Events

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:

Last week, the Washington Post's Dan Zak and Amy Argetsinger opined on the Best Picture winners from 1976 through last year, and suggested...corrections: 1979 Nominees: All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, Norma Rae Best Picture winner: Kramer vs. Kramer The actual best picture: Apocalypse Now What a bonkers roster. “Kramer vs. Kramer” is a gorgeously spare, simple movie about divorce and parenting — can you believe that 105 minutes of talking without CGI or explosions was...

Note: Ten Ninety closed permanently in January 2025. Welcome to stop #2 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Ten Ninety Brewing Co., 1025 Waukegan Rd., Glenview, Ill.Train line: Metra Milwaukee District North, Glenview station.Time from Chicago (Union Station): 38 minutes, zone DDistance from station: 700 m A trio of bros formed Ten Ninety in 2012 and moved to Glenview in 2016. They specialize in Imperial-style beers, but they have a full line to go with their full kitchen. From left to right, I...

Welcome to my new project: Brews and Choos. Off and on over the next year, I'm going to visit 98 breweries and distilleries that are within about 1.5 km of rail lines around Chicago. Some of them are right downtown; others require a 100-minute schlep to a neighboring state. I'll post reviews and visit notes in chronological order. For a list organized by train line, check out the explanation page. Here's the first stop. Brewery: Macushla Brewing, 1516 E. Lake Ave., Glenview, Ill.Train line: Metra...

I love trains. I love beer. I don't love driving when I'm having beer. So how to reconcile all of those things, I wonder? My solution: identify breweries in and around Chicago close to rail lines and visit them. Starting in February 2020, I identified 98 locations ranging from one as close as 400 m from a downtown Chicago train station to four that require a 100-minute train ride to a neighboring state. Even better, the densest stop on any train line turned out to be the one closest to my house: there...

British Airways flight 112 arrived at 4:47 this morning at Heathrow, having made the trip from New York in an astonishing 4 hours, 56 minutes: Virgin Atlantic wasn’t far behind British Airways, though. VS4 from New York JFK to London Heathrow was scheduled to depart at exactly the same time. The flight was operated by an A350-1000, and that plane completed the flight in just 4hr57min. It ended up arriving at the gate at Heathrow at 5:05AM, a full 1hr25min ahead of schedule. Tail winds on both flights...

I've got an idea for a new series of posts that I'm researching this weekend. Nothing may come of it, but the research itself should be fun. Stay tuned.