In his press conference early today, Donald Trump announced that, shortly after he was elected president in 2016, he defeated the Islamic State, aka, ISIS. I was skeptical, and, a few seconds later, after looking it up, I realized that (gasp) he was lying.
Here’s a presentation that shows the frequency and ferocity of the ISIS’ acts of terror continues undiminished to this day.
Sure would be nice to replace the lies with truth. Maybe we can accomplish this.
A reader sent me this, and remarked, “Keep your greasy little hands off our Social Security!”
Most of Donald Trump’s MO makes sense. Appeal to people’s fears, hate, and greed, while exploiting the ignorance that has crept through the American society in the decades since we began dismantling our educational system.
But certain of his actions seem counter-intuitive. I would have said it’s part of politics 101 to promise people things they hold valuable, e.g., Social Security.
Hyundai says it “is shaking up the sustainable mobility scene with its latest innovation, the Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV) concept. This new model combines battery electric vehicle (BEV) technology with a range-extending internal combustion engine (ICE), promising to solve common issues related to range and charging infrastructure.”
Folks who have been following the transition from ICE engines to battery electrics know that this was a new (and popular) concept about 10 years ago. GM had a modicum of success here with the Chevy Volt and various near-identical models they were selling in the UK, Europe, and Australia, until Tesla came along with enough range to render the subject moot.
This isn’t simply an old article; I actually don’t have a guess as to what’s going on here. It’s like seeing an announcement that reads: “Hyundai Reports: Fuel Injection Systems May Soon Replace Carburetors.”
Here are some interesting remarks from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. With respect to these comments, we have three classes of relevant (Republican) voters:
• The MAGA base, that is quite unlikely to come across them at all, and even if they did, would dismiss them as the words of a woke liberal communist.
• The amoral rich, who understand that Gates is right, but who also see that they stand to gain greatly from Trump’s trillion dollar tax breaks to the top 0.1% of Americans.
• Some high-level traditional Republicans, who, thank the Lord, have refused to endorse Trump, and are planning to vote for Harris.
Here’s Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice President from 2001 – 2009, speaking in language that a child could understand on the dangers of Donald Trump.
I would encourage all undecided voters to consider what it means to have hundreds of high-profile conservative Republicans warning us what will happen to American democracy and to our nation as a whole if career criminal Trump is re-elected to the White House.
I thought I’d make a brief comment on Linda Ronstadt’s statement below.
Is anyone who grew up in the second half of the 20th Century surprised to learn that she sees through Trump as the criminal sociopath he is?
Couldn’t resist posting this, in which the German government refutes one of Trump’s misstatements about the stability of their grid.
It’s also funny to see all this extra mileage coming from “eating dogs and cats.”
I thought I’d take this extremely powerful meme based on the recent Trump-Harris debate and make a borderline pedantic comment about grammar.
Each of these statements, if phrased correctly, would be in the form of what is called a “predicate nominative.” For example, “She is stronger than he.” That’s because the verb “to be” (in this case “is”) never takes an object.
Now, does this sound stilted, as if it’s coming from a 75-year-old English teacher? Yes, which is why I try not to use this construction, and instead write, “She is stronger than he is.”
In any case, and far more importantly, everything the author here is asserting about Harris is correct.
We don’t have an excuse, but we do have an explanation, and that is that human society is built around money. “Money talks and bullshit walks,” as they say.
As you’re reading this, there are uber-wealthy people all around the globe working hard to ensure that our civilization’s dependence on fossil fuels continues unabated indefinitely, knowing that this is causing the ruination of our only home.
A reader sent me this piece on removing CO2 directly from the Earth’s atmosphere. I respond:
I remain skeptical that ANY CONCEIVABLE technology can accomplish this feat. I can’t imagine how you run a gas (air) with concentration 0.04% CO2 (i.e., it’s 99.96% something else, mostly nitrogen) and you somehow pull out most of the CO2. Then you shove it far underground or concert it into long-lasting products. AND you do all this with energy that isn’t adding more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Most of the available literature on the subject comes from ExxonMobil and the other petroleum giants, and contains wordings like, “It’s possible that…” Sure.
I have a (legitimate) client whose technology plugs into point sources of CO2, e.g., coal plants and concrete manufacturing facilities, where concentrations are > 30%.
