

4 in 10 California residents are considering moving out of the state, according to a new poll.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

With its unmatched natural splendor and cultural attractions, California is a beacon that attracts people from around the world who put down roots and call it home.

About 70% of residents said they are happy living here, a new statewide poll shows, crediting the state’s diversity, economic opportunities and an enjoyable lifestyle as reasons to stick around.

Yet large swaths of residents are also considering packing up and leaving. Many also believe that the state is headed in the wrong direction, and are anxious about the direction of the economy and their ability to pay their bills.

The findings of a new poll from a consortium of local nonprofits aiming to take stock of the state’s mood point to a contradiction playing out across the Golden State: People are pleased by the bounty the country’s largest state had to offer and mostly favor its liberal attitudes on social issues, but are also far more concerned about their livelihoods than last year.

Since I moved from California to New Mexico five years ago, I have only been to Los Angeles once and I couldn't wait to return home to New Mexico. 

To read more, go here. 

Aztec, New Mexico: The Other UFO Crash

Almost a year after the Roswell UFO Incident, another purported UFO crash took place near Aztec, New Mexico.

This one allegedly occurred on or about March 25, 1948 on a mesa near the town. Some say this incident was a hoax, while others aren't so sure of that. The crashed UFO was allegedly 100 feet in diameter and contained 16 alien bodies.

From the Albuquerque Journal:

Aztec, New Mexico, with a population of about 6,500, is a tidy community a few miles east of Farmington.

The nearby Aztec Ruins National Monument stands monumentally still. The Aztec Museum and Pioneer Village features such century-ago items as a historic barbershop, antique telephone equipment, various fossils and minerals.

Something else, something much darker, draws tourists to here.

On the night of March 25, 1948, a flying saucer allegedly crash-landed on a lonely mesa in Hart Canyon, four miles distant. There’s a plaque where it put down.

Folks as far away as those who lived in Cedar Hill, 10 miles northeast of Aztec, were said to have heard the crash. But that fact was never verified.

As the above states, there is a plaque at the location of the crash. There is a website with a photo of the crash site and the plaque's text. To access it, go here. 

Back in 2018, I attended the annual Gallup UFO Film Festival and the festival's founder, Chuck Wade, discussed the Aztec incident. To see my blog post on this, go here.

If anyone hasn't heard of the Aztec UFO crash, here's an except from a 1998 Los Angeles Times article:

Turns out that, compared to Aztec, Roswell was small potatoes. Whereas that mother of all crash cover-ups “produced” only a couple of alien bodies, this one involved 16. Aside from that difference, the tale follows the classic pattern of UFO-conspiracy folklore: A disc-shaped craft was recovered intact; security was ratcheted to tourniquet level; debris and corpses were removed by the military and all evidence of the crash eradicated; the bodies were autopsied; a top-secret program was created to study and duplicate the craft’s technology. Sound familiar?

 To read the full Albuquerque Journal article, go here.

1949 Snow In Los Angeles

Above, ladies with a snowman in North Hollywood in 1949. 

It is funny that Southern California is bracing for blizzard conditions, according to news reports. Snow in the mountains above Los Angeles and along the Grapevine on Interstate 5 is not unusual.

Back in 1988, we had a clampout at Crystal Lake in the snow with Platrix Chapter No. 2. I had a tent trailer at the time and we were comfortable inside with the propane heater I had. Snow was on the ground when we arrived and it snowed off and on during the clampout. Some guys couldn't handle it and left. We stayed and got a special commemorative patch for our efforts.

As far as snow in the L.A. basin and the San Fernando Valley is concerned, it happened in 1949. This was a little before my time, mind you.

From the Los Angeles Times archives:

On Jan. 10, 1949, in the middle of the worst housing shortage in Los Angeles history, more than half an inch of snow covered the Civic Center. The San Fernando Valley was pelted with the unfamiliar white stuff for three days, accumulating almost a foot. The Rose Bowl was transformed into “a dishpan full of milk,” by one account. An Alhambra hardware store put up a sign that said, “Snow Plows for Rent — Hurry!” A snowman appeared in Eagle Rock, wearing a sombrero, and the city of Reno, Nev., sent L.A. a snow shovel.

We had some snow mixed with hail in the South Bay around 1978. And, in 1988, we had some snow in Warner Center in the San Fernando Valley. I remember being in both.

Snow is extremely rare in L.A., so when it does happen, the locals go crazy in trying to deal with it.

To see some photos of the L.A. snow, go here.

California "Poised" To Ban Rodeos

Above, from the 2019 Best of the Best Rodeo in Gallup. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The first rodeo I recall ever attending was in Santa Barbara, California in 1977. I enjoyed watching the contestants. One contestant had an interesting name, Sarah "Honeybear" Hickey (see photo below), who was the 1977 Miss Rodeo California. 

The rodeo was held at the Earl Warren Fairgrounds.

Above, Sarah "Honeybear" Hickey, 1977 Miss Rodeo California.

Now it seems that the last remaining All-American patriotic spectator sport, the rodeo, is in the crosshairs of leftists California (i.e., Commiefornia). 

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that for former Golden State is poised to ban, or at least curtail, rodeos.

They begin with:

Earlier this fall, Alameda County supervisors officially banned the practice of “wild cow milking” — a timed event in which a lactating beef cow, unused to human handling, has been wrangled from the fields and brought to an arena.

There, she is separated from her calf, tossed into a rodeo ring, and attacked by three or four men who rope her, pull her tail, wrestle her to the ground and try to hold her still while one of them grabs her teats and milks her.

The move comes three years after the county banned “mutton busting” — an event in which small children are placed on the backs of scared, unsaddled sheep and try to stay on while the sheep bucks, kicks and jumps to knock the child off.

“It’s animal abuse,” said Eric Mills, coordinator for Oakland’s Action for Animals, an animal welfare organization. “It’s unconscionable to treat animals this way. Can you imagine if they did this to dogs? No one would be OK with it. So why is it OK to do this to baby calves, horses and cows?”

For those who admire a “western lifestyle,” a good rodeo performance highlights the skill, bravery and strength of a talented cowboy or cowgirl — a rider deft with a lasso, in control of wild, bucking animals, and laser-focused on a chaotic, seemingly uncontrollable task at hand. It’s this display of western grandeur, hard work, grit and sportsmanship that has likely made the Peacock series “Yellowstone” such a major hit.

But for others, the rodeo is a horror show in which terrified animals are chased around an arena, kicked by strangers, tossed onto the ground with potentially bone-crushing impact — all while loud music is blared and dozens, if not hundreds, of people yell, scream and clap from the nearby stands.

In California, there is a growing movement to ban — or seriously curtail — these kinds of performances. And lawmakers are stepping into the fray, exposing one more hot-button issue that is seemingly emblematic of the nation’s growing cultural discord.

In Los Angeles, the City Council is poised to vote on legislation that would curtail, if not eliminate, rodeo events within the city. Instead of banning particular events, the legislation seeks to ban certain devices used on rodeo animals — spurs, flank straps and electric prods — that can cause pain or injury.

I am sure glad to have left that rotten state. Leftist wackos have ruined most everything else within California, ruining the quality of life there. And now they are going after rodeos. Idiot voters have just re-elected "King Wacko" himself, Gov. Gavin Newsom. Pathetic!

To read more, go here. 

OPEC Cutting Oil Production, Democrats Concerned

Above, gas prices near LAX two weeks ago. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

OPEC's decision to cut oil production has His Fraudulency Joe Biden's administration and the Democrat Party are concerned. Especially since the midterm elections are only a month away.

Californians are already seeing gasoline prices going up. But California isn't the only place where prices are rising.

Yesterday, while entering Gallup, New Mexico, we saw the average gasoline price at $3.55/gallon. Three hours later, as we were leaving Gallup, prices were up around twenty-four cents higher. 

The Los Angeles Times reported:

As gas prices hit record highs in Los Angeles on Wednesday, a pledge by OPEC+ to reduce its oil production by 2 million barrels a day brought concerns about more economic pain to come.

California is facing surging oil prices in the wake of shutdowns at several oil refineries that produce a specific grade of fuel for the state. Prices began to creep up in September after months of declines. And unlike the nationwide rise in gas prices over the summer, this most recent spike is mostly confined to California and the West Coast.

It remains unclear how the reduction would affect pump prices, but experts said it poses another threat to the shaky global economy amid growing concerns about an impending recession.

The OPEC+ move comes a month before crucial midterm elections in the U.S. President Biden and other Democrats hoped the decline in gas prices in recent months would help them with an electorate angry at rising inflation and concerned over an economic downturn.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Los Angeles ticked up to $6.494 on Wednesday, increasing five-tenths of a cent overnight, according to data from the American Automobile Assn.

Remember when Donald Trump was in the White House, we were either at energy independence or close to it. Biden's begging of OPEC didn't exactly work out.

To read the full story, go here. 

L.A. Times: New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham and Democrats "In For A Walloping"

My former employer (circulation department), the Los Angeles Times, says New Mexico Governor "Malevolent Michelle" Lujan Grisham and the Democrats are "in for a walloping" this coming November during the general election.

Piñon Post reported:

In a recent Los Angeles Times article written by columnist Mark Z. Barabak, he chides Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over her failures in office and gives insight from an outsider into why Republicans have a shot at winning back the New Mexico Governor’s Mansion. 

In the article, Barabak notes how abortion has become a hot-button issue in New Mexico but how Republican Mark Ronchetti has attempted to put Lujan Grisham on the defense due to her support for abortion up to birth policies.

He writes, “Some of the difficulty is Grisham’s doing, a result of scandals involving her personal use of public funds and a sexual harassment settlement she paid to a former staffer. But much of her vulnerability arises from issues like crime, the economy and Biden’s drag on Democrats across the country.”

Let's not forget the over 40% of small businesses that were permanently shuttered in New Mexico due to Lujan Grisham's orders during the pandemic that killed thousands of jobs, her war on the oil industry in the state and support of the "green energy fantasy". She danced in the streets like a buffoon while people suffered.

To read more, go here.

Los Angeles's Café Pinot Now Closed

Above, the Superman Week luncheon. Photo by The Adventures Continue.

It had been a while since I last thought of Café Pinot in downtown Los Angeles next to the L.A. Central Library.

Following the "Superman Week" ceremony at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in July 2001, we migrated over to Café Pinot for a luncheon. I was in charge of getting the events organized and had searched for a suitable venue for the lunch. After some checking around, I settled on Café Pinot.

Above, Paul Levitz and Joanne Siegal at the luncheon. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Attendees from the Adventures of Superman included Jack Larson, Noel Neill, Robert Rockwell and Mrs. Robert (Betty) Shayne and daughter Stephanie. Also attending was Paul Levitz, who was then vice president of DC Comics and Joanne Siegal, widow of Superman creator Jerome Siegel and her daughter Laura. I remember the food was quite good.

I did a Google search a little bit ago and found that Cafe Pinot closed for good in April 2019. 

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Café Pinot, Joachim Splichal’s California-French restaurant next to the Los Angeles Central Library, is closing after nearly a quarter century. Its last day of service is Friday.

“Twenty-five years is a long time, but we’re evolving,” David Stork, Patina’s vice president of operations, said Thursday as the patio lunch crowd dissipated on a beautiful spring day. “It’s been a great run.”

Splichal opened Café Pinot in early 1995 with chef Octavio Becerra and a menu that channeled market produce and bistro favorites for the downtown and nearby theater and museum crowds.

Above, Noel Neill at Café Pinot.* Photo by Armand Vaquer. 

During the luncheon, I was fretting about collecting the money for each person's lunch, but Paul Levitz caught everyone by surprise by picking up the tab for the whole luncheon. Great guy! 

The luncheon was an enjoyable and relaxed affair and attendees to this day remember it fondly.

To read more, go here.

*The above photo of Noel Neill (and the back of Jack Larson's head) has never been published/posted before. I just scanned it and added it to the blog post.

LA Times - Larry Elder “The Black Face Of White Supremacy”

Originally posted in The Federalist blog.

From My Mountain Bunker

I Voted for Larry

(Zero Hedge)  -  If you’re looking for proof positive that Larry Elder is making progress toward winning California’s recall election, look no further than the LA Times.

The paper published a column on Friday claiming that longtime conservative, Fox News contributor and syndicated talk radio host Elder “is the Black face of white supremacy”.

Columnist Erika D. Smith wrote: “Few things infuriate me more than watching a Black person use willful blindness and cherry-picked facts to make overly simplistic arguments that whitewash the complex problems that come along with being Black in America.”

Melina Abdullah, cofounder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, even chimed in: “He is a danger, a clear and present danger.”

Abdullah continued: “Anytime you put a Black face on white supremacy, which is what Larry Elder is, there are people who will utilize that as an opportunity to deny white supremacy. They say, ‘How could this be white supremacy? This is a Black man.’ But everything that he’s pushing, everything that he stands for, he is advancing white supremacy.”

More . . . .

Larry Elder Needs A New Campaign Manager

Above, Larry Elder. 

It is a good thing that I left the mess that is called California.

The Democrats have a lock on the powers of government and made a mess out of the state. There is a recall election against Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom. But even if he is recalled, unless the state legislature flips Republican next year, nothing will change even with a Republican governor. 

Talk show host Larry Elder has thrown his hat into the gubernatorial ring. He is a good and capable man. But I now have my doubts that he will prevail after reading the following in the Los Angeles Times:

Elder is well-known among conservatives because his nationally syndicated, three-hour talk show is broadcast daily in L.A., San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento and several smaller California cities. He’s heard in all 50 states in 200 markets, with a national audience of 1.5 million.

He also has 2.5 million followers on social media.

This is why having radio audiences in Utah, Texas and Florida — and being followed by millions on social media across the country — is important politically in California.

“These are potential donors,” says Lou Barnett, his campaign manager. “He has a national fundraising base.”

Good lord! Lou Barnett is Larry Elder's campaign manager?!

Old-timers of California politics, particularly those who were in the Young Republicans in the 1970s, are very familiar with Barnett. He engineered a split between the moderate and conservative factions of the YRs and sabotaged a Reagan endorsement for president of the California Young Republicans in 1976. This was widely reported just before the 1976 New Hampshire Primary.

Above, Lou Barnett.

In 1978, he was involved in some below-the-belt shenanigans in the Evelle Younger gubernatorial campaign by hiring some private detectives against Jerry Brown. When this was exposed, this led Mrs. Mildred Younger to state publicly about Barnett, "If I were that young man, I'd be worried about my political future."

Barnett tried to get a job with the Reagan administration in 1981, but when his past came to light, Reagan advisor Ed Rollins nixed it.

Barnett pulled some shenanigans against Donald Trump's California campaign chief in 2016.

Right On Daily posted:

Lou Barnett, the husband of Late LAGOP Chair Jane Barnett is a long time “friend” of Tim Clark. He is the individual that sent a list of recommendations in LA County over to the Donald Trump camp. (Namely Tim Clark)

These lists included the White Nationalist William Johnson.

They knew that Tim Clark would wait until the last minute to vet his candidates and there was a good chance that this guy would fly through the vetting.

It was told to me that the minute the list came out with Johnson’s name on it that Mr. Barnett leaked the news to the Guardian.

Was another campaign responsible for this dirty trick or did Mr. Barnett do on his own?

Apparently, age hadn't mellowed Lou Barnett.

I like Larry Elder, but his choice of campaign manager leads me to doubt his chances. Larry Elder needs a new campaign manager.

27 Years Since The Northridge Earthquake

Somehow, I missed this.

Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. At the time, I was living in North Hills, California, about 6 miles from the epicenter.  

The quake was so strong that my bed was jumping like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.

From History.com:

At 4:31 a.m. on January 17, 1994, a 6.7-magnitude quake struck the San Fernando Valley, a densely populated area of Los Angeles located 20 miles northwest of the city’s downtown. The quake was caused by the sudden rupture of a previously undocumented blind thrust fault. The Northridge quake, named after the San Fernando Valley community near its epicenter, was the costliest in U.S. history, with damages estimated at more than $20 billion, and resulted in 57 deaths.

 

Mail-In Ballot Fraud In Hawthorne, California

Things haven't changed very much in Hawthorne, California. Political chicanery is still within the city's borders. It reminds me of the old days of when the late Joe Miller and his cronies ran the city.

From the Los Angeles Times:

As judges around the U.S. continue to dismiss claims of voter fraud by President Trump and his supporters, prosecutors and election officials in Los Angeles County said Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence of an actual attempt to fix an election — albeit a small, local one.

Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro, 53, and Marcos Raul Arevalo, 34, were charged with multiple counts of voter fraud after allegedly trying to register 8,000 “fictitious, nonexistent or deceased” voters to receive mail-in ballots. The scheme was part of an illicit bid by Montenegro to become mayor of Hawthorne, according to a criminal complaint made public Tuesday.

As Montenegro and Arevalo allegedly used three recently registered post office boxes and Montenegro’s home address to submit the fraudulent applications, election officials quickly flagged the suspicious ballots in mid-October, according to Dean Logan, the county’s top election official.

While court records show at least 29 mail-in ballots were issued to people Montenegro and Arevalo had allegedly ginned up, none of the ballots were tallied in the general election, Logan said.

The case, he added, highlights how difficult it would be to carry out the widespread voter fraud President Trump and others have claimed was rampant in the 2020 election.

To read more, go here. 

Time-Lapse Video of Space Shuttle Endeavour On The Streets of L.A.

Above, space shuttle Endeavour being transported on Manchester Blvd. in Inglewood, California
to the California Science Center in Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

At about 4:00 in the morning on October 13, 2012, I headed down to Inglewood, California to view the space shuttle Endeavour being transported to its permanent home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles's Exposition Park.

Naturally, I brought along my camera took many photographs of the shuttle, including some directly underneath a wing.

The Los Angeles Times posted on YouTube a time-lapse video of the shuttle's journey from a hangar at Los Angeles International Airport to Exposition Park.

For your viewing enjoyment, here's the video:

L.A. County Could Keep Stay-At-Home Orders Through Summer

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina made the following statement during questioning of Dr. Anthony Fauci, which is very important to remember (transcript courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):

SCOTT: We didn’t set out with the goal of preventing 100 percent fatalities. That would be unrealistic. It is impossible. And we didn’t set out to keep quarantines in place until we found a safe and effective vaccine. That would take too long. While I respect the need for caution, we’re too often presented with a false dichotomy, either saving our economy or saving lives. 

We’ve seen the goalposts around flattening the curve move. And I think that’s unfortunate. Because at the same time we’re doing that, businesses collapsed, mental and physical health have declined, deaths of despair escalate, educational outcomes nosedive, as we wait in our living rooms praying for some good news around therapies and around vaccines. We set out to flatten the curve, and I think we have done a pretty good job of that.

Instead of flattening the curve, the Democrats are seeking to flatten the U.S. economy.

Not a month goes by when a news story makes me even more glad that I moved out of Commiefornia, specifically, Los Angeles County.

From the Los Angeles Times (bold mine):

Los Angeles County’s stay-at-home orders will “with all certainty” be extended for the next three months, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer acknowledged during a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. 

Ferrer later added that even if the orders remain in place through the summer, restrictions will be “gradually relaxed” under a five-step plan. 

“We are being guided by science and data that will safely move us forward along the road to recovery in a measured way—one that allows us to ensure that effective distancing and infection control measures are in place,” Ferrer said, adding that the county is counting on the public’s compliance with the orders to be able to relax restrictions. 

Testifying before the Board of Superviros, Ferrer stressed further progress will be guided by efforts to contain the virus. Los Angeles County is now the Calfornia epicenter of the coronavirus, with more than 1,300 deaths so far.

We know what political party runs California and Los Angeles County, don't we?

To read more, go here. 

Yosemite Shuts Down To All Visitors

Above, Yosemite's Half Dome. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Like a Chinese water torture, facilities, lodging and campgrounds were closed in Yosemite National Park little by little over the past few days.

Now the park itself is closed to all visitors.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Yosemite National Park shut down to all visitors Friday, according to a park release. The park closed at 3 p.m. “at the request of the local health department,” the statement said.
There will be no access permitted into the park until further notice. The closure will be enforced 24/7. 

The landmark Ahwahnee Hotel as well as other lodgings and restaurants closed Tuesday as a precaution over coronavirus concerns. The closure was said to last through March 31. The park earlier this week also closed campgrounds and canceled events and ranger-led activities. 

Other closures vary from park to park. Entry fees have been waived to avoid contact between members of National Park Service staff and members of the public.

To find out what closures and what remains open, the article includes that, too.

To read more, go here.