Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Come on, man.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

This fight is for everything.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

T R E 4 5 O N

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Spelling It Out

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Spelling It Out

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.

Across the aisle…


Speaking of New Hampshire… Apart from the NYTimes, Deval Patrick’s only potential constituency, IMO, are people hoping to kneecap Elizabeth Warren in the Granite State.


Patrick was a perfectly fine Massachusetts governor, in a state with such a weak gubernatorial system that we habitually elect ‘sensible’ Repubs as window dressing for our deep-blue legislature. He got two terms out of advertising himself as ‘Obama, but without the vaguely scary radical overtones’ to white suburban voters, and if he hadn’t promised his wife not to run again he’d probably have kept right on winning the corner office.

But if Obama Adjacent is what NH Democratic primary voters are looking for, they already have a choice between Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. And if they’re looking for a less alabaster alternative, well — neither Corey Booker nor Julian Castro, not to mention Kamala Harris, seem to be getting much Granite State attention.

Just in time for the holiday advertising blitz…

Reader Interactions

254Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Is that a surge for Biden in NH? I thought Warren and Sanders were lapping the pack there. Nice to see Sanders in 4th in NH.

    WRT Tulsi’s showing, another data point in support of closed primaries

  2. 2.

    satby

    Good morning all! 4 inches of snow on the ground and a winter storm watch all day as the lake effect drops more, up to another 2-4 inches. It’s a market day, but I’m strongly thinking of skipping it.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Probably old news around here,

    John Oliver and his team at HBO’s Last Week Tonight swung for the Emmy fences on Sunday, and hit a grand slam home run.

    The segment was about a lawsuit against them from Bob Murray, coal baron and SLAPP lawsuit filer.

    It turns out he is also an alleged (Please note, C&L “legal team”) workplace harasser who allegedly (same note) demanded a female employee find his kidney stone on the office carpet, but I digress, and so did John Oliver.

    SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation” — nuisance lawsuits designed to intimidate and silence critics — illegal in the majority of states. So people like Bob Murray simply file their SLAPP suits in states like West Virginia, where they are NOT illegal.

    After two years and a massive legal bill, HBO and John Oliver triumphed, and are able to speak about it.

    Or sing on the streets of New York City in full Broadway regalia. They pulled out all the stops:

    The musical interlude begins at the 21:00 mark.

  10. 10.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @satby:

    Nothing so far here in NoVA. We’ve had some squibs of rain, but it’s still 50°. The temp is going to drop rapidly all day, down to 31° at midnight and 26° tomorrow morning. But it looks like no snow for us. Which is okay with me.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    and if he hadn’t promised his wife not to run again he’d probably have kept right on winning the corner office.

    Wait, he stopped being governor because of his wife, but is now thinking of running for president? Did he get divorced? Does not compute.

  17. 17.

    satby

    @Steeplejack (phone): @JPL: it’s 20° here now, skyrocketing to 25° later. Tomorrow 29°, then warming back into the more seasonal 40s by Sunday. So today will be the coldest of this blast. We’re set up for this here in the north though, for you more southerly types it’s traumatic.

  23. 23.

    JMG

    @Baud: Four candidates all within five points of each other? Doesn’t seem like a surge for anyone to me. My guess is the real leader in New Hampshire and everywhere else is “Dunno Yet.”

  24. 24.

    Anya

    @Baud: at the end of the day, the top three or four will end up with the same number of delegates and our nightmare will not end, until Super Tuesday.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @JMG:

    Well, i had thought that Warren and Sanders had been well ahead of anyone else. Maybe I was mistaken about that.

  28. 28.

    satby

    @Baud: they were. I think @JMG: is right, most are still undecided.
    Men like Deval Patrick (and Bloomberg et al) look at those polls and think they can parachute in to offer a yearning public a choice they don’t have.
    Exactly the wrong analysis of those polls.

  32. 32.

    Ian R

    Am I the only one bothered by the triple word score and other bonus squares in the Scrabble board in that cartoon being in the wrong places?

    @OzarkHillbilly: That musical number was amazing. It also probably cost more for those few minutes than the whole two years of litigation that prompted it.

  34. 34.

    JGabriel

    Anne Laurie:

    Apart from the NYTimes, Deval Patrick’s only potential constituency, IMO, are people hoping to kneecap Elizabeth Warren in the Granite State.

    I suspect there’s a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of the NYT and people hoping to kneecap Warren.

  35. 35.

    JPL

    @JGabriel: I heard speculation that it could take away Biden’s support among black voters which seemed odd to me. Last I checked we have other strong candidates that should be able to do that.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Stonekettle
    ‏
    A veteran asks the VA why they are retweeting a partisan hack who never served a day in the US military, and the VA blocks him for it.
    This is Donald Trump’s @DeptVetAffairs

    Travis Akers
    ‏
    I asked the VA why they retweeted Seb Gorka and I was blocked…
    Why is the VA blocking veterans?!

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I thought I saw pictures of Dorka wearing military-like garb with medals or service pins of some sort. Doesn’t that count for something? Maybe I’m confusing him with SHERIFF Clarke, when decked out in all sorts of pins? [Do they give pins out for torturing/mistreating inmates?]

  41. 41.

    JGabriel

    @JPL:

    I heard speculation that it could take away Biden’s support among black voters which seemed odd to be. Last I checked we have other strong candidates that should be able to do that.

    I agree, but Patrick has associations with Obama and his administration that he could parlay into endorsements and greater support. So I suppose Patrick could be a threat to Biden on that basis.

    That said, I don’t think Patrick would have much impact outside of Massachusetts. He simply doesn’t have the same level of name recognition elsewhere, and it’s a little late to start building it. And I’m not sure he would even have that much impact in MA.

  42. 42.

    RAVEN

    @Baud: I have related a story from my Georgia Football Blog. The dude has a “playpen” once a week that allows political conversations. It’s real fucking mud pit with mostly RMNJ’s and a couple of lefties. There are a couple of identifiable vets there and I asked how they could support someone who let somebody else take their place in Vietnam. Both said they thought he was a coward and punk but if he fucked with liberals that was enough for them. They hate us Dawg.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    I can’t believe Lincoln Chaffer isn’t hopping in again given that none of our other 20 candidates are talking about the metric system.

  46. 46.

    RAVEN

    @SFAW:

    While at university, he joined the British Territorial Army as a volunteer (typically committing to a weekend a month and a fortnight’s annual camp), serving over a period of three years in the 22 Intelligence Company of the Intelligence and Security Group (Volunteers), an interrogation unit with a NATO role specializing in Russian language training and supporting 1 (BR) Corps until the latter was disbanded in 1992 at the end of the Cold War.[20][15][21][22][23]

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    On an unrelated note: was listening to Nice Polite Rethuglicans this AM, and the talking head had on Jamil Something-or-other, who was an attorney in the Bush Administration (I think they said W, but not sure), talking about the upcoming impeachment inquiry hearings. He, of course, was brought in to provide “legal” analysis, etc.

