Events

I'm a bit under the weather but still have to get to rehearsal tonight, so just briefly: Michael Tomasky observes that the general public have developed antibodies to the nonstop lies coming from the OAFPOTUS. Adam Kinzinger takes on the big piggy in the Oval Office as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) resignation late last week. Chris Dalla Riva explains how the US copyright system bears some of the responsibility for the enshitiffication of music and movies. Tim Wu thinks the federal judge...

First, just a reminder: anthropogenic climate change (aka global warming) will not wipe out humanity; but it will lead to millions of deaths, plus immense costs and disruptions, which the next few generations will bear. And we could have prevented it. Another reminder: despite what this map shows, as soon as the first real cold of the 2025-26 winter hits after Thanksgiving, lots of people will say "this disproves global warming." No, climate theory predicts weather extremes with the average temperature...

It feels like we have way more color today than we usually have this late in November: The short-term climate forecast calls for below-freezing temperatures for most of next week, so I expect even the last remaining maple holdouts will drop the rest of their leaves pretty soon. I'll enjoy this for now, though.

Republicans in Congress have reached for the trough of public money with both hands, just as the OAFPOTUS is about to steal hundreds of millions from us in the most offensive way possible, according to Radley Balko: Last year, New York City paid out $205 million to settle 956 lawsuits alleging police abuse. That figure includes about $16 million each to two men who served three decades in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. It also includes people who were wrongly raided and beaten by police, and...

Jeff Maurer warns us not to get our hopes up that the Epstein scandal will be the undoing of the OAFPOTUS, as he has a long record of trying and failing to cover stuff up that wouldn't really matter if he'd just been transparent: It’s not possible for Trump to act more guilty than he’s acting about the Epstein files. His behavior makes the sweating guy from the Key & Peele “browser history” sketch look cool and composed. The logical deduction when someone acts like they have something to hide is that...

Lots of morning meetings, then stuff so far this afternoon, and now...a quick breath. Of course, given that it's still 2025, I'm not exactly breathing sweet summer air: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked the (obviously unlawful) Texas redistricting effort, using logic that would very likely bolster the way California passed theirs. Paul Krugman muses that the billions the cryptocurrency industry spent to "buy a president" may not be the winning investment they thought, perhaps because they got...

I miss my old friend. My new friend is pretty great, though.

I've been heads-down debugging, except for going to the meetings already on my calendar, and just realized I've got to leave for rehearsal soon. I'll have to come back to these fun little nuggets later: What is this bullshit the OAFPOTUS is pushing about "white genocide" in South Africa? After some consideration, James Fallows has come around to believing that the way Senate Democrats ended the government shutdown will actually help us next year. The Chicago City Council finance committee rejected Mayor...

Cassie and I took a stroll through the local park. The maples are holding onto their leaves like winter will never come—though they seem to have given up on the chlorophyll for now: Mid-November light is about the equivalent of the end of January, peaking around 29½° above the southern horizon at noon. That gives us hours of low, warm light on days like today. Also, after walking about 32 km in total yesterday, I had no aching desire to walk at my usual pace, and Cassie didn't either.  

My Brews & Choos buddy and I repeated our walk from 2023 along the North Branch Trail to Barnaby's of Northbook because they have really great pizza. This time we skipped all detours and went straight up from the trail to the restaurant, thereby saving over an hour of walking and, therefore, getting pizza sooner. It helped that Chicago tied the record high temperature yesterday, hitting 21.7°C (71°F) between 2 and 3 pm. We started with cool and gloomy weather that got progressively better throughout the...