What Will It Take

Conservative blowhards are still continuing to find fault in everything the U.S. President is doing, despite the fact he seems to have been doing a MUCH better job than his predecessor.

The Berating Just Keeps Coming
Do you think conservatives will ever take a step back, do a pragmatic comparison of this president's accomplishments and admit perhaps he's not been a terrible blight on this county up until now? My favorite laughable complaint I've heard from Republican senators is how programs like the "cash for clunkers" program will grow the economy on the backs of our children and grandchildren by leaving them an outrageous national debt. I hate to tell them, but their beloved Iraq war already had us in debt up to our eyeballs...re-invigorating the car industry, getting higher-polluting cars off the road and stimulating the economy might be something we'd really prefer to spend our money on...rather than trying to impose democracy in a place where we have no business being.

Will conservatives continue to focus all their efforts on looking for any possible reason for criticizing him?

At first, the new president had no "executive" experience (unlike the vast executive experience of the former Governor of Alaska) and would turn the country into a shambles while he learned on the job. That didn't happen

Then, the country was doomed because Obama and Pelosi would unleash their radical liberal agenda. That didn't happen.

Then, the terrorists were going to take advantage of a weak, inexperienced president. That didn't happen.

Then the entire economy was going to go in the toilet. That didn't happen. In fact, quite the opposite, the economy seems to have rebounded quite a bit.

I understand that the publicity whores like Hannity, Limbaugh and Coulter earn their bread and butter by coming up with these dire threats to our very democratic existence, but where are the level-headed conservatives who REALLY would like to see our country thrive? Are they all so desperately attached to the moniker of conservatism, that they'd prefer to see this president fail, just so they could get another of their guys in the White House?

Please, don't cut off our collective nose, just to spite our face, and maybe...just maybe, cut this president a little slack?

Current Knitting
I was able to finish the handspun pullover vest this past weekend.





I added a relatively simple collar (although it took two attempts) and I did an even simpler edging on the armholes.





Overall, I'm very pleased with how this came out. I was hoping that the yarn would have bloomed a bit more when I washed the garment, but it's a minor complaint compared to how nice the vest feels to wear.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Janet in Dublin writes, "Hi Joe - am curious about the Knitting Retreat in Seattle. Whereabouts is it going to be? I'll be moving to Ballard in October - too late for the retreat - and besides I'm a grandmother. Would like to meet some fellow knitters. Maybe you could have a unisex retreat."

The retreat is this coming Thursday through Sunday (I'll be flying out Thursday morning). I can't imagine I would ever attempt to compete with all the other unisex knitting retreats that already exist. Meg Swanson's Knitting Camp, or even the most recent huge Sock Summit that took place in Portland, Oregon do knitting retreats far better than I ever could. I'll let them do the unisex events and stick to my little niche in the knitting world.