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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  August 19, 20155:22 am| 107 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads

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I wish you could hear the frogs singing outside my window right now. It’s loud enough to make a whispered conversation inaudible. All the rain we’ve had has apparently produced a bumper crop of tadpoles. I hope the eventual Hurricane Danny stays far away. Here, there’s no place for the water to go but up.

Speaking of inaudible, maybe y’all can help me find a voice-to-text app to solve a problem I will encounter this weekend. I’m visiting my old gran, who is as deaf as a post. To communicate, I write notes, and she responds. Sometimes I use my Sketches app on my iPad to write notes, just to save paper.

Anyway, Grandma enjoys going for a drive out in the country, but when I’m driving, we can’t hold a conversation since I can’t write my half of it. Are you aware of a real-time voice-to-text app that would transcribe spoken words on an iPad screen?

Open thread!

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Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    August 19, 2015 at 5:41 am

    Make of this what you will: I believe everyone here knows what Ivanka Trump’s dad and Chelsea Clinton’s mum are currently doing. CNN reports on their close friendship.

  2. 2.

    raven

    August 19, 2015 at 5:42 am

    Mixed reviews but it may be more related to the device?

    Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    August 19, 2015 at 5:43 am

    In case you don’t find that voice-to-text app, maybe there’s a relative who can ride along.

  4. 4.

    raven

    August 19, 2015 at 5:46 am

    Dragon for Mac forum.

    Nuance is pleased to announce our new Product Forum User Community – the new Dragon Dictate community will replace these existing Dragon for Mac Forums.

    To access the new Online Forums, you must first sign up for an account through our Support Portal here. After activating your new account, or if you already have an account, you may use THIS LINK to log into the Community.

    Please note that as of June 18, 2012 this Dragon for Mac Forum has been set to read-only in order to retain all historical information and post details. Any new content or updates to existing content will no longer be permitted at this time. Please visit the new community link listed above to post new content and start new topics of discussion.

  5. 5.

    Poopyman

    August 19, 2015 at 5:56 am

    @Amir Khalid: I make as much of it as anything else CNN puts out. God forbid I should be considered the same person as either of my parents.

    They’re both adults with their own sets of values.

  6. 6.

    Poopyman

    August 19, 2015 at 5:59 am

    @Amir Khalid: Kinda like this?

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 6:04 am

    @Poopyman: I’m sure that set comprises a very small circle. Like they all go to the same large high school.

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 6:06 am

    This might help:

    How to Make your iPad/iPhone Read Aloud Selected Text Using Built-in Text-to-Speech

    Dragon (I have it and I love it) takes your speech and makes notes of it. That’s the opposite of what Anne Laurie needs.

  9. 9.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:09 am

    Another day, another day of Hillary’s emails on Morning Joe. CLICK!

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 6:24 am

    @Amir Khalid: I’ll be the only relative around this weekend. My aunt and uncle will be out of town, which is one of the reasons I’m making a point to visit this weekend (not to avoid them but to watch over the old lady).

    Our drives take place so very far out in the boonies that it is possible to just stop the car in the middle of the road and write a note without worrying about blocking traffic. But stopping seems like a big production to say something like, “Yes, that is an unusual color for a goat!”

  11. 11.

    raven

    August 19, 2015 at 6:26 am

    @WereBear: Uh, I guess I can’t read?

  12. 12.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:36 am

    Last night I mentioned that I was piecing together some panoramas from some old slides. This is one of them. It’s a view of Newberry Park, CA from the Montcleff ridge taken in 1976. Thing I noticed that’s interesting is in the center you can see a large slab of concrete. That’s the remains of Rancho Conejo Airport which was used in the filming of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”(they even called it Rancho Conejo Airport in the film).

    ETA: That area is all filled in with houses now.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 6:38 am

    @raven: Naw, the first thing I thought of was Dragon. But since I have Dragon, I immediately spotted the thought flaw.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 6:44 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That’s a cool panorama!

    I’ve got a panorama I made out of photos I took in Salzburg (Austria) back in 1995. My daughter, who did not fully achieve sentience before Apple added a panorama setting on the iPhone, marvels over that image as if it were a relic of a lost civilization. Which it is, in a way.

  15. 15.

    Eric

    August 19, 2015 at 6:45 am

    @raven: I just got it the other day and I LOVE it. I dictate a lot and it is very good. I do t use it for formatting docs but going through and excerpting testimony for 30 days worth of trial….its greatness cannot be understated

  16. 16.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 6:46 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That is very cool.

