Quick Hits

Couple of stories to cover. First up, the heat must be getting to Burke:

• When Ald. Edward Burke arrives at City Hall, it's in a city-owned car driven by nattily dressed bodyguards, complete with Secret Service-style earpieces.
  
  It's been that way for decades, even as the racially charged Council Wars era that once made Burke such a controversial and perhaps targeted political figure has faded into history.
  
  Now, at a time of tight budgets and a police shortage, the alderman with $8 million in his campaign fund finds himself defending the bodyguard contingent, which takes four full-time officers off the streets.

Maybe instead of bodyguards, Burke could get a sign that says, "I'm important!"

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Next up, an arbitrator makes a good decision:

• Chicago Police officers have won the right to a 24-hour cooling-off period from the time they shoot someone to the time they must speak to an independent investigator.

  The Independent Police Review Authority last year insisted on speaking to officers within two hours of a police-involved shooting.

The feds get at least 48 hours and LAPD gets three days. The reasoning for 24 hours seems specious - it gives an officer a “proper sleep cycle,” but seriously, who's going to get a decent night sleep after a gunfight? It's a step in the right direction though.

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Lura Lynn Ryan passed away:

• The former Illinois governor, imprisoned for his crimes, persuaded a federal warden in Terre Haute, Ind., to let him out for a few hours Monday. He made it back to his wife's bedside at a Kankakee hospital. Just before 11 p.m., she was taken off a respirator and died, following a long battle with cancer. She was 76.

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And guess what's still happening downtown?

• Chicago Police are crediting the “diligence” of a commander for approaching a large group of teens outside Water Tower Place Monday night, leading to the arrest of a man who had a loaded handgun.

  [...] Near North District police Sgt. Kenneth Angarone was deploying his officers on foot patrol about 6:45 p.m. Monday in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue when he noticed a big group of teens leaving Water Tower Place....

We're sure the honor student was just headed to a gun "turn-in" at the local Make Believe church when accosted by the police.

HUGE Day of Posting

So much to cover, so little time. How about a Quick Hits to catch up? This could be the start of something big - "big" as in a lot of businesses relocating outside of Illinois' high tax rates:

• CME's Executive Chairman, Terry Duffy, said the company was exploring a potential move of its corporate base, after Illinois earlier this year sharply lifted the corporate tax rate paid by the Chicago-based exchange company.

It would be a paper move mostly, but still would affect the state budget in a depressed economy. Way to go Quinn!

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This is a start:

• City employees — from aldermen on down — would be subject to random drug and alcohol tests under a New York-style crackdown proposed Wednesday by the city’s two most powerful aldermen.

  Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) and Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader and chairman of the Committee on Audit and Workforce Development, say random testing would minimize “errors in judgment” by city employees on duty.

  “Chicago aldermen should be included . . . because elected officials should lead by example,” Burke said in written statement.

Now how about following Florida's lead - anyone who receives government money in any form ought to drop a sample....and not just on Burke's desk. A testable sample.

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And while everyone is looking at downtown, children are catching bullets in the neighborhoods:

• Two girls, ages 2 and 7, were shot in a park in the Northwest Side Avondale neighborhood Wednesday night.

  Emergency crews responded to the shooting in the 3500 block of West School Street at 7:48 p.m. and found two injured children, Fire Media Affairs spokesman Richard Rosado said. Both were taken to Children’s Memorial Hospital in serious to critical condition, he said.

We blame the heat. If only the parks had been shut down the way the beaches were closed today, none of this would have happened.

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There's just too much to cover. We're throwing up around seven different articles today, not a record, but a busy day none the less. Comments are heavier than normal (almost 500 yesterday alone), we did 22,000 hits Wednesday, we passed 15,000,000 total visits and we've been linked nationally by a couple of big blogs. So thanks once again to all our readers, lurkers and commentators. Stay tuned boys and girls.