Grim's Hall

The Roots of California's Energy Problems Go Back Decades

Tex presented a couple of theories she'd come across about California's utility problems that have led to blackouts in much of Northern California. One not so good, and the other started to get at the real issues- but it goes back much further than that. I came across this thread of tweets by Mike Shellenberger, who is an interesting fellow- He's a lauded environmentalist (Time Magazine Hero of the Environment 2008), and now runs "Environmental Progress", an organization that promotes Nuclear power as a major force in clean energy.

"And so @JerryBrownGov @GavinNewsom et al used renewables as public relations cover in order to kill the only technology, nuclear, that can replace fossil fuels, in large measure to protect their own family's oil monopoly, in addition to fear-mongering about nuclear for 40+ years."

There's too much in the thread for me to put it here, but it gets into Jerry Brown's first term, and the relationship of personal and oil interests in killing nuclear power, and promoting unreliable and impotent renewables instead.

He's coming out with a book next year that will go in depth, but the thread should give you a sense of what it's about.

The Great Cattle Raid of Eastern Lakes

Apparently a common and ongoing practice in South Sudan.

In South Sudan, brideprices may be anything from 30 to 300 cows. “For young men, the acquisition of so many cattle through legitimate means is nearly impossible,” write Ms Hudson and Ms Matfess. The alternative is to steal a herd from the tribe next door. In a country awash with arms, such cattle raids are as bloody as they are frequent. “7 killed, 10 others wounded in cattle raid in Eastern Lakes,” reads a typical headline in This Day, a South Sudanese paper. The article describes how “armed youths from neighbouring communities” stole 58 cows, leaving seven people—and 38 cows—shot dead “in tragic crossfire”.

Thousands of South Sudanese are killed in cattle raids every year. “When you have cows, the first thing you must do is get a gun. If you don’t have a gun, people will take your cows,” says Jok, a 30-year-old cattle herder in Wau, a South Sudanese city. He is only carrying a machete, but he says his brothers have guns.

Jok loves cows. “They give you milk, and you can marry with them,” he smiles.

It sounded cooler when Cúchulainn was doing it.

Is It Behind the Guillotine?

Marxist financial advice.

Operation Kayla Mueller

According to the New York Post:

The military operation targeting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named for Kayla Mueller, the humanitarian aid worker the terrorist leader captured and tortured until her death in 2015.

...
Mueller, of Prescott, Ariz., was 25 when she was taken captive by ISIS in August 2013 after crossing the Turkish border into Syria to visit a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo. She was held for 18 months before her death was announced in 2015.

An appropriate name for such an operation.

Ranger Up marks the occasion as well.

Update: USA Today has an interview with Mueller's parents, a sad but satisfying exchange.

Disturbing news regarding the "hero dog" of the al-Baghdadi raid.

Courtesy of the Babylon Bee

Riding Report

Saw another bear today, smaller than the last one. Classic shape and colors, black with a tan muzzle. I'd estimate 225-250 pounds, whereas I think the fellow from the Mexican restaurant was north of 350.

The light and the color of the leaves today was as fine as I've ever seen it. You get a real sense of verticality riding up and down these mountain roads, as you see ridges that you then descend in amongst, or rise back out of again. The weather was warm enough to ride without gloves, though as the afternoon lengthened I added a long-sleeved shirt.

Good day.

Wolf Lake.

Two great theories

We're all wondering how California could have painted itself into such a lurid corner on a lot of subjects, the most recently obvious one being a dramatic failure of the power grid. USA Today helpfully quotes two citizens--one famous and one not--who are floating explanations that surely will catch on. First,

For San Francisco resident and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer, the blame lies at the doorstep of the White House. He says, "We can't solve this within the Golden State. We are in a fight for our lives, and the president isn't doing anything to help us. In fact, he's making things worse."

Mr. Steyer offers no explanation for his theory, which perhaps needs none. Second,

Susan Smith, [a] resident of Shasta County, where 40,000 PG+E customers had their power turned off, has lived through tornadoes and hurricanes but has never dealt with as many outages as she has since moving from Texas [clue alert].... "If PG+E doesn't have faith in themselves that they can't withstand a wind storm, then they need to go out of business," Smith says Sunday while charging her phone at a community resource center set up in her hometown of Anderson.

Well, PG+E is in its second bankruptcy of the last two decades, so we'll see, but the special thing about state-regulated monopolies is that they generally don't go out of business no matter how fantastically they fail. It's kind of why people go for the monopoly gig in the first place. In any case, while PG+E can expect limited sympathy considering whom it's in bed with, it is now and ever has been the truth that when a heavily state-regulated monopoly does a bad job, it might be a good idea to consider the barking-mad regulatory system it lives under. It's freaking California, after all, and when you untether a company from market forces by granting it monopoly status, all you have left for protection is the gummint. That's the state gummint, by the way, the one answerable to California voters, not the Bad Orange Man in Washington.

Major Gabbard Worries the Democratic Establishment

She's only polling around three percent for now, but her attacks on Hillary Clinton -- and her heresy on abortion as well as foreign wars -- seem to have scared the party into backing her primary opponent.

She responded by declaring she wouldn't seek re-election to her House seat at all, but would focus on becoming President. That's shaken them up a bit.

So she's now a right-winger! A Russian Spy!

They're sounding a little bit crazy these days. I wonder if they're aware of the tinge of hysteria that is creeping into their collective voice.

Double-plus un-education

I know this has been going on for a while, but don't we detect a kind of end-stage frantic spiraling climax? If I understand correctly--however unlikely that be in light of my pathetic loyalty to stale intellectual customs that are destroying the world and literally (srsly you guyz) killing otherkin students of all otherilks--this seems to be the plan:

(1) “redesigning assessment ecologies,” and quite a few “dimension-based rubrics."

(2) ???

(3) righteous emancipation and “inclusive excellence.”

So allrighty then.

The Flynn case keeps making me angrier

Flynn's new counsel is tearing the prosecutors up with demands for copies of exculpatory documents. They should be terrified of this woman.

They live for this

Give a dog something to do that he's all in for. You can get amazing photos.

Nakba!

The Durham inquiry into the Russiagate conspiracy turns into a formal criminal investigation -- of the investigators of the Russiagate conspiracy.

My faith in the Department of Justice is not so very great that I have high hopes here, but I certainly long to see justice done in this matter. Good hunting, but be transparent and open with the people, and let the chips fall where they may.

Toto Reference from the DB

Headline: "U.S. General blessed the rains down in AFRICOM."

Ironically, the actual AFRICOM headquarters is in Stuttgart, Germany. They probably have rain there too.

Betting against mistakes

I'm liking this guy Matt Levine, who writes for Bloomberg:

Neumann, the founder of WeWork, will walk away from this corporate bonfire with a billion dollars and a bunch of fancy houses. His great-grandchildren will be prominent philanthropists with their names on museums and universities, the strange origin of their fortunes long forgotten. Neumann did a certain sort of capitalism—one with some cachet at HBS!—as well as anyone has ever done it. It is one thing to build a successful company that creates a lot of value and take some of that value for yourself; Neumann created a company that destroyed value at a blistering pace and nonetheless extracted a billion dollars for himself. He lit $10 billion of SoftBank’s money on fire and then went back to them and demanded a 10% commission. What an absolute legend.

As a friend I spent time with last week at a small reunion used to say, "Hey, when did I fall off the fast track?"

“habitual hatred or a habitual fondness” turns a nation into “a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”

That's not to say that a nation should lead other nations on, then disappoint them, only that it should think carefully about what it commits to. In other words, exhibit a little impulse control.

But what did you MEAN by that?

And they say BoJo is rash:

Which brings me back to Alexander and his knot. For the plan of Boris Johnson is not just the bold one. It is the only answer that can stop the courts, MPs, and others from doing for the rest of our natural lives what they would very happily do. Which is to continue to stand before the 2016 result and insist either that it cannot be acted upon or that it should not be acted upon. The media version of this is to pretend that it is not clear what the British people meant when they voted to leave the EU. Somehow it would have been completely plain if we had asked to remain.