08:20 – They’ve called off the blizzard. Until yesterday, the forecasters were saying that we’d have flurries today. Now, they’re saying it’ll just be a 50% chance of rain with a high today around 50F (10C) and low tonight of 21F (-6C). Oh, yeah. And winds at 16 MPH (26 KPH). A good day/night to stay inside.
I just checked our kit sales by type for the year to date. About 38% of the kits we sell are life science or biology, 50% chemistry, and 12% forensic science. That gives me an idea of what to build for inventory. If we want 125 kits in stock going into December, we’ll need about four dozen biology/life science kits, five+ dozen chemistry kits, and a dozen+ forensic science kits.
09:39 – Here’s a very interesting kickstarter project: Heirloom Chemistry Set They won’t be shipping until March of next year, but this would be an ideal gift for a teenager (or spouse) who’s interested in science.
10°F in Nebraska this morning. Warming up now.
An interesting article on how both political parties have anti-science factions in them, not just the Republicans.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/
Thanks. Good article, although I’ve been saying the same thing for years, decades really. Science has few real friends among elected officials and bureaucrats, regardless of their politics.
The real problem is that science literacy is so rare. Certainly less than 10% of adults have what I would consider basic science literacy. A large majority of adults don’t even know the orbital period of our planet, and even fewer could explain even in simple terms the implications of half-lives on nuclear waste disposal.
70 F here in the Land of Sugar. Suppose to be 35 F in the morning, I’ll believe it when I see it. It would be nice to have a winter this year though.
Speaking of sugar, there was an article in the Houston Chronicle about the FDA banning trans fats. And sugar. And salt. And I cannot find the article because the Chronicle’s search engine is terrible.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/09/sugar-salt-fda
30 here in Retroville today with snow flurries and snow-covered mountains in the distance.
Mrs. OFD puts up with some stuff occasionally; plane landing in El Paso for 22:30 Sunday night was an hour late; then the luggage was two hours late (she had a class scheduled to start first thing in the morning); then she goes to the hotel where she’d made a reservation (and for some reason El Paso hotels are wicked expensive) and when she got there they had no record of it and all hotels were full up and Fort Bliss and Veterans Day activities were apparently in full swing. They stuck her in some dingy room and no sooner had she dozed off around 05:00 or so and some jerk’s car alarm went off below her window and stayed ringing for two hours. Then the planes started taking off.
So she went to her Droid and checked an app that I’d told her about, I forget the name, some air/hotel/travel thing you can use to find accommodations real quick online and found a B&B for half the cost of a city hotel, in a nice 1920s house, with two bedrooms, a view of the mountains, etc., etc. But now sleep was outta the question and she had to pull a ten-hour day yesterday and called me last night having been up for 36 hours straight.
Over the years she’s been messed over a number of times for late or cancelled flights, missing and lost luggage, etc., and has repeatedly bitched to United, her usual carrier, and gotten many tens of thousands of free miles from them. Which she’s then used to fly herself, MIL and daughter all over the northern hemisphere in her off time.
One of these days I’ll maybe get a chance to fly somewhere with her for an actual vacation, but not anytime soon, looks like; I haven’t flown since 1994.
RBT, did you notice that at the $550 pledge level they also include your book “All Lab, No Lecture: Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments”.
Yeah. John and I have known each other since I was working with Maker Shed several years ago. HMS Beagle has been stocking the chemistry book since it came out five years ago.
Does Obamacare cover sex change operations (gender reassignment surgery)? I have googled this and found the news to be all over the place, both yes and no. Apparently some federal judges are saying yes though and that is usually the end of the discussion.
I have a big problem buying health insurance for me and my employees that covers abortions or abortion drugs from a religious viewpoint. And I am a middle of the roader on this. I know many people who will get very upset about this when they realize that they are buying it.
I have zero problems with contraception drugs. I have a huge problem with buying health insurance that covers sex change operations. People need to do this on their own $100,000.
This whole health insurance and health care thing is going nuts. I suspect that the pot is going to explode about Jan 15, 2014. One third of the USA losing their present health insurance policy over the next 12 months is going to get someone fired. Maybe a lot of people.
Lots of people upset…
Demonstrations in the street…
Calls for impeachment or even lynching of politicians…
Sounds like we need us some martial law. Only for the duration of the temporary crisis, of course.
Nah. So far, it’s just people lining up to buy tickets to watch the revolution.
Why? No one is insisting that you have an abortion. I’m not sure what you mean by “abortion drugs”. Medical insurance is a type of compensation. Would you try to tell your employees how to spend their paychecks? If your employees want abortion insurance, providing it should have nothing to do with your own religious beliefs. You’re simply offering a compensation feature that’s attractive to your employees. As to the government mandating it, that’s obvious wrong. They shouldn’t be mandating anything about anything.
I do wish that the ObamaCare folks hadn’t weasel-worded things. It’s either the law of the land or it’s not. If it is, everyone must be subject to it. There must be no exemptions at all for religious beliefs. If everyone else is compelled to do so, Catholic churches and other religious institutions should have to provide insurance that covers contraception, abortion, and so on, and Catholic hospitals should be required to provide such services on demand.
But religious beliefs must never be an excuse. I don’t care what you believe, and I mean that in every sense of the phrase.
Note especially that the Catholic Church in the US pushed heavily for the passage of Obamacare. We need to make sure they get what they wanted, in all of its suck. (That applies also to Big Government politicians (almost all Dems and a sizeable fraction of Reps), who wanted Obamacare so much that they lied to constituents, lied to each other, and violated the Constitution in order to get it. But now are caviling because they’re seeing the suck. Suck it down, losers!
Abortion drugs are non-surgical abortions such as RU486, mifepristone, etc. I think this is where Hobby Lobby and many others are drawing the line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_abortion
If a woman wants to use this, fine. I am not a Calvinist and I believe in free will. I even think that the current nonsense here in The Great State of Texas before an abortion is stupid (ultrasound, wait a day, etc). I still agree with former President Clinton, “Abortions should be safe, legal and rare”.
But, I have first amendment rights in the USA Constitution. If I believe that abortions (surgical or non-surgical) are against my religion then I should not be compelled to buy insurance for my employees to provide these. After all, if I have to pay for it then I am participating in the act to some degree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” is very clear to me. The government’s weaselly lawyers are stating that the first amendment must be thrown out for the common good. I disagree severely.
And back to my original note, sex change operations? Give me a break. Those are horribly expensive and have many problems. But if this coverage is required, then that will force the cost of my buying health insurance for our little group (13 souls) up.
Nah. So far, it’s just people lining up to buy tickets to watch the revolution.
I have read that during the opening days of the USA Civil War, people used to take picnic baskets to watch the battles in Virginia.
ObummerCare *should be* aborted! Stat! Too many exemptions, waivers, delays, etc. to be a *law*.
And why the fuck do companies over what, 50, employees have to offer insurance? Everyone should be on their own.
Mr. Lynn, I would just bump your employee salaries XX amount and drop all insurance offers. Let them find their own. What a PITA!
The Catholic Church in the U.S. has long been a renegade Church, and that is coming to an end as the Glorious Sixties and Vatican II dinosaurs retire and die off. And good riddance. So you can imagine what my thoughts might be on Catholic institutions and hospitals paying directly or indirectly for abortions, euthanasia, birth control and sex-change hoss shit. I won’t bore you with them here.
In other nooz Mrs. OFD caught some bug off the plane ride to El Paso and ain’t feeling too good but is hacking the mission this week (literally) anyway. She got some pricey tequila for my next-younger brother’s Xmas present, mainly ’cause he always talks he wishes he could move to Wyoming or somewhere out West where folks believe in most of the same things we do back here (as a tiny minority among left-liberal-prog Dems and RINO types). We are working on him to move up here; most of northern New England is not that way, other than in places like state capitals and college towns.
Good luck down there, Lynn; Our Nanny the Almighty State will be, at some point, forcing you to make some very hard choices for your enterprise and I do not envy you; God bless.
The part I do not like about ObummerCare is the selective enforcement of the law. If it is good enough to be the law of the land why are so many organizations getting exemptions from the law?
Today it warmed up to a toasty 28F from a low of 14. Overcast in the morning, sunny by afternoon. Light winds all day. Some were complaining about the coldest day yet this season. Same folks will be happy for a day so warm and sunny come mid February.
The “heirloom kit” is a cool idea. I didn’t read what chemicals are included, but I would have thought that some of them would no longer be possible. Not because of the laws of chemistry, of course, but because of the laws of “safety at all costs”.
The opponents of Obamacare continue to make a muck of things. They shouldn’t be handwringing, they shouldn’t be offering solutions, they should just let things run their course. Meanwhile, with no editorial comments whatsoever, pay for ads that show Pelosi “you have to pass it to find out what’s in it” and Obama “you can keep your health insurance, period”. Let the responsibility land right where it belongs.
I don’t even know why employers pay for employees health cover. Just fold it in to salary and let them make their own choices. That gets employers off the hook if they are concerned about abortion and such.
Looks like this will be my new place in Adelaide:
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-mitcham-114744131
I would have preferred a “character home” like this but the ones I saw were too small, or expensive or had major features I didn’t like:
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-westbourne+park-115346475#
Dunno, looks like that place has plenty of character. In any case, there will be a character living in it – that’s got to count for something 😉
Hopefully Sandra Bullock will come there to live too… 🙂
There are two reasons for US employers providing health insurance. The first is if your employer pays for it, then the worker doesn’t have to pay tax on that money. The second is due to the US insurance rules, buying health insurance for a group of people is cheaper than buying individual policies.
Hmmm, up in Canuckistan benefits paid by your employer are considered a taxable benefit. Pay for it directly and it becomes a deduction.
Good luck down there, Lynn; Our Nanny the Almighty State will be, at some point, forcing you to make some very hard choices for your enterprise and I do not envy you; God bless.
I have renewed our current insurance policy early on Dec 1, 2013 with an increase in the deductible from $1,000 to $2,500 to maintain my cost. Plus I get to pay the new employer 3.5% federal excise tax on health insurance starting Jan 1, 2014. This way I do not have to worry about Obamacare until Dec 1, 2014. Hopefully everything will be settled out by then.
The reason why employers pay for health insurance in the USA is because it is a tax free benefit that I can give to my employees. If I were to just give them the money ($500/month) , then they would have to pay income tax, ss tax and medicare tax on the money. Plus I would have to pay medicare tax on the money. It is quite a significant difference. And growing with our new taxes.
I am freaking about all these new benefits though. We already had a good mental health insurance requirement here in Texas which I am good with. But, I am down on covering sex changes and abortions. Both of those cross the line for me. One, I do not want to know! Two, I do not want to pay. And so on and so forth.
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-mitcham-114744131
Nice, looks much newer than the previous place. I am amazed that the construction materials in the USA and AU are so similar.
I assume that you are good with stairs? My knees suck and I am having trouble with stairs. My 81 year old FIL, no way with stairs, he cannot walk anyway. And both my parents have serious problems with stairs. My Dad just turned up with bone cancer and the treatments are very debilitating to say the least.
Did you finance the new home? If so, can you get a fixed rate mortgage in AU like in the USA? Our fixed rate mortgages are about 4.5% right now with a 30 year term.
Hmmm, up in Canuckistan benefits paid by your employer are considered a taxable benefit. Pay for it directly and it becomes a deduction.
This because you have basic healthcare (single payer and single provider) paid for by a variety of means, somewhat through paycheck taxes. Any insurance is a premium add-on. I did not know that you can deduct it though.
Miles_Teg says:
Hopefully Sandra Bullock will come there to live too… 🙂
She’s half German, you know. Speaks it like a native—without accent. You can find video of her doing so around the Internet. How she gets mixed up with bikers who cheat on her, I’ll never know. German girls are so sweet.
Love your new house. I’m looking for a piece of sloping land like that, to build my earth shelter dream house. It’s based on this:
http://www.ourcoolhouse.com/final.htm
Have found a couple possibilities, but nothing that slopes to anything exciting on the downside. Like a lake.
The new house was built in 1989, the older one in 1925. I’m a sucker for ‘bungalows’, but they are called ‘character homes’ and are in heavy demand. The one I liked most was asking about $50k more than I thought it was worth, was a bit small. First week on the market so they probably wouldn’t have accepted an offer. The interest rate Lynn quoted sounds about right, I only need to borrow about $150k as I am selling my place in Canberra. Trying to arrange a building inspection report but everyone seems to be booked out. I prefer to avoid stairs but the only ones in this one are from the garage to the rest of the house.
I’ve adored SB since I saw her in Speed. Yeah, what an idiot that guy was cheating on her.
I think the other Bullock is a lot hottuh: Anna Mae Bullock, who just dumped her U.S. citizenship at our embassy in Bern, Switzerland; but she’s been with the same guy for many years now.
Bern? I thought she ran a shop in NH or Vt.
Gotcha!
Sandra’s sister ran a pastry shop near downtown Montpeculiar, VT, the state capital, on Elm Street.
Anna Mae Bullock was Tina Turner’s real name.
Ah yes, Tina was a spunk 40 years ago, and didn’t look bad in Mad Max III either. “Bust a deal and face the wheel.” I’d heard she’d renounced but didn’t know the alternate name.
There is no alternate name; she’s still Tina Turner; her original name back in Nutbush, Tennessee was Anna Mae Bullock, until Ike got hold of her and made her one of the Ikettes.