OK, Republicans suck, have wicked intentions, and are wrecking the country. Their one saving grace, the one thing that gives me hope, is that they’re idiots.
Now that they’ve taken over legislatures all over the place, they’ve decided that the proper use of their power is to pass laws against imaginary things they don’t like. Like chemtrails.
Known to less conspiratorially minded as aircraft contrails, or the white vaporous lines streaming out of an airplane’s engines at altitude, chemtrails are a longstanding conspiracy theory.
Believers in chemtrails hold that the aircraft vapor trails that criss-cross skies across the globe every day are deliberately laden with toxins that are using commercial aircraft to spray them on people below, perhaps to enslave them to big pharma, or exert mind control, or sterilize people or even control the weather for nefarious motives.
Despite the outlandishness of the belief and the complete absence of evidence, a 2016 study showed that the idea is held to be “completely true” by 10% of Americans and “somewhat true” by a further 20%-30% of Americans.
At least eight states, including Florida and Tennessee, have now introduced chemtrail-coded legislation to prohibit “geo-engineering” or “weather modification”. Louisiana’s bill, which must pass through the senate before reaching Governor Jeff Landry’s desk, orders the department of environmental quality to record reported chemtrail sightings and pass complaints on to the Louisiana air national guard.
I heartily endorse that they waste their time and energy on laws against non-existent phenomena — it’s much better than their usual hateful nonsense. I’m not sure how they’re going to enforce it, though. Notify the air national guard? To do what? Fly up and make a few contrails of their own?
Of course they have the King and Queen of Stupid backing their futile flailings.
“We are going to stop this crime,” the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, posted on X in August. Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a post before Hurricane Milton struck in October: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Even Donald Trump has spread the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden is dead and has been replaced by a robotic clone.
To be fair, though, I have to admit that they have recruited a few allies. Would you believe there are Canadian anti-vaxxers? Six kids have been born in Ontario with congenital measles.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health says six infants have been born with congenital measles since an outbreak began last fall, adding they were infected in the womb through mothers who were not vaccinated.
Dr. Kieran Moore says these infants recovered, but their infections could have been prevented if their mothers had been vaccinated and protected from contracting measles.
Congenital measles can result in severe complications, including inflammation of the brain and death.
Perhaps more benignly, counties in Washington state are passing laws to protect Bigfoot.
Clark County is the latest among a growing list of counties taking steps to protect Washington’s favorite cryptid, Bigfoot. On Tuesday, the county council passed a resolution designating all of Clark County as a refuge for the large, hairy, humanlike creatures.
According to the resolution, read by council Chair Sue Marshall, “legends, sightings and investigations suggest that a bipedal apelike creature known as Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, may exist in the remote portions of Clark County” and should be protected, if it exists, as “the rareness of sightings indicates an extreme endangered creature.”
Even if Bigfoot isn’t real, the resolution acknowledges the folklore surrounding Bigfoot highlights the need for stewardship of the county’s wild places and natural landscape.
I like the recognition of the importance of the environment, so I can’t be too irate at the waste of time — you know Bigfoot doesn’t exist, right?
Also, this was legislation prompted by elementary school kids, so I’d want to encourage that kind of civic participation.
What’s your excuse, Bobby and Marjorie?
Empty G can solve the chemtrail problem. She just has to confiscate the Jewish space lasers and use them to vaporise the chemtrails.
i know a way to prevent chemtrails. you have to first get rid of the contrails. to do that, ground all flight over the united states. problem solved!!11!1!1!!!!1!!!
or bring back zeppelins.
“Of course the Chinese have weather control. If it doesn’t co-operate they take it out the back and have it shot.”
Perry DeAngelis, Of the Sceptics Guide to the Universe.
This is what happens when you don’t punish the stupid and wrong for being stupid and wrong.
But hey, “freedom of speech,” freedom of belief…” blah blah blah. Now we all get to suffer as the Joe and Jane Everyman and the rest of the boob-oisie tear down civilization.
Not quite.
One infant died from measles.
The death toll from measles in the USA is now up to 3 dead.
If they are seeking to criminalise “weather modification”, that sounds as though it could be used to prosecute forms of environmental pollution known to be responsible for climate change, just sayin’ …..
There’s the “ha ha stupid bumpkins believe in chemtrails” aspect to this, but depending on how these are worded, there could be some serious implications for CO2 capture and climate mitigation efforts. This would seem to make something like building a big carbon-capture facility illegal in these states, and potentially even just things like changes to farming practices or land use, if they’re targeted at climate remediation. (A conspiracy-minded person might wonder if that’s intentional.)
Of course, that sword cuts both ways. If these laws are loosely worded enough, I wonder if a clever advocacy group could make the case that existing coal plants, pipelines, etc. are de facto “weather modification”…
If these states use their air national guard to track planes with contrails, or any other method, then they can stop those airlines from flying into their states. So then people can’t fly out of a red state for business or anything. Interesting strategy!
The bigfoot one is more … at once tongue in cheek but also, like, you really don’t want weirdos tromping around in the woods setting up to whomp any biped they see…
@ ^ duznanski : I’ve read somewhere online that when filming the Star Wars movies the actor who played Chewbacca, (who was it again ah yes),Peter Mayhew (admit I did have to wiki-check for spelling etc..) was warned NOT to wander off on his own especially in costume.. Becoz that could’ve ended very badly if he’d been mistaken for Bigfoot there..
