March 29, 2017

At the Narrow Gate Café...

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... you can talk about anything you want.

These are pictures I took in Arches National Park on March 10th. To get a sense of the scale, notice the human being standing between the rocks in both pictures.

And please think of using The Althouse Amazon Portal when you have shopping to do.

47 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...

Arches National Thigh Gap.

I am Laslo.

Robert J. said...

Thermopylae.

(Laslo, I miss pony-tail girl, who I am sure has a very fine thigh gap.)

Hagar said...

Man in shorts!

Hagar said...

I wonder if some of the extreme reaction of the Democrats to Trump is because for 80-85 years we have largely worked within the system that FDR built regardless of who held the White House or Congress, and Trump is a challenge to that whole worldview.

Michael K said...

Looks a little like "Beale's Cut," which used to be the way out of Los Angeles basin on the road north.

The steep pass was made easier for stagecoach traffic with a 30-foot (9.1 m) deep cut made by Phineas Banning in 1854 as part of a road he built to provide service to Fort Tejon. This slot-like roadway was called Beale's Cut,[2] and it appeared in many silent western movies.

I used to hike up there when I was in college.

Michael K said...

Hagar, I think you are correct and Obama was one tyrant too many.

Inga said...

New PPP polling. 53% of Americans say that if Trump worked with Russia during the campaign he should resign.

Kathryn51 said...

I'm glad Professor Ann retired because: (1) there are more posts during the day so I have a chance to comment before it reaches 100 comments and (2) there are more café posts which are frequently the most enjoyable except when hijacked by certain folks who shall remain unnamed. But, the number of hijacks appears to be diminishing (because they are hijacking earlier posts?).

So, since I have a couple of items sitting in my Amazon cart right now (been there a few days), I will now go through the portal and maybe the blog will get credit. Not really sure how it works, but I'll give it a try. (much to my chagrin, I forgot to use Althouse portal when I ordered my beautiful new Ivanka Trump tote bag (which is no longer available).

Sprezzatura said...

"I wonder if some of the extreme reaction of the Democrats to Trump is because for 80-85 years we have largely worked within the system that FDR built regardless of who held the White House or Congress, and Trump is a challenge to that whole worldview."

Maybe the smart, financially successful (in the 21st century world) parts of the country that (through fed gov redistribution among states/counties) support the DJT areas would rather not turn the whole country into a conservative dreamland. Y'all already have Mississippi. Con rule = lowest life expectancy from birth, lowest average income, highest obesity rates. It's a con policy dreamland! What more could ya ask for? But, it's not a great fit for the blue counties where folks do well w/o sticking a straw in the ground and having dough come out(Saudi Arabia style). Different strokes for different folks.

Inga said...

Should the FBI be investigating?

63% Necessary
33% Not Necessary

Ann Althouse said...

"So, since I have a couple of items sitting in my Amazon cart right now (been there a few days), I will now go through the portal and maybe the blog will get credit. Not really sure how it works, but I'll give it a try. (much to my chagrin, I forgot to use Althouse portal when I ordered my beautiful new Ivanka Trump tote bag (which is no longer available)."

If the things are already in the cart, going in through the portal won't work.

You'd have to empty the cart, then go in through the portal and do the whole transaction.

It also doesn't work to go in through the portal, put something in the cart, then go away and come back to complete the transaction.

But if you go in through the portal, everything that you click into the cart will count if you complete the transaction before clicking away.

Thanks for trying!

BJM said...

Whoa, does anyone else see the large blurred striding man in the center of the photo?

traditionalguy said...

Where are the 300 Spartans buried?

Hagar said...

The "Russian conspiracy" thing baffles me. I am sure the Russian government tried to influence our last election, but then who didn't?
In the past, I think the 1st French Republic was the first with the notorious Citizen Genet affair and I am not sure there has been an election since since when some foreign entity or other was not trying to get something. Great Britain trying to get some help in the last two World Wars come to mind, and of course the Germans trying to prevent that.
How about Israel and AIPAC? Ariel Sharon's political career was based on getting U.S. support, private and official, and things have not changed since.
How about George Soros? He is a naturalized American citizen, but his heart still seems to be in Hungary.
For that matter, how about the State of Norway contributing between 5 and 10 million dollars to the Clinton Library Foundation? And how many more millions since?

Meade said...

"New PPP polling. 53% of Americans say that if Trump worked with Russia during the campaign he should resign."

New 2016 election. 53% of American voters did not vote for Hillary Clinton.

Inga said...

