To refresh your memory of the movie Finding Nemo, Dory had a cognitive deficiency:
To refresh your memory of last month, so do most American news media:
Blame it on the fiscal cliff, blame it on Christmas, blame it on our ability to forget, but the national discussion about gun control has once again ebbed. Mentions of the term "gun control" on television, in newspapers, and in online media are down to pre-Sandy Hook levels, according to the Nexis database.
Barring a post-holidy resurgence -- which is certainly possible -- the gun control discussion has once again gone the way of... the gun control discussion.
Hat tip: reader MP.
Nearly 65% of the lower 48 United States has snow cover, including parts of every state except for the seven between Louisiana and South Carolina.
Chicago, for reasons not well understood, has just a trace on the ground and has gone 314 days without 25 mm of snow, 4 days short of the record set in 1940. Since we have no significant snow in the forecast, it looks like we'll break that record too.
Other records threatened: number of days without 25 mm total snowfall accumulation, 312 (record is 313); latest date without a 25 mm snowfall, ranked 10th (record is 17 January 1899; 9th is 5 January 1994); and latest day for total 25 mm accumulation for the season, ranked 4th (record is 8 January 1944; 3rd is 6 January 1913).
And the forecast for March-like weather next week has gotten clearer, with the National Weather Service now predicting 8°C on Wednesday.
Weird weather continues.
The 6-10 day outlook for the U.S. looks warm:
Forecasters predict temperatures above 10°C in Chicago by Wednesday before the weather cools to more normal January levels the following weekend. This comes after 2012 officially became Chicago's warmest year ever (or at least since we started keeping records in 1871), and during a continuing drought that has nearly shut down the Mississippi River.
Well, you know, warm, dry springs are very nice in Chicago...so are mild winters...
It seems I got ahead of events in my post last night. Chicago Public Radio clarified this morning what's going on in the General Assembly:
Before it even went to committee, legislators debated not gay marriage, but the process they’ll use to discuss the issue.
Republican State Sen. Dale Righter said it’s hard for the public to follow bills as they move around the Statehouse, and the issue shouldn’t be rushed.
Senators voted 28-24, in effect stalling the bill. But the gay marriage issue could still be addressed again Thursday. It comes as the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party said in a statement that he supports gay marriage while Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago wrote a letter explaining why he opposes it and urging Catholics to actively fight it.
The Tribune has more:
Gay marriage is but one issue on a crowded agenda of the final days of the outgoing General Assembly. Lawmakers also are looking at pension reform, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, gambling expansion and gun control before the reset button is hit when the new Legislature is sworn in Wednesday.
Given the political complexities, it will be a tall order for lawmakers to complete a comprehensive pension overhaul by the time the clock runs out. Same goes for chances of passing a major gambling expansion to meet Mayor Rahm Emanuel's desire to have a Chicago casino.
And Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon had a good response to the Cardinal's idiotic "legal fiction" canard: "Simon argued that adoption is similarly a "legal fiction" that helps citizens form a family unit — and one that she also supports."
House Bill 5170 will very likely go to the Illinois House for a vote before Tuesday, and if it does, it will pass and receive Governor Quinn's signature a few hours later:
The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act is amended by changing Sections 201, 209, and 212 and by adding Section 220 as follows:
(750 ILCS 5/201) (from Ch. 40, par. 201)
Sec. 201. Formalities.) A marriage between 2 persons a man and a woman licensed, solemnized and registered as provided in
this Act is valid in this State.
The Illinois Senate may vote on it tomorrow. That fact explains why Francis Cardinal George wrote a letter to his rapidly-dwindling flock yesterday saying, "Civil laws that establish 'same sex marriage' create a legal fiction. The State has no power to create something that nature itself tells us is impossible."
I understand that the Cardinal is not a lawyer, but in this country, and in this state, marriage is defined by law first. I should also draw the Cardinal's attention to the second purpose of HB5170:
(a-5) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require any religious denomination, Indian Nation or Tribe or Native Group, or any officiant acting as a representative of a religious denomination, Indian Nation or Tribe or Native Group, to solemnize any marriage. Instead, any religious denomination, Indian Nation or Tribe or Native Group is free to choose which marriages it will solemnize.
In other words, Cardinal, we're bound by the First Amendment to get our laws out of your church. Now please get your religion out of our legislature.
