About a week-and-a-half ago on a Saturday, a small fire occurred in the building next door to my company’s offices in the Loop. On the following Monday, every store and restaurant on the floor where the fire occurred, which includes Bank of America, Dunkin’ Donuts, Nestle Toll House Cookies, and Gateway Newsstands, was closed with the glaring exception of one right in the middle of it all: Starbucks. God forbid that the zombie-like addicts don’t get their caffeine crack during the Monday rush-hour. The point here is that whatever you think of Starbucks, they obviously have such a well-tuned disaster plan that they ought to be put in charge of running FEMA. Anyway, on to today’s links:

1) Welcome, All Chorizos! (Deadspin) – Usually, “South of the Border” to people from Wisconsin means FIBs.

2) 2008: The Case for Barack Obama (Washington Post) – If I were Barack, I’d be running for President right away. Out of the 5 Presidents that we’ve elected over the past 30 years, the only one that had any substantive national experience was George H.W. Bush. If anything, the more time that you spend in the U.S. Senate, the worse presidential candidate you become (see John Kerry, Al Gore, and Bob Dole).

3) White Sox Acquire MacDougal (South Side Sox) – For all of the Alfonso Soriano rumors, acquiring Mike MacDougal from the Royals to shore up a less-than-stellar bullpen was the move that the White Sox really needed to make before the trade deadline. Even South Side player-hater Minneapolis Red Sox approved of the move! Of course, it would help if we started winning again.

4) Chicago Bulls’ New ‘Bench Seat’ Runs $125,500 Per Season (Crain’s Chicago Business) – While this might sound expensive, the cost of this seat for an entire year is almost $60,000 less than what Ben Wallace will be making per game from the Bulls during the life of his new contract. From that standpoint, this is a steal, right?

5) Camp Starts Thursday (Da’ Bears Blog) – I don’t know about you, but Bears training camp, which opens up tomorrow, has completely snuck up on me.  This is noteworthy because I usually start counting down the days to the opening of training camp by around the Fourth of July, particularly when the Bears are coming off of a playoff run as they are this year.  However, with everything that has been going on with the Sox and Bulls over the summer plus an even worse than average season for the Cubs, we’re in a rare period where the Bears aren’t dominating the Chicago sports scene.  That being said, I’m starting to get the annual football itch.

And finally…

6) New Monopoly Version Uses Debit Card (Yahoo! News) – No word on whether we need to pay $1.50 for each time that we pass “Go”.