February 9, 2015

At the Deep Snow Café...

DSC03993

... everything is so thickly cushioned. It's hard to talk at all. But you can talk about anything you want here. Break that silence.

(And, please, if you've got some on-line shopping to do, enter Amazon through The Althouse Portal.)

55 comments:

pm317 said...

I got a glimpse of the video of Obama saying Christians/crusaders did it too.. Was he channeling Bill Clinton? What was with the theatrical, soft voice and such..I think he says these outrageous things to rile up his opponents. That way they are kept occupied and he does not have to do anything that is substantive. It is actually quite shameful.

pm317 said...

When we last had snow, our backyard looked like that picture and we saw a herd of 15-20 deer running through the woods on the slow -- you would not otherwise see them because they would blend with the scenery. It was a beautiful sight.

jimbino said...

OK, Ann,

I'm about to import thousands of dollars- worth of stuff to Brazil and--I'll make you a deal: stop censoring my legal posts and I'll buy through your portal. Just think: it won't cost you a cent and you will contribute to free expression on the internet.

tim in vermont said...

I have been on an original Star Trek binge, streaming from Amazon Prime, and Boy Howdy, Mad Men had nothing on Kirk, McCoy, and even Spock.

jimbino said...

Ann,

Do you not consider it your fiduciary duty to inform your correspondents of the amount of the kickback you get for their purchases on Amazon?

David said...

Phillip Seymour Hoffman's son is in the current Planter's Peanuts ad. Check it out. A perfect clone of "the smirk." He's uncredited, but there is no doubt who it is.

David said...

jimbino said...
Ann,

Do you not consider it your fiduciary duty to inform your correspondents of the amount of the kickback you get for their purchases on Amazon?


"Everybody know that."

"Well, did you know . . . "

tim in vermont said...

jimbino, do you know what "fiduciary" means?

pm317 said...

Net neutrality is not really net neutral Kind of like Affordable Care Act is not really affordable. I fear everything Obama touches. Even the school lunch programs -- I want to know who is making money off of mold and nameless meats? Really, this is one huge clusterfuck. Having seen corruption at its worst in India, I never thought I would see it to the extent I see here and now.

Wince said...

Maybe NBC could replace Brian Williams with Emily Litella...

"What's all this fuss about Jenner reassignment surgery! He was in a car accident, but he wasn't even injured!"

Oh... Never mind.

MadisonMan said...

This appeared on a friend's wall and has been making me chuckle all day.

jimbino said...

Yes, dear Tim in Vermont:

Definition

A fiduciary duty is a legal duty to act solely in another party's interests. Parties owing this duty are called fiduciaries. The individuals to whom they owe a duty are called principals. Fiduciaries may not profit from their relationship with their principals unless they have the principals' express informed consent. They also have a duty to avoid any conflicts of interest between themselves and their principals or between their principals and the fiduciaries' other clients. A fiduciary duty is the strictest duty of care recognized by the US legal system. Did Judas have a fiduciary duty to Jesus?

George M. Spencer said...

Interest to listen to and watch Obama in his latest video...the one in which he talks about "a bunch of folks [Jews]" being "shot in a deli."

I always get this sense that human life matters little to him, including the lives of Americans.

tim in vermont said...

A fiduciary duty is a legal duty to act solely in another party's interests.

So you think that applies here? To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, "she blogs real good for free."

Do you have some money invested in her blog? I hope not, talk about a risky venture.

pm317 said...

I always get this sense that human life matters little to him, including the lives of Americans.

No, it is a way of riling up his detractors and he does not have to do anything meaningful. He is an unserious guy least suited for the presidency of a country like this one.

retail lawyer said...

"Interest to listen to and watch Obama in his latest video...the one in which he talks about "a bunch of folks [Jews]" being "shot in a deli."

I always get this sense that human life matters little to him, including the lives of Americans."

St. George:
Anytime a politician uses the word, "folks", condescending BS is sure to follow. And I got the same sense you mentioned when I saw him yukking it up in a golf cart wearing shorts 6 minutes after speaking about the head chopped US journalists.

jimbino said...

It's both depressing but probably to be expected, that Ann Althouse, one of the most forthright, literate, fair and balanced bloggers, still censors comments that question her motives.

jimbino said...

Dear Tim in Vermont,

Whether or not a fiduciary duty is owed is ultimately up to a court to decide, but you would be surprised to find out where past courts have found fiduciary duty.

When they find it, it ends up expensive for the person, like Bernie Maddoff, who breached it.

Revenant said...

What I've found is that Ann tends to censor people who repeatedly aim disingenuous questions at her. jimbino's 6:35 question is a good example.

When confronted with a question like that, the host has three options:

1. Ignore it, letting an inaccurate implication pass unchallenged.

2. Respond, which takes more time than asking the question did, and which serves no purpose since the person doesn't really want an answer anyway.

3. Delete the question.

I don't see option 3 as "censorship". I see it as effective time management.

m stone said...

The Amazon Affiliates Program pays sellers like Ann 30% on sales. It's really no secret and not worth the discussion IMHO.

Amazon passes it's losses, partially on to buyers by increasing costs slightly, contrary to what anyone says. The price of doing business. Get used to it.

Titus said...

We received another two feet of snow today.

No T or Train Service on Tuesday.

We have five feet of snow in our fab city with another foot cumming on Thursday.

Everything is closed and I am horny.

The rare clumber has difficulty finding a spot to pinch a loaf.

tits.

Hagar said...

I think AA has previously - and more than once - stated she gets 7%.
33% is what your supermarket marks up in the drugs and houseware section. Supermarkets work on a final profit margin of 2 to 3%, which is very good business as long as they watch and mind the stores carefully to see that it does not go negative, which can easily happen.

Ann Althouse said...

I have no idea what jimbino is referring to.

I don't delete for viewpoint.

Hagar said...

Obama and his mouthpieces are at it again about how ISIS is not an "existensial threat" to the United States.
True enough, and I personally think that ISIS will destroy itself fairly shortly. The trouble is that ISIS is only a name for an ulcer that has broken out on the skin somewhere, but is due to a much larger internal disease in the Middle East. All that is needed is for a charismatic leader to emerge to unite all the factions, and "the Western World" will have real trouble.
Perhaps think of China after the collapse of the Manchu Empire and the fighting between the warlords until Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong arose, and then there was only Mao.
Think China does not pose an existential threat to anyone with interest in the Far East now?

Hagar said...

I think we are piling onto Brian Williams due to disgust with all of them, and he finally gave us an excuse to express our opinions about the whole kit and caboodle.
All of them - and their bosses up the line - should feel free to accept their share of the garbage being thrown at Williams.

Bob Ellison said...

Our stream froze over.

Bob Ellison said...

"Existtential" is the latest word. Those who use it don't mean or understand it. It's meaningful to Israel and to Islam and to swimmers facing a great white shark.

pm317 said...

Obama and his minions are always looking to see how they can get out something, everything politically. I have never seen such lazy ass incompetent bastards before. But I do believe that they are doing things to enrich themselves behind the scenes -- maybe that is what they mean by leading from behind. It is just that they don't care what happens to this country or the world and its people. There was a time everybody around the world looked up to America but not anymore.

chickelit said...

Ann Althouse said...I have no idea what jimbino is referring to.

He's a fiduciary barge.

William said...

I agree with Hagar. Williams deserves to lose his job, but he doesn't deserve to be drummed out of the human race.

Hagar said...

"Existential" is indeed a current "word," and "existential threat" might not apply to the United States, strictly speaking, as it certainly does for Israel; the whole country is not much larger than Valencia County, NM, used to be.
However, politically, Israel lies right off the tip of Long Island, and if Israel gets in real trouble, we will be right there, regardless of your or my opinion of the wisdom of such a move.
You, or some of the commenters hereon, say that if anyone drops a nuclear device into Israel, we will turn the country of origin into glass, but for one, it is unlikely that our government will go that far - especially this administration - and second, if it did, have you thought of what the world would be like afterward?

mccullough said...

Cool pic. Looks like a tree crime scene with the detectives and forensics trees encircling the felled tree murder victim.

Hagar said...

Plus which, the whole phrase is "existential threat, which is a little more tenuous. At the present, Russia is a nucler armed state attempting to re-create the Russian Empire, and that is not a stable situation.
China is a nuclear armed military dictatorship ruled by a junta bent on becoming the hegemon in East Asia and perhaps settling some old scores with Japan, Taiwan, and other places in addition to the U.S, and that is not a stable situation.
Pakistan is - what? - nuclear armed and obviously unstable plus being neurotic about India.
India appears stable, but who knows, and they are considerably worried about both Pakistan and China. And India is not chopped liver anymore - look up Tata subsidiaries!
Now add Iran, a militaristic theocracy on the march with nuclear-tipped ICBMs and intending to convert certainly all Sunnis, and then the rest of the world, and I think we just may have something that qualifies as an "existential threat."

wildswan said...

I saw a Cab Calloway movie the other day, one which he made himself. It was unlike any other movie made at the time or later. Not a masterpiece, it has some of the worst lines and editing I have ever kept on watching. But he made it himself about himself and it isn't quite what you see anywhere else.

FullMoon said...

Just saw Joan and Melissa Rivers on the Apprentice.
Pure Class.Dignity.

rcommal said...

Break that silence? LOL.

rcommal said...

So not.

rcommal said...

This also, omg

Robert Cook said...

"You, or some of the commenters hereon, say that if anyone drops a nuclear device into Israel, we will turn the country of origin into glass, but for one, it is unlikely that our government will go that far - especially this administration - and second, if it did, have you thought of what the world would be like afterward?"

Given that Israel has its own fairly substantial stockpile of (undeclared) nukes, we wouldn't have to retaliate against any country who might lob a nuke their way...they could "turn the country of origin into glass."

Ann Althouse said...

"I don't delete for viewpoint."

I do sometimes delete for repetitious, distracting things that I judge to be bad faith (which, in my use of the term on this blog, refers to commenters who have an ulterior purpose of ruining the conversation in the comments to this blog or hurting persons who are not present here and in the conversation).

Ann Althouse said...

That is, I can see a reason to take all of jimbino's comments out of this thread. I think he is in bad faith.

Let's see if he comes back and does anything to remedy my view of him.

Bob Ellison said...

Well, jimbino, that's pretty stupid. You should read what you quoted. And then sit down and think about it.

Laslo Spatula said...

"... everything is so thickly cushioned"

I already made the Sir Mix-A-Lot reference in the Beyonce post.


I am Laslo.

Tank said...

Shoveled another inch or so of Global Warming ice/sleet/hail off the sidewalk today. I hear they've had a record amount of Global Warming in the Boston area this year.

It's almost like the Global Warming industrial complex is manipulating the data.

wildswan said...

Reading elsewhere about Brian Williams and his defenders who claim that false memories can come to be, even a false memory of being shot at

and wondering how this theory of false memory plays into the rape stories now circulating on campuses. I mean that if Williams can remember falsely that he looked down the barrel of an RPG and that he saw missiles passing under his plane (Israeli story) and can remember falsely that he was threatened by gang members, got dysentery and saw a body floating face down (New Orleans story), if we accept this because agree that memories are constantly remoulded as time goes by then why should we accept the rape stories that hve no evidence and are only told months later. I mean maybe the person telling the rape story believes it by then, just like Williams, and maybe this belief is resulting in trauma but our understanding of memory would be that this women is moulding the story as time goes by, just like Williams, and the story is totally untrustworthy with respect to assessing the guilt of the guy involved simply because time has gone by. Such a story would be a "Williams".

It can't be both ways - Williams is lying or these rape stories are all untrustworthy (through no fault of the women involved).

wildswan said...

Reading elsewhere about Brian Williams and his defenders who claim that false memories can come to be, even a false memory of being shot at

and wondering how this theory of false memory plays into the rape stories now circulating on campuses. I mean that if Williams can remember falsely that he looked down the barrel of an RPG and that he saw missiles passing under his plane (Israeli story) and can remember falsely that he was threatened by gang members, got dysentery and saw a body floating face down (New Orleans story), if we accept this because agree that memories are constantly remoulded as time goes by then why should we accept the rape stories that hve no evidence and are only told months later. I mean maybe the person telling the rape story believes it by then, just like Williams, and maybe this belief is resulting in trauma but our understanding of memory would be that this women is moulding the story as time goes by, just like Williams, and the story is totally untrustworthy with respect to assessing the guilt of the guy involved simply because time has gone by. Such a story would be a "Williams".

It can't be both ways - Williams is lying or these rape stories are all untrustworthy (through no fault of the women involved).

West Town said...

Not snowing in Chicago; just a glaze of ice waiting for a slapstick routine(or broken bones and internal bleeding)

Laslo Spatula said...

I have false memories about Meade. False, repressed: one or the other.

I am Laslo.

Tank said...

Major Global Warming accident on the NJ Turnpike last night - lots of freezing Global Warming Rain.

Hagar said...

Cookie,
So far, Mao is the only "leader" crazy enough to consider nuclear war as an option, and Mao has been dead for almost 40 years. All these states now are relying on nuclear arms for security in a "Mutual Assured Destruction" world. That does not stop them from aggression with conventional arms. The only one of those I mentioned above that has any intention of "acting in a constructive role in the region" is India, and I am not too sure about India. As long as these "little wars" are going on and stirring up new and traditional hatreds, there is a fairly good chance that some nutcase somewhere sometime will have a crazy idea like 9/11 and make it happen, or more likely someone will make a mistake, or some minor piece of equipment will malfunction, and the fat will be in the fire.

If nuclear war is avoided, there is still the conventional wars or diplomacy by sanctions. We will presently experience the joys of an ILWU strike on the West Coast. China could institute "sanctions" on the United States and block all traffic in the Pacific, f. ex., and there is not much that we could do about it, if Obama has his way.

And so on. Choose your actors and let your imagination roam.

m stone said...
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m stone said...
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m stone said...

wondering how this theory of false memory plays into the rape stories now circulating on campuses

Don't dismiss the theory too quickly. David Bjorklund edited a book on the subject that I read. It is well documented and speaks to more than Williams or rape victims, even victims of pedophila.

"Because of the reconstructive nature of memory, some memories may be distorted through influences such as the incorporation of new information. There are also believed-in imaginings that are not based in historical reality..." The key word is "reconstructive." Memories are not reflections or permanent is what he's saying.

"A memory of your mother throwing a glass of milk on your father when in fact it was your father who threw the milk is a false memory based upon an actual experience."

http://www.amazon.com/False-memory-Creation-Children-Adults-Implications/dp/080583169X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423577080&sr=1-2&keywords=False-memory+creation

tim in vermont said...

All I know about "false memories" is that when I am in a conversation with people who are the hero of every story they tell, no matter how improbable the related outcome, I have usually also judged them to be of low IQ on other grounds, but their belief that nobody could figure out they were lying solidifies the judgement.

Just sayin' Brian.

rhhardin said...

Another hazard of romantic comedy DVDs is time-travel, which comes up more than you'd think.

Apparently it's a meme.