Thursday, May 20, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

5:32 a.m.

Posted: 20 May 2021 10:15 AM PDT

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Perhaps you're thinking that you'd like to get up and do a sunrise run but it's too hard in the lightest 3 months of the year. I hate to use an alarm clock, but maybe, like me, you have a brain that can wake itself up a few minutes before the alarm goes off. Just setting the alarm is enough to set the brain, and then you never hear the alarm. 

Another technique, and I like this better, is to sleep with the windows open and wake up when you hear the birds. How can you make your sleeping brain react to something you hear, something that's so much gentler than an alarm clock? I don't know, but try just thinking about doing that. It's worked for me lately, but only after using the alarm for a while. At first, I was waking up to the alarm. Then, I adjusted and woke up just before the alarm went off. Then, I readjusted and woke up when the birds "went off." 

This is an excellent arrangement for me. The birds seem to come on about 40 minutes before the sunrise time. That gives me 15 minutes to get from bed to car, 5 minutes to drive to my starting point, and 15 minutes to get to the place you see in my photograph... with 5 extra minutes for gazing into the sky before the sun crosses into view.

"I'm a girl and I don't understand why other girls are obsessed with eyebrows. Can someone please explain."

Posted: 20 May 2021 07:41 AM PDT

"It's not only a girl thing! Many people like to groom and apply makeup to their brows because it can change your whole face! Beautiful brows have the power to intensify your look and to kinda "put together" your facial features :)"/"They do a ton to shape someone's face. Just google 'celebrities without eyebrows' and see what a difference they make..." 

From a discussion in the Bad Makeup Artists subreddit. 

And I know my audience well enough to put this up so you don't feel you need to find it for me: 

 

 Secondary "Seinfeld" eyebrows clip: 

 

But do click on that "celebrities without eyebrows" link above. You may not "care" about eyebrows, and it's certainly true that some girls care too much about their eyebrows, but you will care about eyebrows.

"According to a new book, Obama called Trump a 'madman,' a 'racist, sexist pig,' 'that fucking lunatic' and a 'corrupt motherfucker.'"

Posted: 20 May 2021 07:42 AM PDT

 The Guardian reports. 

The book is "Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump" by Edward-Isaac Dovere. This is the same book that quotes Jill Biden saying that Kamala Harris should "go fuck herself."

According to the article, Dovere writes that Obama preferred Trump over Ted Cruz as the candidate, because he thought Cruz is much smarter than Trump. To that, I'd say that there are different forms of intelligence — Obama ought to know — and Cruz has strong conventional indicia of intelligence but Trump is some sort of genius. The challenge is to have enough intelligence of your own to discern what field of human endeavor is the dimension of Trump's genius. If you fall short, you will find Trump is a big idiot.

Later, Obama — speaking to "big donors" — said Trump  is "a madman." 

Obama also said things like "I didn't think it would be this bad," "I didn't think we'd have a racist, sexist pig," and "that fucking lunatic." I consider all those statements meaningless fluff... other than the "I didn't think," which I regard as Obama's excuse for not using his clout against Trump. Why give Obama money now when he didn't even help get Hillary elected?

"But there’s a deeper reason why a cerebral cultural figure like [J.D.] Vance would convert to Trump-style trolldom."

Posted: 20 May 2021 06:24 AM PDT

"In today's political and media culture, trolling is the shortest, simplest path to a level of attention you'd never get any other way. His fiery Twitter account is just the capstone on the gradual reinvention of J.D. Vance.... When Hillbilly Elegy was released in 2016, it was taken as a kind of Rosetta Stone to a world many in the left had never encountered, and Vance became a rare bipartisan figure that liberals could at once praise, pity and understand.... But...Vance became a Trump supporter. And with that, his tone and temperament appeared to shift, too, from conciliatory and unifying to aggressive and mocking. It wasn't just liberals losing a pet; anti-Trump Republicans have felt a similar sense of betrayal, as another onetime ally is lost to the dark side.... His new tone on Twitter shows that he's following the 45th president's playbook, covering for his lack of political experience with the emotion he can stoke from hot-button culture war issues.... What 'the game' entails has changed over time, but at this point, it's essentially a ping-pong match held over a viper pit... But Vance surely knows what he's doing.... That's why some of Vance's critics have approached his Twitter feed with the appropriate cynicism, and a suggestion that perhaps it was his old persona—and his high wire act of straddling two worlds—that was destined not to last."

