America - The Official Thread

[UKMikey]

I will never get tired of hearing our governor's name, especially when people are posting on news sites, unironically I might add, "I love Cox!" I like to follow up with "Mormon Jesus wouldn't approve" and they never seem to understand, which makes me a bit sad.

Should he ever be defeated in an election I wonder whether the headline will read "COX OUT".

 

[JKgo]

Should he ever be defeated in an election I wonder whether the headline will read "COX OUT".

💡

Imagine the headlines if he suddenly chooses to give up on re-election mid-way through.

"COX PULLS OUT! Voters left unsatisfied!"

 

[Keef]

"COX PULLS OUT! Voters left unsatisfied!"

Months later, voters are still saddled with the burden of his policies.

 

[Danoff]

Should he ever be defeated in an election I wonder whether the headline will read "COX OUT".

💡

Imagine the headlines if he suddenly chooses to give up on re-election mid-way through.

"COX PULLS OUT! Voters left unsatisfied!"

Cox erupts over block by colleagues. Mask debate gets messy.

 

[TexRex]

...

The GTP equivalent of Ron Swanson?

I like Ron.

I also see people bitching that this law supersedes the right a private business has to tell you that you cannot bring a firearm into their premises.

I gather this is a continuation of the sentence that preceded it, reinforcing the notion that people aren't actually looking into the law. Because it doesn't. Private businesses, residences and even vehicles are indicated as exceptions to the law and carrying without the express permission of the property owner* is subject to a misdemeanor offense under the law. But then people tend to not care about the rights of others when they feel their own rights are being infringed upon.

*What's the rule of thumb in Utah regarding owner of record versus designated occupant/tenant? I'm not seeing anything relevant in the text of HB 60.

 

[Joey D]

I gather this is a continuation of the sentence that preceded it, reinforcing the notion that people aren't actually looking into the law. Because it doesn't. Private businesses, residences and even vehicles are indicated as exceptions to the law and carrying without the express permission of the property owner* is subject to a misdemeanor offense under the law. But then people tend to not care about the rights of others when they feel their own rights are being infringed upon.

*What's the rule of thumb in Utah regarding owner of record versus designated occupant/tenant? I'm not seeing anything relevant in the text of HB 60.

Ya, I probably didn't write that all that clear. But, people will bitch about their rights being trampled on because Pete's Crematorium (You Kill'em, We Grill'em) won't allow you to carry your .44 Dirty Harry into their building.

As for the occupant/tenant thing, I'm not really sure, but given how many of the Utah laws are it will almost always favor the landlord. When I carry, I only do so in my car and that's only occasionally. When we had the riots during the BLM protests, I carried it then, but unloaded it, took it off, and securely stowed it in my car once I got to my office (since I'm a government employee, my office is technically government property). After Jan 6th and we were preparing for the State Capitol to be overrun, I did the same thing.

The only time I didn't take it off was when I had my truck and I was out in the bush four-wheeling. There were way too many hicks out there for me not to have some sort of protection on me and I even had it within hands reach when I was sleeping in the bed of my truck. Also, bears were no joke in Idaho and Wyoming. I know a 9mm isn't going to do much to a bear, but I'd rather have that than simply asking the bear politely not to maul my face off. Plus when you're in the backwoods of Idaho and Wyoming, people look at you funny if you're not carrying a gun when you go into Bob's Diner for breakfast.

 

[PzR Slim]

This is truly sickening. I've got no idea how the US is going to get rid of this disease.

 

[TexRex]

This is truly sickening. I've got no idea how the US is going to get rid of this disease.

That might be better posted in this thread, especially since Floyd is named outright.

As an aside, I'm not super thrilled about the "ACAB" stuff (I think "ACAP"--where the P stands for "People"--would be more apropos); some of those people are there simply to do a job, some are there explicitly to serve the community and help people, and yes, some are bad. The bad ones need to be held accountable and weeded out.

