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May 27, 2025
Sunrise — 5:04, 5:16, 5:18, 5:26.
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
52 comments:
Hang On Sloopy
Derringer down.
UK’s King Charles hails Canada’s ‘freedom’ in show of support against Donald Trump ~ FT
I wouldn’t have titled “…against Trump”.
HM King Charles is not against anyone. He is just stating something that may have passed as an understatement for too long, but that one has to recall at times: Canada, together with many nations belong to to a long established community of nations and HM King Charles is the country’s Head of State.
Excellent move.
In view of the international situation, I would also postpone an actual State Visit of Trump to Britain. May be in two or three years time, if he loses control of Congress, he may play a more moderate, suave role for the benefit of both nations and Commonwealths.
Suave? Thank you. That’s a great wordle word.
Kaka trolls the simple folk of the Althouse commentariat. Statist control freak hails the freedom of other statist control freaks. Resolutely ignores the magma gathering below both of them.
Taking profits on TSLA. 65% increase in under 60 days.
One of these episodes related in the book The Instability of Truth concerns the man who was experimented on and who served as the inspiration, it seems to me, of the Michael Crichton book, The Terminal Man I took it for granted that the subject of this experiment was subject to violent fits of rage, even murderous ones, but when you hear the story, it seems more like he was married to a narcissistic woman, and he became angry when she gaslighted him.
His "fits of rage" never resulted in any harm to anybody, he just got angry. He seemed to get angry when she said things that he saw as lies. He was an extremely intelligent man. When asked about her statements, she denied that she ever said anything to him that should have made him angry. Then a neighbor started hanging out with the family all the time and he suspected her of having an affair with him. She denied it. He became angry. She said that if he didn't get the surgery, the experimental surgery, she would divorce him. Later she did divorce him and married the neighbor. Basically the evidence that he was violent was his wife's claims that she was frightened, she got a restraining order, and that he was "scaring the children."
The YouTube man-o-sphere explains all in this story. Everybody believed the wife, the judge, the psychiatrists, they all just gaslighted him and he became angry. Imagine that.
It did not turn out well for him, BTW.
We had one of those vivid orange sunrises this morning on our Vilas County lake. Breathtaking.
Watched the series finale of Handmaid's Tale. Here are my final comments - spoilers follow:
- First, is it just me, or does Disney/Hulu suck giant sloth balls, technically speaking? Every show I watch on there does this weird thing of stalling, then speeding up, so I have to exit it and go back in, until it repeats the process a few minutes later. None of my other services does this.
- Every series nowadays does this thing of speeding up in the last season, to tie up all the loose ends. HT is no exception. In the penultimate episode, the resistance take over Boston but worry that the Commanders in DC will just carpet bomb the place pour encourager les autres. In the finale, that hasn't happened, but we're not told why.
- Lots of (unintended?) similarities between HT and Jane Austen (PBS had yet another Austenverse series on for the last few weeks). I would bet there is a lot of overlap between HT and Austen fans. But do they realize that Austen's world is just as bleak for women as Atwood's?
- June, the Mary Sue heroine, is really not very heroic. She seems to manage to find existing networks of resisters, and doesn't even really take them over.
- Serena, the wife who originally 'owned' June, bounces back and forth between strength and weakness as the plot demands. Not great writing.
- Way too many random serendipitous meetings between characters in the middle of chaotic situations.
(continued)
Handmaid's Tale review Part 2:
- No gay men! Lots of heroic lesbians throughout the seasons, but I did not notice a single gay guy. Or trans people, for that matter. You would think the writers, especially in the later seasons, would have a Handmaid who is really a trans man, or a gay dude who closets himself to survive (Chris Meloni's excellent turn as a Commander seemed to hint toward some kind of macho top-daddy aspect, but that didn't get fleshed out before June killed him), or the kind of settle-for-less gay play that happens in cultures where women's sexual availability is restricted.
- Bradley Whitford and the awkward tall guy from Veep probably turned in the best performances of all the actors in the show. They both just took their characters from West Wing and Veep, respectively, and turned them up to 11. In addition to being funny, they provide an object lesson in how we might all react to being in a position of horrible, tremendous power.
- Ironically, one big part of the Commanders' doctrine is a green movement, to reduce the pollution that apparently caused the mass infertility. It is the one part of their program that seems to work. Lesson: if you really want to be green, you need an authoritarian government that's not afraid to enforce the rules with public hangings.
- The show gets sloppy in later seasons regarding tradecraft. Initially, all kinds of Rube Goldberg hardware and methods are needed to make phone calls to Canada in service of the resistance. Later, people just pick up phones, as if the Commanders lost the arts of electronic surveillance.
- In six seasons, there is no mention of China! Atwood wrote her book before the PRC really started to rise, so the first season understandably has no Chinese plot arcs, but in the later seasons the writers studiously ignore any reaction or involvement by the ChiComs. I suppose this is to avoid problems with marketing the show over there, but heck, in that case make them the heroes. At least mention them once in a while.
- The rebels are exactly the people who have no interest in fighting for their country. And in the show they did not fight against the Commanders' initial takeover. Yet they put together a successful resistance when they hit rock bottom of actual oppression. People are not like that.
- June loses connection with her husband as he goes on his hero's journey from helpless double cuck to almost bloodthirsty resistance leader. There is a nice beat where she says "I underestimated you" and he says "you did," but in an exposition-filled show, there's no other discussion of this development. The writers may just not have seen anything weird about a woman failing to appreciate a man for (finally, true) doing what he is supposed to be doing.
- Speaking of June's hubby, I realized that every major father character in the show is separated from his children, either by death or just geographic separation, even after the liberation. I bet the writers didn't even notice this, either.
- Final verdict: the show is worth more as a document of mainstream Hollywood thought in the late teens/early 20s, than as a work of entertainment in and of itself. But I am entertained by figuring out why it's not entertaining, if that makes sense.
JSM
Has AI learn how to compose music yet?
I bet when it does, at first it's going to sound like Dave Mathews Band "So much to say, So much to say"
Curious…. Given the naming of a handful of people who were Biden’s handlers, would that group have any immunity as though President, if they usurped his power? There could be a few suits filed against them, I would think.
In Original Sin, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson go out of their way to mention Ben Wikler as an example of the Democratic Party establishment acting with vigor to squeeze Dean Phillips out of a Democratic primary campaign, which Wikler did by having the Dem Party of Wisconsin file suit to try to keep Phillips off the Wisconsin Dem primary ballot.
"But I am entertained by figuring out why it's not entertaining, if that makes sense."
One should only read good fiction, or that which is frankly bad. – Gertrude Stein
"which Wikler did by having the Dem Party of Wisconsin file suit to try to keep Phillips off the Wisconsin Dem primary ballot."
Because, democracy.
A new, highly infectious NB.1.81 variant of the COVID-19 strain has led to a spike in hospitalizations in China and has now been detected in the US. Trump's HHS doesn't believe in vaccinations, so something has to be done quickly. Fortunately, Dr. Joel Fleischman of Cicely, Alaska, has happened upon a potential Alaskan Native cure-all called Hio Hio Ipsanio, which has been proven to control the Russian Flu. More news at 11 o'clock.
You watched all 6 seasons? Well done. Thanks for the summary. Now I don’t have to watch it.
Kak is such a preening asshole. He must be old Chuck.
Why would Phillips, a St Paul resident and MN elected representative be on a WI ballot?
You can impugn Wikler all you want, but I don't see a reasonable case for him to be WI resident. Make it.
The posts here continue to heavily favor NYT over WaPo. When your interest is ohpleaseohplease won’t the Democrats get their act together the mid strength twenty somethings at NYT deserve all the attention..
Donald Trump offers Canada free ‘Golden Dome’ protection if it gives up sovereignty ~ FT
The measured tone of this article illustrates the FT’s exquisite dilemma of reporting on the ravings of a madman, when that madman is the President of the United States.
You almost want to be a duck and swim around at sunrise on a colored lake.
Democrats are forming a "Shadow Cabinet" to assess and oppose President Trump.
Should something suddely happen to Trump and all the cabinet- who would you prefer take over the US government:
The democrat shadow cabinet?
The existing shadow government covering the whole USA run by the Society for Creative Anachronisms?
IMHO- the latter would be better at governance.
It’s interesting that the Democrats don’t want to talk about the coup and the massive cover-up of Joe Biden’s lack of mental acuity while he was president.
Republicans need to get answers, and prosecute those responsible for both. Republicans were saying for four years that Joe Biden was mentally incapable, and was being controlled by outside forces.
The fact that the Democrats knew this and ignored it is a high crime. The fact that the Democrats said nothing about his mental decline, proves that they are delusional and seditious. Get busy, Congress! Open investigative hearings and get busy codifying the president’s agenda items and executive orders. Your continued presence in Congress depends on it.
so something has to be done quickly.
OK. How about you take your COVID hysteria - and the worthless jabs - and shove them up your ass. As quickly as possible.
"Democrats are forming a "Shadow Cabinet" to assess and oppose President Trump."
Trump had a successful message and vision that allowed him to take over the Republican Party -- and someone will set the stage for a similar opportunity in the Democratic Party.
Whether or not someone is able to grab that apparatus and build something powerful and effective out of it will be the real trick, and we might not even know who that would be. But certainly the opportunity right now is there because the status quo of that party is tainted. Everybody's got it in for them.
Almost everybody. Which means that it really opens the door for somebody to walk in and go, I'll take your infrastructure, but the rest of you have to go. Or you have to get in line and this is the new way that they pursue the vision for whatever the Democratic Party is going to be.
Or you need one or two great people, or two not so great people who just have the, I mean, I wouldn't suggest that, Trump is a great person, but he was a person with a vision. And when things are in disrepair, vision goes a long way, vision and will. And I think it's entirely possible.
And I think the opportunity is there. I just hope that they seize it in the right way and don't just paper over, which is what you tend to think they're going to do.
How backwards and corrupt is the democrap media?
Find out here.
You'll figure it out, Mark.
JSM’s yeoman effort. Taking one for the team and I salute you!
Has AI learn how to compose music yet?
@Lem, look up the “Illiac Suite,” composed in 1957 on the first generation (vacuum tube) Iliac I computer on the University of Illinois campus using (IIRC) Markov chains. As a math/ comp sci student at Illinois in the mid-1960s I was aware that it had been composed, but I never heard it performed. I recall an acquaintance who also took comp sci classes but was a very capable musician telling me that it sounded like something Palestrina might have composed, and then pitched into the trash can.
Eruptions from the sun are shortening the lives of satellites in Earth orbit, particularly large constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink – which could be a cause for concern.
The sun goes through an 11-year cycle of activity, peaking with a period known as solar maximum, which most recently occurred in late 2024. During these periods, increased eruptions from the sun can create geomagnetic storms that heat our planet’s atmosphere, causing it to swell outwards in size and increasing drag on satellites.
Researchers say that when geomagnetic storms occur, satellites re-enter faster than expected, even without solar activity. During solar maximum, the lifetime of a satellite could be reduced by up to 10 days. There is also a possibility that quicker re-entries could make it less likely that the satellites will completely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Bombs away! SpaceX plans to have maybe more than 30,000 orbiting satellites in the future.
Jimmy: Why did our Afrikaner Elmo the Musk spend a single nickle to investigate the costs of rebuilding Lahaina? The money was already approved to be spent and it was spent. We can't claw it back.
The question before the house is:
How much is it costing taxpayers for SpaceX to build then blow up rockets intended to send people to Mars? Can we find a way to stop this idiocy? Musk is the richest man in the world thanks to payments made to him by the our government - and nobody will go near Mars in the next century.
Gadfly's Musk obsession continues (he's not going to date you, dude) but doesn't seem interested in how much the government spent on Bezos's fiancée doing a sub-orbital bridal shower, nor any interest in figuring out how Boeing and NASA launched a spacecraft that stranded two real astronauts, or why it took them so long to organize a rescue.
^^ A year ago I would have been disappointed for Musk.
Testing is how one learns. Since gadfly and Kaki are allergic to learning new things, they object to SpaceX doing tests.
gadfly said...
The question before the house is:
How much is it costing taxpayers for SpaceX to build then blow up rockets intended to send people to Mars?
A lot less than it cost NASA to build the Space Launch System that will be completely destroyed after every launch by design.
Again, you opine on subjects in which you know nothing.
Those are some spectacular photos right there!
Those are some very well composed photographs there professor.! A feature of bodies of water is how they morph into something visually unique daily.
"...How much is it costing taxpayers for SpaceX to build then blow up rockets intended to send people to Mars?..."
Why don't you find out?
AI turns john mosby's Handmaid's Tale comment Part 1 into a podcast, complete with fake experts
How do you feel about all the USAID projects we were funding, gad and Kak? As far as I'm aware, you were A-OK with those expenditures of taxpayer money (the benefits of which were... let's say "hard to discern") and want them all reinstated. Is it really your contention that Musk's ventures have no benefits until and unless we finally end up with a Mars colony? (And, from your tone, not then?) Let me refer you to Heinlein's essay Spinoff.
All this time I thought people of the left f'ing loved science.
I am not gonna lie, though, the AI podcast clued me in a little bit about how Hollywood thinks these days about story. For instance, the line about emphasizing "cultural transformation" in a story over individual "character transformation" might be one of the many reasons that Hollywood's output largely sucks.
Jaq: that AI podcast is fantastic! And the male host got my voice exactly right!
I am disappointed that the AI didn't take the giant-sloth-ball-sucking comment literally, though. There could have been a long colloquy on how the giant sloth is extinct, but perhaps Disney/Hulu suck other available balls comparable in size. All in the female host's Naughty Posh Girl accent.
Now we just need to download her into a Naughty Posh Girl Sex Robot....
Thanks again!
JSM
I really like that second picture.
Elon Musk Joins GOP Critics of Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill ~ WSJ
Thank you Elon. If it’s bad when a democrat does it, it’s also bad when a Republican does it.
He'd have been incredibly naive to believe the Narcissist in Chief actually wanted to reduce fiscal deficits.
The Republican party only gets concerned about deficits when the Democrats are in power, and they forget all that the moment they gain it. The deficits were a non-issue from Jan 20.
“ Jimmy: Why did our Afrikaner Elmo the Musk spend a single nickle to investigate the costs of rebuilding Lahaina? The money was already approved to be spent and it was spent. We can't claw it back.”
Of the more than 4000 homes, businesses , and schools burned in Lahaina 8 have been rebuilt so far, so it appears that this government money was very poorly spent.
@ Jamie — Yes, Musk's Starship crashed again. That just means it will generate more good data for the next launch.
What people don’t understand about Elon Musk’s business acumen is that he gets government subsidies whether the rockets blow up or not.
If we don't understand Kak, perhaps you can give us the dollar value of subsidies SpaceX receives for Starship? I do understand it is part of the landing system for Artemis, but Artemis is being cancelled, so what is the subsidies that you claim?
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