Mo'i Is Home!

Yesterday Mo'i had surgery to repair a slipped disc. This morning, an astonished-sounding vet called Debbie and said (with many more words) that Mo'i was recovering so well and so fast that he thought we should take him home this evening.

So of course we did! Debbie and I drove down together, paid our bill (don't ask!), and waited for the technician to bring Mo'i down to us. He rounded the corner in the hallway well ahead of the technician, who was leaning backwards to counter-balance Mo'i's bulldozer-like pulling. That was one happy dog! Lots of happy grunting and whimpering, hugs, and a 200 mile-per-hour wagging tail. We lifted him carefully into the truck and took off for home.

And now Mo'i is resting very comfortably in his familiar crate. He is one very happy dog tonight. Adding to his pleasure is the fact that he has no dietary restrictions, so he's getting (and will be getting) a few more than the usual dog treats – and there's nothing that Mo'i likes more than dog treats!

He's got a rectangular shaved area on his back, with a roughly 8 inch long incision running right down his backbone. There are no sutures visible; the technician told us they were entirely under the skin. Mo'i acts almost completely normal, and his strength seems to be unreduced – certainly not what I was expecting after such a major surgery. Twice since we've had him home, he's yelped in pain; it seems to be associated with rotating motions on his back (as when he's shaking himself). Otherwise, we can't even sense any discomfort in him. We're going to keep him completely quiet for 2 weeks, and then after that we gradually ramp up the level of exercise. The vet tells us that he should back to normal in about 6 weeks.

Amazing!

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of Mo'i. Tonight we're just happy to have our dog back, and healthy...

Lots More Patriots...

Excellent:

We're Still Waiting, Harry...

The Washington Examiner has a great piece this morning about how Harry Reid and his band of bandits is not draining the swamp, as he promised to do. No, he's doing quite the opposite. The piece is very short, so I'm taking the liberty of republishing the whole thing:

As the stock market plunged nearly 1,000 points in two days this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was preoccupied with protecting billions of dollars worth of earmarks contained in a separate, unpublished committee report that got a one-sentence reference in a giant $612 billion defense bill. Reid engineered the 61-to-32 vote to limit debate on the bill, thus barring consideration of an amendment offered by Sen. Jim DeMint. The South Carolina Republican’s amendment would have deleted the reference to the committee report so that it would have to be considered separately. By leaving the language in the bill, the lawmakers were able to carry out one of their favorite maneuvers: Incorporating committee reports into omnibus bills so they can give billions of tax dollars to their cronies without recorded votes on specific spending measures. This is the same Harry Reid who with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of Republican corruption if voters would return the Democrats to the majority.

But Reid’s move was not just a slap at DeMint. Under pressure from a bipartisan coalition of fiscal watchdog groups, including Porkbusters, Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense, President George W. Bush signed an executive order last January that directed federal agencies to ignore earmarks that only appear in committee reports. If DeMint’s proposal had passed, the earmarks in the defense bill’s committee report would have been merely suggestions – not legally binding spending instructions. No wonder Reid made sure the South Carolinian’s amendment never made it to the Senate floor.

A task force created by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recommends that all earmarks and their congressional sponsors be included explicitly in spending bills, so they can be honestly debated and voted upon by the House and Senate, as the Constitution requires. This would give members of Congress sufficient leeway to direct public funds to worthy projects in their home districts, while making the lawmakers accountable to taxpayers. It is significant that Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who opposed the DeMint amendment, admitted that it would have created “a huge shift in the power of the purse.” He’s right about that. But a shift from shady legislative maneuvers like Reid’s to full public disclosure and accountability is exactly the kind of change most needed on Capitol Hill. Voters are still waiting for that swamp to be drained.

We Are Terrorists!!!

You just can't make this stuff up. This is a quote from the North Korean Foreign Ministry:

“The DPRK (North Korea) neither wishes to be delisted as a 'state sponsor of terrorism' nor expects such a thing to happen.”

The left claims to believe that any disagreements we might have with people like this can be negotiated away. Me, I think the only “negotiating” one can do with people like this is the kind of negotiating that involves aiming weapons of terrorist destruction (i.e., U.S. Marines, JDAMs, cruise missiles, etc.) directly at their heads.

The One's Email Inbox...

Courtesy of The Onion (it's a spoof, of course – but hysterical!) Click to enlarge and enjoy!

The State of the States...

The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) is out with its annual ranking of the 50 U.S. states (yes, 50, Barack, not 57!) by an economic freedom index that the PRI invented. It always makes interesting reading, and even if you don't fully agree with their criteria the comparisons between states are always interesting. Click on the picture at right to get a larger view; go here to read the whole report and the associated press release.

California is right down in the mud along with other bastions of socialism like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. This is no surprise to those of us who live here. I, like many others I know, constantly ask myself the question: “Is it still worth it? Is the price of living in California too high? Should I leave now?” We're still here, but we're still asking the question. Each year, more people (both numerically and percentage-wise) vote with their feet and leave – California's emigration rate has been monotonically increasing for years.

On the other side, there's a geographical cluster in the top six positions. We own some property in one of those states (Idaho), and that beckons to us as a likely refuge from California. One could have an entertaining debate about why those states rank so much higher, but for me the most interesting part is the magnitude of the difference between those high-ranked states and the low-ranked states: nearly 2-to-1 on the index. There are days – such as any day I have to listen to a California Assemblyman or Senator – when that difference is mighty appealing...