Tuesday, September 30, 2014

ILL-inois: Warden retires after report of convicted sexual predator living in her home

Man oh, man, where do we find these rascals who work in state government?

From ABC 7 Chicago:
Dixon Correctional Center warden Nedra Chandler has quit the post she held since 2005 just 24 hours after the ABC 7 I-Team reported she was living in a house with a convicted sexual predator.

Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Tom Shaer said on Tuesday afternoon that, "IDOC has been conducting a full investigation into Ms. Chandler, which began September 19, 2014, when she was immediately placed on Administrative Leave. She this morning notified IDOC of her decision to retire."

Chandler, 53, lived in the same Sterling, Ill., home as convicted sex offender Robert L. Swon. On Sept. 19, Swon was arrested on child pornography charges during a police raid on the two-story frame house. Police say they seized computer equipment from the home that contained sexually explicit images of children, some younger than 13.
Swon, 27, is being held in the Whiteside County Jail. He's been charged with four counts of child pornography and failing to register as a sexual offender. Swon is listed as a "sexual predator" on the Illinois State Police sex crimes web site.

QuinnFail: Latest attempt to sell state airplanes meets turbulence

In a cheesy campaign ad where he mows his own lawn, Illinois' hapless governor, Chicago Democrat Pat Quinn, boasts how he has saved taxpayers money by selling state-owned airplanes.

But Quinn won't be boasting about this sale:

From the Southern Illinoisan:
After not finding any takers among local governments or universities for the eight airplanes and one helicopter, officials offered the aircraft to the general public through an eBay-style online auction.

At the close of the bidding Monday, however, only two of the planes received bids.

Illinois Department of Central Management Services spokeswoman Alka Nayyar said the unsold planes will be re-listed for auction with a new closing date of Dec. 15.
By that time I'm hoping Quinn will be a lame duck.

ILL-inois: Another Big Labor front group shilling for Quinn

Chicago Sun-Times Building
Land of Lincoln patriots: It's time to tell your friends to get out and vote for Bruce Rauner in November. We cannot afford another four years of America's most unpopular and most inept governor.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Major unions are pumping big money into a November ballot question about raising Illinois' minimum wage which in reality is a political tool to energize Democratic voters who are also more than likely to vote for Gov. Pat Quinn and other Democrats down the ticket.

Last July, Quinn signed a bill putting on the November ballot a statewide advisory question about raising the minimum wage in Illinois for adults over the age of 18 to $10 an hour by Jan. 1, 2015.

To help organize support for this ballot question — with the anticipated byproduct turning out voters for Quinn, locked in a tight battle with GOP nominee Bruce Rauner and other Democratic candidates — on Aug. 14 a new political committee was formed in Illinois, the Committee to Reduce Income Inequality and to Support Human Rights.

In reality, this is a front group for the Illinois AFL-CIO. The officers of this new committee, Michael Carrigan and Timothy Drea, are the president and the secretary treasurer of the Springfield based Illinois AFL-CIO. The committee is running the "Vote Yes on ballot initiatives" campaign.
Repeat--the minimum wage question on the fall ballot is only an advisory referendum.

There is another union front group shilling for Quinn--the Illinois Freedom PAC.

To follow Rauner on Facebook, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

To contribute to the Rauner campaign, click here.

North Dakota oil boom news: Minot AFB having trouble filling civilian jobs

Perhaps the United States Air Force needs to draft civilians to staff its Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota. AP is reporting that because of the lure of higher paying jobs in the Bakken oil fields in the western part of the state, it is that finding filling civilian positions at Minot AFB is becoming more difficult.

Imagine if President Obama and his neo-Luddites allowed the petroleum industry to thrive in the rest of the nation. If that happened--our economy would soar.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Idiocy in college sports: Weis collecting millions from two schools not to coach

On Sunday, after a miserable two seasons and part of a third as the head football coach of the University of Kansas Jayhawks, Charlie Weis was fired. It will be expensive for KU.

Oh, why isn't it UK or U of K?

Back to business...

