Peoria Pundit

I’ve called him “Governor Blabliarsnitch.” I’ve called him “Governor
Chicagovich.” I’ve even called him “Chicago” Rod. But Spoons hit the
nail on the head, so to speak: “Governor Haircut.”

Gov. Blagojevich earned Spoon’s ire
with his
threats to veto several pieces of legislation, including one that would
protect homeowners who use a gun in self defense and another that would
let police officers with 10 years experience carry a concealed weapon.
He is also going to veto a bill that would let 18-year-olds get a
Firearm Owners Identification Card, without a parent’s permission.
Imagine a 20-year-old Iraq War veteran needing to get mommy’s permission
to go hunting.

Why not not veto the laws? After all, they would make it easier for
people to get guns legally. When you want to keep guns out of the hands
of criminals, you make it a criminal act to have a gun. Because
criminals always obey laws.

Say what you want about disgraced Gov. George Ryan. He may have sold
drivers’ licenses, but he never tried to grab guns.

Last post of the day: At my job, we are encouraged to be “aggressively
friendly” with our customers.

Heh.

“Is there anything ELSE I can help you with, you $#*&@! moron?”

I’m not as ticked off are are Jeff Trigg and the Libertarian Party
about the
imminent change to state election law that would move the filing
deadline back to allow George Bush to get on the ballot in Illinois.

It would be one thing if the State Election Commission let Bush on the
ballot despite the deadline mandated by state law. But they will change
the deadline until after Bush if officially nominated at the National
GOP Convention.

/Of course/ Bush should be on the ballot.

Would they have changed the mandated deadline for the Libertarians?
Nope. I’m not naive.

The point to the press conference and press release is to make hay about
how unfairly the LP is being treated by having to secure more signatures
on nominating petitions than are the Big Parties. That should be illegal
and needs to be rectifies in the courts or through legislation.

People who want to vote for George Bush should have the ability to do
so. People who want to vote for LP candidates should have that right, too.

I’m just not sure complaining about Bush being on the ballot is the most
strategic way to accomplish that goal.

? Associated Press
(via Journal Star):

/The grandson of a top aide to Gov. Rod Blagojevich was awarded a
$7,000 contract to recruit college students for state jobs despite a
freeze on state hiring.

John A. Gianulis won the one-semester contract without going through
a competitive bidding process. Under the contract, the 24-year-old
Illinois State University student will talk to peers about working
for the state Transportation Department.

His grandfather is John Gianulis, head of the Illinois Democratic
County Chairmen’s Association and Blagojevich’s $80,000-per-year
deputy director

of intergovernmental relations and personnel. That post gives him
sway over state hiring./

Some things never change in Illinois. Yet we keep electing Democrats and
Republicans.

? Journal Star: ND students vow support for fired dean

/PEORIA – Students at Notre Dame High School vowed Tuesday to keep
supporting fired coach and dean Cindy Clark, while Clark and her
family tried to quell rumors about the sudden termination.

“We have to clear her name. We’ll not let this die,” said Rochelle
Clark, Cindy Clark’s mother. “My daughter has done nothing wrong.”

Clark, 44, a popular dean, math teacher and coach of girls
basketball and volleyball, was fired by administrators of the
Catholic school on Friday, prompting a large rally of students,
parents and supporters on Monday.

On Tuesday, Clark said she still feels sad and confused about being
fired from her job of 21 years. “I don’t know why this has happened.”

After attending a 7 a.m. student-organized rally near the school,
Clark was not feeling well and went to bed, Rochelle Clark said. She
suffers from multiple sclerosis but is not disabled from it.

She was accused of insubordination, but given no reasons or details,
Rochelle Clark said. She had no written warning – only a verbal
statement asking her to stop parents from writing letters to the
diocese about a decision to ban deans from coaching.

Officials from the school and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria have
refused to comment on Clark or return phone calls. /

I want to make it clear that I have no inside information on this case.
I don’t know any of the people involved in this dispute, on either side.

All I have to say is this: Peoria send their children to private schools
for two reasons. One reason is to get away from the nonsense that
infects any public school system that has to please s fickle electorate
and government bureaucrats. They often encounter the different sort
nonsense that comes from being controlled by people who don’t have to
please anybody but their personal beliefs, except for potential donors.
The other reason is to get a religious education. The people who run
churches tend to see things in black and white and aren’t often swayed
by marches and letters of protest.

Perhaps I am harsh. I’ve seen cases of popular public school coaches
losing their jobs without any public explanation. It’s a fact of life.
If a school board member or two decides you didn’t give their kid — or
the kid of a friend — sufficient playing time, you must be a lousy
coach. Also, school board members who will admit they aren’t experts
about how to teach children do think they are experts about coaching and
aren’t afraid to second guess after the game if over.

In the end, the Peoria Diocese can do anything it wants at Notre Dame.
Its not a democracy. If parents are unhappy they can vote with their
feet. It’s not like there aren’t other alternatives to District 150
schools. Heck, if District 150 had any brains at all, they would hire
this woman immediately.

Also: Anyone who has the support of former Illinois Central College
Coach Lorene Ramsey can’t be all bad. Ramsey is 100 percent class and an
endorsement from her speaks with more authority than the shabby
treatment she’s getting at the hands of the diocese.

Jaboobie
SondraK
Matt Margolis
Moderate Voice
Say Uncle

And don’t bother looking for them in the old moribund blogroll on the
far left. They are in my Bloglines blogroll, to the immediate left,
right below Captain America.

And if anyone formerly reciprocal blog is wondering why you are not
listed in the new blogroll, it’s because your site doesn’t have an RSS
or Atom feed.

In Blogger it’s easy to do. You just access your account. Click on the
“settings” tab, then select “site feed.” You select “yes” where it asked
if you want to activate your Atom feed. Then you save your settings. For
those *not* using Blog Spot, you have to enter a valid, existing folder
and URL for the Atom feed, or Blogger won’t know how to FTP the page to
your host.

For those who use some other Blog tool that doesn’t have a way to create
an RSS feed (God knows why), go to Feedster ,
activate an account and select the “tools” tab. You can follow the
directions for creating an RSS feed. It involves adding some code to
your blog template.

Oh, and once you are done creating an RSS feed, put a link to the URL on
your template and lable it “Syndicate this site” or soemthing like that.
You can even post an “RSS” button and link it to the URL.

I am very glad I started this task. There were tons of problems with the
old blogroll. I had sites listed as reciprocal that were not. I had
sites listed as daily reads that hadn’t been updated in months. My only
concern is that there are reciprocal sites that I can’t list because
they don’t have RSS feeds. I am slowly contacting these guys and giving
them some simple instructions.

And I find myself really enjoying using Bloglines. It makes it so much
easier than Blogrolling for seeing which posts I actually want to read.
I actually find myself visiting more sites because I have more time.

Which is another reason to start publishing an RSS feed. It not only
makes it easter for others to find your site, it makes it easier for
others to READ your site.

*UPDATE:* Say Uncle, with a link back to this post, has reciprocated.

Thanks, Unc.

Sorry for the lack of posts about matters *other* than this site and
it’s problems. I’ll try to post about something important tomorrow. I’m
just too busy today.

New visitors: Feel free to search this site. I suggest searching for the
words “drew” and “barrymore.”

I do write about interesting stuff. I swear.

As Ricky noticed, it’s taking a very long
time for my blog to download. It’s not my server, cause other stuff is
downloading just fine. I thought it was the Ads by Google feature, but
getting rid of that hasn’t helped. It started before I added the
Bloglines blogroll, so that isn’t it.

Any suggestions?

? /Journal Star/ (via Associated Press): Hastert is state’s weapon
against military closures

/With the Pentagon’s next round of military base closings a year
away, Illinois’ congressional delegation is preparing to use its
most powerful weapon: House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

By law, the speaker has a say in the appointments of two members of
the nine-member independent presidential commission that reviews and
can change the Defense Department’s recommendations to close or
realign bases. In the past three rounds of base closings, the
commission’s recommendations were the final word.
—
Illinois officials fear their bases could be targeted.

Over the past 16 years, the state has lost Fort Sheridan, Chanute
Air Force Base, Glenview Naval Air Station and the Savanna Army Depot.

This year, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic
Opportunity, the congressional delegation and local officials worry
they may have to fight to keep Air National Guard bases in Peoria
and Springfield, Scott Air Force Base and the Rock Island Arsenal.
The only major asset not drawing concern is the Great Lakes Naval
Training Center, the Navy’s only recruit training center.

Hastert spokesman Brad Hahn said the speaker, a Republican from
Yorkville, supports moving ahead with a 2005 round of base closings
but opposes closing installations in his home state.

“Each of them is of great value, not only for the military, but for
the communities,” Hahn said./

I absolutely love how this /Journal Star/ headline reveals how people
really think about the government. The only way to evaluate the
effectiveness of a Congress person is how they protect their state from
cuts, but every /other/ member of Congress is concerned only about pork.

My, aren’t we just soooo lucky to have Denny Hastert to keep the
government from closing military bases that the military thinks we might
not even need.

Here’s a news flash people: The final decision is going to be made by
the president, and Illinois is almost certain to go for Kerry this time
around. Hell, Bush isn’t even on the ballot.

I see by the “recently referred” list at the bottom, right-hand of my
site, Peoria Pundit receive one referral from a little blog
that you may have heard about. In a
bandwidth panic, I checked and couldn’t find o.n.o single link.

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.

*sigh*

If anyone can explain how I can get a hit from Glenn Reynolds, yet
cannot find one, single link on his site, please let me know.