Events

The Chicago Tribune has endorsed two suburban Democrats in one week. How unexpected. Imagine the Wall Street Journal endorsing Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters, and you have some idea why I'm surprised. Today they've endorsed Melissa Bean: Rep. Bean has recognized the need to listen very carefully to her constituents--she's a Democrat in a district that gave 56 percent of its vote to President Bush in 2004. She has charted a moderate, independent course and earned the support of Republicans and...

Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY), dogged by questions about her involvement in the Mark Foley scandal, ran away from reporters and a debate with her Democratic challenger. This probably qualifies as "cut and run," don't you think?

Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth (D, IL-06) is on WBEZ-Chicago's 848 right now, wiping the floor with her right-wing opponent, Peter Roskam. Tune in if you aren't already listening. "Well, Peter, I've been to Iraq, where I had steak and lobster every night but I didn't have armor on the truck I drove that carried 5,000 gallons of aviation fuel." Update: The show is available for download (.mp3, 26.2 MB). Disclosure: I have contributed money to the Duckworth campaign.

It rained a lot yesterday, but Parker doesn't care. In fact, he's not too fond of the toweling-off process that follows a good splash through the dog park. Maybe he'd prefer a blow dry? (Um, no.)

Bruce Schneier writes today about a pernicious loss of privacy and our complacency about that: Fewer conversations are ephemeral, and we’re losing control over the data. We trust our ISPs, employers and cellphone companies with our privacy, but again and again they’ve proven they can’t be trusted. Identity thieves routinely gain access to these repositories of our information. Paris Hilton and other celebrities have been the victims of hackers breaking into their cellphone providers’ networks. Google...

Here are three ways to help, right in TDP's back yard. You can contribute a few bucks to Melissa Bean, running for re-election to Congress from Illinois' 8th district, to Tammy Duckworth, running for Henry Hyde's seat in the Illinois 6th, or to Dan Seals in the Illinois 10th. Duckworth is currently polling within the margin of error against her opponent, Peter Roskam, who continually sinks to new depths in his desperate campaign to keep the seat in Greedy Old Party hands. The GOP has just given almost...

Last one from Meramec: (By the way, most of the photos on the site are displayed at one-quarter size; you can open them in a new browser window, or save them to disk, to see them at larger sizes.)

The Chicago Bar Association has released its recommendations for judicial retentions in the upcoming elections. Illinois voters have the opportunity to reject judges each year. A judge needs to get 60% yes votes to keep his or her seat, and every year, the CBA and other organizations recommend that a few not be retained. This year's losers include: CYNTHIA BRIM - NOT RECOMMENDED The candidate declined to participate in the Judicial Evaluation Committee (JEC) screening process and, therefore, according...

Anne loves this photo:

Parker had tons of fun at Meramec over the weekend. If we could get him to run around for hours at a time during the week at home, I think we'd sleep better. Meramec is also fun for people: Also, we failed to remember that at this point he only gives us seven hours from bedtime before dancing on our heads in the morning. Last night we had him out around 9:30, so at 4:45, there he was, yawning loudly in my face. I made a half-hearted attempt to rouse him at 10:15; tonight, faced with the same behavior...