Quote of the day

[Dr_Milker]

The rise of a superfluous class of pseudo-elites whose role is to teach and enforce an astro-turfed pseudo-morality manufactured by academics in activist pseudo-disciplines and spread by disordered personalities on social media before becoming entrenched as a pseudo-culture.

–Wesley Yang

[TT]

I’ll take wokeness for $500 Alex

@Dr_Milker

The rise of a superfluous class of pseudo-elites whose role is to teach and enforce an astro-turfed pseudo-morality manufactured by academics in activist pseudo-disciplines and spread by disordered personalities on social media before becoming entrenched as a pseudo-culture.

What is, social justice?

[Dr_Milker]

@TT

What is, social justice?

Successor ideology - Wikipedia.

[Charlie_Jack]

@Dr_Milker

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I just now saw this quote, and I’d like to take a shot at explaining it.

Biden may have been mistaking the Milliken Oil Company for the company his grandfather worked for, the American Oil Company.

The Milliken Oil Company had a refinery in Arkansas City, Kansas. There was an explosion at the refinery in 1925 [1], [2], and the plant also produced waste materials:

An oil refinery was located at the Arkansas City Dump site between 1916 and 1927. The refinery processed between 6,000 and 12,000 barrels of oil per day until it was destroyed by an explosion and fire in 1927. The refinery was initially called the Milliken Oil Refinery, but was later referred to as the Arkansas City Oil Refinery. The site was used as a municipal landfill after the refinery was closed.

The refinery treated each petroleum fraction with sulfuric acid to improve product color and remove asphaltenes, paraffins, and resinous substances. An acid sludge was generated as a waste in the operation of the refinery. This waste was unmarketable and was disposed on the ground or placed into earthen pits on the site in the North Waste Area.

–U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Superfund Record of Decision: Arkansas City Dump, KS September 1989,” p.5

I don’t know whether Biden’s grandfather tried to persuade people to agree to allow underground gasoline reservoirs (I’m not sure if that’s the right term) to be built in their communities, but whether he did or not, it would make sense that many people would not want such a thing in their area.

Biden seems to be saying there’s also a NIMBY factor concerning charging stations. I don’t know anything about charging stations, but the locating of them does seem to involve some complicated issues at times:

Then there’s the question of where to put all these power stations. Some analysts suggest commercial destinations, where parking stays are shorter. Customers can charge as they shop, just as they would in the parking lot of a Target or a Whole Foods. Others, like San Francisco MTA parking manager Hank Wilson, wanted to avoid that outcome. “It’s a very expensive thing that requires a lot of infrastructure and locks in that curb space for one specific use for decades, and because our commercial curbs are so dynamic and changing so much, we’re reticent to lock that in,” he said at a panel this week.

From that perspective, the real downside of electrifying the curb in densely populated neighborhoods becomes clear: It would cement the purpose of the curb for car storage for decades to come, just as activists are beginning to convince cities to explore alternate uses, including bike lanes, bus lanes, greenways, public space, and restaurant terraces.

–Henry Grabar, “Where the Heck Are We Going to Charge All of the Electric Cars?” Slate, October 28, 2021

[yyy]

@Dr_Milker

I have this shortcut suspicion that if you’re not allowed to say something (by being silenced or ostracized by the reigning conventional orthodoxy) that not only should it be said but also that it’s probably simply true.

–Peter Thiel

Last time I checked, the “reigning conventional orthodoxy” was ostracizing everyone who says the Earth isn’t roughly sphere/spheroid shaped.

[Charlie_Jack]

Edited to self-correct:

@Charlie_Jack

I don’t know whether Biden’s grandfather tried to persuade people to agree to allow underground gasoline reservoirs (I’m not sure if that’s the right term) to be built in their communities, but whether he did or not, it would make sense that many people would not want such a thing in their area.

I completely forgot that gasoline stations do typically have those underground tanks:

Underneath the pumps at your local gas station lie underground storage tanks. These are generally large enough to hold thousands of gallons of gasoline. Depending on what grades the station offers, there can be multiple tanks to separately hold premium, regular, and diesel.

https://www.hsoil.com/how-gas-stations-store-fuel.html

I think he did say the American Oil Company (which is where his granddad worked), but he garbled the name a little bit. As to his digressions, and so on: I’ve seen vids of him when he was young, and even back then he tended be kind of a rhetorical jazz musician–just kind of wandering from subject to subject at will. Anyway, whatever he’s doing, and however he’s doing it, it’s caused him to be 'way more successful than I’ve ever been .

This looks like the video of his speech. He does flub the dub, but he appears to be speaking ad lib to some extent. I guess he starts into the electric car discussion in earnest at around 24:49:

WATCH LIVE: Biden speaks on infrastructure, funding bills

I think his point was that just as the underground tanks eventually became mainstream, so the charging stations might also become mainstream.

[MikeN1]

I faced somewhat the same problem in the early 1980s working for a seismic oil exploration company, as what is called a front-end man. You had to negotiate with government departments- federal, provincial, local- and private landowners. It was pretty straightforward in Alberta; they were used to the idea and knew what it entailed. Moving into new territories in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the local farners were somewhat skeptical when you explained you wanted to drive through their fields, drill holes all over them them, and set off explosives.

[ponlaihop]

wotz a ”jargy station”?

[Dr_Milker]

[chilifries]

I’m guessing someone or some software transcribed “charging” as “jargy” and “Milliken Oil” as “Milk and oil”.

[TT]

did he really say that?

[Dr_Milker]

@TT

did he really say that?

Yes, in an interview.

https://twitter.com/live2danceatl/status/1473485411238428673

[yyy]

Re Jeff…

Lesson number one: Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed!

Edit: I think it’s actually “rule number one” not “lesson”. Hmpf, stupid interwebs.

[Dr_Milker]

[MikeN1]

Yep. Biden gave a classy reply to a real loudmouth asshole, currently whining he’s being oppressed because other people have pointed out hat he’s an asshole.

[yyy]

That’s the first time I heard that a euphemism for “f*ck me” is classy. Strange customs you have on this planet.

---

ETA: Maybe he was trying to tell his wife something?

[Dr_Milker]

[slawa]

Only that he did not invent mrna tech.

Malone claims to be the inventor of mRNA vaccines, although credit for the distinction is more often given to later advancements by Katalin Karikó or Derrick Rossi, and was ultimately the result of the contributions of hundreds of researchers, of whom Malone was but one.
Robert W. Malone - Wikipedia

[finley]

Frankly, that’s like splitting hairs over whether Kilby or Noyce was the inventor of the IC. The fact remains that Malone holds more patents for mRNA technology than, say, you do.

IIRC he doesn’t actually claim to be “the inventor” anyway. There is never any single inventor. It’s a label that other people have put on him, and it’s just kinda stuck.

[slawa]

@finley

It’s a label that other people have put on him, and it’s just kinda stuck.

No it did not stuck. They label him this way to give his misleading statements more credibility.
Most people do not consider him to be the inventor of mrna tech/vaccines.