        This afternoon, sometime around 4:40, power was knocked out in Southern Lewisville for the second time this month. Although Texas was in the process of setting a record for power usage, TNMP said that the problem was not related to rolling blackouts, but instead was the result of what appeared to be a big transformer tripping. Lewisville police stayed busy directing traffic at intersections along F.M. 3040 and S.H. 121. TNMP had restored some power (including my house) by 6:30 p.m., but other neighbors are still without power as I write this, and TNMP is estimating an 8:30 p.m. restore.
Lewisville residents experienced a similar outage on June 14th.
The heat apparently is getting to people, judging by the number of disturbances that LPD is responding to in the past few hours. (BTW, thanks to LJ and LF who heard our frustration about our old staticky police scanner, and chipped in to buy us a new one. We're Lima Charlie now.)
Aside from the pesky problem of being without our own power, we can all pop the champagne corks and take a little Texas pride, because Texas set an all-time June record for electricity peak usage Monday, then again on Tuesday. Electric use averaged 65,047 megawatts between 4 and 5 p.m., which was still 500 megawatts less than had been predicted for Monday. Texas' all-time peak usage was set last August 3rd, at 68,379 megawatts. In off-peak hours Monday, electricity was going for $20 - $30 per megawatt hour, but in West Texas, some rates were as high as $438.54. On Tuesday, we hit 66,583 megawatts, and Reuters reports that prices briefly hit the $3,000 maximum.
Why the Water Tastes Funny
In case you missed the post on Facebook, the City of Lewisville answered a citizen question about the funny taste in our city water right now: Quote:
"This is caused by the natural churn in local lakes seen each year when the temperatures rise at the start of summer. It is experienced by every city drawing water from lakes (as opposed to wells from the aquifer). It usually lasts about a week, but the water remains perfectly safe to drink. Our water plant has made adjustments to the treatment process to address the taste and odor issues. Residents should see an improvement within the next couple of days."
We have two suggestions:
1. Drink beer instead.
2. Put lots of sugar in the iced tea.
OK, you could also get one of those fancy pitchers or faucet filters.
Miscellaneous Stuff
The Lewisville Police Chief's weekly update details 2 shootings and a stabbing in the last week.
Lewisville police officer was honored for life-saving.
All you want to know about the Arizona v. United States case via Scotusblog. The whole opinion, as well as the dissenting opinions of Scalia, Thomas, and Alito are here.
The Supreme Court also held that Montana cannot prohibit corporate money in their elections. Via Daily Kos: Scalia: States' rights only count when I feel like it. Don't worry though, because some Americans are pooling their money to counteract the corporate takeover of our democracy. Montana's Governor and Lieutenant Governor (a Democrat and a Republican) both are calling for a constitutional amendment to deny corporate personhood. I don't think such a thing would be necessary except that we now have a kangaroo court with right-wing judicial activists bending the law to suit their ideology. We might as well amend the constitution to spell out and make unequivocal what We, the People expect when it comes to whose voices our government listens to.
Speaking of spelling things out, we updated our posting rules the other day to make it clear that it's considered spam when people post the same comment repeatedly in multiple threads. Seems like we could name each rule after a different commenter. Wish we could just get away with the golden rule.
Baby boomer divorce rates double. "Sanctity of marriage", my ass. People change, and sometimes it just doesn't work out. It won't stop me from trying to make mine last a lifetime, but I certainly won't hold it against others if their ideas on marriage are different. (Unless they go around sanctimoniously preaching and condemning others for it. Looking at you, Limbaugh.)
Gas driller Range Resources continues to abuse the court system in order to squelch criticism from fellow blogger Sharon Wilson. Range: You come out looking like the dirtbags you probably are. You should probably stop digging your hole.
This month there have been five earthquakes in North Texas - all around the Burleson / Cleburne area. There was a 2.6 magnitude quake this morning, and a 3.6 on Sunday.
Health Services of North Texas is now a federally qualified health center.
Another story about breastaurants.
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