Deafening Robes of Dawn, 28th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): It was a wild night last night, and before your imagination runs rampant with lurid and outrageous fantasies, I'm talking about the weather, which is probably no surprise to alert readers. The weatherman estimates there were some 350,000 total cloud-to-cloud lightning flashes as a front passed over Atlanta between 12:30 and 2:00 am, and 35,000 cloud-to-ground strikes. 

I'm fine, no damage, didn't even lose power. But what a show! Over a quarter million lightning flashes in just ninety minutes makes the sky look like it's just constantly illuminated, like some living electrical field from a science fiction film. I barely got any sleep before 3:00 am.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was questioned by a Senate committee today. He didn't answer any questions, repeatedly taking the Fifth on every question. So Senate assholes like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson, knowing he wouldn't respond, started asking him "when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife?" type questions, like "Are you willing to apologize to the American people for funding the Wuhan laboratory and purposely releasing the virus?" For the record, Fauci or any U.S. government agency, didn't fund the Chinese national laboratory, and it's still not known if the initial outbreak was a lab leak or not, although there's no evidence suggesting it was deliberate.

The reason for the testimony, some six to seven years after the covids pandemic, was because some CDC worker found a diary Fauci kept on a government server and turned it over to RFK, Jr., who turned it over to Sen. Paul,  who's had a years-long, obsessional feud with Fauci. President Biden pardoned Fauci for any activities he performed while in the government as a pre-emptive move to protect him from vindictive prosecution, so Paul's repeatedly stated goal of seeing Fauci "behind bars" is unlikely, unless he got him to testify under oath and then found some ever-so-slight discrepancy between past and present testimony so he could charge him with perjury. The hearing was really just a perjury trap - no one was pretending there was some urgent matter that required Senate investigation - and Fauci's attorneys advised him to take the Fifth on every question, regardless of how ludicrous, to avoid getting ensnared in that trap.

It was a ridiculous performance and far, far, far from the Senate's finest hour. It was closer to the McCarthy hearings than the Watergate investigation. I hope that Rand Paul gets the psychological help he so obviously needs, and on behalf of the American people, I thank Dr, Fauci for his service and apologize for his mistreatment today.

Finally, am I the only one not concerned that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey isn't a faithful and accurate adaptation of Homer's original poem? I haven't seen the movie yet, but my motivation for going isn't whether or not the film fully captures Homer's characterization of Ulysses' psychological profile, or if liberties were taken with the underlying mythology to make the story more palatable to 21st Century audiences. If I wanted to understand Homer and the ancient Greek mindset, I'd read the fucking book.

 

Day of Wages, 27th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): The outspoken feminist writer who I otherwise admire has not only taken down her post with misleading to downright factually incorrect climate data, but admitted it was a mistake. Even more, she still maintains that the current climate crisis "is the most important news today and part of the most important news this year, decade, and century. Be a climate activist. The climate needs you.," and replaced the misleading image with verifiably accurate maps and graphs in a revised post. 

Now I admire her even more. No more "otherwise."

We're still under heat advisories here in Atlanta. We hit a high of 93° degrees today with a heat index value of 96°. Helios is a walking day and I got my steps in today despite the heat, although I limited myself to a 6.8-mile Quincy.

Mike Allen of Axios had an interesting point in his morning newsletter email today, although he then discredited himself with some misguided "both sides-ism." He and co-author Jim VandeHei hypothesize that political party transformations follow a predictable six stages of evolution - recoil, squint, rationalize, submit, amplify, and purge. 

In Stage 1, the party Recoils from change, denouncing the new actors by name. For example, in 2016, Lindsey Graham called the Stable Genius a "kook," unfit for office, and Ted Cruz called him a "pathological liar." 

In Stage 2, "Squint," they support without looking too hard. "I haven't seen that tweet" became the Republicans go-to response during the Stable Genius' first term when they were asked about his social media posts. 

Stage 3, Rationalize, the "yes, but" stage, features statements like "I don't love the style, but the judges, the tax cuts, the border - he's a fighter." Accommodation becomes the norm, and justifications emerge for the means.

Submission is Stage 4, and dissent becomes career-ending. After Kevin McCarthy said that the Stable Genius bears responsibility for January 6, he had to fly to Mar-a-Lago to apologize. However, he's ousted as speaker three years later. Silence becomes political survival.

In Stage 5, Amplify, the party fully adopt the vocabulary, the style, and the maximalist claims. After privately calling the Stable Genius "America's Hitler" in 2016, JD Vance is now vice president and routinely seeks to show his own extremism, as does almost every Republican these days.

Finally, Stage 6, is the purge - actively oust anyone who disagrees. You either fully accept and amplify, or get exiled like Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Liz Cheney, Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, and John Cornyn, despite many of them voting with the Stable Genius 99% of the time.

An interesting theory, and well documented. But then came their "both sides-ism," aka "the other side is even worse." Citing a Gallup poll that socialism is more popular than capitalism among Democrats, they say that recent electoral victories by self-proclaimed "democratic socialists" are a sign of a political reorientation on the left that's going thorough the same, six-stage process.

First of all, it's misleading to frame what's happening on the left as socialism vs. capitalism, as if they were opposite things. Socialism is not the opposite of capitalism. The Gallup poll might as well ask if ham sandwiches are or aren't more popular than reruns of "Friends." One might have a higher polling number than the other, but that doesn't make them opposing things.  They certainly are not opposites.

I'll repeat that again slowly for those of you on drugs: socialism is not the opposite of capitalism. That would be communism - the opposite of capitalism is communism. Socialism, especially democratic socialism, merely wants to see the government-level profits of capitalism distributed more evenly among the people, and spent for the betterment of all instead of just the top profit generators. The opposite of democratic socialism might be oligarchy, or the reckless, unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age "Robber Barons."

The Democratic Party may or may not be going thorough a transformation right now, or a new political party or ideology may be  emerging. If so, I welcome it. But to frame it as capitalism versus socialism is just fucking stupid, Allen. Do your goddamn home work and think, t-h-i-n-k, before hitting the "Send" button next time, you reactionary tool.

Did you learn NOTHING from the outspoken feminist writer who I admire?

 

Fifth Day of the Icon, 26th of the Dog Days. 526 M.E. (Electra): We're back under a heat advisory here in Atlanta, with heat index values of 105 to 109 degrees forecast. I know I talk about the weather way to much here, but weather occurs at the intersection of my concerns about climate change and my own lived experience, especially with my alternating day, five- to eight-mile walks. 

The extreme wildfires and brutal heat waves around the world should be enough to concern anyone. There's no need to spread false information or sound false alarms with regard to climate change - the actual, documented record is already alarming enough.

So I was dismayed to find an alarming report on Bluesky stating the temperatures in Namibia and South Africa, which are currently in the antipodal winter, are reaching record temperatures of 36.1 to 40° C (97 to 104° F), 10° C higher than the summer norms. "Insane, mind-blowing winter heat," that called it, claiming "World climatic history rewritten!" in all capital letters. They included a map in their post with a lot of scary-looking red color all over southern Africa and scientific-sounding jargon in the title ("GFS 2-meter Temperature Anomaly based of CSFR 1981-2010 Climatology"). 

Cool story, except it doesn't seem to be the case. I checked several weather forecast sites, and they show high temperatures in Capetown, South Africa of 18 to 24° C (65 to 75° F) this week. But maybe Capetown, located on the coast, is just cooler than the desert temperatures to the north. But I checked Windhoek, Namibia, and the same thing - upper 70s (lower 20s in Celsius) this week. And what's the word in Johannesburg? Same thing, and actually a little cooler, with highs in the lower 60s (17° C) by the end of the week. 

I take no pleasure in debunking climate-change claims, but if we're not factual and scientific, we're no better than the climate-change deniers. The Bluesky account allows only certain people to comment (I'm not one of them) so I can't inquire about their source or ask for a reconciliation of  their conclusions with the easily verifiable weather forecasts for this week. 

Maybe it's an innocent mistake. After all, the graphic they posted doesn't mention the temperatures they cite, it just shows color-coded deviations from normal temperatures, with most of Namibia and South Africa appearing to fall in the +2.5 to +5° C range. Could they have added 2.5 to 5 to the wrong base temperatures? The post claims that the current temperatures are "10C above mid-summer averages," but I don't see anything in their graphic that supports that claim. 

"Greta was right," one person who is allowed to comment said below the post, which misses the mark entirely. Thunberg is an activist and an advocate, and a good one I'll add, but she'll be the first to tell you she's not a climatologist and shouldn't be considered the basis for climate-change science. But whatever, that's annoying, but the least of my concerns here.

An outspoken feminist writer who I otherwise admire reposted the Bluesky post, saying, "This is the most important news today and part of the most important news this year, decade, and century. Be a climate activist. The climate needs you." And there's the problem. When it's eventually discovered that the conclusions don't match the real-world weather reports, the denialists will incorrectly claim that all scientific data is likewise wrong and should be ignored. After all, if some random account on Bluesky gets the situation in Namibia wrong, how can we possible trust the IPCC or the near unanimous concern of the climate-science community? 

