Althouse: At the Black Dog Café...

September 9, 2017

At the Black Dog Café...

... find your shelter from the storm.

82 comments:

n.n said...: ... you will not find a white, brown, or rainbow-colored dog.; 9/9/17, 11:26 AM
Otto said...: What a relief from the hard hitting saturday edition of feminism & rascism by Ann. Mead take her out golfing and have her take out this latent aggression by hitting from the men's tees.; 9/9/17, 11:34 AM
Fernandinande said...: I don't know but I been told, a black legged dog ain't got no soul.; 9/9/17, 11:36 AM
MayBee said...: Emily Yoffe at The Amticnhas an excellent series on the problems with the campus rape "justice" movement; 9/9/17, 11:43 AM
Fernandinande said...: Black dog singing in the dead of night
Take these vocal cords and learn to bark
All your life
You were only waiting for the neighbors to complain; 9/9/17, 11:44 AM
Fernandinande said...: Did you know?

The Hound of the Basketballs was based on a black dog.; 9/9/17, 11:49 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Jerry Pournelle has passed. He came to prominence in the SF community with his conservative tinged SF like A Spaceship For The King winning the John W. Campbell new writer award in 1973.

He rose to bestseller-dom with his asteroid disaster novel written with Larry Niven Lucifer's Hammer. The two were also nominated for the Hugo and Nebula for their 1975 classic SF novel The Mote In God's Eye.

He wrote a visionary science column for Galaxy magazine called "A Step Farther out" and a long running computer column Chaos Manor in Byte magazine.

Longrunning health issues seem to have largely curtailed his fiction output, but he continued to blog and be a presence on the scene.

His passing leaves the Heinlein-ian conservative/libertarian strain of SF largely unrepresented in the RandomPenguinHouse "bigs", though it continues at Baen and in the burgeoning indie scene.

We have always known that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It's worse now, because capture of government is so much more important than it once was. There was a time when there was enough freedom that it hardly mattered which brand of crooks ran government. That has not been true for a long time - not during most of your lifetimes, and for much of mine - and it will probably never be true again.; 9/9/17, 11:51 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Looks like you are enjoying a lovely cooler than normal summer.
It's 90 degrees + firesmoke here.; 9/9/17, 12:13 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, reading the comments on your storm surge post, it appears that a number of your readers are, or have loved ones, in harm's way from Irma. Maybe after Irma moves inland and loses energy you could make post to let folks check in?; 9/9/17, 12:15 PM
Big Mike said...: make A post ...; 9/9/17, 12:17 PM
J. Farmer said...: Feeling a bit guilty this morning. I've been in East Tennessee for a month now where I'll be spending the fall. All other family is in the Tampa Bay area, where we've had family for well over a hundred years. Have other family in Marathon in the Keys, though they've been out of there for almost a week now. I can still remember the stories my great-grandmother used to tell about the 1921 hurricane that struck the Tampa Bay area. My home is quite inland from the bay and in minimal flood risk area, so I have a lot of family hulled up there. The storm's shift to the west certainly tripped up a lot of people's plans and expectations. Anyway, I'm rambling...back to being glued to The Weather Channel...; 9/9/17, 12:20 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Jerry Pournelle edited a new addition to the series there will be war, sold through castalia house.

Big publishing is Manhatten based, and their book selection/authors reflect that. Kindle is allowing indie to flourish and take the big publishers lunch money. Big publishing has a declining share of the Ebook market. Too much of the SF from the big publishers is message driven, and not a fun read. Look at the Hugo winners bs the Dragon awards. Sad Puppies showed the bias.; 9/9/17, 12:21 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Vs not bs; 9/9/17, 12:22 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Lois Lerner decision bothers me. Is instapundit right? Or is Sessions being a gentleman?

Poll would be nice...; 9/9/17, 12:29 PM
David Baker said...: Meanwhile, here in Palm Beach County:

Local TV reporters are trying to will Irma back to the east coast. Barring that,
they're hyping tornadoes, killer tornadoes - but the county-wide
curfew goes into effect in less than two hours at 3:00pm. So there's
no place to run... from the "killer" tornadoes.

Back in reality, Irma is moving further and further away from Palm
Beach County. Still, FPL is aching to turn off the electricity, apparently in
collusion with the broadcasters about the dangers of 40mph winds.

This just in:

BREAKING: Water from the intracoastal waterway spilling onto sidewalk
in Lake Park! Puddles forming! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!; 9/9/17, 12:49 PM
David Baker said...: "Lois Lerner decision bothers me."

It appears to be a quid pro quo; lay off Lerner, we'll lay off Trump Jr..

And isn't that the way it always works.; 9/9/17, 12:59 PM
Christy said...: Pournelle kept me reading Byte long after the industry transcendence my puny skills.

We lost Don Williams. I love his "Good Ole Boys Like Me.“; 9/9/17, 1:06 PM
Roughcoat said...: Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?; 9/9/17, 1:19 PM
tim in vermont said...: A Wisconsin teen accused of sexually assaulting college students landed in jail for the third time in less than two weeks. Larry Seidl, 18, was busted Thursday night at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for allegedly going into a women’s bathroom in a dorm and sticking his phone under an occupied stall, authorities said. Seidl left the dorm when staff confronted him, but police tracked him down on campus, news station WKOW reported. He was taken into custody for bail jumping. The alleged assault came within nine days of him posting bond for similar crimes in the campus-area. Campus police spokesperson

Obviously he identifies as female and people should just shut up already.; 9/9/17, 1:27 PM
cf said...: The Lois Lerner/IRS thing makes me sick at heart. It is a dangerous thing when half the nation is denied it's rights by the state.

I grew up in a Texas border town, and the difference between the built-in corruption from Mexican officialdom and US officialdom was a reality one could not ignore. Thank Goodness, I thought, that I was growing up in america.

Later, when my 70s protesting had me behind bars a few times, I had to appreciate the total power any State can press upon its citizens, and was actually grateful to observe the respect of law and decent treatment by all officers I witnessed.

One way or another, this deep, stark corruption and abuse of power by a most powerful and intrusive government body Must Not Stand. Must not be tolerated. I am pondering my own best way to express that going forward.; 9/9/17, 1:28 PM
tim in vermont said...: Trump sold us out on the IRS, plain and simple.; 9/9/17, 1:28 PM
tim in vermont said...: Could be the IRS is pulling some J Edgar Hoover shit on him, but I don't really care. We got nobody now.; 9/9/17, 1:29 PM
n.n said...: At the Black-White-Brown Kat Kitchen, kitty is taking a kat nap and is neither awake nor woke, but when he wakes he will self-groom, blissfully unaware of his limited [color] diversity.

I wonder if the progressive doctrine prompted the liberal fervor for body transmogrification. Everyone who is anyone wants to be woke, broke, and toke.; 9/9/17, 1:32 PM
tim in vermont said...: When is that goddamn hurricane going to get on board with the models? Irma is a denier.; 9/9/17, 1:35 PM
n.n said...: Trump sold us out on the IRS, plain and simple.

Maybe. Or it's the art of dealing with intransigent minorities (e.g. Democratic, Republican, 1% foreign and domestic). There but mortal gods that fret and strut their stuff upon the stage, precede me, and then a revolution that marks the day. It seems excessive and illegal immigration, and class diversity, is forward thinking by these actors.; 9/9/17, 1:41 PM
tim in vermont said...: Instead of "draining the swamp" he is declaring it off limits and protecting the swamp creatures.; 9/9/17, 1:52 PM
tim in vermont said...: Not to worry though, Bannon is gone and Kelley will keep him from hearing any negative feedback on his decision. America is dead, the illegals can have it.; 9/9/17, 1:54 PM
tim in vermont said...: We got Hillary anyway.; 9/9/17, 1:55 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Quote from Sm Stirling upcoming book, The Island People, may explain Trumps thinking:

“But one war at a time. Who tries to be strong everywhere at once is weak everywhere all the time"

My gut feeling it was Sessions decision by being a gentleman to respect what the justice departments previous decision. Same with prosecuting Hillary.

I wish for an independent counsel for both the IRS and Hillary. I don't care about prosecuting people, as much as a public shaming to make sure it never happens again. Judicial Watch through FOIA lawsuits is doing great work.; 9/9/17, 1:57 PM
Gahrie said...: We need to replace the tax code with a flat tax, tax rules and regulations that can fit in a 2 inch binder at 16 type font and a return that can be done on a postcard.; 9/9/17, 1:58 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Over at Jerry Pournelles blog, RIP, he linked to an article slavery was only outlawed recently in Mauritania, and is still there. And the Trump administration is pressuring them to take more action.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/25/us-warned-mauritania-total-failure-slavery-trade-benefits

Something not mentioned during the entire Confederate Slavery statue kerfue.; 9/9/17, 2:01 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: If Lois Lerner and Hillary are untouchable, this whole "Trump is god/ Trump is different/ Trump is an outsider" is just a pile of crap.; 9/9/17, 2:02 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Why isn't there a coffee table book of the original Bongard problems? That seems like an obvious thing to publish.; 9/9/17, 2:02 PM
Tim Wright said...: Old Zeus Is never a metaphor. He is simply Zeus. That is why he is. Tim; 9/9/17, 2:12 PM
traditionalguy said...: IRMAGEDDON !!!

