My Blog

Blog

  • Chicago Business Round-Up

    Cruising the local business section I found the following:

    Caterpillar Opening Facility in Mexico
    Peoria-based Caterpillar said Friday it is building a parts distribution center in Mexico that will employ up to 150 people.  …

    The 500,000-square-foot facility will be in San Luis Potosi, and it’s expected to be operational in mid-2013. The new plant will be under the company’s logistics unit, which has also opened distribution centers in California, Ohio, Washington, Texas and Dubai

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Strike One!

    Business in the Midwest Slips
    Business activity in the Midwest decreased slightly in March due to a decline in new orders and employment, according to a monthly survey of members of the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago.

    The Chicago Business Barometer fell to 62.2 in March from 64 in February. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the regional economy.  …

    Businesses said they are being affected by high oil prices, which are increasing transportation costs and raising the price of commodities

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Strike Two!

    R.R. Donnelley Closing Mendota Plant
    R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.will close its Mendota printing plant at the end of May in a move that will affect 207 employees.

    The pending closure will be devastating for the city, Mayor David Boelk said Thursday. Boelk said the company’s announcement caught him off guard, adding that he learned about the closing on Wednesday when an employee called him in tears.  …

    R.R. Donnelley is one of the largest employers in the city of 7,340 residents. As such, the closing will affect other businesses, including the local post office, which Boelk said was spared in the latest round of Postal Service closings because of the volume of mail generated by the plant. Boelk said he hopes to find a buyer for the plant that could rehire the workers.  …

    R.R. Donnelley has sought to adapt itself to an increasingly digital world in the last eight years. As part of that reorganization, it laid off 2,899 workers in 2011.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Strike Three!!

  • McCarthy (Rahm) Shakes-up Police Brass (Not Really)

    This past week Rahm launched an ambitious plan to revitalize the city.  However in order to make that work, he must first prevent Chicago from becoming Gotham.  The post below talks about how the lack of enough police officers is causing a false reduction in the number of crimes being reported.  I personally think that Rahm and McCarthy know this. But while money’s so tight, they just have to make due until sunnier days come along.

    Nevertheless, they have to maintain the appearance of doing something to stay on top of criminal element.

    So along comes this story about McCarthy moving some top folks around at CPD:

    With Chicago suffering a 35 percent spike in murders this year, police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a reshuffling of his command staff Friday, replacing commanders in five of the city’s 23 districts.

    McCarthy also promoted three supervisors to deputy chief positions. He said the changes were made to “strengthen the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce violence” and create a “more efficient departmental structure.”  …

    A police spokeswoman said no district commanders were demoted to make way for the changes in those five districts. They replaced commanders who were promoted to other positions or retired, she said.  …

    As of Thursday, there have been 114 murders this year in Chicago — up 35 percent compared with the same period last year.But department records also show that, through March 18, overall crime has dropped 10 percent throughout the city compared with the same period in 2011.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    This is not a shake-up.  A shake-up is where people are shown the door for poor performance.  People are held accountable.  …

    Rahm and McCarthy know that it’s not really these folks fault.  Everyone knows that the real problem is that there’s not enough officers to go around.  This is just a PR stunt — feeding something, anything to the masses — to create the illusion that Rahm and McCarthy are taking this seriously.

  • Crime? What Crime?

    Crime is out of control.  It’s not reported because in this town No Report = No Crime.  And because we have so few police — who are constantly running from call to call — a LOT of crime is going unreported.  Sometimes you can call 911 and wait 30-40 seconds before someone answers the phone.  But when it takes 40, or 50 minutes for CPD to arrive you get tired and get on with your life.  So many “petty” crimes simply go unreported.  e.g.

    A gang member tags your garage and you just want to repaint and don’t report it… No Crime.

    You get your wallet stolen on the Crime Red Line need to get to work and don’t report it… No Crime.

    Your car has a smashed window and you get it fixed without reporting it… No Crime.

