UFC Fight At White House Prompts Weather Fight With Forecasters

The big UFX fight outside the White House Sunday
Night. Photo from the Associated Press

Donald Trump's weird, silly UFC fights on the South Lawn of the White House went on last night despite threatening, oppressive, buggy weather. 

The fight was postponed an hour to 9 p.m. because of storm threats, and before the match, attendees wandered around in direct sunshine in humid, 90 degree heat, so I'm sure some people were dangerously dehydrated.

A second fight on Sunday went on between weather forecasters and White House spin doctors and trolls. 

Whether or not you found the whole spectacle an embarrassment, The Weather Channel, echoing other meteorological people, had this to say on the social medial platform X:

"UFC Freedom 250 is facing a chaotic weather setup on the White House South Lawn, with a 60% chance of thunderstorms heavy down-ours and wind gusts up to 34 mph threatening to delay the outdoor fights."

The Weather Channel post on X continued:

"On top of the storm risk, brutal D.C. humidity is driving a triple-digit heat index alongside massive swarms of mosquitoes and gnats that fighters will have to battle inside the cage, While the venue's massive 92-foot overhang will keep the octagon dry, a single lightning strike within eight miles will trigger an automatic 30-minute freeze on the entire event."

The White House "Rapid Response account on X responded with the following:

"This event is about celebrating America's unmatched greatness after 250 years - which apparently doesn't sit well with the friendless loser who wrote this bullshit clickbait headline. Rain or shine, we're celebrating out great country no matter what. GOD BLESS AMERICA!" With a little flag emoji.

I'm not sure how a cage match celebrates American, but whatevs. 

But, despite The Weather Channel's typical ominous end of the world prose, they were basically right. There were a lot of storms near Washington Sunday, but most of the worst ones went north and south of the nation's Capitol 

And there was no question the heat was awful. The high temperature reached a miserable 96 degrees with a heat index just about nudging 100 degrees.

As the fights got under way, it was still 79 degrees with a heat index in the low 80s

Still, the MAGA crowd was seething that The Weather Channel decided to.....forecast the weather. 

One MAGA person in X responded to the White House "Rapid Response" shit post wrote, "I had no idea the Weather Channel hated America so much that they were willing to lie about the weather conditions in hopes of deterring the American people of getting together for this amazing event."

Which is typical. Gaslight people into thinking it was a pleasant evening. I guess forecasters should have lied and said it would be sunny and 70 with low humidity just to keep the Orange King happy on his 80th birthday. 

Other, somewhat more sane people took The Weather Channel's side, laughing at the MAGA uproar over a simple summer weather forecast. 

"Imagine getting this emotional because The Weather Channel checked the forecast. They didn't insult American They reported humidity."

The real scary posts were the ones that said God intervened to split the storms so they didn't ruin the cage match. 

As if God had nothing better to do than ensure a sagging, tired orange makeup addict could watch sweaty men fight from the comforts of the White House. 

Thunderstorms are naturally hit and miss. They pretty much missed the big UFC event. Lucky for the fans, not important to the rest of us. 

 

Ice Barbie Exults Glorious Leader Trump For PreventIng U.S. Hurricanes Landfalls In 2025,

Kristi "Ice Barbie" Noem praised Donald Trump 
yesterday for keeping hurricanes away from the U.S.
My guess is he used a Sharpie to do that. 

Hurricane season ended last Sunday, and with that, we can rejoice that the United States was not hit by a hurricane this year for the first time since 2015. 

And to whom do we owe that great fortune? President Trump himself! 

We learned this via one of Trump's cabinet meetings, this one held on Tuesday. .You know the ones, where each cabinet secretary praise glorious leader to an extreme that would make North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-Un blush.  

Meanwhile, Trump snoozes. 

Which gets me to the hurricane story. None other that Homeland Secretary Kristi "Ice Barbie" Noem, said to "daddy" this gem. "Sir, you made it through hurricane season without a hurricane....Even you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that."

Well, I for one definitely appreciate that the U.S. was not hit by a hurricane this year. Gawd knows we have enough problems with adding hurricanes to the mix. 

Ice Barbie did not disclose how Trump kept the hurricanes away. My guess is with a Sharpie, but I don't know how exactly he pulled that off.   

