STATUS:  Project Tuteurs

On the left, the first tuteur underway.  On the right, the second tuteur nearly completed.

Not much to look at when done (Boyscouts armed with Swiss Army knives could have done better, but a great deal tidier than the delapidated things from which my pole beans have grown every year.

Tomorrow: the finished tuteurs.  (They're already painted, just need to paint the feet.)

9:35:38 PM    comment []

WARNING: Today’s weather forecast – sunny, 63 deg F., slow blogging

The call of the outdoors and the tuteurs beckons at the moment.  The weather is good and the spouse has gone to the office – meaning, I will have no one leaning over my shoulder checking my work as I construct the tuteurs.  Yes, it was on his Honey-Do list, but I get tired of negotiating about what I want built and what he’s willing to build.  Enough of that. 

Besides, my little helpers are itchy to try out their brand new hammers and tool boxes we bought today.  A few scraps of wood, a little direction, and pound away for an hour of fun.

I’ve also got stuff floating around in my head that’s not as cooperative as I’d like, refusing to emerge in coherent format.  Maybe a little drilling, sawing and hammering will encourage coalescence from formless goop into a bloggable post.

Hasta.  Au revoir.

4:18:44 PM    comment []

RantsCounterRants:  It's the economy, Stupid!

Yeah, you know who you are, Stupid.  You’ve turned your back on it. 

Don’t tell me otherwise; those crappy tax cuts aren’t for the economy at large, they’re for your corporate bloodsucking cronies who got you into office.  Those crappy tax cuts are paybacks for your daddy’s friends who held his hand and held yours, you lying War-for-WMD dweeb.

There’s no good reason at all why people should be out at the curb holding “Will Code for Food” signs, if we can afford 80+ million for a whimsical war.  No reason at all why the already nominal standard of care for the poor children of this country should fall yet again.  No reason why we as a nation cannot employ all our healthy, able-bodied workers while improving the security of our country – and not just in red states like Wyoming, instead of high-risk states like New York.

It’s pretty obvious you’re not listening, dissing Nobel-winning economists and others on the topic of accelerating economic improvement:

Many economists, however, doubt cutting taxes will do much to stimulate job growth in the short term and are calling for measures that could have a more immediate effect, such as giving money to cash-strapped state governments or extending unemployment benefits.

"The labor market is crying for help. The government could write a check from Treasury to every man, woman and child right now for $400," said Lawrence Mishel, labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that has long opposed Bush's tax plan. "All this bickering about the shape of a dividend tax cut is a distraction from how to get consumers spending right now."

Take a good look at the new map, the new red-and-blue lay out.  The new red is your cross, baby.  Pick it up and save them – or didn’t you get that message, that mission from your kinder, gentler, compassionately conservative God?

1:45:39 PM    comment []