Coyoteblog
@Coyoteblog
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I blog on business & econ issues, often as they intersect regulation, & a bit on climate. Libertarian pragmatist. My company privately operates public parks.
Joined August 2011
Someone said a rock rolled down the hill and hit a bathroom we operate and suggested we might not be able to open it. I thought the latter was an overreaction until I saw the "rock"
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Moral of the story I guess is to never leave your scissors lying around on the ground.
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For those that know the eastern Sierras, this is Sabrina campground west of Bishop.
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Great, my highest exposure tweet of the month so far features. a rock
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I will add that the hill this must have rolled a good distance, certainly from well across the road.
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When I was at Harvard B-School, in an investment analysis class, if the investment sucked the professor would say, "who do we sell this to?" and the class would scream "doctors!" If the investment really, really sucked, we all screamed "dentists!".
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If we forgive student loans, it should come with an admission that the product was so entirely flawed that a 100% refund is warranted. And then everyone who paid cash should also be fully refunded. And then we should shut down all the suppliers of the product as a scam business.
Biden is looking at forgiving most — if not all — federal student loan debt, he said during a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
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@ElonBachman I wanted to try for a kidney stone joke here but I didn't think it would pass muster.
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@EoinChadwick Yes. You clearly get it. Thinking "what fresh hell is this" every time the phone rings.
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Everything old is new again: This past week I have been struck by the parallels between the tragic shooting of United Health executive Brian Thompson and the threats of violence my dad and my family lived through in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Conservatives beware. If you can ban birthright citizenship without a Constitutional amendment, the progressives can ban guns w/o one. I admit I'm no legal expert, but the protection of birthright citizenship seems to be at least as explicit in the text as the right to bear arms.
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A bit of Schadenfreude today -- the insurance company that once sued me for libel in Federal court over my negative review of their services has been ejected from the state of California by the state regulator. @marcorandazza .
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Now that I look at it more, it sort of reminds me of the Dr Who episode "blink".
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May 3, 2016: Musk promises 500,000 Teslas in 2018.Feb 19, 2019: Musk predicts 500,000 Teslas in 2019.Jan 29, 2020: Musk projects 500,000 Teslas in 2020. The clock seems stopped at five-hundred-thousand-Oclock. At some point, though, it is bound to be right. @TESLAcharts.
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I am not usually a "burn-the-whole-system-down" style libertarian, but when I get an email from a business jet leasing company owned by one of the richest men in the world that the CARES act has cut the cost of private jetsetting, I look around for a flamethrower.
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1/ I have a million problems with single-payer health care plans but here is perhaps the most obvious: The claim that single-payer negotiating leverage will lower prices is simply insane and unsupported by any history in any other field. @CafeHayek @Mark_J_Perry @asymmetricinfo.
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This is simply madness -- with a looming worldwide shortage of cereal grains (due to Ukraine war and other factors) and the real potential for famine later this year, Biden mandates that more food be burned in cars.
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372 days since the idea was first broached, I closed my acquisition of my competitor, who wanted to ease towards his retirement. As a result, we are now the largest company in an industry you've never heard of, privately operating over 400 public campgrounds and parks.
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This is the sort of quality, useful, actionable analysis and advice that investment bankers get paid millions of dollars a year to provide.
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@AlderLaneeggs @TeslaCharts @SEC_Enforcement @elonmusk I will say it again, the SEC almost never ends frauds (enron, theranos, many more). The market ends them and then the SEC and DOJ come in after the crash and hang the corpse.
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In the Absolutely Most Predictable Scientific Finding Ever, Solar Roads Are Found to Suck - - Long-time readers know that solar roads are like catnip for me -- I can hardly think of a better example of a technology that makes. .
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If you want a "control" against which to evaluate the forced government interventions, I would suggest Arizona. We are right next door to SoCal, we have about the same demographics and (this time of year) similar climate.
