Break coming up.

First a little light housekeeping: Light-to-nonexistent posting next week, as it is time for the Derringers to lay down their scythes and head into the cool north woods for a few days. It’s one step up from a staycation, but the price is right and a river runs through it. Alan will take his fishing gear, I will take a stack of books and other non-work reading, and we will both eat a lot of tavern cheeseburgers while I avoid cooking.

I might do a little yoga on the deck, but nothing more strenuous.

There might be some photo posts along the way. It depends on how picture-perfect things are. And how robust the cellular network is, and whether the WordPress mobile app is still a pain in the butt to work with.

Funny to think about these things. Kate is off in the great American west with intermittent cell service, and I just have to get used to her being out of range for a while. That’s what life used to be, and not that long ago.

I’ll do what I can.

Meanwhile, it remains hot here, although a line of thunderstorms yesterday blew out the humidity, if not the heat. It’s a little Los Angeles-y today, hot and dry and blindingly sunny. This I can live with, even as it makes me feel a little like a kid stuck in school, having to work when all this gloriousness is going on outside. But that’s what next week will be about.

I’m ready to take a news break, frankly. Donald Trump, lion killers, the construction outside my front door — it’s time to unplug.

That said, this isn’t a terrible take on Trump, and by a Republican, no less.

Capturing people who don’t collect their dogs’ poop with? What else — DNA.

Finally, Jon Stewart comes clean about his relationship with POTUS.

As for the rest of the weekend, I think Connie said it best:

Hope yours is good.

Posted at 12:03 am in Current events, Housekeeping |
 

88 responses to “Break coming up.”

  1. Brandon said on July 31, 2015 at 12:08 am

    [I]t is time for the Derringers to lay down their scythes and head into the cool north woods for a few days.

    Not unlike we Hiloans who cross the island to visit Waikoloa or Kona.

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  2. Brandon said on July 31, 2015 at 12:14 am

    As for the rest of the weekend, I think Connie said it best:

    Or Madonna:

    https://youtu.be/5Rswx2Z7SDw

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  3. Sherri said on July 31, 2015 at 3:21 am

    Is anybody besides me watching Mr Robot? My husband and I are totally hooked. They get the computer stuff right, which is amazing enough, but Rami Malek is doing a great job as the lead actor.

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  4. jcburns said on July 31, 2015 at 7:11 am

    Suburban Detroit Family Terrorizes Neighborhood With Hand-Held Farm Implements
    _______
    Tires gouged, errant pets maimed, squirrels eviscerated
    _______
    Mayor calls on Derringers to “Lay down your scythes”

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  5. alex said on July 31, 2015 at 7:21 am

    Ever since Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat—a loss that caught everyone off guard except for people who followed public opinion polls or read a newspaper—we Republicans were promised a tough, new approach to the presidential primary process.

    That should have come with a trigger warning that I might spew coffee on my screen.

    Delightful as I find Trump’s antics, I dread the thought of Hillary having to face off in the debates against a slick sleazebag like Walker and an independent candidate Trump. Obama had his work cut out for him even with the otherwise wooden Mitt Romney. How do you debate complex ideas and convey that you’re better equipped to lead the country when you’re facing off with people who are untethered by any ethics or any facts and where winning is perceived by many as the ability to deliver the crassest insults of the night?

    I’ll bet Tina Fey makes a bunch of SNL appearances as La Palin trying on different hats in Trump’s cabinet.

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  6. Basset said on July 31, 2015 at 8:13 am

    We got to talking with another couple at breakfast when we were in Alaska earlier this month, nice b&b overlooking Mt. Redoubt…

    “Where are you from?”
    “Nashville. You?”
    “Wasilla.”
    Mrs. B and I look at each other, pause one beat… don’t say it…
    Change subject, no mention of La Palin and they seemed relieved.

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  7. brian stouder said on July 31, 2015 at 8:17 am

    and the second-day headlines for jcburns’ series might be

    Officials concentrate search on cool north woods

    ____________

    Janitor allegedly aided their escape into the glorious outdoors

    _____________

    Derringers thought to be “off-line”

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  8. Jeff Borden said on July 31, 2015 at 9:06 am

    The scariest thing about Donald Trump’s candidacy aside from the fact that he clearly channels the party’s id is that it will make some other scary people look more electable. I remain very worried about the Weasel of Wisconsin and all that Koch brothers money he sits on. This guy, Scott Walker, is like a dumb Richard M. Nixon. He’s just as sleazy, vindictive, petty and mean, but he’s a fifth-rate intellect and college dropout. He’s the douche who has said he will rip in two the Iran treaty on his first day in office and has told cheering audiences military action may also be needed on his first day as C-in-C.

    Remember, this douche was elected governor three times despite have the charisma of a throw rug. He has trashed the state in every way including stacking its supreme court, which recently threw out an investigation into his scummy activities while running Milwaukee County.

