Full-packed day today — work, volunteering, then a full-moon kayaking expedition on the river. No time to write, so all pix today, with a theme! PRODUCTS:
Perhaps the suggestion is, it cleans so well and easily, it’s as though a little sprite handled the chore.
“Ranch” would make no sense in this context, overseas. And so this is our legacy.
I’m kind of fascinated by the semiotics of snack-food packaging, actually. At one stop, I bought a bag of “salt flavor” potato chips. Alan crabbed that there was no other kind.
Meanwhile, this seems to be what the real locals eat when they want a crispy, salty snack. Dried fish.
In a country where almost everyone speaks better English than Sarah Palin, I was a little surprised to see this. But oh well.
I’ll take my camera out on the river tonight. Let’s hope I don’t drop it overboard, eh?
alex said on June 22, 2016 at 6:43 am
Probably wouldn’t ever buy potetchips, but I can see myself having to run out at eleven o’clock at night for some Pussi.
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Deborah said on June 22, 2016 at 7:54 am
“almost everyone speaks better English than Sarah Palin,” Ha ha, good one,
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Deborah said on June 22, 2016 at 7:57 am
At the airport (Midway) where it’s getting ready to storm. Hope my flight isn’t delayed. I breezed through TSA pre, this should be the way it is from now on since I’ve got my KTN (known traveler number), everything is an acronym.
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Dorothy said on June 22, 2016 at 9:10 am
I really did snort at the Sarah Palin line. That was fab.
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Judybusy said on June 22, 2016 at 9:27 am
I tried some of the dried fish offered by a guy sitting next to me on the tour bus. Upon eating it, I immediately said, “I think this is about the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth!” It was very hard and chewy and took about 4 minutes to get it all masticated. Speaking of that guy, it was weird. I think he was an attorney and as I mentioned I was travelling with my wife and nice, he felt it necessary to share he believed the Obergefell decision was a disaster–the one overriding states’ abiity to not recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. We had a rather intense but civil discussion, in which he stated several times he knew his position was indefensible. I kept asking him how far he wanted to turn back the clock: civil rights? Women’s sufferage? I really don’t understand why he thought it would be a good idea to share his opinion. It was actually deeply painful to me, which he clearly didn’t consider. I wish I’d told him that instead of making purely intellectual arguments. I got my weak revenge by going on at length about all the science-related stuff I read, which clearly bored him. But now he knows how the earth got oxygenated hundreds of millions of years ago.
Also loved the Sarah Palin line.
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brian stouder said on June 22, 2016 at 10:15 am
…he stated several times he knew his position was indefensible.
So the guy was consciously glorying in his bigotry.
Sort of like some number of Trump supporters
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 12:12 pm
So the guy was consciously glorying in his bigotry.
Being the poster child for white male privilege. What other group feels secure enough to, without invitation, share their disagreement with your choices in life?
Maybe white male and Christian of a certain stripe.
Which brings me back to my point with Danny. When a guy with an Arab last name commits a mass shooting, it becomes part of a story about Islam and its penchant for violence, because of some passages in the Quran. When a white Christian guy bombs an abortion clinic, or murders a doctor who performs abortion, he’s a crazy loner who obviously has nothing to do with Christianity, even though the Old Testament is full of violent passages and it has certainly become orthodoxy in a large number of Christian denominations that abortion is murder. There are plenty of Islamic sects and plenty of Christian sects that are very fundamentalist in nature, that, as Jeff said, are reacting to modernity. That fewer Christian sects (but not none of them, e.g. David Koresh, the Bundys) resort to violence is more a statement about being located in a stable country, rather than in the unstable world of the Middle East. We’ve certainly done out part to help create that instability, and to then turn around and blame the ensuing violence on Islam being a violent religion is very disingenuous.
Don’t look for patterns in others when you aren’t willing to look for patterns in yourself, or don’t look for the mote in your neighbor’s eye, etc.
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Danny said on June 22, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Sherri, I already said that Western powers bore some responsibility, so we agree in that. And I also stated earlier that I agreed with Nancy’s assessment regarding the Orlando shooter – specifically with him not being part of, to use your words, “a story about Islam.” So no disingenuous worldview here.
I would disagree with you in degrees (or even outright) on some of your other points. No major branch of Christianity currently has any doctrine of violence. The historical accounts of the OT are decidedly not doctrinaire and it does not exist in the NT.
