Althouse: At the Saturday Night Café...

February 11, 2023

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

40 comments:

Creola Soul said...: Has anyone ever been to Alaska? It’s the most sparsely populated state in the country, you could shoot these things down most anywhere. Debris recovery would be a lot easier.; 2/11/23, 7:05 PM
Yancey Ward said...: The aliens are going to get really pissed off soon enough and shoot down Earth.; 2/11/23, 7:36 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I do wonder if maybe the Russians or the Chinese or North Koreans have taken my tongue-in-cheek suggestion and just started sending up balloons every day. How much do these air-to-air missiles cost, by the way?; 2/11/23, 7:37 PM
Rocco said...: Yancey Ward said...
How much do these air-to-air missiles cost, by the way?

The Sidewinder 9X is $380-$400k. Training version cost $300k.; 2/11/23, 8:19 PM
tim in vermont said...: Matt Rosendale@RepRosendale 53m
I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border. Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.

LOL. I hope McCarthy enjoys his trip to Taiwan.; 2/11/23, 8:19 PM
Sebastian said...: What I've missed in the commentary on Hunter's laptop and his related conduct so far is the feminist take.

Were the multiple acts of prostitution displayed in graphic detail on the laptop all just consensual sex work based on women free agency? Is his treatment of the Arkansas stripper and their daughter kosher with the sisterhood? Is the personal still political, or is that also covered by (D) for different?; 2/11/23, 8:19 PM
Tom T. said...: We had dinner tonight at a Turkish restaurant, here in Northern Virginia. The chef told us that members of his mother's family had died in the earthquake. It's a more connected world than we realize.; 2/11/23, 8:27 PM
Tom T. said...: As for today's shoot-down, I still wonder if the White House directed the CIA to launch a balloon, so the administration could look decisive in immediately shooting it down.; 2/11/23, 8:29 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Substack: What funeral directors know that you don't

"In 78 years, they never had a 15 year old who died from a heart attack. In December 2022, they had 1 a week for three weeks straight. Nobody is talking about it publicly."; 2/11/23, 8:35 PM
ngtrains said...: HOLD IT - STOP

it may hit a polar bear on the ground; 2/11/23, 8:37 PM
Bob Boyd said...: A New Way to Be Mad

"The phenomenon is not as rare as one might think: healthy people deliberately setting out to rid themselves of one or more of their limbs, with or without a surgeon's help. Why do pathologies sometimes arise as if from nowhere? Can the mere description of a condition make it contagious?"

By Carl Elliott
The Atlantic
DECEMBER 2000 ISSUE

"In January of this year British newspapers began running articles about Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary, in Scotland. Smith had amputated the legs of two patients at their request, and he was planning to carry out a third amputation when the trust that runs his hospital stopped him. These patients were not physically sick. Their legs did not need to be amputated for any medical reason. Nor were they incompetent, according to the psychiatrists who examined them. They simply wanted to have their legs cut off. In fact, both the men whose limbs Smith amputated have declared in public interviews how much happier they are, now that they have finally had their legs removed."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/; 2/11/23, 8:40 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: "The earth ripped apart in Hatay, Turkey. 100 ft deep and 650 ft wide..."

link to video; 2/11/23, 8:51 PM
Mason G said...: "How much do these air-to-air missiles cost, by the way?"

What difference, at this point, does it make?; 2/11/23, 8:55 PM
robother said...: The USA has been flying drones (with satellite links) capable of hitting people we define as "bad guys" (and their families and neighbors over various parts of the Middle East for 15 years. Now providing drones (with links) to Ukraine to do the same to Russians. Maybe someone in Moscow, China or little Rocketman has decided the USA deserves some of its own medicine. Totally coincidental that Brandon is Commander in Chief.

Interesting that suddenly the airspace 100 miles around Havre MT (which just happens to be epicenter of our Minuteman Missle Silos) is closed. Only about 10 days too late.; 2/11/23, 8:59 PM
Original Mike said...: This Study Could Be 'Scientific Nail in the Coffin' for Masks

"The study reviewed 78 randomized control trials—experiments that have long been considered "the gold standard" for medicine—which assessed the effectiveness of face masks against flu, COVID-19, and similar illnesses. It found that wearing masks "probably makes little or no difference" for the general public, no matter what kind of mask is used. Even N95 masks, considered the most effective at filtering airborne particles, showed no clear benefit for health care workers.

The study was published on January 30 by the Cochrane Library, a world-renowned medical database that is famous for its high-quality evidence reviews."

Personally, by this point I don't find this too surprising. What floors me is this:

"As of this writing, no major media outlets have covered the Cochrane review. It's a sharp contrast to the reception of other, more pro-mask studies, which were the subject of glowing write-ups in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post."

I mean, you're a journalist and this quality study on a topic of great import to society is published and you just ignore it? What do you think your job is? Don't you tell yourself that your responsibility is to inform society of important news? Do your actions comport with your self-image? How do you sleep at night?

Maybe I'm jumping the gun. Maybe the NYT and WaPo have gotten around to reporting the news. I hope so.; 2/11/23, 9:07 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Can you believe there are places where people can say whatever they want?

'The horror'... as Marlon Brando would say.

link to tweets

Matt and Walter talked about this in their weekly podcast. They are going to run every podcast thru some kind of AI to spot speech violations... or something.; 2/11/23, 9:08 PM
Rt41Rebel said...: @Yancy

The Chinese are goading us with fake tic-tacs, and we're going to accidentally shoot down a real one and start an intergalactic war.; 2/11/23, 9:10 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: I have a twitter account just so i can quickly scan what's happening. Following a few key people.

But I'm thinking I may have to delete it, again, this time for my own sanity.

There's an alarming trend of seemingly racial wars going on in American public schools.

A quick remedy would be to ban cell phones from the school grounds.

The fact that that type of easy remedy is not even being discussed, tells me the policy of allowing kids to film each other while at school enjoys the approval of the people behind the curtains.
Something is rotten in Denmark alright.; 2/11/23, 9:35 PM
Bob Doctor said...: Professor: In your expert opinion, which is the best hotel in downtown Madison for a visitor wanting to experience the farmer's market and other events in May? Thanks!

- Bob Doctor; 2/11/23, 9:51 PM
Bob Doctor said...: Professor:
In your expert view, which is the best downtown hotel in Madison? Am interested in visiting your fair city one weekend in May to experience the farmer's market and tour the Capitol building. What are your top three things to do if one has no car? Thanks!; 2/11/23, 9:52 PM
wildswan said...: The Ukrainians reported awhile ago that they destroyed 31 tanks in one day. That didn't seem likely but apparently it happened. The Russians were advancing toward the town of Vuhledar as part of their current offensive. The fields were mined and preparations for the attack did not include clearing mines. So the tanks advanced in a line on a narrow dirt road which had been cleared of mines toward the town. From high apartment building in the town the attack was observed and artillery and missiles called in. Some tanks blew up and Russians in other tanks leaped out and ran away. It doesn't seem like a battle exactly but the Russian leadership is counting on being able indefinitely to send untrained men into combat which becomes just a meat grinder like this battle. The men have no chance and it's possible they know it. They have to fight or their families will suffer but perhaps they can fight a little bit and then run and so live.
This account is taken from a Russian blog written by a supporter of Putin and the war. He criticizes because he wants the war to be fought by soldiers, not by untrained civilians poised for flight at the first opportunity. https://t.me/strelkovii/3925 translation in the next box; 2/11/23, 10:19 PM
SteveWe said...: Thank you Lem. That's an amazing video.; 2/11/23, 10:21 PM
wildswan said...: Russians on the loss of 31 tanks in one day - https://t.me/strelkovii/3925

Since the defeat near Vuhledar is already widely known (many videos shot by drones of Kiev partners are posted on the network), I will have to comment separately (I didn’t want to do this before, as well as report losses). It seems that all the events of the past year passed by our generals. However, since some of them are (at least from the moment they entered military schools) complete cretins, all the mistakes that were made before were exemplarily repeated. The advance of tank and motorized columns along narrow roads along rare forest plantations on ideally flat terrain (since there are minefields on the sides), not covered from the air and by EW forces, ended in defeat. Part of the equipment was destroyed by ATGM strikes (launched from the high-rise buildings of Ugledar), part was shot by enemy artillery, which fired extremely accurately. More than 30 units of armored vehicles were lost (I will not give a breakdown by type), losses of "two hundred" only among tankers - many dozens. Marines, special forces and motorized riflemen died even more. And - most importantly - all these losses turned out to be "one-sided" - the ukry shot the attackers "like in a shooting range", our fighters could not inflict counter losses on them. The enemy again without much difficulty held his positions in the fortified area, which had already been repeatedly attempted to take in the spring and summer of last year (also "head-on"). At the same time, our military leaders (so as not to "get up twice") habitually sent for slaughter in the familiar area in the Donetsk "industrial complex" (they went on the assault dozens of times) to Avdeevka "renamed the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" battalions of the former NM of the DPR and volunteer units. Without supporting them with either normal artillery fire (which was extremely inaccurate), or armored vehicles (which were "protected from mines", and it was not possible to clear the area for technical reasons). They killed two more companies of assault infantry with the same result as before - that is, to no avail. In general, this was the end of the "offensive of the Russian army on the entire Donetsk front" widely announced over the network by "cheers-military corps". Complemented by the rebellion (refusal to take the position) of the battalion of Tuvinian nomads and not only (in principle, I do not report anything about this kind of events until they are "leaked" by someone into the network and become publicly available).
TRANSLATE THIS PAGE OPEN IN GOOGLE TRANSLATE; 2/11/23, 10:22 PM
tim in vermont said...: This story is for those still insisting that the pipeline blew up due to shoddy maintenance and incompetent operation:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/traces-explosives-found-nord-stream-pipelines-confirming-gross-sabotag-rcna57825; 2/11/23, 10:24 PM
DINKY DAU 45 said...: Trumps Mar A Logo laptop! Roll up you sleeves Gym Jordon. BET.!; 2/11/23, 10:24 PM
gadfly said...: Lem Former Twitter Aficionado said...
Substack: What funeral directors know that you don't

"In 78 years, they never had a 15-year-old who died from a heart attack. In December 2022, they had 1 a week for three weeks straight. Nobody is talking about it publicly."

Three separate single incidents reinforced by failing memory among old funeral directors do not a trend make. There are no statistics available to determine how many heart attacks are suffered by 15-year-olds.; 2/11/23, 11:22 PM
Gospace said...: Lem Former Twitter Aficionado already posted the link I was going to post. There's a lot of things about the vaccine that isn't being noted by bloggers. And- they're all negative. But yet studies paid for by the government aren't finding them! I think it was in the Althouse comment section today I read that people will find what their paymasters want them to find, and will ignore what they don't want found...

And then there's the discussion of IQ by ethnicity. IQ and test results can be manipulated. And IQ, for what it's worth, is determinant of what an individual can understand and do, but not determinet of what the culture that individual lives in will allows the individual to do. The bookworm in an inner city HS is likely to die before graduation at someone else's hand...

SATs are, or were, indicative of IQ. Their still good for measuring educational attainment. And, are supposed to be taken as an individual. There are reports from virtually every city with a large Asian population that Asians at the start of the test clump in groups and work together to find the answers. Which is, of course, not allowed. But proctors in these areas have given up trying to stop it. Now that brings up something interesting. Will group concurrence lead to better test scores? The answer is, probably yes- on average. But will also lead to lower high scores. If groupthink says B is the answer, most will put down B, even if they think or even know the answer really is A. Among most Asain cultures, and also present in most Scandinavian culures, who happen to be white, the nail that stands out gets hammered down. So someone who might have stood out with an extremely high score will instead be in the high average range... I think an interesting experiment to run would be to give a standardized test to different groups, allowing some groups to work together to get the answers, and strictly enforcing individual testing the others. Would be even more interesting to do it with different ethnicites and see how that affects the average, mean, and standard deviation.

And Bob Boyd brought up "A New Way to Be Mad", amputating healthy body parts for the mentally ill. Maybe not here, but I recall discussion within the last year, if not earlier, comparing such "treatments" to trans surgeries. No doctor would ever do such a thing! But- now one is. And- IMHO, it's exactly the same as trans surgery. Destroying a healthy body due a mental problem. If you support one, there's no realistic way to differentiate it from the other.Slippery slope for life altering surgeries. What's next?; 2/12/23, 1:52 AM
gadfly said...: Milford, NH students walked out. "We want urinals," or perhaps stand-up adolescents will piss on toilet seats in permitted sit-down stalls.; 2/12/23, 4:33 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Professor: In your expert opinion, which is the best hotel in downtown Madison for a visitor wanting to experience the farmer's market and other events in May?"

I don't have any recent experience with the local hotels, but I would recommend locating yourself very near to or on Capitol Square, which will make it very walkable and avoid looking for parking. Beyond that, check the ratings. Maybe AC Hotel by Marriott Madison Downtown.; 2/12/23, 5:03 AM
Humperdink said...: Now would not be the time to take a joy ride in a hot air balloon, especially if you are a conservative.; 2/12/23, 5:21 AM
tim in vermont said...: I am so sorry I brought up IQ. I just thought it was interesting that people had learned how to trick ChatGPT into disregarding the guardrails that the company had placed around it. Before they did they, they got the standard response anybody who didn't want to offend would give.

Lesson learned.; 2/12/23, 5:25 AM
Humperdink said...: One of these days the media will wake up and discover that China, not The Vlad, is the greatest foreign threat to the US. Of course, the greatest domestic threat remains the home grown tyrants on the left.; 2/12/23, 5:43 AM
tim in vermont said...: LOL, wildswan. If that is the video I think it is, some tanks were destroyed, but a longer version of the video shows many others simply retreated. This "great victory" happened several days ago, and was one arm of an attack that in fact gained ground. Bakhmut is in the process of falling, and Vuhleda is slowly coming under siege.

These areas have been fortified by us for eight years, in anticipation of this war that the US cooked up by backing a coup in 2014 which used armed thugs to drive out Parliament and fired on the presidential motorcade as the president was forced to flee by helicopter. We immediately recognized the coup plotters as the legitimate government of Ukraine, despite this violet overthrow of the democratically elected leaders, and we immediately changed the policy of neutrality of Ukraine and a non-aligned status to pre-US and anti Russian.

If what the US has been doing in Ukraine were done by Russians in Canada, the US would be willing to take some very high casualties to drive them out. Nevertheless, the unfortunate Ukrainians, whom we are using simply to weaken Russia,, are taking far higher casualties than the Russians. One third of Ukrainians have fled this neocon project which has wrecked their country. the whole war is stupid. Blinding yourself to what is really going on by believing takes of the "Kiev Independent" is foolish.

People keep underestimating Russia's resolve. First the Russians were taking out transformers to shut down the railroads transporting arms, and the factories supporting the war effort, then neighboring countries decided to build and send them more transformers. The Russians simply started taking out turbines. Ukrainians always mistake any restraint by the Russians for weakness, so do Americans.

I ask again, why is the issue of who rules over ethnic Russians within the borders of the former Soviet Union an affair of the United States and worth risking a nuclear war over?; 2/12/23, 5:46 AM
boatbuilder said...: Tom T--that the Administration had the balloon launched so they could shoot it down and look decisive was my initial thought. They are that craven.

And as Harry Reid pointed out, it works!; 2/12/23, 7:09 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Gospace said..."No doctor would ever do such a thing! But- now one is."

As I noted in my comment, that Atlantic article is from the DEC 2000 issue and the doctor was prevented by his hospital from doing any more of those operations. It's shocking he did two.
But I agree, at the very least this stroy has to raise serious questions about trans surgeries in the mind of any thinking person...not that serious questions aren't already being asked by many. Unfortunately, those people are often silenced and punished.

I doubt The Atlantic would publish this article today.; 2/12/23, 7:51 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Our POTUS's name has been misspelled for decades. The proper spelling is Joe Bid-him. Joe will do what his paymasters bid him to do. The only question is the amount that they bid to get their wishes accomplished.; 2/12/23, 9:18 AM
DINKY DAU 45 said...: Oh no SUPERBOWL in Arizona! Do you think the losers(EAGLES) will accept the results? Send RUDY to F@%k it up.; 2/12/23, 10:11 AM
Gahrie said...: And then there's the discussion of IQ by ethnicity. IQ and test results can be manipulated. And IQ, for what it's worth, is determinant of what an individual can understand and do, but not determinet of what the culture that individual lives in will allows the individual to do.

IQ tests given in South Africa to college students render results identical to IQ tests given in the United States. IQ is the most studied and verified metric in social science.

In California, schools are required to give IQ tests during the process of determining whether or not a student has a learning disability. In order to qualify for special ed, there has to be a discrepancy between ability, as measured by IQ tests, and performance. Except for Black students. Legally their potential ability has to be determined in a different way. Why? Because too many Black students were denied special services because their IQ was too low.; 2/12/23, 10:14 AM
Gahrie said...: A quick remedy would be to ban cell phones from the school grounds.

Good fucking luck. I figure it's a good day if I can convince a majority to take their air pods out, put their phones away and listen to me. Parents would immediately start filing lawsuits to exempt their children from the rule. My last principal explicitly told us to stop fighting the students over cell phones, we couldn't win.

Personally I would put a cell phone blocker in my classroom if I was allowed to.; 2/12/23, 10:17 AM
Big Mike said...: Why? Because too many Black students were denied special services because their IQ was too low.

Fetal alcohol syndrome? Prenatal drug exposure? Has anybody looked? Does anybody even care?; 2/12/23, 12:43 PM