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The Stupidity of Ecosystem Destruction by Solar Arrays is Exceeded by Building where Hailstorms Occur

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

The gross stupidity of solar arrays in areas that have any chance of a hailstorm should be self evident. But someone makes big bucks installing this crap, while destroying and polluting the land essentially forever (eg toxic metals leaching off the panels, broken glass, razing of field of flowers, etc).

Video Shows Massive Hail Damage To Texas Solar Farm

2024-03-28

A spokeswoman for GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, whose district encompasses the solar farm, told Fox News Digital that the incident raises serious questions about where solar farms are built, and undermines green zealots' belief that fossil fuels can be retired anytime soon: 

"As far as solar farms being damaged where hail and tornadoes are common, those companies knowingly run the risk of building solar panel farms in these areas. Events like this underscore the importance of having an all-of-the-above energy approach to meet our energy needs and showcase how our country cannot solely rely on or fully transition to renewable energy sources like this."

Some residents worried that cadmium telluride, a toxic ingredient of some solar panels, would find its way into the local soil and well water. However, Copenhagen Investment Partners reassured Fox that "the silicon-based panels contain no cadmium telluride and we have identified no risk to the local community or the environment." 

...

WIND: look at the weasel language following the Cd telluride question. It is hardly the only concern and “we have identified no risk” is classic weaseling.


How to Find Out How Much Your Car is Spying on You

It’s not just EVs anymore.

Vehicle Privacy Report... (uses a VIN)

How to Figure Out What Your Car Knows About You (and Opt Out of Sharing When You Can


...See How Your Car Handles (Data)
Start by seeing what your car is equipped to collect using Privacy4Cars’ Vehicle Privacy Report. Once you enter your car’s VIN, the site provides a rough idea of what sorts of data your car collects. It's also worth reading about your car manufacturer’s more general practices on Mozilla's Privacy Not Included site.

Check the Privacy Options In Your Car’s Apps and Infotainment System
If you use an app for your car, head into the app’s settings, and look for any sort of data sharing options. Look for settings like “Data Privacy” or “Data Usage.” When possible, opt out of sharing any data with third-parties, or for behavioral advertising. As annoying as it may be, it’s important to read carefully here so you don’t accidentally disable something you want, like a car’s SOS feature. Be mindful that, at least according to Mozilla’s report on Tesla, opting out of certain data sharing might someday make the car undriveable. Now’s also a good time to disable ad tracking on your phone.

...
File a Privacy Request with the Car Maker
Next, file a privacy request with the car manufacturer so you can see exactly what data the company has collected about you. Some car makers will provide this to anyone who asks. Others might only respond to requests from residents of states with a consumer data privacy law that requires their response. The International Association of Privacy Professionals has published this list of states with such laws.

..

WIND: see the list of privacy request pages in the article. The bastards make you provide last 4 digits of SSN and birth date and phone and address—invasive information collecting so you can find out what they are collecting.

Spying on you will remain legal since there is so much money involved—follow the money. The house of parasites, grifters and insider traders known as Congress will do nothing about it for that reason.

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Stop Your Car From Spying on You

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

It’s not just EVs anymore.

Stop Your Car From Spying on You

2024-03-25

...Your Driving History May Be Transmitted and Stored

"Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry," Kashmir Hill reported this month for The New York Times. "Sometimes this is happening with a driver's awareness and consent…. But in other instances, something much sneakier has happened."

Hill profiled Seattle resident Kenn Dahl, who checked his LexisNexis consumer disclosure report after his car insurance premium jumped by 21 percent. LexisNexis turned over documents containing "the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations." The data came from General Motors based on his enrollment in OnStar Smart Driver. The records were interpreted as grounds for putting him in a higher insurance risk category.

... Your Car Is a Fourth-Amendment Nightmare

"Investigators have realized that automobiles—particularly newer models—can be treasure troves of digital evidence," CNBC reported in 2020. "Their onboard computers generate and store data that can be used to reconstruct where a vehicle has been and what its passengers were doing. They reveal everything from location, speed and acceleration to when doors were opened and closed, whether texts and calls were made while the cellphone was plugged into the infotainment system, as well as voice commands and web histories."

