Pretty soon, it is going to become impossible to tell whether a person calling you on the phone or on Facetime is real or a scammer. You ought to be thinking about this now – before you get scammed.

FAKE PHOTOS. Scammers have long had the ability to alter photos, but until recently, they needed some skill in order for their doctored photos to be convincing. Now with AI, someone with no skill at all can create fake images of someone that seem to be real. A recent survey found that 72% of Americans could not tell the difference between an AI image and a real one, and that number is increasing.

VOICE CLONING. With a recording of someone’s voice that is just a few seconds long, someone using AI voice cloning technology can create a completely convincing voice recording of you that even people who have known you all your life cannot tell is a fake. There are numerous websites that offer voice cloning technology to anyone for almost nothing.

VIDEO DEEPFAKES. As AI has gotten more advanced, it is now capable of creating not just realistic fake photos, but fake videos too. Deepfake videos are now so realistic that people think they are having a video call with a real person, and a person they know.  People are now using deepfake videos to commit a long list of crimes, including cyberbullying, blackmail, and the ‘grandparent scam.’ The grandparent scam is a type of fraud in which a scammer impersonates a grandchild or some other family member claiming legal trouble, in jail, or in an accident and needing money. 

My sister got a call from a woman claiming to be her grandson and needing money for bail. My sister asked the caller: “What is your sister’s middle name?” The caller hung up immediately.  This is the most effective way of protecting yourself from such scams, asking a question or questions of the caller that he or she would know the answer to if the caller was legit. Here is an astonishing example of how good deepfake videos are now: Morgan Freeman video. Would this fool you? It would have fooled me if the AI Morgan Forgan hadn’t said it’s a fake. Here is the video from which the fake Morgan Freeman video was made: Not Morgan Freeman Video. YouTube has many other deepfake videos. There are a lot of Tom Cruise deepfake videos on YouTube. Here one: Tom Cruise deepfake.

CALLER I.D. SPOOFING.

The word “spoof” usually refers to a kind of harmless joke or a lighthearted parody, but Caller I.D. spoofing is neither funny nor harmless. Imagine this situation – Your telephone rings. Your Caller I.D. identifies the caller as “Bank of America.” The caller says: “Hi. My name is Matilda Yakabofski. I’m calling from Bank of America’s security department. There has been some suspicious activity in your account. We would like to make sure that these transactions are legitimate. Would you please confirm your account number and password?” This phone call is a Caller I.D. spoof from someone trying to steal your identity.

·  Caller I.D. spoofing is a technological trick that allows callers to change the name and phone number that appear on your Caller I.D. display. It is an old trick that has been around for over 15 years. For $10 an hour, you can hire a spoofing service that gives you the ability to change the name and the telephone number that you appear to be calling from. Every year, millions of Americans fall victim to Caller I.D. and e-mail spoofing scams, (also known as “phishing”). Here is how to protect yourself from Caller I.D. spoofing:

1. Never give financial information over the phone unless you initiated the call yourself, and you know for certain who you are speaking to. Banks, credit card companies, and government agencies do not call people to “confirm” or “update” personal information, such as social security or driver’s license numbers, PIN numbers, credit card security codes, etc.
2. Your bank knows your account number. Your bank will never call you and ask what your account number is.
3. Don’t call the phone numbers of companies in e-mail messages or click on the hyperlinks. To call a company where you have an account, use the phone number on the last statement you received from them.
4. If you think you may have already been scammed by a Caller I.D. spoof, contact the real company right away and tell them what happened.
5. Get a credit report on yourself at least twice a year at Annual Credit Report and look for suspicious activity. Do not go to websites with similar names. The 3 big credit bureaus operate this website jointly, and it really is free.

In 2020, when Kamela Harris ran for president, she said that she favored banning plastic straws; however, during the presidential campaign in 2024, Harris said that she had changed her position and now opposed banning plastic straws. Nevertheless, Donald Trump said that Harris was still a “threat” to plastic straws. In February 2025, Donald Trump, a month into his second presidency, signed an executive order prohibiting federal agencies from buying paper straws and called for a nationwide strategy to ban them nationwide. Trump stated that he was banning paper straws because: “These things don’t work. I’ve had them many times, and on occasion they break, they explode. If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation.” Trump said that paper straws “disgustingly dissolve” in the mouths of consumers.

The truth is that paper straws have changed a lot since the 1960s. That’s when plastic straws began replacing paper straws. Back then, paper straws were much thinner than paper straws today, and they often did collapse before you finished your Coke; however, they never ‘dissolved’ in your mouth. Today, paper straws are really more like cardboard straws. But more importantly, paper straws back in the 1960s didn’t explode, and they still don’t. Is it possible that Mr. Trump really believes that paper straws explode? He says he has used a lot of them.

DO AMERICANS REALLY USE 500 MILLION PLASTIC STRAWS A DAY?

This story sounds so unbelievable that you may find it hard to believe. Even though I am writing it myself, I find it hard to believe. In February 2011, a 9-year old boy in Vermont made up the number, and it stuck. It really is that simple. In late 2011, articles started appearing in newspapers and on TV news channels that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day. It was the first time that anyone had any idea how many plastic straws Americans were using and disposing of daily, and people were shocked by the number, but apparently, nobody was asking where that number came from. Respected sources, such as the New York Times, the National Geographic, and U.S. Park Service were saying that Americans used 500 million plastic straws a day, so people just assumed there had to be evidence to back it up. But there wasn’t. Politicians in California, Washington, Canada, and many other places wrote and passed laws banning the sale of plastic straws citing the 500 million straw number. Some cities, including Los Angeles, passed laws either banning plastic straws outright or allowed restaurants and bars to continue to give customers plastic straws, but only if the customer requested one. That policy is now pretty common here in California. Starbucks citied the 500 million a day number when they announced that they were getting rid of plastic straws.

