Events

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein yesterday expanded on how American Airlines' unions bested management by dealing directly with US Airways: Bankruptcy has changed [the unions' bargaining strengths]. Suddenly, airline executives discovered a way to unilaterally abrogate their labor agreements, fire thousands of employees and impose less generous pay and more flexible work rules. Indeed, the technique proved so effective that several airlines went through the process several times. The unions’...

The Tribune has a graphic this morning pointing out a number of things about our lack of snow this past winter. It turns out, the snowfall on March 4th was the earliest last snowfall. That is, in the rest of recorded history (back to 1884), we've always gotten snow later than March 4th. Until this year. Our entire season gave us only 11 days with 25 mm or more of snow on the ground (normal is 43); it was one of only 10 seasons (out of 128) with less than 500 mm of snowfall total (normal is 932 mm); and...

New video from the Obama campaign, featuring one of the dumbest things Mitt Romney ever said:

He lasted less than four weeks as office dog. Workplace tip: when you greet the boss first thing in the morning, do not immediately thereafter poop on his carpet.

Oh yeah.

Despite the rise of right-leaning economics ideology, reality stubbornly retains its liberal bias, with further evidence today coming from the latest UK economic figures: The UK economy has returned to recession, after shrinking by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012. A sharp fall in construction output was behind the surprise contraction, the Office for National Statistics said. "The huge cuts to public spending - 25% in public sector housing and 24% in public non-housing and with a further 10% cuts...

The 30-park geas continues apace. Here's my progress so far: City Team Park Built First visit Last visit Next visit Chicago Cubs NL Wrigley Field 1914 1977 Jul 24 2014 Sep 24 Los Angeles Dodgers NL Dodger Stadium 1962 1980 Jul 28? 2001 May 12 New York Mets NL Shea Stadium§ Citi Field 19662009 1988 Sep 15† 2012 Jul 6† 1997 Apr 19† 2012 Jul 6† Houston Astros NL Enron Field Minute Maid Park‡ 2000 2001 May 9 2009 Apr 7† Milwaukee Brewers NL Miller Park 2001 2006 Jul 29 2008 Aug 11 Kansas City Royals AL...

At least this year, in Illinois, where the average temperature is actually below March's—and it's still above normal: The statewide average temperature for April 1-22 is 12.3°C. The statewide average temperature for March was 12.8°C, based on the latest numbers from NOAA. That means that April was almost a degree [Fahrenheit] cooler than March. What makes this even more freaky is that the April temperatures are still 1.9°C above normal! BTW, the statewide normal monthly temperature is 4.8°C for March...

Over the weekend it came out that US Airways had started discussions with pilots, mechanics, and flight attendants at rival American Airlines. The unions are encouraging the companies to merge: The first thing to know is that this doesn't mean that the two airlines are merging—it's a step towards a merger, but a deal is far from certain. AA, for its part, has said that it wants to emerge from bankruptcy as an independent airline. But industry analysts have long discounted that as an unrealistic goal—as...

I had meant to make a note of my 3,000th blog posting, but I completely forgot it was coming. So, after 2,353 days (and 24 minutes), three house moves, a few significant personal events, and Parker's entire life, The Daily Parker is still going strong. At the historical posting rate for the blog (1.28 per day), I'll hit 6,000 entries in September 2018 and 10,000 entries by April 2027. (For the last two years, though, I've posted about 1.5 per day, so you could see 10,000 as early as April 2025.) Stick...