Sun. May 30, 2021 – meatspace

By on May 30th, 2021 in medical, personal, WuFlu

After a really nice day on Saturday, I expect a bit of rain today. And some heat. And humidity.

I did one pickup, went to my storage unit and looked at a couple of things. Put some things away. Mainly did cleanup and chores around the house.

There is a bit of drama going on on our street involving one of the aging neighbors. I’ve gotten involved and that took up some time. Getting old sucks. Getting old and sick sucks worse. Getting old and sick when you are the only caregiver for a loved one who is very sick sucks the most. I have a lead on some family and will be talking with them later today or Monday.

Meatspace. Sometimes it would be a lot easier to never leave the house. That’s not a good way to live though. So, meatspace. And the problems that come from the people that live in it.

The rest of today should be spent working on the list.

And stacking.

Always stacking.

nick

67 Comments and discussion on "Sun. May 30, 2021 – meatspace"

  1. SteveF says:

    Sometimes it would be a lot easier to never leave the house. That’s not a good way to live though.

    Hey! No dissin’ my preferences!

    The joke about “You know you’re a recluse when they lock down the state and your life hardly changes” isn’t always a joke.

    10
  2. Greg Norton says:

    I find it interesting how quickly the phrase “vaccine hesitancy” has burst into common usage.

    That is not a phrase I’d heard a month ago.

    Everyone knows someone who was recently out of commission for at least a day due to one of the shots. It raises suspicion, particularly when people have died from reactions to the vaccines.

    The reports vary on the number of vaccine-related deaths, but lets call the order of magnitude at somewhere around 10^3, roughly 1 in 10^5 of people receiving jabs. It isn’t something the government can hide easily.

    Also, the “hesitancy” among the African American population is very high. I don’t think riffing on “Hamilton” in the commercials was the right way to approach the reluctance in that community and, if anything, increased suspicion.

    Virtue signaling white people liked “Hamilton”.

    I just saw the commercials several times last night. Ever since my kids (give credit where credit is due) clued me in to the origin of the “this is our shot” meme, I look at the ads as somewhat racist in the usual Prog way. The fact that the ad buys are paid for by Walgreens doesn’t help.

  3. ech says:

    according to the CDC, for whatever that’s worth, having the vaccine won’t/doesn’t prevent you from infecting others.

    It reduces the odds that you will get infected.

    When infected, early data indicate that you are not as infectious.

    So, it helps in control.

  4. ech says:

    Mars is becoming a highly focused planet because it contains many valuable resources, including rare metals, that have ignited a new rush by global superpowers to conduct future space mining missions.

    Nobody has any idea if there are commercially viable deposits of any valuable resources for use on Earth. Nobody. To assert that is BS, which is no unusual for ZeroHedge. The current intererest in Mars is due to one thing. Orbital mechanics. There was a launch window for a least energy (Hohmann) transfer orbit to Mars, and those spacecraft have been arriving over the past weeks.

    If we don’t get into space mining, we risk using up all the easily accessible resources and losing the chance to get into space mining…   or at least that’s what I’ve been thinking for a while.

    There are a few startups that are looking into it. They are focusing on robotic mining of asteroids. They are known to have viable concentrations of rare earths and other valuable metals, and they don’t require leaving a deep gravity well to get them to Earth. Is this near term? Not really, but young children or their children might see it.

     

  5. Greg Norton says:

    “If we don’t get into space mining, we risk using up all the easily accessible resources and losing the chance to get into space mining…   or at least that’s what I’ve been thinking for a while.”

    There are a few startups that are looking into it.

    As Dr. Pournelle noted so many times that I lost count, reaching low Earth orbit for the price of fuel and reasonable maintenance on the machinery with 24 hour turnaround is the most important first step. Until that is accomplished, solar power satellites or space mining will remain “hard” science fiction — within reach but not in the immediate future.

  6. Alan says:

    The train is coming…either get off the tracks or get run over…

    Costco is seeing inflation abound, impacting a slew of consumer products

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/costco-is-seeing-inflation-abound-impacting-a-slew-of-consumer-products.html

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    Economists largely see the current spate of inflation — one closely followed gauge released Friday estimated the annual pace at 3.1% — as temporary.

