Another busy day- got Walter a new collar (like Lily and Thurston Howl’s but bigger), some chew toys, some daily vitamins, some calorie rich wet food for puppies and some science diet kibble for dogs with joint issues, and treats for everyone. Ran into one of the vet nurses while there and she demanded updates. He’s eating everything I feed him, and so far today he had two sample bags of prescription food for breakfast, two for lunch, and at about four I gave him a can of puppy food and two cups of kibble, and he inhaled it. He had another healthy bowel movement and isn’t puking it up, so I’m going to give him another can and two more cups tonight. Basically, as long as it keeps coming out the rear in good form, I’m gonna keep cramming it in the front.
I’m going to take a nap and then cook a big dinner. I haven’t been eating the past couple of days (and Steve ate part of my lasagne last night and then the kids came home after work while I was in bed and finished it off, the fuckers) because I get freaked out when I make big purchases. My first car I bought for 1,000, my second car for 4,000, and my third car (the current one) was 12,000 and I didn’t sleep for a week, so a house shot me into a whole new orbit of anxiety. And that’s before the renovating starts.
First gold medal for the US went to a WVU student!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
It’s a nice balmy 95 in Charlotte today, heat index feels like 115. Good day to catch up on indoor chores.
Gindy51
You’ll get used to it, they don’t call houses money pits for nothing.
max
I get freaked out when I make big purchases.
I generally freak out beforehand. Afterwards, well, it’s gone now, ain’t it?
He had another healthy bowel movement and isn’t puking it up, so I’m going to give him another can and two more cups tonight.
Sounds, um, solid. It sounds like he had enough fat to ward off full starvation before you got to him. You might want to start regularly feeding him some yogurt in a few days.
And that’s before the renovating starts.
You have taken the plunge. Too late to go back now. Go with it dude.
max
[‘There are people with *no* houses, Cole, so count your blessings and be of good cheer.’]
greengoblin
I am the same. That is why I still drive my 1999 car and live in the house we bought in 1991.
When we did a remodel of the house a few years ago it would take me close to an hour to write the big checks then I couldn’t sleep for days afterwards.
ETA: Good for Walter!
Amir Khalid
Good to know that Walter is still eating (and pooping) great. Has he met the home pack?
Iowa Old Lady
I remember lying awake after we bought our first house, thinking “I just borrowed how much money again?”
We saw Star Trek this afternoon. Fun movie. “Classical” music for the win! Hee.
Schlemazel
Good to know the doggy is OK & getting better.
We bought out first house in 1976, it was $28,000 and the payments were $250 a month. I sweated that for weeks – who could afford such numbers? I hardly noticed when I signed for 150 last time. You get used to it
germy
Consider yourself lucky that you have a contractor friend.
I have had such a miserable time with contractors.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If only Obama had invited him over for a beer
Iowa Old Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wonder if old Mitch will live to regret that after HRC wins the election.
PhoenixRising
You forgot to mention, in women’s 10m shooting. (jokes write themselves.)
And all across the holler, a call rang out: You’uns seen that? Bet she can knock a can offa stump at…
Schlemazel
@Iowa Old Lady:
I am betting not. Obama is such a compromiser that he will not withdraw the nomination and the GOP will just approve the guy after the election. I love the guy but I do wish he had played hardball more over the last 8 years. YES I know I am veering toward the purity pony but a guy can dream, can’t he?
kentropic
In rifle shooting, of course!
Punchy
So a gold in 200m outdoor plumbing or Raccoonple Chase?
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
If he’s still Senate Majority leader, he’ll probably tell Madam President the exact same thing. Just because he can.
Schlemazel
@PhoenixRising:
“Bart, you went to public school so we assume you can already handle small arms so we are going to move you to advanced weapons” Military school instructor to Bart simpson
SiubhanDuinne
If you didn’t show her the poop picture and describe volume, consistency, color and aroma in loving detail, you’re falling down on the job.
Mary G
With me, it was when I read the disclosure from the bank – I was borrowing $108,000, but with interest, which was still pretty high in 1986, at the end of 30 years I would have paid more than $300,000. There was no way I would ever have that much money. My mom had to talk me off the ledge. Writing the first payment check was hard, too, but after a while you get used to it.
It does seem like a lot less money to me now. If I had kept the house, it would be paid off now!
Get a fixed rate mortgage. It costs more now, but will never change and the certainty is worth it.
