Eco-tards

Government playing God

Posted on July 8, 2024July 8, 2024 by Mike

YET AGAIN, that is.

To save spotted owls, US officials plan to kill hundreds of thousands of another owl species
To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their cousins.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is meant to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.

Documents released by the agency show up to about 450,000 barred owls would be shot over three decades after the birds from the eastern U.S. encroached into the West Coast territory of two owls: northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have been unable to compete with the invaders, which have large broods and need less room to survive than spotted owls.

Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live, sparking bitter fights over logging but also helping slow the birds’ decline. The proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work, officials said.

“Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor Kessina Lee.

The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. It’s reminiscent of past government efforts to save West Coast salmon by killing sea lions and cormorants that prey on the fish, and to preserve warblers by killing cowbirds that lay eggs in warbler nests.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle, founder of the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency won’t be able to keep more barred owls from migrating into areas where others have been killed.

The shootings would likely begin next spring, officials said. Barred owls would be lured using megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls, then shot with shotguns. Carcasses would be buried on site.

Sick, arrogant fucks. But don’t any of you Serf Class oafs be getting any bright ideas from this, mmmkay?

Public hunting of barred owls wouldn’t be allowed. The wildlife service would designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters would have to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.

Oh goodie, I feel better already! I’m confident it will all work out a-okay—y’know, just like every other one of their meddlesome, half-baked schemes has— now that I know that goobermint-vetted “experts” are involved. There DOES seem to be one other tiny, minor little problem though.

But there is more to this story than the “old growth” fabrication. Another misrepresentation is that the northern spotted owl is a unique species at all.

Endangered “northern spotted owls” are a “sub-species” of spotted owls, which means they are, in fact, the same species as California spotted owls and Mexican spotted owls, which also live on the west coast. Their difference is that geographic distance and separation have caused some differences in plumage and appearance. To call these spotted owls a different “sub-species” is like stating that Norwegians, Koreans, and Nigerians are different subspecies of homo sapiens. The notion of bird “sub-species” is actively rejected by many in the ornithology community.

This research piece from the Cooper Ornithological Society makes it rather clear that the spotted owl is all one species, noting that the northern spotted owl’s identifying features are based on a specimen from Puget Sound in Washington, while the California spotted owl is based on one from Southern California, but the identifying features of spotted owls gradually morph between the two locations.

In summary, two great lies are at the root of the environmental damage that has been done in the name of the spotted owl: 1) That logging was responsible for their decreasing spotted owl population in the Pacific Northwest; and 2) That there is even such a species as the “northern spotted owl.”

But hundreds of thousands of barred owls are now going to be killed in perpetuation of these lies. Considering that the “green,” anti-carbon advocates of the wind industry defend the senseless killing of millions of eagles, raptors, and migratory birds as a necessary religious sacrament, this proposed owl slaughter is consistent with the 21st Century environmental movement.

Ummm…OOOPS! Well, hey, ya wins some and ya loses some, I reckon. After all, it’s really the thought that counts, right?

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And so it goes

Posted on June 29, 2024June 29, 2024 by Mike

First off, before we get to clearing yet another too-long-open browser tab, I just can’t resist running this highly apposite meme.

Gee, thanks so much, Jaux! Why, whatever would we do without you looking out for us poor Serf Class schlubs, anyway? And what do we have to do so’s we can find out quicker?

Okay, speaking of oddly-behaving gas tanks…

Would you buy a car with a shrinking fuel tank?
HAVING the technical knowledge of an amoeba, I’m not in any position to list the huge number of problems linked to electric vehicles (EVs) such as their eye-watering cost and their road- and car park-wrecking weight. There’s also their rare but potentially fatal tendency to turn into 2,000 degrees infernos due to a chain reaction known as ‘thermal runaway’. But I thought I’d ruminate for a moment on the differences between the power sources of EVs compared with petrol/diesel vehicles: an EV battery vs a petrol/diesel fuel tank.

With an EV battery:

the maximum range seems to be somewhere between 150 and 250 miles;

you’re advised to charge it only up to 80 per cent; the battery degrades every time you charge it, thus reducing the range;

when the battery needs replacing (supposedly after eight to ten years but probably earlier), you’ll need to spend over £10,000 on a new one, so you might as well scrap your EV;

even a minor accident or bumping into a kerb may mean you have to buy a new £10,000 battery as it’s impossible to know whether the potentially explosive battery has been damaged;

owing to the high replacement cost of EV batteries, insuring EVs tends to be much more expensive than a petrol/diesel car;

many public chargers don’t work because thieves find it profitable to cut the cables to sell the copper.

With a petrol or diesel vehicle:

the fuel tank gives about three times the range of an EV;

you can fill the tank to 100 per cent of its capacity;

the tank remains the same size and gives the same range however many times you fill it;

even if you keep the vehicle for ten to 15 years, you’ll probably never need to buy a new fuel tank;

small accidents or bumps are unlikely to do any damage to your fuel tank;

thieves are unlikely to cut the fuel hoses in petrol stations to sell off the rubber.