The origin of this story has finally been traced back to its source. In 2011, Milo Cress, an elementary school student in Shelburne, Vermont, began to wonder how many plastic straws are used in the U.S. every day. He contacted plastic manufacturers, but none of them knew how many straws were being made daily, so Milo guessed how many plastic straws were being used every day, including those on juice boxes, and multiplied that number by 365. He included this number in a homework assignment, and that number began to get mentioned in local news reports.  Those stories kept getting repeated, and today, laws have been passed all over the world based on Milo’s guess when he was 9 years old.  Apparently, even now, nobody knows how many plastic straws are used in the U.S. every day, but the number of 500 million a day is generally regarded as wildly too high. After all, that is substantially higher than the entire population of the U.S., and lots of people never use straws or use them infrequently.

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

“My Name is Mary.” I once received an application from a woman named Mary. After I looked at her application, I said: “Mary, you forgot to write down your last name. You also forgot to fill in a lot of the rest of the form as well.” She said: “I didn’t forget. I don’t like to give out personal information about myself.” I said: “I don’t understand. Mary, if I rented this apartment to you, what name would I put on the lease?” She said: “Mary.” I said: “Mary, I can’t rent an apartment to someone who I can’t identify.” She said: “You have to.” I said: “Why?” She said: “Because I’m protected by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act.) I’m mentally ill, which is why I didn’t put down my last name on your application form. I have a letter from my psychiatrist.” She didn’t show me the letter but told me that the letter said that Mary suffered from ‘paranoid personality disorder’.

My Goons. I found out later that during my showing of the apartment, Mary had a private chat with the current tenant living in the apartment. After Mary left, my tenant said that Mary told him that she took a bus to see the apartment because if she had come in her car, “Your landlord could have seen my license plate number and then his goons would be able to track me down.” That didn’t shock me. I had met people before who believed that landlords in Berkeley have hired goons to terrorize their tenants. Although this may sound self-serving, I can assure you that Berkeley landlords do not have ‘goons’.

Paranoia. I didn’t rent the apartment to Mary, but I did call my lawyer to make sure that I couldn’t be sued. It is sometimes impossible for a landlord to know for sure if a prospective tenant is protected by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Under the ADA law, if an applicant for an apartment tells a landlord that he or she is disabled, the landlord cannot ask the applicant any questions about the disability. My lawyer told me that while this woman certainly sounded paranoid, I was on sound legal footing in my decision to reject her application. No rational landlord is going to rent an apartment to someone who he cannot identify.

ROMAN INVENTIONS

The movie ‘Quo Vadis’ was on TV last week. It is on TV fairly often. Like most movies about ancient Rome, Rome is ruled by a deranged emperor, Nero, and governed by corrupt incompetent administrators. The movie is nearly 3 hours of senseless bloodshed and destruction. But remember – Hollywood is in the entertainment business, not the education business. Violence makes movies exciting, and the Romans could be very violent, but the Romans also produced the greatest civilization of the ancient world, and they were the greatest inventors and engineers of ancient times. I have a lecture I give about this fairly often. If Rome was really run by bloodthirsty maniacs, it wouldn’t have survived for 1,000 years as the greatest empire of the ancient world. Here is my list of what I think were Rome’s greatest inventions (in no particular order.)

Newspapers. In ancient times, it was very hard for most people to find out what was going on in the world. Most ancient societies were run by autocrats, autocrats who liked to keep their people in the dark. On the other hand, Rome kept their people well informed by publishing a  daily newspaper, the ‘Acta Diurna’ or ‘Daily Events.’ These were handwritten news sheets that were posted in public places where anyone could read them. The Acta Diurna was published every day for centuries. It was the world’s first and only daily newspaper. No other ancient society had newspapers.

Books. The Romans invented books. Before the Romans, written information was saved on scrolls or tablets made out of clay, wood, or stone. The Romans invented the ‘codex’. A codex had pages that were stacked on top of each other in a pile and were bound together one one side. Can you imagine what it would be like going to school with a pile of clay tablets in your bookbag?

Roman Numerals. Roman numerals allowed people to make complex calculations and work with large numbers. That had not been possible before using the numbering systems that were in common use elsewhere in the ancient world. There are problems with Roman numerals: the absence of a zero and the inability to calculate fractions, but nevertheless, the invention of Roman numerals was a huge improvement in doing math over what came before it. That’s why we still use Roman numerals.

Concrete. The invention of concrete by the Romans allowed them to build huge structures that could never have been built without it, like the Coliseum and the Pantheon. Concrete bridges built by the Romans 2,000 years ago are still in use by cars and trucks all over southern and central Europe. Our modern world depends on concrete. The foundation of nearly every house and skyscraper built in the U.S. over the past century is made from concrete, using the formula invented by the Romans 2,000 years ago. After the fall of Rome, the formula for concrete was lost and wasn’t rediscovered until the 1800s.

Arches. The arch was the other great invention besides concrete that allowed the Romans to build gigantic structures like the Coliseum, the aqueducts, elevated highways, and bridges that could not have been built without the arch. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages could not have been built without arches.

Paved Highways. Before the Romans, roads were usually short, and they usually didn’t connect with the roads of other cities or nations. The Romans built over 50,000 miles of interconnecting paved roads, which were laid out in straight lines, connecting towns, cities, and ports that were far away from each other.

Law. The basic principles of modern law in nearly all industrialized nations go back to Rome. This is why so many of the terms used by lawyers and judges are still in Latin: habeas corpus, ad valorem, affidavit, bona fide, corpus delicti, de facto, et cetera, in absentia, per capita, subpoena, and vice versa. There are hundreds of Latin terms still in use in courtrooms and in legal contracts today.

Dams. The Romans built dams for water collection in many parts of their empire. They built over 70 dams just in Spain, some of which are still in use. Some dams were built for irrigation. Others were built to feed the aqueducts which brought water to Rome and other cities, cities that could not have been built or survived without the dams and aqueducts.

Glass. The Romans were centuries ahead of the rest of the world in glassmaking. Glassware is what the Romans traded with India for spices and precious stones and with China for silk and porcelain. Once the Romans got control of Egypt, trade with India increased greatly as the Romans could then get to India by sea.

Window Glass. Prior to Roman times, windows were just openings in walls designed to let sunlight in. On cold or windy days, people could cover their windows with wood shutters or animal hides, but that kept out the sunlight. The Romans did not invent glass; however, it was the Romans who figured out how to mass produce clear glass in flat sheets. This allowed the Romans to have windows with clear glass in them, making it possible for the first time for people to let sunlight in but keep the cold and the wind out. Before the Romans invented window glass, in cold weather, people had to choose between letting freezing cold wind blow through their homes (and perhaps rain and snow as well) or else live in near total darkness.  Which would you have chosen? Think about that.

Surgical Tools & Medical Procedures. Roman doctors were famous throughout the ancient world and were in great demand in faraway places. Roman doctors invented many common medical procedures that are in use today, like cesarean section. The Romans also invented surgical tools that are still in use today, such as scalpels, bone drills, and forceps. The Romans also pioneered antiseptic surgery by cleaning wounds with boiled water and dipping their surgical tools in hot water before performing operations. This alone saved the lives of countless thousands of their patients. Sterilizing surgical instruments before operations did not become a standard medical procedure in the U.S. until after the Civil War.

Sewers and Public Sanitation. Rome had the highest level of sanitation of any city in the ancient world. The Romans developed public baths, flush toilets, and a network of underground sewers that carried away human waste. Before the Romans, most cities dealt with their human waste by just dumping it in a hole, where it mixed with the city’s drinking water. Many major cities in Europe still use underground sewers built by the Romans 2,000 years ago.

What other ancient civilization had a record of invention that could rival this? None!

It looks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) will soon be the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). If he is confirmed by the Senate, RFK will be in charge of virtually all of the nation’s health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, and dozens and dozens of other federal agencies. Robert F Kennedy is currently the head of Children’s Health Defense, the biggest and most influential promoter of distrust of vaccines in the U.S. and around the world. I think we should all be very worried about what Kennedy might do as Secretary of HHS. For example, Kennedy still claims that vaccinations cause autism in children, even though this theory was debunked a long time ago. RFK has pushed other public health conspiracy theories. In his speeches, RFK has compared the vaccination of children to the Holocaust. He claims that Covid-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. What sort of vaccination policies will RFK be promoting once he is in charge of all the federal agencies that regulate vaccinations?

THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND VACCINES MANDATES.

What did the Founding Fathers think of vaccine mandates? I think every anti-vaxxer and vaccine skeptic assumes that the Founding Fathers would have strongly opposed vaccine mandates as an invasion of their personal liberty, which is what they were fighting for. While that sounds logical, they are wrong.

During the Revolutionary War, a national smallpox epidemic threatened the success of the war itself. The epidemic began early in the war. Many soldiers’ scheduled enlistments ended on January 1, 1776 and a majority of them warned their superiors they planned to not reenlist, mainly due to fear of smallpox. These soldiers said they would rather desert the cause than risk death by smallpox. These soon-to-be expired enlistments forced Generals Benedict Arnold and General Richard Montgomery to launch their assault on Quebec before the year’s end. In November 1775, in one of the first major military operations of the Continental Army, American soldiers marched from Cambridge, Massachusetts towards Quebec to prevent the city from falling to the British. However, in early December, smallpox was reported among the soldiers and was spreading rapidly. When the American army finally reached Quebec, Montgomery reported that only about 800 men were able to fight, as the rest were sick with smallpox. The lack of healthy soldiers resulted in the failed attack on Quebec on December 30. British forces killed Montgomery, wounded Arnold, and captured hundreds of colonists. Arnold maintained substantial forces around Quebec in hopes of launching a second, successful assault, however, the lack of reinforcements and the ravages of smallpox prevented any future attack. This forced the American army to fall back to New York, allowing the British army to take and hold Quebec for the rest of the war. George Washington was facing similar military disasters elsewhere due to smallpox.  Washington understood the grave threat that smallpox posed to his army and their chances of winning the war.

About Smallpox. Most British soldiers at the time of the Revolution were immune to smallpox, but most Americans were not. It was long-known that once a person got smallpox and survived, he usually never got it again. Most people in Europe lived in crowded cities, and as a result, they became exposed to smallpox as small children and survived. They had a lifetime immunity to the disease. However, most Americans at the time lived in the countryside, far away from cities or their neighbors. Most had not been exposed to smallpox until they joined Washington’s army. Living in overcrowded tents and barracks, smallpox spread quickly among them.

The method by which people were vaccinated from smallpox at that time was dangerous. According to published statistics collected by the city of Boston in 1721, about 2% of the people who got the vaccination would get full-blown smallpox from the vaccine and die as a result. However, among unvaccinated people, 14% would die if they got smallpox. Shortly after the war ended, a much safer smallpox vaccine was developed in England

Mandatory Vaccination. In 1775, General Washington ordered that all his soldiers and all new recruits be vaccinated for smallpox. It was the first medical mandate in American history. Washington took a huge gamble. First, he risked mass desertions by soldiers unwilling to be vaccinated. Washington’s vaccination order was a mandate, not a request. Soldiers could not refuse to be vaccinated for religious or any other reason. Second, Washington risked attack by British forces while his men were recuperating from the vaccination, which typically took 5 days or more. Third, he risked censure or worse from Congress for taking such a radical and risky move. Fortunately for Washington, the vaccinations were a huge success. Congress backed Washington’s decision, and few men refused to take the vaccine. Also, fortunately, the British didn’t figure out that a lot of Washington’s men were sick recuperating from the vaccinations until after they were well.

