Althouse: At the Bird Finial Café...

January 29, 2022

At the Bird Finial Café...

... you can talk all night.

I did not put those bird finials there. I just photographed them.

47 comments:

Mikey NTH said...: Little Snow Peeps?; 1/29/22, 6:26 PM
farmgirl said...: Those are so awesome!!! Bird finials just like u wanted:0); 1/29/22, 6:26 PM
Jupiter said...: From the Daily Mail;
"UPenn teammate tells how the trans swimmer doesn't always cover up her male genitals when changing and their concerns go ignored by their coach."

I like the concept of "her male genitals". Gender has been completely divorced from sex. In fact, "Lia has told her teammates that she dates women."; 1/29/22, 6:42 PM
Gerda Sprinchorn said...: Two bird finials in a single month. Alt-Land is truly a magical place!; 1/29/22, 6:43 PM
Jupiter said...: So, he covers the tits he doesn't have with a swimsuit, but lets it all hang out in the Women's Locker Room. Strangely, he shaves his armpits. Of course, most swimmers shave their pits. Reduces drag.; 1/29/22, 6:45 PM
Gerda Sprinchorn said...: Having trouble with today's Spelling Bee. Over 200 points to be gotten, yet no ED or other common ending to double the word count. There's an ION, but that doesn't seem to be doing the trick.; 1/29/22, 6:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Don’t miss the -ENCE; 1/29/22, 6:54 PM
Ann Althouse said...: There are a lot of long ones that score big; 1/29/22, 6:55 PM
rcocean said...: Is Althouse is giving us the bird?

I'm on the fence.; 1/29/22, 7:02 PM
gilbar said...: Suspect identified in Milwaukee officer shooting was out on bond

A suspect charged in the Thursday shooting of a Milwaukee Police Department officer had multiple open felony cases and an active warrant against him, county documents show.

Jetrin Rodthong, 23, faces pending charges after the shooting and has several open felony cases dating back to 2020 in which he was charged with resisting or obstructing officers, bail jumping, driving or operating a vehicle without the owner's consent and drug possession, among others, and released on bond.

SO, if i'm reading this right; Jetrin already had a warrant, for felonies INCLUDING bail jumping
With all that.... He SHOT a cop... Was apprehended, and then released on bond?

he committed FELONIES...Jumped BAIL... SHOT A COP... and was released on bond!

Apparently the DA told him:
"If you just Jump Bail Again you'll be able to shoot more pigs.. I HATE pigs!!"
Great "legal" "system" you've got over there.; 1/29/22, 7:10 PM
Narr said...: Finially!

I envy you the snow. It's just cold here.; 1/29/22, 7:11 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Canada:

Keep on truckin' in a free world.; 1/29/22, 7:26 PM
Bender said...: Even Joe Biden is coming to the realization that inflation is a major problem now.

I went to the grocery store today and you would not believe how much the price of cars has gone up.; 1/29/22, 7:32 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: @Jupiter

Remember: 'it's a choke point, controlled by idiots.'; 1/29/22, 7:38 PM
madAsHell said...: Finials......I was not acquainted with that word. Thank you.; 1/29/22, 7:55 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Hello Mr. Black Bear

Link to r/Unexpected; 1/29/22, 8:06 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: "Does she or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure."

Name that commercial.; 1/29/22, 8:06 PM
Gerda Sprinchorn said...: That helped in finishing Spelling Bee.

SPOILER ALERT

The central C is tricky in this case because, in many words, it is squished together with a whole bunch of other consonants so those words don't come naturally to mind as "words with a C".; 1/29/22, 8:12 PM
Gerda Sprinchorn said...: I'm getting the feeling that Wordle is avoiding words with the letters in highly-used first and second guesses. I know my go-to first two words are turning up almost nothing lately.; 1/29/22, 8:16 PM
farmgirl said...: Clairol?

I got my finial and filial mixed up somehow. I thought I was mispronouncing the word, but I was confusing it.

Makes me think: I watched a documentary on Amy Tan on Netflix. I enjoyed it. I’d read the Joyluck Club back in the 80s and I’d even seen the movie, which I thought in no way would ever do justice to the book b/c they never do. I was wrong- the movie was moving. To me. So, it was a joy to listen to Amy Tan talk about her life- a lot of video and pictures to enhance her life story. I might even watch it again. She’s got a beautiful voice.; 1/29/22, 8:55 PM
One Eye said...: Everything you ever need to know about Madison, WI in one convenient thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/madisonwi/comments/sflrzp/lets_pretend_every_neighborhood_in_madison_is_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3; 1/29/22, 8:57 PM
Bender said...: I'm getting the feeling that Wordle is avoiding words with the letters in highly-used first and second guesses.

Using R, S, T, L, N, and E on the first try hasn't helped me one bit except to exclude them usually.; 1/29/22, 8:58 PM
Curious George said...: "Gerda Sprinchorn said...
I'm getting the feeling that Wordle is avoiding words with the letters in highly-used first and second guesses. I know my go-to first two words are turning up almost nothing lately."

My wordle strategy is to start with the first five letter word that comes to mind, and go from there. My goal is in three, trying to hit in two when the opportunity is there.; 1/29/22, 9:12 PM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: Some people seems to think that if we could only be wise and diligent enough, we could have gotten through the covid thing with no problem- if we wore the right masks at the right time, socially distanced correctly, locked down just enough, got everyone vaccinated just right. Others see this all as a hoax that we could have been fine with no adjustments or alterations in how we live; that all the disruption was contrived to allow the Deep State to get more control over us.
The truth as I see it is that once the first virus escaped from the lab (or bat), there was inevitable suffering that humanity had to endure. Probably close to a zero sum of suffering, with all that followed designed to make sure that other people suffered, not me or mine. Some suffering was direct- people caught the virus, got sick, some died. Other forms of suffering were social, economic, psychologic. As the measures to minimize direct suffering became stronger and marginally effective, the amount of other suffering increased, albeit by other people. The "other" suffering is only now becoming evident- increased cancer from lack of screening, children with all kinds of retardation due to masking and remote schooling, mental illness. A second order effect is that all this medical care that is being consumed is a luxury good that is affordable only by affluent societies, and we are running up a bill that our descendants will be paying, leaving less for them to spend on the next social crisis.
This does not even begin to deal with the large minority who actually benefitted form all of this- Pfizer, Amazon, Zoom, the laptop community, every politician.; 1/29/22, 9:18 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: I came across a new general science magazine called Quanta. Scientific American is neither scientific nor American. It's gone to the woke-side in editorial content and is no longer owned by an American company, but by a German one. I had subscribe for about 40 to 50 years, but gave up on it ca 2009. It had dumbed down its content and kept on promoting the global warming hoax/climate crisis hoax.; 1/29/22, 9:21 PM
farmgirl said...: 2West Texas: not to mention the w/holding of any treatment deemed “dangerous “ by the powers that be: Vitamin C bars, hydroxychlorquine, ivermectin &now monoclonal antibodies…; 1/29/22, 9:34 PM
stephen cooper said...: I live about 100 miles from the ocean and the seagulls ...

(who are, from the point of view of color, even snowier-white than swans:while the swans have brighter feathers, more like snow, the seagulls have that white snowy look of white birds who frequent the clear infinite lanes of the ocean, plus seagulls do not have orange and black when painted in flight in their true colors, as orange-footed and black-billed swans do)

... and the seagulls only visit my part of the world in the wintertime, for reasons that seem very good to them, & here is my favorite poem about the birds with whom we share this world:

"L'et'e, lorsque le jour a fui, de fleurs couverte
La plaine verse au loin un parfum enivrant:

Les yeux ferm'es, l'oreille aux rumeurs entr'ouverte,
On ne dort qu'a demi d'un sommeil transparent ....

Les astres sont plus purs

l'ombre parait meilleure

Un vague demi-jour teint le dome eternel ....

(Et l'aube douce et pale, en attendant son heure, Semble tout la nuit errer au bas du ciel)"

simultaneous translation (approximately)
"...the summer, when the summer day is over, the fields of the plain send forth an intoxicating perfume, and - having closed your eyes, but your ears willingly listening to the sounds of nature, your slumbers are no less than half transparent ...
The stars are more pure, the shadows seem improved ---- the eternal dome of our sky seems to be decorated with a vague half-noon ... And Dawn, GENTLE AND LUMINOUSLY PALE, awaiting its own hour, seems to wander all night throughout all the horizons of the sky."; 1/29/22, 10:12 PM
walter said...: Justin ain't gonna get an early night's rona res what withh all the horns a honkin'.
I keep watching the live streams hoping to see a skinny wavy haired shoe polish complected guy trying to cross the street to get his late night decongestant on.; 1/29/22, 10:25 PM
walter said...: West TX Intermediate Crude,
Perhaps ideological and regulatory driven suppression of actual treatment forced the outcome we see. It gets tiresome seeing even questioning folks avoiding that massive elephant. Now we get to see what the pseudo vaccs have wrought..if they allow it.; 1/29/22, 10:30 PM
Saint Croix said...: On the previous cafe thread, several people brought up The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I haven't read it so I ordered the audiobook from Amazon. Thanks so much for the suggestion.