From the Wichita Eagle:
The move also comes with a short-term cost. After this season, Weis had two years remaining on his five-year, $12.5-million contract. He will receive the remainder of his pay, amounting to about $5.625 million, in monthly installments through December 2016.

In addition to the money he'll be paid from KU, Weis received $6.6 million in severance from Notre Dame when he was fired in 2009. Tax records show he was paid around $2.1 million in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and he will continue to be paid by Notre Dame through December 2015.
Weis was fired from Notre Dame after a promising start. He briefly served as offensive coordinator for the Kansas Chiefs and spent a year in the same position for the University of Florida Gators, where his offense ranked 102nd nationally. Yep, at Florida.

So after at best a mediocre career as a college coach, KU athletic director Sheahon Zenger still hired Weis. Sunday he fired him.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame, which at least is not a state school, has been paying Weis $2.1 million annually not to coach since 2010, which is more than the Fighting Irish is paying its current and much better skipper, Brian Kelly, or anyone else at the Notre Dame athletic department. At least ND is finally done with Weis at the end of 2015--the Jayhawks will still be writing checks to Weis for another year as someone else calls the plays on the gridiron in Lawrence.

Paying players to play college football makes a heck of a lot more sense than having two schools paying one guy not to coach college football.

Related post:

Happy 150th, Kansas! With over 40 Sunflower State posts!

(Video) ABC's Jonathan Karl spends seven minutes ripping White House over ISIS spin

Watch as one of the few decent mainstream media reporters working today, ABC News' Jonathan Karl, grills White House press secretary Josh Earnests spin on how President Obama misread or perhaps even ignored the threat assessments from his own administration about the Islamic State.




I found a brick in the woods

I've discovered many astounding things in the forest preserves near where I live and work. A ten-point buck, a coyote, many wildflowers, even a "Posthenge."

Last week I found a brick. Oh, not just any old brick, but a Purington Paver, which was manufactured in East Galesburg, Illinois. The Purington Paver Brick Company was once the largest maker of bricks in the world.


There it is. Among the dirt and scattered concrete debris that was used to create the bridle path east of the Des Plaines River in Dam Number 4 Woods East in Des Plaines, Illinois, although there are many more walkers, cyclists, and runners on that trail now.

After dirt streets came brick-paved streets--and Purington Pavers could be found all over the Midwest, particularly in Chicago, but also as far away as Panama and Paris.

Paving bricks have to be durable.

Writing for The Zephyr in 2000, Terry Hogan explains:
Paving bricks start out life fundamentally different than your average building brick. Paving bricks require a mixture of clay, shale, sand, and "flux: (described without edification as, "A mixture of substances that promotes fusion at high temperatures."). Paving bricks, like those made by Purington, gained their strength and durability through kiln firing. Firing caused the brick's content to react chemically (via vertrification) to create a strong, impervious brick.
Or more succinctly, they have to be really, really strong.

Making bricks is labor intensive and so is building brick-paved streets. After World War II, constructing concrete and asphalt thoroughfares made more economic sense for cities and towns and by 1949, Purington ceased making pavers. In 1968, Charles Schott purchased Purington and he left the company to his wife when he died in 1974, the same year Purington closed its doors.

I'm sure you've heard of Mrs. Schott. Marge was for many years the controversial principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Schott maintained ownership of the Purington factory grounds until her death in 2004.

As for the bricks, over sixty years later they are still coveted items.

You never know what you'll find in the woods until you go there.

Related posts:

Ronald Reagan Trail: Carl Sandburg

Ronald Reagan Trail: Galesburg

Chiraq: 5 dead, at least 43 wounded over weekend

Chicago's Grant Park
The first weekend of fall did nothing to cool the temperatures of Chicagoans. Five people in Chicago were shot to death this weekend, including a 13 year-old boy ,and at least 43 others were wounded. The boy, a North Sider, was killed on the Southwest Side.



