When you have clarity, and know what you want to believe, go to Real Clear Politics and click on the headline you want to be true. Do you want Trump to be a great benefactor of humankind or a bumbling fool? Do you want it all to be Obama's fault? Do you want Joe Biden to be just what we need right now or a guy who needs to wake up and get outta here? Do you want the impeachment to be a bust or do you want Democrats to have a new trial strategy? Would you like Nikki Haley to be a monster or Bill Barr to be a fabulous hero?
Or does everything seem to be a dismal waste of time? I say view the headlines as a gentle invitation: What would you like to believe today? See the array of offers. Pick one or 2 to lift your spirits or confirm your identity, or — like party invitations — decline them all and stay home, embedded in your real life, where you have some hope of finding something genuine and worthy.
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103 comments:
The problem isn't the headlines but women believing them. That's no reason not to enjoy the game. The game is real. It's language and genuine and real idiocy of women.
The gods have made them mad.
Tank is going to play golf.
I’m relying on Althouse to read and report on anything important.
What the headlines want to reflect is what are women believing today. If women belive Trump is masterful then he gets reelected. If women believe he's an idiot then he isn't reelected. 19th Amendment play.
Guys just enjoy the sexual game that it is.
That's Entertainment.
Althouse will come out for the sober and reflective Bloomberg. He seems to mean well.
Science: How the Bubble Constant Can Tell Us Our Fate.
The Bubble Constant can be defined simply as the rate at which the gum is expanding, a measure of how quickly the bubble is stretching apart. The slightest interpretation exposes a web of complexity encased within that seeming simplicity, however. Extrapolating the expansion process backward implies that all the gum we can observe originated together at some package in the past – emerging from a Big Pop – and that the gum left on the bedpost overnight has a finite age.
I’ve stopped reading op-eds.
I regard them as partisan wishful thinking.
Do read the headlines at RCP. And, why do you need to read any more than that?
Althouse—this has been one of the subtly amusing features of Real Clear Politics for years. It is a smorgasbord of daily commentary, allowing you to point with pride, view with alarm the status of world with authoritative voices backing up your choices.
Let’s play opinion grab-bag!
Alternatively, Althouse, you read both viewpoints. And then use your experience and knowledge to form a view of the reality of the topic. It’s called critical thinking, and most people can’t do it to save their lives.
It's shocking in its balance of agitprop.
Headline exhaustion is part of TDS exhaustion.
D'Souza had a good response to Pelosi's complaint about not being informed of the Suleimani hit in advance.
"We didn't tell the Iranians either, and for the same reasons."
^^what crackeremcee said^^...
Also, I’ll find more truth in most of those articles than anything written in the NYT.
NYT: birdcage liner
Apparently Iran shot down (allegedly) a Ukrainian civilian 737 last night loaded with 100+ passengers.
We're dealing with infants. Their 20-30+ year old post-soviet systems STILL do not have the appropriate IFF tech to be able to distinguish an airliner (with a friggin active transponder) that just took off from your own international airport (far be for you to establish 'safe passage' corridors) from a jet trying to attack the capital.
Launch your scuds, you know, the ones that can't hit anything. Pump that chest. Bare those teeth. Grab that AK and line up like cannon-fodder, we've got young men on their way that need confirmed-kills for praise from the folks back home and a lay from Mary Jane Rotten-Crotch.
P.S. The 72 virgins you've signed up for a dudes, virgin dudes, just like you!
Matthew Yglasias gives me the creeps.
Iran blinked. There are some disappointed Democrats today.
As I get older, the more I realize that about 95% of what we read and hear in the media is just plain bullshit. Made up stories. People's biases being used to manipulate the public. Out and out propaganda. Op Eds by people who I know nothing about and who know nothing anyway. Rumors pretending to be news. Fantasy trying to be fact.
One giant steaming pile of horseshit that doesn't really affect much and which can safely ignored or just laughed at. Even IF the news was something dire and true. WTF can I personally do about it. NADA.
Like the AA mantra God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. .....The things that I can affect are what matters and what I should be worrying about.
What would you like to believe today?
I want to believe that I won't need to have some minor surgery soon, to correct a bunion on my foot that is making it difficult to walk any distance, and which will require 4 to 6 weeks of recovery. What an inconvenience.
I want to believe that I have enough ingredients in the house to make the meal I want...without having to go to the grocery store for one flipping item. I'll find out after coffee!
RealClearPolitics' collection of headlines is a fascinating demonstration of Scott Adam's "Two Movies" theory. But at the same time, it's sadly predictable--certain outlets will always have pro-Trump headlines while others will always have anti-Trump headlines.
In neither case do the facts seem to matter except as window dressing for the argument they've already decided to make.
Funny. A few years ago I used to read RCP daily. As many articles as I could. Some would make me feel better. Some would piss me off. Some were just awful either way. But as time went on, I took to just glancing at the headlines, seemingly already knowing what was behind those 'invitations'. It's probably been 2+ years now since I stopped even reading the headlines at RCP. It all gets so predictable and tedious.
I pick and choose what I read now. The selections keep winnowing themselves down. Soon I'll be reading just fiction novels or history + Althouse all of the time and leave the rest of these 'news' sites to those who want to feel good or bad about their own thinking.
Life's too short to be pissed all the time. Even for Genghis Khan.
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
Alternatively, Althouse, you read both viewpoints.
Better still is to ignore both viewpoints. Unfortunately, there is no alternative way to get the facts. Nobody does straight news anymore.
By making a practice of juxtaposing contrasting viewpoints in their headline lists, Real Clear just makes obvious what already exists in the online media marketplace. (One would be hard pressed to compile a list of such variety from the conventional media, of course.)
As noted above, the diligent reader could digest them all and weigh the plausibility of the various arguments. But what fun is that? It's much more entertaining to select something really outrageous or transparently brain-dead and highlight it here in a blog post. The commentators then provide hours of entertainment, often of surprisingly high quality.
Of course, we don't have deadlines to meet, so the non-trolls usually don't comment unless they have something pithy to add.
Maybe Althouse lacks the ability to abstract from feelings, in reading headlines. Need to avoid headlines, she thinks.
Guys just wonder what the headline writer is up to, who is his audience. Guys think about something real and genuine.
More like an invitation to play editor.
I see them as a waste of time. The only one remotely interesting is why Andrea Mitchell would say Pompeo is a more powerful SecState than Hillary. Without reading, I suspect her answer is something like Joe Scarborough's claim that Trump is ignorant, and therefore Andrea probably thinks Pompeo is manipulating Trump.
When I wanted to know what was happening last night, I actually went to DoD's website and read the prepared statement there. The statement contradicted a headline that claimed there were US causalities. To be fair, I doubt the journalist understood what is meant by performing bomb damage assessment.
Past Presidents kicked the Iran Can down the road for their successor to deal with. I credit Trump for taking Iran to task, for good or ill. Based on the headlines, the jury is still out. Future Presidents won't have to deal with the Iran that past Presidents dealt with, however.
If only you believe like I believe, we'd get by......
I've noticed, in watching TV miniseries on DVD, that often the plot isn't as interesting as noticing the writers' dilemma in filling up time. If you notice the writer, the plot is no good.
Same with headlines.
Funny, but I read Althouse's post titles in the same spirit of invitation. The difference is that headlines are often not an accurate precis of the article's actual content - usually overstating a narrative point not completely supported in the text.
^^^What Iman said^^^^at 8:27am.
This isn't the first era in history that requires a highly tuned bullshit detector.
Lets go back to grab them by the pussy. Everybody liked that headline.
The 72 virgins you've signed up for a dudes, virgin dudes, just like you!
I like to think that the 72 Virgins are Catholic Nuns. All about the age of 60 plus. Armed with big wooden rulers to smack you back into line. 72 Virgin Nuns with attitude!
Those Virgins won't take any of your nonsense.
Grab the by the pussy got women's marches and pussy hats, against which Iran's crowds are nothing. Great headlines in history. Tampon power speeches.
The headline writes always has to ask: what are women suckers for today.
Men's headlines, as far as I can tell, as all sports predictions.
The great thing about RCP is the way it levels the playing field. The Epoch Times view in contrast to the NYT view. God, that must piss the MSM off. How dare they!
I used to read articles at Real Clear Politics every day. Then I got to where I just scanned the headlines and already knew what they would say. Now I don't even go there.
No offense, Professor, but this is kind of what you do with the New York Times every day. Click on a headline that you want to be true.
What I would like to believe is that nobody actually reads any of that crap.
.
Or does everything seem to be a dismal waste of time?
My guess it's all there as filler for people who have no sense of purpose to their lives and are bored out of their minds.
.
joe scarborough and ignorance, it's hubble telescope mirroring,
Pompeo was formerly cia director, and not one of the potted plants on the intel committee, so there is that.
Why is this a discussion of women’s headlines vs men’s?
I just do not see this. Maybe men pay more attn to sports,but....?
and then you have early Procopius hagiography in the shapiro piece about biden,
I use the RCP juxtaposition to see what the other side is thinking. Sometimes I might even click over if it's not behind a paywall.
I've known for awhile that the narratives are screwed up. But since the IG report, I now know without a doubt that Devin Nunes was right. So I'm going to continue to trust the people that trust him. Now, it's pretty obvious that the people still talking to Adam Schiff are hacks.
it's interesting, how many of those came to: ORANGE MAN BAD!!
and there's this mean girls happening with niki haley, sad, imagine trying to determine the truth of this a decade, fifty years on,
I'll also propose to those of you who no longer read RCP that while there is a bit of same old, same old going on in the newscycle, you've also probably lost your ability to focus on an entire article because of social media and smartphone habits.
RCP cannot keep up with Twitter storms du jour. Reading beyond their headlines like the Professor presented them is to slow, way too slow.
Who would have guessed the Internets would become too slow to read.But RCP is limited to three day old or older stories.
How long before they catch up?
Since the IG report, I am done with the whole lot. Howard is right. We may as well admit that we are cheering for the uniforms, not the team.
Headlines aren’t the problem. America’s media is the problem.
Example: Our media - whether through sheer incompetence or dishonesty - went days without telling us the Iraqi vote to expel the U.S. out of Iraq was 1) non-binding and 2) done without the required majority in attendance.
They are so far gone, without a shred of credibility.
I like to think that the 72 Virgins are Catholic Nuns. All about the age of 60 plus. Armed with big wooden rulers to smack you back into line. 72 Virgin Nuns with attitude!
Like the ones that made me diagram sentences until I understood grammar.
It's January 8. I believe I'll listen to some David Bowie...and some Elvis!
Wow Ann giving us high school students on how to read a newspaper. Professors have a distorted view of reality.
"done without the required majority in attendance.”
There was some flee blagging going on by opponents, just so you know.
I look at RealClear to see if anybody has something new and if I think I know the scripts on each side I use that news time to read analytic stuff that takes time. One reason I like Althouse is that she or the commenters are always proposing videos and articles that are more analytic - or more amusing. (Sometimes I feel like putting up my preferences in dollhouse furniture and household decorative knickknacks and comparing different styles in them to the Presidential candidates just to hear RHHardin's denunciation. Jonathan Edwards, step down.) I listened to Mitch McConnell's video on impeachment and the Senate twice. It was very good - just like listening to Susan Collins on Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. Plus I don't have to read anything on what the Senate might do - he laid it all out. Austin Bay is my go-to-guy for what might happen in situations like this one. His opinion is that Solemani got what was coming to him and it was a battlefield death but it seems to have been such a big move that no one foresaw it and no one can even guess what will happen. It's like Brexit or Trump becoming President. The Old Guard try to keep the old thing going afterwards but they can't. There will be RealNews.
rhhardin said...
The headline writes always has to ask: what are women suckers for today.
Men's headlines, as far as I can tell, as all sports predictions.
1/8/20, 8:49 AM
Can somebody please explain to me why my Cowboys went with McCarthy?
Can somebody please explain to me why my Cowboys went with McCarthy?
The Cowboys poor coaching decisions have a common denominator, and it's name is Jones.
Do you visit RealClearPolitics every day, Ms. Althouse? The headline list is like this every single day- they play it right down the middle with story selection.
Indeed Leland.
I get all my news and opinion on current events right here at Althouse, and Martin van Creveld (who covers many of our most beloved topics with erudition and insight). He doesn't allow comments and I won't link--he's easy to find.
I used to go to Insty but almost never do now; Reason Hit and Run can be entertaining but I seldom go there anymore.
Bay and Dunnigan at Strategy Page get visits now and then.
Narr
I like books more than articles and posts, usually
Headlines:
- Althouse stays at home, hoping to find something genuine and worthy
- Althouse blogs on everything, hoping to find something genuine and worthy
Shouldn't at least one of those headlines read "Trump Wins World War III In A Single Day"?
There may be further developments, but, at this point in time, Trump was the clear winner in the throw down. You can spin it a different way, but that just makes it look like you're spinning it a different way.....I think in a few months the Dem candidates will be explaining how they would have killed Soleimani in a more tactful and diplomatic way that did not alienate our allies.
@Qwinn
"Trump Wins World War III In A Single Day"
I think this was all planned. Somewhat as a face-saving measure. Soleimani was vitally important to their force-projection. I don't think that's sunk in with people yet. He wasn't 'part of' he was the architect. They know implicitly they'd get clobbered in a real conventional fight
They have an army that's really just 10% and 90% reservist/militia. Their AA systems are 1/10 in terms of capability what Saddam had at the height of his power. An Air Force that has a 50% sortie capable rate on a good day and which has a chronic shortage of spares for even their Russian platform aircraft and no capacity for force projection. What force projection they do have relies on approximately 5 (yes...I said 5) Gadr and Sejil long-range ballistic missiles in the 1500+ km class, everything else is considered theater ballistic like their home-spun version of the Scud which has a CEP of something like 3km on a good day. Their navy relies on swarms of speed boats which would take 75% casualities before getting within site of a carrier task force (even in the straights) and magnetic limpet mines so old in the last 10 years they've found 5 or 6 attached to ships in the straight that failed to explode and that could be cleared in about 48 hours.
They do have 'Baghdad-Bob' bluster I will definitely give them that. They can talk trash with the best of them.
Qwinn: "Shouldn't at least one of those headlines read "Trump Wins World War III In A Single Day?"
Add this with Trump's economic performance setting the world standard, trade deals completed, jobs numbers, rising wages, military revamped, veterans taken care of, increasing success in outreach to minority communities, etc etc etc
All on top of LLR-lefty Chuck's beloved dems beclowning themselves in the most amazing ways every single day and the Sham-wow-peachment getting the no-respect treatment it so richly deserves by the people and republicans in the Senate, this just might be the worst month in LLR-lefty Chuck's already sad pro-dem existence!!
Lucid-Ideas: "They do have 'Baghdad-Bob' bluster I will definitely give them that. They can talk trash with the best of them."
Yep. Iran has alot of LLR-lefty Chuck's too!
Trump's speech was good. Someone who hates him even messaged me that she liked the speech.
Freeman Hunt: "Trump's speech was good. Someone who hates him even messaged me that she liked the speech."
How "strange" and "unexpected"!
Why, just last night LLR-lefty Chuck and his lefty pal Admiral Inga were explaining the only way out of all this would be for Trump to shut up.
And yet, again, as always, Trump does not shut up and the precise opposite of what the lefties like Admiral Inga and Chuck claim will happen happens.
Hmmmmmmmm......
>> Martin van Creveld (who covers many of our most beloved topics with erudition and insight)<<
I checked him out a while back and was unimpressed.
