"Polls. All of them."

Great Ghu. This election has truly gone down the rabbit hole. I would really like to crawl under the covers and hide until November 8, but unfortunately I can't.

The meltdown at Trump Tower on Election Night is going to make Karl Rove's denial of reality when Barack Obama took Ohio in 2012 look like a roadside picnic.

Buckle your seat belt, folks. We're in for a bumpy ride.

"A Bog of Stagnant Mediocrity"

As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.   ~Hunter S. Thompson

Sometimes I think Charlie Pierce is the Last Journalist Standing.

Perception is perception and reality is reality and, if they don't match up, then it is the job of journalism not to accept the perception as the reality, but to hammer home the reality until the perception conforms to this.

I once suggested that Rachel Maddow should be the new host for NBC's Meet the Press, but hell, Charlie should get it. This one sentence should shame David Gregory right out of Washington.

The Bell Tolls For Thee

This was on the front page of today's Arizona Republic.

Phoenix summer was hottest ever: 3 months of misery wasn't all in your head

The story explained the average temperature in Phoenix from June through August was 95.1 degrees. This was followed by a little table listing the five hottest summers on record, dating from 1895.

The four hottest summers were 2013, 2011, 2007 and 2002.

Coincidence, I'm sure.

What I found interesting about this story (and not in a good way) is that the words "climate change" were never mentioned, and there was only a brief one-sentence quote in the story from a climate scientist.

The story also includes this, almost as a throwaway.

It wasn’t just Phoenix that simmered this summer. It was the fifth-hottest summer worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880, and the 15th-hottest in the United States, Crouch said. Most of the hotter areas were in the West.

Nationwide, the numbers reflect a warming trend of 1 degree over the past century. In Arizona, the increase has been about 2 degrees, he said.

It is a thoroughly irresponsible lapse in journalism to write these facts and not provide the explanation behind them--namely, that global warming is taking place, and humans are the cause.

Nonsense like this is why nothing will be done, and humans will continue their slide into the abyss, taking the planet with them.

"Restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.   ~Khalil Gibran

This should be posted in every police department in the country.

And please don't feed me that shit about "women taking precautions." We need to work towards a world where women don't have to take precautions, and rapists are prosecuted.

This should be everyone's goal.

"Men argue. Nature acts."

The images coming out of Moore, Oklahoma are just incredible.

51 people dead (as of this writing). A mile-wide swath of destruction. At least an EF-4 in strength, perhaps an EF-5. 200+ mph winds.

And even after this, there will still be assholes who deny the reality of climate change.

And In Other Holiday News...

This is why I didn't have turkey today.

"Today is June 6, 2012"

Well. This is sad. 

Author Ray Bradbury Dies at 91

On my Delicious account, I just linked to the poem that inspired one of his best stories, "There Will Come Soft Rains." (The story can be found here.) Written in 1950, it's an old-fashioned kind of science-fiction story, perhaps, but Bradbury's unique, iconoclastic style cannot be mistaken. 

It's too bad we don't have the future he wrote about (except for the nuclear holocaust, obviously). I could think of a lot worse things than living in Bradbury country. 

"A maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason"

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings."  ~Franklin Thomas

I cannot believe a person like this would ever be considered for any form of elective office.

White Supremacist With Ties To Neo-Nazi Groups Elected To Pennsylvania County GOP Committee

And what party elected him, pray tell? Need you even ask?

Read the accompanying article from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's chilling.

In my darker moments, I think this country is headed for a second Civil War...one the South has a very good chance of winning.

The Ejectables

Well. This is the feel-good story of the day.

Female Pilot Ejects Sexist Male Passenger

Too bad it couldn't have happened in this country.

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures"

"To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another."  ~John Burroughs

So. Last night I finally gave in to my probably fatal curiosity and watched part of a Republican debate.

Honest to God, I thought I was viewing the Fox News version of the Colbert Report. The sad part is, they're totally serious.

A bigger train wreck I have never seen unfold. If any of these people are elected to the Presidency, it will be an unmitigated disaster for this country and the world.

When Michelle Bachmann declared herself a "serious candidate for President" and asserted that her statements were "factually accurate" (not that Newtie wasn't being condescending, but come on), the planet shook on its axis.

One could wish the multiverse did in fact exist, so I could be spun into a universe far, far away from this madness.