 From "J.D. Is Making Everyone Mad on Twitter. Can It Win Him a Senate Seat? The author and Senate hopeful has a special knack at getting under liberals' skin and getting everyone to talk about him" by Joanna Weiss (Politico).

How fiery is this J.D. Vance Twitter feed? The main example quoted in the article is: "I'm in D.C. today and just saw a group of girls on the Potomac rowing—outside in the sunshine—all of them with masks on. Totally insane." That's called a "rant." It's kind of a rant to call it a rant. I'm surprised Vance got back-and-forth action on such a mundane tweet. 

I've followed Vance on Twitter for a while, and I've never been struck by any exaggerated trolling that deserves to be called a "game" and "a ping-pong match held over a viper pit." The Politico writer wants him to settle down, but why doesn't she settle down? (That's a rhetorical question. You know why.)

Okay, now I'm going to read the last few Vance tweets. Most recent (aimed at a Lincoln Project person): "Look if you guys want to come to Ohio it's a free country. Just don't bring your pedophile co-founder."

Next (about the NY Attorney General investigating Trump): "It's a total joke to pledge to bring charges before you've even investigated. You might even say it's a threat to Our Democracy." 

Now we get to the girls-on-the-Potomac tweet which, as noted in the article, got pushback. He put up 2 responses to the pushback. 

First, to someone who told him he shouldn't care what those girls did: "Living in a society where children are expected to wear masks while exercising in the sunshine absolutely affects me and my family. So yeah, I care." 

And to someone who accuses him of calling the girls insane: "This is literal fake news. I didn't call the girls insane. I'm sure they were doing what they were told. I think our society is insane for expecting children to wear masks outside while exercising." 

He was obviously right about everything here and thoroughly correct to defend himself from the distortions. It's not just a "game" where he's being a "troll" and cynically aping Trump. 

Now, I'm up to the 6th tweet (not counting retweets) as I work my way into his feed, and I'm already at May 14th, 6 days ago. That's one tweet per day. It's not like he's tearing up the place! No wonder I hadn't noticed his activity (though I was following him). 

I'll just embed this 6th tweet, so you can see the ludicrous Rachel Maddow clip he's reacting too. It's more about masks, and I can see why politicos would prefer to switch to vilifying Vance's vicious vituperativeness:

"This is something that happens in failed third world countries, not the United States. If you can run for a prosecutor’s office pledging to take out your enemies..."

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:57 AM PDT

"... and be elected to that job by partisan voters who wish to enact political retribution, then we are no longer a free constitutional democracy.... These investigations have also been going on for years with members and associates of the Trump Organization being viciously attacked, harassed, and threatened, in order to say anything bad about the 45th President of the United States..... These Democrat offices are consumed with this political and partisan Witch Hunt at a time when crime is up big in New York City.... But the District Attorney and Attorney General are possessed, at an unprecedented level, with destroying the political fortunes of President Donald J. Trump and the almost 75 million people who voted for him, by far the highest number ever received by a sitting President. That is what these investigations are all about—a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of the United States. Working in conjunction with Washington, these Democrats want to silence and cancel millions of voters because they don't want 'Trump' to run again."

Writes Donald Trump, at his blog.

"We generally have not awarded Pinocchios when researching how politicians speak about family myths and stories."

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:39 AM PDT

"We also do not play gotcha when a politician flubs a talking point they have gotten correct on other occasions. Biden went too far on Tuesday when he described his great-grandfather as a 'coal miner,' but during the presidential campaign he correctly labeled him a mining engineer. So this is not a repeat of 1988, when Biden repeatedly lifted lines from a British politician's speech and falsely said he had ancestors who worked 12 hours underground." 

Writes Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post, in the Fact Checker piece, "Biden's claim that his 'great-grandpop' was a coal miner."

Mendota at midday.

Posted: 19 May 2021 06:44 PM PDT

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