You may think that Big Oil may be at least pretending to get on board the concepts of climate change mitigation and the phasing out of fossil fuels in favor of low-carbon energy sources.
You’d be wrong.
A lack of shame isn’t what prevents the Trump MAGA base from being embarrassed by the actions of their leader.
Those who think at that level and believe everything that comes out of the president’s mouth are thrilled that the price of gasoline has fallen below $2/gallon, that Canadians can’t wait to live in the 51st U.S. state, that Trump has successfully negotiated several peace agreements, and that the United States has, since the 2025 inauguration, become the most respected nation on Earth, after being disgraced by the former president, who had ruined the economy, crashed the stock market and caused record unemployment.
The saddest part of all of this is that our country is home to tens of millions of voters with extremely limited capacity to think, and though this problem is most on display in the United States, insofar as our economy and military is so large, it’s hardly contained here.
Yesterday, I asked some Englanders about their feelings about Brexit. They lamented that their country has been set back by the same stupidity and xenophobia that we have here.
This from former Republican U.S representative Joe Walsh. And he’s right, what’s worse than Trump’s treasonous behavior is that the majority of congresspeople in both houses are unwilling to intercede.
What’s arguably even worse than that is that almost half of voters think that Trump is proving to be wonderfully effective in Making America Great Again.
No one denies that meat tastes (and smells) good. Anyone who will tell you, for instance, that frying bacon doesn’t smell incredibly good is lying.
The problems are a) bacon is terrible for your health, b) animal husbandry is ruining the planet, and c) factory farming is intensely cruel.
At left is a reference to Trump’s amazing ability to convince his supporters of things that couldn’t possibly be true.
Has the price of gasoline really fallen below $2 per gallon? Well, we could take a short drive and look for ourselves. Or we could go online and check out websites that track the average price of gas in real time to one tenth of a penny.
Hey, wait! I have a better idea. We could believe the unbelievable, simply because Trump says so.
Many Americans are wondering about the content of the meme here. Why exactly are Trump’s picks for important governmental positions so blatantly disqualified?
Take Pete Hegseth as an example. Did Trump choose him specifically because he’s an alcoholic and former Fox News anchor, or is that just some baggage that came along with a supremely loyal secretary of defense?
The same question could be asked about any of the others. RFK Jr. is another fine example. Did Trump specifically want a recovering heroin addict and QAnon-style antivaxxer to be in charge of Americans’ health, or was that just something that came along with absolute loyalty to the would-be king?
The cartoonist here makes an excellent point.
In geologic time, it was just a few minutes ago that we were living in tribes, eating mastodon meat, and sleeping in caves. A few seconds ago, we had the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials.
Yet we think we can throw a switch, understand quantum entanglement, and live in peace with all the peoples of the Earth. Perhaps we’re asking too much of ourselves.
The author of the meme here writes:
Sodium-ion batteries have been around for about 30 years, and there are people who believe that a handful of developers may be close to commercializing this class of technologies.
That said, if you have to tell us that your investment opportunity is “not vapor,” guess what we infer?
Of course the Trump administration will do anything in its power to bury the discussion about climate change and its terrible costs.
But in the case of the shut-down of NOAA, we’re talking about the hard, direct costs like rebuilding after fires and hurricanes.
The long-term costs in terms of loss of land mass, displaced populations, wars fought over increasingly scarce resources, and the disease and deaths associated with pathogens released by melting permafrost are terrifying, but are impossible to pin down.
