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I just popped out for lunch. It's 17°C in the Loop with lots of sun, the kind of day when I wonder why I went back to the office. Summer begins Saturday. Ah, to be French and take an entire month off... This time of year has other features, many of which popped up in my various RSS feeds this morning: For the first time in his life, the XPOTUS finds himself waiting for a jury to decide whether he's a felon. In closing arguments yesterday, his attorney nearly got himself sanctioned on the spot for a...

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...

We have a truly delightful mix of light rain and snow flurries right now that convinced me to shorten Cassie's lunchtime walk from 30 minutes to 15 minutes to just 9 minutes each time I came to a street corner. I don't even think I'll make 10,000 steps today, because neither of us really wants to go outside in this crap. I'm also working on a feature improvement that requires fixing some code I've never liked, which I haven't ever fixed because it's very tricky. I know why I made those choices, but they...

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...

House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) lost the first procedural vote to prevent a second vote aimed at kicking him out of the Speaker's chair, which will probably result in him getting re-elected in a few days. The Republicans in Congress simply have no one else who can get 218 votes for Speaker. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would get 214, but no Republican would ever vote for him. And my party's caucus have absolutely no interest in helping the Romper Room side of the aisle get its own house in order. Fun...

Police Scotland has arrested Nicola Sturgeon, who resigned as first minister of Scotland two months ago, as part of their investigation into allegations the SNP misspent £600,000 of donated money: Her husband, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was arrested at their home in Uddingston near Glasgow on 5 April, and interviewed under caution for nearly 12 hours before being released without charge. The police searched their home and back garden, and also searched the SNP’s headquarters...

I just got an automated note from HR saying my PTO bank will overflow next month, so look for new Brews & Choos reviews to pop up after March 3rd. We're just that busy on my team. But that isn't the most interesting thing that happened today. No, that honor goes to waking up to hear that Nicola Sturgeon resigned this morning: Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed she is resigning as Scotland's first minister after more than eight years in the role. The Scottish National Party leader said she knew "in my head...

Wow, yesterday went on a bit. From getting on the bus to Peoria to getting off the bus back in Chicago, I spent 18 hours and 20 minutes doing something connected with the Peoria Symphony's performance of Beethoven's 9th yesterday. I think it went quite well, and I expect they'll ask us back the next time they do a huge symphonic choral work. Right now, Cassie has plotzed completely after two nights in boarding, and I need to figure out what I'm eating this week. So I'll post something more interesting...

Just a quick post of articles I want to load up on my Surface at O'Hare: Dana Milbank says that we've now lost the Cold War. In his preceding column, he said "Rudy Giuliani is the fool for our time." BBC Scotland reported last week that "more than a third of vintage Scotch whiskies...have been found to be fake." (Last year, Whisky Advocate had a list of ways to check the authenticity of your vintage Scotch.) Chicago Public Media explains how Chicago got some of its street names—and how to pronounce...

Diageo, the international beverage behemoth that owns about a quarter of Scotland's distilleries (including Caol Ila and Talisker) is investigating how to produce horrible shite that isn't at all Scotch under its existing brands: First, Diageo is considering creating “scotch whisky infusions,” low-alcohol and/or flavored alcoholic beverages sold under the same name as existing single malt or blended whisky brands. Secondly, Diageo has sought permission from the [Scotch Whisky Association trade group] to...

The Islay-based Port Ellen distillery closed in 1983, leaving only a few hundred barrels scattered throughout Scotland's blenders, and a few thousand bottles which now sell for upwards of £1,000. Diageo, which bought the Port Ellen Maltings in 1987 and all of the original Port Ellen whisky stocks, announced yesterday that it will re-open the brand in 2020 with a £35m investment: Multinational drinks company Diageo—which owns 28 malt distilleries and one grain distillery in the country—announced that it...

More Scotland photos. On the 10th, we visited the Lagavulin Distillery. But we got our first look at it from the ferry two days earlier: Up close, from the ruins of Dunyvaig Castle, it looks like this: And for comparison between the LG G6 and the Canon 7D mark II, here's the camera-phone photo I took at about the same time:

I promised to post photos from Scotland once I had a chance to go through all 800 or so from my 7D, and today, I had a (short) chance. First: the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, where we had breakfast on August 8th: Second, Glenmachrie House, where we stayed: (This is the reverse of the image I posted earlier, about an hour later, and with a real camera and HDR software.) More tomorrow.

Despite (or because of, unclear) normal Scottish weather, we killed an hour at the Laphroaig Distillery before heading out on the ferry back to the mainland. I claimed my rent on my one square foot of land* and my dram of the 10 year old. Then we got a couple more drams (in takeaway containers), a book, some lip balm, and rained upon. But I did manage this photo through the window: And then we headed to the ferry and said goodbye to Islay (for now): Now, as was common in days of yore, we're taking a few...

Safely ensconced on Islay for a couple of days. Lots of photos that will have to wait until I get back to the U.S. Many sentences without subjects. This is where we're staying: Somehow we'll cope.