Yet our rulers plan to force us all to buy expensive but largely useless EVs supposedly to save the planet from supposed (but non-existent) catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.

Permit me to refer you to Mike’s Iron Law #149 and its accompanying Corollary A—what the hey, #213 also while you’re over there, it relates—if you wish to understand why this bizarre, seemingly nonsensical state of affairs progressed from over-the-top, non sequitur-ish tomfoolery to Amerika v2.0’s contemporary reality. Then see Mike’s Iron Law #873 for a broad, non-specific hint as to how it might be properly dealt with.

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I’d like to ask a purely practical question at this point…

Posted on June 20, 2024June 20, 2024 by Mike

Are we doin’ Stone’enge tomorrow?

‘Expect a Prison Sentence’: Climate Goons Vandalize Stonehenge; May FINALLY Face Consequences
There is no facet of Western culture the climate goons won’t vandalize in the name of ‘bringing awareness’ to their cause.

As if we need more awareness — the media and the Left (but we repeat ourselves) hammer it into our brains daily. But no, we’re not giving up our cars or eating the bugs. Deal with it.

This time, the ‘Just Stop Oil’ idiots vandalized Stonehenge.

They can’t create anything, they can’t build anything, and they can’t defend their positions. So like all good commies, they destroy the beautiful things others have created. It’s not about ‘raising awareness’ but destroying culture to rebuild it as a communist hellhole.

The vandals insist their vandalism will ‘wash away’ with the rain.

Except, it won’t, according to some pending Community notes, and this reply from the official Stonehenge X account;

Said reply being, to wit:

Stonehenge is protected by the ancient monuments act and it is a criminal offence to damage the Stones. There are also multiple rare lichen species growing on the stones that are also protected. Expect a prison sentence. 😡 https://t.co/4sFprTUwUi

— Stonehenge U.K (@ST0NEHENGE)

June 19, 2024

Out of all the excellent, witty ripostes included in the Twitchy piece, and there are quite a few, my verymost favorite of them would have to be…DRUM ROLL, PLEASE…

This is the biggest insult to Stonehenge since Spinal Tap. https://t.co/rjR7gCZQYB pic.twitter.com/7tQOwj3elC

— Damin Toell (@damintoell)

June 19, 2024

TA DAAAAA!!! Okay, y’all surely must realize what I’m a-gonna do next, don’tcha?

OHH, how I love it!

I would hereby like to declare that, henceforth, any time one of these Just Say No To Oil drooltards is spotted in any public place, he/she/it must summarily be beaten into severe, irreversible mental retardation. All sane, able-bodied bystanders and/or passersby will be expected to participate fully in said beatdowns—no exceptions, no exemptions, no looky-loos.

Then again, though, hopefully the two that got arrested will find themselves on the receiving end of nightly doses of big black cock, injected anally—stuffed in from aforementioned point of entry halfway up to their fucking tonsils, painfully withdrawn, reinserted, lather, rinse, repeat. Once word of these nonconsensual administrations of swift, blinding Jailhouse Justice© starts to get around, look for the civilizational-vandal clique’s membership numbers to fall off dramatically.

Update! New category for this sort of arrant nonsense, since it doesn’t look like going away anytime soon: Are we fed up yet?

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The cars of Teh Future

Posted on May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 by Mike

And they always will be.

Buttigieg defends Biden’s EV strategy after question on how only 8 federal charging stations have been built
Buttigieg says Biden focused on making sure EV revolution is American-led

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg defended the Biden administration’s push to build half a million electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along U.S. highways by 2030 after being questioned about how just eight have been built since President Biden signed the legislation two years ago.

Buttigieg appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” where he tried to ease doubts about reaching Biden’s goal of 500,000 chargers by the end of the decade when asked why it wasn’t happening more quickly.

“Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plugging a small device into the ground,” the secretary said. “There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states.”

“Seven or eight, though?” host Margaret Brennan said with a laugh.

“Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers,” Buttigieg said. “And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built.”

See? Fret not, folks, Comrade Mr Secretary Buttplug is ON THE CASE!!! Assuming he’ll have any time, whilst also getting pregnant, giving birth, and breast chest-feeding “his” children, to deal with such trifling inanities as this charger grift, of course. Meanwhile, a commenter over at Insty’s joint notes a leeeetle problem.

My back-of-the-envelope math also indicates that building seven stations every two years will get us to Biden’s goal of 500,000 no later than the year 144,881 AD. Assuming we’re still using AD by then. 2030 doesn’t seem that far away now, does it?

Oof. Also, ouch. Hey, math is haaaaard. Who knew? Really, though, the underlying issue is going unmentioned.

Buttigieg said “the EV revolution will happen with or without us” and that Biden is focused on making sure the EV revolution is led by America, not by a competitor like China.

He said the charging stations are just one factor that will help Americans transition from gas-powered cars to electric; the other is lowering the cost of EVs for the consumer.

