I mean, the election was close enough (Trump’s nonsense notwithstanding) that you could basically point to any one thing and say “that’s why the Dems lost” and you’d basically be right.

Because that’s how the human mind works. We accept things that verify our convictions and reject things that contradict them. One can overcome this, but it is not easy to do. For less facepalmingly harmful examples, go to any blackjack table and watch people yell at other players for “screwing up the deck” by…

Your poorness at math aside, so what? You think he’s saying it to win friends? He’s saying it because he has a deep fear about the lasting harm the Trump presidency could do the country, as do most people who engage with reality. It is understandable that significant portions of the country felt/feel that the…

I like that if you put their first names together (either way really) you’ve got like a badass D&D character name, or maybe something from cheesy space opera.

These guys are so sincere it’s almost adorable. They are suggesting, without a trace of irony, that this is their first entry in their line of products for the ‘kitchen of tomorrow’. I mean look at this: http://www.mysmalt.com/blog/2016/1/7/smart-kitchen-yesterdays-dream-is-todays-reality

Post JFK. And yeah, he was always eccentric, but I remember thinking he had really started drinking his own koolaid.

Oh yes, absolutely different. I did not mean to imply it was the same. I like to think that the room would have also booed someone as actively destructive as DeVos.

This would be more interesting if we saw the corresponding question for the local NBA team. Also if we knew more about the sample (though I’m guessing it was “people on the internet who like clicking polls”).

If this speech/appearance were part of a debate of ideas where students could come and listen and respond to opposing viewpoints, I’d be totally in agreement. This was a graduation ceremony, where being invited to speak is something of an accolade and it’s expected to be someone the students respect, or at least don’t…

Show us on the doll where Manu touched you.

As someone who has never been to Cincinnati, I like Cincinnati chili. Full disclosure: I’m a fat white guy. 

There’s nothing *wrong* with it, but that’s really the best I can say for it.

I mean, yes, but on the other hand, I would have expected them to circle the wagons around this guy, so baby steps I guess?

Wait, what? If a 4 year old throws a tantrum the response is to call CPS? That seems...insane (source: I have a 4 year old).

Wait, are you secretly my wife, because you just described the relationship between her, me, and alcohol perfectly.

“I don’t believe in the “punching up/down” justification.”

The solutions are fucking difficult: people in the rust belt need to accept (in numbers) that a massive retraining of job skills for their children is the only way things are getting better. But it would help if the messaging from the non-Sanders wing wasn’t “everything is great, but it’s only going to get better”…

I’d even say that it’s economic anxiety exploited by people to focus that fear and anger at convenient scapegoats that they can rail against. There aren’t easy solutions for the problems rust-belters have (declining quality of life and life expectancy, massive prescription opioid epidemic), and the hard solutions…

Honest question here (and I know super not the point): does throwing peanuts have racial overtones in the same way that, say, throwing bananas does? I hadn’t heard of that, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first piece of racist dogwhistling I was late to recognize (it was like maybe 3 years ago that I realized that…

And then every year they have this strange 2-day festival where they all use steps to reach higher things. They call it Ladder Days - ain’t that odd?