That record of our movements, communications, and activities is often available to government agencies just for the asking, Mozilla pointed out. "They can just ask for it (without a warrant) or hack into your car to get it. At least fourteen (56%) of the car brands' own privacy policies say they can voluntarily share your personal data with law enforcement or the government in response to a 'request.'"

...

WIND: my auto insurance rates jumped 30% since last fall. But not because of driving habits—it was a statewide increase stemming from the morons running the state regulating things out of economic viability. Insurers are abandoning California or dropping customers in droves due to risks that are no longer viable. My neighbor’s rates tripled on her home insurance. California is an economic disaster area for the non-rich.

Resources:

How to Figure Out What Your Car Knows About You (and Opt Out of Sharing When You Can

Vehicle Privacy Report (uses a VIN)


Infrasound From Wind Turbines Could Be ‘A Huge Threat to the Entire Biodiversity’... and Human Health

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

A huge threat to human health IMO.

Prediction: large sums will be spent to discourage funding and/or to beat down any research that suggests any kind of negatives of infrasound; follow the money.

Between infrasound, 5G, microplastics, a slow-poison food supply, the raging epidemic of poor health surely stems from some or all of these.

Infrasound From Wind Turbines Could Be ‘A Huge Threat to the Entire Biodiversity’: Doctor

2024-03-22

A German doctor raises the alarm over the impact of infrasound from wind turbines.

...When wind turbines rotate, however, they generate not only electricity but also infrasound. Infrasound is defined as a sound wave with a frequency of less than 20 hertz (Hz). The lower the frequency of the sound, the greater its wavelength and the harder it is to shield from it. Infrasound can penetrate walls, people, and animals.

“With ever larger wind turbines, the frequencies are getting lower and lower. This makes infrasound more problematic and dangerous,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck told The Epoch Times. Today’s wind turbines reach frequencies as low as 0.25 Hz. The wavelength of this frequency is just under 0.86 miles.

...Reported adverse effects of industrial wind turbines include weakness, dizziness, headaches, concentration and memory issues, ear pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, and sleep disorders, according to research cited in Canadian Family Physician.

...

WIND: sound over background levels degrades cognitition and causes stress in children and adults; it is a major health hazard. And sub-hearing sound is surely no different.

Most of the population seems to be oblivious to lawn mowers, leaf blowers, pool pumps, air conditioners, shredders, freeway noise traveling 10 miles, etc. These go on 24 X 7 all around in my neighborhood with very little care taken to dampen any of it. Everyone poisoning the auditory well for everyone else—that’s the norm.

Sounds are a huge stressor for me, having been a “high sensitivity” person all my life (wired especially strongly for sensor input and processing). Add a concussion in 2018 where many sounds (even a refrigerator) were a mild form of torture. The brain has to work very hard to filter out the din, which you’ll realize if you ever have the unfortunate experience of brain damage, as I did.

The browning of the American landscape with Don Quixote quick-profits-for-a-few scams is horrible to behold in my travels. There is a lot still intact, but also major areas forever impacted by this 'green' lunacy can be see 80 miles away. You can’t even pen your eyes now in some wilderness areas without seeing the unholy death star 80 miles away.

Destroying ecosystems for solar panels is the worst assault on health and society in history. Windmills are even more insidious. This insanity may run its course, but not before vast damage is done.

Meanwhile, the gross stupidity of solar arrays in areas that have any chance of a hailstorm should be self evident.

OWC ROVER PRO wheels for Mac Pro

No tools or hassle… just place your Mac Pro’s factory feet into the Rover Pro’s polished stainless-steel housings and secure with a few hand twists.

When you’re done moving your Mac Pro around, the Rover Pro makes it just as quick and easy to convert back to the factory feet for stationary use.

The Norwegian Illusion: EVs Are Not More Energy Efficient

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

re: Even Massive Government Handouts Cannot Fix the Reality of “Science Fair Project” Vehicles
re: Electric Vehicles: a Multi-Pronged Menace with Few if any Benefits?
re: WSJ: The Electric-Vehicle Cheating Scandal
re: Green is the new Brown: ‘The War Below’ Review: Digging for Minerals
re: ChatGPT: Calculating EV Charging Power Requirements
re: Mercedes eSprinter, GM EV Trucks: Science Fair Projects Requiring Fantasy Infrastructure Buildout
re: The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle

It looks just like I suspected: the whole EV thing efficiency estimations are just one more scam, omitting critical considerations.

The Norwegian Illusion: EVs Are Not More Energy Efficient

2024-03-22

...If our models are correct, EVs will fail on two fronts: they are less energy efficient than the ICEs they are trying to replace and their adoption will do little to mitigate carbon emissions.

... Most articles list EVs as anywhere between two and three times more energy efficient than the ICEs they replace.  

The basis for this claim is that internal combustion engines are only 40% efficient and that nearly 60% of the energy contained in gasoline or diesel fuel is “wasted,” –mainly in the form of heat and friction. On the other hand, an electric motor transfers nearly 90% of its electrical energy directly to the wheels. The difference leads many to erroneously conclude that an EV is almost three times as “efficient” as an ICE.

This common argument is fundamentally flawed for three reasons. 

First, it fails to capture the energy needed to make the battery; 
second, it fails to distinguish between thermal and electric energy;
and third, it fails to account for the poor energy efficiency of renewable energy.

An EV uses 32 kWh of electricity per 100 miles traveled. The vehicle’s battery, meanwhile, consumes an incredible 24 MWh in its manufacturing. Assuming a useful life of 120,000 miles, the battery pack consumes 20 kWh per 100 miles traveled, two-thirds as much as the direct electricity itself. Most analysts we have read fail to include this onerous energy burden when touting the EV’s superior efficiency.

...

WIND: and this article doesn’t even count the wonderful waste heat of an ICE as a feature—a major feature—when used in winter in cold climates.

Fluoroquinolone Alert: The Common Medication That Could Lead to Irreversible Health Conditions

re: antibiotic
re: Metronidazole /Flagyl

re: Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Can Cause Peripheral Neuropathy, Ruptured Tendons, Cardiovascular Disease (and Flagyl/Metronidazole)

I had severe peripheral neuropathy from an antibiotic, Metronidazole. It took ~5 years to recover, and not fuly to this day about 8 years later.

I had a bad reaction to a fluoroquinolone years ago, and would only use them for life saving issues now.

I have had other problems with other antibiotic 5 years ago eg severe fatigue that knocked me out for weeks.

Antibiotics are dangerous products that have their purposes, and if it’s your bad luck with the wrong one, it maybe a decision that will cost you quality of life and maybe forever.

Fluoroquinolone Alert: The Common Medication That Could Lead to Irreversible Health Conditions

2024-03-22

Popular due to their effectiveness in fighting various bacterial infections, fluoroquinolone antibiotics carry risks that can be worse than the illness.

...The aftermath left her with severe tendon injuries, culminating in a premature transition to permanent disability at the age of 54.

Several doctors and experts dismissed her symptoms, Ms. Yates told The Epoch Times. Her story highlights the critical but underreported adverse effects associated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics—and the medical problems that arise in the absence of clear warnings of their risks.

...

WIND: avoid antibiotics unless there is no other way.

The FDA harmed tens of thousands of people by taking well over a decade to recognize the dangers. They are not there for you; they are there to serve their masters, Big Pharma.

OWC ROVER PRO wheels for Mac Pro

No tools or hassle… just place your Mac Pro’s factory feet into the Rover Pro’s polished stainless-steel housings and secure with a few hand twists.

When you’re done moving your Mac Pro around, the Rover Pro makes it just as quick and easy to convert back to the factory feet for stationary use.

California’s Nationwide EV Coercion

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

re: Even Massive Government Handouts Cannot Fix the Reality of “Science Fair Project” Vehicles
re: Electric Vehicles: a Multi-Pronged Menace with Few if any Benefits?
re: WSJ: The Electric-Vehicle Cheating Scandal
re: Green is the new Brown: ‘The War Below’ Review: Digging for Minerals
re: ChatGPT: Calculating EV Charging Power Requirements
re: Mercedes eSprinter, GM EV Trucks: Science Fair Projects Requiring Fantasy Infrastructure Buildout
re: The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle

Do EV buyers understand any of this?

WSJ: California’s Nationwide EV Coercion

2024-03-22

You may not live there, but you’ll soon be living under its auto rules. Why Stellantis buckled to Sacramento.

Where are the antitrust cops when you need them? Stellantis and California this week struck a deal to protect the state’s electric-vehicle mandate from future political and legal challenges. Here’s another illustration of collusion between big government and big business that hurts Americans.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has banned the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. Unlike Biden Administration officials, progressives in Sacramento are honest about their plan to phase-out gas-powered cars. EV sales will have to ramp up fast over the next decade, making up 51% of sales by 2028 and 100% by 2035.

A Clean Air Act waiver from the Biden Environmental Protection Agency lets California impose its own greenhouse-gas emissions standards and other states to follow them...

...

WIND: nobody wants an EV science fair project except my rich virtue-signaling neighbors living second-hand lives*in a separate MSNBC reality. See the links at top.

My guess is that this the massive anti-ROI lost capital opportunity cost will be set aside—after trillions are wasted.

* A life that consists primarily of valuing oneself based on the approbation of others.


The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle

re: electric vehicle
re: climate science

re: Even Massive Government Handouts Cannot Fix the Reality of “Science Fair Project” Vehicles
re: Electric Vehicles: a Multi-Pronged Menace with Few if any Benefits?
re: WSJ: The Electric-Vehicle Cheating Scandal
re: Green is the new Brown: ‘The War Below’ Review: Digging for Minerals
re: ChatGPT: Calculating EV Charging Power Requirements
re: Mercedes eSprinter, GM EV Trucks: Science Fair Projects Requiring Fantasy Infrastructure Buildout

Do EV buyers understand any of this?

The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle

2024-03-21, by Jeffrey E Tucker

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser.

Indeed, the artificial boom and then meltdown of the EV market is a modern industrial calamity. It was created by government, social media, wild disease frenzy, far-flung thinking, and the irrational chasing of utopia, followed by a rude awakening by facts and reality.

...The key issues with EVs are as follows.

  • The cost upfront is much higher.
  • Financing charges are higher.
  • They depreciate at a higher rate than internal combustion cars.
  • The insurance is more expensive, by at least 25 percent [WIND: and jacks-up rates for non-EV drivers too!]
  • Repairs are much more expensive, if you can get them done at all, and take longer.
  • Tires are more expensive and don’t last as long because the car is so heavy.
  • Refueling is not easy and missteps here can have nightmarish consequences.
  • They are more likely to catch fire.
  • Any motor vehicle accident that impacts the battery can lead to repairs higher than the value of the car, that is totaled with so much as a scratch.

To top it all over, there is no longer any financial advantage to the driver. It now costs slightly more to charge under many conditions than to refuel with gasoline.

... fine for urban commutes with home chargers and not much else.

...truly terrible rentals...spending part of your vacation figuring out where to find a charger.... Not all are superchargers, and if it is a regular charger, you are looking at an overnight wait...

...Did Hertz think of any of this before they spent $250M on a fleet? Nope. They were just doing the fashionable thing.

...wear and tear on roads is much worse due to the sheer weight of the cars, which is 25 percent higher than gas cars on average. Many parking garages would have to be rebuilt with new reinforcements...

...there is the strain on the grid. There is no way the industry could handle the demand. Brownouts and travel restrictions would be essential.

...There is another problem: surveillance. The car can be tracked anywhere and shut off at a moment’s notice. This is obviously a great thing if the government desires a social-credit system of citizens control.

...

WIND: EVs are science fair projecst whose opportunity cost and environmental damage is cataclysmic versus putting that money into energy security including nuclear power and geothermal for a future that will not harm people and will instead greatly increase prosperity and quality of leaf: cheap and abundant energy. We have perhaps 50 years to get that done, using “fossil fuels” to get there.


Delta Rescue — “The Pope’s Messenger”

Largest no-kill animal sanctuary — Delta Rescue. A good place to donate to for estates, etc.

Spoof/fun video.

The First Amendment Takes a Beating in the Supreme Court

re: gears of the machine
re: Matt Taibbi

re: Unamimous Appellate Court Decision Finds that Feds Colluded with Big Tech to Violate 1st Amendment

Are you seeing how the gears of the machine work yet?

See also: Why Government is Always the Most Dangerous Source of Misinformation

The First Amendment Takes a Beating in the Supreme Court

2024-03-19, by Matt Taibbi

A brief recap of oral arguments in the long-awaited Supreme Court case on state-sponsored censorship

Late in oral arguments yesterday during the Murthy v Missouri censorship case before the Supreme Court, newest Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson interrogated J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Solicitor General of Louisiana:

JACKSON: So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods…

Can you help me? Because I’m really — I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the

source of those problems.

“Can you help me?” Yes, I would love to help you, Justice Jackson, to a less challenging line of work… Hamstringing the government, Good God!

...


WIND: the 1st Amendment is first for a reason. It exists to protect citizens from a tyrannical government. Look at the intellectual reversal of that idea by the batshit crazy latest addition to the court.

The foul stench of mendacity + selective prosecution is one of the hydra heads along with contempt for the Constitution even as the flood of 10-12 million illegals threatens to permanenly alter the balance of power to a single-party fascist state. Now we have the rot extending all the way up to where it matters.

Why Government is Always the Most Dangerous Source of Misinformation

2034-03-19, by Matt Taibbi

The government just begged the Supreme Court to let it fight "misinformation," but the plaintiffs were citizens suppressed for exposing official error. Why state lies are the most dangerous

CNN opened its coverage of Murthy v. Missourithe historic censorship case argued in the Supreme Court yesterday, as follows:

CNN — For doctors like Eileen Barrett, a pending Supreme Court case challenging the government’s ability to communicate with social media companies isn’t principally a fight about the fraught politics of online speech.

Instead, they say, it’s a matter of life and death.

“I have seen countless statements that are at best problematic and at worst flat-out disinformation that I’m terribly fearful are causing harm to patients,” said Barrett…

If CNN’s line about “a matter of life or death” sounds a bit dramatic, it’s at least a perfect echo of the original defendant in the case, President Joe Biden. In July of 2021, Biden said Internet companies were “killing people” when they refused to remove content his White House deemed “problematic.” However, the White House itself contributed to enormous problems during the pandemic by wildly overestimating both the impact of the disease, and the effectiveness of vaccines. Somehow, this form of “misinformation” never gets proper billing. 

The government’s performance in oral arguments in the Supreme Court yesterday has already led to huge success on this front, from a public relations perspective. Instead of hearing about a broad, military-scale operation spanning multiple agencies to address social media posts about everything from Ukraine to Gaza to immigration to schools and gender issues, the public heard the case was about “the government’s ability… to combat misinformation,” and stop “posts that officials said spread falsehoods.” Instead of a case about the state attempting to enforce uniform narratives on huge ranges of subjects, and being consistently wrong when doing so, the public will hear yesterday’s case was about occasional, gentle efforts to offer input about one or two emergencies. 

Here’s the answer to both CNN and Biden, and a snapshot of why this case went to the heart of the First Amendment:

...

WIND: ugghh.


The Odor of Mendacity

re: gears of the machine
re: Jonathan Turley

re: Unamimous Appellate Court Decision Finds that Feds Colluded with Big Tech to Violate 1st Amendment

Are you starting to see how the gears of the machine work?

For many, the "odor of mendacity" is wafting not just from Georgia but from various courtrooms around the country. It is increasingly difficult to deny the selective prosecution and political influences in a variety of recent cases and opinions.. — Jonathan Turley

WIND: it was obvious all along to anyone willing to see. Now they’re not even trying to hide it.

You have no rights any more. We have an Injustice System, which formerly (and might still) abuse people of color in evil ways, and now abuses by political viewpoint. Same approach, different targets, with criminals doing the prosecuting, and a thoroughly despicable judiciary* letting real criminals run wild.

* For children and idiots: there are some judges with integrity, but IMO they are now few and far between, and the Constitution-hating animosity extends all the way to the top.

See also:
The First Amendment Takes a Beating in the Supreme Court
Ketanji Brown Jackson Warns Right To Free Speech Could Lead To People Speaking Freely


Unamimous Appellate Court Decision Finds that Feds Colluded with Big Tech to Violate 1st Amendment

re: gears of the machine
re: Elon Musk
re: Glenn Greenwald

Are you starting to see how the gears of the machine work?

It was obvious all along to anyone willing to see.

The government censored dissidents to suppress public realization that the government was the primary source of pandemic misinformation. — Jay Battacharya.

Now proven in court and unanimously affirmed upon appeal. If idiots and children wish to argue the “primary” part... whatever.

Many Americans still have no idea this happened

2024-03-16. Emphasis added.

The most under-reported and under-discussed story of 2023: a federal district court judge, upheld by a unanimous appellate panel, found the Biden WH and FBI committed one of the gravest attacks on the 1st Am in decades by coercing Big Tech to censor dissent online. — Glenn Greenwald.

WIND: or any idea about anything on how the system actually works. And that all the news is fake—witness today’s Rupar about “bloodbath”.

But this is the benign stuff and hardly matters by comparison. Single-party rule is coming, which means de factor totalitarian rule in short order.

See also:

Why Government is Always the Most Dangerous Source of Misinformation

Elon Musk reveals Twitter had FBI "portal that auto-deleted all comms" after 2 weeks

Ketanji Brown Jackson Warns Right To Free Speech Could Lead To People Speaking Freely


Even Massive Government Handouts Cannot Fix the Reality of “Science Fair Project” Vehicles

re: Electric Vehicles: a Multi-Pronged Menace with Few if any Benefits?

I’ll grant that EVs, whether or not they are environmentally speaking actually a faint tinge of green or sludge-brown (surely the latter), do have their uses for some small-world situations, eg the person whose life is 99% within a ~100-mile radius and no cold winters and heavily subsidized at every step of the chain.

But in the real world, even massive government handouts cannot fix the reality of “science fair project” vehicles... what could possibly go wrong?

See also: Electric Transmission Buildout Could Cost Americans Trillions Of Dollars

Hertz CEO Out As Firm Seeks Traction After Big EV Bet Goes Bust

2024-03-16. Emphasis added.

CEO Stephen Scherr's barely two-year ride with Hertz came to a screeching halt on Friday. In his wake, he leaves a company still working to recover from a big bet on electric vehicles gone bad. It will do so under new CEO Gil West, whose previous posts include executive roles at Delta Air Lines and the Cruise unit of General Motors.

...In December 2023, Hertz emphatically demonstrated that its massive EV push just wasn't working outthrowing 20,000 EVs into the used-car market to start a systematic liquidation planned to extend through 2024. "The company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand," Hertz said at the time, adding, "The company expects this action to better balance supply against expected demand of EVs."
[WIND: eg few people want the hassles of an EV for rental]

The resale of fleet cars is a key driver of rental car companies' profitability. On that front, Tesla threw a wrench in Hertz's financials by aggressively slashing prices across its product line, crushing the resale values of not only Teslas, but the entire EV market. Top-selling EV's saw their secondary-market prices plunge by almost a third in 2023

Poor resale value isn't the only EV liability biting Hertz -- the company also pointed to the high cost of collision repairs. “For context, collision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle,” Scherr noted in an October third-quarter conference call. 

...most rental car customers don't want their first EV experiment to come on a business or vacation trip, where they may be in an unfamiliar area and unenthused about spending 20 minutes at a recharging station on the way...

...

WIND: you have to be either rich or financially illiterate to buy an EV. Though maybe a few people get lucky in a few areas—doubtful once the real costs of ownership are added-up over years. Of real costs in lifestyle: EVs are massively less useful and vastly more expensive. A science fair project disguised as a car.

EV purchases are funded via money the government takes from us by force (aka taxes) and then handed-out like Halloween candy treats to wealthy EV buyers as subsidies. While most of America struggles to put food onto the table and pay rent. Nothing more regressive could be possible.

For those living a second-hand psychological life*, EVs are a godsend: just-right virtue signaling. Hence my wealthy neighbors all have one (or two), and especially the mommy brigade driving $100K Rivians 3/4 mile to school rather than walking the best tree-lined trails you’ll find anywhere. That’s f*cked up. These are people looking to minimize their footprints—by driving!

With an EV, you cannot escape the ultra-high insurance costs, a regressive tax that brutalizes those who can least afford it (including non-EV drivers!). Or the astronomical repair costs. Or the fact that most EVs will never get to even the claimed environmental break-even point (which is propaganda bullshit based on fake models). Or that they are mostly charged by burning fossil fuels. We have the most self-destructive situation imaginable with EVs.

Or the $trillions we will all pay to transmit power from boondoggles resulting in widescale glass and metal and fiberglass environmental deserts spanning vast areas of formerly rich and beautiful land. Literally bulldozing fields of flowers for this 'green' menace. Someone will get rich off it, but you and I will never benefit. It’s the communist manifesto in green guise: we and our children have to suffer and endure, so that our grandchildren will benefit—and they will be told the same thing. Except that millions of acres of formerly pristine land will be nothing but shards of glass and rusting metal. What a nasty legacy.

Anyone who thinks an EV is a value for the buyer is ignorant of the far greater utility and low pricing of ICE vehicles (and at discounted prices!). We have 4 of them for the 5 of us adults, one going on 150K miles—inexpensive to operate and they just work day after day, hot or cold, power outage or not. Sipping gas, and causing 1/2 to 1/3 the road damage of an EV and far less cardiovascular-damaging particulate pollution than an EV.

No EV with its outrageous up-front environmental burden could possibly compete with the environmental friendliness of our 150K mile sedan as it heads towards 200K miles with nary a problem. Its amortized environmental cost is extremely low. In other words, it is ultra 'green'. And there is every reason to assume that the other 3 such vehicles will also hit that mileage range. ICE vehicles, the right ones are an environmental boon.

Nothing in the history of humanity has been so damaging to our future as the lost opportunity cost of pouring trillions into science fair projects, of which EVs are only a part. It degrades all aspects of life for everyone, sucks-dry the public fisc (to be paid for by our children!), corrupts the political process, misdirects capital to the toilet bowl, damages companies (and therefore jobs), and most of all: it destroys vast areas of land/environment. The latter I see more and more of, and it is stomach churning to watch so much being destroyed and turned into glass and metal desert.

* A life that consists primarily of valuing oneself based on the approbation of others.


Taibbi: Why the TikTok Ban is So Dangerous

re: Matt Taibbi

Something very odd is happening with regard to the TikTok ban. And as might be expected, it’s a law lacking all objective standards, the most dangerous kind of law which guarantees abuse by the regime in charge against its enemies. No party should have such power.

The political about-face is shocking. Something isn’t right, something has happened to change the calculus. Something we are not being told. Nothing to see here.

As Newsweek reported, the bill was fast-tracked after a secret “intelligence community briefing” of Congress led by the FBIDepartment of Justice, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The magazine noted that if everything goes as planned, the bill will give Biden the authority to shut down an app used by 150 million Americans just in time for the November elections.

