2004

Chillinois Says: Most Ironic Keyes Quote Ever

I say until tomorrow.

“I think it’s wise to know when to shut up.” – Alan Keyes during a media interview in a downtown Wheaton Metra station.

This was in reference to the following:

During Keyes’ remarks, one of the sign-waving supporters called Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat, a “puppet” of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Given his eruptions on O’Hare, I think we can safely say that he’ll be saying something about Daley pretty soon. The challenge will be to get either to actually answer a question instead of going off on a non-sequitur.

From my inbox:

August 15th.

BLITZER: If you lose, will you come back to Maryland, or stay in Illinois?

KEYES: Well, I think we’re going to be forming ties here. And the ties that are forged in the heat of an important battle of community deeply confirm the community of heart and principle that’s involved–and I’m sure our hearts will follow those principles which are working with the people in this state in order to achieve the outcome

“…thus Alan Keyes joins the Richard M. Daley school of non-sequitur responses. ”

Perhaps Alan can discuss taking his pants off for us. I mean, forget the debates between Obama and Keyes, I want to see debates between Daley and Keyes. No one will know what the hell either of them is talkinb about.

The Weakly Joyce

Joyce takes on Preble?s meadow jumping mouse this week calling its protection situational ethics and then proceeding to just lie about the whole damn process.

But new research suggests the allegedly endangered Preble?s mouse never existed. According to Jay Lehr, Ph.D., in Heartland Institute?s publication Environment News, this mouse seems to be genetically identical to a common cousin.

The endangered species listing on the Preble?s Meadow Jumping Mouse was based on a 1954 study of a university professor who reached his conclusion based on the examination of three skulls and 11 skins, according to Lehr.

Bullshit. Look at the Federal Register’s final notice for the rules and the appropriate citations.

More troubling is that Joyce and Fehr would seem to not understand that biodiversity includes subspecies. You’d think that a fine publication like the Leader might actually have an environmental columnist who knew just a tad about biology. Or not.

In a rather strange bit even for Joyce:

Do you suppose wetlands promoters told Illinois legislators that Illinois received nearly $20.2 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture earmarked for the Wetlands Reserve Program for fiscal year 2004? Or did they apply a little “situational ethics” here?

Why would state legislators not know about money coming in from the federal government?

More troubling is Joyce is rather clueless about the state of wetlands protection given recent court cases:

On January 9, 2001 the US Supreme Court dealt a heavy blow to wetlands in Illinois, and the nation, with its decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC). The Court ruled that the Army Corps had improperly denied a proposal to destroy ponds that provide habitat for migrating birds in order to build a landfill.

The Court held that state and local governments, not the federal government, have the authority to regulate these “isolated” wetlands. Because Illinois has no state-level program in place for these critical areas, they are suddenly without any protection

Ignorance is curable. Situational ethics would appear to apply to an ignorant fool who feels no need to understand what the hell she is talking about.

Bears Like Good Beer

Not partial to Busch (using whole story because it’s all funny):

When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby – dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

“He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,” said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.

Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.

“He didn’t like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier.”

A wildlife agent tried to chase the bear from the campground but the animal just climbed a tree to sleep it off for another four hours. Agents finally herded the bear away, but it returned the next morning.

Agents then used a large, humane trap to capture it for relocation, baiting the trap with the usual: doughnuts, honey and, in this case, two open cans of Rainier. That did the trick.

“This is a new one on me,” Heinck said. “I’ve known them to get into cans, but nothing like this. And it definitely had a preference.”

To give you an idea, a grown male black bear probably weighs between 180 – 250 pounds meaning that was one drunk bear.

Skip Saviano Takes on the Keyes Selection

Skip Saviano, a part of the Illinois House Leadership Team, say the following of the Keyes selection:

“Keyes’ nomination was an insult to the 12 million people of Illinois,” he said. “There are qualified people here who could have been nominated, including Barthwell.”

Saviano had the habit of under Daniels leadership screaming at him during caucus meetings and hurling insults at Daniels. All insults deserved from what I understand. Daniels was scared of Saviano because he has an Italian last name and is from River Forest. And we wonder why Daniels ran such a half-ass operation.

Regardless of Who Wins the Presidential Contest

Look for an assault on No Child Left Behind when it starts hitting suburban schools as has just happened.

And though some of the schools continue to perform well overall, bringing every subgroup up to the same level–the stated goal of No Child Left Behind–remains a daunting task.

“The more subgroups you have, the more likely you are to not make [testing goals],” said Phil Prale, assistant superintendent of Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200, with a student body that is 66 percent white, 27 percent African-American and 4 percent Latino. Prale said that while the school’s overall test scores improved last year, low-income students did not reach state goals in math.

“These are top-notch schools,” he said. “When they land on these lists, I suppose we could reexamine what are the criteria and goal of the legislation.”

The blathering of NCLB supporters tries to sell opposition to the criteria as being against standards whent he real opposition is to rather bizarre and statistically unsound methods of determining whether a school is failing or not.