It’ll be a cold day in a hot place
I’m sure you’ve heard about the weather. Throughout most of the continental United States, the last week has been unusually cold and snowy (which is because of global warming and don’t you forget it, you horrible science denier). Texas certainly had the worst of it, though; not only were temperatures in the single- or low-double-digits for most of the week, but the infrastructure was unable to withstand the sudden cold — due to years of crony deals, about a quarter of Texas’s electricity is generated by wind and solar, none of which was designed to operate in the cold and buried under snow, and millions of Texans were left without power for days on end, leading to no end of misery and a fair few deaths.
So naturally, deranged rodeo clown Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the problem was that Texas didn’t green energy hard enough:
The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal. Weak on sweeping next-gen public infrastructure investments, little focus on equity so communities are left behind, climate deniers in leadership so they don’t long prep for disaster. We need to help people *now.* Long-term we must realize these are the consequences of inaction.
Just one little thing here, Alex:
As is plainly apparent, Texas’s energy generation from coal and nuclear power remained steady, and natural gas ramped up dramatically to cope with the abject failure of your “Green New Deal.” It’s not difficult to see that the problem stems from so-called “green” energy being unreliable, and not at all from lack of critical race theory or whatever bizarre thing you mean by “focus on equity.”
Which is all well and good; “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an idiot” is hardly breaking news. Indeed, as befits the fool on the Hill, it turns out her noise is really just a distraction from what really happened, which was: the Usurper administration explicitly told ERCOT that its bogus “environmental standards” were a higher priority than people not freezing to death.
According to ERCOT, the measures taken by ERCOT and other state agencies may not prove sufficient to avoid rotating outages of as much as 4,000 MW. Moreover, ERCOT has been alerted that numerous generation units will be unable to operate at full capacity without violating federal air quality or other permit limitations…
Because the additional generation may result in a conflict with environmental standards and requirements, I am authorizing only the necessary additional generation, with reporting requirements as described below…
To minimize adverse environmental impacts, this Order limits operation of dispatched units to the times and within the parameters determined by ERCOT for reliability purposes. Consistent with good utility practice, ERCOT shall exhaust all reasonably and practically available resources, including available imports, demand response, and identified behind-the-meter generation resources selected to minimize an increase in emissions, to the extent that such resources provide support to maintain grid reliability, prior to dispatching the Specified Resources. ERCOT shall provide a daily notification to the Department reporting each generating unit that has been designated to use the allowance and operated in reliance on the allowances contained in this Order.
The whole order is eye-opening. It turns out that, contra Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s blather, rather than “help people *now,*” what the Green Energy Czars decided was a priority was “generate mountains of paperwork.” And who is surprised?
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t.
I’ve been writing Last Week in Weird since the middle of the fourteenth century. After all those many, many weeks of weird, I think it’s fair to say that your humble narrator — without even stretching his humility particularly — has attained a certain degree of facility at sifting through the weird. So, obviously, it’s nothing but professional jealousy and pettiness when I complain that the New York Times is now moving in on my turf, presuming to instruct people on how to cope with the weird in an impossibly stupid and badly-written article subtitled — no fooling — “Critical thinking, as we’re taught to do it, isn’t helping in the fight against misinformation.”
Misinformation rides the greased algorithmic rails of powerful social media platforms and travels at velocities and in volumes that make it nearly impossible to stop. That alone makes information warfare an unfair fight for the average internet user. But Mr. Caulfield argues the deck is stacked even further against us. That the way we’re taught from a young age to evaluate and think critically about information is fundamentally flawed and out of step with the chaos of the current internet.
Oh my goodness, Charlie Warzel, I cannot believe that even the mouldering husk of the Times would publish prose that purple. Whose greased algorithmic rails did you have to ride to get this one accepted?
Now, if you’re thinking he can’t possibly be saying what I’m making it sound like he’s saying…
In 2016, Mr. Caulfield met Mr. Wineburg, who suggested modeling the process after the way professional fact checkers assess information…
Mr. Caulfield walked me through the process using an Instagram post from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist, falsely [sic] alleging a link between the human papillomavirus vaccine and cancer. “If this is not a claim where I have a depth of understanding, then I want to stop for a second and, before going further, just investigate the source,” Mr. Caulfield said. He copied Mr. Kennedy’s name in the Instagram post and popped it into Google. “Look how fast this is,” he told me as he counted the seconds out loud. In 15 seconds, he navigated to Wikipedia and scrolled through the introductory section of the page, highlighting with his cursor the last sentence, which reads that Mr. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist and a conspiracy theorist.
“Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the best, unbiased source on information about a vaccine? I’d argue no. And that’s good enough to know we should probably just move on,” he said.
Yessir. Always remember to attack the messenger, not the message, just as Marx taught us. Through ad hominem, my chains are broken! Not to mention his whole conclusion is “if it doesn’t say so on Wikipedia, it’s not true.” Oh, maybe that’s a little bit unfair:
He probed deeper into the method to find better coverage by copying the main claim in Mr. Kennedy’s post and pasting that into a Google search. The first two results came from Agence France-Presse’s fact-check website and the National Institutes of Health. His quick searches showed a pattern: Mr. Kennedy’s claims were outside the consensus — a sign they were motivated by something other than science.
Wikipedia or official government publications. The best thing we, as worthless peons, can do to combat the dread scourge of “misinformation” is believe only what the government tells us. Even when they’re telling us patently untrue things about science having anything in the world to do with “consensus,” which is a ridiculous fiction peddled by ideologues.
But I’m sure Wikipedia disagrees, so you shouldn’t listen to me!
You’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
By now, we’re probably all used to the idea that singing is a horrible threat to human life because, hey, you might have a cold and then all the grandmothers everywhere will spontaneously combust, so a story about somebody getting in trouble for singing wouldn’t really count as news. Except this one’s a little different.
Angelo Kelly, 39, was fined 3000 euros ($3,600) by the Hassfurt administrative court for the 2019 appearance at an open air summer concert with his son William, who sang “What a Wonderful World.” The boy is the youngest of Kelly’s five children.
“During this performance, the child William stood for at least 30 minutes on the stage where he played along, sang along and interpreted his own song,” the court said, according to the dpa news agency. “This is considered work by the Youth Labor Protection Act.”
What? How dare he exploit his child like that! Speaking as the father of a three-year-old, I know he would be absolutely tormented by singing along with daddy. Why, at no time ever does he ask me to play music with him! Certainly he doesn’t sing the Alphabet song non-stop all day long until we finally wrangle him into bed. So throw the book at ‘im, I say!
Children ages 3 to 6 can take part in musical performances under German law for up to two hours a day, but only with official approval of an exception and only between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., dpa reported. William, who is now 5, appeared on stage until 8:20 p.m., according to authorities.
What, he didn’t even obey the government-mandated curfew for singing with his son? The savage! It’s beginning to sound like this guy doesn’t trust the consensus of scientistic experts! Nobody critically think about him, it’s dangerous.
If they liked it once, they’ll love it twice
The arbitrary government punishment train is rolling, and there are no brakes on this crazy ride:
Eager to follow the rules of reentry into Canada, the mother, a registered nurse (RNBN) who works in chronic care, went in with her mother and children for the PCR [China virus] tests on Friday, Feb. 12. The tests all came back negative. They also came with an expiration date of 72 hours set by the Canadian government, meaning that the test would only be valid for 72 hours after taking it.
Five test results came back on Sunday. The last one came back Monday at 1:30 a.m. At 6:30 a.m. that same morning, the mother left for the Canadian border, with 8 hours left before the tests expired. Normally, this would have been more than sufficient time. But then the family’s car started having troubles…
The family finally reached the Pembina-Emerson border just after 4:00 p.m. They came prepared with their test results and a quarantine plan for when they returned to their home in Winnipeg. But by the time they reached the customs official, their [China virus] tests had already expired by 2 hours and 15 minutes.
“Eager to follow the rules” hurts my heart. And the construction “the mother… went in with her mother and children” hurts my clarity-of-writing sensors.
But that’s as may be. So they showed up two hours after their aribtrary cutoff, then? Two hours ago, they were grade-A USDA choice China flu-free citizens, but in that intervening time, well, who knows what could have happened? They could have gone to China, eaten some bat heads or whatever the lunatic official story is these days, and then come back to try to infiltrate Canada with their horrible disease-ridden carcasses and heavy bolters. So I’m sure the border guards turned them away, then, yes? Told them to come back with a fresh batch of meaningless tests?
“But no, they kept us there over 3 hours and then handed each of us a $3,000 citation totaling $18,000…”
The family was then ordered to drive to the nearest Designated Quarantine Facility (DQF), which is in Winnipeg where they were told they must stay until they can receive another [China virus] test.
Eighteen thousand dollars and a trip to the gulag? I know what you’re thinking: this must be some kind of bureaucratic SNAFU. Surely with a quick phone call…
“I called the border agent yesterday to talk to her. She basically told me that they gave us the maximum fine possible, that we were the first ones in this area to receive this and that they wanted to make an example of us so that other people would not travel.”
“Peace, order, and good government” indeed, Canada.
Is this thing on?
Sometimes we’re reminded that the good Lord is watching and has a sense of humour.
Members of a school board in California were caught on camera mocking parents who want to reopen schools, claiming they just “want their babysitters back…”
“[Lovable cuddly puppy dog identified as female at birth], if you’re gonna call me out, I’m gonna [engage in carnal behaviour with] you up!” Beede said, and laughed along with many of the members…
“I totally hear that, because my brother had a delivery service for medical marijuana, and the clientele were parents with their kids in school,” he said, causing members to burst out in laughter. “When you’ve got your kids at home, no more [smoking weed]!”
Now that’s a hot mic! Don’t worry, these hard-working public servants got what was coming to them, in the heartwarming feel-good story of the week:
The entire school board of the Oakley Union Elementary School District resigned late Friday after a video of them mocking parents was leaked to the public.
The president of board, Lisa Brizendine, resigned first then the other three members – Kim Beede, Erica Ippolito and Richie Masadas resigned later Friday.
So long, lovable cuddly puppy dogs! Don’t let the door hit you in your giant, swollen heads on the way out.
Ladies and gentlemen, the usurper-in-chief of the United States
That’s ol’ Usurper Joe, stumbling and bumbling his way through excusing the Uighur genocide taking place in China. What’s three million filthy, unwashed peasants in the grand scheme of things, hey Joe? After all, exterminating them will strengthen the State, and that’s what really matters!