It is illegal to put electronic junk in your garbage can; however, you can drop off electronic waste at the eWaste Collective in Berkeley without charge. They will take TVs, computer monitors, stereo equipment, DVD players, and microwave ovens, among other things. It seems like a lot of microwave ovens get illegally dumped on street corners in college towns everywhere at the end of the school year. For their hours and address, go to: eWaste Collective.
ABOUT BATTERIES AND LED LIGHT BULBS. Batteries and LED light bulbs are considered hazardous electronic waste. The eWaste Collective will accept laptop and cell phone batteries for disposal, but they will not accept regular alkaline batteries, and they do not accept light bulbs. If you have used alkaline batteries or LED light bulbs, you can bring them to me, and I will take them to the Alameda County Hazardous Waste Site. Do not bring me damaged or leaky batteries or broken light bulbs. Put your batteries in a closed Ziplok bag first. Put your light bulbs in a separate Ziplok bag. Remember – do not bring me damaged or leaky batteries, auto batteries, or broken light bulbs!
I am surprised at how many really smart people I know believe that cryptocurrencies will replace the dollar, the euro, etc, as money in the future. I don’t believe that is ever going to happen. Cryptocurrencies are far too volatile to ever be accepted as money, and no government is going to make them legal tender. Consider Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency most in the news right now. According to Coinbase: “Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that was created as a joke – its name is a reference to a popular internet meme. It shares many features with Litecoin, However, unlike Litecoin, there is no hard cap on the number of Dogecoins that can be produced.” The Wall Street Journal described Dogecoin this way last week: “Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that started as a joke in 2013. It is a satirical homage to bitcoin, designed to serve no real purpose other than generating a few laughs. It is named after an internet meme centered around the image of a Shiba Inu dog with bad spelling habits – thus “doge” instead of “dog.” From the time Dogecoin was created in 2013 until a few months ago, a Dogecoin sold for a fraction of one cent, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Then Elon Musk threw the Doge a bone. Musk started hyping Doge, and the price rocketed to over 50 cents, a 20,000% gain in less than 6 months. The market cap of Dogecoin (the price per Dogecoin multiplied by the number of them in circulation) is over $60 billion (as of the date I am writing this.) That is more than the market cap of either General Motors or Coca Cola. Dogecoin was created as a joke, and there is no limit on how many of them can be created. Yet, speculators (I refuse to call them investors) are buying Dogecoin as though they imagined that Dogecoin is worth more than the Bank of New York, Walgreens, Ford, or the Coca Cola Company! This is nuts. I think this has to end badly.
OK. Here is another one of Mark’s bizarre history stories……It is very common for a story that started off as wartime propaganda to be remembered after the war is over as being true. Usually, people just believe their own government’s propaganda stories, but sometimes people wind up believing propaganda and lies that came from their enemies. Here are some completely untrue stories invented by the Nazis but that are widely believed to be true by Americans and Europeans today. 1. The German Language Vote. According to this myth, anti-British sentiment was so strong in the United States after the American Revolution that Congress voted on a bill to change the national language of the country from English to German and that it lost by one vote. This story has been repeated in countless books and magazine articles. I have met many Americans and even a few Germans who had heard this story and believed it was true. This story was started by the German American Bund in the 1930s. The story is absurd if you think about it. All of the original 13 colonies were founded by English immigrants. At the time of the American Revolution, very few Americans could speak German outside of Pennsylvania, and even in Pennsylvania, German speakers were a minority. So – why would Congress vote to change the language of the United States from English to German, a language which neither they nor their constituents could speak? 2. The Anti-Semitic Founding Fathers. According to this myth, the Founding Fathers of the United States were anti-Semites and that Benjamin Franklin tried to put a clause in the Constitution prohibiting Jews from immigrating to the United States. This story was started by the Silver Legion, another Nazi organization in the U.S. in the 1930s. None of the Founding Fathers had any religious prejudices. Religious tolerance was a fundamental principle of the new country. Many of the original 13 colonies were founded by unpopular religious minorities driven out of Europe. Benjamin Franklin was not antiSemitic. Franklin donated 5 English pounds (several hundred dollars in today’s money) to pay off the mortgage on Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia’s oldest synagogue, when it was about to be foreclosed upon.
3. The Polish Lancers. According to this myth, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Poles attacked their tanks with lancers. A lancer is a cavalryman (a soldier on a horse) carrying a lance (a long pointed stick.) The Polish army did have cavalry at the start of World War 2 (as did many other European countries) and they did have lancers. However, the Poles did not attack German tanks with lances. This story was started by the German propaganda ministry. The Nazis promoted stories designed to make Poles look foolish because that fit into their racial theory, according to which, Poles are stupid, and who but a very stupid person would attack a tank with a pointed stick? As absurd as this story is, a lot of people believe it is true. I once had 2 Polish tenants who had heard this story, and they believed it was true, and they were grad students from Poland!
4. Nazi Efficiency. According to this myth, the economy of Nazi Germany was ruthlessly efficient. I think this is one of the world’s most dangerous myths. While the Nazis were certainly ruthless, their economy was incredibly inefficient. Incompetent Nazi party officials took positions of power throughout German industry. Graft, cronyism, and corruption were so rampant that the German economy was never really on a wartime footing. Throughout the war, German factories continued to produce luxury goods for the rich and powerful, products that weren’t being made anywhere else in the world. For example, Mercedes Benz continued to manufacture custom-made limousines until nearly the very end of the war. Below is a photo of a Grand Mercedes made in 1944 for a Nazi party official. Aircraft factories in Germany operated from 9 to 5 and were closed on weekends. In the United States, aircraft factories operated 24 hours a day. They never closed. Trains and airplanes badly needed by the German army were used throughout the war to transport luxury goods from occupied countries back to Germany, including champagne from France, lobsters from Norway, and stolen art from all over Europe. Railroad trains transporting Jews to death camps had the right-of-way over military supply trains heading for the front. The economies of Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan were all far more efficient than that of Nazi Germany.
Israel has a reputation for a very high level of security at its airports; however, take a look at the photo below taken at Ben Gurion Airport, the nation’s principal airport. The sign says: “Sitting on the conveyor is strictly forbidden.” You will notice that there are 3 flagrant lawbreakers in this photo, but no arrests are being made!
You may have noticed that a number of items on my chocolate list are out of stock. That’s because some types of confectioner’s chocolate are hard to get right now, largely because of industrial and transportation shutdowns due to Covid. The milk chocolate I like has been unavailable for over 4 months, and my stock is almost gone. I can get lower quality milk chocolate, but I don’t want it. Low quality milk chocolate doesn’t taste as good, and it often contains bad stuff: palm oil instead of cocoa butter, imitation vanilla instead of the real thing, powdered milk, and old or low quality cocoa beans. I would prefer to be out of stock rather than use bad chocolate. My chocolate has my name on it.
HOT CHOCOLATE? Restaurants are constantly coming up with novel and surprising ideas for chocolate desserts. There are now restaurants in several cities that pour melted chocolate over the hands of their customers, and then you lick the chocolate off your hands. That’s the dessert. See photo below. This does not appeal to me at all. What about you?
