Events

Calculated Risk updates the "scariest jobs chart ever:" The chart shows each of the post-World War II recessions in terms of job losses from the pre-recession peak. Notice that the 2001 recession line slides right into the 2007 line, as the Republican policies that led to the housing boom and bust tanked the banking sector. We haven't fully recovered from the 2001 recession, in other words. We've had a generally-down cycle for almost 15 years now. That is why we should not elect a Republican legislature...

Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg put the Rauner administration in context in a column a couple of weeks ago: Not only did Rauner fail to make tangible progress, but he didn’t even tread water properly. The normal operation of the state, such as passing an annual budget, failed to occur, sacrificed on the altar of the governor’s hunger for term limits, union enfeeblement and other unrelated pet causes. He’s like an office manager getting himself hired by promising to expand a business who then promptly...

Mark Russell, a writer in Oregon I've never met, posted one of the best descriptions of the differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders that I've seen on Tuesday: [T]he truth is that this is not a battle between good and evil so much as an awkward contest between two animals who evolved in entirely different ecosystems. Hillary Clinton is like a grizzled hunter in the Amazon. Every day is a battle for survival. She has suffered every venom and poison imaginable and from her time as being the...

I have three books in the works and two on deck (imminently, not just in my to-be-read stack) right now. Reading: Neal Stephenson, Seveneves. Christopher Dickey, Our Man In Charleston. Gene Kim, et al., The Phoenix Project. On deck: Kevin Hearne, "Iron Druid Chronicles" book 8: Staked. Kim Stanley Robinson, "Mars" trilogy book 2: Green Mars. Meanwhile, I have these articles and blog posts to read, some for work, some because they're interesting: Deeply Trivial dissects the bogus claim that six coin...

The European Commission yesterday announced they've reached a broad agreement with the United States to allow trans-Atlantic data transfers that respect European privacy laws: The EU-US Privacy Shield reflects the requirements set out by the European Court of Justice in its ruling on 6 October 2015, which declared the old Safe Harbour framework invalid. The new arrangement will provide stronger obligations on companies in the U.S. to protect the personal data of Europeans and stronger monitoring and...

This is what happens when you work across the street from the Chicago Teachers Union: As part of their negotiations with the Chicago Public Schools and the City of Chicago, the CTU are withdrawing their funds from Bank of America. The Tribune has background: One day after the Chicago Teachers Union rejected a contract proposal from Chicago Public Schools, district officials said they would slash school budgets and stop paying the bulk of teachers' pension contributions — moves CTU's president quickly...

I forgot yesterday—blocked it out, more likely—that not only were the February 1sts in 2011 and 2014 horrible, so was last February 1st. (On the other hand, 2012 was ridiculously warm, and 2013 was just really cold. In 2010, I was in India, so what do I know?) Today it's just rainy and cold (but obviously above freezing), and I'm about to head into it.

Stuff: Deeply Trivial explains a haunting using Occam's Razor. Delta Airlines apologized for a fistfight between two flight attendants. The Chicago Public Schools have been in trouble for a while, but it just got worse. Krugman predicted two horrible people would top the GOP results in Iowa last night, and he was right. New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority will roll out new "open gangway" subway cars by 2020. Hey, brewers, stop these horrible craft brewing trends. Please. Someone call lunch...

It's sunny and just above freezing today, and all our snow melted over the weekend. So let's just remember for a moment the weather in Chicago five years ago today: And just two years ago today, we got our 34th consecutive day with snowfall. So I'll take a snowless, above-freezing February 1st any year.

No more or less than any other state. But that doesn't mean Iowans have any ability to pick winning candidates for president: The problem is not that the people of Iowa are stupid. They are not, by most measurements. It’s that Iowa looks nothing like the rest of America. As a result, the winners, more often than not, are nationally unelectable extremists. Who can remember President Rick Santorum or President Mike Huckabee, both previous winners? Or President Uncommitted, who beat Jimmy Carter in 1976?...