Events

Punzun Ltd.™, an Illinois corporation doing business as Inner Drive Technology™, turned 20 years old today. I actually dreamed up the name in my high-school algebra class on 20 March 1985, so the concept is almost (gulp!) 35 years old. It's kind of cool having a corporation that could be in its second year of college if it were human. (If you don't understand the name, say it out loud. Note that "Ltd." is an abbreviation for "Limited.")

Welcome to stop #5 on the Brews and Choos project. Distillery: 28 Mile Vodka, 454 Sheridan Rd., Highwood, Ill.Train line: Metra Union Pacific North, Highwood station.Time from Chicago (Ogilvie): 52 minutes, zone EDistance from station: 300 m Chicago has far more breweries than distilleries, even though the foundation of all spirits is beer. Also, Chicago's distilleries often congregate in far-out industrial parks away from train lines. Fortunately, 28 Mile Vodka is exactly what it says on the sign, and...

Yesterday in Chicago the temperature bottomed out at -19°C after dumping 50 mm of snow on us. Today the temperature just went above freezing, where it's expected to hover for a while. So, mild winter indeed, with more ridiculousness to come.

While I do get to sign off a bit earlier today, I might not read all of these articles until tomorrow: Block Club Chicago lists 21 neighborhood spots that are great for working from home. (Do you think any will let me set up four monitors?) Seymour Island, Antarctica, recorded a temperature of 20.75°C last week, breaking the 18°C Antarctic heat record set three days earlier. From November, Christian Thrailkill speculates on "what happens to Trumpworld once Trump is gone." Ostia Nwanevu, writing for New...

Welcome to stop #4 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Lake Bluff Brewing Co., 16 E. Scranton St., Lake Bluff, Ill.Train line: Metra Union Pacific North, Lake Bluff station.Time from Chicago (Ogilvie): 61 minutes, zone GDistance from station: 100 m I liked this taproom a lot. I only had 35 minutes between trains, but that was enough time to enjoy the chill atmosphere and to try a beer. The pint of Inspiration IPA (6.2%, 66 IBU) went down cleanly and easily. It's a straightforward IPA that doesn't...

Veteran crime and justice reporter Rodney Balko outlines the pernicious effects of reducing Roger Stone's sentence while continuing to throw the book at ordinary people: So we get righteous fury over the FBI’s mistakes in obtaining wiretaps for former foreign policy adviser Carter Page, even as Republicans vote to reauthorize the law that allowed those taps and reject proposed reforms. We get President Trump bashing the federal law enforcement apparatus even as he praises countries whose governments...

Some headlines this morning: My preferred candidate for the Democratic nomination, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), came in 4th in yesterday's New Hampshire primary. John Judis is already reading her campaign its last rites. Jonathan Chait, for his part, says former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign "was a disaster for liberalism and his party." Also from TPM, remember all the hand-wringing we did about whether the president would try to influence the Mueller probe? Such innocent times those were. The...

Welcome to stop #3 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Old Irving Brewing Co., 4419 W. Montrose Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Metra Milwaukee District North, Mayfair station. (Also CTA Blue Line, Montrose station)Time from Chicago (Union Station): 20 minutes, zone BDistance from station: 600 m (300 m from CTA) I think I should have come during the day and not on a Friday night. Old Irving, which opened in 2016 to good press, wants to be a neighborhood bar that brews beer. I think it succeeds on that...

In just one more example of the president slipping his leash, thanks to the Republican trolls in the Senate giving him permission to do so, the Justice Department said it found prosecutors recommendations for Roger Stone's sentence "shocking." Three Assistant US Attorneys immediately quit the case: Jonathan Kravis, one of the prosecutors, wrote in a court filing he had resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney, leaving government entirely. Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, a former member of special counsel Robert S....

I've added a Google map and sheet to the Brews and Choos Project page. To save you a click, here's the map: