Events

Because Christmas came on a Wednesday*, and my entire UK-based team have buggered off until Monday in some cases and January 6th in others, I'm off for the long weekend. Tomorrow my Brews & Choos buddy and I will hit three places in Milwaukee, which turns out to be closer to downtown Chicago by train than a few stations on the Union Pacific North and Northwest lines. Meanwhile, read some of these: John Adams had some nuanced and deep thoughts about aristocracy and oligarchy that we should keep in mind...

Cassie got a Christmas present from one of my friends: I can only imagine the kind of joy she felt as she paraded around the house showing everyone her new toy. Perhaps it helped that I gave her sardines instead of green beans with her kibble for dinner. We all had a really nice Christmas, and Cassie had a fantastic one.

I've been on the fringes of something recently that I won't get into to protect the guilty, except to say it doesn't have anything to do with my day job. As this thing goes on and on and on, I keep going back to this bit of truth: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. And yet, the errors in this thing keep compounding, as only two or three people involved appear to have any sanity regarding the project. Naturally, the sane ones keep getting shouted down. If you look...

Once every seven years (on average), Christmas and New Year's Day fall on successive Wednesdays. Most other Christian holidays get around this problem by simply moving to the nearest Sunday. I guess the tradition of celebrating the church founder's birthday on a fixed day relates to birthdays taking place on fixed days. So we get Wednesday off from work this week because, well, that's the day tradition says he was born. This is, of course, despite a great deal of evidence in their own holy books that he...

I happened to be on the 40th floor of a downtown high rise at just the right moment yesterday:

I don't always agree with what Josh Marshall says, but this morning he encapsulates the chaos perfectly: Even beyond what I described above, with these two rough beasts [the OAFPOTUS and Musk] slouching their way into 2025, you have probably never had a time in American history where you have all the billionaires lining up and saying pretty much openly and loudly that we’re here as Team Billionaire and here to support the billionaire President and excited to usher in a new era of government of the...

The OAFPOTUS probably didn't care one whit about the compromise spending bill Congress looked set to pass earlier this week, and probably didn't understand how difficult it was for the tiny Republican majority to pass it knowing they'd need Democratic votes in the Senate. Worlds-griftiest-man Elon Musk didn't care either, which didn't stop him from throwing a grenade into the Speaker's office and putting the government at risk of shutting down in (checks watch) 9½ hours. I won't say much more except to...

Earlier this year the Illinois State Treasurer's newsletter mentioned the state database of unclaimed property. It took two quick searches to discover that the state had about $200 of my money, and would happily hand it back to me if I filled out a form. (The state also has about $40 of my mother's money, but the effort to gather all the documentation—including her will and trust documents—does not make this a worthwhile effort. Maybe the state will use it to improve public transit? But I jest.) This...

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development has proposed changing the zoning rules along a stretch of Broadway between Montrose and Devon to increase its density while simultaneously reducing its car-oriented ugliness: The move could jumpstart housing construction, support local businesses and create a streamlined and consistent process for development in a part of town that has seen increased developer attention, city officials have said. A driving factor in the rezoning is the CTA’s Red Line...

The Library of Congress has named Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 24 other films to the National Film Registry this week. A quick view of the list tells me I've only seen 5 of them, so I need to start watching more movies. In other news: Former Chicago mayor and outgoing US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel suggests some ways the Democratic Party can get back in the saddle. The Chicago City Council finally passed its 2025 budget, a $17.3 bn mess that only got 27 out of 50 votes, and then only because...