Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, June 11, 2024
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70 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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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Heh: Shaken and stirred: Trump’s golf course liquor licenses at risk after conviction
They will find a workaround, but I still find it funny.
From Cocaine worth about $450,000 washes up on Alabama shore, comes this little tidbit:
Now that’s what I call a keeper.
@OzarkHillbilly: i
Save the bales! As we say in Florida.
Today in Wildlife:
Elephants call each other by name, study finds
Wild horses return to Kazakhstan steppes after absence of two centuries
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe I should take up fishing.
I never remember to walk the beach after a hurricane makes landfall in my area to hunt for lost…um…shipments.
Yesterday I was commenting that my total aversion to audio or video ads means that I occasionally see billboards and have no idea what they are about, and it happened today. I was driving behind a beer distributor truck and it had a full panel advertisement on the back for Bud Light (if I remember correctly) in a “Vortex Bottle!” , which appeared to have a spiral neck. Does this spin the beer on its way out and that make it taste better? Is spinning beer more fun to drink? Does it counter-rotate against the spins when you drink too much? I’m curious, but not curious enough to Google it…
@MarkedMan:
The vortex is supposed to infuse oxygen into the liquid and create a better taste.
We’re going losing with Trump!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/why-two-simple-words-bother-trump-so-much?ref=home?ref=home
There is an interesting set of real world experiments going on with respect to user privacy, in which certain companies are offering products that better protect user’s privacy but because of that are less powerful or have less features than competitors who actively mine user data and sell it. So we have Duck Duck Go that offers a search engine and a browser that both have some constraints. I’ve been using the DDG browser and while I like it (and love the fact that it works much better than Safari on my underpowered iPad), there are some annoyances. It doesn’t integrate with my password manager, or any external password manager. I have to re-sign into sites much more frequently. On balance though, I can live with that in return for better security, but how many people feel the same way? I suspect DDG is a niche product and will remain so.
For anyone who has used Siri and Alexa, it is pretty obvious that Siri isn’t as good. This is primarily because Siri works mostly on your phone or computer and is limited by the processing there, while Alexa processes everything on gargantuan server farms in the cloud, meaning that everything you say after it recognizes “Hey, Alexa” is sent up there. The Siri methodology is much more secure, but do enough people care that they will put up with a lesser user experience?
Now Apple is trying to thread the needle, and the new version will primarily process on the device (hence Apple’s latest inhouse microprocessors having ever increasing numbers of onboard cores for just such processing) but then send anonymized data up to the ChatGPT. Will such a hybrid program, a) still protect privacy, and b) work? One of the potential upsides is that developers writing code for Apple products can chose to hook into this system, and so a non-Apple product can still show up in these types of interactions. So, the next Office version could likely be able to correctly react to a voice prompt of “Microsoft Word, open up the last document I was working on” even if it wasn’t open at the time. Will this type of integration be enough to offset the shortcomings due to privacy protection?
FWIW, I doubt it. Even people I know who like to complain about privacy and the intrusiveness of mega-corps typically give their apps permission to do just about everything.
@CSK: Well, there ya go! It’s science!
@CSK:
@MarkedMan:
Nothing can make Bud Light taste good.
@Sleeping Dog:
Fixed that for ya!
Ok, cheap shot. Isn’t Bud Light the best selling beer in the US? They must be doing something right.
Nice article on Trump’s views about the military. He has had a long history or referring to military members as losers and suckers. He went after McCain for getting captured ignoring the years McCain was tortured that he probably could have avoided. He publicly went after the gold star family that criticized him, something no other president had done.
All of this kind of makes sense if you realize that he is an extreme narcissist who really cant imagine doing something for the benefit of others. Certainly cant understand the concept of sacrifice. Yet he continues to publicly try to lionize the military when convenient and all of those flag wearing cult members believe that Trump is the true patriot.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/06/trump-is-lying-to-the-us-military/678649/?utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20240610&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The+Atlantic+Daily
Steve
Next day reply to @MarkedMan:
Whether Apple claims it or not, the view among the public is that Apple invented the MP3 player, the smart phone, maybe even the computer.
Next it will have been AI.
The cult of the Apple, the Woz, and The Holy Jobs, just gets tiresome.
