September 13, 2017

Lolling at the Lakeside Café...

DSC04985

... you can talk about anything.

(And please consider shopping through The Althouse Amazon Portal.)

70 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

A recent article by Robert Parry in Consortium News is titled "Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad?". Below are excerpts from the first paragraphs.
======

.... this sort of unprofessional work tops page one of The New York Times one day as a major “investigative” article and reemerges the next day in even more strident form as a major Times editorial? Are we dealing then with an inept journalist who got carried away with his thesis or are we facing institutional corruption or even a collective madness driven by ideological fervor?

What is stunning about the lede story ... is that it offers no real evidence to support its provocative claim that – as the headline states – “To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake Americans” or its subhead: “Flooding Twitter and Facebook, Impostors Helped Fuel Anger in Polarized U.S.”

In the old days, this wildly speculative article, which spills over three pages, would have earned an F in a J-school class or gotten a rookie reporter a stern rebuke from a senior editor. But now such unprofessionalism is highlighted ....

In this case, it allows reporter Scott Shane to introduce his thesis by citing some Internet accounts that apparently used fake identities, but he ties none of them to the Russian government. Acting like he has minimal familiarity with the Internet – yes, a lot of people do use fake identities – Shane builds his case on the assumption that accounts that cited references to purloined Democratic emails must be somehow from an agent or a bot connected to the Kremlin. ....

Shane then adds, also as flat fact, that “The site’s phony promoters were in the vanguard of a cyberarmy of counterfeit Facebook and Twitter accounts, a legion of Russian-controlled impostors whose operations are still being unraveled.” ...

Let’s examine how his accusations are backed up:

“An investigation by The New York Times, and new research from the cybersecurity firm FireEye, reveals some of the mechanisms by which suspected Russian operators used Twitter and Facebook to spread anti-Clinton messages and promote the hacked material they had leaked. On Wednesday, Facebook officials disclosed that they had shut down several hundred accounts that they believe were created by a Russian company linked to the Kremlin and used to buy $100,000 in ads pushing divisive issues during and after the American election campaign. On Twitter, as on Facebook, Russian fingerprints are on hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages.”

Note the weasel words: “suspected”; “believe”; ‘linked”; “fingerprints.” When you see such equivocation, it means that these folks – both the Times and FireEye – don’t have hard evidence; they are speculating. ....

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/11/has-the-nyt-gone-collectively-mad/

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sunsong said...

A beautiful, sad song by Richard Thompson...performed by him and Bonnie Raitt:

This old house is falling down around my ears
Im drowning in the river of my tears
When all my will is gone you hold me sway
I need you at the dimming of the day

You pulled me like the moon pulls on the tide
You know just where I keep my better side

What days have come to keep us far apart
A broken promise or a broken heart
Now all the bonny birds have wheeled away
I need you at the dimming of the day

Come the night youre only what I want
Come the night you could be my confidant

I see you on the street in company
Why dont you come and ease your mind with me
Im living for the night we steal away
I need you at the dimming of the day
I need you at the dimming of the day


the dimming of the day

Ray - SoCal said...

Hope Hicks, the new WH Comm Director got banned on twitter.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-13/new-white-house-comms-director-suspended-twitter-one-day-after-appointment

And Vox Day is filing in Travis County on Gab, on defamation. A twitter free speech alternative.
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/09/legal-legion-update.html?m=1

Both I view as significant on free speech on the internet.

David Baker said...

Four and a half million Floridians are still without electrical power, roughly equivalent to being locked in a hot car. It's sweltering - and virtually all the Keys are now unlivable.

buwaya said...

"Four and a half million Floridians are still without electrical power, roughly equivalent to being locked in a hot car. It's sweltering - and virtually all the Keys are now unlivable. "

Sounds like the Philippines on any ordinary day.

Chest Rockwell said...

This is why I don't have cable.

Jemelle Hill wrote for the Michigan State Newspaper when I attended in the 90s. She wrote an article one year about how the Amerikkkan education system was racist because a traditional map shows Africa much smaller than it did on a globe. When informed by MSU professors that it was because of the mathematics of projection, not racism, she doubled down. Truly a stupid woman.

God I wish I could find that article.

Humperdink said...

"Four and a half million Floridians are still without electrical power, roughly equivalent to being locked in a hot car. It's sweltering - and virtually all the Keys are now unlivable."

Spoke with my sister about this yesterday. Still no electric for their house. She said if you moved to Florida, live near the hospital or school power grid. That's where the electric company focuses is first.

Virgil Hilts said...

My wife and I are big fans of Russ Roberts (his is my wife's absolute favorite podcast) and the piece he wrote yesterday in medium was worth reading.
https://medium.com/@russroberts
Curious whether Ann is optimistic/pessimistic about whether this constant yelling at and across each other will continue or is just a passing phase caused by the newness of the media.
Maybe blogs and news sites that allow comments should have two comments sections -- (i) one for snark (of the nasty sort), attacks and insults, and (ii) a second one for fun snark, ideas, musings and recommendations.

buwaya said...

Re Florida, it is time to re-learn the wonders of the paypay (fan).

http://bayanihannews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/paypay-fan-dance1-640x457.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSvZuljdEoc

Nonapod said...

Myanmmar seems to be attempting to remove its Muslim population. They claim to have cleared out 176 villages. Bangladesh has offered to take in 700,000 of these refugees.

David said...

"Myanmmar seems to be attempting to remove its Muslim population. They claim to have cleared out 176 villages. Bangladesh has offered to take in 700,000 of these refugees."

What could possibly go wrong.

David said...

"Four and a half million Floridians are still without electrical power, roughly equivalent to being locked in a hot car. It's sweltering - and virtually all the Keys are now unlivable."

This will come as a surprise to the people who lived in the keys before air conditioning.

David said...

"All Congress has to do is get rid of the age 65 requirement for Medicare. Poof. Every American (and illegal alien) can join Medicare after a live birth."

Goodness. So simple. A manic wand. Why didn't anybody think of that before?

David Baker said...

"This will come as a surprise to the people who lived in the keys before air conditioning."

"Before" air-conditioning people in the Keys had houses. Now they have piles of debris with no running water, no stores, no food, no roads in or out, and no electricity.

Like I said, current resident or wise-guy pioneer, the Keys are essentially unlivable.

FullMoon said...

"Before" air-conditioning people in the Keys had houses. Now they have piles of debris with no running water, no stores, no food, no roads in or out, and no electricity.

Like I said, current resident or wise-guy pioneer, the Keys are essentially unlivable.
9/13/17, 1:06 PM


Like camping out, without the fun part.

Bad Lieutenant said...

[Etienne babble]

Goodness. So simple. A manic wand. Why didn't anybody think of that before?


I LOVE YOU MAN!!!

David Baker said...

"Like camping out..."

Naked.

Jupiter said...

Nonapod said...
"Myanmmar seems to be attempting to remove its Muslim population."

It's Muslim population moved there from Bangladesh, without proper documentation. It's a habit of theirs. Like chopping off your head, killing your sons, and raping your daughters.

Kathryn51 said...

Recently, I was invited to a "family" book club by my future daughter-in-law. Most of the women are very liberal and the book for this month is Jodi Piccault's "Small Great Things" which is all about white privilege with a stereotype white Nazi and noble black nurse caring for his baby at the hospital. I was not looking forward to reading the book but when I went to Amazon (through the Althouse portal in this post!), I could also download a summary of the book for free! I was going to cheat and just download the summary - but that would have cheated Althouse as well, so downloaded both.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

People joked about how the Left media would memorialize the pic of the strong white man carrying the Asian woman carrying the baby after Hurricane Harvey as a trans woman of color carrying a white man, etc. I thought that was a bit over the top, but look at the New Yorker cover -- a black girl helping a small black boy, a black woman carrying a girl who looks possibly Asian or Latinx, a white woman carrying a dog, and black man and a man of undetermined ethnicity, probably a Latinx or a mulattx, in a bass boat rescuing them, and reaching out to the fat white man who is rescuing nobody, with not a looter in sight.

tim in vermont said...