    But compared to Trump, this dangerous man may look stable and sane.

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  9. john not mccain said on July 31, 2015 at 9:14 am

    Bought 3 Steely Dan records this morning. It’s NN’s fault. The children in the attic already think I’m older than god. Tonight they might try to kill me because it’s going to get loud. But oh well.

    And I never will understand big business. At Amazon, you can download the records I bought for $8.59 each. Or buy the physical copies for $4.99-$5.99 and get a free download. I got the free shipping so it was a no-brainer. Maybe this makes sense because of how big Amazon is or something.

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  10. Icarus said on July 31, 2015 at 9:38 am

    “And how robust the cellular network is” and “Kate is off in the great American west with intermittent cell service,”

    sounds like the lead up to a apocalyptic or horror story. Then again, as you said, there was a time not that long ago when that was the norm.

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  11. Jolene said on July 31, 2015 at 10:24 am

    Jeff, I share your fears about Walker. I’ve followed quite a bit of what he’s done and said, and none of it is good. His attacks on the university have been particularly egregious. The man simply has no idea what an outstanding research university is for. I had been hoping that his ignorance would reveal itself in the debates, but with Trump on the stage, not to mention the sheer number of candidates, it may escape detection.

    I heard someone on TV saying that, with Trump in the mix, preparing the debates will be like preparing for a NASCAR race knowing that one of the drivers is drunk.

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  12. LAMary said on July 31, 2015 at 10:46 am

    LA weather this week is hot and humid with occasional thunderstorms and flash floods in the more remote suburbs. We’ve had a few weeks like this, including two days of rain in LA in July, something I have never seen before in my 32 years here.

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  13. jcburns said on July 31, 2015 at 10:58 am

    85 year old Ohio guy to 89 year old Georgia guy at a Longhorn yesterday: “You can’t vote for Hillary, can you? Who could do that. You gotta vote for that young guy in Minnesota who got rid of all the unions. He’s the right one.” Although he can’t come up with his name, he of course means Scott Walker of Wisconsin. And this guy has two children who are teachers with messed up pensions. Yeeeeesh.

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  14. Deborah said on July 31, 2015 at 11:08 am

    Cell service in the American southwest is very iffy. When I’m in Abiquiu my cell might work in one location, move 2 feet away and forget it. It’s even spotty in Santa Fe.

    And LAMary, we’re getting so much rain it’s crazy. This is the monsoon season but the rain is coming down harder and longer than is normal. No one is complaining because it’s filling up the reservoirs and people’s yard plantings are thriving.

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  15. MichaelG said on July 31, 2015 at 11:53 am

    Wow! I haven’t heard or thought of that vacation song for decades. I was a real Connie Francis fan when I was a kid in high school.

    It’s been very hot and very dry around here. 108 the other day, 104 yesterday. Today it’s supposed to be cooler at around 98 but I suspect that it may be a bit cooler than that because it’s so hazy with smoke from the fires.

    Fires are all around. There was one in the Delta in the south part of Sacramento County yesterday afternoon and last night that burned 13 mobile homes. There are 10 – 20 – 40 acre grass and brush fires daily. this web site lists the major fires: http://yubanet.com/fire.php If you scroll down to the map, Sacramento is located between red circle number 7 and red circle number 9.

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  16. MichaelG said on July 31, 2015 at 11:55 am

    Uh, Oh. My comment is in moderation. Did I do something to offend somebody?

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    • nancy said on July 31, 2015 at 11:56 am

      No, you just mis-typed your email address. Anytime the IP number, screen name or email changes, you have to be re-approved.

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  17. Julie Robinson said on July 31, 2015 at 11:59 am

    Here in Iowa my ur conservative uncle is favoring Ben Carson and Trump doesn’t stand a chance because of his three marriages. And faced with all the racist, sexist, anti-gay rhetoric, Mom is starting to sound like a Democrat. So she may vote for Hillary and maybe pigs can fly.

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  18. LAMary said on July 31, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    It’s not raining enough in LA to ease the drought but it really muggy and in the nineties. Very sticky sweaty weather.

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  19. brian stouder said on July 31, 2015 at 1:08 pm

    I really think that the Fox-stravaganza is going to be a demolition derby (moreso than a NASCAR crash-fest, but they may have a 10-wannabe pileup when they go green, in Cleveland).

    By comparison, if/when all the D’s show up at their debate, Clinton/Sanders/Chaffee/Webb (and whoever I’m forgetting) cannot HELP but look more ‘presidential’

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  20. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 31, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    So the Derringer family has become peasants with pitchforks? Someone notify Pat Buchanan.

    I’m looking forward to the Trump-Biden presidential debates.

