Thursday, August 28, 2008.

The site was down briefly this morning.  I have no idea what the problem was.

I'll be out of town from tonight through Monday, hiding out in the wilderness and hopefully deprived of internet access.  Please be civil to each other on here while I'm gone, and I hope you enjoy your weekend.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008.

Today's News-Gazette:

Park board President Michael Walker said the draft report indicated that "there are multiple systems that have come to the end of their lives and will need major repair or replacement."

Walker said the park board had been hoping that repairs could be done in phases, but that the draft report indicates that "a phased refurbishment is not viable."

He explained that it appears that so many systems at the pool need replacement that city, state and national codes might be triggered that would essentially force the district to build a new pool because the pool would be required to meet current codes.

Walker said he isn't sure the current Crystal Lake Pool can be saved at this point.

Discuss.

As required by the Consent Decree:

The school board discussed a recommendation on the north-side-seats issue in closed session at a special board meeting Monday night but did not take action. It will likely do so at its Sept. 15 board meeting.

The committee looking at options for adding those elementary seats narrowed its choices to two – rebuilding Washington Elementary School and adding a wing to Garden Hills Elementary School; or establishing a Great Campus program, in which Stratton Elementary School, the Early Childhood Center and the Columbia Center would form a pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus, integrated by architecture and innovative educational programs. The committee recently made its recommendation to the board.

The district's federal consent decree requires it to make a good-faith effort to add two elementary strands – two classrooms at each grade level from kindergarten through fifth grade – in north Champaign.

Discuss.

Obama is even elitist about baseball!

Scott: “If the Cubs and the White Sox both make it to the World Series?

Obama: “I would be going.”

Scott: “Who would you root for?

Obama: “Oh, that's easy. White Sox. I'm not one of these fair weather fans. You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer, beautiful people up there. People aren't watching the game. It's not serious. White Sox, that's baseball. Southside.”

Yes, I'm kidding.  It's impossible to be elitist about baseball in its current condition anyway.

(Hat tip:  Cubs fan Tom Kacich.  Also: as Kacich goes, so goes the election, right?)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008.

Drudge posted this story, highlighting the concerns that some have about union members voting for Barack Obama.

My double-take wasn't on the racial angle, though, it was on this one:

But Ackerman acknowledged Obama’s struggles during the primary campaign to win over white workers without college degrees and said it was the union’s job to make the case for Obama.

Why is it the AFL-CIO's job to make the case for Obama to their own members?  Shouldn't the members be making the case for Obama to the union's leadership, not the other way around?

Goodness:

A black Hillary Clinton delegate on Sunday accused state Senate President Emil Jones of calling her an "Uncle Tom."

Jones -- Barack Obama's political mentor -- denied using the racially loaded slur against Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb, but two aldermen who said they witnessed the Saturday night exchange back up Cobb's account.

"Last night, I was called an 'Uncle Tom' by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddrenna Lyle and [Ald.] Leslie Hairston and [Ald.] Latasha Thomas," said Cobb, a member of Clinton's Illinois Steering Committee. "I walked over to him and asked him, 'What did you just call me?' "

The embarrassing flap came on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, which will open tonight with a string of Chicago speakers talking about Obama's life story. Jones is often referred to as Obama's "political godfather.''

Unity.

Today's News-Gazette:

The study will look at income the city receives from certain types of development, such as new property and sales taxes, compared to costs of serving that development, such as constructing new main roads and hiring additional police and firefighters.

The issue is more than just an academic exercise because Champaign currently has a $45 million funding shortfall for needed arterial roads over the next decade. Champaign is also one of the few larger cities in Illinois that doesn't charge developers impact fees for new arterial roads or require mandatory park-land dedication.

"The goal of the study is for us to better understand the true costs and revenues of development in the city," said Rob Kowalski, Champaign's assistant planning director. "It'll look at existing areas, and areas where we might grow in the future."

The study will also look at the costs and benefits of developing within the established city, called infill development, vs. developing on farmland at the edge of the city.

The study will help shape an update of the city's comprehensive plan, to be called Champaign Tomorrow, by identifying areas where the city can grow at a lower cost. City staff plans to begin work on the comprehensive plan this fall and to adopt it by next summer.

Discuss.

The New-Gazette headline asks, "Does Urbana Courthouse plaza need giant Lincoln head?"

Twenty-one feet tall, it would resemble one of the mysterious Easter Island sculptures, only with a stovepipe hat. Rubbing his nose might be a stretch.

Langenheim notes that of all the artists who have passed through Champaign-Urbana or the University of Illinois, only Gallo and Lorado Taft have international reputations.

He acknowledges that when he shows a picture that Gallo has Photoshopped from a Lincoln head he donated to Urbana High School, the usual reaction is shock.

"Every county courthouse in Illinois has a statue in the stylized Lincoln cliche style," Langenheim said. "This would not be one of those. It would attract some pretty strong feelings."

My answer is:  only if it can be paid for via private donations.  There no discussion in the article of how such a sculpture would be funded.

Monday, August 25, 2008.

Wow.  Biden.  I was shocked, but happy for Republican chances in November.  I've been hoping for this ever since I heard what I figured to be preposterous rumors of this pick.

So to hear the guys at First Read come out with this statement demonstrates pretty well how out of touch much of the media is with the average Republican.

