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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Here’s a response to a question that has the same relevance as “Hey! How ’bout those Dodgers?”

From his Wikipedia page:

A staunch ally of President Donald Trump, Johnson voted for Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, supported Trump’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), launched investigations into his political opponents and promoted false claims of fraud in relation to Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election. He has rejected the scientific consensus on climate change. (Pushed) fringe theories about COVID-19, and spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations.

In other words, his supporters really don’t expect any coherent thinking from the guy.

My wife approves of the word I coined above (politibabble) and thinks it  might catch on.  I’m not so sure.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Modern Science

I hope the author of the meme here doesn’t judge the value of his life by his success or failure on any of this.

I don’t want to sound cynical, but there is no reason to believe humankind evolved here on Earth with the capacity to grasp these concepts.

If, as string theorists suggest, the building blocks of the universe are perceptible only in 11 dimensions, we have no advantage over dogs and cats in being able to make sense of this.

Having said that, physics has wrapped its wits around a heck of a lot of stuff in the 120 years since it went past Newtonian mechanics and got into things that we can’t directly perceive.  And, though I know less about it, I’m told the neuroscience may be getting us closer to figuring out human consciousness.

In any case, here’s my advice: be prepared to live–and die–with unanswered questions.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Gun Message

Thank you, Jane of the North.

Frankly, however, we already know this.  We’re not too bright down here, but we’re not that stupid.

Unfortunately, money controls every aspect of our cheesy little culture, and the gun lobby has us up against a wall.

There is no limit to the number of our schoolchildren we’re willing to have blown to little bits.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Fox News won’t air a single January 6th hearing?  Well, of course not.

If you’re a Fox News viewer, you know that Hillary Clinton was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Five  (different) House Committees, the State Department Accountability Review Board, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the House Select Committee, none of which turned up any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the then-Secretary of State.  But that doesn’t satisfy you.

In fact, you would place no limit to the expenditure of the government’s time and money in pursuing this satanic beast of a woman, because there are no conceivable findings that would convince you that she is innocent.  Remember, you were chanting, “Lock her up!” years after the Department of Justice and Congress had put the matter to bed. Justice and fairness aren’t what you’re looking for here.

Conversely, you believe that the U.S. Congress has no authority to investigate an attempt to overthrow the United States government, at least, insofar as Donald Trump, God’s gift to the United States, was involved. Any attempt to suggest that he had some level of responsibility for the insurrection must be partisan politics, driven by the same Deep State that rigged the 2020 election in favor of Biden.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If we want to gauge the intensity of the corruption that has such a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress, the best place to look is laws that would restrict the use of war weapons.

Yes, Big Oil owns the lawmakers who might otherwise favor phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy resources.  But one can at least imagine that at least some of these folks honestly believe that gasoline enables our energy independence, or some such.

Yes, Big Pharma and Insurance owns the lawmakers who might favor lowering drug prices, universal healthcare, etc. But one can at least imagine that these folks honestly believe that expensive drugs provide incentive for R&D that otherwise would not happen.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s just another data point to the effect that what the Fox News people broadcast about Trump has no connection to the truth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The Republican Party and the National Rifle Association are in lockstep, doing their damnedest to ensure nothing will stand between psychotic young men and the assault weapons they need to carry out the mass murder of our schoolchildren.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

What this guy said.

Everyone should boycott stores with cultural views from hell, and Home Depot is at the top of my list.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As mentioned previously, my mom is an arch-conservative, but we try not to let this get in the way of our frequent, quite amiable talks on U.S. politics.  In particular, we try to look for things that might pull the two opposing parties together.

A few months ago, it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “That ought to bring us closer,” I said, and she immediately agreed.  Of course, that was before Fox News forwarded the message: Why should we care about the Ukrainian people?  To be frank, this caught me off guard, insofar as it seemed to me that an authoritarian regime’s invading a neighboring democracy might have been worth at least a bit of concern for all us freedom-loving Americans.

Now we have the mass slaughter of our little children.  Still, we’re having one hell of a hard time agreeing that we need to do what every other developed country on the planet has done to make this cease.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Translation:

• Because philosophy is emancipating

• Because philosophy teaches good, and changes students’ lives

• Because free thinking is a danger to power

• All the above (more…)

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