We’ve all seen it before, Wolf Blitzer standing in front of a wall of plasma screens beaming with brightly colored maps of red and blue swing state projections. You can just see the political junkies drooling over every new 538 forecast and freshly crunched polling numbers. It seems our electoral process has been reduced to color coding the country and headlines about breaking fundraising records. Yep, it’s all just maps and money.
But in the end there’s only one red and blue map that actually matters. And its entirely red. Five alarm, stoplight red. I’m talking about the map released yesterday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) reporting that July was the hottest month in the US on record, and by that I mean since the beginning of records...in 1895. Red indicates the “Record Warmest” by state and as you can see it was a hot one. (And for all you wonks out there that don’t get your needed thrill from this monotone map there’s plenty of statistical jerky for you to chew on the NOAA website.)
