Ah, ha, I recently put up a bird feeder for very similar reasons as this article states. I put up one of those pole bird feeders, where you plant a 6 foot pole in the ground and then hang the bird feeder from it. The squirrels were able to climb up a smooth metal pole all the way up to the bird feeder, which was…

I drive by this thing on the way home from work every day. With all the giant cranes and exposed girders, it looks like a giant metal baby spider hatching from a glass egg. It’s looked like that for months. I can’t believe they had originally planned for March 1. Even for Atlanta, that is some gratuitous wishful…

The problem is that TA status is very fluid. Depending on what kinds of grants are available at any given time, a grad student could be a TA one semester and a research assistant the next. Some fields that are more grant-poor will disproportionately have more grad students on continuous TA. This was true when I was…

Not to mention that there is almost no correlation between the ability to do research and the ability to teach the basics to students. It’s very rare for a professor to be able to do both well, although part of that is the time factor as you noted. At most places, students are better off with a TA who effectively…

I took an astronomy class in high school many many years ago. I was legitimately interested, but the class also drew a lot of goofballs since it was a notoriously easy-A elective. One girl was furious to learn that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun. She though it should be a round number, like exactly 1…

I think the Dems were/are at a reality-disadvantage in the rust belt. Trump blew in and promised them they’d get their high-pay, low-schooling factory floor jobs back. Folks clearly bought it. What could Hillary say that would more attractive while simultaneously being more honest? Is the honest answer anything more…

The Atlanta suburbs have be in the running.
1. Cobb County stole the Braves when they didn’t even want them.
2. So racist they refused to let Atlanta’s public transportation system expand into their territory, because to them the city of Atlanta is a giant version of 1970's Harlem perpetually on fire. That decision was…

If it’s like everything else that’s happened with Trump and the GOP so far, it will be something morally and ethically repugnant without being blatantly illegal. Just constant outrage blue-balls.

One thing that I’m learning is that a lot of gov’t procedures that I thought were enforced laws are really just…

The internet is already working on the sales pitch for 2020.

Not sure how much schadenfreude to feel when it turns out Trump is not as psychotic as his voters. 

I know what you mean, but the VP debate was a big fat softball for him. He would get slaughtered in the next Republican primaries- too much of a stiff board, and his bonafides would blur into the background against the field. Cruz is still the one that scares the shit out of me.

100%/716 = 0.14%, so for all of Coleman that’s 1 Pacific Islander, 2 from two or more races, and 2 Hispanic or Latino of any race. That Pacific Islander must be living in some nightmare-version of Northern Exposure.

*Cleveland destroys Toronto*

Do I need to accept that Mike Lupica is the permanent host of the Sports Reporters, ruining the last regular ESPN program I enjoyed? Is there something in the ESPN charter about making the worst decision whenever possible?

That’s true of any year with a number in it.

I can’t buy any Trump arguments when Bernie couldn’t even win the primary over the *other* one of the most disliked politicians of our lifetime. 2016 was the best shot he was ever going to get. I like Bernie, but I feel about him the same way I feel about Cruz, Rubio, and the rest. Try to win over the people in your…

This is a common trope on a lot of rightwing bulletin boards. Although really anyone in a bubble will see the tiny differences among his friends and only the gross difference between him and the enemy. Not surprising to see it surface in Trump tweets.

Do you shotgun an HH episode in one shot, or do you spread it out across the 8-month gap between posts? Me, I’m probably going to start speaking in Old Persian any minute now.

With the latest update, they’ve now officially moved from “rowdy pals” to full-on crumbum status. I repeat: crumbum status.

I like my eggs over hard, but I’m also an irredeemable monster, so... good list.