I’m sure some neophiles read James Lileks’ bleat. He was carjacked Tuesday and wrote about it on Wednesday’s bleat entry which was link’ed to on Instapundit, so some of you non-Lileks readers may have read about it there.
Today’s entry includes an attempt he made to use reddit to locate his car. He had the keyfob with him, so once the thieves turn it off they can’t restart it, so it is likely somewhere in Minneapolis. Well, Reddit took his post down and refused to even engage with him when asking why: https://lileks.com/bleats/archive/25/0725/24.html
Incredible! He links to lots of other reddit posts about stolen bicycles. I guess bicycles are the preferred mode of transport of the proletariat, so bicycle theft is not approved by reddit revolutionaries, but automobiles are used by the bourgeoisie so reddit aids and abets carjackers.
@Rufus:bicycle theft is not approved by reddit revolutionaries, but automobiles are used by the bourgeoisie so reddit aids and abets carjackers.
I think it’s that Lileks specifically was banned:
Got it. I’m one of those guys. Lower taxes and regulations, you know, a Nazi. I know I can comment on the sub, but two attempts to make a post were both deleted within seconds. The first was a be-on-the-lookout for a schizophrenic neighbor who had disappeared. Nope! Not from you. I know I am on a wide-spread ban list, because I once said something completely innocuous in the “Lockdown Skepticism” subreddit. Mind you, this was an anti-conspiracy theory / pro-vaccine subreddit, as per its rules, and concerned itself with the efficacy, length, and complications of the lockdowns. Just saying something in that room was enough to get me banned from a wide swath of utterly unrelated subreddits.
Those furniture designs in the video were ingenious. Which is an understatement.
I wish the link went to the original video without the narrator, but the commenters over there like him. The consensus (with which I agree) was: everything is amazing and I would never remember where I put stuff!
I like the ingenuity of all of the designs, but they might not be robust enough for a family, as opposed to the neat and careful singles demonstrating them.
@ miguel > Crabtree’s report was informative, but I didn’t find her color scheme all that interesting. 😉
It’s being reported that, in an effort to modify the weather, a company had aircraft seeding the clouds in Texas with silver iodide just two days before the horrific flooding there.
If it can be proven that these efforts were in any way responsible for this immense and quick acting flooding, I hope that hose responsible pay a heavy price. *
NOTE: I am going on a vacation the end of July, and will be either off the grid completely or reading sporadically. So, if I don’t respond to the usual scintillating conversation here, it’s not because I don’t love you all anymore!
Hopefully, no one will start WW3 this month, but I don’t try to predict anything about the news these days, other than that the Daily Event will be something totally obvious or completely unexpected.
@ Snow – horrific news if true, but a lot of those “confirmed” reports turn out to be premature, or at least requiring some “nuance,” once more information is acquired.
The CEO claims that their seeding was earlier in July, and the clouds affected would have dissipated before the deluge, but I am sure someone is going to look into verifying that claim, as he clearly has some interest in denying any relationship to the disaster.
I looked at the website of the cloud-seeding company. Cloud-seeding is commonly used for agricultural operations in drought conditions. They stop all operations when heavy rains are forecast. In this case, they halted all area operations two days before the disaster, which was caused by a tropical weather system coming up from Mexico. In any case, these seeding operations are not capable of causing this volume of precipitation. I think the idea that this could have caused the flood is outside the realm of practicality.
If cloud-seeding could produce that much rain, there’d never be drought anywhere ever again. It’s not even statistically certain that it does ANYTHING, much less create so much rain you get flash floods.
It doesnt they were the remnants of hurricane berry, cause and effect are lost on these people
Back to Lileks for a second, the tone of the commenters at Instapundit is quite a bit different from that here. I have not seen that neo does all that much moderating, I suppose those folks are self-selecting and so are we, here.
I don’t like using Disqus so that was always my barrier to entry with Instapundit, but after the comments on Lileks’ carjacking, and a few others I’ve seen, I don’t think I’m missing much.
I haven’t read most of the comments on the post about Lileks at Instapundit – but the commenters there generally are fairly different from here. I won’t have disqus comments here for many reasons, including the fact that I prefer to police this blog’s comments. Of course, although I have a great many commenters, Instapundit has a great deal more traffic and commenters, and so I understand the need for another system there. And yes, the tone is often quite different there.
I do ban people here from time to time, but fortunately it’s rare.
@neo:I do ban people here from time to time, but fortunately it’s rare.
I think blogs without comments are missing something essential. Thanks for doing the work to make comments possible here.
What Niketas Choniates (4:03 pm) just now said . . .
Unicorns seeded the clouds. We will never really know …..
@Barry Meislin: Interesting, a good chief of staff can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of leadership.
But I could do without “Trump is so energetic he works us all into the ground” (I paraphrase). We heard quite enough of that in the last administration. I hope Trump takes as much time to himself as he needs to be effective; he’s 79 and I hope he doesn’t work himself so hard he doesn’t survive his term.
Well that probably true in the case i dont know where he finds the time for everything
Glenn Beck had the cloud seeding guy on his radio show yesterday.
They seed a cloud that is present at the time of the seeding. Not something that is coming in a couple of days.
Indeed, but he’s undoubtedly one of those alpha workaholic types…with “miles to go before I sleep…”, especially since he was hog-tied so perfidiously during his first term.
(Probably not prone to delegate all that well either, which is why Wile’s such a vital cog.)
Has amazing energy not hobbled by debilitating self-reflection, which means nothing is out of bounds for him, nothing is too trivial, e.g., https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-naga-redskins/2025/07/10/id/1218347/
…though I think “Washington Commanders” is kind of saccharine and would have called ‘em the “the Washington Kickbacks” myself, though both names are far inferior to the original.
Speaking of which, there’s this gem (unpolished), albeit a bit puzzling, from the “Can’t Please Everyone” File…(cross-indexed with the “Huh??” File)….
(Didn’t even know he was IN Liberia…. When was the last time a POTUS even visited there? Maybe JFK…)
Niketas:
I realized long ago that without comments I wouldn’t be blogging.
I’d like to see post-POTUS Trump make an appearance at a Tony Robbins event.
Tony had Al Gore on after the 2000 election. He politely told Gore to stop complaining and take action.
Trump is more of a Tony guy.
It happened at the white house, they dont know how to say yes
@ Barry > “Liberians Confused and Angry after Trump’s ‘condescending’ Praise for Their Leader’s English”
Kvetchers always gonna kvetch, but it’s not a good way to get their aid back.
The official staff had a better response.
I’ve mentioned the Liberian family that I am friends with, and always admired their beautiful English — especially compared to what you get among college graduates today — but didn’t know it was their “native language,” although that makes sense.
I’m kinda slow I guess.
Hello, blog! I have a huge amount of vacation time to use before the end of the year. Does anyone have recommendations for mid- to late September? I was thinking of the opera in Dresden then.
How to help the survivors of the Texas Hill Country Floods:
Since its founding, Israel believed it could develop alliances with western countries because we shared the ancient values of our Judeo-Christian heritage. We also believed such alliances were natural joinings, since we Jews had much in common with Western Civilization.
…
For Israel is everything the western left hates. We are nationalistic, we are patriotic, we believe in the distinctiveness of our culture, we revel in our history, we are religious, we celebrate marriage and having children, and we believe in serving our country in uniform.
The West, however, no longer believes in any of these foundational virtues. In conversations with today’s young adults in the West, they repeat their mantra about seeking “quality of life,” rather than assuming the responsibilities of both adulthood and nationhood.
And because the long history of the Jews always repeats itself, the West hates the religion of Judaism for the same reason so many empires and dictators did. Which is because we will never bow down before the West’s leftist religion, this new paganism, but instead cling to our 3,500 year old faith.
…
The question is, with what countries should Israel join?
…
Simply put, the countries that need Israel, and we need them, are South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and, critically, India.
…
@ Rufus – interesting editorial. I was surprised that he didn’t mention that the Asian countries (excepting any with large Muslim populations) have no in-grained historic hatred for Jews – they are just another kind of foreigner.
At least some Jews fleeing the Holocaust ended up in the East, and some came earlier. They might not be fondly embraced by those who remember the opium-wars era, but they are unlikely to be singled out as a specific group separate from other Westerners. https://www.jewishindependent.ca/waves-of-jews-to-east-asia/
SD on July 10, 2025 at 9:34 pm said:
“How to help the survivors of the Texas Hill Country Floods”
I have added your link to my Excel tax file for future reference this year.
