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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

From this piece on climate change: “If we act together, the renewable energy transformation can be the peace project of the 21st century,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

I would simply say that we are a very, very long way from “acting together.”

I spoke with an old friend the other day who expressed her concern about environmentalism in terms of her own recycling habits.  “I put a lot of effort into this,” she said, “determining exactly what materials are acceptable, and making sure they’re clean–and now, I hear, dry.  How clean? How dry?  Am I harming the environment more by recycling than I would be simply landfilling this stuff?  Making it even more absurd is the fact that most people couldn’t care less about any of this.”

I hear you.  Yet giving up is no solution.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

These people know they’re playing to a huge audience of hateful morons, and, I have to admit, they’re damn good at it.

I’m reminded of the scene in the 1974 film “Blazing Saddles” where African-American actor Cleavon Little is assigned to become the new sheriff in a rural, and thoroughly racist western town.  As he begins a speech, addressing the all-white townspeople for the first time, he hears the clicking of numerous guns being cocked, and he realizes that he’s about to be shot.

In response, he pulls out his own gun, pushes it hard, up under his jaw, grabs his shirt with his free hand, and says in a deep, menacing voice, “Don’t anybody move or the n***** gets it.” The people are flummoxed, enabling him to escape back into his office, where he says to himself, “You are so talented.  And these people are sooooo dumb.”

In the real world here, we face a tough problem: this will only get worse as time passes.  There will always be news items that politicians can use to whip angry fools into a frenzy.  As the levels of ignorance grows, so do the skill of the demagogues.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s a short video that addresses that very issue, in which Trump-endorsed state rep. candidate Jacky Eubanks says that if it came to a vote in the MI legislature, she would vote to make birth control illegal.

“You can’t have a successful society in the absence of the Christian moral order,” she says, expressing her contempt for the United States Constitution and the many explicit statements from the Founding Fathers.

As I’m fond of saying, there must be a limit to this insanity, but I’ll be the first to admit that I have precisely zero evidence that this is correct.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Over the next few months, Madison Cawthorn’s name will fade into obscurity. That’s good news, especially given that he is a monster.

Here’s a video that lays all this out.

In the 233 years since the U.S. Congress was set into place, was he the very worst person ever to serve?  As shown, that’s a tough question, given that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are still serving, Dennis Hastert paid hush money to little boys whom he molested, etc.

Having said that, if you check out the video, you’ll have to agree that it’s a close call.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

For my money, the real point to be made here isn’t that Democrats are angels, or even that the Republicans are inveterate criminals.  Rather, it’s that, by the time all the justice actions against the Trump administration are taken, the 45th presidency will have all these counts shattered by an enormous margin, a record that will stand, we must hope, for all time.  (Note that this chart was created in early 2019, in the middle of the Trump presidency.)

The main driver here, of course, is the coup attempt/insurrection.  The number of people who conspired to overthrow the U.S. government could go well into the hundreds, especially if all the fraudulent electors are charged.

Once some of these people are charged and start flipping on one another, this is going to become red hot.  I can’t wait.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Criminally charging, trying, convicting, and incarcerating those whose actions result in mass shootings will never put an end to the epidemic of gun violence in the United States, but at least it’s a start.

Here’s a guy who gave his mentally ill son the AR-15 he used to kill four people at a Waffle House in Tennessee; he’ll be going away for up to three years, following his sentencing in June.

Our nation is crying out for a real solution, i.e., common sense gun laws, but we live in a sick society where such a remedy is not possible.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Uh, could it be corruption between the NRA and Congress?
A reader remarks: I hear there are 1400 NRA lobbyists in or around Congress.

(more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Sorry, but this is completely normal.  We live in a country in which mass shootings are so common that most of them don’t even make the national news.

The toxic mixture of hate, ignorance, and the corruptive effect of money from the gun lobby on our lawmakers have made this, at least for now, a totally insoluble problem.

There is no scenario in which Republicans pass laws that have the remotest effect on reining in the proliferation of guns, even the weapons of war.

Fortunately, there is a scenario in which progressive voters remove the greedy cowards in congress who are sacrificing our lives for their seats in office.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I’m not sure that the complete erosion of women’s rights is a fait accompli under Republican control, but even at best, a GOP-dominant Congress is a horrible scenario for American females.

It certainly raises the issue of the direction that women will take in the 2022 and 2024 elections.  Sure, there are the so-called “women for Trump,” who will vote for anyone who promises to punish immigrants, reject science, and all that other good stuff.  But how many can there possibly be?

Most women are angry, and infuriated people are voters who are highly motivated  to extinguish the source of their rage.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Unfortunately, social media is littered with sponsored political posts, some of which use the guise of market research to engage the reader.

Here, Senate hopeful Rick Scott asks in a “LIVE POLL”: Should America be more like Florida?  In Joe Biden’s America, Florida is one of the only places where your freedoms and rights have not been stripped away.

Luckily, we live in a country whose citizenry roundly rejects most of what’s happening in Florida.  We don’t want the rejection of science, the abandonment of environmental responsibility, the banning of adoption, the proliferation of weapons of war, white supremacy, and the regulation of teachers with respect to their dealing with matters of politics and sex.

Florida is a moral hellhole, but, I’m happy to report, its cultural ethos will have great difficulty spreading outside of the American South.

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