Showing posts with label environmental issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental issues. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2026

Ben Franklin and the Gulf Stream

The warm Gulf Stream current that flows eastward across the North Atlantic Ocean is one of the greatest movements of water on Earth. It is driven east by prevailing westerly winds, and is part of a great loop that then recrosses the Atlantic to the Caribbean. The current had been known since 1513, when Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León found his ship moving back north off Florida despite winds blowing him south. But it was only properly charted in 1770, by US statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin.

As deputy postmaster of the British American colonies, Franklin was fascinated by why it took British packet ships delivering mail two weeks longer to cross the Atlantic than American merchant ships. Already famous for his invention of the lightning conductor, he asked Nantucket whaling captain Timothy Folger why this might be.

Franklin’s chart was published in 1770 in Britain, but it would be years before British captains learned to use the Gulf Stream to cut sailing times.

Source: The Science Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (2014) by DK Publishing.

Tuesday, August 04, 2026

Trump Pardons 9 in Federal Emissions Cases

From Newsmax.com (July 3):

President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned 11 people, including some convicted in federal emissions cases, saying they were victims of what he called the Biden administration's "Weaponization and Stupidity" in punishment for "fixing their car."

Trump announced the pardons in a Truth Social post, declaring that the six had been unfairly prosecuted and imprisoned under then-President Joe Biden.

"It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for 'fixing their car,'" Trump wrote earlier in the day before the White House made an official announcement. "While I know this sounds ridiculous, it is nevertheless a fact, and part of the Weaponization and Stupidity that our Country had to endure during four long years of Sleepy Joe Biden.

"I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!"

Trump's Friday ⁠pardons also included Adam Kinan, ⁠vice chairman ⁠of the Staffing Advisory Group, who ‌had been sentenced to prison in 2006 with business partner and ‌Washington ​lobbyist Jack Abramoff ‌for wire fraud.

The pardons come as the administration continues to roll back federal environmental enforcement priorities and what it describes as politically motivated prosecutions.

"President Trump is the ultimate decider on any clemency-related actions," a White House official told CBS Newsahead of the pardons.

Last year, Trump pardoned Wyoming mechanic Troy Lake, who served seven months in prison for violating federal emissions laws after disabling pollution-control equipment on diesel engines.

"We think this type of case is an example of government overreach," attorney Stewart Cables told CBS. "That's why we are trying to get these pardons."

Earlier this year, Todd Blanche, who at the time was deputy attorney general, ordered federal prosecutors to drop the remaining criminal cases involving aftermarket "defeat devices" used to modify diesel emissions systems, saying the move would "ensure consistent and fair prosecution under the law, as well as to ensure the best use of [Justice] Department resources."

Trump also signed a June 29 executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to deprioritize civil enforcement involving emission-control tampering.

According to CBS, Trump is also weighing other clemency requests, including one from music producer Sean "Diddy" Combs, who is serving a federal prison sentence of just over four years at Fort Dix, New Jersey, after his conviction last year on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

He was acquitted of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

Administration sources told the outlet no decision has been made.

Grammy Award-winning rapper Pras Michel of the Fugees and Malaysian financier Jho Low are also reportedly seeking presidential pardons. [source]

Good for President Trump. 

Thursday, July 30, 2026

Is It Time to Ban Electric Vehicles?

From Townhall.com (Aug. 15, 2023):

The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, "There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes." The resulting fire is "very difficult to extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous."

Last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries from e-bikes, EVs and other devices.

A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible.

FDNY also reports that in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City. It's happening all over the country as these blazes have become commonplace. Cars and e-bikes are randomly blowing up in driveways and garages.

Now let's be honest: 13 deaths in a city the size of New York with some 8 million people is hardly an epidemic. Regulations should always be based on a cost versus benefit calculation, or there would be no cars at all.

And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from "green" electric battery fires.

Or consider this: In 1965, Ralph Nader almost single-handedly helped ban the popular Chevrolet Corvair -- famous for its engine placed in the back trunk of the car. Nader's bestselling shock book "Unsafe at Any Speed" declared the car was deadly. But there was no real evidence of that claim, and to this day there are no reliable statistics on how many passengers -- if any -- died in Corvairs from rear-end accidents.

What is indisputable is that EVs will cause far more deaths than Corvairs ever did.

One other example: There have been more fatalities in just one city in a single year from lithium-ion batteries in cars than all the people who died from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident -- which was zero.

Yet, after the accident, thanks to the environmentalists' fear campaign (with the help of the blockbuster anti-nuke movie "The China Syndrome"), no domestic nuclear plants were built for three decades. That is despite the fact that nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases.

But with EVs, the greens are pushing aside any concerns about the collateral damage of deaths and injuries. Biden wants to mandate that nearly ALL new cars sold in the U.S. be EVs by 2032. If that happens, many thousands of Americans may die or will be inured from electric vehicle fires.

All this is especially hypocritical because once upon a time the left's mantra was "no trading blood for oil." Now they are willing to trade blood in exchange for getting Americans to stop using oil. An irony of all this is that because of all the energy needed to produce windmills, solar panels and electric batteries, new studies are showing that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to this "net zero" transition is close to zero. It turns out, green energy causes some pollution, too.

For the record, I'm not in favor of the government banning EVs or e-bikes or just about anything. I just believe that we should make policy decisions based on real and factual risk assessments, not false scares and sensationalism.

As for the future of EVs, maybe it's time for Ralph Nader to write a sequel to "Unsafe at Any Speed." [source]

I don't know about banning them, but electric vehicles aren't the environmental savior the Left thinks they are.

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Media Ignore Delhi’s Coldest May Since 1901

From CO2 Coalition.org (May 15, 2023):

On May 4, India’s capital of New Delhi recorded the third coldest May morning since 1901. At 16 degree Celsius (60 Fahrenheit), the region’s 32 million residents woke up to a relatively cold morning in what is usually the hottest month of the year.

So why is there a record low temperature when the dominant mainstream narrative tells us that climate change has made our environs warmer than before? Is this just an aberration?

While Western media obsessed with the warm weather in Spain, India’s capital recorded a very cold summer morning. In fact, most of the cold-weather records in Delhi have gone unreported in Western media, which are mainly interested in showcasing the city’s extreme summer temperatures.

Neatly concealed from the public’s eye are the record low winter temperatures that Delhi has been witnessing since 2017. In December 2018, Delhi recorded an average minimum temperature of 7°C (44°F), the third lowest in the last 50 years. On December 30, 2019, the maximum temperature settled at 9°C (49°F), making it the coldest December day in 122 years.

As is the case globally, winter cold in Delhi is a bigger killer than summer heat. According to studies, short-term exposure to extreme temperature accounts for 6.5 percent of all deaths in India, with 88 percent of that amount caused by cold weather and only 12 percent by hot weather.

This is an example of media bias towards advancing a narrative of apocalyptic warming when reporting weather events. Also, part of this slanted reporting is the media’s failure to acknowledge the real reason behind the recording of all-time high summer temperatures: the urban heat island (UHI).

Urban Heat Island, Not Climate, Sets Records

During my stint as a climate consultant in New Delhi, I lived close to the Safdarjung temperature-measurement station. As per the Indian Meteorological Department, the highest maximum temperature ever recorded at Safdarjung was 47°C (117°F) on May 29, 1944.

This high temperature recorded nearly 80 years ago for this station has yet to be toppled by the 21st century warming that supposedly threatens us with doom, and the reason is probably the station’s location.

