Smokin’

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Attribution: Air Quality by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

Tens of millions under air quality alerts in US as Canada fire smoke drifts south | Pollution | The Guardian

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said hazy skies, reduced visibility and the odor of burning wood are likely, and that the smoke will linger for a few days in northern states.

“It’s not unusual for us to get fire smoke in our area. It’s very typical in terms of north-west Canada,” Darren Austin, a meteorologist and senior air quality specialist with the Rhode Island department of environmental management, told the AP. But, usually, the smoke has been aloft and hasn’t affected people’s health, Austin said.

Experts, and some political leaders were highlighting links between the wildfires and the climate crisis.

A 2021 study supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association found that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in hot, dry fire weather in the western US.

By 2090, global wildfires are expected to increase in intensity by up to 57% thanks to climate change, a United Nations report warned last year.

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72 thoughts on “Smokin’”

  1. How ‘severe and unusual’ smoke from Canadian wildfires is spreading and what it means for your health | CBC News

    A recent Stanford University study quantified what breathing in that particulate matter would mean in terms of cigarettes.
    According to the study, an AQI measurement of 20 is equivalent to smoking one cigarette a day.
    The study noted that exposure to wildfire smoke causing an AQI of 150 for several days would be equivalent to smoking about seven cigarettes a day if someone were outside the whole time.

  2. Saw a report that being outside in NYC is the equivalent of smoking six cigarettes. Doesn’t seem to have gotten that bad in DC so far, but wouldn’t you know this comes six months after I finally quit smoking.

  4. Mark Meadows to plead guilty in deal to testify against Trump: report (msn.com)

    Sources told Andrew Feinberg of The Independent that Meadows’ decision to plead guilty was connected to his testimony to a grand jury hearing evidence about Jan. 6 and the mishandling of classified documents.

    “It is understood that the former North Carolina congressman will plead guilty to several federal charges as part of a deal for which he has already received limited immunity in exchange for his testimony,” Feinberg wrote.

    Feinberg also reported that special counsel Jack Smith is prepared to ask for an indictment of Trump as soon as Thursday.

  5. Federal prosecutors tell Trump that he is a target in classified files probe : NPR

    Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers have received notice from the Justice Department that Trump is a target of the Mar-a-Lago documents inquiry, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
    That notice gives lawyers a chance to argue against indictment. People who receive target letters are usually indicted, but not always.
    Trump, in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, said: “No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong.”
    The notification to the Trump legal team followed the announcement that Mark Meadows, President Trump’s former White House chief of staff, had recently testified before a grand jury. That panel is weighing the handling of classified documents once Trump left office and alleged obstruction of justice as the government probed the matter, according to a source with direct knowledge.
    “Mr. Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so,” George Terwilliger, Meadows’ attorney previously told NPR in a statement.
    Though the substance and location of Meadows’ testimony were unclear on Wednesday, the apparent pacing of witness testimony could signal that special counsel Jack Smith’s probe is nearing a conclusion.
    [continues]

  6. I’m going out on a limb, thinking today is DT Day, Trump indicted in Miami Federal court in the documents case. For charges, take your pick or all of the below:

    Unauthorized retention of national security documents
    10 years

    Obstruction
    20 years

    Mishandling official documents
    3 years

    Contempt of court
    6 months

    Conspiracy to make a false statement
    6 years

    Unauthorized gathering, possessing or transmitting of certain sensitive government information (Espionage Act).
    10 years

  8. Yeah, if Christie is out to sink the orange battleship he’s welcome to whine around from sea to shining sea, and especially on the debate stage, but any chance of being elected to ANYTHING?   Nah.

  9. Craig – coming from a special world, the charges I would like to see will not be made.  Those cover the lives he handed to putie and the saudi’s.  Lives he offered up to his masters just for fun. Lives of people who will never be known outside of a small group. Some will be a star on a wall, others will never be known as more than a code word.  For this he should face the real consequences of his actions, life confined or ended early.

  10. pogo, WVa in the alert range?  louisville and environs are enough so that folks are being advised to limit time outdoors and/or wear k95s.   looks like it’s gonna hang around until th weekend. 

  12. A bit of timing going on Pat Robertson, grifter extreme and freakin’ nuts, has gone the way of all previous religious types, cold as the room he is.  There should be articles popping up very soon as his obit was already written by many.

    Edit: timing refers to June being Pride Month and the hate monger going ghost white. We, LGBTQA were blamed for everything from flat feet to 9/11

  15. Good for you Craig for finally quitting that nasty habit!
     
    The resort we are staying at is overlooking Vineyard Sound.  We should be seeing Martha’s Vineyard clear as day… but if you didn’t know that it was there, you’d never believe it.  I feel bad for my sister living in NYC.

  16. As my old boss’s daddy told the preacher man, if I don’t see you in hell, I’ll know you ain’t dead yet. 

  17. I live on a little peninsula a bit southeast of Annapolis in the Chesapeake Bay.  Looking out the patio door I can see about one hundred feet before it gets smokey, two hundred feet looks like dense fog.  But, it stinks like a forest fire.  I plan on masking up later this morning to go over to the shore and take some video, it it is worthwhile.

  23. Supreme Court has just AFFIRMED the Voting Rights Act & tossed out a Republican-drawn Congressional map in Alabama that would’ve diluted the Black vote. Roberts wrote it; Clarence and Alito dissented 

  27. Phony Barret–someone should take her black children  away from her
    She also delivered an opinion that being called a nigger at work does not create a hostile work environment.
    Seriously the woman is a racist
     

  28. Every day the NYTimes runs an article about the problems of old age.  Today’s is we have age minimums shouldn’t we have age maximums.  The Times has taken the position that Biden is  too old and every day they print something that they think proves it.  They suck

  29. Several of the last opions from the court, formerly known as the supreme, definitely show the results of how disasterous Thomas, and others, actions forced changes away from the far, far right wing nut jobs.  VRA, what is left of it, being upheld is something I don’t think was on Predictit.org.  If it was I would not have won that one. Thomas dissent is around fifty pages of drivel.  No matter how hard he tries, his skin is still not lily white.

  30. I do sometimes idly wonder what kinda justice old Clarence woulda been if his initiation to the club hadn’t been such a veritable shit-storm of humiliation……..
    Eh, probably bout the same

  31. Pat Robertson dead at 93?
    That is positive proof that there is no God, if there was Pat would have been struck down by lightening years ago.
    Jack

  32. Sturge,
    Given that Republicans were looking for a black jurist that would vote against all the civil right legislation passed in the 60’s.  He would still be the same asshole. It takes a special kind of person to do what he does.
    Jack

  33. So late but better than never.

    “A three-judge federal panel in January 2022 ordered Alabama to redraw the congressional map to add a second district that was majority or near-majority Black. The judges, including two appointees of President Trump, ruled after a seven-day hearing that the plan most likely violated the Voting Rights Act. “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” they wrote.”

     
    https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/supreme-court-may-rule-today-whether-alabama-congressional-map-violates-voting-rights-act.html?utm_campaign=aldotcom_sf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

  34. This fight is not going to be over. Racial discrimination still exists in this country and we need to do something about it.- Senator Doug Jones

  35. Sturge, Clarence was obstructing equal rights when he was head of the EEOC. 

    (Nominating Clarence was probably the weakest thing “Poppy” ever did.)

  37. My dreams come “true”. Junk mail has good stuff in it too.

    Good Morning,
    You are the beneficiary to my deceased client who died intestate to the bequest of the sum of  GPB17,200,000.00 GBP. Name now withheld, because this is the second time I am contacting you.
    You were chosen because you bear the same last name with him. If you accept, please reply for further details.
    Thanks,
    Susan Dawson

  38. Jack, LOL at the Pat-lightning-god comment.  As the cowardly lion said, “Ain’t it the truth?”
     
    BB, congratulations. Ethiopian Prince perhaps?  That’s the last one I got, but he wasn’t dead, just needed to park some money in my account.

  41. bId – Obama was working on ways to bring Cuba into the goodness of America, then sfb goes and destroys everything.  I do not remember anything about President Biden doing anything to restore good graces.

  46. I like it.

    Gavin Newsom: “I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation’s gun violence crisis.

    The American people are sick of Congress’ inaction.

    The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms — while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact:

    1) Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21

    2) Universal background checks

    3) A reasonable waiting period for gun purchases

    4) Banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons

  47. More Newsom: “Even Fox News can’t deny that the 28th Amendment is widely popular.

    Here’s their most recent polling to prove it: 

    – Raising minimum age to buy a gun to 21: 81%

    – Background checks: 87%

    – A standard waiting period: 77%

    – Banning assault rifle sales: 61%

  49. My questions are how do you “through” anyone anywhere, and why he doesn’t know how to disable the all caps function on his phone.
     
