Nick Abts

Wisconsin, law, sports, games, human nature

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

This is a funny site. Busiest post I've ever made while talking to myself about the world is an opinion about a 60+ year old movie

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

@mikemovies I get that in principle, but when SO MUCH screen time is used for watching camels cross the desert, I feel like you can subtract a bit and still get the scale while not losing any character development.

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

Lawrence of Arabia is a great movie, and Omar Sharif is awesome, but - and I think this is probably not a controversial statement - the movie did not have to be four hours long, and this sequence exemplifies that just a bit

[Mike David @mikemovies]

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA [1962]
Directed by David Lean
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Surely, when Omar Sharif signed on for this film, he wasn't aware David Lean would gift him with what might reasonably be considered the greatest character entrance in cinema.

[Justin Gordon @Justin_G0rd0n]

The DSA is the best thing to happen to the Republican Party since Ralph Nader.

[Jeb Fain @JebFain]

The Democratic Party is the last, best hope to save American democracy from Donald Trump.

DSA is the last, best hope to save Donald Trump from American democracy.

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

The whole thing now about the danger of squishy fidget toys and hot cars and microwaves validates my personal maxim that one should never spend money on things that are stupid and pointless

[Hutch @hutchinson]

Moderate democrats putting up god tier numbers in swing states (and there are MANY) get basically no attention while every single media outlet puts out daily "Here Is Why Progressives Are Lighting The Way For Democrats" opinion pieces 🙃

[Kelsey Piper @KelseyTuoc]

@hecubian_devil I think the fundamental disconnect here is that you wants politics to solve man's search for meaning and I want politics to deliver a prosperous, safe, free society in which everyone can go find meaning in something other than politics.

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

Do we know for sure that COVID leaked from a lab? No. But we do know that many powerful people thought it was possible, and then engaged in an effort to make Americans feel crazy for merely asking about it. That matters, because the truth matters.

[Daniel Owens @dsowens17]

Interesting article in the New York Times today:

"The more fixated we are on mental health, the more sensitive we become to anything that might qualify as a symptom and the more we use clinical language to describe normal emotional experiences like grief, burnout and loneliness. This broadening of what we think counts as a disorder — known as concept creep — encourages us to pathologize ordinary life and see ourselves as mentally unhealthy."

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

@MatthewMKE98 This ignorance is indicative is how little the world knows about how smart the Brewers organization is, and I hope it stays that way forever

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

Fetterman is correct on this issue, but I also think it's a little arrogant to think you're the only guy in the Senate who doesn't have to follow the fucking dress code

[Townhall.com @townhallcom]

Senator John Fetterman responds to El-Sayed attacking his appearance, calling him an "ogre on a pike."

"I never worked out in male modeling. Call me Senator Shrek. Whatever! This guy is really the Pontiac Platner!"

"And now he's running to be the head of our emerging pro-Hamas wing here in the party!"

"Some of the things that he's done or said are unacceptable to me."

"I'm not really sure what I've really done or voted for that has offended the little guy so much."

"These same people like Bernie Sanders...created that Platner disaster!"

"He has no regrets...? Supporting an accused racist...a guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest...roughed up his ex girlfriends."

"There's a level of arrogance and they believe they feel like they have some weird mandate!"

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

If this isn't colonization, I don't know what is

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

The destruction of antiquities, art, and cultural heritage throughout the Middle East is devastating. A deliberate effort to erase thousands of years of history that existed before Islam.

No history, no civilization, no memory, no future.

[Saul Sadka @Saul_Sadka]

Don’t be surprised that Mamdani—a man for whom a Judenrein Middle East is his political lodestar—also wants a Judenrein NYC. About 45% of NYC lawyers are Jewish. The odds of selecting 18 NYC lawyers at random and ending up with a panel containing no Jews are 0.55 to the 18th power—or roughly one chance in 47,149.

And it’s not about “Zionism.” There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jewish lawyers he could have picked, including thousands who, to their shame, voted for him. It’s about Jews. He hates Jews. It's not complex.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

“Maybe those are the initials of Moishe Shapiro. Maybe he is a very committed teacher for Maryland Schools. Do you know for sure? No you don’t. You jumped to a conclusion. Now don’t you feel silly for crossing the street to avoid him?”

This is how some on the Left train their children that intuition and common sense are where bigotry hides. Hence all appeals to “What are you doing?? Use some some common sense. Think. Use your head! What is wrong with you??!?” mysteriously don’t land.

A piece of advice: if you want a common sense Left that isn’t batshit crazy, you have to start with “I am going to bet that as a child you were deliberately trained out of your own common sense and intuition as the place where backwardness and bigotry hide. And while I understand the most positive interpretation of that training, I am here to tell you that this is, in practice, an obvious overcorrection equivalent to child abuse. Via overkill, you were simply robbed by well meaning adults of life skills and instincts that now need to be, at least selectively, restored before you continue the cycle. You don’t have to leave the Left. But you can’t pretend any longer either. And I am sorry. That is not equally likely to be a well meaning Morgan Stanley executive. That is not Moishe Shapiro. And you have always known that. And I am sorry. Truly.”

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

My personal rule for baby names, that nobody asked for but that is pretty foolproof:

Would your grandmother have recognized this as a human person's name 50 years ago? If so, you're good. If not, reconsider.

Gets rid of the "name your kid Table" stuff, the horrific misspellings, the attempts to be 'unique' and still leaves you a million options

[Parveen Kaswan, IFS @ParveenKaswan]

Homer’s Odyssey is filled with terrifying monsters; Cyclops, Scylla, Charybdis, the Sirens.

But the one who steals the most time from Odysseus is Calypso.

She doesn’t threaten him with death. She offers comfort, safety, love and keeps him from Ithaca for seven years.

Maybe that’s Homer’s deepest lesson: the greatest obstacles in life don’t always look like monsters. Sometimes, they look like comfort.

Hardships test our courage. Comfort tests our purpose.

Maybe real monsters in life don’t look like monsters !!

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

It continues to be hilarious that a significant plurality of right-leaning public figures whiffed enormously on an opportunity to claim this movie and use it as a bludgeon against people on the left, such as, for example, a feminist translator of Greek classics

[Christian JB @christianjbdev]

Sorry, but Emily Wilson just comes off as classless here. No matter how much she personally dislikes the Nolan movie, she should respect that it's an artist's effort to interpret a story that belongs to everyone.

https://t.co/HWJ5b1wys2

[Nick Abts @AbtsNicholas]

Yeah, I'm okay with this. Sad that Shapiro is so low due to the party's antisemitism problem, though

[Political Polls @PpollingNumbers]

New - Electability Index - Democratic Primary

Odds of winning general election, if they win primary:

🔵 Jon Ossoff: 75%
🔵 Gavin Newsom: 65%
🔵 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 59%
🔵 Pete Buttigieg: 54%
🔵 Josh Shapiro: 53%
🔵 Kamala Harris: 47%

https://t.co/MV3he9jewr

[Magatte Wade @magattew]

Socialism is easiest to love from a country where the shelves are already full.