From Bloomberg.  I thought Austin would be higher on the list.

More People Are Leaving NYC Daily Than Any Other U.S. City

From Politico.  Lots of interesting stats on aging America and it’s political effect.

From Forbes.  Oils days seem to be numbered. Of course once upon a time whale oil was a big thing and it ended very quickly.

The future is not looking bright for oil, according to a new report that claims the commodity would have to be priced at $10-$20 a barrel to remain competitive as a transport fuel.

Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil’s Days As A Transport Fuel Are Numbered

More on the ongoing technological attack on democracy in the US and the UK.  From the New York Review of Books:

The Oligarch Threat

I have been following stories like this for years, often in the technical press.  There is little doubt in my mind that electronic voting machines in many places in the US are being tampered with.  And let’s be blunt: one side seems to be doing all the tampering.  I myself have been illegally “scrubbed” from voter rolls.

Probe of missing Georgia votes finds “extreme” irregularities in black districts

Last year’s lieutenant governor race may have had a huge undercount in black precincts. Sound like coincidence?

Was in the yard and smelled an unpleasant sulphur odor.  Figured something might have died in the yard next door and thought I might check on it later.  A few times over the years deer have impaled themselves on an iron fence in the back with some ill advised decorative spikes.

I was pulling the cover off the pool when I realized where the smell was coming from. A large, maybe 25 lbs, armadillo popped up from under the cover, dead.

So much for taking it easy this Saturday.  It was almost 100F and we hadn’t had rain in two months. The ground was like rock.  I ignored the floating corpse for now and got a shovel and my six foot long iron pry bar to help break up the ground.  It was going to take a while.

I found a spot far in the back and started to dig.  And to sweat.  I eventually got down about a foot and decided that was enough.  Then I tried to think of the best way to get Mr Armadillo from the pool to his fresh grave.  I decided to go with scooping him on the shovel, hoping he wouldn’t fall off and that I could make the haul all the way to the back of the yard.  My arms were already aching.

Flies had set in so I got some bug spray and gave him a shot.  Mmmm, floral scented.  That would help.  I took a deep scoop and lifted and started walking briskly to the back.  I wished I had gripped the shovel lower to make it easier to carry, but it was too late.  I shuffled as fast as I could to the hole.  When I got there I wished the hole was bigger, but I slid Mr A in, and only his pointy tail was a problem.  I shoved dirt in quickly and covered him in a mound, boot hill style.  A couple of watering cans of water to help settle the dirt in and a big flat Rock on top and I was done.  Sorry, no pictures.

Never heard of this before.  A nationwide series of lynchings killing hundreds of black Americans.  This was in 1919, just after WW I, 60 years after the Civil War.  From Wiki: Red Summer

Been so busy I had two heads of cabbage in the refrigerator for the better part of a week and hadn’t done anything with them.  One was red cabbage then other green.  Decided to do a mixed half and half sauerkraut and used the rest for Cole slaw.  The family seems to like the salted and beat up cabbage in the slaw.

A NYT article by a former Times Picayune writer.  New Orleans is definitely changing.  I am concerned that the loss of land to the south and the effects of climate change (rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, more rainfall) make the actual survival of New Orleans and really all of south Louisiana doubtful.  Small towns have already disappeared and nobody seems to be paying any attention.  Of course, much of this is tied to the oil industry, which dominates south Louisiana in a colonial fashion.  Much (but not all) of the loss of  land is tied to the way the oil industry did it’s work, digging canals across the wetlands. The rest is the global problem from burning the extracted oil.  It saddens me deeply to think that this part of the world is being destroyed without much notice, much less a fight.  And then there is the gentrification.

This blog was started as a protest against the abuses of social media.  This article discusses modern social media in the context of traditional addiction.