Althouse: Sunrise — 7:27, 7:37, 7:42

January 18, 2025

Sunrise — 7:27, 7:37, 7:42

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43 comments:

Aggie said...: That does not look skater-friendly.; 1/18/25, 5:48 PM
ceowens said...: There is a young man, maybe in Alaska, that hunts rats withTerriers and mink. Also check out the fellows in England hunting at night with PCP airguns and infrared scopes.; 1/18/25, 5:58 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Nice pics, especially the top one!; 1/18/25, 6:30 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Something is working it's way to the capitol.; 1/18/25, 6:31 PM
Original Mike said...: Did they get the ATV out?; 1/18/25, 6:56 PM
Political Junkie said...: This won't happen, but I think DJT and R's should do this. Cut the Social Security Employee and Employer rate to 5% from 6.2 %, but take the cap off. The cap in 2025 is 176.1 k. Gives working poor, working class, middle class, and chunk of upper middle class a SS tax cut. Wealthier folks will pay more in total into SS. I speculate in net the government take is unchanged. Employee future SS benefits are not impacted because future benefits are based on earnings. This plan is MAGA.; 1/18/25, 7:04 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Sargon of Akkad via YouTube: The Metaphysics of Slop

Or why are India street food preparation videos so easily viral fare?

"In actuality people consume slop all day every day, and it is a completely normal aspect of everyday life".; 1/18/25, 7:49 PM
West TX Intermediate Crude said...: Political Junkie-
Not MAGA.
Socialism (lite).
SocSec is already taking from rich and giving to poor.
Taxes capped at 176k because benefits are capped there; a lot of effort has been expended to make people think it's just not another welfare program but at its heart that is what it is.
Employee future benefits are even more impacted if cap is lifted (unless benefits are also lifted).
It's an actuarily impossible program/Ponzi scheme that has finally found its mark generation (millennials). They know it, and seem resigned to their fate. Once the millennials get through being shafted by the Boomer generation, SocSec can go on for a few more generations until the next imbalance occurs, but by then the memory of the millennials will be lost.
I'm a Boomer, we're getting ~76K/year inflation adjusted every year to wake up, so I'm happy. My millennial kids are both doing very well financially, but many of their cohort are not. If we try to make a fundamentally unsound government program "fair," buckle up.; 1/18/25, 7:57 PM
Mason G said...: "Once the millennials get through being shafted by the Boomer generation..."

The Boomer generation had no say in the implementation of SS and, in fact, are the first generation to be taxed their entire working lives to pay for it + Medicare. Which they had no say in regarding its implementation, too.

Just sayin'.; 1/18/25, 8:10 PM
Eva Marie said...: Have you noticed all the new currency? I pay for all of my in person purchases with cash. For the past couple of months and this month especially I have been getting my change back in new bills as well as in my withdrawals from the bank. I’ve been wondering why.
Today I think I got my answer. A delivery driver, who makes the majority of his deliveries to Mexican businesses told me that all of the businesses are doing very poorly - not ordering any merchandise. Why? Mexican customers are hoarding cash, not buying anything. Everyone worried about our immigration policies.
So, my theory is: with so much cash taken out of circulation, the Treasury has to print more money, hence the new bills.; 1/18/25, 8:14 PM
MadTownGuy said...: Impressive sun pillar in #3.; 1/18/25, 8:16 PM
Meade said...: They did. Spoke with them yesterday afternoon just after extraction. Used a chainsaw to free it from the ice and then winched it up and out near the park bench that faces the capitol. No one hurt, just wet and cold. The vehicle is amphibious and floats.; 1/18/25, 8:25 PM
Original Mike said...: Glad to hear it. Who did the work? The owners? FD?; 1/18/25, 8:28 PM
Meade said...: The owner, who reported having a very unhappy wife due to the fine he has to pay on top of the expenses he’s already sunk in the vehicle itself. I said well I’m sure she’s just glad you’re safe and alive and he gave me the old more-or-less hand gesture. 😂; 1/18/25, 8:38 PM
Original Mike said...: "Just sayin'."

Yep. I'm kind of tired being bad mouthed for something I had no control over.; 1/18/25, 8:40 PM
Original Mike said...: Why a fine? He got it out.; 1/18/25, 8:42 PM
Mason G said...: "I'm kind of tired being bad mouthed..."

Something else I'm tired of being bad mouthed for...

If I retire, I'm bad mouthed for collecting a SS check and if I don't retire, I'm bad mouthed for not getting out of the way so the someone younger can have my spot at work.; 1/18/25, 8:46 PM
Meade said...: Good question; 1/18/25, 8:48 PM
wildswan said...: I can remember sitting in jail in DC for a prolife protest and seeing Rep. Henry Hyde come down to visit us. Seeing his shape through the bars and knowing that one person in Washington had made his way all the way down to where we scorned prolifers were. He smiled and told us we'd be out soon, which I knew anyway but, again, at least someone in power wanted us free and happy and came to say so.
At least one of the people I was in jail with that day is in jail again near DC, again for non-violent protest. I hope and pray that she and the other prolifers who tried to draw attention to the illegal killing of children who survive late-term abortions in DC will not be forgotten. These prolifers got five years; they shouldn't have gotten five minutes. The Thomas More Society represented them.
I did not mind being in jail for the prolife cause and yet I always almost cry when I remember being there with the others, singing:

Peace is flowing like a river,
Flowing out of you and me,
Flowing out into the desert,
Setting all the captives free.; 1/18/25, 8:53 PM
Gospace said...: And future benefits are capped- which is why SS tax is capped. Pretty hard to sell it as an old age insurance program for the high earners if they're guaranteed a negative return.; 1/18/25, 8:55 PM
Original Mike said...: You're just an inconvenience to the State.

In Australia, they want the geezers to sell their homes and move abroad to ease their housing shortage. I kid you not. A bold new housing proposition calls for older Australians to leave the country to help fix a major crisis.; 1/18/25, 9:01 PM
pacwest said...: I'm not sure that would be the right way to go about it, and Medi/ is really the elephant in the room, not SS. But I think the chance of Trump taking action on it directly is near absolute zero. More immediate fish to fry. My hope is he starts a national conversation (something he seems to pretty good at :) that Vance or DeSantis can follow up on. While there are so many boomers left alive taking on these entitlements would be like sticking your fingers in a wall socket. Not logical given the immediacy of the problem, but a lot easier if the political winds are in your favor. There's a lot riding on how the next four years go. A lot.; 1/18/25, 9:03 PM
Aggie said...: At least you're allowed to leave, breathing. Move to Canada and chances are you'll be 'invited onward' with MAID. 7% of the deaths in Quebec province last year were at the hands of doctors euthanizing people. Good interview on TriggerNometry on this.; 1/18/25, 9:21 PM
pacwest said...: I read recently that China is producing a lot of amphibious landing craft. If China invades Taiwan I don't think we are up to fighting a military war in the South China Sea and never will be. Our only weapons would be international sanctions. Hong Kong was a different situation but we couldn't do shit about that either.; 1/18/25, 9:51 PM
effinayright said...: Looking at Trump's choices for filling major positions in his Cabinet and executive agencies, I'd say the left's mindless chants about the "Republican War on Women" are going to fall on deaf ears.

At best, they'll get the Nelson Muntz treatment.; 1/18/25, 9:56 PM
Eva Marie said...: “ If China invades Taiwan . . . “
Scott Adams says that one option would be to take out the chip manufacturing facilities. (No more Pringles for you!); 1/18/25, 10:10 PM
pacwest said...: By Taiwan law they can't manufacture chips abroad unless they are 2 generations removed from current tech. The chips to be manufactured in AZ (2028) would be 3nm and 4nm (China can do 4nm at present). The machinery for manufacturing first and second generation 2nm chips is the prize and that doesn't come from Taiwan. Just saying I don't think the chips are what China is primarily interested in.; 1/18/25, 10:44 PM
Big Mike said...: Well, here in the Eastern Time Zone it’s almost midnight. One last calendar day for Joe Biden to drop another turd or two in the punch bowl before he’s outa here.; 1/18/25, 10:48 PM
Original Mike said...: If we get in a shooting war over Taiwan and we're losing, I can't imagine we wouldn't take it out. I tend to think China will not invade, because they have to know they'd be getting a bombed out husk. They may feel they have to do it for pride, but I don't see them gaining economically. And add to that they'd lose the western markets they're dumping all their excessive production into and they would come out of the war much poorer.; 1/18/25, 10:49 PM
pacwest said...: Should read "machinery and processes"

I know I'm going to get dumped on by folks a lot more knowledgeable than me about chip manufacturing, but the point is the chips are not the reason China wants Taiwan.; 1/18/25, 11:09 PM
pacwest said...: @OM
Taiwan is making half the chips in the world. Bombing those factories isn't going to make us very popular, but you're right, if we could sanction effectively it would be a Pyrric(sp) victory for them.; 1/18/25, 11:17 PM
effinayright said...: OK, now discuss oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, Quinoa and Grits. Compare and contrast. IOW why pick on India? (And, I might add, making mega-quantities of food for a congregation is NOT "street food."); 1/18/25, 11:32 PM
effinayright said...: China would do its level best to take over those world-class fab Taiwan facilites, not take them out.

And for the record , we and the Dutch have the most-advanced such fabfacilities on the planet. HEAVILY GUARDED.

If the ChiComs tried to take all of them out, they would be pissing in their own Moo Goo Gai Pan.; 1/18/25, 11:37 PM
Original Mike said...: From what I've read, without state of the art maintenance available only in the west, (specifically, a firm in the Netherlands which make the fabrication equipment) the chip factories won't be operating past 6 months anyways.; 1/18/25, 11:40 PM
Lucky John said...: All of your photos are good. At first glance the last (third?) one is great but upon consideration the first one has a gravitas that is worthy.; 1/19/25, 12:12 AM
Narayanan said...: ZH had story about China looking into German car plants; 1/19/25, 12:20 AM
Narayanan said...: where do food truck fit in ??; 1/19/25, 12:23 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Oatmeal and food trucks (apparently) don’t have viral 👀 ingredients.; 1/19/25, 1:02 AM
Eva Marie said...: “chips are not the reason China wants Taiwan”
Chips are the reason, we don’t want China to take over Taiwan (according to Scott Adams) We would be destroying the plants to make sure China doesn’t sabotage the chips.; 1/19/25, 1:12 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Oatmeal, in viral terms represents a Biden photo op. No offense. Whereas food trucks run the gamut. In NJ there for example they have festivals. It’s a big deal. Not slop at all.; 1/19/25, 2:12 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: It’s a question of virality virility. Not to belabor the point.; 1/19/25, 2:31 AM
rhhardin said...: Advice from the weather bureau:
Avoid the subject event as per the instructions; 1/19/25, 2:59 AM
Enigma said...: @Mason G: The Boomer generation had no say in the implementation of SS

Indeed. Still, they came of age before the Social Security funding system became too top heavy with input vs. payouts. The first SS recipients came away like bandits. The Boomers got a generally fair deal. Generation X and later got shafted, but the Boomers then in Congress did nothing to fix it.

Kick the can down the road. Kick the can down the road.; 1/19/25, 4:15 AM