Bold mine, and horseshit of the purest ray serene. The “EV revolution” will assuredly NOT be “led by America,” contra whatever falsehoods the flailing, floundering Buttplug pukes forth. Fact is, this misleading Peter-puffery is a useful indicator of precisely where, how, and why we’ve gone so wrong: unlike previous world-altering, genuinely revolutionary* shifts organically driven from the bottom up thanks entirely to entrepreneurial creativity, ingenuity, and ambition (think Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Edison’s incandescent light bulb, the internal-combustion engine, powered flight, among others), the hard-luck huckster Buttplug’s “EV revolution” is 100% Astroturf, forced on us Serf Class simps from the top down, whether we will or we nil—led by the government, not America.

Sorry, but this is not no way no how something to be celebrated, at least for any Real American not hungrily sucking at the drooping Überstadt teat. Such as, for example, Comrade Buttplug. On the bright side, though, maybe FederalGovCo will explain that mind-boggling “7 every 2 years=500k in 6” computation when the junta issues its next Five Year Plan. That ought to be a hoot.

*Hate to have to bust any bubbles here, but the very idea of a government-led “revolution” is a non sequitur, by definition an impossibility; sorry, but revolutions just don’t work that way. Call me pedantic, call me a language-Nazi, but revolutions aren’t done BY governments, they’re done TO them.

Open mouth, insert foot update! Jesus, it’s like the boob just can’t help himself.

In a surprising move, Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg didn’t blame an alleged increase in extreme turbulence impacting air travel on racism. During an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” the embattled cabinet member instead chose to blame the problem on climate change.

“The effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation,” he said. “We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme.”

A recent study found hurricanes and typhoons are actually decreasing, but okay, Pete.

It’s always the same old song with these people over and over and over again, the song only has one note, and nary a one of ‘em can carry a tune in a slop bucket. Yet they will NOT stop singing the stupid thing, even as the audience stomps out with their hands clapped tightly over their ears. More tiresome than one of those interminable, multi-band “Louie Louie” marathons they used to do now and then as radio-station promos, that’s what it is.

MOAR EV follies update! A joke, and not a very funny one: Electric…FIRE ENGINES?!?

Jeez Louise.

New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Grisham was recently excited to announce that the state’s Environment Department was awarding a nearly half-million dollar grant to Bernalillo County to partially finance the purchase of a new “all-electric” fire truck for their fire department. It was only a “partial” reimbursement because the projected cost to the county to replace its 1991 diesel fire engine with a Pierce Volterra battery electric fire engine was more than $1.8 million. The local fire chief was quoted as proudly saying, “There’s no cancer coming out of the tailpipe” of the new truck. So that’s a win for all concerned, right?

Not so fast there, chief. You have to read quite a ways down into the announcement to learn the uncomfortable truth about this purchase. The supposedly “all-electric” fire engine has a diesel engine in it. The pumps that actually deliver the water to put out fires run off of the diesel engine and the truck itself can run off of diesel when the battery inevitably runs out. So the entire description of “all-electric” is a farce.

What aspect of the “EV revolution” ISN’T a farce?

So why would these fire trucks still have diesel engines?

Elementary, Watson: because electric motors and batteries simply aren’t adequate to the kind of heavy-duty task required of pumper trucks, shitlib fantasies about Skittle-pooping unicorns notwithstanding.

They’re supposed to be eliminating fossil fuels to save us all from climate change, aren’t they? The answer should be fairly obvious. These are emergency response vehicles. If your neighbor’s EV can’t make it out of the driveway one morning because they couldn’t find a charging station or there was a blackout, they might miss a day of work. If the fire truck can’t do its job, buildings will burn down and people may die. It’s simply not worth the risk.

The water pumps on the fire trucks are massive. They have to be to move that much water so quickly over a sustained period of time. Also, the engine that powers the vehicle is far larger than the ones in most consumer vehicles, on par with the ones in big rigs. If there is a significantly large fire taking place, the pumps may be running for hours on end. EV batteries simply are not up to the job. If a conventional fire truck begins running low on diesel, a refueling truck can be brought over to fill up the tank in a few minutes. You can’t accelerate the battery recharging process.

Bad enough, sure, but is that all, you ask? Not hardly, I reply.

Here is another fun fact about these trucks, as pointed out by Larry Behrens, Communications Director for Power The Future. Those “all-electric” fire trucks cost 40 to 50 percent more than conventional, diesel models. The one that Bernalillo County purchased cost $1.8 million. That’s roughly $600,000 more than standard diesel truck costs and that bill was saddled on the taxpayers of the county as well as the entire state thanks to the Governor’s “generous” grant. (It’s funny how these politicians are always able to be so generous with your money, isn’t it?)

Wait, so you’re telling me you feel that Saving Mother Gaia from A) trace atmospheric gases essential for plant life; B) gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters, and C) efficient, reliable, affordable modes of transportation for everyday Americans isn’t worth paying any price, going to any lengths imaginable? To quote Saint Greta of Thunberg: HOW DARE YOU!!! Oh, and speaking of that glowering, insufferably self-righteous nitwit, get a load of this:

Doom Goblin Greta? Bless my soul, how I do love it! Expect to see that one regularly from here on out, gang. I’ve been sitting on this mad-genius Tweet for a couple weeks now, just waiting for the right time to use it, and finally, it has come.

