Events

It's sobering that babies born the day I graduated college can take their first legal drinks today.

Via Sullivan, American Public Media's Kai Ryssdal yesterday committed an act of journalism against the former defense secretary: I don’t know if y’all had a chance to listen to Donald Rumsfeld being torn a new one on Marketplace yesterday, but it was glorious to hear. Rummy was no doubt expecting softball questions about his new book Rumsfeld’s Rules and instead was grilled about how the wisdom in his book is in stark contrast to his work with Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve never felt a man squirm through...

Via Sullivan, Max Fischer at WaPo found an interesting proxy for racial tolerance: Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country...

Noam Scheiber shakes his head about the origins of the IRS-Tea Party scandal: Fine—there’s no law against neurosis. But, to borrow a thought experiment from my colleague Alec MacGillis, consider all this from the perspective of the IRS’s Cincinnati office, which handles tax-exempt groups. You’re minding your own business in 2009 when you start to receive dozens of applications from right-leaning groups, applications you didn’t solicit and don’t require. You peruse a few of the applications and it looks...

Via Kottke, a few fascinating minutes color footage of London shot in 1927: Want more 1920s UK footage? Voilà.

Less than two weeks ago, southern Minnesota had 25 cm of snow on the ground. Yesterday, the region hit 40°C following the biggest two-day temperature swing in decades: Even more dramatic were the stunning weather changes which occurred to Chicago's west Tuesday. Soaring temperatures smashed records from Nebraska into western Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin—areas which less than 2 weeks earlier had been crippled by a record-breaking foot or more of late-season snow. Albert Lea, Minnesota recorded a...

Yesterday, the Minnesota Senate passed, and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed, legislation making Minnesota the 12th state with marriage equality: Minnesota becomes the first Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage by legislative vote, and the latest victory for those working to extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples across the nation. Monday’s action technically repeals a state statute that had prohibited such unions. Gov. Mark Dayton [signed] the bill at 5 p.m. Tuesday, on the...

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield transferred command of the International Space Station to Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin yesterday afternoon. As a parting gift, with a little help from his friends (including David Bowie), he made this: I've followed Hadfield's Facebook page for a while, enjoying his photos, observations, and occasional scoops (he did, after all, know about Saturday's space walk before anyone in the press). I hope Commander Misurkin continues Hadfield's habit of posting stuff. Here, as...

Snicker: Renowned author Dan Brown hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol. The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his...

I don't usually make specific book recommendations on the blog. That said: read Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. Russell's collection of eight short stories has kept me away from productive work all day. They're funny, horrifying, surprising, entertaining. I'm going to have to read her novel Swamplandia! next.