I’m back home and finally caught up

There is a a new blog post entitled, “A theory of conservative epistemology.”


So I’m back from my vacation and I’ve got some issues I’m going to have to deal with because basically, I don’t have a mechanic in Pittsburgh like the one I have in Petaluma who will do the preventative maintenance I consider important. The trip itself also helps blow off some carbon, hopefully delaying the day when oil consumption becomes an issue.

That means I’m going to have to make this trip every 50,000 miles. With this trip, my annual mileage estimate is just shy of 70,000 miles, close enough that I should almost certainly bump up the mileage on my insurance. That means I’ll be making this trip every few months.

First, I’m unhappy with the stretch between the Mississippi River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There’s a consolation in Salt Lake City with the Vertical Diner, a great vegan restaurant, but that’s it.

Second, there’s the issue of eating. This time, I brought two coolers, one with dry ice for frozen stuff and one with regular ice for refrigerated stuff. That took a lot of space. But there’s a real problem finding restaurants that serve vegan food that I can eat—I’m hypersensitive to onions, peppers, and cilantro—across large swaths of the country; indeed, this was a limitation in Santa Fe that led me to just give up. And the breakfast I got in Colorado Springs was really kind of a fast food breakfast; it was good but not quite an adequate meal. Louisville turned out just to be a mistake; fortunately, Columbus was on the way from there, where there is the Fourth and State Restaurant, which is wonderful.

Third, the hotels were awful this time. I saw some indications that staffing may be a problem: I’d see the same desk clerk in the morning that I’d checked in with the night before. But a lot of rooms were in dire need of refurbishing; they weren’t what I would consider presentable at all. Bumping up the minimum rating to four stars will increase the cost.


Gilead

White Christian nationalism (Trumpism)

Ishaan Tharoor, “Orban at CPAC brings the ‘far-right international’ into focus,” Washington Post, August 4, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/08/04/orban-hungary-far-right-international-cpac-conservative/

Donald Trump

Coup attempt

Hannah Knowles, “Several election deniers backed by Trump prevail in hotly contested primaries,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-michigan-missouri-washington/

Lisa Rein, Carol D. Leonnig, and Maria Sacchetti, “Homeland Security watchdog previously accused of misleading investigators, report says,” Washington Post, August 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/03/homeland-security-joseph-cuffari-watchdog-report/

Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, “Time is running out. The Department of Justice must indict and convict Trump,” Guardian, August 4, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/04/justice-department-must-indict-and-convict-trump


John Fetterman

Julian Routh, “John Fetterman’s campaign asks Pa. TV stations to remove ad saying he wants to ‘eliminate life sentences for murderers,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 5, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/08/04/john-fetterman-mehmet-oz-senate-pennsylvania-campaign-television-ads-life-sentences/stories/202208040094


Self-driving cars

Russ Mitchell, “California DMV accuses Tesla of falsely advertising Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-05/dmv-false-advertising-tesla


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