Althouse: At the Wednesday Night Café...

October 15, 2025

At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(Photo by Meade.)

72 comments:

William50 said...: For those of you who grow tired of the constant political conversations I offer you a couple of blasts from the past.

Small Faces - Itchykoo Park from Beat-cluB
(1967)

Faces Live - Stay With Me

I notice that Ron Wood is playing a '71 Ampeg Armstrong Lucite in the Faces video. I think the guy in Brownsville Station played one too. They were popular for a couple of years and then faded away.; 10/15/25, 7:43 PM
rehajm said...: Louisiana v Callais went well today…and in other news Lettie was harboring a fugitive on her ill gotten property? Quite the rancid onion she is…; 10/15/25, 7:52 PM
Derve said...: ann is travelling or sick?; 10/15/25, 7:55 PM
Derve said...: I hope meade and ann are both out enjoying some sunshine in LA, ready to take in the next two Brewers games. (See, I didn't say losses! ;-); 10/15/25, 7:58 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’Ron Wood is playing a '71 Ampeg Armstrong Lucite’

Those are interesting guitars. There was something unusual about the pickups, but it’s been a few decades since I’ve played one and don’t remember what it was…; 10/15/25, 8:00 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Beasts of England said...

There was something unusual about the pickups, but it’s been a few decades since I’ve played one and don’t remember what it was…

Weren't they set up so you could slide the pickups in and out of the rout and swap them easily?; 10/15/25, 8:04 PM
Dave Begley said...: Cited Ann Althouse in my talk to about 100 people in Madison, NE.; 10/15/25, 8:12 PM
Iman said...: Here’s a treat… a great tune, a tight band and guest Charlie Daniels on fiddle:

https://youtu.be/tbjBudsfH3g; 10/15/25, 8:15 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: https://youtu.be/PMXg_KAe5yc?si=EiEgEkNd6oK7uVL-; 10/15/25, 8:16 PM
Iman said...: That was cool, Michael Fitzgerald… never saw them play live… pretty rockin’ and the singer looks like Eugene Levy’s twin, lol!; 10/15/25, 8:21 PM
Iman said...: I personally am quite pleased they put just about if not all the Midnight Specials up on YouTube. Great memories!; 10/15/25, 8:24 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’Weren't they set up so you could slide the pickups in and out of the rout and swap them easily?’

I believe that’s it - thanks!; 10/15/25, 8:25 PM
bagoh20 said...: For those of us who postpone pain as long as possible, today was tax day. One word: Heartbreaking. I can hardly wait till next year.; 10/15/25, 8:38 PM
n.n said...: Japanese maple? Or are the leaves turning red before the Fall?; 10/15/25, 8:41 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: Right on, Iman. Midnight Special was great. Today's musicians could really use something like that again. Did you have Don Kirschner's Rock Concert, or was that just east coast?
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxNR-orOcV9d2AE09DIFJtMGhCi7J3MZL&si=dvhu3-TgIKe70bzD; 10/15/25, 8:42 PM
Jaq said...: Will WW3 be sparked by fight for control of Odessa? Not out of the question. We are in a time when we don't know if Trump is bluffing, and we can only wait and see, but the hard liners on both sides are done with negotiations, and both sides would welcome the new phase of the war that the Tomahawks would represent.

I guess the real question, should Trump provide them, is whether Russia will stick to its knitting, and finish up the war in Ukraine, or allow themselves to be drawn into a war with Europe. It's not obvious which path they will choose.

I am just trying to bring the Russian perspective into the discussion. Anybody who doesn't want you to know what the other side is thinking is just trying to leave you down some kind of primrose path into a war.

:"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, we neocons who have led America into war after war after war have the situation well in hand."; 10/15/25, 8:42 PM
Paddy O said...: Bagoh, it could be worse. You could still be living in California.; 10/15/25, 8:45 PM
buwaya said...: Odessa - highly unlikely at the moment. The Russians would have to make a successful river crossing and bridging, under fire, of the Dneiper, which is going to be a tremendous military-engineering feat for anyone. The Russians do not have the naval craft to do even an initial river crossing. Given Russian performance lately its hard to see it.; 10/15/25, 8:51 PM
bagoh20 said...: I almost forgot, Paddy, and that makes me feel better.
These wonderful musicians always make me smile. I saw them live at the Brooklyn Bowl in Vegas a couple years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFycqnOpifQ; 10/15/25, 9:01 PM
Gospace said...: Was true a few years ago, and I believe it's still true.

Black Republican congressmen have been elected in majority white districts.

No black Democrat congressmen have been elected in majority white districts.

I wonder why...; 10/15/25, 9:05 PM
Caroline said...: “ Japanese maple? Or are the leaves turning red before the Fall?”— my guess is an invasive vine…in my experience, these little suckers are always deceptively beautiful.; 10/15/25, 9:07 PM
MadTownGuy said...: John Fetterman, quoted on X

"I know and I love people who voted for President Trump. They are NOT fascists, they’re NOT Nazis, they’re NOT trying to destroy the Constitution.”

“I REFUSE to call people Nazis or fascists. I would never compare anybody — anybody to Hitler.”

“Like Charlie Kirk, all I could say is let people grieve — give people the space. I’m not going to use that terrible thing and that assassination to make my argument and try to put out my views.”

“It’s like, my God, he’s a father that had his neck blown out by a bullet. And now people have forgotten: President Trump was in my state — was shot in the head. Could you imagine where our nation would be if he were hit in the same way as Kirk? We really got to turn the temperature down.”; 10/15/25, 9:14 PM
bagoh20 said...: I suspect that Fetterman has some rare genetic mutation that has left him immune to TDS, or Satan just hasn't gotten around to him yet.; 10/15/25, 9:40 PM
Iman said...: Yes, Michael, we had Kirschner's programs, as well. Our gaggle of friends were always prioritizing viewing both, made for good party backdrops. That was the Golden Age of our kind of music and so many outstanding musicians and bands were always appearing.; 10/15/25, 9:49 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Remarkable that the most sane sounding Democrat in D.C. might have gotten that way because he had a stroke.; 10/15/25, 9:51 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Via Facebook: National Geographic won the photo of the year award with this picture

Zoom in to see something that could be easily missed.; 10/15/25, 9:56 PM
TeaBagHag said...: lol, yes, good old fetterman, the senator you started loving when his brain was damaged to the point where he now endores the party of pedo protecting fascists.; 10/15/25, 9:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I was a regular watcher Midnight Special from mid 1978 until it was ended at the end of my freshman year in high school.; 10/15/25, 10:00 PM
Yancey Ward said...: TBH, maybe you can have a stroke and start making sense, too.; 10/15/25, 10:02 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Yes, if I had a stroke and my IQ dropped 50 points and I nurtured my resentment to the point of it becoming a religion, I would be quite popular in here.; 10/15/25, 10:14 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: “my IQ dropped 50 points”

Aspirational in adversity?

I still got it!; 10/15/25, 10:22 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Cracker, you should get some penicillin.; 10/15/25, 10:26 PM
Peachy said...: After the first 50 point drop - she's below zero now.; 10/15/25, 10:32 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Reachy, isn’t there some group chat praising Hitler, that you’re supposed to be in?; 10/15/25, 10:34 PM
Peachy said...: Pedo - like this guy!
NC DEMOCRAT Rep. Cecil Brockman who voted against the NC parental rights bill to keep pornography out of schools and inform parents about children who wanted to change their sex, has just been arrested for statutory rape and indecent liberties with a minor.

You can’t make this stuff up."; 10/15/25, 10:34 PM
Peachy said...: Thank you Fetterman - . Now prove yourself as a actual good guy by leaving the corrupt democratic party. Certainly stop voting with the corrupt a=holes.; 10/15/25, 10:36 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Pornography in this case most likely means a paperback copy of Are You There God It’s Me Margaret.
You know there was a famous political party in history that banned l/ burned books by calling them obscene?; 10/15/25, 10:39 PM
Peachy said...: Hitler was a leftist. He's all yours.; 10/15/25, 10:43 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Hitler was a leftist…….
I’m gonna let the stupidly of that comment just hang out.; 10/15/25, 10:44 PM
Peachy said...: Please do - terrorist leftist asshole.; 10/15/25, 10:46 PM
Aggie said...: Any comments on Ketanji Brown Jackson's pearls of wisdom today?

"However, Jackson did say that not having race-based districts is like disabled people not being able to access anything before the ADA: "I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. The idea in section two is that we are responding to current day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system, right? They’re disabled."....

Umm. Somebody should break the news I guess. When a group makes up 13% of the population, in a system with one-person, one-vote, there's this whole mathematical proportional, probability thingie....; 10/15/25, 10:46 PM
Eva Marie said...: You know there was a famous political party in history who had as their Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader and President Pro Tem of the Senate (that’s 40 years) a leading officer of the KKK? That’s the Democrat Party and that’s Exalted Cyclops and Kleagle Robert Byrd.; 10/15/25, 10:52 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Dumbest trope to argue in US political history.
Which party did all the racists in the Dixiecrats end up joining?; 10/15/25, 10:58 PM
TeaBagHag said...: Maybe crack a history book that isn’t written by Bill O'Reilly.; 10/15/25, 10:59 PM
Eva Marie said...: It’s shocking Democrats consider themselves as any kind of moral arbitrators. 40 years a former KKK - not just a member - but an official of the KKK - was the leader of the Democrats, the guy who in 2001 was still saying the n word on national tv. Until the Democrats repudiate that guy and pay repartions to the people they’ve wronged they should stop pointing fingers and judging others.; 10/15/25, 10:59 PM
Eva Marie said...: All the racists stayed glued to the Democrats.; 10/15/25, 11:01 PM
Dr Weevil said...: A Russian assault on Odesa (note spelling) is in fact out of the question. They would have to cross two substantial rivers, the Dnipro and the Bug, or make an amphibious landing after losing half the landing ships in the Black Sea Fleet (two have been sunk, two disabled, one damaged). Not going to happen. And their troops in Transnistria won’t be able to help: the place is currently without heat or fuel, and may have to reunite with Moldova to keep from freezing.; 10/15/25, 11:03 PM
Eva Marie said...: Why are Democrats such zealots when it comes to abortion? 40% of all abortions are performed on American blacks. 40% and it doesn’t bother white Democrats one bit.; 10/15/25, 11:04 PM
Iman said...: KKK, Jim Crow and even tea-baggin’ were inventions of the Democrat Party. That’s historical fact.; 10/15/25, 11:06 PM
Iman said...: “Hitler was a leftist…….
I’m gonna stupidly let that comment just hang out.”

I’m feeling generous and corrected your grammar, Sultan of Suck.; 10/15/25, 11:09 PM
gadfly said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/15/25, 11:13 PM
Eva Marie said...: Blacks make up about 15% of US population but account for 40% of all abortions. That’s genocide sanctioned and promoted by Democrats.; 10/15/25, 11:14 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: Made a delicious turkey soup today. In a wok, I Fried a leg and a wing in bacon fat until the skin was crispy and brown, then removed them to the cutting board. Added a can of diced roasted tomatoes to the hot fat. Boned out the turkey meat and chopped it up then returned it to the sauce and added the juice from a jar of artichoke hearts. Next, a can of creamed corn and a carton of chicken broth. Let that simmer for an hour or so, before adding a cup or so of hand-crushed egg noodles. Let that go for another half hour or so and voila...Delicious with a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough!; 10/15/25, 11:17 PM
Eva Marie said...: As far as Ketanji Brown Jackson is concerned: this is exactly the attitude the Democrat party has encouraged within the Black population. It’s shocking that Jackson thinks in those terms but that attitude is fostered and nurtured and encouraged by white Democrats; 10/15/25, 11:25 PM
Eva Marie said...: And if you’re a young Black woman and you’ve internalized exactly those attitudes that Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed, then you are more likely to submit to an abortion than a young woman who doesn’t have those sad beliefs about herself.; 10/15/25, 11:30 PM
BudBrown said...: The only thing I've gotten out of rooting for the Brewers is remembering why I hate the Dodgers.; 10/15/25, 11:33 PM
buwaya said...: I cant say I am smarter after my stroke, and subsequent treatment, but I am certainly not worse off mentally. Modern medicine is very effective in this area.
Senator Fetterman seems to be quite well at this time.; 10/15/25, 11:35 PM
buwaya said...: Russia can't even keep naval vessels in Sebastopol. Its had to withdraw the Black Sea fleet to the Caucasus. Amphibious landings near Odesa seem like a suicidal idea.
Moreover Russia doesnt have the shipping in the Black Sea to support a substantial amphibious force in any case.
Russia has one regiment in Transnistria. Thats a token force.
Russia should worry that the Ukrainians may take Transnistria, to make a point I suppose, as from the Ukrainian side it is indefensible. Russia should be grateful to Moldavia and Romania, the Ukrainians are probably holding off because of a reluctance to embarass them.; 10/15/25, 11:48 PM
buwaya said...: By a weird quirk of family history, an ancestor of ours (on my mothers side, theres all kinds of weird there) was killed in the siege of Bender, now in Transnistria, while in the Turkish service, holding Moldavia against Catherine the Greats Russians. I've always wanted to see the fortress of Bender, which is still intact. Just out of curiosity.; 10/15/25, 11:59 PM
Saint Croix said...: Gay marriage kind of rocked my liberal Episcopal church. We're one of the 10 biggest Episcopal churches in the country. And the fight over gay marriage shook us a little bit. Because, in Christianity, you're not supposed to have sex with anybody outside of marriage. So, if a church is performing gay marriages, it is sanctioning homosexuality.

The reason I'm bringing this up now, is that damn AI whale garbage truck discussion on the Alec Baldwin thread.

I'm a pro-lifer. I might have mentioned this before. And so to me, trying to wake people up to these infanticides and how bad it is, that's like a sperm whale. And gay marriage is more like a tiny minnow.

I was in a priest's office around this time, trying to talk about my big issue, abortion. And I asked her, "Have you ever thought about why fuck is a bad word?" And she said, "No, but you have." And I said, "Yes. Fuck is a bad word, because sex outside of love and marriage leads to rape and infanticide." And humanity knows this, which is why the word "fuck" still has power, even though we throw the word out there all the time.

What drives me crazy, and breaks my heart, are upper-class liberal types who never, ever, say that bad word "fuck." But when there's an unwanted pregnancy? They go to the doctor's office and pay a physician who has abandoned Hippocrates to stab and/or poison their child. And this is deemed legitimate because American authorities have said so. And they don't see, or think about, the violence of this act. Because our media hides the violence from everybody.

To many people, the word "fuck" is violence and awful and how-dare-you. But the action of fucking up an unborn child by grabbing his free-floating fetal head and ripping it off is normal medical practice.

So I'm trying to make this argument. And this discussion is in the middle of the gay marriage "crisis" that's rocking my church. And somewhere in our discussion, my priest brings up gay marriage. And I look at her and I say, "I'm not talking about gay marriage."

She was a little embarrassed. And she said, "Oh, right. But you have no idea how many people have been in my office talking about gay marriage lately."

To me, gay marriage is a damn minnow floating around. Gay marriage is not going to send our church into a tree. And it didn't. Although we did lose a bunch of people in our church, and brought in a bunch of new people. Numbers-wise, we did just fine.; 10/16/25, 12:01 AM
Saint Croix said...: To our authorities, Roe v. Wade is a minor thing. In three years of law school, I spent one hour out of one day talking about Roe v. Wade in my Con Law class. It was a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny part of my legal education. We spent as much time on sodomy as abortion. Like they are moral and legal equivalents.

To a good-sized chunk of the American people, Roe v. Wade was a huge deal. So I would just warn nice upper class liberals, who get their news from the news, and read liberal books, and trust doctors and lawyers and journalists, you are wrong. You are wrong to trust these authorities.

Many years later, when Roe v. Wade was over-ruled, one of my priests (different priest) wrote a very heartfelt thing on facebook about all the stress people were under because of Dobbs. And in the comments, I wrote, "God calls on us to love our children." That's all I said. And he deleted his post.

I appreciated his action. But I also felt it was kind of sad, that liberal reaction to a sin -- let's not talk about it or think about it. Let's think happy thoughts, and change the subject.; 10/16/25, 12:02 AM
Saint Croix said...: If you go back 50 years, it's kind of bizarre to realize that the statutes punishing birth control, and the statutes punishing abortion, had similar criminal punishments. So you can see why Ivy League types might carelessly conflate the two.

One of the quirky things about this, of course, is that the punishment for partial-birth abortion was very severe. In Texas, it was life in prison.

That's why Justice Blackmun and the Supremes excluded that part of the statute from their judicial opinion. Apparently, they felt like it was a bad idea to say it's a constitutional right to do something that is punishable by life in prison.

Of course, 27 years later, in the first Carhart case, they said exactly that. That's really the case that made a pro-lifer out of me.

To this day, pro-choice people want to talk about conception, where the line between birth control and abortion is a gray area. That first week of the pregnancy, nobody knows when it happens. Emergency contraception is like swallowing two birth control pills. (Justice Marshall made a similar comment during the oral argument in Roe).

Pro-lifers want to talk about the process of birth, when the baby goes from being unborn, sub-human, property, to a citizen of the United States. To the Carhart majority, they thought that was a gray area too, and they resolved it by killing babies in the middle of birth.

So I would urge all pro-lifers, maybe God made the first week of pregnancy unknowable for us, so rape victims might have access to emergency contraception. And for you pro-choice readers, I would beg you, please, let's take infanticide off the table. We do know when people die, there are laws on the books that define it. And it's still unanimous in all 50 states.

We need to be cognizant of rape and infanticide, and take those issues off the table, when we try to resolve abortion in our laws.; 10/16/25, 12:21 AM
buwaya said...: https://news.usni.org/2025/10/15/philippine-navy-stands-up-naval-air-warfare-force
Philippines forming dedicated ASW air units.
Guess why.; 10/16/25, 12:33 AM
Saint Croix said...: Hitler was a leftist. He's all yours.

You should say "socialist," it's more obvious that way.

Hitler took Communism and added a racial, "national" component. Thus, National Socialism, or a Nazi ideology.

Liberals who want to avoid Nazism, ought to avoid Communism, too. The mass murders are shockingly similar.

And conservatives who want to avoid Nazism, ought to avoid racial theories. That led to the slave trade. "Our tribe beat your tribe, so you are inferior to us."

Hitler rejected Christ. And in his insane, addled brain, I think he believed that if he wiped out the Jews, he would keep a messiah from ever being born. See also The Massacre of the Innocents.; 10/16/25, 12:39 AM
Saint Croix said...: I have just discovered that some "historians" are denying Herod's genocide ever happened. Fans of autocratic government and big state solutions, I'm guessing. You think a follower of Christ is inventing a genocide 70 years after it happened? Wouldn't his readers be astounded and put off by an obvious fraud like that?; 10/16/25, 12:48 AM
Ampersand said...: Saint Croix, I can't disprove Herod's slaughter of the innocents, or the arrival of the Magi at the birthplace of Jesus, or the census of Augustus, or a slew of other elements within the New Testament. The absence of historical corroboration of these extraordinary events strikes many reasonable people as evidence that the events never occurred. Anyway, these are not the kinds of issues that are dispositive of the truth value of your religion.
And pre-literacy, and thus also pre-newspaper and pre-internet, 70 years of oral traditions erroneously recounted was plenty of time for a made-up story to find adherents.; 10/16/25, 1:11 AM
Mr. Forward said...: They asked for "No Kings" what they got was "No Congress".; 10/16/25, 2:19 AM
rehajm said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/16/25, 2:32 AM
rehajm said...: October 15 is when I get my Tax Accountant back from the depths…; 10/16/25, 2:33 AM
rehajm said...: That Nat Geo photo is amazing. I’m a big Frans Lanting fan who has numerous awards for captivating Okavango images and somewhere deep in my storage unit is a National Geographic book with many of their award winning wildlife photos from around the world…but that image is most compelling…; 10/16/25, 2:38 AM
wendybar said...: Poor little Nasty Nancy Pelosi is losing it because she is caught up in the biggest lie of January 6th, and may be going DOWN for it. SHUT UP she yells at a journalist asking her why she didn't allow the National Guard to come like Capitol Police Chief requested them numerous times, and she lied about it. WAH WAH, poor little insider trading Nasty Nancy. Cry harder!!! Trying to blame Trump for YOUR actions is dumb. Almost as dumb as AOC and Ghetto Barbie!!!

Miranda Devine
@mirandadevine
Nancy lost it because she knows she's in trouble. Yes, she did ignore
@ChiefSund
's repeated and increasingly frantic requests to authorize the National Guard backup for his outnumbered troops on J6. Even after the Capitol was breached she refused to give the go-ahead. Her sergeant at arms told Sund he was waiting for the go-ahead from above. That was Nancy. By the time the guard were authorized it was too late and she had established the fake narrative to weaponize against Trump and his supporters during the Biden years. She also lied that Trump supporters defecated in the Capitol. She is sick.
Quote
Jack

@jackunheard
·
13h
🚨WHOA! Nancy Pelosi screams "SHUT UP!" at a reporter asking a simple question.

She then walks away while forcing her staffers to HOLD HER HANDS so she doesn't fall.

https://x.com/mirandadevine/status/1978559869566513448; 10/16/25, 3:16 AM
wendybar said...: Chief Steven Sund
@ChiefSund
@SpeakerPelosi
- Ma'am, let me help refresh your memory. It was your Sergeant at Arms (SAA) who repeatedly denied my multiple requests for National Guard assistance before and on January 6. Even on Jan 6, your Sergeant at Arms denied my urgent requests for over 70 minutes, while he was “running it up the chain” for your approval.

The Pentagon offered National Guard assistance, but I had to decline because your SAA would not grant me the legal authority as required under federal law (2 U.S.C. §1970).
@StephenM

@RepLoudermilk

@SpeakerJohnson

https://x.com/ChiefSund/status/1978577674588098635; 10/16/25, 3:18 AM