Althouse: At the End of an Era Cafe...

January 19, 2021

At the End of an Era Cafe...

... you can talk until the new era dawns.

149 comments:

narciso said...: A dark winter beckons

https://mobile.twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1351714333244452866; 1/19/21, 8:54 PM
I'm Not Sure said...: "... you can talk until the new era dawns."

Sounds about right.; 1/19/21, 8:55 PM
Chuck said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 1/19/21, 8:57 PM
Readering said...: Reports that a combo of threats from GOP Senators and warnings from Admin lawyers will keep POTUS from pardoning Asante, Snowden, those involved in Jan 6, or the Trump family. Remained waffling on Banon.; 1/19/21, 8:58 PM
Readering said...: Assange; 1/19/21, 8:59 PM
Achilles said...: Daily post on the Open Source Voting System Project.

TODO: Better name for the project.; 1/19/21, 9:02 PM
narciso said...: It turns out alex stamos was hired by solarwind the firm that was hacked.; 1/19/21, 9:02 PM
Achilles said...: narciso said...

A dark winter beckons

https://mobile.twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1351714333244452866

It was inevitable that all of these Nations would go nuclear at some point.

The more interesting question is who Biden will start a war with first.; 1/19/21, 9:05 PM
Ken B said...: Tomorrow is day the planet begins to heal. The seas will cease to rise, children will leave off their crying, the turtle-dove will be heard across the land.; 1/19/21, 9:06 PM
Ken B said...: Tlaib deserves praise. https://twitter.com/RepRashida/status/1351654799196958721

Bravo Rashida Tlaib.; 1/19/21, 9:08 PM
Lurker21 said...: Trump wasn't going to pardon anyone associated with the Capitol thing anyway.; 1/19/21, 9:08 PM
Jersey Fled said...: Scheduled for my covid vaccine shot April 1.; 1/19/21, 9:09 PM
narciso said...: Qatar bought into turkeys degense industry as part of the khashoggi kerfluffle; 1/19/21, 9:09 PM
D. said...: tcm for 1/20/21

6:00 AM Ode To Billy Joe (1976)
8:00 AM Polo Joe (1936)
9:30 AM The Fabulous Joe (1947)
10:45 AM The Story of G. I. Joe (1945)
12:45 PM Joe Smith, American (1942)
2:00 PM A Guy Named Joe (1943)
4:15 PM Pal Joey (1957)
6:15 PM Mighty Joe Young (1949)
8:00 PM Murder She Said (1961)
9:45 PM Murder at the Gallop (1963)
11:15 PM Murder Most Foul (1964); 1/19/21, 9:09 PM
Achilles said...: Readering said...

Reports that a combo of threats from GOP Senators and warnings from Admin lawyers will keep POTUS from pardoning Asante, Snowden, those involved in Jan 6, or the Trump family. Remained waffling on Banon.

I hope he pardons Assange and Snowden.

I hope he leaves the briar patch of his family open.

It will also be interesting to watch the Antifa people get prosecuted for January 6th.

Democrats would be stupid enough to throw Trump family in jail at this point.

I really hope they throw Trump in jail for trying to investigate Joe's Ukrainian corruption.

Having your leader be a man who has taken Billions from foreign countries while prosecuting Trump for made up crimes will not be a good look.; 1/19/21, 9:10 PM
Mutaman said...: Trump's schedule for tomorrow:

"The President and The First Lady will depart the White House at 8:00AM for Palm Beach, Florida."; 1/19/21, 9:12 PM
Lurker21 said...: Wow! Biden hasn't even taken over and already Rashida Tlaib is already the front runner for the Republican nomination. Life is funny like that.; 1/19/21, 9:12 PM
Ken B said...: Achilles
You told me the other day that if Trump doesn’t pardon Assange and Snowden that he is not the man you think he is. Care to revise that?; 1/19/21, 9:13 PM
Clyde said...: Harry Brant, fashion icon and son of Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant, dead at 24

My first thought when I read this was that it was a real-life Richard Cory story, with a drug overdose instead of a bullet through his head. You can be given every advantage and privilege in life and still be unhappy.; 1/19/21, 9:13 PM
narciso said...: Another attack like abquaiq sans fracking and gas will be $5.00 gallon.; 1/19/21, 9:13 PM
Lurker21 said...: Instapundit:

CANDLE IN THE WIND: The Biden inaugural committee has encouraged all Americans to participate Tuesday by lighting a candle in their windows.

No word yet if the Biden inaugural committee has issued any instructions regarding the type of candle their supporters should choose. Best to avoid this one: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Vagina Candle Reportedly Exploded, Starting an “Inferno” in a Woman’s Living Room.

Will Biden accept responsibility if any more houses burn down?

And where exactly was Gwyneth's candle anyway?; 1/19/21, 9:14 PM
narciso said...: You really dont want to know.; 1/19/21, 9:19 PM
Mark said...: Who killed the unarmed Ashli Babbitt?

Two weeks later. Silence.

#RevealHisName; 1/19/21, 9:19 PM
Joe Smith said...: Related to a Meade comment but a reason to further expand on an open thread:

Heard at the end of Rush’s show today.

It was all about ‘don’t worry, the Democrats will mess things up so badly it will be easy to elect Republicans in two years.’

All the while agreeing with a caller that the Dems would likely end the filibuster, try to make DC and PR states, try to pack the court, and give amnesty to 30M illegals.

They wouldn’t even have to steal elections if they did that.

This is the problem with the conservative mindset, even in smart guys like Rush.

In 2 years’ time they will have pulled us 10 steps to the left. Even if we win the mid-terms, we can do nothing without the White House.

Even if we have all 3 branches in 2024 what’s the best that can be done? Maybe claw it back 3 steps, which leaves us 7 steps to the left.

This is how they win. They are street-fighters 24/7, 365. They push crazy ideas like 'every kindergartner can be transgender or gay, and we just settle for something a little less appalling, but appalling nonetheless. But it’s still a victory for them.

I’m sick of it. It looks like I will be divorcing my party imminently.; 1/19/21, 9:20 PM
Jersey Fled said...: From wisegeek.com

Burning candles can be bad for the environment in a number of ways. The components of the candle are the primary source of environmental problems. Paraffin candles, for example, produce a number of byproducts when they are burned, including greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Paraffin is also a petroleum product, making it a nonrenewable resource and adding to pollution through oil spills and other issues associated with the oil extraction process. Candles also produce soot, a particulate material which can be a lung irritant, and scented or treated varieties may release harmful chemical compounds when they are burned.; 1/19/21, 9:24 PM
Joe Smith said...: "12:45 PM Joe Smith, American (1942)"

Hey, that's me!; 1/19/21, 9:24 PM
Humperdink said...: Apparently Trump is off the hook for the January 6th riots. The administration has discovered a video that caused the upheaval. President Trump's Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows will appear on all the Sunday political shows this weekend to give the details. Given an earlier precedent, it is presumed the media will buy the story hook, line and sinker.

(Well, maybe not in this case.); 1/19/21, 9:25 PM
Joe Smith said...: "Who killed the unarmed Ashli Babbitt?"

What's on Hunter's laptop?

Weiner's laptop?

Epstein's dirty movies?; 1/19/21, 9:25 PM
William said...: If you're a victim, what's more important than the nature and extent of your suffering is who caused that suffering. The world is full of suffering. It's just too much to rectify or even to comprehend. It's important to blue pencil out all superfluous misery. Concentrate on that misery which is caused by your enemies. This gives you a twofer: you get to sanctify your hate for your enemies and sometimes you even get to give solace to his victims. I suppose you could argue that in some scenarios this increases the sum total of victims in the world without ever really bringing peace or help for pain to any of them, but those are scenarios which our enemies enact. The good people of the world are agents of God's will and, in the end, things work out for the best.; 1/19/21, 9:25 PM
Clyde said...: Biden* is already older than Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko were at the time of their deaths. Back in those days, we poked fun at the Soviets for their creaky gerontocracy. We called Brezhnev "Lenny the Pooh" because there were rumors that he was stuffed. Good times.; 1/19/21, 9:28 PM
Achilles said...: Just posting and updating this as I have time. These are spitballs not design docs at the moment. Just trying to get the ball moving.

For now I see a 2 or 3 tier voting system infrastructure.

1. We need a front end voter machine that allows a voter to touch the screen and make choices. This would have it's own HD/Memory and it's own write once Flash log drive/drives. It's only point of contact would be a hard wired connection to the local base station.

2. These voter interface machines to be connected to a site base station that is more robust and is the single point of contact to the outside world for a voting station. These machines broadcast voting updates to the entire backbone network. Each update would be sent to the full list of backbone computers. I am not sure if each station should be part of the backbone network or not.

3. A statewide series of computers that form the backbone of the network. These computers would use a blockchain form of verification to verify vote total updates. We would use a trusted 3rd party auth system much like our credit card verification system.

A voter would check in to the voting station. They would give their name and they would choose from a list of voters in the registered voter database provided using an async search that autofills as you type in your name just like writing an email or google search.

The database would have a picture attached to each voter. No ID required. It would pop up right there on a monitor at the desk. It is an O(1) lookup. Basically instant.

The voter would make selections on the touch screen. The selections would be compiled and a ballot printed on the spot. The boxes would be huge and the font readable by a half blind gerbil. You would touch the face or name of the person you wanted to vote for. Each ballot would have a barcode and detachable receipt that have an encryption key watermarked to the paper.

The site base station and the voter station would both be writing to their own unalterable write once voting log. If a voter requests a new ballot that would be written to the log. Nothing could be erased or altered in the log once written there. If a ballot was cancelled in the log it would be instantly caught because it has a unique ID/Encryption key watermarked into it. Each voter that votes will be entered into a new database of people who voted. The time that they voted would be marked at each hour or minute to separate them from the vote they cast. A picture of the voter could easily be entered in the voters who voted database.

The site base Station Will broadcast results to all backbone machines. The backbone machines will use a blockchain style verification system comparing receipts from base stations. It would not be hard to measure these broadcasts in hZ or MHZ. You could have multiple updates every second because the amounts of data are not that large.; 1/19/21, 9:31 PM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/19/21, 9:35 PM
narciso said...: And biden was a soviet tool that far back, into the 70s.; 1/19/21, 9:35 PM
Achilles said...: Ken B said...

Achilles
You told me the other day that if Trump doesn’t pardon Assange and Snowden that he is not the man you think he is. Care to revise that?

I don't tell you anything. You are a dishonest piece of shit.

The only reason I communicate with you is to remind you that you argue in bad faith and put words in people's mouth that they did not say and you append motivations to them they don't have.

You are also innumerate and stupid.

My own opinion is that if Trump doesn't pardon Assange and Snowden I will be dissappointed in him.

I have been disappointed by Trump since about November 9th. I think he listened to bad advice. I think he is handling this poorly.

But we will see what happens tomorrow.; 1/19/21, 9:37 PM
Humperdink said...: Looking forward to Bidens first impromptu presser on the White House lawn before he is wheeled to Marine One and returns to the Camp David nursing home and geriatric center. I am thinking it's never.; 1/19/21, 9:39 PM
Lurker21 said...: Harry Brant, fashion icon and son of Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant, dead at 24

Peter Brant was Donald Trump's childhood friend, pals until Trump got sent away to military school.; 1/19/21, 9:42 PM
Ken B said...: Achilles
So the answer is, you want to walk it back. Wise.; 1/19/21, 9:43 PM
Humperdink said...: It appears from the pictures, the Honduran immigrant caravan heading our way is unaware of President-select Biden's mask mandate and social distancing guidelines.; 1/19/21, 9:47 PM
Ken B said...: Achilles
Can we agree Trump is doing a shit job and Tlaib deserves praise?; 1/19/21, 9:49 PM
Lurker21 said...: Gwyneth's candle literally says on the label, "This candle smells like my vagina." I don't know if it smells like Gwyneth's or if customers can have one specially made that smells like their own.

