Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, March 12, 2026
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42 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
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BlueSky.
I’m going to throw out what is potentially the stupid question of the day:
Couple of notes on that question:
1. I’m still trying to refine that question. Have to ask the right question to get a good answer.
2. Assume for the question that Maslow’s Physiological needs are met, and most of the Safety needs are met.
3. The safety needs aren’t met because it calls for safety from emotional harm, which I’m doing to myself. That childhood trauma programming is fucking great.
4. I can’t get past the anhedonia and get emotional safety if I can’t ask for the things I want and desires. Asking for things is the absolute hardest thing for me because of what my parents did to me. For example, it once took me about a year and a lot of therapy for me to ask my partner if I could buy us new towels with my own money.
5. At this point I’m making a small distinction between “wants” and “desires”. This distinction may not actually exist.
6. I’ve more or less hit (hopefully) rock bottom again and I don’t want to spend the next six months actively suicidal again. There is a difference between passive and active, and I’m getting pretty close to the border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYa7H1EmpCM
Interview with Zelenskyy, worth a watch.
@Beth:
Is there any way we can support?
Iran does seem to have learned one lesson from the trump pandemic: supply chain disruptions have outsize global consequences
@Kathy:
To wit:
Iran is becoming more defiant in face of US-Israeli onslaught (Patrick Wintour, The Guardian)
Trump can quit when Iran says so (John Stoehr, The Editorial Board)
President Trumpstein Files is the worst in US history. Incompetent, warmongering criminal, liar, and pedophile. Totally unqualified in every way, and only got the job because he’s a white guy.
As noted previously in response to suggestions Khamenei 2.0 should rush for a deal — why? Operation Epstein Fury has successfully a) killed an elderly Iranian leader who was going to die soon anyway, b) depleted our stockpiles to reduce an Iranian navy and missle program that was never a threat to the US, c) increased election hopes for the worst, most incompetent, most anti-American premier in Israeli history, d) strengthened Russia’s and China’s cases against Ukraine and Taiwan while exposing limits in US power, e) justified North Korea’s nuclear program, f) worsened global inflation and g) I guess re-obliterated a nuclear program that was “totally obliterated!!11!!” last summer.
Objectives cannot be met without ground troops and occupation. And everybody including Iran knows that’s a no-go — noticed and flagged here and elsewhere well before airstrikes began.
So the regime is still in place while the US president publicly panics over his war’s economic and political blowback, further highlighting the stupidity of his DOGE disaster’s gutting of renewable energy projects.
Iran has no incentive to deal except on their terms.
On the bright side, the case for clean energy and against our fossil fuel addiction just got supercharged.
@Beth: You know, I once had the question “what do you need?” just kind of churn me up, and leave me sleepless. It feels similar.
All I can say is what I had to do is slow down and listen. To myself. To take all that stuff going on inside seriously. Not that it’s easy.
@Beth:
I think you’re asking, ‘why live?’
I realize you dislike me, but I do actually know something about this. I’ve been desperate.
Start with something small. I want to see the next season of The Pitt. I want to try Beluga. Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear Mozart performed in Vienna? Or something negative: I wonder how bad climate change will be? Curiosity. What’s in the next chapter? What’s the next episode of my life look like? It can be morbid curiosity – how fucked will things get? Or cynical curiosity – my life is never going to work out, but wouldn’t it be funny if it did?
And then there’s radical emotional and relationship surgery. I cut my parents entirely out of my life. Poof. All gone. I didn’t even attend their funerals. Anything that weakens you, remove it, forget it, change direction. Ruthless self-preservation.
In philosophical terms it’s decathexis. Everything you’re attached to, everything you believe, every bit of data in your head, drag it out into the light. Look at it. Ask yourself if it actually makes sense, if it’s true. If it’s not true, delete. Be brutally ruthless and honest, allow yourself no carve-outs. Once you’ve cleaned house you rebuild: cathexis. You identify the true things. You rebuild on the foundation of true things. You will be a different person.
And there’s the fundamental question: comedy or tragedy? It’s a choice. Am I a tragic figure, all wasted potential and pain? Or am I ridiculous: all wasted potential and pain? Tragedy feels grand and important. Comedy subverts that. Feeling grand and important sucks, knowing you’re just a fool blundering through life is a much happier approach.
At one point in my life I dyed my hair in a sleazy motel sink in Arizona to begin the fugitive life. Not a real emotional high. And at the moment I’m sitting on the balcony of my hotel room looking through the palm trees at the Pacific. If you think you know the future, no, you don’t. Woman plans, God laughs.
Of the 22 years I was on the run, the last ten were completely unnecessary: turned out the most dangerous charge had been dropped a decade earlier. A whole decade of paranoia completely wasted. And come on, that’s funny. God may not exist by the Irony Gods are real. Stay around for the punch line.
Ending Iran War Quickly Carries Big Risks for the U.S. and Allies (WSJ)
Ha. If the Gulf States want to point fingers, they should start with their buddy Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the Crown Prince of Bonesaws. Unmatched ability to goad others into doing his dirty work while he slithers away into the shadows unscathed. Snake.
The Median Voter Theorem is a Clarity Trap.
The author, Henry Farrell, is a Political Scientist, a member of the Crooked Timber group blog and was a contributor to the Monkey Cage back in WAPO’s glory days. He’s talking about a book called The Score by C. Thi Nguyen, which I just bought. And I just subscribed to Farrell’s free Substack.
It’s a particularly good trap when it tells you what you want to hear.
Farrell cites the textbook explanation of the econ version of the Theory, two shopkeepers who know people will patronize the closest store, so they eventually end up side-by-side at the exact middle of the road. (Which is to say they’re too dumb to compete on any other axis, price, quality, presentation.)
Farrell goes into some detail on how the Median Voter Theorem may hide reality. In the end he suggests not a strategy for Dems, but a recommendation we experiment. (Mamdani and Talarico come to mind.) I think he’s right, I think this is necessary, and I think it’s to some extent beside the point.
The middle is readily available to Dems precisely because the GOPs have abandoned it. They ain’t following the Median Voter Theorem. And yet GOPs hold the presidency, both houses, and the Court, FFS. The Theorem is about policy. People don’t vote on policy. The word voters pick to describe GOPs is “extreme”, which ain’t median. To describe Dems they pick “weak”. That is the problem we need to fix.
@Beth: For me I’ve always struggled to separate the things that I want from the things I want to want.
Boring example (because why would I give away the good stuff?), career growth. I definitely wanted to want to take more responsibility and be respected and all that stuff, but I would then sabotage it because in reality I’m a slacker who just wants to be left alone and am completely incapable of handling that much responsibility for any significant length of time as it made me miserable.
This difference between what I wanted to want and what I actually wanted led to a great deal of confusion and stress for myself and everyone around me. Once I realized that I didn’t really want advancement, it meant that I was able to really enjoy sabotaging my career and savor every moment of ensuring that no one would ever try to promote me again. I stopped torturing myself, and I just tortured others, and it was a lot better.
Meditation was extremely helpful to get me into a head space where I could just listen to myself, and observe my actions with less judgement (I can’t manage no judgment, the best I can do is recognize that my judgment has often not served me well and just ignore it) to tease apart the things I wanted from the things I wanted-to-want.
I don’t recommend it for everyone — one friend who tried it spent her time “meditating” by listing all the ways she had disappointed the people she cared about. She could not let her mind be still for even a moment without filling it with things that would torture her. Amazingly bad for her.
She later joined a sex cult*, and that really worked for her as it was what she needed to give herself permission to just be. I think in some traditions this is referred to as “giving yourself power to a higher power.” So, obviously there are different paths.
All of which leads me to ask: were the new towels better than the old towels? Are you happy with them, or do you just look at them with shame thinking of all the towel drama that you created for yourself?
