Yep, kids is one reason. another is that front controls can be inadvertently turn on by leaning over the stove, another is that the front controls has the motherboard under the front fascia and are susceptible to water damage from spills, over boils or even cleaning. A motherboard goes for at least $700 and is out-of-stock 5 years after manufacture. (A reason why apartments are almost always back controls.

It's hard to imagine accidentally turning on a stove knob by leaning over it, you'd have to be pretty short and have some tangly clothes.

Those controls ought to be hermetically sealed too, though I suppose with the way they manufacture things these days, maybe not. :rolleyes:

My mother with her bad eyesight certainly makes spills and messes.

Still. for elderly people who can't see or move so well, front controls are the way to go.

Meh, surprised Google and Apple and the others haven't integrated ranges into their Big Brother voice control boxes. They already did it with refrigerators. Should be happening any day now.

:p

I just watched a very interesting interview on BBCs HardTalk with James Stavridis.
He came across very well, intelligent, optimistic, but realistic.
One point he made was that he thought, given the current state of US politics, that the time was right for a more centralist party to emerge, which could gather support from the more moderate parts of the Republican and Democrats parties.
Three party politics in the US?
Just wondered what our US members thought.

It's a great thought and IMO well overdue but most American's IMO won't go for it based on history. Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Poirot tried and failed. Why?? Those who went for them just ended up taking votes away from the main candidates.

I agree with Santee that it's a great thought but it seems unlikely. What I see as the most likely case resulting in three parties would be the Trump faction splintering from the Republicans. Both parties of the right would do well in conservative states but not in presidential elections. I think they would quickly tire of being also-rans for the presidency and mend the necessary fences to merge as a strong condender for the executive office.

"Third Parties" have arisen before in US history. Usually as a splinter of one of the two primary parties. The end result has been the third party ending up replacing the party it split off from. If that were to happen in the near future I suspect it would be the Republican party to split. I hope the more "radically" right portion would fade away. A more centrally oriented Republican party would force the Democrats to likewise move towards the center.

But for any of this to happen I think there would have to be some changes in American election laws. Some analysts think that it is the current situation that is forcing both parties to go more extreme as in order to win the primaries candidates have to move more left or right and away from the center. Basically they have to convince their own party first which requires NOT appealing to the American center.

Exactly.
I'm trying to understand the competing for/against arguments for a centralist party, in regard to the USA.

I folow current eventrs on the internet but I don't watch television, which means I am in no way a typical citizen of the USA. Keep that in mind as you read what i write.

Both major parties think they are centrist.

I'm 74 and have seen a lot of water go under the bridge. There was a time when I voted for at least a few Republicans with some regularity. That time is gone. I don't think I turned into a flaming liberal in my old age, I think the Republicans moved so far to the right that I can no longer support them.

The Democrats have a more plausible claim to be centrists, though they would be considered right or center right in most countries. They don't seem to have any real party identity other than, "We're not quite Republicans."

I think the USA would be well served by a true centrist party but I can't imagine a mechanism that would produce one. It seems the electorate wants confrontation rather than cooperation these days.

The US actually has a kind of three party politics already. There's the "Trump Republican" Party, traditional Republicans, and the Democrats.

On the ballot I vote on, here in Washington State, candidates get to specify their party affiliation. Some said "Republicans", others said "Trump Republicans".

Back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s . . . Southern Democrats were effectively a third party, allied for electoral purposes with Northern Dems, but first splitting off into third parties, and then ultimately going over to the Republicans for good.

The electoral system really only works for two parties, even if those parties contain competing elements. That's why Bernie is a Dem; he'd be in a Democratic Socialist party if there were such a thing that could contest an election . . . but there isn't

Makes me remember being a student in London, almost 40 years ago now, going to see Shirley Williams speak. At the time, everyone I knew had high hopes for the Lib Dems. As a side note, Williams' late husband, Richard Neustadt, was a brilliant American historian/political scientist. He wrote the essay that most succinctly describes "Where American crazy comes from"

Its' called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" -- its a short read and while it was written about the Goldwater campaign (1964), you'll recognize all the elements today, online here