Thread: OT, somewhat. Who else is currently under rolling blackouts?

Originally Posted by Big B

We've had a parade of conservatives as governor doing the most damage they can to our state for many years. Michigan didn't just change because of a Democrat governor this term. Our last CONservative governor decided to tax senior citizens pensions and 401K's, which wound't be such a bad thing if he had done something useful with the money but he used it to give his rich donors a huge tax break. No fixing roads with it. Nothing that benefits us all. Just funneling more money to the already super wealthy. Oh, he also poisoned the city of Flint, so there's that. He is also being charged with the tragic foolishness that he was in charge of.

fine upstanding dipshit politician.

lets face it, there's very few if any good politicians.

I like the lets make the rich richer guys. you middle class aren't suffering enough trying to carry the poor and the rich, lets give the rich more of your money... donny was one of those idiots. He mortgaged the future to give the wealthiest HUGE tax breaks. the little guy think he did well, but the middle and lower tax people had a time limit to the tax break.. not the wealthy.

And our kids get to pay for it forever.. what a bargain. OBTW donny benefited hugely from those tax breaks, he gave realestate guys HUGE benefits on top of the regular RICH breaks...

A good breakdown on inputs from States vs outputs from them. Blue States are less dependent.

Wallethub;

Most & Least Federally Dependent States

Interesting read I think everyone should find this good. Texas does not really want to leave so far . They did actually join.

Originally Posted by pavt

Up here in Buffalo, we get frozen solid every year and no blackouts or nothin. NatGas all winter long. Because REGULATION. By the public utilities commission.
....

Folks from buffalo: calmly climb out of the second story level of a parking garage right out onto the snowbank in the street.
Texans: AAAAAAHHHHHH we're all gonna DIE!! Snow, destruction!!!

Originally Posted by Trueturning

A good breakdown on inputs from States vs outputs from them. Blue States are less dependent.

Wallethub;

Most & Least Federally Dependent States

Interesting read I think everyone should find this good. Texas does not really want to leave so far . They did actually join.

Quite interesting, this means another thing.
It means that NJ and Kansas give a lot to the feds, and get nothing in return.

It also means that Texas and Florida need to shut their trap about socialism. I don't believe in socialism, but I understand where we need the govt and where they get too invovled. Again, each person has their own opinion of where the line is...
But the states that bark the loudest about others, gets lots of support...

Look at those most supported states... all BLOW HARD conservatives.

Originally Posted by Trueturning

My point is that it is wrong for the State to treat Flint like that. If it were Texas you would not stop talking about it. This is the way you treat your own?

Don't blame me for the Flint water poisoning. I didn't vote for snyder.

Originally Posted by woodchuckNJ

Quite interesting, this means another thing.
It means that NJ and Kansas give a lot to the feds, and get nothing in return.

It also means that Texas and Florida need to shut their trap about socialism. I don't believe in socialism, but I understand where we need the govt and where they get too invovled. Again, each person has their own opinion of where the line is...
But the states that bark the loudest about others, gets lots of support...

Look at those most supported states... all BLOW HARD conservatives.

Actually if you consider outputs and populations they are high in several of these States. Florida for example many people retire here. It is a magnet and it is very nice here no snow to speak of. When you read all the commentators they explain the reasoning which goes into this issue. Persons make it argumentative for politics sake sure. Upon examination it is the case that there is a lot of methodology involved most all of it for good reasons.

If you read what the commentators say about those issues they even will suggest better ways of distribution. The purpose of government is to provide goods. The United States does well and of course can improve. The effect of the census on the mix is a factor also. Illegal Immigration effects money in regard to education vastly and government services. Education of these children is provided by law. Notice the States of California, Texas, Florida and New York. All have very large populations and all have varying was in which they produce GDP. To hear some people support the idea that China in manufacturing is so good and labor is so much more reasonable will overlook manufacturing which still remains in states like California. Each State decides how they want to do things.

Military bases are placed in strategic places. They are a expense for the public good and for the protection of the whole country. One has to ask what is the real effect of opening the doors to continuing waves of illegal immigrants upon the country just to provide the value of low cost labor?

Look at the effects on the grid, water, and taxation. Should these who come in be able to jump ahead of those who followed the law and gained entry and citizenship legally? Shouldn’t things be fair?

Florida has a large Quban population and they are very much anti Communist. They do not care in large part for Socialism on the scale that Venezuela has either. They are like that whether they are Democrat or Republican and yes they will vote for the other party if this strong opinion is ignored and degraded then they are offended.

