Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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104Comments

  2. 2.

    cat48

    No air conditioning, John? At least you seem to be feeling better today based on the amt you have posted. That’s a good thing.

  3. 3.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    In Phoenix we have the Summer 100/100 rule: Expect about 100 days of 100 degree weather.

    We’re just tougher people out here.

    Get an air conditioner.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    Or, “Why I left the South.”

    I’m one of those people who adjusts better to cold than hot. Heat AND humidity? My pores close, my brain swells, and and I’ve been known to put ice cubes in my shoes.

  5. 5.

    Matt Mangels

    DickSpud, am I a complete fool for thinking Phoenix has great weather? I’ve never actually been but I’ve heard/read what its weather is like. Maybe I’m a just a sun-starved San Franciscan.

  9. 9.

    scav

    OK, how should one rate this on the whole upholding religio-traditional culture metric? Man Holds His Mom Hostage for Not Ironing

    . . . the man, who lives with his parents, wanted his mother to do some ironing because it was ”woman’s work.” When she refused, authorities allege he pulled out a gun, and took his 51-year-old mother’s keys and cellphones and refused to let her leave for at least six hours.

    Does keeping the little women in their place outrank the honor thy mother commandment? Inquiring minds wish to learn.
    Seems to be vaguely on-topic or at least in-theme to the thread with all the various sources of heat in it anyway.

  10. 10.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Matt Mangels:

    Actually, we do, from October until April, have the most pleasant weather you can find.

    And the summer Hundreds are only really uncomfortable during the monsoon period, typically July and August. When the humidity is low (dew points 35 F and below) the heat is really easy to take. And the nights are balmy. During the monsoon, it stays hot around the clock and it does get on your nerves. That’s what Mojitos were invented for ….

    Good air conditioning and the principle of APS takes care of the dog days. APS = Always Park in Shade.

    There’s a supermarket here that has a free underground and air cooled parking garage that is the best kept secret in Arizona. And it always has empty spaces, even on the hottest day of the year. For a fee, I will tell you where it is.

  11. 11.

    jwb

    @scav: Oh, a conservative ethical dilemma! I say they side with the son, not because gender trumps respect for age, but because of the gun. Have to respect the second amendment and the right to brandishing the gun above all else.

  13. 13.

    John Cole

    Oh, I have full air- just I ran it so much I got an astronomical bill so now am only running it when it is super hot. But that isn’t the problem. The problem is I like being outside in the summer, and I can’t air condition that.

  14. 14.

    MikeJ

    Hottest day so far today. 83°. 89° tomorrow. 90° Friday.

    Bleh. I threw snowballs at Rainy Pass just Saturday. Do not want heat.

  17. 17.

    demimondian

    @MikeJ: Sux here today. Temperature is up to 88, will get to 90 tomorrow. Fortunately, am going to spend weekend in the Cascades, where the weather will be more reasonable. (Except for the pilgrimage to Hanford. That’s going to be beautiful…but very, very hot.)

  18. 18.

    lamh32

    @John Cole: water, water, water. That’s all you can really do. Water and maybe wearing visors or baseball caps when you can.

    As a dude, you at least have the advantage of being able to go shirtless or the wet t-shirt route. Us women, all we can really do is wear “skimpier” clothing, but there is only so much skimpy we can do without being jailed for indecency….

    Water, water, water

  19. 19.

    Tank Hueco

    Heat is why the future Mrs. Hueco and I are planning to leave Texas and head to New Mexico. I think it was only 77 in Santa Fe today.

  22. 22.

    Alice Blue

    We had a lovely July 4 weekend in my part of Georgia. Lows in the 60s, highs in the upper 80s, light breeze, low humidity. We’re now back to regularly scheduled summer weather–92 degrees, 75% humidity. But it’s freaky to know that it’s cooler down here than it is in the northeast.

  23. 23.

    Cat Lady

    Heat = garden FAIL. OTOH, everyone else’s lawn is brown too – flowering bushes and flowers are on life support if not DOA, and I’ve resorted to focusing on 2 or 3 pots to keep hope alive. Cats have become cat-shaped puddles, and I’ve completely and totally given up on my hair. Also.