I would just chuck those towels so I would never have to see them again and buy new ones and declare this great personal growth, and then be amazingly smug about it.
*: was Effective Altruism meant to be a sex cult? Was it just the little corner of EA that she was involved it? Did she make it a sex cult? These are all fine questions that I’ve never fully gotten answers for.
——
ETA, re depression and suicidal ideation: um, buck up little soldier? I’ve got nothing, and I expect most advice is just trite. Just wanted to acknowledge that suffering even if I can’t help. Maybe start singing along to this song about outliving Mitch McConnell, it might help for a little while.
https://youtu.be/186FmQ4QZeY
(I really hope she is working on a sequel, since we might need one at any moment)
@DK:
It’s really kind of amazing, but in a little over a week Trump has managed to lose a war despite every advantage.
All Iran has to do now is say, ‘fuck you,’ and from time to time launch a few drones at passing ships. If they manage to dig up a few ballistic missiles I’d aim straight at desalinization plants along the Arab side of the gulf. According to AI, 90% of Bahrain’s water is from desalinization plants, all within easy range. 70& for Saudi Arabia, though they’ll likely have some on the Red Sea.
What’s our counter? More ineffective air war? Talk of seizing the north shore of the Strait is off-base: some of the most devastating attacks came up near Kuwait, 500 odd miles away. Any ground troops we put in will be fired on. So we’ll have to move the perimeter out, and out, and out. . .
Trump will have to declare a specious victory and run away, or sink into the quicksand.
@DK:
Not mentioned…Fatso killed Khamenei 2.0’s father as well as his wife, son, and mother, as well as wounding him personally. If Fatso thinks that is just going to be shrugged off then he is even dumber than I thought. Analysts say K2.0 is even more hardline than his late father was.
@DK:
Or as some would say, the new owner of CNN, CBS, Harry Potter and Batman.
@Michael Reynolds:
Who’da thunk Fatso would pull a Putin and lose a sure bet?
Remember 4 years ago when everyone though Putin would take over Ukraine is a week or two?
Trump is claiming he already won, lol.
He’s getting ready to TACO.
JFC, he is stupid.
Hypothesis:
The current war on Iran is Bibi’s last (or latest) chapter in obscuring it was his incompetent and cruel policies that allowed the Oct. 7th attacks to take place unimpeded.
@DK: @Michael Reynolds: All of what you posted makes perfect sense and I agree the administration is in a no win situation and has lost the war. But I still think, despite JohnSF’s cogent arguments last week of why a nuke response is not in the cards I really think the WH staff and pentagon need to hide the football.
@Michael Reynolds:
It is amazing. I’m ashamed to be amazed given the personnel involved. Chimpmuk-cheeked fraud JD Cheney, the biggest phony in D.C. Pete Hegseth, a desperate, fake macho drunken headcase. President Trumpflation, a total mess of person — cognitively, physically, spiritually. Almost feel sorry for him: imagine having to go through life as globally despised laughingstock Donald Trump. (Trump was born just over a year after Adolf swallowed a bullet — reincarnated as this pathetic orange blob as punishment?)
Given this failureship clown car, no one should be shocked at MAGA’s governing incomptence, but it somehow still stuns.
Took hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians and how many years to subdue ISIS? 15? 20? Couldn’t dislodge the Talibann. Can’t/won’t kick Putin out of Europe. World’s most powerful Navy can’t prevent cheap Iranian drones from choking the world economy — downstream of our choice to elect climate change denying Oil Lobby whores.
Newt Effing Gingrich admits Trump is losing this war to date. Diabolical.
Again I ask, the $1 trillion spent yearly on Pentagon Inc. — instead of subsidizing healthcare, housing, mass transit, debt relief, childcare, paid leave — has disappeared into whose pockets?
