Christmas Eve Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, December 24, 2022
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51 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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Ah, what a difference a day makes. Yesterday a balmy 49F and today a brisk 10F.
Merry Christmas all!
A nice little tidbit: Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station – photo essay
@Sleeping Dog: Our high yesterday was 5. NWS is predicting a high of 59 on Thursday.
Yesterday morning when I got up it was 54 degrees. Today it’s six.
Guess I’ll finish watching Babylon. (Thank you digital screeners!) Surprisingly enjoyable through the first two-thirds — hopefully it can finish well. Then maybe on to Glass Onion!
Elon Musk says he will not sell more Tesla stock for about two years
To be reversed in 3… 2… 1…
This WaPo piece on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage (no subscription needed) investigates responsibility for the attack and reaches no conclusions, but does say that a number of European government officials who initially blamed Russia have backed away from that. The US government has always been skeptical of the claim. As for me, I’ve never been able to come up with a Russian motivation. They control the supply and could have cut Europe off simply by turning some valves. On top of that, they need hard currencies and gas sales bring that in. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a motive for any other state actor. We may never find out conclusively.
It’s 9 degrees ABOVE ZERO, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. The prospect of my morning chores doesn’t seem quite so bad today. 🙂
@Jax:
When I lived in MN, I always found it ironic that a sunny day, with the temps in single digits above ‘0,’ felt warm after a day or two with highs that were below ‘0.’ Assuming no wind of course.
I’m in Venice, Florida, where it’s a tropical 48 degrees. The folks here really go ape with the Christmas decor, like Hollywood in Annie Hall. Palms wrapped in lights?
@Sleeping Dog: I noticed something about myself when I was still working. Cold inside a building, say 25 degrees, always felt colder than that same 25 degrees outside, even if it was cloudy with a slight breeze. If it was gusty, I would feel different. Sunshine always made outside better, wind or no wind.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Very true.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is really, really on the outs with Gaetz and Boebert and Fuentes and Company.
http://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-far-right/
@CSK: Rooting for injuries.
I never lose my appetite for nasty articles about Donald Trump:
http://www.nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-running-for-president-2024.html
This one’s good, too:
http://www.thebulwark.com/donald-trumps-infamous-187-minutes/
I’m always looking for well reasoned analysis that comes from a different viewpoint than mine. Heck, that’s why I originally started coming here, back when James and Steven’s viewpoints on the Iraq War were so very different from mine. My number one criteria for whether someone is worth reading isn’t whether I agree with their worldview, but rather whether they engage with the most difficult challenges to their positions rather than merely set up straw men to be showily knocked down as a performance piece. Much to my surprise, I find myself reading Ross Douthat. Very different worldview than mine, and I don’t particularly like him, but he does seem to tackle the real arguments against his positions.
The weather has zoomed up to 32 degrees here in Colorado. Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!
In case busy cooking Merry Christmas all! Making our last minute charity donations tonight and trying to decide between the orphans home or the full deck of Trump trading cards. Guess if I was a “real” Christian I would go with the cards but being a bleeding heart will probably go with the orphans even knowing that those 8 and 9 year olds should be pulling themselves up with their bootstraps.
Steve
@steve: Gee, I dunno. I consider myself a “real” Christian and my Christmas donations this year were to the local community college, FINCA, Toys for Tots, St. Jude’s, and Doctors Without Borders. Not a Trump playing card in sight. Then again, Trump didn’t ask me to give him any money. I guess he knows better.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Hey, what’s up with Doctors Without Borders/Medecin Sans Frontiers lately? Baltimore is flooded with people looking for donations. Young people, in teams of 4 or 5, very well trained. There is no way that MSF is doing this on their own, and I’m wondering if it’s a scam. In any case MSF is a great cause and if I’m inclined to donate I will go directly to their website and follow the instructions there. I feel that is always the best way to make sure they are getting the highest percentage of my donation.
@MarkedMan:
Me too. But I have to say I’ve never been much impressed with Douthat, starting with having read his notorious introductory “chunky Reese Witherspoon” column. I find that half his columns leave me at the end going, “What the heck was that all about?” The other half only make sense if I state his unstated assumptions, usually arising from his Catholicism. I haven’t been reading his columns much lately. Maybe I’ll read the next few and see if I can find anything anything in them.
just notha- Have a family full of evangelicals who believe that….
1) They are the only true Christians.
2) Trump is a true Christian sent to them to save the country and the world.
Steve
@gVOR08: I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about his unstated assumptions and specifically about his Catholicism. Considering how ascendant certain offshoots of that faith have become in our governance (Supreme Court, major Republican players like Barr, and donors) I feel like it’s worth keeping an eye on it.
