Events

The temperature dropped below freezing Tuesday evening and stayed there until about half an hour ago. The forecast predicts it'll stay there until Wednesday night. And since we've got until about 3pm before the rain starts, it looks like Cassie will get a trip to the dog park at lunchtime. Once it starts raining, I'll spend some time reading these: Andrew Sullivan shakes his head at "the dumb luck" of the OAFPOTUS. On David Roberts' podcast, Dan Savage muses on "blue America in the age" of the OAFPOTUS....

Before I link to anything else, I want to share Ray Delahanty's latest CityNerd video that explores "rural cosplaying." I'll skip directly to the punchline; you should watch the whole thing for more context: Elsewhere, Josh Marshall implores people, one more time, stop giving the OAFPOTUS head space when he says dumb shit. Fareed Zakaria marvels at how weak Russia has become. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) continues the long tradition of high-ego, low-skill politicians completely failing at their...

I just had a hilarious meeting with a vendor. We (at my day job) use a JavaScript library for a small but useful feature in our application. We've used it for probably the app's entire 10 year lifespan and haven't given it a second thought. Recently, a security issue showed up on a routine scan, implicating the (obsolete) version we use. So we have to get the latest version, and company policy requires us to get a commercial license to protect our own IP. So we got in touch with the vendor, which took...

My, we've had a busy day: President Biden commuted the sentences of 1,500 Federal inmates in the largest single-day clemency in American history. Two of them stole millions in massive frauds against Illinois citizens. Josh Marshall doesn't see much clemency. Charles Sykes worries that neither major US political party has a clue how to fix our education systems (plural). Legalized sports betting has shifted billions from small punters to large corporations, which is why it was illegal for so long....

Two stories I mentioned previously have updates today: After a Federal judge in Oregon and a state judge in Washington rejected the Albertsons-Kroger merger, Albertsons has filed suit against Kroger for breach of contract in the failed deal. A Federal bankruptcy judge in Houston has rejected the Onion's acquisition of Infowars in the estate dissolution of Alex Jones, citing a lack of transparency in the process. As long as I've got five minutes before my next meeting, I also want to spike these two for...

Grocery giant Kroger has long drooled over acquiring Albertsons, for the simple reason that competition drives prices towards equilibrium and away from rent-seeking. When Kroger published the list of (Albertsons-owned) Jewel-Osco and (Kroger-owned) Mariano's stores that would remain open in Chicago, magically most of the Mariano's stores didn't make the cut—including the big one just 400 meters from my house. Today, US District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson (I-OR) blocked the merger, probably killing it...

The planet just had its second-warmest November in recorded history, just a hair under last year's record-warmest: Last year was the hottest on record due to human-caused climate change coupled with the effects of an El Nino. But after this summer registered as the hottest on record — Phoenix sweltered through 113 consecutive days with a high temperature of at least 37.7°C — scientists were anticipating that 2024 would set a new annual record as well. In November, global temperatures averaged 14.10°C....

Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran an interactive feature showing you the walkability of your neighborhood, in average minutes of travel time (by any method) to get things you need. They divided most metro areas into 200-meter hexagons and evaluated three criteria. My current hexagon comes in at 8.2 minutes. The one I lived in a decade ago, in Lincoln Park, is at 5.2 minutes. The best scores of places I've lived in are Brooklyn (4.8 minutes) and Chicago's Near North Side (4.2 minutes). The...

Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership. We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half: Sadly, we were so...

Stunning developments in the last 48 hours as Syrian rebels have taken Damascus and dictator Bashar al-Assad appears to have fled the country: Mr. al-Assad’s departure after rebels opposed to his rule stormed across the country in a lightning offensive was an earthshaking moment in the history of Syria, which has been ruled by his family with an iron fist since the early 1970s. It marked a dramatic breakthrough for rebel factions in Syria that have been trying to unseat him for more than a decade, much...