Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, July 15, 2021
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112 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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Some light reading on CNN this morning:
Really, what harm can it do to let Trump blow off some steam after losing the election?
I’m not normally a Mercedes fan but yesterday I came upon a green 450SL with tan interior and was reminded just how timelessly beautiful it is. Here’s an example in a different color.
These are the five least vaccinated states in the US right now
The only reason Misery isn’t on that list is the 2 large metropolises of STL and KC. Not that we would ever allow that to keep us from leading the way.
@drj:
Quote from the article:
“The authors interviewed Trump for more than two hours.”
While one should always be sceptical about “leaked” Kremlin documents, there may actually be something to this story in The Guardian:
One reason to be suspicious is that the leaked documents appear to describe later events just a bit too well:
Still, Russia undebiably did take active steps to ensure a Trump win:
So there’s that.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.”
ICYMI, here’s the Find A Grave memorial I built for Doug.
Feel free to add photos and/or leave a “virtual flower” (it’s free).
That June 7 death date is an estimate. Unfortunately, he died some time before he was found, so we may never know his exact date of death.
The memorial is a work in progress. I’ll update it when we receive internment or other information.
I’ve received comments from people thanking me for this. It’s not a big deal. I built it because Doug deserves to be remembered, and it was the last thing I could do for my friend.
@Nightcrawler:
Where did you find out that Doug had died some time before he was found? That strikes me as terribly, terribly sad.
@CSK:
I spoke with a friend who has been talking with the family.
Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon for people who live alone and keep to themselves, like Doug did. A few years ago, a guy on my street died in his apartment and wasn’t found for weeks. He lived alone, wasn’t dating anyone, worked contract jobs, and had a habit of dropping off-grid.
@drj:
But they did in fact take advantage of the “media-information” space…and they did pump “media viruses” into the public. And Trump in, indeed, mentally unstable. What’s not to believe?
THE PEE TAPE EXISTS!!!
@drj:
“…impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex…”
Sounds accurate to me.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“…we’ve took every possible action…”
He speaks so well, too.
@Kathy: You got it.
@CSK: English is his 2nd language. And his 3rd, 4th, 5th…
@OzarkHillbilly:
What’s his first language? Authentic frontier gibberish?
As if St Louis didn’t have enough problems already: Sharks in the Mississippi? Researches Say It’s Possible Near St. Louis
@drj:
It makes sense for Putin’s Russia to try to help the Ass get elected. Whom would you rather have running a rival (or enemy?) country? A competent executive with foreign policy experience who doesn’t like you, or an bumbling, inexperienced ignoramus more intent on pursuing domestic enemies, and who rather likes you?
The last, I think, is important. Were trump anti-Russian, you’d think Putin wouldn’t want him holding the nuclear launch codes.
@CSK: It’s also English, you just might not recognize it as such.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
A couple of points:
* Who leaked these documents and why? Why these documents?
* It’s really quite remarkable how accurately a document from early 2016 predicts the following few years.
Russia is pretty adept at information warfare. Maybe they produced a credible document with a couple of proveably false elements to discredit the claim that Russia assisted the GOP.
Or perhaps they leaked an exaggarated version of what happened to demonstrate their power in the info warfare domain.
Or perhaps the document is genuine.
Who know, really?
Possibly. Or perhaps the Russians simply documented some crooked business deal.
@drj:
I truly wonder what sordid revelation could possibly hurt the Ass with his base, and to a slightly lesser extent with the GOP.
We know extramarital affairs, hush-money payments, financial swindles of various kinds, sexual assault, attacks on democracy, and support of hostile foreign leaders, among other things, won’t do it.
About the only things I can think of are:
1) The Ass acting decently towards a minority group in a non-token fashion.
2) (eye bleach recommended) Trump prancing around in a French maid outfit playing a BDSM scene with a man he calls “master”.
I’ve often wondered why Donald Trump so eagerly sits for interviews with authors even he has to know are going to do a justifiable hatchet job on him. I assumed it was because he’s so desperately needy for attention he doesn’t care what form the attention takes.
http://www.rawstory.com/tell-all-book-about-trump/
The Politico article linked in the Raw Story piece goes into this in much greater depth.