However, the outspoken feminist writer who I otherwise admire doesn't allow comments on her posts either, so I have no way of tapping on her shoulder and advise her that she may be spreading misinformation.   

Climate change is a problem, and the outspoken feminist writer who I otherwise admire is correct that we should be climate activists. The El Nino forming in the Pacific shows every indication that it's going to break all records, wildfires are raging across Canada, western Europe, and equatorial Africa, and CO₂ levels are approaching geological records. But no one is experiencing summertime extremes this winter in South Africa and Namibia, regardless of how well it fits the narrative we want to tell.

 

Fourth Day of the Icon, 25th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): There are rare earth elements present in northeast Mississippi, if you have an inclination to go mine them.

To determine their potential suitability for mining, geologists recently sampled Upper Cretaceous through Lower Eocene sand deposits in the region. The titanium minerals rutile and ilmenite, and their alteration product leucoxene, were present in the samples. Zircon, a source of uranium and hafnium was also present, as was  monazite, a source of thorium, and xenotime, a rare-earth source. 

These minerals have many uses and are important for manufacturing, engineering, and technological applications. Sampling and X-ray fluorescence identified at least five sites with percentages of heavy minerals over 2.5% with abundant titanium minerals, hafnium-containing zircon, uranium, thorium, and traces of monazite. 

With the recent interest in domestic sources of critical minerals and rare earth elements, these minerals in the northern Mississippi sand deposits could establish the area as an important and strategic resource. Just thought you'd like to know.

I walked an 8.6-mile Van Buren today. After missing my Betelgeuse walk due to rain, it felt good to get outside again.

 

Third Day of the Icon, 24th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor): As wildfires are ravaging France and Spain, forcing some 250,000 people to evacuate their homes, and people worry about the Amazon rain forest, it's worth recognizing that it's Africa that has the highest rate of forest loss in the world. About 9.6 million acres of African forest, or about 15,000 square miles, were destroyed each year between 2010 and 2020.

Africa’s forests occur as rainforests in moist regions of central and west Africa, mostly in the Congo Basin, and in the vast Miombo woodlands, a warm, dry forest area in southern Africa. Clearing forests to make way for agricultural land is the main reason for deforestation in Africa, but unsustainable fuelwood harvesting, logging, and mining are also drivers. 

Severe, heatwave-driven wildfires are also occurring in North Africa, notably in Algeria, where extreme temperatures reaching up to 120° F have resulted in six deaths and over 1,500 blazes since early July. 

Here in the U.S., the third major heat-dome event this month is gathering strength over this weekend, spanning an area from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Plains and the Midwest. A heat dome occurs when a high-pressure atmospheric system acts as a sort of lid, trapping heat in place over a region for days or even weeks.

About 70 million people are expected to face excessive heat advisories as dangerously hot temperatures scorch much of the country’s southern and central states. Temperatures of 95 to 105° F are expected, with some areas of the southwest U.S. potentially reaching 120. The elevated heat is expected to linger into the coming week. But as long as it's not actively raining, I'm still going to take my alternating day walks. What doesn't kill you will make you predictable.

This whole planet is going up in flames! Talk about Dog Days! Where's that meme of a dog in a burning house saying "this is fine" when you need it?

 

Second Day of the Icon, 23rd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Rain (again). I wonder if missing my alternating-day walk today will affect tomorrow's sitting. 

Tropical cyclone activity is not expected during the next 7 days.

Have you tried that new diarrhea lettuce yet? I hear it's all the rage.

Nearly 34,000 lightning strikes over the past week have caused fresh wildfires to break out in western Canada. As of this morning, there are 90 active wildfires in British Columbia and forests continued to ⁠burn in Ontario. 

More than 90,000 people have fled wildfires in Spain and France. Madrid has declared a national emergency and French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 30,900 acres of forest.

In happier news, Tesla’s stock fell about 13.5% yesterday in one of the biggest single-day market losses in the company’s history. The company lost about 27% of its market value as weaker-than-expected profits worry investors and soaring oil prices amp ​up inflation worries. Due to the declines in Tesla and SpaceX stock prices, Elon Musk lost his trillionaire status although, sadly, he still remains the world's wealthiest individual.

 

Day of the Icon, 22nd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): Every season in the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar has a five-day sequence of repeating day names. In Childwinter, it was the five Days of the Hammer; in spring, the season of the vernal equinox, it was the five Days of the Zenith; and in Midsommar, the season of the summer solstice, it was the five Days of Light. There are no orbital events of note during the Dogs Days, but we do have Barkley, and today is the first of the Days of the Icon.

During my third period of meditation today, the concept for a screenplay leapt fully formed into my imagination: a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It set among the REI, through-hiking community. The mise-en-scène takes advantage of the natural beauty of the southern Appalachians and contains realistic sequences of trail-hiking, climbing, and camping, along with witty repartee and clever dialogue and use of modern minimalist music in the soundtrack.

Here's the pitch - two whip-smart and clever sisters, Rosalind and Cecilia, avid outdoors enthusiasts and experienced long-distance hikers, are dismayed about a recent spate of reported violent assaults on the Appalachian Trail. For their own safety, they decide to hike a section of the trail disguised as men. Rosalind shocks Cecilia by taking a shaver to her head and shearing her long hair down to a buzz cut and, trying to think of the most macho, manly name she could come up with, decides on "Gunner" after Cecilia rejects "Butch," "Bubba," and "Rocky" as too obvious. So it's Gunner, Gunner Meade in full. Cecilia decides that a Muslim name would be intimidating and chooses "Ali," "Ali Anniya" after Rosalind rejects "Halal" as sounding too much like "Annie Hall" (note: the cross-dressing characters in As You Like It are Ganymede and Alienna). 

"Gunner" and "Ali" head out on the trail with their dog, Touchstone, tagging along with them. and reasonably pass for two young men. They come across other hikers at shelters, overlooks, and waterfalls, and their disguises hold up. However, one group of macho male hikers suspects them of being a gay couple and teases them, but one of those macho men develops a fixation on "Gunner" and eventually declares he's fallen in love ("I've never felt this way about a guy before"). A hiker from another group of openly gay hikers likewise falls in love with "Gunner," and the two competing suitors embark on a comical competition for his/her favor. 

Meanwhile, the two women, still in disguise, come across a quarrelling couple on the trail. The woman, confident in her attractiveness and quite full of herself, thinks of herself as somehow better than her partner and lets him know that, but Rosalind, as Gunnar, uses her scathing wit to put the narcissistic woman down, insulting her appearance and noting details that only another woman is likely to perceive. The woman is flabbergasted and has probably never been criticized for her looks before, and tries to challenge "Gunnar's" opinion. This ultimately leads to an attempted seduction, and the woman finds herself also in love with "Gunner" as well.

Rosalind and Ali try to keep their distance from "Gunner's" many admirers - the whole purpose of the disguises was to avoid attention! - but one or the other, or combinations of all three, keep showing up to impress and flatter "him" and outcompete the others. Ali finally announces that Gunnar has had enough, that he's made his decision on who he most likes, and will announce his preference at the next trailhead. 

As they approach the trailhead, Gunnar convinces the quarrelling couple that they're really best suited for each other - who else would put up with all their shit and bickering? In a clearing near the trailhead, she finally reveals her true identity (and gender) by stripping bare in the forest (strategically placed ferns and rhododendron keep the scene from being raunchy or exploitative) and convinces the macho hiker and the gay hiker that each one's preferences are actually best met by each other. She also reveals that she and Cecilia (Ali) are actually sisters and that theirs is actually the best and happiest friendship among all of the other hikers in the forest. As they finally reach the trailhead, an older couple, presumably their parents, lovingly greets them from a minivan. 

Cut to credits.

In lieu of paying me royalties, if you make the movie and turn a profit, you can donate money to the Benton Mackaye Association.

 

Day of the Heavy Sight, 21st of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): Am I the only one who thinks Bone-Saw Arabia enriching uranium and potentially getting a nuclear weapon could turn out poorly? Is it a radical position to be alarmed by nuclear proliferation?

But what do I know? I'm just a retired old man, quietly bidding my time until the Grim Reaper makes his inevitable call.

I got my steps in today, a walking day, with a 9-1-mile Harrison. My walk coincided with the first game of today's doubleheader between the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles, and I listened to the game on Sirius radio through headphones as I walked. The Sox won, 6-3, their fifteenth consecutive victory, tying the franchise record for longest winning streak. They lost the second game of the DH, 5-1, tonight, ending the streak. Impermanence is swift, and nothing lasts forever. But following the streak over on the sports blog the past couple of weeks sure has been fun. Congratulations, Red Sox, for tying an 80-year-old record.

I've been a Red Sox fan since at least the bicentennial year of 1976. I was in Fenway Park on September 12, 1978 when Carl Yastrzemski got his 3,000th career hit and I've still got the ticket stub to prove it (bleachers, $2.00). I wasn't in the park but I was home watching the October 2, 1978 game on television when Bucky Fucking Dent hit a bloop fly ball over the Green Monster for a home run, and the Yankees beat the Sox in a one-game divisional playoff (Yankees suck). I also remember watching Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when a ground ball passed between Bill Buckner's legs, costing the Sox the game and ultimately the series.

And I remember the good times. Few moments in sports will ever pass the excitement of Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, when the Red Sox, down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series, and having lost the third game, 19-8, won a 12-inning thriller and then the next three games to beat the Yankees, 4-3, in the series, and ultimately the World Series, their first Series title since 1918. 

I remember the subsequent World Series championships of  2007, 2013, and 2018. I remember Yaz and Jim Rice and Carlton Fisk and Freddie Lynn. I remember Nomar and Damon and Schilling and Pedro, and I remember Mookie and Big Papi. This is my 50th season cheering for this team, and even if I don't go back as far as the 1946 15-game win streak, I now have the 2026 streak to remember and cherish.

The last time I was in Fenway Park was September 17, 1989. Since then, because of where I was living, I've had season tickets to the Atlanta Braves (back in the '90s) and for one year (1993), the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the Red Sox have always been and always will be my team.

 

Rise of the Infanta, 20th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Electra): Tropical Depression Two is now officially Tropical Storm Bertha, but it's still not heading this way so I still don't care.

Having resumed my alternating-day walks yesterday once the weather finally gave me a break, I also resumed my every-other-day sitting today. I hadn't sat since the 2nd of the Dog Days, but once I started it seemed like no time at all had elapsed - I was right back there in that old familiar state, observing the self once again. A per my usual routine, I sat for three 30-minute periods, separated by two five-minute kinhin (walking meditation) breaks.

Meanwhile, forestry experts are pointing out the obvious: Canada’s forest management practices are not to blame for the current wildfires. Climate change is driving conditions that make wildfires more frequent and more intense. There are nearly 900 wildfires burning across Canada and last week Toronto had the worst air quality of any major city in the world. But as the smoke spreads south to the U.S., the Stable Genius is blaming Canada for poor forest management.

Many of the fires now burning are in remote, difficult-to-access part of Canada There are no roads within many miles of the fires, and there’s no practical way that one could ever have enough boots on the ground and enough of a financial commitment to doing management to make any kind of real difference. Further, unmanaged forests are not just a Canadian phenomenon - there are vast stretches of Alaska that have a similar lack of roads. And the U.S. has had its share of wildfires, including major ones that took place last year in California and earlier this year in South Georgia.

It’s natural for forests to go through fire cycles, but the burning and the fires today are much more severe because of increased dryness due to changes in climate.  Warmer conditions lead to drier fuels -  the warmer it is, the faster things dry, and the drier they are, the faster they burn.

As the world warms, winters are no longer cold enough to kill off tree-eating beetles. Their populations explode, leaving millions of acres of dead trees ready to burn. Warmer winters also mean less snowpack, so soil dries out earlier and the fire season runs longer. And climate change has more than doubled the frequency of hotter, drier weather across Canada and increased the frequency of the lightning strikes that spark most fires in northern Alberta and British Columbia.

Both the U.S. and Canada are major contributors to the climate-change problem, although the U.S. emits more greenhouse gases. The U.S. has emitted more carbon than any country in history - around 435 billion tonnes since the 1800s. That's close to a quarter of all the carbon humans have ever put into the air, twelve times Canada's total and 50% more than China's 285 billion tonnes. But the Stable Genius denies that climate change is happening, and his administration has rolled back climate regulations and cut funding for climate-related projects. But good lord, how he whines and points the finger at others when the results of his feckless policies come back and bite Americans in the ass.

If politicians want to clear the wildfire smoke from the sky, the most effective place to start is by cutting the emissions that are driving these fires.

 

Day of Dew, 19th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): Tropical Depression Two hasn't been named "Bertha" yet, and isn't forecast to grow into a full-blown (no pun intended) hurricane, but is still headed toward Houston so I still don't care. 

I finally got a multi-mile walk in today, a 9.9-mile Harrison, my first long walk since the Ninth of the Dog Days, and even that was a mere 5-mile Monroe. With my walking days finally back on schedule, I intend to resume my alternating-day meditation tomorrow. 