    –if they think it’s temporary, WHY? we’re doomed ‘cuz they’re always wrong.

    NOT ONE mention of money printing or the massive increase in debt.

    n

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    78F and 72%RH at 930am with light overcast skies.

    n

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    “Is this near term? Not really, but young children or their children might see it.”

    –only from a lack of will. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in one generation. And then we pulled WAAAAY back. F’in 70s and Carter.

    n

    added- the assassinations and the civil rights movement took the wind out of our sails too.

  10. Greg Norton says:

    –only from a lack of will. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in one generation. And then we pulled WAAAAY back. F’in 70s and Carter.

    Shuttle, which ate the dream, was proposed and mostly designed under Nixon. The famed “Enterprise” rollout occurred in 1976, and the first free flight happened in August of ’77.

    The segmented solid rocket booster design which resulted in the Challenger fiasco was about appeasing Paul Laxalt, one of the key members of the Senate from Utah in the 70s and 80s, who was later instrumental in laying the groundwork to pass the Reagan agenda and retake the Senate majority for most of Reagan’s term.

    Shuttle work took place all over the country to keep the money flowing from Congress, but key components and final assembly took place in CA in what used to be reliable Republican Congressional districts east of LA until the “peace dividend” eliminated the aerospace jobs in the 90s.

    Both parties have lots of blame for allowing NASA to murder the dream, but, arguably, Republicans had more fingerprints on the corpse. Carter was simply clueless as usual

  11. SteveF says:

    reaching low Earth orbit for the price of fuel and reasonable maintenance on the machinery with 24 hour turnaround is the most important first step

    Linear accelerator across the width of Africa at the equator. 1200 miles long, close enough, would allow for tolerable acceleration for enough velocity to reach high orbit and gentle acceleration to reach low orbit.

    I think that I could conquer a 1200×200 mile section of Africa, build nuclear power plants, and build the accelerator all by myself. Well, me and my army of cyborg monkeys. If I had an army of cyborg monkeys. It’s always something.

  12. SteveF says:

    the civil rights movement

    Communists ruin everything they touch.

    Not that there weren’t some injustices to be remedied, but the USSR didn’t fund activists movements in the US for altruistic reasons. And now, looking over the past sixty years, anyone claiming that we live in a more equal, or even a more civilized, society is a fool or a liar.

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Two people are killed and at least 20 injured in mass shooting at a barn raising in rural Pennsylvania XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    aw, who am I kidding?

    Two people are killed and at least 20 injured in mass shooting at a Miami-Dade rap concert

    after three gunmen fired into the crowd

    The gunmen pulled up to the venue in a white SUV armed with assault rifles
    The El Mula Banquet Hall had been rented out for a concert and several people were gathered outside as it ended when gunfire broke out
    Police believe shooting was targeted but no arrests were immediately made

    ‘I am at the scene of another targeted and cowardly act of gun GANG violence, –snip–‘ police director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III Tweeted.

    ‘These are cold blooded murderers that shot indiscriminately into a crowd and we will seek justice.

    –seek it, but not FIND it.

    Police were seeking help from the community to identify and arrest the shooters.

    –good luck with that. But I’ll bet there will be a swift retaliatory shooting and it will kill or wound a bystander.

    — someone else has done the math, and if you remove black violence from FBI statistics, we (the US) becomes one of the safest countries in the world. If only it was that easy in real life.

    n

  14. Nick Flandrey says:

    Missed this.

    Hobbit actor Sir Ian Holm who was married four times leaves $283,000 to his family in his will

    Sir Ian Holm died in hospital aged 88 last June after suffering an illness related to Parkinson’s disease.

    n

  15. Greg Norton says:

    — someone else has done the math, and if you remove black violence from FBI statistics, we (the US) becomes one of the safest countries in the world. If only it was that easy in real life.

    That reminds me — there was an incident last night in Florida Amish Country at a “banquet hall” rented for a performance by one of the lesser known cult legends of Pennsylvania Dutch Folk music genre. I saw it earlier this morning but figured you would pick it up from the DM.

