By Steve Rhodes
1. “You could say that the Bears left their season right here, in San Francisco with Thursday’s ugly 10-6 loss, but that would ignore the failings by this team that have been spread across the country,” Brad Biggs writes in the Sun-Times.
2. “I think he realizes he can’t be elected governor unless he apologizes,” Rob Warden says of Jim Ryan’s apology in the Jeanine Nicarico prosecutions. “He is no more sincere than Dugan. I don’t mean to equate what Ryan did with what Dugan did because Dugan committed three murders, Ryan only committed three attempted murders: Rolando Cruz; Alejandro Hernandez and Stephen Buckley. I think he should pull out of the race and turn his campaign fund into a benevolent fund for Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley.”
3. “In the Cruz-Hernandez cases, prosecutors, detectives and police officers acted in good faith and still came up with the wrong result,” Ryan said.
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“A series of journalists beginning with Rob Warden, now director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, pored over the evidence and, to a one, concluded that the county had cynically botched the prosecution of Cruz and Hernandez and that Dugan was Jeanine’s killer beyond any doubt,” writes Eric Zorn, whose columns on the case were Pulitzer-worthy.
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From Zorn: “Jim Ryan’s role in the Nicarico case.”
4. BREAKING NEWS! Corruption No Longer Exists In City Hiring!
5. “Testifying later at a City Council budget hearing, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said if the court orders her to turn over the documents [sought by the city inspector general’s office], she would ask the City Council to amend the municipal code ‘to say my privilege is sacred’,” the Sun-Times reports.
“I do not think I can do my job and do it effectively for you if my client, including those people [aldermen] in this room, think that whatever they tell me is going to be turned over to the IG,” Georges said.
Wait – isn’t Georges’ client us?
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On the other hand, maybe Georges should have a talk with Anita Alvarez on behalf of those Northwestern students and the Chicago media community at-large.
6. It’s not a mystery why Chicago pays $690 each to transport dead bodies while San Antonio only pays $125 and Dallas pays $94; we have to drive them to and from their polling places.
7. “Universal Settles Newspapers’ Complaints Over Fake Alien Abduction News.”
8. 74 tickets, 1 car.
9. A better way to write the news, from John Cook at Gawker:
Balloon Boy’s Parents to Plead Guilty to Hoaxing America’s Cable News Personalities
Richard and Mayumi Heene, the parents of that cute vomiting boy who did not get lost in the air in a balloon, will plead guilty tomorrow to charges that they concocted the story in order to become famous, which happened.
10. Senate Candidates Release Self-Serving Polls!
11. Republican candidates for governor deny global warming. Gravity next.
12. Rich Whitney lies in wait.
13. “When people think of Bloodshot, they probably think of country,” Matt Baron of Coach House Sounds tells us. “But you look deeper and they have other acts. Like great female vocalists. They live and breathe the bands they represent. My engineer’s favorite session was with Mark Pickerel. He likes those dark country folk tunes that Mark likes to write.”
14. “The cookie incident, however, did make me think about the Head Guard’s agenda,” our very own Jerome Haller writes in I Am A Security Guard. “Truth be told, I don’t know him very well. I pondered whether he targets suspects solely on the basis of skin color.
“I got my answer later that night.”
15. Like Ed Norton, our man on the rail got his knuckles loose for the Breeders’ Cup. And it was spectacular.
16. You can’t spell stick-up without UT. In Dr. Dude’s College Football Report.
17. Lovie Smith’s next job.
18. “I hope Jay Cutler doesn’t throw a fit after watching films of his performance in San Francisco,” our very own George Ofman writes. “I’m sure it would intercepted.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Pick ’em.
Posted on November 13, 2009