On the GOP side, the sound you heard was disappointed silence. Of everyone on the short list, the candidate many Republicans least wanted to see Obama pick was Biden.

Actually, guys, this was a dream come true for me.  It’s time to start figuring out how McCain stacks up against Hillary in 2012. 

A few random thoughts on the Biden pick.

The low expectations set by Obama in his Philadelphia speech are put into action with this pick.  Biden has offended Indians and blacks in his public comments in a way that would have taken him out of the running for this spot a decade ago.  Maybe he can offer a spot to George Allen in his administration and allow Allen to redeem himself as well.

Congress has the lowest approval rating of any public institution in America.  Two Senators, neither of whom has been able to distinguish themselves from their colleagues, seems politically suicidal.  Biden is everything that everyone disdains about Congress.  In 20 years Obama will be too.

Picking a pro-choice Catholic accentuates Obama’s problems with abortion and will cost Obama Catholic votes.  I remember when an evangelical friend suggested to me that a Giuliani nomination might gather a lot of extra Catholic votes for Republicans.  I told him that actually the opposite might happen because pro-life Catholics will actually tolerate a pro-choice Protestant more than a pro-Choice Catholic.  For example, Bush actually gained in Catholic votes against Kerry vs. his numbers against Gore. 

Obama is offering some relatively commonplace policy ideas that certainly don’t distinguish him from any other Democrat.  What did distinguish Obama was that he supposedly represented a new way to engage in politics, including a more moderate tone.  Now he’s picked a career politician who demonstrated during the John Roberts and Samuel Alito hearings to be a Dick Durbin wannabe when it comes to partisanship.

The Democrats have correctly underemphasized Biden's foreign policy background.  Simply, chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations committee has little to do with your abilities in Foreign Policy and more to do with inside the beltway politics.  Knowledgeable, perhaps.  But still highly inexperienced.  I recall when Dick Lugar wanted to run for President and was hoping Republicans would buy this line as well.  With most issues, Congressional experience can translate well to the executive, but not in Foreign Policy.  Besides, Biden was wrong on the surge, wrong on the partition, and according to Obama, wrong on the original authorization for the war.

Finally, what bothers you more?  Serial flip flopping?  Or serial plagiarism?

New York Times:

He said it made him think of Warren Buffett, an Obama supporter, who, if anything, might argue that he wasn’t going far enough to change the tax code. “If you talk to Warren, he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.” He continued by saying that he thought there was some merit in Buffett’s argument. But, he said: “I do think that what the argument may miss is the sense of control that we want individuals to have in determining their own career paths, making their own life choices and so forth. And I also think you want to instill that sense of self-reliance and that what you do will help determine outcomes.”

Obama is paraphrasing Warren Buffett here, so that will be his "out."  But he clearly has some affinity for the ideas, and it's frightening to hear a major American Presidential candidate talk about "equity on the back end" and "determining outcomes" as worthy economic policy goals of the Federal government.  Absolutely chilling.

(Hat tip: Campaign Spot)

Friday, August 22, 2008.

 Welcome back, U of I gang.

Thursday, August 21, 2008.

Leroi Moore, saxiphonist for Dave Matthews Band, passed away yesterday.

I'm not really sure I have anything to say.  :-(

Wednesday, August 20, 2008.

I'm not sure I want the UI getting in the middle of a Presidential election.  Why would they be unwilling to release records like this?  Isn't that the whole point of having them at a public institution? Is there a harmless explanation I'm missing?

In the process of tracing down the Obama-Ayers connection, I located a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library of the University of Illinois at Chicago. These documents are the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a small foundation, founded and inspired by Bill Ayers, for which Obama served as board chairman (almost surely at Ayers’s behest). Although the library initially promised me access to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, top library officials mysteriously intervened at the last minute to bar access. There followed a struggle between myself and library officials over my right to examine the documents....

I need public help to gain access to this critically important repository of information... Please consider contacting the president of the University of Illinois system, B. Joseph White, to ask him to take immediate public steps to insure the safety of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, to release the identity of the collection’s donor, and above all to swiftly make the collection available to me, and to the public at large. You can find an e-mail link for White here. Telephone, fax, and mailing addresses for White’s offices can be found here .

Of course, this is related to a larger problem surrounding Obama:

Just to review, the public cannot get access to paperwork related grants distributed by then-state-legislator Obama (records from 1997 to 2000 aren't available); his state legislative office records (which he says may have been thrown out); he refuses to release a specific list of law clients, instead giving a list of all of his firm's clients, numbering several hundred each year; he won't release his application to the state bar (where critics wonder if he lied in responding to questions about parking tickets and past drug use); he’s never released any legal or billing records to verify that he only did a few hours of work for a nonprofit tied to convicted donor Rezko; and he's never released any medical records, just a one-page letter from his doctor...

The new politics looks an awfully lot like the old politics, doesn't it?

UPDATE:  More here.  This is not the sort of attention I want the UI to get.  Why not just release the documents?

I was just briefly on campus this afternoon, and it looks like there are already a bunch of students who have returned to campus.  I love this time of year, and I love the energy that the students bring when they return.  (Plus, returning students means the return of football!)

Welcome back, students!  We missed you.