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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics — No Comments ↓

Trump’s lack of interest in learning about the workings of the world around him does, in fact, render him incompetent.  He has essentially zero knowledge of the geopolitics that are required for his job, and that’s just fine with him.

Yet that’s not the true problem with the current U.S. president.  Rather, it’s that the only things that matter to him are those that serve to make him wealthier and more powerful. What that translates to at this point is an ongoing set of ridiculous decisions that damage the lives of the common American, and destroy the nation’s standing on the world stage.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

We didn’t have something specifically called “Civics” when I was in elementary school, but by the time we were in 5th or 6th grade, every single kid in our class understood that the United States government consisted of three co-equal branches.

Fast-forward 60 years, and what do we have? Well, here’s one Ruth Jones offering some of the most intense ignorance imaginable.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Let’s be honest.  Very few Americans dispute the assertion that “Trump is a monster.”  Almost half of U.S. voters approve of Trump’s aggression in cutting spending on Ukraine, NATO, education, environmental protection, disease control, etc.

I can hear his support base echoing, “Yes, he’s a monster, but this is what it takes to Make America Great Again.”

The author of the meme at right puts this concept nicely.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Uncategorized

At left are opposing views on the subject of human empathy, including one from German-American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

What Elon Musk says on the subject is reminiscent of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who really was a “thing” in the mid-20th Century until people realized that caring for one another was an essential part of what it means to be a human being, as opposed to, say, a tiger shark.

Sadly, we’ve seen a resurgence of this “mentality,” at least in the last decade here in the U.S.  Almost half of American voters favor the dismantling of our government’s capacity to deal with disease, hunger, environmental collapse, ignorance, and corporate criminality.  It appears that 250 years of government of, by, and for the people is no match for the Musk/Trump machine.

 

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In an earlier post, Destroying America, I speculated that it is the decline in U.S. educational standards that is responsible for our electing “a conman with the IQ of a jar of mayonnaise.”

At left is a slightly different take on the subject, in which Mark Twain discusses the role of international travel in the development of people with “broad and charitable views of the world.”

There are two main problems with applying this principle onto present-day America, however:

• The growing chasm between rich and poor means that fewer people can afford to travel overseas than there were before the onset of “trickle-down economics” 45 years ago, and

• People steeped in bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness have very little interest in changing their character.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Recently, we learned about Trump’s practice of charging businesspeople $5 million for an audience with him.  Now, we have the news at left.

Morally, America is in freefall.  Is there no stopping this?

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

At left is a subject of intense debate, i.e., how did the United States come to find itself governed by “a conman with the IQ of a jar of mayonnaise?”

The common wisdom, and I can’t offer any real improvement on it, is the decline in the U.S. educational system.

I had a dear friend about 45 years ago who hailed from the Netherlands, a country in which every boy and girl, by the time they graduated from high school and went on to college:

• Was fluent in Dutch, German and English

• Read Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes

• Played the piano fairly well–at least the intermediate pieces, e.g., the waltzes, nocturnes and mazurkas of Chopin

That was almost half a century ago.  Think of how much further we’ve fallen since.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Yes, Trump “blew up” our friendship with our neighbor to the north, but it seems that the Canadians are taking all this philosophically, which is typical of their demeanor.

Intelligent and decent people are aware that s*** happens. In this case, the U.S. has been temporarily laid low by a madman who will be gone at some point in the near future.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Here’s something we see commonly on social media.  Do you agree sir or madam, completely ignorant of basic biology though you may be, that there are only two genders?

This is actually a very interesting topic among scientifically literate people, as shown here, from the National Institutes of Health.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

The reader who supplied the meme here doesn’t know that I’m one of very few Americans between the ages of 15 and 90 who’s never spent a dime at Starbucks.

For me, it’s a blend of boycotting and common sense. Make yourself a cup of coffee or two at home (at 30 cents apiece), or at the office (for free), and yes, stay away from abusive corporations for reasons of decency.

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