#ancienttexan by #AncientTexan

The famous story is that we need to reduce our consumption of energy, especially fossil fuel, to reduce CO2 production and global warming. But what if we just got the whole richer and made everyone more capable of dealing with the ravages of global warming? So, where is the optimum between decreasing fossil fuel usage while simultaneously making the poor richer and more capable?

Is your race, or color, the only thing that determines how much privilege, I or you have?

Trump has dementia.  What are the symptoms?Ever notice how he confuses two different people? Like Pelosi and Nikki?  Classic symptom.  Ever notice how he slurs or truncates words or blurs them into an unrecognizable collection of syllables that sound like the words he is trying to say? Yes, classical symptoms.Ever notice the mood swings? Full of energy and then sad and weighted down.  Well, that's not dementia. That is just his personality. But notice how he suddenly looks lost, mouth open, then looking for a word?  Yep, dementia.  I find it quite sad that everything is about a fight with him.  Where does he find peace?Biden.  He's got an old, forgetful brain.  No sign of dementia yet. He is like your old grandpa who can't remember his grandchildren's names but loves them just the same.  I can't imagine Grandpa will run our nation for the next five years.  He will need a lot of handholding by people we did not elect.  Not ok.Apparently, they are the best America has to offer. God bless America.Below are comments from AI (perplexity):Symptoms of Dementia in PoliticiansDementia is a serious condition that can impact individuals, including politicians like Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It is crucial to differentiate between normal aging-related memory changes and signs of dementia. Here are key points from the search results:

https://ancienttexan.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-wrecking-ball.html

I am a masculist. Yes, I advocate for men's rights. I even advocate for white men's equal rights. When I first looked up the word that was equivalent to being a feminist, but that was a male, it said that I should call myself a feminist because it is a term that refers to equal rights for all people. But you know how we decided that you can't be a mailman because the word man is captured inside of the word mailman. So, we have to use the word mailperson. So, there's a lot of emphasis on getting the word man out of terms that refer to both genders. I've always thought this was a little on the silly side, but I understand the importance of words.  So, in that light, I thought it was foolish to call myself a feminist because it has no distinction from the feminist that everyone thinks of when you use the word feminist. After all, the word feminine is actually captured inside the word feminist. So I discovered there's this word called masculist, which is not very poetic, and it brings nothing to mind except maybe the idea of masculine. But that's the word that I've got that seems to me the equivalent of a male feminist that advocates for the rights of all people, including white males, or, to be honest, maybe I should say especially for the rights of white males. I've always had a problem with the concept of white male privilege, especially if someone was talking about me. Yes, I have some advantages by being white, and there used to be a lot of advantages to being white and being a male. Those advantages, though, are now vaporware and, in fact, never applied to most poor white males any more than it applies to females or blacks or any of the hundreds of kinds of disadvantaged people.  Rich, even elite, white people are the real advantage group, and assuming that entitlement spreads much at all to people who are only white and not rich at all is a huge extrapolation these days. So, there is a historical precedent for white males running the world and a few white males being on top of this hierarchical pinnacle of power. But that Pinnacle was in the past often a merit-based pinnacle and still largely is a merit-based pinnacle. But what's even more important is this is a historical perspective that is not current with what's going on in the world. Richard Reed's book Of Men and Boys describes the current state of the white man in this society and men in general and points out that in today's world, the white male is actually increasingly with the disadvantaged people in our society.

What are some of the flags that divide us:

UUFN is considering dramatically raising the rent rate for their childcare center. I argued that the most worthwhile thing they do as a "church" is subsidizing the childcare center and that any increases would be passed on to the parents/children who often can't afford it. My daughter, with two jobs, can not afford more than to eat, pay her rent, and keep an old car on the road. Amy and I pay $341/week for childcare, going up in January.

Wow. What a depressing story I just heard. If you are a fan of Joe Biden don't listen to this ... and don't read the book, "Laptop from Hell", by Miranda Devine.

The Justice Department is going after Democrats, can you believe it.

I am an engineer/scientist who creates stuff, mostly processes, that in theory, make the world a little better. Most patents don't get utilized, I think in part because the one who creates the patent with the help of his employer has no vested interest in the patent.

Its a new era coming brought on by Oliver Anthony. Mitt Romney agrees and says its toime to let the young take charge of the world. Its time to let go according to Romney.

We hear a lot about global warming that is not true. Believing all the negative, it is difficult to be receptive to all the good things happening because of global warming:  

Billions are going to die from the climate crisis. That is a lie.

Drifting toward the waterfall

The Ancient Texan and AI discuss this poem:

I found an AI to discuss the upcoming metal crisis that I predict will occur as China becomes an unreliable supplier of metals and minerals. AI added some interesting commentary. I think I need to be better prepared the next time I have a conversation with AI. I was not ready for this talk with AI.

The supreme court recently overturned the use of Affirmative Action in Universities.

A liberal culture has spread around the world since World War II. We credit the modest level of peace in the world to this new liberal world order. Russia recently broke this illusion and invaded Ukraine. But this new liberal order that values the individual has spread to about half of the world.

When you arrest someone for breaking laws that everyone in power breaks, what is that called? Answer: an unjust system.

What additional rules/regulations do we need in place for AI NOW?

A summer rain

Margret Atwood says she has two personas: Margret, the writer, and Peggy, who does the laundry. We all have these alternative egos, personas, or different sides of ourselves. So, why not use those personas in some way to improve how you choose and carry out your activities through life?

Our current legal system used 25-year-old memories to convict someone in the present for alegged crimes decades ago. In what universe is this based on logic and our understanding of human memory?

The debt limit is about to be crossed by the U.S. government at which time, we can no longer continue borrowing money, at least legally, to fund our addiction to large government spending. Indirectly, that will probably curtail all debt creation and life as we know it in the U.S. and world financial markets.

The largest illegal group of aliens, up to 250,000, can be found in Liberty County 40 miles northeast of Houston, Texas. Imagine a world run by drug lords where police tread there lightly and let AR15 go off all night and consider that normal.

What is an existential threat to humanity? How do the various existential threats rank compared to others?

The rich and powerful have picked Sleepy-Joe for the democratic candidate for President. They are going to control the nomination process not to tire poor-Joe out in the primaries and make him weaker. They don't really care what is good for America. The green revolution is making a lot of people rich while we do green projects that is not really doing much for green-evolution, but that is another podcast.

I think my efforts here have diluted my podcast and both have suffered. So, I am suspending my youtube channel. Today is Earthday... everyone believes we are now more connected. We condemn industrialists and those that use fossil fuels. Fossil fuels that have made the world more prosperous for millions we condemn, but what do we offer in its place that is cost-competitive for the poor? https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/EBI5G4k8gzb#PrivilegedAmerican

Is Xi Suicidal over Taiwan?

If you don't follow China closely, you may not realize how bad a shape China is in. The real estate sector has collapsed, their customers are leaving China as a manufacturing center, they have enormous national and local debt, and their demographics stink; they may be the first country that gets old before they get rich. With all the problems China is having, the last thing they need is a war with the US.

Let's see how energy usage has increased for the Western World over the last sixty years.  Now, the other half of the world wants to be prosperous like us with food, cars, houses, appliances, etc.  In the next fifty years, our global energy supply will have to double to make that happen.  If we double the status quo, that might happen in 50 years.  Trying to make it happen primarily with renewables is crazy.  

Steven is a respected climate scientist.  The book covers what climate science tells us, what it doesn't, and why it matters.

There is a belief that the fossil fuel industry are the bad guys in carrying out its mission to find fossil fuel deposits and make products out of them.  This ignores that fossil fuels drove the greatest rise in prosperity in human history.    There is also the belief that we should suppress the production of fossil fuels and let the Putins of the world dominate the supply chain. 

When is making mistakes good?  Perhaps when you learn from them?  Perhaps when you go a new direction and it becomes obvious that it is a better path than you were on before.  For example, California is moving toward EV's and renewable power very rapidly.  I think this will waste a lot of the money of the citizens of California.  They will get higher electricity bills for their effort and more CO2 into the air.  I think they are making a huge mistake, but the rest of the nation will get to learn from their experiment and this may save the nation trillions of dollars in the long run.  So, is what the state of California doing a mistake?  You judge.

It takes much more mineral resources to go Green than to maintain the Status Quo.  Resources the world does not have and resources that NIMBY and our liberal legalism do not allow us to access.   Much of the resources we do have are controlled by China, Russia and other places that are not friendly to us.    

When you fill out a form that asks for your race, do you fill it in or do you chose not to answer?  Are you saying race is an important issue and do you fill it in so they won't think you are black.  

A poem, a lyric, by Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlisle, "A Beautiful Noise" speaks of us joining together to create a beautiful noise for all those whose voice needs to be heard.

Allegedly, the CCP in China uses organ transplants to allow many party members to live to a hundred or more.  Reportedly, the supply of organs comes from harvesting organs from Uyghurs, "excess boys" from the street, and those unfortunate with rare blood types.  The few hundred officers that are granted this fountain of youth create a significant demand for organs that often exceeds the demand that can be hidden from the public eye.  Those receiving these organ transplants must take immunosuppressants.   With the enormous outbreaks of covid in China, these people suffer many deaths.

We look at the assumptions in Greta's How Dare You Talk in 2019 and propose that humanity needs to agree to two concepts:  1) We need to spend our money efficiently on global problems with the goal of doing the most good for humanity with our limited funds, and  2) We need to rank global warming among the world's problems and spend money according to the relative need versus the other problems.  A great deal of effort needs to be devoted to a large engineering study to put teeth into the two concepts above.  We then need to evolve as humans to implement the recommendations of such a study independent of national borders.  Without such a coordinated effort, it is unlikely we will make significant progress on global warming or any of the other problems on the list.

With what is happening in Nigeria with energy, population, and deforestation, do our energy policies in America make sense?

How do our climate change policies impact food and energy production on the planet?  Who does this impact?

May you all get to see and appreciate your families and remember those that are missing.  May America remember that we are all a big family, worst and all.

The question is often whether you should speak your truth with tactful kindness or brutal honesty.  Perhaps, that is the wrong question.  Do you actually own the truth or even a part of it for someone else?

Loving Too Easy

There are two sayings among the youth in China: Laying Flat and, Let It Rot. These two phrases get to the heart of a country in serious economic, social, and political trouble.  The problems facing Xi and the communist party are immense and possibly endemic to communism.  

The chief mission of both parties is to convince you that if the other party gets elected, the world as we know it will end. 

Our money is unraveling.   Congress spends money we don't have, and the Fed prints money in the trillions.  Countries are starting to lose confidence in our ability to support a financial system with an unsound money supply.  And we are accelerating the process of de-dollarization by kicking countries like Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and others out of the system.  We want to kick China out, but they hold a trillion dollars of our Treasury Bills. Will this turn out to be a good story instead of a tragedy?

I grew up in a fundamentalist religion.  The voices raining down on me these days sound a lot like the voice of the preacher falling on the young man in a hard pew a long time ago.  Righteousness on both sides.

Girls as young as eleven are undergoing irreversible hormonal treatments.  Why?

We have made choices that raised our energy costs.  It is very doubtful that most of these choices will lower our CO2 emissions.  For instance, electric cars do not lower CO2 emissions unless you build more renewable energy power plants first.   When four out of the biggest economies in the world are still expanding coal production and building coal power plants, our money is not being well spent.  In fact, we are making the lives of poor people more difficult without accomplishing all we can on going green.   The fastest and most cost-effective way for us to reduce CO2 emissions at this point in time is to build natural gas power plants and shut down coal power plants.  And step two is to build nuclear power plants while we crank up R&D on green technology and begin some serious development of an engineering plan to go green cost-effectively.

Putin is in a corner.  He is out of options except for one.

The beat, beat of her drum

What is Christian Nationalism, and how big is it?

What group should go in the blank?  And why?

Putin is attempting to take over some of the largest deposits of rare earths, lithium, manganese, coal, natural gas, iron, titanium, etc. in the world.  Many of these minerals are needed for our green evolution.   And yet, we chose to believe Putin is just a madman trying to restore the Russian Empire.  Perhaps, both stories could be true.  In either case, trillions of dollars of raw materials needed for our green evolution are at stake.  Perhaps, that is one of the reasons our military is so supportive of Ukraine.     Let's get the word out that we need the raw materials in Ukraine for our Green Evolution.

There is a lot of Ni, Co, Cu, Mn metals in seafloor nodules.  Mining them could be as destructive as open pit mining, who really knows?  But we need raw material resources to be able to build the new-green world, especially all the new electric vehicles.  So what is the plan for going green?  Do we have a master plan?  Is this where we expect to get the raw materials?  Are we willing to pay the environmental cost?  Does anyone know what the consequences are for deep sea mining?

The current status quo concerning Abortion gives the Democrats more power and new moderate voters, both independents and moderate Republicans.  The Republicans are losing voters in the Red States while voters in the Blue States are more motivated.  Why would the Democrats want to change the status quo?  Lindsey Graham's proposal shows that the Republicans have no viable options to deal with the fact that they now own the abortion issue and the consequences of being out of alignment with most Americans. 

Indisputable evidence exists that the world is becoming greener because of fossil fuels.  A 200 ppm increase in CO2 in the air gives rise to about a 20% increase in plant growth.  Additionally, nitrogen fertilizer, made from fossil fuels, has led to a massive reduction in the footprint of farming freeing up land to return to nature and support biodiversity.

Have you ever sung away all the world's troubles with a group of friends or strangers?

Have you ever wished your children were more loving when they view you?

Imagine as a poet, you got to select your reader.  What would she look like?  A woman in a dirty raincoat?

Just a short poem by Billy Collins read by the Ancient Texan.  (Some improvement in his reading skills are warranted.) 

We can't believe that Putin is the kind of bully that hurts others without regard to the amount of harm he causes humanity and the kind of bully that doesn't back down when you stand up against him.  But, I think Putin has already shown us the type of bully he is ... 

The American energy plan is decrepit in attempting to pick winners and accomplish everything with only carrots and no sticks.  The Plan ignores the role of the market in picking winners and assumes the average consumer will want electric vehicles.  Step technologies like natural gas and hybrid cars are ignored; the darling of R&D, hydrogen, is promoted despite little interest in the marketplace.  We also assume that we can solve global warming inside of our own borders when coal plants are still being built by China, India, Germany, etc.

The American energy plan is decrepit in attempting to pick winners and accomplish everything with only carrots and no sticks.  The Plan ignores the role of the market in picking winners and assumes the average consumer will want electric vehicles.  Step technologies like natural gas and hybrid cars are ignored; the darling of R&D, hydrogen, is promoted despite little interest in the marketplace.  We also assume that we can solve global warming inside of our own borders when coal plants are still being built by China, India, Germany, etc.

Sometimes, doing what is right means you lose your job.  Sometimes, it means the people you stood with, betray you.  Maybe you vote with the Democrats to impeach trump and then they hang you out to dry and step on you?

If a very small minority controls who gets nominated for an election, that is called Tweedism, I'm told.  Hong Kong riots occurred because China proposed a small minority, 1200 people in the communist party, would nominate the candidates that ran in the pre-elections. China said they modeled it after the system in America where mostly the rich fund the nominees for the pre-elections and general elections. 

Perhaps you have just noticed the outer layer of the unraveling: wars, de-globalization, inflation, polarization, etc.   But, underneath, there is more. 

High tech outsources our jobs, parks their profits offshore to avoid taxes, fosters divisions among us, controls politicians with money for re-election, abuses workers and the environment overseas and yet we worship them like gods.  Look at what is happening to our values; where does all this lead?

There is no magic line to cross where a group of cells becomes human life.  There is no magic point in time where an old person becomes senile or dead.  It is a continuum, sometimes extended as in birth, or in some forms of death, where a series of small changes over time transforms life into being or death into reality.   Where the arbitrary line is placed costs lives, there is no way around it.  We have to be wise and see the nuances of our choices to cause the least amount of harm.