Hopefully the Senate's investigation won't blow up like the House's. FBI still investigating.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/29/politics/senate-intelligence-committee-conference/

"(CNN)The Senate intelligence committee has asked 20 people to be questioned in its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the panel's chairman said Wednesday.

"This one is one of the biggest investigations the Hill has seen in my time here," Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said at a news conference with committee vice-chairman Mark Warner. Burr's been in the Senate since 2005, and served in the House since 1995."

Inga said...

Can't be President if guilty of some criminal activity. Wouldn't it be a damn shame if all those people who voted for Trump did it in vain?

Humperdink said...

"New PPP polling. 53% of Americans say that if Trump worked with Russia during the campaign he should resign."

I am sure he will. Prolly about Jan 21, 2025.

Hagar said...

Not so much about "tyrants" as a huge amorphous system where everybody "on the inside" gets at least a little of the action, and fighting the system gets to be a little like Peer Gynt and Bøygen on Hardangervidda.

Hagar said...

In a way Obama too was a challenge to FDR's system. He said he wanted to fundamentally transform America, and he sort of did in a Chicago way.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

The first time I saw any reference to what we now call "thigh gap", it was called "toblerone". Wish that had caught on..

Michael K said...

"53% of Americans say that if Trump worked with Russia during the campaign he should resign."

He didn't, Inga.

Hillary and Obama had a "reset" button. Even if the translation was wrong.

Obama said to the Russian Potemkin president, "Tell Vladimir this is my last election and I can be more flexible......"

Obama tried to block fracking and did block the pipeline. That helps Russia.

Trump supports fracking and pipelines. The idiot left is going to riot to stop the pipeline. That will shine a spotlight on the left's insanity and on who helps Russia.

The Democrats have gone insane on the Russia thing. We already know one Obama official who leaked secret surveillance data.


She is in deep trouble and a good AG will get her to spill her guts.

Former Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas, made some stunning admissions during an interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.

While discussing the mad scramble by the Obama administration to collect and preserve intelligence on alleged Russian election hacking before Obama left office, it appears that Farkas accidentally implicated the Obama White House in the surveillance of Trump's campaign staff:

The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence.
Furthermore, Farkas effectively corroborated a New York Times article from early March which cited "Former American officials" as their anonymous source regarding efforts to leak this surveillance on the Trump team to Democrats across Washington DC.

I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew they were trying to also get information to the hill.

That's why you have the leaking.


The Senate is not going to find any Russian cooperation that is illegal. Then the leakers will get a stay in the gray bar hotel. Those are felonies. The surveillance was not illegal, just the leaking of names.

Obama did this on purpose.

Michael K said...

I think Nunes has more info on leakers with an informant in the Secret Service. He is keeping him/her secret as he does not want another Seth Rich.

Rich was shot about a block from his home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C.[9][10][11][12] Police were alerted to gunfire at 4:20 am by an automated gunfire locator called ShotSpotter.[12][13] Rich was found conscious but later died in the hospital.[10] Newsweek reported that police said he may have been killed in an attempted robbery and that the neighborhood had recently been plagued by robberies. Although Rich's watch strap was torn, nothing had apparently been taken from him.

Vince Foster could not be reached for comment.

Hagar said...

FDR balanced the "Solid South" against northern big-city Blacks and the gentry Ivy League intelligentsia against "Big Labor."
The current Democratic Party has only the "black vote" and looniest of the intelligentsia left.
Thank you, Obama!

Sprezzatura said...

The first time I saw any reference to what we now call "thigh gap", it was called "toblerone". Wish that had caught on.

Actually, that could still be useful. "Thigh gap" is currently too vague. It means an all the way to the floor gap, and it also means the sort of triangle gap you're referring to.

Thigh gap could continue to mean full gap. Of course to qualify for this there must be rules. Gals can only push out their heals 18 degrees. Any more would result in stolen gap valor.

Naming the other gap after mass produced Mondelez candy seems like a mondo mistake. Perhaps it can be known as "thigh triangle."

I dunno.

Inga said...

Devin Nunes could be facing an ethics probe for spilling secrets.

"House rules compel Congress to ‘investigate any unauthorized disclosure of intelligence.’ That’s what the intel chair seems to have done when he talked about Team Trump and foreign surveillance."

Sprezzatura said...

"She is in deep trouble and a good AG will get her to spill her guts."

What's your POV re Flynn spilling his guts re FBI looking at his dealings/meetings/selling/etc? He seems to have gone underground for quite a while.



[If your daughter is the person interrogating him, so you can't talk about it, just wink.]


Michael K said...

Inga, you should read this explanation about what is going on in the "gang of 8."

You won't of course anymore than Schiff will read the briefing in the SCIF.

Couldn’t Adam Schiff (another gang of eight member) go look at the same intelligence as Nunes did?

Yes. However, purely from the standpoint of politics: why would he?

If Representative Schiff saw the same intelligence that substantiates Nunes he couldn’t keep up the fake outrage and false narrative. Right now Schiff can say anything about it he wants because he hasn’t seen it. If Schiff actually sees the intelligence Nunes saw he loses that ability. He would also lose the ability to criticize, ridicule and/or marginalize Devin Nunes.

The same political perspective applies to Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mark Warner. For each of them to see the information would eliminate their ability to talk about it, or criticize Nunes. The politics of the situation are more valuable so long as they don’t engage in actual truthful knowledge.


I know it is complicated.

Michael K said...

"What's your POV re Flynn spilling his guts re FBI looking at his dealings/meetings/selling/etc? He seems to have gone underground for quite a while."

I think some people will go to prison and they will be Democrats.

BN said...

Whenever I see some amazing geological phenomenon like this, I always think of politics and sex.

Don't you?

Sprezzatura said...

"I think some people will go to prison and they will be Democrats."

I just gave my HRC for prison bobble head a jiggle, in your honor.

Never deviating consistency is as thinking doesn't do.


Sprezzatura said...

"Whenever I see some amazing geological phenomenon like this, I always think of politics and sex."

It could be worse. I rolled out gauge theory in the Chelsea thread.

Inga said...

PB Good Person, rumors are he's cooperating with the Feds for immunity.

Inga said...

I thought Toblerone was an Italian candy.

BN said...

"It could be worse."

It is.

Michael K said...

I have my "Hillary Prison 2016" tee shirt ready to go.

Actually it says, 'Trump White House 2016
Hillary Big House 2016
Bernie Nut House 2016."

Original Mike said...

"House rules compel Congress to ‘investigate any unauthorized disclosure of intelligence.’ "

The irony is lost on this one.

jaed said...

Preëmptive note for anyone who is reminded by the similarity of Althouse's "Narrow Gate" title to the biblical phrase: It's "strait is the gate and narrow is the way".

Not "straight". "Strait".

That is all.

Original Mike said...

"I have my "Hillary Prison 2016" tee shirt ready to go."

There's a pub in Sydney called Fortune of War (it claims to be the oldest pub in Sydney). They have a chalk board out front on the sidewalk and everyday they out a new clever little saying. The morning after the US election it read:

"There is still hope for Hillary Clinton. Nelson Mandela became President after 27 years in prison!!!"

(Wish I could post my photo but I don't have a means to do that).

Sprezzatura said...

BTW, even you cons who cheerlead Althouse as she backs your POV must take, at least, a second take when she's earnestly jabbering about annoying Chelsea and impolite McCain. Not too mention that she's upset because she sees all sorts of folks who are upending American democracy because they're...er...dark and therefore democracy died...or...something about STFU non-DJTers or else you're ANTI-DEMOCRACY!

Ha ha.

Fussing about annoying/powerful Chelsea and impolite/impactful McCain is important and insightful (i.e., not a sideshow re actually influential stuff re Americans' lives.) Fussing about poor, abused DJT (aka POTUS) is ANTI-DEMOCRACY.


Got it.


Carry on.

Sprezzatura said...

FTR,

If we're having a swag off: I own the POS official MAGA hat ornament that is barely a heavier gauge than tin foil.

**mic drop**

Kathryn51 said...

Michael K said:
I think some people will go to prison and they will be Democrats.

I think some people SHOULD go to prison and they will be Democrats. They will hire David Kendall who seems to be able to blackmail/finagle/dupe fed prosecutors and FBI.

BN said...

"**mic drop**"

If a tree falls in outer space, does it talk politics?



Churchy LaFemme: said...

>If a tree falls in outer space, does it talk politics?

Nope

David Baker said...

I wish President Trump would make a show of ignoring the judge's order.

Rosa Marie Yoder said...

These photographs are remarkable.

I'm a simple Midwesterner who has never desired to vacation in that part of the country, preferring trees and water, and wildlife and wild flowers, gracing the hills and mountains.

Maybe there IS a good reason why cousin Virginia sold her beautiful log house in the middle of 5 wooded acres, leaving behind her only daughter and only grandchild, to move to the Southwest. Maybe.... These photos are getting me a little closer to acceptance.

David Baker said...

So, Senator Mark Warner (D) is up there trying to convince everyone that the Senate investigation is not another political witch-hunt to bring down President Trump.

I don't believe him.