With the start of Early Voting, here are some guides on voting for judges.  It's a bit of a pain to print these out and remember to bring these to the voting booth, but better than voting for people are unqualified.

http://www.voteforjudges.org/

http://www.chicagobar.org/AM/NavigationMenu/Home/Files/2008JECNOVpocketguide.pdf

http://www.illinoisvotersguide.org/2008/links.php

I saw this on Romanesko.  It's the possible redesign for the Chicago Tribune and it looks snappy.  I'm pretty sure it'll be a little thinner too.  I'm also pretty sure they can't redesign themselves out of the trouble.  Never a bulky paper to begin with I have never thought that the Trib represents Chicago particularly well.  The monopoly is over but there's not much else to replace it. 

Unbelievable.  He was good.  Sad day for his family and news junkies.

I can't believe that the Bulls hired Vinnie Del Negro as head coach.  He's got no coaching experience and is has started within the last couple of years getting involved with the Suns.  This sounds like a terrible mistake.  With the number one pick, they had a chance to put something attractive for a top coach, but this is just dumb. 

Ald. Dick Mell, Governor Blago's Father-in-law, screwed up.  What's a man to do?  Suck it up  and pay the fine?  Why waste all that "hard earned" dough, when you can change the law?  I love this line, "When we looked at the law, we saw the possibility of winning [the appeal] wasn't gonna happen," he said.  No wonder why people think the Aldermen are a joke.  Let's pass laws on Foie Gras, Stop invading Iran, and so I personally don't have to pay a fine.  No wonder the mayor walks over them like astroturf they are.  Let's have a little TIF money oversight.  Or maybe let's try to get a plan together for music venues.   How about some ethics rules concerning secondary employment?  What about trying to get some business development outside of downtown?  There are too many of them and they are too ineffective.  You wonder why apathy reigns?

This article might be the most Onion-like I have read in a long time.  This article highlights the divisions in this country, especially when it comes to class.  All I know is that Obama better be up by 15 points to counter any Bradley Effect.  The Dems losing this election might break the party in half.  I know that limousine liberals mean well, but people are proud and don't like to be talked down to.  I think many in the Obamarama land miss this point.  Sure you're pretty and young and seem to love that dude, but I am worried about college for my kid and the 'fridge broke down so I have to worry about that.  This inability to "get" folks will hurt him badly in the Fall.  Hopefully I'm wrong and the kids will show up.  Obamarama will change the game forever.  Hopefully, but I'm not so confident.

Does anyone use Flickr or Flickr Pro?  I just got back from China and have a ton of pictures that I want to post.  I have a free account already, but want to know if it's a better deal, easier to organize, with the Pro account.  Thanks in advance!

I know picking on lawyers is too easy, but they keep doing stuff like this.  What are you supposed to do?  What are the consequences for being a sub human piece of garbage like John Yoo?  We reward them with nice perches in Academia (In Berkeley of course!).  I'm am proud to be American, but sometimes I feel like we are losing what makes us great.

I'm more an agnostic Democrat and not committed to either candidate; I just like to see the GOP lose.  Anyways, besides the obvious, is anyone worried that the Democrats have a serious race issue.   Obama is winning a huge percentage of black voters and well educated people.  Hillary is winning big majorities of whites, catholics and non college especially.  It seems like there is a division where neither candidate is able to break through to the others base.  This hurts Obama more because his message has been that he can break barriers and represents a New Politics.  It's not crossing over. 

I'm really worried about a Bradley Effect occurring the general.  It's difficult to measure the effect of race; imagine stranger with a clipboard or on the phone asking you "how do you feel about race?"  All the pundits say that this isn't going to happen, but I think it is.  My bet is that if Obama wins the Dem nomination on Election Day he will come in ten points below the polls.  Any generic Dem should run up 15 point win anyways, but it will be closer than anyone thinks. 

It is probably good that this is happening now and that the Party and the American people have some time to digest this.  It not a simple or easy issue and America has been "dealing" with it since the first colonists.

This is why I love the Washington Post.  Who in their right mind would eat these?  Well I would, but then again I'm hungry all the time.  Pretty cool idea if you ask me though.  I'm not sure I'm willing to shell out out $18 bucks for these, I do have a hankerin' for pickles and pickle juice.  

Say What?

