Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, July 12, 2022
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71 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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They couldn’t even scream any more. They were just sobbing’: the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash
I have lived my life by the maxim that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Because of that, I have passed up a number of opportunities to “get rich quick” that all turned to ash when the good times ended. And the good times always end.
It’s hard to resist the urge to point and laugh, but real people lost a whole lot of money in this BS. Some lost their minds.
A couple of things I ran across yesterday, for anyone who is interested:
A CDC ranking of firearm mortality state by state. It comes out as you would expect, with the gun nut states clustered on the wrong end, with the worst of them having rates above 20/100K (and yes, Mississippi and Alabama are in the bottom handful!), and the sane states clustered near the top, with NJ, CT, RI, NY, MA and HI all having rates a quarter or less of the worst states. (I picked 2017 numbers to match the next chart.)
And here’s a different perspective, a 2017 analysis of the homicide rate by state, all methods. This one mixes it up a bit, with a few sane states mixed in with the gun nuts at the top of the chart, but the trend is pretty clear nonetheless. Crazy gun nut states = significantly higher homicide rate. Worth noting that New York has half the homicide rate that Texas does.
Half of G.O.P. Voters Ready to Leave Trump Behind, Poll Finds
Probably more significant is that a not an unimportant percentage of R voters would pull the lever for Joe in a rematch.
The conventional wisdom is that TFG’s musing to make an early announcement on running in 24 is an attempt to stymie any JoD actions against him, is likely mostly wrong. His real reason is to freeze the R primary field and rally as much MAGAt base support that he can.
@Sleeping Dog:
I agree with you that Trump’s real reason is to freeze the primary field.
He probably believes he’ll be able to wriggle out of any problems created for him by the DOJ. After all, he’s gotten out of facing the consequences for any of his previous crimes. Why should this be different?
@MarkedMan: We’re #4! We’re #4! We’re #4!
We’re #2 in the in the Murder Rate by State map. one.
Fine with me. Do it.
It’s time to start showing the videos of police shooting white people
@OzarkHillbilly: (It felt very strange giving a thumbs up to your comment….)
@Scott:
I find statements like this a fascinating window onto the person making it. In the US there are either 4 times the number of white people vs black people or 6 times, depending on whether you count Hispanics as white. In either case the speaker is actually demonstrating the opposite of what he is trying to say, as blacks are either 2 or 3 times more likely to be killed by the police than whites. It makes you wonder if he is just ignorant and sloppy, or is he deliberately trying to mislead?
@MarkedMan:
It gets more complicated than that–as with the article from a while ago where NYC is “safer” because of fewer car deaths, while completely ignoring miles driven as a factor. In this case you have to look at number (and probably type) of interactions with police for whites and blacks.
IIRC, blacks are more likely to “have interactions with” (i.e., get stopped by) police than whites. The real question is what is the rate/1k of a person being shot by police during an “interaction” based on race.
I’m pretty sure it’s going to be much higher for blacks than for whites, but it’s not as simple as population size.
@MarkedMan: Poor math skills aside, I would think the release of police shootings of lots of white people would not have the impact this author believes. Just the opposite.
@Scott:
It has been mostly forgotten given all the bonkers stuff that’s happened since, but the video recorded Jan 2016 slaying of (white) Daniel Shaver did dominate one brief news cycle. BLM protested on his family’s behalf.
I regularly think about poor Mr. Shaver. The video is absolutely sickening. He was crawling, crying, basically having a panic attack, begging for police not to shoot him. Obviously a threat to no one. Officers were giving him conflicted demands. He tried to pull up his pants, while crawling, and they murdered the guy.
I still cannot believe no one was held accountable for this, it rivals the Elijah McClain and Ahmaud Arbery cases in pure fuckery (pardon, but there’s no other word).
@Mu Yixiao:
For the record, and not to restart the argument, I never got your logic here. In rural areas you have to drive more and so are more exposed to getting killed or injured in a car accident. NYC, where you need to drive or ride in a vehicle so much less, is absolutely safer, because of that.
If you had a 1 in million chance of getting hit by a bus when you cross a given street, and one person had a job where they only crossed that street twice a day and another had a job that required them to cross that street 100 times a day, isn’t the second job objectively more dangerous? You are essentially saying they are equally dangerous because you have to factor out how many times they cross the street. Makes no sense.
@Mu Yixiao:
And yet even more complicated, as there have been a number of studies showing that police in many areas pull over black motorists at a much higher rate than white ones, even when driving at the same speed. So simply dividing by interactions doesn’t really tell you anything about the racism of the local police force.
@Mu Yixiao:
Maybe, maybe not, but definitely not in the way you’re implying. Part of the reason why black people in America are more likely to be shot by police is precisely because they are more likely to “have interactions with” police. In the same way that it is wrong to say you have to look at miles driven in the NYC example. Part of why there is less vehicular-related death in NYC is because people in NYC on average drive much shorter distances than people in rural areas.
ETA: Also too what MM said above.
@Mu Yixiao: Actually that’s not quite correct. Whites have exponentially more interactions with police. The fact that interactions with people of color yield more shootings and engagement with the legal system is the strongest evidence of systemic bias.
Anyone interested in a beagle?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/us/envigo-beagles-breeder-adoption.html
@MarkedMan: Sure, that’s the academic case—which will fall flat in terms of driving anyone (but Academics) to desire change.
What is the Political argument? How would Fox news cover this? You sic the Academics and Institutionalists on a problem AFTER winning the political argument. And yes, the winning Political argument will generate some level of White Anger across a broad swath.
@Jon:
@MarkedMan:
As I stated in my previous comment,
That is absolutely part of the formula. So to get a clearer picture you need to look at shots/interaction as a percentage of population. I was not implying anything different, though perhaps I didn’t word it clearly enough.
Either way, it’s not as simple as “number shot/population” (as the linked post seems to be suggesting).
@MarkedMan:
It’s twisting the data to suggest that “it’s safer to drive in NYC than Topeka because fewer people die”. That’s like suggesting that Syria is safer than New Zealand because fewer people get bitten by sharks and bird-eating spiders in Syria. 🙂
When talking about risks, you have to look at more than simply raw numbers. According to deaths per million miles driven (which the metric that’s actually used to determine risk by the NHTSA) time spent in a car in NY is more dangerous than time spent in a car in Topeka.
In this case, it’s not about how many blacks or whites are shot. It’s about likelihood of interaction (as a percentage of population) and likelihood of being shot as a percentage of interaction.
@Scott:
The videos of blacks getting shot that go viral are the ones where the shooting is egregiously inappropriate. So- how many whites that get shot are egregiously inappropriate should be the real comparison.
@Mu Yixiao:
I concede that you are completely wedded to your logic despite the fact that it makes no sense to me whatsoever. So I give up.
@Mu Yixiao:
The claim is not “it is safer to drive in NYC than Topeka”, rather the claim is that you are less likely to be the victim of a vehicular-related death in NYC, and that is at least partially because people in NYC drive less. The report was not about how safe or unsafe it is to drive in a given region in general.
My apologies for misunderstanding your point.
Interesting piece by David French at the Atlantic.
The Constitution Isn’t Working
In retrospect, one wonders how the Founders could be so naive to not anticipate the development of partisanship?
A bit earlier we were going about our business at the house, when the Seabrook nuke evacuation warning system went off. Everyone continued to go about their business and a short time late word came that an emergency was declared inadvertently.
@Sleeping Dog:
In small-town Wisconsin, we have tornado sirens that are tested on a regular basis*. When I was in China I heard a siren go off, and casually commented about testing the tornado siren.
“No. That’s for air raids”. O_O
=========
In my town, it used to be used to call up the volunteer fire department (3 cycles) as well as warn of tornadoes (7 cycles), but they stopped the fire part.
So you say, and yet here I am with my entire Au-198 investment reduced to a worthless pool of Hg-198!
@MarkedMan: Heh. As I always say, “Tf the truth hurts, wear it.”
@Mu Yixiao:
They test the system here as well on a monthly basis. This isn’t the first time that the nuke plant has accidently set off their system. As the crow flies, I’m about 4 miles from the plant, so being able to glow in the dark is a real possibility.
