Events

Because the world will end if 99-year-old Wrigley Field retains any of its historic character, at least according to its current owner, the Ricketts family have pushed the Landmarks Commission to approve an ugly Jumbotron in left field. It may get approved today: At the strong urging of Mayor Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Commission on Landmarks is expected to approve the team's plans for a 6,000-square-foot electronic sign in left field and a smaller non-electronic sign in right. [M]ultiple sources...

Via Sullivan:

Yesterday I noted with some concern that a latter-day Pinkertons-like army had appeared outside a mine in Wisconsin. Josh Marshall follows up: When a fishy paramilitary firm run out of a Real Estate Agency in Scottsdale, Arizona shows up in the North Woods of Wisconsin to protect some mining equipment with a slew guards sporting Death Squad chic, that’s, I have to say, a story I want to know more about. But there’s more to it than just the gonzo freakishness of the story. It’s stories like this, I...

Remember the Pinkertons? Well, to add to the trend of turning back the clock to the 1880s, we can now add Pinkertons with automatic rifles guarding a Wisconsin mine from environmentalists: There’s been a battle royal up in Wisconsin over an effort to establish a big iron mining operation near Lake Superior, to be owned and operated by a company called Gogebic Taconite. The Republican legislature approved the mine in March over environmentalists’ objections. Some protests have been staged since the...

It seems that some insurance companies have decided armed schools are too risky to cover: But already, EMC Insurance Companies, the liability insurance provider for about 90 percent of Kansas school districts, has sent a letter to its agents saying that schools permitting employees to carry concealed handguns would be declined coverage. “We are making this underwriting decision simply to protect the financial security of our company,” the letter said. Jenny Emery, head of the Association of Governmental...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2013 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 19:59 14:06 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:49 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:14 19:29 13:15 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:02 12:31 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:31 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 15:44 CDT 06:39 18:48 12:09 25 Sep 12-hour...

Yesterday, an Asiana 777 crashed on approach to San Francisco airport: Two people were killed and 49 seriously hurt when Flight 214 crashed at 11:27 a.m. But the rest of the 307 passengers and crew members escaped either unscathed or with lesser injuries, Doug Yakel, an SFO spokesman, said at an evening news conference. The plane came to rest on the side of Runway 28L, one of four runways at SFO, said Lynn Lunsford, a spokeswoman with the Federal Aviation Administration. The jetliner appeared to hit...

Another writer has taken a look at Chuck Thompson's latest and generally agreed with him: The [South], home to nine of the nation’s 10 poorest states, is rabidly against government spending, yet all of its states get far more in government subsidies than they give back in taxes, as pointed out by Sara Robinson in a 2012 piece for AlterNet, "Blue States Are the Providers, Red States Are the Parasites." I live in a blue state, New Jersey, where we get about 70 cents back for every dollar in taxes we send...

I like keeping in touch with friends on Facebook. I also enjoy playing Scrabble. Soon-to-be-Internet-flameout Zynga has a Scrabble-like game called Words With Friends that many of my friends play. Right now I've got about 10 games going. For the past week or so, Zynga has been shoving entire 30-second commercials between my turns. That is, I play a word, and I either spend the next 35 seconds or so with my computer muted and the Facebook window hidden, or I leave Words With Friends entirely. Since the...

A Dalek: Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were on a visit to the set at BBC Wales' Roath Lock studios on day three of their summer tour of Wales. The couple also met Matt Smith, who currently plays the Doctor but is stepping down, and Jenna Coleman, who plays his companion, as well as series head writer Mr Moffat. The tour included the set of the Tardis, the Doctor's time travelling ship, as well as a display of some of the show's monsters, including a weeping angel and a cyberman. I'm pretty...