Please Stop

Good evening.

Humbled by the love with which you have treated each of our posters and me. Thanking us for what we are trying to do; to provide a place where we can comment on whatever we want. I'm reluctantly, but resolutely asking one thing.

Some of you, a very small number of you, are still bashing Althouse. We are asking you to please stop. We like Althouse, we have always liked Althouse and that is not going to change.

We need to move on.

We are going to be respectfully linking to her, as we link to other bloggers. Naturally, we are probably going to be linking to her more often than other bloggers.
The comments of those posts that link to her, should not be taken as opportunity to bash her. If you feel you still have something to say to her, email her. But please don't continue to bash her here.

Thanks for your emailed posts ideas and for your continued support.

Level42 - Lessons In Love

 

It took me a long while to "write" that up there.

Lets say you were Althouse, how would you correct that "writing" up there?

Please don't deviate from the main point. The main point being, please stop bashing Althouse.

 

Of course, you don't have to help me with the writing, if you don't want to.

New York is America's Saintliest City.

If per capita temptation-denying is how you define a saint, then yes, it seems that New York is number one in avoiding naughtiness.

That's not to say there's not naughtiness (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), just that when you have that many people, it  turns out that there's a strong moral core still.

 Now, that raises all sorts of theological issues, of course, what with people being thought of as totally depraved and all, so maybe the survey just took into account what New Yorkers are willing to do in public.  

Of course, if you think saintliness is not just avoiding the bad but also includes knowing a bit about God and Scripture and suchlikes, then it's a different story.  That crown, according to Christianity Today's article, goes to Knoxville.

Instapundit does have some surprising insight about such matters, occasionally revealed, though from a different sort of experience than most Knoxvillians. My guess it's an educated center in the Bible belt, a gold buckle bringing together the faithful or recently enough so, who still have the habits of saintlihood. 

Of course, for Barna, reading the Bible and believing in the Bible is what exalts the person to the lofty state.  But reading and believing doesn't always translate into doing what the Bible strongly encourages. I've been around churches enough to know that.

So, saintliness is a bit more difficult to pin down than surveyists might suggest.

Gallup, it seems, has a different method and may be more ecumenical in its civil canonizations.  Provo, Utah leads their list, implying a latter-day sanctity at work.

St. Louis is where the sinners go. Apparently the arch functions as a weir for ne'er-do-wells heading west.

The high school in my town has the mascot of Saints, which isn't all that intimidating. Can there be fighting saints?  Curiously enough... maybe. 

No mention of New Orleans, which has a strong claim for being really good sinners while great fans of saints.  Speaking of which, has someone let Beth know about our new venture hereabouts?

What makes a saint for you?  Avoiding the bad? Doing the right deeds?  Putting money in the right box?  Checking the list off the right set of beliefs?  Saints come in all shapes and sizes, and mileage may vary on any one of those aspects.

you ruined my joke

After all that. The tripod, keeping everything steady, replacing each ant with raisin without moving anything, after all that you ruin the joke.

I wondered what on Pinterest brought a visitor who saw your pin so I looked. The guy pined my GIF as a JPG and ruined my joke because it does not run over there. It just shows the ants. What kid is going to want to eat plastic ants? So now it is not kid-friendly, and not funny at all.

"The couple otherwise has no children."

Anywise.

Let's take a closer look at those graphene microstructures.

Researchers at Rice grew these concentric hexagons from graphene using chemical vapor deposition.  They described them as onion rings.

I guess it's the layered nature of the ribbon structure, and how they're related to graphene "onions" developed a few years ago.  That, and it was just before lunch when they made their discovery.

It seems as though carbon nanotube and graphene advances are in the same class as fusion:  Commercial applications are just a few years away, and a few years from now, they'll still be a few years away.  These articles will promise near-frictionless surfaces hard as diamond with high PV factors and every other desirable physical characteristic you can think of, off the charts; and yet there's no shop to which I can send some aluminum parts, where they can apply a layer of it, even though they've been making these breakthroughs several times a year for over a decade.

Here's another interesting recent development in material sciences -- amorphous magnesium carbonate, which will supposedly be absorbent as all hell.

Nice view.

Wow.

More here.

Helen Thomas, dead at 92

In the spirit of not speaking ill of the dead, let it be noted that she was an interesting woman.

Really, my only major problem with her was her antisemitism cloaked as antizionism.  (It's not as though antizionists hate Jews...they'd just like to see them driven into the sea.)

This post might serve as a test bed to determine just how nasty comments might get.  She was someone's daughter once -- just bear that in mind.

Stardust Memories - Review

I took this picture of a NYT Book Review (review) left behind on a table for Dominic to find and read. 

"Dominic Read What A Low Life Sinatra Was"

It reminded me of an Althouse blog post of a note she found inside a book. The Note Althouse found in the book said...

Enjoy life : we are lucky, we live our lives in chapters... make your life a good long novel like this one! :)

There is more in the note Althouse found, but, you can read it for yourself.
 

I Looked up the Review Online to see if the cursively written review, I took a picture of, matched. Here is a small segment pertaining to what I believe Dominic was supposed to find.
 

Adventures in bourbon

Our drink of the evening:  The Old Fashioned.

This is a drink for gentlemen, by gentlemen, and don't ask for a cherry or I'll throttle you.  Let's begin:

You don't have to measure anything to make an Old Fashioned, so I won't give amounts, just ingredients.

This drink is mostly bourbon, so you'll need a good one.  Knob Creek is the best I've found.  If you like smokey stuff, Four Roses is OK.  If you're a woman, or you have a delicate constitution and enjoy embroidery and such, I suppose Maker's Mark will do.

Again, the bourbon is the key.  But you'll also need bitters (I use the old Angostura bitters), half an orange, some ginger ale, sugar, ice, and a muddler.  And the secret ingredient (more on that later).

Open Thread

Steve Hackett - Blood On The Rooftops

Tea Party does not like Lindsey Graham anymore

Per a mailing I saw. I keep hearing they're not a party. And yet. 

Because he did it again. 

By cutting back room deal with Harry Reid to allow Obama's extremist appointments to go through. They say but they do not specify which appointments they object to, maybe it's the thought of cooperation that galls.

They say they cannot proceed with primary challenge until they know they have enough cash to meet his huge campaign war chest. (in the form of accounts!)

Lindsey says: 

“The problem with the Tea Party, I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.” They seek a coherent vision for turning him out before they die.

If I'd been in Zimmerman's shoes, I'd be in prison today

This is an unlikely scenario, because I’m not civic-minded enough to join a neighborhood watch like Zimmerman did, but:  Had I been in George Zimmerman’s place on that rainy night in Sanford, Florida, there’s zero chance that I get the acquittal he did.  Facts in evidence:

 

1)  Just look at me, for fuck’s sake.

 

2)  I would have shot Martin before he ever reached me.

What's Inside a Rainstick?

This.

Seven traits that make a good blogger

Some say blogging is dead.

That's not quite true, not at all.  More like blogging has found its equilibrium point.

Places like Livejournal or Xanga, former major players, are losing ground (except, apparently in Russia). Other platforms like Facebook then Twitter then -- whatever it is the kids are using these days -- replaced most of the blogs.  And that allowed blogs to really become a focused form in their own right.

Most of us around here have been veterans of the world wide web since its beginnings and many of us were following blogs before they had that name.  I'm one of the former but not the latter.  It took me a while before I warmed to blogs, mostly because I was reading so much other stuff that I didn't want to get caught up in online rants and raves.

I started peeking into blogs around 2003, starting my own later in the year, but only followed a couple of friends.  Then Gore, oops, Kerry ran against Bush in 2004.  That's what got me, well, addicted to blog reading.  Instapundit among them, and from Instapundit to Althouse. Then, five or six or seven or more everyday.

After the election, I fasted blogs, finding the frenzy too much.  But slowly came back.   So, I've been around blogging for a while, and I've blogged myself since 2003, though rather inconsistently.

I'm not a good blogger, I'll admit that.  But what makes a good blogger?

Here are my suggestions:

1. prolific (a few posts a day or more)
2. consistent (every day or so for a long stretch of time)
3. insightful (bringing something new to the table either in ideas or phrasing that help others understand a situation or issue)
4. succinct (able to say much in a short amount of space)
5. communal (involving others through either links or comments or both)
6. specialist in something (provides an initial hook for new readers and a place to show expertise to regular readers).
7. right place, right time (clear voice in the midst of a crisis, key expert in a niche that needs an expert, early on the stage with a new approach, happens to get the notice of a gatekeeper)

Instapundit and Althouse, I suggest, model all of these and that's why they've been popular.  A lot of others do as well, and why they're popular. 

There's probably more than seven, and these seven can be parsed a fair amount. But seven is a good number -- a perfect number! -- so that's my list.

What do you think makes a good blogger?  

How bad is the IRS scandal?

This story hasn’t gained the traction I expected.  That’s an understatement – I thought this sort of abuse of power would unite left and right in self-righteous indignation.

Lurking leftist commenters, I summon thee.  Uncloak.

Maybe I’m naïve.  There are a half dozen scandals that have left the Obama administration unscathed, each of which I would have guessed would bring it down – or at least bring down its poll numbers.

But this weaponization of the IRS…it’s different.

"I am a spiritual magpie"

Justin Welby, the new archbishop of Canterbury.

While I quibble with some of the detaiils (speaking in tongues isn't a general Protestant thing, it's a Pentecostal thing), this is a very interesting article that covers a wide array of topics, giving us a sense of the man pretty quickly.

What's interesting is how similar he seems to the new Pope. Not in life story certainly, but in their theological position.  Both can be considered theological conservatives, an interesting move for these global churches, and one that belays the expectations that churches need to be more progressive in their theology -- the argument that liberals have been making since Schleiermacher.  In order for people to respect us, and come to faith, we have to put aside the miraculous and more silly sounding doctrines like the resurrection.  Now we have an Archbishop who speaks in tongues?!  Moving the opposite direction.

Yet, both the Archbishop and the Pope have incorporated progressive values in their priorities. Both highlight the need to work with the poor, and the need for a holistic ministry of the church. Yet, both have shown distrust for the socialist approaches. Rather than rhetoric, rather than big sweeping policies, they both seem to looking for on the ground ways to actually help those in need. Very pragmatic.

Both also seem to illustrate a new kind of humility and approachability.  The last holders of these positions were first theologians, academics who had a lot of very influential writings  that other academics quoted well before their rise to power. But academia tends to enforce a waffling, a priority of nuance that sees everything as complex but has trouble when confronted with situations of clear controversy or decision.

Yet both stepped down having set a continued tone for their various churches, and now both churches have new kinds of church leaders, who are in power but don't see their power as something to exploit but are taking on the attitudes of servants -- asking, "how can we be voices of hope and peace? How can we be followers of Jesus in the midst of the trials of this world?"

Very interesting era for these churches indeed.  Gives me hope.

Why is Holder Holding Up Zimmerman?

Hasn't George Zimmerman being trough enough?

The U.S. Department of Justice, overseen by Attorney General Erich* Holder, has ordered the Sanford, Florida police department to keep possession of all the evidence from George Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial - including the exonerated neighborhood watch volunteer's gun.

Sanford police confirmed on Thursday that the DOJ asked the agency not to return any pieces of evidence to their owners. Zimmerman was expected to get his firearm back by month's end.

Give him his property back!

Property rights used to mean a great deal in this country.

*Pollo's spelling. See his comment under brilliant. 

More Math, Less Fighting #3

This one is also from The Moscow Puzzles and expands on the idea of yesterday's problem.

White and Black 

Take 4 black and 4 white checkers (or 4 pennies and 4 other coins) and put them on a table in a row, white, black, white, black, and so on. Leave a vacant place at one end which can hold 2 checkers. After 4 moves, all the black checkers should be on one side and the white ones on the other. 

A move consists of shifting 2 adjacent checkers, keeping their order, into any vacant space.

Solution from the book to appear in the comments tomorrow.

Poulet En Cocotte, Sur Le Barbecue

I usually prepare my casserole-roasted chicken by first browning the flavored, trussed whole bird in a skillet, then sealing and slowly roasting it inside of one of my old French earthenware pots from Vallauris. Unfortunately my batterie de cuisine is packed away in a distant storage unit, and I'm adrift— homeless and unemployed— this summer.

In exchange for a week-or-so use of a couch, I'm doing the cooking at my temporary digs and, as there are no earthenware cocottes here, and the weather is fine, I've modified my usual technique to make use of a barbecue grill. The grill is makeshift; It's a broken propane-fueled grill which, through the removal of valves, hoses and regulators, and the addition of a bent sheet of steel, I've converted to charcoal use. The rôle of the earthenware poelon has been filled by a lovely old Griswold cast-iron kettle. The chicken is filled with flavorings, trussed, and then browned on the grid, right above the hot coals. The bird then goes into the kettle, along with a scatter of aromatic vegetables, and cooks for about 50 minutes.

The flavor of the cooked bird is different than the skillet/earthenware pan version: it's smoky, more savory, more assertive, and the juices from roasting and deglazing the kettle are dark brown instead of a light ochre color. If you've a grill, a casserole and a chicken, give it a try!

Recipe after the jump:

Open Thread

The Breakfast Club - Don't You (Forget About Me)

Stevie Wonder, nosoupforyou!

I love Stevie Wonder. I do. And now I'm sad. When I was a boy a friend put on the headphones and cranked up the stereo really REALLY HIGH so high it was loud in the room, it would have damaged anybody else, and he asked me to tell him what the words are so I did. And since then if I hear this song which is almost never my whole body automatically demands to sing it. I love his whole catalog.

And when I was over there on YouTube it showed me a praying mantis holding its space at the feeder. Wonder why YouTube would show me such an odd thing as this.



What am I, an ornithologist? If these guys notice the traffic and slap an ad on it I'm not gonna play anymore, 'cause Homey don't play dat. 

suddenly everybody started ironing

Amazon quietly removed George Orwell's 1984 from its Kindle e-book readers due to a copyright fraud thing going on there.

Wireless network.

Whispernet.

Schwing, deleted the books from people's devices and refunded the money they paid.

And that proves ... something!

You should always buy your books in pop-up form. Free from the doings of Whispernet.

io9 via Small Dead Animals.

Open Thread

John Sebastian - Welcome Back

 

It occurs to me that I haven't thanked the people that come and "lurk" and don't comment.

This post is my way of thanking you too. Including those of you that I have overlooked, those of you that have commented but I didn't acknowledge

**** 

Open Thread, means we talk about whatever we want, just like before.

Commenter Material

Ten Rules of Internet

Anil Dash's Ten Rules of Internet are getting a fair amount of attention recently.

I find Rule #6 and the second  bonus rule particularly interesting in light of recent events. Applicable? Maybe. 

What happens if a person breaks a rule?  The internet will count to ten?

No Discernable Qualifications

Our good friend, Instapundit, linked to an article by Peter Wood about Janet Napolitano being hired as the new head honcho of the University of California system, which means she's the boss at not 1, not 2, but upwards of 10 University of California campuses. Now, I suspect this is a bit like being hired as the President of the Federation of Planets: He or she is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the government, setting and coordinating foreign policy, and dealing with resource distribution issues.
The Federation President is also the commander-in-chief of all Starfleet University forces.

 That makes it sound like the role is a big deal, but in my memory of the show and movies, the President mostly spends a lot of time fretting while an intrepid, variously-rogue, group of Starfleet officers takes care of the actual problems. Which has no direct correlation but does make me wonder why the Presidents of each particular UC are paid so much.

Is this a President/Governor sort of situation? The President has a lot to do, or at least a lot he should be doing even if he spends much of his time looking annoyed and not doing things. The title of the article itself is "A Disastrous Choice." Which I don't have any quibbles with, except for the obvious hyperbole.

Napolitano is not going to cause California to break free from the continent, nor likely be the root cause for a plague of locust descending on the Central Valley. But, there's an argument for being a bad choice, probably lots of arguments.

 When Wood notes that she has "no discernible qualifications," however, I get to thinking the hyperbole is continuing.

 Now are they the best qualifications? Are they the most suitable for the present crises? Maybe not. But qualifications can in fact be discerned. She was governor of Arizona. She was in charge of Homeland Security. Two pretty big bureaucracies. Governor and Director are pretty important qualifications for managing a lot of different departments and a big budget and, possibly, the University forces. That's not why she was hired, though.

Why was she hired? What is she bringing to the table and why does it matter so much that they'd risk the clearly controversial choice (being that she has no background in Academia, and academics get feisty when someone moves in on their territory because there's a lot of jobs outside academia and only like five per year open up in academia).

I suspect there's a Federal funding interest here, but maybe the UC system is in fact planning to militarize and needed someone with civilian experience to lead the UC Junta. That may or may not be more disastrous than our present state government.

More Math, Less Fighting #2

Here's one from the beginning of The Moscow Puzzles by Boris A. Kordemsky.

Moving Checkers 

Place 6 checkers on a table in a row, alternating them black, white, black, white, [black, white.] 

Leave a vacant place large enough for 4 checkers on the left. 

Move the checkers so that all the white ones will end on the left, followed by all the black ones. The checkers must be moved in pairs, taking 2 adjacent checkers at a time, without disturbing their order, and sliding them to a vacant place. To solve this problem, only three such moves are necessary. ... 

If no checkers are available, use coins, or cut pieces out of paper or cardboard.

Or use paperclips or post-it notes or whatever. Solution from the book to appear in the comments of this post tomorrow.

Why the name change?

The name changed but the concept remains the same.
We want to have a place for commenting.
In an email exchange with Freeman, she said "Thank you so much for creating a new comment home!"
I thought, that's exactly what the place should be called. and my Picard said ... Make it so!

Again. As I said before. Its up to us to keep it. I'm doing my best to keep it alive. Fresh. People that disrespect what we are trying to do, will be asked to leave. I just decided.

I feel reborn

Yes. I feel the power growing and the glory surging through my veins. Buaaaahaaaahahaaaahaaaa.  Wait! That was a Newcastle I slugged. I forgot. That stuff goes straight to my head. This is a test. To see if this might be all some kind of strange dream.

Dropped in Legal Insurrection just now and Bill Jacksobson has a video up of Al Sharpton interviewing Rachel Jeantel and he said it makes her look better. Than before. On Piers Morgan.

So right off the bat there is all that going against it. MSNBC, Morgan, Al Sharpton, the talking punpkin. All the things I already said a firm ,"no mas" to.  My mind-editor, my personality-guard, the temperament-sentry, my internal peace-of-mind gendarme, my sturdy mechanical saturation valve all flew into activity but my I watched anyway. I was thinking, stay open, Mr Jacksobson said it makes her look good. See for yourself. I lasted a minute. It does no such thing. Nothing does. Every element is still pathetic. That minute reaffirmed my biases.

And Al Sharpton is 182 if he's a day. Someone over there said 59. They tore apart mummies that look better than that. Al Sharpton in sharper less leaner times where he explains, if you can stand it, how he manipulates media, but you know all of that already. Why aren't those stories covered, he asks? Indeed. I read there were four such shootings as Zimmermand did, in Chicago while the trial in Florida ran. Why drag Chicago into it? Because that is the style we are seeing.

People Get Ready

Nearly all of the old avatars are here. Hooray for that. And hooray for Lem!

Lem's made the place, but it's an awful lot of work to fill the space, so you'll now be seeing posts from time to time by guest bloggers. Hope you enjoy it.

-- Freeman Hunt

Rod Stewart - People Get Ready

Open Thread

Mono - Life in Mono

Open Thread

Open Thread is about whatever we want to talk about.

Hey Zeus

Amazing Grace, it took a day, I once was blind, but today I see.

The story of a man and a stand-up kayak and a dog named Zeus... and the way you say "Hey, Zeus" and it sounds like a Spanish "Jesus" and the light breaks through the clouds and we are all blessed.

Althouse has a little fun with my poor writing. la la la.  

I tried to insert the video but I could not, even though I'm a follower, I was blocked once again.

 

As a substitute let me cut and paste one of our very own Chip Ahoy video.

Pranked News

I started writing this post this morning, when I heard about it on Imus. I held back posting it because I wasn't sure we were going to take it in the humorous direction, which is so obviously the direction it should take. Now I feel a little more confident ... or something. 

 

San Francisco TV Station Reads Fake Names Of Asiana Flight Pilots

 

While looking for a filler, a complimentary filler. I found this... 

Asiana to sue San Fransisco  TV Station over names.

SEOUL, South Korea — Asiana announced Monday that it will sue a San Francisco TV station that it said damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco.

An anchor for KTVU-TV read the names on the air Friday and then apologized after a break. The report was accompanied by a graphic with the phony names listed alongside a photo of the burned-out plane that had crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, killing three and injuring dozens.

Video of the report has spread widely across the Internet since it was broadcast.

The National Transportation Safety Board has also apologized, saying a summer intern erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew.

Asiana has decided to sue KTVU-TV to "strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report" that disparaged Asians, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said. She said the airline will likely file suit in U.S. courts.

Althouse has not posted anything on this particular crash, or if she did I didn't find it. Other than a post about how crashes are more survivable now days. So, I'm going to go into Althouse's mind, like she asked us to do, more than a few times, and predict that this story would get a 'Law Suits I hope Will Fail' tag.
Deborah was suggesting tags in a previous thread and I remembered not being much of a tags directed commenter. Wile Commenter, an attitude which got me off track a few times, because I wandered off the tag reservation. Targeting my own thoughts with less strict scrutiny.

It is Official

Liz Cheney is running for pres... I mean... Liz Cheney is running for Congress.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney says she will run against Wyoming’s senior US senator in next year’s Republican primary.

She announced her campaign in a statement Tuesday, and the news was confirmed by her campaign manager, Kara Hearn.

Liz Cheney is 46 and the elder of Dick Cheney’s two daughters.

She has been in the public eye in recent years as a Fox News political commentator. Last year, Cheney and her husband bought a home in the posh northwest Wyoming community of Jackson Hole.

I'm noticing how the MSM is calling her Dick Cheney’s daughter everywhere. What could they possibly have in mind, that they are being so meticulous about her identity? Its not as if Liz Cheney doesn't have an established history of public service, of being in the public eye. Could it be that the MSM is afraid people are going to confuse Liz Cheney among the cadre of Cheney daughters in Cheyenne?

I love the Cheney Clan ... so maybe I shouldn't complain.

Specially now that Synova and Pogo are here.... Yay!

When Protected Groups are left Unprotected

Althouse noticed an inconvenient revelation in Rachel Jeantel's testimony, 3 weeks ago, when Rachel Jeantel (of 'creepy ass-cracker' fame) testified at the George Zimmerman trial.
An inconvenient revelation to the people that pushed for the trial.... mind-you.  

Last night on CNN's Piers Morgan, Althouse heard it again and says she was reluctant to talk about it : "I told you this 3 weeks ago, but Drudge flashes it today: Rachel Jeantel says she warned Trayvon Martin that Zimmerman could be a gay rapist."

I do remember that.

 

It turns out that it may have been Zimmerman, and not Trayvon Martin, that was profiled (Profiled mind-you) the night of the shooting, if Rachel Jeantel is to be believed. And that's a big IF, ladies and gentleman of the jury. Some reports said the prosecution had a hard time pinning her down on what exactly she had told Trayvon Martin over the phone, just before the shooting.

 

My question is, what do the leaders of a protected group say, when members of another protected group bashes them, in the name of defending the right to protect themselves?

 

Rush Limbaugh wondered something similar.

I thought, when I heard this last night, that that's all anybody'd be talking about today, because this throws this thing 180 degrees out of phase.  So now Trayvon Martin, who is the recipient of full-fledged, 100% victim status? It turns out could well be a gay basher, and the left has been defending him.  So what do they do?  They have two interest groups here that they represent and champion: African-Americans and homosexuals, and in this incident, the object of their affection (in this case, Trayvon Martin), might have thought he was being pursued by a gay guy and beat him up, or tried to.

The answer to my question is - nothing.... don't mind anybody.

Open Thread

Jeff Beck and Friends at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert 2009

I wasn't "feeling it" this morning. I mean, really? How many ways are there to beat a dead horse, no pun intended. So, I saw how Rh mentioned he got another fifty pound bag of brown rice and I went looking for a rice Music tune for this Open Thread. I found a Jeff Beck 'Rice Pudding' video, but it wasn't a live performance and it cut off before the tune ended. And then I saw this one, from the 2009 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concert, and it wasn't too bad. It just wasn't rice pudding that's all.

Open Thread means anything we want, including rice.

Ubiquitous Zimmerman Trayvon Thread

Eric Clapton - I Shot The Sheriff

"They Say They Want To Bring Me In Guilty"

Sign Says Speak Softly

NJ Transit

 

There were more signs but I could not cover them all in one shot. Including a couple of signs as reminders to the Bus driver. There was also one that said "Do Not Step In Front of the Bus".

I Got Fronted and it Feels Like A Hug

I checked in at the Big House Blog and There I was one more time. 'Fronted' because yesterday, one of us misinterpreted an Althouse vlog reference of the movie quote from Network (1976) - "I'm as Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going To Take it Anymore". The commenter thought that Althouse was saying she, herself, was mad at her commenters. When the reference was really about something else entirely.

I'm commenting up front to say I don't believe Althouse is Mad at her Commenters. You guys and I are her commenters, btw, that's how we started. I posted a Who Am I post and it barely broke 20 comments. Message received, not so loud but clear enough, I'm under no illusions.

Commenter Freeman Hunt asks a question in the James Bond Open Thread that feels somehow appropriate here, in some tangential lighthearted context that I know Althouse could stich together with the appropriate strings that get Betamax all excited.

"Is the Internet not the best venue for unemotional people to give hugs? I submit that it is."

And then she follows up...

"Or maybe my thinking is that immediate internal states are something you have but external states, immediate or otherwise, are something you choose."

And more...

"Emotions are wonderful."

"And no, I'm not talking about oneself versus the environment. I'm talking about how you feel inside versus what you express outside. Internally, people have immediate reactions to things. That's tough to choose at the moment of an event, but the pattern can be affected over time. Long term internal states are mostly chosen, I think. External states, apart from true reflexes, can be almost entirely chosen, in my opinion. (Then those go to affecting the pattern of internal states and so on.)"

After someone says she might be stoic, Freeman Responds...

"But I'm no pantheist. And I don't think that all emotions, even negative emotions, are bad.

But do I believe in the stiff upper lip? Sure."

Open Thread

James Bond Jagt Dr. No (Soundtrack)

Who Am I, Why Am I Here?

Like I have been saying in the comments, I'm a commenter who is trying to blog. I'm making this a place available for displaced Althouse commenters, like myself, to come and comment. In that spirit I'm going to link to blogs I used to read at Althouse, when those blogs posts things I'd Imagine we might want to read. Please feel free to make suggestions and make this place worth the effort.

IS POLITICO GOING THE WAY OF MSNBC? Conservative news site Daily Caller passes Politico in web traffic. 

My own politics, as many of you may already know, is staunchly conservative. Stemming from an intuited notion that we need to preserve the ways and means, sources and methods, continue to do the things that made us what Ronald Reagan called the shining city on a hill.

Maybe you want to discuss that. 

Open Thread

 

 

Dexter Gordon "Blue Bossa" (1976)

 

Open Thread means the same as it meant at Althouse.

Obama Weighs In On The Zimmerman Verdict

Obama Responds To Zimmerman Verdict: 'Stem The Tide of gun Violence' -- For Trayvon

"President Barack Obama issued a long-awaited response Sunday afternoon to the acquittal of George Zimmerman Saturday evening, reminding Americans to temper "passions," and that "we are a nation of laws and the jury has spoken."

He added that Americans should "honor" the life of Trayvon Martin by committing to "stem the tide of gun violence," and "ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion in our communities."

President Obama leaves no opportunity behind. I supposed once he immersed himself, at the beginning, in the days (or was it weeks?) following the shooting, he has no other choice now but to continue to score political points. Obama is unrelenting and unrestrained.

Althouse Parses Obama's Statements.

Your Butt is Wide, Well Mine Is Too

Professor Althouse ask's Did Zimmerman gain all that weight to aid in his post-acquittal disguise?

"So how does he change that face? One way is to drop the packed-on poundage, which bloated and puffed up his face. He can grow his hair and beard, wear glasses, adopt an alias, and relocate to some part of the country where people don't expect to see him. But by packing on over 100 pounds before the trial, he created a face that he now has the power to radically modify. That weight, because it was rapidly gained, should be relatively easy to drop. And, remember, there was evidence at trial that Zimmerman had previously worked hard at weight loss and his success was impressive."

Am I blogging off the fat ... how can I put this?

 

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Fat  

ADDED : Pollo has sent me an e-mail alerting me to an apparent problem with blogger.

"Lem, there seems to be a problem with comments disappearing, particularly in longer threads. Please address it or fix it. It's not fair to people who take the time to compose thoughts addressing specific questions." 

I don't know how to fix that. What I could suggest is to perhaps move the conversation to a newer post. I don't have concrete rules about commenting, except to ask that anonymous commenters please self identify so as to make it easer for other commenters to respond.  Thanks Pollo, Freman Hunt and Icepick for contributing your suggestions.

George Zimmerman Found Not Guilty

George Zimmerman found not guilty of murder in Trayvon Martin's death

"(CNN) -- George Zimmerman never denied shooting Trayvon Martin, but he said he did so in self defense. Late Saturday night, a Florida jury found him not guilty in the teenager's death.

The verdict caps a case that has inflamed passions for well over a year, much of it focused on race.

The six jurors -- all of them women -- deliberated for 16½ hours. Five of the women are white; one is a minority.

When he heard his fate, Zimmerman had little visible reaction. He turned and shook the hand of one of his attorneys before sitting back down, smiling only after court was adjourned."

Please feel free to comment your reaction to the verdict.