voluntaryXchange

Libertarian PBS Video

Loved this:

Did Not See This On National News

This happened for real on Monday:

Yep. That’s a pickup truck hanging off a bridge over a (seemingly) bottomless pit.

Living out west, you imagine this sort of thing every time you drive over a canyon.

Cuomo

The New York Post notes that:

• Cuomo had a policy that led to hundreds of excess deaths, and
• Cuomo is accused of sexually harassing female underlings,

But only one of those led to sustained calls for his impeachment within the body that can take that forward.

WTF?

Hey New Yorkers: consider voting people out of office for moral incompetence.

Via Cold Spring Shops.

Marking Time

It was a year ago, just about right now, that my son and I threw all his perishables into a box, grabbed a few things, and abandoned his college apartment.†

He doesn’t have a car, so he needed a ride. I-15 was congested going north: lots of Alberta plates, cutting their snowbird season short. Coming south, the road was deserted.

Less than 10 weeks before that, I’d first heard of the unusual cases of pneumonia in China.

Less than 8 weeks before that, I’d first told my upper level macroeconomics course that they needed to start paying attention to what was going on in China. Putting together that first Monday lecture took non-stop work from the time class had ended on Friday. I started it by noting the pandemic “might be economic if it gets bad enough”.

Less than 6 weeks before that, we’d flown him down here for a fancy birthday dinner.

Less than 4 weeks before, we’d told him to start buying extra pantry stuff on each trip to the grocery.

Less than 2 weeks before, the University of Washington was the first one to close down for the remainder of the Spring semester.

The week before I picked him up had been spring break at his school. He’d stayed (like he usually does). As his break progressed, he shifted from I’m not coming back, to maybe next week, till after this thing I have to do early next week. By Thursday he was saying Sunday might work. Early Friday afternoon, he said come within 24 hours. He’d been in his favorite professor’s office when the calls started, one-by-one cancelling his travelling engagements for the next several months.

It was our last week before spring break. I literally told that advanced class on Monday that it would take a “basketball player or a game show host” getting sick to convince people this was real. On Wednesday night, the former happened. Best and worst prediction I’ve ever made.

I knew the death rates. I ran the math. At that time, the odds were better than 50/50 that someone in my immediate family would die.

It’s a year later. That college student is still living with us. For him, remote learning is actually an improvement. Not one of us has gotten COVID-19. Another kid moved out, but she stays healthy and safe. Two of us have been vaccinated.

† I’m going by the 365 day calendar. It was a Saturday that I’d made that trip. He paid rent on that empty place. Two months later, we drove up there together and put all his stuff in a storage unit.