Events

You'd think the parking-meter lease would get more popular over time, wouldn't you? Nope: Twenty of the 90 kg electronic parking pay machines have been stolen throughout Chicago since Sept. 17, police department spokesman Roderick Drew said in an e-mail. It isn't known how much cash may have been taken from the stolen machines, he said. "Area 5 Detectives have been working with LAZ Parking to address this issue. Residents who witness vandalism or suspicious behavior should call police immediately," Drew...

I mean, who else could have come up with such a creative way for Chicago to run out of cash right after he leaves office? Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is scheduled to detail the city's record budget shortfall on Wednesday. He's expected to announce plans to partially fill the $655 million defecit with money from leasing the city's parking meters and Skyway. Dick Simpson heads the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He says it makes sense to use some of the money in...

Via Bruce Schneier, it seems the assassins might not have botched anything. And you know all those CCTVs in London? More evidence they're completely useless: It has been more than eight months since the murder of top Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was found in a Dubai hotel room Jan. 20. Quick work by Dubai police and a diplomatic furor over the use of dozens of forged passports in the case fed early optimism that at least some of the 30-plus suspects would be found. But a string of...

I snagged this as the lead runners came past the 15K mark:

So said the FBI to 20-year-old Yasir Afifi when they came to collect the GPS tracking device Afifi found attached to his car: Afifi, a business marketing student at Mission College in Santa Clara, discovered the device last Sunday when he took his car to a local garage for an oil change. When a mechanic at Ali’s Auto Care raised his Ford Lincoln LS on hydraulic lifts, Afifi saw a wire sticking out near the right rear wheel and exhaust. Garage owner Mazher Khan confirmed for Wired.com that he also saw...

Today is the Chicago Marathon, and the weather is perfect—for watching it. The runners hope the temperature stays below 21°C, but it's creeping up. No matter: here are the lead runners passing through Lincoln Park about an hour and a half ago: Even more fun is when the great mass of runners stampede through, like these folks running a four-hour pace: Let's hope it stays cool for them. Update, 9:40 am: Defending champion Sammy Wajiru just won the men's race.

Via Snopes, a clip from Jamie Oliver as he demonstrates to schoolchildren in Huntington, W.Va., where their chicken nuggets come from: For the record, I eat tofu nuggets that are probably even more disgusting to some people, being made from all the leftover bits of soybeans.

From guest blogger Diane W.: Lately, the news is awash with story after story about youngsters committing suicide as a result of homophobic bullying. The nation's eye is finally turning to organizations like The Trevor Project, with celebrities climbing out of the rainbow-colored woodwork to lend their voices in the collective cry of, "Why is this happening?!" Our nation is stunned by the news, stunned, I tell you, that kids as young as 11 are taking their own lives because dying seems a better option...

Via reader AS, Newsweek's Julia Baird on the dearth of female characters in "family" films: It was startling to discover that a new study has found that there is only one female character to every three male characters in family movies. Even creepier is the fact that many of the female characters are scantily clad, and hot (the Little Mermaid wasn’t always depicted popping out of a tiny bikini top). This study, undertaken by Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti at the Annenberg School for Communication and...

Not my MBA, which finishes in 73 days. At least we're done with classes; all that remains are my distance classes and three projects. No, more interesting than that is how World War I finally ends on Sunday: The final payment of £59.5 million writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another. Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the...