Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)

IMDB

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016): Female reporter goes to Afghanistan. Based on a real story. Watchable but satire doesn't have enough bite. B-

POTD: Do Feed the Animals

From 2016 02 11 Jodhpur

Today's photo-of-the-day is from rural Rajasthan, India.

Go ahead and feed the cows. The customary explanation given is that "feeding cows, or any other animal for that matter, according to the Hindu religion, is believed to be an act of goodness and humanity." An economic benefit is that "the milkmen in India let their cows roam free as they know they will get free food...It's like a double jackpot for them, because the cows return to their owner's place to give milk after eating [free] food."

Poor People, Go Home

Donald Trump and the Republicans have a plan to counter immigration. Namely, ban Muslims and Hispanics from entering the country, deport the ones here, and then quit trading with them. Or something like that. It keeps changing.

It reminds me of the 12th century story of King Canute commanding the incoming tide to stop. Contrary to popular belief (i.e., what I believed until I looked it up), Canute in fact understood the futility of this. (I recommend more people try fact-checking before posting on social media.) I imagine Trump understands the futility of trying to stop the tide, too, but is cynically trying to get elected by appealing to voters who don't.

A news story today suggests why Trump's followers are bound to be disappointed even if they succeed in electing Trump in November.

High-Rise Hotel Coming

A key tract at the entrance to Richardson's huge CityLine campus has sold for a major hotel project. Missouri-based developer Drury Southwest bought the almost 3-acre site at CityLine Drive and U.S Highway 75. The property is just west of State Farm Insurance's high-rise regional campus and near DART's commuter rail station.

"Plans call for 168 rooms in an 11-story building with four levels of parking and seven levels of hotel," said BC Station Partners' Joe Altemore. "Construction is set to start in four to six months."

Source: Dallas Morning News.

Maybe I should have realized from the start that the land at US75 and PGBT was way too valuable to ever be used, as promised, for a walkable, transit-oriented, mixed-use, urban development. I should have known all along that it would end up, eventually, like the IH635/Dallas North Tollway intersection. And so it is.

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To understand why I'm less than thrilled with seeing CityLine turn into another IH635/Dallas North Tollway intersection, read "CityLine, Palisades and Strip Shopping Centers."

India's 50 Million New Trees

Trees are a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. It's the ultimate in carbon-capture technology — but all natural, and without the licensing fees.

On July 11th, volunteers in India took this old-school climate-fighting tool to a whole new level by planting a record number of trees in a single day, beating Pakistan’s previous record of planting 847,275 trees in 2013.

It took 800,000 volunteers to plant just under 50 million tree saplings along India's roads, rail lines, and on public lands. This is all a part of India's commitment to reforest 12 percent of its land — a commitment made at the Paris climate talks last year.

Source: Grist.

What does this have to do with Richardson, you might be thinking.

Review: Sapiens

Amazon

From Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction. Unfortunately, the Sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of."

"Sapiens" is another of Bill Gates's book recommendations for this summer. The paragraph above encapsulates the book's thesis, including the bias that, in the end, caused me not to like it as much as Bill Gates did.

After the jump, my review.

A War (2015)

IMDB

A War (2015): Danish soldiers in Afghanistan. War is hell. Then you're court-martialed for a no-win situation. Important for civilians. B+