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Home » Open thread 11/14/2025

Open thread 11/14/2025

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve always liked Andie MacDowell. And what’s more, she’s kind of got my hair, only longer:

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Open thread 11/14/2025 — 38 Comments

  1. I’ve always liked Andie MacDowell.

    Me too. She’s been very good in several movies. First time I really took notice of her was in Sex, Lies, and Videotape which rightfully won the top prize at Cannes. The entire cast is great, but especially her and James Spader.

  2. I like her, too.

    I currently watch a lot of British tv shows and I have noticed that a lot of English actresses are willing to let themselves age, and they look great. They don’t have the bizarre things going on with their faces that scream “I have had plastic surgery,” (and that remind me of the Kathryn Helmond character in “Brazil.”) As an aging woman myself, I love seeing them. They are still beautiful. And even if not a “beauty” (eg, Selina Cadell), they still look great. It makes me feel better about aging.

    BTW, Neo, as someone with straight hair, I have always thought that curly hair like Andie McDowell’s was gorgeous. Back in the 90’s all the guys I knew LOVED Elaine from Seinfeld, and were effusive about her hair.

  3. “…..And what’s more, she’s kind of got my hair, only longer….”

    All that’s missing is the apple.

  4. Definitely Groundhot (as well as a superb actor).

    – – – – – – – –

    And moving along to sports, there’s this…
    …from the “Maybe He Should Think About Changing His First Name” File:

    “Adonai Mitchell’s Jets debut couldn’t have gone worse….”
    https://nypost.com/2025/11/14/sports/adonai-mitchells-jets-debut-goes-south-in-drop-filled-dud/

    Holy Personal Pronoun, Batman!
    (Though to be fair, he was pretty cleary pushed on that missed over-the-shoulder catch attempt, IF the ref had seen it. If he did, it SHOULD have been pretty easy for him to call “pass interference” on a mere mortal….)

    Definitely someone to watch out for in the future, no doubt about it…
    (“For I am a jealous wide receiver…?”)

  6. Andi McDowell is great, and I like the curly hair too.

    The video and topic reminds me of Dame Diana Rigg. She had both a beautiful and interesting face as well as being sexy with a more slender figure than the typical bombshells.

    She had long been an outspoken critic of feminism, saying in 1969, “Women are in a much stronger position than men.”
    – – – –
    Michael Parkinson, who first interviewed Rigg in 1972, described her as the most desirable woman he ever met, who “radiated a lustrous beauty”.
    – – – – –
    Quotes

    [on hitting middle age] I am devastated at what has happened. I have completely disappeared. I am totally invisible. I never really liked my sexy label but on the other hand, to disappear so totally is quite startling.
    – – – – – –
    I don’t go without make-up, though. I rather like that transformation in the morning from “I don’t want to look in the mirror”; then you start pulling yourself together. It’s a rather nice present to yourself that you can still do that.
    – – – – – –
    I had an eye job in my early forties. Someone took a photograph of me in a play, after I’d lost a lot of weight, and I did look like Miss Havisham. I thought, “I have to do something – I’m too young to look like this.” So I went and had an eyelift once the play was finished, and the doctor said that it would last only about eight years. I imagined after that it would all cave in with a terrible groaning sound, like scaffolding, but it didn’t, and I haven’t had anything done since. I look at women who are my age who look absolutely ravishing and I know they have had something done. Well, why not?
    – – – – – –
    The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That’s the only way to go. If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.
    – – – – – –
    I think women of my age are still attractive. Men of my age aren’t. They’ve got their cojones halfway to their knees. They have the same descent as boobs.

    Photo
    https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001671/mediaviewer/rm2656280833/?ref_=nmmi_mi_40_1

  8. Too much plastic surgery in the futile attempt to hold on to youthful beauty has destroyed the looks of many actresses. Ms. MacDowell appears to have avoided that. She also started out much more attractive than most of us and she is right there is still different beauty as you age.

    However, “Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.” Additionally this continues to be true even as you age. 40 can feel old when you are 40 but seems like youth with you are 59. With luck 59 will feel like youth sometime in my future. The power and beauty of your youth still exists, relatively, today from the perspective of a few years down the line.

  10. Says Harvard Astrophysicist Avi Loeb today–

    While he won’t say, at this point, that his conclusion is that 3I/Atlas is some sort of alien technology, what Loeb is now saying is that, given the 10 different anomalies that 3I/Atlas has displayed, he calculates that the chances of it being natural are one in 100 million.*

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDeMNJfR42Y&t=638s

    P.S. When 3I/Atlas made its closest passage to Mars, the cameras on NASA’s Mars orbiter should have been able to get the clearest images of 3I/Atlas that anyone has captured so far.

    Yet, 40 days after this event—and after even China has released the images it gathered, NASA has given a bunch of excuses as to why it has not yet released the images that it apparently captured.

    Why no release of images?

  12. Snow,

    There’s so much contradictory claims about 3I/atlas that it’s hard to believe anything. I’ve seen reasonable data that it’s an unusual, but probably natural interstellar object, to fantastic claims of LGMs about to invade. As Sagan warned, extraordinary claims have to have extraordinary evidence. So taking Occam’s razor at the present, I’ll go with strange, but natural, unless NASA et al really reveal something more tangible.

  13. Something else about Andie McDowell — it doesn’t appear as if she has been a smoker. NOT smoking helps with aging beautifully — you don’t get the same wrinkles are the mouth.

  14. physicsguy–I agree that there has been a lot of sensationalist crap posted about 3I/Atlas.

    For untold thousands of years, things in the sky have lent themselves to all sorts of interpretations, as people read all sorts of things and omens into them.

    It is true that Loeb has made a lot of videos about 3I/Atlas, often pointing out the rigidity of scientific orthodoxy, and it’s often stubborn reluctance to actually investigate and really accept anything new, or outside the boundaries of that orthodoxy.

    Nonetheless, I don’t think that, in all of his commentary, Loeb has been out, ahead of his skis.

    In the video linked above Loeb does list and explain the ten specific anomalies which have led him to his current conclusion about the likelihood of 3I/Atlas being a natural object and, while I am not a physicist or astronomer, to me these ten reasons do seem pretty understandable, logical, and credible.

  15. “Epstein, Maxwell & Giuffre: The Depraved Details”

    So it was great to read this past weekend that the minimal security prison where Trump moved Maxwell is working out so terrifically well for her. In letters to her family and lawyer, she says her new accommodations are “fantastic” and gushes over the special treatment she’s now getting.

    Wow — Trump totally knows what the MAGA base wants. Because if there’s one thing MAGA simply adores, it’s pedophiles. Especially when they’re (mostly) Democratic donors. They’ll go to the mat for those guys!

    Actually, I think that’s not what MAGA wants, at all.

    Warning: graphic content.
    https://anncoulter.com/2025/11/14/epstein-maxwell-giuffre-the-depraved-details/

  16. Whatever “it” is, McDowell has a lot of it. As did the aforementioned Diana Rigg. As does Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. Many others. Others like Joy Behar and her coven have lost it, assuming they ever had “it” in the first place, which is questionable. “It” is not external. Something inside is either there or isn’t. Perhaps “it” is a beneficial soul. Maybe that’s what “it” is.

    Speaking of Diana Rigg, here’s a playful little romp that always makes me smile, even if somewhat off topic. Sorry. Not really.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idtYckLIZnI&list=RDidtYckLIZnI&start_radio=1

  17. So I’m watching the movie Last Night in Soho not too long ago with Thomasin McKenzie, who’s wonderful. There’s an old woman in it and her face, particularly in close-up scenes, was driving me crazy. I kept saying to myself, I know that face – why? I had to pause the movie and check. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t Diana Rigg. Her last movie.

  18. I think if you stay slim, get lots of exercise, and maintain a healthy lifestyle, man or woman, you can remain attractive. (It also helps you live longer.) Most who lose their looks are overweight or otherwise out of shape. It’s mostly under your control, though not entirely, of course, since people can get sick regardless of lifestyle, but it definitely improves the odds.

  19. Tucker in the news (even more) with an expose of would be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks.
    ==
    Not buying.

  20. I thought Andie was great in “Michael” with the cigarette-smoking/beer drinking avenging angel John Travolta (“I’m not that kind of angel”) & William Hurt. And her very talented daughter Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) was raised in North Carolina with her siblings to avoid the LA influence. Good for Mom!

  21. My dear husband likes to find photos on the Daily Mail of heartthrobs from our youth and say, “Hey, Kate, you look a lot better than she does!” Sometimes I do, in fact, although not always; but I certainly appreciate his effort, prejudiced although I think it is.

  23. She has wonderful skin and complexion looking at that video. I would guess she’s in her 60’s. (i just looked it up, born in 1958). She must have great jeans.

  24. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – clearly.
    Line up any 10 attractive women on a stage and most men will be able to allocate the women into some ranking of best to least (relative) attractiveness based on their own personal male criteria. Those criteria will not all be the same, or of similar weight.

    Hopefully some of those criteria include assessments of perceived personality and not only physicality. [My mother was a 1st stage feminist 🙂 ]

    I presume women can do the same for 10 men, but I can’t really speak to that capability.

  25. Regarding cosmetic surgery, I always say “It’s better to look old than strange.”

  27. Lets say that 3I/Atlas is some sort of probe sent here by some NHI to scout Earth, us humans, and our capabilities–either its an actual ship, or a mass of rock–slap a propulsion system on it, embed some sensor technology–and there you go.

    Set up it’s unlikely trajectory on the plane with and to pass by several planets, but so far from sparse and relatively primitive human sensors that humans can likely never really get enough visual confirmation or sensor data to be able to determine–with a high degree of certainty–just what your probe actually is.

    Moreover, rely on the stubbornness of the human scientific establishment to never accept the evidence actually gathered for what it might actually be.

    From a NHI perspective, if this is what is really going on, it seems like a pretty perfect situation for them.

    They get the data they want, we humans just get baffled, confused, and argue a lot, never really sure what actually happened.

  28. I have to go with AD; even in her youth she was never “my type”. Good actress, and I appreciate her take on aging, but….

  29. Snow on Pine: Lets say that 3I/Atlas is some sort of probe sent here by some NHI to scout Earth, us humans, and our capabilities …

    Please explain why Earth and Humans are sufficiently interesting to a non-human intelligence capable of sending such a probe. Sincere question. I really don’t see why.

  30. AppleBetty–

    The question of why any presumably advanced NHI might be interested in us humans and in the Earth is of course a key one.

    Despite the fertile and very prolific imaginings of science fiction writers, the only examples we really have of motives and linked behaviors are human ones and, outside of those examples, we can speculate, but we cannot really know or fully anticipate under what evolutionary pressures, physical environments, and social pressures, under what imperatives the mindsets and values of any particular species of NHIs might have been shaped; what they value, need, and want, and perhaps desperately so.

    With the above in mind, it seems to me that we can divide possible NHI motives into those which—from our human perspective–might be considered benign, those which might be considered neural, those which might be considered malign, and, finally, those which might just be totally incomprehensible from our human perspective.

    Benign—the NHIs are here to rescue us from our bad decisions, and/or to help us “mature,” and to guide us into a much brighter future (of course, as “they” might define a “brighter future”).

    Neutral—NHIs have no particular interest in helping us humans in any major way, and if we screw ourselves or our planet up in any major—possibly irreversible way—that is our problem, they just might just want to trade with us.

    Alternatively, perhaps they find our antics highly amusing, and we are nothing more than a source of entertainment for them; Jerry Springer writ large, on a world-wide scale.

    Malign—NHIs are here to take over, to replace us, and/or to steal everything they can, to strip mine our solar system, they can no longer reproduce themselves and need to steal our DNA to create hybrids, and/or perhaps they just want to enslave us all, or we humans are just meat, a food source.

    What might NHIs value and want?

    Vital things they don’t have—enough water, certain minerals, our entire working biosphere, humans as a food source, animals, various biological organisms, and human DNA to work with.

    Possibly unique things which might be of interest to a jaded and bored NHI—human art, music and musical instruments, cuisine or particular spices, or literature, unique human technology, ancient artifacts, religious art, objects which are hand crafted.

    Incomprehensible—things which are colored cerulean blue, Paprika, a particular color of Jade, a particular tartan cloth, birds which talk, chess pieces, cats or dogs, ordinary kitchen equipment, smells which to them are pornographic, etc. etc.

  31. P.S.—You often hear the argument made that it just wouldn’t make sense for beings from other solar systems to travel here to our solar system and to Earth, because it would take too long and, as well, be too hard a journey, and/or expensive in terms of manpower and resources.

    This, of course, assumes that any such interstellar travel must be arduous, time consuming, and expensive.

    But what if it isn’t any of those limiting things, and, that—in a NHI post-scarcity society— technological advancements and discoveries have made such interstellar travel relatively quick, cheap, and easy?

  32. P.S.S.—Another consideration in trying to understand possible NHIs may be any NHI’s longevity, what might be called their mental “clock speed,” and/or sense of time when compared to that of us humans.

    How might an entity which lived for 500, a thousand years, or which was, for all practical purposes, essentially immortal view and understand the life, viewpoint, reactions, concerns, and plans of us comparatively short-lived humans?

  33. More likely any ET is bio mechanical or wholly mechanical. Still no reason to come here except curiosity or fear. I am an ultra skeptic of visitors so far. Nothing presented to date is convincing to me. The HUD views are particularly unconvincing.

  34. Avi Loeb—3I/Atlas –the 12th anomaly (they’re piling up)

    Just now Harvard Astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb points out yet another 3I/Atlas anomaly, and that is that, despite 3I/Atlas having been calculated to rotate once every 16 hours or so, the seven or so jets of matter which have been observed shooting out from 3I/Atlas, and in different directions (one of them more than a million miles long) shoot out in straight lines, and are not perturbed, or effected, in any way, by this rotation, as you might expect them to be—their paths should be curved, or periodically interrupted–but they aren’t.*

    He won’t say it, but I will, sure looks, to me, like something artificial, technological—i.e. some sort of propulsion system.

    * See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3-ValCyq2c

  35. AppleBetty–Science fiction writers have offered up a myriad of reasons why a NHI civilization might want to visit or to look us over, one of them being that–given our rate of headlong scientific advancement–they may see us as a potential future threat or competitor to them, if and when we are capable of traveling to other and perhaps even their star system or systems, and they want to get “ahead of the curve.”

  36. ”Lets say that 3I/Atlas is some sort of probe sent here by some NHI to scout Earth…”

    So let me get this straight. For decades extraterrestrial craft have been visiting Earth, having thousands of direct encounters with us, playing cat-and-mouse games with our most advanced ships and airplanes, completely confounding them…AND these same extraterrestrials sent a probe completely indistinguishable from an icy rock to check us out from a distance, never coming within 100 million miles of our planet, lest we detect it?

    When every misshapen cloud is an alien spacecraft, it’s time to admit you are not engaging in rational thought. It’s a religion, however weird of one it might be.

  37. mkent—The Universe is currently estimated to be more than thirteen billion years old.

    The Milky Way alone has an almost innumerable number of stars in it, and it’s estimated that a high percentage of these stars have planets orbiting around them.

    Given these two facts, I believe that the chances of intelligent life arising—and some of that life spacefaring—seems pretty likely to me, and given this gigantic time scale, perhaps innumerable such civilizations have risen, for a while had their place in the sun, flourished and, then, fallen.

    If, indeed, there are currently space faring civilizations interested in us humans and in planet Earth, perhaps each one of what may perhaps be several different NHI civilizations has its own agenda, plans, methods, and technological capabilities—some very sophisticated, some perhaps less so, and perhaps they don’t “share.”

    One group of NHIs takes one approach with the tech it has available, another takes another one—one approach low tech, another much higher.

  38. I always liked Andie MacDowell as well and a few months ago I was thinking “Whatever happened to Andie McDowell”?

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