Sine Qua Non

I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised, But ...

Politicians and Big Media are saying a lot of really dumb things about the blackout.

Here's two for one:

Everyone who recalls September 11 immediately thought of terrorism, and we can all be thankful it wasn't the cause. But it's somehow not reassuring to hear government officials refer to the event the way New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did as a "natural occurrence." Natural is what happens in nature, like a tornado, but a national power grid is a man-made operation.

It is definitely not a "natural" occurrence, but neither is it utterly preventable just because it is man-made as the WSJ suggests in it's article. I'm not used to seeing the WSJ preach utopianism so blatantly.

But if we really want to go out there, we have to turn to Congress:

Democrats argue more federal oversight is needed to prevent energy failures or spikes in prices.

But, of course, isn't more federal oversight the standard Democrat answer to every problem? And speaking of a standard response to every crisis:

“Speculation is running rampant here and most of it is not even informed speculation”

I heard someone from the North American Electric Reliability Council on NPR this morning claim that legislation proposed years ago could have stopped this. Well, maybe, but extending the prevention of this particular power failure to preventing all possible power failures is just silly.

SSDD.

Posted by Charles Austin at August 15, 2003 02:37 PM