My Pet Goat

Early Obama article

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:32:01 GMT

It feels so good to be able to say "President Obama" now. Here's an article about him from 1990 when he became head of the law review. One friend said, "This guy sounds like he's president of the country already."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/1990/02/15/a_law_review_breakthrough/?s_campaign=8315

Website Fail

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:58:30 GMT

The club website is up at http://www.dtccu.net/ . This would be the one I volunteered to help with for free a few months ago. It turns out that others also offered to do this, but they ended up paying over $1000 for someone to do it. There was some traffic on the list about the site's issues, and a board member responded:

First I have to agree with the many comments regarding the new website's design and usability. However, in defense of the Board, though people volunteered to help, no one really stepped forward and took ownership. The Board, facing a deadline, made a choice so that we do still have a presence on the web.

I think those who have web expertise have an opportunity to take some leadership at this point in time. Develop a prototype. Show the board and the members what you can do that would be more useful. I believe a contract has been signed but it does not have to be renewed. Why not have something new ready to go for the future?

BTW, there wasn't really a deadline, since Prairienet had only discontinued their mailing lists. The original website is still online.

Ouch

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:08:13 GMT

Via University Diaries, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity apparently had all of its $40 million invested with Bernard Madoff (as in multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme).

Last weekend

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:22:17 GMT

Last weekend was pretty busy. Saturday, I volunteered for a couple of hours at the local dog training club, and then went to a potluck with some high school classmates. It was small but fun, so I was glad I drove over.

Sunday was a little more complicated. The original plan had been that somebody was going to call me around 10 and we'd go out with our dogs. But she didn't call until 11:45, when I was in the middle of eating lunch. I said OK, we can go, but I'd like some time to finish eating and take care of the dishes in the sink. She said that she GAVE me time and she wanted to go early so it wouldn't break up her day. I said OK, OK and figured that my cell phone might get at least partially charged by the time she arrived. The neighbor's energetic dog, Bogart, likes to go along with us, so I went over and got him.

We headed up to a restored wetlands north of Champaign. I took Aoife and Bogart, and the other person followed me with her dog. The drive up went fine, but things got more eventful when Bogart got out of the car. Recall isn't his strong suit, and he decided to run around the landowners' yard and barn. Finally he followed us into the prairie, and we hiked around. Aoife and the woman's dog stayed close by, and Bogart ranged a little further. As we headed to our cars, the guy who owns the land came out to talk with us. Bogart chose that moment to climb the fence into their yard. The guy politely suggested that I spend some time training Bogart, especially on recall. All I could do was apologize and load the dogs into my car.

We left, and I noticed that I'd gotten ahead of the woman, so I pulled off into a parking lot a few miles down the road and waited for her to catch up. And waited. And waited. Finally, she called and said that I'd driven too fast and she was lost. She was next to some signs that said "2400N" and "1000E," though she seemed to have no idea what they meant. Since she was just a couple of miles up the road from me, I started telling her to just keep driving. Then I heard her asking someone else where Mattis was and our connection was lost. By that point, my phone was almost dead, so I drove up to find her. We passed each other, and I turned around and followed her back onto the highway, hoping that nothing else could go wrong. After we got home, I plugged my phone in and tried calling her a couple of times, but nobody answered.

Later that night, I talked with another local flatcoat owner who'd introduced me to the wetlands. When she heard about Bogart climbing the fence, she reminded me that I was responsible for Bogart when I took him out, and suggested that I not bring him back to the wetlands. I figured that she was right - he's not an intrinsically bad dog, but I can't control him well enough to take him onto other people's property.

At this point, I've been procrastinating talking with the woman. Navigating county roads isn't hard, since the numbers represent a logical grid, and it was easy for me to find my way back the first time I went to the wetlands. In the future, it'd probably be easiest to just go alone with Aoife.

Sex, Lies, and Subprime Mortgages

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:37:32 GMT

Someone who'd worked in the financial sector told me that the mortgage industry had basically been a house of cards, where institutions tried to predict when a buyer would default and sell the loan to someone else before that point. There was an interesting article in Business Week that talked about other sleazy things that went on in the mortgage business: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_47/b4109070638235.htm

People in favor of deregulation argue that corporations should be allowed to make decisions and suffer the consequences. The problem I have with this is that the executives who make the decisions aren't the only ones who suffer the consequences.

Discover Card "Payment Protection" scam

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:22:11 GMT

A representative from Discover Card called recently and told me that they were legally required to tell me about Discover Card's protection policy for "life events" - unemployment, illness. I should have hung up then, but I stayed on the line and acknowledged that they'd read it to me. Big mistake. Today, I got a letter informing me that I'd chosen to enroll in Discover Card's "payment protection" plan. It turns out that this involves a surcharge based on balance that gets tacked on each month. I immediately called Discover and the customer service representative was very apologetic and said that they'd received numerous complaints about the marketing company they'd used. One transfer later, I was told that it had been cancelled. So we shall see.

First dog

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:48:15 GMT

The first dog may be a rescue dog:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2008/10/obamas-to-adopt.html

Yes We Did

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:46:12 GMT

Roskam Opens His Mouth

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:21:32 GMT

According to HuffPo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/gop-rep-roskam-why-can-wo_n_138352.html), Peter Roskam appeared to equate execution of rapists with abortion during a recent interview.

Roskam: “You know, my position is the same as Henry Hyde’s. And Henry Hyde put it best when he said, when somebody is the victim of a crime, the law currently says that a rapist can’t be put to death. That’s the law. A rapist under the court doctrines can’t be put to death. He said, why is it that the baby who is the result of that criminal behavior can be put to death? He said, isn’t that a sad, sad thing. So my feeling is, look, in the case of that, that’s the hard case, right? That’s the ultimate painful and difficult case. And what we need to do is love that person and encourage them and support them. But once people are categorized by how they were conceived and the circumstances of their conception, you end up going down a route that ultimately I don’t think we want to be.”

Roskam's campaign really turned me off in 2006 when the GOP made a lot of extremely annoying robocalls that initially appeared to be from his opponent (Tammy Duckworth).

Evita Palin

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:34:00 GMT

nekosensei has a YouTube of "Rainbow High" from the movie on her blog for reference.

Site designs

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:16:36 GMT

A local club that I've had some interaction with wants a new design for their website. Since it would be pretty simple, I figured that one of the numerous open source designs out there would probably work, and I offered to tweak it for them for free. They got a quote for $1350 for the design and the first year of hosting, and after that, it'd be $300-$400/year if it was hosted on Powweb. Powweb apparently charges $7-8/month for hosting. Here's an example of the designer's handiwork: http://www.thebeastboutique.com/

Details of quote below cut:

Paypal Cart with up to eight buttons (can add more for minimal cost if needed)
Up to 12 linked pages
A splash page (nice entry page that says click on the logo to enter site)
Up to two Online forms which will go to a webmail address (again- can add more for nominal fees)
15 updates in the first year included
Three Website traffic reports in the first year
A hit counter on the main page if you want one for website traffic
A separate bulletin board, email list or web log for members to use as a forum which I recommend to have password protection because you really need to password protect your forum unless you will need to have dedicated moderators anyway. (Spam and web trolls make this essential) The password protected membership list would be part of the online forum ‘for members only’
Search Engine optimization
Enhancement of the club’s logo a bit for presentation on the internet

(Normally this package would be $2,300.00 with all that is included above)
However I will do this website project for only $1,350.00

AND I will also will pay for your first two years of web hosting plus domain name (through powweb) out of my fee.

I can have your website up by November 15th if the down payment is received within a week.
Depending on how much real time feedback I get as I’m working on the site I might be finished sooner.
The online community site may take a week or so longer to set up and link to the main site.

With a 50 percent down-payment I would begin working on the site immediately- hopefully along with you or one person designated by the club for feedback.
I would publish to your new domain and hosting plan upon completion of the site and payment of the remaining half of the fee.
I accept paypal and checks.

Since I will have already paid for your hosting and domain name the first two years myself, in the second year the only cost to the club to keep the site going will be the website updates from me for the next year. ($300.00 for 12 updates per year or can work in more if you need them for 30.00 additional per update)

After the first two years you will also be renewing the hosting plan and domain name annually with powweb which has always been around $100.00 a year.
Right now it’s $93.25 for renewals of both the hosting plan and one domain name through powweb for renewals.

So essentially going forward AFTER the first two years the cost for your website with updates and hosting/domain name will be app. 400.00 a year.

On one hand, it's their website, not mine. On the other, it's hard to keep my mouth shut.

High school reunion

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:11:28 GMT

This weekend was my high school reunion, and it ended up being really fun. It seemed like everyone was eager to talk with everyone else, and I had some nice conversations with people that I hadn't known that well when I was actually in high school. Maybe the limited time created some of the urgency - we had one night, and then most people would return home the next day.

One guy I had been friends with ended up working in epidemiology, so we had coffee beforehand and ended up talking about some software products. I was pleased to see that we all seemed to be doing well, though my scientist friend reminded me that that observation was biased - the folks who weren't probably wouldn't have come to the reunion.

It was a little bittersweet because Ursuline itself had closed last year. The news stories saddened me, but the closings had been very hard on the people who'd been more involved with the school. A Google search yielded a book from 1909 about Ursuline's history that had been digitized and put online through UIUC. There was some fascinating history - the nuns had been in South Carolina and Ohio before they came to Springfield, and the school saw the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination. There was also a surprising amount of anti-Catholic sentiment in the early 19th century - an Ursuline convent school in New England had been burned to the ground.

I'd thought that it would be interesting to create a digital library related to Springfield Ursuline with documents, books, oral history, news stories, and images. Another classmate that I hadn't known that well in high school got his M.S. at GSLIS here and is now a director of a library in Montana. We talked about the idea, and he suggested that the Illinois State Library might be interested too. The sheer amount of potential work is daunting - there are so many things that could be scanned, which means that they'd also need to be tagged with appropriate metadata, and maybe transcribed as text. Getting oral histories would mean conducting and taping interviews. But I would like to see Ursuline's history preserved.

More Ursuline photos

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:16:25 GMT

Next weekend is my high school reunion in Springfield. Surprisingly, a number of former high school classmates are on Facebook and there's a group set up for our class. The weird thing about Facebook is that different parts of your life converge in one space - family, high school, undergrad, grad school, work, neighborhood, etc. I guess this is why people studying social networks find Facebook so interesting.

Here are some more Ursuline photos I found in a Facebook group (and was too lazy to resize).

That was the Ursuline's crest, and "Serviam," meaning "I will serve" was the motto.

Stairs in the old building, I think.

Ursuline chapel, used for smaller events, but all-school masses were held at St. Joe's.

Uniform skirt plaid material (or close to it)

St. Ursula Hall stage, belonging to SCI but used for some music events.

Back of St. Ursula Hall

Closeup of stained glass window

Craigslist MacBook Scammer

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:40:38 GMT

The scammer that posts MacBook and MacBook Pro ads on Craigslist is still at it. This one recently posted an ad on the Chambana Craigslist group. I responded and got the typical email that "Bold Dreamer"/"Amy" was now in the UK but they could use DHL to ship the computer to me. Below are the headers from the "Bold Dreamer" email.

Delivered-To: [redacted]
Received: by 10.181.14.5 with SMTP id r5cs49514bki;
Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:41:39 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.181.25.18 with SMTP id c18mr4654391bkj.8.1222882899217;
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:41:39 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from mail.safedatatech.com (sdt1.safedatatech.com [72.51.41.18])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id m5si414461gve.3.2008.10.01.10.41.22;
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:41:30 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning amy28.1979@hotmail.com does not designate 72.51.41.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=72.51.41.18;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning amy28.1979@hotmail.com does not designate 72.51.41.18 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=amy28.1979@hotmail.com
Received: from ttt-fafff0874fc (ACA4095E.ipt.aol.com [172.164.9.94])
(Authenticated sender: SDT01230-2007)
by mail.safedatatech.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1FA7F7D7BFB
for [redacted]; Wed, 1 Oct 2008 13:41:11 -0400 (EDT)

"Amy" asks me for a name and address for shipping and I send back

Theodore Kaczynski
PO Box 8500
Florence, CO 81226

This apparently doesn't deter the scammers, so I get some forged emails purporting to come from DHL instructing me to send money through Western Union. Here are the headers from that:

Delivered-To: [redacted]
Received: by 10.142.87.21 with SMTP id k21cs165631wfb;
Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:20:14 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.114.241.15 with SMTP id o15mr1888453wah.96.1223065213551;
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:20:13 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from blu0-omc3-s14.blu0.hotmail.com (blu0-omc3-s14.blu0.hotmail.com [65.55.116.89])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 4si3704945yxq.9.2008.10.03.13.20.12;
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:20:13 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of customerservice@webservice-dhl.com designates 65.55.116.89 as permitted sender) client-ip=65.55.116.89;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of customerservice@webservice-dhl.com designates 65.55.116.89 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=customerservice@webservice-dhl.com
Received: from BLU137-W10 ([65.55.116.73]) by blu0-omc3-s14.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Fri, 3 Oct 2008 13:20:06 -0700
Message-ID:
Return-Path: customerservice@webservice-dhl.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="_0c92e8f8-4e22-4221-8dbd-89537572465f_"
X-Originating-IP: [172.162.72.72]
From: DHL Customer Service

Wow, the originating IP (172.162.72.72) on this one is also from AOL, just like the one from "Amy" ACA4095E.ipt.aol.com [172.164.9.94], and they both involve hotmail! Who'd a thunk it? The instructions also contain this:

Important Note: The Payment must be made at one of Western Union's Agent Locations, in person by the Buyer. The payment must not be made using Western Union's Send Money Online Service due to the high Credit Card fraud risk. We will not confirm any payments made by Credit Card, online or by phone.

Hmmm... maybe because fraudulent credit card charges can be disputed?

If you look closely at the headers, it doesn't come from DHL at all - the domain is "webservice-dhl.com" A check on this shows that it's part of Microsoft's http://www.officelive.com site, which has been used by some other sketchy folks too.

I sent a response back to "Amy":

Unfortunately, Mr. Kaczynski is not at liberty to visit a Western Union terminal right now, but he'd be willing to mail a package to you directly. Could I get your personal mailing address and I'll pass it along?

No response yet. I sent a complaint to the support people at officelive.com and they shut down the "webservice-dhl.com" domain. I have little doubt that they'll be back soon under a similar domain, but this may have inconvenienced them for a little while. Unfortunately, it does look like they've cheated a number of people this year.

The wrong Palin?

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:44:58 GMT

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Palin and dogs

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:34:15 GMT

Pitbulls take a stand at http://www.pitbullsagainstpalin.com . I'm thinking about getting the T-shirt.

Today, some of us on a local blog were talking about hunting dog training and someone made this comment: "If you think training *your* dog to retrieve game is hard, imagine what Sarah Palin has to deal with. Have you ever tried to train a dog to jump out of a helicopter?"

RIP bunnies

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:07:49 GMT

Saturday morning, flattie seemed to be very interested in something in the back yard. It turned out that she'd discovered a rabbit's nest with two babies. She was intrigued by them and wanted to play, but the feeling was not mutual. They were squeaking and trying to hide under the grass. Aoife was using her paws to dig under the grass to get the babies, and then sniffing and licking them. One seemed to be bleeding from its hindquarters, and I wondered if she'd inadvertently scratched it. So I called the Wildlife Medical Clinic at VetMed, got a machine, and left a message. I kept her out of the back yard, tried to rebuild the nest as best I could, and placed the rabbits in it. Then I put twigs over the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern to see whether the mother would come back during the night. We went to a friend's house and got back pretty late. There was a message on the phone recommending that I take the injured rabbit in to the clinic and leave the healthy one in the nest. I figured that I'd check the nest the next morning, and if the twigs were intact (meaning that the mother hadn't been there), I'd take both rabbits in.

In the morning, I went back out and found that the mother hadn't returned. The injured bunny was stiff and motionless, and I felt like kicking myself for waiting. The other was moving around, so I put the baby and the nest materials into a shoe box (and the other one into an empty box), and headed for VetMed. I ended up with a very nice student, who confirmed that the stiff bunny was indeed dead and relayed the survivor to the wildlife clinic and told me that the person there had said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," for bringing it in. They said that I could call to check on its progress, so I probably will this week.

Update: The rabbit had a punctured bladder and didn't make it. The vet pointed out that the wounds were not consistent with bites from a dog Aoife's size, so it might not have been her fault at all.

San Diego

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:44:11 GMT

Last week, I went to San Diego for a conference. It was actually the first time I'd been to the West Coast. Because of the consistently nice weather, it was common for buildings to have open windows and doors, and there were also these things called "pedi-cabs," which are like big tricycles with seats in back.

Monday night, I rode the trolley down to the Mexican border. One of the first things I saw was a couple of border police with a Mexican guy in handcuffs. The crossing had a large bridge over the highway where you could look into Mexico, and I went up there with a cellphone to snap photos. Tijuana was vast, and visibly poorer than downtown San Diego. One building with missing windows made me think of East St. Louis. The border patrol agents by the gate saw me standing there and yelled at me to keep moving. Going into Mexico alone at dusk seemed scary (and not because of the police), so I decided to turn around and head back to the U.S. side.

The conference and hotel were located on a harbor, which was pretty. The U.S.S. Midway, an aircraft carrier, was docked there, and it was huge. Tuesday evening, I took the bus down to Silver Strand Beach on Coronado Island, which faced the Pacific. There were miles of beach, and not many other people in sight, so it felt a little like the end of the world.

Wednesday evening, I went to see the San Diego Zoo. That was fun, albeit a little rushed. The pandas were there, and we saw the two babies asleep in a tree. The trip was a lot of fun, though by Friday, I was ready to go home and see flattie again.

Dog Show

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:39:12 GMT

flattie and I had our first dog show the weekend before last. She got some ribbons, but no points. Overall, the experience was OK. The event was at the Champaign County fairgrounds, and there were lots of large RVs specially outfitted for dogs parked near the site, along with crates, exercise pens, and blowdryers. Many of the RVs apparently belonged to professional handlers, who would travel around the country to dog shows to "campaign" dogs. The hard-core competitors can spend a lot of money on showing dogs. It was interesting to contrast this with the lower-income area of town outside the fairgrounds.

Our own effort was pretty amateurish. Friday was the first show, and the night before, I used the hose at the Urbana dog park to give her a bath and held her leash tightly so she couldn't roll in the dirt immediately afterward. Since I didn't have a grooming table, I got to chase Aoife around the house with grooming implements. She let me know that she had no use for blowdryers. I was able to brush out her coat so that her cowlicks didn't stick up quite as much as they usually did, and she let me do a little trimming around her ears (seeing as how I had treats).

Friday morning, we ended up being the only entry in her breed class, so she got a few ribbons by default. The judge was a very friendly guy who chatted with people about their dogs, so I asked him if Aoife seemed like a show-quality dog. He said that she was a little fat and her top-line could be better, but overall I was lucky because someone had sold me a quality dog. (Actually, she had not been sold as a show prospect at all, but that's another story.)

Saturday, she did have competition. We had another judge, who said, "Do me a favor and hold the lead in your left hand." I said, "Sorry, we're inexperienced." He said, "It shows." We were third ... out of three. DOH! The other people there were all very nice, though, and gave me some good advice. Someone else encouraged me to learn to groom my dog properly. Oops.

Sunday, I was pretty sure we'd lose again, but if we didn't show up, the lady who'd brought her dog over from Springfield wouldn't be able to get any points. (AKC's system seems a little strange to me, but it's unlikely to change.) So we politely showed up and lost. After that, we ran into a vet we'd known from the Springfield area, who said that if I got Aoife's weight down and took some handling classes, I'd have a very competitive dog.