    “Confront his accuser(s)” (re: whistleblower testifying) — check
    “Hunter Biden’s unethical (or something) actions” — check
    “Partisan process is illegitimate” — check

    There were a few more RWMF/Traitor check-offs. Naturally, there was no pushback on his bullshit from the NPR “interviewer.” On the other hand, it would seem inappropriate to question the integrity and legal knowledge of someone who worked with that paragon of Constitutional something-or-other, John Yoo.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    can’t believe Lincoln Chaffer isn’t hopping in again given that none of our other 20 candidates are talking about the metric system.

    Why didn’t we convert? Congress passed a law, in the 1970’s to convert. I remember PSA commercials, as a kid, about 22C being like 70F and other simple data points, so you knew, when you needed wear a coat.

    Just a terrible missed opportunity

  53. 53.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @RAVEN:

    Both said they thought he was a coward and punk but if he fucked with liberals that was enough for them. They hate us Dawg.

    There it is. They don’t actually stand for anything and have no real consistent principles. I would have told them so and asked them why they hate America so much. Not to mention taunt them about not being able to hear them over the screams of the Kurds we abandoned. No amount of handwashing is going to get the blood off of their hands for voting for Trump

  54. 54.

    Steeplejack

    Instant Pot digression: I found out at dinner last night that my brother got one from someone as a belated birthday present. I rhapsodized a little about it and told him I’d send him some links, which I did.

    While I was checking around I ran across this handy A-to-Z guide to cooking all types of rice in the Instant Pot. Short version: skip the custom rice button, go with cooking on high pressure for specified time and natural release. Looks pretty solid, so I’m going to do some experimenting.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Confirmation (as if any was needed) we’re in good company, what with being included along with all the other demographic segments they hate.

  57. 57.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @gene108:
    Yes it was. Metric is so much easier to use than the Imperial system. It’s just factors of ten and extremely easy to convert between liters and milliliters for example.

  58. 58.

    gene108

    @Raven:

    Just think Trump will make a shitshow of his passing, if it happens.

    Maybe bothers me more than it should, so I hope he holds on till Trump is voted out.

    Otherwise, he’s had a good long life and I wouldn’t have a problem of letting go.

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @gene108:

    Why didn’t we convert?

    Old people. To be more specific, old white people. To be even more specific, old white men.

  64. 64.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby: Are you really getting more snow? Because I don’t think we are. At least I hope not. Our flight is at 4:30 or so.

    1000 flights were cancelled at O’Hare yesterday because, in the snow, a small plane slid off the runway. Thank god we we’re going today.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    I don’t think anyone did anything specific. It’s just that with Reagan in, there was no one is government to manage the conversion process.

  67. 67.

    JPL

    @gene108: Trump would use his death to derail the impeachment proceedings. Anyway it’s a simple procedure and knowing Carter, he’ll teach Sunday school this weekend. That’s what I hope anyway.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    Inorite. We almost had it here back in the ’80s, but Reagan apparatchik Lyn Nofziger killed it. . . . Hmm, I see he died here in Falls Church back in 2006. I wonder if he’s buried here. Might warrant a trip to whiz on his grave. Perhaps just a few centiliters.

  69. 69.

    JPL

    @Keith P.: The local news is saying pressure from the falls, but you have to wonder why his balance is off. He’s fallen four time in the last six months.

  70. 70.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @gene108:
    I can’t imagine how he’d act during a state funeral Carter. Well, I can. Like he did for McCain, but then I don’t think Trump personally hates Carter like he did McCain

  71. 71.

    Sab

    @Keith P.: Probably the treatment for brain tumor meant he got a lot less exercise in the last year or so. At his age people lose muscle tone really quickly.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL:

    The local news is saying pressure from the falls,

    To me that sounds like really bad phrasing. Falls do not cause pressure on the brain. Injuries resulting from falls cause pressure on the brain.

  73. 73.

    Mai naem mobile

    @gene108: I am worried about Carter this time. He’s had a good long life etc but to die under Trumpov and have to worry about Trumpov showing up at your funeral would be too much for any family. I know somebody whose situation sounded similar to Carters and it did not end up well for him. I hope Cartera prognosis and outcome is better.

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    Gee, I see I’m not as much of an isolated crank on this subject as I thought. The Reagan administration killed it—specifically Lyn Nofziger. Fuckers.

    If we had done it back then we’d be 30-plus years on and much better off. The kids coming up don’t even recognize longhand, and the metric system would be so much easier than what we have now.

  75. 75.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Baud:
    Yes. With all the caveats of broken glass, I think that’s what infuriates me with Biden. I don’t mind his public option healthcare plan. I think a lot of his “let’s work with Republicans” and “Trump is an aberration, the GOP will go back to normal when he’s gone” is out of touch. He could be just saying it to appeal to certain moderate Dem voters, but the primaries are a time to push the envelope a bit. He’s talking like a general candidate and I’m not convinced he doesn’t believe this.

    The GOP’s smearing of him and his son should have disabused him of that notion. His Senate colleagues would happily throw him into a prison camp.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    At least eight former White House, presidential transition and campaign officials for President Donald Trump were hired as outside contractors to the federal health department at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, according to documents newly obtained by POLITICO.

    They were among at least 40 consultants who worked on a one-year, $2.25 million contract directed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma. The contractors were hired to burnish Verma’s personal brand and provide “strategic communications” support. They charged up to $380 per hour for work traditionally handled by dozens of career civil servants in CMS’s communications department.

    They had to burnish her personal brand because she was heading up the Trump Administration effort to make health care coverage junkier and less comprehensive, and obviously that would be unpopular with voters without a lot of very expensive “burnishing”.

    If we’ve learned anything from the Trump years we’ve learned that career civil servants are much higher quality employees than anyone Trump hires, so we got worse people for way more money.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:
    A UNH poll on 10/29 had it at:
    21 Sanders
    18 Warren
    15 Biden
    10 Buttigieg

    A You gov poll mid-October had
    32 Warren
    24 Sanders
    17 Biden
    7 Buttigieg

    (538)

  78. 78.

    Amir Khalid

    @JPL:

    you have to wonder why his balance is off.

    Could be age-related physical decline, which would be sad but no real surprise.

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
    As I recall, HW Bush didn’t have a state funeral. I guess it’s not mandatory for an ex-POTUS. That’s one way out of having to invite Trump.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    Biden’s “Trump is an aberration, the GOP will go back to normal when he’s gone” leaves out the part where the normal before Trump was Moscow Mitch blocking everything in the Senate and stealing a Supreme Court seat. Maybe Biden can explain why he wasn’t “working across the aisle” back then.

  80. 80.

    Ken

    @Ian R:

    Am I the only one bothered by the triple word score and other bonus squares in the Scrabble board in that cartoon being in the wrong places?

    In my case it was that they only had five tiles, but now that you point it out…

    Maybe it’s not Scrabble(R)(C)TM but Words With Friends(R)(C)TM, or one of the many other “how does this not violate intellectual property laws” Scrabble-inspired games.

  81. 81.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: We got a dusting; the only reason more didn’t stick was because it was so warm over the weekend. It’s currently 11 degrees. I agree, it’s too early for January weather!

    In other news, over on the Trump side Parnas has decided he isn’t going to prison for Trump: https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-associate-says-gave-demand-130726292.html Giuliani Associate Says He Gave Demand for Biden Inquiry to Ukrainians The allegation is that he gave the demand for an investigation of the Bidens to a representative of the new government before the president was even sworn in. It tracks with the fact that the VP didn’t attend the swearing-in.

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    @SFAW: I heard that too. Funny that they didn’t get an Obama administration official for that interview. It’s almost as if they wanted these pre-determined answers to the questions. NPR will never quit trying to prove to conservatives that they are “fair and balanced”, and conservatives will never see them as anything other than flaming liberals, and we’ll all be paying for that as long as NPR is around with interviews like this one.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    I don’t think he can credibly go the other way though. People don’t think of him as a fighter. They really like him best when he’s smiling through a debate with Sarah Palin, and somehow winning. This strategy is not really a choice. His geniality is his biggest personal strength. The other thing he has is experience and that’s undervalued.

    I don’t know- maybe it will work against Trump. Trump’s a mean-spirited, petty asshole and so are the people he hires. Maybe enough people are sick of that and they’ll replace them with nicer people. It doesn’t really scratch the itch of the Democratic primary electorate but it’s a different approach than the rest who are all “I will drag him across the debate stage!”

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @JPL:

    but you have to wonder why his balance is off.

    He’s 95. As Amir indicated, old people often suffer a severe decline in their balance. Doesn’t really matter if he was swinging a hammer last summer. If I understand things correctly, loss of balance in The Olds is a leading cause of injuries (from falls).

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    I love Jimmy Carter but we were told with my father in law that a series of falls is the thing for very active, very elderly people. That’s what gets them and it’s cruel, right, because they’re falling because they remain active where a less healthy very elderly person won’t fall because they’re not doing a lot. They’re just fragile and they don’t really recover from repeated knocks to the head.

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @Ian R:

    Am I the only one bothered by the triple word score and other bonus squares in the Scrabble board in that cartoon being in the wrong places?

    Boy, I sure hope so.

    Are you one of those persons who argues for hours re: whether “anal(-)retentive” is hyphenated?

  92. 92.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    I would be fine with the congenial approach. That can work even against bullies like McConnell. But it’s how old Biden is that makes me worry that Biden doesn’t have a congenial strategy, but is just sitting in his rocker reminiscing about days bygone.

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    Or maybe it’s just a friggin political cartoon, not a John Singer Sargent painting.

    Bingo.

    Although I do think Toles deserves a Nobel Peace Prize in Quasi-Literature, for the body of his work.

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax:
    We are holding at T-minus two days. The Immp needed a certain type of three way wire connector which ends up being a marine electrical item. Amazon delivers them Wednesday. But I have finished all my chores — painting the frame and JW Weld on one of the stainless covers. It’s going to be a beauty!

    (PS, “No-L?” Really??)

  99. 99.

    Immanentize

    In good news, I see that Rockeymoore Cummings, Elijah’s widow, will run for his Baltimore seat.

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @different-church-lady: I got the full Ford/Carter-era sell for metric and welcomed it with nerdy passion. Then specialized in science so naturally I was using metric units all the time. The interesting question is which system of metric electromagnetic units to prefer (SI/MKS is good but not best for all purposes).

  102. 102.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Immanentize: Speaking as someone who used to teach editing, there’s a lot of discretion around hyphens. What tends to happen is that a publication’s practice starts incorporating more and more of them until someone in charge calls a halt and they trim back for a while. Then it starts again.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @different-church-lady: Most of the people I know only hated it from the age of 60 onwards.

    Speaking as a carpenter who spent too much time fixing the fuck ups of people who didn’t have 12 fingers, I wish we’d gone metric a long time ago.

  104. 104.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Didn’t we crash a multi-million dollar Mars probe because two groups of scientist were using two non-metric measurements? US and Imperial? Or am I misrememberating?

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    @Immanentize:

    In the construction under discussion, hyphens are used when adjectives pile up in front of a noun and you need to specify that the first adjective applies to the second, not to the noun. “Quick dry cement” could theoretically be read as “cement that is both quick and dry,” but “quick-dry cement” clarifies that quick is tied to dry instead. “Anally retentive” wouldn’t need a hyphen, since adverbs always modify adjectives, but “anal-retentive” probably does.

  113. 113.

    Wapiti

    @Baud: My theory of veteran support numbers:

    Until 1973 there was a draft; an 18-year old drafted in 1973 would be 64 now, and one of those veterans. Since there were college exemptions, figure he’s got a high school education. And the number of people who passed through the service was significantly higher in a draft, with people serving 2 years stints compared to maybe 6 years now, with a much smaller force now. Yes, there are POC, yes there are college educated people. Note also that the large ROTC programs are predominately in the southern US now.

    Draw a venn diagram for veteran and white working class male and you’ll have a large overlap. That’s my guess.

  115. 115.

    206inKY

    I already hated Bain Capital, but didn’t realize they were behind the dismantling of Toys R Us. That is pretty much the definition of evil for anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.

  117. 117.

    Betty Cracker

    Donald Trump this morning:

    I will be releasing the transcript of the first, and therefore more important, phone call with the Ukrainian President before week’s end!

    LMAO. Media outlets’ reaction to this blatant and pathetic red herring may tell us something about how they’ll cover impeachment hearings.

  123. 123.

    Sloane Ranger

    Afternoon all.

    Just returned from my walking group outing. Temperature 7 degrees, winds 30 km/hr and squally rain. North and West Midlands underwater with more to come. On the plus side, stopped at a pub for lunch and had one of the best fish, chips and mushy peas I’ve had in a long time.

    Thinking positive thoughts about President Carter.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    but is just sitting in his rocker reminiscing about days bygone.

    I keep going back to the fact that IMO the centrists are running SENATE campaigns, not presidential campaigns. Somehow Bernie and Warren made this leap and got out of that and of course Mayor Pete never had it to deal with.
    Amy Klobachur’s campaign is a perfectly executed Minnesota senate campaign. I would definitely vote for her for US senate and a lot of people have!
    I just don’t get any sense that they’re grasping the enormity of this problem :)

  126. 126.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:
    Imperial measures are mostly but not entirely the same as US measures (dang you Americans and your exceptionalism). They are still used informally in Britain, but not for official/commercial purposes. So my ruling is that what remains of them should be called US measures.

  128. 128.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yep. It would have saved me a world of money because I would have only needed one set of tools (metric) as opposed to 2.

    Yeah, I bet it woulda sucked to have to get a 680 gram Estwing as an alternative to your 24 oz version. I guess you’d use that to drive your 0.09 Euro nails (or your 0.1456 Euro nails for heavier work).

  129. 129.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    His wife is a management-side labor lawyer too. So that will come up.

    So I shouldn’t have Steve in the ATL as my running mate?

  130. 130.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Is that the one where the Ukrainians call him “sir”?

    What I want to know is: how would the Liar-in-Chief know that Zelensky had tears running down his face, if it’s not a face-to-face?

  131. 131.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Amir Khalid: The province of MDs, EEs, & a fair chunk of lawyers. The kind of assholes that demand respect for their advanced degrees & alleged expertise but routinely disparage those of others. Give them half an hour to think about any subject & they’ll be happy to inform you they know more about it than people who’ve studied & worked in it for decades.

  132. 132.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    So I shouldn’t have Steve in the ATL as my running mate?

    Wait a minute; are you saying you and Steve in WTFKW are married? (To each other.)

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    It is kind of amusing watching money go to the barricades in response to Warren. They’re such big babies. She probably isn’t going to win and even if she did and then won the general it would be hard as nails raising their taxes. They’re not really threatened. They’re just mad because we’re not worshiping them anymore. They’re the real snowflakes.

  136. 136.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Isn’t Balloon Juice really just a form of group marriage?

    Well, that’s a euphemism for “clusterfuck” that I haven’t seen before.

  138. 138.

    James E Powell

    @JMG:

    Four candidates all within five points of each other? Doesn’t seem like a surge for anyone to me. My guess is the real leader in New Hampshire and everywhere else is “Dunno Yet.”

    It’s fair to say that none of the candidates has emerged a dominant force in this primary. My anecdotal read is that Democratic primary voters are caught between who they would like to be president and who they think can beat Trump. The fact that just under half the country chose Trump over the eminently qualified centrist Hillary Clinton is still messing with people’s heads.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. Unfortunately, very expensive hardware *specially imported from France* is not installed with a framing hammer, no matter how much I want take one to it.

    ** just so the parvenu can say, “We had this specially imported from France”.

  140. 140.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:
    I guess that’s a possibility, but if you were Zelensky, would you really want to put yourself through that? Looking at Cheetolini’s visage, even on a screen. I know that my upchuck reflex tries to kick in whenever I see him, I would think Zelensky might be similar.

  143. 143.

    joel hanes

    @Wapiti:

    Since there were college exemptions

    There were no college exemptions the last couple years of the draft.
    Ask me how I know.

  144. 144.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I actually hated Toys R Us as a parent. One of my childless sisters used to take my kids and they weren’t happy when they got back. They were in this kind of awful retail-induced frantic state and it would all end in tears and them fighting with one another. Scarcity of toys is what makes them valuable to kids. Too many and it’s just a pile of junk.

    But Bain shouldn’t chop it up and strip it.

  145. 145.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Interesting theory about them running senate campaigns. Never looked at it from that angle, but I think there’s some truth to it — a presidential race requires a sharp vision that is easy to encapsulate. That’s not easy.

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    This really does need to be a campaign point of any Democratic nominee – the across the board, CORRUPTION.

    Why did so many Trump allies benefit from a lucrative HHS contract?
    11/12/19 09:24 AM
    By Steve Benen

    For much of the country, I imagine Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma is a relatively obscure figure in the Trump administration. She occasionally enters the fray – pushing Medicaid work requirements, blasting “Obamacare,” and making underwhelming political arguments – but for the most part, Verma is only known to public officials, industry stakeholders, health care wonks, and journalists who follow health care issues closely.

    It’s against this backdrop that Politico has a new report on eight former members of Donald Trump’s operation – from his campaign, presidential transition team, or White House – who were paid quite a bit to reportedly work as outside public-relations consultants on Verma’s behalf.

    They were among at least 40 consultants who worked on a one-year, $2.25 million contract directed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma. The contractors were hired to burnish Verma’s personal brand and provide “strategic communications” support. They charged up to $380 per hour for work traditionally handled by dozens of career civil servants in CMS’s communications department.

    The arrangement allowed the Trump allies to cycle through the federal government’s opaque contracting system, charging hefty fees with little public oversight or accountability.

  150. 150.

    ThresherK

    I’ve lived in CT my whole life and did not know MA had a weak governor system.

    The governor of Texas has, famously, not much power. Is MA comparable to that?

  151. 151.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ian R: I can assure you that if my sister sees that cartoon (did it run in the Detroit “paper”/pixels?), she will be as bothered as you are, or maybe more.

    She will be more frustrated than you because the only person she can voice her indignation to will be my BIL and he will only sigh at her.

  153. 153.

    narya

    @gene108: I’ve ended up “converting” in my head a lot. For one, I prefer using grams for baking, and at this point i just do a lot of that in my head. Second, though, I watch a lot of Formula 1, and they always give the temps in C, so I’ve gotten used to THAT, too, though I actually think F is a bit more informative for temperature. Why? Dunno. Ask my brain.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @Wapiti:

    Until 1973 there was a draft; an 18-year old drafted in 1973 would be 64 now, and one of those veterans. Since there were college exemptions…

    Actually, college exemptions went away several years before the draft ended, which was how I wound up in the Navy. They instead did a thing they called a birthday lottery, wherein the date of your birthday got tied to the order in which young men were drafted.

    My birthday got a double-digit draft number which I actually have finally forgotten, but since they drafted up into the 200-and-some region, being under a hundred was a sure thing. In fact I went before spring even set in.

  155. 155.

    Ohio Mom

    @different-church-lady: The failed ramp-up to the metric conversion was during my college years.

    My elementary ed major roommates spent a lot of time and energy becoming fluent in metric. It was the main thing they were going to have to teach that they had no prior experience with or knowledge of.

    They could get a little panicky about it. It was a big dinner time conversation topic for a while.

  157. 157.

    Gin & Tonic

    @TomatoQueen: King Arthur Flour baking school teaches everything in grams, since modern kitchen scales are digital and adjustable, and it’s easier to work with units like 185 grams than with 6 1/2 ounces, for example.

  159. 159.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Steeplejack (phone): Kamala Harris started out so well but appears to have faded. I don’t know if it’s the Russian bots, attacks that she’s a cop from the extreme left or something else but she’s not doing well in the polls. She’ll make a great Attorney General in a Democrat administration or SCOTUS Justice.

  162. 162.

    Gin & Tonic

    @ThresherK: I don’t know if that weakness is de jure or de facto. When you have Whitey Bulger’s brother running the legislature, it will tend to be stronger.

  163. 163.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mai naem mobile: I am framing it this way for myself: Carter (like Elijah Cummings) has lived to see this country begin to right itself.

    Would we prefer that Carter live to see more of this process, of course. But like the Moses story referenced by Martin Luther King, Carter (and Cummings) can see enough into the future from his mountain top perch to know justice will prevail.

  165. 165.

    chris

    @Amir Khalid: In Canada we are 40 years on from metric conversion and people are still complaining. The grocery store for example lists everything as kg./lb. for the old folks (and some of the young ones.) All because our largest trading partner is run by people with twelve fingers who felt they had to stand with their allies, Burma and, um… Liberia.

  166. 166.

    rikyrah

    Republicans struggle to address substance of impeachment inquiry

    Democrats are shutting down Republican requests for Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to testify. And Axios has obtained a memo of talking points for Republicans to use as they struggle to form a coherent defense strategy ahead of public impeachment hearings. David Jolly tells Lawrence O’Donnell that he’s not surprised those GOP talking points are inaccurate: “Neither the facts nor the Founders are on the Republican side in this impeachment inquiry.”

  167. 167.

    The Moar You Know

    Polling data from New Hampshire shows that Tulsi Gabbard has reached 6% support overall in the primary, but that is almost entirely because 10% of non-Democrats who can vote in the NH primary

    Why the fuck do we still allow this? Republicans don’t. Anywhere.

  168. 168.

    J R in WV

    @narya:

    Regarding Centigrade v Farenheit:

    I actually think F is a bit more informative for temperature. Why? Dunno. Ask my brain.

    That’s because it IS finer grained. a degree C is nearly twice as much temperature difference than a degree F. This is why 68F is 20C, the standard temperature for darkroom fluids in most analog film photography work.

    The temperature span from freezing water to boiling water of 100 degrees C is 180 degrees F, so nearly twice as much fineness of detail in a temperature reading.

  170. 170.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And here I thought you went to the Moe, Larry, and Curly School of Carpentry.

    Nah, I flunked out of there. Had to settle for the Joe Besser Skool of Hammerin’ and Stuff. [Better there than the Joe DeRita Skool of Unfunniness, I guess.]

  172. 172.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    “Neither the facts nor the Founders are on the Republican side in this impeachment inquiry.”

    But the Traitor-in-Chief and Fox are, so that’s all that matters to them.

  174. 174.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @The Moar You Know: Bullshit. The Wisconsin primary is open. You get one ballot. You can only vote in one party’s section – if you vote across party lines in the primary, your ballot is voided.

  175. 175.

    chopper

    @Steeplejack:

    ah yes, those halcyon days of yore when more than half of the republican party honestly believed that obama was faking his birth. the good old days of comity and bipartisanship.

  178. 178.

    GregoryMulka

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    We got just a touch over 3 at my house. The kids got to try out the new hill and I got to shovel the driveway for 90 minutes. I moved out of MI to not have snow in November. But we got the last of the bulbs in on Sunday while it was 60.

  180. 180.

    rikyrah

    I liked this segment,because Maddow points out the corruption from day one. Peep the fraud from Perry for one of his Texas cronies.

    Trump administration models corruption even as it scolds Ukraine

    Rachel Maddow reports on the latest developments in the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry and its adjacent criminal investigations and scandals, including new reporting on Secretary Rick Perry helping a political backer secure a valuable natural gas contract with Ukraine, and notes the irony of the Trump administration lecturing Ukraine on corruption.

  181. 181.

    the Conster

    Shit just got real in the Stone trial, as Rick Gates confirms that Stone told Trump that more wikileaks info was coming. The same Rick Gates that worked with Tad Devine and Paul Manafort in Ukraine? Yes. Did Tad Devine and Paul Manafort then return from Ukraine to run the Sanders and Trump campaigns? Yes. I’m sure it’s just all just an AMAZING coincidence THAT ALL THE ROADS THAT LEAD TO PUTIN RUN THROUGH UKRAINE.

    Yanukovych was ousted in 2014 after he halted Ukraine’s movement toward the European Union, yet Devine offered to help Manafort’s efforts in the 2014 Ukraine election — for a price. “We are ready to take on this project,” he wrote to Manafort partner Rick Gates, for $100,000 per month (payable in advance), $25,000 per week of runoff, a $50,000 “success fee” and expenses including first-class airfare. In June 2014 — even as talks about the Sanders presidential run were getting underway — Devine went to Ukraine to help remnants of Yanukovych’s party reforming under a new name. “My rate for something like this would be $10,000/day, including travel days,” he wrote to Gates.

  182. 182.

    Ohio Mom

    @chopper: Living my in a red suburb as I do, I know a lot of Republicans who still have not caught on (lo these many decades later) that their party has radicalized.

    They think of their party as the province of mature, thoughtful prudence, and Trump as an absolute aberration.

    I imagine that Biden’s insistence that Republicans will work with him is extremely reassuring for them. Someone else sees, as they do, that their party is the epitome of reasonable governance. They must feel wonderfully validated.

    Now if this translates as votes for Biden should he be the nominee, I’ll take it, even though I think Biden will accomplish very little as President (but brokrn glass).

  184. 184.

    Keith P.

    @Gin & Tonic: Their youtube video series on making baguettes is *great*. I learned so much just from maybe 15 minutes of video…dwarfed what I’ve learned from Breadtopia, et al

  186. 186.

    ThresherK

    @Gin & Tonic: Since I thought du jure was what my wife gets alongside her prime rib, I’ll take your word for it.

    My information about TX gummint is basically informed by Molly Ivins, often in collection books of her work. Maybe some more digging into Charlie Pierce would suit me. (I know Mike Barnacle (no sic) enough to not bother.)

  187. 187.

    Gin & Tonic

    @the Conster:

    “My rate for something like this would be $10,000/day, including travel days,” he wrote to Gates.

    As I’ve pointed out before, houses on Block Island are very expensive.

  188. 188.

    ThresherK

    @Gin & Tonic: Wait, King Arthur Flour has a YouTube series?

    I wish I had a grown-up sized kitchen and oven. I mean, I always wished that, but now even more.

  190. 190.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    I keep going back to the fact that IMO the centrists are running SENATE campaigns, not presidential campaigns.

    This is an intriguing perspective. What would you say are the key differences between a senate and a presidential campaign? How do you think the Centrists should structure their campaigns to make them more presidential in message and scope?

  191. 191.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Kay:

    His wife is a management-side labor lawyer too

    You forgot to add “not that there’s anything wrong with that”!

  193. 193.

    TomatoQueen

    @Gin & Tonic: Pat at King Arthur Flour can teach in any system she likes, and I notice the web page has always offered the option of converting from volume measures to weight measures, a nice courtesy. Flat statements such as yours “x is easier than y” invite the obvious riposte, “speak for yourself.” I am still trying to learn baking without measuring from Lidia & so far conclude that she’s doing exactly what Grandma did, measure by intuition and feel, based on years of practice and observation. That’s real skill.

  194. 194.

    the Conster

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Selling a populist (bullshit) *revolution* to a bunch of low info new to politics white dudes is lucrative. I don’t understand why none of the candidates demand Bernie answer what he knew and when he knew it, that the Russians were boosting his campaign. Because he knew.

  195. 195.

    Barbara

    @TomatoQueen: Bread is particularly susceptible to environmental conditions (heat, humidity) so that all measurements including timing are variable. Julia Child’s advice regarding bread was to start with a wet dough and let it rest for 15 minutes to absorb the flour and then decide whether you needed that last 1/2 to 1 cup of additional flour to make a manageable dough. A wet bread dough develops a better crust.

  196. 196.

    Mnemosyne

    @TomatoQueen:

    I’m guessing that, when it comes to baking, “intuition and feel” is actually based on the perceived weight of the ingredients in your hands even if it’s not articulated that way. Humans are way better at estimating weight by touch than they are at estimating volume by sight.

  197. 197.

    Gin & Tonic

    @TomatoQueen: I was simply repeating what they told us in class. I’ve not looked at their web page or videos, but the in-person classes are all in metric. They’ve clearly spent a lot of time testing, so I’ll trust them.

    IMO, cooking can be improvisational, done by “intuition and feel”, and come out fine. A couple of tablespoons more or less of tomato paste in a stew is no biggie; leaving out cilantro or okra because they’re disgusting doesn’t ruin a recipe. But baking is chemistry. If the recipe calls for 6 eggs and you only have 4, or if you add a tablespoon of baking powder when it calls for a teaspoon, you have a serious problem.

  199. 199.

    Barbara

    @Gin & Tonic: You are right about many ingredients, but for others, there is a margin for variation that doesn’t change the essential elements of the product. You can lower the amount of sugar in most cake and muffin recipes (not cookies) by about 1/3 and still have a great bake. I have found Julia Child’s recipe for brioche to use much more butter than I actually want in a bread of any kind. I cut it in half without even blinking.

  201. 201.

    Amir Khalid

    @J R in WV:
    A degree Celsius of temperature difference is indeed nearly twice as great as a degree Fahrenheit of temperature difference. But it doesn’t follow that the Celsius scale is less precise. You can express a temperature in either scale as precisely as you require by adding one or two decimal places, or as many as necessary.
    But when you’re talking about the weather (and not as, say, a meteorologist), how precise do you really need to be? I would consider whole degrees, either F or C, quite adequate.

  202. 202.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:
    Had a twitter go round with some yesterday. One stated that two administrators had been caught in some scheme to steal quite a bit of money and that meant that the entire VA is therefore a fraud and corrupt. They got caught. For some people a ripple is the entire ocean. BTW they didn’t state it as such, it’s just the way they discuss it. I’m not sure they understand how big the VA actually is. If all you ever see is a small, rural clinic…..

  203. 203.

    catclub

    @SFAW:

    He, of course, was brought in to provide “legal” analysis, etc.

    No, he was brought in to describe the GOP strategy. yes he was an asshole, but he was not brought in for any balance.
    It could have been clearer that he was describing the GOP strategy, not evaluating it. The interviewer should have done that.

  205. 205.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin:

    which system of metric electromagnetic units to prefer (SI/MKS is good but not best for all purposes).

    on vi verses emacs lines: is j current or square root of -1 ? Engineers versus physicists.

    cgs EM units for em theory.

  206. 206.

    TomatoQueen

    Oh look at all the didacts this morning. I’ve been baking for 50 years, both home and commercial, so I think by now I know a little bit about how to measure, what happens with a loaf of bread, and when to substitute.

  207. 207.

    StringOnAStick

    My memories of physics and chemistry classes are that a large chunk of the homework and test questions were about converting units, or had that as a main feature in order to get the correct answer. I still remember all the conversion techniques but precious little of the actual concepts I was supposed to be learning at the time. It strikes me that students would be better and more efficiently served by learning more about concepts than conversions any calculator can do.

  208. 208.

    Aleta

    (NYT) The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations, overriding protests from scientists and physicians ….

    A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal, titled Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, would require that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider an academic study’s conclusions. …
    …
    The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements. And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place.
    …
    Public health experts warned that studies that have been used for decades — to show, for example, that mercury from power plants impairs brain development, or that lead in paint dust is tied to behavioral disorders in children — might be inadmissible when existing regulations come up for renewal.

    For instance, a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University project that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths, currently the foundation of the nation’s air-quality laws, could become inadmissible. When gathering data for their research, known as the Six Cities study, scientists signed confidentiality agreements to track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 people in six cities. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.

    But the fossil fuel industry and some Republican lawmakers have long criticized the analysis and a similar study by the American Cancer Society, saying the underlying data sets of both were never made public, preventing independent analysis of the conclusions.

    The change is part of a broader administration effort to weaken the scientific underpinnings of policymaking. …

    In this case, the administration is taking aim at public health studies conducted outside the government that could justify tightening regulations on smog in the air, mercury in water, lead in paint and other potential threats to human health.
    …
    …

  210. 210.

    StringOnAStick

    @StringOnAStick: We go on back country ski trips in Canada annually and I finally bought one of those keyring thermometers so I could quickly convert the C temps the guide would tell us every morning into F so I could plan my clothes and food for the day, critical stuff when you are miles from the hut and the only thing you have access to is what’s in your backpack. I’ve now done it enough that I rarely need to translate from C to F there. I’m one trip I learned that -28 C is pretty much the same as -28 F.

  212. 212.

    Robert Sneddon

    @StringOnAStick:

    I learned that -28 C is pretty much the same as -28 F.

    That doesn’t look right… yup, I was remembering correctly that -40 is the same temp for both scales.

    I grew up with Imperial, there were 20 fluid ounces to a pint and a ton was 2240lbs (20 hundredweight each of 112lbs). I understand you Yanks do things even more differently than that.

  213. 213.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    How do you think the Centrists should structure their campaigns to make them more presidential in message and scope?

    I don’t think it’s the policy and they focus there. The policy is boilerplate Democrats and most Democrats like it. Half or more of them don’t listen to policy anyway. If you look at winning presidential candidates they had big sweeping themes. Change you can believe in.
    If you made me use one word to what I object to about “Trump’s America” it’s how small it all is. It’s ungenerous and mean-spirited. It’s all about closing, limiting, keeping. It’s avoiding loss rather than growing. To me, the centrists are taking the opposite side of that – “we’ll restore or keep these other, better things” but it’s not enough to just take the other side. They can tell people we’re better than that. I don’t know if it’s TRUE that we’re better than that but inspiration isn’t about what’s true- it’s about what could be true. They’re not aspirational enough. He’s dragging them down. He’ll do that. That’s what they have to fight. Him dragging them into endless petty battles both among them and with him. He makes everything he touches smaller and shittier.

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack:
    Learning the metric system would be a lot of work for those who have a difficult time learning. Which seems about nearly 50% of the population.
    The second thing is that mfg and the building trades might just have a rather profound time. Not that it shouldn’t happen but I work with the imperial system every day and see that the metric system would require a lot of work and tools to change over. People half my age would rebel and be against any politician/political party that proposed a change over. We should say that democrats do not want this at all, no way Jose. Demand that it doesn’t happen. It’s the principle of the thing. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

  219. 219.

