State of the Discussion

I have to admit that I only remember Paul McCartney secretly rerecording Ringo's drum track in the studio at night - is that true? And stills from the film were Ringo plays a caveman or something. But he seems to be a nice guy.

The people who downplay Ringo's drumming are the same people who go on about how Jimmy Page was a sloppy, overrated guitarist, and probably the same people that complain about what a terrible word "moist" is...mostly because that seems to be the sort of thing that other edgy people are saying and getting praise for saying. They've never actually sat down to really listen to the songs in any detail or approach them with an open mind.
Ringo had a feel and sensibility all his own, and knew how to leave space in the song for the other players' genius to show through. That's a rare thing. The other player that comes to mind for me right away with this trait is John Paul Jones.
I don't believe that Ringo and JPJ have ever collaborated on anything, but then I don't know that it would work, either. They might end up being too mannered and respectful with each other.

Hey, open thread!!
Ringo Starr, aka Sir Richard Starkey, turns 85 today. The most musical drummer on the planet, his drum fills are melodies. The chillest Great Big Pop Star on the planet, too.
A personal hero, on a few levels.
Peace & love, as the man says. May it be so.

Charles, your link to Grok's discussion of Alien Space Bats in Fiction is the only AI link of yours I've ever found useful or entertaining. It never occurred to me to search the term on Google, or Wikipedia, or I would have been enlightened years ago. But on the other hand, the explanation is a lot less satisfying than my bemused fantasies.
Snarki, no point mentioning those bats, the poor bastards will see them soon enough.

wj's comment reminds me of Ena Matsuoka, a member of Japanese girl idol group
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3052704/japanese-sex-pest-jailed-stalking-pop-idol-ena-matsuoka-using
A Japanese man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for stalking and assaulting an up-and-coming pop idol after finding clues to where she lived by enlarging reflections of scenery and landmarks in her eyes in photographs she shared on social media.

It's long been pretty clear that the Neanderthals were every bit as intelligent, and culturally complex, as homo sapiens. Just earlier. And were similar enough to us that interbreeding took place. Most of us have chunks of Neanderthal DNA in our genome.
It's not (that I know of) clear why/how we replaced them. Presumably we had an advantage of some kind. Higher birth rates? Better or more focused disease resistance? More effective aggressive behavior? Something.

And for the third time my short post disappeared.
I only answered a question from russell concerning a former poster and whether anyone remembers him (yes) and something food related (no).
No idea what the system sees as problematic there.

Nothing in a context suggesting alien space bats.
Time to adjust my meds. :)
Before I began commenting here, I hung out at RedState for a while. Earlier today it occurred to me that maybe alien space bat was over there. Which kind of tracks, maybe.
So I went to RedState to see if they have a search feature. I didn't see one, and I didn't really want to spend any more time there.
So I guess alien space bat guy will remain a mystery. And I promise not to bring it up again, GFTNC.

and I pulled all of the site's content out the hard way...
I've mentioned that I have wound up as the extended families' archivist, and have thousands of pages of stuff that has been dumped on me over the years. One of my uncles spent years after he retired building a blog site where he posted content about the tiny town in Iowa where he was born and (for a while) raised.
One of the first things on my list of stuff to get safely tucked away in digital form when I decided to be serious about it was that blog content. Quite a bit of what I learned pulling everything out of Obsidian Wings was useful for pulling his stuff out of Blogger. Multiple copies are stored away now.

I've tried searching the blog many times for all possible variations of "alien space bat". No joy.
From back at the time when it looked like the hosting service was going to drop Typepad, and the Typepad export-content function was broken, and I pulled all of the site's content out the hard way...
I still have a flat text file with everything up to that point. Thumbing through on the word alien (case independent), there are numerous mentions of space aliens. Someone flat out states that Moe Lane is a space alien. Someone follows that with, "No, I meant intelligent space aliens." There seems to be agreement that Alien vs Predator is the definitive example of film franchises that have gone on too long. Nothing in a context suggesting alien space bats.

russell, please stop taunting me with the alien space bats guy.
I've tried searching the blog many times for all possible variations of "alien space bat". No joy.
If anyone has better Typepad-fu than I do (which is probably everyone) and wants to give it try, I will appreciate it. I think it was quite a while ago, but I'm not sure of a particular time period.
It's also possible that I hallucinated the whole thing.
I'll also note that a random walk through the archives will show that we've had more than a few... interesting characters here over the years.
Anyone besides me remember Brick Over Bill and his recipes for rice and beans? :)
Maybe I'm living in some kind of fantasy ObWi populated by the bizarre flotsam and jetsam of my imagination....
Also, wj - I'm fine with people who refer to their faith-based beliefs as part of why they think what they do - I've done that myself here on a few occasions. But folks coming from that perspective have to respect that many or most folks here may not find that persuasive.

russell, please stop taunting me with the alien space bats guy. You've done it before; he was before my time, and I am deeply resentful to have missed him!

More seriously:
How much diversity are you, personally, willing to tolerate?
tl;dr - anybody sensible, for any reasonable definition of "sensible", is probably OK with me.
I'm OK with people who voted for Trump, per se. Not sure about full on MAGA cultist, they yell a lot and don't seem to understand the concept of argument from fact. But, I'd be willing to give it a try.
Also re: MAGAs, I personally would draw a bright line around gender- or race- or ethnic-based theories of human value and superiority, they just trigger my inner impulse to invite them to f*** right off. It's a personal failing, I know - judge not, keep an open mind, right? - but one I am willing to own. We all have our limits.
I'm probably more comfortable with religious fundamentalists than most folks here due to personal history, but conversations with them tend to devolve into unanswerable arguments from authority. I.e., if "the Bible says" is not part of your epistemology, there isn't really a basis for conversation. It can be kind of a dead end.
All the other flavors of conservative you name here are pretty much fine with me. I just ask that people keep it out of ad hominem territory, probably in both directions.
Also, it's a fraught time, it's easy for things to go sideways. If there actually are conservatives of any of the varieties you name interested in joining the party, we might need to update / reinstate posting rules, just to make sure everybody stays in bounds.

For those who would like to see a greater diversity of views here (diversity! What a concept!), it might be useful to ask a couple of questions:
How much diversity are you, personally, willing to tolerate? Full on MAGA cultists? (I'm guessing generally not, but I suppose that could be projection.) Religious fundamentalists, of whichever religion? (Not, I think, those demanding that society generally conform to their views, but perhaps those who think the world would be a better place if more people embraced some of their views. Again, that could be projection.) Straight up conservatives: "I don't much care for change, but can be convinced that it's necessary in specific instances"? Moderate conservatives: "There are things that need changing, but I'd generally prefer gradual changes, small changes that can be reality checked as we go, to sweeping changes"? Centerists-- those who see merits in both liberal and conservative views, and want to create compromises between them? New voices even further left than what we have now?
What ideas do you have for reality checking, both of new and existing commenters? Which mostly comes down to What is an authorative sourse? Does it have to be reliable across the board, or just in some areas? How much agreement do we need for something to be accepted as authorative?
Yes, I realize that I'm assuming a general preference for reality. Challenge that if you wish.

Hilzoy, Katherine (who did pro bono work for detainees) and Publius who probably wouldn't be put in a Iraq war hawk box
These three were definitely not hawks.
I think the general consensus was that Afghanistan was the necessary war. And people were quite positive about Libya, at least initially - because of Obama/Clinton.
I am talking about having conversations with people who would excuse every atrocity and defend the use of torture. It's quite similar to the positions taken regarding the Gaza war now.
Besides the actual torture apologists there were those who grandly conceded that torture is wrong, but strongly justfied blowing scores of people to bits in the name of freedom a la "you have to destroy the village to save it". I'm glad those people left.

If you are talking about the original crew, that was before my time, but we had Hilzoy, Katherine (who did pro bono work for detainees) and Publius who probably wouldn't be put in a Iraq war hawk box. I would try and take a look, but the whole Typepad architecture is very slow and creaky.
But I can pull up the first blog post in case you want a starting point.
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2003/11/howdy_howdy_how.html
which has this
Second, this is not, strictly speaking, a Right-wing blog: it's pretty much a centrist one. While I carry my Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy card with pride, my fellow-bloggers do not. They aren't froth-at-the-mouth Bush-haters, mind you - which will probably disqualify them as being on the Left for a very small yet vocal group of people - but they are most assuredly not Republicans. I look forward to their insights and challenges to my own ideological leanings. I also have a somewhat larger list of people (of varying political beliefs) whom I'm going to hit up for special guest posts from time to time: but for at least the start, three bloggers is probably an optimal number to regularly post here.
Again, this is before I was here, but my understanding is that Moe Lane started the blog, and he was on the conservative side, and worked hard to get voices from the other side, which then moved the blog to the left of center slant it has today.
Talking about good old days, during Iraq/Afgahnistan/Libya, a common plaint (out on the internet) was gee, I wish we could go back to the old Cold War days.

LOL. I guess there's a reason the Hippocratic oath is supposed to start with 'first do no harm' (a wikipedia check says it ain't so
Although it is often said that "First do no harm" (Latin: Primum non nocere) is a part of the original Hippocratic oath, no such phrase from which "First" or "Primum" can be translated appears in the text of the original oath, although a similar intention is vowed by, "I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm". Another related phrase is found in Epidemics, Book I, of the Hippocratic school: "Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient". and it likely took shape from longstanding popular nonmedical expression.

I actually miss most of the commenters who have been banned during my roughly 2 decades here. Does anybody have the full list?
I don't have a list, but we may have different definitions of banning. In my definition, we've only 'banned' a few people while I have had the keys, which to me, means blocking them from commenting. There is a longer list of people who caused issues and were contacted off list and issues were discussed and at the end of that, the person said something to the effect that they didn't, for reasons said and unsaid, want to change and so stopped. Some might say that was 'banning', but there seems to be a difference, at least to me. of asking someone to leave and they choose not to come back and having to do something to stop that person from coming.