Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Jan. 21st through Jan. 27th

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.

 

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

 

36 Comments

  1. Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …

    It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 30. Mostly cloudy skies. We got a dusting of snow overnight, maybe an inch or two but it appears to have stopped. The original forecast had called for it to snow well into the morning.

    Good news out of Pennsylvania! The atrocious gerrymanders built by deplorable Republican legislators (is that redundant?) were declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court. “State” means no appeal or a new federal case, there is no U.S. Constitutional issue involved. The net result based on what I have seen is that we will pick up two seats and a couple of Republican seats will become a little safer for them. I am fine with that trade-off.

    The heat being directed at the Democrats in the Senate for folding their hand for this round is not particularly surprising. It is pretty much the modus operandi of the left of the left and I have seen it since 2004 when I started watching politics more closely. The problem is that you can’t win with the hand we were dealt and the Republicans knew what we had so we couldn’t bluff. The bottom line is that one of the hostages has been released (the 9 million children who desperately need access to health care) and we have a commitment from a big chunk of the Senate to work on and pass a DACA fix. The House is another issue – there are not enough “moderate” Republicans to force leadership to bring a bill to the floor. But right now the Republicans have gained nothing except a two week reprieve and headlines claiming a major victory for them and Democrats in Disarray. Virtual birdcage liner. The last chapter hasn’t been written yet.

    See all y’all later!

    • The Extreme Left has never cared what we got, just what we didn’t get. And apparently when they were kids they got what they wanted by throwing temper tantrums instead of their privileged little asses getting whooped.

  2. Don’t miss RonK’s photo diary: Sharing a Salmon Lunch with a Bald Eagle

    Granddaughter Ava and I drove up the Mt. Baker Highway along the Nooksack River where chum salmon were still spawning and steelhead abound. We started at the Nooksack River Salmon hatchery at Kendall Creek adjacent to the river. There are typically salmon around the nearby spawning streams this time of year, especially those close to the Nooksack River. Where there are salmon spawning, there are spent carcasses and where there are salmon carcasses, there are Bald Eagles. Who can blame them?

    • Sweet note from Ava last night……

      Hi grandpa this is Ava and I just read your blog about the salmon and the bald eagle and I thought it was really good you described the day really well. And thank you for taking me on the trip it was really Funtime go with you !!!👍🏼😊

  3. Actually needed a hat & gloves this morning, but 60s again this afternoon. I got re-tweeted by Joy Reid last night! Just a thank you to Lawrence for highlighting how McCaskill’s motion on military pay was so masterful. But wow, my notifications….. Anyway, oatmeal & tea. Yesterday, Michael Hutchence should have turned 58. Drugs are stupid & evil. Here’s a sweet song he should still be performing.

  4. Good morning, Moosekind! We had rain in the early hours and it was supposed to last until noon. Don’t think it’s going to, if the state of the sky is anything to go by. Gray, but it looks as if it’s clearing. Current temp. in NoVa is 55 F., going up to 63 F.

    Was exhausted yesterday after taking care of Mr. Toddler. He has more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen! Even after a full morning at the playground, he did five somersaults in the family room. At three o’clock I finally just put him in his bedroom, shut the door, and went downstairs. Elder Son made me a cup of tea to keep me awake on the drive home, after which I escaped.

    It was frightening to hear about the earthquake off the coast of Alaska this morning, but luckily there wasn’t a tsunami. Hope everyone was safe.

    Another busy day looms, so I’d better go down to breakfast and get to it. Wishing all a good day.

  5. Arghhh!!! I hate change! I have my FireFox set to “never update” but this morning I was warned that the version I was using (56.0) had a security risk and I needed to update. Fine, I said, how bad could it be? It turns out that it is a major interface change called Quantum from back in November and the Add-on that I had been using to make 56.0 look more like the pre 30.0 versions no longer works. It is too BRIGHT and makes my eyes hurt and it has the stupid flat look that everyone went to a few years back. I want depth! I am an old person!! So now I will spend the morning googling to find a fix for something that should never have been broken.

    Also, get off my lawn!

    • OMG, Jan, I hear you! I don’t like updates either and am still doggedly using Yosemite on my Mac. In my experience updates RARELY benefit the end user. When my son-in-law put Yosemite on, I had to Google frantically to restore “command space” and my scroll bars. Do not ask me to do without scroll bars, ever, Apple-crazed engineers.

      Hope you were able to fix it.

      • I spent a lot of time googling and found that the program hooks (called APIs) that the author of the Classic Theme Restorer had been using were gone and that there was no way to replicate the “take me back to the good old days” feature that a half a million people were using. The author had some code changes that could be installed that would allow for some of the settings to be tweaked but CODE! The only reason I went to the new version was to comply with the security issues – do I want to add someone’s program code to my browser?

        I will research more when I have time. I would settle for being able to move the address bar up one spot so I can find it more easily (right now it is in the middle) and doing something to make the bookmarks separate, visually. The tabs have a separating vertical bar between each one, the booksmarks need that too. I am a simple person, asking for simple courtesies!

  6. 28 and clear at dawn – 30 and very overcast right now, darn it, heading for 45. Looks to be a reprise of yesterday (when I only got 3.3 KWHs generated) instead of the clear and 55 that was forecast. sigh. m-t-d is 147.4 – still can make 200 but we’re gonna need some sunshine to do it.

    I truly wish there was some way to muffle the Extreme Left. They got free speech rights like everybody else but they make so much noise they convince some of our less politically astute fellow Dems that we have no leadership, no plan, and no message. Voter suppression by inducing apathy. And of course the MSM is paid to play them up which just increases their noise and makes it harder for us to reach our folk with our actual message and gains. The Extreme Left is as much “Veruca Salt” as the Extreme Right – and to a certain extent as evil since the results are the same.

    Evil Ones being evil – but we’ve taken their hostages away. They have no choice but to address at least the Dreamers and at best comprehensive immigration (and I’d ask for the latter to insure getting the former myself) in less than 3 weeks. I count that as a win. And very good strategy by our experienced Dems I am so glad are in office. The Evil Ones will continue trying to starve us to death – but we’ve gotten millions out of the line of fire/danger of immediate death due to lack of healthcare.

    Gonna go read some other stuff and wander the internets for a bit. And coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  7. Good morning, 46 and raining in Bellingham. I seem to be sleeping in 4 hr cycles, which means being awake for 4 hrs in the night :( The hours of sleep add up but I don’t feel as rested and my days are starting later and later. Oh well, it’s still dark and gloomy outside so I’m not missing much.

    Time to find some coffee. Take care everyone.

  8. Wednesday Meese
    36 here in Saugerties NY – going down to a high of 35. We had a lot of flooding here yesterday – the rains were so bad.
    I have so much respect for Ari Berman – he has focused on voting rights – relentlessly

    More bad news for Puerto Rico

    Deep sadness about this death.

    • The Florida ex-felon voting rights referendum is great news! I was reading the stories yesterday (and yes Ari Berman is a national treasure – I am glad he moved to Mother Jones where I can support his writing) and I did not realize that more than a fourth of all ex-felons disenfranchised are from Florida! If that vestige of Jim Crow had not been in place in 2000, we would not be in the middle of the nightmare that the “election” of George W. Bush created. I hope that 60% of voting Floridians agree that it is a travesty. I am sure that dark money Republican groups will be pumping a lot of cash into Willie Horton Will Vote to Destroy Florida ads come fall. I hope some groups on our side work to get out the vote.

    • So many great tributes to her, the Scalzi one in the LA times calling her the mother of so many writers was wonderful; and NK Jemisin wrote a thread about how much she liked her. 88 seems so young for someone who had been such an influential writer for so long, she must have started writing as a child….

  9. Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …

    It is 23 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 30. Cloudy skies are in the forecast.

    I took one look at the headlines and I think I will give news a pass today. There is nothing I can do about anything I see – the only possible outcome is more anxiety. I don’t see how Congress crafts a DACA fix unless Paul Ryan grows a heart and that just won’t happen.

    I am glad Joe Manchin is running for re-election. If he retires, we lose West Virginia by double-digits and we can’t afford to lose any seats. That is where I differ from the owner of a certain orange site – he trashed bluedog Democratic Senators for years until, surprise no surprise, they are nearly gone! You create a coalition by welcoming anyone who will help you stay in power, you do what you can with whatever consensus you can build and you work slowly but steadily towards your goals. The left-of-the-left plan of “all or nothing” has left us right now with nothing because they don’t understand “steadily”. And people will die.

    By the way, the hashtag and call to arms #MedicareForAll is the worst WORST framing ever and people who use it are creating a nightmare for Democratic candidates. It can be too easily demonized to “let’s put everyone on Medicare and deplete the fund so that seniors lose their health insurance”. Call it #HealthcareForAll or #MedicareBuyIn but keep your hands off my government health care!

    See all y’all later!

  10. Good morning, Meese. Not sure what to make of the weather outside—some indications of clearing, some of cloudiness. Current temp. in NoVa is 38 F., going up to 45 F. Quite a change from yesterday!

    Woke up too early but got some newspaper reading done. Never did I imagine that after 12 years of retirement I would be too busy to read the paper.

