Althouse: At the Friday Night Café...

June 30, 2023

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

31 comments:

tim in vermont said...: I had made a playlist on Spotify of French torch songs. I looked for it today in my "playlists" page, and could not find it, but there was a "Women's Empowerment Playlist" there, as if I had created it for myself. Why can't these companies be happy that we are spending our money with them and leave us alone?; 6/30/23, 7:18 PM
wild chicken said...: OMG Blogger formatting finally fixed itself. My phone view has been in desktop mode for weeks making me scroll sideways to read posts.

I didn't do a thing. Just waited.

Internetting is so weird...; 6/30/23, 7:26 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: The Court's decision on racial preference changes exactly nothing. Justice Roberts pretty much copied from Harvard's admissions manual in saying that candidates can be evaluated by the degree to which they say they have overcome racial discrimination. It's as if he was coaching all minority applicants on exactly what to write in their applications. Harvard enthusiastically noted that they would certainly be complying with the Court's ruling.

Indeed. They have been doing so all along.; 6/30/23, 7:55 PM
tim in vermont said...: This can't be right. Belt-fed weapons in the hands of rioters in France?

https://twitter.com/TimOnPoint/status/1674951285513043968

As long as nobody wears a bison hat.; 6/30/23, 8:38 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Twitter: Some sort of content this way comes; 6/30/23, 9:00 PM
natatomic said...: Anyone hear about the little kerfuffle in France?; 6/30/23, 9:17 PM
Gusty Winds said...: Happy 4th of July weekend.

It's now a bittersweet celebration of what it used to mean. Never perfect, always flawed, like all human institutions... Like the Catholic Church.

But the revolutionary ideas that started America and the Catholic Church (Christianity) are things we strive to be. Perhaps never to be fully achieved. "All men are created equal". "The meek shat inherit the Earth".

On the 4th of July we honor people who risked, or gave their lives for these moral ideals. Martyrs. Soldiers and Apostles.; 6/30/23, 9:19 PM
Chuck said...: The wonderful WNYC/public radio syndicated program “On the Media” aired an episode today featuring a segment on how the media has been covering the Robert F. Kennedy Jr campaign, and how the media could do it better. The guest hostess was Brandy Zadrozny who is a terrific reporter but unfortunately is no Brooke Gladstone. Here’s the link:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-on-the-trail-with-rfk-jr

They mentioned a concept applicable to many of the RFKJr interviews, “the Gish Gallop.” RFKJr habitually spews so many falsehoods in such rapid fire succession that it’s hard to fact check them all in real time. So the best technique is to focus on just one point at a time and deconstruct it thoroughly before allowing RFKJr to get into his rapid fire rhythm.

So a good RFKJr interview would not allow the discussion to wander around his fringe ideas on border security, as well as cryptocurrency, as well as the environment, as well as his relentless personal attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the entire world pharmaceutical industry. The interviewer could, and probably should, point out that Kennedy advances lots of bullshit theories, but today we’ll just focus on three of them.

Then, you hold Kennedy on-point as you grind him on his theory that mercury-based thimerosal in childhood vaccines causes autism. Don’t let Kennedy get away from ownership of that falsehood. Be prepared, with on-hand experts, to rebut Kennedy. Destroy the myth in front of Kennedy as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

After that, demand that Kennedy explain how it is that a project directed by Bill Gates is placing microchips into unsuspecting patients. Quote Kennedy; make him answer that point without letting him deflect to other stray griping about Bill Gates or any other corporate leader.

Finally, you could ask Kennedy how it is that 5G wireless transmissions harm humans. Kennedy has offered several different theories, including physiological damage to the brain, causing leaks that allow toxins to enter the brain, all the way to 5G wavelengths altering human DNA.

Prepare the science. Focus. Grind on just one topic at a time. Be ready with actual science and scientific experts. Abandon any concern with keeping low-information voters entertained. Corner him, and get to a conclusion on each discrete thing.; 6/30/23, 11:06 PM
TickTock said...: Pray that the French wake up in time.; 7/1/23, 12:38 AM
gadfly said...: Abbe Lowell, who is one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys, [stated] in a letter to Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. . .

Lowell writes that the screenshots of the message as tweeted by Smith, “both include a photo of [President] Biden not from 2017 but from the White House Easter Egg roll in April 2022 (long after the purported message was sent); both images portray the message in a blue bubble when WhatsApp messages are in green; one image super-imposed the Chinese flag for the contact ID when surely that was not how a text or contact was kept; and one purports to be a screenshot with the '...' of someone composing a text (as in Apple’s iMessage) when that does not happen on WhatsApp.”

“In short, the images you circulated online are complete fakes.”

“Chairman Smith, it is easy [to see] when a committee does not operate with fairness and thoroughness and an adherence to rules and procedures to forward a false political narrative.”; 7/1/23, 3:09 AM
Humperdink said...: It's bad enough the Hillary campaign was the genesis for the feds to investigate Trump way back when. Now we see western Europe, after being flooded with immigrants from points south, being wrecked the from inside. So what started flow? Hillary, referring to Muammar Gaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died". The exodus began.

Tick Tock said: "Pray that the French wake up in time"

Way too late I'm afraid. Funny how the immigrants are armed with AK's.; 7/1/23, 5:01 AM
rhhardin said...: If Harvard admitted only from the top academic decile (no other considerations) they'd get a class consisting of

Asian-American 51.52%
White 36.52%
Hispanic 2.69%
Black 0.76%

via Glenn Loury p.48 (2016); 7/1/23, 5:34 AM
wendybar said...: Biden Border Patrol Cuts Razor Wire Fence on Private Property to Let Illegal Aliens Enter Texas...

Dan Crenshaw
@DanCrenshawTX
·

What the hell?

I’m going to assume for now that this particular CBP agent is following orders that he hates following. Either way, the Biden Administration is now destroying Texas property to fulfill an open border agenda. Texas must respond.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/video-biden-border-patrol-cuts-razor-wire-fence/; 7/1/23, 5:58 AM
Humperdink said...: Biden is already scheming to circumvent the SCOTUS on student loan forgiveness. Why pack the Supreme Court when you can essentially ignore their rulings? Governor Kathy Chockel (D-Gun Grabber) did the same thing when New York state lost a ruling on gun possession. New York labelled all venues as "Sensitive Areas", thereby banning guns everywhere.; 7/1/23, 6:40 AM
tim in vermont said...: Delaware US Atty "denies" that he prevented whistleblower from pressing charges against Hunter, it's just that he hadn't given the whistleblower legal status to press the charges like he promised he would.

https://twitter.com/tristanleavitt/status/1674994404245794817; 7/1/23, 7:04 AM
tim in vermont said...: Oh geez, here comes the LLR attacking another threat to his hero, Joe Biden. You wan't to talk about a "Gish-gallop," it would take decades to take every lie told about Trump in the national media back to its source and show that it's just one further lie.; 7/1/23, 7:07 AM
tim in vermont said...: So the horizon is the bluish white of skim milk, and anything beyond that, five miles or so, is hidden in the milky white of the sky. I am sure that the eco-terrorists are quite pleased with themselves, in a unibomber kind of way.; 7/1/23, 8:28 AM
Aggie said...: @Chuck

My goodness, you've got a lot invested in RFKJr, thats quite a prescription you've drafted. Tell you what - how about we follow this to the letter, and instead of a Presidential candidate, how about we do it with our current President? Any objections, prime time coverage? Then we can do the same technique with, say, the head of the DOJ - under oath this time, in the House. No probs, eh? Great.; 7/1/23, 8:49 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Yep. Here it is July 1st and my oh-so-woke neighbor still has her Pride flag up. I think she wants to be the last one in the neighborhood to take hers down even though she’s the only one to have one up in the first place. I guess a month wasn’t enough for her. She’s still deathly afraid of Covid even though she’s had about six boosters. And she’s only in her early forties. I did notice that her husband and kids aren’t wearing their masks anymore when they walk their dog.

But anyway, I’m starting the countdown today at one day.; 7/1/23, 8:52 AM
Jersey Fled said...: “If Harvard admitted only from the top academic decile (no other considerations) they'd get a class consisting of

Asian-American 51.52%
White 36.52%
Hispanic 2.69%
Black 0.76%”

By the time the Black kid gets to college he has all too often spent 12 years in failing school system run by Democrats and the teacher’s union, and learning next to nothing. The die is cast. It’s too late to pretend to solve the problem by admitting him anyway.

It’s long past time for Black parents to wake up and demand better. I lived for most of my life in a community with large Jewish and Asian populations. I can guarantee you that if our schools failed our kids the way most urban school systems routinely and consistently do, there would be public lynchings at city hall weekly. It simply wouldn’t be tolerated.

And yet election after election Blacks vote for the same people who lie to them about how it’s all about racism and destroy their kids futures. That’s even if their kids even live long enough to have a future.

The Black kids from my community routinely go to schools like Harvard because they have the qualifications to be there. The white, Black, Jewish and Asian parents demand it.; 7/1/23, 9:35 AM
Narr said...: I don't believe, really, that all men are created equal, and I definitely don't believe that "the meek shat inherit the earth." (Gusty Winds at 919); 7/1/23, 9:38 AM
wild chicken said...: By the time the Black kid gets to college he has all too often spent 12 years in failing school sy

Because the schools CAN'T FAIL BLACK KIDS. They're just passed along because equity. All the time never taking off the hoodies or buds or looking up from their phones except to punch that other kid and kick his head.; 7/1/23, 10:05 AM
Jersey Fled said...: “I don’t believe, really, that all men are created equal, and I definitely don't believe that "the meek shat inherit the earth." (Gusty Winds at 919”

I do.; 7/1/23, 10:14 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Jersey Fled is right. The neobarbarian Democrats don't care about education for Black Kids. I've never seen a Black Democrat leader actually lead about the education the Black kids get. They've never said how the "Acting White" mindset is really a "keep us poor" attitude. Never how the public schools are a disgrace and the Black community deserves better. Never how a two-parent household is the key to success.

Democrats want the Black community poor so the Dems can harvest their votes.; 7/1/23, 10:29 AM
Narr said...: Let's poll. How many here actually, really, sincerely believe that "all men are created equal"?

It's a great political fudge, inspirational and easy to agree to for pragmatic political purposes, but not defensible outside of that narrow zone.; 7/1/23, 10:58 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Barack and Michelle Obama are spouting about how affirmative action got them into Harvard. B.S. Barack went to private school. Michelle was in a gifted class Bryn Mawr Elementary School and went to Whitney Young High School, a magnet high school. They both got an excellent education, so were prepared for college and graduate work. Poor Black kids are not prepared.

“If Harvard admitted only from the top academic decile (no other considerations) they'd get a class consisting of

Asian-American 51.52%
White 36.52%
Hispanic 2.69%
Black 0.76%”

How much of that 0.76% are the sons and daughters of middle and upper class Blacks? 99%? Kids who had parents that made education a priority.; 7/1/23, 11:16 AM
Rusty said...: tim in vermont said...
"So the horizon is the bluish white of skim milk, and anything beyond that, five miles or so, is hidden in the milky white of the sky. I am sure that the eco-terrorists are quite pleased with themselves, in a unibomber kind of way."
For the week or so we had it in N.Illinois it was a new experience for us. A few times you could actually sell the wood smoke. Visibility was bad. Botto line. Take it esy. Don't venture out if you don't have to.
Do I have to say it?
Chuck. Nobody cares about your opinion.; 7/1/23, 12:15 PM
Gospace said...: Are all men created equal? Well, in the Constitutional context, yes. Equal in rights. That's it. That's all that means. Equal in rights. What you do with your abilities after that is up to you and random chance.

I ran track in HS. We had one star who ran the mile in under 4:15, outstanding for a high school athlete. He didn't run the same way as any of the rest of us. I mean his legs moved, his arms pumped back and forth, etc., but overall his movement was much smoother. Everyone ran the same workouts, did the same things in practice, and some of us did training on our own. But we all performed at different levels.

Same with academic work. I got up to Calculus 2 without ever opening the book outside class. Not being challenged in HS is a huge disadvantage. When you get to a course where you need to study- you don't know how. Those who had to work for their "A"s and did I have found do better in life then those who just got them...

Some guys had a girlfriend all through their HS years. I had my first date a year after graduation. On the other side of that- I've been married 45 years now, and some of those guys are on wife #3 or greater...

So the bottom line is- we're all equal, but we are, at the same time, all unequal. The problem with liberal theology is it confuses equal outcome (now called "equity") with equal rights. They are not the same thing. Freedom includes the freedom to fail. It's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not life, liberty, and happiness. Happiness cannot be guaranteed.; 7/1/23, 12:46 PM
Robert Cook said...: "On the 4th of July we honor people who risked, or gave their lives for these moral ideals. Martyrs. Soldiers and Apostles."

The 4th of July is not a celebration honoring soldiers. It is a celebration of the adoption of the Constitution, establishing us as a nation. Memorial Day is the holiday specifically honoring those who have died fighting for our country, (and Veterans' Day honors all present and past members of the military, whether killed or injured in combat or not).; 7/2/23, 10:39 AM
Meade said...: “The 4th of July is not a celebration honoring soldiers. It is a celebration of the adoption of the Constitution, establishing us as a nation. “

Better check this. Search “Independence Day”; 7/2/23, 10:53 AM
Meade said...: “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance.” - John Adams; 7/3/23, 11:27 AM