J6 Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, January 6, 2025
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50 comments
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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Two days in a row, Steven had the Open Forum scheduled to post at 4am Eastern and they didn’t.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Resting the major starters and letting the backups play is one thing. Taking a 38-0 shutout was surprising.
The Steelers, meantime, lost without resting their starters. It doesn’t bode well for the wild card game against the Ravens next weekend.
@James Joyner: Weird.
@James Joyner: Hmm, wonder it’s some kind of year rollover thing…
I’m on the west coast. Anyone out there in the midwest snowstorm area able to make a report? Is Peoria totally buried?
After no appreciable snow the past two years in downtown B’more, I got up early and took 4 inches off the sidewalk and the cars. There’s probably two more inches on there since, and two more still to come. Snowbelt mentality: shovel early and often. It takes no time to shovel 2 inches and so it’s a heckuva lot easier to shovel 2 inches four times than 8 inches all at once.
Also, Marylanders do this weird thing with their windshield wipers. When it is going to snow, they flip them up like you do when you are cleaning the windshield. No idea how this got started. The few people I’ve asked have said something about it keeping your wipers from freezing to the windshield, but in the hundreds and hundreds (thousands?) of snowfalls I’ve experienced with one or more cars outdoors, that’s never been a thing.
As a long-suffering fan since my teen years in the 1970s, I have lived to see the Detroit Lions Win the NFC Championship for the first time ever. If they win the Super Bowl, I can move on to my great reward the sky having finally experienced it.
The Baltimore Banner has done a public service today: published a list of Marylanders convicted or charged in the January 6th insurrection. Never hurts to have a list of traitors and/or idiots when hiring.
@Slugger: From Central Illinois, the snow depth varies significantly across a band that ran from northwest to southeast . I doubt Peoria is buried, but some areas probably got 8″. It’s about 4″ where I am and I suspect it was similar in Peoria.
Speaking of football, here’s yet another critique of the playoff system.
The thing is the NFL is set up for divisional play. Consider how the 17 games are arranged:
2 each against the other teams in one’s division (6 games)
1 each against a division in one’s conference, which one’s divisional rivals also play (4 games)
1 each against a division in the other conference, which one’s divisional rivals also play (4 games)
3 games against teams other than the ones above with similar records in the last season.
Plainly this is a fair way to determine who’s best in each division. They all play 14 of 17 games against the same teams.
The problem is the 3 wild card teams. Some of these may have better records than a divisional champ, but they’ll play them on the road rather than at home. This strikes many as unfair.
If it is, then the schedule needs to change. Ideally all teams should play all other teams, and the 7 best per conference qualify for playoffs. I think this would require a much longer season; at least 31 games. I don’t think it’s possible in a game so physically demanding (aka violent). It could be possible to play all teams in one’s conference.
While I appreciate that you’ve named today’s forum J6 so we are reminded of what happened this day four years ago, I am uncomfortably struck by the idea that anniversaries are typically commemorations and as such they are marked by observances that remind one of the origin and significance of the event. But today, VP Harris, to her credit yet woefully, will restore the norms of certification and the Republican Party will take control of all branches of government. So instead of laying wreaths we, as a nation, will officially memory-hole the origin and significance of this commemorated event.
What is a patriot to do on an historical date when flying our US flags with respect and honor is the norm, while on J6 it feels more appropriate to hang our American heads in shame.
@Rick DeMent: They didn’t win the NFC Championship, just the top seed in the NFC playoffs, which comes with a bye. My Dallas Cowboys have done that twice since their last Super Bowl win (now, 29 years ago) and lost in the first game in both instances.
@Kathy: You’ve nailed the problem: there’s no way to create a truly fair seeding system with 32 teams (or even the 16 in each conference) in a 17-game season. And that says nothing of the fact that there are long stretches where one conference is wildly better than the other. For years, it was the NFC (which won ever single Super Bowl between 1985 and 1997); more recently, it’s been the AFC (how many more rings would Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have if they didn’t have to face each other to get to the big game).
@MarkedMan:..wipers…
I have seen this here in southern Illinois for many years. I have also seen high winds damage wipers set out like this. I don’t do it.
