More exciting news about America's future in space exploration

I saw this story first on Yahoo! News (a December 14 AP story by Donna Blankinship and Seth Borenstein), but this article, on Space.com, by Denise Chow, is likely to be available longer.

What you're looking at in the photo above is an artist's conception of a giant airplane carrying a rocket.

How big is the plane? The wingspan will be 385 feet -- 66 feet wider than the prior record-holder, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. The plane is to be built by Scaled Composites, the company founded by Burt Rutan, the aerospace engineer who, according to Wikipedia, designed the record-breaking Voyager, "the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period."

The plane would be powered by six 747 engines. The Falcon 9 spacecraft to be carried by this giant will be supplied by SpaceX, the company that will attempt to send a supply mission to the International Space Station in February 2012 (see, this Page Two post).

The idea of an airplane carrying a rocket to a mid-air launching point may be unfamiliar to younger readers, but the rest of us remember how the X-15 reached the edge of space with the aid of a B-52 bomber.

"Mating and integration" for the Stratolaunch project is to be provided by Dynetics, a company whose website boasts the ability to deliver "high-quality, high-value engineering, scientific, and information technology (IT) solutions" to its customers.

I'm not certain what that leaves for Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen to actually do, but he is the "name" attached to the Stratolaunch project and I gather that he is the one putting these corporate pieces together. If he puts the pieces together well, it could be the start of an exciting future... and a real boost to the American economy, too.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information: Stratolaunch press release (pdf)

Maybe America isn't lost in space yet

When President Obama mothballed the Space Shuttle program, he told the nation that America's private sector would quickly take up the challenge of travel to and from low Earth orbit.

Many scoffed. I scoffed.

But today comes word that SpaceX has reached agreement with NASA to launch a supply mission to the International Space Station with an unmanned, reusable Dragon capsule (like the one pictured above). The target date for this historic attempt is February 7, 2012. (AP coverage per Yahoo! News).

Alex Knapp writes today on Forbes.com about that mission:

The first phase will begin after the Dragon capsule achieves orbit. NASA has set forward several milestones for the capsule to meet, including a flyby of the space station. If those objectives are met, then the capsule will rendezvous with the ISS, using the station’s robotic arm as operated by the ISS crew.

If the flyby, rendezvous and release are successful, this will mark the first successful docking of a private spacecraft with the International Space Station – a huge leap forward for the future of commercial spaceflight.

SpaceX hopes to get the Dragon capsule rated for human transport -- which means American astronauts would no longer be obliged to hitch rides to the International Space Station with the Russians.

And then SpaceX (a company run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk) will be able to boldly go wherever it darn well pleases.

Maybe we will back to the Moon in my lifetime. But, first, we have to get by February 7. Put it on your calendar.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Corrected 12/17/11

Cyber Monday: It's not just for Amazaon any more

Black Friday got moved back to Thanksgiving evening this year as retailers looked to get a head start on the vital Christmas shopping season.

Traffic reports on Black Friday morning skipped past the nearly empty expressways to provide detailed reports on where the cars really were -- looking for parking places at area malls.

Black Friday was followed by Small Business Saturday. This, in turn, was followed by Cyber Monday.

What? Nobody could come up with a clever name for the First Sunday of Advent?

On Cyber Monday, when people are supposed to be back at work,online retailers (etailers?) get a surge in business from people using their office computers for personal shopping.

But take a look at these souvenirs from my inbox:





On Cyber Monday 2011, it looks like these providers were trying to sell stuff to lawyers for work, at work.

Is that legal?

If you're not watching Eagles-Seahawks on Thursday Night Football tonight....

And, if you are, you can always set your DVR....

The O'Malley and Jean-Baptiste interviews will be posted on Page One within the next few days.

A talking head, yes, but does he have anything to say?

Herewith my recent interview for a forthcoming appearance on Avy Meyer's North Town News Magazine. Despite dire predictions to the contrary, Avy's program survived my 2009 appearance; I have every confidence it will survive this as well. In the meantime, I am grateful to Mr. Meyers for the opportunity to appear on his program.

With the continued permission of Mr. Meyers, judicial candidate interviews on NTNM are posted on Page One of this blog on or around their original air date.

Tiptoeing hesitantly into another social network

I haven't gotten into too much trouble since I signed up for Facebook. My son-in-law was recently touting Google+ but, after looking into it a bit, I decided not to take the plunge. Not yet, anyway.

But there are all kinds of social networks floating around the Internet. Take Twitter, for instance. It gained initial fame as a conduit for snark and gossip, and still has a knack for getting pro athletes into trouble, but it has also apparently become an accepted business tool. The Illinois Supreme Court has an official Twitter feed. Still, I don't understand how I could use it. For that reason, perhaps, I've never been tempted by Twitter.

But LinkedIn has tempted me. It seems a straightforward marketing tool, and every lawyer, especially a solo practitioner, must think of marketing these days. I've been unsure about links, however, especially links to links. In the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" age, anyone can wind up linked to anyone.

That concerns me. I'd rather not be linked with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however tenuously.

However, my daughter Brigid is a senior in college. The good people in the placement office (or whatever they call it these days) at Dominican University told Brigid that LinkedIn was a great way to network in hopes of finding meaningful employment after graduation. I certainly want her to get a job. She encouraged me to join, if only to critique her résumé.

And then I started thinking... maybe I might use LinkedIn as a business development tool, too.

So I signed up and started playing with it. I've recently become certified as a mediator for the Cook County Law Division Court-Annexed Major Case Civil Mediation Program and the Chancery Division's Mediation Program; I thought that, once I figured out the program a bit, LinkedIn might be a good way of promoting my availability for this service.

I particularly liked the idea of being able to post my curriculum vitae right from the LinkedIn site.

But, alas. I haven't figured out how yet. I converted my CV to a pdf, and the file is much smaller than the stated 500 KB limit, but I can't seem to upload it. And I'm still wary of asking people for links; the program wants me to explain how I know this person or that one. My instinct is to be wary of disclosure.

LinkedIn, the program, has no such concerns. Several of the "recommendations" it has made to me for links have been very accurate. (And, no, I didn't give it my email address books.)

So I'm now crouching in the shadows of LinkedIn, uncertain of how best to immerse myself. The good news is, a month or so in, I haven't yet been linked to Ahmadinejad. The bad news is that my profile has only been viewed, according to the program, by two people -- one of them my daughter Brigid. (LinkedIn says so.) The other was an "Anonymous LinkedIn User." I suspect it was another family member, better versed in the ways of LinkedIn than Brigid or myself.

Oh, great: Another unemployed lawyer looking for work

The Chicago Tribune reports today that Tony La Russa is stepping down as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. (La Russa passed the Florida Bar Examination in 1979.)

Milk -- it does a closet good?

Yahoo! News today carries a Reuters report, by Natalia Drozdiak, about a German fashion designer who makes clothes out of milk.

Yes, milk:

Anke Domaske, 28, has developed a fabric called QMilch made from high concentrations of the milk protein casein -- the first man-made fiber produced entirely without chemicals.

"It feels like silk and it doesn't smell -- you can wash it just like anything else," Domaske told Reuters.

Domaske's company, Mademoiselle Chi Chi, has attracted celebrities like Mischa Barton and Ashlee Simpson. But Ms. Domaske was a microbiology student before she became a designer.

Domaske says she has found a process that extracts casein from dried milk powder. The casein "is heated up in a type of meat-mincing machine with other natural ingredients. The fiber comes out in strands and is then spun into yarn on a spinning machine."

Milk has been made into fabric since the 1930s, Drozdiak writes, "but was always produced in unecological ways that used a lot of chemicals. Unlike earlier prototypes, QMilch is made almost entirely from casein." The new yarn, Domaske insists, is not only ecological but also has many health benefits. Domaske told Reuters that the amino acids in the protein are antibacterial, anti-aging and can help regulate both blood circulation and body temperature.

That's a lot to ask from a dress.

Reading today's article about this new milk fabric, I couldn't help but think of the 1951 Ealing Studios classic, The Man in the White Suit." In the movie, a Cambridge-trained research chemist, Sidney Stratton, portrayed by a young Alec Guinness, winds up working as a laborer in an English textile mill. While thus employed, Guinness inadvertently invents a new fabric -- that seemingly never wears out and never gets dirty. It also glows in the dark.

For a moment, Stratton is hailed as a genius. But his triumph is short-lived. Once capital and labor realize that the new fabic, if it really performed as designed, would put them all out of business, the class enemies unite against a common foe -- Stratton.

Of course, in the movie, Stratton's fabric was slightly radioactive. Supposedly the new milk fabric will not decompose. According to the Reuters article, "Due to its anti-bacterial qualities, the milk fiber can also be used in medicine and makeup. Even some auto companies have looked into using the fiber for car upholstery."

Has Mark Buehrle made his last White Sox start?

This AP image accompanied Rick Gano's coverage this morning on Yahoo! Sports.

Toni Ginnetti's article in this morning's Sun-Times says it's uncertain whether the Sox will re-sign Buehrle. Which may mean there's hope. I know this much: If Buehrle's gone, it's a Dunn deal.

As if Mr. Dunn needs more pressure heaped upon him.

Just in case he doesn't come back, the Sox gave Buehrle a classy sendoff last night. Buehrle was even pushed out of the dugout (by Paul Konerko, according to Ginnetti) to take a curtain call in front of the sparse, but vocal, crowd present at the Cell -- and for those of us watching at home.

I have a personal reason to be grateful to Mr. Buehrle. It will take a small narrative diversion to explain why.

White Sox Opening Day is an annual highlight for me. I've attended almost every year since law school. I remember sitting in right field on Opening Day 1978. (Steve Stone was the starting pitcher that day.) It was the bottom of the 9th and I was making disparaging remarks about Ron Blomberg, the Rent-a-Player engaged by Mr. Veeck to make White Sox fans forget about Richie Zisk, the 1977 model. Blomberg had gone 0 for 4 in his debut to that point. Phil Zukowsky thought my criticisms unfair and expressed a desire that Mr. Blomberg hit the next pitch right at my head. And, sure enough, he did: White Sox 6, Red Sox 5. (And, no, I didn't get the ball.)

In the years that followed I had weekend tickets to the ballpark (which carried with them a right to buy tickets for Opening Day). After this luxury had to be sacrificed to the necessity of the kids' tuition payments, Mike McGowan has been kind enough to include me in his party. I was his guest on Opening Day in that magical year of 2005.

Mark Buehrle started that game and worked a quick eight innings (Shingo Takatsu had the 9th) for a 1-0 shutout of the Cleveland Indians. Quick? Baseball Almanac says the game ran only 1:51; you can look it up.

And that created an opportunity for me. My son Joe, then a senior at Notre Dame High School in Niles, was supposed to pitch for the Dons that day. I didn't know about his scheduled start until after I'd committed to the Sox game. Thanks to Mr. Buehrle's fast pace (he may not throw hard, but he pitches quickly) I had the chance to catch the Notre Dame game, too. Mike and I jumped in my car and we headed north.

I don't recall who the Dons were facing that day. It may have been Glenbrook North; that was a traditional early season non-conference foe. If so, that may have been the day that Joe struck out Jason Kipnis, then a senior at GBN, who now earns a paycheck from the aforementioned Cleveland Indians. In my imagination, that's probably how things went down. I have a very good imagination.

I won't claim that Mike and I got to see all of Joe's performance that day; even my imagination isn't that good. But we saw some of it, and, as I recollect, Joe (who was himself a soft-tossing southpaw) got the W.

