Tuesday, November 07, 2023

Blue Sky Day

 

44 comments:

  1. Cooter's coming Friday, to set up my Windows 10 at last--been sitting around nearly unused for two years now, while Win 7 finishes taking its last breaths. Decided that is not happening any time soon, need to strangle it. . . . . Just ordered Win 10 for dummies. Not too dumb though--got it for $7 instead of $15.

    Trying to remember the confidence I felt when they came and dumped Frankenstein on me and left.

    (Windows 98 SE, but it wasn't SE--my ex had gotten cheated.)

    puddle~~

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  2. https://digbysblog.net/2023/11/06/about-that-ny-times-poll/

    puddle~~

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    1. Clickified. [Click] The “double haters” described remind me of the alleged “swing voters” who allegedly swing back and forth between voting Republican and Democratic. I subscribe to the proposition that such voters are very rare; instead there are ones who vote for their preferred party’s nominee or not at all.
      ——Alan

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    2. I think split-ticket voters -- voters who choose their preferred candidate on a basis other than party -- are a definite minority but not necessarily all that rare. I do think that a lot of people identified as "independent" have a definite party preference.

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    3. I agree about "independents," Bill. It looks to me like a lot of them out here were previously registered Republicans.
      ---Alan

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    4. This Independent is a previously registered Democrat.
      After how they fell all over themselves to treat Howard like dirt, I left the party.

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  3. Well. No sleep last night. Good night with cat, she was delighted. Not me so much, though. But good company.

    puddle~~

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    1. You have my utmost sympathies, puddle...as you know.
      I'm actually doing better this week. ALMOST averaging 7 hours per night FINALLY.
      But I'm still having to take both antihistamine and decongestant to get to sleep.

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  4. Thanks for the click power Alan! I personally can't imagine a thing Biden could do that'd make me vote for the orange slug. Jus' me, mebbe.

    puddle~~

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    1. My pleasure, puddle. And I don't think it is just you. Vide:
      TPM: Trump Is Playing A Losing Hand In Every Legal Case Against Him [Click] A good counterweight to the “Biden is behind in the polls” columns. And the last I heard, the number of small donors to Biden is considerably greater than to Trump; that’s the only way for people to vote at this time.
      —Alan

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    2. Oh, and the stuff about how we should evangelize our friends and family members who support Trump is coming from a different planet than the one I live on. The closest to that sort of person we are acquainted with was the gardener who refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus and subsequently was killed by it.
      ---Alan

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    3. Well, my ex, has never voted other than republican, nor did his dad. He doesn't even think about it. Never has, doubt he ever will, and he's just three years short of a hundred years old, so don't think it's changeable, lol!

      puddle~~

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    4. By the time I get to be 97 years old, I may well be set in my ways, too! [grin]
      ----Alan

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    5. It is understandable.

      BTW Can't remember a time when I wasn't set in my ways. *grin*

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  5. Euclid telescope: First images revealed from 'dark Universe' mission [Click] I doubt that I will see the day, but sure would like to know what dark matter and dark energy are.
    ——Alan

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  6. In April Ivanka Trump officially separated herself from her brothers and father in the Trump family fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general. [Click] When questioned about something or other she can say she doesn’t remember. When asked if some document might refresh her memory, the response would be that a memory that does not exist cannot be refreshed. She probably doesn’t remember what she had for lunch that day, either.
    —Alan

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    1. Oh, c'mon! I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Come to think of it, I'm not all that sure what I had for lunch today. I mean, you have to make some allowance for human nature, even with not-altogether-human beings like the Trumps.

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  7. Here's a good 'un. . . .

    https://digbysblog.net/2023/11/07/everybody-relax/

    puddle~~

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    1. Clickified [Click] Gotta go for a walk, will read it later.
      —Alan

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    2. Read it; yep, too early to say either way; polls this far out from the 2024 election don't count for much of anything. And what happens when Trump takes up residence at one or another Iron Bar Hotel? I'd say let Georgia have him first just to be on the safe side.
      ----Alan

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  8. Y'know, I don't have any idear if I'll make it through the medicare enrollment period. Doesn't end till Pearl Harbor Day (Dec 7). I'll vote for anyone who promises to make it just one afternoon. . . . Hundreds of millions of scammers out there calling, lying, hanging up because too many oldies answered the phonebots. . . .

