Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Dec. 31st through Jan. 6th

December 30, 2017 JanF Community 122

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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– Page One of Comments is HERE!
 
– Page Two of Comments is HERE!

 

51 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 10 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of … 10! Mainly sunny skies but clouding up later this afternoon. Still bitterly cold.

    I was on Twitter last night scanning the news when the shitgibbon swung his tiny, er, button at North Korea, bragging about the size of his nuclear arsenal. He thinks he is being entertaining but there is nothing funny about global thermonuclear war. He is not acting any differently than he has his entire life and how serious people knew he would behave in the Oval Office. Now that the Republicans have their tax cut I wonder how long they will put up with this. My money is on “forever” but I have a side bet on “sooner rather than later”.

    p.s. Mitt “Self Deportation” Romney will not be a moderating force in the Senate. Maybe a third party will run in Utah and give the Democrat a chance at win Hatch’s seat. I can dream!!

    See all y’all later!

    • Same kind of boots on the ground work that took AL can take UT. Hope the folks up there are already on it. {{{HUGS}}}

      • Well, except that there are no black people in Utah so the dynamics are completely different. There are not enough Democrats there to win a statewide election and the white college-educated majority is not young enough – yet. Our only hope is that the Bannon wing of the Republican Party decides to get someone to primary Romney or that a third party of #NeverTrumpers, who don’t trust Romney to not cave to Trump, mounts a strong campaign. But at least we have a candidate who has been working there for a while. We can’t win if we don’t run.

        • Well, very few black folks anyway – and yes the pop is almost 82% white. But if the various groups who aren’t white and the white folks who don’t “fit the mold” work together using the same strategies the black folks used in AL then UT is flippable. Not good odds I know. But then the odds in AL were pretty bad going in. Gotta try. Having a candidate already working on it is good. :)

  2. Wednesday Meese
    6 degrees here in Saugerties NY – much colder weather on the way.
    I hate going out – but today I have my annual physical – so will bundle up and head to the doc.

    Heard from Dopper – Black Kos will not be back till Jan 12 for those of you who read it.

    This comment in a PR story struck me


    Here’s the story

    • I saw that the two Senators from Connecticut, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, flew into Puerto Rico and met with some of the people responsible for rebuilding. They are not happy about what they are seeing. I hope they can help bring more attention to PR’s plight.

      • Yes – am writing about proposed legislation for Sunday – however it all depends on us taking back the House and at least neutralizing the Senate – or winning over one or two Republicans there if we can’t take it.
        It will help if Trump goes bye bye too – since even if we can get bills passed he has to sign them

        • We definitely need the House to start any legislation – the Ryan House has no interest in legislation that would help people, they will be gung-ho to shred the social safety net on their way out of town. Taking back the Senate is still a reach because we have so many endangered Democrats and, sadly, idiots on our side who will probably primary them.

          But I think that Trump would sign legislation under certain circumstances. It really depends on how it is framed and who speaks to him last.

        • We so definitely need Congress back that I’m saying so in just about every “2020” tweet I respond to. We can get it, too. But it’s going to take the kind of boots on the ground work that got us AL. Depending on how evil the Rs are to give us that “blue wave” never works – no matter how many revolutionists think so. I know black folks know this – the solid foundation of progress and the Dem Party – I hope the various Hispanic groups are working on it. Since this is so much a moral issue I wish I thought the white churches would be on our team this time. But I don’t. Their white male supremacist dogma puts them in the R/evil camp. sigh Only the rare ones who are on the social/service side (the Matthew 25 side) can be counted on to even stay out of the fray. We had the people doing the work in AL. We’ll get that Blue Wave if people in all the states are starting it now/have already started it.