@MarkedMan:
Der Grunen diddit. 🙂
The main reason why Russia might have done it: Nord2 never opened and was probably doomed because a non-pumping pipe tends to failure modes.
Nord1 had been shut down by Russia, and likewise was going to start decaying quite soon.
They may; but neither Nord was EVER going to pump again.
Der Grunen have made it explicit: they walk out of coalition approx. 1 millisecond after that is tabled.
And majority of the SPD (bar the Neidersachsen mob) and most CDU/CSU are not stupid enough to put their balls back in the Russian vice after spending much money, effort and pain getting them out.
The LPG terminals are coming on line. And IMHO before very long renewables-to-methane or to hydrogen, conversion is going to step up.
Or nuke-elec-to-gas, but French tend to not mention this aspect, to avoid spooking the
Germanshorses.Hydrogen route seems to be the French plan. On which they are now spending serious amounts of money, and IMO are going to ramp to MASSIVE amounts of money.
Russian hydrocarbon power?
Train done gone, Vova. Train done gone.
IMHO the explosion was a FSB op trying to be clever, in a very
stupidRussian way.@MarkedMan: I couldn’t tell you about door-to-door solicitations, I live in a security building that not even UPS and Amazon can deliver to without calling their customer to let them in (not that they call, they just leave a “Sorry we missed you” tag with no address on it). I only donate online or by mail.
@steve: I grew up in that kind of family and had that kind of beliefs when I was younger. Have faith in God. I changed (at least I think I did [hopeful emoji]). Maybe some of them will start listening to the God they worship and change too.
I got a little bit of a Christmas miracle today.
I have this cow, Big Bertha (she’s a giant of a cow, stands 6 foot at her back), who I know made it off the forest, but never made it out of our reservoir pasture. The sinkholes in the reservoir pasture are particularly deep this year due to draining the reservoir, I looked all over for her (or her carcass) with the drone and on foot/horseback, and finally gave up. I assumed she fell in one of the sinkholes.
Today my neighbor called and said “Hey, I’ve got one of your cows, she’s got a pink tag and a green tag, I couldn’t see the number, but she’s a huge red cow, pretty friendly. I think it might be that Big Bertha you were looking for!”
We’re all pretty excited she’s not dead! I had given up hope and actually removed her from the cow database. 😛 😛
@Jax:
The return of the prodigal cow?
Slaughter the…no, cancel that bit.
😉
@JohnSF: Giggling….there are certain cattle on this ranch that will never see the inside of the slaughterhouse, they will live out their lives here until it comes time for me to put them down humanely. They’re all mine, out of my personal herd, and they have pink tags along with their identifying green ranch tags, and they’ll all eat out of your hand. She’s one of them. 🙂
There’s a local farmer/butcher family firm I get most of my meat from (because it’s way better than most supermarket product, if a tad pricey) who have show cattle (and pigs, and sheep) that get to live a long and contented life (insofar as sheep can ever be contented with avoiding suicide).
Others… not so much.
But they all get to live in reasonable conditions, outdoor grazing, not in stock-sheds.
(Well, in sheds in winter, of course. Except for idiot existentialist sheep looking to end it all.)
I’ll pay a bit for that; as well as for the quality.
Which pretty certainly go hand in hand.
@JohnSF: I only sell the Unfriendly’s or the Murderous Bitches (there are no MB’s in the royal pink tag herd, of course 😛 ). It’s quite satisfying to eat the MB’s.
I have a little side gig selling freezer beeves to people like you, who are tired of grocery store prices and want better beef. I grain them up, take them to the butcher, you pay me $3/lb hot hanging weight and you pay the processing, and we’re done. Great beef for you, and I just made double what I can get for them at the sale barn.
Yeah, sheep. They don’t have much will to live. We don’t have any of those, Dad calls them Prairie Maggots. We don’t have any goats, either, Boss Man absolutely refuses. Something about a brand new truck he worked hard for as a teenager and his Mom’s goats leaving hoof dents on it. 😛
@Jax:
Oh, I like goats. Even if every one I’ve ever met has tried to eat my shoelaces.
Goats are undercover agents of the Anarchist International.
Prove me wrong.
Sheep stories. One ends with me climbing a cliff near Harlech, and a sheep passing me in the other direction reaching terminal velocity. Fooled you, ovidic kamikaze!
tbf some sheep aren’t that dumb; Herdwicks that are “hefted” (territorial grazing herds) or Orcadians, for instance, as opposed to more highly inbred types.
Then again, just say “sheep” to a border collie and watch the dog roll its eyes. 🙂
As a born and raised ex-Catholic, I can only say, “Hold tight to your sanity.” because every Catholic, no matter how rational they may appear, has a heart willing to accept damned near anything, starting with original sin.
