Tuesday, October 9, 2018

"My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe." - Jimmy Durante



I was sad to hear Nikki Haley resigned as our U.N. Ambassador. I liked that she is a she, she is a tough no-nonsense advocate for U.S. interests, she's the daughter of immigrants, and she speaks her mind.
I wonder if she's resigning to test the waters for a 2020 GOP presidential bid. I hope so. She makes, IMO, an attractive candidate for the party in many ways.
Ooops. Am I allowed to say that?
I meant that she's got solid conservative bona fides, is politically savvy, well spoken.....

My back and hip are a LOT better. I told Melissa, the PT, that my pain number is maybe a 2. More like discomfort than pain. Is it because of time, or the PT, or as is more likely, a combination of the two? Either way, after talking at length with Melissa about it and tonight with son Josh I'm going to call tomorrow and cancel the injection scheduled for Friday of next week. They were going to use ultrasound to guide a giant needle into the space between my hip's ball and socket so they could fill the space with a steroid. As Josh said, if you're getting relief from what you're doing now why introduce the possibility for another problem with a therapy that turns out to be redundant, or worse?

Buddy is doing great. With much less pain I can take him for longer walks. This afternoon we went a little over a mile. I use the reel leash that came with Buddy but I keep in short enough that he's learning to walk right next to me. Today I started to teach him to stop when I stop and to immediately sit, only getting up when I start to walk. It took four or five times of a command before he picked it right up and did it without me telling him to.
A good dog is one of life's simple joys.

I saw a headline on USAToday.com: "Did Trump's criticisms hurt NFL ratings? We look at the evidence."
What hurt NFL ratings was the players kneeling during the anthem. Trump was (as he so often is) irrelevant noise.

The Univ. of Washington Huskies play the Univ. of OR Ducks here this Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
What's a transplanted Seattleite supposed to do??

All governments need money to do what they do and they get it through taxes. They may tax income, or sales, or property, or all of the above and more.
Oregon has no *sales tax, a feature that played into our decision to move here. It took some getting used to - the crazy notion that if the price on the item is $5.99  when you get to the checkout you pay $5.99 not $6.47.
But because Oregon, like all states, has to fund their services they have to make up for it by having higher taxes on other things. In this case Oregon has an unusually high income tax. (Property taxes are set by counties and vary greatly from the north to the south (higher to lower).
That relatively high income tax has created something of a bother among a growing percentage of the population here and as we enter ballot season that irritation is fuel for candidates and those supporting or opposing ballot initiatives.
"Prop 103 protects special interest groups from taxes while the rest of us pay for it."
(Incumbent) "Governor Brown wants to raise your taxes even higher to pay for her failed programs."

One of the more interesting uses of the anti-tax sentiment is a proposition that would prevent the state from paying for abortions. Right now the state will pay for an abortion for any woman, including illegal aliens undocumented immigrants.
The pro-choice crew (a serious misnomer by my account) says this is a back door attempt to infringe upon reproductive rights. The proposition's advocates say, "Oh no. This is just to reduce our ridiculously high tax rate by saying the public shouldn't have to cover the cost of an individual's abortion."
I don't really care who's right. If it will prevent one child from being killed I'm voting yes.

*When OR legalized pot they included a 17% sales tax on it. Counties can add up to another 3%. That high rate hasn't kept people from getting high. Pot sale continue to soar.

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