Is Chicago becoming the next Detroit? Everyone's asking the same question and one of the main reasons why is unfunded pension costs, which the NY Times gave front page prominence to on Tuesday; Glenn Reynolds' spot-on take on this issue and Chicago as an early battleground in the fight pitting Democrat elected officials vs. Democratic-leaning govt. unions -govt. pensions vs. reducing municipal services and personnel. Pundits are paying VERY CLOSE attention to what Rahm Emanuel & The Democratic Machine will do, with William M. Daley running for governor next year talking tough about reforming pension plans

Fox News Channel video: Chicago the next Detroit? Pension problems raising alarm bells. America LIVE host Jamie Colby speaks to Fox Business Channel's Stuart Varney on the similarities and differences between Detroit and Chicago. Aired August 6, 2013. http://video.foxnews.com/v/2589585215001/chicago-the-next-detroit/

A-Rod, WaPo stories are intriguing...but this is the story we'll be grappling with across the country for years... http://t.co/X7sSaK3tMJ
— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) August 6, 2013

Glenn Reynolds' spot-on take on Chicago as an early battleground in the unfunded govt. pension costs vs. taxpayers fight, and the prospect of Democrat elected officials fighting Democratic-leaning govt. employee unions. Pundits everywhere are paying VERY CLOSE attention to what Rahm Emanuel & The Daley Machine will do, with William M. Daley running for governor of Illinois next year

After having read the original predicate article in the New York Times a few times and even sent links of it to friends around the country, I decided I wanted to also share it and the spot-on comments of University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds on this important issue and the New York Times' decision to give the issue the front page treatment on Tuesday at his terrific and much-read InstaPundit blog, which I've been reading since I was living and working in Washington, D.C. over ten years ago.
It continues to inform, educate and amuse in just the right proportions.

As we've discussed here previously, the editors at the New York Times know that their decision to give their story a push and place it on the front page suddenly gives the story "legs" in other parts of the country in ways that it simply wouldn't have if it had run on page 17A.
Nothing is on the front page of the New York Times by mistake or without the logical consequences of doing so having already been thought about and discussed.

You can't say the same with South Florida's newspapers since there often seems to be no rhyme or reason other than sheer shallowness or brazen bias or a desire to be seen as hip to certain advertisers.

New York Times

Chicago Sees Pension Crisis Drawing Near

By Monica Davey and Mary Williams Walsh

August 5, 2013 

CHICAGO — Corporations are moving in, and housing prices are looking better across the region. There has been a slight uptick in population. But a crushing problem lurks beneath the signs of economic recovery in Chicago: one of the most poorly funded pension systems among the nation’s major cities. Its plight threatens to upend the finances of President Obama’s hometown, now run by his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

The pension fund for retired Chicago teachers stands at risk of collapse. The city’s four funds for other retired city workers are short by $19.5 billion. At least one of the funds is in peril of running out of money in less than a decade. And starting in 2015, the city will be required by the state to make far larger contributions to the funds, which could leave it hundreds of millions of dollars in the red — as much as it would cost to pay 4,300 police officers to patrol the streets for a year.

Read the rest of the article at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/chicago-sees-pension-crisis-drawing-near.html

#understatement: Unions remain angry at the mayor, who was at the helm during the teachers’ strike in 2012.


CHICAGO’S PENSION CRISIS IN BLACK AND WHITE
August 6, 2013
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/173724/

NYT: Chicago The Next Detroit
August 6, 2013
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/08/06/chicagos-pensions-crisis-in-black-and-white/

Former L.A. mayor @RichardJRiordan calls on POTUS to propose national public employee pension reform in today's NYT: http://t.co/UtOZzNhgET
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) August 5, 2013

New York Times

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

A Plan to Avert the Pension Crisis

By Richard J. Riordan and Tim Rutten

Published August 4, 2013 

LOS ANGELES — It isn’t politically feasible for Washington to bail out Detroit, but President Obama and Congress must step in to avert the worst fiscal collapse in urban American history.

They must intervene, because symptoms of the municipal illness that made Detroit, with an estimated $18 billion in liabilities, the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy are showing up in other cities.

Read the rest at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/a-plan-to-avert-the-pension-crisis.html

In Florida, red-light camera supporters at FDOT HQ tinker with yellow-light timing and make FL roads MORE UNSAFE -but more profitable for greedy cities- while in Chicago, the city's Inspector General has blasted the city's red-light ticket program (designed by Redflex) after an audit, saying that Mayor Rahm Emanuel's "City Hall cannot back up claims that its controversial red-light camera program is designed to make intersections safer"; $100 Million in revenue in FL off of red-light cameras!

City Hall cannot back up claims that its controversial red-light camera program is designed to make intersections safer, according to a watchdog's report released Tuesday.

Now THAT'S how you start a news article about a municipal government intentionally engaging

in fraud to keep propping-up a program largely for revenue!
And it isn't even Hallandale Beach, though it would be equally true if an audit was done here.

Chicago Tribune

Inspector general blasts red light ticket program

By Hal Dardick, Clout Street, 

6:42 p.m. CDT, May 14, 2013 

City Hall cannot back up claims that its controversial red-light camera program is designed to make intersections safer, according to a watchdog's report released Tuesday.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said the city cannot provide documents to prove that the cameras went up at intersections with the most side-impact crashes. He also questioned why cameras remain at intersections with no recent history of such crashes, which the $100 ticket-issuing "cops-in-a-box" are designed to prevent.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-inspector-general-blasts-red-light-ticket-program-20130514,0,3892179.story

A predicate for understsnding thsi IG report is my previous post of November 24th, 2012 on the shenanigans taking place in Chicago, titled, :

More Red-Light Camera shenanigans: National Journal's Mike Magner has warning for U.S. drivers about unscrupulous cities' amber-colored money trap: Yellow means Green & $$$ - "Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations" -on purpose. And Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is the most brazen of all

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-red-light-camera-shenanigans.html

So when will we see this sort of news headline about Hallandale Beach's red-light camera program that for years has been Exhibit A for South Florida municipal governments greed and willingness to look the other way on public safety, and as was the case here, the Police Dept.s refusal to make records public that would allow citizens to see whether the city was putting them where they'd do the most good or where they'd get the most revenue?

Or a reasonable explanation from FDOT District 4 Secretary James Wolfe about why it took them a year to place a red-light camera warning sign somewhere on west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd./State Road 858 near NW 9th Terr., that was actually visible to drivers, instead of the one that was hidden between palm trees, as photos I've taken and posted here for years have proven?

Or an explanation from Wolfe about why, YEARS LATER, there are STILL ZERO red-light camera warning signs on HBB/State Road 858 approaching U.S.-1/South Federal Highway in either direction, unlike the approaches to HBB at that same intersection?

Unbeknowst to most of you, some of us have actually been talking seriously about timing certain HB and Hollywood intersections with stop-watches to see if they even meet the federal DOT legal standards.

I'll be filming some of them this weekend if the weather looks okay. 

Why?

Because of what we already know and can see with our own eyes, and great enterprising reporting like this by Noah Pransky of WTSP-TV that proves what we've long thought: $100 Million in revenue in FL off of red-light cameras. 

, 

Shorter yellow lights criticized as trap for drivers: A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida's rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines. Quoted in story: FL state Senator Jeff Brandes, FL state Rep. Ed Hooper, FL state Rep. Mike Fasano and FL state Senator Jack Latvala.
http://www.floridatoday.com/videonetwork/2384133376001/Shorter-yellow-lights-criticized-as-trap-for-drivers

Florida quietly shortens yellow lights, resulting in more red light camera tickets

Noah Pransky, WTSP-TV, Tampa/St. Petersburg

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130515/NEWS01/130515020/Florida-quietly-shortens-yellow-lights-resulting-more-red-light-camera-tickets

Barrier-protected bike lanes are smart and safe, yet only six weeks into 2013, we may already have THE year's worst portrait of self-justifying govt. bureaucracy run amok: State of Illinois blocks Chicago's plans for barrier-protected bike lanes on state-run roads. Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to install 100 miles of protected bicycle lanes by 2015 is running into a speed bump; the more you know about this subject the more galling IDOT's decision seems

ChicagoMayorsOffice YouTube Channel video: Dearborn Bike Lanes. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel officially opens barrier-protected bike lanes on Dearborn Street through the Loop, becoming the first two-way dedicated bike route with traffic signals in Chicagoland. Uploaded December 19, 2012. http://youtu.be/6rzQXhcaFlY

Dearborn Protected Bike Lane - Before and After from Active Trans on Vimeo.

Active Transportation Alliance Vimeo video: Dearborn Protected Bike Lane - Before and After. Uploaded January 2013. http://vimeo.com/55752870

Chicago Tribune

State blocks city's plans for protected bike lanes on state-run roads. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to install 100 miles of protected bicycle lanes in Chicago by 2015 is running into a speed bump. 

February 12, 2013

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-met-getting-around-0211-20130211,0,5097859.column

More on this subject from a straight-shooting Chicago-area blog that doesn't miss a thing: Streetsblog Chicago

So why is IDOT delaying designs that several American cities have already been implementing for years? 

The agency says it wants to measure safety impacts based on robust statistical evidence, and that three years provides a representative sample. The rationale for requiring this information would be reasonable if Chicago was the first city to ever implement protected bike lanes, but it doesn’t hold up because the results have been the same wherever protected bike lanes have been installed:IDOT,  The injury rate of all street users is reduced, be they walking, biking, or driving.

http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/02/05/idot-blocks-protected-bike-lanes-on-several-chicago-streets-until-2014/

See also: http://www.activetrans.org/blog/lcrandell/tell-gov-quinn-dont-put-brakes-protected-bike-lanes-and-safer-streets

I know, I know... it's like "When Worlds Collide"

This is one of the few times I've ever been on Rahm Emanuel's side in an argument, but even one of my former nemeses can't be wrong all the time, and on this particular subject, he is clearly not wrong, as bureaucrats in Springfield try to pull the musty wool of bureaucratic self-justification over Chicago-area taxpayers and biking enthusiasts who merely want to use state roads -they've already paid for.

Reminds me of when I was living and working in D.C. area and was pretty involved in international trade issues, which even more than usual, required my attending lots of long, jargon-filled Congressional hearings on Capitol Hill on topics that were often hard to explain to either my friends and family. 

Like the "Structural Impediments Initiative."

When the Japanese government -buttressed by powerful Japanese manufacturing companies afraid of fair competition from the United States- kept saying that American-made baseball bats and snow skis should not be imported into Japan  because they would have very different performance characteristics in Japan, as if snow on the ground in Japan, real or artificial, was so different from snow in the U.S. that it would cause the skis not to work if properly used, well, those sorry excuses from Japan has a very logical consequence.

Those true-life anecdotes soon turned into fodder for lots of influential scholarly reports and books -and a much-more aggressive approach in U.S. export policy in the early 90's against Japan- that were damning in their conclusions about the power of the Japanese  bureaucracy within every Japanese govt., and their complete unwillingness to accept reality and the facts staring at them.

And now, I read that into that small straight-jacket of bureaucratic conformity and unreality has jumped the Illinois Dept. of Transportation, and their cadre of management types and engineers, who imagine that something that has worked successfully everywhere it has been tried -and worked safely- would somehow produce completely different results if tried on the roads of Chicagoland.

I lived there for a few years in the 1980's and there are no mountains or canals or natural impediments to this smart plan being adopted other than IDOT's intent to keep it at bay for reasons that don't pass the smell test.

And so, once again, government bureaucrats seek to hold innumerable law-abiding citizens and visitors hostage to their old view of the world, until the citizens learn to either accept that bureaucrats know best -or three very long years pass.
Pathetic!

If I ever hear of anything even half as asinine as this by FDOT, policy-wise, you can count on reading about it here in detail, but I doubt they'd try it, because IDOT has set such a jaw-dropping low standard to replicate. 
They'd have to try awfully hard to fail their taxpayers this badly.

-----

Active Transportation Alliance: http://www.activetrans.org/
Their Vimeo Channel: http://vimeo.com/user11296014

Why Lovie Smith got fired by the Chicago Bears -GRIM facts & trends that were increasingly hard to swallow for loyal Bears fans: the Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite much talent on the team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. If anything, it was an overdue decision; Bears should strongly consider hiring Brian Billick as head coach and REALLY helping Jay Cutler's progress

ESPN YouTube Channel video: ESPN correspondent Ed Werder on the Chicago Bears firing of head coach Lovie Smith on Monday, and what he may do. Uploaded January 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/mUOnaPIMPD4

While there clearly are a lot of people who like Lovie Smith's personality and experience, including some current players, consider how the players have actually played for HIM, since it seems to be something that ESPN and a lot of social media types keep ignoring.

The Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite the talent on that team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. 

That's more than embarrassing and is NOT something that fans of an NFL team in the third-largest city in the country are going to be satisfied with. 
Nor should they be.

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8938166&pid=null

The one year the Bears made the playoffs in the past six seasons, 2010, they promptly lost the NFC Championship game -at home- in large part because they were so grossly unprepared for an injury to QB Jay Cutler.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that you have competent back-ups if not the head coach?

As has been noted here many times before, I lived in Chicago in the mid-1980's and that coincided with their 1985-86 Super Bowl run and win, and I still usually root for the Bears.
But these CHRONIC weaknesses with the Bears, like not being able to assemble a good staff or a competent offensive line to keep Cutler upright, can be laid squarely upon Lovie Smith as head coach.

In the end, the facts didn't lie -one playoff appearance in the past six years is NOT satisfactory.
If anything, his firing was an overdue decision for fans of the team.

Just like the one the Eagles and Chargers made to finally be rid of Andy Reid and Norv Turner.
Both need to stay away from the NFL for a year for their own good -and ours.
We can't stand the utter predictability of their problems every year and their chronic inability to adequately resolve them. 

If the Bears were smart, and that's not a given, obviously, they'd hire former Ravens head coach  and Vikings OC Brian Billick, someone who knows something about offense when he has some talent to work with, like he did with those Vikings teams of the late '90's when they were one of the most-exciting teams of the past 25 years.
Give Jay Cutler some help from someone who knows what they're talking about.

More Red-Light Camera shenanigans: National Journal's Mike Magner has warning for U.S. drivers about unscrupulous cities' amber-colored money trap: Yellow means Green & $$$ - "Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations" -on purpose. And Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is the most brazen of all

Red Light Ticket Capital YouTube Channel video: Confessions of a Chicago Red Light Ticketing Camera. Uploaded December 31, 2009. http://youtu.be/njbG6Yeg3s0 

And this video was made almost THREE YEARS ago!

More Red-Light Camera shenanigans: National Journal's Mike Magner has warning for U.S. drivers about unscrupulous cities' amber-colored money trap: Yellow means Green & $$$ - "Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations" -on purpose. And Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is the most brazen of all  

Now here's a story that someone like me who lives in the city that's the red-light camera poster boy of South Florida can really appreciate. 
A city where the mayor, Joy Cooper, writes guest Op-Eds in a local newspaper praising red-light cameras, despite it NOT leading to a reduction in traffic accidents, and weeks later, she's receiving thousands in campaign contributions from the vendor here with the red-light camera contract. Why? 
Because she and her Rubber Stamp Crew on the City Commission like the revenue it produce$! 

The National Journal

Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations

By Mike Magner

November 21, 2012 | 6:00 a.m.

Updated: November 21, 2012 | 9:19 a.m.

The National Motorists Association has a warning for the millions of drivers hitting the road for the busy holiday travel season: Beware of the yellow lights.

The timing of yellow lights on traffic signals at many intersections is purposely set to a minimum so more drivers can be ticketed for running red lights, says the 30-year-old activist group based in Waunakee, Wis.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/dreaded-yellow-light-may-be-trap-for-traffic-violations-20121121

Red-light camera sign in Hallandale Beach, FL. April 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

See my last blog post on red-light cameras from August 25th, 2012: 

City of Hallandale Beach prints analysis that refutes Mayor Joy Cooper's mendacious efforts on red-light cameras - "In summary, there is no safety benefit to the citizens, and there is no financial benefit to the taxpayer due to automated for-profit law"

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/city-of-hallandale-beach-prints.html

One town's experience in New Jersey:
http://brick.patch.com/articles/red-light-cams-shut-down-over-yellow-light-length-concerns

To see more on the company at the center of the storm in Chicago, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., see what the Chicago Tribune has been reporting on them, with one scandal after another - http://www.chicagotribune.com/search_results/?q=+Redflex 

Red Light Ticket Capital YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MrBFagel

MSNBC's coverage of RNC is a marriage-made-in-heaven of Political Correctness & Ethnic Politics. If Mainstream Media's PC Police there deem it racist to say "Chicago," what does it mean NOW if you say "Chicago deep-dish"? Or, how many times can MSNBC jump-the-shark?

