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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Sunday, July 27

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Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings diary series gives the Moose, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

In lieu of daily check-ins, which have gone on hiatus, Welcomings diaries will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning) and then, if necessary due to a large number of comments, on Wednesday or Thursday to end the week. To find the diaries, 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?

…


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 122 Comments

122 comments

  1. JanF

    In Madison WI, it is 69 degrees on its way up to 74. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast

    Have a great day, all y’alls!!

  3. Portlaw

    to 86 ;(

    The harbor was great, yesterday. It was very crowded with cargo ships, ferries, liners, tugs, barges, and then the summer stuff with lots of kayaks and small sail boats. There are now lots of sailing schools here so the harbor was filled with small training sail boats. It was great. One almost ran into the Statue of Liberty, or rather her island.

    Today is a day for thinking of my responsibilities. Guess that needs some coffee and the news. Have a great day!

  4. anotherdemocrat

    Eating breakfast, watching Up & La Course (the women’s race around the Champs Elysee — 1st time the women get a chance! Le Tour comes on later.

    Doing laundry, cooking later. Half marathon training starts the 8th. So Saturdays until February, I’ll be getting up the same as my weekday time. Sigh. Maybe I’ll take afternoon naps.

  5. anotherdemocrat

    he is killing it today

    https://twitter.com/timjacobwise

    Bc believing slaveowners should have been compensated 4 their loss after emancipation bc PROPERTY! makes him a minority #RandPaulMInority

    Remember when libertarians were enslaved? Weren’t allowed 2 testify in court? Were stopped/frisked regularly? Me either #RandPaulMinority

    bc those guys who beat the Freedom Riders were just standing up 4 the private property rights of Greyhound to segregate #RandPaulMinority

    bc how many people can oppose ALL social programs but still sucker liberals into praising him by advocating legal weed? #RandPaulMinority

  7. JanF

    55 degrees here in Madison WI … expected high of 74.

    This speech is worth another view, 10 years later. This was his introduction to America and it is important to help us remember why he was elected and why his election was so amazing.

    Transcript.

  8. DeniseVelez

    and thunderstorms on the way.

    The wet is making the mosquitoes here worse than usual.

    Scanning the news

    I see Sarah Palin is launching her TV Network – will this woman ever just.go.away.?

    Horror of horrors we are now going to be faced with 24 hours a day of Palindrone

    Urban Dictionary:

    http://www.urbandictionary.com…

    Anything uttered by US Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin. A nonsensical series of drawn-out, padded words that don’t make sense forward or backward. Similar to the well-known and inherently idiotic “Bushisms” spoken by President George W. Bush.

  9. anotherdemocrat

    early part of the week 100+, but they say by the end of the week it’ll drop 20 degrees & rain. I’ll believe it when I feel it.

    Eating breakfast & drinking tea. No thoughts in my head, just music. Snow Patrol again. I need to get out my Michael Franti just to have a different earworm.

  10. Portlaw

    83. Am going to check out the news in a minute but need coffee. Always wonder when I see the headlines, which are not usually great, how Obama deals with the news as he starts his day. He has, these days, a lot on his breakfast plate. I don’t know how he does it. And in the background are those Rethugs singing impeachment. Am surprised he doesn’t have more gray hair. Of course, I don’t know if gray hair can also be a sign of stress.  

    As for Palin, twenty four seven, seems as though it can be hard to tell the difference, these days, between politics and entertainment. I like this quote that Jan gave us

    a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum

    but wonder if it applies to everyone in the GOP.

    Hope everyone’s breakfast plate is free of stress.

  11. Diana in NoVa

    Not one of the weather people on the local channel apologized for getting it so wrong about the weather here yesterday. We were warned to expect severe storms at 2 p.m.  Then 7 p.m. Then 2 a.m. Dearly Beloved and I were so worried we filled the thermos with boiling water, as one must have a cup of tea, whatever happens. The storm was a no-show. Not sorry to miss violent winds, obviously, but it would have been nice to have some rain.

    The Geek Squad guy has just telephoned to say he has had a cancellation and can come here in the morning. This is great news! Next time I stop by the Moose pond I’ll be on a Mac.

    Meanwhile I must ponder why this iPad isn’t letting me see the video Denise has on her Rand Paul post or the video JanF posted about Obama’s speech in 2004. I saw princesspat’s beautiful photo, all right, but just no videos.

    Hope everyone will have a good day!

  12. JanF

    Testing testing … is this microphone on?

    The site is hosted at Soapblox.net which actually redirects to something called The Contributor (the moose and some other lefty blogs kind of get ported through there).

    Here is the message I was getting:

    Whoops!

    The system is too busy to process your request at this time. Please try again in a few minutes.

    In this case, the system was busy for a few hours. It looks like it is back.

  13. bfitzinAR

    than yesterday at 8 am – still only 84 at 3:00 pm CDT – sorry it took so long to get in – something corrupted my connection and I couldn’t get here until JanF sent me a link.  Spending most of my day tracking down things I did last week to see where they are in the approval chain.  By the time they make it all the way through I’ll probably have forgotten how to do the next step!  Hope everyone is having a great day and a great week.  {{{HUGS}}} bf

  14. JanF

    It is 59 degrees here with an expected high of 78. Isolated thunderstorms in the forecast but nothing close on the radar at this point.

    I hope everyone has refound the moose. Whatever caused the site-down issues yesterday (my guess: router crash) appears to have left some people’s browsers pointing to the wrong place on the Internet. Sometimes the FAIL is remembered by the browser’s cache (cookies and such) and until it is cleared, your path to the pond is blocked. If you think your peeps are missing because of a technology glitch, send them a link to the check-in (that bypasses the cache routing) and we can help troubleshoot.

    This morning, the chickens have come home to roost and the three days left in July will not be enough to get done what I need to get done this month. So it is nose to the grindstone day to see if I can salvage a few projects and then come up with credible excuses for pushing the others off until next week.

    Russia. Yikes. I am wondering what the contours of a new Cold War will look like. We are left wishing that we had addressed the larger issue of our world held hostage to oil which puts power in the hands of dangerous people. So America is more energy independent because we have opened up new places to drill. BHD. But the rest of the world, which we can’t really ignore, is still under the domination of Putin and the Saudi princes. There is no one to blame but ourselves. We knew the dangers of oil producing nations with their boot on our throats 40 years ago. Instead of meeting that head on by finding alternative energy sources and thumbing our noses at the princes and ayatollahs, military plans were drawn up to keep the oil flowing at all costs. Now the oil is being controlled by a country we can’t just bomb or invade. Who could have predicted that? Sigh.

    This is the last week that Congress will be in session this summer. They will go back to their districts for 5 weeks to ostensibly meet with their constituents. I would hope those constituents give them an earful but I suspect that they will not meet with them but will instead meet with the guys who will fund their reelection campaigns. The 113th Congress is a disgrace. It is incredible to me that people who want to destroy government are being elected to Congress. What could possibly go wrong? Sigh again.

    See all y’alls later!

  15. Diana in NoVa

    this morning, do you believe that? High today will be 80 F. Humidity is so low we’ve turned off the a.c.

    When the Geek Squad guy (a handsome young Romanian named Romulus) was here yesterday we kept trying to bookmark the Moose so it could be on the Favorites bar or something but we couldn’t get to it. Oh, well, one of these days I  will figure out how to get the icon from the front page and stick it on the background or wallpaper or whatever it’s called.

    Having a relapse with the ear problem this morning, so it’s back to ye olde decongestants.

    JanF, you said:

    We knew the dangers of oil producing nations with their boot on our throats 40 years ago. Instead of meeting that head on by finding alternative energy sources and thumbing our noses at the princes and ayatollahs, military plans were drawn up to keep the oil flowing at all costs.

    True, and did you hear? There was another earthquake this morning, this one on the Oklahoma-Kansas border. Fracking! People never learn.

    Having guests over the Lammas weekend, so must work, work, work to get the house ready. A good day in Moosylvania to all!

  16. DeniseVelez

    No problemo getting on here today.  

    Sun is out, 65 degrees and only going up to 75. Feels like either spring or fall. Weird for end of July.

    My news feeds are nothing but death and destruction – Gaza, Ukraine, Ebola…  

    Yesterday watched an uplifting Moral Monday demonstration in Washington DC – as a live feed – with Rev. Barber.

    http://new.livestream.com/acco…


    To draw political leaders’ attention to the growing rural healthcare crisis sweeping the nation, the North Carolina NAACP and the Forward Together Movement will stand alongside a conservative NC mayor and members of his community at a Moral Monday rally and press conference outside the U.S. Senate on Monday, July 28.

    Back to writing for Tuesday’s Chile.

    Seeya later.

     

  17. anotherdemocrat

    so they say, I’ll believe it when I see it

    Eating breakfast, drinking tea. Signed a Credo Action petition about Eden Foods for a Texas chain. Looking forward to a day off tomorrow for acupuncture & an afternoon massage for my shoulder. Sometimes it feels ok, sometimes picking up the phone makes me want to cry. Just got to get through today.

  18. princesspat

    This is the summer of going to the Dr…..my car is programmed for the route! So today I’ve got a blood test to check my coumadin level, a visit to a surgeon to have something removed from my back, and while I’m there I hope to ask about my toe. Just wearing the damn boot and hoping for the best is becoming harder and harder to do but if the other option is to amputate my toe I’ll keep clumping along.

    And just because I’m going to plant some already blooming dahlias in a pot on the front porch. It will either give the squirrels something new to dig up or they will (hopefully) lose interest!

  19. bfitzinAR

    with temps around 60 at 6 am.  Lovely sleeping weather if I could just convince my sinuses that good sleep requires easy breathing.  Sigh.  But we’re having the cool-for-July weather the rest of the week!

    Have no idea what the heck is going on with my computer but if I hit the “home” button it goes to the “whoops – redirect” but I can go to my comments or to diaries and get in that way.  Makes life interesting, right?  Anyway, back to work and all that.  {{{HUGS}}}

  20. JanF

    It is 59 degrees on its way up to 77. Scattered thunderstorms in the forecast again. Yesterday’s showed up in the evening. They were much more serious east of here.

    The international news is so grim it is time to laugh at the Senate candidate in Iowa, pig castrator … and Tenther!! … Joni Ernst; this time being upset at her opponent’s “dirty, false campaign” using ads with her actual words in them!!

    The Braley ad features part of a June Iowa Public Radio interview in which Ernst was asked if she – like 65 percent of her fellow Iowans – supported an increase in the minimum wage. Ernst responded in the negative, explaining, “I do not support a federal minimum wage. Every state has a different economy, different cost of living. I don’t believe that’s the role of the federal government.” It also includes video of a March candidate forum at which Ernst argued that the current minimum wage of $7.25 is “appropriate for Iowa.”

    Like maybe appropriate for these 300,000 Iowans?

    The current $7.25 minimum wage – the national wage floor since 2009 – would mean that a 40-hour-a-week employee would only earn about $15,000 annually. P Progress Iowa has estimated that more than 300,000 Iowans would receive a pay raise if the minimum were raised to $10.10, as Braley has proposed. That amounts to about 10 percent of the state’s population.

    :::lightbulb moment::: How about those 300,000 Iowans vote for the Democrat!!!

    The president is in Kansas City … eating barbeque. See the photos last night on Twitter made me want a plate of burnt ends.

    See all y’alls later!

  21. Diana in NoVa

    Good morning, all!  We still have low humidity. I’m about to run out and weed the flower garden before my niece arrives for coffee at 10.

    Was a bit under the weather yesterday so did not get a whole lot done. This “swimmer’s ear” thing is getting me down in spite of the antibiotic drops. However (shrug), one must keep calm and carry on.

    Still have to find a Lammas ritual for just two people–my friend is coming on Friday night and we want to celebrate. When she lived in this area she came over every full moon to celebrate, but with all the foggy minds clouding up the sky over D.C., we quite often didn’t see the full moon.

    Plans for today–buy some more plants, see whether there are any potatoes left in the potato bed, plant some Simpson lettuce in the porch box. I left a carton of Epsom salt out on the screened porch just now–the dumb dog thought it was a milk carton and started chewing on it. Goddess knows what’s going to happen if he ate any of it, as epsom salts are a known laxative!

    Like Portlaw, I hate to contemplate what’s happening in the world. Innocent Palestinian children sleeping in a shelter beside their parents, bombed to death? Innocent children at the border “threatening” our “way of life”? Keep on threatening, kids, perhaps we’ll stop our way of life, which is basically selfish.  Wish there were something we could do, but I can’t think of anything beyond long-term actions such as voting for Democrats, which I do anyway.

    Incidentally, someone or something needs to debunk the word “Libertarian.”  It’s another word for “Even more selfish and ‘me’-oriented.” We’ve got a homegrown Libtard running for U.S. senator this fall. Best outcome: he reduces the vote for Ed Gillespie, who’s running against Mark Warner. Mark is a DINO, but even a DINO is preferable to a Rethug in the Senate.

    Happy Woden’s Day to all in Mooseland!

  22. anotherdemocrat

    there was a cold front, but it stalled out & retreated back

    Slept in – and really more or less did sleep. Eating breakfast & watching Dr Who (the Time of the Angels, one of my favorites). Got acupuncture & massage appointments for my neck. And I swear I’m exercising today.

  23. bfitzinAR

    we may even get rain which we need badly (but I won’t bet on that – most of the stuff coming at us from the NW splits right about the OK-AR border with the preponderance going down the AR River valley to the south and the rest going down the White River valley to the north).  Well, made it to Wednesday.  Not bad for somebody with a peon-level frustrating job that is being deliberately made harder to do and a chest cold.  {{{HUGS}}} to da meeses.  bf

  24. princesspat

    Yesterday’s Dr.visits resulted in a pep talk re my irritating toe (give it more time), and a scheduled time at a surgery center for whatever is on my back because thanks to BCH and coumadin an in office procedure is to risky…..I’m so special!

    So I clumped home and was happy to find the landscape firm available to be in the garden for the afternoon. It’s a big learning curve for me to just let them do the necessary pruning and then to be patient with the results. When three people are focused and working a lot gets done and I know I can finesse the rest, just not RIGHT NOW….like I want to 🙁

  25. DeniseVelez

    had an early morning foot doc appointment – then nose to the keyboard writing. Just came up for air and realized the day is half-gone.

    Waving hi!

    Now need food 🙂

  26. JanF

    The temperature is 62 degrees with an expected high of 80. Scattered thunderstorms in the forecast.

    So, the Republicans did it, didn’t they? They sued the president. I do believe this is not going to end the way Congressional Republicans think it will end: a risk-free (no I-word!!) fundraising tool for the midterms … plus a doggie biscuit to their most rabid members. Sadly for them, that crowd wants red meat not doggie biscuits and a dry old lawsuit (and one that sues the president for giving small businesses more time to find insurance before the ACA mandate kicks in) is not going to do it. They want to impeach. Period.

    Off to find the president’s speech in Kansas City. I need a palate cleanser.

    See you all later!!

  27. Diana in NoVa

    Another beautiful day with no rain–alas and alack! Literally, a lack. Oh, well, have a good friend coming for coffee this morning (must quickly bake oatmeal cookies) and a splash party for the Littles this afternoon. This evening–tidy up downstairs, find bedding for the overnight guests expected tomorrow.

    Just had some good news re a friend who was scheduled to have surgery yesterday–she has responded so well to the chemo that it was not necessary to remove her lung after all.

    Today I will buy frozen bread dough to thaw overnight in the fridge. Tomorrow I’ll let it rise in the kitchen and then I’ll bake the loaves so the house will smell of home-baked (notice I didn’t say homemade) bread on Lammas. When I do the Lammas ritual for our circle I bake bread in the shape of the harvest god, but another circle sister is doing the ritual this year. So I’ll make Blueberry Cake, berries being traditional at Lammas.

    Hope all in Moosylvania will have a good day!

  28. anotherdemocrat

    our highs will go down to the mid-90s because of the rain… yay?

    Shoulder maybe feels better, I’m moving very gingerly as to not test it too much. I have a headache – skipped the caffeine yesterday.

    Working through what to think about my friend’s turn for the worse. She’s one of 2 people outside my immediate family I’ve known since childhood (if 10th grade counts as “childhood”). She’s hoping to be strong enough to help her daughter move to Boston for school — then she says the daughter might put school off for a semester because there’s so little time left…. My mind keeps wandering off, because I really find that hard to accept.

    So, I drink tea & eat my sweet potato breakfast & imagine a different life.

  31. princesspat

    The grand girls are here today so we will have some summer fun, and I’ll recover from my attempt to “fix” the over zealous pruning in the garden. Jeanne and Kent prune like landscapers and I prune like a floral arranger…don’t let the cuts show!

    Fortunately the area most upsetting to me involves ivy and it grows fast. I’m going to buy a few new plants to fill in the holes by the steps though. Gotta keep my little corner of the world as it should be 🙂

  32. bfitzinAR

    heading for 74 which is actually warmer than it topped out yesterday.  (Wait a minute.  This IS July, isn’t it?)  We had steady drizzle yesterday and something like heavy mist today.  At least I won’t have to water anything for another week.  Wrapping up another month, almost finished with summer session 2, about to start August intersession, and on we go.  Hope everyone is warm but not too warm and comfortable wherever they are.  {{{HUGS}}}

  33. JanF

    It is 63 degrees in Madison on its way up to 82 … scattered thunderstorms in the forecast.

    Happy Lammas to everyone! Here is an old time post with some all-the-time good advice:

    Lammas celebrates the first harvest, one of three harvests on the wheel of the year.

    By celebrating Lammas as a harvest holiday, we honor our ancestors and the hard work they must have had to do in order to survive. This is a good time to give thanks for the abundance we have in our lives, and to be grateful for the food on our tables. Lammas is a time of transformation, of rebirth and new beginnings.

    To celebrate the holiday, bake breads and berry pies with this harvest’s bounty and reflect on your own harvests.

    But above all: give thanks. Life is always something to be thankful for.

    See you later!

  35. Portlaw

    and will look for something berryish.  I also buy weeds at the market so hope they have Queen Anne’s Lace and cosmos so that I can put in various jugs and change my mood. Enjoy the day, Meese! And, once more, Happy Birthday to Dee!

  36. Diana in NoVa

    in NoVa, threatening to turn muggy, so we will, alas, have to turn on the a.c.

    Daughter in Austin is 52 today, so will call her at noon her time. More busy-ness today, along with baking the rest of the oatmeal cookies this morning, baking bread this afternoon, and perhaps Peach-Blackberry Crisp for dessert tonight.

    Will try to post a Lammas story later this morning. Gulp–looks as if I lost the Word version somehow during the PC-to-Mac changeover. Still trying to figure out various things with respect to the Mac. It’s a powerful little bugger, though.

    JanF, that’s great advice about being thankful. So far I haven’t succeeded in finding a Lammas ritual for two people to do with my friend tonight, so will have to make one up. The intent of the ritual will be gratitude–for the first harvest, for being together again (haven’t seen each other for years), and for the blessings of family.

    Happy birthday to Mooseland’s own Denise, and hope everyone will have a good day!

  37. anotherdemocrat

    only mid-90s, woohoo! Though the rain missed us, boo.

    Eating breakfast, drinking tea. Sending good, healthy thoughts to my friend & her surgical team (surgery is 9:30 this morning, expected to be 3 hours) – that everyone had a good night’s sleep & is having the kind of morning that has you feeling good.

    My neck/shoulder is feeling somewhat better. I think if I could swing another massage, I might get it knocked out.

    So today will be interesting. Hope I can keep some of my mind on work.

