Message Forum

All,

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is I have dashed many of your hopes that I would pass from Covid-19.

The good news is I got the Pfizer vaccine today. I finally realized I had some pull at U.T. Southwestern after bribing a registered nurse there for the past 27 years.

02/10/21 02:12 AM

#20292

Ron,

Please have someone notify us when you are arrested. We will take up a collection for you if we can figure out how to do so anonymously so that we are not outed when they check your computer. By we, I mean all the individuals who support whatever it is you are incarcerated for, which might not necessarily mean me. If you are protesting to protect your First Amendment rights to free speech, forgettaboutit. That has already been repealed.

02/11/21 06:35 PM

#20293

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/politics/brian-sicknick-charges/index.html

I am generally avoiding the news since it only makes me angry or sad. However, there is something about the Capitol riot that is particularly concerning with regard to news reporting -- the deaths.

The early reports that officer Brian Sicknick died from being beaten with fire extinguisher are apparently false. According to CNN, there is no video evidence of his being hit by a fire extinguisher, and the autopsy indicated that there was no blunt force trauma. Apparently, he had other health issues.

The other four deaths were Trump supporters. One was trampled to death by the crowd -- not good. One died of a heart attack. One died of a stroke. It is not clear whether these three even got inside of the Capitol. The fourth died from a bullet from a police officer.

This is not intended to diminish the foolishness of storming the Capitol. It had the same benefit for Trump supporters that John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln had for the South.

But reporting that "five people died (or worse, were killed) including a police officer who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher" is false and gives the impression that the Trump supporters killed all five people. It seems that only one was killed by Trump supporters, a Trump supporter herself, and that was obviously unintentional.

02/12/21 08:34 AM

#20294

David,

The latest news on the insurrection at the Nation's Capitol resulted in the following injuries to Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers: From The New York Times - Dated February 11, 2021 Note: The chemical irritant referred to below and in this link is bear spray.

Quotes from the article in the Times follow:

"One officer lost the tip of his right index finger. Others were smashed in the head with baseball bats, flag poles and pipes. Another lost consciousness after rioters used a metal barrier to push her into stairs as they tried to reach the Capitol steps during the assault on Jan. 6.

The Capitol assault resulted in one of the worst days of injuries for law enforcement in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At least 138 officers — 73 from the Capitol Police and 65 from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington — were injured, the departments have said. They ranged from bruises and lacerations to more serious damage such as concussions, rib fractures, burns and even a mild heart attack.

One Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, was killed, and investigators are increasingly focused on whether chemical irritants were a factor in his death, according to a senior law enforcement official. The Capitol Police said in a statement that Officer Sicknick died from injuries sustained “while physically engaging with protesters.” Two officers involved in the response have died by suicide, the local police have said.

The number of those injured does not account for the dozens, if not hundreds, of officers whom law enforcement officials estimate will suffer in years to come with post-traumatic stress disorder and the dozens who most likely contracted the coronavirus from unmasked Trump supporters who overran the Capitol, the experts and officials said.

At least 38 Capitol Police officers have tested positive for the coronavirus or were exposed to it, Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and a House impeachment manager, said on Thursday. Nearly 200 National Guard personnel who were deployed to protect the Capitol in the weeks after the siege also tested positive, he said.

“If you’re a cop and get into a fight, it may last five minutes, but these guys were in battle for four to five hours,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit that advises departments across the country on management and tactics.

“You would be hard-pressed to find another day in history like this,” he said, “when the police encountered this level of violence in one event.”

The horror of the siege — which officers have described as “medieval” because of brute hand-to-hand combat and the use of blunt objects as weapons — received renewed attention this week at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial.

Yes, there were some rioters killed and injured. However, it is my belief that the damage done to the integrity of our election system and democracy will reverberate for a generation, if not longer.

02/12/21 01:32 PM

#20295

Sandra,

Your argument is "incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial." In addition you use unidentified, anonymous and inacurate sources.

02/12/21 02:29 PM

#20296

Sandra,

A few thoughts.

No one, NO ONE, is saying that the riot was anything but horrific.

The Times previously reported that Sicknick died from being beaten with a fire extinguisher. Now they say investigators are "focused" on chemical irritants, like bear spray. First, focused? It's been a month. There was an autopsy. He's been cremated. Second, I don't want any part of bear spray, but it is worth noticing that it is regulated by the EPA, unlike pepper spray, to have a smaller concentration of irritant than pepper spray.

It is sad that two officers committed suicide, but they must have had other problems. PTSD? That's a big assumption. I suspect that anyone who saw the woman Trump supporter get shot to death by the police is more likely to have PTSD. Why has there been no concern about PTSD for any of the police and business and property owners from the rioting since George Floyd's death. I suspect that the vast majority of police officers are tough enough to survive mentally from a riot that didn't include being shot at.

Spread of COVID? That's a leap, too.

Were you aware that Trump, through the Pentagon, authorized National Guardsmen three days prior to the riots, but the Capitol police turned him down? This is from Salon, hardly a Trump supporter.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters that Trump signed off on National Guard support days earlier and any contact between Pence and Miller was more a courtesy to keep the White House apprised of the situation.

Pentagon officials blamed the Capitol Police, which rejected its offers of support. The Associated Press and other outlets also reported that Capitol Police officials turned down an offer to send National Guard troops ahead of Wednesday's violence and later rebuffed an offer from the Justice Department to send FBI agents after the Capitol was overrun.

If Trump wanted to incite a riot, would he have tried to crete a line of defense??

Here's a headline from CBS Chicago from last June 1: "CPD Reports Nearly 700 Arrests, 132 Officers Injured Amid Sunday’s Violent Riots." Are any Trump haters concerned about those officers? How about the five that were killed and nine more injured by a shooter in Dallas a few years ago.

I doubt that there will be any long-lasting national trauma over the riots. How many of us remember the event with the Puerto Rican nationlists that Steve mentioned?

02/12/21 03:28 PM

#20297

Ok, ok, ok. Trump is not evil, he is completely and utterly innocent. The rioters were bad, but not as bad as real bad. It was bad, but not history making, changing bad. You convinced me. The police were at fault for not insisting on getting help days before. It will never happen again. No other Presiden past or present would be stupid enough to not concede an election, call the election a fraud, nor incite their followers to storm the capitol with congress in session to certify the electoral college and proceed with a peaceful transfer of power. We are totally protected and all is good. I am about as happy as you can get and I plan on getting a good night's sleep tonight knowing our Republic is in good hands and all is well.

02/12/21 05:31 PM

#20298

Wayne Gary

I saw the video showing the 20 times Trump used "fight" in his speech and never did he say to use vilance. I aslo saw a video shown in the trial where a number of Democrats telling their supporters to fight and even to fight in the streets.

The House Managers have stated the Impeachment and Trial is not about criminal activity. It is about elected officials conduct. My take is they want to control the conduct of the oposing political view. the 1st Amendment does not appliy to their oposition. We know they do not believe due process is applicaple. They want Trump not to have any elected office. This sets up the method to silence anyone they want and to prevent from running for office.

02/12/21 10:56 PM

#20299

Sandra, I'm glad you agree!!!

02/13/21 08:13 AM

#20300

Sigh. I am thrilled I made you happy.

02/13/21 09:05 AM

#20301

Lowell Tuttle

Sarcasm cubed.

02/13/21 12:00 PM

#20302

Spoke with Don Chester and wife Diane this morning. He seems to be doing well except for surgical pain. For the two different surgeries they had to make incisions on the front, back and side, so it is hard to find a comfortable position. Apparently the doctors was happy with both surgeries, although he's not the one with the new hardware in his spinal column.

I knew from my cervical fusion surgery 17 years ago that they go through the front/anterior for that procedure. It seems really weird that they would go through the front for lumbar surgery. There's a lot of stuff to push aside! In my case, increasingly more stuff!)

Anyway, they required that Don be able to walk unassisted, including no walker or cane, before he was released yesterday. So, fingers crossed, all sounds good so far.

02/14/21 10:55 PM

#20303

Ron,

I was pleased that Trump was not convicted. I was very much in favor of most of his policies, and I very much oppose the policies of Biden.

I also think the first impeachment was a travesty, and that the media have been hideously unfair to Trump and have given Biden a gigantic pass because they hate Trump so much. Sam for the tech world, of course.

That said, Trump behaved badly in the 2016 primaries and all the way through his presidency. Bien didn't beat Trump. He beat himself. As I have said here before, Bad Trump beat Good Trump. He create enemies for no reason whatsoever, and that included the media, who have no qualms about putting their collective thumb on the scale. He fancies himself a counterpuncher, but often the best defense is to ignore the attack.

His behavior after the election was terrible. I feel certain that he was cheated out of a lot of votes, and the changes in voting requirements in a couple states seem to have been inappropriate. Also, the changes that allowed so much voting by mail were clearly intended to help Biden. But Trump's incessant whining was over the top, and I am convinced that Republicans would have won both Georgia Senate seats if he had had an ounce of graciousness in his body. He let us down. He insulted half the Republicans who ended up acquitting him, and he made the rest of us pariahs in this ridiculous blacklisting cancel culture.

It's a shame because Trump made some great policy decisions, but his behavior, along with the pandemic, gave an opening for the Democrats. As they have said, never let a good crisis go to waste.

02/14/21 11:30 PM

#20304

Holly.

Happy Birthday! Hope the hubby gives you all the warmth you wish for this day.

02/15/21 01:18 AM

#20305

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

David,

That was a great post. I agree completely.

Too bad Trump couldn't have had another four years to achieve more worthwhile accomplishments, as he was on a path to further help our country attain what our Founders intended.

It's also too bad that Trump was so inept at speaking and knowing when to keep his mouth shut.

He was a fearless street fighter and incorporated the mentality of one. The Republicans admired his audacity to fight with determination, and with the purpose of winning victories for America citizens, but he was not sophisticated enough to know how to handle the elitists who despised him with his fighting spirit, and hated immensely that he upset the apple cart of Washington DC, which hit them in their selfish, greedy pockets.

02/15/21 01:41 PM

#20306

Kurt Fischer

I thought this was funny. Yes, overtly political, but still appealing to my elementary school level of humor.

02/16/21 02:06 AM

#20307

Kurt,

Donald Trump is the most acquitted President in U.S. history. That makes him double innocent, too.

02/16/21 08:10 AM

#20308

David , Janalu and Hull,

If any classmates experienced power outages during the past few days, let me tell you where the blame lies.

Texas energy infrastructure is provided by the Energy Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT which controls energy supply in Texas and Eastern New Mexico. Unfortunately, to satisfy the clamor of many of the green climate change, global warming crowd, ERCOT decided to make almost 25% of it's energy supply be renewable energy, the most unreliable energy there is.

Here is a picture of one of the many windturbines in Texas and New Mexico supplying power to the grid. The windturbines are all frozen up due to the temperature and the freezing rain and it will not lubricate the turbines properly or they require deicing like airplane wings to spin correctly. We do not even need to bring up the raptors that are killed when the temperatures are up, the disposal required of the plastic composite blades or the blight on the beauty of our landscapes.

If you think solar energy was not affected by the freezing rain and temperatures here is what the solar farms installed in Texas and Eastern New Mexico look like. The blight on the land and the complete loss of habitat for wildlife in the solar farms is also an issue here.

Meanwhile the Democrat party has halted all fossil fuel pipeline construction and banned coal to remove our only other backup. Their environmental group has not allowed a new nuclear powered facility in over 25 years. Now they want to double down on this fool's policy by requiring complete elimination of fossil fuels in 12 years.

02/16/21 11:51 AM

#20309

Steve,

Go ahead and blame the tree huggers, but here are some facts.

This is from the Washington Examiner: The failure is not from the wind turbines, but from Natural Gas, Nuclear and Coal Plants. The equipment there froze, it needed upgrading in 2011 per recommendations from a committee. These recomendations were ignored. Excerpt from the Washington Examiner article:

Energy experts say the problems in Texas go beyond reliance on renewable energy sources.

Wind turbines in the state froze due to the cold temperatures, taking those offline, but even more natural gas, coal, and nuclear power were unavailable. Wade Schauer, research director of Americas power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie, told Bloomberg he estimated around 27 GW of coal, nuclear, and gas weren’t available over the weekend, especially as the cold temperatures drove demand up for natural gas heating.

Energy analysts also noted that ERCOT doesn’t plan to rely much on wind power during the winter. Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor who is a macro-scale energy systems engineer, said ERCOT generally relies on wind for less than 10% of its total winter capacity, with the bulk being natural gas and coal.

“No matter how wind performs this week — important for future planning! — it is the big failure of the thermal plants, mostly gas units, that is causing such widespread outages now,” he said in a tweet Monday.

We have a bunch of conservative idiots running the show. They have for years in Texas. The insanity is we keep electing the same bunch every year expecting a different result.

02/16/21 11:56 AM

#20310

Sandra,

If you believe that explanation, I have a gas bridge I would like to sell you. It works in conjunction with a steel bridge, but allows the gas to pass over, too.

Do I need to send you a picture of an idled or closed coal mine in Wyoming? Do I need to send you a picture of a partially completed natural gas pipeline where the work has been suspended, because drilling will not continue on the BLM federal lands that it was going to service?

02/16/21 01:06 PM

#20311

the Texas Comptroller's office web site:

Steve, If you won't believe me, perhaps you will believe.....

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Texas both produces and consumes more electricity than any other state. Texas’ abundant natural resources, including natural gas, coal and wind, are readily available to fuel our power plants.

So far, our electricity resources have kept stride through broiling summers and destructive hurricanes, but Texas power producers will be challenged to sustain this growth in the years to come — while accommodating social and technological changes that transform the way we produce and consume energy.

.......and

Generation, Demand and Capacity

Early power plants produced electricity primarily from coal, steam or hydroelectric energy. Today, Texas still generates electricity from some of these traditional sources but increasingly relies on natural gas as well as renewable resources, primarily wind.

According to ERCOT, nearly half of Texas’ electricity was generated by natural gas-fired power plants in 2019. Coal-fired plants and wind power each generated about 20 percent, while the state’s two nuclear power plants — the South Texas Project near Bay City and Comanche Peak near Glen Rose — supplied a total of 11 percent. Solar, hydroelectric and biomass resources provided most of the remainder (Exhibit 2).

Texas’ fuel mix has changed considerably in the past decade. In 2009, coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about 6 percent. Since then, three Texas coal-fired plants have closed and the use of wind power has more than quadrupled, as more transmission lines bringing electricity from remote wind farms to urban market centers came online.

In the same period, our energy consumption rose by 20 percent. According to ERCOT, much of this growth can be attributed to new industrial facilities along the coast near Houston, as well as oil and gas activities in the Permian Basin. ERCOT’s most recent forecasts indicate that Texas’ electricity demands will continue to rise, although the pandemic and recession may alter consumption.

02/16/21 01:06 PM

#20312

Kurt Fischer

Sandra:

I think it will be interesting to understand all the reasons why our electrical generation system failed to be able to provide the power we needed during this weather event.

I'm not really sure it's because it is run by a bunch of conservative idiots.

I believe there are a number of factors that created a perfect storm.

First, we have become very reliant on wind power. While we average about 25% of our power generation from wind power, I understand that the week prior to this event resulted in 40% of our power coming from wind.

Second, when we generate more power from wind, we have to take other power plants offline to balance out the amount of power being generated.

Third, once a fossil fuel plant is taken offline, it takes time to restart it. My understanding is this can be a multi-day event.

The result is we had a lot of our fossil fuel capacity offline because we were reaping the benefits of wind power generation. However, when the wind turbines froze, we had not restarted our fossil fuel plants. It will be interesting to see why this occurred. Perhaps it was because of the unanticipated severity of the storm or the suddenedness of the storm. Or perhaps it was because the whole energy economy is run by a bunch of conservative idiots.

02/16/21 01:15 PM

#20313