LOOSE BOWELS OR HORTICULTURAL TERM?

"Lacksadaisial"

TRANSPARENTLY DISHONEST: "EVERY DOCUMENT ON LINE"

It's become sort of a "cool kid" thing for non-incumbent candidates for any office to say they are going to do the public's business in public and "everything" the government has is going to be available on line.

It's probably a good political tactic. First of all, the press responds to that like a puppy being scratched on the belly. Second, it implicitly says "Hey, I've got nothing to hide!" Third, it's just a campaign promise and you can always modify it if you happen to luck up and get elected.

But the law permits or requires that certain things not be disclosed, and for good reasons. W-4's, health insurance applications, I-9's, unfounded police internal investigations, The CIA budget, the names and addresses of drug task force members and the schematic for biometric security systems would be just a few examples.

So whether it's BObama or a candidate for Alderman telling you how "everything" is going to available to the public, the vibration you feel is not your cell phone. It's your B.S. detector going off.

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, KENNEDY'S INAUGURAL, LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL AND NOW!

joined in the annals of great political discourse by McScrewdriver:

"I'm blank now. I'll pass!"

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR STATE'S $12.5B UPSIDE DOWN?

Of course, it's obvious: work on drug testing for Junior Varsity Tennis Players in Illinois High Schools. Your most responsive body, the Illinois House, doing makework to avoid the heavy lifting.

NOTHING SAYS "EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP"....

.....like a screwdriver.

DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY DEPARTMENT, VERSION 3.0

Why do people label announcements "An Open Letter to...."?

You see it in all kinds of advertisements. Never once seen one of them labeled "A Closed Letter to...."

In fact, if the letter were closed, the public couldn't read it. Thus, the word "Open" is surplusage.

Why not just call it "A Letter to..." Or...better yet...you could just call it what it is, an advertisement.

IRONY IN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Don't know if it's intentional irony or not but Glenn Frey has made a public service announcement about having your travel documents in order for Western Hemisphere travel. You'll hear it on the radio.

This is the writer and performer of "Smuggler's Blues".

POP QUIZ: HOW DO YOU SET A NEW "TONE" IN A STATE $11.5B UPSIDE DOWN

......Propose building a new airport in Peo-freaking-tone!

EVIDENCE THE WORLD DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE

A German guy, head of a large international corporation and a guy with multiple doctoral degrees, says dispensing of condoms in Africa actually INCREASES the incidence of AIDS--uh, OK, Popey. If you say so.

An Elegant, talented woman dies from a minor fall on a Bunny Hill.

The Governor of Illinois proposes nearly doubling the income tax rate in Illinois, invokes Biblical Tax Fairness and actually gets some cheers from legislators.

Perhaps all this will explain why my brackets become the inevitable greasefire.

IRELAND

Long ago, I got hijacked by a group of buddies to Ireland. I have no Irish blood and had no enthusiasm for the trip. Boy, was I wrong! Couldn't wait to go back.

Very cool, mysterious place. One of the mysteries is how many nations/ethnicities have actually contributed to the culture and intellect of the Irish people. The Irish can't even identify how many times they've been overrun. Makes France look like a fortress. Yet they even turn that into a plus. It makes exploring the country that much more fascinating.

I can understand why folks of Irish heritage are proud of it. Not quite Scotland, folks, but a very neat country.

LOOMING TOAST

NCAA brackets coming. Have been involved in a long, challenging project. Haven't looked at an RPI, a Sagarin Rating or a Gold Sheet. I couldn't tell you who the three seeds are gonna be.

Bracket Lady is lurking out there and I face life as a burnt toast. At least I used to have a precocious nine year old neighbor girl who could pick upset specials. Now, she's gone, too.

Deep Trouble.

LOCAL CONTROL OF CHURCH FUNDS--IT SOUNDS SO INNOCENT

The State of Connecticut is considering legislation which would require that all religious organizations have a local board with functional control over the church or org's money, property and wealth.

At first scan, that sounds pretty good and pretty smart. After all, the big stealing is usually from a hierarchy church where some centralized power controls the money and property.

The second scan doesn't look so good. If I'm a local church and I want, as part of my doctrine, to have John Travolta, Richard Simmons or the Pope own all my property and make all my spending decisions, who is my state government to tell me I can't do that? Isn't that the same thing as the Government telling me whether I can have a cross in my chapel or what color it must be? Don't I have a First Amendment Right to freely associate with others in my religion using any kind of organization I want and in to let whomever my doctrine dictates handle the money and property.

I think the State is out of its tree on this one. This is one of those well-intentioned think-stinkers. The longer you think about it, the more it stinks.