@Kathy: Is there really a cult of Apple anymore? Most people interact through the browser and a few dedicated apps that are essentially the same whether on a PC or Mac (Office, Photoshop, etc). I like Apple, but it’s for reasons that don’t matter to most people or that they don’t think about until they need it (the privacy thing, the customer support, the Apple store, etc). When was the last time you actually heard a for real “Mac vs. PC” argument? As a developer, I vastly prefer the iPhone, but that’s only because I get a huge share of the market supporting essentially one device, while every Android phone is a little different and has to be coded around separately, at least if you are dealing with things like volume controls, video, audio, etc But the average user doesn’t care about that.
@steve:
This is an excellent piece. Nichols is very astute.
Headline at WaPo:
The US isn’t *just* doing well. It’s helping to push the global economy.
But yeah, tell me again how somehow Trump is an improvement (he’s not).
Hunter Biden, as expected, found guilty.
@steve:
I know that I shouldn’t laugh but …
They think he’s a war hero for wanting to pull us out of NATO and sell out the Ukraine.
@becca:
I think he will get some prison time. If not, we won’t stop hearing how he got a very lenient sentence because of his father.
Of course, he could get the maximum sentence, I believe 25 years, and the wingnuts will claim it was too lenient because of his father.
If he gets prison, I’m almost certain Biden will commute his sentence. I just hope he waits until after the election.
Do we suppose, MarkedMan, that there is an opposite spiral marketed in the southern hemisphere?
@Kathy: well, it would be treating Hunter more punitively than others if he gets a prison sentence. Most experts think he won’t serve time. Anyway, it’s going to appeal. I think he gets probation. The gun was not used in a crime, first time offender, etc.
@Kathy:
If Biden commutes Hunter’s sentence it will be a disaster. I can’t believe he’d be that stupid.
If the judge is smart he’ll look carefully at similar cases, find the middle road and stick to it. If it’s time Hunter will end up in a Club Fed. Hell, if I’d been looking at Club Fed time I’d never have run. And I wouldn’t have met my wife. Might never have started writing. Could now be a regional manager for the Olive Garden. OTOH I might have started playing tennis.
@becca:
@Michael Reynolds:
Ideally the judge should ignore the politics involved, and pass sentence in accordance to precedent, guidelines, the merits of the case, etc.
We live in the real world, and so does the judge.
President Biden has issued a statement on the verdict. He is president, but also a father who loves his son… he accepts the verdict… is still very proud of Hunter and the progress he has made in his recovery and will continue to support him. A very moving, gracious statement. The press is contrasting trump’s reaction to his verdict to Biden’s reaction to Hunter’s.
@MarkedMan:
Yes, there is a great appeal for tasteless things in America.
@Joe: Wouldn’t that take the oxygen out?!?!
@Sleeping Dog: Bud Light, Coors Light, Michelob Ultra are all designed for those who want to get buzzed by drinking a lot of beer at parties, picnics, ball games, etc. Whats the fun in downing an IPA or ale and be full and buzzed after only two and the game/party has barely begun?
@MarkedMan:
I believe it is, even after the bigot hate-fest directed at Dylan Mulvaney when she held up a can of it on her Insta.
Back when my wife first moved from Germany to the U. S., we were hanging out one afternoon at a unit barbecue and someone brought a whole cooler full of Bud Light. Over the course of the afternoon, my wife drank one can after another, eventually adding up to an amount that would have put most red-blooded Americans under the table. But not her, she just said “it’s basically just soda pop.”
Here is the most perfect description of Trump and his worshipers ever written, by a fellow in West Virginia whose nom de plume is Advocatus Peregrini.
“Talented and well-practiced in every vice, a stranger to compassion or empathy, a liar and a cheat so complete in perfidy that he has elevated his dishonesty to hold it up as an ersatz moral principle. Violent, so long as he can order someone else to do the dirty work. Grotesque in body, graceless in action, in possession of a wounded self-regard so colossal as to smother any spark of grace. Treasonous, not only to country, but to every ally he has ever had, the poisoned fruit and rankest flower of racism and contempt for women, and utterly devoid of shame for his moral and spiritual bankruptcy. That is your leader. That is to whom you give your money. That is who you follow and laud. That is whose banner you willingly carry. Why? Because he is a mirror, not a lighthouse. You see yourselves in him. He is what you would be, if you had inherited money and could shed the last vestiges of conscience and shame. No, I do not “respect your choices,” nor do I admire your loyalty and dedication to this miserific, demoniac vision. You have demonstrated not only a lack of civic virtue, loyalty to the Republic and to the rule of law, but a willingness to engage in violence and sedition at his slightest expressed wish. And you will never, ever admit you were wrong. Because you see your dark, twisted, resentful dreams in him. And to renounce him is to renounce yourselves.”
I have a radical idea. I think that the brand of beer you drink is entirely your business and in no way reflects on your social status, masculinity, nor judgment in other areas of life. Intemperance is bad. Abstaining is ok, but should be done in a nonjudgmental way.
I personally like beer. My taste runs to real European Pilseners. I do like to mix in some IPA or Belgian sour, etc, just to keep my taste buds fresh. I really enjoyed a couple of Lites while playing softball on a scorching day last summer. I went to a baseball game last week and paid $9.50 for a beer, and accepted it as the price of the whole experience.
@Slugger:
Sometimes I drive past the Modelo brewery (smack in the middle of town). Now and then, I catch a delightful aroma wafting from it. At such times, I feel like pulling into the premises to ask: how do you turn that scent, whatever it is, into a pale yellow swill with bubbles?
I feel the same when, on rarer occasions, I’ve caught the smell of brewing coffee off the Nestle plant in Metepec, near Toluca. It smells so good, I wonder how they ruin it into Nescafe.
I may have mentioned I don’t like beer.
@MarkedMan: Of course they’re doing something right: it has alcohol in it and is relatively cheap.
Fox 35 Orlando cited a report about US counties most vulnerable to hurricanes. Number 1 is Broward.
But maybe news outlets, even local ones, should refrain from citing weather analyses from a website called Lawnstarter.com.
Hmmm…only four category 5 hurricanes have ever made landfall in the US. One of them was in 1935.
In the last ten years, there have been a total of six Atlantic basin Cat 5 storms. One of them hit the US as a 5 and it hit the panhandle. At any rate, neither of them made landfall in Broward.
@Paul L.: So, your point is that you do have a sense of ethics, it’s just morally depraved?
@Sleeping Dog: But don’t forget the alcohol; RC cola is tasteless, too, but doesn’t sell nearly as well as Bud Lite.
@Paul L.: Glad to be in your head. You keep at it.
@Mikey: I was wondering why you didn’t create a link to the quote but looked up the name and saw him on Facebook, so I understood why the link wouldn’t have mattered.
Seeing a pen name there triggered another passing thought; Facebook long claimed that it didn’t permit posting under false/assumed names. But yes, I’ve long realized that this claim was false, and, I guess, sort of like advertising fluffing, so sort of on the order of a Biden campaign speech anecdote or the warranty of habitability of a Trump property.
@Slugger: I like this take on beer, and on branding in general. I endorse this principle.
AND, that’s not how they sell things. You know that, right? They totally try to link brands to lifestyles all the damn time.
@Jay L Gischer: I have a slightly different take on beer. As a buddy of mine once said, “Life is too short to drink cheap beer.”
YMMV.
@MarkedMan:
I think there is, in the general public and the media. Sometimes there are reports of what Google, MS, or Samsung, show off in their big events in the mainstream media, but not always. You have to go to more specialized outlets for that. But they do report everything about Apple.
And among some users, too. I know people who will rush to get the latest iphone, even in years when it’s only slightly better than their current one.
@Slugger: You’re correct on the your own business part but, I think, incorrect on the other part, as other snarky comments, mine included, show. Everything we do marks us as “us” or “them” and, conservatives and liberals alike, draw conclusions towards the end of granting approval or condemnation.
The difference being that liberals sometimes feel guilty afterwards and produce statements such as yours above. (No motive implied regarding yours, used as an example only.)
@just nutha: We all make judgements about other people, sometimes fairly, sometimes ridiculously. Judging a person by the beer they drink is a perfectly fair thing to do if they are bringing the beer to a picnic, ridiculous if one is at a bar where what one person drinks has little/nothing to do with what another drinks.
I only really like beer when I’m at a bar or restaurant. At home I’ll drink wine or whiskey. My wife will drink a dark, chewy stout or porter, but I find them too sweet for regular consumption. If it’s beer I default to an IPA.
@Michael Reynolds: I rarely drink beer these days but I try to keep a six pack on hand. I like stouts, ales, etc. Whiskey is a no-go for me these days. I like it waaaaaayyyyy too much. So I drink a glass or 2 of white wine in the evening and that takes the edge off the day.
snort.
