Monday’s Forum

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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Bobert says:

    The public is accustomed to having arrests being reported with information the basis for the arrest.
    So, ICE arrested some 1,000 people over the weekend, supposedly because they are guilty of having committed some crime in addition to being undocumented.
    Or, do they have to be guilty or just accused or criminal activity?
    Personally, I’ve no issue with deporting convicted undocumented, but I do have an issue with deporting undocumented that are just accused, but not adjudicated guilty.

    5
  2. charontwo says:

    @Bobert:

    but I do have an issue with deporting undocumented that are just accused, but not adjudicated guilty.

    That’s the Laken Riley Act that just passed, lots of Democrats voted for it.

    All sorts of bad stuff will happen, Swatting with false accusations as an example.

    ETA: I am getting very Germany 1933 vibes from this whole verkakte situation with Herr Trump and his sycophants.

    9
  3. MarkedMan says:

    It’s going to be really important for government employees to get everything in writing and to keep copies of that. I would also hope that they compile evidence of wrong doing and illegalities and keep that proof outside of their work environment. I recognize this may be illegal, but I still hope they do it.

    6
  4. JohnSF says:

    Interesting goings on in the financial markets.
    Looks like a lot of positions in AI are about to go sideways, due to a Chinese firm bringing out a cheaper and more infrastructure efficient challenger to the current players.

    3
  5. Kathy says:

    Well, I went and began to cash in the Amazon gift card I got last month… I got 30 days of Prime for free, which I found surprising, Usually this is reserved for first time subscribers, not for those who re-subscribe after unsubscribing. I may get my fill of Prime shows and movies and cancel before Feb 25th. I already got started on season 2 of Invincible (spoiler alert: not thrilled about a multiverse story, if that’s where it’s going).

    I got my cast iron pan (Lodge), and now have to decide whether and how to season it. I also got a case for my phone (I don’t know why*), and a mount for the car that should work on the Honda. We’ll see. Since I was already shopping, I got a different spoonula (still hate that word).

    I’ve heard of gift cards referred to often as interest free loans by consumers to big corporations. This is partly so, As some go unused, or small remainders are forgotten, some are gifts to big corporations.

    Buffalo is a cursed team. they need to move to a city that’s lost its team, change their name and uniform, and let an expansion team take over the old Buffalo Bills name and record and history and legacy.

    Just like the Cleveland Browns did when they became the Baltimore Ravens, The latter have won a couple of championships, while the expansion team that took over the former are a near replica of the hapless Browns, without even an equivalent to Bernie Kosar or Marty Schottenheimer.

    Should the Chiefs win in February, the league ought to give them a bye season. I’ve nothing against the Chiefs, other than they play in Missouri and their place kicker is an abhorrent excuse for a man, but it gets tedious watching the same team win over and over. Maybe not if it’s the team you follow, but it does for everyone else.

    So, win two in a row and you get a season off. term limits.

    2
  6. CSK says:

    We just had an earthquake here in northeastern Mass. Jen and Sleeping Dog, did you feel it?

    1
  7. Mister Bluster says:

    GO BEARS!
    Super Bowl CX here we come!

  8. Kathy says:

    Latest reports on the Jeju Air crash are that both engines sustained bird strikes.

    This does not determine the cause, but it looks now like either both engines failed, or were damaged enough they didn’t put out enough thrust. I tend to favor dual failure, seeing as the power to the black boxes went out.

    Major questions also remain about the concrete barrier past the end of the runway.

  9. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Yeah, at first I thought a vehicle crashed into the house, but the rumbling continued for about 10 second, so I assumed earthquake. The second earthquake that I’ve felt since being here, though this felt stronger. About 3.8 on the Richter Scale, I understand.

    1
  10. Rob1 says:

    Israel insists it is going ahead with Unrwa ban – what it may mean for Palestinians
    UN agency ordered to vacate HQ by Thursday – just as aid is being increased to Gaza after ceasefire

    [..]
    Unrwa has 7,000 trucks of supplies outside Gaza and 1,500 under procurement,

    [..]

