Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[lineygoblue]

And yet Xiden gets no blame for his role in the electric failures.

He eliminated the Keystone Pipeline and all of its jobs, and the oil that helps to generate electricity. And, he's on record as wanting to eliminate the coal industry, with its associated jobs, even though coal helps to fire power plants all over the country. And he'd NEVER be in favor of nuclear power ... ye gads, no ....

So, the good people of Texas are left in the dark, while Joe fiddles away in DC, trying to figure out next what he can do to eliminate more jobs, raise taxes, and appease China.

Meanwhile, Queen Kamala continues to sharpen her vast political skills on the morning news shows

[Hannibal]

TBF the biggest problem with the Texas grid appears to be that they failed to properly winterize just about every form of generation, be it renewables or fossil fuels. That and they operate on some sort of island for some reason. Whatever benefits they have ever had from not being regulated by FERC have been outweighed by this catastrophe by now. My understanding of the turbines is that you have to equip them with special blades that have defrosting elements not unlike your rear car window. This allows them to quickly shed ice and resume operating after a storm. Apparently, these turbines were not equipped with those elements and, thus, once they froze up, they got stuck frozen. In addition, water processing has frozen up all over the place and that has shut down the gas power plants too. This event occurs 3-4 times per century, by historical records. Often enough to build freeze protection into something important as an infrastructure that serves millions of customers. Major fuckups by somebody or somebodies.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Texas disaster is big enough that it wouldn't shock me if it's the nudge that finally pushes the state blue.

That's really too bad. The news reporting on the outages doesn't get to explaining the nature of the problems in terms other than those that cast those problems as either a failure of Texas' free market electric supply mechanism or stupid investments in green technology. It really is neither of these undertakings that are central to the power grid failures.

An article appeared on one of my news feeds, business oriented, that said, for the most part, the free market system of electrical distribution has produced some of the lowest per household electricity costs in the nation. The principal problems are (1) The failure of Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to plan for the need for excess electrical power when demand exceeds capacity or a massive failure, like the one Texans are currently experiencing, occurs. (2) Portions of the electrical grids in Texas weren't adequately protected for extended periods of extreme cold. Given the lack of back-up power, this was a serious oversight even though it's a one in every 30 years issue.

Problem (1) is related to the Texas government's policies to keep the Feds out of Texas power that has extended through three R administrations over the last decade. If Texas wanted to import power from other out of state providers, they'd have to submit to federal regulation.

From my perspective, the system needs to be tweeked, not dismantled over the same kind of political side shows that affect vaccine distribution.

[Hannibal]

Regardless of reasons, the Rs are in charge of Texas and have been except for one term of Anne Richards. Deregulation of the power grid is, by and large, a 1990s R legacy. It will be difficult for them to avoid the blame for this one.

[crashcourse]

drove through santamonica this last weekend. tent city everywhere. under the 405 on inglewood there were at least 30 tents crammed together on both sides of the underpass. the preimeter of grocery stores was a camping zone. ran across a lot of charactars on the corners--some looking stoned out of there mind fake jumping in fronnt of cars looking suicidal or trying to stop them for a donation. then driving hoome on 8 went past about 20 miles of trump wall that was about 400 yards from the interstate outside of yuma. RVs at least a couple hundred camped between the interstate and the wall all with american and trump flags. the drive from LA on 5 thru sandiego all the way to yuma definitely cool. prices for rentals and property from santamonica down the coast is crashing, i dont think its coming back for awhile not like the stock market where you swoop when it crashes

[iam416]

(1) The Rs will bear the blame and they should;
(2) This is a quintessential "life insurance" situation -- are you comfortable paying a lot of money for something that may never happen or only rarely happen.
(3) Williamson is, of course, correct in that any great crisis will break down into pure politics.

[Mike]

Bob Dole announced he has stage IV lung cancer. He will begin treatment on Monday but at 97 that might be worse than the disease. One of the last of his breed.

[lineygoblue]

Dole was used as fodder for Clinton's 2nd term. He was mocked for his speaking style, but in real life he has been a true statesman and a war hero. He's been a RINO in many ways, but in today's world DC could use a few more Bob Dole's and Fritz Mondales.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Don't know if people have brought it up yet but the amount of property damage in Texas once the pipes unfreeze this weekend...will be huge. Lots of people probably have burst pipes and don't even realize it yet.

[Dr. Strangelove]

TBF the biggest problem with the Texas grid appears to be that they failed to properly winterize just about every form of generation, be it renewables or fossil fuels. That and they operate on some sort of island for some reason. Whatever benefits they have ever had from not being regulated by FERC have been outweighed by this catastrophe by now. My understanding of the turbines is that you have to equip them with special blades that have defrosting elements not unlike your rear car window. This allows them to quickly shed ice and resume operating after a storm. Apparently, these turbines were not equipped with those elements and, thus, once they froze up, they got stuck frozen. In addition, water processing has frozen up all over the place and that has shut down the gas power plants too. This event occurs 3-4 times per century, by historical records. Often enough to build freeze protection into something important as an infrastructure that serves millions of customers. Major fuckups by somebody or somebodies.

