Eric Peters is an amazing writer. He reviews cars and offers up his opinion on the auto industry from a libertarian perspective. He’s like the Mencken of car criticism, and in a recent article he unmasks Elon Musk as just another crony addicted to handouts, and riding the electric car hype train:

“When financial analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Sanford C. Bernstein asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk about the money-losing electric car company’s capital requirements going forward (Tesla has burned through – cue Dr. Evil – one billion dollars in three of the last four quarters) Musk replied: “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next?””

…”Neither man gives a damn about the damage – human or financial – imposed on others. Nor that others are made to pay for it all. They don’t even give lip service to pretending  anything they do bothers them in the least. All that matters is the Great Dream – whether it’s “regime change” in some resource-rich country which hasn’t attacked us (a war crime, once upon a time) or this equally demented business of manufacturing electric cars that almost no one would freely buy absent the subsidies and mandates.”

And this nugget: “Another analyst, Joe Spak of RBC Capital Markets, had the audacity to ask Elon a question relating to the true cost of the Model 3 – production of which is also nothing close to what Elon promised, but never mind that.

“Boring. Next,” came the reply.

With good reason. Move way from that one as quickly as possible.”

Here’s some headlines to consider:

Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by$4.9 billion in government in government subsidies

If Tesla is worth more than GM, why are taxpayers still subsidizing it?

It looks like the state of California is bailing out Tesla

Musk is nothing more than another crony at the public trough, just one that’s unusually good at publicity stunts.

And who knows, maybe in the near future we’ll see Tesla tanks equipped with Google AI driving through Third World villages and mowing down the inhabitants.

What a grim irony it is to see Google, the company that claimed ‘Don’t be evil‘ as its official motto and code of conduct, only to jump swiftly at the opportunity to equip the Pentagon’s combat drones with it’s DeepMind artificial intelligence.  These are the same drones that murder far more innocent civilians than “militants”, whatever the hell that means, and are running wild all over the Third World.  To their credit, over 3,000 Google employees, citing the ‘Don’t be evil’ motto, demanded that their employer end contract work with the Pentagon.

Google, in effect, has become just the latest cog in the military-industrial complex churning out machines of war to be deployed in the various endless wars that our government is currently engaged in.  One can imagine Google drones flying over Syria soon, and even Iran.

I believe that almost everyone, and every company has a price, but at least drop the sanctimony. Evil is in the eye of the beholder, and when the price is right, that term can become almost infinitely elastic.  It can even be twisted to mean its opposite.

What we have to fear most are people with tremendous power over our lives and who also believe they have the ability to distinguish between good and evil.

I was reminded of Google’s ridiculous motto while watching the eighth episode of season 3 of the tragically cancelled greatest show on television, Ash vs. the Evil Dead. Shotgun-and-chainsaw wielding slacker Ash Williams, upon seeing his teenage daughter’s fear and hopelessness as they are being dragged to Hell inside his Delta 88, reminds her, “Evil is not the boss of us!”, before gunning the car up out of the reach of the Deadites, plowing over the Grim Reaper himself, and reaching safety. Again, a tragedy that the show was cancelled.

“Don’t be evil” is only sincere when citizens use it to chide their own government and the architects of the Surveillance State that are in the Pentagon’s pocket. Government is the entity that is supposed to be residing in a Constitutionally-erected prison, because, if not, they will build one around us, and use power-and-money hungry dipshits in companies like Google to accomplish it.

The Guardian: Border agents can’t search your phone without good reason, U.S. court rules

Reuters: CIA secrets will limit senators’ questions to Trump nominee Haspel

The Federalist: It’s not Sci-Fi: China is developing tech that can mold U.S. kids’ minds

Common Dreams: CNN’s Iran fearmongering would make more sense coming directly from Pentagon

Reason: Pulling out of Iran deal could endanger U.S. troops

FEE: Starbucks is the latest victim of pseudoscience

DAVID STOCKMAN: The Donald’s done–The Deep State wins its war on ‘America First’

THOMAS KNAPP: The Iran nuclear deal isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law

JAMES BOVARD: Washington secrecy is creating a know-nothing democracy

Salon: What if we considered police killings a public health crisis? : “Police killings, often times driven by racial bias, have become an all-too-familiar American narrative. Indeed, a new study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health validates what many have speculated: “Police violence disproportionately impacts young people, and the young people affected are disproportionately people of color.”

Researchers landed on the conclusion through a different approach to quantifying the tragedies of lives lost to police killings. Rather than looking merely at the stated number of deaths, they used a public health calculation that is often used to approximate the impact of a disease — thus comparing deaths of police killings to a public health crisis.”

Techdirt: Cops ‘help’ naked, possibly-suicidal, schizophrenic man by tasing him to death

CityLab: Inside the secret cities that created the atomic bomb

Tulsa World: OSU professor compares Oklahoma’s medical marijuana state question to other states’ laws

Slate: The US government’s secret inventions

Military Times: Psychedelic drug provides relief for veterans for PTSD