October 11, 2024

The sky at 3:22 a.m.

IMG_9410

We were out at 3:22 a.m. in the hope of seeing the northern lights, but it was not to be. I know people saw the lights much earlier in the evening — around 8, which seems much easier to do. The 3 a.m. slot is the least used hour of the day — is it not? It is when it is most likely that night owls and early birds will both be in bed. But it's a lovely time. Giving up on the lights, we drove around town, just for fun, before heading home.

Another night approaches. Use it well! If you need a place to write, you can write about whatever you like in the comments.

57 comments:

Quaestor said...

It looks like Althouse needs to go much further away from the skyglow of Madison to have a shot at the aurora borealis.

“Bad Genes” said...

I don’t know how much more of this horrible economic news I can take it’s like we’re already living in “1929”

Dow jumps 400 points to a record on Friday, S&P 500 closes above 5,800 for the first time: Live updates ~ MSNBC

Alan said...

The stock market was booming in 1929, until it wasn't,

BG said...

We just saw red areas in the sky. It was around 10 pm.
Many years ago when I lived in SW Wisconsin I saw an amazing aurora. The dog woke me up with his barking. I got out of bed to see what the commotion was all about. I went outside and saw sheets of iridescent green cascading almost down to the ground. It was also moving along at the same time. No special phones or cameras back then. Since no special equipment was distracting my attention, I just stood there in awe and seared it into my memory.

tim in vermont said...

Keep printing money, keep dumping the money into the stock market! What could go wrong?

Disparity of Cult said...

Did Kamala Attend Ninth Grade? Can she diagram a sentence?

Aught Severn said...

Stock market isn't the economy, it is a reflection of the collective risk assessment for the profit and loss of the companies listed on whichever index you are looking at and it makes up a part of the broader economy. It may or may not reflect the overall economic trend, and is just one of many indicators that need to be considered when making a claim on the state of the economy.

Political Junkie said...

Jim Cramer on CNBC today predicted a Harris win. Chuck Todd on MSNBC predicted an R Senate win in PA. That combination seems almost impossible. Mayve white center right women who normally vote R but are anti DJT? I don't bet, but if I had to bet, I would bet against Harris winning PA and D Casey losing PA.

Any PA folks out there with comments? Thanks.

BUMBLE BEE said...

BG is soooo proud of himself! Kamala makes sense to him.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Cramer has a history with predictions.

Iman said...

Given Cramer’s record, I feel even better about Trump’s chances, lol.

tim in vermont said...

When you price the stock market in terms of earnings, well, the earnings aren't supporting the high stock market, it's the ocean of dollars lacking productive investment opportunities. If they had a good place to be invested, they wouldn't be chasing the lousy earnings on the stock market. Instead the bet is that the money will keep flowing, it will have nowhere to go but the stock market, and prices will continue to rise.

https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/price-earnings.php

It's magic! But not "magical thinking"! Oh, no!

Political Junkie said...

And both picks go against type, because I think Jim will vote for DJT and I am pretty certain Todd is a D.

rehajm said...

…and rallys like today can reflect anticipation of future Feds cuts due to economic weakness.

rehajm said...

I’m getting retro Bogger Althouse version. Did I miss an event?

rehajm said...

…must have been a glitch in the matrix…

rehajm said...

…must have been a glitch in the matrix…

Friendo said...

I love this post and all like it. Always seeking to be present and not future-trip, but I will miss this place mightily when it is no longer.

Hassayamper said...

Jim Cramer, eh?! Say no more, I'm putting everything I own on DJT in the betting markets.

Aggie said...

I routinely analyze the securities I'm invested in. I don't sell much at all, and I tend to hold forever, because I'm a dividend investor - so I hold high-quality stocks, mostly. Right now almost every single stock I've got is hugely over-valued, when I look at their graphs - which take into account actual and projected earnings, sales, so forth. Although my cost basis is great, I couldn't see investing to increase my positions, at these valuations now.

And just try to buy a bond right now, a squeaky-clean, tax-free municipal bond going out, say, 10 - 15 years. The premium you're paying up front almost makes it a wash.

I'm purely self-taught with occasional tutoring, but I've been investing successfully since the 1970s and now I live off that income. The market right now is crazy-edgy.

Jim at said...

Am I the only one who's just not into the northern lights? I mean, I've got friends posting pics all over the place and "You gotta go outside and see them now!"

Um, no. Give me a supermoon? Yeah. I'll check it out. But these things? Meh.

Mason G said...

