NC's energy future is being decided right now:

Governor Roy Cooper and Republican state lawmakers made a historic deal last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power generation by 70 percent by 2030 and all the way to carbon neutral by 2050. They left the details of how to get there up to the state utilities commission. We’re expecting to see their final decision this week.

Currently, North Carolina is dependent on coal, natural gas and nuclear power for our electricity. The Carbon plan will set out the rules for Duke Energy for moving to greener energy sources like solar, wind and battery storage. As it shuts down its coal fired plants, Duke wants to build more natural gas plants. It says they’re needed for reliable baseload power generation. Critics say more gas plants are not needed. They say battery storage for wind and solar can serve that need.

Couple things to consider: Solar is scalable and dispersed, meaning you can locate farms in areas that are far away from big generation facilities and save a ton of juice that gets lost in transmission (like 17% in some areas). These recent rolling blackouts would not have been necessary, at least not as widespread as they were. Speaking of brownouts, our former Liar-In-Chief has left a legacy in his wake:

Democratic lawmakers are calling for Rep.-elect George Santos to resign from the House seat he won in November, after the Long Island Republican admitted to “résumé embellishment” — dialing up the pressure on GOP leadership to respond.

“GOP Congressman-elect George Santos, who has now admitted his whopping lies, should resign,” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), urging Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to call a vote to expel Santos if he does not quit. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) said that if Santos takes his new seat, it would set a precedent encouraging others to seek public office by falsifying their credentials, while Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) accused Santos of “defrauding the voters of Long Island about his ENTIRE resume.”

Now that Santos has apologized “if I disappointed anyone by résumé embellishment” — and acknowledged publicly Monday that he did not graduate from college or work at certain companies that had been listed in his biography — questions remain about what action, if any, the incoming House majority leader will take. Santos’s win helped Republicans secure a narrow majority in the next term.

Why shouldn't he lie? Hell, Trump did it every day and his minions slobbered all over him. This is what you get for putting partisan politics over ethical considerations. And frankly, if the new majority does boot him out, pretty sure they'll just replace him with another GOP lap-dog. There won't be a "special" election, since it's party business and not electoral in nature. But I could be wrong, it's the middle of the week and I've only been wrong a couple of times so far...

Meanwhile, the wheels of justice are slowly turning:

The co-leader of the failed plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to 16 years in prison, far below the life sentence sought by federal prosecutors but the longest sentence yet in what was the highest-profile domestic terrorism case in recent years.

Adam Fox, 39, of Wyoming, Mich., was convicted in August on two conspiracy charges relating to the kidnapping scheme and another to obtain and use a weapon of mass destruction. Federal prosecutors pegged Fox as the “driving force” behind the 2020 plan to kidnap Whitmer (D) from her vacation home, blow up a bridge to distract responding police and provoke a civil war ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Fourteen people were eventually arrested by state and federal authorities after an October 2020 sting that involved the use of informants and undercover FBI agents who embedded with the men. The case heightened concerns about the threat of extremism, particularly from the far right, in a deeply divided country.

Fox, who was convicted on federal charges in August along with his co-conspirator Barry Croft Jr., 47, is the third defendant to be federally sentenced after two younger men, Ty Garbin, 27 and Kaleb Franks, 28, pleaded guilty to federal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Three other men were found guilty in October on state charges in Jackson County, Mich.

The defendants, drawn together by their association with an armed right-wing group known as the “Wolverine Watchmen,” were motivated in part by beliefs the government was unconstitutionally stripping their freedoms during shutdowns imposed in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic and referred to Whitmer as a “tyrant.”

If he does the full 16, I'm cool with that. A life sentence would possibly (probably?) be overturned on appeal, but this should stick.

Be good to each other, folks. And pace yourself this weekend (sez the tee-totaler).