Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, May 18, 2025
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33 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).
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Had a very cool, unique weather occurance this past Thursday. Usually, obviously, when there’s a light rain or drizzle, the street and sidewalks are all damp but it will be dry underneath a leafy tree. On this morning though, it was very foggy and we have these cone bearing trees by my apt with needles instead of leaves. So, because of the dewey fog, the only places on the ground that were wet were direcly underneath the trees, and no where else. And walking under them, it was like a random odd sort of rain where I got hit with these very large droplets of water randomly. Hadn’t seen or obseved that before. Thought it was pretty cool. Worth a share.
Chairman Trump’s Cultural Revolution of right here now compared to Chairman Mao’s 1960’s cultural revolution.
“Kindler”
…
Quote below is an example of how fatuous and ridiculous the Trumpist economic ideas are – you could see Krugman’s newsletter today for an explanation of how ridiculous the manufacturing obsession is:
Government by crackpots, this shit is as ridiculous as the Curtis Yarvin stuff and Musk’s Mars fetish. All sorts of goofballs in this administration, various flavors of crackpottery. You could also consider the various Navarro/Bessent/Lutnick flavors of economic goofiness.
I was catching up on my back issues of National Geographic yesterday. The November 2024 issue focused a lot on AI. One article in particular caught my eye: How AI is revealing lost secrets of the Roman Empire.
It was, like a lot of the article in that edition, a positive view of AI in astronomy, medicine, archaeology, etc.
But the name Luke Farritor trigger a recognition so I googled him. Sure enough he is one of the smart guys of DOGE creating havoc in the federal government. Here is his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Farritor.
I think that while people may demonize these whiz kids, they are primarily young and naive and having the time of their lives. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the consequences of their work nor the motivations of their bosses.
Tornadoes and other bad weather struck the heartland of America these past few days resulting in deaths and economic losses. I’ve seen some reports that DOGE chainsaw damage to NWS and NOAA contributed to the harm. We should investigate this.
Only for the strong of stomach:
http://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-ai/
@charontwo:
That’s a big admission of what the left has been doing. Will you also admit they’ve targeted those same institutions? There’s no reason not to admit it, because those institutions cover almost everything.
@CSK:
Wowsers Penny. Truly NSFW.
ETA, speaking of NSFW, I just flashed a mental image of him as Ms Nicks singing “Leather and Lace” with the late Tom Petty. Yeppers, Luddite’s one sick puppy. Don’t let me play with AI.
I would caution readers about trying to engage commenters who ask questions but refuse to answer them.
While it would be nice for a real conversation to blossom, it won’t.
@Fortune:
What I will say is that whataboutism is a really popular tactic by rightist folks. I would say a real stretch in this case.
On the left, people trying to update various systems, that’s what progressive action is.
On the right, people nihilistically destroying things that work well, so as to create rubble on which something supposedly better can be substituted as a total replacement. I don’t see nihilism as typical left behavior, but I suppose I live in objective reality, not Fox News “reality.”
@Steven L. Taylor:
Point taken, but I couldn’t resist taking a shot at such an easy fish in a barrel to target.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Yes, it’s ghastly, isn’t it?
Apparently on Truth Social Trump has also posted “The Video Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Want you to See,” which links her to the deaths of JFK Jr., Seth Rich, Vince Foster, and a list of others.
@charontwo: I totally understand the temptation. I have fallen for it myself more than I would like to admit. But the sad truth is that the person in question does not want an honest, good-faith interchange. They act like they want a conversation, but they don’t.
There is never going to be an actual argument (as in a back-and-forth with reasons and evidence).
Just look at how much Matt wrote in Friday’s Forum and the paltry responses provided.
I am not sure what the commenter in question wants, but it isn’t a genuine interaction, and it always ends in frustration.
Consider how much one has to even guess as to what their initial points are.
Its all a trap.
Mike Huckabee had a plan to educate American Citizens at gunpoint. This must qualify him to be the United States Ambassador to Israel
@Flat Earth Luddite: “f him as Ms Nicks singing “Leather and Lace” with the late Tom Petty”
For shame! Leather and Lace was her duet with Don Henley. The Tom Petty collaboration was Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.
@Slugger:
I’ve always said Trump’s real name should be Tornado Maker.
This reminds me of the old Monty Python skit – “Can you spot, the looney.”
What a difference a President makes. The same phenomenon is occurring in the secret sevice and military.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seen a massive boost in recruiting numbers after years of low morale under former President Joe Biden, according to an internal memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, CBP saw a massive 44% spike in applications from January to May 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to the memo. Under Biden, CBP struggled to stem the tide of millions of migrants while the administration mostly ignored its requests for help, causing low recruitment figures while low morale caused suicides among agents to spike.
You know, in and of itself, I think trying to develop technology that would enable humans to travel to Mars and perhaps settle there is one of the most benign things that an extremely rich person could do with their money.
At this point, Musk has done many, many things that I think are a big, big problem. This is not one of them.
@Connor: The claim is not that the mythical weather control machine was left unattended, but that cuts to NWS and NOAA resulted in greatly delayed warnings.
At first glance, this claim appears plausible — there are usually warnings issues earlier (relative to the tornados touching ground), and there have been deep cuts. Whether the cuts themselves were to blame… yet to be proven, but this is the sort of problem that people were warning of.
Do keep up.
@Fortune: Ms. Fortune, The left has nuts and the right has nuts. Almost every comenter here acknowledges that. You are what’s considered a right nut. Nuts are bad–unless they hang from trees or dudes. Don’t be a nut.
@Connor: You must think you’re talking to idiots. How many new agents did these organizations actually hire since 20 Jan? Applications spike? Lololololololololol.
@wr:
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea.maxima.culpa
In my defense, I was chocking on my coffee after that image.
Secondly, it was nearly 50 years ago, and remember, I was always the drummer sitting in front of the amps. Brain damage and memory issues were an occupational hazard.
ETA and unlike a certain former President, I did inhale
@Connor: And yet, prosecutions of those who hire undocumented workers remains nearly nonexistent. It’s almost as if the goal isn’t really fewer undocumented workers, but more-frightened undocumented workers, who are more desperate and willing to work for less.
How many of the people being arrested and dumped into concentration camps had jobs? 50%? More? That’s a lot of employers getting off Scott Free.*
Employers who didn’t want to hire a good, hardworking American.
*: Scott Free is the DC Comics character Mr. Miracle, who is a god of freedom, in the form of an escape artist. When I say that employers are getting off Scott Free, I mean they are rubbing his crotch. Either that, or autocorrect capitalized Scott in scott free and I decided to go with it,
According to NBC, the guy who tried to blow up the Palm Spring fertility clinic (and killed himself in the process) was an anti-natalist, believing that no one should have children.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/palm-springs-fertility-clinic-bomb-anti-natalism-rcna207543
@Flat Earth Luddite: I absolve you. Say three Hail Stevies and you’ll be fine…
Florida has executed suspected serial killer and convicted murderer Glen Rogers. His last words were: “President Trump, keep making America great.
It must be wonderful to have monsters cheering you on.
@CSK: That was hilarious! The funniest part for me was realizing that the video and audio didn’t match at all.
@Steven L. Taylor: The “tell” there is the conflation of the Kindler citation with “what the left has done.” But sure as the sunrise, someone will try to set whoever straight.
@wr: Yeah. I was wondering about that when he and I went out for coffee this morning. I didn’t bring it up at the time tho.
ETA: @wr: I love it!! Lol!
@Gustopher: Sadly for Connor/Ishkabibble/Stradivarious, “the plane, the plane” has reduced him/her/it to making random quips about anything where a punch might be landed. Feel sad about the loss of a once worthy troll.
(Okay, don’t feel sad. It’s all for the good.)
According to the NYT, Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/politics/biden-prostate-cancer.html
About the Global demonstration flights, here’s a link to several reviews about it.
I don’t often watch video reviews of flights, as I find them more tedious than informative, but I did check out this one.
What came to mind was “Potemkin Airline.”
What all agree on, is that’s the farthest a hare-brained, poor business plan, startup airline has ever come. or nearly so. There was Freedom Air, which managed three roundtrip flights.
Since Global did a charter flight in Europe before their inaugural flight, they only have one more to go to tie Freedom’s record. Fortunately for them, one is planned.
Romania has evidently rejected their local Trump toady. The ‘populist’ wave doesn’t seem to have much momentum. Trump is uniting the world against him and damaging his fellow MAGAdmirers around the world. His only remaining friends* are Putin, Kim Jong Un and Orbán, though that latter is going to have to reconsider who he wants as a friend.
*The Gulf Arab states are not friends, they’re Trump’s employers.
@Jay L Gischer:
I would add that while people-to-Mars may be a Musk vanity project, or as @charontwo said, “Musk’s Mars fetish,” he stands receive a windfall of government money if the U.S. goes forward with a crewed Mars project. There was a cost estimate of half a trillion dollars a few years ago, and the actual cost would almost certainly be many times higher, with much of that money going to Musk-SpaceX, if he has anything to say about it.
Speaking of half-trillion-dollar cost estimates, the one by the CBO for the so-called Golden Dome project was mentioned in the Forum a couple of days ago—the Space Force chief expects that the cost will be higher. An order of magnitude increase would not surprise many of us, although I don’t think we know the scope of work except that it would be a largely space-based defensive system for the whole country. And not surprisingly, SpaceX, partnering with the well-connected Palantir Technologies, is jockeying for Golden Dome money, for which they could have an inside track.
(Can’t help but think that Golden Dome is a stupid name. So it’s like the iron one, but it’s golden, except it’s not really like the iron one? I’d suggest calling it SDI3K, or better yet, something original.)