Events

I think this is a cool idea: [Chicago Transit Authority B]uses will make fewer stops—four to five blocks apart. Kiosks will be installed at the bus stops to enable passengers to pre-pay their fares and board quickly once the bus arrives. Technology will be added to some traffic signals to extend green lights for buses running behind schedule, much like the signal-priority equipment that gives the green to ambulances and fire trucks, officials said.

Yep, not flying today. Winds at 31 km/h gusting to 47 km/h.

I let two things slip past me this week: 1. The Chicago Cubs won their 10,000th game Thursday at Mile High Stadium in Denver. (They have since dropped two in a row against the last-place Nationals in Washington.) 2. Yesterday marked 10,000 days since John Lennon died.

The Princeton economist thinks Obama is a one-note—and it's the wrong note: ...maybe his transformational campaign isn’t winning over working-class voters because transformation isn't what they’re looking for. From the beginning, I wondered what Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric, his talk of a new politics and declarations that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” (waiting for to do what, exactly?) would mean to families troubled by lagging wages, insecure jobs and fear of losing health coverage. The...

Not sure what to make of this in the 21st century: Penis theft panic hits city KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Wow. From Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko: "[W]hen you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I...

That's what my flight instructor said when the weather looked breezy. Tomorrow's forecast calls for 52 km/h gusts, so I might stay on the ground. Another flight scheduled, another flight cancelled. Welcome to Chicago.

Via TPM, John McCain, trying to make a point, apparently thinks people won't pick lettuce for ten times the amount that actual lettuce-pickers get paid: Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here $50 an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So -- OK? Sign up. OK. You sign up. You sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season. OK? Not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend. Fifty bucks an hour? Ten to twelve hours a day? That's not...