Splendid Isolation

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is asking Texans to reduce electric use as much as possible today through Friday, June 18. A significant number of forced generation outages combined with potential record electric use for the month of June has resulted in tight grid conditions.

Lest we forget, this is the same bunch of incompetent assholes who were responsible for Texas’s power outages in February of this year, during the coldest weeks in recent history.

Now, as we inch towards peak summer with daily temperatures already in the high 90s, we’re told to expect power outages, again?

My question is quite simple: what is the point of ERCOT’s existence, if they can’t ensure reliable electricity?

New Candidate

June 15, 2021 Kim du Toit Politics, Vermin

You all know the “One Shot” game, right? (It’s the conservative gun owners’ game whereby if you were to have just one clear shot at some asshole with no consequences — for you, that is — who would be your candidate?)

Well, here’s a competitor for George Soros’s top spot on the perennial hit parade, so to speak:

The new ad from the National Redistricting Action Fund, a partisan lobbying group helmed by former attorney general Eric Holder, goes after the power billionaires wield through anonymous “dark money” contributions. Unmentioned is the at least $3 million funneled anonymously to the National Redistricting Action Fund in recent years by Hansjörg Wyss, a foreign billionaire who has quietly emerged as a liberal megadonor in the United States.

Who he?

A real asshole, even of he’s just judged by the company he keeps.

Please adjust your “One Shot” lists accordingly.

The Sharecropper State

June 15, 2021 Kim du Toit Business, Crime, Drive Time, Vermin

…in which the vast majority of ~~serfs~~ people never actually own anything, but rent everything. We’ve seen this trend in innocuous stuff, of course, such as in the online music business where the foul recording industry can take (i.e. repossess) music away from purchasers simply by removing it from “The Cloud” and similarly in TV shows and movies, where the equally-foul studios can do likewise. (Consumers owning the physical media of CDs and DVDs has always been the bane of the respective industries’ profit plans, both because they can’t control “unlicensed” third-party distribution and because once the sale is made, they can’t claw it back.)

According to Big Business, therefore, property is theft (of the products they consider their own, and not the purchasers’), a sentiment which would have made that foul mountebank Proudhon rub his hands with glee — except of course that he wanted “the people” (i.e. the State) to own everything rather than giant corporations (in his time, the Church).

So what’s brought this rant on? The Germans — or, to be more specific, the German auto industry. Try this little scenario on for size (courtesy of Insty):

Volkswagen recently announced that it plans on making massive amounts of money by introducing more vehicles with over-the-air updates (OTAs), many of which will be able to store and transfer personal profiles so that users can effectively just rent their vehicles for eternity. Additionally, VW has suggested future models will have ability to lock features (that have already been physically installed) behind a paywall that users can unlock via subscription services — things like heated seats, satellite navigation, or even the vehicles top speed.
“In the future, our customers will buy, lease, share or rent cars just for a weekend, and we can use software to provide them with whatever they need over the air,” VW brand’s sales chief Klaus Zellmer said during an online presentation held on Tuesday. “The ID family has been designed for further development, with OTA updates to improve the software’s performance and tailor it to our customers’ needs.”
Other German automakers have pitched (or introduced) similar concepts over the last few years and it smacks of the terror that is the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” — a plan which envisions a near future were the general populace owns nothing and giant multinational corporations (and their heirs) effectively hold all the cards. It’s the kind of thing one might call you an unhinged conspiracy theorist for believing, until you head over to the WEC’s website to read a dozen or so articles explaining exactly how it’s to be implemented or notice that most Western governments seem to be pushing some variant of the “Build Back Better” campaign. The plot is often the same and hinges upon prioritizing stringent social controls, increased government spending, collaborating with large businesses/banks, and enhanced surveillance in exchange for some vague promises about public safety and environmental reform.

Not content with adding a whole slew of “conveniences” (unnecessary geegaws like remote starting, keyless- and stop-start ignition, “memory” seat adjustment and such) to their cars, said conveniences which simply drive up the cost (and profits) of cars into the fucking stratosphere, these bastards now think they can sell the cows and charge the owners for the milk they draw, ad infinitum.

Yeah, well, maybe not. I’ve been a lifelong fan of Volkswagen, having owned seven of their various models over the past forty years, but I have to tell you right now: when it comes time to replace the Tiguan — and it’s going to happen soon — it’s not to a VW dealer I’ll be going. No way am I going to give them any of my hard-earned dollars to support their evil machinations. Ditto Mercedes (I’ve been looking at their GLA 250 mini-SUV), or any other car company which wants to initiate a similar program to Volkswagen’s.

Given my age, this will most likely be my last-ever purchase of a new car; and I was planning on driving it for at least the next decade, or until my brain turns to rice pudding and, not needing a car anymore, I would have to be installed in some care facility which would feed me, wipe my decrepit ass and put up with my incoherent ranting and raving.

But that’s a topic for another time.

In the meantime, I’m going to shop for a new / low-mileage secondhand vehicle, just not of the VW / Mercedes persuasion.

Does anyone know which auto companies don’t plan on this thievery?

Forgetful

June 14, 2021 Kim du Toit Bad News

As pointed out by Sharryl Atkisson:

Amazingly, given the source, one important achievement was not mentioned, as noted in the comments:

That he did.

I sure do miss him.

Closing Fast

June 14, 2021 Kim du Toit Disaster, Resistance

Interesting take by ZMan over at Taki’s Mag:

One of the remarkable things about the collapse of the Soviet Union is that it just melted away without a struggle. It was as if everyone could not think of a reason to keep it going. The reason for that is the trust in the key institutions had drained away. There was no reason to defend them or participate in them. The people running the institutions had used up all of the social trust to maintain their positions. When it was gone, the institutions collapsed.
Something similar is happening in America.

Many years ago, a dystopian novel entitled The HAB Theory was published, whose premise was that as the ice caps grew larger, the added weight would create an imbalance in the Earth’s rotation — and when the “wobble” became too much to support, the Earth would upend itself, the heavy poles would realign along the equator (and eventually melt), whilst new ice caps would naturally form in the northern and southern latitudes, as before.

While that theory is (rightly) regarded as nonsensical now, what was interesting was that when the tipping point arrived, the collapse was very sudden — anyone who’s ever spun an old-fashioned top with string can attest to that. Everything’s fine when the top is spinning fast, but as it slows it begins to wobble — and in less than a second, it’s flying all over the floor on its side, still spinning uselessly in its death throes.

I just wonder, given ZMan’s hypothesis, how close we are to that point in the U.S.