Author: Papa Giorgio

“Ukraine’s Asymmetric War” (WSJ | Armstrong n Getty)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Armstrong and Getty read from the Wall Street Journal about Ukraine’s success in fighting a more tech-savvy war. Pretty interesting.

Here is the WSJ article, but unlocked:

Ukraine’s Asymmetric War — Moscow has more firepower, but Kyiv is using digital technology better.

Reports from Ukraine are filled with stories of Javelin antitank missiles and Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles taking out Russian tanks and armored vehicles. The Biden administration has announced $800 million in defensive weapons for Ukraine, including Javelins, Stinger antiaircraft weapons and Switchblade drones. More amazing is what Ukraine has also been doing on the cheap. And I don’t mean Molotov cocktails.

Wars are increasingly asymmetric—the lesser-armed side can put up a strong fight. The U.S. learned this in Iraq with insurgent use of improvised explosive devices, basically roadside bombs triggered with cellphones. Similarly, Ukraine has been deploying inexpensive, almost homemade weapons and using technology to its advantage.

The Times of London reports that Ukraine is using $2,000 commercial octocopter drones, modified with thermal imagers and antitank grenades, to find and attack Russian tanks hiding between homes in villages at night. Ukraine’s Aerorozvidka, its aerial reconnaissance team, has 50 squads of drone pilots who need solid internet connections to operate.

When the internet was cut in Syria in 2013, enterprising techies set up point-to-point Wi-Fi connections to bring internet access from across the border in Turkey. You can do this with Pringles potato-chip cans and $50 off-the-shelf Wi-Fi routers. Ukraine may be spared this ad hoc setup as

Elon Musk and his firm Starlink have donated thousands of satellite internet-access terminals to Ukraine, including to the Aerorozvidka squads, which come with warnings to camouflage the antennas. They typically cost $499 each and $99 a month for service.

Ukraine also effectively jammed Russia’s long-in-the-tooth wireless military-communication technology, which apparently uses a single-frequency channel to operate. Former Central Intelligence Agency Director

David Petraeus told CNN that Russians were then forced to use cellphones to communicate until Ukraine blocked the +7 country code for Russia and eventually took down 3G services that Russia uses for secure connections. Russian soldiers were forced to steal Ukrainian cellphones to communicate with one another. That’s no way to fight a war.

Ukraine also has taken advantage of crowdsourcing. The Journal told the story of Russian tanks that would fire on the city of Voznesensk and then back up a few hundred yards to avoid return fire. Civilians and Territorial Defense volunteers would then message the tanks’ new coordinates via the Viber social-messaging app.

The propaganda war is also being fought on the cheap, from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Zoom call with the U.S. Congress to Ukraine’s work spreading news inside Russia. The Russians have blocked Facebook and Twitter, independent media has been shut down, and on Russian television no one is allowed to say “invasion” or “war.” But no country can completely filter and firewall real news. The Telegram and WhatsApp messaging apps encrypt their communications. Ukraine has begun using facial recognition to identify killed and captured Russian soldiers, even contacting their families and posting their photos on Telegram channels. Twitter now is using a service to disguise its origin and restore service to Russian users.

Most surprisingly, after much hype and many warnings, Russian cyberwarfare has been deemed fairly ineffective. Hours before the invasion, someone, presumably the Russians, launched a Trojan.Killdisk attack, disk-wiping malware that hit Ukrainian government and financial system computers and took down Parliament’s website. Cyberattack tracking firm Netscout called the attack “modest.” A Ukrainian newspaper then released a file with details on 120,000 Russian soldiers, including names, addresses, phone and passport numbers. Where the information came from is unknown.

But we have a hint. Ukraine is filled with smart coders, and the government set up an “IT Army of Ukraine” Telegram channel to coordinate digital attacks on Russian military digital systems. As many as 400,000 have volunteered so far. An officer of the Ukraine State Service of Special Communications said they were engaged in “cyber-resistance.” This digital flash mob has taken down Russian websites, though I doubt we will ever fully know the damage it may have inflicted. This is definitely a social-network-influenced conflict.

In the fog of war, stories and disinformation swirl. Most are impossible to verify. I’ve heard of foreign volunteers swarming to Ukraine who then post photos on Instagram. Both Facebook and Instagram strip GPS location coordinates from smartphone photos, but they allow these volunteers to tag nearby locations, potentially giving away refugees’ hiding places. These could be targeted by Russian missiles and may have been the reason the Mariupol theater was destroyed.

New technology for use in commerce often emerges after the smoke of battle clears. World War I produced tanks, field radios and improved airplanes. World War II brought radar, penicillin, nuclear power, synthetic rubber, Jeeps and even duct tape. What we are seeing in Ukraine is the asymmetric power of pervasive inexpensive commercial technology, especially citizen-empowering social networks and crowdsourcing. So far these tools have been altering the war’s outcome. Welcome to 21st-century warfare.

As Russian invasion continues, Makariv may be small in size, but it has big strategic value as it blocks Russia’s armed forces from encircling Kyiv. Ukrainian volunteer fighters use drones in the area for reconnaissance that can be used by Ukrainian artillery units to strike back.

Footage out of Ukraine shows the impressive accuracy and timing of an air-to-ground anti personnel operation by means of a quadcopter dropping a small point-detonating explosive.

Media Induced Coma and Contradictions (Larry Elder)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This first article by Larry Elder highlights an example of the total ignorance [similar to “total depravity“] of the mainstream media [except there is no savior]:

…A recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times is not quite the same. But it’s close.

Here’s the headline: “The Vitriol in Politics Is Driving Good People Out of Public Service.” The editorial laments the decision by a Los Angeles City two-term councilman, who, after taking several constituent-displeasing positions, decided not to run for reelection. Those positions include voting against an ordinance to declare certain public streets and public areas off-limits to the homeless and voting to cut the city police budget and redirect the money for “youth programs.” What’s not to like in a city plagued by rising homelessness and homicides (up 50% since 2019)?

But the point here is not to attack or defend the councilman’s policy positions. The point is the hypocrisy of the Times in denouncing the “vitriol in politics” that supposedly drove him to decide against running for reelection.

Some nerve. This is a newspaper that hired columnist Erika D. Smith who, when I ran in the election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, wrote a column with the headline: “Larry Elder Is the Black Face of White Supremacy. You’ve Been Warned.” Smith wrote: “Like a lot of Black people, though, I’ve learned that it’s often best just to ignore people like Elder. People who are — as my dad used to say — ‘skinfolk’ but not necessarily kinfolk.” If that was too subtle, she called me a “Trump fanboy,” “dangerous” and a “troll,” adding: “His candidacy feels personal. Like an insult to Blackness.” The reaction from non-conservative media outlets … crickets. There is, please understand, but one way to be black — and that is left-wing.

In her column the following week, after many readers expressed their displeasure with her column, Smith wrote: “Casting what, for most Democrats, would be a protest vote against Newsom would put Elder in a position to become governor — and open the door to far-right thinking and white supremacist policies.” “White supremacist policies?”

The vitriol-in-politics-denouncing Los Angeles Times also hired as a columnist the equally charming Jean Guerrero, who, in an appearance on CNN, incredibly claimed: “(Elder has) refused to talk to non-partisan media outlets and to journalists who are critical of him, has refused to answer difficult questions. … But he has been able to reach the minority of voters in California who embrace his white supremacist worldview.”

[….]

There was certainly no denunciation by my interviewers of any “vitriol in politics,” a vitriol that now, claims the Times in its editorial, “is driving good people out of public service.”

Here is an example of the outcome of the voting patterns by such nonsense. Here Larry tells his story of a very recent conversation at a restaurant:

I arrived early for my dinner with a friend at a restaurant on the Westside of Los Angeles. At the table to my right sat two women. We started talking.

They had known each other since second grade, and one was celebrating her 85th birthday. One was a psychotherapist, the other a “human rights activist.” Both were Jewish. A few minutes into the conversation, one said: “Wait. I know who you are. You ran for governor.” After I confirmed her suspicion, she said, “Guess who I voted for.” I smiled. “You didn’t vote for me.” “How do you know?” she asked.

I said, “Let’s see. We’re at a restaurant in West LA. You’re Jewish and a psychotherapist. Your friend is a human rights activist. Read the clues. You’re both Democrats and no one could pay you to vote for a Republican.”

They acknowledged that they voted against the recall of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. I asked, “How do you feel about rising violent crime?” They both called the increase “outrageous,” and even criticized the soft-on-crime Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, currently facing his second recall attempt. A vote among his assistant district attorneys found that 98% of them wanted Gascon to resign.

“How do you feel about our homelessness problem?” I asked. The human rights activist responded, “If we provide housing and treatment — and there’s plenty of money for both — then I don’t understand why people are allowed to remain on the streets.” I said, “That was exactly my position during the campaign.”