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Yet ANOTHER “Ask a silly question” entry

Posted on April 25, 2024April 25, 2024 by Mike

“Is Biden About To Declare Himself Climate Dictator?” Waitwaitwait, I thought he DID that already.

Democrats have already made it clear that they will stop at nothing – nothing – to prevent Donald Trump from winning in November. So, we aren’t surprised to read reports that President Joe Biden might declare a “climate emergency” this year in hopes that it gooses his reelection odds. Never mind that such a declaration would put the U.S. right on the path to a Venezuela-style future.

Late last week, Bloomberg reported that “White House officials are weighing whether to declare a national climate emergency several months out from the 2024 election.”

Let’s leave aside the entirely fatuous notion that there is anything even remotely constituting a climate “emergency.” What would be the basis for such a declaration? The number of hurricanes, fires, floods? None of these has been trending upward. Death rates from natural disasters are a tiny fraction of what they were 60 years ago, and lower than they were 20 years ago. Food production is way up.

But Biden has already used the “climate crisis” as an excuse to impose a draconian electric vehicle mandate on the country, attack a host of household appliances, pour billions into “clean energy” scams, and more.

As Bloomberg notes, declaring a climate emergency “could enable the president to halt or limit crude exports for at least a year at a time, suspend offshore drilling, and throttle the movement of oil and gas on pipelines, ships, and trains.”

Apparently all that is not enough “newfound authority” for Biden’s minions.

Whatever you think of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he is one of the few who has been outspoken about the dangers the COVID precedent set.

“We’ve now established a precedent in this country – they suspended the First Amendment: religion; freedom of association when they did the lockdowns,” he told Fox News.

“[They restricted] freedom of speech. They banned jury trials against vaccine companies – that’s [a violation of] the Seventh Amendment. They abolished property rights [which violates the] Fifth Amendment [when] they closed 3.3 million businesses with no due process, no just compensation, although there was no pandemic exception in the United States Constitution.”

Not that I hold any truck with a great many of his views, but hey: when the man’s right, he is damned well right, clear down to the friggin’ bone and with big ol’ bells on.

Declaring a climate emergency would give Biden the ability to control anything that uses energy – which means literally all human activity – in the name of fighting this emergency.

If Biden were to declare a “climate emergency” and if – God forbid – it helps him win reelection, there will be little hope for the future of this nation.

What, you mean there still IS some? I musta missed a meeting, or something.

I repeat: this isn’t about the climate, nor about humanity being good stewards of our natural enviroment, nor about saving Mother Gaia. It’s not about animal/plant/insect species going extinct, nor about reducing pollution, CO₂, and/or industrial emissions. Nor is it about polar ice caps shriveling away before our very eyes. It will assuredly NOT create good jobs, save boucoup money, revitalize the economy, or enrich/empower a living soul aside from the ProPol-class and proven-failure “green energy” concerns they choose to shower FederalGovCo cash upon as the gentle rain—companies, mind, which have no hope of surviving absent government largesse.

No, the Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ bunco is really about the same old-same old: POWER, and CONTROL. Always was, always will be. Period fucking dot.

Update! Tell me the one again about how Biden hasn’t declared himself Climate Dictator, Daddy. That one’s my favorite.

President Joe Biden and his administration have taken over 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry as energy prices have gone up, according to a new report.

“President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase,” the Institute for Energy Research states in a new report. “Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America.”

The analysis highlights actions Biden took on his first day in office, listing them chronologically through March of this year. The first act was canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, issuing a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and revoking Trump administration executive orders that decreased regulations in order to expand domestic production.

Within a week of being in office, Biden issued additional moratoriums on new oil and gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters and imposed new regulations related to permitting and leasing practices, which were tied up in the courts for years. It was not until last month that a federal court upheld the first oil and natural gas lease sale on federal lands. Last December, the Fifth Circuit also ruled that Gulf lease sales must go forward.

Other actions ahead of the midterm elections include threatening to tax the oil and natural gas industry, blaming them for profiteering. Roughly six months before the general election, his administration has proposed $110 billion tax hikes on oil, natural gas and coal. In response, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., led a coalition of 24 senators expressing “grave concern” about his “continued hostility towards American energy production.”

Even if Pedo Peter hasn’t expressly said it in the exact words, he’s definitely talking the talk and walking the walk. Which oughta be plenty enough for anybody, I should think.

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How you know the whole thing is a scam

Posted on April 11, 2024April 11, 2024 by Mike

DOG BITES MAN: the climate can and does change. Indonesian “transgender” hookers hardest hit.

No, really.

How climate change is hitting vulnerable Indonesian trans sex workers

There’s an article which I didn’t bother to read, for the obvious reasons: 1) I don’t give a tinker’s damn, and 2) it’s all just made-up bullshit anyhow.

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Another day, another scam

Posted on April 9, 2024April 9, 2024 by Mike

And you thought FauxVid was bad.

