Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
“What’s more important for a devout Roman Catholic: a special audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican or preserving your attendance record as the Lou Gehrig of the Chicago City Council?” Fran Spielman writes for the Sun-Times.
“For Ald. Edward Burke (14th), the answer is the iron man record.”
Yeah, that would be Cal Ripken, not Lou Gehrig. The Cal Ripken whose nickname was “The Iron Man.”
Posted on June 26, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
For completists, there was no column on Thursday.
“During the presidential campaign, National Enquirer executives sent digital copies of the tabloid’s articles and cover images related to Donald Trump and his political opponents to Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen in advance of publication, according to three people with knowledge of the matter,” the Washington Post reports.
“Once Enquirer editors sent a story or cover image, sometimes a request for changes came back, according to two of the people with knowledge of the relationship. Stories about Trump were positive in nature, and changes related to the stories were not dramatic, according to one person with knowledge of the matter, who said most of the changes in stories sent to Cohen resulted in more flattering cover photos or changes to cover headlines.
“Trump suggested stories to Pecker on a regular basis, one of these people said, and had access to certain pieces – including one about Hillary Clinton’s health – before publication.”
Posted on June 22, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“In scrambling to ramp up production of its Model 3 electric car, Tesla has run into trouble with robots and automated machinery, a need for more workers and a shortage of battery packs,” the New York Times reports.
“Now Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, suspects his company might have a more unusual problem: sabotage.
“In an e-mail sent to employees late Sunday night, Mr. Musk said a disgruntled worker had broken into the company’s computer systems in an attempt to disrupt manufacturing.”
Was it a rambling e-mail? Usually those are rambling e-mails.
Posted on June 20, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“Since June 1, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth has grown over $5B and now totals $141.9B, according to the Forbes World’s Billionaires list.
To put it another way, Jeff Bezos’s net worth in the last 18 days has grown by more than double the amount Chicago is offering in tax breaks to land Amazon’s “second headquarters.”
In fact, Bezos is making so much money that the only way he can figure out how to spend it is to launch it into space.
Posted on June 19, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“Fishing piers and floating gardens welcome anglers to the Chicago Riverwalk, but a few blocks upstream is a little-known threat to fish and other aquatic life in the city’s steadily improving waterway: Trump International Hotel & Tower,” the Tribune’s estimable Michael Hawthorne writes today.
State records obtained by the Tribune show the president’s glass-and-steel skyscraper is one of the largest users of Chicago River water for its cooling systems, siphoning nearly 20 million gallons a day through intakes so powerful the machines could fill an Olympic swimming pool in less than an hour, then pumping the water back into the river up to 35 degrees hotter.
Like other large users that draw water directly from rivers or lakes, Trump Tower is required to follow federal and state regulations detailing how facilities should limit the number of fish pinned against intake screens or killed by sudden changes in pressure and temperature.
Yet of the nearly dozen high-rises that rely on the Chicago River for cooling water, the decade-old skyscraper developed by Donald Trump is the only one that has failed to document it took those measures, state records show. Trump’s Chicago managers also haven’t conducted a study of fish killed by the luxury hotel and condominium complex – another step required five years ago by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in a permit for the building’s water intakes.
To be clear, this is not only negligence by Trump Tower, but by the regulatory authorities who are supposed to ensure compliance with the laws. (Not fake laws, but real ones!)
Posted on June 18, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“Hundreds of Chicago public schools collectively need more than $3 billion in repairs – including leaky roofs, unreliable boilers, and decaying windows that are made worse year after year as critical needs are deferred,” Sarah Karp reports for WBEZ.
That’s three times as much as Elon Musk says he needs to spend to build the O’Hare HyperLoop (which is what I’m going to call it, though I considered Hype o’ Loop). Which means it’s about equal given Chicago’s penchant for change orders, delays, kickbacks and fuck-ups that basically triple the cost of any project around here.
Posted on June 15, 2018
By Steve Rhodes
“With exquisitely strange timing, the Department of Homeland Security [Tuesday] unveiled a ‘Northern Border Strategy‘ to protect the United States against threats originating in Canada,” Secrecy News reports.
Posted on June 13, 2018
