Althouse: At the Deep Blue Café...

September 4, 2020

At the Deep Blue Café...

... you can write about anything you want.

59 comments:

Freeman Hunt said...: I bought a string trimmer and used it for the first time today. Fall before my whirling strands, ye encroaching brush and grasses! I end the day drunk with power and unable to use my arms.; 9/4/20, 8:21 PM
rcocean said...: Some more great pictures. You should add some sunset pictures.; 9/4/20, 8:24 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: "I end the day drunk with power and unable to use my arms."

The night is young.

I am Laslo.; 9/4/20, 8:33 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Senator Scott Wiener
@Scott_Wiener
QAnon is deeply infecting the GOP.

In the past day, I’ve been attacked for our bill to end discrimination against LGBTQ young people on CA’s sex offender registry by:

-Rush Limbaugh
-Breitbart
-Daily Caller
-The GOP Senate leader

All using QAnon lies.

lolgf; 9/4/20, 8:35 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Pretty.

Tucker is king of snark. King.; 9/4/20, 8:37 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Saucy Nug for VP.

I like you Mike Pence, but we need this guy.; 9/4/20, 8:44 PM
mockturtle said...: After hearing Cuomo's remarks that, if Trump wants to visit New York, he'll have to bring an army, my mind has been entertained by visions of Trump doing just that: Entering say 5th Avenue with an entire army: Tanks, artillery, F-35 air cover, the whole shebang with the Commander in Chief riding in the lead. What great theater! And what a decisive statement.; 9/4/20, 9:04 PM
narciso said...: Curious

https://mobile.twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1302046339119812610; 9/4/20, 9:48 PM
wildswan said...: "Freeman Hunt said...
I bought a string trimmer and used it for the first time today. Fall before my whirling strands, ye encroaching brush and grasses!"

I know how you feel. Though I put it more like: OK, little rose bush, I'm coming, I'll save you.; 9/4/20, 9:49 PM
Josephbleau said...: Munch; 9/4/20, 9:54 PM
Readering said...: Interesting facts about today's promising but bizarrely staged agreement between Serbia and Kosovo in the Oval Office. Kosovo has a population of under 2 million and a nominal GDP a little over $4B. For today's photo op Trump is promising billions of dollars in aid. Hopefully more likely to come through than with the advanced military aid promised to the mini-state UAE.; 9/4/20, 9:54 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: "First, let me say this: Look, Venezuela top line messages.

...and in closing, End of Quote.

Thank you all* for coming. No further questions, or they'll shoot me"

(* all 7 media pressfolk); 9/4/20, 9:58 PM
Joe Smith said...: I watched an hour-long program put on by the U.S. Military. It was a concert with patriotic music, etc., as much of a long recruiting commercial as anything.

In the middle of it, there was a 15 or 20 minute segment devoted to black soldiers in WWII and black soldiers in general. Photo montages, choirs singing spirituals...

The U.S. Military and the entire federal government appears to have taken a knee, and are now the bitches of BLM.

My advice? Start learning how to speak Chinese because this country has gotten too soft.

We are fucked.; 9/4/20, 10:42 PM
pacwest said...: The Democrats strategy has become pretty obvious. Flood the newscycle with "controversies" be they some minor social infraction or outright lies. A young, willing, and recently indoctrinated pool of social activist reporters are going to be a big help for the Dems. It mainly serves the purpose of flooding out Trump accomplishments. Another foreign policy accomplishment drowned out in the din. Grinell is doing a great job. If Kushner is the driving force in the ME then kudos to him. If Trump speeds thing up a bit he might win the Nobel Peace Prize by November. Or not. Great economic numbers. It looks like a pretty good V from here. He's containing the Russians at their Eastern European border. The Wall continues to plod along. One quarter done. NK is on hold, but the're not lobbing nukes. ChiFlu could have an early vaccine! Maintaining our Constitutional Republic while dealing with hostile governors and city officials. The list goes on. And on.

But the media focus will be on identity politics entirely. It's all they have, and it takes eyes off the riots. As well as making it a bit easier for Biden to focus on what he is saying. Trump bad racist. The hard hitting Atlantic article is just one of the weekly or as needed scandals.; 9/4/20, 10:45 PM
wildswan said...: Roger Simon says: "a cabal of far left-leaning Democrats led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and House members Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) with the choral support of Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) have initiated legislation declaring racism a 'public health crisis.' "

The ideas behind this strange attempt by the Dems are those held by 21st century eugenics. I call the complex neo-social biology. Essentially, you can think of it as a discussion formulated as: What happens when the social brain meets the reactive genome. And this discussion is beginning to bubble up into policy. An example of the discussion is the paper:
2015 Comprehending the body in the era of the epigenome.
by Kenneth M Weiss, Anne V Buchanan, Margaret Lock, Wylie Burke, John Dupré, Hannah Landecker, Julie Livingston, Paul Martin, Maurizio Meloni, Gísli Pálsson, Rayna Rapp, . Current Anthropology, 56, 2, pp. 163-164

I cite this paper because Kenneth Weiss was a director of the American national eugenics society (aka Society for the Study of Social Biology, aka Society of Biodemography and Social Biology) 1993-1995 and Anne Buchanan has written for the Society journal thus showing the link with eugenics.
Essentially, the theory is that the genome is plastic and responds to its environment and, moreover, that its response can become hereditary. Stress can cause genetic changes in that methylated side chains on the chromosomes can be altered so as to shut off (or turn on) a gene thus controlling gene expression. It is theorized that stress can cause these changes. Racism is a stress. Hence, in the theory racism alters the body. Some say that important genes needed for altruism and sociality are turned off by stress, by racism, leading to anti-social behavior which has a hereditary genetic basis. Then we see anti-social behavior such as, shall we say, rioting, looting, burning. And the trap is sprung. And it was a trap. This is why nothing was done to control the situation in Portland, Chicago and elsewhere. This is why riots starring white radicals are portrayed as protests by blacks who support the slogan Black Lives Matter. It was always a trap leading up to the moment when the black community is declared a damaged group. You saw this spring and summer how keeping covid going as a public health crisis damaged America. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait till you see how racism, the public health crisis, smashes the black community. They'll say: Bodies have been altered - look at how the black community is expressing itself politically. Why? Why do they loot? White racism. You see, the Dem idea and the eugenic idea is that you can say any ugly thing you want about the black community if you start by saying "Due to white racism..." Due to white racism blacks must riot. Due to white racism, blacks don't learn in the rotten inner city schools. (And God forbid they be allowed into charter schools where they do well.) Due to white racism, young black kids must be drugged from an early age. Then the Woodrow Wilson Move, segregation to save the black community: Due to white racism there's a public health crisis and members of the black community must be segregated. And the final twist of the knife is that the problem is supposedly hereditary, due to white racism.; 9/4/20, 10:50 PM
Art in LA said...: Nice shots. What sunrise type is this? Is there a summary of your sunrise/sunset types posted somewhere?; 9/4/20, 10:51 PM
wildswan said...: Part 2 on the new eugenics and public health proposals
There's another way to think about it all. If you look at the videos from the recent Republican convention, you'll see members of the black community who are not rioters and looters - Tim Scott, Kim Klacik, Vernon Jones, others You'll see other answers to common problems, new ideas on how to share our common home and heritage. This is a time for a new reconciliation on a deeper level. Vote for Trump.

Or follow the Dems back into segregation-degradation while smarmy tunes play and scientific racists chant: "We're from the government and we're here to help you" just as they did for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a previous United States Public Health initiative with a similar M.O. "You have bad blood" or "You have have been epigenetically altered by racists" - what difference does it make when both mean you get cut off from the larger society and its benefits?

Here is the abstract for the article cited above which I have been translating. Years of work. You are welcome.
"... it is urgent for anthropologists to respond to a current move in epigenetics in which nature and nurture are no longer understood as dichotomous elements. It is argued that a neobiological reductionism is currently taking shape due to molecularization of the environment by epigeneticists. Anthropological concepts of embodiment should be retheorized in light of this development. The formation of epigenetics as a discipline is discussed, then the habitual black-boxing of the post-Enlightenment material body is noted. Five illustrative examples are given of recent epigenetic findings: the impact of maternal stress on fetal dysfunction, social deprivation and epigenetic changes, food as molecularized epigenetics, aging and epigenetics, and toxins as epigenetic triggers. “Embedded bodies,” “local biologies,” and “biosocial becomings” are introduced as concepts that enable the insertion of an anthropological perspective into this emerging debate. A brief account of historical trauma and its ongoing effects as experienced by First Nations and Inuit of Canada are given in conclusion. It is argued that historical and ethnographic accounts are indispensable if epigenetic finding; 9/4/20, 10:51 PM
Lucien said...: I get tired enough of the extremely tendentious and uncharitable readings of what our President says that I have to point out that a fair reading of Governor Cuomo’ s remarks is that they pertain to a hypothetical response to New York by a then former President Trump. The idea is that as a private citizen he would be unpopular in New York City.; 9/4/20, 10:53 PM
Lawrence Person said...: Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm.; 9/4/20, 11:12 PM
narciso said...: No surprise

https://mobile.twitter.com/StephenGutowski/status/1302081363206705152; 9/4/20, 11:53 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Vox
@voxdotcom

"If looting and rioting have no place in a well-functioning democracy, then perhaps it's time to consider that these are signs that Americans are not, in fact, in a functioning democracy". https://bit.ly/3h0WOjl

oh, Vox-- add "Murder" to that "looting and rioting", ok?

CCTV still shot of ReinHole lying in wait for Danielson

Self defense???

what happened to Rochester?
Before
and
After; 9/4/20, 11:58 PM
gadfly said...: @narciso said...

Curious https://mobile.twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1302046339119812610

Perhaps "sick" is a better term.; 9/4/20, 11:59 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: the "Trump hates dead soldiers"-- just to poison military support

...or cover for dead McCain since he will be seen deep in dossier hoax?; 9/5/20, 12:24 AM
bagoh20 said...: "Cuomo's remarks that, if Trump wants to visit New York, he'll have to bring an army"

Virtually every day someone, whether Trump friendly or not, says that Trump's language is inappropriate, while also every day some Democrat says something like this that apparently is the way they think Trump should talk. That seems a little unfair.; 9/5/20, 12:26 AM
Crazy World said...: Absolutely gorgeous pictures; 9/5/20, 12:54 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: If you don't have to graduate, it pays to stretch out one's tenure as a student as long as possible. Maintains access to the library.; 9/5/20, 1:06 AM
buwaya said...: St. Louis Fed has added the latest employment figures to their track of total population employment rate - Employment-Population Ratio (EMRATIO)

I have been saying for many years that this is the most valid metric of employment as it avoids problems with calculating labor force, etc. The unemployment rates (all of them) are unreliable and have been badly misused for political purposes, worst by the Obama administration, giving absurdly inaccurate spin on the progress of the "recovery", 2009-2012, but others too.

Anyway, August 2020 figures are in -

Jan 61.2 - post-2008 peak
Feb 61.1
Mar 60.0 - Covid lockdowns begin
Apr 51.3 - Worst point of lockdown.
May 52.8
Jun 54.6
Jul 55.1
Aug 56.5

This is quite "V-shaped" and though not instant, the rate of recovery does not seem to be slowing down. And this with most of the country still suffering under restrictions on much of the service economy - restaurants, retail, personal services, travel, tourism, education and entertainment. At this point the main recovery lag can be plausibly blamed on these restrictions.; 9/5/20, 3:18 AM
Mr. Forward said...: I took the red mulch this time and realized String Trimmers had created a domestic industry and eliminated most of the parking at your local garden center. Also bought the overpriced handcrafted boutique gasoline. The less you use it the more you need it.; 9/5/20, 4:45 AM
mezzrow said...: Lovely pictures, professor.; 9/5/20, 5:39 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: My partner got a bug yesterday about getting out. She wanted to go to Sandpoint, but they have the Spud Cup (ID state sailing championship, even though they don’t have commercial potato farming anywhere else). We went SE instead, to Missoula. Prefer staying on the west side of town, where the good shopping (Costco, Home Depot, etc) is. Not to be - we are downtown instead. This is the home of the University of MT, which means that it is insufferably woke and politically correct. A bunch of young people who take Dem Gov Bullock’s masking requirements way too seriously. How do you argue with someone just out of their teenaged years telling you that you are killing them by not wearing your mask? And you see idiotic signs around town proclaiming that “No Lives Matter Until Black Lives Matter”. It should surprise no one that I saw no Blacks anywhere all night. I expect that the university recruited some in order to feel virtuous, and to buck up their sports teams. Go Griz. I was going to suggest that universities that have rodeo teams probably don’t have BLM issues. But I think that at one time UNLV had both. My kid got themselves admitted to college here, and got a scholarship, a bit over a decade ago, because, I think, they thought that rodeo was cool. Went elsewhere, but I think that they would have done better at MSU in Bozeman, which has the engineering school. I keep joking with my partner to move around here, but the reality is that I find the political correctness and leftism draining.

The good though is that this is the historic part of town. The hotel is filled with historical photos of the period from maybe 1880 and 1920, when the state was brand new. You quickly become numb to the fact that the white men were wearing hats and boots, and riding horseback, while the Indians were looking rather, Indian. Nowadays most of the Indians I see have overweight problems. The photos show much fainter ancestors with well tanned, inevitably well rankled when older, skin. It’s weird, because we have part of a reservation the county we live in, and I don’t think that is the case here in Missoula. Yet they have much more Indian history.

On a less happy note, one of our neighbors is in town. He was flown in by medical helicopter to the trauma center, from where he dumped his Harley up on the pass not far from where we all live. He is the county’s POW, having been a hotel mate of John McCain's in Hanoi. He is the oldest guy in the neighborhood, at just over 80. Second oldest guy, a couple months younger, told me today (yesterday now) that he used to ride motorcycles, but quit 20 years ago. My partner concurred, stating that if she had been married to a motorcycle rider turning 60, she would have burned it. Her former husbands both rode motorcycles, but she repeatedly told me that if I bought one, she would never ride with me, and would get rid of it at her first opportunity. Not because of my age (over 60), but because I am a klutz. Shouldn’t be surprised though that a guy who used to fly through a forest of exploding telephone poles aimed at him every night, over North Vietnam, until he was forced to use a parachute after ejecting from a less than perfectly good plane, was still riding a motorcycle at 80. We are praying for him, because it is rarely good when they have to evacuate you by chopper to a trauma center a hundred miles away. Even if he won’t be at the HOA meeting this week.; 9/5/20, 5:44 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: The secret to line trimmers is fresh "line" every season. You have to find your pro power equipment retailer and find out when they put it out for sale. Stuff dries outand looses it's effectiveness. Ridged cross sections are best, and use premix synthetic fuel. Run it dry each season end.; 9/5/20, 6:11 AM
Jaq said...: At this point the main recovery lag can be plausibly blamed on these restrictions.

The Democrats’ presidential campaign of violence and terror has something to do with stifling the restaurant business.

Now they are in Rochester, NY terrorizing restaurant goers

Maybe, like some people say, New York State is in play in this election.; 9/5/20, 6:36 AM
Jaq said...: “There’s no need to run! Nobody is going to hurt you! We’re shutting your party down!”

While they smash glasses and plates and overturn tables.; 9/5/20, 6:46 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: https://twitter.com/bressler_marcus/status/1302210395151753217

90-day suspension from Facebook due to a 15 month old meme

THEOLDMAN

In FB Detox for the time being; 9/5/20, 6:50 AM
Jaq said...: I am betting that a live ballot will show up at my mailbox in Vermont, where I haven’t voted in many years. I will let you know. This is my marker.; 9/5/20, 6:54 AM
Jaq said...: "oh, Vox-- add "Murder" to that "looting and rioting", ok?”

It was a lynching.

Lynching: The killing of a person by a mob under pretense of summary justice.

Antifa is more like the KKK every day.; 9/5/20, 6:59 AM
Jaq said...: "Getting down in the gutter where the president does…that’s not the job of the president,’ Biden said. ‘If we were behind a barn somewhere it would be a different thing.’” - Joe Biden

Wow, Joe Biden is of the Browndog school of debate. "Let’s settle this with personal violence." Maybe Biden has watched Hamilton too many times.; 9/5/20, 7:04 AM
steve uhr said...: Mock the turtle. Trump leading the army into war. That’s the laugh of the week. Recall that his Vietnam was fucking as much as he could and avoiding STDs.; 9/5/20, 7:14 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Re: Buwaya's post above, businesses that reopen when restrictions are lifted are essentially "instant on" as opposed to new businesse in normal times which may spend several years developing a clientele etc.

This is one reason I'm optimistic for a strong v-shaped recovery.; 9/5/20, 7:26 AM
Mr. Forward said...: "...fucking as much as he could and avoiding STDs."

Antifa managed to do it backwards.; 9/5/20, 8:04 AM
Jaq said...: " businesses that reopen when restrictions are lifted are essentially "instant on””

Some of them. Others will open to greatly diminished customer base. When do you think that people will be comfortable again being jammed into packed airplanes? Even before COVID it was pretty much a given that if you flew north from Florida in the winter, you were going to come back with a cold or the flu. Travel was an 8 trillion dollar industry.

I drove down I-81 for a ways, and usually that is a somewhat harrowing ride with big rigs making up what seemed like half the traffic and this time it was like a parkway. Sometimes I shop at West Marine if I need something for my boat, you go in now, the store is basically empty. The place was a fence for stuff coming from jobs stolen by the ChiComs from the US. No way should we go back to where we were before this happened. PPE should be treated as strategically as battleship manufacturing. Lots of manufacturing should be brought back from what we now know to be an untrustworthy partner.; 9/5/20, 8:12 AM
Jaq said...: Isn’t it funny how the war mongers have taken over the Democrat Party. Impeachment was all about protecting the war mongers. ‘Russiagate’ was all about protecting the war mongers. And steve uhr steps right up and toes the line for them. Is Daddy Warbucks gonna cut you in on the profits steve?; 9/5/20, 8:16 AM
Ken B said...: Careful to get it on tape https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1302065293963923456; 9/5/20, 8:46 AM
AllenS said...: By the way, steve uhr, did you have any problems with BJ Clinton's refusing to serve in the military, and then being the Commander in Chief? I'll bet you didn't.; 9/5/20, 8:59 AM
Michael K said...: Recall that his Vietnam was fucking as much as he could and avoiding STDs.

What was yours, steve?; 9/5/20, 9:08 AM
alan markus said...: @ Bruce Hayden re: Veteran in motorcycle accident

Praying that he recovers and this is just another one of his tales of survival (this and COVID19). Keep us posted. In our area sometimes accident victims are flighted due to complicated fractures or plastic surgery needs - lives not in danger, but the trauma centers have more skilled orthopedic and plastic surgeons on tap.

I saw this guys obit - Navy veteran, helped rescue 33 Pearl Harbor survivors. 99 years old. Besides Pearl Harbor, lived through at least 3 pandemics - 1957/1958; 1968; 2009.

Floyd Welch, survivor of Pearl Harbor, dies at 99

In the meantime, some kids not starting in person school this week because they might catch the bug that will not kill them.; 9/5/20, 9:09 AM
Michael K said...: We went SE instead, to Missoula. Prefer staying on the west side of town, where the good shopping (Costco, Home Depot, etc) is. Not to be - we are downtown instead.

My son, the firefighter, finished his 10 days at the Santa Cruz fire, then took his vacation to drive to Missoula to help a buddy building something at his place there. I don't have the nerve to ask his wife how she feels about this but they have been married 20 some years. They still plan to drive to Tucson in 2 weeks so the daughter can take her SAT. California still shut down, and of course UC no longer requires the SAT or ACT.; 9/5/20, 9:14 AM
Paco Wové said...: Interesting stuff, wildswan. Lysenko returns.; 9/5/20, 9:16 AM
Dave Begley said...: I would love a book of Althouse photos.; 9/5/20, 9:27 AM
Ken B said...: “ I end the day drunk with power and unable to use my arms.”

For a moment I thought I was reading the Hitachi Magic Wand blog.; 9/5/20, 9:28 AM
madAsHell said...: Has anyone else noticed that the U.S. Marshalls are starting to capture headlines??

Last week, the Marshalls were breaking up child smuggling rings in Ohio, and Georgia. Yesterday, they gunned down the murder suspect from the Portland riots.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but my money says Trump is going to dismantle the FBI, and hand their responsibilities over to the Marshalls.; 9/5/20, 9:37 AM
charis said...: I made the dock picture my desktop photo. What a beautiful image. 🙂; 9/5/20, 9:49 AM
Humperdink said...: steve uhr said: "Mock the turtle. Trump leading the army into war. That’s the laugh of the week."

You may have missed it, but my president is getting the US out of wars. Which is what your side has been whining for the past 7 decades.

Since we are butchering into names, would it be uncivilized to call you "steve the urine"?; 9/5/20, 9:55 AM
Drago said...: steve uhr: "Mock the turtle. Trump leading the army into war. That’s the laugh of the week. Recall that his Vietnam was fucking as much as he could and avoiding STDs."

Morin Li'l stevie uhr decides now would be a good time to reference the Vietnam war, a war the "best and the brightest" purposely waged in a way to never actually win and led to tens of thousands of US military deaths, the hollowig out of the US military, the demoralization of the US populace and the loss of an ally to the communists who then killed and enslaved millions.

Meanwhile, Trump has purposely kept the US out of new permanent wars that todays stevie uhr approved "best and the brightest" wanted to launch, has rebuilt the military, and provided real offensive weapons to allies on the front lines (Poland/Ukraine) while establishing new coalitions to confront our enemies and making our allies pick up their part of the tab.

You know the best part?

Li'l stevie thought he had delivered a sizzling and effective hot take against Trump but instead he only drew attention to a few of Trump's most important and critical successes that were foundational in Trump's 2016 win.

Thanks for playing stevie!

Another solid performance!

Btw, exactly how many deferments did Biden get during Vietnam?; 9/5/20, 11:02 AM
mockturtle said...: Li'l stevie seems to miss my point, anyway, which was not Trump leading us into war but leading an army into NYC in response to Cuomo's threat. But I do understand that TDS can cause blindness.; 9/5/20, 1:03 PM
Michael K said...: I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but my money says Trump is going to dismantle the FBI, and hand their responsibilities over to the Marshalls.

Or take away the FBI role in crime and leave them with white collar stuff. Early on, you had to have a law degree or a CPA to get in. They have been hiring a lot of police and Army types for 25 years.; 9/5/20, 2:59 PM
Meade said...: "Recall that his Vietnam was fucking as much as he could and avoiding STDs."

A far worthier battle than the one Kennedy and Johnson got us bogged down in. In fact Trump is a fucking war hero in my book. I like fuckers who DON'T get STD's.; 9/5/20, 6:51 PM
Jaq said...: "Several boats have sunk and multiple are 'in distress' at a Trump Boat Parade on Lake Travis, Texas,”

I like boats and I like Trump, but these boat parade videos always seemed dangerous to me. First job driving a boat is. to make sure nobody gets hurt and you do that by not doing dangerous stuff, mostly.; 9/5/20, 7:08 PM
Jaq said...: "did you have any problems with BJ Clinton's refusing to serve in the military,”

Clinton started wars, Obama started wars, Bush started wars, Trump hasn’t done that. So maybe we are better off with an honest draft dodger who can’t see the value of war as POTUS.; 9/5/20, 7:12 PM