Is the creator of the meme at left serious?  From this piece:

Electric Vehicle Drivetrains Only Have 20 Moving Parts Compared to Over 200 in Conventional Automobiles – This means lower maintenance costs and a radical shift in auto industry job skills.

While most of the media attention focuses on the big picture issues of how green-energy EVs are destined to help mitigate climate change by eliminating use of fossil fuels and will ultimately lower the costs of driving for consumers, there is another significant impact that deserves more attention too. That is the relative simplicity of EV powertrains and implications for lower maintenance costs.

Many EVs don’t even need a transmission. Those that do use a much simpler, single-speed system as opposed to the multi-speed gearboxes in gas-burning vehicles. For example, Tesla’s electric motors only have two moving parts and use single-speed “transmissions” with no gears. The company says its drivetrain has about 20 moving parts compared with 200 in conventional drivetrains. Similarly, the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt has 80% fewer moving parts than a comparable car with a gasoline engine.
And absent the power train, think about other entire systems that do not even exist in EVs, e.g., fuel delivery, pollution control, and exhaust.
This is why auto dealers dislike EVs; electric transportation virtually kills two profit centers: parts and service.
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Re: the meme here, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, “If we can explore colonizing Mars because we’ve ruined Earth, we can certainly fix Earth.”

The man has a point here.

What we need is the political will to put a stop to environmental collapse, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the spread of world fascism.

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As shown at left, Trump’s reverence for the world’s authoritarian figures is among his most obvious, most glaring characteristics.

It jibes with his feelings for our soldiers. i.e., that they are “suckers” and “losers.”

 

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What physicist Brian Greene says here is true.

I would be shocked if more than 10% of high school seniors in this country could name a single living scientist.

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The Biden administration enacted the strictest-ever rules for tailpipe emissions but also handed the auto industry a significant concession by giving them more time to comply, a recognition that the transition to electric cars will take longer than hoped.

This conforms with the sense most of us have about the transition away gas and diesel in favor of electric transportation: it’s informed by a warm (but not red hot) consumer demand, as well as fierce resistance from the fossil fuel industry.

Speaking of demand, I saw a bumper sticker on an older Ford Mustang the other day that read, “This car is a hybrid.  It burns gas and rubber.” The rednecks of the world are using this opportunity to ridicule the suffering on the 8 billion citizens of Earth who are experiencing floods, droughts, loss of land mass, etc.

 

 

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…. seems to have dried up.

Perhaps this is explained by the famous line that actor George C. Scott delivered in his 1970 film portrayal of “Patton”:  “American loves a winner, and America will not tolerate a loser.  The very thought of losing is hateful to America.”

After all this time, it looks like we’ve arrived at a point where his richest constituents have come to regard Trump as a loser, and by this I do not mean that he’s a lost soul, devoid of integrity and character.  That much is certainly true, but these people couldn’t possibly care less about their hero’s ethics and decency.  I mean “lower” in the sense of his flagging wealth, and that, in addition, he faces the prospect of losing his freedom as well.

It appears that big money has no further appetite for investment in a man who simply appears to be falling off a cliff.

 

 

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Most American women who live within, say, 25 miles of downtown anywhere are educated and career-oriented.  They deeply resent the Republicans’ far-right position on abortion, and oppose most of the other principles of Trumpism, e.g., white nationalism, the rejection of science, and the Big Lie.

This is why they helped Biden win by 7 million votes in 2020, a margin that can only be expected to widen in 2024.

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As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, photos like the one here are evidence that we live in a country with a) free speech and b) failed education.

Here, you’re free to believe in things like the flat Earth, chemtrails, the Big Lie, climate change as a hoax, Dr. Fauci working to destroy the U.S. economy, and Bill Gates enslaving the world’s people.

Fortunately, the rest of us are free to regard you as the nut-jobs you are, and to minimize your effect on organized society.

 

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There has been much discussion concerning the relationship between educational levels and political leanings.  There is no doubt, for instance, that one is more likely to encounter a Trump supporter running a hardware store in rural Mississippi than teaching cardiology in a university hospital in Massachusetts.

Let’s grant that there is a strong correlation here; after all, Trump says that he “loves the uneducated.” But is there causation?  Does education actively reduce the tendency to adopt Trumpist principles?

I’ll end this here and hope for a few comments that attempt to answer the matter.

 

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The numbers at left re-enforce my belief that Lincoln should have accepted the secession of the Confederacy in 1861, telling them:

So long.  Sorry your slaves will have to suffer, but it won’t be long until you, a pariah nation, simply implodes from things like lack of innovation and trading partners.  By 1870, a few small gangs of Mexican banditos will come across the border and blow you fools to bits.

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