The photo here depicts a slice of life from 1905, before fire-fighting equipment had evolved into an early version of the trucks we have today. (To skeptics, of which I was one before I looked this up: both the source of water, the fire hydrant, and the modern battery to power the headlight were developed more than 100 years earlier.)
This is a reminder of how the last 120 years, due purely to improvements in technology, has made our lives safer, longer, healthier, more productive, and more convenient than they’ve ever been in the past. But consider this, at that earlier time, was it conceivable today that:
• The leader of one of our two political parties would be a criminal conman? Does any legitimate historian regard Teddy Roosevelt as a sociopath?
• The world’s #1 automaker, Volkswagen, which led #2 Toyota by over $32 billion in revenue as of June 2023, could have possibly decided, as a corporation, to rip off 11 million customers, and another 8 billion people on Earth who use their lungs to breathe, with its scheme to defraud emissions regulations?
• Wells Fargo, 41 years old when this bicycle was made, would be ordered to pay $3.7 billion in penalties and victims’ compensation for alleged illegal practices that caused thousands of the bank’s customers to lose their homes and vehicles?
We’ve made a trade, whether we want it or not, from moral decency to creature comfort and the gross abuse of the common American consumer.
All I can say about this personally, and I’m sure my thoughts are echoed by most of my peers who made their money in the late 20th Century, is that we were lucky to live in a time in which business morality still meant something.
Renewable Energy
Forced Transgendering of America’s Little Kids
How often does this happen? How about never?
Trump loves to say that little boys go to school and come back home little girls.
He’s the most powerful person in the world for exactly one reason: We’re a nation of morons.
Renewable Energy
Illegal Aliens and U.S. Veterans
Two comments:
That the United States has homeless veterans is a national (and international) disgrace.
By definition, no one has the legal right to enter the U.S. illegally, but according to our constitution, everyone in America is entitled to due process.
Renewable Energy
Cancelling Renewable Energy
This will result in lung disease, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and higher electricity prices.
It will also further alienate the rest of the world from our country, as every other nation on the planet is making gains in the direction of decarbonization, and no other nation suffers from this level of corruption with the fossil fuel industry.
If that pleases you, you’re a warped human being.
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