Off The Beaten Track

AMERICANTHINKER.COM -- Large swaths of Florida's heavily populated Gulf Coast have been ordered evacuated. What if all 8,000,000, instead of just 100,000, of Florida's vehicles were electric? Depending on how heavily loaded they were, cars from southern Florida would start running flat after 100 - 250 miles, even assuming a full charge. Since recharging can then easily take over an hour, they would then spend hours at recharging stations, which would rapidly clog up with other vehicles waiting their turn. All those vehicles would spill onto the highways, potentially blocking traffic. Cars that ran flat on the highway would also block traffic. In all likelihood, the highways would become vast parking lots, their passengers trapped, while the storm approaches ...

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THEHILL.COM -- Richard Herrington, the head of earth sciences at the Natural History Museum in London, and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the British government calculating the resources needed to replace the UK's 31 million cars with electrics. The totals include two times the world's cobalt production, nearly its entire neodymium production, three-quarters of its lithium production and at least half of its copper production during 2018. By these numbers, electrifying the USA's 276 million cars would require roughly 18 times the world's cobalt production, about 9 times its neodymium output, nearly 7 times its lithium production, and about 4 times its copper production. Last year, in the USA, 17.3 million vehicles were purchased. EVs accounted for about 361,000, or roughly 2% of ...

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RT.COM -- As the world eyes a more environmentally friendly future, it is getting more reliant on rare-earth metals (or elements). Rare-earths are used in magnets, batteries, motors, wind turbines, electric or hybrid cars, and much more. A single iPhone contains eight different rare-earth metals. But they are creating an environmental catastrophe of horrific proportions. Leaving aside they are rare and depleting rapidly, processing them requires a deadly cocktail of toxins. Processing a single ton produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste. Baotou, China, has the world's largest mine tailings pond and it's been leaking its toxic contents into the groundwater supply for 20 years. Sheep there grow extra rows of teeth or are unable to close their mouths ...

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AUSTRALIANCLIMATESCEPTICS.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2011: "I have seen situations where energy has been produced by windmills, by solar batteries and the damage that they have done to the environment is simply incredible."] ARTICLE: That little yellow thing is a bulldozer. It's burying windmill blades. Why? Because the lifespan of a modern, top quality wind turbine is 20 years. After that, the gigantic fiber composite blades cannot economically be reused, refurbished, reduced, repurposed, or recycled so they're buried in special landfills, which are already running out. Then, every 20 years, we'll have an equal number of new blades to bury from all the replacement turbines. And that's with wind only supplying about 7% of the nation's energy. On top of that, there's the 500,000 birds wind turbine blades kill each year, most of which are endangered. How green is that? ...

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WATTSUPWITHTHAT.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2010: "My sense is we are looking to the future for a massive increase in nuclear use around the world.... We don't have an alternative."] ARTICLE: Environmentalists, governments and news media never tell you about the costs of wind energy. For example, in 2013, when turbines were smaller, concrete manufacturer Lafarge said anchoring just one wind turbine required 2,500,000 pounds of concrete. Remember that manufacturing concrete is already the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide and also requires nearly a tenth of the world's industrial water use. Furthermore, wind farms create unsafe flying conditions. Indeed, a Michigan county bars air ambulances from rescuing citizens living near wind farms. In addition to being weather-dependent, intermittent and unreliable, wind turbines cover vast areas of land, require massive amounts of raw materials, involve enormous air and water pollution in faraway countries where ...

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ESI-AFRICA.COM -- Independent power producer Globeleq and IPS (West Africa), a company owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, announced that their subsidiary, Azito Energie SA has secured financing for its 253MW expansion of the Azito gas-fired power plant near Abidjan. The combined cycle gas turbine technology will allow the deployment and monetisation of Côte d'Ivoire's domestic gas reserves in the most efficient and environmentally effective and sustainable way. The Phase IV expansion and other upgrades, will see Azito supplying approximately 30% of Côte d'Ivoire's installed capacity. Construction has already started with first power expected in ...

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SPIKED-ONLINE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2007: "Skyrocketing [electricity] costs work to reinforce the cycle of poverty for millions."] ARTICLE: President Biden's climate envoy, John Kerry, told African countries to give up, beyond 2030, using natural gas to grow their economies despite the fact that African countries contribute less than 4% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Meanwhile, due to current gas shortages, many Western countries are extending their use of coal. Western insistence that Africa forgo using their gas, oil and coal energy reserves has long been a blockage on Africa's development. Today, more than 600 million Africans have no access to electricity at all. If African countries are not supposed to use their gas reserves, what should they do, exactly? No wonder the President of Senegal rejected Kerry's orders. They need electricity for power. They need fertiliser, produced from gas, for agriculture. And they need ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2016: "Some people say, is that we live in a "post-fact" society. Yes, a post-fact society. It's not just that everyone feels entitled to his or her own opinion -- that's a good thing. But the problem comes when people feel they are entitled to their own facts." ~~ Hazar Imam, 2006: "How can we inspire people to reach beyond ... unprincipled relativism?"] ARTICLE: We've deluded ourselves into believing that truth is relative. We see this surfacing in our norms, education system, media, and politics. Men identify as women and we accept that as truth. If you question the new leftist orthodoxy of "it's all relative," you face the wrath of "cancel culture." If you want to know the reason for the death of truth in America, look to the decline of Judeo-Christian values laid out in the Bible. All of Western civilization is in decline because the church is in decline. The fall of the church is due to the fact that it has become unmoored from truth -- following the culture instead of ...

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PRAGERU.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2017: "Let me emphasise a point about the concept of pluralism that is sometimes misunderstood. Connection does not necessarily mean agreement." ~~ Hazar Imam, 1965: " What does happen, and this is a danger, is that the left-wing attitudes tend [to destroy] the respect of one individual towards another."] ARTICLE: Today, being "tolerant" simply means you agree with left-wing positions. When you disagree with the left on any subject -- and I mean any -- the people who claim to be tolerant don't attack your position; they attack you. They label you sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted, or hater. To be tolerant of someone, you have to disagree with them. You don't "tolerate" people you agree with: you're on the same side! The element of disagreement is key to tolerance. True tolerance applies to how we treat people we disagree with, not how we treat ideas we disagree with. All people have equal value; all points of view do not. The left says ...

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PRAGERU.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2015: "Is that message clear? You listen to people you don't like!"] ARTICLE: Tolerance is "the ability to live with people whose opinions and behavior you don't agree with." According to the mainstream media, the right is intolerant of everyone. Except it's just not true. Incredibly, the left isn't even tolerant of the very people they say they're tolerant of! If you're gay, or black, or an immigrant, and you're not in lockstep with current leftist orthodoxy, you know what I'm talking about. As a [gay] liberal, I've consistently found conservatives to be tolerant and open-minded. The right, much more than the left, believes in the notion of "live and let live." And that is the true definition of tolerance. But don't take my word for it: go talk to some. Whatever differences we have, ...

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THEEPOCHTIMES.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1965: "The danger is that the left-wing attitudes tend not only to destroy the Faith of a man towards his religion but also the respect of one individual towards another. When the Faith is broken down everything goes with it: the family, society, the individual, the intelligence."] ARTICLE: Attacks on religion are amplifying and, today, it is becoming difficult to live Christian values without interference from the government or cultural opposition. The left has essentially declared open season on Christians. To Hollywood, Christians are fair game for marginalization and ridicule. Lucas Miles, an ordained minister, says people of all religions should be appalled at this. "If Christianity is not safe in the United States of America, then no religious belief is safe." He says Marxist ideology, which has attacked America for some time, is the cause. "If you understand Marxism, you understand the church is an obstacle to their goals." Religion poses two threats to Marxism's authority: religion offers a firm foundation of morals and values and also a higher power that governs people. Destabilizing society is a root tactic of ...

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HUMANEVENTS.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2003: "Take your tasbih, take your tasbih, call "Ya Allah", "Ya Muhammad", "Ya Ali". Call the tasbih because that, in its own way, is a prayer at that time."] ARTICLE: Each section of beads on a rosary represents a series of prayers. To pray the rosary is meditative, contemplative, peaceful, and hopeful. But for The Atlantic, the beads are now a symbol of hate. In their piece, "How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol," Daniel Panneton declares the rosary has "acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional Catholics." The attempt to paint the rosary as extremist is yet another way the progressive, ideological left attempts to divorce Americans from faith. It's obvious, based on The Atlantic's ethos, that they would only dare take aim at Catholics and Christians for their faith. Any other religion ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1999: "[One reason the Ummah may disappear is that they] adopt the modern world and forget their traditional values."] ARTICLE: There are about 38 million U.S. households (about 1/3) who live lives significantly persuaded by their faith. New research on these faith households, which include evangelicals, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews, finds that 84% of them "lean conservative." However, major corporations have increasingly left faith-driven households out of their financial equations, claims Brad Benbow, a growth strategist who has advises Fortune 500 companies and co-author of "Spiritugraphics." In their marketing plans, they ignore how people's beliefs drive their decisions." As a culture at Disney, do they view people from traditional and faith-centric families as, essentially, bigots?" he asks. The marketing guru points out that "most of the world" has for millennia viewed "the traditional family model as the norm." Pew Research reports ...

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NATIONALPOST.COM -- Elite activists and Big Tech endlessly promote conspiracy theories suggesting religious believers will seize power and force their religious views onto others. While they look upon the faithful with contempt, these elitists hypocritically force their new, godless religion upon the public: wokeness. Wokeness is the belief that discrimination is present at all times. However, wokeness is mostly performative and ritualistic. Its adherents show piety by simply reciting approved political scriptures about alleged injustices and condemning others for not being woke enough, without actually helping anyone overcome injustice. Wokeness appropriates many concepts found in traditional faiths: blasphemers (with "problematic" opinions), heretics (targeted by social media mobs), damnation (cancellation), sin (privilege), righteousness (victimhood) ...

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TABLETMAG.COM -- We are told that only large, randomized control trials (RCTs), with positive results, can inform us if new treatments are useful. However, "only the RCTs matter" is not the position in mainstream practice. In 2017, the New England Journal of Medicine published a piece by Thomas R. Frieden, former head of the CDC (about as "mainstream" as it gets), in which he said, "Despite their strengths, RCTs have substantial limitations." One problem with RCTs are their "exclusion criteria" which exclude people from a study. So many are used that study samples no longer represent real-world patients. A review of RCTs found that 71.2% were not representative of real-world patients. Many of the patients studied were less sick than real-world patients. That, combined with ...

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IAI.TV -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: At Ismaili Digest we predict James Webb Space Telescope observations will continue to undermine Big Bang Cosmology, leading to the inevitable collapse of the theory. That may, however, spark a crisis amongst many believers who pointed to the Big Bang as evidence of a Creator. We will address this misplaced faith in the Big Bang in an upcoming Ismaili Ignition Paradigm Proposal.] ARTICLE: In a flood of recently published papers authors report again and again that JWST images show surprisingly more, surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old galaxies than expected. For decades, the Big Bang hypothesis has been defended as unquestionable truth consequently the new data is causing panic. Indeed, one paper's title begins with the exclamation: "Panic!" "Right now I find myself lying awake at three in the morning," says professional astronomer Alison Kirkpatrick, "and wondering if everything I've done is wrong." It is not too complicated to explain why these too small, too smooth, too old and too numerous galaxies are ...

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THEEPOCHTIMES.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1976: "What was once wrong is now simply unconventional, and for the sake of individual freedom must be tolerated. What is tolerated soon becomes accepted. Contrarily, what was once right is now viewed as outdated, old fashioned and is often the target of ridicule."] ARTICLE: There were 10,064 medical assisted deaths in Canada in 2021, accounting for 3.3% of all deaths. Medical assistance in dying (or MAiD) is now the sixth-leading cause of death in Canada. Family doctor Ramona Coelho calls Canada's MAiD laws "the most permissive euthanasia and assisted-suicide legislation in the world." Even United Nations officials have warned they will lead to human rights violations. ~~ After a fall, 71-year-old Ernest McNeill was admitted to hospital where he contracted an infectious diarrheal illness. He was in a lot of pain so someone on the hospital team raised the idea of medical assistance in dying. Recently, a Veteran Affairs worker recommended MAiD ...

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THEEPOCHTIMES.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah:, 1955: "Learn to desire the thing that happens, and not try to mould events to their desires ... you should endeavour to suit your desire to the event, and not the event to your desire." ~~ Hazar Imam, 1996: "The right to hope is the most powerful human motivation I know."] ARTICLE: Mark O'Brien got polio in 1955, when he was six. He was completely paralyzed, spending his next 44 years in an iron lung but he refused fall prey to despondency. Mark graduated from U.C. Berkeley, became a published poet, journalist, essayist and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary. Robert Salamanca, who died of ALS, said: "Euthanasia advocates believe they are doing people like me a favor. They are not. We, the terminally ill, often feel disheartened because of a false picture of what it is like to die created by these enthusiasts who prey on the misinformed. The pro-euthanasia followers are a great threat to the foundation upon which all life is based, and that is hope." Rosie Ashcraft, lives in British ...

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EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- Canada has gone all in for euthanasia. The statistics are startling and illustrate that once euthanasia consciousness infects a culture, it grows like a fungus. And it's just going to get worse because in 2022, Canada started allowing it for people with chronic and disabling conditions, and in 2023 it will be allowed for those with dementia and mental illnesses. The number of assisted deaths increased by 32.4% representing 3.3% of all deaths in 2021. One woman asked to die because of isolation from COVID lockdowns. Her family was allowed to attend her death, but not visit to relieve her isolation. Once a society falls into the cultural abyss, it is very difficult to climb back out. And here's a shocking truth ...

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IFSTUDIES.ORG -- INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY STUDIES -- Pollsters asked kids in the USA, UK and China "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The #1 choice of American and British kids was YouTuber; astronaut their last choice. The #1 choice of Chinese kids was astronaut; YouTuber their last choice. Historically, culture sets the context for finding purpose and meaning but, by most measures, our culture now comes up short. Between the 1960s to 1990s, the most popular TV shows taught kids moral lessons. Now they focus on winning and fame. Consider music. The sexually-explicit, profanity-laced lyrics of the 2022 #1 song, "Jimmy Cooks," are too graphic for IFS to print, but the New York Times praised it. This means, we need to limit our kids' exposure to the worst of American culture ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- HOOVER.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1989: "On the question of modernity the issue is essentially whether one is affecting the fundamental moral fabric of society..." ~~ Writing in 1997, the author felt the Internet would help bring the changes in morality needed. However, 25 years later, we now know that the opposite happened. Nevertheless, the article remains true and is essential reading.] ARTICLE: The mere absence of centralized state control does not mean there is freedom, and soulless forces operating freely is actually tyranny in another guise. So what is the moral basis of a free society? Today [1997], citizens and leaders world-wide are looking to America for answers. However, while others look to us, we Americans are seeking answers to painful and bitter questions. We are learning that capitalism and democracy are not enough for a healthy society and that a self-governing nation is made from self-governing individuals. For example, can a free society survive the collapse of the two-parent family? A breakdown in the moral fabric of society has dire consequences and the stakes are enormous. If America makes the necessary moral changes, the rest of the world has a chance. Otherwise ...

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AMERICANEXPERIMENT.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2015: "Is that message clear? You listen to people you don't like!"] ARTICLE: Economist Paul Krugman wrote: "I know we're supposed to pretend that both sides always have a point; but the truth is that most of the time they don't." I think Krugman is fundamentally mistaken. After all, what is the best use of our limited time? The affirmation from reading what we already agree with? Each day I read an old Newsweek column by economists Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson. I disagree most of what Samuelson writes. But by reading arguments you disagree with, you become better prepared to rebut them. And who knows, they might even convince you. Just as boxer Marvin Hagler got better by sparring with a good opponent, similarly, for your intellectual health, read someone who you disagree with. Try it. ...

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RT.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: While we normally do not post on political matters, we think it is important the Jamat be aware of long-term, tectonic shifts now unfolding on the global, geopolitical landscape. These have been noted by keen observers and Western leaders, however, their remarks are, by and large, unreported in the Western press.] ARTICLE: A new epoch of world history is approaching and only "truly sovereign" states will succeed in the changed environment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. By "sovereign" he means "freedom of national development, and thus of each person individually." Such a state, he said, will serve as an example for others when it comes to "standards and quality of people's life [and] protection of traditional values." The Western-dominated uni-polar world order, in Putin's opinion, is "becoming a brake on the development of our civilization" and said that despite attempts to preserve the existing world order, the changes are "irreversible." The new "multi-polar" world has been discussed in the West, too, most recently by German Chancellor ...

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CLIMATECHANGEDISPATCH.COM -- The rich world's self-inflicted energy crisis over Ukraine has fully exposed their fossil fuel and climate hypocrisy. While wealthy countries lecture the poor to only use renewables, Europe and America beg Arab nations to expand oil production, Germany reopens coal plants and Spain and Italy ramp up African gas production. The poor are told to "leapfrog" from no energy to a sham green nirvana of solar panels and wind turbines, while the rich don't accept off-grid, renewable energy themselves. Consider Greenpeace promoted Dharnai, India's first solar-powered community. Fridges, TVs and electric cookstoves were prohibited so villagers were forced to continue burning wood and dung, whose indoor pollution kills millions every year and WHO says is like smoking two packs of cigarettes every day. A study found ...

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WATTSUPWITHTHAT.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2007: "Skyrocketing [electricity] costs work to reinforce the cycle of poverty for millions ... Continuing power shortfalls can be a downward spiral of disappointment and discouragement.... It is striking [that Africa], with fully one-sixth of the world's population, produces only four percent of the world's electricity."] ARTICLE: Now, with Europeans facing blackouts, their governments are turning on their coal-fired plants. It's like vegans running to steak houses over a vegetable shortage. But what about Africa? Africans are being forced by Western elites to a fossil fuel free future rife with poverty. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò calls it climate colonialism. Globally, fossil fuels have been the predominant driver behind long-term economic development: North America and Europe during the industrial era and India and China, more recently. A British family boiling a kettle just twice a day uses 5x more electricity than Malian in a year. An American uses as much electricity in 1 month than a Tanzanian in 8 years. While a freezer uses 10x more electricity than a Liberian in 1 year. More and more African ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] --THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1965: "Left-wing attitudes tend not only to destroy the Faith of a man towards his religion but also the respect of one individual towards another. When the Faith is broken down everything goes with it: the family, society, the individual, the intelligence."] ARTICLE: Arguably, wokeism is defined by its rejection of Nature on gender, sexuality, the laws of economics, energy and rationality itself. But, Nature always has the final say, and we're seeing that in the slow retreat of leftists from wokeism. Hardly a day goes by when a writer confesses some variation of, "I'm a proud progressive, but these new leftists are crazy, and I'm done with the Democrats." The cognitive dissonance created from suspending reality has become too much. But do liberals realize their dissonance is due to leftism rejecting God? All forms of leftism are a house of cards that will collapse, like Nietzsche going insane after using words his whole life only to then say words are suspect. We can only handle so much cognitive dissonance before Nature ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- AMERICANMIND.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2006: "How can we inspire people to reach beyond rampant materialism, self-indulgent individualism, and unprincipled relativism?" ~~ Hazar Imam, 1999: "It's clear that uncontrolled freedom becomes license.... It's probably the most challenging issue that I have to address today."] ARTICLE: To understand today's society, it is useful to look at Plato's four stages by which minds become progressively disordered and the corresponding four increasingly corrupt societies they create. For Plato, reason is that faculty by which we understand objective facts. He, therefore, rejects the relativist view that what a thing is, and what is good for it, are matters of human convention.... For Plato, democracy is characterized by the "diversity of its characters" and "treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not." In particular, it treats all ways of life as equal, no matter how irrational or immoral. The young "throw off all inhibitions" and celebrate "insolence, license, extravagance, and shamelessness," becoming ever more extreme." All pleasures are equal and ...

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FOXNEWS.COM -- In a letter to President Biden, Jim Banks and 14 House Republicans are demanding answers regarding the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor's (DRL) new grant program. The letter states that the DRL's Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) announced it "would award grants of up to $500,000 to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa.... In the NOFO, the State Department characterizes atheists as a unique religious group while then encouraging the building of 'networks and advocacy groups' for atheists ... This would be analogous to official State Department promotion of religious freedom 'particularly for Christians' in China, with the express goal being to build a corresponding missionary network." "Any such program ...

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HARVARD.EDU -- At night, light throws the body's biological clock -- the circadian rhythm -- out of whack. Sleep suffers. Even a mere eight lux -- a level of brightness about twice that of a night light -- affects the circadian rhythm, notes Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher. Worse, research shows that disrupting the circadian rhythm may contribute to the causation of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Blue wavelengths seem to be the most disruptive at night and the proliferation of electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting, is increasing our exposure to blue wavelengths. Protect yourself from blue light at night: Avoid looking at screens (TV, computers, tablets, mobile devices, etc.) beginning two to three hours before bed. If ...

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