House of the rising Moonglum

Crouchback pointed me to a quiz that purports to tell what your accent is with a simple set of word comparison questions. So far it is three for three in a very small circle of friends. In regards to that result, disturbingly, I could have easily been mistaken for a SoCal surfer when I first moved to Chicago. Dude.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West   Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you’re a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have?

The joy of midterm elections. In the past, I have put up a “moonglum’s endorsements” post, partly as a reminder for myself, but also with one line reasons behind my choices for my friends who live in my voting districts but don’t follow the minor races that much. Well this time I don’t believe anyone who reads this who would take my advice lives in my district (with the exception of the judges. If you are here only for judges scroll to the bottom). Not only that, but in many of these races it’s a “Vote Cthulhu: why chose the lesser of two evils?” situation. So in an effort to make an informed decision, rather than doing my usual I am putting up the candidates for the different positions, some brief thoughts, and links where possible. I’m also saying which way I am leaning, but in many cases the choice is unclear. So, if you have opinions, speak up and give me some reasons to make my choice clear.

Please note, people who are really into local politics will probably not find anything new here, this is more me thinking out loud, and explaining to others who read this why I say we live in a monarchy *cough*stroger*cough*.

State Positions

Governor

Blagojevich ?
Topinka ?
Whitney ?

The state government is bloated and corrupt. (As is the county and city government… it is just the way we do things here.) Blagojevich is the incumbent, and while he hasn’t really raised taxes for individuals, he is working hard to make life unbearable for businesses. Of course he has been raiding other portions of the state budget to make the numbers work out, and that doesn’t seem viable in the long term. Topinka is currently the treasurer. Unfortunately her inside view doesn’t seem to have given her any brilliant ideas about how to fix the system. At least she is a little more honest about where the money is coming from. Whitney says he wants to raise taxes.

On social issues I’m much more in line with Blagojevich, but for the most part, I’m also in favor of the status quo. I think Topinka would have so much on her plate that there wouldn’t be time for implementing parental consent or restarting the death penalty. Whitney is a bit of a nut, but horrifyingly is the most fiscally responsible in terms of what he is talking about, and he would also totally overhaul campaign finance rules. He’s a nutjob, but I agree with enough of his insanity that I’m actually considering voting for him, just because the other two are so negative that they both piss me off. Plus if he gets more than 5% then the greens won’t have to fight to get on next time, and more choice is good (see possible exception below at alderman race.) Lots more info. The trib has a set of common questions and answers to each of the candidates, including Whitney, and they endorse Topinka, while the sun times endorses Blago.

The rest of the Trib’s endorsements for state come in one article. I can’t find the endorsements for the rest of the state positions from the Sun Times yet.

Attorney General

Madigan x
Umholtz
Black

This one is actually the easiest. I think that Madigan’s office has done a great job sniffing out corruption and prosecuting it. I know a lot of people disagree with that assessment, and feel that she is yet another example of the monarchy at work, but I think she has been doing an incredible job. She has overcome any negativity that I had before about her family in politics status. The trib endorses her.

Secretary Of State

White x
Rutherford
Peterson

Another easy one, though please feel free to disagree with me. White has plenty of family on the payroll, but the last two times I have gone to the DMV have been sooo much faster than before. Also I like where he is going with driver safety programs. Rutherford, I hear, voted against letting Carfax get Illinois accident reports. Having just looked at used cars, I simply can’t side with that. I don’t know anything about the green candidate. I could be convinced away on this one, let me know if you think I’m wrong.

Comptroller

Hynes x
Pankau
Snyder

Here’s another easy one, unlike Topinka (as treasurer) Hynes has been screaming about Blagojevich’s funny schemes with the sources of funds. Heck, he’s one of the main reason I know enough to be annoyed with Blago. The trib endorses Hynes.

Treasurer

Giannoulias ?
Radogno ?
Schlorff ?

This one is really tough. All I know about these guys is from the negative ads. The Trib endorsement for Radogno is pretty strong, but I remember liking what Giannoulias had to say during the primaries. Any suggestions?

US Congress

Schakowski x
Shannon

Well, duh. I suppose this is why incumbents hardly ever lose in congress. She did one MAJOR bad (IMO) thing though, which was send out a bunch of letters backing stroger. The sad thing is, that’s almost all my representation at the bottom there. There must have been some heavy duty strong arm since all the big dems are coming out in favor of him now. If you have a compelling reason to vote for Shannon, get it in now. Oh yeah, she is endorsed by the Sun Times, and the Trib hasn’t done that race yet.

State Rep

Lou Lang

*sigh* another race with only one person on the ballot. These have always confused me.

County Races

Normally county races are boring. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention? Well this time they are fun. The Sun Times put all their county endorsements for the boring races on one page.