    Maybe the DM correspondents were at the party and still too hungover.

    I’m sure everyone was properly distanced and masked. When we left Downtown Austin yesterday around 5:30, no one we spotted headed to the “cultural” venues in the entertainment district seemed prepared, but the masks may have been in the females’ purses. Yeah, that’s it.

    Hopefully, the FOMO doesn’t mean another wave of cases like post-Memorial Day last Summer that have us wearing masks at Lowes for another year. Everyone was open, including the Mohawk, watering hole and hangout of my former management, which had been closed for nearly 15 months.

    2
    1
  16. Nick Flandrey says:

    Yup, it all ends up there eventually.
    ]

    Didn’t Houston’s erstwhile Police Chief head to Miami? What’s up with “Police Director”?

    n

  17. Greg Norton says:

    Hobbit actor Sir Ian Holm who was married four times leaves $283,000 to his family in his will

    Sir Ian Holm died in hospital aged 88 last June after suffering an illness related to Parkinson’s disease.

    I know UK actors aren’t paid much, but geesh. Ian Holm was huge once upon a time.

  18. JimB says:

    NOT ONE mention of money printing or the massive increase in debt.

    To steal a term, here’s a contrapositive view. The Fed has an incentive to keep interest rates low, so the “payments” on the debt don’t go out of control. To a monetarist, higher interest rates are inflationary, and encourage more “money printing.” Therefore, interest rates might stay artificially low for a while longer. Get those low interest long term debt contracts while they are still available!

    See what happens when we give control of fiat money to a government?

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Didn’t Houston’s erstwhile Police Chief head to Miami? What’s up with “Police Director”?

    I don’t try to understand Dade County outside of Little Havana. I know Miami-Dade is one big metro under control of an elected executive, and Orlando-Orange is moving in that direction.

    Back when Wall Street was making serious noise about relocating to South Florida out of Manhattan last year, I had a friend ask me about real estate around the rebuilt train station and office complex in Downtown Miami, where the financial firms were eyeing space. I asked him about his CCW permit status and life insurance coverage, and he thought I was kidding.

    “Where do they expect people to live?”

    “Fort Lauderdale or West Palm, riding Brightline into work every morning.”

    Ultimately, South Florida didn’t have enough high class strippers and prostitutes to satisfy Wall Street types so the goal is to have people back in Manhattan by Labor Day.

    UPDATE: Taking a look at the location in FL Amish Country where the incident took place, the “banquet hall” may actually be just that on occasion. Well, hush my mouth. Still Dade County, but we ventured out there looking for a cord for my wife’s MacBook at the nearby Best Buy on one trip to FL a few years back. Grim but definitely not Overtown*.

    *Neighborhood where the Marlins play baseball to some of the lowest crowds in the majors.

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://gunfreezone.net/when-you-dont-have-the-information-but-make-a-case-for-gun-control-anyway/

    More pix and speculation.

    I’ll stand by my “gang” violence.
    n

  21. Greg Norton says:

    To steal a term, here’s a contrapositive view. The Fed has an incentive to keep interest rates low, so the “payments” on the debt don’t go out of control. To a monetarist, higher interest rates are inflationary, and encourage more “money printing.” Therefore, interest rates might stay artificially low for a while longer. Get those low interest long term debt contracts while they are still available!

    The Fed has an incentive to keep interest rates low buying 10 and 30 year Treasury issues as well as most mortgage paper in order to avoid cratering the housing market. Even a reversion to 6% on 30 year fixed loans, 4% T-bill rates, previously historic lows at which we refinanced our last house in Florida 18 years ago, saving a huge pile of money, would be devastating to the broader market. Figure about $50,000 reduction in sale price for every 100 basis points increase in the mortgage rates, possibly more now that the addiction to cheap money has really taken hold in the junkie’s body.

    Low rates are also important to enabling the EV automobile fleet turnover. Pre-pandemic, the big Chevy dealer in town was moving the $50k “statement” trucks using 90 month loans at zero or near zero rates. At least with IC vehicles, the lower price sensible alternatives are available, some still sold at below $20k for reasonably trouble-free transportation good for 75-100,000 miles; that won’t be the case soon.

