North Side Green Party

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojavich today called his hand picked successor a eunich.

The North Side Greens have agreed to co-sponsor a peace rally and march scheduled for March 18.

Few people outside of Green circles expected that there would be any need for peace marches at this point in time. It was widely believed that then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would move swiftly to end US involvement in the Mideast.

Now in his second year, President Obama has sent additional troops to Afghanistan, expanded the war in Pakistan, and is putting increasing pressure on Iran.

The Illinois State Election Board has declared a winner in the hotly contested Republican Gubernatorial primary. Ultra conservative Bill Brady will face Green candidate Rich Whitney and Democratic incumbant Pat Quinn.

In a January 18th Chicago
Tribune Profile, it was revealed that Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady favors permitting local school boards to mandate teaching of creationism in the schools.

In a move that has provoked shock and outrage among liberal Democrats, the Obama administration is promising to push the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Utah's Republican controlled state legislature has declared that global warming has no scientific basis. The resolution called for an immediate end of efforts to fight global warming.

The Utah legislative action is not the first attempt by a state legislature to overrule science. In 1897 the Indiana State House of Representatives passed overwhelmingly a bill to legislate the value of pi.

Writing in Commonweal, Joseph Sorrentino explores the deepening crises in rural Mexico. Globalization has impacted Mexico's poor, he says, forcing people from the land.

We voted in the Green Primary today. For the first time, no one gave us a hard time over requesting Green ballots. It was good to be able to vote for something we could believe in, not having to settle for the lesser of two evils. (How do you tell which is less evil?)

Afterward we went to lunch at an all solar taco restaurant. We visited Taco Burrito King, located at 5134 West Belmont. It was a gloomy, snowy midwinter day, but the King's solar array was functioning perfectly.

The taco plates were marvelous.

Still banging the dead-end drum of stem cell research, the Democratic administration has been ignoring the cell-reprogramming breakthroughs that promise rapid cures for Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and other degenerative nerve diseases. The new approach bypasses problems with rejection, a bugaboo which stem cell researchers had struggled for years to overcome.

A story appearing in the Times reports that researchers have for the first time reprogrammed human skin cells to become fully functioning neurons.

Jim Kunstler comments that the Obama State of the Union message evaded the core of the nation's difficulties. Energy resources are contracting, he says, and the economy has followed suit.

We cannot borrow our way out of our credit difficulties, he said.

In an exclusive interview with Amy Goodman, film maker Michael Moore attacks the Democrats as Republican-light. The difference between Bush and Obama administrations, he says, is a question of "sugar coating."

Based on information supplied by former and current GI's, Harper's Magazine launched a six month investigation of three inmate deaths in the US detention center in Guantanamo.

The three victims were supposedly found hanging in their cells. Each was bound hand and foot. Each had had their throats stuffed with rags. The bodies bore other marks of torture, including needle marks and bruises.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court's conservative majority lifted limits on corporate campaign spending. Politically, corporations now enjoy near-absolute power, providing only that they can achieve consensus. The decision comes 194 years after Thomas Jefferson urged America to
crush the corporations.

Cook County Commissioner Sims, in a recent broadcast on the Cook County Cable Station, is said to have argued the case for patronage.

Patronage is a form of corruption in which jobs in government or private sector are awarded on the basis of political loyalties instead of merit.

At 89, Helen Thomas is the senior member of the White House press corps. She has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She is renowned for asking questions younger reporters are afraid to touch. Her fearlessness made her the bane of the Bush administration. She now fills the same role in the Obama White House.

According a report appearing in the Washington Post, December retail sales were dismal. The report raises questions about the ability of the US economy to stage a recovery in 2010.

Eric deCarbonnel warns of a developing food crises (Food Crises for Dummies) which could de-stabilize the US Dollar.

DeCarbonnel has in recent weeks accused the Department of Agriculture of fudging their harvest estimates to avoid roiling markets. He believes we may be one harvest away from trouble.

Paul Zimmerman has posted a story on Global Research which should be must reading for every parent.

Posting on Truthdig (Climate Discord: From Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen), independent journalist Amy Goodman blames US President Barack Obama for failure of the climate talks.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in an interview with Madeline Ostrander says that the failure of the Copenhagen talks may a good thing. The way may now open for better ideas, he said.

Powerful anti-psychotic meds are being administered to the children of the poor as an inexpensive alternative to more costly treatment approaches. Middle class children are much more likely to receive the costly alternatives. The story appears in the New York Times.