Texas Power Failure

[45North]

Never been to TX but I understand they have a strong aversion to government and regulations. Private industry rules and the $$ is king.

True to form, if that s*** storm wasn't bad enough the Governor has just declared that Covid is dead and they're open for business.

So sad! Too bad Covid isn't listening; More Texans will die!

 

[Luthj]

Its happened a few times throughout US history (to various parties). Weaponized Ignorance, and lack of empathy as a point of pride. Read the History on the Know-Nothings of the 1850s, there are some striking resemblances to modern day.

 

[45North]

Its happened a few times throughout US history (to various parties). Weaponized Ignorance, and lack of empathy as a point of pride. Read the History on the Know-Nothings of the 1850s, there are some striking resemblances to modern day.

Biden is quoted as calling it "Neanderthal" thinking.
But that didn't go over well! LOL

 

[Hedges]

Hey!
I'm a descendent of Neanderthals!
(not everyone is)

 

[Luthj]

Last I checked all non African originating populations have 1-3% Neanderthal DNA (well its a matter of the date they left Africa, as all humans originated in Africa if you go far enough back. Research indicates they weren't any less developed than homosapiens. In fact many of the critical bits of our DNA for living in large societies can from Neanderthals. Such as our highly reactive immune system (and our allergies).

This really shouldn't be a political issue though. Plenty of states with R government do the right thing, and have non partisan regulatory bodies. These bodies have real enforcement power, and have a charter which specifically lists their policy goals. These typically include long term reliability, down time, cost gouging protections, etc. Of courses some of these are already codified in the federal grid laws. I would guess this is precisely why most of TX didn't connect to the grid. The parts that did were fine though, go figure.

 

[Hedges]

There used to be utility companies, government authorized monopolies, that generated and sold power.
We have seen a shift to government mandated breakup of these companies, with some form of competitive market to provide power.
Regulatory bodies have factions arguing in favor of consumer prices, company profits, environmental protection, and various pipe dreams or tilting at windmills.
(laws and sausages, you know.)

What we don't have yet is much management of demand. Not for power consumption, not for telecom (all in the name of "net neutrality" and apple pie, of course.)
How should we deal with solar storms, 2 out 3 undersea cables severed, generating plants offline, etc.?
Presently, telecom regulations require ATT to subsidize pornography, because that's how the laws Congress passed decades ago work.
California is working toward 100% electric heat, after which they will have power outages on cold winter nights, just like Texas.

Thing will get worse before they get better.
Look out for #1, because no one else will.
People should probably have a wood stove and wood pile, just for backup. (and then they can learn about Black Widows.)

 

[pvdude]

It was enlightening to us to see what happened to the Texas grid.
Only two weeks earlier, I had placed my first order for the solar electronics for our house.
I was originally doing solar because it occurred to me that central Florida has lots of Sun, and I am wasting an opportunity to avoid responding to the periodic grid failures (hurricanes, drunk drivers & power poles, local grid overloads) by running the noisy, smoky Diesel genset.
Quiet power will be welcomed here, and I will be using solar /inverter/batteries 24x7x365, rather than only when the grid fails.
Texas made me realize that if one or more of those polar bubbles comes here in the future, the grid in Florida will have problems in the population centers. Wife and I already recognize the sound of transformers/fuses blowing up locally, “bang” is heard, lights dim and recover, or not……….

 

[gramos100]

Sounds like some outage outrage is in order here!

It would be unfortunate if everyone gave up on the grid and went off to roll their own. Very expensive overall.
Much better to fix the shared grid but they will have to find the political will to do it.

I follow a very good solar /EV program in England and it decimates the excuses made by the PoCo,s in Texas ,
it is called The Fully Charged Show and is presented by a very enthusiastic and energetic guy named Robert Llewellyn
I think you will find this a very intriguing revelation !

 

[svetz]

ROFL

On XYZ news, as always, they have a slightly different take on it to the rest of the entire human race on the rest of the planet. That tiny little microcosim of XYZ viewers who live on a different planet than the rest of us.

Hate to single out any single inaccurate news feed, but it's amazing how bad they all are. For this channel, from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/, they seem very unreliable:

The good news is there are channels biased the other way, so if you watch both you'll get an overall neutral picture. ? I don't know that you can blame the viewers though, once they get their hooks into you (either side) everything else seems like lies so how will they ever know any better?

I saw a study a while back of the level if bias in channels in the U.S., and the closest to neutral was the Weather Channel... even it was still leaning left. If only the Ghost Of E.R. Murrow would go a-haunting.

It's a tough pickle though, if you crack down on accuracy it's goes against the concept of a free-press. Just seems like things have gone waayyy downhill since Walter Cronkite. But, perhaps I was just more gullible back then.

So, who's the best? Up to you to judge, but here's a few from mediabiasfactcheck:

BBC

NBC

CBS

 

[Luthj]

There is a distinct difference between bias, ie, putting a spin on something. And actually making stuff up whole cloth. In the same vein is completely ignoring major issues is not unusual. Journalistic integrity does exist in one form or another.

The real issue is when part of your ideology is to reflexively reject any narrative/fact which clashes with ones tribe. Its a form of weaponized narcissism in a way, and it a core tenet of authoritarian ideologies. Pointing out bad governance and punishing bad behavior/performance shouldn't be partisan, but this Texas Debacle is the perfect example. With a factual narrative of a grid poorly equipped across the board, vs some strange mix of anti federalist ideology, renewables blaming, and deflection. I would have the utmost respect for a governor who admitted the system was unprepared, promised to require winterization, and provide bill relief for customers gouged. But it was not to be.

A sane state government would simply pass a bill giving the state power to regulate these utilities.

 

[svetz]

Perhaps rather than censorship, the government could take a page from the FDA labeling guidelines:

• You can't have "News" in the show's title unless you're over 90% accurate and balanced
• A show less than 90% but greater that 70% will be call Commentary
• A show less than 70% shall have the label Conspiracy theories in the title.

We could do the same with politicians:

• A politician that is > 90% accurate will be known as the Right Honorable.
• A politician that is 70 to 90% shall be known as the Right Trickster
• A politician that is 40 to 70% shall known as the Right Lying Bastard
• A politician that is less than 40% shall be automatically removed from office.

Wouldn't work though, imagine how much it would cost for all those recalls?

 

[Hedges]

And submit our material for review, so the government can determine what may be presented as "fact"?

 

[Luthj]

People will Still get their garbage news from social media. Some Have suggested bring back the fairness doctrine, but I don't think that would accomplish anything.

The rise of some of the more extreme media outlets and/or the radicalization of existing ones is a symptom not a root cause in and of itself.

 

[Hedges]

It may largely be the effective monetization of eyeballs.

Most news, research, etc. is advertisement or otherwise not unbiased.
It offers entertainment value in order to either show separate ads or serve as an infomercial.
Money is invested where it will produce a return.

 

[svetz]

...so the government can determine what may be presented as "fact"?

For the news labeling, how about something setup like the lawyers rate judges?
Except instead of journalists... perhaps a poll of retired college level journalism ethics professors whose IRS statements are reviewed by independent tax accountants that changes each year to insure no payola? If anyone is sick/frightened of the anti-truth, it must be those professors that dedicated their lives to the topic and have been watching it be decimated.

Realistically I don't think you could ever find a system to factually rate the politicians that the government had any hand in setting up. But hey, one out of two?

People will Still get their garbage news ....

True, but at least it'll go from being called news to conspiracy theories. Sort of like people watching professional wrestling understand it's staged, and people watching boxing hope it's real.

 

[Luthj]

True, but at least it'll go from being called news to conspiracy theories. Sort of like people watching professional wrestling understand it's staged, and people watching boxing hope it's real.

I don't know... A great example is some of my relatives, they didn't believe they were getting the real story about "X" from the "mainstream media". So they started watching "news" channels on youtube, facebook, etc. These folks will string together innuendo, supposition, and straight up nonsense. Well kermit the frog is green, and "person" had a frog as their college mascot, and kermit is a tool of the liberal conspiracy, so "person" is a member of the deep state. And they trust this stuff as if it came from Gods mouth. Next thing I know they are buying guns and talking about the apocalypse.

So at the core of the problem is a specific sub culture(s) that makes people extremely vulnerable to this type of conspiratorial nonsense. Combined with politicians and content producers who just want to maintain power. Of course this is multiplied by the winner take all primary and electoral system, which punishes moderates. Research indicates there may be a strong religious component, but that would probably result in a discussion which violates forum rules (and draws out the radicals).

What compounds it, is that these fringe content generators create stuff that is usually indefinable as pure nonsense to most. Often quite disgusting in its extremism (for example global jewish conspiracies, etc). But then semi-mainstream sources will tone it down and repackage for those uninitiated. Giving it a sheen of "truthiness". This even comes from major outlets on occasion.

 

[svetz]

... they didn't believe they were getting the real story about "X" from the "mainstream media"...

Sounds reasonable, a lot of mainstream media is biased.

So they started watching "news" channels on youtube, facebook, etc.

Shopping for news often leads one to some conman where the message resonates based on whatever fears they're exploiting. After you hit that, you know the (fake) truth and don't need to search farther.

... they trust this stuff as if it came from Gods mouth....

They're students of modern psychology, they know how to manipulate people and there are a lot proven examples on how to radicalize people from countries that have literally become hellholes. In the end, whether these modern day con artists are doing it for money, power, or to better the lot of their minority, it'll eventually come back and bite them. History shows that truth is the best policy.

Free speech is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of democratic countries. But how to fix it? As suggested above you don't want the government stifling free speech or as @Hedges said, deciding who is "right" and "wrong". So far the best idea I've seen is the labeling one above.

IDK, the average person in the U.S. just doesn't have armor against being psychologically manipulated. But as technology changes we need to find our way. Perhaps psychological armoring should be taught in elementary school? But, how will mom's then manipulate their kids into eating peas?

 

[Alphabavo]

Natural gas went offline as well.
I'd always understood that unless there was an earth quake you could pretty much count on natural gas to run your standby generator.

A TON of natural gas wells and processing stations froze up.

 

[Alphabavo]

I wonder if that was because the hospitals had natural gas generators.

Critical infrastructure emergency generators are almost universally diesel fueled, you would not want them reliant on outside utilities during a true emergency (California earthquakes would be a good example.) The backup generators at a hospital will not shoulder the entire facility, most will just run critical systems. Utilities almost never cut off hospitals willingly.

 

[Freep]

ROFL


Hate to single out any single inaccurate news feed, but it's amazing how bad they all are. For this channel, from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/, they seem very unreliable:

The good news is there are channels biased the other way, so if you watch both you'll get an overall neutral picture. ? I don't know that you can blame the viewers though, once they get their hooks into you (either side) everything else seems like lies so how will they ever know any better?

I saw a study a while back of the level if bias in channels in the U.S., and the closest to neutral was the Weather Channel... even it was still leaning left. If only the Ghost Of E.R. Murrow would go a-haunting.

It's a tough pickle though, if you crack down on accuracy it's goes against the concept of a free-press. Just seems like things have gone waayyy downhill since Walter Cronkite. But, perhaps I was just more gullible back then.

So, who's the best? Up to you to judge, but here's a few from mediabiasfactcheck:

BBC

NBC

CBS

The problem with mediabiasfactcheck is they don't take into account that American media is skewed right wing when compared to all other developed nations. So when you see left-center, that's really right-center in the rest of the civilized world, right-center is right and extreme right is neo-fascism.