“Love’s austere and lonely offices.”

Another hopping day in the Edmonton river valley, as folks from all around came to enjoy the baseball. Those patrons choosing the shuttle option were dwarfed by those who used every available inch to park. Of course, if the city has its way, shuttles will be the only choice. Of all the places down here begging for development, stadium parking is what will be overwritten. If your choice is not what central planners would choose, they’ll take that choice away.

"In my opinion, the greatest game ever pitched was between the San Francisco Giants and Milwaukee Braves on July 2, 1963. Forty-two-year-old Warren Spahn and 25-year-old Juan Marichal each went 16 innings and the game ended 1-0 on a home run by Willie Mays. Each pitcher threw over 200 pitches. Spahn threw 201. Marichal threw 227. There were seven future Hall of Fame players in that game, including Spahn and Marichal. We will never see that again because the game won’t allow it. But both guys were prepared to go as long as it took. And this game was not a fluke, both pitchers won 20 games that season. For Spahn, it was his 13th 20-win season and for Marichal, it was his first of 6. My highest pitch count was 232 in a game against the Red Sox in 1974. I pitched 12 innings, struck out 19, walked 10, and had a no decision. My counter-part, Luis Tiant threw 180 pitches in 14 1/3 innings and took the loss 4-3. We were on a 4-man rotation and pitched on 3 day’s rest. I had 26 complete games in 1973 and 1974 and didn’t even lead the league. Gaylord Perry had 29 in 1973 and Ferguson Jenkins had 29 in 1974." Nolan Ryan. Art by Graig Kreindler.

No, you don't get it. He does not have $1 trillion sitting in cash, it is 99% stock in his companies. To make that wealth liquid would mean selling all that stock which would swiftly destroy *both* the companies (Tesla, SpaceX, others) and the wealth. If he sold it all, he'd end up with maybe $100b max, several hundred thousand people would be out of work, the companies ruined and many of their suppliers also ruined. Okay, but now Elon has $100b in cash, and can "solve the world's problems". $100b divided by the world's 8 billion people is $12 If you were in charge, several of the most innovative industrial companies in the world would be destroyed, hundreds of thousands out of work, and space would again close to human civilization for another generation. But everyone on earth could have one nice meal and you could revel in your altruism.

RT @pityforyourself: June 11, 1970 "Happy Shinebox Day" GoodFellas

Kudos to this account for recording all of last night’s Rush show and did nothing but capture Anika Nilles as a drum cam. youtu.be/tsAgGYM8_-A?si=ihdl…

Signs and wonders. Something I thought I'd never see again. Truly fantastic.

Every guy has at least one friendship like this.

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921. They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year. Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move. They lost them for two reasons. The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs. In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack. Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet. That fight dragged on for years. The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois. Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting. So now it's all gone. The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything. Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize. Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up. But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works. Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team. And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago. Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes. Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team." There it is. "Billionaire-owned." That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line. Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it. Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return." When you run things this badly, you sell what's left. They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect. Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check. But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires." Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in. Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster. Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

I just had the craziest experience at the airport. We are about to board a flight to Atlanta when the pilot from the incoming plane walks out of the jetway. Guy is probably late 50s, salt and pepper hair, military look. The kind of pilot you instantly feel good about seeing on your flight. Pilot walks over to the counter, gets on the PA system, and starts addressing everyone. “Folks, I’ve been doing this a long time. Flying one of these jets is easy. The hard part is looking at 130 people and telling them their flight is going to be delayed.” Audible groans throughout the boarding gate. Most people here are flying to Atlanta as a layover before another flight. 130 people just had their day become a complete mess. The pilot goes on. “I get it, trust me. But here’s the deal: During our landing, we had a small mechanical issue. I’m not your pilot for the next leg, but I don’t feel confident the jet’s safe to fly until we have a mechanical team look it over, and I don’t feel comfortable asking the next pilots to fly you guys until we get confirmation.” He points at the agents next to him behind the counter: “Now, none of this is the agents’ fault. Please be kind to them. I’m the one who made this decision, not them, so any inconvenience you experience is my fault. Just please know that I don’t do this lightly, and I’m only doing it because I believe it’s in the best interests of everyone’s safety.” Now this is where the story gets crazy. The pilot puts the microphone down, grabs his suitcase, and all the people in the gate… Start clapping. I’m not joking, everyone starts clapping for the guy. 130 people who just had their travel plans ruined give an ovation to the guy who made the decision and delivered the message. All because he addressed them with decency and transparency, took ownership of the decision, made it clear that it was necessary, and explained why it was in everyone’s best interest. It’s honestly one of the best examples of strong communication—of strong leadership, for that matter—that I’ve seen in a long time. @Delta, whoever your Atlanta to Wichita pilot was this morning, he’s one of the good ones. Please tell him the delayed passengers of flight 1637 appreciate what he did.

If you're a naturally anxious person, I recommend pursuing a high stress career path where at least you'll be compensated for anxiety you're going to have anyways.

The GOAT

People don’t really read fiction anymore and that is a problem; another problem, however, is that among the dwindling population of people who do read, there is a sizeable contingent who seem not to understand what books are for

Good to see Oxford standing up for commas

virgin mary punching the devil, england, 13th century

Anonymous I was at the library using their computers when a woman sat next to me. Opened her email. Started applying for jobs. I could see her screen. She’d been sending applications for months. Hundreds of them. All rejections or no response. She kept going. Indeed. LinkedIn. Company websites. Over and over. After an hour she put her head down. Just sat there. I leaned over. “Job hunting?” She nodded. Didn’t look up. “Six months unemployed. Savings gone. Living with my sister. I have a master’s degree and I can’t get an interview.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” “Can I look at your resume?” She pulled it up. I saw the problem immediately. Formatted weird. Too long. Buried her best experience. “Mind if I help?” Spent an hour reformatting it. Tightening it. Making her skills pop. “Try this version.” She looked at it. “This is so much better. How did you” “I’m a recruiter. Was. Before I got laid off too.” She looked at me. Really looked. “You’re unemployed?” “Four months. I get it. The rejection. The silence. It’s brutal.” We became job hunting partners. Met at the library twice a week. Edited each other’s resumes. Practiced interviews. Kept each other sane. She got a job first. Two months later. Called me crying happy tears. “I start Monday. And I told them about you. They want to interview you.” I got hired too. We work at the same company now. Different departments. Have lunch every week... “Two unemployed strangers at the library,” she says. “Now we’re employed friends. Funny how that works.”

To: Admitted Students on Ivy Decision Day From: UATX Congratulations. Getting in was hard and you should be proud. Now here’s some unsolicited advice so you don’t waste the next four years. Go to class. We know this sounds obvious. But as the New York Times reported recently, Harvard students routinely skip class, rarely speak up when they're there, and focus on their devices instead of the discussion. Faculty say few students do enough preparation to contribute meaningfully. The average college student spends about 20 hours a week on class and studying combined. At UATX, we aim for 50. That’s the difference between a part-time commitment and a full-time job. You (or your parents) are about to spend upwards of $90K a year. If you don't show up, you're paying roughly $250 per skipped lecture for the privilege of sleeping in. Read the books yourself. Your generation is the first to arrive at college post-literate — raised on short-form video, dependent on algorithms, and increasingly incapable of sitting with a difficult text long enough to let it change your mind. Ninety percent of college students use AI academically. This makes you more reliant on the authority of others. Most professors will also stand between you and the text. They’ll tell you what Marx “really meant,” what Aristotle “failed to see,” as though an academic in 2026 has outsmarted minds that shaped civilizations. The good professors do the opposite: they put you in front of the book and they work with you to find what a great mind has to teach us directly. Find those professors, and read everything yourself. Say what you actually think. Seventy-three percent of conservative students report withholding their political views in class out of fear their grades will suffer. Our advice isn't political; it's intellectual. If you spend four years learning to say what's expected instead of what's true, you’ll graduate roughly where you started — just older, more credentialed, and more practiced at self-censorship. One study finds that nearly half of students show no measurable gains in “critical thinking” after two years in college. Keep this in mind as you make decisions about which professors to take and how to do your assignments. Taking a small hit on your paper to gain integrity and wisdom is usually worth it. Ask for real grades. Sixty percent of Harvard undergraduate grades are now A’s. Twenty-five years ago, it was 20%. It got so bad that the legendary Harvard professor, Harvey Mansfield, started giving students two grades: the official one for their transcript, and a private one reflecting what they actually earned. He called the official grades “ironic.” So here's a suggestion: Take your A, but also ask your professors for a “Mansfield grade” so that you know where you stand. And don’t avoid difficult courses to keep your transcript clean for law school. Get work experience before you graduate. Forty-two percent of recent college graduates are working jobs that don't require a degree. Many employers are projecting the next few years to be the worst college grad job market in years. A degree alone — even from an Ivy — is not a job guarantee. Seek out apprenticeships, internships, and real work starting freshman year. The students at UATX are connected with entrepreneurs and business leaders from day one. Many will graduate with four years of work experience alongside their degree. You can build something similar at your school, but you'll have to do it yourself. Understand how debt shapes your life. If you're paying full freight or even half, do the math with your eyes open. Your decision to take on debt will quietly reshape the trajectory of your adult life through countless small surrenders: the job you take because it’s safe instead of starting the company. The city you choose to live in. The relationship you delay and the kids you don’t have. For women, a $1,000 increase in student loan debt lowers the odds of marriage by 2% per month in the first four years after graduation. None of that shows up in the college brochure. If you're going to take on debt, treat it like the constraint it is from day one: save aggressively and make sure every dollar is buying something that will actually compound in your favor. Find the people who take school seriously. The best thing about a great school isn't the lectures or the library. It's the handful of professors and students who are genuinely there to learn — who read ahead, argue in good faith, and push you to be sharper. Find them. UATX is a small community of those who seek a serious education. At a larger university, you have to build this community yourself. * The most dangerous thing about an elite university is that it is very easy to do nothing for four years and still come out looking successful. The transcript will say you excelled. The diploma with the fancy crest will open certain doors. Your parents will be proud. And yet you will have coasted — through inflated grades, unread books, and borrowed opinions. Getting in is an accomplishment. Making the next four years worth it will be harder, and the right decisions will change everything. We wish you luck.

Christ is risen from the dead, and with him, we too rise to new life! This Easter proclamation embraces the mystery of our lives and the destiny of history, reaching us even in the depths of death. #Easter

Today, Christians in Alberta and around the world celebrate Easter, marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the foundation of the Christian faith. Following the reflection of Lent and Good Friday, Easter speaks to renewal, hope and the promise of new life. It reflects a belief that even in the face of loss and hardship, there is a path forward. I extend my warmest wishes to all those celebrating this important day and hope this Easter brings love and joy to you and your loved ones. Happy Easter.

“The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.” — Norm Macdonald