Althouse: Late morning open thread... with insect.

July 7, 2020

Late morning open thread... with insect.

15 comments:

Rick.T. said...: Morning Glory-ous!; 7/7/20, 9:42 AM
mccullough said...: Yonic symbol; 7/7/20, 9:43 AM
Narr said...: This is my first Althouseing of the day--I'll catch up with the night owl comments later.

Maybe someone has mentioned it, but Churchill's essay "What if Lee had lost at Gettysburg?" is a great read.

Narr
Cheers!; 7/7/20, 9:47 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: “The Democrats’ constant refrain about America needing to be changed is wearisome. It’s also being taught in public schools. The woke youth of today go into adulthood truly believing that the United States is terribly broken and in desperate need of a socialist fix. That’s really the end game for modern Democrats. It wasn’t just a few years ago but the whole party has rushed off of the far-left fringe. They aren’t so much interested in ‘transformation’ as they are ‘undoing’.”

_Kruiser; 7/7/20, 9:51 AM
Nonapod said...: Evidently Mike Pompeo is considering banning TikTok for US users due to concerns about Chinese surveilance and propaganda. A US TikTok ban would be an interesting firestorm since there's zillions of users who love the platform.; 7/7/20, 10:08 AM
bagoh20 said...: On the subject of increased cases of Covid-19:

1) Cases (positive tests) have increased substantially
2) Testing has also increased in some placed 3- 5 times or more what it was during the peak of the fatalities.
3) Hospitalizations have also increased.
4) After months of avoiding the hospitals, people are finally going back for their normal health care and treatments for cancer, diabetes or whatever they had before, often after their illness has progressed to them now needing hospitalization.
5) Everyone who goes to the hospital is tested for Covid.
6) If they are hospitalized for cancer or heart disease, but also test positive, they are now officially hospitalized for Covid-19, regardless of why they are actually there.
7) Despite all the extra cases, Covid deaths are continuing to drop, now down about 90% from the peak. Every week brings new lows.
8) Hospitals are paid a significant premium if a patient is admitted and or dies with Covid.
9) The media, once obsessed with deaths, has stopped mentioning them, and has ignored the numbers from the time they began to drop. They focus exclusively on the number of cases.
10) The media insistes on only telling you what is negative, or spins the positive to a negative.
11) Some states opened up for weeks without increases in cases, even seeing decreases after opening.
12) The current increases in cases started after the protests, riots, and people going back to get their health care in large numbers, but deaths continued to drop, becuase they can't artificially inflate that number more than they already have.

13) The Press is our enemy. They should not be. The Press is an absolutely necessary part of a healthy democracy. They are currently the opposite of helpful to our democracy. The Press has, and continues to scare people literally to death as they frightened people away from life saving treatments that sick people could not afford to miss. They championed the destruction of our economy, and they championed the destruction of our culture and shared values. They want this time running up to the election to seem horrible, so that voters will vote for change. They make no attempt to link the people actually responsible to the problems they have created. Most of this year's crappy outcomes were avoidable, but too many people in power and with a microphone were desperate to make sure your life sucked in 2020. They are your enemy. Stop supporting them. Get your data elsewhere - unfiltered.; 7/7/20, 10:49 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: The science is settled. Virtue signaling, garner, social media, and commenting all in one package.

New study links virtue signaling to "Dark Triad" traits. . . . Virtue signalers are, essentially, phonies and showoffs—folks who adopt opinions and postures solely to garner praise and sympathy or whose good deeds are tainted by their need for everyone to see just how good they are. Combined with a culture that says only victimhood confers a right to comment on certain issues, it's a big factor in online pile-ons and one that certainly contributes to social media platforms being such a bummer sometimes.

Plus, lack of proper linking. It's better than a trifecta, or even a quadfecta. It's at least a quinfecta.

https://reason.com/2020/07/07/narcissists-psychopaths-and-manipulators-are-more-likely-to-engage-in-virtuous-victim-signaling-says-study/; 7/7/20, 10:56 AM
DavidD said...: Was that photo taken with an iPhone?

I could show you similar photos taken with a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 zoom lens with a macro setting first on a Canon AV-1 and then on a Canon A-1.; 7/7/20, 11:02 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Yes, an iPhone.

I go running, so I'm not going to take a camera of any size.; 7/7/20, 11:23 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: I love that illusion! It’s possible that the flower looks like a red rubber ball because an insect flew in front of the camera.; 7/7/20, 11:31 AM
Wa St Blogger said...: As seen on facebook:

"In social media there is no greater joy than seeing our political opponents in a humiliating situation"

What does that say about us? Can't be healthy.

That demonstrates a lot about comment threads at Althouse. Many very well thought out posts are contributed hat talk about important issues. Many commenters add interesting insights. But the posts that suck all the oxygen out of the room are basically schoolyard taunts. "you guys suck!" "haha did you see what so and so did?" "Did you hear what so and so said? What an idiot!" I carry some responsibility since I, at times break down and make pointed remarks about individual commenters, but really, why can't these people use cogent points, backed up with facts to defend their views? That does not include "Hey look at this one guy doing bad things. That shows that the left/right are all horrible people." I can just imagine what Althouse would write on any papers some of you would submit in her classes given the lack of support for your positions.; 7/7/20, 11:36 AM
Kai Akker said...: Stock market index peaks, dates:

DJIA 2/12/20
DJTA 9/14/18
DJUA 2/18/20

SPX 2/19/20
NDX 7/7/20
NasCmp 7/7/20
MidCap 2/20/20
SmlCap 8/27/18
EmrgMkt 1/26/18

Stocks:

MO 6/19/17
CAT 1/16/18
MMM 1/18/18
MCD 8/9/19
NKE 1/22/20

IBM 3/18/13
FDX 1/18/18
SBUX 7/26/19
TSLA 7/6/20
FB 7/7/20; 7/7/20, 2:19 PM
DavidD said...: It’s amazing, then, the photos that can be taken with an iPhone.

Kids today. No need to understand focus, aperture, depth of field, shutter speed, film speed—and no way to affect the iPhone’s choice of any parameters, either, most likely.; 7/7/20, 3:03 PM
Milwaukie guy said...: I read today that #CancelHamilton is trending, because while Hamilton never owned slaves, he was involved in "the slave trade" because he managed his wife's property, including her negro servants, as any good gentleman would do at the time. Besides all his good works which are too numerous to mention, in 1785 he led the founding of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves.

Amazing Grace is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton. He was a slaver and then he found God. While Newton became an Anglican clergyman, the hymn is one of the Scots most sacred. Will the ultra-liberal modern Presbyterians now try to cancel Amazing Grace?; 7/7/20, 4:18 PM
Big Mike said...: Will the ultra-liberal modern Presbyterians now try to cancel Amazing Grace?

@Milwaukie Guy, sure! Why not? Notwithstanding the sentiments expressed by Margaret Atwood, et.al., in the linked Harper’s article over on the other thread, it’s FUN to get people cancelled and statues pulled down and generally raise Hell.; 7/7/20, 7:46 PM