Although we can never know what George Washington would say about vaccinations if he were alive today, history tells us that he supported vaccinations – including mandatory vaccinations. Today, hundreds of companies have vaccine mandates for their employees, and the Supreme Court has backed up the right of private employers to have vaccine mandates. What will Robert F. Kennedy do about employer vaccine mandates when he is Secretary of Health and Human Services? What will he do about school vaccine mandates? 

In 1900, the average American lived 45 years. Today, it is 77 years. We have added over 30 years to life expectancy since 1900. If you ask people why life expectancy in America is so much higher today than it was in 1900, most people will say that it is due to antibiotics, but if you ask doctors, most will tell you it is due to vaccines.

Should an employer be required to hire the first qualified applicant for a job? Should a landlord be required to rent an apartment to the first qualified applicant? There are people who argue that a ‘first in line’ law is the best way to discourage discrimination in hiring and renting apartments. The Berkeley city council and the rent board are both considering a ‘first in line’ rent law. They already have such a law in Seattle. Currently, a landlord can rent an apartment to any qualified applicant. A ‘first in line’ law would require that a landlord rent an apartment to the first qualified applicant, thus eliminating the selection process. But would a ‘first in line’ rent law have any effect on employment or housing discrimination? There are already quite a few laws that ban employment and housing discrimination. If an applicant for an apartment claims that a landlord did not rent to him because of the applicant’s race, gender, disability, family status, etc; already existing federal and state discrimination laws require that a landlord show that he had a rational and non-discriminatory reason for picking another tenant instead. The penalties for job and rental discrimination can be very large.

There are many factors that go into a landlord’s decision to rent to one applicant over another. Tops on the list is the ability to pay the rent. It is not unusual for someone to apply to rent an apartment that the applicant cannot afford. On many occasions, I have received applications from people who had no obvious way to pay the rent. When that happens, I ask an applicant questions about how he or she will pay the rent. Sometimes people, especially college students, have financial resources that do not appear on an application form, such as grants, student loans, savings, or money from parents or grandparents. My father sold furniture for a living, all of it on credit. I learned from him that you are not doing someone a favor by selling him something that he can’t pay for.

WORST APPLICANT EVER. 

‘Rent Is Theft’. Many years ago, I got an application for an apartment from a young man who I remember very well because of the way he was dressed. Ordinarily, how an applicant is dressed isn’t something that I remember at all, but even after all these years, I still remember how this guy was dressed. The guy was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Rent is Theft’ on it. On the t-shirt were images of a crowbar, a chain, and a pair of bolt cutters. There was also a lightning bolt in a circle, an anarchist symbol. The t-shirt was black. A black flag is a symbol of anarchy. I had seen this t-shirt before. A street vendor on Telegraph Avenue sold them. The entire time I was interviewing this guy, he stared at me, looking angry. After a couple of minutes, I began feeling concerned for my physical safety. I was glad that there were other applicants in the room. Usually, the way an applicant is dressed doesn’t affect his chances of getting a rental from me, but in this case, it did. I rented the house to someone else. 

Several weeks later, I told the owners of Homefinders about this guy. Homefinders was a rental agency that used to be in downtown Berkeley. They told me that they knew this guy very well because he was one of their clients. He had been looking for an apartment for a long time but kept getting rejected. They said that he always wore that t-shirt when he went looking for apartments. They told him to go home and change his shirt before applying for apartments, but he wouldn’t do it.

Here is the problem with a ‘first in line’ law- it is impossible to list all of the unusual situations that go into the decision who to rent to. I once saw a man on a motorcycle here in Berkeley wearing a helmet that was shaped like a World War 2 German army helmet. This helmet had the number ’88’ on it. I knew what that meant. It’s neo-Nazi code. ‘H’ is the 8th letter of the alphabet. ’88’ stands for ‘HH’, which stands for ‘Heil Hitler.’ If Berkeley passes a ‘first in line’ law, what would I do if I had an apartment for rent and this guy was the first qualified applicant? What would I do if I was an employer, and this guy was the first qualified applicant for a job?

Are there Nazis in Berkeley? Below are photos that I took in 2017 of a Nazi rally in downtown Berkeley at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. There had been small Nazi rallies in Berkeley before, but this one was big. I suspect that these Nazis were not local residents but were from other places, possibly faraway places, who came to Berkeley to try to provoke a fight. They didn’t get one. There were a lot of Berkeley police there, and they made themselves conspicuous. Why did I go to this rally? After a previous event like this, I told people that I saw Nazis here in Berkeley, but nobody believed me. After all, this is Berkeley! That’s why I went to this event and took photos. It probably was not wise of me to go. I’m a Jew, and these people looked angry, but I wanted to take some photos so I could prove that this actually happened and that I didn’t just make up this story. You can see Berkeley’s old city hall and the main Berkeley post office in the background of my photos.

So – suppose the city council passes a ‘first in line’ law. What should a landlord in Berkeley do if the first qualified applicant is wearing a Ku Klux Klan t-shirt? What should a restaurant owner do if he is hiring a waiter, and the first qualified applicant is wearing a swastika armband?

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When people are in denial, they invent alternative explanations for the things that they are in denial about. These explanations sometimes sound like utter madness. A lot of people in the United States are in complete denial about global warming. However, there are even more people who say that they accept that global warming is going on, but they deny that it has anything to do with burning fossil fuels. So, what is their explanation for why there have been so many devastating hurricanes in Florida and other states on the Gulf of Mexico over the past few years? Here are the theories that  I hear most often in the news and on social media websites from people who are in denial about global warming.