Everyone has their preferences. Now the pendulum is moving Democrat and so reviews and adjustments are in order and under consideration. It seems to me each time a party had majorities they immediately fractured attaining nothing much at all. We will see this again.

Would watching what bathroom Pat went into help Bill to figure out its gender?? I think this is the first episode of "pat"

It is interesting how this issue ties in with the trades. During the winter storm in Texas plumbers were very busy and over the last two decades they are getting rare. Many do not want to get into the trade because of the stigma of society toward blue collar workers. Too besides this the minimum wage is not very attractive to those entering the job scene because there are better paying jobs.

With the storm in Texas I have tried to understand what all happened with that massive failure.

The Texas Tribune is a good newspaper. It is so hard to find news which is useful today and these guys do a great job.

This is a quote from them on that trade issue and the desperate need for plumbers now.

“ Too few plumbers and parts: After last week's winter storm, many Texans need plumbers. But too few Texans want to be plumbers. A shortage of skilled trade workers — plumbers, electricians and the like — has been growing in the state for the past decade, and that is exacerbating problems for those seeking help with broken pipes and damaged water heaters. The long-term shortage stems from an expectation that young people go to college and a culture of disrespect for blue-collar industries, experts say. Plus, the state's low minimum wage keeps plumbers from moving to Texas and young people from entering the industry. ”

Notice too also too few parts also.

The Texas legislature is investigating this now and ERCOT is not laying down and taking a beating either. This is interesting because it is Texas!

More from the Texas Tribune;

“ Finger pointing and being left out: On Thursday, Texas lawmakers investigating this month's devastating power outages during a massive winter storm grilled officials with the state's power grid operator and questioned whether state regulators did enough. Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas avoided taking full responsibility for the outages that left millions without power in subfreezing temperatures and disrupted water service for large swaths of the state.

Energy executives, utility company bosses and a meteorologist were also among those who discussed the outages with lawmakers, who created the state’s electricity system. Watch today’s Texas House and Senate hearings here, starting at 9 a.m. Central.

Rural counties endured the same storm as big cities, but many are currently not under President Joe Biden's major disaster declaration. Now only residents in 108 Texas counties can receive individual assistance for some of the damages that their insurance policies won't cover. In the 146 counties not yet approved by the Biden administration, the wait is nerve-wracking. Officials say it's because those counties lack data on damages. Their only hope for assistance is from volunteer groups, and they can only do so much. ”.

Just some interesting insight into the Texas storm aftermath which also alludes to shortages in the plumbing trade and by extension the trades overall. Most often in my travels hardly 5% of anyone I meet have any idea what a Machinist does. That is not strange since many times those who hire them would like to and do classify them in many other ways minimizing their value. The trades get this kind of thing all the time so it is just a thing.

With plumbers they do not have time to worry becaause they are busy working long hours with little regular food or sleep. Finger pointing and being left out: On Thursday, Texas lawmakers investigating this month's devastating power outages during a massive winter storm grilled officials with the state's power grid operator and questioned whether state regulators did enough. Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas avoided taking full responsibility for the outages that left millions without power in subfreezing temperatures and disrupted water service for large swaths of the state.

Energy executives, utility company bosses and a meteorologist were also among those who discussed the outages with lawmakers, who created the state’s electricity system. Watch today’s Texas House and Senate hearings here, starting at 9 a.m. Central.

Rural counties endured the same storm as big cities, but many are currently not under President Joe Biden's major disaster declaration. Now only residents in 108 Texas counties can receive individual assistance for some of the damages that their insurance policies won't cover. In the 146 counties not yet approved by the Biden administration, the wait is nerve-wracking. Officials say it's because those counties lack data on damages. Their only hope for assistance is from volunteer groups, and they can only do so much.”

Just something to think about. The plumbers are working a lot in Texas with little sleep or food right now. Most persons in the country are so out of touch with tradespeople that they have little clue how to relate. Too many people today have never changed a tire or turned a wrench. Pretty sad.

Originally Posted by jim rozen

Folks from buffalo: calmly climb out of the second story level of a parking garage right out onto the snowbank in the street.
Texans: AAAAAAHHHHHH we're all gonna DIE!! Snow, destruction!!!

Jim, this is the second time at least you made fun of us for not being able to cope with a little snow. I am almost 70 and have only seen snow 3 times if you do not count that inch in Phoenix that hardly anyone else saw. The one in 66/67 was over a foot and the one in 85 was about 8 inches. Just a minor inconvenience that went away in a day or so. It was not the snow with this event. The snow made tolerable what was barely tolerable the day before.**(See Additional thought below) We went from 60 and 70 degree mornings with EMS hauling snake bite victims to the hospital to 10 degrees for several days and below freezing for almost a week. Most peoples homes are not built for that as well as the some of the power generators and other infrastructure. I remember the hard freeze we had in 83 and built my home accordingly and buried my water lines deep for this area. Spec homes built by contractors not so much. In '96 we had 100 degrees in February here in south Texas. We will hit 85 many more times than 25 degrees in February.

For me this was just in inconvenience spent a lot of time outside in the freezing drizzle draining pipes and setting up the cattle. Power on a little less than 50% of the time was no big deal, my wife tried to keep the house a little warmer than I needed but she is a hospice survivor. Ate a few cold meals and missed a couple of showers, no big deal. But I know not ever one is set up like me and many suffered a lot worse. I will not make fun of them because they did not know it could get this bad or could not afford to do better. Nor will I make fun of people in your neck of the woods that suffer during heat waves.

I got a lot to be thankful for a friend worked a bunch of double shifts as a plant operator at the local lignite generating facility. I saw the local Karnes Electric people driving up and down the icy road in front of my place maintaining the lines. Doing the rolling black out thing has to be a real trick, not sure how long they have between the time they connect someone and disconnect another without taking the grid down. The ones that held the grid together did it by a shoestring. Makes my skin crawl with all the loud criticism. need to find out what went wrong and bolster the things that went right. Takes time and effort not yelling to fix it.

Just a little perspective here, I know of no one locally that has ever had frost bite but I can count over a dozen friends and acquaintances that have been bitten by rattle snakes. Just a different part of the world with different problems.

** The Saturday and Sunday before the snow, we had a blowing freezing drizzle. I monitored the emergency channel while working outside both days and there were dozens of car accidents from the ice on the roads and people taking falls and breaking bones on icy walks and stairs. The ice was a lot harder to deal with than the snow. By Sunday evening the wet ground here was freezing and I noticed the 4 wheeler was slipping on the gravel and dirt roads with 20 degrees and the precip was still coming down as a drizzle! Monday and Tuesday had the 10 or less morning temps. Not an expert on these things but ice seems to be a lot worse than the snow.

Originally Posted by Trueturning

....
If you read what the commentators say about those issues they even will suggest better ways of distribution. The purpose of government is to provide goods. .....

Know I am cherry-picking here, but what??? Purpose of government goes *way* beyond that. Possibly you meant something else. Also if you invoke a 'fairness doctrine' then
you better be sure that corporations and ultra-rich pay THEIR fair share to support the country financially. In other words, you can't just say "OOOooh brown people'' and then
give General Electric a full pass on paying zero federal taxes. NOT fair.

Originally Posted by Trueturning

Show me what Texas is asking of the Federal government for because of this. What handout?

“ Modern secession efforts have existed in the state at least since the 1990s, focusing first on the Republic of Texas organization and the “Texas Nationalist Movement”. Recent discussion between Texas Republican Party representatives renewed talks of secession after the decision of the Supreme Court on Texas v. Pennsylvania.”

“ Republic of Texas organization[edit]
There have been efforts to promote Texas secession in the state at least since the 1990s.[15] At this time, Richard Lance McLaren founded the Republic of Texas organization based on his property within the Davis Mountains Resort in Jeff Davis County, becoming the most active and influential secession group at the time. Essentially the organization claimed that the United States annexed Texas illegally and considered it to be held captive. The organization held itself out as an alternative government, based on the principle of very limited powers.[6]
McLaren had both supporters and enemies. His supporters generally believed that globalization was a threat to constitutional rights and against Christian principles.[16] Tactics of the group included filing liens against properties, disavowing state and federal authorities, and opening an "embassy". McLaren's legal filings were so numerous that the county clerk gave them a separate cabinet.[16] Members of the Republic of Texas group listed grievances with the U.S. government, such as accusing the government of a corrupt judicial system, paganism, and of creating illegal treaties and illegitimate agencies. Members of the group also stated that the U.S. government had set itself above the people and had exercised its global influences unlawfully against the Constitution. The Republic of Texas members placed a lot of emphasis on the Branch Davidian incident near Waco as an example of all that was wrong with the U.S. government.[6]
In the summer of 1996, injunctions and other court proceedings against McLaren were well underway. In July of that year, McLaren held a press conference a block away from the state courthouse in Austin stating that he refused to appear because he did not recognize the legitimacy of the court.[6] McLaren was jailed for a month by a federal judge for failing to show in court. After his release, McLaren's rhetoric grew stronger.[16][17][18]”.

The Federal government owns 2% of the land in Texas.

What is your point, liar?

you respond with a bunch of gobbledygook


just try telling the truth once in a while so you don't have to dance so much

A

Originally Posted by jim rozen

Know I am cherry-picking here, but what??? Purpose of government goes *way* beyond that. Possibly you meant something else. Also if you invoke a 'fairness doctrine' then
you better be sure that corporations and ultra-rich pay THEIR fair share to support the country financially. In other words, you can't just say "OOOooh brown people'' and then
give General Electric a full pass on paying zero federal taxes. NOT fair.

I agree with your point regarding corps and the ultra rich paying their fair share but seems that unless the whole world demands the same tax rate/wealth sharing the wealthy if overly impacted by taxes most often time relocate to more favorable location. I believe Ireland was very successful at attracting corp cash.

I believe New York is experiencing a loss of high earners due to taxes/cost of living.

Originally Posted by FredC

Jim, this is the second time at least you made fun of us for not being able to cope with a little snow.

That's why people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are so despicable. Everyone everywhere has their own versions of disasters. When one group of ignorant assholes starts pointing fingers and sneering (examples of this abound from the Usual Parties) then when it's their turn in the barrel no one feels much sympathy.

That's not a good way to run society. Think War of the Roses .... Yes, pissing on the fish was hilarious, but look where it got them ?

Originally Posted by jim rozen

Know I am cherry-picking here, but what??? Purpose of government goes *way* beyond that. Possibly you meant something else. Also if you invoke a 'fairness doctrine' then
you better be sure that corporations and ultra-rich pay THEIR fair share to support the country financially. In other words, you can't just say "OOOooh brown people'' and then
give General Electric a full pass on paying zero federal taxes. NOT fair.

Jim,
I agree corporations should pay their share. Of course they can and do up and leave. I do not know of any corporation which has a race problem nowadays.

On the role of go to. I quickly copied this quote.

“ The Main Idea
The different levels of government do more than regulate business activities. One of their main roles is to provide goods and services. These are provided using tax money collected from people and organizations.”

That is even though the private sector owns the means of production in principle. There are examples where government actually owned and ran factories producing Armor Plate which was a terrible move it turned out. Some things the govt. can do well especially when compelled or forced to do so.

Originally Posted by Big B

Got it. Every woman in the world wants bigger bathrooms. Trueturning said so. Now how about the coed bathroom in our house. Are you going to build another bathroom just in case a woman ever is in your house and needs the powder room? I'm just responding to your rambling.

Big you and I both know that it boils down to whatever the wife wants. That is all that matters. Just like if she might ask to see that everyone washed their hands for dinner-wooden paint stick stirrer in hand while checking and a hand whacked if it is dirty. I am responding to your stubbornness. Do what she says it is better than just pretending that you do. This will save you bruises.

Originally Posted by Big B

I'm just guessing here but trueturning is probably in his late 80's judging from what he posts.

I can guess your age pretty accurately you are under 50 and over 40.

Originally Posted by gustafson

Why, they didn't the last 4 times this happened?

Easy one. You have to ask them, check their punch range and your proximity to them before yapping it out though. Suggestion only.

Originally Posted by EmanuelGoldstein

That's why people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are so despicable. Everyone everywhere has their own versions of disasters. When one group of ignorant assholes starts pointing fingers and sneering (examples of this abound from the Usual Parties) then when it's their turn in the barrel no one feels much sympathy.

That's not a good way to run society. Think War of the Roses .... Yes, pissing on the fish was hilarious, but look where it got them ?

"When one group of ignorant assholes starts pointing fingers and sneering"

Think even the Dutch are on to China.......

"Dutch parliament: China's treatment of Uighurs is genocide" Of course not the only country saying that......

Dutch parliament: China'''s treatment of Uighurs is genocide | Reuters

Originally Posted by jim rozen

Oddly one of the biggest all-women colleges in the US has exactly that: coed bathrooms in the dorms. And yes male vistors use them.
And again, oddly, nobody's had a hissy fit about the situation. You should probably get out more.

Mount Holyoke College |

I did not know this. I guess I should tell the grandkids anything goes. So far their school has separate. They will have to change the law I guess.

Isn’t this college a women’s college?

Originally Posted by standardparts

"When one group of ignorant assholes starts pointing fingers and sneering"

Think even the Dutch are on to China.......

"Dutch parliament: China's treatment of Uighurs is genocide" Of course not the only country saying that......

Dutch parliament: China'''s treatment of Uighurs is genocide | Reuters

Yea but every nation on earth is getting false news. They need to believe the official Chinese state media, any other source is lying.