Unlike the other temperature monitoring stations in Delhi, the Safdarjung station is in a relatively greener section of the city. Thus, it is less susceptible to the Urban Heat Island effect, and, therefore, has not been registering the insanely high temperatures of 49°C (120°F) witnessed in and around Delhi.

Mahesh Palawat, vice-president of Skymet Weather Services, says, “Safdarjung weather station is located in a fairly green area, as compared to the rest of Delhi, which has a lot of heavily concretized spaces without much green cover. Temperatures in these parts of the city will therefore, understandably, be higher.”

So, the reason thermometers record new all-time highs in Delhi is because of urbanization’s concrete structures and pavements and other landscape changes. Weather officials also note that some of the newer automatic weather instruments used in highly urbanized areas may be prone to error.

“Most observatories in Delhi have automatic systems, which have a scope for error because they use bimetals, which can contract and expand during different weather conditions,” says an official of the India Meteorological Department in the Hindustan Times. He added that abnormal temperature spikes of the error-prone stations should be compared to the readings of older stations like Safdarjung to obtain “a more precise idea of the temperature.”

It takes just a bit of common sense to understand the artificial urban heat island impact on thermometers in cities and airports. However, preconceived notions of catastrophic warming pose serious hurdles to grasping this reality.

Delhi’s case illustrates that warming is not a continuous and unprecedented phenomenon as some claim it to be. Instead, we see at play a chaotic climate system at work with unpredictable weather patterns. Additionally, we must be mindful of the urban heat island impact when reading news bulletins about record-high summer temperatures. [source]

News the climate alarmists ignores too.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Genetically Engineered Animals and Insects Could Benefit People and the Planet

From Red State.com (Sept. 23, 2020):

Amidst the human tragedy that is the coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that persistent threats to human health and well-being that pre-existed COVID-19 still remain.

Insect borne diseases, hunger, and malnutrition, constantly simmering threats that only rarely get the attention of the pandemic, kill and harm far more people every year than the coronavirus.

Whatever the new post-corona normal will be, we should sustain and increase efforts to reduce premature mortality from starvation and disease.

Thankfully, biotechnology companies are continuing to develop animals that could both help reduce hunger even as world population grows and increasing numbers of people in developing countries are beginning to include more animal protein in their diets, and that could reduce disease by reducing the numbers of illnesses spread by insects.

Among the biotech innovations currently being developed, tested, or marketed that could help reduce hunger and disease are genetically modified cattle, goats, pigs, salmon, mosquitos, and moths.

Reuters recently reported scientists in the United States and Britain are using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to create farm animals that could be used as “surrogate sires,” essentially sterile blank slates that could then be transplanted with stem cells producing sperm, carrying desired traits.

The process could allow for widespread dissemination of genetic material with traits that produce healthier, more productive animals using fewer resources such as feed, medicines, and water.

“With this technology, we can get better dissemination of desirable traits and improve the efficiency of food production,” Jon Oatley, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University, who co-led the work, told Reuters. “If we can tackle this genetically, then that means less water, less feed and fewer antibiotics we have to put into the animals.”

Alternatively, if one is worried about climate change, this technology might be used to produce animals that need less land or crops for food, and/or that digest food more efficiently, reducing livestock methane emissions.

One must also remember that seafood accounts for approximately 20 percent of the animal protein consumed annually, yet many fish stocks are in decline. With this in mind, in mid-2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the importation of AquaBounty’s genetically modified Atlantic salmon eggs to be raised in the United States.

The bioengineered fish grow to maturity twice as fast as wild salmon, meaning they can be harvested and replenished much more quickly. Raised in controlled, land-based facilities and bred to be sterile, the fish are incapable of affecting wild salmon. Aquabounty’s salmon could become the world’s most sustainable salmon having a smaller environmental footprint than traditional salmon farming or commercial harvesting on the open seas.

Nor have harmful insects been ignored by the biotech industry. For instance, biotech company Oxitec has developed a modified version of the diamondback moth, which could lead to the pest’s extinction. Diamondback moths, the most resistant of all insects to pesticides, can wipe out entire fields of cold weather crops including, broccoli, cabbage, canola, cauliflower, and kale, resulting in billions of dollars in lost crops each year. The Oxitec diamondback moths contain a lethality gene, which when they mate with moths in the wild, prevents the female offspring from developing, so they die as larvae, with half male offspring in each generation inheriting the “lethality” gene meaning the entire population declines over each generation.

Oxitec is also at the forefront of developing genetically modified mosquitos that could reduce the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, and the zika virus.

The World Health Organization reports mosquitoes are among the deadliest animals on earth, attributing 438,000 deaths to the insects from malaria alone in 2015. Other mosquito-spread diseases claim thousands more lives each year.

Oxitec’s mosquitos have been modified so when they mate with females, their offspring are incapable of surviving to adulthood. Laboratory tests and field tests have indicated widespread introduction of this mosquito could dramatically reduce the population of the disease-spreading mosquitoes.

Federal government and state regulators in Florida recently approved the introduction of Oxitec’s mosquitos into a small area of the Sunshine State. This follows the actions of the governments of Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Malaysia, and Panama, which have allowed Oxitec to release its bioengineered mosquitos at selected sites. Brazil reported mosquito populations fell by at least 90 percent in the locations Oxitec’s mosquitos were released in the year following their introduction.

Unfortunately, environmental extremists have targeted genetically modified products for extinction, fighting to delay the approval of or suing to block the introduction of bioengineered products, saying genetic engineering is akin to “playing God.”

While caution must be exercised with the introduction of any new technology, genetic engineering carries much promise, and the crops and animals developed using it are the most intensively studied and tested technologies ever to be produced. If the search for a COVID-19 vaccine is teaching us anything, it is that too much caution can be as deadly or even deadlier than too little caution. With millions of lives on the line, research and regulatory approvals should be expedited, not delayed.

If environmental fear-mongers successfully block the use of bioengineered animals, they will be condemning millions of people to unnecessary suffering and early deaths—now that would be playing God (or the devil) with a vengeance. [source]

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

NASA Will Launch Artificial Star into Earth’s Orbit, Costing $19.5 Million

From The Gateway Pundit.com (June 21, 2024):

NASA is planning to launch an artificial star into the Earth’s orbit.

According to Futurism, the artificial star will be about the size of a toaster and equipped with eight lasers.

The creation of the star is part of NASA’s $19.5 million space project called Landolt.

The Landolt project aims to help scientists accurately measure real stars in space and are hoping it will assist in studying dark energy.

Per Futurism:

NASA is planning to launch an unusual payload, roughly the size of a toaster and outfitted with eight lasers.

Its job is to imitate stars and other celestial objects like supernovas, Live Science reports, by beaming lasers straight into their instruments back on the surface.

The false star is part of the space agency’s $19.5 million mission dubbed Landolt, and is designed to allow scientists to get more accurate measurements of real stars. Researchers suggest it could even help study dark energy, the mysterious hypothetical form of energy that’s been used to explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

“Even with today’s modern instruments, measurements of the true brightness of stars have only been known to a few percent,” said NASA Exoplanet Science Institute deputy director and Caltech astronomer David Ciardi in a statement. “Landolt will enable an improvement in those measurements by more than a factor of ten.”

The launch date of the artificial star will be in 2029. [source]

Interesting. But I would rather have the private sector (or even a university/universities—they have huge endowments) pay for it other than the taxpayers.

Other NASA news:

Thursday, April 09, 2026

Civilization Versus the New Nihilists

From AM Greatness.com (Dec. 14, 2023):

Nihilism is the religion of the Left. Anarchy is now at the core of the new Democratic Party.

If the Left wished radically to alter the demography of the U.S., it could have expanded legal immigration through legislation or the courts.

