Author Archives: Mark

About Mark

I am a landlord in Berkeley, California. I rent houses to college students. I make chocolate and have a free chocolate store for my tenants.

HOW DID WE GET THE INCOME TAX?

Posted on by
Reply

Very few people know how we got the income tax. Nobody likes paying income tax, so who was behind the passage of the 16th Amendment? Most history teachers can’t tell you. Most CPAs can’t tell you. I’ve asked quite a few CPAs. They don’t know. Surprisingly, it was the Prohibitionists. By the late 1800s, many states had passed statewide Prohibition laws, but they were unable to get Congress to vote for a national Prohibition amendment. Even members of Congress who were committed Prohibitionists wouldn’t vote for it. The reason was that the federal government was completely dependent on liquor taxes for its financing. From the time George Washington was president until the passage of the 16th Amendment, liquor taxes were the federal government’s principal source of revenue. When I tell people just how dependent the government was on liquor taxes, they don’t believe me, so consider this quote from the IRS web site: IRS Web Site.  “From 1868 until 1913, 90 percent of all (federal) revenue came from taxes on liquor, beer, wine and tobacco.”

Think of it – 90% of the federal government’s income came from taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and most of that income came from alcohol. Congress was reluctant to raise tobacco taxes too high because nearly half of all Americans still lived on farms, and it is easy to grow your own tobacco. Making liquor is much more complicated. Before Congress could vote for the Prohibition Amendment, the Prohibitionists had to find another way to finance the federal government. In 1894, the Prohibitionists got Congress to pass a federal income tax law, but in 1895 the Supreme Court ruled that a federal income tax was unconstitutional. That meant that the only way the Prohibitionists could get a federal income tax was by Constitutional amendment, and that is what they set out to do. They had allies in this. Although liberal politicians generally had little interest in Prohibition, they were very interested in doing something to reduce the tremendous wealth inequality in the U.S. at the time. This was the Gilded Age, a time when a small number of incredibly wealthy industrialists accumulated huge fortunes, men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Vanderbilt, etc.; while factory workers were living in poverty, and their poverty was getting worse. The gap between rich and poor in America had never been greater. These liberal groups allied themselves with the Prohibitionists to support the income tax amendment. So that’s how we got the income tax – it was the Prohibitionists!

Jack Daniel’s. Prohibition in the U.S. never completely went away. A number of states in the Midwest and the South have still not ratified the 21st Amendment, and there are dozens of dry counties in the United States, places where the sale of alcoholic beverages is prohibited. Jack Daniel’s is the #1 selling American whiskey in the world. It is made in Lynchburg, Tennessee, a fact that the company frequently mentions in its advertising. Lynchburg is in Moore County, a dry county. That means that Jack Daniel’s cannot be sold in stores or restaurants in the county where it is made, and there are no bars or liquor stores in the county. You have to leave Moore County to buy Jack Daniel’s. Many of America’s top-selling whiskeys are made in places where it is illegal to sell alcoholic beverages. Isn’t that odd?


What Is A Jack Daniels Terrier? I once got an application to rent a house from a woman who wrote on her application form that she owned a Jack Daniels terrier. I asked her: “Don’t you mean a Jack Russell terrier?” She became enraged by my question and said: “No. Why do you landlords keep asking me that question? I know what kind of dog I own!” Then she stormed out. After she left, I looked up Jack Daniels terrier on Google, just to make sure there is no such breed. Just as I suspected, there is no such thing as a Jack Daniels terrier. I wonder how many landlords before me asked this woman the same question that I did.

FREEBIE OF THE MONTH. Scrubbing Bubbles.

Posted on by
Reply

I always have this in stock in my chocolate room. This is my favorite general cleaner. Spray it in a sink and it immediately bubbles up and dissolves soap scum, sticky, greasy stuff, everything! Just lightly go over the surface with a wet sponge after you spray and your sink, vanity, countertop, etc. will sparkle! In addition, it kills 99.9% of viruses and bacteria. It says so on the can. Because of Covid, that gives Scrubbing Bubbles a big advantage over other cleaners. As I said, I always have this in stock. It’s free and available whenever you want it.