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  21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 31, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    Oh, and it’s John Weaver, @JWGOP who had the line about one drunk NASCAR driver in the race. Kasich’s lead guy. Fascinating.

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  22. brian stouder said on July 31, 2015 at 1:23 pm

    Forget presidential politics. The main page big headline at Fox News is currently

    SUPER INSULT; Man of Steel depicted punching out… a cop

    http://www.foxnews.com/

    you cannot make this stuff up (or maybe you can!)

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  23. Deborah said on July 31, 2015 at 1:36 pm

    Nancy, what’s on your vacation reading list? I could use some suggestions.

    Little Bird and I just finished some major weeding, which is never fun but the wet soil made it a lot easier than usual. It’s fixing to rain again, storm clouds gathering, a good time to curl up with an interesting book.

    Scout are you getting more rain than usual? How about you Charlotte? And Mark H?

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  24. Scout said on July 31, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    We’ve had almost no monsoon action this summer so far. It’s dry and hot. I’m hoping August is more exciting.

    My biggest hope is that Trump is ousted by one of the other hilariously awful clown car passengers and then runs as an independent. Hello President Clinton or Sanders.

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  25. Deggjr said on July 31, 2015 at 2:27 pm

    It’s starting to look like Trump is the most rational Republican candidate (a very low bar). Scott Walker isn’t just a drop-out. He dropped out during the spring of his senior year having earned 94 of the 128 credit hours required to graduate. He never went back to school. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/article/2013/dec/18/scott-walker-early-years/

    Walker’s college record makes Sarah Palin’s college record look very impressive.

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  26. coozledad said on July 31, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    Haw haw dumb Joe Biden haw haw who kicked the Republicans’ “Intellectual of the moment” in the nuts so hard it lost its script. Paul? somebody. Guy with dog hair who humped Ayn Rand’s corpse?

    Since the Republican money is with Julia Agrippina’s boy Jeb, I think it would be better if we could always showcase her boy with the flag draped coffins of the US servicemen his brother sent to their deaths for fuck-all. The boy whose brother’s Iraq Provisional Authority created ISIL, whose dad helped facilitate the sale of missiles to Iran, and whose mum kept a miscarriage in a Mason jar next to her Hummel figurines. Yumm yummm!

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  27. brian stouder said on July 31, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    The Bush family is a strange lot; although I suppose any dynastic political family would be (thinking of families like the Roosevelts and Kennedys and Adams, for example)

    Given that, I’ll take the Clinton dynasty…and if Michelle ever wants to run, I’m there!

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  28. FDChief said on July 31, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    How to win the Internet: “…Julia Agrippina’s boy Jeb…”

    Though I always think of Babs as more akin to Livia Drusilla, carefully and viciously guarding her family’s interest while outwardly the embodiment of rectitude and the nobility of a beautiful mind. That and Jeb reminds me more of Tiberias than of Nero…

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  29. Sherri said on July 31, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    We’re hot and dry, headed to the 90s again. The other Washington has even noticed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/07/30/a-parched-seattle-is-about-to-set-a-new-record-for-most-90-degree-days-in-a-year/

    Most people (including me) don’t have air conditioning in their homes, so these 90+ days start to get uncomfortable after a while. For the salmon, too, because the lack of snowpack and the warm temps and relentless sun means that the rivers are lower and warmer than normal, and the salmon are struggling to make it to their spawning areas.

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  30. MarkH said on July 31, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    Weather here has been sublime lately. After a very unusually cool, wet late spring/early summer, precipitation and temp levels are back to normal. A little freaky on Monday, even for this area as a cold front sent temps way down to the 30s at night and precip turned to snow in the higher elevations (9,000+ ft.), as evidenced here:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/07/28/exceptional-cold-front-blankets-montana-wyoming-peaks-with-rare-july-snow/

    Sunshine since Wednesday, expected through next week, 40s at night, max 80’s during the day, almost no humidity. Reservoirs, rivers are at or above average, fire danger in the Teton region went down to moderate July 4th and have stayed there. Yellowstone playing it safe, danger is still high. Enjoy:

    http://www.seejh.com/webcams/grandteton/dornans/?live

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  31. Brandon said on July 31, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    her boy.

    At first glance it looks like her body, because the line ends abruptly after the letter b. Dang syllabication!

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  32. Deborah said on July 31, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    Oh shit, I was making myself a prosciutto sandwich with Jarlsberg cheese on a ciabatta roll and somehow I managed to cut off the very tip end of my little finger on my left hand with the serrated knife. I remember when Nancy cut herself cutting a bagel not that long ago. I only type with my right hand so it doesn’t bother that. what a pain though, I’m still holding my hand up with my finger wrapped in a paper towel. I don’t think they can give me stitches because it’s a perfect round hole. Stupid. It just makes me mad. We saved the cut off piece but I doubt that anything can be done about it. It’s just the pad part, no bone involved. It’s a throbbing pain though. Shit. Shit. Shit.

