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Just made it home from the annual Thanksgiving excursion, the dogs are racing all around the house checking to be sure everything remains exactly where it was left three-and-a-half days ago, and I am soooooooo glad not to be spending another night in a Red Roof Inn.
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What’s on the agenda for the end of this particular long weekend?
Reader Interactions
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StonyPillow
Tim Tebow will raise his hands and the waters of the Chargers’ defenses shall be parted asunder.
THE
OK. Here’s something: Hang drum. Amazing instrument.
DanielX
Let’s see – last of the Thanksgiving handwashing is done, annual ordeal of putting up Christmas lights is done, so as little as possible. May possibly put a bag over my head and watch the ongoing horror that is the Colts meltdown…hmmm, maybe not.
jeffreyw
No, bacon jam is not about musical swine, though it does sing.
dmsilev
Travel back to Chicago. Which means dealing with the Eighth Circle of Hell, aka O’Hare Airport.
I am so looking forward to that…
steve
holy cow this is a good article about fake balance
Mustang Bobby
All of the teams that I watch — the Lions and the Dolphins — have already played and lost, and I have already done all those things that I usually do on weekends like shopping and laundry, so I guess I’ll just relax, enjoy a quiet hour of meditation at the Quaker meeting, and brace myself for going back to work on Monday.
I might get some writing done on my next play.
Cat Lady
There’s one less deer in the world and one more job for an autobody repairman today. Ugh. I blame Obama.
debit
By popular demand (meaning my daughter) I am going to make another batch of green bean casserole, because this year I gave in and added velveeta and cream of mushroom soup to the white sauce and cheddar. So, yes, my mother was right and I was snob. It’s better with the crap in it and it was utterly gone in less than 24 hours.
Phylllis
Weekly schlep to the grocery store, rake the leaves in the front yard, and put up the Christmas tree. Still savoring the Gamecock’s decisive win over Clemson last night. It’s back to work tomorrow to knock out the 14.5 work days in December.
Punchy
Going to the Chefs/Steelers game to watch Worthlessburger destroy T-Palk n his ilk.
satby
Some soap making, some baking, lazy afternoon watching an old movie (TBD). It’s rainy here in the Mississippi of the north, so it’s an inside day.
Oh, and continuing my FB squabble with a fundie conservative neighbor about the Black Friday mayhem signalling a decline of civilization. She thinks it’s all good and only nanny-state libs are appalled. I look forward to her annual “keep the CHRIST in Christmas” rant any day now.
Gin & Tonic
Read in the news this morning that the current not-Mitt, Newt, got the coveted(?) endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader, NH’s biggest and most influential newspaper.
Now I know that Newt has about as much chance of being elected President as I do, but if he takes out Mitt in NH, I just don’t see a path to the nomination for Romney.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, if the Romneybot loses in both Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s in real trouble. Especially if the same person, be it Newt or whoever else might be the next not-Romney, wins both.
steve
@13: because then romney wouldn’t be able to beat who exactly?
Poopyman
Finish raking leaves and a final grass trim here in the armpit of MD. I’ll wait at least until next week to put up the Xmas lights. It would just be so wrong to put the lights up on a day I cut the grass. That’s not how the world works.
Cat Lady
@Gin & Tonic:
I keep thinking we’re going to see a brokered convention. No one loves Mitt – whatever support he has are gooper Obama haters first who think he has the best chance against Obama and even they’re looking for someone else. If he doesn’t win early to develop a sense of inevitability, then I don’t see how he prevails at the convention. The problem is I don’t see how any of the other failures do either.
Gin & Tonic
@steve: I don’t know who. Maybe they get to the convention without anyone having a majority. Is that possible? Look, Mitt conceded Iowa long ago. He just doesn’t have the ground game there. He was counting on NH for the early momentum, because he’s popular among the Massholes who live in Nashua, Hudson, etc. and is a quasi-favorite son. If he doesn’t win NH, he can spin it however he wants, but that’ll be huge and everybody will know it. What comes next? SC? Can anyone with a straight face predict Mitt winning SC? Then what, Florida? Ditto. Only then, IIRC, comes Nevada, where he gets the Mormon vote. But if he loses the first four, WTF does he have at that point in terms of momentum, in terms of press coverage? Is the stink of a loser already attached at that point?
I’ll leave the analysis beyond this to those more knowledgeable than me.
Gin & Tonic
@Cat Lady: Looks like I type slower than you. Or maybe think slower; I’m only on my first coffee.
dmsilev
@Cat Lady: A brokered convention would be a disaster for the Republicans (and therefor great fun for us). Not only would the various candidates have to spend all summer running as far right as possible to appeal to the delegates and then somehow try to lurch vaguely center-ward in the remaining two months, whoever came out on top would do so because of “smoke filled rooms” rather than “the choice of the people”.
If there are any actual power brokers in the party who can influence the clown cavalcade, they’re going to try very hard to have a candidate picked by the end of primary season.
Svensker
@Cat Lady:
Oh no! You and yours OK? That scares the hell outta me.
Elizabelle
Stayed at the legendary Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico last night.
The famous neon. Vintage motor court on Route 66. And first night of their holiday model train display across the street. Enchanting.
http://blueswallowmotel.com
Give the Swallow a visit, if you’re passing through New Mexico. The off-season is hard on Tucumcari (which ain’t thriving any time of the year, but lots of clear air and some old neon.)
ETA: plus two Golden Retriever ambassadors.
Cat Lady
@Svensker:
Yeah, it was gruesome, but no one was hurt. Damn thing literally appeared from nowhere on a main road, which is ironic because where I live you see them literally everywhere, including my back yard, so when I drive late in the day around here I don’t look at the road, I scan the woods. As the passenger, I got to look it right in the eye before my scream, the thud, the crunch, the lurching and the scraping sound. Thank FSM it was mercifully killed right then and there. I guess it’s the rut now and they’re all running around crazed.
Elizabelle
@Cat Lady:
Goodness. So glad you survived the encounter.
Take it you’re not making venison stew as we read?
satby
@Cat Lady: Rut or running from hunters? Anyway, glad everyone but the deer was OK.
Cat Lady
@dmsilev:
If Palin were smart (HA!) she could be out there in the role of kingmaker rallying her supporters, but there’s no money in it so it won’t happen. The teatard base want starbursts and to really piss liberals off and they’re not getting either from Romney. It seems like by forcing Palin on McCain, the powers that be in the Republican party starbursted their way right into irrelevancy. Hopefully.
RossInDetroit
Apparently this cold/virus/whatever has decided to let me live. I feel like I might just pull through in time for work Monday.
Cat Lady
@Elizabelle:
No. SATSQ.
Eric S.
Nursing a cold. I always seem to get a sick around Thanksgiving. To complicate matters, last night Comcast has decided that I don’t need functioning HD channels AND I don’t need an on screen guide. So instead of ordering a movie and drinking some tea I get to wait around for the repairman.
Origuy
@satby: It’s mating season, here in Northern California anyway. It’s been a problem along I-280 between San Jose and San Francisco, where there is no hunting. UC Davis is going to do a study to track their movements.
Linda Featheringill
Fall garden update:
I went crazy and decided to try a fall garden in NE Ohio this year. I tried a variety of things that were said to withstand cooler weather well.
The leafy things did better than the root vegetables. Broccoli raab actually is still going strong. Kale of course is very happy. Spinach is so-so.
I tried leeks but they are very puny. Wonder if onions would’ve been better. I still have beets and rutabagas in the soil but basically they’re just sitting there and laughing at me.
However, I can go out twice a week and get enough stuff for a cup of chopped greens to add to something. That isn’t too bad.
Next year I’m definitely going to try again. I think I’ll concentrate on the leafy stuff. Maybe throw some collards into the mix?
Oh, and btw, these are in containers, the 99 cent grocery store “cloth” bags with potting soil in them.
xian
You’ve been wanting to hear ragtime arrangements of ’80s hit tunes, right?
Right?
Well, then, this is your lucky day.
xian
Or maybe not? Linky not working for me. How about this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz-Oj2QgzYw&sns=em
Linda Featheringill
@xian:
That was cute. Thanks for the link. :-)
steve
@Gin & Tonic:
yeah, and it happened many times, FDR for example. here ya are:
Brokered convention
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A brokered convention is a situation in United States politics in which there are not enough delegates ‘won’ during the presidential primary and caucus elections for a single candidate to have a pre-existing majority, during the first official vote for a political party’s presidential-candidate at its nominating convention.
Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has a majority of the delegates’ votes, the convention is then considered brokered; thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse-trading, and additional re-votes.[1][2][3][4] In this circumstance, all regular delegates (who, previously, were pledged to the candidate who had won their respective state’s primary or caucus election) are “released,” and are able to switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that this ‘freedom’ will result in a re-vote resulting in a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.
steve
nh primary is 5 weeks away. Obama will easily win dem primary, so all dems should vote for newt, since it isn’t a closed primary. all dem activists should be alerted.
steve
it’ hard for me to believe that within a month and a half we’ll have an idea who the nom will be.
Anne Laurie
@Origuy: There’s a “pepper spray those deer” joke lurking somewhere about…
Anne Laurie
@Linda Featheringill:
Thanks for the update! I think I remember being told that onions take two “years” to mature — that I should plant them one late summer/fall and not expect to harvest them until the following fall…
steve
Jonathan Kay: If Huntsman loses [the GOP nod], something is wrong with America
It says a lot about the monkey circus that the GOP presidential race has become that Jon Huntsman isn’t polling as the alpha primate. This is a guy who (a) worked for Ronald Reagan, (b) represented the United States as a leading trade negotiator, (c) proved his bipartisan bona fides (hey — remember when that meant something?) as Barack Obama’s ambassador to China, (d) ran a major company, (e) governed Utah with massive approval ratings and job-growth, and (f) stood up for school choice.
Huntsman is also a tax cutter: A 2008 grading of state fiscal policies by the Cato Institute put him in fifth place nationally. Yet at the same time, he’s not one of these Tea Party fanatics who define conservatism as letting poor people starve and uninsured people die on the street. Unlike the other GOP candidates, he understands the facts about global warming, privileges technocratic empiricism over cultish Ayn Randian mantras, and thinks that an intelligent foreign policy means more than just shrieking about America’s “greatness” at every opportunity. He also doesn’t accuse Barack Obama of “hating America” or of having a Kenyan birth certificate — or play footsie with those who do.
Did I neglect to mention that Jon Huntsman earned the highest rank that the Boy Scouts award … and that he once played keyboards in a “progressive rock” band (and REO Speedwagon cover outfit) called Wizard?
He did.
Many months ago, before the GOP race heated up, I heard Huntsman being interviewed on NPR. I didn’t catch his name at first, having only heard the host’s description of him as a Republican presidential candidate. I listened to him talk about the state of America. And as I did, I thought there must be some mistake: The guy sounded like an adult. He was using his inside voice. He didn’t think every problem in America could be instantly solved by cutting taxes. Surely, this couldn’t be a Republican. Not in 2011.
And yet it was. And by the time I learned the man’s name, I knew whom I wanted to be president.
steve
kay really does sum up why the GOP has become the Party of Stupid.
Nutella
Baby steps: Judge in GA rules that US Bank can be sued for acting like dicks.
And quotes Arlo Guthrie.