History of my nations, part 1

I now have 2 nations. We’ll start with the eldest more serious one first.

Question 1: Voting again. We’re going to stick with optional.
Question 2: A recent poll has revealed high levels of dissatisfaction among the populace about tax rates.

The Debate
“Do you know how much of my year’s work goes to the government?” demanded angry worker Prudence Utopia. “Too much! Government spending has gotten way out of control. It needs big cuts in welfare, health, and education. But leave those subsidies to business alone. We need them to create jobs.”

“It’s not the AMOUNT of tax, it’s where the burden falls,” says student activist Lars Longbottom. “And at the moment, far too much of the burden is falling on the poor. People on high incomes still have more money than people on low incomes. I don’t think I need to say anything more than that.”

“I don’t object to the amount of tax, I object to where it’s being spent,” says social reformer Billy Dredd. “I’d like to see everyone have a choice as to where their punts go every time they fill out a tax return. Everyone would feel a lot better about opening their wallets if they had a say as to where the money went. I think you’d see a lot more public money going to education and a lot less to business.”

The Government Position
The government is preparing to dismiss this issue. I just don’t like any of the options. Plus I just lowered their taxes from 32 to 29%.

Now, for nation number 2 which I set up to play with my co-workers whom I infected with this illness in the first place. At least I was a bit more creative this time.

We have of course decided to outlaw voting in my “Father Knows Best” state.

Minor Dad update

My dad’s surgery has been somewhat postponed while they perform a few additional tests, mostly to make sure he can handle the surgery OK. Also, his surgeon is going out of town for a week, and the soonest he would have been able to go in was the day before he left. We’re now looking at end of February, beginning of March.

They already did some tests on his lung capacity and he passed with flying colours. Today they were trying to figure out the source of his past anemia and came up empty from the two tests they ran. Next week they’ll test his heart.

I kind of wish they could just get it over with. As much as it is going to suck, part of me just thinks, “It’s cancer, it spreads, get it out of there!” I’m glad they’re being careful though. It’s such a major surgery that that in and of itself is quite scary.

Cancer

It’s official. My dad does have lung cancer.

I found out about the possibility a week and a half ago. One week ago, they ran the first set of tests. The results we heard on Thursday seemed overall positive but somewhat inconclusive. While the lymph nodes were negative for cancer, they couldn’t tell if the tumor was cancerous. They repeated the scope on Friday to have conclusiveness. This afternoon we found out the results.

It’s squamous cell carcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. It’s the smoking kind. My dad quit smoking in the early ’80’s. They’re going to perform a very nasty sounding painful surgery to remove the lobe of his lung probably next week. There’s a long recovery period from that. After that they’ll figure out where to go next.

I’m glad it’s not small cell. I’m glad it seems confined, but I hate that he has to go through this.