Althouse: At the Evening Rain Café...

July 16, 2015

At the Evening Rain Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

42 comments:

Hagar said...: I think this talk about ISIS in connection with "lone wolf attacks" is misguided unless you consider "ISIS" to be a catch-all name for "grassroots" Islam.
And "lone wolf" is an insult to wolves. These people are losers, often multiple felony convicts, who do not see a future here on earth and go for the free ticket to Paradise that Islam promises.
I think there is going to be a steady drip-drip of this until the turmoil in "the Arab world" somehow is settled. To put it brutally, it is a nuisance, but it is not war.; 7/16/15, 7:45 PM
Gahrie said...: I think this talk about ISIS in connection with "lone wolf attacks" is misguided unless you consider "ISIS" to be a catch-all name for "grassroots" Islam.

Why? ISIS has openly announced the use of this tactic and constantly uses social media to inspire and influence whoever they can. ISIS claims these attackers, and the attackers claim ISIS when they can.....that is good enough for me.; 7/16/15, 7:52 PM
sane_voter said...: Realize we are importing over 100,000 muslims a year into the US. this is only going to get worse, regardless of ISIS.; 7/16/15, 7:57 PM
sane_voter said...: Muslim immigrants. Doing the jobs Native-born Americans won't do.; 7/16/15, 7:58 PM
pm317 said...: In his yearbook entry for Red Bank High School, where he was a starter for the varsity wrestling team, he wrote between two pictures of himself: 'My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3164129/Chattanooga-gunman-Muhammad-Abdulazeez-killed-four-marines-one-critical.html#ixzz3g6ebQmWT
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

That right there shows he was troubled. When a guy I know, a well adjusted, very smart, educated in one of the top universities here named his new born Mohammad, I wondered why with dismay, why would he burden that child that way. I wanted to ask him why but stopped myself.; 7/16/15, 8:07 PM
Anonymous said...: sane_voter said...
Muslim immigrants. Doing the jobs Native-born Americans won't do.

Colonists not immigrants...; 7/16/15, 8:13 PM
Big Mike said...: Soldiers, Sailors, Air Force, and Marines should be authorized to carry sidearms when manning recruiting stations.; 7/16/15, 8:22 PM
sane_voter said...: @The Drill SGT

Agreed. And those 100,000 are the legal ones. God knows how many are streaming across from Mexico.; 7/16/15, 8:29 PM
sane_voter said...: Our servicemen and women should be authorized to carry when in uniform or on duty, at the least.; 7/16/15, 8:31 PM
Bob Ellison said...: I must eat, but I'm not hungry.; 7/16/15, 8:45 PM
Lyle Sanford, RMT said...: love the photo; 7/16/15, 8:51 PM
Clyde said...: Where have all the flowers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?; 7/16/15, 8:56 PM
Hagar said...: ISIS (or by one of the other acronyms) is a definite organization that is at war with Iran/Iraq and Syria in the Middle East, but it is also getting to be a brand name without copyright like al Qaeda dissolved into.

These hopeless loners can pop up from anywhere, any time, and declare themselves to be members of one or the other, or invent a name of their own for that matter. The only thing they have in common, beside the hopelessness, is a belief, or claimed belief, in fundamental Islam.

Bin Laden was a bit like a dot-com billionaire (only an estimated half billion though, iirc) with a monomania about the US as "the Great Satan" with the will to put his money where his mouth was and the imagination and show-biz talent to fund a totally off-the-wall crackpot scheme like 9/11/01. Someone may take his place, but so far, no one has.

(I really think bin Laden was separated from his money and largely neutralized at least 10 years ago - certainly the Pakistani ISI did not show him much respect in the quarters they allotted him!)

The state actors in the Middle East at present are too busy fighting each other to really spend much time and effort thinking about serious attacks on the United States, but that will eventually change, and we will see real warfare.

And then, of course, there are Russia and China on the march. Putin may be the most immediate threat as he has to succeed before Russia goes kaput, but in the long term, China is the real danger.; 7/16/15, 8:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Clyde said...
Where have all the flowers gone?

I saw the Iranian Nuke, LBJ Daisy Ad redux image

https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C211US105D20140710&p=daisy+nuke+ad; 7/16/15, 9:03 PM
Howard said...: Low comment load today... no racist or homophobic triggers. The Bernie Sanders post was just a tease.; 7/16/15, 10:22 PM
traditionalguy said...: ISIL is Sunni as was Alqeada. But the moderate Sunnis under Saudi Arabian influence in Kuwait are now at war with the USA because we are now Shia Iran's ally against them in arranging Iran's nuclear strike force pointed at Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.

