Just A Quick Detour, From Mars -- To Marvel At The Lies Texas Gov. Abbott Is Telling, While His People Freeze To Death, And Ted Cruz Flies To Cancun(!)...

The odd and poorly run state of Texas -- ever since at least the time of the Enron debacle in 2000, had an energy "policy" built primarily to maximize the private profits for wealthy donors to the reliably Republican state-wide office-holders. That is to say, the Texas "grid" (to the extent it exists any longer, at all) is held together with rubber-bands, and duct-tape, run to make a profit, and disconnected from the national energy grid -- so even if Gov. Abbott wanted to buy electricity from Arizona, Utah, New Mexico or Colorado -- he cannot. That was by design.

It gave wealthy GOP Texans a monopoly over energy in the state. By and large, that group overlaps almost 90% with the oil families of Texas. [Shocking, I know.] But now people are dying due to lack of heat -- and water. And it takes Bill Gates of all people, to tell the unvarnished truth -- where Abbott lies to the voters he is killing, day by day, thus:

. . ."Actually, the main capacity that's gone out in Texas is not the wind, it's actually some of the natural gas plants that were also not ready for the super cold temperatures," Gates says.

Moreover, Gates said that climate change causes extreme weather patterns like the winter storm to "become more likely."

"Because the normal wind patterns are broken down and so cold fronts can go further south more often than we would expect," he says. . . .

Okay -- that is simply. . . deplorable. Vote those crooks out -- you good people of Texas.

Now we will return to watching and waiting -- for a soft Barsoom landing.

नमस्ते