Althouse: At the Saturday Night Café...

November 29, 2025

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

No sunrise photos today. We stayed off the roads and, from inside, watched the snow fall.

60 comments:

buwaya said...: This is making the rounds -
https://x.com/jonatanpallesen/status/1993654135917257214?s=20
Danish conviction rates by immigrant/migrant country of origin.
Some people seem to fixate on raging at the top of the chart, but IMHO (me, I'm an engineer and we go straight to solutions) , of course the fix is at the bottom of the chart.
The US can easily adjust immigration policy (such as quotas) to favor the bottom of a US version of this chart. I.e., let i; 11/29/25, 6:20 PM
buwaya said...: Let in more Filipinos. Favor them. If accused of racism point out that Filipinos are rather brown. More brown than most Mexicans.; 11/29/25, 6:23 PM
Humperdink said...: Opening day of deer season (rifle) today in PA. Grandson put one down at 7:15AM. First deer at the processor’s shop. Nothing better.; 11/29/25, 6:23 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Got around to watching Season 3 of "Damages", a legal drama. Not bad, the acting is great but its bogged down by chick stuff (Which my wife liked) because the lead is Glenn Close.

The real treat was watching Lilly Tomlin and Martin short in serious roles. Tomlin, of course, has shown she had do serious drama before, so her good performance was not unexpected. But Martin Short was excellent as an Dubious "Fixer" lawyer.

Generally speaking, comedians can do drama better than serious actors can do comedy. Even Jerry Lews was damn good in the few serious roles he did.; 11/29/25, 6:26 PM
buwaya said...: https://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics/comments/1fz89yq/median_household_income_in_the_united_states_by/

Filipinos are second to Indians, but that is because Indians are (relatively) very selectively admitted through academic or professional qualifications (H1b etc). Filipinos are almost all just plain immigrants.; 11/29/25, 6:31 PM
john mosby said...: Buwaya: by the logic of letting in VNs and Afghans, we certainly owe Filipinos for abandoning them twice: first to the Japanese, and then to their own squabbling elites. CC, JSM; 11/29/25, 6:35 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Someone said there are two kinds of comedians: Those who say funny things, and those who say things funny. The 2nd type usually don't make good dramatic actors. Its difficult to imagine WC Fields, Groucho, or Gilbert Gottfried doing Hamlet.

Woody has done serious films, but I dont think he's a particularly good serious actor. OTOH, Mia Farrow and Diane were good at both comedy and drama.; 11/29/25, 6:38 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Some Comedians have such strong comic personas they do poorly at serious drama. Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Bob Newhart, Carson, and Don Rickles immediately come to mind. And its impossible to imagine Jerry Seinfeld in a serious drama.

OTOH, Kesley Grammer, Steve Martin and Bill Murray were able to make the leap.; 11/29/25, 6:46 PM
Original Mike said...: "The US can easily adjust immigration policy (such as quotas) to favor the bottom of a US version of this chart." (emphasis added)

Incredibly, no, we can't. We are not allowed to make decisions in our own best interests.; 11/29/25, 7:01 PM
pacwest said...: @buwaya
Identify the problem first. Then look for the solution. You're right, the chart identifies both. Trump identified both during his first term. Shithole countries.; 11/29/25, 7:03 PM
Mason G said...: "Shithole countries."

Democrats can't accept this. Their worldview demands that every person (and culture) on the planet must be considered the equal of every other person (and culture) on the planet.; 11/29/25, 7:12 PM
Original Mike said...: The CIA helped bring thousands of its Afghan partner forces — called the "Zero Unit" — to the U.S. under Joe Biden's watch, following the shambolic evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.

"The CIA appeared to have quietly cut a deal with thousands of its paramilitary-style Zero Unit forces in Afghanistan in August 2021 as the Taliban took over the country and its capital of Kabul. According to a former intelligence officer who spoke with Just the News who declined to be identified, the terms of the deal were that if the Zeroes helped secure Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) during the chaotic non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) then, in exchange for that and for their years of coordination with the U.S. spy agency, the fighters and their families would earn an airlift to the U.S."

We had a secure airport, built for, I imagine, billions of dollars. But could we use that to perform an orderly withdrawal and avoid cutting a deal with untrustworthy actors? Nooooo, some dumb fuck gave it away before we left.; 11/29/25, 7:14 PM
chuck said...: Beautiful day here, 40F and sunny. Lots of traffic at some stores, but otherwise pretty normal. The mountain tops have been dusted with snow for a couple of weeks, and next week should see several light snows. The canyon trails are frozen, and the temperature is headed down, but it is still pretty dry.; 11/29/25, 7:28 PM
narciso said...: I wonder did they intend to use them against the talin at some point would they have been so cynical if so why did they dispurse them across the entire country; 11/29/25, 7:29 PM
Jaq said...: It feels like there is a deal afoot. Zelensky's chief negotiator, who was unbending, has been taken down for "corruption;" that feels like battle space prep, to me by the US, but it could be the Ukrainians themselves. Zelensky has now lost a guy, Yermak, who has been seen as the "power behind the throne" for as long as I have been following this war; he's gone. A second key aid has fled the country for Israel, which, conveniently, will never extradite a Jewish person.

But Zelensky has been amazingly resilient.

The Europeans? They are shocked.. shocked! that corruption was going on in Ukraine, but say that now that they have cleaned up the whole country by throwing Yermak to the wolves, that gives the green light to send more billions.

If Trump ends this war, he shouldn't expect the Nobel Peace Prize, that bauble is controlled by the neocons, and they are going to be in a righteous snit.; 11/29/25, 7:30 PM
buwaya said...: What you need is a new Immigration law. The last general one is from 1990. You can implement favored nation measures in that.; 11/29/25, 7:32 PM
pacwest said...: @ Mason G
Right. The left seem to think they have identified the problem and the solution. Inequality/Harrison Bergeron. I consider it more a delusion than a worldview.; 11/29/25, 7:34 PM
Jaq said...: Our Canadian Fishing Trip

It's a scan of a home movie of a fishing trip in 1930, a drive through Michigan and "Upper Michigan" and a ferry ride to Canada, and a rail trip to the "Canadian wilds" where they fish with their Indian guide in Lake Superior.

It reminded me of the My Wilderness books by William O Douglas, for what it's worth.; 11/29/25, 7:38 PM
Mason G said...: "I consider it more a delusion than a worldview."

I wouldn't argue against that. I don't know how you can look at the world, the people in it and their cultures today and come to the conclusion that there are no differences of any significance between them.; 11/29/25, 7:41 PM
Mason G said...: And if there isn't any difference between them (according to leftards, anyway), why do they need to leave their countries/cultures to come here? Especially considering all the racism (according to leftards, anyway) they'll encounter once they're here.; 11/29/25, 7:54 PM
Lazarus said...: Wasn't there a story this summer about criminals or vandals who were arrested or took refuge in a theatre showing, "The Death of a Unicorn"? I watched a few minutes and felt like doing 5 to 10 in the pen would be better than watching any more. But I'll give it another chance in a few days. The cast isn't that bad.

Also deceased this week: architect and historian Robert A. M. Stern. It's easier to be an architectural historian than an architect. Whatever mistakes you make won't collapse and won't have to be blown up.; 11/29/25, 8:15 PM
Josephbleau said...: “From the Canadian web site Small Dead Animals: Is the Destruction of Britain a Preview for Canadians?
November 29, 2025 RobertBaiting The Left Great Moments In Sociaism.
In case you’re not aware, a disastrous budget in Britain was recently announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. Many reports suggest that it props up the welfare class by heavily taxing the working class.”

https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/11/29/is-the-destruction-of-britain-a-preview-for-canadians/

This seems like the extension of a trend started in California. Like old Spanish California there are only two social classes the very poor and the very rich. This is the Bill Gates approach to making the working class disappear so that the rich can have low cost exploitable labor. All that is needed is an estanciero to rule a 1000 sq mile region, his grace will provide for his people and they will defend him.

In preparation, the working class must be heavily taxed to provide for the welfare class. I make no judgements on this but it is a possibility.; 11/29/25, 8:23 PM
Chest Rockwell said...: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=LWUgT34GYhU&si=G0IrIeH2L1pevgNL; 11/29/25, 8:41 PM
Achilles said...: Mason G said...

"Shithole countries."

Democrats can't accept this. Their worldview demands that every person (and culture) on the planet must be considered the equal of every other person (and culture) on the planet.

Democrats just have different goals than we do.

Democrats want high crime and the color revolution that would result from importing poor people from violent countries.; 11/29/25, 9:05 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Mason G said...

....why do they need to leave their countries/cultures to come here?

They can't vote for Democrats back home?

Just a guess.; 11/29/25, 9:07 PM
Jupiter said...: What's goin'on?; 11/29/25, 9:20 PM
Peachy said...: just checked the national radar. Wisconsin and Michigan are covered by a big blue blob of blue blob snow. stay warm.; 11/29/25, 9:25 PM
buwaya said...: "why do they need to leave their countries/cultures to come here?"

Same reason I did, to seek my fortune.
Same reason nearly all immigrants have ever had. There is no noble purpose here. If you are going to let them in, try get a good deal.; 11/29/25, 9:27 PM
Jupiter said...: "Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny."
Are you kidding me?
Just take a minute out of your busy, busy day, and imagine what the comments on this blog would look like if we didn't fight with each other. I will say, I wish this blog attracted a better class of opponents. But what do you think we're here for? To exchange recipes?; 11/29/25, 9:27 PM
Peachy said...: Jupiter 9:20

I'm still reading.
This stood out to me.
"The voting machine companies were trying to make discussions of election fraud illegal or actionable."; 11/29/25, 9:33 PM
Jupiter said...: "If you are going to let them in, try get a good deal."
Let's try that on your own, personal properties. You own a house, it's a nice house. Some assholes you don't know want to come live in it with you. Try to get a good deal, OK? Like, maybe they cook breakfast on Thursday. Well, except, they can't cook for shit. OK. At least, when they rape your daughter in the shower, they agree to take the towels to the laundry. Oh, Hell, they're not going to agree to that. You carry the towels, OK? And make it snappy, they're going to be raping her again soon.; 11/29/25, 9:33 PM
Jupiter said...: They're going to want some more towels.; 11/29/25, 9:40 PM
Original Mike said...: "just checked the national radar. Wisconsin and Michigan are covered by a big blue blob of blue blob snow. stay warm."

I think Madison has gotten 9" so far (finding snow totals has always been difficult). Have cleared the driveway twice and will be doing it again tomorrow (I like multiple small clearings rather than one big one).; 11/29/25, 9:40 PM
Original Mike said...: "The voting machine companies were trying to make discussions of election fraud illegal or actionable."

They essentially have, which is galling and frightening.; 11/29/25, 9:43 PM
Peachy said...: Jupiter's link is must read. Save. Send to all you know.
It's a re-cap of a political party's complete corruption.; 11/29/25, 9:44 PM
Jaq said...: Starmer has started the process of eliminating trial by jury in the UK, except in cases of rape and murder. Why not eliminate the jury trial in cases of rape? Because there would have been a civil war.; 11/29/25, 9:45 PM
Peachy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/29/25, 9:48 PM
Peachy said...: US - we have stacked juries and corrupt D Judges.; 11/29/25, 9:49 PM
Peachy said...: Stay safe, Original Mike. (typo[fixed)
I enjoy first snows.
...but then February arrives and ..over it.; 11/29/25, 9:50 PM
Jupiter said...: "Jupiter 9:20 - I'm still reading."
Thank you, Peachy, for investigating the evidence.; 11/29/25, 9:54 PM
Jupiter said...: If you are interested, there is a book. blogspot won't let me post it as a link, for some reason (I make no accusation, bad software is everywhere), but here is the link https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Elections-Takedown-Democracies-Worldwide/dp/B0FP5J7CS7; 11/29/25, 9:58 PM
Original Mike said...: "...but then February arrives and ..over it."

We go to the southern hemisphere in February.; 11/29/25, 10:01 PM
Mason G said...: "Same reason I did, to seek my fortune.
Same reason nearly all immigrants have ever had."

So- all countries and cultures aren't equal, then.

Try explaining that to the left.; 11/29/25, 10:01 PM
Jupiter said...: "Jupiter's link is must read. Save. Send to all you know."
Well. Thanks, Peachy. But do your own due diligence. I think these people are credible, but don't jump too far too fast.; 11/29/25, 10:03 PM
Ampersand said...: Somebody knows what's going on in Venezuela. Why don't we know?; 11/29/25, 10:06 PM
Original Mike said...: I've been reading that 2020 election post this evening, too. Forgot where I got it from. Hard to believe they could get away with that level of fraud.; 11/29/25, 10:07 PM
buwaya said...: "Try explaining that to the left."
No, you do it. I dont even live in the US anymore and I am too sick to deal with stupid arguments.; 11/29/25, 10:11 PM
n.n said...: A well placed missile up an Iranian proxy ended the second Iraq war. Some well placed missiles up Venezuelan proxies will ensure that black and tens of thousands of lives matter.; 11/29/25, 10:18 PM
buwaya said...: "Somebody knows what's going on in Venezuela. Why don't we know?"

Because of political/military OPSEC. You can, as usual, try to suss things out through leaks into open source.
Like this -
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/donald-trump-venezuela-airspace/2025/11/29/id/1236439/
Wall Street Journal: Maduro Requests Amnesty in Call With Trump; 11/29/25, 10:20 PM
Jupiter said...: Buwaya, you have been a contributor to this blog's comments for a long time. As have I. You have expressed a political and cultural position that could easily be termed "conservative". But of course, the Left has instructed us that the proper context for moral interpretation is something called "intersectionality", in which all the players receive victim cards, and then the hand is played - Who is the most oppressed?
It seems like you are playing some kind of Filipino card. Well. Good for you. You have a card, and you are playing it. If you have any friends, I am sure they would be interested in hearing about your maneuver. How clever you are, to play your card in this fashion!; 11/29/25, 10:35 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: From an earlier post: "There’s a chunk of sourdough bread. There’s a chink off a chestnut, a piece of apple core, some leaves, a coil of thin white thread."

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Mathew 15:27.

When there are no dogs, no pets, the crumbs accumulate?; 11/29/25, 11:00 PM
buwaya said...: Victim cards and "intersectionality" isnt my thing, dude.
Objective cost/benefit analysis and a consultants mind is where I'm at. Its how I made a living for decades.
I ran across that Danish crime thing, and its an awfully compelling presentation. What can we learn from it, and how should it affect policy (in Europe and the US)? Well, I posted the obvious. Should be a great Powerpoint.; 11/29/25, 11:08 PM
Prof. M. Drout said...: That the whole government/media/NGO apparat would spend so much energy and money on what is an obvious Info Op about the Venezuelan drug boats implies very strongly that there is a lot of U.S. entanglement with the money, violence-on-demand, and waves of "refugees" that come from that country.
Many of us keep wondering how so many people seem to have so much money without doing anything that anyone would pay them for. Government salaries for make-work jobs, overcompensated NGO 'administrators,' and corporate hack-work is nice and all, but is not enough to explain the lifestyles on display in Bethesda, Falls Church, etc.
Then I remembered: for every unit of narcotics that comes into the U.S., a unit of money needs to go back to Mexico or Venezuela. It an absolute fire-hose of money laundering, and only so much of it can be handled through the remittance pipeline, which is constrained by the limited throughput of each individual; even though there are millions of those individuals (one reason for the mass migration is to create millions more people laundering drug money through remittances). Plus the logistics are a nightmare.
So there also has to be laundering of large amounts of money at levels much higher than migrated peasants.
The way insider-Washington is reacting, the disproportionate freak-out by insiders with money and actual influence*, implies that it's Venezuela drug- and trafficking-money is supporting both the off-the-books lifestyles of a lot of officials (elected, appointed, and 'civil servants') AND funding a lot of political action.
The screeching suggests that blowing up the boats and whatever else is being done at the border, behind the scenes, and in the financial system is having a real effect.

*Sadly, dimwitted, always-online flying monkeys don't need to be organized, paid, or even encouraged to respond to the designated outrageous outrage of the day with comment-posting and walls of AI-slop text as frantically as a non-flying monkey humping a football.; 11/29/25, 11:21 PM
buwaya said...: Btw I'm not Filipino myself, other than a slight DNA trace from my mothers side - from a man who was a signer of the first Spanish constitution, interesting story. Go to Cadiz and you will see his name on the wall of the Oratory of San Felipe Neri. Its like being descended from, oh, Jacob Broom of Delaware. I am Spanish-born and Spanish by nationality. I grew up and was educated in the Philippines for the most part however, and I'm fluent in Tagalog. I have great sympathy for the Filipinos, a sort of generalized paternalism as a descendant of the old Spanish colonial power structire.; 11/29/25, 11:29 PM
buwaya said...: Venezuelan refugees are real refugees, they are all over Latin America and even in Spain. They arent just a US problem.; 11/29/25, 11:32 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: buwaya said... @11/29/25, 11:29 PM reminds me of president Obama.; 11/29/25, 11:36 PM
buwaya said...: Re Venezuelan refugees, from a Spanish newspaper (ABC).
https://www.abc.es/espana/millones-migrantes-refugiados-venezolanos-regularizados-latinoamerica-20241206204206-vi.html; 11/29/25, 11:37 PM
buwaya said...: "reminds me of president Obama"
Heh. I however never made it to Harvard. Life story was too dull I guess.; 11/29/25, 11:41 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Venezuela forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”; 11/29/25, 11:49 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Presidents say the darndest things.; 11/29/25, 11:50 PM