DOES ANYBODY WANT SOME RABBIT FOOT KEYCHAINS?

Posted on by
Reply

Like a lot of other people stuck at home because of Covid, I have been going through boxes of stuff that I haven’t looked at in years. I am finding a lot of things that I didn’t know I owned. I found a bagful of rabbit foot keychains. Judging from the tarnish on the brass ferrules, I guess they are at least 20 years old and maybe much older. I have no idea where they came from. If you are under 40 years of age, you have probably never seen one of these, but at one time, they were sold everywhere. Millions of people attached their keys to these keychains and rubbed the fur for good luck. People thought that rubbing a rabbit’s foot brought good luck. I once saw a man at a blackjack table in Las Vegas rubbing a rabbit’s foot before asking the dealer for a hit. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? After all, lopping the feet off a rabbit wasn’t lucky for the rabbit. There was an episode of Star Trek in which Mr. Spock looked at a rabbit’s foot keychain and said: “I fail to see how carrying the severed foot of a dead rodent in one’s pocket will bring one good fortune.” I thought that was a great line. If anyone wants some rabbit foot keychains, let me know. They are free. They have to be. It is illegal in Berkeley to sell fur products, which probably includes rabbit feet. But it doesn’t matter. I am never going to carry a rabbit’s foot in my pocket.

HOW TO GET RID OF MOLD IN YOUR DISHWASHER.

Posted on by
Reply

The inside of a dishwasher is the ideal environment for mold. It’s moist; it’s dark; and it’s warm. The best way to get rid of mold in a dishwasher is to put a cup of white vinegar in a cup or bowl on the top rack of your dishwasher. Then run the empty dishwasher on the hot cycle. White (clear) vinegar is a great household cleaning product, although most people just use vinegar to make salad dressing. To prevent mold from reappearing in your dishwasher, leave the door of your dishwasher open for an hour or two after you finish washing a load. This will dry out the inside of the dishwasher as well as dry off your dishes. Never put bleach in a dishwasher. You could damage your dishes as well as the machinery and besides, bleach is toxic and should never be used in places where it will come into contact with your dishes or cookware.

THE TARSES THEORY OF VACCINATION.

Posted on by
Reply

Berkeley is a center of the anti-vax movement. The #1 and #2 schools in California within the highest percentage of unvaccinated children are both here in Berkeley. According to Berkeleyside, at the Berkeley Rose Waldorf School, only 29% of kindergartners have been vaccinated. This isn’t because the parents don’t understand the risks. These are pricey private schools, and almost all the parents have at least one college degree. This also isn’t because there is less need today for vaccinating children than there used to be. Measles cases in the U.S. are now at a 25 year high. So, will Berkeley parents get their kids vaccinated for Covid once the vaccine becomes generally available? Although I am constantly telling people not to play amateur doctor, I am going to do that now. I have come up with vaccination advice that is a compromise. I have something in it to please the doctors and something to please the anti-vaxxers. Here it is, the Tarses Theory of Vaccination: If you are a parent, you don’t need to vaccinate all your children. You only need to vaccinate the ones you want to keep. What do you think? Will that please everyone? Below is a famous photo of 2 boys, both age 16, taken around 1900. This photo appeared in newspapers around the world. Both boys were exposed to smallpox at the same time and from the same source. One boy was vaccinated. The other boy wasn’t.

COVID VACCINATION CERTIFICATES.


Saga Cruise Line has become the first cruise ship company to require that all passengers have proof of Covid vaccination. I expect that by summer, all the other cruise ship lines will require this as well. By Fall, I think we are all going to be carrying proof of vaccination in order to get into places, like colleges and dorms. My second guess is that society is going to have a lot of trouble from people into conspiracy theories, not just the anti-vaxxers. For example, a lot of websites claim that Covid vaccines contain tracking microchips or some voodoo drug that turns people into mindless zombies. Have you ever noticed that the more preposterous a conspiracy theory is, the more likely people are to believe it? It reminds me of Dr. Goebbel’s (Hitler’s propaganda minister) theory that people are far more likely to believe a big lie rather than a small one.

