Early Celebration Penalties

We hope our readers today will notice that we're not following the lead of some other media organizations who are focused solely on the Olympics - or blaming their problems delivering live video feeds of the Olympics on their viewers - or on Mitt Romney's continuing international gaffe tour.

We're focusing on something they still should be - and you probably should be too.

Yesterday, in a courtroom in a suburb of Denver, the man responsible for killing twelve people at a showing of the new Batman movie was officially charged with 141 felonies, including 116 counts of attempted murder, and 24 counts of murder. There have been further tragedies stemming from that horrible event, and sadly, further shootings in other places in the U.S..

There has even been a very small amount of change in public opinion - nearly negligible - towards supporting more sensible gun ownership laws.

What has not happened, however, is any significant and serious movement  towards sensible gun control laws - especially by Republicans.

In fact, in the wake of the Aurora shootings, background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado actually jumped more than 41 percent.

Nationally, it seems that only a very small group of Democratic members of Congress are concerned enough about the mass shooting in Colorado to actually do anything. It does not surprise us at all that New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg have been pushing forward new legislation to try and restrict - if nothing else - anonymous, unlimited online ammunition sales.

What did surprise us were the words that Supreme Court Justice Scalia spoke this past weekend on the subject of gun control.

Scalia has become known over the years for his leanings towards severe and sometimes extremist conservative views - like his opinion that 'handheld rocket launchers' could be Constitutional. In the midst of that extreme rhetoric, however, were some words that that should at least give those of us tired of hearing about gun massacres in the U.S. a bit of hope.

As the Christian Science Monitor noted on Monday, Scalia also made it clear that there is a legal opening for legislators to act and bring forward new gun control legislation - one that he appears to be willing to consider.

We know that this ray of hope may seem small and dim in light of the fact that too few legislators are willing to take on the massive lobby of the NRA - so we're certainly not celebrating, or saying that the issue of gun control is settled.

It is, however, a ray of hope that goes all the way through to the highest court in the land.

We hope that before this opportunity slips away - and before another massacre takes place - a majority of our lawmakers will take advantage of the moment and enact sensible gun control that even law-abiding gun owners support.

If our lawmakers don't use this opening properly, the penalties most likely won't fall on elected officials, but on the next group of innocents, who didn't need to be victims at all.

Bread And Circuses - And Uniforms

Over the weekend our staff noted an odd thread running through the behavior of friends, neighbors, professional colleagues, and even the general public.

Over the past couple of days, one of the world's most vocal climate change deniers admitted he has been completely totally wrong, in the face of a new report. A major oil spill in Wisconsin dumped over 1,000 gallons of raw crude into a farmer's field. Europe is, once again, hanging by an economic thread, while our own economy continues to be stalled by a do-nothing House of Representatives - who are about to go on a five week long August vacation.

Mitt Romney's gaffe parade continued, as he made several more gaffes in Israel. However, since Mitt didn't start World War III while he was there, his backers seem to think his trip has been a success so far.

All this happened over the weekend - though we can understand if you missed the real information while arguing about ridiculous stuff like the Huskers' special uniforms for the Wisconsin game, where the bust of Winston Churchill is, or the stupidity of the executives at NBC Sports.

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, when those in charge of our media and information sources don't seem to have a clue of how the real world works, when we - their users, viewers, listeners and readers - don't seem to have any idea of what's important ourselves.

Take the Olympics, for example.

While the executives at NBC Sports seem to think American audiences will watch every single Olympic event, what those same execs have failed to realize is that most of their U.S. viewers are well-connected to other media sources around the globe.

Of course, we're talking about the failure of NBC to air important events from the Olympics live in the U.S. - or sometimes even air them at all.

The 7/7 subway attacks in London are the UK's version of America's 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fifty-two civilians died, and over 700 were injured in and around London. The opening ceremonies of this year's Olympics had a moving tribute to those victims - one which NBC chose not to air, because their executives obviously felt commercials by Karl Rove's anti-Obama hate group and fast food ads were more important than a moment of true human connection at the Olympics.

NBC has been paying the price for their lack of judgement, however, as American audiences have been seeking out live video streams and live news reports from other countries as an alternative to the NBC "coverage". The brand of NBC has been hurt too, as hashtags like "#NBCfail" have been flooding the internet, joining brutal takedowns of NBC's poorly handled Olympics coverage.

Giving the people what they want is important, especially if your business is in the media and entertainment field.

The problem arises when the news media tries to ignore the reality of an interconnected world, or tries to make what players are wearing more important than what and how they'll achieve on the field - or in the classroom.

Events will happen in their own time frames, events far more important than the color of a jersey or the swim times of an Olympic athlete. Our responsibility in the media is to report those stories in a factual and entertaining way, as they happen - and to make our money from providing high quality content and reporting, not from gimmicks.

If all we're going to do is promote yelling matches and scream about fashion, Kim Kardashian and Joan Rivers may as well take over doing the news.

Friday Funday: Reaching For The Gold

By the time some of our readers see these pixels on Friday, the crowds will already be gathering in London at the new Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 games.

We have to admit - for at least one American, the last few days haven't exactly been the best warm-up period. Mitt Romney's trip to London so far has been a public relations disaster, with headlines both in the UK and the U.S. savaging the former governor for a continuing series of embarrassing gaffes.

When the London Daily Mail's Political Director quotes unnamed British government officials - on Twitter - as saying that Romney is "Worse than Sarah Palin," you know Mr. Romney hasn't exactly had a great day. If positive and effective self-promotion were an Olympic sport, right now Mitt Romney wouldn't even make it inside the stadium, let alone onto the podium.

Still, as this is Friday, we're determined to be positive - and whether or not you agree with the way Mitt Romney used U.S. government subsidies to save the 2002 Olympic games, he did help those games to be very successful. In fact, the 2002 games were the last successful Olympics held in the U.S. of either kind, Winter or Summer.

For our staff, the Olympics remind us of some of the best things we enjoy about sports, media, and humanity all rolled into one.

Most of the athletes aren't highly paid divas. They're like student athletes at small schools. They have their own local fans, and they give every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears they can muster. Most people in the world still don't know them, though. That's where the modern media comes in.

On practically every screen you can imagine, and from every audio platform available, the way Olympic sports are presented to the world - especially here in America - are a true testament to what is possible in broadcasting. Nearly every athlete for the U.S. has some kind of profile worked up on them. Many have video and audio packages produced around their life stories, and their struggles to make it to The Games. Virtually every athlete from every nation has some statistics compiled from their past performances - and every nation has their own profile developed too.

Sure, there's a lot of pomp and fanfare. When the majority of the world takes a break from being our normal, antagonistic, war-like selves, we tend to agree that there are few better reasons for a world-shaking celebration.

So for today and this weekend, whether you're reaching for the gold in London, reaching for the TV remote at home, or just reaching for more political excuses wherever you are, we hope that you'll also join us in reaching out to your fellow citizens, from whatever your home country is, in a gesture of peace and friendship.

As Baron Pierre De Coubertin once said, "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!"

Fire-Breathing & Facts

For much of the summer, especially in our original home office location in Lincoln, we've been desperately wishing for rain and more seasonal temperatures. The storms that tiptoed through the Lincoln area on Wednesday evening were not even noticed in an otherwise insanely hot summer.

Feeling like we're getting blasted with dragon's breath every time we step outside - even at night - has tested far more than just our patience. Don't even ask about the electric and water bill for most Midwesterners this summer.

What some of our most arrogant right-wing Kool Aid swilling subscribers have been asking about - maybe because they have difficulties clicking links and reading in the first place - is exactly where the numbers are coming from to prove climate change is real.

Thankfully, multiple professional writers and researchers have been kept inside in the air conditioning this summer, with computers, data - and a lot of time.

To start with, the U.S. is experiencing the worst drought in 50 years as confirmed by the publicly available records used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's the first fact.

The next set of facts was laid out by author, journalist, and environmentalist Bill McKibben in the first paragraph of his recent article in Rolling Stone magazine. McKibben's numbers can also be checked through the National Climatic Data Center's website, for those who doubt their accuracy.

As McKibben noted, "June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

Weather is local, as we've noted before. Climate, however, is the aggregated collection of weather data from multiple adjoining locations, looked at over a broad spectrum in time.

When a reasonable person, looks at the collection of just these few facts that we've laid out here, they would likely notice something key. Even though weather patterns change over time, and even though North America has had severe droughts like this - or worse - in the past, the rate our climate is changing in North America has never happened this fast before.

Ever.

That is climate change.

However, just because climate change is real doesn't mean we're all doomed to die as Earth turns into one giant crispy crater. It does mean we need to get moving on alternative energies, water conservation, food crisis management and all kinds of other fact-based strategies to plan for the future. And we need to do it yesterday.

So when an ignorant fool, drunk on the latest mental Kool Aid from Fox or their favorite barely educated right-wing radio blowhard tells you that this drought thing will blow over soon, just think of having another thirty summers in the future like this one.

Then feel free to take these facts, aim them at the fool, and fry their brains, just like dragon breath.

Crazy Americans

Thanks to the intermixed biennial pattern of both the Summer and Winter Olympics, every couple of years Americans are forced to stop our near-constant introspection, and take a look at the way the rest of the world perceives us.

This year, because that pause is happening right as the dog days of summer begin, we've also got some time to look take a wide look at America right now - and we can see why the world might think we're crazy.

Take, for example, the issue of gun control.

In America, we have one of the highest rates of gun-related deaths and accidents than almost anywhere else on the planet. Yet we're also the nation with the greatest number of guns per person on the planet. That said, states with more strict gun control laws actually have fewer deaths from gun-related violence. All of these are facts which would make any sane, logical person conclude, "If Americans want less gun-related deaths, then the logical action would be to enact stricter, more effective gun laws."

Yet every time another incident like the horror in Colorado occurs, some legislators will attempt to pass sensible, stricter, more effective gun regulations - and are most often turned down.

How about the issue of health care?

The Congressional Budget Office released its latest look at the Affordable Care Act yesterday. Their report confirmed that repealing the ACA - ObamaCare to its detractors - would actually increase the federal budget deficit by more than $100 billion in the next decade. Yet Republicans - who nominally say they care deeply about getting rid of budget deficits - continue to say they're going to try and get rid of the health care law any way they can.

Even the way some of our politicians campaign is in conflict with itself.

When President Obama spoke to the VFW this week, he didn't mention his opponent, not once in 33 minutes. He told the veterans what he'd done as our Commander in Chief, and what he's been doing for our troops once they get home. He was positive, strong, and resolute.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, condemned President Obama's approach to ending our nation's involvement in Afghanistan as a timeline. Then Romney promised he'd withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by 2014 if elected. Mr. Romney also told the VFW members that, "if you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your president. You have that president today."

Of course, that comment begged the question journalist Steve Benen asked later: If the title of 'strongest nation on Earth' no longer belongs to the U.S.A., who took it from us and when?