I guess Chinese paratroopers aren’t landing on Taiwan’s shores rn because maybe Xi’s forces are as much a paper tiger as ours and Putin’s. But it’ll all be fixed by whiskey Pete yelling about woke this, warrior that and by the UFC cosplay of bug-eyed kindergarten cop Kash Patel.
@Michael Reynolds:
A deep bow for your eloquence, sir. I could’ve put a dozen up-votes on that I would’ve. One itty bitty step at a time is how Everest was conquered.
Our weapons are so good we can kill more with one missile or JDAM than we could with flights of B-17s. We are extraordinarily good at killing the people we want to kill. Far and away the greatest military power, we’re fucking Mongols or Romans. And yet, somehow, our enemies will not just fucking die and go away. It’s very discouraging.
@Michael Reynolds:..It’s really kind of amazing, but in a little over a week Trump has managed to lose a war despite every advantage.
Seen on Facebook:
“America has failed an open book test.”
@Mr. Prosser:
I may be cogent.
This administration?
I haz doubts.
Operation EPIC FAIL is truly one for the ages.
Who could have guessed that Iran would try to shut Hormuz, and being millenarian loons, not much care about the costs to themselves?
Except ANYONE WHO EVER STAFFED IT OUT!
It’s the sheer idiotic frivolousness of it that’s so annoying. You want a war with Iran?
Fine, OK, f@ckin’ stupid but go ahead: but ftlog have a plan for securing the straits.
Of course, that means a ground force, plus convoying, and likely losses in both.
But either go big or go home.
Be serious, or don’t bother.
There’s no such thing as half-measures in a war of this nature.
But that really needs a President capable of actually going to Congress, and making the case for a war, and getting the support of Congress, and explaining the causes and objectives and related requirements of means and ends to the American people.
And hopefully then Congress telling him not be a damnfool, and try serious diplomacy not handed off to a pair of stupid and corrupt real-estate developers, who would not understand global strategy if it bit them on the arse, and apperar to default to being messenger-boys for Netanyahu.
Apart from that, all seems fine.
Just fine.
How’s everything else going?
@Michael Reynolds:
The Iranian side of the Strait has lots of cliffs, eg this picture. I have read that over the last decades the Iranians have built a lot of tunnels into those cliffs and stocked them with missiles, drones, artillery, stockpiled mines, etc. What I haven’t read anything about this week is the US/Israel flying sorties to try to close those up. I can imagine assorted reasons for that. Most of them are not conducive to the idea that the Strait is going to be open anytime soon.
@DK:
To be fair to MBS (and how I hate saying that), the reporting thus far seems to be he was not at all keen on this folly.
I suspect he was shrewd enought to see that the end-state that’s fine for Netanyahu is very much not for the Arabians.
Or anyone else, for that matter.
And that Netanyahu was manipulating Trump’s stupidity and vanity, via Kusher/Wikoffs stupidity and venality, with absolutely zero concern for anyone else, including the US, or even Trump.
As with Putin, Trump seems so fixated on his self-image of being the player, that he can’t realise when he’s being played.
@JohnSF: I have no idea what MBS real position is and I don’t think anyone’s able to report it. There does seem to be credible reporting of multiple phone calls between Trump and MBS. Given Arab relation$hips with Trump and his family, it seems unlikely Trump would defy MBS. And there’s always the Sunni/Shiite thing. As I say, I dunno, but I’m not confident MBS didn’t back this.
@Beth:
Well, I know, and have known, what both are, but have often been regrettably unable to fulfill either.
I default to finding the universe and human achievement a source of both wonder and amusement. And sometimes to alcohol. Or weed etc (not often these days)
And cooking.
Fortunately for me, my childhood was rather happy, albeit introverted, and tending to be passive in relations with other people.
To the extent of just taking them for granted, I fear.
I’m not much good at advising others how to cope; because I’m rather solipsistic and verging on autistic on understanding others. I often only realise what other peoples statements actually meant mind-states probably were long after the event.
I have tried to learn not to regret too much.
