Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, August 31, 2023
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39 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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Always a sucker for time capsules and I never learn the lesson.
Centuries-old coins found in 1828 West Point time capsule
Much more at the link, and the book is a “must buy” for me.
The Florida headline of the day- Boynton Beach man loses thousands after mailing check at post office
The headline of the day- At Least 73 Dead in Building Fire in Johannesburg
@OzarkHillbilly:
A must-read for me, too.
Adelia didn’t have any effect on the part of Florida I live in. If you listened to the local weather people in the days leading up to the storm you were being told there would be squalls and 30 MPH wind gusts. What a bunch of baloney. We had one very short hard rain. That is typical for south florida in August.
My wife stays glued to the local stations. I learned long ago to mostly ignore them. The weather underground has been my site for hurricane information for at least a decade.
I have a lot I would like to say to Mr Khanna, but I am sure plenty of others will chime in so I’ll just leave it at maybe the GOP shouldn’t nominate an ongoing criminal enterprise as their candidate and if they choose to it’s their own damned fault.
I don’t know if I’m just too sensitive to or cynical about such things but watching the DeSantis news conference about Idalia yesterday, it seems as though each speaker (including the Florida Emergency Manager and Florida NG two star) had to preface their remarks with effusive praise for DeSantis. Reminiscent of that infamous Trump Cabinet meeting where all the participants took turns praising Trump. Has this always gone on and I just never noticed?
@Scott:
With the Trump cabinet meeting, Trump went around to the individual members and forced each one to say how much he was honored to work for Donald Trump. Suffering as I do from vicarious embarrassment, I wanted to crawl under the couch while watching that.
I don’t think DeSantis has ever sunk quite so low as to compel people to praise hom publicly.
First hurricanes, now wildfire: Louisiana parish takes on a new climate disaster
I get the impression that she gets it, she really does but she is afraid to say as much because of the shunning that will surely follow any heresy.
Casey on the other hand…
Axios spins ‘questions about Scott’s being single’ differently, but I believe that Reynolds called this, last week….
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/31/tim-scott-not-married-single-republican-donors
@Long Time Listener: Homophobia takes many shapes. TBH I don’t think that is really what is at issue here for most of these donors but I’m sure it tickles their brains.
@Long Time Listener: This is just homophobia and a suspicion that Tim Scott is “not normal”. Reminds me of Ed Koch running for NYC mayor holding hands with Bess Myerson, a former Miss America. If Tim Scott wants a chance in hell, he should just be open and upfront with whatever the truth or facts are whether gay or religious or just repressed and be prepared to live with it. Or just declare “none of your damn business”.
As it is often said: You get what you vote for.
Disney’s firefighters backed DeSantis as he feuded with the company. Now his new board ignored their pleas and stripped away their park benefits.
You know when you’re drifting off to sleep, sometimes you experience a kind of dream imagery while in a state halfway between sleep and wakefulness? At least I do.
These tend to be simple and not at all memorable. Yesterday, though, I saw a stable atom with a nucleus made up of positrons, no neutrons, and electrons in stable orbitals.
I don’t think such a thing is possible. An antimatter atom, sure. But positrons all have a positive charge and repel each other. So do protons, but they are also subject to the strong nuclear force, the strongest known force BTW, which makes them stick together (also to stick with neutrons, which have no electric charge). Positrons are not subject to such a force. They’d resist sticking together and fly apart, meet the electrons, and mutually annihilate each other.
This got me thinking of whether positrons could be forced to hang together and make such a pseudo-atom anyway. I don’t see how, and I don’t see a use for such a thing. But that might lead to some sort of interesting science fiction magical idea.
On yesterday’s comment son the dearth of comedies that re not dramas with a few funny moments, may I suggest Futurama?
Warning. Sometimes they get too sentimental (I can’t watch Jurassic Bark ever again, because the ending makes me cry), but the main focus is comedy.
@CSK: If you don’t want to be humiliated into praising some nimrod in meetings with him, don’t go for the job of being the toady. (“I serve at the pleasure of the President” ultimately means that you’re taking a fealty position. Fealty is a cost.)
@Scott:
Karma’s a byotch, eh? Then again, I suspect that it’s time that people became used to the emerging notion that “We the people” still doesn’t mean “everybody” just like in 1789. Conservatism becoming more transparent does have its positives.
@CSK: Except for James Mattis, who said only, that it was an honor to lead the DOD.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I think that at the time, Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, Tillerson et al. were hoping that they could control Trump.
@a country lawyer:
Indeed. Mattis was a standout in that regard.
@Scott: I shall now pull out my tiny violin.
@Gromitt Gunn: Speaking of tiny violins, Proud Boy seditionist Joe Biggs just got sentenced to 17 years in prison for his role in the planning and execution of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Fucking traitor. I hope he rots there.
@Gromitt Gunn: “It’s a Small World After All” performed on tiny violin is ideal.
@CSK: If they wanted to be in control, they needed to run for the head job. “Serve at the pleasure of the President” is the underling/not in control job–it’s written right in the phrase. The only moron bigger than Trump is the one who believes he can be the “power behind the throne” of a moron who understands the nature of wielding power despite his moronity. (moron-ness?)
Change of direction (and escape from Trump sucking all the air out of yet another room). This time from today’s Atlantic newsletter.
A good idea. (And it’s never been about writing the paper–though the paper is the product. It was always about reading, thinking, and connecting your own dots.)
ETA: No matter how good it becomes AI will never be able to think better than you can, because you have volition and it only does what it’s told. (Now we need more teachers who will let students exercise their volition–wherever it leads. And students who will take it out for a ride once in a while.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
They may have assumed–with some justification–that Trump would get bored, quit after six or so months in office, and turn the presidency over to Pence.* As I’ve said before, anyone would have been better than Trump.
I actually don’t really think that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s called making the best of a bad deal.
*I was hoping that myself, and I have little regard for Pence.
Continuing events in Africa:
President Ali Bongo is overthrown by a coup in Gabon.
(Good riddance, it has to be said; but the coupists are no saints.)
Timbuktu is effectively under siege by a jihadist coalition.
Global Southists chorus: “Yah boo, France! Coupist miliary is peoples liberation! Viva la Revolucion!”
France: “Meh. Sort yourselves out. We’re done. Farewell and f@ck you.”
This is building towards a regional crisis.
The ECOWAS group are far more populous and powerful than the “coupist group”, and very worried that the coupists are a bunch of plundering incompetents who are leading to a jihadist takeover in the Sahel while they use Russian mercs to cover their plundering of remaining national assets to Swiss bank accounts.
Problem is, the ECOWAS militaries are probably not up to full-scale expeditionary warfare in the Sahel.
@CSK:
I heard during the last weeks of the primaries that Cheeto Jr formally offered Kasich the post of VP. Allegedly he said Kasich would actually run things, while pretending he didn’t. Kasich asked what then Benito would do, and Jr. answered “MAGA.” (I can’t bring myself to type the phrase without laughing). Kasich declined.
I don’t know if that’s true. Kasich was not the VP choice, but that proves nothing.
Lovely. Now Tucker Carlson, the -$787.5 million dollar man, is predicting the democrats will try to assassinate Benito.
The reasoning is priceless: “Begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment, and none of them work. I mean what’s next?”
Let’s see. Bush the younger was criticized and there were many, many protests against him. Same for Obama. I assume the same for Biden, though I can’t recall offhand massive protests against him (maybe the never-ending Cheeto rallies). they were not impeached, nor indicted, because like it or not, they did not engage in massive illegal activities while in office, nor did any of them try to overturn an election.
But are we to assume criticism of Biden menas Tucker wants to kill him?
@Kathy:
Actually I recall reading the same thing. Junior and Eric stated that the vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy, and Trump would roam around the country doing MAGA rallies for 8 years.
@Kathy: I’d never heard before that the Trump campaign considered Kasich for vp, but I looked it up and it appears to be true.
Here’s the account from NYT:
Don Jr. later disputed this story. You be the judge.
Mitch McConnell looked terrified during his latest freeze during a press conference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN39Ukn3788
His staff needed to get him away from the podium, and to a doctor as quickly as possible. Not take more questions.
@Kylopod:
Oh, I believe it. (Of course Junior denied it.) I also think that the Trump Fan Club would have been satisfied with this arrangement. Just imagine: eight years of chanting “lock her up.” Ecstasy.
@Kylopod:
@CSK:
A denial by the Cheeto or his spawn serves as confirmation.
@CSK: @Kathy: Reading the NYT article now, I was struck by something which I think I sort of vaguely remember but have since forgotten about, which is that the Trump campaign considered a lot of people for vp only to be told they weren’t interested. (One of them was Nikki Haley, by the way.) I guess nobody wanted to go down with what they saw as a sinking ship. It’s not surprising the Trump people would later deny these offers even happened.
I have thought before about if he had picked someone other than Pence, won the election then lost four years later, would that person have tried to decertify the results on Jan. 6 as Pence refused to do? Trump’s finalists before Pence included Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Michael Flynn. I’m pretty sure Christie would have done the same as Pence, I’m not sure about Gingrich, and Flynn…there isn’t even any question what he’d have done.
@Kylopod:
Oh, Flynn would doubtless have obeyed Trump’s instruction. No doubt about that whatsoever. Gingrich would have done whatever he perceived to be to his advantage at the time.
@CSK: And that would have yielded exactly what we got. The problem isn’t Trump, the problem is Republicans.
@Kylopod:
@CSK:
A VP Flynn would have been insistent on sending the Army to seize voting machines weeks earlier.
I agree as to Gingrich and Christie.
About the latter, I think of him as Thatcher said of Gorbachev, waaaay back in the early 80s: we can do business with him.