Events

Earlier I brought up yesterday's (tonight's in the U.S.) elections in Israel, which surprised me because (a) they're not taking the country into a right-wing dystopia and (b) it started to look like Binyamin Netanyahu might lose his job. (b) is important because the farther away Netanyahu gets from the button, the less likely the U.S. will get drawn into an unwinnable war against Iran. Well, some hours later, the reports from Tel Aviv are encouraging, but not definitive: Hours after polls closed on...

Via some Facebook friends in Tel Aviv, I'm getting news that the Israeli election may result in a center-left coalition and sacks Netanyahu: Israel's three major television networks published exit polls on Tuesday night, after polls closed across the country at 10 P.M. According to Channel 2's exit polls, the battle was tight between the left and right, with 59 percent of votes going to the left-wing block, and 61 percent to the right. Yes, that's right, 59-61 is a possibility the way Israeli voting...

For the first time in almost two years, Chicago woke up to below--18°C temperatures. We last had a day this cold on 11 February 2011, when it got down to -19°C. And we still haven't got any snow: Lake snowfall across Michigan, despite the relatively low westerly wind-fetch (the "fetch" is the distance over which winds travel across Lake Michigan's comparatively "warm" waters) which is generating it had produced as much as 100-150 mm accumulation late Monday—and more snow is to fall there Tuesday....

After a quick weekend in New York, I'm back debugging and fixing and going to lots of meetings. So this was much appreciated:

On Wednesday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed actor Jessica Chastain, star of the film Zero Dark Thirty. There was a moment, at the end of the interview, in which she absolutely horrified me—and, it seems, him (at around 20:30): Chastain: The cover of ... was about the CIA agent going to prison for talking to a journalist about waterboarding. Stewart: You can waterboard, but the first rule of waterboard club— Chastain: Don't talk about it. Stewart: You should see it, in theaters now, Zero Dark...

...and it's pretty hideous: Reactions have been a mixed bag of negative and scathing. Here's Patrick Smith: Simply put, I cannot believe how awful a makeover this is. It’s so disappointing that it pains me even to write about it, and how anybody signed off on this I’ll never understand. The body and tail manage to be boring and garish at the same time, with a cheap, downmarket lilt to the whole thing. The typeface is the strongest aspect of the whole mess, and that’s not saying much. Those are (almost)...

Yes, this is exactly right: A big part of gun versus non-gun tribalism or mentality is tied to the difference between city and rural. And a big reason ‘gun control’ in the 70s, 80s and 90s foundered was that in the political arena, the rural areas rebelled against the city culture trying to impose its own ideas about guns on the rural areas. And there’s a reality behind this because on many fronts the logic of pervasive gun ownership makes a lot more sense in sparsely populated rural areas than it does...

The fun part about UAT is that 38 known issues can become 100 known issues in just a few hours. So, once again, I have a lot of stuff to read and no time to read it: WTF is this about a college football player's dead girlfriend hoax? It strains credulity to argue he wasn't in on it, don't you think? Cranky Flier examines the Great Chicago Aviation Fuel Scandal in which United and American save millions buying fuel from a small office in Sycamore, Ill., and not from Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has more....

We're just 45 minutes from releasing a software project to our client for user acceptance testing (UAT), and we're ready. (Of course, there are those 38 "known issues..." But that's what the UAT period is for!) When I get back from the launch meeting, I'll want to check these out: I still haven't seen President Obama's press conference from Monday. "I Haven't Sat Down In Six Months Now" is a 25-minute video tour of the ISS. An economist makes the case for eliminating parking tickets as a way to manage...

So, at the last possible moment, after much debate, my cousin and I bought our season tickets to Wrigley Field. Great view, beautiful park, possibility of a World Series this year—two out of three ain't bad. Once again, here are the seats: And here is the view: I'm sure I'll post more photos from that spot over the course of the 2013 season. And I may yet finish the geas this year, despite possibly blowing my entire baseball budget this afternoon. Probably lighter posting the rest of the week. We've got...