Events

David Brooks breaks down the anti-populist behavior of the "populists" in the Republican Party: If America elected a populist as president, you would expect him to devote his administration to addressing these inequities, to boosting the destinies of working-class Americans. But that’s not what President Trump is doing. He seems to have no plans to narrow the education chasms, no plans to narrow the health outcome chasms or the family structure chasms. He has basically no plans to revive the communities...

I've added a couple of new features to Weather Now, including a view of the best weather in the world. More usefully, I've added a release notes page. This weekend, I plan to to rebuild the Gazetteer, and import all of the USGS records—about 900,000 places. This will also mean rebuilding the search index in the Basic tier. The Free tier is great for testing, but it only lets me index 10,000 items at a time. Even if the Free tier could support 900,000 records, I don't want to hit "Rebuild" 90 times. I'll...

Winter ends two weeks from tomorrow, but climate science and meteorology can only study nature, not command it. That explains why, despite ample sunshine, the temperature at IDTWHQ has stayed around -7°C since it leveled out this morning, and promises to shed another 8-10 degrees tonight. Then we're in for a few blasts of cold interspersed with warm days and some snow here and there for about a week before it consistently warms up. Elsewhere in the cold, cold world: The Senate confirmed the unqualified...

Security expert Bruce Schneier can't believe the damage that Elon Musk's team have already done to US national security, and worries it will get much, much worse: In the span of just weeks, the US government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history—not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly defined government role. And the implications for national security are profound. What...

I promised snow photos. So far, it looks like we've gotten only about 25 mm of snow, though it continues to fall and will probably keep falling until the early morning. Cassie and I went out around 1pm, and I gave her a bit of off-leash time in the courtyard: That is a happy dog. And we're about to go out again, because she insists on metabolizing food and water. Tomorrow she gets to go to day camp and I get to go to my downtown office. One of us will have a lot more fun than the other.

I'm just noting a few things and moving on with my day: Pilot Project Brewing has announced plans for a second brewery/taproom in Wrigleyville, just 500 meters from the Addison Red Line station. Google Maps turned 20 four days ago, and The Guardian has a history of how it began. Microsoft will be retiring the (11-year-old) database APIs that this build of The Daily Parker uses, so watch this space for news about a brand new Daily Parker experience this fall! I'm planning to wrap up a new release of...

We have a winter weather advisory until tomorrow at 3am, warning of "mixed precipitation" with snow accumulations of 75 to 150 mm. It has begun in earnest: If I don't get so busy that I forget to do it, I'll snap another photo before the sun sets for comparison. Right now we've gotten maybe 5 mm of snow, with the temperature holding steady around -2°C, about 3°C below normal. Normal snowfall for February is 273 mm, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.

The OAFPOTUS's principal motivation has always been self-enrichment. He has scammed and grifted his whole life, though he sucks at it so hard he managed to burn through so much of his inheritance that he'd have been better off stuffing it in a savings account. So it should come as no surprise that the first few weeks of his second term have seen remarkable gifts to other grifters and scammers worldwide, not to mention our adversaries: Yesterday, he pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the first Illinois governor...

I find it absolutely hilarious that the OAFPOTUS has resurrected a meme from the first season of The West Wing: On Sunday night, Mr. Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending. “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social, adding that pennies “literally cost us more than 2 cents.” It is unclear whether Mr....

Paul Krugman wonders aloud why people in Upstate New York—who will probably never in their lives drive to SoHo—care so much about the lower-Manhattan congestion pricing zone: Morning Consult found that while residents of New York City approve of the congestion charge, residents of New York State as a whole disapprove by a substantial margin. What this tells us is that negative views of the charge come from upstaters, people who will almost never pay it or experience its effects. Which brings me to the...