Speakmymind02 video:  Paranoid political correctness runs the roost when head rooster Chris Matthews is around, clucking his wild theories that for years have become increasingly creepy and offensive.
Chris Matthews: “They keep saying Chicago, by the way, you noticed?”
John Heilemann: “Well, there’s a lot of black people in Chicago”
These sort of cringe-inspiring PC moments are painful even when you didn't see them LIVE, but then that's MSNBC's problem in a nutshell: hardly anyone's watching their RNC  coverage, as they are being whipped by not only Fox News, but even pitiful CNN, with FNC beating them by a factor of more than 4.1:1. Only the party faithful turn there -the shut-ins getting their Liberal religion via cathode ray. Uploaded August 29, 2012. http://youtu.be/BW7nPFR0Oq8

MSNBC's coverage of RNC is a marriage-made-in-heaven of Political Correctness & Ethnic Politics. If Mainstream Media's PC Police deem it racist to say "Chicago," what does it mean NOW if you say "Chicago deep-dish"? Or, how many times can MSNBC jump-the-shark?

Having lived in Chicago during the mid-1980's, as well as Evanston and Wilmette, I can confirm that little bit of Breaking News knowledge imparted by jump-the-shark journo John Heilemann of New York Magazine -Chicago does indeed have many Blacks.
And many Poles, Eastern European/Russian Jews and tons of Mexicans, too.
Imagine that?

But then it IS the country's third-largest city.
It should hardly be surprising to anyone who knows America's history and especially its immigration patterns of the past 150 years.
That very mixture of cultures is another reason that I would have liked to have seen them get the Olympics in 2009 for 2016 instead of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In case you recognized the name, yes, John Heilemann was the sub-subject of my August 22nd post, titled, Paul Ryan: Why he matters and needs to be unleashed on Obama and the Dems' treasure trove of bad ideas -he connects with smart, reasonable voters who see that under Obama, we're not just going the wrong direction on too many important issues, our margin of error is getting smaller everyday; DWS on thin ice with Obama HQ in Chicago but Sun-Sentinel is ignoring the story
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-why-he-matters-and-needs-to.html

I lived in the Chicago area while Harold Washington, Jr. was mayor.
Yes, a Black man as mayor almost thirty years ago.
(Not that he would have gotten any votes from any members of Chris Matthews own family if they had lived there then.)
So how come they didn't mention that when they said, if you pardon the expression, "Chicago"?

Probably because mentioning something so fundamental to the city and to its recent history would've proved inconvenient, and not part of the MSNBC paranoid Talking Points narrative, since even now, when you say Chicago, people all over the world think first of Al Capone and corruption and the bears and the Cubs and pizza, not racial politics.
But, apparently, based on what he himself says and does, that's the first thing that Chris Matthews thinks of. 

Everyone who lived there at the time knows that without the White reform element in Chicago, Washington wouldn't have been elected.
Just like Tom Bradley in Los Angeles and David Dinkins in New York.
You know, many, many years after a Black man was elected mayor of a big city that was NOT  on either media-centric coast, Carl Stokes in Cleveland.
Not that it makes the fact any less important.

But who cares about that sort of common knowledge and common sense when you can get paid to sit around and make up crazy nonsense on LIVE TV and posit that saying "Chicago" is racist, and have nobody slap you in the back of the head.
So does this mean that when I say "Chicago deep-dish" I've stepped beyond the pale?

Chris Matthews and MSNBC Now Claim the Word 'Chicago' Is Racist
By Rusty Weiss 
August 30, 2012 at 12:12 a.m.

Chris Matthews was on Hardball tonight covering the Republican National Convention with guests Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and John Heilemann of New York Magazine.  In what is seemingly the natural progression of things these days with Matthews, the subject of the 'otherization' of the President was being discussed.  Because, if you weren't aware already, Barack Obama is black, and any time a Republican chooses to discuss the failure that is his administration, the media will be there to quickly remind you that they only feel that way because of his skin color.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/30/chris_matthews_saying_chicago_is_racist.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2012/08/30/chris-matthews-and-msnbc-now-claim-word-chicago-racist#ixzz252qumTv7



The Daily Caller
The DC Trawler with Jim Treacher blog
Another thread snaps in Chris Matthews’ frayed tether to reality
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/30/another-thread-snaps-in-chris-matthews-frayed-tether-to-reality 

Chicken! U.S. Mainstream Media circles-the-wagons, completely cowed, shows their bias by refusing to cover Chick-fil-A's biggest day ever, while others adroitly take the MSM to task for being so obvious about in their bias in news coverage: Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day is NOT what the MSM wanted to portray, so they didn't

Huge Support for Chick-fil-A Day
http://youtu.be/_IDvx-xkRGk

Just in case you forgot, since most local news media in this country conveniently forget to mention it in their coverage of this orchestrated controversy, Dan Cathy's position, i.e. of being against "Gay Marriage," is the same one that Barack Obama's had when he was elected president in 2008.



WallStreetJournalDigitalNetwork video: Chick-fil-A Will Survive Controversy in Short Term. Michael J. Casey of Dow Jones and the WSJ's John Bussey discuss the fast food controversy. Posted August 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/T2F5PmMFN7c

Forbes.com

Chick-fil-A Day Not What The Media Portrays

August 1, 2012 @ 10:35PM 

In case you missed it, about a week ago the CEO of the very popular fast food chain said “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.” That comment started a firestorm for the chain.

The LBGT community began in full force to try to convince people to boycott the chain regardless of the fact that the popular chain doesn’t discriminate against gays as employees or patrons. 

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/derekbroes/2012/08/01/chic-fil-a-day/


The Weekly Standard
Mainstream Media Blacks Out Chick-fil-A Story?
By Michael Warren
12:19 PM, AUG 2, 201
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mainstream-media-blacks-out-chick-fil-story_649234.html


Reason Magazine
The Misguided Assault on Chick-fil-A
Banning a business because of the owner's beliefs is a terrible abuse of political power
Scott Shackford
July 27, 2012
http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/27/eat-mor-liberty-politicians-misguided-as


San Francisco Chronicle
Token Conservative blog, 
Limbaugh: SF Mayor Ed Lee angrier at chicken than —
By Debra J. Saunders

Regarding San Francisco mayor Ed Lee

"Rush Limbaugh jumped on Lee’s comments by observing that the San Francisco mayor welcomes homeless defecating on BART escalators, but not a successful business enterprise. But then, City Hall always has cared more about scrubbing away unwelcome ideas than cleaning up city sidewalks, streets and public spaces."

Read the rest of the post at:  
http://blog.sfgate.com/djsaunders/2012/07/27/limbaugh-sf-mayor-ed-lee-angrier-at-chicken-than/

CBS News

Principle Over Profits For Chick-fil-A

By Stephen Smith

February 11, 2009 5:42 PM

CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports from Atlanta.

Video is at: 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/23/eveningnews/main2207624.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;5

After all the summer teasing & titillation, it's time to let the Bunnies come out to play: "The Playboy Club" premieres on NBC-TV tonight at 10 p.m.

NBC-TV video: The Playboy Club - Preview. Above, at 3:12, Amber Heard just being Amber Heard -in a word: captivating.

http://youtu.be/f9_9nBAOizo

After all the summer teasing & titillation this summer, "The Playboy Club" premieres on NBC-TV tonight at 10 p.m. It's time to finally let the Bunnies out to play and the mid-Sixties Chicago seediness and music performances wash over us.

Mondays at 10 o'clock just got a LOT more interesting, as the Bunnies take on "Hawaii 5-0" and, starting next Monday night, "Pan Am."

I don't know about you, but I've missed seeing Amber Heard on the tube, having watched everything she was in, even when, as often was the case, she was its saving grace.

