I was kind of amazed to see that the Daily Kos was still around and making news. I had figured Markos Moulitsas’ anything-goes liberal blog had become terminally irrelevant the second the Bush administration had passed into oblivion. But no, they’re still there and churning out strange conspiracy theories, including trying to connect a GOP…
The left just loves to tout “renewable energy” as the clean, green panacea, something that will save the earth. Just look at the foremost proponent of this, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom:
On day one, I will issue a directive putting California on a clear path to 100% renewable energy. It’s achievable and it’s necessary. Frankly, I think we can surpass our 100% goal by positioning California as a net exporter of energy to other states and nations. It’s a money maker for us and the natural next step in our global leadership — a classic example of California innovation.
Under the leadership of the state’s Lands Commission, which I chair, California is reducing its reliance on nuclear and offshore oil energy and moving toward safer, cleaner, and greener alternatives. We must continue diversifying our energy supply — that means increasing our output of solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and ocean-based energy, all the while improving our energy efficiency through stronger green building standards, construction codes, and efficiency standards for electronics and appliances.
Blah, blah, blah. Anyone who works in real energies will probably know a different story.
The Wall Street Journal has a first-rate op-ed by an energy expert, Mark P. Mills, describing the vast quantity of non-renewable, not-even-recyclable waste that nifty green energy baubles such as wind-farm turbines generate:
Democrats dream of powering society entirely with wind and solar farms combined with massive batteries. Realizing this dream would require the biggest expansion in mining the world has seen and would produce huge quantities of waste.
“Renewable energy” is a misnomer. Wind and solar machines and batteries are built from nonrenewable materials. And they wear out. Old equipment must be decommissioned, generating millions of tons of waste. The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that solar goals for 2050 consistent with the Paris Accords will result in old-panel disposal constituting more than double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste. Consider some other sobering numbers:
A single electric-car battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving and processing more than 500,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet. The alternative? Use gasoline and extract one-tenth as much total tonnage to deliver the same number of vehicle-miles over the battery’s seven-year life.
When electricity comes from wind or solar machines, every unit of energy produced, or mile traveled, requires far more materials and land than fossil fuels. That physical reality is literally visible: A wind or solar farm stretching to the horizon can be replaced by a handful of gas-fired turbines, each no bigger than a tractor-trailer.
Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts. World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.
The waste is simply incredible. What’s more, it’s well-known that would-be petrotyrants such as Vladimir Putin finance green activist groups in Europe and maybe Canada, just to get stupid lefties to buy into this nonsense and delude themselves into the idea that by building wind farms to generate ‘clean’ energy, they are indeed going green. Pay no attention to all those waste dumps, or all that profit going to mining companies, or all the African, Asian, and Americas dictatorships exploiting child labor to git ‘er done.
Just as electric cars require belching coal plants to produce the gas to fire up the electrical power charging stations, so the wind farms require massive amounts of resources just to get those necessary rare earth minerals, along with Mexican-style quantities of concrete and other unpicturesque things Joni Mitchell once sang against.
These facts are out there and have been out there, as Mills notes, citing engineers’ contemptuous term for imagining that there really is a free and efficient energy source out there: unobtanium.
The most serious energy solution, in fact is drilling oil and fracking away. It’s the most energy efficient source of energy production. Because efficiency is part of the picture.
Image credit: Monica Showalter / San Gorgonio, California, 2016
The left just loves to tout “renewable energy” as the clean, green panacea, something that will save the earth. Just look at the foremost proponent of this, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom:
On day one, I will issue a directive putting California on a clear path to 100% renewable energy. It’s achievable and it’s necessary. Frankly, I think we can surpass our 100% goal by positioning California as a net exporter of energy to other states and nations. It’s a money maker for us and the natural next step in our global leadership — a classic example of California innovation.
Under the leadership of the state’s Lands Commission, which I chair, California is reducing its reliance on nuclear and offshore oil energy and moving toward safer, cleaner, and greener alternatives. We must continue diversifying our energy supply — that means increasing our output of solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and ocean-based energy, all the while improving our energy efficiency through stronger green building standards, construction codes, and efficiency standards for electronics and appliances.
Blah, blah, blah. Anyone who works in real energies will probably know a different story.
The Wall Street Journal has a first-rate op-ed by an energy expert, Mark P. Mills, describing the vast quantity of non-renewable, not-even-recyclable waste that nifty green energy baubles such as wind-farm turbines generate:
Democrats dream of powering society entirely with wind and solar farms combined with massive batteries. Realizing this dream would require the biggest expansion in mining the world has seen and would produce huge quantities of waste.
“Renewable energy” is a misnomer. Wind and solar machines and batteries are built from nonrenewable materials. And they wear out. Old equipment must be decommissioned, generating millions of tons of waste. The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that solar goals for 2050 consistent with the Paris Accords will result in old-panel disposal constituting more than double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste. Consider some other sobering numbers:
A single electric-car battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving and processing more than 500,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet. The alternative? Use gasoline and extract one-tenth as much total tonnage to deliver the same number of vehicle-miles over the battery’s seven-year life.
When electricity comes from wind or solar machines, every unit of energy produced, or mile traveled, requires far more materials and land than fossil fuels. That physical reality is literally visible: A wind or solar farm stretching to the horizon can be replaced by a handful of gas-fired turbines, each no bigger than a tractor-trailer.
Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts. World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.
The waste is simply incredible. What’s more, it’s well-known that would-be petrotyrants such as Vladimir Putin finance green activist groups in Europe and maybe Canada, just to get stupid lefties to buy into this nonsense and delude themselves into the idea that by building wind farms to generate ‘clean’ energy, they are indeed going green. Pay no attention to all those waste dumps, or all that profit going to mining companies, or all the African, Asian, and Americas dictatorships exploiting child labor to git ‘er done.
Just as electric cars require belching coal plants to produce the gas to fire up the electrical power charging stations, so the wind farms require massive amounts of resources just to get those necessary rare earth minerals, along with Mexican-style quantities of concrete and other unpicturesque things Joni Mitchell once sang against.
These facts are out there and have been out there, as Mills notes, citing engineers’ contemptuous term for imagining that there really is a free and efficient energy source out there: unobtanium.
The most serious energy solution, in fact is drilling oil and fracking away. It’s the most energy efficient source of energy production. Because efficiency is part of the picture.
Taliban narco-jihadis claimed responsibility for an attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul that killed at least 14 and maimed nearly 150 others Wednesday.
The attack came after Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. peace envoy, hailed “excellent progress” following the latest round of negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar over the weekend.
Negotiations continued beyond the weekend into the day of the attack on Wednesday, the New York Times (NYT)reported, adding:
Late into the evening on Wednesday, American diplomats and Taliban officials continued their negotiations behind closed doors at a marbled-floor venue. Taliban officials took a prayer break. They checked their phones — including for the latest details of the attack — as they walked back to the hall. The setting, under a calm pink sunset that descended on palm trees around the venue, was far from the heartbreak in Kabul.
Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, revealed that the Taliban bomber detonated the explosive at a checkpoint outside a police station.
For nearly a year, the U.S. and the Taliban have been discussing a potential peace pact.
The agreement revolves around the withdrawal of foreign forces in exchange for assurances that international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) will no longer operate in Afghanistan. The U.S. hopes to have an agreement this year. U.S. negotiators are also pushing for a much-needed ceasefire, and intra-Afghan talks since the Taliban continues to refuse to negotiate with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s administration. Nevertheless, Taliban jihadis have intensified their attacks amid the peace talks that began nearly a year ago, carrying out attacks on an almost everyday basis.
On Wednesday, Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for President Ghani, told reporters: “Continued Taliban attacks indicate that they have no commitment to peace, unfortunately. Any Taliban attack will impede the peace process.”
It appears the Taliban has capitalized on the peace talks to escalate their terrorist activities, “deliberately targeting civilians,” the U.N. found.
“In the last month alone about 1,500 people have been killed or injured. … The Taliban also called for a boycott of the country’s 28 September presidential election, and threatened to attack election rallies,” BBC reported, adding:
A huge bomb outside a police station in the Afghan capital Kabul has killed at least 14 people and injured nearly 150. The explosion sent a large plume of black smoke into the sky and left nearby buildings in ruins. Most of those wounded were civilians.
The Taliban say they carried out the attack. … The Taliban also claimed they had targeted a “recruitment” center and had killed a large number of police and soldiers.
Taliban terrorists control or contest about half of Afghanistan, more than during any other time since U.S. troops removed the group from office in October 2001.
The cultivation and production of opium and its heroin derivative has also reached historic levels, generating millions for the Taliban even during peace talks. Pentagon officials have deemed opium and heroin the Taliban’s top source of income. The drugs are fueling the historic number of drug overdoses in the United States to a minuscule degree, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) argues.
On Tuesday, suspected Taliban terrorists reportedly bombed a van carrying employees from the Interior Ministry’s counternarcotics division, killing five and wounding seven.
Despite more than $8 billion in U.S. funding devoted to counternarcotics in Afghanistan, the country remains the world’s top supplier of heroin and opium.
The Taliban appear to consider America’s willingness to engage in peace talks as a victory for them. The group dubbed its annual spring offensive this year “victory.” On the other hand, the United States has defined victory in Afghanistan as the “political reconciliation” between the Taliban and Kabul.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has made reconciliation the primary goal of its strategy to end the war.
In an almost 3,000 word screed in Huffington Post, writer Hannah Selinger announced to the world “It Might Be Time To Cut My Right-Wing, Trump-Loving In-Laws Out Of My Kids’ Lives” on Wednesday. The daughter-in-law from Hell accuses her husband’s parents of racism, sexism, homophobia, and even “veiled anti-Semitism,” because “Telling a Jewish person how much you love Jewish people is, on its face, a message of marginalization.”
There have been three mass shootings in the last week alone that have left over 30 people dead and over 50 injured. All of the shooters were young, unmarried men.
This is no coincidence.
So many young men in America are sad, purposeless, and hopeless.
Why?
It’s not a big mystery.
The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:
Attorneys for the El Paso shooting suspect’s family now say that his mother called police in the weeks leading up to the massacre because she was concerned about him owning his gun due to his age, maturity, and experience level.
This news will probably be used by proponents of “red flag” confiscation laws, because this information supposedly shows the suspect as a known threat before the fact. But the reasons why the suspect’s mother reportedly called police don’t get anywhere close to showing a grave or extreme safety risk (which is what these laws are supposed to be for) and wouldn’t merit stripping someone of rights and property via court order. One of the attorneys even told CNN, “It’s not like alarm bells were going off.”
But as the renewed push for new background check laws in Washington has already reminded us, when the emotion-driven calls to “do something” get loud enough, facts take a back seat to politics.
Congress’s sleaziest unjailed doxxer, Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, went and “outed” 44 Republican local San Antonio-based donors to President Trump’s re-election campaign. He got a lot of flak for it, of course. But instead of apologizing for his obvious effort to incite harassment of his own locals for exercising their constitutional right to participate in political campaigns, he doubled down with this unmitigated dreck:
No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published.
You’re trying to distract from the racism that has overtaken the GOP and the fact that President Trump spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics “invading” America. 1/2 https://t.co/TwUDC4m5tO
Anyone who believes that Castro is capable of a ‘lament’ is out to lunch. His series of tweets were pure malevolence, worsened by a barrage of bald-faced lies trying to make himself look like the good guy.
It all went so swimmingly for him, too. Until Fox News turned up an uncomfortable fact:
EXCLUSIVE: Trump donors whose names and employers were posted in a highly controversial tweet by Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro blasted the Texas congressman on Wednesday for what they described as a “ridiculous” stunt and, in interviews with Fox News, rejected his claim that they are “fueling a campaign of hate” against Hispanics.
One of those Trump donors even revealed he’s also been a supporter of local Democratic lawmakers—including Castro himself.
In attempting to embarrass constituents who donated to President Trump, Texas congressman Joaquin Castro appears to have overlooked the fact that six of those he named also gave cash to him and his twin brother, 2020 Democrat Julián Castro.
Joaquin Castro on Monday drew a torrent of criticism when the Twitter account operated by his reelection campaign listed 44 residents of San Antonio who donated the maximum amount to President Trump’s campaign for reelection so far this year.
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.” the Monday tweet said. “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”
So after declaring these donors as people who are ‘fueling a campaign of hate’ we now learn that quite a few of them also contributed to Castro’s campaign.
GOP chief Ronna McDaniel has the only really good response to this kind of jackassery:
If all these Trump supporters are actually as bad as Castro claims, he and his brother should have no problem returning the thousands of dollars they took from them to fund their own campaigns.https://t.co/S4K20RSYaC
It’s time to pay up, Joaquin. Your no-good brother Julian needs to return the cash, too.
It’s tainted, dirty cash by Joaquin’s own reckoning, a cause for doxxing and harrassment. The little creep needs to be told to return it or be politically tainted as a hypocrite forever. Even the Trump/Castro donors told Fox News they won’t be giving this little weasel who doxxed them any more of it. So now he needs to shell out, return the cash, because as he claims, it’s bad cash. Let this dirty stunt on normal Americans exercising their constitutional rights cost him something. Shell out, doofus.
Here’s a fine lagniappe from McDaniel, posting a disgusted statement from a Latina voter:
You can’t make this up.
Joaquin Castro put out a “target list” accusing @realDonaldTrump‘s supporters of “fueling a campaign of hate” against immigrants.
Included on the list is an immigrant – and she’s blasting Castro for his political stunt. https://t.co/ppWwXm5qCM
If he’s that out of touch with the local sentiment in San Antonio, and has drawn even the contempt of Latino voters for it, maybe it’s time for him to pack up anyway. Dirty stunts are beautiful things when they blow back into the faces of their malice-minded perpetrators.
Congress’s sleaziest unjailed doxxer, Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, went and “outed” 44 Republican local San Antonio-based donors to President Trump’s re-election campaign. He got a lot of flak for it, of course. But instead of apologizing for his obvious effort to incite harassment of his own locals for exercising their constitutional right to participate in political campaigns, he doubled down with this unmitigated dreck:
My post was a lament – that so many people in my overwhelmingly Hispanic hometown would give large money to a President who is using it to target Hispanics as ‘invaders’.
No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published.
You’re trying to distract from the racism that has overtaken the GOP and the fact that President Trump spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics “invading” America. 1/2 https://t.co/TwUDC4m5tO
Anyone who believes that Castro is capable of a ‘lament’ is out to lunch. His series of tweets were pure malevolence, worsened by a barrage of bald-faced lies trying to make himself look like the good guy.
It all went so swimmingly for him, too. Until Fox News turned up an uncomfortable fact:
EXCLUSIVE: Trump donors whose names and employers were posted in a highly controversial tweet by Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro blasted the Texas congressman on Wednesday for what they described as a “ridiculous” stunt and, in interviews with Fox News, rejected his claim that they are “fueling a campaign of hate” against Hispanics.
One of those Trump donors even revealed he’s also been a supporter of local Democratic lawmakers—including Castro himself.
In attempting to embarrass constituents who donated to President Trump, Texas congressman Joaquin Castro appears to have overlooked the fact that six of those he named also gave cash to him and his twin brother, 2020 Democrat Julián Castro.
Joaquin Castro on Monday drew a torrent of criticism when the Twitter account operated by his reelection campaign listed 44 residents of San Antonio who donated the maximum amount to President Trump’s campaign for reelection so far this year.
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.” the Monday tweet said. “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”
So after declaring these donors as people who are ‘fueling a campaign of hate’ we now learn that quite a few of them also contributed to Castro’s campaign.
GOP chief Ronna McDaniel has the only really good response to this kind of jackassery:
If all these Trump supporters are actually as bad as Castro claims, he and his brother should have no problem returning the thousands of dollars they took from them to fund their own campaigns.https://t.co/S4K20RSYaC
It’s time to pay up, Joaquin. Your no-good brother Julian needs to return the cash, too.
It’s tainted, dirty cash by Joaquin’s own reckoning, a cause for doxxing and harrassment. The little creep needs to be told to return it or be politically tainted as a hypocrite forever. Even the Trump/Castro donors told Fox News they won’t be giving this little weasel who doxxed them any more of it. So now he needs to shell out, return the cash, because as he claims, it’s bad cash. Let this dirty stunt on normal Americans exercising their constitutional rights cost him something. Shell out, doofus.
Here’s a fine lagniappe from McDaniel, posting a disgusted statement from a Latina voter:
You can’t make this up.
Joaquin Castro put out a “target list” accusing @realDonaldTrump‘s supporters of “fueling a campaign of hate” against immigrants.
Included on the list is an immigrant – and she’s blasting Castro for his political stunt. https://t.co/ppWwXm5qCM
If he’s that out of touch with the local sentiment in San Antonio, and has drawn even the contempt of Latino voters for it, maybe it’s time for him to pack up anyway. Dirty stunts are beautiful things when they blow back into the faces of their malice-minded perpetrators.
Over a span of about two hours on Wednesday, a man from Garden Grove, California went on a rage-fueled and what appears to be largely random "stabbing and robbing rampage" that left at least four people dead and two wounded.
Nice! Chances the Baltimore Sun retracts? I’m not betting on it, although of course, they should. My teammates and I will pledge $100,000 to Baltimore neighborhood clean up (I know a thing or two about that!) in Baltimore if the Baltimore Sun retracts this article that discourages people who want to help the City, when […]
