Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 16th through Aug. 22nd

August 16, 2015 JanF Community 97

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

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NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

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40 Comments

  1. Portlaw, two more Senators came out in favor of the Iran deal, Sens. Reed and Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The total is now 23 and we need 11 more to block the veto override. Corrupt Sen. Menendez of New Jersey came out against it, as expected.

    Here is Sen. Reed’s and Sen. Whitehouse’s statement:

    “As this debate continues, I urge Americans to pay less attention to over-heated rhetoric and, instead, listen to our leading scientists, active and former military officers, diplomats, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and non-partisan experts who’ve studied the facts and concluded that this agreement is ‘stringent,’ ‘technically sound,’ and ‘the most effective means available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.’”

    Mitch McChinless admits that he has probably lost:

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is acknowledging that he has few options to block the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

    President Obama has “a great likelihood of success” in an upcoming congressional faceoff on the deal, the Kentucky Republican said on Monday, according to reports.

    The comments appear to signal Republican leaders’ reluctant recognition that the math required to override a potential veto of legislation to kill the deal remains slightly out of their grasp.

    Though not a single Republican has yet been willing to support the agreement, an overwhelming majority of Democrats have lined up to support the deal.

    I guess we will find out next month.

    • Rhode Island has always had remarkable senators and Reed and Whitehouse are no exception. They are are superb senators. Wish we had them here..

      • We have one right now and hope to elect a second one in November 2016. I was relieved to hear that Russ Feingold will now accept help from PACs. In 2010, he took the purity position and eschewed any monetary help from the DSCC or other interested progressive PACs. So Ron Freaking Johnson’s Club for Growth owners blanketed the airwaves with lies. There was no way that even a popular Senator like Russ could overcome the negative ads in a Republican wave election year.

        He is currently ahead in the polls by 8 points and won’t do his David and Goliath routine. That might have worked in 1992 but it won’t work in the era of obscene amounts of dark money. He can be pure later … we can’t drain the swamp until we have control over the pumps and hoses.

  2. Good morning, Meese! Cloudy today, with thunderstorms expected this afternoon. It’s a horrid, steamy 77 F. right now, going up to 85 F.

    Got on the scales this morning for the first time in months. Was so appalled that I have resolved never to eat again. No, just kidding! Starting the day school begins, when I won’t have child care all day, I can go for walks and eat porridge for breakfast. That should help.

    Also appalled by the thought of Cruz shutting down the gummint in September and by the way the male chauvinist media keep harming on those effing emails of Hillary’s. My FB newfeed pointed out that both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice had private email servers and no Rethugs lost control of their bodily functions because of it. So sick of this mess I feel like retreating from politics altogether and concentrating on my private life.

    To borrow Portlaw’s charming close—wishing a good day to all creatures great and small!

    • Ha!! ” I have resolved never to eat again”. I have tried that and, sadly, it doesn’t work. Someone pointed out once that it is (relatively) easy to quit drinking and smoking because we don’t (really) need alcohol and cigarettes to survive. But food is both necessary and fun. Walking more sounds like a good plan … I am waiting for Fall weather to make that a more attractive alternative to sitting on my duff in the air conditioning.

      The email stuff is a great boon for Republicans. Probably 98% of those reading the story don’t understand it and so they can be swayed by the headlines screaming “Secret emails! Stonewalling! Lies!”. Even the Benghaziiiiiii committee guy said, when asked by a Fox “News” personality what the the emails had to do with Benghazi, said “Nothing, really”. It is a partisan witch hunt … emphasis on the word “witch”. It will, like all Clinton scandals, become a nothingburger in the end and then they will go on to the next one. Here is a Tweet I read last night:

      Oliver Willis ‏@owillis
      “when we finally get all those emails, no chance president clinton survives re-election” – conservatives, mid 2018, probably

      Focus on that. :)

    • Agree regarding emailghazi – but then, it’s always been OK if you’re a Republican to that crowd, no matter what “it” is. As to losing weight, the simplest – I didn’t say easiest, I said simplest – is to trade out ounce for ounce grain for veggies. You eat the same amount of food, so your body doesn’t try to sabotage you, but the calorie load can be up to a magnitude lighter depending on which grain you are swapping with which veggie. (Rice is 110 calories per ounce before cooking, carrots are 11.) Good luck.