I’ve commented before that the heart of American Pragmatism is – don’t confuse the word with the thing. A corollary is – understand what the question is. This thread is like arguments about religion. “Religion is false.” “Religion is good.” Repeat ad infinitum, talking right past each other answering different questions. “Fewer people die in traffic accidents in NYC.” “Driving in NYC is more dangerous.” Different questions. I am NOT going to dig back and find the start of this, but my recollection is it was an article saying NYC is safer than Arkansas or wherever. Which it is.
What’s the question? The writer of the Washington Examiner piece @Scott: linked thinks the question is, “Are cops racist assholes?” He believes showing video of police shootings would show that cops are not racist. Commenters above believe, IMHO correctly, that it would show cops are assholes. “Defund the Police” might gain more traction.
As long as there have been cops, the cops have understood their job was to keep the lower orders in line. Being Black is an easy marker for a cop that you’re likely “bound by the law, but not protected”. But they’re just as happy to beat up on White Trash when they find them.
@Sleeping Dog:
And French is totally ignoring the fact that it was not the judiciary that enlarged the powers of the presidency, it was Congress itself. Time and again Congress has said, “We want this thing done. Here’s some money. Go figure out how to it Mr. President.”
@Stormy Dragon:
And @Sleeping Dog: thinks he might glow in the dark.
@MarkedMan: Deliberately trying to mislead is where I go on the question. Either way, I’m happy with anything that will promote efforts to reduce police shootings of people of any racial extraction. And I’m still in the don’t point a gun at anyone you don’t intend to kill school.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I believe that French’s position is, Congress has intentionally delegated certain powers to the bureaucracy, which is OK, but the administration can’t claim additional power when Congress fails to act. While at the same time, the courts have no power to expand the powers of the bureaucracy as that is a function of Congress.
The purpose of French’s article is to serve as a warning that if Congress continues to be derelict in its responsibilities and the court sets clear lines of demarcation as to what the administration can and can’t do, then the American system of government will collapse on itself.
I believe that French is as pessimistic as I am that the petty partisanship that goes on in DC and in many state houses won’t be ending soon and the result will be we will lose our democracy.
@Sleeping Dog: “The Constitution Isn’t Working”
Right wingers have been saying this for decades. It’s part of the draw for attracting a bunch of “impartial” RWNJs to form a convention to draw up a new constitution. Also going on for decades.
@Sleeping Dog:
@Mu Yixiao:
Mexico City and most of the metro area have a seismic alert system. It’s pretty good, and goes off between a couple of minutes and a few seconds before a quake hits (depending on the epicenter). It’s made up of speakers mounted on utility poles. A siren sounds followed by the words “seismic alert.”
They do test it from time to time. When they do, they use a different sound, and it’s followed by the words “Test. This is a test.” This way people don’t panic, nor try to evacuate houses and buildings.
@Jim Brown 32:
Oh, I wouldn’t recommend it for the battle to win hearts and minds, but I make my living trying to understand the complex ways real life systems can malfunction and I’m viewing the question, “Do the police kill more black people than white people” thought that lens. It’s a complex question. In absolute numbers? Definitely not. But if you look at per capita, then yes. But if you look at, per criminal, then…
The Jan. 6 committee hearings today:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/jan6-hearing-live-updates/?id=86598399
Accident and/or death rates by passenger mile can be a bit misleading.
Commercial aviation is recognized as the safest means of travel per passenger mile. But the vast majority of accidents take place on landing, take off, climb-out, or approach. Accidents while at cruising altitude are very rare, yet most miles are accrued during this safest phase.
Or take the Space Shuttle. It had two fatal accidents in 135 flights. Yet every mission traveled millions of miles in orbit. The death rate per passenger mile is absurdly low. And the accidents occurred during launch and re-entry, not coincidentally the most dangerous parts of each mission. That’s when lots of energy is applied to the vehicle.
Car and bus travel is different. There’s no cruise, take off, landing, launch or reentry. There are portions at lower speeds and higher speeds. A fender-bender is at lower speeds, and typically causes little damage or injuries. Accidents are likely at both portions, but more dangerous at higher speeds.
