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?
…
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.
…
44 at dawn, 52 now, and headed for 72 (we hit 80 yesterday) and sunny so far. Generated 82.7 KWHs for the month as of last night. Got goats coming today. Goodbye invasive honeysuckle on my side of the fence :)
Hope to catch up with my paperwork today. New procedure means I have to find somebody to walk me through it on two of them. sigh. Mostly I hope to keep busy so I don’t think about the primary until this evening when there will be facts rather than lots of conjecture. {{{HUGS}}}
Don’t worry about our primaries … you can’t do anything about them, anyway! I was pleased to see that a lot of people were Tweeting out phone numbers for people to call if they need rides to the polls, and longer term, voter ids. If turnout is high, hopefully people who want to vote and can’t because they lack an id will get that remedied before November. The youngs are about to find out that Walker and the Republicans screwed them by disallowing UW student ids as approved ids for voting. Maybe that will encourage them to vote in the midterms where elections matter a whole lot but they aren’t very exciting.
Anything that gets our team out to vote in the midterms is good. Better of course would be if they didn’t have to have their noses rubbed in why it’s good, but progressive results are what us pragmatic progressive live for. :)
Morning all – just a quick post today because I’m teaching a makeup class this afternoon at 3PM – ugh, almost like a real work week, class today and then again Thursday! lol But next week is my last class, then just the exam to write and grade and I’m done till next January.
Yesterday and this morning just chock full of Bernie awfulnesss – from his terrible surrogates gone wild (Nina Turner compared members of Congress supporting Hillary to supporters of slavery in the 1860s, last night!), to the laughable interview he did with the NY Daily News. The staff did a great job exposing Sanders’ ignorance – even on his “break up the banks” idea, only the main platform he’s been running on, he showed he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Here is a great storify from Brienne of Tarth on just the banking part – it’s pretty horrifying that this man wants to be President.
https://storify.com/femme_esq/bernie-sanders-says-he-doesn-t-know-how-to-break-u
And, then, this morning, Jeff Weaver said Sanders would NOT encourage young voters to vote for Hillary in the GE – I’m totally not surprised that he wouldn’t, but surprised that his campaign would say so this baldly at this point. Ugh, what a disaster, I can’t wait for Hillary to flatten these guys in NY and PA, and I would love it if she won Wisconsin, even though Giordano is still thinking about a 15 point win for Bernie there (but he’s very unsure about it, lots of wild cards including possible “Bernout”, so he says he wouldn’t be surprised at a narrower loss or even a win for Hillary). So I’m hoping you’re right Jan!
Ok, back to work – have a great day all!
“Bernout”? Oh, Georgie, that’s priceless! I love it!
Good morning, 46 and raining in Bellingham today. Yesterday was fun but very busy. My grand girls want to learn how to sew, so yesterday afternoon we were at the fabric store finding patterns and material, then back to my sewing room to cut out the pattern pieces. Next we’ll size them and pre wash the fabric. Ava thinks there are sooo many steps until she gets to “drive” the sewing machine! And Emma is planning an entire wardrobe….we’ll stay busy all summer.
If all goes as planned our grandson will be here on Wednesday afternoon to spend the rest of the week with us. He sees the hip specialist again on Wed. morning so we’re hoping for good news.
So the youngs came out to vote for their hero and couldn’t be bothered to vote in the Supreme Court race. Because justice is boring and now we will have a woman who thinks that birth control is murder on the state Supreme Court for the next 10 years. THAT is why Wisconsin will never get out of the hole the stay-at-homes dug in 2010 and 2014 … because politics is about celebrity and feeling berns instead of voting in every election up and down the ballot.
Here are the exit polls:
That is a shame, Jan! Just shows you why voting down ballot and being a good Democrat are so important.
The Rethugs have ruined Wisconsin. Its proud history has been besmirched. The wonder is that a lot of people know this and yet still haven’t voted their way out of it. How, for example, did “Dead Eyes Scotty” get a second term?
Because mid-terms are “boring”. They don’t involve stadiums full of chanting people thrilled to be in the presence of “celebrity”. Wisconsin’s governor, like Ohio’s and Maine’s and Florida’s, are elected during mid-term years and the turnout is low. Low turnout favors Republicans because they get that controlling the states allows them to block the good government that might flow down from the federal level. We can elect a Democratic president but when we let states gerrymander GOP districts, we will never win back the House and people’s lives will still be miserable. And eventually people will say “why does it matter who I vote for for president, nothing ever gets done” and the Republicans will have effectively destroyed our country.