Instead, it simply erased the border and dynamited federal immigration law.

By fiat, nihilists ended the wall, and stopped detaining and deporting illegal aliens altogether.

Or was it worse than that when candidate Joe Biden in September 2019 urged would-be illegal aliens to “surge” the border?

As a result, through laxity and entitlement incentives, eight-million illegal entrants have swarmed the southern border under the Biden administration.

They are swamping border towns, bankrupting big-city budgets, and infuriating even Democratic constituencies.

The same nihilism applies to crime.

In the old days liberals gave light sentences to criminals or reduced bail. But today leftist prosecutors do not even seek bail. They hardly prosecute theft or random assaults.

Criminals are arrested and released the same day. Is the nihilist plan to destroy the entire body of American jurisprudence, and to ensure “equity” in being victimized?

Is the woke idea that all Americans—inclusive of diverse Beverly Hills elites, Hollywood celebrities, or members of Congress alike—must share victim equity, and thus experience first-hand street robbery, car-jacking, smash-and-grab, and home invasion?

The United States can produce annually more natural gas and oil than any nation on earth. It once pioneered nuclear power. It has vast coal reserves and sophisticated hydroelectric plants.

The old idea was to use these unmatched resources to transition gradually to other cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, fusion power, solar, and wind. That way consumers would still enjoy affordable energy. And the United States could remain independent of coercion by the oil-producing Middle East.

But that was not the nihilist way.

Instead, the left deliberately cut back on pipelines, new energy leases, and fracking. It bragged of an upcoming ban on fossil fuels. In drought-stricken, energy-short California, the state is blowing up, not building new dams.

Is the nihilist agenda to punish with bankruptcy the energy-using middle class?

Is the hope that Americans will have to beg the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians to pump more of the hated goo for our benefit so we would not have to dirty ourselves helping ourselves?

When Joe Biden entered office in January 2021 the U.S. was naturally rebounding from more than a year of Covid-enforced lockdowns.

Overtaxed supply chains were still fragile. Pent-up demand was soaring. Consumers were flush with government cash. Trillions of dollars had been printed and infused into the economy to ward off a feared recession.

All economists advised not to increase the deficit, spike further consumer demand, and expand entitlements.

Instead the Left did just the opposite.

Four-trillion dollars were printed and distributed. In no time, Americans, recovering from Covid, next experienced the worst, but entirely preventable, inflation in 40 years.

Three years later prices on staples remain 30-40 percent higher than when Biden took office. Mortgage rates tripled.

Abroad the nihilism is even more inexplicable and terrifying.

All nations suffer military setbacks. But none in memory have shamefully hightailed out of a theater as we did from Afghanistan.

Few countries could even imagine discarding billions of dollars of weapons and hardware into the hands of the terrorist Taliban, or abandoning a $1 billion new embassy, and a huge, remodeled air base.

Why did the administration simply allow a huge Chinese spy balloon to float and photograph leisurely over the continental U.S.?

Naïve countries might endure two or three attacks on their overseas bases without serious retaliation. But how could the U.S. military permit 135 rocket barrages by Iranian-supplied terrorists on American soldiers without a major and sustained response?

Is the point to humiliate our own troops? To destroy what is left of U.S. deterrence?

Popular culture is especially captive to leftist nihilism.

It is not enough to object to a statue or artwork. Instead, without deliberation or public input, they must be defaced or destroyed, all the better stealthily and by night.

After the massacres of October 7—but well before Israel had even responded to the barbaric invasion—thousands of students swarmed their elite universities cheering on the violence.

And what so exhilarated them?

The nihilist, ghoulish beheading, torture, mutilation, mass rape, dismemberment, and necrophilia of unarmed, civilian Israeli elderly, women, children, and infants.

In sum, we are witnessing an epidemic of leftist nihilism similar to the 16th-century European mad wave of iconoclastic destruction of religious art.

Or is the better parallel the suicidal insanity that Mao Zedong unleashed during his cultural revolution of the 1960s?

The old politics of right versus left, and Republican opposed to Democrat have now given way to a new existential struggle: Americans must choose between civilization—or its destroyers. [source]

VDH at his best. He has captured and exposed the real Left.

Thursday, March 26, 2026

Let’s Stop Saying That Progressives are ‘Out of Touch’

From Jeff Charles on Red State.com (June 9, 2022):

One of the most oft-repeated talking points on the right is that over the past couple of years, with their lurch further to the left, Democrats have shown they are out of touch with the American public. It’s a popular maxim, one that I have also repeated. But I have come to realize this isn’t as true as we think. In fact, the reality is even more disturbing.

We’re old enough to remember all the fuss over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, right? Democrats and their close friends and allies in the activist media made an enormous stink in response to the notion that teachers would not be allowed to instruct children seven-years-old and younger on gender identity and sexuality. They even deceptively called it the “Don’t Say Gay bill.”

But polling showed that the American public wasn’t buying it. Indeed, at least one survey revealed that 52 percent of Florida Democratic primary voters supported the measure. Other studies showed people overwhelmingly favor the law. Nevertheless, the progressive left persisted, with the help of Disney, who received a black eye in the messaging battle over the matter.

Leftists exploited the murder of George Floyd to push for silly initiatives like “Defund the Police” under the guise that it would help to safeguard black lives. They bullied major cities across the country into slashing police budgets in a way that resulted in fewer police officers patrolling the streets. Even further, woke district attorneys like San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin were hard at work protecting criminals engaging in violent acts. Needless to say, these approaches made people far less safe and were at least partly responsible for the skyrocketing crime rates that followed. San Francisco’s voters were so fed up they voted to give Boudin the boot in California’s primary elections earlier this week.

What’s even more egregious about this is that rising crime rates, combined with fewer police officers, disproportionately harmed black communities. African Americans represented the lion’s share of victims of violent crimes, including homicide. But progressives still insisted on attacking police even when polling showed the majority (81 percent) of black Americans wished to see the same level of police activity in their neighborhoods or more.

Last but certainly not least, President Joe Biden and progressives are still pushing for a shift to green energy amid sky-high gas prices instead of drilling for oil in the U.S. Former President Donald Trump sought to make America as energy independent as possible, but Biden reversed course immediately after taking office. Now, everyday Americans are paying almost double at the pump and taxing their wallets just to get groceries because of massive inflation. Nevertheless, Biden and his merry band of Democrats in Congress refuse to allow more drilling and oil production in the United States.

The progressive approach to solving the energy crisis is in direct opposition to what most Americans want. A Heartland/Rasmussen poll conducted last month revealed that 82 percent of likely voters are “very” or “somewhat concerned” about rising energy and gas prices under this administration. Additionally, 60 percent of respondents said they would favor legislation that would “dramatically increase American energy production.”

As it turns out, most Americans can’t just go out and buy a Tesla as Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and other leftists have suggested.

These, and a mile-long list of examples, would lead any reasonable person to conclude that progressives just don’t understand average, everyday citizens. They don’t bother having conversations with regular folks to understand what they believe about the problems they are facing.

But I’ve come to realize that this assumption is both naive, inaccurate, and even dangerous.

These people are not out of touch with the American public. They are not unaware of what the people want. They are not oblivious to the viewpoints of us normal folks.

They know what we think. They just don’t care.

They don’t give a rodent’s derriere how we feel about the direction of the country.

They know better, which means we should just shut up and go along with their program. Progressives will continue pushing their insane ideas on race, gender, and sexuality in public K-12 schools. Even further, they will keep trying to limit educational alternatives by opposing school choice. Your kids and grandkids belong to the state, not to their parents, so to them, it is totally justified to encourage youths to transition to other genders without informing their parents.