  3. Good morning, 65 and sunny in Bellingham. My sister feels well enough to drive so she’ll return to Oregon today where she has rented a small carriage house near our daughter. Her plan for the summer was to visit family and create art in the studio space that comes with the house so I hope she is able to do that now. We did a test drive yesterday to see if her wrist and new car driving skills seem safe and relatively comfortable. I wish she would wait another day but she’s ready to go.

    The older grand kids will be here today and have a bike riding adventure planned. My kids rode their bikes all over this side of town but I’m nervous about letting the Ryan and Emma do the same so I’ll meet them at the bookstore for lunch and then drive to the park and read my book while they ride the trails and explore the beach. My main concern is the car traffic on two busy streets but there are good crosswalks and they know to take their time.

    Here’s the link to my sister’s website. We’re all so fortunate to have her paintings in our homes.

    http://maryellenstewart.com/webroot/

  4. Our high for the day in Fay., AR was 75 at 0031 – currently drizzling and 66, slowly dropping – expected low tomorrow at 0600 is 49. I thought it was August. :) Actually I thought it was September because I always think it’s September when school starts. You’d think after all these years I’d get with the program. Anyway, I spent much more time than I should have writing a bio of myself as a comment in a diary over at GOS that asked for it, and then read the comments and felt totally out of place as nobody else did. Actually felt dumb but that’s neither here nor there. Having spent that much time over there, I need to get back to work ASAP but will check back when I can. {{{HUGS}}}

      • I don’t think so, but here’s the link to my comment:

        http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1413404/57330091

        It’s a very long comment but a very short bio :) The diary’s purpose was to get people to give their backgrounds pretty much regarding race – for those of us who are white and for those like the diarist who are light enough to “pass” especially dealing with when and how (and I guess if) we finally got what white privilege is – so that’s what I was the aspect of my life I was trying to cover.

        • Thanks for the link, bfitz, just read and enjoyed your comment. You’ve had an interesting life, girlfriend, with lots of changes! Wishing you all the best.

          • Glad you enjoyed it. I’ve never really thought of my life as being interesting, but as you are well aware it’s hard to live over 6 decades without seeing lots of changes. And wish you all the best right back.

  5. Good morning, Meese! Thursday …

    It is 59 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 69. Cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I’m on deadline so I can’t stay.

    Three more for Iran anti-nuclear deal. Angus King, Ed Markey, Joe Donnelly. A Voxplainer on the deal’s chances included this on Donnelly:

    Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly — the second-most conservative Democrat in the chamber, according to one political science metric — came out in favor of the deal Wednesday. Before this, Donnelly had given little public indication of how he’d vote.

    While stressing that a nuclear-armed Iran “would pose an unacceptable threat,” Donnelly said in a statement that he owes it “to the men and women of our Armed Forces and to the people of Indiana to have exhausted every other option to stop Iran before we would consider putting any of our servicemembers in harm’s way.”

    We are at 25 now and need 34 to block overriding the president’s planned veto. When it gets closer, my guess is that it does not even pass cloture. No Democrat, except Schumer, wants to be seen dissing the president of their party and if their pro-Bibi vote is going to be wasted anyway, it may not be worth the political fallout. The vote is September 17th.

    And this: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Josh Duggar.

    Tech note: WordPress keeps nagging me about updating to the latest version (a security update) so I will probably do that early Sunday morning. If the site is not available when you check in, try back later. These things usually go seamlessly but this will be our first update since going live at the end of May and there is no way of telling how well our customizations will fare except to just plunge in.