@Mikey: An old joke I love:
Back in the day, the operators of the major breweries gathered surreptitiously to discuss price fixing. Adolph Coors and August Busch, senior members of the Schlitz and Miller clans along with Arthur Guinness over from St. James Gate. After haggling over acceptable pricing, they retired to the bar where Adolph ordered a Coors, August ordered a Budweiser, Schlitz a Schlitz and Miller a Miller. Arthur Guinness turned to the waitress and asked for a glass of water. When everyone turned to stare at him, he looked back and said [pardon my poor brogue], “what? If none a yas is having a beer I supposed I shouldn’t either.
@Slugger:
90% of social interaction is signaling what “club” you are in. One way to do that is to talk about how much you like the things your club is supposed to like. Another way to do it is to express disgust over the things your club is supposed to hate.
What cracks me up is when someone runs down something like Budweiser and then praises German beer as being authentic. Or that Italian Peroni has real flavor. Or that Corona is miles above Miller. You could rotate all those labels and 99% of the time the opinions would follow the label, not the beer.
If you like Bud Light you can get them inexpensively, they won’t get you very drunk, and they won’t get you very fat. Sounds like a great deal to me!
@OzarkHillbilly: Hmmm… I was raised to think that it’s rude to complain about the things that people bring to a community event. On the other hand, I haven’t attended a community event in a long time. Maybe the rules have changed.
@MarkedMan:
Back when I moved to Germany (mid-1980s) most American beer was crap. There were very few manufacturers, almost none were local, and it all tasted basically the same. German beer was a revelation.
Today, there are American beers that are every bit the equal of the best German brews. There’s a brewery 20 minutes from my house that puts out a Franconian Kellerbier that brought a tear to my eye the first time I drank it. And it’s far from the only one. There’s a place a five-minute walk that has a spectacular Hefeweizen, every bit the equal of what I’ve had in Bavaria.
I’ve heard we have Jimmy Carter to thank for this, as he was the one who signed the law permitting home- and micro-brewing.
@MarkedMan:
One of the many reasons I avoid social interaction.
The only place I play this game is with cars, and that’s basically a class signal. I can get better treatment from hotel and restaurant valets, I can drive onto a studio lot without being pitied, highway patrol can guess that I probably have a lawyer, that sort of thing. That and way, way too many poverty cars in my life that were held together with Bondo. Other than that I try to avoid drawing attention to myself. No showy watches or clothing, my wedding ring is all my jewelry and I follow the David Mitchell rule that my clothing should be in no way noteworthy.
Global sea surface temperatures have been trending downward lately. Sunday was almost (but not quite) not an all-time record high for the date.
@Paul L.:
Lol. Paul, buddy…If someone gives you a thorough and elegant tongue lashing, you don’t have to come by the next day and make sure the rest of us sees it. I mean, thank you!, I would not have read this without your assistance, but it probably would’ve been best to not remind all of us that Ptfe referred to you as a *checks notes* ” possessing the mental capacity of a splatter of meconium” and that your ” idea of “reasoning” is to throw a bunch of OANN/Newsmax buzzwords on a page, then drop a link to a right-wing nutter who’s been paid by the griftosphere for so long they either have fully replaced their blood with the appropriate Flavor-Aid.”
Just amazing stuff. Thank you for bringing it back to our attention.
On the way here to Australia, I had a glass of champagne offered to me by a flight attendant. It was the first alcohol I drank in 20 years.
Back in the 80’s and when I was bowling, I’d sometimes have a Heineken.
@Michael Reynolds:
After completing hospital corpsman school, I and my fellow classmates got to choose our first assignment. It was done in order of where we finished in our class.
And I was #14. The two selections I was focused on were Orlando Naval Training center and Subic Bay Philippines. My Mom almost died in early 1980 and she spent a month in the hospital. I chose Orlando so I wasn’t too far from my parent’s Boca Raton home.
Had I chosen Subic, I wouldn’t have met and married my wife. Would I have married another Filipina, who knows. Being uglier than a box of rocks with a non-existent dating history and an introvert, I wasn’t a prime candidate for marriage in my early 20’s.
Would I turned out to be a writer without my marriage to DW? Who knows.
Nice piece on how women students were being exploited for sex by law professor at George Mason. As I suspect most here know that place is famous for running the Mercatus Institute, a libertarian/conservative academic center. They, among others, believe strongly that there isn’t much abuse of women and minorities in the world, that we have made the country worse by favoring those out-groups. Also of note, the guy was receiving millions of dollars, secretly ie not being reported to the university, to write about and protect large corporations from anti-trust issues.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/joshua-wright-student-relationships-c6377572?mod=style_whatsnews_pos1
Steve
It’s been a good, long, long time since I flew a long haul flight. Almost 40 years, in fact.
Back then, I gave no thought to the trip at all, past making sure I got a window seat. Now, I’m contemplating sacrilege by deliberately picking an aisle seat in the middle section of an A350.
The problem is physiological. It’s a 10.5 hour flight, give or take, and everyone on board will use the lavatory at least once. There are nine seats in economy rows, on a 3-3-3 configuration. I figure an aisle seat in the middle section allows me to leave my seat without having to inconvenience two people, or to wake them up even. It’s also less likely the person in the middle seat will inconvenience me, or wake me up, seeing as they’d have two options for getting to the aisle.
I’m hoping for a near miracle and a relatively low load factor. Meaning I might find a whole empty section by a window, and I’d just change seats (yes, these days you need to ask a flight attendant first).
It just feels wrong to deliberately choose anything bit a window seat…
@Kathy:
That’s interesting. I always go for an aisle seat.
@CSK: At 6’1”, achy knees and a small bladder, there’s really no choice but aisle for me.
@CSK:
@MarkedMan:
A big part of flying for me is looking out the window, especially during take off and landing. That’s really hard to do from the middle section. It’s barely possible from the middle seat next to the windows seat, and you miss about 70% of everything.
Of course, for long over water flights, there’s nothing much to see most of the trip. The inner plastic cover of the window is too reflective to see stars, even with the cabin darkened.
I also like to rest my head against the side, though that backfires hard, and I mean hard, with the slightest chop, never mind actual turbulence.
@Kathy: @MarkedMan:
I’m under the illusion that I have more leg room in an aisle seat. I’m 5’10”. Also, I tend toward claustrophobia. I have to have an MRI Thursday. That should be a barrel of fun.
Just another example of why you can’t trust initial reports of any disaster.
Titanic sub’s communication “transcripts” were a fake.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Well, I’m a rude mtfcker. If you are bringing brew for the crew, you need to consider the varying tastes. If you can’t do that, don’t volunteer.
Simple.
Of course, the alternative side is that if you are that particular of what you drink, maybe you should bring your own?
Regardless, we make judgements. If one doesn’t like that, stay at home.
@CSK: I drink massive amounts of water. Always, always, an aisle seat for me.
@CSK: Good luck
@MarkedMan:
Thank you.
In the “why did she say that”/TMI dept.
So, I started my medical transition in January 2019. At the time, it basically wasn’t discussed that transition could also start your period. I’m guessing most drs/researchers ignored it. We weren’t a well understood group and well, we don’t have uteruses so, screw us.
I’m pretty sure I got my first period in May 2019. I was still presenting as a man at the time. I had no idea what was happening and it was actually a cis woman friend of mine that pointed out what was happening. For most of the time it was tough to tell what was happening.
However, since my testicles went to live on a farm upstate, my periods have gotten way more regular and way worse. Yesterday’s was the absolute worst. Started with a killer migraine, then the upset stomach that turns into awful cramps, along with a helping side of mood swings and brain fog.
My absolute favorite part is having stewed in a lifetime of anti-period misogynistic bullshit and transphobia, I feel absolute shame in even bringing it up. I mean, I don’t have a uterus. I was born the wrong kind of woman, but I still got all the stigma anyway. I wish I had a uterus. One day every month I wish I had a uterus more than anything.
Happy Pride.
@OzarkHillbilly:
lol, this reminded me of my rave family. When we do our “private” parties we all just bring a riot of stuff. Modelos, twisted tea, beatboxes, eh drugs. Then we proceed to get trashed and rip on each other mercilessly over everyone’s choices. Merciless, but loving.
@OzarkHillbilly: Easy. Bring your own beer and I’ll stay home. I’d probably bring something else to begin with as I’m not a beer drinker. Still in all, more likely to stay home to begin with .
ETA: If you let a non-drinker bring the beer, you deserve whatever happens. But it’s still better to not be a shit head about what people bring.