 

[NotThePrez]

Cox erupts over block by colleagues. Mask debate gets messy.

I'd just like you to know, that there is now a significant amount of Watermelon Mouintain Dew on my lap due to this comment. I hope you're pleased with yourself.

 

[Keef]

I did something very American last night. A buddy's cousin is a country boy and while out exploring in the blizzard we stumbled across him and his redneck friends in their RZRs so we slammed a couple beers and went fer a rip through the neighbor's field in 8 inches of snow, white-out conditions, and about 15 degrees. Always manji the straight in an open-air 4x4 with four bros and a cooler full of beers in the back. Murica.

 

[Outspacer]

Amy Cooper, fresh from having her charge of racist criminal conduct dropped after completing a therapy course addressing racial bias, has threatened legal action against unnamed (her previous employer?) for their actions after having "rushed to the wrong conclusion". BBC.

Has. Not. Learnt. A. Goddamn. Thing.

 

[Biggles]

I did something very American last night. A buddy's cousin is a country boy and while out exploring in the blizzard we stumbled across him and his redneck friends in their RZRs so we slammed a couple beers and went fer a rip through the neighbor's field in 8 inches of snow, white-out conditions, and about 15 degrees. Always manji the straight in an open-air 4x4 with four bros and a cooler full of beers in the back. Murica.

Good for you Keefe! Your buddy's cousin's friends are not related in any way to this couple?

https://www.wtnh.com/news/connectic...uts-loses-control-in-stamford-amid-snowstorm/

 

[TexRex]

 

[Keef]

Good for you Keefe! Your buddy's cousin's friends are not related in any way to this couple?

https://www.wtnh.com/news/connectic...uts-loses-control-in-stamford-amid-snowstorm/

Not that I know of. Hard to crash into a lake when you're in the middle of a farm field.

So we all know that a brutal cold spell and winter storm swept through the Great Plains all the way down to Texas and through the upper Midwest and into the Northeast recently. It's cold af outside. But only some people are having problems dealing with it and they're all in Texas. @TexRex @McLaren Hook em powerlines!

Governor Abbott says that renewable energy is to blame. Solar and wind account for 10% of the grid! They don't work in ice or covered with snow! 16 gigawatts of renewables have shut down! While that's all true, ERCOT says that 30 gigawatts of gas, coal, and nuclear also shut down. Wh...what?

See, here's the thing about wind and solar. They're virtually never at full capacity. They might account for 10% of Texas's maximum capacity but they're never operating anywhere near that. Engineers know this and they plan for this. When solar and wind are working, thermal sources slow down and produce less pollution. When solar and wind struggle, thermal sources pick up the slack. It's a nice system, works great. Or at least it works great until twice as many thermal sources also shut down for inexplicable reasons and the governor simply ignores that and lies about it.

Here in Ohio and throughout the Midwest we've got lots of big cities using all of these different sources of power. Wind, solar, gas, coal, nuclear, possibly others, they're all present. And it's a fact that during winter storms the wind and solar sources struggle or shut down altogether. And yet my furnace is set to a cozy 75 and my tap water tastes like freshly treated chlorine. It's 5 degrees outside but life is good inside. So how is it that our power sources and grid can handle winter storms, our maintenance crews are quick to fix them in emergencies, our airports are open, etc? It's almost like somebody planned for this.

Cold, snow, and ice are not unheard of across Texas. It does happen from San Antonio to Dallas and it's not all that rare honestly, and it also happens in Houston occasionally. The people in charge of maintaining and upgrading Texas's power grid knew that this was possible, there's plenty of historical precedent, and yet they clearly failed to plan ahead. Unlike Governor Abbott pointing the blame at renewables, the problem is clearly that the thermal backups to renewables also shut down which is unprecedented here in the Midwest. These sources are literally how we make it through winter, there's absolutely no excuse for them to not work. Why did they stop working?