But the digital communications are making a coordinated response possible to this storm. But if the NORKS launch their Chinese made Thermonuclear air burst ICBM next week as the promised, who can use digital communications and horse drawn wagons to supply the entire continent's population?

CIC Trump will pull the trigger on Kim any day now.; 9/9/17, 2:13 PM
J. Farmer said...: But if the NORKS launch their Chinese made Thermonuclear air burst ICBM next week as the promised...

Hmm...not holding my breath.; 9/9/17, 2:35 PM
Hagar said...: I must have gotten careless and clicked on something I should not have, and find that I have bought a one year membership in Amazon Prime for $99 + tax.
Be careful out there!; 9/9/17, 2:49 PM
sane_voter said...: @Hagar, I think you can cancel it. However, I have been a prime member for years and love it.; 9/9/17, 3:38 PM
Hagar said...: I bought several items in the last couple of weeks and wondered why I kept getting 2-day delivery, so I will swallow it and charge it up to educational experience.; 9/9/17, 3:42 PM
rhhardin said...: Amazon Prime is worth the money. Stuff even gets delivered on Sunday.; 9/9/17, 3:50 PM
Gahrie said...: I bought several items in the last couple of weeks and wondered why I kept getting 2-day delivery, so I will swallow it and charge it up to educational experience.

There's a lot more to Prime than 2 day delivery today. I recommend you go to Amazon and explore your Prime membership..you might be pleasantly surprised.; 9/9/17, 4:15 PM
MayBee said...: Amazon Prime streaming tv and movies are really great, too.; 9/9/17, 4:34 PM
rhhardin said...: A letter to Oberlin alumni complete, with trigger warning and cluelessness.

(The following email includes discussion of violence and death.)

To the Oberlin community:

We write with deep sadness to share difficult news involving a recent alumnus of the Conservatory, Orion Krause '17. As reported by multiple media outlets, Orion was arrested last evening by the Groton, MA police department as a suspect in the murders of four individuals.

The nature of this crime is horrific, and the grief of family and friends immeasurable. And yet Orion is one of our own.

We recognize that this news may be difficult to process and we encourage those personally touched by this news to seek any support you need. We are offering many layers of support to current students, faculty, and staff on campus who are dealing with this tragic news.

We also offer a gentle reminder that respect for the privacy of those directly impacted is most appreciated in these moments.

Our thoughts are with all affected by this tragedy.

In shared sadness,

Carmen Ambar, President Andrea Kalyn, Dean of the Conservatory

-- no hint what the lethal instrument was. Piano perhaps.; 9/9/17, 4:37 PM
Clyde said...: Re: Amazon Prime, I use the streaming music a lot at work, and on the Prime Video, I liked "The Man In The High Castle" and "Comrade Detective."; 9/9/17, 4:41 PM
rhhardin said...: Ah. Jazz drums. That explains the baseball bat.; 9/9/17, 4:43 PM
Etienne said...: Irma still hasn't made a turn yet. The media is reporting a heading of west northwest, but radar still shows west.

Key West Radar; 9/9/17, 5:09 PM
David Baker said...: "The media is reporting a heading of west northwest, but radar still shows west."

They're trying to will it back to land. Schmucks.; 9/9/17, 5:13 PM
Rance Fasoldt said...: Clear skies in Montana today. Rain must've quelled the fires. It's nice to see the mountains so clearly.; 9/9/17, 5:24 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: RH, I see he did the Facebook check-in at Standing Rock Indian Reservation, an anti pipeline thing from a while back. Not beating people to death must have been a more difficult form of activism.; 9/9/17, 5:30 PM
rhhardin said...: https://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?ID=BYX

Irma seems to have stopped completely in the last hour or so. It might move in any direction.

If you have a wunderground account you'll see 6 hours of history if you animate it; otherwise about an hour.; 9/9/17, 5:32 PM
rhhardin said...: I take it that Oberlin doesn't teach coping skills.; 9/9/17, 5:32 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Black dog, white muzzle. Time marches on. Also that "old dog" stance.

