Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, June 24, 2022
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29 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Before this thing called COVID, wasn’t there some talk of having a meetup in the DC area? Any interest in resurrecting that?
The other day, there was much concern about the Maine school SC decision. The end result might not be what has been feared.
New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is 2.1%. That is insanely low.
@Jen:
That’s what happens when towns, disallow residential development because of the number of children they fear will flood the school district with the cost falling on the property tax. Housing prices are effen nuts. In 2019 the average home in NH sold for ~$300K today it is closing in $500K and it is nearly 50% higher in Rockingham Cty.
Yesterday at work I felt my pulse raise, and had an odd tingling in my chest. It went on for a little bit, so I did something I’ve never done: Took a nitro pill. I went to the nurse to check my BP–slightly elevated, but well within the safe range.
I decided to go home and rest. On the way, I took another nitro, and prayed I didn’t have a massive heart attack before I could get into town where there’s cell signal (I was in the middle of nowhere).
I laid down for a bit, and kept checking my BP (I’ve got one of those automatic cuffs, which has been calibrated at my local clinic). I finally went upstairs to watch some TV and noticed what was wrong. I’d doled out my meds for the day, but I’d forgotten to actually take them. They were still sitting in the shot glass on the bathroom sink. So I took them. A few hours late, but better late than never, right?
At 6pm, I got up to take my evening pill… and woke up on the bathroom floor 5 minutes later. You see… when you take nitro on top of your regular meds, it makes your BP do the limbo. I put on the cuff to check, and I was at 68/45.
I semi-passed out again in the kitchen getting ready for bed.
Note to self: Do not forget meds!
@Mu Yixiao:
I think you mentioned this in yesterday’s open forum.
@CSK:
Oh…. Well, to be fair, I was passing out. 🙂
@CSK:..I think you mentioned this in yesterday’s open forum.
I am fortunate that at 74 I need only take one over the counter medication. No scrips. Generic omeprazole for acid reflux. Despite the very large TAKE YOUR MEDICATION sign that is posted on the door for me to see before I leave home in the morning there are times when I don’t do the dose. One pill daily.
I can easily relate to Mu Yixiao forgetting to medicate. I am grateful that I don’t pass out. Waking up at 2 or 3 am to indigestion is bad enough.
Then there are the times that I forget that I forgot…
@Mu Yixiao:
Okay, now you’ve learned your lesson. 🙂
@Mister Bluster:
Acid reflux is…unpleasant. I’d get it occasionally. Then I started taking a probiotic for periodontal reasons. No more acid reflux.
This week in odd dreams…
Picture a bunch of people, mostly women, writing a constitution on clay tablets. They’d never done this before, but can think of examples of constitutions that become outdated. So they argue for a very long time on how to prevent this.
Finally one woman says “I know,” and writes at the end, “The workings of this constitution will be evaluated by a convention ten years from today.”
I woke up thinking ten years is too short a time, but how about 25, 40, 50 years? It might be a good idea to draft a constitution subject to periodic review and evaluation, provided a non-partisan convention of sorts has the power to amend it as necessary.
News from the UK:
In two by-elections the Conservative Party got thrashed.
Liberal Democrats took Tiverton
LibDems took 53% overturning a Conservative majority that was 60% in 2019.
Swing to LibDems 30%!
Turnout 52.3% compared to 71.9% at general election
Constituency voted leave in EU referendum by 58%
Labour took Wakefield
Labour took 48%, Conservatives second on 30% down from 47%.
12.7% swing
Turnout 39% compared to 64% at general election.
Constituency voted leave in EU referendum by 62%
My thoughts: Along with previous local election results, indicates Labour are back with a fighting chance in the areas they lost in 2019.
While LibDems are competitive in both rural “leaver” areas like Tiverton, and in suburban/commuter “remain” areas like Amersham which they took last year.
Johnson is now toxic even in Leave voting areas.
“Red Meat” policies on asylum/courts/NIP/”wokism” not effective enough for Tories.
The old Vote Leave hits don’t move the crowd any more.
Cost of living combining with distaste for Johnson = flashing red lights for the general election outcome at Conservative HQ, and a lot of nervous Tory MPs.
Result indicates a lot of Conservative voters stayed home, but also a fair number switched direct.
But the critical thing was the Lab/LibDem pattern.
In Tiverton Labour “lost their deposit” (fell below the 5% threshold required to avoid repaying the £500 fee intended to deter frivolous candidates)
In Wakefield LibDems lost theirs.
Meaning both parties voters were switching to whichever local anti-Conservative candidate was best placed. (And looks like Greens switched as well)
This is ominous for the Tories.
Even a relatively modest amount of Lib-Lab tactical switching puts a lot of Conservative seats in play.
From this point on opinion polls can be reasonably assumed to break in marginals as
1. Lab+LibDem+Green vote share
2. Tory vote share
The rest is noise.
On this basis Labour will be the largest party after the general election, and Sir Keir Starmer in No. 10.
I shall be having a celebratory drinkie this evening!
Unclear who are the most upset at this point: Johnson fans or the Corbynites 🙂
@JohnSF:
Michael Howard is urging Johnson to quit.
Happy Loss of Bodily Autonomy Day.
SC just issued its ruling striking down Roe.
“BUT HER EMAILS” amiright?
Unbelievable that this is where we are.
@CSK:
Howard has been an un-fan of Johnson for some time.
He booted Johnson as shadow arts minister and party vice-chairman back in 2004 after he lied to Howard about extra-marital activity.
Also tore into Johnson’s proposals to revoke the NIP deal with the EU in 2020.
Howard is pro-Brexit, and rather on the right of centre of the party, but he does have principles.
@Jen:
Things will get violent sooner or later. Maybe a full-fledged civil war. Not on account of the court murdering Roe alone, but its the clearest marker in the pattern of oppressive minority rule.
link
@Jen: @Kathy:
There’s a post on this now by James Joyner.
Yesterday I started a lecture series on constitutional law. Today I switched to Nine Pints, by Rose George, a book about blood.
@Kathy: The idea of a modern Constitutional Convention scares the spit out of me. You can probably make it bipartisan or non partisan, but I don’t know how you’d keep money out. We’d end up with a billionaire glibertarian wet dream.
The current Scientific American has a good article on how the oil and gas industry were able to corrupt Texas’ new school course and textbook standards. It’s a small scale model of how I expect a Constitutional Convention would turn out.
@Kathy: I thought Nine Pints was a really interesting book.
@Jen:
I’ve only gotten through part of the first chapter, but I’ve already found out a blue whale’s heart only beats five times per minute.
@gVOR08:
I could go on a long discussion of how easy or hard to change a constitution should be, and what mechanisms should or shouldn’t be used, but every day I inch closer to money and power as the root cause of most problems.
@Mister Bluster: For years I would carry my warfarin in a pants pocket, with an alarm on my phone to take it at 6pm when I was likely to be awake and lucid. If I wasn’t around water, I would transfer the pills to a shirt pocket where I would notice at night before going to bed and take them late.
A physical process that was designed to not rely upon my shitty memory at all, as nothing requires any memory of more than 15 seconds.
The anticoagulation clinic has forever been pleased with how consistent my INR (internationally normalized ratio*) is compared to everyone else, but I’m positive it’s just that I’m one of the few who manages to always take my dose as required.
(Lately I’ve just been taking it at night with my other medicines, and my INR has been a little wobbly)
——
*: The most useless acronym ever. Blood clotting speed.
@Mister Bluster: @CSK: I’ve been dealing with acid reflux for a while now, then one night I woke up with my sinuses and mouth full of blood. That was…. unpleasant. Turned out I had a number of “giant bleeding polyps” (an actual quote from my surgeon’s diagnostic report) in my stomach. He removed them and cauterized the wounds and since then no problems. Apparently the omeprazole and generic lactaid he prescribed got it under control.
Getting old ain’t for the weak.
Get ready for a whole lot more of this BS.
In happy news, the race I’m on the board of is doing ok. Feel free to donate:
https://www.proudtorunchicago.org/
A small bright spot was to hang out with the queers and awkwardly finger gun everyone that came to my packet pick up station.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bisexual/comments/dkd8cb/how_the_hell_did_finger_guns_become_a_bisexual/
For the record, no, I do not know how to sit properly.
And then tomorrow night, Pride weekend with Horse Meat Disco.
@Beth: Giggling….is Horse Meat Disco a band?
Enjoy, my friend! Many electronic hugs from Wyoming.
@Jax:
They’re a gay disco collective from London. It’s such a fantastic name.
Happy Pride