Althouse: A somber sunrise this morning.

May 26, 2022

A somber sunrise this morning.

This is 5:14 — 10 minutes before the official sunrise time.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

53 comments:

Lurker21 said...: Watching the umpteenth version of Death on the Nile. Fifteen minutes in and the material seems exhausted. The attempts to make the story fresh and relevant are as tired as the original story, but maybe we'll be lucky this time. The movie is over two hours long. So far they are quite far from the Nile.; 5/26/22, 6:31 PM
madAsHell said...: "Putin Price Hike" (Scary, the spellchecker capitalized it for me).

When Biden says this, I always hear it as a declaration of incompetence.

Joe Biden.....incompetent, incontinent, and in-charge!!; 5/26/22, 6:45 PM
Iman said...: May the parents who’ve lost their children to the violence of others find comfort wherever they can possibly find it. I can’t even imagine the pain that they are suffering.; 5/26/22, 6:50 PM
madAsHell said...: I've reviewed video from some of Kamala's word salad wisdom. You know......the "consequence of the passage of time", "we will continue to work together", and others.

She appears to be reading from the teleprompter, and notes. I can't even begin to imagine how stupid she sounds without the teleprompter, and notes.; 5/26/22, 6:57 PM
Joe Smith said...: Old slogan: 'To Protect and to Serve'

New slogan: 'To Loaf and to Dawdle; Anyone Have Coffee?'; 5/26/22, 7:09 PM
mesquito said...: Was at work the other day. My boss and friend, a lifelong Uvaldan started to get a message or two about some incident and a school lockdown. No more details that early. We just snarked about every kid aspiring to be a thug, which for a lot of punks it’s become, it seems, the summit of human felicity. Had to break off early to go to Hondo on some errands. When I got to Sabinal and turned east onto US90, I was met by a constant stream of emergency vehicles headed west toward Uvalde.; 5/26/22, 7:26 PM
Mutaman said...: Too many guns.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said.; 5/26/22, 7:36 PM
Jaq said...: You know, I have a couple of decades experience working with the wireless protocols and technologies that 2000 Mules used to track the ballot stuffers, and while it is true that for an individual, the location tracking they used is not perfect, it is reasonably close, and once your sample grows the Law of Large Numbers says that the locations become very accurate for repeated activities.

Happy to answer any doubts anybody might have. I once designed a feature to do the very thing of tracking temporary identifiers, TMSI, which can be eavesdropped on by anybody with the right radio receiver and an open source copy of Wireshark.; 5/26/22, 7:38 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Now I have to watch some comedy specials. It’s not fun if you have to do it.; 5/26/22, 8:18 PM
jim5301 said...: Most school shootings committed by boys under 21. Almost all with assault rifles. Five of the top ten mass shootings in history have been in Texas. Yet Abbott will die for the right of 18 year old kids to buy those guns. This is seriously fucked.; 5/26/22, 8:40 PM
Carol said...: Maybe it's because I'm old but I think of the grandma who was killed.

Trying to get that kid away from his druggie mother, and that's her reward. Probably wasn't even that old either.

These bloodlusting boys need to be dragooned into an army and sent off to Ukraine. Only, they're not good enough for that.; 5/26/22, 8:47 PM
Narr said...: My TikTok Zero policy has held up pretty well this week. (I hope my reporting on the offerings I ignore falls under the "write about whatever you want" dictum.)

Then again, my wife will show me a handful of things on her smartphone every day, usually including some TikTok, so I can't claim purity, but I try.

I always read the critiques here of new movies and series. Though I already know I will not watch them, the comments and the commercials I see make me feel that I'm not missing much. There's a two-part show about Obi Wan-Kenobi coming up, and my only reaction is, "Really? Why?"

And how many dead horses can the Nile carry?; 5/26/22, 8:52 PM
wildswan said...: Maybe somebody could show a relationship between polls and the gas price hikes. My experience was that filling the tank was $40, so I cut back a lot. After about ten days I went to fill the tank and it was $45. My feelings were strong and negative and I don't think the Dems can survive people going through similar experiences. But I also wonder whether there's any synchronicity in how people are stretching out their fill-ups and falls in the polls. Will the polls jerk downwards at wider and wider intervals as people keep stretching only to find price increases wiping out the stretch?; 5/26/22, 8:53 PM
stephen cooper said...: There are 300 hundred millions Americans and not many of them are aware that the man who stole the presidential election is so intensely incompetent that his mistakes are going to result in the death by famine of hundreds of millions in the next year.

God forgives.

I forgive too, but I remember.; 5/26/22, 9:32 PM
effinayright said...: So...a sunrise following a horrific event thousands of miles away is somehow "somber".

Perhaps our supposedly hyper-logical Perfesser should introduce herself to the "Pathetic Fallacy".; 5/26/22, 11:26 PM
StephenFearby said...: The Wall Street Journal just published this interesting historical essay on May 26:

The Military Roots of Modern Ukraine

Ukraine was once central to Soviet defense production. That history has shaped the country’s politics, much as today’s war will determine its future.

By Taras Fedirko (Research Associate, Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews)

Snippets:

"...When Ukraine became independent in 1991, defense was its most advanced industry. But like the rest of the country’s economy, the industry depended on production and distribution chains that connected it to other former Soviet republics. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. plunged Ukraine into a profound economic crisis. Between 1990 and 1999, according to World Bank figures, the Ukrainian GDP contracted by 60%, in constant prices and never recovered.

Leonid Kuchma, a rocket engineer and chief director of the Pivdenmash missile plant since 1986, became the country’s prime minister in 1992 and president in 1994. He promised moderate reforms and technocratic stability. But he had to navigate between one camp—including the “red directors” in charge of Ukraine’s industries at the time—that insisted on the necessity of preserving ties with Russia, and another—nationalists and democrats—that argued for liberalization and Westernization. Under Mr. Kuchma, the country adopted a constitution in 1996 that declared Ukraine “a state with a constantly neutral, nonaligned status.”

"...Oligarchic rivalry became entrenched in the legislature, where the wealthy businessmen in control of these interest groups began to support rival factions. They waged demagogic campaigns that polarized the public: a nationalist, pro-European, neoliberal political camp supported by voters from rural Western Ukraine and the urban middle class was pitted against a Russophone, relatively pro-Russian camp supported by voters from the more industrialized Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Workers and managers of Ukraine’s much diminished defense industry, particularly in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, predominantly supported the latter. Ukraine soon found itself in a culture war that helped produce a pro-European revolution in 2014, quickly followed by war with Russia-sponsored separatists."

"...The two wartime presidents, Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky, followed similar trajectories. They both entered office as political omnivores, seeking to appeal to all sides of Ukraine’s diverse and divided polity, and campaigning for peace and reconciliation. But the complex task of balancing among corrupt oligarchs, countering Russia’s expansionism, managing Ukraine’s financial dependence on the West and assuaging disaffected voters left both presidents little space to maneuver."

Taras Fedirko was interviewed by The UK's Association of Cultural Anthropologists in March, 2022, with the following questions (and useful answers) that aren't behind a paywall:

Tell us about your recent fieldwork in Ukraine
Can you tell us a bit more about the way in which the transition from socialism affected the Ukrainian society?
What should we make of Vladimir Putin's argument that the goal of the current Russian invasion is the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine?
What role did the right-wing play in post-revolution armed mobilisation?
What was the relationship of these volunteer militias with the Ukrainian military?
Can you clarify what was in the Minsk peace agreements?
What could have Putin’s Russia, a petrostate riddled with social inequalities and heavily dependent on European imports, offered to Ukraine to swerve its local elites away from the EU?
How can we help as members of the ASA?

https://www.theasa.org/publications/asaonline/articles/asaonline_0111#section2; 5/26/22, 11:41 PM
StephenFearby said...: Washington Examiner, May 26 04:05 PM

Of course fatherlessness contributes to violent crime, including mass shootings

"... For example, fatherlessness is more widespread in the U.S. than it is in any other country. And the countries that are close behind us also have bad gun violence problems, just like we do.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/of-course-fatherlessness-contributes-to-violent-crime-including-mass-shootings

The late Daniel Patrick Monahan agrees.; 5/27/22, 12:04 AM
Readering said...: The reporting on the police response to the Texas shooter is getting crazy.; 5/27/22, 12:08 AM
rcommal said...: So sad.; 5/27/22, 12:18 AM
Joe Smith said...: Too many abortions.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said.

