My take on...

1. Civic Center
   Baaaaaaad PR, fellas. Personally, I couldn't be happier the mayor has NOT named me to that commission. What a boondoggle. Look, we need the thing. No doubt about it. But let's be realistic. The people running this thing act like they're the most important story in town, like their open hands deserve more green than all the other open hands around town. Just feels more and more like the Toledo riverfront to me. Visited it about 15 years ago. Huge local dollars. Beautiful convention center. And it was vacant. Well, that's not exactly true. It was occupied by the city's homeless. Pretty successful now, thanks to a lot of redevelopment, but boy-o, was it ever bad then.
   
   
2. Parking Tickets
   Interesting topic from Ms. Bilbo. Evidentally, our fine city is hemoragging green by booking people for ridiculously minor offenses. No wonder the county's pissed about the $25. According to the article, there were 4,860 parking and noise ordinance violations from 2001-2005. The city then issued arrest warrants for 3,647 of them. As Bilbo points out, that's 75 percent! So drive carefully, Peoria. Your name might be on a list. And if it is, I hope you're not allergical to latex, cause you're going to get searched in your...well...most sensitive areas. Or you can handle the situation like this Des Moines lady, who faked her death to avoid paying parking tickets. Dramatic, yes. But I give her points for style.
   
   Here's my recommendation to the city: set up a freaking e-commerce site already. Join the nineties, at least. Mail a notification to people that, to avoid being issued a warrant, they must either show up and pay in person -- or visit a website and pay by credit card. That's easy money, kiddos.
   
   Unpaid fines are almost always an issue of inconvenience. As in...drive to the courthouse during lunch, try to find a parking spot, go through the metal detector, find the right line, wait in said line, have cash or a checkbook on hand, and then kiss the ass of an unfriendly clerk who makes less money than a school bus driver. Just give me a freaking web address, already. I'll pay! I'll pay!
   
   Do the math: 3,647 fines at, let's say, $75 each...that's $273,525. Not bad money, that. Add in what we save in unecessary bookings, lawsuits, etc., and we might just have enough for Bill's precious fire engine.
   
   
3. Covergirl
   Nice cleavage shot from today's Journal Star (though someone needs to teach 'em how to make their photos web ready). Anyway, I'm sure there are worse ways to come home from the war. Welcome back, soldier.
   
   
4. UAE
   This is such a non-issue. People, we live and work in a global economy. There is no such thing as national anything, anymore. Hell, we have soldiers fighting in our own army who aren't even citizens, yet (and hats off to 'em, by the way). British companies are managing our ports right now, and Britain is home to some of the most radical muslims in the world. To me, this is political gamemanship.
   
   However, W was pretty naive to step into the trap. Should have smelled the stink coming a mile away. Yet, he and his merry team of advisors walked right into it. Again. You would have thought the wisedom (snort) of all the king's men/women would have saved him from this fiasco. It's just a good thing for America that everything else is going so well...
   
   
5. Best New Blogger
   Sure, I love Polly and Bill and CJ and the gang. But my new fav is peoriaillinoisan. Fun info, great links, and even the occassional scoop. Keep it up, man-o.
   
   (Incidentally, I just noticed the bastard beat me to the picture above. Jerk.)
   
   
6. Loyalty
   Many thanks to the people who keep visiting this site -- even though I haven't been posting to it, lately. I'll try harder.