Well, most of us, I’m sure, will concede that a terrorist army running a modern-day Caliphate is problematic. But if a citizen really wants to save Duluth from annihilation, we would start by not voting for Republicans. “It would be very important for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi explained to comedian Bill Maher recently. “Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if the Republicans win the Senate.”

Well, Madam Speaker, what’s so great about civilization as we know it? One Daily Beast writer argues that the “Summer 2014 Was the Worst Ever.” Ever. Worse than the summer of 1967, when major American cities burned. Worse than the summers Americans fought World War Two or lived through the Depression. Worse, even, than the summer of 2013, when we were arguing about the same exact things that we argued about last summer.

Not that we’re going to able to do anything during the summers for much longer. Climate change will lead to more rapes, prostitution, war, and poverty. It will induce more normally rational people to adopt childish exaggerations for their agenda than ever before. The UN World Meteorological Organization has produced “imagined weather forecasts” to help. Our own Science Czar has predicted far worse, though.