Rush Limbaugh, RIP

February 17th, 2021

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has died of cancer at age 70.

Rush Limbaugh died Wednesday after a year-long battle with cancer.

Limbaugh’s death at age 70 was announced Wednesday on his influential conservative radio program, by his wife, Kathryn.

Limbaugh announced last February that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.

Although the cancer was expected to quickly kill Limbaugh, he received treatment and continued to host his radio program over the year.

Shortly after his diagnosis, then-President Donald Trump surprised Limbaugh at last year’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Then-first lady Melania Trump put the medal around Limbaugh’s neck.

“The Rush Limbaugh Show” premiered in 1988, airing for 33 years.

Limbaugh’s program went on the air at a time when conservative media outlets were few and far between. Liberal opinion dominated all the broadcast networks, Time, Newsweek, NPR and most newspapers. He was a breath of fresh air, and became notably more conservative after Desert Storm. Straight from the git-go, liberals hated him for daring to bust up their media monopoly, and liberal Twitter is reacting to his death with exactly the sort of grace and tact you’d expect.

(With a side helping of wishing Henry Kissinger dead as well.)

Limbaugh always opened his show with the quote “…with talent on loan from God,” and now he gets to give it back.

A few tributes:

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Posted in Media Watch, Republicans | 2 Comments »

Interview with TPPF’s Katie Tahuahua On The Texas Winter Storm Energy Crisis

February 17th, 2021

I reached out to the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s energy expert Katie Tahuahua about the dire energy problems brought about by the huge winter storm, here are her answers:

1. The Texas Interconnect Grid is a separate grid from the U.S. Eastern and Western Interconnect grids. What advantages and disadvantages does this provide for Texas energy consumers?

KT: The advantage of Texas having its own electric grid is that our communities aren’t affected by poor policy choices in other states we have no control or accountability over. However, it also means we must bear the full costs of our choices and feel the full brunt of crises like the blackouts across the state this week.

2. What role does ERCOT serve in managing the Texas Interconnect grid?

KT: The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the Texas Interconnection Grid — although, unfortunately, the “Reliability” in its name has now been called into question.

3. The current wave of extreme cold was forecast in advance. Why were so many electricity-producing entities caught off-guard?

KT: There are two problems here. The first is that ERCOT waited too long to initiate conservation measures to meet increased demand as the weather turned colder. However, this delay wouldn’t have been a problem at all had Texas not put so many eggs in the renewable basket. Instead of adding more reliable fossil fuel generation to the grid over the last few years to keep up with our growing population and electricity demand, we’ve closed over 3,000MW in natural gas and clean coal and instead added 20,000MW of unreliable wind and solar to the grid. Unfortunately, all that wind and solar was barely generating when Texans needed it most. By Monday morning, half of Texas’ wind turbines were frozen solid and total wind generation bottomed out at 2% capacity by Monday night. Because of this massive gap in wind production and ERCOT’s delay, what should have been a series of brief rolling blackouts — inconvenient but manageable — instead turned into millions of Texans left in the cold and without answers.

4. What, if any, role has ERCOT’s demand pricing policies played in helping create the current crisis?

KT: ERCOT does not currently have demand pricing policies. While voluntary demand pricing programs could help prevent situations like this, any regulatory solution should place the cost of ensuring reliable electricity on the generators where it belongs, not on the customers.

5. A great number of Austin households are without power right now. Has Austin energy performed notably worse than other government power entities, and what policies have contributed to making the situation worse?

KT: Anecdotally, we know that there are communities in several areas of the state still without power. It does not appear that the blackouts are worse in Austin than anywhere else. However, Austin’s boisterous promotion of unreliable renewable energy — and their expensive failed efforts to use it — have reduced reliability for their customers and for the broader Texas grid. Unfortunately, San Antonio and CPS Energy are going down the same path that will put their ratepayers on the hook for $1 billion and further jeopardize the security of our grid.

6. How much, if any, has the push for “renewable” energy courses like wind and solar contributed to the current energy difficulties in Texas?

KT: It’s clear that policy decisions favoring unreliable wind and solar energy made blackouts such as this inevitable at some point. The severity of this blackout could have been reduced had ERCOT acted more swiftly — but it never would have been an issue had our grid not been so deeply penetrated by unreliable energy sources that contribute the least when they are needed the most, yet are propped up by billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies every year.

The Texas Legislature should end these subsidies and require all electric generators to guarantee a certain amount of “dispatchable,” or readily available, power to the grid at all times. The Texas Public Policy Foundation and our Life:Powered initiative will be working closely with the legislature to preserve Texans’ access to affordable, reliable electricity no matter the weather.

Thanks to Katie Tahuahua for taking the time to answer these questions.

Today is the first time in almost a week that the temperature is going to get above freezing…

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Posted in Austin, Regulation, Texas | 3 Comments »

TPPF’s Chuck DeVore on Reasons Behind The Texas Blackouts

February 16th, 2021

Some brief background on why so many Texas households suddenly seem to be without power:

Expect more on this subject in the near future.

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Posted in Austin, Regulation, Texas | 9 Comments »

Minneapolis Refunds The Police

February 16th, 2021

Remember when antifa and #BlackLivesMatter looted or burned more than 700 buildings in Minneapolis? And how the hard-left City Council’s first instinct was to call for defunding the police?

Well, reality has a way of intruding, and now Minneapolis is going to spend $6.4M recruiting more officers following a sharp rise in crime and some 200 cops quitting after the riots and $8 million in budget cuts.

Minneapolis is planning to spend $6.4million to hire dozens of police officers, at a time when some City Council members and activist groups have been advocating to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd.

The City Council voted unanimously Friday to approve the additional funding that police requested.

According to the Minneapolis Police Department, there are only 638 officers available to work, which is roughly 200 fewer than usual.

An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd’s death and the unrest that followed, which included the burning of a police precinct.

Funny how that works.

With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, according to the Star Tribune.

Now if only Austin’s foolish City Council would also reverse course on their asinine decision to cut the police budget…

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Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 5 Comments »

It’s a Freaking Winter Wonderland in Austin This Morning

February 15th, 2021

7°F and a good four inches of snow on the ground (which probably feels like a foot to us).

There’s an official disaster declaration and the city has pretty much shut down:

The University of Texas at Austin is closed through 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Austin Energy is performing rolling blackouts to conserve power. The electricity provider, which has more than 500,000 customers, instituted the measure as a “last resort to preserve the reliability of the electric system as a whole,” the city said in a statement. The outages typically last 10 to 40 minutes but were lasting longer than expected as of early morning Dec. 15, Austin Energy tweeted. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has asked utilities around the state to use rotating outages to lessen the strain on the state’s power grid.

Many flights are canceled. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport officials urged travelers to confirm their flight status if flying in the next 48 hours. The airport also announced that Security Checkpoint 1 is closed and all passengers will be screened through Security Checkpoint 2. According to FlightAware, 138 flights into or out of ABIA had been canceled as of 8 a.m. Feb. 15. In addition, many roads around the airport have been closed because of ice.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the Texas Interconnect Grid, reports that the grid is near capacity and rolling blackouts may last some time. My power hasn’t gone out here since it was restored Friday morning.

You don’t even need to tell Austin drivers to stay out of this stuff. If you look at the traffic cams, the roads are empty.

Yesterday HEB reported that it was running out of items and closing early, and even if it’s open today, it’s on a reduced schedule. The local HEB phone number just rings, so I wouldn’t count on any of them being open.

I imagine that almost all restaurants are closed (here’s an outdated list). No answer at the Jim’s and Denny’s locations I called. I even tried calling all three local Waffle Houses to see if any were open, and all three calls went to voicemail.

Truly the end times are upon us.

I’ll give you more first hand info when I walk the dogs later.

Stay warm…

Update: There are reportedly almost 2 million people without power across Texas this morning.

Update 2: A whole lot of power outages all across Austin. This isn’t an outage map, it’s a bad Picasso painting:

Update 3: Firefighters close East Parmer at Dessau due to too many stuck vehicles. (Hat tip: johnnyk20001.)

Update 4: No Capital metro today.

Update 5: It’s not just Austin. Houston-area households are suffering from a huge number of power outages.

Update 6: A commenter asked about Dallas, so here’s Oncor’s outage map. But it’s even less useful than the Houston or Austin maps…

Update 7: 4.4 million without power?

Update 8: Pflugerville is under a boil water notice:

Update 9: Lists of which Austin restaurants are open or closed.

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Posted in Austin, Texas | 3 Comments »

Tank News Roundup for February 14, 2021

February 14th, 2021

A few bits of tank-related news have been caught in the hopper, so let’s do a quick roundup:

  • The M1A2 Abrams gets a new tank round:

    The US Army’s main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, is about to receive a new multipurpose super tank round that can breach concrete walls, pulverize obstacles, and destroy bunkers, according to Forbes.

    The Advanced Multi-Purpose, or AMP, is specially designed for the M1 Abrams to replace the rapidly aging inventory of tank munitions.

    The new round is long overdue as tank crews on the modern battlefields in the Middle East have been confronted by new evolving threats.

    Unlike the M829 depleted uranium round, which can punch through almost anything – it tends to have difficulties blowing up vehicles or houses, as it just zips right through those types of targets. The new AMP can destroy everything the M829 cannot.

    Well, duh. The M829 is an APFSDS round, a kinetic kill anti-tank munition that does its damage via spawling and hydrodynamic shock effects. It’s not designed to breach buildings. For that you’d probably fire a M830A1 HEAT round. But that too is designed for maximum effect vs. armor rather than concrete.

    “The AMP adds an important new capability. The existing canister round is only for short-range use with a maximum reach of about 500 meters. This makes it useless for dealing with one of the biggest threats to tanks, infantry equipped with anti-tank guided missiles like the Russian-made AT-14 Kornet, used in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. When used in airburst mode, the AMP can target groups of personnel at ranges of up to 2,000 meters: even if it does not disable a missile team, the round is likely to distract them enough so that they are not able to keep a missile on course.”

    Another important new capability is breaching walls. Currently, making a breach an infantry assault requires engineers to get next to the wall and emplace explosives. Three rounds of AMP will create a thirty-by-fifty-inch hole clean through a double-thickness reinforced concrete wall, big enough for troops to advance through. This includes cutting through the steel reinforcement bars, and breaching can be carried out from several hundred meters away,” said Forbes.

    Forbes described the new round has “three different fusing options” for blowing up different targets.

    “With Point Detonation, the round explodes on contact with the target — this mode will make it effective against targets like light armored vehicles. Set to Point Detonation-Delay, the round does not explode immediately on contact – this is the mode used against obstacles and bunkers, as it gives enough time to penetrate deeply into concrete or other material before exploding. In the Airburst mode, the round explodes at a pre-set height above the ground, spraying the area below with tungsten shrapnel – this is the antipersonnel mode,” said Forbes.

    Here’s video of it in action:

  • China has deployed a new light tank:

    On Jan. 30, China North Industries Group Corporation announced on state-owned television that Type 15 (also known as ZTQ-15) lightweight battle tank entered service with the Xinjiang Military Command of the People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF).

    China Central Television (CCTV) said an undisclosed number of Type 15s were delivered to a PLAGF regiment in Xinjiang. CCTV broadcaster said it was “the first lightweight tank to join the military command.”

    The Xinjiang mention is interesting. I’ve long wondered if China’s brutal treatment of the Uighers would provoke an indigenous revolt. Maybe it already has?

    The broadcaster said the Type 15s are outfitted with special oxygen equipment to allow the tanks to operate at high altitudes.

    Janes said no confirmation on how many Type 15s were deployed, but it appears these new tanks will significantly increase PLAGF’s combat capabilities in the region.

    The Type 15 was announced in 2018, but now they’re making it out into the field. It evidently has a 105mm rifled main gun.

  • The U.S. is also testing two light tank prototypes:

    The Army recently started its light tank prototype assessment, according to Jane’s. Part of the vehicle assessment phase will rely on solider input, and tanker crews will be able to put the MPF prototypes through their paces themselves, as well as contribute feedback in order to improve platform characteristics.

    The Army is specific in what it wants the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle to accomplish, specifying that the MPF must be able to “neutralize enemy prepared positions and bunkers and defeat heavy machine guns and armored vehicle threats during offensive operations or when conducting defensive operations against attacking enemies.”

    Though the Army’s light tank project would be a radical departure from steadily increasing main battle tank weight, it would not be the first time Army leadership opted for a smaller, more mobile armored platform. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the United States developed the M551 Sheridan light tank, a dedicated armored reconnaissance/airborne assault vehicle.

    Snip.

    Two companies have submitted prototypes to the Army: BAE Systems, and General Dynamics Land Systems division.

    BAE Systems has the advantage of drawing upon and updating their M8 Armored Gun System, a mid-1990s project that attempted to serve as an air-mobile light tank for American airborne troops. BAE’s bid appears to carry over some features of the M8 project, including a 105mm main gun, possibly with an autoloader, and with more modern armor features that the company claims offers equal protection as their “highly survivable” Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle.

    On the other hand, General Dynamics benefits from extensive tank design and manufacture experience, as the company builds the venerable M1 Abrams main battle tank. Their bid is based on GD’s AJAX armored fighting vehicle and features a modified version of the Abrams turret. This could indicate a desire to retain the Abrams’ larger 120mm main gun, despite housing it on the smaller MPF platform. Lastly, GD claims that their light tank would benefit from a high-performance diesel engine that would afford a high power to weight ratio.

    The return of the light tank is an interesting development, since most nations have opted for infantry fighting vehicles (remember, Bradleys were able to take out T-72s in Desert Storm) or wheeled combat vehicles like the Stryker or Mowag Piranha for similar roles. But if you were looking for a good use case for light tanks, a guerilla war in Xinjiang or the Chinese-Indian border probably fits the bill.

  • Speaking of which, China and India have evidently agreed to pull their troops back from the disputed border region. (Previously.)
  • Speaking of India, the MK-1A Arjun Main Battle Tank just entered service:

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday handed over the indigenously developed Arjun Main Battle Tank (MK-1A) to the Indian Army at a ceremony in Chennai. The army will get 118 units of the Main Battle Tank, indigenously designed, developed and manufactured by CVRDE and DRDO along with 15 academic institutions, eight labs and several MSMEs.

    The Arjun Main Battle Tank project was initiated by DRDO in 1972 with the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) as its lead laboratory. The objective was to create a “state-of-the-art tank with superior fire power, high mobility, and excellent protection”. During the development, the CVRDE achieved breakthroughs in the engine, transmission, hydropneumatic suspension, hull and turret as well as the gun control system. Mass production began in 1996 at the Indian Ordnance Factory’s production facility in Avadi, Tamil Nadu.

    The Arjun tanks stand out for their ‘Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS)’ ammunition and 120-mm calibre rifled gun. It also has a computer-controlled integrated fire control system with stabilised sighting that works in all lighting conditions. The secondary weapons include a co-axial 7.62-mm machine gun for anti-personnel and a 12.7-mm machine gun for anti-aircraft and ground targets.

    The MK-1A is about ten tons heavier than its predecessor, which probably indicates upgraded Kanchan composite armor, the exact thickness of which seems to be classified. It also appears to have some new sloped armor panels (possibly reactive) to the front of the turret:

    Which is probably a good thing, since its predecessor had a really boxy turret:

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | No Comments »

    Zer0

    February 13th, 2021

    The estimated Austin low temperature for Monday, February 15, is now 0°F:

    One good thing about Thursday’s ice storm is that maybe it snapped all the power lines its going to snap, and hopefully everyone will have power for the great temperature plunge. It will definitely be the coldest day I’ve experienced, even colder than two winter weeks I spent in Stavanger, Norway for a job.

    Really, if you live in central Texas stay the hell off the roads Monday if at all possible. Call in sick or use a vacation day. Drip your interior faucets to keep the pipes in your attic from freezing.

    Despite all this, I’ll still have to take the dogs out for a couple of walks, brief though they’ll be. I plan on having 4-5 layers of clothing on my torso. I’m thinking of crafting a makeshift scarf from an old shirt (since I own no scarves). I think the previous record for walking my dog was 17°F. I found it unpleasant, but my dog loved it.

    I know there’s very little that’s quite as exciting as blogging the weather, but it’s really occupying my attention.

    Now some thematic Smashing Pumpkins:

    (Now I’ve wasted entirely too much time trying to figure out who the bassist in that video is. She looks entirely too healthy to be D’arcy Wretzky…)

    Maybe they’ll revise the forecast up to 1°F tomorrow and I can share some U2…

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    Posted in Austin, Texas, video | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for February 12, 2021

    February 12th, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm! Bad weather and bad driving are themes, as the ice storm mentioned yesterday already slammed Texas hard. I was without power for over 10 hours last night and this morning, and every tree is heavy with frost.

    

  • Hit black ice at 95/They said I’m lucky to be alive…

  • Seriously, try to avoid driving on ice if it’s even remotely possible:

  • Bad news for law-abiding Austinites: Police Chief Brian Manley is retiring after 30 years on the force. I’m sure the City Council is eager to replace him with some social justice warrior approved tool. On the other hand, if he wants to run for mayor…
  • How crazy leftwing do you have to be for the French to call you lunatics?

    The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.

    The threat? “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’’ said President Emmanuel Macron.

    French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.

    Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture.

    You can ding France (and French intellectuals) for a lot of sins, but “insufficient appreciation of western civilization and culture” is not one of them.

  • The bloom was off the Andrew Cuomo rose for anyone who had eyes to see last year, but now even the Democratic Media Complex is is being forced to admit what a giant pile of manure he is:

    America’s worst governor probably never thought he would miss America’s most obnoxious president.

    But that is the situation that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo likely finds himself in now that Donald Trump is no longer around to take all the heat for mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, now that the man who commanded nearly every minute of the media’s attention has shuffled off to Florida following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Cuomo is at long last experiencing widespread criticism and scrutiny in the press for his grossly incompetent handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Empire State.

    The New York Times, for example, took the governor to task after he announced that indoor dining in the state can resume as soon as Feb. 14, arguing that the flip-flop makes no sense based on the available data and his past diktats. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said on Friday that New York City could reopen indoor dining on Feb. 14,” the newspaper notes. “But by nearly every measure, the coronavirus outbreak in the city is worse than it was when he announced a ban on indoor dining in December.”

    The New York Times adds, “As the governor spoke on Friday, citing the ‘current trajectory’ of cases as his reasoning for reopening, average per-capita case counts in New York City were 64% higher than when he announced the ban in December.” The paper even published an article titled “N.Y.C.’s Covid Metrics Are Dire. Cuomo Is Reopening Restaurants Anyway,” laying into the governor for his about-face on indoor dining.

    Elsewhere, Cuomo is weathering blistering criticism over news reports that his administration dramatically undercounted the number of deaths connected to his order last year forcing infectious coronavirus patients into long-term care facilities. Criticism so bad, in fact, that the governor actually declined an invitation to appear on CNN, which has done more than any news network to boost his image amid the pandemic.

    The bad press, by the way, appears to be having an adverse effect on the governor, whose increasingly frenetic decrees suggest a man who is spiraling. Recall that Cuomo claimed recently that the effort to vaccinate restaurant workers was a “cheap, insincere discussion.” Now, he has expanded vaccine eligibility in New York to include — you guessed it — restaurant workers. It’s almost as if he has no idea what he is doing.

    Then, there is the sudden bout of unflattering news reports regarding the growing number of high-level resignations by New York health officials, including nine top state executives who have stepped down since last summer. Cuomo is also suffering embarrassing news coverage for his recent statement in response to the reports that his administration undercounted nursing home deaths: “But who cares? … Died in a hospital. Died in a nursing home. They died.” Add to it all the fact that the governor is catching heat for saying that he doesn’t trust health experts, and it seems clear we are witnessing the end of the love affair between the news media and the man who won an Emmy recently for his supposedly savvy COVID-19 management.

    It is good that the news industry as a whole is finally scrutinizing the Cuomo administration for its ineptitude, but where was this critical look last year? It’s not as if Cuomo flipped a switch. He didn’t become an incompetent, callous, flailing bureaucrat overnight. This is who he is. This is how he has behaved for the entirety of the pandemic. Many newsrooms either did not notice or did not care. After all, there was a bad man in the White House.

    The Cuomo who is getting badly beaten up today in the press is the same Cuomo who in April 2020 said glibly of out-of-work, anti-lockdown protesters that if they want to provide for themselves and their families, they should “take a job as an essential worker.”

    This is the same man who targeted the state’s Jewish communities over social distancing violations, all while giving a free pass to the thousands of anti-police demonstrators and other political activists who clogged New York’s streets last year, gathering cheek to cheek in both protest and celebration. At a press conference in October of last year, Cuomo even dredged up a 14-year-old photo showing Jewish mourners gathered to mark the death of Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, claiming falsely that it was proof of those people’s refusal to follow his COVID-19 restrictions.

    This is the same man whose administration flip-flopped constantly on the timeline for when COVID-19-positive front-line workers should return to work.

    This is the same man who, during a press conference in September, attempted to absolve himself of responsibility for his state’s deadly mismanagement of the coronavirus by claiming, “Donald Trump caused the COVID outbreak in New York. That is a fact. It’s a fact that he admitted and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] admitted and [Dr. Anthony Fauci] admitted.” No one “admitted” any such thing.

    Cuomo actually wrote an entire book praising his response to the pandemic. He even hawked a stupid poster boasting of New York’s alleged victory over the outbreak. The poster, which bears more captions than a Herblock cartoon, is careful to highlight infection increases in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Because nothing says responsible, caring leadership quite like cheering case increases in fellow states, which, by the way, likely got the virus from New York.

    Yet, amid all of these missteps, many in the press claimed last year that New York’s governor led one of the best, if not the best, coronavirus responses in the country. The way certain journalists and commentators told it, Cuomo’s wisdom and steady hand safely guided the state through one of the most dangerous and deadly episodes in its history.

  • “Cuomo aide admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out.” I strongly suspect that falsifying data reported to the federal government for federal grant programs is a felony…
  • Speaking of coronavirus, previous timelines had pegged “Patient Zero” as being infected in November of 2019, but new evidence suggests the first cases showed up October 2019. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Let them have their Impeachment 2: Electric Boogaloo. It won’t result in a conviction. It won’t affect Donald Trump’s standing with his supporters or his detractors. But it will delay the Senate from action on Joe Xiden’s initial legislative goals and confirmation of His Fraudulency’s nominees.”
  • More on the same subject:

    Democrats may end up paying a higher political price than they anticipate. The trial won’t only delay Mr. Biden’s program. It will tarnish his image as a “unifier” eager to work across party lines. That identity will be much harder to sustain after Democratic senators vote in lockstep to convict Mr. Trump and push through a mammoth Covid relief bill without any Republican votes.

    I see they misspelled “trillions in pork graft for politically connected cronies” as “Covid relief.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “14 State Attorney Generals Tell Biden They’re Reviewing Legal Options Regarding Keystone XL.”
  • Texas intermediate crude is now up above pre-coronavirus drop levels.
  • The Social Justice Warrior Thunderdome at The New York Times has reached the point where you get fired for using the N-word in the process of talking about the N-word.
  • Related: “New York Times Has Used the N-Word 6,481 Times.”
  • Teen Vogue publisher Conde Nast can’t pay its rent. Oh no! Where else will teenage girls be encouraged to try anal sex?
  • More on the great ammo shortage:

    During a media presentation at Virtual SHOT Show 2021, Winchester said that if they stopped taking orders for .22 LR right now, it would take 2 years to fill all the back-orders. In December, the Vista family of companies, which comprises Federal, CCI, Speer, and Remington, announced they had a $1 billion backlog in orders. In the first 3 months of the COVID-19 lockdown, Winchester experienced a 17-percent surge in orders, which hasn’t tapered off.

  • Superbowl ratings show it was the leas watched since 2006. How is that wokeness working out for you, NFL? (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • How painfully ignorant of literature do you have to be to not recognize the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy from Macbeth? Evidently Andrea Mitchell ignorant…
  • Rancher believes Biden wants to hurt border security to undo President Trump’s legacy. True, but incomplete. The entire Democratic Party sees every illegal alien as a potential Democrat voter.
  • Heh:

  • Most shocking update:

    Got to admit, 140 MPH is hauling ass. One problem with Most Shocking is that they would intone “…with speeds hitting 90 miles and hour!” and I wanted to ask “Dude, have you never driven on a Texas highway before? That’s pretty much the prevailing speed…”

  • Bruce Springsteen arrested for DWI. I’m pretty sure he makes enough to hire an Uber. Or a full-time chauffeur.
    

  • This one was is from up in Milwaukee:

  • Just no:

  • Shipping container homes are not all they’re cracked up to be.
  • “Today’s Youth Simply Don’t Have The Work Ethic To Build The Gulags Needed For Their Communist Ideals.”
  • “Jill Biden Decorates Migrant Cages With Valentine’s Day Message Hearts.”
  • “I’m not a cat.”

  • Dribble:

    • By the way, the current forecast is for it to hit 1°F here on Monday, which would only be 3 degrees above the coldest temperature ever recorded in Austin…

    

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Global Warming, Guns, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video | 4 Comments »

    Se7°en

    February 11th, 2021

    Here’s the seven day forecast:

    Take a look at the temperature on Monday: 7°F. Not 37, not 27, but 7°F. That wouldn’t be the coldest Austin day on record, but it would be the coldest this century and the coldest since it hit 4°F in 1989.

    For those who haven’t been in Austin during a winter storm before, the entire city shuts down. Nobody knows how to drive on snow or ice, nobody has any tire chains, and the roads become a very expensive game bumper cars. Untrimmed, ice-covered tree limbs snap and take out power lines.

    So be forewarned! You probably want to stock up on necessities at the store before the really cold weather hits Sunday and Monday. Wrap any exterior pipes. Get your pets and plants in. Make sure emergency devices like flashlights have good batteries. Consider getting a jump starter for your car, if you don’t already have one (far more convenient than jumper cables; I’ve had good luck with this one).

    And above all:

    Now, with the thinnest of justifications, here’s David Bowie’s “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson.”

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    Posted in Austin, Texas, video | 10 Comments »

    Immodest Proposal: Tax The Homeless

    February 10th, 2021

    Remember how Governor Greg Abbott said he was going to clear homeless camps out from under bridges and highway overpasses in Austin? TxDOT was supposed to enforce that edict for state highway underpasses, but I can tell you that every time I drive under the McNeil/183 underpass, that’s not being done.

    If highway underpasses are indeed state property, then I have an immodest proposal for solving the problem: The state of Texas should pass a law taxing homeless camping under state highway overpasses.

    After all, subsidize something (like the Austin City Council has done for homelessness) and you get more of it. Tax it, and you get less of it.

    Want to pitch a tent under a state overpass? Fine. then you can pay $10 a night for the privilege. That’s still cheaper than renting an apartment, but no longer free, and it helps to offset the considerable expense of cleaning up those homeless camps. But contrast, designated homeless areas like Camp RATT in East Austin would remain free, theoretically providing incentives for the homeless to take up legal residence elsewhere.

    Gov. Abott has once again been warning Austin that if they don’t reinstate the camping ban, he’ll take action:

    All well and good, but we’ve heard this before, and the problem continues to get worse:

    Something certainly needs to be done about the situation. Issuing press releases and throwing more money at the problem to be siphoned into the pockets of leftwing activists isn’t going to solve the problem.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 10 Comments »

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