I saw a video purporting* to explain some of the tax features of the BBB. Among them is an allowance for charitable contributions above and beyond the (still increasing) basic standard deduction. I believe it is $1K for single filers and $2K for married joint filers.
This should allow almost all of us to provide some help to the USA flood victims of 2025.
I believe something similar was available for hurricane relief in tax year 2021? But only to the $300 or $600 level? Yes, line 12b on the 2021 Form 1040.
*Nothing is really official until we see it in the tax forms, but some of them are available earlier than their official release here: https://www.irs.gov/draft-tax-forms
Regarding Liberian English. I’ve never heard a Liberian speaking American English (or British English either).
We have a Liberian son, my wife has visited Liberia 7 times in the last 20 years. Our son is now speaking understandable English– but they have a form of English that isn’t understandable unless they’re speaking very slowly. Get them excited and it’s a foreign language.
And that includes the few educated Liberians we know. Liberia is one of the poorest countries on earth. China has been making inroads in the country as well as other African countries with their Belt and Road initiative. The country was completely destroyed during the civil war and has never recovered.
@Rufus:The Chinese have allowed Muslims to live and practice their religion in Xi’an for over 1,000 years
Lot of Muslims outside of Xi’an too. There’s about 10 million called Hui–ethnic Chinese but Muslim–and their most common personal name is Ma (Mohammed). I like to eat at Hui places when in China.
In ancient times all the practitioners of Abrahamic faiths in China were called Huihui, and distinguished by color: black for Christians, white for Muslims, blue for Jews.
In re sites for helping flood victims.
Some are legit, but there are warnings after every disaster to make sure the one you are donating to actually operates as advertised.
Also, my financial advisor urged caution on another front.
Be aware of natural disaster scams
Following a disaster, unlicensed contractors will canvas the impacted areas promising to get clean up or repairs done quickly. They may ask for payment up front and not show up to do the work, or have you sign a contract that redirects insurance payouts to them and not you.
Watch out for fake contractors:
Do your research; get multiple quotes for comparison, and make sure the contractors are licensed.
Use caution if you’re pressured to pay up front for the job or sign over the insurance claim. Contractors may try to offer special deals that seem too good to be true.
No matter where they say they’re from or who they’re representing, imposters have the same goal – to get you to pay them money or give them your personal or financial information.
Remember: Always ask for proof of ID and remember: if you’re asked for financial information, it could be a scam.
Fascinating.
So what’s the deal with the Uyghurs?
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I’m sure some neophiles read James Lileks’ bleat. He was carjacked Tuesday and wrote about it on Wednesday’s bleat entry which was link’ed to on Instapundit, so some of you non-Lileks readers may have read about it there.
Today’s entry includes an attempt he made to use reddit to locate his car. He had the keyfob with him, so once the thieves turn it off they can’t restart it, so it is likely somewhere in Minneapolis. Well, Reddit took his post down and refused to even engage with him when asking why: https://lileks.com/bleats/archive/25/0725/24.html
Incredible! He links to lots of other reddit posts about stolen bicycles. I guess bicycles are the preferred mode of transport of the proletariat, so bicycle theft is not approved by reddit revolutionaries, but automobiles are used by the bourgeoisie so reddit aids and abets carjackers.
@Rufus:bicycle theft is not approved by reddit revolutionaries, but automobiles are used by the bourgeoisie so reddit aids and abets carjackers.
I think it’s that Lileks specifically was banned:
Those furniture designs in the video were ingenious. Which is an understatement.
Interesting color scheme
https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1943349185279070574
I wish the link went to the original video without the narrator, but the commenters over there like him. The consensus (with which I agree) was: everything is amazing and I would never remember where I put stuff!
I like the ingenuity of all of the designs, but they might not be robust enough for a family, as opposed to the neat and careful singles demonstrating them.
@ miguel > Crabtree’s report was informative, but I didn’t find her color scheme all that interesting. 😉
It’s being reported that, in an effort to modify the weather, a company had aircraft seeding the clouds in Texas with silver iodide just two days before the horrific flooding there.
If it can be proven that these efforts were in any way responsible for this immense and quick acting flooding, I hope that hose responsible pay a heavy price. *
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/07/confirmed-ceo-weather-modification-company-reveals-cloud-seeding/
NOTE: I am going on a vacation the end of July, and will be either off the grid completely or reading sporadically. So, if I don’t respond to the usual scintillating conversation here, it’s not because I don’t love you all anymore!
