Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, November 15, 2024
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91 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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Maybe I missed it but when did Elon Musk become an official representative of the American people internationally?
“The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site…Musk, the world’s richest man, has been assisting in discussions with foreign officials, establishing himself as the country’s most influential civilian come January.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/14/elon-musk-iran-ambassador-un
@Not the IT Dept.: Who’s going to stop him?
There are no laws anymore, no customs, no norms. Do whatever you want to. Consequences are no longer a thing.
We voted for MAGA, so we get MAGA
@Tony W:
Well, now we know why Rubio got the title of Secretary of State. He’ll only have as much of the job as Musk doesn’t feel like doing. All that paperwork, you know. Boooooo-ring!
Is anyone else grossed out by the random capitalization going on in all these appointment press releases? It looks like he’s trying to turn everything into a slogan.
Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic…
Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.
Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.
With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.
@ptfe: Well, the Germans capitalize their nouns. Maybe these are translated from the original German.
@ptfe: Makes me think Trump wrote them himself. Or some subordinate with similar writing skills.
@Not the IT Dept.:
This election … I’m with you on this.
I recall words by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to the effect that we must worship Superman. I think this was in the context of ‘God is dead’ therefore we must find another savior.
Well here were are. Tech plutocrats dominate the American landscape, Musk in particular.
What’s ironic is that those, our evangelical Christians, who profess to believe most strongly 1n God and in Jesus as our savior, seem to believe in Trump and in the Nietzchean idea of Superman.
@Not the IT Dept.: Yeah, this is plainly and blatantly illegal, but Musk is the richest man and therefore above the law. Nothing will be done.
The fun with Elon Musk never ends:
“Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have started hiring for their newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, but applicants must be subscribed to X to submit their resumes – and the work will be unpaid. ”
Just imagine the quality of candidate who both works for free and pays for a premium X membership.
I peeked into the online world and read Ben Domenech’s hilarious take down of Matt Gaetz. Ben just pulverizes him. Highly recommend. There’s a link up at memeorandum.com
@ptfe:
@Kingdaddy:
Yeah, I’m not impressed with that content, either. The felon could nominate a turd for AG or DNI or HHS, and they’d still put out stuff like that.
Oh, wait.
Around 2000 or early 2001 I read a satirical novel where the president not-quite elect dies before the Electoral College votes. Hijinks ensue. I forget how the issue is resolved, but I think the dead man does get elected by the EC, and the VP elect then gets inaugurated.
So, building on that, and on the insane Leo Court immunity decision,imagine this plot premise:
The outgoing president is very concerned that his successor will wreck the government and the country. Seeing as how he is immune from prosecution for official acts, and that he swore an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, including domestic enemies, he decides to shoot the winning candidate.
Now, he doesn’t order the Secret Service or the army or anyone else to do this. He just shows up to an event carrying a gun, and does the deed himself. He’s immune, but he won’t put others at risk or blatantly pardon them for his actions.
The event he chooses, moreover, is also attended by the winning VP candidate and several House and Senate members (I need to make one up, or whoever takes up the story does*). Things don’t go quite as planned. The outgoing president is old, has no combat experience, and hasn’t even fired a gun more than a few times in his life.
So when he acts, he fires too many shots, not very well aimed, and he winds up killing the president not-quite elect, along with the not-quite elect VP, and the Speaker of the House. He also wounds a few others, including his own VP.
Who will be the next president?**
It’s not something I plan to develop. I just thought about it while showering today. I did come up with a possible title: All American Mass Shooting. If it were written as a mock scholarly dissertation, it could be titled “The Effects and Consequences of the All American Mass Shooting in the Establishment of the New Golden Age of the North Atlantic Alliance.”
*This is completely unrealistic. Worse than Kang and Kodos campaigning together in the classic Simpsons Halloween segment. The alternative would have the outgoing VP shoot their successor and the speaker. But that would be either too much of a coincidence, or an outright conspiracy. Not to mention the Leo Court did not the declare the VP above the law
**Probably whoever the House majority chooses as speaker, or whoever the Leo Court crowns.
@Scott:
English used to do this a lot as well. It’s all over the text of the Constitution, for example.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
In modern times you occasionally see writers use needless capitalization in a semi-facetious way (“He wasn’t just having a really bad day, he was having a Really Bad Day”). Trump is sort of adopting that tradition, but without any of the sense of irony or self-mockery that usually goes along with it. He gives no indication that he in any way recognizes the capitals are out of place, he uses them as if they actually do transform the things he’s talking about from the mundane to the grandiose. I wouldn’t even say he’s trying to turn everything into a slogan. I’ve never seen anyone else write like this, not even advertisers. I tend to think it falls into the same pattern as when he talks about his perfect phone call (or his “perfect phone call,” where he seems to be using scare quotes, as if the purpose of scare quotes is to enhance rather than undercut a phrase). His pathological narcissism leads him to torture all the normal rules of grammar, punctuation, and syntax, in a straightforward attempt to mind-fuck everyone into accepting his bizarre version of reality.
@Kathy: That is very close to the “plot” of the movie King Ralph
Which was surprisingly good.
@Tony W:
I saw it long ago. As I recall, the entire royal family dies in a very different kind of shooting. A photo shoot.
Because of course there was. Why wouldn’t there be?
https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-pete-hegseth-investigation-for-sexual-misconduct-confirmed-by-city-of-monterey-report/
But we were assured that talk of retribution was just that: campaign talk.
Exclusive: Trump’s team drawing up list of Pentagon officers to fire, sources say
Not that I have any influence but I think the President Biden should, in January, have a last State of the Union address to baseline his accomplishments, the economy, and another thing else that the Democrats can use to compare to Republicans after 4 more years of Trump. Nip the coming Trump BS at the start.
We should start a betting pool on which member of Trump’s cabinet will be the first to be fired, first to resign, and first to renounce him. We could also start a dead pool on the survival of Trump; I’m the same age within a few months, and for the sake of simplicity we could simply bet which one of us goes first.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer in the hush money trial, is going to be deputy atty. general under Gaetz.
@Scott: “The chiefs of the Joint Chiefs and all the vice chiefs will be fired immediately,” the source said, before noting that this was still only early planning.
Then it was pretty damn stupid to let the cat out of the bag like this, wasn’t it, Trump source? Giving the military establishment – especially the Joint Chiefs and vice chiefs – time to take a close look at their legal options, secure copies of embarrassing documentation from Trump’s first term and info on Trump’s ongoing relationship with Putin.
One thing Trump hates is when unauthorized leakers rain on his parade. If he’s going to make cataclysmic changes like this, it’s best to go in quick and hard to sweep everyone off their feet with no time to think or respond. Someone just screwed the pooch. Trump isn’t going to like that. I’m guessing Wiles will get the blame.
As for Slugger’s question: who’ll go first? Wiles will quit first, getting tired of being blamed for everything and having a jerk for a boss. Then Trump will announce he was on the verge of firing her anyway because she was so awful.
Question re my first post up at the top: What do you think Netanyahu will say about Musk’s diplomatic approach to Iran? I’m guessing he’ll try to claim he knew all about it in advance, but of course we know that would just be desperate spinning. And if Musk even comes close to getting some kind of “deal” which might require Israel to do – something? Hmmmmm.
This may be the story we should worry about most:
If this thing mutates – and that’s flu’s superpower – and gets out into the general population, tens of millions will die. And we’ll have a worm-brained psycho in charge of the response.
I think we shouldn’t pin any hopes on the senate rejecting any of the felon’s cabinet appointments. A good case can be made for rejecting the Four Turds (you know who they are), and in a rational world they would be.
We’re not living in a rational world at the moment. I can see the senate reject Jr. And Gabbard, they are Democrats. Or maybe the second team Fox propagandist. But not the sexual predator*, and not all four, or even more than two.
In any case, it doesn’t matter even if they do. I don’t know the fine points of the law when it comes to cabinet appointments. neither does the felon, but he has shown relish for smashing norms and ignoring the law. So, if the senate won’t give him “recess” appointments, or if it indicates they don’t confirm his picks, he can appoint them in an “acting” capacity. He’s done it before, albeit in the middle of his term. I don’t doubt he’ll do it again as and when he feels like it.
I don’t suppose a rejected appointment can serve in the post they were rejected for, but what does that have to do with the price of beer? This time America elected a dictator.
Yeah, last time the courts stymied, delayed, and diverted his design. largely, I think, because his cabinet, aides, staffers, etc. did follow the law. I wouldn’t count on that being the case this time. I hope it will be, but don’t count on it.
@Scott: Given that politics junkies here claim to no longer listen to the SOU, how much weight do you suppose it carries among the voting cohort that apparently decided in the days after Halloween to make Trump an EC and PV election winner?
Especially given that collective memory among US citizens can probably only be measured in nanoseconds?
@Scott and Not the IT Dept.: I take this as a general threat to see who straightens up between now and January 20.
Doug Burgum nominated for Dept. of the Interior.
@Scott: I thought we had all agreed he should go on Joe Rogan instead.
Did Pete Hegseth get the job because of the color of his skin or because of his long experience and proven abilities?
@becca:
Oh. My. God.
@Jay L Gischer:
His technically not-Nazi tattoos sealed the deal.
Plus Kushner won’t have to be bothered by those pesky security clearances and ethics rules.
Jared Kushner expected to be pivotal to Trump admin’s Middle East efforts without taking a formal job
I’ve no expectations that Bluesky will be the undoing of Xitter, but just maybe social media is beginning to fragment or sort into ideological bubbles.
This is not exactly good. I’m glad to see Xitter take a hit or 7 million, but we’re left with the larger bunch of low political info people who’re already on Xitter and will stay there out of habit. Maybe they’ll disengage if/when they can’t find content they want or are interested in, maybe they’ll keep on doom scrolling out of habit.
While I still have an account on Fakebook, I visit only when I get a notification that a friend posted (and not always). Now and then I go to “my” feed, and find well targeted junk. That is, “groups/people you may want to follow!” Meaning B5/Trek groups, and about every trans person on the platform. I rarely see actual friends or acquaintances, or groups I actually follow.
Anyway, I’ve seen a few others set up at Bluesky. Brett Snyder at the Cranky Flyer blog. He hasn’t left Xitter, but is posting in Bluesky to reach his followers who have.
I may engage in Bluesky more.
https://bsky.app/profile/charontwo.bsky.social
Me above
https://www.oglaf.com/beblunt/
Lots of Bluesky info at Balloon Juice:
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/11/12/and-now-a-long-bluesky-post/
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/11/12/another-bluesky-post/
https://popular.info/p/want-to-quit-x-heres-your-guide-to
For fans of true life podcasts, a dear friend of mine has dropped his latest true life podcast and it’s a doozy. Short version: 30-40 years ago, a guy donated alot of sperm. When 23andMe starts up, he’s one of the first customers. Suddenly, people start reaching out to him, because he’s their biological father….. Lots and lots of people.
https://thedonorpodcast.com/
Enjoy!
@CSK: should have put up a link https://thetransom.com/p/matt-gaetz-is-a-vile-sex-pest-and
Vile sex pest , indeed.
@just nutha: @Jen: All I’m saying is that the campaign for 2026/28 starts now.
I know everybody hates politics right now but the steady multiyear negative drumbeat from the right wing media without any kind of response from Democrats led to Republican gains.
These people show how it’s done. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cg4ln6ddgy9o
@becca:
“…a sex trafficking drug addicted piece of shit.”
On a lighter note, lately fans of the Cowboys seem to hate their team more than us Dallas perennial detractors do.
I’m beginning to resent that.
Sure, it was fun during Romo’s last year to tell them “Your QB sucks,” and have them agree enthusiastically. But now it’s getting tiresome.
besides, as next week there will be to little to be thankful for, all we have left is the late, and much missed, Doug Mataconis’ quip that Thanksgiving is the day when Americans join together to root against the Dallas Cowboys.
So their fans should at least pretend to root for their team. Otherwise, what’s the point?
I gotta tell ya, Elon Musk is not a good negotiator. He is not good with people. Not at all. He has a good vision for what a business might look like, and can hire people (Gwynn Shotwell!) to execute that vision. But that’s not the same thing.
This Iran thing – I have no idea where its going. Maybe Elon is Trump’s messenger, and the message is “I am coming for you”. Elon could probably deliver that message.
@becca:..how it’s done.
Another legislature disrupted by protesters.
Black Panthers demonstrate at the California Assembly May 1967.
SFGate.com
@Kathy:
I dropped Twitter when Elon took over. On Bluesky just recently as MichaelGrantBks.
@CSK: Deserves am OMFG, but w/o the acronym, Oh, my fucking God. And Domenech must have pretty strong evidence because the defamation lawsuit would bankrupt him if he lost.
This first line from Domenech’s article should be read by a Democrat at Gaetz’ confirmation hearing:
I realize that we are occasionally given to hyperbole about the untoward nature of politicians, but let me be clear: Matt Gaetz is a sex trafficking drug addicted piece of shit.
Gaetz would be the chief law enforcement officer of the US if he is confirmed. Someone strongly suspected of sex trafficking.
BREAKING: TRUMP IS CONSIDERING KASH PATEL AS FBI HEAD.
@Michael Reynolds:
Now I know why you haven’t acknowledged any Animorphs stuff I’ve tagged you on.
Which comes up more than you expect in snarky political discussions.
@CSK: This is profoundly disturbing. Kash Patel is a True Believer who will absolutely pledge loyalty to Trump above the law, and will push investigations that have no valid predicate in order to harass and try to imprison the people on Trump’s enemies list.
@Michael Reynolds:
I intended to do it when Xlon began to reinstate banned accounts. I forget why I didn’t. but I am Xitter free. I may read embedded Xitts in other media, but won’t click on them except accidentally.
On semi-related developments, I paused my Audible subscription when Lex killed the Harris endorsement at the Post. later decided to reactivate it because 1) the content is valuable and I can afford it, and 2) I wanted to return a title and you can’t do that when you pause.
the odd thing is I got an amil acknowledging reactivation, then one telling me a credit had been returned to my account, and then a great many telling me what I can do as my subscription is paused. I checked and it was unpaused. I guess I have to check again.
@Mikey:
On day one, Patel promises, he’ll turn the Hoover Building into the Deep State Museum. I am not joking. That’s what he said.
@Matt Bernius:
Re: Twitter I have a firm belief that a new owner doesn’t get to charge me for what the original owner gave me for free. Also get bored quickly with being attacked by idiots both Left and Right. K just bailed yesterday, like me set up on Bluesky.
We have been very gratified to see that ANIMORPHS has aged pretty well. We wrote in a lot of more philosophical and political content than the usual middle grade series books, and that could have gone wrong. I don’t think we have had the need to clean anything up, which is surprising given that in 1996 I was a paranoid, stressed-out 42 year-old fugitive with a tenth grade education. (The paranoia got through.)
@Kylopod: I really like the not-quite random Capitalization that was popular in 1700s English. It adds a lot of texture and flavor to sentences, and picks out the thing the writer wants to emphasize.
When did that habit die out? I know it continued into the 1800s, but we don’t see it at all in the 1900s… Can this be another reason for the WR of Northern Aggression that we all know wasn’t about Slavery, but was about Tariffs and the like?
Wait a second… Tariffs… Trump… ok, there’s no way that’s a dog whistle, is there? It would be weird to be pro-tariff now, but no one ever said that Trump was the most educated guy around.
No, no, probably just a coincidence.
The civil war was fought over capitalization and the Oxford comma, and only settled one of those arguments.