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  33. alex said on July 31, 2015 at 7:34 pm

    Ow! I’m feeling your pain. It’s been a while, but I had a nasty brush with a vegetable peeler and the damned thing still gives me the willies.

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  34. Deborah said on July 31, 2015 at 7:51 pm

    If you’re going to cut a finger it’s probably the best one to cut if you’re right handed because you can keep it in the air most of the time, whatever you do. It’s just maddening because it would have been so easy to prevent, I don’t even really know how I managed to get it in the way of the knife.

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  35. MarkH said on July 31, 2015 at 8:01 pm

    BTW, Nancy — just where in the “great American west” are the girls heading, a particular itinerary, or just the Bronson thing (“wherever I end up, I guess”).

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  36. Basset said on July 31, 2015 at 9:12 pm

    Steely Dan… playing the new riverfront amphitheater here next weekend, same night a Dan tribute band is playing a bar five or six blocks up the hill. Only in Nashville.

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  37. Basset said on July 31, 2015 at 9:13 pm

    Nancy, can you say generally what part of “up north” you’ll be in? Used to live up there, might know it.

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  38. Joe K said on July 31, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    Bassett,
    Isn’t it pronounced “Up Nort”?
    Pilot Joe

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  39. BethB said on July 31, 2015 at 9:52 pm

    Deborah,

    My husband, a retired family physician, said he’d keep it covered and keep it clean. He also wanted to know how much you’d cut off. I just say, “Ouch” and “Sorry.” (Not practicing medicine without a license, just reporting a conversation we had when I read to him what you’d done.)

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  40. MarkH said on August 1, 2015 at 12:16 am

    Basset –

    I think she and Alan are already on their way and in connectivity la-la-land. Good for them. I’ve hung out a time or two in Crystal Falls, my uncle’s utopia. Where did you hang?

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  41. Dave Kobiela said on August 1, 2015 at 1:28 am

    Deborah, I hope your wound heals quickly. Thank goodness I wasn’t your nose. Seriously, my wife works for a manufacturing company whose process includes cutting bundles of angle iron with a high speed saw. A new employee walked too close to the stack and sliced off the tip of his nose. I hear the bleeding was impressive.

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  42. Dexter said on August 1, 2015 at 2:27 am

    Dave K, we both have seen out share of industrial accidents and mishaps. It’s quite amazing what the machines can do to us.
    LA Mary, any fish in the Los Angeles River yet? 🙂 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Los_Angeles_River_channelized.jpg

    Time to start on the new Netflix series, “Wet Hot American Summer”. I heard the director being interviewed on Friday…sounded like a fun thing to watch.
    Lots of chatter about the age 61 death of Rowdy Roddy Piper…I lost interest in rasslin’ about 55 years ago so thougt I heard the name many times, I didn’t know a thing about him. I go back to Hans Schmidt, Dick the Bruiser, Gorgeous George, and Haystacks Calhoun, then I out-grew the rasslin’.
    Ah, the Au Sable…love that area too. My friends have been flocking to Elk Lake and White Birch Lodge, near Elk Rapids, and also to Torch Lake for vacations this year. Family stuff up there, kid-friendly atmosphere at White Birch…if they even suspect anybody brought any weed onto their property they kick the whole family out permanently with no refund…they make ya sign a contract to that.
    Damn, I am tired of driving older vehicles. Today in Auburn my van started making awful noises as if I was about to throw a rod or just generally blow up the engine. With 38 miles to go to get home I decided to just drive until the thing quit, but it never did quit…maybe it’s just some loud exhaust leak up by the manifold but whatever it is it sure is loud, and my mechanic can’t even look at it until Wednesday, so I am going to make my way to a local used car dealer in a few hours and see about buying a good used pickup truck. My wife has the other car in Columbus, visiting grandkid. When ya drive junk, ya gotsta have at least two vehicles because frequently one is broken down.

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  43. Dexter said on August 1, 2015 at 2:38 am

    Pilot Joe, my son-in-law who left NetJets as a captain a couple years ago to start up a business which failed , is about ready to begin flying Delta and United commuter jets for GoJets. He has been in school a couple months or so and just passed the sim test and had all the classroom stuff complete. He now flies with a trainer for a while and then he’ll be paired with a captain as an F.O. However, GoJets is accepting most of his flight hours as a NetJets captain, so after a short period he’ll be elevated to captain…more pay that way. He trained this summer in St. Louis, Missouri. Had to room with another man in a cheap motel. Man, that would really be hard to do, for me anyway…when it comes to motels, I want my own room.

