State Bar Persecution of 70 yr old Jailed Attorney Richard Fine: Full Disclosure Network(R) TV Series -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

State Bar Persecution of 70 yr old Jailed Attorney Richard Fine: Full Disclosure Network(R) TV Series -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
This is a press release about what appears to be a nasty situation--I don't know who did what to whom, but it looks ugly.

Somali Pirates Diversify Activities With Savvy Real Estate Investments - Somali pirates - io9

Somali Pirates Diversify Activities With Savvy Real Estate Investments - Somali pirates - io9
Kenya is their favorite country for investment purposes.

Awesome economic recovery rockets ahead

AP: 2009 bankruptcies total 1.4 million, up 32 pct - Yahoo! News

2010 Furlough Announcement

2010 Furlough Announcement
The University of Illinois has told us that all administrators and faculty are now being furloughed. Four days without pay.

In the press, it is business as usual. Will Lovie Smith be fired as coach of the Bears? Rod Blagojevich will be on Donald Trump's show! But while the press and the sheeple go about their business, the State of Illinois is following Michigan and California into the fiscal toilet. The state isn't paying doctors. It isn't even sending agencies like the U of I the funds the legislature appropriated for them. The state is tens of billions in arrears to the state employee pension funds.

As the President of the U of I says:
"...we now face a cash crisis
triggered by the state’s financial situation which is grim
and worsening. The state budget is out of balance with a
backlog of unpaid bills nearing $5 billion and short-term
borrowing covering roughly a comparable amount. The
state’s credit rating has been recently downgraded and
among the 50 states only California is worse."


Only California is worse. But with the government we have here in Illinois, no doubt we can plunge below the Golden State in short order.

Vegas Court Shooter Johnny Lee Wicks Set Condo on Fire Before Deadly Attack - ABC News

Vegas Court Shooter Johnny Lee Wicks Set Condo on Fire Before Deadly Attack - ABC News: "Friends and family told ABC News that Johnny Lee Wicks, 66, was so upset that his monthly Social Security check was being reduced that he set fire to his home in a gated retirement community around 5 a.m. Monday."
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Then he went to the courthouse with a shotgun and opened fire.

Change of Subject: Time to get serious about prison terms

Change of Subject: Time to get serious about prison terms
In which reliably liberal columnist Eric Zorn finally figures out what prisons are for. He has spent more ink crusading against prosecutors and police than anybody on the Tribune staff--but the Derrick King case (see below) set him off.

Chicago justice system--a farce in action

LiveLeak.com - VIOLENT ATTACK SHATTERS LIVES,but attacker released early
Here is the Chicago "justice" system in action. In August 2008, Derrick King, a homeless piece of garbage living at the Pacific Garden Mission (1458 S. Canal St., Chicago) and his bum companion, Joyce Burgess, demanded cigarettes from a couple leaving a convenience store at Wabash and Roosevelt in downtown Chicago. The couple turned them down. King and Burgess attacked them. King kicked out most of her teeth and left her with brain damage. Read the details if you can stand it. She will never fully recover, physically or emotionally.

His sentence? Three years in prison for robbery. Apparently these two maggots stole a Blackberry after the attack. The sentence is a joke to begin with. It should have been more like 30 years instead of three. That is the Chicago judiciary for you.

But it gets worse. Our liberal Democrat, soft-touch, nice-guy governor, Pat Quinn, authorized an early release program called the "Meritorious Good Time Program" for 1700 convicts. King was one of them. He spent 13 months in the Cook County Jail while his case dragged on in the Chicago court system. Then he copped a plea, went into prison to start his 3 year joke sentence on October 6, 2009, and was released on October 20, 2009, two weeks later. Quinn and his flacks claim that no violent offenders were released under this program. Right. Keep lying.

But it gets even worse. The day King was released, October 20, 2009, he did the same thing again. He accosted a woman, demanded cigarettes, was told no, and then attacked her, saying, "Remember the couple who got beat real bad for not giving a cigarette? That was me!"

He's back in jail again.

There are violent, angry homeless people demanding money all around the Chicago downtown area. They know the system is a big farce and are not the least bit afraid of it. Why should they be? Yet we can't carry guns or any other significant weapon to protect ourselves from them.

World freezes into a popsicle as global warming proceeds apace

As Britain told to expect snow for 'next 10 days', how is the rest of the world is coping with this Arctic weather? | Mail Online: "...as Britain struggles to cope with the freezing weather conditions, other countries throughout the world are also finding themselves in the same predicament."
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This weekend it was about zero to 5 above in the morning here in Lake County, IL. On Friday and Saturday we just froze all day but yesterday it warmed up to 15 or so. Can we have some global warming, please?

Mortgage Modifications Are Seen as Adding to Housing Woes - NYTimes.com

Mortgage Modifications Are Seen as Adding to Housing Woes - NYTimes.com: "The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good."
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The housing and financial markets collapsed because millions of people bought homes they couldn't afford. Obama & Co. decided the fix for that was to keep people in homes they couldn't afford for a few months longer. It was never a fix to begin with. It was just delaying the inevitable, which in turn is prolonging the recession that Obama & Co. say is over.