Liquid Light

 

Mainstream Media is a Threat to Democracy

More than half of all registered voters see the mainstream media as a threat to American democracy, according to a new poll.

A New York Times-Siena College poll published Tuesday found 59 percent of voters view the media as a “major threat to democracy,” while 25 percent said the press is a “minor threat” and only 15 percent said it poses no threat.

The divide fell sharply along partisan lines, with 87 percent of voters who supported former President Trump in 2020 indicating they view the media is a major threat, while 33 percent of Biden voters during that election cycle said the same thing.  READ MORE...

OOZE

Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Program

A group of Wisconsin taxpayers on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to block the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program while an appeal plays out in a lower court.

The emergency request, filed to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who handles emergency matters arising from Wisconsin, comes shortly after the administration began accepting applications for the program.

The challengers, the Brown County Taxpayers Association, urged the court to rule that the president’s nationwide debt cancellation plan illegally encroaches on Congress’ exclusive spending power.

“The assault on our separation of powers — and upon the principle that the spending power is vested solely in Congress — is extraordinary, and perhaps unprecedented,” they wrote in court papers. “We are witnessing a gargantuan increase in the national debt accomplished by a complete disregard for limitations on the constitutional spending authority.”

President Biden announced in August that his administration planned to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt for those making under $125,000 annually and $20,000 for recipients of Pell grants, which assists students from lower-income families.  READ MORE...

Egypt

 

An Aussie Card Trick

 

Cancer Vaccine by 2030

Vaccines that treat cancer could be accessible to patients as early as the next decade, say the BioNTech developers.

While scientists are tentative about using the term "cure", the cancer vaccine in progress may have the potential to significantly treat and fight cancer cells.

Professor Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci (Above), have found new "breakthroughs" in treating cancer cells, which they attribute to their earlier work on the COVID vaccine.

The duo previously worked together to pioneer cancer immunotherapies tailored to individual patients, having co-founded BioNTech together in Mainz, Germany, in 2008.

The husband-and-wife team, who successfully developed theche Pfizer vaccine, have said their progress during the pandemic on the use of mRNA technology "gives back to our cancer work".  READ MORE...

Rotating Square

Wind Turbines A Reality Soon

CNN — The Department of Interior on Tuesday announced it will hold a lease sale for wind energy off the coast of Central and Northern California, bringing the Biden administration’s dream of a massive West Coast wind farm one step closer to reality.

The Pacific has enormous potential to generate wind energy, Biden administration officials told reporters in a call last month, and this yet-untapped potential is a major part of President Joe Biden’s clean energy goals. 

Floating offshore wind turbines could unlock up to 2.8 terawatts of clean energy in the future – more than double the country’s current electricity demand, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm estimated during the September call.

The department will open five lease areas for companies to bid on near Morro Bay and Humboldt County on December 6. The space that will be offered is more than 373,000 acres, which Interior said could produce over 4.5 gigawatts of energy when fully developed – enough to power more than 1.5 million homes.  READ MORE...

Changing Colors

Wildfires Wipe Out 20 Years of Greenhouse Emissions Reductions

California's catastrophic wildfires in 2020 put twice as much greenhouse gas emissions into the air as the state's reductions in those same gases over nearly 20 years – erasing gains going back to 2003, according to a new study.

It's part of a positive feedback loop that's very negative, say the researchers.

"Climate change is creating conditions conducive to larger wildfires. And the wildfires are adding to the greenhouse gases that cause climate change," said lead author Michael Jerrett, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The historic megafires of 2020 released an estimated 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air. That compares to the 65 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions California was able to reduce between 2003 and 2019, the study, published in this month's edition of the journal Environmental Pollution, showed.  READ MORE...

Bird Cooling Off

 

Going Green Versus Petroleum Crude Oil

 

If you are wondering whether or not to buy an electric vehicle regardless of the EV being new or used, my suggestion is that you should wait until after the midterms in just a few weeks.

Because of INFLATION, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, CRIME, VIOLENCE, and CRT TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, the Democrats will lose control of both the House and Senate and when that happens, things are going to change big time in this country.

The price of gasoline is not high because of Russia invading Ukraine or OPEC reducing the production of oil by 2 million barrels or Oil Companies gouging prices...   it is because Biden in his first day in office, stopped the XL Pipeline and began to wage war on the Oil/Gas industries...

Before Biden did that, the USA was energy independent and it did not matter what Russia, China, or OPEC did or didn't do...

The MIDTERMS will change all that and we will go back to the way it was...  that is not to say that the United States is NOT GOING GREEN...  because it is...  it is just not going green as fast as the LIBERALS want us to go green...  and the conservatives will slow the process down so that it does not hurt our economy.

Change needs to happen gradually over time...  it is not that people don't like change, they don't like being changed, and going green is going to substantially change people and the way we live and do business.

People with anykind of common sense should be able to see that right away.

The vast majority of Americans cannot afford new electric vehicles and many can still not afford used electric vehicles...  so what what are those people supposed to do just SUCK IT UP?

We need thousands and thousands of charging stations...  We are not even close to that amount...   Can you imagine driving an EV on vacation and having the wait on the highway 6 or more hours for an available charging station to become available?

Are there sufficient power stations to handle the power consumption if everyone owned an electric vehicle. I would suspect that our power grids are no where near having those kinds of capacities.

What about storms that knock out the power grid?  What do people do then?

Maybe we should stay with hybrids for a decade or so to see how EVs play out in all scenarios rather than just jumping into this situation 100%...

This is the difference between liberals and conservatives...  conservatives want to move slow, consistent, and thorough...  and believe me you will one day appreciate that kind of a strategy...

W T F

 

OPEC Backs Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman speaks during a press conference after the 45th Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee and the 33rd OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Oct. 5, 2022. - VLADIMIR SIMICEK/AFP via Getty Images

October 17, 2022
Several Middle Eastern member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) issued statements yesterday defending their recent decision to cut oil production. The United Arab Emirates' energy minister said that the move was not motivated by politics.

“I would like to clarify that the latest OPEC+ decision, which was unanimously approved, was a pure technical decision, with NO political intentions whatsoever,” tweeted Suhail Mohamed AlMazrouei.

Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing Oil also released a statement reading that OPEC+ decisions are “based on economic indicators.”  READ MORE...

The Ghost

Saudi Prince Sends Threat to the West

A Saudi prince related to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's seemingly took aim at President Biden and the U.S., warning leaders not to threaten Saudi Arabia.

"Anybody that challenges the existence of this country and this kingdom. All of us, we are products of jihad, and martyrdom," 

Saudi Prince Saud al-Shaalan, who is married to one of the grandaughter's of the late King Abdulaziz Al Saud, said in a video that was posted to Twitter Saturday. 

"That's my message to anybody that thinks that it can threaten us."    READ MORE...

Colored Movement

 

Electric Vehicles are Still Too Expensive

Robyn Everist bought her second-hand electric car when the prices got "a bit more reasonable".(ABC News: Maren Preuss)




When Robyn Everist saw the petrol prices skyrocketing she knew it was time to put a long-laid plan to purchase an electrical vehicle into action.

A few months later, she and her husband couldn't be happier.

"We've been waiting for the prices to get a bit more reasonable," Ms Everist said, with her selection of a second-hand Nissan Leaf setting her back about $30,000 when all the costs are tallied up.

"We had an initial look and said 'yes we'll do that', but didn't seriously go car hunting until the petrol price went up.


"We drive to town every day for work and there was no way I was going to pay petrol money if I could just as easily get an electric car that's more efficient."


Ms Everist and her husband live at Clifton Beach, about 30 minutes from Hobart's CBD in Tasmania, but work in the city — making for a round trip of around 70 kilometres every day.  READ MORE...

Slinky

 

Mountain Lake

 

Inflation Wipes Out Retirement Savings

Inflation has taken an average of 25 percent - at least $2.1trillion - off the 401Ks of American workers, despite President Joe Biden's insistence Sunday that the 'economy is strong as hell.'

The analysis was done by conservative economists Stephen Moore and EJ Antoni, who said that the balance of Americans' 401ks will 'ruin your whole day, week and month.'

Moore and Antoni note that inflation has been going at 8 percent for the past seven months, despite the White House claiming things were temporary.  READ MORE...

Cat Attack

Companies Charging Employees for Training if they Quit

Training employees is an expensive proposition. A 2016 Training Benchmarking Study found that for large companies (10,000+ employees), annual training budgets are about $13 million. 

Mid-sized employers (1,000+) budget about $3 million and small companies spend about $290,000. And that doesn’t factor in the hidden costs of training: time taken away from job duties, equipment and more.

For many companies looking to develop staff and upskill in response to talent gaps, the investment in learning can be significant. 

When a company invests in employee training, what happens if they quit before the employer sees any benefit from the training? Are companies allowed to recover the investment they made?  READ MORE...

Falling Leaves

Kanye West Wants to Buy Parler

Kanye West has entered into a deal to buy Parler, a social media site that bills itself as a "free speech platform," the company said Monday.

Parlement Technologies announced the news via a press release, saying that the deal would help create "an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome."

Quoted in the press release, West said: "In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves."

Parlement Technologies CEO, George Farmer, said the company would be "honored to help him achieve his goals."  READ MORE...

Man Child Vehicle

 

Just like LYING, Everyone CHEATS

 

I saw a news segment several days ago about these two fishermen who put lead balls in the fish they caught to make them weigh more...  this is called CHEATING and in some shape form or fashion, everyone cheats from a little to a lot.

However, most cheats are not as stupid as these two fishermen, whose fish should not have weighed  more than 3/4 pounds but instead weighed over 8 pounds.

I knew a business student who was in competition with other teams and took some papers that were left on the desk during lunch.  This student read those papers, put them back and then won the game because his team now knew the strategy of their closest competition.

This same student wrote an article for the school newspaper justifying cheating in the business world if it gave a country a strategic advantage over another country.

Interestingly, this is exactly what China has been doing to the USA for the last 40 or so years ever since the death of Mao Zedong when they started stealing intellectural property from American businesses.  I wonder if they read this student's article?

This business student CHEATED and China has CHEATED...

Wealthy individuals and families CHEAT the legal system in the USA because they can and because their wealth can destroy you if you try and challenge them.

Husbands cheat on wives and wives cheat on husbands and more often than not both attend Church on Sundays...  except when on vacation.

The average American tries to cheat the IRS out of taxes the s/he might owe the government...  and not just by sheltering the money in the Grand Caymans but by not reporting the money.

And, the biggest cheaters of all are all the interstate drivers that that say HELL NO to following the speed limits.  Who do they think they are cheating...  the cops?

Lying and Cheating is what AMERICANS Do these days and they do it very well.

Clever People

 

Home Depot Attacks Biden Economics

Home Depot co-founder and billionaire businessman Bernie Marcus isn't sure he would be able to create the home improvement chain today if he tried given onerous regulations on small businesses and a challenging economic backdrop.

"I don't think so," Marcus — a well-known proponent of free market capitalism and small businesses — said on a new edition of Yahoo Finance Presents. "I think if we had the regulations that we have today, Home Depot would be a chain of 12 stores. I just don't think we could have grown."

Marcus also had some choice words for politicians, the Biden administration, and notably the occupier of the Oval Office.

"Most of the people in Washington never ran a business," added Marcus, who is also the new author of Kick Up Some Dust: Lessons on Thinking Big, Giving Back, and Doing It Yourself. "You have a president that never worked a day in his life — never worked a day in his life. What the hell does he know about economics? But he sure spouts about it a lot."  READ MORE...