And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[greg]

A lot of speedometers have kph already. Most rules show both metric and American, and so on. But plenty of things presume the standard America measurements.  It will take the building trades a long time to get used to using 5 by 10s instead of 2 by 4s.

They do but mph are usually written with bigger numbers, usually, i think... The bigger issue is to change like a million signs and hope people don't start crashing lol. 😛

[SimonNZ]

If anyone wants to hear some analysis of various policy proposals instead of merely slagging each other off constantly about whether or not things can possibly work in the USA how they work anywhere else, I suggest trying the latest season of the podcast The Impact.

Hadn't heard of that. Thanks for the heads up.

Their latest episode is called "How Taiwan Got Medicare For All", in case that subject is of interest to anyone here.

I pricked up my ears at an ad they had for another podcast: Jon Favreau (formerly Obama's speechwriter) hosting "The Wilderness", going around Trump America and battleground states talking to voters about what it would take for the Democrats to defeat Trump.

[Madiel]

As predicted, all I had to was mention metric to generate all the "here's why we can't measure the way the rest of the world does" arguments that don't look all that different to "here's why we can't do health care the way the rest of the world does" arguments.

You can, if you actually want to. You probably won't, but you can.

Now, back to my original suggestion: latest season of the podcast The Impact. All about looking at Democratic candidates policy proposals and the implications.

Bye again.

[SimonNZ]

The US military uses "clicks" for kilometers, doesn't it?

Anyway, being from a more rational country I'm off to play some of my 30.48 cm records...

[71 dB]

Well, that's great. But honestly I think that's totally incomparable with the US adopting metric.

300 million more people and things that provide American measurement won't just go away. For example, a lot of people will have cars for 10, 20 years or longer that show speed as mph. All of the signs are still in mph. So the average person has no incentive to learn kph.

It just occurred to me that there's some things nobody uses metric system: TV sizes are in inches everywhere. I have a 32 inch TV. Nobody says 80 cm or 0.8 m TV. 

[Madiel]

Sometimes size isn't important.

[71 dB]

Sometimes size isn't important.

You mean when women aren't asked?

[Madiel]

You mean when women aren't asked?

I don't have those kinds of interactions with women anyway.

[Sergeant Rock]

The US military uses "clicks" for kilometers, doesn't it?

And it also uses metric when describing weapons. For example, the M-16 is called Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm and the M-1 Abrams is armed with a 120mm gun.

Sarge

[greg]

You mean when women aren't asked?

-American guy meets European lady
-European lady: "So how big is it?"
-American guy whips out...


calculator to convert from inches to centimeters. 

[Wendell_E]

They do but mph are usually written with bigger numbers, usually, i think... The bigger issue is to change like a million signs and hope people don't start crashing lol. 😛

For years, there were speed limit signs in the U.S. with both MPH and km/h. In 2009, it was actually made illegal to install new signs with the metric speed limit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Metric_speed_limits

[Karl Henning]

The Pew Research Center finds that nationally 26 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters favor former vice president Joe Biden, 21 percent go with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 16 percent with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), 7 percent with former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg and 5 percent with former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg. As we have seen in other polling, "Biden leads among black Democrats, while white Democrats are closely divided. Sanders draws broad support among young Democrats, as he did four years ago, while Biden leads among older Democrats."

And, what does not break to Bernie's advantage, either:

Surprisingly, given the amount of media play devoted to the left, a large percentage of voters still want Democrats to cooperate with Republicans: "63% of Democratic voters — including substantial shares of those who support Buttigieg (82%), Bloomberg (79%) and Biden (72%) for the nomination — say it is more important for a Democratic candidate to seek common ground with Republicans, even if it means giving up some things Democrats want."

Full piece here

[JBS]

And, what does not break to Bernie's advantage, either:

Full piece here

Given the pronounced trend among Republicans to refuse to even try to find common ground with Democrats, I'm not sure that break disadvantages Bernie as much as it may seem.

[Karl Henning]

Given the pronounced trend among Republicans to refuse to even try to find common ground with Democrats, I'm not sure that break disadvantages Bernie as much as it may seem.

There's that.

[71 dB]

Am I on an AIPAC forum?

Some 5 weeks and super-Tuesday is done. Then we are much wiser about how this race is unfolding.

[71 dB]

Sanders Beats Trump, Even When Called A 'Socialist'

https://www.youtube.com/v/NL1cf6RNX3o

[71 dB]

Iowa Results Coming Soon... ...so from now on IRCS means something trivial that is seriously delayed because of incompetence?

[André]

Iowa caucuses are straight out of the jurassic era. Focusing on how rural white voters accounting for less than 1% of the population are voting is hardly an indication of a healthy democracy.

[71 dB]

On the Bernie campaign plane heading to New Hamphire were given these initial results based on 60 % of districts counted:

Bernie Sanders: 29.40 %
Pete Buttigieg: 24.87 %
Elizabeth Warren: 20.65 %
Joe Biden: 12.92 %
Amy Klobuchar: 11.18 %

These numbers are close to the number after just 15 % of districts counted and Bernie's campaign folks believe the final results are close to these numbers. Hopefully soon we will know.

[71 dB]

Oh shit!  This doesn't look good for Bernie:

Pete Buttigieg: 26.9 %
Bernie Sanders: 25.1 %
Elizabeth Warren: 18.3 %
Joe Biden: 15.6 %
Amy Klobuchar: 12.6 %

62 % reporting...