Althouse: At the Saturday Night Café...

October 14, 2023

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

29 comments:

guest said...: Had the best mango ever last night (in the US, at least).; 10/14/23, 9:28 PM
Narr said...: It has turned autumnal here, so much so that our senior pup (14-15 y.o. dackel) was frolicking in the back yard like a younger dog. A few weeks ago just being outside was enough activity for both of us.

Our largest trees are two big magnolias in the front. Their leaves and cones drop heaviest this time of year, and make a crunchy, uneven surface, that can easily cause a stumble. I do have to keep those off the driveway, porch, and patio, and the neighbors' stray oak leaves get cleared at the same time.

Then again, the oaks have barely begun to shed.

Drat.; 10/14/23, 9:46 PM
Ampersand said...: I'm a tennis player, and the Board of Directors of the club I belong to is under pressure to take a position with respect to recent events in Israel. Absurd.; 10/14/23, 9:53 PM
Rocco said...: Since Thomas Friedman used the word "Crazy" a lot, here is a cover of Crazy Train: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfN3HPNdzIE; 10/14/23, 10:04 PM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: I have read on many occasions the the whole "Right of Return" concept dates back to the original Arab war against Israel in 1948. The combined Arab invading armies were so sure of victory that they told the local Arabs living in Israel to temporarily leave their homes so they would not be in the way as the invading armies slaughtered the colonizing Jews. Surprise!- the Jews beat the Arabs back and the local Arabs who left did not return, and lost their land and homes.
Ever since, the descendants of the loser Arabs have been clamoring for a "Right to Return" and reclaim the land they lost.
Now, it's the Israelis who are recommending that the Arabs who are in the way leave, again for their own safety. Better to lose their cells in an Open Air Prison than lose their lives.
History rhyming.; 10/14/23, 10:30 PM
Kate said...: You changed your header tagline.; 10/14/23, 11:23 PM
Mutaman said...: If Jim Jordan can't pull it off, Jerry Sandusky is tanned and rested.; 10/14/23, 11:34 PM
lonejustice said...: Iowa vs. Wisconsin football game. Wow! What a game! I live out in the country on a gravel road and don't have cable, so I can only watch football games that are broadcast on network TV, and FOX decided to run with this one. Good call. As one analyst said, Iowa decided to put the game on the shoulders of Phil Parker’s defense and the right leg of punter Tory Taylor. And it worked. The strategy unfolded to ugly perfection for the imperfect Hawkeyes, who defeated the Badgers, 15-6, to secure their first win at Camp Randall Stadium since 2015 and, almost unbelievably, take control of the Big Ten West.

I graduated from the University of Iowa Law School in Iowa City, and I live just outside Iowa City, so I'm a Hawkeye through and through. But I was accepted at the University of Wisconsin Law School at Madison. I didn't go there because in state tuition was SO much cheaper. Who knows, if I had gone to Wisconsin I may have had Althouse as my Constitutional Law Prof. Maybe I should have gone to Wisconsin? But I at least I have the privilege of reading her blog every day.; 10/15/23, 12:43 AM
Big Mike said...: From The Times of Israel via Instapundit:

One last thing — I saw someone tweet something like “You can’t tell an oppressed nation how to retaliate.”

There is a pretty clear line (trigger warning — graphic descriptions of actual events from the past 4 days): Don’t shoot babies in the head in front of their mothers. Don’t rape women on the bodies of their friends they just partied with at a music festival. Don’t murder parents who managed to save their 10-month-old twins (now orphans) only by hiding them in a last act of desperation. Don’t parade naked dead bodies in the street. Don’t send mothers a video of their son being murdered from his own WhatsApp. Don’t livestream killing an elderly grandmother from her own Facebook account for her granddaughter to see live. The list is way, WAY longer than this, and we are just finding out just how bad it is (as I’m writing this, they found 40 dead babies). Heartbreakingly, this is not based on stories, this is all documented, posted, and celebrated proudly by Hamas on social media. [My emphasis]

I’ll end this post by saying: Hamas has brainwashed some of the Palestinians in Gaza. Not all, but some.* These terrorists are not looking for peace. They are looking to murder me, my family, and every single person in my country.

I’m not sure how your country’s army would react, but I know that my army is in an impossible situation trying to keep the country safe while trying not to harm civilians. If you’re not seeing it, consider diversifying your news sources.

_____________
* And, obviously, sadly, more than a few in the United States.; 10/15/23, 1:17 AM
Humperdink said...: All of the families living in the kibbutz's near the Gaza border were unarmed. They had (unlocked) safe rooms in the event of a rocket attack, but were defenseless when the terrorists assaulted their homes. Think 2nd amendment. How many would have survived?

Biden yesterday: "“Who in God’s name needs a weapon with 100 rounds in the chamber?" The dead Israeli's were unavailable for comment.; 10/15/23, 5:24 AM
Brylinski said...: University of Wisconsin refuses to condemn pro-Hamas demonstrators chanting 'Glory to the murders!':
https://www.foxnews.com/us/university-wisconsin-refuses-condemn-pro-hamas-demonstrators-chanting-glory-murders; 10/15/23, 5:26 AM
Jaq said...: The press is a very interesting thing to read, you learn the damndest things. For instance, I never knew that every dollar of the deficit is caused by tax cuts, and not one penny of it is caused by spending. Once you accept how such simple rules explain the world, being o the right side of any issue becomes as easy as pie.

For instance, once you accept that all Trump supporter are 'far right' you can get all kinds of political opinions right.; 10/15/23, 6:13 AM
gilbar said...: As we ALL know.. Because of ABORTION, No republican can or will be elected ANYWHERE in the USA
People have spoken!

The People in Louisiana spoke yesterday, and their next Governor will be Jeff Landry!
Take THAT republicans! What happened to YOUR candidate? ha!!
What's that? Jeff Landry IS the republican candidate? Well that doesn't Matter!

I bet they didn't even mail out preprinted democrat ballots to every resident! They probably didn't even allow non citizens to vote there!; 10/15/23, 7:51 AM
Rusty said...: It quit raining here. In the beautiful and touristy Fox Valley of Illinois.The grass has grown more in the last month than it did all summer. When I get home from shooting I'll mow the leaves. So far they've only fallen a little bit at a time.
I will shoot ducks when the weather gets a bit colder. Unless I'm invited to hunt a field.
You Southern Wisconsin geese are here already . Filling the cut over fields. Hundreds of em. Soon to be thousands. Cranes have started moving south.; 10/15/23, 8:03 AM
James K said...: A comparable number of Jews (hundreds of thousands) had to flee Arab countries for the relative safety of Israel in 1948, leaving behind everything they owned. Baghdad was more than 25% Jewish prior to WW II. Something like half of the early population of Israel came from other parts of the Middle East.; 10/15/23, 8:03 AM
Rusty said...: Narr.
Be thankful they're not Cottonwoods.; 10/15/23, 8:07 AM
Leland said...: I'm a tennis player, and the Board of Directors of the club I belong to is under pressure to take a position with respect to recent events in Israel. Absurd.

Did they take a position on Ukraine? I noticed my company was quick to come out with a position on Ukraine and Dobbs yet has remained quite silent about Hamas' bloodlust. I don't know what's difficult about condemning rape and murder of obviously innocent people. Unless you never really cared about truly condemning rape and murder regardless of the innocence, which then makes sense about holding a certain position on Dobbs.; 10/15/23, 8:14 AM
Kakistocracy said...: Judging by the comment section of this blog, cracks are forming in the MAGA isolationist stance.; 10/15/23, 8:31 AM
Political Junkie said...: lonejustice - Amazing that Iowa might win 11 games with the offense they have.; 10/15/23, 8:59 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Canadian Maples are the worst. Not only are the leaves big, they shed these seed-pods in the thousands, which then take root. They pods then go to root and generate thousands of little baby maple sprigs, which if given the chance, will grow into 100-ft full-sized trees. It cost me $800 to take down one such full-grown sprig.

The other very annoying thing about maples, is cutting down a maple doesn't kill the trunk and roots. The trunk will sprout hundreds of branches which have to be trimmed and killed if you don't want a 50-ft maple bush.

Cedar, Douglas Firs and hemlocks have the good graces to die once they're cut down. Not maples.; 10/15/23, 9:04 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Saw a sign held at a pro-Palestinian protest that said “resistance is not terrorism” and I thought okay try saying that to the DOJ while wearing MAGA gear and see how it goes.; 10/15/23, 9:11 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: What does not make sense to me is that the Palestinian people are able to breach the Gaza fence and enter Israel by air land sea and underground tunnels yet can’t find any way to get into friendly Egypt.; 10/15/23, 9:16 AM
planetgeo said...: The leftists are projecting about "colonizers". They're among the most rabid colonizers out there. And I'm not just talking about territorial colonizing. They also specialize in "linguistic colonizing". They take perfectly good words with long-term indigenous meanings and subjugate them for their own purposes, far from their native meanings. Perfectly nice, simple words and concepts, like "gay," "silence," and my favorite, "woman."

I may not agree with them that sad/angry homosexuals are actually gay, or that silence is violence, but now I'm in solidarity with them and totally settled in with, "Death to the linguistic colonizers!"; 10/15/23, 9:16 AM
Narr said...: James K mentions those other expellees--which included Jews from the Maghreb countries also.

They were a substantial portion of the educated class in all those places--a loss to them, a gain for Israel (and sometimes Europe or the USA).; 10/15/23, 10:13 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: There's video of a Hamas blockade of Gazans trying to leave northern Gaza. Hamas is using trucks to block the road. An Israeli helicopter should fly over and use its minigun to blow the truck and the terrorists to kingdom come. Road cleared. Terrorist meeting their 72 vegans. (The Quran includes a mishearing of what Mohammed said. It wasn't "virgins", but "vegans."); 10/15/23, 11:36 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Who knows, if I had gone to Wisconsin I may have had Althouse as my Constitutional Law Prof. Maybe I should have gone to Wisconsin? But I at least I have the privilege of reading her blog every day."

If you had me as a conlawprof it might impair your enjoyment of the blog.

Thanks though!; 10/15/23, 12:23 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: The leftists are projecting about "colonizers"

Excellent observation, Geo. This is the same lot that brags about the “long march through the institutions” after all. That means taking over territory formerly occupied by conservatives and apolitical people and turning those organizations against American values like free speech and free expression and free association. Well, against freedom in general. That’s why so many of you have HR departments “taking stands” on things that have zero to do with your employer’s actual reasons for existing.; 10/15/23, 1:11 PM
Gospace said...: Ampersand said...
I'm a tennis player, and the Board of Directors of the club I belong to is under pressure to take a position with respect to recent events in Israel. Absurd.

Don't know when tis push to get apolitical organizations to adopt political positions started, but I saw it in the 1980s. And it seems it's always a push to get them to adopt leftist position. I belonged to a pro-space group, and out of nowhere, there was a sudden movement to get the groups to come out strongly against SDI. Because it was "obvious" it would never ever work. And let's not forget- all the proposals of the Strategic Initiative are in worldwide use today, working. Israel's Iron Dome is nothing but SDI technology.

What does tennis have to do with politics? Nothing- until the City wants to convert tennis courts into basketball courts for the underprivileged... then the tennis clubs can and should get into politics. So unless there's a huge difference in tennis courts per capita that needs to be addressed between Gaza and Israel, there should be no reason for the tennis club to get involved.

Actually, I imagine there is a huge difference- but I'm not even going to attempt to look it up.; 10/15/23, 1:13 PM
Mason G said...: "Cedar, Douglas Firs and hemlocks have the good graces to die once they're cut down. Not maples."

I had a large (40 ft. high x 50 ft. wide) maple in my front yard. It contracted verticillium wilt somehow and was dead in a year. First indications were a loss of leaves on one upper branch in the fall. The following spring, the entire tree (aside from the one branch) leafed out and all looked normal. In June, leaves started dying and a month later, the tree was bare.; 10/15/23, 3:30 PM