And to try to view my failures with a detatched sense of irony, as much as I can.
And to take pleasure in small things.
Pehaps start by try desiring small gains, that are relatively easy to obtain, and work on from there?
I doubt this helps at all.
But for what it’s worth, I hope you can work past the pain.
Also, are you truly longing for good weather yet?
English winters are enough to get anybody a bit glum.
@JohnSF:
Not what reporting I’ve seen said. Quite the opposite. But I’ve no doubt Captain Bonesaw is now pulling a JD Vance and dropping ex post facto anonymous sources into the media to distance himself from the folly, ex post facto — like MBS did after his henchmen dismembered Jamal Khashoggi while he was alive screaming for his life, like Abdullah’s incredulity when the 9/11 terrorists turned out to be Saudi nationals.
The Saud family always knows nothing, tried to prevent it, wanted nothing to do with it. Every time. They just innocently and unenthusiastically whisper to nobody in particular (or to Trump), “Will no one rid us of the meedlesome reporter?” and “Will no one rid us of this meedlesome Supreme Leader?” Can’t possibly be faulted for anything that follows. Fork-tongued vipers.
The American president who — unlike Trump and Biden — decides American interests, not Israelis, should dictate America’s Middle East policy and who divorces the US energy and transportation grids from Saudi Arabia will automatically qualify as an all-time great.
At Least Two Saudi Officials May Have Deliberately Assisted 9/11 Hijackers, New Evidence Suggests (Pro Publica, 11 Sept 2024)
“Who us? Look over there — a Jew!”
– The King and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, probably
@DK:
Oh, he’s p.o.s. to be sure.
Just not a stupid p.o.s.
From FT and Economist reports, among others, his pov seems to have been:
If the Pasdaran regime in Iran gets eliminated, why not?
But it Trump is obviously unlikely to go all-in.
And Israel in general, and Netanyahu in particular, have rather a different “acceptable termination state” to the Arabians.
Hence the recent Chinese mediated Iranian-Saudi dialogue.
The Riyadh policy was fairly obviously to get Iran to accept a reduction in regional troublemaking, do a final deal on nuclear weapons linked to sanction lifting, and defer “the liberation of al-Quds” indefinitely, without openly renouncing it.
An outcome that suited all parties minima.
But Bibi got greedy; and Trump got played.
And now you have the increasingly asisnine Lindsey Graham warning Saudi Arabia of “consequences” if it does not join in the clown show.
Probably prompting some Saudis to speculate on exactly what consequences of enmity could be worse than those of allience, at this point?
(Incidentally, does anyone else think Graham has totally lost the plot?)
@gVOR10:
My personal suspicion is that the Arabian influence on the White House in general, and Kushner/Witkoff in particualr, got overridden by Netanyahus’s influence.
As I say, MBS and the rest of the al Saud would be entirely happy to see the mullahs and the Pasdaran dead and buried and gone.
But they are not naive enough to gamble on Trump commiting the overwhelming force (including ground troops) required.
Or that Israels’s acceptable end-state is the same as theirs: Netayahu would be fine with a Gaza-fied Iran, and collapse into “failed state”.
That is not so acceptable to the Arabians, who would be faced with a likely ongoing IRGC state. or at least insurgency, uncomfortably close, and probably capable of periodic havoc in the Gulf/Straits.
Same applies to Turkey, incidentally.
@JohnSF: By “regional trouble-making” they mean checking Saudi attempts to annex Yemen. That was the adventure MBS kicked off his reign with to “make his bones” -as it were- as a tough guy.
Those Yemeni mountain tribesmen are every bit as tough as the Pashtuns of Afghanistan are, Bone Saw, old boy. That aid might not have been decisive. Perhaps you made a mistake. Same one the Egyptians did in 62.
Latest mad MAGA mind-meld seems to be: US and Israel demolish Iran.
Then it’s up to the Arabians/European/India/China to secure the Gulf/Straits.