EPIDEMICS AND CATS.

Posted on by
Reply

The deadliest epidemic in human history was the Black Death in the 14th Century. There are a lot of historians who believe that the staggering death toll in Europe from the Black Death as well as many other epidemics was due to the disappearance of cats. In the Middle Ages, people associated cats with Satan. It could be dangerous to own a cat. In many places, owning a cat was considered evidence that a person was a witch, and that was punishable by death. Over the past 1,000 years, many European countries developed religious holidays and festivals in which cats were tortured or killed. Many cat-killing holidays are still celebrated in Europe, although now without actually killing cats, like Kattenstoet in Belgium. This year, the Danish holiday of Fastelavn will fall on February 14. It is celebrated all over Denmark. Fastelavn is like a carnival based on torturing cats. Traditionally, a cat was sealed inside a barrel. Then, children dressed in costumes would hit the barrel with clubs and bats to terrorize the cat before knocking it unconscious or killing it. Danes stopped doing that in the late 1800s. Now, Danish children just hit a picture of cats on barrels filled with candy. They hit the cats until the candy falls out of the barrel. It’s like a Danish pinata. See pictures below. I have never figured out why so many people associate cats with evil. I think this may have something to do with the aloof and independent nature of cats, but that’s just a guess.

CAT AND MOUSE CARTOONS.

In cat and mouse cartoons, the mice always outwit the cat and terrible things happen to the cat. That’s true in Tom & Jerry cartoons, Speedy Gonzales vs. Sylvester cartoons, Hubie & Bert vs. Claude Cat, the mice who are Cinderella’s friends vs. Lucifer the cat, plus TV shows such as Dixie & Pixie vs. Mr. Jinx, and most violent of all – Itchy & Scratchy on The Simpsons. However, we human beings are very lucky to have cats. Cats kill over 20 billion rodents a year. Without cats, the rodent population of the world would explode, creating famine and epidemics. Even now, staggering amounts of grain are eaten by rodents, especially in poor countries. In Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, 50% of all the grain produced is eaten by rodents. Rodents are also the principal carriers of more than 60 diseases. I understand why people root for the little guy in cat and mouse cartoons, but humanity would be in a lot of trouble if mice and rats could actually outwit cats.

THE SIMPSONS PREDICTED AN ARMED RIGHT-WING MOB STORMING THE CAPITOL.

Posted on by
Reply


The Simpsons predicted this in an episode first aired in 1996: Armed Mob Storms The Capitol. In another episode, The Simpsons predicted that Donald Trump would be elected president: Trump Elected President. The episode also predicted that when President Trump left the White House, he would leave behind a huge budget deficit. This episode first aired in 2000, 16 years before Donald Trump ran for president.

WHY DO DRIED PLUMS COST MORE THAN PRUNES? AREN’T THEY THE SAME THING?

Posted on by
Reply


At a store near my house, pitted prunes sell for $5 a pound, and dried plums sell for $12 a pound. Why? By definition, a prune and a dried plum are the same thing; however, a lot of people don’t know that. Many people think that a prune is a type of fruit, and that a dried prune is a fresh prune that has been dried, like a dried apple is a fresh apple that has been dried. Some people are willing to pay a lot more for a bag of dried plums than a bag of prunes. I suspect the reason that people are willing to pay more for dried plums than prunes is that ‘dried plum’ sounds nicer than ‘prune.’ The word ‘prune’ has an unpleasant sound to it. As silly as that sounds, I think that may actually be the reason. The price difference has nothing to do with where the prunes come from. Nearly all of the plums grown in the U.S. come from California’s Central Valley.

WHY DOES PISTACHIO PUDDING MIX SELL FOR LESS THAN CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?