County Clerk

Orr x
Carlson

I really don’t know much about this office, so I am running with the Sun Times endorsement for now.

Sheriff

Dart x
Garza

The sheriff’s office needs work. We’ve had how many people escape from county jail during the current sheriff’s tenure? Well that’s what happens when you hire people with no experience. Both the Trib and the Sun Times feel that Dart is the candidate for the job, and I agree with them. The trib in particular has a good article on reasons for and against Dart.

County Treasurer

Pappas ?
Peck ?

I’m still reading up on this position. The Sun Times endorses Pappas, but I haven’t been able to find much else about her.

County Assessor

Houlihan x
Connor

If you aren’t voting for Houlihan, then you just haven’t visited his website. Not only is he trying to make the assessment process as fair and transparent as possible, he is also fighting for the tax rights of homeowners. That is someone who is doing his job with moxy.

Commissioner

Larry Suffredin x

Another race with only one candidate, but at least this is one I can vote for with confidence. He had a couple good letter during the primaries about the whole Claypool/Stroger thing. Of course he signed the letter mentioned in the US Congress section…

Metro Water

All three

Well, there are three running for three positions. Why do they even make us punch the tabs if the outcome is foregone? It just makes us look like the old elections in Iraq where they only had Saddam on the ballot. At least they had yes and no, not just yes.

Aldercreature

(Note: Election on Feb. 27th, along with Mayoral Election.)

Jim Ginderske ?
Don Gordon ?
Chris Adams ?
Joe Moore

OK, now we are getting into the exciting stuff, and this is where I need your help 49th ward readers. For those who don’t know, Joe Moore is the incumbent. He has done amazing things, from banning duck liver in the city to trying to keep big business out of the city to passing referenda on things that city government simply can not affect. Most recently he helped kill the Blue Bag program which I highly approve of, and it is even something local that he should be working on! Of course our ward isn’t one that gets the replacement pilot program. Given all that (plus other local annoyances) it seems like the time is right for a change. Unfortunately, there are three opponents on the ballot. Normally more choice would make be happy, but the fact of the matter is, that will split the opposition vote and no matter who I vote for, Joe Moore will be my alderman for another term. With that in mind, lets try to decide who I should vote for:

Right now I am leaning towards Ginderske, he seems to have the energy to follow through with his many plans for Rogers Park. All the candidates have full plans for what they will do if elected, but Ginderske’s seems the most balanced. In particular, Adams’ seem tilted towards business, whereas Gordon’s seem to give the tired old platitudes about economic development. One thing I will say, they all seem quite responsive to inquiries from the public. The problem comes back to none of them stand out head and shoulders above the rest, and thus we will end up with Moore for another term. Do you have a favorite? Let your voice be heard.

Update: I was reminded that Chicago elections are majority runoffs, not plurality elections. Thus my conclusion above about splitting the vote is erroneous.

President of the Board

The Heir Apparent ?
Tony Peraica ?

This is the race of pain. Vote for someone who doesn’t believe in the same social issues as you do, or vote for a continuation of the corrupt policies of the cook county board. The Sun Times goes for continuation although claims that Stroger Jr. won’t just be more of the same, though they try to claim that it is because a Republican couldn’t change anything in Cook County. The Trib (of course) goes for a clean slate. I will combine the two and say that I want a clean slate and won’t worry about the social issues because, on the one hand he is more likely to actually try to clean up the government, and on the other hand in terms of social issues he a) he said repeatedly that he won’t implement them president, and b) he is a republican in democrat land, they would never go through.

So how’s that for some self-justification? Mostly though, it is a vote out of anger. We had a chance to get a real reformer on the ballot. That person’s name was Claypool. I don’t know if he would have won had everything else been equal, but we never will know, because everything else wasn’t equal. If there is one thing I can’t stand it is blatant dishonesty like that. There has to be some sort of repercussions for that kind of behavior, and this is the only way I know how to let my voice be heard. And besides, Stroger just doesn’t seem up to the task he has in front of him.

I think this is the one that is going to piss the most people off, so fire away, but please note that reasoned arguments might get me to change my mind, flames won’t.

Update: Ugh, the more I read about Peraica, the less I like him. The sad truth is, you have to look a who you actually want in the office. Lets take a singe hot button example: woman’s right to choose. On the one hand you have someone beholden to existing powers who is unlikely to improve the existing atrocious medical access. He says he will work hard to fix those existing issues. On the other hand you have someone who seems more likely to fix funding issues, but is against abortion. He says he will not bering his personal opinions to bear in his office. Who to believe? I do remember that I didn’t like Madigan in the last election because of her closeness to the process, but she has proven herself repeatedly in the meantime. I’d have more faith in Stroger’s ability to do the same if he had a better showing at his debates.

Judges

OK, so here is the important section. Did you know that almost every judge ever up for retention has been retained? This is because people vote for judges regularly without knowing anything about them. So you not only need to vote for judges, but you need to know what you are doing. In the past I have gone to different bar associations and the chicago council of lawyers, but now there is a great resource that gathers all this information for you. They have a big PDF grid that assembles all the endorsements from all the bar associations, and the Chicago Council of Lawyers. I am also providing a list of judges to vote no on below with the groups that didn’t like them. I tend to listen to the CCL because they deal with all these judges on a day to day basis and know what they are talking about, and the LAGBAC, because, well, yeah. So figure out what makes you like a judge, and find some endorsements that you trust (they got a bar association for everyone!) and get those no votes going!

Appellate Court

Yes to all but:

CCL doesn’t like Patrick Quinn, though nobody else seem to mind him.

Circuit Court

Yes to all but:

Brim, Cynthia
Brooks, Rodney Hughes (CCL)
Chiola, Tom (CCL)
Donnoly, Christopher (CCL, LAGBAC)
Flanagan, Kathleen (CCL)
Hayes, Marsha (CCL)
Kowalski, Robert
Lipinski, Marcella (CCL, LAGBAC, Trib)
Lopez Cepero, Robert (CCL)
Murphy Gorman, Joyce (CCL)
Preston, Lee (CCL)
Riley, Daniel (LAGBAC)
Riley, Ronald (CCL)
Terrel, Lawrence (CCL)
Toney, Amanda

Judges without attributions from where the no vote came from were voted no by many bar associations. If you don’t feel moved to vote for any judges, please vote no for these.

This page will be updated over the course of the next several days.

For the past years, Chicago has used a Blue Bag recycling system. You put your recyclables in a blue garbage bag and throw it in with the rest of the trash. I tried doing this for a year when I was renting, until I discovered that only buildings with 4 units or less go to the sorting center. Worse, even if your bag made it to the sorting center, there were many problems with the system. Well, it looks like the city is finally giving up on that program.

Here is something pushed through city council by Joe Moore that I can actually get behind. Let’s see here… does it have to do with our neighborhood? Check. Does it eliminate a wasteful city program whose money could be spent elsewhere? Check. Is it being piloted in Moore’s ward? Um… er…. no. Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad. Plus this program, like the blue bags, only affects buildings with 4 units or less, so it wouldn’t directly affect me.

Speaking of which, I manage the garbage pickup for my building and I signed up with a “blue bag” program with them. Or so the guy who’s contract I signed said. Well I was talking to the guy who picks up the garbage and drives it to the processing building and asked him about it. Turns out that they don’t do anything like that, but they do actually have people going through their garbage before it goes to the landfill. Turns out dumping is expensive, and they can actually get good money for a lot of your garbage, paper, aluminum in particular. So not all my garbage is going to the landfills, but it would be nice to do better than that. Well the Chicago recycling coalition suggests separating your own garbage and taking it to a drop off point. The city will be starting more of these for people who aren’t in the pilot program yet, but some of these other places will actually pay for your recyclables. I don’t know if I have that much chutzpah, but I may try it with my most recent blue bag offering and see how easy it is.

عيد مبارك

I hope those who are breaking their fast and celebrating Eid Al-Fitr are able to celebrate with friends and family in peace and safety.

Within the past two years my spam level has gone from an average of 200 a month (6 or 7 a day) to this month, where I just hit 2000 spam. This is getting insane. The good thing is that the gmail spam catcher is getting most of them, and many that that doesn’t get, my mail client grabs. The bad thing is that I used to look through my spam folder on gmail on occasion to make sure that no false positives are getting through. Unfortunately with so many a day, I just don’t look any more and am afraid that I might miss important e-mail. Does anyone else get this much spam? I’ve always been reasonably careful about putting my e-mail out there, but I guess I’m just on enough lists now… There are so many, and I am so busy that I haven’t actually made an effort to see how they are getting to me. My hope is that one of my old school e-mails is forwarding most of it, and I can just shut that forwarding off.

So tell me… do you get 60-70 spam a day, and should I just quit my whining?

It is the beginning of October. I have the heat on, and snow is coming down hard outside. Welcome to Chicago!

So, as everybody now knows, North Korea tested a nuclear device. Or maybe they just blew up a bunch of TNT. Or maybe they tried to test a nuclear device and failed. In any case, none of that matters, because they claimed that they tested a nuclear device. Now remember Bush said that if they ever did that, there would be serious consequences. Well now the rubber meets the road. The North Koreans, not wanting to be outdone in the baseless threat department came out with this beauty:

“We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a North Korean official as saying. “That depends on how the U.S. will act.”

