Cowboy Who?

In brief: Invest 93L is kaput, and now we will look for some heavier downpours in spots today. Rain chances begin to dwindle on Saturday and Sunday as a hotter, less unsettled pattern establishes over our region for much of next week.

Today

Our best chance of rain will come today. The radar as of early Friday morning shows widespread rain north of Liberty and in Louisiana. Additional, more isolated thunderstorms are popping up along I-10 near Beaumont and on the Bolivar Peninsula.

As we go through today, a lot of that steadier rain north of I-10 will probably dissipate. Even some of the thunderstorms this morning may fizzle. But a new round of scattered thunderstorms is likely this afternoon. For the most part, this will be like any other summer afternoon in Houston. Available atmospheric moisture will be a bit higher than usual though, so just be on the lookout for a downpour or two that could briefly flood streets in some parts of the city. Storms should fade after sunset.

Saturday

There should be a somewhat decent lingering shower chance here, but for the most part, any added moisture from the Invest 93L (RIP) would be exiting. I wouldn’t be floored to see a couple heavier downpours in the area though. Look for highs in the mid-90s.

Sunday through Tuesday

We’ve had very few days this summer that carried virtually zero rain chance. It would appear that Sunday through Tuesday carry good chances for that to be the case, however. Look for mostly sunshine. Another bout of Saharan dust could come our way Monday and Tuesday. For now, I’ll say mid-90s, but if the Saharan dust is minimal Monday and Tuesday, we do have a decent shot at upper-90s on those days in some parts of the area.

Late next week

The heat should stay cooking for later next week, with highs in the mid to upper-90s continuing. We may even see a stronger surge of heat later next weekend or the week of the 28th. Rain chances may pick back up a little by Friday or next weekend. Overall, it looks fairly dry next week across the region.

“The Pentagon has signed a multi-million dollar deal to begin using Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, as part of a wider rollout of AI tools for government use, the Department of Defense confirmed… it comes just days after Grok sparked backlash for spouting antisemitic posts, including praise for Adolf Hitler on X, the social media platform owned by Musk.” — BBC

You know our chatbot? The one that responded to your mom’s question about a pasta recipe with “White genocide is real and happening as we speak”? Yeah, that’s going to be in charge of the military now.

Yes, we know you may have questions, but rest assured, it’ll be fine! Our chatbot has been ranked as the number one AI on the market by several reputable lists, like the list of X accounts flagged for hate speech. But don’t worry. Being first on that list just means we are the freest thinkers, and also that we’ve done lots of hate speech. Sure, our chatbot did refer to itself as “Hitler” a week ago, but that’s just a normal part of technological trial and error. We’ll fix it eventually, probably.

Plus, our chatbot is fun and edgy. The number one complaint we hear about the US Department of Defense is that it is “not edgy enough.” We’re just giving the people what they want, and by “people” we mean the DoD, and by “what they want” we mean lots and lots of weapons. Because honestly, would you rather hear a mission update from a sober fifty-nine-year-old who will have to live with the consequences of his actions? Or from a glib edgelord chatbot who’ll start every paragraph with a slur and end every paragraph with “LOL.”

But really, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You don’t even know what we’re going to be using the AI for. According to our press release, it’s for “DoD use cases.” Why are you assuming that means weapons? Maybe we’re using it for chill purposes, like planning the office holiday party. This year’s theme is epicness and transphobia.

Look, we are building the weapons—physical weapons. Like, that was always part of the plan. Actually, it was the main part of the plan. It was the first thing we came up with when we started our AI company. All of those “puppy running errands” videos were our way of distracting you while we built massive data centers that can be used for making war.

But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Weapons can be ethical, even though their express purpose is to cause harm. Just because we’re building superintelligent mega-nukes doesn’t mean we’ll abandon our code of ethics, mostly because we never had one to begin with. Our official mission statement is “make an AI,” and we’ve followed through on that.

Whatever happens now does not matter, because we don’t care.

Listen, we’re done splitting hairs. Ultimately, it comes down to the quality of the product, and ours is top-notch. Our AI can profile you with unprecedented speed and bigotry, and it’s trained on a wide variety of sources—from the racist ones to the ones that don’t exist. That is why the DoD is utilizing it for various military operations. For example, our chatbot can easily mock up step-by-step plans for toppling a democratically elected foreign government. Could a human do that? For sure, and they have. Countless times. However, all that scheming was a lot of work, and everyone was getting really burned out by the moral qualms.

