Not the recovery I'd hoped for

Yesterday's long walk felt great at the time, but I did not recover well overnight, so I'm taking it easy today. I've got two meetings this afternoon, a rehearsal this evening, and I sincerely hope a nap before all of that. Plus, despite the horrible things my quads and glutes are saying about the state of the world right now, I do have to take Cassie outside a couple more times.

Speaking of the deplorable state of the world:

• We all knew Ohio Republican gubenatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was a vile lump of dingo feces, but it now seems we didn't know just how putrid he is.
• Alberta spent C$125 m holding a referendum on leaving the federation, which, fortunately, failed. Meaning the OAFPOTUS failed. Again.
• Brian Beutler argues that the Democrats need to play the same expectations game as the Republicans: "They’re on track to win, and they should act like it. But whatever the outcome, they will achieve it against concerted efforts by Donald Trump and his tech-media allies to cheat."
• Part of the OAFPOTUS's lowest-ever approval numbers might have something to do with how he's destroying Americans' health care.
• After FiftyPlusOne investigated hinky polling numbers, they discovered that the "pollster" Wedgewood made up all their polls, possibly as a way to bolster Republican chances in two weeks by nudging Democrats to unpopular far-left positions.
• A new proposal by Chicago area heavy-rail authority Metra would boost rail service throughout the area and take a fully-regional approach to train scheduling. It's at least a decade away from being realized, but it suggests that maybe, just maybe, I will live long enough to see Northern Illinois rail service that's almost as good as 1990s London or even 1970s Tokyo. A guy can dream.

Finally, the guys who bring us The Daily WTF have made a video dramatizing a sequence of hilarious status messages sent out by a software tool company after Amazon Web Services accidentally shut down their entire product line for four days. It's worth 7 minutes of your time: