Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, January 3, 2024
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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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In news that will surprise absolutely no one, we have this latest turn of the worm:
So, what’s been happening? I’ve been off line for a couple of weeks. Intentionally so, just hanging out with family and friends. From the the looks of things, not much has changed. Depressing.
Just a add on comment on yesterday’s comedian conversation. My tastes tend to run on the clean side. Anything that doesn’t make me cringe while watching with the adult children.
Really like Mike Birbiglia. Just watched his latest on Netflix. Just laughed a lot. More of a humorist/storyteller and just admired how the writing and his show is constructed. Recommend it.
@Scott:
Check out Nate Bargatze.
@Neil Hudelson: Yep, I’ve seen his shows also. I like him. Also recommend Leanne Morgan.
@OzarkHillbilly: It can never be repeated often enough that Menendez was legitimately convicted of corruption years ago, but the Supremes unanimously overturned the conviction saying, essentially, that unless there is a record that gifts were offered in exchange for services the law has to assume they were just gifts from friends and not related to the services rendered. We now know it is because several (all?) of the Supremes take expensive gifts from “friends” on a regular basis: The members of the Supreme Court for that case:
John G. Roberts, Jr.
Antonin Scalia
Anthony M. Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen G. Breyer
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan
Of course they had to invalidate that. It’s how they have conducted themselves for decades.
US pastor accused of trying to put wife’s co-worker’s head in deep fryer
He was just trying to elevate a wayward soul thru a baptism of fire. And just in case you were wondering:
I looked up the Elevated Life International Ministries:
Uh huh.
Just in case anyone here was confused and thought women were actually people with inviolable rights:
I’m a little surprised Paxton isn’t crowing his victory from the rooftop.
On yesterday’s crash at Tokyo, a lot is being said in praise of the JAL crew , as they managed to evacuate everyone.
This is well deserved. there were no fatalities, and apparently no major injuries either.
What I wonder, though, is whether the passengers left their carry on luggage behind on their own initiative, or whether the crew had something to do with that. I’m not being facetious, this is a real issue that has caused real deaths in the past; notably the Sukhoi crash landing at Moscow some years back. In video of that accident, you see plenty of people lugging carry on suitcases.
BTW, I understand the need to retrieve luggage as death races towards you in an emergency. You may have valuables in there. You likely have cash, credit cards, and your passport, too. More important, maybe you have prescription meds as well.
When I fly, I keep all cash, documents, phone, keys, and cards (I don’t take any meds) in a small pouch I either have on me, or which I place on the pocket in the seatback in front. I always have it on hand when we get close to landing. Just in case. This way I can evacuate in case of an accident, taking with me all essentials and leave any other stuff behind.
I’m very excited. I just ordered a multifunction pot and air fryer combo (all in one). Through the magic of modern surveillance capitalism, it should arrive tomorrow.
I need to see it first and then figure out what can be cooked in it. I want to try some chicken thigh recipes with the air fryer function, but I also want to attempt some slow cooked beef, and see how beans will turn out using the pressure cooker function.
Maybe I should have gotten three 🙂
Seriously, the past few weeks I’ve been doing simple, quick, rather unimaginative recipes, as I’ve been too tired from the various Weeks of Hell Week to even think of something to cook.
@Kathy: I just got around to ordering a handful of replacements for stuff that’s either been lost or heavily used to the point of disintegrating.
(Am still trying to figure out how in the heck could I have lost a stopper to a hot-water bottle?!)
via the Guardian:
So a bit of both.
@OzarkHillbilly:
My daughter was feeling disrespected at the grocery store where she worked, a co-worker creeping on her and harping on her Chinese ethnicity. I went in one day, bought some groceries, went through the guy’s check-out line and introduced myself as the father. No threats, I just held the guy’s gaze a bit longer than strictly necessary. He never said another untoward word to my daughter and quit a week later. Some of us don’t need to go postal to convey a simple message.
@Kathy:
I got one of those combos after I accidentally set on fire my last digital multicooker. I don’t know if I’d ever buy an Air Fryer on its own–I have a convection oven, which is not quite the same but close enough, and I don’t want to use up the shelf space. But a combo, replacing something I already needed replaced? Sure.
The air fryer is really nice. It takes a bit more finagling in a multicooker because you are dealing with a smaller internal space, but it’s still very handy.
I was most excited about the possibility of quickly cooked beans–dried beans cooked in stock tastes just so much better than canned stuff. Unfortunately I’m getting mixed results. Often, no matter what I do, parts of the beans poke up out of the liquid and come out cooked-but-crunchy by the end. Since removing the lid releases the pressure, you can’t do anything to stir them around.
Now that I’m typing this out I just realized I could probably pick up the whole cooker and give it a good swirl or shake halfway through. Anyway, just a warning you might have to finesse a bit to get the beans cooked the way you want them.
@Neil Hudelson:
With the caveat I’ve never used a pressure cooker, do you hydrate the beans before cooking them? I get best results by soaking the beans overnight. I even soak lentils, though they don’t need more than a couple of hours.
Also, I’d be careful messing with a pressure vessel of any kind.
Reviews I’ve read and videos I’ve seen about the multi cooker and air fryer combo, do tend to indicate a rather “just adequate” air fryer, vs a dedicated appliance. No complaints on the other functions. I decided to go ahead anyway because 1) less counter/storage space needed, 2) a bit less money expended, and 3) I’m curious about mixing cooking methods (still looking that up).
George Santos wants to be director of ICE in the coming Trump administration.
@Neil Hudelson: I’ve learned from experience with my Instant Pot that soaking beans, posole, garbanzos, etc. prior to cooking them helps a lot with loss of stock to the beans absorbing it as they cook.
@Kathy:
There is a part of me that believes that anyone who supports Trump or the modern Republican Party are immoral and unethical. How else can they support racist liars? But then I think of the people I actually know well who do so and that doesn’t gel. So I remind myself of how many people are really and truly clueless about politics. Joyce Vance, cohost of Preet Bahara’s podcast, provides an example of that:
Later Vance checks in with her 21 year old son, who provides this perspective:
And lest you blame it on the internet, back when I was in my 20’s I knew lots of my contemporaries who didn’t read the newspaper and didn’t watch TV news*. How the heck would they have known anything about what is going on.
*Of the ones who watched, many only got the sports and weather. There was a reason those came on at a specific time each night and the ad rate was higher for those. Same with the newspaper. I used to work at Xerox and go to the cafeteria most days. This was in the middle of a set of buildings that primarily housed engineering and along with some other professionals i.e. well educated, upper middle class people. People who bought the paper would often thoughtfully leave it on the tables once they were done. It didn’t take long before I noticed that the Sports and Life section (the weather was on the back page of one of those two) were well thumbed and wrinkled but the front section which contained all the political and international news and all the domestic hard news was pristine. The business section fell somewhere in between.
@liberal capitalist:
??? Where does this come from? I’ve flown in and out of the US probably 100 times or more and I’ve never had any agent confiscate my cash. And I know well over a hundred people, coworkers and friends, from all nationalities, colors, religions and ages who have the same type of travel history. I’ve heard a hundred tales of customs travesties (and experienced a few of my own) but I’ve never heard anyone complain about getting cash confiscated.
@liberal capitalist:..The Sherrif of Nottingham seems to run law in the USA, so that’s how it is.
You’re a day late for the Stand Up Comedy thread. Besides this crowd is tough.
@Mister Bluster:
My wife is a waray waray
Born in Alangalang
Her nickname is Net Net
She has a goddaughter named Jen Jen
Her best friend was Wen Wen
And she had a cat named Ten Ten
It is all true.
@Kathy:
Important to keep in mind that an “air fryer” is really just a small convection oven.
(Frying requires fats and oils.)
Useful, indeed, but cooking thighs in a very small oven can result in a whole lot of splatter to clean up.
Don’t ask me how I know.
@liberal capitalist:
@MarkedMan:
I know about civil forfeiture.
Usually the amounts need to be large, not in he order of what a tourist carries in cash for a trip (well, not what I carry in cash). These days when credit and debit cards work across borders and are authorized in seconds, there’s no need, for me at least, to carry a a lot of cash.
There’s also the matter of reporting cash at the point of entry. One is required to report any amount equal to $10,000 or more, in currency or other liquid instruments (traveler checks, if they still exist, for example). I’ve never carried anywhere near that much. but if you don’t report it and are found to have such amounts, you’ll get in trouble.
@liberal capitalist: Hmmm… I keep all of the stuff Kathy talks about (other than my phone) in my passport wallet around my neck. Works fine for me.
@Kathy:
Back in 2015, I took a part-time job working for Home Depot as a cashier. My book business was already doing well but I had another large pile of medical debts since declaring bankruptcy one year earlier.
I didn’t work for THD for six months*, but I do recall one thing. They don’t accept traveler checks.
According to this, they are still used.
*- My flying bidet incident last year occurred while I was talking to a THD supervisor named Sally who I had worked with.
