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+++

“It is a grave error to imagine that the world is not preparing for the disrupted planet of the future. It’s just that it’s not preparing by taking mitigatory measures or by reducing emissions; instead, it is preparing for a new geopolitical struggle for dominance.”

– Amitav Ghosh, The Nutmeg’s Curse

+ Two weeks after Hurricane Helene tore through the Florida panhandle and left a trail of destruction into the Appalachians and beyond, the Atlantic brewed up three more hurricanes, Kirk, Leslie and Milton: the first time three such storms have been swirling simultaneously after September.

+ Helene killed at least 238 people (with hundreds more still missing) in six states (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia), making it the second-deadliest hurricane to strike the United States mainland in the past 50 years, after Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 1,833 people in 2005. 

+ More than half of Helene’s deaths took place in North Carolina.

+ Only eight hurricanes have killed more than 100 people since 1950. The last time a storm near as deadly as Helene hit the US was Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which killed 103 people after making landfall near Houston.

+ The initial estimates put Helene’s economic impact at $200 billion, making it the costliest storm in U.S. history.

+ Fueled by record-high temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, Helene went from a tropical storm into a category 4 hurricane in only two days.

+ Weather Channel depiction of what a 9-foot storm surge in a coastal Florida town would look like.

+ 15 feet: Helene’s storm surge when it swamped the coastal towns of Keaton Beach and Steinhatchee.

+ 12 feet: Milton’s storm surge at Sarasota.

+ Total rainfall east of the Mississippi during Hurricane Helene:  over 40 Trillion gallons. More than 20 Trillion gallons fell across Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina, especially over mountainous terrain.

+ Over three days, Helene unleashed more than 30 inches of rain over parts of North Carolina.

+ Human-caused climate change boosted Hurricane Helene’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as Hurricane Milton threatened the Florida coast less than two weeks later.

+ The Gulf of Mexico has warmed at a rate of 0.34 °F (0.19 °C) per decade since 1970, more than twice the rate of the oceans at large. 

+ Upper ocean heat content in the Atlantic during the last 66 years…

+ The destruction inflicted by Hurricane Helene forced the Federal Government’s largest repository of climate and weather data, including all historical billion-dollar storms, offline.

+ Chevron is sponsoring articles about Hurricane Helene as part of a PR blitz to convince people that its new ultra-high-pressure offshore deep-drilling project, Anchor, is climate-friendly.

+ Trump Hurricane Helene: “She [Harris] didn’t send anything or anyone at all, days passed, no help as men, women, and children drowned. North Carolina has eight military bases. Fort Bragg. They changed the name. We won two wars from Fort Bragg.”

+ More than 5,000 National Guard troops from at least nine states were dispatched to help with Hurricane Helene relief efforts, including soldiers from Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, New York, South Carolina, Florida, and North Carolina. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has sent personnel to Georgia, as well as dam, levee, and bridge inspection specialists to Tennessee and Kentucky, while others are working to restore temporary power to North Carolina.

+ After the wreckage left by Helene, Florida’s largest property insurer announced it was cutting policies for more than 600,000 homeowners in the state.

+ Milton is the only Category 5 hurricane in Atlantic records (HURDATv2, 1851-present) to exhibit any southeasterly motion vector.

+ According to US Stormwatch, the blue in this image is of birds caught in the Eye of Milton.

Most intense Atlantic hurricanes in history by minimum barometric pressure:

1. Wilma (2005) – 882 mb
2. Gilbert (1988) – 888 mb
3. “Labor Day” Hurricane (1935) – 892 mb
4. Rita (2005) – 895 mb
5. Allen (1980) – 899 mb
6. Camille (1969) – 900 mb
7. Katrina (2005) – 902 mb
8. Milton (2024); Dean (2007); Mitch (1998) – 905 mb

+ St. Petersburg reported nearly seven inches of rain in an hour and 10 inches over 3 hours, more of a drenching than a thousand-year rain event. Thresholds for 1,000-year rain in South Florida:

5.56”/1 hour
7.16”/2 hours
8.50”/3 hours

+ Milton generated more than 130 tornado warnings in South Florida as the storm neared the coast, a new record for Florida…

+ Only seven hurricanes have gone from Category 1 to Category 5 in 24 hours or less. Milton is now the second fastest to do so…

+ The “free” Starlink service Elon Musk offered for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene is not free. It’s just the ordinary 30-day trial, and you must buy the hardware.

