Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, July 31, 2021
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83 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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This is good:
http://www.thebulwark.com/no-we-didnt-get-the-vaccine-were-republicans/
And this is good, too:
http://www.thebulwark.com/is-qanon-finished/
My wife and I had to go to STL yesterday. Sat outside a Texas Roadhouse for about a half hour and watched the comings and goings in the jam packed parking lot. Can only conclude that the food there is just to die for.
I weep for our species, may all other species live long and prosper.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hmmm, the idea of Texas Roadhouse as a last meal, is unappealing.
‘I was fearful for my safety’: St Louis health official speaks out on racist abuse
@Sleeping Dog: I’ve never eaten there but judging from the parking lot they seem to have found the sweet spot between bland and burned that is a perfect fit for the American palate.
@CSK:
“And if you look to the left of the boat, you will see a herd of Cletuses in their natural habitat—buying scratchers at the Eagle Stop”
@OzarkHillbilly: @OzarkHillbilly:
Read the article I linked to above from thebulwark.com about not getting the vaccine in Missouri.
Chef’s kiss
@CSK: Misery is no longer the “Show-Me state”. It is now the “Show-You” state,
@OzarkHillbilly:
“My next thought was, are these people actually yelling at me to ‘go back where you came from!’ Holy shit, they are. Why the fuck am I living in Missouri?”
Two travellers from U.S. fined $20,000 each for fake vaccination documents
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
@Teve:
See @James post on Duterte’s comments on the unvaccinated.
@OzarkHillbilly: @Sleeping Dog:
I need to offer a strong defense to joints like Texas Roadhouse.
They do what they do well enough. They make enough to survive.
It isn’t great by any means but it always decent enough. They put idiots and newbies on the grill with processes and procedures installed to ensure that most folks are satisfied with the finished product. Corporate has thought this through.
Many a time I have hit up chain mid-range restaurants. I am promised a fairly decent meal and chances are great that they will actually deliver on that promise.
There is zero shame about a Texas Roadhouse. It does what it does. Decently enough.
@CSK: I have seen plenty of Q flags around here but yesterday I saw my first Q bumper sticker. Small, not overly ostentatious, and stuck on the back hatch of a Prius in such a way as to disappear among the car logos.
Make what you will of that.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m gobsmacked. A Prius sporting a QAnon bumper sticker????
I am of the type and personality to obsess about spendy food. I indulge that every now and again.
I also like Dominoes’ pizza.
When overseas nobody except Italy can produce a decent pizza. At all. It’s kinda baffling.
Swedish pizza is fucking terrifyingly bad.
When I get home I want a Hawaiian extra sauce.
@de stijl: My jab is not aimed at TR, it is a business here for the sole reason of making a profit. They do so by catering to the avg American palate and from what I have seen of their parking lots, they do it well.
My jab is aimed at the avg American Palate, which leans towards McDonalds, Applebees, and Crackerbarrel. And while I have eaten at all 3 and may yet eat at all 3 again, I would not search one of them out in Palma, Mallorca*.
*true story
@CSK: No shit.
Q stickers on a Prius is Diversity.
@OzarkHillbilly: AOC replied to Stefanick,
How did a virus get politicized?
We are on a bad path.
I fear for our future.
@OzarkHillbilly: @Teve:
Well, this is confusing:
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/23/467852236/which-candidate-are-prius-owners-are-most-likely-to-support-not-who-youd-think
“Please, please don’t tell anyone I don’t dance on the interstate anymore.“
@CSK: Conservatives don’t like paying for gas but still want to make a profit off of everybody else buying gas?
@OzarkHillbilly:
No worries! I was riffing off your comment not criticizing.
@gVOR08: Yeah I saw that. AOC has a black belt in twitter-fu.
@CSK: so i looked at the actual numbers in the poll and Ted Cruz gets a national average of 4.41% so a small divergence among Prius owners looks like a big % increase, but is a small absolute increase. The poll finding that 86% of electric car owners supported Democrats is a more robust finding.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t know. It’s strange. I mean, Ted Cruz??? Bernie Sanders? Sure. Hillary Clinton? Fine. But Ted Cruz????
@Teve:
Ah, okay. That makes sense. Thank you.
As bad as you think Facebook is, they’re worse than that. I heard this on a podcast last night as I was falling asleep and had to look it up this morning. You’ve heard of Pegasus, the Israeli spyware that oppressive governments were using to spy on dissidents?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/03/facebook-tried-to-buy-nso-groups-ios-spyware-to-monitor-iphone-users
@OzarkHillbilly: @CSK: @Teve:
Back when I was commuting regularly, I’d frequently see this Prius on my route. It had two (!!) bumper stickers extolling the beauty, necessity, etc. of coal. Coal.
I don’t think they were being ironic. And the stickers were positioned with care, so I don’t think it was a tagging. It disoriented me the first several times I saw it. People are complex.
@Mimai: Cognitive dissonance is infectious.
Major GDP growth that didnt seem to get reported widely. Too much emphasis on CRT and the horror of wearing masks. The economy has now grown past pre-pandemic levels. Dare we grant any of that success to the Biden team?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/29/us-economy-accelerated-65-percent-501510
Wife and I are non-discriminating foodies. While we gravitate towards Asian and Middle eastern cuisines we do love good latin/Hispanic foods. Recently had a Dominican* and a Peruvian place open nearby and have already made friends with the owners. Take my god-daughter to the local Greek restaurant (she loves their food) where the waitresses dance with her. But you cant eat exotic all of the time. Sometimes I just want meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Then meatloaf sandwiches the next day with the leftovers. I think Texas Roadhouse, I go there when I work late at one of our outlying hospitals since it is just next door and the other option is Arby’s, is actually OK. Nothing great, nothing awful.
The Domincan place only ever has one person who speaks English. She is usually busy. I know what a lot fo the stuff is but a lot I dont yet. Always fun to point at something you arent sure about and give it a try. Usually, not always, a nice surprise.
Steve
@steve: dominican has some great stews.
@steve: This is purely anecdotal, but I shared the GDP growth article with a conservative friend of mine, and he seems to be back on the pre-Trump “None of those numbers are accurate” line they were using during all of the Obama years. This applies across all economic indicators of the recovery, from what I can tell. And if there is anything positive that can be attributed to Biden, he has the “He didn’t build that, Trump did” mentality.
@de stijl: “Swedish pizza is fucking terrifyingly bad.”
Not once you’ve tried pizza in Beijing…
And now that I come to think of it, I’ve had multiple lovely pizza dinners at a restaurant in Visby on Gotland. But it’s owned and run by Italians…
@CSK: My (admittedly limited) understanding is that QAnon proper has said remarkably little about climate change, but that the change deniers are adopting QAnon positions heavily in order to gain followers.
@Michael Cain:
I think you’re right. They seem to have latched onto anti-vaxxing as their latest cause. Qanon in general seems to be now about opposing whatever the “elites” say.
It’s interesting that Q himself or herself stopped communicating last December.
I know he’s got disability from that car wreck, but Madison Cawthorn’s handwriting is still disturbing, and the content matches the penmanship.
“And if you look to the left of the boat, you will see a herd of Cletuses in their natural habitat—buying scratchers at the Eagle Stop”
Wins the internet for the day! What are a group of Cletuses called? Should be something odd but also take into account the mental faculties (or lack thereof). Already taken are:
Shrewdness of apes
Squadron of manta rays
Sounder of boars
Bloat of hippopotamuses
Barren of mules
Maybe an imbecile of cletuses?
@senyordave: a Monster Truck Rally of Cletuses?
@senyordave: @Teve:
A Fleet(es) of Cletus(es)
@senyordave: @Teve:
Would an ultrasound reveal the presence in the uterus of a…Cletus fetus?
https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1421180895059271680
https://twitter.com/OversightDems/status/1421131308923768835
@senyordave:
An elegy of hillbillies?
Hey now, you’re disrespecting my friendly raven, Cletus….who regularly does battle with the power line he likes to roost on. 😛 Even poor Cletus has more going for him than some of those guys.
@OzarkHillbilly: How is it that you ended up parked outside a Texas Roadhouse for half an hour. Traffic really that bad?
no one can out-organize the GOP plot to end American Democracy.
@OzarkHillbilly: Looking at the meun, it appears to be what Outback’s and Cracker Barrel’s child would look like if they mated.
@OzarkHillbilly: @CSK: Alas, they’re not all sane about everything. I suspect that you’d probably find more that a few anti-vaxxers among Prius drivers, too (especially moms).
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I was wondering the same thing.
@de stijl: I don’t fear for our future, but I’ve been cynical about it for a couple or 3 decades. At this point, I’m old enough to just ride out whatever happens. At 50-ish, you probably are too. Embrace the entropy. All winds down.
I would wager (and fear) this nurse is far from alone.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1421231653108727814.html
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Looking at the Texas Roadhouse menu, I see it features something called “Roadkill.” Sounds mighty enticing.
