Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, April 2, 2022
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33 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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A bit of funny to start your day.
Sarah Palin says she’s going to run for the late Don Young’s seat in Congress.
She announced this on April Fool’s Day.
@CSK: That way, when everybody points and laughs and she gets zero support she can just say, “Can’t you people take a joke?”
Truthfully, it was the first thing I thought of when I heard it, Putin has a record of false flag operations. My 2nd thought was that it made perfect sense for the Ukrainians to attack a fuel depot that was no doubt being used to supply the invasion force. I doubt we’ll ever know which it was.
@sam:
Thought you were linking us to the Palin for congress announcement.
@OzarkHillbilly:
US military sources were among the first to ID the attack, followed by the UK. Both said it was Ukraine that carried out the attack. Denying the action, gives Ukraine a bit of flexibility.
The shoe drops:
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1510074838601379842
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…
So messing with their heads plus the physical point.
@OzarkHillbilly: FWIW, I think this is really a face saving move. Given the success of Space X and other commercial and US government rockets, Russia’s monopoly on space station resupply is over. They don’t have anything new in the queue either. I suspect the bulk of their funding came from the launch fees paid by governments, and also from private companies for satellite launches. Those were rapidly drying up and now are probably completely gone. I suspect their manned space program is dead, perhaps their entire space program. Perhaps China will keep it alive for a while in order to transfer expertise and technology to their own program.
If so, it’s very sad. The Russians are true pioneers and achieved amazing things. Despite the rush to put Chinese astronauts in every science fiction and super hero movie, the Russians have always been decades ahead of the Chinese. The scientists, engineers and astronauts that achieved such things don’t deserve such a humiliating end to their program.
@MarkedMan:
“The Russians are true pioneers and achieved amazing things.”
Not many Americans know about this:
@MarkedMan: @sam: From the mini series Chernobyl, I learned that they used their lunar rovers to clean up the 2 less radioactive of the roofs.
Houston? We have a problem:
Former USA star goalkeeper Hope Solo arrested on DWI, child abuse charges
Sounds a lot like my ex, who ended up doing almost 7 years.
@CSK:
Gotta admit that that part slipped passed me when I was writing about it a few minutes ago.
Russia keeps running the same plays over and over, expect ongoing continuation.
https://twitter.com/MaximEristavi/status/1495323069539405826
@charon: Well, when he gets ousted in the Kremlin, maybe he could make a run as the Jets’ HC?
In baseball news, Albert Pujols is once again donning the birds on the bat. No idea at all of what to expect from him. Nothing like the first decade of this millennium I’m sure.
I remember driving home from work and I had the game on the radio. It was a Cards/Cubs game and those were always fun. In the 7th or 8th inning he came up to bat with men on base and the Cubbies ahead by 3 runs (iirc). And I. could. not. believe. it. they pitched to him. Boom, knocked it out of the park.
OK, that did it. I pulled off the highway at Cuba and went to this bar where I knew they’d have the game on. A couple innings later, game still all tied up (iirc), Pujols comes to the plate again, with a runner on base again. And. they. pitched. to. him. again!!! No doubt from the second it left the bat, that ball was out of there. Game over.
A couple more such moments would make me very happy.
@Steven L. Taylor:
The reply by @OzarkHillbilly: is probably apt here. I’m also suggesting she might be maneuvering for a new reality tv show.
@CSK: TBH, that kind of thinking requires more self awareness than she has ever possessed.
@OzarkHillbilly:
At least with the DH, he won’t be staggering around the field like poor Willie Mays did when he returned to NY to play for the Mets. And they plan to use him only as the DH against left handers.
It’s kind of nice to see him back with the Red Birds for a swan song.
@CSK: This would hardly surprise me.
@MarkedMan:
The most pressing business would seem to be the regular lifting of the ISS orbit. From memory, so suspect, but I recall that the Russian Progress missions are the only current method to provide sufficient lifting.
@charon:
Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, and a blown up enemy fuel depot is just a blown up enemy fuel depot. The Ukrainian coyness about it is likely the indulgence of an urge to mock the general Russian habit of shameless lying.
Panache is precisely the right word for it.
@Michael Cain: The plan is to retire the ISS in I do believe 2023/24. So at most Russia’s withdrawal might accelerate that schedule by a few months or a year.
@Sleeping Dog: Yep, he and his wife still live in STL and maintain a lot of connections there. The “split” in 2011 was not nearly as acrimonious as it was reported. It was just business.
