(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)
Long ago, I gave up on the current state of Texas and its current state government. It’s become the national laboratory for terrible ideas, and it seems to be proud of that accomplishment. By and large, it has determined that a certain percentage of its citizens are not worth the bother of keeping alive. And its most important politicians are uniquely awful even by today’s standards. And they are uniquely terrible at doing their jobs. From the Houston Chronicle:
More than 860,000 CenterPoint customers were still without power four days after Hurricane Beryl struck the Texas coast, according to the company’s website Friday afternoon. In an update Thursday night, the company said it expects to restore power to 80% of affected customers by the end of the day Sunday.
Governor Greg Abbott left the state last Friday just ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Beryl. He was off on a trade mission to the Pacific Rim in Asia.
Abbott provided an update Friday, the day of his departure, on the state’s preparations for Beryl, including a severe weather disaster declaration and the increased readiness level for the State Emergency Operations Center. “I remain in daily contact with Acting Governor Patrick, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and other state officials to ensure Texas swiftly deploys all resources needed to help Texans as heavy rainfall, flooding conditions, and strong tropical wind are expected to impact multiple regions of the state,” Abbott said in that Friday update.
Swell, said many of his constituents.
Houston is also coping with a heat index in the triple digits. So between the storm and the heat wave, the city is suffering badly from the climate crisis in which so many of its politicians, including Governor Abbott, don’t believe. From Time:
In March, Abbott vowed to “…exclude renewables from any revived economic incentive program,” and introduced five bills that would lower support for wind and solar projects and, worse, force renewable energy to subsidize fossil fuel expansion. (Of course, it should be acknowledged that the mayors of Texas’s biggest cities are well aware of the climate threat. Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, for example, is chair emeritus of Climate Mayors, an association of mayors organized to promote climate action.)
In order to strengthen Texas’s infrastructure in the face of climate change, the state must raise and extend the sea wall that protects Galveston from hurricanes and storm surges. Estimated to cost over $34 billion, this would be the most expensive project in the history of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for overseeing these types of civil works projects around the country. And Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn want all U.S. taxpayers—not just Texas residents—to foot most of this bill.
I know what you’re thinking, and I’m thinking it, too. But that would make us just as bad as Greg Abbott, and none of us want that.
This may come as a shock to you, but here’s a video of Sen. Susan Collins being useless. From WGME:
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) says she will not vote for her party’s nominee, former president Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election. Collins says instead, she will vote for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who finished second to Trump in the Republican primary. When asked why, Sen. Collins said, “Because she’s still my favorite candidate, and I think she could do a great job.”
Scoop! Susan Collins is voting for Donald Trump.
Weekly WWOZ Pick to Click: “Blues for the Enslaved” (Emmett Goods): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Here, from 1942, is the rescue of stranded British military personnel from a grounded Pan Am jet in Africa, one step ahead of the Vichy French. Considering this is amateur footage, I think the narrator is being a little snotty there in the beginning. I assume Captain Reynaud was elsewhere, rounding up the usual suspects. History is so cool.
Here’s Sen. Tommy Tuberville, being useless.
Proud to announce that the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Project will be receiving a $550 million grant from the Department of Transportation
You voted against the bill, brainiac.
Apparently, as part of the set decoration for its convention next week, the GOP has renamed Herb Kohl Avenue outside Fiserv Forum “Donald J. Trump Avenue.” Herb Kohl kept the Bucks in Milwaukee and thus is responsible for the presence of Giannis Antetokounmpo in that city. DJT bankrupted an entire football league because he is a dolt. Get your street out of Herb Kohl’s mouth, Donny.
Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From Popular Mechanics:
Archaeologists in southwestern Bulgaria have spent the early part of July excavating a 6-foot-8 marble statue of Hermes, a god of Greek mythology, that they found in an ancient Roman sewer. “I suppose the town’s former inhabitants put it in the dirt of this site after the great 4th century earthquake to better preserve one of their old deities during a period when Christianity was already the official religion,” said Lyudmil Vagalinski, head of excavations, in a post on Archaeologia Bulgaria’s Facebook page. The mix of dirt and, well, other organic matter, evidently provided conditions that kept the statue exceptionally preserved.
Okay, archaeologists. Your job now entails digging around in ancient septic systems. Howard Carter meets Roto-Rooter. Also, Hermes is pretty damn nekkid there, which would have enraged Christians to no end. Once they get him cleaned up, expect some American preacher to drape a caftan on him when he comes here on loan.
Hey, WRAL (via WSVN), is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!
The new dinosaur, Fona herzogae, lived 99 million years ago in what is now Utah. At that time, the area was a large floodplain ecosystem sandwiched between the shores of a massive inland ocean to the east and active volcanoes and mountains to the west. It was a warm, wet, muddy environment with numerous rivers running through it. Paleontologists from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences unearthed the fossil—and other specimens from the same species, beginning in 2013. Fona is described as a seven-foot-long, burrow dwelling and plant-eating dinosaur. Evidence shows the newly discovered species spent at least part of their time in underground burrows.
Holy Mole Rats, a dinosaur underground!
The burrowing is what makes this dinosaur so special, according to Haviv Avrahami, a Ph.D. student at N.C. State and digital technician for the new Dueling Dinosaurs program at the Museum of Natural Sciences. “It’s incredibly rare,” Avrahami said. “It’s only been identified as a behavior in one closely related species.” Avrahami, the first author of a paper describing Fona, said scientists are confident it was a burrower for a number of reasons, including the shape of its bones—especially its robust hind legs. “Its feet are also freakishly large for the size of its body and would’ve helped it kick dirt out of its home,” Avrahami said.
Dig we must, because they lived then, and they lived everywhere, to make us happy now.
Speaking of mole creatures, I’ll be back on Monday live from Milwaukee for whatever fresh hell awaits me in my old college town. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake line. Wear the damn mask. Take the damn shots, especially the boosters, and especially the most recent boosters. Watch out for the damn bird flu. And spare a moment for the all the good people suffering in the unprecedented heat, and also those people in south Florida and east Texas, which are now lagoons only Martha-Ann Alito could love, and the people in similar peril in the upper Midwest, and in Mexico, and for the people of Iowa and across the Plains states who have been living under the gun of all the tornadoes, especially the folks in Texas, who are staring down the barrel again this weekend. And for the people of Baltimore, and for the people of Israel and of Gaza, the people of Ukraine, of Lewiston, Maine, and for the victims of monkeypox in the Republic of the Congo, and of the earthquake zones in Taiwan, Iraq, Turkey, Morocco, and Colombia, and in the flood zone in Libya, and the flood zones all across the Ohio Valley, and on the Horn of Africa, and in Tanzania and Kenya, and in the English midlands, and in Virginia, and in Texas and Louisiana, and in California, and the flood zones of Indonesia, and in the storm-battered south of Georgia, and in Kenya, and in the flood areas in Dubai (!) and in Pakistan, and in the flood zones in Russia and Kazakhstan, and in the flood zones in Iran, where loose crocodiles are becoming a problem, and in the flood zones on Oahu, and in the fire zones in Oregon, and western Canada, and Australia, and in north Texas, and in Lahaina, where they’re still trying to recover their lives, and under the volcano in Iceland, and for the gun-traumatized folks in Austin and at UNLV, and in Philadelphia, and in Perry, Iowa, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting.
