Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, August 30, 2024
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31 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor 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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I just wonder, why do you do it Steven. This OTB website and the open forum. I’m up at this morning because I have sleep issues and I’m a bit of a mess in that regard, and I just wanted content to subsume my early morning. Anyway, just curious as to what drives you to be such an early bird and host this site? Maybe you’ve addressed it before and I missed it but if not, any insight on this front?
@clarkontheweekend:
Well, he could be doing everything at night and setting a timer to publish at 6 AM. Not that doing it that way is a piece of cake. But whatever the case I’m glad he does it.
Bonoism of the day:
The world is spinning fast tonight
You can hurt yourself tryin to hold on
To what you used to be
I’m so glad the past is all gone
“Don_Moynihan”
A few excerpts from a much longer piece:
…
…
…
….
Just for the record, although by now you all are pretty tired of this story, repeated, here are a couple of pretty good summations:
“Richardson”
In case Marshall is paywalled, here is Digb recapping:
“Digby”
“Marshall“
@Rick DeMent:
Got it in one. To pull back the curtain, those posts are loaded into WordPress days ahead and on a schedule release.
@charontwo:
Don Moynihan is a really great scholar and analyst. His work on administrative burdens in social services is invaluable for the work that I and others in civic tech are engaged in.
Democrats should make a point of applying this new tool to Trump speeches and publishing the results, as often as possible.
ETA: Yay edit button!
@wr:
Thankfully, gravity exists.
I saw a clip of Trump saying, “If Jesus were to come down and count the votes, I would win in California”. That’s a ridiculous whopper, that I can’t imagine anyone would believe. It also instrumentalizes Jesus into a prop for Trump’s campaign. Kind of like soldier’s graves at Arlington. Maybe that’s too egghead-ish for most people?
I’m not sure taking transcripts of what Trump says matters at all. What matters is getting under his skin. He isn’t helping himself.
@Jay L Gischer:
That’s why the AI summary is so much better than a transcript. It will either say “he didn’t say anything at all” or it will explain what hateful thing he actually said.
@DrDaveT:
This can be done on any LLM generative AI. They all can summarize any text you ask it to.
I swear some retail businesses open up solely to be a tax write-off.
I walk a lot. Everyday. I moved downtown this spring. I notice stuff. As I understand it every downtown is undergoing a major shift. Ours certainly is. Less workers, less retail, more apartment conversions (I live in a converted newspaper printing plant), more nightlife. Downtowns used to live off of office workers there five days a week. With post-COVID wfh and hybrid work that fundamental element changed drastically and quickly. Everybody is now trying to cope and react to that.
A block from where I now live is going to be a first floor putt-putt mini-golf place. Ostensibly, for forced fun camaraderie work outings and awkward first dates. It’ll be closed within a year, guaranteed. There is absolutely no way to generate enough income to keep it afloat. I need to go once just to experience the stench of desperation.
A Crossfit gym was supposed to open this month, but they missed the deadline. It’s directly across the street from the downtown YMCA that has a swimming pool that is about a full acre. I’m fairly confidant that Crossfit gym will never open.
I’m pretty sure Crossfit is basically a cult.
A lot of downtown buildings have a no occupancy on the first floor problem. If none, the whole building looks abandoned, kaput. Who wants to lease part of a building that looks like it’s closed?
A restaurant opened up across the street. They sold egg rolls and fried rice. It was named Gen Z slang “Bussin”. Got lunch there once to go. It was okay. It closed within a month, maybe three weeks. They didn’t have enough operating capital or sales to last a full month. That’s kinda sad.
It will be interesting to see what downtowns will become. My best guess right now is mini Las Vegases, entertainment districts – restaurants, bars, nightclubs, the occasional bodega – and also more residential what with converted office buildings.
@charontwo:
To Trump anything that isn’t a photo op that also strokes his ego is wasted time.
He literally does not know how to campaign or even behave anymore beyond self-aggrandisement.
If he wasn’t running for President, I’d feel a bit sad for him, actually. But because he actually is, I can’t and won’t and want people to weaponize his narcissisism against him. That person should be no where near any levers of power, ever.
Incompetence is fine. Maybe preferred. Most bureaucracies work fine without politically appointed leaders – better actually. Let professionals be professional.
A second term would be a roiling, rolling constitutional mess. Score settling and over-reach by appointees. One of the core tenets of Project 2025 is to politicize the bureaucracy. To no longer serve the public good, but one person. That way lies madness.
@de stijl:
“Just convert the office buildings to apartments” isn’t as easy as most people think it is. Most office buildings don’t have anywhere close to the water and sewage capacity to support such a conversion and retrofitting it in in many cases would cost nearly as much as demolishing the building a building new.
@de stijl:
I think a lot of people are asking what kind of total, irredeemable asshole has himself photographed grinning and giving a thumbs-up sign over grave sites.
