The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

One more year to add to the sign

Baseball season ends today for Chicago, making it 101 years since the Cubs last won the World Series. Last year they had to add another digit to the sign on Waveland Street. This year, they only have to increment the numbers: AC 01 64 101. ("AC" means "Anno Catuli" or "Year of the Cub;" the numbers refer to the years since they last won the division, the Pennant, and the World Series, respectively.)

Here's the sign at the beginning of this season for comparison:

The one encouraging thing from this year's regular season standings is that no one lost 100 games. Baltimore won yesterday's game against Toronto and Pittsburgh won Friday's game, limiting their possible losses to 99 pending the outcomes of today's games.

So, even though the Cubs have one more game today, I've already switched to my Red Sox hat. Playoffs start Wednesday.

Gandhi's birthday

They only have about half an hour of Gandhi's birthday left in India, so I just got this under the wire.

Everybody knows that Gandhi fasted often, making him somewhat frail. People also know that he walked all over India barefoot in solidarity with the nation's poorest citizens, which gave him extremely tough feet.

Many people do not know that the Mahatma had bad breath, however. All of his treks across the Sub-Continent left him little time or opportunity to brush his teeth, it seems.

Anyway, if you put all of this together, you will see that Gandhi was...

(Wait for it.)

...a super-calloused fragile mystic who suffered halitosis.

Everyone except the Mayor can breathe again

The International Olympic Committee has eliminated Chicago from consideration for the 2016 games.

The defeat marked the first time since 1980 that the U.S. has failed in consecutive bid attempts. Los Angeles lost to Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980, but then was awarded the 1984 Games when it was the only viable candidate bidding.

There was a stunned reaction in Chicago to the decision.

Yes, the people gathered in Daley Center Plaza, including the Mayor, would be disappointed. I confess to being about 5% disappointed and 95% relieved; the Olympics would have been hugely costly for Chicago, and we need all our money right now to buy back the parking meters.

Cubs game delayed for thunderstorm

Blowing off the last game of the season I bought tickets for did not come easily. I struggled with the decision for most of the afternoon. I needn't have:

The temperature at Midway has flattened out at 13°C as a thunderstorm has started passing overhead.

Oh, and après le déluge, the Cubs can resume in the top of the 4th with the last-place Pirates beating them 3-0.

So, you know, I think I made the right choice.

No Cubs game tonight

Actually, there will be a Cubs game, in about 10 minutes, but I won't be there, for the following reasons: It's cold out, it's raining, and I have a financial accounting exam in about a week for which I am slightly more prepared than I am to swim the English Channel.

Instead of rainy Cubs photos, then, here is a great post about ghostwriting:

I recognize the paradox [of ghostwriting celebrity memoirs]: the bookstores are already happy to sell this kind of fraud, so why can't online authors engage in the same sort of duplicity? The answer is that online authors need to err on the side of honesty and integrity in order to support not only their own work, but the internet as both a medium and distribution platform.

... Speaking of frauds, do you remember Milli Vanilli? They’re a Grammy-winning singing duo who had to give their Grammy back when it was revealed that the people singing the Grammy-winning song weren't the stage-act duo who accepted the award. C+C Music Factory got into the same kind of hot water when they replaced a full-figured singer on one of their hit songs with a shapely non-singer for that song's music video.

As for the Cubs, well, they were eliminated mid-May, so oh well. Pitchers and catchers come back in five months.

Parking meters in the news...again

This time, though, Bloomberg picked up the story in the context of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid:

Chicagoans are angry about Mayor Richard M. Daley’s deal to lease the city’s parking meters to Morgan Stanley investment funds.

So angry that Daley’s popularity is at a record low, according to a Chicago Tribune/WGN poll. So angry that the 20- year mayor may not have taxpayer support to lease or sell more assets and bolster the city’s budget.

That means Daley is under even more pressure to abide by his pledge that residents won’t pay anything for staging the 2016 Summer Olympics, which organizers say will cost $4.8 billion. The winning site is to be announced Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.

"When they see the city get it so wrong, voters rightfully get very skeptical," said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonprofit public policy group in Chicago.

(Via The Expired Meter.)

British Airways inaugurates an all-premium flight to Kennedy

Via the Economist's Gulliver blog, British Airways has resurrected flight BA001 as an all-business-class flight from London City to New York's Kennedy. They're using tiny Airbus 318 aircraft that have to stop in Shannon, Ireland on the westbound leg to pick up fuel. Still, for less than £4,000 round-trip, it's a lot more convenient and just a bit cheaper than flying in the same class to Heathrow:

Flying from London City means the planes need to land at a much steeper angle than normal - the Airbus A318 which is being used for the new service is approved for a five and a half degree approach slope, compared with three degrees for a normal approach.

The plane will carry only 32 passengers, in seats that recline to fully flat beds.

The airline thinks it's got a winning case for a new business service and will be hoping a resurgent banking sector will provide the custom.

London City airport is only about 15 minutes from the financial center of London, unlike Heathrow which is a good 45 minutes by car or express train. Also, passengers will be able to clear U.S. Customs in Shannon, allowing them to walk off the plane at Kennedy without any delay.

On the other hand, Kennedy is a lot farther from Manhattan than LaGuardia, and has fewer connections to U.S. destinations.

I'll be keeping an eye on this one. I'll also be flying discount to Heathrow the next time I fly to London, so it's not going to affect me much. Still, one wishes British Airways one's best, yes?

Please don't tell the TSA

I can't wait to see what they'll have us do after this:

On the evening of Aug. 28, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister — and the man in charge of the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts — was receiving members of the public in connection with the celebration of Ramadan....

One of the highlights of the Friday gathering was supposed to be the prince’s meeting with Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, a Saudi man who was a wanted militant from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Asiri had allegedly renounced terrorism and had requested to meet the prince in order to repent and then be accepted into the kingdom’s amnesty program. Such surrenders are not unprecedented....

But the al-Asiri case ended very differently from the al-Awfi case. Unlike al-Awfi, al-Asiri was not a genuine repentant — he was a human Trojan horse. After al-Asiri entered a small room to speak with Prince Mohammed, he activated a small improvised explosive device (IED) he had been carrying inside his anal cavity. The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince — the target of al-Asiri’s unsuccessful assassination attempt.

(Via Bruce Schneier.)

Discovered on cell phone

I finally got around to looking in my cell phone's photos folder and discovered St. Paul's Cathedral:

There were also a couple shots of me that a friend took. We'll skip those for now.

Another round-up post, full of links and signifying nothing

Duke will release our financial accounting exam on the 8th, and we'll have 24 hours from the time we download it to finish and hand it in. Our professor, when asked this morning for general guidance about the exam, seemed confident that someone who didn't need to look anything up (e.g., an accounting professor) could finish it in "four to five hours."

In other words, until October 8th, I will likely post link lists, like this one. Sorry.

  • The Economist's Gulliver blog highlighted the differences between Virgin America and the "legacy" carriers. Now, as a lifetime elite member of American Airlines' frequent-flyer program, I might be treated better than non-elite passengers. It still sounds like Virgin America might be on to something. (I'm still going to fly American, because I live in Chicago, which they dominate.)
  • Mark Morford outdoes himself this week tackling the problem of how to talk to a complete idiot. He explains: "The absolute best way to speak to complete idiots is, of course, not to speak to them at all. That is, you work around them, ignore them completely, disregard the rants and the spittle and the misspelled protest signs and the fervent prayers for apocalypse on Fox News. Complete refusal to take the fringe nutballs even the slightest bit seriously is the only way to make true progress."
  • The Cook County Sheriff this week broke up a dogfighting ring at a day care. The descriptions of the dogs they found turned my stomach. (The current story on the Tribune's website omits the descriptions.) That this went on in a building where 10 children spent their days added to the horror. People who inflict cruelty for sport deserve nothing less than the same inflicted on them, I think.

More later. Now, back to financial accounting....