My sister-in-law is looking to get the hell out of Chicago.
Geez, I wonder why?
Police have launched an investigation after a man was caught on video
knocking out an older man at the Chicago Avenue Red Line stop while
others laughed and mimicked the attack.
The assault occurred in April, but the video has only recently surfaced on the Internet.
The video, posted at worldstarhiphop.com,
shows a man in a tan coat moving among people on the southbound subway
platform as a group of youths joke and laugh. One of the youths starts
following the man, turning around and smiling as his friends whoop and
laugh.
The youth, dressed in a black vest jacket, then appears to
tap the man to get his attention. When the man turns around, the two
appear to exchange a few words before the youth suddenly strikes him on
the side of the head.
When journalists discovered yesterday that the Federal Registry included
a new 15-cent tax on fresh Christmas trees, they cried "War on
Christmas!" and accused President Obama of trying to destroy American
traditions. This was fairly silly, of course, but no more silly than the
tax itself.
The administration was never trying to destroy
Christmas. (It suspended the fee this afternoon.) In fact, it was trying
to save Christmas -- for the Christmas tree lobby. The fee was
requested by the National Christmas Tree Association to pay for a new
marketing campaign to save itself from further collapse.
Fresh-tree
sales fell by 16 percent in 16 years to 31 million in 2007. A 2004
article on the crisis in fresh trees reported that in 1990, roughly
equal numbers of households put up real trees and fake trees -- about 35
million each. "A decade later, the split was 32
million live and 50.6 million artificial," they said.
(If anybody's "killing Christmas" by letting pine trunks rot in parking
lots, it's Christian families and their fake Christmas trees.)
As Ronald Reagan once said, if you see business move, you tax it. If it continues to move, you regulate it. When it quits moving, you subsidize it.
I was surprised last night when the lovely Mrs. Gekko was so insistent on watching the Joe Paterno coverage. She's not exactly a big sports fan.
But as i watched the coverage, these were my original thoughts on the matter.
1) You don't go to the cops when you see and/or report the RAPE OF A CHILD? I told Mrs. Gekko, I think the sight of witnessing something like would really be such a shock I wouldn't know what to do initially. But after talking to someone about it, I think it would become pretty obvious.
2) The people McQueary told never had the sobriety to actually counsel McQueary to call the cops. Instead, they just washed their hands by telling someone up the chain of command.
3) Actually seeing this Sandusky guy continue to walk around campus, even bringing children on campus as recently as 2007 (after the initial rape was witnessed in 2002), it never occurred to anyone to follow up on what happened to THE RAPE OF A CHILD.
4) The University had no choice but to can Paterno. How can you claim any moral high ground when you allow anyone on your payroll to turn their back on the RAPE OF CHILDREN.
5) Paterno still doesn't get it. First, he tried to dictate the terms of his own dismissal; the arrogance of power that started this whole mess. Second, he's pissed that they fired him over the phone. You mean to tell me that the University did the absolute minimum to cover their ass? Pot meet kettle.
6) So the students riot on behalf of Joe Pa. Seriously? This is the man you want as your flag bearer? A man who enabled the continued rape of children. I heard one student proclaim "he did so much for the University". Yeah, he allowed it to become a safe haven for pedophiles.
7) So according to the rioters, it's OK to support a man who turned his back on how many rape victims because he was good for the institution? Would any on these students be so willing to riot on behalf of the Bishops and Cardinals of the Catholic church who did the exact same thing? I mean, hey they did good as well. It's the highest form of moral relativism. Joe Pa should call Roman Polanski for his mailing list of sex crime enablers.
Tomorrow is election day for a large part of the country. As we go to the polls, I ask each of you to keep in mind two things.
First, look at the map below. It's the 2000 Gore-Bush presidential election by county. As you can see by the map, it's not a red state-blue state country. Our country is divided primarily by urban areas dominated by liberals and suburban and rural areas dominated by conservatives.
Seriously, is there one measurable quality of life statistic that would make life better in the blue areas over the red?
Schools? Crime? Employment? Poverty?
There's not one area in the country run by democrats that creates a better life for it's residents over conservatives.
Second, below are various demographic groups and individuals who you can probably group as liberals or conservatives.
When you vote tomorrow, ask yourself the question, which of these groups do you want as neighbors, teaching your kids, your coworkers?
Because your votes align you with the people below. And those people will be the people who will turn your school district/city/state/country into Detroit............ or not.
So tomorrow, you'll make a choice in the voting booth. Choose wisely.
Serious crime in Cincinnati continues to decline, and the number of police officers is dropping - yet taxpayers still pay more for police service.
The city now has 1,032 officers, the lowest number since 2003, according to an Enquirer comparison of staffing, crime and budget data. But the department's budget jumped in the eight years since to $104.4 million this year - a 22 percent increase.
Police officials have reduced civilian ranks and held the top ranks essentially steady, according to data obtained through a public records request. They haven't hired any new officers since 2008.
But costs continue to grow, specifically because of benefits and health care.
Payments to the police pension fund have jumped an average of almost 4 percent every year since 2000, according to the city budget office, and health care costs for all city employees averaged 18.5 percent increases annually in that same time period. Police agreed last year to a wage freeze, but it didn't take effect until this year.