Since she has played the girl 'beyond her years' like nobody's business, it's going to be interesting to me to see how she plays the corn-fed small-town Midwestern girl, since part of her appeal has always been that you just don't know what she's capable of.

So often, writers in projects she was in had her use her beauty as a weapon with men and women to help her get what she wants -and to advance the narrative- knowing that people, esp. men, often can't help themselves when confronted by someone whose beauty is so incandescent.

Well, it's true.

Her sort of beauty is both hypnotic and dangerous, because rather quickly, things can escalate and the next thing you know, hypothetically, you realize you are infinitely more exposed to consequences while her character has split the scene in the fast car -with the loot.

That's usually when they'd inter-cut scenes of her getting away free as a bird and the police knocking on some poor guy's door, the latest person in a long line who was disoriented because he had chosen to fly too close to the sun that is Amber Heard.

Yes, there's a lot of Mata Hari in her.

Not that you were wondering, but I think that now that she's back on TV, she's now instantly vaulted into the ten most-beautiful women on the tube, scripted drama/comedy or news, as someone out there has just unceremoniously been kicked-out without even knowing it.

One thing is for sure, though, it's NOT Robin Meade of CNN who is falling thru the trap-door, as last week, I found myself watching more CNN in the morning than I have in years, since I'm usually tuned to Dan Patrick or Glenn Beck or Diane Rehm, and our old friend Robin is as stunning and personable as ever. http://mxp.blogs.cnn.com/

NBC-TV video: The Playboy Club - Welcome to the The Playboy Club

New Playboy Club Bunny Maureen (Amber Heard), already in a tight jam after a run-in with the Chicago Mob, tells club layer Nick Dalton (Eddie Cibrian) that she's no push-over: "You just don't know what I'm capable of."

http://youtu.be/jz9uXG-mgbo

See, just like I said.

NBC-TV video: The Playboy Club - Amber Heard describes her character, Maureen, the small-town girl who has left for the allure of the big city.

http://www.nbc.com/the-playboy-club/video/Amber-Heard/1327379

So, finally, a provocative new sexually-charged drama from 20th Century Fox TV andImagine TV that will be a welcome antidote to so much of what I see on TV and turn away from -dopey reality shows featuring people I want to stay clear of, drab family comedies...

And now that my Monday night favorites on TNT, "The Closer" and "Rizzoli & Isles," are off for a few months, my Mondays are now open for bid again.

South Beach Hoosier Time Machine Flashback: In the early 1980's, Playboy magazine, in its "Girls of the Big Ten" issue, in describing the appeal of the coeds at the various schools that made up the-then pre-Penn State athletic conference, coined the phrase that quickly became a complimentary metaphor (and template) forever after amongst my IU friends and I in describing whatever social scene we found ourselves in.

They described IU's wave-upon-wave of beautiful women on the Bloomington campus as

"corn-fed Kappa cuties."

Yes, the ultimate in girl-next-door sexiness.

And that moniker became the highest-ranking we could ever bestow on anyplace we found ourselves with more than the normal share of bright and attractive women.

And yes, as always, we gave extra-credit for being from the Midwest.

And a richly deserved appellation it was, too, as the Kappa Kappa Gamma house on Third Street in Bloomington was, like the Tri-Delt house and the Chi Omega house were for me, the home to some great loyal friends of mine who were smart, funny, thoughtful and community-minded. And yes, damn attractive.

(Jane Pauley remains the best-known IU Kappa alum, and the subject of a future blog post I'll share here again some day, which includes how a photo of me, literally at her feet while she spoke, made the front page of the independent school newspaper, the ids, the following day

At a Student Alumni Council-sponsored event at the IMU, she told some great revealing stories that had us laughing and shared some unhappy and poignant childhood memories that left many girls in the over-flow crowd with tears in their eyes. Jane Pauley REALLY REALLY knows how to tell a story!)

NBC-TV video: The Playboy Club -Meet the new Bunny Mother, Carol-Lynne (Laura Benati)

http://www.nbc.com/the-playboy-club/video/Pilot-Preview,-Part-4/1352517

Photos of the marketing posters for Season One of The Playboy Club are here:

http://www.seat42f.com/the-playboy-club-season-1-posters.html

Official show website: http://www.nbc.com/the-playboy-club/

http://twitter.com/#!/NBCPlayboyClub

British Pathé video: Playboy Bunny Girls and The Playboy Club (Original 1960s Footage)

http://youtu.be/8UhvcEJEfU8

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3617090/Playboy-Bunny-Girls-are-back-in-London.html

Import woes! American teens now bypassing U.S. crooks and importing foolproof fake IDs from China! Dozens arrested in Chicago & 'burbs

Dozens Charged in Cook County Fake Driver’s License Bust: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

FoxChicago/WFLD-TV video: Dozens Charged in Cook Co. Fake ID Bust. July 22, 2011. Dozens of Chicago-area kids have been busted for buying fake IDs after an extensive investigation into counterfeit driver’s licenses being ordered from Chicago and paid for with money orders and shipped from China.

This video consists of two separate reports, the first with reporter Tisha Lewis doing a stand-up on the city's busy bar-heavy Near North Side, and the second with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart appearing in studio downtown to speak on the seriousness and stupidity of the crimes and the degree of sophistication involved.

Related article at: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/crime/dozens-young-people-charged-fake-id-drivers-license-bust-cook-county-20110722

As for the "young people' the Sheriff is talking about, me, I'm putting my money on the clever kids and future leaders from Evanston High or New Trier!
Fake ID Rush Hour on the Near North Side!

(Link)
View more


Risky Business Quotes and Sound Clips
and

Joel Goodson Quotes and Sound Clips

"Princeton could use a guy like Joel."

This also answers the question of whatever happened to former WTVJ-TV/NBC6 reporter Tisha Lewis.
She got the last laugh on everyone down here, a few years after-the-fact, finally getting to a media market where people really do pay serious attention to local news, unlike down here.
Like the newspapers, for instance.

People who have moved to South Florida since roughly Hurricane Andrew have no earthly idea of the amount of space the Miami Herald once dedicated to covering local TV and radio trends, personalities, feuds & firings in their entertainment section in the 1970's and '80's, since I read every article.

(For more on that long ago media era, see my South Beach Hoosier post of July 14, 2008,
Speaking of Marlins stadium cost over-run provisions...
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/07/speaking-of-marlins-stadium-cost-over.html)

I don't even bother to look at that section of the Herald any more, as it goes right into the recycling pile. And when I do look there, just out of curiosity, it's unappealing in the extreme.

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http://www.myfoxchicago.com/

Steve Dahl on 'Chicago Tonight' re his upcoming subscription podcasts; The Beatles in Miami Beach (1964)

Steve Dahl on WTTW-TV (Chicago) re his upcoming subscription podcasts

http://youtu.be/WNBr5bmW-uM

My last post on Steve Dahl, someone I listened to everyday for years during and after I lived in Chicago, Evanston and Wilmette was six months ago in a January 18th post titled, The funniest discovery of the new year: "Jeff from Tallahassee" on Red Eye; reminds me of the Steve & Garry, Don & Mike comic genius I miss

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/funniest-discovery-of-new-year-jeff.html

He's only one of the most clever people I've ever heard -and one of the most insightful.

http://www.dahl.com/

Check out this interesting Steve & Garry audio clip from the late 1980's that involves South Florida, which made me decide to complement it with other reminders of that visit by The Beatles for their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show:

WLUP-AM, Chicago- Steve Dahl & Garry Meier Show: on eating on-the-air in the studio; Ed Sullivan; The photo shoot of The Beatles February 14, 1964 for LIFE Magazine at the Deauville Hotel, Miami Beach.

http://youtu.be/2KAkjWmS4EI

The LIFE Magazine photos described above, including cover, are here:

http://beatlesdaybyday.freeforums.org/14-february-1964-miami-t3128.html

The Beatles- I'll Follow the Sun (in Miami Beach)

http://youtu.be/pGj8jwN_tkk

The Beatles in Miami Beach, February 13, 1964

http://youtu.be/8C0l-j7A02Y

The Beatles - From Me To You (Live @ Miami 1964)

http://youtu.be/YnrxRfwj5rw

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Steve Dahl's official YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SteveDahlShow

See also: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOriginalShockJock

Hear some of his classic radio bits with Garry Meier at:

http://www.dahl.com/media