Sunday, September 28, 2014

An early unhappy Halloween: Obamas coming to Chicago to campaign for Quinn

Chicagoans will be getting an early but unhappy Halloween president early in October. President Obama, in the midst of the what even his supporters have to admit is the worst year of his presidency, will be making a rare visit to his adopted hometown later this week to attend some fundraisers and to campaign for his fellow Chicago Democrat, the inept Gov. Pat Quinn.

And the following Tuesday, Michelle Obama, who students nationwide agree has ruined the school lunch program, will be in Chicago to stump for Quinn.

Last week Obama's former chief-of-staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, reversed his decision to name a North Side high school after his old boss after Chicagoans complained.

Illinoisans needn't be frightened anymore. Bruce Rauner is running against Quinn.

Rauner, a Republican businessman, is a far better choice for governor.

To follow Rauner on Facebook, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

To contribute to the Rauner campaign, click here

Des Plaines River at Big Bend Lake in autumn

The fall colors are beginning to emerge in the Chicago area. Pictured here is how the Des Plaines River looked just now at the Big Bend Lake Forest Preserve just south of Golf Road.


Obama points his finger the wrong way on cop hatred

Chicago's North Side
Yesterday, in front of the leftist Congressional Black Caucus, President Obama told a half-truth about why police officers are hated in most black communities.

From AP:
President Barack Obama on Saturday said the widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, is corroding America, not just its black communities, and that the wariness flows from significant racial disparities in the administration of justice.

Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner, Obama said these suspicions only harm communities that need law enforcement the most.

"It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them," he said. "And the worst part of it is it scars the hearts of our children," leading some youngsters to unnecessarily fear people who do not look like them while leading others to constantly feel under suspicion no matter what they do.

"That is not the society we want," Obama said. "It's not the society that our children deserve."
No it isn't. But as I've commented here before, black liberals such as Obama have been preaching cop-hatred since the 1960s. Yes, back then many cops were boors and racists. But in the 21st century, it's easier for those in the racism business to point their fingers at the police, most of whom weren't even alive in the sixties, than to admit that their communities are collapsed societies because of unionized public schools, failed government anti-poverty programs, and the proliferation of single-parent households.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

(Photos) Chicago Portage National Historic Site

On their return route from the southern Mississippi River in 1673, French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first Europeans to travel the Chicago Portage, a roughly two mile expanse between the South Branch of the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River in what is now Lyons, Illinois. Much of that area was covered by the now filled-in Mud Lake. Mrs. Marathon Pundit visited the area in late March.

I grew up in Palos Heights, about ten miles south of the portage.


The historical marker at the site, which is near Harlem Avenue and 48th Street.


This iron sculpture, designed by The sculpture is by Ferdinand G. Rebechini, depicts Marquette, Jolliet, and a Native American guide at the portage.


Portage Creek, partially frozen over here, is a tributary to the Des Plaines River.


Marquette and Jolliet immediately grasped the importance of their discovery--and they envisioned a canal to connect the Great Lakes Lakes watershed--the Chicago River--and the Mississippi River watershed of which the Des Plaines is a part. In 1848 their vision became reality when the Illinois & Michigan canal opened. In 1900 the I&M was superseded as a transit waterway by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.


By most accounts much of the portage area looks as it did in 1673.


Signage from the Forest Preserve District of Cook County at the portage.

Related posts:

(Photos) The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal: The most hated body of water in America

(Photos) Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor on its 30th birthday

Upper Peninsula Upventure: Father Marquette

(Photo) 1989 Volkswagen Vanagon GL

At onetime Volkswagen's best-known vehicles, besides the Beetle, were its series of vans. It's hard not to love this 1989 VW Vanagon GL. It doesn't have automotive sun shades, this rear-engine relic has curtains.


On this day in 1908: First Model T produced

1917 Model T
September 27, 1908 was a great day for America and the world when the Ford Motor Company produced its first Model T car at the Piquette Plant in Detroit.

Before long automobiles would be affordable to hundreds of millions of people. The automobile would transform society more than any other recent invention.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Relatives of Reagan's black classmates visit Eureka College

Eureka College in 2011
One of the many slurs against Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of the 20th century, is that he was a racist. Crying "racism" is the final desperate attack of a liberal who has lost an argument.

From the Bloomington Pantagraph:
Willie Sue Smith Stewart's connection to Eureka started well before she came for college in fall 1928 — the same year as Ronald Reagan.

Her parents — Harry and Lula Smith — passed through Eureka on their way to become missionaries to Africa when their daughter was only a toddler. She would go on to become the first black woman to graduate from Eureka College.

On Tuesday, her son and grandson visited the campus for the first time.

"I've head about Eureka my entire life," said her son, Harry Stewart. "She told me about carrying messages from Ronald Reagan to his then lady friend."
Two other blacks were part of that class, the most diverse at Eureka up to that point. The small college near Peoria was founded by abolitionists in 1855 and it is the second-oldest co-educational college in America.

Dutch's son, Michael, told another story in 2011 about Reagan and race.

From Fox News:
During the Great Depression, dad played football for Coach Mac McKinzie at Eureka College in Illinois. During a game trip to a nearby Illinois college, the team was scheduled to stay in a hotel—but the hotel manager refused to give a room to Dad's two black teammates, William Franklin "Burgie" Burghardt and Jim Rattan.

Coach McKinzie angrily replied that the entire team would sleep on the bus that night. Dad spoke up and offered an alternative: Why not send Burgie and Jim to the Reagan home in Dixon, just 15 miles away? Dad's parents, Jack and Nelle Reagan, would welcome his teammates—and the whole team would get a good night's rest.

In his autobiography, "An American Life," dad recalled, "We went to my house and I rang the bell and Nelle came to the door. . . . 'Well, come on in,' she said. . . . She was absolutely color-blind when it came to racial matters; these fellows were just two of my friends. That was the way she and Jack had always raised my brother and me."

Burgie was dad's best friend on the team—he played center and dad played guard—and he recalled the incident as well. Shortly after Dad's inauguration in 1981, liberal columnist Mark Shields interviewed Burgie, who was then a retired college professor. Burgie recounted the story exactly as Dad would later tell it in his book, including the warm welcome from Jack and Nelle Reagan.
Related posts:

(AFP video) What We Learned at the Peoples Climate March

A reporter from Americans for Prosperity interviewed a few of the participants of Sunday's Peoples Climate March in New York. What he found was a bunch of anti-capitalists.


Related post:

State-owned jet-commuting Gov. Pat Quinn endorsed by Illinois Sierra Club

Muslim convert beheads co-worker in Oklahoma

Islam has a beheading problem.

From the Daily Mail:
A fired employee who had been trying to convert co-workers to Islam stabbed two female colleagues - beheading one of them - before an off-duty officer shot him, police have said.

Alton Alexander Nolen, who converted to Islam during a recent stint in prison, was fired from Vaughan Foods, a food processing plant in Moore, Oklahoma, on Thursday before returning to his SUV and smashing it into another vehicle.

The 30-year-old then climbed out and entered the building, attacking the first two people he saw with a knife he had used at the plant, Moore Police Sergeant Jeremy Lewis said.
After beheading Colleen Hufford, 54, and stabbing Traci Johnson, 43, Nolen was shot and wounded by off-duty sheriff's deputy and company CEO Mark Vaughan.
Fox News' The Five is reporting that Nolen was shouting Islamic phrases as he has committing these atrocities.

"Social justice" nuns to meet with Quinn today at rally--will they discuss abortion?

A get-out-the-vote rally? It appears these nuns are giving tacit support to Democratic governor Pat Quinn.

From the Chicago Tribune:
A Group of Catholic nuns will make an appearance in Chicago today as part of their voter registration bus tour.

The Nuns on the Bus will meet with Gov. Pat Quinn and low-wage workers before attending a "get out the vote" rally at 2 p.m. in Union Park in West Town.
Quinn signed into law Illinois' gay marriage bill--the Catholic Church opposes same-sex unions. Quinn is an ardent supporter of abortion, which the Church is also against.

Will the nuns discuss abortion and gay marriage at the West Side rally?

