Thursday, July 07, 2022

Silly Proles, Freedom is Passe!

Two cities put these people into power.

Two. Cities:

The Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, appointed by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, says that “misleading political communications” should be federally regulated. The group claims that unregulated political discussion and disinformation “erodes the foundations of democracy.”

 

Is it misleading to point out that your moron boss, who swore that budgets balance themselves, has put this country into an economic depression?

Who could have done that, Pablo? Who?

The Nazis also "regulated" speech "for the greater good", too, Pablo.

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The "journalist" doesn't get it:

Batteries, they do not make electricitythey store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.

Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?”

Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.

There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.

Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium. The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.

All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old, ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery’s metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.

In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones.

But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive production costs.

A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.

It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just – one – battery.”

Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?”

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A recent study by a German research organization, ifo Schnelldienst, compared the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions performance of a Mercedes C 220d diesel and a Tesla Model 3, and perhaps not surprisingly, the conclusion included, "Considering Germany's current energy mix and the amount of energy used in battery production, the CO2 emissions of battery-electric vehicles are, in the best case, slightly higher than those of a diesel engine, and are otherwise much higher."

 

(Sidebar: not that carbon dioxide is a pollutant but I digress ...) 


So, you unpleasant, fat, little creature, what is "green" about child labour?:

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the federal government is absolutely concerned about inflation, but dismissed critics who called her callous and out of touch for suggesting the high cost of gas is a reminder of why we need to transition to greener energy solutions. ...

Freeland said inflation is largely caused by forces outside of Canada’s control: the Russian war in Ukraine and supply chain hits from COVID-19.

She then added that “from my perspective this price increase in fuel costs is a reminder of why climate action is so important, and why as a country we have to work even harder and move even faster towards a green economy. It’s an insurance policy against higher energy prices.” ...

 

(Sidebar: yes, about that ...) 

 

To date the Liberals have rejected calls to cut gas taxes. Three provinces have cut them — Alberta by 13 cents a litre in April, Newfoundland and Labrador by seven cents in June and Ontario by 5.7 cents on July 1.

Canada is the only G7 country not providing some form of relief at the pumps at the national level.

The average pump price Wednesday was $1.94, 60 cents higher than a year ago. That price includes the 10 cents per litre federal gas tax, and 11 cents a litre in carbon price. The latter is up 2.2 cents compared to a year ago.

 

Also:

During a press conference last week, I interrupted Chrystia Freeland to ask whether Canada sent special forces to fight Russia in Ukraine. I also queried the deputy prime minister on whether Canada was at war with Russia and if she’s concerned about the possibility of nuclear war. I also asked if she considered NATO an aggressive alliance.

Before receiving a response, I was ushered out of the room at the Maison du développement durable in Montréal.

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Nepotism is the entire point:

Fewer than half the job vacancies in one federal department are now advertised to the general public, says a newly-released audit. The Department of Canadian Heritage confirmed only 46 percent of postings are made public, a practice criticized by the Public Service Commission as prone to nepotism: “That is certainly something we are on the lookout for.”
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Quelle surprise:

Official Elections Canada political financing records reveal that Moiz Karimjee from Ottawa donated over $17,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada since 2013. 

Karimjee is currently the lead Crown prosecutor in charge of the case against Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich.

Contribution data from Elections Canada reveals that Karimjee from Orleans – a suburb of the nation’s capital – donated a total of $17,176.24 to various Liberal Party of Canada efforts. The latest contribution listed by Karimjee was on Sept. 30, 2019 amounting to $250. 

On May 21, 2017, Karimjee also made a large contribution worth $1,500 to the Liberal Party of Canada. His extensive support continued regularly for nearly six years spanning 29 different contributions.

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It serves them right for travelling to see family!:

In 2019, the mandate letter for then-innovation minister Navdeep Bains directed him to create “a new Canadian Consumer Advocate to ensure a single point of contact for people who need help with federally regulated banking, telecom or transportation-related complaints.”

Two and a half years later, there haven’t been any updates on the creation of that agency. Government documents obtained through Access to Information show that as of a year ago, Innovation, Science and Economic Development was still working on a mandate for the Canadian Consumer Advocate.

 

It was the creation of a public sector job and nothing more.

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Travellers hate it. Border guards say it’s a waste of time. Even some doctors say it should go.

Like it or not, ArriveCAN is the digital beast that just won’t die.

The app was supposed to be a short-term solution to make sure everyone who entered Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic followed the government’s strict 14-day quarantine rules.

It was launched in April 2020 and made mandatory in November of that year.

But as vaccination rates rise, and as other public health measures fall, the app has quietly morphed into something else.

And anyone who hoped the app might soon disappear is likely going to be disappointed with the results.

“ArriveCAN was originally created for COVID-19, but it has technological capacity beyond that,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said during a June 28 press conference.

 

Eventually, Canadians will agree to stop travelling anywhere and learn to like it.

 


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