Hypotheticals in class can lead to cognitive dissonance if you think too hard on them. Today, for example, Ian invented the cell phone and admitted taking bribes, Ryan paid a high price for his seat in class, Elena punched Bob for trying to steal hers, and Nathan's wife spoke through him. All this after Bob and Kacie counted M&Ms for us.

Best not to dwell.

Instead, here are two more photos from yesterday's trip to the Red Fort:

More...

They loaded us up on buses and drove us to the Red Fort and Old Delhi this afternoon. First stop, the Red Fort:

More after the jump.

After waking up at 4:30 for two mornings in a row, I really would like my body to figure out what time zone it's in. Maybe the problem is the Indian half-hour (it's 11½ hours ahead of Chicago, not 11, not 12), or possibly it was the two overnight flights in a row? Maybe I should just be glad I've had a relatively easy time getting to a point where I go to sleep at night (last night around 9:30pm) and wake up in the morning, instead of the reverse.

Meanwhile, back in Raleigh, it looks like they have some weather this weekend:

Tonight: Snow likely before midnight, then snow and sleet. Low around -4°C. East wind between 13 and 21 km/h, with gusts as high as 40 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total nighttime snow and sleet accumulation of 8–12 cm possible.

Saturday: Snow and sleet before 1pm, then freezing rain and sleet. High near -4°C. Northeast wind around 24 km/h, with gusts as high as 47 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of less than a 1 mm possible. New snow and sleet accumulation of 8–12 cm possible.

Friends have reported stockpiling mac and cheese and wine. In some respects, I wish I were there. In others...well, it's going to be 20°C and foggy in Delhi today, while we Dukies go out to the Red Fort and Old Delhi.

More, with photos (I hope), tonight.

Armed with two cameras and a Garmin Edge 305, I set off towards Connaught Place around 1pm and, eventually, found it. (There was this roundabout, see...and I didn't count correctly.) Total trip, 6.1 km, 1 hour 22 minutes, 15 auto-rickshaw drivers asking me where I wanted to go, 4 random people asking about the camera, no injuries. (Google Earth file)

Oh, and about half a million stray dogs, like this one who I didn't see until I almost stepped on her:

More after the jump.

I'm still digesting Delhi, and in just a few minutes I'm about to walk to Connaught Place, to give me more to digest. Quickly, though, some notes from the cab ride from the airport to the hotel yesterday:

• Kudos to Lonely Planet, directing me to (a) the money-changing booth at the airport and (b) the pre-paid taxi booth. The Thomas Cook just outside baggage claim charged no commission on the exchange--except they kept a few rupees as a "fee". (The calculation was pretty straightforward: I bought Rs 6,340, and they kept 340.) There was a similar "rounding" issue at the pre-paid taxi booth, where I got voucher to get to my hotel for Rs 250—except that the money-changer gave me no bill smaller than Rs 100, so really my taxi was Rs 300. Duke's orientation letter said taxis cost Rs 1000-2000. Maybe they should have read Lonely Planet, too.
• Drivers in Delhi have what I may charitably describe as a liberated attitude toward traffic laws. Strangely, I felt totally relaxed about the driving for the entire 20-minute trip. So, apparently, did the scooters, auto-rickshaws, horses, pedestrians, bicyclists, lorry drivers, and stray dogs that my driver completely failed to hit. Since everyone behaves the same way, everyone knows what to expect, so the free-for-all just works. Also, not having seat belts (or, for that matter, any other visible safety equipment) probably makes everyone more vigilant on the roads.
• This morning's Times of India headline gave me an immediate perspective shift: "As ratings plunge, Obama gets tough on outsourcing," reporting on the State of the Union address. As an American reading the speech[1], I scarcely paid attention when he said "it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the USA." Indians, however, sat up and heard very clearly the paragraph that followed. They apparently dismissed it, too, with the India Times writing, "As has now become the norm, the President invoked the growth of China and India to gee up the home constituency on the economic front, where a continuing slow-down and job loss has bedeviled his first year in office."
• I have not yet died from eating or drinking anything. I think I may have overestimated the risk; both dinner last night and breakfast this morning seem to have done nothing more to me than eating food with a similar amount of oil and spice would have done back home. This does not mean I'm going to go swim in the Ganges; but I do feel a lot more relaxed about it having been here a full day.

