Whether you like the story or not is one thing. But the Pixar Animation Studios took what was almost a dying art form and brought it back to life. The moment we say the bouncing desk lamp, we knew that something great could come forward.
And it did.
NOTE: The video above also has the trailer for Cars 3.
You may remember the riots in Baltimore, MD after the death of Freddie Gray in 2015.
What initially started out as peaceful protests turned into full scale riots where people were assaulted and property was destroyed.
The Mayor of Baltimore at the time Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, (in)famously said:
“It’s a very delicate balancing act. Because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well. And we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate. (emphasis ours)
Media and the country jumped on her comment wondering why people needed the “space to destroy?” Isn’t that what the police should protect against?
Rawlings-Blake later said her comments were misconstrued and mischaracterized and her office released another statement:
What she is saying within this statement was that there was an effort to give the peaceful demonstrators room to conduct their peaceful protests on Saturday. Unfortunately, as a result of providing the peaceful demonstrators with the space to share their message, that also meant that those seeking to incite violence also had the space to operate. The police sought to balance the rights of the peaceful demonstrators against the need to step in against those who were seeking to create violence.
The mayor is not saying that she asked police to give space to people who sought to create violence. Any suggestion otherwise would be a misinterpretation of her statement.
The statement clarification was just as bad as the original statement. It seemed the Mayor was condoning the violence in the city and its destruction.
In an “after action” report by the police union, the police accused the City government of such things as to not stop people from causing damage to property, arrests had to be cleared by civilian lawyers, gas masks were either not distributed or had expired canisters, commanders told policemen not to wear gloves because of the image it created as well as being told not to move to stop the violence.
While the Mayor disputed the accusations by the police, Delegate Curt Anderson (D) said:
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(courtesy of Jake Likes Onions.)
(click on image for larger version)
The best part about this cartoon is that the artist gets the grill right. He shows a charcoal grill – not a wimpy ridiculous outdoor stove run by propane. If you want to cook with gas, just stay indoors.
Yaugeni Kralkin, 56, is suing the New York Fire Department and four EMT’s for damages arising from an incident on June 10, 2016.
It seems that Kralkin is an over the road truck driver who came home after a trip and got into a fight with his son.
Kralkin decided to go walk off the anger while guzzling Hennessy cognac.
The Police and EMT’s were called when someone found Kralkin slumped over on their property. Kralkin was less than co-operative with the Police and the EMT’s but there is no indication he was violent.
The EMT’s examined Kralkin and determined that the best course of action would be to take him to the hospital. They strapped Kralkin to a stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance and headed off.
At some time during the trip, Kralkin released the straps holding him to the stretcher (the straps are similar to the old seatbelts.) He then got up and walked out the back of the ambulance……
….while it was moving.
Gravity and physics being what they are, Kralkin fell to the pavement and according to him, was injured. The EMTs called for another unit to help with Kralkin and 12 minutes later Kralkin was on his way to the hospital again.
At the hospital, Kralkin’s blood alcohol content was .34 (and this is after his body had time to metabolize some of the alcohol.) Interestingly, a BAC of 0.31 places a person at risk of dying from alcohol poisoning.
So who was at fault for all this?
Anyone and everyone by Kralkin himself.
According to Kralkin, it was his family’s fault he got drunk:
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In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a division of the World Health Organization, released a paper in which it labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Glyphosate is the main chemical in Monsanto’s RoundUp, the weed killing spray.
The paper led to the massive launch of lawsuits against Monsanto. Even today, you can see ads on TV for “have you gotten cancer and used RoundUp? Call us!”
When one Googles “Monsanto” and “RoundUp,” there are ads from law firms that are suing Monsanto.
But there’s a problem. The lawyers will say it is a minor issue, but we believe it is a major problem:
The World Health Organization’s cancer agency says a common weedkiller is “probably carcinogenic.” The scientist leading that review knew of fresh data showing no cancer link – but he never mentioned it and the agency did not take it into account.
LONDON – When Aaron Blair sat down to chair a week-long meeting of 17 specialists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France in March 2015, there was something he wasn’t telling them.
The epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute had seen important unpublished scientific data relating directly to a key question the IARC specialists were about to consider: Whether research shows that the weedkiller glyphosate, a key ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling RoundUp brand, causes cancer.
Previously unreported court documents reviewed by Reuters from an ongoing U.S. legal case against Monsanto show that Blair knew the unpublished research found no evidence of a link between glyphosate and cancer. In a sworn deposition given in March this year in connection with the case, Blair also said the data would have altered IARC’s analysis. He said it would have made it less likely that glyphosate would meet the agency’s criteria for being classed as “probably carcinogenic.”
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Yeah, no one saw this coming.
From the Fresno Bee:
Restaurant die-off is first course of California’s $15 minimum wage
In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”
The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.
Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.
As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.
A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.
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Yesterday, the Supreme Court published its opinion on the case of Matal v. Tam< ./a> This is the case often referred to as “The Slants” case in which the Patent and Trademark Office denied the Slants the ability to copyright the name of the band.
Quoting the decision:
This case concerns a dance-rock band’s application for federal trademark registration of the band’s name, “The Slants.” “Slants” is a derogatory term for persons of Asian descent, and members of the band are Asian-Americans. But the band members believe that by taking that slur as the name of their group, they will help to “reclaim” the term and drain its denigrating force.
The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) denied the application based on a provision of federal law prohibiting the registration of trademarks that may “disparage . . . or bring . . . into contemp[t] or disrepute” any “persons, living or dead.” 15 U. S. C. §1052(a).
The Slants sued the government on First Amendment grounds.
The arguments and positions from both the Slants and the government are pretty interesting.
The Slants argued that the regulation was being interpreted too broadly by the PTO in covering who groups of people when the statute clearly states “individuals” and persons. The Slants argued that the PTO had allowed other disparaging trademarks previously.
The government argued that the trademark was government speech and not subject to the provisions of the First Amendment. The government also argued that the speech in question was “government subsidized,” and therefore the government could control the content.
The Supreme Court voted 8-0 that the disparagement clause being used by the PTO was unConstitutional.
We loved this part of the decision: (more…)
