Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Aug. 23rd through Aug. 29th

August 23, 2015 JanF Community 147

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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19 Comments

  1. Good workout last night – drills on the track. Ended with a “fastest” lap — coach says if I could sustain what I did, I’d have a 16 minute mile.

    Of course, I didn’t sleep last night. I seem fully able now, though – 5 & 10 minute stretches keep disappearing. And now I have a new earworm – Disappear by INXS. Sweet song.

    It actually felt nice driving in this morning, 73 & low humidity — was cool & pleasant. Anyway, happy Friday.

  2. And then there were 30, Sen. Carper of Delaware:

    This August, I did something that many critics of the Iran deal have yet to do: I read it. […]

    After two years, America and our five negotiating partners secured a deal that will do three things: first, block Iran’s access to the weapons-grade material needed for a bomb; second, subject Iran to the most intrusive nuclear inspections in history; and, third, provide sanctions relief only after Iran takes irreversible steps to honor its commitments.

    This is a good deal for America, our negotiating partners and the world. That’s not just my view. It’s also the view of scores of American national security leaders and former senior officials, as well as many of their Israeli counterparts. […]

    Today, Iran is much more than the hardline Revolutionary Guard whose influence has begun to wane. Iran is a nation of over 78 million people whose average age is 25. Most of them weren’t alive during the 1979 Iranian revolution. They don’t remember the brutal Shah we propped up for years and the anger it engendered. Most Iranians want a better relationship with America and the world. They’re ready to take yes for an answer. We should, too. This is a good deal for America and our allies, including Israel, one of our closest allies. And, oh yes. It beats the likely alternative – war with Iran – hands down.

    • Just saw that my Congresswoman will vote against the Iran nuclear plan. Wrote her and told her that I will vote for anyone who runs against her. I meant it. I would even vote for a cactus that ran against her. I do not support those who calculate political gain on a serious issue that could invite military action. She’s finished.

      • Was that Carolyn Mahoney? I saw that name this morning on one of the headlines. There is no reason for her to do that. I hope she gets primaried.

  3. Happy Friday – 72 at 0900 CDT in Fay., AR, heading for 84 and more or less clear. We’re heading into the “dark” of the year – to the extent that I’m having trouble getting up when I need to if I’m going to walk in (at my normal, plodding 20-minute mile). From an environmental standpoint it really doesn’t matter whether I walk in or ride with my neighbor as she will be driving in anyway. But I need the exercise to keep my systems working properly. I do walk in (or take the bus if I don’t have time to walk in) if she’s taking a day off, so that assuages my guilt feelings at not walking in when I ride with her. :)

    Hope the day goes well for everybody – sanity partly rests on not going into detail of what the Rs are doing and saying – and not reading a story in the news or the comments in any diary that could potentially bring a Hillary-Hater out of the woodwork. Enjoy the sunshine if you have it and the water if you don’t. {{{HUGS}}}

  4. Good morning, 60 and raining in Bellingham this morning with more rainy days in the forecast. My eyes are less irritated and I can take a deep breath without wheezing……big relief! Light rain will wash the air clean, but I hope it’s heavy rain (with no lightening) in the mountains where the fires are burning.

    The sound of the rain and the familiar muted colors of the rainy sky are very welcome today.

  5. ! Sentiment Building to Deport Nation’s Billionaires

    They don’t pay taxes. They circumvent our laws. They get free stuff from the government. They are America’s billionaires, and many would like to see them gone.

    According to a new survey by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, the American people hold the nation’s billionaires in lower esteem than ever before, and a majority would like to see new laws enacted to deport them.

    “They come here, take thousands of our jobs, and export them overseas,” one respondent said, in an opinion echoed by many others in the survey.

    “They are part of a shadow economy that sucks billions of dollars out of the United States every year and puts it in Switzerland and the Caymans,” another said. […]

    Even after it is pointed out to respondents that some billionaires, such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have made significant philanthropic contributions to the world, a majority of those polled stubbornly maintained their negative views of billionaires.

    “Look, in every group you’re going to have some good ones,” one of the respondents said. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that the vast majority of these people are destroying this country.”

    (Borowitz)

      • !!!