@Kathy: And don’t forget Russian roulette. It’s important to remember that whether you have 1 try or 50 tries, the odds of death are the same, because you have to divide by the number of tries.
Just trying to be helpful…
@MarkedMan:
Suppose pilot A makes 3 60 minute round trip flights in one day between tow nearby cities. They will make six take offs and six landings, and fly for six hours.. Do they face the same risk as pilot B who makes one flight between two far away cities lasting six hours?
Pilot B makes one take off and one landing. Both fly the same amount of time and roughly the same total distance.
From the BBC:
Yeah…. It’s called the GOP.
@Kathy: But Kathy, you have to account for whether it is a rural area or not. If it’s a rural area, then there will be a lot of short flights so there will be a lot more takeoffs and landings in a day, and so a pilot might have a whole bunch of them. Six, in the case you point out. Big cities have trains and busses and highways for the shorter flights, so the pilots flying out of there will tend to do one long flight instead of several smaller ones. Therefore it is obvious that if you go with something ridiculous, like likelihood of death, then the rural pilot is more likely to die. But we can’t have that. So we divide by the number of takeoffs and landings, which means that the rural pilot is less likely to die, the way god intended it. In fact, the safest pilot is the one who is involved in a fiery crash, because they have on less landing than all the others, while still having the same amount of flights.
See? It just makes sense!
@Kathy:
Except airline accidents aren’t based on miles flown. They’re based on number of flights–for exactly that reason: getting an accurate risk assessment. The rate is “accidents per million flights” (the current 5-year floating rate–as of 2020–is 1.38, with a 95.7% survivability; pretty damn safe).
Meanwhile in Britain:
the Conservative leadership contenders are down to eight after the MPs nominations are finished (20 nominations from 358 Con MPs total)
Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi.
First round MP ballots tomorrow mid-day, when any any contender attracting fewer than 30 votes will be eliminated.
Then further rounds with the lowest polling out each time.
Once down to two, it goes to the party membership; scheduled for decision 5 September.
My money would be on a Sunak vs Truss last two, with Truss winning because she has the combination of shamelessness, vanity, and stupidity required to sell “dream the impossible dream” to the wealthy and insular pensioners who are the backbone of the membership.
Sunak is a Thatcherite Leaver, but at least he’s within telescope range of Planet Fiscal Reality, whereas the rest of the pack are peddling fantasies of small-state, tax cuts, and smiting the woke, while gambolling with the unicorns across the hills of fairyland.
The UK faces an energy crisis, an urgent need for co-ordination with the EU states, major decisions re. defence spending, inflation at 10%, the pound is sliding, UK growth is poor, ordinary young people can barely afford housing, and Europe is experiencing its largest war since 1945.
And the Conservative Party is fixated on woke ice cream, statues, and fantasy tax cuts for pensioners. Gahh!
Meanwhile, the toad Johnson continues to squat in No.10.
Spooling down for the day. See you tomorrow (God willing and the creek don’t rise).
@JohnSF:
The Liz Truss that Anne Applebaum said this about?
Where’s Doonesbury’s feather when we need it.
I would like to simply note that as a guy who has lived in a major metropolitan area for the last 30 years, but who has also lived in rural America, I find the whole “Cities are DANGEROUS!!1!1” thing very tiresome. In the last 30 years, the most serious criminal act that has touched me is the theft of some video game cartridges by kids who were visiting my home, and some painted miniatures out of my car, which I suspect a different neighbor kid of.
Yeah, that’s super dangerous.
And yet, you can’t get some people to shut up about, “There’s so much crime in cities!!!”. I knew some of these people growing up, too, and I was skeptical about it then. Nothing has changed my mind.
@JohnSF:
You know, I’ve always found toads rather cute.
@Jay L Gischer:
From “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” by Arthur Conan Doyle:
@CSK:
Fair enough.
*edit*
“…Johnson squats in No.10 like an un-cute squatting thing…”
🙂
@JohnSF:
Better.
@DK:
I agree, and add Tamir Rice to the list.
@Sleeping Dog:
Yep, that Liz Truss.