    Dude gets stabbed and take himself to the hospital, says he cut himself shaving… No Crime.

    Because of the No Report = No Crime policy of CPD, if there were no police officers there would be… No Crime.

    But we know that crimes are being committed.  How?  Because we have record call volume at the 911 center.  So much so that it makes the news:

    Overtime at Chicago’s 911 emergency center more than doubled during the first two months of this year, thanks to a 13.2 percent increase in call volume and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to reduce the ranks of police and fire dispatchers, records show.

    Police dispatchers wracked up 10,024 hours of overtime in January and February, at a cost of $516,642, compared to 5,247 hours with a $247,662 price tag during the same period a year ago, records show.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    The wheels are falling off the bus.  Hopefully soon someone in the media will wake-up and begin really looking into this.  There’s a massive story here.

     

  • CPS Teacher’s Union Fights Everything

    Having absolutely no logic to defend their position:

    With a 90-day deadline on negotiations with the teachers union having passed, Chicago Public Schools can implement a teacher evaluation system that will see student performance count for 25 percent of an elementary school teacher’s assessment, a figure that will rise to 40 percent in five years.

    The Chicago Teachers Union has opposed such significant weight on student performance, but even at its highest the CPS proposal for student performance is less than the 50 percent used in states such as Colorado, Tennessee and Ohio.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    So we’re still going to be behind other states, but yet CTU is still fighting it:

    “We don’t disagree on every aspect, but we don’t agree on the plan as a whole,” said CTU’s lead negotiator, Carol Caref.  Currently, teachers are evaluated using a checklist that both principals and teachers have called useless.

    I see, the current system sucks and everyone knows it’s worthless but whatever you do, don’t include student performance in any new evaluation method.

    Caref said the union thinks having student performance count for 40 percent is too high because of concerns about the test data’s reliability. He said the union believes it’s a mistake to implement a new evaluation system without first trying it on a pilot basis to identify any problems.

    Ya, problems like it may show that teachers that suck have been given the green light to continue to not educate children year after year after year.  That would be a problem for the Union.

    Big win for the children though.

    CTU can’t die soon enough.  CPS has completely failed generations of students nearly entirely as a result of CTU pushing it’s significant weight around.  Can’t evaluate teachers… shear nonsense.

    CPS lost it’s moral imperative years ago.  We as a people owe it to our children to build a competitive network of schools which give parents a real choice — a voice — in their children’s education.

    If we’re really all in this together, then All Schools are Public Schools.

  • Building a New Chicago

    I was skeptical of Rahm coming in as mayor.  But as time goes by I’m getting more and more impressed by his ability to take on the unions, manipulate the media, get things done, outmaneuver worthless alderman, and most importantly develop and articulate his vision for the city.  (It appears that) He gets it.   You can say a great number of things about Rahm Emanuel; but you can’t say that he doesn’t think big.

    There are several stories out this week about Rahm’s Building a New Chicago plan.

    Unveiling a plan for “Building a New Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday promoted a package of infrastructure initiatives that included very little that was new — except for its $7 billion price tag and its ambitious framing as a mission comparable to the city’s rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    The Tribune’s piece quotes local hacks:

    “It was a State of the Union speech in Chicago.  I think it was a good blueprint for Chicago’s future.”
    — Alderman Richard Mell (33rd Ward)

    … and the not so hacky:

    “I think this speech was aimed toward Chicagoans in general, and aimed toward business, because actually, these types of pronouncements are out there to encourage businesses to say, ‘I’m thinking of coming to Chicago, I want to open a place in Chicago, I want to do business in or with Chicago.’  These are all speeches geared toward making us an attractive option in a very global economy.”
    — Alderman Patrick O’Conner (40th Ward)

    This is where the Sun-Times nails it:

    Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday urged major airlines squeezed by skyrocketing fuel prices to come to the table a year early and negotiate a fourth new runway at O’Hare Airport as part of a $7.3 billion plan to rebuild Chicago’s infrastructure and create 30,000 jobs.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    O’Hare.

    It’s almost as an afterthought it mentions some of the other projects, the story’s nearly last paragraph:

    Other projects include: fixing 26 miles of CTA slow zones and renovating, repairing or rebuilding 100 CTA stations over the next ten years; building a new Green Line station at 22nd and Cermak; acquiring 180 acres of park land over five years and building 12 new parks, 20 new playgrounds, and eight artificial turf fields; building a new Malcolm X College and a new classroom building at Olive-Harvey College.

    Companies will come to Chicago because of O’Hare.  People will want to live here because of O’Hare.

    Rahm’s not wrong to make the comparisons to rebuilding after the Chicago Fire.  The Chicago Fire permitted the city to change the entire layout of the downtown area, build Grant Park, move the stockyards, and become a the Midwest rail transportation center for the country.  St. Louis could have easily bested Chicago due to it’s Mississippi River and centralized rail center location.  It was the Chicago Fire that really permitted Chicago to become what it was… not St. Louis.

    Airplanes are today’s rail cars.

    Miami International put together an interesting document which ranks airports for 2010:

    NATIONALLY

    • Total Passengers  –  O’Hare  is 2nd
    • International Passengers  –  O’Hare is 5th
    • Total Cargo  –  O’Hare is 5th
    • Total Freight  –  O’Hare is 5th
    • International Freight  –  O’Hare is 4th
    • Total Aircraft Movements  –  O’Hare is 2nd

    O’Hare is the lifeline we need to dig out of the hole we’ve (Daley’s) made for ourselves.  It’s right to prepare O’Hare for the next 50 years of service when we’re going to ask more of it.

    The plan’s not perfect.  But perfect if the enemy of good.

  • WI State Rep. Wants to Repeal Castle Doctrine

    Sounds to me like Rep. Tamara Grigsby is too dumb to understand the difference between the Castle Doctrine and Self Defense. While related, they are not the same. Just another Milwaukee liberal trying to make sure that a criminal has more rights than a victim.

  • #KillZimmerman: The Left is Silent

    On March 24 a “KillZimmerman” Twitter account began publishing calls for violence against George Zimmerman, the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26.

    Five days later, the account is still on its crusade to avenge Martin.

    The sender’s initial tweets made his or her aims clear: “No Justice No Peace!!!!!!!!!! #KILLZIMMERMAN #KILLZIMMERMAN #KILLZIMMERMAN,” they read.

    via The Daily Caller.

    This is a problem.

    Yesterday there was a post over at Althouse about how someone had taken a poll about the Martin/Zimmerman issue.  A Poll!!  We do NOT use POLLS to determine if someone is innocent or guilty!!

    We are a nation of laws.  Our system is not perfect; but it does work.

    And where is the MSM on this?  Where’s the left on this?

    When Gabrielle Giffords was shot the MSM & the left were everywhere jumping up-and-down that it was all Sarah Palin’s fault.  Palin — love her or hate her — never, in any way, called for Giffords to be killed.

    Here, this person is actually publicly calling for the assassination of another person.  Somehow that’s acceptable?  Is this really who we’ve become?

  • Spain – The New Greece (and we’re next)

    Spanish trade unions are holding a general strike across the country today to protest new labor reforms, and by all accounts it has been a largely peaceful protest.

    While for the most part conditions on the ground are relatively normal, photos from Madrid, Barcelona, and Pamplona indicated that some young protestors are escalating the angst, painting symbols supporting anarchy on walls, and causing small bouts of destruction.

    Such events are reminiscent of similar protests in Syntagma Square, Greece, where groups of youthful protestors turned riotous despite generally calm strikes.

    Two major points give us particular trepidation: the fact that these and similar protests closely resemble early protests in Greece a few years ago—when almost no one realistically considered the possibility of a Greek debt restructuring—and the sheer scale of Spanish youth unemployment.