I am feeling particularly bitter this morning because I had hopes we would at least have a chance of getting the Supreme Court back in 2018. In some ways it helps me personally because the slim possibility of saving the state from another round of destruction is now zero and I can make plans to leave.
Where are you thinking of going, Jan? Somewhere warmer, I trust? :)
Somewhere bluer. I am tired of the battles and tired of being so out of sync with those around me. With every election cycle the state gets redder and redder and more hateful and, really, more Trump-like. Hillary talked about the Wisconsin Idea when she was here last weekend – there used to be a Wisconsin Identity, progressive, strong on good government, protecting the state’s natural resources, proud. Now we are just another state enthrall to the right-wing ideology, the Othering, the anger.
I am looking east where I have ancestral connections.
Wish you’d move out my way, Jan, but Virginia is just purple, so far. Up in Northern Virginia, where I live, we’re largely blue (and becoming more so, with our international, multicultural population), but downstate is redder than rubies.
One of the benefits of moving generically “east” is that I would be closer to lots of things – even Virginia! I am thinking about Massachusetts which is blue where it matters. It would probably be western MA because I can’t afford to live in a big city – I would like to be close to Amtrak so I can go places without having a car.
Jan, I’ll be interested to hear where your thinking and research leads you, as I’d dearly love to get the heck out of Florida and move someplace further north. I can’t really do anything until my big dog Max passes away, as I need to stay in my big house where I can keep him and Jasper living in separate sections. But I need to start looking now thinking to move by the time I hit 70 in 5 years, or maybe sooner. I have no family anywhere to move near (the only brother I still speak to periodically is in Indiana, no thanks), so I do need to be near or even in a senior housing/graduated care community so I can assure my own care as I age. I’ve been thinking Pennsylvania, where I went to college and graduate school, although I’d love to move back to the PNW, if only I could afford it.
Here is my checklist:
1. Blue state
2. States on the high end of the “smart people live there” scale
3. Near mass transit and regional mass transit.
4. All four seasons but shorter milder winters
5. Won’t be underwater in the next 30 years.
Massachusetts has most of those although if the capital city, Boston, is underwater it would probably impact the quality of life in the western part of the state. :)
It is appealing because it is a train ride to Boston, NYC, Washington DC … a day trip to leaf peeping venues. It is cheaper to live there than here. I grew up in MA near NH and I have some relatives there but none that I have kept in touch with. I might renew acquaintances or find new peeps. It will be an adventure!
Here is a handy chart that shows how each state ranks on diversity, age, religion, college education. You can sort it by category.
Yeah – AR has gubernatorial elections in the mid-terms, too. It’s how we got Asa Hutchinson this time around. AR Dems hate him because he helped orchestrate the Bill Clinton impeachment – but not enough to turn out in the mid-terms to keep him from getting in. (Didn’t help we put up a Blue Dog, but still…) So sorry about the Bradley thing (I think “thing” covers it) – we were keeping track of that in the Hillary-friendly live-blog last night so I knew it was coming, but it still sux big time. WI was a pretty good state once. sigh.
Morning, meeses. Wednesday …
It is 40 degrees in Madison on its way up to 49. It is raining heavily and the forecast calls for rain all morning.
Sanders won Wisconsin in what will be unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Secretary Clinton added to her delegate total even after being outspent 6 to 1. Democrats were nearly split on who their nominee should be but the “independents” voted 71 to 28 to nominate the non-Democrat. Who could have predicted that? New York will put paid to race and we can concentrate on more important things like how devastating voter id will be in November and how awful letting the states go red in 2010 was. It is a hole we may never be able to dig out of because when you let someone disenfranchise your voters, you lose the means to regain a majority.
President Obama announced new rules for inversions and the immediate payback was that the Pfizer Allergan merger was called off. And in Iceland, tax dodging exposed by the Panama papers took down the government, forcing the Icelandic prime minister to resign.
Merrick Garland will still not get a vote, Mississippi went from being a hellhole to being an extremist hellhole (the good news for them is that there will be no boycotts because they have no blue state companies or high tech … just Trent Lott’s rebuilt house), and we live in a country where one of our major political parties is poised to nominate a man who wants to promote religious bigotry and expand the nuclear arms race. I need a nap.
