Events

Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) has "had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box, not because it's in the national interest, but because it's in their own personal interest:" I had to watch that twice. Just imagine any American politician speaking so frankly with a journalist. Wow.

Liz Truss has announced she will be the shortest-serving UK prime minister in history: Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister and will step down after a week-long emergency contest to find her successor, she has announced outside Downing Street. It follows a turbulent 45 days in office during which Truss’s mini-budget crashed the markets, she lost two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs. Truss said she had entered office with “a vision for a low-tax, high-growth economy...

Last night while packing I caught this interview with Rebecca Jennings, whose recent trip to Positano, Italy, taught her something important about travel in the Instagram era: Positano is blessed with a mild Mediterranean climate and a proximity to luxury and wealth; it is home to one of the most famous and majestic hotels in the world and provided the backdrop for Diane Lane’s whirlwind romance in Under the Tuscan Sun. Twenty years later, the town has become synonymous with the grandest of influencer...

Stanford University historian Francis Fukuyama outlines why liberal democracies have better governance than dictatorships, and why authoritarianism comes back like an old stray cat ever couple of generations: Russia and China both have argued that liberal democracy is in long-term decline, and that their brand of muscular authoritarian government is able to act decisively and get things done while their democratic rivals debate, dither, and fail to deliver on their promises. Over the past year, though...

I went to bed Sunday thinking I would move next Wednesday. Then I had a productive day at my downtown office yesterday. Then, as I was walking to the train, I got a note that despite me saying repeatedly, for the last six weeks, "I cannot move on the 24th," my buyers want to close on the 24th, because their painters will be here the morning of the 25th. What a coincidence! My painters will be at my new place next Tuesday morning, and now they get the added fun of maneuvering around my furniture. Sigh....

Busy day today, but I finished a major task at work just now. As I'm waiting for the CI system to finish compiling and pushing out a test build, I'm going to read these: Jonathan Chait shares his chilling observations from the National Socialist Conservatism Conference in Miami. Gen-Xers like me have started contending with...middle age. The Chicago City Council doesn't like working with the CTA, even as everyone in the city complains about CTA frequency and reliability. Maybe if we stopped thinking of...

New Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt today essentially admitted that PM Liz Truss massively screwed up her mini-budget, as if his mere presence at Number 11 didn't admit the same thing in itself: Truss stayed on the sidelines while Hunt — a political rival who was tapped on Friday for the top cabinet post — announced that the government would not slash taxes and instead may allow them to rise. Truss left it to House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, another rival, to defend the government in...

Five hours of packing, rearranging a storage locker, and helping load a van with a huge armoire...and I'm pooped. Cassie is too. The closings and the move are (I think) all set. Whew.

Guys, you really need to go to the country now. You're making Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party look like a model of competence: Liz Truss started her premiership with a mad dash for growth. She continues to insist that boosting Britain’s growth rate is her mission. But whatever remains of her time in office is now focused on a different goal: restoring the faith of the bond markets in Britain. Ms Truss’s reversal is a humiliation. She had spent the Conservative Party leadership campaign promising to abandon...

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng is out on his ass so that PM Liz Truss (who also holds the title First Lord of the Treasury) can put off going to the country for just a little longer: Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as Liz Truss’s new chancellor, in a stunning reversal of political fortune and a sign that the beleaguered prime minister wants to reach out to other sections of the Conservative party. Hunt, the former foreign secretary and health secretary, who has twice tried unsuccessfully...