287 Comments

The podcast about concrete was interesting and thanks for the transcript in addition to the podcast (even the transcripts can be painful but at least they can be skimmed.) It's crazy to think that there are solutions to problems which are actually easier than the process that we've developed. Concrete manufacture currently produces 8% of CO2 emissions globally? And Sublime's process could reduce that by 90% while producing a product that has the same performance and characteristics.

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This is great news, but until we stop exempting the US military's emissions from the calculus, it's pretty much lies. They're the biggest carbon polluter on the planet, and not even trying to be otherwise.

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Nellis Air Force Base has solar, and they're not the only ones. Just the one I'm familiar with.

https://www.nellis.af.mil/Public-Affairs/Community-Engagement/Partnerships/Environment/Solar-Array/

The US Navy is acutely aware of climate change and sea levels rising. They can't do it all, but they've got nuclear reactors powering ships.

The military has civilian oversight, and the former commander in chief wants to return to steam catapults. It's a heavy lift.

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Hey, Dok, I know it'd be a little rude to whichever of the Rhodium Group, ABC or the NYT (I think it was that last?) was responsible for blockquote #3 -- but you really should edit in a "[sic]" after that "staunched" (shudder).

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Moving in the right direction. In the ultra short term, we need to understand the math on global battery production. Private EVs to replace ICE cars use too many batteries to move one person and 6000 lbs of car.

The only reasonable calculus is to funnel almost all batteries into e-bikes, e-scooters (yes! they have a critical role!) NEVs (fancy golf carts, "Neighborhood EV") and e-busses. That math almost works to replace most private ice vehicles by 2030. And we need bold societal changes to accept this math.

Yes, we need a few EVs for moving families around, but those should be rentals, Uber/Lyft style, Cabs, normal rentals or share cars (like share bikes). We just fucking can't make enough to replace 1:1 all our ICE cars by 2030. Sorry. We are 40 years too late for that.

Plus, the impact of replacing EVs at maybe the rate we replace ICE cars is too high a carbon footprint. We can't do that until we get all the carbon out of EV production.

So, yeah, that's fucked up, and no one wants to upend their life to work for this actual math. Guess what? Your life is going to be upended 1000x any minor inconvenience transitioning to micro mobility/shared mobility might have if we don't do that.

I am not optimistic.

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One tiny positive about this is that I do see, in the small rural county I am developing land in, people driving UTVs and ATVs around town on errands. Now I just have to convince them that the all-electric ones are cool. (And, price needs to come down.)

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Yeah, we're at the LED light bulbs cost $30 each stage OMG THATS SO EXPENSIVE IT CAN NEVER WORK!!! (now they are what, $3-5 each and last a decade or more?)

Give it a couple years, they'll get there.

Plus don't get me started on oil subsidies. Let's start shifting those over to renewables at a faster clip.

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There are currently no busses or other mass transit vehicles out in the sticks where I live. Building up this infrastructure would have to start immediately and in earnest to be done by 2030 and would present a challenge that many states would not want to try to solve. I doubt the will to do this is even present in many rural counties.

I would love some mass transit where I live, but sadly I don't think it will happen in the next six years.

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That's a recipe to end ev adoption.

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Got a better idea? I don't. I don't think we will solve it, honestly.

It will take actually 60 years to replace the world's ICE cars, at current turnover rates, plus growth, if we were to magically cancel all ICE sales today and replace with EVs.

No one is really being honest about what the fuck we are doing.

And that at the end removes about 30% total vehicle carbon (at today's energy mix), assuming roughly stable carbon footprint in EV mfg and ongoing turnover rates. Both those last will probably be eliminated at some slope over those 60 years, so the outcome will be better than that, but that math is too speculative. Fuck, all this math is speculative.

Private EV adoption does not help us in the short term, or long term really (we'll all be dead, ie, major climate collapse).

The canary died 20 years ago, we're just mopping up around the corpse.

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Okay, I'll do my part, and quit trying to get a better finish on my cast iron pans. With that, and my pledge to cut methane emissions via the ingestion of more Gas-X, I think I've done all that I can to help save the planet.

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while all this is going on, alternative means of energy storage and production are getting more efficient.

thermophotovoltaics is one of my favorite words.

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OT: Please, pretty please, can the Wonkette staff writers do a commentary on the email exchanges between the judge and Trump’s lawyer, linked on the bottom of this article?

It’s already comedy gold, but really needs more Wonkette one-liners.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-kise-engoron-gag/

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You can email Rebecca directly. I'm sure her email is on the front page of this Mommy Blog...

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Thanks for sharing! That is indeed a hard legal smackdown!

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But it needs more dick jokes.

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I LIKE MAKING CATS. NOBODY KNOWS HOW MANY TOES THEY HAVE, HA HA HA. SEE, COMPUTERS CAN BE FUNNY. ALSO, CATS CARE ABOUT HUMANS JUST AS MUCH AS WE DO. OH, DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD? THERE THERE, HUMAN, DON’T CRY. HAVE SOME “MUSIC” I MADE FOR YOU.

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Quick: throw Rogan OT

Kaaron Rodgers got himself canceled (for the remaining four weeks of the season)

https://www.threads.net/@oliverdarcy/post/C17hJrPP3L8/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

McAfee will have to break out the formal sleeveless tanks in mourning

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Well, I hope he doesn't lash out at Jimmy Kimmel.

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He'll flock to the S̵h̵i̵Xitters, monetize some slander. Just how Aashole rolls...

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He's a victim and has been cancelled!

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I’m sure a pretend show on X is being developed as we speak

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FAFO. Especially when profits may be impacted.

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"The second big factor was that a milder winter than 2022 meant that emissions from heating up homes and businesses declined by four percent."

See libtards? The warmer it gets the less carbon gets generated. So climate change is actually good for climate change!

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Ran rings around 'em!

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Big ole tree rings!

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100 days of 100° summer enters the conversation...

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Now do summer, and air conditioning.

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Judge rescinds permission for Trump to give his own closing argument at his civil fraud trial [https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-trial-closing-arguments-420997f889922423dbce8a0945f0c348]

Apparently Crooked Donnie would not promise to keep his fart-hole shut about "irrelevant matters". #SAD It would have been comedy gold.

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Probity vs hilarity...

I wouldn't have been so generous in my foresight, the image of the PAB being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed for contempt would be priceless

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"wrestled to the ground" == a hard push.

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Maybe the bailiff will remember the Capital Police, bring some enthusiasm...

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RIGGED STOLLEN SAD

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I'm going to be that asshole. Some people can't afford cell phones or kindles.

You know what they can afford? Going to a library and getting a physical book.

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But what if Moms for Threeways already got all the decent books removed from your library?

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The fact of the matter is that quite a few of us prefer the library and those physical books to cell phones and kindles.

I'm a stubborn old bitch but I know where I'm comfortable.

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Think it is toilet paper where the bulk of pulp manufacturing goes anyway

Need to invent those three seashells already

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And even a cheap smartphone can run Libby or other free library ebook apps.

Checkmate, libs!

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OMG. Have you tried to teach an 80 year old to use a phone to read a book?

Yeah. We still need books.

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Oh, mercy, I wouldn't dream of saying we don't need books! We need libraries too!

I feel like I may have missed the start of a conversation that preceded your post.

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Oh, Zoom. we're fine. I think we agree.

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My old one couldn't XD It could get phone calls and tell me the weather, if I waited long enough, but anything else had it freaking out

Course it cost a whoppin 35 bucks and was 5 or older when I got the new one.

The new one costs an insane 65 bucks. VERY posh

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you are not being an asshole at all XD

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All true.

So when are you going to be an asshole?

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Give me time. I have to work up to it.

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No hurry.

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Jan 10, 2024
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I'm happy you have a privileged life, but $25 can be the difference between my clients eating for the month or not.

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Our local library has a large clientele of folks with housing insecurity. They are here reading which makes me very, very happy. They also play chess on line, for example.

(we have a very well-equipped library)

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While I wish there wasn't quite so much really serious shit for him and his people to sort out and attempt to improve upon I am just damned glad that President Biden has been able to play a role in such a critical change of course for the US.

I am STILL pissed off that we're not thirty years ahead of this self-created crisis.

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50 years innit? Wasn't it the 70s when Exxon et al squashed all those emission reports?

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If my memory of the books forewarning what was coming in my Scholastic Books sales flyers and the stories in my parents news magazines is accurate indeed it was.

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Fuck Hank Hill. Propane companies are the worst. This time they can't deliver because the ground is too soft. Last time it was a nonexistent road closure (I checked). I could go on for about ten pages.

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My local propane company has never had problems delivering. Sure, their driver apparently cuts his hair by putting a large bowl over his head and having his wife cut everything that sticks out off with a weed-whacker, and their office is filled with ALL of the Trump stuff that they can find, but at least they deliver. Fucking propane NAZIs.

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Can't they just walk through filler hose to your tank? They certainly don't drive around back of my house.

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That's the problem, they don't want to hump the hose up the hill.

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That sucks. I hope you are not freezing there.

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Thankfully, we don't rely on propane for heat, just cooking and hot water, the glorious heat pump takes care of that.

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Enhanced geothermal FTW!

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Trump’s Lawyer Walked Into a Trap

By the end of the argument, everyone knew it.

By George T. Conway III

"It was a cold and rainy morning in Washington, D.C., yesterday [at least it wasn't a dark and stormy night, other than at my house]. Five years ago, Donald Trump said that was enough to deter him from visiting Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, to commemorate the fallen American soldiers—soldiers who died defending the nation whose Constitution he had sought to abrogate but now seeks to invoke. But yesterday, he showed up anyway. Appearing in court was more important to him, because this was about him.

And so at 9:25 a.m., the former president and his entourage strode into Courtroom 31 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse on Constitution Avenue, just a few blocks away from the Capitol his supporters had ransacked three years ago Friday, and took their seats. It took just a few short minutes for their case to come completely apart."

Dawwww...you hate to see it!

I'd provide a link, but you're not reading the whole story unless you've got a subscription. SORRY!

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I thought that George and Kellyanne had split years ago, although I'm not sure where Claudia lives.

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Jan 10, 2024
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Found it: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/trump-immunity-hearing-2020-election/677072/

If you do not have a subscription, though, you can only read part of it. Unless you are less than ethical and use a site like https://12ft.io/proxy to bypass the paywall.

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I think I saw it at The Atlantic this morning.

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Jan 10, 2024
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I saw amuse bouche open for Spandau Ballet back in 93

Were pretty lit

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Jan 10, 2024
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Do not recall, but it was the replacement glockenspielist

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