Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, August 12, 2023
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43 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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Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill
Summed up in 2 more key things:
7: “But but but it harms fossil fuel corporations which will have a negative effect on my stock portfolio!”
8: “It doesn’t immediately stop all green house gas emissions!”
If anything comes off this, we may be in for another bout of wingnut ignoramuses crying blasphemy*.
Decades ago, a physicist named David Pines predicted a type of electron plasmon arrangement he called a demon. Now a team managed to detect them.
Various notes on this observation report that “Plasmons have been seen and widely studied in 2D metals, but because they are electrically neutral and don’t couple with light, they are hard to detect. This brings us to strontium ruthenate.” Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like dark matter.
Of course, such things are found on normal matter, not isolated from it. And neither the Pines Demon nor other plasmons were detected solely though gravity.
*When the Higgs boson was much in the news a few years ago, there were many references to it as “the God particle.” This set Christian wingnuts in a frenzy of indignation and outrage.
The backstory is that a book on the Higgs, published long before it was detected, would have been titled “The Goddamned Particle,” due to how hard it had proven to find or disprove. The publisher did not want the word Goddamned in the title, so it was changed to just God for some reason.
Goddamned particle makes sense, but God particle doesn’t. That’s the only outrage that would be reasonable.
Demon here is a similarly harmless term. It’s a reference to a thought experiment on thermodynamics by James Maxwell, known as Maxwell’s Demon
Interesting: Scientists may be on brink of discovering fifth force of nature
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/fox-legal-counsel-ousted
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same story as reported in science journals:
Dreams of new physics fade with latest muon magnetism result
Following up from yesterday’s open thread since my plans for a slow day when I could keep up and respond to your replies was foiled: thanks everyone for the sharpening advice!
Something new I found: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, performed with glasses.
It’s certainly different.
Also, Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy
@Kathy:
Long ago I was part of a lunchtime discussion in a Bell Labs cafeteria about maintaining the UNIX process table. It included processes whose parent had died (“orphans”), processes that were brought back to life (“zombies”) and proper sequencing of actions (“You can’t just kill the orphan, you have to create a zombie parent, then you can kill the orphan and then kill the zombie.”) About the time I was wondering how the conversation would sound to someone with no idea about the subject, a little old white-haired lady at the next table got up and announced, “You people are sick.”
@Stormy Dragon: That does not surprise me. Every time a “new and groundbreaking” discovery is reported, my first thought is always “probably just gonna tweak what we already know.” which is usually interesting.
Speaking of sciencey stuff, the Perseids peak this wkend. If the skies are clear tonight or tomorrow night, spend a few hours looking up, you won’t be disappointed (in the northern hemisphere anyway).
The most spectacular meteor shower I’ve ever seen was a Perseids. Of course, it helped that I wan on a high desert mountain during it.
A few Texas stories:
Sheriff says U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson cursed at officers, threatened his job in rodeo altercation
Child dies while en route to Chicago as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s migrant busing program
A prison guard says she was forced to stay at her post during labor pains. Texas is fighting compensation for her stillbirth.
@Scott:
Christian values.
@Scott: that last part about the pregnant prison guard is a real doozy. Exposes the Abbott administration as the lying, sadistic authoritarians they really are. It’s so painful to believe that so many Texans can overlook this obvious cruelty and deceit. How does this evil get justified there?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nine time out of ten, I’ll ignore sensational headlines about a new discovery, unless it comes from a source I trust*. I figure if there’s something to it, there will be a myriad other pieces on it later, perhaps with more nuance and detail.
*These tend not to sensationalize their headlines.
@becca:
Let me get this straight: The anti-abortion crowd is arguing that a 7 month fetus has no right to medical care that might save it, but the same fetus has every right NOT to be aborted. Is that what they’re saying?
Speaking of cuckoo medical-legal issues, an Ohio doctor, Sherri Tenpenny, has lost her license to practice medicine for
A) Claiming the Covid vaccine magnetizes people
aqnd
B) Claiming that cities are liquefying human corpses and pouring them into the water supply.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1690425276017074176
Senile dementia, maybe?
https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1690374658372014080
They are not exactly subtle whose votes they want, and why.
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1690403873268416512
“Meidas”
Then screenshots of various letters.
https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1690414162529095680
Today, at Iowa State Fair:
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1690424564684406784
Dementia.
@CSK: AYUP! Nothing to be proud of in that, but ayup just the same. ☹️
“DailyMail”
…
Dr, Frankenstein’s creation, just doing its thing.
@charontwo: A new poll for DailyMail.com found that almost half of Republicans in Iowa … say [Donald Trump] should continue in the race even if he is imprisoned for federal crimes.
Like he said, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it would not matte a bit to his supporters. I would modify it to say he could shoot a member of their family and his supporters would continue to back him. Now they would just claim it was Hunter Biden wearing a Trump mask.
@charontwo:
Didn’t Trump pull the exact same stunt at the Versailles restaurant in Miami?
@just nutha:
Well, it just proves that these malevolent hypocrites just want to punish women, not save precious little lives, doesn’t it?
@SenyorDave:
In 2016 the GOP delegate allocation rules were heavily tilted to disproportionately high delegates to the plurality leader, or winner take all to anyone with a majority of the votes. In 2024 they will be much more slanted than in 2016, so it’s hard to see Trump not locking up the nomination early on.
Expect lots of whining from the RNC etc. about “political prosecutions.”
(By contrast, the DNC mandates all states award strictly proportionally to all who clear a 10% minimum threshold. Most of the RNC states that award proportionally have a 20% threshold).
(The DNC requires the same rules for every state, while every RNC state sets its own individual rule set).
BUYING FOOD FOR EVERYONE!
– Trump/Lake 2024
@charontwo:
Bwahahahahahahahaha!!
He may well not go to jail, but his intelligence or lack thereof is not a factor (though his fanboiz will claim otherwise when the Supremes say, “Nope, can’t do that” in a 6-3 decision).
@CSK: Ayup. Then again, when did I ever disagree on that point? When evangelicals decided to go with “yeah, we oughta be runnin’ the place,” that was the end of the movement as a credible vision of Christianity.
“Love not the world…” (and I’ll let the rest of the Biblical scholars in our community finish the quote).
https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1690446282769551360
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It follows logically if you are certain you know God’s will.
If God is the supreme and ultimate authority, God’s will must supersede distractions like voters, laws whatever. Example: they keep pushing extreme antiabortion laws over obvious public opposition.
(Supporting Trump is logical tranactionally as Trump keeps giving them the judges etc. they want. DeSantis too. They like authoritarians because they believe the authoritarians will stay on their side, which I think a bit naive).
https://twitter.com/Roshan_Rinaldi/status/1690452894720409601
Bullying behavior, heckler’s veto. Lots of Trump supporters in Iowa so this behavior.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1690394024371204096/9RvHQ5Ar?format=webp&name=small
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/desantis-heckled-iowa-fair
@charontwo:
They’re probably heckling DeSatanis for the wrong reason.
On other things, I just put six chicken thighs, potatoes, and cut up hot dogs in the oven for a slow cook at 150C. I browned the skins well first.
@charontwo: I’ll stay with the part of my assertion that I concluded with–“that was the end of the movement as a credible vision of Christianity”–which is the only part I’m interested in. People have been deceiving themselves and others about such questions as long as there have been people. I’m simply staking out a point of separation. (And my inner separatist approves this message.)
@Kathy: Why ruin the flavor of the chicken thighs with hot dog flavoring? Or are hot dogs in Mexico of a more sophisticated flavor profile than the ones I buy in Kelso, WA? (Not a high bar to jump, by the way.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The hot dogs and potatoes go under the chicken, and get flavored by the drippings. Also, that’s how oven roasted chicken was made at home and I got used to it. My favorite part where the hot dogs.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Do they not have Nathan’s or Hebrew national there? Are you limited to Oscar Mayer, Bar S and tasteless trash like that?
@Thomm: What if I told you no, we have no such things? 😛 😛
My local grocery store only carries Oscar Meyer with cheese, Bar S, and an off brand. Oh, and a “veggie” brand that aligns with the gluten free bread and crackers. I feel bad for vegetarians who live here, honestly….there are no choices.
I think we have two amongst the commentariat from Hawai’i, not sure which island….maybe dutchgirl and HelloWorld?
Are you safe? Can I help you in any way?
@Thomm: I have no particular sense of taste for hot dogs to speak of. In a blind taste test, I’m incapable of distinguishing between Bar-S and Hebrew National or Nathan’s. It’s like fast food hamberders–they all taste the same to me.
@Mister Bluster:
This was bound to happen, though I did not expect it to be so quickly. The real question in my mind is what happens when hackers get into these things…