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.