This follows an earlier lawsuit regarding Gwyneth's Vaginal Eggs. They aren't literally her own vaginal eggs, but please don't make me look up what they actually are.

The candle exploded and emitted huge flames, with bits flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole thing was ablaze and it was too hot to touch. There was an inferno in the room.

This makes for a good poll question -- "Would you consider using Gwyneth Paltrow's Vaginal Candle?" -- but as for me, I would like to see a 9-11 style government commission convoked to investigate just exactly how this came to happen and who is responsible.; 1/19/21, 9:52 PM
Achilles said...: Ken B said...

Achilles
So the answer is, you want to walk it back. Wise.

You have a habit of lying about what people said and what their motivations are.

The answer is you are still a lying piece of shit. I doubt I said anything like you mentioned. I know it was not anything like the context you are imputing.

I am just going to take this time to remind you that every single thing you predicted about COVID was wrong and everything I said was right.

I am also going to remind you you have no clue what exponential means and that when you tried to apply it to COVID you were shown to be an innumerate idiot.

You also spent that whole time saying that everyone who disagreed with you wanted millions of people to die of COVID.

Because you are a scum bag.; 1/19/21, 9:52 PM
Achilles said...: Ken B said...

Achilles
Can we agree Trump is doing a shit job and Tlaib deserves praise?

No.

We can agree that is a stupid and shallow statement and you are a stupid and shallow and dishonest person.; 1/19/21, 9:54 PM
Ken B said...: Achilles
Snicker. The only thing you ever got right about covid was how to spell it. That you did get right!
Very few people here go covid even close to right. Ward is off by a factor of 50 or more.
Two who did very well indeed were Tim in Vermont and me.
If Trump had taken our advice on covid he would be reinaugurated tomorrow.; 1/19/21, 10:00 PM
walter said...: Joementia should call for a nation-wide nap mandate.
Unity; 1/19/21, 10:01 PM
narciso said...: Wuhan virus sourced from their ft dietrich , derived from a strain collected in yunnanthats in southern china, bordering vietnam btw.; 1/19/21, 10:06 PM
narciso said...: Youre going to get the ones who screwwd up wisconsin and pennsylvania, palm and levine the ghidra of health policy.; 1/19/21, 10:09 PM
Joe Smith said...: "The database would have a picture attached to each voter. No ID required. It would pop up right there on a monitor at the desk. It is an O(1) lookup. Basically instant."

This will only be valid if, at the same time, a photo is taken of the voter and saved.

Then it should be trivial for a facial recognition system to verify that the voter is who they say they are, should the need arise.; 1/19/21, 10:11 PM
narciso said...: Another hysteric andrew (he used to be in charge of medicare in thr obama years) a race obsessed witch alondra nelson, we'll be resorting to leaches before long.; 1/19/21, 10:12 PM
D. said...: "
At the End of an Era Cafe...

... you can talk until the new era dawns."

lmao Just a return to the Baracky era on steriods, you clownish proggtarded Boomer.; 1/19/21, 10:15 PM
Joe Smith said...: Tomorrow, we enter 'Weekend at Bernie's' territory.

It's right next door to the 'Twilight Zone.'; 1/19/21, 10:17 PM
Inga said...: “Achilles
Snicker. The only thing you ever got right about covid was how to spell it. That you did get right!”

Not only was he wrong about Covid, he was wrong about Republicans winning the House in 2018 and Trump winning the Presidency in 2020. When this fool keeps claiming he was right about everything, I wonder if anyone could possibly be more deluded and divorced from reality.; 1/19/21, 10:46 PM
I Callahan said...: You told me the other day that if Trump doesn’t pardon Assange and Snowden that he is not the man you think he is. Care to revise that?

There’s almost a kind of glee here, you typing this. Why? That vindictive streak is showing again.; 1/19/21, 10:52 PM
Mark said...: Reviewing the Inaugural Schedule right now.

After turning the nation's capital into a militarized zone, the post-swearing in proceedings will have a fairly Soviet look to them, with Biden surrounded by military troops in parade. Who knows? Perhaps they will even have a string of nuclear missiles on trucks pass by.; 1/19/21, 10:55 PM
narciso said...: How secure were those systems it seems the security services learned nothing from boyce or even ames.; 1/19/21, 10:56 PM
Hey Skipper said...: Ken B: Ward is off by a factor of 50 or more.

Yancey Ward was off by 393,000.

Science was off by at least 1.6 million.

Science was, oh, five-ish times further from reality than Yancey was.

Presuming reality matters.; 1/19/21, 10:57 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, you are actually looking forward to the four year stretch that starts tomorrow? You fool.; 1/19/21, 10:57 PM
narciso said...: Remember when they caterwailed about a parade now they have afull division of tin soldiers.; 1/19/21, 10:58 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: My assessment of Trump:

He succeeded spectacularly on policy: economics + foreign policy, particularly in the first 3 years.

He failed equally spectacularly on realpolitik. He never gained control of the CIA, FBI, DOJ and the bureaucracy, all of which constantly betrayed and undermined him. This doomed him.; 1/19/21, 11:00 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: So, as much as I agreed with Trump on policy, I gotta say:

You don’t hire a CEO who doesn’t know how to succeed in realpolitick.

I learned an ugly lesson here.; 1/19/21, 11:02 PM
Joe Smith said...: "After turning the nation's capital into a militarized zone, the post-swearing in proceedings will have a fairly Soviet look to them, with Biden surrounded by military troops in parade. Who knows? Perhaps they will even have a string of nuclear missiles on trucks pass by."

No, that would be a waste of time.

I'm guessing they'll be anxious to start the new session of the Politburo.

I hope they send me to a reeducation camp in a temperate zone.; 1/19/21, 11:03 PM
narciso said...: A requiem for a republic, maybe some mozart would fit the bill.; 1/19/21, 11:03 PM
Ken B said...: Inga
It’s hard to find anyone as consistently wrong as Achilles, except maybe Drago.
It’s actually odd that Achilles could spell covid because he spells “my superior in every regard” as “liar”.; 1/19/21, 11:05 PM
Big Mike said...: After turning the nation's capital into a militarized zone, the post-swearing in proceedings will have a fairly Soviet look to them, with Biden surrounded by military troops in parade.

@Mark, I thought Biden had cancelled the inaugural parade? COVID, you know.; 1/19/21, 11:06 PM
Yancey Ward said...: K(ar)enB is still smarting from the fact that none, literally none, of the policies he advocated in March actually did a thing to stop COVID. All they did was stop the economy and throw up to 20,000,000 people or more out of work. Lockdowns didn't work. Masks didn't work. And not only K(ar)enB- all those smug morons who were heaping praise on the lockdown governors and Chicken Littles for stopping COVID in May saw all of it evaporate by November. The only controlling factor seems to have been the seasons and when the first critical number of infected reached a state or country. Some got their first wave in March/April, some got it in June/July, and everyone had gotten one or two waves by December. We could have literally done nothing and ended up in the exact same place, as pretty much every country that isn't an island demonstrate.

The Swedes were right, the rest of the world was wrong.; 1/19/21, 11:07 PM
Lurker21 said...: I was really looking forward to being reeducated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But now it looks like the course is being taught by Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy.

Bummer.; 1/19/21, 11:08 PM
Readering said...: 12 hours new p and vp; 1/19/21, 11:08 PM
Big Mike said...: Wife and I checked. No candles showing in any windows in the neighborhood.; 1/19/21, 11:09 PM
Mark said...: Amidst the military occupation of the Federal City --

1:40 p.m.: After the official swearing-in ceremony, Biden, the incoming First Lady, Harris, and the incoming Second Gentleman will participate in a Pass in Review on the East Front of the Capitol with members of the military.

2:25 p.m., Arlington National Cemetery, Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: Biden and Harris, and their spouses, will then visit Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

3:15 p.m.: Biden will then receive a presidential escort from 15th Street to the White House. The escort will include representatives of every branch of the military, including the U.S. Army Band, a Joint Service Honor Guard, and the Commander-in-Chief’s Guard and Fife and Drum Corps from the 3rd U.S. Infantry “The Old Guard.”

Then our new leader retreats to the bunker/basement for the Virtual Parade Across America.

To ensure that YOU WILL FOLLOW HIM, it will be all-Biden across the entertainment media at 8:30 PM with the 90-minute "Celebrating America" Primetime Special.

To send you off to bed -- MORE BIDEN
The day is expected to end just before 10 p.m., when Biden and his wife will make an appearance on the Blue Room Balcony at the White House.; 1/19/21, 11:13 PM
Inga said...: “12 hours new p and vp”

!!!!; 1/19/21, 11:14 PM
Chuck said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 1/19/21, 11:14 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Trump certainly had his moments, but for you who think he was a strategic genius:

He got snookered by Comey on the way in.

He got snookered into staging that rally on the way out.; 1/19/21, 11:15 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Here are the spreadsheets I keep- first is US overall data with various graphs in the tabs at the bottom. The second is the master sheet with all the individual states tabbed at the bottom. Just peruse the states- they all look the same at this point except that the states that got hit in the Spring had fewer deaths in the Fall/Winter wave respectively- the states hit in the Summer got about the same size wave in the Fall/Winter, both smaller than the hard hit states of the Spring. The key point is that almost all the states have had between 6-10% of their population test positive, and all of the states have roughly the same case fatality rate, and the ones that have higher rates are the ones that got hit hard in the Spring when we were only running 100K tests/day, not the 1.5 million/day we have run since October. In short- the case fatality rates are converging to between 0.5 and 1.5%, and will continue to converge going forward to the lower level (see California where the CFR continues to fall towards 1% even while the state is reporting 600 deaths/day- same for New York where the rate was 6.5% in April and is now in the mid 2s and falling rapidly).

US Data
Individual State Data; 1/19/21, 11:18 PM
Gospace said...: Achilles said...
Just posting and updating this as I have time. These are spitballs not design docs at the moment. Just trying to get the ball moving.

For now I see a 2 or 3 tier voting system infrastructure.

1. We need a front end voter machine that allows a voter to touch the screen and make choices. This would have it's own HD/Memory and it's own write once Flash log drive/drives. It's only point of contact would be a hard wired connection to the local base station.

Keyboard. Not touchscreen, keyboard! Quite seriously, some of us just don't interact very well with touchscreens of any kind. This time of year I take the keys out of my pocket before touching a door or anything metal that's grounded. 2 inch sparks are not unknown- and 2 inch sparks are loud enough to cause people to turn heads.

Touch screens misbehave for me frequently. They are simply not reliable enough for voting. Keyboards can't be misaligned or miscalibrated. An A is an A, a Q is a Q. And you don't (generally) get any shocks touching them. Yes, I have gotten shocks from touchscreens.; 1/19/21, 11:18 PM
Mark said...: In his inaugural address, Biden will unify the nation by insulting half of the country. This follows the insulting questioning of the loyalty of National Guard troops in the past few days.; 1/19/21, 11:19 PM
Lurker21 said...: THIS IS CNN: CNN’s David Chalian says lights at National Mall are like ‘extensions of Joe Biden’s arms embracing America.’

Does that mean we're all parties to the lawsuit?

