1/. By 2030 the average annual temperature for up to 2 billion people will be 29C [about 85F], with
summers becoming unbearable without A/C....
Think there's an immigration problem now? Wait 7 years....
Downtown market streets in Lagos. A large number of people in Nigeria will be pushed outside the human climate niche, say experts. Photograph: peeterv/Getty Images/iStockPhoto Global heating will drive billions of people out of the “climate niche” in which humanity has flourished for millennia, a study has estimated, exposing them to unprecedented temperatures and extreme weather.
The world is on track for 2.7C of heating with current action plans and this would mean 2 billion people experiencing average annual temperatures above 29C by 2030, a level at which very few communities have lived in the past.
Up to 1 billion people could choose to migrate to cooler places, the scientists said, although those areas
remaining within the climate niche would still experience more frequent heatwaves and droughts.
2/. Interesting perspective on Governor Ron - apparently he is a really unpleasant person......
cs.The political landscape in the United States is a murky cesspool of corruption, greed, and power.
And in the fever swamps of the conservative imagination — and in Florida — a man more beast than human has emerged. Ron DeSantis, Governor of the Disney state and potential presidential candidate has been called everything from “Trump with a brain” to “a strange no-eye-contact oddball.”
3/. Jimmy Kimmel with one of his street interviews - this is on Lauren Boebert....
4/. A tongue in cheek but also serious editorial from Tampa Bay.com - Stop dumping on Florida - we don't all agree with what is happening here...
We need to talk, rest of the country. Stop what you’re doing and read this, especially if what you’re doing is typing a mean internet comment about Florida.
Recently, three Tampa restaurants were awarded coveted Michelin stars, which is what happens when, I think, a cartoon guy made of tires decides he likes the food? Exciting for our region! Naturally, noted culinary publication Bon Appétit reported this news on Instagram.
What followed was what can only be described as, pun intended, a tire fire. Nearly everyone in the comments aimed a slingshot of tuna carpaccio at Florida, calling for our complete cancellation. A sampling:
5/. Tom Tomorrow on "regrettable incidents"......
6/ And what a wonderful State we live in.....Floriduh indeed.....
Disney animated movie Strange World. Photograph: Disney/© 2022 Disney. All Rights Reserved A Florida teacher under investigation because she showed her class the Disney animated movie Strange World which features a gay character has defended herself on social media, insisting the film related to the curriculum and warning that state investigators were traumatizing her 10- and 11-year-old students.
Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters school in Hernando county, Florida, released a six-minute TikTok video in which she gave her side of the story. She said she had been reported to the local school board by one of her students’ mother, who sits on the board and was on a “rampage to get rid of every form of representation out of our schools”, Barbee alleged.
7/. "Welcome to DeSantis" - Randy Rainbow with a clever, tuneful and professional evisceration of our Ron.....funny....
8/. Umair looks at climate tipping points....and we're really close to many of them.....
History’s a strange thing. A day went by recently that it’ll remember. But we scarcely noticed at all. Merely a whisper was felt.
We’re now crossing the last thresholds. Of climate change. Of extinction.
There is a 66% chance global temperatures will cross the critical climate threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels at least once between now and 2027, the United Nations’ weather agency warned in its annual report. The forecast, if realized, would mark the first time humanity has crossed the 1.5C threshold.
You can feel it. But I’ll come to that. Let me put this in context first. We’re living through the single greatest event in human history. Only five previous events in all of history, the history of life, have compared, across eons, hundreds of millions of years. Just five. We just crossed the final threshold — 1.5 degrees of warming. The jargon and statistics just mean…that. It’s not, after all, as if carbon’s going to magically fly away to heaven, and so here we are, at 1.5 degrees.
9/. A little dig at JK Rowling....
10/. Paul Krugman on how Big Pharma avoids taxes entirely by accounting maneuvers,
and what they do applies to a lot of multinationals as well.....
On Thursday, Brad Setser of the Council of Foreign Relations — esteemed by cognoscenti for his forensic analyses of balance of payments data — testified to a Senate committee about global tax avoidance by pharmaceutical companies. This issue may not have loomed large on many people’s radar screens, and with everything else going on you may wonder why you should care. But there are at least two reasons you should.
11/. Yeay - Covid is over!
12/. The water crisis out West is almost entirely the fault of crops being raised that shouldn't
be grown in an area that's arid.....like almonds.
When interviewing people in their homes here, I didn’t have the heart to ask them if I could use the bathroom. There’s no water to spare, so some families flush only once a day.
As for showers, they’re rationed and timed: “You get in, you soap up, you turn the water off, and then when you’re done, you turn the water on and wash it off, and then you’re out,” said Cody Reim, who works in construction.
13/. He's going to blow it.....and see the story below....
14/. Why is Louis DeJoy still running the Post Office? Why doesn't Biden act?
Donald Trump may be out of office (and facing a host of legal troubles), but his devastating legacy lives on. Almost three years after Trump appointed Louis DeJoy as U.S. Postmaster General, the wealthy Republican donor's plans to privatize the Postal Service are in full force.
That's because the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors—the only entity that can actually fire DeJoy—has not replaced him. But two of the current members' terms have expired, and President Joe Biden can nominate replacements who would flip the board of governors' current pro-DeJoy majority.
15/. Those of you who watched "What The Health" on Netflix will appreciate this - although it's
written about the UK, it's probably even more applicable here.....
Ultra-processed foods.....BAD!
Ultra-processed foods hide in plain sight … they mainly come in a packet and are made with preservatives, stabilisers, colours or flavour enhancers. Photograph: Jamie Grill/Getty/Tetra RF We live in a toxic food environment, and Big Food has extremely clever marketers and food scientists. That all of us eat a lot of Big Food’s produce means those people are very good at their jobs. It doesn’t mean we have failed if we eat what the industry makes.
In the UK, about 50% of the average adult’s diet, and 65% of a child’s, is ultra-processed. As Dr Chris Van Tulleken’s latest book, Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food... and Why Can’t We Stop?, points out, that means much of what we eat includes newly invented substances that humans haven’t eaten before and we know very little about how they interact with us, or each other.
16/. This is a must see - Martin Scorsese's new movie "Killers Of The Flower Moon"....
Like a dog and its master … Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordo artin Scorsese’s western true-crime thriller is about the US’s Osage murders of the early 1920s, based on the nonfiction bestseller by David Grann. With co-writer Eric Roth, Scorsese crafts an epic of creeping, existential horror about the birth of the American century, a macabre tale of quasi-genocidal serial killings which mimic the larger erasure of Native Americans from the US. It places in the drama’s foreground a gaslit marriage of lies and poisoned love. It echoes Scorsese’s earlier work about mob violence, mob loyalty and the final, inevitable sellout to the federal authorities, whose own bad faith gradually emerges. But in the end, this film is about what all westerns are about, and perhaps all history: the brutal grab for land, resources and power. Trailer....
17/. Oh boy - here's the trailer for "Equalizer 3", set in Sicily.....looks like a wow...
18/. Another must see - Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City"....
Terrifically entertaining … Steve Carell in Asteroid City. Photograph: Courtesy of Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features o say that he’s done it again – yet again – is going to mean something different to fans and non-fans. But I have to say the first category is the only place to be for what is simply a terrifically entertaining and lightly sophisticated new comedy from Wes Anderson, in his signature rectilinear, deadpan style, with primary-pastel colours and his all-star repertory ensemble cast. Regulars including Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton are now joined by Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks, who have been welcomed into the droll Anderson fold. And the director emphatically proves that the YouTube pasticheurs are like Butlin’s Elvis impersonators: they’re not quite doing it. Trailer....
Today's religious joke....
Three nuns were talking.
The first nun said, "I was cleaning the father's room the other day and do you know what I found? A bunch of pornographic magazines!"
"What did you do?" the other nuns asked.
"Well, of course I threw them all in the trash."
The second nun said, "Well, I can top that. I was in the father's room putting away the laundry and I found a bunch of condoms."
"Oh my," gasped the other nuns. "What did you do?" they asked. "At first, I wanted to trash them too, but after giving it a little thought, I poked holes in all of them," she replied.
The third nun fainted.
Today's British brothel joke.....
The Madam opened the brothel door in Belfast and saw a rather dignified, well-dressed, good-looking man in his late forties or early fifties:
“May I help you sir?” She asked.
The man replied. “I want to see Rosie.”
“Sir, Rosie is one of our most expensive ladies. Perhaps you would prefer someone else.” Said the madam. He replied. “No, I must see Rosie.”
Just then, Rosie appeared and announced to the man she charged £10,000 a visit. Without hesitation, the man pulled out ten thousand pounds and gave it to Rosie and they went upstairs. After an hour, the man calmly left.
The next night, the man appeared again, once more demanding to see Rosie. Rosie explained that no one had ever come back two nights in a row as she was too expensive. “There are no discounts. The price is still £10,000.”
Again, the man pulled out the money, gave it to Rosie, and they went upstairs. After an hour, he left.
The following night the man was there yet again. Everyone was astounded that he had come for a third consecutive night, but he paid Rosie and they went upstairs.
After their session, Rosie said to the man. “No one has ever been with me three nights in a row. Where are you from?”
The man replied. “Falls Road .”
“Really.” She said. “I have family on the Falls Road.”
“I know.” The man said. “Your sister died and I am her Solicitor. She asked me to give you your £30,000 inheritance.”
The moral of this story is that three things in life are certain:
3. Being screwed by a lawyer....
Today's Army joke....
Dear Mum & Dad,
I am very well, I hope you are too. Tell big brothers Sean, Paddy and Mick that the Army is better than working on the farm; tell them to get into the Army quick before the jobs are all gone.
I was a bit slow settling down at first because you don't get out of bed until 6am, but I got used to it and I like sleeping in now.
All you do before breakfast is make your bed, shine your boots and clean your uniform.
No cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack, nothing. Men must shave, but it’s not too bad because there's hot water and a light to see what you’re doing.
For breakfast there’s cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no fillet steaks or sausages.
You don't get fed again until noon, and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a 'route march', which is just like walking to the well in the meadow.
This will kill Sean and Paddy with laughter but I keep getting medals for shooting!!
I don’t know why because the bull’s-eye is as big as a bloody bull's head and it doesn't move and it’s not firing back at you like the Murphy’s did when our bull got their cow in calf before the Ballina show.
All you have to do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target - piece of piss. You don't even load your own cartridges – they come in boxes and you don't have to steady yourself against the roll bar of the tractor when you reload.
Sometimes we wrestle with the city boys and I have to be very careful because they break easy - it's not like fighting with Sean, Paddy, Mick and all the other local fellas all at once like we do. Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either; it looks like I'm the best the platoon's got.
I've only been beaten once by this guy from Dublin - he's 6 foot 8 and 120 kilos so he’s a good bit bigger than me but I fought to the end.
I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before word gets out how good it is.
Your loving daughter,
Siobhàn.
Today's blonde joke....
My wife, who is blonde, came running up to me on the drive the other day when I got home from work, she was just jumping for joy!
I didn't know why she was jumping for joy but Ithought what the heck, and I started jumping up and down along with her when she said, "Honey, I have some really great news for you!"
I said "Great, tell me what you're so happy about."
She stopped jumping and was breathing heavily, from all the jumping up and down, when she told me that she was pregnant.
I was so ecstatic, we had been trying for a while so I grabbed her and kissed her on the lips and told her that was great!
I couldn't be happier, then she said,
"Oh, honey, there's more."
I asked "What do you mean more?"
She said, "Well we are not having just one baby, we are going to have TWINS!"
Amazed at how she could know so soon after getting pregnant,I asked her how she knew.
She said, "Well that was the easy part!
I went to the drugstore and bought the 2 pack home pregnancy test kit and both tests came out positive!"