+ Trump: “I don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government and the Democrat Governor of the State going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

+ Recall that Trump blocked $20 billion in aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria killed over 3,000 people and knocked out electricity on the island for 11 months.

+ There are already hundreds of allegations of price-gouging after Hurricane Helene and Milton. Harris was against price-gouging for about two days, then backed down after getting slapped by blowhards like Larry Summers–the Dick Cheney of economics. Nothing since, even though the evidence is everywhere. McDonalds is now suing the meatpacking industry for price-fixing…

+ The State of Florida refused to evacuate more than 1,200 people from the Manatee and Lee county jails, which were directly in the path of Hurricane Milton. (During Katrina, the people who ran the jails of New Orleans decided that 6,500 incarcerated people, some as young as ten years old, would remain “where they belong.”)

+ This was the second warmest September on record (2023). Nearly 15% of the globe had their single warmest September.

+ Foreign aid for fossil fuel projects quadrupled in a single year,  found, spiking from $1.2 billion in 2021 to $5.4billin in 2022. Meanwhile, clean energy projects received only one percent of total foreign aid, according to a report from the Clean Air Fund.

+ Helene and Milton have given rise to a new grift: Hurricane Conspiracies….

+ “Yes, they can control the weather,” Marjorie Greene Tweeted on X.  “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done…Climate change is the new Covid. Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are.”

+ Trump: “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country…They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

+ Of the many false claims about Hurricane Helene, one asserted that North Carolina state police had begun arresting FEMA workers. It was planted on social media by a “mid-level” organizer from the Bundy Ranch standoff.

+ According to Wired, “the weather conspiracies, in particular, ramped up significantly after 2011 when a member of the Rothschild family acquired a controlling stake in Weather Central, a company that provides weather data to media companies.”

+ Give MAGA credit. Their conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds (one of them apparently invested in Weather Central) summoning up pre-election hurricanes out of the Gulf and aiming at red states is at least an admission of human-caused climate change. You’ve come a long way, baby.

+ If you want to make it big on the Net, you must have a theory of why what happened didn’t happen.

+ The Helene Conspiracies spread so broadly across his district that Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards felt obliged to issue this extraordinary press release, which is worth reprinting in its entirety as evidence of just how “weird” things have become…

Debunking Helene Response Myths

October 8, 2024

Press Release

Dear Friend,

Over the past 10 days, I have been proud of how our mountain communities have come together to help one another. We have seen a level of support that is unmatched by most any other disaster nationwide; but amidst all of the support, we have also seen an uptick in untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay about hurricane response efforts across our mountains.

While it is true, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Helene has had its shortfalls, I’m here to dispel the outrageous rumors that have been circulated online:

1. Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock.

Nobody can control the weather.

Charles Konrad, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Climate Center, has confirmed that no one has the technology or ability to geoengineer a hurricane.

Current geoengineering technology can serve as a large-scale intervention to mitigate the negative consequences of naturally occurring weather phenomena, but it cannot be used to create or manipulate hurricanes.

2. Local officials have confirmed the government is NOT seizing Chimney Rock.

There was no “special meeting” held in Chimney Rock between federal, state, or local governments about seizing the town.

3. Local officials are NOT abandoning search and rescue efforts to bulldoze over Chimney Rock.

4. Chimney Rock is NOT being bulldozed over.

Rutherford County emergency services personnel are going to extensive lengths to search for missing people, including in debris by using cadaver dogs to locate any remains of individuals trapped in the debris.

Just as every other community in Western North Carolina, Chimney Rock officials are focused first and foremost on recovery efforts, followed by plans to rebuild in the future.

5. FEMA is NOT stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating or seizing supplies, or otherwise turning away donations.

FEMA does not conduct vehicle stops or handle road closures with armed guards—all road closures are managed by local law enforcement, who prioritize getting resources to their fellow community members.

6. FEMA has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid.

Disaster response efforts and individual assistance are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts.

FEMA’s non-disaster related presence at the border has always been of major concern to me, even before Hurricane Helene, and I will continue to condemn their deployment of personnel to the southern border, but we must separate the two issues.

7. FEMA is NOT going to run out of money.

FEMA officials have repeatedly affirmed that the agency has enough money for immediate response and recovery needs over the next few months.

Secretary Mayorkas’ statement indicating otherwise was an irresponsible attempt to politicize a tragedy for personal gain.

