Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, October 18, 2025
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14 comments
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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).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
PSA More ways to switch AI off in various devices
I have always said that the designated hitter rule in Major League Baseball that allows a manager to keep a pitcher out of the batting lineup is for Little League. Last night the Los Angeles Dodger’s pitcher Shohei Ohtani proved me right. He walked the first Milwaukee Brewer to start the game then look out Louie! Ohtani struck out the next 3 batters on his way to striking out 10 hapless Brewers in 6 innings. Then Ohtani came to the plate to lead off the bottom of the first inning. Swing…Smack! Outta’ here! The crowd went nuts! But the first Ohtani home run was just a preview of what was to come. Ohtani hit his second home run all the way over the roof and out of the park! The crowd and the Dodgers dugout went crazy! Then Ohtani did it again! A third home run! Dodger Stadium came unglued!
What will Shohei Ohtani do in the World Series? Stay tuned!
(Dodgers won the game 5-1 and swept the best of 7 National League Championship Series 4 games to zero.)
Trump commuted George Santos’s sentence.
According to republicans, there is no such thing as white collar crime. Embezzling, bribes and extortion are all part of doing business in Trumplandia. Financial corruption is to be rewarded, not punished. There’s a difference between robbing the bank with a gun and robbing the bank with a fraud scheme. The former will land you in prison, the latter will give you a spot in Trump’s Cabinet.
Of course, this does not apply to democrats. iOKIYAR
Off to overthrow the king.
Somehow this linked in my mind with today’s protests and the protests in my youth against Vietnam.
But for this photographer, I really appreciated the description of the thought process behind the image, and the coolness under fire.
Wowsers!!!!!
https://apnews.com/article/2025-mexico-city-protest-ap-intern-extraordinary-photo?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share
Just the other day I noted unleaded regular pump price no discounts applied had dropped to $2.99/gal. here in Carbondale IL. Today gas here has dropped to $2.899/gal. at four gas stations. Twelve miles east in Marion, Williamson County IL, where gas is almost always cheaper than Carbondale by at least a few cents/gal. Gas Buddy shows 11 places where unleaded regular is $2.769/gal.
From The Verge
Again, this is YOUR photos on YOUR phone, whether you’ve uploaded them or not.
Nope, not going to go there. Wouldn’t be prudent.
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/802102/meta-facebook-opt-in-ai-edits-photos-camera-roll
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Even before this, I’d recommend uninstalling Fakebook from one’s devices. Now even more so.
An example of the true professionalism of the Trump administration
This story was regarding the choice of Budapest as the location for Trump-Putin talks:
When a reporter from HuffPost asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who chose the location, though, she didn’t seem to want to give a serious answer.“Your mom did,” she replied. Her remarks were echoed by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who responded with a more succinct, “Your mom.”
What’s next? Yo mama is so fat…
Here’s a classic, maybe she can use this one:
Yo mama so fat, when she buys a fur coat, a whole species goes extinct.
@Sleeping Dog:
Where? Boston or NYC?
Hey DK if you’re in Berlin, come join me at this.
Hey DK if you’re in Berlin, come join me at this.
The When We Were Young concert is going on within hearing as I smoke a joint on my balcony, and it’s frustrating because there are some great bands, and all I get is pounding bass and occasional mumbled vocals. They could play my whole playlist and I wouldn’t recognize a song.
I’ve done the impossible: I’ve used too much garlic.
In my defense, see above, I didn’t think that was possible. Also, I did taste it and at first it seemed fine. it’s only when you have a whole bite that it hits.
I blended some garlic (evidently too much), along with some cottage cheese, mustard, mayo, ketchup, and paprika. This is a sauce to be mixed with potatoes.
Well, it was too much garlic (I guesstimate half a whole head of it).
Fixing a done dish is not easy. I think I should mix in another sauce to dilute the first one. My first notion was gravy, since I can get that in a can and just dump it. But I’ll give the matter some more thought, and see what I can find at the stores tomorrow.