More Carbon-Free Electricity

 https://www.stcloudlive.com/news/local/officials-celebrate-as-1-1b-sherburne-county-solar-power-plan-comes-online

 

One time assistant high school football coach and failed vice-presidential candidate Minnesota governor Tim Walz joined some prominent Xcel Energy executives Nov. 19 at the celebration of the opening of the initial phase of the $1.1 billion Sherco Solar Project near Becker, Minnesota.

 

 Trent Abrego / St. Cloud LIVE

As is normal, proponents of the project tout the number of jobs that it creates, 400 union construction jobs and 12 ongoing operations and maintenance jobs. Yes, twelve highly-paid individuals will observe the static solar panels far into the future, or at least the 35 year lifespan those panels are expected to have, as well as those temporary construction jobs, all for the paltry investment of over a billion dollars. A universal benefit will be the elimination of atmospheric CO2 release, believed by some to be the cause of the startling rise in global temperatures.

Of course none of this would be happening without the advanced Whig technique of providing $480 million in federal tax credits for the operation, as if this sum came from trees rather than the taxes paid by citizens far into the future.

According to media reports the project is even now providing reliable electrical power to thousands of Upper Midwest homes, 220 megawatts at present. Batteries to store power during cloudy days and darkness are on the way.

 

Xcel Energy 

Portions of the project cover what was once a University of Minnesota agricultural research site.  

 

Putting An End To Stabbings

Keeping track of the complete madness that permeates German politics is a full-time job that could dominate a life. Daily there are new indications of collective insanity in central Europe. Here are just a few:

   Interior Senator Iris Spanger (SPD)

1. Interior Senator Iris Spanger has arrived at a solution to the increase of stabbings in Germany, 3,482 occurring last year. She and a group of experts have concluded that this violent crime wave could be ended by suspending the driver's license of a person found guilty of six knife offenses in a 24 month period.

2. Adding together both federal and state sources Germany has spent over 266 million euros subsidizing the development of computer video games.

3. Berlin chief of police Barbara Slowik advises Jews and gays to avoid certain areas of the city due to violence from migrants.

4. German economic minister Robert Habeck filed a complaint with police that someone had called him "an idiot" on an X posting, one of 805 complaints he has made. It resulted in a dawn raid on the man's home and confiscation of his electronic devices.   

Kill Their Dogs

At Nunavik, in the most northern reaches of the Province of Quebec, RCMP, Hudson's Bay employees and others took part in a government mandated execution of over a thousand husky sled dogs owned by the Inuit from the late 1950s to the 1960s.

Of course, this is but one more example of how the invading colonialists treated their technological inferiors. In 2011 Quebec paid the former owners of their basic transportation $CD3 million but Ottawa has never put together any form of compensation for this incredible crime.

It must be kept in mind that no action of a government can legally take place without the signature of a decision maker. There is always a responsible party. Those that shot the dogs were following orders of a higher up. Who was the individual that scrawled their name on the death warrant for many hundreds of dogs thousands of miles from the supposedly civilized Canadians? This is important to know so that no high school, court house or hockey arena can ever bear their name.

 

pxhere.com 

North Dakota Public Service Commission Approves Summit CO2 Plan

A unanimous decision by the North Dakota Public Service Commission has approved the plan of Summit Carbon Solutions' $8 billion pipeline proposal that will carry liquid CO2 from 57 ethanol plants in 5 states to an area northwest of Bismarck, ND and then be injected into the ground. The total length of the pipelines would be about 2500 miles, 333 miles in North Dakota.

 

Sheri Haugen-Hoffart     ndliving.com

 

Julie Fedorchak                         kvrr.com

 

Randy Christmann          fortnightly.com

 

The above three are the North Dakota Public Service Commissioners who unanimously approved the Summit Carbon Solutions plan.

There are many questions about the construction of the pipeline complex. First of all, no one has built a liquid CO2 pipeline of this magnitude before, including Summit Carbon Solutions. No one knows if it will actually function as proposed. One of the biggest questions is using the power of eminent domain to acquire the right to cross through private property, which can't be used for the benefit of private entities.

But the primary question, the one that dominates the entire concept is: Will the incredibly expensive project meant to arrest accumulation of CO2 into the atmosphere actually have any effect on climate change? Nobody knows about that for sure, either.

Tom Cherveny / West Central Tribune file photo

CChris Hill, Summit Carbon Solutions

 Once again, we're seeing Whigism at a greater extent than in even the wildest times of the robber barons. Tax pay-offs and subsidies will be distributed from government agencies to their accomplices in the board rooms of complicit corporations.   

  

Rape Prevention In Berlin

 

transportrail.canalblog.com

The Greens, part of the "Taffic Light" coalition that runs the German government, are lobbying for a remedy to sexual assaults in the Faustian capital, according to this article from Apollo News:

" The Greens in the Berlin Senate are demanding that there should be special carriages on the subway and S-Bahn just for women to protect them from sexual assault. This is reported by BZ. Originally, separate carriages were to be set up not only for women, but also for non-binary and transgender people. But then it was decided to focus on women. The Greens' transport spokeswoman, Antje Kapek, defended the focus: "I support the focus on women. They are more frequently exposed to violence and therefore have a greater need for protection." Last year, 89 percent of victims of sexual crimes were women and 90 percent of perpetrators were men.

In Berlin, the proportion of sexual crimes on public transport has increased by 260 percent in the last ten years. In 2023, there were 391 crimes. The Greens' plan calls for carriages to be exclusively for women outside of rush hour. The carriages should be either "directly behind the driver," says Kapek, or "at the end of the train if there is a second driver, as in Tokyo." In addition, specially marked zones with emergency call boxes are to be set up, and there is to be video surveillance at the stations.

The measure is based on similar regulations in Japan's capital Tokyo. In Tokyo, there are women's carriages in the evening from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and in the morning until 10 a.m. In addition to women, only wheelchair users and boys up to a maximum age of 12 are allowed in the carriages. 

Maja Weihgold, head of communications at Berlin's public transport company BVG, says: "We are working hard to ensure that all passengers reach their destination safely and with a good feeling at all times." All BVG subways have emergency call buttons that connect them to the driver. There are already emergency call boxes at all stations that connect them to the BVG security center. A police officer who is in contact with police officers on patrol also works at the BVG security center.

The Greens' demand was triggered by a rape in February, as Bild reported. 33-year-old Mohsen K. raped a 63-year-old woman on the U3 line on the last train to Krumme Lanke. The crime occurred shortly after midnight. The Iranian, who came to Germany in 2016, was transferred to a clinic for schizophrenia, as BZ reported in July.

According to the Berliner Morgenpost, the general secretary of the Berlin FDP, Peter Langer, said : "Everyone must be able to move freely in Berlin. There must be no no-go areas." He continued: "Instead of creating extra carriages, all subway carriages must be accessible. Additional security personnel must be available on site, especially in the evenings and at night." Berlin's transport senator Ute Bonde (CDU) is also critical of the Greens' proposal. She referred to the existing security structure at subway and S-Bahn stations. The requested measure contradicts "my idea of ​​a society with equal rights, regardless of my gender."

Others point out that the increase in crimes of this nature in Germany is due to the unlimited immigration from the south and east of the country.

 

 The Midget pub (Image: Andy Ffrench)

Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, about halfway between London and Gloucester, was at one time the home of MG Motors, the maker, among other models, of the MG Midget, holder of the world land speed record. The business is now owned by a Chinese firm and autos with the MG marque are produced in China. 

The pub was established in 1974 and has carried the same name since. But, in a world where disapproval can be expressed from a comfortable chair via a digital petition, a simple, uncontroversial word can be doomed to infamy. Apparently there are some, perhaps midgets themselves, that find the word demeaning and obnoxious. Why this should be is a mystery. There will always be a word needed to describe a smaller adult human. Dwarf isn't it either since a midget and dwarf are not the same. Maybe if there is in some backwater of the English-speaking world a saloon named "The Dwarf", it too will have its name changed to mollify some small group of pin heads.

This actually isn't unusual. US hockey youth levels were once designated as Mite, Squirt, Peewee, Bantam and Midget but since 2016 these divisions are now called by their ages. What was once a Peewee is an Age 11-12.

Open-wheel midget sprint cars are still a popular form of racing all over the world. Owners, drivers and spectators may not be offended but surely others object.

Neo-Whigs Celebrate In Up-State New York

American Whigs have joyfully engineered an $825 million infusion of enpixelated federal funds to establish the Albany Nano Tech complex in the upstate New York capital. Research at the location is to include the further development of  extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography, a component of advanced semiconductor technology. 

 

technostalls.com

Two other similar research and development centers are to be established in as yet to be disclosed locations. The Biden/Harris administration's 2022 Chips and Science Act is the legal structure used to enable the investment. Ostensibly, the legislation is meant to counter advances in AI technology by unfriendly nations, mostly China, but also includes a hodgepodge of other issues related to AGW, space operations and other current crises. 

This follows the successful pressure the US government has put on the Dutch government and leading chip tool manufacturer ASML of the Netherlands to cease exporting the most advanced production tools to Chinese entities.

The justification for these moves is, of course, national security. While no one really knows if artificial intelligence or large language models can even be a significant factor in a military environment and make one nation more dangerous than another, the Whigs can be counted on to explore the issue and distribute  large sums of money. 

In the dim Yankee past the ingredients of national security were made up of simple technologies like the repeating rifle, the steam ship, and mobile artillery, the tank. Now AI systems will evidently direct serious disagreements between armed adversaries. Perhaps AI will at some point be able to convince political leaders that the time is right to unleash devastating force on perceived enemies or even economic competitors. Will it be possible that AI might recommend surrender? If it does will the leaders inform the population?

Isn't it a fact that rather than fear of a Han invasion the US worries that the Chinese will conquer in an economic sense, perhaps negating the advantages of US hyper-capitalism? Is that the national security this activity is meant to insure?

A similar situation existed in the late seventeenth century between the British and the Dutch, each seeking hegemony in the colonial era. The affair was settled diplomatically by the Treaty of Breda in 1667.