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I've just had a lot to do today and I'm not feeling particularly creative. So, nu, maybe Friday?

Republicans want to make your life worse; Democrats want to make it better. This has been largely true since 1980, when Ronald Reagan and his friends took the Republican Party sharply to the right and want to keep going until it's just billionaires and peasants in the US. The Democratic Party is a huge amalgam of constituencies that account for the majority of voters in the majority of states. Almost to a person, we think the OAFPOTUS and his droogs are horrible people who should never hold positions of...

Yep, I'm still doing these, because I still have meetings and have to queue stories up: Brian Beutler has another "30 thoughts on the illegal Venezuela war." Heather Cox Richardson picks apart Secretary of State Marco Rubio's appearance on ABC's This Week yesterday. It...did not go well. Because they have no plan. Paul Krugman drags the administration for "seeking cash and an ego boost," i.e., "the real Donroe Doctrine." Of all the horrible aspects of our Venezuelan adventure, Adam Kinzinger was most...

The US Supreme Court used its infamous shadow docket Monday to tell the OAFPOTUS he can't send the National Guard to Chicago anymore: In its three-page unsigned ruling against the administration, the court refused to grant the president broad discretion to deploy the military in U.S. cities, citing an 1878 law, which bans the use of the military for domestic policing. It represented a rare departure from recent cases, in which the conservative majority has overwhelmingly sided with Mr. Trump in...

Ah, December, when the easy cadence of weekly rehearsals becomes a frenzy of performances and, yes, more rehearsals. This is Messiah week, so I've already spent 8 hours of it in rehearsals or helping to set up for them. Tonight I've got the first of 4 Messiah performances over the next two weeks, plus yet another rehearsal, a church service, and a Christmas Eve service. Then, after Christmas, a bunch of us will be singing at the 50th anniversary party for a couple who have sung with us for longer than...

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...

A coronal mass ejection late last week caused Kp7-level aurorae last night that people could see as far south as Alabama. Unfortunately, I missed them, though some of my friends did not. Fortunately, NOAA predicts that another mass of charged particles will hit around 6pm tonight, causing even more pronounced aurorae for most of the night. This time, I plan to get to a dark corner of the suburbs to look for them. Meanwhile: ProPublica has an extended report about how the OAFPOTUS uses pardons and...

You know, I probably won't be online much Friday through Sunday. I should try to do that more often. The OAFPOTUS pretty much guaranteed that Zohran Mamdani will win today's New York City mayoral election by endorsing former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, which I'm pretty sure Cuomo didn't want either. Brian Beutler chastises the Democratic Party for "the scourge of wimpiness." I am tempted to send him a strongly-worded email. US Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-IL9) departure from the US House has led to so...

So many things passed through my inbox in the last day and a half: The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that an assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was observed over the weekend discussing plans over Signal with an aide to Reichsminister Stephen Miller to send the 82nd Airborne to Portland. Paul Krugman breaks from his usual economics beat to lambast the OAFPOTUS and his Reichskabinett der Nationalen Rettung for the horrifying ICE raid* on a Chicago apartment building last week: "What do we learn...

Former Illinois governor Jim Edgar (R, 1991-1999) has died of pancreatic cancer: Mr. Edgar was a moderate Republican whose ranks have all but disappeared in Illinois politics as the Trump-era MAGA movement took hold in the state. He was pro-choice on abortion and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, in her 2024 presidential bid against Donald Trump. As the state’s 38th governor, he served two terms from 1991 to 1999. He also served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1976 to 1979...

The only thing Illinois governor JB Pritzker said this afternoon that I quibble with is that Stephen Miller is a "complicit lackey*:" * Pritzker has the relationship wrong; Miller is no more a lackey than Goebbels was. The OAFPOTUS just doesn't care what Miller does as long as Miller delivers the goods.

I have a chunk of work to do this afternoon, but I'm hoping I can sneak in some time to read all of these: Dan Rather cheers on the Democratic Party for finally finding the fight. Francis Fukuyama says: move over Berlusconi; the Clown Prince of X has done considerably more to harm Western civilization than you ever did. David Daley puts responsibility for the exploding fight over Congressional maps squarely on US Chief Justice John Roberts. Jennifer Rubin wants us to stop using the word "guarantee" when...

New York City adopted Ranked-Choice Voting before the 2019 Democratic mayoral primary, and they got Eric Adams—their least-popular mayor in decades—out of it. Since ranked-choice voting was supposed to reduce the likelihood of electing an extremist, this was a surprising result. Fortunately New Yorkers have had a few years to get the hang of ranked-choice, so in this year's Democratic primary, they won't make that mistake again, right? Oh, bother. The extreme leftist won. With incumbent Eric Adams...

I just finished 3½ hours of nonstop meetings that people crammed into my calendar because I have this afternoon blocked off as "Summer Hours PTO." Within a few minutes of finishing my last meeting, I rebooted my laptop (so it would get updated), closed the lid, and...looked at a growing pile of news stories that I couldn't avoid: Dan Rather calls tomorrow's planned Soviet-style military parade through DC a charade: "The military’s biggest cheerleader (at least today) didn’t serve in Vietnam because of...

I have had no more than 15 consecutive minutes free at any point today. The rest of the week I have 3½-hour blocks on my calendar, but all the other meetings had to go somewhere, so they went to Monday. So just jotting down stories that caught my eye: Ukraine's masterful and crippling strike against the Russian Air Force over the weekend has changed warfare forever, writes Max Boot. Jen Rubin wants to end the creeping normalization of the OAFPOTUS and his droogs because, as she says, they're all nuts....

First, there is no update on Cassie. She had a quick consult today, but they didn't schedule the actual diagnostics that she needs, so we'll go back first thing Tuesday. She does have a small mast cell tumor on her head, but the location makes her oncologist optimistic for treatment. I'll post again next week after the results come back from her spleen and lymph node aspirations. Meanwhile, in the real world, things lurch forward and backward as the OAFPOTUS's political trajectory slides by millimeters...

As Crash Davis said to Annie Savoy all those years ago: A player on a streak has to respect the streak. Well, I'm on a coding streak. This week, I've been coding up a storm for my day job, leaving little time to read all of today's stories: Despite (or perhaps because of) his obvious mental illness and dementia, the OAFPOTUS is really a predictable negotiator who our adversaries have figured out how to manipulate easily. Voters may not like the OAFPOTUS, but they don't like us either. Still, the...

Former Illinois governor George Ryan (R) died earlier today in hospice. He, like half of the Illinois governors who served in my lifetime, spent time in prison for corruption, stemming from a time when, as Secretary of State, he would issue commercial drivers licenses in exchange for bribes. The scandal went national when an unqualified driver crashed into a family car, killing six kids. He also single-handedly blocked Illinois from ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982, but as governor he didn't...

We start this morning with news that US Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), for whom I voted all 5 times he ran for Senate, will not run for re-election in 2026. He turns 82 just after the election and would be 88 at the end of the term. I am very glad he has decided to step aside: we don't need another Feinstein or Thurmond haunting the Senate again. In other news: Vice President JD Vance outlined a proposal to reward Russia for its aggression by giving it all the land it currently holds in the...

Before getting to the weather, I don't anticipate any quiet news days for the next couple of years, do you? Someone who owns at least 16 rooms and condos in the OAFPOTUS's Wabash Ave. building in downtown Chicago has sued, alleging that—wait for it—the organization running the building is bilking investors. I mean, how preposterous! Speaking of corruption flowing from the OAFPOTUS like toxic waste from a Union Carbide plant, Molly White mourns the end of SEC oversight of the crypto industry. Former US...

The Weather Now gazetteer import has gotten to the Ps (Pakistan) with 11,445,567 places imported and 10,890,186 indexed. (The indexer runs every three hours.) I'll have a bunch of statistics about the database when the import finishes, probably later tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. I'm especially pleased with the import software I wrote, and with Azure Cosmos DB. They're churning through batches of about 30 files at a time and importing places at around 10,000 per minute. Meanwhile, in the...

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...

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...

Yesterday, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ scraped along at -11°C early in the morning before "warming" up to -7.5°C around 3pm. Cassie and I got a 22-minute walk around then and she seemed fine. Today the pattern completely inverted. I woke up during the warmest part of the day: 7am, -8°C. Around 8am the temperature started dropping and now hovers around -11°C again—slightly colder than the point where I limit Cassie to 15 minutes outside. She just doesn't feel cold, apparently, and...

Cassie and I survived our 20-minute, -8°C walk a few minutes ago. For some reason I feel like I need a nap. Meanwhile: James Fallows remembers his old boss Jimmy Carter, and puts his presidency in perspective for the younger generations. Paul Krugman reminds the Republican Party that California contributes more to the country's GDP than any other state, so maybe cut the crap threatening to withhold disaster relief? ProPublica goes "inside the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private...

Once again, in the aftermath of the OAFPOTUS's demented press conference yesterday, I need to remind everyone to ignore what he says and watch what he does. He's not as harmless as the guy at the end of the bar who everyone avoids talking to, but he's just as idiotic. Meanwhile, in the real world: Block Club Chicago interviewed Mayor Brandon Johnson in the wake of the City Council barely passing his 2025 budget by a vote of 27-23. Perry Bacon Jr. blames President Biden's overconfidence for the failures...

