Althouse: At the Sunday Night Café…

March 3, 2024

At the Sunday Night Café…

… you can talk about whatever you want.

26 comments:

Rusty said...: The wind played hell with the targets today. Still an 18 and a 22. 5 stand was an embarassment.; 3/3/24, 7:50 PM
Dave Begley said...: One bracket has Creighton playing in Brooklyn. If seeding holds, we would play the Badgers in the second round.; 3/3/24, 7:57 PM
PenguinBelly said...: I am surprised you have yet to post anything about the "Clash of the titans," Taylor Lorenz's interview of Libs of Tiktok.; 3/3/24, 8:17 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: USA Today: "SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — There’s a new sheriff in town in San Francisco, and his name is manager Bob Melvin, who is requiring every person in the Giants dugout to stand on the field for the national anthem.

It’s a drastic difference from the Gabe Kapler regime. He stopped being on the field for the national anthem in 2022 after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and kneeled in protest for several games in 2020 after the George Floyd killing.

Yet, this has nothing to do with politics, Melvin insists."; 3/3/24, 8:34 PM
tim in vermont said...: So basically Germany is planning to give Ukraine missiles, program the targets in for them, give them USB sticks with all of that on it for them to plug in, and all Ukraine needs to do is act as truck drivers to fly the missiles to where they will be launched, and press the go button, and presto, no more Kerch Bridge!

But Germany is not at war with Russia!

I think that the Ukrainian Army is in collapse right now, and that the most dangerous part of the war is just beginning, the part where the West has to either accept defeat, or escalate the conflict even further. I don't doubt that the Kerch Bridge will be taken out, although the German generals seem to, since Ukraine has so few bombers left, they may not have enough for the mission to overwhelm Russian air defenses. But I think that Joe Biden is going to insist on some scalp that he can show the American people to claim some kind of "victory," and it doesn't look like it's going to be Putins. So the bridge will be damaged and put out of commission for some amount of time.

The reality is clear to everybody who matters in the US, that deep down, Russia is no threat to Europe, that even Eastern Ukraine has been a heavy lift for it, even as it's armies are welcomed by the people living there, and nobody really thinks that Putin has much taste for occupying lands where insurgencies are likely to develop, but that if we force his hand, he will. And the neocons would prefer an occupied Western Ukraine giving Putin headaches, than peace and prosperity for that country. They consider the "shit show" as Obama called it, in Syria, preferable to Khadaffy in power, causing trouble for European interests in Africa. We don't really do "nation building" we do nation destroying. Ukraine is just learning this.

Oh, BTW, you know what else we just learned? Barrack Obama wrote a presidential directive forbidding the arming of Ukraine against Russia, and he was simply ignored, Joe Biden overruled him. That just came out. Just like the military ignored Trump's order to get out of Syria. If you are wondering how Obama ended up with Biden as VP, and Bush with Cheney, and why they have done everything in their power to destroy Trump the outsider, it's the endless war against Russia. That's what has been driving US politics. We voters don't have a say.; 3/3/24, 8:50 PM
Narr said...: With one hand we dispense ordnance to the IDF, with the other we drop aid to the people in their way.

No wonder no one trusts us.; 3/3/24, 8:51 PM
effinayright said...: While we're still on the topic, sorta, will someone explain to me the inside joke leading to Dave Letterman naming his production company "Worldwide Pants"?; 3/3/24, 9:03 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Twitter video: Did Garland say they are going to end voter ID restrictions?

Does opening the border make more sense to the doubters now?; 3/3/24, 9:26 PM
walter said...: Nikki scores a win in DC, unexpectedly!; 3/3/24, 10:10 PM
gadfly said...: “Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Mr Trump said on Saturday.

“I know them both very well and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It’s a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word.”

Remind me again about which presidential candidate is demented.; 3/4/24, 1:36 AM
Howard said...: Bob Melvin (Bo Mel) was the manager of the A's during a period in which I went to a bunch of games every year. He's a fantastic manager and a stand up guy. Catchers make the best baseball managers. If the A's ownership wasn't so cheap he could have had a couple of World series victories during his tenure. I hate to say it but I'm a Giants fan now.; 3/4/24, 3:34 AM
Humperdink said...: @ The gad: You do realize there was a framework for peace early on in the war .... and it was rejected by who????? The Biden administration that's who. And the same crew rejected any subsequent peace talks.

I thought lefties such as yourself were peaceniks. And where your other hero, Barack the Magnificent, Nobel Peace Prize winner? He's been a nowhere man.; 3/4/24, 5:43 AM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/24, 5:52 AM
Enigma said...: - Bill Clinton never met a funding source he didn't like.
- G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney never met a war they didn't like.
- Obama never met a funding source he didn't like, and loved many wars too.
- Trump tried to get out of old and stagnant wars as he got batted like a piñata.
- Biden is propelled by an unholy union of War Pigs, World Police, and big donors.

Back in the G.W. Bush era, the left and especially academics, condemned US imperialism and "oil wars." They hated Dick Cheney with a passion, and criticized the right for funding the "military-industrial complex." The screw turns. Ideologies are decaying and collapsing in real time.; 3/4/24, 6:55 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: 3/3/24, 9:26 PM
Blogger walter said...
Nikki scores a win in DC, unexpectedly!

3/3/24, 10:10 PM

And the Mushroom Media Conspiracy was so gleeful! Trump's doomed! He lost DC! Now Nikki going to sweep Super Tuesday and knock Trump out!; 3/4/24, 6:56 AM
iowan2 said...: accept defeat, or escalate the conflict even further.

Please explain 'escalte'

What is that? Define why 'that' is going to push Russia out of Ukraine.

I see exactly zero available options, that restore Ukraine to pre war borders. Everything is much worse that the first negotiated deal the West shitcanned.; 3/4/24, 7:07 AM
iowan2 said...: Remind me again about which presidential candidate is demented.

If you needed reminded, you are the demented one.; 3/4/24, 7:11 AM
Leland said...: Every day, I'm happy to not be tortured by politics the way gadfly is or worse to have Trump living in my brain rent free.; 3/4/24, 7:54 AM
tim in vermont said...: "And where your other hero, Barack the Magnificent, Nobel Peace Prize winner? He's been a nowhere man."

Didn't you hear, it just came out that he wrote an executive order forbidding the involvement of the US in this war, and he was simply overruled and ignored, including by his own vice president, who was in charge of Ukraine, Joe Biden and his merry band of neocons, and here we are involved in the war that has turned out so far exactly as Obama predicted it would when he said that "The US has no vital strategic interests in Ukraine," and that the war would be seen as existential by Russia.

They did the same thing to Obama that they did to Trump in Syria. How is listening to these people working out?; 3/4/24, 8:19 AM
tim in vermont said...: Sorry, I thought I had edited out that part of my comment.

But in answer to Gadfly's comment, the guy who is trying to push the country with 6,000 nukes to a strategic defeat, unsuccessfully so far, but there is still time, is the "demented" one.; 3/4/24, 8:21 AM
Jupiter said...: "Their accounts drive home the urgency of Ukraine’s battlefield disadvantage as soldiers — far outnumbered by Russians — wait for Western weapon deliveries and troop reinforcements." WaPo. Troop reinforcements.; 3/4/24, 9:51 AM
tim in vermont said...: *More* video of our allies in Ukraine executing wounded Russia soldiers. Different soldiers this time than last week.

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1764687343699530149; 3/4/24, 10:22 AM
Iman said...: One can almost hear the wookie-like cry of anguish in every gadfly post.; 3/4/24, 11:07 AM
Leland said...: Now Cobb County DA has information to support defense that Fani Willis lied under oath when claiming no romantic relationship with Wade prior to 2022. Lots of suggestion that Judge McAfee will need to reopen testimony to discuss. I think Judge McAfee will just ignore and call it over. He has enough to make that call, and at this point, Fani Willis needs to argue her case to her own Special Counsel looking into her affairs.; 3/4/24, 3:36 PM
Jim at said...: Remind me again about which presidential candidate is demented.

The one who allowed the 'minor incursion' in the first place.

What do I win?; 3/4/24, 4:27 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Another open thread, another pile of unlinked baloney from 'tim in vermont'. He thinks (8:50pm) Ukraine wouldn't be able to take out the Kerch bridge unless Germany provides the coordinates on a USB drive? They've already taken out spans twice, and it's a large stationary target, unlike the A-50 (~AWACS) and the dozen Su-34s and Su-35s they shot down in the last two weeks. They know precisely where the bridge is: all they need is missiles with the range and payload. If Germany doesn't provide Taurus, it will only slow things down, as they build their own missiles and sea drones. And it's not the Ukrainian army but the Russian air force that's "in collapse right now".

It is also simply false that Russia's "armies are welcomed by the people living there", and 'tim' seems to have forgotten that Russia has also annexed two oblasts that are pretty much all Ukrainian (Kherson and Zaporizhzhia). The puppet governor of the latter was just on TV explaining how they "beat, beat, beat, beat" anyone who objects to Russian rule, and ban Ukrainian classes in the schools.

As for designs on western Ukraine, here's Medvedev, once Putin's right-hand man, wearing a Dr. Evil outfit while he shows a map of Ukraine as he hopes to see it after Russia's done with it: link. There's zero chance of that happening, but hundreds of thousands more will die if the U.S. continues to block arms to Ukraine.

As for Obama's supposed executive order, we really need a link. Sounds like utter bullshit to me.; 3/4/24, 4:39 PM