Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Saturday, February 12, 2022
·
23 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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
But it doesn’t matter if Trump does it:
http://www.thebulwark.com/remember-when-trump-world-wanted-to-prosecute-nancy-pelosi-for-destruction-of-official-documents/
Gee, this sure sounds familiar, don’t it?
So does this:
Same shit, different (southern) town.
Those cartels are going to far this time: Mexico lime inflation leaves sour taste as cartels gouge prices for cuisine staple
There’s been some discussion about Apple’s responsibility to prevent stalking using its AirTags. Here’s an article that sheds some light on the current state of the tracking industry in general, in which a NYTimes journalist conducted an experiment with different types of trackers.
TLDR: if you want to surreptitiously track a person or a pet, use one of the gps trackers out there. They cost the same as an AirTag, although you need to spend $20 a month for real time alerts when you are actually using it. Both the Tile and the AirTag, which are really meant to find mislaid items, provide some ability to track a moving object. If that object is a person with an iPhone or an Android with an app installed, and the tracker is an AirTag, they will get an alert that an AirTag not registered to their phone appears to be following them. If the tracker is a Tile, they get nothing.
From the WaPo, via Raw Story:
http://www.rawstory.com/trump-memo-2656643698/
Sounds like an utterly stupendous book, written in–what else–a Sharpie.
This is interesting:
They are doing the same with fire risk.
Philip Bump has a piece titled The imperfect comparison between Hillary Clinton’s server and Donald Trump’s boxes in WAPO. He sets out to explain to us bumpkins why it’s unfair to compare their coverage of Trump to the 2016 coverage of HER EMAILZZZZ!!. I found it to be an infuriating load of thin rationalization and evasion. Judging from comments, mine is the common reaction. He inadvertently confirms the criticisms that they all hated the Clintons for no good reason, got played by the GOPs, and went chasing after clicks.
The crowning evasion is that this Trump story is only a week old, give them time. The boxes and flushing details are a week old. We’ve been seeing bits and pieces of Trump and his minions abuse of email, documents, and security for five years FFS. Hell, back to W’s people using the RNC email server for government business. But they’re all Republicans. What more can you expect from those lovable rapscallions? And Democrat Hillary fell short of best practice.
Short and sharp: Beyoncé launches ‘back to the office’ powerboob
That’s the way I read it, damned if I know why.
The James Webb telescope sent back it’s first (calibration) photo.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You must have been titillated by the article.
@CSK: Ouch. You are really pushing it these days.
Truth is, I didn’t actually read the article. Same as I did with all my old Playboys and Penthouses.
@OzarkHillbilly: I see things like the Webb telescope and the rapid development of mRNA vaccines, Then I look at politics. We as a society are so impressively good at some things and so bad at others.
@gVOR08:
It’s a cliche to say it, but politics doesn’t necessarily attract the smartest, most upright people, does it? Not that science and medicine don’t have their sleazeballs and incompetents, but not nearly the number as does politics.
@gVOR08: @CSK: The difference between science and politics (religion too for that matter) is that science is based on “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena, and is testable and repeatable”, where as politics (and religion too) are too often based on absolute bullshit.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yep. But art, literature, and music are based on evanescent things as well. They do, however, require talent. Politics requires certain talents as well, but none of them seem like particularly admirable ones.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve been reading on American Pragmatist philosophy, which is very much about exactly that. I think it was Rutherford who said of philosophy something like,
@CSK:
Senators and Congresspeople earn $174,000 a year, which is a nice paycheck unless you spend your time begging money from much wealthier people just so you can keep your job, in which case it’s embarrassing. They’re dogs begging for table scraps. One cannot expect much from such creatures.
@Michael Reynolds:
Dogs, however, are considerably more delightful beings. And generally far more useful.
There are, I agree, a lot of terrible people in politics.
Also, I think that being a politician in a democracy is pretty tough. It’s tough enough to be a courtier to a monarch or a despot. With a democracy, it isn’t just one person, it’s 300 million of them, each with their own internal conflicts and contradictions. Out of this chaos, you are expected to put forward policy that protects them, serve them, and also pleases them, for you serve at their whim.
Uh, yeah. That ain’t going to be pretty. We all think Lincoln was great, right? If you look closely, he did some pretty eyebrow-raising things. I think it’s kind of built in to the job.
I also think that one of the most important functions of voters is enforcing rule of law, by voting out lawbreakers and supporting their prosecution. So there’s kind of a tightrope there for the pols.
@Jay L Gischer:
Don’t make excuses for these people. Cowardice is a choice.
@Michael Reynolds:
Undesirable traits seem to be built in to the characters of most of those who seek a career in politics.
@Jay L Gischer:
Speaking of Lincoln, today is his 213th birthday.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s a relief to see the first image wasn’t this.