johnb

Here is a recent Onion comment pertinent to this thread. Even though it didn't literally happen, I judge it closer to truth than to satire. "Facebook Clarifies Site Not Intended To Be Users’ Primary Information Source." I admit I'm a news junkie. I spend a good deal of time reading the NYT (I subscribe to the internet edition), The Economist (ditto), watching political commentary on TV that is based on what I believe to be facts not emotions and opinions, not to mention forays into the Daily Beast, HuffPost, New Yorker Daily, and others. This is JMHO, but I believe that if one seeks to be informed then one needs to take deliberate steps to be informed, not rely on just happening into it. The internet is predominantly a wasteland of puffery, flim-flam, ephemera, and non-information;* digging out the worthwhile nuggets doesn't just happen but takes planning and effort, and a skeptical mindset. * Present website excluded of course

There are many others. For example, go up several posts in this thread (sorry I can't cite the post number -- it's 11 back) and look at DrXmus' avatar -- same issue.

While we're at it, one additional thing. Some of us have words in our avatars. They displayed fine when they were shown as squares. But since the board went to the circle display, the words get partially cut off and no longer make sense (maybe they never did, but I digress). Is it possible to go back to the old square display?

I have noticed that the replies are no longer numbered, or at least it's not displaying for me. That sometimes used to help when referring to an older post. Could it be brought back? Also, when I hit "unread content" to see what's new I'd like to see all recent topics including those I happened to have already read, because then I know there's nothing new and I don't have to go searching for it to be sure. That requires a change in the "read status" from "unread" to "everything" every time. Can that default be changed permanently?

While it's probably true that near-useless news media like CNN have not paid much attention, serious media have. Here is an article about brexit from just yesterday's NYT, one of many that have run recently. At the end there are links to several previous articles over the last few months (non-NYT subscribers can read several for free). I don't regularly follow the Washington Post, but a quick Google search of "washington post brexit" yielded more than two pages of recent WashPo articles on the subject.

The item, which is a C&B exclusive, is named after a character on Mad Men. There is another similar item named after another Mad Men character. I have it on good authority (I can not say more) that it will continue to be offered by C&B but may in the future be sold under a different name. So if anyone wants to buy one/some with the current name sticker, don't delay (I'm talking to you Don).

We've had this discussion before. The human tongue has only 5 (maybe a few more -- not proven yet) types of taste receptors; as an aside, they are all scattered all over the tongue. They are so few and so limited that there's no way they could tell you much about any wine you are drinking. Meanwhile the human nose has hundreds (?? I have seen the number and it is very large) of different aroma detectors. What you think you are tasting when you "taste" wine or most anything else is actually smelling. Your brain assembles all the sensory inputs (and many other inputs too) and comes up with what you experience as "taste." Where wine hits your tongue has little to do with the outcome. The vast preponderance of taste is based on aromas which are detected in our noses, not on our tongues. Most importantly, your pre-conceptions, and other inputs such as your surroundings, your experience, and many other factors have a large impact on what your brain comes up with. For example, you could give two samples of wine or just about anything to people, saying sample one is high quality and expensive and sample two is crap, and most people will say the first is much better, even if they were both from the same bottle. But here's the point -- they would be right -- the first really and truly did taste better to them. Why? Because their brains took all the information, the back story along with the sensory information, weighed and processed it, and came up with a better result for the first one. That's how our brains work, and sometimes send us off the rails. You could say that fine wine will always taste better than plonk, even if it doesn't.

While there, stop in the first Foodland you see (local grocery chain) and belly up to the poke counter. Buy a variety -- there are usually tables outside the store or nearby where you can chow down. True Hawaiian bliss. Foodland's poke is pretty much equal to, if not better than, any you'll find anywhere else. "Best Poke: Foodland" by Quincy Greenheck on kaleo.org

It would appear if you click on the "X hours ago" (or whatever the time since the last post has been) thingee in the lower left corner, instead of the thread title, it does take you to the most recent post, which is probably fairly close to your first unread one most of the time???