I do see a scandal brewing Trump's Great Hurricane Accomplishment, though. Trump somehow failed to prevent that big flood during the July 4 weekend, the one that killed 135 people, several of whom were girls at a Christian summer camp. 

Christian summer camp? You would have thought the god-like Trump would have intervened, since he and his MAGA follows tell us they're such good Christians. 

There was, of course, trouble with hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean this year. Hurricane Melissa devastated parts of Jamaica in late October.  I don't think Trump had any influence on that storm, but what does he care? It's not as if he's into helping other nations anyway. 

Other hurricanes that did not hit the United States still caused trouble, like stirring up waves that washed seaside homes on the Outer Banks of North Carolina into the ocean. I guess Trump should have nudged those storms further out to sea, or made the go away with his Big Beautiful Bill, or some damn thing. 

Meanwhile, I'm not really happy with the weather here in Vermont. We're expecting snow squalls and bitterly cold air. Can't Trump push that away from us?

Oh, wait, we're a blue state. He's probably pulling that wintry weather our way as punishment. Even if he has to import it from Canada. What is the tariff rate on cold fronts? 

The Craziest Hurricane Conspiracy Yet As Erin Spins Off The Coast

Hurricane Erin off the East Coast in September, 2001.
Insert on upper left shows the World Trade Center
burning in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

Every weather event seems to bring a storm of wacko conspiracy theories each weirder and more outlandish than the rest.  

This time it's Hurricane Erin. I think, Get a load out of the one I saw this morning: 

As we know, strong Hurricane Erin was east of the Bahamas today, and is forecast to move northward, well off the U.S. East Coast.

 It will cause problems with coastal flooding and rip currents up and down the East Coast. The Outer Banks of North Carolina are going to get blasted by storm surges and battering waves. 

But thankfully, it won't be a direct hit, 

In September, 2001, there was another Hurricane Erin, which also moved northward well off the U.S. East Coast, passing far offshore of New York City on September 11, 2001.

That, of course was 9/11, the day of the worst terrorist attack in U.S, history, claiming more than 3,000 lives.

The conspiracy theory is that 9/11 was supposedly an inside job, and part of that inside job was 2001's Hurricane Erin.

According to this conspiracy, that version of Hurricane Erin was supposedly heading straight toward New York. But it '"unexpectedly" veered away from the city because the  government steered the hurricane away to allow for the clear skies that accommodated the attack.

I'm unclear from the conspiracy theory as to why our government would want to launch such a fatal attack on itself, but whatevs.

Now, there's another Hurricane Erin and the government is somehow plotting something, Even the name Erin is one code word they're using since both the 2001 and 2025 hurricanes are named Erin. 

Uh, yeah, right. 

It's unclear what nefarious plot is supposedly coming with the latest Hurricane Erin, but I'm sure they'll come up with something creative. 

I won't link to the source of this wild story, ss I don't want to give them any clicks or revenue. 

For those who want an explanation, nobody can change the path of a hurricane.  Nothing any human has invented can overcome the power of even a weak tropical storm, never mind a full blown hurricane. All you can do is predict where a hurricane is going and get people out of the way. 

There was nothing unexpected about 2001's Hurricane Erin. The National Hurricane Center and every other meteorologist worth their salt in 2001 knew days in advance that Hurricane Erin would miss the East Coast and stay well offshore. Which is exactly what happened. 

A cold front that passed through the Northeast, one that produced picturesque thunderstorms over New York City on the evening of September 10, 2001 helped steer the hurricane away. 

Those clear blue skies weren't created by man either. Often, a hurricane will help produce sinking air west of its center. Sinking air means clear skies. That's the weather pattern we had that day. 

If I understand our conspiracy theorists correctly (admittedly hard to do)  the claim is that both Hurricane Erins stayed or will stay offshore is highly suspicious, and can't happen without human intervention,

Actually,a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean that stays offshore isn't weird art all. It happens pretty much every year. If a storm system or cold front is timed right, which is often, a hurricane will respond by heading north, then northeast offshore instead of plowing into the East Coast. 

There's nothing on about the name "Erin" coming up again and again, It's not a code word, 

The World Meteorological Organization picks the names, and tries to use easy to remember monikers to help the public avoid confusion over which storm is which. 

All tropical storm names are recycled every six years. The only exception is when a storm is so powerful and so memorable that it is retired, to be replaced by another name with the same first letter.

