What Is The Cause Of The Recent Power Blackouts In California?

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What Is The Cause Of The Recent Power Blackouts In California?

  • You may have read in the past few days that residents of California have been experiencing rolling power blackouts.

  • This has occurred in the middle of a strong heat wave, meaning that large numbers of people have had their air conditioning, light, refrigeration, and everything else dependent on electricity, go out just when they are most needed.

  • The blackouts have not been the result of technical failures of the grid, but rather have been intentionally imposed by the electricity system operator (known as CAISO — California Independent System Operator) via the various local utilities.

  • So what has caused these blackouts?

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The Latest Round Of Affirmative Action Initiatives Will Be No More Successful Than Prior Rounds

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  • The current indictment issued by the woke left is that America is “systemically racist.”

  • I understand the significance of the term to be that ongoing economic underperformance by African Americans must be attributed to fault of members of other races, even if no actual wrongful racist conduct by any individual or group of people can be identified. Instead, since individual wrongdoing can rarely be found, it follows that the racism must somehow have been built into the “system.” Therefore, we are all called upon to change the “system” by becoming “anti-racists.”

  • So if “anti-racist” affirmative action was the solution to the economic problems of African Americans, why hasn’t it been tried before now? . . .

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Covid-19 Is An Opportunity To Disrupt Education

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  • Despite overwhelming evidence that opening schools for in-person education is both safe and beneficial for children, teachers unions across the U.S. continue to try to hold families hostage in pursuit of political gains.

  • As the unions overplay their hands, there is a great opportunity for market disruption of the dysfunctional union-controlled status quo. . . .

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Chicago, Circling The Drain

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Chicago, Circling The Drain

  • My first blog post on the subject of Chicago was way back in 2012. In that post, I placed Chicago in the special category of American cities that I called the “basket cases” — places with declining populations, astoundingly high rates of violent crime, in every case mostly black on black, and, of course, uninterrupted rule by leftist Democrats for generations.

  • The violent crime rate also clearly qualifies Chicago for the label of basket case. Murders hit a peak of 756 in 2016 (about 28 per hundred thousand people, compared to a rate for the U.S. as a whole of about 5 per 100,000). After a few years of modest declines, murders are on track to equal or top the 756 this year, with 440 through July. In fact, July 2020 just set a new record for most murders in a month, with 105.

  • Of course, Chicago has been ruled entirely by Democrats for generations. Its last Republican mayor left office in 1931. Of 50 alderman in the city, 46 are Democrats and the other 4 are Independents. In the 2016 election, the city of Chicago voted for Clinton over Trump by 84% to 13%.

Which brings us up to the last couple of days. . . .

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Appropriate Emotions In A Time Of Pandemic And Riots

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  • The year 2020 to date has certainly brought more than its share of bad news. First was the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to government ordered lockdowns, steep forced business contraction, and 20 or so million people suddenly unemployed. Then, just as things started to reopen a little, we had the death of George Floyd on May 25, followed by widespread violent “demonstrations” (aka riots) that continue even today, more than two months later, in cities like Portland, Oregon; Seattle; Chicago; San Francisco; Denver; and several others.

  • So how should a respectable member of society be feeling about these things?

  • This is another one of those many issues on which Americans divide sharply into two camps. . . .

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A Visit To The Local Bookstore

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A Visit To The Local Bookstore

Up here a few dozen leagues north of New York City, sometimes it can get a little boring. Perhaps a good book about current events might keep the mind occupied. Fortunately, there is a generally well-stocked independent book store not far away. It has recently re-opened after a substantial hiatus. I thought, perhaps I can go over there and score a copy of something interesting — for example, Thomas Sowell’s new book “Charter Schools and Their Enemies”; or perhaps Iain Murray’s “The Socialist Temptation.”

Just inside the front door there was a table piled with copies of the featured current releases: . . .

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