v for frequency?

You lazy thing, you use your son as a slave for muscle power?

Why are they called springform when there's no springs involved? If there were, you'd end up with pie on the ceiling.

American cheese might get dyed, that makes it fake. In the UK, if I buy orange instead of light yellow cheddar, it's guaranteed to have a stronger taste.

The French don't make proper cheese, their stuff is f****ng weird and tastes like sewage.

Or the big expansion that was Manifest Destiny.

Ok. Where do we draw the line? I'd like to stay in Blue America, but the people living in red areas of Michigan might disagree. I'd be willing to buy a few bus tickets to Montana for some of them.

There are far worse things than to be e.g. an overseas colony of a major power. I would be happy that Hawaii was a US state.

Or that Gibraltar is UK. If I lived there.

Far worse to be a vassal state of the EU, or the Russian federation.

There's an aisle in my supermarket titled "free from". I do hate it when people don't finish their sentences. It's like saying "my bad".

The one thing you should avoid is "fat free" - it's a synonym for "flavour free". You're also paying the same amount for less stuff. Fat is food, calories, what we need to survive. To get thinner, eat less food, but continue eating the food you enjoy.

In the UK: White-yellow cheddar (aka tasteless):

Americans are really soft.

Who cares? They're only Irish, not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Isn't there another word for female other than cow? A cow is a different species.

Same genus, Bos. If you're Tibetan a yak is male and a nak is female.

The current resident in the reefer is

Wyoming and Idaho are very nice places too. That's already happening to some extent. The people leaving CA typically aren't going to the Peoples Republics of OR or WA. With a fairly mobile population people tend to self select. It's nothing new. White flight from decaying cities started in the '50s. Then it was flight to the 'burbs. Now it's flight to another state.

Personally I left NH, about as red as it gets back east, in '88 when I saw the times were changing. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't have work lined up but I figured I would know home when I saw it.

I grew up in upstate NY but bailed from there around '71. Upstate wishes NYC and environs would drift out to sea.

"Many saw Gillibrand as moderate or conservative. Michael Brendan Dougherty in The American Conservative wrote after her victory, "Gillibrand won her upstate New York district by running to the right: she campaigned against amnesty for illegal immigrants, promised to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington, and pledged to protect gun rights."[

"A member of the Democratic Party's relatively conservative Blue Dog faction while in the House, Gillibrand has moved her political positions and ideology toward a liberal, progressive position since her appointment to the Senate"

She was appointed to Clinton's seat when clinton became Secretary of State and immediately became Hillary Jr. Just another windsock politician.

Yeah, there is that...

Not everyone is a happy camper. It did do wonders for the economy, chiefly tourism, when planes started servicing the islands. It's one of the more isolated places in the world without air transit. With restrictions removed and an improving economy Japan also boosted tourism.

Would it have done as well as a sovereign nation? I don't know. Historically the islands would have been scooped up by someone if not the US, but by the time of statehood Britain, Spain, Russia and so forth weren't grabbing pieces of real estate anymore.

Puerto Rico is another problem. The government is completely dysfunctional so it's hard to imagine it succeeding on its own. otoh, it would be stupid to make it a state and inherit all its baggage.

If only he'd told Starbucks how to make decent coffee