Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Nah, happy to talk and all since that's what fora are supposedly for, haha.

1. I do agree that insofar as actually addressing the deleterious effects of man-made climate change neither of the two parties on your end seem to be anywhere near a proper solution given how, as I recall @ultrabike noted months or years back (I have an oddly selective memory) the power for shit like electric cars and whatnot can often be traced back to traditional fossil fuels. This is not an area I feel particularly informed on, maybe @dark_energy can chime in, but while the environmental impact thereof is undeniable the world still relies far too heavily on traditional fossil fuels for anyone to have a fighting chance.

Of course this should not mean that individuals and communities whose economy relies heavily on these sources should be condemned to death, but there's no easy solution there given the ludicrous costs apparently invested in the infrastructure. Can't well just pack up and leave despite the damage, same deal with people literally poisoning themselves mining for the cobalt that ends up in our fancy electronics.

So yeah neither seem particularly good about clean energy but they damned well should be, and token gestures are at least leverage to be better.

2. Inasmuch as it sucks tiger balls there is logic to that, and while the common response to that line of thinking is to rely on law enforcement services in lieu of engaging in vigilantism, we all know what current American sentiment of your own police appears to be.

Hell man, the worst I can say about the cops we have here is they're happy to take bribes over most anything. I don't know if this is common elsewhere but when I'm ride sharing on Grab (think Uber or Lyft or whatever— don't have a car of my own) it's common practise for the drivers to have some cash set aside specifically to slip to traffic enforcement, lmao. Same with other forms of public transport.

... well there was a recent-ish case where the body of a Korean national was cremated and flushed down the toilet by two members of the force who killed him in an apparent drug raid then tried claiming a ransom from his widow after the dude died. Just a few more bad apples I suppose.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1179019/friends-relatives-remember-jee-ick-joos-death-at-camp-crame

3. I'm aware that liberals on your end don't have a definite monopoly on LGBTQ+ and all, but the parallels between conservatist skews on either of our ends with regard to matters of choice and religious imposition are pretty damn hard to ignore.

But yeah, chalking it up to plain old divisiveness and superfluities taking center stage when ultimately it's all tantamount to a choice between a cat o' nine tails and a rusty chain at the whipping post.

My perspective is that minutiae such as the bulk of what I referenced in my tirade above does constitute a fair part of what makes a community (as far as light and fun topics as the above can be considered minutiae), so while it may seem like mass media has a tendency to hyperfocus on certain topics for the express purpose of making someone look bad (Dijon mustard, anyone?), it is to an extent relevant in that regardless of party policies, the actual fact of how people and systems interplay in the context of a ridiculous volume of trivial factors that predicts whether or not people can leave off biting each other's throats out long enough to maybe do something genuinely grand

 

@purr1n, you've written about the 2008 financial crash.

What do you think about the possibility of banks collapsing from failed business loans due to the pandemic?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/coronavirus-banks-collapse/612247/

 

Do we rely heavily on fossil fuels? In 2018 global renewable energy report around 80% of global energy is fossil fuels.

As I see it, the world has expanded mostly due to industry and fossil fuels and the transition to actual clean (green energy is an empty word..) energy should have started in the 80s or 90s at the latest. What we got instead was stupid hippies in Germany protesting against nuclear energy. Go green, but why go green if you know nothing about how energy production works.

What is true is that nuclear power is an aged technology and should have been innovated, move away from the standard uranium cycles. Do new research like Oak Ridge molten salt reactor, but these were canceled because weapon-grade technology was in and money could flow in this direction.

What I see is that certain leaders are pushing policies we need X amount of reduction by 2050 and we need to reduce this.
Where do you get this energy when you don't have powerful clean energy sources and this can only be done with nuclear energy (base power) that implements renewable energy. Renewables with batteries is a far cry but could also work in certain countries. What I am saying is that there is a lot of Talk but no realistic vision imo.

Until 2020 I have seen 4th gen nuclear power plant startups with ~10-30mil USD/EUR budget. When countries realize that there is a lot of potential in advanced and safe nuclear power they should invest billions in this.
If you look at energy production for electricity then only a couple of countries can manage it cleanly. The best examples are Sweden and France. What do they use in Sweden? Equals parts of wind, hydro and nuclear power.


This far it has been - Yeah we will go Green and then change the subject. It comes out that there are no free meals in the physical world and you need to be smart and work hard to extract energy from it.
Only reason you would want to invest in clean power is that you gave a crap about the environment and nature besides yourself. It sucks to be in the energy business when your competing company produces energy from cheap coal and gas. It is always good to just take the resources and sell them, good for business. This is where governments need to come and help the process in the right direction. I am saying this is how it should work when you actually implement the right ideas.

I am not against fossil fuels as they keep your lights on atm, but I seems some actual effort needs to be put into new smart implementations to get to the goals they have set regarding emissions reduction.

 

Green policies? This is how it is being done in Canada. Canadian oil cannot be delivered from the Alberta oilfields to Ontario, Quebec and Eastern provinces because of complete suppression of pipelines by the Liberal government. But not to worry. The Irving family in New Brunswick owns both tankers and refineries. Almost all the oil needed in two most populous provinces in Canada Ontario and Quebec comes from the Middle East through Irving refineries. The fraction is delivered from the West by train. That how green its. I worked as a consultant for one of the Irving companies and was located in the hotel overlooking the Saint John's harbor. I could watch endless procession of tankers coming from Middle East.
Biden' "transitioning from oil" will mean mostly two things: dependency on the Middle East oil and therefore the need to get involved in the wars there, and destruction of jobs. No one said that green energy is free, but no one is telling people what the real cost it. Well Michael Moore started in his latest documentary and was almost cancelled for it.

 

This is a good example of fake green policies.

 

@wormcycle

Let me explain my original point about policies.

First, developing an advanced form of energy production technology from atoms is going to be expensive and you need a research facility and team for years maybe. Everything must be paid for.

If you are the investor then you realize that the investment is big and will pay itself off in 10s of years. Revenue will be created later taking into consideration the energy market prices. No one wants expensive energy, so you need to have competitive prices. It seems that this is not an easy place to invest, but I might be wrong. I think the needs is there definitely. The end goal is that the plant would be a lot less expensive than the current ones with 10 layers of security/safety systems, which won't be needed because the technology is fundamentally safer.

Usually, only governments support this kind of big-scale research and investment.

I imagine that the more advanced plants would be quite profitable in the long run. The energy density of the fuel is insane so you have almost no logistics costs while it runs and fuel is cheap.

 

Decentralization is the answer. The grid itself is ridiculously wasteful of energy and materials. Paying the banks for the loan to build and maintain the grid on top of the costs to build and maintain the grid and then charging the customers enough to pay for both is just silly. Subsidize location based solar and watch how quickly the innovations happen around storage (battery tech) and electrical generation.

PS: Decentralization is the answer for most everything except lining the pockets of the elite.

 

I think it would be super-efficient if for example factories could also produce energy locally with smaller modular plants that can be installed easily but the grid would make things way more efficient. With the grid you can add up all storage solutions connected to the local grid so you have base power and backup reserve. All of these connected parties can buy and sell based on production, own consumption and outside demand. Therefore, more energy is used up and not wasted. (decentralaized is good, but grid isnt useless)

I have heard real stories that people with solar end up having a few hundred € earnings at the end of the year and this is because they are connected to the grid.

I believe another plus is that the energy you produce on your own, you don't pay any service fees or tax on that which is automatically 30%-60% cheaper. The energy you buy back from the grid is probably another story.

Additonally, with only one ground point (not connected to other substations and grid) your safety grounded equipment and devices get only halved voltages on the body. For example, if something is shorted to the grounded metal piece on your washing machine, you voltage is 230V, then 115 remains on the body of the machine because of 1 ground point. As far as I know, the grid helps with all sorts of grounding problems, everything instantly runs to the ground because there are almost infinite ground points on the grid and substations.

 

im so glad i live out in the middle of f'ing no where. my home is a 1973 ranch style, about 1920k square feet with a 750 sq ft attached garage, and two lots end to end that measures 83 x 300 feet.

i pay about 750 a month on a 20yr including tax and insurance. mortgage itself is 380 per month. bought the house for 65k. ive been paying ahead and will have it paid off in about 10 more years. If my wife ever gets a job itll be paid off in 5 and we can start saving for a lake cabin in MN.

banks suck, find a homeowner willing to do a contract for deed, or go through a credit union.

 

@purr1n Woah there Thanos, you're making the people at the CHR sweat

In all seriousness yeah the matter of there just being too many people on the planet and way too many of them not being willing to reduce consumption is unavoidable; many people in positions of privilege go for surface-level eco-friendly solutions because it ameliorates the sense of guilt many experience when confronted with the realities of modern civilisation's upkeep while those who have to rely on the shit that'll eventually make this wet rock uninhabitable can't well be blamed for just wanting to see another day.

