This is the thing with LIBERALS.  They want “GREEN SOLUTIONS” but not in their backyard.

Hey, I’ve been guilty of this myself in my opposition to FRACKING in New York State despite my conviction that oil and gas will be with us for decades, thereby acknowledging the need for their extraction from all available sources.

So, yes, call me a NIMBY hypocrite on that one.

Yet, sooner or later, ALL aesthetic and utopian environmental considerations MUST GIVE WAY to what’s practical, achievable and, in so far as possible, SUSTAINABLE.

Here’s the piece:

Maine Bans New Wind Power Projects in State Waters

Lest anyone forget.

Whoa!  Does this dude come loaded for bear!

What a complete dismantling, starting with his nullification of the “PROJECT’S” basic premise, i.e. that the US was founded to perpetuate slavery when, in fact, many of the original inhabitants of this country wished to OUTLAW it.

I’ve said all along that the 1619 Project was nothing more than an IDEOLOGICAL PUFF-PIECE POORLY OUTFITTED IN HISTORICAL DRAG.  There was ZERO SCHOLARSHIP but only a LITANY OF GRIEVANCES stemming from events PRIOR TO THE CIVIL RIGHS ERA.

Jilani, who by the way is unusually bright and extremely fluent, calls the “PROJECT” both liturgy and a catechism.  And given that a company such as SHELL OIL is nominally in support only proves that nothing will be achieved by it other than the ENSHRINEMENT of the notion of STRUCTURAL RACISM as some immutable, immovable bugaboo.  JEEPERS!

As we know, when Corporate America gets behind anything like this, it’s always AT NO COST TO IT AND UNLIKELY TO CHANGE ANYTHING.  It merely allows the money-power axis more room to maneuver until the next time it’s required to deliver a HOT-AIR SOLUTION to something.  In other words, it’s PURE P.R.

Jilani also points out that a) the FAR LEFT were first on the political spectrum to take issue with the PROJECT’S nonsense and b) Native American groups also found much of it ABSURD.

But watch for yourself.  It’s only 12:26, and Jilani truly TELLS IT.

Zaid Jilani Explains What’s Wrong with the NYT’s 1619 Project

Shallow and ideological, the 1619 Project was in every respect a fraudulent stunt by both Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times.

SHAME ON THEM BOTH!

An excellent discussion on how the financial system is set up to benefit only the main participants.  Yes, most of us already know this, but there are always more wrinkles.  A number of them are discussed in this podcast.

By the way, Taibbi is seeing signs of a repeat of 2008 and explains why.  That alone is worth checking out.

Impending Financial Crisis 2.0?

When you think of it, our own skeletons are assuming these positions or similarly moving about – ROUTINELY.

I love when artists delve A LITTLE DEEPER. 

Skeletons Explore the Eerie/Bizarre 

Is this not the essence of metaphor?

After all, IMAGINATION is the act of IMAGING.  The word itself tells us.  One should never hesitate to VERB nouns or repurpose them.  Shakespeare gave us modern English doing just that.

But that’s NOTHING compared to seeing FACES EVERYWHERE.

Look yonder.

Our Brains “Read” Expressions of Illusory Faces

Not my case necessarily, but a very thoughtful one from Robert Bryce, a research fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org).

It’s Time to Unplug the Hype Over Electric Vehicles

A few key passages:

•  “I am pro-electricity. But I am adamantly opposed to the notion that we should ‘electrify everything’ including transportation. The big problems with EVs are affordability, resilience, and supply chains.“
• “EVs are coming down in price, but they are mostly being purchased by the Benz and Beemer crowd. The average household income for EV buyers is about $140,000. That’s twice the U.S. average.”
• “Furthermore, low- and middle-income Americans are facing significant electric rate increases for grid upgrades to accommodate EVs.”
• “Last month, the California Energy Commission estimated the state will need 1.3 million new public EV chargers by 2030. Likely cost to ratepayers: about $13 billion.”
• “Meanwhile, blackouts are almost certain this summer and electricity prices in the state are, as energy analyst Mark Nelson recently put it, ‘absolutely exploding.’ Last year, electricity prices soared by 7.5% and California regulators expect rates to surge another 40% or so by 2030. These cost increases are happening in a state with the highest poverty rate and largest Latino population in America.”
• “Electrifying transportation will put more of our energy eggs in one basket and make our grid an even-juicier target for terrorists, cyberthieves, or bad actors.  It will also reduce resilience and reliability in case of a prolonged grid failure due to natural disaster, equipment failure, or human error.
• “Indeed, attempting to electrify transportation makes little sense given the ongoing fragilization of our electric grid. That fragilization is due to the ongoing closures of our nuclear and coal-fired plants as well as the grid’s increased dependence on weather-dependent renewables and power plants that rely on just-in-time delivery of natural gas. Since 2016, the number of grid outages per year – what the DOE calls “major disturbances and unusual occurrences” – has nearly tripled.”
• “EVs will also make the U.S. more dependent on China. Electrifying just half of our auto fleet will require, in rough terms, about nine times current global cobalt production, three times global lithium output, and about two times current copper production. As the International Energy Agency noted in a May report, China has a majority share in the processing of cobalt, lithium, and the rare earth elements needed to make EVs.”

Turning to oil-powered transportation, Bryce concludes with the following prediction:

• “The simple truth is that oil’s century-long dominance of the transportation-fuel market is largely due to its high energy density. That density – along with oil’s versatility, quick refueling, ease of handling, and continuing improvements in internal combustion engines and hybrids — assures that oil will be fueling our cars, trucks, ships, boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, bulldozers, excavators, and airplanes for decades to come.”

My own sense is that the transition from hydrocarbons to electricity won’t be anything as swift, seamless or complete as the GREENEST of GREEN OPTIMISTS think.

Green as POLICY remains largely ASPIRATIONAL.  Unless and until we see the data, action plans, engineering strategies and timelines regarding how this transition will occur, it remains largely a RALLYING CRY for those INFECTED with the same unreasoning fervor as SOCIAL JUSTICE PARTISANS.

In other words, there’s still far too much MAGICAL THIKING here.  And it’s largely a function of STRESS and DISQUIET.

Our problems are still as BASIC as hunger.

STILL.

We forget about the basics: food, water, shelter, energy, medicine.

Timely REALITY CHECK from Jim Rickards on China.

As it rises — and the US flounders — it’s useful to remember that China, in addition to its strengths, is not without its share of vulnerabilities.

China: Fragile Giant

Rickards’ pluses and minuses:

STRENGTHS

• Third-largest land mass
• Largest population
• Fifth-largest nuclear arsenal
• Second-largest economy
• Largest gold producer
• Largest foreign-exchange reserves

WEAKNESSES

• Per capita income is only $12,000 vs. $64,000 in the US, making it a “middle income” country, a bracket difficult to break out of.
• Trails US military in aircraft carriers, nuclear warheads, submarines, fighter aircraft and strategic bombers.
• Remains reliant on assembly-line production jobs.
• Has shown little capacity to develop high technology through its own R&D.
• Heavily indebted
• Insolvent banking system
• Ongoing real estate bubble
• Growth driven by “excessive credit, wasted infrastructure investment and Ponzi schemes.”
• Low tolerance for either unemployment or inflation
• Demographic challenges

These are only highlights, and the piece in its entirety is greater than the sum of these bullet points.  In other words, IT COHERES.

How much is leaving your generation’s WALLET?