Few years back, when we decided to sell the house, we had a new fence put up.  The old fence was 25 years old and falling apart.  Our lot is an acre so it was a big expense.  It came up in conversation last week, my wife mentioning it cost $30k.  No, I replied it was more like $10k.  My wife looked it up and the cost was actually $20k.  We were both right, on average.

I was wondering how average age varies by state.  I was expecting to see some big differences.  Turns out there isn’t that much variation by age in the US as I would have thought.  Ok, Maine seems a little long in the tooth, but otherwise we are all more or less in our late 30s, state-wise.

Mapping the U.S. Median Age by State

Much of Houston is without power after a relatively minor Cat-1 hurricane.  I will hold off saying something snippy about the oil and gas businesses based in Houston and their impact on such weather events, or the taxes they don’t pay or the infrastructure Texas won’t modernize.

Frustrations mount in the Houston heat after Beryl moves on and leaves millions without power

There aren’t so many people in flat out denial of climate change these days.  I wonder how Sen Inhofe felt about his work in this area in his later years.  I read the whole article waiting for perhaps a deathbed conversion, but there was no word of one.

Jim Inhofe, 89, dies after a long Senate career marked by fight against climate science

From the BBC

A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans

In the stark contrast of today’s presidential race, I am reminded of Hunter Thompson’s quote from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72, when Richard Nixon beats George McGovern in a landslide.  Unbeknownst to everyone, Nixon would not last for very long with the Watergate scandal looming.

“McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.  Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

Mexico abolished slavery in 1829. The people in what would later be called Texas would fight the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 and later, in 1845 join the United States to keep slavery alive.

Just 15 years later, in 1861 Texas would join the Confederacy in yet another bid to maintain slavery.  This would only last until the end of the Civil War in 1864 when slavery was abolished in the United States.  In the years before and during the US Civil War, many slaves escaped to freedom in Mexico.  A good article from National Endowment of the Humanities.

South to Freedom

So the “Free Market” grid run by the likes of ERCOT in Texas turns out to be free only when oil and gas have no competition.  Suddenly, as clean cheap solar, wind and battery are all but shutting down legacy thermal technologies, massive amounts of tax dollars (plus the dollars from consumers forced to buy more expensive electricity) come rolling out.  Why not just spend the money on the clean, cheap solutions of the future?

It’s as if a hundred years ago the government would fund horse and buggies because they were worried about the rapid adoption of automobiles.  Abolish ERCOT and hook us up to the rest of the US grid already.

Texas to double $5 billion state fund aimed at expanding the power grid

Saw a few reports on the news of unusually bad air quality in Austin. Found this map with live air quality reporting.  We seem to be getting more winds form the south, bringing some pollution from the Houston area.  Of course, with recent Supreme Court decisions it isn’t clear that there is any regulation at all for air quality in the US.  This map should be even more useful in the future, unfortunately.

From The Atlantic.

The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret

No one really knows how interest rates work, or even whether they work at all—not the experts who study them, the investors who track them, or the officials who set them.