Overdue court reform
President Biden has (finally!) proposed using the power of Article I to de-politicize Article III:[W]e have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court...
View ArticleOnly 14 weeks to go
The US election is 98 days away, and August starts Thursday. Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'...into the future...And yet, the ever-present Now keeps us here:Both Paul Krugman and Molly White...
View ArticleYou were expecting the Oxford Union?
The XPOTUS's handlers cut short his appearance this afternoon at the National Association of Black Journalists convention just 2 km from where I'm sitting. The XPOTUS began by insulting the hosts and...
View ArticleThursday night link club
I had a burst of tasks at the end of the workday, so I didn't get a chance to read all of these:Associate Justice Sam Alito (R) drafted such loony-right-wing opinions in two major cases this term that...
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It might cool off next week
The Climate Prediction Center's 6-10 day temperature outlook has generally good news for the upper Midwest, including Chicago:I wouldn't want to be in New Orleans next week, but that's true most weeks...
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Is my Prius Prime efficient? Yes, in Illinois
One of my co-workers and I got into a good-natured debate about the efficiency of my Prius Prime. In addition to boasting that I used no gasoline at all last month (and only 41.6 L—11 gallons—all...
View ArticleFluffy invasion
A combination of a mild winter and the decline of natural predators has led to a rabbit explosion in Chicago:The abundance of rabbits could be due to the milder winter Chicago experienced this year,...
View ArticleRandom assortment of...stuff
This shit amused me:The Chicago White Sox have tied the American League record of 21 consecutive losses, with the MLB all-time record of 23 a distinct and shitty possibility.CrowdStrike has taken...
View ArticleLunchtime round-up
The hot, humid weather we've had for the past couple of weeks has finally broken. I'm in the Loop today, and spent a good 20 minutes outside reading, and would have stayed longer, except I got a little...
View ArticleDid the ancients have interesting times?
The problem with having 8 billion people on Earth is that every single one of us has different ideas and opinions. If there's an opinion out there so fringe and so bizarre that only 1/10th of 1% of us...
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The never-ending sadness of North American transport policy
Yesterday I went out to the exurban village of New Lenox to review one of the most remote breweries on the Brews & Choos list, near the Laraway Road station on the Southwest Service. (Fun fact:...
View ArticleClimate change oases
National Geographic examines the characteristics that make some cities better bets than others for surviving climate change:Immigrants tend to migrate to neighborhoods that meet their cultural and...
View ArticleFour longer stories
As I wait for a build pipeline to run, I'm reading these:Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus argues that the recent Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity doesn't shield the XPOTUS from the...
View ArticleHappy DNC!
The Democratic National Convention opened today here in Chicago, so naturally that's the main topic in today's lunchtime roundup:I can barely wait until Thursday when I get to see the sparkling-clean...
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Cassie's Sunday failed to suck
I mentioned that the weather today is amazing, but yesterday's was also pretty good (if a bit humid). Cassie and I walked about 18 km throughout the day and spent most of the rest of the day...
View ArticleRich people aren't like you and me
We have another glorious late-summer day in Chicago cool enough to sleep with the windows open. We still have 11 more days of summer, as the forecast reminds me, but I'll take a couple of days with...
View ArticleSkip HSR, go straight to MagLev
CityNerd lays out the economic benefits to people who live along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor from going straight to 600 km/h magnetic levitation trains instead of just to 300 km/h high-speed rail:The...
View ArticleGood morning...?
Funny thing about visiting the West Coast: staying awake past 10pm is not fun, and I wake up at 5am. Plus, Hazel decided that I was her person last night, so at various points of the night I had a...
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Expose yourself to bright light, my watch says
Garmin has a feature on some of its watches that helps you avoid jet lag by coaching you on sleep times and other things at various points around a trip. This morning, my watch advised me to get lots...
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Big Time Brewery & Alehouse, Seattle
Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.Brewery: Big Time Brewery & Alehouse, 4133 University Way NE, SeattleTrain line: Sound Transit, U DistrictTime from Chicago: about 4 hours by...
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