  22. Nick Flandrey says:

    ” the lower price sensible alternatives are available”

    –oh, they will be. We call them “bikes”. Very popular with the illegals in town, who can’t afford or don’t have papers good enough to drive cars. They might even be E-bikes to some degree, there has to be a market for all those flammable chinese li batteries that aren’t good enough to be used in EV cars.

    We’ll know the US market for cars is dead when Tata gets a vehicle approved for sale in the US.

    n

  23. SteveF says:

    Hobbit actor Sir Ian Holm who was married four times leaves $283,000 to his family in his will

    Just think: if he hadn’t been married four times, he’d have been a multimillionaire.

  24. Nick Flandrey says:

    no mention if there was more left to others…

    n

  25. Greg Norton says:

    We’ll know the US market for cars is dead when Tata gets a vehicle approved for sale in the US.

    I believe Tata builds the Ford EcoSport, and they own Jaguar-Land Rover.

    The EcoSport definitely originates on the Subcontinent. Teeny three cylinder engine, but comparatively lousy gas mileage according to the sticker on a new one I saw last Summer in Fort Walton Beach. 27/29? Really, Ford?

    Ford was in a hurry to bury the Focus/Fiesta ahead of a class action lawsuit verdict which could have bankrupted the company. My father always said Ford was over the moment the last Crown Vic stopped rolling. He may yet be proven right, but he never imagined that the car would ever leave production.

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    “something related to Jews in the news? MUST BE ANTISEMITISM, quick, tweet!”

    “The apparel company also said they were taking the matter seriously and investigating complaints

    ‘Along with our distribution partners, Stetson condemns antisemitism and discrimination of any kind,’ the company tweeted.

    There is zero antisemitism involved in this story.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9633675/John-B-Stetson-pulls-hats-Nashville-hat-store-sold-Not-Vaccinated-patches.html

    I wonder what would have happened if she’d known about the pink triangle?

    n

    added- more than enough knee jerk ignorance to go around in that story. I point to the “no na zz is in Nashville” banner.

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    “The EcoSport definitely originates on the Subcontinent”

    –US Ford design? Or “it was those poor people’s fate to die” indian design?

    n

  28. Ed says:

    no mention if there was more left to others…

    Heinlein used to comment: Shakespeare left his 2nd best bed to his wife…who got the best?

     

  29. Greg Norton says:

    –US Ford design? Or “it was those poor people’s fate to die” indian design?

    Ford Brazil. The company sold those for a couple of decades down there, but the engine is new.

    3000 lb curb weight, probably with all the “five star” airbag nonsense. No more dangerous than a Sentra but even more underpowered.

    Even Nissan backed off the sub 2.0 L displacement in the Sentra.

    Ford couldn’t get away with selling something truly dangerous. With the Focus/Fiesta, the automatic transmissions simply fell apart. The lawsuit proved the company knew for years.

  30. Nick Flandrey says:

    The great restaurant price hike: Eateries across the country are raising prices after soaring inflation sees ingredients costs triple

    A perfect storm of rising oil costs, supply chain issues and labor shortages is driving some restaurants to put prices up
    Alan Natkiel, owner of New Hampshire restaurant Georgia’s Northside, said costs had spiked in the last 3 months, forcing him to put up prices
    He said the cost of brisket has gone up 185%, chicken breast is up 70%, and fryer oil costs have doubled in the past three months
    National chains such as IHOP and Applebee’s say their costs have also shot up, and may be forced to pass that on to consumers
    Inflation rose 4.2% in the last 12 months, its highest rate since 2008

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9634229/Eateries-country-raising-prices-soaring-inflation-sees-ingredients-costs-triple.html

    Yep, sounds exactly like 3% inflation.

    BTW unless there is a “to” missing from the bolded phrase above, someone is getting shifty with stats.

    n

  31. lynn says:

    “Is this near term? Not really, but young children or their children might see it.”

    –only from a lack of will. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in one generation. And then we pulled WAAAAY back. F’in 70s and Carter.

    n

    added- the assassinations and the civil rights movement took the wind out of our sails too.

