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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I just met a senior consultant to FEMA, which gave me the opportunity to gain perspective on Trump’s attempt to move the agency from the federal government and into the states.  He explained that there are three reasons why this will not happen:

1) Through whatever means, Trump will be gone long before this could possibly occur.

2) The states don’t have enough money to deal with large disasters.

3) This function requires a huge level of staffing that’s available on a moment’s notice 365 days per year.  Asking each of the 50 states to meet that burden would be enormously wasteful.

If all this stuff seems obvious, keep in mind that Trump supporters number in the many tens of million, and they (generally) lack the capacity to think this through.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From “Occupy Democrats”:

Georgia’s former Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan enrages MAGA world by switching parties to become a Democrat in a stunning rebuke of Trump’s party.

“There’s no date on a calendar or line in the sand that points to the exact moment in time my political heart changed, but it has,” Duncan wrote in a new op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My decision was centered around my daily struggle to love my neighbor, as a Republican.”

He stated that his journey to become a Democrat started even before Trump attempted to “steal” the election in 2020 and undermine the democratic will of the people.

Duncan reeled off a murder’s row of issues he has with the modern Republican Party, citing their inexcusable dismantling of our healthcare system and Medicaid, their lack of support for their poor, and their increasingly deranged stances on gun control, and their “heartless” and “pointless” immigration policies.

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It’s quite possible that we’ll see a steady erosion of support for Trump as we experience things like:

• A growing consensus, even among the most gullible and poorly educated, that our planet is headed for environmental collapse, and that this catastrophe is actually being hastened by the U.S. president and his corrupt policies.

• Severe economic hardship brought on by Trump’s tariffs/trade wars.

• The accelerated transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, including booting an estimated 13.7 million people off healthcare.

• Growing proof that the president is a pedophile.

I understand that there are people who think this is impossible, because, as they explain, “Trump always wins.” Keep in mind that everyone is undefeated . . . until they lose their first match.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I found the meme here funny, though, FWIW, I don’t provoke disputes with Trump supporters.  While I doubt I’d be injured or killed in a confrontation, it’s:

A waste of time, and

A reminder of the fact that I live among hateful idiots. I don’t need that thrown in my face.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Re: the meme at left that a reader sent me, I would say that the introduction of Fox News in 1996 was the result of an epiphany that the entire business world had around that time, to the effect that the gloves are off!  The goal of U.S. commerce should be to fleece the American customer, rather than to serve and peacefully coexist with him.

Now, to be sure, news is the very best example of this.  Until about 30 years ago, news wasn’t an industry; it was a public service.  Think of Walter Cronkite.  But in the mid-1990s, some brilliant minds came to realization that “news” could morph from a fairly honest presentation of unbiased facts at 6 and 10 PM each evening, to a 24-hour-per-day for-profit assault on the American people.

If it might be possible to divide Americans, young liberals could be sold yoga mats and Subarus and older conservatives could be sold flags and remedies for constipation.

Now, it’s true that Fox News was the first and most trusted standard in the “news” industry’s efforts to pull us apart.  It’s been an experiment in ripping us off, at the same time producing hate and ignorance, and it’s been an extremely successful one indeed.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Memes like the one here make we wonder about the source and its underlying motivation.

Here, I’m particularly suspicious of the beef industry and Big Oil. These are the only two groups trying to stop the movement to green energy and transportation, and halting the destruction of our rainforests to make room for more cows.

Btw, a factual correction:  The methane that cows produce is a byproduct of digesting high-fiber foods, which is then released primarily through belching. 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I don’t know if the claim at left is correct, but even if it is, I wouldn’t get too worried.  That’s because:

1) (From AI): Several countries operate climate satellites, including the United States, China, and Japan. Other countries, such as those within the European Space Agency (ESA) and those participating in the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), also contribute to climate monitoring through their satellite programs.

2) Satellites look at the Earth’s surface and transmit data about it.  Of far greater importance is what’s happening beneath the surface–in our oceans, within our glaciers, etc.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Oh, we’re deadly serious.

We’re not goofing around with our cruelty, our corruption, our removal of science from policymaking, and our demolition of our educational system.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Photovoltaics

Are we to believe that “Burgum” on Fox Business is unaware that millions of people all around the world have perfectly reliable power using only solar energy?

This is just one more lie told to an ignorant audience.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I had to laugh when I pulled into the local hardware store a few minutes ago and saw a car parked next to me with a bumper sticker that read: “Ted Nugent for President.”

Look, I know that living in rural America requires one to make a few compromises, e.g., being cool with living among idiots.  But, as the late astronomer Carl Sagan, put it, “”Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Short story writer Guy de Maupassant left us this: “Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.”

FWIW, I’ve always felt the same way.  There is no good reason (especially now) to believe that the United States is a better country than France or Japan, or that Americans are better people than the Irish or the Poles.

Believing this garbage only sets the world a path toward childish hostility.

Adding religion to this only makes a bad situation worse.  If you really believe that God favors the U.S. over Sweden and Portugal, you have some sort of intellectual/moral defect.

 

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