November 26, 2020

"The most prosaic of routines can now deliver delight. Like a bona fide night of restful sleep. Or a prolonged moment of enriching silence. Or, say, the leather chair..."

"... that Al Jirikowic, 68, an art critic and former Adams Morgan bar owner, now sits in five hours a day because there’s nowhere to go. The Churchill, as his throne is known, is where Jirikowic meditates, contemplates the end of civilization and figures out what to eat for lunch. Whatever the case, he’s comfortable. 'I’m thankful I can sit here and space out,' he said. 'You learn to like your solitude. If you don’t, you go nuts.'" 


I love the photo of Jirikowic, sitting in "The Churchill," with all his junk strewn about, especially...







Peanut butter with a spoon. When you not only resist masking up and venturing out to the store but you don't even want to hoist yourself out of the chair and trudge to the refrigerator. You don't even want to spread the pasty goo on crackers. You just spoon it right into your mouth. Don't you?

Peanut butter's important. It's got its own tag on this blog. Here's a post with that tag from almost exactly 8 years ago that has some good resonance in the aftermath of the election. It's about a WaPo article titled "A detached Romney tends wounds in seclusion after failed White House bid." From the article:

Gone are the minute-by-minute schedules and the swarm of Secret Service agents. There’s no aide to make his peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches. Romney hangs around the house, sometimes alone, pecking away at his iPad....

At least Trump gets to hang around the White House, and if he's lonely and tending his wounds, he could peck away at his iPad and wield the power that's still the greatest in the world. Is he despondent and detached? Or does he have hope — the audacity of hope?

61 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

When I see people on-line say "Trump's got this!" I roll my eyes.

The corruption of the deep state is too deep.
Still - he has every right to shine light on the fraud.

Rusty said...

The market expects fully informed, knowledgeable players. This is true of any market. What the market place does not expect or tolerate is third party, thumbs on scale skewing of the data that makes a deal possible. Uncertainty has been introduced by an outside source. The deal is off.

Marcus Bressler said...

Nate Silver is not only "delusional" but a very poor pollster. A liberal stooge.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I wish Trump had a stronger larger legal team.

Jenna is amazing. Rudy? eh. He's brave. The corrupt Stalinist left want to steam roll them.

I am convinced the corrupt left are the new Nazi.

tcrosse said...

For my sins, I worked for an outfit that manufactured rolls of refrigerated cookie dough. A marketing guy confided in me that 40% of it never saw the inside of an oven, but was eaten with a spoon in front of the TV.

Political Junkie said...

Loners and miscreants have been self isolating for years.

tim in vermont said...

Nate Silver is a genius when he guesses right. What are the odds of drawing to an inside straight?

Playing a drawing hand has a positive expectation if the probability of catching an out is greater than the pot odds offered by the pot.

The “pot” is the presidency of the United States. Just saying...

john said...

You see a man contemplating infinity and what to eat for lunch, I see a man who hasnt been out of sweatpants for a month or changed his underwear this week.

steve uhr said...

I say we give them hope for eight more weeks. Then it will all come crashing down and they can go in a deep depression for the next eight years. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I watched the Penn “hearing” yesterday. Now we know how many nuts one can fit into a small hotel ballroom.

Happy thanksgiving

tim in vermont said...

"Then it will all come crashing down and they can go in a deep depression for the next eight years. “

Not happening. If Trump loses this, the House is going red in 2 years. The only thing that will really hurt Republicans in this is if they walk away from the fight.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8630561/Dont-underestimate-Joes-ability-f-things-Obama-shares-private-doubts-former-VP.html

Plus elections will be harder to steal after all of this.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

That fraud was very apparent. Is it provable after the machine bleaches their fingerprints?

Achilles said...

Videotape of what happened after the “water main break” just got released in Georgia.

Poll workers went straight to the voting machines and got to work after everyone was told to go home.

96600 absentee ballots that were never marked as received were counted.

Still reading the 104 page filing in Georgia. This was all accumulated without discovery or subpoena or deposition.

A corrupt judge can throw the case out and the corrupt media can hide the evidence from the idiots like Ann that use them as their only source of information. But the information is out here now and plugging your ears and screaming lalalala isn’t going to put hump the dumpy back together again.

tim in vermont said...

"Now we know how many nuts one can fit into a small hotel ballroom.”

“We were not allowed within 20 yards of the ballot canvassing and couldn’t see anything meaningful.”

That’s a nutcase alright, expecting that the “robust measures” that Twitter, Google, Facebook, and YouTube assured us are in place to actually be implemented. Whadda rube!

What they are really betting on is that it’s about a 10% chance that the SCOTUS will honor the plain text of the constitution.

Ann Althouse said...

"Nate Silver is not only "delusional" but a very poor pollster. A liberal stooge."

He's not a pollster.

wildswan said...

On Thanksgiving at dinner Zoom, Zoom, we could discuss:
who should get the vaccine first?
My list
Frontline covid health care workers including EMT's; grocery workers.
Older members of the black community with two major problems.
Teachers; Armed forces
Older people with major health problems.
Health care workers (not plastic surgery)
Younger people
Children
Congress.
I'm certain of the first and last.
N.B. The FBI should not get it.

Then we might ask: should we have had Thanksgiving this year? Is 2020 a year to be thankful for?
I have a lot to be thankful for such as my health, my nice living arrangements, being retired when covid struck and other parts of my life. But that sounds simply awful - "others have it bad but, thanks be to God, it hit them not me, I'm OK." I think not. Thank you, God for spring, summer and autumn, for flowers, for snow. Thank you God, for the courage of Donald Trump. That's about it.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Peanut butter with a spoon. When you not only resist masking up and venturing out to the store but you don't even want to hoist yourself out of the chair and trudge to the refrigerator. You don't even want to spread the pasty goo on crackers. You just spoon it right into your mouth. Don't you?

This is what life is like for a lot of college students, without the luxury of leather chairs to sit in with no expectations of performance. But as long as boomers fEeL sAfe, who gives a shit how much young people are made to suffer, amirite?

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...

“He's not a pollster.”

So what is he Ann? What is Nate Silver to you?

Does he make you feel better about your treatment of this issue?

Are his bromides and postulations enough to make you feel educated and insightful about the election?

steve uhr said...

Tim. You will be glad to know that no one in the audience wore a mask or socially distanced. And Rudy forgot to cover his nose. Not the brightest bulbs in town. Too bad what they do puts others at risk.

Francisco D said...

tim in vermont said...If Trump loses this, the House is going red in 2 years. The only thing that will really hurt Republicans in this is if they walk away from the fight.

I agree with the first part. As to the second part, does anyone really believe that the Republicans will fight?

If they do, it will be a WWE scripted match. There is too much money to be made.

Humperdink said...

" He not a pollster"

Nathaniel Read Silver is an American statistician and writer who analyzes baseball and elections. (wiki)

That he has any credibility left is a mystery. A rather large mystery.

tim in vermont said...

Nate’s a genius. He expected Democrats to win 240 seats give or take as his most likely outcome. In fact it looks like that Republican wins fall outside of his 80% probability range completely. Remember that ten percent or half of that outside range is taken up by the possibility of a complete blowout win by Democrats. So he had the odds of what really happened at under ten percent.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/house/

Daddio said...

Nate Silver amazed that 10٪ of people exposed to a focused media effort hold sympathetic views. Imagine his surprise when/if he realizes the massive effect the MSM had in swinging votes to Biden.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wince said...

A few initial thoughts after skimming on Sidney Powell's 104-page complaint filed in Georgia, in no particular order of importance.

1.) Not easily dismissed by a judge. Lots of discovery sought.

2.) It's a constitutional/statutory claim against public officials. Dominion is not a defendant, although the outline of claims (both civil or criminal) against Smartmatic and Dominion, and Coomer specifically, is implicated.

3.) Encompasses both traditional balloting irregularities and cyber crimes.

4.) Does seek: "(1) An order directing Governor Kemp, Secretary Raffensperger and the Georgia State Board of Elections to de-certify the election results; (2) An order enjoining Governor Kemp from transmitting the currently certified election results to the Electoral College; (3) An order requiring Governor Kemp to transmit certified election results that state that President Donald Trump is the winner of the election."

5.) Does not seek remedy specifically applicable to the January Senate run-off, but does call for: "An emergency declaratory judgment that voting machines be Seized and Impounded immediately for a forensic audit."

The rest:

An immediate order to impound all the voting machines and software in Georgia for expert inspection by the Plaintiffs

An order that no votes received or tabulated by machines that werenot certified as required by federal and state law be counted.

A declaratory judgment declaring that Georgia Secretary of StateRule 183-1-14-0.9-.15 violates the Electors and Elections Clause,U.S. CONST. art. I, § 4;

A declaratory judgment declaring that Georgia’s failed system of signature verification violates the Electors and Elections Clause by working a de facto abolition of the signature verification requirement.

A declaratory judgment declaring that current certified election results violates the Due Process Clause, U.S. CONST. Amend. XIV;

A declaratory judgment declaring that mail-in and absentee ballot fraud must be remedied with a Full Manual Recount or statistically valid sampling that properly verifies the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes and that invalidates the certified results if the recount or sampling analysis shows a sufficient number of ineligible absentee ballots were counted

rehajm said...

He's not a pollster.

What I came to say. Baris and others kindly use the term 'poll reader'...

Most of Nate's shtick doesn't pass Herb Sanders 8th grade ditto handout on scientific method and numbers. Significant digits, gigo, inaccuracy of amalgamation. Nate's a what not to do poll reader.

Leland said...

And yet that 10% seems more accurate than the numbers given by Nate Silver.

rehajm said...

That he has any credibility left is a mystery

Propagandists don't concern themselves with things like credibility...

mezzrow said...

Enough of this balderdash. Let's get to issues that matter.

Creamy or crunchy?

Lurker21 said...

Some humility would be in order, given how badly Silver's predictions worked in 2016, and beyond that maybe a little wonder at the things that can happen in the world. I don't think Trump will manage it, but it's nice that there are some people who would make that bet.

The left-wing site Current Affairs has collected Silver's 2016 tweets here. The guy should really stay away from the word "delusional."

hombre said...

As usual, Silver confuses mathematics with politics. It showed in his polling. So who’s delusional?

Freeman Hunt said...

Nate Silver has some nerve talking about other people's delusions.

mccullough said...

Peanut butter straight from the jar is better than a peanut butter and honey sandwich made by an aide.

Temujin said...

In the past four years I've been diagnosed as a deplorable Nazi and delusional by people who insisted Trump and Russia were colluding to steal an election and that Biden is fully present and Democrats would never collude to steal an election.

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

I believe the casinos will not honor the best because of cheating.
They will return the money.

rehajm said...

If a Trump victory is such an impossibility why not encourage people to profit instead of whinging about it*? A sure thing doesn't come along very often...

*(We know why.)

hombre said...

steve uhr said...
“I say we give them hope for eight more weeks. Then it will all come crashing down and they can go in a deep depression for the next eight years. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Spoken like a man who has no clue what eight years of demented Joe Biden could look like, if there was the slightest possibility of Biden lasting eight years in the Presidency. Sort of describes the typical non-elite Beijing Biden voter doesn’t it?

Our family is prepared. Our granddaughter is in a Chinese language immersion course and we have ordered “Impeach Biden” bumper stickers. Ours is a concealed carry state, so one of us will be guarding the car at all times. (Can’t really put an LOL on that one any more, can we?)

Michael said...

Nate Silver seemed to be pretty detached from reality himself given the election results, although I'm sure he can explain in great detail why that's not the case.

Birkel said...

Damn, Althouse.
What you did to Nate Silver in your 9:34AM comment was brutal.
ROFLMAO

Freeman Hunt said...

His ratings of polls were completely wrong. (Isn't it funny that even polling has a celebrity?)

Butkus51 said...

No, he's not a pollster, but hes a complete sham as a statistician. I know that much.

JaimeRoberto said...

It's not necessarily that 10% of bettors think that Trump will win. It's that 10% are willing to risk their money in return for a possible large payout in the unlikely event that he does.

Anonymous said...

As I've said before, it's a bit alarming there are so many delusional people out there that the market equilibrium is this detached from reality."

This from the sane hack who told us there was a blue wave coming. Nate Silver is as irrelevant as Bob Dole or John McCain. Yesterday's news.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah .... I'm a peanut butter spooner. Late afternoon when I need something to tide me over until dinner a spoonful of Jif Crunchy hits the spot.

Freeman Hunt said...

"It's not necessarily that 10% of bettors think that Trump will win. It's that 10% are willing to risk their money in return for a possible large payout in the unlikely event that he does."

Exactly. Shouldn't Silver know that?

Freeman Hunt said...

Here's a sad peanut butter fact: when getting together packs of food for neglected kids, peanut butter is king because it's high calorie and the neglected child doesn't have to depend on an adult to cook it. Somewhere on this Thanksgiving Day there's a kid eating peanut butter out of a jar while his parents shoot meth. There's a happy thought for you!

Birkel said...

How goes the slippery slope, Freeman Hunt?

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Yeah, Freeman, we know, and some of us have been saying for nine months that the people who are keeping those kids out of school, where they can be somewhat parented and monitored, so they can fEel SaFe will burn for their sins someday.

Joe Smith said...

Not sure how healthy PB is.

Bread or muffins won't help.

It's my late night go-to.

A spoon it is.

Sam L. said...

My little dog just loved peanut butter.

tim in vermont said...

Definitely Silver should bet his house on the election. If he hasn’t, he’s full of shit.

tim in vermont said...

I remember reading somebody say once that if only peanut butter were as expensive as caviar, rich people’s parties would be decked with it.

Qwinn said...

"It's not necessarily that 10% of bettors think that Trump will win. It's that 10% are willing to risk their money in return for a possible large payout in the unlikely event that he does."

That, and people who believe that if Biden wins, their money will be taken from them anyway, so why not?

DEEBEE said...

So Ann, you have only a 10% chance to have to go to your pretend cruel neutrality. Which you have lost, cruelly, since the person you supposedly did not vote for became your president

Tyrone Slothrop said...

If I was Nate Silver I wouldn't be complaining about people being "detached from reality".

hstad said...


Blogger Ann Althouse said... "...He's [Nate Silver] not a pollster..." 11/26/20, 9:34 AM

Ann I agree 100%! So why do you cite him as a reader of polls and give him any credit at all. He's been consistently off, except for one exception (luck), as a statistician on reading the polls.

We've gotten to such low standards in the Media realm that citing "Nate Silver" is tantamount to giving this 'Grifter' creditability from the NY Times. LOL!

Original Mike said...

"Or does he have hope — the audacity of hope?"

Monk: "I had hope. Isn't hope the worst?"
Natalie: "No Mr. Monk, hope is a good thing."
Monk: "You're very young."

wild chicken said...

Got into it with the spouse about Trump. .there is a real good, sympathetic article about the election at new republic. Anyway, spouse always says the same thing: Trump should have ordered factories to make PPE!

Honestly I don't know why he didn't. All I know is spouse hated Trump before covid and now he has a reason!



gadfly said...

Someone once once said, not James A. Garfield - but maybe Garfield the Cat: "Man cannot live by bread alone, he must have peanut butter."

Bob Loblaw said...

You'd think Silver would be a little less confident in his assertions, given the number of times he's been badly wrong.

Doug said...


Plus elections will be harder to steal after all of this.


Wishful thinking. Liberal criminality will persist until it is utterly destroyed.

Ryan said...

An art critic and bar owner? That doesn't exactly add up...