October 2008 Archives

Google Earth provides a satellite map breakdown, across the United States by county, of presidential election votes back to 1980.

Pretty nifty.

Find it here.

It's simple: Talking on your cell phone while driving is dangerous.

Researchers have compared the effects to driving drunk or having several decades added to your true age.

Now, the Chicago City Council is looking to give a break to drivers caught violating the law.

Illinois Republican Congressman Jerry Weller made news this week for what he didn't do.
He was the only one of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to miss the vote on the $700 billion bailout, arguably the most important vote of the year.
His spokesman cited "a commitment to his family" as the reason. But on a vote this important, Weller should have put his country first.
It seems the soon-to-retire congressman is slacking off. He has missed 284 other votes this session.
He's still an elected official and has a responsibility to serve his Will and Grundy County constituents until the end of his term.
We expect he won't miss the next vote.

On Wednesday in the Chicago Sun-Times, we wrote an editorial about what a waste of time it is for voters to have reporters ask "gotcha" questions.

And what a waste of time it is for politicians to evade honest questions by using gotcha journalism as an excuse.

You can read the editorial here.

For a corollary of that strategy, check out this video from Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin.

Couric asks a straightforward question about what magazines Palin reads, and Palin does not give much of an answer.

At the end, Palin doesn't suggest the question is a gotcha question but rather implies it is condescending toward all residents of Alaska.

Wouldn't it just be easier to answer the question?