Re: Brazil and the Amazon: this is why I dont lose too much sleep over people using cars or AC. No matter what you personally sacrifice, there is always going to be assholes in power willing to completely negate yours and everyone else's responsbile behavior in the name of the almighty dollar and more power. So, yeah, sorry planet, I'm tired of trying because its pointless. Just glad I dont have kids. Hopefully I can shuffle off this shit rock before everything breaks down. Happy Thursday!

@2: The virtue of your ecologically minded efforts in doing what's right should be sufficient to withstand the failings of others. They are only "negated" if you stop doing them.

That said, driving cars and having AC are necessities. So go plant a tree.

@3 I still put stuff in the recycle bin and pretend its actually going to be recycled. Does that count?

@4: Well, some of it probably is, so the answer to your question is whether or not throwing the cans in bottles in the garbage is better than tossing them into the recycle.

Obviously Ms Graham is too young to remember the first Spacejam, but as the linked article describes, it was born from a couple nike commercials and sucked really bad, including the music. To criticize a remake is practically a moot point. No shit its going to be another 90 minute advertisement.

McShit himself - If you using slang to identify McDonalds in Australia, you've got to call it "Maccas". If you said MickeyD's, they would have no idea what you are talking about. Hell, even the corporate website uses it. There's your useless trivia for the day. :)

https://mcdonalds.com.au/

The Seattle Times report is really a breath of fresh air around here. The news publications are always so worried about offending the powers that be and/or carrying their water they rarely do anything that resembles accountability. The Kid Levy is clearly doing some good but as the report identifies there are still some issues to be ironed out. So why do we need to double the amount of the levy? That doesn't make any sense. Continue the program with the funding you have now (renew the levy at the same rate), improve the governance and then when you are showing success invest more. This is the main reason i'm skeptical of the supposed investment in community programs that are going to replace the police. It's all ideas with little execution. That being said I have no doubt the increased levy with pass with over 70% of the vote because Seattle voters each this shit up and rarely ask questions.

Consider the last sentence of @9 highlighted.

I wouldn't be surprised if the brush fires were intentionally set by people who have been watching fox news, their disdain for cities is cause for concern. It wouldn't be the first time Seattle was besieged by suburban trouble makers...

@4, 5,

Lots of people put their recycling inside plastic garbage bags (not saying you do, just lots of people). Recycling plant workers don't even open that shit up, it goes straight to a landfill.

People are routinely told to NOT put recycling stuff inside plastic bags but it falls on deaf ears.

I read somewhere that you may as well throw away black plastic, too, as that gets sorted out and tossed. And make sure the inside of containers are well cleaned out, or to the landfill it goes.

I kinda agree with @2, tho. At this point, the only thing that will heal the environment for good is for a disease far worse than Covid-19 to come along and ravage the human population and take out at least 1/2 of us, maybe even 2/3 or better. Another Black Death is what we need...except worse.

Good job on the link to Dutch Twitter!

Just so you know, Maastricht and Valkenburg are in a tiny sliver of the Netherlands called Limburg, known as the "Dutch Alps" because there are actually hills, valleys and natural rivers there. The rest of the Netherlands is mostly pool-table flat and below sea-level, yet built to withstand and manage all sorts of water disasters through a complex system of dykes and canal networks. But the heavy rain in this hilly region was concentrated by the topography and found its way to streams and rivers, which overflowed there, at the intersection of the Limburg, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg.

The tweet from Maurice de Heus shows a video in the nightlife center of Valkenburg, a little town outside Maastricht. From the looks of it, there's about 2 inches of water running down the street. Perhaps this was recorded after the peak of the storm.

The tweet—for those not using a translator—says the area is famous in all of the Netherlands for pizza, chicken, gyros and beer [in other words, a typical honky-tonk nightlife zone], that cars in the carpark on the nearby Walramplein drifted away, cafés and restaurants were flooded and that there's a lot of concern over insurance terms and conditions.

It's been a hot, humid couple weeks down there, which isn't unusual, and summer thunderstorms typically result. But that this has not been a problem in this region until now—these towns are many hundreds of years old—is yet another indication that we're seeing surprising and sudden changes in our climate. I imagine we're going to have to expect more of these extreme rainfalls and resulting floods. The Dutch will certainly be able to modify the drainage and water outlet provisions there, but it'll take time and money.

Someone forgot to do the Slog PM Thursday night! Shame. Or simply didn't care.