Don't even ask about Mitt Romney's job counting hypocrisy.

We understand that America is a large country, and - in general - our diverse views make us better, not weaker. That said, we also understand the confusion of others from around the world.

There are those of us who operate from the facts, and deal with the realities of the world. Then there are those Americans who let their emotions override what the hard data is telling them on virtually every decision they make.

If you're cheering for the U.S. in the Olympics this summer, and you find a foreigner staring at you askance, just remember - it's not like 'Smart American' or 'American Idiot' is tattooed on your forehead.

Maybe it should be.

Thieves And Idiots

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."               – H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956

As we look out at both the financial landscape and the political landscape in America, there are times we seriously doubt the wisdom of editor, writer, and satirist H.L. Mencken.

Right now, Americans appear to be collectively dumber than ever before. We've got a major party candidate for President who has a record of near constant lying, American job destruction, and benefiting from corporate welfare. We're also dealing with the continuation of the U.S. banking scandals on Wall Street, and a worldwide scandal in the Libor rate-fixing controversy. Americans seem to have no idea of who has really been screwing them, economically. What's worse, they don't seem to care.

It's not as though Americans trust bankers or really trust anyone on Wall Street these days. A recent Gallup poll found Americans' faith in banks and Wall Street is at a record low right now. In short, Americans just want to toss all the bankers in jail, and throw away the keys - something we frankly can't disagree with.

The problem with that - outside of the pure unethical nature of it - is that until the people wake up to what's been done to them, and who did it, they can't possibly begin to fix the system.

Mitt Romney's issues with releasing his tax returns are a perfect example. Mr. Romney is statistically likely to be one of the people tagged by the Tax Justice Network's study released last weekend. That study said that the wealthiest people in the world have likely hidden away between $21 and $32 Trillion in untaxed global assets. To put it bluntly, the richest people in the world are stealing tax revenue from the rest of us in ways that are unprecedented.

Yet, in a different USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Monday, nearly two-thirds of Americans currently think Mitt Romney's experience as the head of vulture turnover firm Bain Capital would cause him to make good economic decisions, not bad ones. So… stealing from Americans and giving to one's self is now good fiscal policy, according to the majority of Americans in that poll.

In another banking scandal that originated on Wall Street, the municipal bond-rigging scandal that Matt Taibbi reported recently outlines how private banks have been ripping off municipalities for trillions of dollars that taxpayers will likely never see again. As Taibbi noted, while there may be a lot of complicated words and math, the bank actions boil down to little more than mafia-style thuggery.

Finally, the Libor rate-fixing scandal that so few people seem to actually understand involves - you guessed it - banks from all over the world, lying and stealing from each other. Since they've all lied and stolen so much, and then built our world economies on the backs of those lies, our entire world economy has - once again - been put on the brink of collapse.

There has been some minor pressure to arrest the bankers and corporate criminals responsible for these disasters. However, the fact that little more than four years after Wall Street criminals almost destroyed the world economy, one of them is now running for President - competitively - seems to prove that Americans may indeed be far more stupid than H.L. Mencken ever imagined.

Maybe a better strategy would be to throw the American public in jail, and let the bankers wipe each other out.

Aftermath... Again.

For the last three days, the topic of conversation that dominated the media was not what it should have been.

Yes, the act of terror that killed twelve and wounded seventy last Friday in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, was intensely painful to our country. We are deeply sympathetic to those affected, and overwhelmingly glad that nobody our staff members knew was killed or injured in the attack in Aurora.

Still, the discussion in the media hasn't been what it should be.

There have been stories about the booby traps the shooter left behind, stories of the President's visit with the families, and of the life stories of the victims. There was the seemingly obligatory call to not politicize the horrific event - and the failure by members of both the legitimate and not-so-legitimate media to do so.

What hasn't been seen or heard almost anywhere this weekend was what many in politics on the left - and even Rupert Murdoch on the right - agreed there needs to be: a truly adult conversation about sane gun control in America.

Few Americans want to admit that the lack of conversation in that vein is because lobbying organizations like the National Rifle Association effectively own our elected representatives. As Rep. Carolyn McCarthy - whose husband and son were killed in a senseless 1993 shooting − has noted too many times, due to the power of the NRA's pocketbook, most politicians simply don't have the backbone to do what needs to be done.

What's made it worse is that the NRA has also invested billions of dollars in propaganda to convince Americans that gun control and the violence in our society are unrelated - even though stacks of data higher than you can imagine say otherwise.

That combination of actions by the gun lobby means that even though New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg plans to reintroduce gun control legislation, it's almost certain to die on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

The cowardice of our elected officials does not change the facts.

One of those facts is that the Assault Weapons Ban, that the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration let die in 2004, might have saved some of those victims in Colorado. While it's true that the semi-automatic assault rifle of the shooter jammed, if he had not had the rifle, it's likely he would have been able to shoot fewer people.

Another fact is that concealed weapons would not have helped those in the theatre, as yet another shooting in New York over the weekend proved, where a police officer shot and killed his own son in a dark hotel room.

The conversation Americans need to be having - MUST have, if they're going to have any credibility on this issue - is the following.

Why are guns in America - especially assault weapons designed to kill human beings - easier to get access to than mental health care? Restricting the worst weapons - and making it more difficult to acquire all other weapons - won't stop every act of terror. Vastly improving mental health care also won't prevent every outbreak of mass violence.

Both, however, would significantly lessen the body count. So why do we allow a lobbying organization to prevent us from doing either?

That's the discussion we need to have.

