Events

I think today is Tuesday, the first day of my 10th week working from home. That would make today...March 80th? April 49th? Who knows. It is, however, just past lunchtime, and today I had shawarma and mixed news: Carbon emissions have declined 17% year-over-year, thanks to Covid-19-related slowdowns reducing petroleum consumption. (See? It's not all bad news.) Crain's Chicago Business reviews how businesses rate Mayor Lori Lightfoot's first year in office. And their editorial board says we should "start...

Long day, with meetings until 8:45pm and the current sprint ending tomorrow at work, so I'll read most of these after the spring review: Tara Smith warns about the unholy alliance of anti-vaxers and Covid-19 quarantine protesters. Libby Watson calls it a "deranged civil religion." You think President Trump firing State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was about walking Mike Pompeo's dogs? Uh, no. It was about the $8 bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia that Linick was about to expose. Why is Trump...

On 18 May 1980, forty years ago today, the Washington-state volcano Mt St Helens exploded, killing dozens of people who had been warned to evacuate days earlier: I was 150 miles away on May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens blew, but my bed shook and the windows on my Oregon A-frame rattled. I rushed to my radio station and its clacking Associated Press wire machine, and pulled up a pile of wire copy from the floor. The reports coming in from southwest Washington state were hard to believe.... Despite two...

Charlie Pierce, noting that "[p]eople with firearms forced the civil government of the state of Michigan to shut itself down," wants to know in what sense this isn't terrorism. In other fun weekend stories: The Illinois Dept. of Employment Security had a "glitch" in their unemployment claims processing app that exposed private information. I'm curious who wrote the software. Jared Kushner: evil and stupid. Speaking of evil and stupid, the president continues to downplay and undercount Covid-19 deaths...

Yesterday was sunny and 25°C. Today it's not as sunny and not as warm, but still hike-worthy. So that's what I'm about today. Tomorrow it will rain all day, so expect more postings then.

Today I'll try to avoid the most depressing stories: The North Shore Channel Trail bridge just north of Lincoln Avenue opened this week, completing an 11 km continuous path from Lincoln Square to Evanston. Experts warn that herd immunity (a) is an economic concept, not a health concept and (b) shouldn't apply to humans because we're not herd animals. Wisconsin remains in total chaos today after the state supreme court terminated Governor Tony Evans' stay-at-home order, approximately two weeks before...

The bascule bridge over the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue turned 100 today. The Chicago Tribune has photos. Also: The Tribune explains how the various Covid-19 tests work, and where Illinois is in getting them to people. Seems I'm not the only one who thought a combination between GrubHub and Uber might not fit in with US antitrust laws. A new book says the US would lose a direct military confrontation with China, because they're set up to fight a different war than we are. Turns out, the 4-3...

Just when you thought the Republican Party couldn't become more anti-science and pro-profit (at the expense of workers), the Wisconsin Supreme Court just struck down Wisconsin's stay-at-home order on a 4-3 party-line vote. If only that were all: Jennifer Rubin points out that "Trump's abject hypocrisy shows us where he's failed." Not only has Trump "lost the plot," he "has no plan," according to two articles this week in The Atlantic. How is this news cycle different from all other news cycles? The US...

This is a wonky post about tax law and at the same time a pissed-off post about political advocacy under cover of "neutral" commentary that takes advantage of people's ignorance of a nuanced area of law. Bruce Willey, an Iowa-based tax lawyer, claims in a pearl-clutching post on Kiplinger that recent IRS guidance on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness "could bankrupt small businesses:" On April 30, late in the evening — when few people were likely paying attention — the IRS released...

My day kept getting longer as it went on in a way that people living through the pandemic will understand. So I didn't have time to read any of these yesterday: The Chicago Tribune produced six charts that explain the pandemic's economic effects. Rolling Stone identifies the four men most responsible for our current calamity. The Washington Posts lists six takeaways from Dr Anthony Fauci's testimony before the Senate today. Consumer Reports helps you avoid Zoombombing. The New Yorker describes the...