    Three generations. A generation is typically 20 years.

  32. lynn says:

    — someone else has done the math, and if you remove black violence from FBI statistics, we (the US) becomes one of the safest countries in the world. If only it was that easy in real life.

    My former USMC son saw this in Iraq. With the absence of the Rule Of Law, a lot of people went into revenge mode for hurts, slights, and imagined injuries. And they even tried to get the Marines to do their dirty work also.

    You gotta say one thing about Saddam Hussein, he kept the law for the general populace in Iraq. His sons and secret police, not so much.

  33. lynn says:

    reaching low Earth orbit for the price of fuel and reasonable maintenance on the machinery with 24 hour turnaround is the most important first step

    Linear accelerator across the width of Africa at the equator. 1200 miles long, close enough, would allow for tolerable acceleration for enough velocity to reach high orbit and gentle acceleration to reach low orbit.

    I think that I could conquer a 1200×200 mile section of Africa, build nuclear power plants, and build the accelerator all by myself. Well, me and my army of cyborg monkeys. If I had an army of cyborg monkeys. It’s always something.

    Unlike you, China does have an army of slaves. “China Wants To Build An 8,000-Mile Underwater Train Line To The USA”
    https://www.iflscience.com/technology/china-wants-to-build-an-8000mile-underwater-train-line-to-the-usa/

    “China currently has one of the most expansive and impressive high-speed rail networks on Earth, and they aren’t showing signs of slowing. As their network reaches the far corners of their nation, Beijing could be setting its eyes on what lies beyond – far, far beyond.”

    “According to reports, China wishes to build a high-speed, 13,000-kilometer (8,078-mile) train that travels from mainland China, up through Siberia in Eastern Russia, under the sea through the Bering Strait into Alaska, across the rocky peaks of Canada’s Yukon and British Columbia, and into the USA. Once constructed, they have could further extend their international bullet train into every corner of the US.”

    “The price of such an outlandish proposal? A cool $200 billion. A price tag so high, even the likes of Jeff Bezos probably couldn’t reach it.”

  34. lynn says:

    “Palestinian terrorism comes to California”
    https://gunfreezone.net/palestinian-terrorism-comes-to-california/

    “Pratt & Whitney Van Set on Fire in Orange County, CA in Solidarity with Palestinian Resistance”

    Palestinian extremism has been going on in California since a Palestinian murdered Bobby Kennedy there in 1968 during his campaign for President.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy

  35. lynn says:

    “A New Kind of Denialism”
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/29/a-new-kind-of-denialism/

    “If you thought we were over the “You’re a Climate Denier” thing, you would be wrong. Now, one of America’s leading ‘small town rags with delusions of grandeur’, the Albany-based Times Union [TU], has labelled all Republicans in the New York State legislature as being a new kind of denialist.”

    “Why would the Times Union Editorial Board be making such an accusation?”

    “It is because the Republican legislators are “now looking to slow down New York’s fledgling effort to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions” by having the audacity to demand that the State should require a “full cost-benefit analysis of the technical and economic aspects of any future actions”.”

    Why should we want to know the cost of transforming our society before we go down this horrible road ?

  36. JimB says:

    China Wants To Build An 8,000-Mile Underwater Train Line To The USA

    They could use coal purchased from us to fuel it.

  37. Greg Norton says:

    Why should we want to know the cost of transforming our society before we go down this horrible road ? 

    Forget rhyming. History is about to repeat 1994 in New York.

  38. Nick Flandrey says:

    One generation if you look at a single person. I was thinking of my grandmother who was alive for both events. But yes, we use the word “generation” the other way most of the time. I should have said, “In one lifetime”.

    n

    Added – she might have been alive for the Mars lander too, can’t be bothered to look it up, dripping sweat from cutting the grass.

  39. MrAtoz says:

    “The price of such an outlandish proposal? A cool $200 billion. A price tag so high, even the likes of Jeff Bezos probably couldn’t reach it.”

    Sounds like the price of Kalifornia’s “High Speed Rail To Nowhere (and Las Vegas)” boondoggle.

