It's too damn hot!

In the last 48 hours:

Rome beat its all time temperature record by a whole two degrees Celsius.

China beat its all time temperature record by almost two degrees Celsius.

Death Valley narrowly missed the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

And there's more to come... pic.twitter.com/0F7nYHvQWE

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) July 18, 2023

At Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick writes: The New Culture War Issue Will Literally Just Be Ignoring How Hot It Is 

I suppose it shouldn’t shock me that right-wing influencers are acting like extreme heat isn’t actually that extreme. It’s sort of the entire philosophy behind climate change denial. 

But I guess I just assumed that if the weather became extreme enough, at the very least, we could all agree that it was, in fact, extreme. 

 About three years ago, Atlantic writer Charlie Warzel tweeted something that has always stuck with me. In regards to the then still-emerging coronavirus outbreak, Warzel wrote, “The coronavirus scenario I can’t stop thinking about is the one where we simply get used to all the dying. There’s a national precedent: America’s response to gun violence.” He was, of course, right about that. 

But I think he inadvertently summed up America’s national response to pretty much every large-scale systemic crisis we’re bound to face going forward. The weather’s going to keep getting worse and the right-wing media ecosystem will downplay or outright deny it, and, more often than not, they’ll find ways to tie the acknowledgement of it to definitions of masculinity. 

And just like the folks who thought they could ride out the pandemic without a vaccine or masks because they were tough, only to end up on ventilators, so too will a lot of folks get hurt trying to man up and ignore the rising temperatures. 

And here we go:

🚨NEWS: Amid record-breaking heat, Republicans are introducing legislation to block any president from declaring a climate emergency.

Fossil fuel donors funneled more than $5 million to the bill sponsors — and some of the lawmakers are oil/gas investors. https://t.co/l5p4GblIS0

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) July 19, 2023

Sock it to me!

A lot of people don't know as well that the young man makes a pair with Trudeau on them. With Justin's permission. Liberals need to start talking about these things. If Justin won't brag, we should.

— Lonney Butler (@ButlerLonney) July 16, 2023

Trudeau gets hammered day after day, across Canada, for everything from Port of Vancouver trucker policies (which were actually introduced by Harper) to Lac-Mégantic land expropriation. 

But he keeps on just being Trudeau, wearing his funny socks. 

Maybe that's what drives some people nuts -- that their hatred doesn't faze him.

Here is the latest -- a video of Trudeau sitting with some guy in Calgary, patiently explaining the complexity of federal-provincial education jurisdiction, right-wing conspiracy theories, and the importance of supporting LBGT rights while respecting Muslim parents: 

 "Its not a buffet...we will stand up for everybody's rights." 

This is a clip of what Trudeau said -- just ignore the right wing media commentary:

Watch Trudeau’s mind at work here. It’s not just his message. It’s his courage of his convictions. Of OUR convictions. Canadian convictions… in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The best in the free world. #Cdnpoli #HumanRights #CharterOfRights #Ableg https://t.co/lwCt4Zk5zJ

— Paul Stewart II (@PaulStewartII) July 14, 2023

"The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces..."

 

Sad news this week - both the LA Times and the New York Times are making radical changes to reduce their sports coverage.

Between this and the LA Times eliminating agate and box scores etc. what’s the point anymore? Those are two places we always pointed to as the top of the mountain in the industry and they’re husks now. Don’t be a sportswriter, kids. Do literally anything else with your life. https://t.co/Y3wMmPXOHJ

— Tom Bragg (@TomBraggSports) July 10, 2023

At Defector, Ray Ratto writes The Slow Hemorrhage of the American Sports Desk:

Across the country, papers are cutting back their last deadlines to pre-dinner hours so that the annoyance of night sporting events and their coverage can be eliminated, and the new enemy of profitability is the people who used to fill those pages.

If reducing drag is the heart of efficiency, the Times is the first to give in to the logical extension of this philosophy. If one could be sure The Athletic would actually broaden the Times' coverage, then this move might be defensible journalistically, but The Athletic has never been about reimagining anything. It just tried to out-newspaper newspapers, making writers hope their beats wouldn't suck so that they might get enough clicks to sell enough subscriptions to imagine themselves central to the business. And making the talent worry about the business is always a dangerous strategy, because it allows the business people to fail and blame it on someone other than themselves.

....nobody will remember the business thugs who did today's deed because they thrive in the anonymity of the best hitmen. They might remember some of the people they read and enjoyed and learned from, but that's not what a newspaper is anymore. It's just another way to explain late-stage capitalism: eating the people who do the work and replacing them with fewer and cheaper ones.