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$tslaq up $14.8 Billion in after market trading. That's $168,000 in additional market cap per car delivered in Q1. That's why Tesla doesn't care if it loses $10,000 on every car delivered, because they are selling stock, not cars. @TESLAcharts.
Tesla soars on delivery numbers — company delivered 88,400 vehicles in Q1
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Tesla had a great vision and a great product in the Model S, but now (like Uber before it) is in dire need of adult supervision. Here is my 6 step plan to fix Tesla -
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I am so old, I remember when this was a hypothesis too dangerous to even be allowed on social media. I seem to remember @zerohedge actually got their account turned off by @jack for hypothesizing the same thing 9 months ago.
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What Seems To Be Going on At @Tesla, and The Risks Of Buying (and Shorting) $TSLA Stock - - $tslaq.
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Fascinated that of all the early Trump actions - immigration, tariffs, pardons - the magnifying glass on discretionary spending is what is sending Democratic Senators into the streets.
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Twitter is the Bloomberg terminal ($2,000 per month) of elite opinion makers. It literally drives NYT news selection and even internal HR decisions. $8 or $20 or even $100 a month is cheap.@elonmusk.
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1/ OK, I think it is about time for the virus panic backlash. Folks, we are in a panic feedback loop and we have run waaaay past any sense of reality here. I can support sensible steps to keep people healthy but. .
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Coyote's first rule of government authority: Never support any government power you would not want your ideological enemy wielding @reason.
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This is nuts. Imagine if Elizabeth Holmes had done this at Theranos. By the time the claims on the D&O started coming in, Holmes (due to those same causes of action) had no assets because her stock was worthless. @TESLAcharts .
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@FreckledLiberty @debrajsaunders Wow. Next thing we will learn is that she refused to quarter British soldiers in her house.
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This is where I think BLM missed the boat. The biggest problem with police behavior is not necessarily racism but a systematic lack of accountability, enabled both by the police-fetishizing Right and the public union protecting Left.
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This is really an amazing article, with the WaPo in January of 2020 outlining all the reasons that mass quarantine was not a good strategy for the pandemic, which represented the state of the science before we lost our mind a couple of months later.
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I wish all the best to Mr. Thompson's family and grieve for them having to endure the bullet that our family dodged.
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After being held hostage for nearly a year by the governmental Karens of this country, I can say with some assurance that I am NOT developing Stockholm syndrome. @ElonBachman @boriquagato.
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Time to repeal corn ethanol subsidies. Immediately. Every study not paid for by ADM shows corn ethanol net increases greenhouse gasses (due to fossil fuels used in planting & harvesting). It is nuts to be burning food in cars when we are facing a worldwide cereal grain shortage.
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Not a map of global warming, but a map of corrupted temperature measurement stations.
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@ElonBachman I wish I had not started this. I once told myself "if you find yourself in a pun war with @ElonBachman or @boriquagato, then urine too deep".
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I am noticing a change in my vendors. Vendors with whom I have spent $50K a year with for 20 years are suddenly harassing me about $120 invoices that are 2 days late. Every receivables department is acting like all their customers are about to go BK & they need to collect fast.
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The State of California has created a state-run Roth IRA called CalSavers that all employers must offer to their employees in the state if they do not otherwise have a 401k or similar plan.
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By the way, I sold my business. By end of year I will no longer be holding government contracts with agencies that complain about my blogging. So I will be spooling back up in January. Not sure what platform, advice greatly accepted on that.
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@pavestheway @orthereaboot @GatorInvestor Talking to $tsla fans about the business is like talking to little kids about the Toys R Us bankruptcy. All the kids can understand is the loss of a special magical place with acres of toys -- they can't understand competition and balance sheets and cost structures.
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If we forgive student loans, it should come with an admission that the product was so entirely flawed that a 100% refund is warranted. And then everyone who paid cash should also be fully refunded. And then we should shut down all the suppliers of the product as a scam business.
