Events

In what The Economist calls "Clownfall," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Cons) this morning resigned as Conservative Party leader and will leave Number 10 as soon as the party chooses his replacement. But the Tories have deeper issues—after all, they supported him through every scandal but this last one: Boris Johnson’s government has collapsed at last. For months Britain’s prime minister wriggled out of one scandal after another. Now, irretrievably rejected by his own MPs, he has accepted that his...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Cons) may finally have reached the limit of his ability to avoid consequences. Earlier today, five ministers resigned en masse, and now several others (including the Home Secretary) have gathered at Number 10 to hand Johnson his hat: Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, went in recently, and Priti Patel, the home secretary, arrived by a side entrance, according to PA Media. According to the Times’ Steven Swinford, four other cabinet ministers are...

To absolutely no one's surprise, the little shit arrested for murdering six people in Highland Park, Ill., yesterday turned out to be a 22-year-old white kid with a violent social media history. And of course he bought the gun legally. Every society has its psychopaths and angry young men. But most societies acknowledge this, and make it really hard for those assholes to buy guns. Here, we make it easier to buy a gun than to buy a car. That's just insane, but politically hard to change. Right now, with...

A "well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free State" just killed 5 people (update: now 6 confirmed dead) for no discernable reason in Highland Park, Ill., the next town over from the village I grew up in. I should note that Highland Park has one of the earliest and strictest gun prohibitions on record in the Chicago area, but cannot enforce these restrictions because a trade association bent on enriching its member manufacturers and retailers has convinced people living in rural...

Many people, particularly in the US, have suffered recently because of their choices to live in places without meaningful alternatives to driving, their neighbors' choices not to fund meaningful alternatives to driving, and a war in Eastern Europe that has directly and indirectly raised worldwide oil prices to real values not seen since 1973. I feel a bit of smugness coming on. See, my house has a Walk Score of 95 and a transit score of 81. I live within 1500 meters (about a mile*) of two rapid-transit...

I'm spending today finishing a couple of books and season 3 of The Umbrella Academy on either side of hauling down to Bloomington, Ill., for a friend's birthday/housewarming. Tomorrow I intend to continue doing nothing creative, though the holiday may give me cause to contemplate the future of our nation. Regular posting should resume Tuesday.

I did enjoy the barbecue: That's a bit of brisket and accoutrements from Stiles Switch BBQ, and it was so good. We also got some from Black's BBQ, which might have actually been better. Of course, even if I ever go back to Austin, I'll have to try one of the other 42,167 BBQ places. I also stopped by the Home for Developmentally-Disabled Adults and their Democratic Caretakers: About three meters to my right, which I chose not to photograph, was a giant monument to "The Horrible Men Who Murdered for...

First run

My flight into Austin on Monday took two extra hours after landing—not counting the 45 minutes returning to the airport to get my bag—thanks in part to piss-poor ground operations. Yesterday, we sat at the gate for nearly an hour waiting for fuel. Apparently the fuel truck has a minor maintenance thing going on, so we had to wait for someone to fix it so they could finish fueling the plane. But once they finished, just past 2pm, we had to wait another 10 minutes because of the shift change. Please don't...