Other People's Work
This is a compendium of various things I came across this week. (I’m a reader.)
First, Floki. Floki is a dog who has mastered the game of Footvolley. I’d never heard of this game – it’s like beach volleyball, but the net is lower, and you can’t use your arms or hands. I can’t get the video out of the article, but you can view it at this link. Turns out that while he doesn’t win every game, his competitors try their best because they don’t want to have to admit they lost a point to a dog.
Next up: did you buy or sell a house, condo or other dwelling between 29 April 2014 and 1 February 2024? Due to the recent class action settlement, you may be owed a refund if you used an MLS and paid a commission to a real estate agent. Deets here.
Remember going off to college? I remember my dad taking me to the drug store for soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. I had a trunk of clothes and a typewriter. A shared dorm room provided beds, dressers, desks, closets and a phone. Done. Nowadays, the rich are REALLY different. They’re buying houses for their kids to live in while they are in college. One of them cited in this article includes $9,000 “smart toilets”. I need someone to explain to me how smart a toilet needs to be. I’m from the generation where I knew people who were thrilled when they gave up the splinters and Sears Catalogs of outhouses for indoor plumbing and actual toilet paper.
I’m betting most of you have worked campaigns. Probably all of you. So you know it’s ALL ABOUT THE GROUND GAME! What drives the ground game? Great strategy plus volunteer enthusiasm. What does a campaign do if it has neither? For one campaign, it offers swag (for free).
I suppose they believe that this will get them more volunteers. Compared to the Harris-Walz campaign, they are woefully understaffed. I bet you know, but this was because they outsourced ground game to save money for legal fees. From the source:
The campaign says it has about 27,000 top volunteers on the ground nationwide, and "hundreds of thousands" more in various roles in battleground states. Harris' campaign claims to have 60,000 volunteers in Pennsylvania alone, along with hundreds of thousands more in other key states.
Given “Trumpflation” of numbers, I doubt their numbers are legit. And I believe the Harris-Walz campaign is understating its strength. If you’ve been to a Harris-Walz event, you know that while you’re waiting on line, you are asked to sign up for a volunteer shift. Reports from various states indicate this has been very successful. On the other hand, one brave liberal spent the summer walking the wait lines for Trump-Vance (not his real name) rallies and there were no campaign workers, only swag sellers. Her report is here.
Something that I would have thought came from Mad Magazine, or at least the Onion, but no… Let’s assume that you are held hostage by Russia or another terrorist organization for several years. You finally get to come home. You owe IRS penalties for not paying your taxes while you were a hostage. Not making this up.
So that’s what I’ve read this week (not including straight political information). I was going to rant on why both Nate Cohn and Nate Silver are WRONG, but that’s getting old. Please use the comments to say what you read this week that was interesting. I LOVE when people leave comments!
Oh... let's see...
We filed the MLS/Realtor claim ... Nothing ventured, and all that...and, as per usual, I've been reading up a storm.
I do have a penchant for 1930s British Murder Mysteries - I think I had read the majority of Agatha Christie books by the time I was 14. Between my library card and Kindle Unlimited, I'm always grabbing a Margery Allingham, Edmund Crispin, Dorothy L Sayers, or any number of other fun who-done-it authors. And magazines... from Mother Jones, The Atlantic, and Vanity Fair, to Milk Street and Food and Wine for cooking. I'm always picking up something. Just made a great Apple Cake yesterday... https://tjrecipes.com/2024/09/invisible-apple-cake/
Friends of ours from San Francisco bought a condo in Baltimore about 20 years ago for their daughter when she went to Johns Hopkins for Nursing. It was 3br and they rented out the other two rooms to other nursing students. It wasn't the entitled arrogant snobbery apparent in the article, it was simply less expensive overall than student housing at the time and with the rent from the other two, the payments were doable. That people can plop down a cool million or so in cash for a child's college home while other kids are saddled with debt for years and years shows just one of the many inequities we are facing as a society.
And as for the IRS... It's my understanding that they only enforce the rules, they don't make them. HOWEVER... There is a simple "Penalty relief for reasonable cause" that should be available for anyone who was unable to pay or file their taxes while they were captive, somewhere. Yes, it would be nice if Congress specifically cited hostages, but I don't think a hostage filing late would have a problem. Being a hostage is "reasonable cause".
I'm actually trying to avoid a lot of politics, right now. I have a real disdain for the doom and gloom pundits out there. I'm also tired of the incessant texts and emails wanting money. Being a cranky old retired man on a fixed income, I just cant support every down-ticket race across the country. And the verbiage and fear tactics really annoy me.
Now GET OFF MY LAWN!!
This was entertaining-Thank you!