@Kathy:
Nothing could hurt Trump with his base, not even the things you listed. They’d just label it FAKE NEWS, even if a thousand notaries swore it was Trump in the French maid’s get-up.
@Kathy:
He has a lot of non-US assets. A criminal prosecution abroad could be quite painful – regardless of whether the GOP has his back.
Or perhaps the pee tape (or something similar) does exist. But that’s pretty much unknowable at this point.
Through all the waxing and waning of the Trump/Putin story I’ve maintained that Trump was not just a useful idiot, but completely compromised and acting, in effect as a Russian asset. There was never a better explanation for his groveling to Putin. Nothing else made sense.
If we’re looking for a leaker for these documents the US intel agencies, followed by allied intel agencies are the obvious suspects. The new government of Israel, for example, looking to break the Trump-Netanyahu connection?
But there is of course another possible source: the Russians themselves. Putin is as much an egomaniac as Trump and I’ve long suspected that having pulled off the intelligence coup of the century, Putin would have to find a way to brag about it.
@Michael Reynolds: No doubt Trump is a fully compromised Russian asset, but I doubt it’s because of any “pee tape”. That’s the type of thing which wouldn’t bother Trump or his followers at all. With Trump it’s all about money and how can he benefit personally.
All Putin had to do was promise a Trump hotel in Moscow or on the Black Sea and the deal’s done.
@a country lawyer:
The ‘pee tape’ may not bother the full-blown cult, but roll it back five years and that level of subservience was not yet baked in. He’d have easily been manipulated if such a tape exists. Which is not to say money wasn’t also a likely element. But I never believe in a singular motive, it’s always motives plural.
@Michael Reynolds:
Such a charitable, rosy view of trump is odd. Me, I think he’s as stupid and depraved as he appears to be.
@Kathy:
Again, let’s not get hung up in binaries, either/or. Any time you’re asking, ‘was it the carrot or the stick?’ the answer will generally be, ‘both.’ If you want to manipulate someone you use both – the stick for threat, the carrot to give your victim a face-saving rationale for submission. The stick makes them obey, the carrot compromises them, makes them complicit in their own blackmailing.
Of course he’s stupid and depraved, but stupid and depraved does not explain licking Putin’s taint very publicly. Stupid, depraved people are the exact kind of people who can be blackmailed.
@Michael Reynolds: The thing to understand about the culties is that they, like their leader, are extremely weak and insecure individuals. So I disagree that the pee tape wouldn’t bother them. It wouldn’t cause them to abandon Trump, but they’d still hate every moment of it.
I don’t know how many people here caught the story from several weeks ago about former child star Ricky Schroeder making a scene at a Costco’s over his refusal to wear a mask. He argued that the store had lifted the mask requirement. The store people calmly explained to him that California had not yet lifted its statewide mask mandate, and that took precedence over the store’s policy.
A short time later, Schroeder put out a public statement semi-apologizing for his behavior. He said he stood by his views on the mask mandate, but he apologized for hurting the store people’s feelings.
I found this response deeply weird. First of all, I watched the video and there wasn’t the slightest indication he hurt anyone’s feelings. Maybe the store people were irritated, maybe scared, hell maybe they enjoyed the attention as much as Schroeder did–who knows? The fact is that there’s no way to know what they were feeling because they remained completely cool and professional. But what in the name of fried tomatoes did hurt feelings have to do with the incident? He didn’t personally insult them. What he did do was behave like a screeching moron in front of a camera.
Even when MAGA-heads pretend to apologize for something, they still have to make it sound like they’re owning the libs. They’re incapable of anything else, because their insecurity runs so deep they have to constantly tell themselves the people they oppose have egos as fragile as their own. Their psyche can’t deal with any other possibility.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’d agree, but remember that the “grab ’em by the pussy” revelation didn’t hurt Trump at all. I’d have thought it would have finished him off. Mike Pence nearly quit the ticket. But Trump’s followers weren’t in the least bothered. Some of them probably took it as evidence of Trump’s manliness.
@drj: Re: The Pee Tape;
Its amusing to me that after 6 years of nonstop skin-crawlingly awful behavior peformed nightly on video, people assume that somehow a tape of a weird sex fetish thing would somehow move the needle on what we think of Trump.
If such a tape were to be played, within a week white evangelical preachers would discover examples of it in the Bible and explain how it is in full keeping with the Gospel message, and Scott Alexander would crow that this was a public relations triumph showing the libs to be blue nosed prudes and Magats across the country would be conducting Pee-ins in the streets.
@Kylopod:
Schroeder may be just too inarticulate (another defining trait of MAGAs) to express his regrets in any other way.
@CSK: That was my thought, too. We assume people, perhaps especially famous people, are relatively intelligent and would speak and act as such, but maybe he’s just not that sharp. (No idea one way or the other, though.)
@CSK: @reid: But even an inarticulate apology can be revealing. “I’m sorry if you were offended” is pretty much the standard for public figures. They do it because they feel pressure or are trying to appease people, but don’t feel any genuine regret.
I must confess that when I first heard about this incident I barely knew who Ricky Schroeder is; the name sorta rang a bell but that was it. I certainly have never seen his show.
I do know there are genuinely talented actors who happen to be MAGA-heads–Jon Voight is one of the prime examples.
I tend to think that being a good actor requires some level of empathy, but on the other hand they’re often reputed to be somewhat narcissistic individuals.
@CSK:
If we spoke in allusions, like the aliens in the much-loved TNG episode, we’d say something like “Charlie Brown, when Lucy moved the football.”
I’ve described the Ass as not being capable of learning, nor interested. I stand by it.
Could he be expecting better treatment after so many occasions when the opposite happened? he might. I’ve a feeling he spend most of such interviews praising himself. And if asked “did you really say good things about hitler?” he tries to justify doing so before denying he did (he’s done that about lots of other scandals in public before). Meantime there are multiple sources saying this happened.
I’ll be curious to see the books from those on the side of the Ass. Some are out but have caused no waves, as they seem to be panegyrics directed at the ashhole market (not news). I don’t expect negative books from Mrs. Bowling Green Masacre, but an exhaustive, honest account might be revealing (not that I expect one).
@Kylopod:
Well, Schroder’s “apology” certainly revealed his inarticulacy. I never argued it didn’t reveal anything about him.
According to IMDb, he hasn’t done anything since 2016. His heyday seems to have been in the eighties and nineties.
@CSK: Silver Spoons was great.
@Kylopod:
You’re looking too deeply into it. It’s just a stock PR apology.
@Kathy:
Well, if you read the Politico piece that’s linked in the Raw Story item, it explains this whole business from Trump’s point of view. He thinks that if he can get even a bit of his own version of reality on the record, it’s better than having no say at all.
I totally agree with you that Lardass is neither capable of nor interested in learning anything.
As for books from Trump’s side of the aisle, he’s said by Politico to be dreading Kushner’s. He’s also jealous that Kushner got a big advance, and no publisher will give Trump 2 cents for his own memoirs.
@Chip Daniels:
THAT bothers me more than the pee tape would. FG being outed as a perv? Old news, dude; who didn’t know that?
@Kylopod: “The most important quality is sincerity; if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
@Mu Yixiao:
It’s a right-wing PR apology, and not even a typical one. As I mentioned, public figures of all political and apolitical stripes do some version of “I’m sorry if you were offended” all the time. But I have rarely seen it expressed in terms of hurt feelings. That is a distinctly right-wing shibboleth.
@Jon: I saw him a few times on NYPD Blue also. I was surprised at how good a actor he seemed. He was good on Silver Spoons, but he was also only playing Ricky Schroder there, so it wasn’t clear whether he was an actor or merely a photogenic kid.
@CSK: I’m still wondering why anybody will want to read Kushner’s memoirs. I think the advance is some kind of payoff, but I can’t imagine what for.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ll speculate the Russians knew that simply praising him garners all the influence one could wish for, and using aggressive compromising tactics on an unstable person who controls thousands of nukes is unwise, and in this case entirely unnecessary.
