Althouse: In the Wednesday Night Café...

December 10, 2025

In the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want... except the seizing of the oil tanker. There's a new post, just up, for that. All other topics are fine.

31 comments:

Clyde said...: Clyde's Top 15 Favorite "New" Songs of 2025 - Part 1 of 16 - Preview

One of the joys of streaming music at work is discovering new music that I like. It allows me to find music that is either new or just new-to-me. A lot of the cool stuff I come across has been out for years, but it didn't cross my radar because I was listening to a different type of music at the time.

As in previous years, I'm going to close out the year by sharing my Top 15 songs that I discovered in 2025, starting tomorrow. Over the first five days, I'm going to throw in five honorable mentions that didn't crack my Top 15, and I may throw in some bonus songs on other days as well. The Top 15 itself will start on December 16th.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Amazon Music user Susan (@susan73263709) who publicly shared her User Playlist "ELOish" and allowed me to discover several of the songs that I'll be sharing with you over the coming days. If you are on Amazon Music and like music from the Electric Light Orchestra, I highly recommend you search for that playlist.

The rules: To make the Top 15, the song had to have been new to me in 2025, but that doesn't mean that it had to come out this year. Only one song per artist in the Top 15. And the cutoff date was that I had to discover the song before December 10th.

Honorable mentions may get a little more latitude, as I may have heard them earlier in passing, but only really got into them this year. By the time we're done on New Year's Eve, you'll have gotten a chance to hear the new music that was my soundtrack for 2025. I hope that you listen to them and that you find something new that you enjoy as well.; 12/10/25, 5:51 PM
Dan from Madison said...: Thanks Clyde your stuff was great last year looking forward to this years list.; 12/10/25, 5:57 PM
Big Mike said...: The city of Charlotte, NC, is located in Mecklenburg County. County Sheriff Garry McFadden complained that Iryna’s Law will make his job tougher by overcrowding the jails. He said this days after yet another train stabbing on the same light rail system where Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death by a hardened criminal just because she was white. So it would seem he has no issue with criminals sticking knives into innocent victims, so long as they are released back into society to kill again, just do they don’t fill up his jail.; 12/10/25, 6:21 PM
Political Junkie said...: Poor Michigan. They need a new football coach.; 12/10/25, 6:31 PM
Jaq said...: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-ask-visitors-5-years-social-media-history-under-new-plan; 12/10/25, 6:31 PM
john mosby said...: So last nite there was a discussion about the war in Ukraine, with some side comments about the postponed election.

This made me think of an American Civil War counterfactual. Longtime readers may remember that I keep looking for ways we could have prevented the war.

Well this counterfactual might have made it a bit shorter: what if we’d made the 1864 election a peace negotiation?

Invite the Southerners to hold a regular US presidential and congressional election. Have their Reps and Sens go to DC. Have the resulting Congress debate a way to end the war, maybe by codifying secession, maybe by creating Jim Crow, maybe something else. The new president, whether Mac or Lincoln II or heck Bobby Lee, would sign off on it and put it into operation.

Anyone know if this was seriously discussed? Maybe the timing was wrong - Apomattox was just a month after the inauguration.

Or maybe something similar could have been done with the 1862 election? Was that discussed?

Lincoln’s paradigm that the rebel states are part of the US when it suits him, and enemy belligerents when that suits him, could have been stretched for the purpose.

And in 1862, no one on any side would have cared about blacks not being able to vote.

It just always irks me that we had to kill a half million boys just to get to Jim Crow. CC, JSM; 12/10/25, 6:34 PM
Humperdink said...: Jennifer Welch: “l just think it’s really important to remind everybody all the time that Elon Musk is a fxxking immigrant that doesn’t pay taxes who is a parasite off the American
taxpayer”

Matt Walsh responds: “The leftist mind in a nutshell. A white immigrant billionaire who makes rocket ships and electric cars is a “parasite” but an unemployed black Somali immigrant who scams the welfare system is an integral contributor to American culture who we must welcome and praise at all times.”; 12/10/25, 6:38 PM
narciso said...: A civil war (the phrase should be retired) is a different thing to an incursion between states specially those that are of unequal status history tells us there is little room for second place in these contests