What? NOAA Graph Shows CO2 Is Not the Villain
Since the 1970s, we’ve been told CO2 is the villain that causes most climate change. NOAA obliterated that with a graph.

Some men think they can do better than nature.

“The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is comparable to around 4.3 million years ago when sea level was about 75 ft higher than today, the average temp was 7 degrees F higher than in pre-industrial times, & large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra,” NOAA reports.

So, there were no people, the sea level was higher, and there were forests on the now-frozen tundra.

We’ve been sold a bill of goods.

Oh, have we ever. Follows, the charts which back it up in Tweet format, then a brief review of the origins of what I call the Church of AlGore—all of which establish that the whole thing was and is really about the same old things it always is: money, and power.

Update! Calls for another rerun of this George Carlin classic, I do believe.

For a Lefty, pretty much, ol’ George could be pretty damned smart at times.

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A new low

Posted on April 6, 2024April 7, 2024 by Mike

This level of stupid really oughta be actually, physically painful. Or, y’know, as I proposed the other day, punishable by execution.

Not Satire: U.S. Senate Candidate Blames Climate Change for NJ Earthquake

Oh, it’s satire all right. Whether or not the BiQ (Bimbelina in Question) knows it, it’s satire all to hell and gone.

(America First Report)—There’s dumb. Then there’s Democrat-Dumb. But even higher on the list of total idiocy is Democrat-Climate-Cultist-Dumb and a U.S. Senate candidate from New Jersey just hit this pinnacle with the worst earthquake reaction of the week.

Christina Amira Khalil quickly deleted her offending Tweet but not before getting lambasted by the masses.

Because of COURSE she did; they always delete ‘em, every single time. The Bee’s response, happily, is still up.

Gonna have a call with my Babylon Bee writers to figure out how we failed to come up with “the earthquake was caused by climate change” before the libs did https://t.co/oxeQpVjZAQ

— Kyle Mann (@The_Kyle_Mann)

April 6, 2024

Writers at the Bee really do have the toughest jobs in the world, don’tchathink? Back to Rucker for more hi-larity.

Technically, she’s running for the Green Party but the vast majority of her support will come from Democrats. But if any of those voters are on Twitter they might think twice before voting for this “moron.”

Gee, ya think? Why would they, prithee tell? After all, Amira-Kahlil-Achmed-Jibroni just proved herself to be One Of Them; she’s right up the D卐M☭CRATs’ ally. Running in deepest-blue Noo Joisey, the vacuous twat will probably win in a landslide. Honestly, I kinda hope she does—the entertainment value will be off the charts with this semi-sentient whackadoodle. Oh, just THINK of the fun we’ll have!

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Who knew, indeed

Posted on April 1, 2024April 1, 2024 by Mike

Apropos one of the memes from Margolis’s Meme-manic Monday email, to which I am a subscriber, which I’ll append at the end of this post so’s none of y’all will miss out.

Going electric requires electricity. Who knew?
A lead article in the sober-sided New York Times is seldom funny. Yet ‘A New Surge in Power Use is Threatening US Climate Goals’ earlier this month cracked me up. Check out this sternly dramatic first paragraph: ‘Something unusual is happening in America. Demand for electricity, which has stayed largely flat for two decades, has begun to surge.’ Personally, I’d have headlined that article ‘Well, duh’ – perhaps with the subhead ‘Aw, shucks’.

Lo and behold, when you push people to electrify everything in their lives – cars, cookers, heating systems – while bribing them to go all-electric with lavish government subsidies, it turns out they use more electricity. Who would have thought? I guess this is why we need all those brainiac experts to analyse the ultra-complicated technical details of environmental policy.

One such expert worries in the Times: ‘The numbers we’re seeing are pretty crazy.’ America’s paper of record warns that in the past year the nation’s utilities have nearly doubled their estimates of how much more power they’ll need to provide in the next five years, during which an extra California’s worth of demand will be dumped on the US grid. So allow me to lead you through all the ‘well, duh’ bullet points of this hugely entertaining piece.

Electric vehicles need electricity. Surprise! Apparently simply stippling the landscape with new EV chargers, which Joe Biden’s farcically titled Inflation Reduction Act is meant to finance, isn’t quite enough. Gosh, darn it. Nobody pointed out that the chargers have to be connected to actual electricity. So far, it looks as if no one in government has worried about where it will all come from. Oh well. That’s understandable. These important people have so many other weighty matters on their minds.

Burning fossil fuels to not burn fossil fuels is a tad inconsistent. Utilities all over the US are busy building gas-fired power plants to meet rising demand for electricity, when the whole point of this exorbitant energy ‘decarbonisation’ is to stop burning the likes of gas. The Times calls it an ‘ironic twist’ that the demand for electricity from green technology is imperilling the whole point of green technology, but I call that instead ‘wholly foreseeable’. And I call this comical: one Kansas utility is keeping a coal-fired plant online that it had planned to retire – the better to power a giant EV battery factory.

