They see me rollin’

My car is fast and all that. But my favorite feature of the car is what GM calls “Magneride,” which means that the shocks absorber system does not use the tech found in nearly all cars but rather a magnetorheological damper system that is so superior to anything on a regular car that I don’t know how I will ever drive a car again without this feature.

Here’s what another publication said about Magneride.

An available 6-speed manual transmission and GM’s excellent Magnetic Ride Control, which is the automotive suspension equivalent of magic.

When I’m riding in other cars now or driving them, it feels like I’m bumping along in a horsecart from 1856. That is how superior the suspension in the SS is. Developed by Delphi Automotive (and used first in GM’s Cadillac ATS), the same tech is also used in Ferraris.

It is adaptive to road conditions and is just wonderful to experience.

It also means that I can twist a knob and adjust how soft or hard the suspension is instantly. Works within milliseconds. Want to feel like I’m driving grampa’s Caddy? Turn it to “touring.” Want to pretend I’m screaming down the stretch at the Daytona 500? Flip it over the “Track” mode and the ride becomes so firm that you can feel every pebble.

It is amazing and like I said I have no idea how I will ever live without a car that doesn’t have this capability.

Two things, true at the same time

Why do people interpret saying that Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign (which she did) to be supportive of Donald Trump?

I’d rather have a fucking goldfish be our leader than Trump, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was unconscionably dreadful.

Yes, we’d be better off in most ways with Hillary as prez. But so what? She ran an unforgivably bad campaign and lost.

Culture matters but isn’t everything

People believe in evolution, just not for humans.

Yep. Something I’ve been talking about for years.

The term โ€œliberal Creationismโ€ refers to the fact that on the cultural Left there is a strong belief in the concept of evolution on the whole, but in the case of human beings biological evolutionary processes are seen as marginal in comparison to culture. In other words, natural selection and adaptation explain the diversity around us in the animal and plant world, but can tell us little about human beings.

I’ve had liberals tell me fantastically ridiculous things such as that humans have no characteristics attractive to the opposite sex, and certainly none that evolved to be that way, and that evolution hasn’t happened to human in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, and that absolutely every human behavior can be explained by culture and culture alone. And more I am sure that I can’t recall now.

Liberal creationism is a bit better than the conservative kind, but no less stupid, really.

UB

More identity essentialism that annoys me so much.

tiny brain: lord of the flies with girls

bigger brain: lord of the flies wouldnโ€™t work with girls because theyโ€™d work together and get off the island

expanding brain: girls and women are capable of violence and cruelty too

galaxy brain: young girls could build an equally hellish micro-society but it would function differently from the original because of differing socialization and men arenโ€™t qualified to write it anyway

universe brain: girls aren’t some enormous mystery, and one need not be female to write good female characters and to understand the experiences of women and girls, just not be a misognyist idiot. Yes, unfortunately, this excludes 97% of men.

I think the idea of LOTF but with girls is kind of a bad one (but could be done well), but I bet I could write a better version than most women or men if someone showed me the money.

I am an arrogant prick, but I am also very good.

Crisis averted

Yes, the below bothers me so much, the idea that the Y2K bug was not a real threat. And the entire reason it didn’t end up being much of a problem is that hundreds of thousands of people spent many years and billions of hours working to correct it and ameliorate any potential issues.

It’s a complete myth that the Y2K bug was not big deal. It simply was a problem that was fixed before the worst of it hit. Trust me, utility and private companies don’t just spend billions of dollars for absolutely no reason (not if they could hand it to execs instead).

With climate change, we are going to experience the opposite of the Y2K bug. Compare and contrast.

Terroir

The reason you are seeing anti-fascists portrayed as terrorists, as worse than the Nazis and white supremacists, is because the anti-fascists are a threat to the existing order and the Nazis are essentially an extension of it — or at the least not a threat of any real sort.

The same thing happened in Germany during the 1930s and in other countries too. Many supported Hitler as they saw the Nazis as the best bulwark against Communists and other similar groups.

History as it often does rhymes.

If you believe that antifa forces are truly equivalent to Nazis, white supremacists and the KKK, you are quite susceptible to propaganda and you should really do something about that.

Evidence vs models

It’s interesting that most history books take it as self-evident that tariffs which protect industries from foreign competition are beneficial to the country enacting them, while nearly all economics textbooks take the opposite tack, and pretty vehemently.

I suspect neither is completely correct all the time, but I think history books have it mostly right because they have no agenda in this regard.

Car Talk

I like that car people notice my car (even if they don’t know what it is) but normal people just see a boring family sedan.

In the drive-through line of a fast food restaurant today, a guy walked by my car and then literally did a double take. It was comical. Then he motioned me to roll down the window.

“Oh my god this car is sweet! What is it?” he said.

Even a lot of car people don’t know what the SS is. It’s never had any advertising nor much press, as I mentioned before. He probably just noticed that it had big fat tires on the rear, huge brakes, and of course the unmistakable V8 growl and grumble.

So I told him that it was a Chevy SS, really just a re-badged Holden Commodore, and that it had a 415HP Corvette LS3 engine in it.

“Damn, man, this car is awesome,” he said as he walked away.

It’s almost like driving an exotic — car people know it’s something unusual but don’t know much about it since it’s so rare. If there are any SSes left on the lots, that dude might be a buyer now.