Scary Soccer Moms

The worst thing about them is that they're so likeable. It makes it hard to remain devoted to the necessary purges.

Some highlights; you can read the whole thing if you want to see how far into the motte-and-bailey, our-position-is-the-only-rational-one stuff she is. Her position is the only rationally possible one, which makes their positions unintelligible even though she claims to have met with them and joined their Facebook groups.

"What exactly that last phrase ["without coercion"] means is ominously vague...."

"Before 2016, I always thought of Nazis as mainly historical villains that belonged in Indiana Jones movies or old news reels or the sad stories my grandfather told me. Now, however... I am aware that fascism is creeping back into the world at large in terrifying ways..."

Nazis, you say?

"No, I don’t understand that argument either." [It is indeed plain she did not understand their argument, because the one she ascribes to them is absurd.]

"I found the members were all stripes of Republican and I was pleasantly surprised to see opinion was not monolithic in the group...."

So, Nazis, right? 

"I caught a gleam in the woman’s eye I didn’t like. Was there some flirtation with insurrection being suggested here? What, exactly, was she saying?"

"Despite my uneasiness, I couldn’t help but find myself liking the women in the room. They were charismatic. They were energetic. They had no problem letting my low-functioning autistic son play with their children, which is unfortunately rare among a lot of the other mothers I’ve encountered. But this made me even more uneasy. I realized these women were dangerous precisely because they were so friendly."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that none of these women are dangerous by any standard I would normally recognize. While I'm out there, I'll lay down a wager that none of them are Nazis, either. Not remotely, in fact. I'll bet they're not even fascists in any reasonable sense of the word. Maybe just that one with the gleam in her eye. You can't tell about people like that, with gleams and stuff. 

Boxes

I'm nuts about clever boxes, but lack any affinity whatever for carpentry. It would be great if I had an acquaintance who would make a sorting box like this one, a one-off that apparently he didn't put into production.

Julekage

 

This year made with dehydrated blueberries reconstituted in honey, and a compound butter swirl. 

UPDATE: This turned into a discussion of military ethics and the law of war. Joel, if you happen to see this your opinion would be welcome. 

Yuletide

It has been the solar new year for an hour or so. Thus begins the Yuletide, which refers to the wheel (‘Jul’ or ‘Yule’) of the sun. 

Hot Buttered Rum

Come Christmas, I may try this. The compound butter sounds great. 

I'm sure he's quaking in his boots

Sen. Schumer vows to hold a record vote on Build Back Bonanzalooza in January so certain people will have to vote in the Senate and "not just on television." Somehow I doubt that Sen. Manchin fears blowback from the West Virginia voters who supported Trump, and now oppose BBB, by about 70%. Manchin and his voters apepar not to be impressed by the repeated claims that the Election Fraud Enabling Act is necessary to combat voter suppression, either. I'll still be on tenterhooks about both of these pieces of garbage legislation until the November 2022 midterms are over, but three months ago I wouldn't have dared to predict that things would be going this well.

Smoked Beer

Tonight I had a Rauchbier, which is a smoked lager from Germany. The argument is that until the Middle Ages all beer was like this. 

This stuff is amazing. I’ve never tasted anything like it. Medievalists and beer lovers alike should seek one out. 

This is what people who care about data sound like

NY Magazine ran a far better than average article about how to analyze the Omicron news coming out of South Africa and the UK. I got all the way through it without receiving the irritating impression that either the interviewer or his subject were trying to wrench the story in either direction: neither "Wake up, it's worse than you thought!" nor "Go back to sleep, it's nothing." They're just trying to figure out how to make sense of confusing data and make useful predictions.

Perhaps a Cheese Ball this Year

Garden & Gun has some Southern suggestions. 

Better than the Wine that Consoles the World

Gadsden Flags on Downing St

A glorious sight. 

Clever

 

Who could object to a cultural gathering?

Fake News Today

DB: “Pentagon leaders really struggling with performance review bullets this year."

Yuletide mayhem

Normally we're quiet as mice on Christmas. We like to have a Christmas Eve dinner for neighbors, but the day itself we like best to spend home alone together. This year, however, my husband's brother astonished us by suggesting that all his many children are scattered to the winds for one kind of visit or another, and that he and my sister-in-law would like to stay with us for four days over the holiday. That's a lot of family togetherness for a couple of cave-dwellers like us. Fortunately, they're pleasant people, but even better, I hear they're bringing four, count them, four dogs--two of their own and two belonging to an a traveling daughter of theirs. Now that's my idea of a visit! With our own dogs, that will make six dogs and five cats. It's six cats if you count the tom who's been hanging around lately applying for membership. The cats don't come in the house, though, which will limit the comic potential. I vividly remember a dog chasing a cat up the Christmas tree some three or four decades ago.

Old Country Sounds

While trying to dig out the Christmas music records, I went back through a collection of old singles -- 78s? -- that I found when cleaning out Dad's house. It was a collection buried in the back of the last place we cleaned out, the crawlspace under the stairs to the basement. There's a bunch of them. A few of them probably belonged to my young father, but I think most of them were my grandfather's. 

Here's a small sample.

That's Marty Robbins, 1957. Dad would have been eleven, so I think too young to like songs about lost love. My grandfather would have been in his forties, I guess.

1954, that one, Carl Smith having fun on the same theme.

1951. It amazes me a little to see the artist given on the record as simply "Hank Williams." 

Hank Thompson, not singing about lost love.

Les Paul and Mary Ford, 1951. That's the fellow whose gold-top guitar was one of only two wishes of a young Ray Wylie Hubbard. 

I wish I had a Wurlitzer jukebox to put these things in. I probably have enough to fill one, but I definitely don't have ten grand for anything I just want.

Great Moments in Progress

Headline: "Giant Kites That Drag Cargo Ships Across Oceans Go on Trial."

So we've re-invented sailing, but without the systematic rigging that would give you much control. 

Low Down Freedom

"Too much freedom makes young people feel unsafe and unprotected: a possible explanation of alarming myocarditis events." 

Did the UK suddenly become a lot more free this year? Must have been Brexit.

The polling must have been brutal

The Biden administration has withdrawn from negotiations to pay $450K to each illegal immigrant family traumatized by the experience of enforcement of the border laws. In other news, Build Back Bankrupt and the Election Fraud Enabling Act both apparently are on the rocks.

Mixed Feelings

On the one hand, I deeply disapprove of this kind of secret police stuff. On the other, this guy actually managed to take down a corrupt high public official. 

Latex Glove Bagpipes

A how-to video:

I dated a girl many years ago who was fascinated by music theory. At dinner one time, while we were chatting, she took out a small pocket knife and made a playable recorder with the straw in her drink. I don't remember the tune she played on it, and yeah the sound quality was what you would expect, but it was a recognizable tune. She made other impromptu instruments at times as well and even got me playing an instrument for a while.