1. It’s the fault of the meteorologists. Judging from the comments on Facebook and ‘X’,  it seems that a lot of people believe that meteorologists can control the weather, not just predict and report it. Over the past month, meteorologists across the U.S. have received thousands of messages demanding that they stop creating hurricanes or directing them to Florida. American meteorologists have also received hundreds of death threats. Some TV stations have hired security guards to protect their meteorologists. Washington, DC-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci said he has received hundreds of messages from people accusing him of changing the weather to create hurricanes with space lasers. Veteran Alabama meteorologist James Spann said he has faced a “barrage of threats.” Katie Nickolaou, a Michigan-based meteorologist, who has also received numerous death threats, wrote on ‘X’ earlier this week: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes.” (This reminds me of a Simpsons episode in which Springfield narrowly avoids being destroyed by a comet. As soon as the danger has passed, Moe the bartender says: “Let’s go burn down the observatory so this’ll never happen again.” The episode ends with an angry mob heading for the observatory.)

You may find this hard to believe, but a significant number of people in the United States believe that meteorologists study meteors, or that they are supposed to be studying meteors, and that they are out of their field when they study the weather. As a result, some colleges have taken the word ‘meteorology’ out of the names of their meteorology departments. Florida State University has changed the name of its “Meteorology Department” to the “Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.”

2. If we ignore it, it will go away. In May, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new Florida law banning the term ‘global warming’ in official state documents. The wide-ranging new law makes a number of changes in Florida’s energy policy. The law gives preferential treatment to natural gas over solar and wind energy. It bans offshore wind energy, even though there are no wind farms now or being planned for Florida’s coast. The bill deletes the phrase ‘climate change’ from state documents. The law orders state agencies to stop buying products that are advertised as ‘climate friendly’. The bill also gets rid of a requirement that state-purchased vehicles should be ‘fuel efficient’. DeSantis said in a post of ‘X’ that: “Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries.” DeSantis said that the new law would protect the state from “green zealots.”

3. Nuke ’em! There’s the theory that the Air Force can break up hurricanes before they hit the U.S. with nuclear bombs; however, the ‘anti-nukers’ won’t let them do it. Donald Trump proposed dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes several times while he was president. During one hurricane briefing at the White House, Trump said, “Why don’t we nuke them? They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane, and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” The idea of breaking up hurricanes by dropping atomic bombs into them is not a new idea. It has been around ever since the Eisenhower administration, but scientists agreed that not only would nuking hurricanes not break them up, but even worse, it would make the rain falling from them radioactive. The myth that the Federal government could break up hurricanes with nuclear weapons is so persistent that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. government agency that predicts changes in weather and the oceans, published an online fact sheet under the heading “Tropical Cyclone Myths Page.” NOAA says: “Apart from the fact that this (nuking a hurricane) might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the trade winds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.”

4. Jewish space lasers. Some major social media influencers are claiming that sinister forces are creating and directing hurricanes towards Republican states in order to get liberal Democrats elected. Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene said after Hurricane Milton: “Yes. They can control the weather. It’s ridiculous to lie and say it can’t be done.” Greene didn’t say who ‘they’ are. Her post and its reposts about this on ‘X’ have been viewed over 40 million times. Marjorie Taylor Greene also claimed that a Jewish-financed laser in outer space started one of California’s worst forest fires in 2018.  Most people have forgotten about the Jewish space laser theory, but Marjorie Taylor Greene has not. In April of this year, Greene introduced an amendment to a foreign aid bill to divert some of the money from Israel to developing U.S. military space lasers aimed at the U.S.-Mexican border.

It is easy to laugh at conspiracy theories like these, but they aren’t jokes. If people believe that global warming is a hoax, then they will vote for politicians who share that view, or at least claim that they do. Donald Trump says that if he is elected president, he will end the $7,500 tax credit for buying an EV (electric vehicle). His running mate J.D. Vance says that Trump will replace the $7,500 EV tax credit with a $7,500 tax credit for buying a fossil fuel-powered car instead. At MAGA rallies, there is enthusiastic approval for Vance’s proposal.

I know somebody who believes that the Air Force has a secret base in Alaska where they have a machine that controls the weather. He believes, as do many others, that a government agent can type in a coded message or turn some dials and knobs on this weather machine and create hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, or droughts wherever they want them. Now – what are the odds that someone who believes that is going to vote for politicians who are committed to saving the Earth from global warming?

All my leases ban smoking. When I first started renting apartments, my leases didn’t say anything about smoking. I used to think that landlords who banned smoking were just trying to impose their personal feelings or religious views on their tenants, but an incident happened in 1985 that completely changed my opinion about this.

I had a tenant who rented a small cottage from me. He smoked a pack of cigarettes every day. There are 20 cigarettes in a pack. It’s not unusual for someone to smoke 20 cigarettes a day. I’ve known people who smoked more than that. Although this guy was a tenant of mine for many years, I don’t think he ever opened a window, at least I never saw an open window when I visited him. In 1985, he moved out. It was only after he was gone, and the cottage was empty, that I realized that this guy’s smoking was going to cost me money, a lot of money. 

The Walls. First, the walls were brown. The brown color on the walls got darker as it went up the walls and onto the ceiling. That is because cigarette smoke rises. As I looked around at the walls of the cottage, I thought: “If this is what the walls look like, then what do this guy’s lungs look like?” Also, the walls were sticky. If you touched the walls, you had to wash your hands afterwards because this sticky stuff didn’t just wipe off. It was like getting maple syrup on your fingers. I had a painter scrub the walls with TSP (trisodium phosphate), but that was only partially effective in removing the cigarette smoke stains. Then the painter painted the entire cottage. Initially, it looked fine, but a few days after the paint dried, the tar and nicotine stains bled through the new paint, so I had to have the painter return and paint the cottage again, this time with wall sealer. When the wall sealer dried, the painter returned and painted the apartment yet again. That meant that I had to pay a painter to wash the walls with TSP and then paint this cottage 3 times. AS you can imagine, that cost me a lot of money. If you ever have to do a job like this yourself, I recommend ‘Kilz 2’. It’s a very effective stain sealer. It smells awful, but it really works in sealing in nicotine stains.

