Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, May 11, 2021
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116 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 will back whoever the President is. That’s their job.
At least seven children and a teacher were killed in a school shooting in Kazan, Russia. Eighteen more kids have been hospitalized, six in critical condition.
The shooter is nineteen. He announced his intention on Telegram, saying he was God intending to rid the world of “biotrash.”
I’m deeply sick of the romanticization of “The Lost Cause,” and the notion that the Civil War was about “states’ rights.” The Declaration of Secession of South Carolina makes it clear that the states’ right they wanted to preserve was the right to keep slaves.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/06/confederate-lost-cause-myth/618711/
FDA authorizes Pfizer vaccine for age 12-15.
Get your kids vaccinated!
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/552704-fda-authorizes-pfizer-vaccine-for-adolescents
@Doug Mataconis: “They will back whoever the President is. That’s their job.”
You’re dodging. Who is the President?
@Barry: Perhaps my native cynicism was working overtime; I thought that Doug M was saying that whoever has the DoD behind him is the President.
Edit: Napoleon’s remark about God favoring the side with the big battalions came to mind.
I’m baffled as to how the vaccine logistics are handled in Mexico.
They say the registration, online or by phone, allows them to know how many vaccines are needed. Fair enough. But then you get three days per municipality at three or four locations. The choice of location is up to the individual. There are no set appointments at all.
So I’m guessing they estimate most people will go to the nearest location, and extrapolate the numbers per age group through averages and population distribution. even so, and counting no-shows, some locations will either run out of vaccines or have shots leftover.
Between the days I signed up and got the shot, I got advice to: 1) get it at the nearby university but to go mid-afternoon when the line is shorter, and 2) get it at the municipal seat, which is like 20 kilometers away, because fewer people will go there.
So it’s like that.
On a lighter note, I binged the whole first (and likely only) season of Jupiter’s Legacy on Sunday*.
It starts out well enough, but then kind of slows down or gets bogged down. We run parallel tracks. One is, as advertised, the conflict between the first generation of superheroes and the one coming up. The other is the origin story of said first generation.
Now, origin stories usually make for good story-telling. Not when they plod along, though, and little of substance happens, or they go round and round for a while, or too many things seem deus ex machina.
The interesting part is the series takes place in the present, but the origin is in 1929-1930. The period parts are good, for me, even when nothing happens because they’re rather well done (anachronisms and all). I like seeing the past revived in color, for one thing, and to contrast social attitudes and technology in place at the time.
*At 8 episodes of a bit under 40 minutes each on average, I estimate under 5:30 hours for the full season.
They don’t say how come men in their 20s or 20s in 1929 have children in their 20s in 2021, nearly a century later. And there are other questions along those lines, which I can’t pose without major spoilers.
In the present, the conflict seems to boil down to 1) some of the young people with powers don’t want to be superheroes, and 2) the young ones who do seem ok with killing supervillains in self defense, which offends the sensibilities of the elder ones (or at least the chief elder one)
One thing, though. It might have been far more interesting to do the origin story quickly, maybe in two episodes, and then a show about superheroes in the 1930s.
According to The Guardian, the lowest point for Gwyneth Paltrow during the pandemic was…brace yourselves…having to eat bread sometimes.
She also admitted to imbibing two quinoa-based whiskey cocktails per night, sometimes.
However did she endure such agony?
@Kathy: Can one be off-topic in an open forum? I’m about to try….
Before I got here this morning, I dropped into yesterday’s forum and noticed your thoughts about superman’s x-ray vision. As fate would have it (and we all know…) I’d just read a fairly lengthy piece at BalloonJuice by our occasional contributor Cheryl Rofer. She had some very informed thoughts about the ‘Havana Weapon’ that supposedly has used microwaves to ‘cook’ the brains of various Americans, mostly in embassies and such. I bet you’d be interested.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/05/10/where-is-the-weapon/
Italy abolished the monarchy after WWII and hasn’t looked back. But of course there are pretenders and ancestors of the former royal family who, sniff, sniff, believe that a restoration is just around the corner. To that end the son of the last king, has anointed his 17 yo granddaughter, heir to the throne. Causing much indignation among the other side of the family.
