Events

Example of why, from last Saturday:

Via Mother Jones, the Southern Poverty Law Center has published a report that examines the statues to Confederate heroes of the sort that sparked last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Va. It should surprise no one with a modicum of historical knowledge that they went up during periods of exceptional violence against African-Americans: [T]he argument that the Confederate flag and other displays represent “heritage, not hate” ignores the near-universal heritage of African Americans whose ancestors...

I've watched Scott Adams defend President Trump for years now, and I'm always fascinated by his ability to accuse people who disagree with him of any number of mental deficiencies. I am surprised that it took until today for him to pipe up about Trump's latest self-inflicted wound, but not by how he approached it. In today's post, Adams continues his longstanding argument that, when it comes to Trump, we're experiencing a "mass hysteria bubble." How does he know? Because lots of people disagree with...

Huffington Post Global Editorial Director Howard Fineman explains how President Trump dividing the country is a feature, not a bug: Having risen to power by dividing the country, his party leadership and even, at times, his own campaign team, his aim now is to divide or discredit any institution, tradition or group in his way. Donald Trump seems perfectly willing to destroy the country to maintain his own power. He is racing to undermine the federal political system — if not all American public life —...

Yesterday, a man reportedly threw himself in front of a CTA train at the Fullerton El stop, shutting down the three busiest lines in the system during the morning rush hour. Commuters faced hours-long delays and an already at-capacity bus system struggled to adapt to the demand. So did Lyft and Uber, as people found out. Lyft presented one of my friends with a $75 fare to go six kilometers; she wound up taking a bus and suffering through a two-hour commute. (I wasn't affected because I had the option of...

Those of us saying for years now that President Trump is a racist twat and that you should apply Occam's Razor (or Trump's Razor) to his behavior got quite a shock yesterday when he proved our point spectacularly. We can't pretend anymore that his policies and rhetoric come primarily from "inexperience" or "stupidity." Josh Marshall lays it out plainly: The simpler explanation that accounts for all the available facts is not always right. But as Occam noted, it is always to be preferred. What we need is...

This past Sunday's New York Times magazine summed up the decline and imminent death of Sears. It's worth a read, though long-time readers of this blog know it's an old story.

I've gotten a lot of sleep the last few days and also a lot of exercise. I can tell that the upper-respiratory infection burbling away in my head right now is taking a beating, and will soon be as dead as any strand of viral DNA can be. In a timely posting, the Economist's Gulliver blog hints at its origin: A recent study from the University of Stirling and the University of Ulster...examined hundreds of aeroplane crew members and discovered a direct link between air contamination and respiratory...

Apparently, life went on in the US while I was abroad last week. First, to James Damore: Via Deeply Trivial, The Guardian's Holly Brockwell points out that the first programmers were women. The Times summed up reader reactions. Of course, that wasn't the big story of the weekend. About the terrorist attack and armed ultra-right rally in Virginia, there have been many, many reactions: From New Republic, Ryu Spaeth says President Trump is killing us, and Brian Beutler says the neo-Nazis are Trump's...

It's not really that perilous to travel from the US to the UK, unless you're in a step challenge. This past week, I was traveling for almost 40 hours—including 14 yesterday thanks to ordinary aviation delays. When you're on a plane, it's pretty hard to get steps. Fortunately the time change from the UK back to the US is in my favor, so I got 6 extra hours in which to walk, and I also got Parker back. Still, I barely squeaked in with 10,689 for the day and an unusually low 81,638 for the week (helped...