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 (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). 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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Page One of Comments is HERE!
Page Two of Comments is HERE!
It’s hot, yesterday was exhausting at work, I didn’t go to the gym (but my gym stuff us still here so I could go today). I left my tea in the freezer overnight so this morning I have just regularly cold tea from a normal insulated bottle instead of my usual not-quite-icey tea from my beautiful AIDS Ride mug. It’s not the saddest thing in my world today, but a minor bummer. Listening to happy, hopeful Empress.
Sound and pulse and volume
Hands just reaching out for hands
This is almost overload
I said almost overload
Friends and foes and princes
Are all just human in the end
This is so damn simple, yeah
It’s so damn simple
It’s more like Sunday than Monday today in Fay., AR – overnight was 75 and the A/C was still kicking on at 4 am – so I don’t have the house open, just the carport door and the window to the porch for the cats. I’ll close them shortly. The humidity is like a very warm, very wet towel – uncomfortable and giving me a headache. Yesterday the A/C didn’t kick on until 4:45 pm. My bet today is the A/C will kick on before 10 am. sigh. We did at least get 18.8 KWHs yesterday and the m-t-d is 261 – not great but still on track for over 400 even if 500 is no longer possible.
I watched most of the Native American presidential forum yesterday – MW, EW, AK, & SB although Bullock was doing it remotely and the tech just didn’t work. I don’t really care as he’s not going to be our candidate (& I seriously wish he hadn’t joined this little party) but it wasn’t helpful. After watching the EW segment Aji said “the fix is in” and she’s pretty much right. It could have been an EW townhall & rally. Especially compared to the treatment of the other two candidates I saw. (I didn’t get the link until after MW but I’m not really interested in her either.) Day 2 will have Sestak, Charles, Delaney, Kamala Harris (Skyping in so I hope the technology is better today), Castro, Sanders, & de Blasio starting at 9:30 (with an hour for lunch) – I think this is CDT. I doubt I’ll watch all of it. I certainly wish they were going to offer a transcript of the whole thing but I doubt it. If they did the likelihood of me finding it is slim anyway. sigh. I wish I thought Kamala would be picking up some “hearts and minds” but I doubt it. Especially since she isn’t there physically and doubly especially if the Skype is as messed up for her as it was for Bullock yesterday. I’m surprised that EW is the anointed one considering how much work Castro has done with and for Natives. And I’m pissed off that EW is the anointed one considering that every single one of her “plans” was ripped off from Hillary, Kamala, or Julian (I wish I knew how to do the accent for his name – feels almost as if I’m calling him out of his name when I don’t have it there) – and she was obviously coached on how to present them to this particular audience. More sighs.
So. I need coffee. Maybe it will help the headache. Then to DoReMi’s post and on to the internets. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
{{{Hope your headache goes away, dearest!}}}
Good Tiu’s Day morning, Meese! We had a surprise rainfall last night—just a few hours after we’d carefully replaced the outdoor cushions on the screened porch and laid down the carpet again. Right now it’s 77 F. with showers expected at 3 p.m., at which time the temp. will have climbed to 92 F. or worse.
The Littles are being very good. Getting them up and organized to eat breakfast and perform morning ablutions takes a great deal of time. I can tell Dearly’s patience is being somewhat tried. ;) However, I’m getting paid for this and Goddess knows I can use the money. They’re taking the Mont-ster for a walk in the morning freshness and then will go a few yards down the hall to the Game Room to work on the puzzle. The Game Room has four tables and a lot of jigsaw puzzles, which are meticulously circulated from building to building.
We’re going to eat dinner at home again tonight as Mr. K. eats hardly anything and we’ve already used up six of our 20 meals for this month.
Must, must get that article written in between doing laundry. Later this morning we’re going to make Oatmeal-Walnut cookies and this afternoon we’re going swimming. At least the kids will—yours truly will watch, photo, and video them. One of the great things about living in this modern age is being able to text photos of the kids to their parents at work. Last night I took a really cute one of them bedded down for the night, each clutching a sleep animal.
Hoping everyone at the Pond will have a good day with no bad news.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 66 when I got up and heading towards a muggy 88 today. It sprinkled a bit this morning and is still quite grey; it doesn’t look like that is going to change much. It’s the kind of day that calls for limited movement and activity, but unfortunately, I have a bunch of running around to do, including a vet appointment for the pup who sheds copiously when she’s stressed or nervous. Yay…mugginess + dog fur!
I’ve been mostly sticking to my commitment to focus on local elections vs the presidential primaries. Sen. Gary Peters is actually looking stronger than I expected. He has a knack for appealing to the folks formerly known as moderate Republicans. In any other state that would thoroughly piss off the leftiest Dems. and for all I know, it does here too. But it’s not obvious to me, and he does manage to throw out enough legitimate red meat to the Left to keep them interested. Somehow he manages to meld his corporate history with his biker persona; if nothing else, it’s crafty politics. I’ll always think of Debbie Stabenow as “my” senator, but watching Peters at work, I can’t help but have some grudging respect for how he handles the politics of our state.
Good day to and for all!
Good morning meese, 61 with high of 87. Not much to report except that I am apparently very sleepy..
Good morning, 59 and sunny in Bellingham. Last night’s dinner was fun and left over berry cobbler with yogurt was a tasty breakfast treat. Erica and her family return to Oregon today, and my sister starts her drive back to New Mexico tomorrow. I’ll have a a few serious laundry days as we wind down the summer visiting season.
Best wishes to all.
As anticipated. This is one instance when I won’t object to giving the NYT some of my money:
Good morning, meeses! Wednesday …
It is 70 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 79. Partly cloudy skies are in the forecast.
A quick scan of the news shows that I can safely ignore it today, which is good. I am seriously behind on some accounting projects due to hardware glitches on my own network and errands that took me away from my office yesterday. Fingers crossed that I can find 2 hours of uninterrupted time to finish.
By the way, calling your candidate “the only one electable” and telling voters that “the issues don’t matter, beating Trump is the only thing that matters” is terrible messaging. The issues do matter – we are running to shape the future not just to beat Trump. If we choose a candidate who does not excite the kids, we will lose. I know that my Gen-Zer is less worried about Trump, the person, than global warming, affordable college and housing, and not getting shot up by maniacs with assault rifles. We can see the connection between Trump and bad policies but don’t assume the kids do. Speak to the issues, speak to their future and we will win.
Daily reminder: the polls at this stage reflect name recognition and not much more.
See all y’all later!
Wednesday Meese – more thunderstorms here today. Ugh.
Looked at the newest CNN blaring announcement that Kamala Harris had dropped in their latest national ‘poll”
Cough.
Sure.
CNN’s latest crap crosstabs
“A total of 1,001 adults were interviewed by telephone nationwide by live interviewers calling both landline and cell phones. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Among the entire sample, 28% described themselves as Democrats, 26% described themselves as Republicans, and 46% described themselves as independents or members of another party.”
The ‘sample’ (which is bullshit) looks at “white” “nonwhite” whatever that means.
The term “independent” is complete bullshit. It is mostly Republicans embarrassed about being identified as Republicans. In order to use that category, they need to break it down into “Independent – Usually Votes Democratic” and “Independent – Usually Votes Republican” and then rebalance the poll based on that. Most Democrats aren’t embarrassed to be known as Democrats.
The problem with polling Republicans and “Independent – Usually Votes Republican” is that they want Joe Biden as the nominee. He will give them the most cover over the next 4 years and allow them to rebuild their party and regain the presidency in 2024. We need someone who recognizes that the problem is not just Trump but his entire party, the party of the Southern Strategy, Nixon, Reagan, Lee Atwater – a party that has run on white nationalism for the past 40 years but which is now being led by a guy who simply says the quiet parts out loud. The enemy is Republicanism and Joe Biden – who insists that there are “good Republicans” – will give them permission to call Trump a “mistake” and an “outlier’; he is not an outlier, he is them.
Thanks for that explanation of “independents”!
Democratic club meeting tonight. Proposed changes to our rules, which were e-mailed out & posted on our FB page so people could read them in advance. I bet no one has. But no matter how big the fight, we have to be done by 7, because there are always musicians scheduled then. Yay! Today’s high of 102 will be the “coolest” in 2 weeks. They’re saying the streak of 100+ degree days could go to 23, which would be the 2nd longest ever. So I’m imagining cold & snowy weather: Snow Patrol’s Shut Your Eyes.
and I wrote a video-heavy AIDS Walk diary at the orange place – but 1 of the videos is me talking about why I do the Walk: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/21/1880348/-AIDS-Walk-Austin-is-1-month-away-a-diary-of-warm-fuzzies?_=2019-08-21T05:06:46.069-07:00
The overnight (meaning just at dawn) low was 73 – which thankfully will be the highest for the foreseeable future – and it’s 75 now. I’ve got the house open but I’ll have to close up soon. A/C kicked on at 9:15 am yesterday and was still cycling on at midnight. We did get 18 KWHs yesterday so we covered, barely, the usage but I’ll be a lot happier when 18 means credit building not A/C using. The m-t-d is 279 – last month that would have meant we could reach 300 today. but it isn’t last month. However IF today and tomorrow are like the last 2 we’ll definitely be solidly into 300 by Friday morning. Including today we have 12 more production days in August.
