Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, October 8, 2022
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33 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).
Follow Steven on
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BlueSky.
More from the file of when bad things happen to awful people, an explosion took out a bridge between Russia and occupied Crimea.
The Kremlin claims a truck bomb, Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility. As in previous occasions, this is good if Ukraine did it, and even better if they did not.
Maybe Benito can hold infrastructure week in Moscow now? He would get his Cheeto tower there now if he fixed the bridge, he fixes the best bridges manypeoplesaythat, in a decade or seven.
@Kathy: I was wondering when this would happen. This is a Crimea weak link. Ukraine is not fooling around about reclaiming Crimea.
@Kathy: This is probably not the birthday present that Uncle Vladimir was hoping for.
There is non-Russian (more credible, likely) reporting that it was an explosion on the rail portion of the bridge. This seems more likely to me than Ukrainian suicide bombers with trucks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/08/crimea-kerch-bridge-attack-explosion-russia-ukraine/
So, an exploding truck, timed for the exact moment when the fuel tankers of an entirely separate train happened to be passing? I guess it is possible, but it seems unlikely. Don’t worry, Putin has appointed a commission to get to the bottom of it.
Ben Sasse was a topic yesterday, here’s Charlie Sykes take.
Sykes leans that he’ll roll over.
Amanda Carpenter’s take:
Now that’s a show of confidence.
@Gustopher:
This is what I mean it’s even better if Ukraine didn’t do it.
@Kathy: I believe much of the supply to the Russian forces in Kherson crosses that bridge.
I appear to have the flu. It’s a flu-like illness that is getting more and more flu-like.
(I test negative for covid on home tests, and while I got the flu vaccine… it was so recent it may not have been fully effective, if the flu vaccine is even a good match this year.)
It has been so long since I have been sick that I am being an absolutely dramatic whining baby, but I don’t live with anyone to whine at dramatically and performatively suffer in front of. It’s hell.
Pray for me.
(Seriously, I smash a toe so badly it’s one giant bruise that causes terrible pain when walking for most of the summer (oh, blood thinners… bruises do not like to heal), and it’s a nuisance. But a medium fever? The world is so unfair.)
@Kathy: I’m sure the really improbable story is because they don’t want to admit someone has infiltrated the rail yards and put a bomb on the fuel cars, and paint the Ukrainians as crazy suicide bombers…
…but, I wonder how many people in Crimea are recent Russian settlers who might prefer to flee if the war gets too close rather than fight to the death for their … property values? If it is repaired in three days, with lots of new restrictions on travel, I’ll be more suspicious.
@Gustopher: I hope you feel better soon!
This post is your daily reminder that the word “woke” is simply a shortened form of “something I don’t like.”
Trump will purge the National Archives if re-elected
@Gustopher:
Speaking of which… got my Moderna Bivalent shot this week.
According to the press, most folks in the US do not seem to be getting the shot, which will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Seems that feeling a bit like crap for a few days is a fair trade-off for not dying… but what do I know, eh?
Holding off on the flu shot for another week or two.
I’ve heard of snakes on a plane but this is ridiculous.
@Liberal Capitalist: FWIW, I’m getting mine next week at my company’s annual flu shot drive. I suspect that a fair number will do the same
@OzarkHillbilly:
Gives new meaning to the phrase “one-eyed trouser snake.”
@CSK: Heh.
I suppose it’s paywalled, but there is a must read column at NYT. As students at Harvard Law, Obama and economist Robert Fisher wrote a draft for a book about politics, Transformative Politics. It went unpublished and barely known. But a historian got ahold of a copy. The column is his very brief take on the long draft. It doesn’t say if anyone is going to make the draft available. He shows only the first page in the column. It’s impressive, thoughtful and incisive. From the column,
Some social media reports indicating something approaching a full-on popular uprisings in some Iranian cities.
I find myself disagreeing with Sykes on
The problem with Sasse being a rising star in post-Trumpian conservatism, in my view, is that conservatism, Trumpian or otherwise, is in an entropy spiral. Whatever conservatism follows the current variety will be worse than this is. We need only look to the UK and Trussian conservatism to see that the decay is not limited to the US.
On the other side, selling out for the money may well make him a future conservative role model, so maybe Sykes merely misstated his proposition. But for the role of future leader of the post-Trumpian conservative decline into further chaos, Sasse looks to have made the right move.
@Liberal Capitalist:
In a result you’d never expect, Republicans die due to Covid at a significantly higher rate than Democrats. Not just news article — the peer-reviewed paper is linked within.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I suppose post-Trump conservatism is just the latest attempt at imagining a “decent conservatism” movement that champions small “c” conservative principles but also attempts to achieve social justice and improve the living conditions of all. Bush’s Compassionate Conservatism, comes to mind. You would think that if anyone was cheering this on, it would be me. After all I think that conservative principles are important and should be weighed. Even when a more liberal path is chosen it should be scouted with a conservative lens. “Have we really considered all the side effects of the changes we are going to make? Who else will it affect and how? Who will maintain it?”
But over the years I’ve concluded that a “decent conservatism” movement of any size or influence is an impossibility. Not because conservative principles are at odds with it (they most certainly aren’t) but because it inevitably becomes a tool of the powerful. “Be skeptical of changing too fast” is all too easily changed to “Worship the status quo and those who benefit most from it”. The Federalist Society, the various libertarian think tanks, the conservative speakers circuit, all are funded by powerful billionaires with an agenda of personal benefit.
And no, there is no liberal equivalent. Liberals are primarily trying to benefit those with less power. One billionaire can exert a lot of focused force. A million people making minimum wage simply cannot compete in that arena.
@MarkedMan: I would describe it as a system that has always been intended as a tool of the powerful, with the difference in the US being that there was more opportunity for social mobility that would make some individual “one of the powerful.” As conservatism has moved to zero-sum economic models (including some moderate to liberal pronouncements that the American dream represented by life in the 50s is simply no longer available to most people), the system here has gravitated back to its roots. And back to notions of hoarding of power in the hands of the “deserving.”
Any comment from the OtB literati about the selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: “Any comment from the OtB literati about the selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature?”
I don’t know if I count among that elite group, but I had never heard of her. Which is really not that rare an occurrence for me with Nobel Lit Prize winners. I had heard of that Bob Dylan guy, though.
@wr:
I’d never heard of her, either.
@wr: Obligatory
@Gavin:
Yes. I heard that earlier this week. I like the way that they quantified “excess deaths”.
However, I take umbrage with the “In a result you’d never expect” part. Anyone with an education and an understanding of the germ theory of disease knew that this would be the outcome once Blue took shots and Red did not.
On the other hand “In a result that they never would believe” would summarize how the majority of GOP will see that report right now, and how they will be shocked, shocked (!) that more of them will die this winter.
Clearly not a report or statistics that will get onto Fox.
The Cleveland Guardians scored the only run of the game in the bottom of the 15th inning at home against the Tampa Bay Rays winning the best of 3 Wild Card series. Guardians will face the New York Yankees in the 5 game American League Division series.
The Saint Louis Cardinals squandered home field advantage by losing to the Phillies last night. They now have their red tail feathers against the wall tonight in Saint Louis. Even if they win tonight the Cardinals will have to fly to Philadelphia to win a game on the road or fly south for the winter.
@Liberal Capitalist:
I believe @Gavin was being sarcastic.
Still, plenty in the GQP might think only like five people have died of COVID, and the rest are inflated stats to make one Cheeto look bad (as though eh needed help in that regard). Remember a bunch who said they were infected with anthrax?
Given the pandemic fatigue and people abandoning masking and other sensible measures, the biggest differentiator now must be vaccines. Even without boosters, one is better protected with them. Those who choose not to take them are at much higher risk of a euphemistic “worse outcome.”
@Mister Bluster:
Still sounds like a Rollerball team name. I can see James Cann skating for them. 🙂
@gVOR08:
Personally, I always thought Dylan Thomas was miles better than the nasal whiner.
He should have realised his true role was as lyricist for the Byrds and Jimi Hendrix.
😉
Actually I do like a lot of Bob Dylan’s stuff, but can never resist the temptation to troll Dylan fans. Because Thomas WAS a better poet, and that’s that.
(Goes burrowing for D. Thomas Complete Works; it’s here somewhere, dammit.)
Speaking of COVID, I just got back from a spreader event, a civil wedding ceremony. There was one person masked, namely me.
I got to argue with a relative who claimed COVID isn’t spreading that much anymore, so precautions like masking are no longer necessary. I disagreed, and he asked how much longer I intended to mask. I replied until widespread contagion died down.
“That won’t ever happen,” he said.
“You just claimed it already had a second ago,” I replied.
One can begin t see the problem.
I would be delighted if there’s no huge surge this winter, but I’m not hopeful about that. In any case, I intend to keep masking until at least March, as flu will be active even if the trump virus isn’t.
@CSK: @wr: I’d never heard of her either, but I don’t do literature. I carry my Cultural Philistines membership card in my wallet all the time in case I need to clarify the issue.
I stumbled across the article in yesterday’s TNR recap, so I thought I’d ask.
@JohnSF: I may be feverish, but I like Dylan’s later work so much more than his earlier stuff.
Love and Theft and Modern Times are two of my favorite albums. Even when not feverish!
(And his more recent rock albums are fine. Tempest has a great long rambling song that summarizes the movie Titanic. That jazz album, on the other hand… no)