Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 7, 2026
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24 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.
Today in scary aviation news, an SAS A320 mistakenly attempted to take off on a taxiway in Brussels. Then it rejected take off.
Such things happen now and then. Sometimes the plane even manages to successfully take off. It’s rare, and far less common that attempting to land on a taxiway. The latter tends to happen more in airports with parallel runways.
Anyway, the SAS flight stopped short of the airports fuel tank farm.
No equivocation here by Hakeem Jeffries.
https://bsky.app/profile/editorialboard.bsky.social/post/3me7xteo3y22i?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
One day we might get back to decorum. But this is not that day.
s
@Scott:
Per NBC, Trump says he won’t apologize for the video.
@CSK: Of course he won’t. He’s a classless pig. Always has been, always will be.
Besides, never apologizing is part of his attraction to the worst people who support him.
@Scott: A list of six lessons Roy Cohn taught Trump.
Trump learned real estate and racism at his father’s knee and assholery from Roy Cohn. I see little evidence he’s learned anything since.
@Scott:
Decorum has no place in the street brawl the Republiqans have made of politics.
@CSK:
An apology from El Taco is a sure sign of the end of the universe.
Dr. Taylor talks about the weakness of American political parties. Here’s an Oxford Political Scientist, Anton Jaeger, saying the weakening of parties has also occurred across Western Europe, They Used to Rule the West. Now They’re Dying. (Gift) He identifies the British Conservative Party as the oldest political party in the world, and thinks it may largely disappear in their next election. He sees Reform as replacing them as the conservative party, but doubts Reform’s staying power as they’re popular, but have no depth of loyalty or organization beyond Farage. He sees Republicans similarly, that money was able to take over because the party was hollowed out, and is now centered on Trump.
Jaeger sees politics in the West as a scissors, Krugman would call it K shaped. Life has become more political, in his phrase “hyperpolitical”, but at the same time parties have declined in influence.
So, only communist governments operate government-owned grocery stores.
Remind me again which government is responsible for the US military? I think it’s North Korea or Cuba, but I’m not sure.
@Kathy: Spent many years shopping at military exchanges. They were generally very well run and had good selections. They were subsidized. (As an aside when I was stationed at MacDill and would buy beer on base they had Rolling Rock and Yuengling in the imported beers section.)
Steve
@CSK: @Scott:
“Never apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.”
That’s a line John Wayne spoke in John Ford’s 1949 movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It resonated with a certain sort. Even as a child, I winced when it was uttered.
We used to watch NCIS with Mark Harmon. His character uttered the same line in an early episode. Some season later his character disavowed said statement. I thought that was pretty cool.
@becca:
Isn’t “never apologize; never explain” the motto of the British royals?
@Kathy: Exchanges provide goods at prices affordable to enlisted personnel especially with families and, overseas, provide U.S. goods, especially processed foods like popular American snacks, lunchmeats, canned goods, etc. not available in local markets.
@gVOR10: This sounds to me like it is the result of atomization and the destruction of social networks that has been trending for decades.
Here are some numbers on XpaceS:
Between $15 and 16$ billion in revenue in 2025
Xtarlink’s share of this revenue is stated very vaguely as being between 50% and 80%
So, I was right all along: an ISP with a rocket factory.
As to his bat crap crazy idea of putting AI data centers in orbit, this piece on The Guardian cites Adolf as to the need of as many as a million satellites.
I haven’t been able to find a definitive number of how many satellites currently orbit our planet, but the numbers range between 8 and 15 thousand. I’m not sure whether this includes inactive satellites, and certainly doesn’t include assorted debris like spent upper stages, or stuff that broke loose from satellites or crewed craft. Some satellites’ orbits degrade and the satellites burn up on re-entry (see Mir and Skylab for famous examples), some are de-orbited on purpose. Still, let’s say maybe as many as 50,000 satellites and spent stages have been launched into orbit since Sputnik 1 in the 50s.
Adolf’s fantasy project requires 20 times as many.
I’m sure if I dig around long enough in ancient Greek literature, I’ll find a warning or two about hubris.
This Guardian article about Tulsi Gabbard intercepting an NSA report and re-routing it to Suzie Wiles is WILD.
Oh, my. That’s…not appropriate.
Yikes. Well, surely the DNI didn’t *actively* obstruct things, right?
Oops. Well, surely this Dennis Kirk is an above-board, longtime member of the intelligence community, right?
Oh.
The Colorado Front Range is deep into Fool’s Spring. Shirt-sleeve temperature for walks. Denver’s forecast for kickoff time for the big game is somewhat better than Santa Clara’s.
For those not familiar with the joke, the Front Range is generally acknowledged to have twelve seasons each year:
Winter
Fool’s Spring
Second Winter
The Spring of Deception
Third Winter
Spring
The Pollening
Summer
Monsoon
False Fall
Second Summer
Fall
@CSK:
It’s “Never complain, never explain.”
And also, “Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said now? Does this need to be said by me?”
@DK:
Ah, thank you for the correction.
@Jen:
Yikes indeed. But it’s discouraging to think how few people will hear about this, let alone grasp the implications.
Meanwhile in the Med:
RAF Squadron 12 Typhoons have been moved to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
RAF Squadron 207 F-35’s have been moved to Cyprus.
It looks like London is anticipating the US/Iran situation possibly “going hot” quite soon.
@Michael Cain:
As opposed to the UK which has:
Winter.
Rain.
More sodding rain.
Yet more sodding rain.
Spring. (Interrupted by rain)
Summer. (With showers and storms)
Autumn. (Oh, some rain. How nice.)
Late Autumn: Back to sodding rain again.
Winter. (Rain may give way to sleet or snow)
Well, one more employee gone from WAPO:
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis abruptly resigns amid criticism of staff cuts I figure either he’s finished the job Bezos hired him to do, quietly killing the Post. Or he’s figured out whatever FOX clone business plan Bezos told him he wanted was BS and just cover for letting the Post die.
Neil deGrasse Tyson video where he makes the case of why no one is going to Mars any time soon, not even Adolf.
Unless China announces they’ll build military bases there.
@Kathy:
Oh please, leave me my dream of Elon on Mars.
Alone.
@JohnSF:
Why alone? There are so many broligarchs who should join him.