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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

There are so many terrifying elements of American life today that it’s hard to find one that stands out above the rest.  And, to be sure, our choices in this matter depend on our lives’ circumstances.

If I had lost a child to any of the hundreds of school shootings, the fact that the gun lobby essentially owns our lawmakers might have raised itself a little more forcefully in my prioritization of social wrongs.

As it turns out, however, I do have a schoolmate who lost her six-year-old boy, Dylan, at Sandy Hook.  She speaks at our reunions, which punches this home to me.  I tear up every time she speaks, and trust me, I’m not alone.

Having said that, despite the best efforts of many millions of people of conscience and decency, it seems that we’re utterly powerless to do anything about the carnage.  Unless you’re a billionaire with voice and compassion, the best you can do is is what the father in the photo did: tackle your kid and hope that you’re the one who takes the bullet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The more that’s revealed about the depraved character and monumental stupidity of Herschel Walker, and the longer Republicans continue to pour obscene amounts of money into his campaign, the more clearly we understand what’s happening here.

The GOP will do anything it needs to, regardless of how despicable, to sully the integrity of the institution of the U.S. Senate, in order to remain in power.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Voltaire said, “If God had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent Him.”

Whether this is a thinly veiled reference to atheism, or a statement that the existence of God is a necessary condition to human morality, no one seems to know. I suspect the former.

In any case, the designer of this lady’s T-shirt had the same idea.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Every word that (Give ‘Em Hell) Harry Truman wrote here is true, and the message resonated with most people of the time.  That’s because Americans in the mid-20th Century were far more reasonable people than they are today.

Our parents had the benefit of living in a world before the news media discovered that they could manipulate various audiences for staggering profits.

Moreover, they didn’t have ever-diminishing educational standards, which ushered an orange-haired demagogue into the White House who preceded to tell over 30,000 lies in his four-year presidency, include the Big One.

Where will we go from here?  It’s possible that ignorance and hate will beget more of the same, a dwindling spiral in which morons elect despicable people who drive American society into a total cesspool.

It’s also possible that we’ve hit the bottom.  Trumpism/MAGA may be a nightmare from which we’re just about to wake up, gasping for breath, and thanking God that it’s over.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science
2GreenEnergy supporter Cameron Atwood sent me the meme here and notes, I wonder whether an alien invasion would unite the human species.
That’s a heck of a good question.  Let’s assume that, somehow, all of Earth’s people became aware that an alien civilization was coming, aiming to kill everyone on the planet, and that we had, say, at least a few days to respond militarily (or perish).  We’d be expecting our world leaders to yield to the scientific community and adopt whatever strategy they recommended.
In practice, however, there are some serious impediments, one of which is that many of these world leaders are sociopaths.  What would have Donald Trump done had this taken place during his term?  What about Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un?
Given all this, it’s really an unanswerable question, IMO.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

In preparation for the chapter on national security in my first book, Renewable Energy–Facts and Fantasies, I interviewed James Woolsey, former director of the CIA. As I predicted, he was adamant about the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, on the basis that the Earth’s population, living on a planet with ever-diminishing resources like food, potable water, and land mass itself, is bound to become increasingly volatile.

A dozen years later, the U.S. Army has issued a comprehensive plan to address climate change before the global situation gets to a point where whole societies are no longer viable and become so desperate that they turn to violence.

Regardless of one’s view about the U.S. military, it’s hard not to admire the strength with which they uphold the oath they take to defend the country, and a critical element of this is respecting science over politics.  Where today’s GOP taps into a voter base that refers to climate activists as “woke socialists,” the armed forces cannot and will not ignore that the consensus of our scientists are imploring us to do vis-à-vis decarbonizing our energy and transportation sectors.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Buttigieg is correct here, of course.

But keep in mind that Greene’s audience isn’t intellectuals; it’s voters in one of the most undereducated parts of rural Georgia who find her ‘reasoning’ quite compelling.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The only thing we know for certain about these five facts about Brian Dahle, apparently a California gubernatorial hopeful, is that the last one is incorrect.  No one about whom the first four facts are true could get anywhere near the governor’s mansion in the state of California.

FWIW, the Golden State has its rednecks.  Once you get about 75 miles inland, you find the same level of ignorance and hatred that dominates the American south.  But the problem for Republicans aspiring to public office on a state-wide basis is the huge populations of well educated people that surround San Diego, Los Angeles, the Central Coast, and the Bay Area.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

From a reader: (At left) Pro-lifers praying with Herschel this morning to put the armor of God on him to shield him from his own son’s truth bombs.

Sam Harris, author and neuroscientist, says that religion is to the mind what a virus is to a computer.  That may be extreme, but it’s hard to look at this event and not see some level of truth there.

In any case, our ability to process information and select leaders who aren’t liars and morons is of paramount importance, if we are to survive as a civilization.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As  shown here, there are elements of our U.S. culture that other people find weird, to put it kindly.

And obviously, a long queue for drive-through coffee isn’t the only bizarre aspect to life here.  People in countries around the globe are astonished that we haven’t figured out a way to remove Donald Trump, a common criminal, from political power.

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