Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: July 24th through July 30th

July 24, 2016 JanF Community 151

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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50 Comments

  1. Good morning, Motley Meese! The week begins …

    Morning low of 68 in Madison WI, on its way up to 88. The forecast shows a chance for thunderstorms.

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  3. Good morning Meese.
    66 going up to 93 in the Catskills,

    On my second cuppa java – scanning news and tweets and getting ready for Sunday post at Orange.

    I find it interesting that the things “the left” obsesses over – often has no connection to the reality of regular
    folks day to day lives, Frankly I don’t think people give a damn about the DNC, Wasserman-Shultz, Julian Assange…

    On another note – am chuckling about republican cluelessness about Spanish

    • But … but … the Españols love him!! :)

      The DNC emails thing will re-ignite the berning ones who are not Democrats and who will not vote for Hillary anyway … everyone else has moved on. And, really, if Debbie Wasserman Schultz shared in an email that Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver was an asshole, she was only echoing what 99% of Democrats were thinking … and still think.

      • yeah, one of my Twitter friends (we are fellow U2 fans) is just….. wow about the e-mails but she was a Bernie dead-ender, so

  4. Since I don’t have to cook, and they’re showing Le Tour during church, I might watch the re-broadcast tonight & see either Star Trek or Ghostbusters this afternoon. Reading through U2 lyrics to find one that goes with Luke 13 — the bent over woman. Maybe Falling At your Feet; or maybe Grace.

    I keep having to hit “mute” on the TV because Rev. Al keeps showing clips from Trump’s speech. I get that he wants to show a contrast, but ugh.

  6. if y’all get MSNBC, watch Joy Reid’s show today (9 central time)

    https://twitter.com/admiralmpj/status/757113797563691008

    Joy Reid ‏@JoyAnnReid · 10h10 hours ago  Philadelphia, PA

    Tomorrow on #AMJoy we’ll explore the unprecedented affinity between an American presidential candidate – Trump – Russia and Wilileaks.

    WikiLeaks Verified account 
    ‏@wikileaks
    @JoyAnnReid You are pushing a discredited conspiracy theory. There is no affinity, whatsoever. Our lawyers will monitor your program.

    • My advice is to stay away from this story until more is known. There is nothing more damaging to a cause (electing Hillary Clinton) than to jump on a Conspiracy Theory bandwagon and have the wheels come off. I was disappointed to see Robby Mook go there on the Sunday shows.

      Let the mainstream media flesh it out. There are enough MSM organizations who dislike Trump and if there is enough “there” there, they will report it. For what is is worth, “liking Putin” is not a deal breaker for most Republicans, they have been fans since he crushed Ukraine because they like strong men who ignore international treaties to demonstrate their country’s exceptionalism.

  7. Same ol’ same ol’ – cool enough (barely) to open up and air out at 6 am but hot and getting hotter by 8, heat index gonna be in the 110s, enough cloud cover to reduce electricity generation but no actual rain (which we need – ground is rock hard.) Watered this morning – and discovered bag worms in my cherry tree, dammit! If the guy who was supposed to do some pruning (dead stuff, not shaping or that kind of pruning) for me 3 weeks ago had actually done it… I keep trying to use him for yard stuff because he’s a retired disabled Vietnam vet and a neighbor, but he can come up with more excuses to not do a job I’ve hired him for – until he needs the cash. If he doesn’t at least deal with the bag worms today, I’m calling somebody else. It’ll cost me more but it will get done. Gingerbread muffins for the week – but I bought GF cookies at the co-op yesterday for desserts. The half hour for the muffins is all I want that oven on for the week! Everything else was stove top except the breakfast sausages which were George Foreman grill (the new one – I’ve got to get used to it, different configuration and hotter – I hadn’t realized how long ago the old one started dying). Housework done except bringing in the clothes – which went out at 9 and probably will be dry by 11. Don’t know whether to sigh or chuckle at that.

    Yesterday Hillary and Tim gave this country the “We can do this” boost we needed. (And did we ever need it! If you haven’t seen it already, check out today’s Doonesbury.) I keep going back to the 1930s in my mind and this is like having been listening to German radio for weeks if not months and then tuning in on one of FDR’s speeches. This is a “Damn right we can and damn right we’re gonna!” moment. I think everybody in the world except Russia and ISIL just sighed as the weight of Mt. Everest just dropped off our backs. We’ve got work to do. But it’s work we can and will do. Let’s get started. :)

    Heading over to GOS to read Dee’s diary. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

  8. Good morning, 62 and sunny in Bellingham. I’m slow to wake up this morning, and have another quiet day ahead. Thanks to all for the interesting reading and links. I’m always late for the check in conversation so please know I’m reading with appreciation and agreement.