Yes, there is a data security risk, but that is a ordinary and minor thing vs the real issue. Anyone telling you that’s the real issue is either a fool or a liar. TikTok the most powerful tool of mass social persuasion ever to exist, a true national security threat already doing damage. And controlled by our enemy, the CCP. Push the “heat” button (a real thing) and influence millions of minds. Swing elections, cut off your gonads, etc. It is no accident that anti-Israel sentiment runs 100:1 on TikTok.

Taibbi: Why the TikTok Ban is So Dangerous

2024-03-15, by Matt Taibbi

Did they tell you the part about giving the president sweeping new powers?

Last year at this time, Americans overwhelmingly supported a ban on TikTok. Polls showed a 50-22% overall margin in support of a ban and 70-14% among conservatives. But Congress couldn’t get the RESTRICT Act passed.

...Yet the House just passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” by a ridiculous 352-64 margin, with an even more absurd 50-0 unanimous push from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. What gives?

As discussed on the new America This Week, passage of the TikTok ban represents a perfect storm of unpleasant political developments, putting congress back fully in line with the national security establishment on speech....

...You’ll find the real issue in the fine print. There, the “technical assistance” the drafters of the bill reportedly received from the White House shines through, Look particularly at the first highlighted portion, and sections (i) and (ii) of (3)B:

As written, any “website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application” that is “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the National Security of the United States” is covered.

...
The definition of “controlled,” meanwhile, turns out to be a word salad, applying to:

(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country;

(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or

(C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B).

A “foreign adversary controlled application,” in other words, can be any company founded or run by someone living at the wrong foreign address, or containing a small minority ownership stake. Or it can be any company run by someone “subject to the direction” of either of those entities. Or, it’s anything the president says it is. Vague enough?

...this TikTok bill has allowed the intelligence community to re-capture the legislative branch. Just a few principled speech defenders are left now...

...

WIND: umm... every social media platform could be shutdown by Presidential edict today. They’d all fall into the tentacles of this law already. This is very dangerous. For example, since Elon Musk builds cars in China, that would make it straightforward to shut down X.com (formerly Twitter).

Companies that do not toe the line will be threatened with being shut down. We are talking “regime”, not Republic. In other words, fascism encoded into law. Well, that’s already mostly the case (six ways to Sunday to presssure companies and people to do their bidding as COVID made so obvious). So maybe this is just the coup de grace that the intelligence community has been wet-dreaming about, a sledgehammer to give things the stamp of officiality so as to more easily bamboozle the public.

WSJ: Follow the Science’ Leads to Ruin

re: WSJ
re: Bjorn Lomborg

Yep.

WSJ: Follow the Science’ Leads to Ruin

2024-03-13, by Bjorn Lomborg

Climate policy needs to take into account the costs of draconian measures, which are enormous.

More than one million people die in traffic accidents globally each year. Overnight, governments could solve this entirely man-made problem by reducing speed limits everywhere to 3 miles an hour, but we’d laugh any politician who suggested it out of office. It would be absurd to focus solely on lives saved if the cost would be economic and societal destruction. Yet . It’s simply a matter, they say, of “following the science.”politicians widely employ the same one-sided reasoning in the name of fighting climate change.

...When politicians tell us we must “follow the science” toward extreme climate policies, they are really trying to shut down the discussion of enormous, unsustainable costs. We shouldn’t let them....

Climate change is a real problem but isn’t the imminent existential crisis of which the media and activist politicians breathlessly warn... They run headlines and give speeches about extreme weather events, though the United Nations’ panel of climate scientists hasn’t been able to document evidence of most of them worsening. The data show that climate-related deaths from droughts, storms, floods and fires have declined by more than 97% over the last century, from nearly 500,000 annually to fewer than 15,000 in the 2020s. That’s a real human cost but far from cataclysmic. More people die in traffic accidents in an average week. 

Over the past two centuries, global life quality has dramatically improved, to a large extent because of an incredible increase in energy, mostly from the harnessing of fossil fuels...

...Some of the most popular climate policies will have costs far greater than climate change itself. When politicians try to shut down discussion with claims that they’re “following the science,” don’t let them.

WIND: well put.

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