The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

It begins...

With the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters move only 21 days from now, this was bound to happen:

Also in the next three weeks is a big vacation. So, you know, no stress...

Not on my airplane

South Africa Airlines will no longer transport your trophies:

Shooting a marvel of nature and shipping its carcass home seems an odd practice to many. But business is roaring. An estimated 1,000 captive lions are shot dead by mostly American and European tourists on South African ranches annually. That's nearly double the number of wild lions felled across the entire continent. Killing beasts in fenced-off, private property is easier than gunning them down on their own turf. It's also much cheaper: tourists can pay $20,000 for a captive male, compared with $75,000 for a wild one. The expansion of the “canned hunting” industry—which breeds lions by isolating mothers from their cubs to jumpstart ovulation—has lifted African trophy hunting revenues to $200m a year.

For SAA, making money from this booming trade should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Tourists have few options but to load their spoils onto planes for one final journey, providing the flag-carrier with lucrative custom beneath the passenger deck as well as above it. Cargo can account for up to 10% of a passenger airline’s revenue. In an industry with average annual profit margins of 1-2% per cent, that is nothing to sniff at. Cargo is also one of the more trouble-free aspects of the business: freight doesn't complain when you push it around; and many of the fixed costs of getting a plane airborne apply regardless of how full the cargo hold happens to be. SAA, which is in financial straits, can ill-afford to turn away such easy money.

No matter how profitable and defensible, SAA has decided that trophy kill cargo is bad business.

Good on them. And maybe someday we'll give lions rifles and turn them loose on hunters. Or just skip the rifles.

How's your week going?

It's just past 9am on Monday and already I'm reduced to this kind of blog post. Tomorrow I may have some more time to read these things:

  • Cranky Flier analyzes Malaysia Airlines' struggles.
  • Microsoft is building subsea fibre cables between the U.S. and Europe and Asia.
  • TPM explains exactly what Jade Helm 15 really is.
  • Missed Microsoft Ignite this year? Here's the Channel 9 page.
  • We're starting to set up JetBrains TeamCity to handle our continuous integration needs. Explain, however, why the user manual is all video? Guys. Seriously. I haven't got time for this.
  • So now that Illinois actually has to pay the pensions we promised to pay, what now? (Hello, 9% income tax?)

Four-hour design review session is imminent. I may post later today...or I may lock myself in my office and stare at the wall.

Well played, Ed

Instead of worrying how to put together another coalition (or even minority) government today, David Cameron has won an outright majority:

At the time of writing, with almost all 650 seats declared, the Conservatives had 325, Labour 229, the SNP 56 and the Liberal Democrats eight. In practice 323 Members of Parliament is the number needed to form a majority government.

As Cameron drove to Buckingham Palace to notify Queen Elizabeth that she had a new government from day one, rather than the chaotic search for a viable cross-party coalition of either the right or the left, [Ed] Miliband resigned as Labour leader, shocked by the scale of his rejection by the electorate. Among the night’s casualties were a raft of senior Labour figures, including his shadow chancellor Ed Balls, defeated in Leeds.

The result was a vindication of Cameron’s much-criticized decision to run a largely negative campaign, stressing the risks to Britain’s still-fragile economic recovery of a Labour government that would overspend and drive away investors through taxes aimed at the wealthy and their tax-avoiding practices.

The majority isn't large enough to guarantee passage of the Conservative agenda in full. For one thing, Conservative back-benchers will probably agitate to pull the country out of the European Union, which would be disastrous for Britain. And with the SNP's 56-vote bloc, another referendum on Scotland seems likely in two or three years.

The Economist:

Europe is especially dangerous for the Conservatives. Under pressure from Eurosceptics in his party, Mr Cameron promised to spend two years renegotiating Britain’s place in the EU before holding an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. Setting such a firm deadline was foolish: there is a real risk that, in the mid-term doldrums, British voters will sever their country’s relationship with its most important trading partner. But Mr Cameron has no option but to stick with it.

The difficulty will be calibrating Britain’s demands. Ask for too much and he will come home empty-handed. Win too little from Brussels and he will lose too many of his own party for his government to survive. He should avoid all talk of treaty change (which European governments are unlikely to countenance) and focus instead on cutting red tape, extending the single market and cracking down on welfare tourism. Then he should spin every slight achievement as a mighty victory.

Scotland poses a bigger problem. The Nationalists’ triumph was almost complete and they now have a large foothold in the parliament of a country that they wish to dismember. A second independence referendum in the next few years seems increasingly likely. English resentment of Scotland is growing, and is particularly strong among Tory backbenchers. One way out of this bind is for Mr Cameron to move more boldly towards far-reaching devolution. That might restore some Scottish faith in Westminster. And the country’s rent-seeking political culture will end only when the Scottish government has power over finances.

Like a lot of Labour-leaning people, I'm curious to see how the party recover from the loss today. The Liberal Democrats have a harder time of it, though: Nick Clegg also resigned, now that the entire Lib-Dem caucus is small enough to fit in a minivan.

Barking mad at dog poop

The London borough of Barking and Dagenham (yes, really) will fine you £80 if you don't clean up your dog's poop. How will they catch you? Doggy DNA:

In its pilot stage, only one or two local dog parks will be involved in the DNA testing, according to Eric Mayer, head of business development for Biopet Vet Lab. Anyone who wants to use those facilities will have to submit a canine swab, which cost about $45. (The fee will probably be split between the owner, the borough and the lab.) But by 2016, all 27 of the borough's parks and open spaces could be patrolled.

That seems a little invasive on the one hand, but on the other, it hurts dog owners everywhere when one or two lazy bastards fail to clean up after their pets. Still, who wants the job of matching samples to dogs?

American 787 to Narita

Color me excited:

Aerican Airlines will use a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on a regular route between Chicago and Japan, the airline told employees Thursday.

It will be the first U.S. airline to use the highly touted aircraft on a regular route at O'Hare International Airport, although some foreign airlines use it.

American will start daily service Aug. 18 from O'Hare to Narita International Airport near Tokyo, according to a memo Thursday to Chicago employees from Franco Tedeschi, an American Airlines vice president and its top Chicago-based executive.

Before starting the Japan route, American will break in the new 787 temporarily on a domestic route between Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth starting May 7.

I'm tempted to do a mileage run this summer. Possibly for my birthday? I mean, the fare's less than $2,000...though aa.com doesn't seem to have the 787 up yet. Hm.

The O'Hare to Dallas flight leaves at 10:25pm. Tempting though...

CTA North Side El plan to start in 2017

A massive effort to rebuild the hundred-year-old El tracks between Howard and Lawrence moved forward this week with the CTA's announcement that work will start in 2017:

Construction will be divided into two segments: The first is expected to keep the Lawrence and Berwyn stations closed for about 18 months; the second will involve closing the Berwyn, Argyle and Lawrence stations and restricting the Bryn Mawr station to southbound boarding only for 18 months to two years.

The station redesigns are expected to include new elevators; wider platforms to reduce boarding times; larger canopies to guard against the elements; and more benches. New bridges won't require pillars in the median, which should provide better sightlines for drivers, [CTA spokeswoman Tammy] Chase said.

This project will complement the ongoing UP-North improvements Metra has been working on since 2013.

This interests me even more than it used to because IDTWHQ is moving to the affected area in just under seven weeks.