They sound like Trumpists!
What is really delightful, it seems none of these people reside in Italy and the would be queen seems clueless about the country.
Can burqa acceptance be far behind?
@Doug Mataconis: @JohnMcC: For an additional turn, if states invalidate their results and the House declares Trump the winner, does it matter who the voters voted for legally and constitutionally?
“The people who cast the ballots decide nothing. The people who count the ballots decide everything.”
@JohnMcC:
You can be off my topic 😉
If I suspected a “microwave weapon,” first I’d research known effects of microwaves on the health of people and animals. Next, we have plenty of means of generating microwaves and lots of guinea pigs and lab rats. Some of the symptoms should show up.
IT doesn’t seem that hard.
@CSK:
I’m pretty sure offensive language like this is banned here.
@Neil J Hudelson:
If not, it probably should be. 😀
@Barry:
In your scenario it would be Trump as far as the Constitution goez
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Yes
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Correction
The answer is no
three was a report yesterday on The Guardian’s live blog (sorry, no link) that a woman in Italy received six doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
How?
The vaccine comes frozen in vials. After thawing, one is supposed to dilute the contents in saline solution. Then you get the six doses per vial ready to be administered.
It seems the person responsible simply took the thawed vials’ contents, without diluting them, and injected them to the patient.
The woman didn’t file a complaint (and she still needs a second, or seventh, dose in three weeks), saying it was an innocent mistake. There doesn’t seem to be any damage, beyond perhaps stronger side effects. Health authorities are investigating.
This seems minor, if there are no after effects of concern, and the worst that happened was that five doses were essentially wasted. Still, it’s concerning medical staff do not know the proper dilution to be used, nor the dose to be administered.
Given that billions of doses will be administered worldwide, eventually, I expect there have been other mistakes.
@Barry:
That’s exactly the question, because at this moment we just don’t know the answer.
I had no idea there was a conspiracy theory about…New Coke
http://www.whnt.com/news/whats-the-most-searched-conspiracy-theory-in-your-state/
@CSK:
I remember that time, and I’ve read a fair bit about it.
After the whole “New” Coke kerfuffle ended and Classic Coke came back (it never actually disappeared), most people thought Coke had gained substantial market share from Pepsi. I don’t know whether that was the case or not, but people believed it.
So the rumor began circulating that the “New” Coke fiasco was actually a well-orchestrated publicity stunt to beat back Pepsi. A Coke executive later said “We weren’t that stupid, and we weren’t that smart.” Actual market research showed support for the “New” Coke flavor. News reports during the controversy showed passionate Classic Coke advocates unable to tell the difference in blind taste tests between “New” and Classic and Pepsi.
I assume the conspiracy is something else?
BTW, it was never called “New Coke.” But the cans had the word “NEW” in big letters right over “Coke,” so many people assumed it was “New Coke.”
Another tidbit, unconfirmed, is that while the old formula was restored, it was now sweetened with corn syrup rather than cane sugar.
I wonder, if Coke had merely changed the formula and said not one word about it, how many people would have noticed.
@CSK: I remember the New Coke controversy from when I was a small child, and in the years since, without ever hearing about any conspiracy theories my mind has occasionally flashed to the idea that the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
@Kathy:
One time when I was watching Back to the Future for the umpteenth time, I noticed that someone in the ’50s diner ordered “cherry coke.” I was sure I’d spotted an anachronism, since I remembered that Cherry Coke didn’t debut until the 1980s. It turns out that that’s when the brand Cherry Coca Cola was launched. However, the phrase “cherry coke” is much older, referring to Coca Cola manually flavored with cherry syrup.
@Kathy:
Apparently the “New Coke” conspiracy breaks down into three parts:
1. Removal of coca to satisfy the FDA
2. Substitution of corn syrup for cane sugar
3. To boost sales over Pepsi’s
I have no idea why anyone would obsess over this after 30+ years.
When I took a course in business law in the late 1990s, they showed us the following clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YvmN1hvNA
This was the first time I ever began to wonder about Cosby’s personal character.
@Doug Mataconis: Respectfully, a bit of explanation or clarification would seem to me to be in order.
@CSK:
1) I think that happened in 1905 or so.
2) Probably true, and most non-diet sodas and soft drinks today use corn syrup because it’s cheaper.
3) That was openly the intent all along.
Yeah, who obsesses about non-events?
I know about the case because marketing flops can be fascinating. and this one is very well documented.
@CSK:
The Trump Cult’s Election Big Lie is the 21st Century version of the Lost Cause
@Kathy:
My primary recollection of the New Coke thing was that it demonstrated how badly focus group testing can fail. New Coke was much sweeter tasting than the old formulation. A wide variety of test groups compared samples of the new product versus the old using one ounce samples. The new sweeter product was greatly preferred in those tests. Then it turned out that in 12-ounce quantities the new formula was much sweeter than many people could stand.
LA Times has a piece up declaring that the Newsom recall effort is flagging and Jenner’s incipient campaign is flaccid as well.
Re: Newsom, nothing like a $75B surplus and the promise to send refund checks to the citizens to buoy your positives.
Apparently Newsom gets poor marks for dealing with homelessness, Californians (and the comfortable classes of many states), need to recognize in the war against homelessness, the enemy is them.
Russia had a mass shooting yesterday and today Putin is calling for a clamp down on weapons, i.e. guns.
That should lessen the US right’s adoration for Vlad. Yup he’d be willing to take your guns.
@Doug Mataconis:
Perhaps January 6 was a reverse Harper’s Ferry.
@Michael Cain:
Yeah. Marketing failures are always interesting.
BTW, as I recall, Pepsi was sweeter than Coke, and that was one driving factor. But also Pepsi was doing massive advertising with popular artists like Madona and Michael Jackson. A lot of brand preference sometimes comes down to advertising.
@Sleeping Dog:
I posted about that earlier in this thread.
Your idea that this will lessen the Trumpkins’ adoration of Putin is interesting. So far, they appear to be ignoring this incident, which is what they generally do when something that doesn’t fit the Trump narrative happens.
@Kathy: I highly recommend this episode of the “Science Versus” podcast,”Havana Syndrome: Did a Secret Weapon Fry Diplomats’ Brains?” which takes a deep dive into the Embassy/Microwave issue and why it is not easy to figure out what happened their (and at other Embassies too).
@CSK: From personal knowledge not worth going into, I can shed some light on the Corn Syrup / Cane sugar controversy. Coke has bottling plants they own themselves and they vastly prefer to own the plants, so any new bottler in the US is going to be Coke owned. But there are also independent bottlers who have had the rights to produce Coke from syrup for decades (I’ve heard more than 100 years in some cases). The bottlers have flexibility with respect to certain things. When I was cognizant of this around 1997, there remained one independent bottler in the country who still used cane sugar rather than the significantly cheaper corn syrup. Don’t know if that is still true or not. But it was about cost, and either would have been acceptable. Of course, the Coke owned plants probably switched all at once.
By the way, the independent bottlers hate Coke, and vice versa. Course, as near as I could tell, Coke executives hated everyone included themselves. It was a toxic company, at least back then.
@Michael Cain: FWIW, this is how I heard it all came down in the New Coke debacle. Pepsi ran an advertising campaign called the Pepsi Challenge, where they would set up in shopping malls around the country and give people one ounce tastes in unlabeled cups of both Pepsi and Coke. After they chose, they were shown which they preferred. It turned out that Pepsi did notably better than Coke, probably for the reason you described. This campaign seemed to be working and for the first time in decades Pepsi started making significant gains on Coke.
