Here’s part of my flock scratching over the site where the mister recently raked up some bamboo leaves:
Freshly turned grubs, mmm! What’s up this evening? Who’s playing on MNF? How’s the Canadian vote shaking out?
Open thread!
by Betty Cracker| 103 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Open Threads
Comments are closed.
WereBear
Letting all animal lovers know:
Way of Cats Fund Drive
and thanks to all the Juicers who have helped out!
ThresherK
The heat’s been turned on at the request of my wife.
Cats are (re)discovering the winter comforter on our bed. My wife’s tabby, who goes on the bed because “mommy is there” a bit, now is sore that the other cat is encroaching on “his” turf.
Steeplejack (phone)
There’s also besuboru at 8:00 EDT.
jl
Thnx for chix pix. Glad they got some good grubs. Cracker is a gracious and merciful mistress of the chickens.
Edit: there is something very calming and soothing about watching happy chickens browsing around for chicken goodies and emitting satisfied clucks.
At first glance I thought that the red spotted chicken at the upper left had bee trained to rake for grubs and i was very impressed. We could never get our chickens to work like that.
divF
I’m on an airplane to DC. Thank FSM for internet in the air!
“Here, have some grubs, ohhh, these are very tender baby worms cooked in holy corn oil.”
ETA: also watching the Guardian liveblog of the Canadian elections.
WereBear
Last night it was 10!
And we got our first snow.
frosty
Via Booman, quote from the WaPo:
There’s that number again!
redshirt
@efgoldman: Same here, but I’m not turning on my heat till 11/1 at the earliest.
I woke up to 58.5 in my kitchen this morning. But there was sun all day, and with sun I ended the day at 67.
David Koch
ABC News/Washington Post Poll — Oct 15-18, 2015
Obama Job Rating
Approve…………….51%
Disapprove…………45%
At this point in his presidency, George W Bush had 29% approval and 68% disapproval rating.
Jeffro
hey, Jim Webb is thinking about running as an independent…oh wait, excuse me, Independent:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/19/jim-webb-may-be-contemplating-running-as-an-independent-instead-of-as-a-democrat/
Go for it, Jim! You’ll pull about .01% of the vote away from Hillary, a like amount away from the GOP nominee, and leave your reputation pretty much in tatters. Can’t wait to hear what part of the Dem platform you had a problem with…hmmm…
Patricia Kayden
Those are some really cute chicks.
Trying to follow the “live” Canadian election results online. http://www.thestar.com/
beltane
@David Koch: Just goes to show how W was able to unite the country.
srv
If only America had listened to Trump 15 years ago:
We can’t afford to make that mistake again.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: This is great news for Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders. President Obama’s approval rating should be in the upper 50s. He’s been an awesome President. Don’t know how he keeps so calm given his odious opponents.
beltane
In Canada, Liberal is red.
redshirt
Many years ago I spent an October in a cabin in the woods with no sun or heat or insulation and it was cold and brutal and I was frozen.
My current residence is super insulated and has 100% sun and the difference is enormous. I’m still comfortable.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: I was ecstatic when Webb beat Macaca Allen for the Senate seat in Virginia but I don’t think he has any political future. Why he’s running for President is beyond me. Betty’s chickens have more of a chance of winning than he does.
srv
Trump was warning us while Jebito was giving Atta a driver’s license:
WereBear
@Patricia Kayden: Too conservative for the Dems, waaaaay too moderate for the Republicans. He’s a man without a party.
Patricia Kayden
@divF: Thanks for suggesting a website for watching the Canadian election results. Go Trudeau!!
Patricia Kayden
@WereBear: Thankfully, I don’t anticipate that he’ll take away any votes from the Democratic Presidential candidate next November. I think we’ve all learned from Nader 2000.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Hope so.
Archon
@WereBear:
An independent Webb could potentially hurt the Democrats in a close race in Virginia, but overall I think he gets more votes from Republican leaners then Democratic leaners.
I still would be surprised however if he got over 1 percent of the vote.
