Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, December 9, 2024
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74 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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BlueSky.
The rebels who overthrew Assad may be asking themselves this question.
If you’re wondering where in Syria U.S. forces are operating, here is a good article describing the various sites that we occupy. Just keep in mind that who is occupying what territory has changed.
US forces in Syria are able to keep their fight separate, for now
I’m pretty skeptical of the AI hype, while also accepting of the power of applications based on machine learning. Here’s an interesting one. It appears that Google’s weather model is better at predicting potentially catastrophic events 10-15 days out then human forecasters. It’s not clear if the difference is actionable, i.e. reliable enough to justify a reaction, but even it not, it’s early days and presumably it will improve.
What do we do now?
When you’re up to your ass in alligators,
it’s hard to remember why you started draining the swamp.
I can’t see why the MAGAs are so thrilled with the so-called “Trump dance.” It’s just an old fat man trying and failing to replicate the moves of his youth.
@Bill Jempty:
The primary leader at the moment, Mohammed al Jolani has been expressing a moderated view towards the West and internal minority groups. But confirmed by the history of the area, any leader of ascending movements is expendable to those whose fervor propelled them to act in the first place.
The Syrian people at large may desire stability and peace, but a power vacuum will persist for an indeterminate period, where anything can happen.
It’s unfortunate that the US has its own power vacuum in this moment as policy nodes shift, hindering a strategic response to the situation.
@Rob1:
Mike Duncan calls this phase the entropy of victory. Groups that worked together to overthrow the old regime, now may fight it out to determine which one rules.
It doesn’t have to happen, there are a few revolutions/coups that managed to stumble along with little or minimal violence, but it’s the way to bet.
Here’s something horrible for you all this fine morning. I don’t have the source because it was on my phone while I was walking the dogs, but a professor, speaking I believe to BBC radio, has learned from sources in Syria that vast, multilevel underground prisons, where political prisoners rely on circulated air to breathe, are now without electricity, either for air, or for opening the doors.
On a somewhat happier Syria-related front, we have been paying the rent and utilities for a Syrian refugee family in SoCal. Both the principals are in wheelchairs, and we don’t yet know if they want to go home to Syria, they have some thinking to do as one can imagine, but we’ll make that offer. And when I say, ‘we,’ I of course mean my wife, with my grudging acquiescence.
There are IIRC something like 4 million Syrians living outside the country. If a significant proportion do head back, it’s going to be hell on rental prices. Sort of like what digital nomads are doing to Lisbon, but with far fewer smug YouTube videos.
I’m waiting to see what happens with the Kurdish held territory in the NE of Syria. The Kurds could claim an independent country or autonomous zone.
Picking up from my rant yesterday on the topic of superstitions, both religious (mostly Right-wing) and pseudo-religious, (see every health food store) I have now shed my last two unsupportable beliefs.
One was an optimistic belief in the fundamental decency of the American people. Trump voters killed that.
But second, and more akin to a quasi religious belief, involves cork. The nearest thing I have to ritual is the sommelier (or waiter) opening a bottle. Present the bottle, cut the capsule, screw screw screw, pull the cork, pour for whoever ordered the wine (me), swirl, sniff, taste, and deliver judgment. (Decanting is rare, though welcome, and can have some real world effects, but usually not.) Now it’s just twist the screw-top, which has offended me as an unwelcome innovation, rather like old-school Roman Catholics feel about losing the Latin mass. However it makes logical sense as screw-tops do provide the superior seal.
So now, I got nothin’ to believe in.
@MarkedMan:
The AI models aren’t competing with human forecasters, they’re competing with the supercomputer physics-based models. The European ECMWF people have their own AI model and release those predictions alongside their physics-based results (the AI marked as experimental and unofficial).
This article made my brain BSD:
Using AI for Political Polling
Since people won’t talk to pollsters anymore, Havard thinks the solution is to make chat-gpt bots they can poll instead
@Mr. Prosser: Damn shame we couldn’t consistently support the Kurds.
@Michael Reynolds:
Believe in this: wine bottle over box. It’s something.
The inevitable end result of the “religious exemption” jurisprudence:
Man sues Catholic school in battle over whose faith counts for vaccine mandates
@Michael Reynolds:
You can still believe expensive wines are “better” than cheaper ones.
The “cork” in most winces I’ve opened the last decade or so is plastic or some other kind of synthetic stuff. Real cork is more expensive.
I buy a cheap white wine in small bottles that I use to brown cabbage (works better than water for this vegetable). I use about half a little bottle at a time, and the screw on cap keeps it well sealed for use the following week.
@Michael Cain: Interesting. How does the European AI results compare against the physics model?
I was down on the street indulging a bad habit and a truck drove by hauling a huge, gaudy gold casket on the trailer.
I have so many questions.
@Rob1: I’ve had some pretty decent wines out of a box, especially in Europe, where it is sold in bottle sized (750ml) boxes as a more ec0-friendly alternative to the bottle. In the US it is primarily sold as a bulk money saving thing, but even in that category there are some halfway decent offerings available.
I’m trying to remember the name of the sketchy Kurdish group that presents itself as a pro-Kurdistan lobbyist group in the United States and has successfully purchased a few US Congress-Critters, but is actually a front for a weird cult. Anyone?
@Michael Reynolds:
Being a beer nerd is more satisfying than being a wine snob. Cheaper, too.
@Kathy:
One needs to know the limits of one’s palate. Back when I was writing restaurant reviews I had a reasonably sophisticated but certainly not great palate. Less so now. It’s like keeping up with a second language, you have to practice. There is a high degree of bullshit in judging wines.
I don’t order very expensive wines because I don’t have the palate to justify a thousand dollar bottle of Petrus. Of course Vegas is the home of bros who show off – to fellow bros and of course, hookers – by buying a wine they lack any ability to appreciate.
I’ve resisted the tendency to start treating weed with a similar level of bullshit. No, Weed A does not make you feel X, Y and Z, while Weed B makes you feel U, V and W. There are differences in taste and the cough factor can be different, but weed is a THC delivery system. No need for ‘Ganjiers,‘ although respect for anyone who can make a living running that con.
@Michael Reynolds:..So now, I got nothin’ to believe in.
Losing my Religion
I remember when this song came out the Holy Rollers got all bent out of shape as this tune was obviously a slam on Christianity.
I also vaguely recall some claimed that the phrase “…losing my religion…” meant that someone was down on their luck.
I don’t dislike all wines, but I’ve had bad experiences with some sour reds – stomach issues, taste revulsion. Sometimes red wine makes me spontaneously vomit.
I’d be a shitty Italian.
I haven’t drunk any wine in probably 25 years. My body doesn’t like specific types, so I just rejected the whole category not by thought process, but just by body revulsion avoidance. I’d always preferred beer anyways. And spirits in moderation.
@Mister Bluster:
Not Southern myself, but as I understand it is, or was, a relatively common expression meaning “I’m annoyed and frustrated and at the end of my rope”. In the sense of I’m about to act or say things contrary to what my religion tells me do and say out of sheer boiling frustration and anger.
Never really got into REM that much. Like the hits. Don’t dislike them. I like Everybody Hurts a lot – the video is awesome. The one with Kate Pierson from the B-52s, too.
@Michael Reynolds: There is also the assumption embedded in wine tasting is that everybody’s taste buds are the same and that an individual’s genetics plays no part. Personally, I tried getting into wines years ago. Did the studying, taste tested, etc. Finally threw in the towel and decided that cheap bottom shelf wines make me just as happy. Plus I can just quaff rather than sip.
UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting latest: Man being held for questioning in Pennsylvania, sources say
We’ll see if it’s actually him, but from the above it seems plausible.
@Mikey:
Sloppy not ditching the gun.
I wonder how big the gofundme for his criminal defense will get.
BTW, I’m not in favor of killing corporate executives. But I also don’t think the murder of one is any more important than any other murder, nor any less.
@Mikey: @Kathy:
I do not approve of his tradecraft. Dump the gun, dude, that’s thing one. Eliminate any evidence you can eliminate, and avoid creating more.
Oh, and murder is wrong.
@Mikey: Another update, the fake ID the man detained in McD’s has is the same one used to check in to the NYC hostel, so definitely him.
He also had a handwritten manifesto that criticized health insurance companies for prioritizing profits above care.
@Scott:
All beer, wine, and spirits are ultimately an alcohol delivery mechanism. By design.
I’m kinda fundamentally predisposed against mixed drinks. The purpose is to disguise the taste of the alcohol. Yeah, you can get fancy in how to do that, but that is the purpose – to disguise the taste and the sting.
When I drink liquor I always drink it straight. I know how much I’m consuming with straight spirits then rather than with cocktails. Cocktails can make you drink more than you should by deliciousness.
People like to get a little drunk. Not universally, but as a general rule. The world’s first anti-anxiety medication.
The pyramids were built on beer wages to contract workers.
Daniel Penny has been acquitted.
@Kathy:
It’s increasingly difficult to reliably source cork that is free of the fungus (and fungicides) that literally spoil the wine. Research has shown that the screw-tops provide a superior seal compared to cork for about five years, when the plastic that makes the seal airtight begins to break down.
I was thinking about one of the topics from yesterday’s forum, the issue of what’s happening with young men. I agree that expectations for young males can often be very low. The anecdote about not trusting a son to go to the grocery store almost sounds like a parody. One problem is that in addition to low expectations we have many adult males (and some adult females) who can excuse almost any behavior on the grounds that it is isn’t a big deal, better known as get over it.
A few months ago I subbed in a poker game and somehow the topic of catcalling came up. Of the seven guys at the table, only two thought it was wrong. The other five either thought it was no big deal or completely overblown. One ventured that it was only an outgrowth of the MeToo movement, which he literally said was entirely made up. Several said that catcalling is a way of flattering women, and those that are bothered by it should just ignore it. They don’t get the implicit threat it is, and seem offended that anyone would even disagree with them.
I think a lot of people have a very limited moral compass. Maybe this is a result of seeing people with a limited moral compass rise to the top in business and politics (eg. Trump, Musk, Newt Gingrich), and deciding that values and ethics are for schlubs. Or maybe they never had values and ethics but were kept in check by societal norms. For whatever reason people have decided to let their freak flag fly, and think that anything is acceptable.
Over the weekend Nancy Mace used the slur “tranny” in a statement. Unless she has been living under a rock the past decade she has to know it is a slur. As a member of Congress she is theoretically a role model. Maybe it isn’t surprising that some young males act the way they do.
If I had to choose between Nancy Mace and Joe Rogan as a role model I’d have to go with Rogan. IMO the Democrats should have been calling Mace out ever since she made a point of bullying Rep. McBride, but that would require some backbone on their part.
@MarkedMan:
What I recall from the papers is that their physics model is better out to five or six days, the AI somewhat better beyond that.
The biggest news in modeling this past season was that the human forecasters looked at the output of the physics models for Helene and Milton and said, “Oh, it can’t possibly get that bad that fast.” The models were pretty much spot on.
@de stijl:
We have a Bourbon Manhattan at cocktail hour, then I generally move either to straight Bourbon (Four Roses Single Barrel) or Scotch (Talisker 10), straight up. Cocktails are for drinking with my wife, whiskey is for me. Feel the burn.
@Michael Reynolds:
I am occasionally reminded of reading many years ago a modern history of Napa Valley. Long story short, there were old, respected wineries there, but mostly it was other crops and grazing. The residents could see adjacent counties being absorbed into SF as bedroom suburbs. They went NIMBY and passed an ordinance that any land used for agriculture had to remain agricultural. That had the desired side effect of driving up housing and land values, but it got to where grapes were the only crop that could pay the real estate taxes. Wait a decade or two, it’s a premium traditional wine region.
But the book included a sad story. There were consultants to the wineries. The number one taster everyone trusted was, IIRC, a Russian emigre. He smoked heavily and got throat cancer. A chunk of his throat had to be removed. He of course quit smoking. But then he had to start again. Wine tasted way better without smoking, but it didn’t taste the same. He started smoking again to recalibrate his palate to match his decades of tasting experience.
@Michael Cain: Thanks. This is why I brought up “actionable results”. A state or other institution might begin prepping on a 5-10 outlook, but if the 10+ day outlooks have a low probability they won’t move on them, even if one is better than another.
In the small world department, one of my daughter’s close friends saw the name of the guy just arrested in the United Healthcare killing (Luigi Mangione), thought the name looked familiar, realized he went to high school with him, and then further realized that Mangione has been following him on social media. Presumably because of the high school connection.
@Michael Reynolds:
A significant number of high-profile types of criminal acts are done by someone who, at some level, wants to get caught.
I heartily recommend the following article:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/09/us-woman-caught-with-golden-gun-in-luggage-at-sydney-airport-jailed-for-a-year-ntwnfb?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The subtitle is “Liliana Goodson travelled to Australia in 2023 to attend clown school with the gold-plated pistol, worth about $3,000, in her luggage”
It then starts really getting good.
@MarkedMan: And now it turns out that my wife’s coworker “knows the family well”. According to her they own a golf club north of Baltimore.
@CSK: Joy.
@Gustopher:
Not sure it will work as the plot of a Bond movie.
@Michael Cain:
So don’t “cellar” wines with screw caps? Considering that many wines are thought to improve through cellar storage, screw caps don’t seem very practical.
@Michael Reynolds:
@Kathy:
Cork makes sense in wines intended for considerable aging in bottle, to allow mild oxidization to proceed.
It’s a bit pointless in wine made for drinking from the moment it goes on sale.
(And if aging for just a couple of years, there’s probably enough air in the bottle to suffice.)
My palate is reasonable, but not so refined as to justify wines over £50 a bottle at home.
I’m a Wine Society member; and among their stuff my view is once you get to £30 and above, the
price to perceived quality ratio stops climbing fast. You are often paying a premium for incremental improvement; and often primarily a “known name”.
Otoh, except in some supermarket “loss leader” offers at times, it’s very difficult to do much beyond gluggable below £10, given UK duty and VAT.
In an £8 bottle, the value of the wine is only about £1.50 to £2; tax about £4; the rest other costs and margins.
Whereas in a £15 bottle, the wine is about £5, and tax about the same.
Gluggable is fine for summer barbecue or party, of course.
But for wine with a weekend meal, I tend to prefer something more interesting.
Comment from a family member:
@Fortune:
An old fat guy gyrating on a stage fruitlessly attempting to prove he’s young and hip is joyous????
@CSK: You asked why people like it, it’s because they like Trump and they’re happy. What’s so hard about it.
@Michael Reynolds: I feel like he wanted to be caught.
If he didn’t want to be caught he would of dumped the gun, IDs, and anything else identifying days ago in a nice hard to find area.
@Fortune:
How can one like a malign churl like Trump?
@CSK: That’s a different question, you were asking about the reaction people are having where they’re smiling and dancing. It’s called happiness.
@Fortune:
And you replied that they like Trump. I repeat, what’s likable about a malign churl?
Luigi Mangione, the shooter of Brian Thompson, is a cousin of Nino Mangione, a Maryland state delegate.
@MarkedMan:
The GFS model done somewhere in NOAA runs out 16 days, signicantly farther than any of the other physics models. It’s kind of fascinating to look from day to day at the last several days in the forecast during hurricane season. One day a storm forms, gets big, hammers Florida. The next day shows no storm forming. The day after that a storm forms, stays small, lands in Belize. I doubt the AI models are going to be much better at that time range. Where a hurricane forms, and its ensuing track, depends on the motions of (literally) continent-scale air masses.
