Biden - his time

[Moonlight Shadow]

Saw an interview of Yellen on French t?l?vision, he could easily pass for French...

[ursus arctos]

Even more remarkable that she could pass for a he

[caja-dglh]

Even more remarkable that she could pass for a he

Genuine lol. He made an excellent first woman Fed Chair...

[caja-dglh]

"A cabinet that looks like America"

Apparently the aging population problem is more severe than we had first recognized.

[anton pulisov]

Wow, Yellen has a seriously unapologetic Brooklyn accent on her.

Northeast accents are dying in general, so I think it's good for accent diversity to appoint people like her.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Is there a detectable difference between Brooklyn and New York accents?

[ursus arctos]

There isn't really a Manhattan accent. Too many of the residents are from elsewhere.

Natives can usually distinguish among Brooklyn, The Bronx and New Jersey, though a number of the markers are syntax and vocabulary. I developed an ear for Staten Island given the proportion of our administrative staff that spent their entire lives there.

It isn't surprising that Yellen sounds that way given that she grew up in what became Saturday Night Fever country (Fort Hamilton High School Class of '63)

[anton pulisov]

I couldn't really tell you the features of the accents off the top of my head, but I do tend to remember what famous people or acquaintances from certain places sound like.

For example, there was a woman talking on the phone on the train once, and I predicted she was from Edmonton, because she sounded just like somebody I know from Edmonton. Antoinette Pulisova told me I was full of shit, until the woman on the train mentioned in her mobile phone conversation that she'd be "flying home to Edmonton for Christmas." I mean, people from Calgary probably sound the same, so maybe I just got extra lucky there. Still get a lot of mileage out of that in our house.

[MsD]

Henry Higgins!

[Moonlight Shadow]

Even more remarkable that she could pass for a he

Ah shit, confused name, it's Blinken I meant...

[ad hoc]

As someone on twitter commented yesterday, with Biden, Yellen and Blinken, it's a gerundocracy

[ursus arctos]

I was quite cross not to have gotten that first.

Blinken moved to Paris when he was nine and attended French schools before going to Harvard. He later practiced law there, so it isn't surprising that his French is strong.

[Satchmo Distel]

Quit your Blinken Yellen.

[Nefertiti2]

rahm emmanuel

https://twitter.com/KeeangaYamahtta/status/1333239763265056771?s=20

[Satchmo Distel]

I can only assume that's a deliberate provocation. Thanks for getting the vote out for us in those big cities but this is what we really think of you.

[Nefertiti2]

incredible that the talent pool in a country of 330 million people is so small

[San Bernardhinault]

I can only assume that all the stories about Rahm Emmanuel getting considered for a job in the administration are being put in the media by Rahm Emmanuel.

Or possibly the Biden team is smart enough (I don't actually think this is the case) that they reckon that when someone else gets the jobs and Emmanuel doesn't, then the Democratic base feels so relieved that they don't question who is actually getting appointed.

I can't see what the political benefit of appointing him is apart from having someone inside the tent pissing out. Even that seems not particularly valuable because only Sensible Centrists care about what he says, and they're surely not going to be arguing that a Biden administration is too radical.

[Balderdasha]

Surprised not to see any comment on Biden fracturing his foot while playing with his dog, or is it on another thread somewhere?

[Balderdasha]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55127559

[Balderdasha]

Doesn't seem to be major, but I expect various opinion pieces worrying about his age / presumed fragility.

[caja-dglh]

Doesn't seem to be major, but I expect various opinion pieces worrying about his age / presumed fragility.

I thought it *was* Major?

[caja-dglh]

Anyway - Dog name hilarity aside, fracturing your foot is rather easy and fixes itself. It seems more a bit foolish rather than anything else.

The real news is they are going to get a cat.

[San Bernardhinault]

Great news that they're getting a cat. Also good to know that he actually plays with his dog. I imagine that the current inhabitant doesn't have the empathy to do that, and is probably not physically capable of it, either.

[S. aureus]

Good to see that he's acting "out of an abundance of caution". Damn that expression is really getting my goat now.

[S. aureus]

There was some lady a while back that tried to give Trump a dog, but he refused, and she was sad because she thought it would teach him empathy. Or something along those lines, I may well be misremembering. The dog had a lucky escape there.