Events

There is no reason for this post beyond the obvious:

Someone has put something in the water today. News organizations seem to have made some surprising discoveries today: American Public Media's Marketplace reports that the French government has started measuring ennui in addition to GDP. The Economist published a chart this morning showing, among other things, China has overtaken the US in brisket rubbing. One hopes it wasn't a dry rub. Google has introduced a new interface for GMail based on body motion. Donald Trump appears to have jumped on the...

Via Gulliver, Air New Zealand has a new safety video, which isn't quite up to the bar set by their previous one:

Youtube contributor hatinhand has compiled 71 movie spoilers:

The Chicago Tribune reported today that coyotes living on the North Side sing along to ambulance sirens: In a posting on his website, Ald. Patrick O'Connor, 40th, says many residents near the hospital have reported seeing coyotes. Additionally, residents have reported hearing what sounds like a chorus of coyotes howling in response to ambulance sirens. Coyotes vanished from the Chicago area by the end of the 19th century, but they've made a comeback in recent years. Alderman O'Connor says the coyotes...

Reader DM commented on yesterday's lament about Inbev acquiring Goose Island Brewery: This is definitely not a good thing, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. The brewpubs are reported not to be in the deal (I'm not sure how that is), but that is what I've read. They are also bringing in Brett Porter to run things, who is a pretty good brewmaster from Dechutes Brewery out in Oregon. I've have a few of their brews and they are pretty good. It makes absolutely no sense...

More on Anheuser-Busch's sad acquisition of Goose Island Brewery. First, Brewmaster Greg Hall told the Tribune about the trouble he's seen: In an interview with the Tribune last month, brewmaster Greg Hall said the company’s sales had “outpaced our forecast in 2010, so that we weren’t quite ready for all of the growth we got.” Goose Island also hired an investment banker to assist the family in securing funds for expansion. Although the Craft Brewers Alliance’s 2006 investment in Goose Island has...

Four years after starting a distribution deal, Goose Island Brewery announced today that they've sold out completely to the megabrewery: Goose Island Beer Co., the Chicago-based brewing powerhouse, announced this morning that it will be taken over by Anheuser-Busch. Brewmaster Greg Hall will be stepping down. Can't imagine why: Anheuser-Busch reached an agreement to purchase the majority (58 percent) equity stake in FSB from its founders and investors, held in Goose Holdings Inc. (GHI), for $22.5...

The New Republic's John McWhorter doesn't worry about public cursing: Language is all about creeping numbness, jokes wearing thin, feeling devolving into gesture. Terrible once meant truly horrific. The will we use to mark the future once meant that you quite robustly “willed” to do something, but diluted into just indicating that sometime you would. Hence a burnt steak as terrible, a good movie as awesome, trivial terms like shopaholic based on the glum source alcoholic, and just as naturally, we now...

Chicago got the name "windy city" from...well, no one really knows, but in fact Amarillo and New York top the league chart for average windiness: Notice Chicago isn't even in the top 10. Which isn't to say we're not blowhards; we're just not that windy. (Full-size image at The Chicago Tribune.)