A Chicago Blog

The nerd in me is really excited to hear about the CTA’s new bus tracking system.  The taxpayer in me cringes at the $24 million we’re going to spend on it. I only use the bus once a week, on Monday afternoons, so it will take me a while to determine the usefulness of this [...]

I am taking part in the Sunshine Blogger project.  Last week I called the Gov’s office to find out who the freedom of information contact is. They couldn’t tell me. I was connected to the press office, but they couldn’t tell me either. This is pretty frightening because it would seem to indicate that the [...]

This the third installment in my series on David Frum’s Comeback. I should have finished this book by now because it is a really quick and easy read. But I’ve been sidetracked lately and haven’t been able to put as much time in as I would have liked.
So far I’ve been a little disappointed at [...]

I must say that, as an ex-smoker, I have found the smoking ban beneficial to my personal needs. I am no longer tempted to light up every time I walk into a smoky bar because there are no more smoky bars. That said, I’m still a staunch supporter of smoker’s rights and business owners rights. [...]

I love it when the Washington Post exposes its biases. Juliet Eilperin has an article today on The Heartland Institute’s climate change conference in NYC. Heartland is cited as “a free-market think tank funded by energy and health-care corporations as well as conservative foundations and individuals …” She doesn’t mention that energy companies give less than five percent of their budget, nowhere near enough to fund a conference like this. Eilperin goes on to quote Frank O’Connell of Clean Air Watch but she doesn’t mention who funds him. Apparently, it’s not any of the reader’s concern. Does he get any grants from environmental organizations? Does he lobby for alternative energy? We aren’t told and apparently WaPo doesn’t care.

Dennis Leary used to joke “only in America would there be a guy who cocaine wasn’t good enough for.” I was reminded of that quote this morning when I read that the “Honorable” Todd Stroger rejected a sales tax increase because it wasn’t enough. A 200% increase in the sales tax, it seems, just isn’t enough for the Stroge. He wants a 266% increse which would take the tax all the way up to 2%.

We’re already broke and we haven’t even started trying to solve global warming yet!