There has not been a remarkable or particularly destructive Erin yet, so we had Hurricane or Tropical Storm Erin in 2001, 2007, 2013, 2019 and 2025. 

OTHER WEIRD STORIES

I've seen other conspiracy theories on 2001's Hurricane Erin.

From Facebook, meteorologist T.J. Del Santo posted an innocent and factually correct note and satellite photo of the 2001 Hurricane Erin.  Mixed in with comments containing personal remembrances of that day, we get this tin hat gem:  

"Erin was planned out with 9/11. Geoengineered to steer out to sea and bring in the North wind that kept all the harmful smoke/dust mostly offshore Had there been the traditional south-southeast wind, there would have been many more fatalities from inhalation."

If that wasn't bad enough, somebody responded, "Ridiculous - fatalities were the goal, the point of it all."

Sigh, 

I've also seen stories about how Hurricane Erin was created via AI somehow, that it's HAARP, a conspiracy theory in which the government is waging war on the public by unleashing storms on us.

I'm always amazed that people will gravitate to the most outlandish stories when scary or weird weather hits. But they ignore the one thing that humans are doing to make a lot of these storms scarier or worse or more destructive,

Which is climate change. Climate change is likely one of the reasons Hurricane Erin intensified so quickly last weekend. It's why other hurricanes lately do the same. And it's at least in part why hurricanes Helene and Milton were so awful last year,

But that's boring. Let's instead invent some far out story about the Deep State or George Soros in some evil laboratory, cooking up a storm named Erin to terrorize Americans for reasons that are never made clear. 

There's also an Instagram account who's character says HAARP -  again run by some evil government agency - was pushing Hurricane Erin toward the U.S. but some white knight group called The Collective successfully pulled its path away from the U.S. 

"The Collective" is still apparently trying to battle two more coming storms the government is hatching. 

Back in the real world, two new disturbances have come off the west African coast, as these things always do this time of year. These two disturbance might or might not naturally develop into tropical storms, and nobody is sure where they will end up if they form. 

Also in the real world, HAARP is a low-key scientific study of the ionosphere. It has no ability to control the weather, and the scientists working on HAARP have no apparent desire to alter the directions of storms or anything like that.  

The real world might be more boring than the fantasies conspiracy theorists weave.  But it's more fun being sane, to be honest. 

Stupidity, False Religion Reigns Supreme In Weird MAGA World

U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois, has some, um,
thoughts on how climate change and God relate. 

Today's rogues gallery takes us to the esteemed U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois, who has some thoughts on climate change.  

Don't we all. 

In a now-viral video, Miller has this to say about climate change: 

"I've even very outspoken about this, it's a sham. The whole climate change is a sham..... First of all, God controls the climate, because he controls the sun, and the sun controls the weather, primarily."

Yeah, the sun is there, so climate change can't exist, apparently. Especially since God put the sun there?  

Physics and climatology and meteorology and all those sciences clearly confuse Miller . You can't expect everybody to be an Einstein, but really, Mary Miller, you can do better. 

Of course there was reaction to Miller, very little of it flattering. Reports MSN:

"Miller's comments about God controlling the weather are receiving a lot of pushback on X. As one replied: 'Tell God to stop warming the Earth ate about 1,000X the natural rate' Another chimes in with criticism of MAGA lawmakers at large: 'This is why they don't want federal government education and private school vouchers.'" 

Several people wondered about Miller's grasp on what God's purpose really is.  Did he not give us brains to pinpoint problems and figure out how to solve them, or should we not bother even trying to do anything since God takes care of it all anyway?

If you believe that, as Miller apparently does, that's just plain laziness. "I'm not going to figure things out on my own, I'll just let God take care of it." In other words, Miller is opting out and making any issues she encounters somebody else's problems.

Or does she think I'm just wasting my own time when I problem enters my life and I use my brain to figure out how to solve it.  And if that's the case, why the hell did he give us humans (well, most of us, anyway) functioning brains?

And what about other supposed "acts of God"?  As one commenter on X asked, "And what is God's great purpose for sending a tornado to a small town in Kentucky or Wisconsin which then levels a church or a school?"

It's God's will to kill students and churchgoers by unleashing tornadoes on them? And don't tell me God is only protecting MAGA "believers."  Red states get plenty of horrible, undeserved weather and climate disasters, too.  

 If you can stand it, here's the video. Click on this link to view, or if you see it in the image below, click on that.  

Dude's Congressional Climate Change Testimony Runs Up Against Stupid Congress Creatures

Olympic skier Gus Schumacher earlier this year gave
Congressional testimony on how climate change affects the
winter sports industry.  Troll, oops, I mean esteemed
Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA had other ideas. 

Earlier this spring,  Gus Schumacher a young dude (23) who is an Olympic cross-country skier, recently took up an invitation recently to testify before a U.S. House committee about how climate change is affecting the outdoor recreation industry. 

Two other outdoorsy types testified as well.

But the hearing went off the rails quickly. As Congressional hearings usually do, it was all about politicians' grandstanding and trolling.  This ended up having little to do with climate change or the outdoor recreation industry. 

Because social media trolling during supposed serious congressional work is now good politics, apparently.

Enter Sen John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. As the Alaska Beacon reported:

"Kennedy did not ask Schumacher substantive questions about climate change's impacts on cross-country skiing, nor did he ask about the challenges posed to Alaska's oil-dependent economy by reducing the use of fossil fuels. Instead, he presented the Olympian with a deep excavation of his social media accounts, and a pop quiz on climate economics and science."

Now, granted, Schumacher is not the world's foremost authority on climate change and its impacts on winter recreation. I suppose he was there because his Olympic star power means something to some people. He was there representing a group call Save Our Winters. 

But Kennedy and other GOPers saw an opportunity for a weird ambush and took it. And it did get weird. 

Kennedy started by asking Schumacher about carbon dioxide. He didn't claim to be an expert. 

"I'm not a professional to talk about carbon dioxide so much."

Kennedy: "But you want to abolish it, right?"

Schumacher: "No. There's always going to be carbon dioxide."

From there, Kennedy surely congratulated himself by gotcha-ing Schumacher for saying incorrectly that carbon dioxide is a major component of the atmosphere, when it's actually just a small part of it. 

Kennedy: "You was to abolish fossil fuel?"

Schumacher: "I never said that."

Then a little back and forth, then Kennedy, referring to a past tweet Schumacher either wrote or re-tweeted about holding police involved in misconduct accountable, asked,  "Do you think we ought to abolish the police?" 

 Schumaker tried to point out past tweets unrelated to the topic of the Congressional hearing were "not the topic of this conversation."

Kennedy then asked, "Should we do that before or after we get rid of fossil fuels?"

Sigh. 

The standards of political success now seem to be if you act like a patronizing, ignorant twit, you are politically victorious. Or something like that. 

This was all planned to shut Schumacher up, and anyone else who dares to speak out on climate change. 

The playbook is familiar:  Get some Republican Congress creature to do some performance art by asking irrelevant questions and try to make the witness look like a fool. Then post it on your social media, tag right wing "news" sites, and let the MAGA minions go on the attack against the target, in this case Schumacher. 

The point is to make a political opponent's life so miserable that they'll shut up, and scare any like minded person into keeping their mouth shut. 

Worried about climate change? Want to speak up about it?  Then prepare for the death threats against you and your family. 

This Instagram message Schumacher got was typical. "One easy way to minimize CO2 on Earth is of you to STOP BREATHING! Will you do that for us?"

Yep, that commenter wanted Schumacher to commit suicide for the high crime of being concerned about climate change. 

I wonder if Kennedy agrees that advocating suicide of your political opponents is a good idea. But I'm sure he won't answer that. Because ultimately, the bullies are wimps.

Of course, MAGA's attempts to shut up opponents, be it in climate issues or anything else, doesn't always work. Sometimes it backfires.  "They're not going to get to me," (Schumacher) said. "I'm happy to be able to talk about what I see at home and abroad. And I'm definitely motivated to continue it," he told the Alaska Beacon. 

 Schumacher gets what happened. "'In hindsight, the point was just to derail this hearing,' Schumacher said in a phone interview....'I was kind of thrown off, obviously, which was his goal.'"

As for Kennedy, he's part of the federal government as a congressman.  The government suppressing free speech is a First Amendment problem. I'm not sure whether he's legally culpable. I'm not a lawyer. But he's certainly violating the spirit of the First Amendment. 