    Please, Jesus, please please please

    puddle~~

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    1. So they're not just preying on us, eh? Whenever I answer with the time of day [e.g. "good morning"] I get a response of "huh?" When I carry on in Japanese things don't get much better, but eventually they start an English recording. I suspect they are programmed to expect "hello." I remember my folks telling about one of my dad's bosses [in the days before the language of answering the telephone became standardized] answering by saying "Commence."
      ---Alan

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  9. Leonard Susskind astonishing lecture on Dark Energy [Click] Sounded interesting, so I watched it to the end and found it approximately as clear as asphaltum.

    Breakthrough in Dark Energy? [Click] This is a far more accessible idea—supermassive black holes produce [evolve into?] dark energy.
    —Alan

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    1. My kid, Cooter, is an astrophysicist, or, just to be clear has a double degree in Physics and Astronomy. One has to be careful what one asks, because then you must at least be seen to be trying to understand. . . . This is the kid who didn't learn to ride a bike until Green Bank, 'cause you can't drive a car closer than X feet to the actual telescope. (You park your car in the lot, jump on one of the bikes sheltered there, and ride on in. If you don't ride, it's a loooooonnnggg way. Beyond that: 13,000 square miles surrounding my tiny house make up The National Radio Quiet Zone. . . .

      puddle~~

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    2. That said, I had a grand time watching, listening to him explain his PHD dissertation which was an invisible bottle to hold electrons (I think). In defense, I have only that I only have one advanced degree, in it's in writing (Funny story, sorta-- I included my bibliography with my vita when I applied to teach in China, and was basically hired because the committee that hired me, in BeiJing, thought the published poetry --of which there was a lot was each one a book. So first thing I had to do was explain what was what, and neither they, nor I knew how to fix it. So we all ignored it after that.

      puddle~~

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    3. The one time the computer (or data entry person--that was in IBM card days) made a mistake on my grade record was when it gave me an "A" in Opera Workshop. I looked it up in the catalog and saw that it included a study of the principal operatic literature, and public performances would be given when appropriate voices were enrolled. Figuring that if I wasn't going to take a class I might as well get an "A" in it, I left it there.
      ----Alan

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    4. Makes you wonder whose grader went missing! LOL!

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  10. Democrats Hold the Virginia Senate [Click]

    Abortion Rights Measure Passes in Ohio [Click]

    From Talking Points Memo [Click]
    9:18 PM: Definitely seems possible that Democrats recapture the Virginia Assembly,

    ---Alan

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    1. Oh, how I love this!
      We toured the Alcott Family home in Concord when the kids were young, as a home school field trip. It was a Tuesday in the Winter, when they were usually closed. But the head of the Historical Society gave us a private tour! I was so proud of the kids that day. We had just read her Little Women, Little Men and Jo's Boys series and they had so many intelligent questions, and knew all the answers to the questions she asked of them.

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    2. Bravo!
      ----Alan

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  12. US nursing home workers face ‘catastrophic crisis’ of understaffing [Click] “Persistent problem has grave impacts on patient care, on residents’ wellbeing, and is causing spiraling burnout for staff.” The first time I walked into the nursing home (“extended care facility”) next to (and operated by) the rural hospital where I worked part-time for 18 years, I knew it was a good one within seconds; it didn’t smell even faintly of excrement. Just sayin’.
    —Alan

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  13. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) won re-election in Mississippi, defeating challenger Brandon Presley (D), according to the Cook Political Report.
    ---Alan

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  14. Watching the Results #4
    by Josh Marshall

    10:15 PM: I think we’re about set for the night. A pretty solid night for the Democrats. Looks like they hold the Virginia Senate and retake the House of Delegates. Bad night for Youngkin. Abortion referendum and pot legalization referendum both win in Ohio. Huge D wins in New Jersey. Gov Beshear wins and wins big in Kentucky. There are other races but that really tells the story. Solid Dem night. In general tonight seems to be continuing what had been a trend of special elections with Democratic over-performance. But there’s different kinds of over-performance. There’s over-performance against 2020, against current polls, against expectations. So we’ll have to sort all that out in the coming days.
    ---Alan

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    1. Democrats had hoped to pull off upset gubernatorial victories in Mississippi and maybe even Louisiana. Didn't happen.

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    2. Well, "Next year in Jerusalem." The Republican Party has been heading for a reckoning for a very long time.
      ---Alan

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  15. We checked in about the results earlier this evening, but forgot to check again! Duh.
    What a wonderful thing to find the Dems did so well! It's what made me stop by here.
    It's been one of those days when there's too much on the plate to use the computer.
    But I just HAD to stop by and celebrate a bit with you all! It certainly bodes well for next year...polls be damned!

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    1. Will Rogers: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

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