          But once we do have Congress back, we can start cleaning up the mess the Rs made very much as an invading army being pushed back destroying everything they can including poisoning the wells on their way out. High on the list of “messes” to clean up is the one caused by the criminal neglect of Puerto Rico

    • Stay warm, stay safe, and have a good check up. I’ve seen that quote before – sad commentary on America. But not the first – nor I fear the last – time where “fine” means still breathing. RT’d. {{{HUGS}}}

      • Am bundled up – thankfully I’ll be snug at home when the snow that is on the way hits NY

  3. Ice is gone this morning, and it’s finally supposed to get above freezing this afternoon. This isn’t the longest we’ve been below freezing but it is really unusual. So far, I definitely plan to walk after work. One of my bots’ songs made Pres. Obama’s list of 2017 favorites: Ordinary Love. Such a luscious, lovely song. And maybe the sweetest lyric ever: “your heart is on my sleeve — did you put it there with a magic marker? For years I would believe, that the world couldn’t wash it away”

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – walking is good but be sure all the icy patches have melted before you do. Glad it’s at least getting above freezing. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Good morning, Meese, from a bleary-eyed NoVa. Current temperature is 4 F., going up to a whopping 32 F. After a scrambled-egg sunrise, we’re having blue skies partly obscured by a white haze of cloud.

    Both Hubby and I had the night from hell, tossing and turning. Hope tonight will be better. Coffee with Darling Niece is on the agenda for this morning, as well as continued tidying-up of the bedrooms and my office.

    Wishing all a good day.

  5. a thread of glorious insults in Irish Gaelic:

  6. Managed to stay double digits over night – it’s 15 now with a windchill of -1 and sunny. Yesterday was cloudy all day and I only got 3.4 KWHs, m-t-d 11.5, but if today stays the way it’s begun I’ll produce around 8 again which would be very nice. The lengthening days mean green energy on all levels. :)

    I had some weird internet connectivity issues yesterday – Moose was the only WordPress site I could get in – the others timed out when I tried. And many of my searches would pull up a list but time out when I tried to go into anything on that list. At DK I could get to the front page but not to my stream and could only get into diaries if they were on the sidebar on the front page. So far so good today but I wonder what the heck was going on. Meanwhile I called 2 of my 3 congresscritters – I’ll do Cotton in a bit. His staffers tend to have attitude issues so I always put him off til last.

    Online early to get off a birthday wish to Laura, Linda/PDNC’s sister. Need to go do a few things but will check back in a bit. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • Shocking that a terrible person like Tom Cotton would have staffers with an attitude!

      • Truth to tell I was more surprised, pleasantly so, at how nice and easy to talk to Boozman’s local office staffer is. Cotton’s people – “Like master, like man” sigh.

  7. Good morning, 30 and clear in Bellingham. The full moon is shinning in my window and reflecting on the water in the bay. I’m always grateful to see the strong branches of my old maple trees with the moon shinning on them.

    I’m still not breathing very well but I feel less sick so another day of rest and recovery, and that’s progress!

    Thanks to all for your healing best wishes.

    • {{{princesspat}}} moar Healing Energy and don’t forget the vitamin C and garlic soup. :) and yes, naps are good – Healing Energy absorbs better in your sleep. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is -2 in Madison with an expected daytime high of 7. Sunny skies are in the forecast. We have a wind chill advisory until noon but the 5 day forecast is finally showing a “warming” trend starting on Sunday with a high of 30. It looks like they closed down the Northeast because of the expected winter storm. I hope it is not as bad as they predict.

    It should surprise exactly no one that having a reality TV host in the White House has tabloidized the “mainstream” media. Instead of reporting on the looming DACA deadline or the crisis in Puerto Rico or the states trying to mitigate the damage of the awful Republican tax bill or Russians hacking our elections, the front pages are blathering about the Bannon-Trump spat. Republican Senators are laughing at Trump’s threat to nuke North Korea (“He is such a card!”) while continuing to look the other way as the rule of law is placed on life support. The latest is installing a Giuliani friend as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the jurisdiction that includes Trump Tower and the Kushner enterprises. What could possibly go wrong?

