Retiring Guy's Digest: 2018-08-05

Saturday, August 11, 2018

UPDATE When the money would better spent on much more pressing infrastructure needs

Top headline from The New York Times, 8/6/2018

“The report shows us what we already knew: The Trump administration put almost zero thought into the construction of this wall other than how it will play in the news cycle,” Mr. Vela said.

Bottom headline from 24/7 Wall St. 1/22/2017.

Figures about how much money the U.S. needs to rebuild the infrastructure of its brides, tunnels, roads, and airports differs wildly. In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers put the needed investment at $3.6 trillion between when its report was published and 2020. An official federal government report estimates the number is $808.2 billion.

The 2017 ASCE report card has since been made avalable.

Original 2/9/2018 post, "Infrastructure choice: Build that wall or upgrade aging Mississippi River locks and dams", starts here.

Map source: Wikipedia

Reported in Study: Mississippi River lock failure could cost millions, put hundreds more trucks on roads. (Madison.com, 2/8/2018)

Modal Investment Comparison:The Impact of Upper Mississippi RiverLock and Dam Shutdowns on State Highway Infrastructure

Crumbling from within

Source: 2017 Infrastructure report card (American Society of Civil Engineers)

Climate change as a matter of fact: Military prepares for reality of climate change, rising seas

Reported in Parris Island, Charleston Coast Guard threatened by rising seas, global warming. (Charleston Post and Courier, 8/6/2018)

Original 3/1/2018 post, "Military experts sound an alarm", starts here.

Previous climate change as a matter of fact posts:
Africa
Cape Town, South Africa. (1/31/2018)
Kenya. (7/23/2017)

Asia
Record heat in Japan raises concerns over 2020 Olympics. (7/23/2018)
Wet bulb temperatures in India. (7/21/2018)
Lebanon's cedar trees. (7/19/2018)
Rising seas + draining underground aquifers = Jakarta disaster. (12/22/2017)

Australia and the Pacific
Dying coral of the Great Barrier Reef. (4/22/2018)
Easter Island. (3/18/2018)
Green sea turtles of the Great Barrier Reef. (1/11/2018)
Kiribati. (7/6/2016)

Europe
Portugal. (6/19/2017)
The Netherlands. (6/19/2017)
Norway, Finland, and Sweden. (7/19/2018)

North America
Miami, again. (6/14/2018)
May 2018 record heat in U.S. (6/9/2018)
Miami. (5/4/2018)
Melting outdoor ice rinks in Canada. (3/21/2018)
Gulf of Maine. (3/8/2018)
Jean Lafitte, Louisiana. (2/26/2018)
Lodi, Wisconsin. (2/3/2018)
Maine shrimp season. (12/27/2017)
California fires. (12/8/2017)
Wisconsin. (11/16/2017)
Hampton Roads, Virginia. (11/4/2017)
Georgia peach orchards. (9/18/2017)
Northeast U.S. pine forests. (8/29/2017)
Tangier Island, Virginia.  (8/25/2017)
South of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. (8/25/2017)
New Orleans.  (8/12/2017)
Mexico City.  (2/19/2017)
Kansas. (1/29/2017)
Moose of Maine.  (1/21/2017)
Florida Keys.  (1/14/2017)
California wine country. (1/11/2017)
Kaktovik, Alaska. (12/20/2016)
Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park. (7/7/2016)

Polar regions
Disappearing old ice in Arctic. (6/4/2018)
North Pole. (2/28/2018)
Beavers migrate to Arctic. (12/24 /2017)
Shrinking sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. (12/14/2017)
Emaciated polar bear. (12/9/2017)

South America
Peru. (11/26/2017)
Brazil. (6/8/2017)
Bolivia. (7/11/2016)
Peru, (5/21/2016)

U.S. Military
Military experts sound an alarm. (3/1/2018)
U.S. military bases around the world. (1/8/2018)
U.S. Department of Defense. (12/16/2017)
U.S. military bases. (9/22/2017)

Worldwide
Not just a wake-up call anymore. (8/10/2018)
Wine production. (4/27/2018)

The Trump swamp is full of cheapskates

Reported in New Details About Wilbur Ross’ Business Point To Pattern Of Grifting. (Forbes, 8/6/2018)

Related posts:
The Trump Swamp is full of lobbyist-related critters. (7/18/2018)
The Trump Swamp is full of fossil-fuel critters. (7/18/2018)
What is the opposite of 'drain the swamp'. (5/14/2018)
Swamp thing Scott Pruitt and his lobbyist buddy ride the Marrakesh Express. (5/2/2018)
UPDATE. Dear Coral and Lisa, Analysts? How about 'anti-environment Republican' and 'energy industry shill'? (4/29/2018)
No drainage here UPDATE: Scott Pruitt fills the swamp a 24/7 gushing hose. (4/3/2018)
Like a swamp after an extended downpour, Donald Trump's Washington D.C. is flooding. (11/15/2017)
Siding with Wall Street, GOP continues to fill the swamp. (10/25/2017)
Trump administration plans to flood the for-profit colleges swamp. (10/1/2017)
UPDATE. More than 4 months into his presidency, Trump blathers about draining the swamp. (6/8/2017)
Swamp critter of the Trump administration: Geoffrey Burr, Dept. of Transportation chief of staff. (6/7/2017)

Friday, August 10, 2018

Most Trump voters continue to have 'very warm' feelings for president in spite of his profound hypocrisy

Pew Research Center. 8/9/2018

Sources: @realDonaldTrump, The New York Times

President Trump: Only in it for the money (part 4)

Reported in Who Gets a New 20% Tax Break? The Treasury Dept. Speaks, and Trump May Save. (The New York Times, 8/8i/2018)

Chapter 3 starts here.

Tax Plan Crowns a Big Winner: Trump’s Industry. (The New York Times, 12/5/2017)

Part 2

(emphasis added)

Reported in Tax Plan Crowns a Big Winner: Trump’s Industry. (The New York Times, 12/5/2017)

Part 1

Photo credit: Twitter

In Truth, A Bounty of Riches for Trump. (The New York Times, 11/30/2017)

And yet PolitiFart can't smell the full stink. Why isn't this a 'pants on fire' statement?

UPDATE: July 2018 is hottest month ever in California

5 degrees above the 20th-century average.

California Swelters Under All-Time Record Heat In July. (KPIX San Francisco, 8/8/2018)

Death Valley set a new tentative world’s record for hottest month anywhere on Earth. The monthly average was a scorching 108.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

The daily high was 127 degrees Fahrenheit four days in a row in July, the National Park Service said. And sunset didn’t bring much relief. Temperatures failed to drop below 100 for 10 nights in the month — with the lows not coming until usually around 5 a.m., just before sunrise.

Original 8/6/2018 post, "Record heat headline news", starts here.

NBC News, 8/4/2018

114 in Santarem

111.2 in Lisbon

Herald-Mail, 8/4/2018

78.8 - surface water at Scripps Pier in San Diego (highest in 102 years of recordkeeping)
64.9 - highest ever minimum nighttime temperature
108.1 - average temperature in Death Valley, warmest July on record
97.6 - average temperature in Palm Springs, warmest July on record

July 6 records (daytime high temperature):

120 at Chino
117 at Van Nuys
114 at Burbank
114 at Santa Ana
111 at UCLA

Warmest July ever

87.8 at Palmdale
87.2 at Lancaster
83.6 at Van Nuys
77.9 at Long Beach
74.5 at Camarillo
73.1 at Oxnard
69.5 at San Luis Obispo
26 consecutive days of 100 at Fresno

Source of graphic: Our climate plans are in pieces as killer summer shreds records. (CNN, 8/5/2018)

Long read:
Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change. By Nathaniel Rich. Photographs and Videos by George Steinmetz. (The New York Times Magazine, 8/1/ 2018)

Related posts:
July 2018
NORTH AMERICA. Seriously record-breaking temperature put SoCal on high broil. (7/8/2018)

May 2018
EUROPE.  Record heat on United Kingdom bank holiday. (5/8/2018)
NORTH AMERICA.  Phoenix breaks 70-year-old heat record. (5/7/2018)
ASIA.  Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, experiences record heat. (5/5/2018)
NORTH AMERICA.  Broken records all over New Jersey. (5/4/2018)
NORTH AMERICA.  It eventually reached 90 degrees in Washington DC, setting a new record. (5/3/2018)
ASIA. Nawabshah, Pakistan, sets April 30 record for highest global temperature ever: 122.4 degrees Fahrenheit. (5/3/2018)

April 2018
NORTH AMERICA.  Record-breaking heat at 16 locations in British Columbia. (4/28/2018)
AUSTRALIA.  Twin-spin, record-setting heat in Adelaide. (4/25/2018)
EUROPE.  Across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, Croatia is broiling in the April heat. (4/24/2018)
EUROPE.  Record April heat in northern Italy. (4/24/2018)
NORTH AMERICA.  Arizona sets record for warmest 'cold season'. (4/18/2018)
ASIA.  It's shaping up to be a broiling hot April in the Indian state of Odisha. (4/17/2018)

NORTH AMERICA. It's shaping up to be a very hot April in the UK. (4/17/2018)

UPDATE. 4-time loser Matt Flynn should probably just concentrate on getting 3% of the primary vote right now

Source: Wikipedia

Matt Flynn says fellow Democrats Kelda Roys, Tony Evers, Mahlon Mitchell can't beat Scott Walker. (Madison.com, 8/10/2018)

Flynn, who has lost four previous elections, has refused bipartisan calls for him to drop out of the race because of his legal work defending the Milwaukee Archdiocese against priest abuse allegations in the 1990s.

