“Many people were looking forward to watching the games at the venues, but I would like everyone to fully enjoy watching the games on TV at home.” — Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, after announcing the city will ban fans from the Olympics, which open July 23, as Japan declared a state of emergency because of rising COVID-19 cases. (Thursday, The Dallas Morning News)
“Herd immunity is not a uniform distribution. ... If there are ZIP codes that have not reached 50%, we’re all still at risk.” — Dr. Jamboor Vishwanatha, director for the HSC Texas Center for Health Disparities in Fort Worth, on news that Dallas County has reached herd immunity against COVID-19, but some areas still have low immunization rates. (Wednesday, The Dallas Morning News)
“Financially hobbled for life. That’s the joke.” — Matt Black, who graduated from Columbia University in 2015 with an MFA in film and $233,000 in federal loans that he struggles to pay. (Thursday, The Wall Street Journal)
“I think this really brings into question the assumption that we can count on 95% output from these aging gas, coal and nuclear plants. Of the thermal capacity in ERCOT, 30% of it is more than 40 years old.” — Daniel Cohan, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Rice University, after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas released the list of power plants that failed last month when the grid came close to another outage. The list includes many aging plants. (Friday, The Dallas Morning News)
“One good thing about crypto mining is it’s adding flexibility to the system. But the problem is it’s consuming real resources, doing a function that has no value.” — Former ERCOT board member Peter Cramton, on crypto mining operations in Texas that consume enormous amounts of electricity, but also participate in a program that pays cash to commercial power users to shut down during grid emergencies. (Thursday, The Washington Post)
“The trial conclusively established that no other individual — not even Kelley’s own parents or partners — knew as much as the United States about the violence that Devin Kelley had threatened to commit and was capable of committing. Moreover, the evidence shows that — had the Government done its job and properly reported Kelley’s information into the background check system — it is more likely than not that Kelley would have been deterred from carrying out the Church shooting.” — U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in a decision on a civil lawsuit brought by survivors and families of victims of the massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. (Thursday, The Wall Street Journal)
Legally Blonde “is more relevant in a deeper way now than ever before. Women, equal pay and the #MeToo movement, so much has come around in the last 20 years that did not exist when these girls were creating this movie.” — Toni Basil, who choreographed the bend-and-snap scene in the film that hits its 20th anniversary this year. (Thursday, The New York Times)
“For weeks, I’ve been researching RVs for, literally, no reason. I have zero interest in owning one or even traveling in one. This is the lamest mid-life crisis ever.” — Comedian Michael Ian Black (Thursday, Twitter)
“I kind of thought I would never be into spelling again, but I’m also happy that I’m going to make a clean break from it. I can go out, like my Guinness world records, just leave it right there and walk off.” — Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Zaila Avante-garde, who holds three Guinness world records for basketball dribbling, and, now that she has conquered Guinness and Scripps, plans to move on to new adventures. We can’t wait to see what she does next. (Friday, ESPN)