Boy, I miss mine.

Place in GA is pretty much under the track. Expecting to get hurricane winds now. We are not there, however, having fled north. Feeling old and sad and worried for a whole bunch of people I know.; 9/9/17, 5:34 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Oberlin should have called that "placemaking" firm in NY. Too late now!; 9/9/17, 5:34 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Or maybe Groton should have called them. "More places, less murder!" for the march.; 9/9/17, 5:35 PM
tim in vermont said...: Irma prediction not going well. It's almost as bad as the climate models.; 9/9/17, 5:57 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Tim - it's so big, it almost makes its own track. Very hard to predict a storm like that. Now if it turns out to be 20 miles west of predicted, areas that were evacuated may be almost spared and other areas from which most people did not leave may be under the gun.; 9/9/17, 6:17 PM
tim in vermont said...: The climate is pretty big too. Makes its own track.; 9/9/17, 6:24 PM
HT said...: Everyone's talking about Florida without paying attention to the places that HAVE for sure taken the brunt of this thing. I'm not expert, but people just assumed it would come right to Florida. Perhaps the evacuation had something to do with that, but it's still hanging around Cuba.; 9/9/17, 6:26 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Tim - anyone who knows anything about the historical variations in climate finds the current climate hysteria bizarre. But a whole industry has grown up with the purpose of ensuring that most people know nothing about the historical variations in climate.

I would say the Irma predictions have been far far more accurate than the climate modeling I have seen.; 9/9/17, 6:27 PM
Etienne said...: I looked at the Navy P-3 observations, and they do show the lowest pressure moving northwest. But ever so slightly. The eye itself hasn't changed much, so I guess the lowest pressure wanders around inside the eye. Not just centered.; 9/9/17, 6:28 PM
rhhardin said...: It would be nice if it headed sourheast and died from lack of coriolis.

It can't make it to the southern hemisphere because they turn clockwise.; 9/9/17, 7:08 PM
narciso said...: Yes Cuba did blunt much of its force, as the dominican republic often dies. It also as of yet has staid on a generally western track; 9/9/17, 7:19 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: Info about missile defense in the US:
http://nypost.com/2017/09/09/how-democrats-left-america-naked-before-north-koreas-nukes/; 9/9/17, 7:21 PM
Big Mike said...: Looks as though the European model called the track, NOAA's model called for Irma to track up the east coast of Florida. This isn't the first time the European model was more accurate than the NOAA model.* I think they need to abandon their own modeling efforts and go with what works.
________
* Validate your models!; 9/9/17, 7:27 PM
tim in vermont said...: Looks as though the European model called the track,

So it slammed Miami directly, and ripped out Mar A Lago on its way up to the Space Coast?

Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic. - Naomi Oreskes of 97% consensus fame before she went nuts.; 9/9/17, 7:45 PM
tim in vermont said...: A lot of "Texas Sharpshooting" going on with bragging about the models. What we have seen is that "good agreement" among the models means nothing but that the models are locked into some kind of group-think. Maybe it has finally turned north, but you can see that they are losing a little confidence in their new toys. But my god, the graphics are great!; 9/9/17, 8:00 PM
HT said...: Group think is exactly what it is, combo'ed with a lack of on the ground sense.; 9/9/17, 8:07 PM
narciso said...: They may incidentally turn out to be correct, but even accuweather and wattsup has not been on the ball.; 9/9/17, 8:15 PM
traditionalguy said...: Has anyone seen what is in front of our faces? The Storm is headed directly west into the Gulf. When anyone sees it turn north towards Mobile some day, then tell me about.It is just as likely to stop and go back east where it came from as it is to make a sudden right turn and head north.; 9/9/17, 8:27 PM
narciso said...: They xidnt properly acvoubt fir the steering currents with this storm.; 9/9/17, 8:34 PM
HT said...: The storm is basically still in Cuba!; 9/9/17, 8:34 PM
J. Farmer said...: Wow. This comments thread reminds me of an experience in my life in early adulthood. I was 19 years old, an undergraduate in clinical psychology at my local state university (University of South Florida), and working as a mental health tech at a juvenile residential facility for criminal offenders. There I met a close friend and future business partner who had obtained an undergraduate psychology degree at University of Michigan with the express intent of following in his older brother's footsteps and obtaining his PhD in the field at the same institution. Instead, while he was offered a "full ride" to UM's graduate psychology program, he opted to attend Wayne State University's clinical social work program. And this is the late 1960s and early 1970s. As he explained it to me, he was put off by UM's psychology program as requiring "either psychoanalysis or statistical analysis." Instead, he chose the grittier, hands on field of social work. After graduating, he became a devotee and protege to Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist from Georgetown University who practically invented family therapy and explicitly designed the systemic psychotherapy, the methodology and theoretical orientation I subscribe to to this day. Which should come as no surprise, as Bowen's protege in the early 70's was my my mentor in the early oughts.

