Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, June 9, 2026
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7 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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The Betrayal of Black Patriots
One thing the elites (those having authority, power, influence) refuse to do is acknowledge loudly and publicly the racism and bigotry at the core of the Trump administration.
When I read these stories, I think of the painting that was taken down. Someone physically took it down. Someone gave the direction to take it down. Someone directed that someone to direct some worker to take it down. Who was that? Where did that idea originate? The entire chain of events should be revealed.
Today started off well. usually I beat the alarm by 10 to 50 minutes. Today it woke me up. Then checking my email there’s a message from the bank saying I got a deposit. Since it doesn’t alert me to any payroll deposits, and I wasn’t expecting any others, I checked right away. It was the income tax refund.
No doubt something bad will happen later in the day. Ma’at demands it.
When I saw that historian Gordon Wood had died (age 92), I figured it was from natural causes. Nope. He was hit by a car. For the film buffs: he was name-checked by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.
After reading Rich Logis’s piece about quitting MAGA in Salon today, I went to the website of the organization he founded: http://www.leavingmaga.org . It’s pretty interesting.
I feel like I’m cheating Ma’at. The laptop I wanted has been reduced in price at Costco. I just need to check the old Lenovo all in one will work as an external monitor (it has an HDMI IN port, and the IT guy who fixed it a few years back did get it to work with a laptop), and I’m good to go.
Even if this fails, I may make do with an older 19″ monitor for a few months while I look for a new one.
The old PC was made in 2011, and I think I bought in late 2012*. That’s almost 14 years. a little longer, and I’d have had to spring for a quinceañera party. This gives the new laptop very high expectations. I want it to last at least 10 years. Part will depend on what MS requires for Win12 (probably, repeat probably, not the jump in hardware specs Win11 needed), and another big part on how long SSDs last.
My last two work PCs had SSDs, but both were replaced within 3 or 4 years, I think. Certainly not 10.
In a 1970s novel, Imperial earth, Clarke foresees a plateau to technological advancement, not equally distributed across all technologies**, which results in things like a 100 year old home computer (called a Comsole in the novel), which is just as good as a new one. This is perhaps too much faith in quality and good maintenance, but I can sympathize with the feeling.
While advances in personal computing, including phones, haven’t plateaued, they have slowed down. Even enthusiasts who post reviews on Youtube increasingly use the word “incremental” in just about every review, be it for new phones, new laptops, and especially new tablets.
*And that was a mistake. I should have waited a few more months, held my nose and bought a Win8 (ugh) PC with better specs, then fixed with Start8 or a similar shell app. Then upgraded to Win10 (or, as I call it, Windows Apology edition).
**Part of the plot has to do with the effects on Titan’s economy of a new super-extra-ultra-efficient fusion drive that uses far, far, far less hydrogen to produce thrust)
The crew for Artemis III has been announced.
So, Artemis II did less than Apollo 8 in 1968. Artemis III intends to surpass Apollo 9.
Apollo 9 was the first test of the Lunar Module, carried out in low Earth orbit. It was followed by Apollo 10, which carried out the final LM testing at the Moon, without landing. Artemis III intends to test 2 (two) lunar landers in low Earth orbit.
Well, in order to do that, XpaceS and BO need to put the landers in orbit. Thus far, Xtarship has put not one thing in orbit. Lex’s rocket has, but last week one of them blew up on the pad. It’s likely the pad can be repaired or rebuilt long before the Artemis III launch date, and that the New Glenn can be cleared to fly before then, too. So, maybe. If Adolf can get his sh*t together (gods know he has plenty of it).
I’m not sure how Lex plans to get his lander to the Moon. I read something vague about a “space tug”. I take it this involves bolting on a rocket stage that can 1) perform the lunar insertion maneuver, and 2) slow down upon reaching the Moon to be captured by it*. This would be launched separately, either by Lex or someone else.
Adolf, though, need to refuel his lander, a Xtarship upper stage, so it can do the same as above with its own engines. Nice. but no one has done any large scale fuel transfer in orbit. It’s not as easy as connecting a hose or mating two vessels and turning on the pump. These are cryogenic fuels and very volatile. Mix them in the presence of enough heat, and they’ll blow up. One has to assume Gwynn Shotwell knows what they’re doing, but see the long, long list of launches in the blowing up stage of Xtarship’s development.
So, I don’t see a successful Artemis IV landing by 2028.
Oh, and NASA administrator Isaacman is getting high on his own supply, calling the Artemis III flight, or maybe the Artemis program, “Earth’s first Starfleet.” (be still, my rolling eyes).
It’s hard to make analogies for space travel, but I’d estimate going to the Moon is equivalent, in Solar System terms, to a bike ride to a store ten blocks away.
Really, Roddenberry set up an impossibly high bar.
When you see a headline about an underwater data center, you might think “now they’re just showing off.” Or maybe, less charitably, “F**rs won’t be happy until the whole planet is one data center!”
Actually there’s a reason for it. Water absorbes heat far better than air, so you need less power to cool the bunches of chips.
Of course, this menas you heat the ocean as well. A warmer planet will have warmer oceans. I see no reason to further heat them. I wonder, too, how this will affect the sea life in the area.
Maybe the space idea has merit. not to put data centers in space. That’s still a bad idea. But how about sending all the CEOs and executives of AI companies to space, and leave them there.