Nearly the same thing happened in 2011 and 1989 before that. Apparently after the 2011 debacle the state did a review of what went wrong, basically identified the same problems, but nothing changed.

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/17/state-energy-winter-protections-lacking-reports-have-suggested/6780847002/

[Hannibal]

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[Jeff Buchanan]

A rare admission by the NYT this morning that journalists messaging regarding COVID vaccines has been misleading and is contributing to a large number of Americans - upwards of 30% - who already have or will refuse vaccination when it is offered to them. The article goes on to say that scientists and medical professionals, while strongly supporting vaccine privately, are circumspect about it publicly offering a long list of caveats about vaccines effectiveness and risk.

The net result is that despite what amounts to one of if not the most successful public health undertakings involving the development and distribution of C-19 vaccines in America will fail to restore normalcy. That's because large numbers of unvaccinated people will still be spreading the virus and keeping R0, hospitalizations and COVID deaths high enough to dampen official willingness to recommend or actually remove C-19 related mobility and mitigation measures.

First, to avoid this outcome, official messaging needs to change and Fauci needs to take the lead here. He has been one of the worst but-butters since the start of this thinking being predictably circumspect about saying anything overtly positive or if he does, he offers a list of caveats and rejoinders. Right behind him are state and local officials along with journalists changing their messaging. Not hard. Second, the way to get people off their dead asses is to mandate vaccination in the work place and to participate in travel and leisure activities. Legal experts are divided on this. From what I've read businesses probably can't fire employees for not getting vaccinated but they can terminate the contracts of (not renew) and not hire unvaccinated people. Private companies offering services can refuse to offer them to unvaccinated persons .... same thing as no shoes (or no mask) no service.

Israel, in the lead globally on vaccinating the highest percentage of their population, are already looking like vaccination will, going forward, be required to enter most leisure and entertainment venues including restaurants and bars and to enter local and federal offices to conduct business - like getting a drivers license or paying taxes. Government health officials in Israel are already saying if you don't get vaccinated, you will be left behind. It is a civic duty to get vaccinated and failing to do so unnecessarily endangers you and our country ....... it's a good message that you can bet will not likely come from governments in America due to the political risks and fallout but absolutely should.

I do think some private business concerns in the US will start requiring patrons to be vaccinated to enjoy whatever services they might extend to the public. Air travel and the cruise ship industry for example. I'm all for it. There are lots of ways in "freedom of choice" loving western democracies to get to whatever the level of the vaccinated public is required to reach herd immunity is. Most of you reading this weren't born when the polio vaccine hit the streets in 1954 after 2 years of that virus creating devastating disease among millions of children. A more compliant citizenry that trusted government lined up without complaint to receive oral doses on sugar cubes to start and later booster shots. Polio was wiped out within months. Frankly, I don't think that is going to happen this time around as the idiocy of anti-vaxers and political sideshows will make sure the COVID pandemic lasts for years to come.

[AlabamAlum]

Everyone you have ever known or loved will die.

Your mom and dad, your spouse, your children, brothers, sisters, everyone. Their bodies will catastrophically fail -either through disease or some trauma- and death will take them...

The only variables are when and how. There is no if. One can only hope that death is postponed a bit and the pain and suffering during that journey is minimized somewhat. The rest is a foregone certainty.

Eat at Arby’s.

[iam416]

Buchanan has almost been the Negative Nelly when it comes to Covid. Always predicting the worst. Always pontificating disaster. I do my best to offset his rampant, malevolent pessimism,

Case in point -- https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...news-on-covid/ -- Things are looking up. Pifzer is hugely effective w/ ONE dose. A Johns Hopkins professor opines that we'll have herd immunity in April. Cases are, indeed, plummeting and vaccinations are staying the course -- which is a nice gentle upslope. April seems ambitious to me, but those something much eariler than end of summer seems way more realsitic.

Furthermore, we're about 6-8 weeks out from legitimate outdoor options again. We're almost there. (That's partially why it makes so little sense to pass a massive Covid relief bill -- and also why you won't hear any good news from Progs).

[Jeff Buchanan]

.......... one more important thing. One of the messages absolutely not coming from many sources is that once you are fully vaccinated and have allowed for the specified post inoculation time frame you cannot get a reinfection that will cause serious illness or death. The contrary, yes, you can get re-infected and die from SARS-2 or one of it's variants has come from more-or-less official sources but mostly from people flat-out misinterpreting the scientific research.

The facts are that the emerging evidence strongly supports that not only is serious illness and death from a SARS-2 infection reduced to zero, but also transmission is significantly reduced among the vaccinated. Serology testing among the rarely re-infected demonstrates viral loads are miniscule (reduced shedding) and symptoms are either negligible or resemble the common cold.

The point is that among the fully vaccinated, we WILL NOT need masks, social distancing and/or the still demoralizing and newly unnecessary mobility restrictions. I'm not hearing that at all but instead, don't let down your guard, don't gather indoors, yada, yada, yada. Yes, the unvaccinated will need to do all those things and be prepared to hear the howls of it's unfair from that cohort. Fuck them.