Stop the Idiocracy: Climate Change

Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts

Friday, October 9, 2026

Packed like sardines: the crowded Commonwealth

Via the Boston board on Reddit: MA Ballot 7 Small Lot — https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1x1sj9g/ma_ballot_7_small_lot/

Am not advocating for forcing people to depart Massachusetts. Perchance we might strongly encourage the MAGA folk to seek out some locale more amenable to their politics, but I digress, for such a measure would be neither lawful nor terribly democratic. Nor is there, I suppose, a great deal that may presently be done about the root problem at hand. Nevertheless, we have simply far too many individuals living within this geographically diminutive state, most especially in and around Boston. In truth, throughout this entire region of the country, we have too many people occupying too little space.

A detailed editorial illustration depicts a petite auburn-haired woman squeezed between gridlocked traffic and a sprawling construction site overlooking Boston. She wears a black lace corset dress with gartered stockings and heeled boots, while a cream coat hangs loosely from her shoulders. Her windswept hair and weary expression suggest exasperation rather than glamour alone. Cars choke the descending street behind her as cranes, excavators, scaffolding and unfinished concrete consume the opposite side. Autumn foliage and warm evening light beautify an otherwise claustrophobic scene, contrasting sensual elegance with the congestion, relentless development and diminishing personal space of contemporary Greater Boston.

image generated via ChatGPT

The older I get, the less I am able to abide being packed together like sardines; yet I am in no position to leave, and whither, in any case, doth one go? The whole blasted country is falling apart, whilst neither Canada nor Europe appears especially eager to receive an influx of Americans, for which, frankly, they cannot be blamed.

But there it is: overpopulation lieth at the root of all of the world’s miseries. More people, more problems; thus hath it ever been. It is why seemingly every remaining inch of land in Eastern Massachusetts is being devoured, and why getting from Point A to Point B proves a wretched ordeal each time one ventures forth. Why, even getting around my town at present is a royal pain in the arse, with so many streets closed off for roadwork. More cars and more people mean more congestion, greater wear upon infrastructure, and ever more demands upon the roads themselves. I never want to leave my abode anymore, and I am stressed to the gills every single time I am compelled to do so. Thankfully — in a sense, at least — my health and circumstances allow me to remain at home most of the time, yet I do not envy those who must be out there as a matter of daily necessity (most people). This is torture, and not exactly how human beings are hardwired to live.

Overpopulation is a nightmare, and its consequences manifest themselves everywhere upon this beleaguered planet: from climate change, to crime, to chronic housing shortages, and unto every manner of societal ill. More people, more problems.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, September 7, 2026

A harvest of distrust

A darkly whimsical Gothic illustration depicts a cavernous, deteriorating supermarket overwhelmed by disorder. Shelves and refrigerated cases remain crowded with groceries, yet packages, vegetables and containers spill across the tiled floor and tumble inexplicably from above through a sagging net. Numerous scantily clad women wander the aisles in visible distress, inspecting food, crouching beside overturned baskets or clutching groceries uncertainly. At centre, an enormous chaotic mound of discarded provisions rises beneath ominous red lights. Frayed wiring, broken fixtures, scattered receipts and neglected produce transform an ordinary grocery shop into a nightmarish emblem of a food system in collapse, where abundance coexists with contamination, waste and insecurity.

image generated via Seedream

Food safety unravels apace as recalls and inflation mount in tandem, leaving Americans burdened with pricier, toxic provender. {Axios 7 September}

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/07/food-safety-concerns-grocery-inflation

From leader of the world unto shame of all the earth. Fewer inspections, laxer regulations, watchdogs muzzled or turned away entirely, and the ravishing effects of climate change have wrought sufficient ruin that it is, in essence, no longer safe to eat within these former United States. We may debate until our faces wax blue the relative safety and nutritional value of American victuals prior to the nihilistic, nation-slaying Trump 2.0 regime — set against those of other Western nations — yet hither have we come, and here now do we stand.

What y’all voted for, #Murica —

FTA: Plenty of Americans feel like they're forking over a fortune for groceries—only to get hit with a recall notice that forces them to throw that expensive food out.

Why it matters: While grocery prices are driven by complex trade and energy costs, the safety net meant to keep them safe to eat is fraying, creating a dual crisis of affordability and safety.

The average American household pays more than $10,000 on groceries every year, and two-thirds of Americans think they're spending too much.

