I have noticed on the interwebz a lot of back and forth talk of the Enlightenment. What was it, was it good, was it bad and how does it affect us. Well my fine fellows, Pie is here, yet again, to give the knowledge to the masses. After carefully studying the debate on the merits of the Enlightenment for about 10 minutes or so, I am going to drop a few ideas here.
Wait! Is that really sufficient research on such a complex topic? Yes, but more importantly I noticed a lot of stuff about it on the internet and felt this site also needs more posts on the Enlightenment, otherwise we will have a post gap on our hands. We need more scholarly, profoundly intellectual pieces around here anyways. What is the Enlightenment? What does it mean? What does the future hold?
Where shall we begin? Well at the beginning if you will.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. Or the big bang happened followed by billions of years or random particles doing random particle shit and out of this whole mess, plus some soup along the way, here we all are, dicking around on the internet. I may have skipped a bit over the boring parts.
Let there be light. But it was not light all the time. Sometime it was night. And a few measly stars and the moon don’t cut it, especially inside or when it is cloudy or rainy or snowy or murky or generally unpleasant. Hupersons (let’s not be sexist y’all) have always had strange relationship with the dark. It was dangerous and mysterious. It caused fear and awe and inspiration and fascination. And while the dark was not necessarily bad, humans fought against in since they mastered fire. The dark was worse in winter, and often accompanied by the cold, so warmth was needed as much as light. But with fire, both were more or less achieved.
Fire was the first push against the dark. The bonfire and the hearth; the torch and the primitive lamp, made of stone or bone or shell, likely using resins or animal fats as fuel. As human civilization advanced, oil lamps and candles and rushligths – if you were poor and basic- appeared. Followed by gas lamps of various shapes and forms and, finally, after one hundred thousand years of struggle or more, glorious electricity.
Electricity was a game changer. It made night into day, it extended the time and scope of human activity, it changed biorhythms and habits and it, in a way, remade civilization. After electricity, we could say we conquered the darkness. We may have conquered it a bit too much, if you count light pollution and the fact that some people searched the darkness. You want, off course, what you are missing, and the world and its dangers were tamed in many ways.
Fire and electricity brought, besides light, other comforts against the cruel world, heat and cold, depending on what you want, chiefly among them. This was later called by historians The Enlightenment, the mass bringing of light and comfort into human civilization. Because what else would the enlightenment be? It has light right there in the name, so don’t you @ me, as the olds say on twitter these days, I am sure the kids have moved on to whatever bullshit goes on tik tok.
I mention comfort because, despite the fight against the dark and the cold, more or less successful, for the majority of human history people lived in dwellings that, unless the season was just right, were either cold or hot or damp, and most definitely dark. Because, while fire and lamps and candles and stoves worked some, they worked in a very limited fashion, creating an oasis of light and warmth in the cold and dark, and people huddled inside it.
But the darkness is fighting back. In the form of the modern green movement. Like the puritans of yesteryear, only weirder, they do not like what the Enlightenment brought. Demons and witches ahem CO2 is lurking in the miracles of the age, which are nothing but a Trojan horse for a magnum destruction of the entire world. Repent, ye heathens, the end is nigh.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like the environment. I even live in it. I like mountains and forests and lakes and rivers as such. I am not pro pollution, although CO2 as pollution is sort of debatable. What I do not like is the quasi-religious aspect of the movement and, in reference to the text I have written, the miserabilist aspects. The green movement does not seem to be “let’s see what we can do to best preserve the world and keep our comfort, given the various trade-offs”. Nonono my friends, this is not what the Khmer Vert (h/t K. Niemitz) are all about. Besides being more or less a front for socialism, with little if at all to do with saving the world, they are so damn anti-inspirational. What happened to dreaming of a world where we can have all the things we want? Their solutions are mostly towards poverty. Turn off the lights! Turn down the heat! No AC! Go back to living in to cold, to hot, to damp dark dwellings. No meat. Shower every other day. No flying. I am going to have to go with “no” on this one. If fact Hell No. The devil Marx take these people!
I do not want to live in a cold, damp, dark home. I don’t want to live in a tiny home. I want to eat food I like and drink good wine and get the occasional vacation in. I want to have the freedom to decide my life, what I do, where I work, keep my money and decide how I spend it. I am open to preserve the environment, because it is obvious I, like many people, do not want to live on a devastated planet. Not that the planet is currently devastated or anywhere near it, at least not in the civilized world. So I will take a movement serious as long as they preserve this things.
We have the most technologically advanced civilization in human history. We should be able to find a solution to lowering CO2 if so we wish. Hint: nuclear. Now I may be excessively optimistic on nuclear. But I do not think so. I think there are plenty of promising techs. Some say it is expensive or dangerous. Dangerous I doubt it, not truly, not if you are a bit careful. For storing the waste there are solutions. Although a lot of the issues would be solved by molten salt reactors. I am not even talking fusion or such. Personally, I think it is silly to burn coal for power in the 21st century. Maybe it is the techno optimist in me. I think nuclear could give sufficient cheap power, enough to replace fossil fuel heating in most places with electrical. And nuclear is a much more elegant solution than anything else.
But nuclear is dismissed out of hand. This makes it very hard for me to take the greenies seriously in any fashion. Even if it was dangerous now, the view should be let’s see if we can get it safe. It is not, which makes me think that CO2 is not the real reason. The real reason is socialism and misery and cold and dark and stupid shit like wind mills and solar panels.
We put a goddamn man on the goddamn moon, to be all cliché about it. I would say have a damn moonshot on nuclear. But that is just me. Enlightenment now. Fiat lux!
Comments
316 responses to “The Enlightenment in the 21st Century”
“I do not want to live in a cold, damp, dark home. ”
Trying to pretend he’s not a vampire. We are not fooled.
You’ve got to be careful with the damp, you don’t want mold and mildew forming on your pseudo-corpse.
People will mistake you for a zombie.
So this is a sort of experimental post for me in that I was reading something on the enlightenment got a silly joke in my head about light bulbs and wanted to see if I can write a whole post while having nothing to say really…
I enjoyed it, very rambly
…and you did it well…
I enjoyed it and you are appreciated for your insight.
Of all nation’s, France is doing it right, 76% nukes
Americans put a man on the moon. Not vampires.
We?
figure of speech
I made it less than half way through the NYT acrostic yesterday and am rather bent; I keep going back to it to see if I’ve missed something obvious
What threw me for a minute was that one letter isn’t a letter. Once I grokked that it came together pretty quick, coincidentally I am skipping work today and cluing my new Acrostic as we speak/type. Should have it submitted this afternoon, no idea when/if TPTB will post it.
This was later called by historians The Enlightenment, the mass bringing of light and comfort into human civilization.
You’re a caution.
And yet, the average person walking down the street is dumber than a box of rocks.
Just take some Soma and forget about it…,..
OK.
Half the population is below average. There is nothing we can do it about that, unless, unless…
+ Margaret Sanger
That will simply change the value of average.
The purging will continue until
moraleIQs improve?*snicker*
HTML failure means you get to be first in line.
OUCH!
I um…I don’t edit fairy. Gracias!
If everyone has the same intelligence, nobody will be below average.
Unless I’m the handicapper general, I’d rather have the below average folks wandering around.
Meh, just change the scale. Instead of 100 being human mean with a 10 being every standard deviation, just use a scale with 0 being basalt and 1 being human and round all results to the nearest integer.
We all move to Lake Wobegon?
“Thinking doesn’t pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.”
― Heinlein
>.<
I do not want to live in a cold, damp, dark home.
How unmutual of you. Go sit in the corner and contemplate your sins.
on the chair of woe?
With the dunce cap!
That reminds me of the time I was on a plane and the three guys in front of me got into an argument on whose profession was the oldest. The pastor claimed his was, because God spoke to Adam and Eve and was thus the first preacher. Then the engineer spoke up and said his profession was oldest because God used engineering principles to create the Earth out of the chaos.
Then the politician spoke up “And just who do you think created the chaos?”
engineering is last in most things, next to last in the rest
Nice article.
Environmentalism is the latest device to impose The New Soviet Man. For the hard-line greens, the fact that socialism produces penury is now something that can be marketed as a feature. Your wanting more than bare subsistence (if even that) is a display of your lack of faith in Mother Gaia. Now, if they can just hide the fact that socialism also has a history of leaving the environment a wreck, as well, they’ll be golden.
“The New Soviet Man”
Robspierre and the French Revolution had the Soviets beat by hundreds of years.
Well in my view most of the left want the same when they say that education will make people vote right and bring some utopian big government. If only those damn rednecks were more educated…
If we paid teachers more they’d do a better job.
but at the same time all teachers are heroes and do a fantastic job
“But the darkness is fighting back. In the form of the modern green movement. Like the puritans of yesteryear, only weirder, they do not like what the Enlightenment brought.”
I think the Green Movement better encapsulates the Enlightenment than the people who push against its zealotry. Especially when you consider the quasi-religious fervor that spawned the continental form of Enlightenment which is far more popular than the Americanized version.
According to wikipedia The first street to be lit by an incandescent lightbulb was Mosley Street, in Newcastle upon Tyne. But Timișoara, in present-day Romania was also pretty early. Also Paris is known as the city of lights.
If by “Enlightenment” you just meant electricity then I see your point. I read your article as bemoaning the end of “the Enlightenment” as in the philosophical and political movement. In that regard, it would be awfully strange to credit Napoleon III as remaking Paris as “the city of lights” and claiming that as a triumph of “the Enlightenment”.
my article is an overextended joke about light 🙂 I am not generally bemoaning the Enlightenment as I have mixed feelings about seeing it as this single thing to be bemoaned, rather then multiple things, some good some bad. I am not a reactionary either, I do not want to return to pre-Enlightenment state of things…
I get the joke now. I thought you were discussing “the Enlightenment”, which the Green Movement is more in tune with than its opponents, especially since “centralized control” and “materialistic faith” were the biggest successes of the continental Enlightenment.
I did ponder a year ago or so to write my views on the actual thing, when the net was full of it, post gap and whatnot, but decided I couldn’t be arsed.
Especially when you consider the quasi-religious fervor that spawned the continental form of Enlightenment which is far more popular than the Americanized version.
The way I’ve always understood it is that the “Americanized” version is mostly derived from the the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment, which relied heavily on concepts anticipating the idea of distributed knowledge. The continental form was more heavily influenced by the French Enlightenment that emphasized the ability of Top Men to re-orient society along rationalistic lines.
Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment also invented racism and exploitation.
Debatable. While the French Enlightenment did push an end to slavery, many English and Scottish liberals had successfully limited the practice on the British Isles and would eventually lead the UK in imposing an international moratorium on the practice.
this was mostly a parody of some far left talking points. While some say racism did not exist until modernity, I would say in group / out-group stuff existed for ever in various forms, maybe not exactly the more modern forms but that is not that relevant. Now if you take the view of merry old bucolic England, there was no exploitation before industrialization.
You are far too clever for me to spot your tongue-in-cheek comments.
To an extent, though, modern “racism” or, rather, the notion that one race is the natural superior to another does have its origins in the British Isles and that’s what I thought you were noting.
one race is the natural superior to another – this is so, the superior race are the descendants of Dacians
Where/when would you put the origin of this?
But one could argue scientific racism did not exist before science existed.
“Where/when would you put the origin of this?”
Pie alluded to it. Around the 1800’s. There were actual “scientific” papers that the English published during the height of their Empire ranking the racial superiority of different groups. For some reason, the English seemed to think that the Irish were the worst of the worst since they were always ranked near or at the bottom.
Such classifications made the man-made Irish Potato Famine more palatable. With Malthus providing the assist with his scientific-y “muh…too many people!” argument.
Although maybe he wasn’t as explicit about race as the Brits, at about the same time Fichte was creating the ethical and cultural framework for all of the German nastiness which was soon to follow. So I don’t think it was particular to Britain.
The Greeks, Romans, and Han, among others, would disagree.
“So I don’t think it was particular to Britain.”
I never said it was. Scientific racism has its roots in Britain. That’s what I said.
“The continental form was more heavily influenced by the French Enlightenment that emphasized the ability of Top Men to re-orient society along rationalistic lines.”
But then we would have to say that Hobbes was not part of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment tradition. And this would likely also disqualify David Hume.
Fair point. That’s why I used “relied heavily”. You can just as easily point to some continental figures and get equally valid counterpoints. I still think it’s fair to identify these sorts of ideas as the trends of the two schools of thought.
We’re living in the post-Enlightenment. Man had replaced or demoted God and a lot of people were severely displeased at the prospect. So ever since, we’ve been looking for God’s replacement, usually in the form of the State. Anything is better than the primacy of the individual.
“Man had replaced or demoted God and a lot of people were severely displeased at the prospect. So ever since, we’ve been looking for God’s replacement, usually in the form of the State.”
That sounds like the exact result of the Enlightenment in every country’s experience, excluding the US.
Hicks talks about this a lot in “Explaining Postmodernism”. Kant, Rousseau, Fichte, Engels, etc… were all reactionaries to the Enlightenment. Kant was explicit about it.
Yeah, I’d have to listen to the podcast. I find that people often want to ascribe sunshine and lollipops as the consequence of the Enlightenment and want to ignore the massive centralization of state authority and all the murdering that occurred in its wake. Rousseau was one of the biggest heros of the continental Enlightenment (the far more popular variety) and Kant was one of its foremost philosophers, so this seems strange. I’ll have to listen to it.
Hicks argues that Kant and Rousseau, although being called heroes of the Enlightenment, were instead a reaction to it. They were the intellectual forebears of Engels, Marx, Heidegger, etc…
Rousseau, in particular, was a giant piece of shit.
“whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.”
Here’s a thought: The Enlightenment was a forebearer to Marx and Engels. I mean, the commies shared more in common with the Jacobins than anti-communists did.
Consider the notion that the Enlightenment wasn’t all that great.
I guess the question is whether or the French Revolution was part of the Enlightenment or the end of the Enlightenment.
It probably has a foot in both eras, but the philosophers associated with it were not individualists in manner or form.
I think different people will define enlightenment to suit their needs. Some will ascribe everything good, some everything bad. Enlightenment brought modernity or slavery take your pick. And even enlightenment reactionaries are of many different sorts. This is why, like I said in n older post about Western Civilization, I do not see it as a single unified phenomenon, just maybe a generic term for a period of human history which brought all sorts of things, if I may use academic language
I mean, the commies shared more in common with the Jacobins than anti-communists did.
True. But, then Locke, or Smith have virtually nothing in common with either. And I don’t think you can avoid the fact that they were Enlightenment figures.
“I guess the question is whether or the French Revolution was part of the Enlightenment or the end of the Enlightenment.”
If the French Revolution was not part of the Enlightenment then there literally was no Enlightenment.
“I think different people will define enlightenment to suit their needs. Some will ascribe everything good, some everything bad.”
Sure, but historical accuracy should be the point. And if it is not the point then the Enlightenment is as much a revealed religion as Christianity, but without any concrete rules.
From wikipedia, so take it with the customary salt, but the sources are cited:
Not only is the French Rasputin not a part of the enlightenment period, it’s the end of it. You can argue with the historians as you please, but I think the main problem is that the enlightenment, both as a philosophical movement and a time period, is poorly defined.
“Not only is the French Rasputin not a part of the enlightenment period, it’s the end of it.”
Then exactly one country is rooted in any Enlightenment ideas if the French Revolution is the end of the mythical Enlightenment.
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity is CANCELLED
By this standard the Enlightenment was just a bit of a continuum. Maybe a more prominent bit but still…
That is the way history tends to work.
Rousseau was a proto-socialist at the trail end of the enlightenment, taking the ideas produced and twisting them not to produce a government not to protect the individual, but to create utopia.
“Rousseau was a proto-socialist at the trail end of the enlightenment, taking the ideas produced and twisting them not to produce a government not to protect the individual, but to create utopia.”
Wouldn’t that mean that Thomas Paine is CANCELLED then too? He was all utopia-y and stuff.
And what about Hamilton with his demand for centralized control? Is Hamilton CANCELLED? That would be hard nowadays, because that stupid play is so popular.
I’d love to cancel Hamilton.
Agreed.
I’m not sure if Michael Malice praises Hamilton now just to trigger his audience, but I don’t care for it.
Flashback to the early 2000’s when Hamilton was the bad guy in the “John Adams” miniseries. Oh, how times have quickly changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaWBs46USqE&t=69s
Pain did indeed change his stances, and was heavily influenced by what was happening in France. He wrote one good work. Just because some is right once doesn’t mean they are right all the time.
Hamilton was a scheming, petty, self-serving piece of shit.
The need to ex post facto extricate certain figures from The Enlightenment because it undercuts what we want to believe The Enlightenment was really speaks to how much people mythologize that period of history.
David Hume and Thomas Hobbes better watch out, they are next on the chopping block for cancellation. I’m good with that, though.
The enlightenment was an era, and also a philosophical movement. You seem to be wobbling between which definition you’re using.
Everyone from Rousseau to Kant to Hume to Hobbes were considered Enlightenment thinkers for hundreds of years until it became inconvenient to still consider them such in the modern era.
I’m not saying any of them are not Enlightenment thinkers so I’m not sure how I’m waffling
I think the point is it was multiple movements not one
Perhaps more useful to characterize them in terms of pre-modern, modern and post-modern.
“Modern” is a moving target. Modernity changes as time passes. It cannot be used for a static reference.
Not as it applies to philosophy, but as a general adjective, yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_technique
The mind boggles in contemplation of what “postmodern technique” will be.
Shitting on the floor whole screaming social justice platitudes and claiming the entire thing to be a performance art installation, causing your attacker to commit sudoku from the cringe.
Flashback to the early 2000’s when Hamilton was the bad guy in the “John Adams” miniseries. Oh, how times have quickly changed.
George Arliss played Hamilton in the early 1930s as a good guy. Of course, the casting of a sexagenarian actor playing a guy who died in his 40s and who was in his 30s at the time of the events of the movie is interesting….
I’m non-religious myself, but frankly I can’t deny this. It seems like 80% of atheists favor some kind of technocratic communism.
In general, people want to be ruled. We truly live(d) in an aberration in the original form of the USA.
I’m not sure if it is the desire to be ruled or the freedom from responsibility. However one does not come without the other.
“Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want”
–Devo
I’m going to shamelessly Tease my own article that will be in on Friday. It discusses this and it’s root in certain enlightenment thinkers.
The Enlightenment is more mythologized in the West than World War II is by the average History Channel viewer.
Hahah. Yes. I was going to say, I don’t read/listen to Hicks, but trying to argue that key enlightenment thinkers were actually counter cultural reactionaries seems like trying to make a construct to save the Mythology of the Enlightenment. Wouldn’t it be easier to be nuanced and abandon the mythology, and recognize that there were two competing brands in the enlightenment that looking back on we all call part of one era?
There was the American brand of Enlightenment (which was the less popular variety that was embraced by exactly zero countries, with the exception of the US) and the continental variety of Enlightenment which provided great things like centralized government, materialistic faiths, socialism, and murder. The continental variety won over every Western country and thrived in South America.
Hicks only wants to discuss the American variety (which is dying) and pretend like the other variety never existed (even though it is far more popular and ascendant in the US).
I think you will like my article on Friday.
/Shameless self promotion.
The UK came closer than most, but in general yes, the Continent went straight from pre-modern to post-modern.
I won’t/can’t do justice to Hicks here, but his book is well worth the time and effort. He creates a far more logical timeline of philosophical events from pre-modernity to post-modernity than I’ve read elsewhere.
I will read it, but I already have a negative view on him being Canadian. I’ll try to look past that
I bet you don’t even think Shatner is the greatest thespian ever to have walked this earth.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan the Shat, big fan. But really, he’s no BRIAN BLESSED.
+1 Scene Chewing Hawk ManBut Shatner is still the superior choice.
But Shatner is still the superior choice.
I have often attracted the ire of the “enlightened” types, especially those making fun of old time religion and peddling collectivism as the way forward for humanity, when I pointed out that the shit they were peddling they simply replaced the all-powerful/all-knowing god of the old time religion with the state, the promise of heaven after life with the promise of the state delivering heaven on earth, and the religious zeal and conviction that they are superior because of their beliefs. Marxism wanted to destroy other religions so it wouldn’t compete with it, and fascism found a way to put the state over the church. Collectivists are nothing but modern day shamans peddling the same old basic needs for the masses (opiates).
Michael Burleigh has an excellent series of books on this topic.
It seems, however, that God prefers the primacy of the individual. Who am I to argue?
I think the climate change thing is popular with Lefties for a couple reasons:
1) It’s everything they already wanted to do – bigger government, higher taxes, crackdowns on business and industry.
2) It gives voters and excuse to ignore issues on which the Democrat Party is terrible. I was discussing gun rights one time, and the person abruptly pivoted to, “Well, the Democrats are better on the environment. We can repeal bad gun laws later, but we can’t fix the planet if we destroy it.”
“We can repeal bad gun laws later”
No, no we really can’t. that’s the whole entire purpose of 2A. once we lose it, we’ll never get it back
I know it.
Government is called a one-way ratchet for a reason. Once you ban something “for safety”, precious few politicians will be willing to repeal it because the very first time someone gets hurt from the deregulated thing, their opponents will run all kinds of attack ads for it. They could deregulate SBRs tomorrow, 10 years of unprecedented peace could occur, but the very first time someone gets shot with one, you can just imagine the ads that would run: “And little Timmy would still be alive today if my stupid opponent hadn’t allowed our streets to be flooded with these super-short death rifles!!”
Ditto with anything for welfare. We libertarians know that once the government funds something by taxation, it’s incredibly hard to sell people on this idea that they now have to pay based on how much of the service they’re using.
Great article, Pie!
As I sit here by my natural gas fireplace, using my laptop, eating a gigantic ribeye omelet, all I can say is BRAVO!!
Besides, Trout Unlimited alone has done more for the actual environment than all the watermelons put together. You want a better environment? Make everyone richer (and build nuke plants).
ribeye omelet – never heqrd of this before. is it like steak and eggs or are there small pieces of ribeye in the actual omelette?
I cook the filling separately from the eggs, then wrap for a taste sensation.
nice. What about the red meat kills doctrine?
I’ll go to confession later.
Won’t Jimbo just be annoyed you didn’t make him breakfast?
Fun. It’s hiring time again. Interviews for a consultant spot, and other interviews for a permanant state spot. Of course, I’m in the thick of it, because I’m going to be the direct supervisor of one. (My title is supposed to include supervisory responsibility for lower grade employees, but there hasn’t been anyone in those titles for my tenure thusfar)
I don’t like dealing with people, but the interviews themselves are easier than the paperwork, which is bizarre and arcane, requiring a great deal of divination to determine what’s supposed to be filed by who, etc.
This consultant job, how much does it pay?
Not much. The vendors take a chunk, then the body shops take a chunk. We spend above market rate and it ends up below market rate for the guy doing the actual work.
Doing actual work? I thought it was a consultant job.
Staff augmentation consultants. They are “Non Personnel Expenses” in budgetary terms. So when the pendulum swings towards lower staffing, we end up with more consultants, when it swings against outsourcing, we have more state titles.
We don’t hire ‘ideas guys’ or stuff like that at my level.
Sheesh you guys are tight-fisted. Great Barrington just hired a consultant to examine the feasibility of a dog park, with a due date on the report of Dec 2020. And they paid $50k.
IT is disfavored among the bean counters. Spending on compute is seen as draining from their pet projects, no matter how many of those projects the compute is used to support.
Under pressure from dizzy watermelons, the Vikings paid $300K for a study of the new stadium and its contribution to bird deaths. The result?
An estimated 111 birds. A year.
Good money if you can get it…
Wait till they figure out how much a properly structured IT infrastructure can be used to further their pet projects.
Nothing will get an apathetic worker to conform more than 3 radio buttons, none of which say “other”.
An estimated 111 birds. A year. – those are rookie numbers. Build a wind park to pump up those numbers.
An estimated 111 birds. A year.
So, the stadium is as harmful as a single cat. Money well spent.
That’s because the state government doesn’t have any good ideas.
*market rate being what someone directly employed in such a role elsewhere would command, if not distorted by state procurement practices.
if not distorted by state procurement practices.
What fantasy world is this, where state procurement practices don’t distort everything?
Procurement practices are not regulations on people not working with us.
The fact that we hire and buy in stange ways doesn’t impact people not selling to us.
Don’t confuse law and regulation with the weird way we do things.
You procure in an already state distorted world.
seems like it is difficult to find a truly qualified candidate unless they have a fetish for government work.
H-1Bs fill a lot of the consultant spots, sponsored by the body shops and then their services resold to other customers.
The state titles get an odd mix of ex-consultants who’ve achieved permanant residency, new graduates, people already in state service at lower titles, and people getting too old for private sector who still need an income/benefits.
Some of them know what they’re doing.
I dislike the concept of H-1Bs.
Regardless of your view on immigration, the whole program is set up to create perverse incentives from end to end.
My autumn has been spectacularly slow. Positions are down and I haven’t so much as discussed a project with anyone in weeks. It is not possible that things are so much as even against last fall.
But my situation is local and of a certain type. I would argue I’m a leading indicator usually, but this might be a new trend. I doubt it, though: I look at a lot of different work.
Working for a state government, our hiring cycles do not reflect the reality of the economy in any way, shape, or form.
Bravo on the new avatar, Don.
avatar
whatever can be hammered out on free software in three minutes !
* curtsies *
Someone has got to be advising a subset of these applicants to leave off jobs unrelated to the position being applied for. The patterns of gaps and unusually short histories don’t make sense otherwise. (Unless we have an unusually high reprobate quotient, and they’ve been in and out of prison or something)
I have a puzzlement, and a great temptation. Is there some sort of event happening that is encouraging gunsellers to liquidate inventory?
https://www.armsunlimited.com/Beretta-92G-Elite-LTT-9mm-Pistol-p/j92g9lttm.htm
I can personally vouch that this gun is the absolute shizznit:
https://www.armsunlimited.com/CZ-Shadow-2-9mm-Semi-Auto-Pistol-Urban-Gray-p/91255.htm
wait for black Friday the prices will drop everything must go
Prices on old Model 12s are dropping. I was amazed at getting a 1942 Black Diamond trap gun for under a grand. My buddy just bought a beautiful 1930-something 16 gauge WS-1 skeet gun for $750.
Although, I really suspect that this is more due to younger shooters being all into the Tacticool stuff, while us old farts still remember how great guns like the Model 12 are.
