Lileks takes them on.
When The Virus Departs
The world will be changed.
Yes, and in many ways, for the better.
The New Lie That Will Not Die
No, Trump didn’t disband the pandemic team.
The Gateway
…has been taken off the critical path for 2024.
This is probably the beginning of the end for it. Long before 2026, it will have become very clear that the road to the planets lies with the private sector, not NASA.
The Toyota A/C
The A/C in our RAV4 quit working a few weeks ago (we discovered it during a winter heat wave in January). Turns out that the condenser sprung a leak, and won’t hold refrigerant. A new one is $278 from AutoZone. I’ve been looking at the manual, trying to work up the gumption to replace it. I called a local shop to get a quote on labor, and he told me they’re not doing A/C work right now, because they think discharging the system is too risky for lungs, but when they start doing it again, it would be about $600, including recharging it. Fortunately, it’s a cool, rainy week, and repairing it isn’t urgent, even with our planned trip up the coast this weekend.
China
The pandemic will weaken it on the world stage.
They are not our friends. Which, of course, means that the media love them. The latter are, in fact, enemies of the American people.
[Update a few minutes later]
Leftists echo the Chinese Communist Party in accusing Trump of racism.
“Leftists echo the Chinese Communist Party” is evergreen.
A Revolutionary New Concept
The Europeans are thinking about building a rocket that retrofires and lands vertically. Eric Berger brings the snark.
Federalism
“Trump is a brutal authoritarian dictator!” — People
“Trump is a terrible president and a failed leader because he won’t give orders to state governors! — Same people
The Left’s Pet Issues
…like mass transit, dense housing, and reusable bags and straws are a public-health disaster. I was predicting this about California since they passed that stupid plastic-bag ban.
[Update a while later]
Plastic had fallen out of favor, but the virus is bringing it back.
Bankruptcies
Bernie’s press secretary says that 500M American go bankrupt each year.
I think that’s the same number that Sleepy Joe says are killed by gunshot. Are they shooting themselves after going bankrupt, or what? And how can there even be that many when we were all killed by the end of Net Neutrality and the Trump tax cuts?
[Update mid-afternoon]
Why can’t “liberals” do arithmetic?
Partly, I think, because they are not in fact liberals.