Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, November 6, 2023
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72 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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I found over the weekend the reason for mise en place to be the first thing one does when cooking.
I’d planned to make coconut rice with vegetables. But I was also doing cabbage with carrots, celery, and soybean sprouts for the week’s dinner, and preparing the marinade for the chicken thighs. Amid all that, I forgot to take out the coconut milk.
In between all these preparations, once the rice had been washed* and drained, the oil heated, and the veggies sliced, chopped, and diced, it was a simple matter to take the big measuring cup and fill it with two cups of water for the rice. Once the water was nearly boiling, I realized plain water would not do, do I got the big jar of chicken bouillon.
I still did not notice or recall it was supposed to be coconut rice. That happened some time later when I was returning all the other stuff to the pantry, and I saw the container of coconut milk sitting there, unopened.
Oh, well.
Fried rice with soybean sprouts, celery, onions, garlic, a little carrot and some grated ginger works well, too.
I typically write down what I’ll make, the use that to make a shopping list. the former can be just the name or description of a dish, or a quasi-recipe (amounts, say, and what gets mixed with what). I should have it with me when I cook, and see whether I got all the right ingredients on hand.
On other cooking developments, I got a french omelet nearly right. The trick is to have the pan on medium heat, and stir the eggs so they cook more evenly. Here’s the video where Lan Lam demonstrates how.
It worked well enough for me though I used oil instead of butter. The filling I wanted to use is a different story.
I have been thinking (I know dangerous territory), but isn’t it possible that we have reached the point were telephone polls are no longer predictive given that these polls are conducted on a small fraction of people who still have landlines and answer numbers they don’t recognize and actually engage with telemarketers?
There was a time when I might have answered a telephone poll but I stopped doing that years ago. I rarely answer my phone anymore no matter who it is. I asked some of the younger people I know and anecdotally no none of them answer the phone ever. So that means that the polls are made up entirely of people young or old who answer the phone, a demographic, that I can only surmise, skews conservative.
Am I wrong? If so how wrong?
@Rick DeMent:
Yours is not an unreasonable question.
Thanks for all the kind wishes and remembrances of your own non-human companions. As sappy as it sounds, and despite how frustrated I sometimes get with people, this community is a blessing in my life.
Dr. T bait
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/are-we-headed-for-two-demagogic-parties
@Rick DeMent: I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t know anyone who has a landline at home anymore, unless they also need a fax line. And very often they don’t pick up the landline anymore, because it’s all telemarketers.
Today Benito the Impotent Cheeto is scheduled to testify at his own trial.
I don’t really care what he says at all. But I wonder if he’ll wind up with perjury charges as a result. I don’t suppose that’s likely in a civil case, but we know our beloathed Cheeto of the Tiny Hands can always be counted on to make a bad situation worse.
@Rick DeMent: The top polling firms include cell only households in their surveys. I worked for Arbitron for 11 years and we were one of the first survey companies to include cell phone only households in our surveys, and it was incredibly expensive at first. Now with the vats majority of households being cell only, the costs have dropped to a much more reasonable level. Any decent survey should include landline and cell households in proportions close to the general population. What is still very hard is measuring young adults (18 – 24) and (25 – 34).
@SenyorDave: I have been a cell only household for more than a decade, but I also don’t answer cell calls from numbers I don’t recognize and I suspect I am not a minority in that regard.
@Jax:
I wonder who uses a fax these days and for what. I read some years ago fax machines were still popular in Japan, but I forget why.
At home the landline exists solely for the broadband internet modem. If the phone ever rings, chances are no one will hear it. I don’t recall the last time I picked it up. I don’t even need an extension active, but I figure I may need it one day if unaccountably the cell phone runs out of battery during a power blackout.
@Sleeping Dog: FWIW, I don’t see the parties as polarized. Rather, the Repubs have gone insane, driving sane and practical people into the Dem fold. This keeps them focused on results rather than political theories.
@Kathy:
Didn’t Martha Stewart end up in jail for lying to a federal official in what would otherwise been merely a civil case?
@Kathy: It was kinda funny a couple weeks ago….I got plane tickets for my Mom and my Aunt to fly back to Arizona. They were panicking because my Auntie couldn’t find her itinerary or confirmation number. They wanted my brother to FAX it to her. 😛 😛 My brother was like……are you fucking kidding me?! FAX it? In 2023?!
I reminded my Mom that she has the airline’s app, and that the itinerary/confirmation numbers had been emailed to my aunt. Fax crisis averted. 😛
@SenyorDave:
Sure but what I am talking about is the phenomenon of people just not answering a phone cell from anyone not in her contacts (although to be fair I didn’t make that point very clear). People just swipe left if they don’t know who is calling. This has gravitated to even people like my wife who used to answer every single call to her cell no matter what as recently as before the pandemic. That was until we became eligible for Medicare and she was getting calls day and night for a Medicare advantage plan, she finally got good with the swipe left function. 🙂
Even her 90 year old mother stopped answering her cell phone much to my wife’s dismay.
WAPO reports they’ve hired a new CEO and Publisher. One William Lewis. A Brit. A veteran of Murdoch’s News Corp. Boris Johnson speaks highly of him. Johnson says he’s a fellow Brexiteer. Lewis denies it. I would too if I’d been a Brexiteer. The slide toward being a print version of FOX continues. Katherine Graham must be spinning in her grave.
I used to read NYT in the morning. Then, for all the reasons FTFNYT is called FTFNYT, I added WAPO. Recently I subscribed to The Guardian online because they actually cover the news. I’ve been dithering over whether to drop WAPO or NYT. WAPO just moved to the head of the list.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve felt like that for years. D v R is just rational v not. Some of the Trumpies brag about being in Team Normal. Only Ds belong in Team Normal. GOPs sort into Team Crazy and Team Less Obviously Crazy. Or in some cases just Team Corrupt. I’m looking at you Moscow Mitch.
Whataboutism Same people who quote the leaked Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect manifesto as proof of white supremacy terrorism will now condemn the leak of Nashville Christian elementary school trans shooter’s manifesto.
@Jax:
We got a fax at the office in the late 80s. It was very useful for a few years. It took far less time to fax an order to a supplier in NYC, than to dictate the order over the phone. Back then long distance calls were expensive, so the fax saved money as well.
But within a few years we switched to mostly a fax modem for sending documents. The fax machine now largely only received faxes, ro sent things that had to be scanned (we had no separate scanner back then).
By the late 90s we began to use email more. By the 200s, in a different job, we occasionally made use of faxes, but we preferred email when possible. Than, too, not long after multi function laser printers became more common. You know, scan, copy, and print in one device. So there was less and less need for a fax, I think I last used one in 2009-2010.
@Kathy: fax machines used to be popular in Japan because we could fax maps we scribbled down on pieces of paper to explain how to get to location X (Japan has the most confusing address system of any country in the world, bar none.)
Now that smartphones can send maps to other smartphones, I wonder whether the fax machines are still around.
I still have a fax line I sometimes use. It’s the backup when everything else fails and I need to get a legal document to somewhere else, pronto.
The@Rick DeMent: The top polling firm will make adjustments for all of the issues you have raised. It can be very expensive. Ultimately you want to your sample to come as close as possible to the area you are polling. You have a few keys variables that you always want to target (party split – if you are doing Oklahoma polling you want a greater percentage of Republicans than if you are doing Maryland, race, gender, age group, landline/cell, geography). The most accurate polls tend to be the internal polling for candidates, especially if it is a big race. Biden’s team won’t blink twice at spending $500k for a Wisconsin poll with all the bells and whistles, but a newspaper might do a poll on the cheap.
@gVOR10:
For a while, it looked like GQP was divided into Team Krazy, and Team Only Pretending To Be Krazy.
Looks can be deceiving.
BTW, about washing rice, as I left an asterisk dangling above, I let mine soak, then change the water two or three times, then rinse it. That gives me better results than the common practice here. This consists of placing the rice in a colander or strainer, and letting water run through it over the sink, until “the water comes out clear.” Uses up far less water, too.
The talk about land lines and fax machines is interesting because it is an example of the speed of technological change. In the 1970s, my next door neighbor was an old guy who in his youth (late 1920s) had worked as a bike messenger on Wall Street. He transported documents including stock certificates, contracts, and even Treasury bonds made out to bearer in a pouch from firm to firm. All done electronically now, of course. In the afternoon, he’d ride over to Yankee Stadium where he would get in cheap because it was already the fourth inning by the time he finished work. He saw Lou Gehrig, the Babe, and the rest of Murderers Row play!
@Kathy:
With the month long process of the garden being shut down/ moved indoors, mise en place prep sessions are becoming a daily chore. Chop up veggies to desired specs, divide up, label and freeze. Chop up what’s needed for the next few meals based on viability, sort for what’s too bruised or damaged to survive storage. Save seeds to be dried and make sure they’re tagged by name and strain (testing who’s doing better in a changing climate). It’s getting to the point I forget to make the actual meal since I’m spending hours just cutting up veggies and zoning out to podcasts, only to find hungry family waiting and the ingredients just sitting there on a cold stove. Future me will be grateful for all the work but present me is wondering why 30% of my freezer is peppers and other cut veggies and when it will stop.
@KM:
Gardens are really hard to keep inside an apartment. So that’s one less worry.
I’ve contemplated growing herbs by the kitchen window near the sink, but I just don’t want to bother. Besides, the gourmet place I buy limes and fruit from is now stocking herbs in smaller bundles. It’s a bit more expensive, but herbs are cheap to begin with. Point is I can get stuff I don’t use much, since 50 grams make for less waste than the 200-250 gram bundles most supermarkets sell.
@Kathy: I always swirled the eggs up the sides of the pan, but I haven’t made an omelette in ages.
@Sleeping Dog: And The Bulwark finally shows the conservative behind the curtain. Pay no attention!
@Grumpy realist:
I don’t know how apocryphal this is but when I was stationed in Japan I was told that 1)the confusing address system was intentional and designed to keep the tax collectors from finding you; and 2) the stand alone police booths (called kobans) in every neighborhood originated because the police officers main job was to help people find addresses.
@Paul L.: I’m looking forward to seeing your documentation on this.
@Grumpy realist: Korea has to be close, with addresses like 79 Namdaemun-no 914 ga, 47 gil. (Ga and gil both meaning street.)
ETA: No means street, too, come to think of it
@Scott: Japan has the most confusing address system of any country in the world, bar none.
I know its not a country, but Puerto Rico is trying to give Japan a run for its money. They have two real issues:
1. It is very common to have three homes in a row with numbers that make no sense, such as 17, 21 and then 19.
2. Many buildings have no street number, jus the name of the street (and this can apply to a large hotel on a busy street).
I worked for a survey company, and we literally had an entire department that just handled Puerto Rico surveys. The companies that provided the address data for Puerto Rico charged at least ten times more per address than the rest of the US (and that included other US territories like USVI and Guam).
@Kathy: I swirl the rice, in the cooking pot, through the water with my hand. It takes about 3 water changes to get to clear.
@SenyorDave: That type of numbering was common in Korea before their change, too. Turns out that most buildings were numbered in the order they were built.
@just nutha: I’m curious, what’s the purpose of rinsing the rice to begin with? I do it, but don’t worry about getting to clear. But I’m not really sure WHY I do it. I just always have.
@Scott: @just nutha:
Someone once made the comment that since Japan had basically borrowed the traditional Korean location system for addresses, Korea had already got revenge for WWII….(Japan has never fixed theirs)
Yes, half of the reason Japan has koban around is so that people can find places. Also why mailmen stay in one area until they retire.
@MarkedMan:
To remove the starch from the rice. This nets you a less sticky, fluffier end product.
Once the water is clear, no more starch is being extracted.
For risotto, which is supposed to be thick and creamy, you don’t wash the rice beforehand. Instead you make it absorb the liquid (usually broth and wine), and mix with the starch for a creamy consistency.
@MarkedMan: Short grain rice is really gluey sometimes if you don’t wash it. And back in the old days short grain rice was sometimes coated with talc. I don’t know why but remember reading the warnings to that effect.
ETA: I don’t wash long grain rice.
@just nutha: Thanks. FWIW, sticky rice is better if you want to eat it with chopsticks
I walk our two dogs, Astrid, the very pretty pocket Golden, and Boss (female despite the name) who is a small hyper Pug with a serious underbite. Over a period of weeks Boss has come to believe that prior to a walk she must savage a crinkly, plush duck in order to entreat her Dog God: me. Now Astrid has joined the cult and they fight for the right to murder the duck.
This is how religions start.
Astrid is beautiful, languorous, sullen and not terribly bright. Like a supermodel. Boss is, um, cute with a great personality. I had been thinking of them as sisters but that narrative turned sad when I realized that all the boys would be asking Astrid out, while Boss would be stuck in the friend zone. But then I noticed that whenever Astrid rolls over to get a tummy rub Boss runs over and, for lack of a more canine term, goes down on Astrid.
So now I’ve decided they’re a lesbian couple. Astrid lies around reading fashion magazines and Boss organizes a softball league and does DIY.
@Sleeping Dog:
Absolutely fascinating article (no subscription necessary) from the WaPo (in a data geek kind of way) on trends in US family size. In 1975 18% of woman 25-44 had never given birth, and that rose steeply until it reached 26% in 1988. For the next twenty five years it rose more slowly to 28%, but now is rising steeply again, reaching 35% last year.
The number of births has also decreased substantially. In 1975 20% of women had four or more children but that declined rapidly to 8% in 1988 and has remained stable since then. In 1975 18% of women had three children, and that decreased to 15% in 1988 and stayed that way until 2014, when it started dropping. It’s now 13%. Women with two children were the largest grouping in 1975 at 27%, grew to just over 30% from 1981 to 2006, but then began to drop, with just under 25% in 2022. And finally one birth accounted for 16% in 1975, rose to 20% in 1981 and has held steady since.
@just nutha:
So, it looks like this happened:
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/nashville-manifesto-steven-crowder/
Which then caused the Conservatives to pivot to this:
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/conservatives-blame-biden-nashville-shooting/
Daily Dot was the only thing that came up in my Apple news “Transgender” section. It’s so depressing. For what it’s worth, I’ve thought that the fact that the cops dribbled out a bunch of trans related stuff but refused to release the manifesto was intentionally done to harm the trans community. I wish they would have released the whole thing after they made their insinuations. I think the fact that Crowder got his paws on it first says something too.
I’ve been reading here and there about how the cheap, ad-supported streaming subscriptions bring in more money for the streamers, than the premium, far more expensive, ad-free ones.
This makes sense. One assumes more people will pay for the cheaper subscriptions, for one thing. For another thing, advertisers will pay when their ads are shown (I wonder how the contracts are structured).
So, its looking more like old fashioned network TV now.
I wonder if it will become more so. I assume streamers get paid more in ads if their subscribers watch more content, and are thus shown more ads. This may deal a blow to the 6-10 ep per season model, whether it follows a story arc or not. More eps means more viewing minutes, right?
On the other hand, I’m very particular about what I watch. Though I keep the TV on a great deal of time, it’s largely as background noise while I browse the web. Counting Youtube videos*, I estimate I watch, as in actively pay attention, between 6 and 12 hours per week, depending on what’s available.
