An obituary in today’s local newspaper for a 75-year-old who grew up in Church with me. I remember when he (teen-aged) and his dad both “got saved” at a Billy Graham rally in Indianapolis.
It seems to have stuck, judging from his obituary. It doesn’t always. RIP, Rick.
“I have exactly the same personality as my cat,” Judge Posner said in a memorable New Yorker profile. “I am cold, furtive, callous, snobbish, selfish and playful, but with a streak of cruelty.”
New York Times obituary for Judge Richard Posner.
He was as brilliant and eccentric as they say. I was terrified when he appeared on the panel for an oral argument in the 7th Circuit.
And I was grateful that he never got a seat on the Supreme Court.
The real time Earth Map I’ve shared before (H/T @Miraz) sure has some interesting stuff going on south of Alaska, west of British Columbia this morning.
Hard-core prepping for non-billionaires: Doomsday Pack — 90 days of food, water and basics for a small apartment
Indiana escaped the blue tsunami because it refused Trump’s mid-decade redistricting gimmick. I wish I was in Spencer Deery’s State Senate district, but alas, I’m merely adjacent. (Meanwhile, my State Senator is charged with 6 shoplifting incidents, almost certainly the result of a brain disorder like early Alz.)
It’s probably a very legitimate news story, but “honeypot” is kind of a clickbaity word even if it wasn’t.
George Will thinks straigh and writes pretty. Noble lies without the nobility - Breadcrumbs
In a letter to the editor of The Boston Globe, Mary Skorczeski linked voters’ Democratic turn to Trump’s insatiable need for attention: “What happens when you suck the oxygen out of the room for 10 years? People turn blue.” (Michael Smith, Georgetown, Ky.)
Via Frank Bruni
I love that too much.
I need to temper my prior exultant remark.
An Indy Star account from reporter Marissa Meador noted that the map came caveats: “It’s unclear if this would have actually played out in practice. Bayh wasn’t on the ballot for a U.S. House seat, so he’s presumably meant to stand in for a generic Democrat running for U.S. House in this analysis. But the dynamics of each congressional race are different, and not all Democrats would have necessarily performed as well as Bayh. But Republican performance also would have been poor, it appears, when simply just analyzing congressional race margins. Under the current map, each Indiana congressional race swung an average of 22 points to the left from 2024 to 2026.”
Retired journalist Dave Bangert.
Bangert, a former nemesis, is now my hero. His locally-focused Substack brings news the struggling local Gannet paper doesn’t.
Impeach Pete Hegseth brings the receipts.
Oh, so sweet:
The Indiana Republicans who told Trump ‘no’ last December just saved their delegation in arguably the most underreported story of the cycle. … The gerrymander that was supposed to deliver 9-0 for Republicans would have delivered 8-1 for Democrats
A County-by-County Look at How the Blue Wave Touched Nearly Every Part of America - WSJ
Great maps. My county went from barely red to solidly blue, a 20-point swing.
15. Across wide stretches of the sun-bleached Sonoran desert in Arizona, thousands of retired aircraft sit nose-to-tail in graveyards of metal known as boneyards. Many of their engines haven’t been fired up for years. But America’s soaring demand for electricity to power data centers is bringing them back to life. Several companies are racing to strip the engines out of old aircraft to convert them into electrical generators. And data centers, desperate for power, are snapping them up. (Source: nytimes.com)
John Ellis News Items (a great alt-news source)
“Get off my lawn!” says cranky old man.
an electric engine has 100 times fewer moving parts and than a fuel-driven engine.
If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand time, “100 times fewer” does not compute!
(But thanks for “fewer” instead of “less.”)
I’m imagining Biblical scenes where the enemy (Philistia?) is laying siege to Israel when an Angel comes down at night, confuses the enemy and they all kill each other.
Can Republicans, having debased themselves under Trump, keep from “killing” each other with buck-passing for yesterday’s debacle?
I like gadgets and apps, but I’ve never been able to figure out why I should have things like Zelle and Venmo on my phone. They seem to me to complicate, not simplify.
An awfully good 5-minute summary of the election from Anne Applebaum: www.youtube.com/watch
I know Gonzaga beat Purdue last night while I was otherwise occupied, but I’m liking a lot that I’m seeing on the recorded game. 7’4” Daniel Jacobsen has beefed up a bit and much improved, for instance, and while nobody can replace Braden Smith, Omer Mayer is shaping up at point guard.
Recommended:
The East West Series, now known as The Great Christian Divide: East & West (I guess it evolved during production, just as it grew from 24 episodes to 33).
Look at the “Episode Guide” and you’ll see why a long-ago Orthodox convert with intellectual leanings found it irresistible.
Gotta say getting up early to vote as soon as polls open, after a late bedtime, really boogers up my morning routine and concentration.