Rookie Told To Ease Up on Crime Scene Tape

Seriously, is the new Onion editor from Chicago?
Every story I click on is dateline "Chicago" and this funny picture is, yeah, Chicago.

Middle East Conflict Intensifies as Blah Blah Etc Etc."

I thoroughly enjoyed this article, right to the end.
***Naughty language warning, and not just "damn" and "hell".***

Unsolved Hip-Hop Crimes.

Now that a suspect has finally been named in the 2002 killing of Jam Master Jay, police have turned their attention to other unsolved hip-hop crimes. Here are some that are currently under investigation.

Theft of Ludacris' Jet Ski in 2004

The death of Big Pun, caused by unknown fast food chain or chains

Notorious incident at Diddy's 2004 White Party when an unidentified vandal purposely brought extra-saucy ribs that completely ruined the ivory tableau

Unsolved disappearance of the third Fugee

Two hundred million dollars that fell out of Jay-Z's pocket during a Nets game is, at press time, unreturned

Continued refusal of Kool Keith's estranged super-galactic lover to abide by the restraining order against her

Numerous members of the Chamillitary are AWOL and subject to court-martial

Two masked assailants shot Bushwick Bill on the operating table while he was being treated for an earlier shooting

The continual disappearance of 50 Cent's newspaper from the stoop of his $4.1 million Connecticut mansion

More Onion silliness.

"Inner City Stabbing Leaves Five Maidless."

Let me see...

1) A Bugaboo stroller
2) A boppy
3) "Nursery Water" (What the...?)
4) Anything "Baby Genius" or "Baby Einstein" or whatever it's called.

Okay. I'm out.

Bwahahaha, or, "I Love 'The Onion.'

"Mayor Daley's Son Appointed Head of Illinois' Nepotist Party"

CHICAGO—Mere weeks after his unusual mid-March graduation from Northwestern University's School of Law, Shaun Daley, son of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, was named chairman of the Illinois Nepotist Party Monday.

"I'm thrilled and humbled to be chosen to lead one of Chicago's most beloved and respected political organizations," said Daley, who was sworn in at his family's ancestral residence, the Chicago City Hall. "I swear to you all that I shall do my best to uphold the principles and last name that have made Chicago what it is today."

Daley vowed to use his position to combat unemployment amongst the sons and daughters of Illinois' most prominent politicians and business figures.

Absolut Keep-on-dreamin'. Cute ad, though.

New ad campaign from Absolut Vodka regarding the Curse of the Billy Goat.

From the Trib article:

The billboard ads should jar some discussions in Chicago between Cubs and White Sox fans over the meaning of a Billy Goat sitting in a stadium's empty stands.

Cubs fans will be able to say the goat is seated in Wrigley Field awaiting the start of this fall's Series. Cubs haters, however, could just as easily propose that in an Absolut World the curse lives on because of the empty seats.

The Goat part of the campaign will debut on a billboard across from Wrigley Field on July 1 and will be joined by hundreds of billboards around Chicago and suburbs -- "except the South Side."

"That's Sox country," said Jeremy Miller, a spokesman for the ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day/New York, which developed the campaign. (The ad agency apparently understands that you don't put a Cubs billboard south of Roosevelt Road.)

(In a related story, once I petted and kissed the goat outside a Cubs game. You know how they say, "He smells like a goat." Well there's a reason. Goats reek. It took weeks to get the stench out of my coat. Well, yes, I was drunk, but I don't really see how that's relevant.)

What? Like you don't have any friends who are slumlords.

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.

It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years. Rezko has been a political patron to Obama and many others, helping to raise millions of dollars for them through his own contributions and by hosting fund-raisers in his home.

Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.

The building in Englewood was one of 30 Rezmar rehabbed in a series of troubled deals largely financed by taxpayers. Every project ran into financial difficulty. More than half went into foreclosure, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

"Their buildings were falling apart,'' said a former city official. "They just didn't pay attention to the condition of these buildings.''

Eleven of Rezko's buildings were in Obama's state Senate district.

Obama, now a U.S. senator running for president, has come under fire over his friendship with Rezko, who was charged last fall with demanding kickbacks on state business deals under Gov. Blagojevich.

Oh, go on. Read the entire thing.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Ordinary time. Click to enlarge.

Marian chausible. Click to enlarge.

Antique fiddlebacks.

Every so often I get kind of hypnotized by the vestments at church.
Some days they are just so very beautiful I wish I could touch them.
Anyhow, here are some antiques I found for sale online: black, gold, red, and rose.
Once, I was down at the Institute of Christ the King on the south side cleaning and painting and such. The good Msgr. and I were in the empty shell of a church talking, and there was a rack with some left-behind (can't imagine why) horrid polyester vestments hanging on it.
Msgr., without a change in expression or tone, turned to me at one point and said solemnly, in his thick German accent, "Do you vant some vestments? Zay are free. For Halloween, perhaps?"
I told him I was all for ghost stories and trick-or-treating, but I didn't think Halloween should be that scary.

Merry Christmas, Father Jim!

May the road rise to meet you and the people be at your back. So they don't have to gaze upon this horrendous thing.

But, Father, see - it looks like a stained glass window!!

Holy crap, Batman.

For his birthday, perhaps?

What do you think Father would say if I got him this as a gag gift but pretended to be serious, expecting him to be thrilled.
Do you think he'd say, "Well, thank you."
Or do you think his face would turn all red and he'd become physically ill from the bad taste overload, and then he'd yell, "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND??!"
Heh. Heh heh heh.
Yeah, probably that one.
Ah, well. It's not for sale anyhow.
According to the person who created this, it was made for a local southern hal-lay-luyah church for the Blessing of the Animals. They're getting as bad as Catholics down there - they'll bless anything.
(Removes tongue from cheek.)