At least not until we find a new governor: Arthur Bishop, who is Gov. Pat Quinn’s choice to lead the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, has been in the job only a few weeks. He runs a far-flung agency whose caseworkers make decisions that affect the lives of thousands of abused and neglected children. An agency that doles out millions of dollars in contracts. An agency that saw its director quit in 2011 under a cloud of suspicion about insider grant-dealing. It is unconscionable to have the appointment of a new DCFS director clouded by ethical concerns related…
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling on the Internet.
Tagged Illinois
The Nanny State at Work
Was this really necessary? The cupcake empire Chloe Stirling built out of her home kitchen has come crumbling down after Illinois health officials said the sixth-grader wasn’t in compliance with local laws. Chloe, 11, said she was told by health officials in Madison County, Ill., that if she wants to continue selling cupcakes she will need to buy a bakery or build a separate kitchen. “It bummed me out because I wanted to keep baking,” Chloe told ABCNews.com. “I had a bunch of orders and they said I had to cancel them all.” Stirling, who is in sixth grade, has…
Quote of the Day
For the sake of innocent children we had better keep out the wrong kind of academics. They are too politically correct to be explicit, but I am sure they are referring to statisticians who are frequentists. Northwestern has had a strong tradition of Bayesians. The harmony in the community would be horribly disrupted if it became easy for a bunch of frequentists to crash downtown. They would probably write graffiti of confidence intervals around known facts! next thing you know there will be enough of them that they will lobby to get a tilted kilt franchise openned [sic]! Say NO!…
Of Enforced Unionization and First Amendment Violations
An excellent editorial on the subject by George Will. There is no cognizable state interest whatsoever in forcing public sector workers into unions, and the only reason that this is happening–as Will points out–is that the power of unions has been dramatically diminished. I recognize that this upsets unions–and the Democratic party–but their discomfort is not a sufficient reason to force public sector workers to join unions. The Supreme Court should find as much, and I expect that they will.
Illinois Embraces Marriage Equality
Yesterday, the legislature in my home state passed a bill that will finally allow marriage equality by permitting same sex couples to tie the knot. A number of my social media friends–and lots of other people who are celebrating offline–are filled with joy because they get to marry and spend the rest of their lives with the ones they love, and the ones who love them. And straight people like me should be filled with joy as well. After all, if we truly care about family values, we should make it easy for grown adults with the capacity to consent to…
The Latest Episode in Police Overreaction
I have written before and will write again that I appreciate the work that the police do. A lot of that work is dangerous and most of it is directly connected to the mission of making the rest of us safe. I am grateful for that, always have been, and always will be. But this is appalling and intolerable: When John Wrana was a young man, fit and strong and fighting in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Corps, did he ever think he’d end this way? Just a few weeks shy of his 96th birthday, in need…