    Barbara

    @Amir Khalid: Right. It’s -40 degrees that is equivalent. I think that 1.8 degree F is equivalent to 1 degree C, and that’s how I convert — e.g., 10 degrees C = 32 + 1.8*10 or 50 degrees F. Every 10 degrees C is equivalent to 18 degrees F.

  220. 220.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    There’s tons of examples in the Trump hires but I follow DeVos because I’m familiar with that variety of Michigan conservatism and I know a lot about her work as a lobbyist.
    When DeVos saw the student debt forgiveness plan (they were ripped off by for profit colleges that collapsed) she (reportedly) said they were getting “free money” and launched a full court press to deny them. In the context of the United States it’s a tiny group of people. It’s just a crazy level of punching down. That’s small. It’s a lack of generosity and not just money. It’s suspicion and the firm belief that people operate only to “get one over” on other people. It’s our worst impulses, not just indulged but celebrated.
    So I think the D candidate has to REJECT that. Go in the opposite direction. Aspire. Make people believe they can be good people. They can! It’s more difficult than being a bitter, suspicious asshole but it’s imaginable.
    This is kind of a corny story but this is a conservative area so all of the elected judges are conservatives. They’re not all Right wing nuts. The day after Obama’s 1st election one of them called me and said he didn’t support Obama and hoped he wouldn’t win but he had to admit the whole thing was inspiring and positive and good for the country. That’s how he felt. Not policy.

  221. 221.

    SFAW

    @catclub:
    He was still parroting talking-point lies, which — without explaining that the talking points are questionable, at best, and outright lies at worst — to my simple mind, does not really constitute an intellectually honest discussion, “GOP strategy” or no. Or does talking about the “transcript” that the WH “released” — without noting that it wasn’t an actual transcript, but merely a sales/marketing doc on fancy stationery — for example, magically move it from propaganda to “discussion of strategy”?

  222. 222.

    SteverinoCT

    @Steve in the ATL: the problem as I see it was it was/is framed as converting rather than just accepting it. Who has an issue with a two liter bottle of soda? How much is ten centimeters? This much (spreading hands). If you want more precise, use a ruler.

  225. 225.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I know they aren’t our voters and they’re rabidly Right wing so I don’t want them anyway unless they convert, but the WaPo went to a really Trumpy county and asked them if they still supported Trump. They do but he makes them feel bad. I mean, come on they know this is wrong. Take the other side of THAT, not Medicare. Tell people they could be proud of the President again. Just flat out say that. It’s true.

  227. 227.

    Jay

    @Aleta:

    Shooting themselves in the foot.

    Export market’s will still hold that 0% is the correct amount of lead in paint. US Manufacturers might claim that their “for export” paint contains no lead, but nobody will believe them and regular testing will be required.

    Over the past decade, EU Standards have started to take primacy, and it’s not just because of the value of EU Markets and trade agreements. It’s because they are better standards, with much less Industry capture and control.

  228. 228.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    He makes everything he touches smaller and shittier.

    That’s what makes him their conservative leader. They don’t want different. They don’t want better. They don’t want new. They want the minimum. They want what they think they had, even if they never did. They want smaller and shittier. They can wrap their tiny brains around smaller and shittier. No it’s not better, they know it’s worse, but they understand worse. They’ve seen what happens when you take away smaller and shittier, others get some of what they’ve got or think they’ve got. They live in a zero sum world, someone else gets, they lose. It is of course bullshit but we can’t explain that to them because their party, republicans keep stealing from them, they expect the same from us, with more people to share the nothing with. Zero Sum. They don’t know that’s what it’s called, but that’s what it is.

  229. 229.

    p.a.

    @SFAW: maybe someone should point out to the NeverMetrics that everyone already uses it daily: how many cents in a dollar? Anyone (who doesn’t wear bowties) want to go back to pound/shilling/pence? And WTF is a Quid, a farthing, a crown?

  230. 230.

    Just Chuck

    You people with your silly “celsius” and its arbitrary “freezing point of water”. It’s a chilly 276K where I am, so I don’t wanna hear it.

  231. 231.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    Tell people they could be proud of the President again.

    Here’s the problem with that: these same people were ashamed of having a Black president. It embarrassed them. They felt that the whole world was laughing at us. They felt the same way about Hillary — it would be shameful for the US to have a woman in charge.

    So your idea will only work if the Democratic candidate is a white man, and most likely a straight and Christian white man, which leaves out everyone but Biden.

  232. 232.

    Kay

    I read the LA Times interview with Mayor Pete and maybe this occurred to me because I once lived in Mishawaka IN (sister sity of South Bend!) but he really glides past the fact that South Bend has a hometown industry – a big, wildly expensive selective private university that throws off a boatload of..Chicago money. They bring it right into south bend and then the alums keep on bringing it in.
    I’m not sure I buy his depicting South Bend as this down at the heels rust belt city, given that. It’s like talking about Ann Arbor and omitting the University of Michigan. Gary, Indiana doesn’t have the option of getting one of those :)
    He’s clever and he’s a talented pol but his whole “origin” story is slightly…not true. Not really.

  233. 233.

    Jay

    @Ruckus:

    I work construction in Canada, which did not convert. Every dimensional measurement is still in inches/feet, weight and volume however, are metric.

    So, it’s a 1/2” pex line to a 1/2” shutoff valve and a 1/4” feed line to a 1.6l per flush toilet.

    And of course, Euro appliances, cabinets and fixtures, along with Asian, both of which have their affictionados, are metric, but it’s mostly “close enough”.

    Funny thing is though, when measuring for cuts, I use metric, X number of mm, is easier to remember between measuring and cutting, than X number of feet, X number of inches, and X fraction of inches, and more precise.

  234. 234.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not their people. Tell our people. Their people either come along with that or not. I look at Trump supporters and Trump leaners as gravy. Getting some is super but they’re not the main course and they don’t determine a D primary.

  236. 236.

    montanareddog

    @SFAW: weight, volume and distance are arbitrary measures. The metric system was devised as a more systematic way of measuring: grams, metres and litres with sub- and supersets as decimal ratios. Imperial grew up organically over centuries across different crafts and trades and is harder to use because of that.

    Years and days are not arbitrary since they are driven by the earth’s own rotation and its rotation around the sun. Impossible to impose an external arithmetic on that.

    That’s how I see, anyhow. Perhaps, a historian of science can disabuse me of that view.

  238. 238.

    Robert Sneddon

    @p.a.:

    WTF is a Quid, a farthing, a crown?

    A quid is what it’s always been, a pound sterling. Also knicker (plural) as in five knicker but somewhat out of date. The odd one is guinea, that’s a pound and five pence. It came from the prices at auction where the salesman’s premium for 5% was added to the price so horses and other livestock were valued in guineas to keep things “simple”. There are a couple of major horse races called the 1000 Guineas and 2000 Guineas run each year in the UK.

    The farthing went out of circulation over fifty years ago, I recall them (just). They had a wren on them, one of Britain’s smallest birds.

