A thing I didn't know: Soil

Washington Post: "Research suggests that the world’s soils are now eroding 100 times faster than new soil can form, and an estimated 33 percent of soil is so degraded that its ability to grow crops is compromised."

Also: "The combined debt of all U.S. farmers totals more than $400 billion."

Can we save ourselves from climate change?

Helen Lewis thinks so: "I no longer feel like the dog in the cartoon, insisting that “this is fine.” This isn’t fine. We have messed up quite badly, for some noble reasons, such as lifting people out of poverty, and some less noble ones, such as enriching the shareholders of fossil-fuel companies. But the same ingenuity that got humanity here, the ingenuity that created the internal-combustion engine and the airplane and the power station and the megafarm, is what can save us."

I'm skeptical. One of the lessons of adulthood -- for me, anyway -- is that sometimes you fuck things up so badly they can't be unfucked up. If you read the climate report today, it sure seems like we've hit a level of unfuckability. It's too late to smart our way out of this -- the real hope is that we stop the bleeding. We're still going to lose a limb or two though. 

Republicans would rather be Cobra Kai than turn up the thermostat

In perhaps the clearest-ever expression of the Republican id, Victorino Matus responds with disgust to a scene in the new "Karate Kid" movie that features Jackie Chan urging apartment tenants to only heat water for a shower when they're about to take a shower -- instead of having hot water constantly on demand. Chan's line: "Put in a (hot water) switch and save the planet.)

Matus' response:

It's enough to make you want to join the Cobra Kai, show no mercy, and put 'em in a body bag.

I've said before that one reason I knew that torture is bad is because during the 1980s, "Rambo" showed it being done by Communist Russians and Vietnamese. I know Matus is joking here -- kind of -- but it does seem as though Republicans are journeying to the dark side by embracing every villain and villainous deed from the most popular movies of the Reagan Decade. At this rate, the GOP will soon be defending its foreign policy ideas by invoking "diplomatic immunity."