"WoKe SJW Mob Only Loves Hating You!" (opens in separate window)
the myth of clean
friday, september 23rd, 2022
Clean garbage, clean energy and a dirty utopia.
‘Clean’, like ‘smart’, has become the prerequisite for all technology. Both are myths.
Smart technology is surveillance technology. It is not smarter because of its inherent qualities, but because it sends and receives data that allows it to be ‘smarter’ in manipulating users. The smart part of smart technology comes from human beings. So does the stupid part when people sacrifice their privacy and independence for the benefits of technology being shaped to them.
Clean energy is even more of a myth. The Inflation Increase Act doles out another stream of billions toward the inefficient forms of energy generation that the government has been subsidizing for over 50 years because some Madison Avenue ad agency branded them ‘clean’.
Energy is inherently clean and dirty. Making the inherent forces of the universe useful requires mining metal, cutting down trees, and turning fossil fuels into plastic to assemble machines. Once those machines are running, they will shed heat because ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’, that is how the second law of thermodynamics works. Not even Al Gore can evade entropy and not even the shiniest solar panel, sleekest wind turbines or smoothly humming Tesla will prevent energy from being wasted as it is transferred, stored or used to do one thing or another locally or nationally.
The only truly energy efficient energy comes from bioluminescent creatures like fireflies. We didn’t make them and despite all the boasts from technocrats, we can’t duplicate them.
Clean energy depends on massive rare earth mines run by Communist China that poison everything around them. Wind turbines require huge amounts of balsa wood that are deforesting the Amazon. Neither turbines nor solar panels are recycled when they go bad. They end up in landfills and become toxic waste. Breathing in fiberglass from severed wind turbines or drinking water tainted with heavy metals from solar panels is a serious health hazard.
Much of the clean garbage that we call ‘recycling’ also ends up in landfills. The difference between dirty garbage and clean garbage is that we send some of the clean garbage off to China or third world countries where it’s recycled under primitive conditions and then shipped back to us. That is until China cracked down on the toxic hazards of the recycling industry and began refusing much of our clean garbage which now goes into equally clean landfills.
There was nothing environmentally sound about sending pizza boxes or coke bottles halfway around the world. An article described a Chinese city where plastic was recycled as a “dead zone” with “nothing green” where “sheets of corrugated plastic boxes, old plastic barrels, and giant dried puddles of plastic” are shredded, “poured into metal tubs full of caustic cleaning fluid” and then the “excess trash and cleaning fluid” is “tossed into a waste pit on the edge of town.”
That’s the dirty reality behind the recycling triangle and the ads filled with cartoon disposable goods eager to be recycled into new products at the behest of willing children.
The clean part of clean energy or garbage is not in how it’s made, but in how we perceive it.
A solar panel seems aesthetically cleaner than a coal plant. An electric car emits an artificial spaceship hum as it glides down the street. A wind turbine gleams white. Such trivial surface impressions that mistake architecture for the process maintain a trillion dollar scam.
Solar and wind energy systems are presented as more natural than any other kind of energy because the association with the sun and the wind somehow insulates them from the dirty realities of thermodynamics. The design and the branding of solar panels and wind turbines inculcate the myth that they are clean interfaces for receiving this magical bounty for the sky.
The 1960s neo-romanticism rejected the industrial revolution. When the flower children grew up into bourgeois suburbanites, holding down jobs at ad agencies and nonprofits, they wanted a technology that would maintain the same illusion of philosophical consistency. Instead of following through with their principles, they rebranded the industrial revolution to make it much more expensive, less efficient and inaccessible to the dirty working class. The new technology, like their suburban lives, would be morally and aesthetically clean. Like garbage recycled in China and returned in a gleaming bottle of purified tap water, it would make dirty clean again.
Idealists believe that life is black and white, dirty or clean, and that the two can be absolutely separated. The universe does not fall into such neat categories. Nevertheless the Left has spent two centuries tearing apart society in search of a clean utopia. Dirt, coal miners, factories and men who work for a living reek of oppression. When class warfare gave way to green neo-romanticism, the working class was abandoned for a clean post-industrial computerized future. The dirty jobs were outsourced to China while the working class was left with the Rust Belt and meth. America was going to be a clean nation where everyone sat around an Apple laptop before getting into their electric cars and going off for a hike. No smoking allowed.
But what is clean anyway? The old Left used to deplore conflating physical and moral cleanliness only for the new Left to fall into that error anyway. The new master class tells coal miners to learn to code or install solar panels. Like the old elites, its true objection is that they’re dirty. The nonsensical tenets of environmentalism are the aesthetic fetishes of the upper class. They represent a cultural sensibility, not a scientific one. Its vocabulary reeks of escapism from the realities of life, smart technology, clean energy, and information stored in the ‘cloud’.
Technology isn’t magic. The only smarts are human, the only energy is dirty and the cloud is a bunch of servers owned by a global corporation that are powered by coal plants where the constant noise is so loud that employees can suffer hearing damage.
The myth of clean is powered by an escape from reality. That escapism has a high price, not only in the billions wasted and lives ruined by environmentalist gimmicks, but the entire bloody history of the Left which is one long escape from reality into the tyranny of philosopher-kings.
The Left’s energy and its garbage are no cleaner than its ideology and its history. And it is those who are dirtiest on the inside who feel the greatest pathological need to be clean on the outside.
© 9.20.2022 by Daniel Greenfield, "FrontPageMag".
A Day In The Life.
Up at 8a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee and breakfast, took a Tylenol Extra Strength for various pains, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage and checked the leftover errands list. It was a nippy 51°, and forecast to hit 80° with mild humidity.
Weird thing last night. My FTP (File Transfer Protocol) files for last week's "Journal" "disappeared" from the hosting server, when I tried to upload them for this morning, so I gave up, and emailed Nick and Matt, at Spartan Computers. I can't put up the 15th's "Journal" until Spartan gets it fixed. Meanwhile, the CHCA Condo Ass'n is having a weekend, condo-wide (except a dozen of us) "garage sale", with scores of cars parking everywhere, clogging the street, many hundreds of people and LOTS of noise, waking me up though I wanted to sleep in this morning. DAMN! I hate this crap.
I know a thing or two, about a thing or two.I called Nick at YCIT to help me get the FTP application working, but we had to use a new one, by Google, called COREftp, and finally got it working. The process took 45-50 mins, with Nick working remotely inside my desktop. It'll take me a little time to learn the new app. Then we left for a convenience store stop, Weis Market, the New Eastern Market and back to my place to unload, and let my sister put it all away. I left to go south to DeVono Cleaners, Rite Aid Pharmacy and get 19gals (25 gal tank) of Ethanol Free 90oct Premium at $5.29/gal, for $99 plus change. The back to my condo, and the idiotic garage sale crowds had dispersed. Tomorrow will be "hell-on-wheels" here with all the crowds going thru the many participating condo units, so I wanted to get everything we needed done, today, nd stay put tomorrow.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene files articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland and against (treasonous lowlife, mentally-ill, senile) Lunch Bucket pResident Joey Bidet&Co." She's an American Hero for trying, but it'll go nowhere until WE THE PEOPLE control all 3 Branches of the US Gov't.
We both were tired after rushing around just after noon, and she went to her room, while I played with the new FTP program, and watched TV until it got dark. Then I buttoned-up the place, turned on the AC ti 74degree:, although it was 66degree: outside. I think I'll have to rethink that whole scenario. OK; did that and no more of that idiocy. I finished watching "GUTFELD!" at midnight, and pulled the for the night.
Awake at 8a on Saturday, I heard the street's "garage sale" noise, made cofee, did the BSL routine, had a couple smokes in my cool 57° garage, and checked the weather and news. Forecast was for 83° today, and tomorrow; the predicted 90s haven't arrived just yet. Mark my words: Summer's not finished with us quite yet. I had a Croissant w/ Red Raspberry Preserves (sugar free) for breakfast, and listened to the "Chris Stigall Show Podcasts" , for a few hours. I'd taken a diuretic with my 19 pill regimen, so I won't be going anywhere today.
