Virtue Shopping

You’ve been waiting breathlessly for this, I’m sure. According to Bloomberg, you’ll soon be able to figure out the “true carbon footprint” of everything you buy. With My Carbon Action app from Finland, you’ll have all the information you need to “adapt” your lifestyle to the goal of “keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius.” The app combines credit card, banking, and retail data “to provide real-time calculations of how a given product affects the climate.” The app will reveal the environmental impact of your individual purchases — down to “the level of individual steaks or tomatoes.” But that’s not all! It will then “propose actions” to reduce carbon impact. “Typical suggestions may include taking a shorter shower, hopping on the bus instead of the car, turning down the thermostat, and going vegan for a week.” I know you’re saying, “Sign me up.” What could be better than an app that nags and scolds you and tells you you’re doing it wrong? We all need more of that in our lives.

Taxi, Tax-ze

What a bunch of hacks. New York City’s taxi commission is now advising cabbies on pronouns, reveals The New York Post. The regulators want taxi drivers to question fares how they identify — which basically boils down to lgbtq queries. “Using someone’s preferred pronoun is a simple way to show respect,” according to “inclusive language tips” from the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s tlc Office of Inclusion emailed to 200,000 licensed drivers last month. “Ask the passenger what their pronoun is. Do not assume someone’s pronoun because of their appearance … If you do not want to ask, you can ask how they preferred [sic] to be called or use the gender-neutral pronoun such as they; or ze.” This, according to tlc spokesman Allan Fromberg, is how drivers can make passengers feel “welcome and comfortable through customer service.” Which, as anyone who’s ever been slammed through the streets of New York in a taxi knows, is of the utmost importance to every cabbie, be they they, ze, he, or she.

Bummed

Why do cities run by liberals all end up as homeless magnets? Portland, Oregon is demonstrating why. Their latest proposal is to “welcome” the “unhoused” (their term) — everywhere. According to abc affiliate katu News, Portland’s Planning and Sustainability Commission is considering “mandatory rest spaces” for the homeless. As Hot Air explains, this would “change the building codes so that all new structures (including private property…) include spaces for people to ‘rest’ and ‘feel welcome and safe.’” katu reports that “some worry a change … to allow people to ‘rest’ on private property could lead to camping.” Really? Do you think?

Hot Air makes the commonsense point: “If you’re making the investment to construct a new home or business in Portland, you really don’t want to open up on day one with an invitation for a homeless encampment … literally right on your doorstep.” My advice: if you’re constructing a new home or business in Portland, sell.

Buzz Off, Bezos

Check out this Breitbart headline: “Jeff Bezos: ‘Move All Heavy Industry into Space’ to Save Earth.” Last November, the Amazon ceo and Washington Post owner was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame for the space flight company he founded in 2000, Blue Origin. According to The Times of San Diego, Bezos told the crowd: “I believe that one day, earth will be zoned residential and light industry. We’ll move all heavy industry into space. That’s the only way, really, to save this planet.”

Bezos has been on this blastoff kick for a while. Last July, he told cbs Evening News: “We are in the process of destroying this planet … Eventually, it will be much cheaper and simpler to make really complicated things in space, and then send those objects back down to earth — so that we don’t have the big factories and pollution-generating industries that make those things now on earth.”

Then, at his Hall of Fame induction, the world’s richest man declared, “You want a dynamic civilization that continues to use more and more energy and more and more resources and build amazing things. And to do that, you have to move out into the solar system.” You first.

Illustrations ©2020 Allison Smith for The Limbaugh Letter; Buzz Off, Taxi, Tax-ze Photo ©2020 iStock PeskyMonkey, Bezos photo; ©2020 iStock RomoloTavani