There are times when the clouds are too thick.

Today's Tids Issue 3,920

For stuff:

Murdering uncles and brothers and various relatives has never seemed to bother the conscience of NK’s Kim. So, dropping an A-Bomb on a million or so strangers should be a piece of uranium cake for the emperor with no guilt. History tells us that overlooking madmen has never been a good policy.

When you play football and you fall behind, you dig down and hit harder. When you are down in golf, if you hit harder the ball will either end up in the woods or seven and half feet in front of the tee. Someday I’ll figure out how to control unnecessary energy. That’s the odd thing about golf. You know exactly what to do, but your mental judgment is often overrode by spontaneous combustion.

For paranoid people like me, the latest scary rumor of corporate intrusion on privacy just may be the Roomba. You know, that cute little humanoid like disc that scoots around picking up dirt. Yes, it is said the robot vacuum cleaner’s dirt may be more than organic; it may be quite personal. The sucking machine can accumulate data about size of rooms, types and ages of toys and appliances, furniture styles and just about anything that gets in its way as it performs its tasks. So if you have a Roomba, don’t leave suspicious things on the floor. Actually, I’m not paranoid, but thinking so allows me to concoct conspiracy theories that make for more interesting Tids.

I have to wonder if graphic design has found its limitations. At least in autos. The new Tesla, while clean and sleek, is not terrible unique or distinctive. Without the “T”, it is hard tell what it is when it drives by – a Lexus, a Chevy a Hundai. But that may be the least of the car company’s problems. They have to start behaving like a real company in the car business and that takes a lot of money. In the US and the rest of the world, the focus among car makers is perfecting the technology for Lithium Ion batteries. GM and Ford, Mercedes, Volvo and Toyota and more are all pulling out the stops to be serious competitors of Tesla. Tesla had its space, and has its name, but like the charge on an auto battery, its lead is fading fast. And now Musk has to spend to stay even. This will be an interesting war to watch.

The Question:

What are the three most profitable industries in the US?

The Headlines:

--Investors Pausing, Musing After Yesterday’s Newest Record.

--UN Ambassador Haley Says World (Including China) Fed-Up With NK Craziness; NK Says, No Talking Until US Cease Being Hostile.

--President Of South Africa Faces Crucial No Confidence Vote; Kenyans Head To Polls After Dramatic Campaign.

--Polls Show That Trump’s Base Support Declining.

--More Cars Seem To Be Running Into And Killing Pedestrians Than Ever Before.

It looks like it is open season on Wells-Fargo. First the bogus accounts scheme, then misleading sales tactics on auto loans and now their joint venture that provides credit card processing services to merchants is being sued for misleading sales tactics. Do you think there may be an integrity ethics gap at the top? I mean the masses just don’t collectively agree to misbehave in a vacuum.

Did you see where the State of Illinois has voted to establish state holiday in the Honor of Obama. This a state where the legislature was overwhelmingly in support of its native son, but according to the state comptroller has yet to figure out how to pay a huge backlog of overdue bills. “Illinois, The Free Ride State”. Honoring Obama makes sense.

The Internet futurists are saying that most new applications for phones, tablets and laptops will be designed for spoken word only communications with lots of videos. (They say this will be good for the illiterate of the world.)  Say it ain’t so Bill Gates! Among my many pet peeves is to find a morning news story only available in video, accompanied by mind rattling “here-comes-the news” music. I like quiet, peaceful moorings without the chit chat of anchors talking to me about the news. I like to read the whole story, especially the parts between the lines. I don’t need clipped, highly edited videos.

Retail is being undercut by the change in many traditional economic factors. One of the biggest, is not Amazon, but the smart phone which sucks a lot of money out of the family budget. That may be one reason why they are building Dollar stores on every available corner: The fact is that the folks still want stuff but don’t want to pay much for it because people now need the money for todays’ so-called more desirable stuff. Never the less, Amazon is still a problem. But in the end, somebody will always be selling and people will always be buying. We just have to endure the shift.

The Mayor of 30,000 population College Park Maryland says, “It just makes sense” for non-citizens, including illegal immigrants to vote. Is he nuts.

What did Dems always say when Repubs criticized Obama for vacations, “Give him a break, all Presidents go on vacation.”

Maxine Waters for Speaker of the House?

Britain is easing the fears of their own paranoid luddites. A new law says that all companies must ask for explicit permission of individuals to collect any data. All companies must show citizens all data collected on them. All companies must delete all data immediately upon request.

The Answer:

The three most profitable industries are Accounting, Real Estate and Legal companies. The analysts says that once you get the good people, you just roar!

The Sun is nudging the clouds aside. Always does.

The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could have become. –Ben Herbster