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Nihil Concierge

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Nihil Concierge

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 19:44:52 UTC
				


				
					

					
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	 Hot Bump Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Violent Class: A day in the life
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You said something about being able to write not having done you any good in your last post, but I don't see it.  You're a couple ex-wives who are smarter than you away from being Hemingway


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Lawyers actually have to ask permission from the judge to do that.  If I'm recalling Ken White's podcast, that's really an area that has more to do with drug dealers or gangsters as clients--or if a lawyer is absolutely broke and leaving the profession or something.


"My client is stupid" isn't really something that American lawyers abandon clients for, or get surprised by--it's on the rare occasion a smart person needs representation that something is up


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would take a collection of loud noises and leave them on the front lawn overnight until they had been lightly coated in condensation.  Then I would systematically organize the documents using these dewey decibels.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I lived in Japan from '07 to '11 and haven't been back since, so this may be out of date, but the idea that fruit and veggies are very expensive matches my memories, but is a little incomplete.  Sushi and ramen are incredibly cheap in Japan, and I would extrapolate that most of the food-service labor force is somehow attached to those two parts of the industry--sushi because Japan just plain has the best fish, ramen because that's usually served with beer or on a chuhai run.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, goodness, I was so busy trying to being clever I forgot to be smart.


I am honestly embarrassed about this.  Mea Maxima Culpa.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 12, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every time I tell someone I am part of the Veterans Affairs health care system in the United States,  I use the joke "I protected you from socialized health care, so now I get...socialized health care."


It has never failed to get a laugh.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursdays 29
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Being a sailor myself, it pains me to admit that the most plausible explanation is that the skipper of the Newnew Polar Bear did, surely, understand something was wrong--but hoped it was no big deal, and no one would notice.  In fact, finding an anchor that was dragged for nearly 200 klicks on the floor, just "a few meters" from the damaged cables and gas lines makes it just to easy for me to know exactly what a Newnew Polar Bear sailor felt like after two or three hours on the deck crew trying to get the anchor hauled up when the XO shouts over the 1MC, "Fuck the anchor, we're about to hit an seabed pipeline--cut the chain NOW!"


They almost made it.


So much for the Skipper's dream of commanding the more prestigious ship, Oldold Polar Bear.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Personally, I think both options are death.




The list of options that are not death, when looking beyond the short-term, is, in fact, blank.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My favorite Clinton anecdote is from TNR or maybe the New Yorker a while back. Doctor said, “Bill Clinton loves to talk; a friend of mine once got chance to meet him when they were both in the locker room of a racquetball club in Manhattan, and enjoyed the first hour of the conversation, but ended up faking a phone call from his wife as an excuse to prevent the chat from entering hour three.”


I suspect the surviving Bush and Obama might both do the same thing—just imagine being the top 0.001% for ambition and extroversion, with decades of life left, and every single job in America would be an embarrassing step down.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I used the website below, which gets data from the census bureau, to see how much of California was white in 1975.  87.6%--because the 1975 data does not include Hispanic as a category.


https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/state/california/?endDate=2021-01-01&startDate=1975-01-01


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Mendacity and social fictions are not unique to Californians. Perhaps I've just been exceedingly unlucky in my acquaintances, and I'm suffering a Chinese Robber effect. But this pattern has repeated with enough frequency that I’ll tentatively call it a cultural difference.




Actually, when I moved to a midsize southern Californian port city in 2018, it was explained to me that the punishment for mendacity and social friction would be a one-way ticket to ...  well, let's just say that the VHS tape I was given was of a once-great local news anchor named after a wine explaining that Californians accused of things like financial crimes, harassment, or petty theft might well be offered plea deals that include "a one-way ticket to Cajun country in lieu of jail time."




They're like the younger sons of European nobility who colonized the New World.




Don't forget the workers they brought with them: criminals who chose to labor as their farmhands over the noose; and others, in harder-to-fill positions, filled only after the "no thanks, I'll hang," phase of the recruitment flow was removed.


Also don't forget the religious whackjobs who just refused to let the King tell them who to burn at the stake.


Oh, and don't forget the squatters who broke into William Penn's summer estate.


Who would have ever thought that those three groups had enough in common to actually team up against their Monarch--let alone that they'd get help from Manhattan.  You'd think people would be grateful to be liberated from being Dutch!


Oh, and Maine.  Have I forgotten why the people in Maine joined the other twelve colonies--or did they keep their reasons to themselves?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursday for January 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
According to Reuters, Turkey got permission to buy F-16s in exchange for allowing Sweden to join NATO: “Ankara's delays had frustrated some of its Western allies and enabled it to extract some concessions. But Flake, who was envoy throughout the process, said Sweden addressed Turkey's "very legitimate security needs" in that time.”


https://archive.is/iMYgT#selection-1903.0-1926.0


I totally understand why things shook out this way--but I also think this will be interpreted, in Russian foreign policy circles, as evidence that some of the stuff Putin has been saying about NATO being a threat, is true.  After all, this is letting a border country join NATO in exchange for selling fighter jets to yet another border country...there's a reason Russians think NATO is threatening their borders.


Sigh.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'd like to second this from @roystgnr :




Comic strip collections ... let young readers who aren't 100% solid manage to grasp more context from the drawings.




I got started with reading on "Calvin & Hobbs," one of the all time greats. I'm not sure if Spaceman Spiff is still relevant, but I know the stuff about ethical philosophy and girls being gross is timeless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I love uBlock Origin.  Learning how that extension work made my web-browsing so many times easier!


The only sites on my whitelist are my bank, Substack and the Motte.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				World Series 2023 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because that's what someone with much more well-adjusted family relationships and emotional communication skills than either of us would do.


My family was about...other things.  Like reading at a 11th grade level before you turned 9, or not talking about your feelings, or winning state debate tournaments, or not talking about your feelings.  Sometimes, for a break, we didn't talk about our feelings.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh, my goodness, you have got to read Cadillac Desert, a book about water that is one of my all-time classics.  I wish I were more motivated to do good, solid, effort posts, because a review of that book could really work...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, they're perfectionists in Lebanon.  The leader of the HRC doesn't walk around with an internal monolog that asks "boy, I've never fought a battle with the NRA, let's check that off the list."  Maybe he should.  I hear the ACLU used to think that way, and possibly still does.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As academia has become less of a walled garden, and more of a finishing school for half the populace, it has lost the functional ability to question seriously the deep truths of our society.




When was academia a walled garden?  In the United States, at least, I believe it's more accurate to describe the history of higher education as going from, in the early seventeenth century, a finishing school for slightly less than a tenth of the population to, in the early twenty-first century, a finishing school for slightly more than a third of the population.


Were the philosophers Alex Byrne and @naraburns admire respected academics? How many were philosophy professors? And how many American philosophy professors were the sort of philosophers worth admiring.  Certainly I'd argue that there is a "default major" throughout American history, one that allows a student to attain their letters with as little thinking as possible--and that in the 1680s that would be theology; today gender studies--and it's to philosophy's credit it was never that degree.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am in deep, passionate, unrelenting agreement with your indifference.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just blew through The Big Short in a day and a half.  It is, Peter Segal observed, a most unusual book because adapting it into a movie didn't mean making changes to make things more exciting or dramatic—but several things that really happen did have to be toned down!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Try narrowing the years to something like 2010—2023 and Hispanic will populate.  I don't know what year the census bureau started asking people if they were Hispanic (I'm pretty sure the US Census is actually where the word "Hispanic" was invented) but the charts on that website will stop showing that data as soon as you include any years where the question wasn't asked.


I hope that makes you feel less crazy—although many people go mad for reasons that have nothing to do with the Census Bureau. I'm not qualified to rule those out for you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Violent Class: A day in the life
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Navy equivalent of PMCS is 3M (Maintenance Material Management), and I'm told it's far worse than PMCS.


As one of the 95% of people who received combat pay without getting anywhere near people who wanted to shoot me, let me say thank you for writing this whole series.  I'll add a few thoughts upthread when I get a chance, but I'm grateful for the chance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In 2020, Liberal Member of Parliament Emmanuella Lambropoulos, a trilingual millennial representing the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent, told the official languages commissioner she would need evidence to believe that French was on the 'decline' (with air quotes).




Thus earning an enduring place in my heart, and also sounding like a cool lady to hang out with.


I can see why Saint-Laurent so inspired filmmaker Frank Oz that he set a thriller there which included many shots of Edward Norton outside the city's customs house and a scene of DeNiro saying "you always told me ... live in Montreal" to Marlon Brando himself!


The film was clearly a love letter to the city—although since a movie called  "The Score" about the a heist of said customs house directed by the puppeteer who played Miss Piggy can, accurately, be described as "a Muppet says criminals should live here," I suppose Francophones could mistake it for an insult, if they didn't all love cinema so much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				There and out the back end: A gaijin’s tail Or: Colonoscopy in Japan
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it doesn't take much imagination to understand at micro level why local Japanese communities lose patience with the base population and the bases themselves.




I always thought a huge part of this related to the Navy Exchange operations, which place stores that sell everything a sailor needs on base itself. I had a couple shipmates who never stepped off base at all, but the problem comes with the 80% who do their shopping and eating on base, then go off base once or twice a month — too drink.


I may have said impolite things on my way out of those wonderful coffee shops scattered around Sasebo, after stopping by with a book or picking up a latte to go — but many locals wouldn't believe most Sailors even get coffee. We look like nothing but drunks thanks to a Pentagon contract with Starbucks and McDonald's that places the routine aspects off life out of view of the neighborhood. (Not to mention capturing a lot of the economic boon of being a military town, which must have hurt during the lost decade especially.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's a very good and insightful post, thanks!


I've recently been rewatching the mid-2000s TV show "The Good Wife," and it's one of the few creative works I've encountered that grapples with the issues you discuss. I suspect that some people on this forum might dismiss the series out of hand because it features a guest appearance from Donna Brazil and because the sequel, "The Good Fight," is a Trump Derangement fugue and woke fever dream—and would encourage you to reconsider. Especially after a romantic plot is resolved in the second season finale,  the show turns almost exclusively to Julianna Margulies' titular good wife confronting exactly the good person/nice person conflict you're talking about — both in others and herself.


It really is well worth your time