@Michael Cain: When I used to advise small startups on their concepts, the first question I would ask was “How will a clinician behave differently if they have your device?” Surprisingly often, the answer was, “They won’t”. If a new method of detection gives a 70% accurate determination of malignancy without doing a biopsy, that is pretty amazing and worth a whole bunch of papers, but the clinician will still order the biopsy.
And, apropos of the discussion above, no insurance company would cover such a test.
@Michael Cain: Just out of curiosity, is this in your area of expertise or just something you are interested in?
@CSK: Per the buzz here in B’more, the Mangione grandparents where rich, social, and ran businesses open to the public (golf course, restaurant, etc), then had ten kids who mostly stayed in the area and had kids of their own. So I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone local ends up with a connection. Heck, I have two already (indirect), and neither my wife nor I are from here.
@CSK: So you just wanted to say you don’t like Trump. ok.
@Michael Reynolds:
Sounds like you do believe expensive wines are “better,” even if you don’t order them.
Me, I’m completely unqualified to rate the quality of wine. I can say “I like it,” and also “I don’t like it.” Maybe something in between. Whether one is “better” than another, no.
I’m not saying wines don’t vary in quality, or that cheaper ones are not as good as expensive ones. But that I can’t really tell. Overall I like them not too dry and not too sweet. That’s about as qualitative as I get.
@Kathy:
There is certainly no one-to-one rise in quality as price rises. If you have a very refined palate – and I don’t – you might order a $1000+ bottle of wine less because you think it’s ten times better than a 100 dollar wine, and more because you’re interested in exploring wine, regardless of cost. It becomes a matter of curiosity. In fact an older wine can be a real crapshoot.
@JohnSF:
I would not be able to join a wine society because of the word, ‘society.’ I limit human contact. Not because I’m disagreeable, I’m not, some people even find me charming (not a long list) but in any conversation I am almost certain to bring up the inevitability of death within the first ten minutes. I can be interesting, but I am never fun.
Or, as a better writer, put it succinctly, “Hell is other people.” JPS, as the cool kids say. If by ‘cool’ you mean philosophy sophomores.
A small issue with the CEO shooter. There was reporting , apparently based on the video, that he used a veterinary pistol, even detailed speculation it was Brugger & Thomet VP9, which does look like the blurry video. But immediately raises the question of why he’d use a $2,000 pistol. Latest reporting speculates it’s a ghost gun, made from online ordered and/or 3D printed parts. That makes sense as the B&T is derived from a very simple gun developed in WWII for spy use.
I’ve seen conservatives celebrating ghost guns as the ultimate way around gun laws. For me this incident leads to speculation that if shooting CEOs gets to be a thing, like Reagan with the Black Panthers, we could suddenly start seeing GOP support for gun control.
@CSK: I would guess that they like Trump to the extent that their liking of him and their happiness about his spaz dancing disturbs you deeply enough for you to comment on it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
True. He looks like an obese geriatric fool trying to boogie down like that.
I find it hard to believe that this dude basically committed the “crime of the century” (so far, anyways), had a 5 day lead on the cops, and only went as far as…..Pennsylvania?! WTF?! He definitely wanted to be caught.
He could’ve been the next D.B Cooper, and instead it looks like it’s all for the likes and follows.
Not saying I want anything bad to happen to the owner of X, but damn….in the big scheme of things….there were higher targets.
While acknowledging that screw-tops make better seals for wine, I’d just like to mention one of the reasons cork is still pretty darn good. It has a rare mechanical property of being almost perfectly compressible. If you squish it in one direction, it doesn’t (significantly) expand in another direction. This makes it so that it is fairly easy to create the right-sized stopper and insert it for the desired seal strength.
