Questioning Everything

Some headlines need to be questioned. That is always true, but in today’s Daily Doom headlines, I’m including several that are interesting but also demonstrate why you need to question the things you are reading, which, of course, is why you read The Daily Doom, which tries to call things as they are and to dig beneath the headline news. Even in The Daily Doom, I include headlines I don’t agree with because they are setting trends or saying things we should think about, whether we agree with them or not. It’s always good to question our beliefs, and I question mine all the time. Here are some examples from today’s edition where the headlines beg a little questioning.

One thing that should have been questioned intensely all along in energy news but hasn’t been is how the EV car boom is going to stress the US energy grid far beyond its capabilities. The article even points out how we likely cannot even build the grid up as fast as the government is pressing to convert to EV cars. I’ve been saying that for some time now.

Right along side that article, as verifiable proof, I’ve included another headline that says the United States now holds the worlds’ record among developed nations — and apparently even over a few banana republics — for the highest number of electrical blackouts and brownouts. So, already, we are far below the capacity we need; yet, we want to hugely increase consumption. One reason we are below what we need already is the very environmentalists who are insisting we convert to EVs. They don’t want more power lines all over the nation or many other projects that would increase electrical production. Apparently, they want magic electricity.

Now, I have nothing against electric vehicles. I kind of like them, but the idea that we can make this huge, rapid conversion shows we have a lot of leaders with brains like Biden’s (see other articles noted below) that may need their own energy-grid upgrade. It is simply not doable on the present time frame, especially when, as we FINALLY have an article pointing out, it is entirely meaningless for the environment anyway if you do not do all of the capacity upgrade with, renewable energy, making it far more expensive and covering a lot of land with environmentally destructive projects like vast solar arrays in the place of trees that could be making oxygen and providing habitat. That means those electric cars are not going to stay cheap to operate as currently marketed, and everyone’s electric rates for everything they do with electricity will rise.

Almost no one questions the TRUE environmental impacts of “green” energy. Take for example, nuclear power, which many have tried to claim for years is green energy. Today’s news also includes an article about Japan making a massive release of radioactive water from Fukushima into the ocean, much to ire of China, which doesn’t want the nuclear pollution. Then there is another article in the news today about the increased likelihood of a major incident at the Zaporizhzhia nuke plant in Ukraine as Russia issues an evacuation order. From there, think elsewhere in Ukraine to Chernobyl.

Then think about who pays the costs of storing and guarding the nuclear waste for thousands of years with zero benefit during all of those millennia. It is only cheap power because most of the costs will be amortized over a few thousand years to be covered by people who are not yet alive. The fuel doesn’t guard itself from acquisition by the bad guys, and we have seen a few times how the spent fuel dumps develop leaks that require extraordinary measures with enormous price tags. That adds up to thousands of years of costs during which that spent fuel does no one any good at all. But what do we care if we’re not the generation footing the bill?

Or take the example of Biden’s plan to create “green” hydrogen from water in the US. He plans to do it in areas already suffering extreme water shortages! As another article lays out, that means he will have to use desalinated sea water because there is certainly not enough fresh water. That means he will need to consume more energy to desalinate the sea water, and local authorities are complaining that desalination of the water used to make hydrogen will increase salinity in the surrounding sea as the salt gets returned to the sea locally but none of the water does, causing local environmental damage. Yes, the hydrogen eventually converts back to water and runs back to the sea, but from all over the world where the hydrogen is burned as fuel and the steam clouds blow, which doesn’t help the salinity of the sea where the “green” hydrogen is made.

On the political front, we read today that the Biden administration just released numerous documents about JFK’s assassination as Biden promised. That is interesting, timed as it is for Biden’s only serious campaign competitor: RFK Jr. is promising to release all kinds of assassination info if he gets to be president. So, Biden may want to beat him to it to take the wind out of his sails; but one thing the article doesn’t talk about is why the information is redacted in the documents released.

The article mentions the redactions, but it doesn’t question them. To me, that is screaming for some intense questioning. Why do you need to redact ANY information in documents that are more than half a century old? It is likely that almost no one mentioned in those documents is alive today. It is likely that all of the intelligence-gathering techniques used in creating those documents are far beneath any secrecy requirements as they are about as dated now as a telephone made from two plastic cups connected by a string. The agents who gathered the information, if they’re not dead now, are certainly no longer agents, so just who and what is being shielded here? The only thing still alive is the agencies, themselves. Are they just shielding their own reputations? Is there ever a time when the public gets to know EVERYTHING?

Speaking of Biden’s candidacy and questions that need to be asked, I’ve included two headlines today that show even liberal Democrats are starting to say we need to seriously question Biden’s brain and whether it is working right. Now, one of the articles, makes recommendations I find ludicrous, such as running Nancy Pelosi — an equally fragile and antiquated relic — as stiff competition for him in a primary. The article even makes the argument on the basis that doing this is important to keep Biden in fighting shape for the main arena event when he goes up against the Republican choice. Seriously? Sparring with Pelosi will put him in fighting shape? They probably agree on everything, and both have fraying wires in their graying gray matter.

The article even refers to the way boxers who were not getting enough fights to stay in good form were put in practice rings against strong fighters who would bring out their weaknesses to help them improve. Nancy Pelosi is the boxer you’d throw Biden in the ring with to make sure he’s stays in top form for the main election? Dementia v. the truly punch drunk, as we are sure her punch is laced. While that whole scenario is beyond laughable, the very fact that liberal publications and liberal writers are questioning Biden’s thinking capacity is, itself, a change in the news worth carrying and noting. So, that’s why it is in The Daily Doom in the main categories and not down in the humor section where much of it should be.

Another article I found interesting was one that reported how flagrantly some police officers exhibited their racism even when riding in cars with DOJ investigators, whom these officers knew were assessing racism in community police forces. That seems like trying to convince your wife you’re on a diet while eating a package of Twinkies in front of her with a bowl of ice-cream, which shows to me how bad the racism might be in some areas.

The article also states that in some areas where police forces were reduced, crime plummeted. Now, that is something I naturally question. If it did fall where cops were scaled back, that is interesting, and we should be aware of it. For me, that would be something that runs counter to my own biases and says I may need to question my thoughts. However, I also need to question the article. If I were to dig deeper, would I find that what really happened was that, with the huge reduction in those police forces, no one had time to fill out reports anymore, so the number of crimes that got reported plummeted, not the number of crimes that happened? I’ll jump to no conclusion, but I read with that question in mind.

Question everything.