Maybe not "you", but how motivated are you to be in control? Not as much as those who angle for the CEO and board chair roles, or to be kingmakers, or to run for various offices. And they very much tolerate being feared.

How's that work? This is Texas where fossil fuel is king, isn't it? How does that actually play with the politics?

Money talks and leads action in forward capital investment

  And despite political attacks on renewables, solar continues getting built in this red state because it’s one of the fastest and cheapest ways to add new electricity to the grid.

So that happens while public facing politico's say whatever soothes the coal rollers that want to hear another Taylor Sheridanesque bleatage about wind power and no solar at night.

While Texas is quite red. Renewables are surprisingly popular. Why should a farmer in the middle of nowhere have to rely on Texas’ power grid, when they can install a few solar panels and a battery. Especially when storms can take out power lines, or take out the entire grid.

I’m near a big city in Texas, and before any big storms here, generators frequently sell out at stores. Power outages are basically expected during any storms. Lots of people buying into solar (or backup generators/batteries) just for independence from the power grid. Especially after the huge winter storm a few years ago left people without power for days in the cold.

> Lots of people buying into solar (or backup generators/batteries) just for independence from the power grid.

Sounds like the woke mind virus has taken over /s

While fossil fuels are huge in Texas, solar and wind are too. Especially out in west Texas where there’s a lot of wide open space, wind turbines are surprisingly frequent. Texas produces the most wind power out of any state. And solar works just about anywhere in Texas. Lots of sun in the summers.

After ERCOT humiliated itself in front of the entire state (twice iirc?) recently, I would imagine that they’ve been compelled (whether they like it or not) to prioritize “solve the damn problem any way possible” over the usual tendencies towards “but only using carbon-emissions power plants” — especially seeing how rapidly their neighbor California solved their own woes with grid batteries years ago.

> would imagine that they’ve been compelled

Sadly, your imagination isn't cynical enough.

While the responsibility for the Texas grid failures, which led to multiple deaths and billions in damages, are diffuse across multiple people and organizations, if blame should be focused on one role it's the misleadingly named Railroad Commissioner who is primarily at fault (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_of_Texas).

Despite the deaths, shutdown economy, massive destruction of property and suffering that the grid failures caused, the position has continued to be held by Republicans and they have not fixed the underlying issue of gas power plants that have to shut down in the cold.

If Texas gets another large ice storm, the grid will fail again, people will die again, and then 51% of the state will go vote for another Republican who won't fix anything and campaigned about preventing Sharia law (this is a real thing they run on in the primaries).

Ironic, then, that they disfavor campaigning about preventing Darwin’s law.

You can trace almost anything back to incentives, renewables are more profitable now in one way or another.

Real title: China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos

And the the Commander in Chief is, let's say, portly. Love it.

According to his last medical he's 6'3, 230lb with 4% body fat, what are you talking about?

Yeah let's see him do crunches with his staff.

And 3 aced cognitive tests in a row!

And according to the just released physical, a BP of 100/70 with no antihypertensives. Man has the body of a teenager!

Isn't Thiel a big defense investor? Why would we allow defense industry players to have foreign allegiance?

For all those apps, sign in on your car? Every time you start it, otherwise your teenagers use your accounts? Not appealing.

Would have per-driver accounts like Tesla, right? (Privacy nightmare when thinking of every car someday requiring logins—very convenient! though)

Could be done, but either PITA or privacy nightmare or both. Key fob isn't your token, needs to be something else. Your fingerprint? And it won't be using your apple apps, no way apple lets those just show up.

Imagine being the next president inheriting this dumpster fire. I always thought Obama was handed a poisoned chalice. This will be insane.

> the next president

I appreciate your optimism.

This is presuming the next president isn't supportive of these policies and a continuation of the policy.

I'm thinking that even then, they'll be a bit smarter and realize that this is a lot to handle. Won't be starting from as good of a base.

It really does need to be someone who has been in the political game their whole life. It cannot be another inexperienced populist.

Along these lines, it seems too much hope for... but we need a president that can respectfully dialogue with people on the other side of the aisle and empathize with people and their views gained from lived experience. These days the status quo is to treat any opposition to their point of view as sign of idiocy or moral corruption.

Absolutely not. The otherside have shown their colors. They need to be completely ignored and shutdown of power so adults can focus on running the country.

Not paying attention to the fact that the most fearless and motivated protesters had just been killed.

Remember the cop who shot, in the leg, a person who was just lying in a crosswalk: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey]. Why? "¯\_(ツ)_/¯". Cop was convicted of essentially dipshttery but had that overturned.

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