THIRD WARD BLOG MANNERS: THE SOUND OF JUST ONE HAND CLAPPING

Wrote about the Fabulous Third Ward Blog Rollout yesterday but I read the announcement again and it got me thinking: How come it wasn't a joint announcement between the Republican incumbent (a very techy person) and this new challenger, delayed web site poster?

Only thing I can think of is the challenger wanted to show how much smarter, more interactive, transparent and modern he was than the incumbent of his own party.

Buses are kind of low tech things but It's probably not a good idea to throw your brother under one. Every time he looks at the tire tracks on his UnderArmor, he'll think of you. It's often been suggested that Republicans eat their young but this is the reverse. The rookie's ordering a side of barbeque sauce to go with the veteran.

I'm probably too cynical. The Third Ward Challenger was probably just too busy composing December, 2008's entries in the YR site to think about the effect of HIS new rollout on his fellow party-member colleague.

THE THIRD WARD BLOG AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

Hey, there's this really nice and energetic young guy running for Alderman. I'm serious. He's really nice.

He's got this great idea. If elected, he's gonna have a web page so he can keep the residents of his ward up to date about all the good stuff he will be doing for them. Then they can blog back to him about potholes, nuisances, police protection, recycling contracts and garbage stickers. Transparent, innovative and interactive--boy, those are just terminally cool things to be in this information age.

There's a tiny problem with this whole plan. This fellow has been a CEO running an organizational website for a long time. It's called the "Adams County Young Republicans." It's really cool looking. Has lotsa red white and blue and it all just kind of oozes sincerity. Oh...................and the last entry on it is NOVEMBER 2008. I just checked today.

Generally Speaking, the best predictor of future human behavior is past human behavior.

Good luck with the turnaround time on those on-line pothole requests, nice folks in the Third Ward.

MUSING ON STRANGE DEATH AND THE "HANG OUT" FACTOR

Just got word that an old teammate of mine got killed in a gruesome sawmill accident. Haven't seen the guy in years and I'm not really grieving, just kind of focusing on it probably isn't actuarially a good thing to have hung out with me in my younger years. Just some samples:

Good buddy, Sophomore at Denver U, got his girlfriend back in Illinois Pregnant. Dashing back on a three day weekend to marry her before she started to show and attempting to drive straight through, fell asleep and wishboned a bridge rail. Never saw his daughter born and never married her mother.

Good Buddy, freshman @ Georgia Tech, went hiking, killed by a flash flood. Hadn't rained in four days.

Good Buddy, Became a multimillionaire at 35, moved to Finland. Fell through the bottom of a sauna into a pool and drowned.

Good Buddy, Returned from Vietnam, 20 months of hostile fire and not a scratch. Killed at LAX the day he returned when the guy bringing his rental car around for him ran him over instead.

Teammate, hit in the head by an orange dropped from a tall building. Blood clot formed. Died three weeks later.

Teammate, actually, married my first serious girlfriend, loading a truck with exotic game meat, driver backed over him and killed him.

Former co-worker, walking his date to her car in a nightclub parking lot. Jealous boyfriend, incorrectly believing date and car were his cheating girlfriend opened fire at her, missed her, head shot him, killed instantly. Shooter and girl were unaquainted.

Former co-worker, diabetic, committed suicide by purposely ingesting something like three pounds of M&M's and refusing to call 911 when the obvious happened. Left a note.

Teammate, engineer and Grand Prix driver, coming home from work at a very slow pace, ducked a deer and flipped his Porshe off an embankment. Fall didn't kill him. Drowned in two feet of water with a car on top of him.

I haven't spun any bad mo-jo in a while but, if you hung out with me during my first 30 or so years on the planet, make sure your term life is paid up.

This is a not an exhaustive list.

HANNIBAL DOUBLE WHACK; GIVE IT A REST!

Let's all assume that the Hannibal P.D. had any meaningful way to identify this guy as an illegal at first contact. Let's assume they immediately called INS/ICE.

Who is it we think was going to come, pick him up and deport him? Tinker Bell?

Welcome to a cop's life. Maybe if Hannibal had 600 of them at one time and they were working in a Chicken plant.....or a WalMart.

Blame's easy. Fixing the national immigration mess is difficult.

OUR NAFTA PARTNERS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

This is just my own, little quirky opinion but it seems to me that the money we are putting into our partnership in the drug war with our Mexican friends might be proverbial sand dow a proverbial rathole.

A clue would be when Mexico's Drug Czar is on a monthly bribe of $500,000.00 a month.

Somplace in there is a sign we need a new plan.