The same cannot be said for Islam because as you tepidly point out there are such passages in the Quran and they are considered doctrinaire by many Muslims. One would have to have been hiding under a rock for the last decade to have not known of major Islamic sects such as Wahhabism and the associated madrassas and what they are all about.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 2:31 pm
My point is, Danny, that you can’t separate the political arena from the religion. Were the US in the kind of upheaval that the areas where Wahhabism operates, there is every likelihood that there would be violent Christian sects wrapping themselves in a Biblical mandate for violence. The Ku Klux Klan in its various manifestations has always claimed to be a Christian organization; that does not mean that violence is an orthodox part of Christianity, and neither do Islamic sects using religion and violence to achieve primarily political ends.
The reason random Christian groups in the West don’t get any foothold to start using and exporting violence is that we have a state that can stop them. So while the Bundys may believe that God wants them to take over federal land, and the Christian Patriot people may think the US government should be overthrown in favor of a Christian country, the FBI prevents them from getting very far. You can not separate religion from politics, not even here; it’s just that here, there are tools other than violence that are available, like the Republican Party, even if you have to sell your soul to endorse a thrice-married narcissitic bigoted xenophobe like Donald Trump. (See Jerry Falwell, Jr, proudly shaking Donald Trump’s hand, in front of a wall of pictures of Donald Trump, including a copy of Donald Trump on the cover of Playboy with the model of the month. I remember when it was a scandal to evangelicals that Jimmy Carter gave an interview to Playboy.)
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MichaelG said on June 22, 2016 at 2:49 pm
Well, your Icelanders beat the Austrians in the battle of the blondes to advance in the UEFA.
So I had my surgery, am healing well and actually took a shower this AM. I’m walking around and should be back to somewhat normal in the next few days.
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Danny said on June 22, 2016 at 2:54 pm
Sherri, what you said:
…you can’t separate the political arena from the religion
Is it not akin to what I said yesterday?
And in the end, this orthodoxy of violence is probably in large part rooted in more practical considerations like discontent of the general Middle easterner with the greedy oligarchies that are cozy with the West and selling the resources out from under them and padding only there own cofers while everyone else is kept poor. Add to that the somewhat frequent military actions of Western powers in their lands. Always follow the money, as they say.
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brian stouder said on June 22, 2016 at 2:55 pm
MichaelG – excellent news!
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 3:16 pm
Where we seem to be disagreeing, Danny, is your seeming belief that violence is baked into Islam and not into Christianity. I think you’re showing a lack of knowledge of the breadth of both. There are 1.6 billion Muslims of various sects in the world. About 5 million of them are Wahhabi.
And I don’t see how you can claim that the historical accounts of the OT are not doctrinaire among Christians, when many evangelical and all fundamentalist denominations believe in a literal and inerrant interpretation of Scripture, including young earth creationism. (The Wahhabi believe in a literal interpretation of the Quran.)
Both Islam and Christianity have sects that are reactionary, apocalyptic, and tending towards violence. The political environment determines what happens with them.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 3:31 pm
If we want to talk about Christian violence, let’s talk about how white evangelicals, particularly Southern, oppose gun control.
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Suzanne said on June 22, 2016 at 4:20 pm
I am sure I have mentioned it here before, but do yourselves a favor and pick up a copy of Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God, a very well written & well researched book about the rise of fundamentalism worldwide. Yes, Islam isn’t the only faith in the throes of extreme fundamental views, although theirs is the most noticeable. Remember, it was a radical, fundamentalist Jew who assassinated Rabin in Israel for one example. It’s been a while since I read the book, but it points to the fact that Wahhabism was just a sect until they were embraced by the Saudi upper crust who gave it a huge financial boost, allowing it to spread.
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brian stouder said on June 22, 2016 at 4:42 pm
Sherri made a superb point, which is not to be overlooked: the American brand of Chritianity – and particularly here in Indiana (as we celebrate our state’s 200th birthday) was a definitive, proud, and empowered part of our history – all the way to the governor’s chair.
And the KKK is an exponentially larger and more definitive example of “radical Christian terrorists”, if we must do this labeling thing.