No free lunch on that front, or any other, as far as anyone can tell.

@dark_energy damn right people should be trying to produce their own energy in a sustainable manner— anyone with a middle-or-high school education should damn well know how generators work. Not sure how things are elsewhere but on my end there're quite a few efforts to make setting up one's own solar array a pain in the peehole.

https://www.doe.gov.ph/3-how-avail-permits-solar-roof-tops-your-lgu?ckattempt=1

So yeah that's a buzzkill, also perhaps an object lesson in how obtaining government licensing can be twelve kinds of headaches in one.

 

Sorry, but back to this damned election.

Reading that Trump may stand in 2024. Is that allowed? Whats the restriction? Two consecutive sessions? Are even they allowed back after a break?

(Assuming he looses of course, and I just dare not be that cheerful yet.)

 

Nothing saying the two terms have to be consecutive in the 22nd amendment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Though I believe that only one president didn't serve his two consecutively. 22nd and 24th president, Grover Cleveland.

That was fresh post civil war... so no modern precedent for it. Still, you can run and lose as many times as you want as long as you havent served two terms. Trump could keep trying until he's no longer deemed fit... whatever that means these days

 

Do we know? Here is how I see it: Certain American institutions (i.e. much of the Democrat leadership {but not all}), the professorial and media commissars and their willing proletariat, and the disaffected mobs believe in "institutional racism" and the large generalized corruption of the police force. So that group adds up to 1.32% of the population. Most of the rest of America has essentially the same attitude and trust in the police that they have always had, that as a division of government there are problems no doubt, but they are on a whole a decent and necessary part of the public order and public life. Reforms can be helpful (but not always), but in general the police are reliable and necessary. Who you gonna call? Not these racialist ideologues, professors, and those who loot and burn.

America is not a community, indeed it is probably accurate to say we are anti-community to the core. America is one of the few 'propositional nations' to ever exist (USSR is the other recent big one). Ideology, by definition and nature is about as far from organic community as you can get. We don't have a single culture either, we are multi-cultureal. I think you can talk about an American society because we are a nation of laws and economy.

 

There is always a chance Trump can run again in four years. However, a few things to keep in mind:

• Four years is a long time.
  • Trump could be in legal troubles up the ass that would prevent him from running a 100% focused campaign, or he might die due to old age. If he runs again in 2024 he would be the same age as Biden now.
  • Cooperate GOP most likely are telling Trump thanks for your efforts, good-bye.
  • What will happen to the Trump fans in four years, will they call it a fad and move on?
  • How much pull Trump will have going forward? Yes he will be popular in FL and part of the GOP base but like the stereotype about FL it is just a bunch of senior citizens duking it out on bingo. Who know about the pull, but as times goes on it gets less and less.
• Dems will be too busy infighting since no Progressive stuff will most likely pass thanks to the GOP barely holding onto the Senate, which could give the GOP a nice opening in 2022 and beyond.
• The GOP can always be even more bigger government fans as they are now thanks to Trump.
• When will the virus be over and economy grows back?
• Will Americans prefer gridlock forever in DC?
• What will happen to the MAGA hats?

Other things as well:

• We can have WWIII with Russia or China.
• Biden is actually a robot for Xi and then Xi comes to Washington DC and make US part of China.
  • Winnie the Pooh gets banned.
• I can get even more fat.
• Florida could be a separate country.
• I can move out of Florida.
• Weed is more popular now, I wanna sniff and smoke.

 

I do not think Republicans need Trump anymore. They will be fine.
Trump got 68 plus million votes in spite of the all out assault by the media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the Democrats, and COVID.
He won two the "most" Latino districts in Texas that Hillary won by large margin in 2016. 30% Latino votes in Miami Dede. The talking heads at CNN and CNBS were even more stunned than in 2016. The main Democrats narrative that they represent the "future" ( Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and the future!?), the entire blue wave BS evaporated overnight.
He nominated three conservatives to Supreme Court. He has done his job under more pressure than I would stand for three days. If he does not win he will go way.

 

Even as a moral ideal, the green movement had become misanthropic by the late sixties. Its policy side as well is far too reliant on the technocratic myth
and generally intertwined with left wing wish lists on the economic and social fronts. Old fashioned conservation has broad support.