A Chicago Blog

The GAO has released its follow-up report on FEMA’s management of Katrina and Rita relief funds. Of the $290 million dollars FEMA acknowledged as overpayments after GAO’s initial report, only $7 million has been collected. Apparently, once a government agency spends money, it’s gone. Go figure.

Also still missing, 42 laptops, 18 printers, 23 GPS units, and 2 flat-bottom boats. The boats I suppose I can understand, and certainly the GPS units. Both are items used on the ground during the crisis. Laptops? Printers?

From John kass:

Just picture Mayor Vince pulling up to City Hall in a beater Cutlass, announcing he’ll hold the next City Council meeting at the White Castle at 94th and Jeffery at 4 a.m.

He’d force those sniveling food Nazi aldermen to eat double jalapeno sliders, saying: “Please don’t take a turn to negative town.”

Read the whole thing …

Not to belabor the point on Grossman. But the idea that by keeping him in we’re somehow protecting him is absurd. Everybody has seen that the kid has talent, everyone knows that he’s probably going to be our QB for years to come. But the fact is he’s not ready RIGHT NOW and that’s what has us upset. I don’t boo, but I think when the fans are booing, they aren’t booing Grossman so much as the coaching staff for continuing to put us in this situation. If you want to protect Rex you have to give us a chance to see if Griese is good enough RIGHT NOW — let it be known that I think he’s probably over-rated. If we get to the playoffs and loose on account of Rex … well the kid will be lucky to get out of Chicago alive, much less play here next year.

No, Rex is not being protected by being put in a position to fail.

Also, I have a feeling they made the decision to pull Rex but they want to do it at half-time instead of game time. In the 4th quarter last week we had something like 8 minutes left on the clock and the lead, and yet Turner aired it out on third down instead of running the clock. My feeling (and I’ve been really wrong before) is that they were trying desperately to test him, to see if he could get anything going. He couldn’t, obviously.

Jeff Trigg has a post about Cook County’s write-in votes over at Illinoize. I second his suggestion that you check out the list for yourself. The only thing I have to add is two small observations:

1) Lovie Smith got more write-in votes than Mike Ditka! (wow!)

2) Despite the fact that Topinka, Blagojevich, and Whitney were all officially on the ballot … they still got write in votes. Explain that one.

On the one hand Arnold Kling is right. It is very unwise to believe that if we just elect the right people our public policy problems will be solved. Our political system and our media culture work together to ensure that the weasels will win, regardless of what party they’re in. The process creates the incompetence and not the other way around. Hayek pointed out in Road to Serfdom that this is key reason why socialism necessarily leads to despotism. Calhoun, moreover, pointed out long ago that democracy inevitably leads to factions whose only interest is power … not representation.

Thus it would seem libertarian types are in a bit of a tight spot. Asking a politician to cut government is like asking a mother to kill her own child. So what can be done? Kling advises “Do not look upon the electoral process as a search for great leaders. At best, it gives us an opportunity for damage control.”

But on the other hand, should we accept it as fact that our electoral process can’t be improved? Of course it will never be great, but can it be better? Kling writes:

Democracy does not lead to particularly good choices. Most successful institutions in society are not democratic.

An example of an institution that I believe works well is a sports tournament. A good chess tournament or tennis tournament produces a winner who is far better than mediocre.

But the problem is not necessarily a problem with democracy per se. College football rankings are still somewhat democratic, albeit with a limited franchise, and there are those who defend its polling process as superior to a playoff.

The problem is there are no hard and fast criteria for what makes a good leader. Anyone can say the right words, and still ultimately be a money-grubbing fake. There’s an intangible aspect that we’re not very good at and that betrays the fact that we’re not really sure (collectively) what we want.

Since we don’t know what we want, we have to have a vibrant system that gives us real options. But our current system doesn’t do this very well. The question is can reforms make it better? Kling seems to think the question is irrelevant but I think it’s crucial. Perhaps liberals shouldn’t be abandoning politics so much as they should be abandoning the notion that any good change can come from the existing two-party system.

For my money, I’ll take a little reform.

[Hat tip Pej]

I was one of the first fans on the Rex Grossman bandwagon. And I’m not really sure that I’m ready to get off. If this were any team in any season, I think he would develop into a fine QB. The problem is he’s not on ANY team, he’s on a Bears team that is ready to go to a Superbowl. It’s not just any season, it’s the “window” in which our defense is together, healthy, and ready. The pressure on Grossman is insane … and not really fair. Putting Griese in would satisfy rabid fans and give Rex a chance to catch his breath.

I’m not as worried about Grossman being the right QB as I am Turner being the right offensive coordinator. He doesn’t seem to be adjusting to Grossman the way he did to Orton … and that’s a problem.

Steve Rhodes is attacking Steve Huntley … unfairly … over his column in the Sun-Times today. It seems the mere suggestion that self-righteous indignation over global warming is unjustified sends the self-righteously indignant into a tailspin of more and more self-righteous indignity. Rhodes finishes by insulting Huntley’s newspaper … and proving my point.

In fact, Huntley’s article is a balanced discussion of the politics of global warming. To the extent that he assails the “alarmists” he does so softly by suggesting that there are nuances to the issue the “doom and gloom” approach doesn’t seem to capture. It’s well done and worth a read.

I took some video of the storm on my way to work using my Sony CyberShot which records pathetically low-res videos. I was planning on posting them as soon as I got here … but dang’it (a southern word maybe) if I didn’t forget the USB adapter. I will have to post them later I suppose.  You can go ahead and bookmark this post though …

Technorati Profile

Todd Stroger was put on the ballot for Cook County president without a vote. BUt this is nothing new, Congressman Dan Lipinski is son of former congressman Bill Lipinski who resigned his seat after the primary vote.

Now the Tribune reports that Commissioner Steele is retiring and will bequeeth her seat to son Robert. She even had the audacity to claim he is the “best qualified” for the job. Who needs the most qualified when you have the best, right? And isn’t it just a little disturbing that her son’s name is Robert … I guess she knew that way he could get away with not printing any new campaign signs.
Further down, the article notes that if Ald. Beavers gets Stroger’s former seat in the County gov, his Aldermanic seat will likely go to his daughter Darcel.

And there’s more:

Three of Illinois’ six statewide officeholders are next-generation relatives of powerful white Chicago politicians. Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan is the daughter of House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Comptroller Dan Hynes is the son of retired Cook County Assessor Tom Hynes. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is the son-in-law of powerful Chicago Ald. Richard Mell (33rd).

And that’s just the way we do it in Chicago.