    Best Sunday wishes to all!

  9. Afternoon all – I’ve been working on getting the new computer set up since yesterday evening. I am currently on it and so far, so good, although the stand I bought for it was way too small, so it’s sitting on the floor, on some cardboard so it’s not rubbing on the carpet. I’m not happy with it there – I have so much dog hair around, it’s less than optimal, but I can’t lift it onto the desk, and it’s so huge, it would take up a lot of real estate. The case is easy to open, so I will try to keep up with cleaning it out. There is one problem – I told the sales guys I communicated with repeatedly that I needed to run two monitors off of the video card, and they said it would be no problem. But the video card only has one monitor connection – there’s another one to the motherboard, but the setup instructions were very explicit about connecting the monitor to directly to the card, not to the motherboard. So phooey. I’ve requested help from them via e-mail, their phone line is too busy, so hopefully I’ll hear something back tomorrow. It’s annoying, but I can deal with it for a little while – I just am so used to have the two monitors, it’s really annoying. I suppose I could get one really large monitor and just keep separate windows open or something, we’ll see.

    I am ready for the DNC convention, although this Wikileaks thing is at once annoying and trivial, in terms of what they leaked, and also very frightening, in terms of who orchestrated the leaking, namely the Russian government. The latter is the real story – from what I’ve seen, the e-mails are pretty run of the mill. I mean, who doesn’t think Jeff Weaver is a jerk, come on. It does seem they’re making DWS the scapegoat, probably with her consent – her role as DNC chair would be over with this convention anyway

    I’m still pumped about the Kaine rollout yesterday, as I commented on Jan’s story about it. In addition to how great both Hillary and Tim were at the event, man the contrast with the Republican sorry intro to Pence could not have been greater. I didn’t think I would say or think this, but I now think Kaine was the perfect pick for her.

    OK, off to fiddle with some more computer stuff – everyone have a great day!

  10. G’mornin’ Meese

    65 here in the Catskills – going up to 95 with thunderstorms.

    Have to figger out how and where I’m gonna watch the convention – the “commentators” make me nauseous.
    Any suggestions?

    • There is also a Watch Live link on their website which is going to do some sort of streaming.

      I put up a post which I will do daily through the convention as a place to store videos and transcripts and reactions as well as update the speaker list (which seems to change daily).

      • Thanks Jan – It is going to be uplifting to see the sanity from Democrats.

        My only worry is about the “protesters” from the left-loonybin

        • My worry is the protesters, too. A friend was trying to convince me that the Sanders delegates won’t boo Hillary from the convention floor but I am not so sure. They are not Democrats, they are part of a revolution and creating a mess to them looks principled. No, it just looks messy. This is our 4 day prime time infomercial and a way to set the narrative. That narrative should be “Stronger Together” – positive, progressive, policies from positive, progressive people to make all of our lives better.

          By the way, a “fart-in” is a perfect analogy for the Sanders revolution: a juvenile reaction to serious candidates talking about things that people care deeply about like criminal justice reform, gun violence, and discrimination.

        • The liddle buggers are booing Bernie for telling them to get behind Hillary. They also booed Nancy Pelosi, among others. Good thing there aren’t that many of them – the full convention floor will drown them out.

      • CSPAN will have it but they fill their gaps with idiots calling in with hate speech. Also, for some reason, my CSPAN feed is always a little smudgey (I think it is the aspect ratio on my wide-screen TV).

        I will experiment to find the best place. If I am sitting in my living room, I will probably go to CSPAN.

  11. Good morning, meese! Monday …

    It is 70 degrees in Madison on its way up to 82. Sunny skies are in the forecast but the heat advisories are finally gone.

    Sorry to be late! I was trying to catch up on the news and also get the first day’s convention post done. It is a work-in-progress so it is likely to change throughout the day.

    I got heartbern again yesterday watching the Sanders camp taking credit for the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and claiming that if those DNC staffers had not expressed their dislike for Sanders’ campaign manager SURELY Sanders would have won!! Sigh. Young people, and not so young people, have put stupid things in emails since the dawn of emailing … and that will never change. DWS’s presence became a liability for a number of reasons and she stepped down for the good of the party, something that the Sanders campaign and his followers will never understand.

    I hope Bernie Sanders will hose down his supporters tonight because I am pretty sure that the bored media will focus on every protest, every spittle flecked #BernieOrBust’er and make Disunity the lede in all their stories.

    I am not too keen on Donna Brazile as the chair (as a CNN commentator I think she sold her soul to the both-sides-do-it people) but really, the chair is a figurehead. The DNC was turned over to the Clinton campaign back on June 16th as is standard operating procedure during a presidential election. They just need someone to keep the chair warm until President-Elect Hillary Clinton chooses her team in December. I am hoping it is Howard Dean.

    See all y’all later!

  12. Good morning, Moosekind! It’s 75 humid degrees Fahrenheit under a mackerel sky this morning in NoVa. We’re going up to 98 F. or worse today. Dearly Beloved, who goes out at the crack of dawn to get the newspaper, warns me that it’s too humid to do the weeding I was planning to do.

    I just broke a Corningware dish given to us as a wedding present 49 years ago. Lovely way to start the day—not!

    Excited about the convention this week. Hope to do some more writing on “Jolyon–Part III” tonight before the show starts. I could post Part II on Friday if people are interested.

    It was a busy day yesterday—took all morning to watch the Formula I race, even though Dearly had taped it. There’s another one next Sunday but then a hiatus of three weeks.

    Warming up to Tim Kaine. I think he’ll be better than I feared at first. Like Jan, I hope Saint Bernard puts paid to the CT tonight and I do hope the Berners don’t stage a fart-in. Why couldn’t they have done that outside the Rethug convention hall? Agree with Denise that the commentators on all the channels, even PBS, are too maddening to watch.

    Wishing all a good day at the Pond and beyond!

    • Looking forward to Jolyon-Part II (and III) – glad you’re warming up to Kaine. He’s evolved on women’s healthcare and if Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards are happy with him, that’s all I need to know. And did you see his speech? That part about the VA Tech shooting should have the gun lobby quaking – he’s going to hammer gun safety for Hillary.

      • I think taking on the gun lobby is part of what led the convention to add Michael Bloomberg as a speaker. He is not a Democrat and certainly not progressive but he is passionate about commonsense gun reform. It will be a big issue in the election and we need all the help we can get.

        • Yes, Jan, that was a big surprise to me! I do hope the nasty commentators (can’t think of even ONE good one) will focus on the fact that a Rethuglican millionaire is going to vote for Hillary.

          Or is Bloomberg a billionaire? One never can tell these days. Both are so far away from me that either sum makes no sense.

          • Ha! Yes, from the perspective of a thousandaire, those numbers are incomprehensible. I believe that Bloomberg is a mega-billionaire but one who spends some of his money on good causes.

  13. I went to the gym yesterday! Plan for today is to go again. Did a 34 minute program on the elliptical.

    We are finally going to get some rain — it’s been more than a month. And so we might have temps under 100 for a couple of days. Got to get the week’s breakfast sorted out & squeeze in a viewing of Star Trek.

    • Good for you, anotherdemocrat! I went to the gym too, right after acupuncture.

      Do you feel a tide of virtuousness washing over you because you exercised? I generally do. :) Also a tide of sweat!

  15. Well, aside from the fact we might get rain today – maybe – same ol’ same ol’ – and my electricity generation is showing it. Will get over 400 KWHs today instead of the 500 KWHs I got at this point in July 2015. It would help if it were cooler – I’m still using the A/C like I did in July 2015 but not generating the electricity to cover it (I’m drawing from my “banked” KWHs with the utility company).

    Yesterday on DK was sort of fascinating – I still only went into diaries that had links posted in the Hillary-friendly ones – the relief most of the disappointed and/or meh folks felt at the Kaine announcement was expressed in multiple rapturous rejoicings (which unfortunately turned off a few folks to the extent they didn’t even want to talk about it or take a look at him). I don’t think GOS understands the concept of “moderation in everything” – or even moderation in anything. snort. I don’t think Bernie has any control over the BoBcats and I’m not sure he ever did. He was the anti-Hillary figurehead. I’m more than a little pissed that we Dems have paid as much attention to them as we have – but I trust Hillary and if she thinks she needs to tweak the wording of her existing plans into Bernie-ese and let them take credit for it or have DWS publicly say she was going to do what she was going to do anyway (open and close the convention and then step down) and let them take credit for it – well, I don’t like it but I trust Hillary and her team.