See all y’alls later!
Good morning Meese. Very cold here – 21 degrees.
There was joy in this household last night – hubby’s team – UConn won big – 82-51
Am disgusted with The Burned for ignoring the judicial race.
Here’s the money quote (for me) from Nate Silver
Good morning, all! It’s a lovely day here, 26 F. now, going up to 59 F. later today. Think I’ll defer my visit to the gym until later this morning, seeing that I didn’t get important things done yesterday. We did visit a new retirement community in the neighborhood, which will open in June. This one offers rentals, rather than buy-ins. What bothered me is there seems nowhere to walk, especially nowhere to walk a dog.
Suffering from Bernout this morning. Orange is too poisonous even for a quick look, although I did visit Lysis’ diary over there. I need to wrap up Granddaughter’s story so I can start work on the Shakespeare blog and other projects.
Wishing everyone at the Pond a good day and do try to think of something pleasant!
Ugh, sleepy. Was hoping to do some AIDS Ride e-mail, been sitting here 45 minutes, barely thinking any thoughts at all. I didn’t watch any of the election coverage last night. Much happier for it. Watched NCIS instead. Deepest thought — shame that the writers of that show didn’t mature the Tony character through the years like the Castle writers did with Rick. Both started off as annoying 8 year-olds. Rick is more or less a grown-up; Tony is 12. That’s about the most important thing my mind can cope with.
Clouds moved in last night just after dark so we never dropped below 65 – still there and quite probably will be all day as it’s very overcast (street lights are on) and supposedly we’re going to get rain. I hope so because we can use the water and I can’t generate electricity in this cloud cover so we might as well get some good from it. :) DIL1 just emailed to reschedule the goats – they hate rain.
Aside from Hillary’s lead (and sanity) there’s no political good news today. Whether we’re talking about the local County level that thank goddess I am no longer in or the WI Supreme Court, just nothing good. But we will survive. We always have. We may – I devoutly hope not – reach a point where we don’t care or even wish we hadn’t, but we will. I need to find a window I can see the hills from. They always comfort me. {{{HUGS}}}
Hi, bfitz, hope you get your needed rain! My fingers are now itching to write a story called “Rescheduling Goats.”
Wonder what it would be about…h’mm.
Glad I furnish you with ideas for stories – or at least titles :)
Good morning, 46 and cloudy in Bellingham. I’ve got the Bernie Blues again this morning. So sorry about the SC election Jan. I was watching the traveling MSNBC team discussion last night and Chris Hayes’ comment that what makes ‘good tv” is not good for our democracy resonates. A smooth voting process and informed, but not ideologically driven voters would be a slow news night for political tv coverage.
So yesterday my son helped me take my 20+ yr collection of Threads magazine and a tote full of how to sew home furnishing books to Ragfinery. It was hard to part with them, but now I have shelf space for the books I’m currently using and a new generation of sewers can find inspiration.
I hope my pool workout will chase my blues away. I know this endless primary will eventually be over, but it “feels” like it will never end this morning.
Princesspat, I hear ya when you talk about parting with books! As everyone within a 10-mile radius knows, I’m still distraught from having to part with so many during The Great Downsizing six months ago.
And even though we’ve decided to stay put, I’m still too dispirited to put the books we did keep back on the shelves. Ditto with our original artwork.
I wish I could find the so called joy in simplifying and downsizing Diana. I’m trying, but it’s really a hard transition to make. We want to live here another 10 years if we can and cleaning out some of our accumulated belongings will make it easier…..if we can just do it!
Ron is trying to sell the last boat motor but he can’t quite do it yet. And I’ve barely dented my fabric stash.
I hope your books and art will find their back into your home soon.
Have you considered getting with the “quilt sisters” regarding some of your fabric stash? You know it would go for some really good stuff, if it’s appropriate for quilts.
I’ve asked them bfitz, but they were choosing fabrics with personal themes. Most of my fabric is home decor fabric and even when washed it is to thick for most quilt projects. When I get to the boxes of lighter weight cottons and flannels I’ll ask them again.
That makes sense – I’m not much of a seamstress myself (minor repairs like sewing buttons back on or dealing with small rips in places that don’t show) but I used to make quilts, the tied kind, and I had to learn the hard way about what was and wasn’t appropriate fabric for turning into quilts. :)
Princesspat, is there a so-called “Stitch and bitch” group in your area? Wonder if they’d be interested in your fabric stash. Or, have you tried Freecycle?