    In 1981 I got a teaching job at a school in the San Jacinto Mountains that overlook Palm Springs. Driving from up there down to PS takes you down the highway that was used to film the opening scene of “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” I looked for the place where Jimmy Durante “just sailed right out there” in his ’57 Ford, but apparently they built a ramp for the scene and then took it down. I did stop at the pull-out where they talked about splitting the money and tipped my hat in memory of the gang and “every man — including the old bag — for himself.”

  17. 17.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 19, 2015 at 6:48 am

    Can anybody tell me if Tetley (Tata) “British Blend” is the same tea as their standard sold-in-Britain Tetley (in the blue package)?

    I suspect not because I’m getting stomachaches drinking “British Blend” and never did with the imported stuff.

    (Pretty sure the upset stomach is from tannins, which certain low grade India teas are rife with. All black aka red tea has some tannin in it, though.)

  18. 18.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:50 am

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve also got one of Honolulu from the top of Diamond Head as well as Yosemite National Park looking east from the top of Half Dome(yes I climbed Half Dome in my lost youth). I spent 2 weeks in Salzburg in 1979, beautiful city.

  19. 19.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 19, 2015 at 6:50 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Why don’t those assholes talk about the Very Serious Ethics of forcing a 10 year old child to carry a baby. A rapist’s baby. I’d love to hear it. I know why the bishops are fer’it’; they think anything from a toddler on up is a little tart and a whore. But, you know, let’s hear it from a conservative who doesn’t wear a costume funnier than Sippy Cup glasses.

  20. 20.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:51 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Ah, where he “kicked the bucket”.

    ETA: While the airport was real, the airport tower was built for the movie and then removed. I visited the airport as a very young tot, before they closed it down(I think in 1967).

  21. 21.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 19, 2015 at 6:52 am

    I’m really tempted to go on Facebook and state that anyone who thinks a four foot tall fourth grader should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, their soul is dead. But that would be trolling.

    Why do I care this morning? It’s so fucking outrageous, but it’s being treated like politics as usual.

  22. 22.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 6:52 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Does anyone ever remember the Bush White House deleting something in the neighborhood of 5 million e-mails and their excuse was “Oops”?

    Of course not. Silly question.

  23. 23.

    gene108

    August 19, 2015 at 6:52 am

    I am having half a mind to replace my car. In the process of visiting various dealerships, I’ve come to notice none of the people in car sales are women.

    Knowing women in various sales positions, I find this odd.

  24. 24.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:55 am

    @Another Holocene Human: Because that wouldn’t be polite and would probably make Mika cry.

  25. 25.

    Phylllis

    August 19, 2015 at 6:56 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Please feel free to tell me to go pound sand (in your lovely, polite way), but have y’all developed a contract doc with the required 11 provisions under the new uniform guidance? If so, would you be willing to share?

  26. 26.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 6:57 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Yep. Highway 74. I used to go from the snows of Idyllwild to the sun and pools of PS on my days off. My ’74 Jeep Wagoneer with the carburetor hated the rapid change in altitude.

  27. 27.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:57 am

    @gene108: My wife talked to a woman sales person on the phone when she bought her last car. However, when we went to buy the car, she was out and we had to deal with a male salesman.

  28. 28.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 6:59 am

    @Mustang Bobby: I’ve been thinking of climbing Mt. San Jacinto, though I’d cheat and take the tram. It’s a bit of a long day hike but quite doable.

    ETA: Though I think I’d probably not make it due to the elevation and my smokin’ habit. I guess I could give up the habit and try.

  29. 29.

    gene108

    August 19, 2015 at 7:03 am

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Yeah, Bush & Co’s e-mail shenanigans were pretty fucking epic, from everyone at the White House using an RNC server to route e-mails to no one using their official government e-mail ID to send or receive e-mails to Bush, Jr stating he did not use e-mail to all the e-mails being deleted.

    That Administration (and Reagan’s) was run by a bunch of Nixon flunkies, who decided what their boss, Tricky Dick Nixon did wrong was leave behind a “paper trail” that implicated him in the merry mischief one can do in the White House. And they made sure not leave one behind in Bush Jr’s reign of error.

  30. 30.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 7:03 am

    @Phylllis: Not yet; I’m leaving that to the folks higher up the food chain, but when I get it, I’d be happy to share.

    Right now we’re in the middle of collecting Period 3 (March 1-June 30) Circular A-87 — I mean Time & Effort — certifications. Oh joy oh rapture, but at least we’ve converted to paperless so that our 405 different locations don’t have to send me their paper reports.

  31. 31.

    bystander

    August 19, 2015 at 7:13 am

    I have to give Mad World another chance. Other than Jonathan Winters and Ethel Merman upside down, I never got the laughs. And Jimmy Durante usually only has to do side eye and I crack up.

