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.
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Month: May 2023
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.
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Sparky goes to summer camp.
Sparky was adopted from an animal shelter, so I never want him to feel like he’s being dumped off somewhere. He has never said anything to make me think he’s got abandonment issues, but look at him. Have you ever seen a baby seal that is cuter or more pathetic?
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Sparky’s Good Day
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Race shouldn’t be an advantage.
Furious parents marched their children across picket lines of striking teachers in Oakland, California, on Friday on the seventh day of a strike in which teachers are demanding reparations for slavery, among other demands.
Say what you want about France, but they don’t play “follow the leader”. They protect their interests and make their own decisions. On race relations, they seem to have a sensible policy. I had some idea of how they handled diversity issues, so found this Brookings Institute article to be interesting.
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Give me a dollar.
WSJ: Tipping for Self Checkout
WSJ: Tipping for Self Checkout
People seem to be baffled and rankled by the simplest things.
Prompts to leave 20% at self-checkout machines at airports, stadiums, cookie shops and cafes across the country are rankling consumers already inundated by the proliferation of tip screens. Business owners say the automated cues can significantly increase gratuities and boost staff pay. But the unmanned prompts are leading more customers to question what, exactly, the tips are for.
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Sparky may be racist.
I have a new refrigerator and my dog may be a racist. Sparky likes everyone, but the delivery guys don’t know that and shouldn’t take my word for it. As a courtesy, I had him in his crate. As soon as Maurice looked at him, Sparky started barking like a bunch of turkeys were taking a shit in his yard.
I can’t explain it. Sparky has met a couple of dozen friends and family since I’ve had him. In my house and elsewhere, while he was in his crate or roaming around, men and women, dressed up and casual, he has always been cool. Maurice has a dog, so maybe Sparky picked up the scent. Otherwise, Sparky may be a racist. He’s more than half black, so that makes it more troubling.
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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.