In the coming months, Western North Carolina is going to need more disaster relief funding than is currently available to assist with recovery efforts.

I’m confident that supplemental disaster relief funding, which I am already involved in the process of creating, will be considered in the House once we return to session in mid-November.

8. FEMA cannot seize your property or land.

Applying for disaster assistance does not grant FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of your property or land.

9. The FAA is NOT restricting access to airspace for Helene rescue and recovery operations.

The FAA or North Carolina Emergency Management will not prohibit anyone from flying resources into Western North Carolina as long as they coordinate their efforts with NC Aviation.

If you are looking to conduct an airdrop of resources but don’t know who to contact for approval, please reach out to my office and we will share that information with you.

10. FEMA is NOT only providing $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery.

The initial $750 provided to disaster survivors is an immediate type of assistance called Serious Needs Assistance that may be made to individuals in need as soon as they apply for FEMA assistance.

The $750 is an upfront, flexible payment to help cover essential items like food, water, baby formula and medication while FEMA assesses the applicant’s eligibility for additional funds.

This award is just the first step of a longer process to provide financial assistance to disaster survivors in need of federal support.

As an application moves through the review process, individuals are eligible to receive additional forms of assistance for other needs such as temporary housing, personal property and home repair costs, etc.

I encourage you to remember that everything you see on Facebook, X, or any other social media platform is not always fact. Please make sure you are fact checking what you read online with a reputable source.

With my warmest regards,

Chuck Edwards
Member of Congress

+ Before Florida went MAGA, hurricanes that hit Florida were God’s punishment for the sodomy Pat Robertson believed was rampant in Miami…

+ Exxon knew better in 1990, according to its own internal memos…

+ Biden to FEMA Director Deanne Criswell: “Deanne, you’re doing a helluva job.” As our friend Jesse Walker said, “Saying this to a FEMA director is like taunting the gods.”

+ Feeling a little schadenfreude, Michael Brown?

+ Floridian Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation, which was set in St Marks National Wildlife Refuge: “Very little has been learned or implemented since Hurricane Ian, which I co-wrote about for The Nation at the time. With Milton potentially hitting the same area. FL gov needs to get its act together, beyond just getting better about evacuation orders. Florida politicians have failed us while dismantling regulations and pandering to developers. This has made all of us less safe. You simply CANNOT build in parts of Florida without severe repercussions, but the legislature and developers have done so anyway…I want to emphasize this: Florida was more prepared for hurricanes fifteen years ago with much better regulation and land use ordinances than today. Developers have left us much more vulnerable by building in places they shouldn’t have, aided and abetted by Republican governors.”

+ Tim Barker: “My parents live in the Tampa Bay area. I am glad they are allowed to evacuate to safety. I am furious at my own government for denying this right to people in Gaza, which thanks to the US and Israel has become “a mass death trap” (per NYT). The moral stain will be indelible.”

+ As Hurricane Milton raged across the Gulf, Bobby Lindamood, mayor of Colleyville, Texas, suggested nuking the hurricane to “stop its rotation.”

+ Another potential hurricane appeared to be brewing in the western Caribbean that may hit Florida by the end of next week…

+++

+ The “God Bless the USA” Bibles that Trump signs and sells are made by Chinese workers in Hangzhou, China. The cost per book is $3. Trump sells them for $60 to $1,000. These Trump Bibles include copies of the US Constitution that exclude amendments 11-27, including those abolishing chattel slavery and giving women the vote. This recalls the Bibles given to enslaved people in the South and Caribbean in the 19th century, which omitted much of the Old Testament and nearly half of the New Testament because enslavers believed they contained passages that might incite rebellions.

+ Trump: “Where’s Gays For Trump?”

Supporter: “We’re over here!”

Trump: “You don’t look gay.”

+ Trump speaking in Detroit on Thursday: “The whole country will be like Detroit if Kamala Harris is your president.” Motown for all! Glam it up, baby! 

+ Go Tigers!

+ Trump at the same speech to the Detroit Economic Club: “The word grocery. It’s sort of a simple word. But it sort of means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does.”

+ Trump: “I could be right now in the most beautiful ocean, on the sand, exposing my really beautiful body – so beautiful – to the sun and the surf. Skin cancer, right? All over the world. Or I could be in Detroit with you.”

+ If his pal RFK, Jr. found Trump on the beach, he might be tempted to collect the hulking body, strap it to the roof of his Bronco and haul it back to Mount Kisco…

+ Trump on tariffs: “Our greatest wealth probably proportionately was in the 1880s.. we had so much much, money all from tariffs… then you had the depression. A lot of people said tariffs caused it. They didn’t; tariffs came in 1932 after the depression.”

+ Ah, yes, a return to the 1880s, the good old Gilded Age, which Twain described as ” a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? Let us give it all up.”

+ Someone needs to collect these gems into the Trump version of Mao’s Little Red Book…

David Graham: “The paradox of running a campaign against Donald Trump is that you have to convince voters that he is both a liar and deadly serious.”

+++

Stephen Colbert: “Under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be, and what would stay the same?”

Harris: “Sure. Well, I mean, I’m obviously not Joe Biden. So that would be one change. But also, I think it’s important to say, with 28 days to go, I’m not Donald Trump.”

+ This is a profound answer that neatly encapsulates the substance of the Harris/Walz campaign. At this point, however, it’s unclear if Harris is “not Liz Cheney.”

Biden in 2020: “Nothing fundamental will change.”

Harris in 2024: “I can’t think of a thing I’d change.”

+ Bernie Sanders: “Congratulations to Vice President Harris for announcing a bold vision to expand Medicare to cover not only home health care, but also vision and hearing.” The vision is so bold that it’s actually less expansive than Biden’s plan, which included vision, hearing and dental!

+ Contrast Harris’ “do your own root canals” Medicare plan with Mexico’s Claudia Scheinbaum’s plan to hire 20,000 doctors and nurses to visit every elderly and disabled person’s home regularly and provide them with free medical attention.

+ The number of migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally at the southern border reached the lowest point of President Biden’s administration in September, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

+ Harris now supports extending rules blocking access to asylum to anyone who crosses the border illegally and either returning them to Mexico or rapidly deporting them to their home country–policies she harshly criticized when Trump imposed them in 2019.

+ Acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris made a film on family separations at the border (Separated) produced by MSNBC. But they’re holding the release of the movie until after the elections. An infuriated Morris asks: “Why is my movie not being shown on NBC prior to the election? It is not a partisan movie. It’s about a policy that was disgusting and should not be allowed to happen again. Make your own inferences…What is “Separated” about? Hell, if I know. But it might be about the evil of bureaucracies and self-deception. Thank God, it has its heroes.” 

+ Kamala Harris has raised over $1 billion since entering the presidential race. Will this turn out to be the Democrats’ version of Trump’s crypto scam?

+ Bleak but entirely predictable given Harris’ non-campaign new polls by Quinnipiac:

Pennsylvania

—Harris up 49/46

—Casey up 51/43

(3 weeks ago, Harris 51/45; Casey 52/43)

Michigan

—Trump up 50/47

—Senate tied

(3 weeks ago, Harris 50/45, Slotkin 51/46)

Wisconsin

—Trump up 48/46

—Baldwin up 50/46

(3 weeks ago, Harris 48/47, Baldwin 51/47)

+ Harris’s self-defeating campaign may prove too much for even the Swifties to salvage.

+ On Wednesday, Biden and Harris announced a $43 million federal investment in lead-free pipes in Wisconsin. (Note: Flint still doesn’t have safe drinking water…)

+ Teamster head Sean O’Brien: “The Democrats fucked us over for 40 years.” No doubt. But they also bailed out the Teamsters’ pension fund to the tune of $36 billion, around $100,000 per member. Meanwhile, Nevada’s influential Culinary Union warned this week that Harris would lose the state if the election were held today. 

+ Kamala Harris on “The View”: “I plan on having a Republican in my cabinet. You ask me what’s the biggest difference between Joe Biden and me, that would be one of the differences.“ Dick for Sec of Defense? Liz for CIA? Has her dad endorsed Jill Stein yet?

+ On Sunday night, Tim Walz told a group of supporters that Harris doesn’t back the benefits for undocumented immigrants he signed into law as governor of Minnesota, including government health care, free tuition, and driver’s licenses, marking a shift from her own past positions.

+ The Harris campaign immediately distanced itself from Tim Walz’s entirely sensible statement, supported by more than 60 percent of the country, that the “electoral college must go.” Why did Harris tap Walz for her running mate if she wasn’t willing to let Walz be Walz. Given her unwavering position on Israel, she might as well have picked Josh “Those Student Protesters Remind Me of the KKK” Shapiro.