    See all y’all later!

  6. Good morning, Meese, and happy Thor’s Day! It finally rained, during the night, approximately 12 hours after the “thunderstorms” were predicted. This has been the most wildly inaccurate year of weather forecasts I can ever remember. And they never apologize for getting it wrong, never. Today they allege there will be “more thunderstorms” this afternoon. I’ll believe it when I see it. Sniff. Current temp. 74 F., going for a high of 84 F.

    This week I managed to get rid of a tiny portion of the junque in our garage by Freecycling it. Hope the Downsizing Consultant can tell me what we can actually sell.

    Thanks for the tips on losing weight, bfitz and Jan! I can’t seriously start doing anything until the first week in September, when I’ll no longer be preparing lunch for four people and one dog. Lunch hour is chaotic in this house. They all want it at once and I’m the last person to have time to eat—so I just grab anything handy, with, of course, disastrous results.

    The world situation still sux this morning, and the political scene does too. Wishing all at the Pond a good day!

    • The main time-consuming thing about replacing grain with veggies – or fruit – is you start with a food diary so you can just what, and what portion sizes, you’ve been eating. You have to know what you’ve been doing to be able to successfully change it. :)

  7. Good morning, Meese, from a hot and humid city.

    Good news about Donnelly. Thanks. Think Schumer and Menendez will be trouble when it comes to overriding a veto. That President Obama has to veto it is beyond belief. The rest of the world thinks we are crazy. They are probably right.

    As for the news….St. Louis. Horrible. How much brutality can people bear?

    I was on a bus yesterday and the woman sitting next to me began telling me how Donald Trump is the only one telling the truth. She then said he wasn’t presidential material but people who want the truth should listen to him. And then she got off the bus. I was stunned.

    Hope it’s a good day for all creatures great and small.

    • I have been reading about Trumpmania in order to find out what is causing it (other than outright hatred of The Other) and it is a complicated thing. People have been looking at who these folks are and find that a significant number of them are people who are upset with the GOP establishment candidates, like Christie and Bush, who want to take away Social Security and Medicare. Trump says he wants to protect both. So you have the nativist fringe and the hands-off-my-earned-benefits folks (who the teaparty found common cause with in 2009) creating a lot of support for Trump. Of course, Democrats will also protect people’s earned benefits but we won’t scratch their deport-them-all and whats-wrong-with-shooting-blah-people itch.

      It will be interesting to see where it all ends up. What I am keeping an eye on is where the business wing of the Republican Party ends up. They are the opposite of the Trump base: they want immigration reform that keeps the undocumented workers here and they hate what they call “entitlement programs” and want to privatize, voucherize and kill them off. They are irritated that the social issues are getting in the way of their push to cut taxes and end regulations. I guess they have to decide how much money to put into the Republican Party and if they might find that holding their noses and throwing their lot in with Democrats might make more sense. They certainly don’t want government shutdowns over social issues like defunding Planned Parenthood. It will soon be time for them to fish or cut bait.

      • Here is Ed Kilgore in the piece I read yesterday about “entitlement” reform:

        I’ve often called it the “dirty little secret of Republican politics:” the “entitlement reform” schemes embraced by most Republican politicians and supported with near-religious intensity by bipartisan business elites are not at all popular among rank-and-file Republican voters. Indeed, as Republican constituencies have grown older, they cling to “their” Social Security and Medicare benefits with considerable self-righteousness, viewing them as benefits they’ve already paid for and otherwise “earned.” It’s no mistake that the most successful Republican “message” on entitlements in recent years has been the attack on Obamacare for “raiding” Medicare money. And even though most of the media attention paid to Donald Trump has dwelled on his extremist positioning on immigration as the main source of his appeal, it’s worth noting that he’s repeatedly rejected “entitlement reform” as a policy goal and scorned other GOP politicians for supporting it.

        He links to a piece at Vox and both are worth reading to understand the appeal of Trump and why we can’t pooh pooh it.

        Trump is relying on angry white voters who see their world changing in ways that frighten them. That group alone can’t elect a president but it can surely nominate a Republican candidate for president. The concern is that, if packaged cleverly, it could resonate with voters from our side who might hold their noses and vote for their pocketbooks instead of their sense of fairness about how we should treat minorities and immigrants.

    • Good afternoon Meese,

      Sorry to be so late – but am embroiled in messes atm – and writing for deadline.

  8. Back at work. Tonight is the kick off party for the Walk, so that’ll be nice. I brought my t-shirt from the 1st Walk to wear.

    Woke up the usual 4 times last night. Ugh. Drinking strong tea & playing California in my head to stay awake.

  9. 51 at 0600 this morning in Fay., AR, not quite the 49 promised but chilly enough for me to need gloves and a scarf when I walked in. We’re moving back into summer by tomorrow but this was definitely a reminder of my problems with winter (Raynaud’s) as well as the joys of (relatively) decent sleep and no A/C. Trying to get caught up and not doing well at it. Of course I’d do better if I kept off the blogs :) but I’ll get it done. Have the good Thor’s day – may he bring rain to those who need it – and {{{HUGS}}}

    • we were supposed to get rain last night & today…… nope, and we really need it

      • I talked to my son last night and that’s what he said – that you folks haven’t seen rain since the floods last Spring. Oh, what a difference being a little further north and a little further east makes! Hope you get some rain soon.

        • we got about 15 minutes of rain; of course in the middle of the workday so I hadn’t moved my plants out to get water…..

          • That doesn’t sound like enough to do more than increase the humidity. sigh. Holding the good thought.

  10. Good morning, 65 and cloudy in Bellingham this morning. My sister is safely back in Oregon, RonK has a bird watching talk and walk planned for today with Ryan, the grand girls want to be here as well but are not interested in birds……we’re so fortunate to have such issues to resolve!

    My internet security program (Kaspersky) has been nagging me to change the router password so yesterday afternoon I finally updated our router and changed the password. But then I couldn’t change it on any of our devices/computers so after realizing just how many kindles, phones, iPads, etc this family has, and not being able to make the wireless printer connect to anything I went to see Justin and with his advice changed the password back and now everything works again. Big relief!

    The bonus of my visit to Justin’s computer shop was playing with Ollie, his new border collie puppy. He is going to “puppy school” so it was fun to see all he’s learned. I miss having a dog, but visiting grand puppies are all I can manage now.

    • I fierced this and it says “already fierced” but the sign still says “0” Oh well, may the fierce be with you.

  12. Good morning, Meese! Friday …

    It is 55 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 82. Mostly sunny skies are in the forecast.

    Time to put the “Scott Walker will win the Blue States” meme to rest. Marquette Poll:

    (Red line=Unfavorable view of Walker, Green line=Favorable view of Walker)
    Hillary Clinton beats him by 10 points. Thankfully, my fellow Wisconsinites are not Trumpopulists and only give him 9 points in the poll.

    Sad news about former President Jimmy Carter. Apparently they have made a lot of progress with treating his form of cancer but there is still no cure.

    See all y’alls later!

  13. Good morning, Meese. It’s humid with thunderstorms hovering all around us.

    Already running late so best wishes to all in the Pond and Beyond!

  14. Good morning Meese

    It was pouring so hard a few minutes ago – the dogs refused to go outside – and I don’t blame them.

    Well, this is my last weekend before schools starts – am teaching on Mondays and Thursdays.

    Scanning the news – booooo @ Jeb!

    Latinos Outraged By ‘Anchor Baby’ Term, See It As Offensive

    2:08

    Any GOP hope that time would ease the sting many Latinos felt when Donald Trump opened his campaign by deriding Mexicans may have been quashed by Jeb Bush and his use of the term “anchor babies,” which drew swift criticism from many in the community.

    The phrase is used to describe American citizens who are children of parents not born in the U.S. It has been used to describe both children whose parents are not legally here and those of legal immigrants.

    Bush’s use of the phrase, which predates the campaign and is used regularly by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, set off a firestorm and questions of whether the term is derogatory.

    Ummm – yes it is ugly/pejorative

    and yet another slap in the face to Latin@s – good show Jeb and Rs – keep right on alienating Latin@s

    Trump has used the term as well, giving more fodder to Democrats.

    “From the depths of my heart, I look at someone like Jeb Bush, who really should know better and that all I can think of is the Spanish term, sinvergüenza, which means somebody who is completely without shame to attack children this way,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

    Sanchez, the daughter of immigrants from Mexico, pointed out that her parents had seven children in the U.S., including two who are serving in the U.S. Congress and are “law abiding and tax paying.”

    Like other children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, “I’m a citizen of the United States. Does that make me an anchor baby?” asked Sanchez, D-Calif.

    • That was not lost on Secretary Clinton. In response to Jebbie’s “give me another name to call them!”:

      Hillary Clinton ‏@HillaryClinton
      Se llaman “bebés,” “niños,” o “ciudadanos.”

      :)

  15. Good Freya’s Day, Meese! A beautiful morning here after a little, much-needed rain yesterday. It must have rained a bit during the night, too, judging from the drops on the windowpanes and the wet spots on the patio. It’s 66 F. here in NoVa at the moment, going up to 85 F. We may be able to open the doors and windows today.

    Yesterday, in my endless quest to find something to occupy Babylicious, we came up here to my office. He then discovered the joys of stomping on bubblewrap. It sounded like gunshots going off! My poor husband was awakened from his nap even though the doors to my office and the bedroom were closed. If Baby doesn’t go into day care in September I’m going to grab the first plane to Tibet and take up permanent residence at a lamasery. I’d rather turn prayer wheels than chase after a toddler all day.

    Enough of the moaning, sorry. There are real problems in the world this morning. Hope all who are troubled will find relief, and I also hope it’s a good day for all at the Pond.

  16. Had a nice time at the Walk kickoff yesterday. They had me stand up in the “talky” part since I’ve done all the walks. That was sweet. They’re going to have me come in to the office with all my shirts & take a picture.

    Woke up the usual 5ish times last night. So tired. And one of my co-workers quit yesterday. Not on my team, thank goodness. But the people working on our new computer system…. I feel bad for them.

    Anyway, eating beans & drinking tea & playing California in my head.

    I should change my password, because the work computer is the only place I can log in, since it remembers it. I keep looking at the log in & counting the characters & I can’t imagine what the word is…

  17. 60 rather than 50 at 0600 in Fay., AR this Friday – still needed my gloves but didn’t need the scarf which suits me just fine. Gonna be cool enough today I could leave windows open for the kitties which makes them very happy (and less fussy which makes me happy). Still, at my age better kitties than kids – as Diana in NoVa is being reminded :) – as best I can figure out, you have to keep handling kids from the time you’re in your teens all the way through grandmotherhood to be able to deal with the little guys when you are a grandmother, otherwise your nervous system shifts into “non-kid” mode in the interim. Got lots of stuff to do so I’d best get to it. Will check back if I can. {{{HUGS}}}

  18. Here is a great YouTube showing how video can be edited to make the people in them say whatever you want them to say:

    Majority Ohio put it together from an anti-Planned Parenthood news conference their elected officials held.

  19. if you need a good laugh, check out why Jonathan Franzen is trending on Twitter – people are just tearing him to shreds, and rightly so – scathingly funny

  20. Good morning, 63 and sunny in Bellingham today. Ryan’s dad just arrived and they are headed to the county fair for the day. We’ll have a barbecue dinner here tonight so my plan for the morning is to rest and enjoy the quiet!

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