Events

Parker never told me his exact birthdate. The shelter said the six Pomona Puppies—Parker, Polly, Pepper, Petey, Penny, and Poppy—were 11 weeks old when I met them on 1 September 2006, so I just counted back to June 16th. The shelter also said Parker’s dad was a 40-kilo German shepherd dog and his mom was a 7-kilo beagle/rat terrier mix. My vet said a DNA test “would likely say he’s a dog,” so I never got him one. When people asked what kind of dog he was, I would say "black." Parker's Petfinder mugshot...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart (a bit later than expected, but hey). (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:21 20:30 15:08 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 15 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:51 13:51 28 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 13 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:33 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 08:31 CDT...

From time to time I post historical documents and essays because I refer to them often: Mark Twain, "As Regards Patriotism" Mark Twain, "Corn Pone Opinions" I'll update this list as I add documents.

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 14-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in May 2019, and the world has changed. So here's the update. The Daily Parker is about: Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006. Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States. The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than 20 years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many...

Mark Twain, 1905. In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent upon him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not. In Austria and some other countries this is not the case. There the state arranges a man’s...

I have meant to post this for a while: a list of the media I regularly consume. This may help visitors to the Daily Parker more easily decide whether something I post is crap or (more likely) researched more than the typical Internet meme. (The title comes from an essay by Mark Twain.) The impetus to post this came from my Facebook feed, which contained a number of suspicious memes and posts from close friends today. In each case it took me about 30 seconds to fact-check them and gently remind people to...

Mark Twain, 1900 Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man -a slave -who daily preached sermons from the top of his master's woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and...

I love trains. I love beer. I don't love driving when I'm having beer. So how to reconcile all of those things, I wonder? My solution: identify breweries in and around Chicago close to rail lines and visit them. Starting in February 2020, I identified 98 locations ranging from one as close as 400 m from a downtown Chicago train station to four that require a 100-minute train ride to a neighboring state. Even better, the densest stop on any train line turned out to be the one closest to my house: there...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2020 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:01 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:08 7 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 12th Earliest sunset until Oct 29th 06:15 17:49 11:33 8 Mar Daylight saving time begins...

On July 27th I began a series on common logical fallacies. Each entry provides a brief description and a couple of examples. Here are all the posts: Fallacies of irrelevant conclusion Argument to the person, 27 July 2019. Argument to popularity, 27 July 2019. Argument to ignorance, 28 July 2019. Argument to pity, 28 July 2019. Argument to awe, 2 August 2019. Argument to force, 2 August 2019. Red herring, 4 August 2019. Material fallacies Argument by accident (overgeneralizing), 5 August 2019. Converse...