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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Re: the meme here, a reader opines: Brandon has nothing to do with it. No politician had anything to do with it.

I agree that, generally, U.S. presidents tend to get too much credit when things go right, and too much blame when they head south.

Yet in this case it’s unclear, to me at least, how much credit Biden actually deserves for what appears an extremely robust economy, as measured by job growth, stock market valuations, inflation control, etc.

One can identify a great number of public sector investments that are aimed at rebuilding/expanding infrastructure, bringing manufacturing jobs (especially cleantech) back from overseas, expanding energy security, and post-COVID recovery.  One can add, on top of that, that these investments are simply paying off precisely as they were intended.

Many economists are surprised that so much growth was possible without, for instance, huge rates of inflation causing rising interest rates that in turn sent us into recession.  It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of a “soft landing” was something of a pipe dream.

Granted, all this is not an easy pill to swallow if you’re a Republican, praying for a meltdown going into election season, but it does seem to be the case.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

As suggested at left, of all the damage Trump has inflicted on American society, it’s possible that the greatest harm has been his bizarre, inexplicable ability to turn truth on its head.

Here’s an exercise: think back to any close election in the past, say Nixon/Kennedy or Bush/Gore, and imagine what would have happened if the ultimate loser were to have claimed that massive voter fraud was at blame, even though 60+ courts found no evidence to support that assertion.

The loser would have been ridiculed as a crackpot and “cancelled” as a credible figure.  At a very minimum, he wouldn’t have a cult following consisting of tens of millions of hateful morons.

As I’ve said elsewhere, this strange phenomenon in the early 21st Century may go away like the witch trials of the later 17th Century, i.e., disappear virtually without a trace.  A few months in the horrors of Salem, the entire set of events simply stopped, seemingly without reason or cause, and a year later, many of the town’s people doubted that it even happened.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Here’s a short video about a mall near Stockholm in which every item is second-hand.

Yes, that can mean simply “used,” as in thrift stores that offer previously owned sweaters or dinner plates.

In this case however, what it normally means is more interesting–more along the lines of “repurposed” or “upcycled.”

Here’s a quiz: What common object was donated and used to make the lamp (not the shade but the lamp itself) shown above?  Answer here.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As shown at left, there are, and probably will always be, a group of Trump supporters who accept whatever the former president tells them, regardless of how completely baseless his statements may be.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the number of people whose IQ is so low as to fall into this pit is so small that it couldn’t possibly get Trump anywhere near the White House in 2024.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

At left we see the thoughtful words of U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ).

In a world of religious fanaticism, it’s good to know that ideas like these still exist.

I’m reminded of the Stoic Epictetus who said (something like): “Don’t explain your philosophy; embody it.”

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s a theory on the meme here: the media profits tremendously from extending the life of the idea that Trump actually could be our 47th president, and it finds that lucre to be irresistible.

This an event which, if it comes to fruition, would almost certainly end American democracy, and that notion is so terrifying to most of us that we’re drawn to explore it whether we want to or not.

The media understands this with crystal clarity.

What we’re looking at here is just an extrapolation of 2015/16, where the CEO of one of our television giants admitted, “Trump is absolutely terrible for America, but he’s fantastic for us.”

Eventually, it will become obvious that, through some blend of forces, including Trump’s criminal trials, that he is far more likely to be struck by lightening than he is to win the 2024 election.  At that point, look for the media to move along to some new catastrophe in the making.

With each passing year, it becomes more about money and less about truth.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I just read that people who live at the beach are happier than the rest of us.

Hmmm.  Could the fact that the guy’s house is worth a fortune, enabling him to travel the world, play a role?  That beach folks tend to be active and healthy?

It’s anyone’s guess.

Many people believe that certain chemicals like CBDs prevent cancer.  In truth, we’ll never know, because no one’s going to shell out millions of dollars for a randomized, controlled, prospective, double-blind clinical trial, to prove the efficacy of something that is practically free.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Ten years from now, when all the criminality and stupidity associated with Trump has long since been put to bed, we will remember a few of the kingpins who conspired to help the former president overthrow the U.S. government.  We hope that the names Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and Rudy Giuliani are chief among them.

But let’s be honest here.  Is anyone really going to remember some cowardly jackass whom the voters in Oklahoma or Mississippi elected to congress, who helped Trump carry the message of the Big Lie into their states? Hardly.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on “Face the Nation,” 1/14/24: “Let me be very clear. I love my country too much to vote for Donald Trump.”

This is the precise quandary that a great many Republicans will face if Trump gets the GOP nomination: the fact that a vote for the former president requires an incredible level of ignorance and hatred, and an appalling lack of integrity, that these people, to their credit, simply don’t possess.

What precisely they will do remains an open question. Though, at this point, we’re starting to run across stories about Republicans who claim they’ll be voting for Biden.  While this may sound too good to be true, consider that Trump lost in 2020 by seven million votes, and that was before we were bombarded with news from the trials for sexual abuse, fraud, sedition, election tampering, etc.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We’re a very long way from any real honestly among GOP leaders in congress.  The price of sucking up to Trump has been–and continues to be–public affirmation that the 2020 election was rigged with massive amounts of voter fraud.

For most of us outside the cult, that’s along the lines of “Detroit is in New Mexico.” It’s an impossible piece of fiction to maintain.

 

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