Events

Josh Marshall: "Who could have predicted that an orchestrated campaign anti-Muslim hate speech on the part of many of the country's most prominent politicians and the country's biggest news network could have led to this unfortunate situation in Florida?" Indeed.

The Economist has picked up on Daley's departure: After Mr Daley privatised the city’s parking meters, drivers filled coin slots with glue and docile aldermen briefly located their spines. Last year Mr Daley struggled to close a budget gap. This summer just 31% of Chicagoans thought he should seek re-election. So who will succeed Mr Daley? The most promising contender may be Mr Emanuel. Whoever the replacement, he is unlikely to bring the dramatic changes that characterised the Daley era. But a new...

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will not run for re-election next spring: Daley's public approval rating had dipped recently, with a Tribune poll earlier this summer showing that more than half of Chicago voters said they don't want to see him re-elected. The poll found only 37 percent of city voters approve of the job Daley is doing as mayor, compared with 47 percent who disapprove. Moreover, a record-low 31 percent said they want to see Daley re-elected, compared with 53 percent who don't want him to win...

Paul Krugman noticed this poll from 1938, in which most Americans got completely wrong what the U.S. needed to get out of the depression: Do you think government spending should be increased to help get business out of its present slump? Gallup Poll, Mar, 1938 37% Yes 63% No Of course, it was massive government spending from 1942 to 1945 that actually ended the Great Depression.

I adopted Parker four years ago today. I'll snap his annual portrait this weekend (I'm a little overloaded today).

Dilbert creator Scott Adams raises an interesting point in his blog today: I'm fascinated by the degree to which brains have evolved to become more powerful than guns. Society's founding geniuses engineered a social system that encourages the young people who have guns to shoot at each other instead of robbing old people. Forgive me for calling that awesome. In other news, my total working hours for August was 275.5, so I'm actually looking forward to the Term 6 residency for a respite. We've only got...

So, in the past week I've worked 63 hours, commuted for 6, done schoolwork for 6, and walked the dog for 3. Only, the week isn't over, because I still have my Operations final due tomorrow night. And we've got a long week at work as we slog towards our production release Saturday. The Daily Parker might be sparse.

The 30-park Geas added only one notch this year: Fenway Park, last Saturday. I figure, if I only go to one baseball game this year, I might as well go somewhere I really want to go. Until Saturday I hadn't gone to a baseball game in a while—I've missed it. The game. Sigh. Both teams, Toronto and Boston, played like Cubs, for 11 innings. The Sox finally won 5-4, which is always good when they get out of the second inning up 4-1. Great B&B, too: the Newbury Guest House on Newbury Street just a few blocks...

I'm always so pleased at the way Americans want everything for free, and how bad we are at doing the basic math of transport costs, especially when a British newspaper reports on the total collapse of New York railroads today: The fire at [the Long Island Railroad] Jamaica [station] was out, but the LIRR was still running well below capacity when an electrical problem in Maryland shut down power to trains up and down the Northeast corridor. Commuters in Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington (Delaware), and...

For the first time I can recall—going back more than two years, at least, and probably longer—I don't have a flight booked to anywhere. I started realizing this as I got closer to flying to Boston last weekend. Combine that with the brand-spanking-new passport I just got, and I feel oddly confined. So, possessed of a ton of frequent-flyer miles but with no possibility of making the next level of elite status this year, and also facing a dramatic shift in my work-life balance in just over 110 days, I...