But are we involved as nato or eu should we be; 12/10/25, 6:42 PM
narciso said...: That botox is seeping into that small particle of brain; 12/10/25, 6:43 PM
bagoh20 said...: Yesterday I came home to a pile of hair in my driveway. Upon closer inspection it began to move, and turned out to be a small stray dog which looked like it had been on the streets for a year. Very long matted hair and filthy with all manner of sticks and thorns stuck in the fur and flapping about. She ran, but I caught her. I spent all night cutting off chunks of hair and eventually got her bathed and decent at about half the size she started out. Very sweet little malte-poo type thing. Got up today and took her to a rescue I work with and turs out she had a chip. Called the family. They thought she was stolen. They came to get her. Happy ending. But what I really wanted to say was seizing of the oil tanker.; 12/10/25, 6:50 PM
FullMoon said...: Redstate says:
The GOP took up a challenge from Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) for people to find proof that Democrats were "invoking violence," and it couldn't have backfired on her more spectacularly. .; 12/10/25, 6:52 PM
narciso said...: That was a nice gesture to do; 12/10/25, 7:17 PM
Achilles said...: A gay black man watching a white-hispanic argue with a Brit about white supremacy in the united states; 12/10/25, 7:21 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: Just finished reading Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler. A novel about a (Communist) Party leader arrested and jailed in an unnamed (Communist) country. It never explicitly says Communist but it describes a Totalitarian system with a leader called Number 1, and a police state fed on the terror that we know from history is the hallmark of Stalin's Soviet Union and Iron Curtain countries. It was okay, but I am not sorry to have reached the end of it. I thought that it read more like a philosophical treatise than a novel. Maybe a novel written by a philosopher. Probably readers who are smarter than me and enjoy shit like Derrida and Plato would enjoy it more, but Candide was the only book written by a philosopher that I ever liked. There would be long paragraphs of dull postulations and my mind would glaze over. Same kind of general subject as One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch, a political prisoner in a Communist gulag, but without the bright tight prose, vivid characters and imagery, and masterful storytelling as the Solzhenitzsyn novel.
Also just finished two biographies of Jack Benny, The Jack Benny Show and Sunday Nights At Seven. The first written by one of his writers Milt Josefsberg, the other written by his daughter Joan with additional excerpts from an unpublished autobiography Jack had started but never finished. If you like Jack Benny, I recommend both, but I would say that Sunday Nights At Seven was more intimate, compelling and revealing of the man behind the scenes, his marriage, his family and his friends. No dirt or scandals in either though. All who knew him loved him, and admired him, were grateful to him, and were heartbroken when he passed away. The one description of Jack Benny that was unanimous to all his friends and co-workers was " He was a great man".; 12/10/25, 7:42 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Oracle forecasts miss Wall Street targets while spending rises, shares slide 10% ~ Reuters
'Larry Ellison’s company raises its capital expenditure forecast as it doubles down on AI infrastructure bet'

Oracle is an interesting case. It's database and cloud computing garners premium pricing due to its reliability, scalability, and security. Its thousands of customers now want to add Oracle's AI capabilities, which takes a lot of data centers and hundreds of billions of investment dollars. But Oracle doesn't have as deep pockets as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

So, in the short term Oracle is going to take on a lot more debt, which is less risky than taking longer to offer its customers its AI suite, as they might look elsewhere if the wait is too long, despite high switching costs that are often prohibitive and switching takes many years and risks the company's data.

Oracle does have a premium AI product, however, and its profits nearly doubled over a year ago, from $3 to $6 billion in the just ended quarter. It has a long backlog of AI customers, and its AI cloud business has a 70% CAGR through 2030.

But it also trades around 30x forward p/e rising rapidly rising debt--and even that may not be enough to build out new AI data centers as rapidly as the want/need.; 12/10/25, 8:11 PM
Beasts of England said...: Nobody got sick from the smoked oyster spread, so it was a good evening. :); 12/10/25, 8:58 PM
Beasts of England said...: I am not taking about the seized oil tanker, that’s for sure.; 12/10/25, 9:01 PM
Beasts of England said...: I am willing to talk about one of my guitar buddy’s party date, because she was very friendly. Like, really friendly. Did I mention that she was friendly? She was friendly…; 12/10/25, 9:05 PM
The Vault Dweller said...: I bet all the people who mentioned the Oil Tanker also watched that Google Year in Review video too.; 12/10/25, 9:16 PM
Mary Beth said...: I was reading the story in the NYT this afternoon about the Louvre theft being caught on video. When I read the story there was only one comment:

"It's one thing to maliciously ignore safety and security issues like the Trump administration and another like what appears to be unrecognized gaps or short comings that can be cooperatively improved as a learning experience instead of playing the blame game on Ms. des Cars wasting time and resources. But we humanoids often and sadly want to blame rather than resolve."

