NPR is reporting that Norm Coleman has conceded, ending one of the longest U.S. Senate contests in history.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled (just like every other court before it) that Al Franken won election to the U.S. Senate back in November:

"Affirmed," wrote the Supreme Court, unanimously rejecting Republican Norm Coleman's claims that inconsistent practices by local elections officials and wrong decisions by a lower court had denied him victory.

"Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled [under Minnesota law] to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota," the court wrote.

But the court did not grant Franken's bid to make its ruling effective immediately, possibly leaving a window for an appeal by Coleman before Gov. Tim Pawlenty is required to issue an election certificate.

Yeah, so, it's not over yet. As Eric Kleefeld points out:

Will Coleman concede, or will he take another path -- as national GOP leaders like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) have urged -- and take this to federal courts, where he might try to get an injunction against Franken receiving a certificate of election? And if Franken does get his certificate, will the Senate GOP attempt to filibuster its acceptance?

Regardless, Coleman has exhausted his appeals under Minnesota law, so I think it's fair to call Franken "Senator-Elect" at this point.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman on climate-change deniers:

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.

In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?

The science may be uncertain about how much climate change we're causing, but when you're driving a car into a brick wall, an extra meter or two per second hardly matters.

A friend called me up Friday night and asked if I wanted to go on a brewery tour of Southern Wisconsin the next morning. Here's the result: 578.5 km in a little under 7 hours, with Parker, and four breweries (plus a Heidi Festival).

We started around 9 in the morning from Lincoln Park, and by noon we'd arrived at the New Glarus Brewing Co.. (More after the jump.)

My cousin turned a very large round number on Wednesday, so, being cruel, I took him to the Cubs game in Detroit. I'll have a rare back-dated entry about that in a little bit, with some kvetching about Amtrak; for now, just some pictures of the game.

But first, a non-sequitur: via Paul Krugman, today is the 35th anniversary of the UPC bar code.

Anyway. The game. Yeah, we didn't see this coming:

I love trains. I always have. All things equal (or nearly so), I'll take a train.

As a frequent visitor to Europe and the Northeastern U.S., not to mention living in Chicago, I have plenty of opportunities to ride efficient, clean, fast, punctual trains. (Take out "clean" and the El still qualifies. Return "clean" and take out "fast," "efficient," and "punctual" and the London Underground qualifies.)

Take the Acela: for about the same cost as an airline ticket, you can go from the U.S. Capitol building to the Empire State building in just under three hours, door to door. To do the same on an airplane would take significantly longer and cost more. Figure the time and expense of getting to National Airport and from LaGuardia or Newark, plus security lines, baggage checking if applicable, and traffic delays into the LGA-JFK-EWR nightmare, and now you're at 5 hours and significantly more money.

I'm writing this on the Amtrak Wolverine from Chicago to Detroit. Just a few minutes ago I read a recent article in the New York Times (Jon Gertner, "Getting Up to Speed," 14 June 2009) that discusses the planned high-speed rail connector between San Francisco and Los Angeles (and, ultimately, San Diego and Sacramento). It mentions, implicitly, the train I'm sitting on, as this route is one planned to get high-speed rail sometime in the 21st Century.

Right now the scheduled trip from Chicago to Detroit (383 km) takes about 4 hours and 45 minutes. Add in getting to Union Station (20 minutes, $2.00) and a cab to Comerica Park (15 minutes, $10), and the trip takes almost, but not quite, as long as traveling by plane. Of course, it's far cheaper; even in Business Class my round-trip is $74, compared with $179.20 for the lowest airfare I found in Coach (21-day advance purchase on both Expedia and Southwest).

Only, as of 2:45 pm we're only about 16 km past Battle Creek, Mich., 177 km from Detroit and two hours later than scheduled.

So far, the trip has entailed:

• A 30-minute delay at Union Station for an (ultimately unsuccessful) air-conditioning repair;
• A 15-minute delay just 1 km outside Union Station to let another train pass;
• 10 more minutes in Indiana, waiting for an oncoming train that would not have delayed us had we left on time;Half an hour in Battle Creek for the same reason;
• When we are moving, track so old and rickety that it feels like...well, not to put too fine a point on it, but: the El; and
• Do you remember how the air-conditioning repair did not succeed entirely?

About that last point: My G1 and Weather Bug tell me it's 36°C at my present location (Marshall, Mich.). So if the air-conditioning fails completely—it already has in one of the four cars on this train—we're going to melt.

In sum: while we wait until the launch of new high-speed rail service between Chicago and Detroit (2020? 2025?), the existing rail service between the two cities, like much of Amtrak's network, bears entirely too much resemblance to the rail service in the 1870s.

