By Morf Morford, Tacoma Daily Index
Hot
It was the hottest week ever – at least for a few thousand years. But it won’t be the hottest we will get.
The ocean on the coast of Florida hit almost 100 degrees; not the place to cool off on a hot day.
What was once considered extreme, even catastrophic, has become our normal.
From destructive flooding in New York, Vermont and Chicago, suffocating heat waves in Arizona and Texas, smoky haze from Canadian wildfires blanketing the upper U.S., and the hottest recorded day/week in modern history, these are all just a sign of things to come.
The cost of weather
As of mid-July, the USA had twelve weather-related disasters with damage costing at least a billion dollars – and that’s just fifteen weeks into the year.
Heat kills
Heat kills far more than any other wether-related cause. In Europe, more than 61,000 people died due to the heat during their record-breaking heat wave in 2022.
Record breaking heat has hit Europe and Asia with temperatures reaching 128 (F) or 52 (C) damaging agriculture and closing tourist sights.
Here in the USA, a week or so in July saw 100 million of us under heat advisories.
Malaria in America
About 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year. The vast majority of cases in the United States are in travelers and immigrants returning from countries where malaria is relatively common. For the first time in decades, cases of locally acquired malaria were reported – seven in Florida and one in Texas. None of the patients had traveled outside the state before falling ill.
In sports
US Women’s National Team star Megan Rapinoe, a two-time Women’s World Cup winner, announced that she will retire at the end of the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season.
Ukraine joining NATO? It’s complicated
NATO has 31 members, each one pledging to support any other member in the event of military invasion from any other outside force.
Russia invaded Ukraine precisely because it feared being surrounded by NATO members.
Ukraine’s membership in NATO would mean direct war between NATO nations and Russia.
But it still might happen. Eventually.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has a simple solution. She is calling for the U.S. to withdraw from NATO.
Nordic NATO
Sweden is expected to follow Finland in joining NATO. That means that all of Scandinavia will be NATO members. Finland alone has an almost 900 mile border with Russia.
Lamborghini goes electric
Giving in to the “woke mob” or market forces, Lamborghini has sold its remaining production run of fully gas-powered models and will now focus on electrification. Their future lineup will include plug-in hybrid versions of the Aventador and Huracan supercars and a plug-in hybrid Urus SUV. Lamborghini plans to launch its first all-electric vehicle later this decade. The first plug-in hybrid model is expected to be released in late 2023.
In Cinema
The Barbie Movie premiered in late July.
The final Indiana Jones movie featuring Harrison Ford opened to mediocre reviews. The series began in 1981.
Perhaps we’ll see the final Barbie movie about 40 years from now.
Elon ready to stop giving us the bird?
Elon Musk announced plans to change Twitter’s logo from its long standing blue bird to an X. We shall see…
In Memoriam
Tony Bennett died July 21st, two weeks shy of his 97th birthday. Bennett released more than 60 studio albums over the course of his career, and held multiple Guinness World Records. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.
Every year seems to be an election year
It might not be time for a national election, but you’d never know it from the news and political talk shows.
Among the dozen or so GOP contenders for president, we have three from Florida. As Wikipedia puts it the archetypical “Florida man” is recognized for “performing irrational, maniacal, illogical, delusional, insane, and absurd actions.” At least the coming year or so should be entertaining.
On the other side of the aisle, Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (not from Florida) proposes backing the U.S. dollar with bitcoin and making bitcoin profits exempt from capital gains taxes. Who needs gold when you have a standard as solid as bitcoin?
Sugar, sugar
A committee of 25 international experts declared that aspartame may “possibly” cause cancer in people, according to a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO). Aspartame is in a wide range of everyday products from diet sodas, low-sugar jams and snacks, yogurts, cereals and chewing gum.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration disagrees with this new classification. In a written statement, an FDA official asserted that aspartame being labeled by the WHO “as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ does not mean that aspartame is actually linked to cancer.”
I hope that clarifies the situation.
The return of the “morality police” in Iran
Iranian authorities have announced the return of Iran’s “morality police”. These are the enforcers of public “standards” of dress and appearance. A key premise is that casual dress is a sign of western decadence. Women are legally required to wear scarves fully covering their hair.
Recently a prominent female actor was barred from social media and ordered by a court to seek psychological treatment for “antisocial personality disorder” after appearing at a funeral a few months ago wearing a cap (instead of a scarf) on her head.
The whole premise of “morality” is that one lives by self-chosen rules or guidelines. Deciding, or enforcing what other people should wear (or eat or read) is far from morality.
