Free Republic

As record-breaking cold swept across Texas this week, millions of people were left shivering in the dark as the state’s power grid failed to meet the surging demand for electricity, crippled by temperatures in the single digits. So why does the power continue to work in places like Wisconsin, where bitter cold is a way of life? The reason is simple: Generators in the Upper Midwest are designed to work in frigid conditions, unlike those in Texas. “We designed all our infrastructure for these bitter-cold temperatures,” said Paul Wilson, a professor of nuclear engineering at UW-Madison who studies electrical systems.

Yes. We are in a stock market bubble. The only question is, what will be the issue that eventually pops it? We alluded to this answer in Friday’s #MacroView discussing why more “Stimulus Won’t Create Economic Growth.”As discussed in our previous article, if market bubbles are about “psychology,” as represented by investors’ herding behavior, then price and valuations reflect that psychology.In other words, bubbles can exist even at times when valuations and fundamentals might argue otherwise. Let me show you an elementary example of what I mean. The chart below is the long-term valuation of the S&P 500 going back...

Be afraid, be very afraid (oh, and do not push back against any plans to spend trillions by the government)... that appears to be the message from Fauci and his friends in the Biden admin.After months of suggesting that life could start to feel "normal" again this fall - if the vaccine rollout worked as planned - Fauci in an interview with LA Times Today this week gave a new prediction."Hopefully, by the time we start entering 2022, we really will have a degree of normality that will approximate the kind of normality we've been used to," Fauci said.That was...

Carl Hart is a Columbia University professor of psychology and neuroscience. He chairs the psych department and has a fondness for heroin – not only as a subject of scholarly pursuit but also as a substance for personal use. At 54, the married father of three has snorted small amounts of heroin for as many as 10 days in a row and enjoyed it mightily – even if, as he recalls in his new book “Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear” (Penguin Press), he’s experienced mild withdrawal symptoms “12 to 16 hours after the last...

In Biden’s America, almost every American value is dying. The political correctness mobs, the seminars, the pseudo-intellectual race theories—they’re all trickling through and it will take brave whistleblowers to expose this nonsense. An internal whistleblower leaked images of Coca-Cola’s online training modules instructing employees to “try to be less white.” “Confronting Racism: Understanding what it means to be white, challenging what it means to be racist” “Try to be less white” To be less white is to: Be less oppressive Be less arrogant Be less certain Be less defensive Be less arrogant Be more humble Listen Believe Break with apathy...

The Biden administration should not allow the Chinese regime to use climate change as a bargaining chip to extract concessions in other areas, according to China experts. The warning comes as the United States formally rejoined the Paris agreement on Feb. 19. President Joe Biden has described climate change as an “existential threat” and vowed to do more to reduce carbon emissions. But analysts are concerned that this may lead the United States to become cozier with the Chinese regime. While Biden officials have broadly indicated they would continue the Trump administration’s tough-on-China posture, they have also pointed to “cooperative”...

Over the last six weeks, new cases of infection of the coronavirus have dropped an astonishing 77 percent. Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and observes: “If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we’d call it a miracle pill.”Has the number of infections really dropped by 77 percent in 6 weeks?According to the CDC COVID Data Tracker, there were 283,640 new cases on January 2, 2021. As of February 17, there were 69,165 cases. That represents a drop of 75.05 percent in six weeks — for all you fact-checkers out...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has ordered the State of Florida to lower its flags to half-staff to honor Rush Limbaugh’s memory.The Florida governor’s honoring of the great American patriot Rush was met with a flood of outrage by the perpetually aggrieved left..@GovRonDeSantis is lowering Florida's flags to half-staff for Rush Limbaugh. But he had no words for Congressman John Lewis. Priorities. https://t.co/ZdYsCkaorP— Nikki Fried (@nikkifried) February 19, 2021#recallDeSantis Flags lowered for Rush Limbaugh? Florida lawmaker makes request to DeSantis to honor late radio host | WFLA😡😡 https://t.co/6rTtWc426N— Elyse Littenberg (@ElyseLartist) February 19, 2021Lowering the flag to half staff for a...

Questions arise regarding the failure of the Texas power grid as the state continues to recover from a historic winter storm.The Current Texas CrisisNew reports from the Texas Tribune on Friday suggest that the state was “Seconds and minutes” away from a “catastrophic” blackout that could have lasted months if grid operators did not take action to stop a massive drop in energy supply.Unseasonably cold temperatures knocked natural gas and coal plants offline as well as froze wind turbines. As a result, operators had to resort to rolling blackouts to stop the surge in demand from overwhelming its circuits.Several factors...

Copper futures topped $4 a pound on Friday for the first time since 2011, with expectations for a global economic recovery and a rise in renewable energy sources lifting the industrial metal’s demand outlook.Copper demand and prices “should continue to benefit from a recovering global economy and [a] transition to “green” energy sources,” said Brent Cook, an economic geologist and senior adviser for the newsletter Exploration Insights.

There was a time in America where the secretaries literally ran the offices in the business world. It is still mostly true even today but now they are called things like "executive assistants" and "office managers." If you wanted a job interview, you had to go through the secretary. If you wanted to talk to any manager or executive at a given business, you had to go through the secretary. Similarly, the upper management of any company utterly relied on their secretarial staff to carry out virtually all business and inter-office correspondence. Almost all secretaries were women. Almost all managers...

Texas has been at the mercy of an unprecedented winter storm, which has left many of the state’s residents without heat, power and potable water for several days. Several people, some homeless, have died in the freezing temperatures. As Texans withstand widespread power outages and freezing temperatures this week, many are asking the same question: How much am I going to be charged for the electricity I do receive? The complex answer, according to experts in the Texas power industry, depends on whether residential customers signed long-term contracts with their providers or decided to take their chances paying wholesale market...

In the past year, insurrectionists have breached the U.S. Capitol and armed protesters have forced their way into statehouses around the country. But the question of whether guns should be allowed in capitol buildings remains political, and states are going in opposite directions.In Montana, a law signed Thursday allows anyone with a permit to bring a concealed firearm into the Statehouse, reversing a decadeslong ban and fulfilling a longtime hope of Republicans who took control of the governor's mansion and the Legislature this year. GOP-dominated Utah passed a law this month allowing people to carry concealed weapons in its Capitol...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed another renewal of the state’s disaster declaration tied to the coronavirus pandemic, even as state lawmakers hope to curtail some of his broad powers in emergencies. On Friday, Wolf signed a 90-day extension of the disaster emergency, his fourth renewal of the proclamation. He signed the first order on March 6, the day the first COVID-19 cases were reported in Pennsylvania. After infections, hospitalizations and deaths spiked in November and December, the state is seeing fewer new cases and fewer people are requiring treatment in hospitals. Still, the Wolf administration said this week there is...

As Texans struggle through a prolonged cold snap that has left many homes dark and now flooded with burst water pipes, attention turns to the state-managed power grid and the relative merits of fossil fuels versus green energy. On Thursday, Texas Public Policy Foundation Vice President Chuck DeVore said Texas residents have a lot of "digging out" to do, but once that's done, it's time to consider the "resiliency" of power sources, in addition to reliability. “And as far as what to do in the future, I think that we need to assign a value to grid reliability and resiliency,"...

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine no longer needs to be kept at ultra-freezing temperatures and can be safely stored inside normal medical freezers — making distribution easier, the firm said in a report Friday. The makers of the shots, including the German biotechnology firm BioNTech, have discovered the doses can remain at between 5 and -13 degrees Fahrenheit without spoiling — instead of -94 degrees like previously thought, according to the Financial Times.

The GameStop hearing on Capitol Hill was a chance for elective leaders to challenge Wall Street hedge funds on the ethics of taking large short positions on struggling stocks.However, viewers of the highly anticipated hearing were left with plenty of questions and few answers. In fact, the only clear answer from Thursday’s hearing was the majority of politicians on Capitol Hill seem to favor the elites on Wall Street over working class Americans. ...While committee members seemed to completely dismiss the idea that Melvin Capital and other hedge funds conducted an illegal naked short on GameStop, one person who did...

Total Doses Delivered: 78,152,495 Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses: 41,977,401 Number of People Receiving 2 Doses: 17,039,118

Explanation: After a 203 day interplanetary voyage, and seven minutes of terror, Perseverance has landed on Mars. Confirmation of the successful landing at Jezero crater was announced from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 12:55 pm PST on February 18. The car-sized Mars rover's Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera acquired this initial low resolution image shortly after touchdown on mission Sol 0. A protective cover is still on the camera, but the shadow of Perseverance, now the most ambitious rover sent to the Red Planet, is visible cast across the martian surface.

Not long after I posted a reply to another post, that in considering what The Republic of Texas is looking to in reference to Governor Abbott and the winter storms disaster declarations, power grid woes and plans to repair / restructure, the word "nuclear" fairly popped into my mind. I wasn't thinking about it. I was musing as to why my stomach was growling after such a bodacious and filling breakfast. And whether I should take a nap before that. How to build a sleet/snowman with a plastic coffee container and whether if it formerly contained a "robust, bold roast",...