Recently we’ve had especially glorious fall days, of the type that in the past never failed to make me happy. These days also happen to be the type my ex-husband loved because they are especially good for photographs. Nearly every year, he’d go to the local cemetery – an especially scenic place with many old trees – and take photo after photo after photo.

Not this year. This year I spent part a recent day talking to the cemetery staff about possible plots in which to bury cremains. That was one of the saddest tasks I can imagine. This is the sort of thing that keeps happening now – instead of A, we have B. Instead of something full of companionship, there is loneliness. I thought my ex would be with me a few more years. I thought we might go on a few more road trips, even though it has been more difficult in the past few years. And I find myself missing him more and more as time goes on, not less and less.

A couple of days ago I also got something in the mail from Social Security. It went like this:

We are sorry to learn of your loss. Please accept our sincere sympathy.

We are writing to you about your Social Security benefits.

You are entitled to monthly widow’s benefits beginning September 2026.

Widow’s benefits. I immediately burst into tears. I hadn’t though of that, but we were married so very long that I easily qualify. It’s one of the many things that seem especially poignant to me.

Another is the fact that many of the things that my ex kept – items I now need to get rid of – are from very early in our marriage. For example, there’s the bedroom furniture. How well I remember shopping for it when we first set up housekeeping! I didn’t have to deal with giving it away, because my ex kept it and used it all this time. But now – now I have nowhere to put it, and it must go.

Another heartbreak.

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Yesterday I was at the hospital much of the afternoon and came home around 8:30 PM, but he called me again at around 11:00 PM and sounded awful. I simply couldn’t relax about it, and since I live just a few minutes from the hospital I went back there to check it out.

Fortunately, he was asleep. And also fortunately, I had a long talk with the nurse and she reassured me about various things. He’s certainly not out of the woods, but she seemed competent and on top of things.

And then, when I returned home and got out of my car, I happened to look up to the sky. The moon looked very unusual, and it occurred to me that this might be a lunar eclipse. So I got out my trusty cellphone and sure enough, it was! Plus, just by chance I happened to be stepping out of my car at the exact peak minute of the eclipse.

So that’s the silver lining, I guess.

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I’m thinking that the country feels like it’s under internal siege. But you know, I’ve felt that way before. I write about the dangers often, and so I’m not going to write about them today. It’s a holiday, a big one.

Today I’m just going to note that I really do believe this is the greatest country on earth. Although threatened at times, our commitment to liberty is unmatched by that of any other country. The World Cup visitors from afar are surprised at our friendliness, our energy, our huge portions, our generosity.

I remember hearing from my son, when he lived in South America for quite a while, that although in some ways he could pass for a native, people always knew he was an American even before he opened up his mouth and demonstrated that he had an accent. Why? It was because of the way he walked. And I’ve heard other people say that Americans stride in a different way, a more open and free gait that identifies them.

America may just be the most beautiful country in the world in the sense of natural wonders, too. It’s certainly one of them, anyway. That’s partly because it’s so large and the terrain and climate and flora and fauna so varied. I recall learning in art history class that many of the early paintings of the American West – such as, for example, by Bierstadt – were designed to show Easterners and denizens of the Old World the wonders of the New. They could scarcely believe what they saw. And granted, it was a somewhat idealized version – but not that far off from reality:

I remember the 1976 Bicentennial vividly. But that was a long time ago. I was young, and now – well, let’s just say I’m not young anymore. But that star-spangled banner still waves o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Have a wonderful celebration!

The post Reflections on the 250th Fourth appeared first on The New Neo.

Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their private properties under climate laws, despite rising temperatures.

Council planning officers ordered residents to remove air-con units over fears they produce too much carbon dioxide, stating they should only be used as a “last resort”.

The net zero clampdown is part of building regulations that state “active cooling” should only ever be allowed when all other means of “passive cooling”, such as opening windows or using fans, have been exhausted.

The Tories said Britain was being “kept in the dark ages” under a net zero mindset that denies people “modern conveniences that are completely normal in other countries”.

It’s not happening everywhere in Britain, but it’s happening. And it’s a reminder that the commitment to liberty in Britain and in much of Europe is lukewarm at best.

Of course, our own leftists are salivating at the chance to do the same here – to exercise more and more control over every aspect of people’s lives “for our own good.”

Plus, Europe has been experiencing a heat wave of major proportions:

Temperatures soared to record highs from Switzerland to the Czech Republic and Denmark on Saturday, as a heat wave that baked western European countries this week moved to central and eastern parts of the continent.

