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Food Sales Tax Options
As state leaders consider options to remove the sales tax on food,
the Utah
Taxpayers Association has proposed "removing the sales tax on
food and using new revenues already projected to come from taxes
on remote sales to make up the revenue difference. Currently, taxes
are not being collected on Internet and mail order catalog sales
unless the seller has nexus (typically physical presence) in Utah
or unless the seller is voluntarily collecting and remitting sales
taxes. Internet and mail order catalog sales by companies without
nexus in Utah are referred to as 'remote sales.' Within a couple
of years, Utah along with most other states will begin collecting
taxes on remote sales." For a complete analysis of the food tax
issue, see the latest edition of the Association's "Taxing
Times."
Podcast Watch
Jennifer Napier-Pearce’s InsideUtah.com
Podcast features Gov. Huntsman’s Chief of Staff Neil
Ashdown (1:11) and Rep. Roz McGee (4:56) on tax reform;
U. law professor Alex Skibine (8:18) on the constitutional
questions surrounding taxing nuclear waste on Goshute land, plus
analysis from Salt Lake Chamber V.P. Robin Riggs and citizen
advocate Claire Geddes (14:45); bookseller Betsy Burton
(17:56) and graphic designer Kinde Nebeker (20:51) on buying
local; and Salt Lake Tribune columnist Holly Mullen
(23:50) on life with a megaphone.
Blog Watch
National Lefty über-blog Daily
Kos hails Pete Ashdown's Senate candidacy (Hat tip: Casserole
Bar), as does Metafilter
(see also here,
here
and here)...
An anonymous poster at the Senate
Site blog responds to yesterday's Trib
editorial comparing the Task Reform Task Force to "Bad Santas"...
At Democracy
for Utah, Carrie Ulrich posts sixth step of eight from
pamphlet, "Ways to Become Involved with the Utah Democratic Party"...
Lawmakers
pay tribute to Steve Urquhart and his
one-year-old blog... Charley Foster recommends
talk given by Court of Appeals judge/U of U law professor Michael
McConnell on
law and religion... Wilf Sommerkorn turns skeptical eye
on D-News
claims of "sprawl" along Wasatch Front... SLCSpin solves
a mystery from November's municipal election... Weber County
Forum says
all is not going according to plan for Ogden rec center project...
Paul Rolly reports that Rep. LaVar Christensen may
step
into the ring with Rep. Jim Matheson next year... National
blog The
Commons takes look at fight
between the Grand Canyon Trust and officials in Escalante area over
grazing rights (see also here).
Washington Watch
Utah to get $49,249,087 from the USDA for voluntary conservation
programs on working lands, receiving its allocation much earlier
than in the past. Says Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns:
"Conservation on private lands is an important priority for USDA.
We are fulfilling that commitment by responding to the needs of
agricultural producers to provide more certainty and predictability
in their environmental stewardship decisions before planting season
begins." (see press
release).
Late Night Humor
David Letterman... "Top Signs There's Global Warming": I
just bought ocean front property in Topeka, Kansas; Glaciers are
receding faster than Letterman's hairline; "Cool Ranch" Doritos
really "Lukewarm Ranch" Doritos; Ed Sullivan Theater is now a balmy
48 degrees; No shirt, no shoes? You still get service; Average temperatures
have risen one degree over the last one hundred years—One degree!
That's what this is all about?!
Jay Leno... Al Gore said [recently] that global warming
is more serious than terrorism. Unless the terrorist is on your
plane, then that extra half a degree doesn't bother you so much.
... According to the Pentagon, Iraq detained 83,000 terror suspects,
enough to fill a football stadium. You know what you call a football
stadium filled with terrorists in this country? Oakland Raiders'
games. ... Yellowstone National Park officials say the elk population
has mysteriously dropped from 17,000 to 8,000 starting the very
day they reintroduced wolves back into the park. What's the mystery
there? Fat lazy elk and mean hungry wolves—what could possibly go
wrong? ... John Kerry has been picked for jury duty. He was elected
foreman. Well, after two weeks of campaigning and spending $12 million
of his wife's money, he got it! ... Imagine John Kerry on [a] jury?
How long are those deliberations going to take? I voted guilty before
I voted not guilty.
Casual Friday
A Fisherman in the Making
(From a series of fishing stories by the late
LaVarr B. Webb, who died a few years ago after a lifetime of outdoor
activities.)
Utah’s Dixie gets hot in the summer --110
degrees some days. The deeper holes of North Creek and the Virgin
River were, and I guess still are, a joy in the summer to small
boys.
North Creek heads up on Kolob Mountain,
makes its way across the Kolob Plateau into Zion Park, cuts its
way down, down, down through the Navajo Sandstone formation, gnawing
like a hungry, but patient dog, carving rooms, slippery slides,
and vertical falls within the vastness of the multi-colored rock,
then it flows out into a very narrow canyon with sandstone walls
many hundreds of feet high, framing, generally, a blue, blue sky,
a blazing sun, and, sometimes, towering, growling, thunderheads.
Then the creek heads down canyon, spreading out
into a thin, transparent sheet, dropping over minute one-fourth
to one-half inch water falls, washing at the roots of tall fir trees,
shrubs, wild flowers, and grass, then coming together to rush down
solid sandstone chutes into intricate solid sandstone pools, carved,
again, by the persistent water.
A few miles downstream, the water slows down,
and works its way around and over boulders of all shapes and sizes.
The boulders protect a very unique fish that swims like a trout,
darts back and forth through the water like a trout, and, except
for its mouth, is shaped like a trout.
We called those fish rock suckers. They had a
mouth shaped like the business end of a vacuum cleaner, and they
grazed over the moss and algae-covered rock like cows cropping grass
in the meadow. When frightened, those fish would disappear, slithering
under rocks, and hiding until bottom-crawling, nude little boys
went away.
That was my first introduction to fishing. As
I stretched out and pulled myself with my arms through the clear
water, I noticed the fish sneaking under the rocks. Sometimes I
would see their tales sticking out, waving back and forth in the
current like tillers on small boats. It was only natural that I
would try to catch them, and soon I found it relatively easy to
thrust my hand under a rock and grasp a slithery, slippery fish.
We tried catching them with a bent pin tied to
a piece of string, with a worm or a chunk of bread for bait. The
fish seldom went for the worm, and the bread fell off the hook soon
after it hit the water, so we always ended up fishing with our hands.
I had one problem though. Sometimes, as I clutched
for a fish, my hand closed around an insect larvae—a hideous bug
that we called a water scorpion. Oftimes, it would attach itself
to the back of my hand, and crawl with prickly clawed feet up my
arm, leaving behind two obvious pin prick trails. When I found that
creepy, crawly bug in my hand or crawling up my arm, I always yelled
and tried to brush it away, but many times it would cling until
I found a sharp stick or stone, and scraped it off.
One hot summer day around 1927, about a half dozen
of us Virgin Town boys had been up on North Creek floundering around
in the cool water. We had caught quite a few fish ranging in size
from eight to fourteen inches, and we had strung them on willow
poles.
We were trudging down the hot, dusty road in our
overalls, with no shirts, and bare feet, with our fish dangling
from the willow poles slung over our backs, and looking like escapees
from a Mark Twain classic, when a big black car pulled up in front
of us and stopped. A woman climbed out of the car and asked us if
she could take our picture. Of course we were shy, but we posed
like a bevy of Huck Finns, and she got our picture. Now, as I look
back, I wish I could see that picture. I was proud of that catch.
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