They stopped working because Texas has long been the land of cocky cowboys who think they're bigger and better than everyone else. Hell, I thought they fell off when they forgot how to play football but now they don't even have electricity or water, and they're lying about the reasons. Sad! Texas leadership have been exposed. They failed to take care of their people, and now their people's lives are at risk and the leadership is trying to brush off responsibility for failing to maintain and upgrade their legendary self-contained power grid.

 

[Joey D]

I love how just a month or so back Texas was to secede from the US and now they're begging for federal assistance. Look, I get that it doesn't snow often in Texas, but it does get cold. How is it that buildings aren't properly insulated, especially the pipes?

 

[TexRex]

I love how just a month or so back Texas was to secede from the US and now they're begging for federal assistance. Look, I get that it doesn't snow often in Texas, but it does get cold. How is it that buildings aren't properly insulated, especially the pipes?

Texas secession sentiment is evergreen--it would worry me if there wasn't talk--but you highlight a humorous hypocrisy. It seems a bit like "back the blue"; cops are great when they're killing black people but the moment they try to stop you and your brahs from storming the Capitol, you beat them to death.

 

[Keef]

I love how just a month or so back Texas was to secede from the US and now they're begging for federal assistance. Look, I get that it doesn't snow often in Texas, but it does get cold. How is it that buildings aren't properly insulated, especially the pipes?

Texas power companies bought eBay car parts to save some money. This is what you get when you buy eBay car parts. I've got little sympathy for people who think their car is dope but it breaks down on the way to the meet.

 

[Danoff]

Not that I know of. Hard to crash into a lake when you're in the middle of a farm field.

So we all know that a brutal cold spell and winter storm swept through the Great Plains all the way down to Texas and through the upper Midwest and into the Northeast recently. It's cold af outside. But only some people are having problems dealing with it and they're all in Texas. @TexRex @McLaren Hook em powerlines!

Governor Abbott says that renewable energy is to blame. Solar and wind account for 10% of the grid! They don't work in ice or covered with snow! 16 gigawatts of renewables have shut down! While that's all true, ERCOT says that 30 gigawatts of gas, coal, and nuclear also shut down. Wh...what?

See, here's the thing about wind and solar. They're virtually never at full capacity. They might account for 10% of Texas's maximum capacity but they're never operating anywhere near that. Engineers know this and they plan for this. When solar and wind are working, thermal sources slow down and produce less pollution. When solar and wind struggle, thermal sources pick up the slack. It's a nice system, works great. Or at least it works great until twice as many thermal sources also shut down for inexplicable reasons and the governor simply ignores that and lies about it.

Here in Ohio and throughout the Midwest we've got lots of big cities using all of these different sources of power. Wind, solar, gas, coal, nuclear, possibly others, they're all present. And it's a fact that during winter storms the wind and solar sources struggle or shut down altogether. And yet my furnace is set to a cozy 75 and my tap water tastes like freshly treated chlorine. It's 5 degrees outside but life is good inside. So how is it that our power sources and grid can handle winter storms, our maintenance crews are quick to fix them in emergencies, our airports are open, etc? It's almost like somebody planned for this.

Cold, snow, and ice are not unheard of across Texas. It does happen from San Antonio to Dallas and it's not all that rare honestly, and it also happens in Houston occasionally. The people in charge of maintaining and upgrading Texas's power grid knew that this was possible, there's plenty of historical precedent, and yet they clearly failed to plan ahead. Unlike Governor Abbott pointing the blame at renewables, the problem is clearly that the thermal backups to renewables also shut down which is unprecedented here in the Midwest. These sources are literally how we make it through winter, there's absolutely no excuse for them to not work. Why did they stop working?

They stopped working because Texas has long been the land of cocky cowboys who think they're bigger and better than everyone else. Hell, I thought they fell off when they forgot how to play football but now they don't even have electricity or water, and they're lying about the reasons. Sad! Texas leadership have been exposed. They failed to take care of their people, and now their people's lives are at risk and the leadership is trying to brush off responsibility for failing to maintain and upgrade their legendary self-contained power grid.

