Events

Religious extremists, emboldened by lucky tactical and political successes over the past few years despite declining popular support, today won a major victory in their campaign to return women to a state of subjugation that they had only recently escaped. Supporters and allies of the religious leaders imposing the harsh new laws against women celebrated, driving around in pickup trucks while displaying traditional symbols of oppression. Afghanistan? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Nope. Texas: [T]he Supreme Court...

Someone—I won't say who—gained 3 kilos since she arrived at my house in March. That's a 12% increase. Will she notice when I cut her kibble by 10% until she's back down to 23½ kilos? And no, I didn't forget that today would have been Parker's 15th Gotcha Day. I do miss him.

The first day of autumn has brought us lovely cool weather with even lovelier cool dewpoints. We expect similar weather through the weekend. I hope so; Friday I plan another marathon walk, and Saturday I'm throwing a small party. Meanwhile, we have a major deliverable tomorrow at my real job, and Cassie has a routine vet check-up this afternoon. But with this weather, I'm extra happy that I moved my office to the sunroom.

Only about 7 more hours of meteorological summer remain in Chicago. I opened my windows this afternoon for the first time in more than two weeks, which made debugging a pile of questionable code* more enjoyable. Said debugging required me to put these aside for future reading: No, we did not leave $85 billion (or even $85 million) in equipment in Afghanistan. Somehow, even walking vs. driving has a partisan angle these days. Facebook can't stop promoting propaganda because it's their entire business...

I have stopped at Sketchbook's Evanston taproom about half a dozen times since it became stop #8 on the Brews and Choos project. This past Sunday, I mis-timed a trip to Temperance Beer Co., so why not try stop at one of my favorite taprooms? I mean, I suppose I could have walked 25 minutes through this: Instead, I tried two of Sketchbook's beers that I hadn't had before, recommended by the ever-helpful Beesy. Knowing my palate, she suggested the Day Game American IPA (6%, 67 IBU), the lower-alcohol...

The last US airplane left Afghanistan today, ending our presence in the country: A White House official said Monday that since the Taliban took control of Kabul in mid-August, the U.S. had evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 116,700 people. Since the end of July, the U.S. has relocated approximately 122,300 people, the official said. A State Department memo obtained by NBC News Sunday said that the agency had begun evacuating remaining diplomatic workers on two planes carrying U.S....

Hanging out in my (relocated) office, last Wednesday morning:

Note: Temperance closed permanently on 27 October 2024. Welcome to stop #54 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Temperance Beer Co., 2000 Dempster St., EvanstonTrain line: CTA Purple Line, DempsterTime from Chicago: 34 minutes (longer on weekends)Distance from station: 1.8 km I've made an exception to the "within 1500 meters" rule for Temperance. I almost always have some Gatecrasher IPA in my fridge, so I couldn't simply ignore one of my favorite breweries just because it takes an extra three...

Jonathan Chait points out that the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and other police unions might want to reconsider their threats to resign en masse if the cities enforce mask and vaccine mandates on them: Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot has mandated vaccination for all city employees, and Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara is not taking it well. “This has literally lit a bomb underneath the membership,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “We’re in America, goddamn it. We don’t want to be...

I've just spent the last 45 minutes transferring all my auto-pay accounts to a new credit card after my bank notified me that someone in Berlin tried to use my old card to buy something on a French website. Since this happened just a couple of days after T-Mobile once again lost control of millions of customer records, I assume that's how my card number wound up with a European criminal. Or maybe it came from one of the companies whose accounts I just had to update? According to C-Net, "T-Mobile says...