Usually, it takes at least one full day in Cancun to do something embarrassing you’ll never live down.
But for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), it took just 10 hours…
2.19.2021
Noted
200,000 is still a lot of people…
…but it seems to be par for just about any weather (or earthquake) related event. Snow, rain, flooding, wind…a couple of hundred thousand people wind up with no electricity.
It’s in the design of things. No large system I know of is desinged for infallibility. If everyone in your town decides to make a phone call at the exact same time, your phone exchange will crash. If everybody decides to take a shower at the exact same time, the water pressure will drop. No internet server I’ve ever heard of guarantees 100% uptime. In the extreme, everything breaks.
The important thing is not how well we prevent failure—that’s a failing strategy—but how well we respond to it when it occurs. That needs work.
And rushing to politicize the failure is not helpful.
In from the cold
Hundreds of helpless cold-stunned sea turtles rescued by Navy pilots and pickup trucks
Green sea turtles, listed as a threatened species, feast on grasses found in the waters of Laguna Madre, but in winter weather, the chilling shallow water zaps strength from the coldblooded reptiles. They become immobile and unable to power their fins to warmer, deeper waters, putting them at risk of dying of predation or exposure, according to the National Park Service. Some wash ashore like driftwood.
2.18.2021
2.17.2021
Imagine my surprise
This week, some have pointed to Cruz’s comments as hypocritical LOL [LOL is mine]
The algorithm strikes again
Brands whose ads ended up on these sites includes not only major corporations like Pepsi, Verizon, and Marriott, but also companies directly and indirectly involved with the vaccination effort such as Walmart and Kroger, which are distributing COVID-19 vaccines at their retail stores; Pfizer, whose vaccine is on the market and which is running its own PSAs; and even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Digital “targeted” advertising directly helps spread misinformation.
From NewsGuard:
Of the 405 sites flagged by NewsGuard’s team for publishing COVID-19 misinformation, the vast majority—over 80%—were repeat offenders, meaning they had previously been flagged for publishing health misinformation.
2.16.2021
Too good to miss
Today is Fat Tuesday and also, as reported by our Pacific Rim bureau, Do a Grouch a Favor Day.
Appropriate celebration is heartily recommended.
Federal failures, says AP (imagine that)
Hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell
One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, many millions of N95 masks are pouring out of American factories and heading into storage. Yet doctors and nurses like Turner say there still aren’t nearly enough in the “ICU rooms with high-flow oxygen and COVID germs all over.”
It’s going to take a long time to sort all this out.
When "reliability" is just another word for "ooops"
Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold
Texas is unusual in that almost the entire state is part of a single grid that lacks extensive integration with those of the surrounding states. That grid is run by an organization called ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, a nonprofit controlled by the state legislature. [Emphasis mine.]
It got cold in Texas the other day…legitimately cold, with temps into the single digits…causing some maelstrom of circumstance that left the aforementioned reliability council “no other option,” according to this article in ArsTechnica, “than to cut off customers’ access to power.” Ooops.
Which suggests, among other things, folks who plan to run the entire country on electricity maybe should think harder.
These days you can get whiplash just from reading the news
An article in Politico this morning reports…
"Republicans see room to capitalize on the grim public health and economic situation the White House inherited from Donald Trump by trying to put Democrats on the defensive for being too removed from the pain or too slow-moving to address it."
This was, apparently, not intended as a joke.
2.15.2021
Seemed like a grand idea at the time
25 years ago today, the internet declared its independence — for better and for worse
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather…
Also seemed sad, in a way, because it clearly couldn’t last. It may have been a “home of the Mind” but it was built on copper and silicon and steel. And it would forseeably threaten governments, and that, clearly, would never do.
But just imagine how fast it goes away
Rare winter storm slams Texas with snow, ice and bitterly cold temps
On Sunday night, heavy snow was falling in the border town of Del Rio, according to footage posted to Twitter.
If you’re going to have snow, Texas, do it in December—or even better, November—when the whole thing seems new and fresh (surprising how you’ve fogotten what happened last winter, isn’t it?) and then hope it melts away. Because if you wait until now, the middle of February, it’ll be muy deprimente, drudgery, no fun at all.
Look at us. We have more than a foot of the stuff on the ground, and another six to eight inches scheduled for tonight, and we’re just wanting it to go away. (33 more days.)
OK, maybe not all of us. Some people like to ski (but isn’t that what mountains are for?) and some like to drive around on snowmobiles (which would make even less sense in a place like Texas). But all of us sensible people are done with it.
Also, when the snow goes away it gets warmer faster. So there’s that.
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