Pictured: LA Times Sports editors takes their 'new layout highlights (and) best, most ambitious sports journalism' out for a spin. pic.twitter.com/H23VFEBjkU

— gprowler (@gprowler) July 10, 2023

This is why I love sports:

Joey Batts' bat flip, when he hits the go-ahead three-run shot in ALDS Game 5https://t.co/piLO0IYFzC via @YouTube

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) July 12, 2023

Read the whole thread - its great. 

Roundup: Hot and bothered

The news from all over is challenging this week. First up, I think I'm very glad I don't live in the southern US - hotter than Hades this week.

Overseas the weather is no better. This video falls into the Holy Shit! category:

🔴 INFO - #Espagne : #Inondations massives après de fortes #pluies à #Saragosse hier. #flood #flooding pic.twitter.com/JXxZQ3g3sM

— FranceNews24 (@FranceNews24) July 7, 2023

According to the Weather Channel coverage, nobody died.

Absolutely brilliant. Person approaches flood in little Red car, sees identical little red car floating, driver continues believing this will not affect them. Sums up people's views on climate change perfectly. https://t.co/flmhAIPQZm

— Jon (@Jontafkasi) July 9, 2023

Weekend funny stuff: from Monty Python to Mary Simon; and dogs of course

First, I haven't seen one of these funny twisted Threads for a long time -- its when someone asks a "question" on twitter and everyone replies with the wrong answers:

Folks, listen, this has been bothering me all day. I’m trying to remember a sketch and I can’t figure out who did it.

Here’s the set-up: a guy walks into an office and asks for an argument, which he pays the pretty lady for, then he argues with a guy. Funny!

Anyone seen this?

— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) July 3, 2023

A bunch of people took her seriously at first -- of course, she's talking about the Argument Clinic in Monty Python - but then everyone caught on and started posting this kind of stuff:

That wasn't a "sketch." It was an episode of the Twilight Zone. The argument ended up being over a cookbook or something.

— Michael G. @deepwatermike@mastodon.social Bazemore (@deepwatermike) July 3, 2023

It was at a poker game, with guys arguing over the lyrics to Blinded By the Light. It was performed by The Bert Fershners on their show, The State, with Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello. It aired on HBO.

— John Dortmunder (@prolly_knott) July 3, 2023

Pretty sure it’s the opening sketch for ‘The West Wing’

— PersephoneC 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 (@PersephoneC) July 3, 2023

Can't finish without posting the real sketch:  

"I am down to be common. Bring home the chill. Yo. "

In a desperate attempt to try to demonstrate relevancy as a prospective Prime Minister, Pierre Poilievre is adopting sun glasses and t-shirts to give himself a new look -- Canadian commentators are giving #PoilievreMakeover about as much respect as it deserves:

As you can see, not only am I not wearing my prescription glasses anymore, but like many of the common people do, I am also sporting a very casual blazer over a T-shirt look along with this brand new pair of Joe Fresh sunnies. I am down to be common. Bring home the chill. Yo. pic.twitter.com/WFPv1E4Q84

— Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions (@mynamesnotgordy) July 1, 2023

What's interesting about Pierre Poilievre's makeover is that he's managed to make himself look older than he looked before.

— Ann Bibby (@anniegirl1138) June 30, 2023

I’m not sure this makeover is working. #poilievre pic.twitter.com/CUZTlgguWT

— Canteach (@canteach) June 30, 2023

Isn’t the Poilievre makeover just an admission he’s an odious asshole? @CPC_HQ is telling us all how unlikeable this guy is and their desperation to change his drag on their electoral chances. They will hide him during the campaign too, just watch. #cdnpoli

— Steve V 🍁 IAMCANADIAN 🍁 (@FarAndWide) June 30, 2023

I recall when the CPC Party photoshopped pictures of Erin O'Toole to make him appear "fit" when he was in freefall. Now they have given Pierre Poilievre a makeover and voice change. They are not a serious political party and do not have anything to offer.

— Tom Whittaker (@whittakertp) June 30, 2023

The problem with Poilievre's makeover is that it's not addressing his main deficit.

Justin isn't conventionally handsome, nor was his father. He has charisma, as his father had. Different thing entirely.

Diefenbaker, though no matinée idol, also had it. Poilievre never will.

— James Christian Parsons (@Dred_Tory) June 30, 2023

Happy Canada Day!

 

Dear America. Send us your 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. All of them. We will send you our Conservatives. All of them.
Love,
Canada

— @JohnBeggs (@dbeggs13) July 1, 2023

It’s not every day I get emails from a Canadian International Ambassador asking if they can play my video at their Canada Day celebrations… but it is today. https://t.co/prWwmkwKaa

— Brittlestar (@brittlestar) June 29, 2023

 

Perfect Game

There is nothing in sports like the Perfect Game in Baseball:

27 up. 27 down.