Biden Sorry Not Sorry For For Making Women Uncomfortable: "I’m sorry I didn’t understand more," Biden told reporters following a speech to a gathering of union workers. "I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I have never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman. So that’s not the reputation I’ve had since I was in high school, for God’s sake."

Biden's reputation was for being the guy who didn't know that saying "I think I have a higher IQ than you" was being disrespectful.

And I thought never apologizing for anything he did was supposed to be Trump's thing.; 1/19/21, 11:20 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: I am not endorsing Biden.

He’s been a thug enforcer his entire career in the Senate.

His performance at the Clarence Thomas hearing was horrifying.

But even worse was his performance at the hearing on the Fed torching of the Branch Davidian complex.

He led the charge to portray the FBI’s deliberate incineration of that cult as a suicide. The FBI has been out of control for a long time.; 1/19/21, 11:20 PM
Ken B said...: So Yancey, reduced to Wokester respelling for your insults now with your brackets?

Of course policies I advocated helped. Social distancing ie 6 ft apart, prefer outdoor interactions, etc. pretty standard stuff historically really. Reducing density during shopping.

There were policies I didn’t advocate that didn’t help. Naturally you falsely say I supported those. It’s your conscience, I guess you can shit on it if you wish.

And of course lots of policies I advocated were not followed. I advocated for instance paying people to stay home and isolate. I advocated various testing schemes which were never implemented. I advocated variolation. I advocated human challenge trials for vaccines and I think those were adopted, speeding development.

The one thing I never advocated was your plan: let old people die.; 1/19/21, 11:22 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Shouting Thomas is right- Trump fucked up in not firing every single Obama appointee who could be fired and for not reassigning the rest to positions with no access to anything important. I would have fired James Comey on January 20th 2017 at 12:01 p.m.; 1/19/21, 11:23 PM
Ken B said...: Big Mike
No visible candles so that Trump voters don’t mob the houses.
Just wait: you will hear that theory. Probably on CNN.; 1/19/21, 11:24 PM
Yancey Ward said...: And he should not have appointed anyone to cabinet positions that had been either a Representative, a Senator, or served in any previous administration. He ended up with den of backstabbers.; 1/19/21, 11:24 PM
Joe Smith said...: "Wife and I checked. No candles showing in any windows in the neighborhood."

Will they be Gwyneth Paltrow candles?; 1/19/21, 11:27 PM
Yancey Ward said...: No, K(ar)enB- social distancing wasn't a government policy, and it probably hasn't done anything to stop the virus anyway- just dragged out the process by a couple of months at most, just like we are witnessing the last 2 months. The only thing that really slowed the virus was Summer. Was Summer a policy you recommended? No, it wasn't- you advocated hard for lockdowns and masking. I didn't- I wrote at the time they wouldn't work and would damage the country more than the virus would. And I was right, wasn't I?; 1/19/21, 11:28 PM
Joe Smith said...: I don't think we will ever hear a live speech by Biden that lasts more than 20 minutes...30 tops.

I guess that's a good thing.; 1/19/21, 11:28 PM
Joe Smith said...: "The only thing that really slowed the virus was Summer."

So more global warming is good now?

Make up your minds! : ); 1/19/21, 11:30 PM
narciso said...: Then you believe in magic two, show me how you get the doj staffed by jan 20, with all these tripwires.; 1/19/21, 11:33 PM
Rt41Rebel said...: Burning candles in the window sounds cultish to me. Be a shame if a bunch of houses burned down tonight, burning things down as a show of solidarity sounds cultish to me too.; 1/19/21, 11:34 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "The one thing I never advocated was your plan: let old people die."

This is why Achilles writes what he writes about you, Ken- you just lie relentlessly- I never advocated for letting old people die- I just asserted at the time that the policies being enacted wouldn't stop it. I even advocated for policies that could have worked, and I do remember you supported them at the time, but those weren't the policies we used as a nation or as a world.

The British had the right plan at the start, but quailed before the onslaught of people like you- isolate the elderly and let the rest of the population catch and recover from the disease as quickly as possible. This would have worked and would have saved at least some of the people who died, but, no, we couldn't do this- we had to lockdown and throw 20% of the workers out of their jobs, and destroy the small businesses of nearly everyone else.

You could recover some good will from people like me by just admitting that you were wrong about lockdowns and masks. But you won't, will you? You will just continue to smear people with the "they wanted to let old people die". I am done with you. This is my last response to you, Ken. You can continue to tell your lies here without me correcting them any longer.; 1/19/21, 11:35 PM
Ken B said...: Yancey
Let’s deal with the first words of your recent comment, which are a lie.
Social distancing IS a government policy. Here is just one link https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/04/social-distancing-rules-toronto-ontario/
Lots of local jurisdictions too.
And of course nationally you had the CDC.

I advocated for a 2 week partial lockdown. This is what I mean by your false statements.

I did and do advocate masks indoors. And that is effective.

We’re you right when you agreed with me that unending lockdowns were unsustainable? Yes. But you also said two week partial lockdowns would destroy the economy and cause 30s levels of unemployment for decades. Not correct.; 1/19/21, 11:35 PM
Clyde said...: 21st Century headline: 1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says; 1/19/21, 11:37 PM
narciso said...: Social distancing is magical thinking so is anything other than n 95 masks but keep thinking that way.; 1/19/21, 11:37 PM
Lurker21 said...: One of the fun things about being part of the Establishment or the swamp is that you have binders full of people you can appoint to offices. For better or for worse, they've been through the mill and have in some sense already been vetted for you (though maybe not vetted enough). If you're an outsider and get rid of all the Establishment swamp creatures, you'll have trouble replacing them. You may not be able to trust the swamp creatures, and you may or may not know whether you can or can't trust them, but you don't always know if the people you put in their place are trustworthy or competent either. In the past, Grant and Harding had real trouble finding trustworthy and responsible appointees, perhaps because they relied on people from outside the usual government circles.; 1/19/21, 11:45 PM
Big Mike said...: Will they be Gwyneth Paltrow candles?

I judge that the women in this neighborhood would not pay $75 for a scented candle. Especially not that scent.; 1/19/21, 11:47 PM
narciso said...: Charlie forbes or general shinseki why is one a scandal and the other one a footnote; 1/19/21, 11:48 PM
narciso said...: She was one of the worst of the whole avengers oevre.; 1/19/21, 11:49 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: You may not be able to trust the swamp creatures, and you may or may not know whether you can or can't trust them, but you don't always know if the people you put in their place are trustworthy or competent either.

If you intend to run for president, as Trump did for decades, part of your job is to develop a retinue of people you can trust to place in the bureaucracy.; 1/19/21, 11:51 PM
Rt41Rebel said...: "21st Century headline: 1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says"

MSM publishes yet another sycophantic Biden piece.; 1/19/21, 11:51 PM
Ken B said...: Too funny
The Trumpkins are realizing just today that Trump is all hat and no cattle! He talks big but doesn’t follow through.
Bloomberg made a killing criticism: Trump doesn’t build teams to get things done. Trumpkins howled but on this very thread are pointing out examples. The one exception might be the one Farmer bitches about, the son in law. His Middle East negotiation team seems to have been effective and had follow through.; 1/19/21, 11:52 PM
Openidname said...: Thanks for the data, Yancey.; 1/19/21, 11:52 PM
narciso said...: Bloomberg who sold his first born to the dragons the easiest course is surrender well you are getting it good and hard without lubricant the persecutors of daleiden the sisters of the poor the traitirs of the iran deal.; 1/19/21, 11:57 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: From someone who knows: Noor Bin Ladin Takes On Democrats Who Are Slandering Trump Supporters

"... this past week the President’s detractors reached a new, despicable low even by their own standards.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. It took me a week to put my thoughts in writing, as every time I tried it made me too upset. But I persevered as I could not sit by and listen as millions of Americans are so unjustly and egregiously insulted and vilified.

I’m referring to the latest hateful narrative of comparing the President [Trump] to Osama bin Laden and his supporters to Al Qaeda (which translates to ‘the base’ in Arabic) and Islamic terrorists generally. You’ve probably seen it, as so many of them were parroting this disgusting lie over the past week; but let that sink in: they have resorted to comparing close to 80 million Americans to some of the most despicable people who have ever walked this Earth, including some who have decapitated innocent Americans on live video..."; 1/19/21, 11:57 PM
Ken B said...: No praise for Tlaib from the regulars?

Naturally not. Living down to Inga's opinion of you.; 1/20/21, 12:06 AM
narciso said...: Not surprising manbc was ubls favorite station till they kicked out olbermann thwn he switched to aljazeera

Let me stop before i say something i cant take back.; 1/20/21, 12:08 AM
Joe Smith said...: "If you're an outsider and get rid of all the Establishment swamp creatures, you'll have trouble replacing them."

Not sure many of them of them need to be replaced.

I'm guessing you could cut 50% of the federal government and it wouldn't really matter.; 1/20/21, 12:09 AM
Ken B said...: YW: Social distancing was never government mandated. What a liar you are!
KB: *links to government website announcing police will enforce social distancing*
YW: *crickets*; 1/20/21, 12:11 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: In re this Rachael Levine character:

I haven’t spent much time ruminating on this, but I’ll ask.

What’s the danger of some ugly old guy wearing his hair long, donning women’s clothing and calling himself a woman?

It’s goofy. On a personal level, I’d never deal with such a person.

But, is it dangerous?; 1/20/21, 12:15 AM
Mark said...: It's extremely dangerous, ST, when they DEMAND that you participate in and endorse the lie.; 1/20/21, 12:17 AM
Mark said...: The danger is that some people's lives are being destroyed for doing what you just did -- refer to this person as "his."; 1/20/21, 12:18 AM
narciso said...: It sent infected old people ack to utsing homes like palm like the healtb commissioner in new york and exempted his own kin if that isnt evil.; 1/20/21, 12:19 AM
Joe Smith said...: "But, is it dangerous?"

Yes. It is mainstreaming mental illness.

And she is not qualified to administer BandAids.

'"Levine served as a controversial public official in Pennsylvania leveling business and restaurant lockdowns and bans and defending them as a critical way to stop the spread of the virus.

Levine drew criticism for months for allowing “stable” coronavirus patients to be returned to nursing homes during the pandemic, receiving blame for the virus skyrocketing among the elderly in those facilities.

In May, Levine was called out for moving her own mother out of a nursing home facility despite the department’s guidance to admit “stable” patients who had contracted the virus.

Levine also repeatedly accused critics of transphobia, as Levine publicly identified as a female rather than his biological gender as a male.

In May, Levine interrupted a press conference asking a reporter to not “misgender” him after the reporter addressed him as “sir.”'

Any more questions?; 1/20/21, 12:21 AM
narciso said...: It sent infected old people ack to utsing homes like palm like the healtb commissioner in new york and exempted his own kin if that isnt evil.

Those are the people who will be running the innards of the health system in this country.; 1/20/21, 12:21 AM
narciso said...: The maniacs are running the asylum at all levels in the nation, and the cost has been ruinous in lives and property; 1/20/21, 12:24 AM
Largo said...: Ken B:

Did Achilles say '...the man I thought he [is or was]'?

A simple yes or no please, after which you may expand.

--Largo; 1/20/21, 12:25 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: Any more questions?

Well, yeah.

Bennie Hill did this goofball's act for a long time, and I thought it was pretty funny.

Levine, in terms of policy, did the same shit non-tranny Democrats are doing in every state they control.

The only part of this shit that annoys me is that I can't laugh at Levine on FB without getting banned for 30 days.; 1/20/21, 12:26 AM
pacwest said...: No praise for Tlaib from the regulars?

On its face her proposal is a good one. And the agencies formed after 9/11 do need need to be reined in, especially in light of these last 4 years. Excuse me for waiting too see what the final details are before praising her. Considering past performance and all.; 1/20/21, 12:27 AM
narciso said...: A hamas supporter really cares about our safety right.; 1/20/21, 12:31 AM
Ken B said...: Pacwest
Fair enough. But I’ll praise her just for the statement so far, which pushes back on her party and looks like it commits her to a public position. Omar made a statement the other day and signed this. Better anyway than we have seen from most politicians.; 1/20/21, 12:33 AM
Ken B said...: Largo
Yes.
No need to expand.; 1/20/21, 12:35 AM
narciso said...: To put not too fine a point on this.thesepeople now have the power to can you and your family, no its metaphorical.; 1/20/21, 12:40 AM
Largo said...: For Presidential ballots:

A machine that will emit an index card (or coin token) stamped with a timestamp, a serial number (each machine with its own series, and a cryptographic checksum.
Each voter at the head of the queue dips finger in ink before receiving a freshly emit ballot from a polling officer, in plain sight. Voter enters a booth and drops ballot into one of several boxes, one box per candidate.

Boxes will reject, and return to the votor, ballots with invalid checksums or timestamps more than sixty seconds before wall-clock time. Voter may return wrongly rejected ballot to official will issue new ballot if appropriate.

Boxes MAY keep count of ballots as accepted. Boxes SHALL be sealed and locked with several keys. Each key shall be held by relevant parties of competing interests.

Advantages of coin ballots:
1. Easy to process.
2. Less prone to jams than paper.
3. Can be stored in stack, whose count can be read immediately by height.
Cons:
4. Space intensive. This is the only com I see that might be serious.

Wirh coins and peoperly designed boxes, ballots can be *trivially counted without opening thr box*. If tbe crypto-based rejection mechanism is trusted,the boxes need be opened only in exceptional circumstances.

Rejected b boxes, one box per

There is no need for polling stations to be networked together, and no need for intra-station machines to be aware of each other besides having clocks coordinated to wall-clock time, and even this can be slack by seconds. No high precisions synchronization required.; 1/20/21, 1:22 AM
rcommal said...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6wxrLjJobM; 1/20/21, 1:25 AM
Largo said...: Better: Let ballots be poker chips with imbedded microchip and ufid. Ballot boxes will only accept chips that are activated. Chips can be activated only once and self-deactivate in five minutes. Activation permanently records in each chip the activation time and the identity of the polling officer and machine that aflctivated it.

Take *that*, ballot stuffers!; 1/20/21, 1:28 AM
alanc709 said...: Who will be this generation's Solzhenitsyn? It's Orwell? Or are we saddled with a bunch of elites that will be happy that this administration will be more boring than the last? I imagine slavery was boring, too. Would they advocate that?; 1/20/21, 2:57 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I'm getting deep in the weeds, now, People, so help a brotha out and leave a word of encouragement.

Babylon.,com, My old anti-tech anthem, is still available for DL, too.

And here's PayPal, in case you think Andrew Breitbart was onto something, and supporting the artists on your side might A) produce better art, and B) just might be a good idea, right about now.; 1/20/21, 3:09 AM
gadfly said...: From Wapo comes the Broidy/Trump connection:

[Trump-Fixer Michael] Cohen represented [Elliott] Broidy in an arrangement with a former Playboy model named Shera Bechard, who was paid $1.6 million to keep quiet about an affair she supposedly had with Broidy, which resulted in a pregnancy that she aborted.

From the start, many parts of this story didn’t quite add up. Broidy is a very rich man, but not necessarily someone who has occasion to hang out with Playboy models, unlike some people you might be familiar with. And he was not a public figure, which makes the $1.6 million payoff seem wildly excessive. To put it bluntly, $1.6 million is “Keep this out of the papers because it’ll be a huge story” money, not “Don’t tell my wife” money. And why would Broidy, who has access to the most high-priced and discreet legal talent in the country, retain someone like Cohen to take care of this delicate matter for him?

All of which leads to the theory that Broidy was acting as a cut-out for the person who really had the affair with Bechard: Trump. That theory is, at the moment, unproven but compelling.

There’s one more piece to this puzzle. We all know about Trump’s weird relationship with his daughter Ivanka Trump, how he often comments on her body and says things like “If she weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal . . . said that Trump compared them to his daughter, which is a rather odd thing to say to a woman you’re having sex with. Whatever the true nature of Trump’s feelings, it’s clear that he’s attracted to women who remind him of Ivanka Trump. . . . Shera Bechard is a dead ringer for Ivanka Trump. An absolute dead ringer.

But if the theory about Trump being the person who really had the affair with Bechard is true, why would Broidy step in and put up $1.6 million of his own money to do Trump a solid in this way? The explanation is that he may have stood to gain much, much more. And he had been involved in this kind of arrangement before. In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of rewarding official misconduct; he stayed out of jail by testifying against his co-conspirators. He gave $1 million in illegal gifts to New York State officials, and the state invested $250 million with his investment firm. One of the interesting details was that as part of the gifts, Broidy paid $90,000 to the mistress of one of the New York officials.

Fast forward to 2017. With Trump in office, Broidy was ready to really cash in. According to emails obtained by the Wall Street Journal, he was negotiating a deal in which he would use his influence to get the Justice Department to drop its investigation of a Malaysian company called 1MDB . . . .; 1/20/21, 3:58 AM
mezzrow said...: Consider the idea that Joe Biden and his party could be at the peak of their popularity today.; 1/20/21, 4:42 AM
Gahrie said...: I’m referring to the latest hateful narrative of comparing the President [Trump] to Osama bin Laden and his supporters to Al Qaeda (which translates to ‘the base’ in Arabic) and Islamic terrorists generally.

They're working their way up to demanding that we deplorables be rounder up and sent to camps like the uighers.; 1/20/21, 4:46 AM
Largo said...: Ken B said...
Largo
Yes.
No need to expand

I should be able to find these exact words then. You suggested it was quite recent, I believe. Was it in the past 24 hours, do you recall? The past 48? Every bit of narrowing helps.

Do you remember the topic of the Althouse post it was on?

--Laego; 1/20/21, 4:49 AM
Big Mike said...: No praise for Tlaib from the regulars?

For doing something decent for once in her life? Why? Do you think this balances her anti-Semitism?; 1/20/21, 4:57 AM
David Begley said...: I already miss Trump.; 1/20/21, 5:15 AM
David Begley said...: Steve Bannon pardoned! Great news!; 1/20/21, 5:20 AM
stevew said...: As eras go it was short, but boy was it consequential. Often entertaining and certainly, for those of us that support Trump, frustrating and annoying. He sure got some good things done. One big one was to get the deep staters and grifting elected officials to expose themselves. Whether that knowledge will have any lasting positive effect with the voters remains to be seen.

Bon voyage President Trump, it's been grand.; 1/20/21, 5:21 AM
Humperdink said...: RE: PA Health Secretary DR. Rachel (née Richard) Levine. The local Pittsburgh newspaper (Tribune Review) was splashing his/her face across the paper nearly everyday during the Covid fiasco. This led to a flurry a comments, mostly negative. The paper took divisive action - they closed the comment section completely, and have yet to reopen it.; 1/20/21, 5:46 AM
Breezy said...: Is Tlaib one of the “Defund the Police” promoters? If so that statement is in alignment. Without knowing what is being planned wrt National Security, her statement makes sense right now.; 1/20/21, 5:52 AM
Breezy said...: Thank you Donald Trump, best president during my lifetime, so far. I hope you keep pushing on the themes of your 1776 project, after a well deserved respite from the chronic mayhem in DC.; 1/20/21, 5:56 AM
Fernandinande said...: MI Rep. Tlaib Wants To Defund The Police & Close All Prisons; 1/20/21, 6:05 AM
iowan2 said...: gadfly, that;s quiet the screen play you got there.

All it's missing is just a single fact, to tether it to reality.; 1/20/21, 6:27 AM
iowan2 said...: Biden screened the military to create his own Praetorian Guard.

Pelosi is giving orders to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Just for a moment think of the reaction of President Trump or a Republican SoH would do exactly the same.; 1/20/21, 6:32 AM
Browndog said...: iowan2 said...

Biden screened the military to create his own Praetorian Guard.

Pelosi is giving orders to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

D.C mayor Browser wanted machine gun nests.; 1/20/21, 7:13 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Breezy said...

"Thank you Donald Trump, best president during my lifetime, so far."

If you'd told me four years ago I'd feel the same way - or even a year ago - I'd have said you're crazy. But, remarkably, Donald J. Trump grabbed the Gold Star as far as I'm concerned. I repeat: he grabbed it - I didn't have to give it to him.

President Trump had The Macho Response.; 1/20/21, 7:29 AM
mockturtle said...: "The only thing that really slowed the virus was Summer."

In most parts of the country, this was true. But here in southern AZ, the peak came in summer, presumably for the same reason: More people stuck indoors.; 1/20/21, 7:50 AM
Rusty said...: Now the likes of gadfly, Howard et al will have to find some other conservative object to lose their shit over.
I'm sure it won't be long.; 1/20/21, 7:56 AM
mockturtle said...: Breezy posts: Thank you Donald Trump, best president during my lifetime, so far.

Mine, too, Breezy. Although I hate to see him go, I'm glad for Melania, who is undoubtedly happier now, having been ill-treated by the media and others for four years.; 1/20/21, 7:57 AM
Lurker21 said...: Trump wasn't a very serious candidate for most of those 20 years, no more serious than fellow candidates Oprah, Warren Beatty, and Cybill Shepherd. I don't know if he really expected to win when he did run. He was what he was and we knew more or less who he was when he got elected. It's late now to blame him for being what we all knew he was.; 1/20/21, 8:07 AM
Francisco D said...: David Begley said...I already miss Trump.

Yes, but now the nation will heal from its four years of trauma, doncha know.; 1/20/21, 8:12 AM
mockturtle said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/20/21, 8:16 AM
Lurker21 said...: That Bechard-Broidy story sounds like a lot of the some of the nonsense stories that the rightwing internet came up with during the Clinton and Obama administrations, especially with the incest innuendos. Bechard is an actress or model, so of course she can have herself made up to look like different people. One can see that she looks like women Trump has been attracted to, but you need a sick mind to pick out one picture and jump to the conclusion that she was a dead ringer for Ivanka and Trump was attracted to her for that reason. In any event if it did happen, we know Trump did had affairs and did paid hush money on other occasions, so it wouldn't be anything new. Still awaiting reporting on Hunter Biden, though.; 1/20/21, 8:21 AM
Doug said...: This administration will seal its own fate when the dems force a domestic terrorism bill that lets the govt. spy on, track, and silence American citizens.; 1/20/21, 8:32 AM
Joe Smith said...: "The only part of this shit that annoys me is that I can't laugh at Levine on FB without getting banned for 30 days."

These people are harmless but still unbalanced.

Think of it as the crazy uncle who dresses like Napoleon and tells you he's Napoleon.

Harmless, except for the fact that he's a retired plumber from Omaha.

Do you want someone like that making public policy that affects 350M people?; 1/20/21, 9:43 AM
Ken B said...: Largo
You can find them. You cannot necessarily find them with Google. For example, this post does not show up, yet your comment is here.
You can find it the old fashioned way, by scanning the individual pages. It was in the last week or so.; 1/20/21, 10:02 AM