I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Anonymous

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BIRTHDAY GIRLS, who get BETTER and younger with age...yes, it can be done. WE at Yes/No have the secret ( and we're not telling) unless you tip the Bartender Big Time

GardenGumby - I am SO relieved to hear that about birds - all my environmental friends have been WARNING WARNING me to be careful what I endorse cuz I'm such a bird lover - WHEW...I am Doing a Happy Dance with your information.

Gotta check out that link I posted - a certain Yes/No woman thinks: Keystone Cops, I'm voting for Three Stooges cuz I can't remember the Keystone Cops, which couldn't have been b4 my time?

SUCH good news too:  Latest poll shows Elizabeth Warren AHEAD by 6 points for the Kennedy Seat in the Senate ( it will always have that name as long as any of us who loved The Lion and what he stood for are alive, or our children are, or we get the Universal Health Care that was his life's work, we're on the way, yes, but....) 

YEAH!!!!!!! Just for the general good...Happy Dance

ETA: anybody remember the "etch a sketch comment" - here we go:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/17/will-campaign-rift-distract-from-new-economic-message/?hpt=hp_t1

gardengumby

Happy Dance!!!!  I LOVE Elizabeth Warren!!  So glad she is ahead now.  (Somebody needs to talk to her about style, though.  I'm not sure how the professorial look will continue to work for her....  )

1Athena1

Good news about Massachusetts!

I get so sad when I think about environmental awareness in the US. One of the few things the neocons succeeded in doing is selling the lie that protecting the environment hurts jobs. They have also succeeded in making cap and trade look like a bad idea.

I think of the Superfund - the chances of something like that getting through today's congresses is laughable. Very sad.

So the whiney little girls got their own sandbox. Who cares? Good for them if that stops the crying, I suppose. Other than that, yawn.

pupmom

Go Elizabeth go!!!

pip57

We had a huge amount of ragweed in our orchard this year.  No apples, lots of ragweed.  Too bad we couldn't convince people that it was a useful crop!

1Athena1

From The New York Times:

A top strategist for Mitt Romney conceded Monday that the campaign has not provided enough specifics about the candidate's vision for the country and pledged a renewed effort in the last 50 days of the race to better communicate with voters.

Ed Gillespie, a veteran Republican operative who is advising Mr. Romney, told reporters that voters were demanding more specifics from the campaign on the economy, foreign policy and energy concerns. He said the revamped approach will focus on communicating better about the candidate's existing ideas rather than providing new ones.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/romney-aide-concedes-campaign-has-been-short-on-specifics/?hp

If I were advising the Romney campaign, I would say that what he needs are policy proposals, not just ideas. The reason why he can't develop specific proposals is because there aren't any on which he could get agreement from the wide array of conservative base. The non-Obama base is too fractured. But mostly, he needs to want to govern the American people, with all the complexity and messiness such an enterprise entails. Romney just wants to be CEO of a really, really big company, and he simplisticaly thinks the United States is just a reeeallly big company.

It's unfortunate for the US that Romney is going to lose so big, because it can make the Obama camp complacent, and that is bad for the country. I remember after Obama defeated Hillary in the primaries in 2008, he said that Hillary, and the battle she gave him, had made him a better candidate. I agree, and the McCain camp couldn't do much damage because of it. Romney stands to make Obama possibly a complacent candidate. I know Obama really cares, though, and I know once this election is over he will buckle down for the long haul again. But the country needs a better option that just one really good candidate on one side and a massive vaccuum of power on the other.

1Athena1

Just saw the birthday fairy the Wabbit posted - Happy Birthday Bren!

River_Rat

I have an interesting anecdote that may not mean anything in the long run but sure seems like it could be indicative to me.  My husband's boss is a small/medium business owner (DH retired but still works part time for the same place).  The boss has always voted for Republicans.  Well the other day he told my husband that he's voting for Obama this time.  He said that Romney just says whatever the group he's in front of wants to hear and that he offshored his money - which seemed to really bother DH's boss.  He also mentioned that he's paid more attention and his business does better when a Dem is in the White House.  He just always figured the Republicans were the ones on the side of business.  But now he doesn't feel that way.

If you knew this guy this would impress you. 

River_Rat

Happy Birthday, Bren!

Anonymous

Ragweed - AaaaaahhhhCHOOOOOO.....oh, very bad year for ragweed.

River rat -  THAT is interesting.  I had a similar conversation with a friend, who was MOST CONCERNED, about how his "investments" were treated so he could amass an IRA for millions of dollars in such a short period of time. I want one of those too...btw...but can't understand the maths of how he did it...neither, it seems, can many other people, figure out with CAPS, as in limits allowed in contributions) a person ( who is not a corporation, even tho I hear tell some think corporations are people?  how does that work?) could amass SO MUCH MONEY in an IRA???

Ragweed - aaaaahhhCHOOOOO....but, at least we've all stopped blaming the goldenrod, which has pollen which is TOO HEAVY to cause all these allergies, and looks so lovely poking out of all the old stone walls surrounding acres of land around me....

gardengumby

HL - thanks for the pointer to the article.  It's a pretty good one.  So terribly disappointing that the Kennedy family has been so vocal against the Nantucket wind farm.  I hate the NIMBY attitude that so many of us have towards things that are beneficial (or not so beneficial in some cases).  I like the Kennedy's politics overall, but this is an example of when they need to put their mouths where their politics are.  (Edited to add that I have my own NIMBY attitude(s) as well - but am fully aware that it's not right....)

Lost Creek - some of the problem is that there is so much disagreement on what "clean-up" means to the overall health of the forest.  It used to be that clean-up meant the removal of downed trees, but they finally realized that inhibited the health of the forest.  Also, as with so many things - everyone has their own bone to pick.  Just like there is much confusion about the difference between farmed fish and hatchery fish - people "know" what they think they know - because they've heard "it" so much - and never look into the facts (or lack thereof) surrounding the issue.  By this, please don't think I'm in disagreement about the shoddy state of many of our national treasures and the care (and money) that they need.  Some things, though, I'm not sure what can be done - such as the insect destruction currently happening of forests here in the NorthWest.  We are in for a lot of change in the coming years - and if I could put an ear into the future when all the lack of action on Global Warming finally hits home with those determined not to see it - I can hear them now...  It was all Obama's fault

ananda8

For some things, independent facts are hard to come by.  One site says that wind turbin blades don't kill birds.  Another site says that we may end up with more bird species becoming endangered because of the blades. Who is correct?

1Athena1

This sounds silly, but couldn't they add scarecrows? I think birds are capable of behavioral adaptation, no?

RetiredLibby

River Rat and Sun, that's interesting! I, too, have similar story. I have as "friends" a bunch of people with whom I went to high school. We had a flurry of "friending" for our class reunion a couple years ago. A startling number of these people are conservatives and shouldn't be, because they are the ones who have been most hurt by their policies. Well, there is one guy who I don't really remember very well from high school. He now owns a landscaping company ... I think really it is just him. He didn't go to college, is a blue-collar working guy. Has never posted anything remotely political. Well, a couple months ago, I noticed he was "liking" a lot of my political posts. Then he started sharing some on his wall. Then he started posting some I hadn't seen, and it became quite clear he had "liked" a number of liberal pages, including a bunch I liked too. We were having a conversation on his wall about an article he had posted about Romney's cruelty to his dog, and one of his other friends from his elementary school days started going off about how he had changed and what was the matter with him and he was crazy ... It was very interesting. This guy first loathed Romney because of the animal cruelty, and then began REALLY paying attention and reading the articles and doing the research and is now in full-throated, money-giving support for a straight Democratic ticket in November. YAAYYYY!!



GG, I am disappointed at the Kennedys' opposition to wind farms off Massachusetts as well. The NIMBY attitude is particularly disappointing coming from otherwise public-spirited individuals who have done a lot (and sacrificed a lot) for this country.



L

Wabbit

I'm sure it depends on where you are but around here things are looking much much better over the last year or so.  People we know who were wanting to leave bad jobs have been able to find new ones and the small business daughter works for is not only expanding but exploding.  And hiring more people.  Hubby works part time for a small business that is also expanding and hiring more people.  So I'm having a little trouble buying the idea that things are not getting better than they were four years ago. 

Pip ... my sister actually lives quite close to a ragweed farm.  The pollen is a cash crop for them.  Here's one article about it. 

http://billingsgazette.com/business/article_bbc8de4a-67ea-52ef-82e9-f2aaa06b6f5e.html

crazy4carrots

It seems there are a lot of fiscal conservatives who, thanks to the internet, are finding out which one is the spendthrift party when in office and which one actually isn't!

And while the vast majority of people (in both the U.S. and Canada) like to call themselves "fiscal" conservatives, they are not necessarily "social" conservatives.  Articles I've read on the net by reg'd Republicans invariably talk about the extremism (health, social, religious) that their party has embraced, to the point that it really isn't "their" party anymore.  My cousin tells me that his late father, a diehard Ohio Republican, would avoid the current GOP like the plague.

riley702

Happy Birthday, Bren!

