Events

This caught my eye this morning only because it occurred directly across the street from where I lived during most of 2007. Parker used to chase tennis balls in the tennis courts right near the scene: A man walking his dog this morning near an Evanston middle school discovered a decapitated body, perhaps the result of a pipe bomb explosion, and some hours later police destroyed what they suspected was an explosive device in the vicinity. He said his dog led him to the body of a shirtless man whose head...

As I mentioned on Parker Day (September 1st, the day I adopted him), I've had a little too much going on to get a good portrait of the dude. It's beautiful in Chicago this morning, so I made the time today:

Did you know what goes on inside figs? Figs are not actually fruits but a mass of inverted flowers and seeds that are pollinated by a species of tiny symbiotic wasps. The male fig flower is the only place where the female wasp can lay her eggs, at the bottom of a narrow opening in the fruit that she shimmies her way through. The baby wasps mature inside the fig into males that have sharp teeth but no wings and females ready to fly. They mate, the males chew through the special fig pollen holders and...

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.