  24. 24.

    Cat Lady

    @Tank Hueco:

    Used to live there, and spent last week there. Good plan. Perfect weather, especially when it rains, because there’s a rainbow. every. time.

  25. 25.

    jl

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:

    “We’re just tougher people out here.

    Get an air conditioner.”

    Air conditioners make you tougher?

    My experience is that digging ditches in dry CA 100 plus heat more comfortable that ambling along in 90 degree eastern high humidity. And compared to others, I am extremely tolerant of 90 degree high humidity weather. But they do tucker one out. Except in New Orleans, where one can amble with a icy cooling drink until you are so snoggered nothing much bothers you, though I guess the booze is not good for you in the heat if you are not healthy.

    Good luck to people back east.

  27. 27.

    Cacti

    I can’t help but snicker when people talk about the unbearable 90-degree heat.

    Here in Phoenix, we’ve had our coolest day in the past two weeks today…

    105

  28. 28.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    Air conditioners make you tougher?

    Yes.

    Especially when yours breaks in July and you have to cough up 4 grand to replace it. Builds character.

  31. 31.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @auntieeminaz:

    Please refer to the word “fee” in my earlier post ……

    Of course, we can barter for anything of value.

    Do you have any good darkroom equipment? Native American rugs? Etc.

  33. 33.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    It was a hundred degrees here today but I still go outside to nurture my farmer’s tan.

  34. 34.

    PaulW

    …and this is why all the idiots who said “Oh look it’s snowing in January it means there’s no global warming” need to die of heat stroke this week. That oughta learn ’em.

  35. 35.

    jl

    AZ people are wusses. Where I grew up in CA, I dug ditches uphill to summer school and back every day in 105 degree heat. Through earthquakes. And brush fires.

  36. 36.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: Arizona?

    No comparison. John lives in humid land, like most of the country anywhere but the West, and it’s totally different. I grew up in the West with dry heat and it can be 105 and I’m basically fine, but in somewhere like New York or DC it reaches 80 and I’m at my limit and go looking for air conditioning.

    Horrible weather really, you wonder why anyone settled there. Yurp is mostly pretty dry by comparison.

  37. 37.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @freelancer:

    Seriously? Are you talking about the parking garage?

    I have been using it for 20 years.

    Put your money where your mouth is. $1000 says it is exactly as I described.

  38. 38.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @John Cole: John – we had the full heating and air thingy and I was paying to heat and cool a 3 bed 2 bath house when we only use three rooms. When it broke this winter I said sod it, and bought a couple of space heaters for the living room and the bedroom and we made full use of the fireplace. Worked like a charm. My electric bill went from $400.00 a month to $96.00. We enjoyed the Spring and when the heat arrived we bought a couple of window a/c units one for the great room and one for the bedroom. They keep the house nice and cool and my bill is still only $144.00 a month. I have just added a unit into the kitchen, only used when I am cooking. For conservation as well as fiscal reasons I really cannot see heating and cooling an entire house (as well as all the ducts in the walls and attic) when it is only me and the DH for 11 months a year. (I will get another window unit for the guest bedroom when mother arrives for her month long visit in September). It is something to think about.

  40. 40.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Oh, I agree. The worst summer I ever spent was on the Eastern Seaboard, Washington, Baltimore, Philly, New York, Boston …. suffocating heat and humidity. I was glad to get back to Phoenix.

    But we really prefer that people think it is too hot here, it keeps them from moving here and choking up our roads.

  41. 41.

    South of I-10

    @John Cole: We have a couple of these fans outside and one of these. They make a huge difference if you are going to spend any time outside in the heat. Drink lots of water and slow down. It’s too damn hot to be moving that fast! It’s actually been cooler here, we are getting lots of rain.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @Matt Mangels:

    Yes, “complete fool” covers it. Nobody should have to endure Phoenix between May and, say, the first of October. Perversely, they get rain during their hottest months–the infamous monsoons. Absolute lunacy.

    You want heat? Drive sixty miles west, spend the day in the valley and drive back home. SF will seem mighty nice then!

  45. 45.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: Oh sorry I should have realized.

    We did the same thing in San Francisco. People always remark about how cold it is and quote some Mark Twain line and we would say right, true, oh my yes, horrible, and not tell them that this only applies to the tiny part known as the actual city of San Francisco and a few miles in any direction it’s the warmest most perfect weather ever invented, so fewer of them would decide to stay.

    Er, I mean no it’s not. Damn I’m slipping.

    NB: Good luck with scaring them off by the way, as you can see in the case of San Francisco, it didn’t work.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    No comparison. John lives in humid land, like most of the country anywhere but the West, and it’s totally different. I grew up in the West with dry heat and it can be 105 and I’m basically fine, but in somewhere like New York or DC it reaches 80 and I’m at my limit and go looking for air conditioning.

    I grew up in the midwest and southeast, and I’ll take 90 and humid over 115 and dry all day long and twice on Sunday.

  48. 48.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Lived in the Bay Area twice and loved it both times. San Jose first, and then San Bruno. Crystal Springs, to be exact. One of the foggiest and chilliest spots on the peninsula. Just loved it.

    Of course a night game in July at Candelstick …. argggh. That is a chilling experience. But go two miles away and you’re fine.

  49. 49.

    Cain

    @John Cole:

    Have you tried the 3 fan system? Have two fans blowing air in and one fan blowing out. That way you have air constantly flowing through the house. Having the exhaust fan is important so don’t leave that out. Believe it or not it does a decent job of coolign the house. When I was a kid I used to read all these science books and project stuff and was reading this particular tip and set it up at home (I was like 12 or something) when it was like 115 dry heat in Indiana and damn me it worked.

    My old house had a bunch of trees over it and it keeps the house fairly cool.. a natural heat shield. My other house, not so much although it is our first summer in it.. but we are 500 ft above sea level so it tends to be a tad cooler up there.

    cain

  50. 50.

    MattR

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:

    I was glad to get back to Phoenix. But we really prefer that people think it is too hot here, it keeps them from moving here and choking up our roads.

    I think your state legislature and governor are taking a different approach to that problem

  52. 52.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Improvised AC: Big fan blowing right on you and have a spray bottle at hand, like you’d use for plants or ironing. One spritz directly into the fan which all flies back at you and cools you off immediately. Last week it was in the 90s here and at 96 I finally broke it out, spraying every few seconds at one point there. Man does it work.

  53. 53.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @freelancer:

    I am the master at finding and parking in shade. Also planning all car excursions for a time of day that provides good shade … before 10 am or after 2 pm. Know your sun angles. At high noon in a bare parking lot you are screwed, but I don’t patronize those places much.

    One of my favorite peeves is the idiots who decide to cut back their trees right at the beginning of the hot season, and get rid of the shade in the hot part of the summer. Those places go on my “No Fly Zone” list, I just won’t do business there.

    With shade, a good car ac, and some planning, you can breeze through the dog days here and never feel much of anything. If you want to. I also did summers here in a Jeep with no top and no air, and did quite well.

  56. 56.

    General Stuck

    @Cacti: When it gets to 100 or near, what the dry heat does is evaporate sweat before it has time to do it’s work to cool you off. I miss the sweat on those days. The thing I didn’t like about high humidity is the effect on breathing, and allergies. They were much worse for me living back east, where I have very little problem with them here in the SW. It’s a tough call, but I choose the dry heat for the easier breathing. Though the body effect in 100 degree dry heat is worse, imo.

  57. 57.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: Definitely. On the other hand the first games I saw there as a small kid, Willie Mays, McCovey, the Alou brothers and Orlando Cepeda were still in the lineup. I even remember the batting order.

  58. 58.

    MattR

    @Cain: This is pretty bad, but it is only a couple days. Summer of 1995 was brutal. I was in Baltimore working at Camden Yards and we had 24 straight days of 90 degree weather. Luckily my apt building had a pool on the roof that we could sneak into to cool off after games.

    (EDIT: A great suggestion if spending a bunch of time in the summer heat is to carry a small towel with you which you can moisten and then leave on yuor head/neck to cool you down. This is especially useful for sporting events and concerts)

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:

    Jan Brewer has turned into a complete asshole

    Disagree.

    “Turned into” would indicate that she wasn’t one in the first place.

    She did manage to turn Arizona into a national laughingstock in less than two years though.

  60. 60.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Oh boy. Ron Hunt. Jim Ray Hart. Marichal and Perry. Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons on the radio. Best baseball fan days ever. Those Giants were an awesome team.

  61. 61.

    Cacti

    @General Stuck:

    My personal downside for the dry air of the desert is, I’ve had a damn nosebleed from practically the day I arrived in Arizona.

  62. 62.

    KG

    @Matt Mangels: I once traveled from Phoenix to San Francisco for a wedding. It was an interesting trip. I flew out from Southern California where the weather was fairly nice. In Phoenix, I experienced my first desert monsoon (and the preceding humidity from hell) during an out door concert. The next morning, we flew up to SF. When we got on the plane, it was over 100 degrees in Phoenix. When we landed in SF, it was about 54 degrees. That was a shock.

  63. 63.

    sputnikgayle

    I had to help move our college senior daughter to a new apartment in Austin today. She moved from a 3rd floor apartment to a 1st floor place. I’m used to working very hard outside on our farm in central Texas, no matter the weather or the task. But there’s just something especially punishing on a day like today about inhaling asphalt fumes and repeatedly climbing stairs.

  64. 64.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Cacti:

    She’s put her run for the governor’s job (she is not an elected governor) ahead of the people as far as I am concerned. Playing the political odds just as McCain is doing. Sickening.

  65. 65.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Gozer:

    You can always tell the out of towners here. They say things like “My hair is catching on fire.”

    Hey, it grows back.

    Well, it used to.

  67. 67.

    KG

    72 degrees in Long Beach today, overcast most of the day; even got a bit of rain this morning.

    And now: EARTHQUAKE!

  70. 70.

    MikeJ

    @Cain: Have you tried lighting a fire in the fireplace? Hot air rises, draws more air into the house. Probably better if your fireplace is in a room you don’t use a lot.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    @Cacti:

    Here in Phoenix, we’ve had our coolest day in the past two weeks today…
    __
    105

    Heh.
    I grew up in Houston, and had the great good fortune of hunting and playing as a young boy on 2500 acres in West Texas.
    We’d build stands and repair wells and mend fences and all kinds of shit during the summer before the hunting season.
    A typical day? Oh, about 118.
    And I’d laugh at that shit compared to a 99 degree day in Houston. Just laugh at it.
    Yeah, you couldn’t touch metal with your bare hand, but you could breathe and work and if you covered your head and had water with you it was awesome to be out in the hot rocky desert.

    Now my dad lives south of Tucson. Same shit there.
    Nothing compared to a humid heat like Houston.

  73. 73.

    KRK

    Sunday evening I had to stop myself from turning the heat on because, chilly or not, one doesn’t turn the heat on in July. Now they’re forecasting temps in the high 80s to mid-90s. Summer has begun. I miss the rain already.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    @KG:

    We felt it up here in the Valley, too. People who were standing or walking didn’t feel a thing, but those of us who were sitting at our desks definitely felt it. Probably about a 2.5 by the time it got up to us.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cacti:

    I grew up in the midwest and southeast, and I’ll take 90 and humid over 115 and dry all day long and twice on Sunday.

    Me, too. It was the winters that chased me out of Chicago and out to sunny southern California. 80 below with the wind chill? No. Thank. You. If it’s too hot outside, I can turn on the air conditioning, but I would spend months in Chicago feeling like I would never be warm again.

  79. 79.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    @Genine:

    So, if I give something away out of generosity, it means that I think it’s free?

    ( shakes head )

    It’s like trying to explain baseball to a basset hound.

  80. 80.

    DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective

    I’ll take 90 and humid over 115 and dry

    So much for the reality based community.

    Soaked, dripping, underwear stuck to your buttcrack …. versus none of the above.

    A dry 115 degree day lets you sit by the pool in the shade and not even break a sweat. Keep your swamp. Yuck.

  83. 83.

    John Cole

    As a dude, you at least have the advantage of being able to go shirtless or the wet t-shirt route.

    I have too much respect for myself and my neighbors to let my fat ass go shirtless in public.

  84. 84.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Horrible weather really, you wonder why anyone settled there.

    My dad likes to say that if the Pilgrims had landed in Los Angeles, everything east of the Rockies would still be a wilderness.

    @KRK:

    Sunday evening I had to stop myself from turning the heat on because, chilly or not, one doesn’t turn the heat on in July.

    One does, if one is in San Francisco in July. I turned ours on last week. I miss San Diego (my hometown).

  85. 85.

    John Cole

    And I was in an actual desert where it got into the 130’s. I will take 120 degrees any single day of the week over 95 degrees and the kind of humidity we have. Some days I think I need a snorkel or spoon to walk outside.

  86. 86.

    Sentient Puddle

    Yeah, it’s recently turned into “Stay inside whenever the sun is out” temperature in Austin. Which I think I’ll do quite happily.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:

    Soaked, dripping, underwear stuck to your buttcrack …. versus none of the above.

    You must not be much of a sweater to begin with. I’m pretty much dripping wet the instant I walk out into any kind of heat, whether it’s dry or humid.

  89. 89.

    WereBear

    What kind of funny is that we are having 90 degree days with like 65% humidity, and I’m okay; not lovin’ it, but okay.

    But the people around me are doing the dude who fell off the camel in Lawrence of Arabia.

    I guess getting used to negative 40 winters means you give up the heat tolerance.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @demimondian:

    I keep reading British knitting magazines and getting confused whenever they start talking about the new “jumper” they’re working on. Separated by a common language, we are.

  97. 97.

    Cat Lady

    @Lurker:

    I’ve been watching the shake maps on and off for that area for a few years. Something’s happening there. What it is ain’t exactly clear.

  100. 100.

    Anne Laurie

    @John Cole:

    The problem is I like being outside in the summer, and I can’t air condition that.

    A neckerchief full of ice cubes is your friend (or, if you can find it, the high-tech equivalent with the evaporative crystals that you soak). Cooling the important blood vessels that run thru your neck really does help. Also, a really absorbant sweatband under a brimmed hat or cap — I used to have a terrycloth baseball cap that I soaked before going out & gardening, but I’ve found that just soaking up the sweat before it runs into my eyes & soaks my hair works just as well. If it’s too far from your garden to take breaks in the air conditioning, a spray bottle you can use to ‘mist’ your bare arms & legs is also very pleasant…

  102. 102.

    demimondian

    @Cat Lady: Actually, there probably is nothing to see there. Foreshocks are predictive for certain kinds of faults, yes, but not for strike-slip faults such as are found in California. You’re more likely to be experiencing an earthquake swarm.

  103. 103.

    asiangrrlMN

    @John Cole: Your ass shouldn’t be the thing wearing your shirt or you’re doing it wrong.

    I am such a WATB when it comes to the heat. I start whimpering when it’s over seventy. We are in the mid-eighties here, and I am a wreck. I have the air set at eighty, though (which means roughly eighty-five outside), so I use a fan. Give me twenty below with three feet of snow ANY DAY over this.

    In other words, no southern states for me, even if there weren’t other reasons I wouldn’t live in the south.

  104. 104.

    Cain

    @MikeJ:

    @Cain: Have you tried lighting a fire in the fireplace? Hot air rises, draws more air into the house. Probably better if your fireplace is in a room you don’t use a lot.

    Sure, I’ve done it plenty of times. It’s more effective in the summer than in the winter. So I only try to do it in the summer now.

    cain

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