Matt, my cousin, with whom I'm seeing tonight's Cubs game (the reason we're going to Detroit), took Megabus. He has texted me at several interviews to mention how comfortable and on-time his bus is. Sure, I've got more room to walk around, but who wants to do that in a car with a failing air conditioner? Oh, and he has WiFi. Somehow. On a bus.

At least the power outlet works...

Not only have we had the wettest year ever so far, but summer has officially arrived today with our first 32°C reading since September 2nd. (It's only 30°C at IDTWHQ right now; 33°C officially at O'Hare.)

What I'd like—it's a small request, I think—is a good run of 25°C days with sun and a cloud or two for variety. You know, maybe three in a row? No rain, no cold, no sweltering heat, just relaxing summer weather.

Kodak is discontinuing Kodachrome:

[T]he Rochester-based company announced today, it has ceased production of a household name, Kodachrome, its oldest color film, that it manufactured for 74 years.

... Photojournalist Steve McCurry's portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. At Kodak's request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, named for the company's founder, in Rochester.

I have about 3,000 Kodachrome slides. They still look great; here's one:

Of course, you're looking at it on a computer. And I haven't shot anything on Kodachrome since 1999. That's the problem. It's a sad milestone, but business is business.

As of yesterday, Chicago is having its wettest year ever.

That is all.

Two unrelated topics in one post? Preposterous. Unacceptable.

And yet.

First: my previous post reflected the difficulties in typing on a tiny G1 keyboard, which magnified the annoyances in maintaining a blog in the first place. Two entries disappeared after unintentional finger sweeps, and don't even get me started on the difficulties of adding an actual hyperlink from my phone. On the other hand, I can post from my phone, which I find so cool it makes me giddy. I do feel like someone living 80 years ago complaining about air travel: yes, ocean liners are more comfortable, and yes, the thing makes a lot of noise, but wake up: you can get from New York to London in one night. At some point the coolness overcomes the annoyance, and a new technology goes critical.

Second, if you're either (a) unaware of the unfolding news from Iran, or (b) not following it on Sullivan, you need to do both. This is what Democracy looks like. I'm more and more hopeful that Iran will prevail, and its unelected dictatorship will fall. It won't look like the U.S., the U.K., or any other European-style democracy, but possibly before the end of this summer, Iran will have an elected leader, and a legitimate government, for the first time in 30 years. There will be a terrific cost, but again: the Iranian people will, ultimately, win this.

I think Thomas Jefferson put it better than I ever could:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Wear green this week if you agree.

I was going to post about the virtues of the Cubs and the T-Mobile G1, but the latter revealed its limitations while I used it to extol the former. Suffice to say: Cubs won, G1 tied, and it's time to go inside.

The Chicago Reader has another article on the Chicago Parking Meter Debacle, this time examining who got rich off it:

Not only did William Blair advise the city on the deal—it came up with the idea in the first place. Then it provided the city with the only estimate it ever received of what the system was worth and coordinated the bidding process.

Two other financial services firms and three law firms were brought in to assist. All were given no-bid contracts for the work, and all appear to have political or personal ties to the Daley administration (which is not unusual for the way the city of Chicago does business).

The financial advisers were each paid a share of what the city made in cash on the lease deal. William Blair received 0.375 percent of the payout, or about $4.3 million, according to records obtained from the city through a FOIA request. The others, Gardner Rich and Ramirez & Company, each received 0.0625 percent, or $722,813. The attorneys’ fees added up to another $1.3 million. All told, the city paid its legal and financial advisers more than $7 million for their work on the deal.

Yeah? So where's mine?

Oh, good game. Very good game. It looked grim until the bottom of the 8th, when the Sox gave up a 4-run lead as the Cubs tied it up. Then Alfonso Soriano earned his paycheck today with a game-winning RBI in the 9th.

I also have to say, my new phone is so friggin' cool, it can do this (after the jump)...

Chicago mayor Richard Daley has possibly committed the city to an enormous public expense for the 2016 Olympic Games:

Faced with losing the 2016 Summer Games to competing cities offering full government guarantees, Mayor Richard Daley made an about-face Wednesday and said the City of Chicago would sign a contract agreeing to take full financial responsibility for the Games.

In a worst-case situation, such as severe cost-overruns or a catastrophic event, the agreement could leave taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars or even more, a scenario Chicago's bid team acknowledges but insists is far-fetched.

Um...in what universe are cost overruns on a Chicago public works project "far-fetched?" The Tribune's editorial board wonders who's really on the hook:

The mayor's spokeswoman, Jacquelyn Heard, says...[t]he financial commitment...will fall on the Chicago 2016 committee, the group that's organizing the city's bid.

Well, hold on a minute. If the Olympics lose money, the IOC wants somebody to pick up the cost. So if the Games are a bust and the losses blow through the public and private guarantees, the Chicago 2016 committee will pay the rest of the tab?

How? By taking up a collection among its members?

I'm beginning to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis...

...against the White Sox at Wrigley. Which, believe it or not, is more humiliating for them than the revelation that Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids in 2003.

Neither of these things, you understand, is a surprise.

The fuzzy dude is 3 years old today. Obligatory baby picture:

That's his Petfinder mugshot from when he was about 8 weeks old. After the jump, a photo from just now.

Not me, this morning. Him:

He must have had a decent flight, too; the weather here today is almost June-like. (Photo after the jump.)

Parker has slept soundly most of the day after he and I walked up to Ribfest yesterday. The round-trip took us about 2 hours (not including stops) and 12.8 km.

More after the jump.

Photos and reviews of Ribfest tomorrow morning. Right now, though, I'm all about the novelty of updating TDP from my phone. Also tomorrow, I'll explain why this is a bigger deal than it seems.

The Guardian is reporting riots in Tehran following reports that the Iranian election monitors have declared yesterday's election fraudulent:

Iran is facing political turmoil after hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was confirmed today as the winner of the presidential election and outraged supporters of his chief rival took to the streets to protest against a "dangerous charade" after a record 85% turnout.

Tonight riot police in Tehran faced thousands of angry demonstrators shouting "death to dictatorship" amid shock and confusion after the official result backed Ahmadinejad's claim to have won, made barely an hour after the polls closed on Friday night.

...Ahmadinejad's crushing and contested victory by 63% to 34% is a grave setback for hopes for a solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions and for detente with the US now that Barack Obama is seeking dialogue with Tehran. Israel immediately reacted to the news by demanding intensified efforts to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

Is Iran heading for civil war? And what's Israel's reaction going to be?

Chicagoans: you haven't imagined it. This has been the coolest June on record, though the forecast calls for a warm-up this coming week:

The cloudy, chilly and rainy open to June here has been the talk of the town. So far this June is running more than 12°F cooler than last year, and the clouds, rain and chilly lake winds have been persistent. The average temperature at O'Hare International Airport through Friday has been only 59.5°F: nearly 7°F below normal and the coldest since records there began 50 years ago.

It's also been wet. Very wet. So far this year we've had 499 mm of rain, 35% above our normal 369 mm, with more falling as I write this.

Welcome to East Seattle.

I upgraded from a Dash to the T-Mobile Sidekick XL 2009 today. I'm returning it tomorrow.

I need three things from a SmartPhone, all of which my 2-year-old Dash has:

1. Access to email, through POP3.
2. Synchronization with Outlook.
3. Web browsing.

It does #3 incredibly well. Sadly, though, despite 90 minutes with two different support people at T-Mobile, I can't get #1 or #2. The support CSRs didn't know why, but I figured it out, and I have to say even if I explained to them they still wouldn't know.

(More after the jump.)

First, it's interesting to see young voters partying down on election night in Iran. Second, did you know about the 32 polling places in the U.S. where Iranian citizens can vote? Third, here's a helpful chart from the Beeb explaining how Iran is ruled:

Via Beth Filar Williams, the Douglas County, Colo., Public Library has installed a device that brings daylight into the center of the building:

Just hangin' on the steps, shootin' the breeze, makin' policy:

(At the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Paris. White House photo.)

The following photo shows a programmer, a usability expert, and an IT manager struggling to figure out how to add players to a bowling game using AMF's scoring software. I don't even remember the sequence we had to go through, but I do remember thinking (a) on average, we were sober; and (b) software that makes something so simple take so long should be punishable...in some appropriate way.

On the other hand, one doesn't go to a bowling alley because of the software they use. On the first hand, however, bad software makes everything less fun.

I mentioned Saturday that my friends and I took a Segway tour through the capitol district of Raleigh, N.C. Here's proof, complete with the capitol....

Programmers and other nerds probably know of Bookpool.com, a technical-book seller on Martha's Vineyard. Knew, I should say. The retailer shut down in March. They had the best selection and by far the quickest shipping of any specialty bookseller I've used. It's a shame, really.

I'll have photos of my weekend in North Carolina tomorrow morning. Right now, though, I have to do the blogging equivalent of a spit-take after learning that Justice Ginsburg has stayed Chrysler's bankruptcy while the company loses $100 million per day.

I mean, wow.