The answer to that question would be: No one but Donald Trump.
What are we going to do with the way too many downtown parking garages/parking lots we have?
(I’m assuming this is an issue with most/all downtowns not just mine.)
My downtown has way, way too much parking spots than that get used on a daily basis. My best conservative estimate is that about 60 to 70% of available parking spots go unused during the week.
That can’t be good.
Maybe I’m being unimaginative, but I don’t see a way to convert a seven floor parking garage into anything else beyond a huge greenhouse.
I live in a grid. So a box with 8 adjacent boxes. Three of those boxes are parking garages all five floors or more. They top out at about 30-40% usage / occupancy. One is private owned by Principal.
Btw, if you ever wanted to work in administering a huge insurance company or a subsidiary of a large banking conglomerate in their headquarters, move to Des Moines. They got you covered.
Okay, with a surface lot, that’s fairly easy, but what do you do with the underused garages?
@Jay L Gischer: I think the point I’m trying to make needs some clarification. The fact that we note that he says things that are crazy and outrageous does not hold much value.
The thing that holds value for us now is when he says things that are so crazy and outrageous that the intended audience for them kind of goes, “WTF?”
(If we, as liberals or Democrats, point it out to them, it will be ignored/dismissed. Fake news.)
He’s doing that very thing. He’s walking back abortion rights. Religious cons are noticing that. He’s showing disrespect for the military. They are noticing that. He’s trying to escalate the craziness of his statements so that he can win back the news cycle. But the escalation ends up looking weird and out of touch.
Some might say “If Jesus counted the votes I would win California” blaspheming. I was never clear on the exact definition, but that certainly does not show any submission to a higher authority. It instead is what might be called necromancy – raising up the dead (and in this case the Risen) to fight for you.
@de stijl: Depends on whether office buildings need earthquake retrofit for the permit change. In socialist hell holes like the city I moved to, earthquake retrofit and issues with building footprints that are so large that many apartments units might end up having no natural light is stymieing conversion.
@Stormy Dragon: Yeah. That’s another problem the articles I read on the topic didn’t even address.
@CSK: Look more closely at the pictures and ask the same question about the family members doing the same ghoulish thing. Come on, sheeple. Have a little decorum at least. JAYSUS! SMH!
@just nutha:
Did they think they should emulate him?????
Brazil just found a solution to the Xitter problem.
I see how ISPs and mobile companies can block Xitter. But block the use of VPN applications? There are legitimate uses for that.
Also, before it became Xitter, many government agencies in many countries relied on it to pass along important information in a timely manner.
Of course they could all migrate to Bluesky or Threads, but what are the chances of that happening?
@CSK: That’s nicer than saying they suffer from the same failure of empathy he does.
@just nutha:
Grinning like the depraved idiot he is and giving a thumbs-up seems to be the only way he knows how to pose for a photo, even in the most solemn situations.
I assume those people with him were mostly relatives of the deceased. Shame on them.
@just nutha:
(Stymie is a great word, btw.)
No earthquakes in Iowa unless the New Madras fault really cuts loose hard. We’re in the yellow zone for that. If the Yellowstone caldera pops, well, we’re all basically fucked, aren’t we? Those that survive the primary effects (I wouldn’t) would starve. I’d prefer to go out quick, thanks.
Humanity will wink out well before the eventual entropy heat death of the universe. The sun will explode way before that.
I experienced a few minor earthquakes – it was distinctly unsettling. I felt vertigo, like I was falling.
The occasional tornado. A blizzard. A cold snap or two per winter. All things considered – not a bad place to live. Way warmer than Minnesota in the winter.
If you are hard core pepper, survivalist type your best bet is probably New Zealand and pray the catastrophe isn’t truly global.
SMH:
http://www.rawstory.com/this-was-a-setup-trump-blames-arlington-scandal-on-biden-administration/
Just how do you fireproof a wooden skyscraper.
Not that concrete buildings are immune to fire, but it’s mostly the contents that burn in that case, not the structure itself. Still, it can be terrible, like the MGM Grand fire. There was a large death toll, but most was from smoke, as the fire never spread to the upper floors. imagine that if the structural members were combustible.
@CSK: nah…they have just realized what a financial windfall they have exploited since his death. Why not smile like their god-king?
@de stijl:
I think projections are for catastrophe in all of North America, and parts of Central America. Global temperatures would go way down. I don’t know if it would start a glacial period, or solve a big chunk of the CO2 problem.
@de stijl: Office buildings can be converted to residential but parking garages generally can’t. Due, in part, to most having relatively steeply sloped slab floors to drain water quickly. However, as nearly all city residential buildings are required by code to have a lot of parking underneath or adjacent these days, having one right next door would be viewed as an asset for an office building being converted.
@just nutha: I see Trump is now blaming the families, saying they released the pictures and he knew nothing about anything.