Too many Big Macs.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said.

Too many crack pipes.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said.

Too many Mail in Ballots.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said.

I could do this all night.; 5/27/22, 12:37 AM
Rt41Rebel said...: Readering said: The reporting on the police response to the Texas shooter is getting crazy.

Yes, and I'm also interested to know how a kid that was bullied all of his life for being poverty came up with thousands of $ all of the sudden to buy his tactical.

It's almost as crazy as 81 million votes. Or the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping caper. Or Russian collusion. I can continue if you like...; 5/27/22, 1:39 AM
Christopher B said...: Even if it's largely unspoken, you know there has to be a certain amount of juxtapositioning going on in many minds across the country.

The seemingly unlimited LE resources available to persecute Regime opponents who were part of the Trump campaign and administration, or wandered through the Capitol and took selfies on 6 January 2021, or were entrapped in FBI-driven schemes to simulate threats to various politicians, with the once reviled George W Bush now a part of the club of the protected.

The ineffectual LE response first seen in Parkland and now seeming to have been repeated in Uvalde. Another 'known wolf' whose family was or who was personally a frequent flyer with LE and social service agencies but somehow slipped through the cracks in our budding surveillance state.

The ink and pixels and effort spent on those whose racial or gender 'equity' has been slighted, and whose angst is trendy, and upsets the right people but is generally non-threatening.

The studied ignorance and derision as 'fragility' of struggles of young men who live on the fringes, who don't fit in the trendy alphabet, whose angst is darker and harder and reflects unsettling things about the limits of 'inclusion'.

People are noticing, and speaking about it publicly going to get called 'crazy'.; 5/27/22, 4:25 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Dig It! Under Biden we've become a country depending upon Foreign Aid to feed our babies. Good move democrat voters!; 5/27/22, 4:38 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Was the police response to the Texas school shooting delayed so the body count could pile up, to help the anti gun politics?

Oh my goodness.; 5/27/22, 5:00 AM
farmgirl said...: Fitting.
Are these teen shooters able to purchase their guns legally?
W/in the current laws? Is that how guns used in crimes get into criminal hands?

If it isn’t? If these shooters possess these firearms by circumventing the laws- then what good will new laws be?; 5/27/22, 5:13 AM
Jaq said...: I like how you call a coup where a US official , Victoria Nuland, picked the new leaders when the democratically elected ones were overthrown, a “revolution.” The white supremacist Nazis provided the muscle on the streets of Kiev, and without them, the “Revolution of Dignity,” a Nazi name if ever I heard one, could not have happened.

The Ukrainians don’t believe that the Russians are “white,” and therefore it’s an insult to Ukrainian dignity to have a government that was dominated by Russian speakers, even if elected. Somebody here wrote a long comment about how the Russians are mixed blood, that’s more Nazi talk.

Ministry of Truth took down from YouTube after eight years, the recording of Nuland picking Ukraine’s leaders, just like they took down Ukraine on Fire. It hasn’t gone away, the MoT, it’s just gone stealth.; 5/27/22, 5:13 AM
gilbar said...: So,
what IS the alternative to civility Bullshit?
What IS the alternative to bullying?
What IS the alternative to school shooting?; 5/27/22, 5:25 AM
iowan2 said...: Yea, its the guns fault.

Not 18 year old pot heads. They are in the clear.

The most popular, highest selling rifles are the AR 15 platform style. A statistician might find the highest selling models would be the most used.

We did the ban for 10 years....nothing happened. Statistically. Maybe the guns not the variable to look at.; 5/27/22, 5:37 AM
Jaq said...: Now the current thing is starting the hot war with Russia in the Black Sea, even though Putin has promised safe passage to grain shipments out of Ukraine. This is about a pretext for a hot war, which will guarantee a global famine.

No takers on 2000 Mules, I see.; 5/27/22, 6:00 AM
Humperdink said...: I am so old I remember rabbit hunting right after school. In order to save time, our shotguns were in my buddies pick-up truck in the high school parking lot. Fully visible in gun rack all day.

Too many fatherless children, without values.

I am so old I remember praying in school. I am so old I remember going to church every Sunday, as did every family in our neighborhood.; 5/27/22, 6:47 AM
Humperdink said...: Has the US hit third world status? Begging for our energy needs and baby formula from overseas would appear to fit some of the criteria. All in 16 months. And yet President Soiled Pants has the approval of 30% of the electorate.; 5/27/22, 6:58 AM
wendybar said...: Did the mass murdering Hispanic plan this before??
Inquiring minds would like to know.....https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/conspiracy-to-commit-murder/; 5/27/22, 7:27 AM
jim5301 said...: iowan 2 - You certainly have crystalized the difference between me and you on the issue. You think it's perfectly fine to sell high-powered assault rifles and large capacity magazines to 18 year old potheads. I don't.; 5/27/22, 7:39 AM
jim5301 said...: I'll meat your challenge Tim. Respond to the critiques of the film here:

https://www.jan-6.com/2000-mules?gclid=CjwKCAjw7cGUBhA9EiwArBAvon0MTyTBjjDGRmUYHYMB9Wmwm2BJf5Zg3go2987eZFAP4ODi4LtUihoCGkgQAvD_BwE

and here:

https://www.denverpost.com/2022/05/08/2000-mules-fact-check/

and here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/11/2000-mules-offers-least-convincing-election-fraud-theory-yet/

and here:

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/04/faulty-premise-2000-mules-trailer-about-voting-mai/

Enlighten me. I am truly interested in your response because unlike most of those here in the Trump cult where rule number 1 is you can never question the Leader, the truth does matter to me.; 5/27/22, 7:50 AM
jim5301 said...: Tim - while we're at it, back in the day you were a big proponent of an argument that somewhere in Wisconsin the number of ballots returned by mail was substantially in excess of the number actually counted (I think I got that right). It struck me as odd at the time because I had not heard it before and you had not provided a source other than a tweet I recall. Still believe that? Any evidence you can provide - you know, the kind of evidence that might be admissible in a court of law?; 5/27/22, 8:18 AM
jim5301 said...: wendybar -- "Did the mass murdering Hispanic plan this before??"

How is his ethnicity relevant? Did you refer to the race of the shooters when discussing other recent mass shootings (most of who happened to be Caucasian).

Your racist colors come shining through.; 5/27/22, 8:26 AM
Narr said...: There are umpteen thousands or tens of thousands of fatherless potheads with weapons who will never hurt a fly.

As for Ramos, the stupid fucker could have driven to the border and plugged a few dozen invaders. At least that would have given the sorry tale some point.; 5/27/22, 8:39 AM
Rusty said...: Mutaman said...
"Too many guns.
Too easy to get.
Nuff said."
What are you going to do?; 5/27/22, 8:58 AM
wendybar said...: Ut oh.....if true, then we have a bigger problem than GUNS....https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10860977/Texas-Rep-Tony-Gonzalez-Uvalde-gunman-arrested-4-years-ago-threatening-shoot-school.html; 5/27/22, 8:59 AM
jim5301 said...: Narr said -- "There are umpteen thousands or tens of thousands of fatherless potheads with weapons who will never hurt a fly."

Tell that to the people in Uvalde who lost their child, or brother, or sister, or grandkid . . .; 5/27/22, 9:44 AM
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...: "..."the truth does matter to me."

He said without evidence.; 5/27/22, 10:02 AM
Meade said...: Amen, Iman.; 5/27/22, 10:10 AM
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...: The funny thing about government phallators such as those we have here is the fact that they ignore the one, single thing that all of these mass shootings - whether in schools, military facilities, places of business - is that in every case a government entity failed to do its job properly.

The issue isn't guns. It's government incompetence in the very things that government says it is supposed to be good at. From social service agencies, the military, law enforcement, the educrats of the government school cartel; every single shooting has multiple failures of government to do its job. And almost never does anyone in government bear the blame or the receive punishment for these failures.

This is why Leftists push so hard for "gun control" (as if that would have any positive effect) - they want to blame the citizens for the failures of the government.

You want to prevent mass shootings, or at least reduce the body count? Have government do its (purported) job. Or have government get out of the way while citizens handle the fix.; 5/27/22, 10:15 AM
Narr said...: Everyone can read what I said here, jim5301. Or you can help publicize my remarks--do you know any of the affected people? Send them a link.

As to the relevance of your own remark, I'll wait for you to elucidate. Do you deny that there are thousands or tens of thousands of young fatherless pothead gun-owners and shooters in this country? (If so, you lead a sheltered life.) Do you deny that most of them (like 99.999% of all potheads and/or shooters) have never harmed anyone?

Also, what TheOne said at 1015.; 5/27/22, 10:32 AM
Michael K said...: How is his ethnicity relevant? Did you refer to the race of the shooters when discussing other recent mass shootings (most of who happened to be Caucasian).

Do a little research, dope. Not true.; 5/27/22, 12:06 PM
jim5301 said...: Okay - TOWINO - Clearly the answer is a law saying that "the government must do its job" In the meantime while we are all waiting for the law to take effect and utopia to arrive, maybe a ban on 18-20 year old kids owning assault weapons just might prevent a school massacre now and then? Under your theory, a 16 year old should be able to buy an AR-15. Heck, why not 14? 12? Do you think there should be any minimum age at all?; 5/27/22, 12:30 PM
Narr said...: Clearly the answer is a ban for the government to fail to enforce.

"Bans" being better than "laws," I suppose.; 5/27/22, 12:42 PM
jim5301 said...: Michael K. I'm talking about "mass shootings" of totally innocent people like school kids. Not the daily gang carnage in our inner cities. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about.

You do your research.

fyi - five of the top ten mass shootings in terms of fatalities have been in Texas. Why do you suppose that is?; 5/27/22, 12:43 PM
Rusty said...: jim5301
How about you take responsibility for raising your kids. The young man behind the gun is responsible. Who was responsible for his mental health up until this point. How about some common sense mental health laws. And just so you know. There are @ 100 million gun owners in the US. They have between them 300 million firearms. 99.999996 of them have never hurt anyone with a firearm. But by all means hold the people that didn't do anything to account because your moral preening demands it. When you promote moral relativity, this is what you get.; 5/27/22, 12:48 PM
jim5301 said...: Michael K - Of the top ten, two were Muslim, one was Asian-American, one of Hispanic (Robb Elementary School), and six were Caucasian. So please explain to me the relevance of the ethnicity of the latest shooter? Without name calling if you are able (I think not).; 5/27/22, 12:51 PM
StephenFearby said...: tim in vermont said...
Now the current thing is starting the hot war with Russia in the Black Sea, even though Putin has promised safe passage to grain shipments out of Ukraine. This is about a pretext for a hot war, which will guarantee a global famine.

Tim in Vermont has the bad habit of omitting pertinent information that shreds his assertions:

Moscow Offers Safe Passage Of Ukrainian Food Exports ***In Exchange For Easing Of Sanctions***

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukrainian-food-exports-blockade-rudenko/31867169.html; 5/27/22, 12:58 PM
jim5301 said...: Rusty - I am not against guns. I am against 18-20 year old kids buying an assault rifle capable of killing lots of people very quickly. How many are we talking about? You've got the numbers.; 5/27/22, 2:40 PM
Rusty said...: Jim5301
It wasn't an assault rifle. Assault rifles have the ability to go fully automatic. You can buy fully automatic weapons in this country, but it's a lot more involved than the paperwork and background checks normally used.
18-20 year olds are adults. They are considered to have agency. You are saying that all 18-20 year olds aren't responsible enough to own a firearm?; 5/28/22, 9:20 AM