Why do Chicago newspapers end up with owners like this?

Sam Zell's Deal from Hell

As if Conrad Black's near destruction of the Chicago Sun-Times weren't enough, the Chicago Tribune now has to contend with this guy, who tried to peddle the view that he was doing everyone a favor by saddling the paper with $8 billion in new debt.

And they laughed at Reagan for this

While president, and in a discussion about the urgency of "addressing" the man-made production of greenhouse gases, Ronald Reagan suggested that the cows had something to do with it. For this, Reagan was ridiculed in all the politically correct salons and among "activists" as a fool.

Now comes this well-researched article in the Chicago Tribune: "Raising a global stink: Activists target methane gas from, um, cows." The methane from belching, farting cows, it turns out, is a much bigger source of destructive greenhouse gases than man-made carbon dioxide. Explained the article:

Methane is a big concern because it is so much more potent than carbon dioxide, the chief source of man-made pollution behind rising global temperatures. So is nitrous oxide, another byproduct of manure and fertilizer production. It has a whopping 296 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide.

Expect a new assault on red meat eaters from the ecology police.

So, who's laughing now?

What blockhead is responsible for this?

Steve Schmidt, John McCain's senior adviser, that's who.

Schmidt is turning McCain into a grumpy old man with this latest TV ad for the Republican presidential candidate. It mocks Barack Obama's "world's biggest celebrity" status and fails to tell us a lick about what John McCain would do as president. It makes it appear that Obama's celebrity is getting under McCain's skin, which makes McCain look bad.

Schmidt explained the reasoning: "We will pose the question--stipulating the fact that he is the biggest celebrity in the world--do the American people want to elect the world's biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an American hero?

Where has Schmidt been? Given that choice, the American people will take the celebrity every time.

Still waiting for the recession to begin...

while Democrats say they are waiting for it to end. The Commerce Department today reported that gross domestic product (GDP) rose at a seasonally adjusted 1.9% annual rate April through June, showing that the economy accelerated over the previous quarter. We're still waiting for the first quarterly decline in the GDP, which will be the bellwether for only the beginning of a recession. Then it will take at least two more consecutive quarters of decline before we are even in a recession. What will Barack Obama and the Democrats say now?

Just in case the world tips and...

Ald. Eddie Burke's 14th ward slips into suburban Republican territory, he might need all this money to get re-elected.

The Sun-Times reports that "Ald. Edward M. Burke has more money in his four campaign funds than the combined total of all 49 other Chicago aldermen, more even than Mayor Daley's $2.9 million."

Where does Illinois rank on Traffic Fatalities, Deficient Bridges and Congestion?

Check out Reason Foundation's annual report on the performance of America's highways.

Good luck with that

Crain's Chicago Business reports that the city of Chicago is fighting the Federal Emergency Management Agency over a nearly $6-million tab for snow removal. Said the publication:

In a complaint filed in federal court, the city claims it had a right to use a total of $5.9 million in federal disaster funds to clear snow from O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport in 1999 and 2000. FEMA disagrees, the complaint said, and has tried for the past three years to recover the $4.79 million given to Chicago for a severe storm in January 1999 and another $1 million for a December 2000 snowstorm.

FEMA contends that airlines operating at O’Hare and Midway are responsible for paying for snow removal and that federal disaster funds should not have been spent on it, according to the suit.

FEMA obviously doesn't remember how hard it was for the Federal Aviation Administration to collect several million in fines from Chicago after Mayor Richard M. Daley one midnight bulldozed the federally subsidized, lakefront airport known as Miegs Field.

This all is in character for Daley, who wants taxpayers to cough up millions for costs the airlines at O'Hare rightfully should be covering. Except that the 1999 and 2000 snowjobs amount to but a tiny slice of the billions that the airlines should be paying for the expansion of O'Hare Airport. Instead, Daley is pushing the costs on to the taxpayer, through such things as the passenger seat tax.

Some things never change.

Here is Crain's complete story (subscription required):
FEMA wants blizzard money back | Crain's

Justice for red-light runners

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

If Chicago can raise $50 million a year using 100 cameras to catch red-light runners, I’m for the city putting in another 100. Or more. Same for the suburbs that are thinking about putting in the cameras.

Yes, we’re supposed to feel sympathy for motorists who race through red rights, as if they’re a picked-on species that is being victimized by the money-hungry Daley administration.

It’s not fair; it’s not constitutional, the ticketed public whimpers. Some lawyer, of course, has filed a class action suit, protesting—what?—a motorist’s right to speed through a red light undetected.

