1/. DeSantis and his minions are quietly destroying Florida education, and are trying to create a new generation of brainwashed idiots.....
Videos that compare climate activists to Nazis, portray solar and wind energy as environmentally ruinous and claim that current global heating is part of natural long-term cycles will be made available to young schoolchildren in Florida, after the state approved their use in its public school curriculum.
Ribbon cuttings are a great idea. What could go wrong with Joe Biden and giant ceremonial scissors? https://www.racket.news/p/
The climate crisis is not in transit, it’s arrived at the gate. It’s in our skies, our water, and our land – with record-shattering heat waves, increasingly severe wildfires and flooding from superstorms and rising seas.
We have no time for delays. Tackling this crisis and protecting frontline environmental justice communities will take all of us. And the tax-dodging ultra-wealthy need to stop fueling the problem and start supporting first-class solutions.
As I try to cover the news tonight, I am struck by how completely the Republican Party, which began in the 1850s as a noble endeavor to keep the United States government intact and to rebuild it to work for ordinary people, has devolved into a group of chaos agents feeding voters a fantasy world.
The big news today was the hearing in Washington, D.C., where Department of Justice prosecutors argued for a protective order to stop former president Trump from intimidating witnesses and tainting the jury pool in the case against him for trying to stop the counting of electoral votes that would decide the 2020 presidential election.
On the last day of July, Phoenix finally registered a temperature high below 110 degrees Fahrenheit — the first time that had happened in 31 days. The temperature of pavement in the city measured up to 180 degrees, and local burn units are full of patients who simply fell to the ground and were burned, as though Maricopa County’s whole surface were a skillet on the stove. The I.C.U.s are filling up, too, and the region’s iconic saguaro cactuses are crumpling and collapsing in the heat. On the same day last week that President Biden offered only a few meek remarks about extreme heat and just a few million dollars in new funding for heat forecasting, the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, leaned into a typically vehement formulation. “The era of global warming has ended,” he said. “The era of global boiling has arrived.”
NORTH PORT, Fla. — Every week or so, Edward Raggie walks through his front door and enters a painful, infuriating time warp.
Everything looks exactly the way it did that day in December, when he and his wife, Joanne Ragge, hastily packed up their Hurricane Ian-battered home after learning that dangerous mold had spread behind their white ceilings and bright blue walls. Their roof still leaks, its protective tarp peeling from the hot sun. Inside, brown insulation from the gaping hole in their ceiling pools on their swollen, lifted floors. Boxes of their family photos and belongings, stacked haphazardly, are still waiting to be moved out of the living room’s dank, musty air.
Understanding climate denial used to seem easy: It was all about greed. Delve into the background of a researcher challenging the scientific consensus, a think tank trying to block climate action or a politician pronouncing climate change a hoax and you would almost always find major financial backing from the fossil fuel industry.
Those were simpler, more innocent times, and I miss them.
True, greed is still a major factor in anti-environmentalism. But climate denial has also become a front in the culture wars, with right-wingers rejecting the science in part because they dislike science in general and opposing action against emissions out of visceral opposition to anything liberals support.
First it was baseball, then it was the Beatles and finally it was MTV. We all paid attention, we all knew what was happening, and even the barely hip caught the references.
Today you’ve got no idea what people are talking about, unless they’re a member of your cult.
We’re all people, living on the planet, but we’re all separate, lonely, and this doesn’t feel good. We’re looking to connect. We’re living to connect. So how do we handle this? We join a cult.
There’s no center anymore, nothing everyone is aware of and agrees upon. And this is disorienting. So you’re not just a fan of something, you’re a member of the cult. Like “Succession.” The numbers were anemic. But you can’t tell that to anybody who watched the show, they’ll get pissed off. They’ll tell you how great it was, how you’re missing out. And they’ll point to the “New York Times” and other newspapers’ coverage of the finale to prove their point. But the “Times” is a cult too. You’re either in it or outside of it. The right has demonized the “Times,” therefore readers double-down and testify about it. It used to just be a newspaper, now people believe in it, it’s nearly a religion.
Let’s continue talking about the central danger of the tweet above (let’s keep calling them tweets, it feels nicer, doesn’t it?). What does the above really say? Not just that Trump’s above the law — as many are saying. As I said yesterday in part 1, the danger is that he becomes the law.
Let me put that in historical perspective.
Go back in time a few centuries. Who was above the law? Kings, and their lieutenants, nobles, are, too, to different degrees. One interesting factoid of history is that these social groups and classes basically enjoyed various kinds of immunity — as democracy evolved and grew. They enjoyed special kinds of rights, too. Well into the 20th century, in some places, for example, only nobles could wear certain things — think of how funny that seems to us today.
surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet
pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's
chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and
sadly said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has
passed away."
The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead," replied the
vet..
"How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean
you haven't done any testing on him or anything.
He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the
room. He returned a few minutes later with a black
Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on
in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his
front paws on the examination table and sniffed the
duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the
vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out
of the room. A few minutes later he returned with
a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately
sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back
on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and
strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry,
but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably,
a dead duck."
The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys
and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman..
The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!"
she cried, "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!"
The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my
word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the
Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $150."
Perks being over 60 and
heading towards 70 and beyond!
01. Kidnappers are not very interested in
you.
02. In a hostage situation you are likely to
be released first.
03. No one expects you to run -- anywhere.
04. People call at 9 PM and ask, "Did I wake
you?"
05. People no longer view you as a
hypochondriac.
06. There is nothing left to learn the hard
way.
07. Things you buy now won't wear out.
08. You can eat supper at 5 PM.
09. You can live without sex but not your
glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about
pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as
a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach
in no matter who walks into the room.
13. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won't get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance
is finally beginning to pay off.
16. Your joints are more accurate
meteorologists than the national weather
service.
17.Your secrets are safe with your friends
because they can't remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells is finally
down to manageable size!!!!
A Catholic Priest, a Baptist Preacher and a Rabbi all served as Chaplains to the students of Northern Michigan University at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk shop.
One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really all that hard, a real challenge would be to preach to a bear.
One thing led to another, and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it to their religion.
Seven days later, they all came together to discuss their experiences.
Father Flannery, who had his arm in a sling, was on crutches, and had various bandages on his body and limbs, went first.
'Well,' he said, 'I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him, I began to read to him from the Catechism.
Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle as a lamb. The Bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation.'
Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, had one arm and both legs in casts, and had an IV drip.
In his best fire-and-brimstone oratory, he exclaimed, 'WELL, brothers, you KNOW that we Baptists don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me.
So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So I quickly DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus. Hallelujah!
The Priest and the Reverend both looked down at the Rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IVs and monitors running in and out of him. He was in really bad shape.
The Rabbi looked up and said: "Looking back on it, circumcision may not have been the best way to start."
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