Events

A friend of mine, who lives in a sea of Tea Partiers, sent me this question today: How would you refute/debate/argue against the following opinion: "I think it's [Paul Ryan as Romney's VP choice] a good choice because I sincerely hope the collective national attention and focus will be on the fact that we are on the verge of becoming the next Greece. And that the only hope of prosperity for our children is massive cuts in government spending and entitlement reform. I'd even be in favor of raising taxes...

From the annals of "why didn't I think of that?", an app that keeps track of where you've been so you can go somewhere else instead: [Art student Tom] Loois’s final project ended up being a smartphone app called BlankWays, which charts your progress through the city, noting which paths you’ve come down before and suggesting itineraries to cover new ground. The app indicates and measures which parts of the city you’ve traveled, and which you haven't. Loois isn’t the first person to meticulously chart his...

Via Sullivan, Gotye has assembled a "YouTube orchestra" of people covering his song "Somebody That I Used To Know:" Says Mashable's Neha Prakash: Looks like even Gotye knows his song, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” is an overplayed, viral sensation that has spawned an entire genre of YouTube covers. So the singer decided to acknowledge the hundreds of piano-playing, harp-plucking, and guitar-strumming fans who paid tribute to the catchy tune. Gotye explained: "All audio and video in Somebodies is from...

The WGN Weather Blog reported this weekend that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation has turned warm in the past couple of months, and is getting warmer. The Climate Prediction Center started noticing in July: Nearly all of the dynamical models favor the onset of El Niño beginning in July - September 2012 (Fig. 6). As in previous months, several statistical models predict ENSO-neutral conditions through the remainder of the year, but the average statistical forecast of Niño-3.4 increased compared to last...

I got back home last night after spending a week in cool, California coastal weather. Apparently I brought some of it with me: The return of sunshine this weekend is to send temperatures higher. It's a change which will be noticed given the fact it follows the first back to back below-normal days in over 6 weeks. Saturday's predicted 26°C high represents a 3°C increase from Friday's 24°C reading—and Sunday's 29°C tacks another 2°C on the day's peak reading. But, while warm and eminently comfortable, the...

Via Robert Wright, National Journal's Jim Tankersley thinks choosing Ryan makes this a contest for the middle class against the poor: Poor and middle-class workers tolerate fewer attacks on the rich in America than in other developed nations; most of them still believe that if they work hard enough, they’ve got a shot to get rich, too. Still, it’s tough to win a class war squarely on the side of the wealthy. Aspirational voters don’t like the possibility that government policy is rigged to help the rich...

It just never gets old:

Yesterday I showed Alfonso Soriano stealing third. Here's the result: Man, those were great seats. $80 at Petco; $251 at Wrigley; $450 at New Yankee. My last one this morning is the last one I took of Petco Park: Now if only the Cubs had won...

The 30-Park Geas took me to Petco Park last night, where the 4th-place Padres beat the 4th-place Cubs: I thought the park was OK. Like some of the other 21st-century parks, it seemed to lack character. It felt more corporate than, say, Camden Yards or even AT&T Park. The fans seemed to agree, as only about 27,000 showed up (out of a capacity of over 42,000. But the lack of demand for seats let me get an 8th-row field box for under $80. And that, in turn, let me get photos like this one of Alfonso...

I'm in San Diego for tonight's Cubs game. Both teams are near the bottom of their divisions, and both have had solid losing streaks lately, so this should be a fascinating game. While here, I took the advice of one of my oldest-surviving friends—really, she'd inflict violence if I said how long we've known each other—and went over to Coronado for lunch at Alexander's Pizza. Good advice; it was one of the best slices of pie I've had in years. Coming back, I couldn't help notice this passing by: That is...