We get pretty sunsets this time of year:
"Enjoy:"
- Charles Marohn rips apart the OAFPOTUS's half-baked proposal to allow 50-year mortgages, which would transfer even more rents to bankers than the current housing situation does.
- In a spectacular own-goal that will, I hope, be rolled back very soon, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin has decided the city will no longer buy US treasury bonds, which are still the safest investments in the world and do not "support the regime" as she daftly claims.
- Jennifer Rubin cheers the millions of voters who have come around to the unavoidable conclusion that the OAFPOTUS and his droogs are horrible, incompetent, corrupt people.
- Kyla Scanlon toured 30 states and two other countries to answer the question, "where did American prosperity go?"
- Will Gotsegen warns that, even though the Republican-caused, longest government shutdown in history ended yesterday, cleaning up from it will take a while.
- Historian Zachary Karabell explains that the OAFPOTUS's eye-watering corruption is (a) nothing new in US politics and (b) not the end of the Republic. (He agrees its awful, at least.)
- The US Mint in Philadelphia stamped out the last pennies ever yesterday. The first ones, minted in 1793, had the purchasing power equivalent of 33c today.
Finally, Chicago's Alinea has lost its third Michelin star, fundamentally changing the fine-dining scene in the city. When the 2026 Guide comes out officially next week, Chicago will have only one 3-star restaurant. Quel horreur !
A coronal mass ejection late last week caused Kp7-level aurorae last night that people could see as far south as Alabama. Unfortunately, I missed them, though some of my friends did not. Fortunately, NOAA predicts that another mass of charged particles will hit around 6pm tonight, causing even more pronounced aurorae for most of the night. This time, I plan to get to a dark corner of the suburbs to look for them.
Meanwhile:
- ProPublica has an extended report about how the OAFPOTUS uses pardons and clemency far more corruptly than Harding, Jackson, or Reagan could imagine. (Madison, Jefferson, and the rest of the founders could imagine it, however, and they did not like it one bit.)
- John Judis thinks "the 8 dissenters did Democrats a favor:" "I believe that as the shutdown dragged into Thanksgiving, and as more jobs were lost, social services suspended, and planes grounded, the public would have begun blaming the Democrats more because — let’s face it — they had initiated the shutdown. The polls also showed that far more Democrats than Republicans felt affected by the shutdown."
- Brian Beutler wonders whether the divergence between people's perception of the economy and reality has more to do with the fracturing media landscape than with people's ability to intuit reality the same way economists do: "Our collective, manic emphasis on the cost of things has both made people upset, and given people a peg to hang their political frustrations on—but people did not become upset over nominal prices in some organic way. Democrats shouldn’t convince themselves that if they manage to lower prices, they’ll be assured more victories, or that if Trump manages to get costs down (perhaps with the help of the Supreme Court) he’ll become politically invulnerable. They certainly shouldn’t convince themselves that all things unconnected to prices are politically inert."
- Amanda Nelson reminds us that in 2008, the wealthy people who got wealthier even as the housing market collapsed and impoverished millions weren't stupid; they just didn't care. And neither do the authors of Project 2025.
- The $1.5 billion Illinois just pledged to transit projects fundamentally changed the vision of passenger rail across the region, according to the High Speed Rail Alliance.
- Chicago has issued the first permits for construction of the new O'Hare Concourse D, the first new concourse built at the airport since Terminal 5 opened in 1993. Construction could complete as early as 2028.
Finally, the OAFPOTUS's latest demented assertion about crime on the "miracle mile shopping center" left people baffled and also led to city council member Brendan Reilly (D-42), whose ward includes the Magnificent Mile, clapping back: "My suggestion to President Trump: spend more time focusing on your struggling real estate investments, especially the 70,000 square feet of vacant retail space that has remained un-leased since the opening of Trump Tower, 16 years ago...."
We had a blast of lake-effect snow yesterday. This happens when cold air passes over a warm lake, pulling huge volumes of moisture from the water and freezing it into snow. The air got quite a bit below freezing yesterday morning, so the northeast winds picked up a lot of vapor from the 8°C water, which it promptly dropped on the city.
Through the spring and early summer we often hear that it's "cooler by the lake." But like the idea of "global warming," that hides a lot of nuance in a simple phrase. A slightly-more-accurate telling might be that it's "less variable by the lake." And yesterday we got an example of that.
At Inner Drive Technology WHQ, which is just over 2 km from Lake Michigan, yesterday was the first day since March 2nd during which the temperature didn't get above freezing. Yesterday the temperature ranged from -3.0°C to -0.5°C, with a dip during the second round of snowfall between 8 and 10 am. On March 2nd, it ranged from -5.4°C to -0.2°C.
Contrast with Chicago's official weather station at O'Hare (23.2 km from the lake), which last had a full day below freezing on February 21st. On March 2nd it did get down to -8°C, but it got up to 3°C, after hitting 14°C on February 28th. Similarly, yesterday O'Hare was both colder (-3.9°C) and warmer (2.2°C) than IDTWHQ, warm enough for all the snow to melt just a few hours after it fell.
Today's forecast promises above-freezing temperatures everywhere in the Chicago area today, rising to 18°C by Saturday. The snow doesn't bother me, but I hope the remaining ice melts from the sidewalks today.
As threatened yesterday, we got a few rounds of lake-effect snow overnight and this morning. Since not all the leaves have fallen yet, it still looks pretty:
And of course, one member of my household really, really, really likes a fresh snowfall:
Right now we've got about 100 mm on the ground. That will melt quickly as the forecast calls for above-freezing temperatures from tomorrow morning onward, reaching possibly 18°C on Saturday. I hope so, because I've got a 20 km hike planned for the day, and I'd like it not to freeze important bits of me off.
I'll have some photos from San Francisco later today. Right now I have to shovel my walkway again, then take Cassie for a 3 km walk so I get my steps in.
I don't enjoy taking 6 am flights, of course, but they do have advantages. I left my hotel at 6:11 am and was through SFO security by 6:25. That's even faster than last year!
I'm a little less enthused about this, however:
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Chicago IL
224 AM CST Sun Nov 9 2025
Northern Cook-Central Cook-Southern Cook-Eastern Will-
Including the cities of Chicago, Peotone, Northbrook, Crete,
Evanston, Lemont, Park Forest, Schaumburg, Cicero, Oak Park, La
Grange, Des Plaines, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Calumet City, Beecher,
Palatine, and Orland Park
224 AM CST Sun Nov 9 2025
...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THIS EVENING TO NOON CST
MONDAY...
* WHAT...Dangerous to impossible travel conditions due to intense
lake effect snow expected. Snow rates in excess of 3 inches per
hour, localized total snow accumulations of 12 to 18 inches, and
northerly wind gusts in excess of 30 mph are expected.
* WHERE...Central Cook, Eastern Will, Northern Cook, and Southern
Cook Counties.
* WHEN...From 9 PM this evening to noon CST Monday.
* IMPACTS...Snow rates in excess of 3 inches per hour will cripple
travel, including during the Monday morning commute. Strong
northerly wind gusts in excess of 30 mph will lead to greatly
reduced visibility, especially near the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Periods of thundersnow will occur, as well.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Lake effect snow is often very localized,
with conditions varying from safe to dangerous across just a few
miles. Snow totals in the Winter Storm Warning area may vary
considerably from one location to the next.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Persons should consider delaying all travel while and where the lake
effect snow is ongoing.
Unfortunately for me, my work laptop is in my downtown office, and my most important meetings tomorrow are between 10 and 11:30. Because the forecast is for lake-effect snow, we have no way to predict exactly where it will hit. I've seen these things produce 30 cm of snow on one block and nothing on the next.
Right now, though, the weather looks good for aviation, and my plane appears to be here and ready to fly. We'll find out tomorrow whether I'll be able to make it to the office.
I made it to the Bay Area, and I'm about to fall asleep. Tomorrow I've got plans in both San Francisco and San Jose, which, if you care to glimpse a map, are nowhere near each other. (Seriously, they're farther apart than Chicago and Milwaukee.) Fortunately they have trains here.
Right, well, I'm off then. Assuming I don't get re-routed involuntarily, I should be home mid-afternoon Sunday, and assuming meteorologists know what they're doing, I will be rewarded for schlepping a heavy coat all over the country today by not dying of hypothermia when I get back to Chicago.
Je suis épuisé, et maintenant, je dors.
I resigned myself to taking the delay and going home for a few hours, but before exiting the secure area of the terminal, I decided to try the American Airlines app one more time. Success! The reservation system suggested a 1 pm flight through Dallas and a connecting flight to SFO that gets in around 7:30 pm. Not ideal, but also not wasting two hours going home and back and getting to SFO after midnight Chicago time.
I won't be able to make the Brews & Choos stop I'd planned for this evening, nor does it look likely I'll get 10,000 steps today, but it does mean I'll likely be in a better mood tomorrow morning.
So, the airline did something right, and I can easily deal with a couple hours in the Admirals Club. And like I said yesterday, this is nothing like the 28-hour ordeal I went through in 2009.
I posted too soon. Obviously, I tempted the wrath of the whatever high atop the thing, and it noticed:
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Here's the ironic part: the government shutdown has (almost) nothing to do with this delay. The plane is broken. And because of the capacity controls today, the airline can't simply swap in another 737-800.
Fortunately, I live in Chicago, so I'll just go home for a few hours. Updates as the situation develops.
Despite the FAA reducing flights at O'Hare and Midway today because of the Republican-caused government shutdown (longest in history!), I got from my house to O'Hare and through security in just over an hour. Red-state friends: I took the #81 bus to the Blue Line, so the whole 45-minute trip cost $3.00. I even had time to get coffee.
So far my flight is on time, and--unusually for the heavily-traveled ORD-SFO route--I got upgraded. Sometimes I think about cancelling my club membership because I only fly 8 to 10 segments a year these days, and then a day like this happens, where I mentally prepared for delays and disruptions but nothing happened.
We'll see if my good luck holds up for my 6am flight Sunday morning...