    Final day for wrapping up fiscal 2016 and also day before end of July payroll runs so I’ve got some stuff to do. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

    • I’m more than a little pissed that we Democrats have paid as much attention to him, Sanders, as we have. And now they are giving in to his whining about not getting a prime time speaking slot so they bumped Michelle Obama. Grrrr. Fortunately, 10pm Eastern is not prime time for me except for sleep. I can watch the First Lady then go to bed.

  16. Good morning, 64 and sunny in Bellingham. Our grand girls are with us today and I’m going to the pool soon so it will be a busy day. The girls are tired from their weekend camping trip so they will sleep most of the morning and that’s good for me too!

    Time for some coffee. Best Monday wishes to all.

    • Sounds like a lovely day! I am hoping I can get a walk in this morning – it has been too hot to do much other than sit inside being grateful to have air conditioning.

  17. Morning all! I figured out my second monitor problem on the new computer, with the help of my WOW friend Thanael – I think the company I bought this machine from really caters to more tech savvy buyers than me. I’m not a total noob, but I didn’t recognize the HDML port on the video card and realize I need an HDML video cable to connect the second monitor. I’m going to let them know that in the feedback e-mail they sent me- guys, all your customers are not either 25 or tech geeks!

    I am so sick of hearing Berners whine about these DNC e-mails – there is NOTHING in them that shows anything unfair to Sanders, other than that people at the DNC didn’t like him and were angry at his taking advantage of them. What they really should be concerned about is Russian interference in a US election, and how they’re being played by Putin. Joy Reid on MSNBC at least did something to showcase the issue – and got a threatening tweet as a result, which Rachel Maddow took note of, so I hope the media will start to pay attention to this. It’s pretty simply, Bernie deadenders: Putin wants Trump to be President so he can manipulate him to his own ends. Hillary is the only person who can stop Trump. Vote for third party is a vote for Trump. CNN today has Trump over Hillary by 5 points (although I don’t know what the internals are on that poll and whether it’s of white people only or something) – Johnson and Stein together get 12%. Now, this is probably a convention bump thing, but it spells out we have work to do, and we don’t have time for the Sanders people to dissolve in a puddle of their own tears over DWS being mean about them in e-mails. Which means I have to stay away from GOS, as the deadenders are still going strong – I guess Kos has given up trying to moderate any anti-Hillary tone there, so I give up on him.

    I want this to be a joyous week – we are going to complete the nomination of the first woman President, and by golly I’m going to celebrate that!

    Have a great day everyone!

    • The HDMI port is a feature that has been included on most new laptops for a while but if you are a desktop person, you have probably never seen it. Digital TVs use HDMI connectors also for newer components. The cables are expensive – be prepared for sticker shock.

      Now that the SansSanders revolution is going its own way, it will be interesting to see if kos keeps to his policy of not allowing third parties to be promoted on his web site. It will probably be another easily discarded “principle”. I like having a publishing platform (blog) but I find more interesting commentary on Twitter.

      • To me, Twitter is too hard to follow. I don’t understand it at all. I’ve occasionally gone through spells of tweeting, but they’ve been about writing. Annoyingly, my tweets showed up on my personal Facebook feed rather than my author page on Facebook. I’ve stopped doing it.

        The best Twitter thing I ever followed was when the escaped Bronx Zoo cobra got on Twitter. Even back then, Trump was threatening to run for POTUS. The cobra said, “Trump wants to run for president? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Where is Trump Tower, exactly?”

        She also spoke of her desire to see the new movie, “Bridesmaids,” and her hope of becoming Mrs. Justin Bieber one day.

        It all made me laugh so much I almost fell off my chair.

        • I keep promising to do an in-service on how to follow Twitter and one of these days, I will!

          It does take a little getting used to because the Tweets come out in reverse order – newest Tweets first – so you have to sometimes scroll down to see what the heck is going on. Last night was impossible to follow because mine is set to auto-scroll and the Tweets were bouncing too quickly to read.

          The key is to build a good follow list: don’t follow too many people or it will be like drinking from a fire hose. If you follow one or two people who seem to have no life (ha!) and Tweet all the news, that helps you keep up with the latest. I follow a few news feeds, some people, some organizations, and my online friends.

          • Good twitter advice Jan! I’ve become addicted to it since Dee got me into it a few months ago – it’s a great source of news and people tweet about events happening in real time so that frequently it’s ahead of the tv news channels. I started out following several people Dee follows, and then have added from there – it’s fun!