@James Joyner:
Nitpicker 🙂
But Serioulsy, it’s intresting that the Lions were the ones who knocked Dallas out in 1991. The farthest the Lion’s got before last year.
Yes there is no NFC “championship game”. But that’s what I’m calling it so there 🙂
@Scott F.: But today, VP Harris, to her credit yet woefully, will restore the norms of certification and the Republican Party will take control of all branches of government.
When I worked I had to do things I really didn’t want to do. Occasionally I spent time evaluating projects that I knew would never work, sometimes I had to work with people who were hopelessly in over their head, and in one case I temporarily reported to someone who was borderline dishonest (not good in the Finance department). But Harris having to certify the election so that human piece of garbage can be president has to be an incredibly difficult task. Trump spent months calling her lazy and dumb, historical language used to denigrate African Americans.
@MarkedMan: We did the windshield wiper up thing in Missouri, because it was sort of an “ice belt” situation. We’d get snow, but that would usually switch at some point to sleet and/or freezing rain.
@MarkedMan: My wipers have frozen tightly to the windshield before, but we had ice storms in areas where it happened. Normally, when you remove the snow and scrape off the underlying ice, that action breaks the wipers loose to whatever degree they may have frozen to the windshield.
@Kathy:
When it became 14-0, I knew Miami’s playoff chances were dead even if they beat the Jets. Which they didn’t.
A week ago Sunday I said the Miami Dolphins were a for real playoff team and I’m Stephen King. Came close to eating my hat there but not too close. Miami is a mess and not just because their QB can’t stay healthy.
@Lucysfootball:
It’s historic. For the first time ever, America will certify a figurehead. And apparently president Xlon is ok with this.
@just nutha: My routine is to scrape the windshield, lift up the wipers, scrape underneath, and then gently scrape the rubber wiper blade. I don’t ever remember that not working or damaging the blades. Sometimes when I was close to my door and it was a sleet or ice situation with the windshield and other windows well frozen over and a tedious job of scraping ahead, I would bring out a gallon jug of bathwater-warm water and pour that over the ice before scraping (after brushing off whatever snow was there). Haven’t had to do that in B’more.
@MarkedMan:
Speaking of those who have been convicted or charged with storming the Capitol, investigative reporter Ryan Reilly was interviewed about this on the Bulwark yesterday. One mind-boggling takeaway is that many violent offenders, who are identifiable on video, have yet to be charged. This, while others have been convicted of misdemeanors that he says should probably not have been charged. He touched on some of the reasons for the variability of investigating agents’ effort and prioritization in pursuing these cases.
@Rick DeMent: Pedanticallly, there is a NCF Championship game. It just occurs during the playoffs as one of the NFL’s two semifinal games. Usually the last week of Jan.
The Super Bowl’s competitors are the official NFC and AFC champions. It would be cool to see the long-suffering Lions there, this year.
Swore off pro football and its problemmatic awfulness when Tommy retired — but Lions v. Ravens or Lions v. Bills or Lions v Chiefs in the Super Bowl would be must-watch TV.
Just when I thought I was out…
@James Joyner:
Manning: 0
Tommy, the GOAT: 2, maybe 3
🙂
@Joe: Thanks. I have lived in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio. Sounds like a big storm but not terribly unusual. I did skid off I-80 near West Union, IA, once, but there were big piles of soft snow on the side of the highway that slowed me gradually without any damage.
@DK: As some of you may recall, I live within sight of Raven’s stadium and thousands of people walk past my stoop to and from the game. Baltimore is a true sports city and Ravens fans are enthusiastic and very psyched about the game and desperate for a playoff win. I don’t follow them too much myself (I leave that to my wife and son), but am out and about in the neighborhood and have to walk through the main party area to get to the hardware store, supermarket, etc. Walking through the crowds before the Steelers game two weeks ago was pretty crazy, and even last Saturday’s game which was less important had huge crowds hours before the game. I was walking at least a half a mile away from the stadium and the roar of the crowd was constant and loud. Even a mile away you can hear big plays. This Saturday should be nearly insane.
@Kathy: The purpose of the Wild Card is to have a way to expand playoffs while rewarding good teams that don’t win their division (like the Vikings), without weakening the incentive to win the division by too much. Good teams play tougher schedules, by design, because this is an entertainment industry and the illusion of parity makes for better entertainment. (It also makes for a more lucrative sports betting industry, which is probably not unrelated.)
As noted above, what is NOT good entertainment, nor good for sports betting, is a good team tanking in their final game, in a way that affects playoff chances elsewhere. I suspect that the league is already trying to figure out how to punish KC and deter other teams from doing likewise in the future.
@DK: Ha. Manning’s Colts lost to Brady’s Pats in the AFC Playoffs four times (2003, 2004, 2013, 2014). Whether they’d have won it all otherwise is unknowable, of course.
It turns out Brady was only knocked out by Manning’s team once, in 2006. The Colts won it all that year. It was Manning’s only Super Bowl win with the Colts. (They made it back in 2009 but lost to the Saints.)
@MarkedMan: The flipped up windshield wiper thing does indeed seem much more common as you move southward toward and across the Mason-Dixon line. I’ve always preferred to leave the wipers down for reasons others have given above.
This practice should fade away, though, as many late-model vehicles have windshield wiper heaters… provided that drivers are familiar with the wiper heater function.
Burning question: Does Megan Thee Stallion know that a stallion is a male horse?
@DrDaveT:
It’s common for teams who have nothing to gain from the last game to rest their starters, bye or no bye. I don’t see what the league can do about it. Such teams often lose that last game.
BTW, the term rest does some extra lifting here. It also means not risking injury to the most crucial players. As much as the KC defeat might have affected sports betting and entertainment, imagine playoffs without Mahomes or Kelce.
@Kathy: 100% agree. When you have clinched the top spot you take your starters out. It would be malpractice to do anything else.
Congress has certified Trump’s election.
@MarkedMan:
I have to admit I was a little taken aback reading “Baltimore is a true sports city…” with a neighboring comment referencing the Indianapolis Colts knowing what happened in March 1984. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” holds true I guess.
@Scott F.: I’ve long thought that smart city officials, especially ones in mid-market towns, could win big if they got together and created a sports league, Town Ball, which modeled the British: the town owns the team and it can never move out. There are multiple levels of play, and any given team can rise or sink between these levels depending on how their season goes but, for example, Annapolis United is always based in Annapolis.
@MarkedMan: One of the worst things about the ownership model of sports teams that we have today is it causes municipalities to spend huge sums to line the pockets of billionaires. (I blame the voters, not the politicians. Any politician that loses a major league team will be voted out, full stop. Bribing billionaires is democracy in action.) I live next to Camden Yards (Orioles Park) and Ravens Stadium. The football stadium is pretty typical in that it definitely hurts the city, taking up huge amounts of real estate and guaranteeing that sustainable businesses can’t grow around it. Sure, when the football fans show up they are great, supporting local bars and restaurants, and out of town fans of the opposing team also book up hotels and usually do a whole bunch of sightseeing activities. But only for less than 10 days a year! And the rest of the time you’ve got a huge black whole in the middle of a neighborhood. While they will tell you the stadium is used for other things, well, there might be 6-10 big crowd events in a year, but for the most part it’s things like High School Proms in the suite area.
The baseball stadium does better, with at least 81 games (and a few concerts), so it does contribute meaningfully to the local businesses. But still less than a quarter of the time.
Because of our setup, at least the number of parking lots is effectively halved, since are next to each other and share the same parking lots. And during COVID I learned there is one other use for these huge spaces with tons of parking, great access via roads or public transport, and a location in the heart of the city: they are the emergency sites for the metropolitan area. If there is ever a disaster, these will serve as the rallying points. In fact, I got my first COVID shots at Ravens Stadium. When I first moved here, before COVID but after the football season was over, I noticed that all the close-in stadium parking lots were immediately plowed after a snow storm and wondered why. It was because of this second purpose as a natural disaster rallying point – they need to be ready. Which is all well and good, but we could probably do the same at some of the local college stadiums for a tiny fraction of the price.
@CSK: And water is still wet and Francisco Franco is still dead.
@Eusebio:..wiper heater function…
I always thought that setting the climate control doodad so most of the warm air is directed towards the windshield (defroster function?) would help to melt the ice on the wiper blades. That and using using an ice scraper to chop the ice off the outside of the windshield like I’ve had to do two days in a row now. There may well be a more advanced wiper heater that I am unaware of.
Petite bourgeoisie equal Kulaks
@MarkedMan:
The impression I’m getting is that Las Vegas voters DGAF whether the ex-Oakland A’s team comes here or not, and there is a lot of resistance to the notion of spending billions in tax money to finance the grandiose stadium they have in mind. Much like Elon’s moronic tunnels it’s just another traffic problem. If the stadium gets built and the team comes here, I don’t think voters will be to blame.
@Michael Reynolds: Isn’t Vegas a special case though, given the influence of the organized betting and tourist industries?
But you raise an interesting point. While losing a team is death to a local politician, how much of a benefit do they get from bringing a team, aside from when it is to replace a recently departed one? In other words, what’s the motivation there?
On a small upside today, Rudy was found to be in contempt of court, because of course he was.
Because we don’t have enough to worry about: A variant of the RSV virus is making the rounds in China
RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, has been around for a while, and this variant was first recognized in 2001. So, it’s not the trump virus, which was new to H. sapiens, but it’s not good, etiher.
I heard something about RSV vaccines some weeks ago, then nothing. If you can get one, you should.
I manged to make something different: a stew with chicken thighs and white beans. It was more work than I’d anticipated, and I reduced it way more than I intended, but it was really good. Even with the last minute addition of a Parmesan rind, and leftover onion and bell pepper balsamic topping from last week’s burgers.
I also made twice baked potatoes. I’ve got i down now. the trick is to make something closer to mashed potatoes for the filling, rather than just mashing the potatoes. This sounds contradictory, expect for the fact that you add butter and milk to mashed potatoes. So that’s what I mean.
I then mixed in some grated cheese, stuffed the potatoes back into the skins (this sounds so disturbing), and topped them with some grated Parmesan (thence the rind for the chicken stew). I had planned to finish them in air fryer, but I was using that to pressure cook the stew, so I put them in the oven. They manage to brown a bit, which previously I’d only been able to accomplish with the broiler. Next time I’ll leave them in longer.
“He who hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” If it was all real, that bible would have burst into flames in that racist cretin’s hand. What a pos.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/gop-senators-husband-goes-viral-for-refusing-to-shake-hands-with-kamala-harris-at-swearing-in-ceremony/
@DeD:
Which hand was he supposed to use, the one holding the Bible or the one used to hold his cane?
@Mister Bluster:
Directing warm air towards the windshield (defrost function) and using an ice scraper on the outside of the windshield are indeed the tried and true methods for unfreezing the windshield wipers. The wiper defrost/de-ice feature that’s become more widely available can use electric heating elements, similar to those in rear window glass, to warm the glass directly under the wiper blades. So the wiper blades can begin to defrost immediately—before the engine warms up and makes the defrost air warm.
@Paul L.: I am quite certain that if you were in a similar situation, you would be able to come up with something that wasn’t a snub. One can do many things, including making eye contact, saying something, handing the bible to your wife, the senator who was just sworn in, and so on.
@Jay L Gischer:
Thanks, Jay. I had nothing but flames and smoke with which to respond, so, I thought it best to say nothing.
@Paul L.: Walk with a cane these days. Still manage to transfer the cane to the other hand to greet people even if said other hand is engaged otherwise. Sad to hear you can’t manage.
@Jay L Gischer: Am I of above average ability/coordination because I can hold a Bible and a walking stick in one hand, then? Should I thank the neurologist who manages my Parkinson’s treatment?
@MarkedMan:
Are you suggesting Las Vegas is nothing but a company town that slavishly serves MGM and Caesar’s and Wynn? Au contraire! Paradise is a company town that slavishly serves MGM and Caesar’s and Wynn, whereas Las Vegas is a suburb of Paradise AKA the Strip.