March 24, 2019

At the Sunday Night Cafe...

... raise whatever topics you like.

I’m moderating comments, so you might not see much in real time during the night, but it’s a great way to communicate with me on Monday morning as I’m looking for things to blog.

And here’s a place where you can talk about the new comments policy, which I edit out in threads on posts that have specific subject matter.

136 comments:

Ken B said...

Brit Hume had a tweet showing Beto, yesterday. He said that in his opinion and beyond a shadow of a doubt Trump colluded with Russia. Now what interests me is not how stupid this is. It might have been a gamble, to lay down a marker before the facts were known, for blessed is he who believes without evidence. No, what interests me is the blithe belief that “my opinion” can be certain “beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Seriously, who is the anti-intellectual here, Trump or Beto? It's Beto isn’t it? And Beto is not alone, it seems that a lot of people now equate their emotions with proof. I call this process, the conquest of debate by feelings, The Great Stupiding.

JML said...

It was a productive weekend. I located and stopped the leak in my waterfall in my water feature in my patio, and the water is flowing again - much like the tears of the Democrats are once again flowing after the release of the summary of the Miller report.

traditionalguy said...

Where has RBG gone?

Butkus51 said...

food for fodder

You may have seen this, but maybe not. It does seem the young ones get most of their news from Comedy Central these days, along with the late nite tv hosts. I used to work nites so I didnt have to see their daily crap. Literally 20 minutes of hate from Kimmel, Meyers, etc.

This link is one guy outwitting them.

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

Actually, you dont have to approve this link......you can just go with it if you want......or not. Have a great evening.

FIDO said...

Well, Althouse saw fit to 'moderate' my comments re the new moderation policy in the original post about Ben so I will try it here.

There is a difference in moderating because one wants to stop a troll war, one wants to remove 'boring' comments...and one sees fit to put one's thumb on the scale as to what is and is not allowed to be said. What insult is too far. What criticism of a specific party is and is not allowed.

By dabbling in that, Althouse wants to force the conversation in a specific direction which is not in the interest of free speech.

And while I can get behind stopping constant personal attack threads, who is she to determine what is 'boring' when she fin
ds so much boring? Who is she to determine if the leadership of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin actually has some reflection on the current sayings and platform of...the Democratic Party

Well, since she owns the blog, she does...but it is not comforting to discover that the Althousian thumb is on the scale in questionable ways.

Butkus51 said...

I didn't realize the link i sent (although its the exact same content) was uploaded by Tommy Robinson. I meant to send the original, but its exactly the same. The original has maybe 1.2 million looks in 3-4 days. BUt the fact that Tommy Robinson is the uploader may influence people.

Here's the original......sorry bout that.

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

mockturtle said...

DUCKS!!!

Original Mike said...

The new comment policy has changed the dynamic of commenting, whether for good or ill is a matter of opinion. But the concept of the Late Night Cafe has become nonsensical. 'You can talk about anything you want' was the tagline, but no one can talk at all. They've lost their purpose.

mockturtle said...

Tradguy asks: Where has RBG gone?

I suspect she died weeks ago.

traditionalguy said...

Bernie demands that the whole damn Mueller report be released. But that is exactly what The President's men want to happen. Thanks for the help, Bernie.

StephenFearby said...

AA wrote:

"And here’s a place where you can talk about the new comments policy, which I edit out in threads on posts that have specific subject matter."

OK, mine was edited out of your previous post on the summary of the Mueller findings reported by William Barr. At last count 306 comments. Chock a block full of back and forth personal attacks, largely by the usual suspects (who largely refrained from these attacks during the first week of your new moderation policy).

Reminds me of how junior high school students test the new substitute teacher by trying to see how much they can get away.

Back and forth personal attacks either contribute to the topics you post or they demean them.

Your blog, your choice.

traditionalguy said...

The big demand of the political pundits today was that we must now expose and penalyze the Foreign State that attempted to bring down the American Government's Presidential election . Again, theat is exactly whatthe President's men want that to have happen. The British Crown must be exposed and hurt bad.

Ken B said...

FIDO
All thumbs are always uneven when on scales, not just AA's. But that is one reason I dislike the new policy. The other is that it stifles productive or interesting exchanges, because there is no a longer and indeterminate latency.

steve uhr said...

I’m feeling sorry for Olivia Jade. She never wanted to go to college and was a successful vlogger etc. She must feel incredibly embarrassed and ashamed. She trusted her parents. She was 18. I hope she can recover from this and her career will prosper eventually. Similarities to the Michael Jackson victims. Moms don’t always know what’s best

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The whole Mueller kerfuffle brings several questions to mind:

Why are the analysts on TV (even (or especially) legal analysts) so willfully adamantly ignorant of how the Special Counsel operates?

Why are they all surprised by the AG summary letter? That’s what the statute calls for, putting ALL authority in the AG who receives the Report. Maybe I heard this from Levin or Hewitt, but it’s not a SECRET. Why don’t the “experts” know this and tell the viewers on cable News? I can’t listen to them because they are so ignorant and arrogant. WTF!

Are they really so stupid and lazy that they are operating under the assumption this is like the Independent Counsel (created by and reporting to Congress)? If so, at what point will the herd realize who heads the executive branch that created the Special Counsel?

walter said...

In light of recently revealed Beto hi-jinks, an avocado recall has been issued.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The Althouse thumb is on the Althouse mouse. But ah if they somehow mated and created a new creature it would look like Joe Rogan channeling Emo Philips.

Yancey Ward said...

Ms. Althouse,

You might talk about the piece that purports to describe the deal John Roberts made to save the ACA in 2012. It was published a couple of days ago.

Yancey Ward said...

For my purposes, the moderation is both pointless and destructive. One of the good features of immediate posting is that conversations take place in real time, and over multiple comments and replies. Moderation has destroyed this feature of the comments section. Sure, it has eliminated the endless Chuck/Drago feuds, and PeePeeTape has vanished, but those comment threads and particular commenters are ignorable for anyone with an IQ above body temperature.

Just my two cents worth.

eddie willers said...

I'm guessing you were wrong when you first said you could leave moderation "off" on Cafe threads. So my second guess is that you can't make individual threads unmoderated while leaving others moderated. Either the whole blog is in moderate mode or the whole blog is not.

Is that correct?

Lawrence Person said...

The Democratic Party Twitter Primary.

steve uhr said...

Re moderation, it was nice to be able to engage in a substantive back and forth in real time. I miss that.

buster said...

A quote for Trump from P.G. Wodehouse:

"I knew the thing was in the bag. Clean living did the trick. To that I owe my victory."

narciso said...

Interesting

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/work/nsw-election-result-raises-key-question-for-prime-minister-scott-morrison/news-story/c15f67209aff1dbac0e4f5e418b60b38

William said...