WR, no I'm not painting it all by myself. My SIL is the Queen of all things handy and crafty (thank God!) and is itching to get her hands on my place and I'm more than happy to accept her help. She was the one who convinced me striped walls weren't that difficult and has done one in her daughter's BR to prove it. 

I'm waiting for an appliance repair place to come tomorrow to tinker with my washer and dryer, which didn't survive the move(s) unscathed. I lost the washer knob (how the hell does that happen? I was right there when things were packed and moved!) and also, now the washer doesn't stop filling. Googling that convinced me that's an easy fix (a tube inside came off, basically) and the dryer knob also came off, but we found it. It's not working right, though. You really have to push and turn to get it to cycle on. So basically, I need both knobs replaced and that hose reattached. Hopefully, shouldn't be too expensive. It's a minimum service call of $65 to look at both appliances ($40 for 1 and $25 for each additional), which doesn't sound too bad. If they have to make a second trip for parts, the second trip is free, which sounds very reasonable to me.

Unfortunately, it's also time to refill the prescriptions for the month, and that's about $125. *scowls* Can't imagine how bad it would be without insurance. And it's good insurance, really. 

ETA: Lindasa, I really agree about the GOP today being unrecognizable to a previous generation. I was raised a GOP conservative and religious, but I don't want anything to do with the GOP now. I don't know who they are any more, and they've left me far behind, as I stay in the middle. My Mom and sister went with them, but my brother and SIL are very uneasy about supporting them. My SIL says she can't quite embrace Obama, but she is willing to stay home and not vote at all. I'll take that rather than a reluctant vote for the GOP. And that might be a talking point to conservative friends and family. Instead of pushing them to vote for the Democrats, just put enough doubt about the GOP in their minds to get them to stay home and not vote at all. 

1Athena1

Naivete alert:  

My neck of the woods isn't really a barometer for anything, as it never changes, for better and for worse. I have always had trouble understanding how people can vote for president only taking their interests into account. I can understand how your interests could influence your choice of mayor, alderman or congressman, maybe, but president? I am probably very naive in saying this, but I see a presidential vote as a sort of patriotic judgement each citizen makes on what is best for the country, even if their individual interests are not satisfied. It's sad that many people did vote for "W" because they thought they would enjoy drinking beer with him. I find that shocking and a dereliction of duty.  

End of Naivete Alert. :-)

Almost everyone I grew up with was conservative, but I find that people don't really vote based on ideological self-identifiers anymore and many of those people might be just as likely to vote for Obama as for Romney. We are not really that much of a party country anymore - we are a "cause" and "individual candidate" country.

pupmom

Athena, I agree with your sentiments about voting patriotically for President, but remember, Bush Jr. did NOT win. He was selected by a traitorous, IMO, SCOTUS. Some idjuts might have liked to have had a beer with that fool, but most of the voters wanted Gore for President. It's really something I will never get over.

Wabbit

Athena ... I wish I thought we were a cause and individual candidate country.  But out here that is not what I see.  I see a lot of "I don't agree with that at all - but I've always been a (fill in the blank) and I just can't bring myself to vote for the other side."  In some quarters it is a team sport and you stick with your team even if you know they suck eggs at the moment. 

Some people probably won't believe this  but I've always considered myself an Independent (fiscal conservative/social liberal) and split tickets most of my life.  But one side has gone so far off the rails IMO that I now find myself limited in a way I do not like to be limited. 

But lest anybody be confused ... I whole heartedly support Obama.  I see him as a very intelligent, calm, logical and rational person who is doing the best anybody can reasonably expect in a bad situation made worse by partisan politics.    

ananda8

Let's not put all the blame on SCOTUS for Bush.  Al Gore could have requested a complete recount of the votes in all counties of Florida.  Instead, he called for a just recount four counties.  If he had gone for a full recount, he would have won and we wouldn't be stuck with the easily hackable electronic voting machines.

pupmom

Notself, I do wish he had done that. It was a horrible decision. But SCOTUS was definitely culpable. You probably remember that Sandra Day O'Connor, who was a moderate, said at a party she didn't want to leave office when a Democrat was President. Then she voted with the traitors in Bush v. Gore, Bush was (s)elected and she retired. Hmmm. 

1Athena1

I think the problem starts far sooner than the recount and has to do not only with voter suppression of the poor in FL but also with those infamous Palm Beach county ballots where people ended up voting for Buchanan. SCOTUS would have voted in a way favoring Gore if at least two members had done the ethical thing and recused themselves. In such a case the vote would have been 4-3 favoring Gore (a recount).

Take home point: it takes several things to steal an election. Rove-Cheney did it on several fronts.

WR: I think party identification may vary across the country.

kayfh

You know, I always liked the look of wind farms. From a distance as they dance across southern Alberta with the Rockies as backdrop, in the Gaspe on high hilltops, on the shore in West Prince County in PEI. (those are the largest I've seen personally). They are truly elegant looking. I never understood the antipathy to them when some one tried to place them in Lake Ontario off of Toronto. I thought objections were just NIMBYism. But now I 'm not so sure. They are industrial, do they really belong in rural, agricultural areas remote from the end users of electricity? I know that Lassie lives near one of the largest wind farms in NA. I am sure that she has some insight into how the locals feel about them. The noise generated, the putated health effects. A real cost (social, economic,health and environmental) benefit analysis might be helpful here. I want to like wind power. Maybe it is a matter of scale.

Anonymous

I want to rant with Yorkiemom, but I also know what notself is saying is true ...there followeth all the bad words you can think of - NOW, back to my rant - the person appointed president ( small p) hd a borther who was the governor of the sate where the votes were being counted, the "supposed" protests - where later IDENTIFIED as workers from the Congressional  offices of several rethuglicans on the Hill, it goes on, need we say, we also did not have a really GOOD candidate, well, a good man, but a rotten campaigner - and his veep choice, again, not going to get started on that.

Also what my wise sister says about O'Connor makes me physically sick.  

GOTV ( get out the vote) for those not of the community organizer days - that's going to be very important, and I am grateful at how incredibly organized the campaign I want to win is in this respet.  DAMN, they've got a ground game that is a delight to behold.  Really good, some da we're gonna read a book about The Two Davids and REALLY do a happy dane they're both working for the President of the United States: David Plouffe, and David Axelrod, again for those who aren't ( yet) political junkies

Hang around with HL, notself, Athena, and you'll all be "infected" - tee, hee...a well informed electorate, oh be still my heart!!!  HAPPY DANCE

Happy Birthday Dancing for the Birthday Girls too....

suzieq60

Happy Birthday Bren (edited to correct person) and anyone else. Only a week until my 60th - absolutely dreading it for some reason.

Got my broken tooth fixed yesterday - nice new Scottish dentist named Andrew. It's amazing what they can do with that new white filling material - the whole front of the tooth had broken off. Had to have an injection as he had to remove the existing filling and rebuild the tooth. He also fixed the original problem where a filling had partly fallen out.

The problem with alternative power is that it would be near impossible to get enough base load power from wind or solar. Our state is a good place for solar as we get so much sun. I do have solar hot water (had it for 30 years) but we can't afford the solar power at the moment. I have heard of people becoming ill from living near wind turbines here in Australia. Also saw that one in Scotland that caught fire.

Anonymous

Hi, Susie, happy new tooth, and the magic of modern dentistry -

Australian "question" - many ( too many) of the anti windmill people "crusading" around here are citing some "problems" with wind power in Australia.  People supposedly hearing low disturbing noises, even if living far away from the wind farm - do you know anything about it???  I'm just curious, cuz it seems like we HAVE TO create alternatives to what we're doing now.

There was a HUGE kerfluffle, seems to be well justified, but whadda I know, when several wood burning ( they call them biomass) burning places were going to be built - to cut down wood, AND burn what was called C&D ( construction and demolition) - right, arsenic laden wood being BURNED.  The ACS, and several other organizations joined and the State of MA changed the "guidelines" for these things - but still a kerfluffle...

riley702

susie, one catching fire is miles better than the BP oil spill, acid rain from coal generators, water pollution, air pollution from fossil fuels, etc. Seriously? One caught fire? So what? Seems fairly small potatoes as an objection; supposed health problems is a much better objection, if you're objecting.

QuinnCat

Yorkie - I wonder if you were talking about the Redwoods and not Giant Sequoias?  Just checking....The Redwoods grow on the coast in California and Oregon, while the Sequoias grow in the Sierras.  The Sequoias are known for their girth and the Redwoods for their heigth.  They are both known for being very old and both sacred treasures in California, (for most).

Is Dimson Reagan?  His famous quote..."If you seen one redwood, you've seen them all."

QuinnCat

Sunflowers - any word yet on the Penn Supreme Court ruling on the voter supression in Pennsylvania?  The questioning seemed to indicate they would rule on delaying the implementation, rather than allowing the law to go forward.