Events

I've arrived in London after an enjoyable flight and a remarkably speedy trip through baggage and customs. I've also had a shower and a kip, and I'm about to leave the hotel and actually enjoy the city for a bit. Even though in the Land of Uk "one mustn't grumble," one can certainly make ill-tempered observations: Carrying a heavy bag down stairs is a much different proposition than carrying it up. And the Tube stop at Tower Hill has about 50 steps up and no escalators. As the difference between taking...

The Chicago Tribune reported this afternoon that the Red, Yellow, and Orange Lines have gotten approval for long-overdue extensions—or, in the case of the Yellow Line, restoration: The Red Line extension, some 40 years in the making, would use Union Pacific Railroad right of way. The new train service would improve mobility for low-income residents in communities under-served by mass transit on Chicago's South Side, as well as provide a new transit option for commuters from the southern suburbs who...

I need to buy a smaller bag. I learned this checking in at O'Hare a few minutes ago. It turns out, American Airlines has a 32-kilo limit on each checked bag. However, if your bag wieghs more than 22.7 kg, they charge you $50 for the overweight. My bag weighed 33 kg until I removed my one-kilo Financial Accounting binder—just the binder, not the textbook, workbook, or CD—and rearranged my other two bags to distribute the weight better. The final score: Checked bag, 31.7 kg on the nose; carry-on bag, 7.7...

I've packed, my house is in order, the forklift (needed to get my bag, and its half-ton of books, down to the curb) has arrived. But my flight doesn't leave for more than four hours. So, do I kill time at O'Hare, or at home? O'Hare, I think. That, at least, removes some of the uncertainty from the trip. Next report from London.

Via Tom Vanderbilt, a traffic safety film from Germany:

Journalist Robert Wright weighs in on the (ridiculous, I think) question of whether dogs are parasites: I suspect the historical relationship between dogs and humans has been mutualistic, not parasitic; humans have probably been pragmatic in choosing what kinds of dogs to associate with during dog-human co-evolution, thus keeping wantonly exploitative tendencies out of the canine gene pool. (If anything, the parasitism has probably worked in the other direction.) And as for the question of whether...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published its climate highlights for July 2009: An abnormally strong, persistent upper-level pattern produced more than 400 record low minimum temperatures and 1,300 record low maximum temperatures (lowest high temperature) across the nine-state area that make up the Central region. Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania experienced their coolest July on record. Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan each had their...

Via The Daily Dish, the results of the American Time Use Survey, in very cool form. Background: Sunday Business analyzed new data from the American Time Use Survey to compare the 2008 weekday activities of the employed and unemployed. ... The annual time use survey, which asks thousands of residents to recall every minute of a single day, is important to economists trying to value the time spent by those not bringing home a paycheck. The chart, though, is wicked cool.

This is a cool discovery: Scientists have found that rooks – a member of the crow family – were able to figure out how to raise the water level in a laboratory container by dropping stones inside to retrieve a tasty worm floating on the surface. The only other animal shown to be able to perform the same task is the orang-utan, which was able to grasp a floating peanut by spitting water into a tube. Scientists believe the demonstration shows that, in many respects, rooks and crows have comparable...

After Illinois passed a tough anti-corruption law in the wake of Rod Blagojevich's implosion, the Federal Highway Administration found it ran counter to U.S. law: [T]he General Assembly passed a bill making it illegal for the governor or any agency he controls, like the Illinois Department of Transportation, to award a contract to any person or entity that donated more than $50,000 to the governor's campaign fund. [S]tate Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) and the House sponsor of [a second bill that lifted...