By Steve Rhodes
1. “Prosecutors Moving To Dismiss Some Blagojevich Charges.”
For example, conspiracy to commit hair fraud and talk show racketeering.
2. Rahm’s coalition.
3. The [2011 Election] Papers.
4. “A study prepared for The New York Times by academics at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, has analyzed some 1,450 Supreme Court decisions since 1953,” Economy Watch reports.
“It showed that, during the five terms in which John Roberts has been Chief Justice, the percentage of both business cases on the Supreme Court docket and cases won by business interests has grown visibly.
“The Roberts court ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953.”
*
“There has been a return on investment, not to sound too crass,” said Robin Conrad of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
5. “A PERSONAL SHOUT-OUT of congrats to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, and here’s hoping that you will stay focused, as you have often said during your campaign, on the escalating crime rate and murders of young people in our city,” Stella Foster writes today.
*
Actually the crime rate has declined for a decade in Chicago and the rest of the nation, and the murder rate in Chicago reached a 45-year low last year.
*
“Between 1990 and 2009, the national violent-crime rate was halved, while property crime dropped to 60 percent of its previous rate, according to the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data,” Christopher Beam writes for Slate. “But almost every year since 1989, most Americans have told pollsters they believe crime is getting worse. ”
Now where do you suppose Americans are getting that idea?
6. “Demonic possession is ‘still very real,’ Fr. Jeffrey Grob said in a lecture on campus Wednesday night,” the Notre Dame-Saint Mary’s Observer reports.
“Grob, one of the official exorcists of the Archdiocese of Chicago, delivered a lecture titled ‘Evil and the Healing Ministry of Exorcism’ at the Hesburgh Library Auditorium.”
*
See also: “Chicago Exorcist: The ‘Evil One’ Is Very Real.”
*
And: “Exorcists In U.S. And Europe Holding Conferences To Discuss Surge In Demonic Activity.”
*
Plus: “Supernatural: Buffy’s Amber Benson Returns For Episode 619.”
7. “Can social media make you depressed?”
Not as much as local TV news.
8. If you haven’t been reading Bulls, Beer & Mystery Sex, please do so now.
9. “The Homeless Jazz Man Who Should Have Been Famous.”
10. Ultra-Realistic Madden To Simulate Game’s Debilitating Concussions.
–
The Beachwood Tip Line: Debilitating.
Posted on February 24, 2011