I'l like to think that's a record for bring up Trump in an unrelated story, but I think it's pretty typical. At least it's (unintentionally) funny.

Story (gift link) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/world/europe/louvre-heist-camera-delay.html?unlocked_article_code=1.708.e-7o.RFAnj_RBA4tC&smid=url-share; 12/10/25, 9:26 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’It's one thing to maliciously ignore safety and security issues like the Trump administration…’

Was Fonzie on water skis when that was written?; 12/10/25, 9:50 PM
Mason G said...: "instead of playing the blame game on Ms. des Cars wasting time and resources."

Exactly. Can't lose sight of what's important here- Ms. des Cars becoming the historic first female president of the museum.; 12/10/25, 9:58 PM
Jupiter said...: I'm remembering a time, must have been in the 90's, I was the manager of my band, and we were playing a wedding. God, I loved weddings. Everyone drunk, all the gals beautiful, play 'til three in the morning and a proud Dad is paying for the whole train wreck. This one was no exception, BTW, but that's a story for another night.
So, I am helping the bride plan the wedding, and we are scoping out the dance floor, which is going to be outdoors, but she doesn't want some Grateful Dead, hippies dancing in the moonlight deal, she wants a hard floor, where you can stomp your feet. Good for her!
But as I am scoping all this out, I happen to look up the street, and I see a woman coming towards me, about a block away. Being male, I check her out. Tall. Slender. Brunette. Good-looking woman, really, and the thought crosses my mind, "If I weren't married ....". But I am married, so ...
And then she gets closer, and I realize, that tall slender brunette is my wife, who has been helping with certain aspects of arranging this wedding.

So. Was I, at that exact moment, the most fortunate man in the Universe? Having realized, that the thing I wanted, was something that was already mine?; 12/10/25, 10:19 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The tanker sizing does manage to shut Trump critics up about the boat sinking and killing of survivors. Because the idea of Trump going down (walls closing in) is only tamed by comparing it to the only titanic comparison available, the blazed downing of the Hindenburg. And of course, Trump is only all too willing to take the heat. As Althouse reminded us.; 12/10/25, 10:23 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The tanker is a bone to the haters.; 12/10/25, 10:24 PM
Jim at said...: Having realized, that the thing I wanted, was something that was already mine?

Did you start humming The Pina Colada Song?; 12/10/25, 10:25 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: It also gives Putin and Zelensky something to think about?; 12/10/25, 10:26 PM
Jupiter said...: We set up a disco-dance floor, and we played 'til two. The wedding couple were both recent recruits to the Air Force, and they were supposed to go to some base in Idaho in a couple days. The bride was wearing a gown that barely covered her tits, and when she came up to me, and said "Can't you play just a little longer", she bent toward me so they weren't covered at all. Some female version of the droit de siegneur -- just for this night, I can hang these out in the face of any man I fancy -- I'm the bride!
We played whatever anyone asked us to play -- I remember some drunk uncle singing Louie, Louie -- and when the cops finally shut us down, the bride and one of her bridesmaids were rolling around kissing on that hard, bouncy disco dance floor.; 12/10/25, 10:32 PM
Jupiter said...: "Did you start humming The Pina Colada Song?"
I'm not much of a hummer.
Isn't humming something you do, instead of what you are actually inclined to do?; 12/10/25, 10:36 PM
Big Mike said...: Things we are belatedly leaning about the British rape gangs. This is from X by way of Instapundit:

Andy Hughes
@AndyHughesCrime
·
EXCLUSIVE: A Met officer was accused of running a VIP paedophile ring, which included an MP and a judge, that sexually abused young girls in care.
A Met whistleblower claims it was “covered up” by the force.

Sort of explains why the rape gangs were allowed to go on for so long, and why the police at times appeared to be not merely turning a blind eye but actually cooperating with the gangs. They anppeared to be cooperating because they actually were cooperating.; 12/10/25, 11:05 PM
Vance said...: Just got back from my local public high school Christmas concert, in which I had one daughter singing in one of the choirs.

I'm sure Kak would have stormed out threatening lawsuits.

Boy, I"m glad I live in a place where we can have even the public schools sing the religious Christmas songs. In fact, I think they only sang 3 "secular" songs. The rest were religious, and they closed with The First Noel and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah.

I.... thought the left would have destroyed all of that in a public school by now. But oddly enough, high school choirs seem to be a last stand for religious influence.; 12/10/25, 11:16 PM