you just can't fix stupid

[Whack9]

The Grand Old Projection (GOP) -

2020 - People riot and destroy stuff while Trump is president.
Republicans - This is what Joe Biden's America will be like!

...despite Joe Biden not even being elected yet.

2021 - Texas gets wiped out by a catastrophic snow storm.
Republicans - This is what will happen if the Green New Deal is enacted.

Rick Perry - This is what will happen if we let the federal government force more regulations upon us.

...despite this happening while the Green New Deal doesn't even exist, and because of the lack of regulations requiring utilities to be able to weather a winter storm.

I'm sure there's more example, but I'm noticing a pattern here...

[billy.pilgrim]

Nothing was properly winterized.
Natural gas was the biggest failure because the well heads froze. Other equipment froze in all other sources.

But tucker was lying out his ass to the fox family that this proves windmills don't work in cold weather.

I estimate it likely that less than 2% of his audience (people like me, pausing in amazement while flipping channels) ever recalled memories of thr Iowa landscape, trumps Scottish golf course eyesore windmills, or even all those windmills in snow covered Sweden.

[billy.pilgrim]

Of and this happened 10 years ago. We bailed them out then too, and even recommended fixes so it wouldn't happen again.
And it happened again - I forget exactly but about 30 years ago.

[Whack9]

Of and this happened 10 years ago. We bailed them out then too, and even recommended fixes so it wouldn't happen again.
And it happened again - I forget exactly but about 30 years ago.

El Paso supposedly fixed the issues from ten years ago and didn't have much of a problem. Short power outages but nothing out of the ordinary. They're also on the western electric grid.

The rest of Texas not so much.

I'm no expert in these matters, but it seems like, if anything, the debacle in Texas shows quite the opposite of what these idiots are arguing.

It shows that

A) This was a failure of natural gas, NOT renewables. The sun still shines and the wind still blows.

B) It was a failure of natural gas etc due to de-regulation, as more regulations (ie requiring utilities to be properly winterized) would've helped prevent some of this misery (see El Paso).

But they pretty much argue the opposite.

I hate be one of those people that yell "Logic and reason!" given that's a trope a lot of the Grand Old Projectionists like to wail, but after hearing what people like Tucker Carlson, the eye patch man (I forget his name), Cruz, Perry, and the governor of Texas have said, it's, I believe this is a pertinant time of any to point out the absolute failure of logic and reason coming from the detractors of green energy and regulation.

I guess the invisible hand of capitalism can fix this and Texans can just find a new electrical grid to show their dissaproval of the handling of the situation. Oh wait...

Looks like the catch-all "regulation bad" is actually a bad thing. Regulations can be good. There's a reason we have them. Obviously some things can be over regulated, but that doesn't mean all regulations are bad, despite Donald Trump, the GOP, and many of the dopes who support them hating on them.

When there's a failure in some process, you pinpoint the failure and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. In other words, you regulate how things are done in the future in order to improve upon the process and prevent future failures from happening to others.

People are really fucking stupid man. Maybe I'm growing older and jaded, but it seems like this is common sense. Basic "logic and reason." if you will. The people who are the absolute worst at reasoning through an argument and throw out fallacy after fallacy seem to be the ones who typically like to scream "logic and reason!" the loudest.

Are people in this country really this fucking stupid?

[neoplacebo]

Are people in this country really this fucking stupid?

I submit: Matt Gaetz, Newt Gingrich, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren "Boohoo" Boebert. Jim Jordan, QAnon. Each of the preceding are personally and collectively responsible for cultivating a special kind of stupid in thousands of gullible half wit morons who swoon and line up anytime they hear a tantalizing bit of nonsense presented with a straight face wearing a suit and wrapping whatever stupid they're peddling in religion and "freedom." That's all it takes to lead these morons wherever their head lemmings lead them.

[O Really]

Are people in this country really this fucking stupid?

A nurse - nurse! - interviewed on TV about the covid vaccine. Says she is hesitant to take it because she "doesn't really know what will happen" because of "lack of testing," and doesn't know what effects it might have "in 20 years." So she doesn't read intelligently, and apparently she doesn't take advice from the doctors in her own hospital who went 100% to get the shot.

[billy.pilgrim]

Are people in this country really this fucking stupid?

A nurse - nurse! - interviewed on TV about the covid vaccine. Says she is hesitant to take it because she "doesn't really know what will happen" because of "lack of testing," and doesn't know what effects it might have "in 20 years." So she doesn't read intelligently, and apparently she doesn't take advice from the doctors in her own hospital who went 100% to get the shot.

I would love more details. A real hospital nurse in contact with patients or a Qnurse who works in administration?

