Reality vs Fiction

September 5, 2019

Today in Austin it will be 98 with a low of 71.  The average is 92/71

We are 248 days into the year, 117 days until next year. 

 “A country whose population gets its living by cheating is a bad country”  Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (9/5/1817 – 10/10/1875)

Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (9/5/1817 – 10/10/1875)

   

Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, often referred to as A. K. Tolstoy (Russian: Алексе́й Константи́нович Толсто́й) (September 5 [O.S. August 24] 1817 – October 10 [O.S. September 28] 1875), was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist, primarily on the strength of his dramatic trilogy The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1866), Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1868), and Tsar Boris (1870). He also gained fame for his satirical works, published under his own name (History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev, The Dream of Councillor Popov) and under the collaborational pen name of Kozma Prutkov. His fictional works include the novella The Family of the Vourdalak, The Vampire (1841), and the historical novel Prince Serebrenni (1862).

Aleksey was a member of the Tolstoy family, and a second cousin of Leo Tolstoy. Due to his mother's closeness with the court of the Tsar, Aleksey was admitted to the future Alexander II's childhood entourage and became "a comrade in games" for the young Crown Prince. As a young man Tolstoy traveled widely, including trips to Italy and Germany, where he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Tolstoy began his education at home under the tutelage of his uncle the writer Antony Pogorelsky, under whose influence he first became interested in writing poetry, and a number of other teachers. In 1834 Tolstoy enrolled in the Moscow Foreign Ministry State Archive as a student. In December 1835 he completed exams (in English, French and German languages and literature, Latin, World and Russian history, and Russian statistics) at the University of Moscow.

Throughout the 1840s Tolstoy led a busy high society life, full of pleasure trips, salon parties and balls, hunting sprees and fleeting romances. He also spent many years in state service as a bureaucrat and diplomat. In 1856, on the day of his Coronation, Alexander II appointed Tolstoy one of his personal aide-de-adjutants. Tolstoy served as an infantry major in the Crimean War. He eventually left state service in the early 1860s to pursue his literary career. He died in 1875 of a self-administered lethal dose of morphine at his Krasny Rog estate in the Chernigov Governorate.

Hurricane Dorian

            Dorian continues to parallel the US east coast.  Will it make landfall is just a guess.  The storm is now a Category 3 and can do quite a bit of damage.  I am thinking Hurricane Sandy from 2012.  With the rising oceans we could still see a lot of damage on the east coast.

International Day of Charity 

            Today is the annualy observed International Day of Charity.  In 2012 the UN general assembly declared September 5^th as the day for this event.  The prime purpose being to raise awareness and provide a common platform for charity related activities all over the world for individuals, charitable, philanthropic and volunteer organizations for their own purposes on local, national, regional and international level.

YouTube

The FTC fined YouTube $170 million for targeting children with ads without parents permission.  While that may seem like a lot of money, let’s face it.  $170 million of a company with a market cap of $140 Billion, with 2018 US YouTube revenue of at least $3.36 billion.  While that represents 5% of the revenue from US YouTube it only represents 0.13% of the market value.  Does anyone think this will correct behavior?  To correct corporate behavior you must make the penalty cost more than the profit derived from the behavior.  In this case the FTC missed the boat.  Something on the order of $1.68 Billion or ½ of the profit from last fiscal year.  That corrects behavior, in the end most companies are driven by the bottom line.  Like children with a hot stove.  They will do something until it hurts more than the derived pleasure (Think bad actor until it hits the pocketbook in a negative way).

Dorian Predicted Path

          So Trump said that Dorian was possibly going to hit Alabama.  At the time of his announcement about Dorian (Sept 1^st, 2019) there were no predicted paths that would touch Alabama.  The spaghetti string map his is hold up today to show he was right was from August 27^th.  Anyone who knows anything about Hurricanes knows that every hour much less every day things change.  They are highly unpredictable.  This man will double down and never admit his made a misstatement or was wrong.  How can you be president if you never admit you could be wrong. 

            Additionally today on Twitter the man made many claims.  One is the cleanest and safest air and water.  Heck, we are not even in the Top 10.  We are 88^th in Air and 29^th in water.  He claims the Democrats environmental proposals will raise prices at the pump and energy.  Name a year when the price of oil and power have not gone up?

            Finally, really???  The map has a hand drawn arc to include Alabama.  Is it really that important?  Just admit you looked at 4 day old map, Alabama had a couple of possible routes and that you did not really pay attention to the updated map.  It is not hard to admit a mistake, oh I forgot it is for you.

Bahamas aftermath

            The main island of the Bahamas was devastated.  The death toll is now 20 and huge sections of the island remain underwater.  Take a look at the images.  Mother natures fury is a awe inspiring and frightening in strength.

WalMart and Guns

            Walmart has stopped selling handguns.  Asked that people not open carry in their stores.  Stopped the sale of ammunition that is used in automatic weapons.  They currently represent 20% of ammunition sales in the USA, these moves will reduce their footprint to 9-10%.  That is a really big step for a major company especially one based in Arkansas. 

            They went a step further and have asked Congress to take up legislation and a national conversation about how to address mass shootings.  For a company to do this, it could be the first step in addressing a major social issue.

The Sum Up

            The A/C is still working!!!!  The University of Texas versus LSU.  Both teams won last weekend and are ranked #9 (UT) and #6(LSU) with only 2 days.  The spread is LSU by 6.5 and the Over Under is 56. 

  

That’s all for today sports fans.