A hint of autumn (barely)

A cool front passed through yesterday dropping temperatures in Chicago all the way to...19°C overnight. The dewpoint dropped to 17°C, however, which hints at a time a few weeks from now when the sweaty corn will have been harvested. Last year that happened right around the end of August, so one can hope.

Elsewhere in the world:

• The longer the OAFPOTUS befouls the Oval Office "well into his Caligula phase," the more likely something bad will happen.
• For example, he could openly embrace North Korea because South Korea hurt his feelings. (Just how disconnected from reality is the alte kacker, anyway?)
• The 2026 election is just 77 days away, and it's shaping up to be another 2018.
• And who's winning a lot of Democratic primaries? Call them the Progressive Establishment.
• Let's thank President Biden for lowering prescription drug prices while the OAFPOTUS simultaneously takes credit for it and supports legislation to undo it.

Finally, I am saddened to learn that I may have probably taking a trip on The Canadian in its 1950s-era rolling stock. The train, which runs from Vancouver to Toronto, launched with its current Budd cars in April 1955. The train will continue running indefinitely, but as National Geographic explains,

VIA Rail has announced a $107-million program to refurbish some of the vintage sleeper cars over the next five years. But the roll-out of an all-new long-distance fleet, including glass-domed observation cars, is set to begin in 2030. The Canadian will continue to follow the same route. But the old stainless-steel cars that give the train its timeless appeal will gradually be removed from service.

The nearest equivalent Amtrak train, The Empire Builder, runs from Chicago to Seattle along the northern US border, and still uses Amtrak's 1980-vintage Superliner cars. Not the same thing at all.

I have very happy memories of taking The Canadian from Vancouver to Toronto back in June 1989. The first 24 hours were spent crossing the Rockies. Eating breakfast with the mountains passing by the window was just amazing. The next 24 hours was mile after mile after mile of prairie, the tedium broken only by the occasional grain elevator. But then we entered Ontario and the scenery became interesting again. VIA Rail was threatening to stop the service even back then, and there was a petition at Vancouver train station, which I signed, obviously. From Toronto, I took the bus to Waterloo, where I was visiting the computer science department at U of W for a fortnight. Then I hitched a ride with a couple of U of W grad students to Boston, Massachusetts for a conference at MIT. So I can claim to have crossed the continent, coast to coast, by land. Not quite Lewis and Clark or the Oregon Trail pioneers, but it's my accomplishment and I'm pleased with it.