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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Good morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …
It is 41 degrees in Madison WI, on its way up to 60. Sunny skies are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Morning Meese,
49 and raining here in Saugerties
Sigh – I am now surrounded by the scent of wet dogs.
Scanning the news – heart goes out to the families of the children and adults in Oklahoma plowed down, killed and injured by a drunk driver at Homecoming.
That was a terrible tragedy. Stillwater is a pretty small town and I am sure there are a lot of people grieving today.
There is also terrible flooding in Texas. I read an account of a train derailment where the water washed away the tracks and the crewmembers had to swim to safety! The rain was sort of welcome for the drought-stricken areas of Texas but too much all at once is not really a relief.
Am looking at the flooding reports out of Texas now.
Sunday morning notes:
For those who were looking for a transcript of the Hillary Clinton interview on Rachel Maddow’s show, here it is: Transcript: Rachel Maddow interviews Hillary Clinton. It includes the video.
The Democratic Party candidates were at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner last night; CSPAN has the video.
An Iowa poll (Bloomberg/Des Moines Register), shows that Republicans consider Ben Carson as “most electable”. One of those surveyed said that Carson would be best to “heal racial divisions in the country”. Let me translate that for you: “Ben Carson knows his place, just like that other nice Negro, Bill Cosby. All that equality-demanding stuff is very very divisive.”
The debt ceiling will be hit on November 3rd and the Republicans have no plans to raise it. The speaker-in-waiting has said he will rule via the PedophileBankFraudster Rule and not bring any bill to the floor that needs Democratic votes to pass. Defaulting on our debt is a BHD that will cost billions and create huge hardships for our must vulnerable.
President Obama has acknowledged the federal government’s part in the obsession with testing that is consuming more and more classroom time and is of limited value. He has asked the Department of Education to ease rules to help limit testing.
heh – Ben Carson would make things worse – for black folks.
But not if they were “willing” to pull themselves up by their bootstraps!!! The only thing that keeps them from being a doctor and living in nice neighborhoods is their laziness!!! Sigh. The white folks in Iowa are so predictable.
Thanks for the links – I appreciate you making it so easy for me to find stuff! :)
More news:
Donald Trump continues to dig a deeper hole with Latinos
Latino demonstrators were rushed out of a Trump campaign event as a crowd cheered
Have been reading Latino press coverage – and Jorge Ramos announced on twitter that
Trump revokes Fusion’s press credentials at Miami campaign rally
The Spanish language press has also been covering the votes against sanctuary cities by Marco Rubio – and Cruz.
Here’s the story in English from the Miami Herald
Marco Rubio returns to Senate to vote against ‘sanctuary’ cities
I saw Republicans were begging Jeb! Bush to drop out to clear the way for Rubio. For what? They think that Rubio’s name will make the party more appealing to Latinos just like they think that Ben Carson’s skin color will make the party more appealing to blacks. Latinos and blacks aren’t stupid: they see with their own eyes what the Republican Party stands for and there is no place for them there.
Trump has given the Republican base permission to let their freak flags fly. And it is ugly. I read an article a few days ago that pegged the nativist wing of the Republican Party at about 12% of the electorate but a substantial majority of the party. So Trump, or anyone, embracing that will win the nomination. But the big question is if the people who reflexively pull the R lever on election day will be turned off and reject their party’s nominee. It would be difficult because party affiliation is so strong and things that I thought surely would have made them disgusted in the past have not. We probably need to give up on trying to shame Republican voters into rejecting the GOP and tie our message more closely to economics (which party wants to preserve Social Security and Medicare). When push comes to shove, it really is “the economy, all y’all”.
Well said, Jan, and thanks for the links upthread!
Agree that we need to talk more about why to vote for us. I think that will come as we draw closer to the election.
I hope they do pick Rubio – thinking they will rack up Latino support – they are in for a rude awakening. Rubio is a privileged Cuban-American and that will win him very little support with the largest Latino voting blocks – Chicanos, followed by Puerto Ricans.