Posted on by
Reply


Shelled pistachios are expensive, so why are Jello and Royal pistachio pudding mixes so cheap? You can see pieces of nuts in the pudding in pictures on the boxes. The explanation can be found on the back on the ingredient list. What appear to be chopped up pistachios are actually bits of almonds that have been artificially flavored and colored. Jello pistachio pudding mix includes a tiny amount of ground pistachios, but it’s near the bottom of the ingredients list, below salt. Royal pistachio pudding mix contains no pistachios at all. Pudding mix isn’t the only pistachio product made with imitation pistachios. Most pistachio ice cream contains no pistachios. Some people say that I am overly fussy about food, and maybe they’re right, but I will never accept the idea that an almond that has been soaked in a vat of green dye and artificial flavoring can now be called a pistachio.

CAN EATING POPPY SEEDS LEAD TO A FALSE-POSITIVE DRUG TEST FOR HEROIN?

Posted on by
Reply


Answer: Yes. Now that I have almond poppy seed muffins back in stock, this seems like a good time to answer this question. You may have heard that eating poppy seed pastries, bagels, or muffins just before a urine drug test can cause the test to come back positive for opiates like heroin. Those stories are true. Periodic drug tests have become increasingly common in our society, and a positive drug test for opiates such as heroin or morphine can have devastating consequences on a person’s reputation and career. If you know that you are going to be taking a drug test, my advice is to not eat anything with poppy seeds in it before the test. Urine drug tests can come back positive for as long as 2 or 3 days after eating poppy seeds, depending on the quantity of the poppy seeds consumed.

The Poppy Seed Bagel Defense. 2 Navy doctors working at the Pentagon tested positive for heroin and were ordered out of the Navy. They appealed the decision. The 2 men had eaten poppy seed bagels for breakfast on the morning of the drug test. They were retested several more times, and the charges against them were dismissed. In a number of studies, a subject was given a drug test that came back negative. Then the subject ate a poppy seed bagel or muffin and was tested again, and the results came back positive for opiates. The subject was then retested every hour, and the test results came back positive for the next 16 to 24 hours. Many organizations and government agencies have banned products containing poppy seeds to avoid false-positive drug tests. Poppy seeds are banned in all Federal prisons in the United States, and prisoners who are granted leaves of absences are required to sign a form promising not to eat anything containing poppy seeds while they are on leave. Guards at federal prisons are also banned from eating poppy seeds.

Can You Get Addicted to Poppy Seeds? Consumed in large quantities, poppy seeds can be addictive. The outer surface of poppy seeds contains morphine. However, you would have to consume huge quantities of poppy seeds for the morphine to have any effect on you. My almond poppy seed muffins contain 1/4 teaspoon of poppy seeds per muffin. A lot of food products contain small quantities of addictive drugs. Did you know that there is nicotine in eggplant? Eggplant has the most nicotine of any edible plant. However, in order for you to ingest the amount of nicotine in 1 cigarette, you would have to eat 10 kilos (22 pounds) of eggplant. When was the last time you ate 22 pounds of eggplant? And that’s just for 1 cigarette. A Hershey bar contains 9 mg of caffeine. By comparison, a small cup of coffee at McDonald’s contains 110 mg. Theoretically, you could get a caffeine rush just by eating a lot of Hershey bars, but you would have to eat an awful lot of them. Some parents won’t let their kids eat chocolate because they say that the caffeine in chocolate makes their kids ‘go nuts’, but there’s no scientific evidence to back that up.

Cyanide. If you want something else to worry about, how about this? The almond flour in my almond poppy seed muffins also contains cyanide. All almonds contain cyanide, but not enough to poison you. I only use California-grown almonds, and all commercially grown almonds in California are the sweet variety. Over 99% of all the almonds grown in the United States come from California. Bitter almonds are another matter. They contain a lot more cyanide than sweet almonds which is why they are bitter. Growing bitter almonds for sale is illegal in California. It is legal to sell bitter almonds in the U.S., but they are all imported. There are a number of places here in Berkeley where you can buy bitter almond ice cream and pastries, but I won’t eat them. There’s a reason why it’s illegal to grow bitter almonds in California.