    The only scandal concerning HRC’s emails is the way the press is doing the RNC’s job for them. One actually said, “this is getting to be like Whitewater.” Yeah, all blow and no go. I am not the biggest HRC supporter but this is ridiculous.

  32. 32.

    Phylllis

    August 19, 2015 at 7:15 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Time & effort, ugh (or UGG, in this case). Thanks.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 7:15 am

    I got a call from a Clinton organizer last night. They already had my name. The OH primary isn’t until March so that’s really early and probably a good sign, if she’s already calling local, specific people.

    One could compare this with the last time she ran, where her organizer for the primary called me two weeks prior and assumed I was backing her. I wasn’t backing her- I was actually holding Obama canvasses out of our house that weekend and had sent my name in as a pledged Obama delegate which had to be on some list somewhere :)

  34. 34.

    Mudge

    August 19, 2015 at 7:21 am

    “frogs singing”..??

  35. 35.

    Joel

    August 19, 2015 at 7:23 am

    @Kay: I like the Clinton approach right now. Keep quiet and keep organizing. Old school. The national media is useless and should be treated that way.

  36. 36.

    PaulW

    August 19, 2015 at 7:23 am

    Just sayin, but the writers group I’m with met last night and we reveled over getting 18 copies of our group anthology purchased off Amazon.

    …

    In the meantime, I made more Honest Bumper Stickers for the 2016 campaign. I warned John Cole about one of them.

    http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/08/honest-bumper-stickers-2016-part-vi.html

  37. 37.

    beltane

    August 19, 2015 at 7:25 am

    I’ve dealt with female car sales persons on a few occasions. It was just as unpleasant experience as dealing with men.

  38. 38.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 7:26 am

    @Mudge: How did you DO that?

    My vote is for Michigan J. Frog.

  39. 39.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 7:26 am

    @Phylllis: I think we were the first district in the country to get authorization from OMB to go to paperless recording of C-A-87 when we upgraded our financial software system in 2010. Thank Dog; we are the fourth-largest district in the country, and the reports all came to me and my colleague.

    The UGG is supposed to simplify the process. Right.

  40. 40.

    otmar

    August 19, 2015 at 7:26 am

    @Betty Cracker: From which spot in Salzburg? I grew up about half a mile south of the castle.

  41. 41.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 19, 2015 at 7:28 am

    @Mustang Bobby: I think Jeb! also has missing public records back in Fluhduh.

  42. 42.

    Germy Shoemangler

    August 19, 2015 at 7:28 am

    I write notes, and she responds. Sometimes I use my Sketches app on my iPad to write notes, just to save paper.

    But those notes will have value someday for your grandkids and great-grandkids. Put them in a box labeled “Mom’s notes for grandma”

    We know much about Beethoven’s conversations because of the notes in his conversation books.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 7:30 am

    @Another Holocene Human: And Romney had a bunch of hard drives destroyed. Not a peep from the press!

    Why isn’t HRC bringing this up?

  44. 44.

    Phylllis

    August 19, 2015 at 7:36 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Yeah, considering all the advice we’ve gotten so far is ‘continue with your time & effort reporting as you’ve been doing it’.

    Conversely, we’re so small, I’m the only split-funded Title I person in the district. I keep everything documented in Outlook and use my paper desk calendar for backup.

  45. 45.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 19, 2015 at 7:37 am

    @gene108:

    In the process of visiting various dealerships, I’ve come to notice none of the people in car sales are women.

    Maybe the customers are sexist, or maybe it’s one of those fields that drives women out with assholery.

    The guy who wrote “Millionaire Next Door” wrote a book about women who own businesses and profiled a very successful female car salesperson. And I used to know a very gregarious woman who went into car sales.

    There are very few women fixing cars or in trades in general. Maybe it’s because women tend to do better in high school than men on average and so are less likely to get ‘steered’ into voc-tech (which is mostly getting obliterated anyway and trades have to beg for apprentices).

    I think a lot of women don’t want to be “the only woman doing ____” because they’ve heard all the stories, especially if it is low status because they won’t get any support for that and that won’t draw the narcissists. (Sometimes narcissists serve a purpose by breaking glass ceilings, well, you hope so, anyway. I don’t know what Fiorina did, since her whole industry reviles her. That goes for any oppressed group; the lawyer Johnny Cochran was (according to his ex-wife) diagnosed with NPD by a mental health professional. Bill Cosby (ugh) broke a lot of barriers and was an extreme narcissist we know now.)

    One of my best friends expressed an interest in subway operations and got savaged by everyone, including her mom, because she was meant for better things than carman subway transit operator. She got a physics degree and went to work for my dad’s old horrible employer, so, winning?

