The Daily Parker

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert has set up a website called Better Know a Ballot where you can check on the voting requirements for your state. He's producing videos for each state (starting with North Carolina) to explain the rules.

That's the bright spot of joy for you today. Here are other...spots...of something:

• The president answered questions from "undecided" voters at a town hall on Tuesday, and naturally lied almost every time he spoke. The Washington Post lists his most egregious falsehoods.
• Charlie Pierce believes the administration "couldn't have screwed up the response to the pandemic worse if it sent out battalions of the infected to sneeze on people."
• Attorney General William Barr attacked his own federal prosecutors in a speech yesterday, saying career attorneys have too much power that should go to the political appointees.
• Greg Sargent lists 7 ways the administration is "using government to corrupt the election."
• Megan McArdle explains how the language of Fox differs from English.
• The BBC's Reality Check takes on the president's unique understanding of forestry.
• Here in Chicago, the 98-year-old bar Southport Lanes will close for good on September 27th.
• I hope they didn't use Fortune Food Product's ingredients in their food, because the FDA has ordered them to stop production "after federal inspectors allegedly witnessed live rodents and other food safety violations at the East Pilsen facility."
• On this day in 1934, Lane Tech High School opened at its current location in North Center. At the time, it was the largest high school in the world, with 7,000 (all male) students.

OK, one more bit of good news: The Economist reported this week that the southern hemisphere had almost no flu cases this winter, because pandemic response measures work on influenza just as they work on Covid-19.

I put on a long-sleeved shirt to walk Parker this morning, and I'm about to change into a polo. It's a lovely early-autumn day here in Chicago. Elsewhere...

• In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, former NSC adviser Alex Vindman calls the president "a useful idiot" and warns against complacency.
• Jonathan Chait argues that the president is a crook, and needs to be tried for his crimes. Jeff Wise points out the criminal case has already started.
• Steve Coll adds his voice to the chorus wishing an end to the electoral college.
• Osita Nwanevu wants to see an end to war-gaming the 2020 election.
• James Fallows calls for an end to the press treating this president like he's normal, lest they repeat the same mistakes they made in 2016.

Finally, the city received over 600 submissions from 13 countries on how to have outdoor dining in a Chicago winter.

Smoke from the wildfires out west reached Chicago yesterday:

It’s not unusual for smoke from various regions to reach northern Illinois, especially from larger fires, according to Mark Ratzer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Chicago-area office.

Smoke from fires hundreds of miles away can billow high into the atmosphere and get carried to other regions by jet streams and winds aloft, causing cloudier skies and slightly cooler temperatures. Mid- and upper-level winds were carrying smoke this week from the West and Northwest into the Chicago area, creating the same effect.

“It’s not that it’s affecting our air quality (at the) surface,” Ratzer said. “You’re not able to smell it or anything like that, but it has created kind of a smoke layer aloft which is keeping the sun rather dim.”

It shows up pretty clearly from space, as do hurricanes Sally (over Louisiana) and Paulette (near Bermuda):

The president, meanwhile, suggests that the states go on to federal land and rake up some of the undergrowth to prevent fires. Because of course, it couldn't be climate change.

Here we go:

• A wildfire currently burning north of Sacramento has become the largest in California history.
• National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr Anthony Fauci doesn't expect us to get back to normal until "well into 2021."
• Law professor Rosa Brooks reviews Bob Woodward's Rage and finds nothing surprising.
• The Kissimmee Star Motel outside Orlando, Florida, is a case study in the state's abrogation of its basic duties to its citizens, or the apotheosis of the Calvinist ethics governing a large section American politics.
• NPR follows up on the "instant" hospitals China built in Wuhan last winter.
• The BBC's Reality Check column asks if the president "kept his promises on the military."

Finally, for only $875,000, you can own this contemporary, 2-story house...on top of an 8-story building.

I've had an unusually busy (and productive!) day, so naturally, the evening reading has piled up:

• Adam Weinstein says the president "is the military-industrial complex", explaining something of his effect on active-duty military personnel.
• Ivan Krastev explains why the pandemic has not helped authoritarians as one might think it would. (Hint: authoritarians usually "solve" problems that they have created themselves.)
• Ed Yong thinks "America is trapped in a pandemic spiral."
• Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, closed after the August 10th derecho, reopened yesterday.
• Will Senate Democrats end the filibuster if the GOP blocks all our legislation next session?
• The City of Chicago will, we think, maybe, someday, start replacing lead water pipes. (This is why I use a filter.)
• The Chicago Transit Authority has a new tool to help riders avoid crowded buses and trains.

Finally, National Geographic has a slideshow of the world's best ghost towns.

This is the view from Half Moon Bay, Calif., not far from the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, at 9am this morning:

Update: The same reader sent this photo from noon PDT:

Fires continue to burn all over the state despite some modest cooling from this weekend's record temperatures. The California Air Resources Board notes that the increased frequency and severity of these fires, like the increased frequency and severity of other weather-related incidents, comes directly from climate change.

The image seems eerily familiar to us sci-fi fans:

Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountains have a completely different set of weather problems today:

Across parts of the northern and the central Rockies, including Denver, some 6 million people were under winter alerts Tuesday. Across this region, 100 to 200 mm of snow could fall, with locally higher amounts of 300 to 450 mm at the highest elevations through Wednesday. As the day broke, snow was already falling across parts of Idaho, Utah and Wyoming and moving into northern Colorado. By midmorning Tuesday, the snow was expected to spread across Colorado and last through Wednesday morning.

Winter hadn't just arrived through precipitation: Temperatures 17–22°C below average were forecast to lead to numerous records Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lows were forecast to dip below -10°C with wind chills [well below that], with highs that will struggle to get [above freezing] for several locations from the Rockies to parts of the Plains.

On Saturday, [Denver] hit 39°C. Not only was that a daily record high, But it also set an all-time hottest temperature record for the month of September in the city, and it was the furthest into September the city had ever hit 38°C. The previous record was 36.5°C, set last September.

On Monday, Denver hit a high of 34°C, making it the 73rd day in 2020 to exceed 32°C. That tied the all-time record of 73 days set in 2012.

Just 12 hours later, Denver was nearly 34°C colder Tuesday morning, with light snow beginning to fall around the area.

So, in three days, Denver went from a record-shattering 39°C to one of its earliest snowfalls on record.

This year just continues to get weirder.

Yesterday, Woodland Hills, Calf., a neighborhood in Los Angeles, recorded its hottest temperature ever:

As a historic heat wave left Southern California broiling, Woodland Hills on Sunday recorded an all-time high of 49.4°C, which the National Weather Service said was the hottest temperature recorded at an official weather station in Los Angeles County.

It broke the old record of 48.3°C set in July of 2006 and was one of several records to fall on Sunday. The NWS said Riverside hit its highest temperature ever for September at 47.2°C; Santa Ana hit a record high for the day at 41.1°C.

Meanwhile, up the coast in the Bay Area, San Francisco (!) topped out at 38.9°C—a little warmer than the 14°C they recorded Saturday morning—and even Half Moon Bay, right on the coast, hit 32°C, which almost never happens. (It's back down to 20°C there right now.)

In case you're wondering, Death Valley hit a cool 50°C around noon yesterday before dropping off to 36°C overnight.

Today is the last day of meteorological summer, and by my math we really have had the warmest summer ever in Chicago. (More on that tomorrow, when it's official.) So I, for one, am happy to see it go.

And yet, so many things of note happened just in the last 24 hours:

• Greg Sargent says the president's "vile tweetstorm" yesterday "reveals the ugly core of his 'law and order' campaign."
• On that point, lawyer Nick Carmody suggests that the civil unrest the president has fomented "is one of the greatest sources of narcissistic supply."
• Pediatrician Rhea Boyd warns that when police commit violence, children are watching.
• United Airlines has ditched its change fees for domestic tickets, but as Cranky Flier explains, another policy change may actually hurt customers who change flights.
• Hurricane Laura destroyed the Lake Charles, La., NWS doppler radar, around the time the weather station there recorded a 221 km/h gust.
• Wells Fargo has filed one of the largest foreclosure suits in Chicago history, to try recovering a $338 million debt that the owner of the Palmer House Hilton has not serviced since April.

Finally, Josh Marshall reminds everyone that Democrats are nervous about the upcoming election because we're Democrats. It's kind of in our blood.

I'm glad I took a long walk yesterday and not today, because of this:

In other news:

• State health officials warn that suburban Cook County (the immediate suburbs surrounding Chicago) has experienced a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, and placed it and 29 other counties on warning that social restrictions could resume next week.
• Moreover, Covid-19 leads in a massive wave of excess deaths reported by the Cook County Medical Examiner this week. Suicides, homicides, and overdoses are also at near-record levels.
• Jonathan Russo, writing in TPM Cafe, lays out the case that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin got what he wanted with his meddling in the 2016 US elections, and stands to gain even more if the president wins (or somehow achieves) re-election.
• The nationalist, right-wing disease has started to infect Canada as well, as their new Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole has adopted a "Canada First" platform.
• Graceland Cemetery, which doubles as an arboretum, will be closed for the longest period in its 160-year history because of damage from the August 10th derecho.
• Mother Jones obtained video from a 10 December 2015 deposition showing Donald Trump boasting about his lack of ethics and ignorance of the law.

Finally, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has called for an end to Daylight Saving Time—not just the twice-annual time changes associated with the practice.

Today is not only a Saturday, it's also the first day all week under 32°C. So I took a little 26 km walk around the neighborhood. It felt good, and I maintained a Chicago Marathon-qualifying pace throughout. I also underestimated my water needs by half, so I've drunk about two liters since I got home.

And now, I must go to the store. Yay.