Oh, and yes, the house is Victorian. The only question is when in Victoria's reign it was built and whether it was all built at the same time. The front door is off-center, as if about half the house is an addition that wasn't quite the same size as the original house. We are pretty sure it was built without electricity, water, gas, or a sewer connection. Some of that history is visible. There's a huge fireplace in the basement where we think the servants cooked, and there are flues for potbelly stoves that make us think they also lived down there. The house itself would have been heated by fireplaces in the four chimneys on all floors. There's an added room that's just out-of-frame in the pic above of the front of the house, and I feel sure it was built when they got indoor bathrooms. We're told that somebody ran a boarding house here at some point, and there are five rooms on the top floor that are finished, but not luxuriously, that are probably where the boarders lived. I guess with all that history, it should feel haunted, but it really doesn't. It's very bright and sunny and has good vibes.

That might just be worth a trip up. Fantastic.

@RealPlayer how sad!

That said, I'm not convinced yet that the Weiss changes are going to improve that. It might just change the slant.

@RealPlayer I love it!! I would absolutely buy a sandwich from that guy!

Nice local write-up https://www.wbez.org/architecture/2026/06/02/museum-tower-obama-presidential-center-maligned-signature-building-worthy-consideration "The center, with its companion buildings, plaza and redesigned park space, is among the best urban spaces in the city, maybe second only to Millennium Park."

I'm only using it for one thing, but I'm thrilled. I've been taking sumatriptan for migraines since 1990, about the time it became available in pill form. It was very expensive. Back then, my insurance mostly defrayed that. It stopped debilitating headaches. Great! "One day, it will be generic," I thought. For the next seventeen or so years, multiple doctors tried to switch me to newer drugs that weren't much different, just time-released or fast-dissolving. This would have extended the time to a generic version. Indefinitely, if I kept saying yes. "No, thank you. This one works." At some point, I received a letter from my insurance company that said, "No matter what your doctor says, we will only cover eight pills a month." I've never received a letter about that about any other drug. It must have been REALLY expensive for them to cover it. The generic date came. The price didn't go down, because the drug company sued. I had gone on COBRA after my divorce and it didn't cover prescriptions, so I was paying $200/month for those eight pills, but they prevented days of debilitating pain, so I forked it over. When they lost the suit, the price went down to generic levels, but I still only got eight pills a month and they'd gotten years of my money at the non-generic rate. I had became very skilled at deciding how bad I needed to feel before I took one of the precious jewels. (Also, I'd gotten prescription insurance again.) We got new insurance last year, and suddenly I could only get 50 mg tablets for the generic price. My usual 100 mg tablets went up to $80/month. I could still only get eight. Tony said, "Have you tried Mark Cuban's outfit?" Well, Mark Cuban sells me 30 pills/month, and they cost $12, including shipping. Just being free of worrying whether I'm going to run out is life-changing.

Sounds delicious and healthy. Going into the bookmarks.

Matt Yglesias putt it well - his only qualification is a demonstrated willingness to engage in abuses of power.

Both of these incidents are terrifying to me. I feel like there’s less news attention to ICE’s activities, but the activities themselves continue.

[image: IKQ7HYOFINFIJMSPYHCPTZ4RH4.jpg?auth=5a5fdc2d282f1ada0a865ffc14dec1eb33e9eaea7d92a07926c41c0fccb96409&width=1280&smart=true&quality=90] Big Boy is in our area. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/here-he-comes-million-pound-steam-locomotive-big-boy-rolls-into-chicago-area-this-week/3943201/ @steve-miller - Coming your way very soon! https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/06/big-boy-no-4014s-northeast-ohio-route-is-set-see-the-towns-it-will-roll-through.html

I knew fog was creepy. Did not know it was infected.

Erin Brockovich gets involved: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/erin-brockovich-says-people-angry-165957745.html For now she's not taking side (at least not overtly). She's just advocating for more transparency and crowd-sourcing information about plans for data centers.

Good use of ill-gotten gains. I've read that the wine industry in Georgia is booming. Never had one but I'm sure we will.

Well, "science" is a interesting topic but like any sub-branch of any epistemological system, science is not an exact science (pun intended). Questions like these aren't "solved" and then set in stone or displayed in a glass case. "Measurements suggested the giant planet's rotation rate was changing over time, as if Saturn were somehow speeding up or slowing down. That puzzling result left scientists searching for answers." I'd venture to say it appeared to be "changing" in fact because it was and is always changing. This isn't so much a mystery as it is the nature of the universe. I just posted about this topic in my Chronos and Kairos thread. https://wtf.coffee-room.com/topic/3681/kairos-the-ancient-greek-art-of-knowing-when-to-act#:~:text=Kairos%3A The-,ancient,-Greek art of We human beings have to be vigilant continuously about what Karl Marx (the writer whose work is canonical among intellectuals, not the "communist" we all love to hate) called reification. Reification involves setting up a continual feedback loop where we "play back" what we think we know in a way that the only outcome is our belief, whatever it was when we started believing it, can only end up being fallaciously reinforced. The planets, the galaxy, the universe-- are never static and if a human being truly wanted to map their machinations, he or she would die trying...

Highd up to 89, scattered showers. Lows around 80, but for some reason the lows are are going to drop to low to mid 70s for several days. That will be nice. Not worried about hurricane season. I'm actually more worried about tornadoes after experiencing one.

I'm a layperson and even I can tell you the applicable law is as plain as day.