-- and he'd be too tall to go unnoticed if he tried to sneak off and go to the beach.Fetterman: I just want to go home. I've missed our entire trip to the beach… I’m going to vote no. There’s no drama… I don't think it's really helpful to put people here till some ungodly hour.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2025
pic.twitter.com/ZJTAYBI74u
-- David "The Man Who Swore There Would Never Be Deficits Again" Brooks,
Dathan, "The Ten Commandments"You cannot really understand what goes on at the top of a municipal gummint like Chicago if you don't get that it doesn't matter if it's 1971, 1991 or 2011. Doesn't matter if Da Mare's name is Daley or Emmanuel. It is life under the rule of a Pharaoh, which is why local artist Tony Fitzpatrick's poem "The Dead Still Walk" (from "Bum Town") ends:
...Because some things are eternal.
Who built the pyramids?
Mayor Daley built the pyramids.
(Everybody knows dat.)
City official suggests the homeless take cabsSome stuff you should know.
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com October 31, 2011 3:00PM
The head of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services had a Marie Antoinette moment on Monday — when she suggested that homeless Chicagoans who need overnight transport this winter “take a cab” to emergency shelters.
After testifying at City Council budget hearings, Commissioner Evelyn Diaz was discussing the $2.4 million, mid-year cut in state funding that forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lay off 24 city employees who worked the overnight shift picking up homeless residents and transporting them to shelters.
Diaz was asked what would happen this winter without the overnight shift. How were homeless Chicagoans — many of them suffering from alcohol, substance abuse and mental health problems — supposed to get to emergency shelters overnight? Were they supposed to just hang tough until 8 a.m?
“If they can’t find another alternative,” she said.
Asked to identify an alternative, Diaz said, “Public transportation, cabs.”
When a reporter reminded the commissioner that homeless people can’t afford cab fare, an apparently embarrassed Diaz ignored the question.
Hours later, department spokeswoman Anne Sheahan attempted to explain away the commissioner’s statement. Sheahan said Diaz was referring to an expanded contract with the American Red Cross that, in the absence of overnight homeless services, provides families who lose their homes in a fire with a cab voucher to transport them to shelters.
When reporters were questioning Diaz, there was never any mention of fire victims.
The cab remark sounded a bit like Marie Antoinette’s notorious, “Let ‘em eat cake.”
But, Julie Dworkin, director of policy for the Chicago Coalition of the Homeless, said, “I’m not offended by it. I don’t know that she believes it’s realistic for homeless people to take a cab. She was probably just trying to show how difficult the situation is — that we’re left with choices that really don’t make sense.”
...
The Chicago Sun-Times reported this summer that Daley was pushing Mary Ellen Caron, founder and former principal of his daughter's Catholic elementary school, for chief education officer, but Huberman resisted, saying the job needed to go to a minority. The post was never filled. Caron remains the $147,060-a-year commissioner of the city's new mega-Department of Family and Support Services.And such a behemoth can lurch along for a good long time on inertia and Mayoral pixie dust.
Huberman has been under fire from newly elected Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis for making cost-cutting decisions that impact the classroom from a business perspective, without any input from educators.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman to step down-- leaving it to others
SUN-TIMES EXCLUSIVE | Huberman to leave in middle of school year
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman has told Mayor Daley he has no intention of serving another mayor and intends to leave his $230,000-a-year job long before the mayor leaves office in mid-May.
Huberman's departure could mean Daley would have to turn over the nation's third-largest school system in the middle of the school year to a caretaker schools chief who would be replaced by yet another schools chief after a new mayor is seated.
All this threatens to occur over a critical set of months when CPS traditionally devises its budget, prepares for state tests and decides which schools to close. It must tackle these tasks with an administrative staff decimated by budget cuts, teachers left disgruntled by cost-saving layoffs, and the specter of even worse budget woes next school year.
Mayor-elect Emanuel Announces Department of Family and Support Services Leadership Teamto try to make the shuddering, clanking mess that municipal gummint has become operate without the only lubricant that is capable of keeping all of its groaning inefficiencies and wildly mismatched parts from seizing up and bursting into flames.
Previously posted on April 28, 2011
Today, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel announced the next leaders of the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS). Evelyn Diaz will serve as Commissioner of DFSS and John Pfeiffer will support her as First Deputy Commissioner.
"Evelyn and John understand that at the end of the day, this is not about programs, but about people. It's not about the number of dollars we spend, but about the number of lives we affect," said Mayor-elect Emanuel.
...
NASA Robot arrives at ‘New’ Landing Site holding Clues to Ancient Water Flow on MarsThis is what Hope actually looks like: a small helpmate to mankind made by our species with love and exquisite precision, slowing ambling across the surface of an ancient world, enduring so far beyond anyone's wildest dreams as to border on miraculous, and sending back dispatches from the Final Frontier in silent streams of 1s and 0s.
by Ken Kremer on September 3, 2011
Opportunity has begun a whole new mission at Endeavour Crater promising a boatload of new science discoveries.
Scientists directing NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover gushed with excitement as they announced that the aging robot has discovered a rock with a composition unlike anything previously explored on the Red Planet’s surface – since she landed on the exotic Martian plains 7.5 years ago – and which offers indications that liquid water might have percolated or flowed at this spot billions of years ago.
Barely three weeks ago Opportunity arrived at the rim of the gigantic 14 mile ( 22 km) wide crater named Endeavour after an epic multi-year trek, and for the team its literally been like a 2nd landing on Mars – and the equivalent of the birth of a whole new mission of exploration at an entirely ‘new’ landing site.
“This is like having a brand new landing site for our veteran rover,” said Dave Lavery, program executive for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It is a remarkable bonus that comes from being able to rove on Mars with well-built hardware that lasts.”
...
The red states in the map [above] are states which received more than $1.00 in federal money for every $1.00 in taxes paid by residents of that state. Blue states are states which received less than $1.00 in federal money for every $1.00 paid by residents of that state in taxes (information from a 2005 study by the Tax Foundation).
...
There is a very strong correlation, then, between a state voting for Republicans and receiving more in federal spending than its residents pay to the federal government in taxes (the rust belt and Texas being notable exceptions). In essence, those in blue states are subsidizing those in red states. Both red and blue states appear to be acting politically in opposition to their economic interests. Blue states are voting for candidates who are likely to continue the policies of red state subsidization while red states are voting for candidates who profess a desire to reduce federal spending (and presumably red state subsidization).
Meanwhile, among the smart set, Hamlet-like indecision has become the intellectual fashion. The liberal columnist E. J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post that he is uncomfortable with the pro and antiwar camps. He praised the doubters and raised his colors on behalf of "heroic ambivalence." The New York Times, venturing deep into the territory of self-parody, ran a full-page editorial calling for "still more discussion" on whether or not to go to war.
...
In certain circles, it is not only important what opinion you hold, but how you hold it. It is important to be seen dancing with complexity, sliding among shades of gray. Any poor rube can come to a simple conclusion--that President Saddam Hussein is a menace who must be disarmed--but the refined ratiocinators want to be seen luxuriating amid the difficulties, donning the jewels of nuance, even to the point of self-paralysis.
For example, on September 19, a group of peaceniks took out a full-page ad in the New York Times opposing the campaign in Afghanistan and a possible campaign in Iraq. Signatories included all the usual suspects: Jane Fonda, Edward Said, Barbara Ehrenreich, Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, and on and on. In the text of the ad, which runs to 15 paragraphs, Saddam Hussein is not mentioned. Weapons of mass destruction are not mentioned. The risks posed by terrorists and terror organizations are not mentioned. Instead there are vague sentiments, ethereally removed from the tensions before us today: "Nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. . . . In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. . . . We refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in our name." The entire exercise is a picture perfect example of moral exhibitionism, by a group of people decadently refusing even to acknowledge the difficulties and tradeoffs that confront those who actually have to make decisions about policy.
...there is the dream palace of the American Bush haters. In this dream palace, there is so much contempt for Bush that none is left over for Saddam or for tyranny. Whatever the question, the answer is that Bush and his cronies are evil. What to do about Iraq? Bush is evil. What to do about the economy? Bush is venal. What to do about North Korea? Bush is a hypocrite.And, of course, we also all remember that, when the winds of fortune turn against him, how easily David Brooks has been known to pivot 180 degrees and lie about ever having said all the shitty things he said.
...After a long, unhappy drought, in Paul Ryan's Operation Atlas Shrugged they have finally, finally found the next, Big, Horrible Idea behind which they can now snipe and whine. A Big, Horrible Idea which, like George Bush's Operation Endless Clusterfuck, comes factory-equipped with the following Seriously Awesome features:
But then again, if Mr. Sullivan simply outed himself as a Liberal, he would instantly lose his place in the food-chain, wouldn’t he? Because like that microscopic number of self-loathing black Conservatives who make their daily bread by serving the interests of the Southern Bigot Party, more than any other single factor, it was always the sheer gawking, oddballness of the brazen self-delusion inherent in being the gay champion of the Christopath Homophobe Party that put Mr. Sullivan in the spotlight.
That was what gave him his unique and lucrative cache.
After all, Liberal gay political writers are a dime a dozen, and so in a strange way we find Andrew Sullivan locked in the same kind of mortal combat over labels -- and for exactly the same reasons -- as Roy Cohn's character in "Angels In America" as he adamantly insisted -- even as he was dying of AIDS -- that he was not a "ho-mo-sex-shall".
...
...even though Mr. Sullivan now, belatedly comes to believe much of what Liberals believe and finally deigns to notice a horde of grotesque truths about his Conservative Movement about which Liberals have been sounding the alarm for 30 years, Andrew Sullivan nonetheless looks us all straight in that eye and argues that he could not possibly be some mere Liberal.
Because in Mr. Sullivan's world, "Liberal" does not refer to a political ideology, but to an impoverishing political ghetto from which no amount of "being right about everything" will permit you to achieve escape velocity. In Mr. Sullivan's world, "Liberal" is a terrible disease that afflicts losers who do not get invited to spout their views on teevee.
...