When Irene hit Vermont, it left a lot of roads in and out of towns impassible, and so left them isolated and without power, rivers washed away lots of buildings, but the nice part about it was the weather was still great. They are still doing Irene repair work around here.

tim in vermont said...

Incidentally, I don't doubt that the Russians may have engaged in internet propaganda operations to increase polarization in the US by picking at scabs. To think that they were able to pick the electoral lock somehow with a collection of Facebook ads is pretty nonsensical. That punch bowl is empty, and only a few of the strongest believers are still hanging around.

jaydub said...

It's really embarrassing who people, left and right, tie this tragedy to politics.

tim in vermont said...

I don't think it was the "right" that made it political, but maybe you can give some evidence. The "right" is just responding to a full bore propaganda campaign from the left.

Calls to punish global warming skepticism as a criminal offense have surged in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but it hasn’t discouraged climate scientists like Judith Curry.

A retired Georgia Tech professor, she argued on her Climate Etc. website that Irma, which hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Saturday, was fueled in large part by “very weak” wind shear and that the hurricane intensified despite Atlantic Ocean temperatures that weren’t unusually warm.


But Judith Curry was just one of the leading Hurricane researchers in the United States, so what does she know?

tim in vermont said...

Incidentally, Judith Curry was a believer in Global Warming before her red pill moment, which I believe was the irrational defense of Michael Mann's mathematically indefensible "Hokey Stick." Nobody whit a background in math could defend that propaganda graph honestly.

rhhardin said...

Judith Curry believes though that climate science is a science, sort of a half-way position. It's just very uncertain.

It's conducted though in a way that in no way resembles the science I'm familiar with.

What used to be science was geophysical research. This or that could be looked into but it was not aimed at, nor did it tie into, a conclusion about the climate or anything else.

It was just interesting on its own, enough to engage the curiosity of the researcher.

There were various interests that formed, but everybody agreed on for example what a physics equation was.

Climate science makes up physics equations and goes from there.

I like to characterize it that physics is united by agreement on equations and the conclusion is indefinite; climate science is united by agreement on a conclusion and the equations are indefinite.

So anyway Judith Curry is a nice voice saying it's uncertain, and she has credentials that are hard for climate science people to dismiss out of hand, so it sticks a little, though she'll wind up a person gone bad.

I'd be a person who was bad originally. I've seen science before.

sparrow said...

"Calls to punish global warming skepticism as a criminal offense .. "

Just ask yourself when is skepticism a crime, especially in Science. This reaction is pure politics and tyrannical politics as well.

Browndog said...

Judge Considers Defying Trump Over Arpaio Pardon

tim in vermont said...

Judith Curry believes though that climate science is a science, sort of a half-way position. It's just very uncertain.

Who can argue with her? All we really know so far is that the models are largely wrong, and like the explanations (excuses) for the failings of the Irma prediction are just a listing of the things they don't understand well enough to model. They make excuses for their warming predictions. Hey, I don't have a problem with them being wrong, it's a very hard problem, I have a problem with them claiming that they have all of the answers. Each of the factors offered as excuses for why the predictions were wrong are things that should have been taken into account already, if they really had the "science" down.

I think her point that the water wasn't especially warm is the salient one. These arguments over whether it was the strongest ever "Atlantic Basin" hurricane are so beside the point So what if it was? How did it get so strong? Was lack of wind shear on Atlantic hurricanes predicted by the models? No!!!

And if hurricanes really are getting stronger, there is no way that they would not be getting more numerous. If marginal hurricanes are strengthened, they they become weak hurricanes, there would have to be more, but there are not. It completely defies logic to suggest that there would not be more hurricanes now if they are indeed strengthened, and the mechanism for strengthening them would be warmer ocean waters, which were not actually in play. These are some of the reasons I just don't buy the hooey.

tim in vermont said...

