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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Not everyone grooves on California; we all know that.  The people with the trailer here are a good example of this, but I’m not sure the world’s 4th largest economy is going to miss these folks too much.

What they may have missed is that most of this country’s innovation comes from the Golden State.  Whether that means IT, communications technology, or life sciences, if you have it in Missouri today, there’s an excellent chance it started in California several years ago.

Americans and people all over the globe are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives, and precious few of these advancements came from Alabama.

And if this applies to the pragmatic aspects of  our lives, it applies in spades to things like the mitigation of environmental collapse.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
Here’s a brief conversation about Kamala Harris’ statement at left between an old friend (David) and me that I thought readers might find interesting:
David:  Is that a dangling duality or somethin’, girl? You never got to the “on the other hand” part, which I was awaiting with bated breath. Your words make as much sense as the old quip:  What’s the difference between a duck?
Craig: Did she say something at the end of this? Or did she excuse herself to go potty? Highly accomplished people like her can normally complete their thoughts.
As a federal prosecutor, did she commonly summarize her position against a defendant with, “And thus the people think he’s a bad guy because he, oh, whatever. And who cares anyway?”  I can’t imagine that this would have worked.
David:  She said some more words but never completed that string of nonsense. Full text here.
Craig: How strange, especially given how easy it would have been to say something even semi-intelligent, like, “Yet democracy falls apart in the absence of good public education.”  Or: “But sometimes demagogues come along and temporarily subvert democracy.”  I could write one of these a minute for an hour, and never even slow down.  I’m sure you could too.
Also, people have been known to lose their train of thought. Happens to the best of us.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I heard an interview with a university English professor the other day, and was surprised and dismayed to learn that she believes that most of the bad grammar we run across in our daily lives is actually the natural and legitimate evolution from a certain set off standards to another.

As an example, she said that the word “unique” has come to mean “rare,” as in “she has a fairly unique talent.”  Really?  What’s the matter with pointing out that it’s a grammatical error to qualify the word “unique?”  A thing is either unique or it’s not.

Similarly, the sentence at the above left shows a disagreement of subject and verb.  “Opportunities” is plural, so we need the plural “there are,” not the singular  “there is.”

I’m worried that the rules of grammar are evaporating in front of our eyes, as this particular error has leapt into our language over just the last five years.  For better or worse, I pay close attention to the type and frequency of mistakes like these, and I’m quite certain that this is a very recent thing.

IMO, it’s far harder on the ears than “fairly unique.”  Even elementary school kids wouldn’t say, “There is two dogs barking.”

Not yet, any way.  Again, I’m concerned about our grammatical future.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

This nicely dressed fellow says, “I’ll stick with my gas-powered car,” and he’s at liberty to do that.

What he won’t be able to do, however, is to prevent the end of gas and diesel power trains in favor of electric.  Countries all around the globe are forbidding the sale of new fossil fuels-based cars and trucks after a certain date.  And for most of the citizens of those countries, that date can’t come soon enough.

I’d love to know what entity is behind the disparagement of EVs.  I suspect Big Oil, but I have no proof.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Like many lifelong Republicans, my mom is a reluctant Trump supporter. She disapproves of a great deal of the former president’s behavior, but, like many in her position, couldn’t bring herself to vote for a Democrat under any circumstances.

I asked her why it seems that Trump’s slipping in the poles, and now looks poised to lose in November.  She explained that, for some reason, he was fairly quiet immediately following the assassination attempt, and that this, temporarily, made him appear dignified.  Recently, however, he’s gone back to the name-calling and bullying for which he’s best known, which is anything but dignified.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Senior energy analyst Glenn Doty sent me the meme here; clearly he makes a good point.

FWIW, this is my rebuttal to those who hope that Trump simply gets hit by a bus or suffers a fatal heat attack. The end of his physical presence will not rid us of the idea that it’s acceptable that a traitor and pathological liar can be a U.S. president.

Success here means showing all Americans, and the entire rest of the world, wherever they may be on the political spectrum, that this nation has permanently gotten out of the business of electing sociopathic criminals to be the most powerful person on Earth.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I seriously doubt that hypocritical Christians are driving people away from the religion as a whole.  Yes, the evangelicals may be slightly more fanatical and hateful than they’ve ever been in the past, but this whole phenomenon has been around for 1500+ years, and it really hasn’t changed too much over that period of time.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I heard a captivating radio interview today with journalist Victoria St. Martin reporting for Inside Climate News, who is covering the upshot of a “heat-dome” event in the summer of 2021 in the northern part of Oregon, a region of the United States in which normal temperatures for that time of year are mild in the low 80s.  During this period lasting almost a week, afternoon highs ranged between 108 and 116.  The heat was so intense that cable car metal melted, asphalt buckled, and 72 lives were lost to heat stroke.

Obviously, climate change is making certain parts of the world increasingly inhabitable, but for some reason, the folks associated with this tragedy didn’t simply write this off with an “oh well, let’s move on.”  Rather, they’re suing Big Oil for causing these fatalities, and for other damages, which are expected to reach $1.5 billion.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

As suggested here, the rest of the world thinks that the United States’ demand that it proliferate guns throughout its society qualifies us as completely insane.  Hard to deny that.

The real issue, of course, is that this conversation is not happening at the level of gun dealers, but between the National Rifle Association and our lawmaking bodies.  It’s not about a few thousand dollars; it’s about hundreds of billions of dollars.

And the results are the bullet-riddled bodies of our children, as if U.S. capitalism could possibly care.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Did God give you your love of other animals, or was it part of your basic nature?

 

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