07:39 – Barbara arrived home about 2200 last night, after a long day, visiting her mom in the hospital, and then having dinner with her dad and sister. She says her mom is doing better, although from her description it sounds as though Sankie is still acting paranoid and delusional. Barbara is hoping she’ll be well enough to come home next week. I hope that’s true, because it’ll allow her and Frances to stop alternating nights staying with their dad.
According to the morning paper, there’s a revolt brewing about the new property tax values that have recently been mailed to homeowners, but not in the usual sense. The county reassesses tax values every four years, and every time in living memory until this time, those values have gone up. This time, a lot them went down, some by high percentages. The paper mentioned two in particular, one woman whose new assessment on her home was for only 50% of the 2009 tax value, and a second whose new assessment was for only 30% of the 2009 tax value. Both of these homes are located in East Winston, which is the poorest area of Winston-Salem and predominantly black. And many other homes, in East Winston particularly, have also had dramatic reductions in their tax values. Some spokesmen for the black community are publicly accusing the county of conspiring to destroy the black community, saying that their equity is being “stolen” from them. The reality, of course, is that these new valuations probably overstate the actual value of the homes, if anything. Assessed tax values do not determine either the selling price of homes or the loan value for those seeking to refinance. Even if the county tax assessor had left those values at their 2009 levels, those homes wouldn’t sell for any more than they do now, nor would banks be willing to lend money using those homes as collateral. So, in essence, these people are actually demanding that they be charged higher property taxes. Geez.
11:07 – This is pretty cool. We just made the OEDb’s list of the 100 All-Time Greatest Popular Science Books. Our chemistry book is at #51 (although the books aren’t ranked) alongside titles like Cosmos, A Brief History of Time, The Origin of the Species, Gray’s Anatomy, The Elegant Universe, and many other really great science books. We preen.
15:31 – If I ever wondered why biological stains are called “stains” rather than “dyes”, I’ve just had it brought home to me in spades. I’ve been filling 60 sets of stains bottles for biology kits, and the last two I’ve filled–Hucker’s crystal violet and Sudan III–are the stainiest stains I work with. I’m used to them staining polypropylene beakers and glassware, sometimes indelibly for all practical purposes. No solvent I’ve tried will remove some stains from plasticware and even abrasive cleanser has difficulty removing some stains from glassware. But today I was using my bottle-top dispenser, the parts of which that are in contact with the liquids being dispensed are made of Teflon. Teflon, the very definition of “nothing sticks to it”. But these stains do. It’s really no big deal. The staining is cosmetic only, and by definition it’s not going to leech out to a different solution, at least in concentrations that are detectable even instrumentally.
But just wait until Barbara gets home. I’ve been doing cleanup in her kitchen sink. It’s “stainless steel”, but (you guessed it…) it’s now stained in pretty hues of violet, red, and orange. Fortunately, I know from experience that those stains can be removed, eventually, with a lot of abrasive cleanser and elbow grease. I’m not going to bother cleaning the sink today because I still have some work to do that would just stain it again. But I will clean the sink thoroughly tomorrow.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, my dad bought some rental properties in poor black parts of Indianapolis. The condition of many of those neighborhoods was shameful. Once I was with my dad, and we were talking to a nice black couple who lived by one of the properties he was fixing up. One of them said that something like, “most black folks don’t take care of their houses.” I politely ignored the comment at the time, but I am afraid they are right. It’s just as true that most white renters don’t take care of the places where they live.
There is no conspiracy to destroy the neigborhoods or home equity of houses that poor people of any ethnicity live in. There is distinct lack of a conspiracy to rebuild the neighborhoods or build the home equity of people that live in poor neighborhoods.
The property assessments around here have been uniformly lower than in past years, when high property values were over-inflated. So my taxes should go down this year.
Except then the city raised the tax level, so we are all paying about the same as last year, on homes that are now valued lower. Sigh.
Same here. Our county commissioners are currently debating how much to increase the tax rate. The baseline is to be revenue-neutral, so that the lower property tax base still generates the same absolute revenue. And they’re actually talking about making the new rate revenue-positive so they can do more stuff. Right. There’s something wrong with a system where the government just takes as much as it wants.
Reminds me of that old proposed 1040 tax form:
1. How much did you make last year?
2. Send it in.
My rates are based on the unimproved (land) value, ignoring my house. The land value goes up, quickly or slowly, but the amount payable always goes up.
To register a car here you have to pay a fee to the government, plus another fee to the government which it passes on to the third party insurer (for injuries to other people in car accidents, not to yourself and not for damage to property). One year there was a dramatic fall in the TPI insurance premium, because, I think there was a major crackdown on fraud. The government immediately put up their on fee to capture most of the reduction in TPI premiums for themselves. They didn’t take it all, so they could then trumpet the reduction in the total cost of registering a car.
Last and not least, the government run water supply authority increased water supply charges dramatically during a lengthy drought we had here to encourage “conservation”. When the drought broke, and demand for water plummeted, they put the price up *again* because of their reduction in revenue. Heads I lose, tails they win.
I’ve always hated property taxes. Do you really own the land? Try not paying those property taxes. You buy land once and own it forever without being taxed every year. You already pay for any services you get on it. Plus cities always add taxes onto that!
IIRC, in Nebraska, by law, the assessed tax value of a home must be within 5% of the market value of a home. If it’s not you can demand it be reassessed.
Darwin’s book is “The Origin of Species” not “The Origin of the Species”.
Yes, I just copy/pasted titles. That one slipped by me. Actually, the original title started out *On* the Origin of Species …
Congratulations on the book. I am, of course, a proud owner of Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments.
mmm Horse meat tacos from Taco Bell. I wonder when the Baracolypse hits if anyone will give a shit about horse meat in their tacos. We’ll probably be running down those wild horses out west for bbq. I like Taco Bell. Just be up front on what you use.
mmm Horse meat tacos from Taco Bell,
I hate when that food gives you the trots.
There is a picture of the title page of the 1859 edition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species which shows the title as “On The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection”
Gallop for the border…
Meh, why not horse meat? Grass fed and runs around a paddock. I’d be thrilled if the cows I ate had the same diet.
Meh, why not horse meat?
Sure, why not. Krystal could probably make 18.7 million burger out of one skinny horse.
Back in the ’70’s, there was a market in Portland that sold horse meat inspected for human consumption. It was cheaper and leaner than beef, so I bought it regularly. My sister, a horse lover, nearly killed me one evening. She came to my house for dinner one evening and I served her spaghetti. She knew that I regularly ate horse. I asked her to guess what kind of meat was in the spaghetti. She looked at me in horror and said “it’s not horse, is it?” Before she killed me, I told her it was ground turkey. She was much relieved and I survived the evening.
Rick in Portland
I like to periodically cue up George Harrison’s “Taxman” followed by Stevie Ray Vaughan’s version, and really crank the latter up. Especially after seeing/hearing/reading about rich librul fucktards volunteering to pay even more taxes and telling me I should be grateful for the opportunity to do likewise.
I miss Stevie Ray Vaughan. “Its one for you, nineteen for me”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNDYArDUgSg
We miss him, too. That dude rocked. TX puts out some great music.
Yo, check out this English chick; she lived in TX for a while, may still be there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SarN0VMYZfk
Congrats on the book listing.
Re staining the sink, can you buy or make a sink liner or insert? I’m thinking something like a plastic dishpan with a hole in the middle. Ideally the hole would have the frustrum of a cone to fit into the sink’s drain.
I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan in a small club in the late 1980s; I think it was the Stone Pony, Springsteen’s old hangout. I was unimpressed. The music was ok but not great, and in each of the frequent breaks his bodyguards shoved a path through the overcrowded club (the stage was opposite the back rooms for some reason), he refused to look up and make eye contact or otherwise acknowledge the paying customers, and he generally gave off the stench of dickitude. When he died, the blabbers on the radio stations proclaimed that he wasn’t supposed to be on the helicopter that crashed, that he saved the life of the band or TV crewman who was supposed to be on it. Right. He sacrificed himself. Right.
Barbara just got home, and her only comment on the sink was, “How pretty!” I think she was being snide, but with women there’s no telling.
Barbara just got home, and her only comment on the sink was, “How pretty!” I think she was being snide, but with women there’s no telling.
You better sleep with one eye open tonight.
As it turns out, she wasn’t serious.
I recommend Barkeeper’s Friend as my go-to stainless steel cleaner. Amazing stuff.
Yes, that’s exactly what I used.
I thought the bartender’s friend was amphetamine, for that pick-me-up during a long shift and the number-one hangover cure in the morning if they tied one on.
OFD wrote:
“Yo, check out this English chick; she lived in TX for a while, may still be there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SarN0VMYZfk”
She looks like Hillary.
“But just wait until Barbara gets home. I’ve been doing cleanup in her kitchen sink. It’s “stainless steel”, but (you guessed it…) it’s now stained in pretty hues of violet, red, and orange.”
Okay, who’s feeling nostalgic for the Seventies? You could start a sideline business making and selling tie dye t-shirts.
In many situations it would be simpler & easier to line the sink with aluminum foil and toss it when you’re done. However, I’m not sure that all those various chemicals would behave nicely with the foil.
SteveF wrote: “I thought the bartender’s friend was amphetamine, for that pick-me-up during a long shift and the number-one hangover cure in the morning if they tied one on.”
It is, but note the difference in the words. Barkeeper’s Friend =/= bartender’s friend. DO NOT CONFUSE THE TWO PRODUCTS! But if you do, please video it for Youtube and our viewing pleasure.
“She looks like Hillary.”
R U insane? WTF R U smoking down there in Oz, dude? Has the heat fried your brain?
HILLARY! has never in her rotten life *ever* looked like anything other than a horntoad lech like Larry Klinton would wanna have relations with.
Alright, then; try Susan Tedeschi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZWJgo2jyCM
OFD:
You have excellent taste in music(icians)!
Robert
@Robert; Thanks; I like all genres of music except hip-hop, but tend to have listened most of my life to classical, mostly; along with rock circa 1960-75 and blues. Also Celtic and folk.
Yeah, on reflection Joanne is a bit better looking than Hillary, longer hair and a bit younger. But I bet Joanne was never a Goldwater Girl… 🙂
And Sue isn’t too bad either. But I’m not a fan of Soul, Blues or Jazz.