But they don’t realize that! To them Latinos are all the same: just a constituency to be won by putting the right words together rather than promoting policies they care about. The Republican report put together after the 2012 election said to reach out to Latinos and Women and Blacks … by changing the words! I see the same words, on hate-steroids, with the same ugly images.
Happy St. Crispin’s Day, Moosekind! It’s 55 F. today and raining, going up to 68 F. It’s been a long time since we had any rain, so I’m glad to see it—even though the house would show better if the sun were shining. Today is the Open House from 1 to 4, so we have to make ourselves scarce.
Yesterday we went to look after our latest grandchild, who behaved like an absolute dream. I gave him a bottle and we walked around the ground floor and after an hour he went to sleep. He is adorable!
Concerned about the flooding in Texas, where I have numerous relatives and sad about the drunk driver who killed four people, including a 2-year-old child, in Stillwater. My Goddess, they allow alcohol yet forbid pot. As little as I know about weed, I venture to say that alcohol has caused more death and destruction than pot ever has.
Wishing all Meese a good day!
Good luck with the open house Diana!
Thanks, Sis!
Good luck! My least favorite part about the truly awful house selling experience is having to leave for showings. What a pain! The last time I sold, I did not allow any open houses, except for broker-only open houses. Mostly they are filled with neighbors wanting to see your stuff and people with ill-behaved children messing with your things. With the advent of online listings, people can see the rooms, get the facts and contact the broker directly.
The good news is that since you are moving from house to rental, it is the last time you will have to do this. When I sell this house, I will be going to rental as well. I don’t need the headaches of home ownership: lawn mowing, snow removal, blah blah blah. I want to live in a place where I don’t need a car and where I can walk to, or use reliable mass transit to, the places I need to go.
Hope your open house went well. Did you bake something good before you took off? :)
I’ve just fired off an email to one of my cousins in the Houston area. Hope to hear back from her soon. Floods alternating with droughts are the “new normal” of global warming for pretty much the western half of North America. We’re right on the eastern edge of the new dry line so we don’t get either one as severely but we still get them. And yes, alcohol and driving are a deadly combination and always have been. As my sister knows only too well – her only son would have been 44 in 2 weeks if he hadn’t been killed by a drunk driver at 17. Basically drunk drivers go faster AND have messed up depth perception. Stoned drivers go slower so even if they aren’t entirely sure of where they are and where they are going, they are easier to avoid.
Glad you had fun with your newest grandbaby.
DIdn’t bake anything, bfitz, although I’m contemplating baking bread today.
I got up for my workout & when I opened my computer, coach had called it off after I went to bed last night. So I laid back down for an hour. I’m so glad it was canceled because Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on Al Sharpton’s show — for 2 segments! Just so cool. And Star Talk is back on TV starting tonight.
Today: church then cooking. I should probably find a way to make up for 2 day’s worth of exercise.
Morning all! Warm but not stultifying here yet. I need to watch the JJ Day dinner speeches, thanks for the link!
If Democrats would wholeheartedly commit to preserving and expanding Social Security and Medicare, and showcase all of the Republican party plans, from Ryan to Carter, to demolish both programs, I believe it would go a long way toward bringing out our base to vote, especially if coupled with a strong economic and racial justice platform. The problem is that the DLC wing of the Democrats has never been really committed to preserving either program without changes that might seriously damage them – the Steny Hoyers of the party keep trying to find common ground with the Republicans on “curbing spending”, when what we need to do is tax the wealthy. This is really my main hesitancy about Hillary, but I’m hopeful that she’ll come round closer to Sanders on the importance of expanding Social Security in light of the decimation of private pensions for most working people and the inability of most to make up the losses of the Great Recession in their retirement savings plans.
Good luck with the open house! Have a great day everyone!
I have noticed that even Steny Hoyer has been coming around to the idea that “Republicans are not our friends” lately. Or at least his rhetoric suggests that.
I agree with you: if we can peel away those recently retired, and getting ready to retire, and show them that one party would like them to retire with dignity and one party would like them to die and die quickly (who can forget the “cuddly” Alan Simpson calling retirees “moochers”?).