Thursday, September 25, 2014

QuinnFail: Massive Kmart closings by Sears Holdings

Pat Quinn's Illinois flag
In 2011, the same year Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn "temporarily" raised--by a lot--personal and corporate income taxes, Sears Holdings, which owns the Sears and Kmart retail outlets and several brand names, asked for a tax break as an incentive to keep it from moving its headquarters from Illinois. Sears' has been based in the Chicago area since the 1890s.

Quinn and his fellow Democrats caved in and handed Sears those tax breaks.

Where is my tax cut?

Sears Holdings might go under as soon as 2016. That doesn't mean the death will be sudden. Local news sites are peppered with reports that nearby Kmarts are closing. How many exactly? We have to wait until November to find out that number. A quick perusal of "Kmart closing" on Google News search shows that the death toll is more than a handful. Zooming in on Quinn's long-suffering Illinois, three Kmarts are closing. Last week the company announced the shuttering of two Illinois Sears outlets.

Quinn and the Illinois General Assembly should have told Sears Holdings to get lost. Oh, the company is not an innocent babe here. Instead of focusing on ways to pay less taxes, the onetime retail giant should have been dedicated to finding ways to attract shoppers to their stores so they can buy stuff.

The campaign of Bruce Rauner, the Republican businessman who is running to replace the Chicago Democrat should be making an issue of this egregious example of corporate welfare.

Eric Holder: Worst AG since Harding's Harry Daugherty resigns

Eric Holder, President Obama's hyper-partisan attorney general, announced his resignation today. Holder presided over a Justice Department while several scandals raged, including the botched Mexican gun running scheme Operation Fast and Furious, the Benghazi cover-up, and the dropping of charges against the New Black Panthers who were caught intimidating white voters. As for that first one, that outrage resulted in the murder of US Border Agent Brian Terry.

Holder is America's worst attorney general since Warren G. Harding's Harry M. Daugherty disgraced this office. The lawless guardian of the law even had a Rod Blagojevich tie-in. He's so bad it's hard to believe that Holder wasn't from Illinois.

Good bye and good riddance.

Algerian Islamists behead Frenchman

The animals attack outside of the Middle East too.

From AP:
An Algerian splinter group from al-Qaida has beheaded a French hostage over France's airstrikes on the Islamic State group, in a sign of the possible widening of the crisis in Iraq and Syria to the rest of the region.

The killing of Herve Gourdel, a mountaineer who was kidnapped while hiking in Algeria, was a "cowardly assassination," a visibly upset French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday, but he vowed to continue the military operation.

"Herve Gourdel is dead because he is the representative of a people — ours — that defends human dignity against barbarity," Hollande said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. "France will never cede to terrorism because it is our duty, and, more than that, because it is our honor."

US Forest Service says media needs $1500 permits to take pics in wilderness areas

The motto of the US Forest Service is "the Land of Many Uses." But that boast doesn't include photography, at least by the media.

However, the line between media and everyone else is blurred. For instance, the picture I took for this post --in 2009--of Michigan's Ottawa National Forest, could be viewed as a media entry. After all, I derive ad revenue for this blog.

From the Oregonian:
The U.S. Forest Service has tightened restrictions on media coverage in vast swaths of the country's wild lands, requiring reporters to pay for a permit and get permission before shooting a photo or video in federally designated wilderness areas.

Under rules being finalized in November, a reporter who met a biologist, wildlife advocate or whistleblower alleging neglect in any of the nation's 100 million acres of wilderness would first need special approval to shoot photos or videos even on an iPhone.

Permits cost up to $1,500, says Forest Service spokesman Larry Chambers, and reporters who don't get a permit could face fines up to $1,000.

First Amendment advocates say the rules ignore press freedoms and are so vague they'd allow the Forest Service to grant permits only to favored reporters shooting videos for positive stories.
The USFS counters that this is an old rule--it goes back 48 months which of course makes this regulation an Obama-era one.

The elitists who run this country have an ultimate goal--limit visitation to National Parks, National Forests, and designated wilderness areas so only a chosen few, such as phony environmentalists such as Leonardo DiCaprio can visit.

