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* Illinois corn yield decreases 10 percent: U.S. reserves of corn have hit their lowest level in more than 15 years, reflecting tighter supplies that will lead to higher food prices in 2011. Increasing demand for corn from the ethanol industry is a major reason for the decline.

* Morgan County wins $1.3 billion FutureGen clean coal project

* Illinois requests federal aid for winter storm costs

* Strike avoided as Caterpillar, UAW reach tentative deal

* New Metra CEO outlines reforms - Pagano’s successor vows ‘zero tolerance’ for ethics violations

* Trains will travel through stations during boarding: A policy preventing trains from rolling past a station while another train is boarding passengers will end Tuesday at some stations on Metra’s Union Pacific West Line.

* Daley, Emanuel talk about mayoral transition

* Wanted: The suburbanization of Chicago

* Daley Wants Weis, Weis Wants Contract

* Daley wants Weis to stay on a while

* Daley on whether he voted for Rahm: ‘Have you been around?’

* Details, details: Sneed hears rumbles Loop lawyer Matthew Hynes, a brother of former state Comptroller Dan Hynes and member of a politically powerful Southwest Side family, heads the list to become Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s chief of staff.

* ABC7 talks to man behind MayorEmanuel Twitter

* Poor Showings Leave Black Candidates Blaming Media in Chicago Mayoral Race

* Rhymefest’s raps become campaign fodder in aldermanic race: In his songs, Grammy-winner Che “Rhymefest” Smith spits and stutters curse words, homophobic slurs and the N-word. He sometimes busts rhymes about shooting guns and selling drugs. In his song, “Chicago” — a tale of his hometown where he’s running for 20th Ward alderman — Rhymefest raps, “Ain’t sorry that I did it/ I’m sorry I got caught.”

* Special Segment: High-Level Heliport

* Institute discusses budget, elections

* Defense calls prosecution ‘incredibly reckless’: McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi is free on his own recognizance after being indicted for a second time along with two of his investigators.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 9:15 am

Comments

Rhymefest’s raps become campaign fodder in aldermanic race

The Hearst and the Chandler newspapers did the same thing to Upton Sinclair when won the Democratic primary for California governor in 1934, i.e. they’d take some outrageous thing uttered by a character in one of his novels and would pretend that Sinclair had said it himself.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 9:38 am
The whole Ethanol thing is nuts. We’re burning our food for fuel. That makes sense how? I guess people that can’t afford to eat, can at least drive to the food pantry with the few cents per gallon that they save in fuel costs

Comment by PublicServant Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 9:38 am
- We’re burning our food for fuel. -

Not only that, we’re subsidizing doing so with taxpayer dollars.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 9:45 am
@PublicServant - When you break down the cost of bread, cost of wheat in one loaf is only 9 to 15 cents a loaf. So what accounts for the rest (other than profit)?

The cost of energy to grow it. The cost of energy to package it. And the cost of energy to transport it. That’s why, even though the price of staples like wheat, corn and sugar have risen by more than 50 percent in recent months, the price of food in the U.S. has barely budged. Food prices in the United States rose only 1.5 percent over the past year.* In other words, the price of food is a reflection of the price of energy, not the price of the farm commodity.

And consider: In 1949, Americans spent 22% of their income on food, whereas in 2009 they spent around 10%.** There are certainly Americans who cannot afford food, but it is not because food is too expensive. It is because they have no money left after paying for the other expensive necessities of life, e.g. housing, transportation to work, heating, etc. Each of which has an energy-cost component.

Bottom line: If you want to make food more affordable for Americans, you need to lower the cost of energy.***

– MrJM

*http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm; **http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September08/Findings/PercentofIncome.htm
*** This does not apply to the price of food in the developing world where the wheat-flour price may account for 70 percent of the cost of a loaf of bread and where food prices can account for the largest slice of household income, e.g. households in Tanzania spend close to three-quarters of their income on food.

Comment by MrJM Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 10:25 am
Which isn’t to say that ethanol is anything other than a gob-smacking boondoggle.

Because it is.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 10:29 am
Wow. That last comment may be the most unclear thing I’ve ever written, so please lemmie try again.

Ethanol is a gob-smacking boondoggle.

Thank you for your indulgence.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 10:31 am
What will it take to kill the concept of fuel from food stocks in this land of ADM?

Is there a politician around who will say that the subsidies have to stop ASAP and move the focus to a better source for alternate fuels?

Lets start filling our budget hole with the money spent in subsidies for this boondoggle.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 11:01 am
Bianchi prosecution appears way over the top - criminalizing what should be at most administrative matters (or matters for the voters to pass on). Who is paying these special prosecutors? Is it hourly? Are they ‘milking the file’, as lawyers often do? Just asking.

Comment by formerpolitico Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 11:29 am
Why do idiots take rappers seriously? Not that they are not people, but they are entertainers who are in most cases, characters.

Why did Willie Shaekespare advocate the suicide of two young teens?

How did CA elect Arnold Schwartzenggar Governor when he killed all those people, plus, he is a robot.

Comment by Wumpus Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 11:33 am
Ethanol Subsidies are an indicator of political and social retardation/dementia.

Any nation that persists in pursuing such a blatantly counter productive policy based upon the political clout of the lobby promoting it cannot long endure.

Dumping these subsidies or keeping them is a litmus test of whether America rebounds or continues its descent into economic stagnation and political gridlock.

Comment by Bruno Behrend Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 11:56 am
I think somebody has to say it. Yesterday and today in the Sun Times, on the cover no less, there are two articles by Tim Novak and Carol Marin — very respected journalists — about the botched investigation of Mayor Daley’s nephew (who once held a shotgun to the head of a fellow teenager as Patrick Daley beat him senseless) was involved in a fight where a death happened. The CPD drags their feet, blames the victim (the deceased), the State’s Attorney loses the case file — something that a very well respected lawyer and law professor Richard Kling claims to have never seen in his 39 years of experience, and no mention.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 11 @ 6:56 pm