Well, thanks a f@cking lot, guys.
But nope.
At least from Europe; we have a teensy problem called Russia, which the US has failed to decisively help to squash in Ukraine.
This one’s on you.
Of course, an Arab/India/China/Pakistan “coalition of the willing” might be amusing.
But if it does eventuate (and bring on the great India/Pakistan reconciliation? joking/not joking) the US can kiss goodbye to its choke on the Gulf; and likely the petro-dollar.
@DK:
Actually relatively trivial; the US is already a hydrocarbons exporter, and renewables are growing do to pure economics, despite all the kicking and screaming.
But the Gulf is and will remain, for decades, a crucial part of the global economy.
20% of global oil; 20% of global LNG; 10% of aluminium; 20% of traded fertilisers; 16% of petrochemicals.
And all of this also means massive financial flows and dollar trades, and related dollar bonds investments.
It’s simply impossible for the US to walk away from, without HUGE strategic and financial impacts.
Someone, or some alliance, will inevitably step in.
And that would in turn massively impact US capability to constrain China in east and south east Asia.
Unless the US opts for “hemispheric separation” on the lines of some “Americas First” advocates (Vance, Bannon) it’s just not possible.
And the “Americas First” people are delulu.
@dazedandconfused:
Well, the Yemen catfight has multiple angles.
The Houthi (who are an extremely unpleasant group, even by regional standards) are Shia. The largely Sunni southerners and coastal population love them little.
Then you have the UAE who have been pushing for an anti-Houthi drive, whereas the Saudis now seem to hope for an acceptable de-facto partition.
Leading to the Saudis recently conducting air strikes on Emirati linked locations.
“My enemy’s enemy is often also my enemy, actually.”
No one much cares if the Houthis contain their nastiness to the uplands.
It’s been their ambitions to rule all Yemen that annoy.
And in that regard, and their attacks on shipping that mean the Houthis are living on borrowed time.
They are racking up a large list of pissed off people; if they step in to this by hitting Red Sea tankers, they are liable to get stomped on.
No one is going to try to wage war in the mountains: but their control of the Red Sea coast is over a local Sunni population that is not pro-Houthi by deafualt.
@dazedandconfused:
Reminds me of a Sikh elder I knew, who had a store of Sikh history.
“The Pushtun were mighty warriors. They loved to pillage the plains, going further and further. Then they met us, and learnt their mistake.”
Afghan-Sikh Wars.
El Taco claims that, as the US is an oil exporter, “we’re going to make a lot of money” from higher oil prices.
Leaving aside the fact the US also imports a lot of oil, still, what this means is the very wealthy people who own the big oil companies are going to go on a share buyback spree soon.
Related, there are earlier reports that a US air force KC-135 tanker went down over Iraq. Allegedly it wasn’t more friendly fire, but details are scarce as yet.
One thing is that the central command claims “rescue efforts are underway.”
Color me skeptical. The KC-135 is very much like the old Boeing 707*. Of course it has less passenger and cargo space, and more fuel tanks, in addition to the refueling boom gear. Specifically, I don’t think it has ejections seats in the cockpit, and certainly not for the rest of the crew. So if one goes down, it’s similar to what happens when a commercial airliner goes down, only with more fuel (if it was en route to a refueling mission).
Meaning finding survivors to rescue is a low probability.
*I’m not sure whether they share a common ancestor, the Dash 80 prototype, or whether one was adapted from the other.
@JohnSF:
To walk away from what? The Gulf economy en total? Not without disruptions and clandestine hookups, like our divorce from the Russian economy. But that’s not my dream, anyway.
To walk away from our “trivial” dependence on Saudi energy, and oil in general, as specifically related to an outdated American energy and transportation grid overly-reliant on gas guzzlers? More than possible with modernized infrastructure and manufacturing policy. And with politicians who won’t view their only purpose as telling Americans what we cannot achieve. (Never understood why some enter public service just to say, “We can’t.” Like anti-Roosevelts, or counter Kennedys.)
