I'm about to leave the office for the next 4½ days. Happy Independence Day!
And who could forget that the UK will have a general election tomorrow? To celebrate, the Post has a graphical round-up of just how badly the Conservative Party has screwed things up since taking power in 2010:
There’s a widespread feeling among voters that something has gone awry under Tory government, that the country is stagnating, if not in perilous decline.
Nearly three-quarters of the public believes that the country is worse off than it was 14 years ago, the London-based pollster YouGov has found. More than 46 percent of people say it’s “much worse.” And to some extent, economic and other data back that up.
Before Brexit, a different word hung over Conservative policy: “austerity.”
Cameron pushed spending cuts intended to reduce government debt and deficit. The goal was never achieved — public debt this year hit its highest rate as a percentage of economic output since the 1960s — but austerity had many side effects, including huge cuts to local governments that hit services such as schools and swimming pools.
Britain’s beloved National Health Service was one of the few places to see funding rise in real terms during this period, but it mostly failed to match pre-2010 trends, let alone keep up with spiking inflation, immigration and the needs of an aging population. Under the Conservatives, waiting times for treatment have surged.
I'm sorry I can't be there tomorrow, but I will be there in September, eagerly questioning my friends about the election and its aftermath.
For this weekend, though, expect some Brews & Choos reviews, and probably some blather about other things as well.
Apparently everyone else got over Covid yesterday, too. Or they're just trying to make deadline before the holiday:
- Peter Hamby pulls the fire alarm after reading a leaked polling report showing President Biden's support slipping in key states after last week's debate catastrophe.
- Constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe fumes that yesterday's decision on presidential immunity "reveals the rot in the system." Ruth Marcus simply calls the Republican majority on the Court "dishonorable."
- In her dissent in yesterday's presidential immunity case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor (I) skewered the Republican majority by quoting directly from the Dobbs decision that "[t]his official-acts immunity has ‘no firm grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent.’"
- Josh Marshall reminds our side that "[t]he election is about Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, the two forces working to overthrow the American republic."
- The Court, meanwhile, declined (for now) to hear a challenge to Illinois' assault weapons ban, though both Justices Alito (R) and Thomas (R) said they can't wait to review it later.
- Paul Krugman would have you say what you want about the tenets of National Front, Dude, but at least it's an ethos.
- The tariffs against Chinese goods put in place by both the convicted-felon XPOTUS and President Biden have started to cost Chicago businesses real money.
- A volunteer group has formed to rescue drowned Divvy bikes from Lake Michigan.
- Chicago restaurant burglaries have jumped in the last two years.
- Hurricane Beryl, now about a day and a half from leveling Jamaica, has become the earliest Category 5 storm in history.
- My alma mater, Duke's Fuqua School of Business, has a new paper explaining why major airlines have switched back to buying planes after leasing them for decades.
- National Geographic explains why alcohol gets harder to clear from your system as you get older.
Finally, the Post analyzed a ton of weather forecasts and determined that forecasting Chicago weather is a lot harder than forecasting Miami's. The only glimmer of good news: today's 7-day forecasts are at least as accurate as the 3-day forecasts from the 1990s.
Thank you, Pfizer-BioNTech, for helping my body recognize and eliminate the SARS-Cov-2 virus in only five days:
I've got 5 Brews & Choos stops planned over the long weekend. This helps immensely. And stay tuned: this summer I'm also planning to investigate some of the 12 breweries and distilleries in downtown Milwaukee. (It's only 80 minutes away by train!)
The last three days—i.e., the first three days of Summer—have shown us most of the weather we can expect this season. It rained most of Saturday, yesterday we had cool, sunny, and eminently walkable weather, and today it's hot and sticky with thunderstorms on the way. At least Cassie and I got to spend most of yesterday outside.
In other news:
Finally, a really fun video from Berlin setting an old German tongue-twister to a beat has garnered more TikTok views than Beyoncé. Apparently Germans, especially those named Barbara, really love their rhubarb pies.
Just doing a quick review of the Brews & Choos-eligible establishments within 2 km of the Milwaukee Amtrak station this morning, I discovered that seven breweries and a distillery have opened since the project started. Accounting for the demise of Milwaukee Ale House, that brings the total to 11 breweries and 2 distilleries. I'll have to make two trips. Now all I have to do is find a weekend...or two...or three...
I first went to the Duke of Perth in June 1993, about four years after it opened.
Today will be the pub's last day at their 35-year-old location on Clark St., after the property owner* doubled the rent. A bunch of us regulars and bartenders from the old days got together yesterday for one last whisky:
The place really hasn't changed much since 1989, which is how it maintained its charm. That, and the patio, where I had more than a few first dates:
When I lived in the neighborhood, I did so much freelance work at Table 5 that I referred to it as my remote office:
Sadly, I never ponied up to have any of these three whiskies before they were gone:
Three of us popped over to the new location, still under construction at 2834 N. Broadway, about two blocks away. Broadway has a lot more foot traffic than Clark, so the Duke's owners expect more people will walk in out of the cold. That said, after seeing the new space, I have no idea where they'd put the fireplace. And the new space will never get direct sunlight because the building across the street shades its only window. They can have five or six tables on the sidewalk, but that's not a beautiful, shaded walled garden.
Still, Colin has pulled off miracles before, saving neighborhood gem La Crèperie from closing in 2013. He doesn't do anything rash, so I have to guess he's had his eye on the new space since the previous restaurant closed in October. But it's still a sad day, losing one of my favorite pubs in the world.
