February 8th, 2010 11:56am
Chuck Sweeny
Maybe it’s just as well that Chicago did not get the Olympics. This story in The New York Times points out that a year and a half after Beijing’s hosting of the summer Olympic games of 2008, most venues are largely unoccupied. Same goes for the Athens Olympics structures from 2004.
This is a huge undertaking for any host city — Montreal just recently paid off the bonds for its 1976 games, and Olympic Stadium lost its ball team when the Expos left the tundra and went to D.C. (tundra south in the wake of the 30 inch snowstorm) to become The Washington Nationals.
I’ve always thought it a waste of money to build on such a vast scale for only two weeks of events. Instead, the worldwide sports community would do better to pick sites for both the winter and summer games and hold the events there every four years.
What would you suggest as the permanent site for the Summer Games? And the Winter Games?
February 3rd, 2010 11:32am
Chuck Sweeny
It’s not quite a tie, but it’s getting close to one,, says state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, who campaigned for Kirk Dillard, the state senator from Hinsdale, in the GOP primary for governor.
As of mid morning, Syverson tells me he’s talked to Dillard, who informed him there were about 100 precincts left to count, and most of those are in Cook and the collar counties.
That’s good news for Dillard, who is trailing Brady , state senator from Bloomington, by slightly more than 500 votes with 99 percent of the vote counted.
It’s likely that Dillard will pick up those 500 votes, possibly more, but the remaining downstate precincts should boost Brady a bit.
The only thing we know for sure is that there will be either a sample recount or a full recount.
February 3rd, 2010 12:45am
Chuck Sweeny
With a big Cadbury factory making chewing gum in Loves Park, I thought it might be interesting to show you a British paper’s commentary about how highly esteemed the company is in the UK, and particularly in Birmingham it’s home city. (Actually the headquarters is in Bournville, a Birmingham suburb.)
I’m not sure what the pirate capitalists from new owner Kraft will do to Cadbury, but we can probably expect job losses. Hopefully Loves Park’s gum factory survives.
This is from The Guardian
February 3rd, 2010 12:30am
Chuck Sweeny
Now it’s Kirk Dillard’s turn. He’s taken the stage at a suburban hotel.
“In just a few more hours, we feel confidence the race will be called for us,” the DuPage Republican state senator said.
“We are within less than 1,000 votes of victory,” he said.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, Dillard trailed fellow state senator Bill Brady of Bloomington by two tenths of a percentage point.
“When all the votes are counted, I feel confident we will win now, and we’ll win in November. There’s a couple hundred precincts out, you will know I will be your nominee for governor,” Dillard of Hinsdale said.
February 3rd, 2010 12:21am
Chuck Sweeny
It’s 12:15 a.m, and Gov. Pat Quinn is going to address his supporters.
“We’re a family in Illinois, and everybody’s in and nobody’s out.
“We have won this election,” he declared, even though only 5,000 votes separates the governor from his opponent Dan Hynes, the comptroller. Hynes has not conceded; indeed he vowed to fight on and to make sure all votes are counted.
“It was a close election, but one more than the other guy is a landslide in my book,” the governor said.
“We love you governor,” a supporter shouted out. “I love you too,” he shot back.
“The primary is over, we had a vigorous debate. I intend to work with our president, Barack Obama, to make sure we move Illinois forward, our whole country forward. I said the only way I could win this primary was to count on the everyday people of Illinois. I counted on you, and it’s very important, when families have differences in primaries, when those differences are settled by voters, and emerging candidate emerges from the primary, we united behind that candidate for the cause of Illinois,” Quinn said.
February 3rd, 2010 12:05am
Chuck Sweeny
It’s midnight, and Dan Hynes is speaking to his supporters in Chicago, and saying he wants “all the votes counted. There are thousands of votes that haven’t been counted. And whatever the outcome, it’s important to get this right,” the state comptroller said.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, Hynes trailed Gov. Pat Quinn in the Democratic primary for governor by fewer than 5,000 votes. Hynes is not conceding.
In the GOP primary, the margin between Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard is only about 700 votes.
One thing we know, there will be recounts in both races. And there may be court challenges after recounts. We might not know the winner of either primary for a long time.
February 2nd, 2010 02:37pm
Chuck Sweeny
According to this story in the Washington Post, Democrats in Congress, scared implications of Republican Scott Brown’s surprise victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, are reassessing the president’s plan to transfer terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Thomson prison in northwest Illinois. Could it be that they’ll just leave them in Cuba?
After all that sturm und drang in November and December over Thomson prison’s fate, the relevant song here just might be the Gershwin classic, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”
February 2nd, 2010 11:03am
Chuck Sweeny
You want to read about an abuse of eminent domain authority? Read THIS:
February 2nd, 2010 10:38am
Chuck Sweeny
This news release just came in from George Gaulrapp, the Freeport mayor and Democratic congressional candidate challenging U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, in the November election. Manzullo has been in Congress since winning the 1992 election over then-incumbent Democrat John Cox of Galena.
Here’s the release:
On February 3 at 1:30 p.m. George Gaulrapp, Democratic Candidate for Congress in the 16th District, will hold a press conference at IBEW 364 Union Hall, 6820 Mill Road, in Rockford. During this press conference Gaulrapp will announce his plans to invite incumbent Don Manzullo to participate in nine town-hall style debates, one in each county in the 16th District.
“As we’ve all watched the campaigning in Illinois leading up to yesterday’s primaries, we have seen that there’s been little real debate on issues. Instead there’s been a barrage of personal attacks on political opponents. Now that the primaries have passed and we’re into general election season, I feel that we owe it to the voters in the 16th District to give them as much information as possible about what each Congressional candidate plans to do to improve the lives of people of northern Illinois, and how we plan to bring jobs and economic vitality back to the region,” said Gaulrapp. “And I believe that town-hall style debates, where citizens have the ability to directly interact with the candidates, give the best opportunity for voters to get the information that’s most important to them.”
www.Gaulrapp4Congress.com
George4Congress@aol.com
February 2nd, 2010 12:19am
Chuck Sweeny
There’s been lots of excitement in the U.S. about the Obama administration’s allocation of $8 billion to so-called high speed rail projects in the country. Actually, it’s not high speed in terms the rest of the modern world would understand. Our “high speed rail” means trains that go 110 mph. That’s low speed in Europe, Japan and China.
To give you an idea of how meaningless that $8 billion figure is in world terms, China is investing $300 billion in a high speed network of 220 mph. trains.
Read about it here.
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