Democrats have backed off of the ridiculous “defund the police” movement. But this does not mean they have given up. Woke district attorneys are still making sure criminals are given lenient treatment. They are still enacting soft-on-crime policies, even against gun violence, while trying to limit gun ownership for responsible Americans.

When it comes to gas prices, it’s the same story. If you want some relief at the pump, you better figure out how to get a Tesla, or you will be S.O.L. The elites don’t have to worry either way because these inflated prices are not harming the elites as they are for plebes like you and I.

Progressives are not out of touch. They are not ignorant. They are elitist would-be tyrants seeking to obtain more power. These people believe they know what is best for the unwashed masses. Leftists think they know what we need more than we do. This is what we are facing.

I’ll note that this does not apply to moderate liberals or even many average people with progressive views. But it is certainly applicable to the Marxist intelligentsia and their minions in the activist media. So, let’s stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They deserve neither our understanding nor our good-faith conversations. We cannot reason with them. Our objective should be to defeat them. [source]

The author completely understands the Left.

Thursday, March 19, 2026

How America’s Recycling Program Failed—and Scarred the Environment

From FEE.org (May 31, 2022):

In March 2019, The New York Times ran a shocking story exploring why many prominent US cities were abandoning their recycling programs.

“Philadelphia is now burning about half of its 1.5 million residents’ recycling material in an incinerator that converts waste to energy,” Times business writer Michael Corkery reported. “In Memphis, the international airport still has recycling bins around the terminals, but every collected can, bottle and newspaper is sent to a landfill.”

Philadelphia and Memphis were not outliers. They, along with Deltona, Florida, which had suspended its recycling program the previous month, were just a few examples of hundreds of cities across the country that had scrapped recycling programs or scaled back operations.

Since that time, cities across the country have continued to scrap recycling programs, citing high costs.

“The cost of recycling was going to double, and the town wasn’t going to be able to absorb that cost,” said Dencia Raish, the town clerk administrator for Akron, Colorado, which ended its program in 2021 and now sends “recyclables” to a landfill.

While many Americans likely are distraught about America’s failed recycling experiment, a new video produced by Kite & Key Media reveals that abandoning recycling—at least in its current form—is likely to benefit both Americans and the environment.

A Brief History of Recycling

Like many problems in American history, recycling began as a moral panic.

The frenzy began in the spring of 1987 when a massive barge carrying more than 3,000 tons of garbage—the Mobro 4000—was turned away from a North Carolina port because rumor had it the barge was carrying toxic waste. (It wasn’t.)

“Thus began one of the biggest garbage sagas in modern history,” Vice News reported in a feature published a quarter-century later, “a picaresque journey of a small boat overflowing with stuff no one wanted, a flotilla of waste, a trashier version of the Flying Dutchman, that ghost ship doomed to never make port.”

The Mobro was simply seeking a landfill to dumb the garbage, but everywhere the barge went it was turned away. After North Carolina, the captain tried Louisiana. Nope. Then the Mobro tried Belize, then Mexico, then the Bahamas. No dice.

“The Mobro ended up spending six months at sea trying to find a place that would take its trash,” Kite & Key Media notes.

America became obsessed with the story. In 1987 there was no Netflix, smartphones, or Twitter, so apparently everyone just decided to watch this barge carrying tons of trash for entertainment. The Mobro became, in the words of Vice, “the most watched load of garbage in the memory of man.”

The Mobro also became perhaps the most consequential load of garbage in history.

“The Mobro had two big and related effects,” Kite & Key Media explains. “First, the media reporting around it convinced Americans that we were running out of landfill space to dispose of our trash. Second, it convinced them the solution was recycling.”

Neither claim, however, was true.

The idea that the US was running out of landfill space is a myth. The urban legend likely stems from the consolidation of landfills in the 1980s, which saw many waste depots retired because they were small and inefficient, not because of a national shortage. In fact, researchers estimate that if you take just the land the US uses for grazing in the Great Plains region, and use one-tenth of one percent of it, you’d have enough space for America’s garbage for the next thousand years. (This is not to say that regional problems do not exist, Slate points out..

Mandated recycling efforts, meanwhile, have proven fraught. [read more]

Monday, March 09, 2026

Big ideas from Trump's State of the Union speech, from federal 401k payments to Dalilah's law


From Just the News.com (Feb. 24):

After a whirlwind year of action abroad and home, President Donald Trump on Tuesday night used the first State of the Union address of his second administration to propose sweeping new ideas – ranging from trucker safety to an historic change to the energy grid in a signal he has no plans to relent on his agenda in the face of the midterm congressional elections.

Here are some of the big ideas the 47th president put on the table during a joint session of Congress:

A federal matching payment for Americans' 401k retirement accounts

Trump announced he will be creating a new program giving Americans up to $1,000 to match their retirement savings in 401k accounts, promising more details in the near future.

"Your 401ks are way up, yet half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer," Trump declared. "To remedy this gross disparity, I'm announcing that next year my administration will give these often forgotten American workers, great people, the people that built our country, access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.

"We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year, as we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market."

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A plan to protect electricity rate payers from the costs of Artificial Intelligence grid expansion

Trump announced a “rate-payer protection pledge” being executed with major tech companies requiring them to provide for their own power needs by building their own power plants and grids. It's a major revolution in power policy, allowing private companies to do what major governments have handled for decades.

U.S. electricity rates have soared an average of 6.3% in the past year as the AI revolution rages forward with massive data center construction.

<

Delilah's Law: A Major Reform for Commercial Truck Driver Licenses

Trump called on Congress to pass a "Delilah's Law," barring states from issuing commercial driving licenses to illegal immigrants. In announcing the proposed law, he turned to the audience and Dalilah Coleman, a first-grader who was severely injured in a car accident caused by an illegal alien driving a semi-truck.

"Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs," Trump said. "That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah law, barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens."

<

Tariffs to income tax freedom?

Trump said he will make new legal justifications for his tariffs to preserve them after a recent loss at the Supreme Court and predicted they would one day put the country on a path to reducing federal income taxes.

"I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love," Trump said.

<

A new commander for the war on fraud and a goal for a balanced budget

Trump turned to tech entrepreneur Elon Musk at the beginning of his second term to run the DOGE review to identify waste, fraud and abuse in taxpayer programs. Musk finished his temporary assignment identifying tens of billions of dollars in potential savings before returning to his suite of companies.

On Tuesday night, Trump said the next phase of the “war on fraud” would be led by Vice President JD Vance. He also suggested there were enough savings to be achieved that could put America on a path toward a balanced budget after years of annual budget deficits of $2 trillion or more.

<

Redirecting federal health subsidies from big insurers under Obamacare to American families instead

Trump proposed anew redirecting the billions of dollars in subsidies given to health insurers under Obamacare to individual health savings accounts, allowing people to choose health care services directly.

"I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost," Trump said. [source]

A pretty good speech. I don’t think taxpayers should pay for others’ babies though. Private donations (like from the Dell family) are okay. Otherwise, it is just a form of welfare.

Other mentions of the speech:

Monday, March 02, 2026

Trump Withdraws US From Global Climate Agreement

From Newsmax.com (Jan. 7):

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States will withdraw from the international agreement that has served as the foundation for global efforts to rein in climate change for 34 years.

The pact includes every other nation in the world, making it one of the most widely adopted international frameworks still in force.

In a social media post, the White House said Trump signed a memorandum directing the U.S. to exit 66 international organizations and treaties that "no longer serve American interests."

The White House did not immediately release a full list of the organizations and agreements covered by the order, but highlighted the climate agreement as a major component.