    Trump’s nominee as envoy to the UN, Elise Stefanik, told the Senate foreign relations committee that US policy was to defund Unrwa and that Israel had a biblical right to the entire West Bank.

    I’m quite certain that the Palestinians have a “biblical right” to being treated humanely.

    Another take on Stefanik’s apparent pro-Israel stance:

    Stefanik’s championing of a Jewish cause was merely a weapon in her arsenal in a larger war that has major implications for the American future.

    Come to think of it: There is every reason to believe Stefanik doesn’t like Jews all that much. Because her political views are only one click away from some very dangerous conspiracy theories.

    https://religionnews.com/2024/11/14/elise-stefanik-jews-united-nations/

    3
  11. becca says:

    @JohnSF: there’s a bunch of techbros with indigestion this morning.
    I read DeepSeek “punctured” ai infrastructure plans here. Market positions are on hold.
    Oh, my.

    3
  12. Kathy says:

    @JohnSF:
    @becca:

    Wait, did a Chinese company move fast and break things?

    5
  13. CSK says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    It was a noisy bugger, wasn’t it? I’ve not heard any reports of damage or injuries.

  14. becca says:

    @Kathy: I was hoping you’d chime in. What’s your take?

  15. becca says:

    Just in-
    DeepSeek, an artificial intelligence (AI) research lab in China, has cracked the ‘holy grail of AI models’ by achieving performance at par with the world’s best chatbots at a fraction of the cost. MSN

    1
  16. Kathy says:

    @becca:

    I’d need to try the miracle LLM first, and see how it does against the older players. I only just found out about it now.

    I know little of what goes on the back end. but if it can perform as well as ChatGPT or Gemini using far less computing power, and far less electricity, it would be like the difference in fuel efficiency between a 1950s V8 engine and a hybrid today.

    The generative AI players here were set up to ramp up chips production, ergo Nvidia’s drop if their graphics cards won’t find buyers, and electricity generation, including the revival of nuclear plants (a good thing, IMO), This kind of flies out the widow now.

    Oh, well. See how they like being on the other end of creative destruction and innovation for the sake of innovation.

    I’ll try the LLM later today when I’m home. Management here doesn’t like us using AI at work.

    2
  17. Pete S says:

    @Kathy:
    Lodge makes a seasoning compound that looks like half-melted butter. We use it regularly on our cast iron pots and pans and it seems to work great.

  18. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    I don’t think it was that large. Nothing on the walls or in cabinets seem to be displaced.

    From what I read the epicenter was 11km off the coast of Kittery, so near me, between Whaleback Island and Isles of Shoals. Bet the caretaker/photographer that winters on Star Island got rocked.

    1
  19. Jen says:

    @CSK: Oh, absolutely. It’s the talk of the town! It was a pretty decent rumble. (Having lived on the Ring of Fire as a kid, I thought it was a 3.0 or so, turns out it was a 3.8 or 3.9). Not the first I’ve felt living here, but definitely the longest and it really did rattle the house.

    The pup slept through it. To be fair, she was in a pretty decent sunbeam.

    4
  20. just nutha says:

    @Kathy: Being offered 30 days of Prime service for free seems to be standard now. In fact, on my last Amazon order, I had to go into my account to remove the 30-day trial because there was no button to reject the offer at POS. Curious.

    ETA: Lodge pans are pre seasoned, but I cooked bacon in mine for the pilot project and just poured the grease out lightly wiping the pan after.

    1
  21. becca says:

    @CSK: @Sleeping Dog: @Jen: what an unpleasant way to start the day. Does take your mind off – you know – for a bit, though.

    1
  22. Kathy says:

    @Sleeping Dog:
    @Jen:

    Quake magnitudes are pretty much the same all over, but the distance of propagation from the epicenter are not. Quakes in the eastern parts of North America are rare, and strong ones tend to devastate larger areas. See the New Madrid earthquakes.

    I’m really weak when it comes to geology. I read a long time ago that the abundance of faults in seismic prone areas, like central and western Mexico, or California, serve to dampen seismic waves, as they provide a continuity break of sorts. Central and eastern North America have fewer geological faults, therefore seismic waves travel farther. Take this with a truckload of salt.

  23. JKB says:

    It will be interesting as to how many people, companies and universities fully documented their violations of US equal opportunity and other civil rights laws in their social media and PR material

    2
  24. Not the IT Dept. says:

    We knew this was going to happen, didn’t we?. Apparently all brown people look alike to ICE officers:

    “At least 15 Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico have reported being stopped at their homes and workplaces, questioned or detained by federal law enforcement and asked to produce proof of citizenship during immigration raids since Wednesday, according to Navajo Nation officials.”

    Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/us/navajo-detained-ice-indigenous-immigration-trump/

    8
  25. Kathy says:

    @just nutha:

    Hm. Now I want to try ending the Prime subscription days before it expires, then try to resubscribe a week or two later and see if I get a new freebie.

    It would be a sloppy thing for Amazon to do, but that’s not my problem.

    Thing is, whenever I drop Netflix, I get email after automated email asking me to resubscribe. they tell me what great content they have and what I’m missing out on. They never tell me I can get 30 days free, or even thirty minutes.

  26. becca says:

    I can’t resist. From Axios –

    The Magnificent 7 stocks — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla — were also down sharply in premarket trading, dragged lower by Nvidia but also the broad tech sell-off in general.

    Their implied loss in market capitalization at the open exceeds $1 trillion, with most of the stocks down 5% or more.
    The bottom line: The S&P 500’s incredible run the last two years has been heavily tied to the Magnificent 7 — but as a result, the market’s gains are more heavily concentrated in that small handful of stocks than they’ve been in decades.
    In a period of such heavy concentration, what goes up can come down very, very quickly.

    3
  27. Sleeping Dog says:

    @becca:

    Nah, it was only enough to be coffee shop conversation. Doubt there was any damage or injuries, except for a precariously placed vase.

    Earthquakes are rare in this area, though I understand that there is a fault that follows Stellwagen Bank, a marine mountain range that runs from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Cod, that is 20-25 miles offshore. Unlike faults on the west coast through Mexico and into South America, it is fairly stable and any movements tend to result in small quakes like we experienced today.

    @Jen: Yeah, the pug’s snoring didn’t miss a beat.

    1
  28. just nutha says:

    @Kathy: I buy stuff from Amazon about 2 or 3 times a year, so you might need a wider interval than a couple of weeks.

  29. Jen says:

    @Not the IT Dept.: I was just thinking yesterday about an incident during the first Trump administration, wherein several idiots cornered some people in a convenience store, hollering at them to “speak American” or go back to where they came from, and it turned out to be a couple of people from a nearby reservation.

    3
  30. Jen says:

    @becca: As mild as this was, it was more “interesting” than “unpleasant.”

    New Hampshire is the Granite State and therefore is basically a huge chunk of igneous rock. Where you find volcanoes, you usually find fault lines. Where you find fault lines, you can have quakes.

    @Kathy: Having lived in Missouri, I am super-familiar with the New Madrid fault line. I even wrote a paper about it for an upper-level geology class back when I was in college. I *loved* geology. I am exactly that nerd who can still recite the ranks on the Mohs hardness scale (quartz is a 7! talc is 1!).

    3
  31. CSK says:

    @becca:

    I was in the bathroom and felt nothing. But I did hear an incredibly loud grinding roar, as if a plane were about 10 feet over the place.

    1
  32. Mister Bluster says:

    Jan. 6 rioter recently pardoned by Trump shot, killed by Northwest Indiana sheriff’s deputy
    JASPER COUNTY, Ind. — A Northwest Indiana man recently pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is dead after being shot by a sheriff’s deputy while allegedly resisting arrest.
    Matthew Huttle, 42, of Hobart was shot and killed during a traffic stop near the Jasper/Pulaski county lines on Sunday afternoon. A deputy with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department pulled Huttle’s vehicle over on State Road 14 at approximately 4:15 p.m.

    2
  33. Gustopher says:

    @becca: I used my usual evaluation prompt: “write a short essay explaining how the song “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” by Whale is about Slobodan Milosevic and the breakup of Yugoslavia.”

    It’s a subject upon which very little has been written in the real world, so I think it’s a good test to see how far the model goes off the rails and what happens.

    The song *”Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe”* by the Swedish band Whale is a wildly eccentric and satirical track that, while not explicitly about Slobodan Milosevic or the Yugoslav breakup, can still be interpreted through that lens if one chooses to do so. The song’s absurdist tone, chaotic energy, and cryptic lyrics make it ripe for creative analysis, including connections to political figures and events.

    The title itself, *”Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe,”* with its playful alliteration and nonsensical phrasing, could be seen as a jab at political leaders who exploit power and manipulate public perception. The inclusion of “Slobo” might evoke associations with Slobodan Milosevic, whose role in the Yugoslav breakup and subsequent wars was marked by authoritarianism, nationalism, and the destruction of a once-unified state. The term “hobo” could symbolize the displacement and suffering caused by the conflicts, while “humpin'” adds a layer of absurdity, perhaps mocking the grotesque and self-serving nature of political power.

    The lyrics of the song are deliberately fragmented and surreal, filled with bizarre imagery and non-sequiturs. Lines like “She’s a hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo, hobo,

    It was then stuck in a hobo loop, as I guess a predictive text generator is going to predict that after 100 “hobos” the next word will be “hobo”.

    I’m not sure that I am impressed. I mostly hate these things anyway.

    2
  34. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mister Bluster: Once again, Karma proves herself a serious beeyotch. 😐

  35. Gustopher says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    Matthew Huttle isn’t the first Capitol riot to quickly face trouble after his pardon. Last week, a Florida man who took part in the Jan. 6 riot was arrested on federal gun charges one day after being pardoned.

    The rate of criminal offenses by these pardoned criminals is … not actually unexpected, but slightly more dramatic and quicker than I would have expected.

    5
  36. Kathy says:

    @Pete S:

    I’m really ambivalent about seasoning. Lodge claims their pans are pre-seasoned, and can be used out of the box. Further seasoning, the label claims, will occur over the normal use for cooking.

    Various websites an Youtube channels recommend seasoning 3 to 6 times before use, even if it comes pre-seasoned. I’ve no doubt this works for them, but it’s anecdote rather than data.

    going by past experience, my cas iron pot was pre-seasoned. I never did anything else to it, just washed it and dried it before using it, and went on to cook with it without any issues.

    The main reason, I admit, is that seasoning the pan is work, and I tend to avoid all unnecessary effort on principle.

    A bigger problem is what I’ll make with it.

  37. CSK says:

    @Gustopher:

    But they were all peaceful patriots, according to the MAGAs, except for the FBI infiltrators, Antifas, and BLM members who caused all the trouble.

    1
  38. Gavin says:

    If you had “one week” in your office pool on “Length of time it would take Elon to get the boot from the white house” … you’ve won a long black coat from Hugo Boss.
    Apparently this is from the CoS susan wiles. Is this the only smart move Trump will make in the next 4 years? Many are saying this.
    At the same time it’s also perhaps dumb because he will throw millions into primarying other politicians. Will the loose cannons shoot each other? Stay tuned!

    2
  39. Gustopher says:

    @Gavin: I won’t believe it until Trump insults Musk on Truth Social.

