This confusion of cannabis with Elon is based on a misunderstanding. His magic number is 42 from The Hitchhikers Guide, not 420 for cannabis. So all of you potheads relax, welcome aboard all of you sci-fi fans.
Before I had to give it up for health reasons, I was "lit" quite often 🥴 Yesh indeed! It's also an excellent rockin' song by Buckcherry, 1999's "Lit Up" but dealing with a different recreational substance, mentioned in the lyrics.
Best news to come down the pike in awhile. And popcorn is all very well, but I myself am lighting the incense and votive candles. And praying hard. I think this is yuge.
Elon may not be perfect, but this is good. I’m fantasizing about him buying Twitter and the woke blue checkmark crowd migrating to a different platform that fails to catch on, sending them spiralling further into absolute disgrace and irrelevance.
yep, just checked. Wonder how long CNN can afford to subsidize it's ugly baby. The free network only gets < 1M viewers now. Ads must be going on the cheap. Turner might be thinking of a re-buy except his thinking days are past.
Elon's timing is curious. Trump's "Truth" social media platform has been a flop, based on what little I've read. Just blowing the bellows on the "hidden agenda" conspiracy theory there for us! 😎
Notice how the media only pulls out the rich card when they're attacking someone who challenges the Cathedral? Never on Gates, Soros, and the rest of the Faustian tr/billionaires puppeteering them.
Oh, and el gato, I try not to bug you about typos because I know it's trickier for cat paws to hit all the right keys, but in this case, I think you'll want to fix the typo as "dies" is so pivotal to the meaning:
Is that true? I've heard the claim before but not seen "proof." It's certainly possible however. For example, my own mobile provider routinely warns me if an incoming text or call is "suspected spam" or similar. But that is quite different from outright censoring a message.
[The following comments apply to my admittedly summary knowledge of US law.]
The law is "supposed to" make a clear distinction between "publisher" and "public forum" for computer services. We also have the much older concept of "common carrier" which applied to old-fashioned telephone systems, for example. A "Publisher" has the right to moderate content and (probably) more liability if he doesn't. A Common Carrier/Public Forum on the other hand, is supposed to NOT moderate content. So, in theory, the local phone company, or your cell provider, should not censor or cut off your service merely because you are discussing the next Klan meeting, or almost as bad, a voter registration drive for the local Republican candidate 🤡. Or to use another example, consider the difference in the service provider's ability to monitor the use of his service, and take steps to prevent illegal use of it: Two terrorists are discussing how to build a bomb and place it at a target. In the second, a publisher publishes a book telling exactly the same information. The latter example has actually happened at least once in U.S. law and there were court cases. The publisher was found civilly liable. In some cases, probably criminal convictions could arise too. But those are two examples of older, 20th century tech: a telephone and a printer/publisher. Now consider how communication has multiplied since then. Just who, indeed anyone, would have an implied or explicit duty to moderate content (e.g. censor) and face liability if they don't, in a case such as where an electronic document, an ebook, is publicly shared on a server? Or even a blog service such as Substack? Point: the duties, responsibilities and liabilities change quite dramatically, don't they? For example, consider the perspective that what your're reading right now is a living document (the article and its body of replies) subject to change at any moment. Sure, Substack has its use policy, but if I or anyone published certain speech that crossed a line, it would likely remain here for a certain period. If so, is it Substack's fault that they didn't have a censor verifying every post 24x7?
If I'm a spammer abusing an email service to send unwanted advertisements to hundreds of victims, is it a violation of my free speech if the service provider limits or cancels my account?
A major criticism of big social media has been they claim to be a public forum, yet clearly often muzzle certain speech, suggesting they are more of a publisher.
I claim no expertise in any of the above. My point is to show it's a complex issue, no doubt made even more complex by technology which often runs well ahead of changes in the law. I suspect that much modern communication such as social media cannot be distinctly classed as one form of service or another, since it probably has aspects of both, or even entirely new and currently unregulated ones.
You can find plenty of evidence of carriers blocking messages they don't want sent, just search. Lately it's mostly blocked for "Covid misinformation" but there are examples going back to 2010 or so.
SMS is not anything like a secure channel. Use something more modern if you want privacy or censorship resistance.
If we're being honest we can admit that the "Public Servants" make the rules to accommodate the ends. Our Constitution may say wars must have Congressional authorization we have been sailing on post 9-11 "emergency powers" of The Patriot Act ever since.
Sunset clauses built in to appease a terrified public as the laws flew by at the speed of a bullet train and continue on renewals every chance Congress gets as the covert empire grows.
It took a full decade and Jon Stewart's public humiliation of Washington to have "Ground Zero Heroes" given health coverage for illness and death It took a decade to admit the air that Christie Whitman's EPA swore was "perfectly safe" was anything but.
NYC old timers referred to Twin Towers as David & Nelson to honor Battery Park development taxpayer provided them as "public-private partnership" but by 2000 we called them Rockefeller's white elephants.
They were built in a rotary phone era and structural durability, including aircraft impact, became a nightmare with wiring for a booming Internet world. Worse yet asbestos use had not only been stopped in court but remediation had been ordered and compliance costs turn properties into losses. Heads we win tails you lose public policy, wtf they want on our dime.
Back to the regulatory framework with the caveat that confines in actual practice are like juggling jello. Big time favorite source for understanding where technology and law intersect EFF best explains.
Tucked inside the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet: Section 230.
This comes somewhat as a surprise, since the original purpose of the legislation was to restrict free speech on the Internet. The Internet community as a whole objected strongly to the Communications Decency Act, and with EFF's help, the anti-free speech provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court. But thankfully, CDA 230 remains and in the years since has far outshone the rest of the law.
Honestly I woke up and saw the news and thought "best morning in two years."
This despite me being totally inenamored of Musk. Any guy who makes electric vehicles and partners happily with China ain't my kind o' guy. But him owning Twitter? Who's baking the cookies? I'll bring the brownies (mine have been famous since the kid's kindergarten days and them was long ago).
Electrification of transport is inevitable and unstoppable. EV's are just so superior to ICE vehicles. Go to DragTimes on Youtube and see how a mass market Model S Plaid humiliates +$million sports cars, like Lamborghini or Porsche. However Wind/solar are a joke, only suitable for niche applications like Off-grid homes or areas on diesel generation, however. To charge EV's you want to use surplus baseload generation.
I have no science/mechanical background so this isn't something I can intelligently discuss beyond my feeling that anything dependent on lithium ion batteries should be drowned before birth.
You still run up against the power storage problem with evs over time, we are at least decades from them being viable to replace even 1/3 of our ice fleet
Does anyone wonder where we are going to get the Lithium?
After "8" years the battery goes to the toxic waste landfill because it can't be recycled. (OK, it only costs $20-30 to recycle 1 kg, meaning a lot of energy is used. Don't get me started on "reducing the carbon footprint": if it costs a lot of money to do anything, there is no reduction in carbon footprint). As an example, a windfarm operator needs $0.14 per kwh to make a profit, which is at least 3X the wholesale rate. This means that a windmill produces ZERO new power.
All the Lithium mined in the world over the next 10 years would go to electrifying the ICE vehicles in Britain.
Only if you can ignore the bit about their manufacture exceeding the carbon footprint of an ICE vehicle until after covering 50,000+ miles (and that must be on the original battery, or the counting resumes).
Not to mention the logistical problems of all those folk in an apartment block needing to charge their EVs at the same time.
I may just invest in a company that manufactures extremely long charger cables.
The real change comes with solar generated hydrogen, as Toyota knows. Just a lot of technical nuts to crack. We can't get to Li powered mass usage without a huge ramp of mining and a awful lot of money. Sadly zero interest money seems to be evaporating as we type.
Gas-powered car can go from 0% to 100% fueled in about 5 minutes, and that tank capacity is the same every time, even after thousands of full-empty-full cycles.
The materials needed for manufacturing the batteries (lithium, nickel, etc.) for all the cars that would be needed in just a country like the UK alone would exceed the world's production capacity... let alone for all the people not in the UK (the large majority of us).
Some reality there which is why hydrogen is more likely the future. Both alternatives require continued technology development that will accelerate as and if fossil extraction gets more difficult/expensive. The capital needed for those developments has been diverted into entertainment - FB, etc but a selective tax could readjust that misalignment.
That's an advantage ICE vehicles have. But to fill that tank might cost $100. To charge the same amount of miles in an EV will cost ~$17. Stop for a cup of coffee and save yourself $80 for 1/2hr of time. However the vast majority of charging should be done while the vehicle is parked overnight and the grid has a surplus of generation (and lower electricity rates). And that takes about 1 min of your time. In northern climates, in winter you have to plug in ICE vehicles anyway or they won't start. EV's are simpler & better for that.
Materials for batteries, mainly nickel, are a serious issue. And I will state up front that it will take 40yrs to replace 90% of ICE vehicles. That's why it is incredible stupidity wasting good batteries for utility storage applications. Just one of a dozen reasons why wind & solar are a failure - don't do that.
I don't advocate banning ICE vehicles, if you want one, buy one. A revenue neutral carbon fee & dividend is all the encouragement that BEV's need, considering their superior performance and popular demand. Plus some government incentive on establishing a countrywide charging network. Many people will cry "I don't want carbon taxes". Sorry dude, it isn't a tax as such, lower energy consumers profit from it, higher energy consumers lose. And you are already being taxed to the hilt in the form of massive, never-heard-of-ever subsidies, mandates and exemptions for wind & solar power. Don't do that.
No. More of a 'watch the fireworks' moment. Listen to the 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' as the bombs go off. Nothing quite like watching the left self destruct ;)
Though that's far too charming for the moment. I like that meme of the guy with the folding chair shaking it open one-handed and settling down for the show...
IKR? Brings a tear to the eye, remembering the aftermath of the 2016 election. I'm still sad that no one caught HRC on film during her epic meltdown. I would have paid good money to have seen that.
At a minimum, Musk is shining a flashlight on the cockroaches. This is exactly the type of unforced error Disney is committing right now with the gender insanity - the Wicked Witch of the West screaming "I'm melting!!!" in full display. My question is not about who takes what amount of $$$, but how hard Twitter will fight this to avoid exposing all the BS that is lurking below the programming surface which surely Blackrock et al are intimately involved with.
“I find the purveyors of ESG to be among the most sanctimonious and arrogant twits (and you can quote me on that) on the face of the earth, convinced that they have the right definition of good, that they will thrust down the throats of everyone else. The ESG measurement services, in my view, are a charade, measuring neither goodness nor risk, but they have real effects, since companies take consequential actions to improve these scores.”-Aswath Damodran
I resonated with this whole comment, thanks!!! Your comment: “i was not an elon fan, but the last 2 years have been a time of bewildering alterations in bedfellows. his genuine pleasure in upsetting applecarts and pissing off the pompous and false bureaucratic bloviators has been a joy to watch.”
Right! I love his smug smile when he does something he knows will tick off people. It used to be annoying. Not so much now.
Fitting that Max Boot is sporting a Ukrainian flag, a country where digital passports and digital central currency are being implemented, opposition parties have been outlawed, and a prominent critic of the president has been arrested.
Max Boot doesn't give a shit about Ukrainians as anything other than bodies to bloody up in the proxy war he and his neocon pals have been itching to fight with Russia for decades. He doesn't like free speech because he's upset that people still call him a neocon and he'd love to force them to stop.
That's exactly right. The Neocon/Neolibs just suckered Ukraine into being cannon fodder for the war they're just itching to fight with Russia. If Russia uses tactical nukes to melt Ukrainian cities, those guys won't shed a tear, at least not in private.
The lack of self awareness seems to be a genetic flaw in all progressives. These are the same 30% of the population that think Dementia Joe is doing great job ruining the country.
This is a major problem for the Biden administration in particular and way too many of our current ‘leaders’ in general (and by extension the rest of us). They believe something is true, and think that strong enough belief will conjure it into reality. So they spend millions on the homeless in Seattle and don’t make the problem any better. They dole out millions to schools to ‘safely open’ when schools never needed to be closed in the first place. Billions get spent on high-speed rail, only for the cost to continue to climb while still having no high-speed service. No matter! They will throw good money after bad! After all, if they stop spending money, they might have to return some of that cash. Better to light it on fire!
Thomas Sowell wrote “Economic Facts and Fallacies” addressing this very subject. Politicians never admit they screw up so they just double down on their screw ups.
Even when they're told in advance they are screwing up... Sen Pat Moynihan wrote a report in the 1960s predicting exactly what would happen to the Black community if the dems kept on doing what they were doing... he was right, but you'll never hear any of the left admit it or even mention that it happened.
For those interested, simply google "Moynihan Report." It was enormously controversial at the time yet highly accurate of the problems it describes. It's worth noting that due to today's political correctness, even the report's title contains a word that, although acceptable then, is considered offensive today. Probably would be allowed here at Substack, but I'll not utter it lest some snowflake faint.
What is more, it bears mentioning the report was solicited by a Democrat administration. This was perhaps the peak of the Civil Rights movement, right after Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Daniel Patrick Moynihan himself was hardly a conservative. In fact, he later served (nearly) the last 25+ years of his life as a Senator from NY. Yet today the Woke mob would denounce him as a racist and a white supremacist.
Alas, the problems described in the 1965 report have only gotten worse, sometimes much worse, in the 57 years since. 😡 But hey, we have a black woman on the Supreme Court and, well, sort of, as a Vice President, so progress is being made! Or is it?
Thanks for the additional info. Yes Moynihan was regarded as one of the Senate's staunchest liberals. I recall fondly watching Meet The Press with Tim Russert, back in the day, when he (as he would every 6-8 weeks) had Moynihan on along with conservative Sen. Bob Dole. The interesting thing is that in those days, it was OK for liberals and conservatives to get along, and indeed Dole and Moynihan were very good friends. Their debates were always passionate yet respectful, and at the end when they walked off the stage on camera., they would laugh, smile and joke with each other as Moynihan steadied his somewhat younger but war-injured friend.
Sadly moments like those have been lost, and I fear I'll never see anything like that again in my lifetime. I didn't realize how special those times were back in the day, as a friend recently reminded me also of Ronald Reagan as President and Tip O'Neill as Speaker working together to get things done that they agreed were important for the country.
Progress? It like most things is in the eye of the beholder, but as for me, I'll take the 'bad old days' anytime.
The board at some point will put his offer to a vote. The Saud's won't matter. Vanguard recently doubled their shares to ~ 16% I suspect to cash in on the offer. Should Blackrock follow then ~35% of shares will decide and Musk will own the company. It's trading around $45 now which suggests investors are uncertain.
😂🤣 THANK YOU el gato for the explosion of endorphins I experienced laughing so hard at the hysterical Left tweets and your brilliant humour that my eyes teared up too much to read twice!!! This article made my day. When I first saw the elon tweet buy out news this morning, I felt a lightning bolt of hope for the restoration of free speech in the world!?!! And - at Easter - the momentous time of celebration of Resurrection!👏
Reminds me too of the 1984 Super Bowl Apple ad where the black and white drones of Orwell's dystopian world are facing the brainwashing screen and the runner swings the sledgehammer to smash the screen!!! It's 2022 - and we too can dream of freedom of speech/press rising once more.
Are you saying Elon is spraying them? That sounds about right. I usually dislike cat spray, awful nasty stuff. In this particular case, it’s quite fitting.
pass the popcorn 🍿
Like the man said, "It's gonna be lit!"
This confusion of cannabis with Elon is based on a misunderstanding. His magic number is 42 from The Hitchhikers Guide, not 420 for cannabis. So all of you potheads relax, welcome aboard all of you sci-fi fans.
Before I had to give it up for health reasons, I was "lit" quite often 🥴 Yesh indeed! It's also an excellent rockin' song by Buckcherry, 1999's "Lit Up" but dealing with a different recreational substance, mentioned in the lyrics.
Glad you explained it (albeit cryptically). It was a cultural reference that seems to have evaded my sleepy hamlet.
I'd imagined Musk was referring somehow to lighting a fire under all those censorious arses.
Best news to come down the pike in awhile. And popcorn is all very well, but I myself am lighting the incense and votive candles. And praying hard. I think this is yuge.
Bad kabucki theatre for 2.25 years has proceeded to absurd humor.... what’s next? But yes.... pass the popcorn, let’s watch.
P.s. SCA says he’s baking brownies.... Elon probably likes his with a little “special” ingredient” but hey, I think we’re all throwing a watch party.
"She's"
Whoops 😬 sorry
I may need to more deeply explore why I'm so often assumed to be a guy online...
It’s our bad not yours. Don’t overthink it. Also, I think it’s a language and social thing. When in doubt I lean toward the “He.”
Just go with it. In my experience it facilitates the experience and you find the pronoun gaffes amusing after awhile.
Surely, this is why all those in-yer-face folk insist on stating their pronouns upfront. They knew they were right all along...
No doubt. It's about time we get to watch some of these "only approved speech allowed" freaks squirm for a bit.
Yes!! With Musk's help we will lift up the rock they are under and watch them writhe and scuttle in the light.
Burn them with a magnifying glass!
They will certainly perish if a magnifying glass is held to them.
Elon may not be perfect, but this is good. I’m fantasizing about him buying Twitter and the woke blue checkmark crowd migrating to a different platform that fails to catch on, sending them spiralling further into absolute disgrace and irrelevance.
Fails to catch on like CNN Plus, which has only 10k subscribers.
yep, just checked. Wonder how long CNN can afford to subsidize it's ugly baby. The free network only gets < 1M viewers now. Ads must be going on the cheap. Turner might be thinking of a re-buy except his thinking days are past.
haha. right. They can call it "twatter"
They can call it “Hiss” since they are snakes.
Hissyfit?
😅
And as the old saying goes, "Never sacrifice the good on the altar of the perfect."
and instead of a bluebird they can be a Blue Check. In fact they should live under that flag. Elsewhere.
I love it! That would be amazing.
You mean like all the liberal alternatives to the EIB Network? That would be wonderful to watch.
Elon's timing is curious. Trump's "Truth" social media platform has been a flop, based on what little I've read. Just blowing the bellows on the "hidden agenda" conspiracy theory there for us! 😎
Gabs been successful
Notice how the media only pulls out the rich card when they're attacking someone who challenges the Cathedral? Never on Gates, Soros, and the rest of the Faustian tr/billionaires puppeteering them.
Oh, and el gato, I try not to bug you about typos because I know it's trickier for cat paws to hit all the right keys, but in this case, I think you'll want to fix the typo as "dies" is so pivotal to the meaning:
“democracy d[o]es without censorship.”
Now I get the reference
"Private companies can do whatever they.......WAIT, NOT LIKE THAT!"
that will turn to "this needs to be regulated like a public utility" in the blink of an eye if elon wins.
Hmm... would reverse a lot of precedents on the way.
Used to be, you could say whatever you wanted, politically, on the telephone or community access cable. Now they censor text messages.
Is that true? I've heard the claim before but not seen "proof." It's certainly possible however. For example, my own mobile provider routinely warns me if an incoming text or call is "suspected spam" or similar. But that is quite different from outright censoring a message.
[The following comments apply to my admittedly summary knowledge of US law.]
The law is "supposed to" make a clear distinction between "publisher" and "public forum" for computer services. We also have the much older concept of "common carrier" which applied to old-fashioned telephone systems, for example. A "Publisher" has the right to moderate content and (probably) more liability if he doesn't. A Common Carrier/Public Forum on the other hand, is supposed to NOT moderate content. So, in theory, the local phone company, or your cell provider, should not censor or cut off your service merely because you are discussing the next Klan meeting, or almost as bad, a voter registration drive for the local Republican candidate 🤡. Or to use another example, consider the difference in the service provider's ability to monitor the use of his service, and take steps to prevent illegal use of it: Two terrorists are discussing how to build a bomb and place it at a target. In the second, a publisher publishes a book telling exactly the same information. The latter example has actually happened at least once in U.S. law and there were court cases. The publisher was found civilly liable. In some cases, probably criminal convictions could arise too. But those are two examples of older, 20th century tech: a telephone and a printer/publisher. Now consider how communication has multiplied since then. Just who, indeed anyone, would have an implied or explicit duty to moderate content (e.g. censor) and face liability if they don't, in a case such as where an electronic document, an ebook, is publicly shared on a server? Or even a blog service such as Substack? Point: the duties, responsibilities and liabilities change quite dramatically, don't they? For example, consider the perspective that what your're reading right now is a living document (the article and its body of replies) subject to change at any moment. Sure, Substack has its use policy, but if I or anyone published certain speech that crossed a line, it would likely remain here for a certain period. If so, is it Substack's fault that they didn't have a censor verifying every post 24x7?
If I'm a spammer abusing an email service to send unwanted advertisements to hundreds of victims, is it a violation of my free speech if the service provider limits or cancels my account?
A major criticism of big social media has been they claim to be a public forum, yet clearly often muzzle certain speech, suggesting they are more of a publisher.
I claim no expertise in any of the above. My point is to show it's a complex issue, no doubt made even more complex by technology which often runs well ahead of changes in the law. I suspect that much modern communication such as social media cannot be distinctly classed as one form of service or another, since it probably has aspects of both, or even entirely new and currently unregulated ones.
2018 ruling: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fcc-texts/fcc-affirms-that-wireless-carriers-can-block-unwanted-text-messages-idUSKBN1OB2FP
You can find plenty of evidence of carriers blocking messages they don't want sent, just search. Lately it's mostly blocked for "Covid misinformation" but there are examples going back to 2010 or so.
SMS is not anything like a secure channel. Use something more modern if you want privacy or censorship resistance.
If we're being honest we can admit that the "Public Servants" make the rules to accommodate the ends. Our Constitution may say wars must have Congressional authorization we have been sailing on post 9-11 "emergency powers" of The Patriot Act ever since.
Sunset clauses built in to appease a terrified public as the laws flew by at the speed of a bullet train and continue on renewals every chance Congress gets as the covert empire grows.
It took a full decade and Jon Stewart's public humiliation of Washington to have "Ground Zero Heroes" given health coverage for illness and death It took a decade to admit the air that Christie Whitman's EPA swore was "perfectly safe" was anything but.
NYC old timers referred to Twin Towers as David & Nelson to honor Battery Park development taxpayer provided them as "public-private partnership" but by 2000 we called them Rockefeller's white elephants.
They were built in a rotary phone era and structural durability, including aircraft impact, became a nightmare with wiring for a booming Internet world. Worse yet asbestos use had not only been stopped in court but remediation had been ordered and compliance costs turn properties into losses. Heads we win tails you lose public policy, wtf they want on our dime.
Back to the regulatory framework with the caveat that confines in actual practice are like juggling jello. Big time favorite source for understanding where technology and law intersect EFF best explains.
Tucked inside the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet: Section 230.
This comes somewhat as a surprise, since the original purpose of the legislation was to restrict free speech on the Internet. The Internet community as a whole objected strongly to the Communications Decency Act, and with EFF's help, the anti-free speech provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court. But thankfully, CDA 230 remains and in the years since has far outshone the rest of the law.
https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly
Even if it doesn't happen, there will have been innumerable nappy changes and much laundering.
And not if they're baking wedding cakes either. Democracy dies in vanilla extract!
Honestly I woke up and saw the news and thought "best morning in two years."
This despite me being totally inenamored of Musk. Any guy who makes electric vehicles and partners happily with China ain't my kind o' guy. But him owning Twitter? Who's baking the cookies? I'll bring the brownies (mine have been famous since the kid's kindergarten days and them was long ago).
Electrification of transport is inevitable and unstoppable. EV's are just so superior to ICE vehicles. Go to DragTimes on Youtube and see how a mass market Model S Plaid humiliates +$million sports cars, like Lamborghini or Porsche. However Wind/solar are a joke, only suitable for niche applications like Off-grid homes or areas on diesel generation, however. To charge EV's you want to use surplus baseload generation.
I have no science/mechanical background so this isn't something I can intelligently discuss beyond my feeling that anything dependent on lithium ion batteries should be drowned before birth.
it's (tesla that is) also entirely dependent on government subsidies
He has spoken out against gov subsidies but since it is legal, and his competition takes the money I can't say I blame him.
Certainly. You can argue to change the rules of the game, but until they are changed, you play to win by the rules in play now.
You still run up against the power storage problem with evs over time, we are at least decades from them being viable to replace even 1/3 of our ice fleet
Does anyone wonder where we are going to get the Lithium?
After "8" years the battery goes to the toxic waste landfill because it can't be recycled. (OK, it only costs $20-30 to recycle 1 kg, meaning a lot of energy is used. Don't get me started on "reducing the carbon footprint": if it costs a lot of money to do anything, there is no reduction in carbon footprint). As an example, a windfarm operator needs $0.14 per kwh to make a profit, which is at least 3X the wholesale rate. This means that a windmill produces ZERO new power.
All the Lithium mined in the world over the next 10 years would go to electrifying the ICE vehicles in Britain.
Only if you can ignore the bit about their manufacture exceeding the carbon footprint of an ICE vehicle until after covering 50,000+ miles (and that must be on the original battery, or the counting resumes).
Not to mention the logistical problems of all those folk in an apartment block needing to charge their EVs at the same time.
I may just invest in a company that manufactures extremely long charger cables.
The real change comes with solar generated hydrogen, as Toyota knows. Just a lot of technical nuts to crack. We can't get to Li powered mass usage without a huge ramp of mining and a awful lot of money. Sadly zero interest money seems to be evaporating as we type.
Gas-powered car can go from 0% to 100% fueled in about 5 minutes, and that tank capacity is the same every time, even after thousands of full-empty-full cycles.
The materials needed for manufacturing the batteries (lithium, nickel, etc.) for all the cars that would be needed in just a country like the UK alone would exceed the world's production capacity... let alone for all the people not in the UK (the large majority of us).
Some reality there which is why hydrogen is more likely the future. Both alternatives require continued technology development that will accelerate as and if fossil extraction gets more difficult/expensive. The capital needed for those developments has been diverted into entertainment - FB, etc but a selective tax could readjust that misalignment.
That's an advantage ICE vehicles have. But to fill that tank might cost $100. To charge the same amount of miles in an EV will cost ~$17. Stop for a cup of coffee and save yourself $80 for 1/2hr of time. However the vast majority of charging should be done while the vehicle is parked overnight and the grid has a surplus of generation (and lower electricity rates). And that takes about 1 min of your time. In northern climates, in winter you have to plug in ICE vehicles anyway or they won't start. EV's are simpler & better for that.
Materials for batteries, mainly nickel, are a serious issue. And I will state up front that it will take 40yrs to replace 90% of ICE vehicles. That's why it is incredible stupidity wasting good batteries for utility storage applications. Just one of a dozen reasons why wind & solar are a failure - don't do that.
I don't advocate banning ICE vehicles, if you want one, buy one. A revenue neutral carbon fee & dividend is all the encouragement that BEV's need, considering their superior performance and popular demand. Plus some government incentive on establishing a countrywide charging network. Many people will cry "I don't want carbon taxes". Sorry dude, it isn't a tax as such, lower energy consumers profit from it, higher energy consumers lose. And you are already being taxed to the hilt in the form of massive, never-heard-of-ever subsidies, mandates and exemptions for wind & solar power. Don't do that.
See replies to Dr Hughes comment, she wants popcorn.....
Oh I love brownies as well
This ain't a "watch the waistline" moment...
No. More of a 'watch the fireworks' moment. Listen to the 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' as the bombs go off. Nothing quite like watching the left self destruct ;)
More apropos to this Substack, I've always liked the metaphor of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, and watching unravel.
Though that's far too charming for the moment. I like that meme of the guy with the folding chair shaking it open one-handed and settling down for the show...
IKR? Brings a tear to the eye, remembering the aftermath of the 2016 election. I'm still sad that no one caught HRC on film during her epic meltdown. I would have paid good money to have seen that.
Well, I'm not for the other side either.
Lolol
Giant bucket of Cracker Jack at least...
Surely, you mean Cracker Jills?! 😱
Nah.
Lots of us are 'partnering' with China, because it's so difficult to check before purchase where the goods were manufactured.
Nothing against the Chinese people, but their overlords are out to get us.
At a minimum, Musk is shining a flashlight on the cockroaches. This is exactly the type of unforced error Disney is committing right now with the gender insanity - the Wicked Witch of the West screaming "I'm melting!!!" in full display. My question is not about who takes what amount of $$$, but how hard Twitter will fight this to avoid exposing all the BS that is lurking below the programming surface which surely Blackrock et al are intimately involved with.
I'm under no illusions about billionaires effecting permanent positive change on social media, but this IS a delightful thing to witness.
Unpredictable chaos!
I LOVE THIS TIMELINE 🤩
Blackrock is the ESG DEI WEF Eye of Sauron - woke capital is globalist fascism.
agree, but apart from ARK, they seem pretty isolated here.
I mention Larry Fink and BlackRock in every political conversation I have. Scary how few people know about them.
“I find the purveyors of ESG to be among the most sanctimonious and arrogant twits (and you can quote me on that) on the face of the earth, convinced that they have the right definition of good, that they will thrust down the throats of everyone else. The ESG measurement services, in my view, are a charade, measuring neither goodness nor risk, but they have real effects, since companies take consequential actions to improve these scores.”-Aswath Damodran
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2021/10/26/damodaran-esg-purveyors-are-sanctimonious-and-arrogant-twits/
ESG is a scam. That’s abundantly clear.
I resonated with this whole comment, thanks!!! Your comment: “i was not an elon fan, but the last 2 years have been a time of bewildering alterations in bedfellows. his genuine pleasure in upsetting applecarts and pissing off the pompous and false bureaucratic bloviators has been a joy to watch.”
Right! I love his smug smile when he does something he knows will tick off people. It used to be annoying. Not so much now.
Fitting that Max Boot is sporting a Ukrainian flag, a country where digital passports and digital central currency are being implemented, opposition parties have been outlawed, and a prominent critic of the president has been arrested.
Max Boot doesn't give a shit about Ukrainians as anything other than bodies to bloody up in the proxy war he and his neocon pals have been itching to fight with Russia for decades. He doesn't like free speech because he's upset that people still call him a neocon and he'd love to force them to stop.
That's exactly right. The Neocon/Neolibs just suckered Ukraine into being cannon fodder for the war they're just itching to fight with Russia. If Russia uses tactical nukes to melt Ukrainian cities, those guys won't shed a tear, at least not in private.
Which is why Max Boot needs to have his brains splattered about in combat.
Not to mention that Ukraine/Zelensky is a confirmed WEF droid...
So is Elon. Regrettably.
The lack of self awareness seems to be a genetic flaw in all progressives. These are the same 30% of the population that think Dementia Joe is doing great job ruining the country.
Exactly the case!!!
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This is a major problem for the Biden administration in particular and way too many of our current ‘leaders’ in general (and by extension the rest of us). They believe something is true, and think that strong enough belief will conjure it into reality. So they spend millions on the homeless in Seattle and don’t make the problem any better. They dole out millions to schools to ‘safely open’ when schools never needed to be closed in the first place. Billions get spent on high-speed rail, only for the cost to continue to climb while still having no high-speed service. No matter! They will throw good money after bad! After all, if they stop spending money, they might have to return some of that cash. Better to light it on fire!
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/inflation-and-you?s=w
Thomas Sowell wrote “Economic Facts and Fallacies” addressing this very subject. Politicians never admit they screw up so they just double down on their screw ups.
Even when they're told in advance they are screwing up... Sen Pat Moynihan wrote a report in the 1960s predicting exactly what would happen to the Black community if the dems kept on doing what they were doing... he was right, but you'll never hear any of the left admit it or even mention that it happened.
For those interested, simply google "Moynihan Report." It was enormously controversial at the time yet highly accurate of the problems it describes. It's worth noting that due to today's political correctness, even the report's title contains a word that, although acceptable then, is considered offensive today. Probably would be allowed here at Substack, but I'll not utter it lest some snowflake faint.
What is more, it bears mentioning the report was solicited by a Democrat administration. This was perhaps the peak of the Civil Rights movement, right after Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Daniel Patrick Moynihan himself was hardly a conservative. In fact, he later served (nearly) the last 25+ years of his life as a Senator from NY. Yet today the Woke mob would denounce him as a racist and a white supremacist.
Alas, the problems described in the 1965 report have only gotten worse, sometimes much worse, in the 57 years since. 😡 But hey, we have a black woman on the Supreme Court and, well, sort of, as a Vice President, so progress is being made! Or is it?
Thanks for the additional info. Yes Moynihan was regarded as one of the Senate's staunchest liberals. I recall fondly watching Meet The Press with Tim Russert, back in the day, when he (as he would every 6-8 weeks) had Moynihan on along with conservative Sen. Bob Dole. The interesting thing is that in those days, it was OK for liberals and conservatives to get along, and indeed Dole and Moynihan were very good friends. Their debates were always passionate yet respectful, and at the end when they walked off the stage on camera., they would laugh, smile and joke with each other as Moynihan steadied his somewhat younger but war-injured friend.
Sadly moments like those have been lost, and I fear I'll never see anything like that again in my lifetime. I didn't realize how special those times were back in the day, as a friend recently reminded me also of Ronald Reagan as President and Tip O'Neill as Speaker working together to get things done that they agreed were important for the country.
Progress? It like most things is in the eye of the beholder, but as for me, I'll take the 'bad old days' anytime.
I’m not convinced Musk isn’t doing some kind of pump-and-dump.
Either way, it will be interesting.
Still an excellent move to hasten Twitter's arrival as the new MySpace.
haha
An offer is much more than pump & dump. Serious stuff that can get the SEC's attention. His merry band of lawyers is settling in for the challenge.
I guess we’ll see. Maybe if you were able to convince a significant shareholder to object and got the timing right…
The board at some point will put his offer to a vote. The Saud's won't matter. Vanguard recently doubled their shares to ~ 16% I suspect to cash in on the offer. Should Blackrock follow then ~35% of shares will decide and Musk will own the company. It's trading around $45 now which suggests investors are uncertain.
😂🤣 THANK YOU el gato for the explosion of endorphins I experienced laughing so hard at the hysterical Left tweets and your brilliant humour that my eyes teared up too much to read twice!!! This article made my day. When I first saw the elon tweet buy out news this morning, I felt a lightning bolt of hope for the restoration of free speech in the world!?!! And - at Easter - the momentous time of celebration of Resurrection!👏
Reminds me too of the 1984 Super Bowl Apple ad where the black and white drones of Orwell's dystopian world are facing the brainwashing screen and the runner swings the sledgehammer to smash the screen!!! It's 2022 - and we too can dream of freedom of speech/press rising once more.
I don't know if Musk has any kind of religion, but the symbolism is wonderful. If he rolls aside the rock, who knows what we will see!
I like that hopeful thought - so full of possibility!
Absolutely not! Irony intended!!
Looks like Pfizer is hiring ……twitter censors you have been trained up this could be your new home😂😂😂😂
Wait. Max Boot is scared of something again?
Stop the fucking presses.
No, literally, do that.
🤣 Guttermouth!
Yes ma'am.
Can someone smell Cat musk? I'll say it again. BREAKING - Live feed from Twitter HQ
https://twitter.com/IAmericanMama/status/1514566255486939137?s=20&t=hoU8tXG_rV3RIZ3jtT_QKw
Are you saying Elon is spraying them? That sounds about right. I usually dislike cat spray, awful nasty stuff. In this particular case, it’s quite fitting.
No pussyfooting around, this time!
😹😹😹