    Have a day to do some serious tidying up, which will include polishing the silver coffeepot and salt cellars and putting them away. It’s cold enough for gingerbread, too. Going to make that since we’ll have Miss Pink Cheeks after school today.

    Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!

  11. 22 at the moment and clear – heading for mid 50s. If the wind stays down I may actually take a walk outside today. There’s a “fitness club” 3 blocks from my house, opened just this month, and they participate in the “silver sneaker” program. Weather permitting I’ll go check the smell, noise level, and number of TVs to see if I’m willing to use the facilities. They advertise a salt-water pool which sounds very interesting – especially if the water is warm enough. Yesterday cleared off by noon and I got 8.9 KWHs (3rd highest for Jan so far) and the m-t-d is 156 so that 200 target is still very possible.

    My knowledge of “the news” is what’s RT’d into my twitter timeline. That’s bad enough – as usual Evil Ones being evil and we’re doing our best to stop them. Well, we “center-left” Dems are – there’s a certain group that is assisting them by attacking us. If the enemy of my enemy is an ally, then the ally of my enemy is an enemy. But that particular group while very noisy is also very small. We only need to bring 4% of the “did not vote” group into our camp and get them to the polls and we’ll have made up for their “lost” votes. And definitely keep working on re-enfranchising the disenfranchised – not only is it the right thing to do, but most of the disenfranchised are on our team and would vote with us if they could. They also would give us an edge over whatever numbers the “take my ball and go home” Left have. DACA may or may not make it – but Lyin’ Ryan will have a much harder time holding his people together if the Senate passes a decent bipartisan bill. There are enough Rs who’d vote for that bill his only tool would be to keep it off the floor and it’s possible Nancy Pelosi could get it there. Not likely, but there is a mechanism to do it and she certainly knows it.

    Need to check some stuff out – and coffee of course. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  12. Good morning, 48 and cloudy in Bellingham. Still slow to wake up but I slept long and well last night so I hope I have more energy today. I’ve been sick with this miserable flue for nearly a month now. Makes me feel very vulnerable.

    Danny Westneat, at the Seattle Times……

    Wise up, liberals: Your hand is too weak right now to go all-in

    Listen, liberals: When you’re marooned this deep in the wilderness, a good day sometimes means not getting more lost. The Democrats were fortunate to wriggle out of this ill-advised shutdown with the Children’s Health Insurance Program saved, as well as no additional ground on immigration given up. You should be saying “whew!” and then focusing laserlike on your only way out: the next elections.

    Instead you’re bludgeoning your own. Which means your opponents have you right where they want you.

    • Good observation from Westneat: “a good day sometimes means not getting more lost.” I firmly believe that there are more pragmatic Democrats than unhinged berners but, gawd, are they loud!

      I guess the shutdown optics concerned him. The problem with “waiting until the next election” is that there are people who will be damaged and possibly die in the interim. Plus there is no guarantee that we will win back enough power to force changes in January 2019. My guess is that Danny is a white male with a job and a stock portfolio. They can “ride it out” – others can’t. Democrats need to use every tool in the toolbox to help them even if it looks messy.

      • My guess is that Danny is a white male with a job and a stock portfolio. They can “ride it out” – others can’t.

        Well said and so true, Jan.

      • “Danny” is definitely a privileged white male with a job and a retirement plan probably invested in stock. The shutdown wasn’t ill-advised and we got a very big deal out of it – CHIP, 9 million hostages out of the room, without having to give up on the Dreamers altogether. Just because folks in the media – like him – are calling it a loss doesn’t make it one. I’m holding my opinion on a second shutdown – but when Schumer took the wall money back off the table, last night mad king donald said he’d be willing to sign a bill that gave Dreamers a path (12 year path) to citizenship if it included his wall money. He’ll probably walk that back – but it threw the congressional Rs into disarray which can only be good for us. Chuck and Nancy know who they’re dealing with – and how to deal with him/them. They’ve got my backing on this. I just hope they can pull it off for the Dreamers’ sakes.

    • Awesome! Samantha Bee will bring well needed heat to the issue of Puerto Rico. There are things that comedians can do that politicians can’t. I look forward to hearing more.

  13. Good Thor’s Day morning, Meese! Clear skies at 7:25 a.m. in NoVa; it’s 31 F. now, going up to 40 F. later. Yesterday was so cloudy I thought it might actually rain, and indeed we did get hard little pellets of freezing Something about 5:30 in the evening. It didn’t last.

    My trainer and I are going to try something new, training me at 9 a.m. rather than 11:15 a.m. Neither of us likes that time, but it’s what was available. When it comes to weight lifting, I’d rather it get it over with early. After I get home I have another jolly day of Swedish Death Cleaning to look forward to.

    Gotta be on the road an hour from now, so will stop here. Wishing a peaceful day to all at the Pond and Beyond!

  14. All good health thoughts to Ono. She was leaving Yasu’s when she fell, and she’s in the hospital. They think it’s cardiac, but no answers as of last night.

    Another chilly (by Texas standards) morning — needed hat & gloves. The kickoff party for the AIDS Ride is tonight. I will do my best to be social, but I’m not good at parties. That also means training rides start soon & I’ll lose my Saturday morning sleep-ins for a while. But it’s not 6 month like training for the half marathon.

  15. 42 feels like 36 and sunny this morning heading for low 60s. Didn’t make it over to the “fitness center” yesterday – wind was too sharp – but will try again today probably just after lunch. Got 8.95 KWHs yesterday, making it the new 3rd highest for January, and the m-t-d is 165 with 7 days of production left in the month. My goal of 200 is still very possible. If the sunshine holds today and tomorrow should meet or beat the January 2016 total of 181 which would be nice.

    Interesting that mad king donald decided to stir things up yesterday evening – which he did. Got twitter all a’twitter over it. Most things I saw were nattering about the “looking forward to talking to Mueller” part – when, under oath, not under oath, walking it back and so forth. The part I was interested in is/was the DACA with path to citizenship in that bill with the money for his wall. Haven’t been to twitter this morning yet – just RT’d the tweet in Denise’s comment above – so haven’t a clue what’s happened on that. But as long as people focus on the Mueller part, Chuck and Nancy may possibly be able to get our Dreamers taken care of. Holding that thought anyway.

    Holding the Good Thought for Aji – she’s seeing the specialist today. Sales are way down and medical bills are piling up but she can deal with it, she has before, if she can just get this medical issue identified so it can be properly treated. Also holding the Good Thought for a bunch of folks on the DK urgent needs list (and a few I know of who should be but aren’t). Not much else I can do any longer although people still periodically – like last night – email me asking me to help somebody in trouble. So I pass the info on to basket, bless him, and to others who might can help if it doesn’t have to all be monetary. And worry. Sigh.

    Had a “forced” – as in it wouldn’t let me put it off any longer (I’d been stalling for over 2 weeks) upgrade last night. Took over an hour but so far no obvious problems. I still have sound which is what used to go away every time they upgraded. Changed my “screensaver” or whatever it’s now called picture which I don’t appreciate but that’s life. It wasn’t a specifically chosen picture from a site or anything, just a picture I liked. Anyway, need to get my particles together, do a tour of the internet, and of course coffee. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  16. Good morning, meese! Thursday …

    It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I stopped by earlier but couldn’t do an official check-in because I had a number of projects that needed attention this morning after being out of the office all day yesterday. And of course several new things popped up and I am just now coming up for air.

    I am looking forward to sitting back and catching up on the news. I did see in my breaking news emails that tRump wants to testify under oath. Be prepared to find out that his is simply saying he is testifying under oath when he is doing no such thing.

    See all y’all later!

  17. Good morning, 40 and partly cloudy in Bellingham. Not much new for me today as I’m still whining about, and hopefully recovering from, the dreadful flue. Our son has it too so we can commiserate, but the rest of the family is tired of our noxious mucous/aching report. I’m amazed they aren’t all sick too.

    Our grand son is serving as a page for the legislative session this week so it was fun to see him march in carrying the flag for yesterday’s session. His sponsor is the floor manager for an important bill so Ryan has a front row seat for the legislative process. This is finals week at school for him so he had to work hard to be able to be in Olympia this week. Fortunately his school is cooperative with the page program.


    Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor pushes for civics requirement in schools in Seattle visit

    If schools chief Chris Reykdal gets his way, civics education will become a required course for all Washington students. And he received a big boost toward that end from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was in Seattle Tuesday talking with teachers, law professors and fellow judges about the importance of teaching kids how, and why, to engage with government.

    Stay healthy everyone!

    • {{{princesspat}}} – Healing Energy to you. My friend across the street has the flu – on her 3rd day of it and still feels awful. I went and got her some hot and sour soup from the Chinese restaurant down the road as she hasn’t been feeling up to cooking so mostly hasn’t been eating. At least she’s got paid sick leave – and a dept chair who isn’t going to have a fit about her being out for 4 days in a row if she’s not up to going to work tomorrow. (She has been dealing with emails from home though so only partly not at work.)

      Good for Washington state and Justice Sotomayor – getting rid of Civics classes (at least as a requirement) is partly how we got into this particular mess in the first place. moar Healing Energy and moar {{{HUGS}}}

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