Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, May 17, 2025
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38 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
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
“Friday’s Forum”. You had one job š
@Jon: Geez dude, let’s be better.
I assure you that our esteemed hosts here have far more than one job.
@Tony W:
TBH, in terms of paid employment, I currently have less* than one job.
* – Thanks to a small contract, I cannot say I have ZERO paid jobs… but definitely less than one.
check
@charontwo:
Yeah, I see the counts are off on mobile. š
@charontwo:
Yeah, I see the counts are off on mobile. š
@Matt Bernius:
And doing double-headers as well.
@Matt Bernius:..counts are off…
In your post Update About Site Updates
The place to report bugs and post “test” comments
you stated:
“Hereās my askāif things are not looking right, can you comment about it here (and only here).”
Does this request still apply?
@Matt Bernius: Here’s hoping for a change in your job status that will meet your needs economically and sustain your soul.
@charontwo:
Yeah, I see the counts are off on mobile. š
@Matt Bernius:..counts are off…
In your post Update About Site Updates
The place to report bugs and post “test” comments
you stated:
“Hereās my askāif things are not looking right, can you comment about it here (and only here).”
Does this request still apply?
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Matt: Edit is working on this post.
Thank you for your efforts!
I give up.
Twice I attempted to post the comment above “counts are off”. After an extended buffering routine I got a message that the page was not available both times and I could not see my post.
Then I made a note about animal behavior and suddenly both my posts appeared.
Let’s see what happens when I attempt to post this.
@Mister Bluster:
Sorry about those issues. I am about to test a new caching plug in to see if that fixes this ongoing issue.
Easy Apache is making my life out rather OTB’d life not great.
@mattbernius:
Your comments are still posting multiple times.
Trump called James Comey a “dirty cop” in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox.
@mattbernius:
I know nothing about Easy Apache, but Iām quite certain that any product named āEasyā simply isnāt.
That goes with pretty much any adjective. I had a friend who hired Reliable Movers because Budget Moving was too expensive, and then was in a complete panic when Reliable Movers didnāt show up. Ended up having to fork out a lot of money to get Budget Moving to come and work overtime.
As long as I can read the blog posts and comments, and post my own comments, I really don’t mind if anything else, like the post count or the edit box, malfunctions.
Serious question: why is gold valuable?
No question why it was valuable when it served as currency, or even when it backed the value of paper money and coinage.
But that’s no longer the case anywhere I’m aware of.
There are practical uses for it, of course. Most notably jewelry, decoration (mostly gold leaf), and several industrial uses and in electronic components, and assorted others. So it’s not useless (few elements are completely useless).
I have tentatively concluded gold is valuable because people believe it’s valuable.
@Kathy:
As you note, because we say it is.
Full stop.
And that insight is one of the reasons that Trump’s flirtations with damaging the dollar as a reserve currency are so dangerous.
Value is ultimately a function of collective action.
@Kathy: Yes, platinum and palladium prices have not moved much. They both have uses in jewelry and industry, but gold is a special case. Gold is currently priced at 99 times silver; historically the ratio is 40-80 to one.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@Slugger:
It’s sad to realize how screwed up high finance is.
It also explains why stuff like crypto and NFTs are valuable.
@CSK:
When he’s right, he’s right. Credit where due.
@Kathy: The recent price spike in gold is partly because it is a hedge for Chinese facing deflation with very few options.
@DK: I have no love for Comey, but has he ever been accused of a crime? Could he sue Trump for defamation?
@DK:
Trump’s reasons for thinking Comey’s a dirty cop are much different from yours.
@Steven L. Taylor: u
Not many things can work as a common currency. Has to be something rare but not too rare, and something that doesn’t rot or degrade.
@Lucysfootball:
I’m no lawyer, but I think the standards for a public figure to pursue a defamation suit are higher than they would be for a regular person.
The MAGAs are saying that Comey did this with the shells to get publicity for his latest book.
This is amusing. The bronze statue of Melania Trump in Slovenia, the one that replaced the wooden statue that someone set on fire has been sawn off at the ankles and stolen.
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2025/05/17/melania-trump-statue-stolen/83697069007/
Probably on the orders of Melania herself, given that the replacement was nearly as heinous as the original.
@dazedandconfused:
I realize it is a tad more complicated than I note, but ultimately, the value of things is socially derived. Without people valuing things, they have no value.
Money is utterly an invention.
@Steven L. Taylor: I would note that most of the wealth of people reading this sentence exists as 1s and 0s in a computer or in some other abstraction.
@Steven L. Taylor:
A useful invention, nonetheless, barter economies are quite clumsy. I can imagine it might be difficult to explain our gold industry to aliens from a planet that found other means to operate though.
“Why do you dig massive mines for gold? The stuff is soft, almost useless. What do you do with it?”
“We carefully purify it and then stick it right back underground in vaults!”
(com to alien base) “There is an industrialized civilization on this planet. Classification: Barking-mad.”
You know what sucks? Asking for vacation time and having to come in on Saturday. Were it not the biggest of the yearly contracts, I’d have told them to finish iy without me. as is, we have like 8,647 things to finish today…
And then I had an idea for a side dish, which just made me wonder why I hadn’t thought about it before: air fried mashed potato cakes.
I did go online to look for recipes, and there were several. I figured mixing the mashed potatoes with breadcrumbs and egg, then roll them in breadcrumbs, spray them with oil, and air fry them.
Seriously, it’s so freaking obvious I should have thought of it two years ago when I first got an air fryer.
@Kathy:
What?!
@DK: Agree with your shock. Potato cakes should be pan fried in schmalz, duck schmalz preferably.
@DK:
I figure if there are recipes for it… If it’s on the internet it’s legit š
Seriously, I got to think about what to make Monday (on vacation), and I was tossing around notions of mashed potatoes. I thought they’re a bit like shapeless dough, so maybe adding breadcrumbs or flour and a binding agent might get good results. So I thought about it, then went online to see how others have done it.
It’s ok. I got similar reactions when I came up with citrus cabbage. that’s sauteed cabbage, onions, soybean sprouts, diced carrots, maybe snow peas, with a sauce made up of soy sauce, orange juice, peanut butter, garlic powder, grated ginger, and sometimes a bit of honey.
On other things, I’m still at work, but with little to do. I got bored enough to start cleaning up piles of papers on my desk.
I really should have done that sooner. I found receipts, expense reports, price lists, and assorted other things clear to 2021 (!) I may come tomorrow to finish cleaning up.
@Slugger:
That would be potato pancakes. The pan is in the name.
But latkes are different. they’re made with raw, grated potato and onions, among like 8,647 other things or steps. Which is one reason I’ve never attempted them (the other is the frying). Mashed potato cakes have no long cultural tradition.