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Deregulation and Niagara Mohawk - Is There a Story?
It's just a few hours after the Northeast U.S. power outage, and facts are trickling in; as of right now, it looks like an accidental overload knocked out a large part of the Niagara Mohawk power grid. A few years ago, California went through rolling blackouts that were largely due to a poorly-executed deregulation of that state's power industry. The question that's probably occurring to many of us is, did late-'90s deregulation play a role in today's power event? I don't know the answer, so I'm turning it over to you -- moderators, please check links and up-mod the most informative, pro or con. Here is some information to get you started:
"We support deregulation 100 percent..." (N-M spokesman, 1997; notes N-M wanted to sell generators and "concentrate on the transmission and distribution of energy" -- did it?);
N-M made some bad investments and is
scheduled to request a rate hike (did it?);
and N-M's own website says:
"Deregulation [has] changed the laws and regulations governing the electricity industry to promote competition..." (how so?).
I guarantee you that if a power outage happened anywhere OTHER than New York City, the mass media outlets would barely be covering this event at ALL. For example, if this had happened in, say, Seattle-Portland-Vancouver, nobody would raise an eyebrow.
Right now I am looking at "LIVE" footage on CNN of a few people loitering in the streets and what looks to be traffic as usual. Drudge Report says "CONCERN OF FIRES". Concern? This is drudge report material? Please.
I am sick of the NYC bias we see in the media. Self-importance is so passe. Please make this story go away, I give CNN and Fox News a big "OFFTOPIC" (To their credit, Fox is now reporting the story that some terrorist mastermind yadda yadda yadda has been capture).
Lame.
Yeaaahh, he's new here. Right. He's got a lower ID that I do.
:)
But your reply was funny.
...people freaked out when they turned the power grid on
You must be new here.
Wild speculation is our business.
*Sees 4-digit UID* oh...wait
You see, we old-timers remember the good old days, when Slashdot was like an exclusive club, patronized only by those netizens "in the know", and when moderation was not just unimplemented but irrelevant, because none of those thoughtful and intelligent first users would have even thought of submitting a comment to a story unless they already knew it was insightful and interesting.
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Naah, I'm just yanking your chain. It's always been like this.
I want to reply because I have a semi-low user ID too.
Anyway, Slashdot has definitely gone down hill in recent years. I don't bother commenting or reading comments anymore, just stories.
What?
Apparently you can't stand the fact that Saddam is out of power, millions of Iraqis are free, and it's all because of Bush. I'm sure you'd rather have Saddam in power, his sons running through the country raping women, sending children to prison, and killing people in the streets.
Ok, so you hate Bush... we get that. Just pull your head out of yourself long enough to see that everything isn't crappy as you think it is.
He lied under oath in a trial where a woman sued him for trying to nail her in a hotel.
Lied under oath in a trail. That's why the guy was impeached. A lie is a lie. There's not a "that's ok to lie about". Tell that to millions of women suing their husbands for divorce, or thousands of women suing for attempted rape.
Bush's vacation? Seems to be working pretty hard to me. Jealous?
"Impeached ex-president Clinton". I like the sound of that.
Not everything is about Bush. Get over it.
At this point the right is the ideologically driven party. The left is pragmatic. To give an example, Tony Blair is a left wing politician but he is certainly not driven by socialist ideology.
I could have said that the answer to every problem is not nationalization. Only I can't actually think of a single serious politician who makes that kind of claim.
What is interesting about the Bush administration is the way that absolutely every external circumstance is used to support the pre-existing policy. At first the justification for huge tax cuts for the rich was the forecast surplus - even though everyone who cared to loo knew that they were false. Then when the economy was no longer doing as well the justification for the same huge tax cut for the rich was the deficit. No serious economist have ever claimed that the best way to stimulate an ecoonomy is to eliminate inheritance taxes for estates over $2 million.
The solution to the energy crisis might be to drill in Alaska. However forcing the makers of SUVs to put fuel efficient engines in them seems a better solution. The oil in Alaska can only be drilled once and would only account for a years worth of gas burned by the inefficient SUVs. Building an efficient engine is not impossible, there are plenty of fuel efficient power plants. It is not the engine design, it is the engine manufacturing plants that the car makers refuse to modernise so they could built more modern designs.
As for starting wars in the Gulf, Bush is good at starting wars but he has yet to finish one or win one. The Taleban is back in control in significant parts of Afghanistan. The main Al Qaeda leaders are still at large. Invading Iraq is a damn poor way to catch Al Zawahiri and Bin Laden.
Talking to people is not always the answer, but this administratipon cannot even talk to longstanding allies such as France and Germany. With the exception of Blair (who is likely to be gone from office soon) they do not have a single ally they have not bought.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/