The 24th perfect game in AL/NL history belongs to Domingo Germán. pic.twitter.com/SyUJb0cKm6

— MLB (@MLB) June 29, 2023

A team effort:

Anthony Rizzo saved the perfect game with this play. This guy never gets the real respect he deserves for being as great a first baseman as he is. pic.twitter.com/O96gm2MgEZ

— roseanne ✨ (@hoodierizz) June 29, 2023

Don Larsen to Yogi Berra in 1956
David Wells to Jorge Posada in 1998
David Cone to Joe Girardi in 1999

…and now Domingo German to
Kyle Higashioka in 2023 pic.twitter.com/V8mz0wGl2l

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 29, 2023

But actually, German's game was the 25th perfect game in history, not the 24th:

Major League Ball @MLB needs to cancel that bad umpire call and recognize Armando Galarraga's achievement. #GalarragaPerfectGame

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) June 29, 2023

Random moments: from journalism to history to spiders to poetry

First, let me just mention how appalling it is that journalism is joining the gig-economy as more journalists basically have to become independent contractors.

I know, I know - independence, having their own voice, and all that. But as more and more media outlets fail to get enough advertisers or subscribers to survive being owned by rich predators or predatory hedge funds or whatever, and as more and more journalists have to start flogging their own Substacks, people are starting to notice:

Anyone connecting the dots between the simultaneous dismantling of corporate & local media, the scuttling of the digital public square (Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) & the increasing decline of online search tools into ‘sponsored content’ distributors?

— Alison Creekside (@CreeksideAlison) June 28, 2023

More terrific journalists, losing their jobs.... https://t.co/muOa7mco9D

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) June 28, 2023

Meanwhile, journalism is still being committed somewhere, but just not here:

Not a peep about any of this in Canadian newspapers or electronic media since the pack moved on to passport pics, China smears, convoy hyping and all the rest. Meanwhile, the lawsuit against Canadaland in Toronto grinds on, too. #reckoning https://t.co/TnZcjv5UdB

— Mark Bourrie (@MarkBourrie) June 28, 2023

"SLAPP" by the way, means Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation -- I had to look it up.

So what's the Right Wing up to now? A survey from Poilievre to RFK to Jan 6 to yoga

First, a little Poilievre-bashing, because why not?

I'm a Liberal voter now. Is PMJT perfect in my eyes? NO.

But if the best that you can provide is Pierre Poilievre as an option, Jesus fucking Christ.

Pass.

— Roddy (@RodKahx) June 27, 2023

To Little Peter Popinjay’s horror, right wing UK newspaper lauds Trudeau government’s management of our 🇨🇦economy.
🙂🙂🙂
⁦@PierrePoilievre⁩ #cdnpoli https://t.co/LeF4KKab1L

— David Hamer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇨🇦 (@DavidHamer_1951) June 27, 2023

Nik Nanos advice to Pierre Poilievre this morning

Go Into Hiding

Everytime he appears on TV - his numbers go down#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/e41HmIE5HU

— G.T. Lem 林 家 聰 (@gtlem) June 26, 2023

His tactics and tone are terrible but his ethics are the real problem. He appears to have none.

— Pamela Banting, PhD (@PamelaBanting) June 25, 2023

Today's edition of "Christ, what an asshole!"

Today's edition of Christ What An Asshole is American cycling cheater Lance Armstrong, who wrote a widely-read anti-trans tweet thread this weekend which has been universally panned. 

Lance Armstrong is so banned from sports that the IOC can legally call in an airstrike on his location if he joins a game of pickleball, but he's here to let you know that me playing ladies' beer league hockey is a grotesque mockery of fairness in competition https://t.co/QlEA5xsJQN

— victoria scott (nsx-pilled era) (@mikurubaeahina) June 25, 2023

If Lance Armstrong actually believed people are pretending to be trans to cheat at sports, he would have tried it already

— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) June 25, 2023

Best headline here:

“Notorious cheater Lance Armstrong has some thoughts on fairness in sports” is there a Pulitzer for best headline because @JulieDiCaro should win. https://t.co/KhS6LGDnqL

— Farrah Khan (@farrahsafiakhan) June 26, 2023

And here is the entire Deadspin article:

Lance Armstong, a cisgender man and notorious cheater with, as far as I can tell, no training in anything related to endocrinology, biology, or gender affirming care, has some thoughts on the fairness of transgender women competing in women’s sports. On a related note, irony died today.

Armstrong took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the “debate” over trans women competing in sports against cisgender women. If you’re wondering what Lance Amstrong could possibly add to a bullshit “conversation” that is designed to distract from actual problems and is leading to the marginalization of trans kids across the country, you’re not alone.

Not with a bang, but a whimper

Sounds like the one-day Russia Civil War remained pretty civil and wasn't much of a war. 

