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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

The concept in the meme here is an extremely popular one in modern-day American culture.  There’s a problem here, however, and it’s not that uneducated are deplorable human beings; it’s that they’re far more likely to accept utter bullshit as true.

Now, those who believe that the Earth is flat pose very little danger to the rest of us.  But unfortunately, not all BS is similarly benign.

People who believe that:

… The 2020 presidential election was stolen tend to storm Capitol buildings and vote for sociopaths to lead our country.

… Vaccinations are government plots to enslave us, extend pandemics and make them more deadly by spreading the disease and clogging our hospitals.

… Climate change is a hoax making it harder for policy-makers to mitigate it.

Moreover, there are reasons that have nothing to do with society and everything to do with the individual himself.  College creates people who are more likely to be readers and museum-goers.  Education fosters intellectual curiosity that most people find richly rewarding as they make their way through life.

College isn’t for everyone, but I think all young people should be encouraged to give it a go.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In a world awash in bad news, the U.S. midterm elections contained a great number of bright spots, the most significant among them that every single candidate who ran on a platform of a stolen election lost.

Americans appear to understand that our elections are based on highly secure and reliable processes, and that those who claim otherwise are liars.

It’s possible that this horrible Big Lie phenomenon has come and gone, just like the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The Reverend nailed this one.

There are no limits to which Trump won’t go to make prosecuting him more difficult.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability
National Public Radio has an ongoing quest to find stories of “Unsung Heroes,” which I would summarize as people who magically occur in others’ lives and make an amazingly positive impact.  NPR, as usual, puts it better, because they’re better writers than I could ever hope to be: “People who made a warm connection on an otherwise cold day.”
Linked above is one that my wife and I happened to have tripped across on the way to the grocery store the other day. I hope you’ll take two minutes and check it out; I know you’ll be as blown away as we were.
We all have stories like this in our lives, though maybe they happened in moments when we, in our frantic pursuit of what we desperately hoped was to come for us next, let them inadvertently fly past, completely unnoticed.
Here’s one of mine: When I was in high school, I had a friend two years older. He was tall and athletic, a fantastic rock guitarist, a totally effortless chick magnet like none of my other friends had ever seen, and patiently taught me to drive a stick shift.  By contrast, I was a shortish nerd, wearing heavy black plastic glasses, taking classical piano lessons, a guy who drew virtually no looks from pretty girls.
A full 50 years later, we reconnected, and I happened to mention, “Wonderful to hear from you.  You know, you helped me grow up.”
He wrote back immediately, “I thought we helped each other grow up.”
That’s grace. That’s class.
If you’ve had a similar experience, please leave a comment.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Americans have dismissed the MAGA crowd and the Big Lie, and this rejection is likely to get even fiercer as time goes by.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Republican party remains a powerful force, and its platform is extremely right wing:

pro-gun, pro-voter repression, pro-white nationalism, pro-fossil fuels

anti-abortion, anti-education, anti-environmental regulation/climate change mitigation, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ, anti-justice for Trump

This shows absolutely no sign of abating.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I was chatting with an old friend yesterday, a retired internal medicine physician, who brought up the subject of the extremely large and ever-growing gulf between rich and poor, how it’s ruining American society.

As we see at left, this is not a new concept in human civilization. Moreover, there doesn’t appear to be a remedy, insofar as the rich own the policy-making processes, and guess what, they seem to want to hold on to their wealth and power and have little interest in having it redistributed.

I responded that I had seen this coming when I was in high school.  I told my friends that we seem to be living in the end days of free-market capitalism.

The struggle was a mighty one, with organized labor fighting hard for a long while between the end of the Enlightenment and the last few decades, but that battle appears to be over, and corporate greed has become insatiable.  The winners have won and the losers have lost.

Maybe I’m wrong.  It has happened before.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

In the field of marketing, “positioning” means creating an association in the prospect’s mind between what you’re promoting and something that’s already in the prospect’s mind.  This can be a positive message (“Drink responsibly”) or a negative (“Renewable energy mitigates global warming”).

No one’s asking for my advice on how to market monotheistic religions, but if they were, I doubt I’d position them against reason and science.  Almost everyone has a positive association with rationality and the amazing array of benefits that science bestows upon our society.

I love the one in the lower left.  Common sense is a bad thing? Really?

Here’s another way to look at this: If you’re a church, do you really want a congregation of QAnon idiots, who, in addition to being very stupid, may be incredibly dangerous?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

In the absence of Fox News and the other far-right “news” sources, the meme here would have some real strength.

People would care that great progress was being made in terms of job growth, infrastructure, education, healthcare,  international relations, and environmental responsibility.

They would resent that the former president did virtually nothing except enrich himself and cement himself in place for a second term.

They would demand justice for a man who’s clearly guilty of several different felonies.

But, no, Biden’s approval rating is hovering below 42%, and Trump is running for president in 2024.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Another pearl from Pope Francis.

If the atheist intellectuals, like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christoher Hitchens had their way, they would eradicate religion, largely for the role it plays in fomenting violence.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

More people every day believe that there is solid evidence that the former president committed crimes.

That Trump hasn’t been arrested and charged is most certainly not for lack of evidence, but for fear that such actions on the part of the Justice Department will be perceived as a massive political attack.

IMO, there is no way around this.  We either anger his supporters, or we forfeit any claim to being a nation of laws.

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