I realize that if you live anywhere between New York City and St. Louis, where the temperature is headed for triple digits, your immediate concern is avoiding heatstroke.
But give some thought to things that can't come inside for a blast of AC and a drink: food crops. Specifically, grains. Staff of life, and all that.

Yeah, I know: the media are churning out the standard "crops are wilting in the fields" stories that you always see during heatwaves. For nonfarmers, these stories have no relevance to daily life: the bakery shelves in stores are still piled with loaves of bread.

But let's consider this in the context of global warming. Most global warming stories focus on the potential for spectacular disaster, like the Amazon rainforest dying. This, though, is a more slow-motion, boiling-the-frog type situation.

Follow me below the fold for the frog legs entree...

As every 22nd -century schoolbot knows, the stolen election of 2004 ignited a firestorm of protest that finally brought down the illegitimate presidency of George W. Bush.

A uniquely American feature of these protests was the "park-in." This phenomenon was partly an outgrowth of the so-called flashmob, which made use of the newly popular cellular phone to coordinate the arrival of many people at a prearranged location. It owed its remarkable efficacy to the dependence of early 21st-century Americans on automotive transport.

A park-in would begin when a clot of cars on a major artery suddenly slowed and came to a stop. The drivers would then get out of their parked cars, lock the doors, get into a van waiting at the front of the group, and drive off. In a sardonic gesture, many of the drivers would then call the police to report that their cars had been stolen.