The people own these lands, not Washington bureaucrats.

#ThrowbackThursday: Gov. Pat Quinn's lawn was overgrown with weeds

Lately Illinois' hapless governor, Democrat Pat Quinn, has been running TV commercials where he cuts his Northwest Side Chicago lawn with a non-electric mower to show what a regular guy he is.

In the ad he claims he "balanced the budget in a fiscally responsible way." Perhaps he was suffering from heat stroke when he said that, because the Prairie State is burdened by a backlog of over $4 billion in unpaid bills and it suffers from $100 billion in unfunded pension debt.

Back to the grass. It's ironic the Quinn is shown mowing his lawn in that ad because in May his neighbors were complaining about it. Quinn's lawn was overgrown with uncut grass and weeds.

He can't do anything right.

Related posts:

#ThrowbackThursday: Pat Quinn promised to live in governor's mansion

#ThrowBackThursday: Durbin accused Quinn of being a ghost payroller

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

(Rauner ad) Harold Washington on Pat Quinn

I posted a similar video last month, but this message for Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, needs to be heard again.

Washington said hiring of Pat Quinn as his revenue director "Was perhaps my biggest mistake in government." He corrected that error by firing Quinn.

Watch this Bruce Rauner ad:


Rauner, a Republican businessman, is the only sensible choice for governor.

To follow Rauner on Facebook, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

To contribute to the Rauner campaign, click here

Study finds Illinois second-worst for business

Illinois' economy has been suffering for years. It regularly vies with Michigan for the title of highest-jobless-rate-in-the-Midwest. Currently, Michigan is on top.

More bad news for ILL-inois. A survey ranked the Prairie State the second-worst for business in the nation.

From Crain's Chicago Business:
A Chicago-area research group is out with its annual listing of best and worst states in which to do business — and Illinois, once again, is bringing up the rear.

According to the Park Ridge-based American Economic Development Institute, the Land of Lincoln ranked 49th of the 50 states in its overall pro-business status, ahead of only California.

In comparison, the group's list of top states is headed by the relatively unpopulated Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska, but also included Virginia (fourth) and Indiana (seventh).

The institute, which leans to the political right, rates Illinois an F on such issues as workers compensation, corporate income tax rates and the "litigation environment" that are popular with conservatives. But it notably also includes the cost of energy, college-completion rate and average teachers compensation, in which the state wins a B.

Neighbors complain about odor from green-technology Asian carp processing plant

Illinois River north of Peoria
On the surface there's not much newsworthy about this story about bad smells coming from a southern Illinois fish processing plant. Dead fish are stinky. But the fetid operation utilizes green technology.

From the Alton Telegraph:
Despite American Heartland Fish Products' numerous assurances from its leaders about an odor-free, "100 percent green facility," neighbors are disturbed by smells produced by the company's fish plant.

Months ago Grafton resident and fish plant neighbor Tom Warford asked American Heartland’s local investors, who also live in Grafton, to remedy the situation, but a solution has yet to be discovered. Investors Ben Allen, Bryon Lebaeu and Gray Magee, who is the chief executive officer of American Heartland Fish Products, said that a state-of-the-art Asian carp rendering facility would be absent of malodorous odors but rotten and charred-like smells have existed, off and on, from plant operations that began once equipment testing completed in May.

"There is an issue with an odor. No one is denying it," Grafton Mayor Tom Thompson said Monday to the Telegraph.
A press release from the office of Lieutenant Governor Shiela Simon, a downstate Democrat, touts the green technology of the plant.

Grafton is near the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Asian carp, an escapee from southern fish farms, now comprise by weight two-thirds of the fishes in the latter body of water.

Related posts:

#ThrowbackThursday: EPA partially responsible for Asian carp debacle

(Photos) The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal: The most hated body of water in America

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Leonardo DiCaprio: Global warming hypocrite

No yachts on the docks: Frozen
Lake Michigan, March, 2014
Yeah, he drives a Toyota Prius and rides his bicycle once in a while, but Hollywood liberal Leonard DiCaprio is another climate change activist who is a fraud.

