it’s over SOON. Glad I got 70 in the bank already. 
I’ve read that if a muskrat population exceeds the food supply the males start killing the young ones.
Sounds like humans. Substitute food for resources in general.
Duck and cover.
Wildfire smoke has returned too. AQI is 135. No time trials today.
No time trials any day, actually, but today I have a good excuse to ditch all timing devices.
On my good days, I want to believe this. The “boomer generation” had such belief and self assurance (arrogance?) that we can change the world.
On my bad days, I think we hold collective blame and accountablility for what
we have wrought in our 25-30 years of political and economic hegemony.
Yes, unless we care and act, there is a strong possibility of a slow descent into a climate crisis dystopia… Is a nuclear conflagration worse, or more merciful?
sing
Some news about the coral in the Florida keys. Water temp is already in the 90°s a couple months ahead of norm and has stayed there for long enough to effect the coral.
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I think we’ve almost gotten to the condition of the numbed masses described in Fahrenheit 451. Namely, people are both distracted by the bombardment of 24/7 “entertainment” and derailed from serious thought about weaponry, war, and our role in accelerated climate change because they undergo death by a thousand cuts. Attacks on gender identity, sexual orientation, political affiliation (if any, or only ASSumed), reproductive choice, religion (if any), racial background, and other highly personal matters keep coming, rapidfire. And if someone can barely make ends meet, how much energy do they have to think about nuclear war?
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I thought Fish Crows hung out only in places like FL.
Noisy, chatty creatures, they are!
I, too, swam in the city beaches of Boston in the early ‘60s. A treat was to get meatball grinders wrapped in wax paper, with a little bag of Wise potato chips*, and eat dinner at City Point! I always wondered why my parents stopped wanting to go there.
*Amazing what trivial details stick in memory, almost 60 years later.
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Was that a Bark scorpion? Those little guys pack a pretty good wallop. We had them often in our yard in Tucson. Our neighbor’s dog my son was taking care of, got stung and could not move it’s legs for several hours. My wife got stung and also could not stand on her leg for several hours. My boss’s son left his swimming suit outside at the pool and then put it on and got stung …I’ll let you image where. At any rate they were swollen for days. The nasty little creatures hide in cardboard boxes in Arizona and it’s not uncommon for people to get stung in big box stores. I guess they could have arrived in SW CO in Walmart trucks or the like.
I was a volunteer with my two sons’ boy scout troops in Tucson and was a merit badge counselor for canoeing. On one outing the boys called our campground The Scorpion Camp, they had stayed there before and brough large pickle jars to put the scorpions in. One boy had filled his jar before I got my tent pitched. I decided to sleep in my pick up bed that night. I did spray my garage with pesticide for scorpions, not outside though. My general solution was to move to San Diego 
We still found bark scorpions in our boxes for about 18 months after we moved.
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You can run/hide, but only for so long… My brother-in-law, has been up here from Phoenix for the past several weeks, staying with his son and daughter (my nephew and niece), in CT and MA, as a respite from the weeks of triple figure temps back in AZ. Well, that heat is coming to the northeast. Looks like 90 plus for the remaining part of this week. Good thing is that a storm front will pass through in the middle of the weekend to “cool” us back down.
sing
Our solution to sleeping w/ the scorps and snakes. I’m not afraid of either and just moved a scorpion out of camp the other day . . . but would rather not sleep w/ them.
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This seven week long prevailing westerly wind is something I have never seen is Florida before.
It doesn’t allow the nights and cool and all we get are baby storms that come in the morning and add just enough moisture to the air to make it twice as unbearable.
It also has cause us to be over a foot behind in rain for this time of year. Looks like it is going to take some kind of Tropical system to break the El Nino, and that might not be enough to push the jet stream back up to where it should be.
Yes, it looked like an Arizona bark scorpion. I’d heard they were tiny, like 0.25” long, but it turns out they can be 2” long. The one I found was about 1.25” long. It might have crawled into a sweaty T-shirt that I had tossed on the ground to dry out. I should’ve given it a vigorous shake-out before taking it inside.
The real question is, Why was it around at all? I wondered if one of the hordes of AZ tourists coming here might have thrown some out of their RVs instead of killing them.
Your accounts of scorpion stings sounds right. I’ve heard they can kill or cause permanent damage if not treated ASAP.
The first time I saw one, somebody was warning me about them. He said, “They usually hang out under rocks. Like THIS one…YEOW!” A tiny one was right under that rock.
Wow… Surpassing water temp of 90s…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/25/florida-record-warm-ocean-climate/
sing
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And a possible worse WOW…
sing
But they can’t predict weather two days ahead for rain. All as China and India roll on unchecked. China still classified as undeveloped nation. 
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We were just discussing the prophet AG and the his prophecy “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Siblings.
Since my wife died I precis every life drama situation with the “spirit” : The planet is dying rapidly, what is your petty woah today ?
I have beautiful grandchildren. The swimming beach at the lake for the youngsters had a volley ball game going on it last night. The water was 15 ft away , 6 inches deep for another 40. And real ripe fragrance close to some of the shores.
It is too late sports fans. This “place” is becoming unlivable from a biological perspective. I won’t mention social things like Rampant mental health issues and free machine guns bad formula. Ooops I mentioned.
“We are so lucky” and really have been
Peace J
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You are right about those two countries. These too are seeing their occaisonal internal protests about environmental degradation. Quite simply because their residents are dying from the pollution. Will their government respond to internal demands… Who knows.
Since I can’t control what happens in other countries, I can only choose to act where I can. So, I’ve been commuting mostly by bike and some public transit since college. When I stop at red lights and look at individual drivers (irritated or distracted while) idling in their big SUVS, in a long line of trucks, SUVs and minivans stuck at a city intersection. I think should I join them? Naw…
I do have the privilege of a car, a 7 year old Honda Fit with 46K mileage. I know it is a luxury and a privlege that allow me to partake in my surfing/kayaking/fishing hobbies. Increasingly, I find I don’t even like to drive more than than 30-45 minutes (15 mile radius) to pursue these hobbies. It just seems unnecessary if not excessive to drive farther and burn more gas and incurr more maintenance when I can drive less by indulging in the local venues.
Can’t control what others do, but I can make and act on my own choices. I just have to accept and be “satisfied” with myself for that little bit.
sing
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An inch and a quarter is about the size we encountered most often. One trick for finding them in your house and nearby yard is to use an ultraviolet light. You can buy a small flash light that us uv light and look for them. They fluoresce in uv light, making them very easy to see in the dark.
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