Time to dust off this oldie but goodie now that Paul Ryan will once again be the face of the Republican Congress:
WOW, that is some commercial! I’d heard about it but never seen it before. Very well done!
The people from the Agenda Project, who, as you can imagine, got quite a bit of right-wing guff after this, did a presentation at NN12 which I attended. These kind of ads are very effective. I hope they do more for the 2016 cycle.
Hillary is not nearly as DLC as people think she is. Bill was it’s true although he’s learned better now but Hillary was supporting Bill and not the specific “DLC” agenda Bill was supporting. As to Social Security, which Hillary does want to expand, especially at the low end (which can easily be managed by changing the percentage match for the first $30K), while taking the cap off would be the fairest thing to do the only necessary thing is to get the economy going again. More jobs and higher pay brings more revenue into the Social Security Trust Fund without changing anything. Again, part of her goals/plans.
When you say “changing the percentage match for the first 30K” I’m not sure what you mean? Are you talking about paying for it through a change in the employer/employee contribution rate for the the first 30k? Or are you talking about something in the benefit formula? I wrote a proposal a few years ago for the Rockefeller Foundation on how to change the benefit formula to increase benefits for single elderly beneficiaries (which would of course disproportionately benefit women), but I’m not sure if that’s the kind of thing you’re talking about?
I am sure that anything that benefited women was filed quickly into the circular file.
Isn’t the the biggest bone of contention the Chained CPI, the formula that “smooths out” the consumer price index and ends up reducing benefits for Social Security recipients, taking money out of the pockets of people who need every penny to get by? I remember seeing that the calculated loss from a change like that, because of compounding, would be pretty significant over the course of a person’s retirement lifetime: “If you’re 62 and take early retirement this year, by age 92 you’ll be losing a full month of income every year.” When they say it will only cost a “few dollars a month” they hope that we don’t have a calculator.
I saw a report in 2008 from a Senate study showing that removing the cap on Social Security would make the fund solvent for the next 75 years. That would be a quick fix and maybe sometime before the fund runs out, a formula to keep it permanently solvent can be devised.
There are only a handful of private pension plans left and they really come with no guarantees unless you think ERISA will remain solvent forever. The government pension funds in states like Wisconsin are making an increasingly attractive target for raids by red state legislators needing to balance the budget after handing huge tax breaks to the wealthy. People are already relying too much on the stock market with their 401ks in mutual funds … we need Social Security, a government guaranteed earned benefit, to keep our elderly out of poverty.
I hope “the olds” realize that the snake oil that the Republicans are selling to “fix” Social Security by means tests and raising the already-too-high retirement age will destroy it. Unless everyone pays in and everyone collects, it becomes “welfare” and a target for elimination.
It’s inline with the Rockefeller Foundation one (you wrote it? wow!) – Hillary’s up on all the ways it can be made better (and is aware of the ways it can be made worse) and that’s the type of plan she’d like to follow.
BTW – I’m not trying to “sell” Hillary to you, just reassure you on some of your concerns. I don’t mean to be pushy or anything.
Oh no no, I’m really interested in anything I can learn about what she’s advocated, so I was really interested to read this. It’s just I’ve spent my whole professional life working and then teaching about, Social Security, retirement and pensions, so, you know, like to a carpenter, every problem can be solved with a hammer, I tend to look at every candidate thru the prism of what they say and think about Social Security lol.
Raising the cap on the wage base (for contributions but not necessarily benefits) would indeed resolve a lot of the long term financial shortfall – the wage base was always supposed to cover 90% at least of wages in employment covered by Social Security, but because of increasing income inequality it now only covers about 80-85%. It sounds like a small percentage difference but because the payroll tax applies to virtually every worker in the country, the revenue really adds up.
I never thought about the impact that income inequality would have on the fund. So essentially, if more people are earning more up past the cap and the middle is squeezed out, the fund has less money. That makes sense … and now I have something else to worry about!
Good. I don’t want to be pushy in my enthusiasm for Hillary. But she – and I’m afraid the country – will rise or fall based on people knowing what she’s actually done/said. (In some cases they also have to know about the circumstances but mostly just what she’s done all her adult life.) I’m VERY interested in her plans for Social Security – and what her Plan B is if Congress is as dysfunctional when she gets in there as it is now – because my retirement is basically Social Security (I’ve got approximately 1 year’s equivalent salary in my TIAA-CREF and that’s it for non-SS income). At the current estimate and full retirement (2 years from now) my gross monthly benefit will be $1,200. She’s not talking theory to me, she’s talking grocery bill.
Raising the cap would be the fairest way, although it would need to be phased in. The fastest would be a WPA/CCC type jobs program. The most permanent would be rebuilding both the Middle Class and the pathway to the Middle Class from below. The best would be a combination of the above.
Good morning, 50 and partly cloudy in Bellingham today and the leaves are still falling so we should clear the sidewalks and take another truck load to the compost place. I feel like my boys did when they were young and knew raking leaves was their after breakfast project. They managed to have some fun regardless so we need to remember that as well!
RonK is cooking today, getting ready to go to Lake Chelan with his brothers for a few days. They all enjoy good food but have planned so many activities they didn’t allow much cooking time so he’s taking a tortilla soup that is tasty and ready to eat. And in honor of their mother we ordered apple and blueberry pies from a local bakery. She was an excellent baker and always had a pie ready to serve.
Good morning, princesspat! Sounds like a busy day … don’t work too hard!!
Already hit our high of 65 today and on the downward slide (to 45 overnight) – baked pumpkin ginger muffins this morning. Also made refried bean and Spanish rice soup plus a pork, pasta, and veggie soup for lunches the next couple of weeks. Picked up a couple of library books I’d requested, cleaned house, and split firewood so aside from dinner tonight and getting my work clothes ready for next week, I’m pretty much done for the day. Which is good because I am pretty much done for the day. LOL. So I’m going to take a break and follow those nice links Jan gave us. :) Have a good rest of the day. {{{HUGS}}}
You did a lot, bfitz! Hope you relaxed to the max afterwards! :)
y’all northerners are going to laugh: I wore short sleeves to church this morning & was so cold coming out that I went straight home & put on long sleeves. It was 57. Tomorrow at 6am, it’s supposed to be 58, I’m setting out a long sleeved shirt for my morning walk.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 40 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 62. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast. I caught a glimpse of the nearly full moon when I went downstairs to retrieve my coffee this morning.
Speaking of nearly full moons, the Republicans will be baying again on Wednesday at a debate on CNBC set in Colorado. The cast of characters will be essentially unchanged but Trump will surely go right after Carson since the last two polls in Iowa showed Carson either ahead or tied. Over the weekend, Carson compared pregnant women who terminate their pregnancy to “slaveholders” . Yup, exactly like “a brutal system that trapped millions and millions of people in bondage for over 200 years.” Ben Carson knows only two analogies, slavery and Nazis, and uses them for everything he disagrees with. He needs some variety, as one Twitter wag suggested:
Carson also advocated for eliminating Medicare (I think it is like the Holocaust?) which Trump immediately jumped on, Tweeting that he would save both Medicare and Social Security. It should be a lively debate and I may actually watch it on TV rather than Twitter.
Busy morning here … see all y’all later!
Don’t get me started on Dr. Ben.
Caricaturist DonkeyHotey has a great image
https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/16385336237
One of my Favorited Tweets from last night:
Good morning Meese
Dogs got me up at 2AM to go out ……grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Getting my midterm grades in then headed off to school
39 here in the Catskills going up to 54.
Scanning the news – I see comedian Jimmy Morales won the election in Guatemala – his shtick is making fun of indigenous people and blacks.
