Dan Price – Minimalist Living

Since 1990 Dan has been living off the land in Oregon.

He’s an artist. A writer. A traveller.

For the last 15 years or so he’s been living in a little Hobbit House only 8ft (2.4m) wall to wall with a roof only 4ft (1.2m) high at the entrance rising to 5ft (1.5m) at the back.

Dan has a website called moonlight chronicles where he documents his simple life.

Dan Price’s underground home, art & philosophy on $5,000/year

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Martin Luther King Jr in 2022

Would King be happy with what’s happening in the USA?

The murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin has led to some improvements. Here’s what’s WORKING.

The phrase “defund the police” was always stupid. It should have been “reform the police“. Reallocate funding.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

WOW – Don’t Look Up

I rejoined Netflix mainly to watch Don’t Look Up.

Brilliant.

Be sure to watch the credits. There are 3 endings.

Satire that reminded me of both Swift’s A Modest Proposal and Wag the Dog.

Something between a star-studded Hollywood blockbuster and an amateur YouTube documentary. Very original editing.

You’ve never seen DiCaprio like this. He had a lot of input on the script.

The cast is great. Best is Jonah Hill who plays a Don Jr. idiot appointed by his mother as the insanely unqualified  Chief of Staff.

The Republican tribe is urged to NOT LOOK UP at the planet busting comet. And deny what they can see with their own eyes. 😀 It parallels the American idiocracy of covid denial, for example. Apathy, incompetence and self-interest.

Denial of science.

It’s certain ReTrumplicans will hate this film.

This movie came from my burgeoning terror about the climate crisis and the fact that we live in a society that tends to place it as the fourth or fifth news story, or in some cases even deny that it’s happening, and how horrifying that is, but at the same time preposterously funny.[10]— Adam McKay, writer, director, and producer of Don’t Look Up

Refugees & Asylum Seekers in 2022 😕

Trump too abruptly abandoned Syria. Biden did the same in Afghanistan.

Worldwide there are millions of people trying to flee.

I don’t understand why organizations — and billionaires — are not funding MORE and BETTER refugee camps. Only about 25% of refugees are in camps.

Syria

Life in a refugee camp should be minimal. But safe. Good security. Clean water. Decent health care. Education should be provided for kids who make up about 50% of the population.

My buddy Mike Sissons is an artist in Madrid. Some of his recent work features refugees.

Who invented the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine?

Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, a married couple, are both now billionaires. 

Financial Times People of the Year for 2020.

In 2008 Özlem co-founded the biotechnology company BioNTech, which in 2020 developed the first messenger RNA-based vaccine approved for use against COVID-19.

How many lives have been saved by their vaccine? 

How much illness reduced?

They first heard of Covid on January 8th, 2020. And instantly switched from the Cancer therapy they had been researching for two decades — to Covid. 

By March 2020, they had five vaccine candidates ready to test in humans, and by November 2020, results indicated that the vaccine was more than 90% effective.

mRNA could be used for future vaccines even more quickly next time. BUT we should build manufacturing capacity NOW to be ready for the next one. 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube

Should BILLIONAIRE$ pay less tax than YOU?

Someone in the American IRS leaked to Propublica:

  • Warren Buffett ~ 0.10% true tax rate
  • Jeff Bezos ~ 0.98% true tax rate
  • Michael Bloomberg ~ 01.30% true tax rate
  • Elon Musk ~ 3.27% true tax rate

What’s your true tax rate?

American politicians write complicated tax laws which result in loopholes used by the richest donors.

BUT — can it be fixed?

The best summary of the issue I’ve seen is the second podcast in this list.

Trump Says the Economy Is Good. Is It? The Daily

With anxieties building over affordability, President Trump made a push to reassure Americans just as the government released long-awaited data that raised new questions about the economic health of the nation.Tony Romm, who covers economic policy for The New York Times, discusses how Mr. Trump is trying to take control of the issue, and Ben Cassleman, The Times’s chief economics correspondent, explains what the latest numbers tell us about why people are still so frustrated.Guest:Tony Romm, a reporter in Washington covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The New York Times.Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Here are six takeaways from Mr. Trump’s address to the nation.With tariffs unpopular and prices still high, the White House has teased the promise of tariff rebates and large tax refunds next year.Photo: Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.   Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
  1. Trump Says the Economy Is Good. Is It?
  2. Congress Failed to Extend the Health Care Subsidies. Now What?
  3. The Tragic Death and Enduring Legacy of Rob Reiner
  4. Sunday Special: The Best Music of 2025
  5. Sunday Special: ’Tis the Season for Cookies

Can Biden reduce the US wealth gap?

Biden’s been great his first 100 days.

But the real test — as far as I’m concerned — is whether his administration can begin to reduce this gap.

In praise of Jeff Bezos

82% of American households buy from Amazon.

It’s easy to argue that Jeff Bezos is the greatest entrepreneur of all time.

My life is better because of Amazon Canada. Every other company was forced to compete.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Smartmatic sues FOX for $2.7 billion

FOX just might lose this court case. That would really reduce future deliberate propaganda campaigns.

There are a number of other court cases against the same FOX bad actors already dropped and yet to come.

Smartmatic is a multinational company that builds and implements electronic voting systems.

BUT during the 2020 election their product was used only in one California county.

FOX and the the Four Seasons Total Landscaping lawyer knew this — yet deliberately waged a “disinformation campaign” blaming Smartmatic for election fraud.

Damages were done to the company. Perhaps $600 million. It should be easy to prove their case.

On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic sued Fox CorporationFox News Network, and its anchors Lou DobbsMaria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro for $2.7 billion in the New York State Supreme Court as well as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who spread baseless claims of election fraud on Fox.

The 276-page complaint alleges that Fox, its anchors, Guiliani, and Powell spread a “conspiracy to defame and disparage Smartmatic and its election technology and software” by making new business opportunities increasingly scarce.

wikipedia

Here’s a FOX host talking to Giuliani, for example.