Quote of the week
“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” – George Washington
Our liberty today is eroding, being snuffed out in part by government, but also by government’s new-found surrogates—the media and big tech. But remember, we are many and they are few. Despite the power wielded by the enemies of freedom, we will prevail.
Please support the Epoch Times, one of the best and most reliable websites you can hope to find. Subscribe, as Buddy has, and you’ll also receive their equally useful and informative weekly newspaper. Judge Epoch Times by its enemies, the anti-free speech YouTube and Twitter, that have blocked Epoch Times.
Half-a-million Americans have now been killed by the Chinese Corona virus. Who to blame? Not our own Chinese population. Nor even the Chinese in Communist China. They are as much victims as we are. But here is a thought you can take as you will. The Biden family has received more than ten million dollars from the Chinese government. That’s $20 per American thus far killed by the Chinese Communist virus.
The level of hatred directed at President Donald Trump is truly mindboggling. Sadly, the true nature of American progressives is turning out to be no different from their socialist/communist brethren scattered around the world. That hatred extends not just to President Trump but to all his supporters. If only we and Trump could be made to vanish. Make no mistake. The progressives hate anyone who fails to think as they do. Their opinions are founded in “science” and are settled truth. Our thoughts aren’t reasoned, they aren’t even views at all, they are “LIES” forged in anti-science, and steeped in racism, sexism, religion, xenophobia, etc. Progressives see themselves in no way obligated to pit their ideas against opposing thought. Evil, vile, detestable, deplorable people, people like you and me, people who cling to their guns and obsolete religion, people who prefer not to kill babies, such people deserve no voice in the public square. Or so think our progressive socialist/communist friends.
Their calls for reconciliation are insincere, as hollow as their faux president and their make-the-sun-rise-in-the-west impossible agenda. There is no talking to such people, no possible compromise. Those of us, who believe our freedom comes from God and not an all-powerful state, need instead to focus all our effort on electing people who will represent us and give—we the people—the freedom and opportunity to make America grow and prosper as never before.
In four years, if he so wishes and assuming his health holds, Donald Trump will return as our president. That is the thought that so utterly terrifies our elitist enemies and feeds their hatred, but it is a thought that gives us comfort and courage.
Are Eateasies the future? During prohibition in this country a century ago, the sale of liquor was illegal. So those who wanted a beer or a few shots of whisky visited speakeasies. Speakeasy locations were shared by word of mouth. You knock on the right door. A little window opens. You see a face on the other side. You give the right password, the door opens, and you, your date and your pals slip in, joining happy, laughing people, and maybe even the cop on the beat as well
Today a kind of prohibition—Covidbition—has been imposed upon us, but now not just for alcohol, but for food as well. You can be arrested for selling a hamburger. You can be arrested for eating one in the wrong place. So—and keep this under your hat, we don’t want our fascist governors to get word that enterprising entrepreneurs (are there any other kind?) are now opening under-the-radar eateasies, secret restaurants where we can still go and enjoy a great meal along with a glass of wine or our favorite brew.
Elected officials never give up emergency powers once they gain them. And that is exactly how police states incubate. (For those of you born yesterday, please be aware that this “eateries” piece is intended as humor and not fact, so please, politically correct police, please don’t come beating down my door!)
YouTube Takes Down New Trump Interview, by Zachary Stieber, February 20, 2021 Buddy’s take: What monumental arrogance! This isn’t censorship as defined in Merriam Webster, i.e., the suppression of news and opinion by government. Governments censor. Non-government entities suppress. But in both instances the free flow of ideas is stifled. Given that big tech and legacy media now act as arms of our new socialist government, their actions can rightly be called more than suppression of opinion. What is now occurring more and more is outright censorship.
Where, pray tell, does anyone find the right to block another’s ability to communicate? I’m no dummy and I believe, based on the evidence I’ve seen, that voter fraud put Joe Biden where he is. Millions of others believe the same. The opportunity to prove us wrong remains, but it is telling that the Trump haters refuse to allow a fair and open examination of the most designed-for-fraud election process ever foisted on this country.
The howling bounders at YouTube have the edge right now as do the jerks at the other legacy media outlets, both news and internet. They think they can dictate “truth.” That will change and sooner than they think. These arms of the Democrat/Socialist/Communist Party will soon find themselves replaced by sites and services that don’t label unwanted opinion as “lies.”
Millions of us will abandon YouTube, Twitter and the like. And where will you find us? With President Donald Trump. On sites that honor the right of everyone to free speech and free opinion, not just for conservatives, but for everyone, including the dumbest and dullest apples in the barrel, the socialists and communists. When no idea is suppressed, and all ideas compete in an open and fee market, the best tend to win.
Buddy’s Soap Box
A patriotic Texas howdy from Buddy!
Our readership is growing and for that we thank you. All are welcome here, including those who disagree with us. You are free to share your thoughts on this blog, whatever your perspective. Maybe we’ll learn a little from each other along the way.
Our aim is always to lend encouragement to our fellow conservatives and, at the same time, keep out the welcome mat to anyone who is persuaded to come over to our side.
“Cold as a well-diggers butt in Montana,” that’s how my dad described really cold weather. We Texans, along with other contiguous states, certainly got our share of Jack Frost last week. Things didn’t go well at all. Now our politicians, including our governor, are pointing the finger at one culprit or another, but if they really want to finger those responsible for our weather-related fiasco, they need only look in the mirror.
Where, oh, where to begin. Money talks here in Texas just like it does in liberal New York or New Jersey. Greg Abbott recently received a trophy and high praise from the wind industry. All it cost the citizens of Texas was a 19 billion dollar taxpayer-funded wind subsidy, and a weather disaster that never would have happened had not our sharp-as-a-tack politicians shut down our cost effective and reliable coal fired power plants and replaced them with wind-puffers that failed by 95% just when they were most needed. I foolishly contributed to Gov. Abbott’s reelection campaign. Now I wish I hadn’t. Turned out the wind industry and its lobbyists, who are always welcome in Austin, contributed far more than I did. For their money they got the $19 billion and we, the taxpayer, got left out in the cold.
For a more in-depth ventilation of what happens when politicians replace reliable energy sources with less reliable, read Texas Spins into the Wind
Columns worth reading
Each week under this heading, I’ll include full columns or intros to columns you can read in full elsewhere on the internet. Each of these columns pretty much express my views, else I’d not be sharing them with you.
An electricity grid that relies on renewables also needs nuclear or coal power.
By the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal Feb. 17, 2021 9:39 pm
While millions of Texans remain without power for a third day, the wind industry and its advocates are spinning a fable that gas, coal and nuclear plants—not their frozen turbines—are to blame. PolitiFact proclaims “Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage.” Climate-change conformity is hard for the media to resist, but we don’t mind. So here are the facts to cut through the spin.
Texas energy regulators were already warning of rolling blackouts late last week as temperatures in western Texas plunged into the 20s, causing wind turbines to freeze. Natural gas and coal-fired plants ramped up to cover the wind power shortfall as demand for electricity increased with falling temperatures. Some readers have questioned our reporting Wednesday (“The Political Making of a Texas Power Outage”) that wind’s share of electricity generation in Texas plunged to 8% from 42%. How can that be, they wonder, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) has reported that it counts on wind to meet only 10% of its winter capacity. Ercot’s disclosure is slippery. Start with the term “capacity,” which means potential maximum output.
This is different than actual power generation. Texas has a total winter capacity of about 83,000 megawatts (MW) including all power sources. Total power demand and generation, however, at their peak are usually only around 57,000 MW. Regulators build slack into the system.
Texas has about 30,000 MW of wind capacity, but winds aren’t constant or predictable. Winds this past month have generated between about 600 and 22,500 MW. Regulators don’t count on wind to provide much more than 10% or so of the grid’s total capacity since they can’t command turbines to increase power like they can coal and gas plants. Wind turbines at times this month have generated more than half of the Texas power generation, though this is only about a quarter of the system’s power capacity. Last week wind generation plunged as demand surged. Fossil-fuel generation increased and covered the supply gap. Thus, between the mornings of Feb. 7 and Feb. 11, wind as a share of the state’s electricity fell to 8% from 42%, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Gas-fired plants produced 43,800 MW of power Sunday night and coal plants chipped in 10,800 MW—about two to three times what they usually generate at their peak on any given winter day—after wind power had largely vanished. In other words, gas and coal plants held up in the frosty conditions far better than wind turbines did.
It wasn’t until temperatures plunged into the single digits early Monday morning that some conventional power plants including nuclear started to have problems, which was the same time that demand surged for heating. Gas plants also ran low on fuel as pipelines froze and more was diverted for heating. “It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” Electric Reliability Council of Texas senior director Dan Woodfin said Tuesday. The wind industry and its friends are citing this statement as exoneration. But note he used the word “today.” Most wind power had already dropped offline last week.
Gas generation fell by about one-third between late Sunday night and Tuesday, but even then was running two to three times higher than usual before the Arctic blast. Gas power nearly made up for the shortfall in wind, though it wasn’t enough to cover surging demand.
Between 12 a.m. on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16, wind power plunged 93% while coal increased 47% and gas 450%, according to the EIA. Yet the renewable industry and its media mouthpieces are tarring gas, coal and nuclear because they didn’t operate at 100% of their expected potential during the Arctic blast even though wind turbines failed nearly 100%. The policy point here is that an electricity grid that depends increasingly on subsidized but unreliable wind and solar needs baseload power to weather surges in demand. Natural gas is crucial but it also isn’t as reliable as nuclear and coal power. Politicians and regulators don’t want to admit this because they have been taking nuclear and coal plants offline to please the lords of climate change. But the public pays the price when blackouts occur because climate obeisance has made the grid too fragile. We’ve warned about this for years, and here we are.