The Library of Congress has named Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 24 other films to the National Film Registry this week. A quick view of the list tells me I've only seen 5 of them, so I need to start watching more movies. In other news: Former Chicago mayor and outgoing US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel suggests some ways the Democratic Party can get back in the saddle. The Chicago City Council finally passed its 2025 budget, a $17.3 bn mess that only got 27 out of 50 votes, and then only because...

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...

Today is the 30th anniversary of the trope-namer first appearing in Calvin and Hobbes, making the comic strip self-referential at this point. (It's the ur-noodle incident.) Unfortunately, today's mood rather more reflects The Far Side's famous "Crisis Clinic" comic from the same era: Adam Gray (D) has defeated US Representative John Duarte (R) in California's 13 district, bringing the House of Representatives to its final tally of 210 Democrats and 215 Republicans. An assassin shot and killed...

Mayor Johnson's newly-appointed Chicago Public Schools Board president The Rev Mitchell Ikenna Johnson has resigned: Amid a wave of backlash over troubling social media posts that were criticized as antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial, Chicago’s new Board of Education president is resigning at the request of Mayor Brandon Johnson just seven days after he was sworn into office. It’s the latest stunning development in the ongoing leadership struggle atop Chicago Public Schools. His resignation...

Recently-elected Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has made a couple of moves this week all but guaranteed to make him a one-term mayor. First, despite "no property tax increases" being the cornerstone of his campaign, he proposed a budget today that—wait for it—would increase property taxes: “I’m not going to raise property taxes. I’m the only person running in this race who made a commitment to that,” he said during a Block Club interview in March 2023. “For my first term, we’re not raising property...

I filled out my ballot yesterday and will deliver it to one of Chicago's early-voting drop-offs today or Monday. Other than a couple of "no" votes for judicial retention (a bizarre ritual we go through in Illinois), I voted pretty much as you would expect. I even voted for a couple of Republicans! (Just not for any office that could cause damage to the city or country.) Meanwhile, the world continues to turn: Matt Yglesias makes "a positive case for Kamala Harris:" "[A]fter eight tumultuous years...

As you may have seen below, yesterday I went out to Kankakee on a $15 round-trip Amtrak ticket to visit Knack Brewing for the Brews & Choos Project. Not only did the brewery surprise me—I mean, just look at it on Google Street View—but the city had a lot more going on than I anticipated. I've been through Kankakee a bunch of times, and maybe even pulled off I-57 on some trip to Champaign or St Louis. I've even landed at IKK once, in March 2002, getting checked out in a Piper Warrior. But until...

Cassie and I have gone on two walks today, the first for 3.2 km and the second for 4.25 km, despite the really uncomfortable 26°C dewpoint. I mean, it's really gross out there. Fortunately because of the way dogs get rid of excess heat, it didn't bother her as much as it bothered me—the air is only 28°C, after all. But we both felt a lot better when we got back to my air-conditioned house. (Fun fact: my thermostat is set for 25°C, but the dewpoint inside is closer to 15°C which makes all the...

Lunchtime link roundup: Dr Daniela J Lamas of Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston evaluates how age has affected President Biden and the convicted-felon XPOTUS, given that whoever wins in November has a high probability of being the oldest serving US President in history. Israel's highest court ruled that the IDF can, in fact, draft all the religious nutters who have avoided doing anything for the benefit of society since the country was founded. Perhaps this will help the country's crushing...

But only for a moment. I've spent most of today trying to fix things, or at least trying to figure out what problems need fixing. One of the problems has generated a comment thread on a vendor website, now at 44 comments, and I think after all that work I found the problem in an interaction between my code and Microsoft Azure Functions. If I'm right, the confirmation will come around 3pm. Naturally, I haven't had time to read any of these: Jamie Boule points out that the myth of the convicted-felon...

It's a gorgeous Friday afternoon in Chicago. So why am I inside? Right. Work. I'll eventually take Cassie out again today, and I may even have a chance to read all of these: A Florida man set himself on fire across the street from where the XPOTUS was sitting through jury selection, apparently to protest the lack of mental health care in the US. Josh Kovensky draws a straight line from the XPOTUS's narcissistic need to cast everyone who disagrees with him as an enemy to be defeated to his lawyers trying...

A cold front passed this morning right after I got to the office, sparing me the 60 km/h winds and pouring rain that made the 9am arrivals miserable. The rain has passed, but the temperature has slowly descended to 17°C after hanging out around 19°C all night. I might have to close my windows tonight. I also completed a mini-project for work a few minutes ago, so I now have time to read a couple of stories: The voir dire in the XPOTUS's porn-star-payoff criminal trial forced him to listen to a lot of...

Through next weekend I'm going to have a lot to do, so much that I've scheduled "nothing" for the back half of next week going into our annual fundraiser on April 6th. I might even get enough sleep. I hope I have time to read some of these, too: Eileen O'Neill Burke has won the Democratic Party primary for Cook County States Attorney (called a District Attorney just about everywhere else), and is therefore the presumptive successor to outgoing CCSA Kim Foxx. Andrew Sullivan sees the XPOTUS hawking $59...

The top story this hour, which should surprise no one who can read a poll, is that US Senator Krysten Sinema (?-AZ), who pissed off every Democrat in Congress over her only term in the Senate, has decided not to run again. Since the Democratic Party had already fielded a candidate against her, this makes her completely irrelevant, instead of just mostly irrelevant. The November election will pit Republican Kari Lake against Democrat Ruben Gallego. Meanwhile: Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling compiled all of the...

A few months ago a Chicago Parking Enforcement Agent (PEA) tried to give me a ticket while I was paying for the parking spot online. I kept calm and polite, but I firmly explained that writing a ticket before I'd even finished entering the parking zone in the payment app might not survive the appeal. Yesterday I got another parking ticket at 9:02pm in a spot that has free parking from 9pm to 9am. The ticket actually said "parking expired and driver not walking back from meter." Note that the parking app...

Looking out my 30th-floor office window this afternoon doesn't cheer me. It's gray and snowy, but too warm for accumulation, so it just felt like rain when I sprinted across the street to get my burrito bowl for lunch. I do have a boring deployment coming up in about an hour, requiring only that I show the business what we've built and then click "Run pipeline" twice. As a reward for getting ahead on development, I have time to read some of these absolutely horrifying news stories: Jennifer Rubin wants...

I don't usually do link round-ups on Saturday mornings, but I got stuff to do today: Josh Marshall is enjoying the "comical rake-stomp opera" of Nikki Haley's (R-SC) primary campaign. The Economist pokes around the "city" of Rosemont, Ill., a family-owned fiefdom less than 10 km from Inner Drive Technology World HQ. The New York Times highlights the most informative charts they published in 2023. The Chicago Tribune lists some of the new Illinois laws taking effect on Monday. My favorite: Illinois will...

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...

Today's roundup includes only one Earth-shattering kaboom, for starters (and I'll save the political stuff for last): Scientists hypothesize that two continent-sized blobs of hot minerals 3,000 km below Africa and the Pacific Ocean came from Theia, the Mars-sized object that slammed into the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, creating the Moon in the aftermath. October was Illinois 31st warmest and 41st wettest in history (going back to 1895). National Geographic looks into whether the freak winter of...

Today's weather feels like we might have real fall weather soon. Today's XKCD kind of nails it, too—not the weather, but the calendar. In addition to nice weather, we have a nice bit of elected-official hypocrisy, too: the president of the Chicago Teachers Union got caught sending her son to a private school, and giving a really crappy explanation for it. In other news: A jury took all of four hours to convict right-wing intellectual grifter Peter Navarro of contempt of Congress for ignoring the January...

This morning, for the first time since the inbound Ravenswood platform opened August 1st (and therefore since mid-2011), I actually got to shelter from the weather while waiting for the train: Rain was falling, but for a few minutes, none of it fell on me. We could stand under a roof and wait for the train to arrive. Of course, since the platform was designed to accommodate a 3rd mainline track some day in the future, we still had to stand in the rain for a brief moment to get on the train, but still. I...

On my way downtown to hear Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with some friends, I saw this notice, hung with a tragicomic level of incompetence, at the Ravenswood Metra station's 12-year-old "temporary" inbound platform: What? We get our "new" platform that has been almost completed for the past 24 months on August 1st? There’s only one brief note on the station info page, but otherwise…nothing. No ribbon cutting, no acknowledgement that the platform is opening 6 years late, no recognition that former...

I'll elaborate on this later, but I just want to list a couple of things I desperately want for my country and city during my lifetime. For comparison, I'm also listing when other places in the world got them first. For context, I expect (hope?) to live another 50 years or so. Universal health care, whether through extending Medicare to all residents or through some other mechanism. The UK got it in 1948, Canada in 1984, and Germany in 1883. We're the only holdout in the OECD, and it benefits no one...

While we in Ravenswood continue to wait for tile deliveries or whatever so Metra and the UPRR can finish replacing the platform they tore down in 2011, the a priori Peterson/Ridge station that broke ground 18 months ago is almost done: Work on the station is slated to wrap up this fall, when the long-awaited station will open to the public, project managers said at the community meeting. Announced in 2012, the Peterson-Ridge station has been the victim of the state’s years-long budget impasse and then...

Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) took the oath of office this morning, along with the 50-member Chicago City Council: Thousands of spectators watched as Johnson was sworn in by Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans at the Credit Union 1 Arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago on the city’s Near West Side. He was sworn in alongside the new City Council — which includes 13 freshman members, many of whom campaigned on pushing the body further to the left, and who also will increase the racial and LGBTQ+...

I think I wrote software and read a lot. You know, just what I do today. Stuff like this: Josh Marshall sums up the current Republican majority on the Supreme Court as a "casual mix of sweetheart deals and billionaire gifting [that] just stems from the same arrogance and corruption at the heart of the Federalist Society project," which sounds correct to me. On the same front, Pema Levy argues that "the Dobbs leak didn't wreck the Supreme Court—the justices' scandals did," which also sounds correct to...

We had four completely-overcast days in a row, including one with some blowing snow, so I'm happy today has been completely clear. Tomorrow might even get above 10°C—which would at least get into normal March temperatures. This whole winter has been weird, as the next few will likely be until temperature increases start leveling out. In other news: ICANN's blog has a brief post from Kim Davies, who regularly contributes to the Time Zone Database, on how the TZDB actually works. US Senator Elizabeth...

Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson got a big nod this week: Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate, is backing Brandon Johnson in the Chicago mayor’s race. “Commissioner Brandon Johnson and I are both former public school teachers, and I can tell you that he understands what it takes to build a stronger Chicago for everyone. From education to public safety to housing, Brandon has a bold, forward-looking, progressive plan to move Chicago forward, and he has the...

The storm predicted to drop 100 mm of snow on Chicago yesterday missed us completely. That made my Brews & Choos research a lot more pleasant, though I did tromp all over the place in heavy boots that I apparently didn't need. Of course, had I not worn them, I would now be writing about my cold, wet socks. So while I'm getting two reviews together for later this week, go ahead and read this: Illinois had the 18th warmest and 17th wettest winter on record, including the state's 6th warmest January, with...

A couple of updates. First, Paul Vallas picked up a key endorsement, which may bring over some of Lori Lightfoot's voters: Newly-retired Jesse White, the first African-American elected as Illinois Secretary of State, is endorsing Paul Vallas, giving Vallas a leg up in his quest to claim the 20% share of the Black vote he needs to win the April 4 mayoral runoff against Brandon Johnson. White, 88, retired in January after a record six terms as secretary of state. In four of those elections, he was the...

Perhaps the first day of spring brings encourages some spring cleaning? Or at least, revisiting stories of the recent and more distant past: The Navy has revisited how it names ships, deciding that naming United States vessels after events or people from a failed rebellion doesn't quite work. As a consequence, the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG-62, named after a Confederate victory) will become the USS Robert Smalls, named after the former slave who stole the CSS Planter right from...

For the first time since 1983, a sitting Chicago mayor failed to win re-election*, sadly keeping the total proportion of women not being re-elected at 100%. So the April 4th runoff will see the Chicago Public Schools candidate face off against the Chicago Teachers Union candidate: Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson are headed to an April 4 runoff for mayor of Chicago after Mayor Lori Lightfoot conceded defeat Tuesday night, sealing her fate as a one-term mayor. With 98 percent of precincts reporting...

At my day job, we just ended our 80th sprint on the project, with a lot of small but useful features that will make our side of the app easier to maintain. I like productive days like this. I even voted! And now I will rest on my laurels for a bit and read these stories: If you don't worry that the entire US Supreme Court has the technical expertise of your 99-year-old great uncle, perhaps you should? Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains how giving economic aid to Ukraine benefits the West. In part...

After standing on the Ravenswood Metra platform for 10 minutes in 40 km/h winds and blowing rain, I hearby sentence former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to 100 days of standing on said platform without an umbrella or waterproof shoes for the offense cutting off funding to all Illinois transportation projects for 3 years in a fit of ideological pique and general lack of empathy for anyone else. Each instance of Rauner's prickishness causing suffering and inconvenience to the citizens of Illinois shall...

Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter, Jr., blamed "extremely higher-than-normal call-offs" (i.e., a blue flu) for the New Year's Eve failures that left The Daily Parker waiting on a platform 35 minutes for the El: It’s not unusual for CTA workers to “call off” on holidays, but the CTA has in the past been ready to replace them. But this year, with a shortage of train operators in the ranks, the CTA couldn’t deliver the number of free trains it promised. The CTA promoted increased service on...

Because I moved, I had to change my drivers license in-person at an Illinois Secretary of State Drivers Services Office (our DMV). Let me tell you how hard that was: I went online yesterday morning and, after a few clicks, got to "Same-Day Appointments." I found that the facility closest to me (about 5 km away) had appointment times in the late afternoon, so I signed up. The sign-up process took me to a checklist that helped me figure out what documents I needed to bring. It took me about 15 minutes to...

I mean, why? Just why? The XPOTUS, as predicted, announced his run for the 2024 election, despite looking like a total loser in the 2022 election. But narcissists gonna narcise. The Illinois Worker Rights Amendment passed, and will now become part of the state constitution. I think this will have a bunch of unintended consequences not beneficial to workers, so I voted against it. We're stuck with it now. Boomer Kathleen Parker spends her column today tut-tutting Boomers for not understanding Millennial...

I'm running all 538 unit tests in my real job's application right now after updating all the NuGet packages. This is why I like automated testing: if one of the updated packages broke anything, tests will fail, and I can fix the affected code. (So far they've all passed.) This comes after a major demo this morning, and a new feature that will consume the rest of the sprint, which ends next Monday. Oh, and I have two opera rehearsals this week. Plus I have to vote tomorrow, which could take 15 minutes or...

I'm starting to adapt my habits and patterns to the new place. I haven't figured out where to put everything yet, especially in my kitchen, but I'll live with the first draft for a few weeks before moving things around. I'm also back at work in my new office loft, which is measurably quieter than the previous location—except when the Metra comes by, but that just takes a couple of seconds. I actually have the mental space to resume my normal diet of reading. If only I had the time. Nevertheless: Texas...

Busy day today, but I finished a major task at work just now. As I'm waiting for the CI system to finish compiling and pushing out a test build, I'm going to read these: Jonathan Chait shares his chilling observations from the National Socialist Conservatism Conference in Miami. Gen-Xers like me have started contending with...middle age. The Chicago City Council doesn't like working with the CTA, even as everyone in the city complains about CTA frequency and reliability. Maybe if we stopped thinking of...

A first-year undergraduate twerp with obvious narcissistic tendencies went through a homeless encampment handing out fake eviction notices earlier this week: The one-page notices titled “Maria Hadden’s Five Day Notice To Vacate” were stuffed into belongings and posted on signs in and around Touhy Park, 7348 N. Paulina St., residents said. They were dated Sept. 27 and listed the name of Hadden, the 49th Ward alderperson, in bold blue type over a line reading “landlord/agent.” The notice says Touhy Park...

I'm movin' out. A lovely young couple have offered to buy Inner Drive World Headquarters v5.0, and the rest of the place along with it. I've already gotten through the attorney-review period for IDTWHQ v6.0, so this means I'm now more likely than not to move house next month. Which means I have even less time to read stuff like this: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) has withdrawn from the Daily Herald candidate forum after the Herald's publisher allowed a right-wing Republican group to use its mail...

Every time I commute to work from the Ravenswood Metra station, I get annoyed. Metra has yet to finish the inbound platform after almost 10 years of delays. So I emailed the alderman to ask why, and CC:d Block Club Chicago, the local news outlet. Reporter Alex Hernandez called me the next morning, and ran this story today: The Ravenswood Metra station overhaul that began more than a decade ago is hitting yet another bump.  The $30 million project to renovate 11 bridges along Metra’s Union Pacific...

Despite record temperatures in late spring, Illinois had a perfectly average August, which the state climatologist for some reason refers to as "mild:" May kicked off summer early in Illinois with a very unusual heat wave. Then came a very warm June that had this winter lover wishing for sweater weather. Fortunately, a slightly cooler July was followed by a very mild August. August average temperatures ranged from the low 70s [F] in northern Illinois to the high 70s in southern Illinois, within 1 degree...

To absolutely no one's surprise, the little shit arrested for murdering six people in Highland Park, Ill., yesterday turned out to be a 22-year-old white kid with a violent social media history. And of course he bought the gun legally. Every society has its psychopaths and angry young men. But most societies acknowledge this, and make it really hard for those assholes to buy guns. Here, we make it easier to buy a gun than to buy a car. That's just insane, but politically hard to change. Right now, with...

Today I learned about the Zoot Suit Riots that began 79 years ago today in Los Angeles. Wow, humans suck. In other revelations: Service and restaurant workers in Chicago have accelerated their pushes for unionization after their bosses showed just how much they valued their workers during the pandemic. Funny how that works. The President can't do much about global food and gasoline prices, but voters will probably blame him anyway come November. I agree with Josh Marshall that preserving the current...

In 2008, Chicago gave up its parking meter revenue for 75 years in exchange for $1.16 billion, which made no sense at the time and got widely criticized by everyone who knows what "Net Present Value" means. Guess what? The deal still sucks: In their failed attempt to block Bally’s $1.7 billion River West casino, downtown City Council members warned the deal was being rushed — just like the one that privatized Chicago parking meters — and that it would end up being “even worse” for taxpayers. That dire...

