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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Of course, Donald Trump wasn’t the first to exact revenge against his political opponents.  And Nixon, with the infamous “Enemies List” may not have been the first either.

It was, however, Trump who made this a overt, standard practice.  And what an effective one it has been.

In fact, the only reason he has any relevance in U.S. politics at all (other than being on his way to become the first U.S. president to go to prison) is that GOP congresspeople are terrified of what Trump will do to them if they do not whole-heartedly support him.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Our society exerts almost no effort to make teaching an attractive option for the people who are best qualified to excel in this profession.

As a result, our classrooms are overcrowded, ensuring that the individual student get as little one-on-one attention as possible.

Only though this method can we systematically reduce our educational standards to the point that our voters are among the most ignorant in the developed world.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

While Robert Reich’s point shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, I attribute the 40% of the vote that Le Pen received on her softening some of her positions.

According to something I read, this time her platform wasn’t so much about authoritarianism and hate, but rather about helping the less-affluent French to deal with the high cost of living – an apparent weakness of Macron.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Regarding my recent post Banning Books that Make Us Uncomfortable, I’m with the guy who asks, “Having you ever noticed that the people who ban books are not well regarded by history?”

It really is that simple. If you don’t believe me, try this simple test:

1) Picture in your mind a specific event, like the photo here, that symbolizes the banning of books.

2) Assign a date to it, as to when it may have taken place in world history.

3) Add 20 years to that date.

4) Ask yourself if there is any conceivable scenario in which those people emerged on the right side of whatever issue they were dealing with at the time.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The lady here presents a number of excellent points on the harm that banning books is having on young people.

Her point that the practice erodes the trust young people have for adults is particularly interesting.  I’m not sure how much of that actually exists at this point.  In my observation, young people are reeling with the idea that we baby-boomers are in the process of leaving them a dying planet, and they’re not too happy about that.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Is progress being made in the prosecution of the Trump Organization? I don’t know, but I have to say that the pressure that the judge is putting on the former president is pretty feeble.

If Trump’s net worth is $5 billion, a daily fine of $10K will take 500,000 days, or 1370 years, to become exhausted.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

There is no real surprise here.  These are terrible people who have no sense of shame or personal integrity.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When he was a preteen, my son used to be fascinated by the “Darwin Awards,” bestowed unto those who, by virtue of their dying by their own blatant stupidity, went to their doom before contributing genes of lesser intelligence into the overall pool.

“Dad! Dad!” Jake would beg, “When are this year’s winners going to be announced?”  “Patience,” I’d reply.  “I think they’re due soon.”

Here’s a true story from that year’s victor:

A young man thought it was a good idea to go bungee jumping off a bridge with a cable around his ankles that is made of steel, rather than some sort of elastic.  At a few hundred feet beneath the surface you dived from, his body is now doing ~250 MPH, and the cable is fully extended.  The cable snaps off his feet, and the rest of him continues, plunging to his death.

The story of the guy who came in second place was good as well, but I have to admit it really wasn’t quite as impressive at the first.

The whole thing became an annual father-son event that lasted quite a few years.  I wish I could honestly report that we were talking about Plato and Socrates, but we weren’t.

As suggested in the NPR report above, there is a case to be made that today’s Trump supporters are collectively taking themselves out.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The fellow on the right is the “Pope” of the Russian Orthodox church, and has blessed Putin for the war against Ukraine, essentially blessing mass murder, war crimes, and genocide.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

You might have thought that, with all the evidence of a conspiracy to overthrow the government, at least some of the people involved would start to tell the truth, rather than continue to block all progress.

But you’d be wrong.

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