Sunflowers 78

 Gee, now it looks like mid-week we'll have some serious cold stuff. Why does anyone even bother with "long term forecasts"? Anything more than a day or two in advance is worthless. OK today, and OK tomorrow, but after that, so say the forecasts, it gets rough. So they say. I'm as prepared as I can be. Surely it won't be as bad as the stuff that hit us last year around this time. But who knows? You might as well flip a coin. 

The sunflowers are reminders of happier times. There really WERE happier times. 

Sunflowers 77

 Looks like today and tomorrow will be pretty nice days. After that, a nasty shot of cold stuff. Just winter crap. 

Odds are, it won't be as bad as the stuff hitting the Northeast. Not by a long shot. Maybe not bad enough to make ERCOT collapse. I'd like to see some hard evidence that improvements have actually been made, that the money appropriated for that purpose didn't simply line pockets. For that matter, was ANY money actually appropriated?? Was it all talk? 

I've added some new SCIENCE links to my list of favorites sites, at the bottom of this blog. 

I've been waiting for Vlad the Impaler's Russia to be hit by the Omicron surge. It's happened. This could be spectacular, with less than 50% of that backward country's population vaccinated. 

Sunflowers 76

 We've got a few nice days coming up with a couple of days of bitter cold forecast for midweek next week. I hope that turns out to be a bust. They've taken wintery precipitation out of that forecast, but it changes every day. Forecasts are largely worthless, I've noticed. There are reports now of a new Omicron variant spreading in "North Texas". There are cases in Dallas and Houston, and in Denmark it is now the dominant strain. It only took a couple of weeks for infections to explode there, as the new strain appears to be significantly more infectious than the last dominant Omicron variant. Not clear how much protection vaccination provides (but surely it's better to be vaccinated), and the severity of this variant is not clear. And what does "North Texas" mean, precisely? I would say Amarillo, as a guess. And the US is now over 880,000 Covid deaths, with almost 60,000 in the last 28 days. And there are still people who won't get vaccinated. Amazing! The depth of ignorance in this country, and in the human population at large, is really stunning. Ignorance and superstition that would do a Neanderthal proud. Oh well. Nothing I can do about any of this. Just sit back and see what happens next.

The illusion of control is insidious. Best to abandon that one.

Sunflowers 75

 I'm enjoying the milder weather and taking advantage of it to get things done, in anticipation of more cold stuff next week. 

Sunflowers 74

 Our two day winter bumblast is over and it wasn't as bad as forecast. Middle of next week another winter bumblast is forecast but there is no precip associated with this one-- just rather cold. We will see. I'm more than ready for winter to be over but I realize we have a long way to go. I'm quite sure that ERCOT is not prepared to deal with anything serious. Money appropriated for upgrades has probably lined the pockets of Asshole Abbot's buddies, and his own pocket as well. Just my uninformed opinion here, but in Texas I habitually suspect corruption in high places. Besides, I despise Abbot, Paxton, and that other half-wit. A veritable trinity of twits. I think I'm still free to dislike and mistrust anyone I choose to dislike and mistrust, for whatever reason... and say so, in a public forum. Not that this blog is very public. To hell with all that anyway.

I need to be more positive, so let me say that Texas is not as bad as some other deep red states, so things here could be much worse. I don't think we've gone so far as to have an official index of prohibited books, for instance. Not yet, anyway. And the food is great! And if you ignore the legislature, Austin rocks! Nothing wrong with the music! We have not yet outlawed everything  but "praise music". And the food is great! Nice scenery! Although there is not as much nice scenery as there used to be, since developers are wrecking things, but that's what developers do. They wreck everything good. The oil industry will probably ultimately foul and pollute every aquifer in the state but that hasn't happened yet. The oil men will take the money and run and the rest of us can slurp brine. Killing and destroying for profit is as American as apple pie and strange fruit. Traditional values still rule in Texas. So we can rest easy. We still have a First Amendment, even though, if you scrawled it on toilet paper, it wouldn't be worth the paper you wrote it on. Toilet paper is expensive these days!