Althouse: At the Thursday Night Café...

May 22, 2025

At the Thursday Night Café...

... you can talk about anything you like.

59 comments:

BUMBLE BEE said...: No tornado warning sirens?
https://www.theblaze.com/news/sarah-russell-pronouns-scrubbed-tornado; 5/22/25, 6:14 PM
Leland said...: The county should fire them and claw back the salaried paid them, since they didn’t do their job.; 5/22/25, 6:47 PM
rehajm said...: I like the no more foreign Harvard students story has lasted this long before a Hawaiian judge reverses. Implies they have a lot on their plate…; 5/22/25, 6:51 PM
Mason G said...: "No tornado warning sirens?"

From the link:

"City Emergency Management Agency Commissioner Sarah Russell was placed on administrative leave after Mayor Cara Spencer said that no one had activated the siren warning system on Friday."

I was assured that things would be better-run when women were in charge *cough*Palisades fire*cough*. Was I lied to?; 5/22/25, 6:52 PM
Andrew said...: RIP, Alasdair MacIntyre.

Philosopher, professor, author, and the man who broke up the Beatles.

(See 2nd to last paragraph here.)

https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/remembering-alasdair-macintyre-1929-2025/; 5/22/25, 7:02 PM
Big Mike said...: @BUMBLE BEE, I read about that, too. Matched against the performance of the LAFD during the Palisades fire, perhaps we need a constitutional amendment to ban morbidly obese lesbians from holding public office.

Speaking of which, the Palisades and Eaton fires had burned themselves out as of January 31st. As of today, according to LA’s own dashboard, a whopping 12 permits to rebuild have been issued. Still to go: 12,036 (per their own estimate). Way to go, California! That’s showing how to burn the midnight oil on behalf of the citizens of your state.; 5/22/25, 7:12 PM
Deep State Reformer said...: "In my studies of communist societies," said English psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, "I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is... in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A variety of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
Probably right about that. Tapper et al show no signs of embarrassment though.; 5/22/25, 7:13 PM
R C Belaire said...: I think I've read all of today's posts and don't remember any Grok references. Is AA taking a break?; 5/22/25, 7:24 PM
Iman said...: All through the day
Shim they them, shim they them, shim they them
All through the night
Shim they them, shim they them, shim they them

Now the place has been torn to bits
Shim’s really full of shit
Bullshit is strong all the time
All through the day shim they them

h/t George Harrison; 5/22/25, 7:32 PM
Mason G said...: As of today, according to LA’s own dashboard, a whopping 12 permits to rebuild have been issued. Still to go: 12,036 (per their own estimate).

So... 3 3/4 months gets you 12 permits. At that rate (3.2/month), it's going to take 3,761 months (313 years) to rebuild.

Sounds about right.; 5/22/25, 7:36 PM
Original Mike said...: "I think I've read all of today's posts and don't remember any Grok references. Is AA taking a break?"

Or, maybe Grok has completed it's absorption of the entity known as Althouse.; 5/22/25, 7:36 PM
Gospace said...: Democrats have been downplaying "Kill the Boers!" and Scott Adams has the perfect response. https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1925639583351337315/photo/1; 5/22/25, 7:37 PM
Achilles said...: rehajm said...
I like the no more foreign Harvard students story has lasted this long before a Hawaiian judge reverses. Implies they have a lot on their plate…

The core problem for the progressives with having a Judge try to block Trump on this is that cutting federal funds from Harvard and not letting Harvard have foreign students polls at about 70%.

Harvard is not popular. A bunch of stuck up rich kids from stuck up rich parents who call everyone else racists and get jobs in government and or DC lobbying firms.

If Trump keeps doing what his voters want him to do after he just won a landslide election and Obama "Judges" keep blocking him eventually people are going to call for all of these "Judges" to be impeached.

3 more years of this BS and the Judicial branch will be in for a purge because some Republican primary candidate is going to get to 20-30% support just on that issue alone.

The Supreme Court knows it is sitting on usurped powers and that the only way they can hold that power is to show deference to popular will.; 5/22/25, 7:38 PM
Achilles said...: Mason G said...
As of today, according to LA’s own dashboard, a whopping 12 permits to rebuild have been issued. Still to go: 12,036 (per their own estimate).

So... 3 3/4 months gets you 12 permits. At that rate (3.2/month), it's going to take 3,761 months (313 years) to rebuild.

Sounds about right.

You need to keep property values up.

Don't want the people who own all of the assets to lose an opportunity for their assets to go up in value.; 5/22/25, 7:41 PM
Achilles said...: Gospace said...
Democrats have been downplaying "Kill the Boers!" and Scott Adams has the perfect response. https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1925639583351337315/photo/1

I told Democrats if they keep it up we are going to start treating them like they have been treating us.

We haven't reached that point yet.

But we are close. And the tears are going to start falling.; 5/22/25, 7:44 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: Wait, a morbidly obese bald lesbian (sheeeee's bald, Jerry) might not be the best person to run an Emergency Management agency in America?; 5/22/25, 7:45 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Re: "North Korea warship launch accident leaves Kim Jong-un furious"

It happens, looks pretty dramatic, but it can be done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrRYql723tw

The second ship is USS Billings.

The yard is Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, which did this thing routinely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fincantieri_Marinette_Marine

For those who wonder, USS Billings is small enough to go through the Welland Canal for the St.Lawrence river.

The second (enormous) ship on that video does not look well-planned: there are workers sprinting to get out of the way. The work-safety guy must blush. It is a car carrier, they tend to look big, but it is all air inside.; 5/22/25, 7:46 PM
Original Mike said...: "The core problem for the progressives with having a Judge try to block Trump on this is that cutting federal funds from Harvard and not letting Harvard have foreign students polls at about 70%."

The core problem for conservatives is people don't vote on policies, they vote on tribe.; 5/22/25, 7:52 PM
Jimmy said...: California is an amateur compared to Hawaii. In August it will be two years. Some homes have been rebuilt, most have not. Permits for Front Street, the last I checked are still not being issued, as the state wants less businesses on the street.
In other words, they want a lahaina town they can create, something that fits their agenda.
It is a typical governmental cluster fuck. Democrat run, of course.
The amount of money collected has been enormous, and most of it disappeared. People are just now finding places to live.
Short version for you Cali folks- you are fucked. no one will help you, everyone will want a piece of your pie, and they will do everything in their state power to fuck you over. Have fun.; 5/22/25, 7:56 PM
Breezy said...: Harvard’s foreign student enrollment is roughly 25% per class. Most pay full tuition. This hits Harvard like a tornado. It’s alarming and also fascinating as it is a signal to all other higher Ed institutions that also are not reigning in the foreign instigators. Good. What does Harvard think its purpose is? Anyway?; 5/22/25, 7:57 PM
Original Mike said...: I was on the Admissions Committee for a UW dept. for many years. Full freight foreign students are like gold, because they don't have to be supported off research grants. Eventually, if they're good, they get put onto grants but by then PIs want them because they're a known commodity and are happy to support them.

At least, that's how it works in the sciences.; 5/22/25, 8:03 PM
Gospace said...: I'm looking at Tesla's Optimus videos and one thing comes to mind- mass unemployment of the lower class.

All fast food workers could be replaced.
Most, if not all, assembly line jobs. Reason why humans are on the assembly line now? Because any changes in the line would require massive investments to change everything. With a humanoid robot? Reprogramming.
Logging? Pruning? Weeding? All of these, could be done robotically. Program them to go after bugs- they could walk through fields eliminating the need for pesticides. Got a rat problem? Send them hunting. A bunch of islands worldwide could use them for that.

Sci-Fi story I remember from a long time ago. Everyone was entitled to own one robot. Companies couldn't own any themselves until all individually owned robots were hired. That ensured at least minimum wage for everyone.; 5/22/25, 8:32 PM
Mason G said...: "Wait, a morbidly obese bald lesbian (sheeeee's bald, Jerry) might not be the best person to run an Emergency Management agency in America?"

Well, she could be if he has relevant experience. If, however, that experience happens to be just being a morbidly obese lesbian when that's the open spot on the DEI bingo card, well...; 5/22/25, 8:33 PM
Mason G said...: "if she has"; 5/22/25, 8:36 PM
Iman said...: Could’ve been right the first time, Mason G.

Just kidding.; 5/22/25, 8:39 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Fox News Jesse Waters: The Dems have more assassins than ideas.; 5/22/25, 8:44 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Glenn Greenwald on Tapper pretending to write a book about a coverup Tapper himself, videos show, was a participant.; 5/22/25, 9:00 PM
Mason G said...: "Could’ve been right the first time, Mason G."

I thought about leaving it but after using "morbidly obese lesbian", it seemed to me to be a bit like piling on.; 5/22/25, 9:11 PM
Iman said...: 👆funny stuff!👆; 5/22/25, 9:15 PM
William said...: Call it the reverse Mangione effect. Apparently you can gain sympathy for your cause if you use a good looking terrorist like Mangione or Tsarnaev to carry out the killing. But the flip side of this is that you lose sympathy for the cause if you kill good looking people. The young couple that were killed in DC were attractive and sympathetic, and the young woman exceptionally so. As a general rule people are far more sympathetic to young, good looking women than to crazed killers.....This act was stupid and cruel and subversive of any point that the murderer wished to make.; 5/22/25, 9:47 PM
AZ Bob said...: I've seen a couple videos of Judge Hannah Dugan walking in the hallways outside her courtroom wearing her black robes. This is not normal. In my 32 years working in the courthouse as a prosecutor, I never saw anything remotely like this. Judges always visit their fellow judges by walking the private hallways connecting their chambers. In fact, I never saw a judge walking out in the public areas in their civilian clothes let along wearing a black robe.

So, this judge wore a black robe to confront the federal officers as an attempt to intimidate them.

This is not a normal function of a sitting judge. It is evidence of extrajudicial activity that does not qualify for immunity.; 5/22/25, 11:31 PM
Big Mike said...: I much enjoyed the response EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made when stupid Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) was attempting to bully him:

“The American taxpayers, they put President Trump in office because of people like you. They have Republicans in charge of the House and Senate because of people like you.”

What Zeldin said is 100% true. And, if there are any Rhode Islanders reading this, I get that you’re not a populous state, but if you can’t do better than Shelton Whitehouse then maybe you should all sign up for a lethal dose of fentanyl.; 5/22/25, 11:52 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: "The event in Washington DC where two Israeli embassy workers were shot dead was aimed at alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza…”

The idea of killing as protest needs to be convincingly extinguished as a viable option. Luigi’s Trial and conviction cannot come soon enough.; 5/23/25, 1:58 AM
Achilles said...: Original Mike said...

The core problem for conservatives is people don't vote on policies, they vote on tribe.

Good thing the Republican Party is no longer a Conservative Party then.

They found a much larger political tribe to serve.; 5/23/25, 5:15 AM
Achilles said...: Lem Vibe Banditory said...

The idea of killing as protest needs to be convincingly extinguished as a viable option. Luigi’s Trial and conviction cannot come soon enough.

The actual core problem is the focus on force to accomplish political goals in general. The progressive democrat core party paradigm is taking citizens money and distributing it fairly.

As long as your party is formed around forced participation political violence will be inevitable.; 5/23/25, 5:19 AM
Big Mike said...: The idea of killing as protest needs to be convincingly extinguished as a viable option. Luigi’s Trial and conviction cannot come soon enough.

And when it comes to Elias Rodriguez,, let’s suspend the 8th Amendment long enough to execute him by smothering him in pig feces. Make sure that Muslims with a jones for assassination are aware that there isn’t going to be Muslim Heaven with 72 houris for them, just hellfires in Shaitan’s domain.; 5/23/25, 5:56 AM
Graphic Designer Daily said...: hi; 5/23/25, 5:58 AM
James K said...: Luigi’s Trial and conviction cannot come soon enough.

Conviction is far from certain.The trial will be a circus, and it will not be easy to find 12 jurors in Manhattan none of whom find Luigi to be a hero. I'm guessing a hung jury.; 5/23/25, 6:17 AM
Jaq said...: They have already demonstrated a prototype robotic cart that runs down the rows of crops and detects weeds by camera and AI and zaps them with a laser. It seems more likely a contraption that will be pulled behind a tractor, but at some point they might be like those automated golf ball vacuums you see at some driving ranges. There are already self driving combines, so the questions becomes "why are we extralegally importing millions of low skilled workers again?"; 5/23/25, 7:00 AM
Jamie said...: I was driving past my local middle school the other day and was surprised to see an autonomous lawn mower mowing the playing field - not one of the small household ones that my husband calls "Yardi B," but one size of a zero-turn. And of course Sam's Club and I assume Costco have been using autonomous floor zambonis for quite some time.

I have two vacuuming minions myself and am waiting for the drone that will dust my house.

All this said, I also worry about unskilled and low-skilled jobs. Heck, with AI coming along as fast as it is, I worry about all jobs. But I'm waiting to see what happens, as we have been terrible predictors of the impacts of technology.; 5/23/25, 7:09 AM
Jaq said...: Deep State Reformer makes a good point. In the novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" Hemingway describes the tactics that the communists used against the "fascists," I know that there really were fascists in Spain, but the communists accused anybody who so much as owned a little store that resold the work of local craftsman as a "fascist," which is a point that he made in the book. Anyway, they would do things like line these "fascists" up near a cliff and have the local townspeople drive them over the cliff to their deaths with flails. This was to make the townspeople share in the guilt of their "revolution." Hemingway got some threats that people would stop favorably reviewing his work because of that novel. Fidel Castro, originally a lawyer, read the novel to his men when they were still organizing in camps in the mountains and he credited the book as a blueprint for his revolution, and they considered Hemingway a "hero of the Cuban revolution," an honor he really didn't want.; 5/23/25, 7:13 AM
Iman said...: I don’t know what the South African president was thinking… the Oval Office is like the school principal’s office, and if you’ve been misbehaving, you’re gonna get smacked around; 5/23/25, 7:23 AM
gilbar said...: jag asked..
" so the questions becomes "why are we extralegally importing millions of low skilled workers again?"

well, duh! democrat voters GOT to come from Somewhere..
Lord Knows, current democrats Aren't having babies.
It's MS-13 or nothing!; 5/23/25, 7:27 AM
lonejustice said...: Achilles wrote: "If Trump keeps doing what his voters want him to do after he just won a landslide election..."

Trump did not win by a landslide. Trump’s 1.5 percent popular vote victory is one of the smallest ever — just a fraction of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 22.6 percent landslide win in 1964. Trump failed to secure a majority of the popular vote, at 49.7 percent, unlike George W. Bush in 2004 (50.3 percent), Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 (52.9 percent and 51 percent) and Joe Biden in 2020 (51.3 percent). And while Trump won all seven swing states, his 312 electoral votes were only a handful more than Biden’s 306 in 2020 — and far less than Obama’s 365 in 2008 or Ronald Reagan’s 525 in 1984. Trump's victory was no landslide.; 5/23/25, 7:28 AM
Kai Akker said...: Charts of some foreign stock indexes look like 4-year tops are in. And why on earth wouldn't they? The miracle is many of them had the run they did. Trump is acting as the bear in the china shop.; 5/23/25, 7:31 AM
Iman said...: You keep hanging on to that which blows your skirts up, lonejustice @7:28am!

It suits you well…; 5/23/25, 7:45 AM
MadTownGuy said...: Jimmy said...

"California is an amateur compared to Hawaii. In August it will be two years. Some homes have been rebuilt, most have not. Permits for Front Street, the last I checked are still not being issued, as the state wants less businesses on the street.
In other words, they want a lahaina town they can create, something that fits their agenda."

I fully expected the Disneyfication of Lāhaina, and it looks like that could happen.; 5/23/25, 7:56 AM
Jamie said...: Trump's victory was no landslide.

Considered in a vacuum, sure

But it wasn't in a vacuum, was it? It was after four years of deception (now acknowledged) on the part of both the Democrat (and, to their everlasting shame, too much of the Republican) establishment AND the supposedly independent watchdog media, lawfare (now admitted on CNN for all to hear, or at least the faithful remnant who still tune in) resulting in the Mormon Tabernacle-sized chorus of "convicted felon," "34 felonies," and so forth, and social media "curation" (now exposed by Taibbi etc al.) that restricted readers' access to "malinformation" - that is, true information that "may have a negative effect."

And all of that was post-2020 election, in which COVID restrictions (which we now know were both ineffective and KNOWN to be ineffective long before they were withdrawn in both blue and many purple states) permitted electoral craziness that - added to the aforementioned deception, lawfare (in the form of spurious impeachments), and "curation," all of which were already taking place - led to an election that literally no one can reasonably claim was "free and fair" as there's no way to prove it.

What would the election of 2024 have looked like if, say, media coverage of Trump hadn't been, what is it, 92% negative? I mean, I know the leftie position is that the reason it was so negative was because he deserved it - just like the circular logic of "he wouldn't have been convicted of 34 felonies unless he was guilty of them," regardless of the fact that the very felonies themselves were manufactured to enable that result.; 5/23/25, 8:11 AM
Achilles said...: lonejustice said...

Achilles wrote: "If Trump keeps doing what his voters want him to do after he just won a landslide election..."

Trump did not win by a landslide.

Trump won by so much that they didn't even try to mail in 10 million ballots the night after the election this time.

The best part of this is that while lonejustice gnashes his teeth he has to remember that Trump took the Republican party from the GOPe traitors and their fellow cucks and is actually doing what Republican voters have asked the Republican party to do for decades.

Have fun being a loser with your loser friends. Say hi to Billy and George for me and Try to keep your friends away from the little boys.; 5/23/25, 8:12 AM
Jamie said...: I hate that autocorrect can't see "et" without turning it into "etc" but doesn't appear to know that "etc." must be followed by a period.; 5/23/25, 8:18 AM
Rocco said...: Jamie said...
“…an autonomous lawn mower mowing the playing field - not one of the small household ones that my husband calls "Yardi B," but one the size of a zero turn.”

Question: To be a proper Yardi B, does the mower have to have previously been used as a paint stripper, have two battery packs implanted on the front, and be painted Bodak Yellow?; 5/23/25, 8:44 AM
Jamie said...: Rocco, well done!; 5/23/25, 9:02 AM
john mosby said...: Jamie, ref bots and the working class: yes, it's complex as you point out. I assume your minions did not replace a live-in human maid, or maybe at best a weekly/monthly human cleaning service. So that's an example of robots filling a niche that didn't exist before. But some human jobs will certainly be replaced. So it's complicated.

A commenter a little while ago talked about a sci-fi story where everyone owned a robot and sent it out to labor for them. That could almost sort of work. People with means could just buy a robot, outright or with a loan, like we buy cars or houses now. Investments and pensions would be geared toward having a robot to provide for you. Set up an Individual Robot Account for your retirement! Or CRISP: College Robot Individual Savings Plan.

The welfare programs could transition into robot-ownership-subsidy programs. I'd still lay on my sofa in the 'jets all day drinking grape soda watching 106 & Park, but my robot would be out producing for society. Heck, my robot could zap Pookie's robot over our mutual beef, and keep the humans out of it.

Factory owners might like having a flexible workforce of hireable/fireable robots, rather than owning a fixed inventory themselves, so they'd be into an open market of robot labor. We'd be a nation of silicon slaveowners living off the sweat of the bond-robot's brow (the lube of its joints?). Worse things could happen.

JSM; 5/23/25, 9:08 AM
Jaq said...: They only had to keep counting votes in California for a month to erase Trump's majority. Every other advanced democracy does it within a day, usually same day. What is it about that we need to take a month to count votes? Somebody benefits from that.; 5/23/25, 9:19 AM
Jaq said...: "We'd be a nation of silicon slaveowners..."

Who has ready access to the capital spewing out of the money printing machines? Not us. It would take a major rethink of the crony capitalist system we live under to get to your utopia. Right now BlackRock is even buying up single family homes, because they can't allow that method of accumulating wealth to fall into the hands of young couples.; 5/23/25, 9:23 AM
john mosby said...: Jaq: "It would take a major rethink of the crony capitalist system we live under to get to your utopia."

That's a good point. But like other rethinks of capitalism, it won't be one rethink (that's what command economies do), but a gradual accumulation of millions of rethinks.

For example, the price of robots will keep coming down. First they'll be on the scale of homes, then on the scale of cars. Maybe even down to the scale of consumer electronics. This will generate lots of ideas for how to make money with them.

And on a micro scale, people will lose jobs to robots. Some of them will be in halfway-decent financial positions: union workers with pensions, government workers with TSP, regular people who planned ahead with IRA's and such. A lot of them will invest in a robot that they can hire out.

Finally in the welfare arena, the taxpayer reaction of "why can't this guy work like me?" will become "why can't this guy get a robot to work for him like mine does?" And then the programs will shift to robot-subsidy programs. A lot easier than trying to find a workfare job for a 400-pound amputee with sickle cell.

If Blackrock wants to buy a bunch of robots to rent or mortgage out to people, great. The robots still produce and the people still eat.

All this would evolve over time. Not a huge amount of time, but still time.

JSM; 5/23/25, 9:32 AM
john mosby said...: Addendum: think of AirBnB and Uber. People figure out an asset they already have can be a moneymaker. Same thing for robots.

JSM; 5/23/25, 9:46 AM
Big Mike said...: The best part of this is that while lonejustice gnashes his teeth he has to remember that Trump took the Republican party from the GOPe traitors and their fellow cucks and is actually doing what Republican voters have asked the Republican party to do for decades.

Based on the vote for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” he’s dragging the Freedom Caucus along kicking and screaming, like some to year old that doesn’t want to leave the toy store.; 5/23/25, 10:42 AM
Rusty said...: Jaq.
It's to the point now that once the farmer has entered the perimeter of his field, no matter how intricate, he just attaches whatever implement is called for and sits in the cab. The tractor doesn't need any more input. Soon there won't be a cab for the farmer.
MickyDs around here is order by kiosk. There are only three humans in the place.; 5/23/25, 7:12 PM