Obama has arranged a moderate Muslim War on the USA. Jihadists are old fashioned now.; 7/16/15, 10:31 PM
Michael K said...: "we are now Shia Iran's ally against them in arranging Iran's nuclear strike force pointed at Saudi Arabia, "

Does anybody else know how Iran became Shia ? It was fairly recent in the 16th century and involved massacres. Iran was Sunni until then. It's an interesting story and may hold clues for their future behavior.

A militant Islamic Sufi order, the Safavids, appeared among Turkish speaking people of west of the Caspian Sea, at Ardabil. The Safavid order survived the invasion of Timur to that part of the Iran in the late 13th century. By 1500 the Safavids had adopted the Shi'a branch of Islam and were eager to advance Shi'ism by military means. Safavid males used to wear red headgear. They had great devotion for their leader as a religious leader and perfect guide as well as a military chieftain, and they viewed their leaders position as rightly passed from father to son according to the Shi'a tradition. In the year 1500, Esma'il the thirteen-year-old son of a killed Safavid leader, Sheikh Heydar, set out to conquer territories and avenge death of his father.

Not a good omen.; 7/16/15, 10:45 PM
Gahrie said...: That was very passive -aggressive Howard. Please provide a trigger warning next time.; 7/16/15, 10:53 PM
Scott said...: Hagar said...

And "lone wolf" is an insult to wolves

I agree. Let's call them lone lunatics.; 7/16/15, 10:55 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Twitter's a very tough crowd tonight.; 7/16/15, 10:56 PM
William said...: The Muslim terrorists here seem more accomplished both professionally and socially than our own crazed killers. This one had an engineering degree, and the Ft. Hood shooter had finished medical school. Our killers are true loners, many of them borderline schizos........That's something for the Muslims to ponder. Our psycho dropouts are more effective killers than their assholes with advanced degrees and religious dedication.; 7/16/15, 11:03 PM
William said...: If you had looked at this guy cross eyed a day before the shooting, he would have claimed discrimination and many of our good citizens would have agreed with him. The good citizens probably characterize this observation as a micro aggression against them.; 7/16/15, 11:13 PM
David said...: I think I left my truck window open.; 7/17/15, 12:08 AM
David said...: Things that are not quite right:

Caitlyn Jenner gets he Arthur Ashe award from ESPN.; 7/17/15, 1:02 AM
Saint Croix said...: The scariest thing I read this week was not baby markets in the USA. Liberals were doing that 15 years ago.

The scariest thing I read this week was not Iran, taking a huge step towards getting the bomb. Iran has been trying to build a bomb for a long time. It's stressful, but we knew it was coming.

No, the scariest thing I read this week was this. And I want to thank The New Yorker for doing this journalism. I'm not a subscriber, or a reader, but that's some really good journalism.

As The New Republic turns to shit, hey, at least liberals and libertarians still have other nice liberal things to read. Liberal in the nice sense, the classic sense. Kudos. You gave me kind of a nightmare, you shitheels, thanks for spooking the shit out of me.

But it's nice to see liberals take a sobering look at the world, as opposed to the usual liberal head-in-the-sand routine. I don't even think that article mentions "global warming" once. Wow, real journalism about the actual world! Awesome. Please keep that up.; 7/17/15, 5:05 AM
Saint Croix said...: On what I think of as the Armageddon thread, the conversation turns a bit religious.

If you're not familiar with the Book of Revelation--and I'm not, I spend the vast majority of my Bible-reading time focusing on what Jesus has to say--you might want to take a quick-and-dirty peek at wikipedia.

I read that and I go, "Wow. Sounds like a good movie. Wouldn't want to be there." The Book of Revelation makes me think of that ironic Chinese curse. "May you live in interesting times."

Anyway, on the Iranian bomb thread, I suggest that "God kills everybody." That's a little sloppy. It's not true in the case of homicide, or suicide. God didn't do that; you did.

God gives us all free will. Which means that some of us--maybe a lot of us--die in a way that has nothing to do with God's plan for us. That's one of the most awful things about homicide or suicide, from a spiritual perspective. Not just all the pain you caused other people. You also violated God's will and God's plan.

Free will is an incredible gift from God. Imagine having the literal freedom to do whatever you want to do! And that's exactly the freedom we have. Wow. And people abuse this freedom, of course. So it's a little unfair to blame the father for the way a son drives his BMW.; 7/17/15, 5:37 AM
Saint Croix said...: What about earthquakes, though? Why does God send an earthquake to us? That used to perplex me, when I was young. We can't blame earthquakes on free will. An earthquake is just God killing people. An earthquake sucks, man. Why does God give us earthquakes and other natural disasters?

Maybe God wants us to have a sense of perspective. You get a sense of that from that New Yorker article. Those plates have been moving for millions of years. It's not like God comes up with an earthquake because I was shoplifting last week. That earthquake has nothing to do with you, or me. As the Ink Spots put it, "Into each life some rain must fall."; 7/17/15, 5:50 AM
Saint Croix said...: Of course, when we're in the middle of an earthquake, or some other natural disaster, we feel like it has everything to do with us. Oh my God! I'm going to die! And we are afraid.