    Linguist George Lakoff was on Twitter yesterday re-upping his warning about Trump’s use of tweets. I am not sure I attribute as much long-term strategy to them as Lakoff does but one thing does make sense: his use of tweets to distract. When a massive tweet storm hits, don’t look where he is pointing but look at what else is hitting the news at the same time or the next day. As long as the news is his tweets (and the psychodrama playing out in the White House), people will be reading about that. Yesterday, I would pick out the FusionGPS op-ed as the underreported story that he does not want attention focused on and possibly the Nunes situation and maybe the US attorney appointment or perhaps quietly disbanding the Kris Kobach Kommission. For every word written and posted about the side show, there is one less word written – and read – about things that matter. I am going to ponder how to turn that knowledge into a resistance strategy.

    I woke up at 2am and could not get back to sleep so here I am! I am going to try to get caught up on some end of month paperwork that got pushed aside for the end of year paperwork and set up a work plan for the rest of the week.

    See all y’all later!

    • mad king donald Gish-Galloped to the White House on a highway of tweets – The Rs have been trying to Gish-Gallop their agenda through. The fact that we’ve managed to block and delay as much as we have is a miracle of focus. Which we’ve got to keep up – both on blocking the evil and on winning in Nov.

      Hope you get a lot accomplished and can sneak in a few naps. {{{HUGS}}}

  9. Thursday Meese.
    We are a toasty warm 20 degrees here in Saugerties NY, but are getting ready to be hit by major snow and well below freezing temps. Tomorrow they predict we will be at -6 and Saturday – 11. Schools here are closed, and my husband decided not to go into work – he would wind up stranded in NYC this evening for his return commute.

    Power blinked out twice already – not long enough to cause our back up generator to kick in – it does not bode well for folks here that don’t have them.

    • I am glad to hear that your husband decided to not go in to work. The best place for him to be stranded is at home.

      • Yup. The NYS Thruway – where traffic has to get from NJ through the tunnel into Manhattan is going to be a nightmare.

        Snow is already falling heavily here – looks like about 2 inches so far and it has just started.

    • Stay warm, stay safe. Wish that snow was falling elsewhere. I know Aji’s area needs it and of course CA. But then they could have used the water from the hurricanes, too. Global Warming diverts water from where it’s needed to where it’s not. sigh. Glad your husband decided to stay home. Stranded is not good. Vehicles do not good shelters make in severe weather events. {{{HUGS}}}

  10. PR and USVI

    • RT’d – wish I could do more. This isn’t “insufficient storm response” this is deliberate and criminal neglect.

  11. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s still too dark to tell whether the snow continues to fall, but we’ve certainly had an inch so far. In the DC area it’s the threat of ice as much as snow that makes people here so paranoid. All the schools are closed for the day, and I am going to text my trainer that I’m not going to the gym.

    Right now it’s 22 F., going up to 28 F. Tomorrow will be a deep freeze. We may have more snow on Monday.

    There’s been an earthquake in the Bay area. What a jolly start to 2018, eh? Not to mention Thing’s preoccupation with “nuclear buttons.” My stomach is still roiling at the revelation that Ivanka wants to be the first woman president. Dear Goddess!

    And with that unappetizing thought, I’ll sign off for now. Time to make the early morning tea, although, like Jan, I’ve been awake since 4 and have already had a small cup of tea. Later…

    • Today at 11am Eastern, the Virginia State Board of Elections will run the drawing to see who “won” HD94, the person who tallied one more vote or the Republican who exploited the Republican tilt to the courts to have a spoiled ballot counted. Yesterday, the Democrat, Shelly Simonds, asked her opponent to agree to abide by the results of the drawing and not contest the decision so that the people of the district would have representation on January 10th when the legislature started work. He refused. So now either candidate can choose to request a recount after the drawing and delay the seating of the representative. I hope that if Simonds loses the drawing, she does ask for a recount – if for nothing else, to remind her opponent that rejecting the “honorable thing to do” has consequences.

      • Holding the Good Thought for the VA House of Delegates. Counting a spoiled ballot the way they wanted to read it is voter fraud. There was nothing to show “voter intent” – unlike many a ballot that was thrown out on the Gore recount in 2000 – I’m for counting any ballot where voter intent is clear. That one wasn’t, so fraud by the Board of Elections themselves.

        • I just saw that she lost (I have been off the Internets most of the day). Darn it!!!

          I guess we have one more seat that we can pick up but this seems so unfair. Someone pointed out that Democrats won the total vote 55% to 45% but the gerrymandering gave the House of Delegates to Republicans. I am not sure how we can drain this swamp. :(

    • You also stay safe and warm. Tea is comforting even when nothing else is. (At least to humans. My cat Charlie thinks laps are comforting.) Ivanka can want but the WH isn’t for sale and buying it is the only way she could get it. Sarah Palin wanted it too. Greed and lust for power are hallmarks of the Evil Ones – but they always have been, nothing new there. Good ultimately pushes them back under their rocks. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Cold again this morning — though nothing like you guys have. Though if it was below zero here, imagine how cold it would be in your neck of the woods. I think by tomorrow I’ll even uncover my plants. Four day work week & it seems longer. Next week I only work two days then I’m off for a whole week for my birthday.

    The news is just crazy. It’s as if there’s a bunch of rabid wolverines in the White House. I’m playing The Blackout in my head, not only because I desperately need the energy, but because: “when the lights go out, don’t you ever doubt the light that we can really be”

    • {{{anotherdemocrat}}} – short weeks always seem longer than regular weeks. Only 2 more days of work (counting today) and you can get some more rest. Winter is the time for rest even though our society deems otherwise. And the news has been crazy for over a year. I’ll be surprised when it’s not. and we ARE the Light of the World – your Light is definitely shining. moar {{{HUGS}}}

    • I am not surprised. When your choice is to live as they are being forced to live and possibly/probably dying of hunger or toxic water or water-borne disease or lack of medication or working medical equipment – or dying quickly by your own hand and in your own way, well I might choose the latter myself if I saw no other way out.

  14. Good morning, 33 and cloudy and very dark in Bellingham. I’m sore from coughing but doing so seems to be clearing the congestion so I can breathe. What a yucky cold!

    I hope I can start packing Christmas away today. Ava’s coming to help on Saturday but she also needs to work on a family history project with Grandpa so that takes priority. Hard to believe she is in 5th grade now.

    Time to find some coffee. Hope our world is less tRumpian and more sane today. Take care everyone.

    • Healing Energy – hope things calm down and you get your decorations put up. {{{HUGS}}}

  15. 12 this morning, windchill 2, and sunny. Got a hair under 8 KWHs yesterday and on track at the moment at least to do the same today. m-t-d is 19. We might get up to freezing today – “warming trend” and we’re supposed to be above freezing (for the highs) starting tomorrow and running the next 10 days. Dry as a bone. Wish some of that Atlantic wet would manage to get over the Appalachians – we folks between the ranges (Appalachians to Rockies) need some water. But at least if we’re not getting water, we’re getting sunshine to generate energy of all kinds at all levels.

    Evil Ones being evil. No change. Not gonna either. That’s what Evil Ones do. So we resist, block, push back – and take back Congress. The only way we can stop the evil and start repairing the damage is to get them out of power. Gonna give it a day then call my congresscritters again tomorrow with a different set of issues. Goddess knows there are enough issues to keep the staffers on the phone all day if we didn’t break them up into chunks. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, meese! Friday …

    It is -6 in Madison with an expected daytime high of 7. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Still in the double digit negatives for windchill.

    Congress is back in session and they are negotiating to avert the next shutdown date of 1/19. I see a bit of stiffening in the resolve of Senate Democrats to not give in on a DACA fix – it really needs to be passed by the middle of January. There is no quick fix such as having Trump extend the deadline because he rescinded DACA, it is gone. The only way to get it back would be to issue a new DACA executive order which would be highly unlikely. We still have no CHIP resolution. I hope people are paying very close attention: there is one party who literally does not care if children die of treatable diseases or suffer without needed procedures or surgeries. Those who support Republicans are complicit.