Prices have increased by more than 18% since 2022, although some foods have seen sharper or smaller increases.

What they're saying: "It can be really, really scary out there," Lauren Borsheim, a food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, tells Axios.

"The Trump administration since 2025 has really just dismantled many of the fundamental protections we need to keep our food supply safe."

"We have people that are really afraid that the U.S. is not doing a good job regulating our food supply. It's definitely a concern out there that as people are spending more money on their food, they are also fearful that that same food is going to cause them to get sick," Borsheim says.

By the numbers: Recalls are relatively on par with normal levels this fiscal year, according to FDA data.

So far, 5,504 products have been recalled in 2026. That's up slightly from the 5,461 products recalled last year, but down from the 6,524 products recalled in 2024.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, August 31, 2026

In the shadow of the Himalaya

An intricately detailed illustration inspired by Himalayan religious art depicts a catastrophic mountain flood and rescue operation. Beneath immense snowbound peaks, torrents of muddy water and debris descend through shattered valleys, damaged bridges, villages and hydropower installations. At centre, a dark-haired woman in ornate red-and-gold clothing carries a small lamp through the devastation, while other women search flooded ground, operate machinery and enter caves. Below, a cutaway reveals numerous rescuers working within submerged tunnels amid pipes, ladders and rushing water. Decorative floral borders, storm clouds, moonlit mountains and sacred motifs frame the scene, contrasting spiritual beauty with disaster and human peril.

image generated via ChatGPT

Rescue efforts continue in Nepal and Tibet following deadly glacial flooding. {The Guardian 31 August}

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/31/nepal-tibet-floods-rescuers-hundreds-trapped-hydropower

FTA: Rescue teams are working to reach more than 900 missing hydropower workers, hundreds of whom are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 12 hydropower projects in Nepal after the devastating flash floods, the ⁠country’s disaster management authority has said.

The death toll from the ⁠unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on Wednesday last week has risen to 939 people, with 16 more dead reported in Tibet. More than 4,400 are missing on the two sides of the border.

About 500 of the missing hydropower workers at projects damaged by the flooding in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts are thought to be trapped in tunnels built to control the flow of water.

As rescue efforts drag on, experts fear the chances of finding survivors in tunnels are diminishing as oxygen levels fall.

Some workers called for help when flooding started on Wednesday and those who had managed to escape tunnels said many of their colleagues were still trapped, said Mohan Kumar Dangi, the president of the Nepal Independent Power Producers’ Association.

Rescue efforts have been complicated by difficult terrain, persistently high flood waters and difficult weather. With more than 40 bridges destroyed, rescuers are relying on helicopters, while India and China are sending prefabricated truss bridges to help restore access.

The swollen Trishuli River has also continued to change course unpredictably, making planning a challenge. Areas that were dry one day are flooded the next, and further floods are a constant concern.

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, that were swept down the mountains by the torrent, have been buried in shallow graves after DNA testing on the plains ⁠of the Himalayan region.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Thursday, August 27, 2026

When the mountains broke

image generated via ChatGPT

Prayers for all affected by the horrific Himalayan glacial collapse and flooding. {AP 27 August}

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-nepal-tibet-glacier-collapse-floods-61b592d428e4631add31ce052d0daf1f

FTA: DEVIGHAT, Nepal (AP) — Rescue teams searched Thursday for hundreds of missing people along the Nepal-China border, where a deadly torrent of water and mud several stories high swept through communities a day earlier following a glacier collapse.

Videos of the disaster showed people running before the floodwaters swallowed them up and washed out buildings and bridges. More than 350 people were killed, police said, and more than 1,300 were missing, including scores of foreigners and pilgrims. Hundreds of others have been displaced across the Himalayan region.

The steep slopes and lush valleys below the Himalayan mountain range — home to many of the world’s highest peaks and remaining glaciers — are especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides. Melting glaciers have become more common because of human-caused climate change.

