16 Comments - Pro-Gunner - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 7:48 am: Washington Pro-gun rights Democrats teamed with House Republicans on Thursday to block local governments and law enforcement agencies from gaining access to gun-purchasing data. This was a victory for the National Rifle Association and came despite a Democratic majority in Congress, Comments? - Reddbyrd - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 8:34 am: Pretty sure Rich did not hear the Governor right. Based on the actions of Mr. I.M. NotInsane, I think he meant that he is Robin and Madigan is Batman. BTW As Robin drags his feet on predatory lending reform, the Attorney General is sending out notices on how much consumers will get from her victory over Blaggo donor/ grant getter — Ameriquest. Nice compare and contrast to start the day. - Anon - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 8:37 am: Does it even make sense for the State GOP to meet in ‘08. Why Decatuer, Phil Hare is about as unbeatable as Freshman get… - Captain America - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 8:55 am: At least the Republicans appear to have a “real” State convention. The Democratic State convention is a complete farce - we ratify a few inconsequential items every couple of years during a 2 hour session that is little more than a rally sandwiched between the annual County Chair Breakfast and a rally at the State Fairgrounds on Democrats Day/Governor’s Day at the State Fair. Democratic Party leaders were intimidated when Jesse Jackson bussed a lot of people in, when they held the convention on a Saturday at Sangamnon State (This was back in the early 90’s i think. Democratic Party leaders don’t really care for grass roots participation. This is one of the many ills of the State Democratic party apparatus in Illinois. Few bother to attend, since nothing of substance occurs. - Dooley Dudright - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 9:24 am: RE: “U.S. Rep. Lipinski sleeps in his Washington D.C. office”: Fascinating. Reminds me of a magnificent Herman Melville short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, in which a law office employee (who exudes all sorts of behaviors) takes to residing in the office. Summary at: http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/bartleby/shortsumm.html Full text at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11231 “Ah, Lipinsky! Ah, humanity!” - Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 9:30 am: Here’s a nice summary of Bartleby at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby_the_Scrivener I do remember reading the story in high school and the line “I prefer not to.” - decaturboy - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 9:51 am: For the Republicans Decatur is a great choice with the Lincoln connection. It is represented additionally by Congressman LaHood and Johnson. Frank Watson represents Decatur. Plus on flip side how better than Decatur, hometown of Blago’s leg. point person ,Joe Handley, to point Blago failures in this session. - Lula May - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 10:08 am: Rich, I have a question. I brought this subject up last week on this blog. Now I see Durbin is talking about Federal matching funds for road projects and the possibility of losing those funds without a budget. Does anyone know what the date is for Illinois to come up our portion of the funds ? - Not So Fast - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 10:38 am: If Birkett is “very happy” in his job, why does he keep unsuccessfully running for higher posts? If he was paying attention to the office rather than campaigning for better gigs, would his employee have been able to steal a million bucks right under his nose? And how many of the other prosecutors at that lunch drank alcohol and then drove home? - NRA Endowment Life Member - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 10:46 am: Pro Gun: Blago is probably the only politician left that hasn’t realized gun control is a loser at every level of government. It has largely become a third-rail of politics because 30+ years of oppressive laws have yielded no results (other than to make gun ownership more difficult for law-abiding citizens). Most Democrats - with the exception of inner-city politicians who represent nice, safe gerrymandered districts - don’t believe in more gun-control measures and aren’t about to stick their political necks out for them. - Patriot - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 11:31 am: It appears to me that Illinois gun owners need to elect moderate Democrats who are pro-gun in order to have a stronger voice in the gun control debate. - BeatleBoy - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 12:34 pm: Re: Lipinski sleeping in his office How about that! Gee - us common folk have to abide by zoning laws. Do you think Lipinski’s office is zoned residential? - Squideshi - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 2:07 pm: “But Gonet said a key legal provision in stalled legislation — one that would basically entitle the FutureGen developers to legal protection from the state — must pass for Illinois to compete with Texas.” Subsidies for coal? Are they going to provide the same value to renewable energy sources? Just goes to show you, fossil fuels aren’t CHEAPER than renewables, just more heavily subsidized. Where are the subsidies for a wind farm out in Lake Michigan? This is a resource too! “At least the Republicans appear to have a ‘real’ State convention. The Democratic State convention is a complete farce - we ratify a few inconsequential items every couple of years during a 2 hour session that is little more than a rally sandwiched between the annual County Chair Breakfast and a rally at the State Fairgrounds on Democrats Day/Governor’s Day at the State Fair.” You haven’t seen a real state convention until you’ve been to one of the Illinois Green Party’s conventions. All decisions are made by the membership AT-LARGE, using a CONSENSUS process. - Name/Nickname/Anon - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 2:28 pm: Squid: Do you me renewables such as Ethanol / E85? The only way it is even remotely competitive with 3.00 / gallon gasoline is to heavily subsidize it; even then when the cost per gallon vs. energy delivered is factored it is still more expensive than gasoline. Combine this with the tremendous amount of water and grain its production consumes for the return and you truly have an unsustainable fuel source. If you think you can build solar, wind or any other ‘renewable’ and run it at the same or lower cost per mw/hour as coal….go ahead and try. We have about 600 YEARS of proven reserves of coal in this country now with more being found all the time. Until you can produce power cheaper than coal you will have coal-fired power plants, just as you will have gasoline-fueled cars. All the political platforms in the world won’t change economic reality. FYI - Due to ‘green’ environmental regulations on Illinois coal it is cheaper to bring low-sulfur PRB in by train from Idaho than it is for you to make an equivalent amount of power via wind. Artificially driving the cost of coal up with overreaching litigation doesn’t increase the value of renewables; it just makes everyones power more expensive. - Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Jul 13, 07 @ 2:45 pm: Lula May: The Federal authorization expires on Sept. 30, 2009. Traditionally, money not spent within the authorization can be rolled into the next authorization. But earmarked projects that have been dormant for lack of progress are targets for moving the money elsewhere. And “formula” funds that can be applied to a variety of qualifying projects will sit unused, because they require a state match of usually 20 per cent. No state match, no funds. - Squideshi - Saturday, Jul 14, 07 @ 10:50 am: “Do you me renewables such as Ethanol / E85?” No. I agree with you that Ethanol is not the solution. You could burn all of the corn in the state and still not have enough fuel. “If you think you can build solar, wind or any other ‘renewable’ and run it at the same or lower cost per mw/hour as coal….go ahead and try.” There’s no doubt that renewable energy is less expensive than fossil fuels. As I said before, coal is heavily subsidized. In addition, coal-fired power plants externalize a significant part of the cost of their production–the cost of pollution, which creates a significant impact on the public health and, therefore, the economy. “Artificially driving the cost of coal up with overreaching litigation doesn’t increase the value of renewables; it just makes everyones power more expensive.” Actually, it’s just the other way around–the price of coal is heavily SUBSIDIZED though programs like the one originally mentioned in this post and through other methods, such as the Illinois Industrial Coal Utilization Program, the Illinois Coal Development Board, Coal Technology Development Assistance Funds, Clean Coal and Energy Project Financing, the Illinois Coal and Energy Development Bond Act, the Illinois Coal Resurgence Program, the Energy Conservation and Coal Development Act, tax credits for coal research and coal utilization equipment, and many many more. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.