Events

I wasn't quite 100% today and neither was a fried of mine, so we're taking the opportunity to re-watch (or watch for the first time in the friend's case) HBO's Westworld. I've seen the first 9 episodes—tomorrow night is the 10th and final episode of the season—so the nuances and clues are making a lot more sense on second viewing. This show is almost as good as Game of Thrones. Seriously.

So many meetings today, so many articles in my queue: Trump voters are already feeling like Trump has betrayed them, for the simple reason that he has. In some cases, though, it's hard to empathize, as clearly some Trump voters live inside deep pools of misinformation. Also, it turns out, the only thing that can replace Obamacare is something identical to Obamacare, which will expose even more direct contradictions in the way Trump voters understand the world. Forget Trump voters for a moment; the...

The Illinois State Climatologist reports on the autumn season, which for meteorologists ended Wednesday: This was the 5th warmest November on record for Illinois, based on preliminary data. The statewide average temperature was 8.6°C, and 2.7°C above normal. It was also the 2nd warmest fall on record for Illinois. The statewide average temperature for fall was 15.2°C, 2.8°C above normal. Only the fall of 1931 was warmer at 15.4°C The climatological fall months are September, October, and November. It...

Jeet Heer sees Trump's incessant tweeting as a real strategy: Trump is using Twitter it as a substitute for press conferences—as a means to make serious policy announcements in a safe space where he can spout off without being questioned or challenged. On Wednesday morning, for instance, Trump issued a string of tweets that, when strung together, announced: “I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to make America great again. While I am not...

That, as of today, is the number of votes that Clinton won more than Trump: Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead has now reached 2.52 million votes. In percentage terms that's a 1.9 percentage point margin. It will rise at least a bit more. We can likely be confident that her final margin will be at least 2 percentage points. To compare, that's 5 times the margin of Al Gore's popular vote win in raw vote terms and 4 times his margin in percentage terms. At this point, not only did Clinton win the popular...

Here's a fun comparison. This is the building adjacent to the north side of the northbound platform at the Northbrook Metra station. First, October 1985: Here's the same wall almost exactly 31 years later: The pharmacy long ago disappeared. The building now contains an Italian restaurant and a hair salon.