SAR #14141

Mother Nature is indifferent to our fate, we should not be.

Weather Report: Scientists estimate that by 2060 temperatures in the American Mid-South will be at least 9 degrees higher than their 1990 average. How are things going to be in your neighborhood?

On The Other Hand: According to the statistical data beloved of economists and Wall Street, the economy is recovering nicely. Based on the on-going need that over 100 million Americans have for social assistance to make ends meet, recovery seems to overstate the case.

Once Around: Australia, which seems to have forgotten their recent record heat and massive wildfires, is going to slash 90% of funding for global warming science from its budget. Elsewhere, reports indicate that Greenland will be a far greater contributor to sea rise than previously expected; nuclear power plants on the US East Coast are in danger of being flooded by rising seas; Bosnia and Serbia are being destroyed by record floods; and Farmers' Insurance is suing local government agencies for failing to act to slow or stop global climate change. 
 
No School, No Lunch: Ever wonder what the kids who get free lunch (and often free breakfasts, and far too often it's the whole student body that qualifies) at school every day during the school year do during the summer? Well, again this summer the Republicans are letting rural, mostly white kids receive food aid. As for the mostly non-white kids in the cities, the GOP is sorry, but they had to draw the line on spending somewhere.

Room For One More: North Carolina, which has outlawed global warming and made revealing what the frackers are up to a felony, now wants to make taking pictures of farms from an airplane illegal. In the Race to Backward, NC is picking up a sizable lead over the usual suspects.

In The Driver's Seat: Caterpillar, a pillar of the Dow, reports its global sales fell 13%, the most since 2010, making 17 consecutive months of falling Y/Y sales. 
 
Networking: The good old boys – of both parties – who were able to get their sub-standard offspring into the University of Texas Graduate School of Law have been unable to use that same clout to get junior past the bar exams. Nearly half of recent UT grads have been unable to pass, the worst record of any of Texas' nine law schools.

Number One, With A Bullet: A global survey found that Americans are more afraid of being tortured by their own government than the citizens of nearly all the other nations. And Americans are also far more afraid of their own government than they are of terrorists – which assumes there is a difference between the two. 
 
Porn O'Graph: No way out.

The Parting Shot: