Well, who knows what will happen over the next few days. But my fears that people would be cowed, as they were in the lead-up to the Iraq War, have been largely assuaged. People are not cowed, they see this plan for the stinking turd that it is, and there is a wide range of reasonable counter-proposals (mostly in the form of modifications to the existing proposal, some small, some large) in play.

Here's what Calculated Risk is saying today:

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/09/krugman-cash-for-trash.html

Obviously, he's linking to a Krugman post, so I won't bother with that here; I think Krugman's assessment is spot-on, and I'm pleased with how concise and to-the-point it is.

I continue to urge you to write to your Representative and Senators urging them to stand their ground while under pressure to sign off on this proposal. This _has_ to be modified and there is crazy time pressure. With the election coming up, your Representative and any Senator(s) that are up for re-election desperately need to hear _from you_ what you think about this so they don't get snowed by someone trying to summarize public opinion for them.

Went to acupuncture again, then a prenatal. Poor R. is very stressed because he had to deal with T. at the appointment. Nice to know T. doesn't save up all this activity just for me.

Everything is just fine. We're just running right up against the calendar at this point. So we're starting the process of scheduling a section (*sigh*). The place the midwives recommend is a bit of a drive (same place, same doctor as the VBAC consult), but they don't have a nursery, unlike the closer places. Which is good; people who have nurseries tend to want to use them. A lot. No scheduled slot yet, because the person who owns the schedule went home already; maybe we'll know tomorrow. We're trying for Thursday or Friday.

So, once again, on the clock. We've been down _exactly_ this path before. I keep telling myself that in terms of starting labor in time, things worked great last time. And this baby is in a better position than T. was, which would imply a shorter, less-painful labor.

Think good thoughts my way.

My mother-in-law arrives tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. and can stay through Sunday; my sister-in-law can potentially help out Fri-Sun. Things could all come together in a truly beautiful, logistically amazing way. They could. Really.