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Watching Robinhood investors in $tsla, $spce, $plug etc is like walking into a room and seeing kids sticking a fork in the power outlet. Analysts like JMP are like parents who, rather than tell the kids to stop, point them to the 220v outlet behind the dryer. $tslaq.
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Our company can now place and operate cabins on public lands free of charge to the public parks agency. We do everything, and the agency gets a large revenue share and ownership of the cabins at the end of the contract. Learn more:
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If nothing else, Trump has uncovered a massive mental health issue in this country.
Eva Longoria on Trump win: 'I was in bed for almost two days’
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1/ This is crazy. Either this is a total BS excuse (which his $tsla fanboys will likely swallow) or Musk is the worst CEO of a $50 billion company I have ever heard of. $tslaq @TeslaCharts.
Just reviewed Tesla’s service locations in North America & realized we have major gaps in geographic coverage! Sorry for this foolish oversight. Tesla will aim to cover all regions of NA (not just big cities) within 3 to 6 months.
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For the first time ever, called my Congressman for help. Have been stuck in a Kafka-esque loop between the GSA and DOD for a (supposedly) simple registration account we have to have to do business with the Feds. Presented to make you feel better about your own life
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Well, I have (mostly) sold my business and eliminated some of the conflicts that restricted my blogging for several years. Right now, I am trying to get this old blog spooled up with some new features.
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0/ The seven stages of $tsla employment. For outside professionals hired into Tesla who are over the age of 30 and have real business experience, this seems to take 30-90 days to complete, but YMMV. @teslacharts @ElonBachman.
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@JettyTrader @TeslaCharts @markbspiegel @PlugInFUD @elonmusk Q: Why did the Tesla cross the road?.A: Because it was on autopilot.
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1/ The decision by @elonmusk to enter the car insurance market with $tsla is simply nuts, and an illustration of how arrogance can lead a company astray. @TeslaCharts @ElonBachman @Polixenes13
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This is a great thread and fits in with my earlier point -- opposition to nuclear is due to the waste being concentrated and visible, not worse. In fact, being concentrated and visible is an advantage over other energy waste. Bastiat's seen and unseen.
MYTH: We don't have a solution to nuclear's "waste problem". REALITY: Nuclear waste isn't a problem. In fact, it’s the best solution we have to meeting our energy needs while protecting the natural environment! . Here's what you need to know:.
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A year ago, if I had argued against government ownership of utilities because I feared that politicians might weaponize power & water availability to punish enemies or behaviors they didn't like, people would have called me a crazed tinfoil hatter.
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1/ I have concluded that $tsla is the ultimate manifestation of our modern culture that is focused on virtue-signalling rather than actual virtue. Layers & layers of such virtue-signalling make it a virtue-signalling pyramid scheme. @teslacharts @montana_skeptic.
The subsidy truffles for #Gigafactory4 are already being served. $TSLAQ . While Gigglefactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, only robbed NY state’s taxpayers, German politicians are throwing federal funds at Elron. It’s a disgrace. @peteraltmaier, wake up! .
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1/Memo to $TSLA drivers using autopilot: Don't. Consider the Boeing 737Max 8. That plane has been flown for literally millions of miles and 99.9% of the flights have been fine. Before the plane was even sold it was tested for years. And STILL it seems to have a fatal software bug.
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My perfectly healthy 25-year-old nephew died last week from the flu--just regular old this-years-version of influenza. I am told 12,000 other Americans have died of flu this season. Thinking about COVID-19, sometimes news coverage & govmt action don't correlate with actual risk.
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Sometimes I take it for granite, but I do marble at the media consumption tastes of Twitter users.
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- Make sure to clean bricks with disinfecting wipes before throwing them.- Do not allow gasoline or other accelerant to get on your mask .- Make sure bystanders are wearing a mask before you assault them.- Use gloves when looting any retail establishment.
