Events

Apparently a former Hitler Youth called me a Nazi today: The pontiff praised Britain's fight against the Nazis - who "wished to eradicate God" - before relating it to modern day "atheist extremism". Afterwards his spokesman Federico Lombardi said: "I think the Pope knows rather well what the Nazi ideology is". Yes, Ratzinger should know what the Nazi ideology is, but I'm afraid we athiests are rather unlike him. In the same speech he also said, "I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors...

I regret my headline from Tuesday. Apparently, the man committed suicide: The young man who died in a pipe bomb explosion Tuesday in Evanston committed suicide after a nearly lifelong fight with depression, his family said Wednesday. "We are devastated that our beloved son, Colin Dalebroux, lost his 15-year battle with depression," the family said in a statement from their home in Madison, Wis. "We know that Colin committed suicide." It's one thing if he had died trying to hurt other people; quite a...

Sullivan asks, "What if the Pope came to Britain and not even the Catholics showed up?" ONLY 65,000 Catholics are now expected to take part in the papal mass in Scotland tomorrow – one third fewer than originally expected and a mere fraction of the total number in the country. The figure falls far short of the 100,000 pilgrims it was originally hoped would flock to see Pope Benedict XVI at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow. The Catholic Church denied that the controversy over the Pope's handling of the...

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.