*This landlord has kept storefronts vacant on Clark for so long that he inspired new legislation a couple of years back.
I usually spend the first day or two of a sprint researching and testing out approaches before I start the real coding effort. Since one of my stories this sprint requires me to refactor a fairly important feature—an effort I think will take me all of next week—I decided to read up on something today and have wound up in a rabbit hole.
Naturally, that means a few interesting stories have piled up:
- The Presidential Greatness Project released its annual list of, well, presidents, putting Lincoln at the top (95.03 points), Buchanan next-to-last (16.71), and the XPOTUS dead last (10.92).
- The Justice Dept has finally filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation Entertainment, owner of Ticketmaster, for running one of the most pernicious monopolies of the 21st century. (I refuse to go to Live Nation events or use Ticketmaster anymore, because who wants to pay a 35% fee to a third party just to buy a ticket?)
- Molly White worries about a Dutch court's rationale for convicting Alexey Pertsev of writing the code for a service used to launder money, pointing out that privacy is a human right, and not all anonymization is criminal.
- Pilot James Fallows explains the Singapore Airlines severe-turbulence encounter and repeats the warning I gave earlier in the week.
Finally, Lagunitas Brewing will move its brewing operations back to Petaluma, Calif., (which is a million times better than Megaluma!) and close its Chicago taproom this summer, so I suppose the Brews & Choos Project should get its ass over there pronto.
Welcome to stop #104 on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: Demo Brewing, 1763 W. Berteau Ave., Chicago
Train line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood. (Also CTA Brown Line, Irving Park)
Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (zone 2)
Distance from station: 1.1 km (400 m from CTA)
The newest brewery on Malt Row opened March 29th just 2 km from Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters and less than 500 meters from the CTA. I had a lot going on in April so I didn't get to check it out until last weekend. Cassie came with and met a couple of friends while my friends and I tried some of their beers.
For a variety of reasons, including Cassie wanting to meet every other dog in the place and the humans wanting to, you know, talk to each other, I didn't take detailed tasting notes. I had a pint of the Brunch Goblin Brut IPA (7%, 32 IBU), which I found refreshing and light, despite its strength. Given its proximity to my house, and its open-door policy to dogs, Cassie and I will return probably over Memorial Day weekend when I'll try a few other beers.
It won't replace Spiteful as my third place, but Cassie and I will put it in rotation along the south end of Malt Row with Dovetail and Begyle.
Beer garden? No
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? No
Serves food? No, BYOF
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
Welcome to stop #103 on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: MobCraft Brewing, 101 N. Johnson St., Woodstock
Train line: Union Pacific Northwest, Woodstock
Time from Chicago: 91 minutes (zone 4)
Distance from station: 200 m
Between the perfect weather, the really good beer, and the view of the Woodstock Town Square, my Brews buddy and I really enjoyed our visit to MobCraft last weekend. I mean, doesn't this just make you want to sing "The Pennsylvania Polka?":
But back to the beer. We tried two flights, again, this time with no overlaps:
- Crush: Tropic Wave fruit beer (6%): Not my favorite at all, even after one sip. She: "This tastes like what you give to your high school girlfriend who's too classy for White Claw." (To clarify, in this scenario, you're both in high school, she wants to make clear.)
- First Time in a Long Time copper lager (4.8%): Not a big impression. A decent basic lager, good malt, crisp enough for summer.
- Juni-perfect Saison (6.5%): Beautiful scent, quite tart, she didn't expect to like it and did, I had the reverse experience and just wrote "NOPE!" in my notebook. (This is why we review these together.)
- Out of Office light hopped ale (4.5%): Decent, drinkable, neutral palate, "nice on a hot summer day," would buy.
- Squeezin' Juice IPA (6.7%): I liked the good Citra hoppiness, nice finish, and drinkability; she wasn't a big fan and said "tastes like Daisy Cutter." Nonetheless we bought some for the 90-minute train trip back to Clybourn.
- Vanilla Wafer Porter (7%): Chocolate, coffee, vanilla, really smooth, not too sweet or strong. She: "That's good, I like that!"
The brewery has two taprooms, one upstairs with smaller rooms off the main bar and lighter beers, and one downstairs with jail cells and darker beers. (The building used to be the sherriff's annex to the historic town hall next door.) It looks like it would be cozy in the wintertime, especially if you're trapped for 10,000 days in Woodstock on February 2nd.
Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? Yes, avoidable
Serves food? Bar snacks, but allows BYOF
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
Cassie and I just got back from her vet, with a good 2 km walk in each direction and treats at both ends. The semi-annual wellness check was only $88, and pronounced Cassie in perfect health. Even her weight (25 kg) is exactly what it should be, so I can start adding a little kibble to her meals if we walk a lot.
Of course, the heartworm pills were $230 and the fecal test was $107, so not everything about the checkup was great. Le sigh.
Also, it's warm today: 27°C for both walks, which is more like June 14th than May 13th (normal high: 20.9°C). I even had the air on last night. But I can see a cold front approaching from the west, with an expected temperature crash around 6pm and temperatures barely above 10°C (March 24th!) tomorrow. I'm glad we got our walks in already—looks like the first thunderstorm could hit before 3pm.
And check back tomorrow and Wednesday for two more Brews & Choos reviews from this past weekend, including a brand-new brewery that just opened 2 km from my front door.