Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
April 16, 2025
Sunrise — 6:16.
Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
Posts
53 comments:
With the weather starting to get nice I was thinking of getting my motorcycle out of winter storage. Then I looked at the weather report for the next 5 days. Looks like rain and thunder storms. Bummer. Oh well, thunder storms and tornadoes are par for the course during spring in Wisconsin.
My wife says one of the cardinal eggs has hatched; I haven't been out to look since I don't want to spook the mother. I think the eggs have been there for ten days or more . . . should have made note of the date.
Our enormous white azaleas in the back--big blooms on big bushes--are alive with fat bees. I made the mistake of getting too close to one and had to spaz-dance my way to safety when three of them ganged up around my head.
hey Old People!
did any of you do NROTC (or ROTC) in the late 50s?
how long was your term? 6 years? 4 ?
Ken Babbs (a "merry prankster") apparently graduated from Miami U in 1958.. and then went to Stanford graduate creative writing program 'til '59..
THEN was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the USMC..
and flew H-34's in Vietnam in 1962-1963..
By the Summer of 1964 he was in NYC on the "magic bus" FURTHUR, having been a "merry Prankster' for some time BEFORE that..
I DON'T see HOW he served 6 years after commission.
did it used to be 4?
Did they count his GRAD SCHOOL as part of his Service?!?!?
I haven't been able to find ANY Mention of his discharge..
But i'm doubting that it was on good terms.
any help appreciated!
Gilbar: ROTC scholarships are usually 1:1 - one year service for each year of scholarship. Ed delays for grad school are pretty common. So 59 to 63 would be 4 years. Normally flight training gives you an extra service obligation - maybe this wasn't being done back then? Maybe combat flying counted for more time? Maybe obligations were shortened as the war built up, so they could at least get some guys for immediate service? Maybe something as simple as his aircraft type being discontinued, like happened with W?Anyway, I wouldn't look at Babbs's dates and see a prima facie case for anything wrong with him.
JSM (Army ROTC 1987 grad)
thanx John!
Blockbuster Tucker Carlson and Curt Weldon Podcast. Mindblower!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SWoEGXk-V8&t
Everyone must have received their quarterly financial statements by now. I might note -- these were before Trump's Tariffs kicked in. Next quarter's statements will reflect his tariffs....📉
Interest rates rising. Stocks falling. Economic growth falling.The Fed not cutting. Inflation likely rising again.
It's hard to imagine one person creating a worse economic situation this quickly.
How long, President Trump, do you mean to continue to abuse our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? (Legal rule of quam diu etiam)
Kakistocracy said...
Interest rates rising. Stocks falling. Economic growth falling.The Fed not cutting. Inflation likely rising again.
It's hard to imagine one person creating a worse economic situation this quickly.
-------------------
I'm thinking back to 2021....
(With a little help from RH Hardin 7: 11 who expressed my sentiments)
How long, Judge Boboberg, do you mean to continue to abuse our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?
Inflation rises from too low interest rates, not too high interest rates. High interest rates is the cure for inflation because it's achieved by pulling dollars out of circulation.
John and Ken (2008) analyze Obama's Campaign and its estrogen cloud.
“It's hard to imagine one person creating a worse economic situation this quickly.”
My 401K dropped $30,000 the second quarter of Biden’s presidency. Inflation took 20-30% of real value out of all of our 401K’s.
Of course, that wasn’t just Biden. The staffers propping him up have to share the blame.
The “Maryland dad” trope adopted in lockstep by the Dem media follows in a line of “journalists”-ic instances in which they all follow the same party line at the same time (“This week’s adjective for the Trump administration is chaotic’”). But why do they keep doing it? Learned incompetence may be it. The first rule of Trump-hating journalism is: there’s never any price to be paid for lying about Trump (heck, you might even get a Pulitzer). Also, there are more DEI hires in newspapers (especially the big woke ones Ann likes to read).
The latest motif in attacking Trump and DOGE is: “I agree with what they’re trying to do, they’re just doing it wrong”. Which translates to: “We would appoint a blue-ribbon commission headed by only the most well respected octogenarians, who would publish a report in 15 months that we would then praise before saying ‘Oops, the midterms are just around the corner so there’s nothing we can do right now’”.
Speaking of uncomfortable questions regarding pregnancy. I picked up (I drive Uber) a pregnant woman from the hospital after a checkup, she was in convo with I presumed to be the father.
She was saying how the doctor was asking about who she was bringing for the birth. The doctor assumed she would be bringing her husband. No, no, no. Where the convo went after that, (she didn't have him on speaker) led me to believe the father is a trans-woman.
“After landing in El Salvador, officials just told Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen
‘you’ll have to arrange the meeting through the Trump administration’
Go home. “
https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1912592078330089492
Crack @8:09pm… spot on!
Trump isn't going to get what he wants. EU has offered a tariff free trade agreement. If anything close to zero tariffs gets agreed, markets will bounce big time. Same with UK. Trump needs to understand VAT and how that works. Any compromise on VAT would be bullish.