I was in college when this was going on and remember a friend who chose a variation of this as their experiment for the mandatory Psych 101 course. They had a bottle of Coke and a bottle of Pepsi on a table and the subject would be told they would be blindfolded and then given a sample of soda to drink and they should decide whether it was Coke or Pepsi. In the event, they were instead given a sample of ice cold orange pop. A significant percentage didn’t realize it was neither Coke nor Pepsi.
@MarkedMan:
Keep in mind there are Coke bottlers all over the world, not all owned by Coke. And regulations vary, too.
Me, I couldn’t care less, as I’ve not willingly had a “regular” soda since the late 80s. I do drink “diet” soda, but there’s neither cane sugar nor corn syrup in any of them.
@MarkedMan:
Thanks. I read somewhere that Coke started using HFCS in 1980. I remember they used to do Coke vs. Pepsi tasting in Harvard Square.
@Neil J Hudelson: It would seem to me that using quinoa, it would be difficult to make the beer from which the whisky would be distilled, but I’m not an organic chemist, so I could be wrong I guess.
@Kylopod: @Kathy: @MarkedMan:
I recall reading somewhere that the late Christina Onassis drank a minimum of 12 bottle of Coke a day, and was such an aficionado that she could tell what plant in what country had produced the product she was drinking at any given time.
@MarkedMan:
We never got “New” Coke down here, or “Coke II” as the reformulation was later marketed in the US and elsewhere. But the controversy was popular here. Some people joined in stockpiling cases of the stuff, should the recipe be changed.
Anyway , a lot of people said they could tell, by taste alone, not only the difference between Coke and Pepsi, bit also whether it came from a can, a large glass bottle, a small glass bottle, or from a dispensing machine like they have at restaurants. As I recall, there were no plastic soda bottles in Mexico at the time, though maybe the 3 liter huge plastic bottle was available. The large glass bottle was 750 ml. or so.
I never bought that, except the machine*, but I also never tested any of them.
*In restaurants, sodas are delivered in syrup form only, and the machine mixes them with carbonated water, or plain water as the case may be, when you push the button or press the lever. The mixture may vary (more water and less syrup stretches the supply of expensive syrup and depletes the supply of much cheaper water, do the math). The flavor, then, is not the same as the bottled or canned product.
@Doug Mataconis: Easy mistake to make. The implied question, “doesn’t Trump become President,” is the stronger rhetorical force and propels the jump to the final conclusion instead of the intermediate (legal/constitutional) question.
@Kylopod: Years ago, I read an article where I recall that the “conspiracy” was for the purpose of extending the patent on the recipe, but that’s been pretty well debunked from what I’ve heard. Another campaign that fizzled in some areas was “The Pepsi Challenge” which became a contest to see if you could “prefer” the one that was Coke. I did the challenge two or three times and picked Coke every time. Pepsi strikes me as too sweet/sugary tasting.
@Michael Cain: That’s interesting to me because I went to two different stores so that I could buy one of each and couldn’t tell the difference between the two.
@Sleeping Dog: Them being the homeless I assume? After all, the homeless have only themselves to blame for their condition because of their faith in sky daddies, their resistance to changing their ways, and political beliefs that result in them no longer having opinions that matter to actual successful people.
Enough with the handouts. They can get in line or get fwked as far as I’m concerned. (And I support several homelessness charities.)
@Kathy: Here in South Texas, there are many would go out of their way to buy “Mexican” Coke. Imported. Made with cane sugar and only comes in bottles. It is considered to be vastly superior to domestic Coke.
@Scott:
Hell… we do that in Wisconsin. Mexican Coke/Pepsi is far superior.
If I recall, Pepsi actually started producing cola with sugar again. Yep! Pepsi Throwback.
@Scott:
My sister in law grew up in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, TX. She says they used to cross the border to buy milk, because there was little or none in Reynosa.
Great article about homeless residents in Oakland, CA who built themselves a village with homes, a clinic and a store from foraged materials.
@Monala: I just read Last Train to the Zona Verde by Paul Theroux. Like many of his other works it is a travelogue. He says that there is a progression of homelessness leading to camping and camping leading to shantytowns. This thing in Oakland is a shantytown. Many big cities in the third world are surrounded by longstanding shantytowns. They last for generations. The favelas of Rio even have their own law enforcement provided by the local mafia. I’m saddened to see this become the future of my country, but I know of no way to stop this.