Friday Funday: The Wind Up... And The Pitch.

It's another Friday, and as usual, we could easily talk about the news items of the day. The shooting at the Colorado movie theater, (which we just heard about as we published today) will certainly generate more words and less action, from pundits and politicians alike, who will try to use this latest horrible event to justify their particular world views. The sheer arrogance of Ann Romney will also be a topic for some today, as she tried to wave off the demands of "you people" - the American media and the American people - for the disclosure of her husband's tax returns, as though we were her servants.

We could also talk about Mitt Romney's desperate need to take President Obama's recent comments out of context, though we already did that a bit in our link section on Thursday. We could even talk about the heat and the crops, or the lack of action on the part of Congress to do anything to help our farmers - but we also already tackled some of those issues this week, too.

It's Friday, though, and for many reasons, we always try to turn to more positive things, to remind us that not all of life is fighting, tragedy, and disaster. One of those things is one of our favorite pastimes… paying attention to baseball.

For some of our staff, this year's Major League Baseball season has been nothing short of embarrassing. For others, the home team is not only winning, but leading their league strongly, and giving our staff thoughts of the fall classic in Washington, DC.

Sadly, our favorite minor league team, the Lincoln Saltdogs, is struggling this year, to put it mildly.

Some people we know would say that we should throw in the towel already, that we should toss our sporting allegiances to the side and utter the time worn phrase, "Maybe next year." Other fans are already dreaming of forcing the coaches and players from our favorite losing teams to be the targets in a dunk tank game.

Truthfully, we just smile and laugh at both groups.

When all else fails, when the days are insanely hot and the nights not nearly as cool as we'd like, we still enjoy watching baseball in the summertime - though we have to admit sometimes we prefer to catch a few matchups from the air-conditioned comfort of our homes.

To be honest, on days like these, we even prefer watching games that don't involve any of our favorite teams.

Baseball, for all the scandals the sport has faced, for all the posturing some players still display, is at its heart, the same game that we've been watching (and less often these days, playing) since we were kids. It's still a bat, and a ball, and some base markers, with a bunch of friends. It's still a group of people playing a simple game, with simple, honorable rules.

When people make a solid hit or a great catch, we don't ask whether they're Democratic or Republican. Even if they're on the other team, we can respect their work and their effort. We say, "Great hit," or "Nice catch."

That doesn't mean we don't sometimes want to bean certain individuals that have earned our distain.

In general, though, enjoying baseball as a spectator is one of the few things these days that we can enjoy where politics doesn't usually impede. It's a moment in our busy work schedule where we can unwind - and sometimes, even breathe.

With that in mind, we're pitching you an idea today. We hope this weekend, you take some time to follow our lead and indulge a little bit in whatever unwinds your springs. Take some time. Relax.

We're willing to bet you've earned it. We know we have.

Real Monsters

In general, movies that have been made from comic books in the last few years have been relatively true to their origins - often including the gritty and shocking nature of some of comic-dom's darkest and most evil villains. From what we've heard, the incredibly evil villain in the new Batman movie - the character of Bane - is much the same as his original portrayal in the comic book.

What the character of Bane is not in the new Batman movie is what the real-life hatemonger Rush Limbaugh tried to make his Dittohead listeners believe: that the character Bane is a representation of the corporation Bain Capitol, which Mitt Romney once ran and helped found.

Even Bane creator, cartoonist Chuck Dixon - well-known in the comics community as a staunch conservative - said that Limbaugh's conspiracy theory was "ridiculous."

Sadly, the propagandist Limbaugh's actions simply remind every decent American that there are indeed real life monsters that walk and talk among us everyday. All too often, those monsters try to choke the very lifeblood from us - and from our most cherished institutions.

For example, our right as Americans to have our votes count.

We've been paying particular attention to voter suppression tactics throughout the nation this year, by way of the heroic efforts of non-partisan policy institutes, like the Brennan Center For Justice. As the Brennan Center's latest report (released on Tuesday) notes, "Ten states now have unprecedented restrictive voter ID laws. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin all require citizens to produce specific types of government-issued photo identification before they can cast a vote that will count."

This attack on voting rights has not been a bi-partisan attack on the rights of Americans. The monstrous attempt to suppress and effectively kill the votes of millions of Americans has come almost completely from the conservative Republican corner of the political universe.

Thankfully, decent honorable Americans have been fighting against the brutal attacks on voter rights, most being made through the use of so-called "Voter ID" laws. These laws are almost always simply voter suppression efforts against minorities, the poor, the young - and often, the elderly. It's no coincidence that most of these individuals also traditionally vote Democratic.

While the battles against these all-too conveniently applied Voter ID laws have been heated, many of these laws have recently been running into real, honest justice in courtrooms across the country - like the legal decision in Wisconsin yesterday, permanently killing their voter suppression law.

The courts aren't the only place where monsters are being fought. We also realize much of the political landscape has recently become more littered than usual with violent rhetoric. As certain candidates for office lose their composure and get angry, they're beginning to call each other names, and take their opponents comments out of context.

We get it. No one likes to lose a contest or a game.

Governing, however, is NOT a game, as we've mentioned many times before. Were it only about winning, it would be called "winnerment."

Winnerment is a gum. Government is a responsibility - one with very real consequences for handling that responsibility poorly.

One of those responsibilities is to protect the voting rights of all Americans - rights that are in still in very real danger, from some very real monsters.

The Romney Surprise

Much of the media has been focused on Mitt Romney's still-secret tax returns for much of the summer. It's been only recently that the American people finally began to clue in on the fact that Mr. Romney may have something very serious to hide.