I love how just a month or so back Texas was to secede from the US and now they're begging for federal assistance. Look, I get that it doesn't snow often in Texas, but it does get cold. How is it that buildings aren't properly insulated, especially the pipes?

This facebook post goes into a fair amount of detail on the cascading failure in Texas.

Texas is basically not prepared for real cold. They don't insulate their pipes as a matter of course (I'm talking about most of the state, not the northern tip), and when there is a freeze (which happens on the order of once per year), there is always a "drip those faucets, take care of the pipes" kind of message that goes out. But the whole thing is predicated on a short duration, relatively mild freeze. They do not really plan for real winter conditions. People don't even own heavy jackets. You can argue that they ought to be prepared, but it's a rare enough event that they simply don't.

Personally, I prefer to live a little further north where you have to prepare and so it's not a widespread issue. This in between where you can get away without doing diligence on this issue just sets you up to get bit periodically. Especially when there's a 100 year event, which by all accounts this appears to be. I've not seen anything like this in the 30 years I've been paying attention to Texas. It's a shock for them, unlike many of them have ever seen. Possibly unlike any of them have ever seen.

 

[ryzno]

I know y'alls view of him but Rush Limbaugh has passed away. **** cancer.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I love how just a month or so back Texas was to secede from the US and now they're begging for federal assistance. Look, I get that it doesn't snow often in Texas, but it does get cold. How is it that buildings aren't properly insulated, especially the pipes?

You make me remember what I disliked so much about Texas, more than just about anything else - the inherent cheapassery on display everywhere. Nearly everything is built to the lowest standard to save a buck. I dare you to go into the attic of any tract home in any subdivision in Texas (built in the last 25 years) and marvel at the rats nest of poor quality framing (material quality and quality of construction) holding up the roof. It's easy to see because there's typically no insulation! Oh yeah, lets build this house with HUGE black roof with fifty thousand gables in a hot ass climate. Why insulate when you can just put a bigger AC unit?

 

[Danoff]

You make me remember what I disliked so much about Texas, more than just about anything else - the inherent cheapassery on display everywhere. Nearly everything is built to the lowest standard to save a buck. I dare you to go into the attic of any tract home in any subdivision in Texas (built in the last 25 years) and marvel at the rats nest of poor quality framing (material quality and quality of construction) holding up the roof. It's easy to see because there's typically no insulation! Oh yeah, lets build this house with HUGE black roof with fifty thousand gables in a hot ass climate. Why insulate when you can just put a bigger AC unit?

I tell this story a lot, but I'll tell it again. In the winter in southern california, when the temperature would drop in to the 40s, my furnace would start running constantly. That's because the house simply lacked almost any kind of insulation at all. I could achieve mid to high 60s inside, but nothing in the 70s when the temperature was in the 40s outside.

When I moved to Colorado, the temperature would hit -10 in the coldest part of winter, but my house is set to 72 degrees, and the furnace can shut off! I'm warmer in Colorado than I was in LA. Seriously, I don't mean that as a joke. I really am overall more comfortable in this climate than that one due to insulation.

If I had stayed in LA, I would eventually have insulated my house (to the degree possible anyway, without ripping out the walls and replacing the foundation).

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I tell this story a lot, but I'll tell it again. In the winter in southern california, when the temperature would drop in to the 40s, my furnace would start running constantly. That's because the house simply lacked almost any kind of insulation at all. I could achieve mid to high 60s inside, but nothing in the 70s when the temperature was in the 40s outside.

When I moved to Colorado, the temperature would hit -10 in the coldest part of winter, but my house is set to 72 degrees, and the furnace can shut off! I'm warmer in Colorado than I was in LA. Seriously, I don't mean that as a joke. I really am overall more comfortable in this climate than that one due to insulation.

If I had stayed in LA, I would eventually have insulated my house (to the degree possible anyway, without ripping out the walls and replacing the foundation).

Oh, my 60s built apartment in NorCal is totally hopeless when it comes to insulation. Newer stuff is built far better and the climate is probably the most forgiving in the entire US, but on the handful of pretty cold and pretty hot days we get, it's a bit uncomfortable. My house in Michigan had some pretty rad insulation, that place was cozy AF in the winter - no problem at all even when it dropped to -41 once.

 

[Biggles]

This facebook post goes into a fair amount of detail on the cascading failure in Texas.

Texas is basically not prepared for real cold. They don't insulate their pipes as a matter of course (I'm talking about most of the state, not the northern tip), and when there is a freeze (which happens on the order of once per year), there is always a "drip those faucets, take care of the pipes" kind of message that goes out. But the whole thing is predicated on a short duration, relatively mild freeze. They do not really plan for real winter conditions. People don't even own heavy jackets. You can argue that they ought to be prepared, but it's a rare enough event that they simply don't.

Personally, I prefer to live a little further north where you have to prepare and so it's not a widespread issue. This in between where you can get away without doing diligence on this issue just sets you up to get bit periodically. Especially when there's a 100 year event, which by all accounts this appears to be. I've not seen anything like this in the 30 years I've been paying attention to Texas. It's a shock for them, unlike many of them have ever seen. Possibly unlike any of them have ever seen.

From what I understand, Texas consciously avoided spending a lot of money on cold weather readiness for its utilities on the theory that it wasn't money well-spent because of how rarely it would be an issue. This is certainly a legitimate point of view, but blaming renewables when a deep freeze happens is, of course, just a load of BS.

 

[McLaren]

@Keef pretty much nailed it to a T. We weren't prepared and our leadership should've been just up front and honest by saying, "Look, we didn't plan for this because we didn't think it was worth the cost of doing so. How many times would we have ever expected this? It has happened now, and we will make changes". Most of us would have understood.

I can't sit and read moronic posts, whether it's other residents or Abbott's bold lies elsewhere blaming the entire thing on renewable energy being the issue because they failed in this weather, therefore, "wind turbines be bad yo" when other states & countries can make their wind turbines perform just fine. The issue is not the choice of infrastructure that has failed us, it is the lack of maintenance & preparedness of it & that falls on the state, esp. when residents love touting that we have our own grid (something a lot of us didn't even know til' this event). It is well understood by now Texas' leadership can not take responsibility at all for its own mistakes.

Edit* Dammit, just as I make this post, I see someone pitch a Top 3 dumbest comment on this topic so far on other parts of the web. "God put fossil fuels in the ground for us to use".

 

[Jezza819]

@Keef pretty much nailed it to a T. We weren't prepared and our leadership should've been just up front and honest by saying, "Look, we didn't plan for this because we didn't think it was worth the cost of doing so. How many times would we have ever expected this? It has happened now, and we will make changes". Most of us would have understood.

I can't sit and read moronic posts, whether it's other residents or Abbott's bold lies elsewhere blaming the entire thing on renewable energy being the issue because they failed in this weather, therefore, "wind turbines be bad yo" when other states & countries can make their wind turbines perform just fine. The issue is not the choice of infrastructure that has failed us, it is the lack of maintenance & preparedness of it & that falls on the state, esp. when residents love touting that we have our own grid (something a lot of us didn't even know til' this event). It is well understood by now Texas' leadership can not take responsibility at all for its own mistakes.

Edit* Dammit, just as I make this post, I see someone pitch a Top 3 dumbest comment on this topic so far on other parts of the web. "God put fossil fuels in the ground for us to use".

Does that mean he's going to keep replenishing them so they can be used over and over again for all of time?

 

[UKMikey]

Does that mean he's going to keep replenishing them so they can be used over and over again for all of time

Tree'd (no pun intended). Somebody should really pose this question to that tomfool.

 

[Keef]

I tell this story a lot, but I'll tell it again. In the winter in southern california, when the temperature would drop in to the 40s, my furnace would start running constantly. That's because the house simply lacked almost any kind of insulation at all. I could achieve mid to high 60s inside, but nothing in the 70s when the temperature was in the 40s outside.

This is fine. You could turn the furnace on and survive because the power source were still working. It doesn't really matter that houses aren't insulated.

But the power generation stations? The functional basis for modern society? How the hell are they not weatherproofed? This just smacks to me of Japan building a nuke station on a beach where they "calculated" the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis. Calculate my ass, the power plants have to work, the water treatment facility has to work, there's just no excuse for core utilities to not be weatherproofed. Saving some money so housing is cheaper does not apply in that scenario, no matter if this happens once a decade or less. The reason water pipes are freezing is because the pumps stopped pumping and the heaters stopped heating and the reason that happened is because some genius Texas engineer couldn't figure out how to keep fuel burning when it's cold out. Coal burns, fission fizzles, that's what they do, it can't be that hard.

The cost of weatherproofing these facilities would've been considerably lower than the cost of this one single disaster. Damn it humans are stupid - history tells us that preparation is always cheaper than that once-in-a-lifetime disaster.

Does that mean he's going to keep replenishing them so they can be used over and over again for all of time?

Don't make them think too hard lol. Just ask them this: Texas pumps fire liquid out of the ground right? So why isn't it burning? What about those fire rocks you dig out of the ground, why did they stop burning? Or the fire sticks at the nuke plant, you literally can't turn those off so what the hell is going on here?

Edit: @Danoff that post mentions that the power stations weren't weatherproofed but I maintain that these are the most important structures in all society, even beyond government, so there is absolutely no excuse for them to ever not be weathproofed and frankly everythingproofed. We're protecting nuke stations from terrorism but the Canadian boogeyman swoops down and ruins everything? It would be hilarious if people weren't dying. Does Texas have a hockey team? They should be banned from the league.

 

[McLaren]

Tree'd (no pun intended). Somebody should really pose this question to that tomfool.

I don't dare engage in politics in mainstream social media posts, I just click, "Hide This Post" and move on. It's not just the fact that it's hard to have a laid out discussion that isn't a giant wall of text crammed in a box, but people bring in such awful arguments from obviously questionable sources or quick to just vilify you as fast as possible.

I can get a better political discussion out of Reddit.

 

[Touring Mars]

I know y'alls view of him but Rush Limbaugh has passed away. **** cancer.

Rush Limbaugh was a cancer - so I guess I agree with your last comment.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

@Keef pretty much nailed it to a T. We weren't prepared and our leadership should've been just up front and honest by saying, "Look, we didn't plan for this because we didn't think it was worth the cost of doing so. How many times would we have ever expected this? It has happened now, and we will make changes". Most of us would have understood.

I can't sit and read moronic posts, whether it's other residents or Abbott's bold lies elsewhere blaming the entire thing on renewable energy being the issue because they failed in this weather, therefore, "wind turbines be bad yo" when other states & countries can make their wind turbines perform just fine. The issue is not the choice of infrastructure that has failed us, it is the lack of maintenance & preparedness of it & that falls on the state, esp. when residents love touting that we have our own grid (something a lot of us didn't even know til' this event). It is well understood by now Texas' leadership can not take responsibility at all for its own mistakes.

Edit* Dammit, just as I make this post, I see someone pitch a Top 3 dumbest comment on this topic so far on other parts of the web. "God put fossil fuels in the ground for us to use".

Aren't those wind turbine blades produced in Texas? I remember seeing them all the time going up I45. I seem to remember a decent amount of solar manufacturing and installation business in Texas too. Funny how Texas is all business friendly unless it's one of those "gay/liberal industries". Natural gas is way more manly.