Full chart found at Ballotpedia

8/9/2018 update, "Get me rewrite: Everyone's least favorite Democratic candidate for Governor tells rest of field to 'Eat my shorts!'", starts here.

Source: Real Clear Politics

At Democratic forum Matt Flynn says Scott Walker will eat Tony Evers for lunch. (Wisconsin State Journal, 8/9/2018)

Original 6/26/2018 post, starts here.

Photo credit: Forward with Flynn

Lawmakers call for Matt Flynn to exit Wisconsin governor's race over priest abuse cases. (Capital Times, 6/26/2018)

Speaking of desperate.
Democrat Flynn accuses Evers of using 'Walker-style tactic'. (Chicago Tribune, 6/14/2018)

Flynn started his intra-party attack on Tony Evers earlier in the month.

Climate change as a matter of fact: Not just a wake-up call anymore

Photo credit: Urban Climate Change Research Network

2018 Is Shaping Up to Be the Fourth-Hottest Year. Yet We’re Still Not Prepared for Global Warming. (The New York Times, 8/9/2018)

Previous climate change as a matter of fact posts:
Africa
Cape Town, South Africa. (1/31/2018)
Kenya. (7/23/2017)

Asia
Record heat in Japan raises concerns over 2020 Olympics. (7/23/2018)
Wet bulb temperatures in India. (7/21/2018)
Lebanon's cedar trees. (7/19/2018)
Rising seas + draining underground aquifers = Jakarta disaster. (12/22/2017)

Australia and the Pacific
Dying coral of the Great Barrier Reef. (4/22/2018)
Easter Island. (3/18/2018)
Green sea turtles of the Great Barrier Reef. (1/11/2018)
Kiribati. (7/6/2016)

Europe
Portugal. (6/19/2017)
The Netherlands. (6/19/2017)
Norway, Finland, and Sweden. (7/19/2018)

North America
Miami, again. (6/14/2018)
May 2018 record heat in U.S. (6/9/2018)
Miami. (5/4/2018)
Melting outdoor ice rinks in Canada. (3/21/2018)
Gulf of Maine. (3/8/2018)
Jean Lafitte, Louisiana. (2/26/2018)
Lodi, Wisconsin. (2/3/2018)
Maine shrimp season. (12/27/2017)
California fires. (12/8/2017)
Wisconsin. (11/16/2017)
Hampton Roads, Virginia. (11/4/2017)
Georgia peach orchards. (9/18/2017)
Northeast U.S. pine forests. (8/29/2017)
Tangier Island, Virginia.  (8/25/2017)
South of the Arctic Circle in Alaska. (8/25/2017)
New Orleans.  (8/12/2017)
Mexico City.  (2/19/2017)
Kansas. (1/29/2017)
Moose of Maine.  (1/21/2017)
Florida Keys.  (1/14/2017)
California wine country. (1/11/2017)
Kaktovik, Alaska. (12/20/2016)
Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park. (7/7/2016)

Polar regions
Disappearing old ice in Arctic. (6/4/2018)
North Pole. (2/28/2018)
Beavers migrate to Arctic. (12/24 /2017)
Shrinking sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. (12/14/2017)
Emaciated polar bear. (12/9/2017)

South America
Peru. (11/26/2017)
Brazil. (6/8/2017)
Bolivia. (7/11/2016)
Peru, (5/21/2016)

U.S. Military
Military experts sound an alarm. (3/1/2018)
U.S. military bases around the world. (1/8/2018)
U.S. Department of Defense. (12/16/2017)
U.S. military bases. (9/22/2017)

Worldwide
Wine production. (4/27/2018)

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Greetings from Trump's America: Humboldt County, Iowa, which used to have 257,545 acres of prairie

Bachelor farmer brothers leave behind a surprising gift that's now blooming in Iowa. (Des Moines Register, 6/25/2018)

Iowa has lost 99.9 percent of its native prairie and 89 percent of its wetlands to development, most of which has been agricultural. In Humboldt County, there were 257,545 acres of prairie in 1859, but in a 2009 state survey, there was none.