BTW, these hurricanes and thunderstorms generally, transport a great deal of heat right past the "blocking mechanism" of the greenhouse effect. People can only guess at those, because even if the models are based entirely on physics, which they are not, they don't model finely enough to capture the effects of thunderstorms and hurricanes. They plug in best guesses freighted with assumptions, in other words, they assume what they are trying to prove.

MaxedOutMama said...

That is a wonderful capture of evanescent autumnal beauty. Nice palate cleanser after sullying the morning posts with the Magical Pity Tour.

The Vault Dweller said...

Hmm... when I see the word lolling, I know first think of it in terms of a kind of internet abbreviation gerund of laughing out loud. As in I'm lolling at how my view of lolling has changed because of internet lingo.

Big Mike said...

Under the heading of "now I've heard everything," over in the U.K. A convicted rapist announced that he now self- identified as female so "she" was transferred to serve his, sorry, "her" time in a women's prison. "She" apparently has the full complement of male organs. For some reason the female prisoners are unhappy.

Dust Bunny Queen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ken B said...

Virgil
Roberts links to a Scott Alexander piece. It is brilliant. It is the best thing I have read in ages.
Can also be reached via my blog as I linked it.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Vandals defaced and splattered a statue of noted Confederate general Francis Scott Key with red paint in Baltimore:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-key-statue-painted-20170913-story.html

What was Key's crime besides penning the National Anthem?

As some of us told others here when Ann blogged about the Confederate memorials, this is not about the Confederacy at all. This is about erasing our history.

The American Taliban strikes again.

Michael K said...

Blogger Browndog said...
Judge Considers Defying Trump Over Arpaio Pardon



Thus, constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky has suggested that one way the President’s seemingly unfettered pardon power might be challenged would be for her to refuse to fully recognize it.

The NY Times is not the only place that has gone insane. Chemerinsky has been hard left for years.

These people need their own country. For a Constitution they could use "1984."

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Oh, now I see what Key's sins were:

"Key had a complex record on race. A slave owner, he also donated his legal services to slaves fighting for their freedom under a 1783 law that prohibited slaveholders in other states from bringing them to Maryland, according to “What So Proudly We Hailed,” a 2014 biography by Marc Leepson.

Key is widely believed to have helped spark Washington’s first race riot in 1835 by his overly aggressive prosecution of a young black man accused of trying to attack his white female owner. But he also stood in front of a jail door and faced down a white lynch mob that wanted to hang the suspect, Arthur Bowen."

But the Left doesn't do "complex." If a 18th century figure didn't share the values of SJWs circa 2017, he deserves to be erased from history.

We can all sing "Imagine" before football games instead.

David Baker said...


Drudge: "KASPERSKY Software Ordered Off Gov't Computers..."

I didn't know they were using it. But then I remembered how many government apparatchiks despise America.

And if they think they're going to get Kaspersky's bugs out now...

Andrew said...

RIP Frank Vincent (aka Billy Bass and Phil Leotardo)

brylun said...

Trump to host Schumer and Pelosi for dinner to discuss DACA, health care. Won't the Republicans in Congress wake up and support their own Republican President before it's too late for them?

tim in vermont said...

But he also stood in front of a jail door and faced down a white lynch mob that wanted to hang the suspect, Arthur Bowen."

Atticus Finch, is that you?

wildswan said...

I'm working on a little project where I compare the timeline of events in the Clinton camp on election night as laid out in Shattered with the timeline of reporting on ABC. ABC reporting was led by George Stephanopoulos so I assume he knew what the Clintons knew. For example, by 8:03 Bill Clinton knew Florida was lost. But ABC dragged out calling Florida for Trump for hours after that. One reason is that Clinton's campaign could not accept the results and kept insisting that there were more Democratic votes somewhere in Florida. Moreover, it was evident at once that the "Blue Wall" states would probably follow the Florida turnout model yet the reporting continued to say that the "Blue Wall" would hold. And this reflected the stance of Clinton's campaign managers. But by 10 PM the reporters begin to talk about what the turnout means and they speak of the economic difficulties of the heartland. George Stephanopoulos even says: "Those people have been stuck for a long time." But inside the campaign headquarters there is no understanding of the election. And, though I haven't finished reading and listening, so far it seems that the Hillary and her circle and their inability to understand what happened and their reluctance to acknowledge it became the dominant mode of thinking among Democrats by the next morning. Even though there were plenty of politicians, including Bill Clinton, and reporters, including George Stephanopolulos, who understood the reality, it was Hillary's denial that became the default Democratic position.

If this holds up as I listen and read, then Hillary will run in 2020 because she will have created a Democratic party group-think that accepts her denial of reality. Everyone else will seem out of sync.

Bob Ellison said...

RE: Kaspersky-- why are USA government computers running antivirus software? Do USA government employees download and install stuff on their government computers all the time, in admin mode? What the hell?!

Either someone's incompetent, or someone else is incompetent. Or maybe just the NYT is incompetent. That much is certain, but it's not enough to explain this story.

tim in vermont said...

'm working on a little project where I compare the timeline of events in the Clinton camp on election night as laid out in Shattered with the timeline of reporting on ABC.

You know what else is an interesting time-line? Crowdsource claims to have detected Russian hacking efforts on the DNC, and kicked them out and locked down the servers before the most damaging of the leaked emails were even written. That's why this whole thin gruel Facebook think is the last hope on their part to be hyped.

tim in vermont said...

https://climateaudit.org/2017/09/02/email-dates-in-the-wikileaks-dnc-archive/#more-23335

HoodlumDoodlum said...

UVA Students Shroud Jefferson Statue, Chant Racist & Rapist

Golly I can remember when all the smart nice people here told me "you're stupid, HoodlumDoodlum, this isn't a matter of slippery slopes--those Confederate guys and Confederate war memorials it bothers you to see mobs tear down aren't anything like the statues for, and veneration of, real American heroes. Only stupid racist bigots even bring up such a possible link!"

I remember.

Big Mike said...

@Hoodlum, since the students don't like Mr. Jefferson, I presume they equally despise themselves for attending a college he founded. The administration should help ease their misery by expelling them.

However Theresa Sullivan, worthless on the best day of her life, won't do that.

Big Mike said...

Do USA government employees download and install stuff on their government computers all the time, in admin mode?

They aren't supposed to, however outside of the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies it's close to impossible to fire federal employees for much worse than that.

In the defense contractor I worked for, installing unapproved software was s firing offense (in fact, installing anything yourself was a fireable offense -- a sys admin had to do it for you).

Churchy LaFemme: said...

"Lolling at the Lakeside". Didn't Benny Goodman record that?

walter said...

"The Vault Dweller said...Hmm... when I see the word lolling, I know first think of it in terms of a kind of internet abbreviation gerund of laughing out loud.
--
Right..now prepare your mind to be blown by the slight re-ordering between ROFL and Rolf...ing, if you will.
(insert of smelling salt emoticon)

Josephbleau said...

Sorry to say my user experience on this blog is bad, when I open I get the first article and it can take 10 min for the rest to load. On my iPad forget it. Does anyone else see this or do I have a blog specific isp issue? Thx.

mockturtle said...

I don't have an iPad but I can open the blog and comments fine my android phone.

Joe said...

How far left will Trump have to swing before he loses his base? (And he is swinging left.)

Churchy LaFemme: said...

The callout to "www.bloglines.com" (which has been down since 2015) can cause the page to take a long time before the load spinner quits, but for me the articles load regardless.

It is irritating though, and should be removed.

walter said...

"Think different" and slowly

walter said...

Althouse, being simple text mostly, is one of the least bogged down sites in my experience. Instapundit..inexplicably draggy for what it is.
sorry Glenn!

walter said...

"draggy" meaning apparently a "cookie monster" whenever my PC pulls it up.
I've contacted them about this numerous times..with no response.
Subcontract with NSA?

walter said...