    Ivy, people are jealous of Mountain Brook. A lot of wealthy people live there.  I kinda like Mountain Brook, and Homewood and Vestavia for that matter.
     
    So the Alabama brouhaha was over redistricting after the 2010 census – cutting up Jefferson and Tuscaloosa Counties and dumping heavily black areas into the 7th district, making the 6th and 4th less competitive and doing the same thing in Montgomery County to make the 2nd less competitive. Just coincidental that West Jefferson, Southern Tuscaloosa and NW Montgomery Counties have concentrations of black voters and bordered the black belt counties I suppose. I wonder if the original Dreamland Barbeque in the oldest black part of the town got districted into the 2nd – it did. But seriously, the bullshit about avoiding cutting up the coastal counties because of the shared Spanish and French heritage (which somehow I missed anything about that in Con law) is stunning. From Wapo:

    But Alabama said that redrawing could only happen by splitting the counties along the state’s Gulf Coast, which the state contends is a unified community of shared interest because of combined French and Spanish heritage. At oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the state had never been reluctant to split Black voters, who she said also had shared interests.

    For those who wouldn’t be savvy about the lines and cities of the 7th district at issue  – in Tuscaloosa it literally splits the town between the 7th district and the 4th, with the downtown, projects and low income areas in the 7th and the tonier burbs north of the Black Warrior River in the 4th; in Birmingham it puts downtown, East Lake, the airport area and all points north and west of downtown within the city limits (heavily black areas) in the 7th and puts Hoover, Vestavia, Mountain Brook and the eastern and farther northern burbs into the 6th; and in Montgomery the 7th extends literally through the heart of the city (guess what the demographics of downtown Montgomery are) and leaves the shitkicking southern, eastern and northern suburbs in the 2nd.
     
    Ahh, home sweet home (racist pricks).

  50. Other things the Supremes have been doing
    Gave the right to companies to sue unions if they strike.

  51. Well, the next time a hurricane hits Cuba, let China come to their rescue.  Let’s keep manufacturing stuff here and with our friends, instead of in China.  What’s the point, we are going to be repaid with assholishness?   

  53. Orange Adolf still thinks the election was “stollen” (sweet bread) from him.  The “through” threw me for a loop; I barely noticed that he continues to misspell stolen.

    Speaking of how we treat our neighbors, I  assume we are helping Canada extinguish the wildfires. Yes?

  54. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/wildfires-burn-across-canada-with-little-relief-sight-2023-06-08/

    “The U.S. has sent hundreds of firefighters to Canada over the past few weeks and has said more help is on its way. President Joe Biden, in a statement on Thursday, said he has directed his administration to respond promptly to requests for additional firefighters and fire suppression assets.”

    “Help has also come in from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that France, Portugal and Spain were also sending more than 280 firefighters to Canada.”

  55. Pogo, my neighborhood under the Statue of Liberty-replica tried to hitch up to Mountain Brook but Mountain Brook turned up its nose. We got gerrymandered into Vestavia instead.

    Which was kind’ve ironic. We had Garry Neil Drummond as a neighbor. He ruled the place and nobody in Alabama was richer than him. (Today would’ve been his 85th birthday.)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_N._Drummond

  57. Ivy, Garry Drummond, as in Drummond Coal? Richer’n hell. Vestavia’s nice.  Screw them MBers.   For a bunch of years before she moved to Vestavia HIlls my sister lived on Seminole Drive, below Trinity Methodist just off Oxmoor. You could almost see Vulcan’s ass from her house.

  58. Pogo, that’s the guy. Hubs would never have set foot on his golf course without his personal stamp of approval. We were accidentally seated at his designated table one evening by a new waitress who didn’t know the rules and were swiftly (and indecorously) escorted away by the club manager. 

    Probably passed your sister’s house a time or two. You can see Vulcan’s ass all the way down 280, lol.

  62. CBS confirms. I think it’s for real. I hope to God it is. He deserves to fry. 

    NBC now too.

  65. wapo via msn:

    “I have been indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump posted on social media site Truth Social. He claimed he was being treated unfairly. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States,” he said in a screed that ended: “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

  66. next he’ll threaten to eat worms, hold his breath to turn blue or take his goof balls and go home to mama.

    Image result for trump baby throws tantrum

  67. Finally. I cannot express the relief and happiness.  What I think a weekend of people thinking ‘finally’.  And, a whole bunch of people doing the happy dance with a ungodly amount alcohol and weed.

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