I'm in Durham, N.C. today, having pounced on a delightful airfare American Airlines released on Tuesday. The fictional supernatural personifications of travel were with me yesterday, from the 35-minute (door-to-door) trip from home to O'Hare, to the upgrade, to my friend taking advantage of my visit to bring her boyfriend and me on a Segway tour of downtown Raleigh.

The last counts as travel because I learned how to ride a new vehicle. We looked like a string of electric ducks following the tour guide (photos likely tomorrow), but we learned a lot and had a great time gliding around nonplussed Carolinians. Somehow, I have no idea how this could have happened, someone figured out how to turn off the governor on my Segway, so I managed to get it up to its top speed (20 km/h), a few points above the top speed the tour company programmed into the machine (14 km/h).

Tonight: friend of host's birthday party. Tomorrow: obscenely early flight home, the only bad part about weekend last-minute fares.

The Conservative Party have apparently obliterated Labour in yesterday's local U.K. elections:

Although most of the county councils have yet to declare, early results show the Conservatives taking dozens of seats from Labour and seizing control of two county councils in the Liberal Democrats’ stronghold in the South West.

In Staffordshire, Labour, which has controlled the county for over 20 years, has already lost half its seats and the Tories are on course for an easy victory.

The Conservatives also took control of Devon and Somerset from the Liberal Democrats. The Tories have not been in power in Somerset for 16 years.

... Party officials hinted yesterday that Labour was likely to lose more than half its county council seats and all the four county councils that it still held. Results so far will have done nothing to lift their spirits. Pundits suggested the Tories will gain at least 200 seats although it is questionable whether they will get the 43 per cent share of the vote they gained in local elections last year.

It's sad, really. Gordon Brown actually has done well on paper, keeping the UK from suffering as much as other countries in the current recession, and generally doing the right things economically. But the man just can't manage the politics. Neither can David Cameron or Nick Clegg, by the way, which makes the situation even worse.

Any bets on when Brown will resign? It could happen this month.

The City is seeing more incidents of systematic violence against meters—this time in Andersonville.

I have a hypothesis, with some of the evidence to support it coming from my own head. Before the parking meter lease, people mostly accepted that feeding parking meters was part of our civic responsibility. We drive on the streets, which are a public good, so we should do our part and pay the $1 per hour or so for the privilege of parking on them. Now, however, a private company gets the money from the meters, which adds a profit motive (and, incidentally, up to $3 per hour) to parking meter collections. In other words, the mood has shifted from cooperative (it's our city, after all) to adversarial (who's getting the money?).

I should make it clear, I don't condone vandalism of any kind. But I understand, and even share to some extent, the feelings that cause it in this case. The proper thing to do, I think, is simply to boycott the parking meters. Starve them; don't beat them to death. But continue to let aldermen and the Mayor know why.

I wrote yesterday about all of New England (except that one little bit in the southeast) has now ratified marriage equality. I asked some friends, why not Rhode Island? Reader EC wrote back from East Greenwich:

eventually they'll pass it. We have a Republican gov and he's trying to posture, but maybe even more significant is the fact that Rhode Islanders never rush into anything. We were the first to enter into the revolutionary fray with the burning of the British ship, the Gaspe, but the last of the colonies to ratify the Constitution. It has been thus ever since. To paraphrase, the mills of RI governance grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine. All in due time. We tend to fight for the underdog tooth and nail, but hesitate to legislate. Instead we spend years fighting about changing our state name, officially The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to eliminate the potentially "racist" word, plantations. On second thought, maybe that's why we hesitate to legislate.

It'll be interested to see what they do. I haven't heard of any court challenges there, either. As for other states, via Andrew Sullivan comes Nate Silver's update on New York. Astute geographers will note that New York borders four of the six states in New England, and is (at least below I-84) a fairly left-leaning state.

Governor John Lynch today signed legislation making New Hampshire the sixth state (and the fifth in New England) to allow gay marriage.

If gay marriage—or, the right of a person and another person to marry—can pass New Hampshire and Iowa, I think it's officially "mainstream." New Hampshire ("Live Free or Die") is the most Republican state in New England, and John Lynch is a Republican governor; so this isn't a party issue any more. Rhode Island politics may not permit the state to weigh in for some time (I've got emails out to some GOP friends from East Greenwich for clarification), which I kind of expected.

But now, I would hope that Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, even Maryland, and other states with long progressive histories start getting marriage-equality acts through. Since it's a matter of when, not if, I would like to see my home state on the van.

This morining Chicago's Inspector General released his official report confirming what everyone already knew: Chicago's parking-meter lease deal was, not to put too fine a point on it, galactically stupid. Apparently, though, Mayor Daley can't fathom why this scandal hasn't quietly disappeared like all the others.

