Another day, another small step toward getting Fang and Epic Fail registered at Central Piedmont Community College. Epic Fail, who can't mow the lawn today because he's poorly - which condition requires lying on the sofa playing a video game - has an appointment tomorrow morning by Zoom for advising, which will hopefully lead directly to his being registered.
Meanwhile, Fang sent the school some documents, but they said the documents have to come from me, so he sent them to me, and I sent them to the school. Maybe he, too, will have advising by the end of the week. He seems pretty chipper about it, now that he's overcome inertia and begun doing something.
And this reminded me to text Sheldon and see what progress he is making.
Good morning. After a spell of mostly hot and overly humid weather, we finally got a break here. A cold front moved in from the north, the temperature went down even though the dewpoint didn't, and then it rained for a bit yesterday afternoon--thoughtfully waiting until I got home from a trip to buy some replacement petunias and other stuff. (Even people with green thumbs can kill plants when the moisture situation in the container gets out of whack.)
Now temperature is in the low 70s, dewpoints in the 60s, not much wind, clearing skies, and no rain in the forecast. Perfection! The only caution today is against swimming in the lake or even walking on jetties and breakwalls ("high wave action and dangerous currents"--believe it!), but I don't have any plans to do that. I'll be going to the afternoon farmer's market. If an eggplant tries to eat Chicago (see link for novelty song), we shoppers can neutralize the threat by grilling it to make babaghanoush. I'll keep my jar of tahini handy.
There's nothing wrong with the store-bought kind, except its sporadic and unpredictable availability. And the fact that I have to make sure to eat it up before it goes bad.
I'm working on relocating my compost bin because (a) it's been subsumed by a very successful shrub, and (b) a piece had come off one side. We're now on a quest for duct tape to fix the side before I put the compost back in. If necessary, I can make a trip to the hardware store.
Stuff that works is not excessive. Stuff that works is not expensive. Stuff that doesn't work is expensive.
If you're one of those that imagines duck tape is actually useful for fixing things...which is a serious mistake but I'll let it go for now...then you should pay the extra dough for Gorilla Tape. It's so good, I've got a couple rolls that are several years old because you don't have to use very much of it.
I used to keep a roll hidden at the store so it would be available when I needed to use it to fix something, like signs or displays. Otherwise someone else would use it to fix something and then randomly leave it somewhere so it would not be available to anybody.
My goodness, the pigeon story was illuminating in many ways. Along with the pigeons - the megafauna, ice-edge hunters, Indians and lost culture, evolving dominant trees.. Cool read. Thank you!
Those "1000 Year" assignments to various natural weather phenomenon are silly. We've only been tracking weather in the US in any organized way since the late 19th century, and only with sophisticated methods for a couple decades. We have some decent ideas about past weather from doing ice and earth core sampling, with that research only now beginning to provide credible hypothesis.
Labeling things with time signatures creates its own problems with understanding. Calling it a "500-1000" year storm anesthetizes one from thinking it might happen again.
We know that there have been dozens...or hundreds or thousands...of tsunamis on the PNW coast over the millennia occurring on 300-500 year cycles, where entire areas like the city of Seattle are buried in mud several meters deep. Based on past patterns learned from core sampling, we're overdue for a "big one".
There's reasons that ancient people rarely settled on the coast; their settlements were inland and occupying the actual coasts was seasonal and related to food gathering.
Yup. Nowadays, we get 100 year storms here every year.
Locals here still talk about the cycles of lake level rise and fall for Lake Michigan in various terms, and every year those cycles are disproven by wild fluctuations in lake levels, yet people still talk about them in terms of the cycles that are regularly disproven.
I live about 3 hours from the central TX floods. Many years ago my kids went to one of the camps there with their school. My wife was a teacher there and also went as one of the leaders. It’s hard to imagine what those families are going through.
While I have no love for DOGE, reliable NWS sources have said that it had no effect in this circumstance. Biggest issue may have been complacency borne of continual flood warnings and poor cell service in the area.
Well possibly both. More so you are right about arrogant complacency of Texans ignoring warnings.
the lack of a hydrologist who actually calculates water flow based on topographic information, ie ravine/flow channel size was probably why the flood level severe warnings were less than actual.
