Current events

I'm reluctant to cast doubt on the veracity of a total stranger, but this sounds like bunk to me:

Ouch:

At first I thought airlines charging a baggage fee signaled the coming end of civilization. But this may be a better sign:

It’s one of the luxuries of staying in a hotel — room service. But the days of delivery could be numbered for all of us.

Don't know that I'd recommend Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a role model for all gubernatorial behavior, but Gov. Mike Pence could certainly do worse than emulating this particular Perry approach:

Gov. Rick Perry’s high-profile efforts to lure jobs to Texas from other states may be good business and smart politics back home, but they’re infuriating to prominent Democrats around the country.

Some changes in urban living are obvious -- the declining risk of dangerous fires as building materials have changed and safety precautions increased, for example. But some aren't as immediately noticeable:

More victims of the digital revolution:

CHICAGO (AP) — The union representing laid-off photographers at the Chicago Sun-Times plans to file a bad-faith bargaining charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

What we should be talking about but aren't very much in the gun-violence debate:

Wow. While I was on R & R and not paying attention, it looks like the war on terror ended:

Out with the global war on terror. In with more narrowly targeted counterterrorism policies that persistently zero in on violent extremists at home and abroad.

Because of the Justice Department's overreach in trying to find out who was leaking stuff to The Associated Press, one of my least favorite schemes is back -- a national press shield law, which, sad to say, Gov. Mike Pence has long been an advocate of. I tend to agree with the questions raised by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin:

Poor, pathetic nerds with their silly arguments proving nothing: