I’m in Barack Obama’s home base town, Chicago, and will live blog this debate. I’m sitting here with Martin Walker, editor emeritus of UPI and Director of AT Kearney’s Global Business Policy Council, as well as his wife, Julia Watson, who publishes the blog, Eat Washington. Bob Schieffer — whose brother Tom is George W….

One of these days, I’m going to post a long roster of foreign policy speeches and other writing by Senator Chuck Hagel.

Financial Times correspondents Daniel Dombey and Carola Hoyos have an interesting alert in today’s paper. They write: Pipelines vital to Iraq’s oil industry are in such poor condition they could rupture at any time, choking off the supply of oil from the region and devastating the country’s economy, according to the US State Department.

Yesterday in Baghdad,Turkish leaders met with Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, for the first time in four years.

Senator Chuck Hagel‘s wife, Lilibet, may be watching the debates tonight with Michelle Obama at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York — but I’ll be watching (and live-blogging as usual) in Barack Obama’s home base city, Chicago.

(I would have loved to have been the official blogger with these guys. . .) When I started The Washington Note, my colleagues (particularly my boss) were not thrilled.

The late William F. Buckley‘s son, the talented writer and thinker — Christopher Buckley — surprised many with his brave decision to endorse Barack Obama recently. His announcement created a storm among National Review editors. According to reports, he offered to resign. And it took a nanosecond for the magazine to accept that resignation.

I was just invited to a fundraising dinner for the US-China Education Trust and FY Chang Foundation honoring Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson, Jr. The dinner is Friday November 14th. All I can say is best of luck. In case Paulson drops out, perhaps Paul Krugman will be a massively bigger draw.

The canada geese are back in town, and here’s a few of them just off my back porch in Chestertown, Maryland.

Intrade’s future markets are surging in support of a likely Obama win in the presidential race. Just a couple of weeks ago, one could buy an Obama contract for 40, and it’s now 77.7. McCain’s contract is now at 23.1 after having been at about 56.