Althouse: At the Wednesday Night Café...

February 19, 2025

At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

42 comments:

MaxedOutMama said...: I just wanted to leave this note - one of the best things the Trump admin has done was through the new energy secretary. FERC has now given PJM a bunch of approvals so that they can rapidly add new supply to their transmission network. The last capacity auction for PJM produced strikingly high rates, and PJM has been warning that the electricity supply in the Midlantic could fail during extreme demand within a few years.

At last, basic competence.
https://insidelines.pjm.com/ferc-accepts-two-pjm-proposals-to-expedite-supply-additions/; 2/19/25, 7:23 PM
Josephbleau said...: If it turns out that Trump is required to pay everything including to ngos and other boondoggles, he should have individual checks printed and every Monday morning he should have a press conference and sign each check and announce who it is going to and what it is for. I think after awhile congress would be so embarrassed and get so many hate calls that this would be put to a stop. Perhaps he can be sued to be forced to pay but there is no law that it is secret. And he can declassify any payments that the intelligence state wants to hide.; 2/19/25, 7:38 PM
Josephbleau said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/19/25, 7:43 PM
RJ said...: "he should have individual checks printed and every Monday morning he should have a press conference and sign each check and announce who it is going to and what it is for"

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Seriously, it's a great idea.; 2/19/25, 7:43 PM
Josephbleau said...: I see that John McWhorter has come out in support of killing Trump. That is sad for me because I liked him and thought he was a pretty smart guy.; 2/19/25, 7:46 PM
Ann Althouse said...: There’s also “I’m king of the world” from Titanic.; 2/19/25, 7:52 PM
William50 said...: From 1969
Unit 4*2 with Concrete and Clay

https://youtu.be/fsCcijENWWo?si=duVtJ6WPiB60xZqE; 2/19/25, 7:59 PM
William50 said...: Unit 4 + 2; 2/19/25, 8:00 PM
Jupiter said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/19/25, 8:31 PM
Jupiter said...: This woman would like to say, "The government is importing vile, disgusting men who have no respect for women, and I live in daily fear that one or more of them will rape me". But it is illegal to say that in Germany. She could be thrown in prison for saying that. How did the fascists regain power in Germany? Didn't we have a war about that?; 2/19/25, 8:34 PM
Paddy O said...: "Josephbleau said...
If it turns out that Trump is required to pay everything including to ngos and other boondoggles, he should have individual checks printed"

He should pay them in pennies; 2/19/25, 8:44 PM
gadfly said...: I see that John McWhorter has come out in support of killing Trump. That is sad for me because I liked him and thought he was a pretty smart guy.

Which guy do you like and which guy is smart?; 2/19/25, 9:16 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The whole world it seems is talking Trump and Musk, Musk and Trump. So, listening to The Police "Wrapped Around Your Finger" I looked up the verse ('young apprentice' first caught my ear)

You consider me the young apprentice
Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis
Hypnotized by you if I should linger
Staring at the ring around your finger

From Wikipedia: "Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils".[1] Several other idioms such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings."

"Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Calabrian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer's account, Odysseus was advised to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.[3]"

The Democrats can't decide how to navigate between Trump and Musk, increasing their odds of failure.

More from Wikipedia: "Because of such stories, the bad result of having to navigate between the two hazards eventually entered proverbial use. Erasmus recorded it in his Adagia (1515) under the Latin form of evitata Charybdi in Scyllam incidi (having escaped Charybdis I fell into Scylla) and also provided a Greek equivalent. After relating the Homeric account and reviewing other connected uses, he went on to explain that the proverb could be applied in three different ways. In circumstances where there is no escape without some cost, the correct course is to "choose the lesser of two evils". Alternatively it may signify that the risks are equally great, whatever one does. A third use is in circumstances where a person has gone too far in avoiding one extreme and has tumbled into its opposite. In this context Erasmus quoted another line that had become proverbial, incidit in Scyllam cupiēns vītāre Charybdem (into Scylla he fell, wishing to avoid Charybdis).[4] This final example was a line from the Alexandreis, a 12th-century Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon.[5]"

"The myth was later given an allegorical interpretation by the French poet Barthélemy Aneau in his emblem book Picta Poesis (1552). There one is advised, much in the spirit of the commentary of Erasmus, that the risk of being envied for wealth or reputation is preferable to being swallowed by the Charybdis of poverty: "Choose the lesser of these evils. A wise man would rather be envied than miserable."[6] Erasmus too had associated the proverb about choosing the lesser of two evils, as well as Walter of Châtillon’s line, with the Classical adage. A later English translation glossed the adage's meaning with a third proverb, that of "falling, as we say, out of the frying pan into the fire, in which form the proverb has been adopted by the French, the Italians and the Spanish."[7] Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also treated the English proverb as an established equivalent of the allusion to falling from Scylla into Charybdis.[8]"

Trump and Musk have changed everything, and it's going so well, I don't believe it could've been planned. I think it's all spontaneous.; 2/19/25, 9:17 PM
Josephbleau said...: “Which guy do you like and which guy is smart?”

McWhorter.; 2/19/25, 9:53 PM
Aggie said...: ..."Which guy do you like and which guy is smart? "

Gadfly discovers a kindred spirit in Steve Bannon.; 2/19/25, 10:05 PM
Ampersand said...: McWhorter's linguistics lectures are superb. His podcast with Glenn Loury has entertained me. His writings are often sensible.
I'm sad to hear that he's gone off the deep end. I'm not giving up on him.; 2/19/25, 10:09 PM
Jamie said...: McWhorter is hardcore Never Trump, unfortunately. He gets 90% of the way there and then is like, "But he's a fascist!" and I've never understood why. I give Loury a lot of credit for continuing to try.; 2/19/25, 10:18 PM
Jamie said...: For instance - in the "I can't breathe" version of systemic racism - I regret that I can't remember which unfortunate soul that was, I don't think Michael Brown (is that right? "Hands up, don't shoot"?). Anyway. The other guy, the one who couldn't breathe. I listened to a Loury/McWhorther podcast in which they had read or heard the report in which they discussed the fact - and they considered it a fact - that the man hadn't died of the police hold, but of his own overdose. McWhorter was audibly shaken by his realization that the media had been lying about what happened in that incident. But... it still wasn't enough to make him question the other comforting statements of the media about Trump's perfidies.; 2/19/25, 10:26 PM
Quaestor said...: John McWhorter's "kill Trump" moment.

gadfly asks, "...which guy is smart." During the apparently brief moment of his blood lust, the smart guy was certainly not John McWhorter. Assassination has a miserable track record of resolving political to the advantage of the assassin and his cause. Killing Philip II of Macedon put the mainland Greeks entirely in the hands of Alexander within months, followed by Persia, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Brutus and company murdered Caesar to avoid a monarchy and reaped 14 centuries of Roman Emperors. Booth shot Lincoln and got for the South years of brutal "reconstruction" run by Edwin Stanton. Even Graf von Stauffenberg's July 20th plot to kill Hitler would have likely backfired by prolonging the war, perhaps long enough for the first nuclear fission bomb to have been used on Berlin. As it was, the Stauffenberg family endured years of public contempt and hatred for the the family head's plot to kill the German national leader at a time when the average German's greatest fear was ravaging, pillaging, raping Red Army rapidly closing on the Vistula. McWhorter may enjoy an admirable reputation in linguistics, but to entertain even for a moment the notion of assassination betrays a woeful misunderstanding of history.; 2/19/25, 10:57 PM
Quaestor said...: Typo alert: Assassination has a miserable track record of resolving political situations to the advantage of the assassin and his cause.; 2/19/25, 10:59 PM
Quaestor said...: Woeful misunderstandings of history is a non plus ultra of American leftism. Pick any leftish denizen of the Althouse comments page for the evidence.; 2/19/25, 11:02 PM
Gospace said...: Jamie said...
For instance - in the "I can't breathe" version of systemic racism

One of the things you learn in first aid- and should have been presented in evidence as basic first aid training that all officers, and youth group leaders, and others take is- if someone is saying "I can't breathe!" they are, indeed, breathing.

Are you choking?" They answer "YES!" they're not choking.