    As in Greece, young people have been seen as responsible for escalating peaceful political protests to violent riots. Spain’s unemployment data suggest that protests there could eventually be much larger—nearly half of young people are already unemployed and they face a tough future and a shrinking social safety net amid economic contraction and austerity measures.

    via Business Insider.

    For sixty years liberals and academics have been telling us to be more like Europe.  This has been a mistake.

    The only way for our youth (especially minority youth) is to improve our schools, reduce government waste, and grow the private sector so our newly educated children can get jobs.  But our schools are current not providing the education needed in order to succeed.  That needs to change.

    In the meantime… we need the unions, religion, politicians, and community organizers to begin an honest dialog — toning down the language (e.g. denouncing the #KillZimmerman hashtag) and finding productive ways to work together instead of just yelling at each other.

  • Starbucks’ Bugs … Ya, Bugs!

    Bet’cha didn’t know:

    Starbucks is getting backlash from the vegan community after changing how it colors its Strawberry Frappuccino, reports Bruce Horovitz at USA Today.

    It’s using ground up cochineal beetles.

    Gross, right? Perhaps, but the type of food coloring is government-approved and widely used throughout the food industry.

    via Business Insider.

    To see a slide show of the bug to dye process click here.

    UPDATE:  Oh ya, forgot.  For more gross stuff that you eat everyday — like fish bladders, sand, human hair, and you won’t believe what beaver anal glands — click here.

  • Kuryente: Ya, I Never Heard of it Either

    One Tagalog word for which no exact translation in English exists is “kuryente.” It literally means “electric current,” but the word can be applied to the practice of spreading sensational but faked news in order to produce a media jolt. One newspaper translates “kuryente” as “a bum steer”; others have rendered it as “actually but not really” or “confirmed but not definite.” At any rate, the phrase applies perfectly to the storm of bogus rumors swirling around the Trayvon Martin media feeding frenzy. The Daily Mail reports:

    Fake Will Smith tweet about Trayvon Martin sweeps the internet  — and Spike Lee retweets wrong address for George Zimmerman. … Man tweeting as Will Smith tweeted angry post about no justice for Trayvon — Spike Lee retweeted incorrect Florida address for Trayvon’s killer, George Zimmerman — Man posing as Will Ferrell also tweeted about high-profile case.

    Americans are no stranger to the phrase “fake but accurate.” But kuryente takes things to another level where the lie becomes the truth; or worse, to where nobody can tell the difference.

    The couple who actually live at the address which Spike Lee wrongly believed to belong to George M. Zimmerman now fear for their lives. The address was actually associated with the electoral roll of a different Zimmerman — George A. Zimmerman — though of course such fine distinctions are lost in the wash. As for the “Will Smith” tweets, the author of his missives is actually a “white man from Nashville, Tennessee.”  Nor is Will Ferrell the Will Ferrell — his spokesman says his tweet was a hoax.

    Not that it will make any difference. The main thing about faked news is that it shouldn’t matter whether it is in the slightest degree true. It is far more important for the news to confirm what we want to hear: our deepest suspicions about our neighbor or our wildest vanities about ourselves. People will believe it because they want to. As for the truth, well what about it?

    Even the most basic facts becomes surprisingly irrelevant. Media Matters, for example, apologized to Matt Drudge after accusing him of being a “racist demagogue” for running a fake photo of the victim — only to discover it was actually a real photo. You would have thought Media Matters would know true from fake to play the fact-check game, but really, why would factuality be important?

    Winston Churchill once observed that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” The immense power of kuryente consists in that it operates in the world of myth. It does not belong in the universe of fact. Hence what happened when, who liked what, what reasons there were for which: these are irrelevant.

    via PJ Media.

    An amazing piece.  Go read the whole thing.  It’s well worth it.

    The author, Richard Fernandez, has pulled an incredible excerpt from George Orwell that mirrors exactly what we’re going through with the Trayvon Martin situation.

    What have we become when we cannot identify — nor really care for — the truth?