Images showed what appeared to be the second floors of buildings in Nepal’s hard-hit Nuwakot district slathered in mud after the torrent rushed by. Debris hung from tree branches and wires, vehicles were buried and some stunned survivors were caked in mud.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, August 21, 2026

The Pacific's reckoning

A surreal allegorical illustration personifies El Niño through a dark-haired woman standing amid converging extremes of water, heat and storm. Wearing a translucent ivory dress, she rises from swirling floodwater illuminated by fiery currents, while ghostly counterparts appear across drought-stricken earth, tropical floods and rain-lashed seas. Above, incandescent orange clouds collide with violent blue-purple thunderstorms as a spiralling atmospheric current unites the contrasting climates. Beneath the water, glowing arteries and a human heart transform the ocean into a living circulatory system, symbolising the interconnected forces governing global weather.

generated via ChatGPT

‘Unprecedented’ El Niño forming over the Pacific, could lead to 2027 being the hottest year on record; ‘not beyond the realm of possibility to say this might be the strongest El Niño event in 500 or even 1,000 years’. {BBC 21 August}

https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c3ekg93vjz9o

FTA: The El Niño event that is developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest in living memory, the Met Office has warned.

The powerful natural climate phenomenon pushes up global temperatures and can increase the risks of extreme weather.

Added to the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office is warning that it is "very likely" to mean 2027 is the hottest year on record.

There is growing evidence that weather patterns around the world are already being affected, with below-average monsoon rains in India and suppressed hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.

El Niño could put the UK at greater risk of a wet, stormy autumn.

"We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event", said Prof Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office.

"I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts."

El Niño is a naturally occurring weather pattern, which happens about every two to seven years, lasting for around a year.

Trade winds that typically blow from east to west across the Pacific Ocean can weaken or even reverse, allowing warm water to spread eastwards.

Heat is released from the ocean into the atmosphere, lifting global temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns.

Scientists declare an El Niño when sea surface temperatures in a key area of the Pacific are 0.5C or more above average.

Current measurements show that they are well over 2C above normal.

Latest forecasts from the Met Office suggest that these temperature anomalies could exceed 3C later this year as El Niño nears its peak.

This would be unprecedented in records going back to 1950, and probably the strongest event since the 19th century.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Drought’s harvest

A macabre editorial illustration depicts a dark-haired woman balancing barefoot upon a chair as enormous mosquitoes swarm around her in a parched, desolate landscape. Wearing a light summer dress, she raises an insect repellent aerosol while recoiling anxiously from the approaching insects. Stagnant pools and an ornate fountain provide breeding grounds, while crows and wading birds gather beneath twisted, leafless trees. A grotesque sun overlooks the scene as countless mosquitoes fill the dusty sky, transforming an ordinary summer nuisance into an ominous allegory of mosquito-borne disease and the expanding threat of West Nile virus.

image generated via ChatGPT

West Nile virus surges in #Murica; drought concentrates mosquitoes around shrinking pools of water, raising risk of transmission. {The Independent 18 August}

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/west-nile-virus-mosquito-cases-deaths-us-b3034893.html

Counter-intuitive though it may seem, drought increases transmission by concentrating mosquitoes and birds around ever-shrinking water sources.

FTA: The majority of cases occur in the summer, when warm and west conditions are at their peak.

While mosquitoes thrive in these conditions, experts say climate change-driven drought in Arizona and across the West has actually helped the disease spread.

Drought means that mosquitoes breed around smaller bodies of water, giving more opportunity for the virus to spread between them.

“Drought conditions can paradoxically increase West Nile virus transmission because it concentrates mosquitoes and birds (West Nile virus is a bird virus, first) around shrinking water sources, increasing transmission risk,” Matthew Aliota, a professor at the University of Minnesota, who specializes in these kinds of viruses, previously told The Independent.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

The long summer

A richly detailed apocalyptic illustration depicts four women languishing beneath extreme heat in a devastated American landscape. In the foreground, a perspiring blonde woman in a clinging, translucent ivory dress reclines exhausted upon cracked stone steps. Behind her, a red-haired woman fans herself, while a brunette sprawls across a rusting vintage car and another blonde pours water over herself beside a depleted well. Parched earth, withered crops, abandoned oil pumps and a distant industrial complex extend towards the horizon beneath a fiery crimson sky, where smoke, flames and a burning hillside evoke environmental catastrophe.

image generated via ChatGPT

NOAA: July 2026 was the hottest month on record in the continental US, breaking the Dust Bowl record from 1936. {AP 10 August}

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-month-july-climate-change-4a9d612281485356103631f0f09b61af

FTA: The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of a degree. Records go back to 1895.

“It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections. “And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the U.S. — just a cataclysmic event in U. S. history. If we’re exceeding records from The Dust Bowl, that says that we’re in deep trouble.”

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, August 10, 2026

Unmaking of the Union

$A symbolic editorial illustration depicts the continental United States as a weathered parchment map torn into two vast landmasses separated by widening chasms. Faded blue and muted red checkerboard patterns subtly distinguish the opposing halves, while snapped stitches, frayed seams, and coils of barbed wire suggest failed attempts to hold the nation together. Tiny groups of silhouetted figures stand isolated on either side of the fractures, unable to cross the widening divide. Rendered in muted earth tones beneath a bleak, overcast sky, the image evokes political polarisation, national fragmentation, and the uncertain prospect of a country slowly pulling itself apart.$

image generated via ChatGPT

Historian Timothy Snyder cautions the (former) US may cease to exist as a singular political entity within five to fifteen years. {IBT 10 August}

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/future-us-political-polarisation-national-divorce-1813376

A ‘national divorce’ shall, in due course, become an inescapable reality. The questions are: how messy doth it need to be, what exact disorder must such a rupture entail, and can it be done in a relatively peaceful and organised manner? Perhaps it is time for all states, individuals, and institutions to commence preparations and to grapple with the logistics — vital matters such as the precise delineation of geographic boundaries, the negotiation of a common defence pact where feasible (an outcome vastly preferable to any conceivable alternative), and the question of whether a common currency would remain — rather than pretending our present union remains sustainable. FTA:

Renowned historian Timothy Snyder has warned that the US may not continue to exist in its current form over the next five, 10 or 15 years. He argued that Trump supporters may be more likely to wreck the country as a political entity than to establish a homogeneous authoritarian regime stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

The warning appeared on Sunday alongside concerns about growing political polarisation, state-level resistance to federal authority, and renewed discussion of a possible national divorce.

The news came after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly demanded a legal dismantling of the nation following conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination. Greene told supporters she wanted a peaceful national divorce, arguing the country was too far gone and no longer safe.

Polls conducted since 2021 by universities, YouGov and others found that a third or more of Americans expected a civil war during the next decade or so, according to the source article.

The process of separation shall not prove smooth, yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that it is necessary. We had a good run, these United States, but no empire in the whole of recorded history hath endured forever. Our time hath now drawn to a close.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, July 25, 2026

Empty cupboards, heavy hearts

A warmly lit mid-century-style illustration shows a tall dark-haired woman comforting a much smaller blonde woman in a modest vintage kitchen. The taller woman, dressed in a cream cable-knit jumper and short beige skirt, wraps both arms protectively around the younger woman, gently cradling the back of her head as she stares ahead with quiet concern. The petite blonde, wearing a pink gingham summer dress and white sandals, buries her tear-streaked face against the taller woman's chest, clutching her tightly in visible distress. Around them, an old-fashioned refrigerator stands open with only a few basic items inside, while ration coupons and loose notes are scattered across the chrome-edged kitchen table beside a mixing bowl, suggesting growing financial hardship. Floral curtains, enamel cookware, worn cupboards, and soft afternoon sunlight reinforce the nostalgic domestic atmosphere, contrasting with the emotional weight of the embrace.

image generated via ChatGPT

#Murica: consumers adapt to the largest hike in grocery prices in fifty years by cutting back, sometimes drastically. {AP 25 July}

https://apnews.com/article/grocery-shopping-prices-food-affordability-8468c1d6532ca762bbcfa17e3c7707d1

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The scorching of green and pleasant land

An elegant Art Nouveau-inspired illustration portrays a distraught blonde woman walking barefoot along a sunlit cobbled lane through an idyllic English village. She wears a delicate cream slip with lace trim, damp against her skin, one hand pressed to her chest while the other gathers the hem of her dress. Tears stream down her flushed face as she gazes upwards with an expression of exhaustion, sorrow, and desperate longing. Timber-framed cottages overflow with roses, hollyhocks, foxgloves, and cottage flowers, while a tall medieval church spire rises in the distance beneath a shimmering golden sky that suggests oppressive summer heat. An ornate floral border of flowing vines, blossoms, and whiplash curves frames the entire composition, reinforcing its refined Art Nouveau aesthetic.

image generated via ChatGPT

Another sweltering heatwave heading to the UK and much of Europe, with temperatures potentially exceeding 110°F. {The Mirror 25 July}

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-met-office-heatwave-37475303

Godspeed, this is scary.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Charging ahead no longer

A highly detailed illustrated image in a classic adventure-comic style portraying a glamorous red-haired woman standing beside a champagne-gold contemporary electric saloon in a luxurious indoor garage. She wears a sleek, floor-length ivory evening gown with subtle gold trim, an elegant asymmetric neckline, and a dramatic thigh-high slit revealing one leg. Resting one hand lightly upon the polished bonnet, she faces the viewer with a poised, confident expression. Warm golden lighting washes across the vehicle’s sculpted bodywork and reflective paint, while bold ink linework, rich hand-painted colours, and carefully rendered textures evoke the timeless sophistication of vintage illustrated storytelling blended with modern automotive design.

generated via ChatGPT

Projections for electric vehicle sales in Trumpistan are slashed significantly. ‘Full withdrawal of federal regulatory support for electrification in the U.S. is the biggest factor’. {Yahoo! Finance 11 July}

https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/us-electric-car-outlook-tumbles-200700626.html

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, July 17, 2026

No comfort in marble

A highly detailed glamour-style illustration of a distressed blonde woman seated upon a white toilet in an opulent marble bathroom with polished brass fittings. She wears a white satin nightdress beneath a loosely draped silk robe, one hand pressed against her lower abdomen while the other supports her tear-streaked face. Her flushed cheeks, reddened eyes, and pained expression convey exhaustion and severe gastrointestinal illness. Luxurious details, including crystal perfume bottles, folded towels, and gleaming marble surfaces, contrast sharply with her evident discomfort. Warm golden lighting accentuates the satin fabrics and refined décor, creating a poignant juxtaposition between elegance, vulnerability, and physical suffering.

generated via ChatGPT

Figures: #Murican fast food icon Taco Bell and supplier Taylor Farms tied to cyclospora outbreak in five states. {AP 17 July}

https://apnews.com/article/cyclospora-lettuce-taco-bell-cdc-fda-13d9e9ebdc46a4d05a58da2ae8e8d0de

Not the first time either of these parties have been negligent. Food safety standards are not what they should be in what we — as Americans — are commanded to believe is the freest, richest, most advanced nation on earth. Alas, I do not suspect most Taco Bell consumers care all that much about food safety, but I digress.

FTA: The FDA’s traceback investigation identified a single supplier of iceberg lettuce from Mexico used by the Taco Bell locations where people who got sick ate, federal officials said. The Mexican food chain is among the restaurants linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the past. Taylor Farms also was tied to a 2013 cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to salad mix and a 2024 E. coli outbreak tied to onions served at McDonald’s.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, June 26, 2026

Bound by thirst: Lake Powell is running dry

$A symbolic environmental illustration of two women seated upon the cracked, desiccated floor of the severely depleted Lake Powell beneath a blazing desert sky. Their pale dresses are stained with dust and mud; tears stream continuously down their faces, leaving glistening tracks. One kneeleth with head tilted skyward in anguish; the other sitteth beside her, resting a hand upon her shoulder in comfort and solidarity. Dark cords loosely connect their wrists and waists—a metaphor for shared dependence on dwindling water, not restraint. Behind riseth the immense concrete wall of Glen Canyon Dam, framed by red-rock canyon walls. The exposed lake bed stretcheth in every direction, fractured into deep polygonal cracks. Grief, vulnerability, and the human consequences of environmental decline.$

generated via ChatGPT

“Lake Powell ‒ the massive Colorado River reservoir that produces power for millions of homes across the West ‒ is the emptiest it has ever been entering the hottest part of the summer. And the worst is still to come.” {USA Today 25 June}

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/lake-powell-hits-lowest-summer-190043854.html

One of the gravest errors I ever made in life was once entertaining the notion that climate change — or ‘global warming’, as it was generally called in those days — was a ‘hoax’.

Over time, and for a gazillion reasons that begin and end with a certain tangerine-coloured demagogue, I grew disillusioned with the sorts of people who insisted upon such things. More inconveniently still, the evidence kept piling up. One can ignore a fact; one cannot indefinitely ignore ten thousand of them.

Not only was I a sinner for denying what is happening to the planet, I was also a monumental idiot. For whatever reason, I resisted the idea that mankind was responsible for changes in the atmosphere; now, I simply laugh at the notion that somehow humanity is not responsible. Why would we not f**k up the environment, as we do with virtually everything else we touch?

