Blog: If I understand this

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The United States has withdrawn from a climate agreement where rich nations have pledged billions of dollars to help a small group of developing countries switch from coal to green energy sources – why does it seem like everything Trump wants to do revolves around money?

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Didja know:  Medicaid today covers medical bills for more than 70 million Americans. It pays for more than 40% of all births, and is the single-largest financier of nursing home care as well.

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Trump can sign all the orders he wants to, but he cannot legally abolish the Dept. of Education – only Congress can do that.  I think he is firing enough people so that it can’t function properly, then he assumes Congress will agree to shut it.

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Trivia:  At the height of the Berlin Airlift, a plane landed every 30 seconds.  The city needed over 4,000 tons of goods a day, including coal for heat.

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A comprehensive study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that 22% of butterflies in the United States disappeared between 2000 and 2020.  Butterflies play an essential role in ecosystems, pollinating flowers, crops, and other plants.  – Dunno how worried I should be or what I could do about this.  We don’t capture butterflies here!

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Not long ago, my wife moved her hummer feeders and they are now outside of my office window, and nestled among some trees and plants. We think that there is one hummer who has a claim on the whole operation.  It will chase other hummers away!

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About 70% of the money we spent on arming Ukraine stayed in the USA, as we buy from our own manufacturers.  So, it actually helps our manufacturing base.

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If I understand it, if you own stock and never sell it, you don’t pay any tax on the gains.  If you do, it’s a lower tax rate if you hold it a year or more.  And it is lower than income tax rate.  So, say a very wealthy person has $20M in stocks, but never sells it.  The value goes up over time to $30M, but he does not have to pay anything on the $10M increase!  I think he could borrow against it, though.  Is that how the very wealthy do it?

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Trump announced the creation of a “strategic” cryptocurrency reserve fund.  But a crypto reserve has no value to anyone but the crypto industry. While Trump and Musk gut agencies that protect consumers and plan to take a chainsaw to Medicaid, tech billionaires are set to receive hundreds of billions.

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Quote from a college Ethics teacher who grapples with written assignments and AI papers:

“Look, you have to understand that I don’t equate education with job training.”  I have long thought this as well.  What he also said is that he is training them for life, not just a job.  I used to tell students that education is exercise for your brain – especially to those who would say things like, “I’m never going to need this in my job, so why should I. . . .  “

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HONG KONG — U.S. embassies and consulates have stopped monitoring air quality abroad. The State Department said its collection of air pollution data at more than 60 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world had been suspended as of Tuesday due to “budget constraints.” – Yeah, Musk needs a few trillion for his friends – never mind the planet.

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On 3/06 this:  SpaceX said in a statement that after the Starship experienced what it called “a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”  Let’s see — that means it blew up! 

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 The “What the hell” moment for today:  For decades, new parents across the United States have been able to check a box on hospital forms in order to request Social Security numbers for their newborns.

That’s no longer the case in Maine, where parents will have to visit a Social Security field office.   Well, he governor of Maine said she would oppose Trump on something so . . .

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I had not thought of this:  Avalanches kill about two dozen people annually in the U.S. Predicting their likelihood, potential severity and location depends heavily on information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

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By watching the eagle cam and reading some of the comments, I am learning a bit about eagles.  Today I saw the mom get up and roll the unhatched egg (which has a little hole in it).  I read that both parents will do this, I assume so that it warms evenly.  Update — it has since hatched!

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Didja Know Dept.:  Las Vegas’ early development was not because of gambling, but because it had a water source and a railroad. Gambling came later.

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WASHINGTON Huffpost: ― The White House’s favored new reporter, the one who scolded Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit, was the primary voice at a “news” outlet that has taken $192,000 from President Donald Trump’s political committees.  First of all, what about Musk’s usual attire?  And real news orgs do not take money like that!

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From an email from Sen. Chris Murphy: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk are trying to steal from us so regularly, so openly, so unapologetically that they convince the American people to just accept it as normal.

Their theory is that if they do the corruption out in the open, they can con the American people into thinking it’s politics as usual.”

He goes on and lists many of the ways they are making money, like the bitcoin stuff.

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Two sources familiar with internal plans at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Reuters the agency is planning to conduct a “large study” into potential links between vaccines and autism, a pet theory of new Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that lacks any supporting evidence. – That so-called connection has been debunked over and over for many years!  The original “study” was an investment scam!

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From ABC News: “Firings at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will have reverberating impacts on how meteorologists across the country forecast the weather.  Which means that hundreds of operational personnel who usually staff the 122 NWS forecast offices, 13 River Forecast Centers, and two tsunami warning centers will disappear overnight.”

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Didja know this about Washington and R. E. Lee?
Confederate General Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the daughter of Martha Washington’s grandson (from her first marriage). This means he was also related, by marriage, to the first President of the United States, George Washington. And the unlikely connection between the two figures doesn’t stop there. After the Civil War, Lee became president of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, which was named after both men. Of course, I think Lee was a traitor to the US Army and his country and should have been hanged.

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For basketball fans:  I watched much of the Notre Dame/Cal game today, which went to 4 overtimes!  At one point, the ND coach stepped onto the court, while play was on, grabbed one of his players and pushed him towards where he wanted him to be on defense.  Should have been a technical foul, but nothing was called!  Three refs there but none saw that?

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Didja know we used to mint a half penny coin?  Average wages in the 1790s were around $65 a year, so a half-penny made sense for purchasing everyday items.

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All for now, take care,

Kevin