    The crown is still valid currency but it’s a bit like the two-dollar bill, it’s something most folks don’t come across that often. It used to be worth five shillings or 25 pence in new money, it’s now worth £5. They’re minted and issued as special commemorative coins and can be used as currency but most shops, vending machines etc. won’t accept them. The one place that will take them over-the-counter is a Post Office. The deal is that they’re free wealth for the Government, people pay £5 to get one but usually as a gift of some kind for, say, newborns or birthdays so they’re squirreled away as keepsakes and rarely re-enter the financial world.

    What’s a sawbuck? I always thought it was something for cutting wood on but apparently it means something different to Americans. And three bits, or was it five? what’s that worth in real money?

  239. 239.

    Barbara

    @Gravenstone: I generally like math but I have a horror of negative numbers and I find myself needing to do conversions particularly when skiing in freezing weather!

  240. 240.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Sebastian: Plumbing and pretty much all other construction in the UK is metric nowadays although there are adaptors to convert existing older plumbing fixtures. Linear measurements are universally in millimetres. The idea is that on plans and dimensions it’s treated as a pure number so that it’s not confused with centimetres and metres and each mm is small enough that plus or minus one will not be a big factor in most jobs. Civil engineering, laying out roadways and pipelines and the like don’t do this as the zeroes get a little bit too numerous.

    ObYoutube video: the scene in This Is Spinal Tap with the stage set designer when they got the dimensions wrong by a factor of ten resulting in the world’s smallest Stonehenge.

    Metrication of construction work has led to some odd results — a piece of ply or drywall is usually 1220 x 2240, a strange size until you convert back to Imperial when it becomes 4 foot by 8 foot. Wood battens of 88 x 44 are the classic planed four by two etc.

  241. 241.

    Mnemosyne

    @Robert Sneddon:

    A sawbuck is just a dollar. Not sure why it gained that nickname.

    ETA: Sorry, turns out I was wrong. A “sawbuck” is a 10-dollar bill according to Merriam-Webster. I have never heard it called that outside of an old movie.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sawbuck

    “Two bits” is 50 cents as 2 quarters since a “quarter” is 1/4th of a dollar. Our coinage is pennies (1 cent), nickels (5 cents), dimes (10 cents), and quarters (25 cents), with a few oddball 50 cent and dollar coins. It’s all decimals — 100 pennies make 1 dollar, etc.

  242. 242.

    TomatoQueen

    @Robert Sneddon: A sawbuck is both a wooden device for sawing wood, and a ten-dollar bill. Two bits is 25 cents. The bit derives from foreign coinage accepted from Spain worth about 12 cents, eighth of a peso. I looked these up on the goog.

  243. 243.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Mnemosyne:

    Guees you never heard the old line “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar.” From kids’ jumping rope?

    TomatoQueen is right. From the dictionary:

    The word “bit” long meant, in England, any coin of a low denomination. In early America, “bit” was used for some Spanish and Mexican coins that circulated and were worth one-eighth of a peso, or about 12 and one-half cents.

  244. 244.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: I hope you’re right. I fear we’re still on the downslope and things aren’t going to get better until after this country is drowned in blood.

  246. 246.

    Schmendrick

    @Wapiti: My recollections of 1973 are generally hazy — I usually can’t remember what I had for breakfast — but I have pretty clear memories of the draft situation. My recollection is this: Young men were potentially drafted in the year they turned 19, which in my case was 1973. In 1971, my birthday was number 3 in the lottery. In 1972, my birthday was number 2 in the lottery. As you can imagine, I was not liking the trend. In 1973, the year which mattered for me, my birthday was around 210, but I am pretty sure that 1973 was the first year when no one was drafted. A corollary of all this is that anyone who was drafted in the Vietnam era is now at least 66.

  247. 247.

    Sab

    @Barbara: I did not know that.

    I finally got a mixer with a dough hook. I also got a new set of measuring cups from Costco with a 1 1/2 cup as the biggest. Instead of measuring 2 cups white plus two cups whole wheat, then kneading in more gradually as I used to do on a board, I just started out with 1 1/2 cups times two of each and just let the blender do the work.

    It worked fine on soda bread, which is supposed to be a bit tough so it doesn’t need a tougher crust. My new approach would be unfortunate on a more delicate bread type. Now I know why.

  248. 248.

    StringOnAStick

    @Robert Sneddon: If it had been -40 C they weren’t going to let us leave the building, but it did get to -35 C overnight. If there had been even a breath of wind, they weren’t going to let us go out even when it got up to -28 C because of the risk of frostbite happening so quickly. I should have said that -28 F feels a lot like -28 C, having experienced both as a back country skier. It was 20 years ago and I don’t think I could keep my feet or hands warm enough to do it now, boots aren’t as warm (they are lighter though) and I think all the time I’ve spent working and playing in extreme cold has damaged the circulation in my hands and feet, plus I’m past 60 now. Sorry for the number confusion, I should have gone and looked at my keychain thermometer but I don’t think it goes that low.

    We do our tons different than yours, 2,000 lbs = a ton here.

  249. 249.

    satby

    @Kay: this isn’t exactly true, Notre Dame has constructed a pedestrian shopping mall, a hotel, and a number of other facilities to keep $$ on their premises; and as a religious institution it evades taxation. Now they’re moving to restrict students from off campus housing, even juniors and seniors. Yes, the students and families are able to escape the campus and go elsewhere, but the costs of traffic control for all their games alone is a drain on South Bend. They’re starting to collapse the rental market with the student housing restrictions. The Sears and other anchor stores at the mall in Mishawaka are closing. It’s not a s simple as Notre Dame = Brinks trucks of cash. Since I’ve moved here I see that campus as basically a drain on the local government.

  251. 251.

    satby

    @satby: I should correct this statement

    It’s not as simple as Notre Dame = Brinks trucks of cash. Since I’ve moved here I see that campus as basically a drain rapacious vampire sucking on the local government’s blood.

    Yes, that’s better.

  252. 252.

    Citizen Alan

    @The Moar You Know:

    Um, no. Per Wiki, there are presently 20 states where Dems can cross over into the GOP primary. Mississippi is one of them, and Dem crossover votes saved Thad Cochran from losing to an open white supremacist 6 years ago and almost allowed William Waller to beat the repulsive Tate Reeves.

  253. 253.

    Miss Bianca

    @RAVEN:

    Both said they thought he was a coward and punk but if he fucked with liberals that was enough for them. They hate us Dawg.

    Seriously, being a liberal is *worse* than being a “coward and a punk”? That’s some mighty military virtue values on parade there!

  254. 254.

    Citizen Alan

    @Robert Sneddon:

    ObYoutube video: the scene in This Is Spinal Tap with the stage set designer when they got the dimensions wrong by a factor of ten resulting in the world’s smallest Stonehenge.

    Actually, it was funnier than that. The manager who sketched out the design wanted it 10′ (i.e. 10 feet) tall, but mistakenly wrote 10″ (i.e. 10 inches). The set designed took that at face value and created a Stonehenge capable of being “trodden by a dwarf.”

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