Sheesh: Eriq Gardener provides four reasons not to think a Supreme Court insider leaked Justice Alito's (R) draft opinion. NPR reports that Justice Thomas (R) of all people complained about people losing respect for the Court. Alex Shephard agrees with me that the GOP caught the car with the Alito leak, but that won't stop them from threatening every other privacy-based right Americans have. Military analyst Mick Ryan examines where the Ukrainian army might engage the Russians next, and how they have...

According to my Garmin, I got almost 18 hours of sleep the past two nights, but also according to my Garmin (and my groggy head), few of those hours made a difference. I take some of the blame for that, but on the other hand, someday I want to stay in a hotel room where I can control when the air conditioner turns on and off. Anyway, while I slept fitfully, these stories passed through my inbox: EJ Dionne reminds us that the current Supreme Court has decided many more anti-democratic cases than just the...

Leading off today's afternoon roundup, The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman) announced today that Netflix has a series in production based on his game Exploding Kittens. The premise: God and Satan come to Earth—in the bodies of cats. And freakin' Tom Ellis is one of the voices, because he's already played one of those parts. Meanwhile, in reality: A consumers group filed suit against Green Thumb Industries and three other Illinois-based cannabis companies under the Clayton Act, alleging collusion that has driven...

Actually, it's 5pm here. And I have a few stories queued up: Oklahoma has a new law making abortion a felony, because the 1950s were great for the white Christian men who wrote that law. Monika Bauerlein explains why authoritarians hate a free press. Not that we didn't already know. Jonathan Haidt explains "why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid." ("It's not just a phase.") Inflation in the US hit a 40-year high at 8.5% year over year, but Paul Krugman believes it will drop...

Two stories this morning seemed oddly juxtaposed. In good news, the City of Chicago announced plans to spend $15 million on 77 km of new bike and pedestrian trails over the next couple of years: Several of the projects, including plans to convert an old railroad into a trail in Englewood, are still in the planning and design phases. Others, like Sterling Bay’s planned extension of the 606 Bloomingdale Trail into Lincoln Yards, are set to come to fruition through private partnerships.  The news release...

I've had a lot to do at work the last couple of days, leading to an absolute pile-up of unread press: Casey Michael outlines how Russian President Vladimir Putin's aims in Ukraine have little to do with NATO and a lot to do with him wanting to restore the Russian Empire. Tom Nichols calls Putin's actions the beginning of "a forever war," and Julia Ioffe calls Putin "a furious and clearly deranged old man, threatening to drag us all into World War III." Col. Jerad Harper USA, a professor at the US Army...

Winter officially has another week and a half to run, but we got a real taste of spring in all its ridiculousness this week: Yesterday the temperature got up to 13°C at O'Hare, up from the -10°C we had Monday morning. It's heading down to -11°C overnight, then up to 7°C on Sunday. (Just wait until I post the graph for the entire week.) Welcome to Chicago in spring. Elsewhere: Republicans in New York and Illinois have a moan about the redistricting processes in those states that will result in...

Before heading into three Zoom meetings that will round out my day, I have a minute to flip through these: US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made a bold grab for the Dumbest Person in Congress award yesterday when she warned OAN viewers about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "gazpacho police." Let the memes begin. The Economist has an update to the Democratic Freedoms Map, and things do not look good—unless you live in Norway. Along similar lines, WBEZ reports on the Urban Institute's findings...

Other than making a hearty beef stew, I have done almost nothing of value today. I mean, I did some administrative work, and some chorus work, and some condo board work. But I still haven't read a lick of the books I've got lined up, nor did I add the next feature to the Weather Now 5 app. I did read these, though: An Illinois state judge has enjoined the entire state from imposing mask mandates on schools, just as NBC reports that anti-vaxxer "influencers" are making bank off their anti-social...

Former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner (R, of course) famously stopped almost all discretionary spending in the state during his term in office by continually vetoing state budgets passed by the Democratically-controlled legislature. His term overlapped with a project to rebuild 11 railroad bridges on the North Side of Chicago, and which included a companion project, partially necessitated by the track reconfigurations required to replace the bridges, to rebuild the Ravenswood Metra station serving...

Josh Marshall lays out the evidence that the Omicron Covid variant hit hard and fast, but as in South Africa, appears to have a short life-span: New York City was one of the first parts of the United States hit by the Omicron variant. The trajectory of the city’s surge now appears remarkably similar to the pattern we saw earlier in South Africa and other countries. Data out of South Africa showed a roughly four week interval between the start of the Omicron surge and its peak. “Peak in four weeks and...

The temperature bottomed out at -14.4°C around 1:30 am, and has climbed ever so slowly since then to -0.3°: Will we get above freezing? The forecast says yes, any moment now. But the sun will set in about 5 minutes. Anyway, a guy can dream, right? Meanwhile, Chicago's teachers and schools have agreed to let the kids back tomorrow, even as the mayor herself tested positive for Covid. And the Art Institute's workforce has formed a union, which will operate under AFSCME. And that's not all: It turns out...

Today's temperatures have hovered around -9°C, with a forecast of bottoming out around -18°C tomorrow morning. But hey, at least the sun is out, right? Meanwhile, in the rest of the world: James Fallows, himself a former speechwriter for President Carter, annotates President Biden's speech from last week. Politics is about power, not about kvetching, says Ezra Klein. US Senator Joe Manchin (D?-WV) has gotten caught between the mine owners who own him and the mine workers who vote for him. Crain's...

The Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union keep butting heads, resulting in CPS closing the schools for another day tomorrow: Chicago Public Schools and the teachers union have filed unfair labor charges against one another, with each side asking state officials to end the current dispute over in-person learning in their favor. The latest escalation in the conflict over adequate COVID-19 safety measures in schools comes as CPS saw a new record number of coronavirus cases Tuesday — the...

Every so often in the winter, a cold front pushes in overnight, giving us the warmest temperature of the day at midnight. Welcome to my morning: The sun actually came out a few minutes ago—right around the time the temperature started dropping faster. The forecast says temperatures will continue falling to about -12°C by 3pm, rise ever so slightly overnight and tomorrow, then slide on down to -17° from 3pm tomorrow to 6am Friday. And, because it's Chicago, and because the circumpolar jet stream looks...

Just a couple of eye-roll-worthy lunchtime links today: Chicago police union head John Catanzara, who I referred to on Facebook yesterday as a "whiny, belligerent infant," has quit the CPD and announced a run for mayor. My previous comments stand. Sears closed its last remaining store in its home state of Illinois on Sunday. I still hate Eddie Lampert for it. Michelle Goldberg takes the "social justice industry" to task for policing words instead of accomplishing real change. Ordinarily-idyllic coastal...

I'm leaving the country today, for the first time in almost exactly two years, and I couldn't be happier. I miss my Ancestral Homeland. And the list of Covid-related travel requirements, while annoying, make sense to me. In fact, because I return Sunday, I timed my (£39 FFS!) UK 2-day test to double as my US 3-day test. Before I take off, and consign poor Cassie to 103 hours of desperate loneliness (albeit with her entire daycare pack), I want to comment on two news stories. First, the Chicago...

As the last workday in October draws to a close, in all its rainy gloominess, I have once again spent all day working on actually coding stuff and not reading these articles: Andrew Sullivan says the GOP could own clean energy by pushing nuclear power. Brian Merchant says Facebook has decided to change its name because it's boring. The last sane GOP representative, Adam Kinzinger (IL-6), won't run for re-election to the House, both because the new Illinois district map favors Democrats and also because...

The Union Pacific Railroad, which currently operates about 35% of all Chicago commuter trains, has won a major ruling from a Federal judge that clears the way for it to stop operating those trains: UP wants out of the commuter business, saying it wants to focus on its its freight service. It has noted that almost all other Metra service now is operated by the commuter rail agency itself, sometimes on tracks it owns itself and at other times on track leased from freight railroads.  Metra’s position is...

Jonathan Chait points out that the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and other police unions might want to reconsider their threats to resign en masse if the cities enforce mask and vaccine mandates on them: Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot has mandated vaccination for all city employees, and Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara is not taking it well. “This has literally lit a bomb underneath the membership,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “We’re in America, goddamn it. We don’t want to be...

A few examples of idiocy, bad intent, or general ineptness crossed my desk this morning: Apparently Illinois has an "Israeli Boycott Restrictions Committee" of our investment policy board. Despite the (very Jewish) founders of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream explaining one more time that criticism of Israel's government is not anti-Semitic, the Committee wants to divest from Unilever to protest the ice cream manufacturer's divestment from the occupied West Bank. Now, why would anyone think Simone Biles doesn't...

In another implicit rebuke to the lump of clay that occupied the Governor's Mansion for four years, Illinois finally got a bump in its credit rating after Governor Pritzker started paying our bills again: In upgrading Illinois’ credit by one step — to two notches above junk bond status instead of one — Wall Street ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service noted that the $42 billion spending plan for the year starting July 1 “increases pension contributions, repays emergency Federal Reserve borrowings and...

After taking Cassie on a 45-minute walk before the heat hits us, I've spent the morning debugging, watching these news stories pile up for lunchtime reading: The US Supreme Court once again upheld Obamacare, with only Alito and Gorsuch dissenting. The Illinois legislature passed a common-sense gun control law, supported by the State Police, that largely brings us back in line with the rules we had in the 1990s. Illinois Deputy Governor Dan Hynes has resigned (ahem) ahead of the 2022 election. The BBC...

I spent the morning unsuccessfully trying to get a .NET 5 Blazor WebAssembly app to behave with an Azure App Registration, and part of the afternoon doing a friend's taxes. Yes, I preferred doing the taxes, because I got my friend a pile of good news without having to read sixty contradictory pages of documentation. I also became aware of the following: The FBI and Australian police completely pwned hundreds of criminals through a black-market "encrypted" cell phone app that they wrote and monitored, in...

As much fun as Cassie and I have had over the last few days, the news around the world didn't stop: After 448 days, Illinois will finally reopen fully on Friday. Security expert Tarah Wheeler, writing on Schneier.com, warns that our weapons systems have frightening security vulnerabilities. Fastly's content-delivery network (CDN) collapsed this morning, taking down The New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, and other major properties; no word yet on the cause, but we can guess. About 12,000...

The northern hemisphere started meteorological summer at midnight local time today. Chicago's weather today couldn't have turned out better. Unfortunately, I go into the office on the first and last days of each week, so I only know about this from reading weather reports. At my real job, we have a release tomorrow onto a completely new Azure subscription, so for only the second time in 37 sprints (I hope) I don't expect a boring deployment. Which kind of fits with all the decidedly-not-boring news that...

We have an odd debate in Chicago about the name of our most iconic road. A group of aldermen want to change the name of Lake Shore Drive to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Drive, in honor of the first non-native permanent settler, who was also Black. The (Black) mayor and a contingent of other aldermen of varying races disagree: The proposal’s sponsors faced opposition from some colleagues and the mayor’s office over fears that renaming the iconic road would lead to a nightmare at the post office and for...

The four-year, $40m Navy Pier flyover finally opened this week after 7 years and $64m: The $64 million flyover, started in 2014, was originally planned for a ribbon-cutting in 2018 but it was repeatedly delayed. The 1,750-foot-long, 16-foot-wide steel and concrete flyover goes from Ohio Street Beach to the south side of the Chicago River. City officials have blamed prior delays both on issues with the Lake Shore Drive bridge and a delay in getting funding from the state during the budget crisis under...

Travel in the US just got slightly easier now that the Department of Homeland Security has extended the deadline to get REAL ID cards to May 2023. Illinois just started making them a year ago, but you have to go to a Secretary of State office in person to get one. Due to Covid-19, the lines at those facilities often stretch to the next facility a few kilometers away. Reading that made me happier than reading most of the following: The Washington Post has two op-eds today that interested me for reasons...

After languishing for four years while former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (R-of course) refused to govern, Metra's Peterson/Ridge station project...has stalled again: Crews for Metra were slated to break ground in May on the train station at Peterson and Ravenswood avenues. Due to a permitting issue with the city, work will be delayed by roughly three to five months, said Joe Ott, director of Metra’s construction department. If the permits take any longer to secure, major construction on the new...

The CDC just released guidance on how vaccinated people should behave. It doesn't seem too surprising, but it also doesn't suggest we will all go back to the world of 2019 any time soon. In other news: Washington Post global opinions editor Karen Attah likens living in Texas right now to "an exercise in survival." The New York Times looks at where US Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) came from, without explicitly telling him to go back there. Crain's Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz outlines what Chicago...

I get to turn off and put away my work laptop in a little bit in preparation for heading back to the office on Monday morning. I can scarcely wait.  Meanwhile, I've got a few things to read: The New Yorker's Susannah Jacob talks to the permanent staff in the White House residence. Vanity Fair's Joy Press explains how the Writers Guild beat their agents in a protracted contract dispute. Who in Chicago is eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine next? The Tribune explains. While you wait for your vaccine, quit...

As the State of Illinois starts abandoning the Helmut Jahn-designed Thompson Center in Chicago's Loop, the Governor's Office announced the state has purchased PepsiCo's old building at 555 W Monroe St: The 18-year-old structure has 430,000 square feet of office space and has green certification for energy efficiency. More than 1,000—and potentially 1,400—of the 3,500 state workers now based in downtown Chicago eventually will relocate to the new facility, starting in April, according to Ayse...

Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the ten GOP representatives who voted for the Article of Impeachment against the XPOTUS two weeks ago, finds himself on the outs with his party: Kinzinger's future prospects depend largely on Trump's continuing role in Republican politics. If the party remains in thrall to the former president at every level, Kinzinger's perceived betrayal makes political survival, let alone advancement, uncertain. What does Kinzinger want to do in 2022? "I don't know," he says. "Do I have...

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago/Clearing) will lose his job later today after serving in the role since 1983. Rep. Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Hillside) received 69 votes (of a required 60) in the Democratic Caucus this morning, making his accession to the Speaker's chair all but guaranteed when the whole House votes in a few minutes to elect the Speaker. Welch will become the first Black Speaker in Illinois history. In other news: The Illinois legislature ended its previous legislative...

Thank you, Tom Lehrer, for encapsulating what this season means to us in the US. In the last 24 hours, we have seen some wonderful Christmas gifts, some of them completely in keeping with Lehrer's sentiment. Continuing his unprecedented successes making his the most corrupt presidency in the history of the country (and here I include the Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding presidencies), the STBXPOTUS yesterday granted pardons to felons Charles Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone. Of the 65 pardons...

The city's plan would vaccinate every adult who lives or works in Chicago in 2021: Initial vaccine doses will be sent to all 34 hospitals in Chicago, city officials said. Health care workers who treat COVID-19 patients or are at high risk for coronavirus spread will be first to receive it, city officials said. After health care workers, vaccines will be prioritized for a broad group of people including residents and staff at long-term care facilities, individuals at high risk due to underlying medical...

To thoroughly depress you, SMBC starts the week by showing you appropriate wine pairings for your anxiety. In similar news: Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) seeks a 19th term as Speaker, but new Federal indictments and that people voted against Democrats statewide because they don't want him around anymore have made his bid unlikely. Vermont and South Dakota have similar demographics and both have Republican governors, so how did Vermont keep Covid-19 infections low while South Dakota...

Two women have stealthily implemented the proposed name-change of Stephen Douglas Park to Fredrick Douglass Park: This is the first time the vandals have spoken about their crime, which involved adding a very official-looking extra “S” to every park district sign in Douglas Park, a year and a half before Chicago’s Park District actually decided to change the name this September. “It had started to bother me, and I would wonder, ‘Why is this park not named after Frederick Douglass instead of Stephen...

Because it's 2020, we're still counting votes. And that's not all: The New York Times has not called the presidential vote Arizona, contra the AP and Fox News. Illinois' senior US Senator and minority whip Dick Durbin asked for the Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan to resign, saying the party "paid a heavy price" for his corruption probes. A former chess champion praises the accuracy of the way Netflix portrayed the game in The Queen's Gambit. David Graham says whatever the outcome, pollsters...

As the counting continues in the states both presidential candidates need to win, and as Biden's lead continues to increase in Wisconsin and Michigan while he catches up in Pennsylvania, I should mention that voters weighed in on other races last night. Every person bar one I voted for won in Illinois, including Joe Biden, US Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D), US Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL09), my state representative Gregory Harris (D-13), and my state senator Heather Steans (D-7). (Steans...

I plan to live-blog off and on tomorrow evening, understanding the likelihood that we won't know the results of many of the races until later in the week. I'm watching these races most closely (all times CST, UTC-6): 6pm Polls close in Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia. Of these, I mainly want to know the results in Georgia's two US Senate races, plus the US Senate race in South Carolina and the Georgia presidential totals. In Kentucky, Amy McGrath has less than a 1 in 20 chance of...

A few: Illinois set another record for Covid-19 infections with almost 7,000 reported today. Three-time Hannah Arendt Memorial Banality of Evil Award winner Stephen Miller has laid out how much more evil he would do if his boss gets re-elected. All 15 New York Times columnists look back on what we have lost in the past four years. More later.

In all the excitement of the debate, I forgot to mention a couple of local news items that depressed me today: The world's only Michelin-starred brewpub, which is in my neighborhood, and which closed in July due to Covid-19, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It's dead, Jim. Illinois set a new record for Covid-19 positive tests today (almost 5,000), prompting the city to impose new restrictions on bars and public gatherings. Also, former US Attorney DIck Schultz talked to the Chicago Tribune and the local...

After finishing a sprint review, it's nice to reset for a few minutes. So after working through lunch I have some time to catch up on these news stories: Faced with rising Covid-19 infections and deaths, Governor JB Pritzker has ordered suburban Chicago bars and restaurants to temporarily cease indoor dining. The Verge has an analysis of how Foxconn conned the people of Wisconsin (with the active complicity of former governor Scott Walker). Steven Pearlstein points out that, should we win the Senate and...

A cold front pushed its way through Chicago this afternoon, making it feel much more like autumn than we've experienced so far. And it got pretty chilly in Washington, where Senate Republicans began the first day of hearings into the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court: Matt Ford says Barrett's nomination is "the culmination of [the right-wing Federalist Society] movement’s work—and perhaps its high-water mark as well." Aaron Blake calls the Republican Party's  gamesmanship over the...

Let's start with the good news: Julie Nolke has a new video. OK, ready for everything else? The president called Kamala Harris "this monster" in an interview Thursday, because of course he did. The New England Journal of Medicine came a millimeter from endorsing Joe Biden in an editorial published yesterday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have introduced legislation to create a commission on presidential capacity, without naming the person who inspired the bill....

