Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, December 27, 2020
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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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@Teve:
Conclusion jumping Alex should be embarrassed this morning for his 60 odd tweet rant of yesterday.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/26/us/nashville-tn-explosion/
Heh. I guess she never wanted the spotlight and fairly succeeded in that.
Paul McCartney, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) [Royal Albert Hall · Nov 06, 2006]
@OzarkHillbilly:
What would Melania have to say to an interviewer? She’s a witless cipher.
The year of Karen: how a meme changed the way Americans talked about racism
All of this applies equally to the proliferation of concealed carry, even if it is mostly white men who arm themselves. It is also a reaction to the threat of racial equality.
@CSK: “I really don’t care. Do U?”
@OzarkHillbilly:
If she made that her motto, it’s certainly appropriate. By the way, I never understood how that constituted a clever rejoinder to the press, as her husband belatedly insisted that it did.
@CSK: It’s just about the most narcissistic statement a person can make.
Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii
These were quite common throughout Roman Italy. They were frequented mostly by folks on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Mary Beard, in one of her tv series, said that in ancient Rome, poor people ate out, and rich people ate in.
@CSK:
Has there been a less accomplished First Lady in modern history?
About yesterday’s thread on unbundling, I was reminded of a joke on MAD Magazine by Dave Berg. Two people are shopping, and one complains about the higher prices for non-fat milk and decaffeinated coffee. The other says “I guess if you want to do without, you have to pay for it.”
Unbundling has become popular also in commercial aviation. That’s what the airlines call collecting fees for checked bags, meals, seat selection, and, mostly in European ultra-low cost carriers, printing a boarding pass at the airport or carry on bags*.
Does this make air fares more expensive, taking all extras into account?
Its hard to say. Air fares are flexibly priced according to demand. They are also sensitive to fuel prices, though more going up than coming down. What I do know is the average fare for most airlines did not fall after unbundled tickets were introduced.
So if you want to only pay for what you need, it’s going to cost you.
*Some ultra-low costs in the US charge a fee for buying a ticket online.
The microchip thing is so stupid. The chip they put in your pet is the size of a grain of rice. It’s 1/16th of an inch in diameter and half an inch long. It requires a 12-gauge needle to administer. They’re not microscopic, Cletus.
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s like her husband. Neither is smart, but both have a certain feral cunning. She disguises hers a bit better.
@Mikey:
In a word: No.
@CSK: She’s taken her husband for a bundle.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I will give her her due as a golddigger. Maybe not the greatest, but reasonably good. Amusing to think that of all the rich men in Manhattan, let alone the world, he was the best she could do.
@Mikey:
Appropriate for the least accomplished president in history.
Fox News’s post-Trump identity crisis, explained by an expert
@CSK:
If you consider it more closely, it may not be all that strange. Even rich guys looking for arm candy principally, are usually looking for more than just that. And even as arm candy goes, she’s more a roll of Necco Wafers than a Godiva truffle.
Yes, I know that was mean, but…
@Sleeping Dog: Birds of a feather…
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Very mean. I wonder what Necco Wafers ever did to you.
Did de Stijl check in last weekend?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Hey, I like Necco wafers! She’s more like a “no-sugar no-gluten cookie” which nobody wants to buy and just sits on the shelf and goes stale.
New Yorker
Wonder what would have happened if Nashville had been car bombed in 2016 and Obama spent the next two days golfing and Biden stayed in Vail skiing.
GMC Hummer Edition 1 electric pickup so popular it might build more
1,000 hp, 350 mile range
The “Justice” Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation’s history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I used to live a few blocks from the Necco Wafers plant!
That’s a good point about rich men. Yes, indeed, a tycoon’s usually in search of someone who’s gorgeous, but someone who’s capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation at a dinner party–at the very least.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve taken to using the alternative spelling for Karen/Kevin, “Quaren/Quevin,” used by First Dog On The Moon, whose editorial cartoons can be followed in The Guardian (Aus ed). This way, I can avoid insulting perfectly innocent bystanders who have the misfortune to share their names with these self-satisfied jerks.
Raccoons of the Resistance, Resist!
@Teve: Said chip is completely passive and requires an outside power source to be very close to even work. It’s a useless concept for anything these chippers are claiming. I’ve had to unfriend a couple people because they’ve just gone completely unhinged over the vaccine and microchips. These people don’t understand how technology works. It really is magic to them. Meanwhile they still use their smartphone with GPS and such enabled….
@grumpy realist: I recently bought a gluten-free scone at the coffee shop drive thru. It was really much better than I’d imagined it would be, but it was neither sugar-free nor stale and made from a combination of coconut and almond flour, so it was definitely not fat free, either. But I get your point–good comparison.
(And I liked Necco Wafers as a child, but in my dotage, as a tribute to metabolic syndrome and the Type-2 diabetes and liver cirrhosis that came with it, I limit my self to chocolate as much as possible for a sugar vice.)
@Matt: Of course you keep the GPS on your phone enabled. How are you going to use Google Maps if the GPS isn’t enabled? That’s just ridiculous!
DNA testing has confirmed that Anthony Quinn Warner was the Nashville bomber.
@Matt: if you just simply have no understanding whatsoever of science, “Bill Gate’s can track the microscopic chip in the vaccine with satellites” wouldn’t seem obviously wrong.
Even the minutiae doesn’t make sense. There’d have to be lots of microscopic microchips in each vial, right? So when 7 people get injections from the same vial, how would they know who got what chip?
more parler takes on the Nashville bombing
I’m a consultant in infectious diseases. ‘Long Covid’ is anything but a mild illness
@flat earth luddite: I’m a *white man*, a rather darkly complected white man but definitely Caucasian. Say the worst about us, not only will I not disagree I will probably pile on. If Karens have a problem with Karens maybe they need to stand up.
*pretty sure I have some Muslim buried deep within.
@CSK: So DNA confirmed his finger was on the button?
@OzarkHillbilly:
What I gather is that they compared the DNA of the remains found at the crime scene with DNA taken from his house.
What We Get Wrong About America’s Crisis of Democracy
The interesting question is not what causes authoritarianism but what has ever suspended it.
Gopnik makes the point that Trump’s authoritarianism isn’t new, authoritarianism is perpetually threatening democracy. Hitler and Lenin and Pinochet are the rule, not the exception.
@CSK:
When you suspect whose DNA you have, it can be compared with family members of the suspect. If the comparison indicates a familial relationship, chances are your suspicion is correct.
Lin Wood is on Parler implying that the RV didn’t cause the explosion.