@just nutha:
You can make beer or wine from anything, pretty much, as long as there is enough sugar for the yeast to make their excrement (alcohol). Quinoa beer is entirely doable….not that I would allow myself to be seen drinking it, or anything.
@just nutha:
The recipe for Coke is not patented, they hold it as a trade secret. If it were patented, the recipe would need to be published and eventually the patent would expire. Effectively letting anyone duplicate “Coke.”
Re: homelessness, whatever.
@dazedandconfused: What I’ve read in the recent past (note: I’m the lazed through hs bio guy) is that quinoa is considered a low quality staple grain because the endosperm (?) of the grains is so small. I would think that it might be difficult/not economically viable to brew beer from it, but I certainly don’t know.
@Doug Mataconis:
The oath sworn by US officers is is to protect and defend the Constitution, not obey anything the POTUS might ask. IMO the most likely outcome of this hypothetical is the generals will cover their asses by abiding by whatever the Supreme Court rules on the matter and obey (lawful orders only!) whom or whatever they swear in for the office. And it would surely go to the Supremes.
@Sleeping Dog: Just letting my inner
Reynoldslibertarian conservative asshat run wild and free. The pronoun referent ambiguity allowed him to run another lap. No overt offense directed at you or your opinion intended. He (the asshat) just doesn’t get out much these days. And that’s a good thing overall.@just nutha: That rant is also spillover from the other OP of the day. The asshat gets easily confused as to where he is–a biproduct of isolation/quarantine/antisocial distancing.
@Sleeping Dog:
Does anyone get good marks for dealing with homelessness? And given the state of the country, what horrors would that involve?
Homelessness is a symptom of a bunch of different social problems, but they all get lumped together, and we mostly only remember the drug addicts and lunatics who have completely stopped functioning, not the ones who build their own villages with clinics and stores in Oakland.
Here in Seattle, we have the usual crusty loons, plus people who have just been priced out of housing, and a wide assortment of urban campers who post to subreddits about “van life” and make a hobby out of it.
All different problems.
On a related note, the NY Times asked people running for mayor what the median price of home was in Brooklyn. Oof. It’s about $1M. Several thought it was “$80,000, maybe a little higher”. I hope a few political careers are ended and that the candidates are mocked relentlessly.
@just nutha: Are you an ignorant cracker, an ex-republican, or do we have three commenters that are variations on “Just another ______”?
Or do we have ten, and I’ve lumped them all together because I do that?
(When reading novels with a lot of foreign names, I just mentally substitute a familiar name that starts similarly… this sometime leads to me discovering that some of the Daves are actually different people)
@Teve:
The real military does their utmost to stay in the barracks. DHS goons? Who knows, but the civilian command at that point would be Biden, who would also be telling them to stand down.
Unless we have Biden, dictator for life (which, given his age…)
@just nutha:
Beer is fermented sperm?
@Gustopher:
Like the orange-tinted guy who quoted a price of $20 for health insurance?
@just nutha: Quinoa is considered a low-quality grain because it’s technically not a grain, it’s a seed, so is classified (along with things like buckwheat and amaranth) as a pseudocereal.
And the “quinoa whiskey” that is most frequently referenced (Corsair) is 80% barley, 20% quinoa, so it doesn’t really look like quinoa is doing the heavy lifting here.
@dazedandconfused:
Given how awful grapefruit pruno (and it’s subsequent distilled end product) were, I’d probably refuse the Quinoa offering. Of course, the idea that I’d ever be invited into Ms. Paltrow’s exalted abode to drink is hysterically funny in itself.
First, the tiny desk photo is still priceless.
Second, what if most of the people reading this garbage are journalists and political junkies?
@Kathy: what’s worse, he was apparently confusing it with life insurance. He talked about a young person buying health insurance at 21 for $20, so that when they’re 60 they have really good and inexpensive insurance.
@Gustopher:
Homelessness as a campaign issue is useful for two things, and two things only:
As a cudgel for Republicans against Democratic officials at the municipal level.
As a fundraising tool for Dem pols to pander to the NIMBYs.
Neither party is incentivized to develop a comprehensive policy. For Republicans, the messaging is directed at people for whom homelessness isn’t really an issue and doing anything would cost money. Instead, just have the CEA whip up a report (with fancy graphs!) that ‘shows’ the solution is deregulating housing.*
For Dems, the course of action is to keep the homeless away from neighborhoods with big donors.
*What strikes me about this document is the liberal use of findings from scholarly papers, but without the qualifications present in the studies cited. It also tends to ignore the suggestions for solutions provided by the authors.
Sisyphus
@Kathy:
Journalists and political junkies probably glance at Trump’s maunderings for a laugh, but nothing more. In one sense, he can rave all he wants; it’s to no end, because he’s just a fat has-been who got kicked out of office. He doesn’t count anymore.
As far as I know–though I can’t stand the thought of exhaustive research into the matter–none of the right-wing sites are bothering to quote him or link to his daily drivel.
Worse, there’s no function for his adoring fans to express their devotion to him. And I doubt there will be, because the site would be instantly overwhelmed by trollers looking to make sport of Trump. The site would require very close 24/7 moderation.
@Jen:
Paltrow seems to think Corsair is a health food, because…quinoa.
@sam:
I’ll say.
@Kathy:
It should be noted that the corn syrup is only cheaper because, thanks to the ag lobby, there’s a 200% tariff on sugar
@Stormy Dragon:
Basically the same reason we all have to buy 10% ethanol gasoline, even though its more expensive, reduces fuel efficiency, increases green house emissions, and shortens engine life.
@Kylopod:
Yup. That’s what soda jerks were for, manually mixing flavors.
J. Lo and Ben Affleck were spotted together in Montana, which is set to gain a new House seat in redistricting
@Kathy: Mexican Coke (capital C) was a thing in the states. Supposedly because it was still cane sugar. And it came in the iconic Coke bottles. I haven’t drunk sugared (or diet, LaCroix for me) and I moved so I don’t visit the stores where I used to see it. Kathy – is it really cane sugar? Anybody – is it still a thing in the U. S.?
@Gustopher:
Alternate theory: Affleck and Lopez are actually giant cicadas who have evolved to mimic their most significant predator, which is why they get together every time Brood X emerges.
@Stormy Dragon:
@gVOR08:
I found a bottle here in the office. The ingredients list says “sugar and high fructose corn syrup.”
A different soda brand lists only high fructose corn syrup. So, it seems to be a more global kind of thing.
@dazedandconfused:
Under the Circumstances zlTrump would be POTUS
@CSK:
Have you told this to Liz Cheney, and to the human-shaped worms slithering to his tune?
@Kathy:
I should have said that he’s no longer in command of the news, which he was from June 2015-January 2021.
Having made that point, I still think he represents a genuine threat. I hope it diminishes over the course of time.
@CSK:
I agree with all that.
He’s also not a factor in policy questions. but he never really was.
@Kathy:
You’ll enjoy this:
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trumps-blog-isnt-lighting-internet-rcna890
@CSK:
From the link:
“Trump has called his statements a “more elegant” alternative to tweeting, telling Newsmax’s Greg Kelly in March, “I like this better than Twitter. Actually they did us a favor.”
Nice. I move all social media extend the same courtesy to all the GOP politicians. It would be such a big kindness.
@Michael Cain:
A similar thing happens in wine tasting. It turns out that swishing a mouthful of wine around and then spitting it out is a really bad way to determine how much you’re going to like drinking half a bottle of it with food…
Wine traditionalists like to complain about the “Parkerizing” of the world’s wines, making traditionally austere and tart wines jammier, richer, and more intensely flavored (and higher in alcohol) because those were the wines that tended to get high scores from Robert Parker, which in turn drove sales. Since I happen to like half a bottle of pretty much any wine Parker liked, I’m OK with that. 🙂
@Kathy:
That’s either very sour grapes or, more likely, he’s trying to spin being a huge loser into being a big winner.
