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Knots and Nuts

I will tell you what retired old geezers do:
I have just spent half an hour tieing a knot in a string.

You know what the little gadgets are like: they unscrew, where a nylon washer keeps a simple little knot in three strings from slipping out of the knob, except that the factory knot slipped out.  "I can fix that!", I said:  "Piece of cake!" 

I used every tool I own, except for one of my snow shovels, and I used that to scoop up the waste pieces I created. 

The State of the Union address last night was easy, in comparison.  All Barack Obama had to do was to tell us the truth:  He almost did that, except for telling us that we have two wars we don't need, and never did, and that we cannot have all the things we want and need if we are not willing to pay for them. 

The most bone-headed idea in decades is that if we simply cut taxes on the people with most of the money, everything will be fine.  We tax working people pretty heavily, although we pretend that sales taxes and social security payments aren't really taxes. 

The second most stupid idea is that, in a recession, with millions of people out of a job, we should stop spending money and balance the budget.  It is precisely in situations like this that responsible government spends money to create jobs and stimulate the economy.  Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under similar pressure, tried the Herbert Hoover solution of cutting back services and stimulus programs, and realized the result was stagnation. 

We need to build trains, and develop wind power.  We need to invest in educating and re-educating ourselves.  We need to make our educational system a world-class system by getting rid of bad teachers and by paying really good people to teach.  We need to lend money to promising small businesses that have a chance to reinvigorate and redirect our economy.  Our miserable health care system is a crime against humanity.  It costs us twice as much per person as that of any other developed nation, and we do not even cover millions of people.  We should not turn health care over to insurance companies, and we sure as hell should not unleash investment banks to invent more ways to transfer money from dim and greedy investors to the people who own and run the banks. 

See?  I know how to do all those things!
I just have trouble tieing an overhand knot.

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