The Weekly Sift

There’s no featured post this week, just a lot of short and intermediate length notes in the weekly summary. Because of the length of the summary, I’m going to try something new this week and put a table of contents at the top. I haven’t decided whether that needs to be a regular feature or not.

What stood out for me this week was the sheer number of moments when I found myself saying: “That’s just wrong.” So, for example, the EPA is proposing to roll back regulations on methane leaks. The only way that natural gas is better for the environment than coal is if methane leaks are below a certain level, and producers can easily stay well below that level if the government makes them do it. So rolling back those regulations is like saying “Screw the climate; we’re just going to keep pumping out greenhouse gases until we all choke on them.”

It went on: We’re going to throw sick immigrants out of the country so that they can go home to die. Trump is urging his underlings to break the law to get the wall built before the election. The attorney general is very publicly giving the president a $30K kickback. One thing after another.

So anyway, I’m going to talk about that, and about the latest mass shootings, and the hurricane, and Prime Minister Johnson’s maneuvering towards a no-deal Brexit, and a few other things. (I read the FBI inspector general’s report on James Comey so that you don’t have to.) It was a discouraging week in a lot of ways. So I’ll close with a heart-warming video of a diver helping a dolphin untangle itself from a hook and some fishing line.

Look for that to be out, say, by 11 EDT.