I just saw The Favourite. This was a movie about Queen Anne. About time. Lots of movies about Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, and the wives of Henry VIII, but good Queen Anne has been given short shrift. Well, it's a good movie. Very funny. Maybe we'll see more movies about her.......Queen Anne was overweight and no beauty to begin with. Maybe that's why she has been passed over. According to wiki she was no lesbian, but that's how she's depicted in the movie. Maybe in a perverse way, this bit of fake news will give her a little glamour. Those false horse fucking rumours certainly helped to arouse interest in Catherine the Great and keep her legend alive.

narciso said...


https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1104735/brexit-news-theresa-may-brexit-deal-chequers-cabinet-coup-revolt-eu

Gospace said...

Ann's blog.

Ann's rules.

I have no problem with that. She doesn't have to make it a free speech zone. Or, as the case often happened thanks to a few, a redundant and idiotic speech zone.

I just hope it doesn't result in blogger burnout. Moderating the comments is a lot more work than just letting them flow. And AFAIK, none of us pay for the privilege of commenting here.

tim in vermont said...

It’s funny that the same Obama era intelligence directors that spewed so much horse shit on collusion are the. same ones who made the “judgement” that Putin preferred Trump over. Hillary, who actually worked to put in place policies that would greatly benefit Putin.

The tide has gone down and we see that they were swimming naked.

Anonymous said...

If you’re looking for ideas on what to blog today, I’d be interested in your take on the front page of the on-line version of this morning’s New York Times. It features a PowerPoint type pull-out of the sentence about non-exoneration on the obstruction issue. That’s the takeaway?

Monk said...

Fired co-founder of the SPLC, Morris Dees, from The New Yorker, "whether you're selling cakes or causes, it's all the same." And then, co-founder, and friend of Dees, Richard Cohen, steps down to allow a "new generation of leaders" to carry on the organization's work.

Something's amiss...

What's the story? When does the investigation begin? Not likely.

Mr. Groovington said...

The night cafe was a good place to come and read, GMT +7 hours away. Oh well.

rehajm said...

TMZ has RBG! A few photos and video reported to br from last week. She’s vertical but definitely frail, surrounded by allies to keep her vertical should she fall Walking pillows as it were. Of course all the other ‘news’ outlets show file photos demonstrating her vim and vigor.

gadfly said...

They [Barr and Rosenstein after reviewing the Mueller Report for less than two days] didn’t consider whether Trump obstructed the crime that he appears to have obstructed. They considered whether he obstructed a different crime. And having considered whether Trump obstructed the crime he didn’t commit, rather than considering whether he obstructed the crime he did commit, they decided not to charge him with a crime.

Kevin said...

Who has done more to damage the country:

Alex Jones or Rachel Maddow?

InfoWars or the NYT?

Steve King or Adam Schiff?

David Duke or John Brennan?

Kevin said...

What this country needs is an outrageous example of white privilege to help the media take the focus off itself and allow the country to refocus on Donald Trump the white nationalist. I wonder what the media has been holding back for just such an event?

Don Jr’s kindergarten finger painting has got to be floating around somewhere. Look at the relation of the orange stick figure to the black one.

Fen said...

I'm very disturbed by former CNN Director Brennan. Not the attempted coup, that's obviously a betrayal of America and a perversion of CIA's mandate (interfering domestically).

No, what bothers me is the unprofessional and incompetent behavior of the head of the world's most powerful intelligence agency. A 10 year old could have trolled Brennan into losing his shit and throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter. That speaks to a lack of discipline that should disqualify anyone from holding a leadership position.

And Hey! Hello Agent Garcia! Welcome back from maternity leave. I'm doing well, as I'm sure your numerous NSA devices have already informed. Please relay to Sammy my sincerest condolences about his two girls and remind him I was on the west coast in front of a LIVE studio audience at the time of the accident. Tragic. Although I've never understood why you people think you can just fuck with our Liberty and go back to your private lives as if it was all just a game...

I do hope you are not going to play the "many good people at FBI and CIA carrying on" bullshit. While that may work to cool the civilians marks, you and I both know we are supposed to operate under the higher Marine Corps ethical standard that if you see someone doing something wrong and you don't stop them, you are just as guilty as they are. Plausible deniability does not excuse them. Every organization has it's 10% bad apples, they aren't the problem. The problem is the other 90% who look away and do nothing.

Hugs and kisses. And you might start taking metro. Judiciary Square is a bit of a walk but I think you'll find it healthier in the long run.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Love moderation, as I have in the past when it was implemented. The garbage is gone. I don't enjoy sifting through crap, especially repetitive crap. This doesn't need to be a chatroom for the same 5 people day in, day out.

Kevin said...

Everyone who woke up yesterday believing Trump worked with Putin to get elected has two choices today:

A. Realize you’ve been lied to for the last two and a half years by the media, DOJ, intelligence community, and Democrat Party.

B. Go to those same sources this morning to learn “where we go from here”.

The choice they make tells you all you need to know.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

It's mighty difficult to discuss the new comment policy on an open thread at 10:30pm when only 5 comments came through moderation on said thread by 5:30am this morning.

Clare said...

I mostly lurk, but I miss the organic development if the comment thread.

Fen said...

Dear Chuck, Freder and Inga. Perhaps you missed this:

"Trump innocent; Chuck, Freder and Inga hardest hit".

Oh lets give them some rope... Any of you three want to take this opportunity to express your sincere relief that the President of the United States wasn't put into office by Vladimir Putin? 3/24/19, 3:20 PM


12+ hours and all I hear are crickets.

And it's curious that, for all your talk about "Muh Principles", none of you appear to be the least bit concerned that an attempted soft coup was launched against the duly elected President of the United States. How do you square that?

Oh I know, chirp chirp...

I don't want to hear another goddamn thing about your "principles".

BUMBLE BEE said...

Clinton democrats have caused this country tremendous damage. A crime spree beginning in the 90s, (at least), and into the 20 teens. Seth Rich unavailable for comment.

Humperdink said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

The big two chainwheels on my bike wore their teeth down to the point that the chain skips under pressure. I still have two chainwheels that were ordered overstock years and years ago, set of six as I recall; but you don't want to put an old chain on a new chainwheel because it wears it very fast; and you can't put a new chain on an old freewheel because it will skip for the opposite reason, that the teeth are hooked and won't clear an unstretched chain. So it needs new chainwheel, chain and freewheel.

The freewheel from Amazon seems to be a slow post mode, so I don't have it. The new chain has come. Nevertheless the lesser evil is new chainwheel only in the meantime.

I found the crank removal tool, and lo! the crank came off under moderate force; but the pedal on the crank is absolutely frozen. Unusual because I always silicone-grease them when I put them on, but this would have been long ago. Well it was a 20 year old pedal anyway.

