Events

I do love traveling Saturday mid-days, because it's the quietest time at O'Hare. There was no line at the Pre-Check security gate, and I only have a backpack, so it took less than 3 minutes to clear TSA. Wonderful. Unfortunately, every single economy parking space has a car in it. (I would have taken public transit but I had a meeting run until 12:30, with a 3pm flight. Couldn't risk the 90 minutes or so.) In any event, my plane is here, it appears to be on time, and the latest weather is VFR the whole...

I'm heading to North Carolina this afternoon, so I probably won't post much this weekend. The forecast for Durham looks even better than for Chicago. I had hoped to (finally!) take in a Bulls game tomorrow, but it appears they will be in Gwinnett, Ga., which is a bit of a drive.

It happens every September in the mid-latitudes: one day you've got over 13 hours of daylight and sunsets around 7:30, and two weeks later you wake up in twilight and the sun sets before dinnertime. In fact, Chicago loses 50 minutes of evening daylight and an hour-twenty overall from the 1st to the 30th. We get it all back in March, though. Can't wait. Speaking of waiting: Buckingham Palace just warned people that the queue to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin has a 24-hour wait at the moment, so...dress...

The President announced this morning that negotiators have reached a tentative deal between the railroads and their engineers and conductors, averting tonight's planned strike: Freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers reached a tentative agreement to avoid what would have been an economically damaging strike, after all-night talks brokered by Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, President Biden said early Thursday morning. The agreement now heads to union members for a...

Chicago's heavy-rail commuter district, Metra, started cancelling train service that would extend past the midnight-Friday start time of the planned nationwide rail strike. Well, taking the El to work instead of Metra adds about 9 minutes to my commute, so I'll have to deal with that on Friday, I suppose. Except that commuter rail shutdowns don't even start to illustrate how bad this strike could turn out for the US economy: [A strike] would cause immediate problems for manufacturers, says Lee Sanders...

My commute to work Friday might get a little longer, as Metra has announced that 9 out of its 11 lines (including mine) would likely not operate if railroad engineers and conductors go on strike Friday. Amtrak has already started cancelling trains so they won't get stranded mid-route should the strike happen. In other news: Cook County tax bills won't come out until late autumn, according to the County President, meaning no one knows how much cash they have to escrow when they sell real estate. The Post...

Writing as a guest of James Fallows, former defense official Jan Lodal outlines how subparagraph (d) of the Espionage Act should be a slam-dunk in prosecuting the XPOTUS: This paragraph makes a straightforward action a crime: namely, failing to return classified documents if properly directed to give them back. No proof of the level of classification, or the intentions of the document holder, or the content of the documents, is required. Just a simple question, did he or she give them back or not. This...

...that street flooding in Chicago is a feature, not a bug: Chicago’s sewer network has an “inlet control valve system” that intentionally limits water intake during heavy rainfall events so as to not overwhelm the wastewater system, with the streets acting as a temporary holding area. For that reason, the street flooding is normal, [Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th)] said. But residents who are experiencing over-the-curb basement flooding should file a ticket with 311 and reach out to local officials to report...

We haven't had a measurable rainfall in 12 days. Then, this morning: Fortunately I got Cassie out right before it hit, because my front yard looks like this right now: It should clear up by afternoon. I hope. (And so does Cassie.)

Major League Baseball owners, over the objection of players, have made more rules changes trying to turn America's Pastime into something it never should become: Major League Baseball passed a sweeping set of rules changes it hopes will fundamentally overhaul the game, voting Friday to implement a pitch clock and ban defensive shifts in 2023 to hasten the game's pace and increase action. The league's competition committee, composed of six ownership-level representatives, four players and one umpire...