U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'
npr.org
npr.org
If I recall correctly, the US used to have more of this type of oil, that depleted, so now they still have all the refineries on the east coast and need to import it.
I've known for a while that our refineries are tuned to lighter "sweet crude" than what Canada or US produces, and long have I thought that a more benevolent, heavy-handed government should incentivize our domestic industry to handle our own oil for national security.
We're going to lose Iran war, which will put more pressure on "national security" & economy. That'll dovetail into 2028 elections. So he'll start a new war, claim there are extremists at home, start martial law, refuse to leave office. When that happens, same things that happen in every authoritarian regime will start. He's said publicly he wants to jail his enemies and curtail rights like free speech and journalism. It'll be extended into more fearmongering about minority groups to galvanize the base. Those big detention camps will get a lot bigger. Economy will be in the shitter, but that's fine, just blame it on "enemies", talk about "empire", and start a world war. Draft comes back, suddenly you have a huge infantry, lots of factory workers, staffed largely by political enemies.
What are do people do when their government and capitalism fails them?
Hopefully by then humanity has managed to get educated and learned to cooperate and share.
Funny that you assume education will lead to some sort of egalitarian society. What do you think the point of modern education is? We all take the course in evolution and natural selection, whether we want to or not. We all study history. We all fraternize and learn the little political games or we drop out. Some of us recieve a degree in hard knocks. Why shouldn't the educated be more cutthroat than the rest of us?
I made the point that humans can be educated to care for one another(indoctrination if you will).
Capitalism falls back to fascism to protect wealth, time and time again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
(personal commentary/context: I want more energy production of any economically viable category: wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, etc. I have no blanket opposition to offshore oil drilling or offshore wind energy)
Unfortunately as a society we keep moving further and further away from the foundations of a functional society based on a representative government and considering the general welfare.
- I was able to make money off of this
- This pissed off the people I don’t like
None of this should come as a surprise. The scoundrels got the mob in power (again) and they’re just going to keep breaking things and stealing the money until stopped or dead.
I hope.
The Democrats are hardly perfect, and I wish we had something better to oppose the Republicans, but let's at least acknowledge who the real villain is.
Until a week or so ago, it was on Wikipedia, but it appears to have been delisted. So here:
[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=murc%27s+law
Googling and LLMing around it allows normal sea operations in the Gulf so drilling is possible etc. Interesting. So they’re going to try to get more oil out of there?
Can’t say I trust their competence very much here. It’s more likely to be a carve out for a friend than anything else and I’m pretty pro deregulation in general.
This kills that on multiple fronts.
> Fact-checking Donald Trump's claim that wind turbines kill whales
Is hardly the same as objecting to activities that distress pretty much all animals in the vicinity long term.
A big thing which distresses pretty much all animals in the vicinity is "shipping".
One other specific animal harm that wind farm get blamed for is bird deaths. Know what is responsible for more bird deaths? Skyscrapers.
The only way to not harm the environment (with current science) is a choice which is unsustainable, because the choice requires everyone everywhere to not only agree now but forever, and "forever" is really hard because anyone defecting from "degrowth" is necessarily stronger for that defection.
So yes, objecting to wind turbines on these grounds is absolutely concern trolling.
Who said anything about "us". Every action taken by this administration is specifically for self-enrichment (directly or to cronies/patrons), the destruction of things that they deem "woke", and the punishment and persecution of their perceived enemies and non-humans.
I wish that was hyperbole, and that I could be proven wrong.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-feds-plan-to-start-dilutin...
https://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/centerpiece/fall2...
She uses terms like "us", "we", "collective", but who are these? All the constituents, the people, in their totality, they are not, for people are not a homogeneous mass. In practice, it, along with democracy, just becomes a nice rhetoric device for stripping people of their rights.
Democracy was never really a good solution to an inclusive society-wide governance system. Most successful implementation even need to add limits to it to prevent the mob rule that's a feature to it. Some try to pretend it is anti-authoritarian, because the members get a vote. But that vote only matters when the voter is part of a majority. If they aren't, they might as well not even have it. That alone already creates a hierarchy. And it only gets worse: most people belong to minority of sorts, and they, by design, get alienated. This means that the doesn't really represent anyone... other than itself, very much like a corporation.
Which leads to the final point: capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the word) isn't antidemocratic. Democracy isn't in opposition to corporatocrocy, it requires a corporation large enough to own everything. Thus, dare I say, the democracy she seems to envision might as well be one of the forms of ultra peak capitalism.
Boy was I wrong. His name will be studied for decades to come in all the worst ways.
And Americans are supposed to understand this, but largely don't. Kind of like lots of people love the founders in theory, but act like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would have loved a theocracy. And basically don't know anything about stuff that would have influenced them, like the Commonwealth and the Glorious Revolution.
It's an absolutely literal Confederacy of Dunces.
[^0] https://old.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/1s8u2ho/trump_says_...
Neither side is honest, it's just a matter of framing and perspective.
This myopic focus on Trump ignores the real issue: Environmentalism is a secular religion, a theocracy, a dogma. Like any religion it employs circular reasoning to justify its existence, namely stemming from this assumption that nature is sacred, vulnerable and deserving of our protection. This faulty assumption is treated as a self-evident tautology and questioning it is shunned, the hallmark of any run-of-the-mill religion.
Environmentalism says it's not worth discovering fire because we would have to burn trees to use it. Think about this carefully: That's not a rational position but an emotional appeal. The thought process is "I would rather go hungry than hurt this poor tree," whereas that poor tree may have ruthlessly strangled the roots of nearby plants in its quest to thrive and grow. If you understand why this argument is irrational, you understand the basic flaw with environmental thought.
Extending that principle to the planet, we come to a foundational truth: Nature is a relentless competition between all organisms on the planet. This is a testable, provable hypothesis. Every modern day human can trace their ancestry to a person who out-competed other organisms. We are here today because successive descendants of our ancestors continued to pass a fitness test, surviving and procreating sufficiently to make us possible. Our continued existence depends on continuing that trend.
Aiming for sustainability hamstrings our ability to make progress and leaves us uncompetitive relative to our peers. Those who used fire out-competed those who didn't. Those who cut down trees to build farms, cities, countries out-lasted those who didn't. Those banded together to combine their ingenuity to get better, faster, stronger, heavily exploited their environment in the name of progress, are the ones ahead of everyone else. We did not start this trend, nature did. The rules of the game were established billions of years ago. It is sheer hubris to think we are somehow above or outside this meta-loop, a grand delusion that we are somehow masters of nature.
There is only one truth: Either we out-compete or we lose ground. Should we do the other things? Take care of the weak? The poor? The infirm? Sure, but if it comes at the expense of losing our competitive edge, then it won't matter what we do for them, because we won't continue to exist to keep doing it for them.
environmentalism isnt circular. humans evolved to live and survive in a certain environment, and so we will be healthiest and happiest the better we ensure that that environment exists for us to live in.
some sample environmental works:
- making the river stop catching on fire so you can sail on it and fish in it - removing smog so you can go back to breathing - taking the acid out of the rain so it stops eating your car
environmentalism is a competitive edge in and of itself, but also is the foundation that the competition is built on.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic have something to say about that.
and you can see it in your thing! Environmentalism is good because it turns out burning millions of years of information as well as our only source of medicine and life sciences is not worth you feeling persecuted because you wanted to have a dirt bike that smells awful.
It's sure not cost anymore! LCOE of solar is the lowest!
Renewables are also good economically, because they're... Wait for it... Renewable. That's a big deal.
Trump pushing clean coal and knee-capping renewables is bad for our economy. He is literally hurting the American people just to show the finger to liberals. If that sounds stupid, that's because it is.
Every day is a new embarrassment law or action like this for America until then. I’ve never felt lower about America in my lifetime. The hope I had, the pride I felt in America, is gone, chunk by chunk, piece by piece, every day.
Not for no reason either. Turnout was 64.1%, so really it's the active decision of 31.9218% of voters (voting eligibles) culminating in this. Kind of a pattern with modern democracies if you check.
Not that passively endorsing this by not voting when the opportunity was there would be much better though.
I do think regular variety elections are generally representative though. I just also see value in keeping these asterisks in mind.
It’s true trump is bad but so is genocide. Really hard to make the case of the lesser evil when it’s just variations on top tier criminality. You have to offer something to voters.
However I agree with your premise - trying to remove abstaining voters from the math is incorrect. Abstainers are explicitly making their view known.
That view is "I don't care, but are equally good or bad". (Which in turn demonstrates a profound ignorance of what's going on - and frankly folk that unconcerned should probably not pick a side.)
I believe it's fair to say "America voted for this". America is a democracy and the voters spoke. Of course it's not unanimous but majority rules.
And it's not like his campaign was disingenuous. The man was on display, and most of the things he's done were signaled clearly in the campaign. (He's long been against foreign wars, so the Iran debacle seems out of character, but then again it's in line with his dictator instincts, and he desperately needs a distraction from the Epstein files.)
*Democracy is not a spectator sport*. You don't get to complain about corrupt politicians and then go on to make excuses about why you can't vote. You're wasting your citizenship. Either go vote or move to a dictatorship where voting isn't a concern.
E pluribus unum
https://academic.oup.com/book/44680/chapter-abstract/3787689...
They're all of the positions for speaking for you, elected by the population of the US
I voted against Trump 3 times. But people outside of the US should definitely act as if they cannot trust the US. Because they can't. I mean ffs we collectively elected him twice.
The underlying point is that the American public voted for this. They saw his first term, a million people dead from covid, and thought to themselves "I want more of that guy". And if they can elect this person, what might the next one look like?
In one short year every country on earth has put the US in the "unreliable trade partner" box. (Even Canada. Canada!). That damage will last for decades. The big winner here? China. They're hoovering up goodwill all over the place.
Killing USAid not only killed a major purchaser of US farm surplus, it woke up a lot of grass-roots agencies to the need to diversify funding. Lots of soft-influence lost overnight, and it's not easily coming back.
I don't think the animals that may go extinct care about the distinction.