The Daily Parker

The extreme-right-wing US Supreme Court begins a new term today, which we can all expect to continue the trends they have been on for the last 30 years. All we need is a razor-thin margin in one or two swing states on the 5th, and then, as George HW Bush said once, "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Now it's off to the races!"

Meanwhile:

• A new book argues that the "originalism" practiced by many Republican judges, like Justices Alito and Thomas, has absolutely no basis in historical fact. But we knew that already.
• Josh Marshall wants everyone to calm down about the Harris campaign: "[Y]ou thinking she’s screwing up or stalling or whatever, if you are, is probably your angst talking more than some real analysis of what’s happening in the campaign."
• Republican-leaning columnist Matt Bai thinks Maryland governor Larry Hogan (R) made a strategic error by choosing to run for the US Senate as a Republican instead of as an independent.
• Consumer DNA analysis company 23andMe doesn't seem to have a plan for what to do with my personal data if they get into trouble or shut down.
• Kate Kaplan of the Nielsen-Norman Group has some excellent advice about iconography in software.

Finally, Cloudflare announced late last week that it blocked the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in history. The attack, whose packets came mainly from Russia, peaked at 3.8 Tbps, beating the previous record of 3.47 Tbps against a Microsoft Azure customer.

I had a busy Friday and a busier Saturday, so I just got to these this morning:

• The entire Chicago Public Schools board resigned Friday in the latest salvo in the fight between Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.
• The Supreme Court rejected two emergency applications from polluters who want to continue polluting while their cases work through the system.
• Brett Stephens looks back at a year of increasing anti-Semitism disguised as "anti-Zionism." (This is exactly why I'm reading Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism.)
• Amazon has ordered its entire workforce back to the office, fomenting a backlash and worrying people who work better remotely (like I do).
• Metra, Chicago's heavy-rail operator, got a Federal grant to investigate expanding O'Hare to downtown service on the North Central line.
• National Highway Transportation Safety Administration regulations make it nearly impossible for carmakers to offer the super-efficient mini-cars that millions of people drive in Europe and Asia.

Finally, US Senator and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance (R-OH) has a lot to say about families, but when you actually look at how he lives his own life, it makes you wonder about his sincerity. Actually, that's not entirely true: everything the man says makes you wonder about his sincerity, but in the case of family policies he's even more obtusely hypocritical than usual.

President Jimmy Carter turned 100 today, making him the first former president to do so. James Fallows has a bit of hagiography on his blog today, and the State of Georgia has declared today "Jimmy Carter Day." I hope I make it to 100, too, but I don't expect the State of Illinois to declare that day a public holiday.

In other news:

• Hussein Ibish says Hezbollah got caught in a trap of its own making when it attacked Israel a year ago.
• A Chicago ordinance takes effect next Tuesday that will grant the right of first refusal of the sale of their buildings to thousands of apartment dwellers under threat of gentrification.
• Novelist Ross Barkan takes another look at Robert Caro's 1974 doorstopper The Power Broker, a book I got about 2/3 through before I gave up.
• Cranky Flier analyzes Southwest Airlines' decision to follow all the others out there and assign seats on its flights.

Finally, yesterday the UK turned off its last operating coal-fired power plant, ending a 142-year run of burning coal to generate power. XKCD points out that in those 142 years, the UK burned the equivalent of about 3 inches of its land surface generating electricity.

And of course, I'll watch the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight at 9pm Eastern, but I don't plan to live-blog. Reactions tomorrow, though.

The White Sox lost to the Detroit Tigers last night, their 121st loss of the season and the most losses in Major League Baseball history, to become the Greatest Losers of All Time:

After enjoying a three-game sweep of the struggling Angels to avoid history in front of their disgruntled home fans, the Sox went back to their losing ways Friday, falling for the 121st time to set a modern-day major-league record on the third-to-last day of the season.

The Sox had shared the loss record with the 1962 Mets since Sunday, and, harboring hopes of sweeping the Tigers to avoid breaking the mark, they sent their best pitcher to face Detroit in hopes of extending their winning streak to four. Garrett Crochet, making his 32nd start in his first season as a starter, tossed four scoreless innings to do his part. The All-Star left-hander, who didn’t pitch more than four innings after June, struck out six, walked one and allowed four hits.

“No real emotions,” Crochet said. “Obviously, it sucks. We put ourselves in this position early on. We had a bad April [6-24 in March and April]. We just never dug ourselves out of that hole. We are where we are because of the way we played, which sucks. But that’s just all it is.”

The Sox will go into October finished with baseball and standing alone as the losingest team in the modern era. Only the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who were 20-134, lost more games.

So only one question remains: can they make it 123?

Two of the worst teams in baseball played their last home games of the season yesterday, one of them for the last time in their current home.

The Chicago White Sox improbably swept the Los Angeles Angels at home this week, holding their season losses at 120 and their Tragic Number at 1. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Morrissey can't see how this gets better next year:

When a franchise sets the modern-era record for losses in a season, which the Sox are on the verge of doing, it’s going to see fans secede from the union. Especially Sox fans, who are equal measure discerning and crusty.

Assuming the Sox will be bad next season, too — call it a hunch — that will be three straight seasons of awfulness. That’s not a generation of lost fans, but it’s not a blip, either.

The Sox are in the middle of their second rebuild in seven years and have very little to show for it except a chase for the record for losses (120) set by the 1962 Mets, an expansion team. The short-term damage has been obvious. The Sox have the fourth-lowest home attendance in baseball (17,955). The long-term damage? The fans the Sox might have had but never will.

Three thousand kilometers west, the Oakland Athletics yesterday ended their 56-year residence at the ugliest ball park in the Major Leagues, Oakland Coliseum:

Many clad in green and gold came to the Coliseum's parking lot to tailgate hours before first pitch Thursday afternoon and filled the ballpark with cheers for the team and jeers for A's owner John Fisher, who is moving a team that came to Oakland in 1968 and won four World Series during its time in the Bay Area.

The A's are moving for at least three years starting in 2025 to Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, the home of the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A minor league affiliate Sacramento River Cats, before a planned move to Las Vegas for a stadium the team hopes will be ready by 2028.

Oakland took a 3-0 lead in the early innings and held on for the victory with All-Star closer Mason Miller getting the save with a groundout to end the A's tenure in Oakland. After the game, the players and coaches all came out on the field to raise their caps to the fans and stadium staff.

At least the A's won, though their 69-90 record for the year so far won't inspire any Norse sagas. The White Sox, on the other hand, will inspire us for generations.

The African American Sports & Entertainment Group plans to buy the Oakland Coliseum and its surrounding parking lots for a new mixed-use development.

Last night, the Chicago White Sox lost their 120th game of the season, tying the record set by the New York Mets in 1962:

With their fifth consecutive defeat and 23rd in the last 28 games, the Sox fell to 36-120 to tie the expansion 1962 Mets’ record for most losses in the modern era and break the 2003 Tigers’ AL-record 119 losses.

Rookie right-hander Sean Burke pitched six innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts, and Korey Lee also homered to give Burke a 2-1 lead, but the Padres (90-66) rallied for three runs against relievers Prelander Berroa and Fraser Ellard in the eighth inning.

It was the Sox’ majors-worst 36th blown save and 48th bullpen loss.

After a day off Monday, the Sox play the Angels in a three-game series at Guaranteed Rate Field before finishing the season with three games next weekend at the surging Tigers, needing to win them all to avoid having the record to themselves, an impossible task for a team that hasn’t won more than four in a row.

The Sox have been swept 24 times. They also tied the AL record with a 21-game skid this season.

I don't have the mental space right now to calculate the odds that the Sox will win all six of their remaining games. I've only got a few hours left in Aix before heading to Marseille, then back home tomorrow morning. At least the Sox won't break the record until I get back. But I have faith they can do it before Sunday!

In September, all eyes in baseball turn to the teams likely to win spots in the post-season championship games. You'll see in the standings that some teams have a "magic number:" the combination of their wins and other-team losses that will move them into the playoffs. Today, for instance, the New York Yankees are in first place in the American League. Because of math™, any combination of 14 Yankees wins or Baltimore Orioles losses will mean the Yankees finish first in their division.

Chicago's American League team, the White Sox, have a different number to ensure every baseball fan will remember them forever. They have lost 114 games so far this year. So, with 15 games left to play this season, the White Sox have to lose only 7 games to break the all-time record for most losses by a major league team in a full season:

The 1962 New York Mets lost 120 games, setting the record for the most defeats in a single season in modern baseball history. The 2024 Chicago White Sox are on pace to supplant the Mets as the worst team ever. As the season winds down, we’ll track their efforts to avoid infamy.

The White Sox have gone an entire month without a home win.

The White Sox now sit at 33-114. Since their inception as a charter member of the American League in 1901, only five teams have recorded more losses in a season: the 2018 Baltimore Orioles (115), the 1935 Boston Braves (115), the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (117), the 2003 Detroit Tigers (119) and the 1962 New York Mets (120).

Note to football (soccer) fans: we don't have relegation in baseball. We're stuck with them.

But hey, they could still win 10 of those 15 games and defy history! They already did it earlier this season when they failed to lose 23 games in a row to tie the worst-streak-ever record set by Philadelphia in 1961. Will they fall short (long?) of losing 121 games this year? We'll know in just over two weeks.

The intersection of my vacation next week and my group's usual work-from-home schedule means I won't come back to my office for two weeks. Other than saving a few bucks on Metra this month, I'm also getting just a bit more time with Cassie before I leave her for a week.

I've also just finished an invasive refactoring of our product's unit tests, so while those are running I either stare out my window or read all these things:

• Yes, Virginia (and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), you are much better off than you were four years ago.
• The Illinois Attorney General has filed an environmental suit against Trump Tower for refusing to fix its water-intake system.
• A New York City cop who fought against "courtesy cards" won a $175,000 settlement from the city.
• A developer plans to raze a 175-year-old house in Glencoe, Ill., designed by William Boyington, because we can't have nice things anymore.
• Speaking of not having nice things, after £175m spent and 12 years of construction, the Old Street roundabout in Islington, London, looks...about the same as before.

Finally, the New York Times ran a story in its Travel section Tuesday claiming Marseille has some of the best pizza in Europe. I will research this assertion and report back on the 24th.

I spent 56 minutes trying to get ADT to change a single setting at my house, and it turned out, they changed the wrong setting. I will try again Friday, when I have time.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world:

• James Carville lays out a strategy for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the White House in *ulp* 62 days.
• Arizona officials continue to deal with the election-denier loony fringe despite (or maybe because of?) reality winning every time it's tested.
• A Federal judge in Rockford, Ill., has ruled that the Supreme Court's asinine, ahistorical, motivated reasoning in Bruen means that four schmucks from the suburbs can legally carry concealed guns on Chicago trains.
• A new report has come out that once again shows the US spends hundreds of billions too much on roadbuilding, and would benefit from removing highways instead of building them.
• A UK commission has found that all 72 deaths in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire were preventable, likely leading to criminal actions in future.
• CVS has started using really stupid-annoying robots to prevent people loitering in front of their stores, a trend in retail that will obviously backfire.
• Lyft plans to sell parts of its public bike system (Divvy here in Chicago) to cut costs. Uh oh.
• An Illinois state government program can help you get solar power on your house.
• What's with this tunnel to nowhere in the North Carolina hills? I might have to check it out.

Finally, Slow Horses season 4 came out today, so at some point this evening I'll visit Slough House and get a dose of Jackson Lamb's sarcasm.

Before I bugger off to get at least a couple of daylight hours in this sunny, 22°C afternoon, here are the most interesting stories that popped up today:

• Two Boomer economists point out that the Boomers have made an art form of siphoning wealth from the younger generations, meaning we Gen Xers will have to work longer for lower Social Security (state pensions) payments. Typical.
• Chicago's meteorological summer was warmer and drier than normal, the 18th-warmest since 1871.
• Ravinia Brewing Company and Ravinia Festival have come to a settlement that requires the former to change its name, even though the neighborhood predates both of them.
• Police have finally identified a man who died on the Appalachian Trail in 1977.
• The wholesaler taking over the stores that Kroeger and Albertson's planned to divest in order to pass scrutiny for their merger thinks it got crappy stores in the bargain.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox have surpassed their team record for losses, going 31-108 through yesterday. If they lose 13 of the remaining 22 games—which would actually represent an improvement over their performance so far—they will surpass the 1962 New York Mets' record 120 losses in a season. For reasons passing understanding, they're still charging for tickets, with box seats going for $69 and some tickets as high as $309. They have lots of seats left, though, so maybe I'll just take the El down there this weekend to see the Athletics beat them?