And please believe me when I say that compared to eg Braverman, Badenoch, and Shapps she’s an intellectual heavyweight. 🙁
Thing is, she’s spent the past couple of years assiduously cultivating the ERG, and the residual Johnson loyalists by promising them that she really, truly, believes in Tinkerbell.
And is willing to bin the Northern Ireland Protocol to make her bones.
Ironically, Sunak was actually a Leaver, albeit a relatively sane one, and Truss a Remainer, albeit largely out of ambition inspired loyalty to Cameron, IMO.
Truss is a bit like Johnson: her policy courses tend to derive from the compass of her ambition.
Dynamics of the race look like one it will boil down to one vaguely “realist” candidate, probably with majority of MP votes (most likely Sunak, perhaps Hunt or Javid, unlikely Tugendhat) and one with the votes of the ERG and the fantasy Thatcherites (most likely Truss, maybe Mordaunt or Zahawi, and please, oh lord, not Braverman or Badenoch).
Then the fantasy-friendly candidate liable to scoop up the votes of the membership majority, I fear.
Due to the demographics and opinions of the majority of that group, especially given likely influx of ex-UKIP types since 2016.
@MarkedMan: I am a technocrat myself. I solve no-shit problems where the right answer is often a sweet spot in multiple trade offs. People like us have a hard time understanding how most other people can’t evaluate the challenges of our day like an engineering problem. But yet they do.
My broader point, not directed to you specifically, is that Democrats have, in addition to abandoning State Governance in many areas, have abandoned politics.
If an emotional appeal can’t be made to a plumber in Kansas that unaccountable Cops are dangerous, we can never overcome these type issues. The data is enough for me…it’s not enough for the average voters. The age of Institutionalism is over…we will still have them of course..,but they will follow wherever the politics leads instead of vice versa.
@JohnSF:
Is Truss going to run her campaign on burying the Trans alive and tattooing a “28” on every queer’s forehead? Everything I’ve read about her, she strikes me as an abomination.
@Jay L Gischer:
I live on the Southside of Chicago and am white. When I tell people I live on the Southside their heads spin around and their eyes bug out. They act like I live in the middle of an active war zone. Where I live is actually 50% yuppies and queers and 50% second generation Chinese.
I also like telling people I’d have no problem sending my kids to CPS. Half the time people just faint.
@Mu Yixiao: “According to deaths per million miles driven (which the metric that’s actually used to determine risk by the NHTSA) time spent in a car in NY is more dangerous than time spent in a car in Topeka.”
I don’t know how great the added risk is, but whatever the number it’s worth it.
The only good reason to be in a car in a Topeka is to be driving the hell out of Kansas as fast as possible.
@Jay L Gischer:
This!
I’ve lived my entire life between NYC and Los Angeles. The places I’ve had to work for extended periods of time include Miami, Atlanta, Austin, Las Vegas, London, Vancouver, Paris, Chicago, Prague, and Mexico City. All major metropolitan areas. I’ve also worked in rural Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas. I’ve ALWAYS felt safer in cities. Why? Because racists with guns scare me much more than gangbangers with guns. I can walk down the street on the South Side of Chicago and not worry about anything, despite how “dangerous” that neighborhood might be, because the gangbangers aren’t really paying attention to a 60 year old guy walking down the street with groceries.
I didn’t feel safe at all in Cedartown, GA or Hattiesburg, MS, both places where i spent months without ever going out at night. As of 2018, there were still “sundown towns” in Georgia and Mississippi, where locals warned me that my earrings and “liberal mannerisms” made me “stand out.”
@Beth: I should have read your post first Your life mirrors my experience.
@DK:
The one that still angers me, and makes me tear up, is the death of John Crawford; minding his own business, talking on a cell phone, with a toy rifle in his hand picked up from a Walmart aisle, and shot to death by the police after that piece of shit Ronald Ritchie called 911 and flat out lied to the police about Crawford. Sickens me that Ritiche was never charged with anything, nor the police. It was a flat out execution.
@JohnSF: “Truss is a bit like Johnson: her policy courses tend to derive from the compass of her ambition.”
Thank God we don’t have any people like that here!
@CSK:..You know, I’ve always found toads rather cute.