  46. 46.

    raven

    August 19, 2015 at 7:37 am

    @WereBear: It’s Betty.

  47. 47.

    Germy Shoemangler

    August 19, 2015 at 7:38 am

    @WereBear:

    And Romney had a bunch of hard drives destroyed. Not a peep from the press!
    Why isn’t HRC bringing this up?

    I don’t know; is it possible she wants her message to be “I did nothing wrong” rather than “I did something wrong but so did they.” ?

  48. 48.

    Woodrow/asim

    August 19, 2015 at 7:38 am

    @Kay: This is what, in the end, kills me about Sanders supporters and the “he can win!” argurment.

    It’s great that he’s getting crowds, and attention. But those don’t make you a Primary winner.

    Kick-starting an actual political Revolution, as Sanders says he wants, takes retail work, takes reaching out to a wide variety of people. Obama plowed all those early funds into a massive political machine — people on the ground, on social media, etc — that carried him through one of the roughest Primary seasons in American history, got him connected to a lot of people who otherwise might never have considered him.

    It appears Clinton is following in his footsteps, mindful her situation is different. In apparent contrast, Sanders is great in his followers boosting him in social media, but seems…resistant, as a campaign and campaigner, to doing retail campaigning, to having a deep organization, and notably to having his people do any outreach outside of the “friends and family and social media”. Obama’ll be the first to tell you that filling a stadium isn’t the same as getting people to a voting booth, and I think that’s a key miss for Sanders’ campaign at this stage.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 7:39 am

    @Joel:

    It’s really early to be making county organizing calls. It’s funny because the county Party just asked me yesterday to get precinct workers – which means they don’t have enough Democrats who committed from their own 2012 Obama list. They do a mailing around this time to people who have done it before and they must not have gotten enough back. Some of the younger people are harder to contact because they move so often and their cell phone numbers change all the time.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 7:50 am

    @Woodrow/asim:

    True, but at this point an “insurgent” strategy for Sanders in later primary states might be delegates because in this state they would begin the delegate process and they “pledge”. He might be focusing on that part. I don’t know because I’m not doing it this year but I’m helping a younger woman who wants to be a Clinton delegate so I’ll find out if I go with her to those events and caucuses. I don’t even remember what-all was involved so she’s supposed to tell me what we have to do and dates and things.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 7:51 am

    @Mudge: LOL! More like this.

    @otmar: It was so long ago I’ve forgotten, but it seems like it was on a hill near a fancy restaurant? Here’s a section of the photo I took — maybe you can tell me!

    salzburg

    Also, lucky you to grow up in such a beautiful place!

  52. 52.

    dedc79

    August 19, 2015 at 8:13 am

    Pulled up the NY Times this morning and this is the depressing news that greeted me on their AP feed:

    Islamic State militants beheaded one of Syria’s most prominent antiquities scholars in the ancient town of Palmyra, then hung his body from one of the town’s Roman columns, Syrian state media and an activist group said Wednesday.

    The killing of 81-year-old Khaled al-Asaad was the latest atrocity perpetrated by the militant group, which has captured a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq and declared a self-styled “caliphate” on the territory it controls.

    Since IS overran Palmyra in May, there have been fears the extremists, who have destroyed famed archaeological sites in Iraq, would demolish the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city at the edge of the town — a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the Mideast’s most spectacular archaeological sites

  53. 53.

    Joel

    August 19, 2015 at 8:15 am

    @WereBear: Because there’s no point in dragging this out. If there’s nothing to see — and I’m assuming that’s the case — this whole brouhaha will die once primary season begins in earnest.

  54. 54.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 8:17 am

    @Betty Cracker: One of the slides I bought was taken from there(I ran low on film).

    A few more:

    Grand Canyon of Kauai

    View East from Half Dome

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 8:17 am

    @raven: See? I can’t post early in the morning either :)

  56. 56.

    VidaLoca

    August 19, 2015 at 8:19 am

    @Woodrow/asim:
    @Kay:

    Kay, I think woodrow is asking exactly the right question though. If Sanders can’t come out of the four early primaries with some wins, and out of the super–Tuesday primaries (1st Tues. in March, right?) with some wins, there isn’t going to be a strategy in later primary states for him because he’ll be left in the dust. He might get some delegates but all it will amount to is a fight at the convention over some meaningless platform item or other — and we all know how much energy is spent on those, and how negligible the results.

    I don’t care that he gets big crowds in Portland or LA — those primaries are at the end of the cycle.

  57. 57.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 8:20 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Last one:

    Honolulu from Diamond Head

    ETA: I have this one hung above the front entrance to the cave.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 8:20 am

    @dedc79: That made me sick when I read it too. What a bunch of vile, ignorant, cruel fanatics those ISIS fucks are. They should die of mutant carnivorous pubic lice.

