Plenty of people took to social media over the weekend to note the irony of the state’s largest private utility (Puget Sound Energy) having to beg people to turn down the heat during the coldest days of the year. But rather than just make fun of the power bureaucrats, UW Atmospheric Sciences Professor Cliff Mass instead pointed out a painful reality for the extreme environmentalist crowd – “once cold air moves into the region and demand is at a maximum, winds calm out and renewables are no longer a significant source of energy in the Pacific Northwest.”

Unfortunately for those who like their power supply reliable, renewables dominate the policy agenda for Governor Jay Inslee and legislative Democrats, despite the fact that it’s not just cold weather that’s a challenge for windmills, as “during summer heatwaves something similar happens:  wind energy collapses during the warmest days.” And Democrats are seemingly intent on making the situation even worse, causing Professor Mass to highlight that “(H)ydrogeneration is extraordinarily valuable and flexible and any suggestions to reduce hydrogenation resources (such as removing the Snake River dams) is highly irresponsible.”

Read on to see why Professor Mass ends his blog with an admonition for Left that “reality is reality and climate/energy advocates need to understand the underlying problems and refrain from unrealistic demands” here… Cliff Mass blog.

Public education has fallen from the top of the list of issues which voters care most about heading into the crucial 2024 election year. At least that’s among the findings of pollster Stuart Elway, as reported on by Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, who noted that education has always been a top-of-mind issue for voters, “in the top two or three. Now it’s just dropped off the agenda.”

You can read on for Elway’s assessment of why that is so, as “(E)verything is filtered now through a national partisan lens. If the national candidates and parties aren’t talking about it and whipping everybody up, then the media doesn’t focus on it.” Read on to see how Westneat is scared that absent students aren’t all that’s missing from our public school and that “make(s) this a terrible moment for the political system and its leaders to go missing, too.”… Seattle Times.

Just in case you can’t get enough stories about polls, another one comes from the Washington Observer highlighting the numbers released from an independent political committee (the “smart pro-business money in Washington”) which make the case for State Senator (and business owner!) Mark Mullet. We’ll leave it to you to sift through the numbers provided by the Jackson Legacy Fund, but you can see that Sen. Mullet’s supporters fear former Congressman/Sheriff Dave Reichert more than they do Attorney General Bob Ferguson, as the “marquee finding of the survey is that a strong majority — 59 percent of the 600 people surveyed in December by Republican-leaning polling firm Moore Information Group — would not support an anti-abortion Republican for governor.”… Washington Observer/The Jackson Legacy Fund.

In place of a Newsmaker interview last week, we brought you Republican State Senator Nikki Torres’ response to the gaslighting remarks delivered by Governor Jay Inslee in (thankfully) his last State of the State Address. Sen. Torres perspective deserved more attention than the ink wasted on the governor’s many questionable statements. While Inslee’s address was a lesson in creative storytelling, Senator Torres brought a refreshing dose of reality to the table. Take a moment to watch Sen. Torres’ no-nonsense response here.

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