Today DiCaprio, whose first major acting role was as an unconvincing homeless kid on the TV show Growing Pains, spoke eloquently to the United Nations today about the need to limit carbon emissions, telling the delegates at the pricey Manhattan debating society, "You can make history...or be vilified by it."

I'm picking the latter as Leo's fate.

From the Daily Mail:
MailOnline can report that DiCaprio took at least 20 trips across the nation and around the world this year alone - including numerous flights from New York to Los Angeles and back, a ski vacation to the French Alps, another vacation to the French Riviera, flights to London and Tokyo to promote his film Wolf of Wall Street, two trips to Miami and trip to Brazil to watch the World Cup.

And those were just the trips where he was spotted in public.

Additionally, DiCaprio owns at least four homes: two apartments in New York and mansions in Hollywood and Palm Springs.

He also recently sold an estate in Malibu for $17 million.
Back to the soccer World Cup: DiCaprio rented the world's fifth largest yacht--which is owned by an Arab billionaire whose riches derive from the oil business, or more broadly, carbon.

Presumably there was snow on the Alps for Leo's skiing vacation.

Related post:

Phony UN global warming summit: China and India's leaders aren't there

(Video) Obama's UN speech promises to kill jobs and raise energy prices

President Obama's speech is over, but the awful message is still clear--to fight so-called human-caused global warming, it will mean less economic growth and fewer jobs for Americans.

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, explains:


Related post:

Phony UN global warming summit: China and India's leaders aren't there

State-owned jet-commuting Gov. Pat Quinn endorsed by Illinois Sierra Club

Phony UN global warming summit: China and India's leaders aren't there

Global warming on Lake Michigan
If you believe that greenhouse gases emitted by human industry is warming up the planet and you are excited that the UN Climate Change Summit kicked off today, drop your enthusiasm.

While President Obama will be in attendance, neither the leader of nation that release the most greenhouse gases, China, and the third biggest emitter, India, won't be there.

The United States is the silver medal winner in the global warming gas games.

The Climate Change Summit is the quintessential United Nations event--there will be a lot of talking and nothing will be accomplished.

Illinois "public servant" who embezzled $54 million still wants her pension

Dixon Arch
A longtime municipal comptroller who swiped millions from the the northern Illinois small city that Ronald Reagan called home to finance her horse breeding business and a lavish lifestyle, still wants to collect her government pension.

From Sauk Valley.com:
Rita Crundwell doesn't think her pension funds should be part of a court-ordered repayment of the nearly $54 million she stole from the city of Dixon.

Motions will be presented next week in federal court regarding the inclusion of the former Dixon comptroller's pension funds in her court-ordered restitution to the city.

Crundwell, who was arrested in April 2012 and later convicted of stealing $53.7 million from the city over 2 decades, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. State's Attorney's Office on Aug. 30.

"I wish to object to the inclusion of these funds in the judgment," she said in the letter from a federal prison in Waseca, Minnesota. "I feel these funds should be exempt."
The word chutzpah comes to mind here. By law her pension should have been forfeited after she pleaded guilty to her egregious theft.

Dixon posts:

(Bruce Rauner ad) Unthinkable

Illinois' inept governor, Chicago Democrat Pat Quinn, secretly released early a bunch of state inmates convicted of violent crimes early.

Did tragic things happen?

Of course.

Watch this Bruce Rauner ad:


Rauner, a Republican businessman, is a far better choice for governor.

To follow Rauner on Facebook, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

To contribute to the Rauner campaign, click here

Monday, September 22, 2014

Let's start a rumor: Tony Rezko is advising Obama on Syrian airstrikes

Rezko and Obama
Time for a bit of wicked fun--let's start a rumor that President Obama's first political sponsor, convicted Illinois fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko, is advising Dear Leader as our military bombs Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

Rezko, a native of Aleppo, Syria, is currently inmate number 19050-424 at the Pekin Federal Correctional Institution near Peoria, Illinois. The crook advised Obama on the purchase of his South Side Chicago mansion. Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased a strip of land that was part of the mansion's property, making the home affordable for the Obamas.

