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11/23 |
2001/7/6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:21726 Activity:nil |
7/5 Kill Texas! http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/printts20010706.shtml |
11/23 |
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www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/printts20010706.shtml But all indications are that they are well worth their money. Think about it: Here is a state that has already had rolling blackouts and is facing more blackouts in the months ahead, not to mention losses of millions of dollars in taxes as businesses start leaving California, taking jobs with them, because they cannot get reliable electricity. Yet a recent poll shows that most Californians do not believe that there is an electricity shortage. Could you or I have convinced so many people of such a thing under these conditions? It has been a stroke of political genius to get Californians' minds off electricity and onto prices. If the focus is on electricity, then the big question is: Why don't we have enough? And the answer is likely to lead back to bungling politicians. Three former employees of Duke Energy testified that the company deliberately shut down some generating capacity when it did not have to, in order to drive up prices and make bigger profits. This was a political gold mine, and the politicians were not about to lose it by allowing Duke Energy to testify on the same day with its side of the story. Meanwhile, Duke has had to buy full-page newspaper ads to try to get its side of the story out. According to Duke Energy, it shut down when it did under direct orders from California authorities. The Los Angeles Times -- a liberal newspaper -- checked out this version of the story and found it corroborated by official documents. But do not look for this to get big, front-page headlines like the charges made by Duke's former employees. And Californians want to believe that their problems were caused by others, not by their own refusal to let power plants be built or by their refusal to pay the cost of buying electricity elsewhere. The value of Governor Davis' spinmeisters is shown not only by the success of their propaganda campaigns in the media but also by the apparently ineffective attempts of Duke Energy to defend itself. You counter-attack by denouncing those who made the charges as either ignorant or liars. You tell the public that you don't intend to be used as scapegoats by politicians who bungled the electricity crisis. And you ask why they didn't dare let you tell your side of the story before. Not only is outrage more credible than whimpering, it is more newsworthy, so that your side of the story is more likely to get mentioned in the media, when it has the spicy ingredient of conflict. Someone once asked General Douglas MacArthur to define defensive warfare. Someday the truth about all this may come out but, if it comes out after Governor Davis is re-elected, who will care? |