Events

No, not a reference to a now-famous article of amendment to the US Constitution. One of my favorite movies, The American President, was released 25 years ago today. I plan to watch it again tonight.

While I wait for my frozen pizza to cook, I've got these stories to keep me company: Jakob Nielsen has updated his classic article "10 usability heuristics for UI design." Steve Coll tries to figure out what the president gets out of contesting Biden's win. Paul Krugman looks at the way half the country ignores the science in ending the pandemic and despairs at how we can forestall climate change. Patrick Smith reminds us that we've gone more than 19 years since the last major US air carrier...

One more baby Parker photo, this one from Meramec State Park on 13 October 2006:

Another re-edit of an old favorite. I took this just before 7am on 5 October 2006, at Parker's first or second visit to Bardwell Park:

I lied; I'm doing one more thing of value before heading back to my couch and book. A few days ago I re-edited one of my favorite photos of Parker from his first few weeks with me: Other than a slight adjustment to the crop, some exposure and color correction, and a tiny bit of dodging around his eyes, I didn't do a lot. I think it's a better photo now though: I expect you'll see quite a few Parker photos in the days and weeks to come.

Happy Sunday. Tonight the sun sets in Chicago at 4:30pm, and won't set after 4:30 again until New Year's Eve. So in the few hours of daylight I have left, I'll read a few things: A low pressure area northeast of Chicago has brought 100 km/h winds to the area, but at least it won't snow today. Entomologists in Washington State eradicated a "small" nest containing several hundred murder hornets. They worry a couple of queens might have escaped. The BBC fact-checked rumors that 10,000 dead people voted in...

Remember the hurricane season of 2005, where we got the 27th named storm at the end of December and it finally dissipated on January 6th? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tropical Storm Iota, the 30th named storm of 2020: At 400 AM EST (0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Iota was located near latitude 13.5 North, longitude 74.8 West. Iota is moving toward the west-southwest near 5 mph (7 km/h). A westward motion with some increase in forward speed is expected to begin later today and continue...

The New York Times and NBC have called Georgia for Joe Biden and North Carolina for the president, giving Biden 306 Electoral College votes to the president's 232. This is the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992. It also means that in addition to taking over 5 million more popular votes than the president, Biden has won exactly the same number of electoral votes as the president did in 2016. In 68 days, we'll finally have a new president.

Andrew Sullivan recognizes he's hyperventilating, but he has an important point: Secretary of state Pompeo insisted with a smile that there would be a transition to a second Trump term, even as he lectures other countries about respecting election results. He is treating the solemn democratic process as a joke. “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption there will be a second Trump term,” echoed White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, this morning. To put it plainly: this...

Two women have stealthily implemented the proposed name-change of Stephen Douglas Park to Fredrick Douglass Park: This is the first time the vandals have spoken about their crime, which involved adding a very official-looking extra “S” to every park district sign in Douglas Park, a year and a half before Chicago’s Park District actually decided to change the name this September. “It had started to bother me, and I would wonder, ‘Why is this park not named after Frederick Douglass instead of Stephen...