Blog: If I understand this

Most of my life, I have thought that this was a Mark Twain quote:

“Put all your eggs in one basket – and watch that basket!”

Well, it seemed like bad advice to me, except I knew that Twain lost a fortune investing in a typesetting machine (the Paige Typesetter) . . . and I thought that perhaps he felt that he had not watched that closely enough.

Turns out, according to the Ron Chernow biography of him, it was Andrew Carnegie who said that to Twain when the two met.  Apparently, Twain told him not to put all his eggs in one basket and that was his reply!  I guess that works in you can corner the market on making steel in America.

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Looming 17 times higher than Niagara Falls, Angel Falls in Venezuela is the largest waterfall in the world. Provided by FactRetriever.com – additional info by me — it is not the largest by water volume, but it is the highest. 

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Sign outside of a vet’s office:

If cats could text you back, they wouldn’t.

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Cat of the week:

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Trump supporters should be happy to know that he is continuing to fight the silly notion of a free lunch in America – “President Donald Trump’s mega bill makes the largest cuts to food stamps (SNAP) in the program’s 86-year history, jeopardizing assistance for more than 42 million people.”

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Ho, Hum, another shooting, this time in New York, and:

This shooting is the 254th mass shooting in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun-related violence, who defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed or injured by firearms. And yes, he used an assault rifle.

And, as of July 29 — There have been 8,590 deaths due to gun violence in the U.S. so far this year and 15,704 injuries.  We’re number one, again!

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The Dept of Education has people who work to prevent fraud, like in vocational schools, but this:  in March, the newly confirmed secretary of education, Linda McMahon, fired more than 80 percent of the fraud-prevention and quality-assurance team.  – Oh, well, Eighteen-year-olds are wise enough not to fall for easy credit scams, right?

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Didja Know Dept.:  That the letter “J” was the final letter added to the Latin alphabet (the standard 26-letter alphabet used by most modern Western languages). It was missing a special something until the final letter filled the linguistic void in the early 17th century. 

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There You Go Dept.:  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said no one is starving in Gaza. – Maybe he uses the same PR people that Trump uses.  Nothing to see here or there.

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On behalf of the president, thank you for helping with his new golf course!  “Donald Trump and his White House took using government resources to put money into his pockets to a brazen new level Tuesday, treating his participation in a marketing event at one of his Scotland golf resorts as an official act worthy of promotion by taxpayer-funded staff.” – Huffpost

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I don’t think I am ready to get dental work in Mexico, but lots of Americans do — Los Algodones, Mexico—A.K.A. Molar City—may have more dentists per capita than any place in the world: well over a thousand in a town of fifty-five hundred. Every year, more than a million Americans walk or drive there, fleeing the high cost of dental work in the U.S.

And did you ever wonder why most medical insurance policies do not cover dental or vision (they are extra)? Aren’t teeth and eyes two of the most important parts of your body?

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Not to be outdone by his other cabinet level brothers and sisters:  EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin referred to climate change as “dogma” rather than “science.”  — Wait, weren’t you listening when Trump told you that climate change was “a Chinese hoax?”

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Odd fact of the day:  Afghan poppy farmers have switched to solar power to run their irrigation systems. This has significantly increased the world’s supply of heroin. Provided by FactRetriever.com – How do they know this?  Do the heroin people report their crops?

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A different way of looking at tipping, from the New Yorker:

You might think that the point of tipping is to compensate servers, bartenders, and other workers for their labor. But the real function of tipping, as the economist Robert Reich explained to me this year, is to subsidize employers—including some of the largest restaurant chains in the country—for the poverty wages they pay their workers, who in many states receive just $2.13 an hour rather than the regular minimum wage.  The poverty rate among these workers is more than double the rate of other employees. Tipped workers are also more likely to rely on food stamps and other forms of federal assistance. – and no, eliminating taxes on tips won’t cost the restaurant industry a cent.  About 40% of tipped workers don’t make enough to pay anyway.  And, if we all make up the lost IRS revenue, there you go, we again subsidize the restaurant industry.

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July 31.  Court hearings today.  At issue:  V.O.S. Selections Inc., a wine and spirits importer, and Plastic Services and Products, a pipe and fittings company, sued Trump over his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, saying he has “no authority to issue across-the-board worldwide tariffs without congressional approval.” And: “Congress has not delegated any such power,” the companies’ initial legal filing said. – Gee, can anyone stand up for the rights of Congress?  Even Congressmen?

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Dad joke:

Why did the bicycle fall over?

It was two-tired.

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If I understand this, not only can’t you believe all that you see, but now this:  Advertisements in Vogue’s August issue for the clothing company Guess feature something unique: AI-generated models. – Some years ago, we saw the movie Call of the Wild, wherein all the dogs were CGI created, especially the hero dog, Buck.  You could tell it was so, but “they” are getting better and better at this.  Stay tuned for robots taking your fast-food order at the counter, and the bank teller being a robot, too, although I will guess a “normal” looking one.

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And, yeah, I missed a Wednesday post this week.  August is a busy month for us — lots of appointments, small trips, etc.  But I will strive to at least post on Sundays, which I don’t usually miss!

All take care,

Kevin