Plan to protest? Here are tips to reduce the risk of spreading #COVID19:.✔️Wear a face covering.✔️Wear eye protection to prevent injury.✔️Stay hydrated.✔️Use hand sanitizer.✔️Don't yell; use signs & noise makers instead.✔️Stick to a small group.✔️Keep 6 feet from other groups.
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I have always wondered why Tesla pays Robyn Denholm millions of dollars a year for apparently doing nothing much (far more than GM or Ford board members make). Now I understand it is to be on call to sacrifice her integrity for @elonmusk when needed $tslaq.
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EASILY The Most Under-Reported Major Story of the Last 25 Years - - The reduction in world poverty. The global population living in extreme poverty has fallen below 750 million for the first time since. .
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The percent of Americans aged 45-64 (my bracket) who have perished with (not just from) COVID is 0.06% (49K/81.5MM). At my age, I have probably 20 good years left. Am I willing to give up a whole year, or 5% of my enjoyable remaining live, to avoid a 0.06% chance of death?.
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But our response to this thing has been simply insane, a result of moronic politicians following their crappy incentives to be seen as "doing something", and then defending and doubling down on that "something" rather than ever, ever admitting error.
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Dad generally operated in greatest-generation-mode and pretty much never talked about any of this or let it seep into family discussions. I knew some of it (even I was not so clueless as to think everyone went through hostage evasion training at 13) but had to piece a lot.
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After the embargo, and for the next decade or so, my dad & his colleagues & to a lesser extent his family were subject to an astonishing number of death threats. Like with Mr. Thompson, segments of the public blamed him for macro-economic problems over which he had little control.
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If you see a tweet where the phrase "the science" can be replaced without loss of meaning by "the bible" or "the little red book", odds are it is not actually scientific but instead an appeal to authority.
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Our family's life was turned upside down for weeks after that show as literally 1000s of death threats poured in. I personally went through the first of several escape and evasion courses i would attend before I was 20. Because terrorism and kidnapping of oil company family.
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Confirming what many suspected, the $tsla purchase of SolarCity was a straight-up bailout of Musk and his friends and family. Contrary to anything Tesla shareholders were told at the time of the proposal, SolarCity was straight up bankrupt.
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I want to add one coda that I left out: I think the vilification was always confusing to dad. He really believed his company was performing miracles for humanity, getting petroleum to the world from increasingly hostile environments.
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1/ In my mind, this is the most damning chart for $tsla. @elonmusk has promised semi, pickup, new coupe, 10K a week m3 production, china factory, Europe homologation, expanded service network, in house body shops, car carrier production, solar shingle, gen 2 supercharger.
5/ A chart that proves $TSLA is a busted growth story? Yes please! Very thankful indeed.
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1/ Hey $TSLAQ, I wanted to show the power of small price changes in a manufacturing company's financials. This may be old hat for some of you, but after years of lecturing companies on price I find people's intuition is often wrong about the large impact of small pricing changes.
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At the very moment of the most astounding expansion of government power in my lifetime, we have greatly narrowed the ability to discuss and criticize this expansion. 2020 was a very bad year, not due to the virus but due to the elite and government response to it.
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Our core business is pyramiding our equity valuation by doing successive private funding rounds with related parties at prices untethered to any reality, and then dumping the whole mess on retail investors while counting down the days of our lockups.
NEWS: Uber says it will not reclassify drivers as employees in the wake of landmark California law, despite the lack of ride-hail exemption in #AB5. Lead attorney argues Uber is exempt from requirements because "drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber's business.".
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I have told this story before, but in less than 1 year he had to testify in Congress to explain why they weren't greedy in seeking out more oil than they really needed (the Alaska Pipeline Project) and later to explain why they weren't greedily hiding oil from the market.
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@TeslaCharts The first rule of Loony Tunes Physics is that gravity does not operate on the coyote until he is aware of his condition. Tesla investors are beginning to be aware of their condition.
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@GatorInvestor LOL, this is why $tsla has those cars sitting in lots. They can't sell them because they have like $500,000 in COGS assigned to each one. Maybe each parked car is essentially an Enron minority JV hiding all the bad stuff.
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I had letter bomb training so many times in the 1970s that I still cannot open a box 50 years later without checking it carefully. Apparently Mr. Thompson's killer was an admirer of unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
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This is like getting crop insurance from a large wheat farmer or getting your earthquake insurance from a large San Francisco Steuban Glass retailer. It's a bad idea to get insurance from an entity whose asses are at risk from the exact same things you are insuring against.
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. was a real threat in places like Germany & Italy and Argentina, international travel was banned for us kids for about a decade. The threat was real in this country. Several of our friends received letter bombs & one family's housekeeper had her hands blown off by such a bomb.
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Gad I hate calling it president x's economy. The economy is a freight train with politicians running around on the roof claiming to be driving. Increases in wages for low skill workers is typical end of cycle economic behavior.
Also tends to confirm @JasonFurman's suggestion that the sluggish growth in AVERAGE wages is masking significant growth at the bottom of the wage scale (the opposite of what we've become used to in recent decades).
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I remember one time Johnny Carson (who was no conservative but seems like one when compared to today's talk show hosts) had an audience poll "how many of you think any jury would convict you if you killed the president of Exxon.".
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But he had a sense of mission similar to what one might credit Steven Jobs or even Elon Musk with. And in retrospect I never personally found a career I enjoyed until I started my own company and experienced the same sense of mission.
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When I grew up in South Africa, "leaked" meant purposely releasing a staged and meaningless photo to a captive news agency in order to pump up the stock price ahead of disappointing quarterly results. $tsla $tslaq @TESLAcharts @ElonBachman @boriquagato.
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When the Left says they want a national conversation on X, the last thing they actually want is a conversation. They actually just want a national lecture on X, with them as the lecturer. God forbid anyone expresses a heterodox opinion in these "conversations".
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Who's in with me on this?.
In case you have a few bucks lying around. "Soviet Alfa class submarine for sale". (h/t @HarrisonNick) .
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1/ This is really amazing -- the FDA in January was hammering the makers of Purell for making anti-viral claims, claims that the Feds routinely are making about hand sanitizer in every press release. @ElonBachman @boriquagato .
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I went back to Boulder for a long weekend recently (a town in which I used to live). On a trail outdoors in a 20+ mph wind: not one but two people on the (not very crowded) trail demanded I put a mask on. Interesting behavior in a town that styles itself as anti-authority.
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I am exhausted by companies that try to trade on non-GAAP numbers. Saying $tslaq had a profit in 2019 is like saying the AZ Cardinals scored 600 points last season, because in special non-NFL scoring, the last 10 yards of the field has been adjusted out.
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The campus civil-rights-style protests in favor of a regime that offers few civil rights to its citizens (and none to its female, gay, & non-Muslim populations) and that has suspended elections for 15 years is among the oddest things I have seen in my lifetime.
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After the war he joined Humble Oil (one of the Exxon precursors) as an entry-level engineer and by the time he was about 50 worked his way up to President of Exxon USA. He took that job just months before the Arab oil embargo.
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To see a thousand foot high offshore rig, or the Alaska pipeline, or an enormously complex refinery and think about gasoline being sold --despite all the investment and technology and processing -- cheaper by volume than bottled water was inspiring for him.
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Turns out Walmart has learned a lesson that most Tesla owners, shareholders, and analysts have not. $tslaq @TESLAcharts
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Internet 2009 vs. Internet 2018: Evolution of the Internet as chronicled in @xkcdComic. I am looking at the first one on the wall right over my monitor. I keep it there as a reminder while I blog.
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This is an amazing chart. The US has returned to the same carbon intensity it had before the Civil War.
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. and it turned out dad was on it and the FBI wanted. something. I am not even sure what -- did they think I knew something, or were they just informing me? I figured later they were just checking off the investigative boxes in a high profile case.
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