Events

Back in 1979, Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic lost re-election to Jane Byrne mostly for his failure to clear the streets of snow after the worst snowfall in the city's recorded history. His story didn't end too badly, as he ultimately became Chief Justice of Illinois; but it taught all the city's subsequent mayors to get the snowplows out before the first flake hits the ground. The Spanish company Ferrovial—owner of the British Airports Authority, which runs Heathrow—hasn't, apparently, learned this...

The first official 2010 Census results are out today. As of April 1st there were 308,745,538 residents of the United States. California, the most populous, had 37,253,956; Wyoming, the least, had 563,626. We have a decennial census in the U.S. because our Constitution mandates it. Every 10 years, we reapportion representation. This time, very much like the last time, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are losing a seat; New York and Ohio are losing two; Washington...

The good citizens of Missoula, Montana, exercised their 6th Amemendment rights to tell the state they believe minor marijuana possession is not a crime: No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce. In fact, one juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, said a flummoxed Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul. District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree. Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised...

The mortgage-interest tax deduction may go away early next year: Scholars have long argued that the mortgage deduction and other tax subsidies supporting housing, including a deduction for property taxes and tax exemptions for profits on home sales, are neither equitable nor economically efficient. Some say they've helped skew the economy's reliance on an industry that has little export potential and often encourages over-consumption. More important, despite the deduction's grip on the public and...

Via Sullivan, who spends all day surfing the net so you and I don't have to:

The earth will cast its shadow on the moon Monday night: But on the longest night of the year, a full moon will disappear at 1:40 a.m. behind the Earth's shadow. There won't be another total lunar eclipse on the night of the winter solstice for 84 years. Weather permitting — and the forecast isn't favorable in the Chicago area, calling for clouds building Monday and snow overnight — the eclipse will be visible everywhere in the continental United States, and at its darkest, the moon will be halfway up...

President Obama this afternoon: Today, the Senate has taken an historic step toward ending a policy that undermines our national security while violating the very ideals that our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives to defend. By ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to...

Jon Stewart railed against the Republican minority this week for stopping a vote on a compensation bill for 9/11 first responders: The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c Worst Responders www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogThe Daily Show on Facebook Update: Fox News's Shep Smith got the message:

Forty one Republican senators just now voted not to let the Senate vote on the DREAM act, which would have (among other things) let immigrants become citizens by serving in the armed forces. Think about that: a majority of the Senate and a majority of the House, and not for nothing but a majority of Americans, seem to believe that smart, dedicated people coming here to earn college degrees or fight and die in our wars deserve to become Americans, but the GOP doesn't. On the other hand, as I wrote the...

Also from Sullivan: It's called the Books Ngram Viewer, and it allows you to track the plot of words and phrases through time. The service draws on the absolutely massive Google Books corpus. Google estimates they've scanned and OCR'd 10 percent of all the books ever published, so this isn't a perfect dataset. But man is it fun to play with.