- A large number of staff at the Republican National Committee are being pushed out as Donald Trump seemingly tries to remake the committee in his image. How that will turn out remains to be seen; some speculate that this will turn out badly for a lot of down-ballot candidates, as increasingly limited RNC money is diverted to Trump's own campaign at the expense of the party at large. Then again, you can't count on billionaires not to pony up for them.
- Transport for London, and indeed pretty much every public facility in the UK, has long had huge numbers of CCTV cameras installed; the biggest limitation is not how many cameras you can install but how frequently you can monitor them. Never fear; they're now experimenting with AI to monitor the cameras. Some of the things they've done have actually been useful (e.g. preventing suicides and helping people in difficulties) but it's hard not to wonder what else this could be used for. That said, the biggest problem with AI may not be this, but rather the stupendous amounts of energy that are required to run it and the water needed to keep the hardware cool. And all the minerals needed to make that hardware could be put to better use in greening up the grid.
- A bill working its way through the New York State legislature would force companies to reduce single-use plastic packaging by 50%, as well as prohibiting certain toxic materials entirely from use in packaging. Lobbyists from the petrochemical industry are, of course, pulling out all the stops to try to prevent its passage.
- The organization providing services to troubled folks in the lobby of Winnipeg's Millennium Library is not having its funding renewed. Councillor Evan Duncan, who chairs council's Community Services Committee, says this is because he thinks it should be funded by the province, and that the lobby of the library is "not the best place" for these services. I'm guessing his suburban constituents have been telling him they don't want to have to look at those poors as they go to check out their books.
- In response to the Main Street Project's lawsuit against the neighbouring Manwin Hotel, which alleges that runoff from the hotel roof is causing damage to their building, the hotel's owners, in their statement of defense, not only denied wrongdoing but claim that the MSP's services harm the hotel's bottom line. They are seeking $10 million in punitive damages, and an injunction stopping MSP from operating their shelter at that location. I guess if your business model depends on a steady stream of broken people, having an agency that helps to fix said people is bad for business, but it takes a fair amount of chutzpah to actually admit that.
No comments:
Post a Comment