Events

I hope to make the 17:10 train this evening, so I'll just note some things I want to read later: Monica Hesse can't help making fun of the dude-bros in the US Senate who think they're still in middle school. Guess which party they're in? Julia Ioffe interviews National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Last night I finished Jake Berman's The Lost Subways of North America, and this morning I read Veronica Esposito's (positive) review for The Guardian. I recommend this book too. The New Republic interviews...

Despite the XPOTUS publicly declaring himself a fascist (again), the world has other things going on: Josh Marshall plots out how House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) knows he has to pass a budget that Democrats can stomach, but because he still has to placate the extreme right wing of his party, he's pretending he can pass something else. And the clown show continues. The US Supreme Court has published their new ethics rules, which look a lot like a subset of the rules the rest of the Federal courts have...

Yesterday I linked to Michael Tomasky's reaction to the XPOTUS referring to his political enemies as "Ungenziefer vermin," which the troika of WWII-era dictators used to demonize and ultimately encourage people to kill their opponents. PBS NewsHour yesterday interviewed NYU historian Ruth Ben Ghiat, who explained plainly: Props to Amna Nawaz for not mincing words about the XPOTUS's lies and fascist rhetoric. When challenged on the similarities between the XPOTUS's rhetoric and 1930s fascist dictators...

I closed a 3-point story and if the build that's running right now passes, another bug and a 1-point story. So I'm pretty comfortable with my progress through this sprint. But I haven't had time to read any of these, though I may try to sneak them in before rehearsal: The XPOTUS has started using specific terminology to describe his political opponents that we last heard from a head of government in 1945. (Guess which one.) Says Tomasky: "[Republicans] are telling us in broad daylight that they want to...

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (Cons.-Richmond, Yorkshire) has appointed former PM David Cameron (Cons.-Witney, formerly) as Foreign Secretary after sacking Home Secretary and waste of air Suella Braverman (Cons.-Fareham, and no relation to The Daily Parker at all, FFS) and moving James Cleverly (Cons.-Braintree) into her spot: A spokesperson also confirmed Jeremy Hunt would remain as chancellor. However, the environment secretary, Therese Coffey, who was deputy prime minister under Liz Truss, resigned...

I spent part of the afternoon at Spiteful Brewing yesterday and made good progress in Iain Banks' second Culture novel, The Player of Games. It was a lovely fall day: Cassie enjoys going to the brewery but she does not understand that the treat bag sometimes runs out: But she does make friends everywhere she goes:

Welcome to stop #88 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Hop Butcher for the World, 4257 N. Lincoln Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Brown Line, MontroseTime from Chicago: 33 minutesDistance from station: 1.1 km Named after the opening line in Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," Hop Butcher for the World took over Half Acre's Lincoln Ave. facility last January. It took me a while to visit because they're so close to my house that I wanted to walk over, but they don't allow dogs. Boo. So Friday evening, a friend...

Via Bruce Schneier, your car does not respect your privacy anymore: Mozilla recently reported that of the car brands it reviewed, all 25 failed its privacy tests. While all, in Mozilla's estimation, overreached in their policies around data collection and use, some even included caveats about obtaining highly invasive types of information, like your sexual history and genetic information. As it turns out, this isn’t just hypothetical: The technology in today’s cars has the ability to collect these kinds...

I mentioned that my office recently went back to a Tuesday through Thursday schedule downtown. Since our final return to office (RTO), I'd gone in twice a week, usually Wednesday and Thursday. I actually prefer a Friday and Monday schedule, but since the rest of my team comes in mid-week, I have to go in then. The additional day actually costs additional money. The Sun-Times reported yesterday that RTO costs employees about $51 per day on average. Perhaps; but it costs me about $80 per day, broken down...

We have unusual wind and sunshine for mid-November today, with a bog-standard 10C temperature. It doesn't feel cold, though. Good weather for flying kites, if you have strong arms. Elsewhere in the world: The right wing of the US Supreme Court has finally found a firearms restriction that they can't wave away with their nonsense "originalism" doctrine. Speaking of the loony right-wing asses on the bench, the Post has a handy guide to all of the people and organizations Justice Clarence Thomas (R) and...