Etienne said...The media keeps sticking Bernie Sanders face on the single-payer option. He's a loser. Get his face off the only plan there is.
All Congress has to do is get rid of the age 65 requirement for Medicare. Poof. Every American (and illegal alien) can join Medicare after a live birth.
Bidda bang, done deal.
--
If you have a strained model that only survives to any degree by way of substantial cost shifting, best to expand it such that where that cost is shifted to is removed.
It really is just that simple..
Poof!

Humperdink said...

"Sorry to say my user experience on this blog is bad, when I open I get the first article and it can take 10 min for the rest to load."

Not me. My iPhone5 downloads this blog just just fine. It's the reason I have my spouse drive the car - I can read this blog while on the road.

Paco Wové said...

Same experience as Unknown4237... spinner spins away while trying to contact www.bloglines.com, but the actual page content loads quickly.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Me too, it may load 95%, but something hangs page rendering completely/usably in Android Chrome. For minutes at a time.

Re: installing Kaspersky and other sw in an enterprise:

1) what user would be motivated to install AV himself, On top of whatever product is in the standard build?
2) and how is this possible? Aren't these PCs locked down? How can anyone BUT an admin do installs?
3) BTW I've read that the free MSFT Defender AV suite is on a Kaspersky engine. Gulp!

rhhardin said...

If the woodpecker audible just now outside my window were sending morse code, it would be at 22 words per minute.

Matching dot speeds with the keyer.

tim in vermont said...

I bet that there will be a lot of jobs in the future for woke protesters, the kinds of jobs that let you settle down and raise a family.

John Nowak said...

>Re: installing Kaspersky and other sw in an enterprise...

The thing is that there is no one rule, nor should there be.

It's like saying all doors must be locked, including the ones to the kitchen cupboards. Some systems need to be locked down, others don't. Some users need admin access to their computers, some don't.

walter said...

Need someone to paint "Impeach" on the bottom of my canoe. (Downtown (E Johnson st))
© craigslist - Map data © OpenStreetMap

(google map)

no pay
My canoe is like a billboard on E Johnson St.

I want to paint Impeach on it and possibly little hand's face. However I'm not skillful when it comes to handwriting/painting and I can just imagine how bad it would look if I did it myself. I'm not looking for a masterpiece, just evenly spaced lettering that is legible. Don't overthink it or sink a ton of time into designing.

Would anyone reasonably talented like to come do this for me? I can't pay anything sorry (seriously, roommate just bailed on me, bad bad). So if your heart is in the game let's do it.

I might have some paint in my basement. Or maybe you can bring a can since we really don't need much at all.

Lastly I'll mention my house is directly between the capitol and scott walker's house. The idea he'll likely drive by it every day makes me happy.

Bad Lieutenant said...

John Nowak said...
>Re: installing Kaspersky and other sw in an enterprise...

The thing is that there is no one rule, nor should there be.

It's like saying all doors must be locked, including the ones to the kitchen cupboards. Some systems need to be locked down, others don't. Some users need admin access to their computers, some don't.

9/14/17, 12:34 PM


Yeah, but in any case this is all handled, however granularly, via GPO/registry. Admin is not enabled by default, you have to get a policy excepton for local admin. You can run some stuff without admin, like MSIs, but not an EXE.

And AV is one thing that should be pretty much monolithic. Who would leave that responsibility to the end user?

(Outside of a lab or whatever, naturally.)


Walter my man! Sounds like a plan! How's red and green sound? I can be right over with some red sodium and copper sulphate.

walter said...

I'm just sharing the opportunity I discovered. But if you and I combine our talents, we might be able to create something very special for this conscientious person.
I am willing to offer you 70% of the proceeds.

Bad Lieutenant said...

But is it your canoe? I wouldn't want to blow up somebody else's property with my binary explosive mixture. (See Red Square, by Martin Cruz Smith.) I was hoping one of the polymaths here would pick it up and comment but no doubt they're all still hard at work.