Anyway, even if Mr. Buehrle does move on, I will remain forever grateful, not just for the no hitter and the perfect game and the amazing play on Opening Day 2010 and all the other highlights -- but also because I got to see some of Joe's game on April 4, 2005.

Joey Cora fired by text from Kenny Williams?

That's what Rich Miller is reporting this afternoon on CapitolFax: This just in... Joey Cora fired by text message. Miller links to Joe Cowley as his source.

I quote Mr. Miller's conclusion without elaboration: "Williams is the one who needs to go, and quickly, before he ruins this team completely."

Was Einstein wrong about the light speed barrier?

ABC News is among the many news outlets reporting today that scientists at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) have achieved unexpected results from an experiment measuring the oscillation of neutrinos. The OPERA experiment, as it is called, involved aiming a neutrino beam from the Geneva laboratory at the LNGS underground laboratory at Gran Sasso, 730 km (just under 454 miles) away in central Italy. According to the CERN press release, the experiment "appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature's [heretofore understood] cosmic speed limit."

But don't buy stock in a warp engine start-up company just yet. The CERN scientists sound almost apologetic about the anomalous results -- as if they're anxious, even desperate, to find another explanation that fits the data:

“When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements.”

Randall Mulroe's webcomic, xkcd, tries to tamp down any irrational exuberance these experimental results might trigger in an unsophisticated public:

(Click to enlarge. See original for embedded comment.)

But, still, it would be pretty darn interesting if these experimental results hold up, wouldn't it?

I am so glad we bailed out the banks -- part 1,262

CBS2 reports that Chase is about to foreclose and evict Mary Alice Keeler, 76, a former Dominican nun, from her Southwest Side home.

For decades, she was a nun with the Roman Catholic Dominican order. She was known as Sister Bernard Ellen and then left the religious life to care for her cancer-stricken mother. She later worked as a lay teacher in both Catholic and public schools, and bought a small house on the Southwest Side of Chicago.

Then she got sick and was hospitalized and in a nursing home for a time.

“I missed three payments,” the 76-year-old said. “When I was able, I sent the one back. Then I was going to send the second one back.”

She says the bank told her, “Don’t send us any more money because we’ll just send it back to you.”

Then came the foreclosure notice from Chase Bank and the order to vacate. It has not yet been enforced and the house has been sold to Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage agency.

You'll find nothing about the bank's side of the dispute in the linked article. I'm sure there is more to this story than three missed payments. At least I'd like to think so. But it's hard to imagine any additional facts that would make the bank look good in this case.

Is this really why we bailed out the banks? So they can do stuff like this?

Too big to fail = too big to care?

Airline passenger suffers real consequences because of unrealistic fears

Popehat today is upset about "a perfectly innocent woman being hauled off a flight, handcuffed, jailed, strip-searched, and grilled for hours — because some... ninny on the plane thought she and the two dark-skinned people sitting next to her were 'suspicious', and because 'better safe than sorry' has become a higher value to law enforcement than probable cause or reasonable suspicion or due process or common freaking sense, and because we’re too cowed as a people to say anything about it."

Popehat provided a link to a blog post put up by the woman in question. She's an Arab of Saudi descent, married to a Jewish physician who is, according to her blog, doing a residency in emergency medicine in Toledo. Her first-person account is well worth reading. (Here is a link to the AP account of the event.)

Worth reading also, particularly in light of the above, are Professor George Anastapolo's articles currently running in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, "Making sense of the current state of affairs." In tonight's installment (subscription required), Anastapolo writes:

[T]he most troubling aspect of our security measures lies in what they reveal about, and do to, the American character. Indeed, there may even be something demeaning about a determined program of public announcements which insist, again and again (for years now), "If you see something, say something." What is generally seen (and heard) is a "something" which consists of a steady promotion, in effect, of fearfulness — and much should be said about that!