  18. Sanders has never taken responsibility for the excesses of the kiddies. Tonight, he needs to look them straight in the eye & tell them exactly what voting for Jill Stein means. I just saw a young woman on MSNBC literally say that 4 years of Trump “doing nothing” would be better than Hillary. This is no joke, someone needs to shake kids like that up.

  19. Good morning, meese! Tuesday …

    It is 64 degrees in Madison on its way up to 86. Sunny skies are in the forecast.

    I watched the convention on CSPAN from the gavel to the end of Elizabeth Warren’s speech (I still can’t listen to or look at Bernie Sanders). I was heartbroken to see the non-Democrats, the rude rabble that Sanders “inspired”, chant over Elijah Cummings while he was talking about his father and his own commitment to civil rights. They should be ashamed but they have no concept of shame.

    I was proud to be a Democrat as speaker after speaker – union leaders, people of color, veterans, LGBT, disabled, immigrants – spoke to the assembled group. And I was totally blown away by Michelle Obama’s speech. I know that y’all will have already seen it but here it is if you want to watch again (I did).

    Fast-forward to 6:04:00
    Text: Michelle Obama DNC speech transcript: read the speech Democrats loved so much
    When a video of just her speech is available, I will put up a separate post. This part I knew in the back of my mind but to have it spoken was powerful:

    This November, when we get to the polls, that is what we are deciding. Not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. In this election, and every election, it is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives. I am you tonight because in this election, there is only one person who I trust with that responsibility, only one person who I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States, and that is our friend Hillary Clinton.

    Donald Trump will not be a decent role model – he is not even a decent human being. I hope her words found fertile ground.

    I have a bunch of things (Tweets and article links) that I will put in the Day One post.

    The Day Two post will launch at about noon. Today is the 26th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disability Act and that will be celebrated at the convention. While reading about it, I was floored to find that it passed 76 to 8 in the Senate, passed the House by a voice vote and was signed by a Republican president. It was not that long ago that both parties cared enough about people to pass legislation to make their lives better.

    See all y’all later!

    • That seems incredible now, Jan—the idea that Dems and Rethugs once actually worked together. Will we ever see that again in our lifetime?

      • We will if we can get rid of gerrymandering. “Safe” seats are what allow extremists to take over.

        • We will never get rid of gerrymandering but at some point, except in the whitest of the white states, they will be unable to craft legal districts that are completely safe for Republicans. Already in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, the courts are telling the legislatures that they can’t build districts based solely to create partisan electoral advantages (a rejection of the ‘to the victor goes the spoils’ rule). There is a pending court case in Wisconsin that looks pretty good and there is one pending at the Appellate level in Texas.

          My hope is that the Republicans do so much damage to their brand by jumping on the Trump bandwagon that a few more districts go purple and it leaves us an opening. Time will tell!

  20. Good Tiu’s Day morning, Meese! The first thing I thought when I woke up was, “This is the second day of the convention.” Weird!

    We managed to watch most of it but had to go to bed before Bernie came on. We might watch that later. Wish Dearly would consent to watch C-SPAN. The commentators rile me so much with their relentless focus on emails, emails, that I never want to send an email again. (However, I have to because some of my friends are too old-fashioned to text or send messages on Facebook.)

    Michelle’s speech was wonderful, but Cory Booker went on so long that both Dearly and I were shouting at the TV. To me, a really good speech lasts no longer than 10 or 15 minutes. “Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ’em, tell ’em, and then tell ’em what you told them.” When someone rants on and on I start tuning out.

    Certainly didn’t tune out during Michelle’s or Elizabeth’s speech, though!

    Back later to say hello. Oh, the weather—a beautiful morning here in NoVa. We received a brief shower last night. Wish we’d get more. It won’t be as hot as yesterday but it’ll be hot enough.

    • I liked Booker’s speech – I guess because it helped cool me down from earlier anger at the BooBros.

    • CSPAN is definitely the way to go. I figured out what was wrong with the “look” of my CSPAN, I needed to change the aspect ratio on my TV. Makes me sad that I was too lazy to look at that sooner because the picture now is great. I haven’t watched much CSPAN over the years but because I can’t stand cable news channels and I want to watch the election speeches, I found myself on it more and more.

      For the convention, they don’t have the regular CSPAN mindless viewer call-ins – it is controlled front to back by the convention committee and the feed is always on the convention floor.

      Lots of people watched it via YouTube – the Watch Live link takes you right to the feed. Right now it is yesterday’s YouTube (7 hours of gavel to gavel) but later it will be today’s feed.

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