Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
30 మే, 2025
Sunrise — 5:19, 5:26, 5:28.
Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
పోస్ట్లు
49 కామెంట్లు:
R.I.P Hot Lips - Loretta Swit
We just finished binge-watching Yellowstone, aka The Godfather on Horses. Kevin Costner does a middling job of keeping his empire intact while teaching his brood the finer points of negotiation as well as fixing things with violence. There were a few less-than-believable plot lines, and quite a few cartoon characters (especially the women, I’m afraid.) The psycho spawn of drugged badgers, Beth Dutton, durn near ruined it for me.
https://twitchy.com/aaronwalker/2025/05/30/sanity-prevails-at-world-boxing-imane-khelif-hardest-hit-n2413593
More like Game of Thrones, with Costner playing the more noble of the guild, Bentley doing his best impression of Loki, as the thankless son, adopted from the enemy, (played by Will Patton)
I've been watching the series "The Man in the High Castle" which you can watch for free if you are a member of Amazon Prime. I have been riveted by it so far. I missed so many of these great shows when I was working 60+ hours a week as an attorney. The law is a jealous mistress, as they say.
Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, and executive produced by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), and Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files), The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like for Americans to live in a dystopian world if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States.
I normally don't recommend movies or TV series here on Althouse Blog, but I think this is one that the commentators would probably enjoy.
the world is nastier than the era of dynasty and dallas, taylor has a couple of shows along those lines, landman for one,
as in taylor sheridan, much of the world does seem to be in a 'state of nature' in montana, texas, oklahoma,
the former resembles phillp meyers the son, where pierce brosnan, is the plainviewesque patriarch,
that was some years ago, when amc produced that type of programming, now they are walking dead eleventy,
black doves, was an interesting offering for spy thrillers,
lonejustice said...
Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel...
Loosely, very loosely based on Dick's novel. But, yes, it is a good show.
I felt that the miniseries adaptation of "The Man in the High Castle" was actually better than the source material. I read the book after watching the show, and found Dick's story rather muddled by comparison.
“and found Dick's story rather muddled by comparison.”
Dicks stories inspire a lot of deep thought, but they are only unmuddled if you are insane.
I am going to Madison for the art fair. I will have to do pilgrimagé to the log in the bottom of the lake.
Lonejustice: The Amazon series of Man in the High Castle is weird. Serendipitous that it came out just before Covid and the fraudulent election. You can map a lot of the occupied-America stuff from the show directly to the Covid/Biden-era US.
The weirdest thing about the show is it makes you sympathize with Nazis. Rufus Sewell (whom I have previously mentioned here as my gay hall pass) and some of the other American Nazi leaders really make you root for them, especially as the US Party de-facto secedes from the mother Party in Germany. Root for them not in their Nazism, but in their struggle (Kampf? hee hee) to try to get back to pre-war America within the Nazi system. I seriously thought about these characters as I debated what to do under the Biden admin.
And 1960s Nazi New York at Christmas is so beautiful and clean. You have a heart of stone if you don't compare it favorably to what happened to the city in our reality.
The West Coast storylines show how the Japanese didn't give a rat's ass for the welfare of their subject peoples.
The show minimizes the weird intersecting-parallel-universe stuff which was the actual point of Dick's book, in favor of just glorying in the alt-history.
Just a strange but very well done piece of television art. I echo lonejustice's endorsement.
JSM
Youtoob throws a lot of Man in the High Castle segments at me, but they don't whet my appetite. I've never been a huge Dick fan (hahaha!) and haven't read the book either.
I liked Blade Runner the movie but couldn't get into the book.
I see that the elite Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm does 98% of their business with the Federal Government! They out musk musk in government contracts! Let’s key their laptops guys!
I will wait to have it explained to me how one humongous supplier of services to government with 2% private customers is a ok and another humongous supplier of services to government with 75% private customers is the spawn of satan.
If you're passing near Penn Yan NY I can now highly recommend stopping in a The Spotted Duck for an ice cream treat. Niche place, not a huge selection, no banana splits or sundaes or milkshakes. My daughter, I, and the grandtwins shared the 8 flight taster, 1 scoop each of the 8 flavors they scoop. They have a few additional flavors sold in pints. I'm known for not having a wide ranging palate, and my daughter was surprise I liked the blueberry-lavender (Fleur Bleu) scoop. Too be honest, so was I. As I mentioned a few days ago, that was to follow pizza, and it did.
And tomorrow morning, I'll wake up with no job for the first time since I was 14. I'm pretty sure I'll get used to it. And two weeks from now, on Flag Day, I'll turn 70. That won't be hard to adjust to at all. The only hard thing about that is when I get involved in activities with younger people is remembering I'm no longer 30... and I'm definitely not a teen.
From grok
Combined Estimate
• Total Revenue (2024, Approximate):
• SpaceX: ~$9B.
• Tesla: ~$96.8B.
• Total: ~$105.8B.
• Government Revenue:
• SpaceX: ~$2–3B (30% of $9B).
• Tesla: ~$1.8B (2% of $96.8B).
• Total: ~$3.8–4.8B, or 3.6–4.5% of $105.8B.
• Private Revenue:
• SpaceX: ~$6–7B (70% of $9B).
• Tesla: ~$95B (98% of $96.8B).
• Total: ~$101–102B, or 95.5–96.4%.
• Final Split: ~4% government vs. ~96% private, weighted heavily by Tesla’s consumer-driven revenue. SpaceX alone is ~30% government, but Tesla’s scale dominates the overall proportion.
The View had Anthony Weiner on?
What it must be like to be a "The View" producer these days.
I am sure that the 96.8B in Tesla revenue was primarily government EV subsidies, right? But didn’t Beiden exclude Tesla from subsidies?
Wisconsin cities in the news lately. Ethan Hunt's ID card in the latest (final?) Mission Impossible shows his residence to be Madison, WI. Is he a neighbor of your's Althouse? And in Wausau the city council almost turned a 17 year old into a real estate mogul.
“ I liked Blade Runner the movie but couldn't get into the book.”
Same here. The movie was much better.
As for The Man in the High Castle, the TV series was again better than the book.
I have become very tired of the weirdo musk bullshit. As Iowa hawk says, fight me!
Jake Tapper’s Original Sin has slipped to 5th place on Amazon’s best seller list. In kindle form it’s in 55th place also trending downward. For all the publicity it’s been getting, sales are lower than expected. In the first week approx. 57, O00 copies were sold. In comparison, Melania Trump sold approx 85,000 copies of her book Melania (in the first week) with very little publicity.
On Amazon’s most read non-fiction books (compiled from kindle/audible statistics) Original Sin is #2 and Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson is #5. Abundance has been on this list for 9 weeks.
BTW on Amazon’s most read fiction list, six of the Harry Potter books have been on this list for over 400 weeks. The less popular Chamber of Secrets is currently not in the top 20.
Melania is now in the 500’s on Amazon’s best seller list which. Hillary Clinton’s latest is in the 11,000’s. Michelle Obama’s workbook is in the 16,000’s. And my very favorite book of the political season, the Achievements of Kamala Harris (all blank pages) is in the 20,000’s.
James Comey’s latest thriller is 1800 on the best seller list and #2589 in kindle format - better than he deserves, but lower than he probably expected.
"And tomorrow morning, I'll wake up with no job for the first time since I was 14. I'm pretty sure I'll get used to it."
And not long after, you'll wonder how you managed to get stuff done when you were working every day.
"I've been watching the series "The Man in the High Castle""
As it happens, so am I. Enjoying it a lot more than Dick's book.
"And tomorrow morning, I'll wake up with no job for the first time since I was 14. I'm pretty sure I'll get used to it."
Get your travelling in while you are free and still strong.
Josephbleau: Elmo the Musk gots money from the government on each and every one of his companies including SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and Boring - having
received nearly $21 billion from U.S. governmental units since 2008. SpaceX has literally burned through $8.7 billion. So no, Biden didn't interfere with government contracts unlike our autocrat now in charge..
Gospace, keep us posted - we're staring down the barrel of my husband's possible retirement at ten years younger than yours, thanks to a vindictive young controller at his last gig. We can do it financially, but the boredom/loneliness effects of "let's travel until we have grandchildren!!" are making me go back to buying my nails
@Gospace, welcome to the ranks of the retired. Enjoy!
Watched The Man in the High Castle several years ago. Interesting thought experiment, great visuals in first season. Rufus Sewell is a tour de force throughout. Unfortunately I felt it rapidly went off the rails after season 1. And the actual Man in the High Castle...poor choice, I didn't buy it.
Noe to Democrats, trotting out Joe Biden for public appearances is a masterstroke! A totally brilliant strategy. You need to keep doing that as often as possible.
Heh, I meant *biting* my nails...
gadfly said...
Josephbleau: Elmo the Musk gots money from the government on each and every one of his companies including SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and Boring - having
received nearly $21 billion from U.S. governmental units since 2008. SpaceX has literally burned through $8.7 billion. So no, Biden didn't interfere with government contracts unlike our autocrat now in charge..
*******************
So, SpaceX and Starlink "literally" burned through $8.7 billion, eh....
And how many hundreds of tons of payload did he put into orbit? Who rescued those abandoned astronauts? Who has launched literally thousands of Starlinks and other internet satellites bring service to hundreds of million of people in rural and isolated areas around the Earth ond on ships and islands?
Is that what you call "Burning through"?
In any case, MOST of SpaceX's government business was "fee for services", described above, not for cash payments to underpin their start-up expenses.
If NASA could have done what SpaceX is doing, we would still be back to a couple of launches a year, with expendable booster roackets. Thanks to SpaceX we have launches on average twice a WEEK.
SNORT
As for what Trump is doing, it is very, very clear that the Green New Deal has been a total multi-billion dollar bust, with its utter failure to build EV charging stations, its failure to provide even a scintilla of reliable and free-standing "green" energy, and its failure to design and implement a national energy grid capable of meeting the surge in demand these "green" energy schemes would inevitably create.
How many Solyndras and other green scams "burned through' the billions they got, and produced N O T H I N G?
p.s. Musk didn't receive direct subsidies for Tesla.. Buyers of EVS got a tax break, but that included purchases from other (abortive, now defunct) EV manufacturers. Taxpayers paid for those subsidies but the money didn't go to Tesla
Tesla also paid off a $425 million loan from the government, even suffering an "early repayment" penalty in the process.
Face it: you're not a gadfly, you're just another example of Dunning-Kruger in action. IOW you're just full of shit.
Bidenflation has now reached a four year low.
Stock market and S%P highest in 4 years.
Tarrifs have either been renegotiated or neutralized trade deficits.
All the things Rich sockpuppet claimed have been false.
He must be sulking in his room in his parent's basement tonight.
"Now, what we know is the supreme judicial law of the land, at least in District Courts for the past four months, has been whatever Biden did, Trump can’t undo."
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/05/the-supreme-judicial-law-of-the-land-at-least-in-district-courts-for-the-past-four-months-has-been-whatever-biden-did-trump-cant-undo/
https://davebarry.substack.com/p/mission-highly-improbable
Dave Barry's spoof of the latest Mission Impossible movie. He's still funny. It's the middle of the night and I'm trying to snigger quietly.
p.s. Musk didn't receive direct subsidies for Tesla.. Buyers of EVS got a tax break, but that included purchases from other (abortive, now defunct) EV manufacturers. Taxpayers paid for those subsidies but the money didn't go to Tesla.
Worthy of note that in at least one case the rules were written to largely exclude Teslas once it started to look like Musk was going over to the Dark Side, and that giant EV charging station boondoggle was directly aimed at trying to dampen what I would think is one of the main Tesla selling points, the fact that Tesla chargers are widely available and setting the standard for the charging interface.
Buyers of EVS got a tax break, but that included purchases from other (abortive, now defunct) EV manufacturers. Taxpayers paid for those subsidies but the money didn't go to Tesla
---------------
Oh please. The tax rebate for to incentivize rich people to buy electric vehicles courtesy of the US taxpayer. You had to have money to shell it out to Tesla, and then you got some of it back. Elon is not so wise as he is good at playing the game.
Stupid on practical matters. Shame on him showing up to Trump's White House with a shiner and his head spinning. He's not cool. He's a dork who revels in attention-seeking behavior. Even his kids can't stand him. (nobody's curious how he got the shiner? Hm. You'd think annie would be all over that one...)
Gospace: " two weeks from now, on Flag Day, I'll turn 70."
You do realize you share a birthday with Trump and the US Army?
JSM
Musk was building out a nationwide charging infrastructure, available to other EVs, and had to stop because Biden changed the subsidy rules to exclude Musk, and he had to stop building charging stations in order to compete with his subsidized competition.
This is what Democrats voted for with Joe Biden. Oh, I forgot, no actual Democrats ever liked him! That's why he got those (wink, wink) 80 million votes!
hawkeyedjb said...Yellowstone, aka The Godfather on Horses.
Cool, with that description, maybe I can get my wife to watch it with me.
There were a few…cartoon characters (especially the women, I’m afraid.)
Oh, never mind. She has no patience for male writers’ lazy and shallow depictions of women.
Making a movie of a book is hit and miss. A lot of times, the movie director sees a novel a lot more clearly than the writer, who is too close. Or sees the best parts of a book more clearly. My favorite example is "Last of the Mohicans" which is a slog to read and a great movie.
The weird thing about Jane Austen is that her women could be written by men. She sees women the way a man might, if he understood women.
john mosby said...
Gospace: " two weeks from now, on Flag Day, I'll turn 70."
You do realize you share a birthday with Trump and the US Army?
Why yes, yes I do. And it seems it's politically incorrect to celebrate a birthday or Flag Day this year- or the birthday of the US Army with a parade- because it is Donald Trump's birthday.
You'll do fine, Gospace. I'm coming up to ten years retired at the end of June and have enjoyed every minute of it--if nothing else, it gives me plenty of time for Althouse and the travel I put off while in harness.
At one point when Phillip K Dick was essentially living on whiskey and amphetamines (his description), his house was burgled and they only stole his file cabinets full of documents. He was absolutely delighted because it proved to him that he was not, in fact, a paranoid nut case. Strange vindication... I'm a big fan of his, but the drugs made some of his books tough to follow.
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