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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Yes, we are indeed about to find out.

If the week since the inauguration is predictive of the coming months and years, one has to expect that Trump’s agenda, whose only true beneficiary is the president himself, will soon render everything this country formerly stood for completely void–certainly anything that formerly addressed the welfare of the common person.

Needless to say, we brought this on ourselves.  Through some process invisible to people like you and me, Trump managed to make the felony indictments associated with his attempting to overthrow the U.S. government, inciting an insurrection, and stealing classified documents — all simply disappear.

We want to know how precisely any of this could have happened.  Merrick Garland couldn’t have done a better job?  We had a justice system.  How could it have simply disappeared?

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

I can’t prove that Anthony Fauci acted honorably during the pandemic, but the allegations against him that air on Fox News seem a bit unlikely, don’t they?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As previously mentioned, I subscribe to “A Word a Day,” not just for the vocab shot in the arm, but for its “Thought for Today.” Check this out:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I will remember that what has brought us up from savagery is a loyalty to truth, and truth cannot emerge unless it is subjected to the utmost scrutiny — will you not agree that a society which has lost sight of that, cannot survive? – Billings Learned Hand, American jurist and philosopher (27 Jan 1872-1961)

To answer the question, Yes, I will agree.

This may be the greatest insult to our society brought about by Trumpism, i.e., that the majority of American voters don’t seem to care that most of what comes out of the president’s mouth is clearly false.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The reader who sent me this answers the question: “I voted for Trump.”

Not a bad response, but, as we’re all aware, it’s not always true.  Trump’s support base includes a small but not insignificant number of extremely well educated people who, IMO, have sets of moral principles that are deeply defective.

To my sadness and astonishment, there are highly educated people who don’t care that the environment is collapsing, that our educational system lies in ruins, that Trump’s cabinet picks are not based on merit, but on their loyalty to the president, that the nation has abandoned rule of law for the wealthy and powerful, and the U.S. government is controlled by a handful of greedy billionaires.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As I was explaining to my mom last night on the phone, Trump supporters may be happy with what they see coming out of the White House, but the rest of the world is simply horrified.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Anyone wondering why Borowitz is considered a national treasure need only read this brief column.

Borowitz Report—The president of Mexico announced on Monday that her country was building a wall along its northern border to keep newly-pardoned January 6 insurrectionists from pouring across it. “The United States is opening its prisons and releasing its most heinous criminals,” President Claudia Sheinbaum declared. “This leaves us with no choice but to build a wall and make the United States pay for it.”

Describing the January 6 convicts, she said, “When the United States sends its people, they’re sending people who have a lot of problems. They’re sending people who riot, vandalize government property, and attack law enforcement. They’re not sending their best.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I’m sure Stephen King was sincere in what he said here, but mightn’t this all work out OK?

Sure, the United States has decommitted to helping the planet avoid environmental collapse, and has consolidated power in the executive branch, establishing a criminal sociopath as its absolute ruler.  Yes, we’re making our educational system as ineffective as we possibly can, while violating domestic and international laws with our treatment of immigrants. Moreover, we’re doing everything we can to promote hate, marginalization and exclusion among our people.

These truly are terrible times for the U.S., and thus, indirectly, the rest of the world.  Yet hope springs eternal.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Many of history’s great scientists, Einstein in particular, remarked on our fragile position on Earth, and cautioned us to be kind to one another. Carl Sagan was another vocal proponent of the unity of humankind.  At left is what the 20th Century intellectual giant Buckminster Fuller had to say on the subject.

It’s worth noting that,  in contrast, none of our most intelligent ancestors said, “Ya know what?  Screw other people. If they can’t fend for themselves and make a success of themselves under capitalism, let them starve, or at least, suffer.”

A friend of mine has a huge client in Helsinki, and he asked me the other day if I was aware that Finland was perennially at the top or near of the World Happiness Rankings.  I smiled, and replied that I happen to write about this frequently on 2GreenEnergy.com.  I went on to explain that there are several key differences between that region of the world and the U.S., but that two of them are major.  Scandinavians pay higher taxes, but:

1) They derive huge benefits in terms of free college education and healthcare.  They don’t have people who live without education simply because they can’t afford tuition, and they don’t have people dying of treatable diseases because they don’t have health insurance.

2) They live with a sense of community that is extremely rare in the United States.  Sure, we have the Amish and ethic communities like our Chinatowns and Little Italys.  But in the main, as a Swede I met recently told me, Americans caring about the welfare of others are almost completely nonexistent.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

Most Americans’ perceptions of Texas are fairly negative, insofar as the state is known for Big Oil, cruelty to immigrants, and its status as the death penalty capital of the United States.

But what about Austin, the south’s Mecca of live music and one of our nation’s most important points of the development of cutting-edge technology?

At left are the words of American science and environmental journalist Andrew Revkin, who has written on a wide range of subjects including the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, sustainable development, climate change, and the changing environment around the North Pole.

If I had the slightest reason to be in Austin a few days from now, it would be a great honor to be in this man’s presence.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Re: Trump’s action here, a reader remarks:

Same as his first term following Obama. Just reverse everything good or bad to eliminate any legacy of their time as President. It is also important that the opposing political party’s successes be forgotten so they can’t score favorably in future elections.

There is clearly a lot of truth here.

I would only add that there is also a motivation to excite the far-right-wing, especially the anti-intellectual MAGA crowd.  Promote white nationalism.  Pardon violent pro-Trump criminals.  Punish the immigrants.  Destroy the environment and bake the planet.  Kill public education.  Jettison medical science.

In any case, this is a tragedy for 99+% of Americans, and less directly, for all the world’s people and its other life forms.   The United States is led by a man whose only concern is his own wealth and power, who is completely happy to inflict suffering on his country’s people if doing so serves his own ends.

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