Tuesday • November 26 • 2024
Vol.XVI • No.XLVIII
Manchester, N.H.
As promised in the last Monday Memes, I have an overflow. My meme cup runneth over. Fairly certain about a Friday Overflow-Overflow.
Let the mayhem, mockery, and ridicule resume:
*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***
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TRUTH about the 2nd Amendment – Forgotten History
Owned. Damn, that had to hurt! And don’t forget this bit of history about using guns for resistance:
Smuggled arms into Warsaw ghetto | Jews Can Shoot
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I remember these two bicycle riders who went to Tajikistan because they truly believed we were all the same and loved one another and other kum ba ya carp:
D.C. Couple Killed In Tajikistan Attack Were Biking Around The World Together : NPR
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PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA
Total electronic censorship is nigh.
BEWARE the Digital Platform Commission Act – Adam Townsend
“We are Restricting Freedom … for the Common Good”: Irish Green Party Calls For Limiting Free Speech – JONATHAN TURLEY
The UN Human Rights Council demands the death of free speech | Washington Examiner
The “Free-Speech Twitter” PSYOP – CJ Hopkins (substack.com)
X CEO Linda Yaccarino: “Lawful But Awful” Content To Be Hidden (reclaimthenet.org)
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BOMBSHELL: FDA Admits Guidance on Ivermectin was Illegal, Invokes ‘Sovereign Immunity’ for Misleading Statements (& Crimes Against Humanity) (2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com)
One of the reasons I got from my local pharmacy about why they wouldn’t give Ivermectin to me for Covid-related purposes was that it was an “off label” use. First, as though doctors have never, ever, evah prescribed things off-label before (end sarcasm); side note: I’ve had multiple times when I’ve had a scrip for “off label” use. But it gets better. Without the backstory – and no, I don’t have it! – scabies is a mite infestation and is, apparently, really a bad thing. So what does the CDC say about that, and treatment?
That’s right, the CDC says that off-label use of Ivermectin should be considered under some circumstances. So the CDC recommends off-label use of Ivermectin for one thing, but pans it for another. I wonder why…
And now there’s evidence – not proof, but evidence – that Ivermectin plus another medication is highly effective against cancer. Wait, a pennies-per-dose drug combo that’s a cancer killer? Look for the scorning disapproval from the bought-off pharma shills medical experts any minute now.
And links related to Covid:
Dr. Ryan Cole Blows The Whole COVID-19 Propaganda Away (rumble.com)
I Published An Op-Ed in USA Today On The Excess Mortality In Young People Across The World (substack.com)
I was listening to Howie Carr discussing this, and the follow-up piece, and how the plain fact is that if they’d specifically called out The Jab, it’d never have been published at all. Better to get at least that out, than never have it see the light of day at all.
Boosters studies from Israel that the US FDA relied upon were COMPLETELY WRONG (substack.com)
Maine Hospital Fired Nurses for Refusing COVID Shots — Now It’s Begging Them to Come Back • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)
Apple Valley Village Health Care Center saw >10X higher COVID death rates after COVID vax rollout. Isn’t it supposed to decrease rates? (kirschsubstack.com)
Don’t forget this classic bus broadside from – IIRC – the UK, before the Jabs were approved for kids:
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The Road to Hell…
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IMHO – speaking as a psychology & human nature amateur student – people don’t want truth when that truth undermines their view of themselves as good, intelligent, noble people.
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Good Stuff about “Climate Change” – links
Climate Beliefs Can’t Change The Power Of Power Density – Climate Change Dispatch
The Power Of Power Density – Robert Bryce (substack.com)
Wind and solar have their place, e.g., in remote areas. I have a friend with a cabin waaaaay off grid. He has a solar set up. But you can’t power a civilization off that.
Scientist Admits to Spreading Alarm About Climate Change: “It’s a Manufactured Consensus” – The Daily Sceptic
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Pick of the post:
I’ve written about, and bemoaned, the general lack of curiosity – not just about science in general. Something indescribably precious is being destroyed in our youth.
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I’d mentioned Efrat Fenigson in the last meme one; here’s one by her on CBDC:
Soon Your Money Won’t Be Money, and It Won’t Be Yours (substack.com)
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Palate cleansers:
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The post Meme Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.
Capitalizing on the smashing success of another month of pride the crypto-fascists at Black Rock have excitedly announced they will be sponsoring Greed Month this coming December. With the heavily commercialized holiday season (formerly Christmas) now a staple for churning out fiscal butter for the acquisition class the big players on Wall Street are certain they have a winner.
Spokespersons for the month will be co-chaired by media darling Oprah Winfrey and her island jet-setting pal Bill Gates, both of who have been gobbling up land like the San Andreas Fault. We all have our faults, however some of us actually own them.
Expected in January will be Sloth Month for which we are still waiting to hear back from the long list of proposed sponsors. Calls, texts and emails have all gone out to the following candidates:
We have yet to hear back from any of them and haven’t been able to leave messages because their inboxes are full, but we are hopeful the four month timeline to respond will be ample.
Lust Month will kick-off in February thanks to Valentine’s Day now including essentially every mammal on dry land. The kind people at Disney have generously offered a grant to fund both libraries and parades appropriately themed for all ages, races, sexes, genders and species wanting to participate. Also adjoining themselves to the celebration will be the rubber-barons over at Trojan who have worked out a cooperative crossover deal with the clan at K-Y Jelly in an effort to grease the skids for this highly controversial event. One insider tells us the campaign will use the tag-line “Why celebrate Lust Month? Answer: K-Y not?” Sassy!
March will replace St. Patrick’s Day and in favor of turning green with Envy Month. Participants in this year’s semi-exclusive soiree’s will have several entertainment options from which they will likely struggle to choose due to fear of loss. Area theater’s will be playing Fatal Attraction, the Magnificent Amberson’s, Bridesmaids and Mean Girls on rotation for the entire month. The festivities will culminate with the Envypaloooza concert series featuring Raising Cain, the Killers, Fall Out Boy and a posthumous performance of “My Best Friend’s Girl” by the Cars has been made a possibility thanks to A.I. hologram technology. Get your ticket’s now as they are going faster than your neighbor’s Tesla compared to your silly little Prius.
Next up we will see Wrath Month being spread out over April to May where April showers will bring God’s glower as Vermont will no doubt be flooded again and again until it stops supporting pedophiles, baby-killers, criminals and socialists. Fire’s will be expected to rage against the machine known as California, food manufacturing plants will continue to spontaneously combust, earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars will continue to mount like a debutante on her favorite stallion while other animals will rebel against mankind from sheer disgust at what we’ve become. Thankfully sponsors Raytheon, Halliburton, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin have incredibly deep pockets and have offered to fund both the devastation and clean up efforts for a reasonable fee.
Finally we can satiate our exhausted bodies with a big ol’ heap of Gluttony Month in May. Chik Fil-A, McDonald’s, Burger King and Taco Bell will be offering all you can eat menus. The Mars Company has generously taken up the call to provide Super Deluxe King Size Ginormous Bars and other snacks, while Starbucks will offer the GluMo Ultra-Mega Venti with 7-11 matching the call to corporate corpulence with the 144 oz. Painfully Big Gulp to slake those slovenly thirsts. Schools will echo the spirit by teaching children fat is fun and body shaming is a hate crime so don’t be one of those white supremacist fitness freaks or you’ll end up like your uncle Jimmy who likes to flash his abs at Trump rallies. If you want to show your body parts in public you’ll have to wait til next month like the rest of us.
The post Banana’s: Pride Month To Expand To Seven-Deadly Season appeared first on Granite Grok.
The blind spot on the issue of state-sanctioned assisted suicide just grew exponentially and in the very direction that we have long suggested it would. A 37-year-old woman seeking help for chronic suicidal thoughts was asked if she’d ever considered medically assisted suicide.
Related: Gov. Run Health Care Lesson from Canada – Won’t Pay for Treatment, Will Pay for Assisted Suicide
[Kathrin] Mentler was then told by the counselor that the mental health system was “completely overwhelmed,” that there were no available beds, and the earliest that she could talk with an available psychiatrist was November.
[Michelle Gamage reporting for The Tyee] reports what happened next:
‘It was pretty disheartening and made me feel helpless,’ Mentler says. ‘I’m coming here because I’m looking for help, and you’re telling me there is no help.’
That’s when the counsellor asked Mentler if she’d ever considered medically assisted suicide.
Mentler says she was ‘shocked’ and ‘sickened’ because she came to the Access and Assessment Centre for help, ‘not for recommendations on how to kill myself.’
Mental health “professionals” are certified, licensed, and regulated by the government. In New Hampshire, there are a lot of hoops through which you must jump, including exams for different aspects of the treatment you must complete and pass before the state will license you for the privilege. Canada’s gatekeeping appears equally or more exhaustive. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when we say mental health and whose “health” do we mean?
In a centrally planned society or one headed that way like a runaway train, the needs of the state come before all else. In that scenario, it will reflexively encourage the path of least resistance – the one with the lowest overhead. Even after (or because) it has engaged in policy actions that can increase the number of people experiencing mental health issues. Canadian health care is already socialized. The progs and Libs and Dems )oh, my!) like to remark on its affordability. Opponents point out things like wait times, poor service, and bad outcomes, for which we get pushback, but how do you justify this?
[Kathrin] Mentler was then told by the counselor that the mental health system was “completely overwhelmed.
And what is the solution to this woman’s chronic suicidal ideation? Just do it. Kill yourself. We’ll help.
‘That made me feel like my life was worthless or a problem that could be solved if I chose MAiD,’ Mentler says.
To the socialist society, it is worthless, which is the danger. And it is “painless”— for you and them, and not a new idea. In 2019, we reported on a story out of Canada involving the public health system. The cost of treatment was high, so the health professionals suggested assisted suicide, you know, to keep things affordable for the rest of them.
Related: “The Noxious Notion That Killing Is an Acceptable Answer to Human Suffering,”
So-called ethicists have hinted that euthanasia might be a reasonable solution for the economically disadvantaged (who are what, more likely to make things less affordable?).
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, where this sort of thing has been around for years, they are euthanizing the autistic.
Clinicians with similar ideological inclinations to the ruling class have already hinted that their political opponents might suffer from a mental health crisis. Are the Clinton’s paying them to say that? Talk about simplifying the “or else” in politics.
But that will never happen, Steve.
Yes, it damn well will! China has been doing it for years and harvesting the organs after, something that’s happening in Canada already – minus the democide (give them time).
HT | LifeSite News
The post Slippery Meet Slope: Woman Asks for Help with Suicidal Ideation, Her ‘Therapist’ Recommends Euthanasia appeared first on Granite Grok.
Randall’s Island in New York is a park used by many residents, young and old, for recreation and soccer games. The New York City Park website claims: An oasis in the middle of New York City, Randall’s Island Park comprises most of an island in the East River, between East Harlem, the South Bronx, and Astoria, Queens.
Randall’s Island is no longer accessible to New York residents because it is now the latest valuable piece of property converted to a facility to house illegal immigrants descending on the sanctuary city. The “shelter” will cost the city $20 million monthly, which is $10,000 per immigrant. Mayor Adams pleads for financial help from Joe Biden and the Federal Government. The people of New York City should be up in arms and throwing Tea into the Hudson for the waste of their tax dollars and the disgusting mess this illegal immigration made of their city. How much is too much for these citizens to accept?
Randall’s Island is just one of the recent events the Biden Administration cannot defend. This weekend, Joe Biden and his Press Secretary, Karine Jeanne-Pierre, looked idiotic regarding Maui’s tragedy. This is the most deadly natural disaster in history, and when reporters asked the President on Monday for his reaction to the fires in Hawaii, his heartfelt words were, “No Comment.” This callous human being just spent 14 days on the Delaware beach, returned to Washington for four days and then returned to the beach for a long weekend.
He was the Vice President for Obama, who called Hawaii home, and when asked for a comment, that was the best he could do. As for KJP, Townhall.com called her the most stupid Press Secretary in history. Who can argue with Townhall? When KJP was asked to comment on Biden’s lack of concern, she told the Press Corps about the call from Hawaii’s Senator Hereeno to President Biden and how thankful he was for the President’s response. The problem here is the Senator is Mazie Hirono, and he is a she. Excellent job on doing your prep work, KJP! You are an embarrassment to the country.
We talked about Biden’s hostage deal with Iran yesterday, so we will not rehash it today, but how about him writing another check for Ukraine? On Thursday, as he was leaving for his long weekend, he had time to ask Congress to give more of our money for Ukraine-not for Hawaii but for his good friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy. You know he is getting a kickback on every dollar he sends to fight the cause for Democracy. The amazing thing about the reporting of this request is how bad the reporting is. The New York Times reported $24 Billion, the Washington Post $20 Billion, PBS was at $45 Billion, and Politico was at $40 Billion. Did these entities have separate briefings where they were purposely given different numbers, or are they just making it up as they go?
You could say that Biden had a bad few days, but this is just another week for our aged and incompetent President. Check that. He is not incompetent but rather treasonous. Every week under Joe Biden’s Presidency is a bad week for America.
The post Every Week Under Joe Biden’s Presidency Is a Bad Week for America appeared first on Granite Grok.
The US military is one of the few institutions in America the left has not infiltrated and undermined completely, but that process is ongoing and in danger of escalating if Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown (nominated) becomes the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Brown has a long history of supporting the #woke agenda during his tenure as the head of the US Air Force.
Notably, he has called for selecting and promoting officers, not based on their abilities and performance as warriors, but according to arbitrary quotas determined by the color of their skin or their ethnicity. He sees compelling female personnel to bunk and shower with biological males who “identify as females” as nothing more than a problem of managing discomfort levels. And under his leadership, the Air Force Academy has become a school for ensuring the next generation of that service’s leadership are fully indoctrinated with the radical left’s “woke” agenda.
Such priorities fracture vital unit-cohesion, demoralize those in uniform, discourage recruitment and undermine readiness. America needs commanders who oppose, not promote, these sorts of policies. That is especially true at present, when we may soon find ourselves in a shooting war initiated by the Chinese Communist Party. Consequently, every Senator should vote against Gen. Brown’s nomination.
If you’ve got the time, this webinar goes into detail about the issue and the danger associated with it.
Of particular concern is the prospect that these problems, and their increasingly adverse effect on our armed forces, will be exacerbated if the Senate confirms as the nation’s top military officer a general like CQ Brown. His record, in particular as Air Force Chief of Staff, indicates that he is committed to the critical race doctrine that whites are unalterably racist oppressors of blacks and other minorities and must be limited to some arbitrary quotas among the officer corps. He takes pride in embracing: “diversity” hires and promotions; making servicewomen “comfortable” with bunking and showering with intact males who profess to identify as females; and “woke” indoctrination at the Air Force Academy and elsewhere, including Defense Department schools for military dependents.
This CPDC webinar examines the implications of this cultural Marxist assault on the U.S. military, in particular at a moment when the Chinese Communist Party seems ever-more-intent on complementing its long-running, pre-kinetic “unrestricted warfare” with a shooting war. A panel of brilliant thought-leaders who happen to be black, afford an opportunity to do so in an objective way, free of racist sentiments.
Watch: At What Cost ‘Woke’?: The Marxist Takedown of America’s Military
Please contact your US Senator or (if yours are like mine) any other US Senator that might listen. Oppose the nomination of Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “C.Q.” Brown as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
HT | Center for Security Policy
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Someone shared some nsight with me, second hand from Howe Carr so bear with me. He was (so I am told) talking about Donald Trump and something he did for us that doesn’t get enough (or any air). Exposing the level of perfidy to which the political elite would go to protect their dirty secrets.
To paraphrase,
Donald Trump, like most people, didn’t understand what was hiding behind the mask in part because, for years, he was one of them or at least part of their cabal.
He was friends w Hillary and Bill Clinton, for example, and many of the connected wealth and political insiders. He knew them; they knew him. So when he ran for office, he felt certain that he knew who these people were. That he could work with them, doing what he always does: making deals (which is how he succeeded in NYC).
We can see today that this was a mistake.
But I don’t think it was because in doing this, he fully revealed what we’ve got to deal with now, and THAT is the prize. We can solve nothing if we don’t SEE IT.
In my opinion, people are missing what the prize really was. WE SEE and we are here today because we didn’t !!
That’s my paraphrase of the reader’s paraphrase with the comment of whatever Howie Carr was talking about. And I must agree. Who else would have tipped their hand so clearly, exposing the length and depth to which they would go to undermine and unseat anyone, including a duly elected President?
Some of that was backlash at the unexpected rejection of Hillary by The People and their failure to plan for the potential loss to prevent it. What followed was the Democrat Party and the DC Swamp the way they truly are. To quote the reader: “What Donald did was a brutal exercise to open eyes about the reality of just how far down they’ve taken us. We are here because we didn’t get it- we were duped.”
Trump fought back hard, and they used it against him. Then they used it against us. And that’s not stopping unless someone who has seen behind the mask, under the tent flap, and understands what must be done.
Looking at the perspective 2024 Republican Primary field, the list of those likely or capable is thin. And while I’d be fine if DeSantis were also that guy, I’ve not yet seen enough to say that. That leaves Trump. But he’s not electable, you say, which sounds like something someone else’s candidate might say. And it might be true. The people poisoned by the left who have, in turn, poisoned our country will be over-activated to oppose Trump. No one has done anything substantive to prevent a repeat of the bizarre antics of Election night(s) and day(s) 2020. Democrats control elections in key states.
Electability is moot.
We need a freight train, landslide, or tidal wave, no matter who the nominee is. If you’re not capable of that and carrying it up and down the ticket, that means the soap box and ballot box are no longer options.
Prepare yourself accordingly.
The post That Other Thing Trump Did appeared first on Granite Grok.
A lightbulb (the kind banned by Mr. Bluster Biden) went off in my mind, and the purpose of Bluster Biden’s Dystopian America became perfectly clear. Let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together:
We want to thank Charles Bradley for this Op-Ed. If you have an Op-Ed or LTE
you would like us to consider; please submit it to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
There is more, but if one cannot put these puzzle pieces together, I cannot help. As I tell my children and grandchildren, you cannot cure stupid! Unfortunately, stupidity may cause the loss of our Democracy.
The post Biden’s Dystopian America appeared first on Granite Grok.
Russia is anathema to the Globalists. Regime-change is necessary to allow “investment” … i.e., CONTROL … by Blackrock, State Street, etc., etc. etc.. Every country must submit. There can be no exceptions. There can be no counter-examples to the Globalist world-order.
America is fighting a proxy-war against Russia on behalf of the Globalists.
The agenda is to destroy Russia. Why?
Globalists want to replace Putin because he presides over the last major power in Europe that has a national identity, a national language, a national culture that rests on the foundation of orthodox Christianity.pic.twitter.com/L3USrcrPFp
— Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) August 11, 2023
The post Speaking Truth To Power … Why “Putin Is Hitler” … Douglas McGregor Explains, In Two Minutes, Why We Are Fighting A Proxy-War Against Russia appeared first on Granite Grok.
One of the fun things about conspiracy theories isn’t so much the ideas themselves but the left’s conspiracy theories, ‘conspiracy theory.’ They label everything like that now. Even something as benign as yoga can be a breeding ground for right-wing extremists.
And not just yoga. Meditation, wellness, gym and personal trainers, and fitness in general, possibly even foodies and nutritionists, if they happen to think the wrong thoughts. It is all a bubbling wellspring for Qanon anti-vaxxers. That’s the conclusion of beta-male Guardian scribbler James Ball. People who think the wrong things or Gasp! keep their minds open to the possibility that the government is full of sh!t at least once in a while … have to be fascists.