The leak may have been due to the Russians shutting down of that ransomware site. Like us the Russian government recruits cyber talent from the hacker community. Several reports from some old intell people say a Russian hacker which shows exceptional talent is sometimes tapped on the shoulder by the GRU and given a job offer they can’t refuse. It’s a fair assumption some of those guys hacked some information from the Russian government for “just in case” protection.
It may well be the Russians are de-compromising themselves on the matter, which indicates they have high confidence Trump is done. Once something is out it’s useless for leverage. That or some pissed off hacker, bitter about being shut down.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I meant that more in the sense of “holy hell did I have a crush on Erin Grey” 😉
I’ve long been struck by how easily people are gulled by performance. For years the Republicans garnered support from those who saw them as tough and decisive, as people who couldn’t be pushed around. The Dems were too touchy feely and that means they would buckle if someone even spoke meanly to them. The Repubs were just more manly.
To me it was always just performance. George H.W. might have come off as much less of a man’s man than George W, but it was blatantly obvious who had more steel in their spine. Not to tens of millions of voters though.
In any case, I have no illusion that the fact that yet again the “tough” Republicans have showed themselves to be piles of jello will have an effect on their supporters. When the country is literally threatened by a murderous mob they were able to make slight handwaving gestures for perhaps a week at the most, and then they either fell silent (except, of course, where they were gossiping behind closed doors) or fell into line.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, Kushner’s chef d’oeuvreis being published by Broadside Books, the conservative imprint of HarperColins. They must have calculated making some profit. Only thing is, the MAGAs don’t seem terribly fond of Jared, so they won’t buy it. And Trump himself certainly doesn’t seem inclined to promote it.
@drj:
Maybe it is fake…what does it matter?
The fact remains that what it says is in fact what happened.
Our own Intelligence Community agrees that Putin green-lit the cyber effort to install Trump. We know of their coordination with Wikileaks, which Stone and Manafort in turn coordinated with.
Do they have Kompromat? I find it hard to believe that Billy Bush could get incriminating tape of Trump and Putin couldn’t? On a guy that cheated on all three of his wives? That slept with porn stars and partied with Jeffrey Epstein? I mean, the guy is an idiot…how hard could it be?
Does he have an inferiority complex? Gee, ya think?
@Kylopod:
I don’t have much respect for an adult who still goes by a childhood diminutive.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Well, I agree with you that these leaked documents don’t really change anything.
We all saw what happened.
@Kathy:
I had to look up childhood diminutive…so clearly there’s no respect due me.
Plus I go by Jay when my name is Joseph.
Oh well…
@Kathy:
In day-to-day life, he may not. However, that’s his registered SAG name, so it’s what gets used in publicity.
Also: Mickey Rourke, Annie Potts, Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carter…
@drj:
I mean…it’s almost like Putin is taking a victory lap.
@Mu Yixiao: He actually goes by Rick these days. But I never realized “Ricky” was inherently a childish diminutive.
@MarkedMan:
Ruthlessness is frequently confused with toughness.
@CSK:
I read the piece. Combine what it says with what we know about his inability to learn, and ask why is he still giving interviews for books he should know will be damning.
If you buy explanations attributed to him, then he clings to a failing policy. Which is the same thing as being unable to learn form experience. Perhaps he believes this time will work, even though it has never worked all the previous times.
My given name is Gregory.
There were only to people who I would answer to when they called me Greggie. My mom and my best friend Joe.
Joey
Concrete Blonde
@Mu Yixiao:
Have you not seen my name?
@Kathy:
Perhaps we should also take into account Trump’s endless, bottomless need for publicity. Any publicity. He’s often said that bad publicity is better than no publicity, and nothing seems to have dissuaded him from that notion.
He may also just be insane (in addition to being a loathsome, malevolent churl, of course). Isn’t one of the definitions of insanity doing the same thing over and over again in the hope of getting a different result?
@Kathy:
Are you saying we shouldn’t respect you? 😀
@MarkedMan:
These aren’t great sports cars…but they ARE fantastic drivers.
@CSK:
More like, see the bargain cheap shot not to be taken seriously.
@Michael Reynolds:
The only question now is if the Pee Tape will be…leaked.