90%+ of US transportation relies on oil, representing over 2/3rds of our nation’s petrofuel consumption. No, it doesn’t have to be so, that US mobility is so totally dependent on oil. We could live better.
@DK:
Yes, the US can disconnect from outside hydrocarbons supply. As a net exporter, it already has that capability regarding even a hydrocarbons based economy.
If it’s willing to end connection to global markets.
Energy autarky.
Which is non-trivial in its implications.
OTOH, on both CO2 and other environmental grounds, and on insulation from global hydrocarbons price fluctuations, renewables (and imho, nuclear, pending deep geothermal bores) are preferable.
France for instance meets 95% of electricity generation from nuclear and renewable.
Its high speed trains, commuter trains, and trams are all electrified.
80% of new car sales are electric or hybrid.
It’s the obvious route for a modern society and economy.
I’m sure the UK and the US will catch on and catch up, eventually 🙂
It’s just so obviously reasonable.
(Sez me, the optimist)
@Kathy:
iirc the US is a net oil exporter.
It imports oil because a lot of US refineries and related petrochemical complexes are not set up to handle the types of oil produced by fracking.
So the US both imports and exports on a massive scale.
Refineries, amazing as it seems to be to Trump and the MAGA chorus, don’t grow up like mushrooms overnight.
Meanwhile, cue Trump crowing idiotically about “beneficial to the US” and other countries giving side-eye, and marking some more red in the ledger for future payback.
Becuase international relations 101: “For a favour, a favour. For a harm, a harm.”
Thats how the diplomatic balance works.
It’s beyond Trump to understand that, obviously.
But it will work out.
@JohnSF:
Back in the 90s, Mexico’s macroeconomic numbers looked better when oil prices spiked. This happened sometimes when Saddam played games or got cute. Someone in government joked joked the treasury ought to put up a statue of the butcher of Baghdad in return.
Me, what I recall most about the 90s was the effing devaluation in 1993 and the private debt crisis that followed.
Don Tzu says
“Image“
When discussing AI, and specifically the many was it fails and the poor quality of what it produces, we get periodic reminders that LLMs are not all there is to AI. In particular we’re told of other deep learning systems, like facial recognition.
Well.
Tennessee grandmother jailed after AI facial recognition error links her to fraud
This is far more serious than common AI slop. the poor woman in the middle of this lost her home, and even had to rely on charity to just get back home. I hope she can and does sue the Fargo police and prosecutors for harms suffered.
As the piece notes, there have been other instances of this as well.
I think part of the problem is the trust people place in computers. You know, computers don’t make mistakes (narrator: they do make mistakes). Like no one’s ever had their work lost, their software crash, or their LEM directed to a field of boulders.
Trump’s attention is totally laser focused on his war.
“New Yorker”
@charontwo:
The small, tiny, microscopic problem might be how to reopen the Strait. I don’t think El Taco and his Bibi (or Bibi and his Taco), can get it open through bombing alone. They’d have to send in troops to Iran.
I think this is the classic recipe for an escalation quagmire with recessionary reduction. Though, as I recall, the original recipe requires a lot more popular support, especially before one starts cooking, to ameliorate the extra bitter and sour notes characteristic of this concoction.
@JohnSF:
The month of January, 1996, living in West London, was the longest year of my life. Dark at 8am when I went into my office at Ealing Studios. Dark when I left at 6pm. Cold. Foggy. Rainy all the time. The sun came out thee days – THE ENTIRE &%#$!!*&! MONTH!!!
Truer words were never spoken. Ever.
@Kathy:
Who is we, I wonder. Still waiting on the pedo to mail my tariff dividend check.
@charontwo: The president can’t stay focused on the war yet they thought his warmongering might make us stop criticizing his Epstein coverup, crappy jobs numbers, and masked ICE goons. Nope. We didn’t forget, and won’t.