In his Saturday Balloon Juice column, Adam Silverman writes War for Ukraine Day 486: Da Fuq They Doin Ova Der? Part II

...The charges against Prigozhin are cancelled. Supposedly guarantees were given regarding Wagner and its ability to continue. Prigozhin is supposedly headed to Minsk, but who knows how long that lasts if it happens at all. He’s got air bases in Libya, Latakia in Syria, Mali, and he completely controls the Central African Republic on behalf of Putin’s and Russia’s Africa strategy. And he’s got his own Ilyushins to transport his personnel, equipment, and material around. I’ve seen lots of speculation that Shoigu was to be arrested and charged as part of this deal, but that doesen’t seem to have happened.

What we actually watched was about 36 hours of a true, albeit quite limited, civil war, not a coup. A challenge was made for the rule of Russia. It was well planned, and appeared to be long planned, and Prigozhin’s forces appeared to be making progress towards Moscow. I expect that whatever it was that Putin told Lukashenko to say to Prigozhin will eventually leak out. And then we’ll have a better idea of what the carrots and sticks were that brought this to an end. The only part of this that isn’t surprising is that it ended with a negotiated settlement...

My professional take is that this is not over. ... Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries embarrassed the Russian military, security services, and police forces. I’ve written repeatedly that Putin will be strong and in control and look strong and in control until he is not. Over the past 36 hours or so he has not looked strong and in control.

What is happening in Russia?

To be clear – so far there is no evidence of anything happening beyond Prigozhin's voice memos and various official statements.

Wheeling the generals out, or mentioning Prigozhin on TV, is highly unusual. That suggests it's serious – whatever *it* is. But we have seen *nothing*

— max seddon (@maxseddon) June 23, 2023

So nobody knows what's happening, really, but here's some expert opinion: From Tom Nichols at The Atlantic, A Crisis Erupts in Russia:

A simmering political feud in Russia has exploded into a crisis. The head of a Russian mercenary army fighting in Ukraine alongside Moscow’s official military forces has declared war against the Russian ministry of defense,...

Think of this conflict not as a contest between the Russian state and a mercenary group, but a falling out among gangsters, a kind of Mafia war.

A government doing a lot of bad things in the world can make great use of a cadre of hardened and nasty mercenaries, and Prigozhin has been making his bones for years as a tough guy leading other tough guys, ultranationalist patriots who care more about Mother Russia than the supposedly lazy and corrupt bureaucrats in Moscow. The Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, is led by a political survivor named Sergei Shoigu, who has managed to stay in the Kremlin in one capacity or another since 1991. Shoigu never served in the Soviet or Russian military, yet affects the dress and mannerisms of a martinet.

...A full-scale civil conflict—for now—seems unlikely, if only because Prigozhin has no institutional base and no major force beyond his fighters, who are a pretty unsavory bunch.

...Right now, none of this looks organized enough to be a coup. But coups sometimes look ridiculous in the offing—the 1991 coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a complete clown show—so the possibility remains that Prigozhin has friends in Moscow who are working with him.

...So far, tonight’s chaos does not seem to involve the U.S., NATO, or even Ukraine, but a fight among Russian gangsters, in part over whether Russia is being brutal enough in a war of unprovoked aggression, is something to watch.

...no matter how this ends, Prigozhin has shattered Putin’s narrative, torching the war as a needless and even criminal mistake. That’s a problem for Putin that could outlast this rebellion.

🚨 Wagner PMC tanks have surrounded the Defence Ministry building in Rostov-on-Don pic.twitter.com/EgcFPbjDi5

— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) June 24, 2023

Happy National Indigenous Peoples Day!

Here is the CBC coverage of Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations in Saskatoon and Regina today. Other events of the day:

The Survivors’ Flag is a symbol of courage, community and remembrance to those impacted by the residential school system.#GGSimon was in attendance at #ParliamentHill this morning as it was raised to mark #NationalIndigenousPeoplesDay. #NIPD pic.twitter.com/hYBnk9pp9t

— Governor General of Canada (@GGCanada) June 21, 2023

#Beauty up close thru the lens of #indigenous #artist #MDjaouhar #MDjaouharphotography. Beauty through #tradition with so much more at: https://t.co/ZovE7vUdnX

Reminder: #notyourmascot #wearestillhere #PhotographyIsArt #photographyislife pic.twitter.com/D4Z0rEVXfj

— Jonathan Hawk (@ambient_techno) June 21, 2023

Forgiving our fathers

Forgiving Our Fathers 

Author: Dick Laurie, amended by Sherman Alexie 

How do we forgive our Fathers? 

Maybe in a dream 

Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever 

when we were little? 

Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage 

or making us nervous 

because there never seemed to be any rage there at all. 

Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers? 

For divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers? 

And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? 

Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning 

for shutting doors 

for speaking through walls 

or never speaking 

or never being silent? 

Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs 

or their deaths 

saying it to them or not saying it? 

If we forgive our Fathers what is left?