Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, November 29, 2025
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10 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.
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Yesterday we took an Uber from Estoril to Cascais. I have a rental car, so why Uber? Sigh. Neither Google maps nor Apple maps are capable of threading a way through the back streets. And one mistake at any given roundabout will make Avenida Marginal – which is about a quarter mile away – into a half-hour drive accompanied by much cursing.
Anyway, into Cascais where the weather was absolutely gorgeous, to Vodafone for the expected ordeal of getting internet and local phone numbers. 20 minutes for that process. But how many days or weeks would we have to wait for a tech to get to the house, this being Portugal after all, not Silicon Valley? 21 hours. Hours, not days. He showed up on-time, on a Saturday morning FFS, to install unlimited, 1 gig fiber, two local e-sim phone numbers with unlimited data, with no installation fees, for 62 euros a month.
Advantage: Portugal.
Had a big lunch in town, too, and I cannot deny that while the seafood is great, and the bread is better than Italy, if not quite French, the cuisine generally is dull. Just boring AF. The wine is good and very cheap, but yeah, when it comes to food, this is not Italy or France or even Spain. Healthier than Germany, though. Any major US city completely outclasses Portugal on food.
Advantage: US.
Tie Break: Number of MAGAts. Portugal for the win.
I hope to get better info soon.
Turns out Airbus found a problem in its A320 lineup, so they engaged in a coverup and blamed the JetBlue crew for poor training and…
Nah, just kidding. They issued a recall of affected A320 aircraft and airlines will apply the fix as fast as possible.
Yes, this is a major disruption, and just in time for US passengers returning from their Thanksgiving travel. But zero fatalities thus far and the solution is available.
I expect matters of product liability will be sorted in the courts, all over the world.
The above comment very carefully omitted the word “Boeing”.
On better news, Jeff Wright of Trojan War The Podcast and Odyssey The Podcast, is coming up with a book called The Full Disclosure Iliad.
I just hope there’ll be an audiobook and he’ll read it.
The Florida headline of the day- Sen. Rick Scott’s home in Naples targeted in attempted swatting incident on Thanksgiving
The headline of the day- Trinidad’s leader backtracks and says US Marines are in the country working on airport radar
@Kathy:
Dear Wife are setting sail on our cruise tomorrow. Our embarkation port is Port Everglades which is 40 miles from where we live. So no flying required.
When we go back and forth to South America for our Antarctica cruise, LATAM and Emirates* don’t use A320s for any of our flights.
Next March when I do a book signing tour will be different. Delta uses A321s for lots of domestic flights in the US. Those aircraft are apparently all right.
*- We’re taking Emirates from Buenos Aires to Rio. Our cruise ends in BA. After seeing BA and Iguazu Falls, DW and I are going to spend a few days in Rio. It is on both of ours bucket lists.
We watched Roofman. Amusing connections with my life: my first job was at Toys R Us, and one of my burglaries was a roof job. And there’s a line about him having probably genius level IQ but also being a dumbass. Can’t really argue that. But I was just irritated by his lack of tradecraft. If you’re a good burglar you don’t need or want a gun, all that does his ensure you’ll do time. And the man had no capacity to prioritize – he lacked ruth. Good work on the prison break though. And we share a thing for peanut M&Ms.
@Michael Reynolds: I have a character I play in certain situations. He had a habit, as a teenager, of breaking into places such as Gamestop so he could play advance copies of videogames at night. Also into other places where there are interesting loading docks so he could skateboard.
He got caught (as a juvenile). His first conversation with the public defender is “Well, you are charged with breaking and entering…”
To which he replied, “I never broke anything! Breaking is dumb. It draws attention. If I can’t do it without breaking anything, I don’t do it.”
Your exhortation about tradecraft sounds like something we might say in our tabletop games, in an appropriate moment.
@Michael Reynolds:
“He lacked ruth, and likewise reck.”
An observation on various nefarious I have known: intelligent impulse control tends not to be a strong point with most.
Also, you missed the horrid pun, there.
“Roofman lacked ruth”
I have no such restraint. 😉
[Sarc] I really must condemn South Park. Decades ago they made Team America,
World Police that apparently this administration’s (lower case a) playbook. [/sarc]
Sorry, calling Pete Kegseth a F…ing Douche isn’t enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOlLk9tgrU
Cough, loved it.