Althouse: At the Post-Christmas Café...

২৬ ডিসেম্বর, ২০২৪

At the Post-Christmas Café...

... you can talk all day.

৫৮টি মন্তব্য:

Magilla Gorilla বলেছেন...: Skillful artwork, but I hate graffiti. It especially irks me when one of my local papers, the Chicago Sun-Times, celebrates it.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১০:৩১ AM
dreams বলেছেন...: এই মন্তব্যটি লেখক দ্বারা সরানো হয়েছে।; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১১:০৩ AM
dreams বলেছেন...: As I predicted, Mitch McConnell became a successful leader in the Senate. https://freebeacon.com/culture/mcconnells-record-is-nothing-to-snort-at/; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১১:০৬ AM
Kai Akker বলেছেন...: Saw our first drone of The Drones over the holidays, in NJ. Big but not as big as a Piper Cub, cruising over the woods, maybe 300' to 500' feet in altitude. Seemed friendly but maybe that was the bourbon.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১১:৪৯ AM
Howard বলেছেন...: Is that diamond supposed to represent the pineal gland?; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১১:৪৯ AM
Mr Wibble বলেছেন...: Vivek seems to be blowing up any credibility he had.
https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872312139945234507

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.

More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”

Whiplash was about abusive teaching methods, not an instructional film. What he wants is to turn the US into East Asia, where their societies are broken and the aren't reproducing. He wants Americans to SEO their children, which is hilarious and stupid. It's a recipe for disaster. The ability to function on their own, with their own imaginations, rather than living their childhoods according to a rigid schedule, is what helped make previous generations of Americans successful.

Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.

Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.

I grew up knowing two such families well, as I was friends with their sons. One friend is a hard-core leftwinger living in SF, and the other had a nervous breakdown in college and never fully recovered.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১২:০১ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: Chicago has not advanced very far feom the days of Al Capone. Mayor Brandon fired the Supt Martinez who was against the $300mm quickie high interest loan to pay off the teachers union but there was a clause in his contract that if he was fired he would continue to serve for the next 6 months. Ha ha, Brandon f’s up again. He sent the new crooked school board members to the teachers contract negotiations to intimidate the cps negotiators and Martinez went to court and got them thrown out for improper influence.

Mayor Brandon worked as a teacher for 4 years but now has a $3.8 mm pension. And that is just for teaching, not being mayor. Way to go Democrats.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১২:১৪ PM
wendybar বলেছেন...: EducatëdHillbilly™
@RobProvince
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It’s funny how this would land you in jail just a few weeks ago but now…. it’s all good.
The Hill
@thehill
Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now https://trib.al/1m6Jo2E; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১২:৪৫ PM
robother বলেছেন...: Settling in on a gray day, with my Christmas book, Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome. Gotta say, if maps and art are a big part of the story, real books are still the way to go.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১২:৪৭ PM
gspencer বলেছেন...: "Post-Christmas"

I like the sound of that.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১:১৫ PM
Aggie বলেছেন...: Fixed wing or multi-rotor hovering type?; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১:৫২ PM
cfs বলেছেন...: The Hill has gone all "insurrectiony" in their post-Christmas daze.

Suddenly contesting an election is once again the "right" thing to do. It's amazing how quickly things change!; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১:৫২ PM
Jupiter বলেছেন...: Like a lot of -- probably most -- people who succeed by high intelligence and hard work, Vivek believes that if everyone worked hard, everyone would have the same degree of success he has. This ignores the fact that not everyone is super smart, as well as the fact that "success" is inherently relative. We can't all be above average. You would think a guy like Vivek would understand that simple mathematical fact, but you would be wrong.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ২:১১ PM
BUMBLE BEE বলেছেন...: One could smell it was a set up from the way the very first reports called J6 an insurrection. The journolists got the word, they were all on the same line.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ২:২৫ PM
Clyde বলেছেন...: Clyde's Top 15 Favorite "New" Songs of 2024 - Part 11 of 16

#6 The Smithereens - "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" - Especially For You - 1986

I love The Smithereens' music, and I've listened to a lot of it, but I had somehow never listened to the Especially For You album. This song proved to be the antidote for that failing, since it showed up repeatedly on power pop playlists that I listened to, for good reason. This one reaches out and grabs you from the start.

The Smithereens - Behind The Wall Of Sleep; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:০৭ PM
Dixcus বলেছেন...: Mitch McConnell kept a master criminal off the Supreme Court: Merrick Garland. He did it by flouting all Senate precedent. That is all you need to know.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:১৯ PM
Enigma বলেছেন...: Common commercial multi-rotor drones can easily be 3-4 feet across, plus the blade width past the chassis. The default drone altitude limitation is 400' above ground level, but it can be lower or 0' next to an airport. Some pilots receive permission to go much higher, such as to inspect a skyscraper or tower that's taller than 400' to begin with.

Scroll down to the flight altitude map: Class G is the default, plus see classes B, C, D, and E.

https://dronexl.co/2022/01/17/how-high-can-i-fly-my-drone/; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:৩৪ PM
Enigma বলেছেন...: Post-Christmas = Boxing Day; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:৩৬ PM
Enigma বলেছেন...: Vivek and Elon are both projecting the ultra-achiever, ultra-smart tech model onto government. Not. gonna. work. They'll learn a lot by watching the ugly sausage-making machines from the inside. The earth may rest on an infinite stack of turtles, but government rests on favoritism, patronage, tribes, gifts, and bribes all the way down.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:৪২ PM
Enigma বলেছেন...: The Hill is generally a wide-ranging center outlet -- they routinely include both left and right material. RealClearPolitics has a similar strategy, but often places a left next to a right source.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:৪৭ PM
Mr Wibble বলেছেন...: They want to treat government as a startup, and that won't work.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৩:৫৯ PM
Aggie বলেছেন...: I was asking because a large fixed-wing drone requires a runway and much more support infrastructure to allow operation, whereas a multi-rotor craft can take of vertically. The former implies organization of size, with roles and responsibilities - i.e. government or corporation.

Interesting, all those high-res smartphone cameras out there, all those reports of sightings, but - few pictures, all of them fuzzy.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৪:৪১ PM
Enigma বলেছেন...: @Aggie: Every NJ "drone" photo that I've seen was either a basic DJI small-to-middling drone or very obviously a large manned aircraft. If a drone is fuzzy on a high-res smartphone camera then the drone is likely a common 12" to 24" wingspan model flying at the limits of eyesight.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৪:৫৬ PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent বলেছেন...: Great song. Not a band that I still love generally, but I still remember how freakin' cool I thought they sounded when I first played the Beauty and Sadness EP on the turntable. Everything is better fresh.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৫:২২ PM
Lem Vibe Bandit বলেছেন...: I thought this was insurrection: The Hill is asking lawmakers to "stop Trump from taking office"

Big if true.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৫:২৪ PM
tcrosse বলেছেন...: Presumably they want the US to become a province of Canada. If that means we get Poilievre, I think I could live with it.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৫:৪১ PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne বলেছেন...: Pat Dinizio was a great songwriter. Good frontman, too. RIP; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:০৬ PM
narciso বলেছেন...: The atty in that op ed was disbarred by the dc bar; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:১১ PM
Lem Vibe Bandit বলেছেন...: Never heard of these guys before- added some of their songs to my library.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:১২ PM
Lem Vibe Bandit বলেছেন...: Little wonder.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:১৪ PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne বলেছেন...: Listing to the local NPR station today and they had a story on from Minnesota Public Radio about deer hunting. Only 20% of Minnesota deer hunters are women. This is apparently a big problem because there are millions of women who want to be out there bagging 8 point bucks. I guess I'm uninformed because I always figured that the vast majority of women didn't go deer hunting because shooting a deer, dragging it back to the truck and then taking it home and dressing it out didn't appeal to them. It turns out, at least according to Minnesota PR that it's really because big, mean, toxic men hang around Cabelas and scare the women off when they go to get outfitted to go hunting. You learn something new every day!; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:১৫ PM
tcrosse বলেছেন...: My late MIL lived out on the flat part of Minnesota and kept a shotgun by the kitchen door in case any of the vagabonds who turned up for handouts tried to get cute. But each year, in season, she would be out in the fields all around hunting for pheasants or whatever fowl they could raise. I doubt if she ever heard of Cabelas.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:২১ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: I agree there are many sporting women.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:২৫ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: And there should be more.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:২৬ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: Alberta, perhaps, should join the US. They are like North Dakota. But that would separate the Hippies from the Bloc Quebecois.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:৩৫ PM
BUMBLE BEE বলেছেন...: NPR reporting on female "reluctance" has got to point out it's the men's fault somehow. I find that women are surprised that they can pick up the bow or rifle and excel at shooting sports. I've known many who have expressed that very thing. My cousin picked up archery quickly and was soon competing at the state level.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৬:৪৩ PM
MikeD বলেছেন...: I see there was a Terrorist takeover of the Capita in Madisonl on Christmas Eve; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৭:০২ PM
Sydney বলেছেন...: I read some Alice Munro stories for the first time, after the conversation here around the revelation of her daughter’s sexual abuse by Alice Munro’s second husband and Munro’s decision to stay with him after she learned about it. I must say, she is an incredibly good writer. I started with a collection called Vintage Munro, which is just four or five stories. She’s very good at portraying the ways we hurt each other without knowing it, especially parents and children. The last story in that collection is also very good, from the point of view of an elderly woman who is losing her memory.
I picked up another book at the local used bookstore, an Everyman Library collection of her stories, but I don’t care that much for most of them. They often have a male character that I get the impression is based on her first husband, and she writes rather cruelly about those characters, although they seem rather decent sort. There’s another recurring type of male character in these stories who the female character always loves, and doesn’t criticize as cruelly, even though they are bastards. I assume those are based on the second husband. None that I have read so far give me any understanding as to why the woman protagonist would choose to live life with the bastard.
There is one very good story in that second book that isn’t in the first collection I mentioned.That is A Royal Beating. It accurately depicts what it’s like to get a beating from a parent. It isn’t the physical abuse that’s so wounding, it’s the hate behind it.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৭:১৯ PM
Original Mike বলেছেন...: It's a lot easier to drag the deer back to the truck if you dress it out first.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৭:২০ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: You are all wrong. Do you think you can just extend the grift that you had under Democrats to the Trump model where you only get the bid if you are the lowest price?; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৭:৫১ PM
Big Mike বলেছেন...: It's become apparent that the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas day was hit by a Russian antiaircraft missile while diverting to an alternate airport because its intended destination -- the Russian city of Grozny -- was fogbound. There is a story floating around that after the attack on the aircraft Russia refused permission for the plane to land at any airport on Russian soil and forced it to divert out over the Caspian Sea, presumably in the expectation that the plane would crash into that sea. What is incontestable is, first, that the pilots appeared to be steering the aircraft by differential thrust -- like United flight 232 back in 1989 -- which means that the pilots had lost all hydraulics. Secondly, it is incontestable that there are shrapnel holes in the fuselage of the aircraft. Recalling the fates of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 back in 1989 and Malaysia Air Flight 17 ten years ago, perhaps the Russians should consider teaching their soldiers trigger discipline?; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:০০ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: According to John Prine The static in the attic is getting ready to blow. Man.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:০৮ PM
Eva Marie বলেছেন...: I just finished The Conjure-Man Dies (1932) by Rudolph Fisher. It’s said to be the first mystery by a Black writer, although Pauline Hopkins had published Hager’s Daughter in 1901-1902. But that was a serialized novella.
Fisher was an MD (as are a lot of mystery writers). During the 1920s, “Fisher published his research on the effect of ultraviolet rays on viruses in medical journals.” (Didn’t Donald Trump get pilloried for suggesting same?) “Fisher was a head researcher at Manhattan's International Hospital.” As a radiologist, his work with x-rays probably resulted in his untimely death at 37 from abdominal cancer. Anyway, The Conjure-Man Dies is excellent. Available on kindle and audible.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:০৯ PM
Eva Marie বলেছেন...: “It isn’t the physical abuse that’s so wounding, it’s the hate behind it.”
I would say it’s the indifference behind it that’s wounding - both by the abuser and the spouse who doesn’t care enough to stop it.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:১৭ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas. Wisconsin is a weird state of dairy farmers and Scandinavian never ender communist tools! Look at the Univ Wisc Med School!.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:৩৫ PM
Josephbleau বলেছেন...: Can you deny it!; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:৩৬ PM
AZ Bob বলেছেন...: Why would Republicans put Canada in the Electoral College? They voted for their crazy, leftist leader Trudeau several times. He's offspring from Fidel Castro.

What Trump should be doing is offering to give New York to Canada. This would benefit the national elections. And while he's at it, he should give California to Mexico.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৮:৫৭ PM
walter বলেছেন...: Women vote more than gun owners. Why is that?; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৯:০২ PM
walter বলেছেন...: Past performance doesn't...you know the thing!; ২৬/১২/২৪, ৯:১৬ PM
Iman বলেছেন...: Only if they give AZ to Guatemala, ese.; ২৬/১২/২৪, ১০:২৫ PM
Kate বলেছেন...: Our neighbors in Alaska, a Native couple, went out camping and elk hunting. She had never shot an animal before. They came back with a carcass. She had drilled it right through the eye socket and was super proud.; ২৭/১২/২৪, ২:০১ AM
wendybar বলেছেন...: Eyal Yakoby
@EYakoby
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BREAKING: Hamas supporters took over the Wisconsin State Capitol last night on Christmas Eve.

Why do these extremists continue to take over government buildings and no one calls it an insurrection?
https://x.com/EYakoby/status/1872081859087327288; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:০৫ AM
wendybar বলেছেন...: IF CNN were smart...(and we all know THEY aren't) they would give this guy his own show on Prime Time.....

Free Beacon Names Scott Jennings 2024 Person of the Year
“Jennings might be the first normal dude who has ever been given a regular platform on a mainstream news channel.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/12/free-beacon-names-scott-jennings-2024-person-of-the-year/; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:১৮ AM
Enigma বলেছেন...: @Josephbleau: You are missing the point. I do believe that the US needs reform in government, but at the same time, Vivek and Elon are clueless about how government works. US government grift dates back to...forever...see Tammany Hall circa 1789. Also, many governments settle into corruption-is-normal rule. It can be tough to avoid. See Russia, Japan, China, Korea, Italy, Greece, etc. The ancient Romans spent 400+ years ruled by fully corrupt bullies, playboys, psychopaths, and the Praetorian Guard (their deep state).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:৩০ AM
wendybar বলেছেন...: Since Hunter lives up his Dad's butt.....Daddy taught him every corrupt trick he knew. Isn't it cute how a 50 something year old man lives with Daddy, goes on vacations with Daddy, and goes to work with Daddy???? What kind of incestuous disfunction IS there in that family??

"Taking advantage of Elon Musk’s liberation of X, Devine has highlighted the recent production of photographs documenting the Biden family business as we have come to know it. Devine links to the America First Legal post with additional photos and documentation here.

We are of course instructed to believe that everything was on the up and up, just as we are to believe that Biden himself is competent to serve as president. Or we are to avert our eyes and forget about it."

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/inside-the-biden-family-business-4.php; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:৪১ AM
Enigma বলেছেন...: I'm genuinely shocked that NPR would discuss hunting as anything other than an anachronistic blood sport that interferes with wild nature and that should be outlawed.

Is NPR reading the political winds and seeking to avoid defunding by Trump?; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:৪৮ AM
Enigma বলেছেন...: Fog of war. This is a routine happening when big guns and missiles are in use. Recall the US similarly shot down an Iranian passenger jet with 290 people on board in 1988 (Flight 655). Russia is currently behaving like a cornered cat -- Biden's handlers and NATO continue to throw cash and weapons to Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৪:৫৮ AM
wendybar বলেছেন...: David Sacks:
Political losers. Who do we got?

Chamath Palihapitiya:
I mean, I know this is a tough one, too. I’ve already said this, so this is going to be repetitive, but it’s the thing that disappointed me the most, personally. I think the biggest political loser was Barack Obama. It’s the same thing where there were so many of us that literally would have stood in line for hours to just shake his hand. I guess I just revered the idea of who he was. Then I just saw a person that was reduced to, honestly, not telling the truth and doing it repeatedly and repeatedly. It just lost a tremendous amount of cachet that I had for him and the sensation that I had of who he was as a man.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1872105129396326459; ২৭/১২/২৪, ৫:০২ AM