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  44. Basset said on August 1, 2015 at 6:19 am

    MarkH and Joe, I was in Cadillac for a couple years in the late 70s, first job out of school… shooting tv news on film, still get back there a couple times a year. Didn’t hear it called “up north” back then, I don’t think the people who actually live there say that… one of the Traverse City tv stations recently called their local product “Up North News” and may still, suspect that comes from downstate owners and managers though.

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  45. LAMary said on August 1, 2015 at 2:20 pm

    There’s fish in the LA river an there have been for a few years. I live very close to the river and I see people fishing occasionally. It’s not very easy to get down to the actual river here. Still a concrete channel, but people make it to the water’s edge and fish. Twenty years ago the state used to bulldoze any little islands that formed around trees or rushes that grew, but they’ve left them alone for a while and now it’s not as ugly. I see water birds like egrets and heron all the time and at night if you go for a walk in the park next to the river you hear frogs. The neighborhood next to the west bank of the river is known to old homies as Frogtown and it’s now becoming gentrified. A year or so ago I would not walk there at night to listen to frogs, and I’m known as being stupidly oblivious to neighborhood scariness.

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  46. Deborah said on August 1, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    BethB, I only cut off the very top of my left pinky. The padded fleshy part. It hurt like hell when I ran water over it this morning to keep it clean. I bought a bunch of stuff to keep it covered, gauze and such. I also bought some of those finger condoms, that’s what I call them, to keep the bandage dry when I have to get my hand wet. It’s fine, just maddening because it was so stupid.

    I drove to Albuquerque again this morning to pickup my husband from the airport. He will be here for about 3 weeks. Everything is so green on the drive down there, it doesn’t seem like a desert.

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  47. Dorothy said on August 1, 2015 at 8:33 pm

    Oh Deborah I hope you heal quickly. I pinched both of my pointer fingers today when we were buying some edging bricks at Menard’s. The first one wasn’t too bad, but the second one really made me yelp. It showed a broken blood vessel almost immediately. Fortunately the throbbing has subsided, but that was the last brick-like thing that I picked up today.

    We have been productive as hell at our house over the last 27 hours or so. We ripped out four shrubs that were halfway dead out front of our house, plus we’re cutting down a Japanese red maple that was trimmed very poorly by the previous owners of this house. It was quite tragic looking, and it kills me to take out a tree, but we plan to plant at least one more like it somewhere else that’s not too close to the house. And now that the shrubs are gone, I can put some hydrangeas and other perennials out front. I’m so happy I could cry. I miss having a lot of space to put flowers in. The back yard here has a lot of black walnut trees and so it’s pretty shady back there. I plan to make the front look really, really good. At least that’s my hope.

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  48. Deborah said on August 1, 2015 at 10:39 pm

    We drove up to the mountains this evening before the sun set to check out the aspens. They have mostly re-leafed since the infestation of the tent caterpillars. Which was wonderful to see. They say that the color won’t be as colorful in the fall though.

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  49. Dexter said on August 2, 2015 at 1:35 am

    Pogo the Labbie escaped again a couple hours ago, and me, here with a broken down van and unable to run anymore, needed help. I called the police and within 45 minutes they had captured and returned my dog to me. I thanked the dispatcher and I shook the policeman’s hand, and then I got lectured. I stood there and just took the dressing-down…I hate the fact that my dog is a runner who refuses to obey commands but I love my dog. She saw a feral cat, she contorted her body so as to back out of her Kong brand harness. Not a damn thing I could do. I simply must go back to strapping a heavy chain around the harness and whatever else I can do to prevent these run offs.

    None of the used car establishments were open Saturday so it’ll be Monday before I get a replacement vehicle. Every other time my vehicle broke down I had another one in the driveway, but this time even my wife was gone, visiting our granddaughter in Columbus. When ya live in a little town without a vehicle, it really sucks to not have transpo at your command.
    Bryan, Ohio, where I have resided now for 38 years, was named “Safest City In Ohio”. Ain’t that just special now? 🙂

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  50. coozledad said on August 2, 2015 at 9:14 am

    But the emerging field of Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential election is something else altogether. Of the dozen or so people who have declared or are thought likely to declare, every one can be described as a full-blown adult failure. These are people who, in most cases, have been granted virtually every imaginable advantage on the road to success, and managed nevertheless to foul things up along the way.

    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n12/chris-lehmann/the-candidates

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  51. Jolene said on August 2, 2015 at 9:19 am

    Tributes to/analyses of Jon Stewart are piling up as he begins his last week as host of The Daily Show. Here’s a good one by David Remnick of The New Yorker.

    And here’s a better one by Hank Stuever of The Washington Post. In addition to assuring us that we have the wit and strength to get along without Stewart, Hank reminds us how much time has gone by while we were watching him by including two views of President Obama. In the first, a photo of him as a candidate in 2007, he looks like a baby. In the other, a video clip from his appearance a week or so ago, he looks, well, eight years older.