I wouldn’t discount regulatory pressure tweaking some marginal shopping preferences. When’s the last time somebody said shotguns should be proscribed.
Wait until some nutbar figures out that they can commit far more mass mayhem at short to intermediate ranges with something like a Mossberg 590 firing buckshot, than they can with an AR-15.
Hey, the alt-text works.
CO2 as pollution is sort of debatable.
No, its really not.
It’s the same definition as “weed.” if you don’t want it where it is, it fits.
….that means that palm tree is a weed!
Humans Produce CO2
Humans are undesirable
Pollutants are Undesirable things
Ergo CO2 is the product of something undesirable.
Q.E.D
ralfy review 801- Pikesville 6yo Straight Rye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9oZhxmX9E
not available in Romania sadly
If Redmond WA was turned into a glass parking lot this morning, I’m not sure I’d shed a tear.
To be fair, that would increase albedo and thus mitigate global warming
So win-win.
Win10 is a steaming pile of shit.
*types away on 5 year old Mac*
I’d use mac too if i never wanted to do anything useful with my life
Work pc so no choice. Like the migration from Win7.
Retards are running MS even more than they used to. And apparently they’re blind retards too because they can’t fucking see the screen without using billboard sized text and graphics.
That sucks. We have Macs at work because we don’t use any software that requires Windows. Frankly, I chose this (macbook air) because I always have the fucking thing with me, it has a great battery and an ok, backlit keyboard.
If the keyboards on the tablets didn’t suck so bad, I could almost get away with that. This thing has already lasted longer than I expected, so when it dies, I’ll see what’s available.
My MacBook at home is older than that and has less sucky keys. I’m not looking forward to replacing it. Mostly I use it now for anything that requires a program to run or file manipulation. Browsing and most email is on the tablet.
Just when I think my work experience sucks, I see posts of the great new office space (no not really) for our U.K. colleagues and due to the plastic environment concerns, no Christmas crackers at the holiday party this year. People are actually applauding it too. And asking for the
employee resourcegrievance monger groups ID lanyards.Win10 is a steaming pile of shit.
But its like Chocolate Silk pie compared to Win8.
Now if only they’d released Windows 9, we’d have a decent release to tide us over till 11.
Well, that took a turn.
All This Talk About Bolivia Must Mean Something Is Happening In Either South America Or Eastern Europe
Bolivia, which is most certainly not in Asia and has maybe a 15% of being in Africa, is most likely a country nestled somewhere in South America or perhaps bordering one of those former Soviet states like Georgia. Unrest there could affect grain maybe, oil perhaps (but probably not), and has a small chance of raising costs on one of those rare metals no one has heard of but that are used in, like, every electronic device.
“Are things bad enough that people should maybe scan the Wikipedia entry for Bolivia?” said foreign policy expert Leonard Gregory. “I’m not saying we’re there yet; it’s a long entry, and most people wouldn’t be certain what they should be scanning for. But people should be aware that Bolivia is the name of a country and not the name of a foreign city and know the two most likely continents it exists in.”
Fantastic. The Babylon Bee has really started to take the Onion’s Mantle.
Started? The Onion has already tapped out.
Started?
It’s already taken The Onion’s mantle, its lunch money, and its prom date.
The Onion’s mom is buying new lingerie.
Man had replaced or demoted God and a lot of people were severely displeased at the prospect. So ever since, we’ve been looking for God’s replacement, usually in the form of the State.
Perhaps someone here smarter than me can give me a little bit of enlightenment on something. I know Freud was an atheist. In fact, he explained God as an Oedipal father figure writ large, if I understand correctly. But, if that’s true, it leaves me with a couple of questions. Doesn’t that make atheism itself just the classical Oedipal reaction of killing your father? And, if that’s so, is atheism really even possible if we have an innate need for the father figure?
I always viewed atheism as an expression of faith, professing belief in something fundamentally unknowable.
Fight me.
Fight me.
Why? I mostly agree. I think the only rational response to the question of a God’s existence is “indeterminate’.
Totally agree, but I try to hedge my bet.
*looks around nervously*
It’s all just Time Preferences.
Is that anything like Time Passages?
Why are there so many old people in Church?
They are cramming for the finals.
I once had an insurance agent ask me about my faith. I told him I was agnostic. He then proclaimed, “Oh, so you’re avoiding the question and taking the easy way out.” To which I responded, “No, I’m just not going to offer a statement of fact on something I cannot logically determine. And I take offense to your suggestion that my position is ill-considered and lazy. Now you can leave my office.”
Browbeating people about their religious beliefs seems like a stupid salesmanship tactic.
It certainly didn’t benefit him on that day. Although he did explicitly say that he was willing to forgo his sale to evangelize me.
some fanatical atheist are clearly so.
My atheism is based on one premise: No evidence.
Wouldn’t that make you agnostic?
You could argue that. But personally, I self-identify (hah) as atheist simply because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and the existence of a supernatural being who is benevolent, omnipresent and omnipotent, well, that seems to me to be an extraordinary claim, for which I haven’t seen any objective evidence at all.
There are logical flaws with the idea that we can have both an omnipotent God and free will, as well, but that’s probably best hashed out in some forum other than comments on a post.
Totally get it.
…best hashed out in some forum other than comments on a post.
And preferably with whisky.
I would be so down for that.
Hey, I tried!
That’s a reasonable assumption, as far as it goes. My problem with it is that it presumes there would have to be evidence within the context of creation of something that would necessarily be outside of creation. That isn’t clear to me. I don’t feel like there’s any evidenciary claim I can make about what exists outside of the space-time continuum (i.e. creation).
I think deism is the closest I could ever get to religious belief (IF I found sufficient reason to believe in a supreme being).
That’s not the part I find most implausible. The part I find most implausible is the notion that this supreme being is going to be really, really, really mad if humans are having gay sex or saying bad words.
I always viewed atheism as an expression of faith, professing belief in something fundamentally unknowable.-
You don’t have to know the origins of the universe to know all “theologies” are just making stuff up hence the “a” without “theist” religion.
Example: god created Adam. Objectively false as evidence by the fossil record.
Another factor for humans’ creating god’s existence could be that the idea of infinite regression seems impossible. Everything must have a “creator” but that family tree can’t go back in time forever, so we’ll have to stop it somewhere – god. Using that logic it’s just as easy to say the known universe created itself, and then replace god with the universe. Personally, I find the idea of infinite regression to be sufficiently mysterious and worthy of contemplation, without having to believe in a being so obviously anthropocentric.
Your first problem is taking anything Freud said seriously. Your second problem is treating atheism as a unified position. The Abrahamic concept of God is often treated and referenced as a father figure, so you could make a case for someone rejecting christianity as Oedipal if you’re so inclined, but that doesn’t make much sense for someone rejecting Hinduism.
All these serious thinkers here.
I’m just lowly engineer that likes to shoot guns and make booze.
Please. I’ve offered nothing but a song and a lunch recap.
well at least the comments got going, in the first hour I though no one was around
The noontime slot is sparsely commented. I blame the lazy Californians.
I’ve got better things to do at lunch than be on my computer.
That’s what I do at work all day.
Sorry, Pie. My week is jam packed with diverse things and my measly little brain is not capable of processing anything else.
OT: Honda stays the course.
Honda CEO: ‘EVs Will Not Be Mainstream’
And Mark Sanford leaves the course…
Mark Sanford drops GOP primary challenge to Trump
I think for second car and more urban usage Honda is selling electrics short. For example, their upcoming little city car seems quite useful. However, Honda has nothing to compete with Tesla, Audi or MB’s larger offering so I think part of this is defensive. And I think VW’s mid sized electric is especially interesting.
Mind you there is nothing wrong with being defensive if this plays out the way the expect. For example Boeing looked at building a competitor to the A380 and their market analysis said the market couldn’t support the A380 let alone a Boeing competitor. They were correct and their bet paid off.
Sensible. I maintain that current battery technology is inadequate to lifting EVs out of niche status.
Of course, once that hurdle is overcome, the next one is the complete upgrade of our electrical generation and transmission infrastructure.
With those two items out of the way, sure, we can talk.
Mr. Fusion will solve both those problems and many more.
No more roadz!!
We owned the Mr. Fusion coffee grinder at my house. I laughed when I saw it in the film.
http://www.joshgulch.com/movies/films/etc/fusion.html
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/mr-fusion-krups-coffee-grinder-model-435319327
That’s just for the US market. Honda sells a lot of vehicles outside of America, and as far as we have to go to make ev’s a better choice for most Americans, China, Vietnam, India, and the other large markets for Honda have even further. Honda will be making internal combustion engines for decades after America goes fully electric, if we ever do.
I saw a study somewhere that there isn’t enough extractable lithium to make enough batteries to make the entire US go electric, let alone the world.
So, battery tech is an issue yet, still.
But there are other options to lithium. I never say never. If humans want it, the market will find a way to provide it.
If humans want it, the market will find a way to provide it.
Provided the market isn’t just a sock puppet for deranged psychopathic fascists, that is.
The market is good at determining artificial demand with actual demand.
Peak lithium?
Mentally unstable hardest hit.
“ It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
—Upton Sinclair
Predicting technology disruption can be difficult, even for experts
–”This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication,” William Orton, President of Western Union, 1876
–“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,” Marechal Ferdinand Foch, 1904
–“This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The (atomic) bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives,” Admiral William D. Leahy, 1945
• “It is important that Internet expectations aren’t cranked too high. The total number of users is still very small,” Bill Gates, 1994
• “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home”, Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), 1977
• “Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems,” Marty Cooper, cell phone inventor, 1981
• “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 2007
However, as Upton Sinclair stated, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”, and so the most egregious failures to predict technology disruption come from those whose technologies or industries are about to be disrupted.
• “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night,” Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946
(I recently delivered a paper on the need for defense electrification. The quotes were party of the PowerPoint that accompanied it)
Electrification of what?
Hybridization of combat vehicles to provide increased peak electrical power. Unmanned undersea vehicles. Power beaming.
Crazy stuff. But it’s coming.
Defense.
The iPhone is only 13% of the smartphone market, let alone the phone market. I suppose it could be ‘significant’.
Apple is only a trillion dollar company. What do they know?
Said the Tesla driver 😉
I love the fact that companies try new (or really old) ideas. My problem with the breathlessness about EVs is the concurrent vilification of the ICE.
It is interesting to me, as a car guy and business guy, to see how companies are trying to anticipate the regulatory environment as well as market demand. You yourself know that these are the niche-iest of niche products, which is fine if that’s how they are brought to market. Using the power of the State to decide what we can and can’t drive just won’t fly.
I’ve even got mine picked out.
Yeah , I don’t vilify ICE cars. I wouldn’t have bought a Tesla in Minnesota.
Makes sense here though.
Sell the Tesla and buy the Jag. It suits you.
None of those technologies required the rewriting of the laws of physics the way that battery-powered vehicles do.
Electric-powered vehicles have been with us for a while. They’re called trains, trams, and buses.
Battery-powered vehicles will not fill more that niche applications in my life time.
Pish tosh!
The solution is simple! You just take the established technology of solar roads, and build in a strip of those wireless charging thingies. Voila! The more you drive your car, the more you charge the battery. And since it’s solar powered, it’s all free!
Like slot cars?
Haters gonna hate. I haven’t pumped fuel in a year.
I’ve never had to plug in my car.
Having finally taken a large trip and used the Supercharger network I wouldn’t own a Tesla without being able to charge at home.
I timed it with food and bathroom breaks, but otherwise it still takes too long. Also, in typical Tesla fashion, the Supercharger in Allentown PA has been messed up now for three weeks and counting.
Nothing wrong with Tesla.
Everything wrong about government subsidies that distort the market towards niche products and away from tried and true technologies.
And I do hate the smug attitudes of many, many drivers of hybrids and electrics.
Enjoy your car. Southern California is one of the few places where they sort of make sense.
I accept that I’m an Early Adopter and beta tester, but it works in SoCal. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.
I don’t know what you are talking about.
BTW – can you explain why my Tesla gets loses 30% to 50% of its rated range depending on how much it goes below 32F and how much I use the heat and accessories?
The lithium condenses and pools at the bottom of the battery. When it warms up, it’s all good.
Solid state batteries are around the corner and will kick ass.
Also, make note of the fact that Tesla bought all of Maxwell’s ultracapacitor company.
I don’t know about the percentages, but that loss is true of ICE too, although the loss is greater using the A/C than using the heater.
A/C does not reduce gas mileage 30% to 50% from non-A/C driving.
I was being a bit tongue in cheek.
Yeah, with ICE the waste heat is actually useful in the winter time!
There are quite a few issues with Tesla’s in cold weather – you can tell they were designed in CA. I’m not saying they didn’t cold weather test them, but cold was never first in the designers mind. Doors freeze, windows freeze, charge ports freeze, wildly inaccurate range estimates in the cold, etc.
My Model 3 is on its third charge port revision because of cold weather issues.
ICE cars lose power when the AC is on because the AC is connected directly to the engine, and takes some power that would have been used to move the car and uses it to drive the compressor on the AC unit. The engine and power source are still as efficient as always, there’s an extra parasitic loss involved that lowers the overall efficiency of the vehicle. As for cold weather, although there will be some issues as the engine warms up, once it is up to temperature an ICE is more efficient in colder wher since the air is denser, providing more oxygen for the combustion. The heater itself doesn’t draw any power from the engine and just uses the gear or naturally generates to warm some air, and the fans are electric so no problems there, either.
Don’t forget:
Nobel Prize Winner, Leftist Shitheel, New York Times propagandist Paul Krugman
That’s a good one
I wish they’d use that tag-line in the paper.
I might start reading it.
those little electric scooters that plague urban roadways seem to fill the niche just fine.
Babylon Bee Glibs lurker status confirmed:
https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-unveils-new-slogan-orange-man-bad
We need our own lurker whistleblower.
Dear Enemy, may the lord hate you and all your kind. May you turn orange in hue, and may your head fall off at an awkward moment.
Brooks and Tundra have been drooling over a Sunbeam Alpine and MikeS is again/still drooling over Grace Kelly. They are both drool worthy and have a history together.
https://youtu.be/XcDGAyQnHQ8
Very nice, mikey. Can’t believe I missed it!
The Citroen is a beauty, too!
Fances: You want a leg or a breast?
John: You make the choice.
It’s on Amazon prime. Watched it awhile back. One of my favorites.
Our enlightened savior.
On Tuesday, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told BBC Radio 5 Live she was under “enormous pressure” to consider a 2020 White House run.
When asked about her future in politics, Clinton said, “I feel a sense of responsibility partly because you know my name was on the ballot, I got more votes, but ended up losing to the current incumbent in the White House who I think is really undermining our democracy in very fundamental ways. And I want to retire him.”
When asked if she is absolutely ruling out a 2020 run, Clinton said, “I, as I say never, never, never say never. I will certainly tell you. I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it. But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”
current incumbent
that’s my favorite kind of incumbent
Former incumbent is mine.
that’s a different point
a better point in its way
never say never =/= absolutely not in my plans
No fool like an old fool.
It would be entertaining, no?
I don’t know if I can take it. I started feeling sorry for the old bat when she staggered into the van in 2016.
It she trying to ape Trumpishness, or is that some sign of dementia?
Well, she is an expert at having people “retired.”
if it was guaranteed that she’d have to deal with a GOP Senate, lose after one term, and Ginsburg lived another 5 years so HRC didn’t get to replace any sitting judges, then i’d vote for her for the lulz.
Because there are many “donations” to be paid for.
I been tellin yas!
Hoping for a crash
The next crash will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to decarbonize the economy, so the next recovery cannot aim to just blindly increase output and demand. An industrial mobilization on the scale of a Green New Deal could cause a short-term spike in emissions, but it will need to transform consumption qualitatively by giving more people access to real prosperity, not just the ability to buy more cheap junk. Sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen has aptly called for a “last stimulus” that would dramatically shrink those parts of the economy we don’t need (fossil fuels, speculative finance, building more McMansions) while increasing those we do (renewable energy, public transit, care work, affordable housing, education, the arts, and more).
We can’t know for certain what sectors will falter when the next crash hits. But as in the past, Wall Street will likely come begging. Should that happen, the next administration could finally bring it under democratic control and in line with the planet’s limits. Any bank that wants a check from the federal government, for example, should have to stop financing the companies wrecking the earth. Bailout recipients should be subject to a strict carbon audit that examines the lifetime emissions of projects they finance.
——-
The auto bailout was another wasted opportunity. When the federal government took out multibillion-dollar stakes in Chrysler and General Motors in 2008, it imposed some terms: requiring mergers and consolidations within the companies, firing GM chief executive Rick Wagoner, and setting new auto efficiency standards. But the administration largely squandered its leverage. As Obama proudly proclaimed, “The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions.”
With the transportation sector accounting for 29 percent of US emissions, the auto industry now demands a more fundamental reorientation that would move the country away from car-centric planning and into robust networks of affordable public transit. If car companies want in on the action next time, they should be compelled to play by the rules of a Green New Deal. Labor would benefit significantly from this. The United Auto Workers—which called its first strike in 12 years this September—has borne the brunt of the industry’s ups and downs. At a minimum, any suite of climate policies (whether passed in response to a recession or not) should include trillions of dollars’ worth of investment in no-carbon trains and buses and aim to phase out the production of combustion-powered vehicles that use fossil fuels by around 2025. It could ensure that workers who were laid off before the legislation went into effect are rehired and receive wages comparable to or better than those they received before.
New procurement standards mandating zero-carbon fleets could see unionized workers building tens of thousands of electric vehicles for agencies like the US Postal Service. That massive purchasing power could help create and enforce labor and environmental standards up and down the supply chain—for example, in the mining of minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are currently extracted under inhumane working conditions.
We’ll ram the Green New Deal straight up your ass, America. It’s for your own good. You’ll thanks us, once you see how good it feels.
Watermelon Eschatology
Well, that will certainly decrease demand for everything as we all starve.
I just laughed when W casually agreed that he supported Kyoto. A guy can have degrees from Yale and Harvard, grow up in the oil patch, and still not know that exhaust = carbon = power = business + pleasure = GDP. Yup, he’ll be walking that back soon (less than a week ’twas, IIRC). There’s more sense on this thread than in all of Shrub’s executive experience.
Less emissions? probably good
Less carbon? can’t hurt
Moar regulashuns? hard pass
This is like buying econo-sized stuff at the grocery: you do what makes sense for you, one house at a time. I looked at industrializing domestic power: windmills and roof solar . . . never figured a way in 1998 to make the numbers work without crazy subsidies, so I never started the business.
The next crash will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to decarbonize
the economysociety.This time it will work!
An industrial mobilization on the scale of a Green New Deal
Huh…. See i was under the impression it was a de-industrialization movement. I mean any plan that will pay people who are unwilling to work seems to be counter to the idea of “Industry”.
Will Utah be obliterated? The state Motto is “Industry”.
Should that happen, the next administration could finally bring it under democratic control and in line with the planet’s limits.
A toxic mix of fascism and pseudo-religious eschatology.
Start by taking cars away from every single government-sector worker.
Wars and recessions are often a prerequisite for renegotiating the relationships between the state and the economy. With this in mind, the government should take full advantage of the next crash to address the greatest existential threat that humanity has ever known and to do it with everything we’ve got.
Where are those aliens when you need them?
I agree with you on the nukes. No coincidence that California decommissioned all of their nuclear plants – while promoting “green” sources.
Same happened with Germany. They had a substantial amount of MW-hours supplied by top notch German nuke plants.
Then the Commie Schroeder wanted to “go green” and end nuke plants. So now the wedge of the German power pie chart that used to be German Nukes is now labeled “imported”.
That’s where they pay for electricity from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Those states happen to use, drum roll, nuke plants!! But they are all Soviet era and quality.
How is this helpful?
