It’s been yet another long week, but the light of an all-too-short weekend is starting to peek through from the end of the tunnel. And it’s actually supposed to be pretty warm over the weekend, which will give me a chance to widen the driveway back out again (it’s getting a little on the narrow side). Or maybe I can get some other shit done. I dunno, it’s hard to really accomplish anything in a crappy two days off – especially if you have to go and by materials with an ever-dwindling supply of cash. For instance, I really need to get my other computers over here to the “new” house, but first I need to build a desk in my new office. The plan is to build a ‘U’ shaped wraparound along three of the walls. I haven’t quite figured out what to use as a surface just yet. I was thinking of just using luann over plywood, but now I’m considering just getting some big ceramic tiles instead. I also thought about buying some fake granite laminate, but then I have to deal with gluing it down and trying to hide the seams and, well, I dunno. There’s a lot of fudge factor with tiles. Since the only way I’m leaving this place is feet first (and if the bank gets the sheriff to frog-march me out the door), I only have to please myself (and I’ve learned to settle).
In other news, I’m trying a new (new to me, anyway) online pet food supplier called Petflow where you can schedule deliveries (which they seem to call “flows”). They sell the higher end, organic/human grade type food which we switched to back during the whole Chinese melamine thing, and it’s ungodly expensive. We actually use it to supplement our home-cookin’. The price for a 30# bag of what I get is a fair amount less than what they charge at the pet food store, and they offer $4.95 flat rate shipping (free over $65 or something, which isn’t too hard to do – I ordered dog cookies too). Got the first shipment yesterday, and it seems to be what it’s supposed to be (intact, not expired or anything). You can add/edit/delete the items, how often it ships, etc., whenever you want (so you can go from a heavy flow to a light flow, I guess – or no flow at all, even), and then the shit’s delivered to your door, which is a lot better for me and my swiss-cheese brain than discovering I’m out of food with a couple of hungry dogs giving me “the look.”
So, if any of you dog or cat type people are interested in it, check out the prices to see if they have what you use, and see how the prices are. And, if you use this link, I get $50 or something. And you get, well, I dunno what you get. Something really, really good, I bet!
Of course, I’ve only just started with it, so don’t blame me if it turns out to suck. But, so far, so good.
OK, time to go get ready to be a good little Eloi (though I look more like a Morlock) and face the day.
The economic stimulus, which under the previous Labour government had stayed and reversed the recession, was withdrawn. And the policy course that Republicans insist is the single route to prosperity in the U.S. — massive public spending cuts — was afforded a proof of theory across the Atlantic. Conservatives there enacted exactly what Republicans propose here.
How did that policy fare in the real world?
snip
There was always a fear that the Conservatives were “novices” — that they couldn’t be trusted with the economy. This is almost certainly what deprived them of an outright parliamentary majority. But with their coalition partners, they managed to lay claim to Downing Street — and promptly set about chopping budgets and government at a fragile point in the recovery. Growth fell to .7 percent — and then in the last quarter of 2010, the economy went negative, shrinking by .5 percent. December brought the worst British retail sales in over a decade. A Bloomberg analysis put the situation bluntly: “Confidence plunged.”
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/211762/britain-proves-the-folly-of-gop-economics
Uhoh, The National Enquirer is investigating 2 affairs involving the lachrymose speaker, Mr. Boner.
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/john_boehner_house_speaker_sex_scandal_two_women/celebrity/70110
Protecting Life? New Bill Says Its OK to Let Women Die.” It also provides the disquieting news that 100 members of Congress are sponsoring it, including a handful of Democrats (Jerry Costello [IL-12], Mark Critz [PA-12], Daniel Lipinski [IL-3], Mike Ross [AR-4], and Heath Shuler [NC-11]). This changes the existing law which requires emergency room doctors save every patient, regardless of status or ability to pay. If their status is pregnant, they can die.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/2/4/941263/-The-next-anti-woman-shiny-object:-Allowing-hospitals-to-deny-abortion-care
I know I must be missing something but…if you let the mother die doesn’t this also kill the fetus?