I came across a new channel on SiriusXM- The Bridge Deep Cuts. It's one of their streaming-only extra channels. I listen to The Bridge fairly regularly, the only downside (IMO) is that the songs are pretty much all "greatest hits" type songs. The ones they play on the Deep Cuts channel are like the ones on an album that weren't on the radio much (or at all).

Maybe not for everybody, but I've always preferred to listening to an album all the way through- even the songs that never made the charts- as opposed to what you get from the radio.

tim in vermont said...

I read a book once, The Intelligent Investor, and it all makes perfect sense, if you were dealing with a market that reflected the underlying realities of the businesses you are investing in. We are not. And so the "Intelligent Investor" has nowhere to turn, today.

JOB said...

Aurora Borealis

At cold heights, white-hot fluorescent spikes
Tickle the ultra-horizon, each star
Occluded by the soupy light from which bar-
Graph towers rise and fall and rise like snakes
Dancing alien rhythms between the sun
And the upper atmosphere’s heated zone.

This year, like last year, they pencil-mark darkness
In the lock-step days of middle-autumn
To aid our hunkering down against loneliness.
Nothing stands between us and aurora
Except open sky. Trees utterly bare
Are barely speaking a word in wind’s flared tongue.

A month past, the trees cock-crowed proud with plume
Issuing fire to hills, settling finally
To twig-lines in winter’s nest of early dark.
Now shrunk into themselves, a crushed branch-work
Of nerves before this frigid majesty,
The trees recede (like parentheses of time).

We stand with our children on the hill’s spire
Behind the house, watching the northern night
Worming with electricity. We taught
The children how to see the Northern Lights --
Why it came down to gather our town’s lights
Everywhere turned off once or twice a year:

So the North Pole could give God’s pot a stir
To put all things right, putting back the stars
In their rightful places like expectations,
The kind you meet as you lay in your beds,
Connecting ceiling dots into constellations;
And angels tally pinpoints behind your lids.

Counting and counting dots… the children dream
They made a mess in their play the way they
Worry the math out of an autumn day;
The way water eats a leaf in a stream
Loosing gathered light from its veins, or divine
Fingers dipped in time’s ripple-widened skein.

This planetary light, this cosmic cry
Of stellar fire fans night’s deep, dark and still;
These indices, each an icy digit,
Reset the proper distances and fidget
With polarities, stretching themselves to tell
What God’s own Braille lesson chalks up the sky

To tell us: Earth-children, parent the light well.

Jupiter said...

There's supposed to be a naked-eye comet coming up.

“Bad Genes” said...

JPMorgan Calls It: The U.S. Economy Has Made a Soft Landing ~ WSJ
My portfolio is up almost 5% this week -- I'm ruined.
This is a calamity. You know what we need? Someone who understands how to run a business (into the ground).. 🤔

Michael K said...

What did the stockmarket do the year before 1929 ?

mongo said...

I also get Sirius XM and Mason’s comment explains why I like the Beatles channel so much. I have heard so much beyond their top 40 hits, both from their group and the four v playing individually.

Yancey Ward said...

I went out around 1 AM last night but couldn't see anything to the north- probably way too much ambient light around my neighborhood or I am too far south.

mongo said...

Well, if you think of the federal government as a business, the Congress is doing a fine job of it.

Aggie said...

What is the purpose of this crowing, this braggadocio? Are you trying to announce this as a crowning victory for the Biden administration? You go, girl. We're all in awe.

Ann Althouse said...

This is the same vantage point I used recently when I got excellent pictures of the northern lights. Click on the tag for northern lights and you’ll find those old pictures.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

What did I say about the October surprise back in September! Miss Lindsey now touting g time to hit Iran and the neo cons are creaming.Bibi sees a chance to boost his bff's election by dropping g a few big bangers.It is so freakin see thru.Remember that great song John McCain touted on the stump " BOMB BOMB BOMB IRAN a crap tune by beach boys. You righties wo t be happy to you blow off the BIG ONE WAR MONGERS!











by beach boys!

Inga said...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/obama-laughs-at-trump-adult-diaper-joke-as-trump-proves-hes-a-78-year-old-baby

“Barack Obama held a rally for Kamala Harris on Thursday in Pennsylvania, where he made the case for the VP and argued that his successor, Donald Trump, is a selfish billionaire who’s never done anything for anyone else, including changing his own children’s diapers. That naturally led to an audience joke about Trump wearing adult diapers, which turned out to be extremely apt, given that at his own rally in Michigan, the ex-president unwittingly proved he is, in fact, a very large baby.”

There are lots of videos that appear to be Trump either passing gas or actually soiling himself on stage in Detroit.

Dixcus said...

And risk running into a Deplorable?

Dixcus said...

Not accounting for inflation, of course.

Dixcus said...

Can she french a fry? She obviously cannot prove that she ever did.

BUMBLE BEE said...

It has hit the fan:

NYT: The Secret Service is Understaffed and Unable to Protect Its Clients Because a Lot of Secret Service Veterans Are Quitting
Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11
The New York Times has a devastating article on the condition of the Secret Service under the Biden/Harris administration.

Agents are leaving in droves, especially the most talented and capable ones. Hiring standards have "slumped" -- though the Times won't say it, we know from other reports that DEI played a big role. The second-in-command of the men guarding the White House moonlighted as a real estate agent, and gave promotions to agents who became his clients.

"Nepotism, favoritism, corruption -- that is part of our culture here."

The Secret Service is supposed to be the best of the best. Under the left, they've become a joke -- just like the rest of the country.

LibertarianLeisure said...

Your blog presents itself on a whole new format, with arrows. What happened?

The rule of Lemnity said...

Talk about something completely different. Thanks professor.

Dixcus said...

The party that brought us Dylan Mulvaney to bathe in Bud Light, and wants to end masculinity as we know it can't figure out why men aren't going to vote for the McDonalds cashier.

Ann Althouse said...

I changed a setting to have mobile view if you’re using a phone

“Bad Genes” said...

Apocalypse delayed -- Trump keeps promising a doom that never comes
Trump predicted that if Biden won, the economy would crash, crime would soar and Christmas would be canceled. None of that happened, but he's reusing those claims anyway. 🤣

Dixcus said...

They're lowering expectations in advance of the Secret Service murdering Donald Trump.

Dixcus said...

It's horrible, btw. Just my 2c.

“Bad Genes” said...

Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time.

The rule of Lemnity said...

scroll to the bottom and click "web version" to get it back, if you want.

The rule of Lemnity said...

YouTube: Carl Benjamin minority report: The unintended consequences of "progress"

Hint: Let's take a closer look at Musk's gadgets.

Breezy said...

If Harris has raised $1B for her campaign, why am I getting the panicky “donate please” texts from her and Walz and assorted others? She must be wasting a lot of money - not a good look, from my perspective.

The rule of Lemnity said...

The web version via the phone does have a couple of issues when you are trying to comment, that the mobile version solves. The mobile version does have a drawback, however, that one can't respond below the comment you want to respond to like the web version allows. So, both have issues, and the common denominator is... the phone.

Aggie said...

That's.........sad.

Aggie said...

I think you must be thinking of Joe's visit with the Pope a while ago. But, since there are so many videos of this happening, why don't you link a few? Since there are so many.

The rule of Lemnity said...

New YouTube from John Michael Godier : Is Our Universe Eating Other Universes?

If true what could this mean?: "It could mean that something tunes all universes the same" 🤯

ndspinelli said...

In my lifetime, doing surveillance, I have worked every hour of the day and every day of the year. 3-4a is the quietest time, and if you're working out in the country, a little spooky. Alien abduction territory.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

At a mountain hostel in the Alberta Rockies I saw the following amongst brief list of rules -- All Americans must be in bed and quiet before 01:30. No German may arise or make noise before 04:30.

Eva Marie said...

“There are lots of videos that appear to be Trump either passing gas or actually soiling himself on stage in Detroit.”
1. I don’t believe you.
2. I’ve never understood shaming people for this kind of thing. Poor Jerry Nadler had an incident like that. That’s not the reason I would like him out of office. He’s a lousy congressman - that’s why I’d like to see him defeated - not because of his bowel movements. What is in people’s heads that they enjoy embarrassing people for physical infirmities.
3. If you have bowel issues or any other kind of physical limitation, it’s time to dump the Democratic Party and come join us in the Republican Party. Democrats are jerks.

wildswan said...

I saw this: Israel has de-garnered Hezbollah's cash and gold. $1.5 billion in cash. 2000 pounds of gold. All destroyed in the huge strike on Hezabollah's HQ few weeks ago. The cash burned up and the gold melted away.

"Open Source Intel
@Osint613
⚡️⚡️⚡️Some really good news as we head into Yom Kippur:

Most of Hezbollah’s cash and gold reserves were destroyed in Israel’s recent strike that eliminated the Hezbollah leaders at their headquarters. An estimated $1.5 billion in cash was incinerated, and 2,000 pounds of gold were melted into the earth during the attack.'"

The Twitter claim claim and the attack video
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844719988965306535