Events

This morning we in the US got the news that the employment rebound that started under President Obama has continued, giving us the best employment picture in 50 years. Yet at the same time, despite robust wage growth in some places, families still feel squeezed. The Economist suggests this may come in part from business concentration depressing wages through the same mechanism through which monopsonies increase prices: In perfectly competitive markets, individual firms wishing to sell their widgets must...

When I moved three weeks ago, I switched a couple of bookshelves around and thought more consciously about where I put my books. For instance, I put all the books I haven't read in one place: The problem is, this bookshelf only contains books I haven't read yet. In fairness to myself, people gave me maybe 15% of them. And I'm pretty sure one or two are on loan. Still...no more books until I finish these! (Unless something really interesting comes out.)

No, we have not wiped out 60% of all animals, FFS: Since Monday, news networks and social media have been abuzz with the claim that, as The Guardian among others tweeted, “humanity has wiped out 60 percent of animals since 1970”—a stark and staggering figure based on the latest iteration of the WWF’s Living Planet report. But that isn’t really what the report showed. Ultimately, they found that between 1970 and 2014, the size of vertebrate populations has declined by 60 percent on average. That is...

CityLab discusses a University of Richmond project to map Congressional elections going back to 1840: “Electing the House” makes the most robust and comprehensive dataset to-date of Congressional elections available in a user-friendly format, offering additional dimension of insight into the current political moment. It is the first part of a series, which may include visualizations of historical data on Senate elections in the future. Theproject features an interactive map, presenting each district...

So, I'm "Crash" Davis today. (There's a deeper message there.) My company didn't field a lot of costumes today, sadly. So there was a small possibility that I could end up an Internet meme before 5pm. Updates as the situation develops.

The journalistic fetish with trying to find balance when none exists has cropped up today in reporting on President Trump's false assertion that he can end birthright citizenship by executive order. He simply has no such power; the 14th Amendment lays out the rule in plain English. Of course, the president doesn't actually intend to draft such an order. He was lying. Anyone paying attention to the man for any length of time can see that, except perhaps his base, who tend to have a limited grasp of what...

Crain's has some good reporting on why local grocery chain Treasure Island went out of business this month: After Christ Kamberos' death, Maria Kamberos became president and CEO and appointed her son, Christ Kamberos Jr., vice president of development. (Frank Kamberos, who is in his 90s, ceased playing an active role in the chain long ago. Whether he remains an owner in Treasure Island could not be determined, but public records show he does retain ownership, along with Maria Kamberos, of the real...

Via Bruce Schneier, the former CIA Chief of Disguise explains:

It's only taken this long—11 days—to finish the last little bits of unpacking. Everything is the way it's going to be for a while. Except for the 100 empty boxes in the guest room. Anyone need boxes? Please take them.

One of the earliest settlers in Chicago, John Kinzie, illegally held a man as a slave who ultimately ran away. Kinzie then sued him in Louisiana to get him back: In 1804 John Kinzie moved into the old DuSable cabin on the north bank of the Chicago River and began trading with the local Native tribes. Thomas Forsyth Jr, his half-brother, was in business with him. That spring the partners took on an indentured servant named Jeffrey Nash. Sometime after the 1804 indenture was instituted, Forsyth took Nash...