a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Happy Monday.
The Democratic National Convention is underway.
The Democratic Party’s national convention starts tomorrow in Chicago.
A headline in the New York Times reads ‘Democrats’ Unity Convention Has One Giant Exception: The Gaza War’.
From bbc.com:
President Biden will headline the convention on Monday night. The crowd will also hear from First Lady Jill Biden, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other Democratic leaders.
On Tuesday, former President Barack Obama is expected to deliver remarks. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Ms Harris’s husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, will also address the convention on Tuesday.
Wednesday’s line-up reportedly features former President Bill Clinton and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, among others.
Ms Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will give the prime-time speech that night after his nomination.
The most important night of the convention is Thursday, when Vice-President Harris will take the stage. She will formally accept the presidential nomination and give her speech on the final night of the convention dedicated “For the Future.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will also take the stage at some point during the week.
A large thunderstorm with rain and lightning is passing over the Seattle metro area tonight.
The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of prices for goods and services, increased 0.2% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.9%, its lowest since March 2021.
Excluding food and energy, core CPI came in at a 0.2% monthly rise and a 3.2% annual rate, meeting expectations.
A 0.4% increase in shelter costs was responsible for 90% of the all-items inflation increase. Food prices climbed 0.2% while energy was flat.
– Reported by Jeff Cox on CNBC.com
These little mandarins from Peru are sweet, seedless and plump, and I got them for free at Amazon Fresh. 🤗
As I attempted to scan the barcode and put them into my smart grocery cart, the scanner did not recognize the barcode. There was no 4-digit produce code to type in on the bag, or on the shelf. Searching for ‘mandarin’ on the cart’s lookup menu also yielded no result.
The store clerk in the aisle could offer no other solution either, and just tucked the mandarins into the back of the cart, saying I don’t have to pay for them.
It’s time for another cool British stamp that had arrived on an envelope in my mailbox.
It’s getting late in summer, but I still find pretty flowers here in my neighborhood.
Here’s a beautiful view from this morning, of the south end of Lake Union.
I took the picture from the seventh floor of a building off Fairview Avenue North.
I confess that I fast-forwarded through some (okay, most) of a recording of the three hours of the closing ceremony of the 2024 Games.
I liked the Golden Voyager and the mummies— and was that a spry 62-year old Tom Cruise ‘sky diving’ into the arena to receive the Olympic flag, and take it to Los Angeles on a motorbike? (Yes, it was).
Is the woodpecker (it’s a northern flicker) eating ants? I wondered.
Yes, woodpeckers eat ants and are known to eat more ants than most other birds.
Some woodpeckers, like the pileated woodpecker and northern flicker, can eat hundreds or even thousands of ants at once.
– Natural Audubon Society
Here is tonight’s sunset, seen from Capitol Hill’s 14th Avenue at Thomas Street.
That’s a layer of smoke out there, from the wildfires east of the Cascades, and also from those burning in Oregon and California.
The days are getting shorter, with sunset now at 8.36 pm.
Here’s looking west from Capitol Hill’s East John Street & 14th Avenue.
I was convinced that VP Kamala Harris would pick Governor Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania as her running mate, but we learned this morning that it is Governor Tim Walz from Minnesota.
Here’s Lisa Lerer writing for the New York Times:
In selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has picked a partner who is many things she is not: a product of small-town America. A union member known to campaign in a T-shirt and camo hat. A white guy who exudes Midwestern dad energy.
And, perhaps most important, a politician who has had to rely on the support of independent, or even Republican, voters to win elections.
Their pairing is somewhat predictable; a cardinal rule of vice-presidential selection is to construct the ticket with political balance in mind. But it is also a statement about what many Democrats believe is one of Ms. Harris’s key vulnerabilities: that she is perceived as too liberal, putting even the small slice of rural, working-class and moderate voters that she needs across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan out of her reach.
It was a rough Monday for stock indexes across the world, but most economists think the US economy is just slowing down somewhat, and that a recession is not yet in sight.
Now it is already Tuesday in Japan, and it seems Japanese shares are clawing back most of their record losses from Monday (the Nikkei 225 traded about 10% higher early on).
Only 0.005 sec (five thousandths) separated the gold and the silver in the 100 meters men’s final today.
I had my grubby paws on my pristine machine yesterday and today, setting it up with my preferences and applications.
Nicely done:
—Easy to sync contacts, notes and settings shared with my iPhone.
—Super easy to set up use a non-Apple mouse via bluetooth (for now, using a Logitech Signature M650 L).
—Easy to add widgets to the desktop.
—Added Google Chrome, YouTube, YouTube TV and Netflix browser links onto the task bar for quick access to Chrome, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, YouTube, YouTube TV and Netflix.
(I don’t use Safari nor the MacOS calendar).
Not so nice/ not possible to do:
—As of 2024, there is no Netflix app for MacBook!
So it’s possible to login & watch online at netflix.com, but I cannot download movies to watch offline on the plane on my MacBook Air the way I do with my iPad.
—I will have to get a hub to expand the connectivity options (the machine only has two USB-4 ports). My 2017 Canon digital camera needs a USB-A port to connect to the MacBook, for example.
Happy Friday.
The Blue Angels are in town for Seafair, and the warm weather is back for the next several days.
It was 88°F (31°C) today.
This is wonderful news.
My Windows notebook computer is 7 years old, and it so it was time for a new one. I am making the leap into the world of macOS, though, by replacing it with an Apple MacBook Air.
Yes, I have long had iPhones and iPads, but those don’t have the menus and file management and applications that Apple’s notebook and desktop computers have. So I have a lot to learn.
*MacOS, originally Mac OS X, previously shortened as OS X, is an operating system developed and marketed by Apple since 2001.
