Events

The endangered piping plovers who nested at Montrose Beach the last three years have gone. Monty died suddenly last week, and Rose has not returned to Chicago. (Maybe Monty died of a broken heart?) But a report from Duluth, Minn., has cheered the Chicago birding community: A week after one of Chicago’s two beloved Great Lakes piping plovers died suddenly at Montrose Beach comes a bright spot: One of their chicks is alive and well and hanging out in Minnesota. Imani, a chick born to Monty and Rose last...

It was 30.5°C at 6:09pm and 21.1°C at 7:10pm. At this writing, it's 18.3°C, with thunderstorms approaching from the west. They should hit late tonight. I'm still keeping my windows open.

It's mid-July today, at least until around 8pm, when late April should return. The Tribune reported this morning that our spring has had nearly three times the rain as last spring, but actually hasn't gotten much wetter than normal. Meanwhile: Millennial writer Marisa Kabas boggles at George W Bush's volte-face on the Iraq war this week. Josh Marshall shakes his head at the Republican Party's acceptance of a particular nasty and racist theory of immigration. Andrew Sullivan says this is because white...

The Atlantic makes a solid case for treating Covid-19 as a behavior problem, not a virus: The “new normal” will arrive when we acknowledge that COVID’s risks have become more in line with those of smoking cigarettes—and that many COVID deaths, like many smoking-related deaths, could be prevented with a single intervention. The pandemic’s greatest source of danger has transformed from a pathogen into a behavior. Choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID is, right now, a modifiable health risk on par...

First, I believe this might be the greatest gaffe* of the 21st century: Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/UMwNMwMnmX — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 19, 2022 Second, for everyone whinging on about paying $5 per gallon of gas, why not take this opportunity to finally switch to the metric system? Then you'd only be paying $1.29 per liter** of gas! * And I do mean "gaffe" in the sense...

This week's temperatures tell a story of incoherence and frustration: Monday, 26°C; Tuesday, 16°C; yesterday, 14°C; today (so far), 27°C. And this is after a record high of 33°C just a week ago—and a low just above 10°C Tuesday morning. So while I'm wearing out the tracks on my window sashes, I'll have these items to read while my house either cools down or warms up: A Colorado Republican wants to create an "electoral college" for the state that would give one vote to each county to elect the state...

I had to put out a new version of the Inner Drive Azure tools for my day job today, and I had more meetings than I wanted (i.e., a non-zero number), so these kind of piled up: Master Strategist Vladimir Putin's efforts to weaken NATO have succeeded in getting Sweden and Finland interested in joining the alliance. Margaret Sullivan wants the media (including her own Washington Post) to understand "democracy is at stake in the midterms." Jim Fallows recommends (re-)watching the 1947 Oscar Best Picture...

US Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) goes down in history as one of the worst one-termers since the founding of the Republic: Chuck Edwards, a three-term state senator and business owner, has edged out Representative Madison Cawthorn in the Republican primary for a House seat representing North Carolina’s 11th District. Luke Ball, a representative for Mr. Cawthorn, said late Tuesday that the congressman had called Mr. Edwards to concede. Mr. Edwards’s narrow triumph was called by The Associated...

Don't. Just don't. Tulips look like a better investment than cryptocurrency. First, the Justice Department has launched a prosecution against an unnamed defendant for allegedly laundering $10 million in Bitcoin: U.S. authorities filed charges in March after allegedly discovering that a sanctioned country had set up a PayPal-type payment platform system with the defendants’ help, according to Friday’s ruling. It said investigators were able to use sophisticated blockchain analysis tools to trace that...

The CDC reported today that the US has officially passed 1 million Covid deaths: The confirmed number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 336 days. It is roughly equal to how many Americans died in the Civil War and World War II combined. It’s as if Boston and Pittsburgh were wiped out. Three out of every four deaths were people 65 and older. More men died than women. White people made up most of the deaths overall. But Black, Hispanic and Native American people have been roughly twice...