The Trump team wants to skip background checks for some appointees.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/politics/security-clearances-fbi-gabbard-gaetz/
@Gustopher:
I don’t think I’ve ever looked into this question, but I do know that the 19th century was when a lot of the prescriptivist bullshit was first imposed. That was the era when the pseudo-rule against split infinitives arose, as well as the stigmatization of ain’t and double negatives (among other things). I assume casual capitalization was another casualty of the grammar cops of that period.
@Kingdaddy: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG???
Good lord. Unqualified, and this is how they plan on getting around the fact that these nominees would never pass an FBI background screen.
@Jen:
A note I read about it says they’re using private investigators instead.
That’s a telling difference. The transition owns those reports. They can disclose and hide details at will. If evidence of criminal activity is found, it won’t be pursued. And no way they have the resources or access the FBI does.
I figure they’ll allow FBI to do the checks on those who are well known and non controversial, especially if they’ve already had any kind of security clearance.
Of course, it’s never suspicious when someone lets the police search all their house, except the cubbyhole in the basement.
I see this as an opportunity for investigative journalists to dig deep. They already know whom to look at.
@Kylopod:
The random capitalization is not random at all and is referred to as a “capitalized essence”, used to distinguish when someone is referencing the abstract concept a particular noun designates rather than a specific concrete example of the concept (e.g. the difference between “all are equal before the Law” and “I got fined for breaking the public nuisance law”)
I have a little thought beginning to bubble up in my nastily suspicious mind.
That these hilariously appalling nominees may actually have a larger political purpose.
Now, Trump himself probably just sees them as his standard mix of pandering, and trolling, kayfabe, yay baby.
But a smarter operator (Bannon? Miller? Vance? perm of such) could have a more serious end: by provoking remaining Republican Senators with any integrity into a confirmation fight, you set them up to be primaried.
Thus moving to greater MAGA domination of the GoP.
Not, I also suspect, that populist MAGA is the end to such a play for the real players: merely a means to ensure the ascendancy of the “Project 2025” (and beyond that) true believers.
Trump may not be strategic enough for anything beyond headlines, taunts, and what he thinks give his base their lulzls.
But some others in his circle might be thinking more deeply.
“Oh, John, you’re just being paranoid.”
“Perhaps. But am I being paranoid enough?”
@Gustopher:
Just as the root cause of the American Revolution was the resistance of the ‘demned colonials to spelling things properly? 😉
Assume that at some point in this century we’ll detect dark matter unmistakably. Thus far we infer it’s somewhere, because galaxies spin faster than they should for the mass we can account for*. That is at the speed of rotation for the mass we can measure, galaxies ought to be flying apart, ejecting stars and planets all over the void. But this does not happen, ergo there must be additional mass we cannot detect and measure.
But we’re not sure, and won’t be until we can detect it directly. Something like this happened with the neutrino**. Its existence was pretty much required for nuclear fusion to work as observed***, but it took a good long while to detect any. Eventually they were found and are still being studied (and they don’t travel faster than light).
Now, suppose then we can detect it, but can’t find anything at all about it past whatever property lets us detect it and what we can infer from its gravitational interactions.
Would it make sense for this to still be true, say, by the year 2257? if you read this in a novel or story, would you believe it, or be able to suspend your disbelief?
*This was Vera Rubin’s great discovery.
**Maybe I should read Asimov’s book on the neutrino. It’s outdated, but he likes to lay deep background and usually tells the history of the discovery. I doubt it’s on ebook or audio book form, though.
***Something to do with the law of conservation of the number of leptons. I don’t understand it, but absent a neutrino in the fusion reaction, some energy/mass would go missing. This is not allowed, even in quantum mechanics.
@al Ameda:
In the philosopher’s afterlife:
Nietzsche: “But this wasn’t the superman I was thinking of! It’s almost as vulgar and crass as the Nazi version!”
Russell: “Sucks to be you, eh, Friedrich “
Santayana: “He always was a naive egotist.”
