Thunderbird4

Absolutely right. Moore was the lamest, laziest, most uninspiring Bond actor. Some of his movies are fun despite him, but it’s a shame he was in so many.

I’m not mad. I’m glad they’re showing some semblance of backbone for once. I just think it’s a poorly chosen cliche for him to use the “your grandfather’s Democratic Party” bit, when the party of the past didn’t have the cowardice issues that the current one has had this very same year.

No, my grandfather’s Democratic Party instituted the New Deal. The Democratic Party that “just rolled over” was you just a few months ago.

That, and it was seen as relatively healthy for fast food. It was one of the only fast food options at the time where not everything was fried and drowning in saturated fats. Prior to Chipotle, Subway was considered the healthiest fast food chain.

Right, totally in agreement that their popularity has continued to grow since 2010. Now compare that graph to the graph in the post. SUVs didn’t just come out of nowhere in 2010, but the increase in pedestrian fatalities seemingly did. Therefore other factors besides just the popularity of large vehicles must have contributed to the massive increase in pedestrian fatalities.

The overwhelming majority of automatic transmissions made in the last 85 years have had torque converters, not automatically operated clutches (referring to the primary connection between motor and driveline, not torque converter lockup clutches or transmission clutch packs). Cars that use the automatic equivalent of a manual clutch pedal have really only been practically produced in the last 15 years in the form of dual wet clutch automatics.

Assuming you’re referring to the US, the SUV explosion was spurred on by the cheap gas in the early 2000’s. Remember the Hummer? Like the H1 with the tank hatch on top? Those were only made until 2006, and the Hummer brand stopped making new vehicles in 2010. The Ford Excursion, the largest SUV ever made, was only made from 2000-2005. Absolutely, the proportion of large vehicles on the road has continued to grow massively, but they were still everywhere prior to 2010. Something else, like smartphones or statistical reporting practices, is more likely to be the cause of the 2010 uptick in this graph.

…especially for Marian Davies - Pte Neville's niece - who remembers her uncle leaving to go to war and never returning.

How old is she?? They said the notes were written in 1916. If she was old enough to remember her uncle leaving, let’s say 4 at the time, she’d have to be 113 today. Of course that’s possible but wow, what are the chances of finding a living supercentenarian relative with a memory of the author of a 109-year-old letter in a bottle?

Texas doesn’t require registration in a party to vote in primaries, so the vast majority of Texans don’t bother to affiliate, and so the proportions of affiliated voters isn’t really very meaningful. More than anything, Texas is a non-voting state. It has some of the lowest voter turnout in the country, which absolutely benefits and is encouraged by the conservatives currently in power. Those who do vote tend to vote straight ticket either based on habit, perceived identity, and social pressures, or out of zealous rage over minimizing taxes at any cost.

While there is tons of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other ugly political tactics at play, you can’t discount the immeasurable ignorance of the voters. Yes, there are millions of democrats and progressives in the four main metro areas, but between the Bible thumpers, the suburban NIMBYS, the rednecks, and the flocking tech bros that make up the rest of the population, Texas is definitely still an actual red state.

I didn’t intend to suggest that Carl Sagan invented climate science in 1985, just that the political conversation has been clear and ongoing for decades (indeed, longer than 40 years), yet the opposing narratives continue to claim it’s unproven, and the progress remains insufficient.

40 years ago.

It’s so easy to lose sight among all the gish-galloping nonsense around these topics just how long the problem has been almost fully understood and very clearly articulated. It’s absolutely devastating to think about how catastrophically the world has failed to meet the challenge he describes here in the intervening decades.