Lots more to this one too, read all of it. Being a Spectator UK article it’s paywalled, although for some reason the link got me access to the entire article just this once. If it doesn’t work for you, try running the URL through either 12ft Ladder, archive.is, or the venerable Wayback Machine, that orta do the trick. If all else fails, simply disable javascript in your preferred web browser’s settings until you’ve finished reading; JS is how these paywall nuisances work in the first place.

Oh yeah, almost forgot the meme:

Of course, as CF Lifers already know, it IS “just pretend.” The stupid, self-defeating EV push isn’t really about Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ or anything else but what it always and forever is; say it with me one time, people: Power, and Control. Personal vehicles are the front-line face of liberty and individual autonomy, and FederalGovCo hates that kind of thing to the very marrow of its bones.

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The EV “revolution” is over

Posted on March 21, 2024March 21, 2024 by Mike

We the People gave the wrong answer, so now the dictator steps in to correct the mistake.

Biden Administration Issues Rule That Would Phase Out Gas Cars
The Biden administration has issued its final rule governing tailpipe emissions that will force automakers to phase out gas cars by requiring up to 60% of new cars sold by 2032 to be EVs or hybrids. The emissions standards are so draconian that only a fleet dominated by EVs will meet the government’s standards.

The New York Times calls it “the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history.” It’s also virtually guaranteed to keep millions of Americans out of the new car market and create enormous chaos on the roads. The infrastructure, including enough charging stations and mechanics to service tens of millions of electric vehicles, simply won’t be there.

But in the name of “battling climate change,” no price is too steep, no inconvenience too stupid to endure.

“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” said Mr. Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”

“They may wish for us all to drive E.V.s or no cars at all, but at the end of the day that’s not their decision,” said Elizabeth Murrill, the attorney general of Louisiana. “There is a limit to their authority to remake society in their own vision and the court has realized that.”

Oh, has it? Has it REALLY? Perhaps somebody needs to remind them of it, then. See Barry’s post below for more.

Market reality takes command

Posted on March 14, 2024March 14, 2024 by Mike

As a WaPo headline cheekily put it many years ago: they’re the car of the future…and they always will be.

‘EV Euphoria Is Dead’: CNBC Declares Transition to Electric Vehicles Has Failed
CNBC has admitted that the attempted transition from gas-powered to electric vehicles (EVs) has failed.

The business-focused news channel explained in a piece on Wednesday that “EV euphoria is dead” and that the largest automakers are drastically scaling back their plans.

The piece read:

For years, the automotive industry has been in a state of EV euphoria. Automakers trotted out optimistic sales forecasts for electric models and announced ambitious targets for EV growth. Wall Street boosted valuations for legacy automakers and startup entrants alike, based in part on their visions for an EV future.

Now the hype is dwindling, and companies are again cheering consumer choice. Automakers from Ford Motor and General Motors to Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans. Even U.S. EV leader Tesla, which is estimated to have accounted for 55% of EV sales in the country in 2023, is bracing for what “may be a notably lower” rate of growth, CEO Elon Musk said in late January.

The report goes on to outline some of the principal reasons why the market is struggling and concedes that the Biden administration overestimated the willingness of consumers to make the switch from traditional gas-powered vehicles:

After significant interest from early EV adopters — bolstered by low interest rates and Tesla’s rise — interest rates skyrocketed, raw materials costs surged and the vehicles became much more expensive compared with their traditional counterparts.

It’s also become clear that the automotive industry and the Biden administration, which set its own target for half of new U.S. vehicle sales to be electric by 2030, overestimated the willingness of consumers to adopt a new technology without a reliable and prevalent charging infrastructure.

Such an article points to the growing resignation among progressives and advocates of electric vehicles that their proposals do not make economic sense.

So? When have they ever? But the attempt to jam CPVs (Coal Powered Vehicles) down our throats was never about “economic sense” anyway, nor was it really about Saving Mommy Gaia©. This latest farcical iteration of the regularly-recurring flirtation with the electric-car fantasy was only ever about one thing, and one thing alone: power, and control. This was nothing more nor less than the Überstadt flexing its muscles, determined to show its lowly Serf Class who was boss—a show of force by Leviathan intended to establish once and for all who wields ultimate power around here, and who must accede to whom.

Happily, after a piss-poor Scamdemic showing, a large number of Normal Americans finally responded with a bland shrug and a yawn once the initial curiosity-generating hype had subsided—enough of them to elbow the horrendously expensive, unreliable, and dangerous ‘Splodeycar play-purties out of mass-market consideration and back into the garage, lowering and locking the door, then turning out the lights behind them to re-embrace the time-tested and proven, superior, and far more practical ICE technology they had come to rely on for convenient, dependable transportation.

Until next time the EV will o’ the wisp is trotted out to be foisted upon them by too-big, too-powerful government, that is—which, it’s a lead-pipe cinch that there’s gonna be one. Count on it, friends: as the Terminator vowed, they’ll be back. Like Leftards themselves, they’ll never really go away, not for very long.

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16th century technology comes to West By-God Virginia

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 by Mike

A blight, an eyesore, and an inefficient, inadequate “solution” to a problem that does not exist.

