Do we really need to buy an EV?

Happy Friday!

Here in Texas, it appears that we will have a bang-up weekend. As I sit here at noon on Friday, the current temperature is 70F degrees or 21C. The sun is shining, and I have lots to do just in case we get another cold snap before Halloween.

You might wonder why I am focusing on the weather.

Not all that long ago, there was something called the Star Registry. This company would pick a star and give it your name or any name you choose for a fee. As proof, they would send you a pre-printed certificate with the star’s coordinates and, of course, your name.

While it might be the perfect gift for someone who has everything, it is possibly one of the largest scams around until now.

Climate change is one of the scare tactics that ‘scientists’ and other hucksters use to change the behavior of the masses. You will see protestors who could not tell you what CO2 stands for, spending their valuable energy protesting cheap energy to put in place that the globalist wants to control.

The simple facts are that there are wars, so the defense companies can sell better weapons. Yes, real people are killed, and lives are lost on both sides, but those that want the money from the sales or creation of weapons will push the need for such things.

We here in the states are told that certain world leaders are evil. They…you possibly are told that the American president is evil. The lies continue; if money is spent and the media has something to perpetuate hate, nothing will change.

Emotional tragedies sell air time. The game goes on, whether it is for a pillow or some drug that has you ask your doctor if death is right for you.

This latest scam to stop climate change is a device that extracts carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and, through large equipment, shoves the gas deep into the earth, where it will never harm another soul. They want you to buy carbon credits as gifts for the person with everything.

The earth already handles CO2 handily by using it as food for plants, trees, and so on. In return, the plants emit something called O2 or oxygen. Huh… Don’t we need oxygen to breathe to live?

The protestors should be fighting the people who are destroying the rainforest or those who harvest timber to the point of leaving barren land to be washed away in the rain.

As far as electric cars are concerned, I think there is far more under the hood than they tell us. ‘Under the hood is a metaphor. I want to know how much pollution is created when making these batteries. I would also like to know where these raw materials come from. I would also like to know who is mining these materials. Now add to those facts this little nugget. When the batteries no longer work, what happens to them? Is there a company that is going to dig a large hole in the earth and put the inert material back in the soil?

Before you rush out and make Elon any richer, we should know what the life cycle is of those batteries.

The exciting thing about fossil fuel is that it is renewable. “What…TW, you are crazy.”

Well, no, not really; I am a writer and think creatively.

Fossil fuel is named because it was created by dead plants and other biological things like animals.

The CO2 that we emit today feeds the plants, which will eventually become fossil fuels. Time is the operative word.

We have the means to destroy all human life on this planet. We also have the nut jobs that think there can be winners and losers with nuclear bombs.

Using the variable time in the life equation, we already have ample evidence of what happens when nuclear material is mishandled. Chernobyl is 34 years after the accident, and we only have another 20,000 years to wait before the land is habitable again. That is twenty thousand years!

If any imbecile launches a nuke of any kind, it will take eons before that target area is safe to inhabit. Those bombs used in Japan were woefully inefficient. What is the cancer rate in Japan these days? Do we believe that the radiation only affected Japan?

If you could afford a Geiger counter that correctly identifies the types of radiation you are exposed to daily, you would find that radiation from Chernobyl, Fukashima, and other sources would be all around you, including your food.

That milk on your Wheaties contains radiation. How much radiation does it take to bastardize your DNA in cells to grow cancers that are malignant enough to end your life?

That’s where we are, folks.

I find it fascinating that doctors will order a CT scan as their first diagnostic test, which is equivalent to 50 chest x-rays, without looking for a less dangerous method to get the image they think they need.

We pollute our environment for money. Those that dumped tons of DDT in the Pacific Ocean by Catalina Island are not paying the price for their treachery. They were fined. They were fined less than the cost to properly dispose of the poison. The manufacturer that dumped the tons of DDT went out of business. This happened through the ’60s and ’70s. With no regard for humans and animals, they found a way to care for their little problem. DDT has a half-life of 35 to 65 years.

If Greta wanted to complain about something, that is one I would support. The real question is, what are other people doing with their toxic leftovers from manufacturing? I am more concerned about countries that don’t give a shit about what they allow into the environment.

Now we circle back to the batteries in these EVs.

Where are the defunct batteries going?

Recycling these batteries is the only real option, but the challenges are daunting. What toxins will be released in the process of recycling them? What toxins will be put into landfills?

What toxins are released, creating batteries?

Is it possible we are attempting to fix something that doesn’t require fixing? Are we inventing yet another star registry?

-Best

About the cover… One of my best sellers.

Tesla Loan Forgiveness

Firstly, you have little control over what the government does with your tax dollars after they rob you of them. Democrats tend to tax and spend more than Republicans, which is why most people vote conservative folks into office.

VOTE is all the control you have. You can protest peacefully provided you get a protest permit to gather etc.

I worked my way through school and paid for it as I went.

When the government decided to back the loans for college, colleges took advantage of that, raising the tuition cost. Many ivy league schools have huge surpluses thanks to government intervention.

Anything the government touches appears to turn to shit. You need to look no further than the DMV or attempt to speak with a knowledgeable person at the IRS.

Loan forgiveness is not what it sounds like. The debt is still there; it is transferred to the taxpayers who may or may not have even gone to college.

There are many on social media gleefully boasting of voting for Biden on the promise he would forgive student debt. AOC is running in the same lane. She wants it to go even further. It is too bad that she is that clueless about economics.

What emotional trigger words can we use to sway voters?

Election season is always messy and ugly and sours the whole voting process. Everyone is a skunk. So, we hold our breath and vote for the skunk that is the least stinky. Does that sound like you?

I don’t listen to their words so much as look at what they have done in the past.

In keeping with #climatechange, California and Virginia will ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars. California certainly does not have the power grid for that endeavor, but the sound bite will resonate with the climate change people.

I don’t think it wise to only have an electric car. As your daily driver, it might make sense to purchase one, but which one is the question?

If, for instance, you are in Florida or near the Gulf of Mexico, a storm is headed your way. Evacuation routes are packed with people attempting to escape harm’s way. I can envision traffic stalled because EVs ran out of electricity, and the charging stations were underwater. How many lives do you think it will cost?

Imagine 100 miles of cars, trucks, and so on stuck because they ran out of electricity. We have seen this during white-out snow storms, but now you have the EV to consider. How does super cold or super hot weather affect the battery life?

FEMA will plead ignorance, telling the president, who could have predicted that?

I think a long-range gasoline car, probably a truck or large SUV, should be in the garage of those who might need to evacuate.

If it were me, I would have a motor home filled with diesel and ready with the ability to tow the Tesla.

That was a joke when the government passed this last bill to reduce inflation. The bill will most certainly drive the US economy into recession.

Here is the plan. Late in 2023, go out and purchase a top-of-the-line Tesla. Much like that college degree in feminine studies you paid a quarter million for, you might as well buy the most expensive model Tesla on the market.

You are saving the earth, after all.

If enough people do this and figure out that they cannot afford a $4,000 a month car payment, they would be loud, and it would be an issue. Then we could get the candidates to incorporate a Tesla loan forgiveness for those of us who did our best to help solve climate change. The sky is falling mantra was why we did it. Could it be that we need to breathe fresh air into the science behind climate change?

In all my years, I would never consider borrowing money that I could not pay back in a timely fashion. I am self-made. I didn’t need a degree in accounting to know how to manage money.

The government is piss poor at managing the budget. Buying votes appears to be the goal, and it might work.

Currently, we have a used car shortage. Could the cash for clunkers program under Obama have contributed to this scenario?

One other thing about EVs

I have found that older electronic equipment is a bad investment. If something goes haywire while attempting to repair it, you might find that those special chips are no longer available.

EVs are rife with special chips or proprietary devices. How long will Tesla or other manufacturers keep parts on the shelf?

I think the KISS method should be employed when building cars. Keep it Simple Stupid.

A hundred grand for a car that might not even last ten years is a lot of money.

-Best

Apple and Batteries

 

A little over a year ago I upgraded from an iPhone 5s to a 6s. Apple and the cell provider service had ceased providing discounts, so the purchase of the entire cost of the phone is on the consumer.

Every iteration of the iPhone has been around $1000.00    Let that sink in for a moment.

Now I think that the consumer protection agency should be all over this but what do I know.  Apple in its quest to become even richer did something to the phones through their IOS updates to cripple the 6S.  In doing so everyone that I knew that still had a 6S had similar complaints, the battery did not last at all.

Slowing the speed of the processor down through its IOS update was bad enough, making the phone, unusable criminal.

I had just paid my last 35 dollar payment on the phone when all of this came about.  The timing was a coincidence as others who had their paid for in advance also stopped working acceptably around then as well.

I began the process of looking at the newer products, the seven the 8 and now the 10, all of which came out during the time I have had the 6S…

While I was thinking about buying the ten, it dawned on me that all of the accessories that I had purchased for the 5 and six would also be e-clutter or e-trash.  This is wasteful!  Where do we go with this?

Making an appointment with the “geniuses” They ran diagnostics on my phone and told me that the battery was working fine.  They could not tell me what the speed of the processor was or anything that interested me, but they could say to me that the battery was fine.  I know that it is not but, how do I prove it?

Two weeks later, the phone is on the charger when it rings; the battery is at 100%. A 27-minute phone call the battery is critical in the red.

Once again I am back in the mode of buying a new phone or going back and arguing with the geniuses.

I make another appointment.  When I get there, I insist that they change the battery.  Little did I realize that other places in the area change the battery as well.

The phone, off the charger in the morning and used several times during the day, is still in the 90% range when I return home in the evening.

The more significant issue is, what is the life expectancy of a phone?

In my world of IT, budget planning is paramount.

• The lifespan of a desktop PC is five
• The lifespan of a laptop is three years
• The lifespan of a smartphone is three

With the average cost of a smartphone around $1000.00, one can easily see that this must be factored into your annual budget.

When Apple or pick your vendor arbitrarily cripples a device making it unusable not only does it damage their relationship with their customers but it does severe damage to a business’s who provide such things to their employees.

I always suggest that we allow the employee to get the phone they want, and then we will enable them to expense the monthly cost of the service.  If they want a new phone every time Apple or Samsung develops one, then they can get it on their dime.

The bottom line is the phone should last no less than three years.

If I had a suggestion to make cell phones better I would like to see them made in such a way that I can purchase a replacement battery and change it myself.

As always your thoughts on this or any other topic are welcome.

Much Love -TW