@CSK:
I know. I stand by my sarcastic cynicism.
@Jen: More knowledge of biology would have finally paid off! Who knew! That quinoa wasn’t likely to be able to do the lifting (heavy or otherwise) was what I was trying to get at all along. Thanks for the clarification! 😀
@CSK:
My college history professor said it took both; you can’t have one without the other. Without the slavery issue, southern states would had no firebrand, driving force to secede. States did get in uproars occasionally (Whiskey Rebellion), but not enough to seriously consider leaving. Without the states framework, it would be hard for areas and towns to leave the nation. He said that the Founder’s nation of letting areas enter the Union as a state. It also created the distinct possibility that states could also try to leave the Union.
He would ask questions such as: if Booth had missed, if Hitler had not been born, if Kennedy had not rode with the top down, If Britain had won, if Columbus had gone around South America. Nice history class. He always tried to get students to argue with him.
Give some chemistry Ph.Ds a modern chemistry lab and they can tell you exactly what is in Coca-Cola. It’s not really a secret within the industry I’m sure. Orange oil, cinnamon, phosphoric acid,…
Listening to cheesy songs from the late 80s, early 90s, I am suddenly struck by the fact that the couple in Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”, who both enjoyed the movie, might be terrible people to not show any qualms over the racist yellowface scenes.
So, that’s another thing they have in common. They were perfect for each other, in that if they were together they were protecting everyone else from themselves.
Also, “Birth Of A Nation” fits the meter, if they wanted to bond over an even more offensive film.
That’s a couple we would want to stick together to protect everyone else from!
Clearly I have stopped working for the day. Speaking of music, but not “Birth Of A Nation”, I don’t recall de stijl around recently. Hope the dude’s doing good.
@Tyrell:
But why would they wanted to have secede but for slavery? This sounds as if they were looking for an excuse to go anyway, and slavery provided it.
Assuming I get the second Pfizer dose May 26th, which would be three weeks after the first, I think I’ll take my vacation right after that. It would be the best time to lock down away from the bunch of covidiots at the office.
@Gustopher: I am (as you can see by my full title here) ignint cracker. Some time ago, I started substitute teaching again and found I could visit the site from the schools at which I teach. (Interestingly enough, I can’t visit LGM. I assume that the reason is because the title of the blog violates Washington States unofficial “zero tolerance for guns” in school policy–in much the same way, and for the same reason, the Spokane first grader got expelled from school for pointing his finger at someone and saying “bang.”) What prompted the change of nym was that I’m not always able to get decaf coffee on my way to school at convenience stores, so sometimes, I drink regular. Sadly, caffeinated coffee wrecks havoc on my “benign” tremor to the degree that I literally can’t type out my whole name on such days. It’s “just nutha” rather than “Just nutha” because I couldn’t remember how I’d spelled it originally (my autofil works flawlessly).
If you’re subsequently wondering why I can write long posts but not my name, well, you just don’t know how long it takes me to compose a post now, do you? No, you don’t. You have no idea. (And at this moment, it’s been roughly 8 hours since I had coffee this morning on my way to school and setting up for the day. (The students watched part of a video about corruption and misinformation in media and the news in honor of preparing to read Fahrenheit 451. And this parenthetical had 10 typographical errors that I caught.)
@Gustopher: My favorite foreigns are Russian–where all the characters have several different nicknames–each one used by a different other character. Fun stuff.
@Gustopher: My understanding–and I got this from Germs, Guns, and Steel so it HAS to be the absolute truth (provided that I read correctly)–is that the endosperm of a grain is the part that has the carbohydrate load. What makes the grain filling and starchy, as I understand it. So no, beer is not made of sperm. (Provided my mind didn’t slip into the gutter and cause me to misunderstand what you were saying.)
Spent all day working at the mattress store in Gainesville. Now I desperately want a Tempur-Pedic. Holy smokes, those things. They’re the Ferraris of bedding.
@Kurtz: “For Dems, the course of action is to keep the homeless away from neighborhoods with big donors.”
Which is where the beauty of encouraging the homeless to set up camps in freeway median/barrier areas, underpasses, and along portions of the MAX light rail system that have low traffic and are away from residential zones (such as near the lower campus of the Oregon Health Sciences University which is in an emerging industrial park zone). And it has the extra benefit of disguising the problem for the hoi polloi–who also don’t want to know but can’t flex any political clout.
@Kathy: Well, I know they did ME a favor, and I didn’t ever follow Twitter except to look sometimes at links people post here. Now most days, I don’t have to think about Trump at all, and would think about him even less if some people (ah, ah, ah CSKhoo) didn’t keep bringing him up.
@Teve: Somehow, you’re going to get a commission if we all buy them…
Bloomberg informs me that the Texas judge hearing the NRA lawsuit seeking to re-incorporate in Texas has tossed the suit. They’ll have to face AG Letitia James’ attempt to dissolve them in their state of incorporation which is NY.
@Teve: Tried a Tempur-Pedic when I was furnishing after I came home from Korea. Didn’t work for me at all. Then again, I sleep on my side and have the L5 disc on one side of my back that shrunk more than the other, so I’m probably an outlier.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Well, excuuuuuuse me.
@Teve:
And now I desperately want Satchel’s!
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
They did the world a favor.
BTW, have you considered mint or chamomile tea instead of coffee if there’s no decaf? Or decaffeinated black tea.
@Gustopher:
I’ve been wondering myself, but he expressed discomfort with the idea of us asking about him like this. But yeah, love that guy.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It would take an enormous homeless population spreading Plague for me to not love Portland. I should have moved there many years ago. One day, maybe.
Devil’s Dill alone is worth a flight from Florida.
@Gustopher: you get big commissions on mattresses. One of the reasons is simple. If you sell high value items you make big commissions because people who are good at sales can bring in significantly more money. The guy selling Kias is not going to make as much money as the guy selling Mercedes S-Classes. The guy who can sell two Tempur-Pedics is bringing in a lot more money than a guy selling one $600 Sealy.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: not to go into salesperson mode, but Tempur-Pedics can give you both shape support and weight support. But memory foam mattresses can do similar things. So as not to poison the discussion with salesmanship I will retreat and let you deal with your local bedding suppliers.
@Mimai: you like Satchel’s better than Leonardo’s?
@CSK: Thanks for your attention. I can’t think of any other issue that was so crucial as to cause the south or any region to seriously consider leaving. Taxes? Mexican War? Native American issue?
@Teve:
They’re both great, but Satchel’s is my fave. Pizza, hot rope, salad (that dressing), all of it. And last time I went back, a few years ago, I saw their expansion with a music venue! A blues guitarist was playing. Heaven.
@Teve:
Is it really salesmanship in this case?
@Kurtz: I’m missing my guy, de Stijl. It’s been a month. I hope he’s taking long walks around his corner property and enjoying spring!
@CSK:
They really wanted to stay for about 70 years. It took tremendous political skill to make that work and in 1860 that skill ran out. The main issue was expansion into the new West, wide open after the war with Mexico. That cash crop they were growing, without modern fertilizers and with crop rotation in it’s scientific infancy, depletes the soil real quick. On top of that England was diversifying their sourcing for that vital industrial product as fast as they could in India and Egypt. The South needed to expand and up production to compete.
It was Big Cotton that led them to it, and Big it was, Savannah was the richest little city in the world at that time.
The more interesting mystery is what prompted Lincoln to so adamantly prevent them from leaving? He really went all out on that, and nothing would’ve been easier than to just let them go. IMO it was he could foresee endless wars over possession of the West. The kind of crap that was going down in Kansas and Missouri on steroids. But nobody can prove that. We will never know for sure, as for some reason he never got around to writing his memoirs.