    1
  40. wr says:

    @JKB: Yes, JKB, we know you think it should be illegal for anyone to be hired who isn’t a white male.

    But what are you going to do once Trump fully enacts his whites-only policies and you still can’t get a job? Who will you blame then?

    8
  41. Gustopher says:

    @Gustopher: I also spent a few minutes trying to get DeepSeek to correctly answer the question: If Canada was a US state, how would its per capita GDP rank?

    The real answer is just above Mississippi, but with different sources you can get it up to 7th from the bottom. It varies year by year and source by source.

    DeepSeek correctly noticed the “per capita” then and confidently asserted it would be in the top tier, just below Washington, California and New York, even citing figures that were vaguely accurate, but not considering a roughly $25,000 gap between Washington and Canada to be suspicious enough to look for other states above Canada’s $53,000.

    This just furthers my belief that generative AI is best used for things that you don’t give a shit about. Customer service, making up reasons to deny health insurance claims, manifestos, etc.

    3
  42. Kathy says:

    @Gavin:
    @wr:

    Depending on how much money nazi in Chief Xlon dangles before the rapist felon, it may be Wiles who first gets booted off the asylum.

    3
  43. Gustopher says:

    @JKB: from the tweet you reference, by the chronically wrong Megan McArdle

    Acquaintances would just outright say “We’re looking to hire a woman of color/queer person/etc for this position”. I never figured out how to politely ask why they were confessing a crime to someone they barely knew.

    That doesn’t happen. It should probably happen a bit though.

    The number of customer facing software projects I have seen fail because everyone involved was a white man is kind of remarkable. It turns out women and minorities have very different views on things like privacy, and that trying to reconcile the features with that later on is amazingly hard.*

    In the last few years, I have seen candidate pools that were all white men, and companies holding off until they add a few under represented folks into the candidate pool. But, if they are hiring the best, going from a larger pool of candidates should be harmless, right?

    (And then someone rejects the minority applicants because of racism, sexism, etc. But it’s later in the process! We waste more of their time!)

    ——
    *: A couple of times, I have been the one in a product design meeting saying “we need to get some women to look at this and tell us why this terrifies them.” Each time, when we brought more people in, there were several things found that encourage/enable stalking or harassment.

    It turns out nearly every woman has had a creepy man stalk her. Fun! And queer folks, and brown folks, and Jews…

    7
  44. charontwo says:

    Jan 27 (Reuters) – Futures linked to the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled on Monday as the surging popularity of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model sparked a selloff in chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA ) and other companies that stand to benefit from investments into the technology.

    Chinese startup DeepSeek has rolled out a free assistant it says uses cheaper chips and less data, seemingly challenging a widespread bet in financial markets that AI will drive demand along a supply chain from chipmakers to data centers.

    “It is far too early to describe DeepSeek as an existential threat to U.S.-based AI solutions,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor.

    “It will almost certainly put the cat among the pigeons as investors scramble to assess the potential damage it could have on a burgeoning industry which has powered much of the gain seen in the main indices over the past couple of years.”

    DeepSeek’s AI Assistant on Monday overtook rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s ( AAPL ) App Store in the United States.

    Nvidia ( NVDA ), whose chips are the top choice for powering AI applications, dropped 12.3% in premarket trading, while other chipmakers such as Broadcom ( AVGO ) and Micron Technology ( MU ) fell 14.3% and 8.4%, respectively.

    Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Meta Platforms ( META ) were down 5.8% and 4.7%. Both are set to report earnings later this week, along with Apple ( AAPL ) and Tesla.

    Google-parent Alphabet fell 4.6%, and Apple ( AAPL ) lost 0.4%.

    AI server makers Dell Technologies ( DELL ) and Super Micro Computer ( SMCI ) slid 8.8% and 10%.