Sigh. Zipcar, short-term rental car service that has occasionally made my life a lot easier, just got swallowed by Avis:
Zipcar Inc. has been growing as more people in urban areas forgo owning a car and instead tap car-sharing and hourly rental services when they need a vehicle. The company’s third-quarter sales grew 15% to $78.2 million while its membership (renters) grew 18% to more than 767,000. Zipcar earned $4.3 million in the three-month period and has said it expected 2012 to be the first full year for which it posts a profit.
Avis Budget, the nation’s third-largest car rental company -- after Enterprise Holdings and Hertz -- will pay $12.25 a share in cash for Zipcar, a 49% premium over the stock's closing price Monday.
Avis believes it can whittle $50 million to $70 million of expenses out of the combined operations of the companies by eliminating duplication of functions such as the cost of maintaining Zipcar as a publicly traded company.
Just once I'd like to see a cool, niche company grow to a sustainable size without being acquired by a huge corporation.
The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf takes on the troubling contradiction between right-wing support of the 2nd Amendment at the expense of a few others:
It's one thing to argue that gun control legislation is a nonstarter, despite tens of thousands of deaths by gunshot per year, because the safeguards articulated in the Bill of Rights are sacrosanct. I can respect that... but not from people who simultaneously insist that 3,000 dead in a terrorist attack justifies departing from the plain text of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, and giving the president de-facto power to declare war without Congressional approval.
[I]f you're a conservative gun owner who worries that gun control today could make tyranny easier to impose tomorrow, and you support warrantless spying, indefinite detention, and secret drone strikes on Americans accused of terrorism, what explains your seeming schizophrenia?
Think of it this way.
If you were a malign leader intent on imposing tyranny, what would you find more useful, banning high-capacity magazines... or a vast archive of the bank records, phone calls, texts and emails of millions of citizens that you could access in secret? Would you, as a malign leader, feel more empowered by a background check requirement on gun purchases... or the ability to legally kill anyone in secret on your say so alone? The powers the Republican Party has given to the presidency since 9/11 would obviously enable far more grave abuses in the hands of a would be tyrant than any gun control legislation with even a minuscule chance of passing Congress. So why are so many liberty-invoking 2nd Amendment absolutists reliable Republican voters, as if the GOP's stance on that issue somehow makes up for its shortcomings? And why do they so seldom speak up about threats to the Bill of Rights that don't involve guns?
I've always wondered these things, too. I keep getting to the conclusion that extreme-right-wingers don't actually think about anything, they just believe stuff.
In 2012:
- I took 15 trips, visiting 2½ countries (England, France, Wales) and 9 states (Wisconsin, New York, California, Minnesota, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia); flew 25 flight segments for 67,647 km; and drove 7,600 km.
- The Daily Parker grew by 535 entries, ticking along at an average of 1.48 entries per day (as it has since December 2010).
- I spent 189 hours walking Parker, 112 hours blogging, 222 hours commuting to work, 2,219 hours working for someone else, and 174 hours working for myself.
- I took 3,955 photos, the fewest in 4 years.
- I started 35 books, finished 31, dropped 2, and have 4 open right now. (Some of the ones I finished in 2012 I started in 2011.)
This compares similarly to 2011.
All right, 2012 is in the can. On to 2013: the first year since 1987 in which all four numbers are different.
Well, here we are, just the seven point one billion of us.
Here's the situation:
- Depending on how you reckon things, it's 平成25年, ԹՎ ՌՆԿԲ, or 12013.
- American children born this month will likely graduate from high school in 2031 and from college in 2035.
- Children born in 1992 can legally drink in the United States. Those born in 1995 can vote in the U.S. (and drink in Britain).
- That means it's been 21 years since Boutros Boutros-Ghali became U.N. Secretary-General, 21 years since President George H.W. Bush puked in Kiichi Miyazawa's lap, and 21 years and one week since Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the U.S.S.R.
- Coming up soon: the 50th anniversaries of Tab Cola, and of Bull Conner turning on the fire hoses; the 100th anniversaries of the Federal income tax, the direct election of U.S. Senators, and the British Board of Film Censors; and the 200th birthdays of Stephen Douglas, Søren Kierkegaard, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, and David Livingstone (I presume).
- Garry Kasparov, Russel Davies, and Valerie Plame turn 50 this year; Divine, Andy Gibb, and Lee Marvin have been dead for 25.
- Unless Congress once more extends copyright, Mickey Mouse will fall into the public domain in ten years.
- 2112 is less than a century away. This is important if you're a fan of Rush, Babylon 5, or Wall-E.
Updates as conditions warrant.
...started in the Pacific about 14 hours ago. I guess we made it, unless everything east of London has vanished and I just haven't heard yet.
Happy new year. Don't forget that auld lang syne.