Events

Talking Points Memo has some smart readers. One of them crystallized the debate about whether the Romney campaign's shock after losing was genuine, or a ploy to inoculate themselves against the wrath of their donors: There’s an old rule of political research: never ascribe to conspiracy what can be more easily explained by stupidity. Was the Romney campaign brilliant masterminds of a coordinated PR strategy to make themselves look stupid? Or we’re they just stupid? Occam’s razor says the latter. For...

Two Chicago businesses find themselves on the ropes this afternoon, according to the Tribune. The first company, Groupon, has problems many people predicted long before their IPO: Groupon and its compatriots in the much-hyped daily deals business were supposed to change the very nature of small-business advertising. Instead, it is the daily deal vendors that are racing to change as evidence mounts that their business model is fundamentally flawed. Critics say the torrid growth that enabled Groupon to go...

In the past 24 hours, the temperature here dropped from 21°C at 2pm yesterday to -2°C at 8am today. The cold front responsible drove the temperature down 6°C in three hours at one point, making for uncomfortable walks home from dinner. We had two delightful September days, but now it's November again. The Climate Prediction Center expects normal temperatures in Chicago through the end of January. Winter is coming...

Politico's Burns & Haberman explain: [ORCA] was described as a mega-app for smartphones that would link the more than 30,000 operatives and volunteers involved in get-out-the-vote efforts. PBS profiled it a few days before the election. The app was created and managed by the Romney campaign and was kept a secret among a close circle in Boston, according to POLITICO sources. It's been reported the system crashed at 4 p.m., but multiple sources familiar with the war room operation said it had actually...

Last month I used less electricity than ever before at my current address, mainly because two of the five servers in the Inner Drive Technology Worldwide Data Center have had their duties migrated to Microsoft Windows Azure. This past month, I used even less: It wasn't my smallest-ever bill, though, thanks to Exelon's recent rate increases. But still: here's some more concrete evidence that the Cloud can save money. And before people start pointing to the New York Times article from September about how...

Voters in the City of Chicago (including me) passed a referendum giving the city the authority to negotiate electricity prices on behalf of everyone. Implementation will be swift: The timing of the deal is important because Chicagoans stand to save the most money over Commonwealth Edison's rate between now and June 2013, when ComEd's prices are expected to drop because pricey contracts they entered into years ago will expire. The timeline has Chicagoans moving to the new supplier in February 2013....

Not only did the Republican Party lose 3 U.S. House seats in suburban Chicago, they also lost enough Illinois General Assembly seats to give the Democrats veto-proof majorities in both its chambers. Crain's sounds the alarm: [T]he challenges we face are enormous and vexing. To meet them, we need a viable, capable and credible opposition party. Put another way: We need Republicans to rethink their very reason for being. In the near term, that means the national GOP needs representatives and, eventually...