  40. JimB says:

    Sounds like the price of Kalifornia’s “High Speed Rail To Nowhere (and Las Vegas)” boondoggle.

    Yes, but China would haul billions of tons of Cheap Chinese CrapTM. The Brown Train to NowhereTM would haul practically no one.

    I have to grudgingly admit, Nuisance refused to fully implement that boondoggle. Maybe it was just for show. Too lazy to look it up.

    Besides, Dinner!

  41. PaultheManc says:

    I know UK actors aren’t paid much, but geesh. Ian Holm was huge once upon a time.

    It could just be good inheritance tax planning.  UK inheritance tax starts at GBP325K. There is no tax on assets transferred to legal partners.

  42. ~jim says:

    China Wants To Build An 8,000-Mile Underwater Train Line To The USA

    They could use coal purchased from us to fuel it.

    Lol, that’s my laugh for the day. Oh the irony!

    We need to distinguish between Civil Rights, which was about all men being treated equally under the law insofar as rights and opportunity are concerned, and Johnson’s Great Society from which sprang this current fabulous, nebulous notion of “equity”.

    In common parlance the very word itself irks me as its original meaning seems to be bending into something akin to an incantation of magical intervention, how and by whom of no importance.

  43. Nick Flandrey says:

    “There is no tax on assets transferred to legal partners. ”

    –tax code written by dynastic lines in a culture that values bloodline. Compare and contrast to US tax code, which will strip a family of its assets in a couple of generations without clever planning and accumulating the right kind of assets, and crossing a certain threshold of wealth.

    One keeps the money in the family, one recycles the money back into the economy (and keeps people from rising too high.)

    Tax on inheritance sucks dead bunnies.

    n

  44. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’m seeing “equity” everywhere these days, and not “equality”. In fairness they don’t want “equality” they want primacy.

    (for whichever ‘they’ is pushing that perverted crap at the time.)

    n

  45. ~jim says:

    I’m seeing “equity” everywhere these days, and not “equality”. In fairness they don’t want “equality” they want primacy.

    Then the questions which need answering in regard to the meaning of “equity” are: How? By whom? To what end? To what extent? And, last but not least, At whose expense?

    Like I said, it seems to be a magical wish.

  46. ech says:

    only from a lack of will. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in one generation.

    Yes and no. When a trip to an asteroid takes 2+ years each way, it will take many years to bootstrap serious space mining. The moon is only 3-4 days each way. That’s a huge difference.

     

  47. Greg Norton says:

    Annual mower maintenance today. Just a few years late.

    Thank God for the Interwebz. Champion never produced the Iridium spark plug referenced in the manual, but it turns out that an exact fit non-Iridium version is commonly available at Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

    Pre-gapped to spec too!

    Iridium. Geesh. Its a *mower*.

    Serious lawn mowing season in Austin runs from the last freeze around the 1st of March until the weather turns dry/hot by late June. Ok, I’m set for *next* year.

  48. lynn says:

    Why should we want to know the cost of transforming our society before we go down this horrible road ?

    Forget rhyming. History is about to repeat 1994 in New York.

    What happened in New York in 1994 ?

  49. JimB says:

    Iridium. Geesh. Its a *mower*.

    Yup. An ordinary cheap plug is fine, and could last the life of the mower. Unless… the engine has some new fangled low energy ignition. I don’t keep up, but most older small engines had magnetos with magnets embedded in the flywheel, points, and a capacitor. These produce a hot, high current, long duration spark that provides plenty of energy during cranking, and more during running. That keeps the plug clean. The low compression ratio keeps the operating temperatures moderate, so the plug lasts. If the engine has a catalyst, occasional misfires will stress the cat, so maybe that’s why a fancy plug is specified. If the cat burns out, you won’t know unless you have a good nose; no inspections on mowers – yet.

    Inspect the old plug for signs of fouling and wear. I’ll bet it looks like a new plug, with minimal deposits. Check its gap for signs of erosion. Gap the new plug precisely according to the engine’s specs. Then, after a season of two check the gap to measure erosion. Why?

    Back in the old days before platinum, auto plugs would typically erode a thousandth of an inch per thousand miles. On many cars, poor plug access and low parts cost meant simply replacement rather than regapping every 20k miles. With platinum, including double platinum, erosion is almost nonexistent, so insulator contamination probably limits life. Iridium is just a little better, not needed except for turbocharged engines. Most cars in the last 20 years show misfire codes when plugs or wires need replacement, so a scanner is easier than a wrench. In the absence of codes, replace plugs and wires every 100k miles. Newer cars, especially turbo or supercharged, put more stress on ignition components, so follow manufacturer’s specs. Digression, but ignition in a nutshell. Engines that burn nitromethane will have vastly different needs. 🙂

  50. lynn says:

    only from a lack of will. We went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in one generation.

    Yes and no. When a trip to an asteroid takes 2+ years each way, it will take many years to bootstrap serious space mining. The moon is only 3-4 days each way. That’s a huge difference.

    When Starship has a successful flight, I suspect that we will all be surprised as to how much material starts getting lifted to LEO, GEO, or even the Lagrange points. The big money will come out then as the race for the Solar System starts.

  51. lynn says:

    “There is no tax on assets transferred to legal partners. ”

    –tax code written by dynastic lines in a culture that values bloodline. Compare and contrast to US tax code, which will strip a family of its assets in a couple of generations without clever planning and accumulating the right kind of assets, and crossing a certain threshold of wealth.

    One keeps the money in the family, one recycles the money back into the economy (and keeps people from rising too high.)

    Tax on inheritance sucks dead bunnies.

    n

    Biden want to lower the inheritance tax from its current start at five+ million dollars to one million dollars. Isn’t that nice ? That would almost guarantee the failure of family farms to move from one generation to the next generation.
    https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estate-tax

  52. Greg Norton says:

    “Forget rhyming. History is about to repeat 1994 in New York.”

    What happened in New York in 1994 ?

    After declining to run for President and watching an arguably weaker candidate win, Governor Cuomo lost his bid for a fourth term as part of the fallout from the midterms, a reaction to the radical agenda of the new White House.

  53. drwilliams says:

    “Biden want to lower the inheritance tax from its current start at five+ million dollars to one million dollars. Isn’t that nice ? ”

    How about his corrupt family pay income taxes according to the current laws that apply to ordinary folks before they start screwing other people?

  54. Nick Flandrey says:

    ” That would almost guarantee the failure of family farms to move from one generation to the next generation”

    –that’s the plan. Gates, Turner, and Buffet need more land.

    n

  55. lynn says:

    “Biden want to lower the inheritance tax from its current start at five+ million dollars to one million dollars. Isn’t that nice ? ”

    How about his corrupt family pay income taxes according to the current laws that apply to ordinary folks before they start screwing other people?

    Wow, that is asking a lot. Don’t you know that our ruling class is special ?

  56. Greg Norton says:

    –that’s the plan. Gates, Turner, and Buffet need more land.

    Ted Turner has Lewey Body Dementia. His case should be fairly advanced at this point. He may not remember his own name much less that he owns a bunch of land.

  57. Greg Norton says:

    Inspect the old plug for signs of fouling and wear. I’ll bet it looks like a new plug, with minimal deposits.

    The old spark plug was clean. Today was the first time I replaced the plug since buying the mower seven years ago.

    I have kept up with oil changes, air filter, and blade replacement.

    Well, mostly. The previous job sucked up way too much of my time over the last three years.

  58. Nick Flandrey says:

    I really like my battery powered Toro. Used it today on the front lawn and the vacant next door property.

    Didn’t start with a fresh battery so I had to take a break with about 5 minutes of the neighbor’s yard left to do.

    It’s quiet, has as much power as my IC mower, and is quiet. Did I mention the quiet?

    The yard next door was 5-6 inches deep. Cut right thru it. When I used to do it with the gas mower, I would have to either do half width swaths, or lift the front wheels so the whole blade wasn’t engaged in the cut or it would bog the motor down. The electric just spins the blade faster when it hits a tough patch.

