The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

What I'll be watching for tomorrow

I plan to live-blog off and on tomorrow evening, understanding the likelihood that we won't know the results of many of the races until later in the week. I'm watching these races most closely (all times CST, UTC-6):

6pm

Polls close in Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia. Of these, I mainly want to know the results in Georgia's two US Senate races, plus the US Senate race in South Carolina and the Georgia presidential totals. In Kentucky, Amy McGrath has less than a 1 in 20 chance of winning, but if you've ever played D&D you know that doesn't mean she's dead. Kentucky expects 90% of votes to be counted Tuesday night. The other three may have all their results as well, but Virginia might not have close races resolved until next week.

6:30pm

North Carolina and Ohio are must-wins for the president; North Carolina is a likely US Senate pick-up for the Democratic Party. In Ohio, the president is favored by about 62%; in North Carolina, Biden is favored around 66%. While most ballots will be counted Tuesday night in Ohio, final results may take until November 18th. We should know North Carolina by Wednesday morning.

7pm

Polls close here, in Maine, most of Texas, and a number of states unlikely to sway the election. However, by this point, polls representing 272 electoral votes will have closed. Illinois results for everything except the Fair Tax amendment will come out Tuesday night, though final results could take until the counting deadline on November 17th. We'll know whether Maine's Susan Colins goes on the dole before midnight in Chicago. But Texas, boy, I don't know. They may have some results Tuesday night but absentee ballots can come in through 5pm Wednesday.

8pm

Polls close in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New York, the western nub of Texas, and Wisconsin. Arizona should start releasing their results by 9pm, and with Mark Kelly and Joe Biden both expected to win the state, this may be the first one I actually celebrate. Colorado should start reporting results overnight, and Wisconsin should report everything by Wednesday morning. Michigan and New York will take several days to report results. (New York, in fact, has until the 28th to report its results, according to state law.)

9pm

Of the races whose polls close at this time, I care most about Iowa's US Senate race. It's dead-even between incumbent Republican Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield. Because Iowa counts ballots that arrive up until the 9th, we will have to wait a week to know for sure.

10pm

All three West Coast states plus Idaho close at this time, though I don't expect any surprises. All three should go for Biden by wide margins, and only Oregon has a US Senate race that incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley should win easily. The only exciting event at 10pm will be the AP officially calling all 74 of those Electoral College votes for Biden.

11pm

The networks can call Hawai'i, with its 4 electoral votes and no US Senate race, at this time.

Midnight

Alaska finally closes its polls, sending its 3 electoral votes to the president. But the US Senate Race is still in play, with Democrat Al Gross nipping at incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan's heels. Unless the revolt from the left exceeds even my optimistic expectations, Sullivan will probably sit in the 117th Congress. However, since Alaska won't even start counting votes received after October 29th until next Tuesday, we won't know until the 18th.

In the background, I want to know state legislature races in a few states, like North Carolina. 

Sources:

Lunchtime incompetence, history, and whisky

Someday, historians may discover what former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker—I don't have to remind you, a Republican—got in exchange for the ridiculous deal his administration made with FoxConn. After the Taiwan-based company created only a tiny fraction of the jobs it promised in exchange for billions in tax credits, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has finally told them, no, you don't get all that money for nothing.

In other news:

Finally, Whisky Advocate has some recommendations for an essential whisky bar in your home.

Travel day!

Today I left the state of Illinois for the first time since January 19th, 259 days ago. It's the longest I've gone without leaving Illinois since I was 3½ years old. And because I drove, I'm continuing to add days to my longest interval without flying. I hope I can fly somewhere before too long.

It wasn't a theoretical crossing of state lines like back in June; today I went into Wisconsin at full speed around 11:30 and left around 5:30, having seen living family, paid respects to dead family, and collected a bag of cheese curds at Mars Cheese Castle.

Regular blogging returns tomorrow.

The return of Allie Brosh

The cartoonist and author behind Hyperbole and a Half has returned with a new book, which I should receive tomorrow. This news offsets pretty much all the other news from today:

I'm sure there's more, but I'm done for the day.

How long is this going to take?

I'm sitting at my desk waiting for my work laptop to finish updating, a process now in its 24th minute, with "Working on updates 25%" on the screen for the past 5. Very frustrating; I have things to do today; and if I'd known how long it would take (I'm looking at you, help desk), I would have started the update when I left this evening.

So, all right, I'll read a few things:

My laptop has rebooted three times now and appears to have gotten up to 83% complete. I may in fact get something done today.

Afternoon round-up

There's a lot going on today, what with the Republican National Convention celebrating the apocalypse they desperately want, but a few things outside of that also happened:

Finally, only a few blocks from my house my neighbors have set up a Wee Free Library...of sticks...for dogs.

Harbor Brewing Co., Winthrop Harbor

Welcome to stop #26 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Harbor Brewing Co., 811 Sheridan Rd., Winthrop Harbor
Train line: Union Pacific North, Winthrop Harbor
Time from Chicago: 1 hour, 28 minutes (Zone I)
Distance from station: 800 m
Biergarten is 800 m to the east

It turns out, one can get beer during a pandemic. Harbor Brewing has two locations: a brewpub, which is closed due to Covid-19, and a Biergarten, which is very open.

I tried three beers. The Harbor Light Ale (4.0% ABV) lives up to its name, having tons more flavor than an industrial light beer but still having the insubstantial feeling of it. The Hazy Afternoon NEIPA (7.4% ABV) was my favorite, and perfect for a hazy afternoon by the water. The Locoe NEIPA (7% ABV) had a similar flavor but more juiciness and citrus notes.

Since Winthrop Harbor is the farthest from Chicago I've gone on the project, and since I had a lot of time between trains, I took a walk from the Metra station all the way to the invisible energy field between Illinois and Wisconsin, the latter on the left in this photo:

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? No
Serves food? Independent food tents, BYOF
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Mostly tangential news

Today I'll try to avoid the most depressing stories:

  • The North Shore Channel Trail bridge just north of Lincoln Avenue opened this week, completing an 11 km continuous path from Lincoln Square to Evanston.
  • Experts warn that herd immunity (a) is an economic concept, not a health concept and (b) shouldn't apply to humans because we're not herd animals.
  • Wisconsin remains in total chaos today after the state supreme court terminated Governor Tony Evans' stay-at-home order, approximately two weeks before a predictable, massive uptick in Covid-19 cases.
  • Delta Airlines has decided to retire its fleet of 18 B777 airplanes years ahead of schedule due to an unexpected drop in demand for air travel.
  • The pro-contagion, rabid right-wingers flashing placards saying "Be Like Sweden" clearly have no comprehension of Sweden's efforts to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
  • US retail sales declined 16.4% in April, pushing the total decline since February to nearly 25%, the worst decline in history.
  • Wired has a portrait of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry virus from killing us all and then went to jail for his previous activities designing and spreading malware.
  • Andrew Sullivan tells the story of Samuel Pepys, "the very first pandemic blogger."

Finally, Vanity Fair has reprinted its 1931 cover article on Al Capone, which seems somehow timely.

Happy birthday, DuSable Bridge!

The bascule bridge over the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue turned 100 today. The Chicago Tribune has photos.

Also:

And the New York Times interviewed science-fiction author John Scalzi, whose The Last Emperox came out two weeks ago.