An employed nurse?
Rephrased - paid by a hospital and not James O'Keeffe or the guy who paid the Obama phone ladies?

[O Really]

Are people in this country really this fucking stupid?

A nurse - nurse! - interviewed on TV about the covid vaccine. Says she is hesitant to take it because she "doesn't really know what will happen" because of "lack of testing," and doesn't know what effects it might have "in 20 years." So she doesn't read intelligently, and apparently she doesn't take advice from the doctors in her own hospital who went 100% to get the shot.

I would love more details. A real hospital nurse in contact with patients or a Qnurse who works in administration?

An employed nurse?
Rephrased - paid by a hospital and not James O'Keeffe or the guy who paid the Obama phone ladies?

It was a fairly short segment, but as far as I could tell, it's a real nurse, working in a real local hospital.

[Vrede too]

I would love more details. A real hospital nurse in contact with patients or a Qnurse who works in administration?

An employed nurse?
Rephrased - paid by a hospital and not James O'Keeffe or the guy who paid the Obama phone ladies?

It was a fairly short segment, but as far as I could tell, it's a real nurse, working in a real local hospital.

Here’s Why Some Health Care Workers Don’t Want The COVID-19 Vaccine
Hesitant health care workers aren’t conspiracy theorists. Their reasons are complicated, and it doesn’t mean the vaccine is unsafe.

Fuck the anti-vaxxers, but I can understand informed pros having legit concerns about this vaccine now, even if I think they come to the wrong conclusions. At some point healthcare facilities will make the vaccine mandatory. Some already have.

... Some health care employers have used financial incentives to encourage workers to participate in the vaccination campaign. Others have mandated vaccinations, but such dictates from their bosses could deepen workers’ mistrust, not improve matters, Yarnell said....

There are concerns about side effects, too, especially among women who are or may become pregnant, because the science is unclear about how the vaccines may affect pregnancies.

“They’re concerned that because they’re the first ones to go, something might pop up that wasn’t discovered before, and that they’re going to be the ones saddled with it,” Gadoth said....

A large scale trial on pregnant women has just begun, not sure which vaccine. No final results for months. Of pregnant women that have already gone ahead and gotten vaccinated, no issues have arisen so far.

[O Really]

Well, sure there are always questions. But it's not like we're still on a "small sample" basis here. Millions have taken the shot and there's been plenty of time to look for short-term effects. No, we don't know that everybody who took the shot won't get thalidomide babies in 20 years, but it looks pretty unlikely. Excluding rare individual aberrations, when has any vaccine been worse than the disease? So yeah, if you're a garden-variety 30-something who thinks you're healthy and won't get a bad case of it - hey, take your chances. But don't show up for work where there are sick/vulnerable people, or hang around with your older family.

[neoplacebo]

If I had a pregnant wife, I'd be real leery of her taking any vaccine while she's pregnant. And as vrede too noted, a study for use by women who are pregnant is only now just starting. Remember Thalidomide? An over the counter drug for inflammation, sleep disorders, and other common ailments.....back in the 50's lots of babies in the UK were born with "flipper" arms because of it. I have a cousin whose teeth were discolored even as a child after taking Tetracycline on a regular basis as an infant. Long term effects of any drug or any vaccine are virtually unknown at the time that drug or vaccine is made available.

[Ulysses]

If I had a pregnant wife, I'd be real leery of her taking any vaccine while she's pregnant. And as vrede too noted, a study for use by women who are pregnant is only now just starting. Remember Thalidomide? An over the counter drug for inflammation, sleep disorders, and other common ailments.....back in the 50's lots of babies in the UK were born with "flipper" arms because of it. I have a cousin whose teeth were discolored even as a child after taking Tetracycline on a regular basis as an infant. Long term effects of any drug or any vaccine are virtually unknown at the time that drug or vaccine is made available.

I'm sort of guessing about this, but I suspect kids will be OK with the vaccine. Don't know about expectant women; could get a bit dicey what with the fetus and all. I'm glad they are testing it. For some reason Covid doesn't seem to cause kids any major problems. But I suppose they could become spreaders. Glad I don't have any. ;-)

[Vrede too]

Sigh.

TikTokers are trying to prove that snow in Texas is 'fake,' pushing a false conspiracy theory

... As power returns to homes in Texas after a rare winter storm, TikTok is full of videos spreading the bogus claim that the snow is fake and was engineered by the government.

Many of the TikToks show someone burning a snowball with a match. When the flame hits the snow, the snow does not melt - the TikTokers claim this indicates the snow is abnormal. In reality, all snow reacts this way. Through a process called sublimation, the solid snow turns into a gas....

Misinformation has run rampant since the storm hit Texas last week. "Fake snow" was a top related-search query for "Texas snow" on Wednesday, while another false claim alleging that Bill Gates played a role in this "fake snow" ranked high among Texas-snow-related Google searches....

Similar conspiracy theories spreading on Facebook and Telegram have also falsely claimed that President Joe Biden somehow caused the storm in Texas....

In a video that was shared widely on Twitter but has since been removed from TikTok, a woman burns a snowball with a lighter. "Thank you, Bill Gates, for trying to f---ing trick us that this is real snow," she says. "You'll see it's not melting, and it's going to burn." ...

The hashtag #governmentsnow on TikTok had 1 million views as of Monday. One video with the hashtag claimed that if President Donald Trump were still in office, it would be spring....

Naturally, some of those biases and shortcuts are "political in nature," Ophir said. When someone like Gates, who is frequently the subject of far-right conspiracy theories, becomes a popular scapegoat, that can be extremely appealing to people looking for answers.

Like most conspiracy theories, which are cyclical in nature, this one isn't new. The claim also circulated in January 2014, when the southern US had a rare snowstorm. News outlets debunked the claim; a CBS affiliate in Richmond, Virginia, explained sublimation in a YouTube video that has more than 100,000 views. Several of the top comments on Monday were from 2021, with some users still questioning the science and calling the video "bs."

Sublimation (phase transition)

[Vrede too]

https://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-brain ... 22304.html

... patients first came in with pains, spasms, and changes in behavior. However, because these symptoms are linked to a number of health conditions, it wasn't a huge concern.

The symptoms progressed to impaired cognitive abilities, muscle wasting, drooling, and tooth-shattering over the next 18 to 36 months. Some of those patients also had disturbing hallucinations, like insects crawling on their skin....

It's been dubbed the "Mississippi Syndrome".

[Vrede too]

Reporter Busts Accused Dognapper on Live TV

:confusion-scratchheadblue:

[Vrede too]

S.C. woman hoarding gasoline catches on fire after crash

, literally.

[Vrede too]

Gohmert admits people think he's 'the dumbest guy in Congress' in speech immediately mocked for its stupidity

Great headline!

A Texas Republican was mocked for admitting that people think he is “the dumbest guy in Congress,” after a speech also ridiculed for it’s stupidity.

On Thursday, Louie Gohmert stood in front of Congress and rambled on about college admission tests (SATs), Black Lives Matter campaigners destroying “western-style families”, and Democrat senator Bernie Sanders sending American billionaires to “gulags”....

“He's lying about the time frame of SAT scores falling so he's probably lying about his scores also,” another critic wrote on Twitter, “SAT scores started falling in the sixties at about the same time Gohmert was taking his.”

“Any grown ass middle aged man who still feels compelled to brag about his SAT score is indeed the ‘dumbest man in Congress’,” added another.

“If Louie Gohmert has the self-awareness to know that people say he's the dumbest guy in Congress,” a Twitter critic wrote, “does that make him no longer the dumbest guy? Or just the most aware dumbest guy?”



... The false allegations were also ridiculed, with a Twitter user writing: “Louie Gohmert gets crazier every year. I'd say that you can't make this s**t up but he does it every time.”

As a constituent of Mad I am both offended and jealous.

We need to start calling it, what it is

Does he think they don’t have families in the East or something?

Pretty much, yeah.

I'm a Texan. We are not proud.

[Vrede too]

3 dead, 2 people missing after going over steep dam while tubing along North Carolina river

Three people are dead and two remain missing after five people who were tubing on a North Carolina river went over the edge of a steep dam, authorities said.

The five tubers were part of a group of nine people total who went tubing on the Dan River Wednesday evening, according to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office....

Seriously? 9 people and not one of them googled or asked, "Does anyone know what's downstream of here?"

[Ulysses]

3 dead, 2 people missing after going over steep dam while tubing along North Carolina river

Three people are dead and two remain missing after five people who were tubing on a North Carolina river went over the edge of a steep dam, authorities said.

The five tubers were part of a group of nine people total who went tubing on the Dan River Wednesday evening, according to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office....

Seriously? 9 people and not one of them googled or asked, "Does anyone know what's downstream of here?"

Well, there are just as many stupid people in California, if not more. The difference here is that the local authorities generally put up barriers and warning signs for shit like that.

Plus we don't have as many fast flowing rivers here. Those that we do have tend to be carefully watched.

[Vrede too]

... Tubing is a "regular activity" in the area, said (Lt. Kevin, spokesperson for the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office) Suthard, though he added that people are discouraged from tubing near the dam....

A GUESS is that there's signage. I've rarely seen a dam without it. Maybe we'll learn how this group screwed up, but it probably won't make national news and I doubt that I'll follow up with the north-central NC local news.