Good early afternoon all! I can’t comment at length, although I did above on Jan’s comment about moving someplace bluer – I’m in that quest myself! GOS is indeed quite toxic today – I can’t see any effect at all of Kos’s efforts to make it more sane, and I don’t know when it’s going to get better. Thank goodness for the Hillary safe space diaries from Lysis and the rest of the crew that do the mid day and evening ones, plus the primary night ones from El Mito – if not for them, I’d never go there.
I’m hoping some real vetting of Bernie is now starting in New York after that disastrous NYDN interview in which he revealed his ignorance and total lack of readiness to be ..well, even a Senator, frankly. I really want Hillary to crush him there, and I don’t like seeing these polls showing it closer than 10 points.
All right, have to go get some cleaning up and class prep done – have a great rest of the day everyone!
Hillary is sick of Sen. Sanders’ nonsense:
He is getting a free ride on the infrastructure built by the Democratic Party and he needs to be called out on his refusal to help downticket Democrats either by fundraising for them or campaigning for them.
Absolutely right, Jan.
I’m still awake, can’t get to sleep after tonight’s avalanche of Bernie nonsense, using the false excuse that Hillary said he was unqualified to be President (she never said that, a total lie) to then list a bunch of reasons why he thinks SHE’s unqualified to be President. I may have more to say tomorrow, but what is striking me (and I suspect many women) about this is that he lists policy positions and votes of Hillary as reasons she’s not qualified. That is the most sexist way you could use that information – a non sexist statement would be to say she’s wrong, I disagree, she’s the wrong person for President because of all these positions she has taken. But no, he had to say “she’s not qualified” – that goes to the heart of her life’s work, cheapening and demeaning her experience and accomplishments. Ugh I’m not expressing myself well, no wonder, it’s 3AM and I teach in 8 hours – I’ll check back tomorrow when I get home. But this thing exploded all over the internet tonight, it’s going to be interesting tomorrow – no, later today actually.
Worse, many of the “disqualifications” would also disqualify President Obama:
He is intent on selling the Nader line, that “both parties are corrupt”. I hope we have learned something about letting just anyone use the Democratic Party infrastructure to run for president. Sanders seems bent on destroying it on his way out. :(
p.s. There is no way to walk back his statements. He has no intention, and maybe he never did, to try to unify the party after his primary run is finished.
Good morning, meese! Thursday …
It is 35 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 45. Cloudy skies are in the forecast.
Today the president will be in Chicago at the University of Chicago School of Law to talk about Judge Merrick Garland and the SCOTUS vacancy. At this point, the writing is on the wall: the one Republican who said that there should be hearings backtracked after the teaparty threatened to primary him. So, really, even if hearings are granted, any Senator who voted to confirm, or even voted for cloture, would be primaried. They would all rather go down with their sinking ship. President Obama will not get his nominee confirmed but he will have successfully made Republican hypocrisy and obstructionism a campaign issue. My hope is that he withdraws the Garland nomination when the current SCOTUS term ends at the end of June so that the nonsense of a lame duck confirmation after the Republicans lose the Senate is not in play. Once the general election starts, our nominee will have the issue teed up and can make her own nomination in January.
Don Blankenship, murdering CEO of Massey Energy, will go to prison for 1 year for killing 29 coal miners. That is the maximum sentence allowed and while it is woefully inadequate, a year in prison for a man like Blankenship will cause him quite a bit of suffering.
Let’s see … oh, yes, Cruz is not much loved in New York – he is coming in third. The headline question I saw was “Does Wisconsin signal a shift in the GOP primary or is it an outlier?” Actually, both! The GOP has signaled that will do everything they can to deny Trump the nomination. But it is an outlier in that the Cruz win cannot be replicated elsewhere … so Cruz cannot win outright and it will be on to the convention. Grab popcorn.
A really important thing happened yesterday that is being lost in the noise. The Department of Labor finalized the rules on conflicts of interest protections for our retirement savings accounts. More here from the DOL: Department of Labor Finalizes Rule to Address Conflicts of Interest in Retirement Advice, Saving Middle-Class Families Billions of Dollars Every Year. From Nancy Pelosi:
See all y’all later!
Good morning, Moosekind! It’s 51 F. this morning and raining hard here in NoVa.
Was up until 11:00 p.m. last night, putting the finishing touches on Granddaughter’s birthday story. This included putting in illustrations. The document threatened to become unwieldy, so I created a separate document, called a “Linkography,” where I stashed the Wiki links and YouTube links. I didn’t know what to call that document, really: it didn’t list books, so “Linkography” seemed as good as anything. I created a .pdf file for the story.
The publisher sent the “proof” of my latest yesterday afternoon. They’re not galley proofs in the traditional sense, it’s just a copy of what the book will look like. So after the gym today I really must get to that, do some laundry, and do the things I’ve been putting off.
I’m so disgusted with St. Bernard I really feel ill. Georgie, we understand what you were saying late last night—no need to apologize. Cruz is too disgusting for words, but I just read an article in Google News from five-thirty-eight that implied he’d be the Rethug nominee. Gods, a choice between a vulgar buffoon and the reincarnation of Torquemada? I can’t name anyone who actually likes Cruz.
Got to get dressed—I may need to drive the child next door to school. Later!
Cruz’s polling against Hillary, by the way, is the same unvetted polling that shows Sanders beating Trump or Cruz by larger margins – Cruz is Generic-Not-Trump-Republican, completely unknown. One thing about Ted Cruz is that the more you get to know him, the less you like him. He will repel about 35% of Republicans PLUS if he is the nominee, the 40% of Republicans who voted for Trump will be ticked off and either stay home or vote third party. Either candidate is a disaster for the Republican Party.
I’ll be so happy when primary season is over. Ugh. Happy to see several people saying he lost their support. And the funniest comment: “Bernie is turning into a Bernie Bro”
Today, I swear I’m sending AIDS Ride e-mails. And leaving early to take a check to the Ride office. But first — the trailer for Star Wars Rogue One……. oh yeah. And brain is playing happy bouncy Hozier: Someone New
41 at dawn, 54 now, and heading for 70 or so. We got sunshine! Just over 119 KWHs for the month as of last night. (Wish when we get cloud cover we’d actually get rain – not quite bone dry here, but I’m going to have to start watering if it doesn’t rain soon. Yesterday all we got was a few sprinkles.)
B.S.’s b.s. is getting more than tiresome. He’s trying to do to us what the Rs are doing to themselves. Goddess please save us from two “brokered” conventions – although ours can’t really be a brokered one since Hillary has the delegates by an unquestionable margin (except the Bros question it all the time), but it certainly can be broken. Not thinking anything positive about B.S. at this time.
So. Hang on. NY will show all the sane Bernie people that there’s no chance for him. We’ve already got some Bernie folks who can do math tentatively showing up in the Hillary diaries to see if they’re welcome. We’re doing our best to be very welcoming. But we’re also venting in our “safe space” so I’m not sure they believe us. I hope so. Anyway, I’ve got stuff to do so I’d best get to doing it. Have a good Thor’s day. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 45 and mostly sunny in Bellingham today. Our grandson is with us for the rest of the week…..so good to be with him and see his recovery is really happening! We met at a halfway point yesterday and stopped at the tulip fields on the way home. He is transitioning from the crutches and I have my cane so we found grassy paths to walk on enjoyed the flowers, sunshine, and just being together.
We’ll do something with the cousins today, and he’s hoping for a kayak ride with his uncle, then an easy dinner and early to bed.
I’ll join him with the early to bed because thanks to Sander’s unqualified (quote, unquote) remarks I tossed and turned last night as well. Sander’s red faced shouting and arm waving is getting to me in a personal way!
I stayed up way past my bedtime and then woke up at 2am feeling unsettled. We had a new moon last night and I am hoping the dark will be cleansing … leave all the negativity there and settle in for the waxing light. I suspect that this latest dustup is the death rattle of the Sanders campaign.
Geordie, here is an article by Paul Waldman at The Week that touches on geographic sorting:
Certainly we are doing the electronic part. If, or when, we do the “pick up and move” probably depends on our ability to ignore the people around us who we are out of sync with. That is probably less possible when the state governments start stripping away rights such as ease of voting and/or federal government programs that require state opt-ins like the ACA and food stamps.
Good morning Meese – am headed to Providence RI today to the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting – am on a panel tomorrow morning which will be discussing 2nd wave feminism.
Sigh – I hate the long drive!
Will be back Saturday evening
Safe travels, Dee!
Safe travels and hope you enjoy the panel.