Quit trying to make every damned thread be about Canada. I've never seen anyone so obsessively fixated. Give it a rest or get ignored.
In fairness to Canada, you don't get that type of thing from the real Canadians. They are not a mouthy people. The ones that move there from a shit-hole country and are happy to have indoor plumbing and internet can get pretty obnoxious though. The ones in Toronto are especially sensitive about being a suburb of Buffalo. They don't worry about that much in Alberta or Vancouver or PEI or QC. Some of the shit-holers will try to tell you to that they are from the UK, meaning that is the last place they and their family parked their camel before moving on to Canada.
I have had good experiences in the North and am generally a Canadophile but Toronto is filled with jackasses who think they are in NYC while stepping over moose turds downtown. It gets annoying.
That NYofCanada attitude is and has been especially annoying to the Quebecois and a driving force behind the separatist movement which has faded of late but roared on for decades. The newcomers like to get uppity because they have no knowledge of Canadian history. When there is conflict and insurrection in DC they think everything has always been groovy in Canada unlike that division-riddled country called America. Really? Ask Baby Justin about the time his father rolled out the tanks on the streets of Montreal just for a show of force against his own people. The Ottawa/Toronto crowd have always had a problem with being respectful toward any Canadians who are different from them or do real work for a living.
Abbott accepts responsibility for ERCOT failures, promises swift regulatory action https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/n...-during-texas-severe-winter-storm/4492393001/ Gov. Greg Abbott, seeking to get ahead of what could be the greatest political challenge he's faced during his six years in office, said Thursday the failure of the quasi-governmental agency that operates the state's power grid ultimately is on him. "I'm taking responsibility for the current status of ERCOT," Abbott told reporters during an afternoon news briefing on the continuing efforts to solve the days-long winter storm-fueled power outages and the looming crisis of unsafe drinking water that followed in its wake. But even having said that, Abbott delivered withering criticism of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for being unprepared for the large-scale failure of power generation from the record-setting freeze and snowfall that left as many as 4 million Texans without electricity for days on end. "What happened this week is absolutely unacceptable and can never be replicated again," Abbott said from a command center in Austin where he was flanked by his top emergency management aides. "It's especially unacceptable when you realize what ERCOT told the state of Texas. They said five days before the winter storm hit ... 'we're ready for the cold temperatures coming our way.'" Earlier Thursday, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said the organization was upfront with top officials of the magnitude of the coming storm and the challenges the state was facing. As the power outages that began late Sunday intensified, the national spotlight fell on Texas for the way the state operates its Texas-only electricity grid. Much was made of the lack of winterization of its generating plants, which allowed by thermal energy and renewable energy generators to be knocked off line as demand for power skyrocket across a state that would soon be blanketed by ice, snow and near-zero temperatures. Democrats in Texas and in Congress pointed the finger at the state's two-term Republican governor who makes it a point of pride to cast Texas' low-regulation policies as superior to those in other states and even the federal government. But during his news conference Thursday, Abbott took no swipes at the new Biden administration, instead he prominently noted that he's asking the Democratic president for "a major disaster declaration" so that Texans with water pipes ruptured by the freeze can access federal assistance. And Abbott made clear he wants more regulations on ERCOT, which operates under the authority of the Texas Public Utility Commission, but is not an electricity generating company. Instead, Magness has described in as the grids "traffic cop," managing the amount of power that generating companies send to the states network of transmission lines. The governor appoints the three members of the utility panel. Additional regulations should come to the private companies that supply Texas with electric power, Abbott said. The governor said he wants lawmakers, presently in session in Austin, to require generating plants to be fully winterized to prevent future failures during arctic blasts. The head of the Texas Democratic Party sought to portray Abbott as out of touch as millions of Texans endured prolonged outages, and an even greater number – 7 million, by most estimates – were instructed to boil tap water before drinking because fallout from the freeze made supplies unsafe. “Abbott’s inaction has cost Texas families everything," said Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. "Days of inaction have led Texans from one crisis to another: from freezing weather to days of power outages to evacuations to food insecurity and now: Texans don’t have safe water." Abbott sought to blunt that criticism before it could gain wide traction. He ticked off information on how Texans still shivering could find warming shelters and how those going hungry could find food assistance "All of us in the state of Texas believe it is completely unacceptable that you had to endure one minute of the challenge that you faced," he said. And even as he hammered ERCOT, Abbott heralded the reports that the outages were beginning to lift, saying the estimated 325,000 Texans still without power likely lived near downed utility lines or in places were electricity had to be manually switched back on. The overall grid, Abbott said, was coming closer to being fully recharged. "We hope and anticipate no location will be without power tonight," he said. John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
Should worry other states if they're like Texas...having most of the electricity power manage by "one company" not part of the federal grid. In fact, what other states are vulnerable with their power grid structure being manage by one company ??? wrbtrader
The next problem can be the water system. They really need to get ahead of that. When these things shut down all kinds of funky stuff can happen, including contaminants entering the system that can corrode old pipes and poison the water. Once those old pipes start corroding there’s no stopping it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid I think these are all quasi-governmental agencies.