@Kathy: Oh, I’ve heard nightmare stories involving failure to declare, although they involved goods, not cash. Just another tick mark on my “Never lie to the police/FBI/Taxman/Customs Inspector because when you get caught they will really put the screws to you” board. Just ask Martha Stewart.
@Kathy:..traveler checks…
In 1974 when I drove my quadriplegic friend Joe on a four week trip from Southern Illinois to the west coast and return we bought Traveler’s Checks™ so we wouldn’t have to carry cash. They were a pain in the ass. Many places like gas stations wouldn’t take them since they had been burned by counterfeits.
(Fifty years ago. Damn. I know it wasn’t last week but fifty years…)
@Daryl:
Many videos I’ve seen advise cooking foods which contain oils or fats, especially things like chicken thighs 😉 In any case, I intend to marinate them first. I got decent results in the oven (which claims to have a convection function), and on a pan. I hope for crispier skin in the air fryer.
@Bill Jempty:
@Mister Bluster:
I took traveler checks on a trip to the UK in 1985. I remember exchanging them for pounds at banks. I think I used them to pay a hotel bill as well. I don’t think I attempted to use them in stores or restaurants.
@Kathy: I’ve always believed that if at all possible, *life saving* medications (e.g., epipens, insulin and glucagon/sugar tablets for T1 diabetics, heart medication) should be kept on your person on a flight for exactly this reason. If it’s in your pocket, there’s no cause to root around in luggage when the plane is being evacuated.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You can’t do that in an air fryer. Maybe a pressure cooker, if the guy has a small head and you remove it first.
@Kathy:
After being engulfed in a ball of fire it’s no wonder to me that people just forgot about all that stuff. If someone blocks the aisle to open the bin it is likely they would get shoved right along anyway. Unlikely people are going to pause for someone to get something out of the bin when there is a fire.
It appears the CG plane misinterpreted the communication, which was delivered super-fast and lacked the proper “hold short”. The recording is at around 4:30. However the clearance was just to C5 so it was implicit. Ground controller minor mess-up + pilot major mess up.
@Jen:
That kind of medication would be the only rational reason to get your luggage in an evacuation. the problem lies with the irrational reasons.
I also have wondered what support crash or accident survivors get from the local authorities. Especially if their belongings, even phones and credit cards, are lost along with the plane. Do they provide funds and medication for a few days, or just the means to contact family or friends for help?
@Kathy: That’s a good question, and one that I hope I never have the occasion to answer, at least not with firsthand experience.
I’m guessing there’s some type of verification system of who was on the flight that can be accessed and cross-referenced, and provided to passengers as a means to expedite the re-issuance of official documents, but that’s just a guess.
@Gustopher: Piece by piece?
It’s been a long day
@dazedandconfused:
The investigation will look at lots of non-obvious things. Like whether the coast guard pilot knew where to hold, were there warning lights active, how the tower tracks ground traffic, and a lot more.
@Kathy: Certainly, and everything we hear now has to be taken with a grain, but knowing all the things you list is ultimately on the pilot. Not the ground’s responsibility to verify planes are going where they have been told to and have acknowledged they are cleared to go. They might notice you making a mistake and bail you out it’s on the pilot, particularly in the area of rolling on an active runway.
@Michael Reynolds: Yeah, I’ve done the same in different circumstances. Sometimes (most times???) just standing your ground is more than enough.
@dazedandconfused:
The tower does keep track of ground traffic. Otherwise they couldn’t issue instructions to taxi, land, or takeoff.
In 1990 or 91, a US Airways 737 collided in similar fashion with a commuter plane at LAX. Part of the report centered on blind spots from the control tower, and the intermittent ground radar workings (which was not even working that day). An accident at Milan Linate in 2001, this one a collision on takeoff, mentioned the lack of warning lights as well. And remember the Latam plane that crashed with a fire truck a few months ago? Not to mention the several near misses this year, some of which managed to avert disaster by the actions of tower controllers.
@Kathy: Yes, the keep tabs to a degree, but not to the degree of staring at a plane holding short to catch it from suddenly lurching onto the active without clearance. It is the responsibility of the pilot to not go beyond his clearance limit, and the controller is not going to be held responsible for one that does.
The one thing that troubles me is the active runways are the purview of the tower, not ground. Once you reach the threshold, you switch to tower freq for clearance to either get into position and hold or are cleared for TO. At non-busy airports sometimes one guy handles both jobs though. There is a possibility the pilot was accustomed to this and thought he had been cleared to taxi onto the active by one guy. The investigation will tell the whole tale.