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  • “Obama, Romney – Same Police State”

    Johnson’s first point was that the US political system is in desperate need of transparency.  Whether Obama or Romney is elected next month, he told the audience, we will still have “a heightened police state in the US.”  And Obama and Romney are guaranteed to continue American military interventions abroad, he added.

    via RT.

    Indeed.  Obama and Romney are more alike than different when you consider the other ideas being bantered about.  Such as:

    However, [Johnson] saw taxing marijuana as one alternative to outlawing it. “I have drank alcohol,” he said, “and I have smoked marijuana. … I can tell you that in no category is marijuana more dangerous than alcohol – yet we are arresting 1.8 million people a year on drug-related crimes.” He claimed that fully half of the US court and prison budget every year goes to drug-related offenses, and asked, rhetorically, “to what end?”

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that the war on drugs has been an epic failure.

    Johnson repeated throughout the debate that thanks to American wars abroad, the US has unnecessarily made millions of enemies around the world.  The use of the military, he said, is to defend the country, not invade other nations.

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that our foreign policy of intervening in everyone else’s affairs has been an epic failure.

    “The biggest threat to our national security is that we’re bankrupt,” he told the audience….

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that our debt is a national security issue.

    …

    Kudos to Gary Johnson.  Such a shame that the GOP and Dem and MSM just ignore you.

  • 30,000 Unfilled Jobs in Illinois

    Say “skills gap” to any manufacturer, and invariably they’ll respond with the number 600,000. That’s the gaping hole of unfilled jobs at U.S. manufacturers — for Illinois, estimates point to 30,000 unfilled jobs. The talent shortfall carries serious consequences. In a Manufacturing Institute 2011 skills gap report surveying more than 1,100 U.S. manufacturers, 74 percent of respondents said a lack of skilled production workers was harming productivity or hindering their ability to expand operations.

    That skills gap will widen. The Society of Manufacturing Engineers, based in Dearborn, Mich., predicts the number of unfilled manufacturing jobs will reach 3 million by 2015.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Holy Cow!!

    To be fair, the rest of the article talks about how wages for machinist have not kept pace with inflation; that may be true.  But isn’t taking a job at $13 or $14 an hour better than sitting home watching Judge Judy and playing xbox all day?

    These jobs are fun too.  In a former life I used to work with a lot of machinist and injection molding operators and tool & die guys, and other people who I think had cool jobs.  You get to build things.  You get to play with equipment that costs more than your house.  At the end of the day you can go home and tell your family that you did something with your day.  You didn’t just move paper from one side of the desk to the other (like I do now.)

    What we have here is evidence of the complete failing of our educational system.  Children not only don’t have the most rudimentary math skills necessary to become a machinist or CNC operator but they don’t have the intellectual curiosity and patience to solve complicated puzzles.  That’s what these jobs really are… puzzle solvers.  Figure our how to make something better than it’s being made today, faster, cheaper.

    We have to turn this around.  Show kids that learning is fun and that building (and breaking) stuff can lead to a rewarding job that might not get you a house in Lake Forest but will certainly allow you to put food on the table, gas in the car, and take a decent vacation every year.

    We will not survive as a nation if people will stay home rather than work for a living.

  • What Kid’s Need in Schools (that they’re not getting)

    Every person in any career should spend 90 minutes in a classroom at least one time in a school year, sharing their stories and setting an example for the students,” he said. “It’s part of giving back. These kids generally don’t see enough examples of why education is important or who they could be or what they could do.
    — Brad Keywell, Groupon co-founder

    via Sun-Times.

    This is a brilliant idea.

    Kudos to Mr. Keywell for putting this together.

  • Alderman Ervin’s Maywood ‘Drug House’

    For Ald. Jason Ervin, who represents a large swath of Chicago’s troubled West Side, drug activity in the area hits particularly close to home.

    That’s because until recently, Ervin owned what police and others portray as a “drug house” in nearby Maywood.

    During the decade or so that Ervin owned the three-flat at 1600 W. Madison in the Near West suburb, police were called to the property or the immediate vicinity roughly 150 times, often for drug-related incidents, but also for gunshots, assaults, trespassing and thefts, among other matters, according to records from the Village of Maywood.via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Those looking for another reason to not vote for Ald. Self Serving Jason Ervin.

    Welcome to The Machine.  The Machine like Mr. Ervin because he will do whatever they tell him to do.  He could never find a job in the private sector making $120,000 per year like he makes as Alderman.  So he will do absolutely anything to keep his job.

    We need to cleanse people like this from the system.

  • My Cousin Raised $2,300 – Hoo Whoo!!

    Sharon Arnowitz recalled countless people asking what they could do to help, but there was nothing.

    Because, as the Buffalo Grove resident explained, she was not going to be a victim of breast cancer.  “I’m going to live,” said Arnowitz, noting that it was diagnosed in its earliest stage. …

    On Sunday, Arnowitz served as hostess at her Buffalo Grove home for an all-pink party to promote breast cancer awareness. …

    The “Get Your Pink On — Early Detection Celebration and Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraiser” brought in $2,346, which Arnowitz said she will donate to the Caldwell Breast Center. She said she earmarked the donation to pay for mammograms for women who otherwise could not afford them, because this was the exam that may have saved her life.

    via Buffalo Grove Countryside.

    Rock on!!

  • IL Finances Heading to Social Unrest

    “I think it’s going to reach a point where there’s either social disorder or bankruptcy before people will act,” he said.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Ya, that sounds about right.

    But let’s back-up a little.  This is a quote from a story about how back the finances are in Illinois.

    A Blue Ribbon Panel put together a report which was released this morning.  It’s damning in the extreme.  The whole report can be found here.

    I’ll write more about this later… I have to catch a plane.

  • I Made Crain’s Chicago Business

    Forgive me the indulgence:

    Dr. El-Tag referred questions to her attorney, James Bosco of Chicago.The case is about “restricting patients’ access to a doctor of their choice,” Mr. Bosco said in a statement.

    “That the plaintiff Dr. Koziol believes patients would choose Dr. El-Tag over him is evidence enough of Dr. El-Tag’s reputation for excellence,” he wrote.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Pretty funny.

  • I really don’t understand all the hate. Are not those on the left supposed to accepting of everyone? Tolerance and all that? Seems to me the left is the chief preacher of hate.

  • Islamist Radicals Visited White House

    A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

    via The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

    This is a problem.

    A real mo fo problem.

    No word yet from the Ministry of Truth.

     

  • Italian Court Jails Scientists for Failure to Predict Earthquake

    Rarely since a Catholic inquisition in Rome condemned Galileo Galilei to spend the remainder of his days under house arrest for the heresy of teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun, has an Italian court been so wrong about science.

    Today, a court in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, 380 years after that miscarriage of justice, sentenced six scientists and a government bureaucrat to six years in jail on manslaughter charges for their failure to predict a 2009 earthquake that left more than 300 people dead.

    via CSMonitor.com.

    Al Gore is soooo pissed right now.  He’s so wishing that the U.S. had tried those evil scientists who claimed global warming was a hoax.

    No better way to silence your opposition than place them in jail.