Um… sorry! Didn’t mean to launch that nuke! Well, given everything we know, there is no way that they could launch a nuke right now, but there is also no way that we could really make them suffer serious consequences for threatening it. Why not? Because it doesn’t matter whether they have nukes or not. Why use a nuke? To put the equivalent of thousands of tons of explosives on a city. North korea is so heavily armed at this point, that they can do that to Seoul within an hour of giving the order to attack with just conventional weapons. Without moving any artillery pieces, the North could sustain up to 500,000 rounds an hour against Combined Forces Command defenses for several hours.

And that is also the reason our threats are baseless as well. North Korea could effectively destroy south korea and end countless thousands of lives within hours. So the fact of a North Korean bomb is unimportant. It is only the political implications that matter. And by swaggering we have given those political implications traction. Now how are we going to be able to keep Iran in line?

In the past couple weeks I have had a number of people forward me links to maps of the middle east. This is wonderful! I guess I am spreading my name as a cartophile. (OK, anyone who knows me at all knows I am one.)

In any case, today, for your enjoyment, we have a history of war in the middle east. Brought to you by Mike, it is a fun animated map showing who has taken over the middle east and when. The one problem with it (if any) is that it doesn’t give you a good sense of how long each of those powers controlled their area. If they did the Egyptians would come out looking much tougher. Also gives you a good sense of just how much that little chunk of land was fought over.

On the more test what you know side of the fence, we have an unlabeled modern political map of the middle east. Brought to you by my lovely wife, it allows you to drag the names onto their respective countries! It helpfully tells you when you are wrong.

I accidentally saw some Hannity the other day. He, of course, blamed the Democrats for the whole Page issue. It was also interesting to see how the Republicans are really circling the wagons. It is full spin mode, just like in the Clinton days. Hannity was so good to point out that Monica was only 19…. except she was 22. I’d put a link up to show how the republicans are in the best defense is a good offense mode, but the story is changing so fast that the link does no good. Probably by the time that this gets posted they will have cut Foley loose and bent to the public pressure.

I need to watch Clinton put the smackdown on Fox News to get the taste of Hannity out of my mouth. I miss Clinton. The best part? “Yes I failed, I tried [to get Osama bin Laden] and I failed. But the Neo-cons were all telling me that I was spending too much time worrying about him. They had 8 months to get him and they fired Clarke.”

I’m pretty new to Rogers Park, and I pretty much like it. There are plenty of things I miss about my old neighborhood though. I lived in Andersonville for years, and came to love all the restaurants that surrounded me. Sure, I’m not a barhopper, so I missed out on the main attraction that the neighborhood used to hold, but as it became Yuppified (j’accuse moi) it became more and more attractive to me and my tribe. So when I finally amassed enough of a cushion to actually consider buying after years of artificially inflated housing prices, why did I decide to buy elsewhere? Well I just found an excellent article from July in the Reader that pretty well sums it up: My God, it’s expensive to live there. No really, it really is. In the three months that I have been gone, a number of places that I loved have up and out. I admit my love of stores and restaurants tends to run to the low rent end of the spectrum, but still, when you run Ann Sather’s out of Andersonville you have done something wrong.

So does this mean that I don’t get hit, well they also have a handy article describing how the tax system works. I have to say, I have no idea. Heh, and that article doesn’t even take into account the problem of TIFs. At least looking at the official map (pdf) (jpg) I think I just miss 76, 26, and 74, but we will see when the bill comes due.

(TIFs are supposed to be for ‘blighted’ neighborhoods right? That map makes it look like the entire city is blighted!)

Really, what more can you want out of a music video?

What with all the school shootings and Foley’s follies, world news seems to have slipped into the background. It appears that there have been a couple days of curfews in Iraq following some violence. Nobody really seems to know why, but the rumor mill is working overtime. People seem to think that one or another group is planning a coup d’etat, or other massive violence in the city, which led to the US advising the Iraqi government to shut Baghdad down. Sounds like there is little real news coming out, but I am a little shocked to not see anything at all on CNN or Fox or any US news source. The one article I could find indicates that it was because of a threat on the Green Zone.

Also, anyone remember Afghanistan? Didn’t think so, *sigh*. Pashtunistan probably still where Osama is, too bad we don’t have enough troops there to be effective.

Thor was angry last night and Chicago was his anvil. I had to drive about 6 miles down western (and back) last night and I was treated with the inside view of a good old fashioned midwestern thunderstorm. The sky was constantly lit up, and I got a nice view of a stroke of lightning rising into the sky every thirty seconds or so directly in front of me. It was one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things I have seen in a while.

It did make me reconsider the wisdom of building a metal back porch, which has a railing which is the highest point in the vicinity. Let’s just say I traversed those stairs rather quickly. The car with no name on the other hand performed admirably. It still handled well when slogging through a couple inches of standing water, stopped well when I needed to stop quickly, kept the windows defogged, and kept the front and back windows clear of water which was something of a feat when you have the better part of lake michigan coming down on your head.

I will have to check for hail damage this morning however.