Latest news with #Nazi-saluting
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Voltaire's take on the ‘Utah Way'
Darci Stone holds a sign during the Stand Up For Science protest at the Utah State Capitol on the last day of the legislative session, Friday, March 7, 2025. (Photo by Alex Goodlett for Utah News Dispatch) Perhaps the most eloquent summation of America in the age of Donald Trump comes from the famous quote of eighteenth-century French Enlightenment philosopher and acerbic social critic François-Marie Arouet, known by his pen name as Voltaire. He wrote, 'Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.' Trump has been dragging this country into a land littered with 'absurdities' and non-reality since he rode down the escalator in 2015. Now in his second term, teamed up with apex predator and wolf in DOGE clothing, Elon Musk, those absurdities are in full bloom as authoritarian, Nazi-saluting moral atrocities. Public protests have sprung up throughout the country on almost every move Trump and Musk have made. One of the most important protest movements, but least publicized, is 'Stand Up for Science.' I attended the rally in Salt Lake City on March 8 along with hundreds of other Utahns. But next time the attendance should be hundreds of thousands. Two weeks ago, new director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, announced that EPA's mission would be flipped on its head, i.e. it would no longer be to protect human life, public health and our air, water, and environment from contamination, but to 'lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.' Even from an economic standpoint this is an absurdity. On average the economic benefits to EPA regulations established through the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act have been about 30 times the cost to industry of complying with those regulations. Even the narrowest of interpretations of that equation finds a 3-to-1 benefit ratio. It is primarily thanks to EPA regulations on smoke stack and tail pipe emissions that Utah's particulate pollution (PM2.5) has generally improved in the last 20 years (although that improvement is being eroded by more wildfire pollution). A recent study from Utah scientists estimated that up to 8,000 Utahns die, and economic losses are up to $3.3 billion a year, due to current levels of pollution. Voltaire would have cringed at Zeldin boasting the EPA will do its part to 'power the great American comeback.' Comeback to what? More dead and sick Utahns and more economic losses? Even if you assign no economic value to your own health, quality of life, or life expectancy, fossil fuel generated energy is now more expensive than clean energy. On the EPA's official website, Zeldin boasts, 'We are driving a dagger through the heart of the climate change religion.' A MAGA cultist slandering the most important scientific reality in human history as a 'religion' is right from the authoritarian play book: accuse your opposition of the very atrocities you're committing. Over 99.9% of climate research dating back to 1807, has confirmed an accelerating climate crisis from increasing atmospheric CO2. It's been declared the greatest public health threat of the 21st century by the world's top 200 medical journals. Even the oil industry's scientists identified looming catastrophic global warming with 'shocking skill and accuracy' as early the 1970s. As we all know, the industry betrayed their own science, deciding that saving humanity would not interfere with quarterly profits. That Musk promotes himself as a scientific genius while spearing heading some of the most anti-science delusions infecting the Trump Administration is particularly galling. Trump's entire cabinet, their party's Congressional majorities, and even some Democrats have for years personified the scientific absurdity and moral atrocity warned about by Voltaire. For their part, our legislature keeps telling themselves that Utah is the best managed state in the nation. The 25,000-80,000 Utahns that died in the last decade from our air pollution might think otherwise. Our legislature is also disconnected from the wishes of their undead constituency, with their ongoing determination to wrest control of public lands away from the federal government, and to immunize Utah against mythical 'federal regulatory overreach.' A Colorado College annual poll found that 76% of Utahns want their leaders 'to place more emphasis on protecting water, air, wildlife habitat, and recreation opportunities over maximizing the amount of land available for drilling and mining.' Fifty-seven percent 'oppose giving state government control over national public lands,' such as forests, monuments, and wildlife refuges. Nearly two thirds support government action 'to reduce carbon pollution that contributes to climate change.' Yet our leaders persist in doing the opposite. For example, Utah has spent your tax dollars fighting the 'Good Neighbor Rule' which would have required reducing pollution from our coal power plants that send death and disease over to Colorado, as if those lives mean nothing. How does anyone square that moral failure with the Parable of the Good Samaritan whose virtue so many of our legislators hear extolled in their church services? If Voltaire targeted his pen on the vaunted 'Utah Way' in the era of Donald Trump, I'm pretty sure he would say, 'Yup, nailed it.'
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The Cybertruck design disaster is complete as Tesla gets desperate
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Ah, the Tesla Cybertruck. It seems the 'edgy' electric SUV will go down in history as an example of what happens when one of the world's most valuable companies lets its CEO impose his personal taste in design. Tesla initially predicted that it could produce 500,000 units per year. But amid price hikes, multiple Cybertruck design fails, Elon Musk's divisiveness and the general ugliness of the car, that isn't going to happen. Tesla won't report how many it's actually sold, but estimates are around 40,000 in 2024. Now Tesla is offering discounted financing in a bid to shift its expensive low-polygon game asset on wheels. We've seen photos of Cybertrucks sitting on parking lots. The new financing offer seems like the latest desperate attempt to sell a car that nobody wants. And it might not work. Potential customers now know that sales are struggling and that better deals are likely to come soon, so anyone considering buying would be wise to wait. Meanwhile, existing owners are left with a bad taste in their mouths because they bought at a worse rate. Tesla already launched Cybertruck leases to help move vehicles. It's also reportedly been flogging more expensive Foundations Series vehicles as regular Cybertrucks after removing their badges, while it started selling remaining Foundations Series cars with free wraps and free 'lifetime' Supercharging. Pity anyone who forked out $160,000 last year. Elon Musk's personal transformation into a Nazi-saluting rightwing extremist, meddling in elections and decimating the US state, doesn't seem to have helped Tesla either. Some people who bought Cybertrucks are regretting their purchase and trying to sell their 'Nazi mobile' because they don't want people to think they're evil. It's about time everyone, Tesla included, admitted that the Cybertruck was a total flop. The whole concept was wrong from the start because it was based on Musk's personal preference for something quirky that he once saw in a sci-fi movie rather than research into what people wanted. The design was flawed and misjudged, from materials that cost a fortune to replace to confusing brake lights, an inability to handle snow and a stunning failure to consider safety regulations, resulting in a vehicle that's not road legal in the UK and Europe because of its weight and sharp edges. Vehicles were recalled because of accelerator pedals getting stuck down, and drivers have had body panels fly off while driving. The dark turn in Musk's personal branding appears to have merely signed the Cybertruck's death warrant.
