METAPHOR ALERT: ‘Hard to fathom:’ Sewage crisis at Calif. coastline can be seen from space.

A new study using satellite images from NASA shows that an environmental crisis at the Tijuana-San Diego border can be seen from space, prompting new concerns from experts.

The image shows a wastewater plume just off Imperial Beach made up of toxic wastewater pollution from untreated sewage that’s flowing into the Tijuana Estuary and Pacific Ocean for years.

Kim Prather, an atmospheric scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a distinguished professor at University of San Diego, and her lab team have been studying the severe, toxic chemicals. She told SFGATE that the new NASA tool can help scientists figure out how far the pollution goes.

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“It boils down to the fact that it’s what feels like an unstoppable stench and an unstoppable flow of crap running through our communities …it’s just it’s hard to fathom how big the issue is,” Granados said. “People legit are sick, like physically ill, headaches, nausea, missing work, missing school, feeling bad, not going outside to, you know, exercise and do things outdoors. It’s like you can’t get away from it. It just smells so bad.”

Meanwhile, up north: Popular Bay Area beach is one of the most polluted in the US again.

IT GOES WAY BACK: Earliest evidence of humans in the Americas confirmed. “The tracks showed human activity in the area occurred between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago—a timeline that would upend anthropologists’ understanding of when cultures developed in North America. It would make the prints about 10,000 years older than remains found 90 years ago at a site near Clovis, New Mexico, which gave its name to an artifact assemblage long understood by archaeologists to represent the earliest known culture in North America.”

Turns out Clovis Man was living on stolen land.

THEY’D CERTAINLY BE RIGHT TO: New York Business Leaders Say They’ll Flee If Mamdani Is Elected Mayor.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Via the False Claims Act, NIH puts universities on edge.

CLOWARD AND PIVEN SMILE: Social Security and Medicare Trustees Release 2025 Reports.

The looming insolvency of Social Security’s retirement program will lead to a 23 percent across-the-board benefit cut when today’s 59-year-olds reach the Full Retirement Age and when today’s youngest retirees turn 70. On a theoretically combined basis, beneficiaries will face a 19 percent benefit cut just one year later.

The Medicare Trustees project the HI trust fund will also be exhausted in 2033, leading to an 11 percent cut in HI payments. That cut, which is projected to grow for at least the following decade, could jeopardize access to health care for seniors and some workers with disabilities.

The best time to tackle this problem was 20 years ago, but George W. Bush got shut down by Congress. The next best time is right now, but there seems to be even less determination than there was in 2005.

HMM: Positive life outlook may protect against middle-aged memory loss, 16-year study suggests.

“EXPERTS”: Justice Thomas Destroyed the ‘Experts’ Who Support Mutilating Children.

HMM: Russia’s Warning Over U.S. Aid to Israel Isn’t Just Noise. “Moscow’s military-industrial complex is bruised but still functional. Russia has shipped drones, missile systems, and electronic warfare tech to allies before, including Iran. Even amid the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept military supply lines open to its anti-American partners. The Kremlin can restock Tehran’s weapons closets without crossing any NATO red lines.”

Still, I imagine the situation in the Middle East would be much different right now if Russia didn’t have something like 95% of its conventional combat power committed to Ukraine.

WE SHOULD BE BUILDING SCIENTIST AI, NOT SKYNET LITE: The bad news: AI models are learning to lie to save themselves. The worst news: We’re teaching them to lie for much dumber reasons.

NOT A FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY: Trump administration ending LGBTQ suicide hotline in July.

HEAR BETTER: Audien ATOM Rechargeable Hearing Amplifier to Aid and Assist Hearing. #CommissionEarned

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Change could raise gas prices 65 cents a gallon, audit sought. “Jones’s Public Records Act request into CARB and the governor’s estimates and discussions on the cost of LCFS to consumers was met with delays, noting some responses would take weeks, while other records requested were too broad, and that some are categorically exempt.”

BRIAN WANG: SpaceX’s 30x Surge to $12 Trillion by 2035 and the Mars Effect.

I DON’T KNOW, I CAN IMAGINE QUITE A BIT: Democratic Party Disarray Far Worse Than You Can Imagine.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel pushed it back?

MAYBE IT’S JUST HER DUMBEST RANT SO FAR: Is This Whoopi Goldberg’s Dumbest Rant Ever?

ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN: Crushing Iran Because It’s Terrorism’s ATM Is Also a Good Idea.

GET RID OF PESTS: Buzbug LED Bug Zapper Indoor Outdoor. #CommissionEarned

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

America Celebrates Juneteenth, The Day Republicans Freed All The Democrats' Slaves https://t.co/ME5YEBeOSQ pic.twitter.com/2TVwGuuWeT

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 19, 2025

SETH MANDEL: The ‘America First’ Crew’s Complete Disregard for American Lives.

While the Iranians were hunting the U.S. president, their militias were slaughtering Americans—something Iran has been doing for four decades—and taking them hostage. Here’s how the Iranian militia in Gaza treated Americans and others in their dungeons:

“Meals were intermittent. Water was scarce. And any failure to follow their captors’ instructions risked violent retribution.

“As [American hostage Keith] Siegel stepped into the room, panic washed over him: He found himself in the audience of a ‘medieval-style’ trial by torture, he said.”

Another U.S. hostage, the New Jerseyan Edan Alexander, “was held with a bag over his head at times and handcuffed, beaten and interrogated.” He was also “plagued by hunger, thirst and a lack of sanitary conditions during his time in Gaza, not to mention constant anxiety about the war raging around him.”

As an American, I have a hard time shrugging this off. As an American, I find it increasingly difficult to even understand the psychology of those who can shrug it off. And as an American, I find it incomprehensible that the defenders of these innocent American victims are accused of being disloyal Americans.

“They were schoolyard bullies,” Trump said of Iran this morning. “But now they’re not bullies anymore.” He specifically mentioned the Iranians’ motto of “Death to America,” which was also their battle plan and organizing program. He seemed pleased that there were finally consequences for Iran’s long war on the United States, that there is a price to be paid for all Iran’s mischief.

And here is the most interesting part: The price Iran has paid has not, in fact, been steep or cruel and unusual. In the history of mankind, no nation’s civilians have been safer while an enemy state controls their airspace during a live war. There’s nothing really to even compare it to. We are watching something no one has ever watched before. Israel, in response to Iran’s pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people, not to mention its role in the worst daylong mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, took control of Iran’s airspace and used that to patiently eliminate the sources of the Iranian regime’s power to oppress its people.

Trump supports this.

Indeed.

I’d add that Israel has so far done 100% of the heavy lifting in this campaign, restoring some of the honor we lost over two generations of pretending Iran is not at war with us.

CRASH AND BURN — THE RACHEL ZEGLER STORY: New video series from the Critical Drinker.

Earlier: Clifton Duncan on Disney’s Cannon Fodder Actresses.

IF CBO KEEPS GETTING IT WRONG: Then, doesn’t it make sense to change how CBO does its work? That’s what a bunch of folks on Capitol Hill are saying, including especially House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).

MAKE THEM PAY: Latest Supreme Court ruling could help white males sue universities, experts say.

IS ANYTHING A SURPRISE ANY MORE? Bombshell Emails Reveal Shocking Lengths the Biden DOJ Went to Get Trump.

TRUE, BUT I STILL LIKE THE IDEA THAT LITTLE ISRAEL HAS A HANDLE ON THIS: Iran Has Been at War With the U.S. Since 1979.