Think about how many warnings the public gets in many forms, that never turn out to be any kind of emergency. Tornadoes, hurricanes, terror threats, TV news getting us worked up about crime and everything else. It’s not hard to understand a reaction of “it’s probably another false alarm.”
Note in the last chart “Has preparation and response to flooding improved” the following. While moving averages and linear trend line have fallen, the highest fatalities as a group have increased.
It could mean a few things
a. more people exposed to the risk
b. more people ignoring warnings and the obvious undeniable flash flooding history.
I know that valley area. Brother lives in Dallas. Ms. Pinki has a good friend in Hill Country. She went in April with my sister in law to a ladies church retreat in that valley.
We lived in Houston and Austin when our kids were growing up. Everyone is now sharing stories with a connection to someone affected. Even if the connection is a few degrees of separation the loss weighs heavily. Many church communities have someone affected and the prayers during service make the loss felt by many. Thinking about the search and rescue teams, and how indescribably awful it must be to pull dead children from the waters. I don't think I would ever be the same. It is just devastating.
Excellent article. In particular, far too little attention has been given to how European diseases ravaged Native populations. While there were far too many examples of oppression from white settlers, the real “genocide” was due to smallpox and other diseases.
I read an account of the Pilgrims that described how they founded their first village on the site of a Native settlement that had been abandoned. Later they encountered Squanto, the last survivor of that tribe who described how disease wiped out that village.
Yes, excellent. I've read a few pieces in the last couple years talking about Native population destruction due to disease, where recent studies show there were WAY more Native inhabitants than originally thought because original statistics were based on what new arrivals found, not what might have been there before they arrived. IOW, our understanding of the populations of the Western Hemisphere are severely wrong.
Mann’s 1491 cannot be praised enough in that regard, IMO. There’s so much that he condensed about the archeology, anthropology, and other research methods to analyze the Western Hemisphere’s past. For instance, just how advanced the cultures *might* have been that *might* have inhabited and cultivated the Amazon basin rainforests itself is awe inspiring.
Massive but regular seasonal flooding along the Amazon and the tropical climate and rainforest biome, which recycles all organic remains, leaves little by way of artifacts for archeology to interpret. And yet there are curious stacked stone “islands” along the river that strongly suggest very intensive human effort.
1491 summarizes the imagined state of the New World as far as our collective understanding depicted it 15 years ago. 1493 follow on that work by summarizing the rest of the world after the Columbian Exchange began in 1492 up to about the same point in time.
I truly hope Mann one day will decide to put out revised and updated editions of each, although it’s unlikely for a number of reasons.
Recent LIDAR scanning of the Amazonian basin reveals vast settlements and apparently sophisticated cities that are completely overgrown and unrecognizable by simple observation.
Good morning. 77 here, white highs in the 80s and chance of summer thundershowers later this afternoon, which after a 3 day weekend of 90 degree days is not unwelcome.
Both the mothership and the FP are covering the Frankenstein’s monster known as Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” enacting Trump’s legislative agenda, which does not include reducing spending or the deficit.
This is not a hard disagreement because I understand what you're saying, but....
I disagree that it's not yet reached a critical state; I think we're in that critical state now. When a plurality suddenly sees it, it's not critical...it's past critical and in disaster mode. I have an entire cosmology on this, based on what I know is happening in the Eastern Hemisphere and Global South. I'll spare you the details.
Most humans don't react or even function until disaster hits. They miss seeing the critical stage and think it's something still nascent.
Almost any statement can be made into a semantic misunderstanding. Humans don't like the idea they are living in a crisis state, so they describe it in words that make them comfortable.
We're way past a point of no return on debt bomb stuff. People in other parts of the world...parts of the world that Americans think of as "owning"...are seeing things differently. I think folks disagree because they read American validated purveyors of what's happening now and think we're still in charge.
I'd give that a heavily qualified "maybe", at best.
I know he couldn’t have anticipated this, Ted Cruz seems to have a real knack for this kind of timing.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ted-cruz-was-vacationing-in-europe-as-emergency-crews-desperately-searched-for-texas-flood-survivors/
OTOH, is there anyone who could conceivably be more useless on the scene?
True dat.
Oy.
Sheldon says he needs to watch the orientation videos and doesn't want to do it on his phone. He'll come over tomorrow. I'll get him a meal!
Once he's registered, his dad will buy him a new laptop using his 529 funds, but not before!
Another day, another small step toward getting Fang and Epic Fail registered at Central Piedmont Community College. Epic Fail, who can't mow the lawn today because he's poorly - which condition requires lying on the sofa playing a video game - has an appointment tomorrow morning by Zoom for advising, which will hopefully lead directly to his being registered.
Meanwhile, Fang sent the school some documents, but they said the documents have to come from me, so he sent them to me, and I sent them to the school. Maybe he, too, will have advising by the end of the week. He seems pretty chipper about it, now that he's overcome inertia and begun doing something.
And this reminded me to text Sheldon and see what progress he is making.
I have observed the surpising upswing in engagement once the inertia is overcome as well. It is an interesting phenomenon, I think.
News alert: another Russian bites the dust.
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russian-minister-found-dead-hours-after-being-fired-by-putin-696ffeab?st=fqqa5f&reflink=article_copyURL_share
"A suspected suicide". Sure.
Good morning. After a spell of mostly hot and overly humid weather, we finally got a break here. A cold front moved in from the north, the temperature went down even though the dewpoint didn't, and then it rained for a bit yesterday afternoon--thoughtfully waiting until I got home from a trip to buy some replacement petunias and other stuff. (Even people with green thumbs can kill plants when the moisture situation in the container gets out of whack.)
Now temperature is in the low 70s, dewpoints in the 60s, not much wind, clearing skies, and no rain in the forecast. Perfection! The only caution today is against swimming in the lake or even walking on jetties and breakwalls ("high wave action and dangerous currents"--believe it!), but I don't have any plans to do that. I'll be going to the afternoon farmer's market. If an eggplant tries to eat Chicago (see link for novelty song), we shoppers can neutralize the threat by grilling it to make babaghanoush. I'll keep my jar of tahini handy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db8LxhzAml0
I'm very fond of baba ganous, but I have only two small Japanese eggplant, not enough to do much.
There's nothing wrong with the store-bought kind, except its sporadic and unpredictable availability. And the fact that I have to make sure to eat it up before it goes bad.
I've never had it go bad because I can't stop eating it. (I make a wicked baba ghanoush.)
I don't think they sell it at our local Walmart. There are a lot of Middle Eastern stores up by where Drama Queen lives, though.
I'll cut up my eggplants and roast them with garlic and Badia Complete Seasoning.
That sounds tasty.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of
their character."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Something to think about when reading all the expert's on Substack (and other SM) opinions of the world.
I've been noticing for a while that whatever slams he-who-shall-not-be-named aims at others, they apply much better to himself. It's a real pattern.
Every attack is a confession.
An obvious one to anyone paying attention. DARVO exemplified.
I saw that on Substack Notes, too.
What?!? You discovered I'm not clever, I'm merely cutting and pasting like an LLM... :-(
This is a great history of Charles Sumner! I know a wee bit more than average due to the Sumner Tunnel in Boston. It's very interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/opinion/zaakir-tameez-charles-sumner-slavery.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UE8.MXjd.E76LznVhGlQ0&smid=nytcore-android-share
Interesting indeed. I only knew that Sumner was caned on the floor of the Senate.
He was a courageous man driving abolition. And doing so within the Constitution as possible.
I get him mixed up with Seward.
I'm working on relocating my compost bin because (a) it's been subsumed by a very successful shrub, and (b) a piece had come off one side. We're now on a quest for duct tape to fix the side before I put the compost back in. If necessary, I can make a trip to the hardware store.
Gorilla Tape.
I saw that, but it looked excessive.
Stuff that works is not excessive. Stuff that works is not expensive. Stuff that doesn't work is expensive.
If you're one of those that imagines duck tape is actually useful for fixing things...which is a serious mistake but I'll let it go for now...then you should pay the extra dough for Gorilla Tape. It's so good, I've got a couple rolls that are several years old because you don't have to use very much of it.
I hate duct tape residue. So for a very temporary fix I use painters tape.
If the duck tape fails to secure my compost bin, I'll admit I was wrong.
I spend a lot of time claiming to be wrong so people will tell me I'm actually right.
In future posts, I'll address composting, something I have experience in.
I'll be happy to learn more about composting.
Everyone gets lucky every once in a while.
As your financial adviser, I advise investing in a roll of Gorilla Tape to reduce risk.
I have a roll hidden because often times “ye who shall not be named” doesn’t put it back.
I used to keep a roll hidden at the store so it would be available when I needed to use it to fix something, like signs or displays. Otherwise someone else would use it to fix something and then randomly leave it somewhere so it would not be available to anybody.
It's possible we had used ours up.
My goodness, the pigeon story was illuminating in many ways. Along with the pigeons - the megafauna, ice-edge hunters, Indians and lost culture, evolving dominant trees.. Cool read. Thank you!
Good morning!
0.7" of rain here from Chantal but we are east of the storm path.
It is being reported as a 500 -1000 year storm. One area reported a similar water level rise as seen in Texas - 22 ft in 4 hours.
https://www.wral.com/story/chantal-brings-500-year-1-000-year-flood-to-parts-of-moore-chatham-orange-durham-counties/22077408/
Yesterday the temperatures and breeze were actually pleasant - in between rain bands.
Those "1000 Year" assignments to various natural weather phenomenon are silly. We've only been tracking weather in the US in any organized way since the late 19th century, and only with sophisticated methods for a couple decades. We have some decent ideas about past weather from doing ice and earth core sampling, with that research only now beginning to provide credible hypothesis.
Labeling things with time signatures creates its own problems with understanding. Calling it a "500-1000" year storm anesthetizes one from thinking it might happen again.
Yeah, they address that in the article. Hurricane Fran in 1996 was also a 500 year storm.
We know that there have been dozens...or hundreds or thousands...of tsunamis on the PNW coast over the millennia occurring on 300-500 year cycles, where entire areas like the city of Seattle are buried in mud several meters deep. Based on past patterns learned from core sampling, we're overdue for a "big one".
There's reasons that ancient people rarely settled on the coast; their settlements were inland and occupying the actual coasts was seasonal and related to food gathering.
Have you read The Wave by Susan Casey? Fasonating but not nearly enough pictures.
It's been a while, but I remember being impressed by the gap between what was believed and the dize of the data set the belief was based upon.
Nope. And yeah, big gap.
Forgot to include
https://susancasey.com/books-list/the-wave
Yup. Nowadays, we get 100 year storms here every year.
Locals here still talk about the cycles of lake level rise and fall for Lake Michigan in various terms, and every year those cycles are disproven by wild fluctuations in lake levels, yet people still talk about them in terms of the cycles that are regularly disproven.
I live about 3 hours from the central TX floods. Many years ago my kids went to one of the camps there with their school. My wife was a teacher there and also went as one of the leaders. It’s hard to imagine what those families are going through.
So hard to believe things like this are possible in this information age. So very tragic.
the local NWS in a couple areas were ummmm DOGED. understaffed
While I have no love for DOGE, reliable NWS sources have said that it had no effect in this circumstance. Biggest issue may have been complacency borne of continual flood warnings and poor cell service in the area.
https://www.newsweek.com/weather-service-staffing-clearly-concern-deadly-texas-floods-2095053
Well possibly both. More so you are right about arrogant complacency of Texans ignoring warnings.
the lack of a hydrologist who actually calculates water flow based on topographic information, ie ravine/flow channel size was probably why the flood level severe warnings were less than actual.
Think about how many warnings the public gets in many forms, that never turn out to be any kind of emergency. Tornadoes, hurricanes, terror threats, TV news getting us worked up about crime and everything else. It’s not hard to understand a reaction of “it’s probably another false alarm.”
Key leaders had … You face imminent severe flash flooding and waited a precious hour.
Adults in charge failed children.
This analysis is excellent
https://open.substack.com/pub/rogerpielkejr/p/the-texas-flash-floods?r=2k7oo&utm_medium=ios
It is good.
Note in the last chart “Has preparation and response to flooding improved” the following. While moving averages and linear trend line have fallen, the highest fatalities as a group have increased.
It could mean a few things
a. more people exposed to the risk
b. more people ignoring warnings and the obvious undeniable flash flooding history.
I know that valley area. Brother lives in Dallas. Ms. Pinki has a good friend in Hill Country. She went in April with my sister in law to a ladies church retreat in that valley.
We lived in Houston and Austin when our kids were growing up. Everyone is now sharing stories with a connection to someone affected. Even if the connection is a few degrees of separation the loss weighs heavily. Many church communities have someone affected and the prayers during service make the loss felt by many. Thinking about the search and rescue teams, and how indescribably awful it must be to pull dead children from the waters. I don't think I would ever be the same. It is just devastating.
There are no words. Tears are prayers.
That is a horrible tragedy. Prayers for the families and communities afflicted.
Sliced bread was sold for the first time on this date in 1928.
It ocurred to me that presliced bread reduced generation of crumbs, which meant less mess to clean up and less waste to attract vermin.
Thus making it possible for so many more great things to be invented.
Excellent article. In particular, far too little attention has been given to how European diseases ravaged Native populations. While there were far too many examples of oppression from white settlers, the real “genocide” was due to smallpox and other diseases.
I read an account of the Pilgrims that described how they founded their first village on the site of a Native settlement that had been abandoned. Later they encountered Squanto, the last survivor of that tribe who described how disease wiped out that village.
Yes, excellent. I've read a few pieces in the last couple years talking about Native population destruction due to disease, where recent studies show there were WAY more Native inhabitants than originally thought because original statistics were based on what new arrivals found, not what might have been there before they arrived. IOW, our understanding of the populations of the Western Hemisphere are severely wrong.
Mann’s 1491 cannot be praised enough in that regard, IMO. There’s so much that he condensed about the archeology, anthropology, and other research methods to analyze the Western Hemisphere’s past. For instance, just how advanced the cultures *might* have been that *might* have inhabited and cultivated the Amazon basin rainforests itself is awe inspiring.
Massive but regular seasonal flooding along the Amazon and the tropical climate and rainforest biome, which recycles all organic remains, leaves little by way of artifacts for archeology to interpret. And yet there are curious stacked stone “islands” along the river that strongly suggest very intensive human effort.
1491 summarizes the imagined state of the New World as far as our collective understanding depicted it 15 years ago. 1493 follow on that work by summarizing the rest of the world after the Columbian Exchange began in 1492 up to about the same point in time.
I truly hope Mann one day will decide to put out revised and updated editions of each, although it’s unlikely for a number of reasons.
I keep intending to read "1491" but get put off by the size of the book.
Recent LIDAR scanning of the Amazonian basin reveals vast settlements and apparently sophisticated cities that are completely overgrown and unrecognizable by simple observation.
Good morning. 77 here, white highs in the 80s and chance of summer thundershowers later this afternoon, which after a 3 day weekend of 90 degree days is not unwelcome.
Both the mothership and the FP are covering the Frankenstein’s monster known as Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” enacting Trump’s legislative agenda, which does not include reducing spending or the deficit.
When the debt bomb finally goes off we’ll see the mother of all blame games. Lots of blame to go around.
Yup. Except...the debt bomb has already gone off. We're just not seeing or hearing the reverberations yet.
It's not a sudden explosion, but a slow conflagration that has not yet reached a critical state. When that will happen, no one knows.
This is not a hard disagreement because I understand what you're saying, but....
I disagree that it's not yet reached a critical state; I think we're in that critical state now. When a plurality suddenly sees it, it's not critical...it's past critical and in disaster mode. I have an entire cosmology on this, based on what I know is happening in the Eastern Hemisphere and Global South. I'll spare you the details.
Most humans don't react or even function until disaster hits. They miss seeing the critical stage and think it's something still nascent.
Semantic difference only. I think of a critical state as a visible crisis. What you describe is more of "past the point of no return".
Almost any statement can be made into a semantic misunderstanding. Humans don't like the idea they are living in a crisis state, so they describe it in words that make them comfortable.
We're way past a point of no return on debt bomb stuff. People in other parts of the world...parts of the world that Americans think of as "owning"...are seeing things differently. I think folks disagree because they read American validated purveyors of what's happening now and think we're still in charge.
I'd give that a heavily qualified "maybe", at best.
Good morning and happy Monday!
Very interesting facts and speculation.
If there's a fact that leads to speculation....and it hasn't been written about by a dozen experts on Substack....is it really a fact?