Weekend Beyond Cars Roundup April 06, 2024

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano made headlines recently when he floated legislation that would ban chemtrails, which aren’t real and only exist in the minds of unhinged conspiracy theorists. His bill wasn’t entirely original, though, as it was modeled after a similar bill that recently passed the state senate in Tennessee. As Substack’s Radical Reports reports, these are far from the only chemtrail bills being introduced around the country, and wouldn’t you know it, the sponsors are all Republicans. - Collin Woodard Read More

Space X CEO and certified brain genius Elon Musk has claimed in the past that he aims to load a million people into space ships and launch them at Mars before 2050. The space company run by the second-richest man in the world says that colonizing Mars is “necessary for the long-term survival of the human species.” Musk claimed that a crewed mission to Mars will happen in just five years time. Considering that Earth and Mars are only aligned for thirty days every 26 months, all of this is pure pipe dream, and it detracts from solvable problems right here on the planet where we already live. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Nine passengers from a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship found out the hard way just what happens when you miss the departure time for your ship, after they were abandoned by the rest of their cruise. The group of stricken cruisers is now attempting to be reunited with the ship in a trans-African adventure. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, and a dozen others are abject failures of the Silicon Valley venture capital-funded wasteland of “gig economy” apps. These apps make it easier to get cold and disappointing food delivered right to your house at ridiculous expense. The companies themselves are having a hard time figuring out a profitability model, despite leeching almost all of the profit from notoriously unprofitable local restaurants, and paying the delivery people practically nothing. This isn’t really working out for anyone. - Bradley Brownell Read More

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you mixed pirates with the Wet Bandits from “Home Alone,” we now have your answer. Police arrested three alleged seafaring burglars last week accused of robbing residents and businesses in the San Francisco Bay. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

It seems like a few Republican lawmakers want gold slab-serif lettering to welcome Americans flying into the nation’s capital. A bill introduced in the House of Representatives aims to rename Washington Dulles International Airport after former President Donald Trump. The change isn’t likely to become a reality as the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. Still, it shows where legislators’ priorities lie as commercial aviation is in a tailspin with shoddily-built airliners and overstretched air traffic controllers. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Freight railroads are using something called Precession Scheduling to run longer trains with fewer crewmembers in order to maximize profits. To hopefully curb potential accidents, the Biden Administration mandated Tuesday a bare minimum that at least two people be aboard sometimes miles-long freight trains. Some trains, however, will get a pass even on this bare bones basic safety requirement. - Ryan Erik King Read More

A massive container ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge a week ago, destroying the bridge and killing six people. As the cleanup operation begins, attention is turning to who will pay to fix the destruction caused by the container ship. Now, the company that owns the vessel is preparing to invoke an ancient maritime law to try and limit the damages it’s ordered to pay. - Owen Bellwood Read More

A man on the ground in California captured a once-in-a-lifetime video when he snagged a shot of a lightning bolt striking a plane in mid-air this week. A rare thunderstorm over San Jose provided the excitement. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Last Action Hero is unironically one of my favorite films of the 1990s. It was a critical and commercial disappointment, but the thirty years of distance since its release have helped paint it with a sheen of nostalgia. It’s a sharp and interesting extra meta send up of the kinds of action films star Arnold Schwarzenegger helped popularize, featuring healthy satire and fourth-wall breaking. It’s stupid, but it’s fun. And stupid fun is exactly what Columbia Pictures was aiming for when it bought $500,000 worth of advertising space on the side of a NASA Conestoga rocket. The first ad of its kind, developed by Space Marketing, Inc., an organization set up to help fund the costs of NASA missions. - Bradley Brownell Read More