Althouse: At the Real Thing Café...

December 6, 2021

At the Real Thing Café...

... maybe you’re sitting alone, smoking that cigarette, tending to your own bizarre, troubling thoughts, talking to yourself.

23 comments:

Mike of Snoqualmie said...: The foundation forms are complete. The King County inspector will come out tomorrow and the concrete will be poured on Wednesday. Yeah!; 12/6/21, 6:58 PM
Flat Tire said...: That's exactly what I'm doing. Waiting on a slow skillet of homegrown leeks.; 12/6/21, 7:36 PM
Big Mike said...: Rashida Tlaib was whining about owing $70,000. Poor baby only makes $175,000 per year. Perhaps if she tried living a little more frugally she could maybe pay it off? Just guessin’; 12/6/21, 7:38 PM
Joe Smith said...: ...we serve only Coke, no Pepsi...; 12/6/21, 7:39 PM
Narr said...: Jussie Smollett (or as Chappelle called him, "that [f-word][n-word]") reminds me very much of other useless eaters that I have known--narcissistic to the point of retardation.

My late worthless elder brother would do the same thing as Smollett--look you in the eye and insist that what you both knew was untrue was true. Recent events (Baldwin, Brooks) even recall some of bro's stunts--his car that suddenly sped up of its own accord on that wet curve and put a woman in the hospital, the coincidence that our Oma's fine silver was stolen by someone who knew exactly where it was and was in and out in minutes . . .

One of the things that I don't like about Tucker (besides the frat-boy laugh) is how he goes on (re Cuomos) about family loyalty being primary. It's obvious that he never had an alcoholic, addicted, abusive relative.; 12/6/21, 8:11 PM
Mutaman said...: "Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden."; 12/6/21, 8:26 PM
farmgirl said...: How lovely- thank you.; 12/6/21, 9:03 PM
Narayanan said...: @Mutaman >>> did not know we had data down to that level - can you point to source?; 12/6/21, 9:09 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Mutamun must have been listening to NPR. Funny how that virus knows which political party a patient belonged to--or how they voted.; 12/6/21, 9:42 PM
Dr Weevil said...: On page 2 of the latest thread at JustOneMinute, someone points out that Trump voters are quite a bit older than Biden voters on the average, and that if you adjust for the age difference the difference in Covid-19 death rates entirely disappears. The 8:26pm here comment is therefore just another bullshit slander of Trump and his voters. It's not surprising that it would be false: the two social groups most resistant to Covid shots are PhDs and black males, two of the groups least likely to have voted for Trump.

I'm sure someone will be assigned a few new talking points soon enough.; 12/6/21, 10:01 PM
Dr Weevil said...: By the way, what kind of commentator puts all the words of their comment in quotation marks, but then provides no link, and no author's name, to say whom he is quoting?; 12/6/21, 10:03 PM
Big Mike said...: The Biden administration has new regulations for travelers coming to (or returning to) the USA. Everyone, vaccinated or not, must test negative for COVID within 24 hours of arrival. But that’s only if they travel using passports or visas or silly things like that. If they merely wade across the Rio Grande with no documents at all, then no testing is required.

Dumbocrats don’t get why some people think that’s stupid.; 12/6/21, 11:10 PM
Drago said...: Mutaman: "Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden."

The population outflow to red states from blue states continues to accelerate.

Discuss.; 12/7/21, 12:17 AM
William said...: F. Scott Fitzgerald in a frequently contested remark said that there are no second acts in American life. Maybe, maybe not. Fitzgerald himself after a successful career as a novelist went on to greater glory by becoming the muse and stud muffin to a successful Hollywood gossip columnist....Of the current big three scandal stars--Smollett, Chris Cuomo, and Alec Baldwin--I wonder who will go on to a further career. It can be done. Jeff Toobin pulled through his crisis and is back on CNN.....My guess is Alec Baldwin has the best chance. He did commit the most catastrophic act, but it was without malice or premeditation. His excuse--that of spontaneous combustion in the gun chamber--is more pathetic than laughable. He's desperate to give himself some kind of excuse and he's going through some sleepless nights. You can act tearful, maybe even haggard,but those were real bags under his eyes. The fact that he's a jerk may work in his favor. Such a background will add resonance when he next plays an impulsive jerk on screen. .....I don't see much of future for Smollett. Maybe he can pick up a few bucks in gay porn......It well be interesting to see how Cuomo plays out his hand. Maybe he can win a big suit against CNN that will make the issue of future employment moot. It worked for Meghan Kelly.; 12/7/21, 12:35 AM
gadfly said...: Relational Data: Trump Voters vs Covid death rates. Check your county here.; 12/7/21, 3:11 AM
Scott Patton said...: I'd love to be smoking a cigarette. It's been almost a dozen years, and still... mmm.; 12/7/21, 5:32 AM
tim in vermont said...: I love this comment from the other thread

The problem with artists is they create Bad Art. BTW, its nice that Mamet has this complusion to "create art", but maybe his desire to write drama is really just his desire to force his Cultural/Political views on the public. And maybe the public doesn't want it.

I think I am going to make "All Art is Bad" guy a character in my next story.

"Trump Voters vs Covid death rates. Check your county here."

That's what happens when you expand the voting base of your party, you hoover up a lot of morons, most people are morons, that's where the votes are, and at the same time, a political party whose base is restricted to intelligent people could barely win a contested race for dogcatcher. The party you are advocating for might not even have you as a member.; 12/7/21, 6:43 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: "Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden."

Cuomo got rid of New Yorkers early, skewing the statistics since then.; 12/7/21, 7:05 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: "I'd love to be smoking a cigarette. It's been almost a dozen years..."

Me too. If they came out and said it was good for you, I'd be first in line to start up again.; 12/7/21, 7:06 AM
Joe Smith said...: '@Mutaman >>> did not know we had data down to that level - can you point to source?'

He's a troll...don't bother...; 12/7/21, 8:25 AM
Wa St Blogger said...: as the sage Mark Twain is credited with saying... lies, damn lies, and statistics.

First, we have only NPR's digestion of the data, not the data. Second, we don't have the granularity to determine who is dying and why. Third, correlation is not causation, and we don't even have a correlation between Trump voters and deaths.

I could take the same data and create an entirely different conclusion based on what it says. I could say that rural communities, which are more spread out, will see a slower spread of the virus to the vulnerable populations. So while NY purposely infected all their vulnerable at the beginning, the rural communities had a slower spread so that their vulnerable did not get infected until later (sort of the government's desire, right? Flatten the curve?)

One could say that it is because of the lower rates of vaccination, but we also know that vaccinated people are still dying, so we can't say it is due to the vax rate. It is possible that the vulnerable are the vulnerable and the vax is not fully protective.

Anyway, the point is NPR is being irresponsible, shilling for the home team rather than being a news organization.; 12/7/21, 9:09 AM
tim in vermont said...: The real world cost of Kamala's bashing the vaccines, and Andew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, as well, until the day after the election, and the the abdication of the press of objectivity and their all out, no holds barred attacks on Trump, and then their fawning coverage of Biden, Dana Milbank's opinion notwithstanding, and which is obvious to anybody paying attention, has real-world costs in lives.

When Fauci lied about masks at first, then changed his story. When the New York Times printed several editorials that were basically nothing more than agitprop or damage control, like the the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian disinformation" or that the virus didn't originate in that bioweapons lab in Wuhan, all of these things have real world costs in credibility.

I know you guys are happy that Trump supporters are dying, because they are somehow subhuman, like fetuses, I guess. I would like to know how this is any different than the nazism that seems to have such a strong hold on you guys' imaginations.; 12/7/21, 12:46 PM
tim in vermont said...: " but we also know that vaccinated people are still dying, so we can't say it is due to the vax rate."

People who are vaccinated are dying at a much lower rate of COVID than the unvaxxed. The sentence I just quoted here is what Scott Adams calls "word thinking," I call it sophistry, it's not real thinking.

While I don't trust an NPR analysis of the data, I can say that it seems like the death rates began to drop just as the vaccines were rolled out, and the effect showed up before the inauguration, and had Trump been re-elected, there would be endless stories and amplifications of every problem with the vaccines, no matter how tiny.; 12/7/21, 12:51 PM