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brian stouder said on June 22, 2016 at 4:43 pm
make that – “the American brand of Radical Christian Terrorism – and particularly here in Indiana”….etc
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Jenine said on June 22, 2016 at 4:51 pm
@ Michael G: yay! taking a shower feels so good after you’ve been deprived for a while.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 4:52 pm
On a different topic. I discovered Ethan Zuckerman a while back when I was reading about NGOs and foreign aid and trying to make sure I give intelligently. He has a variety of interests evidently, because this article about technology and social problems is also spot on:
https://medium.com/@EthanZ/the-worst-thing-i-read-this-year-and-what-it-taught-me-or-can-we-design-sociotechnical-systems-4c8c51074337#.fv8ftueap
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Deborah said on June 22, 2016 at 5:03 pm
In Santa Fe again. We’ve been to Whole Foods and back. Hot, but thankfully dry. Inside the apt it’s perfectly comfy. In my jammy pants and a short sleeved tshirt sitting on the chaise. Very pleasant. I’m exhausted though. Screaming baby across from me on the plane. The mother was doing everything she possibly could. I felt bad for her and the kid. It was stressful for everyone. Then a shuttle full of fabulous Australians on the trip to Santa Fe from the airport in Albuquerque. When I got off at my stop I told them that my hat was off to them for getting their guns under control and that I wished we could do that here. They laughed and wished us luck.
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Deborah said on June 22, 2016 at 5:07 pm
MichaelG. Glad you got to shower, nothing feels better after you haven’t been able to.
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Brandon said on June 22, 2016 at 5:40 pm
Our own dried seafood snacks.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 6:28 pm
The Dems are staging a sit-in in the House. The Republicans control the cameras, and turned them off so that C-Span couldn’t televise the sit-in. No problem, C-Span is now using a Periscope feed from one of the Dems.
The Dems are showing both a spine and an ability to work together. How unusual!
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Danny said on June 22, 2016 at 6:29 pm
…And I don’t see how you can claim that the historical accounts of the OT are not doctrinaire among Christians…
Well, what I was thinking was that the accounts of the military actions like the sacking of the city of Ai or the marching around and blowing trumpets at Jericho, don’t really sound to me like items that one could build a doctrine around. I’ve certainly never heard of it. And even if we were to consider items in Levitical law like stoning people to death for various transgressions, that would be an extreme heterodoxical reach for any Christian denomination to build a doctrine around since Jesus kind of blew the whole idea of stoning out of the water when he came to the aid of the woman caught in adultery (let he who is without sin cast the first stone). Anyway, that’s what came to mind for me.
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David C. said on June 22, 2016 at 6:48 pm
Great-nephew update. What little time he isn’t sleeping, he’s crying. It’s a great sign because before the transplant, he didn’t have the energy to cry and his liver was so enlarged, it was displacing his right lung and impinging his diaphragm so he couldn’t breathe well enough to cry. His color is much improved and his liver enzymes are near normal. There are no signs of rejection. So far, so good, but he has a long way to go.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 6:50 pm
Danny, either your knowledge or your imagination isn’t quite broad enough, because indeed, there are Christian sects who would like to return to Leviticus solutions to homosexuality, for example. American evangelicals were involved in movements in Uganda to impose the death penalty for homosexuality. The Christian Reconstructionist movement here in the US, found by Rousas Rushdoony, was explicit in believing that OT law should apply. I’m familiar with Rushdoony because some of his followers, in particular Howard and Roberta Ahmanson and the Institute of Religion and Democracy, have been heavily involved in funding the attempts to cause schism in the Episcopal church over the ordination of gay priests and bishops. The IRD was also a prime mover in the recent difficulties in the Methodist conference over gay marriage.
I’m well aware of what Jesus teaches in the NT. I’m also well aware that Christians are people, too, and just as prone as any other people to take what they want from Scripture and do with it what they will, including using it to oppress other people.
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 6:50 pm
Great news, David C and MichaelG!
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Sherri said on June 22, 2016 at 7:29 pm
My donations at work: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/psychologists-behind-cia-interrogation-tactics-deny-torture/
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Deborah said on June 22, 2016 at 8:27 pm
So interesting David C. On a much less important outcome the poor mother on my flight today who was trying to pacify her poor baby was not having very much luck at least it seemed that way to us. On the other hand since her kid was screaming his head off he was actually making it possible for his poor little ears to be cleaned out from the descent that was happening simultaneously to his screams and causing his ears to adjust to the pressure change. It was quite unpleasant but at the same time so understandable.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 22, 2016 at 10:49 pm
David C., blessings with you and yours, and thanks for sharing the blessings so far.