Might they be having difficulty breathing? Yes. But they are breathing. IIRC- there was fluid buildup in the lungs of the drug overdosed crook. So pretty much- he drowned in his own body fluids. I really can't imagine a much worse way to die.; 2/20/25, 1:00 AM
Gospace said...: The headline: Judge orders Mississippi newspaper to delete editorial criticizing public officials
Done by presumably Democrat judge, presumably because the city's mayor and town council which asked for it are democrats. Fails to mention that anywhere in the article. As the article rambles on the criticize Trump...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/clarksdale-press-register-first-amendment-judge-b2701108.html; 2/20/25, 1:08 AM
Ralph L said...: Ann Althouse said...
There’s also “I’m king of the world” from Titanic.

Wrong post on your own blog. How embarrassing!; 2/20/25, 1:21 AM
gadfly said...: The president of New York University’s College Republicans chapter resigned after she said in a magazine interview that Barron Trump is “sort of an oddity on campus.”

“He goes to class, he goes home,” she told Vanity Fair, adding a professor joked Barron Trump “doesn’t really belong here.”

Word has it that one out of every 36 children in the U.S, have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Melania's protective upbringing of her son and his quiet personality have led to speculation that he is autistic - but she seems to think that autism is a bad thing that needs to be hidden. I suspect that being married to Donald Trump would bring on that minset.; 2/20/25, 1:33 AM
Gospace said...: And in an ongoing subject- the vaccination that wasn't and isn't. Headline: "Yale scientists link Covid vaccines to alarming new syndrome causing 'distinct biological changes' to body. Something predicted by many.

I can answer the second part of this from the article: "The next phase of the research will be to ascertain how widespread the condition is and who is most at risk. The people most at risk are those fooled into or coerced into taking the harmful shot. The doubters like me aren't at risk. And according to Dr. Fauci, brain addled Biden, Dictators Hochul, Cuomo, and Whitmer, we're all dead because we didn't get vaccinated. Except, of course, we're still here.

This "Post Viral Syndrome" (PVS) seems to have a lot in common with "long covid" They're the same thing. Everyone diagnosed with long covid has been vaccinated. One big commonality- detectable levels of spike protein in the blood. Now where could that come from? Oh, wait! I know! From an mRNA shot that forces the body's cells to produce and release the spike protein into the bloodstream, that has no on-off switch.

There is another simultaneous study- or maybe a conclusion from this one that isn't in the article, that theorizes the constant battle against the continued release of the spike protein is simple wearing out the body's T-cells. Seems reasonable.

I posted a photomeme on Facebook the other day that is very true about people like me. Yeah, first they hated me because I didn't take the vaxx. Now they hate me because I was right about the vaxx

The article goes on to express several lies and bits of misinformation, like how the vaxx saved millions of lives and there were lots of placebo controlled studies.

Over 95% of people in my age group succumbed to fear and pressure to receive the shot. I'm 69. I predicted that by the time I hit 80 there'll be a much smaller percentage of 80 year olds around then there are now. Looks like death rate is accelerating. I now think that will show up by the time I hit 75. The vaxx very well may have saved social security! Or kicked the can down the road for another few decades.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14414367/covid-vaccines-new-syndrome-biological-changes-yale.html; 2/20/25, 1:56 AM
wendybar said...: Okay. HOW can you NOT laugh at these idiots who think this is normal?? They really are a "plague" of Lemmings......

Nick Ballas
@NicholasBallas
·
Follow
Video of Democrats protesting the Trump administration at the Kennedy Center via interpretive dance.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892275231063933279; 2/20/25, 2:11 AM
Gospace said...: Alex Berenson, a real life doctor instead of a well informed layman like me, has looked at the study in depth.
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/very-urgent-yale-researchers-have; 2/20/25, 2:26 AM
wendybar said...: Just one more thing we can thank Biden for. He set some good precedents!!

"In a nutshell, back in the fall of 2021, Spicer was serving on a couple of different boards. His term was set to end in November, but Biden fired him and some other conservatives in September, seemingly just to be a petty jerk.

Spicer then sued the Biden administration, for the sole purpose of losing and having a court of law affirm that Biden could fire whoever he wanted. It worked. Spicer lost the lawsuit. Then they went to an appeals court, which ALSO said that Biden, as president, had the power to fire anyone.
Fast forward to now. Trump has just fired the entire board of the Kennedy Center and they can’t do a darn thing about it. Why? Because Spicer forced the Biden administration to defend Spicer’s firing, which is now being cited as the legal precedent. It’s an ultimate FAFO."
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/watch-sean-spicer-hilariously-explain-glenn-beck-why/; 2/20/25, 3:04 AM
Mark said...: "Dr. Iwasaki said the mRNA vaccines were unlikely to be the source of the protein so long after the shots were administered. “Something else is allowing this sort of late-phase expression of spike protein, and we don’t really know what that is,” she said.

-- Gospace, read what the author of the unpublished study said before you rush off to contadict her.; 2/20/25, 5:30 AM
Jaq said...: So now the Daily Starmer, that's my name for gadfly, who comes in here and posts UK sourced propaganda every day, tells us that Barron is autistic. You see, we can do medical diagnoses of Republicans, even their children, from afar, because, well, those are the rules, and we live in a "rules based order."

That stuff goes over a lot better on BlueSky, where you can ban anybody who pushes back, I bet.; 2/20/25, 5:41 AM
Leland said...: Gadfly, like most progressives, can't successfully attack Trump's policies, so now he makes comments about Trump's wife and children. Hey Gadfly, the last President gave his wife and child a pardon.; 2/20/25, 5:50 AM
mezzrow said...: dropping a message in a link - this is the best look I have seen at a world that is both ubiquitous and invisible to the culture of today's America. This is/was my world both as a young director and as an older spectator and judge. Some here may find this of interest. All roads lead to Indy.
Hit Your Mark and Do It Better This Time; 2/20/25, 7:20 AM
Josephbleau said...: “ Melania's protective upbringing of her son…”

I like to be nice but this gadperson is the sickest most antisocial of dumbshits. Sorry, but there it is.; 2/20/25, 8:07 AM
Lazarus said...: McWhorter is brilliant, but not too well grounded in reality. Part of his charm was as a grown-up Steve Urkel. He would get easily carried away and tell listeners whatever happened to be going through his head at a given moment. Watch his lectures on linguistics and you'll learn a lot about language, but also a lot about how he likes the name Laura, doesn't ski, and didn't like the films "The House of Mirth" or "The Portrait of a Lady." You'll learn how Europeans liked to touch his hair and skin and many other things about him. I sense a similarity to Trump or Musk.; 2/20/25, 8:25 AM
boatbuilder said...: "Dr. Iwasaki said the mRNA vaccines were unlikely to be the source of the protein so long after the shots were administered. “Something else is allowing this sort of late-phase expression of spike protein, and we don’t really know what that is,” she said.

Yeah, Mark--that really makes me feel confident about the shots, and the "experts" who pushed them; 2/20/25, 8:51 AM
Saint Croix said...: Trump's Secretary of Labor nominee is a union gal and red like China's flag. Rand Paul has already announced that he's voting against her. So she's not going to get out of committee unless and until some of the Democrats step up and vote for her. But first they have to find cure for TDS.; 2/20/25, 10:23 AM
Gospace said...: Mark, boatbuilder already said it. And, weasel words: “Something else is allowing this sort of late-phase expression of spike protein, and we don’t really know what that is,” she said.. Yes, they do. It's the mRNA. They know what it is. But if admitted out loud that makes so many people liable for actual criminal charges. And lampposts.; 2/20/25, 12:43 PM
walter said...: Gospace said... "Everyone diagnosed with long covid has been vaccinated."
There are definitely unjabbed folks who have lingering symptoms longf post infection. I'm no fan of the jabs but both can be true. But yeah, voluntarily setting up your biology to endlessly produce a toxin is idiocy.; 2/20/25, 2:36 PM
Jim at said...: Melania's protective upbringing of her son and his quiet personality have led to speculation that he is autistic - but she seems to think that autism is a bad thing that needs to be hidden.

Or maybe - just maybe - she doesn't want stupid, fucking assholes like you sticking your snout into his personal life.; 2/20/25, 2:45 PM
Jupiter said...: "Judge orders Mississippi newspaper to delete editorial criticizing public officials"
I give you Judge Crystal Wise Martin. Yeah, she's black. Probably can't spell her own name. Might know what a woman is.; 2/20/25, 6:47 PM
Jupiter said...: "Alex Berenson, a real life doctor ...", Uh, no. A reporter. But he probably knows more about COVID than most doctors.; 2/20/25, 6:54 PM