@OzarkHillbilly:
FWIW, I always believed that the Cards and Pujols mad mutually good decisions. The deal the Angles offered had albatross written all over it. The Cards would have hamstrung the club, that has done pretty well without him, if they would have come close to matching that deal. Pujols needed to take the money and run.
Frankly, I can’t think of pro sports contract that is greater than 7 or 8 years that was a good value. That is why, as a Red Sox fan, as hard as it was to see him go, the team did the right thing in trading Mookie Betts. No way that in makes sense to give him $30M/year for what 12-13 years? The hip injury Betts’ had last year is the type of injury that begins the kind of decline that David Wright and Dustin Pedroia had.
But I was happy to see Albert back with the Cards.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The current official NASA plan, released this past January, is to keep the ISS in service through 2030. No more orbit lifting, though. In fact, the plan includes using Russian Progress (and possibly US Cygnus) craft to lower the orbit according to a specific schedule so that the station can be deorbited and crashed in the remote Southern Pacific Ocean in 2031. Main motivation appears to be that there won’t be room on commercial space stations before 2028 at the earliest.
Myself, I suspect that the “replacement” will turn out to be someone going to SpaceX and saying, “I’ll give you a billion dollars to kit out a couple copies of a Starship variant for use as a space station and orbit them for me.” Assuming SpaceX can build and operate their orbitting fuel dump, and crank out Starship variants, they’re going to make a lot of people look bad.
@OzarkHillbilly:..It was a Cards/Cubs game and those were always fun.
Kinda reminds me of “the Sandberg Game” at Wrigley. June 23, 1984…
Sutter just looked down at the ground as he walked off the field. What else could he do.
I’ll never forget it.
@Michael Cain: Thanx, I must have misread.
@Mister Bluster: Ryne Sandberg was a something else. I have vague recollections of that game, it certainly rings a bell.
My old man was a Cubs fan (grew up in Joliet) and I’ll always remember him laying in a hammock in the back yard shade, listening to Cubs games. Took me and my brother to Wrigley field once. I’ve been meaning to go back for years. Now that my eldest is a die hard Cards fan, maybe he and I could make the trip. He would certainly appreciate it.
We’ll, that didn’t take long. Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice has a post on the MAGAts rediscovering America First and starting to come out against Ukraine. Much of the post describes an “Up From Chaos” conference sponsored by The American Conswervative and something called American Moment. J. D. Vance was apparently a “highlight”. They seem to see the enemy not so much as liberals but as Reaganites. Really anyone who doesn’t understand that “woke” is the great threat to western culture and Putin is on the side of right. Laurie includes a couple of apt Dr. Seuss cartoons. It won’t be long before they’re screaming about the need to keep Ukrainian refugees out of the country.
The last time I saw a game at Wrigley Field was 1995 (?). I was married at the time and my ex and I went to visit my parents who, after my dad had spent at least 15 years commuting from the suburbs to the loop every day, had retired to Chicago. My dad always wanted to live in the big city but he couldn’t afford it as long as three kids were at home. He spent most of the time while living there looking for another place to live. Cheaper, nicer, better terms on the lease. In the 20 years that they lived there I know I helped them move at least 6 times.
We went to a day game during the week. Neither of them were drinkers but we took them to the Cubby-Bear in Wrigleyville and had some food and a beer or two. My dad was a lifelong Cub fan and watched all the games on TV that he could. My mom could take it or leave it mostly leaving it by sitting in the bedroom of their apartment while the games were on.
We walked over to the stadium where I bought tickets at the gate and hung out under the grandstand by the concessions waiting for the first pitch.
All of a sudden I heard my mom’s voice: “Harry Cary! I’ve always wanted to meet you!”
Huh. What?
I turned and looked and there he was sitting in a golf cart with some babe who was ready to drive him up to the broadcast booth. My mom ran over and shook his hand. Harry Caray made some pleasantries. The girl driving the golf cart kept saying: “We have to go.”
I was so stunned by it all I forgot the camera hanging around my neck.
When I finally took a picture I tried for a second shot. I was out of film!
You can see my mom in the shot but just the side of Harry’s head. Can’t see his mug at all.
Any one who has ever seen Harry would know it’s him.
@sam: My partner in fact had the official report of the Lunokhod mission (in Russian, naturally.) I’ve got several books (in Russian) on the Soviet space program (with autographs of some of the cosmonauts).
What is crazy is how Russia has lost so much of its science and technology base due to brain drain and outright corruption. (I remember a colleague at a conference back in 1997 saying that there were no more biorhodopsin experts in Russia–they were all working at his laboratory in Italy!) And I don’t think Putin in fact cares. He’s just trying to keep the plates juggling and not have them come down with a crash on his head.