By 10:45a, it was 67° and still very comfortable. I got good news from Pam, one of our CHCA Board Members. It looks like we've recovered our $75k legal fees, in escrow, and our attorney will ask the judge to end the case in our favor, and not incur any more legal fees or court time. Most likely, no one will have to testify. YEAH!
The 2022 Mid-Term Elections are going to be a LOT CLOSER than you think, since the incompetent GOP Idiots have done NOTHING to get their message out. Natch, as in all previous years, except for Trump's 2016 campaign.
We had lunch, and I worked on some light condo chores in preparation for Monday's LSCP crew working in the two gardens. I rested in the afternoon, had Steamed & Seasoned Shrimp, and Teriyaki Noodle & Veg Salad, watched "Gold Rush" until 10:30p, and unplugged.
I slept-in until 9:30a on Sunday, did the BSL routine, had coffee and breakfast, and a couple smokes on the 61° back patio. Nice and cool, but the afternoon would be back up into the mid-80s. I had some errands to run, and when I tried to call Sherry from my Jeep's Bluetooth, it was disconnected. Damn. I finally fixed it when I got home around 2:30p. I had a light lunch, got the furniture and teak tables off the front porch and rear patio, and left the Jeep out overnight, in anticipation of Alan's River Rock LSCPing crew showing-up at 8a. Less to do, if I get up at 6a.
I watched old season episodes of "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch" on History, and "Homestead Rescue" on Discovery until 11p, and quit for the day.
Up at 6a on Monday, when the alarm went off, I made Kona Hawaiian coffee, had a couple smokes in the garage, did the BSL routine, had a Croissant w/ Irish Butter & Strawberry Preserves (sugar free), and tried to get mentally ready for the LSCP Crew coming at 9:30a. The did a nice clean-up of the front and back gardens -- Alan taught them well when he was my LSCP Foreman -- and I didn't have to do much supervising. I was not feeling well, so kept out of their way, and rested inside. I had an errand to the cleaners in Southern York County, so I left after Dave & Chris finished the two gardens. Went thru a bad accident on the way south. 51°.
Back home by 2p, driving north, the accident at Rt 22 south & Market St had been cleared. After getting home, I tried 3x to take a snooze on the LR couch, but couldn't get to sleep. Sop I made Blackened Salmon w/ Rice, Green Beans & Sliced Peaches, for an early dinner, and did computer work. I have to get up at 6a again tomorrow, since my cleaning lady is coming at 8:30a. I'll sleep-in on Wednesday. I watched "Jesse Waters", and "Tucker" and unplugged at 10.
Kids are being used asw props in adults sexual fantasies. Doubt me? Here's a grade school male teacher in Canada, and we have them here, too. Drage queen shows in public libraries for children, and their parents? Yep, we have them. Lunchbucket Joe Biden showering with and molesting his own 8-9 year old daughter, who turned into a drug and sex addict. SPJNK; all of them.
Up at 6a on Tuesday -- I'm 'disliking' that alarm two days in a row, but I'll sleep-in tomorrow -- it was a dark, 63°, humid start to the morning. It was just getting light around 6:15, as I sat in the garage, with door open and nice, fresh air. Forecast was for 85° temps, and "mostly sunny and beautiful". I took a 50mg Tramadol for left hip pain, and that helped immensely. JoAnne, my long time cleaning lady woul;d be here at 8:30, so my Sister and I had some breakfast, and LOTS of Kona Coffee.
JoAnne left at 11:15a, and we had Stuffed Shells for lunch. Mmmmmmm, good. I did a huge load of dishes, some computer work, a few smokes on the "buck naked" (no plants) back patio. My 6 new outdoor ashtrays arrived from Amazon, and after getting rid of the old units, and distributing them on the front porch, rear patio teak tables, and in the garage, I tried to take a nap on the LR couch. I was sleepy from lunch, but couldn't sleep. The lawnmower guys arrived and made more noise -- mowers, weed wackers and leaf blowers -- after all the vacuum noise in the morning. I had to leave and go outside for a smoke. I got a headache from it all. I closed-uyp the condo and set the AC at 73°, when the lawn guys were here. I'm stressed.
We had Broiled Flounder Almondine, Oven-Roasted Green Beans and Rosemary Potatoes for dinner, watched TV until 11p, and finished-off the evening with FNC's "Gutfeld!", and called it a day.
Up at 8:30a on Wednesday, it was a nippy, sunny 59° morning, quickly warming-up to 72°. I checked the news and weather, made coffee, did the BSL routine, and started to print out 2023 Calendars for Sis and myself, and had a major printer malfunction, which I finally fixed after 30mins. Then, I tuned into the "Chris Plante Show" on Opera (my usual browser since 2009), opened Google Chrome and got hit with a massive malware attack, which both Norton 360 Premium and MalwareBytes Premium intercepted, disabled and neutralized.
With Sherry not feeling well -- I miss her, since I haven't been with her for several weeks -- I had lunch, spent the afternoon running errands, doing paperwork and filing, visiting an old friend and taking a short snooze on the LR couch. Another friend stopped by to drop-off a container of Turnip & BBQ Stew, something I'd never had before. Pretty good. We watched Fox News TV all evening thru "Gutfeld!", and I unplugged around midnight.
Finally, I got to sleep until 8:30a on Thursday, made coffee, did the BSL routine, had a Croissant with Irish butter & Strawberry Preserves, and slaked my nicotine urge with a couple of smokes on the back patio, just as the rain arrived. I listened to the "Chris Plante Show" until 11:30, and then left for Restorative BodyWorks, in Southern York County, for a therapeutic massage on my lower back. I left at 11:30a to get to my Therapeutic Massage app't dsown south. I hit some seriously-heavy rain cells on the way down, but got there with no I83 problems or wrecks. Done at 12:30p, I headed home, stopped at Michaels' Crafts store to get Dad's WWII Memorial slightly changed and got home by 1.
The were 3 boxes on mu front porch, which I opened, unpacked and put away. After Almondine Flounder & Thai Noodles for lunch, I opened-up the condo as the stormfront passed thru the York area, grabbed a couple hours snooze on the LR couch, and enjoyed the cool weather coming in. Might be time to get my lamb's wool Pendleton Shirts back out, and I did. Temps had dropped to 57v, and with 35-45mph wind, it was cold. I buttoned-up the condo's windows and screen doors, turned off the AC, and tried to warm-up.
I was full from a large lunch and Ensure Protein Shakes, so I skipped dinner, watched "Tucker", Discovery's "Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mines" until 10:30, and called it Yankee Doodle for the night.
Tomorrow starts a new weeks here in the "Journal", and it's a clear week. I look forward to going to the New Eastern Market tomorrow, seeing Sherry again, unwinding from stress and just doing not much of anything. As usual. Happy First Day of Fall!
Electric Bills Soar Across the Country as Winter Looms.
Rising natural-gas prices are expected to make it more expensive to light and heat homes in the coming months
U.S. electric bills have soared, and are likely to move higher .
U.S. utility customers, faced with some of their largest bills in years, are set to pay even more this winter as natural-gas prices continue to climb.
Natural-gas prices have more than doubled this year ..
From New Hampshire to Louisiana, customers’ electricity rates are increasing. The Energy Information Administration anticipates the residential price of electricity will average 14.8 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2022, up 7.5% from 2021. The agency forecasts record gas consumption this year amid surging prices, in part because power producers are limited in their ability to burn coal instead due to supply constraints and plant retirements.
Electricity prices have surged in many parts of the country alongside natural-gas prices as exporters ship record amounts of the fuel abroad because of supply shortages in Europe, which is working to slash its reliance on Russian supplies. Natural-gas producers, hamstrung by pipeline constraints and investors pushing for austerity, haven’t increased production enough to alleviate the pressure.