  59. 59.

    Joel

    August 19, 2015 at 8:22 am

    @Betty Cracker: I would go with immurement, personally.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 8:23 am

    @Woodrow/asim:

    If Hillary Clinton lost the Ohio primary to Sanders she would really be collapsing and would lose the state in the general anyway. She’s popular here and she has long ties and lots of institutional support. Ted Strickland is a huge supporter and he’s the Senate candidate. Obama had a lot of mayors (which was his only chance to beat her) and she still beat Obama soundly in the ’08 primary.

    So if Sanders wins Ohio v Clinton Democrats should back Sanders anyway because that means she’s a disaster and he’s their only shot. But he won’t win the Ohio primary. If Obama couldn’t do it with all his mayors Sanders can’t do it.

  61. 61.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 19, 2015 at 8:23 am

    @Betty Cracker: Ebola would work for me.

  62. 62.

    gene108

    August 19, 2015 at 8:24 am

    @beltane:

    I’ve dealt with female car sales persons on a few occasions. It was just as unpleasant experience as dealing with men.

    I have no illusions that women would be materially different than men, I just think with all the work companies do with targeted marketing these days in advertisements that the same focus might be applied to the sales force, which is ultimately responsible for moving product, by figuring out if you could expand sales with a more diverse sales force.

    Or maybe the sales force is minimally relevant in moving cars off the lot and a person’s need for a car, budget and want for certain features is all that matters.

  63. 63.

    raven

    August 19, 2015 at 8:29 am

    @WereBear: Well, at least you responded.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 19, 2015 at 8:31 am

    @Another Holocene Human: I used to work with a woman who built awesome custom trikes as a side business… but it was a side business; her primary career was as a software engineer. (That’s another field that is a real sausagefest these days, though.)

  65. 65.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 8:35 am

    @VidaLoca:

    I don’t really go along with this idea that he shouldn’t run unless he has a coin-toss, shot, Vida :)

    I think this is harsh and I think it conflicts with our much-stated idea that Democrats have to compete everywhere and liberals have to move the Overton window and all that. My God, everyone in the world runs on the GOP side. I don’t know why we have this strict “is he worthy?” process. I don’t get the fear of Bernie Sanders running. Hillary Clinton will do her absolute best to attract his supporters if she wins, just as Obama nearly personally courted Clinton supporters after the primary. She’s not going to do this “jettison the losers!” thing.

    John Edwards didn’t have nearly Sanders support and all of political media and a lot of blogs pretended he was this kingmaker who was directing the candidates to “the other America”. He was trumped up. He wasn’t even well-liked here and we were his target audience. The only people I met personally who supported him were paid organizers for labor unions, which is fine, but they were creating his candidacy. Why were we all courting giant phony John Edwards when Sanders has this high bar of relevancy he must meet?

  66. 66.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 8:36 am

    @Betty Cracker: I like your idea and will support it in the ionosphere.

  67. 67.

    Woodrow/asim

    August 19, 2015 at 8:40 am

    @Kay: I think you’re more speaking to @VidaLoca‘s comment than mine. That said — I just can’t see, with the strategy he seems to be currently taking, where Sanders has any kind of ground game to win Ohio, much less actually have an (in the media’s eyes, anyway) viable campaign at that point.

    It’s all “air game” at this point, and that’s fine if you’re running to make a point. It’s not fine, I think, if you’re planning to actually win, and that’s the point I was trying to aim at.

  68. 68.

    David Koch

    August 19, 2015 at 8:40 am

    @Germy Shoemangler: isn’t there a 3rd option: “I did nothing wrong and to prove it you guys didn’t think Romney did anything wrong.”

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 19, 2015 at 8:41 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Too quik. Lou Gehrigs Disease.

  70. 70.

    debbie

    August 19, 2015 at 8:42 am

    @dedc79:

    They’ve out-Talibanned the Taliban, which I didn’t think was possible.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 19, 2015 at 8:53 am

    @Kay: I think a lot of Democrats (the ones who actually think the Democratic Party is still good for something) are just terrified about downside risk right now. We’re in this precarious position where Republicans who are scary extreme basically are in commanding control of all of national politics except for the presidency, and the president’s job approval ratings are not that great. But we comfort ourselves with the idea that, between improving demographics and the strength of Hillary Clinton as a candidate, we’ve got 2016 sewn up. Clinton may not actually be the greatest Democrat, but what are you gonna do? Catastrophe looms and we have this possible safe harbor.

    So anything that even causes the needle to budge in the direction of something else happening, especially something that vaguely reminds us of 2000, makes us jumpy. And any sort of mildly eccentric left insurgent who attracts a bunch of liberal and leftist true believers reminds us of Nader in 2000, even if the situation is actually nothing like Nader because the guy isn’t even a third-party candidate. Sanders’ hardcore fans bashing on Hillary as a Republican-lite sound like Naderites; some of them are the same people.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 19, 2015 at 8:54 am

    So another day, another murder in STL. Nothing new here, in fact so nothing new that the article ends with

    The killing is at least the 129th of the year in St. Louis.

    When you can’t keep an accurate count of the murders, you’ve got a problem.

  73. 73.

    VidaLoca

    August 19, 2015 at 8:56 am

    @Kay: Right, I’m not arguing at all that he shouldn’t run. I think it’s great that he’s running and if he ever shows up in Milwaukee I’ll talk up his appearance to my friends and urge that they go see him. I think he’s worthy and I don’t have any fear of him.

    At the same time I have to be realistic. We will be looking at an election on April 5 (relatively early in the season but well back from the front) in which all the local governmental offices will be up for grabs — all the County Board, the County Executive, all the Milwaukee City Council, and the Mayor. And other offices as well. That election will be setting the shape of government here for a long time, and it’s no secret that the Republicans will eat even more of our lunch than they already have if we don’t get off our asses and do something about it.. And I bring this up not because I think anything is different here but because I suspect it’s remarkably typical in nature and maybe in degree as well.

    So relative to all the other balls that will be in the air, and even though I think he’s “worthy” (as if my opinion matters), how seriously should I take a campaign that so far has a boatload of great ideas but no discernable field operation?

  74. 74.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 9:05 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Okay, thanks. I would think that would be accurate if Sanders had a history of Nader-like behavior but he really doesn’t. He’s obviously to the Left of the President and there were a lot of Democrats who were either lousy advocates for Obama or actively undermining him. Sanders wasn’t one of them. None of the liberals in the Senate were- not Brown or Warren or Sanders, up until the trade deal and then it didn’t matter as far as Obama getting elected.

    If we want people to run for state and local offices I don’t think we can also have this “just win, baby!” attitude. A LOT of Dem candidates are going to lose. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t run.

    Primaries are good. Clinton needs an opponent. As I said, if Bernie Sanders beats Hillary Clinton in OH or MI or PA she’s a disaster and Democrats should jump ship anyway. He won’t, but I don’t see any harm in making her compete. I read reams on how John Edwards was the candidate of the people and he was a huge corrupt pain in the ass who created his own myth and then acted like this prmia donna demanding fealty. It was ridiculous, and fake from the get-go. Bernie Sanders is just a better quality pol than that, and there’s so little patience for him.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 9:08 am

    @VidaLoca:

    But if you have local races wouldn’t you want a contested Dem primary? He will marginally drive Dem turnout. They aren’t going to come out at all for a coronation.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    August 19, 2015 at 9:10 am

    Kay,

    I always appreciate your Ohio view. I find it invaluable.

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 9:13 am

    @Kay: I’m glad Sanders is in the race, and I think he’s already moved Clinton to the left on wealth inequality, which was his aim from the beginning, IMO.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    August 19, 2015 at 9:15 am

    Huh
    HUH?

    …………..

    A family in public housing makes $498,000 a year. And HUD wants tenants like this to stay.

    By Lisa Rein
    Washington Post
    August 18, 2015, 5:38 PM

    A family of four in New York City makes $497,911 a year but pays $1,574 a month to live in public housing in a three-bedroom apartment subsidized by taxpayers..

    In Los Angeles, a family of five that’s lived in public housing since 1974 made $204,784 last year but paid $1,091 for a four-bedroom apartment. And a tenant with assets worth $1.6 million — including stocks, real estate and retirement accounts — last year paid $300 for a one-bedroom apartment in public housing in Oxford, Neb.

    In a new report, the watchdog for the Department of Housing and Urban Development describes these and more than 25,000 other “over income” families earning more than the maximum income for government-subsidized housing as an “egregious” abuse of the system. While the family in New York with an annual income of almost $500,000 raked in $790,500 in rental income on its real estate holdings in recent years, more than 300,000 families that really qualify for public housing lingered on waiting lists, auditors found.

    But HUD has no plans to kick these families out, because its policy doesn’t require over-income tenants to leave, the agency’s inspector general found. In fact, it encourages them to stay in public housing.

    “Since regulations and policies did not require housing authorities to evict over income families or require them to find housing in the unassisted market, [they] continued to reside in public housing units,” investigators for Inspector General David Montoya wrote.

    The review, conducted in 2014 and 2015 at the request of Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., found that 45 percent of the 25,226 public housing tenants with incomes higher than the threshold to get into the system were making $10,000 to $70,000 a year more. About 1,200 of them had exceeded the income limits for nine years or more, and almost 18,000 for more than a year.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-low-income-housing-abuse-20150818-story.html

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    August 19, 2015 at 9:17 am

    one of the MSNBC Shows had a clip of Trump on O’Reilly, and BillO was trying to attack him about the no birthright citizenship.

    The thing about him, and I’ll say it over and over.

    He’s telling the bold, brutal truth about what the GOP IS…
    and not hiding behind Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles.

    THAT is the problem they have with him.
    Because his language doesn’t allow the MSM to pretend that the GOP isn’t what it is.
    And, if they can’t pretend, then how can they aid and abed the GOP?

  80. 80.

    debbie

    August 19, 2015 at 9:22 am

    @rikyrah:

    I’m listening to Glenn Beck warning that Trump’s a wolf in sheep clothing. The alarm is pretty entertaining.

  81. 81.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 19, 2015 at 9:24 am

    @Another Holocene Human: they haven’t said anything new. That’s what it means to have no rape/i-word exemption.

  82. 82.

    Germy Shoemangler

    August 19, 2015 at 9:29 am

    @David Koch:

    isn’t there a 3rd option: “I did nothing wrong and to prove it you guys didn’t think Romney did anything wrong.”

    Actually, that’s a very good option. I hope she says something to that effect if they keep turning the heat up.

  83. 83.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 9:30 am

    @rikyrah: This is exactly why I think Trump is what the Republicans deserve.

  84. 84.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 9:32 am

    @debbie: What’s Beck’s problem with Trump? Not sufficiently god-bothering and fetus-fetishizing?

  85. 85.

    debbie

    August 19, 2015 at 9:37 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    He thinks Trump’s really a liberal, citing Trump’s support of the auto bailout, Planned Parenthood, etc.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    August 19, 2015 at 9:40 am

    @WereBear:

    @rikyrah: This is exactly why I think Trump is what the Republicans deserve.

    Me too.

    The longer they have to report on what Trump said.
    And, the silence, or agreement of the other candidates, the better it is.

    In all honesty, what is the difference between Trump and Jeb on immigration?

    Jeb tells folks that they can remain here, in the country, pay taxes, be exploited second-class workers, but won’t be deported.
    Jeb told them that they, nor their DREAM kids, would get citizenship.
    BUTTTTTTT
    Jeb did it in Frank Luntz-approved language, and in Spanish no less..
    and THAT makes him the ‘serious’, ‘Grown Up’ GOP Candidate…

    Uh huh.

  87. 87.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 9:40 am

    @Betty Cracker: Since when has Beck worried about making any kind of sense?

  88. 88.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 19, 2015 at 9:40 am

    @Woodrow/asim: nah, Sanders isn’t running to win. He’s an issue candidate. Maximizing attention is his goal.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 19, 2015 at 9:41 am

    @Betty Cracker: @debbie: One blowhard is envious of the attention another blowhard is getting?

  90. 90.

    debbie

    August 19, 2015 at 9:42 am

    @WereBear:

    His concern now is that lots of his listeners are turning on him because he doesn’t like Trump. It’s fun listening to all the discord coming back at him.

  91. 91.

    debbie

    August 19, 2015 at 9:44 am

    @debbie:

    Beck’s overriding fear is that a Trump victory will allow Progressives (in his mind, Devil spawn) to take over DC and the country.

    Even better, all the anger he’s cultivated is now being directed at him.

  92. 92.

    WereBear

    August 19, 2015 at 9:45 am

    @debbie: I like instant Karma, but the slow cooker kind is almost as good.

  93. 93.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 19, 2015 at 9:51 am

    @David Koch: IIRC, Romney violated MA law.

  94. 94.

    NotMax

    August 19, 2015 at 9:55 am

    @bystander

    A movie which is a picture perfect example of the difference between laughs and laffs.

  95. 95.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 19, 2015 at 9:57 am

    @Phylllis: I would love to have that kind of system. But then, I’d be out of a job. We have an entire floor of our admin building that handles Title I alone, and another that deals with IDEA. Our office handles all the rest except for the food grants. We have four people (including me) handling nothing but financial reporting; the rest are in grants development and fund-raising.

  96. 96.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 19, 2015 at 10:10 am

    @Kay: This is how I see it too, looking at the race rationally. I remember a lot of doom-mongering about the fact of a fierce Democratic primary contest in 2008, and it was ultimately great for the party; it wasn’t Ted Kennedy vs. Carter, it got people fired up and turning out months in advance of the general election, and it was possible to bring them together for the general.

    I actually think I’d be satisfied with either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as President. Maybe more satisfied with Sanders. As a Democratic candidate, he’s doing good things by being in the race. I actually don’t know who I’m going to vote for on Super Tuesday.

    But I’d be lying if I said “both parties are the same, blow up the corrupt system” rhetoric on my side didn’t make me nervous, in a situation where the other party is talking about ethnically cleansing the United States and keeping ten-year-old rape victims pregnant.

  97. 97.

    Toschek

    August 19, 2015 at 10:11 am

    I use the built-in voice to text function on my iPad all the time. It isn’t perfect and I don’t know whether it learns your particular speech patterns and diction but I recorded this entire post with it with minimal editing so it seems to do a decent enough job.

    The trick seems to be to speak loudly, slowly and clearly and then 95% of the time it gets it right the first time.

  98. 98.

    Steve from Antioch

    August 19, 2015 at 10:28 am

    Are Trump’s positions really any worse than th other republicans running?

    If anything the religious sanctimony of Huckabee, Santorum make them even more dangerous in my mind.

  99. 99.

    otmar

    August 19, 2015 at 10:33 am

    @Betty Cracker: looks like the view from the Cafe Winkler. They’ve rebuilt that one into a museum meanwhile.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    August 19, 2015 at 10:40 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Bernie Sanders

    I think Bernie Sanders would get clobbered as President, frankly. I think there’s a permanent group of people in DC who like things just the way they are and I never got a cut throat sense from Sanders.

    I really, really like him but I think they would eat him alive. Just picture perhaps hundreds of junior-league Dick Cheney schemer- types who have been there for 30 years and are wholly dependent on various business/government intersections. OMFG, we’d have to rescue him or they’d rip his head off :)

    I might vote for Clinton because if she’s as scheming and diabolical as the NYTimes says she is, well, good. She might need that.

  101. 101.

    Betty Cracker

    August 19, 2015 at 10:44 am

    @otmar: Cafe Winkler! That’s it! Thank you!

  102. 102.

    schrodinger's cat

    August 19, 2015 at 10:50 am

    @Kay: She seems to have done her homework this time! Good for her.

  103. 103.

    VidaLoca

    August 19, 2015 at 10:55 am

    @Kay:

    Sorry it took me a while to get back…

    But if you have local races wouldn’t you want a contested Dem primary? He will marginally drive Dem turnout. They aren’t going to come out at all for a coronation.

    But for all I can tell at the moment, if there were to be a Democratic primary my friends and I would have to take it upon ourselves to create it. There is no Sanders campaign here today and there may never be one if he doesn’t pick up delegates in primaries before ours. And truth be told, for all intents and purposes there isn’t really a Democratic Party here to pick up the slack although the people in what claims to be one would take 14 different forms of offense to hear it said. We don’t have that kind of lift locally, never mind statewide, and even if we did I don’t know if I’m sold on the premise that having Sanders on a ballot would help the other races.

  104. 104.

    bjacques

    August 19, 2015 at 11:13 am

    This just in: Guantanamo inmates use Koran to summon djinn, nearly succeed in assassinating patriotic Okie near Muskogee:

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oktaha-oklahoma-muslim-free-gun-shooting

    Attack foiled by the ghost of El Cid, who apparently does look like Charlton Heston.

  105. 105.

    gvg

    August 19, 2015 at 11:17 am

    while a competent campaigner won’t nessesarily be a good actual manager/president I would worry that an incompetent one would almost certainly be a bad actual President. bush really tests that theory however Obama picked good people for both sets of jobs and Hillary last time picked friends that weren’t good. This time she has so far been better. Bernie not doing a complete job, is mush less impressive so I am watching both to see how it goes. I value competence. I do want the window moved back too but I really am watching to see who will be a better choice for the actual job. I don’t think I can vote for a principle if the person in question couldn’t actually handle the job IMO to the best of my knowledge. Neither has been president before so I have to use other info about how they would do and the complicated campaign is a kind of test in my mind.

  106. 106.

    steverinoCT

    August 19, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    Betty, I don’t have an iPad but on my iPhone I can just tell Siri, “Take a note: the rain in spain falls mainly on the plain” and a note is created with that text. Of course in the car road noise affects her hearing (I use a bluetooth headset) and the GPS has an annoying habit of chiming in while I am trying to get her to call to order Chinese (“I’m sorry, I can’t find Wong Foo Turn Left In One Mile, would you like me to search the web?”).

  107. 107.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    August 19, 2015 at 8:51 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I climbed a couple of CO 14ers a few weeks ago. My fingertips were blue above 12,500 feet. It was rough.

    Gonna (try to) do 5 more on a day in September before my big 5 day hike around rainier.

    I also propose dragon dictation.

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