Time now to finally leave the hotel for a bit. More photos later today.

[1] I had hoped to watch it live, but my 8-hour delay in London meant I was in the air somewhere between Baku and Kabul during the speech.

Apparently it gets foggy in Delhi. My four-hour connection at Heathrow unexpectedly turned into a 13-hour connection, so I took my sleep-deprived self out of the airport for a while. Yep, definitely not Delhi:

I'm once again at O'Hare, with about 90 minutes to kill before boarding. I think this counts as Day -3, but it could be Day -2 as it's already 3am Wednesday morning in Delhi, and classes start Saturday morning. If both airlines perform as expected, I should be in Delhi on Thursday morning—about 19 hours from now. Someday after that I might even adjust to the Indian time zone, 11½ hours ahead of Chicago.

I also have figured out how to pack, having gotten my bags down to 6 kg and 17 kg. In part I accomplished this by forgetting a textbook in Raleigh. I hope one or more of my classmates can part with his or her copy for a couple of hours over the residency.

And so it begins...

The United States will shortly lift its 21-year ban on Scotland's national fruit, the haggis:

The "great chieftan o' the puddin-race" was one of earliest casualties of the BSE crisis of the 1980s-90s, banned on health grounds by the US authorities in 1989 because they feared its main ingredient ‑ minced sheep offal ‑ could prove lethal.

Some refined foodies might insist it always has been and always will be: in the words of Robert Burns, in his Ode to a Haggis, looking "down wi' sneering, scornfu' view on sic a dinner". But now, as millions of Scots around the world prepare to celebrate Burns's legacy tonight with an elaborate, whisky-fuelled pageant to a boiled bag of sheep innards, oatmeal, suet and pepper, its reputation has been restored, on health grounds at least.

... Nearly £9m worth were sold in the UK alone last year, the 250th anniversary of Burns' birth, up by 19% on 2008. Richard Lochhead, the Scottish environment secretary, was delighted. "I am greatly encouraged to hear that the US authorities are planning a review of the unfair ban on haggis imports," he said. "We believe that reversing the ban would deliver a vote of confidence in Scottish producers, and allow American consumers to sample our world-renowned national dish."

In other news, the Boeing 747 turns 40 this week, and the Economist has a link to its original story from 1970:

Apart from the very first flight of all, for which around 2,000 people applied for seats, and which would have taken off with a full load of 362 seats (the replacement aircraft that eventually took off to cheers some time after 2 a.m. the following morning was still as full as makes no difference), bookings for 747 flights have been relatively slow coming in. The well-publicised troubles with deliveries, air-worthiness certificates and, most recently, engines, may have something to do with it, but so also has a certain timidity about embarking in a vehicle that most resembles a small flying cinema.

Like cinemas, some seats are better than others. First class apart, with its lounges and spiral staircases, the premium seats are probably the block that runs two abreast down one side of the aircraft, but not those too near the tail, which has a tendency to swish about, nor the extreme front nor behind the engines, where the noise level is above average. Least attractive are the three abreast seats along the opposite wall. The large block of four seats in the centre, with an aisle on either side, turns out to be more comfortable and less cramped than it looks; big men packed four abreast passed an uncomplaining night mainly because the seats themselves are larger than average.

I sincerely hope the 747 I'm flying on tomorrow morning is somewhat newer.

After American Airlines raised fares last week, all the other majors followed—for about three days. Delta bolted first, and yesterday United and American caved:

The increase, which was from $6 to $16 round-trip, was initiated last week by AMR Corp's American Airlines and later matched by rivals, including Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines, said Farecompare Chief Executive Rick Seaney.

The airline industry has been groping for pricing power after demand for business travel sagged during the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009.

Seaney said Delta was the first to retreat from the hike, followed by American, Continental and UAL Corp.s United Airlines.

The price rise evidently reduced the number of seats bought past the point where it made sense. That's great for travelers in the short term, but in the long term, all the majors have serious financial problems. Low prices don't help much.

Still, American went ahead and released its weekly Net Sa'aver fares, including $259 Chicago to London, $323 to Brussels, and only $70 to Toronto (each way).

The Toronto route is on sale most likely because people (a) may not want a long weekend on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the middle of winter; and (b) the airline, at the TSA's insistence, has added severe restrictions on carry-on luggage to and from Canada. And that $70 fare? A round-trip with taxes is actually $205, which isn't bad, but it's not exactly a give-away.

I travel a lot, both in the U.S. and overseas. Last year I flew about 93,000 km, including three trips to the U.K., one to Ukraine, one to Dubai, and another dozen in the U.S. So I'm pretty sanguine about travel in general, and thanks to the American A'Advantage program, I get a few perks along the way that make it even easier.

Tomorrow, though, I'm going to India for the first time. This has given me a kind of pre-travel jitters I don't ordinarily experience.

First, most obviously, it's the farthest I've ever gone—12,000 km over the pole or 13,000 km through London—requiring 18 hours on airplanes and 5 at Heathrow.

Second, I've never traveled anywhere requiring vaccinations and doxycycline, where an errant mosquito can put you in the hospital for a month.

Third, I've never had to get a visa before arriving. Really, we Americans take that for granted, as we can travel visa-free to about 180 countries. India, it turns out, is one of the few that requires us to get one ahead of time. So do China and Russia, where I'm going in April and July, respectively. (Good thing I got a fat passport last time.)

I did learn an important lesson traveling for the first two terms, so I'll have probably 10 kg less luggage this trip. (I did not learn the lesson about having a long layover at Heathrow between long flights, though. I blame British Airways for that.)

So, I've got my passport, my visa, some cash, the afore-mentioned anti-malarials, a feathery 4 kg of books, one suit, a few changes of clothes, and a fully-loaded Kindle (including one of my course books). Now all I have to do is finish everything I have due this week within the next 22 hours and I'm good to go. Oh, and sleep. Some time between now and Saturday, I should do that too.

I hope.

Good luck to Jeff and Erin:

Nice. Very nice.

The history of South Carolina explains a lot about why they seem so different from the rest of us. In the early days of European colonization, South Carolina served as port of entry for a disproportionate segment of the slave trade—not surprising, since a disproportionate segment of its first white settlers were slavers from Barbados. From that happy genesis the state has led the way in regressive thinking, from its early and enthusiastic Indian removal policies in the 1700s, to passing the first secession resolution in December 1860, through to its continuing existence on flying the Confederate battle flag.

I'm fairly certain only a small minority of the 4.5m people who live in South Carolina have attitudes reminiscent of the 19th century, but unfortunately they elected one of those cretins Lieutenant Governor. And yesterday, Andre Bauer expressed himself in the fine tradition of Strom Thurmond and Preston Brooks:

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.

Bauer's remarks came during a speech in which he said government should take away assistance if those receiving help didn't pass drug tests or attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings if their children were receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

Ordinarily, I'd welcome a guy like this as the GOP nominee, because (as George Allen discovered) it makes my party's job a lot easier. But South Carolina isn't Virginia, and Bauer is already the Lt. Governor and the GOP front-runner. We'll see if enough South Carolinian Republicans want a different candidate on June 8th. We'll see.

When I last flew from Raleigh to O'Hare, I took an American Eagle flight. Today I took a full-blooded American Airlines flight. AMR owns both airlines, and they both operate out of the same concourse (and the same gates sometimes) at both airports.

Heavens, but the two airlines have differences.

First, most obviously, American Eagle doesn't fly anything larger than the 70-seat Bombardier CRJ-700, while American doesn't fly anything smaller than the 140-seat Boeing MD-80 (which they are phasing out in favor of their newer Boeing 737-800 planes. This makes sense, as Eagle flies short routes to small cities and American flies all over the world.

Second, less obviously, American has a fleet of baggage trucks at O'Hare, while American Eagle apparently has one rickety bamboo cart pulled by a 20-year-old mule. Evidence? The last four times I flew in on Eagle, I waited 40 to 45 minutes for my checked bag. Today, flying in on American, in the 12 minutes it took to walk from the gate[1] to the baggage claim, my bag had gotten to the carousel.

Seriously, Eagle? It's time to retire Francis and combine baggage teams with your parent airline.

[1] K19, the farthest gate possible in American's terminal, a gate so far from baggage claim they have Sherpas to guide passengers, and still two AUs closer than the C-concourse is from United's baggage claim on the other side of the airport.

Heh:

James Fallows makes an excellent point about Chief Justice Roberts' anti-conservatism:

The head of the nation's judicial branch was purposefully deceptive during his "umpire" [confirmation] testimony. Or he had no idea what his words meant. Or he has had a complete change of philosophy and temperament while in his mid-50s. Those are the logical possibilities. None of them is too encouraging about the basic soundness of our governing institutions.

The majority voting in Citizens United v FEC overturned 100 years of legislative compromises by fiat. Fallows' colleague Megan McArdle thinks this is fine:

The description in the first paragraph could just as easily describe sodomy law before Lawrence v. Texas, civil rights law pre-Brown, or indeed, the state of abortion law pre-Roe. Had Roberts voted for the majority in one of these cases, would we be hearing the same anguish about his lack of deference to precedent?

Two things. First, those cases all dealt with the rights of living persons, not "persons" under the vastly-expanded definition of the term that occurred during the robber-baron era at the turn of the 20th century. Corporations didn't suffer arrest and persecution because they couldn't give millions to their favorite political causes. Second, those cases all brought some state laws into conformance with Federal law, without creating whole new law out of thin air.

Citizens United opens up a brand new era of corporatism. As Slate's Dahlia Litwick pointed out on "Marketplace" last night, "During 2008 alone Exxon Mobil generated profits of $45 billion, with the diversion of even 2 percent of those profits to the political process, this one company could have outspent both presidential candidates and fundamentally changed the dynamics of the 2008 elections." The arguments in favor of unrestricted corporate money in politics are seductive, but ultimately destructive of democracy. I worry that we're headed toward even greater income inequality in the U.S. This decision will hasten it.

In a major victory for the slippery-slope theory of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court today removed all barriers to corporate dominance in politics:

In a 5-4 decision, the court's conservative bloc said corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals and, for that reason, the government may not stop corporations from spending freely to influence the outcome of federal elections.

Until now, corporations and unions have been barred from spending their own treasury funds on broadcast ads or billboards that urge the election or defeat of a federal candidate. This restriction dates back to 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt called on Congress to forbid corporations, railroads and national banks from using their money in federal election campaigns. After World War II, Congress extended this ban to labor unions.

Just like the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the people most at risk from the removal of restrictions are the ones least likely to remember why they were there in the first place.

I'll have more to say once I read the case and digest it. My initial reaction is horror. I only hope that someday we can look back on this case with the disdain that we, today, reserve for Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson, both of them deeply damaging decisions that looked, at the time, to some people, like perfectly natural interpretations of existing law.

As the Massachusetts Democratic Party limps around with a self-inflicted bullet wound in its foot, we should keep in mind that Americans have always thought the country's going to hell, and yet hasn't actually gotten there, as James Fallows reminds us:

Through the entirety of my conscious life, America has been on the brink of ruination, or so we have heard, from the launch of Sputnik through whatever is the latest indication of national falling apart or falling behind. Pick a year over the past half century, and I will supply an indicator of what at the time seemed a major turning point for the worse. The first oil shocks and gas-station lines in peacetime history; the first presidential resignation ever; assassinations and riots; failing schools; failing industries; polarized politics; vulgarized culture; polluted air and water; divisive and inconclusive wars. It all seemed so terrible, during a period defined in retrospect as a time of unquestioned American strength.

... In The American Jeremiad, his classic 1978 account of that phenomenon, Sacvan Bercovitch, of Harvard, points out that from the very start of European settlement in New England, colonists were warned that God was disappointed in them, so they should improve not just their individual ethics but their collective social behavior. Indeed, only six years after the Arbella brought John Winthrop to Massachusetts, a Congregationalist minister was lamenting the lost golden age of the colony, asking parishioners, “Are all [God’s] kindnesses forgotten? all your promises forgotten?”