I didn't see this till today.  Really geeky , but a little sad that someone from our youth dies. Must be getting old. 

Has anyone heard about this?  It shocking how bad the fact checking is getting.  To get a review and a feature write up in the NY Times before being revealed to be a hoax is terrible (see sidebars).  I'm especially shocked about the feature piece that got through.  the editor and the writer are in deep dog doo.  I love this line from the editor:

Mr. de Kay said that ultimately, “I was to some degree trusting that the vetting process of a reputable book publisher was going to catch this level of duplicity.” But, he added: “Do I wish in retrospect that we had called L.A. child services and tried to run down the history of this person? I certainly do.”

I also wished that I picked the winning numbers from last weeks Lottery.

PS - I found this blog off of Romenesko.  Apparently the editor of the book is the daughter of the editor emeritus of the Times Book Review.  Wonder how she got all that great coverage ...

Cheapish eats at some fancy restaurants.  $22 for lunch and $32 for dinner at some fancy places.  TimeOut put a list of the menus and they look delicious.  Check out Open Table for the specific dates and to make a reservation.  It starts tonight, but some places start on Sunday night.  I hope that we can go to Aigre Doux again and maybe Primehouse. 

Has anyone heard of this site?  I saw the posting for Wrigley Field and almost fell out of my chair.  You need a sense of humor, but I think it has its moments.  

Finally!

Here is a fantastic article by Allan Sloan on the attempted Microsoft purchase of Yahoo.  I didn't look at it that way, but it seems that it would be a terrible return on investment for Microsoft to buy Yahoo.  It looks like they would be better off buying bonds than getting Yahoo.  There are some benefits that are hard to monetize, but I don't think that the article is too far off.  Microsoft should stick to rebuilding its core competences in making Office and the OS better.  Although I think they see the writing on the wall with Linux, Open Office and Google docs.  There is something disrupting their profit model and they should adapt rather than messing around in somebody else's garden.

I don't know if anyone cares, but one my new pet peeves is the whole Pregnancy/martyr thing.  Last night someone explained it to me that the pregnant mother doesn't want to do something (smoke, drink, eat fish, soft cheese, etc.) that screws up their baby.  While that certainly makes sense and anyone can understand that position.  The preciousness of the baby is very high, especially as we have fewer and fewer of them. 

I have a couple of problems with this line of logic.  First, where is this all going to lead?  Are we reverting to some sort of Victorian thing where pregnant women go straight to bed for nine months?  It seems like a bleak existence eating nothing and staying away from baby killers like cars and trains.

Second reason I don't like it is that the science is crap. Slate does a better job of taking apart this story, but it is terrible science.  If you look at outcomes and the like, it looks like people can eat a lot more fish, mercury or not.  Probabilities say that you can do a lot of stuff while pregnant with no effect on the baby.  Obviously avoid gut punches, death, and car accidents for they kill more fetuses by orders of magnitude compared to mercury.  If you're worried about autism or brain damage, also avoid those things :)  Maybe we should outlaw umbilical cords, they cause more brain damage in babies than a ton of soft cheese.

Finally, what does this say about our society?  Are we fragile flowers that need the nanny state?  What about our brothers that live in places that don't care about smoking or mercury?  Are they bad people and morally corrupt?  Obviously we don't care that much about babies on the Seychelles.  I believe it's middle class angst about the things we cannot control versus the things that we love.  If we're rational and look at the numbers, it probably doesn't matter.  If it makes mom feel better it should be OK, but it shouldn't be built up into something that it isn't

While not a huge fan of voting for judges as a rule, there's nothing more frustrating than being in the voting booth and seeing the many many pages of judges to vote for.  Here's a voter's guide put out by the various legal societies.

http://www.voteforjudges.org/

Sorry I didn't get this up earlier for the Early Voting folks.  It at least gives you an idea of the truly incompetent.

Slate writer Jack Shafer replies to David Simon's tirade against the newspaper business and the decline of his beloved Sun.  I'm not sure that I agree with what Shafer has to say, but I have to emphasize to Simon that all things change.  The newspaper business will change and that maybe things will be different.  Maybe we want things at a slightly less in-depth look at certain subjects.  The lack of a poverty writer may not be the worst thing since I'd rather read about what color to paint my house.  I like the idea of the EPILIT and that media is the thing between you and the events.  That lens is what we want as consumers of media right?