    I am avoiding the drama over “wow, the shitgibbon is really a shitgibbon and the people he surrounds himself with are assholes!” because, really, you would have to be stupid to not know that. My beef right now is with the access journalists who never reported on this because “access”. At what point does saving the country from a dangerous man allow you to burn a source? Some of the conversations I saw on Twitter suggest “never”. Once you base your entire journalistic career on currying favor with the people bent on destroying normalcy, you become them.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Friday Meese

    Much to my surprise it is 8 degrees here in Saugerties. Wind chill 18 below.

    Still nasty on the roads – black ice. I’m not going out till this afternoon – need to go to the store.

    Tomorrow in PR people will celebrate 3 Kings Day – may the Magi bring Trump impeachment this year

  18. Practically warm this morning. I uncovered my plants since there’s no more freezes in the forecast. Eating oatmeal, drinking tea, looking forward to a 2 day work week next week. Brought cookies for a co-worker’s “milestone birthday” celebration today. Here, have Little Things. Not the cheeriest of songs but I love the transition around 3:30

  19. Good freezy Friday, Moosekind! I can still see the three-quarter moon high in a blue sky and the sun is shining on the inch of snow we had. Current temp. is 11, going up to 19 F. later. Must think what to serve for dinner.

    Anticipating the new book on Kindle at 9 a.m. Can’t believe what’s come out already.

    Today will be another day of scrambling to get the house ready to receive guests. My niece from Australia and her partner will be arriving Sunday, as far as we know. They’ve been in New York all week because the partner’s paintings are being exhibited there. We haven’t met him yet. As it’s high summer in Australia they must be pop-eyed from the cold here!

    Time to go down and prepare the low-carb breakfast. Dearly Beloved is ecstatic, as I made the same breakfast for him. Normally he gets eggs and bacon only on Sundays.

    Wishing a good day with no ghastly news for all at the Pond.

  20. Depending on which weather widget I look at it’s either 23 or 31 with a windchill of 21 – either way it’s cold, just not as cold as it has been. ‘Spozed to go up to 47 today – lows still below freezing but the highs projected to be high 40s and even low 50s for the next week. Which is the new normal – and at least will allow me to do a bit of outside work with my neighbor tomorrow. Sunny at the moment. Got 7.6 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 27.1 – January 2016 we got 236.75 so that’s the “meet or beat” target. We shall see what we shall see on that. Energy use and firewood use as well as money-use are uncharted territory now. I’m sure I’ll use more now that I’m retired but will have to see how much more.

    Evil Ones being evil – and we just (“just”) need to keep working on pushing them back. They are the aggressors so they won all the early battles. They are the aggressors so they were prepared to go to war. But we’ve managed to deflect and block a lot more than they thought we could. And we’re still “mobilizing” – we outnumber them, we’re stronger than they are and our top force is still being put together. We’re still taking losses but we’re fighting back and we’ll take fewer over time. I just wish I thought we’d address breaking up the 5-RW corporate consortium that controls the media. Blaming the actual journalists and correspondents for doing what they’re paid for is exactly what their bosses want. We need to free the media – change where/how their paychecks come – before we can have a free media.

    There’s a fundraiser over at DK for medical bills and funeral expenses for twins in the family of a long-time kossack. Teenage twins who were undiagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Hunter died, Logan looks like he’s going to make it. Physically at least – heavy load to lose a brother, almost unbearable load to lose a twin. Anyway, here’s the link to the diary – https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/4/1729929/-A-Child-Has-Died-A-Family-is-Grieving-and-Needs-Your-Help – and here’s the direct link to the YouCaring site (which was put up while Hunter was still alive) – https://www.youcaring.com/nicoleweddingtonandtjchandler-1055600?fb_action_ids=1800893069921040&fb_action_types=youcaringcom%3Ashare

    Need to check in with the Villages and twitter – then bring in firewood and get more coffee. :) Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

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