SP has cut me loose for the next few days while she wanders off to deepest rural Appalachia. This reduces the number of likable people in the household to approximately zero. The Mighty Wonder Dog is bereft, though not so bereft that she stops begging for Swiss to come over with his usual offering of pizza for her. The real victims will be the door-to-door campaigners, of which there are many; SP usually prevents me from answering the door, but without her here, I can enjoy the fine sport of trolling. The first question is almost inevitably, “Have you decided whom you’re voting for yet?” The proper answer, if you’re a sick fuck like me who wants to make them uncomfortable (and give them stories to tell) is, “No. Tell me why I should vote for your guy.”

In the Illinois governor’s race, I truly haven’t decided. As usual, the Team Red and Team Blue candidates are repulsive quasi-humans, with Team Blue offering a Chris Christie look-alike with Maxine Waters-level intelligence. Team Red offers us a completely ineffective Progressive. The third party candidates include a rather, ummm, colorful Libertarian and a so-con authoritarian hired by unions to pull votes away from Team Red. We watched the Browns play football instead of the debates, which made us winners. Other people unfortunately had to watch the spectacle.

Rauner said of McCann: “He has received funding from Mike Madigan for his campaign. He was put on the ballot by Mike Madigan’s attorney.”

“You’re a liar. You’ve been lying to the people of Illinois from the very beginning,” McCann replied.

Rauner continued his attempts to portray Pritzker’s support for a graduated-rate income tax to replace the state’s currently mandated flat-rate tax as “proposing a massive tax hike on all the people of this state.”

That prompted Pritzker to interject, “Gov. Rauner, you’re lying. You’re lying again.”

Sparkling rhetoric!

I don’t often feel sorry for members of the media, but I admit some sympathy here. The Browns game was much more interesting. And this increases my resolve to figure out how to get the hell out of this state.

Wait, did I forget birthdays? That’s awful because today is the birthday of the autodidact Michael Faraday, one of my personal heroes. Especially so, since I spent most of this past week setting up chronoamperometric experiments. Read all about him. Not just a great scientist, but an interesting human.

When I worked in Europe, my least favorite city was Venice. Insane traffic, smelly, dirty, and not terribly scenic. And whatever you do, DON’T SIT DOWN.

The city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, has proposed a fine of up to €500 (about $585) for anyone planting themselves down in an undesignated spot. The proposal isn’t without precedent in Venice. People are actually already prohibited from sitting in tourist hotspots St Mark’s Square or the Rialto Bridge. The mayor’s proposal is part of the city’s #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign, which has been in full swing this summer. It’s all part of a general Venetian crusade against rampant overtourism.

I think we all know how to help them with their overtourism problem.

More shit that will kill you.

Over 3 million people died from alcohol consumption in 2016, equating to 1 in 20 deaths globally, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. “The alcohol consumption level continues to be very high,” said Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, WHO’s Management of Substance Abuse coordinator. “All countries can do much more to reduce the health and social costs of the harmful use of alcohol.”
Alcohol consumption was also found to cause more than 5% of the global disease burden and reported to be a causal factor in over 200 disease and injury conditions.

Of course, there’s the expected goal here.

“Far too many people, their families and communities suffer the consequences of the harmful use of alcohol,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “It’s time to step up action to prevent this serious threat to the development of healthy societies.”

And by “action” he mean “rape.” Well, the statist version of rape.

Though 95% of countries impose taxes on alcohol, WHO expects more actions to be undertaken by countries, adding that fewer than half of them use other price strategies such as banning below-cost selling or volume discounts. The member states of the WHO agreed in 2010 on 10 measures to reduce harmful use of alcohol, such as pricing policies and actions on marketing and alcohol availability. As part of the agreement, they declared “its associated health and social burden” as a “public health priority.”

Conclusion: Mexican Sharpshooter is worse than Hitler.

I know it shouldn’t, but this story delights me.

Agents with the OIU had began investigating Twenty Two Fifty, Inc. which is also known as Sharky’s in May of 2017. During the investigation, agents say they were able to buy drugs and lap dances by using food stamps. During the five-month long investigation, agents exchanged more than $2,000 worth of food stamps to buy heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, cocaine, methamphetamine and lap dances.

Man does not live by bread alone.

“If it weren’t for these goddamn customers, we could get our work done more efficiently!”

The New York City subway can be a daily adventure. Waterfalls cascade down stairways in storms. Ceilings drip and sometimes collapse. Elevators, when they work, seem to double as urinals. Panhandlers, dancers and musicians hustle for tips. People jostle, argue, clip their nails and eat smelly foods.

Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the precious seconds lost to commuters… were partly to blame for delays plaguing one in three subway trains. The MTA has ordered conductors to be more assertive closing doors and not allow limbs or bags to force them open. The new policy is part of a broader push launched in August to reduce delays, in part by training riders to stand clear of closing doors. If subway workers can shave seconds off a train’s journey at intervals along its route, transit officials said, the MTA can significantly improve punctuality.

New York would be great except for New Yorkers.

And weekends would be great except for that Old Guy who keeps throwing out music that doesn’t even have light shows, dancers, and autotune. In this case, something triply appealing to me: Hot jazz, Django-style, Albanie Falletta, and a live performance in one of my favorite Austin clubs, the deeply-underground Elephant Room. Check out the bass line played on sax!