Bridger

@Bridger@sh.itjust.works

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Bridger ,

They do.

Bridger ,

His mental health is pretty bad as is. Prison will not be kind to him.

Bridger ,

He'll be under all kinds of scrutiny that he's never had to endure before. As is, the odds that Merchand will jail him are decidedly non-zero. The odds of him fully complying with release conditions are quite low.

Bridger ,

Oh, yesssss....

Bridger ,

Assholeberger's

Bridger ,

The United States has seen some whopping mishaps and scandals in the oil and gas industry over the years, from Teapot Dome in the 1920s to the collapse of Enron in 2001 and the Deepwater Horizon, Exxon-Valdez and Santa Barbara oil spills.

However, the largest, most egregious and most profoundly damaging scandal is still underway.

The unholy alliance between America’s governments and the fossil fuel industry has been going on for decades, undeterred and unpunished. Federal and state governments subsidize and facilitate the production and consumption of oil, natural gas and coal despite knowing these products are permanently damaging life on a planetary scale.

Many of our elected officials have participated in a carbon cartel that has blocked effective climate action. U.S. scientists began warning in the 1950s that fossil fuels were changing the climate. Yet fossil fuels still provide about 80 percent of U.S. energy, and America has become the world’s biggest oil and gas producer.

The Teapot Dome scandal involved oil industry bribes of a single public official. Today, the oil industry can influence elected officials with unlimited campaign contributions, unrelenting lobbying, and expensive advertising campaigns to burnish the industry’s image.

Open Secrets reports that the oil and gas industry spent over a trillion dollars on election campaigns between 1990 and last month. Between 1990 and 2020, five big oil companies reportedly spent at least $3.6 billion on advertising. While scientists have determined that most of the world’s underground reserves of fossil fuels must remain, the U.S. oil and gas industry keeps drilling, netting an average of $2.8 billion a day over the last 50 years, according to Statista, a data analysis firm. Statista says the industry made more than a trillion dollars annually for much of the past decade.

The industry could have invested these enormous outlays and profits to lead the world’s clean-energy transition. Instead, it has conducted a long campaign to deceive policymakers and the American people and intimidate critics.

For its part, Congress has done virtually nothing to phase out fossil fuels with mandates or market forces. It continues giving the industry billions of dollars in yearly tax breaks that promote oil and gas production. It allows the industry to “externalize” more than $750 billion in social and environmental damages. The damages are not reflected in the market price of these fuels, making it hard for clean alternatives to compete. In 2022, the hidden costs amounted to $2,243 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Congress had an opportunity to correct this market “imperfection” with carbon pricing in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009. But it failed to act.

So, Americans pay for fossil fuels four times: first through tax subsidies, second in energy bills, third with health care and environmental cleanup costs, and fourth with the rapidly growing costs of climate-induced disasters.

Before industrialization began, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm). In the 1980s, it reached 350 ppm, still considered safe. Despite international promises to cut CO2 pollution, scientists expect the concentration to reach nearly 427 ppm this year, higher than it has been in millions of years.

The industry’s deceit and obfuscation is well documented, and a congressional investigation has just confirmed it. But some of the industry’s most recent are worth noting.

For example, oil and gas companies frequently sue environmental organizations (so-called SLAPP suits) that oppose even free speech and assembly. Researchers at Duke University reported as long ago as 1993, “A pattern is emerging across the United States in which citizens and local community groups are being sued for what has long been considered ‘ordinary’ public participation.” SLAPP lawsuits rarely prevail in court, but the industry uses them to intimidate and drain the resources of environmental organizations.

Exxon is even suing some investors who want it to adopt more aggressive climate-stabilization policies. A spokesman for one of the investment groups explains it wants only to “safeguard the long-term future of the company and the global economy in view of the climate crisis.”

Oil-producing states have joined this litigation strategy. North Dakota, Texas, Montana and Wyoming have sued the U.S. Interior Department over a rule to reduce methane leaks, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas operations. Yet new research at Stanford University shows natural gas infrastructure leaks three times more methane than the Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Researchers say economic and public health costs amount to $10 billion annually.

Over the last six years, states, cities, counties and tribal nations have countered with at least 32 lawsuits against oil majors to seek compensation for climate-related damages or penalties for deceptive business practices. The industry tied these suits up for years over jurisdictional issues.

In the meantime, oil producers are engaged in public relations games over their role in climate change. Major producers jumped aboard the “net zero carbon” wagon when oil prices were low, but they backed away and made record-breaking profits when prices rose. Their production plans belie their net-zero promises. “Exxon touts its support for the Paris Agreement while at the same time boasting to investors that it will increase oil and gas production 25 percent by 2030, a scenario that would be game over for the climate,” the Center for Climate Integrity explains.

Oil majors reportedly donate hundreds of millions of dollars to leading universities “to build relationships that could help the industry avoid taking climate action.” And Exxon CEO Darren Woods is trying to shift the blame for climate change to energy consumers. “The people generating the emissions need to be aware of and pay the price for generating those emissions,” he told an interviewer. As Grist explains, “Oil companies make the case that it’s a demand problem – as long as people are driving cars, and thus demanding fossil fuels, then they have to keep producing the gas.”

Democrats in Congress just issued the results of a 2.5-year investigation that found the oil and gas industry has deceived investors, Congress and the American people in a long covert operation of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak” using “dark money, phony front groups, false economic and relentless exertion of political influence to block climate progress.” These findings warrant an investigation by the Justice Department to determine whether the industry broke any laws, including those against racketeering.

But that’s not likely to happen before the election. It’s up to voters to end this scandal by electing a president, Congress and legislators who support policies like these:

Put a price on carbon, as Europe has done. Its emission trading regime produced a 15.5 percent cut in carbon emissions from polluting industries and power plants last year and a 47 percent reduction since 2005, when emissions trading began. 
End federal tax subsidies for fossil fuel production. 
Stop leasing public lands for fossil-energy production and suspend all unused leases. 
Codify state and national “just transition” plans to end all but the most essential fossil energy production in the United States.

As U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin put it, the industry’s greed has led us to a “civilizational emergency,” the threshold of a world where suffocating heat, floods, storm surges, wildfires, drought and rising seas are the norm. And unless we stop Big Oil’s scam, we will cross the threshold with no way back.

William Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 that works with national thought leaders to develop recommendations on national climate and energy policies. He is a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Bridger ,

What then? Aliens? Sentient ants?

Bridger ,

Depends what you mean by human. If you restrict the term to homo sapiens you put yourself in a small minority. I'd say the fact that these people used tools in a sophisticated way pretty much defines them as human.

No one will take credit for calling state police on UVa campus protesters: Neither the governor's office nor the school's president nor the university police chief have taken credit for the decision ( dailyprogress.com )

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240509124316/https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/no-one-will-take-credit-for-calling-state-police-on-uva-campus-protesters/article_ea6bd3f0-0c0b-11ef-bc6c-4b94bed580c8.html

Bridger ,

Sounds like it's time for a class action lawsuit.

Bridger ,

It's time for Europe to take an active role in this conflict. Russia needs regime change in a bad way.

How do you store your grounded coffee? ( slrpnk.net )

Hiya, just quickly wondering how people store their coffee? Mine is in a tin box I got second hand, cos I thought it looked nice. Any rules regarding storing grounded coffee? I don't store much at the time, it's just if I grind a little too much and what not. I'm assuming the general thumb rule for this is to store it in a...

Bridger ,

I measure the beans before I grind. No way I'm storing ground coffee.

Hamas armed wing says responsible for Israel-Gaza border crossing attack ( www.reuters.com )

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which Israeli and Palestinian media reports said had resulted in Israeli casualties....

Bridger ,

For Israel this is a win/win situation. Killing civilians is a primary goal of the IDF.

Bridger ,

Paywall

Bridger ,

I still use it

Bridger ,

I have both.

Bridger ,

Welding will distort the steel. It'll no longer be straight. Steel is pretty cheap. Find a metal supplier near you (not a big box store) and buy the angle you need.

Bridger ,

As his language skills deteriorate further they'll celebrate his secret magical private language with multiple layers of hidden cofefe meaning. His slide into dementia will be the proof of his genius in their minds.

Bridger ,

That 6b is vaporware though. It'll have mostly disappeared before the 6 month hold expires.

Bridger ,

Are there no laws applicable to this situation?

Bridger ,

Why spend money when the plan is election fraud from the beginning?

Bridger , (edited )

Chemtrails are not contrails.

Edit: spellchecker broke it.

Bridger ,

Bad bot. Your summaries butcher the articles, removing context and creating misappropriations.

Bridger ,

But the equity in real estate is liquid in the form of security for a bond. What this tells us is that he doesn't have enough equity to cover the bond- in other words he's been lying all along about his wealth. Surprised?

Bridger ,

The E. Jean Carroll park. I love it.

Father of Marine killed in 2021 suicide bomb attack at Afghanistan's Kabul airport arrested at SOTU ( www.yahoo.com )

During Biden's speech, Nikoui could be heard yelling, "Abbey Gate, Abbey Gate" at approximately 10:15 p.m. ET. Abbey Gate is the entrance to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, where a single explosive device was detonated by an ISIS-K terrorist. The blast killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170...

Bridger ,

Make Biden look bad.

Bridger ,

Bring it.

Bridger ,

Considering the source I'll need better information.

Bridger ,

and doesn't fuck up your cholesterol.

Bridger ,

To quote my late sister's late father-in-law (who was an old school republican):
Republicans eat their young.

Bridger ,

When you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.

Bridger ,

Gonna need a reference for this...

Bridger ,

Passed the bar by faking being smart, I guess.

Bridger ,

Given her blatant ignorance of basic lawering cheating on her bars seems likely.

What else can I do with this tear out?

Hi there! I'm confused with this one... I've got these plywood squares that I had to drill a bunch of holes in. Despite using a low speed on my drill and adding masking tape (below) there's still pretty nasty tear out on nearly all holes. (EDIT: These are not through holes, this is for crochet square blocking boards. Metal rods...

Bridger ,

Sharper drill bit. Play with higher speeds and lower feeds. As said, backer.

This is a little bit like drilling shelf pins holes, of which I've done a lot. The thing that ends up working best for me is a plunge router in a jig with a solid carbide down spiral bit. Those are not through holes, though.

Bridger ,

Either make the holes before cutting out the blocks or make the jig to hold the block.

My shelf pin jig makes holes about 4" apart about 2" from the edge of the board, so it wouldn't work for your application. You could certainly make a router jig for your needs though.

Mine is a small plunge router. There are a number of them on the market that should work. Make sure that you can get the bit you need before getting too invested in this idea.

Bridger ,

Can you use nails instead of drilling for rods? Drive the nails in and clip off the heads.

Bridger ,

So Bigfoot likes to hang out with bears.

The GOP Is Already Clashing Over Trump’s VP Pick ( www.politico.com )

The fiercest Republican campaign isn’t taking place between the presidential hopefuls in Iowa or New Hampshire this month, but rather in the backstage fight over who would be Donald Trump’s running mate. Or more to the point: who will not be Trump’s pick....

Bridger ,

Spoiler alert: it'll be Ivanka.

Bridger ,

Paywall

Bridger ,

Considering what Microsoft is, expect clippy to support a white nationalist narrative.

Inmate's organs, including brain, missing from decomposing body; second case in last month ( abc3340.com )

ABC 33/40 News has obtained court documents revealing another case of a deceased Alabama inmate's body found missing organs. The body of Charles Edward Singleton was returned to his family missing all organs including his brain.

Bridger ,

They have to feed the zombies in administration something

Bridger ,

From wikipedia:
some whales may make use of the barnacles as protective armor or for inflicting more damage while fighting, which would make the relationship mutualistic where both parties benefit

Bridger ,

no, we kick Russia's ass until they leave Ukraine. if that means putin loses face and gets deposed, well that's an internal Russian matter

Bridger ,

1 vote to defederate.

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