Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 13, 2021
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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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Postmaster general’s new plan could include slower mail and postage hike
I can hardly believe a southern state such as Georgia would stoop to such lows.
@OzarkHillbilly: A southern state using Law Enforcement to try to keep the black vote down? When’s that ever happened before?
He loves the poorly educated.
Watch this 14 year old girl fight off three armed robbers with a machete
The best 23 seconds of your day:
If that video doesn’t make you smile, you are broken.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Jet lands with people on the runway.
How they were even cleared to land, I’ve no idea.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks. I’ve been trying and failing to explain this to people.
@Kathy:
I may avoid Paraguay in my travels.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nothing beats a puppy-toddler scrimmage.
@Teve: There was a 7th Day Adventist church right down the road from me when I lived in Bourbon. Proselytizers would knock on my door from time to time. Once they made the mistake of doing so on my birthday. I decided I deserved a little something extra on my special day and wasted about 45 mins of their day arguing. Fun was had.
Another time they caught my youngest at home alone (17 at the time) and he made the mistake of engaging in serious conversation with them. They were relentless in their attempts at saving his soul, returning multiple times. They were always exceedingly polite with me, asking permission to talk to him again. I always said yes.
As I explained to him, “Hey, you opened the door. It’s up to you to close it.”
Even out here in the boonie woods, we are not safe. Every now and again I find literature rubber banded to my gate.
@Kathy: @CSK: They are so nonchalant about the whole thing, like dodging A321s is all in a days work.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, the guy on camera didn’t even look up.
Incroyable.
Do sit down, you won’t have to fall as far.
@sam: wow
@sam:
Never seen anything like it. Thanks.
‘I Miss My Mom’: Children Of QAnon Believers Are Desperately Trying To Deradicalize Their Own Parents
LOL ‘conscience’
@Teve:
I was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Ask me anything!
@OzarkHillbilly: I think it’s a Bombardier CRJ-900. The pilot was prepared to touch down past the cones/markers. The work and runway limit was likely posted in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), which was not the case on this runway, where luckily no-one was badly injured.
@Mikey: I was just illustrating the fact that when predicted end of the world days come and go it doesn’t really shake the faith as a whole. There will probably still be Q believers decades from now when I die.
@Teve: My parents have been struggling with repeated credit card hacks, and I couldn’t figure out why….until the other day when I went over there and they were clickity clicking on every single Facebook ad they saw that promised them a way to get more money back on social security, credit card in hand. That line about Boomers being the most likely targets of Q because of their struggles with digital literacy ring true. My parents just don’t understand the dangers of the internet.
I spent two hours yesterday on my Mom’s Facebook, forever hiding all the ads I could find and unfollowing all groups that spread anything about Q. The ads are an endless supply, but I got it down to where it was mostly ads for purses. I’ll have another go at it today.
In a particularly bizarre case of “Everything is the Dems fault because only they have agency”, Suzanne Collins, concerned that Trump and his team refused to answer her question about when he knew the rioters were in the Capitol, is blaming the Democratic Impeachment Managers for failing to adequately investigate. It literally does not occur to her that Trump has a responsibility to answer that question and refusing to do so under oath is essentially an admission of guilt. It never occurs to her that the Senate, which was still under Republican control the whole time this was going on, could have investigated. And I’m sure the press will accept this narrative. The reality is that since Reagan, no one expects Republicans to act responsibly and the press blames their irresponsibility on Dems not being able to control them.
@Jax: computers can be endlessly confusing. I’ve got a professional tech background, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to understand what putting a period in front of the @ on Twitter did, and I read explanations four or five times. Someone who was middle-aged before computer use was widespread is a sitting duck.
@Owen:
You just reminded me of A great Tom Segura bit on Steven Seagal
@Jax: 2 words: Ad blocker.
@Owen: I wouldn’t know. The only passenger plane I can pick out of a lineup is the 747. The rest all look alike to me.
@Teve:
Haven’t used Twitter since it first came out, when it was still an app targeted at friends and family. What does it do?
@Teve: I have been called “Cliff” on more than one occasion! 😉
@Teve:
IMHO, it was the dog that scared them off. Nothing more viscous than a Toy Poodle
@MarkedMan: whew okay.
Lets say your buddy Brian follows you on Twitter. And say you follow Kevin McCarthy. And say I follow McCarthy too, but he doesn’t follow us.