Trump and his advisers framed the withdrawal as part of a broader push to reclaim control of U.S. energy and economic policy and reduce what they view as outside constraints on domestic industry.

The decision is expected to draw swift backlash from U.S. allies and climate advocates who argue the agreement is central to coordinating emissions cuts and financing climate adaptation.

Environmental groups warned the withdrawal could weaken global momentum as countries face increasing climate-related disasters, including extreme heat, flooding, and wildfires.

Supporters of the move praised it as a rejection of international bureaucracy and what they call an unfair system that imposes disproportionate costs on the United States.

The withdrawal is likely to trigger diplomatic and legal questions over how quickly the U.S. can exit and what happens to prior commitments made under the agreement's framework.

White House officials said further actions related to U.S. participation in international organizations would follow. [source]

Good. The agreement is just another way to punish America.

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

‘This Is About As Big as It Gets’: Trump Formally Guts Obama-Era Climate Finding That Allowed Feds To Regulate Emissions


From Free Beacon.com (Feb. 12):

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Flanked by EPA administrator Lee Zeldin in the Roosevelt Room, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has formally rescinded a 2009 Obama-era finding that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger public health. That finding led to a slate of federal climate regulations targeting gas-powered vehicles, including former president Joe Biden’s top-down effort to force Americans to buy more electric cars.

Trump’s action will have a domino effect, toppling years of federal regulations targeting emissions produced by vehicles, power plants, and oil facilities. Zeldin said it is the "largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States" and would save Americans more than $1 trillion, a point Trump emphasized.

"This is about as big as it gets," Trump remarked as he entered a news conference announcing the action. "This action will eliminate over $1.3 trillion of regulatory cost and help bring car prices tumbling down dramatically. You can get a better car, you can get a car that starts easier, a car that works better, for a lot less money."

Surrounding Trump were signs emblazoned with the $1.3 trillion figure and stating that the action would decrease the cost of the average vehicle by $2,400. "Largest deregulation in U.S. history," read another sign.

"Under President Trump's leadership, vehicle manufacturers will once again build what Americans want, not what politicians and bureaucrats in Washington demand," Zeldin said.

The action makes good on Trump’s 2024 campaign promise to achieve the "most aggressive regulatory reduction" in the nation’s history and represents the president’s single greatest achievement to date in his pursuit to unwind previous administrations’ climate policies. The president has labeled efforts to fight global warming as a "scam" and, like many critics of the climate movement, blamed it for rising affordability issues in the United States.

Still, the action tees up an expected deluge of lawsuits from Democrat-led states and far-left activist organizations that have argued that preserving the endangerment finding and regulating greenhouse gases is essential for combating climate change. Many of those states and groups have vowed to challenge any move to rescind the finding.

"California will not stand by," Governor Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) wrote to Zeldin in September. "You still have a choice: honor the law, follow the credible and established science, and fulfill your duty to the American people. Or go down in history as the administration that abandoned its mission, betrayed its mandate, and failed its country."

Every Senate Democrat signed a separate letter to Zeldin, warning that rescinding the finding would be a "dereliction of duty" and take "breathtaking hubris." And Loren Blackford, the Sierra Club’s acting executive director, wrote this week that "removing EPA’s authority to limit deadly greenhouse gas emissions is as shortsighted as it is stupid."

The expected litigation could ultimately force the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue. According to former DOJ counsel Michael Buschbacher, that means Trump’s action on Thursday risks having the opposite of its intended effect and could solidify the endangerment finding.

"Unless this is done really, really well, this has the potential of being a kind of regulatory Vietnam, which is surely what administration opponents will be trying to accomplish," Buschbacher told the Washington Free Beacon in July.

The issue dates back to the 1970s, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The act requires the EPA to regulate any air pollutant emitted by mobile sources, like cars, and stationary sources, like power plants, that the agency determines to cause or contribute to pollution endangering public health or welfare. For decades, the EPA did not interpret that provision to include greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane.

A coalition of states led by Massachusetts eventually sued the EPA after the agency formally determined in 2003 that the Clean Air Act did not authorize it to consider greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states and directed the EPA to consider whether greenhouse gas emissions do, in fact, endanger public health, leading to the 2009 endangerment finding. [source]

The wins keep coming! 

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor is up and running

From Pop Sci.com (Dec. 4, 2023):

Japan and the European Union have officially inaugurated testing at the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion plant. Located roughly 85 miles north of Tokyo, the six-story, JT-60SA “tokamak” facility heats plasma to 200 million degrees Celsius (around 360 million Fahrenheit) within its circular, magnetically insulated reactor. Although JT-60SA first powered up during a test run back in October, the partner governments’ December 1 announcement marks the official start of operations at the world’s biggest fusion center, reaffirming a “long-standing cooperation in the field of fusion energy.”

The tokamak—an acronym of the Russian-language designation of “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils”—has led researchers’ push towards achieving the “Holy Grail” of sustainable green energy production for decades. Often described as a large hollow donut, a tokamak is filled with gaseous hydrogen fuel that is then spun at immense high speeds using powerful magnetic coil encasements. When all goes as planned, intense force ionizes atoms to form helium plasma, much like how the sun produces its energy.

Speaking at the inauguration event, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson referred to the JT-60SA as “the most advanced tokamak in the world,” representing “a milestone for fusion history.”

“Fusion has the potential to become a key component for energy mix in the second half of this century,” she continued.

But even if such a revolutionary milestone is crossed, it likely won’t be at JT-60SA. Along with its still-in-construction sibling, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Europe, the projects are intended solely to demonstrate scalable fusion’s feasibility. Current hopes estimate ITER’s operational start for sometime in 2025, although the undertaking has been fraught with financial, logistical, and construction issues since its groundbreaking back in 2011.

Experts alongside Simson believe creating sustainable nuclear fusion would mark a revolutionary moment that could ensure an emissionless, renewable energy future. Making the power source a feasible reality, however, is fraught with technological and economic hurdles. Researchers have chased this goal for a long time: The world’s first experimental tokamak was built back in 1958 by the USSR.

While researchers can now generate fusion energy at multiple facilities around the world, it is usually at a net loss. By advancing the technology further at facilities like JT-60SA, however, industry experts think that it is only a matter of time until fusion reactors regularly achieve net energy production gains.

In the meantime, another possible road to fusion energy is making its own promising gains. Earlier this year, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Northern California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a net energy gain for the second time using what’s the inertial confinement fusion method. In this process, a high-powered laser is split into 192 beams that then hit a capsule containing a pellet of tritium and deuterium. The resultant X-rays generate pressure and temperatures that then initiate fusion.

No matter which process—be it tokamak reactors or ICF lasers—a successful nuclear fusion facility could play a major role in finally shifting humanity away from fossil fuels. [source]

America should be trying this. But the Left is too obsessed with wind turbines and solar energy. Fusion energy is much cleaner and safer than fission energy.

Wednesday, February 04, 2026

Earth's rotating inner core is starting to slow down — and it could alter the length of our days

From Live Science.com (June 19, 2024):

A new study confirms that Earth's inner core has been rotating more slowly than usual since 2010. This mysterious "backtracking" could also end up slightly altering the planet's overall rotation, lengthening our days.

The heart of our planet has been spinning unusually slowly for the past 14 years, new research confirms. And if this mysterious trend continues, it could potentially lengthen Earth's days — though the effects would likely be imperceptible to us.

Earth's inner core is a roughly moon-size chunk of solid iron and nickel that lies more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) below our feet. It is surrounded by the outer core — a superhot layer of molten metals similar to those in the inner core — which is surrounded by a more solid sea of molten rock, known as the mantle, and the crust. Although the entire planet rotates, the inner core can spin at a slightly different speed as the mantle and crust due to the viscosity of the outer core.