I found a small toad in the drivers seat of my car last week. I had just got off that drivers seat myself a few minutes earlier. I arrived at work, got out of the car went into the building and went right back out to the car opened the door and there was toad. Don’t know when toad jumped in the car. Toad jumped out of the car onto the parking lot. Bad move as cars were arriving to work. Had to chase and catch toad and deposit the amphibian into the bushes.
Not familiar with toad pronouns so I call the creature toad.
@Beth:
What her personal views actually are, I have no idea.
The thing is, she’ll say anything that gains favour with the membership.
And if trans people must be sacrificed for her ambition, well that’s a such trivial detail is it not? (/snark)
The same goes for most of them: see Mordaunt, Braverman, Sunak…
It’s a Dutch auction of Tory member “common sense” talking points and prejudices.
See also “woke” businesses, taxes, housing policy (or lack of),
Mark my words, they’ll be getting on board scrapping net-zero CO2 by Friday, and press-ganging benefit claimants before September rolls around!
OTHO some good news:
Latest Savanta ComRes poll shows Labour Party now 15 points ahead:
Lab 43%; Con 28%
Poll of polls averages show Lab 40%
That’s the sort of deficit any party struggles to come back from, especially as the economy is not looking up in the near future; upturn would need to be in place 12 months before latest viable poll date, Autumn 2024, for benefit to feed feed through to voting intention, IMO.
Polling also indicates hardly anyone outside some Con membership and the fringe Right give a flying damn about “war on woke” when gas bills are looking to rise by thousands of pounds, incomes are stagnant, and other economic signals are flashing red.
Also, Tory candidate promises, to membership and ERG, are going to be drag-anchors on what they need to do both in national interest and in Conservative Party interest to retain last election switch votes and Centrist/Remainer “incline conservative” types.
In short: Tories 2024 = toast.
@Mister Bluster:
Lucky he didn’t drive off in the car; sounds like the pronoun was Mr Toad!
@Mu Yixiao:
I wouldn’t even want to measure risk based on car trips taken in NYC — the radically different infrastructure for moving people changes the entire equation too much.
Deaths per Transit Trips, lumping bus, subway, taxi etc might be better, but even that undercounts because so many tings that are a vehicle trip elsewhere are just a walk (and the availability of things in walking distance increases those foot trips).
(And then we need an estimate for deaths from communicable diseases that were contracted on mass transit.)
Bad news, the cleaning lady assigned to our department came down with COVID. She got a booster of AZ the same day I got my fourth dose. Alas, we’ve not gotten word on the severity of her symptoms.
By my count, out of 26 people in our shared office space, only 3 have not gotten COVID, myself included.
Only four people wear masks regularly, but only one all day long: namely me.
A possibly interesting item from news about Ukraine.
(Or possibly not: it just tickled my erratic spidey sense.)
Happened to come across this via a UK news comment:
Analysis of a Ukrainian long range artillery strike on a Russian depot near Kherson.
What struck me was not the attack itself; Ukraine forces are hitting a lot or rear supply/support targets.
But the map.
The black dot is the depot area hit.
And this satellite image of the same general area.
On the image, you can see the red markers of the fire detection, a canal heading south of them, and a barrage just north.
Well, that is the canal that carries irrigation water to Crimea, and the barrage that creates the river reservoir that feeds said canal.
Some may recall this irrigation water being mentioned as a potential motivator for the Russian securing the lower Dnipr River line.
Well, looks like it might not be all that secure after all, should the Ukrainians choose to smack it.
Oops.
@JohnSF:..Lucky he didn’t drive off in the car…
Good thing I had the key to my Ford in my pocket.
@Mister Bluster:
John Bolton is a wretched, disgusting human being, but his only redeeming quality is that he has negative chill. Does he even know the concepts of “tact” and “guile” exist?
He’s like if you made a clone of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld but removed all the genes for strategy, lying, and personality and replaced them with more evil.
@Stormy Dragon:
I’m torn between “that was then and this is now” and “Holmes clearly never lived in NYC.”
@Mister Bluster: Every toad I’ve ever conversed with was comfortable with “it.”