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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Considering that the polls are notoriously unreliable, we can only make educated guesses as to the numbers of Trump and Harris voters who will cast their ballots in the November presidential election. As shown at left and discussed at length in other posts, a significant number of wealthy and highly educated people who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 have dropped him like a hot rock, as it becomes more obvious by the day that he is criminally insane.

I’m sure that the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, quoted at left, likes his riches as much as the next guy, and eagerly accepted the enormous tax cuts he received when Trump took office in 2017.  It appears, however, that Mr. Hoffman is not blind to the fact that Trump brings with him considerable chaos in all things social, diplomatic, and economic — associated with his mental instability.  Perhaps Hoffman’s also something of a patriot and doesn’t want to see his country’s democracy collapse into authoritarian rule.

Again, it’s impossible to know the impact of all these captains of industry, military leaders, and of course, Trump’s former staff and cabinet members, where only four out of 44 support him for re-election.  One can only hope that this effect is significant, at least among the top layer of traditional GOP voters.

But let’s be honest.  For every Reid Hoffman out there, there are probably a hundred thousand heavily armed morons who believe that God sent Trump to make America great again.  Many of them have never heard of LinkedIn, and certainly couldn’t care less what some silver-tongued Stanford grad (class of 1990) thinks about the world.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

As we approach the one-quarter mark in the 21st Century, it appears that the only real trend in American society is its growing ignorance.

We’re not becoming more considerate drivers, kinder to others, more athletic, or better parents.  But, as shown here, we are capable of beliefs that have zero thinking behind them.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Unfortunately, the meme hear is incorrect.  Yes, the flags on the left are flown almost exclusively by Trump supporters, but at least nine out of ten Americans who display the flag on the right also support the former president.

This is one of dozens of deeply disappointing aspects to current-day U.S. politics.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Whenever I see examples of government waste, I’m reminded of the fact that, if we were able to eliminate or at least reduce that waste, we could put music back in our public schools.  What a fantastic investment that would be in the future of our communities.

Among other things, music helps in teaching math–at many different levels: counting, fractions, even exponents.  I recall helping my son write an essay which we ultimately called “Me and You and the 12th Root of Two.”  (As it turns out, 1 : 2^(1/12) is the ratio of the frequency of any two neighboring tones on a musical instrument.)

But more generally, children who study music perform better in school and have better social skills and empathy for others.  Music education nurtures creativity and helps kids in expressing their emotions and managing anxiety.

We can do this.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The one constant to Trump’s campaign is the torrent of lies he spreads to the effect that the United States is failing as a nation, and that this is the result of gross mismanagement, incompetence, and corruption on the part of the Biden administration.

Now, if these lies did no real harm to the American people, I think most people would be content to write them off as part of the former president’s psychopathology as a human being.  After all, he told more that 30,000 documented lies in four years in office; what’s another handful?

The problem resides in the fact that these falsehoods are far from benign little fibs; they have horrible consequences to real people, like:

• The folks in Springfield, OH who are dealing with the crap concerning the Haitian people’s eating their pets.

• (As shown at left) The people of Aurora, CO, who need to establish the truth, i.e., that their local government officials have not allowed Venezuelan gangs to overwhelm their city with violent crime.

• FEMA officials have not stolen or otherwise misused the national  emergency funds that were allocated to them to repair the damage caused by the recent hurricanes.

Each of these stories is entirely fictitious, designed to help Trump at the expense of hard-working, honest civil servants.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda cautions that an EV-only future could have serious repercussions for Japan’s auto industry. 
He estimates that 5.5 million jobs, including those in Toyota’s supply chain, could be at risk. Toyoda also reiterated his backing for gasoline vehicles, voicing skepticism about completely shifting to electric options.
There is no question that the automotive supply chain will be badly shaken by the phasing out of internal combustion engines in favor of EVs.  Most obviously, we have the gradual but certain elimination of fossil fuels, but we also have an enormous shift in parts, as we replace a drive-train with hundreds of moving parts (that are constantly wearing out) with one that is far simpler.
We all understand that, as the chairman of one of the world’s largest corporations, Toyoda has a profound responsibility to his employees and shareholders.  But as one of the world’s most powerful human beings, he also has a responsibility to everyone living on this planet to act in  a manner consistent with environmental sustainability.
The merits of his decision here will play themselves out over a period of decades, and there’s a good chance I won’t be on this planet to experience them.  But my children will, and I predict they’ll ultimately be quite unhappy about what went down here, one-quarter of our way through the 21st Century.
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s not completely clear where working class Americans are getting their information, but it’s obvious they’re being misled.

Wish this weren’t the case.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s a good bet that most progressives are connected, somehow in their lives, to Republicans who still support Trump.  That said, as suggested in the meme here, that number is dwindling.

So many of the GOP faithful have simply seen enough–of the stupidity, the lies, the criminality, and most of all the threat to our democracy,

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Re: the meme here, Plug-In America co-founder Paul Scott writes:

BMW will go out of business if they give up on EVs and try to make fuel cell cars. If you think charging infrastructure isn’t ubiquitous enough yet, try finding a station that sells H2. But the real kicker is that it takes considerably more energy to acquire H2 than you would use by just charging a battery. Plus you can generate electricity on your roof to power your home and car. I’ve been doing exactly that for 22 years. The only way to get H2 is to buy it from an oil company.

Yes, Paul, completely correct.  This is an example of the “fake news” we see all around us.  As our educational standards continue to decline, we’re approaching a point at which Americans will believe anything and political actors like Donald Trump are able to transform our nation into a third-world country.

BMW has done an excellent job in the EV space, and has no plans to make any strategic changes in its drive-train platforms–and certainly not in the hydrogen space.

From BMW’s most recent report on the matter:

We already provide our customers with an extensive range of all-electric, battery-powered vehicles (BEV). In 2023, another high-volume model, the all-electric BMW i5 business sedan, went on sale. MINI presented the new all-electric MINI Cooper SE to the public during the year under report. The Rolls-Royce brand launched its first all-electric model, the Rolls-Royce Spectre, in 2023. In 2024, the BMW Group will have a BEV option in virtually all its main segments. There will be more than 15 fully-electric models across all BMW Group brands on the market this year.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

What scares me most about Trump isn’t that he’s capable of fascistic thoughts like these. We’ve all seen him in action here, and this comes as no real surprise.

What’s most terrifying about our current-day politics is that, if he loses, Trump will want to bring out the military to hunt down all the “radical left lunatics” who beat him in a “rigged election,” and that he’ll be supported by tens of millions of heavily armed Americans.

 

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