McCarthy posts on Twitter “I want my mommy.” You and I see this post and all replies to it, but Brian doesn’t. Now say you reply to McCarthy, “you have the courage of a diseased hen.” McCarthy, you, and I can see your reply, but Brian doesn’t because he doesn’t follow McCarthy and we’re on McCarthy’s timeline. If Brian specifically goes to your timeline or McCarthy’s timeline he will see it, but it won’t be pushed to him. But if you include a dot before McCarthy’s handle, .@kevinwhatever your comment will be pushed to anybody who follows you, like Brian.
@owen: I didn’t mean anything by it, it was just the specificity that reminded me of that funny bit 😛
Tom Segura is in my top five list of comedians and I’m sad that I’ve seen literally everything he’s ever done online. Same problem with Taylor Tomlinson.
@Teve:
And since 2016 the dot isn’t even necessary for that purpose. Twitter changed how mentions work that year, and the dot became superfluous.
@Teve:
This is helpful:
http://www.themuse.com/advice/mystery-dot-the-best-kept-secret-on-twitter
The Senate just voted 55-45 to call witnesses.
@Mikey:
I want to hear Kevin McCarthy’s version of the conversation Jaime Herrera Beutler overheard.
@Owen:
A NOTAM only helps so much. See Western Airlines flight 2605 crash in Mexico City.
@Mikey: yeah, i read that. Now I have yet another item of worthless knowledge for the pile 😛
@Mikey: Some Republicans said they want to call Hillary.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, these days most planes, from the small regional jets to the large widebodies have two engines on the wings and a similar profile. There are ways of telling them apart, but it’s not immediately apparent in most cases.
I call this the cookie-cutter approach to aircraft design.
@OzarkHillbilly:
We don’t get many cults going door-to-door down here, but there are a few.
If there were more common, I’d get a book or two from the Satanic Temple, and greet these people with “Thanks, but I’m not interested. Would you like to hear the good news from our lord Satan?”
@OzarkHillbilly: Facebook has taken to inserting ads directly into the feeds, and adblockers typically don’t stop them. FB is determined to sell me a variety of old people’s stuff. I have looked deeply enough to say that my personal software for reformatting the web could be extended to recognize and hide them, but the standard techniques used by adblockers won’t.
@Teve:
Of course they do. It would be as fundamentally stupid and unserious as the party itself has become.
I saw one mention of the Senate majority being able to limit it to fact witnesses, but not sure if that’s true or not.
@Michael Cain: The best solution I’ve found is to hide the ad, then on the next box, click “Hide all ads from this advertiser”. I do it on my own Facebook every Monday, so the ads are relatively manageable given how many I’ve hidden forever ever since I started doing it, but my Mom’s….my poor clicker fingers were going numb from the repetitive motions and my eyes were crossing. 😉
@Mikey: if it’s true I read a minute ago that each witness has to be individually voted on, that would keep bullshit down.
@Teve: What hurts is how much my physical appearance matches current corpulent Steven Seagal.
I have a congenital condition, a kindly Army First Sergeant diagnosed it for me while I was in my early 20s. Upon first meeting me he said: “Son, you have Dunlap disease!”
@Teve: Thanks. It makes me think there is a bit to be done there where you have an increasingly unhinged argument argument with an imaginary correspondent.
“Sure, Arthur, but a DOG CANT CONSENT!”
@Teve: Graham voted for witnesses, saying they’d call Dems. Ever since I’ve had in my minds eye the famous picture of Hillary, head on hand, looking bored, waiting for the children to give up their silly game.
@Teve:
Now you can say you have been working with Twitter for like 47 years.
@Teve: I can understand that. It’s always worked well before. 😀
@Kurtz: ❤
Test
As expected, the Senate votes to acquit. 57-43.
The biggest surprise to me is there were seven Republicans willing to hold to their oaths.
But 43 think hanging Mike Pence would be just fine.
Inspirational quote of the day:
“Trump for prison 2021!” Kathy.
@Mikey:
Well, Pence was a traitor and a backstabber, you know. His constitutional duty was to throw the election to Trump, because Trump won.
They’d be fine with Trump being executed. Happy about it, in fact.
@Kathy: And I just don’t care enough to know the difference. I’ve flown trans Atlantic a few times and all I know is I was in the kind of plane that didn’t crash. I’ve flown puddle jumpers and all I know is they didn’t crash. I’ve flown 4 seaters and all I know is they didn’t crash.
Now put me in a B-29 (what my old man crash landed in on Iwo Jima 2 times) or a B-24 (what the father of a good friend bailed out of over Yugoslavia) and those I’ll know. Oh yeah, I once got buzzed by a P-47 while squirrel hunting, but I don’t think I have any chance in flying in one of those.
@Kathy: Ooooooo ooo, that is just plain mean. I like.
@Michael Cain: Just one more reason for me to never get on facebook.
Wow, and I thought the GOP in DC were dummies:
TX Lt. Gov Cancel Cultures Dallas Mavs Over National Anthem
My usual h/t to Above the Law, where law is more than lawyer cats!
As I mentioned, my car (a hand-me-down from my 90yo mother who voluntarily gave up driving) finally died. It was 10 years old.
This morning, I signed the novel of papers and picked up my “new” car–a 2019 Kia Forte*.
It’s a low-end trim, which means that everything is knobs and buttons–which I love! It has Android Auto so I can see GPS on a slightly larger screen (which is good) and it connects to my phone via bluetooth (which I’m on the fence about (my in-coming calls are 99.44% spam and 0.56% important stuff)).
When I first sat in it, it seemed small–but that’s because I’ve been driving a 2002 Buick for the past 2 years. It’s actually quite comfortable. And it has one feature that I’d only dreamed of before: Telescoping steering wheel. It’s always been a trade-off between leg distance and arm distance for me. If the seat was far enough back for my legs to feel comfortable, I felt like I was reaching out with my arms. If my arms were comfortable, my legs felt cramped. Now? Perfect fit!
We had a little snow today, so I got a taste of how it handles in the snow–but it was only a little snow, and I’ve only driven it about 4 miles all day (including a long detour back from the grocery store, just to get a better feel for it). It seems to handle the snow rather well, but… we’ll have to see what it’s like when real snow and ice come along.
The only debate I have is whether I’ll use the “slap stick” feature or not. If I can’t have a full stick**, it feels rather condescending.
I expect this is the last car I’ll own before I need to get a red Barchetta and a Canadian uncle.
===
* That’s not where I bought it, but that’s the car. It’s even the same color.
** The “quick guide” owner’s manual (as opposed to the Russian novel that is the full owner’s manual) has AN ENTIRE PAGE–WITH DIAGRAMS–explaining how to shift into reverse on a stick.
@Mu Yixiao:
get a miata instead.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think I’ve flown that one.
There’s no reason to much care what plane you’re on, unless you’re interested in that sort of thing. Overall, Airbus tends to build a slightly wider fuselage, so you may have an extra half inch of seat width, maybe a whole inch in some models. And this depends also on how the airline configures the airplane (ie 9 across vs 10 across in economy in wide bodies).
But I miss the old days. I attended a school that was under the landing pattern for Mexico City’s airport, and rather near the airport (my work place is also under the flight path, but farther away). So I could see planes flying relatively close. Back then, twin engine jets were rare, except for the DC-9. More common were three and four engines, and it was easy to tell planes apart.
Party on. The world’s oldest known brewery has been uncovered in Egypt.
The piece quotes an Egyptian official saying it dates back to the time of King Narmer, Egypt’s first king*, who unified lower and upper Egypt around 3150 BCE. But there’s no offer of proof.
*Some enthusiastic egyptologists describe the Narmer Palette as “the world’s fist historical document.”
BTW, consider this thing does date from around 3150 BCE, and yet the style of depicting people in profile, depicting the king as larger than life, and showing the king in the act of smiting an enemy, are all elements that continue in Egyptian art all the way down to the first century CE.
@Kathy: We used to think that brewing was invented as a by-product of bread making. I believe that the current leading theory is that it’s the other way around — brewing pre-dates leavened bread, and the fact that you can also use yeast to make bread rise was secondary to the fact that you can use yeast to brew an alcoholic grain beverage.
I got to hear Patrick McGovern speak in person about his investigations into ancient fermented beverages. Everyone in the room was jealous — why couldn’t that have been my career?
@Teve:
Wrong both sides. There were those who wanted to overthrow the government and those that wanted the government to be overthrown. Insurrectionists and those along for the ride.
@Teve:
Obviously not a fan of Rush.