China — an agreement will have to be reached. America cannot afford 5% yield on the 10 year!! Trump fundamentally needs to understand what a trade deficit is.
“ It's hard to imagine one person creating a worse economic situation this quickly.”
Biden began tanking the economy in early 2021 and the inflation he willfully facilitated was a spike through the heart of Democrat election prospects in 2024 and beyond.
@ lem vibe banditory: that is some effed up. As William Buckley would say, a leading cultural indicator.
Gilbar. I particpated in ROTC for 4 years in college in the late 50s and early 60s. but there were no scholarships offered. After being commissioned in 1963, I had to serve 2 years on active duty and 4 years in the Army reserve. In those reserve years, I never was assigned to a reserve unit because no unit closeby needed my MOS. I finally spent two weeks at Fort Eustice, (now Joint Base Langley-Eustice) in 1968.
@ Caroline - I have it on Dashcam. I wonder if It could be a source of data for sociology studies. Should privacy concerns be considered and mitigated.
I have the post sticker the Dashcam came with, posted on both rear windows, outside and inside, saying “your trip may be recorded”. Still I don’t take liberties with that, posting clips on social media. That’s not appropriate I believe.
America has misjudged China before. Hyperpower hubris turned the Korean War into a direct conflict between US and Chinese troops.
President Harry Truman thought he had free license to hurl parts of the US Eighth Army across the 38th parallel in October 1950 and roll back the whole of communist North Korea. Advisers assured him that the infant regime of Mao Tse-tung was too weak to intervene, and too ill-equipped to make much difference if it dared. It was the worst failure of US strategic analysis in modern times.
US-led forces faced rout, encirclement, and total humiliation as 200,000 Chinese troops poured across the Yalu River.
Since a penniless and backward China was willing to face down America at the zenith of its global power in 1950, China is hardly likely to roll over today, now that it is the world’s industrial hegemon and financial creditor, with some $6 trillion of foreign exchange assets.
“How has it ever been possible in history that the world’s largest creditor could be defeated by the world’s largest debtor?” asks Uncle Ming.
Well, indeed. America’s savings rate has collapsed to 0.6% of GDP. The US treasury depends on foreign investors to fund a national debt rising higher than ever, already 122% of GDP, with a structural fiscal deficit of 6% to 7% as far as the eye can see.
So, who suffers the most from political stress from a total and violent economic decoupling? Xi’s tightly controlled China, or Trump’s feverish, restless America, where 100 million consumers live on maxed-out credit cards?
SNL feels safe doing the gay adoption sketch. But I’m not so sure they would be confident about a transgender fathering/mothering sketch.
"By the way Gayle, Alan Shepard walked on the moon. You did not walk on the moon....."
https://x.com/LangmanVince/status/1912696458190422410
“ It's hard to imagine one person creating a worse economic situation this quickly.”
Actually, it’s become very easy to actually recognize that thousands of people created a dire economic situation over the course of decades. That’s culminated in the $37T debt that has brought Trump to put up the Stop sign and seek ways to turn things around.
Xi is expecting Trump to fold. America, and especially Trump, has any tolerance for pain. China on the other hand will nail citizens shut in their apartments if needed. Or as Trump would say -- we don't have the cards.
Lucien: The latest motif in attacking Trump and DOGE is: “I agree with what they’re trying to do, they’re just doing it wrong”. Which translates to: “We would appoint a blue-ribbon commission headed by only the most well respected octogenarians, who would publish a report in 15 months that we would then praise before saying ‘Oops, the midterms are just around the corner so there’s nothing we can do right now’”.
Bingo.
Our resident lefties are (now) saying "the situation is hopeless; we cannot do anything to upset the apple cart."
What the hell do you propose, Kak and Gadfly? Do nothing? Borrow more money? Print more money? Spend more money? Keep burdening American industry with unbalanced trade and tariff regimes?
Any solution other than "raise taxes?"
^^ One way to eliminate the trade deficit is to destroy the U.S. economy. Trump probably won't be able to do that in four years, but all indications are that he will try his best. One of the features of Trump's USMCA (revised NAFTA) agreement is that it resulted in auto production moving to Mexico. Right now, the U.S. auto industry has an integrated production system in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. I doubt that we are going to have a situation where all of the production is done in just the U.S. and Canada. China is really the biggest issue. Bilateral trade deficits in and of themselves are not a problem. The issue is aggregate surplus/deficits with the world. China is overproducing and under consuming in ways that distort the entire global trading system. This is true of Germany as well to a lesser degree. Ideally, the U.S. would be working with its allies and China to achieve a more stable balance of trade. Obviously that is not happening. One of the issues is that Trump does not understand what he is doing and is engaged in a lot of magical thinking about what tariffs can and can't do.
I'm loving the symbolism of the Blue Origin flight. Six women ride a giant phallus into the sky and come back with just the head! Seriously, if a high schooler drew a picture of that space craft on a chalk board, they'd be reprimanded...
The problem with China is that we allowed ourselves to become dependent on a country that is not an ally and is not far removed from being an enemy. Trump is trying to undo that toxic relationship.