I really don’t get the nuke hate. The US has 70 years experience with safe nuclear power generation. As I understand it, we have known sources of fissile material to provide energy for the next 10,000 years. Why wouldn’t we go that route? If next generation batteries come to fruition, energy too cheap to meter could drastically reduce production and transportation cost. It would be like a whole new industrial revolution. We could call it the energy revolution.
three mile island.
the movie didn’t help things (the china syndrome).
I’m not sure I buy that as a reason. Airplanes crash and we still fly. We do actively maintain something like 100 nuclear power plants in the US. I have no idea how many nuclear powered ships the navy has. I have no proof, but I’m guessing established energy got to the politicians that run the NRC.
Except nobody actually died at Three Mile Island. I don’t think anyone has ever died of radiation exposure at a civilian nuclear plant in the U.S. One guy may have died of exposure at Fukushima – at that was a seriously messed up design hit by a tsunami.
One guy, lung cancer, seven years later.
More died from the earthquake.
One guy, lung cancer, seven years later.
The epidemiology on that has to be very questionable.
There was a bumper sticker from the early eighties that went something like:
Nuclear Energy: more people have been killed in the back of Teddy Kennedy’s car
Although 3 Mile Island contributed, I think it had more to do with the rise of the environmental movement in in general during the 60’s and 70’s.
It’s the safest energy source we have, by far. Safer than solar, wind, hydroelectric, anything.
It’s dumb.
Everyone seems to be scared of the waste – which is of a very small physical volume and easily sequestered.
It’s a case of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It’s not a totally utopian solution right here right now, so it can’t be allowed.
Everyone seems to be scared of the waste – which is of a very small physical volume and easily sequestered.
That makes too much sense to be the popular answer: people just don’t think that well or remember that long. I’ve been by the WIPP, of course.
Tthat was an issue for a decade or so: WIPP NIMBY.
That’s where they pay for electricity from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
And natural gas from Russia, although I don’t know how much natgas generation they do.
That’s the crazy thing about Germany’s supposed “green” energy. All they did was start having it produced in other countries, usually with lower pollution and safety standards than their own.
They also queitly started mining more coal.
And burning their forests. ?♂️
Haters gonna hate. I haven’t pumped fuel in a year.
You moved to New Jersey?
*golf clap*
Ha! I do wonder if you have an EV, are you allowed to plug it in a supercharger by yourself?
(In New Jersey)
Ok, I larfed.
Last Stimulus? Is that like a Final Solution?
Whenever I hear the Final Solution and Five Year plan at work, I look around to see who else is alarmed.
What about the Final Countdown?
Going with Jugsy to the vet with her 11 year-old doge.
Gonna be a 1-way trip for her.
Sorry, Tres.
I am sorry to hear that.*
*Not to be a total dick, but you mean the dog right?
Given how much of a mess she is, I may see if they have a BOGO, or take a euthanasia groupon.
SLD- Im not in much better shape.
You still have your sense of humor. I’ll pour an Earthquake in your dogs honor.
Did that 2 1/2 weeks ago.
Take care.
Sorry to hear that, kinnath. It’s been over a year for me and it still sucks.
She was a 12 1/2 year old sheltie. I was not a surprise.
We have one more sheltie at home. He turns 13 in February. I expect this winter will be rough for him.
My buddy is over 12, too. He’s really stating to slow down, but still does 2-4 miles a day.
It sucks, but it’s what we sign up for. They are worth it.
,Sorry bro…
Damn. Sorry for all three of you.
I am so sorry.
@kinnath, I’m sorry for you too.
It’s tough, but the right thing to do is help them go over the bridge with minimal suffering
absolutely: it’s part of the contract
I took one of NewWife’s cats to the vet to have its oil changed yesterday. But I remember the one she had into its twenties and I don’t think that stretching that out was right for anyone.
Cheers to the grown-ups
You’re a good master.
Good doggo.
If something like this would help her (Jugsy), it’s easy to do.
https://imgur.com/a/PN2q8RI
It’s a shadow box from Michael’s crafts, and I added pics of the spousal unit’s favorite cat, a toy, a tag, and the wonderful paw print mold they took at the vet before they put ol’ Rocket to sleep. I just had to take it home and bake it to set.
The shadow box still makes him smile sometimes. I also taped the sympathy card from the emergency vets to the back.
We have a depressingly large collection of paw prints and cremation urns from pets of yore. Its odd how occasionally they will catch the eye; its been long enough that its more in the “fond reminiscence” mode” than the “pain of loss” mode.
The Dean Beasts turn 9 years old this month. Not a long lived breed, either. Nothing worth having is free, but when the bill comes for a pet, damn but it can be hard to pay.
So sorry, homey! BTDT too recently. One way we dealt with it – took three favorite photos of kitteh, framed ’em, & hung ’em around the house. YMMV.
Brooksie, that BMW finished at $60K!
You’ve already fallen for the bullshit.
Anyone who does hyroponic growing knows that plants thrive between 1000-1500 ppm of CO2. We are currently at 407 ppm or so, among the lowest numbers in Earth’s history. That’s why growers *pump* CO2 into greenhouses – it helps the plants. EVERYTHING on the planet – all life – depends upon plants doing their magical photosynthesis thingie, either directly or indirectly. That the Warmistas would have his exactly backwards is so wonderfully ironic.
The guy who was one of the earliest founders and even head of Greenpeace – finally had his awakening – listen to him talk about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6sKPSKkvVs
We should be able to find a solution to lowering CO2 if so we wish.
Everybody talks about a “Manhattan Project” for this, but they aren’t really talking about a Manhattan Project for this ,which would be a big push into nuclear.
Funny that. We actually could lower CO2 if we really wanted, but I don’t think anybody (who matters) really wants to. Otherwise, there would be a boom (heh) in nuclear research and construction.
RC – The point is that lowering CO2 would destroy life on Earth. We’re at 407 ppm. Plants can not live if that number gets to 150 ppm. The lowest known CO2 concentration is 180.
Essential point #1: CO2 has NOTHING TO DO WITH TEMPERATURE. Nothing. CO2 is not the control knob on global temperature. Watch that video and you’ll be shocked to think people could
even be claiming it is. This will be worse than Piltdown Man before it’s finally over.
Essential Point #2: Global CO2 has been in a steady decline for 600 Million years. If we added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, it’s a blessing. Fossil fuels are as natural a substance as anything that exists. They are a byproduct of life decaying, the tiny life that makes calcium carbonate – shells, crustaceans, mollusks – MUST have CO2 that goes into the oceans to do that. Those things eventually become carbonaceous rock. We burn fossil fuels and the produce two things: water vapor and CO2, both of which are essential for life.
I could go on and on, but the point is, these hacks have already won because everyone has blindly accepted that a higher CO2 is somehow “BAD” because it drives global temperatures. It is so demonstrably false that it’s fucking laughable. I promise you – PROMISE – some day real scientists will look back on AGW and wonder how humanity could have possibly been this fucking stupid.