Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, March 3, 2026
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23 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former 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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Good to see OTB is online.
We are sacrificing blood and treasure. Iran is striking our embassies. We are Depleting munitions. And leaving ourselves weaker against real enemies, like Beijing. For what? So Fatso can make Netanyahoo and MBS happy?
This is the dumbest military action in our history. F-Troop had nothing on these morons.
Re on yesterday’s AG thread, I guess neither Steven nor Tom saw “Contact.” đ
BTW, the gist of Arrival is that time isn’t linear, and learning the Heptapod’s language allows humans to experience non-linear time. That’s ridiculous in two ways. And the movie made a hash out of it by showing the life and times of Amy Adams’ daughter throughout the narrative.
The Iran war explained:
Bibi: Jump!
El Taco: How high?
I actually saw someone bust thru the crossing arm in the short term parking exit at the Eugene airport yesterday. I don’t think she necessarily meant to, she was in a big white van and looked confused as to what was happening….first she pulled right into it, got out, looked like maybe she tried to pay and got an error code, then she got back in the van and gunned it. I saw the arm fly off and land on the ground. She parked for a few seconds, looked at me, then jumped back into the van and screeched off. I was like “Wut just HAPPENED?!” đ
Airport police had her pulled over within half a block, so I didn’t have to do anything but laugh. I’m sure it was all on camera.
I was out walking during the eclipse totality period this morning. To me it looked more like a dingy brown than coppery or red.
@charontwo: I had forgotten about this opportunity, but rain was heading into my area so there would have been nothing to see.
@Daryl:
Via Paul Campos at LGM:
@gVOR10:
Remember it’s not a cult.
@charontwo: I got up at 0500 (actually close to my usual awake time) but unfortunately, it was cloudy.
@Daryl:
There is less of a distinction than you think. Iran is becoming China’s cat’s paw, a vehicle for projecting Chinese power.
“Zineb Riboua”
This is a very different take than the claims I see all over the web that this operation only serves Israel and Arab interests, not American.
@gVOR10: Well, that’s interesting. That story just rose to the top of the stack of Memeorandum.
This will please exactly no one.
Top Republican signals Iran supplemental may be coming
@Kathy: I actually liked Arrival quite a bit. I thought of it as a story about how one would learn to communicate with someone very different than one’s self, and then it transformed into a story about how someone might embrace a course of action that they know will end in sadness and loss.
The story is more of a science-fantasy than science-fiction, but that distinction doesn’t really bother me, since I don’t really take the story as an attempt to be literal about something that might really happen. The postulates the movie makes do not seem plausible to me in the slightest. But then, I’m pretty clear that eating a can of spinach doesn’t give me super strength, and I still watched a lot of Popeye.
I know lots of people who are bothered by things the way you are, though.
In lieu of giving any money to Paramount to continue the Trek rewatch*, I began streaming Stargate SG-1 on Netflix (it “premiered” on the service a couple of weeks ago).
It’s a rewatch, too. I saw most of the entire series on reruns** between the late 2000s and early 2010s. Due to the oddities of appointment TV scheduling, conflicting show time slots (remember those?), as well as work and other matters, I don’t think I watched them in any kind of coherent order. It may be nice to see how the story and characters developed.
It’s an odd franchise that has a terrible popcorn movie origin, three TV shows, several direct-to-video movies, and videogames, which nevertheless passes under most people’s radar. One wonders it exists at all.
*Also the latest season of Strange New Worlds, and the very divisive Starfleet Academy show. I may attempt to pirate them.
**In fact, the very first time I saw an ep of SG-1, it happened to be the series finale episode. I had no clue what was going on.
Yesterday I received an email from The Authors Guild, of which I am a member, stating that they would be happy to provide me with a certificate affirming that my books (six novels, one non-fiction) had been “human authored.”
That’s what the certificate says: “Human Authored.” Sweet Jesus.
@CSK:
Can you please prove you are human by clicking on all the boxes that show stoplights?
@charontwo:
That is very interesting. If true then the Chinese have thoroughly outplayed us. Heads they win, tails they also win.
My skepticism comes from the fact that had Trump laid out these ‘facts’ he could have gotten congressional support and earned fairly broad support. So, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s an ex post facto rationalization.
@charontwo:
The Zineb Riboua piece comes off as an ex post facto attempt to justify the war. In none of the statements from the WH DoD or SoS, has used this as a justification. Beyond that it does nothing to explain, why now?
In an interview today w/Ezra Klein ex Obama aide Ben Rhodes, speculated that Bibi has convince the felon to adopt the Israeli “mow the lawn” strategy with regard to Iran. That is, periodically bomb them to destroy infrastructure in the hopes that keeps them down. That has been Israel’s approach Hamas and Hezbollah for decades.
@Jay L. Gischer:
I liked Arrival just fine. Once. I wouldn’t see it again.
There are lots of other nits to pick. Like how the people visiting the Heptapod ships are given several vaccines, but not given a couple of weeks for memory B and T cells to develop đ
But it was a fine movie, and perhaps the one Villeneuve movie I can recall without excessive beauty shots of deserts.
@Michael Reynolds:
@Sleeping Dog:
Trump is demented, Hegseth is a Christian nutter student of the Revelation of John, and blind pigs can find acorns.
While all hell is breaking loose, it is Primary Day in Texas. Here is the turnout on early voting:
This week’s dish is pasta with chicken in creamy mustard garlic sauce. No sides (too tired, too little time).
I pretty much browned/charred 1.5 onions, and cooked some chicken breast medallions in a pan. For the sauce, liquefy 4 cloves of garlic along with some cottage cheese, some milk, and some Dijon mustard (I didn’t bother to measure anything).
Deglaze the pan with white wine, scrape the fond off the bottom, reduce, add the sauce, and reduce the whole further. Add a little paprika and dry oregano while it reduces. Cut the medallions into bite size pieces, mix with the sauce, onions, and fettucine. Add pasta water as needed to emulsify and reach your preferred consistency.
Tip, perhaps I should have added pasta water to the sauce in the blender to loosen it up a little. Next time.