Nearly 400 years of overstated warnings do not mean that today’s Jeremiahs will be proved wrong. And of course any discussion of American problems in any era must include the disclaimer: the Civil War was worse. But these alarmed calls to action are something we do to ourselves—usually with good effect. Especially because of the world financial crisis, “we have seen palpable declines in the middle class’s standing and its sense of security for the future,” Jackson Lears said. “I think that was a good deal of what was behind Obama’s election—that same longing for rebirth that we have seen in other eras. It is rooted in the familiar Protestant longing for salvation, but is adaptable to secular arenas. Obama was basically riding to victory as part of a politics of regeneration.” Barack Obama’s very high popularity ratings just after the election suggest that even those who now oppose him and his policies recognized the potential for a new start.

It's a great article, made more interesting by Fallows' recent return to the U.S. after 3 years in China.

So, no, we're not going to hell. We're in that unstable moment when the swing has reached the top of its arc and started returning to center, but bits of us are still moving in the opposite direction. Thirty years from now, when we're at the top of the left side of the arc, it'll feel the same way.

One year into the Obama administration, it seems that a sizable portion of the country believe that because he hasn't cleaned up the unprecedented mess left by the former occupant, he somehow caused it. That, anyway, comes through in the reports of GOP focus groups of independent voters in Massachusetts. That, and crashing ignorance:

"I like what Scott Brown stands for and I feel that the Democrats cannot run the country anymore. That too many people that don’t have jobs are going hungry. They’re not taking care of business. They’re not doing their jobs. They’re caught up in this health care thing. I’m saying they’re not taking care of the people that are unemployed.” (Independent Man, Bristol)

Except for the bits in the past year where the Democratic Congress expanded unemployment insurance, passed a stimulus package, prevented massive bank failures, and started winding down two wars.

"Scott Brown ran a campaign as an underdog and he ran without support and is getting his message out, it doesn’t feel like he’s tied to anybody...." (Independent Woman, Norfolk)

Except for the largest single GOP money-drop in a decade.

"Brown would be the forty-first elected Republican, breaking the monopoly the Democrats have in Congress. I think they’re running away with their agenda and not listening to the American people. Just that there are so many cases where, for example the tea party, people are out there expressing their opinions. I see interviews with Harry Reid, not hearing the majority." (Independent Man, Bristol)

Except for the majorities who voted for the Democratic Congress, Senate, and President (53%, 52%, and 53%, respectively) in 2008.

In fact, the Democratic Congress' failing could be that they've tried too hard to represent the entire country, including the obstructionist right wing, when they should have taken their mandate and rammed their policies through. This, if you recall, is what the Republicans did in 1994 and 2000. Andrew Sullivan summarizes:

[The health care reform bill is m]ore conservative than Nixon or Clinton - and yet it's a threat to the meaning of America. This is claptrap. Hooey. Hysteria. And wrong. If the Democrats give into this FNC/RNC campaign to smear Obama as something he is not, they will miss the only chance of real, imperfect but meaningful reform. They will have blinked after being psyched out.

The Republican Party doesn't care about policy, they don't care about governing, they don't care about helping people, and they certainly don't care what the majority of Americans want or need. The Republican Party cares about winning qua winning. And then what? Well, they don't care.

And yet, today's aftershock in Haiti and Japan Airlines' bankruptcy (¥2 trillion) will probably be more important events a year from now.

Jon Stewart, of course:

It's all right. Throughout history the right usually has more internal discipline than the left, and somehow, things progress anyway. I just hope that today, nihilism loses. (Think about that for a moment and then, if you live in Mass, hold your nose and vote for Coakley anyway.)

States can't declare bankruptcy. If they could, Illinois would probably have done already:

While it appears unlikely or even impossible for a state to hide out from creditors in Bankruptcy Court, Illinois appears to meet classic definitions of insolvency: Its liabilities far exceed its assets, and it's not generating enough cash to pay its bills. Private companies in similar circumstances often shut down or file for bankruptcy protection.

...Despite a budget shortfall estimated to be as high as $5.7 billion, state officials haven't shown the political will to either raise taxes or cut spending sufficiently to close the gap.

As a result, fiscal paralysis is spreading through state government. Unpaid bills to suppliers are piling up. State employees, even legislators, are forced to pay their medical bills upfront because some doctors are tired of waiting to be paid by the state. The University of Illinois, owed $400 million, recently instituted furloughs, and there are fears it may not make payroll in March if the shortfall continues.

In unrelated news, the current temperatures are 16°C in Raleigh and -1°C in Chicago...

Having the second-oldest ball park may give Chicago its largest outdoor party 88 days every summer, but I can't deny that other parks have better amenities. The steel troughs in the men's rooms, for example: ew. Now that Wrigley has a new owner, there's talk of expansion and renovation ahead of its centennial in 2014:

The project will be called "Wrigley 20-14" and include construction projects during the season so the Cubs can use it "for another 100 years," according to President Crane Kenney.

The focal point of the massive restructuring will be the long-talked-about "triangle building" to the west, a project that will include knocking down the outer wall on the third-base side to form a large open-air courtyard that would include concession areas and shops.

In the end, all of the concourse will be widened and include expanded restrooms, some of which will be completed for this season. It also means construction will be ongoing during the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

I think that will help make the games more enjoyable. Now all we need is a Marlins-style team of unknowns who play well together (instead of being the team where former stars go to die), and we might actually break the 101-year drought.

Randomness:

• Parker and I did, in fact, walk today (8 km), and it is, in fact, sunny and 16°C.
• Roger Ebert responds to Rush Limbaugh
• Via Greening Your Library, a quick and informative explanation of single-stream recycling.
• My books for next term only weigh 4 kg this time. I appreciate that. The 6 kg I carried to London was not fun. (This is a joke. Ha, ha.)
• Speaking of: "The cause of the floor's collapse remains under investigation." (I believe this is the source link.)

Really. January.

We haven't heard anything yet from the newly-hired Fox "News" analyst, but I'm sure we won't have to wait too long before she adds to Limbaugh's and Robertson's inane comments about Haiti.

I think we need to look to Jon Stewart for clarity:

As "Chicagoans gaze out at a cover of snow for the 21st consecutive day" today, I'm once again in Raleigh, where snow fell once a few weeks ago but decided not to stay the night. It's already 9°C, going up to a predicted 16°C this afternoon. I plan to walk as far as my legs will take me (or Parker's will take him) later on.

That's the problem, of course: in Chicago, we get maybe three days like this between November and March, so I'm a little giddy about it. On the other hand, Chicagoans do get a lot of work done in the winter. Probably because we have no opportunities to play.

Thousands dead, a country devastated, and this clown blames the devil? Seriously:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," [Televangelist Pat Robertson] said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

Assuming for a moment that Robertson isn't an ignorant, medieval, superstitious, wretched man, and that Haiti did make a pact with Satan, one must ask where Robertson came by this information. Possibly he was in the queue behind Haiti, waiting for his turn at the deal window?

No, that's just mean. Neither Robertson nor Haiti made a pact with the devil, and neither Robertson nor Haiti deserves what they have right now. Haiti doesn't deserve the suffering, the death, the destruction, the French colonial history, the dictators who took power, the poor soil, the lack of rainfall, or anything else that has led to where they are this evening. Robertson, for his part, doesn't deserve his money, his power, his influence, or anything else that has allowed this latest public utterance of such far-reaching and anti-Christian stupidity the audience it got.

Anyway, the devil, if he existed, wouldn't work through earthquakes. He'd work through televangelists.

Something not often seen (or felt): a 7.0 earthquake just hit Haiti.

Apparently I got back to Chicago just in time for a heat wave:

Arctic air's grip on Chicago's weather enters its 19th day Tuesday. But far-reaching changes in critical upper level steering winds taking place on a continental scale are to undermine the frigid air's dominance. The break in arctic-level temperatures may span much of the coming two weeks. Not until month's end may bitter winds of arctic origin return brutally cold air to the metro area.

Coming days will offer winter weary Chicago area residents a noticeable respite from the bitter air at the heart of January's 13.9-degrees average temperature to date--a reading more than 5°C below normal. But the "warming" predicted which is to include the city's first above freezing afternoon readings since Christmas (Dec. 25), may occur a bit more slowly than many might hope.