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  52. Jolene said on August 2, 2015 at 9:22 am

    Good luck with your flowers, Dorothy. I love hydrangeas. Have been wishing lately that I had a place to plant things. It’s especially satisfying to create a garden that you can expand and improve from one year to the next. With your energy for getting things done, I’m sure your yard will be beautiful in short order.

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  53. alex said on August 2, 2015 at 9:24 am

    Dex, I’d suggest you try a Honda or Toyota this time. I can’t assure you that they never break down, just almost never. And everything keeps working like it’s supposed to no many how many years or miles you rack up.

    A friend is moving to San Francisco in a couple of days and has a ’90s Camry that’s still going strong. She already promised it to her sister or I might have referred her to you, Dex. Connie of NNC knows my friend, Christine, as a matter of fact, as they’re both librarians and belonged to the same quilting circle at one time. We’re having a good-bye luncheon later today and will be giving Christine and her boyfriend one last tour of our gardens, which are in full flower at present with phlox, coneflowers and tiger and resurrection lilies. It’s another perfect summer day.

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  54. brian stouder said on August 2, 2015 at 10:10 am

    Cooz – a great article.

    I noted the early June publication date, and immediately wondered how much fun this guy would have with Trump.

    And then, at the last sentence or two, he closes out with (what used to be!) silly notions about what would happen to the GOP field if the Donald jumped in.

    As the Wicked Witch of the West would sigh – “What a world, what a world” (indeed)

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  55. Jolene said on August 2, 2015 at 10:40 am

    Here’s another article about the perfidy and incompetence of the GOP, this one focused on the hearings re the Iran anti-nuke deal that have taken place during the past couple of weeks. I watched quite a bit of the proceedings, and they were, indeed, shocking. These Republican legislators, even the ones that are supposed to be sort of reasonable people, just cannot be serious about anything undertaken by Barack Obama, no matter how serious the issue is. In this case, the author concludes that they are so unserious that no Republican can be trusted with the presidency, a conclusion I wholeheartedly support.

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  56. coozledad said on August 2, 2015 at 11:48 am

    Five variations on a theme by Peggy Noonan.

    I first saw President Reagan as a foot, highly polished brown cordovan wagging merrily on a hassock. I spied it through the door. It was a beautiful foot, sleek. Such casual elegance and clean lines! But not a big foot, not formidable, maybe a little …frail. I imagined cradling it in my arms, protecting it from unsmooth roads.

    (?)

    1. I first saw Scott Walker as a tonsure, a baseball sized patch of denuded scalp, white against the areas his cosmetician could still touch up with an old toothbrush and brown shoe polish. I spied it in the Men’s room at a party where he was giving David Koch head. It was like a balding schlub sucking a plutocrat’s dick. I imagined a beanie with a propeller that was capable of removing them both to a supernova where they’d be sucked in and vomited out of a hot stellar plasma for eternity.

    2.The first time ever I saw your foot
    I thought my monkey was gonna drown
    And I wanted to take your cordovan
    To the damp cave of monkeytown
    To that dark pulsating town.

    And the first time ever I shook your hand
    I felt the urine busting the dam
    And I tried to distract you
    With a brochette of ham.

    That was melon and ham, my love.
    That was melon and ham, my love.

    And the first time ever I wrote for you
    My brain was soft with gin and lime
    And I knew I’d be writing
    This same thing many many times

    In the New York Times, my love
    In the New York Times, my love

    The first time ever I saw your foot
    Your foot
    Your foot
    Your foot

    3. I first saw Chris Christie in a baseball uniform. Afterward, all was subsumed in the overarching emptiness, like being slammed between the press of two infinite black leaves of the book of death, where death is not a release from life, but a sea of immense nothingness drawn as your last breaths are drawn, in cold painful sobs.

    4. I first saw Donald Trump as a disembodied pair of rectal labia crafted into a balloon for the Macy’s parade. It snagged itself on its daddy’s bootstraps, kissed its own ass and ascended to the top of the right wing polls.

    5. I first saw Jeb Bush as a single-eyebrowed version of his mother, scarcely visible in a haze of Mexican ditch weed, as he told his Andover footlings “Kick me some ass. I wanna watch.”

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  57. brian stouder said on August 2, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    I confess I had never heard of the Noonan/foot fetish, regarding RWR, until Cooz’s post. Uncle Google then directed me here –

    http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/15/magazine/confessions-of-a-white-house-speechwriter.html

    and now, I have to work on forgetting it!

    Anyway, I think post 56 wins the week, month, and year-to-date

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  58. Deborah said on August 2, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    Oh Lordy, he’s done it again. Still laughing.

    Jolene, you are right about Dorothy’s energy for getting things done. That woman is a whirlwind. Knitting, crocheting, quilting, cooking, traveling, gardening. Whew. Not to mention tending to family and pets, and a full time job too.

