The other day I took Nora to the doctor to get her cough and recurring fever looked at. Actually I went in just to get an appointment, but as soon as the receptionist heard the F-word, she passed me right along to the pediatric waiting area. Eventually the doctor saw us, probed and prodded a screaming Nora, and gave us a prescription for a cough and fever medicine. We headed straight for the farmacia.
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Yesterday, as I was digging through my coins to pay for a cool European lager, I happened to glance at the artwork on the heads (Or tails? Who can tell anymore?) side of the coin. At first I thought it was some kind of joke currency or bizarre token that someone had slipped me in mistake or trickery. So I saved it, pretty sure it couldn’t be real. But lo and behold, it’s a special 2009 commemorative 2€ coin. To quote the Official Journal of the European Union (PDF):
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While I’m certainly not the first to think of this particular play-on-words, I do think that my book cover is better than the other parodies I’ve seen already floating around. The font, in case you’re wondering, is called Didot.
For those of you that don’t know who David Pogue is, he’s a technology columnist for the New York Times, and general internet geek celebrity who gets to test new gadgets before they are released.
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A few weeks ago, a poll surfaced on Facebook, asking whether or not people thought that President Barack Obama should be assassinated. As it began to get hundreds of thousands of votes, it also attracted the attention of the Secret Service, who never take any assassination threats lightly. Using all their government influence, they coerced Facebook into giving up the identity of the user that started the poll. Unfortunately, the initiator of the poll left very little information about himself. At the time of this writing, the Secret Services knows the following about the suspect:
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According to the laws of my native country, the United States of America, I will never be eligible for dual citizenship. If I apply for Spanish citizenship, I will automatically lose my US citizenship. This is not true, however, of my daughter. She has Spanish citizenship by birth, and can apply for US citizenship as the child of a US citizen. Because she did not actively request her non-US-citizenship, but acquired it automatically, she is allowed to hold both Spanish and US citizenships. While I do not know exactly what legal ramifications this will have on her banking or taxes, I think that in the long run many more things in her life will be facilitated by having dual citizenship than hindered by it. So, on June 1, 2009, we visited the US Embassy in Madrid and registered her to be a US citizen.
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This morning we went through the annual rigmarole that is reporting income and paying taxes in your country of residence when you work and pay income tax in another country. Once again, the amount of taxes that I pay on my income in the States was less than what I would pay in Spain if I earned the same salary. Because the US and Spain have a treaty to avoid double taxation, I was made to pay the difference. How much do you think that difference was? Keep in mind that I get free medical care, and the birth of my daughter didn’t cost me a penny. Yes, over here in pinko commie land, I suffer from the worst possible scenario imaginable: The government makes decisions about my healthcare!! I don’t enjoy the freedom that Americans have of letting an insurance company, whose goal is to make a profit for their shareholders by not giving out money and taking bribes from drug companies, make decisions about their healthcare. So, what was the exorbitant amount of extra money I had to pay for the superior equivalent of US health insurance?
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When I moved from England to Spain exactly four years ago, I began investigating how to manage my multi-currency financial situation. All of my assets were in British Pounds, my salary was in US Dollars, and I would be living in Spain paying all my bills in euros. My investigations led me to one of the most respected institutions in all of banking: Swiss Banks. At the time, there were not many banks that had support for multiple currencies, and the ideal of having my £, €, and $ all in the same bank, the tax free interest, and the allure of having a Swiss bank account were too much to bear. I signed up.
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Sarah Palin’s career has been full of ups and downs in the past six months. It’s interesting how traffic to my Can Sarah Palin really see Russia from her house? post has ebbed and flowed with Palin’s popularity. The other events that have affected this traffic graph were my blog getting dugg and a link from Bad Astronomy. Check it out:
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I’d give you a big hug if I could, Mr. President. It’s so nice to have someone smarter than me running my country. Good luck, sir!
MHNATY, USA!
Okay, Media. Let’s get one thing straight: The only time you should use the article “an” with the adjective “historic” is if you are not pronouncing the H in “historic” like some British people do. Think ‘enry ‘iggins. Got that, Media!!?!? If I ever see any of you that misuse this phrase crossing the street, you will be the victim of an hit and run.
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