Events

A contractor punctured the iron casing around the Queens-Midtown Tunnel in New York City, but fortunately thousands of motorists escaped a horrible death: Workers for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the tunnel, first noticed the curious downpour in the eastbound tube around 10 a.m. Leaks are not unheard of, and at first it appeared routine. An initial report indicated that officials suspected that the water was coming from a broken main on the Queens end of the tunnel. But there...

The Post has more details about the pagers that the Mossad blew up, injuring thousands of Hezbollah terrorists: As an act of spy craft, it is without parallel, one of the most successful and inventive penetrations of an enemy by an intelligence service in recent history. But key details of the operation — including how it was planned and carried out, and the controversy it engendered within Israel’s security establishment and among allies — are only now coming to light. The idea for the pager operation...

The History Channel sends me a newsletter every morning listing a bunch of things that happened "this day in history." Today we had a bunch of anniversaries: 30 years ago, Pulp Fiction debuted. 47 years ago, Anita Bryant got a much-deserved pie in the face. 60 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., won the Nobel Peace Prize, the same day Nikita Khrushchev got deposed. 80 years ago, German General Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face trial for his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler in June...

Cassie, yesterday:

Two guest essays in yesterday's New York Times caught my attention. The first, by Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter who wrote the "unintended work of fiction" The Art of the Deal, pivots off the new XPOTUS biopic to warn us, once more, about the psychopath topping the Republican ticket: What struck me from the first day I met Mr. Trump was his unquenchable thirst to be the center of attention. No amount of external recognition ever seemed to be enough. Beneath his bluster and his bombast, he struck me as...

My day got away from me yesterday afternoon, so all this shiznit piled up: In the first of two gobsmacking First Amendment stories this week, the Florida Dept of Health has threatened television stations with criminal prosecution after they aired a pro-choice ad that appears to be working. In the second horrific First Amendment violation story, the state of Oklahoma is backpedaling after mandating that every school kid gets a Bible that just happens to look like the one the XPOTUS is hawking. (Note to...

Following a coronal mass ejection on Monday, tonight's aurora forecast is epic: Unfortunately, I have an event just outside the Loop that ends around 10. By the time I got home, loaded up the dog, and drove to a place without streetlights, it would be around 1am. So no photos; but maybe I'll see some aurorae when I get home. We'll see. Fortunately, we have had perfectly clear skies for 4 straight days, with no significant cloud cover forecast until tomorrow afternoon. Aurorae peak at local midnight...

Julia Ioffe despairs of Israel ever coexisting peacefully with its neighbors: Unfortunately, I’ve learned that ideology, for both the left and the right, is far more important than human life. How many times have you heard the left say that there are no civilians on the Israeli side, because they are all complicit in “settler colonialism”? Or heard from the right that civilians in Gaza and southern Lebanon are all complicit in the crimes of Hamas or Hezbollah? Suddenly, in a region of millions and...

For once, Chicago's legendary corruption isn't the biggest news story of the day. Let's start with New York, where the Adams administration seems determined to set new standards for public corruption, going so far as to float the "we're only a little bit criminal" defense: The indictment alleged that, for years, starting during his tenure as Brooklyn borough president, Adams had cultivated a relationship with a representative of the Turkish government who arranged for him to receive some $123,000 worth...

The extreme-right-wing US Supreme Court begins a new term today, which we can all expect to continue the trends they have been on for the last 30 years. All we need is a razor-thin margin in one or two swing states on the 5th, and then, as George HW Bush said once, "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Now it's off to the races!" Meanwhile: A new book argues that the "originalism" practiced by many Republican judges, like Justices Alito and Thomas, has absolutely no basis in historical fact. But we knew that already....