A larger-than-usual bunch of news stories piqued my interest this morning:

• Scientists may have a break in the case of the mysterious bee die-offs;
• The Cook County, Ill., Clerk is putting public records online all the way back to 1871;
• A German company has started piecing together Stasi documents the East German security service shredded in the final hours before the Berlin Wall fell; and
• An Australian comedy troupe successfully infiltrated the APEC conference by—how else?—dressing up as Osama bin Laden and walking in the front door.

More from Saturday's Wright Way Rescue reunion: Schona, a 7-year-old Lab that Parker met:

At the Wright Way reunion on Saturday, the shelter had a number of puppies up for adoption, like this one:

Today is Parker Day: I adopted him a year ago today.

Terrorism only works if people allow themselves to be terrorized. People like, for example, shoppers in New Haven, Conn.:

Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club [the Hash House Harriers] inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a "drinking club with a running problem."

...

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14. "You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," she said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

Maybe there's something about New England that prevents the police there from exercising common sense (see, e.g., blinking advertisements).

Update, 15:20 CDT: Security expert Bruce Schneier has declared this the "stupidest terrorist overreaction yet."

We're looking forward to another lovely day in Chicago: 25°C, sunny, light breeze, crystal-clear skies. What more perfect day to wake up with the news that, not only are the Cubs still hanging on to first place, but also Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally resigned, no doubt to spend some quality time with his defense lawyers:

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not announced immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

The official who disclosed the resignation today said that the decision was Mr. Gonzales’s and that the president accepted it grudgingly. At the same time, the official acknowledged that the turmoil over Mr. Gonzales had made his continuing as attorney general difficult.

The turmoil has made the job difficult? Kind of like someone shooting his parents and then bemoaning his lot as an orphan, isn't it?

Well, with 512 days and 3 hours (or less) remaining in the worst administration in history, the President can still do enormous harm to the country, but with Gonzales back in Houston he'll now have none of his original cronies to help.

Update, 10:25 CDT: Does anyone else find some irony in his last day being September 17th?

Yesterday storms tore through the Chicago area, generating high winds and more rain than we need. On our walk to work this morning Parker and I found our path blocked by one of the results:

I almost had to pull over this afternoon when I heard about the Orioles losing 30-3 to the Rangers last night.