We are so enjoying the February snows. There had been no occasion to ski until the last few days, so we've been getting out on this familiar trail every day. I'm determined to maintain my skill, which is only at the level called "easy." I don't expect ever to get better at skiing, but am proud of the accomplishment of plateauing, which is something you can do — you should do — when you are old.
Feel free to use this post as a "café" (i.e., an open thread), and remember the old Althouse Portal when you're going to Amazon.
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If Althouse doesn't know it already, February 27th is international Anosmia Awareness Day. (I seem to remember her mentioning that she had that condition.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosmia_Awareness_Day
Plateauing as a goal! I love that. It has just been beautiful the last few days. I have enjoyed telling my Wisconsin friends the Althouse idea that on February 21, which is right around the corner, we will have ended the four darkest months of the year.
"which is something you can do — you should do — when you are old"
Do you figure to still be doing it when you get old? I'm 53, but have been old since I was a teenager. Probably should have taken it up then.
XC ski is a wonderful sport, easy on the joints and a superb cardiovascular workout. Plus that long lyrical swing when you get the right pace, the right wax, the right tracks. Go for it!
I don't think it is that hard to get better than Basic. You can rack up serious distance on those boards...
Well this made my day: CNN prepares for dozens of layoffs. I hope they spare the workers, and lay-off the hideous on-air, overpaid talent, though.
Commentator Michael K referenced the Conservative Treehouse, a great blog by crazy right-wingers, totally on top of the Russian-Hoax investigation.
Here's a very illuminating radio interview of Joe diGenova, who says there are 24 leak investigations going on right now, and the IG Report in 3-4 works is gonna be spectacularly bad for Adam Schiff.
Bay Area Guy: I share your hope but I am doubtful. The overpaid on-air talent has agents and friends and a whole network of influence (how do you think they got the job in the first place?). The $-equivalent FTE's behind the scenes, probably 20:1 or 30:1, are just numbers. Who speaks for them?
The imbalance between fat and muscle will keep growing until the whole thing falls over. IMHO.
I hope they go back to 2012, and find that Obama had Romney spied on as well.
#metoo, Santa Cruz Style
https://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/keeping-up-with-the-countrys-youngest-female-monster-truck-driver
Beautiful photo.
I took a trad xc class after I had been skiing a few years and it really helped.
I also took a skate-ski class but I was too out of shape for that. Fun to skate on trad boards though.
I usually can tell where the x-country skiing photos are taken but this time not so sure. Looks like maybe between the 12th and 13th holes at Odana.
What is a "groomed" trail? Someone is paid to go in a break a trail?
We here in SE NC are enjoying 70 degrees. Golf, riding, maybe the fish will wake up too.
Happy to be away from the snow.
Which only proves, to each his own.
What is a "groomed" trail? Someone is paid to go in a break a trail?
City of Madison maintains them. This way people think they're getting something for their outrageous tax bill.
Latest dose of dossiosity (from Sara Carter):
"Text messages between a pair of controversial FBI agents, [Peter Strzok Stroc and Lisa Page (who was not an FBI agent)] reveal that the couple frequently used their private [Apple] iMessage apps to discuss work and in one case texted about transmitting classified information on the unsecure chat medium, according to the troves of newly released texts last week."
'...A former FBI official, who recently worked on counterintelligence investigations, said “there is no single source reporting in the U.S. government that is unclassified.”
“Single source reporting is the government’s most prized possession that the government has and great lengths are taken to protect single source reporting – most importantly classification and secure handling procedures. For Strzok and Page to be using iMessage to communicate single source reporting is grossly negligent and exceptionally dangerous to that single source.”
“It can’t just be their issued government phones but criminal subpoenas for their personal phones is necessary,” the former FBI official stated.
“They are either hiding information or discussing classified information on an unclassified system they deem to be more secure than their classified system – not from foreign governments but from U.S. oversight,” said another former FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the current nature of their work. “The investigation has to include their personal cell phones and emails, otherwise it would be incomplete.”
https://saraacarter.com/fbi-agents-texts-suggest-use-unsecured-messages-discuss-classified-information/
Targeting Masters of the Universe.
The idea of plateauing is that I’m too old to expect to get to a higher level. So the goal is just not to decline. If I were young that would seem complacent but because I am old it’s equivalent to improving in a youger person. True of skiing and really everything I do.
The trail is at Odana and it is groomed with machines.
It is more fun to break your own trail.
The basic divide between the parties in various forms from 1787-88 until today has been whether the United States should be a federal republic under a common constitution observed by all, or a more or less loose confederation of by now 50-odd banana republics, each going its own way as it might fancy at the moment. (50-odd, since with such a spirit on the loose, a number of states would also have fragmented by now.)
”They are either hiding information or discussing classified information on an unclassified system they deem to be more secure than their classified system – not from foreign governments but from U.S. oversight,”
Just like Hill!
We need to decide whether to be one or the other.
If a single federal republic, then we can sit down and discuss if our laws need revising, and if so, how.
If a mere confederation of independent states, the question is moot.
Unbelievable.
Althouse?
@BJM,
I just saw that & came over here to post it, too.
I'm amazed at just how fucking historically "ignert" these clowns are! Even the ACLU?! How can a bunch of lawyers forget the importance of English Common Law on American Law?
Have they so quickly forgotten Robin Hood & his nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham?
I'm enjoying a great season of downhill and was able to take sons 1 and 2 to Breck for a quick strike at some real mountain skiing. I had been yearning to go back for 38 years. Son 3 and I got a slew of runs in on Sat in SE WI on some of that nice real snow that fell on Friday. I want to be doing this at 75, maybe longer. I just love it!
"The trail is at Odana and it is groomed with machines."
My next door neighbor in New Hampshire groomed his pond for skating. He had something like a Zamboni machine. He also had a warming hut that was a gazebo in summer when the pond was used for swimming. In winter it had big plastic sheets that enclosed the walls.
@YoungHegelian: “I'm amazed at just how fucking historically "ignert" these clowns are!”
Did you see CNN ace reporter Wolf Blitzer on Jeopardy a few years ago? He lost. Bigly. To Andy Richter and actress Dana Delaney. Came in dead last. May even have finished with a negative score. Richter mopped the floor with him. Very embarrassing for Wolf and CNN, too, I thought.
The sheriff of Nottingham was a rather different kind of sheriff. In past times in Norway, there were two different public officials. One, the fogd, corresponding roughly to the sheriff of Nottingham as an officer of the crown, and the lensmann as local official subservient to the fogd and more like an American sheriff.
@MountainMan,
To Andy Richter
Doesn't surprise me. Comics & writers are known as the brightest folks in show biz. Watch an late night talk show for a while & the relative intelligence of the comics comes through loud & clear. Even if Richter can be a jerk politically, you can tell he probably has quite a bit of nerdish intelligence about him.
I said relative intelligence, so, chill, guys.
@Hagar,
And a jury of one's peers means something very different in a modern courtroom in London than it did at Runnymeade. Nevertheless, Sessions' statement is so historically non-controversial that you wonder what planet his accusers live on.
A better example would be quoting the number of times the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 requested a recess so that they might retire to their chambers and consult their Blackstone to see if a proposed paragraph was permissible according to Justice Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England."
Apparently believing three impossible things before breakfast is the new math! Too bad for you pathetic men who can’t do it! And you thought doublethink was hard. I can’t wait for the first airliner built with feminist physics, ladies first to fly on it.
"Sheryl: [to Frank] He started snorting heroin.
Frank: [to Grandpa] You started snorting heroin?
Grandpa: [in response to Frank] I'm old! [To Dwayne] And don't you start taking that shit. When you're young, you're crazy to do that stuff.
Frank: [to Grandpa] Well what about you?
Grandpa: [to Frank] What about me? I'm old! When you're old you're crazy not to do it."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Little_Miss_Sunshine
Personally I think using "snow" and "enjoy" in a sentence is tantamount to the Nazi "Hunter-Hare and Field" test. Or perhaps its Wisconsin equivalent. I can't imagine life in the Great White North My scots blood it far too thin for living north of the McMason McDixon line.
My God, these people are corrupt.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/02/11/former_cia_director_john_brennan_investigated_for_perjury.html
Ann, being in Madison, you must be good at skiing because people in WI ski to work in the winter, just like the Dutch are good at speed skating because they skate to work in the winter on their frozen canals...
https://tinyurl.com/ydfoxxq9
JML - We are born with skis on. (Ouch)
Skiing at Odana was the closest I came to encountering Althouse stardom when I lived in Madison. The iconic TT was in the lot when we arrived but gone when we departed and we didn’t cross paths.
Enjoyment in winter snow by cross-country skiing is analogous to wearing shorts in frigid weather. Once you begin doing something enjoyable in the cold,the cold no longer feels quite so hostile to your body. I took up cross-country skiing just to avoid cabin fever, and have found over the years that my tolerance for cold has increased. I was out this morning in 5 degree weather and enjoyed myself for about 20 minutes on the skis. The anticipation of pleasure banishes the fear of discomfort. You just have to find a pleasure to anticipate, or aspire to enjoy, in various situations. I personally dislike shorts and so would take no pleasure in wearing them, but for others they are an outward sign of inner leisure. Others believe wearing jeans is a sign of inward comfort, to the point jeans become a uniform.
Did you see CNN ace reporter Wolf Blitzer on Jeopardy a few years ago? He lost. Bigly. To Andy Richter and actress Dana Delaney. Came in dead last. May even have finished with a negative score. Richter mopped the floor with him.
Richter was a bright kid who went to University of Illinois before moving to Chicago to get into acting. His best credential is the long time relationship with Conan O'Brien, a Harvard grad and reputed very quick study. Conan does not suffer fools.
Dana Delaney attended Phillips Exeter and Wesleyan. She was a very able student at both of these competitive places.
Blitzer has a MA in International Studies from Hopkins so probably no dummy but he is a plodder who seems to lack a creative flair.
My main point is that Blitzer, perhaps unknowingly, was up against some tough competition not a couple of show biz airheads.
I remember him from when he wrote that bio of Jonathan pollard when he was at the Jerusalem post, it's like there is a brainslugs at cnn.
What do we have here:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/255290/christopher-steele-putin-oleg-deripaska
IIRC, Blitzer missed some fairly easy clues on Jeopardy. And they had dumbed down the show a bit, too. None of them should have had on-camera nerves.
How do deal with lefty trolls. I still think the best policy is ignoring them completely (this applies to right-wing trolls). I don't always follow my own advice, but I mostly do. However, when I don't, I often used exactly this sort of method well described by Zman. A good read.
Thanks Yancey
Harvey Weinstein lawsuit: attorney general says 'we have never seen anything as despicable'
I'd assumed from the radio news item that it was an attorney commenting on the state's action, a rule of law complaint. It turns out to be the the state doubling down.
Jury of your peers.
A "birds gotta fly" program searched through the thesaurus for other possibilities.
The rule was look for a noun ending in -er and then look for a deadjectival verb that matches it. If found, print a synonym for the noun with gotta verb.
The best one was "Patricians gotta pee."
denominal verb
"Do you figure to still be doing it when you get old?"
I am old!
Email addresses and other data associated with roughly 17.5 million accounts on Disqus, a popular online comment hosting service, were exposed as the result of a newly discovered security breach, according to the company.
Disqus recently learned that a database containing five years’ worth of user records was breached, the company said Friday, in turn exposing the email addresses, user names, sign-up dates and last login dates for about 17.5 million registered account
FYI
Speaking of hacks:
In June 2016 Strzok messaged Page to say this about Clinton’s e-mails: “She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the US, including from the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”
The Strzok e-mails continued: “That use included an e-mail exchange with another senior government official while Secretary Clinton was in the territory of such an adversary. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail accounts.” NY Post
Anybody reading the comments of a certain poster who worked in the comms industry on these pages would have known this. Blackberry encryption has been publicly announced to have been broken a couple of times. They have to keep updating it. Who knows what people who don’t brag publicly about breaking encryption have done?
"Well this made my day: CNN prepares for dozens of layoffs. I hope they spare the workers, and lay-off the hideous on-air, overpaid talent, though."
That's nice...in a country in poor shape job-wise and economically--the propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding--expressing good cheer at news of more people about to lose their jobs.
And, yes, of course it will be the workers, and not the overpaid on-air newsreaders.
They could have intercepted her password. Even if it were encrypted, that doesn’t give it the kind of protection that a state actor who is motivated cant overcome. Especially if they have the full text of the email from the receiving end as a kind of Rosetta Stone. People say Trump is an idiot, but my god, Hillary is a clueless dolt.
Not to mention, BTW, that if she only relied on BB encryption, they only had to make a phone call to the NOC to read her email.
That’s nice...in a country in poor shape job-wise and economically--the propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding
I see a lot of propaganda “help wanted” signs around, I must say. RC reminds me of when they brought Soviets to Washington, maybe Kruschev, I don’t remember, and took him to a supermarket, he thought it it was a trick, and they drove him around, letting him tell them where to turn, and pick supermarkets at random, and still they were full.
I guess anything less that “A job is guaranteed to all, but not mandatory” is “poor shape.”
And if the country is in such “poor shape,” why the insistence on bringing in “undocumented” workers, AKA scabs, from out of the country to make the situation even worse?
"And if the country is in such 'poor shape,' why the insistence on bringing in
undocumented” workers, AKA scabs, from out of the country to make the situation even worse?"
I don't know who's insisting on bringing undocumented workers here, but for those who employ them, that's what they prefer, so they can pay slave wages and no payroll taxes, rather than pay living wages to Americans. Such employers are either wealthy families employing undocumented immigrants as maids, nannies, cooks...you know, "the help," or they're farms who need crop-pickers or slaughter-houses who need slaughterers.
To the extent undocumented workers are employed in this country, they are not making the job situation worse for Americans at large. That's the result of automation of work and the transfer of jobs overseas. And the rise of temp employment, "independent contractors," and so on...all scams to help employers avoid providing decent compensation.
They take their politics seriously in Wisconsin.
The parents of a Republican Senate hopeful in Wisconsin have maxed out donations to the primary campaign of the Democrat he hopes to unseat.
Just months after Republican Kevin Nicholson announced his bid to run against incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) in 2018, Nicholson’s own parents donated the legal maximum to Baldwin’s primary campaign, CNN reports.
Speaking of older skiers, that day that I mentioned skiing at Odana was also notable because Jack Heiden passed me. Jack is Eric Heiden's Dad, and was probably 80 at the time.
People say Trump is an idiot, but my god, Hillary is a clueless dolt.
There's no limit on stupidity. One of these clowns is a retired Secretary of State and the other is President.
Robert Cook- the Clinton "News" Network can rot.
A groomed track is faster.
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