The Carpets. Then came the carpet. I had the carpets shampooed, but that didn’t work. The smell was unaffected by the shampooing. I had to have the carpets and the pads under them taken to the dump. Unfortunately, the cigarette tars and nicotine had gone through the carpet and the pad and into the concrete underneath. So then I had my painter return and paint the concrete slab with sealer. Then, I had new carpets and pads installed. That was another big expense.

The Cabinets. Everything in the cottage smelled of cigarette smoke. The tar permeated the oak kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I thought I was going to have to replace them, but fortunately, I found a cleaner who specialized in “tobacco smoke remediation.” The job took her a whole day. She was expensive, but whatever she did, it worked. I didn’t have to replace the cabinets. However, I did have to replace all the venetian blinds.

Naturally, while all this work was going on, I couldn’t rent this cottage. All together, I lost 2 month’s rent. When I added up all my expenses, the tobacco remediation cost me over a year’s rent. After this was over, I started putting ‘no smoking’ clauses in all my ads and leases. I ban smoking, not because I want to impose my morality on other people, but because smoking is just too damned expensive – for me!

Below are some photos of apartments that were occupied by long-term cigarette smokers. Look at the photos of the exteriors of these apartment houses. In 2 photos, you can see the window shades of a smoker compared to the window shades of a non-smoker. In another photo, you can see a furnace filter from a smoker’s apartment and the filter from a non-smoker. The landlord replaced all the furnace filters at the same time. Compare the light bulb from a smoker’s bathroom vs. a non-smoker.

SMOKING IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

People used to smoke a lot more than they do today. Even adjusted for inflation, cigarettes used to be cheap. I can recall when cigarettes cost 25 cents a pack. All states had minimum age requirements to buy cigarettes, but those laws were unenforceable. Kids could buy cigarettes from vending machines, and cigarette vending machines were everywhere. The only place where cigarette smoke really bothered me was on airplanes. It didn’t matter where you sat on an airplane in those days. The smoke was everywhere. Stewardesses used to walk up and down the aisles giving away little packages of free cigarettes to passengers. People could also smoke cigars and pipes on airplanes. Every arm rest had an ashtray built into it. By the end of a flight, I was squinting, my eyes were itchy, and my throat hurt. Some people chain smoked all day. It wasn’t unusual for cigarette smokers to smoke 2 or even 3 packs a day. That’s 40 to 60 cigarettes. John Wayne famously smoked 100 cigarettes a day. My father was 1 of 5 siblings. My Aunt Bessie was only 1 of the 5 who didn’t smoke at all. Aunt Bessie was the first born of the 5, but she outlived all the others, most of whom died of cancer. There’s a lesson in that.

CAN YOU BUY A STAR? 

No. It is hard for me to believe that tens of thousands of people fall for this scam, but every year, just before Christmas, lots of companies buy ‘deeds’ or naming rights to stars. These companies advertise on TV just before Valentine’s Day as well. Even though Christmas is several months away, I’ve already seen ads on TV from companies selling stars. Their ads claim that naming a star for your spouse or sweetheart is an ideal romantic gift, and naming a star for a dead relative is the best way to honor that person; however, you can’t own a star or name a star. No one can. You can find many companies in this business by typing ‘buy a star’ on Google Search. They use terms like ‘official star registry’ and ‘international stellar registry’ to make them sound official. What you get for your money is a certificate that looks like an official document that says that you own a star or that a star now has your name on it; however, no one will recognize that certificate except you. This is a scam. Only the International Astronomical Union (IAU) can name stars, and the IAU does not sell stars or star naming rights.

THE MOON MAN.

If you were living in Berkeley in the 1970s, you probably remember Barry McArdle, the ‘Moon Man.’ He appeared daily at the entrance to U.C. Berkeley dressed in a silver space suit. He made a nice living selling land on the moon. For $19.95, he would sell you a certificate saying that you owned an acre on the moon. He gave a discount for bulk purchases. The California Department of Real Estate tried to shut him down, pointing out that he did not have a real estate salesman’s license and that he did not own the moon; however, McArdle found a legal loophole that befuddled the government prosecutors. The United Nations had a treaty that said that no government owned the moon or any portion of it. The United States signed that treaty. McArdle pointed out that while the treaty said that no government could own the moon, it said nothing about individuals owning the moon or pieces of it. Ardle frequently took in over $400 a day selling lunar acreage at Sproul Plaza. That’s well over $1,000 a day in today’s money. Ultimately, he sold over 100,000 acres on the moon.

WHAT IS FAT-FREE HALF & HALF?

Almost every supermarket sells fat-free half & half. Despite what the label says, there is no such thing as fat-free half & half. By definition, half & half is half milk and half cream; therefore, fat-free half & half is a misnomer. It isn’t half any one one thing and half of something else. Fat-free half & half is just thickened skim milk. Most brands of fat-free half & half are thickened with carrageenan. Carrageenan is a highly processed extract of seaweed.  Carrageenan has no nutritional value. It is banned in Europe because of its association with a number of diseases, including cancer. Fat-free half & half is not a diet food, although the name of the product may give you that impression. All major brands of fat-free half & half contain sugar and/or corn syrup and a variety of preservatives. Fat-free half & half will not improve your health or help you lose weight. In coffee, it tastes like skim milk.