For a well rounded mash-up of news and opinion without all the cumbersome opinions of lying liars I use Doug Ross @ Journal.
It's what Memeorandum would have been if they didn't suck by limiting their content to what our lying media were saying, and then taken over by leftist once it got popular.
Good speech, looked like he pulled an all nighter.
What the heck was that? He looked like he was slurring words and mispronounced several words. His mouth looked super dry again, eyes looked red. The content of the speech was not bad, but he did nothing to make Iran want to come to the table for any sort of negotiations. So many sticks and no carrots.
Well, Inga, we caught your buddy Chuck slurring and mispronouncing several words last night:
"Significant casualties among our allied Iraqi forces. That probably will mean nothing to much of Trump World. Shame on them for that."
See, when he said "Significant", he was slurring and mispronouncing "No".
Soleimani was vitally important to their force-projection.
Indeed.
Oh yes, one more thing, why is Trump so obsessed with Obama?
I can think of at least 150 billion reasons, Inga.
Admiral Inga: "What the heck was that?"
According to every objective commenter: a complete win for the United States of America and the Trump admin, which unsurprisingly seem to go hand in hand vs the marxist dem/LLR-lefty political opponents.
Admiral Inga: "He looked like he was slurring words and mispronounced several words. His mouth looked super dry again, eyes looked red. The content of the speech was not bad, but he did nothing to make Iran want to come to the table for any sort of negotiations. So many sticks and no carrots."
LOLOLOL
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what an Inga Was Wrong Again On Every Point She's Made In The Last Week attempted conversation shift looks like.
Admiral Inga: "Oh yes, one more thing, why is Trump so obsessed with Obama?"
Inga is very very very unhappy the democrat funding of the Iranian terrorist missile operations was referenced today.
Inga would be much happier if everyone would just stop talking about the dems funding Iranian terrorist operations while US forces are under attack from that very democrat funding.
This just in: . @JoyVBehar hails white nationalist Richard Spencer blasting Trump over death of Soleimani.
Yep.
Leftists aligning with white nationalists because these few white nationalists align with the dem allies and fellow jew hating islamic supremacists.
Nothing could be more predictable than this.
Once again in summary:
Leftists aligning with white nationalists in the US and islamic supremacists all in their mutual hatred of the US and Israel.
The Brits certainly figured that out prior to their recent election and kicked the rabidly pro-islamic terror/anti-Israel hack Labour leader Corbyn to the curb.
Lets hope more figure it out here prior to Nov.
Stocks up
Gold down
Oil down
Libs: He's picking on Obama!
spencer is turning out to be the credentialed version of david duke,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/08/iran-plane-crash-170-passengers-feared-dead-ukraine-boeing-737/
#Adderall is trending on Twitter.
well they did get him his job,
https://babalublog.com/2020/01/08/the-new-york-times-loved-cubas-dictator-fidel-castro-a-lot-more-than-late-nfl-coach-sam-wyche/
Giovan Pietro Bellori: "90-iq Inga found it too hard to understand. Bad Trump!!!!"
Do you think it will ever occur to Admiral Inga that the obama admin coddling of murderous totalitarian islamic supremacist dictators who develop missiles that they shoot at Americans while chanting Death to America (like many leftists here, to be honest) actually pose a threat to her supposed Navy enlisted daughter?
That might represent far too complex a thought process for Admiral Inga to navigate.
My decision is made by looking at both the headline and the byline. None of those pulled me in and enticed me to click. One comes close, The Federalist, because it sounds like it could be dispassionate analysis. But I've got work to do (writing this comment, for example).
Inga: "#Adderall is trending on Twitter."
Trump's statement is a clear winner as both Inga and her islamic supremacist allies in Tehran clearly want to just "move on".
Perhaps we can return to the Theoretical Articles of Galactic Sham-wow-peachment.
Did you hear earlier today? Diane Feinstein is demanding the articles be sent over pronto (another dem/islamic supremacist surrender) under McConnell rules but even MORE interesting is that Feinstein, realizing the Sham-wow-peachment "articles" aren't worth the paper they are printed on, is already signalling that she will use other reasons in determining whether or not to vote to impeach Trump (spoiler: she will! LOL).
What an amazing month this has been, no?
Hilarious, Howard answered Inga's question before she asked it. Fuckin' great job!
Howard said...
Good speech, looked like he pulled an all nighter.
1/8/20, 12:12 PM
Inga said...
What the heck was that? He looked like he was slurring words and mispronounced several words. His mouth looked super dry again, eyes looked red. The content of the speech was not bad, but he did nothing to make Iran want to come to the table for any sort of negotiations. So many sticks and no carrots.
1/8/20, 12:20 PM
Trump looks like he has a kink in his neck whenever he reads from teleprompters. Much better winging it at pressers. Obama great with the teleprompter, stutters and trips in real time.
Trump would look better if tele put directly in front of him instead of on the side.
This is like climate change predictions, "By 1992.... ehh... by 1997...I mean 2004... or 2008.... no dammit I said 2014. OK, OK, by 2020 at the latest (Glacier National Park is PARTWAY through changing the signs that say the glaciers will be gone by 2020).
There are NO penalties for bad predictions, else Maddow would be off the air. After all we've been loaded into cattle cars, nuked by the Norks and suffered a thousand other catastrophic non-events all due to Trump.
None of that has made the major networks or papers re-think how they view the world.
Why would the even consider the need for accuracy in mere political punditry?
If you don't like those opinions, I have others.
Scott Adams Gabe Trump’s speech an A+. Scott said that was the best Presidenting he has ever seen.
By reading some of these comments, it gives me great comfort to know the sheer and blinding hatred some people have for Trump and his supporters is destroying what's left of their souls.
Couldn't happen to a better bunch of people.
Blogger Inga said...
Oh yes, one more thing, why is Trump so obsessed with Obama?
Bad news for Inga. Iran is lying about its missile attack last night.
You know, the one before they shot down that Ukraine airliner ?
it gives me great comfort to know the sheer and blinding hatred some people have for Trump and his supporters is destroying what's left of their souls.
Interesting column on that very topic.
it gives me great comfort to know the sheer and blinding hatred some people have for Trump and his supporters is destroying what's left of their souls.
I said before Christmas I thought there was a chance this could end peacefully and our enemies would be so thoroughly humiliated they would let us keep our republic.
Howard can’t even back Inga up today.
Trump has done more than just remove their masks. And when he reminded everyone who funded this attack and the media stupidly freaked out about it he won this battle.
The battle is with the people siding with Iran.
Blogger Inga said...
Oh yes, one more thing, why is Trump so obsessed with Obama?
He is not. He simply points out the failure of the previous administrations Iran policy of which Obama was the figurehead.
So Ann who is the jackass now. You lose again.
Another approach is to read both sides, and make up your own mind as to which is more true.
It sounds like you're criticizing RCP for presenting both sides of an issue, which seems ... odd.
RCP is worth glancing at from time to time. I get to pick and choose which lefties I want to hear from. I have all but abandoned Drudge since it went from a right of center clearing house of opinion to TDS central. Their state by state polling info is helpful as well.
The point of headlines, beyond getting clicks, is to do it by offering you the fantasy world narrative that you want to live in. The audience is always the thing.
It's not so much two movies on one screen as a choice of movies. News is entertainment.
Women are unable to resist certain narratives. "Trump said grab them by the pussy" is the overall winner. What woman passed that one up.
The solution, for women, is not avoiding headlines after noticing that they're sucking you in too much, but take a more amused guy-like attitude towards it all and see it as comedy based on sexual difference.
Sometimes I feel like putting up my preferences in dollhouse furniture and household knickknacks and comparing different styles in them to the Presidential candidates just to hear RHHardin's denunciation. Jonathan Edwards, step down.
*chuckling to myself with an amused, guy-like attitude towards it all*
Based on the headlines, I believe I will have another Moscow Mule.
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