For example, last week I watched Rick and Morty on Monday, Youtube videos on Tuesday, John Oliver on Wednesday, Steelers vs Titans and Loki on Thursday, Lower Decks on Friday, Youtube videos on Saturday, and Across The Spiderverse on Sunday (that day the TV was providing background noise through NFL games).
This week will be much the same, minus Lower Decks, which finished its ten ep season last week.
With these habits, streamers, if they showed me ads, would benefit from longer seasons. Of the above, the only show with a longer season is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
*I’ve been watching a lot of analysis of commercial airlines and air crashes from a Swedish pilot on his Youtube channels. Also cooking videos.
@Beth: The shooter did it to kill crackers? I thought they were a cracker! I’m confused.
I do wonder how much of the manifesto Crowder got his filthy little hands on, and what information isn’t being released. It could have been a 58 page screed about the problems caused by Libs of TikTok, chock full of citations and graphs and well researched, and two pages of white privilege for all we know. Or all about their unhappy polycule with Stephen Crowder and Paul L. We simply don’t know.
@Scott:
@Grumpy realist:
@SenyorDave: Do GPSes work OK for finding addresses in Korea, Japan, and Puerto Rico? One reason I ask is having read that London cabbies had to memorize “the lore”, a mental map of London. A skill supposedly obsoleted by GPS.
@Michael Reynolds: I really wish we had a dog sex thread so it wouldn’t find its way into the open thread.
Maybe we could designate the Israel-Palestine threads as “Israel, Palestine and dog sex”
Well, my covid/flu shots last Wednesday knocked me sideways for three days.
Ran a bit of mild temperature on Thursday, and various aches (though that might just be the combination of the damn sodden weather and age) but the main thing was my upper arms were so sore I couldn’t sleep.
Or more accurately, fell asleep, rolled onto side, promptly woke up. Repeat ad nauseam for three nights.
Cue grumpy and disgruntled JohnSF.
At least that’s done for a year, and it indicates the immune response was well and truly triggered.
Monday: opens news.
Considers that being feverish might be the better option
@JohnSF: Idle curiosity. Did you get the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or one of the mRNA vaccines?
@Scott:
The Covid vax was a Pfizer one, I know that.
What the flu jab was, I neglected to ask.
Oxford/AstraZeneca use has been discontinued in the UK, due to some allergic reactions.
IIRC Pfizer in mRNA based, as is Moderna.
@JohnSF: Thanks. Was just curious since you had what sounded like a somewhat severe reaction to one of the shots. I rarely have reactions to vaccines which some say is bad (due to not priming the immune system) and some say is, if not good, at least irrelevant. Even back in the 60s, I didn’t get a small pox reaction and no resulting scar.
Hi folks, from Santa Rosa County, Florida. Home of Pensacola.
Or if you will, the reddest of the red counties of America. Matt Gaetz territory. Home of the Blue Angels.
Here is where we made National News by one of the local
Nazi’sMoms For Liberty reporting a librarian for distributing Pornography… or as most of America would call it Teen / Young Adult fiction.https://popular.info/p/moms-for-liberty-members-call-the
Thank dog that I’m only here for three months at a time before I go back to Colorado for a normality booster.
@MarkedMan: Koreans don’t eat sticky rice with chopsticks. They seem to have discovered the spoon long ago.
Really sticky rice is best made into rice cake, BTW.
@Rick DeMent: I don’t even know anyone who has a land line anymore. When I last had a land line 13 years ago the only calls I got on it were bill collectors for other people or scammers. Ended up getting rid of it because we just straight up left the phone muted because none of the calls were ever for us.
I screen my cell phone calls so I wouldn’t even know if I’ve been hit by a pollster.
@JohnSF:
Chances are your flu shot is an inactivated virus vaccine, either with three or four variants. The nasal spray version uses attenuated virus.
@Scott:
If your innate immune system doesn’t react to the vaccine, odds are very low the adaptive system will do anything at all. Long story short, you need dendritic cells (innate) to carry viral antigens to the lymph nodes to present to T and B cells (adaptive).
