Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The American Southeast has recently been ravaged by not one, but two, monstrous hurricanes. Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia were first slammed by Helene which brought record storm surges and rainfall to the area. Up to twenty-four and thirty inches of rain fell in …
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Category:Climate
Kickass Remembers Siesta Key
Attribution: National Weather Service/NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, gives the keeper space to remember his long-ago snowbird days when Sarasota and Siesta key were exciting winter destinations. The keeper’s lifelong pal Al and wife Pat lived there as anchor hosts. Other friends assembled for beach fun while the …
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Kickass and Helene
Attribution: SSEC/CIMSS, University of Wisconsin–Madison (Attribution or Attribution), via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s note to hurricane Helene as it prepares to mark its Florida territory using a crude canine method: “Dear Helene: It is not necessary for you to claim Florida as your very own since nobody …
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Kickass and Weather Talk
Attribution: National Weather Service / National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration / Storm Prediction Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes along with the keeper that a communication that resorts to the weather as subject matter is a clear indication of a relationship in trouble, attempts to avoid a …
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Kickass and Dumb Senator
Attribution:Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper’s inclination to look at the bright side of things, was at first gratified by Sen. Ron Johnson’s contention that global warming is a good thing because fewer people in Wisconsin …
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Kickass and Sanibel
Eeviann, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, comments that there was a period in the keeper’s life when he spent icy chunks of the northern winter in the balmy environs of Sanibel Island and Sarasota Fla., where hurricane Ian destroyed part of the Sanibel-Ft. Meyers causeway. While a hurricane …
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Kickass and No More Boats
Paramount Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the information that as flood warnings prevail over the weekend, the keeper is offering to swap his spot on the ark for a bottle of Korbel brandy. A long life of boat miseries convinces him that he does not …
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Kickass and Severe Weather
U. S. National Weather Service/National Ocean Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, will be joining the keeper and Phyllis in identifying themselves as “weather prisoners” in view of today’s forecast; and should they get caught out in a storm, it will not be their fault that they get …
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Foul Weather
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Over the past two weeks, our Wisconsin weather—always a wild card—has been beyond extreme. We shot up from a high of sixty-one degrees last Wednesday to a high of ninety-five on Thursday (never mind the heat index). That next night the temperature plummeted to the low sixties. This …
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Kickass and Attenborough
David AttenboroughDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 3.0 AU, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s assessment that watching the PBS “Climate Change” program hosted by David Attenborough produced the sensation of being aboard a doomed airliner. The program’s take-away for the keeper was …
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Kickass and Earth Day 2022
NASA images by Reto Stöckli, based on data from NASA and NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this Earth Day to lament the physical and mental “dung ball” condition of the planet; and to remember Earth Day 1966 when the keeper was among the …
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Kickass and First Snow
\Chris j wood, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the first swirling snowflakes of the season were immediately politicized when the Repubs said that they—the snowflakes, represented the Dems’ start of a six-month long snow job to sell snow, ice, freezing wind and blizzards as the charms …
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