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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Good morning, Meese! So far it’s sunny and warm in Northern VA—63 F. now, going up to 83 F., but with clouds gathering thickly outside. We’re supposed to have rain and thunderstorms later. All rain is welcome, as we’re 3 inches under for the year.
Very excited about today’s primaries! I’m sure I’ll be up late. I’ve got to where I’d rather follow Hillary-safe election threads and just cast an occasional eye at CNN. All the presenters seem so obnoxious, not to mention willfully obtuse.
On the home front, I put forth a query for WordPress help on the “Next Door” private message network for my neighborhood, and someone came right over! She said her version of WordPress was set up quite differently from mine, so it took us a while to figure things out. However, we finally managed to add my latest book under “Book List” on the website. She also told me all sorts of fascinating things about becoming an Amazon affiliate, and how something called “Jetpack” is a plugin that will put “share” buttons on my site. So I’m excited about that too.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond and Beyond, and looking forward to celebrating tonight!
JetPack is a very handy set of tools. We use it here at the Moose for sharing buttons and some security things. See!! I told you that WordPress was the way to go – excellent free tools and help all over the place!
I will “watch” the primary results on Twitter. I can’t stand that MSNBC has so many Republican commentators – I may as well be watching Fox! I will switch over to CSPAN when Hillary’s victory speech comes on. I hope that it is a sweep but it is very likely that Rhode Island will go to Sanders. I expect such an outcome to be pumped up as momentum!
Supposed to be severe storms later today, possibly 3 inch hail. Yikes. Lucky for me I have some Ride donations I need to take to the office, I think today will be the day I need to leave work early to do that.
There’s a really neat website about Dublin in 1916: The City & the Rising. Lets you see what it looked like.
I suppose it’s too much to hope that today’s primaries will end the ugliness. Brain is playing U2’s One for me. Link is to the lyrics, not a video. My mind picked an appropriate one, I think.
Goddess – y’all don’t need any more storms – stay safe!
No one needs 3 inch hail. And all the water will flow down to Houston, which really doesn’t need more water.
64 at dawn (Charlie’s happy – I opened the east window for him when I got up), 72 now and heading for 81. Unfortunately cloudy – didn’t quite make 400 KWHs yesterday (399.27), darn it. Will today but not expecting a lot – maybe 410 for the month if I’m lucky if the clouds don’t clear off. Still, I only pulled 67 KWHs from AEP/SWEPCO over the last billing cycle and have over 400 KWHs in the “bank” for augmenting, if necessary, A/C season so that’s good.
As with the rest of us, I will be so glad when the primaries are over. Dems for Bernie will come together with us to put Hillary in the White House and flip the Senate (maybe make some gains in the House as well, please Goddess). AfBs will not change since they never were actually for Bernie anyway, he just happened to be the most misogynist Anybody-But-Clinton running. But GOS will settle down to its stated aim of electing more Dems. The Hillary diaries may continue just because they have become another community, but they won’t be needed as a “safe” space any longer. (I can see them morphing into a community sharing information to help with the social media “rapid responder” pushback against anti-Hillary crap.) At least 8 EDT is 7 CDT so I won’t be up as late tonight. :)
Got to prep for an off-site meeting in the morning. Also got more HR crap to deal with so best get to it. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}
Morning all. Sunny and warm here in N Florida – the bad storms will stay north of us it looks like.
I was appalled at Rachel Maddow’s line of questioning in last night’s Town Hall with Hillary – she kept wanting to make it all about Bernie, and Hillary had to quite forcefully point out that, ahem, SHE is actually in the lead and by a wide margin at that. I’m so disgusted with Sanders – I’ve pointed out from the beginning, at DKos when there were still general threads I could post to, that BS is NOT a Democrat and that is a problem. I got shouted down over there, but it’s clearly a continuing problem – he’s not a Dem, he doesn’t care about doing damage to the Party by refusing to urge his followers to support the nominee, who will be Hillary, and now I don’t think he even cares about giving aid and comfort to the Republicans. He’s a narcissist and a fraud, and I’m sick of him. Delete your campaign, Bernie!
Ok, got that out of my system lol. Al Giordano’s always excellent primary analysis arrived in my in box last night, and he thinks PA might be a lot closer than the polls indicate, so I will be watching that state closely. Even if it is, though, it won’t matter – if Hillary nets plus 31 delegates as he’s predicting (and I think that’s the bottom threshold myself), Bernie’s road to the nomination will be closed. He needs to shut it down – his fundraising is simply grifting off of the true believers now, and it’s disgusting.
I have work to get done today, although I did get my final exam written and e-mailed into the office this morning, so that’s a big thing off the list. I don’t administer it myself, our Student Services people will give it Thursday morning, and I just have to be available by phone if questions come up. I have some questions from my students that I need to post the answers to at the class web site, and then I have to get going on my homeowners’ association dues notices to send out by the end of the week (I’m the treasurer).
Everyone have a great day!
I’ve stopped watching any Rachel Maddow – not surprised at what I’ve heard about the Town Hall. Have had it with self-styled leftists who are living in a Bernie bubble.
She did give Hillary the perfect opening to say “I am winning” – gotta give her that. :)
Good morning, 50 and mostly sunny in Bellingham. Another busy day ahead…..if I ever wake up! The electrical work is finished and the upstairs is cleaned up, but the basement needs to be put back together and several loads of laundry are needing attention.
We finally got the process for a mortgage refi underway so now we’ve got to get the place ready for the appraisal. I sure hope our decision to just live here as long as we can is wise, but if life happens and something changes we’ll be more ready to sell and move than we are now. And if we can indeed live here another 10 yrs or so the work we’re doing now will make the place more comfortable and safer for us.
Go for it, princesspat! I have an irresistible urge to write a blog called “The Weirdness of Planning for Extreme Old Age,” describing the experience Dearly Beloved and I have experienced. Will probably post it next week.
Exit polls look very promising.
See all y’all on Twitter!!
So in response to this awful hit piece Wired did on my favorite astronomer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astronomer I follow on Twitter did this: Being Black Means We Have to be 200% Better
The Wired piece is some twit whining because Tyson “takes all the fun out of movies” — but the headline is awful & racist. Also, scientifically stupid. Having many discussions with people about how we like Tyson, and my brush with celebrity.
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 38 degrees in Madison on its way up to 56. The forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies with high winds.
Whew! The polls were right and Super Tuesday 3 was a huge success for Hillary Clinton. Her speech last night firmly pivoted to the general election (when she could finally take the stage – CSPAN covered the Sanders “life is unfair” 1 hour speech live and Hillary waited until it was over before going to the podium). After Trump’s crushing defeat of establishment candidate Ted Cruz, the stage has been for what will probably be the ugliest general election campaign in our voting lifetimes. I only scanned the headlines and will read more later but it appears that The New Donald, unveiled after the NY primary, lasted less than a week. My favorite Tweet from last night:
For those who follow cyberbullying, there is an amazing video that was making the rounds yesterday. It shows men (uncomfortably) reading aloud the Tweets directed towards woman sportswriters online. I’ll link to Digby’s piece which also includes some commentary: Welcome to Our World, Fellas.
See all y’all later!
Good victory morning, Moosekind! It’s 61 F. under cloudy skies, going up to 68 F. today. The much-vaunted “thunderstorms and lots of rain on Tuesday” failed to materialize until half an hour ago, when a light shower occurred. (How do these people keep their jobs when they get the forecast so wrong?)
Feeling very happy this morning about the four out of five victories for Secretary Clinton! Popped over to see Lysis’ thread and found out that most of the site is still a pit of writhing cobras.
Will put the finishing touches on “All Acts of Love and Pleasure” today and post it in the Fiction Cafe on Friday. It’s a bit too naughty to post at a respectable blog like this one. ;)
More research today as to how to get WordPress to connect to my author page on Facebook. It wants to connect to my personal page, which is a no-no. I might have to call TaskRabbit again because of all the questions I have.
Wishing all a good day at the Pond! And I don’t mind if you go around smiling all day because of the good news we had last night.
I majorly want to come back later today and check that out, Jan! Thanks for posting.
You should! I found it incredibly moving, watching those men struggling with saying those things out loud. The video has the appropriate words bleeped out so it is not disturbing in that way.
I have seen personally how the anonymity of the Internet leads to some terrible behaviour. What I find so stunning is that the men Tweeting these things out or posting them on Facebook, often have avatars with their family – wife and adorable children – while they are spewing this hatred and misogyny. How on earth a woman would want to be with a man like that, I have no idea.
Good mornin’ Meese.
Hope everyone is smiling this morning
One of my favorite tweets
LOL, Denise! Good one!
Survived the storm. It didn’t hit until late at night, the morning news didn’t mention hail. But wind. Wow. Trees & branches down all over the place. The streets in my neighborhood were covered with leaves & small branches.
Reading through my FB & Twitter, I see the ugliness isn’t over. Sigh. Well, my brain is playing Kiss for me – a sweet, happy Prince song, so I’ll just turn up the volume in my head & listen to that.
The ugliness won’t be over for a while. Part of the problem is that Sen. Sanders won’t let go – his whining and complaining about the process is just fueling his fans who see conspiracies everywhere. And, no, he does not deserve to have his ideas incorporated into the Democratic Party platform. We will not run on “breaking up the banks and killing the banksters” – we will run on holding Wall Street accountable, not gunning them down. We will run on partnerships with business not “all business is corrupt”. We will run on making college more affordable and addressing student loan debt not “free college for all”. And we will run on making the Affordable Care Act better, not throwing it out and starting over. I hope they don’t give him a prominent place at the convention, he belongs in the late night of CSPAN like where he honed his rhetoric, talking to an empty House chamber.
Very well put, Jan! Couldn’t agree more.
Everyone seems to want us to be gracious. I am not ready yet – some awful things were said about our candidate and our party. Maybe if Sanders dials it back but I don’t see any sign of that with his demands about the platform.
Ha! My earworm just switched to the Dixie Chicks “Not ready To Make Nice”, because…. yeah.
Glad you’re safe, anotherdemocrat! I guess the storm debris will take some cleaning up–it’s to be hoped, very soon.
omg, Toure just re-tweeted me!
https://twitter.com/beckythecyclist/status/725321448785469440
Good morning, 52 and cloudy in Bellingham today. I a mix of feelings from last night’s primary results…..relief HRC did so well, growing frustration with Bernie, a sense Cruz and Kasich will soon go away. and a white hot anger at Trump….. but I’m just a woman so what do I know! It’s going to be a long ugly campaign, but as a tweet I read (and lost) last night said “……if she can do this, so can we.”
Pete Souza has posted photo’s of the President’s recent trip to England, Saudia Arabia, and Germany. It’s so interesting to see the details of his visit in Souza’s photos.
https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/behind-the-lens-a-trip-across-the-pond-df1e99e3d27e#.93avxn9is
I love the Pete Souza photos … thanks for sharing!
Hi Meeses – just got in from an off-site training (for something I use once a year so will need training again next year as of course they will have upgraded by then). My sleep was more disturbed by the weather-warning phone calls than the weather itself – that blew through (and I do mean blew) fairly quickly sometime after 1 a.m. although the quiet patter of rain seems to have lasted until dawn. But I sleep very nicely to “quiet patter of rain” so I really don’t know. heh. 60 at dawn and very overcast but seems to be clearing off now with temps heading for upper 70s. Didn’t quite make 410 KWHs yesterday but have (slightly) passed it already this morning.
Stayed up until they called the elections but didn’t wait for the %ages – I’ll head over to GOS and read HNV for that. Hope somebody has a link to her victory speech – reading them is fine, but listening to them is just energizing (and I could use some energizing LOL). Wish Bernie would just go away. Sad to think I was pleased when he declared as it would change the media narrative from 24/7 “hair, clothes, laugh, Emailghazi” – now the loser is demanding the winner jettison her winning platform and replace it with his losing one (and spouting RWNJ memes in between demands). And his followers are so cultish about him they deny that her platform not only includes his small goals as a part of her larger ones but has possible ways to get them done. sigh.
Need to catch up on work stuff. Bright the day. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meese! Thursday …
It is 41 degrees in Madison on its way up to 45. It is raining and is expected to rain off and on all day.
I was watching the news via Twitter yesterday and it was a busy day! Denny Hastert sentenced to 15 months in prison, Cruz Fiorina 2016, Sanders cuts back campaign staff. It sounds like the Supreme Court wants a higher threshold for corruption than the obvious quid pro quo that former Gov. Bob McDonnell engaged in. A smoking gun is not enough, show them the corpse! Too bad because this court has opened up the spigots of dark money and now the politicians bought with that money have been given carte blanche to favor their donors as long as they claim there was no actual promise. “I was going to sign that law giving protections to that industry anyway! It had nothing to do with the million dollar donation or the loan that I never repaid or the fancy vacations”. We really need to drain the swamp on campaign finance laws and it is going to take a constitutional amendment.
See all y’all later!
Good morning Meese – 38 here – a bit nippy.
Looking at the news and twitter
Interesting series of tweets from Anne Rice
I would contend that they are wreckfull!! ;)
What is going on with Salon? I noticed a lot of Twittering but could not follow it. I haven’t read anything there since Joan Walsh left. They seem like a #BernieOrBust place.
My latest irritation is the berners insisting on radical changes to platforms and processes or they will stay home and not vote. Related to that, Norbrook has some advice for young people who are demanding a place at the table:
He includes a chart that shows that young people are not reliable voters and that us olds are … which is why we get the attention of the party! He also suggests that young people get involved in grassroots PARTY politics if they want to encourage the PARTY to address their needs.
Happy Thor’s Day, Moosekind! Appropriately enough, it’s raining off and on. Yesterday the temperature dropped so fast we had to turn on the electric heater in the family room. It’s 53 F. now, going up to 57 F. later.
Lots of news yesterday. I was freaked out by the 41 cases of mumps at Harvard! Is this the result of the anti-vaxxer campaign? Thank Goddess my older grandchildren (18 and 22) were vaccinated as children, because my daughter is now an anti-vaxxer. Never mind that the study in question has been discredited 1,000 times.
Another MSF hospital bombed in Syria, with much loss of life. Sigh. They do such good work. Endless death and killing, do these people ever get tired of it?
Things are going well on the home front—I’m staying off Facebark and composing 100 Tweets to start using tomorrow to increase traffic to my website. Wishing a good day to all, with lots of sunshine in Fayetteville!
Woke up at 3:40. Ugh. Dumped extra tea into my tea, but it won’t be enough. Had a box of crackers by the door so I wouldn’t forget them so of course I did, and now no cheese & crackers for snack today. Sigh. And then I made the mistake of scrolling through Twitter. It’s no wonder my reading these days is pure escapism.
and to take the escapism a step further, I’m deciding to play in my head an Austin band that I went to see a lot in the ’80s o this one’s In Your Eyes. I’ve always liked the chorus – “it’s just a little fear”. The camera work on the video is a little frantic, it’s very much a product of 1987, but close your eyes & enjoy Kim’s beautiful voice.
46 at dawn, 55 now and heading for 78. Sunny at the moment and supposed to be the rest of today – the last sunny day of the month but we crested 430 KWHs by end of day yesterday and today should take us to something close to 455 for the month. Not going to make 500 but should make 460 and maybe even 475 by sundown Saturday.
GOS is being – um – interesting right now. With the nomination pretty secure (B.S. can’t catch up even if he won all the remaining states which he won’t), the various Hillary community diary writers were asking if they could/should close up shop now but with Kos being less than helpful the consensus was basically – heck no, we still need the Hillary community spaces. But more and more Dems for Bernie are showing up and if they aren’t quite ready to join us they are most certainly affirming that they will vote – and work – for Hillary in the general election. So that’s good. And the Rs are crazier than ever which is at least promising as far as winning in November is concerned.
Work to do and all that. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}
I think that there will always be the need for a space for those who have been Hillary supporters throughout the primary process and want to wave pompoms during the general election. While more progressives will express their willingness to vote for her, some will do it grudgingly and others may feel the need to be rude about it. I guess you will have to test the limits of tolerance towards someone who attends a pro-Hillary post that begins “Until she is indicted …” or “I will hold my nose and wear a hazmat suit”. I know that I would not particularly enjoy being with the latter.
That’s more or less what we told Lysis and the others. However, several people did step up and say they’d help carry the load at least in the afternoon and evening diaries. It’s kind of hard to equal, much less beat, what Lysis does with the HNV morning diaries. (Do you read those? You don’t have to go to GOS to see them. They’re cross-posted at http://www.hillaryhq.com/ – don’t get the interaction in the comments there, but do get the diary itself.)
Morning all (well, still barely morning) – my exam was given this morning, 8:30-11:30, so I’ve been sort of awake since then, as I have to be on call for any questions that might come up during the exam. thankfully, none did. And I just finally scanned in the signed purchase and sale contract pages for the property in Tennessee my brothers and I are selling and e-mailed them to the real estate agent, so that feels good to get done. Now to do homeowners association work today and tomorrow, sending out dues notices, ugh.
I see Jane Sanders was back making the TV rounds this morning, STILL bashing Hillary – that campaign apparently can’t make up its mind to just stop that crap. Moreover, she’s doubling down on the racism in their message, saying Bernie does poorly with minorities because Hillary is the anointed one. I’m done giving the Sanders the benefit of the doubt – they’re not just tone deaf, they are actually racist imo.
All right, off to get some stuff done, have a great day everyone!
The Sanders campaign is either racist or simply tone-deaf to the racism of their remarks – I sincerely hope it is the latter because the Jim Webb wing of the party needs to find another place to light. Here is something Sen. Sanders said yesterday as he was TELLING the Democratic Party how they need to run stuff:
Notice who is missing from his list: people of color.
By the way, the Democratic Party is open … every day Democratic office holders are working their butts off to accomplish positive things for working people and young people and senior citizens – even when they don’t vote for Democrats. And if folks want to show up at their local Democratic Party headquarters and volunteer, they will not be turned away.
Good morning, 55 and cloudy in Bellingham. Another night of longish naps interspersed with reading time in between has me feeling tired and out of sorts this morning. I know my sleep clock will eventually reset itself, but until it does I’ll keep my grumpy self busy with my long house projects list. Today is a good day for more cleanup and donating in my sewing room.
Nancy Le Tourneau, at the Wa. Monthly…..
Playing the Woman Card on Foreign Policy