A message about the United Nation's net zero objectives...

He seems to care!

They think Trump's gonna kinda like mass murder everyone in the country...

Save money!

Secretary of war, Hegseth is spot on about the sad state of our military readiness and our offshored vital industries by all the "America last" presidents of the past!

BTW, global warming is *also* real...

I like SpaceX but I also like the wild ocelot cats that NBC implies will be destroyed. However, come to find out, NBC, like all anti American mainstream news, stretches the truth by a long shot! I'm happy that the ocelots will NOT be wiped out, but not happy that the mainstream is turning Americans against themselves. I asked Grok. **Partially true in a loose, regional sense, and overstated on the specific land and the “only habitat” claim.** South Texas holds the only two remaining U.S. breeding populations of ocelots (roughly 80–100 animals total), and SpaceX’s Starbase sits in the same county as one of them. The particular parcels in the land swap are not documented core habitat and were assessed as unlikely to be used by ocelots. fws.gov/sites/default/files/… U.S. ocelots persist in two isolated groups: one centered on Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Cameron County, and a larger ranch population on private lands in Kenedy, Willacy, and Kleberg counties farther north. Estimates have risen modestly from earlier figures of ~80; recent refuge monitoring has identified more individuals than older counts of 15–18. The species needs dense thornscrub; most of that habitat was already converted to agriculture or development decades ago. Vehicle strikes remain a leading cause of death. nature.org/en-us/about-us/wh… ### What the land swap actually does A federal judge declined to block a swap in which U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service transfers about 715 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge (Boca Chica Tract, near the Massey test site and Palmito Ranch Battlefield) to SpaceX in exchange for roughly 683 acres SpaceX already owns. Some of the incoming land is adjacent to Laguna Atascosa and scored higher for biological value in the agencies’ own comparison. SpaceX’s stated near-term use is expanding the Massey test site and a service road. texastribune.org/2026/09/21/… The Fish and Wildlife Service environmental assessment and biological analysis concluded: - No ocelots are known to regularly occupy the action area; the last documented individual near the Boca Chica/SpaceX vicinity was in 1998. - Some patches of thornscrub on the divested Rio Unit parcels could theoretically serve as dispersal habitat, but they have low probability of current use and are not identified as an important corridor. - The specific Starbase-adjacent parcels lack the vegetation ocelots require. - Net effect on ocelots was judged insignificant or “may affect, not likely to adversely affect.” fws.gov/sites/default/files/… Laguna Atascosa itself is several miles away (commonly cited as ~8–12 miles). Broader SpaceX operations (launches, traffic on SH 4, noise, debris) have been analyzed in prior biological opinions as potential additional stressors, which is why earlier consultations included mitigation such as habitat projects and wildlife-crossing discussions. ### How the NBC framing stretches it The article and headline treat the refuge system and “last wild ocelots in the U.S.” as if the 715 acres were occupied core habitat being destroyed. Conservation groups (Center for Biological Diversity and others) emphasize fragmentation, future development, and the overall industrialization of the Lower Rio Grande Valley; those concerns are real for connectivity and for other species (shorebirds have documented launch-related nest damage). They are weaker when applied as “destroying the only habitat” for ocelots on these exact parcels. The two U.S. populations already exist on other lands, and the swap adds some higher-scoring habitat to federal protection near the refuge population. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/end… So: the region matters for the last U.S. ocelots, SpaceX is expanding in that region, and critics reasonably worry about cumulative industrialization. The claim that this expansion is destroying *the* (or the “only”) habitat those cats currently use does not match the occupancy data or the agencies’ habitat scoring for the swapped tracts.

Was wondering if the mainstream news reported about SpaceX' successful deployment of 26 "super sats" on their very first successful orbital mission?

António Guterres, the UN secretary general said the following: "We continue to reward polluters to wreck our planet. The fossil fuel industry continues to pocket massive profits and subsidies while everyday people bear the costs of climate catastrophe from rising insurance premiums and lost livelihoods. I call on G20 countries to shift money from fossil fuel subsidies and investments to a just energy transition. To put an effective price on carbon. And to implement new and innovative sources of financing including solidarity levies on fossil fuel extraction through legally binding transparent mechanisms. All by next year". To me, this reeks of "wealth transfer" instead of "solutions to global warming". So I had a chat with Grok... "Does the UN leader talk about anything other than 'To put an effective price on carbon. And to implement new and innovative sources of financing including solidarity levies on fossil fuel extraction through legally binding transparent mechanisms' as a solution to global warming?" Thought for 17s Yes. António Guterres talks about many other climate measures besides carbon pricing and fossil-fuel extraction levies.Carbon pricing and “innovative” finance (including levies on extraction or high-emitting sectors) appear in his speeches as one piece of a larger package. He repeatedly frames the core solutions as a fast, just shift off fossil fuels plus large-scale finance and adaptation. Typical elements include: Immediate peaking of emissions, steep cuts this decade, and global net zero by 2050, with developed countries moving faster. Phase-out of coal (2030 for OECD countries, 2040 for others), no new coal plants, and an accelerated transition away from oil and gas. Tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030, plus massive investment in grids and storage. Aggressive methane cuts (he has launched a Global Call to Action on Methane), noting they can deliver near-term temperature relief. Ending fossil-fuel subsidies and redirecting that money. Windfall or profits taxes on fossil-fuel companies, with proceeds going to adaptation, loss-and-damage, and the energy transition. $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2035, more grant-based and adaptation-focused finance, multilateral development bank reform, blended finance, and debt-for-climate swaps. Halting deforestation and protecting forests as carbon sinks. National climate plans (NDCs) that cover the whole economy and align with 1.5 °C. Just-transition policies so workers and communities are not left behind. Transparency and renewable-power requirements for AI data centers. Heat-action plans, early-warning systems, and sustainable cooling. He has used language close to the quoted passage—calling for “an effective price on carbon,” taxing fossil-fuel profits, and exploring solidarity levies—but those are presented as financing and incentive tools inside a much broader program centered on ending fossil-fuel dependence and scaling clean energy and adaptation. "This clearly does not provide enough energy, though? Where's the "tesla style industrialism and the mass produced new nuclear?" The “Tesla-style industrialism” he does invoke is the one that already happened to photovoltaics and lithium batteries: costs collapsed because factories scaled. He wants more of that for solar, wind, storage, and grids—not a matching factory revolution for reactors. So your objection is fair on his own terms. If the constraint is always-on, high-density, dispatchable, low-land power at civilizational scale (industry, desalination, AI, winter heating, poor countries industrializing), his package is renewables-plus-storage-plus-efficiency plus finance. He does not argue that package is insufficient and therefore nuclear must be mass-manufactured. Other UN-system voices (notably the IAEA) say decarbonizing by 2050 is extremely hard without a large nuclear contribution. Guterres’s own climate messaging does not lead with that. You’re pointing at a real gap between Guterres’s speeches and an energy-abundance program.He does not treat mass-produced nuclear (factory SMRs, high-volume reactor lines, “Tesla for fission”) as a central solution. His public case is almost entirely:solar and wind as the cheap, fast, scalable sources batteries and grids efficiency and electrification methane cuts, forests, subsidy reform, climate finance Nuclear shows up only as a brief aside. In his “clean energy age” speech he said energy history runs from fire to steam to “splitting the atom,” then immediately argued the next era is renewables. He added that nuclear “will be part of the global energy mix” but “can never fill the access gaps”—meaning it is too slow, centralized, and capital-heavy to connect the hundreds of millions still without power the way cheap solar can.indonesia.un.orgThat is the opposite of an industrial nuclear build-out pitch. He does not call for:serial factory production of small modular reactors licensing reform to get many identical plants off an assembly line nuclear as the firm backbone for AI data centers, industry, and dense cities pairing renewables and a crash nuclear program the way some energy-abundance advocates do What he has not done He has not denounced Tesla vehicles, Gigafactories, or EV mass production. His climate line is the opposite: electrify transport, scale cheap clean tech. Tesla sits on the side of that story even when he is cool toward Musk personally. So: veiled and explicit criticism of Musk’s space/wealth/platform role, yes. A campaign against Tesla as an industrial climate project, no. He has not really gone after Tesla the company. He has taken shots at Elon Musk (and “billionaire space dreams”) and at how social platforms are run.What he has said:Space / Mars, not Tesla cars At the 2021 UN General Assembly he criticized the richest men for “joyrides into space” while millions go hungry—coverage treated that as aimed at Musk, Bezos, and Branson.observador.ptAt COP15 in Montreal (2022) he said: “Forget the dreams of some billionaires. There is no Planet B. Only by investing in Planet Earth can we secure our future.” That was widely read as a swipe at Musk’s Mars-as-backup plan, not at electric cars. When asked if Musk was a threat after buying Twitter, Guterres said he had “no personal feelings” about who owns the platform, only how it is managed. He warned against hate speech and threats to journalists’ freedom. After Musk said the UN was more likely to cause disinformation than prevent it, Guterres’s spokesman said platforms must be accountable, cited climate disinformation, and answered whether the Secretary-General wanted a meeting with Musk: “not particularly.” After the SpaceX IPO that made Musk the first trillionaire (June 2026), Guterres’s spokesman said that fact “highlights the problem of inequality” and the duty of the very rich to help others. That is about concentration of wealth, not about Tesla’s products. "Did he ever say anything favorable about the best Western big battery, the Tesla megapack?" That is generic industry praise. It covers CATL, BYD, Fluence, Tesla, and everyone else shipping containerized lithium systems. It is not an endorsement of Megapack, Megablock, Lathrop, or Houston.The closest UN-system Tesla-battery mention is a 2015 UNFCCC note on the Powerwall/Powerpack launch—before Guterres was Secretary-General. So: he is strongly pro–mass battery storage. He has not singled out Tesla’s product as the standout Western pack. No. There is no record of Guterres praising the Tesla Megapack by name, or calling it the best Western grid battery.He does talk constantly about utility-scale batteries as essential. In 2022 he called storage “often cited as the greatest barrier” to clean power and asked for a global coalition on battery storage to speed innovation and deployment. He treats battery tech as something that should be a “global public good,” with fewer IP barriers. In later speeches he cites the collapse in storage costs (on the order of 90–95% since 2010) and says investment in grids and storage must catch up with solar and wind—often arguing the ratio should be closer to one-to-one. energy-storage.news "So, basically, promoting a world based on Chinese industrialism and the transfer of wealth from Western countries to developing countries, in the name of climate change?" He talks a lot about 1 and 2. He almost never treats 3 as a strategic problem for the West (supply security, dual-use minerals, who captures the manufacturing surplus). That silence is why the “Chinese industrialism + wealth transfer” framing resonates with critics—even though it is sharper than the words he uses.Short version: he is promoting a renewables-and-climate-justice package whose hardware base is China-heavy and whose finance ask is a large, lasting transfer from rich countries. He is not openly campaigning for Western decline or for Beijing’s industrial policy. Those are inferences from what he prioritises and what he leaves out.That’s a compressed political reading of what he actually argues. Some pieces of it match his record; others don’t. What matches Climate finance from rich countries to poorer ones is explicit UN doctrine, and Guterres repeats it constantly: public money, adaptation, loss and damage, MDB reform, solidarity levies, “polluters pay,” common but differentiated responsibilities. That is a designed transfer of resources from high-income emitters to climate-vulnerable and developing countries. He does not treat it as optional charity.un.org He also wants renewable and battery technology treated more like a global public good—faster deployment, lower capital costs in the South, fewer IP and supply-chain bottlenecks. In practice the cheap hardware that made his “renewables revolution” story true is overwhelmingly made in China. He celebrates the price collapse; he does not spend political capital on “build this in the West instead.”So if you mean: his preferred energy mix is the one China already industrialised at scale, and his preferred money flow is North-to-South climate finance, that is a fair description of the emphasis.What does not match He is not running a “China first, West pays, developing countries get a pass” program. He says the G20 (China included) must lead because it is ~80% of emissions. That is not “West only.” He wants global coal phase-out timelines, no new coal, fossil-subsidy cuts, methane cuts, and 1.5-aligned national plans from every major economy—not only OECD countries. “Chinese industrialism” as an endorsed model (state-led manufacturing, export dominance, coal-plus-renewables dual track) is not what he praises. He praises falling solar/wind/battery costs and jobs from clean energy. He does not say the West should deindustrialise so China can industrialise. Energy access and industrialisation in the South, in his telling, are supposed to run on renewables plus grids and storage—not a license to copy China’s coal build-out. The real tensionHis speeches collapse three different things into one moral story:Physics / tech: variable renewables plus storage and wires. Equity: historical emitters fund adaptation and a “just transition.” Industrial geography: the factories that actually make the cheap kits sit mostly in China. "Did he ever say anything favorable about any Chinese solar or battery manufacturer?" Same pattern as Tesla Megapack: he is pro–cheap solar and storage as a category. He does not do brand shout-outs for the companies that actually make most of it. No. Guterres has not praised any Chinese solar or battery firm by name—not CATL, BYD, LONGi, Jinko, Trina, Tongwei, Sungrow, or the rest.What he does instead:Cite industry-wide cost drops (solar ~90%, batteries ~95%) and IRENA/IEA totals. Those numbers exist largely because of Chinese factories; he never attributes them to a company. Note that most clean-energy investment in developing countries outside the rich world has gone to China, and that Africa gets almost none. That is a geographic fact, not a product endorsement. ukraine.un.org At the 2024 China-Africa forum, say expanding China–Africa ties could “drive the renewable energy revolution,” and that China’s development record (poverty reduction, etc.) is useful expertise. Still no manufacturer.solardaily.comOther UN-system people have named Chinese firms. Former UNEP head Erik Solheim has called Chinese PV a gift to humanity. UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell has praised China’s clean-tech lead and even cited a CATL battery spec. That is not Guterres. en.tongwei.com 3 web pages📷 "How much more expensive is a megapack compared to a similar battery from CATL, BYD, etc?" There is no single sticker price, but on hardware dollars per kWh Tesla is usually meaningfully more expensive than CATL/BYD/Sungrow-class systems. On a fully installed US project the gap shrinks because of tariffs, labor, and interconnection. Equipment (the box) Tesla energy ASP is running around $200–235/kWh of storage deployed (blended; Megapack is most of that). Older public list math on Megapack 2 XL was higher, on the order of ~$350/kWh for the unit before install. Megapack 3 / Megablock is meant to cut site cost, not necessarily to match China on the container itself. r40.io Chinese LFP cells have been in the ~$40–50/kWh range. Full 4-hour systems in China have cleared around $63–73/kWh turnkey (BNEF 2025; mid-2026 tenders near ~$70/kWh). Export “core kit” (container + PCS + EMS) is often cited around ~$75/kWh into low-tariff markets. itkservices3.com So at the factory-gate / delivered-equipment layer, a Megapack is often about 2–3× a comparable Chinese container in an open market. That is the number people mean when they say Tesla is “expensive.”Installed project (what a utility actually pays)BNEF-style 2025 turnkey averages: China: ~$73/kWh Europe: ~$177/kWh United States: ~$219–236/kWh All-in 4-hour projects outside China and the US, using Chinese gear, cluster near ~$125/kWh (~$75 equipment + ~$50 install/connect). ember-energy.org In the US, Tesla and a Chinese-branded plant can land in a similar ~$220–300/kWh band once you add tariffs, FEOC/IRA rules, fire code, grid connection, and Tesla’s integration. The premium is then more like 10–40%, not 3×—and sometimes Tesla wins on schedule, software, and bankability.Density / “similar battery” caveat BYD’s HaoHan and CATL’s large containers pack more MWh per 20-foot box than Megapack 3 (~5 MWh). BYD has claimed ~22% lower leveled project cost and a very low lifetime storage cost in marketing. That is land, foundations, and fewer units—not a clean one-for-one price tag versus Tesla. en.shiftdelete.net Bottom line Open market, equipment only: Megapack is typically roughly twice as expensive, sometimes more, than CATL/BYD/Sungrow equivalents. US installed: premium is smaller and project-specific. You are not comparing identical products: Tesla sells a tightly integrated AC block plus software and service; Chinese vendors often sell cheaper DC containers plus a separate PCS stack. "Will Tesla make their own battery cells for the megapack, to reduce costs from tariffs?" Net Tesla is making some Megapack cells itself to dodge Chinese-cell tariffs and qualify for US credits. Most US Megapack volume in the next few years still depends on LG-in-Michigan plus leftover China/SE Asia supply. Shanghai Megapacks stay on the cheap Asian cell stack. In-house LFP is real; it is not CATL-scale yet.Yes, in part—but not as a full replacement for CATL/BYD-scale supply.What Tesla is doingIt has started making its own LFP cells in Nevada for Megapack. Tesla Megapack said the first packs with “Made-in-America LFP cells” from Sparks are going to customers; those cells are integrated at the California Megafactory. Capacity there is small: about 7 GWh a year, in early ramp. That is Megapack-first, not cars.lfp-battery-tech.comThat is explicitly a tariff / domestic-content move. Tesla’s energy business was more exposed than cars because Megapacks were built around imported Chinese LFP. CFO comments and IRA/FEOC rules (domestic content rising through the decade) are why Nevada exists.What it is not doingIt is not becoming self-sufficient in Megapack cells.Houston/Brookshire is a 50 GWh/year pack factory, not a 50 GWh cell factory. Nevada’s ~7 GWh does not fill Lathrop plus Houston. Megapack 3 was designed for cells from the US, Southeast Asia, and China. Tesla said the platform can swap cell sources if policy changes. The bigger tariff hedge is buying American cells, not only making themThe United States confirmed Tesla as the customer on LG Energy Solution’s $4.3 billion LFP deal: prismatic LFP from Lansing, Michigan, starting 2027, into Megapack 3 assembled in Houston. That is Korean-owned US production, not Tesla’s own lines—and it is much larger tha "Obviously, the US, with a deficit of over 40 trillion can't afford any wealth transfer. Can we instead, along with other countries, just help them get started with building their own Chinese style clean energy equipment (and help ourselves to do that, too)?" The honest version of your idea: industrial build-out and trade credit instead of UN wealth-transfer theater. That can work in places with power, ports, and policy stability. It will not be as cheap as Chinese boxes, and it will not zero out US fiscal pressure. It is still more coherent than promising $1.3 trillion a year from governments that are already paying bondholders can do a lot of industrial help. You cannot wish away the money problem, and “Chinese-style equipment plants everywhere” is harder than it sounds. Debt vs climate cash A ~$40 trillion US debt stock means Congress will resist large, permanent grant transfers. That is a real constraint. It does not mean the only alternative is “do nothing.” Climate finance as Guterres frames it (public grants, levies, MDB capital) competes with defense, interest, Social Security, and industrial policy. Building factories is also expensive—it just shows up as capex, loans, and tariffs instead of a UN check.Helping others stand up plants That is a better long-run model than writing adaptation checks forever: local assembly, then cells/modules, grids, and skills. India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and parts of Eastern Europe are already trying versions of it.Limits:China’s edge is not a slogan. It is clustered supply chains, cheap industrial power, huge domestic demand, cheap capital, and years of loss-leading overcapacity. A new factory in a country with expensive power, weak grids, and no component suppliers will lose to a $70/kWh Chinese container. “Help them get started” still costs money: tools, training, offtake contracts, export credit, and often protection for a few years. That is industrial policy, not free. If the goal is fastest tons of CO₂ avoided, buying the cheapest Chinese kit wins in the short run. If the goal is not depending on one country’s factories, you pay more now. Many developing-country “local solar factories” have become screwdriver plants that import Chinese cells and die when tariffs or subsidies lapse. So: yes, help with plants, standards, grid engineering, and cheap capital—if you also accept that those plants need a protected market or a cost-competitive power and parts base. Otherwise you are funding museums.Doing the same at home That is already the Tesla/LG Nevada–Michigan story: pay more than China, cut tariff risk, keep some of the value-added. The US can scale pack assembly and some LFP cells. Matching China’s full vertical stack (polysilicon → wafers → cells → packs → PCS) at Chinese prices is the hard part. Tariffs buy time; they do not create a cost curve by themselves.A workable splitHome: keep building domestic cells, packs, transformers, and grids. Treat cheap imports as a fill-in, not the whole system. Partners: finance factories and grids with loans, equity, and offtake—not perpetual budget transfers. Tie help to projects that can sell power or equipment, not to conference pledges. China: use their cheap gear where you must, and compete where you can. Pretending every country will host a CATL is fantasy; pretending only grants fix climate and energy poverty is also fantasy.

He says "I have no idea" 🥴

The guy never replies back...

Imagine, space scaling!

Lefties are authoritarian.

@grok is it true that some members of gov't are wanting to rename social security as a "federal benefit payment"?

The planned starvation of millions of Ukrainians roughly a century ago is known as the Holodomor (a Ukrainian term translating to "death by hunger" or "to kill by starvation"). Lasting from 1932 to 1933, this man-made famine was orchestrated by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 3.9 to 4.5 million Ukrainians. The entire West might be subject to the same thing exactly a century later, laying from 1932-1933, millions were starved due ONLY because of political dissent, and by guilt by association of such!

Someone thinks Christianity promotes "genocide"...

I'm too broke to worry about tariffs, anyways. 😆

Who really can comprehend the vast scale of clean energy?