RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/03/22/grid-draining-electron-guzzlers-and-the-end-of-driving/

In perfect Democratic Party form, the Biden administration has dropped another government burden on the private sector. Two days ago, the White House rolled out “the toughest-ever” automobile emissions standards. The objective, of course, is to force Americans to buy the cars that the ruling class wants them to drive. There’s a big problem here, though – the grid won’t be up to the task of keeping tens of millions of electric vehicles charged.

The headline from a Bloomberg story last week summed up the plan: “​​Biden Set to Crack Down on Auto Emissions to Accelerate EV Sales.”

Rules decreed by the Environmental Protection Agency are intended to “propel electric vehicle sales well beyond current levels,” says Bloomberg. “The EPA has projected that to meet proposed mandates, electric models would need to make up roughly two-thirds of car and light truck sales in 2032 — up from less than a tenth last year.”

This is no noble effort to prevent a climate catastrophe. Democrats, eco-activists and the thoroughly compromised media continually argue that we have to move to EVs to save the sky, but the federal rules and state mandates they propose and issue are part of a larger plan to drive Americans out of cars and into public transit, which is failing across the country.

There are a number of problems with the march to EV-topia. They’re not zero-emission vehicles, they’re an extravagant purchase, costly to repair, expensive to insure, hazardous to own, and they create a new class of hazmat problems.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-3-18-the-greatest-scientific-fraud-of-all-time-part-xxxii-sea-level-rise-edition

The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud by which government functionaries alter data collected and previously reported in official data bases in order to support a narrative of impending catastrophic global warming. No other scientific fraud in world history comes close to this one in scope or significance. While prior frauds may have scored a crooked scientist some funding or maybe some temporary fame, this one drives trillions of dollars of worldwide government spending and seeks to transform the entire world economy. The prior 31 posts in this series are all collected for your reading enjoyment at this link. (They are in groups of six posts each, beginning with the most recent. After each six, you must go to the bottom and click the “NEXT” button to get the next six posts.)

Those prior 31 posts have all concerned alteration of one particular sort of data, namely temperature records. The posts document how, at station after station, previously-reported data have been altered to make earlier temperatures cooler and later ones warmer, and thus to show an enhanced warming trend (or in many cases to replace a cooling trend with a warming trend). The altered temperatures then form the basis for hockey-stick shaped charts of world temperatures, showing rapid recent warming, and for claims from NASA and NOAA and the media that the most recent year or month was the “warmest ever.”

But why should we really care that the earth’s atmosphere is getting a little warmer? The UN has supposedly set some kind of Maginot Line at a 1.5 deg C temperature increase from 20th century levels — an amount so small that you can barely feel it when it occurs each day. The 1.5 deg mark is just not that all that scary. So the bureaucrats and leftists need a Plan B to scare the bejeezus out of the people. Plan B is sea level rise.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/08/lesson-america-green-policies-crush-german-economy/

Germany’s gross domestic product has been falling since the third quarter of 2022, causing fears of the first 2-yearlong recession since the early 2000s. German farmers are openly protesting new climate regulations that would raise the price of diesel fuel, vital for tractors and farm machinery. This discontent is mirrored by the general public, which is opposed to higher energy costs that drag down the economy. Recent polls show a significant shift in public opinion that’s increasingly opposed to the coalition government.

Unlike the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate, where invariably one party secures a ruling majority, multiple German parties must form a coalition to reach the required 50%+1 majority threshold.

Currently, the Green Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Free Democratic Party comprise this coalition. The latest polls show all these parties polling far below their 2021 election results while the more right-leaning parties, such as the Christian Democratic Union and the Alternative for Germany, are surging in popularity.

The recent economic slowdown has resulted in widespread political discontent, and the core of the slowdown has been disastrous energy policy.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2024/03/unlike-warmists-numbers-dont-lie/

There is no ‘climate emergency’, just a man-made political weapon used to scare and indoctrinate children, pollute the minds of the ill-informed and gullible and allow politicians and aspiring social engineers to pursue their not-so-hidden agendas. A new study charting CO2 level and Sydney temperatures makes the case.

A new study, conducted by lead author Ian McNaughton, formerly senior scientist at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and John McRobert seeks to ascertain whether there is a meaningful relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations and global temperatures. The study, Temperature Measurements versus Population Growth & Carbon Dioxide Concentrations, completed in December 2023, examines the contentious claim, often made by climate change scientists, that the increase in temperatures of Planet Earth is determined by the increasing levels of carbon dioxide concentrations and other “green-house” gases.  

Controversy involving climate change continues to be widespread throughout the world.  There is no argument that the world’s climate is changing – always has, always will. The controversy centres on whether Carbon Dioxide (CO2) generated – actually recycled – by human activity is the cause of a more rapid change in climate that would not have occurred without the presence of humans, notably since  the Industrial Revolution commencing in the late 1700s.

For decades, the scientific debate about the threat of rising global temperatures from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has depended on estimation, the use of anomalies rather than actual and complex computer modelling of key variables.  The complexity of these calculations and reliability of the result are seen in the widely variable (and always above actual outcomes) predictive models.  The rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and rising surface temperatures as used by these calculations indicate a strong positive correlation, and modelling extrapolation of this relationship into the future shows alarming, exaggerated increases in global temperatures leading to widespread concern about ‘global warming’. Not unexpectedly, this has created a demand by the public for urgent action by governments to significantly reduce the concentration of atmospheric CO2 at a global level.

https://pjmedia.com/john-stossel/2024/03/06/the-renewable-scam-n4927051

“We’re building a clean energy future,” says President Joe Biden.

Who is “we”? 

Well, you pay for it.

He and his “green” cronies do most of the building. 

Lately, they’re pouring more of your money into “renewable energy.” They promise to give us “carbon-free power” from the sun and wind.

My new video illustrates some problems with that, using scenes from a new documentary series called “Juice: Power, Politics and the Grid.” 

Political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. notes, “It’s quite intuitive for people to understand that there’s a lot of power in solar energy. We feel the wind. The idea that you can get something for nothing, people find enormously appealing.”

Especially in California, where politicians now require all new homes to have solar panels, all new cars sold in 2035 to be zero-emission, and all the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free resources by 2045.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/defacing-the-constitution-should-land-you-in-prison/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=

Among this past week’s brainless and woke happenings (but I repeat myself), one event in particular stuck out. Two “climate activists” decided that desecrating the nation’s most sacred document, the U.S. Constitution, was the best way to garner support for their cause.

These two men — who look like malnourished vegans paying out-of-pocket for a Ph.D. in Peace Studies — dumped reddish-pink powder over themselves and the Constitution’s display case on Wednesday afternoon.

Why the reddish-pink powder? Who knows. (It probably symbolizes the blood of an endangered wombat, or something.) What is certain, however, is that the particulate substance has been hard to remove.

Subsequent analysis revealed that the powder dumped on the case was a mixture of pigment powder and cornstarch. The resulting substance was so fine that an industrial vacuum could hardly pick it up, nor could the powdered pigment be cleaned with water because it would just turn into paint.

While none of the substance penetrated the bulletproof case, the stunt still proved a headache for the Archives staff to clean and forced the National Archives to stay closed for days — a major letdown for all of the families visiting the capital with the express purpose of making a pilgrimage to the text’s temple.

The pasty duo enacted their stunt unhindered by the “security guards” at the National Archives. Nearly four minutes passed before the clods were stopped.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/13/our-crazy-cousins-north-of-the-border/

If there ever were a sign that Canada has gone cuckoo, it has to be a bill introduced in Parliament that would censor speech about fossil fuel. No, we’re not joking, though we hope the bill’s author is. We fear, however, he isn’t.

One Charlie Angus, a New Democratic Party member of the House of Commons from Timmins–James Bay in Ontario, has brought before that chamber Bill C-372. It clearly states that “it is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel except as authorized by the provisions of this Act or of the regulations.”

Under the legislation, it is further “prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel or the production of a fossil fuel … i​​n a manner that states or suggests that a fossil fuel or the practices of a producer or of the fossil fuel industry would lead to positive outcomes in relation to the environment, the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples or the Canadian or global economy; or … by using terms, expressions, logos, symbols or illustrations that are prohibited by the regulations.”

Does “nuts” adequately describe the thinking behind this bill? It is most certainly outrageous.

If we read the Canadian version of English correctly, merely pointing out the indisputable fact that civilization would break down without fossil fuels would be a lawbreaking offense. So would arguing that vehicles with internal combustion engines are better for the environment than trendy electric vehicles, or pointing out that natural gas is a cheaper, more reliable source of energy that wind and solar.

The punishment depends on which provisions are violated, with the most punitive corrective measures being $1.5 million fines and two-year prison terms.

Not all Canadians are crazy, of course. Yet the effete, shallow yet odious Justin Trudeau is in his third term as prime minister, so there is an abundance of poor thinking among the electorate.

ttps://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=90d2677a69

The last day of trial, yesterday, was devoted to jury instructions and closing arguments. Unfortunately, I had to miss the opening argument from Mann’s counsel John Williams. But I was then able to listen to almost the entire argument of Simberg’s counsel Victoria Weatherford, the entire argument by Mark Steyn on his own behalf, and the entire final rebuttal from Mr. Williams.

My overall comment on the closings of Ms. Weatherford and Mr. Steyn is that they were straightforward reviews of the evidence, or lack thereof, as it applied to each element of the claims, as those had been outlined by the judge in the jury instructions. Because Mann had presented little to know relevant evidence, the closings were quite devastating. Ms. Weatherford’s approach was more an item-by-item review of how plaintiff had failed to prove each element, while Steyn focused more on a few particularly noteworthy issues; but both were well within norms for this type of argument. By contrast, Williams’s rebuttal was almost entirely off point and/or improper. He drew repeated (and correct) objections, several of them sustained, ultimately forcing the judge to re-read to the jury the entire instruction as to the elements and burdens of proof for defamation in order to correct an incorrect statement of the law made by Mr. Williams.

In general, I have great faith in juries. And in this case, where my view is that the evidence strongly favors the defense, it should be an easy decision. However, given the highly charged politics of the subject matter, I do not have confidence in how the jury will come out.

The Jury Instructions

The instructions had been negotiated between the plaintiff and defendants, and mostly came from standard forms. There may have been some objections that one side or the other had preserved, but that was not mentioned publicly. Although I am not an expert in defamation law, the instructions seemed to me to be a fair summary of the law, with the exception that I was surprised that the phrase “actual malice” was not used. However, the instructions did use the words that I understand to be the operative definition of that “actual malice.”