    1
  45. charontwo says:

    @charontwo:

    Explainer re Deepseek:

    Dropsite

    Ryan Grim

    DeepSeek just proved Lina Khan right

    Khan warned that enabling protectionism for tech monopolies wouldn’t just hurt all of us, it would hurt them too. Now they’re getting wiped out.

    3
  46. CSK says:

    Trump blanket-pardoned Andrew Taake, who’s being sought by police in Texas on an outstanding warrant for trying to solicit sex from a minor online in 2016.

    Taake was serving 6 years for pepper-spraying police and striking them with a metal whip.

    Just another peaceful patriot touring the Capitol.

    2
  47. Gustopher says:

    @CSK:

    Taake was serving 6 years for pepper-spraying police and striking them with a metal whip.

    It was a day of love. Taake is just into rough stuff. Without consent.

    Trump blanket-pardoned Andrew Taake, who’s being sought by police in Texas on an outstanding warrant for trying to solicit sex from a minor online in 2016.

    And children.

    Ok, how did no one know to prosecute him on that warrant while he was in jail for Jan 6th? I would have assumed that part of the booking process when arrested would be to check for outstanding warrants.

    1
  48. CSK says:

    @Gustopher:

    The Harris County, Texas D. A.’s office notified federal authorities to hold Taake 5 days before his release, but that request was apparently disregarded/ignored/overlooked/forgotten/whatever.

  49. dazedandconfused says:

    @Kathy:

    For those who played “Grand Theft Auto” in their teens: I suspect Trump may now raking in so much from so many sources now that he may reach that point, like in the GTA, where you have mastered that part of the game and have all the money you care to have and begin to seek other objectives out of boredom…and about all that’s left is random, pointless mischief.

    And perhaps no amount of money would save anyone in the Trump administration whom Trump thinks might be getting more press than he is. Unlikely Musk is wise enough to recognized this.

    1
  50. Kathy says:

    Eventually I want to try a Chicago style pizza on the cast iron pan*.

    First, though, I think I’ll try corn bread, Just about every recipe for it recommends baking it in a pre-heated cast iron pan, in order to get the golden crust on the top (one you flip the pan and get the thing unstuck from it).

    But then it’ll have to go on the side of something. I’m thinking a chicken, beans, and rice stew with green salsa.

    *I’m terrible at working with dough. So this presupposes pre-made pizza dough of some kind.

  51. Jax says:

    @Kathy: My friend tried an upside down pizza in her cast iron pan and it looked delicious.

    I have this favorite thing I make called piroshki’s, it’s a cabbage/sausage cheese mix stuffed inside a yeast bread….my grandma called them “Hand Pies”, some people call them runzas, some bierocks, but I’m always questioning my ratio on the filling vs bread. The yeast bread is so fluffy it takes over the filling. I’ve tried internet “bierock casserole” recipes, and the results were soggy.

    1
  52. Gavin says:

    We just had “taco pie” in the cast iron skillet and it was amazing.
    Start with tacos, add eggs, everyone wins.

    1
  53. just nutha says:

    @Jax: My mom made this, too. Try a smaller glop of dough rolled out aggressively.

    1
  54. DrDaveT says:

    @Jax:

    I have this favorite thing I make called piroshki’s

    Are you from Pittsburgh? Everywhere else in the US, I see them called “pirogies”. The /shk/ spelling seems to be a Pittsburgh Lawrenceville (Polish neighborhood) thing.

  55. Gustopher says:

    @DrDaveT: in Seattle, they are entirely different things. Pitogies are polish ravioli filled with potato, and piroshkies are a turnover filled with cabbage, onions and mushrooms.

    And the only time I had a runza, it was more bready, filled with breakfast (eggs, sausage, etc)

  56. Mimai says:

    They are not fucking around. Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs

    This is terribly destructive. Much of my research is funded by the NIH. A smaller proportion by the VA. My entire program of research is in peril. And that means a lot of livelihoods are too. And I’m merely one of many. sigh

    2