Hopefully, no one will start WW3 this month, but I don’t try to predict anything about the news these days, other than that the Daily Event will be something totally obvious or completely unexpected.
@ Snow – horrific news if true, but a lot of those “confirmed” reports turn out to be premature, or at least requiring some “nuance,” once more information is acquired.
The CEO claims that their seeding was earlier in July, and the clouds affected would have dissipated before the deluge, but I am sure someone is going to look into verifying that claim, as he clearly has some interest in denying any relationship to the disaster.
I looked at the website of the cloud-seeding company. Cloud-seeding is commonly used for agricultural operations in drought conditions. They stop all operations when heavy rains are forecast. In this case, they halted all area operations two days before the disaster, which was caused by a tropical weather system coming up from Mexico. In any case, these seeding operations are not capable of causing this volume of precipitation. I think the idea that this could have caused the flood is outside the realm of practicality.
If cloud-seeding could produce that much rain, there’d never be drought anywhere ever again. It’s not even statistically certain that it does ANYTHING, much less create so much rain you get flash floods.
It doesnt they were the remnants of hurricane berry, cause and effect are lost on these people
Caroline Glick joins Mike and Gadi on Israel Update (1:09:42):
https://youtu.be/NV4TB8S0Brs
Back to Lileks for a second, the tone of the commenters at Instapundit is quite a bit different from that here. I have not seen that neo does all that much moderating, I suppose those folks are self-selecting and so are we, here.
I don’t like using Disqus so that was always my barrier to entry with Instapundit, but after the comments on Lileks’ carjacking, and a few others I’ve seen, I don’t think I’m missing much.
Discus is a crazy system
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-860524
Sra albanese is long due for her come uppance
Niketas:
I haven’t read most of the comments on the post about Lileks at Instapundit – but the commenters there generally are fairly different from here. I won’t have disqus comments here for many reasons, including the fact that I prefer to police this blog’s comments. Of course, although I have a great many commenters, Instapundit has a great deal more traffic and commenters, and so I understand the need for another system there. And yes, the tone is often quite different there.
I do ban people here from time to time, but fortunately it’s rare.
@neo:I do ban people here from time to time, but fortunately it’s rare.
I think blogs without comments are missing something essential. Thanks for doing the work to make comments possible here.
What Niketas Choniates (4:03 pm) just now said . . .
Unicorns seeded the clouds. We will never really know …..
Sure thats it
https://pjmedia.com/chris-queen/2025/07/10/the-mountain-dew-that-sank-the-dems-n4941621
This is what they are going with
https://x.com/SenEricSchmitt/status/1942314635186823310
What they have decided as their course of action
Some may find this of interest…or approaching fascinating, even:
Trump unplugged….
https://nypost.com/2025/07/09/opinion/miranda-devine-susie-wiles-brings-calm-to-trump-adminhelping-the-president-rack-up-wins/
H/T Powerline blog.
+ Bonus (in the form of a kind of sweet-‘n-sour reckoning)…
“OMB: Powell’s Fed Renovations May Have Violated Law”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/jerome-powell-omb-federal-reserve/2025/07/10/id/1218344/
Absolutely gobsmacking…
@Barry Meislin: Interesting, a good chief of staff can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of leadership.
But I could do without “Trump is so energetic he works us all into the ground” (I paraphrase). We heard quite enough of that in the last administration. I hope Trump takes as much time to himself as he needs to be effective; he’s 79 and I hope he doesn’t work himself so hard he doesn’t survive his term.
Well that probably true in the case i dont know where he finds the time for everything
Glenn Beck had the cloud seeding guy on his radio show yesterday.
They seed a cloud that is present at the time of the seeding. Not something that is coming in a couple of days.
Indeed, but he’s undoubtedly one of those alpha workaholic types…with “miles to go before I sleep…”, especially since he was hog-tied so perfidiously during his first term.
(Probably not prone to delegate all that well either, which is why Wile’s such a vital cog.)
Has amazing energy not hobbled by debilitating self-reflection, which means nothing is out of bounds for him, nothing is too trivial, e.g.,
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-naga-redskins/2025/07/10/id/1218347/
…though I think “Washington Commanders” is kind of saccharine and would have called ‘em the “the Washington Kickbacks” myself, though both names are far inferior to the original.
