Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
State schools prep homegrown engineering, computer science talent for startups - chicagotribune.com
Friday, April 27, 2012
Job creation - chicagotribune.com
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
David Simon | I meant this, not that. But yeah, I meant it. (re: Trayvon Martin)
http://davidsimon.com/i-meant-this/
Where once it was incumbent on people who take a life to prove that they did so in self-defense, now – in Florida and nineteen other states – hundreds of years of American jurisprudence and English common law are reversed so that the burden of proof is on the state. Now, Florida must prove that someone who takes human life did not have reasonable cause to believe they were in grave jeopardy.
Previously, this was a legal standard that we extended only to sworn and trained law officers. If they had reason to believe that they, or fellow officers or citizens were in jeopardy – even if they were wrong in that assessment – then grand juries were routinely told not to indict. Our legal system has long understood that even good police – those not prone to excess, those fully trained in the use of lethal force – can still give you a bad shoot in a decision that is often made in a short second or two.
And now, quietly, by dint of both cash infusions from the gun lobby to legislators and scant attention from a hollowed-out press corps, this cautious standard is gone in twenty states. Now, anyone — regardless of their role, training or ultimate purpose — can bring a gun to an argument and take a life. And then, if they can manufacture enough of a threat to their person, they can justify the act. Maybe witnesses will be present to contradict their version of events; maybe not. Maybe there will be physical evidence to invalidate their claims; maybe not. But now, the baseline for responsibility lies not with the shooter, but with the state.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Every cat should have a dog
From: "Subscriptions from Posterous Spaces" <no-reply@posterous.com>
Date: Apr 22, 2012 6:12 AM
Subject: Your Daily Posterous Spaces Update
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Friday, April 20, 2012
First Read - NBC/WSJ poll: Obama leads Romney by six points, but Republican ahead on economy
According to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, President Barack Obama large leads among women, Hispanics and independents and is viewed as being more in touch with the middle class, but Mitt Romney is seen as more likely to have "good ideas for how to improve the economy." NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
Senate Races 2012: Republican Establishment Tries To Tamp Down Tea Party Insurgency
Thursday, April 19, 2012
HOT ON THE HILL: ROBERT DRAPER PALACE INTRIGUE - Obama to Weiner (before the scandal): 'Enjoy your last ride on Air Force One' - TIME 100 includes Rubio, Cuomo - POLITICO Playbook - POLITICO.com
-“[Rep. Anthony Weiner] would enter in his office in the Rayburn Building screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Why the fuck am I not on MSNBC?!’ When the health care debate kicked in, Anthony Weiner became the one-man standard-bearer for the single-payer system. He was now on MSNBC every week, sometimes every day – to the point where he was carrying his own makeup kit. (Or rather, his press guy was.) But because he believed that a fighter should also go into the enemy camp, he was also the designated liberal brawler on Fox. He rather enjoyed his screaming matches with Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly. It burned bile, he liked to say.
“Neither Pelosi nor anyone else deputized him to speak for his party. But as the ultimate freelancer in a boy of 435 legislative entrepreneurs, Anthony Weiner had discovered that if you go on TV often enough and say something catchy, two things happen. First, your point of view, through repetition across each network, can actually become the conventional wisdom. … Second, by speaking for the party, you are a de factor party spokesman. But not just perceptually: as if to fulfill the prophecy, Pelosi and Steny Hoyer were no actually turning to him to issue points of order on the House floor! They’d seen he was quicker on his feet than most of his other colleagues, not to mention an obliging slasher. …
“In September 2009, after spending a day with Obama in New York to promote a financial reform bill, Weiner hitched a ride back to Washington on the president’s private plane—and, being Weiner, couldn’t resist giving the leader of the free world some advice on how to achieve health reform. ‘Mr. President, I think you’re looking at this entirely the wrong way,’ he said. ‘You need to simplify it. Just say that what we’re doing is gradually expanding Medicare.’ Weiner was advocating a single-payer system. ‘We don’t have the votes for that,’ said Obama. ‘Mr. President,’ said Weiner, ‘you only have votes for something when you go out and fight for them.’ At least Obama had a sense of humor. ‘Well,’ he’d said with a grin after their conversation was done, ‘enjoy your last ride on Air Force One.’ Needless to say, the president had ignored his advice.” $18.66 on Amazon http://amzn.to/JC6nOr
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Bobbie Steele Tells Our History | And We Present
Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
LA Times - At Tolliver's barbershop, pondering what 20 years have wrought
First, you can't have an A-plus recovery with C-minus schools. And second, you can't have a turnaround when thousands more good-paying jobs — in aerospace and industry — have become but a memory. Target and Starbucks do what they do just fine, but they don't send your kids to college the way Firestone and Hughes Aerospace did...compare per-pupil funding, Beverly Hills spends nearly twice what's spent on a student in his old neighborhood.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Sun-Times: Mayor tells black firefighter-trainees they are correcting past ‘mistakes’
From: "EZRA MCCANN" <mc.elm@hotmail.com>
Date: Apr 7, 2012 6:10 PM
Subject: Fwd: Sun-Times: Mayor tells black firefighter-trainees they are correcting past ‘mistakes’
To: <mc.elm@hotmail.com>
Begin forwarded message:
From: EZRA MCCANN <mc.elm@hotmail.com>
Date: April 7, 2012 1:30:39 PM CDT
To: mc.elm@hotmail.com
Subject: Sun-Times: Mayor tells black firefighter-trainees they are correcting past ‘mistakes’
Mayor tells black firefighter-trainees they are correcting past ‘mistakes’
4/7/12 2:06 AM
By: FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com
Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a surprise visit to the Chicago Fire Academy on Friday to deliver a pep talk to 111 middle-aged black firefighter-trainees who waited 17 years to realize their dream.
“The city in the past made a mistake. You are about correcting that mistake,” the mayor’s office quoted Emanuel as telling the rookies.
“You have a special responsibility. You are the select few that got in. And together, we’ll make sure there is a different future than the past.”
The rookies—a few of them in their 50s—were the chosen few from among more than 6,100 African-Americans bypassed by the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 entrance exam.
In 2005, a federal judge ruled that the city’s decision had the effect of perpetuating the predominantly-white status quo because 78 percent of those “well-qualified” candidates were white. Five years later, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that the black candidates did not wait too long before filing their lawsuit.
The legal odyssey ended last summer, when the city agreed to hire 111 bypassed black firefighters and pay at least $40 million in damages to 6,000 others who will never get that chance. Chicago taxpayers will also be on the hook for up to $20 million in back pension benefits for those hired.
The Fire Department’s age limit for new hires is 38. That does not apply to the 111 black firefighters because the discrimination occurred before the cutoff was established.
The new class entered the fire academy on March 16 amid concern about how many would survive the grueling six-month training and how well those that do would be accepted at firehouses.
“We are not naïve enough to think that, just because we’ve prevailed and Mayor Emanuel has been cooperating in administering the remedy that the problem of racism in the Chicago Fire Department disappears,” Matt Piers, an attorney for the black firefighters, said on that day.
“I am always worried, given the history of the Fire Department and the history of this case…There’s been a terrific amount of bias and bigotry…We intend to be on close watch.”
Widespread acceptance of the new black firefighters may be easier said than done.
Benjamin Diaz said he’s one of 17,000 firefighter hopefuls who’s been waiting to be hired since passing a 2006 entrance exam only to be leapfrogged by the court-mandated class of 111 blacks.
“Since this training class was pushed to the front of the line over us, it just delays our chances of having the same opportunity they did,” Diaz wrote in an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Am I speaking out of anger? Not at all. It’s more out of frustration...Most of the (2006) candidates are reaching the age limit because of the delay. Others have taken physical exams and are just left up in the air without any notice of when things will move along.”
Mayoral spokesman Tom Alexander, who accompanied Emanuel to the fire academy, said the mayor expects that the new recruits are “gonna be welcomed with open arms—both by fellow firefighters and by Chicagoans.”
Throughout the campaign and as mayor, Emanuel has made periodic stops at Chicago firehouses.
But Friday’s visit to the fire academy was different, Alexander said.
“It was a little bit beyond a pep talk. These folks have been through a pretty long and intense experience. They’re also just getting started with their careers. He wanted to let these folks know that he’s 100 percent in their corner and personally glad the mistakes of the past have been rectified,” Alexander said.
Sent from my iPad
Friday, April 6, 2012
*Joe Berrios's Good Night | NBC Chicago
Dismissal recommended for Marine who criticized Obama on Facebook – USATODAY.com
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
- Businessweek Matching Education to Jobs
http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-30/matching-education-to-jobs
Accenture CEO talks about community colleges
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