This is the dumbest thread you will read today.

[Occam Bandage]

But sometimes we say dumb things, and this is one of those times:

So Axelrod says that Obama likes to turn the heat up in the White House to greenhouse-esque temperatures, because he's a Hawaiian. His office, his rules, no problem. It might cost some more in the winter, but it'll cost less in the summer, and either way who gives a shit.

My question, though, is this: how does that square with him telling D.C. to tough out the cold and the snow like a flinty Chicagoan? Obama doesn't have to commute! What kind of moral authority does a Chicagoan have to tell DC to toughen up like him when that Chicagoan is sitting in his 85-degree palace?

This is hugh.

[liberal N proud]

1. The tough out the cold comment was in regards to school

In Chicago they wouldn't call school for the the weather DC was seeing yesterday. It isn't commenting on their thermostats

[JuniperLea]

6. That's exactly right...

But if California starts getting freezing rain storms, the whole thing is going to shut down tight! We don't even know how to drive in the garden variety WET rain. We freak out... oh no! Water is falling from the sky! What to do?

[SidneyCarton]

16. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Californians are unable to drive in the rain,

So freezing rain is akin to inviting mass highway slaughter in CA :)

[YOY]

12. In DC Fed jobs and Schools close at the drop of a flake.

A high number of workers from southern states and immigrants who have never had to deal with driving in winter snow (albeit weak snow) contribute to this.

Everyone from the North calls them a bunch of wussies...myself included.

[Minimus]

2. This is hugh!11!! Toughening out the cold and snow means not

closing everying at the sight of a snow flurry.

I have lived all over the country and I am now in the South. If there is even a rumor about snow everyone goes wild - milk and bread fly off the shelves. It is quite humorous.

As a child I lived in Chicago and we did walk to school in the snow and had recess in the snow.

[Posteritatis]

17. I admit I find it kind of hilarious here in Nova Scotia too

We get the extra bonus that the weather changes about forty times a day.

I mean, I understand why, say, Alabama would flip out at the sight of snow or freezing rain, about as much as Nova Scotians freak out at tornadoes or the odd hurricane that tracks directly over my neighborhood (fucking Juan, argh), but I still can't not find it amusing when a half-centimeter of snow falls, and it's just freezing or slightly above out, and civilization totters on the brink of collapse.

Though on the other hand, people who put up with -30 or -40 temperatures regularly? They're just crazy folk.

[FSogol]

3. Dumbest thread today ? Maybe, but its early still.

Guess Obama will have to give Axelrod an icy stare.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. As a Washingtonian, we react well enough considering the government response

We could easily maintain a snow removal infrastructure that made it possible to seldom close schools, but it would be a waste of money since it doesn't snow all THAT much.

I lived in Hyde Park during the two worst Chicago winters in recorded history. (The coldest followed by the snowiest. The mayor was thrown out because it snowed too much, showing that even flinty Chicagoans are not so rational about weather.)

When DC got a lot of snow Marion Barry announced that his snow removal plan for the side streets was called "spring". Seriously.

But it's not like the DC budget allowed for real industrial-strength snow removal, so "spring" was the best we could afford.

All in all, the whole regional tough-guy thing is silly. Humans adapt to real circumstances.

(Being born in the deep, deep, deep south I found Chicago's reactions to hot humid weather kind of comical, but I didn't run around talking about it. I recognized that everything there is over-insulated and free of moving air because winter is a bigger problem than summer.)

(I understood the self-proclaimed dumbness aspect of your post but as a Washingtonian who was living on Lake Shore Drive the first year anyone of European descent saw Lake Michigan freeze over--demonstrating that the indian legends were probably not legends--I felt I had some amusing anecdotal commentary to offer.)

[treestar]

5. OK, I'll try

In Chicago they perhaps turn the heat up too, in winter. You go to the office/school and it is warm. So the toughness is just in going out there to travel from one warm place to another. Obama doesn't have to do it now, true, but he did before this.

But Obama was just teasing, surely he is smart enough to know that places with tough winters, like Chicago, have more preparations for cold weather and thus don't have to shut down as easily.

[Bonobo]

7. Agreed 100%. It puts the "DU" in "Dumb", nt

[Cha]

8. It's weird..the sooner he

gets those Solar Panels the betterB-)

[liberalmuse]

9. Not as long as DUers keep posting shit from FR here.

Sorry. The freepers have you beat hands down. Try again! :)

[TygrBright]

10. Not even CLOSE, darlin'...

And this is just my first day bein' a mod.

amazedly,
Bright

[liberalmuse]

11. Welcome!

The Mods have been busy this morning, so I've been reading. Thank you! I haven't seen one offending post yet today. Great work!

[TwilightGardener]

13. He's a secret thermostat-turner-upper. I am, too.

Some of us just can't stand a chilly house. Everyone's got their vices.

[PBS Poll-435]

14. Grab a sweater

I'm series.

[RayOfHope]

15. I am completely missing the 85 degree thing. Is it somewhere I'm just not seeing?

Because if its just some random number people are grabbing onto its stupid. Maybe he turned it up to 70, 72, or something like that.