How it reacts varies between individuals. I’m certain you’ve had cuts, nicks, and been pricked by a torn, splinter, or sharp tool. All these cause an innate immune response, as bacteria are everywhere and will enter your body through the cut. And also because the damaged cells will produce cytokines and interferons to alert the immune system.
I’m willing to bet most of these minor injuries caused no muscle aches nor fever. This doesn’t mean your innate system did not respond. And the same goes for vaccines.
Since December 2020 I’ve gotten 3 flu shots, one shingles vaccine, two Pfizer doses and two AZ boosters. Of these, the second Pfizer produced some pain in the shoulder, and the AZ that and fever later in the day (and vivid, semi-lucid dreams).
Since the AZ carries a live, non-attenuated common cold virus that infects cells and gives them instructions to make trump virus spike proteins, I expected more of a reaction from then. I wasn’t disappointed (and lucky both boosters took place on Friday).
@Gustopher:
A discussion of canine sex wouldn’t be amiss in a thread about furniture.
@Matt:
We have a hybrid land line: Ooma. It’s an Analog Telephony Adapter (ATA) that plugs into the home network. If you wish it can also pug into a home’s phone wiring and power any traditional analog phone. For $4 / month it’s nice to have that line for conference calls and such.
It was of HUGE value to us when we lived in Brazil. You could pick up phone and call “local” in the USA. Even 800#’s. Really kept it easy to keep in touch.
@Beth: Interesting. Thanks. But it still leaves poor Paul L with the need to connect “the leaked Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect manifesto” with “condemn the leak.” The fact that RWNJs can switch directions faster than bumper cars isn’t new information.
@Liberal Capitalist: Yeah it’s just hardware for VOIP which anyone can do with an internet connection and some software.
$4 bucks a month without having to deal with the technical side is quite good. Convenience wise I’m sure it’s a win for you.
You must of saved an unreal amount of money during your time in Brasil.
@Kathy: Not surprised. Then again, not every service offered to the public has to offer the same ROI as every other one. Tricking people into believing that they’re not being shown commercials by, say only showing them promos related to the products on the streaming service, provides an acceptable ROI at basically zero cost given that the promos already exist and enlarge the bottom line. Bigger is always better. Selling a 10 cent item for a nickel and hoping you’ll make it up on the volume is trouble spot.
@gVOR10: They seem to if my recent trip to Korea is an example. On the other hand, GPS in Korean taxis keys to new address, traditional address (district, block, space) and name of the destination if the destination is a business or public destination. I assume that private vehicle GPS systems work similarly, but don’t know for sure.
@Gustopher: Michael wrote a thread about dog sex today? I’d realize that bypassing his threads was a good idea. More evidence to the affirmative.
We have a “land line”–in quotes because really it’s an internet phone as part of our cable bundle. We have it for two reasons: 1) cell coverage in our town and our house is bizarrely spotty. Some places you get a decent signal but if you move a foot to the left, it drops completely. 2) As part of the bundle, it was really cheap.
On fax machines–our library has a fax machine. It is used, on average, once a week. Lots of medical stuff still gets faxed, along with some accounting/tax/legal things, plus, we have a fairly large group of elderly in our community who aren’t familiar with scanners, etc.
The continuing saga of the new House Speaker keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.
How this compares with dog sex, I can’t even speculate on.
@Gustopher: skimmed the shooters manifesto pages, and they mention wanting to kill those “faggot” kids multiple times. As often as anything about crackers or other white people.
Who taught the shooter to hate gays? Clearly they are right wing. Or worse, an undecided swing voter.
(Lunatic manifesto gotcha is a great game)
@Just nutha ignint cracker: For $16.99/mo, they could ditch the service and get some of that fancy premium porn and just watch it together.
@Matt:
As a former Consulting SE for Cisco, and a specialist in Global Contact centers, you made me smile.
And yes, while we did save a theoretical ton of cash, it really was priceless in allowing my wife to keep in touch with family and friends.
The best part was that for her, she didn’t have to understand the magic of this thing and how VOIP made it all possible. All she knew was she picked up a GE wireless phone handset and called. And when everything else is so different, that was reassuring.
For me, it was being able to call American Airlines Exec Platinum 800#.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, dogs feel like having sex only when a female dog is in heat.
And judging by my dogs, they’re not very particular whom or what they get it on with.
@Gustopher:
That’s … not a mental picture I care to linger over.
Re MAGA Johnson’s apparent lack of a bank account. I see he’s refraining from saying whether he has a bank account. Which seems a simple question, so I take it as confirmation he has an account and has lied on disclosures. On the other hand, is there maybe some sort of RW, maybe crypto based, banking thing trying to stay under the radar of the regulators? Or maybe a religious thing? Something analogous to Islamic banks? (Apparently there are Islamic banks in the U. S.? Are they subject to normal regulation?)
@Matt:
@Liberal Capitalist:
Sometime early in the 90s we had a “callback” service for long distance calls to the US and Canada. You dialed a number, let it ring once, and hung up. A few second later, your phone rang and you got a recording with instructions, pressed some number on the keypad, and got a dial tone. Then you dialed the number as if you were in the US. It could be used for faxing as well as regular calls, I think.
The thing is you got charged at US domestic rates rather than Mexican international rates. Even with the monthly service charge, it was much cheaper.
Before even that, there was a way to hack phone exchanges with something called either a Blue Box, Or Blue Bit. It was software that played phone tones to achieve this through a modem. You did need a dedicated sound card, which was pricey back then (mid-80s to early 90s).
I never used it. People I knew who ran BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems; essentially online message boards before the internet caught on and was freely available), used it to transfer files to networked BBSes in America and Canada (WWIVNet, FidoNet, etc.)
Well, Benito appeared in court, and he succeeded in pissing off the judge. He didn’t testify in the case, he did so for his base of deplorables.
I’m a bit surprised he didn’t engage in perjury, and he didn’t once get cited for contempt for going off on rants instead of answering the question. Less surprising, his lawyers did not cross examine him. I wonder if they’ll call him to testify.
Tomorrow is election day, apparently, and the court takes that as a holiday. Ivanka will testify Wednesday. I don’t expect much.
Speaking of tomorrow, there’s a big election in Ohio, regarding the continued existence of legal abortion in the state. A few months back the state GQP tried to pass a measure making future ballot measures harder to pass. It failed.
Fingers crossed.
@gVOR10: re: islamic banks. They are regulated as normal. The main difference is that they do not charge interest on loans per se. What they do is, instead, tack on a lump sum “finance fee”. In the car world, we get around the religious interest ban by buying down the interest rate to effectively 0 by getting that amount as a line item on the loan contract and it usually paid by the client out of pocket at the time of close of the deal or just rolled into the monthly payments.
@Kathy:
Why do you think he didn’t commit perjury? He contradicted himself a number of times, at least once in the same sentence. Who’s to say he didn’t lie at other times?
On the other hand, hew as an incoherent mess. Why anyone believes this third rate clown is a master businessman is beyond me…
@gVOR10:
That bank account bit has me really confused. He’s not getting paid in cash for his job. How the hell do you make any money and not have a bank account? I’m guessing everyone one working for McDonald’s gets direct deposit and has a bank account. Makes me think he’s a liar and a bad one at that.
I’ve done a number of real estate closings with Islamic mortgages. They would always get antsy when I would describe the fee as interest and the loan officer would jump in and explain it away. Personally, if your god says no interest, you shouldn’t be all, “this isn’t real interest, it’s something else.” But, whatever.
@just nutha:
What is the progress in the investigation of the leak of the Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect manifesto?
Nashville is investigating the leak as an assault on the shooting victims/LGBTQIAMXYZ.
Minority Report and BreadTube keep using the Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect manifesto as proof of Right wing Terrorist.