 Kennedy is being  paid handsomely for his "work"  by the way.  Alaska Beacon reported that Kennedy collected $343,000 in oil and gas-industry-aligned contributions in the two years before his re-election in 2022. 

Groundhog Might Be Right For A Change

Dark and dreary and foggy around my St. Albans, 
Vermont house around dawn yesterday, Groundhog Day.
If there are any groundhogs around my house I'm
100 percent sure they did not see their shadow.

The famed Punxsutawney Phil, our nation's pre-eminent groundhog, I guess, did his Groundhog Day thing and predicted an early spring. 

The rodent might be a famous groundhog, but he's a crappy long range weather forecaster.

As the Washington Post reports, the series of groundhogs named Punxsutawney Phil have been correct over the years about 40 percent of the time.  That's worse than flipping a coin. 

Punxsutawney Phil usually predicts six more weeks of winter, not an early spring. So this year's forecast was a departure for him. 

But since the eastern United States really hasn't had a winter to speak of anyway, it makes sense that spring might be early. 

There's no guarantee of that, since forecasts for a time period beyond a week from now can be shaky. 

This year at least, Punxsutawney Phil has backing from none other than the National Weather Service.  They regularly release a series of outlooks out cover three month periods into the future. 

For February, March and April this year, these lean toward above normal temperatures for  the northern tier of states. The only part of the nation where there are hints of colder than average temperatures during that period is Texas.

For March, April and May, the National Weather Service continues with the idea of a warm northern tier of states and a southern half of the nation that has more or less normal temperatures. 

Of course, Punxsutawney Phil isn't off the hook. He could be wrong again. Those seasonal National Weather Service outlooks aren't always right. Again, long range forecasting is still very iffy. 

Besides, things might be different in Vermont than in Pennsylvania if for some reason you're relying on groundhogs to do long range forecasting. It was overcast, foggy and drizzly across most of the Green Mountain State yesterday for the 11th day in a row. There's no way a groundhog or anything else would have seen its shadow.

Which would mean six more months of winter, if you believe in this folklore. Then again. six weeks takes us just to mid-March. Here in Vermont, it's pretty much always still winter by the time St. Patrick's Day rolls around.   

Dumbest Religious Climate Takes Will At Least Entertain Us

The dumb hot climate takes just keep on coming. Photo
by Pete Foley/Getty Images/Flickr RF

 I've gotten used to some really, really dumb takes on climate change. 

Everything from bringing a snowball into the U.S. Senate on a chilly February day to "prove" climate change doesn't exist to hapless Pennsylvania man who said an increase in tornadoes in the eastern United States is due to the proliferation of roundabouts that are replacing four-way intersections. 

Sadly, I am not making this up. 

The most strident climate deniers more often than not invoke God and the Bible in their "solid proof" of climate change being a hoax. 

Most seriously religious people are pretty intelligent and have a good grasp on reality. Some on the other hand, oy vey. 

I got a couple new ones that really have me shaking my head. 

As JoeMyGod and others reports, Pennsylvania GOP state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz tells us we have nothing to worry about climate change, because it doesn't exist! The Bible says so! 

Here's what she said: 

"When Democrats are pushing bills like banning gas-powered mowers and gas powered stoves in New York City, all under the name of a climate control agenda, we can all see that is really going on here.

The truth is, is in Genesis 8:22 it says, 'as long as the Earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.'

I'll say that again, 'will never cease.' Of course, we are to be good stewards of God's creation, but not through a forceful climate control global agenda."

I'm losing brain cells doing this, but I'll spell it out for our friend Stephanie. Whoever wrote that Bible passage was being Captain Obvious. There's winter and summer. You plant seeds in the spring and you harvest crops toward autumn. It's daytime unless it's night. 

Is she saying climate change doesn't exist because there are seasons? Or it doesn't exist because winter is colder than summer?  Is it just me or am I not following her leaps of logic? 

Probably my favorite response to her nonsense was a comment on X by somebody with the handle @SkyWasYellow:

"So, by the word of Genesis, harvests could drop to such low levels that mass starvation occurs, but since they didn't 'cease' all is well? And cold and heat still exist as extreme droughts and blizzards, as a result of climate change, but all is well because it didn't 'cease'?"

There was another religious hot take on climate change in the past week, too. 

The esteemed climate expert and Illinois Rep. Chris Miller, a Republican announced the other day that climate change doesn't exist because God made trees.

