There are times when I am doing something and I notice something else that should be done. Now, if I don’t do the thing I noticed, it will not get done for awhile, maybe I even forget about it. But, if I do the thing, then I will go back to what I was doing in the first place. Oh, I just remembered, I need to fold my clothes. I will come back to this comment.
I think this analysis by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh Is worth reading.
Tehran has a wartime advantage over Washington because the ruling Iranian elite wants to fight and has been willing to endure far more pain than Donald Trump has.
I’m reminded a bit of Tolstoy. He was very big on the notion that the decisive factor in a battle is who actually wants to fight, and who doesn’t.
Also in the WSJ – not the editorial page – I thought many here would be interested.
Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program.
New York progressive again ducks question on future ambitions and warns against prioritizing partisanship over search for ‘real’ solutions to problems of voters
Could Nikki Haley beat AOC? GOP has loads of great presidential candidates (J. D. “Bootlicker” Vance isn’t one)…
Not to worry!
Nicholas “they have no reason to lie” Kristof is all over this story!
“…Hamas planned massive October 7th attacks across Europe;
“Swiss newspaper reports Hamas had a years-long plot to carry out an October 7-style wave of coordinated terrorist attacks across Europe, targeting Israeli, Jewish, and Western institutions.”— https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/430526
I never tire of laughing at that video! I think it is one of my most-shared among my women friends. I was never one to get distracted from a task, but maybe about age 55 started developing this behavior by degrees. My sister and my daughter exhibited this behavior from earliest age. Ask my daughter to brush her teeth at age 7 and she would find many things to do along the way. My sister carried it into adulthood on steroids. My daughter is so high-energy and “can-do” that you wouldn’t notice it in her from college on, but only to marvel at how much she accomplishes in any given day.
Sandy Cortez was the daughter of an architect and grew up in a ranch house in an exurb on the periphery of Westchester County. I have a cousin who lives in the same township. Architects are not flush compared to others in professional-managerial employments, but her interaction with the world doesn’t suggest a daughter of the wage-earning stratum. Her family did suffer a financial reversal when her father died in 2004. It wasn’t so crippling that she elected to forego tertiary schooling.
== https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S04CGa44VP0
==
No, she did not attend any of New York’s antheap of public colleges. She attended a private research university in Boston. No, she did not receive an occupational degree, but an academic one. She was rather rudderless for the next seven years. At age 36, she has no children and hasn’t closed the deal with Riley.
==
Former President Joe Biden has been dealt a major blow in his quest to keep hidden the interviews which provided the basis of a previous memoir…
…Hur said that included in the evidence was a recorded conversation between Biden and his ghostwriter in which the President stated that he had just ‘found all the classified stuff downstairs.’
🙂 His next “memoir” is: ‘Promise Me, America’ … wonder how many he ‘plans’?
@Art Deco:Sandy Cortez was the daughter of an architect and grew up in a ranch house
Not news of course to most of us here, but this and Graham Platner and whatnot put me in mind of something.
For some reason it is very important for Dem politicians to LARP as working joes. But most Dem voters, at least the ones we see online, are not working joes, do not aspire to be working joes, and have no respect whatever for working joes. Their core voting bloc is middle-age Laptop-class women. So why do they put so much energy in grooming and applauding these fake ones? They certainly don’t want a real one in that position, but they want to pretend to want one. It’s very strange isn’t it? They must think they are fooling someone and deriving some advantage from it, but who?
“…and have no respect whatever for working joes.” Niketas Choniates
Democrats have been faux-populists, forever.
Barry, did the planned Hamas attacks include dog kennels?
If you still have stamina for more things Homeric, here are two reviews of Nolan’s “Odyssey:”
First, a strongly disapproving one by Dr. Scott Masson, whose video graced the open thread yesterday:
nik, it is because Trump stole their base. Trump’s two bedrock issues, trade and immigration, took the positions held for decades by the industrial labor unions that used to be the core of the Dem coalition. Dems took them for granted and thought they could win with the additional support of racial minorities and hip urban tech workers. But now they have become so disconnected from that original base that their idea of a “working class hero” is a nepo baby who went to a fancy prep school because he has a Nazi tattoo and abuses women. Not far from Obama’s “bitter clingers” come to think of it.
Now the minorities are ditching them too because they are not really thrilled with LGBTQWERTY or defunding the police. They’ve got the nose ring crowd locked up though. TDS begins with Dems refusing to acknowledge their own mistakes.
Just a comment on the historical appearance of Bronze Age Greeks (a.k.a., Achaeans, Danaans, Argives). These early Greeks had their fair share of fair-haired and red-haired men and women: see, e.g., the Atreides brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaus, i.e., “red-haired Menelaus.” As for Achilles, Google AI correctly informs us that “In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles is traditionally described as having blonde or fair hair. However, the ancient Greek word used to describe his hair is ‘xanthós’, which was a broad term. It encompassed a range of lighter hair colors, including golden blonde, light brown, or tawny, and scholars debate whether it actually implied a reddish or ginger hue.”
Further: “Achilles used the alias Pyrrha (meaning “flame-colored” or “red-haired”) when hiding among women. Furthermore, his son was named Pyrrhus.”
The term xanthós is also used for Helen. IOW, the woman with the face that launched a thousand ships was a blond.
Diane Kruger, it turns out, was a splendid choice for the role (in the movies “Troy”; as was Brad Pitt as Achilles.)
This was, historically, long before 400 years of Turkish occupation of Greece resulted in a native Greek population that, to a large extent, looked as Turkish as any Turk.
P.S. Liel Leibowitz’s piece on Nolan’s movie, mentioned previously in Jim Mechler’s post, is excellent, and gets to the nub of the matter concerning why many lovers of Homer’s epics (including yours truly) have strong objections to Nolan’s interpretation of the Odysssey.
I’m not as bad as this video, but I do have a tendency to put down what I was doing when I see something else to do with a perceived higher priority. This means my phone is somewhere in the house. I try to remember where I’ve been and track it down that way, resorting to “where’s my phone” on my Apple watch only when I’m really stumped.
One of the few things that I get annoyed with my wife over is getting distracted by non-critical path items over critical path items. She didn’t used to do that.
The Democratic Party does have wage earners in its portfolio. The wage earners in question are (1) blacks, (2) California chicanos, (3) Puerto Ricans, (4) recent entrants generally, and, above all, (5) single mothers. The smart money says the laptop class dingbats understand those in these categories as their clients. Graham Platner has been unable to build a domestic life or learn a trade worth hewing to, but I doubt he’s been lacking in female company in this life.
That video isn’t a joke as much as it is a documentary for me.
And heaven help me if I go to the store and do NOT park in my usual spot – I’ll come out and think someone stole my car.
Sadly, this isn’t an age thing for me as I have so often done this kind of stuff all my life.
@Niketas Choniates: For some reason it is very important for Dem politicians to LARP as working joes.
Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent video addressing this:
Summary: The white working-class is too large a demographic to ignore, but Dems have been steadily losing them since JFK. Of that group, Trump won 66% (!) in 2024.
At this point Dems have little margin left and must make some effort to win back some of the working-class. Hence, the search for such a candidate.
However, given the D platform — left and getting lefter — all they can find are fake working-class candidates.
This is why, as unpleasant as I find the DSA/Squad people, I see them more as a serious, perhaps fatal, problem for the Democrats.
@huxley:At this point Dems have little margin left and must make some effort to win back some of the working-class.
You and Art Deco are probably right, but I don’t understand why they think this would work on the white working class, spending 99.9% of their time and energy bashing it and then finding a fake member to pretend they care about it. But that end of the political spectrum is most apt to think they can speak reality into being if they all just say the same thing at the same time very loudly and very often.
It reminds me of the wink-wink-nudge-nudge around Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s “opposition” to same-sex marriage in 2008. Every single progressive that I ever asked about it–why isn’t this a deal-breaker–assured me that both of them were simply lying for the sake of the election, and would reveal their true opinions afterward, and they were totally okay with this. They had no doubt they were not the ones being lied to, though they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me how they knew it.
Back in the 2000s Democrats were riding high on the book “Emerging Democratic Majority” (Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis 2002), which said the changing demographics towards minorities, young people, college-educated professionals, and single women would effortlessly create a lasting, Democrat voting majority.
However, the fly in that ointment was that too many working-class and Hispanic Democrat voters shifted Republican, a process which has continued.
So if normal demographics weren’t going to win for Democrats, they would forcefully change the demographics by flooding the border with illegal immigrants.
Once Trump stopped that, Democrats put their full force behind preventing deportation of illegals, even criminals.
It’s long been strange to me that there has been almost no discussion at the mainstream level of illegal immigration as a method to stack US demographics in favor of Democrats.
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There are times when I am doing something and I notice something else that should be done. Now, if I don’t do the thing I noticed, it will not get done for awhile, maybe I even forget about it. But, if I do the thing, then I will go back to what I was doing in the first place. Oh, I just remembered, I need to fold my clothes. I will come back to this comment.
I think this analysis by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh Is worth reading.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/irans-fortitude-is-its-decisive-edge-bc4af7cb?st=1BBoyV
I’m reminded a bit of Tolstoy. He was very big on the notion that the decisive factor in a battle is who actually wants to fight, and who doesn’t.
Also in the WSJ – not the editorial page – I thought many here would be interested.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-believes-iran-moved-nuclear-centrifuges-into-pickaxe-mountain-d29d21c0?st=go3JY7
Not surprising I suppose.
AOC says she ‘hasn’t ruled out a 2028 run’ as she faces criticism: ‘I’m working class not a militant leftist’
Could Nikki Haley beat AOC? GOP has loads of great presidential candidates (J. D. “Bootlicker” Vance isn’t one)…
Not to worry!
Nicholas “they have no reason to lie” Kristof is all over this story!
“…Hamas planned massive October 7th attacks across Europe;
“Swiss newspaper reports Hamas had a years-long plot to carry out an October 7-style wave of coordinated terrorist attacks across Europe, targeting Israeli, Jewish, and Western institutions.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/430526
I never tire of laughing at that video! I think it is one of my most-shared among my women friends. I was never one to get distracted from a task, but maybe about age 55 started developing this behavior by degrees. My sister and my daughter exhibited this behavior from earliest age. Ask my daughter to brush her teeth at age 7 and she would find many things to do along the way. My sister carried it into adulthood on steroids. My daughter is so high-energy and “can-do” that you wouldn’t notice it in her from college on, but only to marvel at how much she accomplishes in any given day.
Sandy Cortez was the daughter of an architect and grew up in a ranch house in an exurb on the periphery of Westchester County. I have a cousin who lives in the same township. Architects are not flush compared to others in professional-managerial employments, but her interaction with the world doesn’t suggest a daughter of the wage-earning stratum. Her family did suffer a financial reversal when her father died in 2004. It wasn’t so crippling that she elected to forego tertiary schooling.
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S04CGa44VP0
==
No, she did not attend any of New York’s antheap of public colleges. She attended a private research university in Boston. No, she did not receive an occupational degree, but an academic one. She was rather rudderless for the next seven years. At age 36, she has no children and hasn’t closed the deal with Riley.
==
Secret Biden tapes from bombshell classified documents probe on brink of release after court crushes his frantic bid
🙂 His next “memoir” is: ‘Promise Me, America’ … wonder how many he ‘plans’?
@Art Deco:Sandy Cortez was the daughter of an architect and grew up in a ranch house
Not news of course to most of us here, but this and Graham Platner and whatnot put me in mind of something.
For some reason it is very important for Dem politicians to LARP as working joes. But most Dem voters, at least the ones we see online, are not working joes, do not aspire to be working joes, and have no respect whatever for working joes. Their core voting bloc is middle-age Laptop-class women. So why do they put so much energy in grooming and applauding these fake ones? They certainly don’t want a real one in that position, but they want to pretend to want one. It’s very strange isn’t it? They must think they are fooling someone and deriving some advantage from it, but who?
“…and have no respect whatever for working joes.” Niketas Choniates
Democrats have been faux-populists, forever.
Barry, did the planned Hamas attacks include dog kennels?
If you still have stamina for more things Homeric, here are two reviews of Nolan’s “Odyssey:”
First, a strongly disapproving one by Dr. Scott Masson, whose video graced the open thread yesterday:
https://open.substack.com/pub/drscottmasson/p/nolans-odyssey?r=6y797g&utm_medium=ios
This one, on The Tablet, by Liel Leibowitz, wildly approves, but has a nice, solid critique in the middle that very nearly belies his conclusion:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/christopher-nolan-odyssey-mostly-pro
(HT Powerline)
nik, it is because Trump stole their base. Trump’s two bedrock issues, trade and immigration, took the positions held for decades by the industrial labor unions that used to be the core of the Dem coalition. Dems took them for granted and thought they could win with the additional support of racial minorities and hip urban tech workers. But now they have become so disconnected from that original base that their idea of a “working class hero” is a nepo baby who went to a fancy prep school because he has a Nazi tattoo and abuses women. Not far from Obama’s “bitter clingers” come to think of it.
Now the minorities are ditching them too because they are not really thrilled with LGBTQWERTY or defunding the police. They’ve got the nose ring crowd locked up though. TDS begins with Dems refusing to acknowledge their own mistakes.
Just a comment on the historical appearance of Bronze Age Greeks (a.k.a., Achaeans, Danaans, Argives). These early Greeks had their fair share of fair-haired and red-haired men and women: see, e.g., the Atreides brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaus, i.e., “red-haired Menelaus.” As for Achilles, Google AI correctly informs us that “In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles is traditionally described as having blonde or fair hair. However, the ancient Greek word used to describe his hair is ‘xanthós’, which was a broad term. It encompassed a range of lighter hair colors, including golden blonde, light brown, or tawny, and scholars debate whether it actually implied a reddish or ginger hue.”
Further: “Achilles used the alias Pyrrha (meaning “flame-colored” or “red-haired”) when hiding among women. Furthermore, his son was named Pyrrhus.”
The term xanthós is also used for Helen. IOW, the woman with the face that launched a thousand ships was a blond.
Diane Kruger, it turns out, was a splendid choice for the role (in the movies “Troy”; as was Brad Pitt as Achilles.)
This was, historically, long before 400 years of Turkish occupation of Greece resulted in a native Greek population that, to a large extent, looked as Turkish as any Turk.
P.S. Liel Leibowitz’s piece on Nolan’s movie, mentioned previously in Jim Mechler’s post, is excellent, and gets to the nub of the matter concerning why many lovers of Homer’s epics (including yours truly) have strong objections to Nolan’s interpretation of the Odysssey.
I’m not as bad as this video, but I do have a tendency to put down what I was doing when I see something else to do with a perceived higher priority. This means my phone is somewhere in the house. I try to remember where I’ve been and track it down that way, resorting to “where’s my phone” on my Apple watch only when I’m really stumped.
One of the few things that I get annoyed with my wife over is getting distracted by non-critical path items over critical path items. She didn’t used to do that.
I decided to follow up on this one. The courts are a scandal in North Dakota, too.
==
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shannon-brandt-5-years-prison-death-cayler-ellingson-north-dakota/
The Democratic Party does have wage earners in its portfolio. The wage earners in question are (1) blacks, (2) California chicanos, (3) Puerto Ricans, (4) recent entrants generally, and, above all, (5) single mothers. The smart money says the laptop class dingbats understand those in these categories as their clients. Graham Platner has been unable to build a domestic life or learn a trade worth hewing to, but I doubt he’s been lacking in female company in this life.
That video isn’t a joke as much as it is a documentary for me.
And heaven help me if I go to the store and do NOT park in my usual spot – I’ll come out and think someone stole my car.
Sadly, this isn’t an age thing for me as I have so often done this kind of stuff all my life.
@Niketas Choniates: For some reason it is very important for Dem politicians to LARP as working joes.
Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent video addressing this:
–“Victor Davis Hanson: The Left’s Search for a Working-Class Candidate”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-KcXmkK8OM
Summary: The white working-class is too large a demographic to ignore, but Dems have been steadily losing them since JFK. Of that group, Trump won 66% (!) in 2024.
At this point Dems have little margin left and must make some effort to win back some of the working-class. Hence, the search for such a candidate.
However, given the D platform — left and getting lefter — all they can find are fake working-class candidates.
This is why, as unpleasant as I find the DSA/Squad people, I see them more as a serious, perhaps fatal, problem for the Democrats.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/07/sentence-affirmed-unreported.php
==
The resolution here is better.
@huxley:At this point Dems have little margin left and must make some effort to win back some of the working-class.
You and Art Deco are probably right, but I don’t understand why they think this would work on the white working class, spending 99.9% of their time and energy bashing it and then finding a fake member to pretend they care about it. But that end of the political spectrum is most apt to think they can speak reality into being if they all just say the same thing at the same time very loudly and very often.
It reminds me of the wink-wink-nudge-nudge around Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s “opposition” to same-sex marriage in 2008. Every single progressive that I ever asked about it–why isn’t this a deal-breaker–assured me that both of them were simply lying for the sake of the election, and would reveal their true opinions afterward, and they were totally okay with this. They had no doubt they were not the ones being lied to, though they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me how they knew it.
Back in the 2000s Democrats were riding high on the book “Emerging Democratic Majority” (Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis 2002), which said the changing demographics towards minorities, young people, college-educated professionals, and single women would effortlessly create a lasting, Democrat voting majority.
However, the fly in that ointment was that too many working-class and Hispanic Democrat voters shifted Republican, a process which has continued.
So if normal demographics weren’t going to win for Democrats, they would forcefully change the demographics by flooding the border with illegal immigrants.
Once Trump stopped that, Democrats put their full force behind preventing deportation of illegals, even criminals.
It’s long been strange to me that there has been almost no discussion at the mainstream level of illegal immigration as a method to stack US demographics in favor of Democrats.