The hard facts in that Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy report cannot be wished away by a few platitudes and ridiculous excuses. It is up to the world to hold the ChiComs accountable for the Uygur genocide, and a complete boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics would be a great start. Then we can move on to ChiCom indemnification of the rest of the world for the ChiCom virus that originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology….

While energy sources across all categories failed in mid-February, they didn’t all fail equally. The capacity factors for nuclear, natural gas, coal, and wind in Texas during the four days of load shedding during the cold snap were 79 percent, 55 percent, 58 percent, and 14 percent, respectively.[7] //

Some of the cost of variable renewable energy sources comes in the form of the transmission lines they require. With funding from Bill Gates, the analytical group Breakthrough Energy Sciences last week estimated the U.S. could reduce carbon emissions 42 percent and generate 70 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030. But Breakthrough Energy calculated that the cost of new transmission, distribution, and storage would be $1.5 trillion.[25] //

The land requirements of industrial renewable energy projects are two orders of magnitude larger than those of nuclear and natural gas plants. Industrial solar and wind projects require between 300 and 400 times more land than nuclear plants.[29] If the United States were to try to generate all of the energy it uses with renewables, 25 percent to 50 percent of its land would be required, according to the best-available study by a leading energy analyst and advisor to Bill Gates.[30] By contrast, today’s energy system requires just 0.5 percent of land in the United States.[31] //

As troubling is evidence that cost declines of solar panels, most of which are made in China, appear to stem from the involuntary labor of a persecuted Muslim minority, the Uighurs. In January the U.S. State Department deemed China’s treatment of the Uighurs to be genocide.[34]

Ninety-five percent of the global solar panel market contains Xinjiang silicon. //

One study by a group of climate and energy scientists found that when taking into account continent-wide weather and seasonal variation, for the United States to be powered by solar and wind, while using batteries to ensure reliable power, the battery storage required would raise the cost to more than $23 trillion.[41] //

Germany will have spent $580 billion on renewables and related infrastructure by 2025, according to energy analysts at Bloomberg[45] and Germany generated 37.5 percent of its electricity from wind and solar in 2020, as compared to the 70 percent France generates from nuclear.[46] Had Germany invested the $580 billion it’s spending on renewables and their grid upgrades into new nuclear power plants instead, it could be generating 100 percent of its electricity from zero-emission sources and have sufficient zero-carbon electricity to power all of its cars and light trucks (if electrified) by 2025, as well.[47]

From this information we can gain a clearer picture of electric reliability, resiliency, and affordability. What tends to make electric grids more reliable, resilient, and affordable is the generation of electricity by a few large, efficient plants with the minimal amount necessary of wires and storage. What tends to makes grids less reliant, resilient, and affordable is significantly increasing the number of power plants, wires, storage mechanisms, people, and organizations required for operating them. //

Restructured electricity markets did not result in the oft-promised lower prices in California, Texas, or the U.S. as a whole.[52] And from 2010 to 2019, consumers from across the U.S. who purchased electricity from electricity retailers paid $19.2 billion more than they would have had they purchased power from legacy utilities, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. [53]

According to the Academies, the older model of regulated and vertically integrated electric utilities were better at taking a “longer-term perspective” that can take into account “broader societal benefits” than today’s tangle of federal and state agencies, electric utilities, and power companies.[54]

As Bonchie explained in this story, the dispute over the outcome of the Iowa House race is now pending in the House Committee on Administration. The Democrat challenger, Rita Hart, made a deliberate decision after the recount of ballots to NOT file any election contest in the Iowa courts as was authorized by Iowa law. Instead, she filed the petition with the House that is now pending to have the “winning” candidate — as identified by Iowa election officials — Mariannette Miller-Meeks, disqualified from holding the seat on the basis that she did not receive a greater number of votes than Hart received.

The House has the final say under the Constitution with respect to the qualifications of any individual to serve as a member. Under the statute authorizing the petition filed by Hart, the Committee conducts an investigation. It can hear from witnesses, accept documentary evidence, conduct interviews in Iowa, and even conduct a recount of all the ballots on its own to come up with its own final vote tally.

Remarkably, if the Committee chooses to recount the ballots itself, the standards for what constitutes a “valid” ballot under Iowa law do not apply to such a recount by the House. Democrats who have majority control of the committee can fashion their own standards as to what should be deemed a “valid” vote, and may freely choose to ignore any limitations on the process established by Iowa law and court precedent.
The Committee, based on its investigation, makes a recommendation to the full House, and it is a vote of the entire House that determines the outcome of the Petition filed by Hart.

If you're afflicted with this bug yourself, you can get some relief by uninstalling KB50000802 until Microsoft comes out with a fixed update, presumably by April's Patch Tuesday.

On a Windows 10 or Windows Server PC version 2004/20H2, click Start --> type "Control Panel" and hit enter --> go to Programs, then Programs and Features. From there, click "View installed updates" on the left-hand pane and uninstall Security Update for Microsoft Windows KB50000802).

For Windows PCs version 1909, the same fix (and problem) is in KB50000808. If you're on version 1809, look for KB50000822. For more technical detail, Dutch tech site winking.be has an excellent overview.