Thanks, Bruce!
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...
View ArticleAll vaxxed up
I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine today. So pfar, I haven't notices any pside epffects.Actually, that's not true. I'm four hours in and I'm starting to feel a heaviness to the injection site...
View ArticleFinally recovered?
Hello, CDC? I'd like to report some side-effects of my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. To wit: All I wanted to do on Friday was sleep. When I finally slept, my left arm was sore enough to wake me up...
View ArticleHappy birthday, NPR!
The American news and information radio network turns 50 today:It's been a turbulent time, with a deadly pandemic and a chaotic — sometimes violent — political climate. In the midst of all this, NPR is...
View ArticleFound an old game. Now what?
Over the weekend, I stooped down to give Cassie some pats while she slept on her bed in my office, and realized I had a cache of turn-of-the-century computer games on a lower shelf. Among them I found...
View ArticleSomeone call "Lunch!"
We have gloomy, misty weather today, keeping us mostly inside. Cassie has let me know how bored she is, so in the next few minutes we'll brave the spitting fog and see if anyone else has made it to the...
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New US climate normals have arrived
The decennial update of the 30-year US climate normals dropped this afternoon. They show the US has gotten measurably warmer over the 1981-2010 normals:NOAA’s new U.S. Climate Normals give the public,...
View ArticleOn this day...
May 5th has some history, and not just about a relatively minor battle in Mexico that most Mexicans don't even remember.For example, two hundred years ago today, Napoleon died and The Guardian was...
View ArticleLunchtime reading
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...
View ArticleHow cities will fossilize
University of Edinburgh literature professor David Farrier adapts his book Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils for the BBC:If cities have a geological character, it begs the question of what they...
View ArticleBelgium invades France
With France and the UK sending naval vessels to the Isle of Jersey last week, it's only fitting that Belgium got into the historical reenactment game:Apparently frustrated by a 200-year-old stone...
View ArticleBeyond farcical in Arizona
A supporter of the XPOTUS has organized, with the help of the Arizona State Senate, a private hand-recount of Maricopa County's ballots. Apparently they're looking for bamboo fibers? Yeah, it's just as...
View ArticleBad faith and unfair dealing
The bankruptcy court for the Northern District of Texas has dismissed the National Rifle Association's bankruptcy petition as a sham meant to avoid the New York Attorney General's case against...
View ArticleThe future of working from home
The Atlantic's Amanda Mull believes that workers will benefit most from choosing when to work from home or in the office themselves, rather than through corporate policies:[R]umors of the office’s...
View ArticleUnmasked!
The CDC has changed its guidance on Covid-19. People who are fully vaccinated (that's me, 2 weeks as of today!) no longer need to wear masks in most places:The advice from the Centers for Disease...
View ArticleLeaving on a jet plane
Now that I'm more than two weeks past my second Pfizer jab, I'm heading to O'Hare tomorrow for the first time since January 2020. I remember back in September 2018 when I finally broke my longest-ever...
View ArticleGood morning!
Two travel stories arrived in my mailbox overnight. First, China has landed a probe on Mars, becoming the third country in history to do so:The touchdown makes China the second country in history to...
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Lovely to see you again
Almost 16 months since I last flew anywhere, I have returned to O'Hare:Despite traveling on Saturday afternoon, which historically has meant few delays and a quiet airport, the traffic coming up here...
View ArticleWhy do we go through this every year?
Washington Post columnist Helaine Olin argues for a simplified tax filing procedure in the US:Filing taxes is a time-consuming, bureaucratic chore that the Internal Revenue Service estimates will take...
View ArticleThe walls close in a little
The New York Attorney General's office has tightened the screws on the Trump Organization:"We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil...
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