Starting in March, this year has seemed like a weird anthology TV show, with each month written and directed by a different team. We haven't had Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme yet; I'm hoping that'll be the season finale in February. This month we seem to have Armando Iannucci running the show, as the President's antics over the weekend suggest. So here's how I'm spending lunch: With only 4 weeks to the election, a new CNN poll out this morning has Biden up 16 points among likely voters nationally....

The cartoonist and author behind Hyperbole and a Half has returned with a new book, which I should receive tomorrow. This news offsets pretty much all the other news from today: Author John Scalzi, who lives in a very red, rural county in Ohio, has a depressing report about mask-wearing in his area. Wisconsin is back on Illinois' shit-list for its rapidly-increasing Covid-19 case load. Olga Khazan says the 200,000 Covid-19 deaths (officially, as of today) signal a "failure of empathy." Wired has the...

Just a few of the things that crossed my desktop this morning: Astronomers have detected phosphine gas in the clouds on Venus, which is a strong indicator of life. Astronomers have also detected a ping-pong-ball-sized black hole orbiting the sun, getting as close as 133 kAUs in its orbit. An aircraft made a precautionary landing on an Interstate in Tennessee, and got a full police escort on take-off. No one was hurt. Car manufacturers are teaming up with insurance companies to share data on almost every...

With 58 days until the election, the noise keeps increasing. Here's some of it: Jeffrey Goldberg reports from multiple sources that the president referred to wounded soldiers as "losers" and "suckers" for serving the country. The administration moved quickly to lie about this. Andrew Sullivan calls the president a "metastasizing cancer." Catherine Rampell suggests ways to talk to right-wingers about the president's failures. Nick Martin asks, "how did 'if I die, I die' become this country's mantra?"...

There's a lot going on today, what with the Republican National Convention celebrating the apocalypse they desperately want, but a few things outside of that also happened: The Lake County Sheriff has arrested 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse for killing two people in a protest in Kenosha, Wis., last night. Eyewitness reports suggest Rittenhouse shot three people who tried to disarm him after he'd already shot at a few others. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has a pretty convincing explanation for...

Conductors on the heavy-rail line I take downtown twice a week haven't asked me for my ticket all summer. Apparently they're pissed at Metra, the agency that runs our commuter trains: Metra, which is struggling financially during the pandemic, said Union Pacific’s refusal to send conductors into the train cars is costing the commuter rail system $1 million a month in lost ticket revenue. Union Pacific, which operates the UP North, Northwest and West lines, is not allowing conductors back into the aisles...

Chicago's key Covid-19 metric, the 7-day rolling average positivity rate, ticked above 5% yesterday, as it's been near the 5% threshold for a couple of weeks. It rose from 4% to 5% between July 19th and 30th, suggesting that relaxed discipline has led to more infections. Today Governor JB Pritzker announced stricter policies requiring masks to protect restaurant workers: [The] new statewide restaurant and bar policy requiring all patrons to wear a mask while interacting with waitstaff and other...

I just spent 90 minutes driving to and from two different Drivers Services facilities because I wanted to renew my drivers license with a Real ID version. At both places the lines stretched into the next time zone. Since I can renew online, and I have another Real ID available, I'm just not going to bother. I'm surprised—not very, but still—that Drivers Services still doesn't understand queuing theory. Or they just don't care. Illinois used to handle this much better, but after four years of Bruce...

First, this chart: And yet, there are so many other things going on today: NPR has the clearest take-down on the president's election-postponement trolling I've seen today, noting in particular that "Trump's tweet came about 15 minutes after news of the worst-ever-recorded quarterly performance of the American economy." Josh Marshall just says "don't cower." Republican political consultant Stuart Stevens believes people like him "lost the battle for the Republican Party's soul long ago:" "I feel like...

I kind of got into the flow today, so things to read later just piled up: Illinois found 1,532 new known Covid-19 cases as of today, with four downstate, bright-red counties now getting warned that their numbers are rising quickly. The GOP failures on containing this disease keep mounting. Greg Sargent points out that "Trump's authoritarian crackdown is so bad that even some in the GOP are blasting it." Maeve Higgins finds that her American passport just doesn't work anymore. Garmin's entire production...

I'll get to the final head-to-head comparison between my Garmin Venu and Fitbit Ionic later today. Meanwhile: The Dept of Homeland Security plans to deploy 150 agents to Chicago, and no one will say why. Could Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan finally face consequences for his career-spanning corruption? Charles Blow asks: where's the outrage? Bruce Schneier explains and hypothesizes about the Twitter class break last week. And finally, because our Covid-19 numbers have started creeping up, indoor bar...

Writing in the Independent UK, Chicago-based Noah Berlatsky argues that state leadership has made Illinois a lot better off than, say, Florida: Illinois' achievement is both a model and an accusation. It points a way forward for other states. It also shows that the disaster facing the country now was thoroughly preventable. State officials in Illinois have managed to contain the virus by acting early, aggressively, and imaginatively. In mid-March, with only about 100 cases in the state, Chicago's Mayor...

Chicago had no official Independence Day fireworks display this year, because we didn't want to encourage a million people to converge on Grant Park. Instead, we appear to have had a record number of, ah, unofficial displays: The 911 call center received 9,092 calls between June 28 and Sunday, approximately three times the number of calls received in the same time period last year, according to data provided by Mary May, an Office of Emergency Management and Communications spokesperson. As of Sunday...

As I take a minute from banging away on C# code to savor my BBQ pork on rice from the local Chinese takeout, I have these to read: President Trump once again said the quiet part out loud, announcing he plans to gut fair-housing rules because otherwise they would "have...a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas." The Supreme Court will hear arguments whether the House can have access to Robert Mueller's unredacted report—in the fall. Josh Marshall goes over the "ominous and harrowing"...

Welp, it's July now, so we've completed half of 2020. (You can insert your own adverb there; I'll go with "only.") A couple of things magically changed or got recorded at midnight, though. Among them: The Lake Michigan-Huron system finished its 6th consecutive month of record high water levels, with June 2020 levels a full meter over the long-term average. Illinois' minimum wage went up to $10 per hour, and Chicago's to $14. Both minima will increase by $1 per year until they reach $15. China has...

Vox has called the US Senate Democratic Party primary in Kentucky for Amy McGrath, but the main national outlets don't have it yet. [Note: I have contributed financially to Amy McGrath's campaign.] So while I wait for confirmation from the Washington Post (or, you know, the Kentucky State Board of Elections), here's other fun stuff: As threatened, the European Union has barred travelers from the United States from entering, because of our shit response to Covid-19. The shit response includes record...

The Midwest has an embarrassment of riches right now as the Lake Michigan-Huron system enters its sixth straight month of record water levels, a mere 12 cm below its all-time high: The lake is nearly 3 feet higher than usual for early summer and approaching the historical high, set in October 1986, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the official records for all of the Great Lakes. As Chicagoans return to the lakefront and the 18-mile Lakefront Trail, which officially reopens...

My inbox does not respect the fact that I had meetings between my debugging sessions all day. So this all piled up: Josh Marshall calls our Covid-19 response an "abject failure" compared to, say, Europe's. Paul Krugman says it shows we've "failed the marshmallow test." Former CIA acting director Michael Morell says President Biden will inherit "a world of trouble." ("Arguably, only Abraham Lincoln, with Southern secession waiting, faced a tougher challenge when taking office than would Biden.") Illinois...

The second-wettest spring in Chicago's history ended Sunday, clocking in at 427 mm of precipitation since March 1st. (The record was 445 mm set in 1983.) Temperatures averaged just a bit above normal for the season, at 10.2°C (1.0°C above normal). Today we might get a record high temperature. The forecast calls for 33°C, which would tie the record set in 1944. Also, the Lake Michigan-Huron system finished its fifth straight month with record water levels, averaging about 930 mm above normal. The...

Briefly: Illinois surpassed 100,000 cases of Covid-19 as of today, but all four regions of the state remain on target to move into phase 3 (think: outdoor restaurant seating) a week from Friday. Josh Marshall says "wear your damn mask." Jessica Goldstein wonders when we'll mourn the dead? Another unit test is taking forever. I turned on "long running tests" so I knew it wouldn't be quick.

I think today is Tuesday, the first day of my 10th week working from home. That would make today...March 80th? April 49th? Who knows. It is, however, just past lunchtime, and today I had shawarma and mixed news: Carbon emissions have declined 17% year-over-year, thanks to Covid-19-related slowdowns reducing petroleum consumption. (See? It's not all bad news.) Crain's Chicago Business reviews how businesses rate Mayor Lori Lightfoot's first year in office. And their editorial board says we should "start...

Just when you thought the Republican Party couldn't become more anti-science and pro-profit (at the expense of workers), the Wisconsin Supreme Court just struck down Wisconsin's stay-at-home order on a 4-3 party-line vote. If only that were all: Jennifer Rubin points out that "Trump's abject hypocrisy shows us where he's failed." Not only has Trump "lost the plot," he "has no plan," according to two articles this week in The Atlantic. How is this news cycle different from all other news cycles? The US...

I read the news today, oh boy: Close to 2,000 former Justice Department and FBI officials called on Attorney General William Barr to resign, which he won't do because he's this close to total world domination. Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord agrees. Chicago will open six new Covid-19 testing sites around the city in an effort to get to 10,000 tests per day. Pilot-journalist James Fallows says "air travel is going to be very bad, for a very long time." Cranky...

