I have a blog because I got a dog. Sparky is a great dog and I can go on about him. I can write about having a dog without boring everyone to death. I can’t imagine how a mundane article like this gets column space in the Wall Street Journal, but of course I read it.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a dog person. One of my earliest memories of a dog is from when I was around 5 years old and a neighbor’s golden retriever knocked me face-first into the concrete.
That’s something that was supposed to be theoretically impossible. A beagle looking wistfully out the window while a bowl of food is right there.
The invasive, eel-like parasite has a round mouth filled with concentric rows of tiny teeth that could creep out a dentist. The varmint attaches to trout, salmon and other sport fish and slowly drains them of vital fluids. When the client’s bizarre catch hit the deck on the Campbells’ boat, the 10-inch lamprey released its hold and tried to get away, creating panic on the vessel.
At least they are blaming Covid and not Global Warming.
This celebration of Jeremy Clarkson’s career at the Sunday Times has many of his columns and is a good way to spend some time.
WSJ: Automakers get into mining.
WSJ: Automakers get into mining.
When General Motors began outlining plans in 2020 to fully switch to electric vehicles, it didn’t account for one critical factor: Many of the battery minerals needed to fulfill its plans were still in the ground.
“I remember seeing a report from our raw-materials team at the time saying, ‘There is plenty of lithium out there. There is plenty of nickel’,” said Sham Kunjur, an industrial engineer now in charge of securing the raw materials for GM’s batteries. “We will buy them from the open market.”
GM executives soon came to discover how off the mark those projections were, and now Mr. Kunjur’s 40-person team is scouring the globe for these minerals.
“Why Magical Thinking isn’t Whimsical” or “No Shit, Sherlock” would also have been serviceable titles for this article.
If 3 million cars are sold in the US each year, and each car needed a 100 pounds of lithium for the battery, that’s 300 million pounds of lithium needed each year. That’s a shitload. Before we switch to electric cars, someone should be thinking this through.
Those cars also need a shitload of electricity. The US doesn’t have a lot of surplus generating capacity and we build a new nuclear power plant about every 10 years.
Not paying attention to the basic requirements prior to a big policy shift isn’t a clever way to induce technical advance. It’s a way to insure that the general population will live a life that is needlessly frustrating and expensive.
Why are their seven Catholics on the Supreme Court, and should we care? I’m more concerned that eight out of nine Supreme Court justices attended either Yale or Harvard.
NPR: History and Civics scores are down, and nobody should be surprised. The response to the Covid pandemic by the government and education officials was deplorable. I heard this story on NPR this morning, and it also illustrates how trivial their news reporting has become. Everyone wants to know how much damage was done to students by long periods of remote learning.
Equitable grading is just another way to lie about education. Some students will learn more and some will learn less. If grades mean anything, they should reflect a student’s demonstrable ability. Making excuses for students of unfortunate background doesn’t change their demonstrable ability.
The New Republic: Florida law may ban Rocky Horror
When I was told this by a friend, I was incredulous, as I am about anything that conveniently fits the narrative.
Florida Republicans are pushing forward a bill that seeks to ban drag shows from allowing someone under the age of 18 to be in attendance.
As I’ve said elsewhere, the legislature shouldn’t have to pass a law to discourage perverted sex clowns from putting on performances aimed at children, but parents will protect children.
The bill defines “adult live performance” to include “any show, exhibition or other presentation in front of a live audience,” that in any form “depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities,” such as “lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”
Yes, that would appear to ban The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the play, Hair. Parents should not have been pushed this far. They don’t care about collateral damage. It’s a shame that it’s come to this, but it has.
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