Heavy-sunshine and way-warm this early Sunday on California’s north coast — rare events the last couple of days days with clear, clean skies, very-little wind and heat — from the NWS this morning: ‘Another round of above normal temperatures is expected today, even for the coast!‘
Exclamation point!
Beyond our ‘downright pleasant‘ weather here along the shoreline, just a few miles inland, triple-digit temperatures and the grind of more heat.
Just a few minutes ago watching MSNBC and their “extraordinary sights” coverage of the Hurricane Harvey aftermath in Texas — historic flooding and rain. Supposedly, in some spots, rainfall up to 50 inches! Yes, exclamation point!
As our climate warms, these ‘extraordinary sights‘ will become ordinarily normal.
Along with the horrific weather, shit oozing from the T-Rump, is the real-true storm facing America…
(Illustration: M.C Escher’s ‘Three Spheres II,’ found here).
Oddly horrible on its own, remarks Friday by Jim Mattis (the Guardian):
Secretary of Defense James Mattis has told US troops stationed abroad their duty is to “hold the line” amid partisan division at home.
In comments contained in a video posted to a Facebook page called “US Army WTF Moments” that appeared to have been taken shot on a smartphone during a visit to Jordan,
Turkey and Ukraine this week, most likely in Jordan, Mattis said: “Our country right now, it’s got problems we don’t have in the military. You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”
He also said, in remarks that were widely interpreted as possible veiled criticism of President Donald Trump, that the US needed to “get the power of inspiration back.”
Dramatically, Mattis made his remarks before T-Rump spit in the face of Hurricane Harvey by unloading a notorious Friday news drump — in a space of four hours, the orange-tainted shithead made official the transgender ban on the military, pardoned despicable cretin Joe Arpaio, and kicked Nazi-asshole Sebastian Gorka out of the White House.
Fairly sickening to see/hear/read people proclaiming that the T-Rump is ‘concerned’ about the damage done by Harvey, but in reality the asshole doesn’t give a fat-rat’s-ass about any of it (via Newsweek):
Charged with providing weather forecasts and warnings, the National Weather Service also makes its data available to hundreds of companies that use it for everything from smartphone applications to agricultural equipment.
Trump earlier this year proposed cutting its budget by 6 percent and that of its parent agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), by a mammoth 16 percent. It was an unprecedented proposal in the National Weather Service’s storied history, which extends back to 1890, when it was founded as the U.S. Weather Bureau.
Trump also proposed huge subcuts for programs that engage in computer modeling of storms, as well as observation of storms and dissemination of data.
Tsunami research and prediction would be cut, along with supercomputing investments and a program to extend more accurate modeling to 30 days from 16, which could have huge benefits for everything from the insurance to the transportation industries.
Just about every aspect of American life is effected/affected in the same fashion — T-Rump is a horrible, horrible asshole.
Despite all the ominously-ugly news, I haven’t had the emotional-drive to comment. The last couple of months there’s been very-few posts from the old Compatible Creatures.
Maybe the pure-onslaught of horrible events centered on the T-Rump — has there ever been such an odorous-piece-of-shit doing so much damage in such a short space of time? — coupled with an unsettling ongoing situation with one of my kids has lessened the desire to write.
Life overall is going through a spasm right now.
Although I don’t post, awareness seems sharper than ever, appears more energized. Extremely disconcerting, not to mention way-weird, to watch the coming end of an age in real-time on my laptop.
Beyond cable news, keep up with these blogs/sites at least once-a-day, if not several times:
- Balloon Juice
- Digby’s Hullabaloo
- Driftglass
- Mock, Paper, Scissors
- Miss Cellania
- Bildungblog
- Talking Points Memo
- War In Context
- Suburban Guerrilla
And with the climate:
These a few among a mass of other sources, on/offline.
At least be wide-eyed into the storm…