Among practicing mental health professionals, my field of criminal justice and child welfare is one of the most challenging. Burnout and staff turnover are frequent, predictable occurrences. We would frequently see young therapists with impressive resumes and zero real world experience wander in and carry themselves for the first few weeks as if they had every explanation for pathological human behavior at hand and every remedy soon behind it. My colleague would often express to me privately and with exasperation: "Hell, I've been doing this shit for 30 years, and I'm just scratching the surface." That is, the task of trying to understand human interaction so gargantuan, the most we can hope for is to contribute some basic, primitive amount of understanding of the issue. Consider this, scientists don't even fully understand how bees navigate. The nature of the human brain is by several orders of magnitude more complicated than that question. How that brain interacts and coexists with billions of other brains is more complex still. Ergo...the social sciences are, for the most part, total bullshit. But luckily, in an empirical world, a little bit of truth buried in a pile of crap is still worthwhile.

The issue of global warming comes up frequently in Ann's threads. I invariably resist commenting (until now) for one basic reason : I don't know! I have tried to read climate change activists and climate change denialists who I believe are arguing in good faith, and I have yet to reach reconciliation of these arguments in my own head. That said, he seems obvious to me that for most here climate change denialism seems to be an obvious symptom of a larger, imposing worldview that seems to automatically demand denialism without any real wrestling of the empirical realities.; 9/9/17, 8:36 PM
heyboom said...: tim in vermont said:

We got Hillary anyway.

Read this link and tell me if you still think that way:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/08/blue-state-blues-week-donald-trump-restored-republic/; 9/9/17, 8:41 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/9/17, 8:43 PM
HT said...: I'm not sure how you can tell that. It's still basically in Cuba.; 9/9/17, 9:19 PM
Mark said...: Been watching the 9/11 retrospectives the past couple of hours. Not that I needed to to remember that day. The images are as fresh and raw now, 16 years later, as they were then.

One thing I had forgotten until just now, having gone to look for and checked my datebook for that day, is that I had seven cases on the docket at the Arlington County Courthouse.

I knew I had some, after all my strongest memory is of being in the clerk's office when he got a call and told us a plane just crashed into the Pentagon, and then the judge in circuit court during a break saying something about "this is war" and then the deputies running up to bench in another court followed by the judge there saying that all cases were cancelled and they were evacuating the building immediately while many of the deputies and police were being dispatched to the Pentagon. I didn't remember it was that many cases though -- that part of the day wasn't that important. The image of watching this stream of people walk past me out of the District and down Lee Highway after the government had closed and Metro shut down is also like it was last week, together with the humvees and soldiers with weapons at the ready on the streets in the days following.

And as fresh and raw as the day still is -- some people -- too many -- have gone back to living on September 10.; 9/9/17, 10:02 PM
Humperdink said...: J Farmer stated: "The issue of global warming comes up frequently in Ann's threads. I invariably resist commenting (until now) for one basic reason : I don't know!"

And then you proceed to label the opposition to the climate change hysteria as "deniers" (three times). Do you know why the term "denier" is used by the AGW proponents?; 9/9/17, 10:09 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/9/17, 11:53 PM
lonetown said...: Say what you want about the fatuous politics of liberal areas of the country, their dogs are always in great shape. Meade should re-run some of those great dog portraits from the past.; 9/10/17, 6:33 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Humperdink:

And then you proceed to label the opposition to the climate change hysteria as "deniers" (three times). Do you know why the term "denier" is used by the AGW proponents?

I don't care why it's used by them; I care why I use it. And it's because I think it's an accurate term. People are denying that something is true. And they might be right! I don't know.; 9/10/17, 8:21 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/10/17, 9:11 AM
Gahrie said...: I don't care why it's used by them; I care why I use it. And it's because I think it's an accurate term. People are denying that something is true. And they might be right! I don't know.

Deniers is an insult intended to allow people to dismiss their arguments as being as absurd and fringe as those who deny the Holocaust.

The proper term is skeptic...which is what everyone should be about all science.; 9/10/17, 10:38 AM