Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, October 9, 2024
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70 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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BlueSky.
Baseball pitcher Luis Tiant has died. El Tiante was 83. He was the star pitcher for the 1975 Boston Red Sox who barely lost an exciting World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Tiant won games 1* and 4 for Boston.
Tiant entered the majors as a hard throwing pitcher but by the early 70’s arm trouble had his career on the edge of extinction. He adapted and became a finesse pitcher whose corkscrew** pitching motion beguiled hitters. At the end of his career Tiant had over 200 career wins. Tiant was a memorable player. RIP.
*- I remember watching game 1 live on NBC. Tiant also scored the first run of the game. The World Series had no designated hitter rule at that time.
**- Somebody once wrote that while Tiant went through his pitching motion that he could both check the sky above for rain and whether his center fielder was properly positioned.
Follow-up to what I posted yesterday about De Santis’ threats:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fcc-chair-denounces-threats-against-broadcaster-over-florida-abortion-referendum-2024-10-08/
Between now and the election we’re going to hear a lot about how voters want to hear about policy, and how Kamala Harris should sit down with (insert network/interviewer here) so she can be quizzed on policy. Don’t believe a word of it. The pundits are lying. As proof, I offer two huge policy initiatives, one from each candidate, that landed without a ripple, with no follow up by these intensely-interested-in-policy pundits.
1) Donald Trump advocated that the federal government should impose massive tariffs and use at least some of the revenues to directly pay for child care.
2) Kamala Harris proposed that Medicare should pay for in-home long term care.
Either of these would be huge and costly programs, and entail the Federal government entering new areas. But how much discussion of them have you seen?
I have an old friend that I used to work with back in the 80’s. We became friends on social media a few years back and it turned out that they supported Trump in 2016. They seemed lucid about why they supported Trump and we had a few long chats that were more or less amicable over the years. The 2020 election kind of changed them and they became more radical but still able to have a reasonable back and forth over issues. but recently I saw a post they put up about Democrats controlling the weather.
I was sure they were being tongue and cheek so I mentioned that old General Hospital story line Where Luke and Laura try and stop Mikkos Cassadine from extorting the world with is weather control machine. Needless to say their post was NOT tongue and cheek. I fear the contagion has taken over. I was gob smacked. Not just the poster but all the commenters were going along with it too. there were about a dozen grown ass people actually convinced that the Democrats could control the weather.
We are so doomed.
https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?item=T:45235
Here is an economic analysis that says the costs of AGW are so huge the “Tragedy of the Commons” does not apply, it’s cost effective for large countries to reduce their carbon emissions unilaterally.
“The.Ink”
snip
Of course these “benefits” are not actually received benefits, they are avoided costs.
Just to underscore the point of my AGW post from The.Ink above, the ensemble model for Milty has shifted back north to again hit Tampa Bay square on:
https://x.com/ECMWFbot/status/1843920095611105598/photo/1
@Rick DeMent: The thing that really gets me about this ridiculous “controlling the weather” conspiracy is that they think we are so stupid that we use this magical power just to hit some red states in our own country, and we do so 5-6 weeks before the election, not when it could affect actual votes. Oh, and the idea that we’d use it on our own country rather than against Putin or some other bad guy.
@Tony W: Or, if Democrats COULD control the weather, why wouldn’t they deploy such powers to improve the predictability of rainfall for farmers–while claiming credit for it–to bolster their numbers with rural voters?
It is SO SO stupid that I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it. JFC, how far we have fallen.
@Rick DeMent: @Tony W: Conspiracy theories about the weather being controlled go back a long way, and they’re tied heavily to anti-Semitism; the people alleged to be controlling the weather are usually Jews (typically the Rothschilds). In 2018 a DC lawmaker promoted this theory, and it was that same year that MTG posted her now-notorious “Jewish space lasers” screed on Facebook, though it wouldn’t become widely known until years later, after she entered Congress. And it was MTG herself the other day who tweeted “Yes, they can control the weather.” Some media outlets interpreted the they to be referring to Democrats, but it’s more likely the conspiratorial they, the shadowy cabal secretly pulling the strings (it’s the they you find in the classic slogan of every tinfoil-hat-wearer, “That’s what they want you to think”)–which, let’s face it, just means the Jews.
A doctor’s office called yesterday to remind me of an appointment I have for tomorrow morning. Should I use a canoe or sail boat for the trip?
The phone call was an automated one. I expect a live person to call today to say it is being cancelled and ask when I want to be rescheduled.
A Category 5 hurricane is heading for Florida but our local newspaper can’t keep itself by deploying click bait in a main page article. There is little mention in it of how Milton might affect Palm Beach County.
Palm Beach County isn’t in for a direct hit from Milton but county residents will suffer property damage and power loss. For around 5 minutes, Dear Wife talked on Saturday about us taking off to the Philippines so not to be around for Milton. She quickly dropped the idea when she remembered all the flaws in that scenario. My health, our cat, getting packed quickly, what to do with perishables, her job* etc..etc…etc.
My next book is coming along. It is good I have four extra batteries for my lap top. Power or no power I can still work (At least for a while) and get this project finished by the end of the month.
Health wise I am hanging in there. No results concerning my endoscopy two weeks ago but I am sure if there was any bad news I would have heard already.
*Dear Wife’s boss has declared today a half day. Tomorrow DW will be off and Friday too depending on circumstances.
@Tony W:
The trouble is, much of the voting public isn’t very smart. For that reason, I think the polls are off again like in 2020, and a good number of forum members here have acknowledged that a good number of undecided aren’t undecided and there is the Moslem vote in Michigan, that Trump will win next month
Was listening this am to some network media folks carping how Harris projects to be a “change” candidate, but doesn’t really promote substantial “change” from Biden.
Notwithstanding the republican claims, why would Harris seek to change the inflation trend, the job growth trends, the overall economic trends.
IMHO, the “change” that Harris represents is a change from a politics of nastiness, of conspiracy theory, of overt lies, of personal grievance, of fraud, of name calling, of “I only can fix this”. She presents a change from the Trump style of authoritarian rule.
Yesterday, in the comments below my post, there was a brief conversation about faith. It wasn’t the first time here on the blog, so I wanted to add a little to that topic. The word “faith” is, like many others in the Bible, translated from an ancient language, amended by later authors, and filtered through centuries of different interpretations. The regurgitated result may not represent the original intention of the authors of the Gospels, or even how some Christians understand that particular concept today.
In the case of faith, the word may not have meant “unquestioning belief in the face of the absence of evidence” to the authors. Take, for example, the story about the centurion (a Roman and a pagan) who asks Jesus for help.
You can certainly read the word faith in this particular stories in a lot of ways, as many have. But the word in this context doesn’t sound like blind obedience or utter credulousness. Maybe it means the compulsion to do the right thing (find a way to heal the servant/slave, no matter what the source), or something like putting your trust in Jesus and God. I dunno.
By the way, I’m writing this as a heathen, but also as someone who thinks that the compound fallacy (“This person who says dumb things about faith is representative of all Christians, as well as the early Christians”) is always a bad thing.
@Bill Jempty:
The electorate are a box of rocks. One party suffers from that fact and the other depends on it.
@Bill Jempty: My doctors–pulmonologist, hepatologist, cardiologist, and neurologist–have explained to me that many of the “probably won’t find anything” exams I undergo regularly are to the goal of knowing that action is necessary if the tests reveal problems. I see their argument, but still suspect that some of the issue centers on doctors having what used to be called “Ben Casey” or “miracle worker” complex.
The fact that “insurance pays for it” (in my case gubmint via Medicare) plays some role also, I’m sure.
@Bobert: That’s still is more of a “maintain the status quo” argument than an “agent of change” one.
Unless you’re proposing Biden as an authoritarian or Harris’s election finally ushering in post-racial America.
In which case I definitely want a container load of what you smoke.
Ahoy from the Queen Mary 2 at sea.
The Atlantic ocean is quite large.
@Kingdaddy: The “blind obedience” argument is not being made to criticize the notion you’re discussing. It’s made to ridicule those whose faith the speaker does not share. I would have expected “a heathen” to know this, but thank you for the attempted clarification.
@Bill Jempty:
Without going into great detail, I take the opposite view. That Kamala is honestly and truely on track to win next month. Her lead in the polls has been rock steady. I really do believe we are not in an era where we would see Kamala or Trump 10% or better ahead of each other in the polls, so her being only ahead by 3-4% does not make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I think Trump voters are not quietly holding back that they will vote for Trump but saying they will vote for Kamala to the folks who are polling them.
I do feel that there are many individuals who feel uncomfortable, yes…almost afraid to admit this ahead of the election, to admit they absolutely plan to vote for stability the next several years, aka, voting for Kamala Harris.