NO! The president of the United States can be born anywhere in the world. There is a widely believed myth that there is a provision somewhere in the Constitution that says that the president must be born in the United States. This myth has been around for a very long time. I have seen it mentioned in movies made in the 1930s. If anyone knows the origin of this myth, let me know. Donald Trump did not invent the birther myth, but it made Donald Trump the head of a national political movement.

The Constitution says that the president must be a ‘natural born citizen’, but the Constitution does not define ‘natural born citizen’. The Supreme Court has never defined ‘natural born citizen’, but legal scholars seem to agree that it does not mean the same thing as ‘born in the United States’. 

OTHER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. 

There have been lots of presidential candidates who were born outside the United States. None of them was ever elected president, so the Supreme Court has never had to define the term ‘natural born citizen.’

Ted Cruz was born in Canada. Ted Cruz ran against Donald Trump in 2016 for the Republican nomination. Although Donald Trump frequently mentioned the fact that Cruz was born in Canada during the campaign and during the candidate debates, Trump never claimed that it disqualified Cruz from being president.

John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. There’s more about him below.

Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for president in 1964. At the time, some people questioned whether Goldwater was a ‘natural born citizen.’ Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona in 1910, but Arizona didn’t become a state until 1912. That meant that Barry Goldwater was not born in the United States.

George Romney ran for president in 1968, but GOP voters gave the nomination to Richard Nixon. After Watergate, many Republicans regretted that they didn’t give the nomination to Romney instead. George Romney was the father of Mitt Romney. George Romney was a very interesting person. He was born in Chihuahua, Mexico where his parents and grandparents lived.

George Romney became nationally famous as the man who saved American Motors, a relatively small auto manufacturer that was going bankrupt when he took over the company. Romney discontinued its smaller brands, including Nash and Hudson, and focused on the Rambler. Romney made the Rambler one of the best-selling and most profitable cars in the U.S. by adding some innovative features that consumers liked. 

Air Conditioning. One of the features that Romney offered Rambler buyers was air conditioning. Air conditioning could come with the car or be added later at any Rambler dealer for $395. This was the lowest price any car company charged for air conditioning. Prior to the 1950s, air conditioning was usually only available in luxury cars like Cadillac and Lincoln. Most cars sold in the U.S. didn’t have air conditioning or offer it as an add-on. Romney felt that middle-class car buyers would want air conditioning in a car if it was available at a reasonable price, and he was right. Sales and profits skyrocketed. The stock of American Motors went from $7 a share to $90 during the Romney years, making George Romney millions on his stock options. It also made the company’s workers millions because Romney had instituted a profit-sharing plan when he took over management of the company. 

George Romney grew up in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. I wonder if that affected his feeling that there was a bigger market for air conditioning in cars than the leaders of the Big 3 automakers imagined. Have you ever been in Los Angeles or Salt Lake City in late summer – and in a car without air conditioning? Yuck! Based on his success at American Motors, Romney was elected governor of Michigan. I met George Romney at a banquet at the Oakland Hilton when he was Secretary of HUD (Housing and Urban Development). During his speech, Romney mentioned that he was “born in old Mexico”. He never tried to hide the fact that he was born in Mexico when he ran for president, but I don’t recall anyone claiming that he couldn’t be president because of that.

Birth Certificates. It is also a myth that the president has to have a birth certificate showing that he was born in the United States. George Washington did not have a birth certificate. Neither did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, or William McKinley. In fact, no 18th or 19th Century U.S. president had a birth certificate. The idea of issuing a certificate when a baby is born did not become a common practice in the United States until the 20th Century. None of the people who wrote the U.S. Constitution had birth certificates.

Personally, I believe and have always believed that racism was the underlying force behind the birther movement. Barack Obama was born in the United States, and nobody has ever produced any evidence to the contrary. Barack Obama had a birth certificate, which he made public, and the announcement of his birth appeared in Honolulu’s 2 daily newspapers at the time of his birth. In 2008, Barack Obama ran against John McCain for president. Ironically, McCain was not born in the United States. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was never part of the United States. The canal zone was on land that the United States recognized as being part of the country of Panama. The U.S. leased the canal zone from Panama, and when the lease expired, the U.S. returned the canal zone to Panama. John McCain never claimed that he was born in the United States, but he was white, rich, and had a British name. So – if racism was not the force between the birther movement, then what was it?

BEFORE SEPHORA, THERE WAS WHITE LEAD FACE CREAM.

If you were an aristocrat in 1700, and the king invited you to court, and you wanted to make a good impression, you would come with your face covered with white lead face cream and rouge on your cheeks. (See pictures below.) You may have seen movies or paintings in which European aristocrats looked like this. How did this bizarre look become a fashion trend? It was started by Queen Elizabeth 1. She had smallpox which left her face badly scarred. She painted her face with white lead to hide the smallpox scars. She also began wearing wigs as her red hair turned gray to create what Elizabeth called ‘the mask of youth.’ This look became a fashion trend all over Europe among the aristocracy, and it continued for over 200 years. Many of these aristocrats, including Elizabeth, eventually died from lead poisoning.

Why did they do it? It wasn’t because they didn’t know that lead is poisonous. People have known that lead is toxic since ancient times. Even so, rich people in Rome drank water from lead pipes in their homes and drank wine from lead goblets, and many of them died from lead poisoning. Lead was a common ingredient in cosmetics in the United States until it was banned by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. An exception was made for hair dye, where lead continued to be used until 2023, when lead in hair products was finally banned by the FDA. If you have old hair dye, ‘Grecian Formula’, or other hair coloring products in your home, you should check to see if there is lead in them before using them. 2023 was just last year! If in doubt, dump them!