The important thing to remember is that we’re always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Some say it’s more of an ethical boundary, and therefore, pushing it is not a good thing. We just don’t see it that way.

At the end of the day, we’re using AI to advance the DoD’s goals of democracy and peace through a thoughtful combination of violent warfare and unilateral decision-making. And yes, we’re making $200 million off this deal. But we’re not in it for the money—we’re just passionate about doing good, honest work. Work like giving an AI trained on Elon Musk’s opinions complete control over America’s military operations. That’s the kind of heartwarming, feel-good future you can’t put a price on.

Except we did, and it was $200 million.

The Short and Disastrous Life of the World’s Biggest Newspaper

I hesitate a moment at Stanford University’s Special Collections desk. “I got in touch about seeing the Constellation? The newspaper from 1859?” I ask Tim Noakes, the library’s head of public services.

“Oh”—he motions toward the front of the room, where a newspaper sprawls over an entire reading table—“the big one?”

An act of typographical hubris that long held the title of “world’s largest newspaper,” the July 4, 1859, special issue of The Illuminated Quadruple Constellation survives today in only a handful of libraries. Published in Manhattan and distributed nationally, it was printed on seventy-by-one-hundred-inch sheets—bigger than a king-size bed—and then folded twice to produce eight pages, each fifty inches long and thirty-five inches wide. Its footprint can hold roughly six copies of the New York Times. When I lay my phone down next to a copy in Stanford University’s rare books room, the effect is of a tugboat bobbing in the water next to a battleship.

One page of The Illuminated Quadruple Constellation is the size of 117 iPhone SEs.

“It cannot be excelled in its mammoth dimensions,” brags the front page, “because a sheet of any greater length and breadth would be absolutely unmanageable.” This is not an idle boast. Upon attempting to read this behemoth, I find myself walking sheepishly back to Noakes at his desk.

“We need two people to turn the pages,” I tell him.

You can easily hold one of the first American newspapers in one hand: Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick from 1690 approximates letter-sized paper. But as more modern-looking broadsheets emerged in the 1830s, the magic ingredients of disruptive media also appeared: new technology, IP theft, and a government loophole. The US lacked copyright protection for popular foreign authors like Charles Dickens; what it did have, though, were new steam-driven printing presses, and a far lower postal rate for newspapers than for books or magazines. The trick to steam-powered piracy, then, was somehow to cram a book into a newspaper.

“The Mastodon of American Newspapers” and “The Largest Paper in All Creation,” announced the Universal Yankee Nation in 1841. At about eleven square feet, it was twice the dimensions of a typical broadsheet. Other piratical behemoths like The New World, Brother Jonathan, and The Boston Notion soon followed. These “mastodon” or “bed-blanket” weeklies could provide a book’s worth of reading: Charles Dickens’s American Notes was gleefully ripped off in its entirety by The New World in a twelve-and-a-half-cent issue, days before his usual publisher could issue a book costing twice as much.

Inevitably, the mastodons turned their tusks on one another, each boasting of greater Brobdingnagian proportions than the last; the announcement of a “Double Double Yankee Nation” spurred a competing quadruple version of The Boston Notion (“The Mammoth ‘SUN-ECLIPSER,’ coming at last! Acres of entertainment!”). Not to be outdone, Brother Jonathan claimed “upward of 100 engravings” for its Christmas issue. Mastodon papers had a problem, though, and it wasn’t just how hard it was to turn their pages. They relied on a business model that could be destroyed with a stroke of a pen. After the Postal Act of 1845 limited the size allowed for the newspaper rate, they could be big, but not sun-eclipsing big.

All the stranger, then, when a baffling announcement by veteran publisher George Roberts appeared fourteen years later, in the New York Tribune, on June 30, 1859: “THE GREAT WONDER OF THE AGE! THE MASTODON OF NEWSPAPERS, PUBLISHED ONCE IN A HUNDRED YEARS! The subscriber announces that he will publish, and have for sale everywhere, on SATURDAY July 2, THE LARGEST SHEET OF PAPER EVER MADE AND PRINTED. It will be known as ‘THE ILLUMINATED QUADRUPLE CONSTELLATION.’ PRINTED ON ONE SHEET 70100 INCHES… GREAT CURIOSITY OF THE 19TH CENTURY.”

It seemed like an incredible promise. Roberts’s Constellation was a struggling weekly that hadn’t put out an issue in months, and assembling the largest newspaper ever was a tall order even for a thriving publisher.

Even more incredibly—he pulled it off.

Read the rest over at The Believer.

In brief: Invest 93L is ashore and not a development risk, bringing more rain and flooding risk to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. More non-tropical flooding concerns exist today in Virginia and tomorrow in Indiana. And an end of the month heat wave for the Plains, Midwest, and Southeast is looking more and more likely.

Invest 93L: RIP

Shout out to all the purveyors of doom on social media (including some professional meteorologists!) that just had to hype up Invest 93L into something it would never be. Development odds are down to zero percent this morning because the system is over Louisiana now. It’s dead, Jim.

That said, it’s not exactly dead dead. It’s still producing rain, and it remains at least a slight flooding risk (2/4) for much of Louisiana, extreme East Texas, and parts of the Gulf Coast.

There have certainly been some locally impressive rainfall totals in Louisiana, including just shy of 10 inches in the last couple days in St. Charles Parish.

I have not seen any reports of major flooding, so that’s good. But let’s see how today unfolds. Some models are still a bit cheeky with rainfall totals in a few spots today, so never declare victory until the storm is officially over.

Rest of the tropics

It looks pretty quiet over the next few days. It is possible that we see something low-end and brief in the open Atlantic early next week, but there aren’t currently any land threats. It’s also possible that the remnants of 93L do a loop around the Southeast and re-emerge again in the Gulf later next week. I’d say that’s something to watch, but much like this week, proximity to land may hinder any development chances.

Flooding risk du jour

If you had northern Virginia on your Summer 2025 flooding Bingo card, congrats, and don’t forget the free space.

Parts of the northern Shenandoah Valley have seen 200 percent of normal rainfall so far this month, with some places seeing as much as 4 to 8 inches of rain since the start of the month. Heavy showers and storms are possible there later today, and this would be a definite area to watch for flooding today. A broad area of slight risk (2/4) surrounds that extending into parts of the Ohio Valley and south into Hampton Roads and the Outer Banks.

Flooding risk du jour Saturday

Tomorrow, I would watch Indiana closest. There is some modeling showing as much as 3 to 6 inches possible, mostly tomorrow in that area. Southern Indiana has seen anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of rain this month as well.

The HREF model in particular is a little excited about potential heavy rain. The probability matched mean product above suggests that rain amounts of 3 to 6 inches will be possible tomorrow in the heaviest storms mainly south of I-70 in Indiana. I’d pay particularly close attention in the Bloomington through Louisville corridor on Saturday.

Additional rain may follow Sunday and Monday, and flooding risk remains in place there.

Heat wave update

The European ensemble model continues to indicate a decent risk of a record strong ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere over the Plains in about 10 days or so.

The Climate Prediction Center continues to indicate a risk of extreme heat starting around July 25th and continuing through the end of the month. There is also now some potential for drought to begin developing and expanding in parts of Kansas.

Overall, it appears the end of the month may be more about heat than flooding. But we will see.

A 9-year-old Bastrop girl named Caydence has inspired a worldwide call for creative action. Pennsylvania-based Crayola corporation has announced an open call for its Creative Acts of Color campaign, inviting creatives in all disciplines to respond to Caydence’s drawing Colors of Emotion.

A video shows the Bastrop fourth-grader enthusiastically coloring, choosing from a pile of 64 Crayola crayons and explaining what emotion each color inspired in her as she draws.

A crayon drawing, “Colors of Emotion,” by 9-year-old Caydence of Bastrop

According to a press release, Crayola invites anyone to contribute by creating “a song, recipe, dance, poem, painting, sculpture, code, drawing, equation, or any other form of creative expression.” The video quotes a baker, a fiber artist, a painter, and a muralist who’ve been inspired by the campaign, and expansively cites singers, dancers, sculptors, animators, quilters, hair stylists, nail artists, kids, dads, moms, and grandparents as potential participants.

Victoria Lozano, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, said the campaign “reflects Crayola’s ambition to inspire creative endeavors in all forms and celebrate creativity in everyone, extending beyond the arts to illustrate the endless creative behaviors that fuel lifelong growth.”

Creative Acts of Color is the theme for the second year of the company’s ongoing Campaign for Creativity, a project “supported by a new proprietary study that underscores color as a powerful tool that sparks creativity, evokes emotion, and connects us across generations,” citing creativity as “a critical life skill that helps children reach their full potential.”

Ms. Lozano said, “We’re reframing perceptions about creativity and championing these moments as essential to how we express ourselves, solve problems, build relationships, and navigate the world around us. We hope the world joins us in showing Caydence, and each other, that creativity has no bounds and lives in all of us.”

To participate, Crayola’s instructions are to pick a color from Caydence’s drawing, make a creation, and share it on social media with the hashtag #StayCreative and a @Crayola tag. The company plans to surprise Caydence “with a colorful reveal later this summer.”

Learn more about the open call via Crayola’s website.

The post Crayola Announces Open Call for Colorful Social Media Campaign appeared first on Glasstire.

WASHINGTON—In what may be their first apology issued for the behavior of a Cabinet member, White House officials reportedly apologized to a foreign dignitary Tuesday after the man was bitten by a rabid Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Sorry, sorry, that’s just our health secretary—I don’t know what’s gotten into him!” senior aide Tasha Sturbridge said as Kennedy snarled and sank his teeth deep into the leg of Japanese envoy Haruto Tanaka, with eyewitnesses reporting a mixture of blood and frothed saliva ringing the secretary’s mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head. “Bobby, let go. Let go! Someone throw him some of his favorite zebra meat so he’ll go for that instead. Mr. Tanaka, my apologies, but you should probably get that looked at. The secretary definitely isn’t up to date on his shots.” At press time, reports con- firmed rabies cases were sky- rocketing in the D.C. area after Kennedy bolted out an open door of the White House. 

The post Rabid RFK Jr. Bites Foreign Dignitary appeared first on The Onion.

Tom Cowvin passed away at age 78. He is survived by 8.113 billion people.

The post Tom Cowvin appeared first on The Onion.

The above links to an Instagram reel with Colbert breaking the news at the start of his show airing tonight. Here’s the same clip on X, if you prefer. He, apparently, was as surprised as anyone.

Here’s Jed Rosenzweig’s story at (the excellent) LateNighter:

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” the network said in a statement. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.”

The statement was issued jointly by George Cheeks (Co-CEO of Paramount Global and President and CEO of CBS), Amy Reisenbach (President of CBS Entertainment), and David Stapf (President of CBS Studios).

CBS emphasized that the decision was not related to performance or content: “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

This stinks to high hell. Colbert has the best ratings in late night TV.

I can only apologise for the hacking in panel one.

The post It lolls appeared first on Bad Machinery.

#Rowen #Mai #RoninWarriors

edwardkoenning:

The Clean Look. Op. #bmx

yeahiwasintheshit:

therockywhorerpictureshow:

MTV’s Loud and Fast: Metalheads (1986)

yodaprod:

House & Garden (1972)

Screw it. We’re just gonna torch ‘em all and throw 'em off the balcony. What’s the difference?

Wild orcas have been observed intentionally offering humans pieces of fish, marine mammals, and even seaweed across 34 recorded instances, suggesting a rare form of cross-species cooperative behavior given they thrive on surplus prey. What do you think?

“My parents always told me not to accept food from orcas I don’t know.”

Lily Filippo, Sand Sourcer

---

“I told them, like, 100 times that I’m off harbor seal.”

Travis Reis, Coral Bleacher

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“There’s no such thing as free seaweed.”

Mohammed Shehadeh, Skydiving Promoter

The post Orcas Bringing Humans Gifts Of Food appeared first on The Onion.

HAMILTON, ON — Reports have confirmed that Miley Autlin, 24, a person previously believed by experts to be “cool”, “up on the scene” and even “really into the new stuff” literally didn’t even know that LCD Soundsystem was a band. “We’re extremely concerned that someone with Miley’s lack of knowledge about a band as groundbreaking, […]

The post Supposedly hip young person doesn’t even know who LCD Soundsystem is appeared first on The Beaverton.

1. Were Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein friends?

A. I don’t know.

B. If by “friends” you mean that the two men partied together at Mar-a-Lago, that they hung out repeatedly, that Trump called Jeff a “fun” and “terrific guy” who liked women “on the younger side” and compared himself to Epstein, and that Epstein said he was Donald’s “closest friend”, who he sent bawdy letters to on his 50th birthday—then, sure, I guess you could say they were friends.

C. Yes, but it was all part of President Trump’s secret superhero plan to infiltrate the Hillary-Obama-Oprah pedophile ring that was operating out of a pizza parlor basement in Washington, DC.

2. What do you know about Alex Acosta?

A. It is a popular tourist beach on the Algarve.

B. Donald Trump appointed Alex Acosta as secretary of labor in 2017, knowing that he was the man responsible for the plea deal that gave Epstein immunity from federal charges and let him walk free after serving only thirteen months in the private wing of a county jail.

C. I never heard of him. He’s never come up on Newsmax, Truth Social, or OANN, so he’s fake news and part of the Russia Hoax.

3. What has Donald Trump said about Ghislaine Maxwell?

A. Ghislaine who? Sounds like a Harry Potter villain.

B. After she was arrested on charges of child sex trafficking for her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Jeffrey Epstein, Trump repeatedly wished her well.

C. President Trump is a 5D chess player, and he’s just waiting for the exact right moment to reveal the whole truth and save the children. The reason he didn’t do it during his first presidency and still hasn’t done it well into his second will soon be known to all.

4. Who is Julie Brown?

A. Wasn’t she a VJ on MTV?

B. Julie Brown is the Miami Herald journalist whose three-part investigative series on Jeffrey Epstein finally led to federal authorities reopening his case. You could even say that an underpaid journalist from the mainstream media was responsible for bringing Epstein to justice after powerful men in positions of authority protected him. You could easily call Julie Brown the hero of this story, along with Epstein’s victims, who continued to speak out and seek justice.

C. The lamestream media is in on the secret pedophile ring that President Trump will soon expose. You’re going to feel so foolish when you find out the truth.

5. What are the “Epstein Files”?

A. A popular television show from the 1970s starring James Garner as private investigator Jim Rockford.

B. Multiple members of the Trump administration and inner circle repeatedly vowed to release the Epstein Files. They even posed for photo ops, carrying enormous binders labeled THE EPSTEIN FILES: PHASE 1. They promised explosive follow-ups, teasing their MAGA base, who still believe the QAnon lie that Trump is a hero mastermind. And yet, on July 7, Trump’s Justice Department announced that no additional files would be made public, while they just fired a federal prosecutor, who worked on the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell. It’s almost as if the truth has been staring us in the face all this time, but seventy-seven million Americans voted for Donald Trump anyway.

C. How dare Pam Bondi and Kash Patel hide the truth from the American public. There’s no possible way that President Trump is responsible for any of this, even though he appointed both of them.

6. What does Donald Trump want?

A. Not sure. I clocked out in 2015 when Trump descended that escalator and have been living in this yurt without internet access for the last nine years.

B. He wants everyone to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein and now says the Epstein Files are a Democrat hoax that his “past,” “weakling” supporters have fallen for. We sure could use some old-timey heroes like Lieutenant Bob Hendley or Jim Rockford. Or maybe we could just value our real-life ones, like Julie Brown.

C. Jeffrey who? The entire foundation of President Trump’s support was not built on lies. He never bragged about sexual assault and appointed a series of accused rapists and abusers to positions of power. Laura Loomer and Elon Musk are antifa socialists. There’s no missing footage. Rosie O’Donnell should be tried for treason, and Adam Schiff should be prosecuted for mortgage fraud. Greenland will be the fifty-first state. Coca-Cola will start using cane sugar. All UFC fights will be held on the White House Lawn. Trump’s new perfume is tremendous. He will be on Mount Rushmore by this time next year. And Canada will also be the fifty-first state.

ANSWER KEY:

Mostly A’s: The harsh and at times dystopian reality in which we find ourselves can be overwhelming, and we understand the need to detach. On that note, do you happen to know of a reputable yurt realtor you can recommend?

Mostly B’s: Congratulations—you aced this quiz. That will have to be your consolation for living in the worst possible timeline.

Mostly C’s: The reason your daughter no longer talks to you is NOT because the Deep State got to her. We’d try to explain the truth to you, but you’ll never believe us, and honestly, it’s too exhausting whenever we try. You’ll just vote for Trump in 2028 anyway.