Events

The Atlantic has noticed a trend among millenials: they aren't buying as many cars as we did. The Times notes that less than half of potential drivers age 19 or younger had a license in 2008, down from nearly two-thirds in 1998. The fraction of 20-to-24-year-olds with a license has also dropped. And according to CNW research, adults between the ages of 21 and 34 buy just 27 percent of all new vehicles sold in America, a far cry from the peak of 38 percent in 1985. The billion-dollar question for...

Josh Marshall explains what the right has really been up to with judicial appointments: he real issue has always been the regulatory state. In any case, it is the height of judicial activism for the Court to consider striking down legislation on grounds that was barely considered — certainly not in the mainstream of jurisprudence — only two years before when the legislation was being considered. But what struck me more was how the the critical questions from the conservative bloc on the Court grappled...

And now Chicago is back on track for a record March. We woke up this morning to the gray 5°C weather we had all day yesterday, but right now O'Hare is up to 23°C—a normal temperature for Memorial Day. Warmest March ever. Warmest January to March ever. Let's see if we get the warmest spring ever...

The Washington Monthly makes a case for it being a disaster for the medium markets: St. Louis, for example, has seen “available seat miles”— an industry measure of capacity—fall to a third of their 2000 level, following the American Airlines takeover of TWA and Lambert International Airport’s subsequent downgrading as a mid-continental hub. Two of Lambert’s five concourses are now virtually empty, and another, which housed the TWA hub, is only partially used. A third runway—the building of which...

I mentioned getting a list of recommendations for things to see in Marylebone. La Fromagerie was one of them: Also, I did stop and notice other artwork in the Louvre; here's one of them, by Botticelli: I really need to go back to both.

Oh, my, where to begin? Former vice president and war criminal Dick Cheney now has a heart. Here's video from the hospital: Of course, we have to consider the donor: And the long-term implications:

Via reader DB, a report of a coyote captured in downtown Boston: At about 3 p.m., the 40-pound animal was finally located by Animal Rescue League workers. It was found cowering next to a downtown building near the corner of Lincoln and Summer streets, surrounded by a crowd of curious onlookers and police. Using teamwork, a large net, and a catchpole, the rescue workers were able to catch it. [A Boston Animal Rescue League spokesman] suspected that the animal most likely was able to enter the city by...

The New Yorker takes a look at why Mitt Romney seems so out of touch: in the nineteen-seventies and eighties consultants tended to figure employees as simply part of a firm’s costs. In the whirlwind of creative destruction, employees are subject to the “churn”—the turnover that is an inevitable by-product of the struggle among firms to compete. [O]f the approximately one hundred deals that Bain Capital made during Romney’s tenure there either lost money or only broke even, the successful deals were...

The hits just keep on coming as Chicago hits yet another new heat record (28°C): In Chicago...prior to this year there had only been 10 days in March with highs in the 80s [Fahrenheit, 26.7°C], which means on average, Chicago only sees an 80 degree high in March once about every 14 years. Already this month, there have been seven [now eight—db] days at or above 80. Including the [eight] days at or above 80 this March, there have now been a total of [18] March days at or above 80 in Chicago. This means...

Researchers at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station have been watching the sun set for weeks. At the poles, the sun traces an excruciatingly slow corkscrew between equinoxes, first spiraling up to a point 23° above the horizon (only about as high as the sun gets in Chicago around 10am on December 21st) on the solstice, then slowly spiraling back down to the horizon over the next three months. In about an hour from now, the last limb of the sun will slip below the south polar horizon, the twilight gradually...