        Stirring even more controversy is the billionaires’ practice of having babies in the United States and using the nation’s porous estate-tax laws to pass down untold wealth to the next generation.

        “They should leave and take their children with them,” one respondent said.

    • Wish that was true. But as long as the .01% can keep convincing the middle 50% or so that they aren’t “workers” they’re “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” whose embarrassment is caused by the bottom 10% (while said .01% keep vaccuuming the money right out of their pockets, bank accounts, retirement funds…) things won’t do anything but get worse.

  6. Good morning, meese! Saturday …

    It is 62 degrees in Madison, on its way up to 74. Morning showers are in the forecast.

    Quick scan of the news this morning (I have to travel for youth sports today) …

    We are an insane country. Estimates are that $10 billion will be spent on the 2016 election cycle. Sadly, it won’t run the billionaire funders out of money … but it will likely keep some good candidates from throwing their hats in the ring. As long as there is this kind of money in the race, there will be questions about who U.S. politicians are working for. But there will be no fix until the justices who hate democracy retire from the Supreme Court and a Democratic president appoints people who care about honest elections. That’s why I Vote For Democrats.

    Speaking of Democrats, the DNC, now holding its summer meeting, is not my favorite organization (someone needs to explain to me what Debbie Wasserman Schultz is doing in charge and where the heck is Howard Dean???) but they got this right:

    WHEREAS, the Democratic Party believes in the American Dream and the promise of liberty and justice for all, and we know that this dream is a nightmare for too many young people stripped of their dignity under the vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow and White Supremacy; and

    WHEREAS, we, the Democratic National Committee, have repeatedly called for race and justice – demilitarization of police, ending racial profiling, criminal justice reform, and investments in young people, families, and communities — after Trayvon Martin, after Michael Brown, after Tamir Rice, after Freddie Gray, after Sandra Bland, after Christian Taylor, after too many others lost in the unacceptable epidemic of extrajudicial killings of unarmed black men, women, and children at the hands of police; and

    WHEREAS, we hear the “Black lives matter” cry from the inspiration of creators Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, and from the heart of a generation of young African Americans who feel totally dismissed and unheard as they are crushed between unlawful street violence and unjust police violence; we salute the courageous young people who participate in the #March2Justice, and we repeat the chant “say her name” to acknowledge the Black women whose stories are often untold and whose cases are unresolved; and

    WHEREAS, without systemic reform this state of unrest jeopardizes the well-being of our democracy and our nation;

    THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the DNC joins with Americans across the country in affirming “Black lives matter” and the “say her name” efforts to make visible the pain of our fellow and sister Americans as they condemn extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children; and

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the DNC renews our previous calls to action and urges Congress to adopt systemic reforms at state, local, and federal levels to prohibit law enforcement from profiling based on race, nationality, ethnicity, or religion, to minimize the transfer of excess equipment (like the military-grade vehicles and weapons that were used to police peaceful civilians in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri) to federal and state law enforcement; and to support prevention programs that give young people alternatives to incarceration.

    See all y’all later!!

  7. Good morning Meese!

    Drinking my coffee and writing.

    Jan I have a draft ready for you to check :)

    Will be back in a bit.

    • Checked! What an inspiration! When I come back online later this afternoon, I will spend more time in the post. Thank you!

  8. Good morning< Meese!

    About to check the news. It’s a gorgeous day here and hope it will be for all of you and for all creatures great and small.

  9. Good morning, Moosekind! A fair day here but increasingly hot and humid. This day is getting off to a very slow start. Hope it’s a good day for all at the Pond and Beyond!

  10. Good morning, 63 breezy and raining in Bellingham today. The newspaper reports say the increased humidity and wet rain is starting to have an impact on the fires burning all around us. Needless to say the rain continues to be a welcome relief.

    I had planned to be in the garden today and I still may, because when a pruning plan comes together I need to do it before I lose my vision. The tree service will come next week to prune the tall hedges but I want to shape the plantings in front of the hedges myself. Those plants bring the tall scale of the garden down to “people” height so they need to be shaped more than pruned. I can see where I want to clip and I can reach without being on a ladder so I’d best pull on my jeans and just do it!

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