Kak, with all that vast financial knowledge of international finance you must certainly be at least a billionaire and married to a Brazilian supermodel, so why are you farting around here 24x7 in your jammies?
China is overproducing and under consuming in ways that distort the entire global trading system. This is true of Germany as well to a lesser degree. Ideally, the U.S. would be working with its allies and China to achieve a more stable balance of trade. Obviously that is not happening. One of the issues is that Trump does not understand what he is doing and is engaged in a lot of magical thinking about what tariffs can and can't do.
As I suspected--"more of the same." You don't have a solution, or even a proposal to start addressing this massive problem, other than "Working with allies and China to achieve a more stable balance of trade."
If you hired a consultant to come up with a plan, and they told you that, you would fire them (and rightly so).
"did any of you do NROTC (or ROTC) in the late 50s?"
I know you want 50's but I did it in the mid 70's. NROTC through the USMC. Four year scholarship, obligation after two years, 6 year commitment. Needed to graduate in 4-1/2 years or you went in as enlisted.
"Why Progressives Increasingly Support Violence: A new survey finds more than half of left-wing respondents believe assassinating Donald Trump could be justified."
MSNBC(D) builds hate.
Progressives are monotonic (e.g. increasing). In the Democratic party, they are partisan jackasses.
#HateLovesAbortion, a wicked solution. Deja vu.
Iman said...
“After landing in El Salvador, officials just told Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen ‘you’ll have to arrange the meeting through the Trump administration.’ Go home.”
Van Hollen’s opponent in the next election should run on the promise of sending Van Hollen back to El Salvador.
Last night on the radio I heard a competent version of the Cole Porter song "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," originally from a '40s movie. But this is the best version of the song I know. And it is from her peak, live at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. Her record of that performance captured the best Nina Simone ever was, IMO, before politics and the '60s and her mental problems really tore her up. And I might as well mention the movie Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, that also captures a wonderful peaceful beauty before the craziness began to erupt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thj4xPKhkWM&list=OLAK5uy_lD8h4uU-n6uAN0r2MdeLmWlfUQbHGuCRA
"I had to serve 2 years on active duty and 4 years in the Army reserve"
thanx gadfly! i hadn't thought about 2 and 4
thanx Curious George! the full six was how i THOUGHT it worked
I've been still studying (snooping) about Ken Babbs, and it looks like he would have had 2 years of scholarship (had a sports scholarship for 1st 2 years), and if (as john mosby said) Ed delays for grad school are pretty common, then 4 years (2 + 2 more for flight school) makes the numbers come out better than i'd thought.
i ALSO found out (contrary to what they talk me in HS History (1978)) that the Marines WERE flying in vietnam in 62-63 (Operation Shufly or such). So now i think it works out; WITHOUT Capt Babbs needing to have received a Big Chicken Dinner (which is what i'd Thought happened)
@Kai Akker Thanks! There are a lot of versions of that song to choose from, and I love that one.
I like to take one song and go through the different versions. It's easy to do on Spotify and to make a playlist and to put it in order. Here's a playlist I did for "The Best Is Yet To Come": https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7IdjIbLbfALUB50AFi7obI?si=937d527149514a4e
The order isn't my judgment of what's best. I picked only versions I loved. I put them in the order I liked for listening.
@boatbuilder: There are hundreds of "fatal flaws" in Trump's program. However, the absence of any industrial policy, or any funding for industrial policy makes the whole exercise look like a joke. The one program that does have dedicated funding is the CHIPs Act passed under Biden. Of course, Trump wants to undo the program, because the measure became law under Biden.
At first I thought that all those business and finance people who supported Trump knew something I did not.
Now I know I knew something they are only now learning.
It's strange and disconcerting to watch Rome burn.
kaKA.
And thank you, AA. No Spotify here but I see your choices. Made me smile. Will try out a couple in my old primitive mode later.
Let us not forget, April 19th will be the 250th anniversary of 'The Shot Heard 'Round the World', the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and the beginning of this great nation.
What some of you doom sayers are missing is that the United States is the worlds largest market. For everything. And everything China makes is to serve that market. What China fails to realize is that there are more people willing to service that market than just China.
The Fed chair in his feud with Trump declared that Trumps policies will cause inflation. I'm at a loss to see how since Trump nor congress has authorized the printing of more money.
"gilbar said...
thanx Curious George! the full six was how i THOUGHT it worked."
YW. To clarify, the 6 years was active duty.
“Biden began tanking the economy in early 2021 and the inflation ….”
Four years of pretending Biden’s economy was as bad as Trump has made ours in four months. 😂
How could I have forgotten how important "funding for industrial policy" is to the US economy? Never mind, then. Problem solved.
Biden is toast, as was the condition he and his junta left the country in. The November election was your first clue, kaKA.
You had better have been banking dat sweet soros/ngo money, kaKA, as Operation Shitbird has begun in earnest.
"Why Progressives Increasingly Support Violence: A new survey finds more than half of left-wing respondents believe assassinating Donald Trump could be justified."
"But January 6!!!!! Screeeee!" - Freder
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.