I didn’t look, but does JB have any on-ramp-content to the false civility narrative circa 2020? The one where we can all get along – the kumbayah BS the American left sold to get that bag of China-bribed bones doing business as Joe Biden behind the Resolute Desk or a near enough facsimile? A civility narrative sold by a group that had been as uncivil and impossible to get along with every day of the previous president’s tenure – to him and anyone who may have voted the guy into an election they said was stolen? I bet he does. He was probably one of many uncivil civility hacks pontificating from the UK, but let’s not derail our train of thought.
Personal trainers, people whose life work is health and fitness, might be unvaccinated and oppose mandatory covid vaccination. The not-so-secret term for them, regardless of any other injections they’ve received, is an anti-vaxxer. Anti-vaxxers don’t think covid is real, which is silly. We all know it was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, where the pesky thing snuck out in some janitor’s leftover bat-sushi to infect the world, but only after they had to admit it. Before that, this was also a conspiracy (in theory). One with so much kick that the entire global public health Matrix abandoned hundreds of years of protocol by refusing to call it the Wuhan Flu. It was COVID. SARS CoV2, which, after much hand-wringing and the release of some documents showing it WAS released from a lab in Wuhan, China (that the same people yelling conspiracy didn’t want public), became SARS CoV2-WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology).
A result of a Chinese bio-weapons program and illegal gain of function research off-shored and funded by Tony ‘The Tiger’ Fauci and the NIH – another conspiracy (in theory) that turned out to be true. One of many, as it turns out, but stop that, you conspiracy theorist theorist. Jay Ball has first-hand stories for us from victims of anti-maskers (masks still don’t against viruses), anti-lockdowns (also debunked as useless and likely to have made matters worse), as well as other policy responses that time and actual science have revealed as flawed, dangerous, or even deadly. It’s as if J-Ball is trapped in a Summer of Love time warp where the only safe spaces for maskless communal activity are looting and arson by anti-semitic black race fascists and communists.
In theory.
To J-Ball, Qanon is a pandemic, and the fitness movement in many, if not all, of its manifestations, has had its watering holes poisoned. Not that this should be a problem – if true. No one is making you do yoga, train with groups or instructors. No one has to hire a chef or nutritionist to feed them (OMG, is that why the Obamas Chef was Drowned off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard?).
That’s the thing about the people you are calling conspirators. They don’t care if you sprinkle mRNA on your Kashi Whole Wheat Biscuit Cinnamon Harvest Cereal or put two drops in each eye before bed. Wear a mask or don’t—distance or don’t. They mostly want to be left alone to their lives and opinions and whatever consequences come of them, even if fitness means fit-n-ess whole meat-lovers pizza in their mouth.
But?
Whiney left-wing journalists, much like their audience and the politicians they keep electing, don’t live that way. The notion of civility hinges on you agreeing with them, and only by refusing to do so is there strife and division. Your repeated failure to get in line drives the totalitarian backlash against bodily autonomy and free speech. If you’d just think and talk like them, they wouldn’t have to embrace the hyperbolic use of excessive government force to shut you up.
After all, everything you say is just a conspiracy, including the government’s abuse of power to silence dissent or liberal consent to it.
They’re just trying to protect mob rule Democracy, and enough with the conspiracy theories already.
The post Yoga is Undermining The Democracy™ appeared first on Granite Grok.
The exodus of human capital is a primary concern for developing countries wishing to stem the tide of emigration. Some believe that emigration prevents poor countries from capitalizing on the talents of their best people. Critics suggest that poor countries would excel if the smartest minds did not emigrate. Theoretically, this sounds plausible; however, it obscures the inspiration for emigration.
If underperforming countries could equip their citizens with superior alternatives, then they would not migrate. Richer countries lure quality immigrants because of their infrastructure. Immigrants are attracted to their universities, institutions, and commercial excellence. Working in a developed country provides greater scope for professional enrichment.
Exposure to first-rate training and cutting-edge technology means that people can create greater value in a developed country. Immigrants would be less impactful had they remained in the developing world. Choosing to remain in an unproductive country only limits the ability of competent people to make a global contribution. Quite often, the genius of the smartest minds is constrained by the limitations of poor countries.
In successful countries, more options exist for people to thrive. Due to economic diversification, opportunities for employment are more plentiful. Further, in richer countries, the private sector plays an instrumental role in development. Therefore, there is less reliance on government employment.
Government has a political agenda, whereas the private sector has an economic agenda, so the growth of government can sap the dynamism of the private sector. Promoting economic freedom in the developing world would curb the level of emigration by unleashing the entrepreneurial talents of citizens. Richer countries exhibit higher levels of economic freedom; therefore, it’s easier for their citizens to become wealthy. For instance, Rwanda is perceived as a rising economic star in Africa, and economists attribute its prosperity to economic freedom.
Unlike Rwanda, some developing countries use the state as a bludgeon to badger citizens. Not only are economic activities severely regulated but corrupt politicians also employ government resources as a tool to elevate cronies. Corruption is another major reason for emigrating. There is a strong perception in developing countries that success is linked to political networks.
Hence, people who are disconnected from positions of influence feel that success is only possible if they emigrate. The perception is that in countries like the United Kingdom and America, no one is above the law. People truly believe that if you work hard in these countries then you will succeed. In rich countries, there are also critiques of meritocracy, but in the developing world it’s the norm for even low-level positions to be politicized, so the credibility of a meritocratic state is seriously doubted.
Additionally, because of the reputation of some countries, citizens encounter discrimination when traveling or doing business. Some countries in the Caribbean do not need a visa to enter America, Canada, or the United Kingdom. Yet Jamaica is not one due to its reputation for criminality. As such, traveling can really be a hassle for Jamaica.
Doing business online is equally arduous for countries known for financial scams. Ambitious people will travel and do more business than the average person; so if their country’s reputation is a barrier to success, then emigration will become a feasible option. Changing a country’s culture is hard and the political establishment might not possess the will to do so. So to secure their future, citizens migrate to better places.
Apart from structural drivers, emigration is fueled by sociocultural factors. In some poor countries it is widely believed that affluence earns people the ire of unscrupulous persons; therefore, to escape the wrath of envious personalities, people emigrate. Jamaicans refer to envious people as being “bad mind,” whereas others talk about the evil eye. A study even shows that Jamaicans cite envy as a reason for emigrating. Clearly, people are emigrating to access better opportunities and to benefit from higher quality social relationships.
Emigrating to a superior country leads to social mobility, so citizens should not be discouraged from doing so. The world gains nothing when talented people are trapped in unproductive places.
Lipton Matthews | Mises Wire
Author: Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Merion West, The Federalist, American Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative Conservative. Visit his YouTube channel, with numerous interviews with a variety of scholars, here. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@matthewslipton).
Mises WireWe heartily encourage reprints and shares of Mises Wire articles. If you wish to reproduce an article in your blog, magazine, radio show, newspaper column, classroom material, textbook, discussion group, website, or any other venue, please do so. The original publication source must be included in an appropriate place.
The post Voting with Their Feet: The Lure of Migration appeared first on Granite Grok.
Remember the “summer of love”? When the System unleashed Antifa/BLM riots and violence across America in an attempt to goad Trump into deploying the military to assist their “Trump is Authoritarian” narrative? Do you remember when Antifa/BLM domestic terrorists stormed the White House night after night in May?
How were those actual domestic terrorists treated in comparison to the scores of Trump supporters who have languished in the DC-gulag for years for the crime of being present when the System turned a peaceful protest of the (now) obvious and undeniable rigging of the 2020 election into a riot? More importantly, who was the Attorney General who looked the other way while the System unleashed domestic terror on America in 2020 … including an actual attempt to take over the White House?
If you answered, “Bill Barr,” … THAT’S A BINGO.
Remember an outraged media playing this clip of the Jan 6th insurrection?
No?
That’s b/c it was Antifa & BLM storming the White House & injuring 50+ Secret Service agents
No indictments. No outrage or ‘worst day in our nations history’. Shortly after they burned down a church, pic.twitter.com/lpP7lGs8Iu
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 13, 2023
The post The Good Insurrection appeared first on Granite Grok.
Not all of us are valuable commodities on the international market. Still, some are very attractive to rogue nations who now see Americans as bargaining chips for vast sums of money. People of wealth or power must be cautious should they venture near any of these countries like Iran, North Korea, and even Russia, as these countries now view you as an income source, and Joe Biden has just raised the bar on the value of your head.
Not long ago, America was strong enough and carried enough clout that we never negotiated with terrorists or evil empires regarding hostages. It was painful to watch as Americans were held in captivity, but usually, we found a way to bring them home by diplomacy or militarily. Since the Obama term and the weakening of America on the global front, we now resort to prisoner swaps or payment of large ransoms to recover our captive citizens. Obama, and now Joe Biden, have turned Americans into a valuable revenue stream, and Joe Biden raised the asking price again this week. You can feel good this morning knowing you are worth billions on the open hostage market. Thank you, Joe.
From Fox News:
Biden had negotiated the release of five American hostages from Iran in exchange for a handful of Iranian nationals serving prison sentences for violating sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Sources told the paper that the U.S. also agreed to unfreeze nearly $6 billion of Iran’s assets in South Korea, transferring the funds into an account in the central bank of Qatar.
Republicans blasted the deal online, with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Iran “shouldn’t profit from holding Americans hostage.”
Technically, the money paid was not our money but Iranian funds we had frozen as part of sanctions placed on Iran for being a menace in the Middle East and a future nuclear threat to the free world. In this case, who’s money doesn’t matter. We just gave a rogue country set on destroying any country they feel does not align with their warped philosophy a $6 Billion donation to use against us.
Thanks again, Joe.
This action is another example of bad decisions made by Biden and his incompetent Administration that weakens us and usually costs us tremendous amounts of our hard-earned money. In this case, watching people like John Kirby defend this move was tragically humorous. He always feels that talking louder makes him more believable as he gaslights Americans. Under this agreement, the $6 Billion was transferred to the central bank in Qatar, and the Iranians would have to prove a humanitarian need to access any portion of the money. If you believe that for a nanosecond, you also think Joe Biden has no connection to Hunter Biden’s extortion money. I might also think you feel the Easter Bunny on the south lawn is a real rabbit. I can almost guarantee there was a check cut by the Iranians and deposited into one of the dozens of Biden LLC accounts. Joe Biden does nothing that his family does not directly profit from.
This decision impacts us today. Yes, we will bring Americans home to their families, but Biden has placed a target on every American who ventures past our borders. That is the borders we used to have. He has weakened our power to negotiate, and just like Bidenomics, inflation has now hit the value of American lives in hostile lands.
Thanks again, Joe.
The post How Much Are You Worth As A Hostage? appeared first on Granite Grok.
WCAX has this cute little piece about biologists and foresters colluding “to understand and manage a forest in a changing climate.” This is just a suggestion, but you may want to focus on the reality of what Climate Change politics will do to Vermont’s forests.
Related: Is Vermont’s Land Grab About Conservation or Securing Real Estate for Wind and Solar Farms?
First, the fantasy.
It’s called adaptive silviculture, where foresters and biologists team together to try to understand and manage a forest in a changing climate. Essentially, doing research on the area.
Studying things like habitat life, how the forest shifts over time, and the difference between old and new areas of the forest.
Leading forester of the project, Ethan Tapper, says the project has already taught Vermont so much.
“They have been collecting birding data. So, we want to see the way different species of birds are utilizing the area that we are managing before, and after. Because we are recognizing that our bird species are in decline. That a lot of our forests are missing a lot of critical attributes for their habitats,” said Tapper.
Tapper has been leading wildlife walks through the forests to help educate people on the project and how they can safely co-exist with wildlife.
It sounds excellent, and I’m a big fan of husbanding the wooded environs. I used to hike a lot, always carrying out more than in and doing my best to leave footprints and nothing else. And that will always be an issue that needs attention, especially when you have so little wooded landscape to protect. Vermont can’t have Net Zero and protected wildlife unless it plans to outsource environmental destruction and import the power.
I’m not saying they won’t do that; offshoring emissions is already common. But not everyone is all-in on the nightmare. The all-electric future without nuclear or hydro is land intensive. Vermont currently gets a lot of electricity from hydro (imported from Canada), which may need it back because Canada’s pols are also infected with the Nut Zero infection so that the Green Mountain State might have a problem. Their intermittent weather-dependent generation scheme will require a massive amount of ground area. You can’t build solar farms and keep trees, so those must go.
You’ll also need massive battery backup plantations to store power when the intermittent infrastructure can’t meet demand. There’s a detailed analysis of the problem here, but to keep things simple, you need a battery backup capable of retaining an estimated 25.4 days of constant extra power, and maybe more the further north you go. Add storage for on-demand and peak demand, and you better sharpen your axe.
Mathematically, the lower 48 states would need “an annual energy storage requirement of approximately 233,000GWh.” Using an example from the same report, in Queensland, Australia, they have a plan for a 150 MWh battery facility. This is a rendering.
The researcher did the math; we would need 1.55 million of these facilities at several acres a piece (plus surrounding acres of cleared land in the event of a fire) to meet the demand for the lower 48 US states alone—an intractable problem exacerbated by two facts. No one knows if that’ll work, and everyone knows that these are not US Senators. You need to replace every lithium battery on a schedule of a few every few years, even if you get a flawless decade of life from most of them.
That means rebuilding and replacing (can we say renewing?) pricey “infrastructure” with an annoying and incredibly costly frequency without even broaching the problem of the availability of rare-earth metals, mining and manufacturing emissions, transportation, construction, new transmission infrastructure, and the rest of it – most of which will continue to be impossible without fossil fuels.
And impossible to achieve, even if it were tenable, on the estimated timeline.
In other words, the greatest threat to Vermont’s forests is not the fantasy of man-made climate change. It is the reality of Climate Change policy. You will need to clear hundreds if not thousands of acres for solar farms and at least as many, if not more, for local battery backup facilities and access roads for the build and unavoidable upgrades. None of this is possible, even if we had the material and technology on the advertised timeline.
To get anywhere near there from here, the flat land will be covered in solar farms and the green mountains peppered, if not covered, with wind turbines taller than trees (or you’ll be cutting those down, too), with which much of the indigenous wildlife cannot coexist.
Worry not. We are on a similar arc at the end of which you will not likely be able to complain without it affecting your social credit score or some other metric of obedience to the masters who have, ironically, set modernity and environmental protection back a few thousand years in the name of progress.
But it is cute how they think that won’t happen, and I only sort of kind of feel sorry for them.
The post Vermont Biologists and Foresters Pretend There Will be Room Left for “Forests” in Our Net Zero Future appeared first on Granite Grok.
Is the much-hyped “energy transition” starting to crumble at its foundations now? In recent weeks we have seen the following:
This list could go on and on, but the macro view is clear: Everywhere one looks, the aggressive timelines and heavily subsidized plans for a rapid transition are falling apart. Nowhere is the dynamic becoming clearer than in the wind industry. (DAVID BLACKMON: Biden Raided Our Gas Reserves To Help Win An Election. Will He Do It Again?)
In an Aug. 7 report titled “Wind Industry in Crisis as Problems Mount,” the Wall Street Journal catalogues $30 billion in planned investments in new wind projects in the U.S. and elsewhere that have now been delayed due to an expanding variety of factors. “After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions,” the story says, emphasizing that the problems are becoming especially severe in the offshore wind business that has been so heavily promoted by the Biden administration.
I wrote a story in July detailing the fact that some of the so-called “Big Oil” companies have recently made big inroads into the offshore wind business, winning bids in the U.S. and Germany for licenses to develop large projects. But the Journal’s story quotes Anders Opedal, CEO of Norwegian oil giant Equinor, saying, “At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis.”
Along with British oil major BP, Equinor has plans in place to develop three wind farms off the Atlantic coast of New York, but recently warned state officials they would need to renegotiate power prices or the projects would not be able to obtain the needed financing. This demand by the two oil companies echoed a call by traditional wind developer Orsted in June for more subsidies from the U.K. government if its planned projects in the North Sea are to remain viable.
Make no mistake about it: Developing these offshore wind projects doesn’t come cheap. Orsted pulled out of a competitive bidding auction in Germany last month for government licenses to develop 7 GW of new offshore wind capacity when BP and French oil major TotalEnergies ran the final bids up to almost $14 billion.
“Orsted very deliberately chose not to pay record high concession prices for new offshore projects in Germany,” Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said in a post on LinkedIn. Orsted objected to the process that awarded the licenses based on the willingness of developers to pay the government for the right to develop — the same process used in oil and gas leasing all over the world — rather than the government offering more and more subsidies to incentivize development.
Therein lies the central conundrum for this subsidized transition: At some point, wind, like solar, electric vehicles and all the other rent-seeking solutions being promoted in this energy transition will have to become viable without an expectation of permanently rising subsidies, since governments already seeing their credit ratings downgraded due to overwhelming debt won’t be able to just keep printing money forever.
But, at the present moment, the business models in play do not appear to be headed for that outcome. And that’s why this energy transition seems to be falling off the rails.
David Blackmon | The Daily Caller News Service
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
The post Is The Green Energy Transition Falling Off The Rails? appeared first on Granite Grok.
My concern for the 2024 Election is not whether we can get the right candidates up and down the ballot but whether we can beat the Election laws, media bias, and big money. Long gone are the days when the best candidate with the best grasp of the issues has the highest odds of winning.
I will not go so far as to say Donald Trump won the 2020 Election, but I challenge anyone to defend Biden for garnering 81 million votes during a Pandemic and hardly leaving his basement.
I believe a special election in Ohio and a recent vote on an abortion bill in Maine bear me out. Both had abortion implications, but one showed a turnout that was difficult to accept, and the other showed utter contempt for the will of the people. Both had enormous amounts of special interest pro-choice money spent. Let’s break them down.
Ohio Special Election to determine the percentage of votes to amend the state constitution.The current law requires a simple majority of 50% plus 1. Conservatives attempted to change the bar to a supermajority of 60% Plus 1. The reason for this effort was to protect current state abortion laws. If Issue 1 had passed, it would be more difficult for the abortion rights ballot measure to pass in November. Because of the potential of stricter abortion regulations, the PAC money came out big. Over 3 million votes were cast, with the NO votes getting 57% of the votes. The majority of the NO votes came from Ohio’s four big cities- Columbus, Dayton, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. The suburbs voted overwhelmingly YES.
Just two years ago, almost 4 million voters turned out to elect a Governor, Senator, and all Representatives. Republican candidates swept the 2022 Election, which draws attention to the number of votes and how they fell in 2023. You can make up your mind on the number of votes and the side that won the day.
Maine Bill to allow elective abortions up to the moment of birth.In Maine, the State government debated and voted on a new bill that would give the right to abort a fetus up to the moment of birth. Polls showed the support to defeat this bill and protect the unborn was at an astronomical 85%. It is difficult to get 85% of the population to agree on any issue. The State Legislature disregarded the will of the people and passed the late-term abortion provision, and the Governor signed the bill into law. Planned Parenthood not only spent nearly $1 Million to support passage but was present in the House and Senate to whip up votes to pass the bill. T
here is no way to spend that much money in Maine without making individual deposits in Democrat campaign coffers. The will of the people was tabled, and an unpopular Bill was passed. People who were in the Statehouse for both votes claimed the sight of Planned Parenthood supporters whipping support was a slap to the Democratic process.
We have much to do before 2024. Pick the right candidate, raise massive amounts of money, and keep a watchful eye on every voting spot to ensure the credibility of the voting process. We also have to keep writing and letting people know the truth and to success or failure of Republican candidates. Today, it looks like the battlefield is slanted against us.
The post Ohio And Maine Should Be Wake-up Calls For Republicans appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Maui wildfires are devastating and greatly saddening. My wife and I visited Lahaina’s old town just last year in November. It was a quaint, cute little European-style town center that felt straight out of Brussels or London.
The several blocks in the historic district were all two or three-story buildings that had been recently repainted and renovated. We had dinner at Pacific’o on the beach and watched luau fire dancers while the sun set over the harbor.
When I first saw the images of the Maui fire, I was immediately reminded of the Summer 2020 California wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area. Those images showed residential plots totally leveled, burnt to gray ash. Automobiles melted. Trees hollowed out with flames flickering in the trunk cores while the exterior shell still stood. Those wildfires also spread terrifyingly quickly, leaving firefighters and emergency responders in a state of shock. The reactions echoed consent that nothing like this had ever been seen before.
What critically connected the two incidents? Allegations of the use of Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). Now, I am a conspiracy theorist, and very proud of it. I want to know who is conspiring to influence world events on the planet where I live. I want to know their intention and their motive, and I want to be able to stop them if their methods are evil. I want to explore the possibilities of causes and effect, and I am not scared by establishment folks attempting to slander— because hiding among them are the real conspirators.
A quick search on Rumble— the upstart alternative to YouTube where the cabalistic globalists at Google (whose motto of “Don’t be evil” was recently abandoned) don’t hold sway— returned today three pages of content by similarly minded folks providing video evidence that substantiates the DEW hypothesis. Yet even Google and YouTube are awash with blog posts on space lasers.
DEW is next-generation technology, typically satellite-mounted, that concentrates electromagnetic energy in a beam to generate heat. They have been used small-scale on naval vessels and on shoulder-mounted systems to combat drone warfare with great success. One system is Lockheed Martin’s ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset), tested by the US Air Force in 2019. If you wonder what goes into low Earth orbit on secret US military satellites, it’s a good bet that it’s these systems.
What’s unclear is which other countries around the world possess similar DEW technology. Do Russia, China, the United Kingdom, or the European Union? Does Japan? India? The Emirates? Certainly, this would be highly classified, with communications only occurring through high-level military and state department channels. If it were Russia, is this a move in the theatre of global war? If it were the United States, what diabolical scum in the Pentagon is using state-of-the-art weaponry against their fellow US citizens? That person must be held accountable because this usage of DEW is unjust and despicable.
On Maui and Hawaii, coming up next month, there are three interesting conferences. One is the EMER-GEN forum on September 16, organized by the Maui Economic Development Board and the Space Generation Advisory Council, focusing on young professionals and students interested in careers in the space industry.
The next is the Hawaii Digital Government Summit in Honolulu with a Keynote topic of “Transform Adversity into Advantage.” The third is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“Eye-triple-E”) conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. These are the folks who oversee HAARP, another DEW fan favorite. How about that timing? Some large conferences by folks looking to design the future just after a large plot of real estate has become a prime target for redevelopment.
Looking at the Maui Economic Development Board, I wonder how many of them are decolonialists– the kind of folks who spend a lot of their time ruminating on how to destroy vestiges of European colonial societies. Wouldn’t the perfect decolonization project be total destruction of a small European-style town center?
Apparently, for these people, the loss of life justifies the erasure of European culture. Too many people have been brainwashed into thinking that European cultural influence is somehow bad, totally ignoring the broad range of benefits that European colonial efforts in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries brought to many small, isolated societies all over the planet. They’d apparently rather totally destroy that history than have it exist, regardless of how pleasant it is to walk along small, cobblestone streets through a centralized marketplace of local vendors and merchants and stop for a coffee or a cold pint at an open-air streetside cafe.
Is that a horrifying experience? Does it make you think about how in a bygone age, people implemented outdated expansionist state policy to force native societies into integrating into a globalized marketplace? Or outfitting natives with modern technologies in textiles, architectural construction, animal husbandry, food processing, and agriculture while simultaneously encouraging multilingualism and multiculturalism? What about sharing ideas and establishing stronger networks among the planetary civilization? To decolonialists, who are typically regressive, these ideas aren’t even considered. Their focus is only ever on racism and racialized supremacy theory, slavery, servitude, and exploitation.
Implementing DEW to create opportunities for economic development is like cutting off your own foot in order to install a prosthetic. Economic development can also occur if demolition companies are brought in to make small-scale changes to outdated structures. Instead of destroying 100 blocks of an old colonial-style settlement, deconstruct some of the blocks slowly and carefully, and rebuild them so that the result is an interweaving of old and new technologies.
DEW causes widespread chaos, destruction, loss of life, pain, and misery. It is totally evil to use such technology against human settlements, and it should never be done unless there is widespread agreement among the residents of the settlement itself that creating a blank slate is a mutually agreed upon solution, and residents are provided notice six months to a year in advance in order to be able to make necessary steps to move personal belongings and relocate.
Only with the consent of the inhabitants should such application of DEW be permitted. Otherwise, it is still extremely colonial, just in the most possible modern sense.
The post A Call for Compassion in the use of Directed Energy Weaponry appeared first on Granite Grok.
Parents who want to avoid Reading Problems with their children and adults who never read for pleasure because they are Victims of Dick and Jane should listen to Hal Shurtleff’s Latest Podcast:
Sam Blumenfeld is interviewed by Bill McNally on “We Hold These Truths Show” which aired on WSMN AM Nashua, NH January of 2015. Mr. McNally, founder of the Samuel L. Blumenfeld Literacy Foundation, guest hosts and interviews Sam Blumenfeld, reading expert and homeschool pioneer. Sam passed away in June of 2015 but his work is available on the Blumenfeld Archives The Blumenfeld Archive (campconstitution.net)
Samuel L. Blumenfeld, aka, ‘The Godfather of Homeschooling,’ explains how Intensive Alpha-Phonics was taken out of the public schools and replaced with the ‘Whole-Word’ or ‘Look-Say’ method, which has caused the Decline in Reading in America.
In November 2007, the National Endowment for the Arts issued its devastating survey, Reading at Risk, in which it reported that almost half of Americans between ages 15 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
The post “How The Left Destroyed Reading in the United States” appeared first on Granite Grok.
We’ve reported on the impossibility of Net Zero, how EVs are not green or efficient, the offshoring of emissions, the tremendous cost and lack of return on those investments, and the general fraud that is EVs, but this guy’s story brings that home.
Related: German Research Team: Diesel Vehicles More Friendly to the Environment Than Electric
On one trip, he and his family experienced many of the problems about which we’ve been warning consumers.
The frustrating incident unfolded earlier this year after Winnipeg resident Dalbir Bala spent $115,000 Canadian dollars ($77,495 USD) on a Ford F150 Lightning electric truck, which required him to install two charging panels, one at home and one at work, at roughly $5,000 a pop.
He also needed to upgrade his home electric panel for $6,000, resulting in a total expenditure of over $130,000 on the EV vehicle.
The EV truck owner thought it was bizarre that Ford didn’t respond to his inquiries after a minor fender bender took over 6 months to repair, but he shrugged it off and went on to use the vehicle for a 1,400 family road trip to the Windy City.
We covered minor damage disasters in more detail here, but let’s not get too far from the story. Newswars adds that he could not find a working charging station and, by the end of his tale, had to rent a gas-powered truck to finish his journey.
The disappointed dad had his EV towed to the Ford dealership in Elk River. Meanwhile, he rented a gas-powered vehicle to tackle the rest of the 400-miles left on his drive to Chicago. The family picked the truck up on their way back to Canada. …
“It was in [the] shop for 6 months. I can’t take it to my lake cabin. I cannot take it for off-grid camping. I cannot take for even a road trip,” he said. “I can only drive in city – biggest scam of modern times.”
“People have to make the right choices. I want to tell everybody to read my story,” Bala told Fox Business. “Do your research before even thinking about it and make a wiser choice.”
“The actual thing they promised is not even close. Not even 50%. And once you buy it, you’re stuck with it and you have to carry huge losses to get rid of that. And nobody is there to help you.”
EV range was always an issue, but that flaw multiplies when talking trucks. They suffer from the added problem of doing truck things, like hauling and pulling trailers. Range will also suffer from outside temperature, and – as if that were not bad enough because they need bigger batteries – you will lose more money charging them from more electrical waste on top of all the added costs noted above for proper charging panels.
We could blame auto-makers who are just trying to find a way to stay in business ahead of the regulations coming out of DC. But, while Dalbir Bala’s problems are real and not limited to him or his family, the issue isn’t just Ford; it is Democrats who will never take responsibility for the corner they’ve put the auto industry in or impose lemon laws on EVs because while dealers will do anything to move inventory, what they don’t tell you would get them fined if it were a used car.
It means that much like COIVD vaccines, EV vehicle consumer protection is out the window because the regulator’s “bosses” are more interested in the perception of EV sales than protecting consumers.
The post EV Truck Buyer Says “– Biggest Scam of Modern Times.” appeared first on Granite Grok.
America’s judiciary, especially the federal judiciary, is every bit as RIGGED as its elections. To rig an election, it does not take “widespread voter-fraud” or whatever other “no evidence of ___” pablum the NeverTrump-bots and the Communists Democrats sonorously intone. Rather, it simply takes rigging a few key “swing-states,” which is exactly what happened in 2020 and 2022. Similarly, all it takes to rig the federal trials is for the Stasi USDOJ to bring prosecutions in a circuit that is filled with Obama/Biden appointments.
Obama and Biden have nominated and the Senate has confirmed the most extreme left-wing activists to the federal bench. The DC circuit where Trump’s J6 trial will take place is rife with Obama/Biden judges. The “judge” overseeing the Trump trial is an Obama-judge who already has stated on the record that she believes Trump belongs in prison:
Today Judge Tanya Chutkan warned Trump's lawyers that politics had no place in her courtroom or in this case.
But here is Judge Chutkan berating a J6er during a sentencing hearing in Oct. 2022.
She clearly expressed anger that Trump was still "free" and not behind bars: pic.twitter.com/BaFEItMGYz
— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) August 11, 2023
The post Anybody Telling You Trump Will Get A “Fair Trial” Is Either An Idiot … Or A Liar appeared first on Granite Grok.
If there was one massive revolution in global culture, particularly the cultures in wealthy, so-called first-world societies, through the COVID Project, it has been a massive uptick in average daily and weekly screen time among nearly all age groups.
With prevailing global government structures at the international and national levels corrupted by the influences of an anti-life, anti-health, illness-spreading pharmaceutical industry, citizens are pressed into adopting lifestyles that rely on smartphone use. This is by design. The social media giants, referred to in financial circles as FAANG, or Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, all have overwhelming influence in national government legislative decision-making. This must be checked and reversed.
We cannot continuously slip into a tech-addicted lifestyle. We must collectively unite to promote industries, businesses, and business models that support healthy outdoor lifestyles. Even more importantly, we must, in unity, promote and nurture local cultures that rely on in-person, face-to-face, real-time interactions.
In Greek and Roman times, there were public spaces specifically designed for such interaction. These were referred to as the public square or town square. There is a word to describe them— agora. We must bring back the agora.
This is a simple initiative that can be achieved very quickly. Information structures are so sophisticated today that spreading the necessary ideas for this process, including design, construction, and implementation, should not be difficult. The will is required and the key support from key actors.
People should be encouraged to put down their mobile devices from time to time and not to carry a smartphone with them everywhere. This is critical for freedom of expression and disconnect from increasingly encroaching surveillance industry apparatus and AI-obsessed FAANG techies.
The answers to living a happy, wealthy, and successful life are not all found on the internet. Actual, face-to-face human interaction is important to societal health.
At the United Nations recently, global leaders have been increasingly discussing the issue of the shrinking of the civic space. It is difficult for individuals to access certain discussions because they are unable to travel to the location of the conversation or they are unable to access the location where the conversation is taking place. We have many online tools today for organizing meeting spaces in public, but there are not many physical locations purposefully built for meetings.
What is an example of a physical location purposefully built for meetings? Look no further than the Greek amphitheater and the Agora of Athens. These structures’ sole purpose is to allow people to engage with each other in a public place, with architectural elements that catalyze communication and collaboration. Some localities around the world have these structures in place, but they are typically not used for these purposes. In some instances, they are even only in place for decoration. That is just a little step of initiative and organizational effort away from being utilized for their true purpose– to facilitate human communication towards maintaining, managing, and building better societies.
Tech leaders have become oligarchs, largely by preying on citizens’ lust for more information, more money, more connection, and more convenience— which have all been neatly packaged into the smartphone. This is one of the most sophisticated technologies on the planet today.
This is not to advocate becoming a smartphone Luddite— an anti-tech banner of all things electronic. Smartphones have great use and are amazing tools for accomplishing the many daily tasks that lead to a comfortable, healthy life.
We must collectively practice purposefully disconnecting and experiencing our local communities without the smartphones. These are important technologies, but they are far from crucial to life, and we should check the obsessive, constant attachment to them.
The post Resurrecting the Agora as a Physical Civic Space appeared first on Granite Grok.