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Sherri said on June 23, 2016 at 12:43 am
The revolution will be Periscoped, evidently. The Democratic sit-in in the House is fascinating. Debbie Dingell just killed it with her history of domestic violence. I missed the Republican attempt to stop it because I was at planning commission, but they’re still going strong now. Kudos to C-Span for broadcasting the Periscope feed.
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Dexter said on June 23, 2016 at 4:08 am
John Lewis is my hero and has been for over 50 years. Yesterday he said it was the most important day of his life…now that’s saying something.
Glad you are moving around and being restored to normalcy, MichaelG. Stay cool…my friends in Roseville lost power for hours yesterday. My friend works for the power grid business and his house kept power throughout … was it a rolling blackout or a system overload? Nobody cared…they were roasting.
I was in a blackout in San Jose 20 years ago. Cops came by and told my group to return to our hotel and not come out to the streets because predators love blackouts. Cops were filling up at gas stations using hand pumps to get gas right up out of the storage tanks. I ignored the cop warning and ran to a bodega and bought their last two flashlights and batteries. Power was out for a whole day and night and most of the next day.
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Brandon said on June 23, 2016 at 4:21 am
The #DemsNeverSat hashtag.
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alex said on June 23, 2016 at 6:52 am
Thanks for the fresh turds in the punchbowl, Brandon. That’s why I keep confusing you with Danny.
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beb said on June 23, 2016 at 8:18 am
Every few years there will appear video of some country’s (Often Taiwan) legislature breaking out into a fist-fight. On the one hand this is so undignified. On the other it’s kind of thrilling to see legislators so concerned about their jobs that they will fight to get the laws they want passed. So I’m kind of thrilled by the Senate Democrat’s filibuster for gun control and the House’s sit-in for the same thing. The Senate effort didn’t go anywhere and the bill they were trying to pass was, perhaps, not the best idea ever but they did publicly force the Republicans to take a stand on gun control rather than quietly kill such a bill in committee. The same is true in the House. The sit-in probably won’t lead to a bill but it forces the R’s to own their position of gun rights. So when people go into the voting booth this fall they’re going to have to think how they feel about Orlando and the other dozens of mass shooting between now and then.
Religion is what ever someone wants to make of it. If someone wants to start a war they’ll find justification somewhere in their religion’s teaching. If they want peace they’ll find it there, too. American secularism has been a great step forward because it makes war-mongers have to find alternative reasons (like oil or manifest destiny) for going to war.
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Danny said on June 23, 2016 at 9:05 am
beb, I’m in the energy biz and the past few years I’ve been involved in a few efforts to build business cases for expansion into renewables. Often conversation will get around to the PTC (production tax credit) and how the whole renewable sector relies on subsidies. I always look everyone in the eye around the room and explain to them that if they don’t think the oil & gas industry is subsidized, they don’t understand why the West has gone on repeated military adventures in the Middle East. It ain’t because their major export is filbert nuts. That always settles things down.
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Deborah said on June 23, 2016 at 9:07 am
I read in the local paper this morning that the woman who was mauled by the bear at the Caldera is ok. They had a photo of her with her injuries, mostly bad scratches etc. the sad thing is they had to kill the mother bear to make sure it didn’t have rabies, it didn’t. She had three cubs which they’re trying to find.
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BellaGP said on June 23, 2016 at 9:21 am
I am currently in Iceland now and have discovered the best candy ever..a chocolate bar with black licorice. I might have to bring a case home. Loving Iceland. We spent several days in the Snaeffsnes Penisula which was amazing. Two days in Akureyri and now I am waiting at the airport for my family to arrive back from Grimsely Iceland where they crossed the Arctic Circle. So far it been a remarkable trip with beautiful landscapes. So far highly recommended.
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Judybusy said on June 23, 2016 at 9:42 am
Thanks for the good news DavidC! I hope the little one continues to do well.
Via Lithwick’s Amicus podcast, I found We the People, sponsored by the National Constitution Center. I’m halfway through one episode about gun control; both guests were stating that the typical assault weapons ban doesn’t do much to promote safety, because there are other weapons which, while cosmetically different, essentially function the same way. These weapons would not be covered by the ban. Lots of interesting topics, and so far I like the tenor of the program.
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brian stouder said on June 23, 2016 at 10:23 am
And speaking of Dahlia – she should have a good column on the way, regarding this –
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/23/supreme-court-upholds-university-of-texas-affirmative-action-admissions-program/?utm_term=.ae92337ff869&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation
the lead:
By Washington Post Staff
June 23 at 10:16 AM
The Supreme Court on Thursday said University of Texas admission officials may consider the race of student applicants in a limited way to build a diverse student body.
The decision was a surprising win for advocates of affirmative action, who say the benefits of diversity at the nation’s colleges and universities are worth the intrusion on the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection that generally forbids the government from making decisions based on racial classifications.
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Sherri said on June 23, 2016 at 1:04 pm
The most interesting thing about the Texas affirmative action case is that Kennedy found an affirmative action program he liked for the first time ever. He wrote the opinion for the 4-3 majority; Kagan had recused herself because she had worked on the case when she was solicitor general.
The sit-in is theater, and the no-fly, no-buy bill is problematic, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter. The Dems are changing the conversation, and chipping away at the image of the NRA as undefeatable.
The point is to reduce the number of guns, not to reduce this or that crime. If you reduce the number of guns, then you reduce the likelihood that someone who decides that today is a good day to kill someone has easy access to a gun.
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Sherri said on June 23, 2016 at 1:12 pm
BTW, the Republicans once staged a similar protest in the House when the Dems held the majority. Their purpose? to extend drilling. Drill, baby, Drill!
Tell me again about how both parties are the same.
Let’s also remember, as we see the final Supreme Court cases of the term come down, that the Republicans refuse to even hold hearings, much less vote, on Obama’s nominee to the Court. They are holding open a space on the Court for Donald Trump to appoint. Donald Trump.
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Brandon said on June 23, 2016 at 1:33 pm
Thanks for the fresh turds in the punchbowl, Brandon. That’s why I keep confusing you with Danny.
That answers that. But #DemsNeverSat tweeters like @josephdeneen, @BlackAutonomist, and @Delo_Taylor are hardly right wing. One can praise the effort by Democrats to bring a gun control vote while still noting these other issues.
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alex said on June 23, 2016 at 1:41 pm
Except they’re not praising it. They’re just being dicks.
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Sherri said on June 23, 2016 at 1:50 pm
If the hashtag activists Brandon points to are so concerned about the problems they feel Dems are overlooking, get out there and build a following so that they have to pay attention. Pouting on Twitter is not an effective way to do that, but it is a good way to try to make everything all about you.
Or, as alex put it, to be a dick.
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kathy t said on June 23, 2016 at 2:25 pm
Michael G, David C, hurray. The little things can be so huge.
The fairy detergent, curiously, is labelled in Polish – “Fairy’s best formula for stubborn grease.”
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MichaelG said on June 23, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Thank you for the good thoughts.
Dexter, the Roseville outage was just a small local thing. I don’t even know what caused it.
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Deborah said on June 23, 2016 at 2:54 pm
A chocolate bar with black licorice sounds divine. I used to get a caramel in Chicago that had black licorice in it but I haven’t seen it around for awhile.
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brian stouder said on June 23, 2016 at 3:03 pm
Here in Fort Wayne, we have a collection of chocolatiers known as DeBrand –
http://www.debrand.com/aboutus/tours/
and the very best $5 you can spend is on the tour deal, on a quiet Saturday morning.
All the samples you get are worth it right there, let alone the coupons you get for the front-end of the facility.
I found that the raspberry/chocolates were particularly good – but so was everything else, really!
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alex said on June 23, 2016 at 8:57 pm
It should be noted that sitting down is a new thing for the House Democrats. Any time they stand up for anything they’re accused of being either impotent wusses or jackbooted thugs.
Paul Ryan calls it a publicity stunt. No shit, Mr. Intellect of the GOP.
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Sherri said on June 23, 2016 at 9:04 pm
I didn’t think it was really possible, but I’m watching C-Span (again!) carrying ITV news, and it’s looking like Brexit might win. What the hell, UK? I know the EU is a mess, but withdrawing from the EU isn’t going to improve things in the UK. Maybe I’m just a confused American and there are subtle nuances I’m missing, but you really don’t improve things by shutting out immigrants and trying to turn back the clock.
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