‘Nuf said!

It doesn’t get any cooler than this…

Alpine Meadows–Summit chair

We were up at our Tahoe/Donner place the past weekend.  It was the first time we have been able to ski all year.  There has been no snow at all until a couple of weeks ago, and we had other commitments last weekend. 

Anyway there was still enough snow to cover some of the runs, so all in all we had a good time.  The weather was sunny and bright.  The big news this year is that Squaw Valley USA, where we’ve had season passes for many years, has merged with neighboring Alpine Meadows Ski Resort.  The upshot is that we now get to ski Alpine Meadows on our season pass along with Squaw Valley.  They are running free shuttle buses between the two resorts and the ride is only about 15 minutes or so, with buses running every 15 minutes! 

So, we ventured over to Alpine Meadows on Saturday and Sunday.  There is a high-speed, six-person lift called “Summit Chair” that goes all the way up to the summit of Alpine Bowl, above 8,000 feet.  The view is utterly spectacular, with Lake Tahoe floating below the horizon.  And it’s a long, long way down to the bottom, so it is a great ski run. 

Sunday, I took some pictures from the top of Alpine Bowl where the Summit Chair unloads.  While it was sunny and cold, there was a big wind blowing right up the face of the run, so I was getting a face full of wind-blown ice crystals when I took these.  I could barley see the view-finder so I was pretty much guessing.  I’m posting three of the better shots.  Please click on them to blow them up.

** Here is a shot showing Lake Tahoe floating in upper middle of the picture.  By that way, that is Eileen in the lower right corner in the black outfit.

** Another shot of the Lake and Eileen.

** A shot looking down the run.  The run goes down this face and then turns left in about the middle of the shot, and then wends its way a long ways down to the bottom.

I’m sure glad I’m living long enough to enjoy the beauty and thrill of the whole experience!

Can justice actually be done?

Let’s all whip us as much good karma as we can for Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General.  The President appointed him to head “…a large-scale civil and criminal investigation of the banks, mortgage vendors, securities bundlers and other financial actors who inflated the last decade’s housing bubble and nearly blew up the economy when it burst.”  You can read about it in Harold Meyerson’s column in today’s WAPO.

I’m fervently hoping that some of these white-collar criminals get convicted and actually do some jail time.  If this was the “normal” situation where the so-called “investigation” is a ruse to placate the public, I’d not be expecting anything other than maybe a sacrificial lamb getting thrown under the bus and a bunch of wrist-slapping.  But, in this case Schneiderman had a chance to take that route by going along with the 25 billion dollar settlement, which was then being pushed by the White House and other influential players.  Instead, he refused to sign on, which tanked the deal.  Now, the White House has changed its position and Schneiderman is going to be given big-time resources and support, which will allow him to really go after the people who have wreaked havoc upon our country and millions of its citizens.  I say, “go get ‘em Harold.”

91% approve SOTU!

I knew that the President gave a great State of the Union address.  However, I was worried that the general public might have thought it was too long, or too detailed, or too combative, or too timid, or whatever.

Thus, I was surprised and elated when I saw that a CBS poll taken after the address showed that 91% of the general public approved of the proposals that the President put forth in the speech.  That of course means that a mere 9% disapproved.  I can’t remember when I saw such lopsided numbers in a poll.  This must be blowing the minds of the Republicans and the Right.  But it makes me even more disturbed about the Right’s voter suppression schemes masquerading as legitimate legislation to curb actual voter fraud.  I have discussed this in detail in a prior post.  As I see it, keeping people from voting is about the only way left for the right wing to defeat the President. 

Life is ever rewarding

Sometimes I run across something that just makes me shake my head in wonder and smile for hours.  I don’t think you will be able to resist this.  The kid is fabulous, but I also love the owner of the guitar shop.

Mr. Plinkett and RedLetterMedia

I’m glad that I still have the opportunity to be around young folks and  interact with them.  Over the holidays I was talking with a step-nephew of mine who is nineteen and very bright.  We were discussing movie reviews and he mentioned the “RedLetterMedia” review of the first Star Wars prequel “The Phantom Menace.” He said it was one of the funniest, yet perceptive reviews he had ever seen and told me to search for it on YouTube when I got the chance.  I have seen it now, and it is terrific.  It may not be to your taste, but I find it as brilliant as it is hilarious.  You can read about it here, and watch the first installment on YouTube here. (There are 7 installments).  At last count it had 3,652,511 views! 

Be ready for the reviewer, Mr. Plinkett, who is described in Wikipedia thusly:

Stoklasa created his first video review for Star Trek Generations after watching the film again some time in 2008. He noted that he thought it was a "shitty movie" and "completely messed up the transition to the big screen from what was a really great TV show", inspiring him to share this view with others.^[1] Stoklasa found his own voice to be too boring for the review and adopted the persona of "Mr. Harry S. Plinkett", a previous character he had used in several short films (originally played by Rich Evans) and since further developed within the reviews.^[1]

Mr. Plinkett is an old man (claiming to be born in 1906) bordering on senile and psychotic,^[2] a mannerism that Stoklasa deemed was necessary in order to keep the viewer interested in the reviews and guessing what may occur next.^[3] The Plinkett character also adds a sense of humor to avoid making the reviewer sound too much like a nerd or armchair critic.^[1] Mr. Plinkett speaks in a manner that has been compared to both Dan Aykroyd's character in The Blues Brothers and Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill character fromThe Silence of the Lambs.^[1][4] The character seems to live, or at least have lived, in Teaneck, New Jersey, having made references to its police department (in his Star Trekreview) and the Cedar Lanes Cinema (in his Revenge of the Sith review).

Through side comments in narration, flashes of disturbing images, and cuts to scenes filmed by RedLetterMedia, Mr. Plinkett is implied to be a misogynist and a serial killer; recurring themes include the murder of his ex-wife via car crash and women held captive in his basement.^[1][2] He claims to have had a disappointing son who hanged himself in a gas station bathroom. Mr. Plinkett also has a fondness for Totino's Pizza Rolls, and he encourages feedback by promising to mail one to viewers that leave comments on his "webzone". When he gets angry, he threatens to not send a pizza roll.^[1]

If you dig it, there are plenty more RedLetterMedia reviews to enjoy.  If you hate it, I will respect your take, but also surmise that we each have a quite different sense of humor.

Montana Supreme Court = My Heroes!

I just learned that the Montana Supreme Court defied the US Supreme Court’s decision in the awful “Citizens United” case!  You can read about it here.  The decision was 5 to 2.  However, one of the dissenting justices went out of his way to blister SCOTUS for its horrible decision:

"While, as a member of this Court, I am bound to follow Citizens United, I do not have to agree with the [U.S.] Supreme Court's decision," Nelson wrote. "And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. For starters, the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping."

And over at Firedog Lake, David Dayen offers thoughts on the ramification of the Montana decision.   The upshot is that he does not think SCOTUS would change its mind, but he does not rule out the possibility of justice Kennedy changing his position if the Montana decision were before him.  He notes also that:

At the very least, a favorable ruling here would allow states to ban corporate contributions or limit them in state and local elections.

It all brings back that delicious moment in the President’s State of the Union speech a couple of years ago when he called out the majority justices on the Citizens United case right to their faces, strongly criticizing their decision, prompting that little weasel Alito to shake his head and mumble some sort of objection. 

Anyway, I love the Montana Supreme Court these days.