Hilfy
DEBIT, if you’re here……please tell us more abt Ellie, who you were so kind as to adopt. How old do you think she is? Can she go jogging with you, as that was what you were looking for? Or running, maybe? Who is that lovely white cat on your photo stream? Should we be keeping our fingers crossed that Walter likes cats?
Frankensteinbeck
@Schlemazel:
I think Obama believes Garland is the right person for the job, and after Sotamayor and Kagan I’m inclined to trust him. ‘Universally respected’ doesn’t mean ‘centrist’, it means ‘so damn good even his enemies applaud him.’
scav
Given the avid fan-base of Walter and his probable future road trip with groupies / entourage and who knows, layover meet-ups (?), mightn’t a dedicated tag be appropriate (Walter’s poop scoop)? dog blogging and pet rescue come close but miss the critical first and don’t capture this one. Only noticed this trying to do a quick before and current status photo comparison. /reader capture
SteveinSC
I see Trumpenstein is off the rails again, insulting Japan saying we have to defend Japan, while they sit on their assess watching it on Sony TV’s. Is there no limit to the despicable behavior of this fucker? The Japanese, famous for murderous militarism, accepted a pacifist constitution that left the Emperor, divine in Japanese belief, on his throne. In exchange the United States has guaranteed the security of the Land of the Rising Sun. The Japanese can’t restore a robust military as a condition of the Constitution Now this Trump-slimy-asshole has pissed all over that arrangement, which must be a constant reminder to the Japanese of embarrassment. This man is a one-man international wrecking ball to the good name of the United States. It is time for some honorable American to smack this son-of-a -bitch carney barker in the mouth.
J R in WV
She is also NCAA national champion in both small bore shooting and air rifle shooting this year, helping the WVU team to take it’s 4th consecutive NCAA championship in rifle. WVU has 18 rifle championships in all, the runner up is Alaska with 10 total. Army has 1… woot.
Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher, of Virginia, the state. Welcome to WVU fame, Ginny!
ETA fix readability, typos, speling
added, I see where Vietnam’s first ever gold in anything, was 50 meter pistol, just won by a very proud young man.
Kristine
Product suggestion that maybe you don’t want but here it is anyway: a product called Complete from Nature’s Farmacy. It’s a probiotic, joint med, and vitamins in one. It’s a powder you sprinkle on food, dosed according to dog’s weight. I’ve been giving it to Gaby for close to a year, and she seems to like it, or at least not mind it. She still vacuums up her food.
Recommended by a friend who trains agility dogs.
If you do order it, a heads-up–there are two Nature’s Farmacy stores with separate websites, one in Georgia and a distributor in California called A Better Way. Make sure you pick the one closest to you so you get the lesser shipping charge.
satby
@Frankensteinbeck: Exactly. I’m sure Obama made a solid pick with Garland, and the justice’s obvious emotion at being nominated made it seem to me like he’s never forgotten his roots. Which are in Chicago, but I’m not biased (much?).
Redshift
@PhoenixRising:
Sorry to spoil the joke, but though she went to WVU, she’s from my home region of Northern Virginia (Springfield, specifically.)
SarahT
@John Cole: “Basically, as long as it keeps coming out the rear in good form, I’m gonna keep cramming it in the front.”. I am SO getting that embroidered on a throw pillow.
Redshift
@Schlemazel:
I agree that he will not, but not because he’s a compromiser, but because he doesn’t screw people over by using them as bargaining chips. I like that.
OnTheFallLine
In the run up to the Olympics I noticed a lot more negativity about the coming games than I ever had in any past Olympiad. There seemed to be a glee certain people were taking in the troubles down in Rio and a resistance to getting excited about the event. Every new story about corruption, Zika, athletes not going to play, water pollution, etc. brought folks out of the wood works to congratulate themselves for their opinion that the entire affair was going to be a failure and the Olympics should stop happening. Not that there aren’t legitimate criticisms against the IOC and the deleterious effects hosting the games can have on cities and countries that win hosting rights, but the general tenor seemed to be more about xenophobia and a rejection of internationalism than anything else. But I’m also a huge fan of the Olympics and figured it was just me being sensitive.
Then as I’m watching today I keep seeing these ads that are featuring the refugee team talking about acceptance and Ibithaj Muhammad talking about how we’re all American, which is both pretty typical Olympics commercial fare and nice to see. Mixed throughout that though are a bunch of commercials for NASCAR with Blake Shelton with lines like “We have more flags than the opening ceremony, but they’re all stars and stripes” and “We don’t compete for world records just bragging rights” and “Our podium only has room for one winner” and other Olympic symbols being turned into points of attack for NASCAR to proclaim how awesome it is before ending with the tagline “NASCAR returns to NBC, you’re welcome” and I realized I was right the whole fucking time.
