The Daily Parker

Just an hour or so into the first business day of 2021, and morning news had a few stories that grabbed my attention:

• All 10 living former defense secretaries joined in an op-ed yesterday condemning the idea of involving the military in election disputes.
• After repeated warnings, the FAA are proposing $182,000 in fines against an unlicensed drone pilot for 26 violations of FAR Part 107 rules.
• The BBC rolls its eyes, sighs in exasperation, and takes apart a number of PM Boris Johnson's claims about Brexit.
• A new points-based immigration system took effect in the UK on Friday.
• Illinois has converted hundreds of kilometers of railroad rights-of-way into trails over the years; the Tribune has a list.

Finally, don't eat icicles. They're basically frozen bird poop.

What a bizarre year. Just looking at last year's numbers, it almost doesn't make sense to compare, but what the hell:

• Last year I flew the fewest air-miles in 20 years; this year, I flew the fewest since the first time I got on a commercial airplane, which was during the Nixon Administration. In January I flew to Raleigh-Durham and back, and didn't even go to the airport for the rest of the year. That's 1,292 air miles, fewer than the very first flight I took (Chicago to Los Angeles, 1,745 air miles). I did, however, make an overnight trip to Wisconsin in November, easily breaking the record for my longest travel drought but making it shorter than never. 
• This is my 609th post on the Daily Parker in 2020—an average of more than 50 per month. This new record blows away the one I set just last year by 10.5%. (Imagine how much I'd have written had anything newsworthy actually happened in 2020.)
• The pandemic let me spend Parker's last eight months with him nearly every day. Despite his age and discomfort, we managed to go for almost 241 hours of walks (274 annualized), a whopping 29% (46% annualized) more than in 2019.
• Including today, I got 4,848,171 steps, averaging 13,246 per day. This is 5.7% fewer than last year. I missed 10,000 steps on seven occasions—five this month. Without a daily commute or a dog, not to mention the cold weather, I have struggled since Thanksgiving to get motivated enough to get longer walks in. That said, I hit a new record of 312 consecutive days over 10,000 steps, a record I don't anticipate ever breaking. I also got 56,562 steps on September 4th—another record I don't expect to break soon.
• I once again read more than the year before, with 39 books started and 37 completed. (I'm still working on The Power Broker, which I started 18 months ago...) On the other hand, I watched 59 movies and 79 TV series, compared with 56 and 38 respectively in 2019. Of course, almost all of that was streaming on my home computer while programming on my work computer, but it's a lot.

I can't even predict what will happen in 2021. I expect fewer steps, more books, and actually to start traveling again. Here's hoping for a speedy vaccination.

Today's news stories comprise a mixed bag:

• Famed test pilot and Air Force General Chuck Yeager died yesterday, on the 4th anniversary of astronaut John Glenn's death and the day before the 40th anniversary of John Lennon's.
• Michael Gerson takes Evangelical Christian leaders to task for supporting the president's attempted autogolpe.
• Chef Edward Lee, writing in Bon Appétit, frets that Covid-19 could end the renaissance of independent restaurants we experienced in the last 20 years.
• Chicago alderman Tom Tunney, former chair of the Illinois Restaurant Association and owner of Ann Sather, received well-deserved criticism and now faces a $10,000 fine for serving customers illegally at his restaurant after the city-wide emergency order prohibiting in-person dining.
• Former ER physician Dr Elisabeth Rosenthal argues "it's time to scare people about Covid" to get people to take the disease seriously.

Finally, a little sweetness for a cold December day: Whisky Advocate has a recipe for bourbon balls that I hope someone will try and share with me. I'll even supply the bourbon.

While I wait for my frozen pizza to cook, I've got these stories to keep me company:

• Jakob Nielsen has updated his classic article "10 usability heuristics for UI design."
• Steve Coll tries to figure out what the president gets out of contesting Biden's win.
• Paul Krugman looks at the way half the country ignores the science in ending the pandemic and despairs at how we can forestall climate change.
• Patrick Smith reminds us that we've gone more than 19 years since the last major US air carrier crash, which shows us how far aviation safety has come in the last 50 years.

Going to check my pizza now.

It could be worse. It might yet be:

• Covid-19 cases have started to climb once again in the US, passing 8 million just three weeks after passing 7 million. In Illinois, we hit a second consecutive record, with 4,554 new cases today. (There were a record 4,015 yesterday.)
• TNR's Alex Shepherd says NBC did the Biden campaign a huge favor by booking the president, forcing a direct comparison between the two candidates in real time.
• The Atlantic's Adrienne LaFrance compares the absurd conspiracy theory QAnon to a nascent religion.
• New York Times columnist Jennifer Senior awards Rod Rosenstein the prize for "most complicit."
• In a post earlier last month, pilot Patrick Smith compared airplane food between airlines. (It's a fun post. Really.)

And hey, we're only 95½ days away from Joe Biden's inauguration.

After a 10-hour flight from Spain to Toronto, a rescue Podenco named Crystal discovered that someone had failed to properly secure her crate, and she was off:

Over the next 12 hours, a highly coordinated search ensued, replete with CCTV security, thermal infrared cameras and a call for help to the Falcon Environment Services, the airport wildlife team. All arrivals and departures were suspended for at least an hour on Tuesday morning as staff searched high and low for Crystal.

Finding her wasn’t the issue, Chris Stubbs said — the hardest part was being able to catch her. “There were times where it just looked like a white blur running down the taxiway,” Stubbs said

Podencos are close relatives of the greyhound, native to Spain, and were popularly adopted as hunting dogs, which explains their speed and agility. 

At two points, Crystal appeared on the runway as aircraft were landing, forcing pilots to quickly abort.

By the 12th hour, Crystal had worn herself out and crawled under a truck to rest, giving [animal control specialist Keith] Everett the rare opportunity to crawl close and slip a leash over her head. Rather than rush her out, he stayed under the truck with the scared, exhausted pup and tried to gain her trust by talking and giving her treats.

The pandemic saved her, by the way. At full capacity, Pearson has hundreds of takeoffs and landings every day. The airport would have had to use a much quicker and more permanent method to protect aviation safety in that case.

Crystal now lives with her adoptive family in New Brunswick.

Just a few of the things that crossed my desktop this morning:

• Astronomers have detected phosphine gas in the clouds on Venus, which is a strong indicator of life.
• Astronomers have also detected a ping-pong-ball-sized black hole orbiting the sun, getting as close as 133 kAUs in its orbit.
• An aircraft made a precautionary landing on an Interstate in Tennessee, and got a full police escort on take-off. No one was hurt.
• Car manufacturers are teaming up with insurance companies to share data on almost every aspect of how you drive.
• The Democratic governor of Nevada slammed the president for holding a "reckless and selfish" rally inside a Las Vegas arena over the weekend.
• Disappointed would-be marijuana retailers have sued to get some of the remaining Illinois licenses, saying the process as run has created an oligopoly that harms consumers.
• Via pro photographer Scott Kelly, Iain Stanley explains why your camera equipment matters less than you think.
• There are currently 8 active tropical systems in the Western hemisphere today, including the 21st storm of the Atlantic season.

And last night, Cubs pitcher Alec Mills threw the club's 16th no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have only been 315 no-hitters. The last time the Cubs won a no-hitter was 51 years ago.

I kind of got into the flow today, so things to read later just piled up:

• Illinois found 1,532 new known Covid-19 cases as of today, with four downstate, bright-red counties now getting warned that their numbers are rising quickly.
• The GOP failures on containing this disease keep mounting.
• Greg Sargent points out that "Trump's authoritarian crackdown is so bad that even some in the GOP are blasting it."
• Maeve Higgins finds that her American passport just doesn't work anymore.
• Garmin's entire production app suite remains offline, but someone found time to rearrange their status page.
• QANTAS has retired its last Boeing 747, and gave it a lovely sign-off.

And wait—you can make risotto in an Instant Pot? I might have to try that.

Just a few things have cropped up in the news since yesterday:

• President Trump has threatened to send federal agents to "assist" with Chicago's efforts to curb gun violence, which no one except the Trump-supporting head of our police union wants. Michelle Goldberg calls the presence of federal agents in Portland a harbinger of fascism, while the ACLU calls it "a constitutional crisis" and has filed suit to reverse the policy.
• Also in Portland, an unidentified woman wearing only a hat and face mask nonchalantly walked in front of a row of federal police and danced for them. Said the LA Times, "She stood calmly, a surreal image of human vulnerability in the face of an overpowering force that has been criticized nationally by civil rights advocates." (Nudity is constitutionally-protected speech in Oregon.)
• The BBC also digs in and reports that the 1807 Insurrection Act prohibits this kind of federal intervention. Notably, the last time a president invoked the law against the express wishes of the state was in 1957, when Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas to protect black children from white mobs.
• St Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner's office filed felony charges against Mark and Patricia McCloskey for unlawful use of a weapon, but the Republican governor of Missouri has already promised to pardon the couple.
• The FBI arrested Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and three others in connection with a $60 m bribery case.
• The Boeing 747 has become the latest casualty of Covid-19, with only one airline continuing to fly the jet in passenger service.
• The Chicago Transit Authority has started round-the-clock construction on the $2.1 bn Red-Purple Modernization Project, which my alderman acknowledged would cause "massive disruption."

Finally, the Covid-19 mitigation rollback announced yesterday has led to Guthrie's Tavern closing permanently. Guthrie's, which opened in 1986 and featured board games and good beer, will pour its last pint on Thursday.

I originally posted the top photo a couple of weeks ago, before I found the legal loophole allowing me to take my drone above 120 m AGL. (It turns out I can take it 120 m above the tallest structure within 120 m.) So early this morning, in calm winds, I took it up to 150 m, almost exactly matching the view. If only my drone had a slightly longer lens, I could duplicate it exactly. At least I got the parallax right, meaning I now know the original photo was taken only 150 m up. It would not be legal for a fixed-wing airplane to fly so low today; you'd need a helicopter and permission.

Here's 1933:

And 2020:

I also plan to re-shoot a bunch of these after the trees lose their leaves this fall.