Also, fingers crossed most of Florida is spared because Milton turns out to weaken quickly once it hits land and things do not end up as bad as forecast. I would be happy to watch DeSantis hold a press conference where he finds a way to blame Kamala/Liberals for forcing Florida to spend a lot of money preparing for an event that fizzled out. One can hope that is the case this time around as many counties in FL are still cleaning up from Helene.
My thoughts and prayers really are with Floridians this week.
@Bobert: Harris is walking a fine line, trying to tie herself to Biden’s policy successes while trying to be appealing in a way he’s failed to be. Some of that is simply the fact that she’s younger, female, and a PoC. And she’s in some respects conveying a different tone and style than Biden, with her emphasis on being a former prosecutor. A lot of this is totally superficial, of course, and it makes sense she said the other day she couldn’t think of anything she’d done differently than Biden, as president.
I can think of at least one issue on which she’s taken a substantively different position than Biden, and that’s pot legalization. Biden’s taken important steps toward decriminalization, but hasn’t come out openly in favor of full legalization, whereas she has. That could potentially be a sleeper issue attracting certain voters on the fence, and it speaks to the generational divide between her and Biden as well.
I think, though, that the real significance of promoting herself as the “change” candidate is that it’s a message aimed squarely at voters who feel a sense of Trump fatigue. Trump isn’t your standard challenger candidate, he’s the former president, and a figure that’s dominated politics for most of the past decade whether he’s been in office or not. His message is entirely backward-looking–let’s return to the glorious days of the Trump presidency–so that gives her an opening to portray herself as the candidate looking to the future rather than maintaining the status quo, as you might ordinarily expect of a candidate from the incumbent party. And I think some voters will get the impression (correct or not) that she’s simply more competent than Biden, regardless of their similar stances on issues.
@just nutha: Actually, I wasn’t addressing anything you specifically said yesterday, but OK.
@Michael Reynolds:
I can’t wait to hear your reflections on the very British ship experience (it’s so upstairs/downstairs). And, hopefully, the North Atlantic will be kind to you!
BTW, do they still have the view from the Bridge TV channel?
@Kylopod:
Biden does not like talking about abortion and “women’s” issues, Kamala does a lot more.
She has been interviewed at venues you would not see Biden at.
@Bill Jempty:
… and, despite a career record of · W-L. 229-172 · ERA. 3.30 · K 2416 …
… is NOT in the Hall of Fame.
I guarantee you, if Tiant was a Yankee, he’d be in the Hall.
@Matt Bernius:
They do, but not much to see at the moment.
Well, there is the Britishness of the food and the Britishness of WiFi, but the formality of it I kind of like. I barely ever worked in an office, so a jacket and tie never came to symbolize oppression. And thanks to strength of character (Mounjaro) I have my weight in the ‘eh, good enough’ zone.
My wife mocks me for being so (uncharacteristically) willing to comply, and I hit her back with, ‘You don’t understand, you have middle class pretty white girl privilege, I was a poor schlub.’ That’s right, I went all woke on her.
I don’t mind the fact that we have a butler. Just haven’t quite figured out what to do with him.
@Matt Bernius:
Hmm, edit key’s gone. Did you do The Crossing?
@Kingdaddy: I didn’t think you were. My point is that the blind faith argument is motivated by ill will toward specific populations, not puzzlement about how faith works and what it does to the faithful. It’s an ad hominem attack disguised as concern/reason.
The irony to me is that the critics of blind faith are frequently “stay out of my business” types also. I endorse their position. And suggest they lead by example.
Huh. When I compare the lies about “Democrats control the weather” with the lies about “Kamala spent all the FEMA money on housing illegal immigrants”, the former seems a lot less damaging. And a lot less believable, honestly. (N.B. I don’t believe either!)
I kind of wonder what’s going on here?
@Michael Reynolds:
Testing edit key.
ETA: Mine works.
[Part of this post was edited out because it would have just started a flame war. As usual I recommend you create a post on your own blog about it an link to that post. Or find a way to share the link in a more neutral way, because the framing of it was the issue – Matt]
@Kingdaddy:
Reading the banned misogynistic John Norman Gor books
Heroine of the Gor movies Talena is a villain in the book Magicians of Gor
@Jay L Gischer:
Some of the shit doesn’t stick to the wall as well as other of the shit.