Amir Khalid
@SteveinSC:
The Japanese public is all too aware that remilitarising would only encourage the country’s neo-imperialist right wing, which they obviously don’t want. (We in the rest of Asia, where Japanese imperialism is still part of living memory for the very old, don’t want that either.) Like Nigel Farage did with Brexit, Trump is actively working to help unravel the post WW II international order that has more or less kept a lid on big wars for seven decades.
Calming Influence
Last year my insurance agent asked if I considered my ’75 F-150 pickup a classic car, and would like to insure it as such. I just stood up and pointed it out in the parking lot. His response: “Oh. I see. Yes, well, let’s move on…”
Chris T.
Good thing you don’t live in SF. Here’s a condo for sale for a mere $1.4 million. HOA fee is only $1k more per month! Taxes will be about $2k/mo, wild guess on insurance is about $500 [edit: hm, Zillow says <$67, no idea where they got something that low], so your PITI is around $9k/mo. Since it's a 2BR, you can split with someone, so that you each only have to cough up $4500 every month!
(China Basin / South Beach is a nice area now … used to be a scary part of town back in the 1990s.)
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Mary G:
Get a 15 YEAR fixed rate mortgage. A 30-year mortgage is a sucker’s game. The exact numbers vary depending on your interest rate, but in a 30-year mortgage it takes *years* before you actually start making a dent in the principle. A 15-year mortgage is only a little more expensive and it will make a huge difference.
Also because of interest, every penny extra you can pay (assuming it goes to principle) cuts many pennies off the eventual cost to you. It’s been years since I ran the numbers through a spreadsheet, but a typical prediction was that one $50 payment, early enough, would cut a month’s payment off the other end.
Some people recommend paying your mortgage every 4 weeks instead of every month, which works a lot better if you’re paid on a biweekly schedule. It’s one way of getting in extra principle payments (13x/year instead of 12x) with very little pain.
HeartlandLiberal
I still remember we bought our first house in late 1970’s for what seemed a staggering 27,000. Then in 1987 we bought a one year old Volvo 850 (which we still have), for the same amount. We laughed at the comparison. Our current house has been well cared for, is paid for, no mortgage, and I could sell it tomorrow for way more than twice what we paid for it 22 years ago. A house is still the single largest investment the average American makes. So you have earned your stress points. FWIW, since we often discuss cars, our 2003 Mercedes was totaled last December. I finally decided I would get the most bang for my buck buying a 2013 VW Passat SEL with the six cylinder engine. Found one used an hour north at a nice dealer, paid 18 grand for it. HALF what it cost new just three years earlier. Under 30,000 miles on it when we bought it. I took the 17 in wheels with low profile sport tires off, put 16 inch VW OEM rims with new Michelins full profile tires on. Drive like a dream. In fact, like a Mercedes, but for HALF of what I would have had to pay for a three year old comparably equipped Mercedes.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: And that’s “principal” not “principle” but I’m not going to edit the comment because FYWP throws me into moderation when I edit. Also, the comment “which works a lot better if you’re paid on a biweekly schedule” meant if you’re paid on a schedule that is easily synchronized to every 4-weeks.
Chris T.
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
Hah, I live in the SF Bay Area, “a little more” is a lot more. It’s good if you can afford it, but it’s less flexible than a different trick: Get a 30 year fixed with no prepayment penalties, and pay as much extra per month as you can manage.
Adam L Silverman
@Iowa Old Lady: What makes you think there are going to be any more hearings for Federal appointments ever again?
If the purpose of your politics is to continually claim that government doesn’t work, and that at the Federal level it shouldn’t as almost everything should be done at the state and local levels, and you then set out to make sure it won’t because we can never raise revenue, you don’t want any of these positions filled. The strategy to break Congress in order to accumulate power worked. He now knows that even if this election takes his majority he will be able to keep Congress broken. He’s not broken one branch of the Federal government, which seriously injures the Executive Branch. If he can break the Judicial Branch, then even though he doesn’t have the power to break the Executive Branch he will have broken the Federal government. And in our system once something is broken, it never gets fixed.
On Thursday night Lawrence O’Donnell led with a very interesting and important piece. When he was a Senate staffer, shortly after President Clinton was elected, at the President’s urging an infrastructure spending package was being moved through the Senate. There were 43 votes – all Republican – against it for cloture. O’Donnell reminisced that he couldn’t understand how only in the US Senate can 43 votes beat 57 votes. And then Senator Grassley – no real seniority or power or influence at the time – got up and made a floor speech. Senator Grassley explained to everyone in the chamber that President Clinton won with only 43% of the vote (clearly ignoring the huge electoral differential in the election) and that shows the power of 43! From that point on O’Donnell stated that the GOP decided that because he didn’t break 50% of the popular vote, that because he only got a plurality, the electoral college results didn’t matter: Bill Clinton’s election and his Presidency were illegitimate and was treated that way. Despite his both popular and electoral college results, they’ve treated President Obama that way. And he concluded by stating that unless Secretary Clinton breaks 50% of the popular vote, no matter how large the electoral college results, she will be treated as an illegitimate president as well. And Senator Grassley has a lot more power now than he did then.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word?field_issues_target_id=&field_publish_date_value%5Bmin%5D&field_publish_date_value%5Bmax%5D&field_publish_date_value%5Btimezone%5D=&field_publish_date_value%5Bdate_selector%5D=&page=3#!#full-episodes
ThresherK (GPad)
@SteveinSC: Now, now, shouldn’t that be “Trumpenstein’s monster”?
Enough decent cartoons about elephants creating a creature now beyond their control have been drawn, after all.
Major Major Major Major
@Redshift: @Schlemazel: I’m with Redshift on this one.
OT: Donald Trump quotes make a lot more sense if you imagine Zapp Brannigan from Futurama saying them
Adam L Silverman
And here’s a lovely picture with Dr. Jill Stein sitting four seats away from Vladimir Putin and five seats from LTG (ret) Flynn at the head table of the RT anniversary dinner in Moscow last year…
https://twitter.com/andrewsweiss/status/762007518159761409
raven
@J R in WV: Choi Duk!!!
catclub
@Amir Khalid: I just read a long article in the Guardian about 1MDB money getting pissed away/stolen by bigwigs. I think I now remember more of it, that the PM suddenly had $700M or so in his bank account.
Wow. news to me.
raven
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: If you are old (62 and up)and don’t give a shit about leaving anything to anyone try a reverse mortgage.
John Revolta
@scav: I still like “Talkin’ Shit with John Cole”.
Adam L Silverman
@SteveinSC: He also fundamentally misunderstands what the Japanese Self Defense Forces are for. They have amended their concept of operations to allow them to provide defense support to allies if its a mutual threat. But the reason you want them in this mode, of being a self defense force, is it allows us to bundle them into coalitions in Asia-Pacific. Almost every other Asian-Pacific state still has serious heartburn about the Japanese from WW II.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: That’s a very large handgun. Must have to have his holster custom made!
raven
@Adam L Silverman: I wonder why?
Schlemazel
@Frankensteinbeck:
agreed but not my point. I want him to stick the knife in and pull the nomination on 11/9. FUCK the GOP and their bullshit
Adam L Silverman
@satby: Most of the “centrist” accusation comes from a ruling he made about the detention facilities at GITMO. And for a large chunk of his time on the DC Circuit it either had a legit (as in the court was fully staffed) or forced (as in the GOP in the Senate were preventing the President from filling vacancies) conservative majority. So you work to find common ground and join the majority to make decisions less bad as opposed to simply dissenting and filing dissenting opinions.
Schlemazel
@SteveinSC:
No, there is no limit.
SATSQ
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
That has been this Presidents problem from day one Pasta bless him but he behaves as if he actually expects the GOP to act like decent human beings. That is not a form they have taken in any member in 35 years. I love the guy but seriously, he must know they are not decent human beings by now.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
He’s not doing it knowingly. His bosom buddy Vlad is just steering him that way.
@catclub: I find it embarrassing that the US DoJ made more headway investigating the matter in a month or so than the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission did over half a year, I can’t wait to see what PM Najib will do when Loretta Lynch asks him to please extradite Malaysian Official One.
By the way, we never got to see that Scorsese movie in Malaysian theatres. The sex and drugs scenes wouldn’t have made it past the censors, so it was never submitted for approval.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Eez a puzzlement!
raven
Dissin the Chinese hoopers may not have bee that great of an idea. Oh wait. . .
Schlemazel
@Redshift:
the net is that the GOP gets to act like assholes with no consequences. While I understand your POV and even agree with it at some point if you don’t smack tha fuckers with a rolled up newspaper they are going to crap on the rug every time. SOmeone needs to housebreak the fuckers.
hovercraft
raven
48 Dawgs in RIO!
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
The stories my parents could tell you, about growing up in the Japanese occupation of Malaya and Singapore …
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
His main adviser, Vlad Putin knows exactly what he his doing. Everything the Drumpfster fire is suggesting as his foreign policy benefits one guy & he ain’t in the US. He is in Moscow
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh my. She’s gone anti vaxxer curious, too.
John Revolta
@Adam L Silverman: Well, and when Clinton does break 50%. it’ll be fun to see what excuse they go to then. Any suggestions?
Schlemazel
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
Get the 30 year but double the principal payment every month (this is pretty easy the first 10 years). Works out even better
edit: @Chris T.:
yes!
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemazel:
He behaves according to Michelle’s dictum: “When they go low, we go high.”
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
Particularly shameful for a physician trained at Harvard Medical School.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman: Of course you (and everyone here) knows that Obama (both times) won a higher popular vote percentage than W (both times) yet W claimed a “mandate” and earned “capital” and was going to “spend it”. Yet the GOP threw nothing but roadblocks in front of (almost) everything Obama tried to do.
The GOP will make up any convenient excuse to continue to push Cleek’s Law – reality and numbers don’t matter.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: I’m sure. In one of the core course exercises at USAWC set in Asia-Pacific someone recommended bringing in the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force to assist with something. I explained to the student roleplaying as the planner that you couldn’t, as it would put too many noses in the rest of the coalition out of joint that were still historically angry from WW II. I recommended pulling the Coast Guard float in the region that does training with our allies and partners, or if they couldn’t be diverted than pulling some cutters from Hawaii. This let the Coasties be involved, which is a win for US Joint Force approaches. I then suggested we politely request the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force medical ships and assign them to work in tandem with our medical ships.
Americans, even educated ones, just don’t realize how important this stuff is to people.
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: I have none. I don’t disagree that they will twist themselves into knots, but they’ll come up with something like: we were still given the majority in the House, so there’s no mandate even though the Democrats have the Presidency and the Senate. That’s what they did in 2010 and 2012.
Mary G
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: Oh yeah, I refinanced a bunch of times and as soon as I could afford it, went with the 15 year fixed. By the end the interest rates had come down so much the last payment was a bit less than the first one of the 30 year. Paying extra when you can is great on both.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
One difference will be that this time if the republicans start with that shit again, and the democrats have the majority, they will end the filibuster. They know there is a good chance that they will lose the senate in 2018, so they will take the opportunity to get as many judges appointed as possible with a simple majority. Chuck Schumer may be reluctant to do it, but his caucus will force his hand, the Garland blockade, just like McConnell’s last shenanigans caused part 1 of the nuclear option.
If they maintain their majority, then we are all screwed. The good news is that Trump is Trump so our odds improve every day.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: It’s funny, my old man spent 4 years in the Pacific on a tin can. He respected them and my uncle, who never left Great Lakes, hated them. When dad coached high school football in LA in the late 50’s he said he’s watch his Japanese players and, when they were falling out, he knew he’d pushed enough.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: They’ll do what they did in 2010 and 2012: there’s no mandate, because we were given the majority in the House. So our agenda must be enacted.
First you break the norms of the institutions, which breaks the social bonding to them and the ability of the norms to exert social control over people’s behavior. Then you break the institutions. They have not been subtle, but they have been effective. Explaining any of this is too much for US journalism. Both because they don’t understand it and because they don’t want to understand it. Because if they did understand it they might have to do something about it.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: The boys at SST think Hillary has tongue cancer!
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I’m not so sure they will. The Democratic caucus in the Senate is still far too committed to the idea of the Senate as it has been for most of their careers.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
WHA!?
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Prejudice is both built up and broken down by personal experience.
gogol's wife
@SteveinSC:
As Madeleine Albright said at the DNC, he’s already done damage to international security just by being the candidate.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Apparently there is a photo from the convention where she appears to have a hole in it.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I’m not sure what that means. I’m guessing that they’re using it as a euphemism and not that she literally has some form of oral cancer.
Schlemazel
@SiubhanDuinne:
and I can certainly appreciate that but at some point I so want him to kick them in the balls. They so desperately need it.
Robert Sneddon
@Chris T.: A fixer-upper along the street from where I live in Edinburgh eventually sold for about $45 million.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Nope.
Helen
@John Revolta: They’ll use 320 million people as the denominator to determine the percentage of people who voted for her.
Adam L Silverman
@gogol’s wife: Strategic messaging. One of the classic concerns is creating an insecurity spiral. State A and its leadership think the messages they’re conveying in words and actions are projecting strength. State B, and perhaps others, instead interpret them as a sign of belligerence or weakness or a combination and as a result they respond in words and actions that are meant to signal their resolve. State A and its leadership observe this and interpret it as provocative actions and respond, which confirms for State B and others that their interpretation was correct and they then respond to State A’s reaction to their initial response. This leads State A to react to the reaction to the response to the reaction… And the next thing to know all hell has broken lose.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Ugh…
nutella
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes, even in the unlikely event that HRC wins 99% of votes and 100% of the Electoral College, they’ll say she still doesn’t have a mandate if any Republican holds a senate or house seat.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Did you see the turd earlier today from Chris Cillizza, that is pretty typical of his usual drivel?
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
It’s infuriating.
gogol's wife
@hovercraft:
Did John take a picture of it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
along those lines: anyone know why the Dem candidate in NV seems so weak ?
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: I don’t read Chris Cilliza. I do not read with a chinchilla. I do not read him on Mozilla. I do not like him with fontinella and I do not like him in Manilla.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Her opponent is a one star general in the US Army Reserve. He’s also switched to a virulently anti-immigrant position.
scav
@Adam L Silverman: Do you like him with Vanilla?
Adam L Silverman
@scav: No!
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
And this is yet another reason why a skilled and specialized bureaucracy is so important. We need people who spend their careers concentrating on a specific region or even country of the world, culture, language, history, possible sensitivities and alliances and annoyances. Trump, and all the rest of the “small-government” crew, would toss them without a thought to the ground-political implications.
scav
@Adam L Silverman: A reply worthy of Atilla.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Our current Foreign Service – both State and USAID, as well as almost all the different DOD and Service civilians don’t do this. Neither do the Homeland Security folks. And there’s even bouncing around among the intel bubbas and bubbettes. We’re not organized this way now and the way we structure civil service protections actually keeps us from doing so.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman: We’re kinda saying the same thing, but my point was it started earlier.
Yeah, the GOP had the House and Senate in 2005, but W expressed it as “I” have a mandate – having the office was enough, the margin didn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter to them if Hillary gets 60% of the popular vote and the Democrats have 60 seats in the Senate and a 30 vote majority in the House. They’ll still treat her having the Presidency as being illegitimate because only white “Christian” GOP men are presidential material, dontchaknow.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@Adam L Silverman: I agree. Garland is one of the most experienced justices ever nominated. I think he’d be good, potentially Earl Warren good. And because Roberts was on a circuit with him, Roberts has said publicly that (paraphrasing) when you disagree with Judge Garland’s reading of the law, you’re on thin ice. I think he’d influence Roberts in a more moderate direction.
Adam L Silverman
@scav: This whole thing is turning into a big megilla. And I don’t mean the gorilla!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQlPCWfoKfo
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: W was a Republican. This analysis doesn’t apply if the President is a Republican.
Suzanne
Spawn the Elder had a volleyball tournament this morning, and they won silver medals in their division. So yay. It was awesome watching them play as such a cohesive and supportive team.
She started eighth grade this week at a new school. We finally decided that the last school just had a toxic environment, for some reason. So she and a friend of hers who was also having a hard time both transferred. So far, it has been great. She made three new friends already, she’s liking her teachers, and she wants to audition for the school play, which is something I would not have expected she would want to do, given her social anxiety. She said, “It’s weird. People I’m not friends with talk to me and they’re NICE to me.”
We went to the AZ Dermocratic Party office to celebrate the Hillary office kickoff. It was a mob scene. Workers were saying that they had never seen it so full. Going to turn AZ blue, damnit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: what’s your sense of the Senate race?
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m shocked! Was going by the way it’s set up in the Canadian Foreign Service system (which is obviously the one I know better), but always thought there was a natural parallel in the USDoS.
Emma
@Adam L Silverman: AAARGH. Even mentioning that show gives me a massive earworm!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Adam L Silverman: Indeed. That’s why Hillary’s margin doesn’t matter when it comes to how the GOP will try to oppose her (given the chance). We need to give her the strongest hand possible.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
No and the so called Foreign Service Academy isn’t worth much either. You can’t make civil servants do things outside the delineated scope of their duties. Its why there was never a civilian surge, no matter how often someone at State or anywhere else said there would be one.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think Kelli Ward is giving McCain a run for his money in the primary, and I think Ann Kirkpatrick is a strong underdog. I would still bet on McCain, because he’s such an institution here, but I wouldn’t give him awesome odds.
However, I am cautiously optimistic that we will force Joe Arpaio into retirement. I’d rather force him into Tent City, but I’ll take what I can get.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
This sounds like a very nice success story. Cool that a friend could transfer as well. Hope everything continues to work out well.
BTW, if you are a movie person, you might enjoy Bad Moms, at your local cinema palace now. It is raunchy (more language than anything else), but sweet. Stay during the credits.
SarahT
@Adam L Silverman: Would you read him with Wu-Tang’s RZA ? While eating crap steak at a Sizzla ?
NotoiousJRT
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
Get a 30 yr and pay it like a 15.
J R in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Between the fact that he’s a Democratic politician, and AFRICAN as well, the Republicans won’t even come to the White House for free drinks. They are hateful racists, most of them are also fascists.
They are committing treason to damage the USA on behalf of the Confederate States of America, still, always, after they “surrendered” at Appomattox, what, 151 years ago.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
She must be Vlad’s back-up if Trump doesn’t pan out?
debbie
@Suzanne:
That is so great for your daughter! More parents should be proactive like you. My now 30-year-old niece was in a similar situation, but her parents kept her there because the school system’s so good. Sadly, she’s now an ex-junkie and ex-felon.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@J R in WV:
But the DC Press Corps and Politico types Twitter at us that “privately” the GOP and Teabaggers are not horrible racists. Just look – there’s a black GOP Senator from SC! What more proof do you need!?!
It’s just, you know, they unfortunately have to oppose the President because, well, it’s just so unfortunate that DC is so polarized. They’d really like to vote for some of the President’s proposals if he’d just compromise with them. It’s just so unfortunate.
Look at how happy the House GOP pages were in that famous “selfie” with Ryan. How could a racist party have such a great group of smiling
overwhelmingly white and malekids working for them?:-/
(sigh)
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
@Suzanne: This is Walter-level good news. Theater has always been a refuge for the kids that are different, so she should be welcome to be herself there. I was too shy to act, but I was an awesome prop person. My mom was a founder of the thrift store, so we borrowed a ton of stuff, plus clothes for costumes.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: She already does band, too, and plays piano. Her social anxiety is still there, but at least so far she isn’t so completely freaked out about going to school. She was also diagnosed with ADHD this summer, so she is on both anti-depressant and ADHD meds, and along with melatonin, is doing sooooo much better than six months ago. I don’t think she’s fully functional yet (still can’t handle crowds much, needs a lot of sleep), but we’re getting there. Thanks for the kind words, all. Love this community.
Joel
@Chris T.: at <4% interest rates you should not be prepaying anyways. The excess is likely to do better in index funds.
David Hunt
I thought of you Cole when I heard where she attended college. Nice to see the first gold medal awarded to an American.
debit
@Hilfy: Ellie is about 9 or 10 years old and is an angel. She doesn’t go jogging with me, but she loves long walks and we do about an hour in the morning and evening. She loves the cats and will often groom them, if they’ll stand still for it.
Oliver is the white cat. He’s about 5 and showed up at my door when he was about 1. He’s fearless and almost more doglike than cat. My other cat is Julian, a Main Coon type and, while not brave about people, is certain that every animal is his friend. He hangs out with Ellie a lot and before we lost our elderly JRT Chloe, would cuddle up with her on a pet bed.
I’m hoping that Walter will be fine with cats; judging by his general demeanor (as described by John) and my experience with black labs in general, I think he’ll be fine. Nevertheless, I’ll keep him quarantined from them at first, and then carefully monitor their interactions for the first couple of weeks. Ellie is young at heart so I’m sure she’ll love to have another dog to play with, if Walter is so inclined. If not, I know she’ll be respectful, as she was with Chloe.
quakerinabasement
Your cat ate your lasagna? Your life wasn’t enough like a cartoon strip already?
Denali
@Suzanne,
Great to hear the positve news about your daughter. Sounds like she is on the right track.