Since scientists started mapping Earth's inner layers with detailed seismic activity records around 40 years ago, the inner core has rotated slightly faster than the mantle and the crust. But in a new study, published June 12 in the journal Nature, researchers found that since 2010, the inner core has been slowing down and is now rotating a bit more slowly than our planet's outer layers.

"When I first saw the seismograms that hinted at this change, I was stumped," John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California, Dornsife, said in a statement. "But when we found two dozen more observations signaling the same pattern, the result was inescapable."

If the inner core's rotation continues to decelerate, its gravitational pull could eventually cause the outer layers of our planet to spin a little more slowly, altering the length of our days the researchers wrote.

However, any potential change would be on the order of thousandths of a second, which would be "very hard to notice," Vidale said. As a result, we would likely not have to change our clocks or calendars to adjust for this difference, especially if it were only a temporary change.

This is not the first time scientists have suggested that Earth's inner core is slowing down. This phenomenon, known as "backtracking," has been debated for around a decade but has been very hard to prove.

In the new study, researchers analyzed data from more than 100 repeating earthquakes — seismic events that occur repeatedly at the same location — along a tectonic plate boundary in the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean between 1991 and 2023.

Each earthquake allowed scientists to map the core's position relative to the mantle and by comparing these measurements, the team was able to see how the inner core's rotation rate changed over time.

The new study is the "most convincing" evidence so far that backtracking has been happening, Vidale said.

It is currently unclear why the inner core is backtracking, but it is likely caused by either "the churning of the liquid iron outer core that surrounds it" or "gravitational tugs from the dense regions of the overlying rocky mantle," the researchers wrote.

It is also unclear how frequent backtracking is. It is possible that the inner core's spin is constantly accelerating and decelerating, but these changes likely happen over decades or longer. Therefore, longer data sets are needed to infer anything about long-term trends.

The inner core remains one of the most mysterious of Earth's hidden layers. But in recent years, new technologies are allowing researchers to learn more about the inner core, including that it is slightly lopsided, that it is softer than expected, that it potentially wobbles off Earth's axis and that it has a separate innermost core.

The study authors will continue to analyze seismic data to learn more about the heart of our planet and how it changes over time.

"The dance of the inner core might be even more lively than we know," Vidale said. [source]

More interesting science that mankind can't change just like mankind can't control global warming. Earth is just too massive for either control.

More on the core:

Tuesday, February 03, 2026

Denmark Doesn’t Deserve Greenland

From The Federalist.com (Jan. 21):

Last week, President Trump announced that the United States will acquire Greenland one way or the other.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark; it is the world’s largest island, with a small population of less than 100,000 inhabitants, mostly composed of indigenous people called Inuits.

Because Greenland sits at the intersection of three continents (Asia, Europe, and North America) and is rich in strategic resources, it has immense geopolitical importance.

The island is home to one of Earth’s largest uranium deposits. Uranium is essential for nuclear energy production, and it plays a crucial role in supporting nuclear power generation in the United States. Environmental groups oppose its extraction because they claim it may pollute the island’s environment, so Greenland imposed a ban on uranium mining in 2021.

In the same place where uranium is found on the island — the Kvanefjeld Mining Project on the southern side of the island — there are also vast deposits of rare earth minerals. These minerals form critical components for technologically advanced defense equipment, electric cars, and wind turbines. A sustainable supply of these minerals is vital to the U.S. defense industry.

On the island’s east coast, Greenland has large oil and gas reserves, which are still unexploited. So far, Denmark has not extracted any of these resources, while the United States would be able to make full use of them.

U.S. military presence in Greenland is of great geostrategic importance due to its proximity to Russia, providing early warning of missile launches from America’s principal adversary in the Arctic. Military installations on the island are the cornerstone of the development of the next-generation missile defense shield, called the Golden Dome. In fact, positioning missile interceptors on the island is a critical asset to counter Russia’s most advanced weapons. The island also plays an essential role in monitoring naval and submarine movements in the Arctic Ocean.

After the Trump administration expressed interest in acquiring the island, Denmark vehemently opposed U.S. plans, and Danes launched a grassroots boycott of American brands, targeting iconic companies such as Coca-Cola and Netflix.

This month, Denmark launched Operation Arctic Endurance, a military drill in Greenland involving several other European countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The objective of the exercise is to demonstrate readiness to defend the island. In response, the Trump administration imposed a 10 percent tariff on several countries participating in this operation. The tariffs take effect on Feb. 1 and last until an agreement for the purchase of Greenland is reached.

The European military exercise was unnecessary since the United States already holds a military base on the island. In 1951, the U.S. started the construction of the Thule Air Base in Greenland, which became America’s northernmost operational base. During the Cold War, the base was a key point in American aerospace defense.

In 2020, the United States changed the installation’s name to Pituffik Space Base, reflecting the native designation for the region. The base’s radar can detect and track ballistic threats, making it a sort of sentinel of the North. Its integration into the Golden Dome would give it the unique ability to detect, track, and intercept Russian missile threats faster than other radars, due to its central location in the Arctic region.

During his first administration, President Trump demanded that all NATO countries increase their defense spending to at least 2 percent of their annual gross domestic product. Because of Trump’s pressure, last year NATO members agreed to boost their defense spending to 5 percent of their GDP by 2035.

Until 2022, Denmark’s defense spending was just 1.36 percent of its GDP or lower going back to 2014, while U.S. defense spending has consistently exceeded 3 percent. Although Danish defense spending increased in the past three years, the U.S. remains the NATO country with the strongest military force, and U.S. ability to defend Greenland far exceeds Denmark’s.

One of Denmark’s arguments against U.S. control of Greenland is that the island is already part of NATO, so there is no need for it to be directly controlled by the United States. In fact, Denmark has been a member of NATO since 1949, and its territories, including Greenland, are also part of the alliance.

However, the island’s geopolitical relevance is disproportionate with respect to the global role of Denmark, a country of just 6 million inhabitants. During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, forcing the United States to occupy Greenland to prevent it from falling under Hitler’s control. The United States should have kept the island; instead, it made a major mistake, returning it to Denmark after the end of the war.

There is no reason for Denmark to retain control of Greenland since it has failed to exploit its strategic mineral resources and was unable to protect it from Germany in WWII.

On the contrary, the United States has a vested interest in controlling an island that is an essential component of a multibillion-dollar defense system, which will give North America, and Greenland itself, enhanced security from the threats of other great powers.

For these reasons, U.S. control of Greenland is paramount to maintain American geopolitical leadership. [source]

Food for thought. 

Monday, February 02, 2026

365 WINS IN 365 DAYS: President Trump’s Return Marks New Era of Success, Prosperity

From White House.gov (Jan. 20):

One year ago today, President Donald J. Trump returned to office with a resounding mandate to restore prosperity, secure the border, rebuild American strength, and put the American people first. In just 365 days, President Trump has delivered truly transformative results with the most accomplished first year of any presidential term in modern history.

From negative net migration for the first time in 50 years to the largest homicide drop on record, trillions in reshored investments, peace deals ending multiple wars, record energy production, and massive bureaucracy cuts, President Trump has put America First with urgency — and he’s just getting started.

