Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Big Green's Inertia Problem
To understand what happened in Spain, I called a friend of mine. He is an electrical engineer who has worked all over the world selling hardware that detects problems on the electric grid and helps improve grid reliability. He has worked in the field for decades. Given the early stage of the investigation, he was reluctant to be too definitive. Still, he said it is “highly likely” that Spain’s heavy reliance on solar and wind contributed to the blackout. “What we are seeing across all power systems is that they are more brittle. They don’t have enough inertia. They have far less spinning reserve and margin for error. Earlier in my career, it was common to have a 15% minimum spinning reserve.” (Emphasis added.)
By spinning reserve, he referred to the backup power plants operating in case they are needed. Today, he said, electric grids are “running on thin margins with very little spinning reserve.”
Via John Hinderaker.
Unfalsifiable BS
Harvard thinks it has a duty to combat racism. But why? Are there a lot of racists on Harvard’s faculty, or in its administration? If so, they should be fired. But of course, that isn’t what they mean. It is “systemic racism”—racism in the air—that they are combatting through their superior virtue. This is why Harvard and so many other institutions have engaged for many years in affirmative action, DEI, in other words, race discrimination. They do it to reverse the effects of “systemic”—i.e., non-existent—racism. Discriminatory policies on Harvard’s part are a sign of virtue.
I Don't Know That
Raguse reports that Moriarty’s office issued a press statement that reads, in part,A defendant’s race matters because we know unaddressed unconscious biases lead to racial disparities, which is an unacceptable outcome.How do we know that? The above sentence seems to represent a classic case of “assuming a fact not in evidence.”
Psychopaths
As we all know, what needed to be done is grasp control over the COVID narrative and shape it in such a way that Fauci and his minions were fully exonerated from the coming accusation that the NIAID, his agency, helped fund the creation of a virus that would soon kill tens of millions, upend the lives of billions, throw the world economy into a tailspin, and erode the civil rights of Americans.
Fauci became the mastermind of one of the greatest cover-ups in world history, and colluded with governments around the world to do so, including the Chinese Communist Party--his main co-conspirator.
The Green Scam As Theology
His 2023 apostolic exhortation, “Laudate Deum,” reads like it was written by Greta Thunberg and a horde of Brussels-based bureaucrats. Francis claims that “millions of people are losing their jobs due to different effects of climate change: rising sea levels, droughts, and other phenomena affecting the planet have left many people adrift. Conversely, the transition to renewable forms of energy, properly managed, as well as efforts to adapt to the damage caused by climate change, are capable of generating countless jobs in different sectors.”
Millions are losing their jobs due to climate change? Where, exactly, is that happening? If the transition is “properly managed,” it could create “countless jobs”? Really? Doing what? Putting solar panels on convent rooftops? Who will ensure “proper” management? Germany? Francis didn’t back up any of those extravagant claims. Laudate Deum contains 44 footnotes. That paragraph doesn’t have a single citation.
Francis’ main felony appears in paragraph 55, where he claims, “the necessary transition towards clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed.”
Let’s ignore the foolishness of attempting to run the global economy on the incurably intermittent energy provided by the wind and sun. Let’s also ignore the landscape-obliterating, bird-and-bat-killing, farmland-paving energy sprawl that comes with large alt-energy projects. Instead, let’s focus on hydrocarbons. Claiming we should give up coal, oil, and natural gas — which, according to the latest IEA data, provide 80% of all global energy — ignores physics, economics, and the needs of the world’s poorest people.
Via John Hinderaker.
The Due Process Diode
Joe Biden encouraged 10 million or more illegals to cross our borders. It was the worst violation of the rule of law in American history. And now every one of the 10 million is supposed to get a trial before being deported?
How about if we do it this way: instead of the federal courts micromanaging the executive branch in real time, if the administration inadvertently deports an American citizen or legal resident, he can raise his hand and complain. He will have no trouble finding a lawyer who will sue on his behalf, and he will become a millionaire. But so far there is not a single reported instance of a citizen or legal resident being deported. This procedure will provide ample due process to all who followed due process on their way in.
When Does Due Process Kick In?
Tens of millions of illegal immigrants, including Mr. Garcia, entered America while bypassing “due process” along the way. Now that it’s time to be returned, Garcia and the others get unlimited due process, at taxpayer expense. Due process to the point where the U.S. Supreme Court issues 1 a.m. orders without even listening to the other side.
But I’m a generous and grateful taxpayer, Rep. Garcia, have a margarita on me while you wait.
Unmoored From Reality
More idiotic left-wing tropes. Elon is unelected? Right, like every member of the Executive Branch except the President and Vice President. That is totally normal. What was not normal was the Biden administration, where people who were not elected were carrying out the duties of the president because he was senile.
And sorry, buttercup: Given that Joe Biden committed the worst violation of the rule of law in American history by enticing 10 million or more illegals into the country, they aren’t all going to get “trials.” There are around 700 immigration judges, and around 250 federal work days. So, if each immigration judge handles two “trials” per day, that is 350,000 per year. At that rate, it would take 29 years to deport the ones Joe Biden invited in, not to mention those who were here already. Sorry to say, Natasha, that just isn’t going to happen.
The American left is a weird zone where you can say anything, no matter how stupid or downright insane, and you can count on it being applauded by pretty much everyone you know. That is what is truly extraordinary: not that people like Natasha Cohen exist, but that close to half of our population is so ignorant and so unmoored from reality that they think that not only her absurd musings, but also her criminal conduct, make some kind of sense.
Saturday, April 19, 2025
The Shot Heard Round the World
From the White House, "The Shot Heard Round the World": The Battles of Lexington and Concord:
Via Scott Johnson.
President Trump's proclamation commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord is posted here.