In Florida where I am now, my tiny little local Asian market is offering Canadian hothouse tomatoes in the clear tray, 1.5 lb. for $2.99. They are mostly cherry or grape tomato size, a few bigger, and multi-colored (some purple and orange). They are the sweetest and most delicious tomatoes I can ever remember, and that goes back to my dad's fresh garden tomatoes when I was a kid back in the 50's. I have no intention to deny myself.

Congress was really pathetic in how they tried to minimize public perception of the real purpose of that parking lot at DCA. I don't know how it is done nowadays, but IIRC the signs used to say it was for Supreme Court Justices, ambassadors, and (oh, just an afterthought) members of Congress. I wonder how many of the cars parked there were owned by SCOTUS types and ambassadors. Hah!

Latest development (or non-development??) in the saga of the federal government mandating airline seat dimensions: "Senate Declines to Delve into Airline Legroom" by Bart Jansen on usatoday.com

Basically, yes. But it's genuine, that is, the folks who eat it are doing so because they really like it for what it is. It's not like what goes on at those super hot wing places with eating contests that appeal to over-testosteroned college dudes who are trying to show everybody how manly they are.

I used to drive through Nashville frequently and nearly always went by Prince's in hopes of getting some chicken. I probably succeeded one time in three (hint --don't bother to try to call ahead-they don't answer their phone). Long wait. Great chicken. I also tried Bolton's once -- also good but not as good. Prince's is now a James Beard American Classics award winner. No longer undiscovered. Now that the dish is known there are many more places offering it. Don't know how good any of them is. Caveat emptor.

This is equally true, IMHO, when having crabs the usual way. I know this is fightin' words around the Mid-Atlantic, but I think Old Bay should never be used anywhere around crabs. It overpowers the flavor of the meat, and renders them little more than an excuse to drink excessive quantities of beer. To continue, the traditional "never boil crabs" admonition is equally bunk. The best way to have crabs is exactly the same as the best way to have lobster. Boil gently in salted water, and dip in melted salted butter. The butter can have a bit of hot sauce if desired.

I'm delighted to hear you ate at one of my distant cousin's places, and especially pleased that you found it to be good. I'll have to try to get to Phoenix one of these days and do the same. Not too surprised the food in Sedona and at the GC was so-so. That is consistent with my recollection from many years ago. I recall that, on the way to the GC from Las Vegas, we discovered that In-N-Out had recently opened a location in Kingman. It was the culinary highlight of the entire three day trip out to the canyon.

Teapot or tea kettle? My inner Brit is horrified that anyone would wash a teapot. Or are we really just rinsing? As to a tea kettle, why would anyone wash one of those? Does the latest technology require new procedures? Apparently I'm behind the times. Nothing new there, as it were.

Here is a web site that might help one find a more comfortable seat when selecting flights. It requires a little practice to get up to speed: http://www.routehappy.com

Actually, if I understand correctly, in some cases at least United is going from 2-5-2 to 3-4-3, which if true would be an improvement for that poor sap in the dead middle seat, at least as far getting out is concerned. I don't know for sure however, though I am pretty sure there are 2-5-2's flying around up there somewhere.

3-3-3 or 3-4-3, either way you still have one person and one only to climb over to get to the aisle from a middle seat. It will happen to 33% more people of course.

In a 777, 10 abreast yields seat widths of 17". That is the standard seat width on a 737, e.g. on Southwest which everybody seems to love. So relatively speaking it's not really a big deal provided we're talking about domestic trip times (I don't know about Hawaii from the east coast). Hawaii is a notorious low-fare competitive route, which certainly factors in to these decisions. I wouldn't want to fly one to China, but they aren't flying them to China anyway. Watch for the seat pitch; that will be more critical.

Reading stories like that gets me "all jacked up" about how stupid people can be, and how far up on the stupidity scale many gun nuts are. Talk about getting your comeuppance. Sad and unfortunate of course, especially for the kid who will now wind up having to carry the knowledge of this event through his life, but still....... JMHO of course.

Not to worry. I have time for this conversation. We're mostly killing time and seeing old Chilean friends before getting on a ship next Sunday. No I am most assuredly not a Libertarian, a philosophy that I find silly if not repugnant, because government (I used "gummint" before sardonically) definitely has an important role in society, making some choices and enforcing rules. Just to clear things up, I'm a strong Democrat/Progressive (but with certain exceptions from my fellow Progressives where the science doesn't support their progressivism and I feel they've gone astray). For example, I always watch MSNBC never Faux. I support Hillary -- Bernie is fine but a bit unidimensional and unfortunately insists on calling himself something that will hurt him in the general election, and I definitely don't want to see Trump, or worse Cruz, win because of bad optics coming from the Democrat. There comes a point where you must cater to the foolishness of crowds. The problem is how far should government making choices for us go. Roosevelt did the right thing (my branch of economics is actually anti-trust more than anything). Setting aside land for National Parks was definitely the right thing. Establishing social security and Medicare was the right thing. Obamacare, for all its faults, was a big step in the right direction if not the optimal solution. Most of what the EPA does is the right thing (and they have great people working for them). Etc. However, whether that extends to choosing seat pitch for travelers is less clear, particularly when it means that nobody will have the choice and everybody will pay more. It's pretty far for the government to drill down into people's economic choices/behavior. If you can make a case that this is really crucial from a medical standpoint, I have no problem, as I already said. Then again, when I have read about DVT from airline seats it seems the person didn't even stand up for hours. I would think you can get DVT from sitting in a chair at home for several hours. It's true that many non-frequent flyers don't know what they're buying, but again how far should government go in protecting people from not informing themselves of what they're buying? The beat goes on.

Couple of things: 1. These new fare classes being instituted by the legacy carriers (American, United, Delta) involve no change in seat comfort or legroom. The main thing is if you choose that supercheap fare you cannot select a seat in advance or change your travel plans. I talked about this earlier -- see the last paragraph of reply #25 from Dec. 16. 2. The final paragraph in the economist article you cited says exactly what I have said above -- these fare classes are what the public is demanding, and the low fare carriers (e.g. Spirit) that started it are doing extremely well financially, offering the public less seat room. Note that the legacies are not reducing seat room with their new competitive fares. All the legacy carriers have now instituted competitive fares because they have to in order to, well, compete with Spirit and Frontier and others that would surely come into the market. This is a pretty clear case of the public showing what they want with their choices (cheap ticket) and forcing competitive moves by other market players. 3. If you want government-imposed minimum seat pitch regulations, I personally have no problem with that since it would apply to all airlines equally (although it's not as simple to implement as one might think due to different cabin dimensions in different aircraft flying different routes). But it would have the effect of raising average fares. 4. Your argument is rooted in the medical aspect, combined with an assumption that buyers don't understand what they are buying. That's fine, but since this is a food board, why not argue for gummint regulations about the maximum calories, salt, etc. in any dish served at any restaurant. Or that everybody must buy expensive organic local non-GMO groceries. Bloomberg is famous for trying that type of thing, and he got nothing but blowback from the public. To me, the bottom line is it's presumptuous at best and dangerous at worst to get in the business of telling the general public what they should want. Full disclosure: I'm in Santiago Chile right now and flew down here in a coach seat on a LAN 787 with 34" pitch. Not bad, and it was a cheap ticket.

Given your traveling companions I'm not sure whether much fine dining is on your radar, but if it is (or someone else in the future sees this thread) and you're in the Phoenix area, specifically the north suburb of Cave Creek, you might take a shot at my very distant relative Kevin Binkley's eponymous restaurant "Binkley's". Kevin has been nominated for James Beard awards several years running. I have not yet made it there, but from what I've read it seems to be top notch (I have had lunch with his Dad). He also has two more bistro-like places, Cafe Bink which is near the mother restaurant and Bink's Midtown which is not far from the airport, either of which might be a better bet with the kids and both of which are open for lunch.