Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, October 4, 2025
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18 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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A little bit of fun history for Saturday morning. I love the mock up design.
That Time Ford Designed A Nuclear-Powered Car, The Nucleon
I’m going to roast a chicken today. It’s been sitting on a rack, uncovered, in the fridge for 2 full days. Simple dry brine. The skin should be good and crispy, but the meat tender and moist. Think turkey. A good roast chicken is something not everyone takes the time prepare, but it’s worth it.
Here’s a simple, sinful and delicious way to use the last of the late summer tomatoes. Mix equal parts mayo and grated Parmesan. Sprinkle thick slices of tomato with corn meal or bread crumbs. Dollop the creamy mixture on top and broil until bubbly and brown.
@Scott:
Plus FSD by the end of the year. Next year. Soon. No, really. Heeeere it comes. . . by the end of the year. Any day now. Tell you what, pay for it now, and you’ll get it in six months. Possibly five years. Or so.
How long will it be before Kash Patel can’t get anyone at the FBI to bring him coffee?
He already managed to alienate huge amounts of the veteran agents with his incompetence. Now he’s decided that instead of letting Comey appear in court, he’s going to send “beefy agents in full kit” to arrest him and “perp walk” him. He ordered a supervisory agent in the violent crimes division to put together the team — and the agent refused, saying it was inappropriate for a white collar defendant. And Kash suspended him.
Now they’re looking for another supervisor to put together the team to humiliate their former director, but others have also refused the order.
If Kash hopes this will be a loyalty test, he’s going to get what he’s looking form. But the loyalty his agents show won’t be to him…
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-agent-relieved-duty-over-refusing-comey-perp-walk-four-people-familiar-say-2025-10-03/?ftag=YHF4eb9d17
Yesterday, I followed the deep state, pharmaceutical industry dictates and got my flu (hi-dose) and Covid vaccines. I’m hoping this time the attempted connections to 5g through the Bill Gates chip actually works.
@becca: I decided to use some turkey bone broth and meat I’d frozen to make turkey noodle soup today. Snow in the high country, supposed to be quite cold the next few days. Turkey noodle soup sounds perfect!
Flies in everyone’s ointments —
Meanwhile, Czech Republic is poised to shift towards Hungary and Slovakia’s pro-Russia stance, threatening loss of material support for Ukraine. Talk of EU exit has also become more prounounced —-
There could come a point where NATO’s “mandate” to support Ukraine is so hobbled by Putin’s Euro-satellites, that separate defense pacts will be formed between and among Ukraine and its European allies —- giving way to a complicated patchwork of Europian diplomatic relations and entangled obligations. Sound familiar?
Followup on Czechnia elections:
How did Czechnia’s dramatic shift transpire?
Existing internal Euro alliances are alreading straining with alternate alignments in ascendancy.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/04/prague-gave-ukraine-1-5-million-shells-now-it-might-join-hungary/
This only gets messier and more convoluted from this point. Abetted by the many tentacles of the Putin transformed/repurposed state security apparatus he acquired from Soviet era surplus.
A lighter side to our national crisis of performative stupid. I kid you not, the accompaning graphic suggests a literal “space aircraft carrier” as an aerospace advancement.
See, you actually “land” the spacecraft on the deck, in space!!! — rather than merely dock to a space station in proven and customary form. Boring!
In light of this development, Our Stable Genius is likely to direct our newly re-christianed DOW (Department of War) to pursue the design of space submarines to go with the space aircraft carrier (after some lobbyist-whisperer shows him the space carrier graphic). Sheer brilliance! Jetpacks for everyone!
Grab a sharpie, he’s on a roll!
Outer space will now be referred to in all government publications as “OUR Space” (selected over the rejected “MySpace” as more unifying).
Orbital Aircraft Carrier Revealed”
It’s a just a space station, a large space station. The end result will be configured as a literal space station, not a literal aircraft carrier.
And about resurrecting those ginormus non-stealth behemoth battleships in the age of hypersonic missiles and drone swarms — our national security is in good hands, tiny, but good hands.
And no beardos, no fatties, and no women allowed in our warfighters club!!! That’s all for now. Gonna grab me a Brawndo, kick back and watch some Gutfeld!
If every time inflation goes high the electorate turns to fascists, I say we make fix the Fed’s discount rate permanently at 6%
@Rob1:
1) OMG! It looks like a child’s birthday cake from the 1970s.
2) Unless they’ll be making or stockpiling satellites in their “carrier”, it will be no use for deployment. It’s like saying you can move troops faster to, say, Antarctica, if you build a gigantic base at the South Pole.
Every gram of satellite has to be lifted to orbit with a rocket. A super-duper-effing-big-and-I-mean-BIG-heavy lifter, say like the Sea Dragon, would be more useful in deploying satellites.
@Scott:..sound familiar?…
Only after I realized that I had read the same paragraph for the second time.
Janis Joplin RIP
January 19, 1943-October 4, 1970
Cry Baby
Encore
(I’m cryin’ baby. I’m listening to the Cubs game.)
@Kathy:
And I was so hoping (for a brief moment), that the “space elevator” going to be a real thing.
Just one cable stands between us and space elevators
A space elevator to the Moon is now within reach thanks to modern technology
Space Elevators Could Totally Work—if Earth Days Were Much Shorter
Space Elevators – a role in planetary defence?
For goodness sake, do not show any of these pictures to “you-know-who” or we will be chasing “space escalators” with billions of taxpayer dollars.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Piece of My Heart
@Rob1:
Ye gods.
Are they serious?
Just dump a mass load of pebbles on an intersecting retrograde orbit, and it’s utterly and comprehensively shagged.
@Rob1:
@Rob1:
I checked. There are no extant space elevators yet 😉
Seriously, it’s a great idea that ought to be pursued. But it won’t be cheap or easy, and will require at the very least thousands of launches (reminder, thousands is the interval from 2,000 through 999,999).
One good thing is that if you manage to run a line from the ground to the anchor point (a bit past Clarke orbit; it’s required to provide tension to the system), you can then run the rest of the required construction materials up that thread until the whole thing is built.
Until then, rockets.
Unless someone invents antigravity.
@Rob1:
Just as just one cunning trick stands between me and my being a trillionaire, winning Wimbledon, selling out a stadium gig, winning the Nobel, and being adored by supermodels.
😉