“What about the quality of California’s K-12 government schools?” I continued: “Pre-pandemic, nearly 70% of black third graders could not read at state proficiency levels, with math scores not much better. Almost half of all third graders cannot read at state proficiency levels, with math scores about the same. Are you OK with that?” They both called it “a travesty.”

We turned to the governor’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown of business and of in-school education. They said they had been “double-vaxxed with a booster.” “So have I,” I said. “We’re in high-risk categories. But I don’t think the state should’ve been shut down when the risk for young and healthy people is low. Do you?” They agreed with me.

“So,” I said. “You agree with me on virtually every issue, yet you voted to retain Newsom.”

Before they could answer, I said, “I’ll tell you why. You … just … could … not … bring … yourself … to … pull … that … lever … for … a … Republican!”

They laughed and said, “I guess you’re right.”

In fact, a recent University of California, Berkeley, poll found that Californians rate Newsom underwater on 9 of 10 issues, including crime, education, jobs, homelessness, state budget, drought, wildfires, the economy and health care. His unfavorable number on homelessness is six times higher than his favorable number. The only positive for Newsom was “climate change,” where he stood one point above disapproval.

Overall, Newsom has a 48% job approval rating. It is tempting to suggest that were a vote held today, Newsom would lose. But during the recall his approval rating was only two points higher, and he survived recall with 62% of the vote.

The overwhelmingly Democratic and Democrat-leaning independent voters in California, like my restaurant companions, just … could … not … bring … themselves … to … vote … for … a … Republican — especially one who voted for former President Donald Trump.

The Illogical Thinking of An “Agnostic” (RIP Bugliosi)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted October 2011, the 2nd reposting was when Vincent Bugliosi died in June 2015. I am reposting this March of 2022 to update the media in the post.)

I am re-posting this because Vincent Bugliosi just passed away. He was a legend in his field who wrote many good books. But even smart people say DUMB things.

INCORRECTLY DEFINING AGNOSTICISM

I was surprised in listening to Vincent Bugliosi in an interview about his book, Divinity of Doubt: The God Question. Surprised because considering his book on debunking pretty much every JFK conspiracy known to man, I would expect him to realize his fundamental mistake that taints his whole view.

So when I heard Mr. Bugliosi quote Gertrude Stein as part of his definition of agnosticism…..

“There ain’t no answer.
There ain’t gonna be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
There’s your answer.”

…. I immediately knew he was a second rate skeptic churning every old cliché over again for a new generation.

PROPERLY DEFINING “SOFT” & “HARD” AGNOSICISM

So here we should define for the layman what an agnostic is and why some say that there are two kinds… one being indistinguishable from an atheist.

✓ Atheism: The belief that there is no God. This is typically the conviction that there is no personal Creator of the universe, and no powerful, incorporeal, perfect being in heaven or anywhere else.

✓ Agnosticism: The state of not-knowing whether there is a God or not. The humble agnostic says that he doesn’t know whether there is a God. The less humble agnostic says that you don’t, either. The least humble agnostic thinks that we can’t ever really know.

Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1999), 238.

Okay, most philosophy texts and dictionaries will at times make this distinction. Again, that there are two types of agnostics. A soft agnostic says: “I do not know. You may. Therefore I may want to dialogue because you may have information I do not.” A hard agnostic says: “I do not know, and neither can you.”

But what about what Vincent Bugliosi said about the impossibility of knowing?

Does he know this possibility?

Let me show how his position is self refuting, incoherent, and illogical. This comes from my “chapter” via my “book” on Reincarnation vs. the Laws of Logic (references at linked chapter):

….To begin, pantheists claim that God is unknowable because it [God] is above and beyond human logic. In other words, we are told that we cannot intellectually comprehend God because he is beyond all understanding. However, this is nonsensical and self-defeating statement. Why? “Because the very act of claiming that God is beyond logic is a logical statement about God.” Also, to say that we cannot know or comprehend God, as do the agnostics, is to say that we know God. How? I will answer this with a response to agnostic claims by the associate professor of philosophy and government at the University of Texas at Austin:

To say that we cannot know anything about God is to say something about God; it is to say that if there is a God, he is unknowable. But in that case, he is not entirely unknowable, for the agnostic certainly thinks that we can know one thing about him: That nothing else can be known about him. Unfortunately, the position that we can know exactly one thing about God – his unknowability in all respects except this – is equally unsupportable, for why should this one thing be an exception? How could we know that any possible God would be of such a nature that nothing else could be known about him? On what basis could we rule out his knowability in all other respects but this one? The very attempt to justify the claim confutes it, for the agnostic would have to know a great many things about God in order to know he that couldn’t know anything else about him.

Although not the time nor place to explain the law of non-contradiction, for those who do not know, a brief perusal may be warranted. The law of non-contradiction is simply this: “‘A’ cannot be both ‘non-A’ and ‘A’ at the same time.” In the words of Professor J. P. Moreland:

When a statement fails to satisfy itself (i.e., to conform to its own criteria of validity or acceptability), it is self-refuting…. Consider some examples. “I cannot say a word in English” is self-refuting when uttered in English. “I do not exist” is self-refuting, for one must exist to utter it. The claim “there are no truths” is self-refuting. If it is false, then it is false. But is it is true, then it is false as well, for in that case there would be no truths, including the statement itself.

You see, Mr. Bugliosi is denying that you know, which means he REALLY KNOWS… which is self defeating.

You can see in this mock conversation how this woks out:

Teacher: “Welcome, students. This is the first day of class, and so I want to lay down some ground rules. First, since no one person has the truth, you should be open-minded to the opinions of your fellow students. Second… Elizabeth, do you have a question?”

Elizabeth: “Yes I do. If nobody has the truth, isn’t that a good reason for me not to listen to my fellow students? After all, if nobody has the truth, why should I waste my time listening to other people and their opinions? What’s the point? Only if somebody has the truth does it make sense to be open-minded. Don’t you agree?”

Teacher: “No, I don’t. Are you claiming to know the truth? Isn’t that a bit arrogant and dogmatic?”

Elizabeth: “Not at all. Rather I think it’s dogmatic, as well as arrogant, to assert that no single person on earth knows the truth. After all, have you met every single person in the world and quizzed them exhaustively? If not, how can you make such a claim? Also, I believe it is actually the opposite of arrogance to say that I will alter my opinions to fit the truth whenever and wherever I find it. And if I happen to think that I have good reason to believe I do know truth and would like to share it with you, why wouldn’t you listen to me? Why would you automatically discredit my opinion before it is even uttered? I thought we were supposed to listen to everyone’s opinion.”

Teacher: “This should prove to be an interesting semester.”

Another Student: “(blurts out) Ain’t that the truth.” (Students laugh)

Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Book House; 1998), p. 74.

Do you see? After listening to Bugliosi himself do you understand where he went wrong? If you are a person who thinks like Bugliosi, may I posit that you are just as dogmatic as the most dogmatic atheist.

BONUS: RELATIVISM

Helicopters Used Like Multiple Launch Rocket Systems?

Published by Papa Giorgio

(FUNKER350 TAKES A SHOT AT TRYING TO DESCRIBE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE)

This is a weird one, and definitely not something I’ve seen before. This video was recorded in the city of Popasna and it shows a mixed section of Russian attack helicopters doing something a little weird. The first helicopter, what appears to be a KA-52, comes in low and fast, then tilts his nose upwards and randomly expends his entire rocket pod. The second helicopter, what looks like an Mi-28N, follows suit with the same fire mission, but does so from a little deeper. This angling the nose up bit to expend your rocket pod is not something I’m personally familiar with, so if anyone does recognize this technique before I theorize go ahead and hit the comments.

Here’s my theory. What goes up, must come down. When it’s a rocket, the point of impact is still going to be explosive, same with a MK-19. When you have two known factors, you can eyeball in a range to your target and use just about any weapon system as an indirect fire one. Did the pilots do some quick math here based off of the maximum range of their rockets and just turn their aircraft into flying MLRS platforms? Or, maybe they needed to expend all rockets before returning to base?

Seriously, this one is vexing me. Someone give me a hand. Am dumb grunt. No understand pilot things.

Cartoonist Steve Kelley Captures The Media Bias In One Frame

Published by Papa Giorgio

For many, many years I have enjoyed political cartoons. I have noted that these artists can capture an entire paragraph of explanation in one panel. I am working on some cartoons to upload today elsewhere on the “interweb” and I came across this by Steve Kelley cartoon — it is one of the best examples I can think of to capture this idea of how well a single panel of art captures months of stories [truths].

In this case the Gray Lady [all MSM really] being the mainstay of the professional political Left… the “informed” “science” believing individual whirling around the Hunter Biden laptop story, how the Gray Lady [CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Facebook, “blue check” Twitter heads, etc, etc] pushed this was a Russian propaganda operation. Of course AFTER the election they finally admit this was a legit story. All the while the regular Joe Blo [middle class] following the truthfulness of the NYPs story and the “elites” or the Lemmings that follow the NYTs saying the opposite. Oh how the tables have turned. This was an unfolding story since October 2020. all captured in one frame.

City Council Shenanigans in Plano Texas (Seriously Funny)

Published by Papa Giorgio

The other day I posted this on Religio-Political Talk’s Facebook Page:

QUESTION: If this guy is a Republican with a “Biden” shirt, he is hilarious. If he is a Democrat, he is a douche

My wife voted douche, another friend noted the following (to the right… click to enlarge).

So, as I was catching up with some Tucker Carlson media over the weekend, I came across this interview (no, THIS IS NOT THE GUY).

This all leads to WHO THAT GUY IS though….

But this led me to find a particular video shown in Tucker’s montage. And the Channel that uploaded it used varying views and messed with the sound a bit to create this [as seamless as you can get] video of Alex Stein:

How does this tie in to my original query? Because out of habit I just go to the person’s “videos” if I thumbs up or like their video… and lo-and-behold — Alex Stein influenced another guy to play a roll[s] in front of the same city council… the guy in the original video. Here is another character played. Yes, Brian Wellington followed “Prime time # 99 Alex Stein,” what a City Council meeting this must have been. Here are some comments from LOOPER GAMING’S upload:

  • This after 99 must’ve been the most hilarious of city council meetings. I’ve been to a lot of such meetings but NOTHING like THIS was going on. ???.
  • Lol and they just sat there ??

 

RBG Considered “Right Wing”? (BONUS: Cartoons)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Ben Shapiro NOTES in his dealing with the below responses that if a 2-year old can answer the question, a Supreme Court nominee should be able to as well. To Wit, Justice Ginsburg is now considered “patriarchal” — my inference, but closer to the truth than this SCOTUS nominee:

Gwendolyn Sims writes for PJ-MEDIA and notes what this really is. And much like Adam Carolla’s point, it is a power play:

…..With their relentless attack on gender, the left is denying reality as author George Orwell described through the characters in his novel,1984: “Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.” It would therefore be heresy for Jackson to incorrectly define “woman” according to the radical left’s pre-approved definition (whatever that happens to be this week). While defining “woman” may on the surface seem commonsensical, it’s actually instrumental to the left’s ideology. “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing,” wrote Orwell. If the left can force us to invalidate commonsense reality and replace it with their own, they can also hold all the power.

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four,” Orwell wrote. “If that is granted, all else follows.” In other words, the left can’t allow ‘woman’ to be defined by the right as anything objective or provable. It must remain vague and subjective so that it can be defined in whatever malleable way benefits the left’s ideology and power. Or, as the Party in Orwell’s book put it, “You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”…..

I thought this was a good Tweet by Obianuju Ekeocha that makes a salient point, which is the patriarch has been right this entire time. Men ARE better at everything…. although Miss Ekeocha didn’t express it in those terms. That is my interpretation:

Maybe the #MeeToo movement should be the #MeWho movement. A phrase that came out of that movement is this: “Believe Women”

  • What is a woman? — Biden’s SCOTUS pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Or how bout this trope?

  • “Women make 73 cents for every man’s dollar.”

So again the question is,

  • What is a woman? — Biden’s SCOTUS pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

How about this: “women remain underrepresented in CEO positions.” You get the point.

FUNNIES



















Tucker: What is a Woman?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Fox News host gives his take on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson not defining what a woman is on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’

Maybe the #MeeToo movement should be the #MeWho movement. A phrase that came out of that movement is this: “Believe Women”

  • What is a woman? — Biden’s SCOTUS pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Or how bout this trope?

  • “Women make 73 cents for every man’s dollar.”

So again the question is,

  • What is a woman? — Biden’s SCOTUS pick, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

How about this: “women remain underrepresented in CEO positions.” You get the point.

BONUS:

Fox News host gives his take on the the confirmation hearings of Ketanji Brown Jackson on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’

Trudeau Gets Called A Dictator In Front Of The Entire EU

Published by Papa Giorgio

THE COUNTER SIGNAL (see also TRUE NORTH) has this delightful update on Trudeau…. and yes, when Mislav Kolakusic is looking back, he is looking directly at Trudeau:

On March 23, PM Justin Trudeau was called a dictator in front of the entire European Union over his response to the Freedom Convoy.

Addressing both the European Parliament and Trudeau specifically, Member of the European Parliament Mislav Kolakusic proceeded to deliver Trudeau perhaps the most humiliating international thrashing of his political career.

“Freedom, the right to choose, the right to life, the right to health, the right to work for many of us are fundamental human rights for which millions of citizens of Europe and the world have laid down their lives,” Kolakusic began.

“…. Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months. We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine, that they can’t pay utilities, mortgages for their homes.”

“To you,” he continues, speaking to Trudeau, “these may be liberal methods; for many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind. Rest assured that the citizens of the world, united, can stop any regime that wants to destroy the freedom of citizens, either by bombs or harmful pharmaceutical products.”

Kolakusic, having once lived under a Communist regime in Croatia, is more than likely only too familiar with authoritarian regimes, their consequences, and the grievances of everyday citizens. And like many who have survived Communist dictatorships, it is apparent that he shares the disdain over Trudeau’s use of Emergency Powers to target peaceful protesters who only wanted their rights back.

And indeed, Kolakusic isn’t the only MEP to suggest Trudeau is acting like a dictator.

“[Trudeau’s] exactly like a tyrant, like a dictator. He’s like Ceaușescu in Romania,” said Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes last month.

(READ AND WATCH THE REST)

Another story that is related via THE COUNTER SIGNAL (a Canadian freedom blog) is one that entails the “Liberals” (the moniker sounds nice, but it has nothing ta do with classical liberalism) which starts out is a startling way by noting: “During a government-run event, the Liberals discussed using digital ID to hunt down the unvaccinated to get their shots in a future pandemic.”

Wow!

I think this falls under an “Eschatology Watch” banner.

Marie Antoinette Democrats: Let Them Drive EVs

Published by Papa Giorgio

(WESTERN JOURNAL HAS MORE)

This was floating around Facebook, But I wanted to get something a tiny bit more substantial than FB. To wit: THE VERMONT DAILY CHRONICLE:

Tesla said it best in referring to batteries as an Energy Storage System. They do NOT make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an electric vehicle (EV) is a zero-emission vehicle…not. Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are in fact coal-powered…let that sink in.

Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.

There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single use. The most common single use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals. Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium. The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, they will continue to leak like the ooze in a ruined flashlight. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.

In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about these is that ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones properly.

But that is not the half of it. For those excited about EV, a closer look at batteries along with windmills and solar panels is highly recommended. These three technologies share environmentally destructive embedded costs.

Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it: embedded costs and operating costs. Embedded costs are those that happen before point of sale such as fuel costs, equipment, labor, transportation, etc. For example, a typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. 

Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells. This should concern you. All those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. 

All told, it would take 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just one battery. Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material.

Despite the fact California is the only state which requires batteries be recycled, they are building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco which they intend to power from solar panels and windmills. This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. 

The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride which are highly toxic. Also, silicone dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.

Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weigh 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last only 15 to 20 years. The used blades cannot be recycled. And sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.

There may be a place for these technologies, but looking beyond the myth of zero emissions, it is predicted EVs, solar panels and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become more apparent. 

This is always a favorite of mine… and remember, I have a rather large post detailing ARE ELECTRIC CARS “CLEAN”?.

A Previous Post

Vice President Joe Biden aims to be the most progressive president on the issue of climate change. The man who spent most of 2020 hiding in the basement believes the future of energy is renewable energy like wind and solar. Biden should go back to the basement, watch Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans,” and rethink his advocacy for renewable energy. Wind and solar are not the answer, and the idea of converting our fossil fuel-based economy into renewables could be a devastating take-down to society.

Remember when Google joined the common sense era?

We came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

[…..]

“Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.”

Google Joins the Common Sense Crew On Renewable Energies ~ Finally! (RPT)

  • What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change: Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will? (SPETRUM)
  • Shocker: Top Google Engineers Say Renewable Energy ‘Simply won’t work’ (WATTS UP WITH THAT)
  • Polluting the Beauty and Cleanliness Of Our World With Renewable Energy (RPT)
  • Wind and Solar More Harmful To Environment Than Helpful (RPT)

Trevor Noah & Other Begin to Realize Lockdowns Are Nuts

Published by Papa Giorgio

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton react to an increasingly more common theme in recent weeks: left-wing comedians sounding more and more like Clay and Buck themselves. Trevor Noah is the latest person to comment on how truly dumb the Kyrie Irving situation is in the NBA. (BREITBART and NEW YORK POST has more on the story)