As one who grew up in environments that had snow every winter, the idea of chemtrails seems especially idiotic. How long before these kooks campaign on shooting people dead for exhaling chemtrails each winter? Or maybe they can run on the promise of reducing the number of monsters who lurk in closets and under beds, claiming that the number across the US grew because of Biden?
Speaking of evil, stupid, and Florida: the U of F remains president-less after the state’s Board of Governors rejected the (shady, but that wasn’t their problem) nomination of the former president of the U of Michigan for having (years ago, and since publicly renounced) supported DEI campaigns and acknowledging the climate crisis.
Gov. DeSantis has already replaced most of the heads of the state’s higher-ed institutions with unqualified political hacks.
Pierce R. Butler @ 12
I have heard his own party is getting tired of DeSantis, with fading popularity all over. How many years before he finally has to step down as governor?
Re 9 and 10,
I’ve heard before that several US states have (allegedly) criminalized the hunting of Bigfoot. It was presented as something silly, but I kind of assumed it was intended to close a legal loophole for “accidentally” shooting people in the woods.
I once heard a Finnish joke that could be perhaps adapted to the US audiences by referring to Ronald Reagan (the original referred to Finnish president Urho Kekkonen (1956-81), who was highly popular, spent a long time in office, suffered from advanced dementia by the end of his tenure and left a strong cultural imprint).
The joke begins with the revelation that Reagan was replaced with a clone, not one but multiple times. Then it goes on to discuss the apparent evidence, and the subtle cues on how you can distinguish between the different Reagan clones from different eras: the Gulf War Reagan, the Sexy Reagan, the Dumb Reagan, the Black Reagan, the Orange Criminal Reagan, the Gaza War Reagan and the reanimation of Orange Criminal Reagan.
There are clear words that describe those that are ‘running’ this country (into the ground).
Fascist, Malicious, Delusional, Plutocratic, Ignorant
Martha and the Vandellas lyrics are more appropriate with every passing day: ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’. This is reinforced by:
On Phoenix TV channel 15 last night (20250608), their weather reporter (meteorologist?) stated that with the tRUMP devastation and ransacking of NOAA and Nat’l Weather Svc. weather forecasts from them could not be trusted for any period of more than 2-3 days. I applaud his courage in stating that. I hope they don’t fire him.
Trump’s Police State
by Robert Reich | June 9, 2025 – 5:35am
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-police-state
birgerjohansson @ # 13: How many years before he finally has to step down as governor?
Florida governors get only two terms, by law – and Ron D has about a year and a half left.
Howsomeverwise – it looks quite likely that his wife will run to replace him. She seems, if anything, an even more avid culture warrior. Her primary rival is a loyal Trumpista.
We here in the Soviet of Washington have a long history of pro-Sasquatch legislation. I vaguely recall a county land zoning document from the 1980’s that included the fact that there was a record of sightings of our primate cryptid along a river & surrounding valley. Since then many towns have passed ordinances to protect & preserve our Northwest icon.
While we are speaking of PNW cryptids a shout out to the PNW Tree Octopus. https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
And it’s been going on since WW2!
https://contrailscience.com/some-more-wwii-contrails/
How can they be evil when they’re so stupid? Dr. Oz wants Canada to not cull the 400 ostriches living on a Canadian farm.
Trump official Dr. Oz comes up with ‘an incredibly stupid idea’
“While Kennedy Jr. has urged Canadian officials to halt their plans on killing the birds, and to do further testing to learn more about the virus, the celebrity physician has offered to relocate the flock to the United States, on his 900-acre plot in Florida.”
This is same Dr Oz who is (Dr. Mehmet Oz) the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/trump-official-dr-oz-comes-up-with-an-incredibly-stupid-idea.html
I guarantee La. would never pass a law protecting Bigfoots (Bigfoots or Bigfeet??) because too many La. chefs – both Cajun and non-Cajun – would protest that they want to bag Bigfoots for a new stew or a new gumbo or a rice dish.
How are they going to enforce it? I’ll tell you how they’re going to enforce it.
By rounding up all the people responsible and conducting summary executions.
The main advantage of nonsense laws is that the evidence that you broke one will be, by nature, nonsense.
What any of them actually believe is irrelevant, because an honest moron can shoot you just as dead as a mendacious fool.
While I’m quite willing to agree that bigfoot is a crock and laws applying to it are nonsense, I think there may be a practical reason for laws protecting bigfoot in places where legend has it appearing, since it’s clear that anyone shooting a bigfoot would be automatically guilty of serious target misidentification. Bigfoot protection laws are a kind of cost-free sop to the bigfooters, while helping promote the safety of everyone else.
If that’s what it takes to get republicans to vote for environmental protection, so be it.
Yes. They’re not very different. They were about to elect the Canadian Trump until the American one threatened them.
@16. shermanj : “Martha and the Vandellas lyrics are more appropriate with every passing day: ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’.
The ones in this song you mean 3 mins long.
There are 6 infants who recovered after contracting measles in utero.
And there is 1 infant who died.