Arsenic. Beginning in the 19th Century, governments in Europe began banning the sale of lead face cream, so manufacturers started looking for an alternative product they could sell. They came up with arsenic skin cream. Arsenic skin cream removes blemishes, lightens dark spots, and shrinks wrinkles. It actually does work, but like lead face cream, the arsenic is absorbed into the skin and will eventually kill the user. Arsenic skin cream was sold everywhere in the United States. Below is an ad from the 1906 Sears Roebuck catalog promoting their brand of arsenic beauty wafers. When Teddy Roosevelt created the FDA, one of the first products they banned was arsenic skin cream. I wonder what is in cosmetics today that people will discover is toxic 10 or 20 years from now.

Food processors are very good at using words to make their products sound healthier than they really are. They know that people will pay more money for healthier products. For example, when a food processor says that a product is ‘naturally flavored’, they know that consumers will pay more for it because ‘naturally flavored’ sounds healthier than ‘artificially flavored.’

But – natural flavors are not natural. Both natural and artificial flavors are made in laboratories. So – what is the difference between them? ​Natural flavors come from natural sources; however, natural flavors ​often do not always come from the implied source. For example, ‘natural coconut extract’ does not come from coconuts.​ It is made from other plants, plants that smell like coconut after​ processing. Natural flavor​s often come from sources that you would never suspect. For example, ‘natural strawberry flavor’ is often made from castoreum, a yellowish secretion extracted from beaver urine. Beavers produce castoreum to scent-mark their territory. Yes, beaver urine is a ‘natural product’, but would ​people buy ‘naturally flavored strawberry ice cream’ if ​they knew that the ‘natural flavor’ was made from beaver urine?​ They aren’t required to put that on the label, and nobody does.

Is There Beaver Urine in Your Strawberry Ice Cream?​ ​Read the ingredients label. If the label lists ‘natural flavor’, you should be suspicious. Here is what it says on the ingredients label on Haagen Dazs strawberry ice cream: “Cream, skim milk, strawberries, cane sugar, egg yolks.” ​Notice that there’s no ‘natural flavor’ in it. Haagen Dazs isn’t the only brand of ice cream made from real strawberries.

Prior to 1906, food processors were not required to list ingredients on their product labels. Then Teddy Roosevelt got Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. Within 2 years, half the sausage makers in the U.S. went out of business. When consumers found out what was really in their hot dogs, nobody would buy them.

What is Artificial Strawberry Flavor Made From? According to the answer I got from a company that makes artificial strawberry extract, it is made from “Ethyl methylphenylglycidate which is made by condensing acetophenone and the ethyl ester of monochloroacetic acid.” I have no idea what any of that means.

Is Castoreum Kosher? I was once at a commercial food show at Moscone Center in San Francisco. There was a booth there from ‘OU’, a kosher certifying organization. The men working in the booth all looked like Orthodox rabbis. I asked one of them if he knew what castoreum is and whether it is kosher. He said he did kn​ow what castoreum ​is and said: “You cannot make kosher food from something that came out of a beaver’s rear end.” ​I remember that he gave me a stern look​ as he said that.

WORST APPLICANT EVER.

What Do You Do With the Money? Every once in a while, I get an application from somebody who doesn’t understand the concept of rent. These people are invariably ‘trust fund babies’, people who were born with a lot of inherited wealth. They often grow up knowing few working class people aside from their household servants. They are often sadly unprepared to leave home and live in the real world. Now, not all people with great inherited wealth are like this. Some are. some aren’t.

Many years ago, I got an application for a house I owned in Oakland from a woman named Amanda. Amanda was an incoming student at U.C. Berkeley. She was intelligent, well dressed, pretty, and polite. After Amanda filled out a rental application form, I asked Amanda if she had any questions. She said: “Yes. I’ve never rented a house before.” Amanda told me that her family had a money manager, and that he “usually takes care of things like this.” Then she said: “Now, I want to be sure I understand this. If I rent this house, then I’ll have to give you $1,200 a month. Is that right?” I said: “Yes.” Amanda thought about that and then said: “And what do you do with the money?” I shrugged my shoulders and said: “I spend it.” Amanda smiled and said: “No, seriously. What do you do with the money?” I repeated: “I spend it.” The smile vanished from Amanda’s face when she realized that I was serious. It was replaced by a look of disbelief. She said: “You can’t do that!” At this point, I knew I was dealing with someone who had grown up with too much money. I had received applications from people like Amanda before, so I knew what to say. I said: “Amanda, paying rent isn’t like putting money into your bank account.  When you give me a rent check, it becomes my money, and I can spend it any way I like.” Amanda wasn’t stupid, but nobody had explained Capitalism to her before.  Amanda thought that paying rent was like putting money into a savings account – her savings account. She thought that when a tenant moves out of an apartment, the landlord returns all the rent he received. (I am sure that tenants everywhere would be very happy if rent actually worked that way, but of course, it doesn’t.) The next day, Amanda called me on the phone to tell me that she was withdrawing her rental application. I was expecting that, and I wasn’t sorry. Tenants like Amanda are always troublesome for landlords.

A few months later, I ran into Amanda at a bookstore in downtown Berkeley. We had a very nice conversation. Amanda told me that after she withdrew her application with me, she called her father and told him what happened. Her father assumed that Amanda understood the concept of rent, and when he realized that she didn’t, he decided that he better get involved in finding Amanda a place to live. So he came to Berkeley and purchased a house on Le Conte Avenue, 2 blocks from campus, for Amanda to live in. Amanda told me that she was now living in the house, rent-free until she graduates. Amanda said: “You know Mark, this is much nicer than renting!” Well, I couldn’t argue with that! I did wonder if Amanda was aware of the fact that not all of the parents of U.C. Berkeley students have the financial wherewithal to buy houses for their children. Amanda’s father paid over $500,000 for the house. Today, that house would probably sell for over $2 million, so he has done well for himself if he still owns it. Amanda was not unique. There are other Cal students who live in houses near campus that their parents bought for them to live in. There are realtors in Berkeley who specialize in selling houses to people like Amanda’s father.

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