Read more: The Chicago Daily Observer

How many angels can dance on a plastic bag?

Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | City trashes plastic bags at farmers markets | Crain's

Has anyone actually calculated precisely how much room plastic bags take up in landfills, or how much it costs to "landfill" them? I doubt it, but what does it matter. Plastic bags now are out and "biodegradable" bags now are in.

But wait, as this Crain's Chicago Business article explains, super environmentalists aren't so sure about the "biodegradable" bags, because they might encourage littering, and are more expensive (thus, of course, "penalizing those least able to afford them").

So, one farmer will begin selling $5 cloth bags, less than it costs to make them. But wait! Has he calculated the environmental cost of cloth bags? The environmental destruction caused raising, harvesting and processing all that cotton--the fertilizers and the run-off, the carbon footprint caused by cotton processing and weaving, and so forth?

Maybe we should go back to paper bags. But wait: How many trees are killed? How many rivers polluted by paper plants?

Maybe we all should just stay in bed.

"Activists" secure a lifetime guarantee of cash

More that's wrong with the the housing "rescue" bill and how the special interests cash in:

President Bush is poised to sign the housing and Fannie Mae bailout bill, after the Senate passed it with 72 votes on the weekend. But an underreported part of this story is that Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to allow a vote on Republican Jim DeMint's amendment to bar political donations and lobbying by Fannie and its sibling, Freddie Mac.

Read more: Fannie Mae's Political Immunity - WSJ.com

A standing ovation from the press box

The late and iconic sports writer, Jerome Holzman, wrote a book, "No Cheering in the Press Box," which was a reminder that even sports reporters should remain objective.

Apparently, this admonition does not apply to journalists of color, who met this weekend at a conference for...journalists of color...and gave Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama standing ovations. The Chicago Tribune tells the Chicago Tribune:

At [the conference], organizers reminded conference participants that [Obama's]his appearance was being broadcast nationally and they should maintain 'professional decorum.' Before Obama arrived, a panel discussed the question of journalistic objectivity, including whether journalists should clap for politicians in public.

As it happened, Obama received a standing ovation from much of the audience at the start and end of his appearance.

And more, according to the Sun-Times:

Sporting a beige suit and a U.S. flag lapel pin, Obama found a receptive audience among the minority journalists and students at McCormick Place, who gave him standing ovations, 10 rounds of applause and a rush of cell phone picture-taking.

Let's hear it for what used to be a professional once called journalism. At least they didn't usher him into the conference with palm fronds.

Turning trash into cash...

for insiders.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley would eliminate competition in the city's commercial trash-hauling industry, leaving condominiums, businesses, office buildings and other customers at the mercy a city-designated monopoly.

Instead of shopping around for the best price and service, customers would have to use haulers designated for their neighborhoods by the city. On top of what the customers would pay to the haulers, they'd have to cough up another 5 percent to 6 percent to the city for "administrative fees."

The plan would not effect smaller residential buildings, who already have the pleasure of being under the thumb of the city's own non-competitive public trash pick-up service.

Details are in Crain's Chicago business here.

I want my money back

This is why our taxes were increased?

$24,999 for a taxpayer funded magazine to make Todd Stroger look good

There's gold for Chicago pols in new housing bill

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

It shouldn't be hard for Chicago and Illinois pols to turn the humongous housing bill that passed the U.S. House last week into a pot of gold for their cronies and themselves.

Even a naif like me could figure out how to convert to personal use Chicago and Illinois' share—yet to be determined—of the $4 billion expressed from Washington to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes. Someone from the Department of Rising Neighborhoods or whatever local agency administers the plan would call his cousin and say, "Hey, Jake, old buddy, I've got a great deal for you. We just bought a foreclosed home for $200,000. I'll make sure we sell it to you for $150,000. You can then turn around and sell it for $200,000, or whatever you can get, and we'll split the difference."

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) outlined this plausible scenario in detailing his opposition to the housing bill that will rescue homeowners, banks, financial institutions, brokers and others troubled by the housing bust.

At first, the bill was an effort to help homeowners in difficulty, but the bill has grown to gargantuan proportions. In addition to the $4 billion, the bill would provide $5.3 billion for more affordable housing, $4.6 billion for first-time home buyers, $729 million for home-loan insurance and $210 million for counseling for homeowners facing foreclosure. It also would provide untold billions to prop up the nation's top mortgage makers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in what is described as the most concerted effort to stabilize the mortgage and financial markets since the Great Depression.

That's according to the summaries handed out to reporters, who, I'm willing to bet, haven't explored every wrinkle of this monster which, by the way, will increase the national debt limit to $10.6 trillion from $9.8 trillion to help pay for all this largesse.

But Roskam has read it, and what jumped out at him was the total lack of protections against fraud and chicanery of the type that characterizes Chicago and Illinois politics. Roskam, in House floor debate, noted how the bill's proponents expressed confidence that cities—"victims" according to the bill's proponents—would spend the money judiciously and wisely. Roskam said "judicious" and "wise" were not terms he would apply to Chicago and Illinois. "Do you want Rod Blagojevich to be your landlord?" Roskam asked in a news statement. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) didn't like what she heard Roskam saying about the—shall we say—opportunities that the bill would open up, and issued a scold. Roskam, she said, obviously hadn't read the bill. Otherwise he would know that all the desired protections are in a plan that housing authorities must submit to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Roskam quickly replied by citing the plan requirements, "on page 3, section 4 of the bill." And, no, he continued, the plan that Waters mentioned indeed has "no prohibition against self-dealing." It only requires such things as setting goals for sales and accessibility by different groups. It is not about "potentially corrupt practices."

Obviously, a plea to the national conscience to stem Chicago corruption won't do much to slow down this juggernaut. And while Roskam might be playing to his west suburban audience by, tsk, picking on Chicago, he can just as easily be painted by political opponents as favoring the throwing of people out onto the streets and the cataclysmic failure of the nation's housing and financial markets. The cost of this bill is just about anyone's guess; Congressional Budget Office estimates run to $41.7 billion. So, when you're talking about money like that, what's a few hundred thousand, or even a couple of million, skimmed off by Chicago and Illinois fixers?

But what does it mean?

Barack Obama introduced new coinage into the language when he declared in his Berlin speech that "We are a people of improbable hope." The New York Times, among others I'm sure, enshrined it in their headlines, but can someone please explain what the hell it is supposed to mean?

Here's the context, the last paragraph of the speech (available here).

People of Berlin – and people of the world – the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.

The word improbable means "not likely to be true or to happen," and "unexpected and apparently inauthentic." It's synonyms include: doubtful, dubious, debatable, ridiculous, absurd and preposterous.

What, one can reasonably ask, what is untrue, unlikely, absurd or ridiculous about our hope? Did Obama say that we're unlikely to have hope? Or is just another nice sounding, but empty phrase that has characterized Obama's pontifications?

Don't let facts stand in the way

Why did no one in the media note the irony that Barack Obama announced his Iraq policy and then went there on a fact-finding tour?

Let him run for president of the European Union

Hundreds of thousands of adoring Europeans turned out to witness Barack Obama's appearance, as if it was some kind of miraculous apparition.

So what?

Obama and the media need to be reminded that the president is elected by American citizens, not Europeans or "citizens of the world." If anything, the European fawning will help McCain by honking off Americans who believe that who we elect president is no one's business but ours.

Obama the Flawless

I'm sitting here watching WTTW-TV's Chicago Week in Review, and the guest reporters all agree that Barack Obama's Middle East and European tour went off without a flaw. None of the guests, at least while I was tuned in, mentioned Obama's cancellation of a visit to wounded GIs in Germany as in any way problematic. I guess that wasn't a flaw.

Obama's campaign staff blames "the Pentagon" for cancellation of the scheduled visit; the Pentagon denies it. The Pentagon said that Obama could visit, but couldn't bring his campaign entourage and the media with him. And so, the wounded GIs were spared being pestered.

Well, there you have it: Obama's tour was flawless.

No Good Reason to Spike McCain's Op-Ed

By Dennis Byrne
RealClearPolitics

As an ink-strained wretch who has labored for decades for three of America's largest newspapers, I truly had hoped that liberal bias did not explain why the New York Times refused to publish an op-ed column from John McCain.

Sadly, though, the accusation is correct. By journalistic standards, the paper should have run the piece, just as Barack Obama's was run earlier. David Shipley, the Times' op-ed editor, his boss (in a later justification of the refusal) and by extension the newspaper blew this one, big, and now deserve the criticism heaped on them.

Read more at RealClearPolitics

Oh, the shame

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger accused commissioner Tony Peraica of engaging in politics by seeking to have the county's new 1 percentage-point sales tax increase repealed.

So?

Considering the wide-spread opposition to the tax increase, Peraica has it right. He ought to re-introduce the repeal every time the board meets.