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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The woman who cuts my hair is one of tens of millions of Americans who believe that Joe Biden is senile, and thus unfit to be U.S. president.  I run into this constantly, as there is an entire “news” industry that is in place largely to promote this notion, or whatever the MAGA crowd’s message of the month happens to be.

It seems to me that what viewers of programming at places like Fox News and Newsmax are seeing are clips taken out of context that make the president appear to be mentally incompetent. When he’s quoted by any of the world’s other   journalistic organizations, he appears to do pretty well.  He’s not Churchill or Obama, but he seems to get by fairly decently.

Since my mom watches Newsmax, I sometimes tune it in to see what’s it’s like. I happened to be watching it the other night just as they were introducing Biden’s speech on Israel, Hamas, Palestine, Russia, and Ukraine.  I noted that they prepared the viewer to see a horror show, a bumbling old fool who can barely string together a few coherent words without losing his train of thought.

Less than three minutes into the speech, it was clear, even to them, they had gotten this entirely wrong.  Again, Biden isn’t Ronald Reagan, but it was abundantly clear to everyone that he was doing a perfectly fine job.  How did Newsmax address this debacle?

“We’re going to cut away from this speech at this point…..” — at which time, with no explanation, they went back to the talking heads discussing how none of the world’s military challenges would have happened if Donald Trump were president, and how he’s under attack by the Deep State, and his political opponents who have weaponized the Justice Department.

I roared in laughter, having witnessed with my own eyes and ears a “news” organization that has absolutely zero journalistic integrity.  I may have been the only Newsmax viewer at the time who had this experience, and perhaps breaking down into tears at the pathetic state of the American news consumer would have been the more appropriate response.

It’s hard to believe we’ve sunk to this.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

It’s no secret that Americans have reached a point where we can argue about anything, regardless of how seemingly noncontroversial.

Perhaps the reaction against wokeism is the perfect example.  Evidently, about one-third of the U.S. electorate disputes the belief that all human beings are worth our concern, and have established an entire political movement accordingly.

At left we see what German-born American historian and political philosopher Hannah Arendt had to say on the subject.

The beginning of the end?

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Question:

The Wall Street Journal Reports:

Livestock accounts for as much as a fifth of global emissions, mostly from cows. They burp methane, a greenhouse gas, and their pastures and feed can cause deforestation. Besides fossil fuels, few things do more to drive climate change.

Curbing emissions, is no piece of cake. Is farming covered by the Biden administration’s methane fee or by Europe’s emissions-trading system?

Answer: Can be found at Clean Energy Answers.

Relevance: Politics plays a key role in determining emission regulations.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

Here’s an article entitled: “Parents of San Diego Unified (the public school system in the southernmost city in the western U.S.)  stress over school holiday schedules.”

It begins: “A lot of parents are stressing. What am I going to do about childcare,” said Jennifer Sumber.

First of all, the second sentence needs to be rewritten: “What am I going to do about childcare?” asked Jennifer Sumber.

Is that an important change?  Of course not.
But how important is the reporting about the “stress” caused by any conceivable imposition made by a school system’s failing to coordinate its students’ Thanksgiving vacation schedules?

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

It’s fine to be a conservative economist like Thomas Sowell, but it would be even better if he didn’t make gross mistakes like this.

From the mid-1930s through the start of the 1980s, the U.S. public sector, with the help of high tax rates imposed on the very richest of Americans, helped build a well-educated and extremely prosperous middle class. This included not only white guys returning from the war, but also expanding opportunity for women, immigrants and nonwhite workers.

Sadly, this eventually gave way to Ronald Reagan and “trickle-down economics,” but the entire half-century event stands out in world history as a shining example of what government can do to enhance the lives of the better part of an entire population.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The author of this meme doesn’t understand too much about the world, e.g., how anti-democratic forces around the globe are working to unseat us, how rogue states are working to build nuclear weapons, and how terrorists forces threaten us all.

Ironically, the meme mentions taxes.  Try to imagine what our defense budget would be without allies to share the burden of deterring military threats, conventional and nuclear, from tyrannical governments with criminally insane leadership around the planet.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Given the fragility of the world’s balance of power, anything’s possible for the U.S. and global economy.

One thing that’s highly unlikely, however, is that Tucker Carlson knows anything more about it than you or I.

When we come across ads like this, we are compelled to feel sorry for the level of intelligence of the common American.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics
Ultra-right-wing Hillsdale “College” asks the question at left, and writes:
Do you think that the Constitution of “We the People” is being replaced by an elite and unaccountable administrative state?
Do we live in an era of bureaucratic despotism, ruled by an administrative state that bypasses the Constitution, rejects the separation of powers, and replaces the rule of law with regulations?
Hillsdale College wants your opinion about what’s happening in our nation through the National Referendum on the Administrative State.
Your input as an informed patriot is needed immediately because our country faces a constitutional crisis. Please take a few minutes to fill out the National Referendum by clicking on the link below, and let us know your thoughts.
I think there are very few Americans who believe that “justice is blind,” and that everyone, rich, poor, black, white, etc. is treated equally under the law.
Donald Trump, to take an example, is literally the only U.S. citizen who could have possibly been caught by the FBI with hundreds of boxes of classified government documents and not been subject to immediate arrest and detention.
Ironically, what these people are implying is the opposite, that people like Trump are treated more aggressively by law enforcement as part of the “administrative state.”  That’s a sick joke.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Fortunately, only a small percentage of Americans believe this crap, and it’s fewer every day.

By the time Trump’s criminal trials are concluded, especially the one focusing on Trump’s attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, these numbers will be microscopic.

Of course, there will be people who can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, but almost everyone here (and around the world) will come to understand that the election was not rigged, and that Trump lied about this, just like he did 30,000+ other things.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

At left we find an interesting perspective.

There seems to be no doubt that the world is increasingly a) divided, and b) more and more willing to inflict great harm on people on the other side.

As has been throughout history, most of this is driven by religion, i.e., the inane notion that my God is better than your God, but there is a secular side to this as well.  By this I mean tribalism in all its forms: racism, xenophobia, the demonization of wokeism.

I’m anything but an expert on the Israel/Palestine issue, but it strikes me that there are cultural and historical differences that are at least as powerful a driving force as theology per se.

From the perspective of a progressive American who is reading about this from the safety of his home on the other side of the globe, this seems like childish bull****.  If you saw your kids bully each other like this, you’d simply tell them to knock it off.

The stupidity of this whole mess is amplified by the fact that it’s happening in the midst of things like climate change and the other existential threats to human civilization.

On top of that, I quote American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski: “We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.”

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