I managed to watch through all the candidates except bernie at the Native American forum yesterday. I’m not gonna say Kamala picked up any Native voters because I doubt she did. She’s got the ones she started with – and yes, she does have some – but pretty much everybody else has internalized the “no friend” report hit piece of 2015. Yes, as CA AG representing the state she did send letters requesting denial of 15 land-to-trust applications. She also did not send those letters for 214 land-to-trust applications. Yes, she defended the state in a law suit brought by Natives regarding reservation boundaries. No, she didn’t appeal when she lost. She’s co-sponsored the Savanna Act in the Senate & as AG she investigated, indicted, and even managed to convict sex-ring gangs who were kidnapping Indigenous women – but that doesn’t count because it wasn’t only Indigenous women she was helping. She not only says she supports Native sovereignty, she specifically listed anti-sovereignty rulings as part of a litany of reasons not to support a group of appointees in the Judiciary Committee – and that doesn’t count either. Maybe if she could have been there personally – Skyping in was seen as another insult indicating Natives aren’t important enough to give them even one day – she’s very good at “retail politics”. Maybe not as good as Bill Clinton working a rope line, but up there with Hillary. She’s got so very many good programs helping so very many people – including Natives – I can’t not support her (although if she had been anti-sovereignty/anti-Indigenous as accused I’d have had to move her down from top position to the mushpot of “I’ll vote for them if they’re the nominee”). It makes me sad that the people she’d help don’t believe it and won’t help her get into a position to actually do it. But Castro is very good and while I don’t think his overall platform is as good as Kamala’s, it’s not bad. And the fact that he was wise/politically astute enough to make a separate plan for Natives does indicate he’s got the chops for the job. Harris/Castro has been my dream ticket from the time she declared. If it turns out to be Castro at the top, well, so be it. I can be happy with that.
I need coffee – and maybe get a walk in this morning before it heats up. I haven’t been able to because of the Native American presidential forum the last two days and I’m stiff. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning meese, it’s 60 with a high of 94. I had some fitful sleep, waking up at 3 am to do work and then Bentley took over half the (twin) bed! That led to an interesting few hours of trying to sleep until I woke up just now.
Good morning, 64 and cloudy in Bellingham. Our Oregon daughter is home, and my sister is on the road so I’ve got an empty quiet house this morning. We’ll miss everyone, but I’ll be glad for a rest from meals and laundry.
Time for coffee, a quick scan of the news, and then to finish my book. I just have a few chapters to go so I saved reading them until today. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Thursday …
It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 73. Sunny this morning then scattered clouds this afternoon. Perfect weather!
Governor Jay Inslee has ended his presidential campaign. We should thank him for making sure that climate change issues are not ignored; I hope the other candidates include it in their stump speeches and insist that debate moderators ask questions about it. If I recall, none of the general election debates in 2016 included questions on climate change which should embarrass everyone who lives on this planet.
I don’t know how to weigh in on the “disloyal American Jews” dustup because I am not Jewish and can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be an ethnicity vilified and murdered for a few thousand years and how it would form someone’s world view. But requiring American Jews to agree with and support every action of the current elected government of Israel seems wrong. That the demand for this loyalty comes from a president* who embraces the support of literal nazis should make his call laughable – that it doesn’t tells us just how insane Republican Party politics is right now.
See all y’all later!
Dem club meeting was contentious, ran long & still didn’t get everything done. We voted on club boundaries & attendance requirements (to prevent candidates packing the club for endorsement meetings). Trump is even more terrifying, when I really didn’t think he could be. Haven’t been to the gym in a week. Ugh. Ok, going to listen to happy bouncy Heal Me.
Oh this is love like wildness coursing through you like a drug
And this is hurt like kindness breaking you with gentle hands
Thursday Meese. 76 going up to 88 with more storms on the way here in NYS
Running late cause I did today’s Kamala diary at GOS
Since that is not part of your official DK work (and subject to their copyright), can I republish that on the Moose? I would love to have some links for the primary campaign in an ad free environment. It would not require anything from you other than your permission to republish.
Sure!!!
You can repub anything I write that isn’t from fp – and I’ve seen stuff from fp republished too – not sure that Dkos has copyright
It’s 70 & heading for upper 80s in Fay., AR – and raining. Rain moved in late yesterday afternoon and dropped the temps into the mid 70s, cleared off long enough to let the temps drop some more and then started raining again around 5 this morning. We’ve already gotten .8″ which we can use. However the forecast now shows likelihood of rain the next 4 days and possibility of rain the rest of the month. Since the m-t-d is currently at 294 KWHs I’m not exactly happy about that. We got 14.9 before the rain moved in yesterday but with the clouds and rain for the day I’m not entirely sure we’ll even manage to reach 300 today. sigh.
My younger son and his family will be coming for a visit. They’ve rented a house – on the other side of town but that’s 600 miles closer than their home in Austin – and expect to get in late next Thursday. Depending how late I may or may not see them when they get in. Friday the plan is a nice tourist-y visit to Eureka Springs – what you might call the hippie-dippie woo-woo capital of AR among other things. It was a very popular place to “take the waters” in the late Victorian-early Edwardian era (I don’t remember why European travel was not advisable at the time) and the town still has some interesting architecture. My brother worked on the renovation of one of the famous hotels in the late 1970s. Anyway Saturday will be “family together” day – taking the place of “decorate the tree at grandma’s” for the Austin since it’s the wrong time of year for that. I’m not sure but I think they have to go back Sunday because there’s a school something or other on actual Labor Day. Anyway – I haven’t seen them in person since December of ’17 and I am very much looking forward to it.
I hope to heaven we can get back the reins of government for 2021. We will have a very big job to do in a very short period of time before the RW cabal makes sure we’re voted out again. & in fact as serious as everything is, job one will be to break up the propaganda machine and secure our election system. Then we need a WWII-mobilization-sized infrastructure build/rebuild – because it’s too late to stop catastrophic climate change. IF it’s even possible to survive it, we have to build for that now. It’s got to include more than just infrastructure – education, agriculture, healthcare…and damn-sure criminal justice reform before things start getting really bad. And this absolutely must include finally honoring Native treaty rights, not only because it is now and always has been the right thing to do but because they’ve got the knowledge pool we need and we need to be treating them like allied nations and not the evil way we have been treating them. BTW do I think any of this will happen? No. I think the short-sighted power-mad greedheads who’ve gotten us into this will block any and all necessary actions for us to survive it. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I think Kamala can do it – IF she has a like-minded Congress writing laws so tight the RW-packed Courts can’t stop them AND she has the time.
Meanwhile the rain is playing merry hell with my back and I can’t even get coffee and Ibuprofen because there’s a cat on my lap. (Murf. Enjoying not being out in the rain or holed up in a plastic-wrapped box.) Hopefully it will ease up when the rain does. Bright the day, Meeses.
68 with high of 97 and clear. Still sleepy so will try to catch a few more winks before waking up.
Good morning, Meesefolk; 61 when I got up with a high of 75 today…AKA perfect! I checked in yesterday…twice…but each time we lost power here before I got my comment posted. I finally gave up and shut down my computer until I was sure we had service for good. Apparently, this area, unlike at home, had storms Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and there were power outages all over the place. The repair process seemed to introduce a few more!
I stumbled across some interesting theorizing this morning. The Greenland distraction, as well as the call for the G7 to add Russia and make the G8, may be related. Denmark is alone in sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to the EU (Germany), and they have denied permission to have the pipeline in Danish territorial waters. In the past, this administration has made noises about sanctioning Russia over the pipeline (despite the fact this would hurt relations with Germany which wants the natural gas), but the theory is that Putin somehow got 45* focused on all that real estate in Greenland, and the rift with Denmark is part of Putin’s puppeteering. This is my quick-and-dirty explanation of what I read, and frankly, I don’t know if it actually makes sense. But so little does anymore that I’m inclined to keep an open mind.
I also stumbled into a veritable cesspool of tRumpism this morning; what a scary, bizarre place. I was trying to find the background on the “I am the Chosen One” statement which meant watching a short clip of his declaration. The comments on Twitter by supporters were stunning; the number of “Christian” women who were gushing and saying, “Yes, he is the Chosen One” left me needing a shower and some brain bleach. I couldn’t tell if they wanted to follow him or … him. I felt as if I was reading Helter Skelter and some of the comments made by Manson’s followers. Since 45* has zero familiarity with religious eschatological thought, someone is feeding him this shit and his mania at the same time. I would think that Pence would view it as blasphemy; Pompeo might not? Who knows…it’s just weird and disturbing and wrong on a whole lot of levels.
And on that note (!), good day to and for all!
Interesting theory about the Denmark connection. It sounds feasible to me – normally, sleuthing is “follow the money” but with the tRump administration is it “follow the Russian puppeteer.”
Pence and Pompeo have already sold their souls for power so a little blasphemy would not bother them. Don’t these sorts of guys believe that the End always justifies the means, that there is essentially nothing that cannot be done in support of their religious ideology? To ensure their place in the rapture, they have to turn a blind eye to the teachings of their purported saviour – caring for the sick, feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless are optional.
Good morning, 61 and partly sunny in Bellingham. Yesterday was a series of naps day and I slept late this morning so I hope I’ll have more energy for today. Our grand girls will be with us today so I need to wake up and get ready. Ava wants to be outside doing something with Ron, and after work Emma wants to explore my daughters old tutu’s so we’ll be evacuating a deep closet. So many memories!
I won’t be surprised if Inslee is offered a position in DC after the next election, but regardless Wa State has good candidates for governor.
Jay Inslee exits presidential race; plans to run for 3rd term as governor
On Wednesday morning, Inslee released the sixth plank of his comprehensive plan to combat climate change and transform the national economy. Just 12 hours later, he announced he was done.
Best wishes to all.