Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, February 11, 2026
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27 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.
DHS detention:
“Link“
@charontwo:
“The Gaslight Report”
Noem’s language follows that template closely.
WTF?
FAA closes El Paso airspace for 10 days
Closed for “Special security concerns” and Fort Bliss doesn’t know?
@charontwo:
True. But there were no ubiquitous cameras in 1939, and there was no way for people to organize effectively. And there were no Minnesotans.
As I suggested a month or so ago:
Canada’s Muscular New Anti-Trump Strategy Debuts in Greenland
No one ever listens to poor Scott, no, he’s quite mad, they say. It is good that Scott does not mind, has even grown to like it.
@Scott: Even more WTF-ish, the FAA has just reversed that decision.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
NPR Is reporting that FAA has reopened El Paso airspace.
I finished season 1 of Haunted Hotel on Netflix.
The premise is, wait for it, a hotel haunted by ghosts and other supernatural creatures. It’s owned by a divorced woman with two kids, and her deceased brother, who is now a ghost.
It was ok for an animated series, with some very funny moments. The one issue I see is it keeps veering off in different directions. The last ep, no spoilers, was rather good, except for the fact that one of the kids, Esther, never really developed the deep relationship with one of the hotel’s creatures that is shown in the ep, and which is crucial to the plot. Just two eps prior, their relationship consisted in acknowledging each other in passing, while engaged in separate dark magic endeavors.
It’s ok for when you need a short watch after coming home too late from work.
Lysenkoism continues on its rise.
Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna’s flu vaccine application
As an attorney, nothing says “this IS what I went to law school for” , quite like beating a pro se litigant in court.
Bloomberg has reported that Trump will sign an executive order today directing US military bases to buy their electricity from coal-fired power plants. The order will also announce a plan to have the Dept of Energy spend $175M to upgrade coal-burning plants in several Appalachian states. No word on what those upgrades might be. Scrubbers? Capacity expansion?
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-direct-pentagon-buy-coal-revive-industry-bloomberg-news-says-2026-02-11/
All this is just a pissing contest?
@Scott: @Jen: @Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Airspace closure followed spat over drone-related tests and party balloon shoot-down, sources say
@Scott: The Republican vision for America: sicker, poorer, and dumber.
So, Biden’s numbers are inflated by a third, and Trump’s numbers are inflated by 300%? One of these facts looks like bad statistics; the other one looks like a deliberate lie. And we’re supposed to believe the Trump regime’s claim for January? Why would we?
Wouldn”t be a surprise if it is true:
Raskin says Trump’s name appears in the unredacted Epstein files over one million times: Report
I also think the Democrats should strongly push for Lutnick to be removed as Commerce Secretary. He visited Epstein’s island when it was already known that he was a sex offender. They should go for a scalp.
The one “good” thing about coal, is that it tends to occur in higher concentrations than most other mineral ores. Therefore there’s less in the way of tailings (waste rocks) than in other kinds of mining.
The bad thing about that “good” thing, is that it’s mined in such great quantities, that it produces much more tailings measured as mass than many other types of mining.
I’m confident that absent some great disaster that wipes out civilization, and climate change may just do it, we’ll eventually move to 100% non carbon emitting energy sources. When that happy state of affairs is reached, we’ll still extract oil, albeit in smaller amounts, because it’s also used in a variety of chemical industries, and to make some materials, like plastics and asphalt.
I don’t think there’s a corresponding use for coal. There are means for making gasoline out of coal, which requires hydrogenation, but in a non-carbon economy that would hardly be necessary.
@Michael Reynolds:
Last year the wingnuts claimed the drops in job numbers reflected immigrants who were deported, detained, or otherwise left their jobs.
How much food an health insurance can an unemployed person buy with deportation and detention statistics?
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5733236-gallup-stops-presidential-approval-ratings-polls/
I guess the URL is pretty much the entire article, minus the excuses. Gallup is stopping the presidential approval ratings poll after 80 years.
Well, for the next few years I guess we can just keep saying that according to the latest Gallup poll, Trump’s approval is 41%.
Looking at this photo of Lindsey Vonn in the hospital, three thoughts came to mind:
1) that’s a lot of IV medication (4 working visible infusion pumps, presumably more on an IV tree on her left side). Likely pain medication and antibiotics.
2) the supports on her leg look damned uncomfortable (and likely why she needs pain meds).
3) poor woman almost certainly has a urinary catheter.
@Scott: Yes.
A pissing match between the FAA (being currently run by someone who is more or less competent) and the Pentagon (being run by a Kegseth, an arrogant drunken frat boy).
There are conflicts like this around all military stations that put stuff up in the air, in normal times settled between two adults without anybody hearing about it. Every time there is a space shot, Air Force One goes by, the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds are doing a show, and the proximity fused AA shell tests that happen around Yakima (from personal knowledge) for a few examples.
This time the Pentagon seems to have tried to tell the FAA they will be using their lasers near commercial traffic without bothering to negotiate with the FAA. The head of the FAA apparently decided the best way to educate them, to show them “that shit isn’t going to fly”…as it were, was to raise a ruckus. I strongly suspect he encountered an arrogance which is new to the Pentagon before making that decision.
@Gustopher:
I found the news surprising, but thinking further about it, perhaps not that surprising.
When the electorate is so polarized, it would make sense for a majority of GOP voters to disapprove of a Democratic incumbent regardless of what they do in office, or how these voters are affected by their policies.
I’d argue the reverse is also true, but it’s hard to contend with El Taco. Seen objectively, I can’t think of one good, sensible, rational, or necessary policy he’s implemented in this term, and none come to mind for his first one, either. Certainly none through the pandemic, 2020 election, and worse yet the election’s aftermath. I can think of a few in Bush the toddler’s terms.
Either way, if 40% or so of those polled will give a negative rating regardless of other factors, then maybe the numbers the poll produces are not very useful.
@Kathy: Metallurgical coal (as opposed to thermal coal) will probably hang on for quite some time for ironmaking. New processes with much lower CO2 emissions are coming along, but depend on large stocks of green hydrogen.
@Kathy:
About half of Gallup’s funding coming from governmental agencies…and Trump’s love for beating people into submission whenever he can…is probably what’s behind it.
@Michael Cain:
I’m guessing that would be coal added to metal alloys, like carbon steel, not coal used to power furnaces to melt iron and other metals.
On the bad news front today, we may be far closer to a climate tipping point.
Spring seems to come earlier every year. I remember when cold/cool weather persisted until early to mid-March. Now it’s more like mid-February. Today was positively warm by 10 am. It may be a fluke, or maybe winter ended over 5 weeks ahead of schedule.
Even worse news, reading and writing can lower the risk of dementia up to 38%.
Great. So the climate will turn hellish, and I’m more likely to be fully aware of it when it happens.
Maybe I should watch more TV.
@Kathy:
It’s quite an illustration of the risk-reward balance that’s made Lindsey Vonn oft injured and also the greatest downhill racer of all time.
@Kathy: Given your location (CDMX) I could equally ask if it is an urban heat island. Likewise in much of the world after WW II rivers have been dammed for irrigation and flood control, massively changing the humidity levels in the “dry” season with evaporation (and heat content (enthalpy)) = nights don’t get as cold so starting off at a higher temp the next day (greenery too, lawns). Blaming everything on CO2 is simplistic (yes, CO2 is a factor, but so is water vapor (humidity)).
I do have an engineering background in Thermodynamics (I’m rusty but could do steam cycle calcs in my head within 10% of a formal check the Mollier Chart numbers), and even took a course (calculus-based) in atmospheric thermodynamics – well before it was trendy.
The Trump coal fetish – well I’ve given my opinion.