Another Daley Miracle

Old Man Daley left Shortshanks a handful of magic beans. When planted, they grew a beanstalk up to the sky. When Shortshanks climbed the beanstalk, he found a magical castle in the sky occupied by a giant. While the giant slept, Shortshanks used his prodigious thieving skills learned at the knee of the old man and stole gold, food, a Singing Harp that sang "Danny Boy" when it got loaded and a goose that laid golden eggs.

Evidently, the goose just crapped another golden egg:

• A perennial consultant at O'Hare Airport has been awarded a $3.7 million contract to plan for a project major airlines are refusing to fund and consider "ill-conceived": a new western terminal.

  Landrum & Brown has dominated the O'Hare planning landscape for decades, raking in nearly $80 million worth of no-bid business during Mayor Daley's 20-year administration. Now the Ohio company will plan for a range of possibilities for the new western terminal that nobody but the city seems to want.

Let's see, they've gotten $80 million in no-bid contracts, they're getting another $3.7 million, the City evidently has money to build another terminal at O'Hare that no airline wants (meaning there's another $250 million minimum lying around somewhere to fund this thing) along with attendant people movers, parking lots, and amenities.

But the city is broke? Shortshanks doth protest too much