I have an usassembled spare bike from decades ago, and one of its pedals fit okay. So it's temporarily back in business, pedals very smoothly; but there's a gap under the chain on the chainwheel owing to its being worn. One hopes it's only a few days until the new chain and freewheel can be installed. Also new pedal to replace the one stolen from the bike box.

The nothing goes smoothly tales.

Interesting fact: chainwheel teeth wear down flatter and flatter; freewheel teeth wear a deeper and deeper hook on the load-bearing surface. The difference has to do with the oncoming chain being slack (freewheel) or under load (chainwheel).

Matt Sablan said...

I'm going to say this. The 300ish posts in the total vindication thread were probably higher quality than the 600 post linkathon and "no you are" we get without moderation. It is a trade off though.

rhhardin said...

and one sees fit to put one's thumb on the scale as to what is and is not allowed to be said.

She apparently doesn't allow a comment on group IQ differences, possibly with the idea that it shouldn't matter. Which is true in almost every case except very common public policy cases, like admission rates for this or that group. They, like it or not, you're measuring group IQ differences and the averages are very different in fact. That's still slightly okay, except the difference you come up with is blamed on discrimination, as if every group in fact had the same IQ. It's a perfect thorn in group relations, one side angry at being discriminated against and the other side angry at being accused of discrimination.

If there weren't group identity, except everybody is an American, you'd just fall in the IQ scale wherever you fall, and good character is much more important anyway, as it's not hard to notice.

But it you start reasoning from what group you're in, there's no solution to any such public policy issue except constant war.

Or bringing up group differences in IQ, so the discrimination charge goes away.

stevew said...

The only things I see missing from the moderated comments are the trolling & insults, and off topic commentary. There's no way for me to know, of course, but I don't perceive a decline in the scope and breadth of the discourse due to the absence of moderated out comments. And I do find the discussions to be quite lively and covering different points of view.

Now, as for this week: what are the odds that the Republicans follow up the Mueller report with investigations into the evidence that the Obama White House and Clinton campaign colluded on spying on Trump's campaign (and people), and manipulated the investigation of the Clinton emails?

Will Schiff for brains plow along with his Trump investigations (witch hunt) as if nothing changed this weekend?

rehajm said...

Since 2016, equity markets in the United States are up dramatically compared to the rest of the world. Using standards deveoped under the previous President Trump deserves extraordinary amounts of credit given the global economic and political mess he inherited...and he isn’t finished yet.

Hagar said...

Russia (!) has sent a military contingent to Venezuela.
This is certainly a challenge to the U.S., but was it Maduro or Castro that asked for it?
Or just getting in ahead of the Chinese, who are there with "civilians" that may have caused much of Washington's recent concern with the Venezuelan people's welfare?

Ralph L said...

I haven't see any discussion about whether a President can commit legal obstruction of his own Justice Department. Stopping an investigation or firing a subordinate could be political crimes, IMO, not legal ones. Nixon could legally fire Cox, but he paid a high political price for it.

Clinton tried to thwart a civil proceeding, which is a different act.

Anonymous said...

I think commenters who complain about moderation should see the obvious solution. They should spend the money required to host their own site, fill it with educated, intelligent, and witty commentary, and build a huge following. Then they can say anything they want without fear of censorship.

If you complain that someone who has accomplished all of that should let you spout off whatever you choose on their site, are you not merely an ungrateful parasite?

exhelodrvr1 said...

Great segment on the Mueller:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/24/mollie_hemingway_vs_philippe_reines_on_mueller_its_important_to_understand_philippe_its_over.html

Anonymous said...

Simple. For commenting, use Gab Dissenter.

Ann Althouse said...

"There is a difference in moderating because one wants to stop a troll war, one wants to remove 'boring' comments...and one sees fit to put one's thumb on the scale as to what is and is not allowed to be said. What insult is too far. What criticism of a specific party is and is not allowed."

It's a subjective judgment call that I have to make. Mean attacks on an individual are a hard category but I am developing my standard as I go along. Relevant factors: sticking to the topic that was raised in the post, contributing value along with whatever insult you chose to include, use of epithets or offensive subject matter in the insults (such as insults relating to race or sexual orientation), how much of a public figure your target is, whether you're attacking my friends or family, whether you've got other comments in the same thread and it's getting repetitive, whether you generally have a good reputation as a commenter in my opinion, etc.

As for rh's topic, race and IQ, this is something he's said very, very often and he drops it into discussions when it's not the topic of the post as if it's just cute to say it one more time, for the needling effect. It's a distraction, it's offensive, and I think it's intended to be. RH is a great commenter, partly because he does tend to come in laterally and to repeat themes and because he intends to be annoying or aggravating. I'm just not going to allow 100% of his efforts go onto my page. He can see what doesn't make it and he can choose to do those things knowing that it's only going to be a private message to me or he can stop offering that kind of material. Nothing prevents him from running a blog about the average IQ of various demographic groups. I'll suggest that he try that and open it up to free-for-all comments. Let him get readers and see what happens. What do you think would happen? Who'd populate his "cafe"? A really shitty class of people, I'll bet.

daskol said...

buster said...
A quote for Trump from P.G. Wodehouse:

"I knew the thing was in the bag. Clean living did the trick. To that I owe my victory."


Wisdom. Trump does his deceased alcoholic brother Fred proud.

Meade said...

eddie willers said...
Is that correct?

Yes, unfortunately.

exhelodrvr1 said...

I suggest you go back to comments appearing instantly, but continue moderating by deleting those comments that don't fit the desired profile. That will allow for instant discussion, while also keeping the threads clean of garbage overall. The downside would be the references to comments that have been deleted, but it would seem that the benefits of immediate postings would be greater than that.

Ann Althouse said...

Just calling other people stupid is low-quality commenting.

Calling classes of people low-IQ is also low quality (unless that's the topic of the post, which it wouldn't be unless there were some new study or significant controversy).

It's ironic that someone interested in IQ and apparently proud of his own intelligence has IQ and race as his person bugaboo, but I've known a lot of very smart individuals, and they all have their own stupidities.

One reason I see IQ as a bugaboo for most people who like to talk about it is that it's just one number, and that number doesn't show the individual's strengths and weaknesses. In real life, weaknesses in a strong person cause a lot of trouble, and these people can have too much pride and confidence to do what they should to keep from causing damage.

Extremely smart people can be unusually stupid about their stupidities.

rhhardin said...

It's a distraction, it's offensive, and I think it's intended to be.

If you're talking about Asian admissions to universities, it matters which Asians you're talking about. Admission tests measure group IQ if you break them out by group, and you're left dealing with the facts you don't want to deal with.

The policy itself creates the problem. It's a public policy thorn. Recognizing what you're in fact talking about without talking about it is important.

My own view is that IQ differences don't matter. Everything goes on good character. But in real life you don't give standardized tests to your friends and rank them, as universities and various job tests do.

Kevin said...

With moderation the cafes become a holding place for what everyone was thinking last night, without regard to what everyone else was thinking.

I’ll bet the topics are more varied and the writing less slanted to fit an ongoing discussion.

Reading it is like opening your presents the next morning.

tim maguire said...

I'm keeping an open mind about the comment policy. I can see the motivation--flame wars are boring and good comments get buried. We can't seem to resist responding to trolls so the prof. has to destroy the comment section in order to save it.

On the other hand, the immediacy is gone when I can't see my post right after I make it. The back and forth suffers. I often will not respond to a comment if my response isn't within 10 or 15 posts of the comment I am responding to, but under the current system, you can't always tell. It also seems like a lot of work and while I know this part is none of my business, I worry about Althouse burnout. I've been reading for a long time and I hope to continue reading for a long time.

I like Original Mike's suggestion to keep the cafes a free-for-all. It would maintain the intimacy of the cafe while also providing comparison between the two systems.

Meade said...

"Chock a block full of back and forth personal attacks, largely by the usual suspects (who largely refrained from these attacks during the first week of your new moderation policy)."

My advice to fellow commenters is to take care of your own reputation with the blogger. Reading and deleting bad comments was very time consuming for the blogger. Holding in moderation and then putting through only the worthy comments is very quick and easy. Commenter names are quickly scanned and those with bad reps can be easily weeded out.

tim in vermont said...

I have been commenting a lot in the past three days because I have been sick in bed mostly watching movies. Hey, I lost five pounds! Before that for a week, I was commenting very little because I was traveling a great deal. This commenting a lot phase has made me actually like the new format more. I like the restraint imposed, I try to say to myself “Does this comment have any value?” and stay out of the back and forth. Obviously the Mueller report thread was a huge temptation to fall back into that, and I wasn’t perfect in that regard; I agree that the resulting thread was better. It just seems like a lot of work for MeadeHouse.

Oh, and you have to be sure to use preview or when your comment finally does get published, D’Oh!

Kevin said...

The point of the special counsel is not to give someone a huge amount of investigative power such that all kinds of paths can be followed later and all kinds of insinuations can be substantiated forever.

The point is someone trusted with a huge amount of investigative power looks into the situation and follows the law so we can all shut our yaps about it and move on.

America is great when we can leave the past behind and build a better future - together.

Ironically, that doesn’t seem to be the intention of the MoveOn, Forward!, and Progressive Party.

Ann Althouse said...

I'll say it again: I don't have the option to open the comments for only one post. The only option other than on or off that I have is that I can leave it off for 1 day (or other number of days) and on for all the rest.

I have adapted to this limitation, and I'm sort of sorry I can't do it to keep the old cafe tradition going, but on the other hand, I am glad to have completely blocked a small handful of really bad trolls.

Maybe I just shouldn't put up cafes, if it makes you feel bad that they don't mean the conversation flows all night.

But they do serve a different purpose, creating a place where you can put things that wouldn't be allowed in other posts because they'd be off topic. If you care about this blog and understand the position I'm in and want to support me, you will adapt and use the new cafés in a way that would be good. That would mean not continuing to say the new cafés are not like the old cafés and you don't like it but finding new ways to make this good.

In real life, limitations can be opportunities that bring out your ingenuity and vigor. For some people. For others, they never stop feeling bad and complaining.

Be best!

michaele said...

I like the new moderated comments policy. I found the back and forth insult spats boring and predictable. You have some commenters who are real gems...ranging from pithy and snarkily funny to insightful and very interesting. It's nice not to have to wade through the junk. I know it takes a lot of time to do the culling and I appreciate the effort that you and Meade are putting into it. I will understand if, at some point, you decide it's not worth your time.

FIDO said...

Althouse said:
It's a subjective judgment call that I have to make.

That is the difference between cutting out a couple of tumors or giving chemo to make the entire body commentariat 'less well'.

You made your choice and that is that. And in as far as the flame wars have diminished, good for you! Not so missed. As far as lacking the vis vitae of the original style, the humor and banter is lacking, well, we will all need to make an assessment of what is gained vs what is lost.

Re: Ben 'He's Such A Nice Boy' Whatshisname from Partisan Democratic Hit Organization.

My company is dispersed and offers telephone 'meetings' where everyone is supposed to be able to chime in.

The very first meeting, the vast majority of people wanted to talk about the low pay. 'We aren't talking about that' management said.

What do you think attendance has been since that first meeting?

So in the case of Ben from Wisconsin, you blew it badly initially and finally bent to the inevitable.

So here is to improving.

rhhardin said...

Of various people I've mentored, the goal was always to find something they can do and show how it's fun and interesting. (Programming jobs)

It wasn't by race or sex though. With email and Asian names you don't even know sex.

iowan2 said...

msdnc now. Barr and Rosenstein are both full participants in a coverup. Nichole Wallace

Ralph L said...

but it’s a great way to communicate with me on Monday morning as I’m looking for things to blog.

That's easily interpreted as asking for suggestions, or rather I did so after staying up all night. As you tossed my suggestion, I guess I was wrong.

Ann Althouse said...

"I have been commenting a lot in the past three days because I have been sick in bed mostly watching movies. Hey, I lost five pounds!"

Congratulations.

"Before that for a week, I was commenting very little because I was traveling a great deal. This commenting a lot phase has made me actually like the new format more. I like the restraint imposed, I try to say to myself “Does this comment have any value?” and stay out of the back and forth. Obviously the Mueller report thread was a huge temptation to fall back into that, and I wasn’t perfect in that regard; I agree that the resulting thread was better."

Excellent.

"It just seems like a lot of work for MeadeHouse."

It is less work. Let that sink in. Imagine what was work about the old system. There was a lot of it, and the blog was continually getting messed up by people who mostly knew what they were doing and who did not respond to repeated requests and demands to change what they were doing. The work now is different work. It's still a lot of work. And by the way, I am doing it all myself now. So don't imagine that Meade is doing it. He's not.

Quaestor said...

I just saw The Favourite.

The only movie treatment of Anne that I'm aware of was a cameo sequence in Yellowbeard, a rather uneven last outing for Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. The film was a broad parody of classic swashbucklers like Captain Blood, The Black Swan. Director Mel Damski cast the inimitable Peter Bull (famous as Reverend Thwackem in Tom Jones, and the German captain of the SMS Königin Luise who marries Mr. Allnut and Miss Sayer just before hanging them in The African Queen) in a drag role as the Good Queen. He also cast Susanna York as Lady Churchill, who tries to keep the gin-soaked monarch on an even keel.

Worth a look. Marty Feldman died while the movie was in production so a stunt double filled in for him for about three seconds. Do watch it! Yellowbeard has its moments, especially the moments involving Second Officer Mister Prostitute.

tim maguire said...

Ann Althouse said...I'll say it again: I don't have the option to open the comments for only one post.

Rats.

Jersey Fled said...

This whole "Barr only reviewed the report for two days" thing I just more BS. Mueller reported to Rosenstein and Rosenstein reported to Barr. It's safe to assume that both were getting updates on a regular basis, Rosenstein over many months and Barr over several weeks. They knew what it's main conclusions were long before last Friday.

Ann Althouse said...

"That's easily interpreted as asking for suggestions, or rather I did so after staying up all night. As you tossed my suggestion, I guess I was wrong."

I don't remember what your comment was, but you must have violated one of the standards that apply even when there is not topic limitation.

In any case, submitting a comment does work as a way to write to me, whether I put it up for others to read or not.

Remember, I care about the experience for readers, and keeping some things out should make the thread more readable.

Laslo Spatula said...

"What do you think would happen? Who'd populate his "cafe"? A really shitty class of people, I'll bet."

So: the hypothetical people who might find his subjects interesting would most likely be a "shitty class of people"?

And any reply he makes to this here must go through your moderation?

Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well-read, it's well-known
But something is happening here and you don't know what it is
Do you, ___________?

I am Laslo.

daskol said...

John Brennan was on Morning Joe briefly, looking abashed and expressing moderate contrition, mouthing the platitude he needed to: it's a good think the president turned out not to be a Russian spy, and confirming that, yes, he may have had some bad info and made more of things than they turned out to be. Very brief appearance. From the look on his face--turd sandwich apparently tastes as good as it sounds--he'd have appreciated someone moderating his comments over the last couple of years.

Kevin said...

The cognitive dissonance on CNN and MSNBC is strong today.

Didn’t they watch Scarface?

Don’t get high on your own supply.

daskol said...

Just rewound and rewatched: I'm no CIA-trained spymaster, but he didn't just look miserable. Brennan looked scared. Good. And it was such a strange, brief interview: one question, to let Brennan clear the air. Had the feel of a request for leniency, although that's probably reading too much into it.

Ann Althouse said...

"I like the new moderated comments policy. I found the back and forth insult spats boring and predictable. You have some commenters who are real gems...ranging from pithy and snarkily funny to insightful and very interesting. It's nice not to have to wade through the junk. I know it takes a lot of time to do the culling and I appreciate the effort that you and Meade are putting into it. I will understand if, at some point, you decide it's not worth your time."

Thanks.

First, it's just me doing the moderation now. So don't imagine that I have help. I don't.

Second, help me. If people don't submit off-topic comments and so forth, there's less work.

Third, the system is working very well to limit submissions of the kind of things I won't put through. It's pretty easy for me to see robotic spam. It's completely easy for me to find the troll names I know and keep out. And back and forth low quality stuff can't happen. There are many continual benefits to the system with moderation.

Fourth, I recommend appreciating what is good about it and dealing with the limitations. In blog commenting and in life.

Ralph L said...

Perhaps a Cafe thread earlier in the day would suffice, when you still have energy and time to let our gems through and the others can riff off them all night.

I'm surprised to see so many new names (presumably new people).

exhelodrvr1 said...

Something that is not being discussed enough, especially at this point, is why the Obama WHite House and the DOJ/FBI/CIA under his administration apparently did NOTHING to stop the Russian interference that they (by their own admission) knew was happening.

Henry said...

I'm a fan of the new moderation policy and would encourage more of it.

Tank said...

On balance, and there is a balancing to be made, I like the new system better. The loss of immediacy is more than made up for by the absence of so much name calling, personal attacks and other nonsense.

Bob Boyd said...

I am doing it all myself now. So don't imagine that Meade is doing it. He's not.

Fuckin' Meade...

Tommy Duncan said...

"Discuss"

"Talk all night"

Don't those actions require immediacy? I appreciate the fact that the comments are now more pertinent and less divisive. Obviously, the conversational aspect has been lost. The threads have become sterile and abstract (which may please the academics among us).

Lewis Wetzel said...

Althouse wrote: In real life, weaknesses in a strong person cause a lot of trouble, and these people can have too much pride and confidence to do what they should to keep from causing damage.

You could be talking about SATAN!! Lol.

HT said...

March is National Kidney month, if you didn't know. In honor of that, I am posting a link about a man with T2D in Sweden who reversed his kidney function decline with a low carbohydrate diet and losing weight. What about insulin, you ask? Yes, he did that, and brought his A1C down to 7% from 9. Good, right? Yes, but he still had reduced kidney function - "an almost normalised HbA1c in the years following the commencement of insulin treatment had no effect on the decline then [of kidney function]."

Combining glycemic control with weight loss was what did it, and he lost weight via the low carb diet (and eventually discontinuing insulin, which makes people hungrier).

"the rise of bodyweight exposes the patient to the risk of obesity-associated renal failure....The etiology may be ascribed to the fact that adipose tissue is a source of hormones including angiotensinogen, renin and leptin that may well influence renal function and BP"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523335/

narciso said...

The democratic party today is as crazy as the phase 4 labour party in the 80s, you can read rushdie drabble amis were all insane about Thatcher. Michael foot a leading figure was actually a Soviet agent and Tony Benn a useful idiot

Birkel said...

Don't care if this gets published. It's more a private note.

Althouse, do whatever you prefer.
No other opinion truly matters.
Anybody who has read you as long as I have trusts you.
You have earned respect.
Thanks!

narciso said...

The short answer is the crowdstrike derived analytics would not hold up under scrutiny

narciso said...

Corbyn was paid the stb (Czech security service)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/15/labour-figures-slam-claim-that-michael-foot-was-paid-by-soviets

iowan2 said...

Thanks to our Host for expanded explanation on the moderation. Some have mentioned that the Release of the Mueller, post was an example of a post that would be better un-moderated. I disagree emphatically. Everything that could have been said was said. 325 comments. All, good to great in quality. My opinion, by the time 300 comments have been reached, the topic is 100% dissected. Any one that cares has had ample time to weigh in. Moderation has given me the incentive to read all the comments, because I trust our Hosts to leave all the comments, regardless of the view presented, and strip out the cacophony of clueless invective and attempted score settling. I don't have to sort by ID or speed read as I scroll. (I tend to linger on longer posts because I assume length=critical thought.)
I now agree the lack of immediacy is an extremely inconsequential sacrifice, for the gain of probably, the absolutely best group of 300+ comments that can be found in any source on the entire internet. Lots have said the moderation has stifled some of our wittiest more inciteful commentators. I would counter that opinion, with the observation that removing the chafe, makes those exceptional kernels of thought much easier to find.

Henry said...

In real life, limitations can be opportunities that bring out your ingenuity and vigor.

Posting to the topic is a different way of thinking than posting to another poster.

One kind of back-and-forth still happens: you reply to someone and wait for a response. It's an intermittent conversation with minimal expectation. The other kind of response, the end-of-the-thread face-slapping competition, is almost automatically eliminated.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So apparently there is no collusion by Meade.

AH, but has he been exonerated?!

Kay said...

Scott Walker — the other Scott Walker, the singer —died today at age 76.

walter said...

Hey Gadfly, (and Inga)
Enough with turning full paragraphs + into highlighted hyperlinks.
That is if you want folks to read the paragraph.

FIDO said...

If I would make a suggestion: since cafes need to be moderated (and I don't think we knew the limitations of the platform, so thanks for that), do the cafes in the morning. You get off beat topics you might want to follow up on and we get more immediacy in the comments section instead of waiting the 8 hours for you to wake up.

I would submit that occasionally 'those people' might have something that is NOT trollish back and forth. So take a moment to go be them the benefit of the doubt.

And just to note: some of those 'shitty people' who are interested in IQ distribution and cognitive differences between different populations are called 'scientists', Madam Althouse.

The Smug was Strong in that comment.

etbass said...

Ditto on Iowan2.

Ralph L said...

Well, he isn't the ex one. Don't want to know about ex rated.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

I like the new moderation despite numerous the personal insults that still are being directed toward myself. I choose not to respond, so don’t include me in any instances of supposed back and forths that are still occurring.

chillblaine said...

Health post. I'm fortunate to have normal blood pressure, considering that my father and brother both have hypertension. I found this supplement by grace, I believe, because my tenant left the bottle in their bathroom drawer. It's CGA, chlorogenic acid, and I check into it. It's been studied, by the CGA manufacturers themselves, and found to have a statistically significant effect on lowering both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

The study was discounted by reviewers because it was conducted on Asian populations. Ok, it turns out that this compound can be found in bamboo! CGA is like an enzyme, and it helps break down alpha-linolenic acid, which is a plant-based Omega-3. Do your own research, and if you like, check out my video entitled, "Chlorogenic Acid" which don't cost nothing. Later fam.

mockturtle said...

Fen@5:23: Great post. And the observation, "Every organization has it's 10% bad apples, they aren't the problem. The problem is the other 90% who look away and do nothing.", would apply to a far broader field than just organizations.

FIDO said...

Off topic: intermittent fasting has had me drop a pound a week.

If I ate better and cut my drinking to zero, I would lose more faster.

If losing weight interests you, or you need to deal with diabetes, read Jason Fung on the issue.

His book is available through that Althouse Web Portal. Just saying

Meade said...

"Fuckin' Meade..."

"So apparently there is no collusion by Meade.
AH, but has he been exonerated?!"

Yes! Completely exonerated. All my burdens have been lifted. I have crossed the River Wabash.

mockturtle said...

Althouse observes: One reason I see IQ as a bugaboo for most people who like to talk about it is that it's just one number, and that number doesn't show the individual's strengths and weaknesses. In real life, weaknesses in a strong person cause a lot of trouble, and these people can have too much pride and confidence to do what they should to keep from causing damage.

Extremely smart people can be unusually stupid about their stupidities.


So true! Intelligence ≠ wisdom. And unintelligent folk often have other, sometimes more valuable, traits.

chillblaine said...

I will add parenthetically that I've moved to Idaho, one reason being, to get away from the California cannabis culture. I just think that if you have an existing mental health issue, taking THC will not help you, and will likely worsen your issue. But! They do sell CBD here at retail stores, and I'm taking this for physical regeneration. Very promising, based on my personal results, and on my noticing CBD studies.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Fed
Indeed.

Brennen is a complete embarrassment and a total fraud.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

ALL of the current crops of frauds gracing CNN and MSDNC - they were all going to rake in the mega bucks during Hillary Clinton's corrupt reign.

Brennan included.

Michael K said...

Michael foot a leading figure was actually a Soviet agent and Tony Benn a useful idiot

It does make me wonder if Putin did have a candidate in 2016. Just not the one Mueller thought.

Henry said...

Birkel @7:55AM -- Nice note. It's almost poetry. I add a +1 to it.

William said...

Further reflections on Queen Anne and the uses of fake news. So far as is known, she wasn't a lesbian, but, if you wish to dramatize a story about who she chose to massage her gouty legs, such a subtext adds a fillip of interest......Shakespeare's history plays weren't fair and balanced. He did an especially malicious job on Richard III. The good news for Richard is that Shakespeare created one of the great villains in literature and thus kept interest in Richard alive. Richard III was an extremely minor king but because of Shakespeare's slanders historians are always writing nice things about him. Otherwise he would have gone the way of Ethelred the Ready..........Perhaps by exaggerating Queen Anne's flaws, she may be rescued from the dustbin of history. In order to revise the reputation of Queen Anne, it is first necessary to give her a reputation........Maybe Trump is benefiting from the Richard III rebound effect. The stories told about him are so patently false and malicious that people take an interest in him and note his achievements.

Hagar said...

About rh and his IQ obsession.

I suppose he got this 86% bit from a "study" of one of these tests or exams involving filling in little ovals with a #2 pencil, which is more of a test of what has been absorbed from the American public school system in particular than a neutral IQ test. Hence the change in name to "Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).
This is more of an indictment of the abysmal failure of the U.S. public school establishment to educate its pupils, and particularly in majority Black neighborhoods. You are not going to get much interest in excelling on such tests from students who are consistently told that their good scores are not going to matter anyway, and no cooperation at all from those who are into the current "acting 'white'" is a betrayal of the race thing.
The IQ testing and interpretations are more about cultural attitudes on both, or all, sides rather than about innate characteristics.

It should also be noted that there are no common definition of what constitutes "intelligence," which makes it a bit difficult to measure small differences, if any, within a rather large range of "normal" scores on such tests.

Personally, I have not noticed any much difference in "what we all know" is meant by the word intelligence between the individuals I have met of whatever coloration or ethnic or national background, and I think I will continue to go by my "lying eyes" rather than rh's "study" on that one.

As for deleting rh's posts, well, there is some saying about "that which you are not allowed to criticize."

Anonymous said...

It's ironic that someone interested in IQ and apparently proud of his own intelligence has IQ and race as his person bugaboo, but I've known a lot of very smart individuals, and they all have their own stupidities.

Ironic, why?

At any rate this a gross misreading of rh. What you have to say on the topic is the standard strawman stuff from people who are irked or disturbed by (and usually uninformed about) it. I don't know any people interested in the topic who need to be lectured on the stupidities of intelligent people, or why IQ isn't everything. These "shitty people" (see below) tend to cover those topics very smartly themselves.

Let him get readers and see what happens. What do you think would happen? Who'd populate his "cafe"? A really shitty class of people, I'll bet.

If you trawled the internet for people discussing group differences in IQ, you'd get the same range of quality of commentary as for any other topic - idiots, shitty idiots, and people who know what they're talking about. On the higher quality side of the range, it's very good indeed.

The topic has enormous implications for policy and civic life in a society heavily invested in "equality". If this doesn't interest you, fine. So, just leave it alone, and reject comments discussing it. Why the need to get in your own uninformed and tendentious licks on a subject you don't want discussed here?

At best, when it's come up, you've dismissed it with the standard vaporing about "we must judge people as individuals!" - which neither rh or anybody else disagrees with, and which glibly ignores how much existing policy revolves around the belief that group differences in outcome are the result of nothing but the (remediable by extreme and intrusive social engineering) bone-deep character failings of a particular group of citizens of one particular race.

I certainly find that interesting (and disturbing), but different strokes, etc. But the conviction that the topic can only attract "low-quality", nay, "shitty" commentary from low-quality, shitty people...that strikes me as a low-quality, shitty thing to say.

I do agree that our rh can get a bit repetitive on his favorite topics, and you would understandably delete when he gets on a roll. But he doesn't strike me as being any "proud[er] of his own intelligence" than you are of yours.

narciso said...

How goes it in capetown is it?

mockturtle said...

Otherwise he would have gone the way of Ethelred the Ready.

I've read of Ethelred the Unready. Was there really an Ethelred the Ready?

Ann Althouse said...

"And just to note: some of those 'shitty people' who are interested in IQ distribution and cognitive differences between different populations are called 'scientists', Madam Althouse."

Yes, but are these scientists people who would hang out in the comments section of the blog I am describing? I think not. Such a blog comments section, if left open and unmoderated, would, if it collected a sizable group, fill up with racists and white supremacists and anyone decent would get the hell out. That's my prediction that is embodied in the chosen phrase, "shitty people."

Yancey Ward said...

exhelodrvr1 asked...

"Something that is not being discussed enough, especially at this point, is why the Obama WHite House and the DOJ/FBI/CIA under his administration apparently did NOTHING to stop the Russian interference that they (by their own admission) knew was happening"

Narciso mentions one thing above, and I agree with the idea in a more general way- they didn't do anything because what they were claiming they saw didn't actually exist in any measurable way.

One of the things we would likely learn if the entire Mueller report were released is this- that the evidence, that the Russians were the ones that gave Wikileaks the material they published, doesn't actually exist. Mueller's team was relying CrowdStrike's claims about the DNC hack. In addition, Mueller was also relying the Guccifer 2.0 being a Russian agent in a circular proof of Russian involvement, but there is abundant circumstantial evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was created by someone working for the DNC as a way to make it look like the DNC was hacked by the Russian government.

There is an investigation to be done here, but it is likely that all the DNC servers were bleachbitted and hammered sometime around July of 2016, so we will probably never know based on physical evidence.

Henry said...

The IQ comment is always the same comment. It's always a catch-all with little pertinence to the details of the topic at hand. If it fails to land in the the shitty box is certainly lands in the boring one.

J. Farmer said...

I was ambivalent about the commenting changes when first announced. Ann is of course free to make and enforce commenting rules however she sees fit. It's her blog. And I agree that the long back and forth bickering clutters up the comments. I've been guilty of indulging it on occasion myself. That said, my favorite part has always been engaging with other commenters over issues I enjoy debating. While it's still possible, the new format makes it much more difficult. Mostly because of the erratic schedule in which large chunks of comments appear all at once. So in short, I remain ambivalent. But I am hanging in there. But I wonder about how long Ann will be able to. Having to read and approve each comment seems like it would get very tedious very fast.

Hagar said...

In the current scandal about very rich parents bribing college admissions officials to admit their children to "prestige" schools, it is notable that these parents - and certainly not the children - expect the children to get a superior education at these schools - if indeed any "education" at all.
It is all about admission to a select circle - who you know rather than what, or what you can do with what you know.

This is also striking in all the exhortations about "study hard" and "be the first in your family to go to college," etc. They never mention what to study or what to with it.

Hagar said...

Ethelred the Unready is a mis-translation from Old English or Norseand rather meaningless. Ethelred ("Noble ruler") Redeless (has no good rules/solutions"), so Ethelred the Hapless is a better translation. The guy just could not do anything right and whatever policy he tried, it made matters worse.

Fen said...

"former CNN Director Brennan"

Typo. But probably more accurate.

chillblaine said...

It must still be Winter in Madison, because there are a lot of snowflakes. So, discussion of mean differences in group IQ is hateful? Am I to assume that I'm not REALLY very smart, even though my mother was a brilliant woman, with Scotch, English and German bloodlines, and my father was Ashkenazi? Well, we have a lot of individuals in this country who will never be employable, and now we're talking about just giving them a stipend. If the solution is to just not talk about it, a lot of people are going to be inconvenienced by the very real research, found in hundreds of alleles, wherein there is such a thing. I'm not smart just because my parents were; they also modeled decent behavior (rein in that kid's impulsivity) and made sure I got the right education. It's sad that there are people out there who weren't bestowed gifts, but waving all discussion away as the province of racists is weak and unsupportable.

rhhardin said...

"The IQ literature reveals what nobody would want to be the case"

Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF8F7tjmy_U

Mentioned because they're not racists and positively don't like the result.

My point is not to regret it but to see its structural effect on what policies will work and what policies will make things worse.

The killer making things worse policy is outcome-based discrimination tests.

narciso said...

Well Shakespeare was relying on Thomas morton known Tudor hagiogra0her, queen Anne seems to be based on churchill's distant ancestor

Anonymous said...

Yes, but are these scientists people who would hang out in the comments section of the blog I am describing? I think not. Such a blog comments section, if left open and unmoderated, would, if it collected a sizable group, fill up with racists and white supremacists and anyone decent would get the hell out. That's my prediction that is embodied in the chosen phrase, "shitty people."

The use of the phrase "white supremacist" is usually a good indicator that the speaker's exposure to "people who study or discuss group differences" is third-hand info heavily mediated by such organs as the NYT (where people like Razib Khan qualify as "racists" and - lol - probably even "white supremacists").

What do you mean by those terms? I ask, because more often than not the definition of these terms among what you call "decent" people is strictly circular: "people who think group differences are real and have a significant genetic component are racists and white supremacists because they think group differences are real and have a significant genetic component".

"West Hunter" is a popular blog that fits your description. Is Greg Cochran a "racist" and a "white supremacist" by your lights? Are his commenters "shitty people"? If so, why? Genuinely curious.

I've hung around a lot in the "hbd-sphere" over the years, and maybe I've self-selected for the classier joints, but I've yet to run across a "white supremacist". ("White supremacist" to a "decent" person: a white person who believes that East Asians have a higher mean IQ than whites and that this is genetic.)

But if "white supremacists" were to pour out from under the "anti-racist" beds where the reside to post on such a blog, they could be easily controlled by moderation, no?

Fernandinande said...

One reason I see IQ as a bugaboo for most people who like to talk about it is that it's just one number, and that number doesn't show the individual's strengths and weaknesses.

Actually, to a very large extent in modern societies, IQ does show an individual's strengths and weaknesses, and far more so for groups of people. Peruse the titles at the link above, especially those about emotional liberal resistence to IQ research and its findings.

That one number really can tell a lot about a given individual, and far more about groups of people, isn't false because people don't like it.

Fen said...

...this a gross misreading of rh. What you have to say on the topic is the standard strawman stuff from people who are irked or disturbed by (and usually uninformed about) it. I don't know any people interested in the topic who need to be lectured on the stupidities of intelligent people, or why IQ isn't everything

I find that the people who approach the topic as "taboo" tend to be closeted liberal racists hypersensitive to virtue signal how "woke" they are about race.

They also jump to the assumption that disparities in IQ amoung races somehow implies that minorities are "subhuman" or somesuch, and that intelligence is the predominant factor determining a human's worth. Which says more about their own racism than anyone elses.

There are differences amoung races. Just as there are between sexes. Denying that is just as silly as those people who think it fair for trans boys to steal athletic scholarships from girls because "there is no difference between a man and woman. As for worth, does anyone seriously believe that women are "lesser" because none of them can beat John McEnroe at tennis? So why do they worry that discussion of IQ will lead to discrimination?

I had the privilege of being in a culture (USMC) where the color of your skin was of no more importance than the color of your hair. I was probably the most intelligent out of my battalion of 600. But I would take one of them over a dozen law professors. I think smart people overvalue intelligence, likely because it gives them opportunity to feel superior.
.

The topic has enormous implications for policy and civic life in a society heavily invested in "equality

Yup. Jordan Peterson has walked me away from the Republican "everyone can pull themselves up" philosophy, because 1 in 10 people simply don't have the cognitive ability to do that. Which means we have to put a safety net in place.

Ignoring IQ over concerns about racial discrimination is like ignoring discussions about rising sea levels because you might make Pacific Islanders uncomfortable.

That kind of "soft bigotry" is why American society hasn't caught up the Marine Corps. Too many people are still using racism as a prop for their self-esteem while honestly believing they are taking a Righteous Stand against bigotry.

Fen said...

The use of the phrase "white supremacist" is usually a good indicator that the speaker's exposure to "people who study or discuss group differences" is third-hand info heavily mediated by such organs as the NYT

And it's interesting how groups and statements supporting black culture and history would automatically become racist if they were white instead. Can you imagine the outcry over a White Congressional Caucus?

As for "white supremacists", when the whites I've known go tribal, they are still on about righting some European wrong. They don't bash blacks or Latinos, they rail against the Irish or the Welsh or the Franks.

I've only met 2 white supremacists in 40 years. One at a Kappa Sigma fraternity in Shreveport, Louisiana. And another(?) who slipped me a copy of The Turner Diaries at the UT library. I threw it in my backpack and forgot about it till he asked for it back a week later. I'm embarrassed to say that at age 20 I had never heard of it, and only knew it was "something" because he had glanced around our vicinity like he was handing me hardcore porn. Waste of his time anyway as (other than my mother) the 3 most significant women in my life were jewish. And I've been married to one of them 18 years now.

Point being, I'm an expert shooter trained in explosives always complaining about the government. Prime recruiting material. And no one has ever approached me to join a white supremacist or nazi anything. So when I hear someone say "white supremacist" I'm reminded that we still haven't caught the Loch Ness Monster.

daskol said...

I understand where Althouse is coming from. Stepping into the comments at, say Steve Sailer's blog or any of the Unz blogs, can be a bit bracing for the uninitiated. Sometimes it's still a little bracing. Some commenters are consumed with resentment. They make demeaning comments about blacks and really angry ones about Jews. At the same time, the intellectual level is very high, and I've learned a lot from those places. I wouldn't call them a shitty class of people on the whole, although there are some real shitty ones, but I would say they are impolite company. Besides cultivating race and identity driven grievances, many of even the more reasonable and well intentioned, if impolite and impolitic ones, seem tired of being put down as a shitty class of people for discussing that which can't be discussed, but which has an empirical basis. Some of them clearly enjoying saying things that make the uninitiated uncomfortable, and I think a lot of them just have Aspergers or something similar.

daskol said...

On the whole, I'm reminded of the classic Tom Lehrer song "National Brotherhood Week" when I read the comments there: there are all kinds of racial grievances, though very few people I'd call white supremacists, if any, but it seems like EVERYBODY hates the Jews.

Narayanan said...

scapegoat is an animal that is ritually burdened with the sins of others, and then driven away.

Load clean living Trump with Hillary shit.

Exonerate = relieved of the burden.

Making Trump a legend.

And Easter coming soon.

If only we could see historiography of Trump's presidency hundred years from now.

Chuck said...

Fen said...
Dear Chuck, Freder and Inga. Perhaps you missed this:

"Trump innocent; Chuck, Freder and Inga hardest hit".

Oh lets give them some rope... Any of you three want to take this opportunity to express your sincere relief that the President of the United States wasn't put into office by Vladimir Putin? 3/24/19, 3:20 PM

12+ hours and all I hear are crickets.

And it's curious that, for all your talk about "Muh Principles", none of you appear to be the least bit concerned that an attempted soft coup was launched against the duly elected President of the United States. How do you square that?

Oh I know, chirp chirp...

I don't want to hear another goddamn thing about your "principles".


The reason that you didn't hear from me for many hours after that post was that for some reason, Althouse's "moderation" blocked my one, single early post to the effect that all along I never saw much evidence for anything like "collusion" and never expected any indictments out of it. Since I knew that numbskulls like you never believe a word of what I write, I linked to a comment that I had posted almost a year ago, where I had written exactly what I am describing in this post.

My April 27, 2019 post is HERE.

So there you go. Better than you deserve, from me. Let's see now if Althouse will allow this fact-based reply, to your baseless and unprovoked attack on me just above.

Chuck said...

April 27, 2018 is what I meant. As you'll see from that hyperlink.

Meade said...

"...your baseless and unprovoked attack on me just above."

I believe the attacks on poor you, Chuck, were based on your blatant unpatriotism.