Said Miller: "We're not having a climate crisis.....Green leafy plants actually absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. It's the way God made it.'"

I'm picking on the dude, but let's be clear: I'm not picking on trees. I love trees. And they do absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Trees are our allies. 

But there's only so much trees can do. Before we started burning fossil fuels like crazy, trees were part of the system that kept the world's climate relatively stable. 

Besides, if Miller is such a fan of trees, why isn't he upset that humans are mowing down the Amazon forest?

These shysters always invoke God. Many people are serious about the Bible, for good reason. But you know somebody is bullshitting you when they do more flips in their mind to "explain" the Bible than the real physical flips the cast of Circ du Soleil perform. 

It's their lame way to think they have the final word. They make up something out of thin air they claim that God and the Bible said. And that's supposed to be the final word because Jesus. Or something.  

Or they are grifters using the tried and true method of using a false god to gaslight people. 

This isn't a rant about religious people. It's the  ones who yell and scream about how pious they are that sends my bullcrap meter into overdrive. The truly religious lead their lives in concert with their beliefs and not take talking points from the fossil fuel industry bosses.

So here's my question: What would Jesus do?

 

Glimmers Of Climate Hope, Actually, In Tragicomic Republican Debate

The usual climate silliness, but some glimmers of hope
in Wednesday's Republican Presidential debate.

 I guess it's a sign of progress among Republicans that Fox News asked a question about climate change during Wednesday's Republican presidential candidate debate. 

And one candidate was actually booed for saying climate change is in his words, a "hoax."

As HuffPost reports:

".....the moderates listed recent disasters - Hawaii's wildfires, California's rare hurricane, Florida's 101-degree seas and the Southwest's record heat  - and asked the eight Republicans onstage to raise their hands if they believed 'human behavior is causing climate change.'

The raised hands would have been sort of enlightening, at least to me, but true to form Ron DeSantis had to step in to avoid any new knowledge or facts among the public. He wanted wiggle room to avoid any kind of yes or no answer. To make it easier to backtrack in the future, I guess?

Instead, DeSantis quickly interrupted, "We're not schoolchildren. Let's have a debate," before immediately pivoting into a canned response saying Biden's disaster responses have sucked and the media is giving the president a pass on that. 

We can fact check that, but it's not worth the bother. 

The most interesting moment in the debate climate discussion came when entrepreneur and candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said, "It's a hoax....The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is a wet blanket on our economy. More people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change."

The remarkable thing was, the audience at the debate was rabidly Republican and right-wing. And many audience members booed Ramaswamy for his remarks. I guess the Republican rank and file are ahead of some of their so-called leaders. 

Candidate Nikki Haley piped up right after that, and pretty much shut Ramaswamy down by saying, "Climate change is real. Yes, it is. If you want to change the environment, we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions."

At least Haley's comments were relatively reasonable. China and India do need to reduce their emissions, but so does the rest of the world. Give Haley credit for stating a basic fact on climate change. 

As the Associated Press reports, some conservative organizations are frustrated by candidates like Ramaswamy dismissing climate change

"'We're getting to a point where Republicans are losing winnable elections because they're alienating people that care about climate change,' Christopher Barnard, the Republican president of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest conservative environmental group in the nation,' said Thursday."

As AP also points out, there's a growing gap between younger voters - including young conservatives - and older Republicans. 

Increasingly, younger Republicans believe climate change is at least an issue that needs addressing. The GOP's older base regard climate science as a hoax conspiracy theory launched by liberals, to I don't know...

Interestingly, though, Ramaswamy is younger, only 38 years old. He's been consistently for fossil fuel development throughout his early campaign. "Human flourishing requires fossil fuel," he likes to say. 

Maybe it was, but.........

The debate was held in Milwaukee Wednesday. Also Wednesday, Milwaukee experienced a record high of 101 degrees, with a heat index as high as 116 degrees.   City officials were forced to close public schools in the city Wednesday and Thursday due to the extreme heat. 

It seems like the effects of climate change followed the Republicans to the debate, whether they liked it or not. 

 

Blizzard Twitter Thread Hilariously Abuses People In "Alternative Realities"

A Twitter thread set the logic of anti-vaxers and anti-maskers
to last weekend's blizzard in New England
to hilarious effect. 

