October 3, 2013

At the Asphalt Chalk Café...

Untitled

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(Your comment will not go up instantly. I need to approve comments, but free speech is encouraged in café posts. I would turn off the moderation function if I knew that the people I've specifically told never to comment again would refrain, but since I happen to know that they won't, this is how we must live now. Sorry to all who miss the old freedoms. I do too!)

ACTUALLY: I'm going to try non-moderation for a little while, starting now and only on today's posts. Let's see if this can work. Obviously, it's an invitation to the haters to drive this thing back into moderation, but if that happens, then the people who've been begging to get back to non-moderation will have had a chance to see what I'm dealing with here. Of course, that chance to see will be transitory, because the people I need to delete will be deleted soon enough.

60 comments:

Paddy O said...

1, 2, 3 Check, check. 1, 2, 3.

This thing on?

Almost Ali said...

Now I forgot what I wanted to say.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Given the state of today's K12, I'm just delighted to see that the chalk numbers are going up in the correct sequence!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Instant gratification! I hope it goes well.

Marty Keller said...

Hope your trust is justified by us in the Great Unwashed!

LYNNDH said...

Marty, who you calling "unwashed"? I took a shower, um, last month.

I don't think I ever said anything here that was trash, but we will see what happens today with others.

rehajm said...

Enough with the fear mongering about default- how soon we forget, as we vetted this just a few months ago. Treasury can't run the trillion dollar coin gambit, but it can reissue and sell more debt to repay debt that matures, it can service it's monthly interest payments with the monthly revenue it's still collecting, which is many many multiples of the interest due, and interest payments on the debt are about the last thing the government can stop paying...

And as we will be soon getting BS by the shovel full about how the government shutdown is the source of our terrible employment numbers and limp GDP, here's a reminder about why Obamacare isn't helping.

Key point:

President Obama has said he wants to raise marginal tax rates on high-income taxpayers. Yet under his policies, the largest increases in marginal tax rates may well apply not to the rich but to millions of middle-class families. These increases would not show up explicitly in the tax code but, rather, implicitly as part of health care reform...
Altogether, many families would face marginal rates at or above the 50 percent level

Ipso Fatso said...

I wish I had something interesting to say, as usual I don't.

heyboom said...

Thank you Professor for this, it's simply torture to have to wait and see my brilliant and insightful comments displayed here!

BarrySanders20 said...

I love it when the kids chalk up the whole driveway and down the sidewalk. I tour the concrete jungle and enjoy the artistry and creativity. It's usually some kind of town with schools, shops, parks, etc. Proves they were outside creating something new.

Tank said...

Michael Jackson's family lost their case. I don't know that much about it, but it seemed like the right decision.

Rocketeer said...

So, yeah...that thing in DC this afternoon was a total dog's breakfast for everyone involved, huh? The woman in the Lexus, law enforcement, the media - just about everyone got just about everything wrong it seems. Several Gangs Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, in the figurative and literal senses.

Mark Trade said...

Hope it works out, Ann.

Anonymous said...

I heard that the woman had a baby in the car with her, I wonder if that was correct. If it was, whoa, insane.

Farmer said...

Hi Inga!

It looks like baghoh took his ball and went home. That surprised me!

Sorun said...

I know that's not from State Street because it doesn't mention Scott Walker and the artist can count to 10.

Moose said...

I hate the Dutch.

madAsHell said...

Has anybody ever seen Justin Bieber, and Miley Cyrus in the same place, at the same time??

MadisonMan said...

Soon, the rains of fall will wash it all away.

Jeff Gee said...

Here's Stan Getz performing in shorts at Newport in 1984 shorts. Brief shot from the rear at the very beginning, a tantalizing glimpse of thigh at 1:28, no long shot of the stage till 3:20. Lots of close ups of fingers on valves and boats in the harbor. This could be the gold standard for Men in Shorts.

madAsHell said...

Where are all the Obama bumper stickers??

I'm here in the Soviet of Seattle. In November, 2012 there were as many Obama 2008 bumper stickers as there were Obama 2012. Today, I'm hard pressed to find an Obama sticker.

....or am I just imagining things?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Mad as Hell,
I think they're all down here in Lewis County. It's remarkable the number of deeply conservative, heavily armed, old-school populist, Roosevelt Democrats there are here. They'll vote for Obama (because Republicans wear spats and smoke cigars while counting their bags o' wealth) and tell racist jokes all day long.

Kelly said...

I heard a former secret service agent talking about the area this woman rammed near the white house. He said it's easy to get in there and to become confused. I wonder if she was maybe someone who did not speak english and panicked? Maybe a foreign diplomats wife.

They said there was a child, but refuse to give the status on it. That doesn't sound like good news for the kid.

TML said...

Yay!!! It's the old Althouse. Sigh, so satisfying.

pm317 said...

The woman killed in DC this afternoon is an African American. Can we safely assume she is not teaparty?

ALP said...

I see few Obama bumper stickers here in Pierce County, WA. Must be the proximity of Joint Base and the military? I see C-17s flying overhead more often than Obama bumper stickers.

And what about this potential grocery store worker strike? Is anyone else as mystified as I am that some union members, who largely voted for Obama, are pissed they will be expected to find their healthcare on the exchanges, rather than from their employers/union? Huh? Were we not told by such people Obamacare would be so awesome - and to embrace it with open arms? I can't even count the number of passionate "letters to the editor" I have seen, or forum posts on The Seattle Times, going on and on about how this will be the best thing to happen to healthcare EVER.

Did it not occur to those with 40-hour a week, employer-subsidized healthcare that THEY may be the ones to give up a bit in order that those legions of the uninsured would be covered? We in the private sector have seen our employers cover less and less and less of our health insurance over the past 10 years or more...union members appear to have been the last to experience what we have been seeing for some time.

They are late to the party.

CWJ said...

I post this here once rather than cluttering up any other shutdown threads repeating myself.

Thinking about shutdown theatre, my primary thought is that it is just so cynical and petty.

I'm sure the administration was hoping to bash the opposition with some footage of a wheelchair bound WWII vet with a tear streaming down his cheek because he was thwarted by the barricades at the memorial.

What they didn't consider was 1) that particular generation was almost never thwarted by anything. Expecting them and their sponsors to docilely sit and accept that sh*t sandwich was a grave miscalculation. And 2) even the low information voters can wrap their heads around the adsurdity of barricading an open air 24/7 memorial that requires no one present in order for it to be enjoyed. It required more money and effort to shut it down than leave it open.

It took incredible gall for my senator Claire McCaskall to stand with the Missouri veterans and blame the barricades on the Tea Party. Then again this is pretty much SOP for Claire.

tastid212 said...

why is it called hopscotch? why not frenchfrog or dutchduidance? (readitagainslowly)

will there be an economic benefit from the shutdown b/c all the regulators and business inhibitors are non-essential? i hope so.

thanks althouse for opening up, IYKWIM.

Ann Althouse said...

"Yay!!! It's the old Althouse. Sigh, so satisfying."

It's nice for me too.

Help me.

I want what you want.

And by "you," I mean, the good people and plenty of other people.

Anonymous said...

How about the tweet by Rep. Griffen blaming the Capitol shooting on "violent rhetoric" by President Obama?

How about Rep. Neugebauer scolding a park ranger for the closing of a memorial? Really??

The incredible gall.

cubanbob said...

Ann pardon the pun-your house, your rules-but please keep the moderation on. Don't encourage those who stunk up the joint to begin with.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the moderation as well. The emotionally incontinent, like the poor, are always with us.

Ann Althouse said...

"Don't encourage those who stunk up the joint to begin with."

I'm working with the tools that I have.

I'm watching, and doing the best I can.

james conrad said...

there is another solution, a data base of commenters who have proven to be sane

David said...

##!!!!zz!!!@@XXXXXXX!!!!!!!!

And that goes for all the rest of you too.

Matt Sablan said...

I am pro science. For great science!

David said...

tastid212 said...
why is it called hopscotch?


Expensive scotch. That would be better.

Jupiter said...

"Help me.

I want what you want.

And by "you," I mean, the good people and plenty of other people."

I assume that by "the good people", you mean those who were not responsible for whatever appalling comments were posted (I managed to miss all of them, so I really don't know what that whole episode was about).

How do you expect people who don't post obnoxious comments to help you with the problem caused by those who do? Just curious.

Matt Sablan said...

... is it bad the first thing I thought when I saw this picture was: "Isn't a chalk outline of a woman a bit... morbid?"

Of course, that is the illusion of me looking here AFTER I learned about the woman at the capitol.

CWJ said...

Inga,

Against my better judgment, I will reply.

FWIW, the Park Ranger via his or her immediate bosses and the Park Service generally, had more to do with the memorial's ridiculous closure than the entire Tea Party combined.

The representative's scolding may have been rude or otherwise impolitic - I wasn't there I don't know what was said. Regardless, gall has nothing to do with it unless you Inga are engaging in the same shutdown theatre as the administration.

Please see my comment above.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

CWJ, there are plenty of videos out there showing the encounter. It was the Rep. that was engaging in theater, using the poor park ranger as a prop.

Bob Ellison said...

Today, I went with two friends to the Martin guitar factory. "Drove in to Nazareth." Beautiful place.

CWJ said...

Inga,

I made no defense of the Representative. I have no opinion on the subject other than what I have said in my comments. You are punching but I have no idea against what.

The distinction I made was between the park service and the Tea Party. If you are going to reply please address the points made by myself and others. Simply, posting "yes but what about squirrel" does not advance the discussion.

I have already stated that in my opinion the closure was not justified and is nothing more than cynical petty shutdown theatre. In that case scolding the one representative of the deciding organization that was present was understandable, if nonetheless of potentially questionable optics.

If you think the closure was justified, please explain why.

cubanbob said...

there is another solution, a data base of commenters who have proven to be sane"

James even the previously known trouble making commenters occasionally made reasonable comments even if your or I or the rest of the sane commenters didn't agree with those comments. That's why moderation is a better policy than having a database to block certain commenters.

Sixty I suspect that neither blogger is it for the money or the 'ratings' and that neither is about to quit their day jobs. I'm sure they like the few shekels they get from ads and Amazon-they probably defer the cost of running the blog and no doubt they like having a large readership but compared to the rates they could be billing at its loose change at best. I'm just glad they take the time and effort to run the blogs.

Titus said...

My comment is tits.

Today an employee confided in me she had a breast reduction surgery.

tits.

Titus said...

When she told me she reduced your tits I could not help but look at her tits.

tits.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Titus,
Shame on you!

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Titus said...

Titus,
Shame on you!


Please...who would not look at her tits after she stated they were reduced.

Bob_R said...

So James Taranto use the term "colorable argument" today. I was not familiar with it and looked it up. Used mostly in legal circles. I found lots of contradictory definitions from "specious" to "plausible" to "probably valid." I think Taranto meant "plausible."

Is one of these definitions more standard than others? If not, I can't think of a more useless word. (Humpty Dumpty would be proud.)

Bob_R said...

Titus - You said she said she had reduced YOUR tits. Damned right I would have looked.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Titus,
I was being facetious. Not long ago a busty co-worker was telling me a story about a sales rep who kept looking at her bosom when he was talking to her. It took a super human effort to keep me eyes locked on the space between her eyebrows as she told me this story.

sakredkow said...

Today, I went with two friends to the Martin guitar factory. "Drove in to Nazareth." Beautiful place.

Always meant to go there with a friend. We still talk about it.

I play a D25.

heyboom said...

Inga, there you go again with your habit of pointing out our sides indiscretions while completely ignoring your side.

There is no godly reason at all to close that memorial. If all must be closed, why isn't the WWI memorial similarly barricaded and guarded? No visitors, so no theater to be exploited.

Anonymous said...

Heyboom,
It wasn't the fault of the park ranger, was it?

heyboom said...

Yes, I know they are under orders and that some of them are following them reluctantly. My main point was in the second paragraph...you completely overlook the reason the memorial is closed to begin with.

Largo said...

Remember what Ann once told us: If we feed the trolls, it is WE who are the problem.

DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!!!

I had to leave lurking mode to say this. My first comment since Ann brought the comments back.

Ann, I'm really glad you brought the comments back.

Hi, friends! *Waving*

Largo said...

"I'm watching, and doing the best I can."

You make me think of

"I have to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time. (It couldn't get much worse!)"