Hello, the Gab Festive. This is Bob Garfield with Mike Volo, and we're about to drop a new episode of Lexicon Valley on you. Mikey?

Yes, Bobby. Episode 36. The dude abides. About the word abide. No, about the word, dude. ubiquitous now and with a swell history.

Swell, that's a pun, right?

You'll just have to tune in to find out.

The newly discovered early history of the word dude, this Monday, January 27th on Lexicon Valley.

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Hello and welcome to the plate political gab fest for January 24th, 2014, the Would You

Like a Ride in my Ferrari edition? I'm David Plotz, the editor of Slate, and the whole gang is here.

Emily Bazelon, Slate Senior Editor, is down from New Haven. Hooray, Emily.

Thank you, and thank you, Amtrak for running. Now, please will you get me home this afternoon?

Amtrak will get you home this afternoon, I think. It's fine. It's not even that bad. John Dickerson also here. He slept in from the palisades or wherever it is that he lives. Where no street has been plowed. He's actually just our street has not been plowed. blah, blah, blah.

Well, it's no, it's just like a hill and they just don't bother.

It's one block long, They don't bother with it. John, you as a native Washingtonian, you should not engage in that thing that everyone who is not a native Washington does, which is that whenever it snows in Washington, they sit here and attack Washington for how it handles snow. I hate that. What if you can use that as a way to freshen up your general complaint that people in Washington don't know how to drive and should just stay at home? Tempting. Regardless of the weather, even if it is blue skies, perfect weather you can't do. People in Washington don't know how to drive. They don't know how to drive. They never put on their damn blinkers.

There are people constantly lost. For many cab drivers, it's their first time going around the city. It's just. Well, it's a city of immigrants, so people tend to not to know. Is there any city where people are like, people drive well in my city? People drive well in Los Angeles. Oh, really? because they drive all the time.

I guess maybe.

They're all on highways all the time.

But why do you hate it when people complain about the handling of snow in D.C.? Because I think it's a particularly untrue form of prejudice. So if you're from a city like Boston or Chicago, Boston, Chicago will get vastly more snow than Washington, and it makes sense for them

to invest a tremendous amount in snow infrastructure. Washington is in this kind of cusp city

...