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Why Trump hates wind turbines
by professor rat 01 May '22

01 May '22

So Donald Dumbfuck's fear and loathing of windmills resembles Nazi-Punk hate for Jews. Figures. Dumbfuck ideas cling together. Thanks G for busting down the WaPo firewall btw. This list could be a great place to do that semi-regularly - as when the noise-level from resident trolls drops now and then,

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Hackers have found a sneaky new way to infect Windows devices
by jim bell 01 May '22

01 May '22

Hackers have found a sneaky new way to infect Windows devices https://share.newsbreak.com/zcw7hhgk

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Why Trump hates wind turbines
by Gunnar Larson 01 May '22

01 May '22

Why Trump hates wind turbines: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/why-trump-hates-wind-tur… If you are reading this article on or around April 15, 2022, it may be because Donald Trump recently complained to Fox News’s Sean Hannity <https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1514431787325431814> about wind turbines. He ran through a familiar litany about the number of birds killed by turbine blades and the purported cost of wind for generating energy. If you have heard him talk about wind turbines (or, as he calls them, windmills), you have heard what he told Hannity. If you are reading this at any other point in the future, you are reading it because Trump offered Hannity or someone else the same complaints on the same subject. You are reading this article because you were curious enough to finally Google “why does Donald Trump hate windmills” and, thanks to the magic of search-engine optimization, landed here. Because Trump will never stop complaining about wind turbines. It is perhaps his oldest political opinion and one that is almost completely impervious to any reason. In that light it’s instructive: No one will convince Trump that he’s wrong about wind turbines or that his rationales for hating wind turbines are outdated or wrong, and he will dig in simply *because *people are telling him he’s wrong. This is what we should expect of all of his most fervently expressed political views. Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip Bump <https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/how-to-read-this-chart/?method=S…> The particular story of the wind turbines begins 16 years ago in Scotland. In 2006, Trump bought a large chunk of property on the country’s northeastern coast with the goal of turning it into a golf resort. Six years later, it opened as Trump International Golf Links. It was not as smooth a path as Trump would have hoped. The local government originally rejected <http://www.golfdigest.com/story/donald-trump-golf-courses-scotland> his proposal, out of concern that the area where he hoped to build was environmentally sensitive. The national government stepped in on Trump’s behalf, however, and construction began in 2010. What Trump appears not to have known when he bought the land, though, is that three years prior <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3109206.stm> a new offshore wind farm had been proposed. Following preparatory work, a formal application for construction was filed in 2011 <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-14408064>. And that’s when the war started. At the outset, Trump had only one concern: that the offshore turbines would ruin the view from his course. After all, he clearly had no objection to environmentalism; at one point he insisted <https://www.indiewire.com/2011/05/lies-goons-and-eco-destruction-new-doc-sh…> that his proposed resort “has received tremendous support from environmental groups” and that the resort was “actually the greatest thing I’ve ever done for the environment.” In short order, Trump filed a complaint <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-14923612> against the farm. Trump’s relationship with the Scots deteriorated. In part it was because he launched a war against a local family whose property he wanted to buy — a war that he won in court but led to his being eviscerated in public. Michael Forbes, one of the people resisting Trump’s buyout effort, was named “Top Scot” <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-20608607> in an award sponsored by the Glenfiddich whisky brand, prompting Trump to ban the liquor from his properties. There was also a documentary. This was also the point at which Trump’s opposition to wind turbines became intermingled with politics. He began assailing Scottish officials on Twitter, including at least one official who had helped him overcome local opposition in the first place. He started tweeting regularly <https://www.thetrumparchive.com/?searchbox=%22wind%22&results=1> — hundreds of times — about the purported threats posed by wind turbines. Turbines are “disgusting looking,” “noisy” and “bad for people’s health,” he claimed. They “threaten the migration of birds.” They are “ruining the beauty of parts of the country.” They are “bad for the environment” and “cause tremendous damage to their local ecosystems.” They are “a scourge to communities and wildlife.” They kill so many birds that they “make hunters look like nice people.” And so on. In a familiar pattern, Trump took isolated anecdotes or unconfirmed accusations and elevated and exaggerated them to try to overpower his opponents. At one point in early 2013, for example, he shared a story about a wind turbine collapsing <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270029/UK-weather-Heavy-floods-wr…> in an effort to persuade a Scottish lawmaker he had worked with previously to block the proposed wind farm. But he also intertwined his attacks on wind power with *American* politics. The release of Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” brought increased attention to climate change in the United States, with politicians generally lining up in support of efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In 2009, that included Trump himself, one of the business-community signatories to an ad that ran in the New York Times calling for action <https://grist.org/politics/donald-trump-climate-action-new-york-times/>. The election of Barack Obama and the emergence of the tea party movement, though, overlapped with a federal effort to curtail emissions that quickly became a point of political opposition <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html> for Republicans. By the end of Obama’s first term, climate change was firmly embedded in the culture-war fight, with the GOP criticizing his efforts to expand green employment and energy production. Trump was by then flirting with a presidential run <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/06/2012-was-closer-t…> and folded his complaints about wind energy in Scotland into his social-media patter here in the United States. That campaign didn’t go anywhere. When Trump did decide to run, four years later, he focused far more on immigration than climate. In an interesting episode in November 2015, though, the primary front-runner was forced to confront his anti-wind past. At a town hall in Iowa <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/19/donald-trump-hate…>, a woman whose husband worked for a local turbine manufacturer asked Trump if he supported subsidies for wind energy production. Trump had very publicly scoffed at these subsidies repeatedly — but he was also a guy who had spent decades figuring out how to close the deal. So here was a voter whose vote he needed, and suddenly Trump’s position went from “never” to “I’m okay with subsidies, to an extent.” That was about as close to an embrace of wind power that Trump would offer. Once elected, he dropped any sense of wanting to appeal to those who didn’t already support him and mocking wind turbines became part of his campaign-rally shtick. He would regularly push the line of his complaints, as when he suggested that maybe the sound from wind turbines causes cancer <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/03/trump-claims-that-wind-f…>. It … doesn’t. It was never really clear that he even understood the basic elements of climate change <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/its-possible-that-trump-…> that would explain why wind energy was useful. But that was beside the point. He had a go-to applause line that hit all the right enemies: liberals, hippies, environmental weirdos and so on. So he deployed it over and over again, partly because it worked and partly out of habit. Because this is meant to be a compendium of Trump’s views on the subject, we should quickly run through some of his claims and debunk or contextualize them. So: - Wind turbines can kill birds, as a New York Times story that ran the week of his April interview with Hannity discussed <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/bald-eages-dead-wind-farms.html>. (Initial research suggests that painting one blade black <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/black-wind-turbine-blades-help-bi…> reduces this risk.) But Trump’s complaints about saving migratory birds are undercut quite a bit by the fact that his administration tried to hollow out <https://www.audubon.org/news/trump-birds-drop-dead> a law protecting those birds and by the fact that Trump is a big proponent of another, much more frequent killer of birds: buildings <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/07/how-many-birds-killed-b…> . - Wind energy is a relatively *in*expensive form of energy <https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2020/01/21/renewable-energy-p…>. And while it is dependent on wind (obviously), there are systems ( batteries <https://www.energy-storage.news/large-scale-battery-prevents-dutch-wind-far…>) that can store energy for times when wind is in lower supply. It’s also not the case <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/climate/texas-blackouts-disinformation.h…> that Texas’s power outage in the winter of 2021 was a function of freezing turbines. - The United States imports a lot of wind turbine parts from overseas, but there are hundreds of domestic manufacturers <https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/wind-manufacturing-and-supply-chain> as well (as in Iowa). Part of the push a decade ago was for the country to invest more in the production of turbines, solar equipment and batteries in the United States to not lose an economic advantage, but that push was stymied in part by political opposition to spending money on green energy. That Trump keeps making broad and often outdated claims about wind energy is not surprising. This is what he does! What is remarkable is that this particular thing has become so fixated in his patter. Before mentioning the subject on Hannity’s show in April, he did so in March <https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-windmill-rant-nel…> and in January <https://people.com/politics/donald-trump-revives-gripe-about-windmills-in-r…>. He can’t resist it. It’s simply part of his political worldview, however mottled with error and despite the bizarre genesis of his obsession. After a brief victory for Trump’s efforts to block the wind farm off the coast of Scotland, it was built and began operation in 2018. It has an installed capacity of 96.8 megawatts of energy <https://group.vattenfall.com/uk/what-we-do/our-projects/european-offshore-w…>, enough to power 80,000 homes. There are no reports of turbines collapsing and no known incidents of noise-related cancer. In photos of the course at Trump’s resort posted on Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/1016046089/trump-international-…>, no turbines are visible in the distance.

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Trump Administration Delivers Historic Progress on Offshore Wind
by Gunnar Larson 01 May '22

01 May '22

Trump Administration Delivers Historic Progress on Offshore Wind Continues to fulfill promise of a secure energy future for Americans 10/18/2018 Last edited 9/29/2021 Date: October 18, 2018 Contacts: Interior_Press(a)ios.doi.gov Stephen Boutwell (BOEM) 703-787-1531 *WASHINGTON* – Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced three major developments in American offshore wind energy spanning from coast to coast. Continuing with the Trump Administration's all-of-the-above energy policy, the Secretary spoke at the American Wind Energy Association’s Offshore Wind Conference and announced 1.) much-anticipated wind auction in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts; 2.) the environmental review of a proposed wind project offshore Rhode Island; and 3.) the next steps to a first-ever wind auction in federal waters off of California. “I'm very bullish on offshore wind, and harnessing this renewable resource is a big part of the Trump Administration's made in America energy strategy,” *said Secretary Zinke*. “We are always looking at new ways to increase American innovation and productivity to provide abundant and affordable energy for our homes and manufacturers. I think this is a win for America. Working together with states, fishermen and the energy industry, we are making offshore wind a reality, and these three historic announcements are proof.” Wind Auction Offshore Massachusetts The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold the next offshore wind auction – to include nearly 390,000 acres offshore Massachusetts – on Dec. 13, 2018. Nineteen companies have qualified to participate in the auction for the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area, demonstrating continued strong commercial interest in the U.S. offshore wind market. “The Massachusetts sale has a lot of potential for both energy and economic activity,” *Zinke said.* “If fully developed, the wind auction could support approximately 4.1 gigawatts of power to supply nearly 1.5 million homes. This is just one example of the importance of fostering wind energy as a new American industry.” For more information, including a map of the Massachusetts lease areas and information provided in the Final Sale Notice, which will be published in the Federal Register on Oct. 19, visit the BOEM website at https://www.boem.gov/Commercial-Wind-Leasing/Massachusetts/Lease-Sale-4A/. Environmental Review of Wind Project Offshore Rhode Island BOEM will publish a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Construction and Operations Plan for the South Fork Wind Project offshore Rhode Island. If approved, the plan would allow construction and operation of up to 15 turbines that connect via a transmission cable to a grid in East Hampton, New York - the east end of Long Island. The project is approximately 19 miles southeast of Block Island. The notice will be published in the Federal Register on Oct. 19 and will have a 30-day public comment period closing on Nov. 19. For more information, including how to comment and locations of upcoming public meetings please visit: https://www.boem.gov/South-Fork/. Call for Information and Nominations Offshore California In what could result in the first West Coast offshore wind auction, BOEM will publish a Call for Information and Nominations (Call) to identify companies interested in commercial wind energy leases within three proposed areas off central and northern California. This is the first step towards offering a location for wind leasing. The three Call Areas include 85 whole Outer Continental Shelf blocks and 573 partial blocks and together comprise approximately 1,073 square miles (687,823 acres). The Call will be published in the Federal Register on Oct. 19 and will have a 100-day public comment period closing on Jan. 27, 2019. For more information on the Call, including a map of the Call Areas and how to comment, please visit: https://www.boem.gov/California/. Additional Background Through BOEM, the Department of the Interior manages 12 active commercial wind energy leases off the Atlantic covering nearly 1.4 million acres. Interior expects additional leasing offshore both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts moving forward, involving active stakeholder engagement, and providing increased transparency and efficiency throughout the permitting process. For information on the Department’s Offshore Wind Program, please visit: https://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy/.

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If there was a God it would be essential to destroy it
by professor rat 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

Mind-expanding mass-democracy or religion. Choose one. https://www.burningshore.com/p/the-elephant-lsd?s=r Give me globalized anarchism and give religion death

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Our Fight To Prevent Patent Suits From Being Shrouded in Secrecy
by Revevilgod God 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

Our Fight To Prevent Patent Suits From Being Shrouded in Secrecy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/our-fight-prevent-patent-suits-being-… The public has a right to know what happens when companies litigate in publicly funded courts. Unfortunately, when it comes to patent cases, companies routinely ignore the public’s rights—for example, by filing entire documents under seal without making any attempt to justify that much secrecy. Even when courts have specific rules requiring justification for sealing requests and publicly filing redacted versions of sealed documents, parties can often defy them without consequence. That’s why EFF, along with the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, and the assistance of Columbia Law School’s Science, Health, and Information Clinic has filed a motion to intervene and unseal documents in a patent case, Uniloc v. Google, in the Eastern District of Texas. When Google filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the parties filed their briefs and documentary exhibits entirely under seal, keeping even basic facts about those documents (like their length) secret. Worse, the parties did not file any sealing motions or make any other attempt to justify their excessive sealing requests. This conduct violated the public’s access rights under the Constitution and common law as well as the standing order of the presiding judge, Judge Rodney Gilstrap. It also undermines earlier efforts by EFF to ensure greater transparency in patent cases in this Texas federal court, which has one of the largest dockets of patent cases in the country. These sealed documents are important: they go to whether Uniloc has a legal right, known as standing, to bring lawsuits based on these patents. As one of the country’s most prolific patent litigants, Uniloc’s right to sue affects the freedom of countless technology makers and users. Many of the documents that Uniloc filed under seal in Texas were already unsealed in another case—yet in Texas, they remain sealed in their entirety. There is no justification for that. Once information is public, it cannot be sealed. Hoping the parties would recognize that as well, EFF and PIPLI asked Google and Uniloc to unseal those already public records and to file motions to seal any information they could justify keeping sealed. Google and Uniloc refused. So we’re asking the federal court to order them to unseal these materials. This case is important for another reason: It appears that many companies litigating in this district court are ignoring the Constitution, common law, and the court’s own standing order. Those rules require them to justify any sealing requests and file redacted versions of the sealed material on the public docket. Google and Uniloc did not attempt to justify their sealing requests or even ask the court’s permission before making all of their filings secret. Instead, they appear to believe a private agreement governing the exchange of documents in litigation, known as a protective order, gives them a free pass to file material under seal without showing any cause. But private parties cannot violate the public’s right to access federal court records by entering into a secrecy agreement. Crucially, the misuse of protective orders is not unique to this case. It is rooted in misinterpretation of the model protective order used for all patent cases in the district. And Uniloc and Google are not alone in reading this model order incorrectly. Patent litigants in the Eastern District of Texas routinely file documents under seal without making any showing of cause. That’s unlawful and shields the public from activities occurring in courts that they fund. EFF and PIPLI intervened in this case to stop patent litigants in the district from using the model protective order to trump the public’s right to access court records. We hope that in filing this motion to intervene and unseal, we can help the public learn more about the issues in this case and vindicate its right to access court records in patent cases going forward. EFF and PIPLI would like to thank Columbia University law students Caleb Monaghan and David Ratnoff, along with Associate Professor of Clinical Law Chris Morten, for their work on the case.

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Elon Musk did something awesome that has nothing to do with Twitter
by jim bell 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-service-ukraine-20… NewmanApril 29, 2022, 1:47 pmUkraine’s plucky military has so far outboxed the larger and more muscular Russian army that invaded on Feb. 24. Elon Musk may have something to do with it. "The American punditocracy has obsessed over Musk’s recent deal to purchase Twitter, which might ruin free speech as we know it, or, modestly alter a social-media platform most Americans don’t even use. Meanwhile, people have been dying in Ukraine—or not dying—because of Musk’s effort to help the underdog Ukrainians with secure communications. "On Feb. 26, two days after the Russian invasion began, a top Ukrainian official asked Elon Musk on Twitter to activate SpaceX’s Starlink service in Ukraine. Starlink is a satellite-based high-speed internet service offered by SpaceX, where Musk is CEO, for people who don’t have access to wired internet. Airlines may adopt it for in-flight Wi-Fi. SpaceX rockets have so far deployed about 2,400 Starlink satellites, with the goal of ultimately fielding 42,000 satellites that can provide internet service in most inhabited parts of the world."

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ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT OF 1973 As Amended through the 108th Congress
by Gunnar Larson 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT OF 1973 As Amended through the 108th Congress "The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the eco- systems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be con- served, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth ..." For reference, I have included 91 highlights underscoring potential ESG best practices: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ahV6Oh0_Ji7c3ImmSJT8tHsvXtFA3SKU/view?usp=…

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Proffessor Turd needs killing (My 0.5 cent )
by razorleaker 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

> i'll give 0.5 cent to whoever did it. that's how much his blood is worth

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Next stop: over a billion users
by professor rat 30 Apr '22

30 Apr '22

These state-capitalist morons will sell us all the optic-fiber we need to hang them with https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/08/digital_yuan_wechat_integration/ Welcome to the anarchist revolution!

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