The US has been blanketed by an orgy of hand-wringing, pearl-clutching,
handkerchief-soaking grief and horror occasioned by this once-vibrant
nation reaching a memorable reported Megadeath Virus of Doom death
total.
Here are just a handful of headlines memorializing this grim milestone:
_________________________________________
theverge | The Economic Security Project is trying to make a point
about big tech monopolies by releasing a browser plugin that will block
any sites that reach out to IP addresses owned by Google, Facebook,
Microsoft, or Amazon. The extension is called Big Tech Detective,
and after using the internet with it for a day (or, more accurately,
trying and failing to use), I’d say it drives home the point that it’s
almost impossible to avoid these companies on the modern web, even if
you try.
Currently, the app has to be side-loaded onto Chrome, and
the Economic Security Project expects that will remain the case. It’s
also available to side-load onto Firefox.
By default, it just keeps track of how many requests are sent, and to
which companies. If you configure the extension to actually block
websites, you’ll see a big red popup if the website you’re visiting
sends a request to any of the four. That popup will also include a list
of all the requests so you can get an idea of what’s being asked for.
It’s worth keeping in mind that just because a site
reaches out to one or more of the big four tech companies, it doesn’t
mean that it’s necessarily snooping or doing something nefarious. Many
websites use fonts from Google Fonts, or host their sites using Amazon
Web Services or Microsoft Azure. That said, there are pages that connect
to those IP addresses because they use trackers provided by one of the
big four companies. The examples I’m about to list were selected because
they’re common sites, not necessarily because they should be shamed. Fist tap Dale.
foxnews | America is becoming a "totalitarian state before our eyes" under President Biden's leadership, feminist author and former Democratic adviser Naomi Wolf told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Monday.
Wolf, who served as an adviser on Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996,
told host Tucker Carlson that in her view, the United States is swiftly
"moving into a coup situation, a police state" as a result of Biden's
ongoing coronavirus-related
economic shutdowns. Wolf added that she believes the orders are being
improperly extended under the "guise of a real medical pandemic."
If I’d known Biden was open to ‘lockdowns’ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won’t ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him.
"That
is not a partisan thing," Wolf told Carlson. "That transcends
everything that you and I might disagree or agree on. That should bring
together left and right to protect our Constitution."
Wolf has ramped up her warnings against extended lockdowns on Twitter in recent months. In November, the author wrote on Twitter that Biden’s openness to reinstating additional shutdowns made her question her decision to vote for him.
"The state has now crushed businesses, kept us from gathering in free
assembly to worship as the First Amendment provides, is invading our
bodies ... which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment,
restricting movement, fining us in New York state ... the violations go
on and on," she said.
The outspoken liberal, who previously
authored a book outlining the ten steps that "would-be tyrants always
take when they want to close down a democracy," believes the United
States is heading toward what she refers to as "step 10."
"Whether
they are on the left or the right, they do these same ten things," Wolf
explained, "and now we’re at something I never thought I would see in
my lifetime ... it is step 10 and that is the suspension of the rule of
law and that is when you start to be a police state, and we’re here.
There is no way around it."
thebureauinvestigates | Pfizer has been accused of “bullying” Latin American governments in
Covid vaccine negotiations and has asked some countries to put up
sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as a
guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases, the Bureau of
Investigative Journalism can reveal.
In the case of one country, demands made by the pharmaceutical giant
led to a three-month delay in a vaccine deal being agreed. For Argentina
and Brazil, no national deals were agreed at all. Any hold-up in
countries receiving vaccines means more people contracting Covid-19 and
potentially dying.
Officials from Argentina and the other Latin American country, which
cannot be named as it has signed a confidentiality agreement with
Pfizer, said the company’s negotiators demanded additional indemnity
against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse
effects after being inoculated. In Argentina and Brazil, Pfizer asked
for sovereign assets to be put up as collateral for any future legal
costs.
One official who was present in the unnamed country’s negotiations
described Pfizer’s demands as “high-level bullying” and said the
government felt like it was being “held to ransom” in order to access
life-saving vaccines.
Campaigners are already warning of a “vaccine apartheid”
in which rich Western countries may be inoculated years before poorer
regions. Now, legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer’s demands
amount to an abuse of power.
“Pharmaceutical companies shouldn't be using their power to limit
life-saving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries,” said
Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s
Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “[This] seems to
be exactly what they're doing.”
Protection against liability shouldn’t be used as “the sword of
Damocles hanging over the heads of desperate countries with a desperate
population,” he added.
Pfizer has been in talks with more than 100 countries and
supranational organisations, and has supply agreements with nine
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay.
The terms of those deals are unknown.
Pfizer told the Bureau: “Globally, we have also allocated doses to
low- and lower-middle-income countries at a not-for-profit price,
including an advance purchase agreement with Covax to provide up to 40
million doses in 2021. We are committed to supporting efforts aimed at
providing developing countries with the same access to vaccines as the
rest of the world.” It declined to comment on ongoing private
negotiations.
Most governments are offering indemnity – exemption from legal
liability – to the vaccine manufacturers they are buying from. This
means that a citizen who suffers an adverse effect after being
vaccinated can file a claim against the manufacturer and, if successful,
the government would pay the compensation. In some countries people can
also apply for compensation through specific structures without going
to court.
Bill Gates recently stated that he views Pfizer(NYSE:PFE) as the leader in the coronavirus vaccine race.
In a CNBC interview, he said, "The only vaccine that, if everything
went perfectly, might seek the emergency use license by the end of
October, would be Pfizer."
The Gates Foundation also owns shares of the big drugmaker. However,
this investment wasn't initiated because of Pfizer's coronavirus
program. Actually, the foundation first bought a stake in Pfizer back in
2002 with the stated intention of "expand[ing] access to the
pharmaceutical company's all-in-one injectable contraceptive, Sayana
Press, giving women in the developing world an affordable option."
Gates is probably correct in assessing Pfizer as the coronavirus
vaccine leader. The company expects to report initial results next month
from a late-stage study of BNT162b2, the COVID-19 vaccine candidate
that it's developing with BioNTech(NASDAQ:BNTX). If all goes well, BNT162b2 could very well become the first coronavirus vaccine available to Americans.
BioNTech
It's not surprising that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also
owns shares of BioNTech. Again, though, the nonprofit foundation didn't
invest in the German biotech stock because of its coronavirus program.
The Gates Foundation first bought a position in
BioNTech in September 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It
invested $55 million in the biotech, with the potential for total
funding to reach $100 million. The foundation's goal with this
investment was to work with BioNTech to develop vaccines and
immunotherapies for preventing HIV and tuberculosis (TB) infection.
BioNTech began developing its BNT162 COVID-19 vaccine program earlier
this year. It had already made significant progress with this program
when it announced a partnership with Pfizer in March.
thegrayzone | President Donald Trump’s announcement this July of a U.S. withdrawal
from the World Health Organization (WHO) set into motion a process that
will have a dramatic impact on the future of global public health policy
– and on the fortunes of one of the world’s richest people.
The US abandonment of the WHO means that the organization’s
second-largest financial contributor, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, is soon to become its top donor, giving the non-governmental
international empire unparalleled influence over one the world’s most
important multilateral organizations.
Bill Gates has achieved a hero-like status during the pandemic. The Washington Post has called
him a “champion of science-backed solutions,” while the New York Times
recently hailed him as “the most interesting man in the world.” Gates is also the star of a hit Netflix docu-series, “Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak,”
which was released just weeks before coronavirus hit the U.S., and was
produced by a New York Times correspondent, Sheri Fink, who previously
worked at three Gates-funded organizations (Pro Publica, the New America Foundation, and the International Medical Corps).
The tidal wave of mainstream media
praise for Gates during the Covid-19 era has meant that scrutiny of the
billionaire and his machinations is increasingly prevalent on the far–right of the politicalspectrum, where it can be dismissed by progressives as the conspiratorial ravings of Trumpists and Q-Anon quacks.
But beyond the public relations
bonanza about Gates lies a disturbing history that should raise concerns
about whether his foundation’s plans for resolving the pandemic will
benefit the global public as much as it expands and entrenches its power
over international institutions.
The Gates Foundation has already
effectively privatized the international body charged with creating
health policy, transforming it into a vehicle for corporate dominance.
It has facilitated the dumping of toxic products onto the people of the
Global South, and even used the world’s poor as guinea pigs for drug
experiments.
The Gates Foundation’s influence over
public health policy is practically contingent on ensuring that safety
regulations and other government functions are weak enough to be
circumvented. It therefore operates against the independence of nation
states and as a vehicle for Western capital.
“Because of the Gates Foundation, I
have watched government after government fall in its sovereignty,” Dr.
Vandana Shiva, a scholar and founder of the India-based Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, told The Grayzone.
Saving the world?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private foundation on Earth, reporting over $51 billion in assets at the end of 2019. Bill Gates says his foundation spends a majority of its resources “reducing deaths from infectious diseases,” and through this philanthropy, he seems to have bought a name for himself as an infectious disease expert.
Corporate media networks rolled out the red carpet for Gates as he
advised the world on how to handle the Covid-19 outbreak. In just the
month of April, while the virus was severely impacting the U.S., he was
hosted by CNN, CNBC, Fox, PBS, BBC, CBS, MSNBC,The Daily Show and The Ellen Show. On the BBC, Gates described himself as a “health expert,” despite his lack of a college degree in medicine or any other field.
The billionaire’s media appearances are shot through with a single, undeniable theme: If global leaders listened to Gates, the world would be better equipped to fight the pandemic. As the fashion magazine Vogue asked, “Why Isn’t Bill Gates Running the Coronavirus Task Force?”
So what does a Gates-led COVID response look like?
lawandcrime | A late undercover cop left behind a letter in which he said he
participated in the New York Police Department’s and Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s conspiracy to undermine civil rights leaders and Black
nationalists in the 1960, and to kill them, said attorney Ben Crump in a press conference Saturday, joined by three daughters of Malcolm X. Notably, the former officer, Ray Wood, said he was involved in the arrest of two men from Malcolm X’s security team shortly before the assassination. He said Thomas Johnson, one of the men convicted in the murder, was innocent
“I participated in actions that in hindsight were deplorable
and detrimental to the advancement of my own Black people,” Wood said
in a letter read by his younger cousin Reggie Wood. “My
actions on behalf of the New York City Police Department were done
under duress and fear that if I did not follow the orders
Reggie Wood said Ray Wood wrote the letter, dated January 25, 2011,
while suffering failing health. Crump said that attorneys worked to
corroborate the letter’s version of events.
“This letter helps me to understand the pain and guilt that Ray felt
for the last 55 years,” Reggie Wood said. “He conspired to help the NYPD
assassinate Malcolm X.”
“Several months ago, the Manhattan District Attorney initiated a
review of the investigation and prosecution that resulted in two
convictions for the murder of Malcolm X,” the NYPD said in a statement
to NY1.
“The NYPD has provided all available records relevant to that case to
the District Attorney. The Department remains committed to assist with
that review in any way.”
The FBI declined to comment.
of my
handlers, I could face detrimental consequences.”
power-grid | Worldwide, similar experiences occur when electric utilities
deregulate. Percentage increases in residential electricity prices from
2000 to 2010, as a result of deregulation and privatization of electric
utilities, in the following countries are:
Chile,
+166 percent; Canada, +72 percent; Czech Republic, +133 percent;
Ireland, +100 percent; Hungary, +117 percent; Norway, +106 percent; New
Zealand, +203 percent; Sweden, +88 percent; U.S., +42 percent; and the
U.K., +86 percent. Electricity price increases globally after
deregulation far exceed general price and wage gains, making the general
population poorer but power generators and retailers richer.
Cold weather during February 2011 and ineffective weatherization that did not protect the plants caused many Texas electric power plants
to shut down. Electricity prices spiked much higher, and Texas
experienced prolonged and frequent rolling blackouts that primarily
affected residential customers.
During another Texas cold snap in January 2014, two large power
plants unexpectedly closed down because of incomplete weatherization,
which resulted in the danger of rolling blackouts. As a result, Texas
wholesale electricity market prices spiked higher–from a usual $30 to
$100 per megawatt-hour to more than $4,500 per megawatt-hour. Under
existing rules, all generators receive the same $4,500 per megawatt-hour
regardless of their average costs.
The current incentives in electricity markets harm residential
electricity consumers. Texas electricity generators, with multiple
plants on the interconnection grid, receive much more money if they do
not weatherize a few of their plants properly. As a consequence, these
poorly weatherized plants must shut down during cold weather. All
generating plants that remain online receive the spiking electricity
prices, and the generating company makes much more money than if all
their plants were operating properly. This is only one way privatizers
are gaming the Texas electricity market: using laws and rules set up by
their lobbyists.
Seven years ago at the top of the most recent credit bubble, it was
believed that electricity prices would rise dramatically. Consequently,
privatizers overpaid when purchasing electric utilities. Instead, U.S.
natural gas prices unexpectedly dropped–a result of the nationwide shale
gas fracking boom – and pushed many privatized Texas electricity
generating companies into bankruptcy.
Houston-based Dynegy Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2012. Edison Mission Energy,
which operated electric generating plants in 12 states, filed for
bankruptcy protection in December 2012 and exited Chapter 11 in March
2014, when the company sold for $2.64 billion to NRG Energy, which has
operations headquarters in Houston. Texas electricity generating company
Optim Energy
LLC – which is owned by ECJV Holdings LLC, which is owned by Cascade
Investment LLC, a Bill Gates investment company – filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in February 2014.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Texas Pacific Group and Goldman
Sachs Capital Partners took TXU – at that time, the main electricity
supplier in Texas – private in 2007 in the largest private equity
leveraged buyout (LBO) on record and renamed the new company Energy
Future Holdings Corp. (EFHC), headquartered in Dallas. In one of the
largest nonfinancial bankruptcies in history, EFHC filed a prepackaged
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2014.
Although these generating companies are dealing with bankruptcies,
they cannot plan for and invest in new power plants to meet expected
electricity demand in Texas. This results in below-standard reserve
margins, which threaten Texas electricity supply and system reliability.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC‘s)
goal is to safeguard North America’s electric power system reliability.
The nonprofit reports on insufficient electrical power level capacity
during peak load periods. Energy emergency alerts indicate electrical
capacity shortfalls and are a leading indicator of inadequate system
reliability. Texas is under increasing stress and has had three NERC
Energy Emergency Alert 2 incidents and two more serious NERC Energy
Emergency Alert 3 incidents since 2006.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ (ERCOT‘s)
reserve margin forecasts for 2014-2023 are used as an indicator of
Texas’ electrical system reliability. ERCOT’s forecast reserve margins
show that Texas will fall significantly below the NERC reference reserve
margin standard of 13.75 percent beginning in 2015 and continuing
through 2023. New electric power plants are not being built fast enough
to keep up with growing electricity demand in Texas because of the
deregulation and privatization of Texas electric utilities. NERC and
ERCOT predict the increased probability of brownouts and rolling
blackouts in Texas.
npr | An ancient, well-preserved tree that was alive the last time the
Earth's magnetic poles flipped has helped scientists pin down more
precise timing of that event, which occurred about 42,000 years ago.
This
new information has led them to link the flipping of the poles to key
moments in the prehistoric record, like the sudden appearance of cave
art and the mysterious extinction of large mammals and the Neanderthals.
They argue that the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field would have
briefly transformed the world by altering its climate and allowing far
more ultraviolet light to pour in.
Their provocative analysis, in the journal Science,
is sure to get researchers talking. Until now, scientists have mostly
assumed that magnetic field reversals didn't matter much for life on
Earth — although some geologists have noted that die-offs of large mammals seemed to occur in periods when the Earth's magnetic field was weak.
The
Earth is a giant magnet because its core is solid iron, and swirling
around it is an ocean of molten metal. This churning creates a huge
magnetic field, one that wraps around the planet and protects it from
charged cosmic rays coming in from outer space.
Sometimes, for reasons scientists do not fully understand, the magnetic
field becomes unstable and its north and south poles can flip. The last
major reversal, though it was short-lived, happened around 42,000 years
ago.
This reversal is called the Laschamp excursion, after lava flows in
France that contain bits of iron that are basically pointed the wrong
way. Volcanic activity back then, during the flip, produced this
distinctive iron signature as the molten lava cooled and locked the iron
into place. Iron molecules embedded in sediments around the world also
captured a record of this magnetic wobble, which unfolded over about a
thousand years.
"Even though it was short, the North Pole did
wander across North America, right out towards New York, actually, and
then back again across to Oregon," says Alan Cooper,
an evolutionary biologist with Blue Sky Genetics and the South
Australian Museum. He explains that it "then zoomed down through the
Pacific really fast to Antarctica and hung out there for about 400 years
and then shot back up through the Indian Ocean to the North Pole
again."
dailymail | 'The Adam and Eve story', a 1966 work by
former US Air Force employee Chan Thomas, was only partially published
until recently when censored sections of the book were released for the
first time in more than 50 years.
In
the remarkable text, Thomas claims Jesus lived with the Naga tribe in
Northern India for almost 18 years in the period of his life which isn't
mentioned in the Bible.
'Curiously enough there was a tribe in the extreme north of India called the Naga tribe,' Thomas wrote.
'They
told the British of Jesus' having been there as a
late-teenager-young-adult who attended the Nacaal Temple as a student
and graduate of the temple.'
According
to Thomas, Jesus was considered a 'genius' by the Naga people and spent
ten to 15 years learning to speak and write the local language.
Thomas
says Jesus's last words were actually spoken in the Naga language and
he translates them as 'I am fainting, I am fainting, darkness is
overcoming me'.
In another section of the book Thomas also
claims that Jesus was abducted by aliens on Easter Sunday and says two
'angels came to earth in their space vehicle to take care of the
aftermath of Jesus' crucifixion'.
It
then goes on to say that the Genesis story is actually a parable about
the collapse of a previous civilization, in an extinction event before
Noah's Flood.
Thomas begins the book
with dedications to several US generals who are famous among conspiracy
theorists for their covert work during the Cold War.
According to the Daily Star,
the name 'The Adam and Eve Story' comes from Thomas's view that the
book of Genesis is really a parable about the collapse of a previous
civilisation which became extinct before Noah's flood.
reddit | Just as we have seen with KGB
declassifying huge amounts of formerly-classified "Tartaria" documents,
apparantly the CIA had some special interest in "The Adam & Eve
Story". It is basically a "research paper" explaining various
earth-cycle catastrophes. It is pertinent to "missing time" and "history
falsification" theories, and presumes many technologically-advanced
ancient civilizations existed before us.
NOTE:
The actual CIA dossier on the "Adam & Eve Story" also includes lots
of peripheral documents up front, so skip to around pages 19-24 if you
want a quick glance at the pertinent section.
Here is what u/redacted sent me:
There
is insurmountable evidence that we are the 6th advanced civilization to
exist upon this earth, each time getting wiped out by a calamity. I've
wondered why America has long had the Smithsonian cover up many ancient
artifacts that don't fit their narrative, such as the hieroglyphs in the
grand canyon, or the bones of giants all over America, but then I
realized the truth rather recently... control. The CIA just declassified
a document called [The Adam and Eve Story] (https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79B00752A000300070001-8.pdf)
which is about exactly this. Nobody is quite sure who wrote it, however
it appears to be written by a scientist working for the government
deciphering ancient texts then stumbling upon a terrible fact, that
every 5-6-thousand years, the strength of the poles wane and begin to
change positions and when this occurs, the mantle keeping our landmass
in it's current position turns to jelly, causing the landmasses to be
pulled 90-degrees, while the water on the earth stays put, like dropping
an object into a glass of water then spinning the glass in a circle...
water stay's put while the world around it moves. So, the world as we
know it is obliterated in days, submerged under the ocean for 40-days
(ala Tale of Gilgamesh, or Noah and the ark) until the poles finish
their shift at which point the North pole becomes the South and vice
versa. I believe that the rest of the story which was redacted tells of
the survivors having to live in caves and resort to cannibalism to
survive. I believe it's why the Aztec and N.American Indians both tell
of a white man visiting them and giving them seeds to grow and teaching
them how to harvest. I also believe those in power know this, and want
to keep is a secret knowing full well that if they don't, they might
have massive riots and won't be able to keep their "livestock" docile.
What better way to fool the masses than to make them think they are
being saved (such as the boats in the movie 2012), when in reality they
are being taken to a facility where they will be used to feed the elite?
How long will it take to regrow enough vegetation on Earth to not
resort to cannibalism? Do some research on [our poles currently moving
rapidly now!] (https://www.smalljoys.tv/earths-magnetic-poles/)
Then read up on all the elite politicians and leaders visiting
Antarctica now! I couldn't find any credible links, which is odd due to
how many have been going up there, from the Pope, to John Kerry, to
major leaders.
theverge | Google has fired Margaret Mitchell, co-lead of the
ethical AI team, after she used an automated script to look through her
emails in order to find evidence of discrimination against her coworker
Timnit Gebru. The news was first reported by Axios.
Mitchell’s firing comes one day after Google announced a reorganization to its AI teams
working on ethics and fairness. Marian Croak, a vice president in the
engineering organization, is now leading “a new center of expertise on
responsible AI within Google Research,” according to a blog post.
Mitchell joined Google in 2016 as a senior research
scientist, according to her LinkedIn. Two years later, she helped start
the ethical AI team alongside Gebru, a renowned researcher known for her
workon bias in facial recognition technology.
In December 2020, Mitchell and Gebru were working on a
paper about the dangers of large language processing models when Megan
Kacholia, vice president of Google Brain, asked that the article be
retracted. Gebru pushed back, saying the company needed to be more open
about why the research wasn’t acceptable. Shortly afterwards, she was fired, though Google characterized her departure as a resignation.
After Gebru’s termination, Mitchell became openly
critical of Google executives, including Google AI division head Jeff
Dean and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. In January, she lost her corporate
email access after Google began investigating her activity.
“After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we
confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as
well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of
confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other
employees,” Google said in a statement to Axios about Mitchell’s firing.
usnews |America's most consequential adversaries on Thursday pounced on the news of historic and deadly outages
in Texas, saying the Biden administration should focus on taking care
of its own citizens before assuming it has the mandate to advance its
interests abroad at others' expense.
The Kremlin
early Thursday took aim at American concerns in recent years at the
Russian energy pipeline known as Nord Stream 2, which runs from its
territory through the Baltic Sea and into key U.S. allies, notably
Germany.
"It
probably makes sense for our American partners to be less interested in
Nord Stream 2 and to a greater extent be interested in the events in
Houston, Texas, [its] energy and heat supply," Dmitry Peskov, a
spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin,
told reporters Thursday morning. And, taking a dig at a state that
prides itself on its energy independence, he added: "Of course, gas
[supplies] would not be in that way here."
Iran, which U.S. officials privately say was behind
this week's attack on an American base in Iraq, ran an almost gleeful
gallery on the home page of its state news service entitled, "More Than
3.5 Million Texans Are STILL Without Power, Storm Death Toll Hits 23."
It includes pictures of the widespread devastation in Texas wrought by
the historic cold temperatures and broad outages.
And
China's state-run Global Times published an op-ed Thursday morning
blasting the massive electric grid failures in the Lone Star State,
which have caused two dozen deaths and left more than 3 million without
power amid bone-chilling cold temperatures in an area largely
unaccustomed to severe winters. The plight of its citizens shows that
China and others should no longer look to the U.S. for an example of
leadership, it claimed.
"It
is a severe natural disaster after all, and we cannot say that the U.S.
is an ugly country just because many Americans are also suffering from
man-made calamities. But what is happening there has undoubtedly shown
that the U.S. is an ordinary country with serious shortcomings,"
according to the outlet, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party but
is not considered a mouthpiece for it. "Actually, every country has its
own problems, so the U.S. should focus on solving its own woes rather
than denouncing other countries."
omaha | Nebraska’s publicly owned utilities
generated more power than their customers used during this week’s brutal
cold snap in the country’s midsection.
But energy experts say the targeted rolling blackouts criticized by Gov. Pete Ricketts prevented Nebraska and other states from catastrophic failure of a shared electricity grid.
Those
cuts, dictated by the Arkansas-based Southwest Power Pool, likely
prevented Nebraskans from living the nightmare facing Texas, where
millions went without power for days.
The
World-Herald spoke with energy experts, utility leaders and others
about what happened, why it happened and what might prevent a repeat
occurrence.
Why did Nebraska have rolling blackouts?
A
polar vortex brought freezing temperatures to the southern U.S., with
the cold snap staying for days as far south as the Mexican border.
Utilities
in Oklahoma and slices of Texas that belong to the power pool struggled
to operate some natural gas, coal and wind power plants not equipped to
run in such cold temperatures.
Getting
natural gas out of the ground was also slowed in both states, with
frozen wells and pipelines making it harder to deliver the gas needed to
generate electricity and heat homes.
Even in Nebraska, where colder
temperatures are common, some power plants struggled in sub-zero
conditions to operate at full capacity, including coal-fired units in
Nebraska City.
The loss of
that power production left the power pool, which manages electrical
supply and demand across a 14-state power grid, with a power imbalance.
pressenza |Hours after writing his screed, Boyd announced his resignation and apologized.
But he qualified his apology by saying that he never meant to imply
that the helpless elderly were the lazy ones—just everyone else. “I was
only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up
and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout,”
he wrote in a manner that suggested he was “sorry, not sorry.”
Most Republicans are not as overt as Boyd in their faith in social Darwinism. Take Texas Governor Greg Abbott,
who instead of openly blaming Texans for their own suffering instead
decided to blame climate-mitigating policies and renewable energy
programs like wind power. Speaking on Fox News, Abbott railed against
the “Green New Deal,” claiming that a reliance on wind turbines was
disastrous because the state’s wind-generated power “thrust Texas into a
situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis.” For good
measure, he added, “It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.”
The conservative Wall Street Journal, which has long been hostile to
tackling climate change through renewable energy, repeated this claim in
an editorial blaming “stricter emissions regulation” and the loss of coal-powered plants for widespread misery in the snow-blanketed South.
In fact, millions of Texans are going without power because of the Republican emphasis on cheap power over reliable power.
Seeing electricity generation as a profit-making enterprise rather than
the fulfillment of a public need, GOP policies in Texas have made the
state vulnerable to such mass outages. Moreover, plenty of wintry areas successfully run wind turbines when properly prepared to do so. And, Abbott did not see fit to point out that harsh winter temperatures lead to frozen natural gas pipelines—the real culprit in the outages.
Even as a majority of Texans now believe that climate change is really happening, their governor in late January vowed
to “protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack
from Washington.” Apparently protecting Texans from the ravages of the
fossil fuel industry is not in his purview. This is hardly surprising
given how much fossil fuel industry contributions have ensured Abbott’s loyalty to oil and gas interests.
The conservative mindset can be counted on to prioritize private
interests over public ones. In a Republican utopia, the rich are noble
and deserving of basic necessities, comforts, and life itself. If they
have rigged the system to benefit themselves, it means they are smart,
not conniving. In the future that Republicans promise, “Only the strong
will survive and the weak will parish (sic),” as per Boyd’s post. In
other words, our lives are expendable, and if we die, it is because we
deserve it and were simply not smart enough to survive.
theeconomiccollapseblog | We are getting a very short preview of what will eventually happen to
the United States as a whole. America’s infrastructure is aging and
crumbling. Our power grids were never intended to support so many
people, our water systems are a complete joke, and it has become utterly
apparent that we would be completely lost if a major long-term national
emergency ever struck. Texas has immense wealth and vast energy
resources, but now it is being called a “failed state”. If it can’t
even handle a few days of cold weather, what is the rest of America
going to look like when things really start to get chaotic in this
country?
At this point, it has become clear that the power grid in Texas is in
far worse shape than anyone ever imagined. When extremely cold weather
hit the state, demand for energy surged dramatically. At the same
time, about half of the wind turbines that Texas relies upon froze, and
the rest of the system simply could not handle the massive increase in
demand.
Millions of Texans were without power for days, and hundreds of thousands are still without power as I write this article.
And now we are learning that Texas was literally just moments away
from “a catastrophic failure” that could have resulted in blackouts “for months”…
Texas’ power grid was “seconds and minutes” away
from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for
months, officials with the entity that operates the grid said Thursday.
As millions of customers throughout the state
begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials
with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates
the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was
dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts
across the state.
I can’t even imagine how nightmarish things would have eventually
gotten in Texas if there had actually been blackouts for months.
According to one expert, the state really was right on the verge of a “worst case scenario”…
The worst case scenario: Demand for power
outstrips the supply of power generation available on the grid, causing
equipment to catch fire, substations to blow and power lines to go down.
If the grid had gone totally offline, the
physical damage to power infrastructure from overwhelming the grid could
have taken months to repair, said Bernadette Johnson, senior vice
president of power and renewables at Enverus, an oil and gas software
and information company headquartered in Austin.
For years, I have been telling my readers that they have got to have a
back up plan for power, because during a major emergency the grid can
fail.
RT | Texans may be suffering without electricity in bitter
temperatures, but Young Turks host Cenk Uygur can see the bright side,
as podcaster Joe Rogan and others who relocated to the state are
“freezing their asses off.”
Two dozen Texans are dead, food supplies can’t reach supermarkets, and nearly 200,000 homes
are still without power as of Friday morning, as freezing temperatures
wreak havoc on the Lone Star State. So paralyzing is the weather that
firefighters in San Antonio on Thursday were unable to extinguish a
burning apartment block due to frozen fire hydrants.
One pundit managed to find an upside, however. On Twitter, Uygur, a
progressive commentator, celebrated the fact that Rogan, a libertarian
podcast host who had recently moved to Texas from California, was likely
suffering.
“Only upside of Texas power outages is people like
@joerogan, who were so proud to leave CA and move to TX, freezing their
asses off,” he tweeted on Thursday. “They
said they wanted less government. Congrats, mission accomplished! I
hope you're not asking the government to come help you. #Freedom”
Uygur was instantly hammered for his apparent gloating. Commenters reminded
the progressive pundit that California, a byword for liberal statism,
regularly suffers from blackouts and wildfires, while Texas, known for
its economic libertarianism, just got hit with the cold snap of a
century.
mxdwn | Acclaimed pop singer Grimes has shared a few updates from her social media accounts
on the ongoing winter storm in Texas. Hit with unprecedented cold and
snow, Texas is currently experiencing widespread power outages, leaving
millions throughout the state without heat and electricity.
Earlier today, Grimes
tweeted that she had spent several days in Austin without power and
drove south to get out of the storm. A native of the Vancouver, Toronto
area, the singer also responded to a Twitter thread, wondering if there
was a way for Texas cities to “mass salt cuz then ppl could get food or
go to warming centers.”
Just spent however many days in Austin w no power, no heat + a baby in -0. drove south all night 2 escape incoming storm but roads r rly dangerous rn. Super worried about ppl. What’s best way to get food and heat to ppl rn? This is a v dangerous esp for kids
Grimes also used her social media channels
to share helpful resources to those being impacted by the weather
including warming stations across north Texas, mutual aid funds
throughout the Dallas, Houston and Austin areas, as well as a separate
thread complete with ways to cope with freezing temperatures. Additional weather reports show that more freezing temperatures and snow are heading toward the area this week.
Meanwhile, Austin Energy also reported that customers in the Austin
area “should be prepared to not have power through Wednesday and
possibly longer.” The multi-talented Grimes famously relocated to the Austin, Texas area recently with her Tesla-founder boyfriend Elon Musk, and their young child.
maxim |Tesla CEO Elon Musk
ridiculed the Texas electrical grid operator for being unreliable after
millions of Texans were left without power during a powerful winter
storm that hit the Lone Star State with historic freezing temperatures.
The billionaire electric car mogul moved from California to Texas in December—following the lead of podcaster pal Joe Rogan—to build a new Tesla factory in Austin.
On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that the state’s energy agency, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), “is not earning that R.”
Meanwhile, the New York Post reports
that Texans have been posting on social media about sleeping in their
Tesla cars to keep warm during the cold nights—thanks to the "Camp Mode"
feature that allows Tesla owners to use the car's climate control for
more than a day without draining the battery.
wfaa | The Texas power outage has become the Texas power outrage. Electricity supply and demand in Texas has really stabilized now. But when it was grossly out of whack over the past several days,
the cost of power in the wholesale market went crazy. It went from
about $50 per Megawatt to $9,000. That didn’t affect retail many
customers because they were on a fixed-rate plan. See explanation of
plan types here.
But if you were on a variable or indexed plan, your rate — and
therefore, your electric bill — may have skyrocketed. One customer
messaged us:
“Mine is over $1,000…not sure how…700 square foot apt I have been keeping at 60 degrees."
“Using as little as possible 1300 sq. ft. house and this is my bill. How is this fair. I only paid $1200 for the whole 2020.”
That tweet was accompanied by a screenshot of their bill, which now stands at $3,801.16.
When your electric company tells you to switch but there has been a hold on switching for over a week now. Using as little as possible 1300 sq ft house and this is my bill. . How is this fair. I only paid $1200 for the whole 2020 year @FoxNews@wfaa@tedcruz@GovAbbottpic.twitter.com/AylTS4m0j4
Then, I spoke with a guy named Ty Williams. He sent screenshots of
his three electric meters (one for his home, one for a guest house, and
one for his office). Last month, his bill for all three was $660. So
far, for this month’s electricity, he owes more than $17,000.
Williams wondered: “How in the world can anyone pay that? I mean you
go from a couple hundred dollars a month...there’s absolutely no
way...it makes no sense.”
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4/3
43
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