Hegel: “The owl of Minerva…”
(all three): “SHUT UP!”
Marx: *giggles*
@Kathy:
And even more the “Dark Energy” hypothesis.
Which as I (mis)understand it goes something like this:
– indicated galaxy dynamics and lensing effect mean “dark matter” is probably true
– estimates of wider universe structure over time and especially calculated expansion indicate “dark matter” must be counteracted by something else
– therefore “dark energy”
The whole, in both respects of “darkness”, indicating some basic gaps in our knowledge of physics on a fundamental level.
Our problem is, we have astronomical observations; but getting experimental test to winnow the theorising about such looks like being very difficult.
@Jen: “Unqualified, and this is how they plan on getting around the fact that these nominees would never pass an FBI background screen.”
To be fair, the FSB screening is much faster. Tulsi will sail right through.
@JohnSF:
I thought dark energy was hypothesized as a result of the measurements of the accelerating speed of the expansion of the universe, as determined by measuring Type 1A supernovae. the gist being the universe expands faster every day, ergo something (aka dark energy) is pushing it out.
The notion of dark energy is that it is proportional to the distance. That is, the farther away two object are, the harder they push each other apart. this may be so, but it reminds of the need for phlogiston to posses negative mass.
JBS Haldane reportedly claimed the universe is not stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.
He seems to be right. I wonder, though, if understanding it isn’t above our pay grade.
@Kathy:
An event attended by the outgoing president and VP, along with the winning ticket of the general election and lots of prominent denizens of Congress, is not that completely unrealistic. In fact, it would be easy: funeral of a Leo Court justice*, say.
It would be unrealistically coincidental and convenient, though.
*A completely fictional and made up one, like Terence Dumas. Or maybe Lemuel Petito 😀
Karoline Leavitt will be Trump’s press secretary.
@CSK:
I Googled just to be sure, but I could already guess: hot blond.
@Kathy:
Yes.
That’s what I meant about “estimates of wider universe structure over time”
Recalls Einstein’s “cosmological constant” being seen as a mistake; now it turns out that something somewhat analogous might be the case after all (though the “constant” was to correct for a stable universe; the current DM/DE model seems to favour accelerating expansion).
My opinion: now we have some hypotheses to chew on, the current, and next couple of generations, of deep-telescopes and particle physics experiments might see us begin to get a better understanding of what’s going on.
@Michael Reynolds:
“hot blond”
Meh.
“hlond bot”?
@Michael Reynolds:
And a young one, too.
@Stormy Dragon:
I have some wild capitalization issues. To the point that I don’t even really notice when Trump does it, because it’s “normal”. I’m pretty sure I have Dysgraphia. I have huge problems writing d & b and p & q. For years I’ve just capitalized those letters when writing. The other issue is that in grade school I was dumped into a special education class and left to rot. They didn’t know what to do with a queer kid who’s ADD symptoms didn’t match what boys were “supposed” to be like. To top that all off I went to law school and the nonsense we learned in legal writing ruined me.
On the Dysgraphia stuff, what helped me figure out that it wasn’t just me (and that I wasn’t just stupid like they told me in school) is that my daughter has the same troubles. Given that ADHD has a genetic component and I’m pretty sure Dysgraphia does too, I’ve started to strongly suspect that my maternal Grandfather was the responsible carrier. I don’t have any direct evidence, but it would explain so much. It’s wild to think that so much generational trauma could come from one man medicating his undiagnosed ADHD with alcohol.
@JohnSF:
I sometimes wonder whether we may be missing something because we have no means to detect it, and not even a hint that it may exist.
Take radio waves. While not plentiful on Earth, they are produced by lightning, and the Sun shines bright in radio when at maximum activity levels. No one even suspected their existence until experiments with electricity were rather well advanced.
Or radioactivity. That’s far more common than radio (at least before we started flooding the planet with radio and TV stations, plus WiFi, Bluetooth and the like). there’s always some radioactivity somewhere. Yet it took until the XIX century to even get a hint of it.
