May 17, 2019

At the Apple Blossom Café...

fullsizeoutput_2f7e

... you can talk all night.

97 comments:

JackWayne said...

Farage percentage heading towards 40.

Big Mike said...

If Farage hits 50% will politicians believe that the people have spoken? Finally?

[Old joke: The people have spoken; damn them.]

tim in vermont said...

Who did it better? Van Gogh or Althouse?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_Blossoms#/media/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Almond_blossom_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Churchy LaFemme: said...

I'll be with you..

madAsHell said...

Ya know.....the whole "I'm with Her ->" campaign slogan has become the new jump suit orange.

BUMBLE BEE said...

HUNTER BIDEN'S RENTAL CAR!!!!

rhhardin said...

Lawmaker apologizes for using phrase 'consensual rape'... (Drudge)

It seems okay to me, apt for #MeToo.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Why do they say Farage could hand the country to Labour in a General? Wouldn's a Brexit/Tory coalition be a possibility?

madAsHell said...

Wait!! This isn't a current photo. My apple blossoms are all gone, and I'm at latitude 47. You're at latitude 43.

JackWayne said...

I think because a lot of Tory MP’s would be out. Boris might have trouble getting re-elected. The theory is that the Remainers from all parties would form a minority government.

tim in vermont said...

“Biden our time ’til his brain pops."

tim in vermont said...

again

tim in vermont said...

My apple blossoms are all gone, and I'm at latitude 47. You're at latitude 43.

I’m at 45 and I haven’t seen any. I was just in Boston today, and there were lots.

rhhardin said...

In Ohio it's maple-seed blizzard on the roads time again.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/32927070747

Churchy LaFemme: said...

To eat maple tree seeds you need to remove the wings. Some people will eat the seed pod as a trail snack however, many people like to roast or boil them.
Maple tree seeds are similar to acorns; the taste can vary from tree-to-tree so trying some from several trees is an option. Better still, the ones that taste bitter, use these for cooking because adding spices can sure make them taste great.

Original Mike said...

"My apple blossoms are all gone, and I'm at latitude 47. You're at latitude 43."

I'm a couple of miles from Meadhouse and my crab apples are at peak bloom right now.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

satiety. You know-- that 'full' feeling

America is overweight.
Immigration is how a nation 'eats'

President Donald Trump is planning on using the Insurrection Act to remove illegal immigrants from the United States

Guildofcannonballs said...

The water-heater insulator was so smashing I got to 450 in about 10 minutes, from a nice easy 300.

3lb pork loin rib. 4lb of chicken thighs.

I can smoke in CO at 20 degrees now.

Nothing can stop me. $120.

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/brinkmann-trailmaster-limited-edition.104190/page-28

Ann Althouse said...

Photo is from the 15th and taken by Meade.

mockturtle said...

This is an interesting essay from yesterday's PJ Media: Our Modern Satyricon

tim in vermont said...

There was a billboard in Boston imploring the Bruins to end the 100+ day “championship drought.” Alas Milwaukee ended the chance of a grand slam by beating the Celtics in the second round.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

SAT's implementing an "adversity score"

make sure study hard, but live in a crappy neighborhood

Lewis Wetzel said...

The adversity score story strikes me as being off.
Diversity admissions has tried to come up with similar measures before, the problem was that the old ranks still held -- if you added bonuses for being the first person in your family to attend college, or living at poverty level, or having a relative in prison, in the sub group you ended up with, you still had SAT scores that ranked, from the top, East Asians, whites, Hispanics, Blacks.
So you get a black kid (or a white kid) that hits all the markers for 'adversity.' How is he going to able to compete in the classroom? Isn't this just asking for trouble?

walter said...

Meme seen on FB:
"Did you know?
In AL, OH, & GA, you can’t harvest organs from a dead person’s body without prior consent. Ergo, in AL, OH, & GA, a corpse has more rights than a live woman.

Michael K said...

Herman Wouk was a giant. I read his novel "Marjorie Morningstar" when it came out in 1955 and his World WarII novels.

He interviewed Richard Feynman when he was writing the "War and Remembrance" novel, which has a lot about the Manhattan Project. Most people told him that Feynmann would not see him but he did. As he was leaving, Feynmann asked him if he knew Calculus. He admitted he did not. Feynmann told him he should learn it. "It's the language God speaks, he said,."

Big Mike said...

In Winchester, VA, the Apple Blossom Festival ended two weeks ago. Queen of the Festival was Virginia Isabella Barker, Billy Graham's great-granddaughter.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Peto files his complaint against events bearing T. Jefferson's name,
still tilting at Pence windmills, and wants a national gun registry.

Big Mike said...

I agree with Lewis Wetzel. The SAT and ACT are supposed to measure readiness to do college level work. Giving people bonus points for whatever reason other than their ability to complete college work simply sets them up to fail at a college too difficult for them to cope with.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Perhaps our elites would do better if they worked on policies that would ensure that a person one deviation down could still have a decent economic life. They seem to believe that our economy should work like a business that has an efficiency practice -- you throw out the people at the bottom of the totem pole every year. Life ain't like that, man is not economic man.

madAsHell said...

I’m at 45 and I haven’t seen any. I was just in Boston today, and there were lots.

The prevailing wind in Seattle comes from the south-west (Hawaii). Temperature must be a bigger factor than I would have guessed.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

"I won’t lie – it stings like hell to think we’ve sacrificed so much to move to a place where our son can have a more peaceful life and now he will actually be punished for not staying in ghetto."
https://www.redstate.com/kiradavis/2019/05/16/the-new-sat/

As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin',
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries

narciso said...

A timely trollope remindwr:

http://fiddlrts.blogspot.com/2013/07/framley-parsonage-by-anthony-trollope.html?m=1

madAsHell said...

The SAT and ACT are supposed to measure readiness to do college level work.

In the aftermath of the college admission scandal, the Princeton Review has realized additional revenue streams.

narciso said...

I read war and remembrance about 30 years after I saw it on TV.

Skeptical Voter said...

The Andrews Sisters sung it best, "I'll be seeing you in apple blossom time."

mockturtle said...

Giving people bonus points for whatever reason other than their ability to complete college work simply sets them up to fail at a college too difficult for them to cope with.

Or leads to grade inflation. Let's make it easier to get a passing grade so Ms. X and Mr. Y can't fail. After all, everyone gets a trophy.

mockturtle said...

The Andrews Sisters sung it best, "I'll be seeing you in apple blossom time."

Actually, it was, "I'll be with you in apple blossom time".

Perhaps you confuse it with "I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places.."

J. Farmer said...

On Farage and his new Brexit Party, it's just worth reminding everyone that these are for the EU parliamentary elections, not UK elections. Euroskeptic parties have traditionally done well in EU elections, but as Farage himself has pointed out (in response to political attacks over his level of participation in the EU parliament), the EU parliament actually has very little power.

Britain sacrificed thousands of British lives on the premise of preventing German domination of the continent only to end up as a province of a German-dominated superstate.

iowan2 said...

Mueller is not testifying before Nadler's committee.

I think it finally dawned on Nadler, Republicans get to ask question too. The developments this week shed light on all the investigating Mueller refused to do. Nadler and Mueller want no part of this examination.
Now the Dems and the media just have to spin the Mueller no show as an evil perpetrated by the Republicans

rcocean said...

Wouk. I loved "The Caine Mutiny". The book is much better than the movie, since it deals with the day to day life on a DMS in WW2.

I wasn't a big fan of his later WW2 novels. Like many best-selling novelists, he wasn't good at creating interesting realistic characters. "Caine Mutiny" is much better, because Wouk is writing himself and his own experiences. The WW2 novels aren't bad, they're just mediocre. He's in their trying his best, but its obvious he's not a top flight writer. The best parts were the "lectures" by a German General which allows Wouk to discuss WW2 Strategy.

I can't be too sad he died. I thought he'd died 20 years ago. He must have been 100.

Guildofcannonballs said...

$5

I told the guy holding the sale I intended to use it for my smoker.

He told me he has a smoker and hadn't thought of that.

I didn't give it back. I had bought several other items.

No smirk or any shit either though. He wasn't suffering. I drive a '98 Mercury.

rcocean said...

I can remember *trying* to watch the TV series "War and Remembrance" and the follow on. But man, it dragged on and on. And Bob Mitchum looked like he was going to fall asleep. It had some good/great moments, but you had to Fast-forward though a lot of dullness to get to them.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

The Andrews Sisters sung it best, "I'll be seeing you in apple blossom time."

Actually, it was, "I'll be with you in apple blossom time".


That's my link at 9:09..

J. Farmer said...

Regarding the SAT and ACT, as I never tire of pointing out to people, when Michael Young coined the term "meritocracy" in his 1950's satire Rise of the Meritocracy, he was not describing a good thing. The entire project was a critique of Britain's then new tripartite education system disguised as a dystopian novel. Charles Murray tried to make the same observation in The Bell Curve, but the book's entire thesis was buried under the cacophony of outraged aimed at a single chapter regarding ethnic (i.e. racial) differences in IQ scores. Access to elite institutions is mediated by prestigieous schools, and admission is largely determined by performance on standardized (and heavily g loaded) tests. The college admissions scandal is a drop in the bucket compared to the larger sociological forces at play. When William F. Buckley famously remarked that he'd, "sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University," he was making an explicitlyy anti-meritocratic statement.

mockturtle said...

Britain sacrificed thousands of British lives on the premise of preventing German domination of the continent only to end up as a province of a German-dominated superstate.

Indeed. It's sad to see. My husband is probably turning in his grave. [Actually, he isn't. His ashes are lying peacefully in their cherry wood box in my living room]. Aside from their status in the EU, their policies of the past few decades have destroyed any political integrity they may have had. Not since Thatcher has Britain been Great.

JackWayne said...

What you say is true but I believe we are seeing a grand realignment of British politics between Remainers and Brexiters. The Tory Party will become Brexiters or they will dissolve. I think the Remainers will end up in Labour or at least on the Socialist/EU political side. It’s a toss-up right now but a successful vote for Farage next week will set up a true 3rd party campaign for the parliamentary elections. I think Farage is trusted by a lot of the British as an honest Britain First spokesman and I believe that he and his party will get a lot of votes for Parliament. May is so execrable that she reminds me of Bush and the way the American people wanted to get away from him so badly that they threw in with the Democrats. If we had a good 3rd party in 2008, the Republicans might have dissolved.

mockturtle said...

Unknown points out: That's my link at 9:09..

Ah, yes. So I see. ;-)

Guildofcannonballs said...

Free cherry 15 minutes N of my home.

No joke. Free cherry in an alley I picked up.

My conundrum now is how to cut it: Those smallest branches took me 12 minutes of heavy-sweating cuttin'.

But won't a darn chainsaw with that darn old oil spoil my perfection?

I can't assume it won't, no matter what that danged ol' darn internet could tell me, even if I suspect a bunch of sereptisiousness.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I've got to collect all the dustings and use it for kindling. No oil in my wood.

Thing is I happen to have 40 gallon propane tank and a "weed killer" adapter to quick-start any agent I choose in the firebox.

The doors, friends, are open.

JackWayne said...

Burger King will use motorcycles to deliver Whoppers to people stuck in LA traffic jams.

Guildofcannonballs said...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=I%27ve+been+stroking+to+the+east+stroking+to+the+west&t=opera&ia=videos

Even after having been told different, with accuracy, I still believe they really meant "smokin'" not ...

But their it.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Good old "Dr. CC".

Hard to believe he started out with Patches (which always frustrated me because the storyline kind of peters out before a resolution).

Ralph L said...

It's pecan tassel time here in NC. In a few days, I will have to mow just to see the grass. I'm having the tree next to my carport and backdoor cut down soon. Should have done it before rebuilding the back of the house 20 years ago.

stephen cooper said...

Marjorie Morningstar was good.
Winds of War was good.
The Caine Mutiny was good, although the title was messed up, it should have been something like:
Pride Goes Before the Fall.

There were lots of good actors in Winds of War, a few had actually been in WWII, of course playing different roles in real life than they would later play in the "tele-series: or whatever they called those things.

Well WWII was tough but most of us are going to die some day, and a good actor knows that:
WWII was what it was, but the real story of good and evil is a lot more complicated than that.

God loves us all.


Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

@Guidocannabis

Cherry smok'd--sounds delish !-- wish we could join u.
Roasting meats always reminds us of Homer's Odyssey

narciso said...

Dont tell then:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/china-has-already-lost-the-trade-war/

There is a difference between ordinary death and violent painful death in wartime yes

J. Farmer said...

@mockturtle:

Aside from their status in the EU, their policies of the past few decades have destroyed any political integrity they may have had. Not since Thatcher has Britain been Great.

I'm not much of a believer in Thatcherism. Britain failed to be great after its foolish intervention in the First World War and sealed its fate during the Second, after which it largely became a dependency of the United States. My former mentor, himself a British expat, used to remark that the common joke was that the Americans were "overpaid, overfed, and over here." This was put more bluntly by the British left, who derisively referred to the UK as "America's largest aircraft carrier." Scotland is on its way to exiting the UK, and North Irish unionism has threatened to derail Brexit, A UK out of the EU would find itself sharing a border with the EU in Ireland. And the Irish, desperate for a counterweight to British influence, are still wildly in favor of the EU.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

@Guidocannabis
that clarence carter vid -- smokin' ya! lol

Narayanan said...

For lubrication May be you can use vegetable oil?

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

How is he going to able to compete in the classroom? Isn't this just asking for trouble?

Yes, it's called over-matching. The kid that got admitted because of his race and not his merit struggles in class with material he is not prepared for, and usually drops out.

Worse, he was slated for a Tier 2 school before being lifted to the Tier 1 school. So when he enrolled in the Tier 1 his absence opened up a slot back at the Tier 2 school. Which a Tier 3 student was lifted into by affirmative action etc. He struggles and fails and drops out too.

And round and round we go.

Best part, these multiple failures of black kids failing at Tier 1 and 2 schools gets blamed on the "systemic racism blah blah white patriarchy blah".

Fen said...

Meme seen on FB:
"Did you know?
In AL, OH, & GA, you can’t harvest organs from a dead person’s body without prior consent. Ergo, in AL, OH, & GA, a corpse has more rights than a live woman.


Gods these people are stupid.

#NotYourDNA

n.n said...

more rights than a live woman

At least until the baby reaches the ripe old age or state of viability. Unfortunately, that is approximately 5 months, or nearly 2 trimesters, past the presumptive emergence of consciousness. #NoAgeDiscrimination #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

The kid that got admitted because of his race and not his merit struggles in class

Diversity breeds adversity.

StephenFearby said...

Politically incorrect NYT Opinion Piece:

The SAT’s Bogus ‘Adversity Score’
Are we really going to rank students on a one-to-100 pseudoscientific index of oppression?

By Thomas Chatterton Williams
Mr. Williams is the author of the forthcoming “Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race.

'Between my freshman and senior years of high school in the late ’90s, my father spent his evenings, weekends and vacations drilling my best friend and me for our SATs. My father was born black in the 1930s in the segregated South and became the first member of his family to go to college, let alone graduate school. These were lean years for my family, and my white mother had to return to work after decades as a homemaker. We just managed to rent a small house on the white side of our de facto segregated New Jersey suburb.

My best friend, who was black and Puerto Rican and attended parochial school with me, commuted from a less affluent and more ethnically diverse neighborhood where his parents, who did not have graduate degrees and were divorced but frequently living together and pooling resources, were upwardly mobile homeowners. When the time came to take the test, I scored higher, though my friend did well enough to attend a selective four-year college, where he flourished, eventually moving on to the Ivy League and Wall Street. Both of us worked hard, had some advantages — namely highly supportive and involved parents — and were able to succeed despite being members of a historically oppressed demographic.

I thought of those long hard hours studying at the dinner table when I heard on Thursday that the College Board, the company that administers the SAT, was appending an “adversity index” to aptitude scores — essentially a handicap to standardize “privilege”...'

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/sat-adversity-score.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Crazy World said...

Such a lovely picture, thank you and I passed my eye exam today with a new young doctor. TGIF

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

here's a new name--
Giulio Occhionero
"Let's get ready to talk to the people "who know". SpyGate/EyePyramid wasn't just about a cyber investigation. It was all about pulling down @realDonaldTrump."
possible malta/mifsud ties?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Now @GeorgePapa19 affirms his "then-girlfriend" @simonamangiante was asked by the @FBI to wear a wire "against" him.
So, a US agency asking just ANY FOREIGN CITIZEN to cooperate "against" a US presidential candidate?

Lewis Wetzel said...

J. Farmer wrote:
"My former mentor, himself a British expat, used to remark that the common joke was that the Americans were 'overpaid, overfed, and over here.' This was put more bluntly by the British left, who derisively referred to the UK as 'America's largest aircraft carrier.'"

I've heard the phrase was "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here," and in Nineteen Eighty-Four Britain had been renamed "Airstrip One."

Anonymous said...

Lewis Wetzel: Perhaps our elites would do better if they worked on policies that would ensure that a person one deviation down could still have a decent economic life.

To recognize that as the problem would require a hard-core critical re-appraisal of an entire world-view, something most of us humans resist mightily.

That's assuming that the elite commitment to the fanatical and incoherent dogma of "equality" isn't entirely cynical.

Humperdink said...

Brennan, Clapper, Comey. BCC ....blind carbon copies.

tomaig said...

I have a rendezvous with death
At some disputed barricade
When spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple blossoms fill the air
I have a rendezvous with death
When spring brings back blue days and fair

stevew said...

At 42°39′40″N, just a bit north and east of Boston MA we have crab apple trees in full bloom, which condition arrived this week.

70 degrees and sunny today, I expect everyone to use this fine weather day to launch a conversation about how wet and miserable this spring has been.

Meanwhile, the Bruins will compete for the opportunity to add their names to Lord Stanley's Cup.

I love this time of year.

Rusty said...

Guild.
Use a bow saw and cut slices as thin as you can get away with. I haven't tried cherry. I like apple and the trasitional hickory. Meijer sells different smoking chips in small bags for 3 or 4 dollars. I'm currently looking for low sodium recipes.

Saint Croix said...

nice photo, Meade

tim in vermont said...

As a person who was once poor, from a “poor" family, once of the worst things that the elites have done to the poor is to make it impossible for the “poor” to live in cheap housing without being surrounded by crime since tolerance of crime is an elite value.

tim in vermont said...

Use vegetable based chain saw oil. It’s widely available.

Danno said...

Blogger Crazy World said...Such a lovely picture, thank you and I passed my eye exam today with a new young doctor. TGIF

And my eyes have improved so much I passed the D/L eye exam last week without corrective lenses. The eye doctor told me a month ago that my glasses were acting as a slight detriment. After getting new lenses, I couldn't see much difference with or without, so I asked the DMV person to try it without.

Paco Wové said...

"make sure study hard, but live in a crappy neighborhood"

Leaves too much to chance. Better to study hard, and make your neighborhood crappy.

Or, just make your neighborhood crappy and see how far you can coast on that.

Rick.T. said...


Blogger Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

“As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin',
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries”

Written by Mac Davis and another reason it’s hard for him to be humble. Still touring. Passed through here about a month ago.

tim in vermont said...

'Between my freshman and senior years of high school in the late ’90s, my father spent his evenings, weekends and vacations drilling my best friend and me for our SATs

Wow, I never studied a jot for the SAT. Of course with my high school grades, a selective school was out of the question, but my SAT score got me into a four year college, where without them, I would have been condemned to a two year college, so it all worked out!

“our SATs” Ha

tim in vermont said...

I wonder what it would have been like to have a parent who cared about your schoolwork. Fortunately I liked to read, and not just “graphic novels” either, so I got some semblance of an education.

tim in vermont said...

"It's the language God speaks, he said,."

Calculus assumes perfect continuity and QM tells us that the world is not perfectly continuous, so my guess is that God has a kind of math we haven’t discovered yet, and may never discover. Not to mention that calculus is mostly a way to make calculations tractable to us mortals. God wold laugh at the suggestion he needed it.

Other than that, I agree with just about everything Feynman has ever said.

tim in vermont said...

I wonder had I been properly educated, I would have had the thought above?

tcrosse said...

When it's apple-blossom time in Orange, New Jersey, we'll make a peach of a pair.
Although we can't elope, please honey do be mine....

narciso said...

Quelle surprise:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-australia-48305001

Paco Wové said...

"[The Bell Curve]... the book's entire thesis was buried under the cacophony of outraged aimed at a single chapter regarding ethnic (i.e. racial) differences"

On my more conspiracy-minded days, I wonder how much of the screeching over that single chapter was really just a way to discourage people from reading the other, more important, chapters.

William said...

I had a durable back and robust health. That was a blessing and got me through a lot of adversity. There are many problems that intelligence can't solve or even help you avoid.....I've had my share of curses too. They should give scholarships to kids with severe acne. I grew up in extreme poverty, but, as I remember it, I was far more concerned about the pimples than the poverty. When you're alienated from your own skin, it's hard to adjust. Karl Marx's anger and alienation had more to do with the books that kept erupting in his skin than on the inequities of capitalism....... They should offer scholarships to plain girls with dumpy figures. They face a lot of adversity. Probably wouldn't be a lot of applicants for such scholarships, but it's worth a try.

William said...

Books above should read boils. I lack character and I'm too lazy to retype the above passage.

Michael K said...

Another day when the cafe post is more interesting than the blog posts.

Tucson weather is delightful this week. 82 yesterday; forecast 83 today.

I'm wondering if this is easing into global cooling. Arizona might be an ideal place to survive it.

The Bell Curve. I think I have previously noted that, when I read it while at Dartmouth, several people asked to borrow it when I finished as they did not want too be seen buying a copy in the Dartmouth Bookstore.

mockturtle said...

Nobody suggests: As a person who was once poor, from a “poor" family, once of the worst things that the elites have done to the poor is to make it impossible for the “poor” to live in cheap housing without being surrounded by crime since tolerance of crime is an elite value.

This is a big problem and a tough one to solve. But keeping habitual criminals locked up and drug users in some kind of rehab camps would help. I've know some Mennonite families who were very poor indeed but they didn't live in squalor. Poverty per se isn't the cause but just one of the variables associated with criminal behavior.

mockturtle said...

Michael K notes: Tucson weather is delightful this week. 82 yesterday; forecast 83 today.

Yes, I'm almost missing the desert already and I'm only in Montana [where it is snowing here and there] on my way to Alaska.

Paco Wové said...

narciso – dude – if you can't even be bothered to describe what you're not-linking to, I certainly can't be arsed to go to the effort to copy it into a new browser tab and go there. Just FYI.

FullMoon said...

narciso – dude – if you can't even be bothered to describe what you're not-linking to, I certainly can't be arsed to go to the effort to copy it into a new browser tab and go there. Just FYI.

Highlight the link, them right click and "open".


Learned it here, works for me with Firefox.

Original Mike said...

"Highlight the link, them right click and "open"."

Not nearly so easy on an iPad. Sometimes requires multiple attempts to select the relevant text on a touch screen.

FullMoon said...

Rick.T. said...
Blogger Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

“As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin',
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries”

Written by Mac Davis and another reason it’s hard for him to be humble. Still touring. Passed through here about a month ago.


Still perfect in every way?

walter said...

http://www.easyhyperlinks.com