@Jax: That is smile worthy news.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Paging Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Elizabeth I please pick up on the white courtesy phone…”
Also Calvinists. Also Lutherans. Also Russian Orthodox.
Us Anglicans are the only ones you can rely on.
Trust me. 😉
Of course not, you named them, didn’t you? A very wise man once said to me, “Never name something you might have to eat.”
@JohnSF: I gave at the office. 😉
@Jax:
Oh the local farmer/butcher is more expensive than the supermarkets.
But that’s because the supermarkets gouge the farmers.
I’d rather eat less meat, but pay for better quality and welfare, than eat flavourless battery animals kept in hellish conditions.
My family started getting meat from them back in the 1980’s, IIRC, after a getting a really nasty pork shoulder from a supermarket, and bought from them ever since.
Us Brits are stick in th’muds.
They won a prize (3rd place IIRC) for both their cattle and the pig best-in breed at the Herefordshire show a few weeks back.
@JohnSF:
Out of curiousity, what is your basis for that?
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes. I have Sweetie (the OG friendly cow, mother of award-winning 4-H steers and the kind of cow you can put a bell on to lead everyone), Twixie, Snowflake, Smokin Annie, Wally, Cookie, Tootsie, Muffy, and Betty Sue, Nibbles and Friend (we ran out of names), who unfortunately are not mine, they’re Dad’s, but my daughter and I have a plan should they come up open at any time.
Oh, and Gertrude and Gwenivere, who are of House Galloway. And Big Bertha!
@JohnSF: @Jax:
I raise my own meatbirds, and I was getting pork and lamb from my pig/sheep/chicken farming buddy. Then he and his wife got a wild hair (more like a thousand) up their asses and decided to spend the next year and a half trundling their brood all over this planet and now I’m running low on meat I didn’t raise. Who do they think they are???
Heh. I thought about raising meat goats, but I realized that as inclined as my property is, my fences would have to be 12′ tall to contain the damned things and knew it was, “Cheaper to buy the meat.”
@Jax: HA! Sounds just like a Walt Disney movie.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Really sick humour could ensue, but I shall restrain myself. 😉
And on that note, time to shut down for Christmas.
Got to be up early for driving tomorrow.
Thankfully UK weather is better than in the US, as our freezing snap has passed.
Best wishes, stay warm and safe.
(Except for them mockers in the Califonicatin’ sunshine, who can go b@g~jR their @rs5 with a porcupine. As long as the porcupine don’t mind 🙂 )
Ok best EVEN to people in nice warm, sunny climes.
(Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the Brexiters for ending my dreams of retiring to Biarritz?)
@charon:
Apparently, according to a North Sea pipe guy I talked to, if you don’t keep the pumps running and positive pressure in the pipe, you will get seawater ingress.
And pumps are liable to seize up if they aren’t running. It’s damn COLD down there. And water pressure is MASSIVE.
It’s not like a land pipeline at all.
Also, for those & related reasons, regular pipe maintenance costs a LOT of money, and and a non-earning pipe is a sinkhole. (Or sinkpipe 🙂 )
Lounsbury, bless his sarcastic little heart, probably knows more about this than me.
@JohnSF:
Thanks.
@OzarkHillbilly: Christmas doesn’t matter to ranchers, we don’t even get to open presents til the cows are fed, I will try to take some pictures of the friendly’s and put them up on my drone blog tomorrow!!
@Jax:
I don’t know why, but “cow database” is cracking me up. I mean, of course, makes perfect sense. It’s also hilarious for some reason.
@OzarkHillbilly:
And that’s how I met & convinced my partner to marry me.
@JohnSF:
Lol, the only reason I’m not Catholic is because of a (nominal) Anglican. He did such a great job that I was never even baptized. I mean, he can die a horrible death, but I’m thankful for that.
@Jax: Please do, I would like to know their faces.
@Beth: The only reason I’m not Catholic is because I had a red headed nun who beat every inch of that shit out of me. Truly, I hate the church is a way that only one who has been subjected to their abuse can. Which is not to say there aren’t good Catholics, only to wonder why they are still Catholic?
Test
@Beth: I’m the only one keeping track of shit. How many cows we own, what their calving history is, etc. Before I came to live out here again, Boss Man, despite his title, had no fucking idea how many cows he actually owned. It’s an important thing to know when you’re dispensing hay in the winter months.
Now….my database is so pretty. I even know exactly the tag numbers that did NOT make it off the forest.
But…..if my neighbor can miss a 6 ft tall, red gentle giant, with two tags, for the last three months….I wonder if there aren’t more of my cattle in her herd? Maybe she and her crew are not very good at reading brands or tags?! Bertha’s not a fence jumper, she’s a follower.