Leo Tolstoy, for people who don't know, inspired Gandhi to stop being a lawyer and start being Gandhi.

Gandhi was the translator for Tolstoy's A Letter To a Hindu. It's an amazing letter from one of the great Christian minds.; 1/29/22, 11:05 PM
Original Mike said...: "I came across a new general science magazine called Quanta."

Is there a hardcopy version or is it solely on-line?

I still subscribe to Sci Am, but I am getting tired of the propaganda.; 1/29/22, 11:09 PM
Saint Croix said...: About that Supreme Court nomination...

This article over at Reason started out super-interesting, and then about halfway into the article it annoyed the fuck out of me.

I'm not familiar with Sri Srinivasan, but I thought it was really cool that Shapiro argued (and Volokh seemed to agree with him) that Srinivasan is the strongest candidate on the left. (I would have said Professor Amar of Yale). Shapiro and Volokh go on to suggest that Democrats are hurting themselves by not putting the best possible candidate on the Supreme Court.

I think this is a cool argument because I haven't seen it yet. Are the Democrats hurting themselves? Shapiro says yes and Volokh says it might be true. (Althouse might scoff and say Shapiro and Volokh -- both righties I think -- have no interest in actually helping the Dems).

Then, after analyzing what Shapiro said, Volokh introduced his own thoughts. And while I usually love reading Volokh, this is some insane shit.

First, I think that race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the like are legitimate factors in high-level government appointments even though they aren't for everyday public employment or education. I don't think Presidents should feel limited to "objective," non-identity-based factors in making such appointments.

Volokh gives no explanation for why he thinks government actors can racially discriminate, but it's illegitimate for the rest of us to do so. This is just mind-boggling stupid to me. The Constitution specifically forbids racial discrimination by the state. Racial discrimination by the state is worse than when private actors do it. It's singled out by the Constitution as completely lawless. (The Constitution says nothing about private racial discrimination). You'd think a Con Law professor might understand this distinction!; 1/29/22, 11:44 PM
Saint Croix said...: hey Volokh! Nixon agrees with you!; 1/30/22, 12:27 AM
gadfly said...: Police seized $900,000 in cash from the Amityville, L.I. home of a pediatric nurse practitioner accused of selling phony COVID-19 vaccine cards and making false registrations, charging $220 for adults and $85 for children. Total collections were believed to be $1.5 million.

New York populists are completely nuts - paying out real cash on the barrelhead for illegal cards that are free by simply getting an honest and easy and free vaccine stick!; 1/30/22, 12:39 AM
Saint Croix said...: What I love about this blog...

Althouse's eclectic thoughts, and so many of them, on a wide variety of topics.

And she provokes thought in people. She's a genius at starting intellectual brawls. I find this sort of mind battle very stimulating, and the process of it crystalizes my thinking.

I haven't practiced law in years. But critical thinking is such an important skill, and it's helpful in just about anything you want to do. Whenever I come here, I feel like it sharpens my mind.

I've never sat in on one of her classes. But she had to have been an amazing teacher. Kudos, Althouse, and thanks.; 1/30/22, 1:02 AM
Narayanan said...: I am not familiar with Spotify : last I heard Spotify paid Joe Rogan $100+ zillions

did Neil Young and Joni Mitchell get paid too and do they have to give it back?

if not what is the big fuss about?; 1/30/22, 2:30 AM
Kai Akker said...: ---- The truth as I see it is that once the first virus escaped from the lab (or bat), ..... [West TX Intrmdt Crude]

How certain are we that it only "escaped"? Didn't the defector scientist say that the government intentionally released it during some international sports event in China? If so, that would explain the West Coast (in particular) people who are convinced that they had covid virus back in the fall of 2019. Why has that defector and her information seemed to drop off our radar screens?

---there was inevitable suffering that humanity had to endure. Probably close to a zero sum of suffering, with all that followed designed to make sure that other people suffered, not me or mine. Some suffering was direct- people caught the virus, got sick, some died. Other forms of suffering were social, economic, psychologic. As the measures to minimize direct suffering became stronger and marginally effective, the amount of other suffering increased

Not sure what you mean by the "zero sum" aspect. Suffering and death netted to zero vis a vis Pfizer's financial benefit? Fauci's pension benefits? I think Pfizer is going to reap the whirlwind from some of the things they did in getting this "vaccine" approved; and possibly in other ways if their mRNA shots produce longer-term health damage or impaired immunity.

Watching the Australian Open final is such a now-vs-then experience. I can't look at the scenic photography of Melbourne without thinking of the extremist Australian government crackdown. I watch Rafa Nadal making a wonderful comeback appearance and think of all the years of the Fed-Rafa-Novak shared dominance, so rare in their collective longevity..... but here he comes down the hallway with a mask on. Not Medvedev. Why, Rafa?

The world has changed; we live in a different world. The old world is never coming back, IMO. There are enough elements of the old world for us to assume continuity, but I believe it is a different world and there is no way of ever returning to the pre-virus world. Fascists and totalitarians are on the loose just as they were in the 1930s. We have to beat them and avoid another world war. But I don't think we in America will ever be safe as long as the CCP remains in power.; 1/30/22, 3:10 AM
Big Mike said...: Late last night I listened to someone read a moving letter from a woman whose son was forced to get vaccinated or lose his job. So he took the jab, and he died. A healthy man in his twenties. Anecdotal evidence is beginning to pile up that these vaccinations are not as risk-free as suggested. Put that together with hard data that shows the vaccines to do a poor job of preventing COVID (make that negligible prevention when it comes to omicron), and the anger out in the real world is palpable.

I’ve been keeping an eye on politics a long time, and I’ve seen red waves and blue waves wash up and recede. I’ve never seen this much raw hatred from ordinary people before. The scary thing for Republican politicians is that they’re seen as part of the problem; vastly less culpable than Democrats, but only Rand Paul and a couple allies in the Senate are going to be able to say “We stood up to Fauci.” And Ron DeSantis. Not many others.; 1/30/22, 4:14 AM
Kai Akker said...: Except some of the totalitarians now are in places we once counted on as stalwarts in the free world, like Australia and Canada.; 1/30/22, 4:40 AM
tim in vermont said...: "It had dumbed down its content and kept on promoting the global warming hoax/climate crisis hoax."

Another redundancy.; 1/30/22, 5:31 AM
mezzrow said...: At Heather Heying's Substack. RTWT. Hope is coming. Justin's locked in his basement.

https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/the-cavalry-rolled-in; 1/30/22, 5:37 AM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: @Kai Akker at 0310
Oversimplifying a bit, what I meant by the zero sum reference was that it is possible to minimize virus deaths by methods that would be effective toward that particular goal by actions that inflict misery and damage in other ways. An extreme example is the alleged Chinese practice of welding people into their houses for weeks at a time- they might starve to death or die of unrelated illness, but it would cut down on case numbers, for sure. A more subtle example is what I alluded to with respect to the economic impact- every dollar we spend on relief and treatment today is borrowed from our children and grandchildren, leaving them less to spend on their needs, some of which may be more dire than what we face today.
It's not possible to quantify all of this in "Misery Units-" I can't quantify the cost of a person's business closing due to lockdown vs. the number of lives saved or hospital days avoidedm(if any) by that same lockdown, and certainly not the benefit of the purported life saved by the $2000 dose of remdesivir that will be paid by my grandchild's taxes. I do know that a better approach would have been to accept that we are in for a rough ride, we have to pay the price, and have a public debate about how we are going to pay that price. Instead, we are using the current predicament to score political points and putting the bill on our descendants' tab.; 1/30/22, 8:05 AM
Bender said...: New York populists are completely nuts - paying out real cash on the barrelhead for illegal cards that are free by simply getting an honest and easy and free vaccine stick!

A more rational response is to ask WHY are people willing to pay lots of money instead of getting the free vaccination? And WHY are they willing to lose their jobs? And be excluded from multiple sectors of society?

WHY, in the face of all this pressure and coercion and force, are people still saying NO! and why are the vax pushers refusing to hear them? What part of NO do they/you not understand??; 1/30/22, 8:37 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Celebrate today! James Watt was born in 1736. His improvements to the steam engine (separate condenser) launched the industrial revolution. Now, the climate hoaxers would like to strangle James in his crib to prevent the industrial revolution and the subsequent burning of fossil fuels. For James Watt is worse than Hitler in their eyes. No fossil fuel burning and no rise in CO2. Of course, we'd be freezing in our homes, we'd be wearing home-spun clothing and dying from malnutrition. But, to the climate hoaxers, that's a feature, not a bug.; 1/30/22, 9:00 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: WHY, in the face of all this pressure and coercion and force, are people still saying NO! and why are the vax pushers refusing to hear them? What part of NO do they/you not understand??

It's the same part of "shall not be infringed." that the gun grabbers just can't seam to understand. They know best, and you will be made to comply. Or else.; 1/30/22, 9:03 AM
SteveWe said...: They're ducks, not birds.; 1/30/22, 12:20 PM
Guru Renang said...: Loved it; 2/5/22, 8:07 AM