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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here we have the words of Monica Crowley, political commentator, lobbyist, and Fox News contributor.

It seems, however, that she faces a few problems with her remarks here:

The whole world watched the insurrection on live television.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for inciting the event.

Just a few days ago, a judge in Colorado found that Trump had, in fact, incited the violence on January 6th.

The U.S. justice system is aggressively prosecuting Trump for his leadership in an effort to overturn the 2020 election and election interference in Georgia.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

MIT linguistics professor emeritus Noam Chomsky belongs in the same class as Bertrand Russell: a small group of extremely intelligent people whose contribution to society is a blend of a penetrating understanding of the world, married with a profoundly humanistic philosophy.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Really?

Where does the energy come from to spin the resort?

Someone thinks they’ll get more energy out than they put in?

I’m reminded of a business plan for generating electricity using hydrokinetics I reviewed long ago, whose author told me, “Think of it as a river in a box.”

I tried to explain that he could not get more energy out of the box than he put into it to get the water moving, and therefore this was theoretically impossible, but he wasn’t buying it.  I told him I had something burning in the kitchen as an excuse to politely end the call.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Ancient Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes made a good point here, and it would be easy to ascribe this as an explanation of the support of Donald Trump.

Giving the matter a little thought, however, we see that Americans’ IQs haven’t fallen over the last 10 years.   The answer must be found elsewhere.

My theory is that hate and stupidity have the capacity to lie dormant over vast expanses of time, only to be awakened by some external circumstance. Here we have 70 million people who were very quiet, until Trump arrived and gave them permission to express their feelings of white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, the rejection of science, etc.

Can we put the evil genie back in the bottle?  We’re about to find out.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business
The Union of Concerned Scientists writes: Will hydrogen be a climate solution? Not if fossil fuel interests get their way. With billions of taxpayer dollars set to flow, the Biden administration must set rigorous hydrogen standards to defend against a perpetuation of fossil fuel industry harms.
I notice that famed energy analyst Jigar Shah made a similar remark from his post in the DoE.
Frankly, I’m surprised by this.  I continue to believe that the “electrification of everything” in energy and transportation is the way to go, and that hydrogen is essentially a distraction.
The generation of hydrogen is inefficient, fuel cells are expensive, storage is difficult, and the delivery infrastructure is virtually nonexistent.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The meme here reminds me of all the people who say, of the Democrats’ platform, “It’s not enough to say you’re not Trump and offer no further benefits.” To which I’ve always replied, “I’m not so sure of that.”

In the case of Biden, if you’re paying attention and taking in impartial reporting, you know that he really is accomplishing a great deal on behalf of the American people.  But even if that weren’t the case, he isn’t a criminal sociopath who openly admits that he plans to subvert our democracy if reelected.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Here’s a conversation with some readers:

Reader A: Musk’s behavior and comments are among the reasons I will not ever buy a Tesla.
Reader B: I have heard a lot of people say this, and I know people who canceled orders as a result of Musk’s behavior. But some who commented on the original article declared these mere anecdotes. My point was, he is impacting the company. They prefer to believe he isn’t, but that’s living in a fantasy world where every Musk decision is really a sort of genius we just can’t understand.
Reader C: The day he said “I forgot you’re still alive” to Bernie Sanders I knew I would never give him a cent.
Me: First, let’s look at the headline, and try to understand what it means relative to Tesla’s financial viability.  Their market cap isn’t plunging; their market share is, which may be expected as the entire host of traditional auto OEMs convert their fleets to electric.
To the point you folks are making, there are many people who simply won’t support such a hateful person, and I’m one of them. It would not surprise me to watch “X,” Tesla, etc. take huge hits over the coming years.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

From National Public Radio:

The federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump is coming into sharper focus, as prosecutors assert he is responsible for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and offer new clues about how they intend to prove it.

The case set for trial in Washington, D.C., in March accuses Trump of leading a conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election and deprive millions of voters from having their ballots count. More than 140 law enforcement officers suffered injuries after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, disrupting the peaceful transfer of power. (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As all politicians know, language is a powerful thing, and there is no law that says that the meaning of words can’t be twisted so as to favor a certain person, party, etc.

Aristotle wrote his book “On Rhetoric” on the art of persuasion, somewhere during the 4th century BCE.  We’ve been at this for a long time.

When the phrase “fake news” was coined soon after Trump was elected in 2016, it originally applied to the torrent of lies that were spewing forth from the president.  Unfortunately, Trump was able to subvert this to mean the precise opposite, i.e., everything that was coming from the mainstream media.

As expressed in the meme here, Republicans have redefined the word “radical” to apply to everyone with even moderately progressive ideas: common-sense gun laws, a woman’s right to an abortion, quality public education, etc.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Of the many things that make another Trump presidency most dangerous is the fact that he’s completely open about his intention to use the justice system to assemble an authoritarian nation in which rules with an iron fist.

Where most people around the world are terrified of this scenario, some welcome it, and demand that it be put into place.

I wonder where I am on the list of “vermin” to be “rooted out.”

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