The Daily Parker

To thoroughly depress you, SMBC starts the week by showing you appropriate wine pairings for your anxiety. In similar news:

• Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) seeks a 19th term as Speaker, but new Federal indictments and that people voted against Democrats statewide because they don't want him around anymore have made his bid unlikely.
• Vermont and South Dakota have similar demographics and both have Republican governors, so how did Vermont keep Covid-19 infections low while South Dakota didn't? Hmmm, could it be what kind of Republican governors they have?
• The Tribune describes the ghost town of Singapore, Mich., that vanished in the 1870s.

Time to take a walk.

Even though Parker has consumed my thoughts since the election, there are a few other things going on in the world:

• Epidemiologists estimate that yesterday we passed 250,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US.
• The original Morton's Steakhouse on State Street, opened in 1978, closed permanently Tuesday, ending my tradition of going there on my birthday each year.
• In a little bit of good news, the National Register of Historic Places designated Wrigley Field a National Historic Landmark today.

And as I sit in my home office trying to write software, it's 17°C and sunny outside. I may have to go for a walk.

While I wait for my frozen pizza to cook, I've got these stories to keep me company:

• Jakob Nielsen has updated his classic article "10 usability heuristics for UI design."
• Steve Coll tries to figure out what the president gets out of contesting Biden's win.
• Paul Krugman looks at the way half the country ignores the science in ending the pandemic and despairs at how we can forestall climate change.
• Patrick Smith reminds us that we've gone more than 19 years since the last major US air carrier crash, which shows us how far aviation safety has come in the last 50 years.

Going to check my pizza now.

Happy Sunday. Tonight the sun sets in Chicago at 4:30pm, and won't set after 4:30 again until New Year's Eve. So in the few hours of daylight I have left, I'll read a few things:

• A low pressure area northeast of Chicago has brought 100 km/h winds to the area, but at least it won't snow today.
• Entomologists in Washington State eradicated a "small" nest containing several hundred murder hornets. They worry a couple of queens might have escaped.
• The BBC fact-checked rumors that 10,000 dead people voted in Michigan, and spoke with several of them without consulting psychics.

I'm going to return to doing nothing of value today, which is the point of Sundays.

Remember the hurricane season of 2005, where we got the 27th named storm at the end of December and it finally dissipated on January 6th?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tropical Storm Iota, the 30th named storm of 2020:

At 400 AM EST (0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Iota was located near latitude 13.5 North, longitude 74.8 West. Iota is moving toward the west-southwest near 5 mph (7 km/h). A westward motion with some increase in forward speed is expected to begin later today and continue through Monday. On the forecast track, Iota will move across the central Caribbean Sea during the next day or so, and approach the coasts of Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras on Monday.

But, of course, climate change is a hoax. And the Greek alphabet has 15 more letters.

The forecast for Chicago today predicts a 23°C high will give us not only a new record in itself, but our 7th day above 21°C in a row, a record for November. Yesterday's 24°C also set a record.

And then we have a tiny cold front on its way:

This afternoon should bring us back to the end of autumn with alacrity:

Today. A slight chance of showers between 2pm and 4pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 22. Breezy, with a south wind 30 to 35 km/h increasing to 35 to 40 km/h in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 70 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

Tonight. Showers and thunderstorms before 10pm, then a slight chance of showers between 10pm and 11pm. Low around 2. Breezy, with a south wind 35 to 40 km/h becoming west 25 to 30 km/h after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 70 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between 7.5 mm and 1 cm possible.

So Parker and I will take our afternoon constitutional a bit earlier than usual.

The record for consecutive 21°C-plus days in Chicago is 5, set 15-19 November 1953. Today will be the third in a row, with the forecast showing the fourth, fifth, and sixth coming this weekend and on Monday.

In other sunny news, the electoral map has shifted a bit overnight:

Arizona's count has slowly shifted away from Biden while in both Georgia and Pennsylvania the count has put Biden ahead. In Georgia, Biden now leads by 1,200 votes, with a few thousand absentee ballots from heavily-Democratic areas near Atlanta. In Pennsylvania, Biden's 6,000-vote lead will likely grow as the final votes come in from Philadelphia, which has gone 90-10 for him in some places. And, of course, Biden leads in the national popular vote, by about 4 million. Both candidates have so far received more votes than any in history.

Note that if the six undeclared states solidify in their current colors, the Electoral College vote will exactly mirror 2016's: 306 to 228. That would be a delicious irony, showing that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fifty years ago today, the Grateful Dead released American Beauty:

There are countless versions of the Grateful Dead to tap into, hundreds of bootlegs and remastered live recordings to queue up. Many bona fide Deadheads would say it's not even worth bothering with the studio recordings. But American Beauty, released Nov. 1, 1970, and lined with back-to-back classics that earned them the title of the great American jam band, stands out from all the rest.

Meanwhile, yesterday set a couple more milestones that historians will talk about 50 years from now:

• Tropical Storm Eta became the 28th named storm of the North Atlantic hurricane season, setting a new record. Hurricane season officially ends a month from today.
• More than 91 million people have already voted in this election, about 2/3 of the total ballots cast (136.5 m) in 2016.
• The monthly average water level in the Lake Michigan-Huron system finally dipped below last year's levels, following 9 straight months of record or near-record levels.

Only 60 shopping days left until we finally exit this bizarre and horrible year.

The first polls close in the US next Tuesday in Indiana at 6 pm EST (5 pm Chicago time, 22:00 UTC) and the last ones in Hawaii and Alaska at 7pm HST and 8pm AKST respectively (11 pm in Chicago, 05:00 UTC). You can count on all your pocket change that I'll be live-blogging for most of that time. I do plan actually to sleep next Tuesday, so I can't guarantee we'll know anything for certain before I pass out, but I'll give it the college try.

Meanwhile:

• The US Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court last night by a vote of 52-48, with only Susan Collins (R-ME) joining the Democrats. It's the first time since Reconstruction that the Senate confirmed an Associate Justice with no votes from the opposition party. And in the history of our country, only two people have been confirmed by a smaller margin: Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. I'm sure the three of them will continue to fight for bipartisanship and good jurisprudence as strongly as they ever have.
• Emma Green points out "the inevitability of Amy Coney Barrett," because the Republicans don't care. And Olivia Nuzzi brings us the story of "the tortured self-justification of one very powerful Trump-loathing anonymous Republican."
• Bill McKibben reminds us "there's nothing sacred about nine justices; a livable planet, on the other hand..."
• Speaking of the planet, Tropical Storm Zeta became Hurricane Zeta last night. The 2020 season has now tied the all-time record for the number of named Atlantic storms set in January 2006, and it's only October.
• Bars and restaurants in suburban Cook County have to close again tomorrow as statewide Covid-19 cases exceed 4,500 on a rolling 14-day average. Some parts of the state have seen positivity rates over 7.5% in the last couple of weeks. My favorite take-out Chinese place down by my office is also closing for the winter, which I understand but which still saddens me.
• The Washington Post asked TV screenwriters how 2020 should end.
• In one small bit of good news, the Food and Drug Administration has finally agreed that whisky is gluten-free, as gluten does not evaporate in the distilling process and so stays in the mash.

Finally, from a reader in Quebec comes a tip about violent clashes between a Canadian First Nation, the Mi'kmaw tribe of Nova Scotia, and local commercial fishermen over First Nations lobster rights. If you think Canada is a land without racism, well...they're just more polite about it.

I did not expect that. It all melted as soon as it hit the ground, at least.

In other news, today is Doonesbury's 50th birthday.