I don’t mean for dark energy or dark matter. But something we don’t even suspect, like, oh, hyeperwave radiation (good old SciFi standby), or dimensional distortion (whatever the hell that is).
Never had a Twitter or Xitter account, and I try not to click on Xitter links, because screw that. And it doesn’t help when VC billionaire and Xitter investor Marc Andreessen threatens advertisers (via Threads)…
So much for free market principles.
@Kingdaddy: Hmmm…
I can’t imagine why. I mean, he wouldn’t suggest anybody whose background is sketchy, would he? He’s promised that they’re all “the best people” over and over.
@Stormy Dragon: Somehow, I can’t find myself able to imagine that Trump or anyone who might write for him would be likely to know this level of detail about language. For example, I took roughly half a dozen grammar and linguistics classes in grad school, but only would have said that “equal under the Law” takes a capital “L” because as the whole body of law, it becomes a proper noun.
@Kathy:
“Interaction of the branes”!
At which point I depart in pursuit of witchcraft, mysticism, and (especially) drugs,
@Michael Reynolds: It’s all a matter of taste, but while she’s certainly attractive, I wouldn’t describe her as “hot” in the same sense as, for example, Hope Hicks. I’m not a “round face” guy, though some are.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
We have am ongoing argument at work on whether the names of weekdays and months must be capitalized. I just plain do out of habit, and if I miss the SHIFT key now and then, I claim it’s not necessary to capitalize it.
MS (initials and acronyms are ALL CAPS ALWAYS*) word is no help, as it doesn’t mark either choice as wrong. Not in Spanish (should not require capitalization IMO). In English it underlines november in red.
*The Guardian does not follow this rule. They use Nasa, for example. Though they do type FBI rather than Fbi.
@Beth: If you have dyslexia, you probably have dysgraphia, too. They run in pairs more often than not–and can trigger ADD and ADHD because of the stress of not decoding language well.
While I’m here, good luck with your citizenship project. Everything seems to be going your way so far, based on what you’ve written. And stay in touch as you settle into your new adventure.
@Kathy: It seems to depend on the conventions of the culture, just like dates as month/day/year or day/month/year or year/month/day. And in Korean the names are oneday, twoday, threeday, etc. and months are onemonth, twomonth, threemonth, etc. And there are no case for letters at all even though the language is alphabetic.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh yeah, Trump capitalizes stuff at random. I was talking about why it was done in things like the Constitution.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It’s day/month/year because anything else is illogical!
I shall fight on this hill until we prevail!
The Empire stands behind me!
@JohnSF:
Three of my favorite things!
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I don’t think we have issues with Dyslexia. Any reading problems I’ve had can be chalked up to ADHD. Those are mostly me getting bored and my mind starts wandering.
Handwriting has always been a problem. Most people can barely read it. I have some issues typing, but those mostly get masked on computers/phones.
And thanks. I wish we had a better timeline. It sounds like my partner’s company is moving on it and appreciates the problems. We just don’t know where they are at or how long it will take for visas. Hopefully we’ll find out more next week.
@Kathy: Most British publications follow the BBC standard of acronyms that are used as words, like Nasa, are spelled as a word, while those that use initials, like F, B, I, are all caps.
The origin is from radio, to guide pronunciations.
@JohnSF:
Don’t you mean propourly? 😉
@DrDaveT:
In my case, either yn iawn, or else i gceart, or rihtlice, depending.
🙂
I’m looking forward to watching Mike Tyson beat Jake Paul’s punk ass to a pulp.
@DrDaveT:
I am going to hate that so much.
@Mikey:
I mentioned to some friends that it feels kinda weird to hope Mike Tyson kicks someone’s ass. But here we are.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’m trying to see it from Trump’s vantage point. You know, I never thought about face shape, but now that you mention it, I think I have that same prejudice. Flipping through my mental Rolodex. Hmmm. Interesting.
@Beth: I wish I were in your time zone…it’s almost midnight here but the sunk cost fallacy has me committed to seeing this fight.