  38. bfitzinAR

    hasn’t yet.  Weather still supposed to be unseasonably cool (i.e., not hot as hell) for the week which means I may not have to turn the A/C back on for a few days.  As long as the overnight lows are in the low 60s (and it’s clear enough that the temps start falling after sundown) at least I don’t need it at night.  When the humidity is high, the overnight low may drop to 60 but it does it around 5 am.  Anyway, have a Lovely Lamas 🙂 and {{{HUGS}}}.

  39. princesspat

    It’s blackberry picking time for RonK…..he makes a lovely blackberry wine and I have fresh berries for my morning yogurt.

    It’s nice to think about and share the changing seasons with you all.

  40. JanF

    It is 57 degrees here in Madison WI on its way up to 82. Abundant sunshine in the forecast.

    I will wander off in a bit to do the Weekly Address and maybe a post on the “news” from the Republican House. They passed two bills, both filled with poison pills that will never see the light of day. The second bill, HR5272, was actually a suicide note: the GOP will not recover from the optics of their caucus, led by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), smirking at the passage of a bill that calls for the immediate deportation of children brought to the country illegally, many of whom have since graduated from college and even served in the military.

    It is important that the Republicans do not get away with the claim that they passed a bill to fund the border. We need to make sure that the anti-DREAMer bill they passed follows them around like a piece of toilet paper stuck to their shoe. Here is what the president said in his news conference yesterday regarding a question about the bipartisan immigration bill:

    So the argument isn’t between me and the House Republicans.  It’s between the House Republicans and Senate Republicans, and House Republicans and the business community, and House Republicans and the evangelical community.  I’m just one of the people they seem to disagree with on this issue.

    So that’s on the comprehensive bill.  So now we have a short-term crisis with respect to the Rio Grande Valley.  They say we need more resources, we need tougher border security in this area where these unaccompanied children are showing up.  We agree.  So we put forward a supplemental to give us the additional resources and funding to do exactly what they say we should be doing, and they can’t pass the bill.  They can’t even pass their own version of the bill.  So that’s not a disagreement between me and the House Republicans; that’s a disagreement between the House Republicans and the House Republicans.

    I hope it becomes a disagreement between the House Republicans and the American people and that the American people realize that the only way to win this argument is to fire those House Republicans and hire some people who agree with them.

    See you later!

  41. Diana in NoVa

    It’s 6:35 a.m. and I’m up because I couldn’t sleep past 6. Not sure what the temperature is but I see we had some rain during the night, and that’s nothing but good. It’s supposed to be largely cloudy today and tomorrow.

    My house guests are asleep downstairs, still on Albuquerque time. We had a hilarious reunion last night. My friend and I did a very informal Lammas ritual on the screened porch after dinner–then we walked down the garden to try to peer at the creek. One can’t see it in the summer for all the rampaging vegetation screening it from view.

    Anyway, it was great to see her again after goodness knows how many years–ten, at least, I should think–and to catch up with each other’s lives. She and her family will go to the museums in Washington today. I’ll stay home to bake a blueberry cake for tomorrow’s Lammas ritual with my circle and go over to my son’s house in the afternoon for Nanny-Granny training. My new job starts Monday and I’ve forgotten how to mix formula. 🙂

    Hope everyone will have a pleasant Saturday, doing what Moosylvanians like to do!

  42. Portlaw

    I could include in the greeting but didn’t find any. It’s rainy here. It’s a gloomy day and am trying not to be gloomy as well. Hope it’s a good day for all.

  43. DeniseVelez

    Looked for good news too 🙂

    Happy to see POTUS blasting the house Repubs.

    Other than that – like Jan I’m happy to be able to pay the bills this month, have food on the table and am in reasonably good health.

    Off to go pick my first crop of yellow tomatoes.

  44. anotherdemocrat

    Eating breakfast, watching Up. Re-arnica-ed my knee & re-solarcained my elbow & fingers. Got to figure out what’s for lunch next week. But this is my last Saturday before training starts so I’m trying to savor it. First goal: eat enough breakfast that I can take some ibuprofen, which my stomach will only a accept with a good cushion of food.

  45. princesspat

    A reflective morning for me as I’m sorting my mother’s and grandmother’s photos to send a set to my brother’s family. So many memories!

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