Today the temperature at one reporting station (Waukegan) did, in fact, go all the way up to 0.6°C, but alas the city's official high today looks like 0°C on the nose.

Bonus: A propos of nothing, here's a set of outtakes from ABC's Better Off Ted (NSFW). Worth a chuckle.

Via several sites, a NASA photo of Great Britain from Thursday noontime:

Funny on so many levels:

Software entrepreneur Joel Spolsky says that's a good start, but only part of it:

[L]et’s stop talking about “backups.” Doing a backup is too low a bar. Any experienced system administrator will tell you that they have a great backup plan, the trouble comes when you have to restore.

And that’s when you discover that:

• The backed-up files were encrypted with a cryptographically-secure key, the only copy of which was on the machine that was lost
• The server had enormous amounts of configuration information stored in the IIS metabase which wasn’t backed up
• The backup files were being copied to a FAT partition and were silently being truncated to 2GB
• Your backups were on an LTO drive which was lost with the data center, and you can’t get another LTO drive for three days
• And a million other things that can go wrong even when you “have” “backups.”

The minimum bar for a reliable service is not that you have done a backup, but that you have done a restore.

As someone who's got reliable, clockwork backups running, and has had them fail for one of the reasons Spolsky listed (and others that he didn't), I think this is tremendously good advice.

Each day that we spend getting Parker to exist peacefully with the cats brings us closer to the goal of peace and harmony. This, I think, is what Parker fears (and the cats want):

(Hat tip DK.)

But not this:

(More after the jump.)

The Duke CCMBA has a five-term course called "Culture, Civilization, and Leadership" that gives us structures to help us understand—wait for it—cultures and civilizations. At the end of each term, each team produces a paper analyzing the place in which we started the term. This term, I drew the short straw volunteered to write the first draft. We just submitted the final paper, after a few days of revisions. If you're interested, here it is.

We didn't put it in the paper, but throughout the process, I kept hearing Ozymandias in my head. Can't think why:

I met a traveller from an antique land....

(More after the jump.)

It turns out, Raleigh isn't that cold. All my life I've just accepted that Chicago winters build character. But I'm not sure anymore, especially after three sunny, 5°C days here while temperatures back home have skulked around -12°C. Then, today, this:

A winter storm warning will be in effect across the Chicago area from this evening through Friday morning.

By the end of that warning, anywhere from 15 to 30 cm of a fairly fluffy snow will have come down, according to the National Weather Service. The heaviest snows are expected near the lakefront.

... The heaviest snowfall will occur between noon and 6 p.m. Thursday, with snow falling at about an inch an hour, [said Charles Mott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service].

Forecasters predict snow in Raleigh tonight, too: about 1 cm or so. Of course, that amount could halt all commerce in North Carolina, so we'll be stocking up on bottled water later.

Seriously, though, Raleigh averages 19 cm of snow annually; Chicago, 98 cm. Then there are the normal temperatures of both cities. I'll say nothing else right now except that the average January daily high temperature in Chicago is the average January daily low temperature in Raleigh.

Let's see how I like Raliegh in July. But today, it's fine.

Diane and her sister made Parker a bed. I think he likes it:

Three guesses what he's staring at.

I mentioned a few days ago that security at Israel's Ben Gurion airport seems to be both stronger and more convenient than U.S. airport security. Bruce Schneier reminds us about the problem:

[N]o matter how safe or how wonderful the flying experience on El Al, it is TINY airline by U.S. standards, with only 38 aircraft, 46 destinations, and fewer than two million passengers in 2008. ... In 2008, Ben Gurion served 11.1 million international passengers and 470,000 domestic passengers, roughly comparable to the 10 million total served at Sacramento.... Amsterdam served 47.4 million total, and Detroit served 35.1 million total in 2008.

By American standards, in terms of passengers served, Ben Gurion is a busy regional airport.

Simply put, the Israeli airport security model does not scale. Period.

The question I have is: why can't we have a rational debate about the costs of security?

