🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2937207291.3.p00168@psilink.com> "James F. Tims" <p00168@psilink.com> writes:
>I would like to make a passing observation about Texas.  My whole family 
>is from Texas.  All my grandfathers/grandfathers/uncles/aunts, etc., are 
>from Texas and live there now.  I have lived in Texas.  Do not mistake 
>Texas with the United States.  Legally, it is one of the states, but 
>when one is in Texas, one is in a whole 'nother country, as they say.

I couldn't pass up the chance to make a couple more observations.

Claude Scales, a dear friend in New York, was involved in the effort to
get Texas into the Union, electrically.

For many decades, the other 47 contiguous states have all belonged to the
national electrical grid.  Texas didn't; that way, it didn't have to
submit to Federal regulation.  However, the law was written that if any
Texas utility were ever to buy or sell electricity via the grid, Texas
would fall under regulation.  A New Jersey utility bought a small Texas
Panhandle electric company, and an Oklahoma company just over the border.
It then ran a DC line (Texas, not being on the grid, was a bit off-frequency
for an AC connection) to the Panhandle.  They kept this line going for
a few years, then announced it and sued successfully to have Texas join
the grid.,

Computer users in Texas rejoiced: at last their computers' line clocks kept
time with the rest of the US!

I have seen it claimed (but haven't verified) that Texas retains the legal
right to secede from the US.  Although many of us keep hoping, it hasn't
happened yet :-).

Mark
-- 
Mark A. Fulk			University of Rochester
Computer Science Department	fulk@cs.rochester.edu