WRT to Trump’s calls with Putin. If such calls happened, wouldn’t the NSA have recordings of them?
I may do meatballs in chipotle sauce with kasha and rice this weekend, maybe air fried potatoes on the side.
I’m also trying to figure out a dessert of sorts. I’ve a recipe stashed somewhere for something vaguely like cheesecake, which uses cottage cheese and yogurt for the filling. It’s quite nice, just not quite cheesecake. I want to add peanut butter to it, and make a crust with Special K for some reason. But that sounds like a lot more work than I want to put in. Maybe without a crust, like I usually do it.
@Michael Reynolds: The dressing up thing never oppressed me. I went to Catholic grade schools (actual uniform with ties), Catholic high school (dress shoes, slacks, dress shirt, tie) and for the first 10 years of my working life had essentially the same dress code as high school, with the tie then being abandoned but the rest still in place. Since then I’ve voluntarily stuck to that. I find it the opposite of oppressive. I come home from work, change my clothes and, BAM!, I’m in non-work mode and mindset. That changing of the clothes is key. Even when I dress up to go out to dinner or something the clothes are different than the ones I wear to work.
@Michael Reynolds:..The Atlantic ocean is quite large.
I chuckled at first and was then reminded of this passage from my bible.
@Scott:
I was wondering the same thing.
Trump threw a tantrum on Truth Social because Howard Stern interviewed Kamala Harris.
@Scott: @Beth:
If the calls took place after Trump left office, though, would the NSA have records of them?
@Rick DeMent:
Atrios quotes Rolling Stone on Trump thinking China had a hurricane weapon.
Mr. President, we must not allow a hurricane gun gap.
We all judge truth the same way, is a statement consistent with the rest of our worldview. And some of us have some very incomplete and ill informed worldviews.
@Michael Reynolds:
More times than I can count–I worked aboard the Queen Elizabeth II in college. So I was the “Downstairs” side of the “Upstairs/Downstairs” situation. Though because it was a co-op (paid internship) we actually were able to go above decks afterhours–most of the crew could not do that.
There’s an entire city under your feet where all the crew live and party (there were three crew bars on the QE2).
@CSK: The NSA is failing down badly on the job if they haven’t been recording Trump’s calls. But can they tell anybody?
@MarkedMan: I was very much a dress differently than work clothes guy until I became a teacher. The combination of teachers deciding to dress like the inmates and greatly reduced income because of untenured employment eliminated my ability to have 2 sets of clothes. The shift from blue collar to white collar work eliminated the need to. And along the way, evangelicalism shifting the focus of religion from dress as a symbol of reverence to “come as you are, we’re going to Dad’s house” (He won’t mind) across most of American christianity (not a typo) finished the job.
@CSK:
I usually get the edit key but today not always.
@gVOR10: Somewhat unlikely the NSA conducted espionage on their own boss, but if they did, it’s highly likely that unless there was clear and irrefutable evidence of treason they destroyed all evidence of it immediately. Begging Putin to let him build a Trump Casino or golf course in Moscow wouldn’t qualify.
@gVOR10:
Just came across something that speaks to that:
“Link”
@just nutha: perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I intended. If the Harris campaign is itself projecting they are agents of “change”, the change they are referring to is a change in the nature and character of political campaigning.
But I’m more inclined to think that SOME media are providing their own interpretation of Harris as a “change” candidate.
@Paul L.: “Reading the banned misogynistic John Norman Gor books”
Whoever banned them did a pretty bad job of it, considering you can find 38 of them on Amazon in paperback or digital — and if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member you can have them for free.
Is it possible that they weren’t really banned, it was just that your mommy told you they were so you’d stop bugging her to buy them for you?
@Jen: Pretty sure the western states relying on the ever dwindling water supplies would become perma blue states if they could get rain consistently via a weather control machine..
It’s such a dumb conspiracy theory.
@Matt:
Pleonasm watch activated.
@Bobert: I think that Harris is trying to portray herself as a change and that the press is willing to abet this goal. I’m not following the race (Multnomah County, OR, is roughly D+80) and only basing my opinion on what I hear others saying. “If” makes a big difference in your original statement, though.
@Paul L.:
I’m assuming he was bringing up vi vs. emacs. I have strong feelings on the subject.
@wr:
I remember reading the Gor novels when I was about 10. There was jousting on birds (Tarns, they called them!) and it was great. I loved those books.
