You and I in a little toy shop

PRESENTED BY 500 LUFTBALLONS

We’re in a real ’80s moment right now. Nena and DeLillo tried to warn us.

Everybody, sing along…

 You and I in a little toy shop

Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got

Set them free at the break of dawn

Til one by one, they were gone

Back at base bugs in the software

Flash the message, something's out there

Floating in the summer sky

99 red balloons go by

99 red balloons

Floating in the summer sky

Panic bells it's red alert

There's something here from somewhere else

The war machine springs to life

Opens up one eager eye

Focusing it on the sky

Where 99 red balloons go by

One might think a land war with Russia is enough for the United States war machine, but one would be wrong. Everyone from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to the editors of the The New York Times is dutifully puffing up a Gulf-of-Tonkin-esque panic about THE CHINESE SPY BALLOON.

“Imagine dealing with not one, but 500 balloons heading to the U.S. during a crisis where the vast majority of your capabilities are deployed elsewhere, as is your attention,” screamed top national security journalist Tyler Rogoway, in a Twitter thread so unhinged I sincerely thought it was parody.

Yet again, inflation rears its ugly head. As Nena expained in 1983, 99 balloons is enough.

 99 Decision Street

99 ministers meet

To worry, worry, super scurry

Call the troops out in a hurry

This is what we've waited for

This is it boys, this is war

The president is on the line

As 99 red balloons go by

Did you hear? @PossumEveryHour is now on Mastodon. Neo-Nazis plotted to shoot up electric substations serving Baltimore in order to “permanently, completely lay this city to waste.” Biden’s Green-New-Deal-lite legislation has helped create 100,000 green jobs across the nation.

AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

At 8:55 pm Friday night, a 150-car train carrying twenty cars of toxic products, including ten with vinyl chloride gas, butyl acrylate, benzene residue, and unspecified combustible liquids, derailed and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio, on the Pennsylvania border. The train burned throughout the weekend as toxic chemicals spilled into nearby creeks and several hundred thousand pounds of vinyl chloride, a petrochemical used to make plastic, hissed into the air. Fearing uncontrolled explosions of the tankers, officials punched holes in the cars and set fire to their contents on Monday afternoon, sending out a deadly black cloud of phosgene and hydrogen chloride. The National Guard was sent to force the local residents to evacuate from the death zone. The release of vinyl chloride was “successfully completed” by Monday afternoon, claimed Norfolk Southern representatives, although the fires continued burning and the evacuation order remains standing.

Rep. Bruce Westerman’s (R-Ark.) House Natural Resources Committee is establishing its oversight agenda today. Priorities include attacking the Endangered Species Act, increasing drilling, increasing mining, increasing logging, increasing grazing, increasing fishing, killing sea lions, killing whales, and privatizing more services associated with the national parks. At the hearing, Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) offered this remarkable version of climate denial:

  99 knights of the air

Ride super high tech jet fighters

Everyone's a super hero

Everyone's a Captain Kirk

With orders to identify

To clarify, and classify

Scramble in the summer sky

99 red balloons go by

About 3.4 million Americans were displaced by climate disasters in 2022, 1.4% of the national population. Even though Louisiana did not a face a “major” disaster last year, storms carrying tornadoes and floods forced nearly 370,000 people — one in nine Louisianans — to leave their homes. One in twenty Floridians were displaced by disasters, mostly the catastrophic Hurricane Ian.

Congratulations to climate scientist Kim Cobb, who has been appointed to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, much to the consternation of the right-wing climate-denier media, who would prefer us to panic about Jewish space lasers and Chinese spy balloons.

Congratulations to climate scientist Kim Cobb, who has been appointed to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, much to the consternation of the right-wing climate-denier media, who would prefer us to panic about Jewish space lasers and Chinese spy balloons.

99 dreams I have had

In every one a red balloon

It's all over and I'm standing pretty

In this dust that was a city

If I could find a souvenir

Just to prove the world was here

And here is a red balloon

Just to prove the world was here

And here is a red balloon

I think of you, and let it go

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10:15 AM: House Natural Resources
  Authorization and Oversight Plan

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