It’s June 16. We are coming up on the summer solstice. And yet, I’m walking around outside in two longsleeve shirts, a longsleeve jacket, and corduroy pants. WTF is going on?!?!
I don’t know about you, but this is really starting to freak me out. I feel like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky (tried to find the clip, sorry, not available). Last summer, all we had was blazing day after blazing day, with drout conditions for its entirety. This year, we’ve had tons (I mean tons) of rain, and I think we’ve managed maybe one-half of one day in the blaze. It’s insane. One weather man up here has been quoted as saying that this might be the year we have no summer at all. Imagine that. No summer? I thought global warming was supposed to give us no winter.
I spent the entire winter suffering through ridiculously cold day after ridiculously cold day. Just relive my facebook status updates through December, January, February, and March. You’ll see. But I got through it. I got through it thinking about, ahh, the warm days of summer are just around the corner. It was like a mini pep talk everyday. And now, it’s the freaking summer, and I’ve got high temperatures of 66 degrees fahrenheit. Awesome.
I reached the breaking point today when I was walking down to the post office in Danville to purchase 99 stamps with a $44.00 check (they actually gave me 100, I couldn’t talk them into giving me 44 cents in change from a check transaction). I took a good long sniff of the air. It felt familiar, felt warm. It felt like–vacation. What vacation?, I thought. I know–the f*#!-ing beach! It feels like the beach because the sun is really hot, you can feel it burning the skin (especially since I’m so white), but there is a continuous cool breeze, cooling you down lest you should feel inclined to sloth around in oppressive heat and go running from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned vehicle.
You readers are probably thinking, ‘dude, Mike, chillout, man–you should be happy there isn’t oppressive weather conditions. Bask in the chill weather while you can.’ No. This isn’t natural. And I don’t like things that aren’t natural. Plus, given the weather, I’m inclined to sit outside on my less than optimal porch, cracking open cold-one after cold-one. It makes me want to drink outside. At least when it’s hot, you don’t want to be outside. And the only other place I can drink alone is in my basement, which is wholly depressing, and makes me look like an especially high-profile loser, especially when I tell you all about it via this post.
With all this in mind, let’s turn to what I’ve been reading / following today:
Climate change odds much worse than thought
David Chandler, MIT News Office
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.
[...]
While the outcomes in the “no policy” projections now look much worse than before, there is less change from previous work in the projected outcomes if strong policies are put in place now to drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions. Without action, “there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated,” Prinn says. “This increases the urgency for significant policy action.”
Looks like it’s about time we did something.
Will the Health Industry Derail Obama’s Reforms?
Various Authors, Washington Post
The GOP’s Empathy Problem
kos, Daily Kos
The GOP’s hostility toward empathy, inherent in just about everything they do — from starving government, to an aggressive and destructive foreign policy — is predicated on a proud and arrogant dismissal of the wants, needs, and customs of anyone unlike them. So Obama is a moron for trying to understand Islam, ACORN is dangerous because they engage in community organizing, taxes are bad because it redistributes wealth, and blah blah blah blah. Go down the list — every conservative position is predicated on selfishness and lack of give-a-shit for other people.
The problem for conservatives is that ultimately, the rest of the country disagrees, including its largest growing demographics. And it’s hard to win elections when you are so far outside the American mainstream on such a key value.
Public Option Action Alert: Make the HELP Committee Hold Firm
mcjoan, Daily Kos
Basically, we are on the brink of losing the public option, which negates any real health reform. We might as well jump off a cliff because we wasted all this time and effort, and you know I hate wasting time.
What Happens if Obama Loses the Left?
buhdydharma, Daily Kos
But the Issue-Left?
Oh, they are not happy at all!
And there are PLENTY of them.
There are the Financial Issue People, who…for some unknown reason….object to giving away hundreds of Billions of dollars to corporate interests and the bankers who crashed the economy.
While allowing those same bankers to keep kicking REGULAR people…. people who don’t have Lobby, regular people who don’t “Own The Senate” …. out of their homes. Billions for crooks, nothing for The People.
Obama is losing them. and is about to let watered down regulations go through that will lose more of them.
I agree. That’s me. But I’m still a team player. I’ve always been leary of Obama’s moderate stances on issues that he should be comfortable in taking a liberal stance on. Stupid Edwards…