This is what happens when a wind farm comes to a coal town
Sheila Wagoner is not a fan of the wind farm overlooking Keyser, West Virginia.

“I really don’t care for those windmills,” the 71-year-old says. “I guess I wasn’t brought up with that kind of society. Like 50 of ’em together? Who likes all that?”

It’s not just the visual contrast that Wagoner finds bothersome. She is from one of many families in Keyser—and throughout West Virginia—that relied on the coal industry for generations. Her late father worked as a railway engineer for coal trains that used to run non-stop through Keyser.

Today, those trains are an increasingly rare sight.

Not to worry; once the faltering shitlib fever-dream finally fades to black and the polity regains its collective sanity—which it assuredly will, one way or another; there’ll be no other choice when the whole shambolic sham of a shitshow has finally unraveled so entirely that the fact of its existence can no longer be denied by even the most purblind, self-deluded lackwit among us—Americans will be eager, perhaps even desperate, to avail themselves of the affordable, plentiful energy provided by proven-reliable technological improvements which shouldered their antiquated, long since abandoned predecessors aside in the first goddamned place.

There’s a very good reason this rough shoving-aside occurred many, many decades ago, a reason which guarantees that such a displacement will, in fact MUST, occur again, regardless of how frantically bawling-brat shitlibs labor to keep their benighted subjects shivering in the dark in perpetuity—cold, hungry, utterly miserable, and above all, obedient.

In 2022, the country’s first major climate policy, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed with the promise to speed up that transition, offering at least $4 billion to boost development of renewable projects like the Pinnacle Wind Farm in Keyser.

Huh. So let me get this straight: here we have the nation’s “first major climate policy”—smuggled in all stealthy-like under the cloak of a bit of legislative jiggery-pokery whose title makes no mention of climate policy whatsoever. Sounds kinda suspicious, no? Or maybe that’s just me, I can be overly cynical like that now and then.

Hell, forget alleviating any purely-notional climate issues, it won’t no way no how reduce inflation, even. That’s not the actual intention here, never has been—as is the case with nearly all the other bonehead boondoggles rammed down American throats via remote diktat puked forth by the Most Exalted Lord High Mucky-Mucks of far-off Mordor On The Potomac, in Congress assembled.

That law passed with the key vote of West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, but Tillman is skeptical that those benefits will reach Keyser.

“I like Joe. I talk to him a good bit. But the thing is a city like Keyser [doesn’t] ever see any of that money,” says (Keyser’s Mayor Damon) Tillman. “That money all goes to bigger cities – Morgantown, Jefferson County, Charleston. So it doesn’t do us any good.”

With all due respect, Mr Mayor, it doesn’t do any Normal American any good. Nor anybody else neither, by no means exclusive to your city and state but across the nation—with the notable exception of wily, double-dealing Congresscreatures à la le Manchin and the well-heeled schemers and bunco artists who own their ilk lock, stock and barrel. Make no mistake, s’il vous plaît: those miserable tapeworms are Manchin’s actual constituents, the people he really works for, not you ridge-running Sad Sacks stuck out there in your disgusting hinterlands hovels. Forget this at your dire peril.

No, we don’t have to like it. We DO have to face up to it, honestly, resolutely, and unflinchingly. And that right soon, lest continued foot-shuffling, mumblemouthed rationalization, and weak-kneed dithering prove to be our undoing.

Absent a Real American renaissance and concomitant renewal of a staunch, unyielding commitment to see the ideals of Her Founding restored in full and vigorously safeguarded—no negotiation, no compromise, no tit-for-tat spit-swapping with the selfsame scurvy, lying motherfuckers who, after all, stole our country from us in the first place—there can be but one denouement, a most unhappy ending to the long American story: with our integrity besmirched, our honor forsaken, our rights revoked, our liberty lost, and our children enslaved.

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EV news

Posted on February 17, 2024February 17, 2024 by Mike

Amusingly, it’s all bad. As per usual, Buck Throckmorton has it all gathered together in the usual handy, dandy, and convenient spot, closing out this edition’s festivities with a pluperfect example of what sane sorts are talking about when they make sport of those “unintended consequences” brought inevitably on in the wake of shitlib presumptuousness, arrogance-in-ignorance, and mulish disregard for the real-world consequences of their disastrous policies.

Electric vehicles are significantly heavier than their gasoline-powered equivalents, up to 50% heavier in some cases. Aside from damaging roads and putting parking garages at risk, the force of a moving EV is also more than many guardrails can withstand.

“Crash tests indicate nation’s guardrail system can’t handle heavy electric vehicles” [AP – 01/31/2024]

Last fall, engineers at Nebraska’s Midwest Roadside Safety Facility watched as an electric-powered pickup truck hurtled toward a guardrail installed on the facility’s testing ground on the edge of the local municipal airport. The nearly 4-ton (3.6 metric ton) 2022 Rivian R1T tore through the metal guardrail and hardly slowed until hitting a concrete barrier yards away on the other side.

