Outside the Beltway

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1. MarkedMan says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 07:38

   Chalk this up to random musings on psychology. Over the years I’ve noticed that coffee mugs have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. This morning I walked into the breakroom kitchen to get my coffee and one of the guys came in and put his very large mug into the microwave. “Third time I’ve had to heat it up today! Always happens…”, he said. I didn’t ask, but wondered why he just doesn’t get a smaller mug? In fact, I get my coffee cup from the company provided china sets in the cabinet right next to the microwave. The biggest is about 12 ounces and the smallest 10 or 8. I always take the smallest. I sit down, have my coffee and it’s hot the whole way through. Then, if I want another cup a couple of hours later, I refill that one. What’s the point in letting half or two-thirds of it get cold and reheating it?

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2. Scott says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 07:48

   Random political thoughts of the morning:

   – Favorability ratings: Harris 47.3% Favorable, 46.5 Unfavorable. Trump 43.0 Favorable, 52.4 Unfavorable. Question: How do these ratings translate into vote polling? Doesn’t seem to be a lot of correlation.

   – Living in Texas, we are not bombarded by ads; however, why are the Democrats not going negative on Trump WRT to his supposed strengths: the economy and foreign policy. Negative partisanship works. But it seems as though they let him get away with his BS on those two topics.

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3. Scott says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 07:53

   @MarkedMan: Same goes for wine glasses. We have wine glasses handed down from decades ago and they are pretty small (maybe 4oz). Today’s glasses can easily hold 10-12 oz. We use the small ones to incentivize lower consumption.

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4. charontwo says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 08:05

   Here is a great (and detailed) analysis of J. D. Vance

   “DavidLurie”

   Here is a sampling (there is lots more):

   During a 2015 NPR interview, Vance argued that the purportedly systemic failure of his community, like that of his family, was due to a loss of connection with organized religion. He contended that he avoided the same fate largely because his father got him involved with an evangelical church.

   On Vance’s account, his father’s church “provided a lot of moral pressure, a good community of believers that really supported me and supported him.” He claimed other poor Middletown “hillbillies” disconnected from organized religion (including his grandmother) lacked such “support.”

   Yet, as Vance acknowledged, the “support” his father’s church offered included a deep inculcation into the conspiratorial extremism that has come to pervade many white evangelical churches in recent decades. As Vance recounted, the church he credited with saving him taught “evolution was a lie that the devil told to get Christians to believe in modern science” and that “the gay lobby was making it more and more difficult for Christians to live their lives or to practice their faith.”

   The teenage JD Vance became an avid advocate for this mix of religious and political ideology, which he circulated on AOL message boards, the prevailing social media of the time. According to Vance, his message was grounded on a claim that “the devil” was in control of the nation and world and worked in the form of LGBT persons, Wall Street financiers, and the United Nations — a view rooted in a deep and abiding resentment of malign forces that purportedly threatened true Christians.

   and this:

   On Vance’s account, Trump was a “cultural heroin” dealer who appealed to the pessimism of members of his community by offering the “pain reliever” of “easy solutions” for their despair about the present and future. According to Vance, the causes of the “domestic chaos” and “social decay” he claimed had overtaken Middletown actually originated in “American communities and families and homes.” He claimed Trumpism offered a comforting promise that those systemic problems could be magically solved, including by removing purportedly malign newcomers from Mexico.

   and this

   Republican political consultant Mike Murphy recently recounted that, in 2017, Vance — who had moved back to Ohio in 2016 from San Francisco with an eye toward starting a political career — asked Murphy to manage Vance’s then-contemplated campaign for Senate as an anti-Trump Republican.

   Murphy bluntly told Vance that it would be extremely difficult for him to prevail in a GOP primary with his views. Sometime after that Vance apparently chose to make what Murphy calls a “Faustian bargain” in order to succeed in the Republican Party by becoming a political heroin dealer himself.

   Over the next several years, Vance assiduously remade himself as a thoroughgoing Trumpist. He ultimately gained Trump’s endorsement in a crowded 2020 GOP Ohio Senate primary, with the help of his mentor, funder, and former employer, billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

   Too now, Vance is become an extreme Catholic of an atavistic version. I suppose he still thinks evolution comes from the Devil though.

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5. Kathy says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 08:18

   @MarkedMan:

   Two years ago, for some reason we had an exchange of mugs at the office. I got one that is tall, narrow on the bottom, and widens toward the top. I think it’s as big as 15 regular mugs as regards capacity. I like it because of the unusual design, and because I can use it to drink juice or soda or water in addition to coffee or tea.

   The thing is I don’t fill it to the top when I get coffee. I put in abut as much as fits in a regular sized mug. Because, yes, otherwise it grows cold before I finish it.

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6. MarkedMan says:
   Wednesday, 25 September 2024 at 08:20

   @Scott: The purpose of the larger wine glasses, at least in theory, isn’t to add more wine, but rather to provide a volume for the bouquet to concentrate.

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   Click to Edit – 

   

   @<a href="#comment-2961931" rel="nofollow ugc">Scott</a>: The purpose of the larger wine glasses, at least in theory, isn't to add more wine, but rather to provide a volume for the bouquet to concentrate.

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