Don’t forget to tip the waitresses…
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: And I thought the Santorum surge couldn’t be repeated.
@CSK: Do Javanka have enough money to pull a FG, Jr. and simply buy hundreds of thousands of copies to give away as door prizes at the next CPAC event? Will they even be invited to the next CPAC event? (Enquiring minds may want to know; whereas I have only a passing morbid curiosity.)
@Kylopod: With adult Rickys going back all the way to Ricky Ricardo, and in all likelihood before that, it doesn’t seem that it’s very much of a childhood diminutive.
@CSK:
This sounds like an addict. Getting high will be great, but then there’s coming down. So maybe he’s like an alcoholic raging at the hangover. Could be.
My given name is Marty. Not Martin.
The number of arguments I’ve gotten into with government bureaucrats….
Them: Your name?
Me: Marty
Them: I need your legal name
Me: Marty
Them: I need your full legal name
Me: Marty
Them: I need the name on your birth certificate
Me: That IS the name on my BC. I know what the fuck my own name is!
Thankfully, enough people have “non-standard” names these days, so people just accept whatever you tell them.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, given that The Former Guy will probably still be controlling CPAC when the book comes out (2022), and that it may–just possibly–show Trump in a bad light by implying that Trump was Kushner’s puppet, I don’t think any of the major Trumpist organizations, including CPAC, will be interested in bulk-buying it.
Broadside is touting it as “the definitive account” of the Trump administration. The company must anticipate good sales, but I don’t know why. Publishers of adult fiction and adult non-fiction have made some colossal mistakes over the past 20-30 years.
Possibly Jared and Ivanka have the money to buy huge lots of the book and boost it onto the bestseller lists. Joe Kennedy did it for his son John.
@Kathy: I’ve no real evidence and I’ve not seen any punditry to this effect, but it seemed to me Russia backed off in 2020. I kind of wonder if Putin decided he’d made a mistake with Trump and he’d rather deal with Biden. Trump could be manipulated and bribed, but he was nuts and wouldn’t stay manipulated and bribed. Better to deal with someone more hostile but predictable.
@Mu Yixiao: My legal middle name is a single letter with no dot. My parents (who were fairly young at the time) did it in honor of Harry S Truman, who it’s said had no dot after his middle initial.
It turns out that’s sort of an urban legend–legally Harry Truman’s middle initial did have a dot after it. (He was named for two grandfathers with names starting with S.) But he often omitted the dot in his signature, and at times he said it should be written that way, but he was probably kidding. The Harry S. Truman Library has always used the dot.
You don’t know the amount of times I’ve been forced to explain all this whenever doing any sort of registration for something. It confuses the heck out of people.
@drj: The provenence of the document seems open to question. But like the ANG memos on W that destroyed Dan Rather, they may be fake, but the outline, if not all the details, are true. It’s really confirmation of stuff we knew or could infer. The “Killian documents” looked pretty good, but had a fatal flaw the creator would have known. It smelled of a deliberate setup by Karl Rove.
re. Trump and Putin: I always reckoned it played with his long standing “wannabe wise guy” persona.
Any bait from Moscow comes along, he’d be all to his kids and cronies:“Hey, look guys! Whatdiditellya? Now we’re playin’ in the big leagues!”
Real gangsters just love wannabes.
Seldom ends well.
For the Wannabe.
@dazedandconfused:
I think that might be true but for the risks the Russians were willing to run. This is an op that could have been exposed and if exposed early would have locked in sanctions til hell froze over. A smart thug like our friend Vlad wouldn’t bet on carrot alone, he’d want a stick. I would.
That is a very interesting thought, given the timing.
@Michael Reynolds:
Or the Russians have made it all up completely. Let’s ignore the truth or falsehood of the information contained in the documents for a moment.
Putin’s goal has been a weak US, so Russia can act without opposition in its sphere of influence. Does a reveal of this information (true or false) help or harm those interests?
It will only be believed by the folks on the left (many of whom already believe this, but haven’t been reminded in a while), and will be viewed by folks on the right as “fake news”. It makes the divides in our country greater, and the ability for our country to act collectively weaker.
I don’t think the Kremlin is all too bothered by this. If genuine and unplanned, the want to hunt down the leaker just because, but the content of leak itself doesn’t hurt.
A twitter thread by Mike Martin on on Helmand and narcotics policy.
OMFG.
No wonder it all went to sh*t.
@gVOR08:
That may be so. Back in 20106, few people thought the Ass would win, and I’m willing to bet Putin was part of the vast majority. He may have been disappointed with the results, and he may prefer to deal with someone more predictable, at a less frantic pace.
@Mu Yixiao: For a number of years, I needed to put “J. (i.o.)” as my middle name on various types of government documents because I only had an initial instead of a middle name. When computerization became ubiquitous and the interwebs initially decided they didn’t want “.”s to go anywhere but before “com [etc.]” the problem disappeared. It’s one thing I’m grateful to technology for.
@CSK: ” I don’t think any of the major Trumpist organizations, including CPAC, will be interested in bulk-buying it.”
Yes. That’s why I was asking if Javanka have enough money to do it. I assumed that they were going to need to put up their own cash for bulk purchases. (Which brings up another question: do we REALLY know that Ivanka didn’t give the advance to “Vanitypressbooks.com”–or whatever the imprint’s name is–to either give hubby a probably needed boost or to tweek Pops?)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
If only Jarvanka had published during the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.
@Jon:
For Cracker and my generation, see Diana Rigg/Emma Peel or Ertha Kitt/Catwoman
@Michael Reynolds:
IMO Putin was simply “anyone but Hillary” in 2016. There seems to have been some interest from the Russians to bolster Bernie’s primary campaign earlier on. The reason being the unleashing of Newland to foment a color revolution in the Ukraine.
I wouldn’t be at all shocked if Putin ordered this leak himself. Getting everything out in the open helps clean the board for new relations with Biden. He wants those sanctions lifted or modified, and knows Trump has destroyed himself.
There is nothing being revealed that wasn’t revealed at Helsinki anyway.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
No, I think Broadside (which is a legit operation) made the deal themselves. (They are, after all, a conservative imprint.) Oddly enough, Simon and Shuster, I think, now has a vanity press operation. They’ll take your money and print and distribute your crap.
I do think Javanka would like to distance themselves as much as possible from TFG, but I believe the fact that they’ve moved from Manhattan to Florida proves the hopelessness of that endeavor. His stench will surround them forever, making it impossible for them to regain their hard-won place in the lowest echelons of NY society.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I had to create a Chinese name so I could order from Taobao and XiaoMi. My “damn slavic name” is just too long for Chinese online forms. 😀
Also… I have to go back and check, but I believe my grandfather only had a middle initial, no period. And I think that was only after he came to the US.
remember the mystery person who bid $28 million for a joyride with Jeff bezos? We still don’t know who they are, but they’re not this kid.
It’s worth noting the New Shepard* rocket/capsule combo does not carry a pilot onboard. It’s all automated. There’s not much need for a pilot on a ballistic suborbital trajectory, if you don’t care about hitting a particular spot (or close enough). Not much can go wrong, other than the rocket blowing up.
*I’ve never liked that name. Not the “New” part. Alan Shepard wasn’t a piece of hardware in the Mercury program (BTW, he later walked on the Moon on Apollo XIV).
@dazedandconfused:
Inclined to agree.
Indications are Putin and his circle genuinely loathe Hilary Clinton; and Barack Obama for that matter.
They seem to genuinely view them as embodying “western decadence”.
Putin is a self-interested, oligarch enabling autocrat; but it’s often a mistake to overlook the need of most people (except authentic gangsters) to believe that they are the good guys.
Putin and the siloviki are intriguing: they seem to have genuinely transitioned from Party loyalism (albeit cynical) to being true believers in autocracy, orthodoxy, and purity.
Jesus Fucking Christ!
@Mu Yixiao: The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle….
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: FWIW, I’m not really a sports car person, but I do respect a car that handles well. Cars I’ve owned that fall into that category: Fiat 131, Honda CRX, Mini Cooper (2003) and Mini Cooper (2015). Ones that fall into the “perfectly fine” category: 90’s VW Passat, Acura T-something, and my current one, Infiniti G25x.
