Solar Still Has a Long Way to Go
. . . there is no evidence they ever will be. "Google’s boldest energy move was an effort known as RE<C, which aimed to develop renewable energy sources that would generate electricity more cheaply than coal-fired power plants do. The company announced that Google would help promising technologies mature by investing in start-ups and conducting its own internal R&D. Its aspirational goal: to produce a gigawatt of renewable power more cheaply than a coal-fired plant could, and to achieve this in years, not decades." * * * "As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach." Refreshing as an ice water plunge, but harsh to the ears of the environmentalists, nothing can dissuade such a person from their religious revere. The Brits found a way to accomplish the difficult Triple Lindy, building thousands of wind turbines which actually release more carbon than they will ever save. This is before the calculations of hot standby power constantly waiting to cut in when the wind dies. Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists Religion short-circuits the need for rational thought, leading to disastrous consequences outside of spiritual world. The genius of religion is that it define and works within the spiritual; the disaster of unreformed secular religions is they are intended to work in the real, physical world. The train wreck that occurs commonly results in the murder of millions, reference the USSR, Communist China, Communist Cambodia, and pretty much every communist or socialist hell hole. We need to take back the rational, kick out the unreformed environmental religions, and return to sanity our political policy on the environment. This cannot happen as long as the progressive movement retains vigor. This movement, long past its sell by date, is slowly pushing the US, the West, and the world towards cataclysm. Americans may like nothing more than family, friends, and work, but about once each generation we need to wake up and realize that our political better have left the reservation, and are running amok. Now is that time. We need to turn our attention to the political sphere, correct the problems, resolve the fundamentals for the new socio-economic model, and move the nation, and the world forward. We can do this. We must.
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Venezuelans Face a New Threat – a Beer Shortage
Up till now Portlandia's hipsters haven't shown even the vaguest interest in Venezuela, but this should change all that in a New York minute. No Portlandian hipster worth his vintage cloths could live through a beer shortage. In Portlandia, such an event could cause a tectonic shift sufficient to trigger the long over due Richter 9 earthquake the scientists are always going on about. There is more below the break. Recycling Is Garbage
This article is from the way back machine, and from a time when the New York Times was not completely economically, environmentally, and progressively insane. Very good article, with good points. But now after a few decades, the environmental religion has infiltrated our schools, and fully indoctrinated our young people that recycling is a good, both morally and economically. It is neither. When I was a child we recycled, but only things which made economic sense to recycle. Boy scout troops would come by monthly and pickup newspaper, and metal for recycling. This was a moral good, the boy scouts were able to help the community recycle valuable recyclables, we were able to assist them by tying up the newsprint, and bagging the metals, and the boy scouts earned money to help defray the costs of scouting trips and adventures. Today, recycling is mandatory, if you do not, you will be taxed double or triple for your solid waste. Some localities even "audit" garbage and if they find recyclables the home owner can be fined or worse. There is no moral good in this, only obligation. Progressivism is authoritarianism, the power to tell others what to do, and enforce that with money penalties, and even prison. The ability to command men with guns to do ones bidding is a powerful motivator for the authoritarian. These people are not saving the world, they are aggregating power, which they uses to gain more power. The end point is enslavement. An election is coming, choose wisely. Bernie's Right—America Should Be More Like Sweden
. . . and unsurprisingly, Sweden should be much more like America. Johan Norberg is an excellent economist who has taken the time to write and nice concise synopsis on what made Sweden prosperous, what eroded that prosperity, and what is now rebuilding that prosperity. As expected, he finds that the necessary ingredients are republican governance (Sweden's Constitutional Monarchy), free markets, reformed religions (Sweden's Lutheran religious history, and its work ethic), significant limitations on government regulation of the business, personal, and trade elements in society, and a tightly cohesive homogenous population. He also admits that the cohesive homogenous population is not possible in the US, and is no longer a possibility in Sweden due to recent immigrations. The basic story is that Sweden became wealthy at about the same time as America 1800-1950, and this occurred prior to the period of the Swedish Social Democratic experiment, a failed experiment which reduced Sweden from 4 wealthiest nation in the world, to the 14th. A swift and steep fall from grace. Today, Sweden is digging out of its failed tryst with socialism by privatizing, becoming reacquainted with free markets, and trade. Read the whole thing it is well worth your while. Yellow Water, Dirty Air, Power Outages: Venezuela Hits a New Low
Venezuela is a socialist hell hole, and the people are looking for a way out. So, is it always after the socialism has a chance to firmly take hold. Bernie's fracking ban would backfire: Column
. . . and his supporters are likely in agreement, although that will probably falter once they see the bill! Common sense is not common, wisdom is rare, and socialisms first feint is always the pocket book of the poor, but ends with the destruction of all but the very wealthy. If you vote for the Bern, understand the consequences. Low cost energy is a boon to man, not a bane. Failure to understand this is unconscionable. The desire to limit this is evil. But then we all know socialism is evil. Fortunately, oft evil will shall evil mar. Venezuela to ration malls, change clocks, to save power
. . . so vote your conscience, but understand the consequences. Socialism is the most wonderful, fair, and equal system ever devised on paper. In real life, however, it becomes a meat grinder destroying the social structure, and the people with impunity. There are no positive outcomes. Student Loan Excesses Harm the Most Vulnerable It looks more like the goal of these schemes is to impoverish the poor. This article is written about student loans, and points out how these loans actually hurt the people the Boomer progressives are attempting to help. "The real losers in the student loan merry-go-round are precisely kinds of students—marginal, little family experience in college, low income—that the Obama administration most wants to help. The Wall Street Journal: 'The conventional wisdom among student activists and and elected leaders is that high levels of student debt are causing young Americans to delay key milestones like buying a home, getting married and having kids. New research paints a more complicated picture. It suggests student debt is indeed a barrier for a significant minority—college dropouts—but that it’s generally not holding back those who earned degrees […]' College dropouts … typically owe small amounts of student debt—under $10,000—but don’t have the degrees that provide an earnings boost that would position them to buy a home." But this problem is much deeper than just student loans. The prior post on the minimum wage is another area where the Boomer progressives have created policies disastrous to the poor, The list is endless, public transit, the minimum wage, higher education, and higher education loans, occupational licensing, unionization, and myriad other Boomer progressive government policies damage the poor, while benefiting the upper middle class the most, and while still offering some benefit to the middle class. Most of the benefit comes from the upper middle class being able to navigate the rules, so upper middle class parents help their children navigate the college by ensuring they take a major which will result in a job as well as an education. "Well-intentioned but harebrained social engineering is a menace to the poor. Instead of idealistic social schemes, policy elites should go back to the basics: expand vocational education and training programs, limit competition from illegal unskilled immigrants, reduce paperwork and regulatory restrictions that make it hard to start businesses in the cities where so many poor people live, and put an end to the war on low-wage jobs that is forcing employers to replace tellers, checkout clerks and other unskilled and semiskilled jobs with machines. These are policies that would actually help, but they violate treasured liberal myths, so we earnestly saddle poor kids with debt they can’t afford for degrees they can’t get—after making them waste 12 years in lousy schools that we can’t seem to operate effectively." Mead gets much wrong here. Yes, the idealistic social schemes are terrible, but his prescriptions for solving the problems won't work. It is not competition from illegal unskilled immigrants which are causing problems. And while reducing paperwork and making it easier to start businesses would be a benefit, it is not as important as eliminating occupational licensing, eliminating the minimum wage, eliminating all federal and state employer/employee regulations, implementing a federal right to work law, eliminating all Davis-Bacon and related work laws, among many others. These would have immediate, direct, and positive results on employment, and create the underlying pressures necessary to create jobs which would allow people to build job skills, and begin to rise up the wage ladder. Sanders fans are blind to reality of socialism
. . . which shows that inexperience allows all manner of irrational behavior. "It is especially interesting that the primary drivers of this shift are college-age voters and their mentors on the left who teach them." Not really, neither has any real life experiences. The only difference between the two is that those in the Academe have more time in the saddle as student and have attained more degree status. Otherwise, they have few life experiences related to the real world, business, etc. "In college town after college town, Sanders turns out huge crowds, chanting his name and exalting his causes: the redistribution of wealth and the destruction of those deemed to be undeserving of their economic success." To children who know nothing of hard work, making a payroll, or year after year of long arduous work hours, it is easy to believe that the economically successful had it as easy as the student in obtaining a grade. But working for money is not like working for a grade. The grade inflation has made grades nearly valueless. While people outside of government still value a buck, and tend to hold it tightly. "It is an interesting choice. Socialism is one of those ideas that has great theoretical attractiveness but a record of massive practical failure. The devastation — not just economic but also in terms of human suffering — that has been wrought in the name of the greater good of a socialist system is staggering." Agreed, on paper socialism is the best system ever. In reality, it is nothing but tyranny freed from restraint, which always results in millions murdered. Only the young and/or inexperienced could follow a system so bloody, and immoral. Socialism is simply greed, and authoritarian violence allowed off leash. "Maybe what needs to be fixed is not our market economy but our educational system. It skips over teaching the historical and undeniable failures of socialism and thus leaves our students totally unprepared to evaluate whose ideas will work best in leading our nation and improving our quality of life." True, and it really is much worse than Mr. Gregg is allowing. We should end state funding now! Parents and Universities are failing our children . . . Teachers, and professors are increasingly indoctrinating our children with irreducible nonsense, and even damaging beliefs like the one where socialism is great and will improve the lives of all American. We could use a revolution about now. McDonald's has revealed a new restaurant of the future
. . . is just a Meis van der Rohe/Bauhaus piece of bullshit rework of the original McDonald's restaurant of 1953. Oh yeah, they added a drive up or few. Here is the oldest McDonald's compare it with this Meis/Bauhaus Soviet bunker inspired bullshit. One of these is beautiful, the other is not. One of these improves the human element, the other detracts. Can we just stop this crap now, please! |
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