Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, November 9, 2025
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34 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).
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We were talking television programming yesterday. Here’s the lineup for Russian television
Bowling for Rubles
My mother the tank
Everybody Loves Sergei
The Boris and Natasha Show- See our heroes do battle against the imperialistic moose and squirrel
Putin knows Best
The Sochi Hillbillies
Tovariches
Get Zelensky
Love Siberian Style
To Catch a Romanov
The Streets of Vladivostok
Firing Squad
Set your DVRs accordingly
@Bill Jempty: Some programming I forgot
Battlestar Potemkin
The KGB
Third Dacha from the Kremlin
and tonight’s movie
When Yuri meets Olga
Hate to be cynical but why does this have Theranos written all over it?
How a Texas congressman won support for a cancer test that’s dividing doctors
This strikes me as important. Have there been other times where the judicial branch has challenged the justification statements of the executive.
Judge rules Trump administration failed to meet legal requirements for deploying troops to Portland
Yesterday I asked Copilot a leading question about what should be done with unsafe products or services, which can even result in death (nudge wink). It gave a reasonable answer about fixing, changing, or recalling the product or service.
Then I asked when Open AI, Microsoft, et al would take such steps with their LLMs.
Here’s the full short conversation
It mentions pressure on AI companies for accountability, voluntary commitments, pending regulation and such. But notice these two parts:
Emphasis added.
Just about everything can be dangerous if misused. But also just about everything either comes with instructions and warnings, or proper use is well known. This is not the case with LLMs.
True. However, there is an easy mechanism for it just the same. While billions may have installed apps and browser extensions, and while it’s been integrated in browsers and other apps as well, all the LLM functions run on the infamous data centers.
So, just have the AI companies cut off access, and the service is recalled.
Which won’t happen in a billion trillion years.
The sports headline of the day- NCAA finds 6 players from 3 schools involved in fixing games
The Florida headline of the day- At least 4 killed after driver slams into Tampa bar, 11 others injured
I have decided to start scavenging firewood instead of buying it. We have tried several different suppliers in the last few years and have been sorely disappointed every time. Never a full cord, lots of debris, cut too short, everything split in slivers with no good back logs, etc. And prices have tripled for no good reason other than good ole Trumpian greed.
There’s literally tons of red, white and post oak trees up here. A few major storms downed lots of trees the last few years. There are two big hickory trees, seasoned and ready to burn, that I have my eye on. We bought a battery powered chain saw I need to master. Scary.
The last few mornings I dragged a limb home from Sadie’s and my walk. Who needs a gym when there are logs to haul?
@becca:
Buy the protective gear, chaps, chest protector, etc. Chainsaw accidents are messy.
@Sleeping Dog: Mr becca has always handled the chain saws in the past. He’s not chipper enough now to handle it. Soon, though, we hope. He’s always been big on respecting the danger of power saws of any type. We have an old friend who almost lost an eye and got a very nasty scar when a chain saw bounced back on him. A cousin lost parts of two fingers and a thumb on her table saw.
I have a log splitter that’s manual and easy to use and plenty of kindling, so I don’t need axe, either. I know several axe horror stories, too, come to think of it.
Fatso, this morning, promised Americans a $2,000 dividend from the tariffs. BTW, 150M tax payers x $2,000 = $300B. I’m already online spending mine!!!
More curiously, he is urging the Senate to…do something? I don’t understand it. Can anyone make sense of this?
In a Truth Social post Saturday morning, Trump wrote:
Seriously. What does this mean???
@Daryl: Means he has no clue how the healthcare system works.
@Daryl: Trump just proposed universal healthcare!
Health insurance exec’s are not going to be happy being singled out for maga wrath. I hope Rick Scott is paying attention.
@becca: I have a lot of experience with axes, and not as much using chainsaws, but lots watching my father use them. I have had to cut up a few downed trees though with my electric chainsaw.
My advice is: Establish a safety routine and follow it religiously. What does the branch, log tree need to be stable enough? Is your ground stable enough? Where will the cut off bits fall?
Take your time. Develop a feel for what the blades are doing. I think the battery powered saws probably have some safety cutouts where the chain will stop before the saw kicks back on you. The old-school gas-powered ones, not so much.
Good luck!
A splitter is good. Use it.
AND, there is nothing that feels better than have a dry, straight grained piece of wood on the block and splitting it clean with one swing of your axe. It’s more than strength. There’s technique, a straight swing, and timing involved. Also, the wood matters a lot.
This stuff (axes and saws) needs the utmost respect always. And neither I nor my father ever were injured by one.
My mother’s father was a shingle weaver. He cut shingles from blocks of cedar using a big band saw at sawmills. He was quite proud that in all his years on that job, he only ever lost one joint from his little finger to the saw.
@becca:
Just be careful,okay?
@becca:
Just be careful,okay?
@becca:
Just be careful,okay?
@becca:
Just be careful,okay?
@becca:
Limbs are one thing. Trees, another.
I’ve never tacked an entire tree with my electric saw. Based on how it performs on limbs I’d say, at minimum, you’re gonna need multiple batteries. Also, the chains are smaller and thus, I assume, less durable.
I’m impressed by your ambition. I know a couple people that have scavenged firewood. They didn’t do it for more than a couple seasons because it’s so much work.
More about what expensive luxury products are actually worth once you actually make use of them.
I find it a bit odd he didn’t show more of the workings of all the phones he splurged on. Usually he does just that on videos related to phones.
Anyway, past the concierge service, which seemed good, there was nothing shown on the video that would justify paying such outrageous sums for a phone. Especially given smart phones are kind of a temporary product replaced every other year or so (whether they should be is a different matter).
The rich just have more money.
In case anyone’s interested, Lex Bezos will attempt to launch one of his non-phallic rockets today. Here’s a link to a live webcast on Youtube
It carries a NASA probe heading to Mars.
According to Perplexity AI, Adolf’s XpaceS has yet to launch anything to mars. So Lex would beat him at that 😉
@Daryl: for about 3 years we heated solely with wood in a big old King wood heater. This was off Franklin Road in Nashville. We rented the former servants cottage behind a rundown mansion. I kept a basket to go out and break off small branches for kindling. You could cook on the cast iron if you lifted up the ugly brown enameled casing. Lots of session guys lived on land and were always happy to let us bring our ‘79 Hawaiian Blue GMC pickup and load up. There’d be great weekend long lumberjack parties which included a pig roast.
So many great memories created just trying to stay warm.
@CSK: I miss you!
@Kathy: Related, starting tomorrow the FAA has banned daytime rocket launches to reduce the ATC load.
@Scott: These blood tests are interesting. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41173830/
They tested 110,000 people and found 258 cancers in the referenced article. Lives saved are not clear, but they did find one stage 1 cancer of the pancreas that is unlikely to have been found otherwise. I didn’t see any cost information.
I’m certainly in favor of supporting innovative approaches to cancer detection and treatment. I fear mandating a specific technology risks locking us in; perhaps some other technology to be developed in 2026 will be better than this, and legal boosts for this will delay the next step.
@Daryl: I’d say the information is that Trump is aware he’s causing inflation, and it’s making him nervous and jerky.
@CSK: With your pretty amazing four post there, I’m going to suggest you stay away from chainsaws at least for today. 😉
Also, you’re missed and I hope your recovery is going well. Or well-ish at least.
@Michael Cain:
The launch was scrubbed. So maybe they already did? 😀
ETA, I thought you were joking.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/faa-restricts-commercial-rocket-launches-indefinitely-due-to-air-traffic-risks-from-government-shutdown
Joke’s on me, then.
@Kathy: As more companies follow SpaceX’s lead on the number of flights from Kennedy/Canaveral in Florida, Starbase in Texas, and Vandenberg in California, there’s going to have to be some changes to the exclusion zones, or the launch window lengths, or something. It’s not a fantasy that we’ll reach the point where some sizeable chunk of the Atlantic east of Florida is off limits to air- and ocean-traffic for some random four hours every day. Online, I’ve seen speculation about how big a fine Carnival will pay for entering the exclusion zone 20 minutes before the launch window closed.
Visited the kids in the Bay Area, part one of our absurdly torturous and still uncertain path to Lisbon. And oddly, both kids seem happy. A more mismatched pair you could not find. The one who just weant back to Uni at age 28 and says she’s rediscovered her love of math (that’s maths, if @JohnSF comes by), and that she’s good at it. She’s in love, which is a good thing. Risky emotionally, but a good thing.
The other daughter, coming from China at age four, has been the turtle to daughter #1’s hare. Blossomed isn’t half of it. Without aid of drugs, with sheer willpower, she dropped 100 pounds and is her old elfin self again. She’s painting the walls and fixing the tile in the house we let her use with her most excellent boyfriend (basically husband) and keeping a high GPA in a vet tech course.
We fear the irony gods around here, so no one is declaring success. But they’re both kinder, more thoughtful and rather less felonious than I was at their ages. That is the job of parenting as I see it: you absorb the damage from your own upbringing and try not to pass it on. I don’t get fathers who seem intent on raising their kids to be just like dad. That feels like narcissism. Isn’t the job to improve and not replicate?
@Michael Cain:
That won’t be easy. Launch windows are rather particular and inflexible. Usually less so for satellites than for probes, but not always. Some are unique. Probes have more predictable launch windows, but also more inflexible.
Eight Senate Democrats have agreed to the majority’s terms to end the shutdown, getting only minor concessions and apparently a verbal promise to have a future Senate vote on ACA. But no one believes Mike Johnson would let an ACA subsidy bill get a House vote, or that Trump wouldn’t veto such a bill if it ever hit his desk.
But… The House will have to come out of recess to pass it. What will Johnson’s excuse be for not swearing in Rep Grijalva? How will he justify delaying her swearing-in until after Mikie Sherrill resigns the House to become Governor in January?
ETA: Schumer isn’t one of the eight, but this split in the conference provides the impetus for Senate Democrats to replace him as leader.
Currently sitting at a SLC airport hotel with a clear view of both southern runways to SLC International. They are jamming them in. I saw 12 line up in the sky, land within 5 minutes of each other. Then they switched runways and brought another 8 in, I assume that’s cargo. Outgoing flights are probably on the northern side.
Experienced pilots and experienced ATC controllers, I think. I tried to get a time-lapse from the balcony of all those planes lining up with the traffic of I-80 whizzing by on the ground, my time lapse gave up before they all landed.
Testing. I got redirected to a 403 error page when posting a link to Youtube. I’m trying to determine whether it was the link or something else.
ETA must have been the link. Nothing important, just a video showing tests of fast charging vs slow charging phones. TL;DR: fast charging does not appreciably affect your phone battery’s health.
@Eusebio:
They sat in conference today deciding which 8 could best take the hit of pissing off their voters. I don’t for a second believe that it happened over Schumer’s objections.
And, with it happening roughly unannounced, on a Sunday, to avoid their constituents getting a chance to make themselves heard before the vote on the deal, I think it’s a particularly shitty way to run a government. Every single Democratic Senator should be primaried (have any called for Schumer to step down? If so, they can stay). Cowardly, useless motherfuckers.
They didn’t want their Thanksgivings disrupted.
If they aren’t going to have a backbone, just give up early. Or become Republicans and get it over with. What fucking assholes.