I must have been really tired, because, after sleeping well last night, I slept most if the morning too.  There is no improvement in my trigger finger, but I don’t expect any for a few days.  It’s a sunny day, and even though it’s only 66°, the room is getting too hot from the sun hitting the wall.  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:01 (average 5:01).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Funny or Die Channel): Republican Tax Plan: How The Koch Brothers Are Robbing America

Republicans are Koch suckers by definition. RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an emergency travel ban preventing Republicans from fleeing the United States Senate.

In a sombre Oval Office ceremony, a grim-faced Trump signed the ban, which he said would remain in effect “until we figure out what the hell is going on.”

The executive order calls for the relocation of three hundred Border Patrol officers from the Mexican border to Washington, D.C., in order to form what Trump called “a human ring of steel” around the Capitol Building.

Under the travel ban, Republican senators will be permitted to leave their seats in the Senate chamber for meals and bathroom breaks but will be strictly forbidden from speaking to journalists in the building’s corridors.

Andy, is this supposed to be satire? RESIST!!

From Alternet: NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers criticized Republicans and right-wing media for trying to keep the focus on attacking Hillary Clinton even when no credible reason exists.

The conservatives’ latest nonsense claim is that Clinton was colluding with Russia. Why she would try to collude with Russia to her own detriment is never really explained.

But the right-wing media doesn’t care about the facts, only keeping the focus on a perceived villain.

“The right would rather talk about Hillary Clinton than Trump,” Meyers said. “That’s because the right, in the Trump era, doesn’t have coherent principles or an ideology. It just has enemies. Which is why they prefer to inhabit an alternate reality where Hillary Clinton is president. And what little you will hear about Trump won’t be negative.”

Here’s the video:

Barf Bag Alert!!

Amen Seth! Kudos! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

And we are still the incarceration nation to our shame.

I’m not sure why it is that I’m feeling so lethargic today, but because I am, this is my only article.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:40).  To do it, click here. How did you do?

Religious Agony:

Useless stinking Orb!

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Sean Hannity is echoing Alex Jones

Barf Bag Alert!!

Birds of a feather are Republican assholes! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: If Antarctica’s ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 200 – 210 feet, everywhere. Antarctica holds 6,957,470 cubic miles of ice. That represents over 90% of all the ice on the planet and between 60 to 70% of the worlds fresh water. The sea ice begins to expand at the beginning of winter, and eventually advances by 40,000 square miles per day, surrounding the continent and doubling the size of the ice in Antarctica. The snow that falls takes about 100,000 years to flow to the coast of Antarctica before it breaks off the marine extension of glaciers, or ice shelves, and becomes an iceberg. Once an iceberg breaks off the ice platform, any resistance that it provided to hold back the land ice is lost, and the continental ice can accelerate it’s flow to the southern ocean.

The Conversation notes that for the first time in 7,000 years a phenomenon known as upwelling (the upward flow of warm ocean water to the surface) is rotting the ice shelves from below. It is thought that the upwelling has caused the many ice shelf collapses and ice thinning that we have seen over the past decades.

The ocean surrounding Antarctica is extremely cold, but water over 300m deep, Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), is about 3⁰C above the melting point of ice. Normally, the very cold water above keeps this away from ice shelves. But in some areas, CDW is spilling onto the shallow Antarctic continental shelf, causing the ice to thin.

Ice shelf thinning has accelerated in recent decades, but the picture is not the same everywhere. While the east of the Antarctic has shown modest gains in ice thickness, the west has outstripped this with significant ice loss – up to 18% in vulnerable areas like the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas.

I can only hope that a 200′ increase in sea level will coincide with a Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell/Koch vacation to Mar-a-Lago. RESIST!!

From NY Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled the speaking appearance of three agency scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to the agency and several people involved.

John Konkus, an E.P.A. spokesman and a former Trump campaign operative in Florida, confirmed that agency scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence. He provided no further explanation.

Scientists involved in the program said that much of the discussion at the event centers on climate change. Many said they were surprised by the E.P.A.’s last-minute cancellation, particularly since the agency helps to fund the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, which is hosting the conference. The scientists who have been barred from speaking contributed substantial material to a 400-page report to be issued on Monday.

The move highlights widespread concern that the E.P.A. will silence government scientists from speaking publicly or conducting work on climate change. Scott Pruitt, the agency administrator, has said that he does not believe human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for the warming of the planet.

In context with the last Short Take, we are well and truly screwed. RESIST!!

Cartoon: