Third District Peoria City Council member Gale Thetford is in hot water
with the firefighters
union over her apparent switch on the Fire Station 11 matter. Thetford
is among the council members who favor telling to department that it the
station is to remain open, they will have to find cuts elsewhere.
But then, maybe she isn’t. This is [...]

Hasn’t the /Journal Star/ editorial board been telling us for months now
that Fire Station 11 contributes almost nothing to public safety?
Haven’t they been telling us for months now that nearby fire stations
can easily pick up the slack if it were closed? Haven’t they been
hammering away for months now that fire response time would increase by
a [...]

… I was one day shy of six months. Mom says she was holding me as she
watched “As The World Turns” when they new bulletin came on. She woke up
Dad, who was working third shift at Pabst Brewery at the time. Dad then
went downstairs to tell the neighbors.
They were glued to the television for the [...]

[http://www.lanceandeskimo.com/chefelf/images/rev_bq1_amethea2.jpg]
Forget Michael Jackson. The big news as far as I am concerned is that
sociopathic music producer Phil Spector has been finally been charged

with murdering actress Lana Clarkson
(right), star of the B-movie
classic “The Barbarian Queen.”

Lana also had a very small role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
as Mr. Vargas’ wife.
I am mad, but not [...]

For the second day in a row, Phil Luciano has written a column that I
enjoyed. If he keeps this up, it could be a sign of the Apocalypse.
? Downtown plan mostly make-believe

Luciano looks into the Heart of Illinois plan, which advocates such
radical concepts like eliminating one-way streets, fixing up abandoned
buildings, fixing sidewalks and making sure [...]

Reporter Jennifer Davis has completely bought into the rhetoric of those
who want to close Fire Station 11.
? Peoria City Council members hit snag on 2004 budget plans

/Current interim city manager Steve Van Winkle, knowing the
council’s determination to keep the fire station open, crafted a
[...]

The Peoria Civic Center
will spend more than
$1.58 million to buy 1.5 acres of land to be used for parking. The
center authority also will spend $1.3 million to demolish buildings and
pave the land to create 214 new parking spaces. According to my
calculator, that means each space will cost an average of $13,457.95.
I’m just a lowly reporter, [...]

Attention class: Your assignment for today is to compare and contrast
the following two e-mail breaking news alerts.
This one is from ABCNews : “Mass. Court Rules
on Same-Sex Marriage.” It is was followed to several inks to various
abcnews.com features. It was the first to appear in my mailbox.
This one is from CNN: “Mass. Court Rules on [...]

? /Journal Star:/ Latest strip-club plan calls for a gaudy pink building

/With their original plans for an upscale gentlemen’s club recently
dashed by the City Council, Scott Wood and Dave Remington say
instead they’ll open a gaudy strip club catering to the
[...]

It’s bad enough that newspapers let readers vote on what comics to read.
It’s worse when newspapers hire consultants to tell them what news
articles readers want to read. Here is a newspaper that is encouraging
readers to let them know

whether they should keep running the words of a particular syndicated
columnist.
What utter and complete crap.
There is a story, [...]

Media baron Conrad Black has resigned from Hollinger International

after some financial irregularities surfaced. Couldn’t have happened to
a nicer fellow. I don’t mind his conservative politics. I can be pretty
conservative at times. What I minded was the way he treated his
newspapers and his employees as just so much disposable garbage.
I have earlier posts on this scumbag [...]

But wait! This guy make a lot
of sense. I’ve been trying for months to form the words to express the
ideas in this particular post

about the whole Canadian drug issue, but didn’t quite know how to do it.
Damn, him! Damn him for telepathically stealing my poorly formed idea
and putting it into words.
I’d add him to [...]

Just ask my mother. I bought her a new computer yesterday. She’s already
tearing up the Internet. You may be receiving a picture of her
great-grandson at this very moment.
What did my brother get her for her birthday? I forget. So did Mom, when
she saw /my/ present.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA

These people are
getting more hits today than they have in the history of their site.
Apparently, I’m not the only blog with this Blogrolling problem.
I’d visit some of other blogs, but I can’t. /I don’t have their URLs
anymore./

No matter what Tom Mangan thinks
, I don’t question his
intelligence. Not /seriously/, anyway. Just the other day, he posted a
nice article
about how blogs can be used to bring news to the suburbs.
He proposes that newspapers set up blogs so residents themselves can
cover the news that the newspaper doesn’t. Intriguing.
Here in Peoria, we’ve got a [...]