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  59. susan said on August 2, 2015 at 1:06 pm

    Bravo, cooz!

    It has always amazed me that not only does Noonan write that juvenile drivel, but people publish that crap, as…as…what? What on earth for? Tengrain, at mockpaperscissors has a long repertoire of tipsy Noonan faux oeuvre mockery.

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  60. Sherri said on August 2, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    The Cheney 1% doctrine of police shootings.

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  61. beb said on August 2, 2015 at 6:55 pm

    Atrois has a daily “worst person in the world” and today’s worst person was the expert witness profiled in Sherri’s link. Here’s a man willing to justify every hysterical police shooting. The man deserves to die by a police shooting.

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  62. brian stouder said on August 2, 2015 at 9:52 pm

    Thought experiment:

    Imagine the spluttering rage and wide-eyed invective from the flying monkeys of the right-wing airwaves – Oxy-Rush and Shit-for-brains-Sean, and all the yappers at Fox News – if the Democratic party had 16 (give-or-take) candidates for the presidency of the United States, and MSNBC dared to simply pick which ones get to be on “their air” for the first presidential debate; basically making that cable news channel an arbitrary ‘first in the nation’ primary itself, and with direct and insuperable effect on the nomination process itself.

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  63. Brandon said on August 3, 2015 at 12:07 am

    @coozledad (post #50): It’s the phenomenon of failing upward.

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  64. Connie said on August 3, 2015 at 9:29 am

    I am back from a lovely week at Glen Lake, which appears to have been trashed by storms yesterday. http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2015/08/sleeping_bear_dunes_glen_arbor.html. When the federal park closes the campground due to fallen trees you know it is serious. My sister-in-law is off this morning to check out the condition of the cottage. Sale of which closes in 3 weeks.

    It took a walker, but I went swimming in Lake Michigan. Weather was perfect all week. Saw both brothers, one brother-in-law, two sisters-inlaw and two cousins I hadn’t seen in forever.

    For a brief moment yesterday while catching up with NNC I thought you were talking about me in the comments. Turned out it was Connie Francis. From whom I believe my parents got my name.

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  65. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 9:36 am

    Connie – you still say it best, if you ask me

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  66. alex said on August 3, 2015 at 9:49 am

    I was talking about you, Connie.

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  67. Andrea said on August 3, 2015 at 10:51 am

    I’m still laughing, Cooz @56. In the words of Jack Black: “That was awesome.”

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  68. alex said on August 3, 2015 at 11:14 am

    Cuck Coup.

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  69. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 11:49 am

    Alex, all I can say is – wow.

    They are squirming because a single word–cuckservative–lays bare the rot at the heart of your movement: American conservatism can conserve nothing if it cannot conserve the nation’s founding stock. I’ll put it bluntly: Nothing you love will survive without white people.

    I’d never heard this term before your link, but it’s on the radar now.

    Aside from that – Pam’s and my “summer of disasters” continues apace: comprehensive transmission failure in our just-purchased (three months ago) vehicle, leaving Pam on the side of the road (US-30) Friday afternoon. The rest of the day was logistics.

    Between the home repair/renovation, and this latest turn of events, I’m now habitually looking skyward, for the next plummeting piano!

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  70. Deborah said on August 3, 2015 at 12:14 pm

    Gee Brian, when it rains it pours. You had the car fire, the flooding and now this. Is the car under warranty? If you’ve only had it 3 months, seems like it would be. But that doesn’t make it less of a hassle to have to deal with. Here’s hoping things settle down for you and your family soon.

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  71. beb said on August 3, 2015 at 1:27 pm

    Cuckservative is a strange to be swirling around on conservative comment threads since it seems be to based on an obscure, fetish pornography that most conservative would hehsitate (I would think) to admit to having any knowledge of. But there it is.

    At the same time real political discourse can only lead to an attack of the vapors. At a meeting of The Urban league Hillary and Jeb!@#$ were to give talks. Hillary went first and without calling out names went through a litany of reasons black people could not hope to rise in the sense of Jeb!@#$’s Right to Rise platform. Bush didn’t make any kind of push back but afterward released the Krakens supporters who went around moaning about how mean-spirited she was for attacking Jeb!@#$. I thought politics was about showing the distinctions between candidates not to emphasize how indistinguishable they are. Hillary is going to have an uphill battle since the media is already arrayed against her.

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  72. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    Deborah – thanks for the kind thoughts. Really, the brunt of all this has been upon Pam, as she scrambles to impose order on all the chaos, and proceed systematically.

    The vehicle is an ’08 Ford Escape, and I still like the ol’ girl, but she sure did hit us in the face with a pie.

    IN any case, I did speak with the Ford dealership, and they checked for any outstanding recalls or warranty or what-have-you…and guess what?

    Yup – nothing to see here, move right along

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  73. Sherri said on August 3, 2015 at 2:15 pm

    Gee, Brian, I’m afraid to say anything, even to offer condolences, in fear that it might trigger a plague. You do seem to have your own personal thunderstorm lingering over your family.

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  74. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 2:32 pm

    Honestly, truly – if catastrophe must come, I’ll take these kinds of material catastrophes over the existential ones (that are always in any day’s newspaper) that always occur, in accord with the odd cosmic bell curve within which we all reside

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  75. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 3, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    Brian, from “Pale Gray for Guilt” with Travis McGee speaking:

    ” I looked out of the jet at December gray, at cloud towers reaching up toward us. Tush was gone, and too many others were gone, and I sought chill comfort in an analogy of death that has been with me for years. It doesn’t explain or justify. It just seems to remind me of how things are.
    Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down between rocky walls. There is a long, shallow bar of sand and gravel that runs right down the middle of the river. It is under water. You are born and you have to stand on that narrow, submerged bar, where everyone stands. The ones born before you, the ones older than you, are up upriver from you. The younger ones stand braced on the bar downriver. And the whole long bar is moving down the river of time, washing away at the upstream end and building up downstream….”

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  76. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 4:44 pm

    indeed; indeed.

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  77. Sherri said on August 3, 2015 at 5:03 pm

    I’m not sure ALEC has ever pretended that they had any goal other than the destruction of the public school system, but if so, they’re dropping the pretense: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12869/alec-school-vouchers-are-kids-suburbia

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  78. Deborah said on August 3, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Another good Gin and Tacos post http://www.ginandtacos.com/2015/08/03/pertinent-information/

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  79. brian stouder said on August 3, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    Sherri – good old Diane Ravitch hits this every single day (several times a day) – and Hillary Clinton hits this SQUARELY when she goes after Jeb! about his “right to rise” Big Lie.

    The #1 First Primary Job A1A thing to do, to plant the seeds of some sort of equal opportunity (or any opportunity at all!) is to provide for a free public education.

    Jeb! (et al) would probably agree with that notion (free public education), but then immediately advocate for voucher schools and all the rest.

    Which is to say – Jeb! (et al) are ALL FOR FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL – but they AGAINST public control/oversight/accountability!

    The push for vouchers is a damned money-grab by charlatans and liars, and it’s (ultimately) also a sustained attack on professional teachers who would like to make a decent wage – in favor of striped-pants wearing hedge-fund investors.

    Jeb! and other similar “educational reformers” don’t give two shits about kiddos and their “right to rise”; it’s all about money and keeping their boot on the throats of kids they don’t value in any case….and if Jeb! gets the R nomination, expect to hear lots and lots about Tony Bennet and scandal and Indiana

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  80. Sue said on August 3, 2015 at 11:13 pm

    I want to live in a world where punking Scott Walker becomes a Thing.

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  81. beb said on August 4, 2015 at 8:34 am

    I had a stupid idea for a presidential debate. Rather than asking candidates what their position is on this or that policy, something the candidates have been doing all along, why not poll them on general knowledge. Specifically have them play a game of Jeopardy where all the questions are softball but essential to being a good president. For example a question might be: “The Federal government gives Planned Parenthood $xxx million dollars each year for women’s health services. How much of that money goes towards providing abortions?” The answer is “zero” because the Hyde Amendment prohibits any spending for abortions. But how many Republicans know that?

    Of course the Republicans would never consent to being grilled about what they know vs what is true. But it would make for a more interesting debate (of course anything would make the debates more interesting) and serve a useful purpose. Most of the Republican candidates are dumb as dirt and people ought to know that before voting for them.

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  82. Julie Robinson said on August 4, 2015 at 8:47 am

    beb, I love that idea. And let’s have Alex Trebek moderate with the same snooty disdain he confers upon contestants.

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  83. brian stouder said on August 4, 2015 at 9:06 am

    “Ohhhh – sorry! Sorry! That was Sam Clemmons, NOT Sam Clemmon”

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  84. coozledad said on August 4, 2015 at 10:14 am

    Mission critical:
    http://gizmodo.com/obamas-new-energy-plan-explained-1721826028

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  85. brian stouder said on August 4, 2015 at 10:21 am

    An interesting article.

    Cue the horrified right-wing shrieking –

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  86. coozledad said on August 4, 2015 at 11:25 am

    Tory trash. The same the whole world round:
    http://gawker.com/late-british-prime-minister-edward-heath-accused-of-rap-1721978484

    The Thatcher government must have gutted education so they could afford to protect their pedo peers.

    Bill Bennett’s gonna have to write a new “book of virtues” that includes child-buggery on the state’s dime.

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  87. brian stouder said on August 4, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    The Book of Top-Secret Virtues Which You Must Never Tell Anyone About, Ever

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