Monday afternoon stories
Just a few:Jerusalem Davis bemoans how community input has become “whoever yells the loudest and longest wins.”Max Boot says we shouldn't fear Putin.An Air France B777 captain and first officer both...
View ArticleWho took a leak on the Supreme Court?
South Texas College of Law Houston Law Professor Josh Blackman sketches out a timeline pointing to a right-wing Justice's clerk as the likely source of the Dobbs leak:First, where did the leak come...
View ArticleOn the gloamin moors
Gray skies, day 45: they say the sun will come out tomorrow. I would not bet my bottom dollar on that.In any event, I'll be in San Francisco for a couple of days, where they've had sun on and off for a...
View ArticleThe sun did come out
Chicago actually had clear skies and lovely spring weather today. That said, I'm in San Francisco this weekend, where the weather is almost exactly the same (12°C and clear).Posting will be sporadic...
View ArticleThe ambassador's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too
A little-known United Nations agency would like its $22 million back, please:At the United Nations, two officials had a problem. The little-known agency they ran found itself with an extra $61 million,...
View ArticleMonday morning round-up
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...
View ArticleJust one or two stories today
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...
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Mikkeller Bar, San Francisco
Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.Brewery: Mikkeler Bar, 34 Mason St., San FranciscoTrain line: BART, PowellTime from Chicago: about 4½ hours by airDistance from station: 200...
View ArticleVladimir Putin, angry child
Julia Ioffe, a Soviet refugee who knows more about Russia than just about any other American journalist, fills in the gaps on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's childhood. In sum, he's an angry,...
View ArticleTotal Perspective Vortex
NPR did a segment this morning on the 1978 movie Grease, which correspondent Dori Bell had never seen—since, you know, she's a late Millennial. As I listened to the movie, while slowly waking up and...
View ArticleMonty the piping plover dies suddenly
The male of the Montrose Beach endangered piping plover couple, who has spent the last three weeks waiting for his true love to return, died yesterday:“It is with great sadness that we confirm the...
View ArticleMargaret Atwood on the Alito draft opinion
Canadian author Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale in the 1980s, when the establishment of a theocracy in 21st-century Massachusetts seemed like science fiction. Today, she worries she might...
View ArticleThe collapse of crypto
I want to call attention to an article from October by Ben Mackenzie and Jacob Silverman that seems prescient today:Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has compared [the...
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One million dead (or more)
The CDC reported today that the US has officially passed 1 million Covid deaths:The confirmed number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 336 days. It is roughly equal to how many...
View ArticleWhat did we say about crypto?
Don't. Just don't. Tulips look like a better investment than cryptocurrency.First, the Justice Department has launched a prosecution against an unnamed defendant for allegedly laundering $10 million in...
View ArticleStuff I didn't have time to read today
I had to put out a new version of the Inner Drive Azure tools for my day job today, and I had more meetings than I wanted (i.e., a non-zero number), so these kind of piled up:Master Strategist Vladimir...
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Spring, Summer, Spring, Summer, who knows
This week's temperatures tell a story of incoherence and frustration: Monday, 26°C; Tuesday, 16°C; yesterday, 14°C; today (so far), 27°C. And this is after a record high of 33°C just a week ago—and a...
View ArticleTwo thoughts about the world
First, I believe this might be the greatest gaffe* of the 21st century:Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of...
View ArticleCovid isn't like the flu. It's like smoking
The Atlantic makes a solid case for treating Covid-19 as a behavior problem, not a virus:The “new normal” will arrive when we acknowledge that COVID’s risks have become more in line with those of...
View ArticleMonty and Rose live on
The endangered piping plovers who nested at Montrose Beach the last three years have gone. Monty died suddenly last week, and Rose has not returned to Chicago. (Maybe Monty died of a broken heart?)But...
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