Now, finally, with pressure mounting from both directions, the Republican candidate for President is looking more and more desperate. Like a new father holding his baby at arms length - a child with an overflowing diaper - Mitt can't seem to face the fact that the answer to his problems is to take a deep breath, and clean up the mess.

In short, Mitt's been overreacting, crying about being bullied while still stubbornly refusing to present multiple years of his tax returns. That makes Americans believe that Mr. Romney may have something to hide.

The Obama campaign's current tactic has capitalized on that doubt, in a very brutal and direct way. Importantly, the Obama campaign has brought a crucial point to the attention of a growing number of Americans: As voters, we have very little hard data on how Mitt Romney has handled his business or personal finances.

For a candidate who continues to claim that his business experience makes him the best candidate for President, Romney's refusal to present his tax returns simply adds more questions about his conduct and character.

Without Mr. Romney's tax returns to judge whether he's been lying, or to whom, speculation is rampant about what Mr. Romney could be hiding. As conservative stalwart George Will noted, "The cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, [Romney] must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them."

One professional speculation is that Mitt Romney simply may not have paid any federal taxes in 2009, by using offshore tax havens like his accounts in the Caymen Islands. Other expert analysis also notes that Romney could have paid tax rates during the last decade that are FAR lower than the rates paid by most Americans. For a candidate who's made it clear he wants to lower taxes on the wealthiest, while raising everyone else's taxes, such a revelation could be politically deadly for Romney.

Other things Mitt's tax records could reveal include that he made have made even more money from Bain Capital than he's previously claimed, that he may have had to pay some serious fines, that he's got more offshore tax havens we don't know about, or even some problematic deductions.

Hovering over all this is the reminder that Sen. John  McCain picked the incompetent half-term Gov. Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney to be his Vice Presidential running mate four years ago. As McCain noted in an interview on Tuesday, the blunt truth, as McCain saw it, was that Sarah Palin was a better choice than Mitt Romney.

Whatever is in Mr. Romney's past, it must be one hell of a load of... unpleasant stuff, if Mitt would rather run for President with the tag "Sarah Palin was more qualified than me" than simply release his tax returns for the last ten years.

No matter how you look at it, it's going to take a lot of paper for Mitt to clean up this mess.

Hot Battered Corn

In case you've been spending your time stocking a freezer, or you've been on a trip to somewhere cold  - like Greenland - the unusual heat and drought conditions striking most of the U.S. have probably caught your attention.

Come to think of it, no matter where you've been on Earth lately, you've probably recognized that the long-term weather patterns aren't what they used to be.

For those ignorant corncob-chomping types at the neighborhood barbecue who continue to insist that this is just another heat wave like the ones that have come and gone for ages now, there was some serious news on Monday.

The National Climatic Data Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that for the first time in over fifty years, that more than half the U.S. is under moderate to extreme drought conditions. Further, those conditions don't look to improve this year. If you judge the nation under "abnormally dry" standards, more than 80 percent of the U.S. is in trouble right now.

In short, this isn't just another heat wave - and it doesn't just mean higher electric bills and more sunscreen.

Long-term drought, something much of the U.S. is hovering on the edge of, affects everything from paved highways to barge travel, from grocery prices to energy costs. Of course, the massive corn and soybean crops that have become a hallmark of America since World War II are also being seriously affected. As we noted last Friday, in our "Midwest Roundup" links, the state of Nebraska has shut off all irrigators, statewide, who claim surface water rights - that's more than 1100 farmers overall.

Admittedly, we've been stepping up our efforts this year to penetrate the thick skulls of climate deniers, so they understand that this isn't just another hot summer. Other media organizations have also been stepping up their efforts at educating and informing.

A recent poll from the Washington Post and Stanford University seems to show that those efforts to sow some real insight about climate change haven't fallen on completely deaf ears. Most Americans now understand climate change is real, and that major weather events like droughts are getting worse.

We don't mean to sound like some kind of monster, swallowing up all hope for a better tomorrow.

Even Republican surrogates for Mitt Romney, like former Deputy Secretary of Energy Linda Gillespie Stunz, have admitted that candidate Romney would be open to possible carbon-pricing legislation - the formerly Republican idea of "Cap and Trade."

Further, there are still plenty of technological innovations that we can develop and use to make our lives better. For example, anthropologists recently figured out the water delivery system for a 2000 year old Mayan village that was hit by drought for four months every year - but kept their people hydrated year 'round.

The point is, we all must be willing to accept that we have a problem and that we need to develop innovative ways to deal with the causes and effects of global climate change.

Especially if we'd all like to keep enjoying some of the best things in life - like eating hot buttered corn - instead of watching our corn crops be constantly battered by the heat.

Pressure Cooker Overflow

Child molestation and the inverted power structure that surrounds college football are two subjects that a great many Americans are too squeamish to talk about or even read about.

Like a seafood stew that's simmered in a pot too long, the culture of "King Football" as CBS's Dennis Dodd calls it, must be ended. The culture of silence that surrounds child molestation is also one that is long overdue for a swift and final death. For too long, Americans have attempted to ignore both subjects, like a child who insists you've disappeared because they've hidden their eyes from you.

With the trial over, and the official report on the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State finally released, it's obvious that simply closing America's collective eyes didn't make the monsters go away.

The report on the Jerry Sandusky case, as compiled by former FBI director Louis Freeh made that sad fact all too clear when it was released last week. Four of the most powerful people at Penn State - and indeed, some of the most powerful people in all of college sports - protected a child predator and a college football program while they let the real victims suffer in silence for years.

We've watched as story after story has rolled out insisting Penn State be vilified for their blatant lack of responsibility. We've seen more than one call for the NCAA to give the football program at Penn State the "death penalty" as they did to SMU in 1987. We've even read comments from some of the same knee-jerk reactionary fans who raced into the streets of Happy Valley last fall to defend the so-called honor of Joe Paterno, now insisting that Paterno's statue should be torn down right away.

Those foolish people weren't correct last year when they defended Paterno to the hilt -  and they're not right now.

We do agree that the statue should be torn down. Any legacy of goodness Joe Paterno once had has been erased by the sad and disgusting refusal to deal with the multiple acts of child molestation by Paterno's assistant and friend, Jerry Sandusky.

The sick culture of coaches and players as demi-gods should also be torn down, though that's a completely separate commentary all by itself.

We also agree that Penn State should be penalized by the NCAA, by the State of Pennsylvania, and possibly even by the Feds. Finally, we believe the individuals responsible, most of whom are no longer with the university, should be punished most sternly of all.

We don't however, believe the students and professors currently at Penn State should have to suffer for the transgressions of those in positions of responsibility who failed so horribly at being decent human beings. Guilt by association will travel with those students and professors their entire lives, when they hold up their diplomas and resumes with the name "Penn State University" in bold type.

For now, those who are nominally in charge at Penn State will have to struggle through the bureaucratic minefields that anyone else would have to encounter, if they were to challenge a long-held status quo. The troubles Penn State's trustees will face should be no less painful and frustrating than the institutional denial that Jerry Sandusky's victims encountered.

What should also happen in the interim is that both the former and current executives in the school and the athletic department should be marched through the campus at Penn State once a day, regardless of weather, down to the statue of Joe Paterno. They should be forced to scream aloud, at the top of their lungs, the quote from Paterno that is etched there: “They ask me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.”

When those executives, trustees, and coaches finally have their spirits crushed and can take no more, then maybe some small measure of justice will have been truly served for the kids abused by Jerry Sandusky. Justice for those boys who cried for help for years and received none.

Friday Funday: A Lucky Day

For those of you who are a bit superstitious, today may have a bit of extra meaning, as it’s Friday the Thirteenth. Or as the cousin of one of our staff members calls it, her birthday.

For us, we’re thinking of it as a bit of a lucky day. Temps are a bit cooler than they have been lately, in all three of our locations, even with the massive drought conditions affecting the U.S. right now. We’re all home safe, and gainfully employed. And there’s plenty of work to be had.

In fact, there’s still a massive pile of very serious topics waiting to tackle. For example, the most recent revelations about Mitt Romney’s past aren’t small potatoes. He was either lying to the SEC when he said he wasn’t employed at Bain Capitol after December of 1999 - which is a felony -  or he’s been lying about not being involved in the companies connected to Bain Capitol that outsourced thousands of American jobs. As Wall Street expert Henry Blodget says, you can’t be Chairman, CEO, and President of a company, and not be responsible for what it does.

Many of you also seem more interested than ever in the details of the Affordable Care Act. What’s it mean for you? What about the folks who don’t have insurance? How’s this whole thing work, where Republican governors are turning away millions in Federal funds that are supposed to help the poor and uninsured?

We assure you - we’re not setting you adrift to fend for yourselves on these issues. Make sure that you sign up for the Daily Felltoon e-mail edition, and you’ll get all the links to the stories we work from every day, when tackling tough issues like the ACA and Mr. Romney’s past with Bain Capital.

The simple fact is, there is SO much more to life than just politics.

For example, our friends at the UNL Dairy Store in Lincoln are having another day of P.O. Pears “Burger Madness” today - which we always love.

We also love the fact that the Dairy Store has begun to bring more of the flavor of the old P.O. Pears to their events with live music. Today, it’s not just any band that will play some great sounds while you’re eating some great food.

This one's a group called “The Upstairs Blues Band” made up of high school aged kids, who’ve been tutored by some of Lincoln’s finest musicians, including some of the great folks associated with the legendary Zoo Bar.

Teaching the next generation to master and appreciate any worthwhile talent - from music and cartooning, to writing and design skills, to mechanical skills or sportsmanship - is something that makes us smile almost every time we hear about it being done well. Apparently, a friend of ours in Lincoln, with a great ear for blues says these kids have a sound that even people who don’t think they like blues will enjoy.

Which means these kids apparently have learned not only to love to play music. They’ve also apparently learned how to take their musical education and make it work for them outside the classroom.

For us, even with all the serious issues to cover, that ability to learn and grow is music to not just our ears, but also our hearts.

Of course, the prospect of great food to go with that music doesn’t hurt either.

Whatever you’ve got planned for this weekend, remember to take some time for good food, good music, good friends - and remembering those things which are truly important.

Think of it as our prescription for a lucky day, every day.

Magic Beans & Fairy Tales

In the midst of your normally busy life, we hope you had a chance to see Mitt Romney address the NAACP on Wednesday in Houston.

Not surprisingly, there was was some disrespectful booing of Mr. Romney at the event, when he claimed he would repeal the Affordable Care Act if elected. Overall, Romney’s speech to the national convention of the NAACP was judged a surprising success in some corners, even if it was more bland and detail-free than usual - and that’s pretty impressive, even for Mitt Romney. That said, any success he may have reaped from his speech was likely spoiled by Romney's vague insult late Wednesday night about the NAACP crowd, when Romney said, "If they want more stuff from the government tell them to go vote for the other guy."

The fact is, Romney has been attempting to sell Americans vague promises and fuzzy details for almost his entire campaign, without giving us any real details. We looked in our daily notes for the last six months and could only find three instances where we or any other reliable media source hadn’t asked for some further specifics from Mr. Romney on… well, anything.

Romney may as well be selling magic beans, for all the specifics he’s been willing to give to the public so far - which, we still firmly believe, is a feature of his campaign, not a bug.

Even Republican Party mainstays are letting it be known that they’re now getting worried about the lack of details coming from the former Massachusetts governor. On topics ranging from Mitt's history with Bain Capitol, to his personal tax filings, Mr. Romney has continued to sidestep, evade, obfuscate, and generally try to not offend anyone with his positions.

That's a problem, when you consider the folks who might legitimately vote for him range from moderate, sane Republicans to extremist, GOP nutjobs. Point blank, you can’t keep both of these groups happy at all times, let alone the other fifty-to-sixty percent of the country.

Sadly, Mr. Romney’s über-vanilla non-committal positions fit perfectly with the odd insanity of the Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House on Wednesday, for the thirty-third time, voted to attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act - and for the thirty-third time, their efforts were both unsuccessful and completely symbolic.

In fact, since January of 2011, the Republicans in Congress have wasted 89 hours of taxpayers' time, attempting to remove the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. At a cost of $2 million dollars a day, every day that the House of Representatives has wasted on this is an amazingly wrong-headed action for a group of people who claim so strongly that they are fiscally responsible.

One might even think the Republicans in the House were crying wolf, politically, on an effort they have no real chance of winning - especially after the decision of the Supreme Court two weeks ago today.

All this blatant denial appears to have made the political right breathless and powerless to respond to the death of one their favorite traditional talking points, that Americans are paying too much in taxes.

In fact, as the report released this week from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office details, the average Federal tax rate paid by Americans is at the lowest rate in thirty years.

When you add up all the facts, with the House Republican craziness, and Mitt Romney’s constant attempt to sell political magic beans to the least informed citizens, our American political landscape is starting to look like some kind of twisted fairy tale.

In truth, this is just what you get when one party is relatively direct about their attempts to move forward, while the other party is in severe disarray and denial about their attempts to take America backward.

We recommend hanging on to your magic carpet for the remainder of the political season. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Uncivil War, Nebraska Style

For a while now, we’ve been watching the state Republican and Democratic conventions around the country as they’ve been choosing their candidates for local, state, and national positions.

For the most part, the Democratic conventions have gone smoothly, even in places like West Virginia, where Republicans attempted to sabotage the Democratic presidential nominating process. As expected, President Barack Obama picked up the official party nomination in every state, won the national nomination (back at the beginning of April) and is now on the ballot in every state, across the country.

For the Republican Party, however, the process has been less than a smooth path this year, even if the leading nominee for the GOP's overall nomination has quite obviously been Mitt Romney, for quite some. The latest reason for rough spots? Officially, Rep. Ron Paul has yet to withdraw from the Republican race for President.

According to the official rules of the Republican National Committee - the RNC - a presidential candidate must get a plurality (a majority) of votes at five state conventions in order to have that candidate’s name be officially entered as a contender at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, later this year.

The last chance for Ron Paul to get the delegates he needs happens to be in Nebraska, this upcoming weekend - which seems to be confusing more than a few people.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the arcane rules of state-level party politics, at the state level in the GOP this year, just because the Republican voters of the state voted for a candidate doesn’t necessarily mean their wishes will be accurately represented at the national convention.

At many state party conventions, whoever shows up to the convention picks from the people at that event the delegates who will go to Tampa this year. And in many, many cases - including Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and others, the supporters of Ron Paul have flooded state conventions. At some state meetings, this has led to literal floor fights, and in one case, an early adjournment of the state convention.

For Republicans, this has shown the outside world the internal divisions in the former "Big Tent" of the GOP that we’ve been telling you have existed for years now.

The problem for Republicans is this. The GOP is really made up of several different factions these days, from the “Religious Right” to the war-loving Neo-Cons, from the Tea Party/Libertarians to the Wall Street bullies. Even the old-fashioned moderate Republicans have a say in what the Party does (though frankly, not nearly as much of a say as anyone sane thinks they should).

In short, Mr. Paul’s state level supporters - nominally, Libertarian Republicans - have used the official rules of the GOP game to attempt to rig the system against the wishes of the majority of Republican voters, and against the Republican Party as a whole.

Which means this weekend in Nebraska could be anything but dull for the GOP.

We know that technically, Nebraska state GOP chairman Mark Fahleson and the Tea Party/Ron Paul state leader, Laura Ebke have agreed to some kind of a truce. We also know that part of the supposed truce was to scale back the unusual security the Nebraska GOP had called for this weekend.

We also know that similar truces in other states haven’t exactly had the force of law.

All we can recommend to our Republican friends this weekend, who are planning to attend the state convention in Nebraska, is be careful and remember - Nebraska Republicans didn’t elect Ron Paul in the primary.

As one of our teachers from days gone by used to say before handing out an ugly test, “Good luck - and have fun!”

Keeping Our Cool

It should be no surprise to anyone that some of our staff, when vacationing during the brutally hot Independence Day week, decided to use their intelligence, and go someplace just a bit cooler for the holiday.

For example, Florida. No, really - the entire week of our vacation, the temperatures outside our South Florida offices barely touched 90, while the mercury in Eastern Nebraska and Washington, DC broke into triple digits.