    I can do all of my back and front yards on one charge with some left over.

    n

  59. Nick Flandrey says:

    Ah, zerohedge has the answer to something we were wondering a few days ago…

    Gas Is Going To $5 Per Gallon: First In California, Then Across The Country
    teaser image

    California drivers are now paying an astonishing average of 63 cents a gallon in state and local taxes, compared an average of 36.8 cents elsewhere in the country.

    n

  60. lynn says:

    “Matthew McConaughey weighs in on masks: ‘short-term inconvenience for long-term freedom'”
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/05/29/matthew-mcconaughey-masks-lead-long-term-freedom/5264047001/

    “”There’s no data that says it’s not a good thing, no data that says it’s harmful. Let’s all take one for the team here.” McConaughey added during the interview.”

    Privileged jerk.

  61. Alan says:

    Two people are killed and at least 20 injured in mass shooting at a Miami-Dade rap concert

    after three gunmen fired into the crowd

    The gunmen pulled up to the venue in a white SUV armed with assault rifles
    The El Mula Banquet Hall had been rented out for a concert and several people were gathered outside as it ended when gunfire broke out
    Police believe shooting was targeted but no arrests were immediately made

    Nancy, dialing phone.
    Ringing.
    Chuck: “Hey Nance, wassup?”
    Nancy: “Chuck, Chuck, we gotta ban white SUVs asap!”
    Chuck: “Say what?!”

  62. JimB says:

    White SUVs? Ambulances and hearses?

    Oh, wait.

    Theirs are black. Got it!

  63. brad says:

    looking over the past sixty years, anyone claiming that we live in a more equal, or even a more civilized, society is a fool or a liar.

    LBJ has a lot to answer for. He ran afoul of what JerryP always used to say: “If you want more of something, subsidize it.”. His Great Society subsidized the destruction of the black family. Now, after 2-3 generations, the ghettos are filled with the results: uneducated adults who had no stable families as children, who think the world owes them a living.

    What a surprise that you get gangbangers shooting up other gangbangers.

    Police were seeking help from the community to identify and arrest the shooters.

    The verbal contortions of the MSM would be funny if they weren’t so pathetic. They want help identifying the suspects, yet studiously avoid ever mentioning their race. They desperately want to hide the fact that this is black-on-black violence, like almost always in cases like this. It’s not a “mass shooting”, it’s just gang warfare.

    To which end: making this a gun control issue is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with guns – if guns weren’t available, they’d have thrown molotov cocktails through the windows, or used some other weapon.

  64. ~jim says:

    His Great Society subsidized the destruction of the black family.

    Couldn’t that be slightly ameliorated if both biological mother and father were required to show up weekly in order to get assistance? After all, the original thought was, “Aid for Families with Dependent Children”. We have the technology…

  65. ~jim says:

    When I was a kid back in the 60s we had a maid. I never noticed if she was a person of color, or of an uncertain gender, or a political affiliation. I suppose she was paid well because she worked for years and seemed happy. I loved her, dearly. Her name was Hazel, honest injun, and I can only imagine what she’d think of these colored folks nowadays and all them shenanigans.

  66. Brad says:

    Couldn’t that be slightly ameliorated if both biological mother and father were required to show up weekly in order to get assistance?

    Could have been. But the programs were structured so that single parents got more money than if they were married. And more for each kid. So…

    Sure, one could fix it now, but you would have to be harsh. Single mom has a kid while on welfare, she gets her tubes tied, and the kid is taken away. Chances of getting that kind of legislation passed? Zero.

  67. Greg Norton says:

    “Matthew McConaughey weighs in on masks: ‘short-term inconvenience for long-term freedom’”

    “”There’s no data that says it’s not a good thing, no data that says it’s harmful. Let’s all take one for the team here.” McConaughey added during the interview.”

    Privileged jerk.

    It will play well in the suburbs of Houston and the I-35 corridor, however.

    I still don’t see him running as a Dem. The CA money will use him to make trouble in the Republican primary. 13,000 Libertarians “voting their conscience” in Georgia were enough to tip the Senate, and don’t think that lesson isn’t lost on the DNC.

    Who doesn’t look at McConaughey and think he wouldn’t be a legalization proponent?

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