Ugh.
bbl
In other election news, Louisiana voted for governor: the Democrat won 40% of the vote and David “Diaper” Vitter came in second with 23%. Since no one got a majority, there will be a runoff on November 21st. This state could easily be a Democratic pickup although I don’t know how Democratic John Bel Edwards is. If he is a Mary Landrieu Democrat, they have little in common with the national Democratic Party. But Blue is Blue and it will look good on our resume. :) We have a halfway decent chance of keeping Kentucky’s governorship Blue as well (they vote next Tuesday, Nov. 3rd).
Was just reading about progressive Donna Edwards campaign in MD
Donna Edwards ahead in polls but far behind Van Hollen in fundraising
Am rooting for her – wish I had some spare cash to send – hopefully next month I will.
Donna Edwards would be an upgrade over Van Hollen, for sure. I also heard that Rep. Elijah Cummings had not completely ruled out running for the Senate seat. But he is 64 (I think) and that may work against him.
What I read is that Edwards does not have a natural constituency like Van Hollen because of the way her House district is configured and it might be difficult to win a statewide election without the head start he has. I just hope a Democrat takes that Senate seat and will pull for whoever wins the nomination.
Don’t know what Cummings will do. Edwards has strong backing from LBGT community – and in black communities in MD – so we shall see. I agree that we need a Democrat to hold that seat.
Good morning, Meese! It’s cloudy here today, 42 F. going up to 62 F. It looks like rain, but will it? Woke up to the news of the horrible earthquake in Afghanistan–Pakistan–India. There has been some loss of life, unfortunately.
Dearly is going to work so I’ll have the house to myself this morning. I am going to WRITE! Got a story due November 1 and have not written it, owing to the exhausting goings-on here.
We don’t know how the Open House went. The realtor texted us that we could go home shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday. We spent the afternoon at Younger Son’s house. He and the family went out shopping. The realtor and her apprentice left before we got home, so we have absolutely no idea how many visitors came, if any, and whether there was any interest. There was a quick viewing on Saturday; we later heard from our realtor that the couple didn’t like how all the hardwood floors were “different.” We had the floors installed as we could afford them. The lower level is the same. The ground level has one kind from front door through kitchen all the way through the family room, and the top level has the same floors throughout all three bedrooms. I can’t imagine objecting to such a thing! But then, all cars look alike to me as well. The only reason I can ever find my car is that I’ve memorized the license plate.
Enough about that. Jan, if the house doesn’t sell, we are going to remain here until we joss it. We never want to go through this again.
Been peeping at GOS, finding to my fascination that the Bernie supporters all left after his speech at the JJ dinner in Iowa, as did he. Clinton and O’Malley stayed on after their speeches and shook hands with supporters.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond!
Was reading the same comments Diana – over at Iowa blogs.
Let us know when you find out how many people came.
I heard that same thing about the Iowa JJ dinner. It worries me that Bernie’s followers are less Democrats than Berniecrats. That is NOT how you build a party. I would love for him to have a speech where he extolls Democratic Party principles so that he gives his followers “permission” to vote for the eventual Democratic nominee if it is not him. The party building that Hillary mentioned in her Rachel interview and her speech at the JJ dinner is more than just lip-service: it is how we get our states back and get Congress back so that we can pass laws that make people’s lives better. President Obama had the 111th Congress and passed the ACA. The next Democratic president will probably have the Senate but will be unlikely to have the House unless the Republicans in the tightly gerrymandered districts built after the 2010 shellacking decide to throw the bums out; I am not holding my breath. But we need to pick up some more seats and that means running as a Democrat and spreading out your coattails for everyone downticket.
Since Sanders has never been a Democrat, maybe it’s not surprising he doesn’t really think in terms of building the party.
Exactly. It is the source of a lot of concern for me. The 50 state strategy devised by Howard Dean helped get Barack Obama elected and gave us Congressional majorities. We need that again, not some lone wolf candidate with a philosophy and a plan to energize millions of grassroots peepuls who will somehow change America by wishin’ and hopin’ (and shoutin’?). Sorry to be so negative about this but it reminds me of the Occupy Wall Street movement that started with a concept that had great promise, the 99% v the 1%, and refused to work within the Democratic Party to effect change (“elections are for chumps … burn stuff!!”). The Republicans would like nothing better than for us to spend our energy cheering for unicorns rather than doing the hard work of GOTV.
