The Daily Parker

The Apollo Chorus annual fundraiser/cabaret is on April 1st, and tickets are still available. If you can't make it, you can still donate.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:

• From February, Tommy Craggs writes in New Republic that Lyndon LaRouche's zombie ideas still walk the land.
• The New York Times has collection of photos from Northern California of the atmospheric river they're getting right now.
• Annie Lowrey thinks "you should be outraged" about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. But Molly White points out that the SVB collapse has very little to do with recent Bitcoin price swings, regardless of what the crypto-bros want you to believe.

And finally, screenings of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, the new slasher pic featuring Winnie and Piglet as serial killers, will not be shown in Hong Kong and Macau, because Chinese dictator Xi Jinping thinks it's a jab at him. Seriously.

I'm arguing with the Blazorise framework right now because their documentation on how to make a layout work doesn't actually work. Because this requires repeated build/test cycles, I have almost no time to read all of this:

• The US Surface Transportation Board has approved a merger between the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads, which will almost certainly bollix up commuter rail traffic in Chicago's western suburbs.
• A Russian warplane downed a US drone over the Black Sea.
• George Will tut-tuts Stanford Law students for shouting down a judge from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Sierra Sheppard explains how lazy humans and bad software misallocate tax money to the detriment of urban development.
• Julia Ioffe accuses Republicans of using a desire to confront China as a "veil to abandon Ukraine."

Finally, a group of Chicago aldermen have proposed that the city clear sidewalks of snow and ice when property owners don't. Apparently the $500 fines, which don't happen often, don't work often either.

With everything else going on in the world, the Chinese balloon that the US shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Monday has gotten a lot of attention.

First, Spencer at Legal Eagle takes on the legalities of us shooting it down:

Julia Ioffe too:

The local photography buff raced to get his camera and used it to snap a photo that quickly went viral. “I had posted a couple of photos just to social media, just joking, like I thought I saw a UFO,” the photographer, Chase Doak, told the local news station. “It was just right here. I was literally just right here in the vicinity of my driveway.” 

Well, it seemed that Chase Doak and his camera forced the Biden administration to go public earlier than it wanted—if it wanted to at all. It also didn’t help that the Pentagon scrambled fighter jets to try to shoot the balloon down that afternoon while closing the civilian airport in Billings, only to determine that the debris radius—the undercarriage, the Pentagon later said, was the size of three buses—would be massive. Moreover, the Defense Department wondered, what if, in shooting at the balloon, it merely blew a hole in it, causing it to slowly drift down to the ground for hundreds of miles, landing god knows where? So the generals recommended against shooting at the thing while it was still over land and the jets were called back, but by this point the Chinese balloon was out of the proverbial bag, and held the entire nation in its thrall.

It was the perfect story for this nation of ours. Both parties now agree that China is a threat to U.S. interests and the balloon became a brilliant image and political foil. It allowed Republicans to paint Joe Biden as weak on China for not immediately blasting the thing out of the sky (though they would, I’m sure, have blasted him as reckless for any resulting damage on the ground). And when the Sidewinder did hit its target, shattering the spy balloon over the Carolina coast, it allowed Democrats to show their boss as cool and in control. 

For national security types in D.C., however, it was a deeply weird and somewhat frustrating event. “I really would like fewer news cycles about the balloon,” one Congressional aide who works on intelligence matters groaned. “It’s like this was a TV episode written by Hollywood,” added one former senior national security official. “It’s not the most significant intrusion by the Chinese. They got, like, 5 million Americans’ personal data when they hacked the Office of Personnel Management and they got the SF86’s of everyone who served in the Obama administration,” the official continued, referring to the form one has to fill out to get a security clearance.

Boy, was it. “It’s the length of a narrative arc that Americans can pay attention to,” the official said. “The Ukrainians are coming up on a year of fighting. That’s too long for Americans.” Sad but true.

Meanwhile, the US says the balloon was part of a larger surveillance program:

The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, according to several U.S. officials, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

While most of China’s long-range surveillance efforts are conducted by its expanding military satellite array, PLA planners have identified what they consider to be an opportunity to conduct surveillance from the upper atmosphere at altitudes above where commercial jets fly, using balloons that fly between 60,000 and 80,000 feet or higher, officials said.

In recent years, at least four balloons have been spotted over Hawaii, Florida, Texas and Guam — in addition to the one tracked last week. Three of the four instances took place during the Trump administration but were only recently identified as Chinese surveillance airships. Other balloons have been spotted in Latin America and allied countries in the Pacific, officials have said.

And, of course, Weekend Update led with it:

The world continues to turn outside the Chicago icebox:

• Julia Ioffe sees an interesting power play between the US and China taking shape in Africa.
• Ed Zitron experiences unbridled Schadenfreude as three billionaires experience the Dunning-Krueger effect up close and personal.
• David Frum says we should thank Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for reminding us of our own history.
• 538 created an interactive map where you can see for yourself that moving time zone boundaries will probably make more people happy than year-round daylight saving or standard time would.
• A couple of crooks in Queens, with a little help from Russian hackers, scammed the Kennedy Airport taxi dispatch system for a year.
• Julia Alexander looks back at 2022's effects on streaming media. (Aside: what do you mean there won't be a final season of Warrior Nun?! Dammit!)
• From January, Jesse Baron digs into the bitter dispute between Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and his financier, Barry Diller.

Finally, dog biologist (?) Alexandra Horowitz explains how dogs tell time with their noses.

At least I don't have an opera rehearsal tonight. That means I might, just might, have some time to read these once I finish preparing for a 7am meeting tomorrow:

• Robert Wright warns that the war in Ukraine could lead to war in Taiwan if we aren't careful.
• As if we needed reminding that right-wing conspiracy propagandists and competence by definition don't co-exist in the same people, Alex Jones's lawyers accidentally sent opposing counsel the contents of his phone, which uncovered a remarkable amount of perjury.
• Lindsay Beyerstein calls on Blue America to fight back.
• Jennifer Rubin looks at last night's pro-choice victory in Kansas as a sign that other extreme right-wing ideas may not survive the midterms either.
• Pity Rocky the Coyote who lives in a cage as an exhibit in the Cook County Forest Preserve District. The FPD wants to give him a bigger cage while community members want him released.
• Xochitl Gonzales wonders, "why do rich people love quiet?" Oh, so many reasons...
• The Chicago Transit Authority has asked for $2 billion to extend the Red Line down to 130th St, and swears that this time it'll really happen as Mayor Richard J Daley promised in 1969.
• Speaking of 1969, Mark Cenedella suggests you may not come across as sufficiently modern if you have a land line, use an AOL email address, or set your Zoom camera to look up your nose in meetings.
• Writer Allison Davis reflects on her 10-year relationship with Tinder.

Finally, the old Morton Salt plant on Chicago's Near North Side opened last night as a new music venue called "The Salt Shed." It even got a new coat of paint.

Chicago's official temperature last hit 38°C (100°F) on 6 July 2022, almost 10 years ago. As of 4pm O'Hare reported steady at 37°C (98°F) with the likelihood of breaking the record diminishing by the minute. At Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters, we have 37.2°C, still climbing, but leveling off.

In other hotness around the world:

• The Texas Republican Party published their new platform this week in a bold bid to return to the 19th Century, including seceding from the United States. Dana Milibank says "good riddance."
• The Supreme Court, whose Republicans also want to return to the 19th Century, didn't overturn abortion rights today, but it take a hunk out of the Establishment Clause.
• Closer to Illinois, Anne Applebaum reads a thread by Democratic candidate for Congress Lindsey Simmons and concludes it "sounds like the Balkans, 1990s."
• Some of comedian Stephen Colbert's staff, including Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, found themselves detained at the Longworth House Office Building briefly, which the right-wing blowhards ran with.
• Hoboken, N.J., where I lived for a time in the '90s, hasn't had a fatal traffic accident in 4 years due to some pretty good street design.
• The Floating Jumbo Restaurant, long a staple of Hong Kong's tourist trade, capsized at sea while being towed for repairs.

Finally, Florida Fish and Wildlife Officials captured a 95-kilogram, 5.4-meter Burmese python, the largest ever discovered in the state. Apparently it had recently dined on a deer. So far they have found over 15,000 of the snakes, none of them quite so large.

Update: Not that I'm complaining, but after holding just under 37°C for three hours, the temperature finally started to drop. At 6pm O'Hare reported 36°C. So no record.

Russian president Vladimir Putin asserted yesterday that Ukraine doesn't exist, reasoning that Russia created the territory sometime in the past and therefore it remains part of Russia today. This raises some questions:

1. If that were the case, how can Russia now recognize two "independent republics" with governments legally authorized to request Russian "peacekeepers?"
2. Should New York send troops into its breakaway region in Vermont, and Massachusetts take back its former territory of Maine?
3. How unpopular must Putin be at home that he needs to do something this dramatic to distract the world?

Let's also not forget that the Ukrainian fracas has taken the world's attention away from the South China Sea, where the next real war will probably happen. Fun times, fun times.

Jennifer Rubin says what I've been thinking:

I have never been a fan of the Olympics. Or, I should say, I have never been a fan of the International Olympic Committee.

An organization that rewards dictatorial regimes (Russia in 2014, and now China for the second time) with events that attract billions of eyeballs and sappy worldwide coverage — all while punishing athletes who stand up for human rights — is not apolitical or “promoting the Olympic spirit.” It’s making money off and providing cover for brutal regimes that use the Games to burnish their image.

To stage the Games in the midst of China’s genocide of Uyghurs and ongoing repression of Tibet and Hong Kong is an atrocity. To herald the spirit of sports in a police state that is clearly holding tennis star Peng Shuai captive — and worse, staged obvious PR stunts to clear China’s name — is simply grotesque.

The IOC exists to serve the IOC, using people's emotions about the Olympic Games to drive billions in revenue. The IOC's demands of host countries for this cycle shocked Norway into dropping out, "leaving Almaty, Kasakhstan and Beijing as the only remaining cities to host the event." And after the games this month, what will happen to the Olympic Village? Well, Sochi is a ruin; Rio's facilities have been stripped by looters; other recent host countries got half-billion dollar disasters instead of perpetual improvements.

I remember when Chicago put together a bid for the 2016 Games, but voters like me made it painfully clear to the City that we didn't want them here.

The IOC needs to go away, or at least reform significantly. I like the proposal to have the games in Greece permanently, but the IOC, accustomed to working with authoritarian regimes to get the perks of royalty for its management, will never accept that until people stop watching.

I've spent today alternately upgrading my code base for my real job to .NET 6.0, and preparing for the Apollo Chorus performances of Händel's Messiah on December 11th and 12th.

Cassie, for her part, enjoys when I work from home, even if we haven't spent a lot of time outside today because (a) I've had a lot to do and (b) it rained from 11am to just about now.

So, as I wait for the .NET 6 update to build and deploy on our dev/test CI/CD instance (I think I set the new environments on our app services correctly), I have a few things to read:

• David Corn reports on how the previous administration's incompetence, if not outright malice, is responsible for 400,000 preventable Covid-19 deaths.
• James Fallows digs into the questions we should ask about China.
• Chicago's City Council looks likely to approve a narrower definition of "restaurant" that would let more bars allow dogs.
• Russian artist Lena Ruseva will make you some MAGA art for just a few thousand bucks. No scam there.

OK, the build has...well, crap. I didn't set the environment correctly after all.

Update: Fixed the build bit. And the rain stopped. But the test platform is the wrong version. FFS.

Update: Well, I have to pick something up from a store before 6, so I'll come back to this task later.

Update: Even though I've had 4 tiny commits of minor things that broke with the .NET 6 upgrade, this hasn't gone poorly. Kudos to Microsoft for providing a straightforward upgrade path.

While I wait for a continuous-integration pipeline to finish (with success, I hasten to add), working a bit later into the evening than usual, I have these articles to read later:

• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Lib-Papineau) called a snap election to boost his party, but pissed off enough people that almost nothing at all changed.
• Margaret Talbot calls out the State of Mississippi on the "errors of fact and judgment" in its brief to the Supreme Court about its draconian abortion law.
• Julia Ioffe expresses no surprise that the press and the progressives have come to grief with each other over President Biden.
• Josh Marshal examines the "crumbling firmament" signified by France's indignation at our deal to supply nuclear submarines to the Australian Navy.
• New regulations allowing hunters to kill wolves in the northern Rocky Mountain states may have the unintended result of putting the animals back on the endangered-species list.

And I am sad to report, Cassie will not get to the dog beach tomorrow, what with the 4-meter waves and all.