Compare this to if you used a rubber stopper, where rubber is fairly incompressible in a mechanical sense – you squish it one ways, and it bulges out in another. If you tried to push a similarly-shaped rubber stopper into a wine bottle, it would keep getting more difficult. The harder you push, the more it tries to bulge out, increasing the frictional resistance to the point of near impossibility.
I guess there are other good qualities of cork for wine, allowing just the right amount of air to permeate through it and blah blah blah. But I only understand the mechanical stuff 🙂
@CSK: You already admitted this has nothing to do with the dance.
@Fortune:
You people have put a rapist in the White House. An absolute pig. And you’re proud of the fact that you’ve smeared shit right across the pages of American history.
Are you even capable of remembering ten years ago? Back when you would have said character matters? Back when you believed in patriotism? A lot of culties suffer from impaired memory.
@Michael Reynolds: I didn’t vote for Trump.
@Jax: But does anyone remember DB Cooper’s manifesto? No. If he had one, it remained a mystery like his fate. I think he expected to get caught so he could deliver his manifesto onto the world, and then get annoyed when the police didn’t catch him, and tried to make it happen.
As far as better targets go… I’m really kind of impressed with how many people, left and right, responded to the news of the shooting with stories of how they were screwed over by health insurance companies. Really clear class solidarity. If all it takes to unite America for a day or so is to kill one CEO, I think we have a large enough supply of CEOs that there could be a permanent change.
I wish he had done it about a month or two before the election. Putting health insurance front and center, in a very class-conscious way, might have changed things from a campaign about vibes to something where there’s a moment when real change could happen — either increased regulation of insurance companies, eliminating for-profit health insurance (the incentives are all wrong), or a public option. I don’t know that it would have tipped the election towards Harris, but I suspect that Trump would have moved from concepts of a plan to some kind of “health insurance customer/victims bill of rights” that can make things marginally better.
Yes, even a right wing plan that mostly tries to shut up complainers in the public would likely make things better than they are now. Or would be a failure that would force the next administration to focus on it.
I’m a Wine Society member; and among their stuff my view is once you get to £30 and above, the
price to perceived quality ratio stops climbing fast. You are often paying a premium for incremental improvement; and often primarily a “known name”.
I don’t know. Look at the southern Rhone–where it goes price-wise Vacqueyras to Gigondas to Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Same grapes, different communes. I think there’s a steep increase in quality between a good bottle of Vacqueyras and a good bottle of CdP. Whether you want to pay for it is a different story.
The only other region I know well enough to spend bigger sums on is Burgundy, and there it can be a crapshoot. There are insanely good wines in the 50-100 USD region, some of which are as magical as you’re going to drink while being forced to ‘settle’ for merely a village Chambolle-Musigny or Pommard. And then there are wines from the same communes which barely open up and are muddled.
With expensive wine, I think most people who spend serious money chase their magical experiences. Being an oligarch and living on a daily supply of Grand Crus probably screws up this chase in a certain way.
@Fortune:
Yeah, you did.
@Michael Reynolds:
Oh, the Wine Society doesn’t involve being sociable.
Heaven forfend. 😉
Its essentially a non-profit, co-operatively owned, wine-merchant. Been going 140 years.
@Modulo Myself:
Vacqueyras and CdP tend to be rather different, as the latter tends to more complex blends, and to be “richer” as well as more expensive.
Personally, I’d probably opt for a Gigondas over a Chateuneuf
Burgundy, meanwhile, is just insane.
Similar to Bordeaux crus, the market has been massively skewed by a Chinese/SouthAsian/Gulf market that just wants the “known name” on the bottle and would happily mix it with lemonade half the time.
Unless you can get to Burgundy, and buy direct in person, lots of “normal” villages producers are now ridiculously expensive for what they are, as well as being of variable quality.
The good thing about the Society is, it’s got very experienced buyers, and good producer relations. So generally the probability of them stocking a duffer is pretty low.
They also stock quite a lot of southern France/Languedoc wines from good producers, a lot of which are brilliant value for money.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m a Never Trump conservative, and you’re a guy with a small horizon.