towels for doggos

WANTED: clean towels / blankets!
my coworker gwen is part of the Santa Ana Valley Kennel Club which collects and donates old towels / blankets to local shelters and Hemopet, an organization that does blood transfusions for dogs (surgeries, k9 units, etc)! they do greyhound rescue and adoption too! so your old towels and blankets will keep doggos and puppers warm and comfy. :) I'll be collecting thru the end of the year so please let me know if you have any to donate. thank ya!

taxes

Mexico and Hungary tried junk food taxes — and they seem to be working

i've been saying this forever!! except that i take it one step further in i think that the money from the junk food tax should be used to subsidize healthy food (leafy greens, for instance, or food stamps if they made junk food ineligible).

one other tax i'm SO in favor of is a luxury tax! and interestingly enough, the US used to have one:
"In November 1991, The United States Congress enacted a luxury tax and was signed by the former President George H.W. Bush. The goal of the tax was to generate additional revenues to reduce the federal budget deficit. This tax was levied on material goods such as watches, expensive furs, boats, yachts, private jet planes, jewelry and expensive cars. Congress enacted a 10 percent luxury surcharge tax on boats over $100,000, cars over $30,000, aircraft over $250,000, and furs and jewelry over $10,000. The federal government estimated that it would raise $9 billion in excess revenues over the following five-year period. However, only two years after its imposition, in August 1993, the Congress decided to eliminate the “luxury tax” since it did not achieve its main objective. However, the luxury automobile tax remained in effect until 2002.^[3] A luxury tax still applies in some states for products deemed unnecessary or nonessential, a category in which non-luxury products often fall into.^[4]" from wikipedia

obviously the numbers would need to be changed, i mean, $30k may have bought you a luxury car in 1991 but certainly not in 2018, ha! the thing about these taxes too, is that you can set the bar quite high, say a car qualify for a luxury tax only if it is over $80k, has two axles, and weighs less than 5000 lbs. so that'll exclude any big rigs and really heavy passenger cars (which would probably be for commercial use anyway)

am i high?

i got high last night for the first time ever. i didn't enjoy it, lol.

i had one gummy and nothing happened for like an hour, and then i realized that, hey, i totally feel the bottoms of my feet. lol, not a part of your body your normally think about. but they were really warm for a bit then i realized my whole body was pretty warm, and very small! like i had compacted from my head to feet. it felt pretty okay for a while, i mean, who doesn't like to be warm? but then the room started to tilt, and my head felt lower than my feet which is always an uncomfortable feeling. i probably should have sat up but the whole room was on an incline and i felt like i might throw up if i moved too much. felt like being drunk but with the room spinning at a much slower rate.

at about this time j joined me in bed and we talked for a good long while about what i don't totally remember and it was then that i was like, no, i don't like being high. the body stuff is sort of uncomfortable, so not enjoyable, but the brain stuff was really not my thing. j's mom had sent him some photos of his youngest brother's bday party at school so we were talking about that. i felt  sad, but also happy for him, but also kind of pissed cause i knew i wouldn't remember all this stuff the next day. i felt that this was an important conversation so i very consciously stored it in my memory, but i'm sure i missed some stuff anyway.

also, sounds were really weird too. everything was weird. everything had shrunk down a little bit and lights were too bright, and nothing existed outside our small room. cars driving past sounded a bit like waves crashing at a beach, people talking outside sounded like they were in a very old tv show, and all sounds came from 360 degrees and echoed a little. like being in a bathroom. a round one and warm one, lol.

anyway, i never thought i'd be into it, and turns out, i'm not. it's similar to being drunk but i somehow felt less in control of it. maybe cause it was my first time so i didn't even know what was going to happen. had to ask joe if i was high or not, lol. i'll probably try again later to make sure, but I probably won't be having any more of the gummies, ha.

equality vs equity

Amazon announces $15 minimum wage for all US employees

I think profitable companies should pay more than a minimum wage; they should pay a living wage. that being said, it costs a hell of a lot more money to live in san fransisco than it does to live in sandpoint, idaho.

j said the other day that he believes in equity, not equality. and i think that's spot on.

without getting into how each state's minimum wage is determined, or if it's a fair determination or not, i think it would be better if amazon pays not just a minimum $15 across the board, but a few dollars (or percent) above minimum wage to employees in that state. is that still somewhat unfair? sure. but again, it costs more to live in san fransico than it does to live in grass valley, california, so at least it's more fair.