YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Justin Trudeau Says ‘Sorey, Eh’ About ‘Peoplekind.’
Archive for 2018
February 7, 2018
1968: IN FIFTY YEARS WE’LL HAVE FLYING CARS!
LAUREN SPAGNOLETTI: Best Oscar-Winning Films of the Last 40 Years.
I’d say that Braveheart, Silence of the Lambs, and Schindler’s List have held up quite well. Most of the others, not so much.
THE L.A. TIMES: Mankind Peoplekind Humanity will need to make some drastic changes if it wants to keep the ‘good life’ going.
In theory, wealthy nations could cut way back on their resource use while maintaining their achievements on the social front. Some straightforward first steps include “switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, producing products with longer lifetimes, reducing unnecessary waste, shifting from animal to crop products, and investing in new technologies,” the researchers wrote.
And in a future world “with very different social arrangements or technologies,” there could be a different equation for converting natural resources into human well-being that allows everyone to enjoy all aspects of the good life, O’Neill said.
“Is this realistic?” he said. “I hope so, because the alternative could be environmental catastrophe.”
Funny how these articles never end with “and that’s why we’re shuttering our publication and its office buildings and air conditioned server farm for the future of humanity,” and/or “that’s why recommend our company town’s chief industry, the entertainment business, to close.”
Meanwhile, back in reality, also in the Los Angeles this week:
L.A.’s Keystone Kops rollout of a new trash recycling program, which has featured a dramatic service reduction at a huge price increase for thousands of customers.
It’s so bad, even the people who supported the plan are ducking for cover, pointing fingers or throwing everyone else under the bus.
Not everyone who spoke at Tuesday’s Los Angeles City Council committee hearing lashed out at council members Nury Martinez, Paul Koretz, Paul Krekorian, Gil Cedillo and Mitch O’Farrell.
Some praised RecycLA or offered hope that the kinks will be worked out to accomplish the city’s admirable goal of diverting trash from landfills and reducing the number of crisscrossing trucks spewing pollution.
But cleaning up the mess may not be easy, given how badly the city screwed up the deal. City officials signed a 10-year contract with seven companies, some of which dispute allegations of overcharging and say they’re just doing what the contract allows them to do.
As The Times has reported, customers are getting dinged for added fees if the hauler has to move a trash bin a certain distance or use a remote device to open a gate. I’m still getting bombarded with calls and emails from landlords who say their bills have multiplied three, four, five and six times.
So it’s the Obamacare of trash pickup. Take a bow, L.A., this is where virtue signaling on top of virtue signaling invariably ends up.
WE SURVIVED THE LIME SHORTAGE OF 2014, BUT NOW THIS… The world is facing a tequila shortage.
AS LONG AS THE COCKTAIL SAUCE AND DRAWN BUTTER HOLD OUT, WE’LL BE JUST FINE: These Huge Crayfish Mutated to Clone Themselves And Are Now Taking Over The World.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Sriracha hot sauce guy is an American hero.
IT’S NOT JUST TARANTINO: HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORY OF DEFENDING CHILD RAPIST ROMAN POLANSKI.
Exit quote: “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion” — Harvey Weinstein, 2009.
NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: A Brain Implant Improved Memory, Scientists Report.
TONI AIRAKSINEN: Feminist Philosophy Class Was ‘Indoctrination,’ Says Columbia Student.
But of course.
BILL GERTZ: Mattis Defends Plan to Deploy Small Nuclear Arms. “New weapons needed to counter Russia, China that are strategic competitors, not partners.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Injecting Yourself With DIY Herpes Vaccine Isn’t A Good Idea.
HEATHER MAC DONALD ON #MEDIOCRITYTOO: The coming mania for inclusion will erode standards of merit and excellence.
I’m old enough to remember when gender was considered by the left to be merely a bourgeois social construct. And to know that our standards of merit and excellence have been eroding for quite some time. When William Goldman said “Every Oscar night you look back and realize that last year was the worst year in the history of Hollywood,” he had no idea how bad things could get in all of the arts.
IT’S COME TO THIS: State lawmakers implore Tide to make less tasty-looking detergent pods.
THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Maternal syphilis screening urged as newborn cases of the infection rise.
UNEXPECTEDLY! New Minimum Wage Laws Will Eliminate More Than 260,000 Jobs in 2018.
If only there were some kind of easy-to-understand relationship between price and demand, maybe do-gooders wouldn’t keep making the same mistakes.
IT’S ANOTHER BAD MESSAGING WEEK FOR TRUMP: Well, that’s how it appears from the White House, according to LifeZette’s Jim Stinson.
PRIVACY: Chinese Police Go RoboCop With Facial-Recognition Glasses.
China is already a global leader in deploying cutting-edge surveillance technologies based on artificial intelligence. The mobile devices could expand the reach of that surveillance, allowing authorities to peer into places that fixed cameras aren’t scanning, and to respond more quickly.
The devices, released late last year, were touted in state media this week as a means to help authorities during times such as the annual Lunar New Year migration that begins next week, when Chinese travelers flood train stations and airports.
The eyeglass-mounted camera is equipped with facial-recognition technology capable of “highly effective screening” of crowds for fugitives traveling under false pretenses, the official People’s Daily newspaper reported Monday. Its story included images of a policewoman wearing a sunglasses version of the device at a railway station in Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan province.
Creepy.