There was an “opposing sides” pair of opinion pieces in Sunday’s Tribune on a proposal to increase the minimum wage to $15 (the con side said, “it’ll cost jobs,” and the pro side said, “I don’t care about facts because social justice”) which led me to look for details on the proposal, which brought me to a “Chicago City Council Roundup” from a site called progressillinois.com (the details were lacking on the more straight news sites).  Lots of great stuff... Read more

I was playing around yesterday and found the World Bank site with loads of data: Annual GDP growth for all countries. Annual population growth. Fertility rate (children per woman) (TFR). plus lots of other data. The fun thing is that you can download these tables, with data that goes back to 1960. Here are the TFR’s for some countries: United States Germany China Iran Iraq World 1960 3.654 2.37 5.758 6.927 6.252 4.97944 1961 3.62 2.45 5.887 6.924 6.364 4.996809 1962... Read more

This is the sort of day where I’d do an Ann Althouse-ian photo blog post, but for the fact that (a) we didn’t bring a camera and (b) it was a very overcast day.  But I want to show you our boat anyway: No, that’s not us.  That’s a picture from the Catalina website. And here’s the marina that we moved the boat to this year, Southport Marina at Lake Michigan, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, just across the state line from... Read more

Now floating around on the internet is an RFI (request for information — part of a government contracting process) dating back from January for “escort services” for 65,000 unaccompanied alien children who are to be resettled through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.  Drudge linked to this from infowars, which is almost as credible as a 9-11 truther site, yesterday, but now it’s on weaselzippers, a site that I’m not familiar with in terms of its overall credibility. Why does this... Read more

Now floating around on the internet is an RFI (request for information — part of a government contracting process) dating back from January for “escort services” for 65,000 unaccompanied alien children who are to be resettled through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.  Drudge linked to this from infowars, which is almost as credible as a 9-11 truther site, yesterday, but now it’s on weaselzippers, a site that I’m not familiar with in terms of its overall credibility. Why does this... Read more

The link goes to a Washington Times article, with very little in the way of content.  Here’s the key (and first) sentence: President Obama told his Mexican counterpart in a phone call Thursday that immigrants crossing into the U.S. illegally won’t qualify for legalized status or deferred deportation, including children.  At this point, I don’t know what to make of all of this.  The administration repeatedly says that minors and families are fleeing due to poverty and violence — but... Read more

You know how the expression goes:  “I need that like I need a hole in my head”?  Well, after surgery yesterday, my dad now has a hole in his head.  It’s to drain fluid, and after a couple weeks at the rehab wing of the hospital, he comes home for the first time since just before Easter (he’s been in a rehab center following a fall and a head injury, if you missed my earlier post). It’s currently driving us... Read more

This, from a Breitbart story (yes, from Drudge): “Before coming to the White House, I struggled, as a working parent with a traveling, busy husband, to figure out how to feed my kids healthy, and I didn’t get it right,” she explained, sharing a story about her children’s doctor who pulled her aside to talk about her family diet.  “I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard-educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what... Read more

According to this article in the Telegraph (a link from a link from a Drudge link on an unrelated subject), Danish churches are now required by law to perform same-sex marriages. The linking article presented this as “news” – but the Telegraph article is actually two years old.  And apparently this only applies to the Lutheran Church in Denmark, which is a state church, not, for example, to the Catholic Church in Denmark. Which means that the my initial impulse,... Read more

I am by no means a sports fan of any kind.  Sports-watching happens when my husband turns on the TV:  for Notre Dame football games and for any German soccer games that happen to be televised and, now, for the World Cup.  Also occasional tennis and golf. Football, in my opinion, stands alone among sports, because it has a narrative:  what down is it?  Where are they on the field?  Are they going to pass or punt?  True, there are... Read more