On 10/20/2023 at 9:11 AM, revkevsdi said:

Question for supporters of Jim Jordan. If you were in a position to stop sexual assault of students or cover it up so the perp can continue finding victims. What would you do?  
 

I would get the police involved immediately.  I would also fire anyone who helped cover it up regardless of if they thought they were protecting the university or not.  I would also seriously question whether they were involved because why else would they cover it up. 
 

I also wouldn’t hire someone like that or recommend them for a promotion?  

Mercans sure are different. I thought this was an easy answer.  I guess you were only pretending Clinton deserved to be impeached. 

4 hours ago, racer254 said:

Let's elect another dyed in the wool RINO to be speaker and complain about how spending isn't changing and policies are stay the same.  Keep up the good work in washington.  Imagine that, the swamp doesn't want things to change and there are some here that like to say they want change, but when given the opportunity, they suck on the washington tit big time.

You could pretend Trump’s gang of shitheads are different if Trump didn’t spend more money and time golfing while funneling that money to his private company. Can you really pretend the Trump loyalists aren’t swamp creatures?  Statutory rapist Gaetz, rapist Trump, wank a guy in a children’s show Boobert, protect sexual predator Jordan. 

How are you that dumb?

18 minutes ago, SkisNH said:

Well she did delete emails and wipe her server....

The current lawfair being used against Trump and his allies is ridiculous...you really think Roger Stone needed to be swatted?

The Feds passed on the NY case saying there was nothing there. 

When you figure out how to rid Canada of your globalist fuck, then you can chime in on our politics.  

Bush did far worse and he was lying about a war.  30 million emails. 
 

Then there is this. 
 

• The National Archives in February said it had recovered 15 boxes of presidential records that former President Donald Trump had taken to his home in Mar-a-Lago. This was a breach of the Presidential Records Act.

• Some of the documents were marked classified national security.

• Hillary Clinton used a private email address for exchanges with her State Department staff. In three instances, email chains included information with ambiguous classification markings.

14 minutes ago, ViperGTS/Z1 said:

This is part of how I  measure failure. ...wow... stunning.

 

 

So you are for quantitative easing?  I thought when Obama kept the interest rates low to crawl out from Bush’s crash it was wrong.  
You should try to make up your mind.  Do you want high inflation, or high interest rates.  Do you want more or less government control?

51 minutes ago, Skidooski said:

30 years ago they claimed many places would be under water. 20 years before that was going to be an ice age. Makes you wonder what 20-30 years from now they will claim for doom and gloom 

Did they claim they would be permanent under water?  How many times a decade does a house have to get flooded before it’s useless or can’t be insured?  Lots of 100 year floods happening every decade.

But you know that. You just want enough reasonable doubt so you don’t feel guilty. 

1 minute ago, Steve753 said:

The earths average temperature has changed 2 degrees since 1880. 

 

Are you pretending to be a scientist that understands this?

1 hour ago, ViperGTS/Z1 said:

Waste......these efforts are futile anymore, it's  too late. Perhaps 30 years ago it may have made a difference... But if it makes you feel good I guess is all that really matters. 

I will continue to buy ICE vehicles for as long as possible......and wish for the wife's Exxon stock to flourish. I think some of these big oil companies are finding ways to be greener anyway. We can only learn to live with a warming world at this point. 

I’m not surprised. Lots more like you out there unfortunately. 
We have different ideas for preparing for the worst. Being energy self sufficient is mine. My house and two businesses have their own wells and are not in flood zones or places in danger from fires. I could if necessary place container farms on any of the properties and have will have water and power production and back up power from my vehicles. 
 

If things get bad, Ice vehicles will be useless. 

1 hour ago, Steve753 said:

History says im right regardless what you think.

You been fooled and don’t want to admit it. That’s ok. 

6 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

Wasnt it record low unemployment before covid though?

It’s lower now than anytime under trump. But you ignore facts so who cares. 

2 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Trump said if he was president he would have had a nuke deal with Iran. Imagine that? Trumpers here think he’s coherent.

Is he going to re write the deal he violated?

1 hour ago, snoughnut said:

Biden and his entire admin. are colossal fuckups. Radical losers just like you. 

Debt growth has slowed from the tear Trump had it on, and record low unemployment. He’s doing that so far without thousands of dead soldiers. How are you measuring failure?

2 hours ago, DriftBusta said:

All some of these guys want to do is argue.  Worst part is this notion that the Democrats have actually done a good job, Joe Biden isn't the most corrupt POTUS in our lifetimes, and our justice system hasn't weaponized itself against conservatives.  

Trump wanted to weaponize the justice system. “Lock her up”.  These aren’t all democrat appointed judges.

Have you purposely ignored the news on right wing billionaires stacking the Supreme Court?

Trump also wanted to make it easier to sue the media.  Funny that the media wing of the Republican Party (faux news)was the first to get hammered. 

Karma bitches. 

Whoops. The right got duped again. 

Cbc reporter  
 

Colby Cosh (born May 2, 1971) is a Canadian commentator, writer and editor of non-fiction, and blogger.

Life and career

Cosh was born in Edmonton, Alberta and grew up in Bon Accord, Alberta, north of Edmonton. He graduated from the University of Alberta in 1993, doing further study in European intellectual history under libertarian scholar Ronald Hamowy. Cosh generally writes political, social and sports commentary for his blog, and professionally for the conservative press. Cosh's own views tend towards libertarianism.

3 hours ago, toslow said:

Someone from the CBC

Common sense would tell you that if it was a cbc reporter they would have released the name.  But common sense is not all that common is it?

5 minutes ago, ArcticCrusher said:

You should be worried, the clinically stupid will be next and it may be mandatory. 

3 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

Guess we will see what happens. The past says that im right.

No it doesn’t. But you can keep pretending you don’t believe in climate change if that eases your conscience.  

5 minutes ago, ViperGTS/Z1 said:

Yup....so what can be done? Many have already said we have reached a tipping point where even if all C02 was discontinued, the world would continue to warm. Getting rid of ICE vehicles will do zilch.

 The only choice is adapting...... I'm sure there is big money in that as well     

What can be done is vote for parties and candidates that will make changes to green energy. It should have happened 20’years ago. But from now on just make greener choices. In Ontario our grid has very little fossil fuel so my best way was an ev. next step is replacing my furnace with a heat pump and when it’s time for a new roof, solar.   I vote for the Green Party.  They won’t get in but as they bleed votes away the liberals will notice. 

1 minute ago, Steve753 said:

We buy more oil from Canada. 

They are almost all foreign owned and Canada sure as hell doesn’t set the price. 

1 minute ago, Steve753 said:

As ive said many times, you take the money being made away from the climate change agenda, it all goes away. The earth is going to do what its always done. We have no control over that. 

Science disagrees with you and so do oil Companies. Fortunately for them they’ve done such a thorough job of fooling people like you that even when they admit they lied for 40 years, you are so invested in not being wrong that you continue their lies for them. It’s fucking brilliant. 

18 minutes ago, ViperGTS/Z1 said:

Climate change is real.....

The only solution is adaptation. We are not going to change it. I'm fine with burning more oil.   

Putin and OPEC thank you. 

Just now, Steve753 said:

Climate scientists like money too.

Is that you backing up your words and researching the oil company websites?  
 

Maybe you don’t know how.  Here’s a screen shot from BP’s page.  It’s fine print because they are still scumbags but ask yourself why they would admit it if they could prove it was a lie.

19 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

Dude I can dig up where both you and revkev said Gretas words were gospel. Nothing she says is backed by science. 

This video says that they are easily researched.  So go ahead, look on oil company websites and report back. 
 

I know it’s an easy win for stupid people to point at that a girl who famously quit school to protest the lack of action on climate change doesn’t have a degree. That’s why she says, don’t listen to me, listen to climate scientists. Common sense would tell you not to listen to the ones hired by oil industry lobbyists. 

6 minutes ago, XCR1250 said:

China Restricts Exports Of A Key Mineral, Stoking U.S. Fears About Battery Supply Chains

Alexander C. Kaufman

Updated Fri, October 20, 2023 at 3:00 PM CDT·4 min read

83

 

A number of very large container ships carry out container handling operations at the automated terminal of Yangshan deep-water Port, Shanghai, China, July 21, 2023.

China has slapped export controls on graphite, a key mineral used to make steel and electric car batteries, ratcheting up a trade fight with the United States over the technologies needed to wean the world’s economy off planet-heating fossil fuels. 

The measures, announced Friday in a joint declaration from Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs, banned exports of artificial graphite, the natural flake version of the mineral, and products made with them unless the government grants permission. The restrictions take effect on Dec. 1. 

“Graphite is a key material that holds strategic significance in new-energy industry and global players are fiercely competing with one another in this sector,” Tian Yun, an economist in Beijing, told the Chinese nationalist newspaper Global Times. “It can be expected that similar moves will be more commonplace if the US continues to escalate sanctions in the technological field against China.”

The restrictions come as President Joe Biden has expanded the Trump administration’s trade war with China, placing export bans on technologies like the semiconductors needed to power artificial intelligence applications. The Biden administration is set to ramp up tariffs on Chinese-made solar equipment as Beijing provides its own factories with so much government support that even dairy companies are opening factories to churn out the materials for panels. In response, China in July put new export controls on two metals used to make computer chips and solar panels, gallium and germanium.

Employees work on the production line of lithium batteries at the workshop of a new energy lithium battery industrial park on Aug. 28 in Yichang, Hubei Province of China.

As with so many of the minerals required to make batteries, solar panels and other crucial energy hardware, China is the world’s top producer and exporter of graphite, generating 65% of the global supply and nearly 90% of the battery-grade version. The U.S. is the largest importer, followed by its allies in the European Union and South Korea, with whom Washington is now increasingly competing as America’s demand for graphite has grown in the past five years. Imports for consumption in the U.S. surged by more than 50% from 2021 to 2022, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. 

Yet the U.S. mines none of its own graphite. Three U.S. companies are looking to develop graphite mines in the U.S., two in Alabama and one in Alaska. In July, the Biden administration offered $37.5 million through grants issued via the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to boost the Alaskan project and support a processing facility in Washington state.

But demand is only expected to grow as funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate-spending law, spurs more automakers and battery companies to open factories in the U.S. 

“Virtually every lithium-ion battery chemistry uses graphite for its anode. China processes 90% of the world’s battery grade graphite. China has put export controls in place to protect national security,” Jay Turner, an environmental policy historian and author of a recent book on battery supply chains, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Welcome to the new geopolitics of the clean energy transition.”

As the U.S. and its allies seek alternatives to China for various so-called critical minerals, the rush for graphite could put a new focus on countries in Africa. Madagascar, Mozambique and Tanzania have large reserves and increased mine production significantly from 2021 to 2022. The two countries with the largest reserves outside China are Brazil and Turkey, but mining increased only marginally in both places during that same period. 

The trade fight with China has spurred calls to mine and refine more metals in the U.S. But efforts to permit new mines have foundered as local opponents, fearful of the effects on water tables and general pollution, seek to block the permits at various levels of government. 

China’s dominance over the global supplies of critical minerals first came to light in 2010, when Beijing blocked shipments of rare earths, over which it enjoys a near monopoly, to Japan over a political dispute. While the U.S. and its allies have been slow to prioritize domestic mining and processing, China has continued to increase its share of global production and deepen ties with other major producers in Africa and Asia. 

Reluctant to simply become exporters of raw ore, which typically offers a minimal economic boost while generating a lot of pollution, many countries are now putting more government controls over mining, including creating incentives for Chinese, American and European companies to set up local processing plants. 

So China is acting like opec?  Hmmm. Do you realize that is a different issue from whether ev’s are good or not?  There are lots of stories of teslas racking up huge miles with little battery degradation or maintenance costs.  
 

Performance wise my ev6 handles really well and has great acceleration. For the some price as a 5 litre mustang I have a faster car with more room, all wheel drive and a 100,000 mile 8’year bumper to bumper warranty. In that time I’ll save 25-30,000 dollars on fuel and save lots of time by charging at home instead of gas stops. 

As long as it doesn’t depreciate 25,000 more than the mustang I’m money in the bank while have a better vehicle. 

Market share in Canada is growing even though the criminal master moron Ford is in charge of the most populated province and is running interference. 

1 hour ago, XCR1250 said:

$20,000 repair bills and other hidden costs that could sneak up on EV buyers

Cork Gaines

Sat, October 21, 2023 at 4:47 AM CDT·5 min read

 

 

• The switch to electric vehicles is still hampered by the high cost compared to gas cars.

• The higher upfront costs don't consider several less obvious costs that can hit after buying an EV.

• Things like repairs and insurance are also more expensive for EVs.

The price of electric vehicles is still the biggest hurdle to most consumers considering a switch from gas-powered cars, and they might not even be factoring in some of the hidden costs associated with them.

A man in Scotland was recently shocked by a £17,374 ($21,000) bill to fix his Tesla after rain damaged the battery.

"I thought we would get a bill for £500 or £1,000," Johnny Bacigalupo told Edinburgh Live. "When they said over 17 grand — it's absolutely obscene. My heart missed a beat, honestly."

While government tax credits can help with the initial vehicle purchase, EVs are still more expensive than gas cars, mainly because it costs a lot to make them. While there have been price cuts, automakers ramped up production, causing the demand — and prices — for parts to skyrocket, especially batteries.

The cost of the parts leads to issues that could make the cars much more expensive than the sales tag in the long run.

EV batteries are costly to repair and replace

Recurrent, a firm that studies battery health, surveyed 15,000 EV drivers in March and found that 1.5% needed battery replacements, which range between $5,000 and $20,000. The cars surveyed go back to 2011, but a vast majority were six years old or younger.

However, in some cases, it can cost even more.

Last year, a Tesla owner in Canada shared on TikTok that the company told him that a replacement battery would cost $26,000 when it died.

 

Ford Mustang Mach-E.The Washington Post/Getty Images

The batteries are easy to damage, difficult to repair, or even assess. Tesla's Model Y battery has "zero repairability" after a collision, according to auto expert Sandy Munro.

Replacing a battery is so costly, that it can often be more than the car is worth, forcing insurance companies to write them off.

Insurance is more expensive for EVs

Easy write-offs from insurance companies lead to higher premiums.

According to Bankrate, the average cost to insure a Tesla ranges from $2,503 annually to $4,066, depending on the model. Meanwhile, the US average for all cars is about $2,148.

Those premiums are driven by higher repair costs. While EVs need to be fixed less often than gas cars, those repairs are more expensive.

According to Mitchell, a collision repair software company, the average repair cost for a non-Tesla EV is $269 higher than the average for all vehicles. For Teslas, each repair is $1,347 more than average.

 

A Chevy Bolt.Mark Matousek / Business Insider

There is also specialized labor required.

"Those parts can be pricey," according to insurance provider Progressive. "If the battery pack is damaged, certain safety protocols are often necessary, adding more to the repair bill. Plus, there aren't as many shops with technicians trained to fix electric vehicles versus traditional vehicles."

Charging may require more than just a plug

Electricity prices can fluctuate greatly by state and time of year, but there are other less obvious costs associated with charging EVs.

According to a study from Anderson Economic Group, if other factors are considered, such as installing a charger and EV registration fees, most cars cost more to charge than to fuel with gas.

 

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Most EV owners charge their cars at home and most vehicles come with a charger that can plug into a standard 110-volt home outlet. However, a long charge with this type of outlet may not be enough for some journeys: One driver of a Ford Mustang Mach-E told Insider they only got about 36 miles of range from an overnight charge.

To up the charging capacity, an owner needs access to a 240-volt outlet for a Level 2 charger, or can install one at home. They can purchase a Level 2 charger for between $200 to $1,000, depending on the features included. The installation adds about $1,000 to the total, according to Edmunds.

"If you don't have a Level 2, it's almost impossible," Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan, who researches EVs, told Insider when asked about getting sufficient charge into an EV.

And if you do have a Level 2 charger at home, you might have to declare it on your home insurance policy, which could increase that premium.

Other factors to consider

Another issue with EV batteries is that nobody knows their lifespan. If people interested in used EVs are worried about replacing an expensive battery, the resale value will take a big hit.

Lifespan is also a factor with tires. Because the batteries on EVs are so heavy, the cars are heavier than comparable gas vehicles. As a result, the cars require more expensive tires and those tires have to be replaced sooner than traditional car tires.

There are also indirect costs, such as time.

There is a good chance an owner will be forced to go to a dealer for repairs due to the complexity. This has led to long wait times, a lack of competitive pricing, and poor replacement parts inventory.

The cost differences between EVs and other cars will improve. The sticker prices will continue to come down, and smaller EVs are expected to have the same initial cost as their gas equivalents by 2025.

 

Toyota dealershipToyota

In the meantime, many EV owners are switching back to gas-powered cars.

According to a University of California-Davis study of 4,167 people, about 20% of EV owners purchased a gas car the next time, with most citing charging headaches. Of those who switched, 70% did not have a Level 2 charger at home.

As of February, the EV market share has risen to 8.5%, up from 2.6% in 2020. However, according to JD Power, the number of people they surveyed earlier this year who are "very likely" to buy an EV has remained steady since 2022, while the percentage of those who say they won't switch to electric cars has grown.

Every year a large segment of the Mercan population are proud of their stupidity.  Meanwhile in well educated countries. 
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/what-norways-experience-reveals-about-the-ev-charging-market

but but electric cars don’t work in da cold. Derp derp.