+ 45 words in search of a meaning…Kamala Harris on Netanyahu ignoring US calls for a ceasefire/humanitarian pause: “The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements by Israel in that region that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

+ Obama went off on the lack of support for Harris black men during his rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday night:

“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and reasons for that. And you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses; I’ve got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think–and I’m speaking to men directly–part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that. 

“Women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time. When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting. And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”

+ Bill Clinton was the first black president who was white and Obama was the first white president who was black. They both used their “blackness” to chastise black men.

+ The internal polling must be really dismal if the DNC is spending some of its war chest on ads attacking…Jill Stein and the Green Party. Where’s the joy, Jaime? Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? Well, perhaps you are…

+++

+ During the trial in Colorado over its merger, an executive at Kroger admitted that the supermarket chain had a program that raised prices at “no-comp stores” —  towns where there was no competition, while it kept prices lower in towns with a Safeway (Albertsons).

+ The Irvine, California police department shelled $150,000 on a customized Cybertruck. What will it do? According to the department, it “will principally be driven by DARE officers to schools.”

+ Shortly after claiming that discrimination does not exist in Idaho, state Sen. Dan Foreman angrily told Trish Carter-Goodheart, a statehouse candidate from the Nez Perce tribe, to go back to where she came from as he stormed out of a public forum of the candidates.

+ Michele Fiore, the former MAGA candidate for Governor of Nevada, was convicted this week of embezzling money from a charity to honor a slain police officer to use it on her plastic surgery and daughter’s wedding.

+ Pro-crypto donors account for almost half of all corporate donations to PACs in the 2024 election cycle. The Crypto lobby has now spent more money influencing elections over the 14 years since Citizens United *than every industry other than fossil fuels.*

+ Trump’s proposed tax policy changes would, on average, result in a tax cut for the richest 5% of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups. According to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the middle 20% of Americans would see an average tax increase of $1,530.

+ According to the mail tracking firm Mintt, in September, 81% of all direct mail sent in the US was either promoting Trump or attacking Harris, a slight decline from August, when GOP-afflated groups sent 96% of all direct mail relating to the presidential race.

+++

+ Here are some nuggets (believe them or not) from Bob Woodward’s latest book, War:

+ After the Afghanistan withdrawal, George W. Bushed rang up Biden and said, “Oh boy, I can understand what you’re going through….I got fucked by my intel people, too.”

+ Biden on Obama’s decision not to confront Russia militarily after the invasion of Crimea in 2014:  “They fucked up in 2014. That’s why we are here. We fucked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously. We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue! Well, I’m revoking his fucking license!”

+ Biden on Putin: “That fucking Putin…Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”

+ Biden on CIA intel that Russia was poised to invade Ukraine: “Jesus Christ! Now I’ve got to deal with Russia swallowing Ukraine?”

+ During her meeting with Zelensky to share what the Biden administration knew about Russia’s eminent invasion, Harris urged the Ukrainian president it was time to “start thinking about things like having a succession plan in place to run the country if you are captured or killed or cannot govern.” Afterward, she told staffers that she feared it would be the last time she saw him alive.

+ Biden on Netanyahu: “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!… He’s a fucking liar.”

+ Woodward, citing a Trump aide, claims there have been “maybe as many as seven” calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left the White House in 2021. He also reports that while Trump was president, he ordered a secret shipment of COVID-19 testing equipment to Russia for Putin’s personal use during the pandemic. Though it elicited denials from Trump, this week, the Kremlin confirmed the story.

+ Lindsey Graham on Trump: “Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea. Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”

+ Graham’s campaign advice to Trump: “You’ve got a problem with moderate women. The people that think that the earth is flat and we didn’t go to the moon, you’ve got them. Let that go.”

+ Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Crown Prince Bonesaws: “MBS was nothing more than a spoiled child.”

+ Woodward writes that MBS has a bag with 45 burner phones, including one labeled “Trump” and another “Jake Sullivan.”

+ Harris on her relationship with Biden: “[Perhaps] the only reason that he still really is comfortable with me to a point, [is] because he knows that I’m the only person around who knows how to properly pronounce the word motherfucker.”

+ Woodward writes that a close friend of Biden’s told him in December last year that the president is “exhausted half the time. … That’s obvious in his voice.” According to Woodward, “A review of empirical evidence suggests that Biden’s age was clearly impacting his ability to perform coherently at some public events from the summer of 2023.”