They were like a poorly written Edgar Rice Burroughs series, but I had already read ERB’s Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Moon, Tarzan, and Pelucidor series, and even his book about Caligula, so I was tapped out and this was what was there.
I skimmed over all the romance, but I loved those poorly written books.
They also get bogged down surprisingly often in how to tie knots. For the amount of knot tying in those books, they really needed some diagrams.
I suspect that revisiting them today would be a different experience.
@gVOR10:
How the weather?
@Kurtz: You know, it just occurred to me, with politics as acrimonious as it’s become, we no longer can avoid the situation by “talking about the weather.”
@Kylopod:
Haha. gVOR is doing battle with Milton right now.
@Matt Bernius:
I’m sitting in the nicest suite on the QM2 and still thinking I’m one of them, one of the workers. My tastes and my means and my class loyalties are somewhat in conflict.
We are very easy to work for. An ex-waiter and an ex-waitress, who also cleaned homes and worked as motel maids in effect, there’s no safer bet in the tipping world than the two of us.
We are – this will not shock you – pretty impenetrably aloof from other passengers. And I’m not just saying this because I’m biased, but I have far and away the hottest girl on-board on my arm. Granted, the median age is just pre-feeble. It’s her 68th birthday today.
@Kurtz: Looks like the eye of Milton is going ashore in a few hours between Sarasota and Bradenton. Bad for them, but about 50 miles north of us. We’re looking at maybe 50 mph winds, no rain at the moment, and maybe 6″ when it settles out. Likely going to be bad further north, but we’re OK. Power’s out, but if it isn’t back in the morning I’ll fire up the generator.
@Michael Reynolds: How’s the Dramamine working today?
@gVOR10:
Power is on here. Mostly wind. Not much rain. I thought you were closer to Sarasota.
@MarkedMan:
I have had zero seasickness. Pressure point wristbands and Scopalamine transdermal. It turns out the instructions pretty clearly say one patch every three days, as opposed to the two in 24 hours that had me staggering around like a drunk. I’ve been fine. And we kind of like the cradle will rock thing at night.
They do force you to use the blackout curtains at night. Something to do with navigation, they say. Or maybe Jerry submarines.
@gVOR10:
Yes, they have them. No,they can’t tell us. Or won’t. You decide what you want to believe. After all, truth isn’t immutable.
@Michael Reynolds:
Periscope off to porr, Captain!
What is the deductible on typical flood insurance? I have earthquake insurance that has a $100,000 deductible because insurance companies think people will game them for every crack if the deductible was lower.
@Kurtz: Milton came ashore at Siesta Key. That’s near Sarasota.
I have a nephew named Kent who is a nurse. After working in England for two years, Kent came to the United States to live and work last month. Where? Sarasota.
Welcome to Florida, Kent. Don’t worry, he is in Naples with his girlfriend and doing fine. At least one of Kent’s possessions has survived.
@Michael Reynolds:
I just got home from a Viking Ocean cruise from NYC to Montreal. We chose it as a cruise that my aging parents could use their saved-up Viking credit on, despite my mother’s increasing mobility issues. Apparently, the rest of the world was thinking the same thing, because the median age was definitely post-feeble, especially if you don’t count the children escorting their parents (like me). I’m used to lots of gray hair on pricey cruises, but this was way beyond anything I’d seen before. Only a small minority of passengers could manage a brisk walk in a straight line.
@Not the IT Dept.:
So, presumably that agency would agree that Florida TV stations do not have free rein to air Trump speeches? If they’re going to start requiring fact-checking, they aren’t going to like the outcome.
@Kurtz: North Port. 20 or 30 miles to Sarasota, 50 to Bradenton.
Looks like it came in at Lido Key. (Next Key north of Siesta.) That will have aimed it right at downtown Sarasota. Last time I looked Weather Channel said Sarasota had 20 mph winds, rising quickly to 90 plus as the eye passed. Square hit on a largish city. This could be very bad.
@wr:
Using the Democrats LBGTQIAXYZ++ definition of a banned book. You can buy Gender Queer on Amazon too.
Walz told Vance that the Republicans ban books. From the book
@Kurtz: Yay, so glad to see you commenting! I hope all our other Floridian’s stay safe the next few days!
@Slugger: It can range from $1,000 to $10,000, each, for dwelling and property. The thing with flooding is that you almost always exceed your deductible. The damage done by water is massive.