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”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 36 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 36. Mixed precipitation is in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
In Wisconsin, the Republicans are planning election nullification: rejecting the voters will and taking powers away from the governor, the attorney general and the state election commission. For Republicans, elections only have consequences when they win! This long and important thread has the story and the plan to protest and engage with state senators who may be able to block this (the assembly is too rigged).
Ben is right – this is the template for Republicans to hang onto power anywhere that the Democrats get out the vote and kick the bums out. The precise (illegal) gerrymanders in Wisconsin held tight in 2018, giving us only one Assembly seat after a recount found the Democrat ahead by a handful of votes.
Students are still in town (three more weeks left to the semester) and I hope some of them can mass at the Capitol.
I hope the young people punish these legislators in the next election. Half the Senate and all of the Assembly seats will be up in 2020. You can’t draw district lines around Junior’s bedroom.
This is APPALLING, Jan! And it happened in NC (bloody glad I didn’t move there) and someone said in Michigan, too.
Rethugs have NO morals at all.
Hope the courts can challenge them.
They are under a federal court order to not muck around with voting rules because of their attacks on voting rights a few years ago. Some of their proposed changes may be challengeable under that order. But most of them are just garden variety destruction of democracy at the state level – grabbing for the legislature the power to start and end lawsuits, for example, so that AG Josh Kaul’s hands are tied, removing veto powers from the governor over various legislative actions. Those things would be challengeable in state court but the Republicans hold the Supreme Court and that court is filled with hacks.
Sunday Meese
40 degrees here in Saugerties NY – going up to 46.
Am exhausted after religious ceremonies in NYC on Friday – which lasted until 3 AM Friday night …and then the work continued from about 11AM till 3PM Saturday. Got back upstate around 6PM Sat – and overslept this morning. I’m getting old :) lol – Priestessing is hard work.
Dee, hope you get some rest! Priestessing is definitely draining. I led a couple of circles for years, and although my work wasn’t as physically demanding as yours, it still left me flat out afterwards.
Love the tree donated by the Latina lesbians! As Bubbanomics would say, HAHAHAHA!
Thanks Sis Will get to bed early tonight :)
Am also mentally tired – writing today’s DKos piece was emotionally exhausting
Going to read it as soon as I’ve cleaned up after breakfast!
Good morning, Moosekind! Gray and gloomy here this morning, although the rain appears to have ended. The sun is supposed to come out later. The current temp. in Ashburn is 42 F., going up to 59 F.
Today is the long-awaited Nutcracker Tea, but unfortunately Mr. Minecraft won’t be able to attend. He’s still having an elevated temperature. Grandma is getting more and more worried. When he gets over this illness I’ll take him out somewhere for a special treat.
Caught up on a lot of laundry and grocery shopping yesterday but was too tired to do much else. After the rich, filling tea today I’ll be as torpid as a python that’s just swallowed a goat.
(Seamstress alert: is there a name for the batiste mock-up of a garment like a blouse? It’s what dressmakers do to ascertain proper fitting before they cut into the expensive fabric.)
Read the WaPo account of Poppy Bush’s last hours and even my cold heart—like granite where Republicans are concerned—was moved. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if I did I’d wish him in the good place.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
I finally reached my limit on the hagiography and tweeted out a couple of articles – one from an apologist who claimed that Poppy Bush had “the best interests of Americans at heart” (like a nobleman choosing for us peons???) and one that laid bare the cravenness of his choice to embrace and advance the worst of the Republican Party to gain power. George H. W. Bush was the turning point. As Greenberg (the second link) pointed out, “with Bush’s acquiescence to Reagan’s more-conservative politics, the last hope for a restoration of Rockefeller Republicanism perished.” If he had not turned against his own history, maybe there would have been a sane Republican Party left instead of what we have now.
His family loved him but his family also included war criminal George W. Bush and Florida election ratfker Jeb! so take that with a grain of salt. That George H.W. Bush felt good about what he had done with his time in power is damning.
A thread by a lawyer in NYC about the racism of George H.W. Bush. Here is a snippet:
Yes, Willie Horton was not an outlier.
Ugh! Well, after reading those two excerpts I’ve changed my mind.
Diana, I’m not sure that step has a name. I use muslin for fittings and just refer to “making a muslin.” Everyone in my [theatre] circles knows exactly what I’m talking about. I’ll dig further to see if there is a universal reference.
Thanks, DoReMI and princesspat!
Hi Diana…..I’ve always called it a “muslin” This article may help clarify the process.
https://brooksann.com/why-the-mockup/
35 windchill of 27 and overcast in Fayetteville, AR. We got 4.6 KWHs yesterday which isn’t what you’d call a great start for the month but today looking like what it does, getting that much again will be good. We are definitely not on track for 180 for December. But early days yet. We shall see what we shall see. I made cranberry orange muffins this morning using some leftover homemade cranberry sauce. They smell divine but I haven’t eaten one yet. I’m sure they’ll taste fine but the “crumb” is another matter. Another instance where we shall see what we shall see. But a lot sooner as I’m having one with my coffee as soon as I’ve checked in everywhere. ????
If Daddy Bush had done his good things for all races, religions, genders, etc, well, then I would have called him a good man. But he didn’t. However, I still believe in the Law of Return and will leave him to the Universe. It is sometimes hard to hang onto that faith in the Law of Return – especially when I see bad things happening to people I personally know have done good things – but I hang onto it anyway. Channeling Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Back from my workout group. Much talking today. We did drills, then one lap around the track. Chilly — might be 50, but sunny, Today: make tea, slice apples….. and I think that’s all. Listened to happy, bouncy Heal Me in the car on the way home.
Good day, 39, cloudy and foggy in Bellingham. The family Christmas blitz was fun, and what would have been a weeks work for us is done, yay! The tree smells like Christmas so I can recover now and enjoy being “elved” last night. I may even sew something for me now that I’ve got the gift of some time to do so.
Best Sunday wishes to all.
Good barely morning meese. Still tired and have errands to do, including packing for my upcoming trip (and finding all my winter clothes) and trying to earn my foster kitty’s trust.
Monday Meese
A toasty 48 here in the Catskills going up to 52.
Watching North Carolina
Puerto Rico
The situation in North Carolina is the most egregious example of election fraud that I have ever read about. That they are considering a new election is comforting – if you just fine the perpetrators and throw a few in jail (like they did in the New Hampshire line-jamming case a few years back) the cheaters still win and they are not deterred from doing it again. The election has to be redone, period. I was reading that the Republican primary may need to be redone also – the same absentee ballot anomalies appear in those results.
I do wish that people would stop calling it “voter suppression” – it is election fraud, stealing ballots and changing them or discarding them (Wolf does a good job of that but others are tweeting about “suppression”). We need to make sure that people see what real – not Fox News – election fraud looks like and be outraged about it.
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 30 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 32. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. It should stay dry for the next week.
It will be easy to skip quickly through the news items for the next few days while “the nation” (sans moi) is in mourning. The Supreme Court won’t meet on Wednesday, Congress is going to pass a two week extension on funding the government so that the December 4th deadline does not interfere with the whitewashing of George H.W. Bush’s legacy. When the standard for excellence is “didn’t totally fk up foreign policy” and “he was a racist but he had no choice!”, I find nothing to laud. When I see the videos of him being rescued after being shot down in WWII, I think of all the people in the Middle East whose lives were ruined by his son’s wars and how history might have changed if he had not been rescued. Maybe it would have made no difference, some other Republican would probably have stepped into the breach and totally screwed up the Middle East.
The Bernie Sanders v actual Democrats wars are starting early. I hope that they end quickly so that we can do a whip count of how may bernheaded voters Jill Stein will be getting in 2020 and plan accordingly. I am hoping that the young people who came out in 2018 to vote for Democrats do a better job than their older brothers and sisters did in figuring out how the two-party system works. In Wisconsin, they “got it” but it required all hands on deck including a visit from Barack Obama.
I have a bunch of interesting articles up in tabs and I need to get a few things done so that I can sit back and read them. The beginning of a month is easier for me because the end of the month has all the deadlines. But this is DECEMBER so the hard deadlines this month will include the end of year and decisions related to moving money and paying taxes. I need to get ahead of them.
See all y’all later!
Finger is no longer hot, red or painful so I’m going to call it cured. It was really alarming on Friday, but it’s felt fine after the peroxide soaks. I’m thinking about walking before work tomorrow & Thursday, but it’s gonna be in the 30s…… I know that’s not that cold to most of y’all, but it is to me. So I’m gonna listen to Don’t Give In.
Good that your finger is doing better. More Healing Energy anyway. Is there a large room or hallway inside the building you can just do “laps” around to get your walking in? I certainly don’t go walking outside when it’s in the 30s unless I absolutely have to. (Like I need to get to work and for some reason don’t have my car. Even then I only walk to the bus stop and not all the way in.) {{{HUGS}}}
When I walk before work, it’s before the building is open. I like to have 1 traffic-less commute – and get the really good place in the garage. So, I sometimes get downtown before I can get inside. Besides the lack of traffic, I like sitting here eating my overnight oats & listening to music. But getting here early enough to walk before work, that’s 5:30 or so. Will be cold.
Pity they don’t give you keys to at least one of the external doors. I try not to get up that early – at least not in the winter when it’s dark – much less actually be dressed, fed, and at work. LOL. Actually I was thinking walking during your lunch time but whatever suits you best. Humans evolved to walk a lot. Walking helps our digestion among many other things (including getting the blood back up from our feet to our hearts) so whenever you can fit it in is good. Healing Energy & more {{{HUGS}}}
Good Moonday morning, Moosekind! White clouds are veiling the blue beneath this morning, and the current temperature is 47 F., going up to 54 F. Yesterday the sky remained gray all day and the high of 60 F. we were promised failed to materialize.
Hope this will be a quiet day so I can catch up with correspondence and clear my desk. I’m having spells of feeling that I’m coming down with a cold mixed with spells of feeling reasonably okay.
Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
I hope the cold stays away! I have managed to stay pretty healthy this winter season – probably because I don’t go anywhere where there are human beings!
The “spells of feeling like…” point is precisely when doing the 500 mg vitamin C every couple of hours (& garlic soup if you can get/make/stand it) does the best job. These are immune-system boosters so are better preventatives than cures. Healing Energy. {{{HUGS}}}
Saving this here for when I might need it. :)
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OMG, Jan, the Hatchet Man looks deliciously sinister!
Good morning, 32 and foggy in Bellingham. I’ve been looking through photo files on my computer, and to my surprise I’m still wearing clothes from 10 yrs ago! The grand kids have grown from babies to teens but My look hasn’t changed. Hmmmm, might be time for new glasses frames at least :)
I enjoyed not doing much of anything yesterday, but today’s list is long so I’d best get busy. Best Monday wishes to all.
I still wear clothes that are 25 years old! As long as they don’t have holes in them, I will continue to do so. :)
I wear my clothes until the cloth starts to disintegrate (or elastic wear out if undies). And except for undies I usually get my clothes at Good Will so they weren’t new in the first place. LOL. I do change my glasses frames about every 5 years though. {{{HUGS}}}
At work so very intermittent as to when I can visit what – a rather unpleasant 29 windchill of 20 at the moment and overcast. Yesterday started like this but cleared off by noon and we got 7.2 KWHs – that brought us to m-t-d of 11.8 which was almost on track for 180 for the month. So far we’re generating at 400 watts/hour and have crept up to 12.9 – as always we shall see what we shall see.
Power for power’s sake v. power to make things better. That’s a whole lot what things come down to. Evil v. Good is totally wrapped up in why people want power. And the means they are willing to use to get it. Which is also why we who do not seek power at all most of the time and only want it because we need it to do good are at such a disadvantage once the Evil Ones have grabbed it. They are happy to cheat, lie, steal, and kill to get it and usually have a tight grip on it by the time we’ve realized (because they just hit us upside the head with one or more really evil actions) they’ve got it. sigh. So people are hurt and people die before we can wrest it from them again. But we always do manage to wrest it from them again. If we can break up the media monopoly (OK, consortium) we might even be able to keep them from getting it back for a decade or two. As long as the propaganda machine is intact, our hold is short and tenuous at best – but worth doing for the lives saved. Healing Energy to everybody shaped to the need. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese. 49 with high of 55. Still slow progress in getting foster kitty settled, but I’ll be getting a Feliway diffuser later today.
I’ve never used one but I understand they speed up the process a whole lot. Holding the Good Thought & sending Healing Energy to your household – including kitties – shaped to the need. {{{HUGS}}}
Good afternoon fellow Meeses. Had a quiet weekend. Went to work this morning and totally forgot the security badge to get in the staff area. Went home on my lunch hour to pick it up. I seem to be having one of those kind of days. It’s sunny and clear out here in Costa Mesa with a a temperature of 67. Weather people are saying we might have a chance of rain Wed. and Thurs.
Quiet weekends are good. Forgetting your security badge not so much. Hoping for the rain for you. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 27 degrees in Madison and that is the expected daytime high as well. Cloudy with occasional sunny breaks, chance of flurries in the evening.
I have been intently watching the drama unfolding in Madison over the lame duck session. Not really much of a drama as the die is cast – Wisconsin Republicans refuse to acknowledge their losses in the 2018 election and are moving power from the executive branch to the legislative branch where they can wait out the next four years and then retake power. There are only two things that can stop them: an uprising that votes them out of office or legal action, including winning the gerrymandering case that is in the federal courts now. Some of the election changes are in doubt but moving the power to control lawsuits (and hire their own law firms) to the legislature and taking away the governor’s authority to manage the state’s health care programs are pretty much guaranteed. I was laughing bitterly at people who were shocked SHOCKED that Scott Walker said he would sign the bills – if people thought a respect for elections and the rule of law would somehow appear out of nowhere – and completely in opposition to the way he governed – they were delusional. I hope the young people who came out at a 60% clip to vote the Republican government out see what is happening and vote in 2020 to punish the people who vote to nullify their votes. We probably can’t unseat them with the current gerrymanders in place (they are that tight) but it is worth a try. We will need a Democratic nominee who can excite and energize the electorate in 2020 to get out the vote.
My twitter feed was filled with images of Official Washington whitewashing the George H.W. Bush years. It was pretty funny that the Republican Party – since he was their president – had to laud a man who voted for Hillary Clinton and called Donald Trump a joke. I guess his racism creds overrode any later in life apostasy in their eyes. The people who are trying to separate Bush the campaigner from Bush the “principle president” (which he wasn’t) should remember Andrew Gillum’s words: “Maybe he isn’t a racist but the racists think he is.”
Mueller is due to release three sentencing reports this week, maybe as early as today. The Manafort report, probably the most damning, is due on Friday but it can be released at any time. I hope he does it sooner rather than later because this will be a critical week: people will not be giving the orange vomit sack enough attention – except by unwanted comparisons to Poppy Bush – and the likely public shunning of him at the funeral could push him over the edge.
See all y’all later!
Tuesday Meese
36 degrees and cloudy here in the NY Catskills – going up to 37.
Watching some people lose it over this post from Markos
PR
I won’t open kos’ diary as the comments will surely blow up my computer – perhaps even melt it! I am not sure what part of “Democrats don’t win the white vote” people don’t get. They haven’t since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the two parties finished the split that started with the New Deal – Republicans becoming the party of Confederate State grievances and big business and Democrats becoming the party of inclusion and caring for one another. Even Southern white guy Bill Clinton didn’t win the white vote! No Democrat is going to win as Trump-Lite any more than Democrats in the 90s and 00s were able to win as Republican-Lite.
I am ready for 2020 and I have no litmus test except that our nominee has to be a Democrat (bye, Bernie!) and has to win a majority of Democratic primary votes (caucuses are unfair and should be treated like straw polls).
So tired of the sanctification of HW. And it will only get worse tomorrow — which, btw, the governor has closed all state agencies. I am not one to look askance at a gift day off, but… really? Did not walk before work this morning — it’s in the 30s, too cold to me. But since I get to sleep in tomorrow, maybe I’ll walk mid-day. Youtube knows be disturbingly well — it suggested an oldie by Snow Patrol — Disaster Button. Just fun & energetic.