The U.S. consumer-price index for electricity in August climbed 15.8% over the same month a year ago, the biggest such 12-month increase since 1981, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The strain is particularly acute in New England. The region is investing heavily in renewable-energy sources, but many of those projects aren’t yet operational, and it still relies heavily on natural gas for electricity production. The region has limited pipeline capacity and imports large volumes of liquefied natural gas, which are in shorter supply as a result of European demand.
© 9.18.22 by WSJ.
Trump Targeted Elites, Biden Targets We The People.
During President Donald Trump's presidency, the Left repeatedly assured Americans that Trump was simply intolerable — more unbearable than every other Republican — due to his rudeness, his crassness and his divisiveness.
For four years, the President's Twitter account inspired outrage and hurt feelings amongst Democrats. We were supposed to believe he was history's worst president because he called reporters "crazy" and "wacko" and politicians "losers." Many even linked his rhetoric to actual violence.
If Democrats truly felt this jarred by the rhetoric of the former president, where is their outrage against President Joe Biden?
The president's latest speech, in front of a red-lit Independence Hall, was laced with divisive hyperbole, angry affronts, and made Trump's harshest words sound urbane by comparison.
"Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," exclaimed an angry Biden. "[T]here is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country."
His indignant lecture to, what turns out to be the majority of Americans, was chock-full of demonizing accusations juxtaposed with ironic calls for unity.
"MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people." They subvert democracy.
During President Donald Trump's presidency, the Left repeatedly assured Americans that Trump was simply intolerable —- more unbearable than every other Republican —- due to his rudeness, his crassness and his divisiveness.
For four years, the President's Twitter account inspired outrage and hurt feelings amongst Democrats. We were supposed to believe he was history's worst president because he called reporters "crazy" and "wacko" and politicians "losers." Many even linked his rhetoric to actual violence.
If Democrats truly felt this jarred by the rhetoric of the former president, where is their outrage against President Joe Biden?
The president's latest speech, in front of a red-lit Independence Hall, was laced with divisive hyperbole, angry affronts, and made Trump's harshest words sound urbane by comparison.
"Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," exclaimed an angry Biden. "[T]here is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country."
His indignant lecture to, what turns out to be the majority of Americans, was chock-full of demonizing accusations juxtaposed with ironic calls for unity.
"MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people." They subvert democracy.
"They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies." They "look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies — lies told for profit and power."
Biden insists he doesn't mean all Republicans — we should assume he's thinking of the Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers of the world.
But his ambiguous language is left to interpretation.
They are the root source of all that is evil and broken in America. They are the rot at our core.
"They" doesn't mean the media or the political elite. It doesn't even mean Republican leadership.
In other words, voters —- especially Republican and independent voters —- are picking up on the fact that Biden isn't remotely interested in fighting corruption within the federal government, he's only interested in fighting us —- in a way more dangerous than we have seen since the Civil War.
This is the real reason the political elites couldn't stand Trump's vitriol while they simultaneously show love for Biden's angry rants. The former was directed at them. The latter, at everyday Americans.
An upwards of 70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020. Of these, not all were Trump flag-waving, MAGA hat-wearing, diehard fans of the 45th president. Many just wanted a change of pace from politics as usual. A break from the out-of-touch political establishment.
But for associating with Trump, they —- in other words, we — became, by default, a people of "carnage and darkness and despair." A people of "fear and lies." We became the greatest threat to America.
But what Biden means is we are the greatest threat to his far-Left vision for America.
In this case, he would be right. Americans of all races and creeds are pushing back against the progressive dogma that is coming out of Washington, D.C., and flowing through our cities and schools.
The midterm elections of 2022 provide the first opportunity to put the brakes on what is quite clearly a growing tyranny, but ultimately, we cannot put the brakes on "the swamp" by playing by its rules.
We need a game changer.
Biden's "extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic" is, in fact, his own. An all-powerful federal government, led by a president determined to make his fellow countrymen his enemy, must be reigned in by states and local governments asserting their proper role.
© 9.14.22 by Mark Meckler, "Newsmax".