Barriers along the medians of divided highways serve to keep out of control vehicles from crossing over into oncoming traffic, thus preventing high-speed, head-on collisions. That simple safety mechanism has saved a tremendous number of lives. Thanks to the “EV transition,” we’ll just have to get used to mangled cars and mangled bodies due to head-on highway collisions again.

Ooookay, then. Gotta admit, as steadfast a derider of the most recent iteration of the recurrent CPC (coal powered car) pipe-dream as I’ve always been, even I never thought of that one before. But hey, saving Mommy Gaia from the planetary havoc inflicted by those horrible, terrible, double-plus-ungood “fossil fuels” (which are created in the course of Her own natural processes, by the by) is worth any price we must pay, right, idiots?

I mean, otherwise shitlibs might have to own up to being backasswards and wrong yet again, and the grown-ups might smack their hand, tell them to shut up, and make them go sit in the Naughty Kid corner and think things over for a few hours. Why, it’s just so darn UNFAAAIIIIR!!! Can’t have that, now can we?

Traveshamockery of “justice”

Posted on February 11, 2024February 11, 2024 by Mike

Not to beat this dead old horse or anything, but I just had to throw in this bit from Steyn’s pre-post-mort because I thought it was just funny as hell.

You might recall that exactly a week ago we linked to Kerry Wakefield’s excellent primer on the trial from The Spectator Down Under. This was Miss Wakefield’s final paragraph:

Given the vindictive USD$83 million damages found against Trump in his case against serial rape accuser E. Jean Carroll, one cannot be optimistic about any jury trial in deep blue Washington DC. But Steyn is going down fighting, and one cannot but admire his guts and brio, even if his bank balance has been cleaned out. Sadly Steyn, representing himself, is now in a wheelchair, having recently suffered three heart attacks. If ever there were a case deserving funding, it is his. The trial continues.

Williams played the Trump card in the final minutes of the trial, linking “election deniers” with “science deniers” and asking the jury to send a strong message to stop attacks on all the other scientists out there:

MR. WILLIAMS: And as you’ve been instructed, if you find punitive damages are appropriate for outrageous behavior, you can set an amount not just to punish, but to serve as an example to prevent others from acting in the same — in a same or similar way.

These attacks on Climate Scientists have to stop, and you now have the opportunity—

MS. WEATHERFORD: Objection.

MR. STEYN: Objection.

THE COURT: Sustained.

MR. WILLIAMS: Sustained? I am saying this heated…

MR. STEYN: My Lord, he’s continuing to talk.

Heh. Good one, Mark.

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The First Amendment: as dead as all the rest of ’em

Posted on February 9, 2024February 9, 2024 by Mike

To the surprise of precisely no one, Mordor on the Potomac kangaroo court rules that, in Amerika v2.0, there is no right to freedom of speech.

A Bad Day for America
As many of you already know, a Washington, DC jury today found the Defendants (Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg) liable for defamatory speech and reckless disregard of provable facts. Putting aside the monetary damages, the real damage done by this case is to every American who still believes in the First Amendment.

The precedent set today, and as alluded to by Justice Alito when the case was petitioned before the U.S. Supreme Court, means that disagreement and/or criticism of a matter of public policy — the founding principle of this country — is now in doubt. And should you choose to give voice to any dissent, you can brought before a jury, held responsible, and fined.

Think this is just rhetoric? Consider, Mark Steyn is a member of the media. As such, he is supposedly afforded First Amendment protections. If a member of the media is no longer protected, what do you think that means for every day citizens? And it doesn’t matter if you are in DC or Montana — anyone can file in the jurisdiction of his or her choosing.

Gee, what ought Real Americans to do about that, I wonder? I can make an excellent guess at what we actually WILL do, alas. And it disgraces us far worse than the liberty-haters on that DC jury have just disgraced themselves, although those morons are much too goddamned stupid to know they have—or care, either. Further details:

The D.C. Circuit Court has ruled: Commentator Mark Steyn and space blogger and sometime PJ contributor Rand Simberg, after 13 years of legal maneuvering funded by a dark money group…

…are indeed liable for defaming Michael Mann by reporting on the way he was lying about being a Nobel laureate and engaging in a concerted effort to defame other climate scientists — including accusing Judith Curry of sleeping her way to the top, using statistical methods to generate the results he wanted (research malpractice for mere mortals).

For which he was awarded $1 each from Steyn and Simberg in compensatory damages.

This would be a laughable award, except the jury then piled on punitive damages: $1,000,000 from Steyn and $1,000 from Simberg.

Mann’s attorneys made a play for the D.C. jury and cashed in.

As will most other shitlib liars who go venue-shopping and end up hitting the big Wheel of Juridical Fortune jackpot.

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Category: Eco-tards

Government playing God

And so it goes

I’d like to ask a purely practical question at this point…

The cars of Teh Future

Yet ANOTHER “Ask a silly question” entry

How you know the whole thing is a scam

Another day, another scam

A new low

Who knew, indeed

The EV “revolution” is over

Market reality takes command

16th century technology comes to West By-God Virginia

EV news

Traveshamockery of “justice”

The First Amendment: as dead as all the rest of ’em

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