While some relief has now come to much of the continental U.S., after two weeks of blistering heat, 46 Americans are dead due to the scorching temps - and we’re not even into the part of summer that’s traditionally the hottest. In much of America, we’ve been feeling like the heat could reduce us to a pile of ash at any moment.

For those vocal but poorly informed people who still seem to think that global climate change is a hoax, including syndicated columnist George Will, we have to ask honestly: What is it going to take for you people to understand the difference between climate and weather?

We’ve explained it in multiple ways here, over the past few years - most recently in April. As we noted then, climate scientists stated that our weather - including the long-range forecast for this summer - was going to be warmer and wetter. They didn’t say those weather conditions would happen in the same place.

So just before our vacation, Western and Northern Florida - an area that’s been in severe drought - got flooded with nearly two feet of rain in a short period of time. Meanwhile, some of the most destructive forest fires in history were rampaging just West of Denver, near where some of our family and friends live.

Thankfully, our DC offices didn’t receive any serious damage when massive storms blew through at nearly the same time as the fires in Colorado and the flooding in Florida. Those powerful storms caused some parts of the DC metro area to be without power for five days - right as some of the hottest temps of the year moved over the nation’s capital.

Even Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano understands the difference between weather and temperature. Weather would be if the U.S. had one unusually hot summer, and things went back to historically normal temps after that. Climate change is when nine of the ten hottest temperatures for the entire planet have all occurred since 2000 - with 2012 being the hottest year ever for the U.S.

Unless we acknowledge the problem, and make rational plans for dealing with it, we’ll keep seeing the horrendous wildfires, the unusual flooding, and food growing conditions that have been described as “farming in hell.”

One of our friends, Daily Felltoon subscriber and veteran Nebraska journalist Francis Moul - who also happens to be an environmental historian - published a great piece Monday in his local paper, detailing exactly what climate change might mean to food consumption.

In short, we might lose more than a few inches and a few pounds if human beings don’t take the challenge of climate change seriously.

We must push our politicians to enact legislation that has teeth in it, that will force governments, businesses, and individuals to make the kinds of change our planet needs to continue to allow it to remain fit for human habitation.

Many of those changes - including a significant shift towards renewable energy - aren’t just good for the environment. As the U.S. Interior Department noted in its report Monday, energy development on Federal lands created 1.5 million jobs last year - many of which were new jobs, created from investments in renewable energy. That's something every American can get behind.

This isn’t rocket science, folks. It’s climate science. And it’s long-past time EVERYONE accepted the fact: Climate change is real.

Back So Soon?

After a long holiday break, where thankfully not much happened, we're back and ready to begin the long run towards the fall election, cooler autumn temps, and this year's "lame duck" session of Congress - which looks to be more like an ugly duck session.

What we're not ready for is something we began seeing while we were on vacation last week - even before the Independence Day holiday in the U.S.

That something we saw is Back-to-School sales. In late June and July.

With the exception of those places where year-around K-12 sessions are already in place, most of the United States still begins the school year for primary and secondary students in August. On the retail calendar, that means "Back-to-school" season usually falls after the "Fourth of July" sales theme, but before the "We have to start selling Halloween stuff while the temps are still in the 90s, because we'll be selling Christmas junk by October 1st" theme.

This year, U.S. retailers seem more desperate than they're willing to let on - and the insanely early "Back-to-school" sales are simply another symptom of the continuing slow economy.

As the BLS - the Bureau of Labor Statistics - does on the first Friday of each month, they released the June jobs numbers last Friday. For the third consecutive month, there were still a few positive signs - including continued positive job growth in the U.S. private sector.

Sadly, the public sector problem also remains the same. Republicans and their austerity policies at the state and local levels continue to cost the economy jobs. Thanks to the GOP's short-sighted positions, at least 627,000 government jobs have been lost since June 2009.

This idiotic fight between forward-looking Keynesian policies like those President Obama and progressive Democrats have supported, and the regressive European-style austerity views of Republicans continues to keep the U.S. economy from going anywhere. As Ezra Klein noted last week, economically things are basically unchanged over the last three months.

In other words, the U.S. economy isn't losing jobs - but we're not gaining them fast enough to fix the problem. Continued meager demand and slow labor recovery, coupled with more rumblings about the further gambling problems of the Wall Street "wonders", mean that most consumer-dependent U.S. businesses are now more worried than ever about the future.

For you and for us, in the stores we go to, this means retailers are already beginning to beat you over the head with "Back-to-school" sales. As the Wall Street Journal noted last week, "Back-to-school" is one of the top periods for consumers to shop in the U.S. - right behind the annual pre-December holiday shopping season. Retailers also know many Americans may be unwilling to spend money on themselves. On their kids, however? No problem.

Sadly, while American consumers and businesses are still being dragged down by the obstructionist policies of the GOP, what Republicans in Congress are trying to sell you isn't a new Trapper Keeper or a fancy new school outfit.

They're still attempting to sell the same lie they've been pushing since they took over the House of Representatives in 2010 and basically did next to nothing since. Congressional Republicans are still desperately claiming that President Obama hasn't done anything about jobs. Meanwhile, the American Jobs Act - the plan President Obama presented LAST YEAR, the plan that even independent estimates say would create 1.9 million new jobs in America - still sits on the side table of the Congress, as Congressional Republicans do exactly what they're accusing Congressional Democrats of, ignoring their respobsibilities.

If it seems like we're already back to beating you over the head with some of the same facts we did before our break...?

Let's just say we picked up some inspiration while shopping during our vacation.