Yes -“the hard work of GOTV” – I will now quote myself “The revolution will be slogged not blogged” All the idealism in the world, blog wars and passionate rallies will not change the electoral map – that has to be done – precinct by precinct, door to door, face to face getting people registered and out to the polls. Period.
Holding the good thought – Divine Order – for your housing/lodging situation.
I saw the same thing re: Bernie and his supporters. Lysis had a diary at GOS talking about how Hillary is splitting fund-raising with the state Dem committees as part of her efforts to help down-ballot races. (The diary was immediately invaded by Bernie trolls – I am making a conscious differentiation between supporters and bots/trolls/anti-Hillary we don’t care what the subject is people – saying either that a) she’s lying or b) Bernie’ll be better at GOTV so it doesn’t matter. sigh)
I saw that. I also saw friends who are Bernie supporters getting attacked by other so-called Bernie supporters who I think are trolls.
I’m starting to think they really are trolls and not really Bernie supporters at all. They don’t even really say specific good things about Bernie, just general “I agree with his positions” in the few moments they aren’t attacking Hillary. What Hillary is doing will benefit whoever is the Dem nominee. I think/hope/pray it will be her. I think the time is right, not from an “entitlement” stance but in the same way the time was right for FDR, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Each time there was an ungodly R mess to clean up. The latest R mess is so ungodly it will take 16 years to clean it up.
Walked 1.55 miles this morning. Long sleeves, it was below 60. No bursts of running – the combination of having 4 days off & the sudden cold, I didn’t think it advisable (my lungs rate running, they hate cold more — and mornings have been 70 or warmer so 50 feels cold)
Still have U2’s cover of Everlasting Love in my head.
There’s a matching opportunity for the Walk tomorrow, I may write a diary once I see what it is.
Here is an interesting article about feminism and the 2016 elections: Gloria Steinem talks Hillary, Carly, and the women’s movement in 2015. The interviewer is Shirley Leung, the author of the piece:
There is more to the interview; she makes a point about how the contributions of black feminists was minimized:
Morning all – thanks for all the great news and clips. Diana, I so hope you’ll get an offer on your house soon – the selling process is always unpleasant, except on those TV shows where the handsome Canadian real estate agent always seems to sell the house immediately.
That quake in Afghanistan is just awful, as is the whale-watching boat sinking near Vancouver Island, and the latter is more immediately relatable to me as I lived in Seattle for a few years and took my nephew out on a boat like that when he visited me. So awful and sad.
I’m listening to the clip of Hillary in Iowa and she sounds great! On the Social Security issue, yes the “chained CPI” has been the big proposal out there for a few years, and the focus for most Social Security advocates. It’s part of the undercurrent of the political elite in DC that for decades has been dismissive of the importance of Social Security – when I was working on Social Security on the Hill, I used to make speeches saying the support among policymakers for Social Security was a mile wide and an inch deep, and I don’t think that has changed much. But it’s one of those issues that public opinion matters more on than the slick political operatives think – members pay attention to the issues their consituents most strongly express wishes on, particularly where there’s no particular lobby putting money in their pockets on something like gun laws. Social Security is STILL the third rail of American politics, and we can’t let that change.
Have a great day everyone!
We need to make sure that Republicans and Democrats remember that grabbing the third rail will kill them. And we need to make sure that seniors, and those who would like to someday be seniors, remember to keep the electricity running through that rail.
The Chained CPI is what happens when our Congress is filled with millionaires and people who have never worked with their bodies. For example, the idea of pushing the retirement age to 70 could only be formed in the brain of someone who works at a desk job … someone who has never worked in a factory or had a job where you have to be on your feet for 8 to 10 hours. It is not just Republicans although I notice the empathy gene is missing completely from them, but some Democrats don’t get it either. Changes to Social Security that would negatively impact benefits should be off the table. Period.
