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Conservative decides to leave a very liberal state and move to a conservative state, doesn't like it there, moves back to liberal state because it's better there.
Is probably still conservative.
???
Conservatives aren't exactly known for learning lessons.
You'd think that a teacher would be able to learn lessons.
You must be thinking of a learner.
That's the delicious irony of it.
The idea of having to deal with Texas’s power grid scares me
Yeah, people call us the Texas of Canada but we've had no power interruptions during those -40 and below cold snaps. Part of that has to do with natural gas being our heat, of course. But if you've ever been outside in -40... I'll take the natural gas over that. It's cold like you've never felt it before.
Much of the US, even Texas uses natural gas for heating. Houses in much of the southern US aren't designed for cold weather so people add space heaters. Plus if I remember correctly the cold shut down the natural gas providers in Texas so that wasn't even working.
Yup, I believe ten years prior the federal government told them that the gas plants were susceptible to freezing pipes of incoming gas. Since texas grid is independent, they couldn't force the plants to winterize. After the shit show, the governor blamed windmills, even though they over produced, because a few windmills stopped working.
Alberta?
It's awful. We lose power if it's too hot, we lose power if it's too cold.
On the plus side, Ted Cruz leaves if it gets too cold
Fucking utilities man. ERCOT has made so many recommendations over the years for the regional utilities to make changes and strengthen their grids, but short-term profit motive gets in the way of stability of an essential service. Why we privatized the grids in this country is beyond me
If I'm not mistaken, the thing that contributes to our instability is also what caused Texas to be at the front of renewables (for a while). What I've been told is that Texas' power grid is pretty loosely regulated, which was why renewables took off here; it was really easy for anyone to start their own power company so small companies were able to spring up and contribute solar, wind, etc.
This was great and fine so long as we weren't getting extreme, once-in-100-year weather every year. Thanks big oil and climate change. Anyway, now we need regulation to make power companies start planning for things they previously only needed to plan for every 100 years.
Texas
Regulation
Good fucking luck.
Renewables took off in Texas because it's
It's pretty much heaven for solar and wind, both of which have no qualms building out in the middle of nowhere.
I wonder if anyone's going to attempt tide generators with our freshly roided up storm seasons. The whole East Coast has barrier islands that are all about to sink, so we won't even have to go down far to anchor them.
Windmills are taking off now in Wyoming, and I can't believe it took them this long, loaded down freighters get blown over hourly every fucking day in Wyoming. They built their freeways with massive shoulders just to wreck on. Windmill farms are all down central and Eastern Washington, central and eastern Oregon and California. I can't speak much to the Midwest but you can't drive 5miles thru Iowa without seeing 100windmills. In between houses and shit. I like the spirit but goddamn, Iowa needs to chill.
Solar is huge all along the sun belt. Shit I'm off-grid in Washington and I do it off 2500w of panels and 375ah of batteries. It's not as good as having a tap to grand coulee but I don't have an electric bill and that does more than just dry my tears, it actually makes happy.
YEP. My experience having grown up here was that Texas was cheap and pretty laid-back politically. Then something changed and the state shifted into being expensive and politically obsessed.
Edit: that's what I used to like about Texas: everyone minded their own business. They wanted the government to fuck off and let them do whatever. Now there are a lot of people who want to know what's in your child's pants.
The Republicans went from christo-conservative to christo-facist. Like an American Taliban.
When did this change happen?
The last gasp of the 'mind your own business' conservatives in Texas was either the 2016 election or the one after that. There was a period of time where you had the Lt Governor trying to pass culture war bills (like anti-trans bathroom bills) in the senate and then they would die in the house when the speaker wouldn't put them up for a vote due to it being bad for attracting businesses. Once the MAGA Republicans got voted in, it's been full steam ahead for them.
It's not like things were great before then, but it wasn't this race to the bottom like it is now.
It really got rolling when Bush Jr got elected governor. It had been festering for a while.
The southern strategy merged with big oil money, and utilized the conservative Baptist churches to try to shame people into getting on board.
That's when it started, but for a long time everyone was still in that "fuck off, I'll live my life and you live yours" after that. I remember being taught if you don't like what someone is doing and it doesn't affect anyone except the person who is doing it, you don't have to watch them do it. I think the exact phrase was more succinct. That was in the 80s and 90s.
Even when I left the state and came back in the mid to late 00s it was a lot of "mind your own fucking business" as individuals. No one really started saying shit out loud until the mid 2010s that I remember, but suddenly it was everywhere.
Now we still have shit turnout but a lot of really loud morons who were telling everyone to mind their own fucking business 2 decades ago now yelling about trans women and abortion.
Sometime around 2015~2016. Mighta been a few years earlier. I think everyone really started losing their shit after Obergefell vs Hodges. It seemed like people had a "you do you" mindset, but after that case everyone lost their minds and went rabid.
Some people older than me probably have saw it sooner but I’d say definitely when Rick Perry took over in 2000, but it probably started with GWB in 1995. Don’t forget Texas ised to have a democratic governor in the early 90s
Now there are a lot of people who want to know what's in your child's pants.
DOOM!
I spent three months in Houston about 10 years ago and I've never experienced such a wild-ass level of passive aggressive probing to see if I was in their particular in-group anywhere else. I'm from the Midwest and used to some of that but it was every fucking conversation, down to getting asked what church I attend while trying to get a coffee at a cafe.
Ah yes! I also grew up in the Midwest and lived in Fort Worth for a few years and the biggest culture shock was that, "What church do you go to?" was essentially the standard follow-up to introducing myself. I always lied and said I went to a church out in one of the suburbs in the hopes that they wouldn't try to associate...
“What church do you go to?”
And "sorry, I was raised Canadian" doesn't work?
The fuck ? thats creepy and weird as fuck :(
It’s like she somehow traveled to a political future dominated by conservative politics (Texas), hated it, and traveled back. But still gonna vote conservative. Boggles the mind.
This is one of the annoying things about all the California people moving to Texas.
They have contributed to an absolutely massive spike in home prices, and despite the complaints of all the "California liberals" moving here, in my experience it's mostly conservatives who are attracted to the Texas GOP's insanity, so they're shifting things further to the right.
We should tell them that Russia is now welcoming their kind with open arms!
I made the same mistake, moved from NY for a tech job in Texas during covid.
The honeymoon phase ended in the first week when I couldnt find decent quality food at restaurants. I haven't had political issues like she mentions. I struggle with the poor infrastructure here, the frontage roads spaced everything so far apart it makes the area feel like a giant strip mall that goes forever.
By the time my lease ended the tech layoffs came. Been struggling to find jobs back home so now I feel stuck in Texas.
Its depressing, but I try to make the best of it.. There's lots of really nice greenways so when it's not too hot I bike around. I felt way more free and happy in the Northeast corridor.
I can see the difference between California influence and original Texan culture. There's pros and cons to both, but when both of their flaws come together it's the worst.
I will never relocate for a job again once I get back. You either hire me as remote or I'm dodging a toxic work environment.
you mean to tell me when you gentrify a part of a place by engaging in mass migration to that place that it sucks now????
Man i never would've guessed. Just a little tip for anybody looking to move to places out there, don't move to the place where everybody else is moving, it's stupid.
Disney moms are the fucking worst.
Smile doesn't reach her eyes, it's like uncanny valley off-putting to me.
Yeah unless youre born here its hard to take. Even so, much of it is a shitstorm that you have turn off ocassionally to hold onto even a wisp of sanity.