I mentioned that I barely know Paul Wolfowitz, which is true. But I do admire him enormously, not only because he is both a genuine scholar and an effective policy practitioner, not only because he has been right on most of the major issues during his career, but because he is now the focus of world anti-Semitism. He carries the burden of their hatred, which emanates not only from the Arab world and France, but from some people in our own country, which I had so long underestimated.and back into another war we plunge.
...Because such are the perks of being America's Greatest Conservative Public Dilettantes.
All of this would be a fascinating study for historians if the people responsible were figures of the past. But they're not. They're the opposite. The same people shaping our debates now are the same ones who did all of that, and they haven't changed at all.
They're doing the same things now that they did then.
When you go read what they said back then, that's what makes it so remarkable and noteworthy. David Brooks got promoted within our establishment commentariat to The New York Times after (one might say: because of) the ignorant bile and amoral idiocy he continuously spewed while at The Weekly Standard. According to National Journal's recently convened "panel of Congressional and Political Insiders," Brooks is now the commentator who "who most help[s] to shape their own opinion or worldview" -- second only to Tom "Suck On This" Friedman. Charles Krauthammer came in third.
Ponder that for a minute.
Old technology foils Schwarzenegger's wage order
...
For the second time in two years, Schwarzenegger has ordered most state workers' pay cut to the federal minimum wage because lawmakers missed their deadline to fix the state's $19 billion budget deficit. The Legislature's failure to act has left the state without a spending plan as the new fiscal year begins.
Chiang cited Friday's ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which said "unfeasibility" would excuse him from complying with Schwarzenegger's minimum wage order. He said a fix to the state's computerized payroll system won't be ready until October 2012.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 state workers remain in limbo about the size of their July paychecks while Chiang asks the court for guidance on how to proceed. If wages are indeed cut to $7.25 an hour, employees will be reimbursed once a budget is signed.
John Harrigan, who served as a division chief for the state's payroll services from 1980 to 2006, said upgrading the system would be complicated, time-consuming and expensive. He said it could be done, but not without violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and substantially altering the payroll process.
"It's not something that you can take lightly and do overnight," said Harrigan, who also served as chief deputy controller from 2000 to 2002. "You have all the collective bargaining for civil servants and (state universities) that have to be taken into consideration. ... It's very complicated. It would take considerable effort."
The state's payroll system was designed more than 60 years ago and was last revamped in 1970, Hallye Jordan, state controller's office spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
A report by the nonpartisan legislative analyst's office said an overhaul of the state's computerized payroll system was proposed by the controller's office in 2004. A year later, the Legislature approved $130 million for the effort, called the 21st Century Project.
Work to complete the project has been postponed by the controller's office repeatedly over the past several years, said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the governor's Department of Personnel Administration.
"They had various setbacks that only they can explain," she said.
Harrigan said he was involved with the 21st Century Project when it was conceived in the late 1990s. He said the state fired the vendor executing the project in 2008 because the company went bankrupt.
As the project dragged on, the state has had fewer experts on hand who could thoroughly understand the programming languages used to design the system.
"There's been a knowledge loss with people retiring," Harrigan said.
...
Schwarzenegger orders mass layoffs, unpaid furloughs
Union leaders for state employees vow to challenge the legality of the mandatory time off, which amounts to about a 9% pay cut according to the governor's finance department.
By Patrick McGreevy and Jordan Rau
December 20, 2008
Reporting from Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered mass layoffs and unpaid furloughs for state workers starting in February to address California's growing fiscal crisis.
Under his executive order, 238,000 employees will be forced to take off two unpaid days per month through June 30, 2010. Managers will receive either the furlough or an equivalent salary reduction during the same period.
H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's finance department, said the mandatory time off is the equivalent of about a 9% pay cut for affected workers. He said the furloughs would save the state more than $1.2 billion.
...
Schwarzenegger attempted a few months ago to unilaterally reduce the pay of state employees, but his order never took effect. State Controller John Chiang said the state's payroll system was incapable of carrying it out.
...
Schwarzenegger pay plans thwarted by COBOLOf course, no one with any grasp of the history of technology -- its dark secrets and strange mutations -- has any trouble believing that tech-muggles like Governor Schwarzenegger and 90% of the rest of the United States would think that fixing technical problems is as simple as yelling at them. After all, in the world most people see around them, Man has not only gone to the Moon, but has stopped because it was boring and expensive.
By Iain Thomson
7 August 2008 07:39AM
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans to reduce all state employees pay to the minimum wage are being blocked because the payroll system is run on COBOL.
Schwarzenegger signed an executive order last week to cut the salary of the state’s 200,000 employees to the minimum wage until the state budget, currently 36 days behind schedule, is passed.
But State Controller John Chiang told the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization that this was impossible as the payroll system was written 30 years ago in COBOL and there weren’t enough programmers to do the job.
Chiang estimated that with current resources it would take six months to make the change, and then nine to ten months to reverse them.
"Pragmatically, we just can't get the system to work in a timely manner for us to implement payment of minimum wage," Chiang said, according to the Sacramento Bee.
...
