Ah, Hypocrisy

We remember when Bush was doing this, the left was having conniption fits every day:

• President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

  CBS' Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related — wrote on his Twitter feed that, "Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24.

  Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months."

  This news comes on the heels of today's news that Obama played golf with a woman — chief domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes — for the first time since taking office.

Well thank goodness he finally played golf with a woman. Talk about generating BS news.

Aren't soldiers still fighting in Iraq? Weren't 14 Americans killed in Afghanistan yesterday? That's the war that Obama said was the primary focus of the Global War on Terror, right? The war he said he would win? We seem to recall an entire campaign built on the premise that Bush had lost sight why we were at war in the first place.

But there's Obama, golfing 3 times a month while Americans die overseas, the economy circles the drain and UAW workers go without even a miniature golf outing. Has he no shame? No compassion? Seeing as how he's from Chicago, we're going to say, "Probably not."

Lothar Matthäus en Rácing.

Dos pilotos de Northwest Airlines que se enfrascaron en una airada discusión y olvidaron que tenían que aterrizar fueron suspendidos a la espera de los resultados de la investigación (NTSB), profesionales de la Academia de Ciencias Eslovenia descubrieron una nueva especie de 'Nephila' gigante, una araña tejedora de seda de oro, el Departamento de Policía de Dallas (Texas) calificó como "un error" la multa que uno de sus agentes de carretera aplicó a una hispana por no hablar inglés, de la mano de Mauricio Macri, Andrés Ibarra pasó de la gerencia de Boca Júniors al ministerio de Educación del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y Rácing Club contrata a Lothar Matthaus como director técnico…

Desmentido el auto blindado quedan en pie el millón de dólares de costo y la residencia en un hotel 5 estrellas a lo que se agrega la “cláusula de modelaje” para la ucraniana Kristina Liliana Matthaus (21).

"El contrato está listo en un 80 por ciento pero hay algunas cosas por aclarar - dice Lothar (48) - ella sólo se irá si puede trabajar allí como modelo". La noticia figura en el diario bajo la burlona volanta “lachnummer” después de las idas y vueltas en sucesión de horas.
"No sé de dónde salen esas informaciones, no voy a viajar a Sudamérica ni el lunes ni la próxima semana. Ahora mismo tengo ofertas del extranjero, pero no de Argentina ni de la Bundesliga” – decía Lothar horas antes de decir: "los billetes de avión están listos, voy a hacer las maletas y llegar el miércoles" para debutar frente a Atlético Tucumán (?).

Así llega el hombre récord de mundiales (5) a un Rácing que acaba de desprenderse de Zuculini, Shaffer, Moralez, Sosa y Migliore por políticas económicas y que, en actualidad de promoción por no descender, es el único equipo del torneo que no ganó partido alguno.

Lothar dirigió el Rapid Viena de Austria (2001), el Partizan de Belgrado (2002-2003), la Selección Nacional de Hungría (2004-2005), el Salzburgo de Austria (2006-2007); saliendo de Europa dos veces: al Atlético Paranaense (Brasil, 2006) donde renunció después de 7 partidos y al Maccabi Nettanya (Israel, 2008-2009) donde le fue rescindido el contrato por razones económicas antes de cumplirse una temporada.

Situar a Rácing en el mundo y atraer inversionistas alega el presidente Molina… y la noticia salió en Marca, As, El Mundo (España), France Football (Francia), Teamtalk (Inglaterra), Sportweek (Holanda), Sport 1 (Rumania), Kicker (Alemania), La Afición (México), O Globo (Brasil), Bola (Indonesia) y más también...

War!

Ed Smith voted himself a 6% pay raise. Ed Smith voted his staff a 5% pay raise. Ed Smith voted for the teachers to get a pay raise. Ed Smith wants to take money out of your pocket and food out of your children's mouths to pay for Richie Daley's years of financial mismanagement. He also belittles the job CPD (and CFD) does day in and day out in while shorthanded and while getting the short end of the stick each and every day. Ed Smith is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with Chicago politics in general.

It's about time Ed Smith joined the ranks of Illinois' 10.1% unemployed, don't you think?

Someone asked if the SCC blog could initiate some sort of effort to recall or unseat aldermanic candidates. We had some research done and this is the result:

• An Advisory Referendum can be placed on the ballot for the February 2010 election if a total number of signatures equaling 11% of the previous general election totals can be gathered in a 90 day period preceding the filing deadline.

Unfortunately, the deadline is 16 November. That leaves just about 3 weeks to collect, notarize, bind and file the required number of signatures. The magic number?

• 121,660 signatures

That's a lot of signatures for an advisory referendum. But it's doable, and here's the first step:
Reduce Alderman Petition 2009

And here's what has to be overcome:

• 10,000 cops? If everyone did a sheet, that's 100,000 signatures. Cops being cops though, figure on less than 50% participation. That means everyone who did contribute would have to get 2 or 3 sheets.
• 2,400 firefighters? That would be another 24,000 signatures. Again, the under 50% participation though would mean 3 sheets per participating firefighter.
• Other unhappy city dwellers and regular people visiting the site might be able to push another few thousand signatures. The Machine would react badly to this initiative, so estimate double the number of signatures to survive the inevitable challenges.
• You couldn't circulate these at work, you couldn't mail them around via Department mail, and to be sure of not getting duplicate signatures, you'd have to make sure you got all the signatures from people unassociated with the Department - it would have to be friends, neighbors, acquaintances outside of work.
  

And that's not even counting the fact that a point person is needed, someone willing to step up and collect these things, bind them, have them notarized and deliver them in person before 16 November. It's a big job. But the payoff in terms of shaking the political establishment would be monstrous.

Well...

...that sucked.

8 and 8 is looking like a distinct possibility.

At least things are looking up for the Blackhawks.

Parking Tickets Up

But not by the police:

• Your chances of receiving a parking ticket in Chicago have shot up from last year, and the pace has accelerated even more in recent months.
  
  A ticketing blitz in the city has led to a 26 percent spike in parking meter violations so far in 2009, according to city records provided to the Tribune in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
  
  The area in and near the Loop accounted for half the increase in tickets.
  
  
• Parking and non-moving compliance violations tickets issued by the Chicago Police Department and traffic control aides declined about 10 percent in the first eight months of this year compared to the same period last year, Walsh said. Meanwhile, tickets issued by the Revenue Department increased almost 10 percent.

Compliance violations (front/rear plates) and meters (surprise!) showed large increases while Rush Hour and Street Cleaning tickets (both traditionally police written) had double digit decreases. And as the manpower shortages continue to leave police running from job to job and unable (or even unwilling) to perform ticket writing duties, we expect a bigger shift toward "revenue" writers rather than police.

Zombie Combat

From our Iowa neighbors:

• Iowa City police are investigating an early morning assault in which a man accused another of being a zombie, then punched him twice. Police said the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. Sunday at an Iowa City restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus.
  
  A man was ordering food when he was approached by another man who called him a zombie, then hit him in the eye. When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the man punched him again, breaking his nose.
  
  The man then ran out a back door.

If we remember our zombie history, punching a zombie in the face is never a good idea and seldom works in terms of defeating the zombie. Preferred methods of defeating a zombie include machetes, halberds, pikes, axes, shotguns, rifles and fire. Remember, doors and windows, even walls are no obstacle to a zombie. One surefire way to eliminate the zombie threat is removal of the head from the body.

We hope this was helpful.

Ríver 1 Boca 1

Si algún trabajador del arte literario rescata la distinción de la palabra “puta” como insustituible en determinado momento y lugar por su significado, sonido y connotación y la propone como superadora en cuanto a la imagen asociativa que produce cualquiera de los tantos sinónimos que existen en plaza, expongo, acto seguido al superclásico 185 (profesionalismo) y sin temor a revisiones ni a erosionar nuestro estilo, la apología del neologismo: PEDORRO.

La teatralización de la riña, los buzones comprados por el árbitro, la notoria renuncia al juego y la debilidad técnica que se vieron en el Monumental no merecen más ni menos y reconfirma lo que dijimos en la previa sobre el efecto centrífugo que lleva el espectáculo del centro a las gradas.

Cualquiera lo pudo ganar. Quizás Ríver estuvo más cerca pero padece el síndrome del propio nihilismo: Ríver no se cree sus victorias. Nicolás Domingo no creyó que estaba solo frente a Abbondanzieri a los 6 minutos y tiró un remate de buena teoría y poca fe. Y Abelairas no se creyó definidor de un superclásico cerrado cuando pateó solo al palo del mismo Pato (´73).

Respeto, quietud, pase corto, olor a empate sobreentendido, cámaras tomando a DTs (tan poco pasaba adentro), préstamos de una pelota que quemaba en los pies...

Cáceres le hace penal a Buonanotte (´23) que entraba al área llevándose la pelota con la mano. Y la ordinaria jugada (de Cáceres y del árbitro Laverni) no podía terminar a destono: Ortega anuncia tanto su disparo que hasta Abbondanzieri le ataja penales.

Gallardo sí sabe que le pega bien y se lo cree: entonces clavó un tiro libre al ángulo (´28) para elevar a Ríver.

Las burdas expulsiones de Villagra y Cáceres, empezando el segundo tiempo, no sumaron condimento al asunto.

Palermo pescó una en el área (la única) y la mandó adentro (´63) para bajar la cortina de una populosa y triste tarde en la que se destacó Buonanotte como límpida (y casi ingenua) intención de juego.

Para reponerse aconsejo ver, al menos, el gol de Echeverría para Chacarita 1 Huracán 0 , los seis que le hizo Barcelona a Zaragoza o, para reírse, este autogol del arquero mexicano José Rodríguez.

Buenas tardes.