Here's the Trib:

While Inspector General David Hoffman put an official seal on what critics have been saying for months, the scathing report comes amid public outrage. Anger over the parking meter meltdown has yet to subside in a rare case where a blunder is sticking to a mayor who has outrun many controversies during his two decades in office.

Though Hoffman declined to single out Daley for criticism, the report will resonate at City Hall, where the mayor's tight rein is legendary and aldermen almost always are expected to back his agenda with little scrutiny. The report takes the City Council to task for ratifying the deal by a 40-5 vote in December, just a day after Daley aides briefed aldermen on it.

... Hoffman's report calls the lease a "dubious financial deal," arguing the city could have raked in at least $2.13 billion if only it had kept the meters after raising rates -- minus the cost of collecting the money and maintaining the meters.

Top Daley aide Paul Volpe immediately fired back at what he called a "misguided and inaccurate" report.

"Misguided and inaccurate?" Dude, you guys messed with our cars. This is America. If you'd sold the CTA for 25 cents[1] the outrage would have ended in a few hours, but this—this is parking, fer crissakes.

[1] It's hyperbole, Richie. Please, for the love of all that's holy, do not sell the CTA.

Australian comedy duo John Clarke and Brian Dawe comment on the 1991 Kikri oil spill:

As I'm less than three months from starting an MBA program designed to foster international relationships, I don't know what to make of this:

[F]oreign (or, more euphemistically, "international") students are thinking twice about handing over their hard-earned and recession-hit cash for an education at a prestigious Western hall of academe.

... Big private business schools in America, already hit by the much lower valuations of their endowment funds, seem likely to take the biggest hit. The American-based Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), a regular surveyor of MBA graduates and recruiters, presciently noted in its 2008 Global MBA Graduate Survey that "graduates who attended full-time MBA programmes outside their country of citizenship rated overall value lower compared with graduates who attended similar programmes in their home country".

... Three factors are likely to weigh heavily on international students’ willingness to travel abroad to study: financing their studies, fears about the jobs market and the availability or otherwise of good business schools in their home country.

I'm very interested to see the composition of my CCMBA class. So far, to judge by the 25 or so of us who have submitted biographies to the class portal, about 2/3 of us are from the U.S., 1/3 from the rest of the world.

The article mentions, as a tangent, that the U.K. Border Agency maintains a list of the top 50 MBA programs worldwide. Fuqua is on the list, which means Fuqua graduates can get a working visa from Britain under the Highly Skilled Workers scheme nearly automatically.

There are apparently proposals out there to make beer drinkers sad:

In Congress, the Senate Finance Committee has raised the possibility of a 150% increase in the federal tax on beer to help pay for health care reform. And about three dozen states, including Illinois, have called for alcohol tax hikes to offset budget shortfalls.

The federal government hasn't raised the beer tax in nearly 20 years, but legislators are considering increasing it to the same level as spirits. An equalization of alcohol taxes would be a huge problem for brewing giants such as MillerCoors LLC, which will move its headquarters to Chicago this summer. The tax hikes would raise prices and drive many customers to buy cheaper brands or switch to spirits, beer industry insiders say.

But wait! Turns out, MillerCoors is wrong: the tax increase wouldn't lead people to cheaper beers (as if such existed), it might actually lead people to better beers:

Small brewers would be exempt from the taxes, giving the fast-growing microbrew segment another boost against giants like MillerCoors.

The [Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group] estimates most people would pay little extra if taxes were increased on alcohol because 20% of drinkers consume 85% of the alcohol in the U.S.

In marginally-related news, hoppy beer in San Diego is booming:

A dizzying variety of small breweries are lapping away at the dominance that mild, light-colored lagers have enjoyed since Prohibition, and some of the best-regarded are in North County, short on history and long on the bitter herbs known as hops.

... North County breweries have racked up their share of accolades. The Brewers Association named Port Brewing as the nation's best small brewing company for 2007. The association named Alesmith Brewing Co., in San Diego's Miramar neighborhood, as the best small brewery last year. Beer Advocate magazine called Stone the "best brewery on earth" in December and rated five Stone beers among its top 25. Food & Wine Magazine's June issue dubs Highway 78 a "near-mystical" route for visiting breweries.

So, it the beer tax doesn't seem that bad, especially in Southern California.

Here's the KML from yesterday's flight. And here's more art:

Contrast with a photo from earlier this year...

I took a combination sightseeing/cross-country flight today down to Valparaiso, Ind., 56 nautical miles away. I also stopped at Lansing, Ill., for good measure.

No Google Earth track yet—I expect to have that tomorrow morning, when I get around to it—but I do have art. This is the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette, Ill.: