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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

A friend who despises Trump as much as I do once lamented, “But he always wins; he always finds a way out.”

I responded, “Undefeated people are always undefeated–until they’re defeated.”

I hope the contents of this article in Vanity Fair are exactly correct and unexaggerated.

The author begins: He’s also facing 29 lawsuits though it’s the investigations that could land him in prison he’s probably most worried about. 

Let’s hope this moves along quickly.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m afraid I have some bad news for Mr. Faulkner.

Racism is proportional to ignorance, and we have a bumper crop of the latter.

We don’t just dabble in ignorance, we bathe in it.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Cruz isn’t an idiot, but he sure does pander to idiots.

Another fine example of demand creating its own supply.  As long as there are people stupid enough to believe this, there will be people like Cruz ready to feed them the crap they so desperately crave.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It’s unclear if the late astronomer Carl Sagan was referring to any specific event in history in his famous quote here.

It’s certainly one of the factors that keeps Trumpism in place.  Clearly, there are many people who, if they were psychologically able, would reject all this as total malicious crap.

Imagine if we could go back in time to 2015 and somehow look forward to the present date.  What if we were able to provide voters in 2016 a list of all the lies Trump has told since, all the criminal acts, the degradation of our nation on the world stage, the environmental devastation, the tax breaks for billionaires, the extortion of the Ukraine, the dishonest and incompetent butchering of the pandemic response, the incitement to insurrection, and the attempt to tamper with the election results? (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing many hundreds–perhaps a thousand–of cleantech business plans.  I would say, to be charitable, that maybe one in 20 holds any water.  Most of the others are asinine, and some are fraudulent.

What makes this interesting is that it’s sometimes unclear whether the author is a crackpot or a fraud, i.e., whether he believes his story, or not.  (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

As a society, Americans don’t seem to be too concerned about (or even aware of) the corruption that big money is injecting into our law-making on a daily basis; otherwise, we wouldn’t have the U.S. Supreme Court decision “Citizens United,” granting corporations the freedom to spend as much as they wish to control the outcome of our elections.

As shown here, almost 2000 years ago, philosopher, historian, biographer,  and essayist Plutarch had already experienced this exact phenomenon, and saw how destructive it was. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

So true. Imagine a world, as described below, in which guns were treated more like cars. Geiko, All State, Progressive, all promise to save you 15% on your car insurance, and they’re constantly branching out to other areas: motorcycles, home-owners, and so forth, so perhaps they’d want to enter the gun owner liability insurance biz.

Suppose a guy wants to buy a gun and walk into a grocery store and use it immediately upon purchase.  Since there are no laws regarding background checks, he can do exactly that. But in this case, the clerk in the gun shop says, “The weapon is $250; ain’t she a beauty?  And, of course, you’ll need $3,500 for your first year’s insurance. Will that be cash or credit?”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Who isn’t moved by a beautiful sunset?

Like so many young people entering the business world in my twenties, I shortly became consumed, and, in a weird way, ultimately “addicted” to the pressure to perform.  I asked my first administrative assistant to buzz my phone as the sun was going down, just because I believed that taking a short break and beholding something as incredible as the sun setting in the California sky would improve my level of thinking and creativity.

She and I would watch for a few moments as the sun passed beneath the horizon, to the explosion of colors that it afforded us, before we both got back to work.

Whether the sunset on Mars pictured here holds the same level of beauty is a judgement call, but in any case, it more than makes up for that by provoking our sense of wonder.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Haven’t we all been through too much of this, especially knowing that it’s only going to get worse?

If you were with one of your kids, and you’d just placed an order, then noticed this Neanderthal behind you, what would you do?  My first move would be to say, “Forget about the order ma’am, we’re going to find some place that doesn’t feature possible/probable/who-knows mass murderers.”

Because of the wanton corruption in the U.S. Congress, the concept of making Americans even a tiny bit safer is unthinkable.  It’s possible that the NRA as an institution may be fading into the past, but the gun ethos that it’s left in its wake will live on and on.

Given that, remember this: We vote with our wallets.  And I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend a nickel in a store where thugs like this are allowed.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As pointed out here, news rating are significantly down since Trump left office, and anyone can guess why: Trump brought viewers from both ends of the spectrum.  Progressives had a morbid sense of curiosity as to what vile, cruel, or stupid thing Trump would say or do next.  Conservatives watch Fox News (or worse), a channel that produces alternative “news,” designed to make Trump–and his supporters–very happy. (more…)

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