Thought for the Day

[filghy2]

My thought of the day is a bit on the self-indulgent side. Lauren Boebert, the insurrection promoting congresswoman, looks a lot like a girl I knew and wanted to have sex with. The likeness is especially strong in her mugshot. What's worse is the girl was also kind of mean and kind of stupid. So in the interests of fairness I will recuse myself when she comes up. I know Nick Danger feels the same way about Nancy Pelosi so it wouldn't be a bad idea if he did the same there.

I never checked Lauren Boebert's picture before, but she's not bad looking for a complete arsehole. Nancy looked okay in her younger days too, so I could understand Nick having some repressed sexual fantasies. He definitely has obsessive fantasies about being disciplined by Tipper Gore.

[filghy2]

2) I watched the speech by Senator Rafael Cruz, though part of it was blacked out for some reason. On the petty side, he needs a haircut, he needs to shave off the beard, and to lose weight. Whoever told him to hold the mike and walk around isn't aware that for public speakers, this suggests a man who walks from a to b because he is unsure of himself, or worse, is angry about something.

Perhaps he's trying to look like the working class voters he seems to be trying to appeal to.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...working-people
Let's not forget that this man would have been the Republican candidate in 2016 if there had been no Trump.

Did this conference include any discussion of policies to improve the lives of ordinary Americans or how to win over people who didn't vote for them last year?

It looks like the remaining issue of interest will be whether Trump tips a bucket over Kevin McCarthy despite the latter's recent efforts to reingratiate himself. What does it say about a man when he abases himself before someone who showed complete indifference to his welfare?
https://www.vox.com/2021/2/27/223047...thy-cpac-trump

[Nick Danger]

There are plenty of people who already do put their money where their mouth is: ie they choose more environmentally-friendly options even though they may be more expensive. The problem is that it doesn't go far enough for the reasons already explained. Leaving it to individuals to fix the environment is not an effective or efficient solution.

There is no puzzle about how to reduce environmental pollution - some mix of environmental taxes and regulation - so it's just a question of political will. Cleaner energy sources and technologies exist and their cost is falling. If fossil fuels are cheaper it is only because there is a hidden cost in pollution that the user does not currently pay.

The principled conservative approach would be to impose environmental taxes that reflect these costs and leave it to the market to find the most efficient way to reduce pollution. If you won't believe me, perhaps you should take notice of these people who have worked for Republican administrations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/o...te-action.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/07/p...nge/index.html

Here's the thing about environmental pollution though, Bronco, and bear with me here because I'm going to speak some raw truth first but then I'm going to mitigate it by taking your side. Somewhat.

As long as there is a QUESTION of whether or not we are destroying the environment, no one has the right to impose their will on anyone else environmentally.

Because see what you have right now is a relatively small group of environmental activists trying to get their way. Politically, it's no different from a small group of white supremacists trying to get slavery reinstated, or a small group of flat-earthers trying to get globes outlawed. It's the few trying to impose their will on the many.

You can't convince anyone of anything with "scientific evidence" anymore because all the people we're supposed to be able to trust have been proven time and time again to be full of shit, including many so-called experts. That's the big problem with government and media bullshit - it creates an atmosphere in which nothing true can be advanced because no one knows what the truth is anymore. Am I supposed to turn my life upside down because some weird angry German girl and Al Gore say we're killing the planet? They could be right. On the other hand, I need aluminum, magnesium, titanium, and steel in order to make a living. Who am I to argue about the methods people use to get it to me? And it's a BIG planet.

However, as I've tried to express here before, I'm a reasoning and logical person. That's why I'm so sure Sandy Hook was a hoax, because I trust my own eyes and my own powers of perception. And my perception is, we certainly are doing a lot of damage to the environment. I guess that makes me an environmentally-conscious person. So then what? What are MY priorities. I don't have children. I'm 55 years old but from a pretty long-lived line so I've got maybe another 40 years on this planet. After that it doesn't matter to me at all what happens on Planet Earth.

That pretty much defaults my priority structure to not giving a fuck about Greta Thunberg's problems. Fact is, I'm pretty sure we're going to blow ourselves up long before we get a chance to destroy the planet, I'm amazed we haven't done it already. And even though I am convinced we are polluting the fuck out of the environment, I'm not at all convinced about man-made climate change. Climate change happens with or without our help, been happening for billions of years.

You might not agree with that, but you have to respect it, because I get the same vote as you. You can say, "But I do have children, and I do care about the future of humanity!" Well, that's you. You get a vote too. But it doesn't count more than mine just because you claim the moral high ground.

So that's what environmentalists are up against, Bronco. Not to mention the constant battle with their own blatant hypocrisy.

Still, I have no problem with taxes on polluters. Makes perfect sense. Taxing someone is not the same as telling them they can't do what they're doing. Know what else made perfect sense? Milk bottles. That big island of plastic waste in the Pacific is pretty ugly.

[Nick Danger]

Sorry Flighty I called you Bronco. Must be the tequila.

[Nick Danger]

Let's consider a concrete example. Suppose a big factory sets up near your house. There's no regulation so it's noisy and smelly and they can operate 24/7. How would you propose to go about fixing the problem yourself?

Interesting you ask me that, Flighty, because something just like that happened to me. There's an old ice cream factory in St. George not far from where I live. It was closed down for like a decade but then a company called Dean Foods bought it and started making ice cream there again.

And you might think, oh, ice cream, nice. BUT - the smell coming from that factory was ATROCIOUS! Imagine spoiled milk times 100, every time you walk out your door. Even inside you'd get a little of it.

So what did I do? I went right over there to the factory and talked to the plant manager. Guy named Dave Hugie. Dave seemed quite reasonable, he told me the smell was from ice cream waste in dumpsters that were supposed to be lined with plastic but weren't, the ice cream was melting and leaking into the ground and spoiling to create that smell (this turned out later to be a lie), and they were taking steps.

Weeks passed and the smell remained. My neighbors and I talked about it all the time - it was, in fact, pretty much all we talked about. I went over there again and talked to Dave Hugie and he again assured me steps were being taken - something about not being able to acquire plastic sheets large enough to line the dumpsters. Again, a lie.

Well, it became news. There was a story in the local paper about it, people raising hell, city council promising to look into it, the situation was deemed unacceptable.

The VERY NEXT DAY after that story came out in the paper, the smell was gone. Turns out, it had nothing to do with ice cream leaking out of dumpsters, and everything to do with the chemicals they were using to treat their waste. They were cutting costs by low-balling the amount of chemical they were using, and the smell was totally controllable all along if they'd simply decided to spend the extra money to fix the problem. It was strictly a bottom-line business decision.

So they were relying on people in the area to be tolerant. We weren't. And ultimately they had to take care of business. Nobody went to court, nobody filed a lawsuit, nobody made some new law - the problem got solved by me, my neighbors, and the local paper. That's what I'M talking about.

[Nick Danger]

It seems that some people have a way of using nouns for verbs (eg "learn to economy"). Did you learn to English at school?

I'll have you know I have two lovely plaques sitting in the bottom of a box somewhere that say the Strategic Air Command thinks I can English good.

[broncofan]

Interesting you ask me that, Flighty, because something just like that happened to me. There's an old ice cream factory in St. George not far from where I live. It was closed down for like a decade but then a company called Dean Foods bought it and started making ice cream there again.

My thought of the day is that you're either setting up an alibi or you're trying to frame us for something you do in St. George. I can just see the St. George cops grilling you and you say "it could have been anyone. There's a whole website of people I told my life story to. When they didn't show as much interest as I wanted I gave them my gps coordinates, three samples of hair, several copies of my fingerprints, and even some local esoteria about an ice cream store."

[filghy2]

Well, it became news. There was a story in the local paper about it, people raising hell, city council promising to look into it, the situation was deemed unacceptable.

The VERY NEXT DAY after that story came out in the paper, the smell was gone. Turns out, it had nothing to do with ice cream leaking out of dumpsters, and everything to do with the chemicals they were using to treat their waste. They were cutting costs by low-balling the amount of chemical they were using, and the smell was totally controllable all along if they'd simply decided to spend the extra money to fix the problem. It was strictly a bottom-line business decision.

So they were relying on people in the area to be tolerant. We weren't. And ultimately they had to take care of business. Nobody went to court, nobody filed a lawsuit, nobody made some new law - the problem got solved by me, my neighbors, and the local paper. That's what I'M talking about.

Some people might find it suspicious that you always happen to have a suitable anecdote for any issue. Putting that aside, it seems to me you've just made a good argument for regulation, especially as the company was prepared to lie just to save some money.

First, you don't think the threat of regulation being imposed by the council might have had something to do with their willingness to do the right thing belatedly?

Second, what exactly would have been the cost of requiring them to do this in the first place?

Third, how much time did you and your neighbours expend that could have been avoided had there been some kind of approval process requiring the company to show what it was going to do to avoid this kind of impact?

Finally, how many of the people making a fuss were the sort of virtue-signallers you normally like to deride?

[Nick Danger]

My thought of the day is that you're either setting up an alibi or you're trying to frame us for something you do in St. George. I can just see the St. George cops grilling you and you say "it could have been anyone. There's a whole website of people I told my life story to. When they didn't show as much interest as I wanted I gave them my gps coordinates, three samples of hair, several copies of my fingerprints, and even some local esoteria about an ice cream store."

Some people post pictures of their dicks on here, Bronco. I stop short of that. Here's some more for you - one of these kids is me:

[Nick Danger]

Some people might find it suspicious that you always happen to have a suitable anecdote for any issue. Putting that aside, it seems to me you've just made a good argument for regulation, especially as the company was prepared to lie just to save some money.

First, you don't think the threat of regulation being imposed by the council might have had something to do with their willingness to do the right thing belatedly?

Second, what exactly would have been the cost of requiring them to do this in the first place?

Third, how much time did you and your neighbours expend that could have been avoided had there been some kind of approval process requiring the company to show what it was going to do to avoid this kind of impact?

Finally, how many of the people making a fuss were the sort of virtue-signallers you normally like to deride?

Flighty, it seems to be a foreign concept to you that businesses cheat and lie. I don't doubt for a moment that all along, Dean Foods was intending to kill that smell the moment it started to smell like a community relations nightmare. I think they concocted a cover story they were expecting to have to tell to far fewer people, and they calculated the profit of using X amount of expensive chemical instead of Y amount. I think the one thing they didn't rely on was how far the smell was going to carry. Pretty sure this is all a matter of public record, aside from my evaluation of their motives.