Would you take more free stuff, or more stuff you pay for? Probably the latter, according to Duke University professor Dan Ariely:

DAN ARIELY: ... [T]here's some interesting exceptions [to cheaper prices being better]. And the most interesting one is the price of free. Imagine that one of your co-workers comes to the office with home-baked cookies, and she's offering you the cookies for a very cheap price. Let's say 5 cents per cookie. And she has 100 cookies on the tray, and there are 20 people in the office. How many cookies will you take?

KAI RYSSDAL: I'd probably take like five. I'd give her a quarter, and take five cookies.

ARIELY: OK, but what would happen if it was free?

RYSSDAL: Well, now see, I'm torn here, because I would either take a lot and be a real piggy, or I would take maybe one or two because I wouldn't want to be a glutton.

The entire conversation was on Marketplace tonight.

It's amazing what you can do with a well-focused dog:

Unfortunately, he was focused on a cat. Baby steps.

The Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, opens tomorrow. The Chicago Tribune reports on its historical debt to Chicago:

[T]he Burj Dubai has a broader -- unmistakably global -- significance for Chicago, which invented the skyscraper in the 1880s, pioneered supertall structures in the mid-1960s and had bragging rights to the world's tallest building title from 1974 to 1996, when Sears (now Willis) Tower wore the crown.

These days, the city's cloud-busting architectural achievements aren't simply found in the downtown blocks girdled by the rough-edged steel structure of the "L." They're spread across the world, from Dubai to Shanghai and beyond.

"From the foundation established in Chicago, that legacy is now being exported to other countries," said Joseph Rosa, the Art Institute of Chicago's architecture and design curator.

The article goes on to laud Adrian Smith, the building's chief architect. It's good to remember, though, that Chicago invented the skyscraper, and led the world for decades. But we're content to let the young upstarts have their fun. Look upon their works, ye mighty, and despair.

Have you ever tried to introduce a dog into a house full of cats? We've had more fun in the past three weeks doing this than seems fair. We're finally at the point where we think Parker will leave the cats alone just long enough for them to flee. The terrier and beagle bits take over on occasion and he has gotten uncomfortably close to the cats more than once—which explains why we've kept him tethered to the desk where I can get to him immediately.

Being untethered has huge benefits, though. For example, Parker can find a sunbeam and relax:

Since I'm spending so much time here, I thought I should do a Raleigh sunrise chart to complement the one for Chicago. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.)

Once again, a major American newspaper has reported on something as universal fact, but that only makes sense in the U.S.:

The day is a palindromic date: 01-02-2010, meaning the number can be read the same way in either direction.

There will be 12 palindromic days this century, [Aziz Inan, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon,] said, and Saturday is the second. The first was 10-02-2001. (To check out his complete list: faculty.up.edu/ainan/palindrome.html)

Well, only here. Almost everywhere else in the world, people use different formats for dates. In Europe, for example, today is 2/1/10; the next "palindrome" date is February 1st (01-02-2010), and the last was 10 February 2001 (10-02-2001).

Except maybe not. Most people don't customarily use leading zeroes when writing dates. That makes today 2/1/10 most places, and means the next "palindrome" really won't be until 1/1/11. Or 11/1/11. Or 11/11/11. (20-11-2011? What manner of numerical silliness will that date cause people?)

Don't even get me started on International System measurements and American exceptionalism[1]. But it's the same idea.

In his defense, Prof. Inan isn't serious (and neither am I): "Despite Inan's excitement, he dismisses the notion that mysticism and magic lie behind such dates. He doesn't, for example, fear Dec. 21, 2012, the date the Mayan "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era. Some folks think the date portends a revolution or an apocalypse. Jan. 2, 2010, and Dec. 21, 2012, he said, just happen to be really cool dates."

[1] There are 310 million people in the U.S. of 6.5 billion worldwide—we're 1/19th of the world population—and the only country including England who still use the English system of measurements.

...nothing happened. And I spent all night in a data facility in New York watching nothing happen. Fun times, fun times.

Happy 22!

That's a little geek humor. See, 01/01/10 is 22. Get it?

You know, like, "There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't"?

Right. Starting off the year well, I can see....