The weight was a little confusing to me, because I wasn't feeding her that much and generally used low-calorie training treats (e.g., blueberries, sweet potatoes, little ice cubes). She was a little chubby, though. A couple of nights ago, that mystery may have been solved. I was sitting in the living room and heard some strange noises.

*CRACKLE*
*CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH*
*CRACKLE*
*CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH*

The dog food bag looked a little different that I'd left it, and Aoife was sitting there looking at me innocently. I felt inside the opening, and noticed that it was a little damp. Almost as if a dog had just had her nose in the bag of dog food. I relocated the bag to a shelf, and Aoife looked visibly disappointed.

Canines and canoes

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:25:10 GMT

Well, if you're ever thinking about taking a rambunctious 60+ pound dog canoeing, don't. We tried this Monday night and lasted about 10 minutes.

This weekend, I'm supposed to go up to the Chicago area to see some relatives. So I've been looking for a place to board the dog. Maybe I'll try doggie daycare up there.

Making the news, sort of

Wed, 07 May 2008 20:38:18 GMT

On Saturday, flattie and I did Mutt Strut in Centennial Park and she got her picture in the N-G.

http://www.news-gazette.com/scene/gallery/367/?photoID=55

That night, she got really sick - she was throwing up so badly that she couldn't even keep down fluids. We ended up going to the emergency vet in the wee hours of the morning where she got some subcutaneous fluids and shots to stop the vomiting. She spent most of Sunday sleeping and was still pretty lethargic on Monday. She also had some bloody diarrhea, so we went to her regular vet. They seemed to think that it was a nasty case of gastroenteritis and remembered that she'd had a problem with clostridium before. So they prescribed some metronidazole and other stuff to calm her GI tract. By that point, she was able to keep some water and Pedialyte down, but she still hadn't eaten. My neighbor, who's an animal science grad student, suggested cooking some white rice and lean meat. It seemed like a good sign when Aoife got very interested while it was cooking, and when I put a little down in front of her, it disappeared quickly. She perked up yesterday, and the diarrhea seems to be (hopefully) gone today.

Happiness is a healthy puppy.

Earthquake

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:05:32 GMT

A few days ago, there was an earthquake in Southern IL along the New Madrid fault line, and we felt it up here a little. It wasn't that surprising, since experts have been predicting earthquakes in Southern Illinois for a while. There was some property damage at the epicenter, but nobody was hurt. I remember waking up somewhere around 4:30, and flattie was already wide awake and wanting to go out. A neighbor was apparently up too - we saw a door opening and closing. Update: Someone corrected me and pointed out that it happened on the Wabash Valley fault line, rather than the New Madrid one.

Today ended up being surprisingly nice, despite forecasts of rain. flattie seemed to really enjoy retrieving her bumper in the water. (Quite a contrast from the late great PJ, who made a point of stepping around puddles.)

Nine months

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:32:02 GMT

flattie turned nine months old on Sunday. She's now up to about 62 lbs.

Green candidate

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:26:28 GMT

One of the guys associated with UCIMC got in some trouble last year when police found some pot plants in his home. He recently got first offender's probation, which sounds reasonable enough - it's not like his horticultual talents were causing problems for other people. So what does he do next? Runs for County Board, of course. He'll get some votes, but I don't think that he has much chance of defeating the incumbent. Oh well, I've been proved wrong before and we'll see what happens in November.

Rezko trial

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:12:29 GMT

The Rezko trial has been covered extensively, and there are some online audio recordings of phone conversations between Stuart Levine and Bill Cellini.

http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/MP3/levinecellini040208a.wav
http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/MP3/levinecellini040208b.wav
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-080403-levine-cellini-mp3,1,6158322.mp3file

It's fascinating to listen to them - I went to high school in Springfield with Cellini's son (who was a nice guy). There's a pronounced contrast between the two - Cellini's polite and restrained, and Levine seems crude in comparison. I wonder if they illustrate the contrast between Springfield and Chicago - Springfield is quite political, but it's smaller and fairly conservative. Our previous GOP governors had their own patronage, but Blago goes even further and he's a lot more blatant about it.