SECURING AMERICA’S BORDERS AND PUTTING AMERICANS FIRST

  1. Achieved negative net migration in 2025, reversing a 50-year trend and restoring U.S. control over immigration flows for the first time in a generation.
  2. Removed more than 2.6 million illegal aliens from the United States through deportations and voluntary self-departures.
  3. Carried out over 650,000 arrests, detentions, and deportations of illegal aliens — including the worst of the worst criminal illegal alien killers, rapists, gang members, and repeat offenders.
  4. Deported more than 400,000 illegal aliens charged with or convicted of crimes.
  5. Induced two million self-deportations by ending Biden-era release incentives and restoring credible consequences.
  6. Reduced illegal border crossings to their lowest level since the 1970s, completely eradicating the Biden-era invasion.
  7. Cut fentanyl trafficking at the southern border by 56%.
  8. Permanently ended dangerous “catch-and-release” policies nationwide by detaining illegal aliens rather than releasing them into the interior — resulting in a 99.9% decrease in illegals being released into the country during the Biden era.
  9. Maintained zero illegal alien releases into the country’s homeland for eight consecutive months, restoring deterrence at the border.

…….

REBUILDING AN ECONOMY FOR WORKING AMERICANS

  1. Drove gas prices to their lowest level in nearly five years, with prices below $3 per gallon in 43 states and below $2 per gallon in 19 states.
  2. Created 654,000 private-sector jobs following deregulation, tax relief, and restored investment confidence.
  3. Ensured 100% of net job growth went to native-born Americans by enforcing immigration laws.
  4. Achieved massive economic growth, with real GDP rising 4.3% in the third quarter of 2025 — smashing economists’ expectations and setting the stage for future growth, with GDP projected to be even higher in the fourth quarter as President Trump’s policies continue to take effect.
  5. Oversaw the largest increase in blue-collar wage growth in nearly 60 years.
  6. Increased private-sector real earnings by $1,100 annually — earning back some of the $2,900 in purchasing power workers lost under Biden.
  7. Tamed inflation, running at just 2.4% since President Trump took office — down 70% from its Biden-era peak.
  8. Brought inflation under control by enforcing fiscal restraint, reversing runaway spending growth, and restoring policy credibility, driving core inflation to multi-year lows.
  9. Achieved the lowest mortgage rates in three years by stabilizing mortgage-backed securities markets and expanding liquidity — driving monthly housing payments to their most affordable levels in over two years.
  10. Oversaw existing home sales rising to the strongest pace in three years as income growth finally outpaces home price gains.
  11. Delivered a historic stock-market rebound, with the major stock indices all hitting repeated new record highs.
  12. Signed the Working Families Tax Cut, delivering the largest middle-class tax relief package in modern U.S. history and saving 5.9 million jobs.
  13. Delivered on his No Tax on Tips campaign promise.
  14. Delivered on his No Tax on Overtime campaign promise.
  15. Delivered on his No Tax on Social Security campaign promise for our great seniors.
  16. Delivered unprecedented tax relief for small businesses and other key industries, building on the successful Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from his first term and opening the door for new levels of prosperity to come.
  17. Secured congressional passage of a $9 billion rescissions package, permanently canceling wasteful spending — like the wasteful taxpayer funding of NPR and PBS.
  18. Terminated wasteful foreign aid programs inconsistent with America First priorities through a $5 billion pocket rescission.
  19. Reduced wholesale egg prices by 89% following the Trump Administration’s intervention, supply stabilization, and regulatory relief.

[read more]

Wins that the fake news probably won't report.

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

DeepMind AI accurately forecasts weather — on a desktop computer

From Nature.com (Nov. 14, 2023):

Artificial-intelligence (AI)  firm Google DeepMind has turned its hand to the intensive science of weather forecasting--and developed a machine-learning model that outperforms the best conventional tools as well as other AI approaches at the task.

The model, called GraphCast, can run from a desktop computer and makes more  accurate predictions than conventional models in minutes rather than hours.

"GraphCast currently is leading the race amongst the AI models," says computer scientist  Aditya Grover at University of California, Los Angeles. The model is described in Science on 14 November.

Predicting the weather is a complex and energy-intensive task. The standard approach is  called numerical weather prediction (NWP), which uses mathematical models based on  physical principles. These tools, known as physical models, crunch weather data from  buoys, satellites and weather stations worldwide using supercomputers. The calculations  accurately map out how heat, air and water vapour move through the atmosphere, but  they are expensive and energy-intensive to run.

Forecast revolution

To reduce the  financial and energy cost of forecasting, several technology companies  have developed machine-learning models that rapidly predict the future state of global  weather from past and current weather data. Among them are DeepMind, computer  chip-maker Nvidia and Chinese tech company Huawei, alongside a slew of start-ups such  as Atmo based in Berkeley, California. Of these, Huawei's Pangu-weather model is the  strongest rival to the gold-standard NWP system at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in Reading, UK, which provides world-leading  weather predictions up to 15 days in advance.

Machine learning is spurring a revolution in weather forecasting, says Matthew Chantry  at the ECMWF. AI models run 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than conventional NWP  models, leaving more time for interpreting and communicating predictions, says data visualization researcher Jacob Radford, at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the  Atmosphere in Colorado.

GraphCast, developed by Google's AI company DeepMind in London, outperforms  conventional and AI-based approaches at most global weather-forecasting tasks.  Researchers  first trained the model using estimates of past global weather made from 1979 to 2017 by physical models. This allowed GraphCast to learn links between weather  variables such as air pressure, wind, temperature and humidity.

The trained model uses the 'current' state of global weather and weather estimates from  6 hours earlier to predict the weather 6 hours ahead. Earlier predictions are fed back into  the model, enabling it to make estimates further into the future. DeepMind researchers  found that GraphCast could use global weather estimates from 2018 to make forecasts  up to 10 days ahead in less than a minute, and the predictions were more accurate than  the ECMWF's High RESolution forecasting system (HRES)--one version of its NWP--which takes hours to forecast.

Severe weather

"In the troposphere, which is the part of the atmosphere closest to the surface that affects us all the most, GraphCast outperforms HRES on more than 99% of the 12,00  measurements that we've done," says computer scientist Remi Lam at DeepMind in  London. Across all levels of the atmosphere, the model outperformed HRES on 90% of  weather predictions.

GraphCast predicted the state of 5 weather variables close to the Earth's surface, such as the air temperature 2-metres above the ground, and 6 atmospheric variables, such as wind speed, further from the Earth's surface.

It also proved useful in predicting severe weather events, such as the paths taken by tropical cyclones, and extreme heat and cold episodes, says Chantry. 

When they compared the forecasting ability of GraphCast with Pangu-weather, the DeepMind researchers found that their model beat 99% of weather predictions that had been described in a previous Huawei study. 

Chantry notes that although GraphCast's performance was superior to other models in this study, based on its evaluation by certain metrics, future assessments of its performance using other metrics could lead to slightly different results.

Training data

Rather than entirely replacing conventional approaches, machine-learning models, which are still experimental, could boost particular types of weather prediction that standard approaches aren't good at, says Chantry--such as forecasting rainfall that will hit the ground within a few hours.

"And standard physical models are still needed to provide the estimates of global weather that are initially used to train machine-learning models," says Chantry. "I anticipate it will be another two to five years before people can use forecasting from machine learning approaches to make decisions in the real-world," he adds.

In the meantime, problems with machine-learning approaches must be ironed out. Unlike NWP models, researchers cannot fully understand how AIs such as GraphCast work because the decision-making processes happen in AI's 'black box', says Grover. "This calls into question their reliability," she says.

AI models also run the risk of amplifying biases in their training data and require a lot of energy for training, although they consume less energy than NWP models, says Grover. [source]

Monday, November 10, 2025

Free the Gas Stoves: Trump's Energy Department Axes Dozens of Biden Appliance, Energy Regulations


From Free Beacon.com (May 12):

Gone are rules banning a wide swath of gas stoves. Gone are the strict water standards governing dishwashers and shower heads. And gone is the government-wide effort to force electrification of the economy through appliance regulations. It is all part of a historic action the Trump administration announced Monday, reversing dozens of energy regulations, saving consumers more than $11 billion, and cutting more than 125,000 words from the United States Code of Regulations.

As part of the Department of Energy's sweeping action unveiled Monday, it will rescind dozens of energy efficiency regulations targeting common household appliances that the Biden administration issued as part of its climate agenda. That includes rules restricting sales of certain types of gas-powered stoves and ovens in addition to microwaves, clothes washers, dishwashers, faucets, shower heads, and dehumidifiers.

"It should not be the government's place to decide what kind of appliances you or your restaurants or your businesses can buy," Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month. "Everybody wants clean air and wants to lower their energy costs and run their factories good as they can. The big hand of government doesn't actually help that process at all."

"We will look for every way we can to protect freedom of the American worker and pursue President Trump's agenda, get rid of the nonsense, bring back common sense, make life more affordable, and opportunities greater," he added, noting that previous crackdowns on gas-powered appliances were elitist and illogical.

The action is the latest blow the Trump administration has delivered to former president Joe Biden's climate legacy. It is also the latest sign that the current administration will prioritize an approach to energy efficiency, which Congress mandates the Department of Energy to promote through periodic rulemakings, that prioritizes consumer choice and free markets over greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Led by then-energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, the Biden administration issued dozens of appliance regulations and pushed a broader electrification strategy, pushing consumers to shift away from reliance on natural gas. Granholm remarked during a White House electrification summit in 2022 that the United States must "electrify and create efficiencies both within our homes and across the industrial sector."

When crafting such rules, Granholm regularly consulted environmental activist organizations, which were largely funded by progressive grantmaking nonprofits, such as the Bloomberg Family Foundation, the TomKat Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Schmidt Family Foundation.

"This is very good news for consumer freedom," Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Free Beacon. "We learned from the gas stove episode of 2023 that the American people don't want federal regulators dictating their choices, whether that's the kitchen, the laundry room, or whatever room has your water heater or furnace. They want to be able to decide for themselves."

"And this takes some important steps in that regard," Lieberman continued. "I think this also undoes a lot of climate-related appliance regulations that further take the decisions away from consumers and that pursue an environmental agenda."

In one of its most controversial appliance regulations, in February 2023, the Biden Department of Energy unveiled regulations that would have banned a large swath of cheaper, but less-efficient gas stoves currently on the market. The move sparked an immediate uproar and forced Granholm to admit she owned a gas stove. Granholm, however, still finalized the regulations and a slate of others following the episode.

In addition to reversing Biden-era appliance rules, the Department of Energy on Monday will also streamline regulations related to natural gas imports and exports, approvals for electric energy exports, and procedures for purchasing Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil stocks. It will also rescind regulations surrounding minority business loans, end requirements allowing men to play in women's sports, and delay compliance dates for the "clean energy federal building rule."

"While it would normally take years for the Department of Energy to remove just a handful of regulations, the Trump Administration assembled a team working around the clock to reduce costs and deliver results for the American people in just over 110 days," Wright said in a statement.

"Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are bringing back common sense—slashing regulations meant to appease Green New Deal fantasies, restrict consumer choice and increase costs for the American people. Promises made, promises kept." [source]

Not tired of the winning! 

More EPA news:

Wednesday, November 05, 2025

Vermont Utility Plans to End Outages by Giving Customers Batteries

From NY Times.com (Oct. 9, 2023):

Green Mountain Power is asking state regulators to let it buy batteries it will install at customers' homes, saying doing so will be cheaper than putting up more power lines.

Many electric utilities are putting up lots of new power lines as they rely more on renewable energy and try to make grids more resilient in bad weather. But a Vermont utility is proposing a very different approach: It wants to install batteries at most homes to make sure its customers never go without electricity.

The company, Green Mountain Power, proposed buying batteries, burying power lines and strengthening overhead cables in a filing with state regulators on Monday. It said its plan would be cheaper than building a lot of new lines and power plants.

The plan is a big departure from how U.S. utilities normally do business. Most of them make money by building and operating power lines that deliver electricity from natural gas power plants or wind and solar farms to homes and businesses. Green Mountain — a relatively small utility serving 270,000 homes and businesses — would still use that infrastructure but build less of it by investing in television-size batteries that homeowners usually buy on their own.

"Call us the un-utility," Mari McClure, Green Mountain's chief executive, said in an interview before the company's filing. "We're completely flipping the model, decentralizing it."

Like many places, Vermont has been hit hard this year by extreme weather linked to climate change. Half a dozen severe storms, including major floods in July, have caused power outages and damaged homes and other buildings.

Those calamities and concerns about the rising cost of electricity helped shape Green Mountain's proposal, Ms. McClure said. As the company ran the numbers, it realized that paying recovery costs and building more power lines to improve its system would cost a lot more and take a lot longer than equipping homes with batteries. [read more]

This is what happens when a state completely relies on green energy. Although, decentralizing the power grid isn’t too bad an idea especially if someone hacks the grid or natural disaster or even just break downs.

Wednesday, October 01, 2025

AI models frequently ‘hallucinate’ on legal queries, study finds

From The Hill.com (Jan. 11, 2024):

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) models frequently produce false legal information, with so-called “hallucinations” occurring between 69 percent to 88 percent of the time, according to a recent study.

Large language models (LLMs) — generative AI models, like ChatGPT, that are trained to understand and produce human language content — have previously been known to “hallucinate” and generate false information.

However, the “pervasive” nature of legal hallucinations raises “significant concerns” about the reliability of using LLMs in the field, the authors from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI and Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab noted in a blog post.

When asked direct, verifiable questions about federal court cases, the study found the model behind ChatGPT, GPT-3.5, hallucinated 69 percent of the time, while Google’s PaLM 2 gave incorrect answers 72 percent of the time and Meta’s Llama 2 offered false information 88 percent of the time.

The models performed worse when asked more complex legal questions, such as the core legal question or central holding of a case, or when asked about case law from lower courts, like district courts.

They also frequently failed to contradict false premises in legal queries and tended to overstate their confidence in their responses, the study found.

“Today, there is much excitement that LLMs will democratize access to justice by providing an easy and low-cost way for members of the public to obtain legal advice,” the authors wrote in the blog post published Thursday. “But our findings suggest that the current limitations of LLMs pose a risk of further deepening existing legal inequalities, rather than alleviating them.”

“Ideally, LLMs would excel at providing localized legal information, effectively correct users on misguided queries, and qualify their responses with appropriate levels of confidence,” they added. “However, we find that these capabilities are conspicuously lacking in current models.”

The consequences of such hallucinations have already been seen in the legal field. A federal judge sanctioned two lawyers in June after one used fake case citations that were generated by ChatGPT.

Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s ex-fixer and personal lawyer, also admitted last month to giving his attorney fake case citations after using Google Bard, which ran on PaLM 2 until recently.

In his annual year-end report, Chief Justice John Roberts warned about the potential drawbacks of using AI in the legal field, even as he suggested that the technology could significantly affect judicial work in the future.

“Any use of AI requires caution and humility,” he noted. “One of AI’s prominent applications made headlines this year for a shortcoming known as ‘hallucination,’ which caused the lawyers using the application to submit briefs with citations to non-existent cases. (Always a bad idea.).” [source]

88 percent is a big percentage of fake data. AI should only be used as a tool, not the final say especially concerning legal content.

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