The Chicago Marathon passed my house in two directions this morning, going north from mile 5 to 6, and then south right around the 15 km mark. Here, running north through Lincoln Park, is the Kenyan team, with race winner Evans Cheruiyot third from left:

As of 7 minutes ago, fewer than 100 days remain in the worst presidency in American history.

The African email scams have haunted our inboxes for so long now I hardly notice them any more. But this one I received today had such fluidity and verve, such poetry, that I feel impelled to share it.

Take out the trash day? Or just an ordinary Friday during these interesting times? Since lunch yesterday:

• Despite all the McCain Campaign's efforts to keep it under wraps for just three more weeks, an Alaskan legislative investigation released a report alleging Gov. Palin abused her power by trying to get her brother-in-law fired from a state job.
• Chrysler and GM are in merger talks.
• The administration (101 days, 4 hours left) took North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, leaving only one country in what can't really anymore be called the "axis of evil."
• Oil dropped to $78, its lowest price since last September, on fears of a global slowdown.

Finally, a wonderful quote whose attribution I can't find: "President Bush isn't so much a lame duck at this point as a wooden decoy."

The state that fought privacy rights all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965 has now embraced them:

The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage Friday in a victory for gay-rights advocates that will allow couples to marry in the New England state.

The court found that the state's law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Not the most important item of news today, but one more example of how the right wing have failed to secure their agenda, as Mark Morford described today:

They know their 15 minutes are up. They know they had their shot, gave it everything they had. Six solid years of complete control, their most potent leaders, their best ideas, war and terror and jingoism, anti-gay anti-women anti-science. Also: a million new surveillance cameras, ten thousand right-wing judges, a front-loaded Supreme Court, pummeling the line separating church and state, blaming gays for 9/11, keeping Christian rock alive, creepy museums in Kentucky where humans walk with dinosaurs.

And they failed. Spectacularly. Historically. Unsurprisingly.

I would be happier, I suppose, if 40% of my retirement savings hadn't gone away in the past month; but at least I'm not planning to retire for about 30 years.

San Francisco's Mark Morford also noticed the Economist's "if the world could vote" tool:

But come on, it can't be that much of a global landslide, right? Surely there must be some stiff, stoic nations out there who'd want a grumpy, tempestuous military man to lead the U.S., if only to have someone to play with in the grand sandbox of war and intolerance and oily greed?

Is there really no military junta, no dictator, no incensed bomb-gathering nation that really wants McCain, if only for the joy of mutual saber-rattling and for refreezing the Cold War? Putin fanatics? Tories? Papal knaves? Anyone?

Nope.

McCain gets Georgia (of course). And maybe Macedonia. Slovakia is relatively close, but leaning Obama. And, well, that's about it. At last tally, of the 9,875 available global electoral votes (195 participating nations, including the U.S.), Obama has 8,482.

McCain has 16.

Yeah. And those 16 include those in the U.S.

26 days, 16 hours until polls open.

There is a saying in law school: First year they scare you to death. Second year they work you to death. Third year they bore you to death.

I think the debate calendar skipped second year this time around.

Though, must say, the Vice-Presidential debate scared me to death.

Update, 20:58 CT: When is Brokaw just going to high-five McCain? I've seen more fairness in a high-school election.

Update, 21:35 CT: Well, it wasn't the laff-riot I'd hoped, but still. Wow. I think Tom Brokaw lost.

Via the Economist, a video simulation of every airplane in the world over a 24-hour period:

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon, this Sunday, will box me in unless I have the foresight to park outside the race course before then. I'm not sure what to do about Parker, either; there are a couple of underpasses from where I live to the park, but it looks like from the time we wake up until about noon Sunday we're not going to go very far.

The weather should be really good, though possibly a little warm. Good luck, runners!

Chicago is finally getting high-speed rail service:

The ambitious project proposed for the Midwest would cover 3,000 miles in nine states. All lines would radiate from a hub in downtown Chicago. The cost of a fully completed Midwest network is estimated at almost $8 billion.

Travel times of almost 5½ hours on Amtrak's route between Chicago and St. Louis would be cut to 3 hours and 49 minutes on a high-speed train, according to preliminary estimates.

In the past year, more than 501,000 rides were taken on Amtrak's Lincoln Service route between Chicago and St. Louis, a 284-mile trip, a 15 percent increase over the previous year. Some 1.2 million rides a year would be taken when the route is served by high-speed trains, according projections by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Imagine if we'd invested in this infrastructure five years ago, or even ten? Or forty years ago, as France did?

Despite still being in the "anger" phase of mourning the Cubs' losses last week[1], I took time to read Krugman today: "[T]he McCain [health care] plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I'm terrified."

[1] For example, even if the Dodgers go on to win the World Series, they still would have six fewer wins this season than the Cubs. They ended the season behind eight other teams. They simply don't deserve it. So with no small irony—several un-small ironies, in fact—I'm rooting for Boston, if for no other reason than to welcome KT home.

I hope every Cub who failed to get a hit in the series gets fired.

I also hope TBS disappears in a puff of finance.

I am not happy at all, and my dog, who doesn't understand what 100 minutes looks like let alone 100 years, does not understand why I am yelling at my TV.

The best team in the NL just got swept by a team that didn't even have enough wins to make the wild card. Why? Who knows. Who cares. Fire the lot of them.

My only consolation is, we may have crappy sports teams, but the next President will be a Chicagoan.

First, Parker got an aversion to box fans. Then ceiling fans. Now he's afraid of anything attached to a ceiling, like light fixtures. Seriously: he keeps looking up at the track lights or ceiling fans in whatever room he's in. Oddly, when a ceilng fan rotates fast enough, he can't see it, and then isn't afraid of it. But light fixtures? They don't do anything, and no amount of demonstrating that I have the power of light and dark over these things seems to ameliorate his anxiety.

Has anyone else seen this kind of thing with dogs? I swear the poor guy can't deal with anything other than clear skies right now.

I'm forced to watch TBS while the Cubs are in the playoffs—at least until I'm forced to watch (shudder) Fox—so I'm seeing TV ads ("commercials" in the vernacular) as if anew.

Aside from the NLDS being brought to us by erections, I'm trying to wrap my mind around Gillette running ads in favor of their new 5-blade razor by trashing their existing 3-blade razor. I happen to use their 3-blade razor. I think I could probably make do with two blades, or even one; but seriously, five? And why trash your own product to sell your new product? (By the way, I hate all-Flash sites. I want steak, not sizzle, which I think makes me un-Mercun.)

And if I have to see one 60-something dude waggling his eyebrows at his wife again while another 60-something dude extols the virtues of hard-ons...that doesn't bollocks. That's almost enough to want the NLDS to end already.