Mon: Real Breaking News. SCOTUS Ruled Against Big Oil.

Breaking News! Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera is Still Dead

The remains of a fascist leader whose movement supported Gen. Franco’s dictatorship were dug up and reburied on Monday, reigniting Spain's debate over its complex past and enraging far-right activists.

The Spanish government ordered the exhumation of the body of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, who founded the fascist Falange movement, from its resting place in an enormous mountainside mausoleum 40 miles from the capital, Madrid. He was then reburied at a city cemetery in a private family ceremony.

The move — carried out as a small group of sympathizers chanted and gave fascist salutes — is part of an effort to prevent the glorification of the country's totalitarian past, which comes as the far-right seeks political breakthroughs across Europe.

It follows the exhumation of General Franco’s remains from the same place — previously known as the Valley of the Fallen — in 2019, after he was originally buried there on his death in 1975. The site was partly built with forced prison labor to commemorate the fascist victory in the civil war and for many the site represents the horrors of the war and Franco's subsequent dictatorship.

Hasn't Anyone on SCOTUS Watched a Lifetime Movie?

Stalking is not a joke, and SCOTUS should know that.

John Roberts showed his unfitness for his job this week when he drew laughter from the gallery while reading messages from a stalker for comedic effect.

In the case of Counterman v. Colorado, a woman received thousands of unwanted messages from Billy Raymond Counterman, who had previously served time in federal prison for making violent threats against his ex-wife and her family. For her, the cost of escaping two years of terror was changing her name, giving up her successful performing career, and moving to another state.

After Thomas’s levity. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett went on to reflect that society has become overly sensitive, with the implication that the victim’s perceptions were somehow at fault. This is willfully obtuse, as stalking constitutes a pattern of threatening behavior, not protected “free speech.”

This is rich coming from some of the most thin-skinned folks around (looking at you, Kavanaugh), whose privileged position ensures that any threat made against them is taken “extraordinarily seriously.”

The Seven Deadly Front Lines

Russia is operating along seven axes that could determine how Ukraine will carry out its anticipated counteroffensive, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

With growing speculation over the next move of Kyiv's forces next move is, the United States-based think tank outlined how Russian troops were engaged in five offensive operations.

These operations were in Lupyansk, Luhansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka-Donetsk City, and western Donetsk/eastern Zaporizhia. Russian defensive operations were taking place in the western Zaporizhia Oblast and Kherson Oblast axes, the ISW said on Sunday.

How Russia's Seven Front Lines Shape Up for Ukraine's Counteroffensive

Wet Bulb May Not Sound Scary, But It Is.

I think that a lot of the scare discussion around ocean levels is because it’s relatively simple to understand. More complex things, like arguing about the accuracy of certain climate models, is just too easily sidetracked into a sea of “mights” and “maybes.”

What’s going to kill us worst?

-Losing Florida
-The collapse of agriculture due to heat
-The collapse of agriculture due to drought
-The collapse of fisheries due to anoxic zones
-The collapse and death of people due to unsurvivable heat

Well, obviously the answer is “all of the above” but focusing on whether New York City will be uninhabitable in 100 years is letting the disaster off easily. Yes, there will be displacement, money lost, migrants started, etc., in the flooding scenario but that’s not what scares me. And, what scares me is going to happen, sooner rather than later, and everyone is going to be shocked and freaked out in spite of decades of warnings.

The problem is simple: humans can’t survive at temperatures above 35C/95F. In 6 hours, you’re dead. We don’t normally experience temperatures that high, because our body has evaporative cooling systems (AKA: “sweat”) that can cool us even in higher temperatures so long as the humidity is low enough that evaporation is fast, and we stay hydrated.

Of course this is going to kill a lot of poor, brown people.

There are individual spots—including shorelines along the Persian Gulf and river valleys in India and Pakistan—had crossed the 35°C wet bulb threshold, though only for an hour or two at a time. And in 2017, wet bulb conditions topped 30°C 1000 times—more than double the number in 1979, they write today in Science Advances.

Weather stations in several other places stood out. They include Mexican towns near the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California, and the coastal city of San Francisco in Venezuela. Areas in the Caribbean, West Africa, and southern China also had extreme readings. Weather stations in these places recorded approximately 1000 incidents registering at 31°C, while the wet bulb temperature broke 33°C about 80 times, according to the researchers.

As Amitav Ghosh mentioned in The Great Derangement, Calcutta and Mumbai are prone to heat and humidity. They are also impossible to evacuate because there’s simply too many people and noplace to go. They are one heat wave or cyclone away from being a mass casualty event. By mass casualty I mean tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands.

This May Be Fiction, As of Today.  Tomorrow?  Who Knows?

Fred turned to Billy, “This is gonna own the hell outta the libs. They’re gonna be screaming and shouting for reform and socialism. Ha!” He took a swig of beer and handed Billy the rifle, “here.” It was a big heavy hunting rifle chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum, and Fred had loaded it with Accelerator sabot rounds that would leave the gun with a ridiculous muzzle velocity over 3500 feet/second. Billy took it reverently, as any proper gun nut would, “we coulda brought the .50 cal” he muttered. “Nah, the FBI tracks those.” He pointed down at the power distribution substation, “OK, you wanna hit the grey-painted vertical targets. From here that’ll be easy.” Billy laid the rifle in and fired. There was a massive shower of sparks and flame as the bullet tore through the insulating jacket around the transformer, and the transformer briefly turned into an arc welding torch before it melted and the power grid shunted the current away. Billy handed the rifle to Fred, who shot another couple transformers for good measure.

“Awright, let’s get outta here,” Billy said, wrapping the rifle as Fred started the truck. “We gotta go around to the other side of town and hit the other one, next.”

Tucson, Arizona, was already baking in the heat, but the air conditioning in the truck’s cab made it tolerable even though the compressor was working hard. Fred punched the gas and the truck roared off down the dusty access road.

What Fred and Billy didn’t realize was that they were taking Tucson off the grid right before an exceptional heat-wave rolled through that would stay for days. The people in town with big pickup trucks and extended gas tanks would be able to hit the road and head to another town that had power. Of those left behind, some had generators, but the fuel wouldn’t last more than a day, generally, whereas the heat wave was going to last a week. The airport was already closed because it’s dangerous to operate jet aircraft when the fuel is so hot – fire and explosion are a real possibility. Meanwhile, Fred and Billy had just exceeded the replacement capacity of transformers for the local area. Tucson was going to swelter in uninhabitable heat for a week, and the dying was going to start the next day.