I spotted a Twitter thread  this past Sunday that perfectly and hilariously used the Blizzard of '22 in New England last weekend as a jumping off point to highlight the absolutely logistic boneheadedness we see in the national "dialogue" over Covid vaxes and masks. 

You've heard all the stupid ways of "thinking" in the examples below, but applying the line of "reasoning" to winter weather just makes it both funny and sad. It also makes it clear how a lot of people don't think at all before opening their mouths.

 James Hamblin (@jameshamblin) started it with this post: 

"So we're supposed to ''prepare for blizzard conditions' just because the scientific establishment and the media say so? And anyone who says it will be sunny and 70 is canceled? All's I' saying is, lots of $ changing hands in snow shovel industry. Do your own meteorology."

The post garnered responses like these:

"I can't breathe with a scarf covering my face. Gloves are for the fearful. Frostbite only affects 1% of total skin surfaces."

Joe Rogan and his misinformation sort of gets a shoutout here: "I never listen to MSM weather. I get my info from Snow Rogan. He drives in blizzards all the time and doesn't even use snow tires. It is a hoax perpetrated by Big tire. Don't be a sheep."

How about the "just take your vitamins and let your immune system protect you" crowd?  Here's a good takedown: "If you exercise, eat well, megadose on vitamin C+D, you won't even need coats, gloves or hats. Your natural immunity to cold will take care of you. Everyone wearing warm clothes are sheep with pre-existing sensitivities to temperature. Do your own research and stick it to big cotton."

Photo of a commie socialist using government overreach
to clean up after a snowstorm. 

Some people get Covid even if they've had the vaccine, cry the anti-vaxers. So how's this? "And some people still freeze to death when they wear a coat! What's the point of wearing one if it's not guaranteed to keep me from dying of hypothermia? Not to mention it's made out of 50% Luciifester. That's how the satanists will control us in the blizzard!  

 Those people on Facebook outsmarted Anthony Fauci with their miracle cures, right?  "My aunt's next door neighbor started drinking this stuff called 'rum.' It doesn't freeze! So if you drink it, you won't freeze!"   

Or: "My neighbor Bob had an accident even after putting on winter tires. Some drivers are already on their 3rd set of tires, which proves their ineffectiveness. We do not know what the tires are made of. The tire manufacturers scare us with winter just to enrich themselves."

And: "I just talked to my sister in Texas...get this. No snow where they are. None. But all these liberal northeast states are screaming about snow? Something doesn't add up."

We can't get through this discussion without bringing up our "rights", um, right? "What about my rights as a parent? I don't want some atheist communist weatherman telling my kid that water freezes at 32 degrees. If I say it's safe to drive it's not their place to contradict me." 

So yeah, we covered pretty much all the talking points that the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers have, but applied the logic to the Blizzard of '22.  

It all seems pretty silly, no?

Groundhog Can't Bear Pressure, Dies On Eve Of Big Day

The pressure to forecast the weather accurately was too
great for Milltown Mel, a groundhog cousin to Punxsutawney
Phil who was to have forecasted spring in New Jersey,
died Tuesday on the eve of his big day. Photo 
by Patti Sapone via NJ.com

 You've heard me whine about Groundhog Day before and I'm going to do it again. 

I don't want to deny anybody their fun, however weird it is, but I just don't understand the hype of today, Groundhog Day.

A few people disagree with me, but I insist on relying upon outfits like NOAA's Climate Prediction Center to make long range forecasts for how late winter and early spring will go. Nothing against rodents but they are NOT expert meteorologists. 

Besides, do we really want to put all this pressure on groundhogs to make all these weather forecasts. Case in point: NJ.com reports the sad news that Milltown Mel, a groundhog who yearly makes predictions from his perch in Millville, New Jersey died Tuesday, on the eve of Groundhog Day. 

Though not as famous as the usual go-to groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, Milltown Mel was a weather forecasting staple in southern New Jersey for year. His death came too late to find a sub to forecast the spring weather so that part of the nation will have to go without this year. 

They'll try to find an, um, qualified groundhog this year.

For the record, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, which means he's predicting six more weeks of winter. As Fox Weather points out, though, Phil is wrong 61 percent of the time. 

This isn't the first time the pressures of long range forecasting proved fatal to a groundhog. NJ.com tells us that Stonewall Jackson,a groundhog who did annual February 2 forecasting in Sussex County, New Jersey, died on Groundhog Day Eve 2016. 

Sigh. The Texas February Snow Wasn't Some Strange Plot By Bill Gates

If you put a lighter flame against a snow ball, soot will get
on the snowball. It doesn't mean it isn't snow. Jeez! 

As always, the conspiracy theorists are at it again.  A lot of people live in some strange alternate "reality" where everything is a physically impossible plot by villains to, to, I don't know. The purpose of these weird theories is never clear.  

I'm bringing this up because there's wackos out there who are sure the snow that fell in Texas last month wasn't really snow. It was supposedly something else, deposited for unclear reasons. 

This comes up every time it snows or ice storms hit places that usually escape such winter weather. 

And yes, I'm going to mercilessly mock the conspiracists. There's no getting through to them, ranters are going to rant. 

This time Reuters saw fit to run a fact check on this.  I don't know what good this will do - it won't convince the conspiracy wackos. But, it's fun to roll our eyes at these suckers that are truly born every minute. 

The favorite trick among the conspiracy minded is to hold a cigarette lighter's flame to a snowball to "prove" it's not really snow. This one has been around since at least 2014.

If you do the cigarette lighter trick with snow, it won't be immediately apparent it's melting, and the flame will leave a sooty smudge on the snow.  

So, for the record, according to Reuters:

"(Astronomer Phil) Plait explained that the snow does melt, but it doesn't appear to drip because the remaining snow, which is porous, absorbs the water."

Additionally, under a flame, snow can sublimate, which is a fancy word meaning it goes straight from ice to water vapor without melting into plain water first. 

And that soot on the snowball?  "Plait further explained the chemical process behind the dark mark: It's  not that snowball is scorching or burning, but it's soot adhering to the snowball."

Of course any dummy in Texas would have observed that once it warmed up, you could see the snow melt outdoors and the melt water running down countless storm drains in the Lone Star State. But that would make too much sense. 

By the way, Bill Gates always seems to be the bad guy in these scenarios.  And that just makes the silly more depressing.  If he's such a super-brained villain who wants to control us somehow, wouldn't he do it with something other than fake snow?

As Popular Mechanics tells us:

"Bill Gates is many things - billionaire, philanthropist, synthetic beef advocate - but conspiracy theorists think he and the Chinese government might both benefit from a world where people are blanketed by pretend snow. You'd just think if someone could seed clouds and control the weather, they'd use real snow instead of some kind of slush that has metal in it."

Of course, there are those that thought that Gates, or Joe Biden or somebody controlled the weather to make Texas and surrounding areas freeze.

Even if Gates or Biden could do that - which they can't - why didn't they keep the freeze going to really punish their so called enemies. A week after the cold wave the weather was warm and gorgeous. By the way, as I've explained before, the Arctic freeze was caused by the jet stream, and things up in the Arctic doing weird things. 

To the extent that humans caused it, the only way you could say that is the fact greenhouse gas-induced climate change might have had a role in the rough weather. The operative word here being "might"

It's unclear exactly what Gates or Biden or George Soros or whoever hoped to gain by dumping fake snow or bad weather on Texas, at least in the conspiracy minds.  It goes all over the place.  Biden was pissed that a few Texas were talking about seceding. 5G is always a big one.  The life saving Covid vaccines are really a plot by Gates to inject us with nanoparticles to control our minds, for what I have no idea. 

As if Bill Gates really cares what random Texan thinks. 

The massive power failures that cut electricity to more than 4 million Texans also seems to be fodder for conspiracy. Those power failures were largely caused by the agency that manages Texas electricity - ERCOT - did not plan for the effects of wintry weather on the state's grid. 

Alex Jones, always one to give us some weird fantasy, said Biden blocked the U.S. Department of Energy from increasing power during the storm.

Turns out the Energy Department did the exact opposite:  As the Independent reported. Acting U.S. Energy Secretary David Huizenga, quickly approve a request from ERCOT to temporarily exceed emissions limits to gain more capacity. 

The "fake" snow in Texas has long since melted, I guess proving it wasn't so fake after all. I do forecast, though, a 100% chance of more conspiracy theories from the gullible the next time the weather gets weird. Count on it. 

There really is a sucker born every minute.