Saturday, July 4, 2015
I'm a plugger...
I'm a plugger ... and there are a lot of pluggers in this part of the world. Friend and reader Doug W. turned me on to this cartoon series...
He speaks for me...
He speaks for me... Charles C. W. Cooke, writing at The National Review. His conclusion:
That matters, especially for the liberty-minded man, for if he hopes to be free; if he hopes to see his natural rights protected and respected; if he hopes to agglutinate himself to the most beautiful set of ideas in the history of mankind — well, he has no choice but to stick around and fight. Today, I shall raise a glass to the last great hope of mankind. Tomorrow I shall go back to griping about all and sundry.For America, of course.
Do read the whole thing...
Celebrating Independence Day...
ObamaCare premiums set to soar...
ObamaCare premiums set to soar... More details here.
While I was at the dentist the other day, we were talking about the impact of ObamaCare. They've seen a precipitous drop in insured patients, as when local employers switched to ObamaCare-compliant insurance policies, they all dropped dental insurance. Why? Cost, of course. That got me to thinking about our health insurance, and what it would be like if (as projected) our premiums rise by 30 to 35%.
Right now – before any projected rise – our healthcare insurance is by far the largest monthly expense we have. Our home is not mortgaged, but even if it were the mortgage payment would be smaller than our monthly health insurance bill.
If the premium rises by 30%, our healthcare insurance payment will be greater than all our other monthly payments combined. In other words, more than half of our minimum monthly living expense. More than groceries, gas, home and car insurance, power, phone, TV, and Internet combined. And this is for a health insurance policy with such high deductibles and co-payments that we are out of pocket more than $10,000 for the year (mainly because of Debbie's two injuries) on top of the insurance premiums.
What a crazy world we live in...
While I was at the dentist the other day, we were talking about the impact of ObamaCare. They've seen a precipitous drop in insured patients, as when local employers switched to ObamaCare-compliant insurance policies, they all dropped dental insurance. Why? Cost, of course. That got me to thinking about our health insurance, and what it would be like if (as projected) our premiums rise by 30 to 35%.
Right now – before any projected rise – our healthcare insurance is by far the largest monthly expense we have. Our home is not mortgaged, but even if it were the mortgage payment would be smaller than our monthly health insurance bill.
If the premium rises by 30%, our healthcare insurance payment will be greater than all our other monthly payments combined. In other words, more than half of our minimum monthly living expense. More than groceries, gas, home and car insurance, power, phone, TV, and Internet combined. And this is for a health insurance policy with such high deductibles and co-payments that we are out of pocket more than $10,000 for the year (mainly because of Debbie's two injuries) on top of the insurance premiums.
What a crazy world we live in...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... Mark Steyn:
“And there, in a nutshell, is the story of the modern western world: not enough wild independent spirit, just more paperwork.”Hah!
Odd sightings in Paradise...
Odd sightings in Paradise... Last night, as Debbie and I were settling down to go to sleep, our phone rang. It was our neighbor Alan, sounding very excited, telling me that a moose was headed straight for our front yard!
He wasn't kidding. When I poked my head out our front door, there was indeed a moose standing right next to my pickup truck. I managed to get a couple photos of it (below) with my iPhone. Alan showed up shortly thereafter, carrying his Nikon with a telephoto lens attached; he told me he got some good photos (and maybe he'll share). Click to embiggen:
Shortly after I took these photos, Alan approached trailing a gaggle of excited kids. They clambered all over the back of my pickup, looking for a safe place to watch the moose. The moose wasn't excited about all this attention, and wandered off into the irrigation canal, about 200' from where I took these photos. Alan and the kids left, and then a milk delivery man drove in – and was quite startled to find a moose standing in front of his truck! He and I walked around behind the moose to encourage it to head to the west, away from the highway. That worked very well – the moose ran completely around our house, and into my neighbor Tim's alfalfa field. Eventually it ran into Tim's yard and toward his garden (which I hope survived intact), then back out of his yard and into the irrigation canal. Last I saw, it was in that canal, hiding from the nasty cars and people, and with a 5 strand barbed wire fence between it and the highway. I haven't heard anything about what happened after that.
You just never know what you're going to see in Paradise :)
Now here's something that's nowhere near as exciting, but I liked it anyway. It's what happened two days after I watered a piece of ground that had some sweet peas growing on it:
He wasn't kidding. When I poked my head out our front door, there was indeed a moose standing right next to my pickup truck. I managed to get a couple photos of it (below) with my iPhone. Alan showed up shortly thereafter, carrying his Nikon with a telephoto lens attached; he told me he got some good photos (and maybe he'll share). Click to embiggen:
Shortly after I took these photos, Alan approached trailing a gaggle of excited kids. They clambered all over the back of my pickup, looking for a safe place to watch the moose. The moose wasn't excited about all this attention, and wandered off into the irrigation canal, about 200' from where I took these photos. Alan and the kids left, and then a milk delivery man drove in – and was quite startled to find a moose standing in front of his truck! He and I walked around behind the moose to encourage it to head to the west, away from the highway. That worked very well – the moose ran completely around our house, and into my neighbor Tim's alfalfa field. Eventually it ran into Tim's yard and toward his garden (which I hope survived intact), then back out of his yard and into the irrigation canal. Last I saw, it was in that canal, hiding from the nasty cars and people, and with a 5 strand barbed wire fence between it and the highway. I haven't heard anything about what happened after that.
You just never know what you're going to see in Paradise :)
Now here's something that's nowhere near as exciting, but I liked it anyway. It's what happened two days after I watered a piece of ground that had some sweet peas growing on it:
