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Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
“Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde”
Beware of the anger of a patient man.
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
Ponder, for a moment, the Common or Garden variety Lefty. Here you have an individual who, deep down, thinks that science is something akin to Black Magic- a dangerous thing best left to others thus to be avoided whenever possible. That Physics and other science classes demand defined, logical answers according to defined rules therefore turns them off- they much preferr when you can get away with making up BS answers that have lots of fancy words.
Which means that when these people are able to get into power, they demand things that are impossible according to the Laws of Physics… and then try to repeal the same Laws when it doesn’t work.
Here’s what’s totally messed up about the whole eco car thing. There are already PZEV vehicles out there (partially zero emission vehicle). The extra cost to reduce emissions other than CO2 and H2O is about $300 per vehicle BUT they are generally not available in all markets due to fed regs. They’re the 80/20 solution. I.e. they get us 80% of the way to electric vehicles with 20% (or less) of the expense and effort. Since they’re evolutionary rather than revolutionary you don’t need special charging stations, or any grand shift in the economic model for cars. Hell, I’m willing to be you could retrofit many modern cars with PZEV tech.
Back to electric cars. The biggest problem with them is that the batteries are made IN CHINA with NO pollution oversite, and all the crap they spew in the air to make them, including nice nasty heavy metals, fly over the Pacific on the jet stream and land here in the US and Canada, polluting out own water supplies. Buy green, pollute even more. And the cost of the battery packs is in the $5k to $10k range, and the cost is NOT going to go down because China pretty much has a monopoly on high density batteries right now.
“The biggest problem with them is that the batteries are made IN CHINA with NO pollution oversite,…”
And even if electric cars *do* work, guess where the electricity the run on comes from…
Anyone?… Coal-fired and/or nuclear power plants.
And there’s the kicker. changes in technology might well make electric cars practical for many people, and the costs would eventually come down (anyone else remember when a CD player cost about a grand?), but until the same people who want electric cars show some signs of being willing to allow power plants to be built, the electric car is doomed to failure.
Prediction; if large scale solar power generation ever became practical, the same people currently shouting for it would oppose it at every step.
I recall a story a high school history teacher told me; that when a certain Nuclear Power Plant was being built in California, the Sierra Club summoned the Black leaders from the Watts area to be instructed to oppose the construction because “We don’t need that electricity”
Reaction by the Watts leaders; “Maybe YOU have enough electricity. Honkey.”
I have very carefully never tried to ascertain the truth to this … it’s too good as it stands.
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The rear window defroster on the ’96 Roberts draws significantly less power.
And the new car requires a boot up procedure and regular anti-virus patches?
I continue to be amazed/befuddled/confused/pissed off at what the bureau-weinies get away with. They pass regulations/guidelines/laws unhindered by any oversight. Except maybe for a Czar. They “feel good” about one of their ideas and the rest of us (the real world) pay. And pay. And pay.
Our elected pols don’t seem to give a tinkers damn. They huff, puff and and postulate about the regulations/guidelines/laws being a hindrance to growth, jobs, etc., etc., etc. But they don’t do anything to stop the bureau-weinies March to Utopia (as they see it).
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