Jeffro
@efgoldman: Harold who?
j/k
Seriously, I know he has no reputation or national recognition to speak of but what an egomaniac. “I’m polling at near 0%…therefore the focus on Hillary and Bernie is evidence that the whole process is rigged…the solution is to run as an Independent, even though I have no personal war chest, no sugar daddy, and (apparently) next to zero supporters.”
Hey Jim, all those Reagan Democrats you thought you were gonna get? I’ve got news for you, they’re all Republicans and have been for two decades. I’d rather have Michael Steele than you in the party. I’d almost rather have David Brooks…ok, wait, that was just me being emotional…never mind about Brooks.
Jeffro
@efgoldman: .01% from each party…tops…
Poopyman
@srv:
Damn right! You won’t catch me reading a book by Donald Trump.
Origuy
It would be good to have a thread for the Canadian elections, but they won’t heat up until the polls close in the Eastern time zone. I found this:
Voting hours across Canada (all times local):
Newfoundland Time: 8:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Atlantic Time: 8:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Eastern Time: 9:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Central Time*: 8:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Mountain Time*: 7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Pacific Time: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.
How sensible!
David Koch
Uh-oh. Larry David has sold you out!
SiubhanDuinne
Hey, Canadians! Bernard Valcourt has lost his seat! Much loathed among Canada’s Aboriginal communities, so my First Nations friends are already celebrating.
This is going to be a verrrry interesting evening.
schrodinger's cat
From the clouds a heavenly beauty descends..
From Sanjay Leela Bhansali”s upcoming historical romance Bajirao Mastani, to be released in December. Bhansali also made Devdas. I think Ranveer Singh may be my new crush. Move over Cumberbatch.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I really hope I’m not going to get a frickin’ migraine every damn time it rains this winter, because I’m already tired of it. I’m hoping that it’s the push-pull from dry-and-90 to raining and back to sunny-and-90 within a few hours that’s causing the headaches.
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
Apparently for the first time, Canada has dropped that rule about not reporting any results until the last polls closed in the West. Very sensible acknowledgement that in today’s social media environment local outcomes can’t possibly be kept a secret.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ugh, I can’t believe MSNBC fired half their contract players just to give that hack Michael Steel more airtime. I think he has tears in his eyes talking about Bush and 9/11.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: What are the polls saying?
srv
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s probably the iPhone.
David Koch
Katy Perry endorses Hillary. Will campaign for her in Iowa.
I’m sure some snob will try to discount this, but she has 77 million twitter subscribers world wide (more than anyone) and some incredible curves.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
I wish I could be that optimistic, especially because Webb isn’t trying to draw from the same pool of disaffected Democratic voters that Nader was.
mdblanche
@schrodinger’s cat: The Liberals are winning almost every seat in Atlantic Canada. That was expected but the margins are higher than expected.
ETA: And now they’re leading in every seat in the region.
srv
And you people thought Bush was a clown:
Baud
@David Koch:
I’ll have to work extra hard to get Lady Gaga.
schrodinger's cat
@mdblanche: Will that hold for other geographical regions too?
mdblanche
@schrodinger’s cat: We’ll see…
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Most recent I saw from Oct 17 (Oct 6 in parens, and sorry cannot post link or image of graph):
Liberals 44 (29)
Tories 22 (26)
NDP 8 (11)
The upward trajectory of the Grits in the past few days has been quite stunning.
Origuy
@schrodinger’s cat: My sense (based on spending a week in the Maritimes this summer) is that Atlantic Canada is a lot more liberal than the West. Not sure how Ontario and Quebec break out.
redshirt
Is there a Canadian Ralph Nader?
PaulW
please please please Canada go sane tonight.
PaulW
which network is covering the Canada election results?
David Koch
@Baud: Future Headline: Ladies go Gaga for Baud
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulW:
CBC :-)
David Koch
@PaulW: SCTV
mdblanche
@SiubhanDuinne: Their livestream is available south of the border tonight.
guachi
Cspan2 in America for the CBC simulcast.
redshirt
@PaulW:
Watch sane people split their votes so the insane can vote as a block and win.
Shana
@Patricia Kayden: With you on that one. He supposedly didn’t run for reelection because he didn’t like being in the Senate. How in hell he thinks being President would be easier or better is beyond me. He’s also lousy on the campaign trail. Saw him a couple of times during the campaign and he was visibly uncomfortable. Couldn’t even bring himself to ask for campaign funds. In someone’s living room in front of about 50 people.
SiubhanDuinne
Can’t remember where our various Canadians are located, but in case anyone here lives in or near Owen Sound (Georgian Bay/Bruce Peninsula), my cousin Dave Carr is anchoring local election coverage on Rogers. Big guy with a full beard and an affable manner.*
(ETA: *Which makes him sound a bit like Santa Claus)
divF
@PaulW:
It looks like the Liberals are running the table in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. The last riding that was leaning Conservative in NB just flipped to a Liberal win, according to the Toronto Star.
ETA: Oops, it flipped back again. But it is only one out of 32.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Schaden your freude
Somewhere Mika Brzezinski is quoting Pauline Kael, but probably doesn’t know it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
For some reason, I thought of Captain Jim from LM Montgomery’s “Anne’s House of Dreams”:
David Koch
?Liberals are CRUSHING Canada?
So far they’ve won 31 seats, while conservatives have only won…… wait for it….. 1
➡️Results↩️
schrodinger's cat
@David Koch: How many seats in their House of Representatives?
ETA: Wikipedia say 338, so the winning party needs 170
seats.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I should have pegged you long ago as a “Girls’ Own” aficionado!
Peale
All I need is 7 more TDs to Beckham, and I’ll win this week.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
As of today, 338 seats in the Canadian House of Commons.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: Yes. If the Liberals sweep Ontario and Quebec, they should be golden. It’s going to be a long night for a Conservatives.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s really only Anne I love — I never got into any of Montgomery’s other heroines. In retrospect, it’s because Anne clearly has ADHD, just like me.
David Koch
What are they putting in the Molson
?Blue Jay fans are going nutz.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
They have a House of Commons, not a House of Representatives, and it will have 338 members this time around.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: OK I should have said the lower house of the Parliament. I was not sure what the Canadians called it.
Redshift
@Roger Moore: There’s no need to worry about a Nader scenario. I live in Virginia, and Webb just has no significant following to build on.
He had a big enough group of passionate supporters to sway a Democratic Senate primary, where the initial candidate was perceived as being a corporate tool. They supported him because they wanted someone more progressive, they moved on to candidates like Obama, and now he’s spent this campaign pissing on people like then.
Also, Webb hates campaigning and he hates fundraising, so he’ll never even have a Nader level campaign, even in Virginia.
schrodinger's cat
@Redshift: Why is he even running? To sell a book?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Oooh, an entirely new way of reading LMM, the Patty books, the Patty Fairfield books, the Maida series…..
Aren’t I just going to have fun this winter on my annual trawl through childhood favorites!
Gravenstone
@redshirt: Hey now, Canada isn’t Maine.
Redshift
@schrodinger’s cat: Damned if I know. He’s a successful author (from before he was a politician), so I don’t think it’s that.
I suspect he’s been convinced (by people like Mudcat Saunders) that there’s a constituency for a conservative Democrat, and that he can bring people together.
Honestly, when he spoke last year at a local campaign event, his main message was about economic justice, and how Democrats should be able to make that issue their own. If he was actually talking about that, he might be doing slightly better.
beltane
Word is that the Conservatives are in the process of getting “obliterated” in Canada. Although I live 30 miles south of the border, this makes me very, very happy. Wingnut tears are sweet no matter where they flow.
SiubhanDuinne
I just sent a message (en français) to a French-Canadian friend. In it, I used the word vraiment.
Autocorrect insisted on turning “vraiment” into “crabmeat.”
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: I don’t actually care, I am just mildly curious. He seems so curmudgeonly and cranky, and not a people’s person. Why then subject oneself to all the meet and greet and mingling that running for President requires.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: We need to come up with a recipe for wingnut tears
1 shot whiskey
Angostura bitters
and a dash of lime
some simple syrup
crushed ice
Peale
I don’t know if I can accept ‘ridings’ as a political term. How it differs from a district, I’ll never know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Old Granddad?
Good lord. TRMS has a poll showing Martin O’Malley has fallen to statistical zero with Lessig and Chafee. That to me is as big a surprise as any in this weird-ass election cycle. I’d think he would be at least between 5 and 10%
Baud
@beltane:
Excellent.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m surprised too.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s gotta hurt. Biden isn’t running, didn’t go to the debate, and didn’t lose any ground. At least o’malley appears to be playing the game. It’s like coming in fourth in the all star ballot to two over the hill stars batting .255 and the player who’s been on the DL since April.
David Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know, I find him to have zero authenticity and zero charisma. Plus he likes to criticize Obama. That’s a formula for less than zero.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why not? Or we could go with one shot gin, since tears are clear. Bombay Sapphire, perhaps?
PurpleGirl
@Origuy: I have a number of acquaintances who live in the British Columbia and they are decidedly conservative, of the American personal responsibility cult type. Individualism to the utmost. One in particular thinks an American-style medical system would be preferred to what Canada has now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: On paper, he’s a great candidate, all his positions and a lot of his moves as governor of MD (decent sized, southern(ish) state) seemed like they should have made him the hero to the D-Kos crowd (what I know of them, I haven’t looked at that site much in the last five years or so). Young-ish compared to Clinton.
@David Koch: As a Wire fan I was brought up short when I heard he was the model for Tommy Carcetti, and even more so when I found out how well founded that (apparently) was. Like you I find him pretty charisma free. I haven’t heard his Obama criticism, but I have found his criticism of HRC pretty hollow, considering none of it bothered him in ’08 when he assumed he might be her Veep pick.
mdblanche
And the polls are closing from Quebec to Alberta…
mdblanche
CBC calling it for the Liberals.
David Koch
BREAKING CBC: TRUDEAU WINS IN LANDSLIDE
Justin Trudeau to become 23rd Prime Minster of Canada
Baud
@David Koch:
Yay.
David Koch
@Baud: Thanks Obama
mdblanche
@David Koch: I’m sure Obama will be privately thrilled to finally be able to meet with a Canadian Prime Minister who won’t be trying to sell him a pipeline.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
My Facebook (which is probably half Canadian) is just exploding with joy!
PaulW
The Blue Jays are just killing the Royals.
SiubhanDuinne
@mdblanche:
OTOH, Obama and Trudeau are diametrically opposed on TPP. But in general, the relationship should warm up considerably over the frosty tenor of the last few Harper years.
HEAVE STEVE!
SCARPER, HARPER!
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulW:
Yet another piece of excellent news coming out of Canada!
Elie
@David Koch:
YAYYYYYYYAYYYYAYYYYA!!!!!!!
J R in WV
@David Koch:
Any Democrat who disses President Obama while running for office deserves what he is about to get. In business it would be fired, in politics it’s LOSER !!
Obama is even better than President Clinton was, and Clinton did pretty well with the hatred he had to put up with. I never understood why the Republicans hated him so hard, it was almost like the racist hatred they have shown President Obama.
I guess it was because no Democrat is really eligible for the presidency to a real republican, you think?
But pretending Clinton’s affair/lies about said affair was High Crimes was just sad. And the American people saw it for what it was and supported their popular president.
I suspect that’s all that has kept them from impeaching President Obama, the history of how their attempt at ending President Clinton’s wound up.
Comrade Mary
Hi, guys!
David Koch
@Comrade Mary: well, his mom was a gorgeous model. So it obviously rubbed off.
FlyingToaster
@Jeffro: The Democratic Party platform does not acknowledge the superiority of Scots-Irish Appalachia. Which is what he wants to be president of.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
Margaret Trudeau is in the rare company of Abigail Adams and (spit!) Barbara Bush in being the wife of one national leader and the mother of another.
You’ll thank me one day when you’re playing (Canadian-invented) Trivial Pursuit, or (Canadian-hosted) Jeopardy!
Cervantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hester Pitt (UK), Kamala Nehru (India), Begum Nusrat Ispahani (Pakistan), Rahah Noah (Malaysia), Kwa Geok Choo (Singapore), Aniseh al-Assad (Syria) — and others, and assorted queens world-wide and throughout history, too, if you want to count them!
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: Kamala Nehru was dead long before Jawaharlal became Prime Minister, let alone Indira Gandhi.