 A fun article in the journal, Nature, concludes that deaths from wildfire smoke are climate-driven and result in economic damages that exceed existing estimates of climate damages in the U.S. from all other causes combined. The research suggests that the health impacts of climate-driven wildfire smoke could be among the most important and costly consequences of a warming climate in the U.S.   

Wildfire activity has increased in the U.S. and is projected to accelerate under future climate-change scenarios, and evidence suggests that death from wildfire smoke could occur up to 3 years after exposure. Based on statistical tools and AI models, the authors project that fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke could result in 71,420 excess deaths per year by 2050 under a high-warming scenario, a 73% increase relative to the estimated 2011–2020 average annual excess deaths from smoke. Cumulative excess deaths from the smoke could reach 1.9 million between 2026 and 2055. 

But not to worry: the Stable Genius is on it. Today, he imposed 50% tariffs on most imported Canadian goods, claiming unfair discrimination against U.S. autos, alcohol, and cheese. He also asked his aides to look into additional tariffs on Canada because the wildfires hurt air quality in the U.S. The tariffs, of course, risk higher inflation here, and additional "incentives" won't stop the Canadian wildfires any sooner.  

If the Stable Genius really wanted to protect U.S. air quality, he wouldn't be starting new trade wars but instead work on new policies to reduce fossil-fuel consumption and increase renewable energy, but who am I kidding? He's not doing that!

 

Day of the Temple, 18th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor): Because of the weather, I haven't walked since the 13th of the Dog Days, and even that was cut short at a 1.9-mile Washington because of approaching storms. I haven't sat since the 2nd of the Dog Days, because I haven't felt like it. 

The storm system off of the Florida panhandle in the Gulf of Mexico is now officially Tropical Depression Two. It has a number, but not yet a name. However, I don't care. The forecasts have it tracking not toward Atlanta, but toward Houston, Texas. Let Gregg Abbott and Ken Paxton worry about Two - knowing them, one will try to pray it away and the other will demand a bribe. One of these days, a real rain will come and wash away all the garbage and trash - nazis, neo-cons, maggats, proud boys, oath keepers, tea-baggers, white christian nationalists . . . sick, venal. Someday, the rain will wash all the scum off the streets. 

The new plagues are Canadian wildfire smoke and diarrhea lettuce, replacing locusts, frogs, and boils. I could add tropical depressions, political advertising, AI bots on social media, and Marvel movies - all harbingers of End Times.

How's your summer going?     

      

 

Master of the Relics, 17th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): According to CNBC, Georgia is the fifth worst state in the U.S. to live in. Fuck CNBC. That don't know what they're talking about.

The four worst states, in order, are Tennessee, Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana, and I can agree that they're all worse than Georgia although I could dispute the exact order. After Georgia, they rank Utah, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. I would rather live in Georgia than any of those other nine states.

Vermont was ranked No. 1, and cool, if you can afford it. Maine was ranked No. 2, so I guess they like it cold, and New Jersey was ranked No. 3 if you can believe it. That about says all one needs to know about CNBC's credibility. I'd rather live in No. 45 Georgia than No. 3 New Jersey, and I should know - I graduated high school in New Jersey. Here in Georgia, at least we can pump our own gas.   

Georgia was ranked low primarily because of its lack of protections for the LGBTQ+ community and therefore lack of inclusiveness. Fair point, but I doubt the CNBC pollsters ever visited the large and vibrant gay community in Midtown Atlanta. There have been several openly gay politicians in Atlanta, including on the City Council, and on both sides of the political aisle at that.     

Georgia was ranked No. 7 by CNBC for "States to Do Business In," and won high marks for its infrastructure, workforce, and access to capital. Now, I recognize "business friendly" is not the same as "quality of life," and can sometimes mean the exact opposite. I also recognize the implications and perils implicit in Georgia's "religious freedom" laws and am angry over the State's restrictive abortion laws, but life here in Atlanta isn't all submissiveness to Bible-thumping bigots and hordes of unwed mothers. It may be different OTP (Outside the Perimeter), but Atlanta's still by far the largest metropolis in the state and holds a significant percentage of the State's population. 

I'm retired and don't have family here in Georgia. I can literally live anywhere in the U.S. I choose, and I choose to stay here in Georgia. Low cost of living, friendly people, lots of stuff to do. Not to mention the best goddamn barbeque in the country. 

CNBC doesn't know what they're talking about. But I can't help but notice that all ten of the worst states are red states with Republican governors, so I'll give them that.