Looking back over a decade and longer, I suspect I was far too eager to curry favour with certain people in my orbit, and consequently accepted a great many notions that simply did not withstand contact with reality. To my credit, however, I had the good sense to head for the lifeboats the moment Trump lumbered into view. Even a fool may occasionally recognise the sound of an approaching avalanche.

In any event, the argument is over. Climate change is real. It is occurring. It is already reshaping the world, and before this century has run its course it will render parts of it scarcely recognisable. Nations will suffer. Peoples will be displaced. Entire ways of life will disappear.

Future generations are unlikely to enjoy the assumptions of comfort and abundance presently taken for granted across much of the developed world. They may find themselves living under conditions rather closer to those endured by their distant ancestors than those imagined by the futurists of the twentieth century.

It is a fait accompli. The apparent price humanity must pay for progress.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, June 22, 2026

The day Paris could not dance

A highly realistic digital illustration of a red-haired woman standing in a sun-baked Parisian square during an extreme summer heatwave. Her wet crimson dress clingeth to her body, darkened by sweat; damp strands of fiery hair hang across her face. Tears mingle with sweat upon her flushed cheeks; she looketh directly at the viewer with exhaustion, distress, and vulnerability. Behind, elegant Haussmann-era buildings frame the square. An outdoor concert stage standeth abandoned; scattered debris, cups, and a brass instrument lie upon the pavement—a cancelled event. Small groups linger beneath the harsh sun. The stone surface glistens with water, reflecting oppressive brightness. Climate extremes, public disruption, human fragility, and endurance—strain, drenched appearance, and stark contrast between festivity and oppression.

Europe on fire: seeking to prevent unrest, French authorities issue temporary ban on alcohol sales at festivals amid heatwave. {The Telegraph 21 June}

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/06/21/france-alcohol-ban-heatwave-europe-safety-events-cancelled/

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Fever dream? Four nurses for the wounded daughter of Columbia

An ornate Renaissance-style allegorical painting of a humanised Statue of Liberty as a wounded woman with a spiked crown, lying injured on an antique medical gurney—her leg in a brace, her chest bandaged. Four nurses in vintage uniforms tend to her: one checketh her face, another taketh notes, a third adjusteth her leg. Stone archways frame a parched cracked landscape on one side and a coastal scene with ships on the other. Above, a surreal sky holdeth Saturn, swirling clouds, and a cascade of falling produce—cabbages, tomatoes, bread, coffee beans. Candles, lanterns, and antique mechanical equipment surround the bed.

generated via ChatGPT

Everyday items grow costlier in the former United States, largely due to its nation-destroying president's policies and actions. {WP 10 June; image generated via ChatGPT}

https://wapo.st/4oh9zdz

Mother Nature hath done some damage – notably, of late, in the form of drought – and I believe America is simply cursed and is going to remain so long after the orange usurper hath either been deposed, by whatever means, or simply dies. As decrepit as the motherf**ker is, he is not going anywhere for a long time to come. Mark my words. He is a curse, we are cursed; we shall never know life as it once was again.

Far more suffering and misery is yet to come. A drought here, a failed harvest there, rivers either overflowing or running lower than expected, reservoirs shrinking beneath an unforgiving sun. Perchance, another global health crisis. To say nothing of the ongoing political and social crack-up, all exposing the fragility lurking beneath the modern world's no longer so confident façade. One can never rule out the possibility of some madman – Putin, Kim Jong Un, the Iranians, Trump – playing with nuclear weapons. Fun times, yeah?

The former United States – and I do not use that moniker to be cute, this is not the country I grew up in – is in the midst of a long historical season from which there is no easy escape. One that began with a literal bang on 11 September 2001, and America and her people have done almost nothing but make nearly every bad decision possible since then: the resentment, the distrust, the hunger for strongmen, the endless appetite for spectacle over substance. We are a nation in the midst of a gradual systemic breakdown.

By and large, the peasantry have themselves to blame for the hard times we are only beginning to endure in earnest, and I would be here for days enumerating the hows and whys. Fifty years from now, after we are long dead and buried and assuming the earth is still standing, the mass of humanity shall revert to living in caves because of the catastrophically awful, short-sighted, and malevolent direction the former United States of America hath taken over the decades, particularly in the past quarter-century. The America of my childhood and young adulthood, before 9/11, may have been a bit of a fraud in retrospect, and any nation will always have its warts even in the best of times; overall, though, it was undeniably a more decent and liveable place than this one. As one who hath lived through this transition from the world's strongest nation by a gazillion miles into one that is now bordering on third world status and is the black sheep of the global community, I am horrified thinking of all the ways we threw our collective prosperity, security, and dignity away. We will never know again what we once knew, and the younger generations coming up now and the generations yet to be born – again, if the earth is still standing – will simply never know, period.

Karma is a bitch, #Murica.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Thursday, December 11, 2025

A classic entry from the dictator’s playbook: the Trump regime seeks to restrict tourism from forty-two countries. Wider prohibitions will follow in due course in the ‘land of the free, home of the brave’

A young woman in a trench coat and beret stands before a U.S. Customs and Border Protection desk, her gloved hand resting lightly on the counter as though seeking steadiness. Her expression is one of wounded disbelief, the soft arch of her brow and parted lips suggesting a quiet plea that has already gone unheard. Opposite her, a uniformed officer holds out her travel document, now stamped DENIED ENTRY in uncompromising red, while his other arm extends in a rigid gesture directing her away. The composition, drawn in muted sepia tones, heightens the sense of bureaucratic froideur: the ‘DEPARTURES’ sign hanging bleakly overhead, the impersonal gravity of the officer’s posture, and the solitary suitcase at the woman’s side. The scene captures a moment of abrupt exclusion, where personal hope collides with institutional authority.

image generated via Google Gemini

{Reuters 11 December} ‘US travel group, foreign tourists leery of Trump plan to vet social media’

The Trump regime doth now prepare to demand of visitors from forty-two nations a dossier of their private selves—social media histories, phone records, and sundry other proofs that are almost impossible to assemble—before permitting entry into the former United States. It is an act of bureaucratic derangement, economically suicidal and morally shrivelled, yet far from without precedent: for every tyranny, when it begins to tremble, first builds walls—about its borders, about its people, and even about their very thoughts. One can already see the next stages materialising with grim predictability: internal passports, digital censorship, and the slow suffocation of contact with the wider world.

Mad as it is, tourism—once the nation’s great soft power and a pillar of her prosperity—shall be sacrificed without much hesitation. Trump’s rural, nationalist faithful will greet the ruin as virtue, imagining it a purgation of alien influence. ‘Purity’, in their lexicon, means exclusion: a fantasy of whiteness and dominion wherein only certain sorts of foreigners—white Afrikaners, perhaps, or those who can afford a $5 million platinum visa; rich folks will largely be exempt, of course—may pass through the gates.

But this, too, follows the pattern. Who complains more about tourists than those who greatly rely on their spending? Who wounds themselves more eagerly than the zealot who mistakes his own suffering for righteousness? We are merely witnessing the culmination of a pathology long in gestation: a civilisation so devoured by spite that it would rather collapse upon itself than concede the humanity of others.

Nick Fuentes, the twenty-something anti-Semitic, weaselly-voiced agitator who visited Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s exile, tells Piers Morgan he is ‘tired of pretending’ Hitler was not ‘really f**king cool’, despite also declaring him ‘a paedophile and kind of a pagan’. {Mediate 8 December}

Trump may move to direct federal agencies to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III substance, in spite of opposition from Republicans and the usual procession of prudes, worrywarts, and meddlesome busybodies. {WP 11 December}

Disney has acquired a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and is poised to become the first major media conglomerate to license its characters for use in video-generation technologies. {NYT 11 December}

New England’s climate is warming faster than nearly anywhere on earth. {The Guardian 4 December}

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Israeli foreign ministry: activist Greta Thunberg detained aboard Gaza aid flotilla, reported ‘safe and healthy’

AFP

{Reuters 1 October} Israeli foreign ministry reports activist Greta Thunberg, detained aboard a Gaza aid flotilla, is being held in safety and good health

Unbidden counsel to Miss Thunberg: confine yourself to championing climate awareness, and abandon any pretence of advocacy for a society of Islamist zealots who visit unspeakable cruelties upon their women and lay every ill at the feet of the Jews. Why imperil your life on behalf of those who, given the chance, would sooner despoil and slaughter you?

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. On X-TWITTER: @Sunking278 and @DollsFallen. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/SiberianKhatru278/. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. FULL LIST OF LINKS - linktr.ee/arthurnewhook. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED on Cash App ($ANewhook), PayPal (paypal.me/Sunking278), and at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Friday, April 25, 2025

Breeders' bonus: the former US considers paying women $5,000 a head to create future climate refugees

stock photo

ABC News: Trump administration looking at $5,000 'baby bonus' to incentivise public to have more children

$5,000 payments to women in the former United States to have babies? Let’s consider: (at least) 8.2 billion people already strain a planet of dwindling resources, amid unprecedented societal destabilisation. Yet this regime proposes to—at staggering public expense—artificially inflate the population, exacerbate the national debt (despite the GOP’s current austerity posturing), divert funds from healthcare and education, intensify housing crises, and reduce women to reproductive vessels. All so these unwanted children can inherit a world of climate catastrophe and mass impoverishment. A masterstroke from these natalist fanatics, let me tell you. Frankly, it’d be preferable to pay the majority of today’s Americans—demonstrably unfit to parent—*not* to procreate.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Hurricane Helene exacts a deadly toll upon the US Southeast, particularly in southern Appalachia

AP Photo/Erik Verduzco

Asheville has been isolated after Helene wrecked roads and knocked out power and cell service. {AP 28 September}

Am quite saddened. It has been nearly thirty years since I last visited Asheville and Western North Carolina. My parents have returned at least once, mayhap two or three times, in the years since. Asheville remains one of the most scenic and pleasant places I have ever experienced. East Tennessee, where I once had strong ties for many years, was largely spared the worst of the calamity, though poor Newport was not so fortunate.

Global warming—or 'climate change', if one prefers—is both terrifying and real, and largely man-made. For the longest time, before I parted ways with the 'conservatives' (now #Cult45) in 2015 and 2016, I was as adamant as any of them that global warming was a 'hoax' and that humanity was blameless for acts of nature. Yet now, I think, 'Well, if mankind ruins everything else, why would we not also be culpable for this?' In the eternal battle between humanity and nature, nature always prevails. Human beings do not respect nature, and the consequences of this disregard grow ever more dire with the passing of each day, week, month, and year.

Prayers are with all those affected.

Recent headlines:

Project 2025 would cripple NOAA and the National Weather Center. {Poynter 27 September}

The 1 October deadline threatens to shut down ports on the US East Coast. {Reuters 25 September}

President Biden leads a bloc of North American, European, Arab, and Pacific nations in calling for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon. {BBC 26 September}

Trump signals that he is going to throw Ukraine to the wolves, calls their people ‘dead’ and their land ‘demolished’ - The American people shall have blood on their hands if (when) they vote to return this cretin to power. Слава Україні. {AP 25 September}

Despite his delicate feelings being hurt, Trump decides to meet with Zelensky during the Ukrainian leader's visit to the US. {BBC 27 September}

Another utterly shameful omen of where the US is heading: the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism reveals a sharp spike in Jew hatred and a ‘decline in allies willing to stand up against it.’ {Jerusalem Post 27 September}

Neo-Nazis use AI to rebrand a ‘misunderstood’ Hitler for a new generation - It is working, all too well. Far too many Americans today, particularly teenage boys and young males, are easily misled and disturbingly eager to embrace hate. {WP 27 September}

Jewish leaders have condemned Trump after he vowed to hold Jews and Catholics to account should he face defeat - Whether he wins or loses, this is all going to get worse. #Cult45 is champing at the bit to begin the slaughter of countless Americans. Without fail, Jews are always the first targets when societies descend into tyrannical madness. Nazi #Murica shall strive to outdo Nazi Germany in its wickedness. Mark my words. {AP 27 September}

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Hell on Earth: The hottest day in world history, and it is only going to get hotter

AI generated image

So far as is known and for as long as records have been kept, the earth has never had a hotter average temperature than it did on July 4. For the longest time, like the good little right-wing ignoramus I once was in the pre-Trump days, I rejected any notions that the earth’s climate was changing or that man was at fault. The evidence eventually became too much to ignore or downplay any longer, and now it appears as though the most severe and damaging effects of climate change are beginning to ravish the earth years ahead of some of even the most dire forecasts and projections. It is clear now, we are seriously f**ked and the time to save ourselves has passed. {AP 7/04}