Monday Open Thread 03-16-15
Good morning 99percenters!
And a happy Monday to you.
Today we celebrate James Madison’s 264th birthday. Mr. Madison, a Virginia gentleman, is known as the Father of the U.S. Constitution. He was the fourth President of the United States serving between 1809 and 1817.
A few other fun facts about President Madison:
- He was 5’6” tall.
- He drank a pint of whiskey every day.
- He was schooled in Latin, Greek and Hebrew and acquired a reading knowledge of French.
- He wrote 29 of the 85 articles known as The Federalist Papers.
- During the Constitutional Convention he opposed the proposal for a Bill of Rights. At the time, Madison was confident that the Constitution did not give the federal government any powers that could endanger individual liberties. Madison thought it was potentially dangerous to list some of the rights of the people, in case these might be interpreted as the only rights of the people.
- As he listened to his colleagues debate the issue he became afraid some of his colleagues would do things to weaken the federal government in favor of the states.
- He was the only delegate to the Constitutional Convention who attended every session and hence his notes are considered the most accurate account of the proceedings.
- After being elected to the first Congress, he began work on The Bill of Rights which took its first form as 19 proposals. His concern as he was drafting them was that the rights of the people be protected from actions of the states as well as the federal government. A Congressional Committee narrowed the 19 proposals to 12 “amendments,” ten of which were later ratified by the states.
- Despite having served as Jefferson's Secretary of State for two terms, he did not travel abroad.
- His wife Dolley Payne Todd Madison served as the official hostess for both her husband and Thomas Jefferson and is considered America’s first First Lady.
The Madson’s Virginia home, Montpelier, is maintained by a private foundation and is open to the public for a modest fee. There are tours through out the day. You can sit in his second floor study and look out over the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains just as he did. In addition to the tour guides, there are costumed presenters that walk the grounds, including James and Dolley, and great visitors. You can see and breathe the history.
But if you feel the ground shake under your feet while there it might be Madison rolling in his grave. Montpelier is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives today by Dave Brat who toppled Eric Cantor in a Republican primary last June.
Dolley’s famous ice cream, by the way, was flavored with oysters.
This is an open thread. Tell us what's on your mind today, or what's going on in your neck of the woods.
Comments
Good morning everyone.
Sunny and 70 in Michigan today - yahoo! Great day for a book and a bask on the back deck. And as an fyi - OMG, I can see! I can read sans aids the digital thermostat for the furnace, small print on jars of food, this blog, my phone all without glasses. Under the worst of circumstances, I will need drug store magnifying glasses for long periods of reading or close up work. Oh, the miracle of medicine....
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Morning dk
Ya, the drugstore glasses do it for me. Just went and bought a three pack this weekend because I lost mine, again.
That's why I bought a three pack.
I'm getting my garden ready today here in the Portland, OR area. Supposed to be around 68, sunny, just about perfect.
Especially for March.
Right now I can't find
any of my collection of drug store glasses. I'm using Shahryar's prescription readers which kind of make me dizzy when i move my head. I should get out and start working in my garden today also but here I sit procrastinating on both money work, yard work and a needed spring cleaning work. You've inspired me, Al so here I go out into the blue and dirt.
Glad to hear
your surgeries worked out well.
"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone
Same here! ;-) N/T
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Good day!
It's not morning, but what the hay.
I just picked up Willie Bear from the vet's after he had dental work done. He is not a happy camper right now. It's 84* here in north Florida. That is too hot for this area at this time of year.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
This summer
is literally going to be hellish. I'm leery of starting my veggie garden as even April last year was to hot to dig, weed haul and work in. This year spring started two months too early. The bugs good and bad are out of hand already. One good thing seem about this is the slug population seems to be diminishing.
He deserves a hug--even that procedure can be
hard on them, especially if he is an 'older boy.'
Whew! 84 degrees would worry me, in March. [But I have an especially low tolerance for heat.]
Of course, we loved the weather in interior Alaska--because the summers were so gorgeous, usually in low to mid-70's (except for brief periods).
Of course, our gardens were incredible, because of the almost constant daylight! We had to be careful to pick veggies before they become gigantic.
UL
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Willie Bear thanks you
Like most poms, he has had tooth problems. That is because they are always smiling. His teeth were cleaned exactly one year ago and the tartar buildup was terrible in just one year. The vet had to remove two teeth. I wished we had known to try to get him used to a toothbrush at a very young age. I know two people who have done that and it seems to help. Willie Bear has a huge vocabulary of doggie sounds. When the vet called to tell me that he was up and okay, the vet said that Willie Bear made noises like he had never heard before from adog.
Willie Bear can even meow sometimes when he wants something. 
The pollen here in Tallahassee, aka Tree City USA, is horrible right now. The live oaks drop their leaves in the spring when the pollen pods come in. Looking across the city, all the trees are yellow right now. It does not help that we have a 8.5 foot in diameter patriarch oak in our yard. Based upon the survey done by the urban forester years ago when they started cataloging all the patriarch trees in the city and county, ours is nearly 200 years old. It is not even the biggest one in our neighborhood. Two others are bigger. And there are plenty of them all over the city and county. It is a beautiful tree, but it sure can put out a LOT of pollen.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
He is 'welcome,' and I sympathize. Some tooth
loss is expected, especially for some older dogs.
It's funny, ours have either had very strong teeth and no loss, or tended to have more tartar buildup, with some tooth loss.
'Mister B' had to have a tooth extracted at age 6 years--not from natural aging, but from fracturing his tooth due to gnawing at barriers. (None of which he has, today.)
Our oldest Oak tree had to be cut down due to disease. You're lucky to have one--they are very beautiful!
BTW, I'm going to have to check out the emoticons. I've noticed that you use some pretty cool ones. (I only know the code for one.)
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Emoticons
When you are typing in your comment, if you look below the comment box, there is a blue thing to click on that says "More information about text formats. " Click on that and it will open a new window with all the formatting codes. Scroll down and you will see all the available emoticons and their formatting scripts. I never thought to scroll all the way down until I accidentally did it one day. Because it opens in a new window, it is easy to find the one you like without closing your comment. I hope this helps.
Our very first dog, Barney also known as Mister B (too!) lived to be 17. He was a mutt but looked a little like a cavalier king charles spaniel without the smashed in nose. When he died, he still had the most beautiful teeth. I think a lot of it is due to whether a dog is an open mouth breather (like poms) and the individual dog's body chemistry.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
if you...
look down a little further and click the "textual smiley" link it takes you right to the smileys and you don't have to scroll down to find them.
Hey, thanks Nancy & JTC--gonna try them out! ;-) N/T
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
We had an exciting Sunday
there was a wild wind storm that blew through from CA and knocked out our electricity for about 6 hours. I was actually here at caucus 99 getting ready to comment when the computer popped and went dark. Earlier this winter another intense wind storm from the south blew off the dormer section of our metal roof. It's not repaired yet due to the weaseling of our insurance company. They did however tarp it securely and it made it through the gales yesterday. These southern storms with high winds are worse then the normal winds we regularly get coming out of the Columbia gorge.
We couldn't find the cell phone and when 3 hours later we did and called PGE the message said 6000 people had called and they had no idea when the lights would go back on as they had no idea where or what had caused the outage. lol. Two hours later we called again and they said high winds had caused it they still had no idea when the electricity would be back. Our electric grid here in Portland is really sketchy. Two blocks down from us never lost electricity we must have been on the edge, as 68,000 people lost theirs.
Well back to life with lights, stove, washing machine, computer and work. So glad to have this sane humanistic place to come to when I take a break. I joined fb for business purposes and oh boy. It's overwhelming but I do have 22 friends. Best thing about it is that my family uses it and I get to see what my granddaughter's up to. I swore I would never join but hit a wall in my marketing and joined both fb and linked in.
Right here is my go to place when the overload kicks in.
Staying off dkos for the most part. Yesterday right before I came here and the lights went out I read and commented on Tukana's, Hillary is being abused by the press, FP diary. It featured Armando's absolutely lame arguments about why we all should support Hillary regarding the e-mails and go after the press and the RW and defend her bad ass. It was interesting as some of the old timers who hardly post anymore commented and kicked Armando's 'civil' PC illogical, centrist butt. I liked BTD much better he was more fun. Turkana is just a sad shadow.
As the Democrat's become more and more transparent in their sell out and nastiness I almost feel sorry for the deluded partisans. But maybe if they got their heads out of the sand and actually connected to the reality of what's going on they could make a difference. Political parties are not by nature static and people have throughout history using various methods from the guillotine, withdrawing consent to democratic parliamentary means, to push back the out of hand oligarchical collectivists. They are not inevitable and people globally do have the power to rein them in. Why do these so called progressive people think it's pragmatic to support this insane reality? Delusional! as BTD used to say back in the day.
Say how can I correct my badly misquoted sig line? It's a miracle that I can even navigate fb I'm so techie impared.
A potentially vital State Department
announcement may put an end to that, shortly (blindly defending FSC, that is).
Here's the lady to listen to and watch:
She is currently stalling regarding the 'separation form' which FSC should have routinely signed.
Certainly I had to sign and initial quite a number of forms and papers when I was debriefed and out-processed. (Of course, I was under the umbrella of DOD, not the State Dept. But those types of procedures don't vary wildly.)
Apparently, a State Department attorney first brought up this issue late last week (missed it Friday due to travel, etc.).
Anyhoo, an incorrect answer on one particular form could be considered a felony offense. (The reason that I say 'could,' is that "intent" would probably be considered.) Of course, it is incomprehensible that one could say that they inadvertently overlooked tens of thousand of emails, according to reporters.
For the life of me, since she has only been separated for 26 months on April 1 of this year, I can't imagine "why" this particular form cannot be readily accessed. I can pick up the phone right now, and speak to an OPM specialist about my own personnel files.
Another reason I don't write a diary, is that--almost daily, there are new developments.
Just yesterday, Andrea Mitchell (a State Dept reporter for years, IIRC) pointed out that under the email archival system that existed when FSC was SOS, there absolutely was not a surefire system that routinely preserved incoming emails in the State Dept archival system--as she says that FSC indicated at the Press Conference.
If there was mistaken verification during out processing, from what I'm hearing, there may be enough pressure that the Senate would have to subpoena the server.
And unlike subpoenas issued by the House, a Senate subpoena would be considerably more difficult and/or dicey legally and politically, to dismiss.
One footnote, the right-wing Rep that is chair of the Oversight Committee that deals with the emails, was measured yesterday during his interview with
Stephanopoulos. (Which doesn't mean that he won't overreach later, of course.)
BTW, a CMS bureaucrat just 'stepped down' to spend more time with her family, after having been grilled in an oversight hearing.
It just struck me that what most folks hate about federal bureaucracies--convoluted and detailed regulations, etc.--was part of what I liked.
UL
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Regarding the SoS's pure
freaking evil. Crooks and Liars has a great video from Democracy Now that is a jaw dropper. This presser about Venezuela and how the US does not intervene or help overturn foreign governments is almost funny. It will never be seen on the corporate media as sheds light on the skullduggery of our so called foreign policies ongoing dark side, including the Ukraine dirty dealings. Crooks and liars is too mild a definition of these global pillaging, corporate warriors. Psycho's and propagandists? Tell me again what a great job Hillary did as SoS. Kinda makes me doubtful that her e-mail's held back we're just personal and nobodies bee's wax.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/press-laughs-after-us-ambassador-claim...
yes. We are all individuals!
what's left at dKos
Has anyone had a 'Blackberry' tablet or laptop? N/T
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Mike Huckabee lives up to his nickname: "The Huckster"
Yesterday's New York Times reported that Huckabee is sending e-mail pitches for dietary supplements to the people on his mailing list. One of the products is a so-called diabetes cure that the American and Canadian Diabetes Associations have warned about. Other products include "Biblical cancer cures" and "survival food" to be stored against the day society breaks down--or you're not raptured, whichever comes first.
No word on whether he's hawking timeshares, penny stocks, or penile-enlargment products.