Speaking of which, there’s this gem (unpolished), albeit a bit puzzling, from the “Can’t Please Everyone” File…(cross-indexed with the “Huh??” File)….
“Liberians Confused and Angry after Trump’s ‘condescending’ Praise for Their Leader’s English”—
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/liberia-president-language-speaking-us-trump/2025/07/10/id/1218305/
(Didn’t even know he was IN Liberia…. When was the last time a POTUS even visited there? Maybe JFK…)
Niketas:
I realized long ago that without comments I wouldn’t be blogging.
I’d like to see post-POTUS Trump make an appearance at a Tony Robbins event.
Tony had Al Gore on after the 2000 election. He politely told Gore to stop complaining and take action.
Trump is more of a Tony guy.
It happened at the white house, they dont know how to say yes
@ Barry > “Liberians Confused and Angry after Trump’s ‘condescending’ Praise for Their Leader’s English”
Kvetchers always gonna kvetch, but it’s not a good way to get their aid back.
The official staff had a better response.
I’ve mentioned the Liberian family that I am friends with, and always admired their beautiful English — especially compared to what you get among college graduates today — but didn’t know it was their “native language,” although that makes sense.
I’m kinda slow I guess.
Hello, blog! I have a huge amount of vacation time to use before the end of the year. Does anyone have recommendations for mid- to late September? I was thinking of the opera in Dresden then.
How to help the survivors of the Texas Hill Country Floods:
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/07/how-to-help-survivors-of-texas-hill.html
This is from July 1, so maybe someone already linked it, but if not, it’s worth a read: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/410921
@ Rufus – interesting editorial. I was surprised that he didn’t mention that the Asian countries (excepting any with large Muslim populations) have no in-grained historic hatred for Jews – they are just another kind of foreigner.
At least some Jews fleeing the Holocaust ended up in the East, and some came earlier. They might not be fondly embraced by those who remember the opium-wars era, but they are unlikely to be singled out as a specific group separate from other Westerners.
https://www.jewishindependent.ca/waves-of-jews-to-east-asia/
On the other hand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_settlement_in_the_Empire_of_Japan
AesopFan,
The Chinese have allowed Muslims to live and practice their religion in Xi’an for over 1,000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an_Muslim_Quarter
SD on July 10, 2025 at 9:34 pm said:
“How to help the survivors of the Texas Hill Country Floods”
I have added your link to my Excel tax file for future reference this year.
I saw a video purporting* to explain some of the tax features of the BBB. Among them is an allowance for charitable contributions above and beyond the (still increasing) basic standard deduction. I believe it is $1K for single filers and $2K for married joint filers.
This should allow almost all of us to provide some help to the USA flood victims of 2025.
I believe something similar was available for hurricane relief in tax year 2021? But only to the $300 or $600 level? Yes, line 12b on the 2021 Form 1040.
*Nothing is really official until we see it in the tax forms, but some of them are available earlier than their official release here: https://www.irs.gov/draft-tax-forms
Regarding Liberian English. I’ve never heard a Liberian speaking American English (or British English either).
We have a Liberian son, my wife has visited Liberia 7 times in the last 20 years. Our son is now speaking understandable English– but they have a form of English that isn’t understandable unless they’re speaking very slowly. Get them excited and it’s a foreign language.
And that includes the few educated Liberians we know. Liberia is one of the poorest countries on earth. China has been making inroads in the country as well as other African countries with their Belt and Road initiative. The country was completely destroyed during the civil war and has never recovered.
@Rufus:The Chinese have allowed Muslims to live and practice their religion in Xi’an for over 1,000 years
Lot of Muslims outside of Xi’an too. There’s about 10 million called Hui–ethnic Chinese but Muslim–and their most common personal name is Ma (Mohammed). I like to eat at Hui places when in China.
In ancient times all the practitioners of Abrahamic faiths in China were called Huihui, and distinguished by color: black for Christians, white for Muslims, blue for Jews.
In re sites for helping flood victims.
Some are legit, but there are warnings after every disaster to make sure the one you are donating to actually operates as advertised.
Also, my financial advisor urged caution on another front.
Fascinating.
So what’s the deal with the Uyghurs?