In the real world, the assertion at left is completely untrue. If the author wants to modify this to: All of us have the right to an equal opportunity to develop our own talents, then fine.
But if you believe that kids who grow up in inner-city slums have the same opportunities to develop their talents as the rich kids whose parents bought them into Harvard, you’re totally incorrect.
When I came across the meme here, I thought it was a joke, but it’s not. What exactly is Ron DeSantis’ or Dan Bongino’s or (disbarred) Rudy Giuliani’s “area of expertise?” If they exist at all, how could these “talents” possibly be of value to the American people?
Senior financial/energy analyst Robert Rapier writes: Yes, imagine this group of nutters, grifters, and criminals at the highest levels of government. Think about it every day between now and the election.
This quote from Robert Oppenheimer is interesting. Obviously, there is no precedent in human history for anything resembling this.
My best guess: regardless of the type of disaster, i.e., nuclear conflagration or environmental collapse, there will be plenty of survivors. Say the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere exceeds 5° C above pre-industrial times, resulting in catastrophic loss of land mass, flooding, wildfires, famine, etc. This would kill massive numbers of people, but not, in general, the world’s rich folks.
Big Oil’s only interest at this point is maintaining its revenue and profit stream indefinitely, But as time passes, this will be increasingly difficult, and will require feeding the public more propaganda.
Not everyone grooves on California; we all know that. The people with the trailer here are a good example of this, but I’m not sure the world’s 4th largest economy is going to miss these folks too much.
What they may have missed is that most of this country’s innovation comes from the Golden State. Whether that means IT, communications technology, or life sciences, if you have it in Missouri today, there’s an excellent chance it started in California several years ago.
Americans and people all over the globe are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives, and precious few of these advancements came from Alabama.
And if this applies to the pragmatic aspects of our lives, it applies in spades to things like the mitigation of environmental collapse.
Here’s a brief conversation about Kamala Harris’ statement at left between an old friend (David) and me that I thought readers might find interesting:
I heard an interview with a university English professor the other day, and was surprised and dismayed to learn that she believes that most of the bad grammar we run across in our daily lives is actually the natural and legitimate evolution from a certain set off standards to another.
As an example, she said that the word “unique” has come to mean “rare,” as in “she has a fairly unique talent.” Really? What’s the matter with pointing out that it’s a grammatical error to qualify the word “unique?” A thing is either unique or it’s not.
Similarly, the sentence at the above left shows a disagreement of subject and verb. “Opportunities” is plural, so we need the plural “there are,” not the singular “there is.”
I’m worried that the rules of grammar are evaporating in front of our eyes, as this particular error has leapt into our language over just the last five years. For better or worse, I pay close attention to the type and frequency of mistakes like these, and I’m quite certain that this is a very recent thing.
IMO, it’s far harder on the ears than “fairly unique.” Even elementary school kids wouldn’t say, “There is two dogs barking.”
Not yet, any way. Again, I’m concerned about our grammatical future.
This nicely dressed fellow says, “I’ll stick with my gas-powered car,” and he’s at liberty to do that.
What he won’t be able to do, however, is to prevent the end of gas and diesel power trains in favor of electric. Countries all around the globe are forbidding the sale of new fossil fuels-based cars and trucks after a certain date. And for most of the citizens of those countries, that date can’t come soon enough.
I’d love to know what entity is behind the disparagement of EVs. I suspect Big Oil, but I have no proof.
Like many lifelong Republicans, my mom is a reluctant Trump supporter. She disapproves of a great deal of the former president’s behavior, but, like many in her position, couldn’t bring herself to vote for a Democrat under any circumstances.
I asked her why it seems that Trump’s slipping in the poles, and now looks poised to lose in November. She explained that, for some reason, he was fairly quiet immediately following the assassination attempt, and that this, temporarily, made him appear dignified. Recently, however, he’s gone back to the name-calling and bullying for which he’s best known, which is anything but dignified.
Senior energy analyst Glenn Doty sent me the meme here; clearly he makes a good point.
FWIW, this is my rebuttal to those who hope that Trump simply gets hit by a bus or suffers a fatal heat attack. The end of his physical presence will not rid us of the idea that it’s acceptable that a traitor and pathological liar can be a U.S. president.
Success here means showing all Americans, and the entire rest of the world, wherever they may be on the political spectrum, that this nation has permanently gotten out of the business of electing sociopathic criminals to be the most powerful person on Earth.