@CSK: it’s actually very popular around here. It’s hamburger meat with sautéed onions and mushrooms and monterey jack cheese, a-1 and garlic.
@Teve:
I know, but couldn’t they have called it something a bit less repellent? Like a Texas Cow Patty?
@CSK: There are a lot of stupid things about TR. The last time i went there, we were halfway through giving our order when a noise happened and the waitress had to hustle away to do a brief line dance thing. I’m not going back. Stupidity annoys me.
@Teve:
Seems to me that interrupting the waitress who’s taking an order so she can line-dance would discourage a lot of customers from returning. Or do people who go there anticipate that the floor show (I assume that’s what it is) will slow the delivery of their meals?
There are a bunch of TRs around here. (Northeastern Mass.) Nothing I’ve read here today tempts me to go to any of them.
@Teve: Your link is a good summary of the threat we’re under from the Republican vote law changes. There may be some comfort in thinking they can only steal a prez election if there are states with small D margins and GOP legislatures. But it’s false comfort. The Redmap Project created gerrymandered R legislatures in D states.
That was my standard practice back when I traveled a lot in Mexico. Eventually my Spanish got good enough I could tell what 80% or so of what the menu was, but it was so much fun being surprised I continued the practice.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Dropping off my granddaughter with her mother. My wife and I take her once a week and our AM and PM commutes intersect at Lindbergh and I-44, so we make the exchange at a stripmall there.
The amazing this is, Eric’s still the dumber one!
@Teve:
I almost–mind I said almost–feel sorry for Junior. When he was born, and his mother wanted to name him Donald J. Trump Jr., his father’s reply was”What if he turns out to be a loser?”
What a great start in life: Your sire was afraid you’d be the absolute worst thing ever–a loser.
And he was right.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, yes, but I’m sure both Donalds have a different definition of “loser” than do you and I.
Can you imagine the strain of having to live up to the expectations of a sleazy, crooked, malevolent churl? I read somewhere that Junior refused to speak to his father for a year after Big Donald dumped Ivana. Ivanka, on the other hand, was mostly worried about no longer being a Trump.
@CSK: They are both losers and they both know it. That’s why they both insist their money means otherwise.
@OzarkHillbilly:
And the money is very likely an illusion, too.
@CSK: Case closed.
LA makes existing while homeless illegal
That should fix it!
“I am not inclined to ruin myself for the sake of hurting my enemies” -Hermocrates
Especially poignant these days.
@CSK:
That doesn’t surprise me. Most of the strident Trump supporters are not well-to-do. Something close to half the 1/6 tourists had financial trouble in the recent past according to reports. Next time you pass by a Toyota dealer lot check out the used cars, hell of a lot of Priuses (Priusi?) sitting around. Walk in there and be assaulted with the staff’s eagerness to unload some of them with their best high-pressure sales tactics….and Trump supporters are nothing if not easy marks.
@Teve: Had me right up until the A-1. Hate A-1. And Heinz 57. And Lee and Perrins steak sauce. And Montreal Seasoning. Doesn’t anyone like the taste of just meat anymore?
@CSK: Explains why she’s the favorite. Also reveals a fair amount about what passes for a values system for her. Scary.
@Teve: Well, I’m not physically aware of the homeless and not seeing them anymore. Isn’t that the same thing as a solution?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: there’s actually a food science reason why people like steak sauce. Why is ketchup the perfect condiment? It has all the main flavors:
Maters: umami
Salt: salty
Vinegar: sour
Sugar: sweet
What does steak have?
Glutamate: umami
Salt: salty
Fat: fatty*
What does steak sauce add?
Corn syrup & raisins: sweet
Vinegar: sour
So steak with steak sauce hits all the major flavors.
*there’s some evidence our tongues can detect fats, but it’s unclear
Salt Lake is building a “tiny home” community for the chronically homeless. Good on them.
https://www.abc4.com/news/local-news/slc-mayor-announces-tiny-home-village-to-be-built-for-homeless/
@Jax: it’s cheaper, more humane, and more productive long term to just get homeless people housing.
@Teve: But that would be socialism, Teve. Or communism! It’s something bad, I know that, cuz it was a DEMONCRAT suggested it! (I’m not actually certain which definition they subscribe to these days…) These people should pull them up by their bootstraps, got damnit! Nobody gave me a house or helped me in any way at all!
I am becoming more exhausted each day with their lack of empathy or understanding for just HOW MUCH has been given to them.