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Archive of entries posted on 7th February 2020
So — “Woke” Isn’t a Recent Thing?
As Predicted, Democrats’ Response Was “Wait! . . . You Can DO That?!”
Wuhan Is Ordering All 11 Million Residents To Report Their Body Temperature Every Day To Combat the Coronavirus
Business Insider | Feb 06, 2020 | Ryan PickrellResidents have been instructed to take their temperature once a day. Readings can be submitted over the phone, social media apps, and other means. [Offer not valid in Iowa.]
In cases where a person’s temperature is abnormal, an inspection team will be sent to their home to investigate further. [Offer not valid in Oppo’s house.]
In the U.S., the shortcut is just to put FitBits on sale.
And have random celebrities start wearing them.
Just Strumming My Ol’ Twelve-Stringer ….
♫
They sure are not sure
How you’ll pull the lever, yet
(Which for them’s life or death.)
They have no cure
For the boogie-woogie fever yet
Which means “don’t hold your breath.”
Polar opposites, polar vortex
They’ve nothing to lose
Except another “woke” token.
It’s all in the context
Of “breaking news”
But it’s already broken.
[CHORUS:}
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Bring It On
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Yippee-ki-yi-yay . . . [censored]
Bring It On
♫
Yes, It Says That In The Original
Sometimes typos make one double-check the source to see if that’s really what their author and editors published. (See the boldface portion of the article.)
Of course, that’s far from the only chuckle in the article.
GM Wants to Produce a Lot of Cars — and Less of Everything Else
https://www.barrons.com/articles/general-motors-has-a-plan-for-climate-change-crashes-congestion-51581004001 | February 6, 2020 | Al RootGeneral Motors, the auto maker that sells millions of cars and trucks each year, has a new production target: zero.
… I’m guessing this caught the attention of GM investors.
The George Costanza sales pitch?
CEO Mary Barra hasn’t lost her mind. Instead, GM’s goal is a future with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion, the company said at an investor event following the release of its fourth-quarter earnings.
… (to be discussed below. Too embarrassing to bring up here.)
It’s a bold vision to say the least.
Zero Emissions
No greenhouse gases coming from a tail pipe, of course, is all about vehicle electrification. GM (ticker: GM), it seems, is leaving the traditional motor behind.
“We believe climate change is real, it’s a global concern and the best way to remove automotive ambitions from the environmental equation is an all-electric zero emissions future,” said Barra at the investor event.
… after deleting a PowerPoint slide showing coal-burning electricity-generating plants …
“The National Zero Emissions Vehicle Program that we have proposed across all 50 states will help accelerate the transition to EVs…..
… does it include a taxpayer-funded government component? …
“it would also position the United States as a leader in electrification.”
… ? We aren’t? …
The GM plan calls for credits for zero-emission vehicles and incentives for battery development, among other things.
… I smell a taxpayer-funded government component …
GM isn’t waiting for federal regulation, though. The company said in January that its Detroit-Hamtramck plant would be its first devoted to just making electric vehicles.
… also known as walking the walk.
The stock was down 1.6% at $34.44 Thursday afternoon.
… Oh.
Zero Crashes
No accidents is all about active safety. That’s industry jargon for what the rest of America thinks of as self-driving cars.
… You damn rubes! Stop not calling things what we call them!
The company’s Cruise division is the core of its autonomous driving.
… because it feels the need … the need for regulated speed …
“The Cruise portion of the day was extremely compelling,” Levin Easterly Partners portfolio manager Christopher Susanin told Barron’s. “GM’s rate of improvement on their internal safety metrics have been [huge].”
… n.b.: Barron’s felt the need to find a substitute for whatever word was used instead of “huge” …
GM says self-driving safety features
[Emphasis Added:]
can
eventually save millions of lives. The data shows,
[Emphasis Added:]
for the most part,
that robots are,
[Emphasis Added:]
or can be,
safer drivers than humans.
[Emphasis Added:]
People, however, will have to get over the fact that autonomous crashes and other tragedies will generate headlines for years to come.
?!
“Another major growth opportunity for General Motors is commercializing autonomous vehicles and mobility services,” said Barra.
To that end, GM reviewed its Cruise “Origin” platform.
[Emphasis Added:]
It’s a car without a steering wheel.
!?
In the Meantime
GM has been successfully shifting away from lower-profit to higher-profit products.
Genius!
The company exited its European business, which produced substantial losses in the past.
Even smarter!
It is also selling more trucks and crossovers than cars. Larger vehicles are more profitable for GM.
… and have got to get better mileage, right?
The stock hasn’t responded to some of the internal gains made by the company or analyst bullishness either. Shares are down about 4.3% year to date and 8.8% over the past three months. Both figures trail behind returns of the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
… Oh.
I do like an article, though, that ends with a little sanity.
Cleanses the palate. Or, as Barron’s might say, the pallet.
And remember: people will have to get over the fact that autonomous crashes and other tragedies will generate headlines for years to come.
Promoted Comment: Iowa Summed Up
Submitted for Your Approval — Timeless Truths by Gumbeaux
Straight Line of the Day: Million-Dollar Idea:
Fear and loathing in Iowa
I know the pythons are coming for me for this but my God demands I stand on my principles.
MADDOW: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
MADDOW: Old Man, sorry. What Candidate won the caucus here?
DENNIS: I’m thirty seven.
MADDOW: What?
DENNIS: I’m thirty seven — I’m not old!
MADDOW: Well, I can’t just call you ‘Man’.
DENNIS: Well, you could say ‘Dennis’.
MADDOW: Well, I didn’t know you were called ‘Dennis.’
DENNIS: Well, you didn’t bother to find out, did you?
MADDOW: I did say sorry about the ‘old woman,’ but from the behind
you looked–
DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
MADDOW: Well, I am a Presidential Kingmaker…
DENNIS: Oh Kingmakers, eh, very nice. An’ how’d you get that, eh? By
excluding the bloggers — by ‘angin’ on to outdated Network dogma
which perpetuates the silencing of diverse voices in our Media!
If there’s ever going to be any progress–
WOMAN: Dennis, there’s some lovely filth on Biden down here. Oh — how d’you do?
MADDOW: How do you do, good cislady. I am Rachel Maddow, King of the Pundits.
Who won this district?
WOMAN: King of the who?
MADDOW: The Pundits.
WOMAN: Who are the Pundits?
MADDOW: Well, the media. We’re all Pundits and I am their king.
WOMAN: I didn’t know we needed a king. I thought they were an unbiased, unaffiliated distributors and gatherers of information.
DENNIS: You’re fooling yourself. They want us living in a Marxist dictatorship.
A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the independent content providers–
WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing freedom of thought into it again.
DENNIS: That’s what it’s all about if only people would–
MADDOW: Please, please good peasants usually beneath my notice. I am in haste. who won this district?
WOMAN: No one knows here.
MADDOW: Then who is their choice to defeat Trump?
WOMAN: They don’t have a choice.
MADDOW: What?
DENNIS: I told you. they’re a bunch of varied socialists and unemployed activists. They take it in turns to prefer a particular candidate for the first round of voting.
MADDOW: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decisions of that round of voting have to be ratified
at a special second round of preferential voting.
MADDOW: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: So a simple majority may not manifest itself in the first round of this caucus,–
MADDOW: Be quiet!
DENNIS: –but might by subsequent rounds by displaying a tiered vote preference–
MADDOW: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh — who does it think they is?
MADDOW: I am your Pundit king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
MADDOW: You don’t vote for Pundits.
WOMAN: Well, ‘ow did you become a Pundit then?
MADDOW: The Ladies of the “View”,
[angels sing]
their arms clad in the purest simmering anti-semitism, held aloft the microphone
from the bosom of the “Whoppie” signifying by non-denominational but not implying actual existence of Providence that I,
Rachel, was to use the microphone.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your Pundit king!
DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying on TV distributing microphones
is no basis for a system of enlightenment. Supreme Media power
derives from a diversity of opinion and sources, not from some farcical
neurotic lesbian ceremony.
MADDOW: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can’t expect to wield supreme media power
just ’cause some drunken old tarts threw a microphone at you!
Maddow: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin’ I was a News Anchor just
because some humorless bints had lobbed a microphone at me they’d
put me away!
MADDOW: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the bias inherent in the Mainstream media system.
MADDOW: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the bias inherent in the Main stream Media system!
HELP! HELP! I’m being repressed!
MADDOW: Bloody blogger!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that,
eh? That’s what I’m on about — did you see it repressing me,
you saw it didn’t you?
If I need to I can bunk at someone house until this blows over, right?
Space Junk
Suddenly, some people are all concerned about satellites orbiting earth.
The Night Sky Will Never Be Same… Thousands of Artificial Lights Streak Through Dark… Musk, Bezos Junk Up Atmosphere…
What these people don’t seem to realize is that there have been artificial satellites and large space junk orbiting Earth since October 1957. By the time Sputnik 1 decayed and reentered the atmosphere, other satellites were orbiting. We’ve not been without stuff in space for over 52 years.
With the number of satellites that are being launched by Amazon, SpaceX, and other companies, it’s suddenly a problem? The people complaining haven’t seen the night sky in years. I can go out and look up into the night sky and see things. I still like to do that. But people who don’t are suddenly getting their panties in a wad over some companies putting up satellites that will provide Internet access over the entire country.
Don’t get me wrong. Space junk is a problem. And the increased number of satellites will increase space junk. But space junk in the form of more Internet access. Have you seen what’s on the Internet. I’d stay clear of that thing if I were you.