NEW COLUMN: “Systemic, Institutional Rot: From Big Freeze In Texas To Fires In Cali,” is on WND, The Unz Review, and on Townhall.com.
“… our country is suffering a blackout of intelligence”
Excerpt:
Some blame a quasi-free-market in electricity for the collapse of the electrical grid in Texas, during a winter snow storm, mid-February, in which temperatures hovered at 0°F (or -18°C). The same people finger deregulation and isolation from the national and neighboring grids.
Opposing opinion has it that an excessive reliance on renewable energy sources, like wind turbines, was the culprit in a grid collapse that saw 40 percent of the power supply fail within hours of the storm, indirectly causing the death of about 60 Texans.
All agree that the oil-and-gas state enjoys both cheap natural gas and abundant wind power, and that its natural resources could have stood Texas in good stead.
The Lone Star State’s human resources are another matter entirely.
Be they wind turbines or gas pipelines; the electrical grid has to be properly maintained. Texas, however, lacked “leadership.” It transpires that the grid had not been weatherized or winterized in anticipation of a harsh winter—pipelines had not been insulated and wind turbines never deiced.
Leadership is a euphemism for intelligence. Texas in the winter of 2021 will likely be looked upon as a case of systemic stupidity; systemic rot.
Things start to fall apart when the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives.
Likewise has the emergency personnel managing the blackouts for the nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, joined California’s political leadership to deliver third-world quality service to Californians.
When it is reported that, “Among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation”—that is a fancy way of saying:
Affirmative action. …
... READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN: “Systemic, Institutional Rot: From Big Freeze In Texas To Fires In Cali,” is on WND, The Unz Review, and on Townhall.com.
Related post: “East Asian Countries Believe In, OMG, Ability (IQ, Too), Not Equity.”
*Image courtesy here (size matters, wouldn’t you say?)