Remember slow news days? Me neither. Republican legislators and business owners have pushed back on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's plan to re-open the economy, preferring instead to force their employees into unsafe situations so they can return to making money. Professional dilettante Jared Kushner's leadership in getting a bunch of kids to organize mask distribution went about as well as one might predict. More reasonable people simply see how it means we're going to be in this a while. California...

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced this afternoon a five-phase, evidence-based plan to reopen the state: The five phases for each health region are as follows: Phase 1 – Rapid Spread: The rate of infection among those tested and the number of patients admitted to the hospital is high or rapidly increasing. Strict stay at home and social distancing guidelines are put in place and only essential businesses remain open. Every region has experienced this phase once already, and could return to it...

As Illinois hits 2,662 Covid-19 deaths and the CDC says the country will hit about that number every day by month's end, May the 4th be with us: Newly-disgorged White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany began her very first press briefing by saying "I will never lie to you." You'll never guess what she did next. James Fallows draws a comparison between former President George W Bush's video message to the country last week and the current president's behavior. New Republic's Libby Watson says, "For...

Congratulations! You've made it to the end of April. This month has felt like one of the longest years of my life, and probably yours. So as we head into May, here's what the last few hours of April have wrought: Yesterday, we found out that US GDP had declined 4.8% in the first quarter. Today, we found out another 3.6 million people filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total to 30 million. The worst economy in a decade has become the "worst in our lifetime." The New York City subway will halt...

A small-town Republican Illinois State Representative sued in a small-town State court to have Governor Pritzker's stay-at-home order overturned—for himself, personally: The ruling by Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney came in a lawsuit filed by Bailey, a Republican from the small town of Xenia, which challenged Pritzker’s authority to issue extended stay-at-home orders under the state’s Emergency Management Act. In seeking the injunction April 23, Bailey asked the judge to find that the...

The only president this country has right now massively trolled my party and my state today: As talk in Washington has swiftly moved to the next coronavirus relief package, President Donald Trump on Monday questioned whether federal taxpayers should provide money of “poorly run” states and cities run by Democrats, specifically citing Illinois. “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed...

The President of the United States, a man who literally has the power to kill billions of people in an hour, made a suggestion at his press briefing yesterday: (NBC's report on the incident includes the line "He didn't specify the kind of disinfectant." Also, retired General Wesley Clark actually predicted it would come to this.) The Post: In a statement Friday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany noted that Trump had said Americans should consult with their doctors about treatment. U.S....

Welcome to day 31 of the Illinois shelter-in-place regime, which also turns out to be day 36 of my own working-from-home regime (or day 43 if you ignore that I had to go into the office on March 16th). So what's new? Oy: Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele says America "has been abused by this president." George Packer says "we are living in a failed state." Josh Marshall calls Covid-19 "an extinction-level event for news." The Trump International Hotel has asked its landlord, the...

Demand for petroleum has crashed so hard and so fast that North American oil producers have run out of space to store the excess. This morning the price of US crude collapsed, falling 105 500% to $-2 $-37.63 per barrel; Canadian oil prices also dropped negative. That's right, if you want to take a million or so barrels off their hands, they'll pay you to do so. (This only affects delivery by month's end; for delivery in May, oil still costs $20 a barrel.) Meanwhile, in other horrific news: Canada...

Today is the 245th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, which began the American Revolution. It's also the 25th anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. And day 28th day of Illinois' stay-at-home order.

No, really, the president Tweeted that earlier today: LIBERATE MINNESOTA! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020 I mean, what the actual f? (He also wants to liberate Michigan and Virginia, by the way.) Charlie Pierce warned only Monday that this kind of nonsense was coming: The acting director of the Office of National Intelligence is encouraging citizens to break local laws, endangering themselves and others, in the middle of a pandemic. Of all the screwy moments that we have experienced...

Unemployment claims jumped another 6.6 million in the US last week bringing the total reported unemployed to 16.8 million, the largest number of unemployment claims since the 1930s. Illinois saw 200,000 new claims, an all-time record, affecting 1 in 12 Illinois workers. And that's just one headline today: The latest figures estimate Illinois will have 1,600 covid-19 deaths by August 4th and that hospitalizations will peak this weekend, a welcome revision of the previous estimate (3,400 deaths and April...

Indiana University history professor Rebecca Spang compares the world's response to Covid-19 to the conditions that led to the French Revolution in 1789: Fear sweeps the land. Many businesses collapse. Some huge fortunes are made. Panicked consumers stockpile paper, food, and weapons. The government’s reaction is inconsistent and ineffectual. Ordinary commerce grinds to a halt; investors can find no safe assets. Political factionalism grows more intense. Everything falls apart. This was all as true of...

More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance last week (including 178,000 in Illinois), following the 3.3 million who filed the week before. This graphic from The Washington Post puts these numbers in perspective: Hotel occupancy has crashed as well, down 67% year-over-year, with industry analysts predicting the worst year on record. In other pandemic news: Testing in Illinois shows about 20% of the 34,000 people tested have come up positive for SARS-CoV-2, which is about the same as...

Just a few articles of note today: The City of Chicago urges residents to call 311 to report non-essential business remaining open. President Trump admitted on "Fox & Friends" this morning that adopting common-sense election reforms would mean "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." (Unless, I suppose, they changed their policies to match the mainstream, right?) The Times reports on General Motors' efforts to produce 2,000 ventilators a month (an order-of-magnitude change from...

Starting tomorrow at 5pm, through April 7th, Illinois will be on a "stay-at-home" order: Residents can still go to the grocery stores, put gas in their cars, take walks outside and make pharmacy runs, the governor said at a Friday afternoon news conference. All local roads, including the interstate highways and tollways, will remain open to traffic, as well. “For the vast majority of you already taking precautions, your lives will not change very much,” Pritzker said. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said “now is...

I spent an hour trying (unsuccessfully) to track down a monitor to replace the one that sparked, popped, and went black on me this morning. That's going to set me back $150 for a replacement, which isn't so bad, considering. Less personally, the following also happened in the last 24 hours: Former Vice President Joe Biden thumped US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in most of the 6 primary-election states yesterday. Closer to home, the Illinois House district just south of me has become the center of...

Some highlights: The Union of Concerned Scientists report that ride-hailing causes 69% more pollution than the services it displaces. Republican columnist Michael Gerson believes a Trump-Sanders matchup in November would "destroy our politics." Jeffrey Toobin explores the problems with Trump's pardons. Newly declassified documents make it clear that the NSA hoovering up phone metadata didn't accomplish anything, really. Medium tells the story of a $100m company that abruptly ceased operations last fall....

Did someone get trapped in a closed time loop on Sunday? Did I? Because this week just brought all kinds of insanity: Video emerged of the President acting like a teenager on too much Dr Pepper during the national anthem on Super Bowl Sunday. Margaret Sullivan's headline this morning: "Social media was a cesspool of toxic Iowa conspiracy theories last night. It’s only going to get worse." Yup. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker Tweeted that Illinois should lead off the next primary election cycle because...

In case you had questions about what to do when THC becomes legal for recreational use in Illinois in six weeks, Chicago Public Media has your back: What type of high are you looking for? The type of high you get depends on what strain of weed you use. The three most common categories are indicas, sativas and hybrids. Indica is a strain of weed that’s meant to help you relax or sleep. Sativa is a strain of weed that’s supposed to give you energy. And there are hybrid strains that are a combination of...

It's the last weekday of summer. Chicago's weather today is perfect; the office is quiet ahead of the three-day weekend; and I'm cooking with gas on my current project. None of that leaves a lot of time to read any of these: Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot gave her first State of the City address last night, complete with her revealing that the city has a $858 million shortfall next year. Aaron Gordon says that, essentially, Uber and Lyft are parasites, so it's no wonder they oppose California's efforts to...

Including sitting with a lost dog for 45 minutes this morning, I've had a pretty lazy Sunday. Here are some of the articles I might read if I decide to do anything productive today: Astronomers in Hawaii have mapped the structure of the entire universe. Closer to home, what's up with Jupiter's great red spot? A book published in 1968 attempted to predict the world in 2018, and got some things right. Graeme Wood calls President Trump's El Paso photo "obscene." Andrew Sullivan says, of the Democratic...

Starting today, my state has some new laws: The gasoline tax doubled to the still-too-low 10¢ per litre. Oh my stars. How could they. Ruination. (You will detect more ironic tone if you read my post from yesterday about how much gasoline I use.) For comparison with other OECD countries, the UK adds 57.95p (73.3¢) per litre, Australia gets 41.2¢ (28.6¢ US), and even Canada levies 45¢ (34¢ US). But hey, we doubled the tax, so now we can pay for our state pension deficit fixing our infrastructure....

Climate change has arrived with a splash in Illinois. Unusual rainfall combined with bad timing on this past winter's freeze-thaw cycle means we may not have much of a soybean crop this year: The soggy conditions will likely delay planting, again. Dillon, the Machesney Park resident, lives across the river from a plot of farmland he said has been barren for the last five years due to persistent flooding. "You used to be able to raise corn in that field," Dillon said. "In the last five years, I don’t...

After four years with a do-nothing governor—seriously, he did absolutely nothing—this weekend almost made up for it. The Illinois legislature passed a ton of bills that we've needed (or wanted) for a long time: Gov. J.B. Pritzker and those who believe state government needs to play a bigger, more expansive role than it has got just about everything they wanted in the session that ran only a couple of days over, from new policies on hot-button social issues such as abortion, marijuana and gambling to...

The Illinois legislature has passed a bill legalizing small amounts of recreational marijuana and directing the governor to pardon thousands of low-level drug offenders: Illinois is poised to be the 11th state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana beginning Jan. 1, 2020. The state House of Representatives approved its legalization bill 66-47 on Friday. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who campaigned on legalizing cannabis, quickly released a statement saying he’ll sign the legislation. “It is...

As Chicago finishes the wettest May in history, Bloomberg points out that all the rain has caused serious problems with Illinois agriculture: Rabobank is predicting an unprecedented number of unplanted acres of corn, the most widely grown American crop. A Bloomberg survey of 10 traders and analysts indicates growers could file insurance claims for about 6 million corn acres they haven’t been able to sow, almost double the record in 2013. Corn futures surged more than 20% to a three-year high over the...

Just a few things in the news: The Illinois legislature has approved an amendment to the state constitution that, if approved by voters in November 2020, will allow the state to set up a graduated income tax. The current proposal would slightly lower taxes for most people but dramatically increase taxes for people making over $500,000 per year. James Fallows has a look at the real complexities of the urban-rural divide in the US. James Comey has an Op-Ed in the Post about the dumb lies the President...

The veteran Chicago Public Media reporter says "Black Chicago has to stop chasing the ghost of Harold Washington:" The spirit of Harold Washington won’t save Chicago. Washington’s legacy as the city’s first black mayor and Democratic machine breaker is legendary. A remarkable 82 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 1983 race in which he first won. Compare that to the dismal 34 percent earlier this week. Unfathomable numbers when you pair them side by side. Voter turnout in mayoral races has...

Chicago has 13 people running for Mayor right now, with early voting already open and the first round vote due on the 26th. If no candidate gets an outright majority, the top-two vote-getters will have a runoff election on April 2nd. Several local news agencies have rounded up the candidates and their responses to stock questions. Here are the ones I'm reading: WBEZ - Chicago Public Media Crain's Chicago Business Chicago Tribune There are also contested elections in several wards, including mine. I've...

I wanted to post this when it came out but life intervened. A couple weeks ago, New Republic reported on the sad tale of exurban town Elwood, Ill., and the "opportunity" they seized on with a giant intermodal freight terminal in 2002: Fifteen years before Amazon’s HQ2 horserace, Elwood had won the retail lottery. “Nobody envisioned what we have out here,” said Jerry Heinrich, who sat on the board of the planning commission that first apportioned the land for development in the mid-1990s. “It was never...

Crains' Springfield, Ill., correspondent provides a vignette showing why Bruce Rauner couldn't get anything done in his one and only term as Illinois governor. A bill the governor supports got lost in the shuffle between the Illinois House and Senate, prompting him to send a nasty letter to the press before sending it to Senate president John Cullerton. Why didn't the governor just use his legislative liaison office? Rich Miller explains: [T]he governor's office employs a large number of people who get...

Greg Hinz reports that Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner's internal polling numbers suggest his re-election race is a lot closer than the rest of the state believes: The message came in an exclusive interview with Rauner campaign manager Betsy Ankney in which she claimed the incumbent has pulled within single digits of Democratic nominee J.B. Pritzker in internal campaign polls, and promised to empty a "very full" book of opposition research on him.  "In our focus groups, people can't cite a...

The Associated Press has obtained the latest edition of the Chicago Crime Commission's "Gang Book." It shows the turfs claimed by 59 gangs, including many small areas formed as groups split off from other groups after top leaders go to jail. The book also highlights how social media make gang disputes worse: Gangs put a premium on retaliation for perceived disrespect. In the past, insults rarely spread beyond the block. Now, they’re broadcast via social media to thousands in an instant. “If you’re...

Tim Jones, writing in Crain's for the Better Government Association, says the experiences of Minnesota and Kansas put the lie to claims that people are leaving Illinois because of taxes: The scapegoat nominees include not just high taxes but House Speaker Michael Madigan, Gov. Bruce Rauner, government regulations, financial chaos and uncertainty from a two-year budget stalemate, not to mention old standbys greed and corruption. That's where Minnesota looms as a spoiler of the tax-cutting political...

New Republic's Matt Ford points to Rod Blagojevich's cynical attempts at getting President Trump to pardon him as evidence that Trump is "the world's most powerful rube:" All of this makes Trump essentially the perfect mark: a man who’s easily flattered, short-tempered, quick to blame others, intellectually incurious, brimming with self-assurance, and unwilling to reflect on his own misjudgments. That’s an extraordinary stroke of luck for Blagojevich, since any other president would probably have seen...

For the first time in the institution's 229 years, a sitting U.S. Senator—from my own state, no less—has given birth: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) gave birth Monday to a baby girl, the first time a sitting senator has delivered a child and one of just 10 female lawmakers to bear a child while serving in Congress. Duckworth, 50, and her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, named their daughter Maile Pearl Bowlsbey after Bowlsbey’s great aunt. Pearl Bowlseby Johnson was an Army nurse during World War II. Duckworth...

I'm actually coughing up a lung at home today, which you'd think gives me more time to read, but actually it doesn't. Really I just want a nap. Andrew Sullivan's weekly column asks whether this is the beginning of the end for the President. Even absent the Russia scandal, the new tariffs make no sense at all, and represent the shrinking of America (at least to Jeet Heer). Even the Wall Street Journal thinks it's the biggest policy blunder of his presidency. David Corn points out that Hope Hicks, late of...

For my entire school life, from Kindergarten to 12th grade, I had daily gym class. In 1957, Illinois became the first state to require all kids to have daily PE. This was the case until this school year: The law cuts daily PE to a minimum of three days per week and, starting in seventh grade, students involved in interscholastic or extracurricular athletic programs could skip PE. Those moves and more were touted as a way to save money, but some fear the changes will push PE to the back burner of the...

The Census Bureau released new estimates today that show Illinois has slipped below Pennsylvania, and is now the 6th most populous state. Says Crains' Greg Hinz: The bureau had no breakdown on what's responsible for the decrease. But recent political infighting likely didn't help, and the state's job growth has been half or less of the nation's in recent years. Also, the state is believed to be attracting far fewer immigrants than in the 1990s and 2000s, something that boosted the state's population...

Maybe, if enough Republicans show up to the Illinois House for this afternoon's veto override vote: [S]tate government is two years into a record budget impasse that has universities on the brink of losing their accreditation, many social service nonprofits too broke to serve the needy and roadwork at a standstill. Without a budget deal by mid-August, many elementary and high schools will have to scrape the barrel of their reserves in order to be able to open their doors for the new school year. The...

The top story from this past weekend is that Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed the state budget the legislature proposed, and within an hour the Illinois Senate had voted to override. We haven't had a state budget in more than two years. The governor is an ideological Republican in a majority-Democratic state. Crain's Greg Hinz explains: Statements from two of the main antagonists, Rauner and Senate President John Cullerton, underlined just how wide the political and philosophical gap remains. "The package...

I really need some sleep. And some time to read all of these: Mark Bowden, writing in the latest issue of The Atlantic, explains why North Korea is the "worst problem on Earth". Jeet Heer writes in defense of Nancy Pelosi. Josh Marshall says the President's actions around the Russia probe are prima facie evidence of criminal acts. The Crain's editorial board tells the Wall Street Journal to bugger off and quit making the stalemate in Springfield worse. CityLab's Feargus O'Sullivan bemoans London's...

Crain's asks, Who wants to move to Chicago? A major Chicago company, we hear, is having a harder time persuading recruits to move here. Full employment, especially among the well-compensated professionals it's hiring, might seem to blame. But the company isn't struggling to attract talent in markets where jobless rates are even lower than metro Chicago's most recent rate of 4.3 percent. What's the problem then? It's the candidates' fear that Chicago and Illinois generally have become risky places in...

Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg put the Rauner administration in context in a column a couple of weeks ago: Not only did Rauner fail to make tangible progress, but he didn’t even tread water properly. The normal operation of the state, such as passing an annual budget, failed to occur, sacrificed on the altar of the governor’s hunger for term limits, union enfeeblement and other unrelated pet causes. He’s like an office manager getting himself hired by promising to expand a business who then promptly...

Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner believes in smaller government and lower taxes, so much so that he's blocked the state budget process since the last budget ended in June 2015. Since the state has no budget, we haven't paid our bills, so our IOUs just keep getting bigger: Moody's Investors Service says the state's backlog of unpaid bills and other obligations now is rising roughly $450 million a month, hitting $6.6 billion as of Dec. 31. Projections from Rauner's budget are that the total will...

Too many interesting things to read today. I've got some time between work and Bel Canto to get through them: An astronomer thinks he knows the origin of the Wow! signal. A Chicagoist writer has crunched the numbers on Restaurant Week. Crain's looks at the new Illinois Cloud Tax and its effects on tech startups. Krugman shows, one more time, how much better things are now than at the beginning of Obama's presidency. Hanselman describes WallabyJS, a new JavaScript test runner. Jetbrains has developed a...

Apparently we have two. The old one: And the new one: And as a bonus, here's a squirrel: