Events

The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf takes on the troubling contradiction between right-wing support of the 2nd Amendment at the expense of a few others: It's one thing to argue that gun control legislation is a nonstarter, despite tens of thousands of deaths by gunshot per year, because the safeguards articulated in the Bill of Rights are sacrosanct. I can respect that... but not from people who simultaneously insist that 3,000 dead in a terrorist attack justifies departing from the plain text of the...

In 2012: I took 15 trips, visiting 2½ countries (England, France, Wales) and 9 states (Wisconsin, New York, California, Minnesota, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia); flew 25 flight segments for 67,647 km; and drove 7,600 km. The Daily Parker grew by 535 entries, ticking along at an average of 1.48 entries per day (as it has since December 2010). I spent 189 hours walking Parker, 112 hours blogging, 222 hours commuting to work, 2,219 hours working for someone else, and 174 hours working for...

Well, here we are, just the seven point one billion of us. Here's the situation: Depending on how you reckon things, it's 平成25年, ԹՎ ՌՆԿԲ, or 12013. American children born this month will likely graduate from high school in 2031 and from college in 2035. Children born in 1992 can legally drink in the United States. Those born in 1995 can vote in the U.S. (and drink in Britain). That means it's been 21 years since Boutros Boutros-Ghali became U.N. Secretary-General, 21 years since President George H.W....

...started in the Pacific about 14 hours ago. I guess we made it, unless everything east of London has vanished and I just haven't heard yet. Happy new year. Don't forget that auld lang syne.

Thinking of making a change? "Slip out the back, Jack" just not literary enough for you? The Atlantic has some examples of break-up letters by literary figures from history. For example, Anaïs Nin: But in the middle of this fiery and marvellous give and take, going out with you was like going out with a priest. The contrast in temperature was too great. So I waited for my first chance to break—not wanting to leave you alone. You ought to know my value better than to think I can be jealous of the poor...

Yesterday Chicago only got up to -1°C. It's the first time since February 25th, 308 days earlier, that we had a high temperature below freezing, and it's the longest time in recorded history (tying the record set in 1878) Chicago has gone between them. We woke up today at -9°C, the coldest temperature here since February 11th. But tomorrow's forecast calls for a high just above freezing, giving us only 13 days in all of 2012 that failed to get above freezing. I haven't done the analysis but that seems...

Not even 8:15 in the morning, and already NPR has run a story that made me furious. It seems the latest theory right-wing billionaires have concocted to escape scrutiny has somewhat different origins from its present use: In defending secret money, [former bug exterminator Karl] Rove invokes that Supreme Court case, NAACP v. Alabama. He lines up Crossroads GPS on the same side as Parks and the NAACP, and he says the transparency advocates make the same argument as the segregationists. "I think it's...

You remember how Voyager 2 launched two weeks before Voyager 1? This is similar: I got photos of nephew #2 before nephew #1: Yes, sir, that's a baby:

Late next year, Earth could get the best show from a comet in decades: By the end of summer [Comet Ison] will become visible in small telescopes and binoculars. By October it will pass close to Mars and things will begin to stir. The surface will shift as the ice responds to the thermal shock, cracks will appear in the crust, tiny puffs of gas will rise from it as it is warmed. The comet's tail is forming. Slowly at first but with increasing vigour, as it passes the orbit of Earth, the gas and dust...

In a completely shocking, unforeseeable move, the people who stole leased Chicago's parking meters will raise rates next week: In an annual ritual that has become as predictable if not as joyous as a New Year’s Eve countdown to midnight, Chicago drivers again will have to dig a little deeper to pay to park at meters in 2013. Loop rates will go up 75 cents to $6.50 an hour as part of scheduled fee increases included in Mayor Richard Daley’s much-criticized 2008 lease of the city’s meters to Chicago...