Events

My father has posted his very first eBay listing: 50 decorative tea tins, mint condition. I'm so proud of him. By the way, if you need any tea tins—perhaps for a school project, or an art installation—you have until next Thursday to bid on them.

Over at Talking Points Memo Cafe, Gene Sperling lays out the problems with the proposals to repeal the estate tax: The nation is at war and troops have been having trouble getting the safest equipment. Child poverty has been on the rise for four straight years. Deficits are projected to total $4 trillion in the next ten years, our entitlement challenge is unresolved, working wages have been stagnating or declining, and fixing the estate tax for the top 3 of every 1000 estates in 2011 is what we should...

Anne reports a disturbing trend in modern communications: Apparently "add up" is the new "touch base:" "Let's add up this afternoon to see where you are on the research." I've heard it 5 times this morning, from 2 different people. At least with "touch base" one can kind of see the meaning, even if the phrase doesn't exactly hit one out of the park. But "add up?" I have no idea.

One of my daily digests contained a link to "How to choose the best database for your business." By Oracle. Golly. Which database do you suppose they recommend? Think it's MySql?

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson wonders why the President (959 days, 2 hours) thinks anyone really believes gay marriage is the most important issue right now: Let's check in on what's happening in the real world: Iraq has become a charnel house for the victims of escalating sectarian slaughter. On Saturday, a car bomb killed 28 people in Shiite-dominated Basra, and hours later gunmen killed nine Sunni worshipers in a mosque. On Sunday, on a road near Baghdad, assassins pulled travelers out of...

Suffering in Carmel again: The dog suffers too: And remember those minor renovations? Here's the "before:" And the "after:"

In her column today (sub.req.): There's no way to teach someone not to shoot an unarmed woman or child. If somebody doesn't already know why they shouldn't murder a baby, it's not clear that a refresher course will help.

If you're not from Chicago, you should visit in early June or mid-September. It's 22°C (72°F) and crystal clear. Tomorrow I'll be in fog central; today I'm enjoying the best of the Midwest.

After Katrina, all the major news outlets are reporting the start of the Atlantic hurricane season today. None seems to have reported that the East Pacific season began May 15th, which has already seen its first tropical storm. Perhaps Americans really don't care what happens to Mexico? Again, probably because of increased media interest, this morning's "Tropical Weather Outlook" newsletter had a lot more information than usual: TODAY MARKS THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON...WHICH WILL RUN...

The California Court of Appeal, Sixth District, has reversed a lower-court order that blogger Jason O'Grady had to turn over his sources for a story he wrote about Apple Computer: Online writers are protected by the state's shield law for reporters as well as by the 1st Amendment, the state Court of Appeal in San Jose ruled, reversing a lower court decision. Apple subpoenaed the e-mail provider of Jason O'Grady, publisher of O'Grady's PowerPage, an Internet site that posted information in 2004 about an...