Unusually high temperatures were recorded even in the Nordic countries not known for sweltering summers. Denmark’s Meteorological Institute reported a record 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in Ødum north of Aarhus — the warmest day since records there began in 1874. …

Germany’s famous Autobahn was overwhelmed, too, as temperatures were expected to hit 40 C (104 F). In two places outside Berlin, the concrete of the A2 burst due to the high temperatures and the highway had to be closed. …

The Czech Republic also saw its hottest day on record, with 40.8 C (105.4 F) in the northern town of Doksany. Forecasters said it may still rise.

That’s hot, all right. But in the US, not all that unusual. Even the New England states reach high levels at times, with record highs generally more in the 105-107 vicinity.

As a young child, I lived without air conditioning in New York, in a home that didn’t have much cross-ventilation. It was pretty brutal at times in the summer. I also remember that a lot of homes had awnings on the windows that went up in the summer, to create at least a slightly cooling effect. On very hot days, sometimes we’d go to the movies – thirty-five cents admission – because they were usually air conditioned. Ah, the relief!

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Report on my leftist friends: they are obsessed with the Reflecting pool and algae growth there. They see it as evidence of what an idiot Trump is and how it’s all his fault.

For many, the fact that Trump still draws breath is an affront, and evidence of what an idiot he is. However, as far as the Reflecting Pool renovations go, there have been arrests of five people for sabotage – although the NBC article I just linked says the arrests are “with no evidence so far.” There’s more information on that at this article:

As of June 21, the identity of one person who was arrested has emerged.

David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, was arrested by U.S. Park Police on June 19 and charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property, the Washington Post first reported. Hearn did not immediately return USA TODAY’s request to speak on June 21.

Hearn told the Post he reached into the Reflecting Pool and was able to “grab” the end of a “flapping piece,” but didn’t remove it.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” the 67-year-old told the outlet. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

U.S. Park Police did not return USA TODAY’s request for comment. When asked what they know about the arrests, D.C. Metro Police told USA TODAY to contact U.S. Park Police.

Aside from Hearn, it’s unclear who else has been arrested or what charges they might be facing. Trump said law enforcement is currently investigating.

The office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment on the alleged arrests.

Speaking to Peter Doocy on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said that “anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the Reflecting Pool will face the criminal justice system in DC.”

Pirro stopped short of commenting on arrests, or saying anyone had been arrested, but did say several citations have been issued related to the Reflecting Pool, and that those citations will be prosecuted to the full extent.

I, for one, can manage without a whole lot more detail at this point.

I find the following quite interesting, though, and could serve as something to let Facebook friends know:

Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.

An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have “long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922,” pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.

You might want to highlight the words “Obama-era renovation.” It turns out that there was a more expensive renovation during the Obama administration and it didn’t go very well. You might suggest they take a trip back in time and look at this from August of 2012:

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened Friday after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction, completing the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package. …

Now the pool has been reengineered with a circulation and filtration system. Instead of using city drinking water, it draws river water from the nearby Tidal Basin, which will save 20 million gallons of drinking water each year.

The pool is shallower — only 3 feet at its deepest point — to save water, and its bottom is tinted grey to make the water darker and more reflective of the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument. …

For two years, the massive reconstruction project shut down a large swath of the National Mall as the old pool was removed.

Sounds familiar, except it took two years and was far more expensive than Trump’s renovations (reported to have been about 14 million) – although it sounds as though what Obama did was more extensive in terms of landscaping. And what was the result of the Obama changes? Why, algae, naturally. From October of 2012, about a month after the pool was first opened after the renovation:

The newly-renovated reflecting pool was drained of water this week after ABC7 reported that unsightly algae and scum was creeping into it.

It comes less than two weeks after the algae was discovered growing on the water, something that isn’t supposed to happen after the multimillion dollar renovation.

The algae was noticed at one end of the reflecting pool in late September. It almost completely covered the surface of the water.

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened at the end of August after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction. It was the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Here’s the explanation for the algae at that time:

The Park Service says the Tidal Basin water isn’t chemically treated. Instead, it’s treated with ozone. The level of ozone, however, needs to be adjusted to prevent the algae from forming, but tweaking the levels post-bloom and trying to skim it off wasn’t working fast enough.

“Because we didn’t have it right at the beginning, the algae established itself,” says Carol Johnson, spokesperson for the National Park Service. “Algae doubles in size every four hours so it is a formidable foe.”

I have little doubt that Trump’s Obama-admiring critics will have the creativity to come up a reason why that is so different, and why Obama is brilliant while Trump is still an idiot. But to me, the whole thing indicates that the Reflecting Pool seems to want to grow algae.

More on the present situation, including some scientific background:

The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.

The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a “milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools,” adding “there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”

Workers are also deploying what the department calls “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool.

I wish them good luck:

Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.

Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.

“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”

It’s happened before, it will happen again – but it’s all Trump’s fault.

ADDENDUM:

Whoopi Goldberg says that the Reflecting Pool never had algae before.

And that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

The post Reflections on the Reflecting Pool appeared first on The New Neo.

A mountain lion forced residents of Santa Monica and their tiny pets indoors as officials scoured the area for the apex predator.

The Santa Monica Police Department descended on the residential area of 14th and Montana Friday morning after someone allegedly saw the animal in the area. …

The mountain lion was first located sleeping in a residential backyard, and did not move from that location for several hours, a SMPD spokesperson told The California Post. …

After about six hours, the animal was reportedly hit with a tranquilizer, sending it running through the neighborhood. Officials were seen in a video chasing after the big cat in an attempt to wrangle and capture it. …

Finally, nine hours after it was first reported, the animal was successfully tranquilized and removed.

Just a few years ago I was staying with a friend in the suburbs of Los Angeles. It was April, and I went for a walk in a very built-up area of many homes. And yet I saw a mountain lion walking through a group of bushes not more than 50 yards away from me. I turned and slowly walked in another direction, heart pounding but trying not to transmit fear although I was quite frightened.

When that happened to me, it made me think of this old Kingston Trio song from my youth. It’s a California song:

And now of course we have to have the song “Wimoweh,” later called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I prefer this older Weavers version (1955) to the later pop version by the Tokens:

Here is the original South African group who created the song. You can see how closely the Weavers stuck to this version:

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You’ve probably never heard of the term “RCP 8.5” — the highest-emission scenario used by climate scientists to project the planet’s future. But if you’ve read about climate change, you’ve seen the numbers and nightmarish outcomes it produced: 4°C of warming by 2100, sometimes 5°C, sea level rising multiple feet, parts of the planet too hot for humans.

Those numbers shaped a decade and a half of climate journalism, including a lot of my own when I covered climate change at Time magazine. I didn’t always know — and didn’t always communicate — that the scenario behind the most apocalyptic, attention-getting findings was largely an attempt to imagine how bad things could get, not a true forecast. But I wasn’t alone. RCP 8.5 was a frequent background presence in climate journalism.

So are we to conclude that author Bryan Walsh sometimes did know and yet failed to communicate that he was writing the equivalent of a Hollywood script?

As for why he’s telling the tale now, it’s a domino effect:

Last month, though, the scientists who built that scenario formally retired it. In a paper published in Geoscientific Model Development, Detlef van Vuuren and more than 40 co-authors eliminated RCP 8.5 from the scenarios that will feed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report, which is due in 2029. Based on falling clean-energy costs, climate policy, and recent emissions trends, the highest-emissions pathway had become, in their words, “implausible.”

Walsh still says things will be bad, just not as bad. But why would we trust that prediction?

Was RCP 8.5 ever realistic? One camp of experts, led by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather and energy modeler Glen Peters, argues that RCP 8.5 was plausible in 2011, but was taken off the table by genuine policy and technology progress. The other camp, led by Roger Pielke Jr., argues that the rate of global decarbonization has been roughly linear for decades. That would mean we didn’t actively avoid RCP 8.5; it was just never realistic to begin with. Both camps agree on what counts, though: RCP 8.5 should be gone, and the planet is still on track to warm between 2.5° and 3° by 2100.

Walsh seems to be saying, in most of the article, that if we could predict the policy we could predict the climate. But I have always thought that’s a case of hubris. There are too many variables and too many unknowns interacting in too complex and too poorly-understood a fashion. And that’s even if you assume that scientists and journalists are always acting in good faith, which is – as they say – somewhat implausible.

The post Why, we were just telling scary stories – say the climate-doomers appeared first on The New Neo.

My favorite:

The lunar surface fills the frame in sharp detail, as seen during the Artemis II lunar flyby, while a distant Earth sets in the background. This image was captured at 6:41 p.m. EDT, on April 6, 2026, just three minutes before the Orion spacecraft and its crew went behind the Moon and lost contact with Earth for 40 minutes before emerging on the other side. In this image, the dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime, while on its day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground, Ohm crater shows terraced edges and a relatively flat floor marked by central peaks — formed when the surface rebounded upward during the impact that created the crater.

The post More photos from Artemis appeared first on The New Neo.

A generic one.

So instead of past (or present) heroes to be pictured on future British currency, the pound will henceforth feature wildlife. I wasn’t aware that Britain was famous for its wildlife. No one goes big game hunting there anymore.

Here’s the story. The public seems to have voted for this, and the notes will continue to have the monarch’s face on them:

It marks a shift after more than 50 years of showcasing people from Britain’s history on the banknotes, including Winston Churchill, Alan Turing and Jane Austen.

The Bank of England said the change to wildlife imagery creates an opportunity to celebrate another important aspect of the nation.

It also makes it more difficult for the notes to be counterfeited while making security features more distinguishable, according to the central bank.

I don’t think the change in image theme itself makes the notes more difficult to counterfeit, I think it’s improved techniques connected with the issuance of new notes.

The vote went like this:

The move follows a consultation in which the UK wildlife theme received the highest proportion of nominations, at 60%.

Architecture and landmarks was a close second at 56%, followed by notable historical figures (38%) arts, culture and sport (30%) innovation (23%) and noteworthy milestones (19%).

Obviously, people were allowed to choose more than one theme. The total number of responses was 44,000, which isn’t all that many.

The definition of “wildlife” is broad, however:

A second consultation will be run this summer to gather views on the specific wildlife they would like to feature, which can include plants, landscapes and animals.

So they could choose the White Cliffs of Dover, for example. That would be kind of nice. Or the dandelion – not so nice. As for fauna, I immediately think of the hedgehog. Looking it up, we see the following:

The island of Great Britain, along with the rest of the archipelago known as the British Isles … contains a relatively small fraction of the world’s wildlife. The biota was severely diminished in the last ice age, and shortly (in geological terms) thereafter was separated from the continent by the English Channel’s formation. Since then, humans have hunted the most dangerous forms (the wolf, the brown bear and the wild boar) to extinction, though domesticated forms such as the dog and the pig remain. The wild boar has subsequently been reintroduced as a meat animal.

How about the English Springer Spaniel? A noble beast:

The post As the sun quickly sets, not on the British Empire – that’s already gone – but on Britain itself appeared first on The New Neo.

That’s one of the reasons the news of nine people dead in an avalanche while back-country skiing in the Tahoe area filled me with dread and sorrow. Such young, vibrant people, their lives snuffed out in an instant – although such deaths are usually not instantaneous. The news reports didn’t tell us some things I’d like to know, such as whether they were all skiing at once, and where the survivors were positioned that allowed them to live, and why the decision was made to go despite avalanche warnings.

There was also a less-publicized death but no less horrible, of an 11-year-old girl in Utah, killed in another avalanche while back-country skiing with her family, and another in Utah of a father who was snowmobiling with his son. In both cases, family members tried to dig out the victims, but didn’t manage to save their lives. One can imagine the frantic desperate efforts, the terrible feelings of failure and grief and perhaps guilt.

Why do people engage in such activities? That’s not hard to imagine: it is beautiful in the mountains in winter, and ski resort areas can be terribly crowded. For a lover of nature, mountains, and outdoor activities in snow, back-country activities have a huge draw. And we all do plenty of other seemingly risky things, such as driving.

Then I learned that there have been many avalanche-related deaths in the Alps this year, and that although the number is high, the numbers are usually high (or what I would consider high):

Though the recent spike in avalanche deaths in Europe is worrying, it is not exceptional – according to European Avalanche Warning Services, 95 have died so far this season, compared to 70 in the whole of 2024-25 and 87 in 2023-24. The 2020-21 season, when 131 died, and 2017-18, when the figure was 147, seem comparable.

The articles I’ve read on the European deaths haven’t broken down the figures for back-country deaths, but my guess is that almost all are of that type. Here’s a video that goes into how and why avalanches occur, and how ski resorts prevent or at least reduce their occurrence. The second video is about the Alps avalanche deaths:

It seems to me that back-country skiing has increased in recent years, and that is the case (the article is from a year ago]:

Backcountry skiing has surged in popularity since the pandemic, but those wishing to leave the relative safety of busy resorts can find themselves at the mercy of an unforgiving wilderness. If something goes wrong — as it often does, with avalanches a constant threat — skiers do not have a first-aid team nearby, and rescue can take hours.

And yet Ennen, from Park City, Utah, says the peaceful isolation found up remote mountains is preferable by far to being stuck in lengthy lines at resorts, and he is willing to embrace risk for a sense of freedom.

“I love being in the mountains and surrounded by nature,” said Ennen, a 45-year-old cardiac anaesthesiologist. “It’s my time for my brain to relax and to decompress from the real world. When you’re skiing in a resort, you’re in a controlled environment but with an uncontrolled group of people.

“The backcountry is the opposite. You’re with a controlled group of people, your team, but in a very uncontrolled environment.”

It’s a decision an increasing number of people have been making. Advances in avalanche-related equipment, such as beacons, have probably helped give a sense of security- perhaps a false one? The Tahoe skiiers were thus equipped. In terms of relative risk, though, I don’t know what the figures are and I’m not sure there are figures for how many people back-country ski these days.

Writing this post made me think of the last verse of this poem by Emily Dickinson, which goes like this:

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

RIP.

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