+++

+ Lessons in political geography from the NYT…

+ Apple, which has been telling its consumers how fiercely it defends their privacy from the prying eyes of corporations and governments, held a conference for police at its Cupertino HQ. At the Apple Global Police Summit, cops from seven countries were invited to learn how they use Apple technologies, from iPhones to CarPlay to Vision Pro to various surveillance apps.

+ Alan Dershowitz has threatened to sue a fellow guest on Piers Morgan’s” Uncensored” talk show after author Mohammad Hijab brought up Dershowitz’s association with sex trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein and called him “an old pervert.”

+ Two days after NY Jets head coach Robert Saleh, a Muslim-American of Lebanese descent, was photographed on the sidelines of a game in London wearing a Lebanese flag patch on his sweatshirt, he was fired by Jets owner Woody Johnson, Trump’s former ambassador to the UK…

+ FoxNew’s Jesse Watters: “We are getting a lot of texts from women about Stephen Miller. Our audience believes you are some sort of sexual matador.”

Stephen Miller: “Some advice to any young man out there. If you are a young man who’s looking to impress the ladies and be attractive, the best thing you can do is wear your Trump support on your sleeve. Show that you are a real man. Show that you are not a beta. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter, and your dating life will be fantastic.”

+ Mini-Goebbels, sex symbol?

+ Oregon’s most populous county (Multnomah) has sued the state’s biggest gas provider (NW Natural)  for spreading doubt about the causes of climate change. This is the first time a utility has faced charges of climate deception.

+ Since the beginning of the decade, global deforestation has accelerated rather than declined, despite an agreement to end it by 2030. Last year, an area about the size of Latvia (6.37 million hectares) was logged off, nearly two million hectares more than the global target set by the 2021 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow.

+ Russia’s coal exports fell by 11.4% in January-July. and are now at the lowest level in the last 30 years. Russian coal shipments to China in the first half of 2024 fell by 8%, while India cut its coal imports from Russia by 55% and Turkey by 47%.

+ A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the Lāhainā wildfires rank among the deadliest natural disasters in US history. Mortality statistics suggest that the fire comprised “the single leading cause of death in any recorded week and likely since Western colonization in Maui County.”

+ A study of raptors in Montana showed that 52% percent of blood samples from hawks, eagles, owls, and falcons in the state showed high levels of lead, mainly from the fragments of lead shot from duck hunters.

+ I’m glad I lived to see this…The first salmon in more than 100 years have been spotted swimming in waters previously blocked by dams on the Klamath River.

+ In its relentless drive to turn MLB into NASCAR, we’ve been forced to look at the Strauss logo on every baseball helmet in the playoffs, and I still have no idea who they are or what kind of junk they sell. If I did, I’d boycott them…

Robert Coover: “The superhero, his underwear bagging at the seat and knees, is just a country boy at heart, tutored to perceive all human action as good or bad, orderly or dynamic, and so doesn’t know whether to shit or fly.”

+ Coover (Origin of the Brunists, A Public Burning, Spanking the Maid), who died last week, was one of the writers who signed the Writers and Editors War Tax Pledge, vowing not to pay federal income taxes in protest of the Vietnam War.

+++

If It Keeps on Rainin’, Levee’s Goin’ to Break, When the Levee Breaks, I’ll Have No Place to Stay…

Booked Up
What I’m reading this week…

The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe
Gideon Levy
(Verso)

The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates
(One World)

One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forwards: One Woman’s Path to Becoming a Biologist
Rosemary Grant
(Princeton Univ. Press)

Sound Grammar
What I’m listening to this week…

Acadia
Yasmin Williams
(Nonesuch)

Swan Songs: The Singles (1976-1981)
Dave Edmunds
(Omnivore)

Three of Us are From Houston and Reuben is Not
Walter Smith III
(Blue Note)

Almost Unnoticed

“As far back as 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that humanity faced a stark choice between spending its resources on war and violence, or on preventing catastrophic environmental damage. The report was signed by 1,700 scientists, including the majority of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences. In 2017 the warning was reissued, and this time it was signed by more than 15,000 scientists: it concluded that the state of the world was even worse than before. The first UCS report attracted a good deal of attention; the second one passed almost unnoticed.” 

– Amitav Ghosh, The Nutmeg’s Curse

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