At last, opinion polling uncovers vital information!
Not interested – 23% 20%
Not enough to see or do – 11% 8%
Rather visit other places on Earth – 10% 6%
No point – 9% 3%
OTOH, Wallace and Gromit make a decisive case to the contrary!
@Mu Yixiao: @Kylopod:
Ms. Juli sure has her medical lingo down pat, doesn’t she?
“…disease particles…”
“…germs of the virus…”
By the way, how do you pronounce “Juli”? Is it Juli as in Julie, or Juli as in July, the month?
@MarkedMan:
A mix of front and rear wheelers; interesting.
Ever driven a Fiat Strada Abarth by any chance?
@Kathy: What difference does it make what name people go by? There are a million different reason for choosing a name, and sometimes the name is chosen for you.
@JohnSF:
I saw that one. I thought it was adorable they’d go to the Moon to sample cheese, and that they nearly blasted off without packing some crackers.
@Kylopod:
“The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true. “
@Kathy:
The Orb did a whole album about that, IIRC.
Never blast off without packing your crackers!
@Mu Yixiao: Obviously you weren’t talking to Southern bureaucrats.
@CSK:
I marvel at the level of willful ignorance that motivates someone to pay hundreds of dollars for a bogus cure from a random provider, when vaccines are literally free and readily available.
For all that, I find it troubling this person was handing out real Moderna lot numbers on the fake vaccination cards, and that there’s no tighter control of vaccine certificates*. Think about it, when people start getting ill with COVID and claim they were vaccinated, time, effort, and money might be wasted investigating why these lots are not working as well as others.
* The certificate issued by the government here has a QR code, which directs you to a web site that verifies the code is authentic, and suggests two data points on the certificate that can be checked.
@Kathy:
Yes, it’s very disturbing. The people who are blowing hundreds of bucks on this crap must be either genuinely fearful that the free vaccines contain a sinister mind-control or DNA-altering substance or they’re simply determined not to do anything the gubmint thinks they should do. Self-defeating idiots.
Even the Trump supporters here (not that it’s overrun with them) in New England lined up to get the vax.
Holy fck: Paralyzed man’s brain waves turned into sentences on computer in medical first
That’s some SciFi shit right there.
@Mu Yixiao: I was lucky on that front. My given name made a very functional Korean name for National Health, taxes, and other issues. I never figured out how to charge things to my telephone, so I didn’t get into e-commerce until I returned home. (Still prefer brick and mortar.)
The thunderstorms we were having earlier in the week moved to the Continent.
Looks like we really dodged a bullet.
Shouts: guys, all this weather that’s not normal but OTOH it’s normal for an arbitrary value of normal is getting pretty worryingly normal, OK?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Back in the day, I was introduced to a woman online. She was the girlfriend of a man who was in an IRC* group I frequented. As IRC is pure text, I never saw a picture of her. She was moderately active in the chats, but was always noticeably lagged in the conversation. As most of us were chatting while at work, I just assumed she was busy (it wasn’t uncommon for people to respond to a comment from 20 or 30 minutes prior).
After I got to know her better (through her boyfriend), I found out that she has severe CP, is confined to an electric wheelchair, needs 24/7 assistance**, and is completely non-verbal. She was “typing” by use of a reflective dot on her forehead and a computer like Stephen Hawking used.
When I went off to college, my initial intention was to get into cybernetics***. I was (and still am) fascinated by the ways that technology can compensate for handicaps and give people freedom and independence.
(And the artist in me loves the way that some people are creating amazingly beautiful prosthetics)
===============
* Internet Relay Chat–social media before there was “social media”.
** She was, however “independent”. She worked for the county Social Services dept, helping disabled people find resources including their own cars and ways to purchase their own houses. Amazing woman.
And… to all those that make assumptions based on the idea that I’m a libertarian: I am more than happy to pay taxes so that people like her have the medical care and resources to be proudly productive members of our society.
*** And then I hit Calc 101 with a prof who didn’t know how to teach. So… I ended up in theatre.
@MarkedMan: I spent enough time on motorcycles when I was young and believed I was immortal to be one of those obnoxious people that say no car handles well. They may be adequate, or they may be good for a car, but none of them are good on an absolute scale.
@JohnSF:
I’m pretty sure it’s our attempt to strip away the Ukraine. If Putin’s a guy who can’t abide decadence why does Trump not offend him?
The eastern part is considered by Russians to be part and parcel to Russia. They fought wars for it, it’s their access to the Black Sea and the Med. It would be on a par with trying to strip the Alamo away from Texas if the Alamo was actually worth something…like the US’s only access to the Pacific. The Russians fought the Turks, they fought the British, and they fought Hitler for it.
Why can’t people grasp this, I don’t know. Now the western part, the part that doesn’t speak Russian and was part of the Hapsburg Empire and fought with the Nazi’s in WW2, that they could see losing, but not the part which as been considered part of Russia for 100s of years.
@dazedandconfused:
It may be a matter that Obama is black and Clinton is a woman, while trump is orange and, well, definitely not a woman.
@JohnSF: I have not. Worth it?
@Michael Cain: Interesting. I’ve had three periods in my life where my only transportation was a motorcycle. (197? Suzuki 550 4 cylinder, Kawasaki KZ700 (not a typo), Duzuki 100cc dirt back (that was in Africa). I don’t even know how to compare a car and a motorcycle. To me I t would be like comparing an umbrella and a pair of galoshes.
@MarkedMan:
A hoot. Probably all gone to the big rustpile in the sky now, though…
Just googled, and my guess was right: just three drivable ones left in the UK.
I only had one for a couple of months before it had serious engine problems (which actually was very unusual; bodyshell rust was always the big problem with them).
Repair costs were a bit steep, so I traded it for a lower powered version, a 105TC, had that one for about six or seven years before it started to rot.
Only 1.6L engine against the Abarth’s 2L, but still a good drive.
Neither the best for long motorway journeys ; hard suspension, and noisy as hell.
Fun though.
@dazedandconfused:
Sure, Putin, and the Russian ruling elites more generally, hate the loss of Ukraine.
Their anti-western, anti-liberal, attitudes are of a piece with their “Russian greatness” ideology.
And a part that ideology is: the ruled have no right to defy their rulers.
The view is: the common people belong to the state, the state belongs to its rulers.
The rulers have duties, yes; but to the state, not to the people.
The distaste for the West pre-dates the Ukrainian revolt; arguably it pre-dates even the USSR.
They are nationalists, but in a different sense to most Western versions of nationalism: it is state based, rather then primarily ethnic. The focus is the Russian state, not the Russian people. Ethnic Russians (a category that blurs at the edges anyway) are most valued, but largely because they are the most loyal to the state, and most imbued with the orthodox culture the state upholds.
The regime may reluctantly see “ethnic” Ukraine as a lost cause, but that does not mean they regards its independence as legitimate.
Fundamentally, to Moscow, the Ukrainian people had NO RIGHT to overthrow Yanukovych and reject subservience to Russia.
Neither did the Balts, or Georgians, or etc, for that matter.
Ex-Soviet successor states are tolerable only insofar as they defer to Moscow.
Ukraine is not critical to Russian access to the Black Sea, in any case.
The port of Novorossiysk is the biggest by cargo volume in Russia, four or five times larger than Odessa in throughput. And that is in the Kuban, not Ukraine.
Also, the linguistic map of Ukraine is not necessarily a guide. Quite a few Russian speakers in the Donbas nonetheless identify as Ukrainian.
And former Austrian/Polish Galicia is distinguished more by religion (Uniate Greek Catholic) than language.
The primary linguistic divide is more north-south than east-west, with Ukrainian predominant in the north, oddly enough.
But again language is not that crucial: Odessa is Russian speaking, but nonetheless pro-Ukraine.
And a lot of the Russian elite view Ukrainian as merely a Russian dialect in any case.
And Russia subscribed to the basis of regard for no non-negotiated alterations in post-war borders in any case.
If that is set aside, the Finns have at least as sound a claim to Karelia.
The fundamental view of Moscow is: the right to rule is NOT based on consent.