The chart illustrates there’s always at least two ways to view data: on the one hand, homicides are way down from the mayhem of 1991 (a year, by the way, in which East Palo Alto was the murder capital of the United States!!!), while on the other hand, they are WAY up from the bottom in 2014.
Good morning, everyone! I’m delighted to be back in Palo Alto after my brief journey. (Traveling sucks!) I see that the permabull Goldman Sachs mouthpiece known as Zerohedge is still casting about, trying to embrace some kind of plausible narrative to please their buy-side masters. It’s almost as annoying as their schoolgirl-level infatuation with the former President, and I seriously believe they must have changed hands because they have become such steadfast buyers-all-the-time. Insane.
Tesla, and Elon Musk, are no strangers to the Slope of Hope. I first wrote about Tesla over a decade ago in this post, in which I praised my new Model S (170,500 miles ago………) Just to prove I’m not an always-negative sourpuss, the last sentence I wrote in that lengthy review was “Elon has another winner on his hands.”, and God knows that was the case.
I have composed many dozens of posts about Elon and Tesla in the years since, and my own family’s financial well-being is partly tied to the man now. Thus, I was very excited to see famed biographer Walter Isaacson was coming out with his Elon Musk biography, which I pre-ordered months ago. I’ve been reading it every night since it arrived a week ago, and I have some things to say about it.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the portion of the year where we have the longest stretch of time between stupid holidays. We’ve got about 80 full days with no flippin’ Labor Day, no freakin’ Memorial Day, and no bloody High Holy Cabbage Feast Day. Incidentally, I see that the city of Palo Alto, which already overpays its employees by hundreds of percent for doing almost no work, is going to give them Juneteenth AND Cesar Chavez Day off from now on. Besides that, their venal union leaders won them ANOTHER paid holiday of their choice so that they may engage in, and I’m not making this up, “a day of reflection.“
Yeah, let me count on one finger just how many city employees are going to be hanging out at home doing THAT.
Jesus. Anyway………….
(more…)It is early morning, with the fog-shrouded sky concealing the puny amount of sunlight on the horizon. I am walking my two large dogs on the wild lawn of Palo Alto’s main post office, constructed during the Great Depression and looking every bit worse for the wear. The dogs are both gnawing on long strands of grass, having found the very specific variety of plant that they seem to favor, and I gaze off into the parking lot on the other side of Hamilton Avenue.
