July 25, 2024

At the Ghost Flower Café...

IMG_7843

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(No sunrise today. I slept too late — until 5:10 — but I could have rushed out and made it, but the weather website I use said the cloud cover was 98%, so I stayed in, had some coffee, and started up the blog.)

67 comments:

rehajm said...

Spooky!

rehajm said...

Are you sick of watches today? I’ve been procrastinating over the problem children what have been stuck in the parts trays but since I’m running out of parts trays I have to tackle them. Today I finally cased up another WWW dirty dozen watch, the band of brother to the Omega in my photo stage right. Nearly perfect now cleaned up, only some of the lime missing from the minute hand…and that watch har a parts watch and that movement is running, though it needs some fiddly work. If I can tackle that I’ll clear out four more trays- woo hoo.

Did I mention the biblical rain we had this morning and evening?

traditionalguy said...

Woh. Is that a flower of a fungus? Inquiring minds want to know. Hmm..maybe half and half. But if I was a bee or hummingbird it would not attract me.

rhhardin said...

Dutchman's Breeches

Debussy string quartet g minor played by Koreans.

The East Asians (Korea, China and Japan) seem to be the ones dedicated to preserving Western classical music, to judge by the stuff that YouTube is always offering me. They're smart, they recognize the intellectual content, abandon their native music and technique-up on Western music.

rhhardin said...

Indian pipe, better match

Eva Marie said...

In commenting on another topic Shouting Thomas said...
“Scott Adams once said (I paraphrase): If an Isis terrorist walked across the Mexican border and made it to San Francisco a compassionate cat lady would offer him a cot in her apartment.”
Scott Adams also said that most of the people coming across the border were young men. Men in the US saw them as a potential physical threat and women saw them (possibly) as potential partners. He asked if instead of men, the overwhelming majority of the border crossers were single women 20 to 40 years. Would American women (including the compassionate cat lady) race to close the border and would American men be more sanguine about border crossers? It’s a fun question to pose.

Ann Althouse said...

“ Indian pipe, better match”

It’s the same thing:

“ Monotropa uniflora, also known as ghost plant, ghost pipe, or Indian pipe, is an herbaceous perennial flowering plant native to temperate regions of Asia, North America, and northern South America, but with large gaps between areas”

Narr said...

Whatever they're called, those are some ugly-ass plants. Fungi. Life-forms.

Aggie said...

Slacker.

YoungHegelian said...

I went to afternoon mass today and was surprised to find out there was no longer any holy water fonts at the door!

Always keen to the social effects of liturgical change, I thought to myself "Oh! Oh! Now we're left with just garlic when the vampires come!".

Aggie said...

@rhhardin 19:47: Wow, those young ladies are really something to listen to. Nice find, awesome rendition.

FullMoon said...

Vintage 2013 Althouse post related to women wanting murderers to "grab them by the pussy"

Rich said...

Trump supporters report a return of economic anxiety since approximately last Sunday afternoon. This is why Elon had to back out of his $45 million a month pledge.

Inga said...

Trump officially backed out of debate with Harris, surprise! Not.

Drago said...

Once again, its really rather remarkable how low quality LLR-democratical Rich's trolling has become.

It was no big shakes when he started with his pals LLR-democratical Chuck and lonejustice, but in the last 6 months its completely fallen off the edge.

Rich clearly must have been spending significant time on Yahoo or equivalent moron chat boards prior to "investing" more time at Althouse blog.

FullMoon said...



Trump supporters report a return of economic anxiety since approximately last Sunday afternoon

Used to be mildly amusing to see Costco shoppers check their reciept for potential mistakes, wondering how they were unexpectedly charged so much.

Now, see same thing at local grocery store when people exit the "ten items or less" checkout.

Drago said...

Inga: "Trump officially backed out of debate with Harris, surprise! Not."

Not even close russia collusion girl.

Would you like to try again?

Achilles said...

This is insane.

Not my words. Asmongold titled it himself.

A gaming community watches the RNC Convention.

Drago said...

I do give LLR-democratical Rich some credit though. LLR-democratical Chuck attempted to maintain his fake online "muh principles" "True Conservative" schtick (while simultaneously pushing every far left/dem politician/policy/talking head 24/7) for years....fooling no one of course.

Whereas its clear LLR-democratical Rich recognizes that his lower quality (amazing to ponder) fake conservative schtick could never last that long. So he has abandoned it completely because what else was he going to do?

Inga said...

Run, run, run away!

Achilles said...

Inga said...

Trump officially backed out of debate with Harris, surprise! Not.

Well, you should all know what comes next. Inga is of course a dishonest and stupid liar.

Donald Trump is already trying to change the rules for the second scheduled presidential debate after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race on Sunday.

Trump actually said:

“Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social."

This is of course an entirely rational proposition and the only coward here will be Comma-la Harris. Just like Joe Biden she will not be able to actually debate without the support of the moderators.

Inga is also a dishonest coward. She didn't even bother to link to a dishonest article this time at least. She just spewed her filth and walked off.

Drago said...

Inga: "Run, run, run away!"

Yes, you are indeed running away again. Let me guess, you read a headline and didn't look any further, right?

LOL

You claimed there was an "official" withdrawal from a debate. Go ahead, post the quote/link.

You are like a wind up moron.

Achilles said...

Inga said...

Run, run, run away!

We know Kamala is going to hide behind the moderators at ABC.

Kamala will not go on Fox as Trump suggested.

We all know who the real cowards are here. You are dishonest filth.

Drago said...

Here's the exact quote from the Trump campaign, as opposed to Inga's You Don't Know What Mueller Knows!/The Walls Are Closing In! lunacy:

"The Trump campaign said Thursday it would not agree to a general election debate with Vice President Harris “until Democrats formally decide on their nominee” after Harris said she was ready to debate the former president.

“Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement."

Wait, there's more from just today:

"Trump told reporters Tuesday he would “absolutely” debate Harris — the likely Democratic nominee after Biden stepped aside — at least once before Election Day."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4793807-donald-trump-kamala-harris-debate/

You simply have to marvel at just how illiterate or moronic or mendacious Inga happens to be.

Drago said...

Poor, poor Inga. I'm guessing her typical competence levels drop even more outside the hours of 10am and 4pm CT.

Drago said...

In about 2 weeks Inga will declare this conversation never happened at all.

Inga said...

Trump weasels out of debate.

Inga said...

Maybe he was afraid he’d confuse Harris with Nikki Haley again like he did at the NC rally.

Drago said...

Inga: "Maybe he was afraid he’d confuse Harris with Nikki Haley again like he did at the NC rally."

You forgot your link.

Would you like to try again?

Inga said...

At one point, he appeared to mix her up with another Indian female politician.

“And you know, they’re talking about, he was talking about, she was talking about re—lifting the retirement age,” Trump said. Only, that policy is not part of Harris’s platform. It was a part of Haley’s, though.

Drago said...

Inga: "Maybe he was afraid he’d confuse Harris with Nikki Haley again like he did at the NC rally."

That was an impressive rally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7sQfkQfOhE

The venue announced that the arena filled to capacity, with nearly 11,000 people in attendance. The parking lots surrounding the coliseum also reached capacity shortly after 2 p.m. Supporters began lining up as early as 9 a.m., with some attendees traveling from as far as another country to attend the rally.

If I recall, Inga was giddy over about 500 bussed in cat ladies with piped in cheering for kamala-la-la-la-la-la's Milwaukee sedate gathering.

Meanwhile, still waiting on that link which will prove Inga's bizarre claim that Trump "officially" withdrew from Presidential debates.

Still waiting.............waiting.........waitin...wa.....zzzzzzzzzzzz

Drago said...

And we are done here, aren't we Inga?

LOL

Inga, caught in another lie, and how many times have we seen this(?), simply moves on like a 6 year old trying to change the subject.

Drago said...

So, now that we can move on from Inga's latest lies, I do find the Ghost Flowers fascinating.

amr said...

If I remember correctly,Monotropa uniflora (a plant without chlorophyll) is parasitic on fungus of the genus Russula (and perhaps others in the same family) that are mycorrhizal (i.e. in a symbiotic relationship with trees).

Gospace said...

The doctor who writes the substack The Forgotten Side of Medicine has a rather interesting essay. He ties Biden's - and Feinstein's - mental decline to the covid boosters and when they received them.

Make of it what you will. To me, just more evidence mRNA injections of any kind are just a bad idea, and always have been.

https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-bidens-mandates-were-his-downfall

And - the Navy has just settled with the Navy seals that were unceremoniously discharged. Now that the after fact evidence is in that a lot of us saw would happen before the first shots were ever administered is causing a lot of winning lawsuits against organizations that mandated useless, actually harmful shots. This story will be going on for years.

The following thread led me to the substack:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1816596503437410621.html

Gospace said...

And in my late night wanderings through the dense thickets of internet while sipping a Chilean wine I came across this gem. Acute political insight from a young female- I have no idea who. On males who vote. As in my last comment- make of it what you will. It's a whole 12 seconds long, so you won't waste much time watching it.

https://www.minds.com/embed/1663244143805075463

The rule of Lemnity said...

The comment page looks different.

Kate said...

Trump already debated one presidential candidate. How many is he supposed to face? It's perfectly reasonable to wait for the DNC to officially settle on someone.

Ralph L said...

there was no longer any holy water fonts at the door!

The first time I went in a Catholic church, a modern one for a wedding in '85, I thought they were built-in ashtrays. Fortunately, I don't smoke.

Christopher B said...

The rule of Lemnity said...
The comment page looks different.


It displayed in a different format for me for a short time yesterday and then reverted back.

Humperdink said...

The FIB director testified before congress that President Trump could have been hit by shrapnel. From a 5.56/2.23 bullet? From a piece of the teleprompter? Good grief. They lie when they don't have to. I'll bet he bought the roof too slopey theory.

Drago said...

Humperdink: "The FIB director testified before congress that President Trump could have been hit by shrapnel."

Wray pulling this crap, on top of The Full Soviet whitewashing of Kamala-la-la-la-la's record, is the new "51 former intelligence leaders say the Hunter laptop is russki disinformation".

Humperdink said...

Jenna Howell posted a meme with a photo of Trump and a grim reaper captioned, “Awww so close”

So who is Jenna Howell? A FIB agent.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/here-is-fbi-official-who-expressed-disappointment-trump/

Christopher B said...

Let's review.

Donald Trump contested the Republican primaries against at least two well-known and well-funded candidates, and received sufficient votes to clinch the Republican Party nomination.

Inga says this proves the GOP is a cult run by Donald Trump.

Joe Biden also received sufficient votes to clinch the Democrat Party nomination in a primary process that saw Florida Democrats cancel their Presidential primary entirely and Democrats in several states only put Biden's name on the Presidential primary ballot. Democrat party leaders urged Democrats to vote against Donald Trump in Republican primaries instead.

Inga says this is what Our Democracy(TM) looks like!

In another unusual move, Joe Biden issues a personal challenge to Donald Trump for a series of debates with the first debate to occur before either man has been officially nominated. The debates are arranged by direct negotiation and hosted by a media organization.

Inga claims Biden will mop the floor with Trump at the debate.

The first debate is a disaster for Biden.

Inga says "He's just pining for the fjords."

Over several interviews and press conferences, Biden tries to redeem himself though each outing turns out worse than the last, insisting that he will remain in the race because he's the only Democrat who can beat Trump.

Inga says Biden will recover any day now.

After announcing he has COVID Biden disappears for several days and then issues communication via social media that he's dropping out of the race, endorses Harris, and purports to transfer his delegates and campaign funds to her, finally appearing almost a week later to give a disjointed speech that doesn't fully explain why he changed his mind.

Inga says she has always suspected Biden had Parkinson's and that Harris, who neither entered nor received votes in any primary, is the obvious choice of all Democrats.

The 2024 Democrat nomination process continues to look even more like Clavinball than usual with the Democrats insisting they have to proceed with an emergency virtual nomination weeks before the actual convention, despite a change to the Ohio law they ignored when scheduling the convention, by delegates mostly pledged to a candidate who dropped out likely voting for people who never appeared on a primary ballot. The Trump campaign says we're gonna wait until the Democrats make up their damm minds before discussing any debate proposals.

Inga says Trump is afraid to debate Kamala!

rehajm said...

The lies from the left are pathological. They are high not only on their own supply but from the delight in duping. It has become the new dopamine squirt, needed daily to support leftie life...

...constructively, it means you don't have to pay much attention since anything they say that's beneficial to Democrats is the tell, red flag, the signal that what you're hearing is the lie. One the flip side , waht they accuse conservatives of being/doing/saying is what they are guily of being/doing/saying. Perfect correlation...

Achilles said...

Ace called this a young republican.

That's all I saw this week during the Cheatle/Wray hearings. Nothing is going to happen. Again.

It is flat out obvious the SS and FBI tried to kill Trump. They are screaming it from the roof tops in the loudest voices they can muster and Republicans still wont even mouth the words.

Achilles said...

Looks like Obama bent the knee.

Obama wanted a democratic process to select the candidate. He has less power in the Democrat party than I thought. I hear that he released what was described as a "cheesy" video but I can't find it.

There is still a lot of time before the convention but it is starting to look more likely that the people who control the democrat party are going to ride that pony.

It is shocking to me these people are so stupid. They are firmly grasping the power. That means more will fall from their grasp.

Stupid people like Rich and Inga would have fallen in line with anything they put out there.

But by not letting this go through even a fake democratic process they lose more voters. This is a huge mistake. Between now and the convention they will not be able to hide Kamala.

I wonder if they are actually trying to destroy the Democrat party and create a multi-party system. Both parties are essentially 2 main groups they may feel more comfortable there long term.

Temujin said...

Slacker.

tim in vermont said...

"This is why Elon had to back out of his $45 million a month pledge." - Rich, still beating that dead horse.

Elon denied the story when it came out. The only backing out comes from people who pushed the lie in the first place. He called it "fake gnus" except that he did it with a funny meme of guys in a gnu costume, with their legs in jeans and sneakers showing, so maybe you can't search it up, sill, repeating lies over and over and over doesn't do much for your credibility.

Temujin said...

rhhardin said: "The East Asians (Korea, China and Japan) seem to be the ones dedicated to preserving Western classical music, to judge by the stuff that YouTube is always offering me. They're smart, they recognize the intellectual content, abandon their native music and technique-up on Western music."

Interesting that you point this out. Our local symphony orchestra here in Sarasota, which is astonishingly good for a small-ish town, lost its musical director/conductor a couple of seasons ago to cancer. A shame, because he was a very accomplished man. That, after a two year search to bring him here. And so, in the interim we have guest conductors, from around the world, as a sort of audition, who come in for a few weeks at a time during the season to produce a specific program. And each program contains at least one major soloist, again, from around the world.

I've noticed, particularly in the soloists, that so many seem to have been Asian. Youngish and Asian. Which I also find very interesting. And I, too, notice that when I use YouTube to 'preview' pieces I'm going to see, very often I'm watching an Asian conductor or soloist.

It's possible that we in the West will have the global market on gender studies, while in the East they will carry on the traditions of Western Civilization.

tim in vermont said...

Then there is Inga. Why isn't the simple truth good enough for our trolls? I call them trolls because they don't seem to feel the need to hew closely to the facts. Sounds like Harris already told a whopper that Trump was afraid to debate her, and we are supposed to swallow it hook line and sinker.

After Vice President Kamala Harris accused former President Donald Trump of “backpedaling” on a debate, the Trump campaign said Thursday it would not commit to any future debates until the Democratic Party formally chooses a nominee. - CNN

Leland said...

Trump has a defamation case moving forward with ABC/Clinton advisor George Stephanoplous. Trump won’t debate on a network he is suing for lying about him. Too bad he can’t sue Inga.

Achilles said...

I have never seen an endorsement video like this.

Has something like this ever happened before? They made Barrack AND Michelle get on their knees and publicly bow to Kamala. Obama leaked repeatedly he thinks Kamala will lose to Trump.

This is actually quite interesting.

Obama could not have done this endorsement in this way because he wanted to. A simple tweet or released statement would be the norm. They did this to publicly humiliate both Barrack and Michelle.

Also remember Schumer's endorsement of Kamala. This is a master class in passive aggressive fuck you guys for making me do this. Grass roots on up? He couldn't have said it louder he was forced to this.

What happens when the Democrat party knee caps it's own heroes? They have somehow managed to put the most unpopular democrat leader in the party at the top of the ticket. Leaders have to be inspiring and they picked Kamala. They are going to lose so many people over this.

Don't forget they set Joe up too. They threw him out there on that debate stage with Trump knowing what would happen.

The only thing that makes sense is that they are trying to break up the democrat party.

Achilles said...

I will also point out their plan was to kill Trump and install Haley or Desantis at the convention.

That would have split the Republican Party.

If they managed to split the 2 parties into four they could have done what they are doing in Europe now.

Leland said...

Don't forget they set Joe up too. They threw him out there on that debate stage with Trump knowing what would happen.

And Trump isn't playing along giving Inga the sads. If Trump would just debate Kamala before the DNC, they could get rid of her too.

MadTownGuy said...

Has the pro-Hamas insurrection in DC been memory holed already? I haven't seen a thing of it since the day it happened.

I posted a screenshot of the invasion of the Capitol Rotunda on FB. Crickets.

Ralph L said...

MadTownGuy, I'm not sure where it was in DC, but that wasn't the US Capitol Rotunda.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Guess who is boss Hogg...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-mWdyexcbA

The Dukes of MAGA!

Iman said...

Blogger Inga said...
“Run, run, run away!”

Heh… the Dems are running away much like Del Shannon did…

Full stop.

MadTownGuy said...

Ralph L said...

"MadTownGuy, I'm not sure where it was in DC, but that wasn't the US Capitol Rotunda.

I was going by this, on X

"Pro-Palestinian protestors have stormed the US capital in protest of America helping Israel."

If it's not the US Capitol, I'll stand corrected. Take a look and let me know.

MadTownGuy said...

OK, found it. It was the Cannon House Office Building, on Capitol Hill but not the Capitol Rotunda. We regret the error of relying on whatever comes across the feed on X, though I'll point out that the building in question is about two blocks from the US Capitol Building.

Link: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/24/nx-s1-5050443/capitol-building-gaza-protests-arrests

Big Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

While we’ve been focused on the election (and attempted assassination), up in the ISS astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are in their fiftieth day of a what was supposed to be a week-long stay. This is significant because their Boeing engineered spacecraft was originally only rated for 45 days in space. As I understand it, after 45 days its batteries may be too weak for a successful return trip.

Does the Biden administration hate Elon Musk so much that they won’t let NASA just throw in the towel and have SpaceX send up a rescue mission? How willing is NASA to risk adding two more astronauts to the list of US astronauts lost in the Columbia and Challenger disasters?

Biff said...

By choosing a plant without chlorophyll, is Althouse signaling disdain for Harris' "Brat" green branding?

Narr said...

Good link, rhhardin.

Do you think the algos push non-Western performers (NTTAWWT)? Wouldn't be surprised. I also notice a lot of Asian-looking musicians among the European symphony orchestras in videos of recent vintage--a combination I suppose of professional mobility and whatever influence the European fashion for adoptions a few decades ago might have had.


john mosby said...

So Achilles, what would be the endgame of the elites breaking up both the R and D parties?

I assume the four parties would be MAGA, center right, center left, and batshit progressive.

What happens next? Would the elites see four parties as easier to control?

Congress could adapt to parliamentary coalition style fairly easily.

Would all presidential elections wind up in the House?

Or are you thinking the MAGAs and batshits would just stay at home, and things would revert to early 60s politics: two parties that don’t differ very much?

Genuinely curious.

RLTW

JSM

Rich said...

Trump Wants a Weaker Dollar But Wall Street Doubts He’ll Get One ~ Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-25/usd-will-trump-s-push-for-a-weaker-dollar-work-wall-street-doubts-it?embedded-checkout=true

Trump should retain Liz Truss. They share the same implementation vision and skills

America Firsters forget one thing that also Brexiteers forgot: they have exports too.

Sure, they import more than they export but the share of exports on the US economy to the entire rest of the world is higher than the share of exports in most countries (except maybe for Canada and Mexico) going to the US. The rest of the world is still considerably bigger than the US economy.

It was the same fallacy in Britain when they talked about their trade deficit with the EU being an advantage in Brexit negotiations. It never was, as Britain sent almost half its exports to the EU while even Ireland had only 12.5% of its exports going to the UK. So any disruption in trade would always hit the UK harder than any EU country even though in absolute numbers the EU would lose more. But since it was much bigger, that loss would weigh much less than what the UK would lose as a proportion of its economy.

I managed to explain this to a 10 year old: imagine an elephant and a bulldog get into a fight. In that fight, the bulldog loses 1 liter of blood, the elephant loses 1.5 liters. Note that the elephant loses more blood than the bulldog. Question: who feels worse? The 10 year old answered correctly. The elephant might feel a bit dizzy while the bulldog will probably die.

The same will play out in a trade war US vs. rest of the world. And the US in this case, for once, won't be the elephant and their exports will be the blood they lose. Nationalists always fall for the same simple math delusion. One that even a 10 year old can see through.