Someone who worked at a desk job that didn’t include fairly regular data entry or “power typing” as I spent half my adult life doing. I had to quit my last data entry job on day 4 – by noon my hands and wrists were so painful I was literally crying. That was 18 years ago. I truly thank goddess my current office staff position, while it of course includes keyboarding, is more looking stuff up – lots of looking stuff up and then putting the information found into one-page reports or spreadsheets. I can (usually) handle that.
I hang out in AARP forums from time to time – heh – third rail is right – better not mess with folks checks – and they are all voters.
50 when I got up heading for 70 today in Fay., AR – still cloudy but seems to be clearing off. More rain in the forecast but whether we’ll get it or not remains to be seen. Sinuses acting up giving me a not-quite-skull-banging headache which I hope caffeine will fix. Hope everybody’s week is starting well. {{{HUGS}}}
Hope you’ll feel better soon, bfitz! Think I’m starting a headache of my own from the house crap. Going to make a cup of Gypsy tea.
Thanks. Good thought. Hope it helps. (What’s in Gypsy tea? I might try that instead of so much coffee.)
Sorry bout the sinuses – hope you get rid of the headache soon!
Good morning, 52 and partly sunny in Bellingham today. I’ll go to the pool this morning and then I hope to finish my sewing project. I’m easily distracted by the garden however, and I’ve got a pile of curly willow branches to clip so I suspect I will do a bit of both.
Good and bad news from the PNW re whales…..
Experts have high hopes for baby orca’s survival
5 Britons killed after whale boat sinks off Vancouver Island
What on earth could have caused the capsizing during a calm, clear, sunny day? I hope it was not an angry or unhappy person deciding that they had they right to take the lives of others because they were miserable. :(
Yay, baby whales!! Keep us posted, please.
Our boat was just 28 ft so it felt very small on the big water. It’s alarming when a 65 ft boat just sinks as a boat that size seem less vulnerable. But the water is powerful, and even though Bellingham Bay seems “safe” boats sink and lives are lost.
Gods, that’s awful about the drownings. Horrible! When we visited British Columbia two years ago I thought it the most beautiful place in the world. We saw orcas, too, diving happily through the blue waters of Swartz Bay when we crossed from Vancouver Island to the mainland by ferry.
I loved being on the boat and suddenly seeing whales and porpoises swimming by. But I did not like worrying about being in the water with them! Being in nature in a small boat was an experience I’m glad we had, but I’m relieved it’s over.
Good morning – it’s Tuesday and I’m up early again – dogs went out at 3AM and I can’t get back to sleep.
Saw this posted as BREAKING at orange
De Blasio Plans to Endorse Hillary Clinton
My morning radio NY talk-politics panel discussion is going to be very lively today.
Wow! That’s a bit of a shocker. I think that De Blasio is pretty far left of Hillary Clinton on many issues. Maybe he was swayed by her assertion that she is a progressive who wants to get things done. On the political spectrum they are called Pragmatic Progressives, pragprogs for short, and there are quite a few of us. Progress is sometimes slow but it always involves working to change the government from within, by electing the best POSSIBLE people even if they are not pure.
I am sure you saw the awful video out of South Carolina. I am sick of law enforcement not policing their own and seeing young black people grabbed and tossed around like bags of garbage. I had been scanning the news from my phone after supper and came across the story and started playing the video. My daughter looked over my shoulder and said “they would never have done that to a white girl”. And she lives in a post-racial society! (insert snark emoticon here).
I think de Blasio is worried that he is going to get a mayoral challenge (it’s in all the NY papers) – and ignoring Hillary – who is a power in NY winds up being really dumb.
He ran Hillary’s Senate campaign – so this looked even dumber.
His battles with Cuomo have played a part in his silence too.
Yup – saw the video – yet another travesty, and am writing about “being” while black in the US for Sunday
Gods, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that video! The goddamn cops watch too many “tough guy” cop shows on TV and think they can behave the same way in real life. Goddess alone knows the trauma that poor girl is experiencing. The kind of treatment she received at the hands of that animal would have been appropriate for a member of Daesh, but certainly not for a young, defenseless girl.