Althouse: At the Thursday Night Café...

February 29, 2024

At the Thursday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

45 comments:

Lilly, a dog said...: Dana Gould, as Dr Zaius, as William Shatner, reciting "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0_DhrDD8Q

Related, Dana Gould's "Hangin' With Dr Z" is the best thing on Youtube for anyone that misses the swanky silliness of 70s talk shows.; 2/29/24, 7:18 PM
rhhardin said...: Simone Porter Beethoven Violin Concerto

A violin-shaped woman with a string orchestra decides on a breast treatment.

Same woman dressed for Country and Western playing a technically more impressive piece, Rozsa Sonata for two violins op 15. The 2nd movement 5:26 is the nicest. Note the mute on the bridge at its beginning and end. The Dale Evans breast treatment.

It's not as if female soloists have to decide on a breast treatment, for example Bach Concerto for 3 violins the lady substitutes a sparkly belt buckle.

East Asians (= the high IQ bunch) seem to take Classical Western music very seriously, as if it had intellectual content that the West has lost sight of.; 2/29/24, 7:24 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: People born today don't get to have another birthday for 4 years?

Wait until Leticia James and Fanny Willis hear about this fraudulent birthday interference.; 2/29/24, 7:52 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: The constitution has provided a check on presidential powers.

They are called elections.; 2/29/24, 7:58 PM
Enigma said...: Read Matt Tiabbi's account of Google's broken Gemini AI. His experience was much worse than the black Viking and black Nazi illustrations. They are blending facts about real people with fiction. Libel. Will Google kill this technology entirely? Is it grounds for a class-action lawsuit?

https://www.racket.news/p/i-wrote-what-googles-ai-powered-libel

A year ago in February 2023 Google's Bard AI similarly struggled:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155650909/google-chatbot--error-bard-shares

I think Google is in panic mode versus its better AI competitors. They make fools of themselves again and again. Will this mark the start of the long overdue tech stock readjustment down?; 2/29/24, 8:13 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Tomorrow begins the Atlanta Tattoo Arts Festival #7

It's a good thing they waited until after Black History Month celebrations.

Word is sometimes people at this event voluntarily hang, or people hang voluntarily... I have no way of saying that in way that would sound funny.

If only Norm was still around.; 2/29/24, 8:21 PM
Aggie said...: In much the same way that the Progressive Democrats have weaponized the legal system and unleashed it as an attack dog on their opponents, the Progressive media has weaponized A.I. and poured its tactics from Diversity/Cancel Culture into its programming. Now, big surprise, A.I. is using those self-same tactics to create mayhem on the Target Class, like Matt Taibbi.

Maybe we're entering a brave new era, where the lies and complete fabrications about people will be churned out so convincingly, and in such volume, that correcting the record may become a thing of the past; there just won't be the time or resources. Soon, public figures will be hiring experts whose job it is to manage the perceived public persona created by A.I. instead of the actual person's reputation. 'Hey, it wasn't me, sez Google, in court. 'It was that darn machine'; 2/29/24, 8:38 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Google is leftist. Leftist = liars. or the capability to lie and buy lies with ease.; 2/29/24, 8:39 PM
Fritz said...: Blogger Lem the artificially intelligent said...
People born today don't get to have another birthday for 4 years?

Our 44 year old son had his 11th birthday today.; 2/29/24, 8:41 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Panera Bread exempt from California’s $20 minimum wage law after owner donated to Gov. Newsom: report https://trib.al/tACvPO6; 2/29/24, 8:47 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Walk Away
Walk Away
Walk Away; 2/29/24, 8:48 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Please Watch! The most important thing you can watch.; 2/29/24, 8:58 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: What the corrupt totalitarian left are up to.

If I were prez - every antifa thug would be hunted down and imprisoned for 50 years.; 2/29/24, 9:03 PM
roger said...: child abuse of a fifteen month old:

https://rumble.com/v4gdcht-brainwashing-starts-early-delusional-mom-uses-theythem-pronouns-for-15-mont.html; 2/29/24, 9:24 PM
Jupiter said...: "The constitution has provided a check on presidential powers.
They are called elections."

The men who wrote the Constitution took it for granted that the franchise would be restricted to men of property. What kind of an idiot would let women and paupers vote? It's pretty fucking obvious what the would vote for.; 2/29/24, 9:38 PM
gadfly said...: "Unlike Jared Kushner, I’ve never received money from a foreign government,” Hunter Biden said in response to a question from Republican staff [at yesterday's closed meeting with James Comer's House committee].

He knocked Republicans later in the interview for not investigating the money Kushner’s firm received after he left the White House in 2021.

“When Jared Kushner flies over to Saudi Arabia, picks up $2 billion, comes back, and puts it in his pocket, OK, and (Trump) is running for President of the United States, you guys have any problem with that?”

“The clock has stopped,” interjected Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican.

“No, the clock has not stopped. Do you guys have any problem with that? I’m asking. It’s unbelievable to me,” Hunter Biden responded.; 3/1/24, 12:10 AM
Mutaman said...: I guess the Hunter dick picture testimony must have been pretty effective since Althouse has chosen to ignore it. Amazing how she sems to have lost her obsession with dick pictures since Smirnov was indicted.

" In English or Russian?"; 3/1/24, 12:15 AM
Narayanan said...: Blogger rhhardin said...
for example Bach Concerto for 3 violins the lady substitutes a sparkly belt buckle.
=================
better to close eyes to listen to that one!
all the violin bows at various angles made me dizzy!; 3/1/24, 2:18 AM
gadfly said...: WAPO says that the long-delayed bid by Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the social network Truth Social, to merge with a special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition and become a publicly traded company could value Trump’s 90% stock holdings at more than $3 billion.

I am puzzled as to exactly how an unpopular social media company with far less than a million monthly subscribers could gin up that much play in the market. Even Musk's X platform has dropped in value by half of what he paid, down to around $20 billion. And I doubt that Donald has laid out a thin dime for his shares.; 3/1/24, 2:57 AM
wendybar said...: Philip Melanchthon Wegmann
@PhilipWegmann

What is this but an assault on the First Amendment?
The Associated Press
@AP
BREAKING: Judge holds veteran journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to divulge source
https://apnews.com/article/catherine-herridge-journalist-contempt-fox-news-cbs-63f6b2cde67fceae192daebe5d11b1a1?taid=65e1166d15d5a500012eee6b&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
8:40 PM · Feb 29, 2024

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/02/29/catherine-herridge-held-in-contempt-n2635946; 3/1/24, 3:56 AM
wendybar said...: I don't watch Morning Joe, so I have no idea what they were talking about there..That being said, after reading this article, I have come to the conclusion, that Progressives are brainwashed into believing everything Joe and his crew were spewing. It's nonsense, but they sound just like the fools here who are trying to tell us that Joe Biden is a great President, and the Republicans are crazy. Once again....upside down world. Two different universes.

https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffdavidson/2024/03/01/morning-joe-an-abysmal-waste-of-airwaves-n2635944; 3/1/24, 4:03 AM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/1/24, 4:51 AM
Humperdink said...: For decades they were known as illegal immigrants. Barack the Magnificent labelled them dreamers, Trump calls them Biden's migrants, the current president rolls out the red carpet, along with opening the treasury coffers and calls them newcomers. In reality they were criminals the moment they crossed our border.

As an aside, it has been reported anecdotally crime in Venezuela is way down. Gee where did the criminals go? Recall when Fidel Castro flooded US shores with Cuban criminals. Who was president at that time? I can't recall, but I think it was a peanut farmer from Georgia. Libs never change.; 3/1/24, 5:19 AM
Humperdink said...: @Joe Biden is Corrupt. Yep Governor Ozzie Newsome exempted one of his largest political donors from the new minimum wage law. They don't even hide it anymore.; 3/1/24, 6:00 AM
Old and slow said...: Apparently, the current president calls them "newcomers". That's pretty cheerful, isn't it?; 3/1/24, 6:47 AM
Kai Akker said...: To Humperdink, my fine fellow Pennsylvanian -- I always thought the quote you referenced, about voters voting themselves the Treasury, was from de Tocqueville; to the point that I would have sworn I could remember reading it in Democracy in America. But I see the innenet attributes it to Alexander Tytler, of whom I have no knowledge whatsoever.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/538558?ref=largesse

Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled. (Another good quotation.) The republic has survived worse. And the greed for both power and free money, as exhibited by leftists everywhere, has in its excesses a good degree of self-correcting potential. This nation can survive even the worthless Left as our citizens begin to recognize the damage inflicted.

That is IMO. It might take a while, though.; 3/1/24, 6:56 AM
Breezy said...: “We are not enemies, but friends.”

— Lincoln

After referencing that quote the other night, it’s a plausible option that Biden was attempting to shift behavior when he referenced Trump as a “good friend”. Not that anyone would buy it, but it might be the tactic he employed.; 3/1/24, 6:58 AM
Quaestor said...: Humperdink writes, "...paraphrasing a founding father, whose name escapes me, stated that when the voters can vote [themselves] money from the public treasury, it's over."

Here's the quote you may have roughly recalled:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."

Many people remember this famous passage, in whole or in part, but often misattribute it to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (published in two volumes in 1845 and 1840). In fact, it is the work of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor writing in the 1790s in the context of the French Revolution. As things turned out, democracy in France has been... how to put it? A problem child? Since 1792 they've had a First Republic, an Empire, then a kingdom, then a Second Republic, followed by a Second Empire, followed in turn by a Third Republic. That one lasted 70 years and was canceled by someone called Adolf, and not the French themselves, perhaps that was progress of a sort. They're on their Fifth Republic now, and that one is teetering on the brink mainly over the issue of unrestrained and undocumented immigration from God knows what shitholes, as is our one and only republic. Given the evidence of history, Lord Woodhouselee could have been mistaken about the cause of democratic failure. The irony is the Fourth Republic collapsed over Algeria. The Muslims there resented the nominally Christian French and kicked them out with extreme violence. If the Fifth Republic falls, it will be accomplished by Muslims from Algeria and many other shitholes kicking the French out of France.; 3/1/24, 7:06 AM
Quaestor said...: "...it has been reported anecdotally crime in Venezuela is way down."

Reported by whom? The usual left-wing nutjobs in the press who have been cheering on the destruction of Venezuela since Fatso Chavez first donned a beret? I would reject that out of hand without confirmation from Tucker Carlson or somebody like him. If crime is way down it is probably because no one has anything left to steal. The commies in charge can no longer afford to print Bolivars as the cost of ink and paper exceeds the value of the currency.; 3/1/24, 7:17 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: George Floyd got nationally televised funerals. What does Laken Riley get?
Today's democrats torture and kill the American dream.; 3/1/24, 7:19 AM
narciso said...: https://www.theblaze.com/news/john-fetterman-offer-support-hr2?utm_source=theblaze-dailyAM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Newsletter__AM%202024-03-01&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%20TheBlaze%20Daily%20AM&tpcc=email; 3/1/24, 7:28 AM
Humperdink said...: Quaestor asked ….

Bloomberg answered: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-28/venezuela-s-violent-deaths-fall-to-22-year-low-on-migration

I suspect there are other reports.; 3/1/24, 7:38 AM
Rusty said...: "...it has been reported anecdotally crime in Venezuela is way down."
Of course it is. All communist shit holes have low crime rates. All the criminals run the country. Compatitors are executed.; 3/1/24, 7:45 AM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: The Founding Fathers probably thought they had the problem of people voting funds to themselves from the public treasury handles when they wrote the Constitution. They came up with the concept of enumerated powers. This concept, they thought, would prevent such nonsense; nowhere in the Constitution is there an expressed or implied power to take money from Person A and give it to Person B. Yet, today that is the dominant activity of the Federal Government, what with Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, aid to farmers, people with flooded homes, ADHD, inadequate funding for local schools, and inability to make the nut on their Tesla purchases.
The solution is at once simple and impossible. Pass no more laws that do this, and cut the existing ones by 5%per year to allow people to adjust to the new affordable reality. We have passed the event horizon of suckling at the public teat, and future generation of Americans will suffer for it.; 3/1/24, 8:24 AM
Steven said...: Kai wrote that "The republic has survived worse .... This nation can survive even the worthless Left as our citizens begin to recognize the damage inflicted."

The Republic is already dead--res publica deleta est, as I say to my daughter who is studying classics. The nation, i.e. a country called the United States, remains, just as Rome remained a potent force in the world long after the Roman Republic had died.

My sister is much distressed by this situation, but as Kai also writes: "Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled." St. Augustine wrote The City of God to explain the sack of Rome to the distraught people who witnessed that inconceivable event. The end of the American republic would have been inconceivable to me in my youth. But here we are. Life goes on, but I suspect it will be much harder for the average person. God made no promise to Rome or the United States.; 3/1/24, 8:33 AM
Steven said...: Kai wrote that "The republic has survived worse .... This nation can survive even the worthless Left as our citizens begin to recognize the damage inflicted."

The Republic is already dead--res publica deleta est, as I say to my daughter who is studying classics. The nation, i.e. a country called the United States, remains, just as Rome remained a potent force in the world long after the Roman Republic had died.

My sister is much distressed by this situation, but as Kai also writes: "Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled." St. Augustine wrote The City of God to explain the sack of Rome to the distraught people who witnessed that inconceivable event. The end of the American republic would have been inconceivable to me in my youth. But here we are. Life goes on, but I suspect it will be much harder for the average person. God made no promise to Rome or the United States.; 3/1/24, 8:33 AM
n.n said...: Laken Riley is an excess death attributable to [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform.

venezuela-s-violent-deaths-fall-to-22-year-low-on-migration

Redistributive crimes.

Some, Select [Baby] Lives Matter; 3/1/24, 9:15 AM
Narr said...: East Asians keeping Western art alive? Google Reznicek, Donna Diana, and Fletzberger.

A sparkling performance from a Japanese ensemble. (No breastesses.); 3/1/24, 9:57 AM
Kai Akker said...: --- The Republic is already dead

I hope you are wrong, Steven. When would you date that ending, and to what would you attribute it? No treatise necessary, just curious.

To my idle speculation, FDR did a lot to change the nation and move it leftward, as the prevailing winds blew then. But I can't see that as an ending. The '60s and their too-persistent ethos?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.; 3/1/24, 11:28 AM
tim in vermont said...: So it was "If Russia wins in Ukraine, they are going to attack Europe," and now it's "If Russia wins in Ukraine, Europe is going to attack Russia." The endgame seems cooked over a border war that was never any our business.; 3/1/24, 12:46 PM
Candide said...: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government…”

To be fair to Democracy, no political system can “exist as a permanent form of government”. There is no perfect “form of government”. Democracy may be the most volatile, but all political systems sooner or later collapse overwhelmed mostly by inherent contradictions. So Democracy may be just a natural and integral part of “this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."

I propose that Democracy naturally appears at the stage of transition “From liberty to abundance”. Democracy grows in strength and influence as society progresses “From abundance to selfishness” and “From selfishness to apathy”. Democracy reaches its climax at the stage of transition “From apathy to dependence”. Then Democracy dies naturally in transition “From dependence back into bondage”. And so it goes…; 3/1/24, 1:20 PM
tim in vermont said...: I am getting more and more convinced that Buwaya was right, and monarchy is the way to go. Leave the people out of what is none of our business. Let the people who like to kill go fight in wars that are then settled between cousins before they turn into total war. Let them intrigue among themselves over power, and let us alone to live our lives. Let us suffer through the bad kings, and enjoy the good ones.; 3/1/24, 3:45 PM
Steven said...: Kai wrote asking to when I date the end of the Republic.

I have given this a lot of thought over the last few years. It was certainly dead by the time Biden was installed. If nothing else, Trump has ripped the mask off of many people (whether average citizens or politicians).

I would not date the death of the Republic to the 1960s or 1970s, but then perhaps I was just too naive then. I attended college and graduate school in Washington, DC. in the mid and late 1970s. I remember celebrating the Bicentennial and I considered myself a liberal Democrat but was very anti-communist. I did not perceive the party as hating America. I would never have believed then that the Republic would be dead in less than 50 years.

The effort to steal the election for Gore was an eye-opener for me. I had had direct professional contact with him in the 1980s and 1990s and would not have voted for him for dog catcher. The glowing press that he received throughout the 1990s disgusted me and I began to lose confidence in the liberal media. I chose to believe my lying eyes.

By the end of the Obama years, it seemed clear to me that equal justice under law, indeed, the rule of law itself, was a dead letter. The process by which Obamacare was passed in Congress left me disgusted. Politicians, specially Democratic politicians were allowed to get away with crimes for which ordinary citizens would have been severely punished. My youthful belief that the ouster of Nixon in the wake of Watergate had helped to purify our institutions was now in question. Increasingly Watergate strikes me as having been a partisan charade, the left never having been able to forgive Nixon for his role in exposing Alger Hiss. So perhaps the Republic was dying back in the 1970s. Or perhaps its existence has always been on a knife edge.

Clearly, the professional political class, including our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, did everything in its power to obstruct Trump after his election in 2016. The way in which Trump was sabotaged by the bureaucracy (deep state?) definitely convinced me that things were not well with the Republic. The elected executive power was not allowed to govern. The fraudulent 2020 election and the narrative impose on the events of January 6th simply confirmed my judgment that the rot was deep and irreversible.

What really convinces me that the Republic is dead, however, is that my family members and longtime friends, who to a large extent are members of the educated elite, have bought into an ideology clearly contrary to the founding principles of the United States. I can barely talk with most of them about any political topic because they hold my once main-stream political views in such total contempt. One flat out stated that even if it were true that Biden is mentally incapacitated, she would rather the country be governed by a secret cabal ruling through him than by a democratically elected Trump. Unfortunately, I think this represents a significant portion of the American middle, upper-middle, and upper class. When did this happen? I don't know, but over the last 50 years it seems that virtually everyone I know has gradually abandoned belief in the founding ideals of the country.

When the elite of a country no longer believes in the ideals on which the system of government is based, I have to conclude that that system of government is dead. The organs that actually rule us will continue to wear the skin of the Republic and there will still be a United States, but it will not be a republic in any meaningful sense of the word.; 3/1/24, 10:54 PM
Kai Akker said...: Thanks for your eloquent reply, Steven.; 3/2/24, 10:16 AM
Nate Holt said...: Folks should stop using "trillion" as in "another trillion dollars deeper in debt every 100 days". Use "One Thousand Billion dollars" deeper in debt every 100 days instead of one trillion. And, to make it more understandable, a billion dollars spread out over 330 million Americans is $3 per person. So, the "trillion dollars deeper in debt every 100 days is equivalent to $3000 deeper in debt for every American man/woman/child every 100 days.; 3/2/24, 7:15 PM