Airstrikes against Islamic State terrorists in Syria begin

Let's hope that we wipe out the terrorist scum.

From Fox News:
The United States, joined by several Arab allies, launched an intense campaign of airstrikes, bombings and cruise-missile attacks against Islamic State targets in Syria Monday night – marking the first U.S. military intervention in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war.

Sources say the military operation includes fighter jets, B-1 bombers and Predator drones, as well as Tomahawk missiles launched from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

Officials say the coalition is targeting about 20 sites, including command-and-control centers, training camps and weapons depots.

U.S. officials told Fox News that several Arab countries – including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – were participating.

(Photos) 2014 Hyundai Tucson: The Walking Dead Special Edition

Season Four of the AMC TV series The Walking Dead ended appropriately enough at the Terminus compound--Season Five begins in October.

When the zombie apocalypse show reboots, you can run over the undead in a 2014 Walking Dead Special Edition Hyundai Tucson, one of which I photographed last week.



The Tuscon's colors are black and red.


Red for blood, of course. Your blood.


Walking Dead badging is on the hatch. Yes, this is an all wheel drive SUV.


Inside the hatch you see a large emblem that commemorates the tenth anniversary of The Walking Dead comic book.


On the dash is an emblem with a reproduction of Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman's autograph.

Each Walking Dead Tuscon comes with a zombie survival kit.

Chiraq: 2 dead, 31 wounded over weekend

Cooler temperatures didn't accomplish much in regards to cooler passions in Chicago. Over the weekend two Chicagoans were murdered and another 31 were wounded.

State-owned jet-commuting Gov. Pat Quinn endorsed by Illinois Sierra Club

Pat Quinn's Illinois flag
Governor Pat Quinn promised Illinoisans that unlike his two-time running mate, Rod Blagojevich, he would live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield. But Quinn lied, instead, he commutes to the state capital in a state-owned jet.

But the Chicago Democrat's lie and his liberal use of jet fuel didn't stop the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club from endorsing Quinn for a second full term. For the intimated, the Sierra Club has drifted far from its days as a conservation advocate when John Muir founded it in 1982--the group is now a far-left collective.

Quinn claims to split his time between Springfield and Chicago, but he stays fewer than 70 days a year in Springfield.

Bruce Rauner, Quinn's Republican challenger, vows to live in the governor's mansion and says he will travel there from his north suburban Chicago home in a much more energy-effecient old van.

Quinn, a proponent of so-called high speed rail, could at least ride Amtrak to Springfield

To follow Rauner on Facebook, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

To contribute to the Rauner campaign, click here

From Da Tech Guy on DaRadio: Europe is right and Obama is wrong: Top-down government belongs in the past

Scottish voters decided last week--for now--to remain a part of the United Kingdom, the result of the election may have been swayed by promises from London for more autonomy for the Scots.

Meanwhile, since 2009, President Obama and the Democrats are heading down the wrong path of history--they are centralizing power in Washington.

From my weekly entry on Da Tech Guy on DaRadio: Europe is right and Obama is wrong: Top-down government belongs in the past.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Illinois woman holds burglar at gunpoint until cops arrive

Illinois' flag on the right
A northwest suburban Chicago man, Noah I. Perlman of Palatine, who police say has been burgalrizing units in the apartment complex where he lives. got a deservedly-hostile welcome from one of his flatmates.

From the Daily Herald:
Police responded to a 9-1-1 call at 10:47 a.m. Thursday for a burglary in progress.

The 34-year-old resident told police she noticed damage to her front door when she arrived home and then found Perlman in her bedroom, police said.

When she saw he had a hammer and large screwdriver, she retrieved a handgun and confronted him, police said.

She told police that, fearing for her life, she fired at Perlman but missed. Then she held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
The cops can't be everywhere at all times. This woman did the right thing.

Look for the New York Times to pick up this story. (I'm just kidding.)