Tag Archives: energy
Tweet of the Week – March 6, 2021
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No S**t Quotes of the Week – February 27, 2021
All courtesy of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott opining about the recent ice storm chaos:
“When essential services were needed the most, the system broke. You deserve answers. You will get those answers.”
“You shouldn’t be saddled with skyrocketing power bills.”
“Each of these power sources failed to fully produce because of inadequate safeguards.”
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Worst Quotes of the Week – February 27, 2021
“I’ve got to say, Orlando is awesome! It’s not as nice as Cancun, but it’s nice.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida
“If you’re reading the room and you’re intelligent, you realize that Donald Trump is still the future of the Republican Party. Those people who are being displaced by illegals, those people who are being swept aside by the Democrat Party, who has just flagrantly ignored them for decades, Donald Trump is all over that.”
“So, they had this whole big narrative going right after January 6, and that narrative has completely collapsed. There was no insurrection, there was no coup. As you mention, the only shot fired in the Capitol on January 6 was the shot fired by a policeman into Ashli Babbitt’s neck. They tried very hard the New York Times was the chief culprit in making up the story about Brian Sicknick, now they knew that the story was a lie from the beginning, and the reason is that there is plenty of video of what was happening all over the Capitol. And yet you will notice there never was any video of Brian Sicknick being hit on the head with a fire extinguisher. The New York Times made that up, attributed to unnamed sources and never published a correction, they just later said, ‘well the story has been updated because there’s been new facts that have come in.’ The truth of it is they tried to construct a false narrative and now that that false narrative has imploded they’re moving to the, let’s call it the White supremacy narrative, which is equally bogus.”
Dinesh D’Souza, refuting that the January 6 Capitol Hill rioters were insurrectionists
Brian Sicknick was the Capitol Hill police officer who succumbed to injuries after the chaos, and Ashli Babbitt was the former U.S. Air Force servicewoman who was shot and killed as she tried to enter a hallway.
“We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which, in the end, we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it. Then, we checked Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter feed because we have heard she traffics in disinformation, CNN told us, but nothing there. Next, we called our many friends in the tight-knit intel community. Could Vladimir Putin be putting this stuff out there? The Proud Boys? Alex Jones? Who is lying to America in ways that are certain to make us hate each other and certain to destroy our core institutions? Well, none of the above, actually. It wasn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene. It was cable news. It was politicians talking on TV. They’re the ones spreading disinformation to Americans. Maybe they are from QAnon.”
Tucker Carlson, claiming there is no evidence of a conspiracy group known as QAnon
On a side note, I’ve said before that Carlson resembles an adult film actor who went by the name T.T. Boy, c. 1990.
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Best Quotes of the Week – February 27, 2021
“Members of the board of ERCOT resigned for their failures and Greg Abbott should follow. He is the head of the state. He is responsible for this crisis.”
Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party Chairman, in response to the recent ice storm and the ensuing failure of the state’s leadership to handle it
“It really would have been nice to have a state representative helping on the ground, working at a warming center, packing food, etc. rather than immediately (flying) off on a private plane when the going got tough. My neighbors didn’t get to do that when her pipe burst.”
Brian Walz, resident of the Fort Bend, Texas area, criticizing State Rep. Gary Gates (pictured) for flying to Orlando, Florida as effects of the ice storm in his district worsened
A first-term lawmaker, Gates is facing backlash for taking a private jet to Orlando, but says he and his family had to leave their home, as pipes had burst.
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We Could Have Had Beto
Texas, we could have had Beto O’Rourke as U.S. Senator. Instead, a slight majority voted to keep Ted Cruz in office in 2018. I emphasize “slight majority” because – unlike his 2012 victory over Paul Sadler – Cruz didn’t well…cruise to a reelection win.
In the summer of 2018, O’Rourke, then a U.S. House Representative, shocked the Texas Republican Party and political observers alike when he raised several million dollars in a very short time. It was no minor feat; accomplished by literally cold-calling people and pounding the pavement all over the state, gathering small amount donations from average citizens. O’Rourke also did something no other Texas candidate for the U.S. Senate had done: he visited every single county in the state. Some residents were stunned upon his arrival, as their county had no record of such a candidate stopping by. Again, this was no minor task. Texas boasts 267 counties in roughly 268,597 square miles (695,663 sq. km). It’s half the size of Alaska and as big as some of Europe’s largest countries, such as Spain and France. So, O’Rourke disturbed the evangelical conservative force that’s dominated Texas politics for generations; first as Democrats and now as Republicans.
For many Texas Hispanics – especially someone like me whose ancestry in this state goes back before there was a United States – Cruz’s win in 2012 was a distinct insult. Cruz, a Canadian-born Cuban-Italian, was lauded as the state’s first Hispanic senator. Cruz is to Hispanics what I am to Nigerians.
More significantly, though, Cruz is known for his antagonistic approach to political navigations once he got to Washington, as well as his failed 2016 presidential bid. He and Donald Trump ended up battling for the final nomination. In what I considered a case of choosing the lesser of two evils, Cruz would have been that lesser one. But, I’ve only voted Republican once in my life and have let myself live to regret it; thus I don’t know what shenanigans rumbled through the brains of Trump acolytes. The animosity between Cruz and Trump became even more palpable during the 2016 Republican National Convention, when the Texan gave his speech and did everything he could NOT to say the name Donald Trump, as the crowd booed and jeered. The tension was so high that Secret Service agents removed Cruz’s wife, Heidi, from the convention floor.
By 2018, though, Cruz had done little to advance a pro-citizen agenda. In all fairness, O’Rourke had no significant legislative achievements during his tenure either. I guess I was mistaken in believing we elect people to such prestigious positions to actually…you know, do something. I must be a damn fool! But that year I eagerly jumped on the O’Rourke train, donating money and proudly voting for him.
Alas, it was for naught. Cruz squeezed into another term, sweating and hyperventilating all the way. It was enough to upset that right-wing force in Texas politics, but Cruz made it back to Washington anyway.
Then came the ice. Like a herd of Central American immigrants carrying loads of bananas stuffed with cocaine (a conservative’s second worst nightmare after queer marriage), Winter Storm Uri ambushed Texas. Meteorologists had warned state and energy industry officials about its strength. When most Texans think of hurricanes, they conjure images of Katrina and Harvey, not a snow-laden monstrosity from the Pacific or (hah-ha) Canada.
As millions of Texans found themselves without power – and, in some cases, water – state leaders began blaming liberals and their green energy ideas for the catastrophe. And Ted Cruz left his comfortable Houston abode to jet to Cancun because his 2 daughters wanted to go. He was there for all of one day before the angry heat from his constituents melted his margarita and his resolve and he scurried back to Houston; hoping no one would notice.
We noticed. We also noticed that at least 80 Texans died last week directly as a result of the ice storm.
Cruz hopscotched across the stage of excuses to explain his sudden departure and miraculous return. Meanwhile, Beto O’Rourke began raising money for Texans stranded in their darkened homes and even made calls to some of them. He got help from one of the most demonized figures among conservatives in American politics: New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Now, as Texas state leaders continue blaming everyone else for the catastrophe, Ted Cruz left Texas again and headed for Orlando, Florida to attend the annual conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). In summation it’s a yearly festival where right-wingers trash anyone even slightly to the left of their narrow-minded ideology. At this year’s escapade, a gold-colored figure of Trump has taken center stage.
And so has Cruz. Making light of his Cancun trip, he quipped: “I’ve got to say, Orlando is awesome. It’s not as nice as Cancun, but it’s nice.”
Oh, ha-ha! HURK!
Fuck you, Cruz. Fuck you and your conservative philosophies. Fuck you and the Texas Republican “leaders” who can’t admit their pro-business, anti-regulation antics over the past decades put us into this quagmire. People suffered and people died during this mess! One of the wealthiest states in the richest nation on Earth in the third decade of the 21st century should not have experienced such a calamity!
But I’m just venting. Texas, we could’ve had Beto.
Image: Mike Luckovich
Filed under Essays
“Get a Rope” Quotes of the Week – February 20, 2021
“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”
Rick Perry, Texas Governor 2001-2015, on the Texas ice storm
“No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! … Only the strong will survive and the week will perish.”
Tim Boyd, former Mayor of Colorado City, Texas, on the Texas ice storm
Boyd resigned his position shortly after he made this comment.
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Best Quotes of the Week – February 20, 2021
“This is what you get when people who don’t believe in government are running your government. . . . They’d like to spend more time on Hannity talking about the Green New Deal and wind turbines than they would in trying to help those who desperately need it right now.”
Beto O’Rourke, on this week’s ice storms in Texas
“Just put it in people’s arms. We don’t want any doses to go to waste. Period.”
Dr. Hasan Gokal, a Houston doctor with the Harris County Public Health Department who was charged with stealing ten doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for rushing to administer them before expiration
“It’s essentially a question of how much insurance you want to buy. What makes this problem even harder is that we’re now in a world where, especially with climate change, the past is no longer a good guide to the future. We have to get much better at preparing for the unexpected.”
Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems engineer at Princeton University, on the Texas ice storm crisis
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Powered Down
The memo was clear. Everyone should make a concerted effort to get into the office, no matter what the weather is like. That included winter storms. It was the mid-1990s, and the manager of the department where I worked in a bank in downtown Dallas insisted that business was paramount. This was seemingly light years before the Internet and telecommuting became dependable and functional. And every time ice and snow paralyzed the Dallas / Fort Worth metropolitan area I managed to make it into work. One week day I awoke to sleet falling outside of my apartment bedroom window; it was about 4 in the morning. I knew the weather would only worsen, so I shut off my alarm clock and readied for work. Travel time from my far North Dallas abode into downtown took almost 2 hours by navigating ice-laden streets. When I arrived just before 8 a.m., I literally had to turn on the lights in the department.
When I went to work for an engineering company shortly after the turn of the century, I ended up back in downtown Dallas, laboring on a contract for a government agency. I learned quickly the federal outfit had a phobia of snow and ice. They’d literally shut down when snow began descending upon the city. As contractors, my colleagues and I had to vacate the premises as well. One afternoon a monstrous rainstorm attacked, and – in a faux frenzy – I asked loudly if we had to leave the building. Rain, I declared, was just liquid snow. No such luck. We had to continue laboring over our strained keyboards. Everyone laughed.
Last weekend Winter Storm Uri catapulted into North America from the Pacific, generating ice storms that blanketed the state of Texas this week and inducing an even more paralyzing effect: our power grid shut down. Literally millions of people have lived without power (and in some cases, without water) since this past weekend. As of this moment, most homes have their power back. But a lack of water is now the problem. Meanwhile, the number of deaths in Texas related to the event has risen. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport led the world in the number of flight cancellations this week.
This has been a cataclysm of unimaginable proportions. I have experienced a slew of serious weather events and witnessed plenty of incidents of government incompetence, but I have NEVER seen anything like this!
What has occurred here in Texas this week is a prime example of the ineptness of conservative ideology and intense deregulation. Texas is an energy island; producing its own energy and relying upon no one else. The exception is far West Texas, where El Paso and its immediate surrounding communities experienced the same weather event, yet had no power outages. That strong sense of independence and individual reliability looks great in political campaigns, but doesn’t always turn out well in real life. Since the mid-1990s, Texas has had the habit of electing the biggest morons to public office. And they’ve come to dominate state government. Texas conservatives have done more to protect gun rights than basic human rights.
Now many of those same conservatives who always espouse the concept of personal responsibility are pointing their gnarly fingers at everyone and everything except themselves and their own disjointed attitudes. Even though President Joe Biden approved emergency relief for Texas, some Republicans are accusing him of indifference. They somehow missed Ted Cruz running off to Cancun, México this week because his kids wanted to go. Governor Greg Abbott has blamed green energy and the Green New Deal for the crisis. Green energy, however, only makes up about 10% of energy sources in Texas, and the Green New Deal hasn’t even gone into effect yet. But they’re liberal programs, so of course, Republicans consider them demonic and will trash their mere presence whenever they get the chance. Abbott also blames the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) for mishandling the event, but still hasn’t looked in the mirror.
This debacle points to the vulnerability of modern societies that have come to rely upon optic fibers and wires; a weakness that would both appall and humor our hardy ancestors. In March of 1888, a massive winter storm assaulted the Northeastern U.S., downing power lines and disabling even modest commutes in the region’s largest cities. People in rural areas, however, lived through the storm and its effects without much trouble. They were accustomed to such weather anyway and prepared for it.
Preparedness – the word of 2021.
Consider this irony. Earlier on Thursday, the 18th, NASA was able to land a vehicle on Mars. The endeavor cost millions of dollars and is an epic triumph in the name of science and technology. But we can’t get power and water to millions of human beings here in Texas – on planet Earth – for several days.
That’s not just sad; it’s unbelievably outrageous.
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Chief Writing Wolf 