So maybe there's a spiritual lesson here.

Why do we need a sense of perspective? Why does God want us to think about, or to be aware of, plate tectonics and great white sharks and the pain of fire?

Because we are not the center of the universe.

When we think of God, try to keep concepts like "infinity" and "eternity" in mind. All the bad things that happen in our life, that's a drop in the bucket to the big picture.; 7/17/15, 5:53 AM
Saint Croix said...: I love my dog, but she doesn't really get it.

It's kind of cute that my dog thinks she's the center of the universe. I wonder what kind of stupid theories my dog has developed to explain where I am when I go to work?

"I'll bet he's chasing squirrels!"; 7/17/15, 6:00 AM
Saint Croix said...: Maybe liberals reject God because they're uncomfortable with hierarchies.; 7/17/15, 6:14 AM
Saint Croix said...: Sometimes we can't avoid a hierarchy. Look at the family, for instance. That's a hierarchy. Baby needs you. Baby can't feed himself, or find a shelter. It's definitely a hierarchy, and you're on top.; 7/17/15, 6:16 AM
Hagar said...: "Sanctuary city" is Jefferson's "nullification" or Madison's "interposition" theories rearing their ugly heads on a smaller scale, since it is municipalities declaring their independence from their respective state governments, rather than the states seceding from the Union, but legally it is even worse.
How can an entity that only exists by a state charter, declare independence from that charter?; 7/17/15, 6:52 AM
Hagar said...: What is the legal term for treason against a state?; 7/17/15, 7:30 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Hagar, the term is Austin.; 7/17/15, 7:34 AM
Hagar said...: On the Federal level, the term "treason" has been preempted to mean bearing arms against the United States or aiding the enemy in time of war.

For a top-level magistrate to direct officers of the United States to disobey the laws of the United States, I guess comes under "high crimes and misdemeanors."
If the lower level managers do so on their own, will it be "low crimes and misdemeanors?"

But what are terms when it is about the states; subdivisions of the U.S., created by Congressional "charters," as it were?
Only the original 13 and Texas ever were sovereign states before the U.S. was created, and I think it has been settled that joining the Union was a one-way move. There is no exit.

So, "treason" against the state really goes right up the line to the Union, does it not?

This is why Congress thinks it appropriate to legislate against "sanctuary cities?"

But I think "sanctuary cities (and counties, or whatever) already is "treason" in the vernacular, though not by the Constitutional definition.; 7/17/15, 7:52 AM
Stephen A. Meigs said...: Why does God send an earthquake to us?

If God or external spirits often strongly intervened with miracles or influences to avoid disasters or bad things being done to good people, the universe wouldn't much make sense, which would make it less beautiful. What sort of inferences could people make about morality if the consequences of immorality were basically nil because God or external spirits fix everything, or if there weren't mostly understandable rules governing things? Not that it can't be beautiful for there to be a connection between this universe and something higher or the mass of other universes, but if the ordinary affairs of humanity were of such little significance to humanity that humanity would have but little chance of figuring anything about it unless they understood the entire complexity of how earth fits in the world of spirit and god(s), humans and the other beings of this universe would be overtaxed and basically not much able to contribute to the overall beauty of things. That's basically my take, anyway.; 7/17/15, 7:55 AM
Jaq said...: Gell Mann of the eponymous effect makes news in Physics as his "pentaquark" is seen at the large hadron collider a couple of decades after he predicted it.; 7/17/15, 10:17 AM
Marc in Eugene said...: St Croix, I did just buy your book and am looking forward to reading the published version!

AA, I saw that someone has posted on one of the current threads a response to the effect, 'well, Althouse, you know you do post things to hurt people', which struck me as very odd. I know there are a certain number of issues about which you and I disagree and, in actual conversation, would probably heatedly or vehemently disagree about (although judging by the video blogging, I throw off more 'heat and vehemence' than you do in such arguments), and we live in different intellectual and cultural worlds, maybe: but I've never known you in the pages of your blog to purposefully write to be hurtful to people. I don't imagine anyone who reads your writing at all regularly or carefully could think that.; 7/17/15, 11:33 AM
Saint Croix said...: Thanks Marc!; 7/17/15, 1:35 PM
Saint Croix said...: In my experience Althouse can be sharp and sarcastic, but never mean.; 7/17/15, 2:02 PM
Saint Croix said...: Its here I learned to control my temper, so I am very thankful to her.

(inside joke); 7/17/15, 2:10 PM
Gahrie said...: but I've never known you in the pages of your blog to purposefully write to be hurtful to people.

Google Althouse and "splooge stooge".; 7/17/15, 3:16 PM