John Kass referred, in his column in Sunday's Tribune, calls it "the Fear Industry." He wrote:

You want proof of how well the Fear Industry is doing? Just think of all the cameras on the light poles in your central business district. Or watch the parade of crotch pat-downs at the airports, the weak smiles of the patted, smiles of the helpless. Think about what that does to a people over time.

Remember right after 9/11, when people were writing and saying that, if we allow fear of terror to alter our lives, the terrorists will have won? Remember?

Candorville asks whether we rose to the occasion after 9-11

(Click to enlarge.)

Sometimes the Sunday funnies aren't funny at all. Sometimes, as in yesterday's installment of Candorville, the "funnies" can be downright sobering. (This comic used to appear in the Tribune; you can find it now on Yahoo! Comics.)

The world according to the Class of 2015

Our son Jim is just starting college, so my wife and I listened with interest this morning to a radio story about how college freshmen view the world.

College freshmen, we learned, think "LBJ" is this guy --

-- not this guy

We learned that college freshmen would have never heard of a Commodore 64 and have never known a world without the Internet. We learned that Ferris Bueller is old enough to be a freshman's father.

I'd heard lists like this before, but I'd never paid much attention to where the annual list came from.

Then my son Joe sent me a link to the AP story about the list -- and it turns out the list comes from Beloit College, the very place where Jim is starting his college career. It's an increasingly small world.

Here's the link to the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2015 -- and a few of the highlights:

• The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.
• Music has always been available via free downloads.
• Arnold Palmer has always been a drink.
• Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

I don't understand half of this -- but I'm pretty sure I agree with it anyway

From the webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe. (The link will take you to Mr. Munroe's site, where you can view the comment embedded in the original cartoon.)

Arguably related: Passwords obsolete? It's about time

Welcome home, Atlantis. Now what?

You're looking at a NASA photograph of Shuttle Atlantis returning to Florida's Kennedy Space Center early this morning after successfully concluding the final Shuttle mission, STS-135.

Is this the end of manned American space exploration?

There are still plans to keep American astronauts on board the International Space Station. However, for the foreseeable future, in order to get to and from, Americans will have to hitch a ride on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Indeed, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum just joined the space station crew (currently denominated Expedition 28) after a July 8 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

But that's not exactly boldly going where no one has gone before. It amounts to taking a cab.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Director of the Rose Center for Earth and Space of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, tweeted earlier today, "Lament not the shuttle's end, but the absence of rockets to supplant it. Who shed a tear when Gemini ended? Apollo awaited us."

Dr. Tyson hits the nail exactly on the head. Not only does America lack a plan for further space exploration, it lacks the will to execute any plan. There's some vague notion that, some day, maybe, we might think about mounting an expedition to Mars. Maybe we'll go to an asteroid first....

Tyson's tweets note that President Kennedy's original target date for the lunar landing would have been during his second term. (As it happened, the landing was pushed back to 1969 because of the Apollo 1 fire.) Dr. Tyson notes, "One US President can never [actually] commit the nation to a goal that requires fulfillment by a President 'to be named later.'" Case in point: President Bush proposed returning to the Moon as a stepping stone toward Mars. President Obama killed that.

Are we ceding leadership in the exploration of the cosmos because it is too costly?

Again, I look to Dr. Tyson for some perspective (from his July 8 tweets):

• The entire half-century budget of NASA equals the current two year budget of the US military.
• The US bank bailout exceeded the half-century lifetime budget of NASA.
• The US military spends as much in 23 days as NASA spends in a year - and that's when we're not fighting a war.

The United States can afford space exploration; what we can't afford is to stop.

Meanwhile, the private sector is expected to step up and take over flights to low Earth orbits -- but there's some question as to whether private enterprise can rise to the challenge.

In an AP report carried this morning by HuffPost AOL News, Marcia Dunn reports that the STS-135 crew left an American flag on board the space station. This was a flag that was flown on the very first Shuttle flight in 1981. It was left behind as a prize for the first private company that can fly up and claim it in person. Dunn's article continues:

SpaceX maintains it can get people to the space station within three years of getting the all-clear from NASA. Station managers expect it to be more like five years. Some skeptics say it could be 10 years before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil.

Let's hope the skeptics are wrong.

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For Further Reading:

Why America Needs to Explore Space, by Neil deGrasse Tyson (from Parade Magazine, August 5, 2007.

Now is not the time to quit, by Storer H. Rowley, Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2011.

Comics on trial

Legal problems are a staple of the funny pages. We don't have car pool lanes in the Chicago area, but the concept is not unfamiliar. Most locals, therefore, would not have needed an explanation for this F Minus strip from July 9:


This Bliss panel from July 4 presents a patriotic legal problem:


But lately I've noticed a lot of comics are actually looking for humor in the courts themselves.

Candorville, for example, has been dropping in and out of a custody trial for several weeks now. The protagonist, Lemont Brown, is represented by a six-year old kid pretending to be a lawyer. The real lawyer, the kid's uncle, may have been kidnapped and imprisoned by the 400-year old vampire who gave birth to Lemont's son. This installment, from June 29, features the vampire's lawyer. Yes, he does look suspiciously like John Edwards:


One of my favorite strips, Brewster Rockit, recently featured an alien's negligence suit against the Earth. The alien, it seems, crashed his saucer into Jupiter. Earth was responsible, according to the alien's lawyer, because of NASA's spacecraft Dawn, now (for real) in orbit around the asteroid Vesta. The Earth ship didn't get in the alien's way; he was simply texting about it when he crashed. This strip, from July 13, illustrates one of the high points of the trial:


A new strip, Dustin, usually focuses on the slacker 20-something for which the strip is named. But Dustin's father is a lawyer -- and last week the strip took us inside his practice. Here's the July 15 entry:


Meanwhile, on July 19, the comic pages' real lawyer, former San Francisco lawyer Stephan Pastis, provided a rather cockeyed lesson on the limits of free speech:



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Comics obtained from Yahoo! Comics and the Chicago Tribune Comics Kingdom.

In which the blogger tries to figure out what Google+ is supposed to be

The Tribune's Eric Zorn wrote Sunday that the sudden growth in Google+ is "making it increasingly likely that those of us who try to stay current with social media will have One More Darn Thing To Do Every Day."

And what is Google+ you ask?

A Georgia blawger says "Google+ seems to be attempting to combine Facebook (Stream), Twitter (Following and Inbox), Skype (Hangout), and pick your own flavor of photo sharing (Photos) and instant messaging (Huddle), with its own RSS/news feed thrown in (Sparks)." If you know what all that means, you and Eric Zorn are probably already traveling in the same circles. (Yes, that's an actual attempt at a Google+ joke.)

For my part, I only know what I read in the comics. I'm pretty sure that this episode of the webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse is talking about Google+:



And this episode of the webcomic xkcd provides an explanation of Google+ that even a Luddite like me can understand:



The explanation makes even more sense when you read Mr. Munroe's embedded rollover comment: "On the one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!"

How SB1586 became P.A. 97-81

Otto von Bismarck said, "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made."

And, in Illinois, if you insist on trying to see how laws are made, sometimes you have to look very quickly.

The General Assembly website tracks how a bill that was originally drafted to take the Secretary of State out of the business of registering voters became a bill that, inter alia, substantially changes how judges are elected in Illinois. The following table shows the actions taken on the bill. Keep in mind that May 31 was the very last day of the regular legislative session.

The final amendment of the bill, House passage, and Senate concurrence in the dramatically revised bill all happened in a single day, on June 22, the very next day the Senate was in session. (The State House had a "perfunctory session" on June 21.)


Actions

Date	Chamber	Action
2/9/2011	Senate	Filed with Secretary by Sen. M. Maggie Crotty
2/9/2011	Senate	First Reading
2/9/2011	Senate	Referred to Assignments
2/23/2011	Senate	Assigned to Executive
3/3/2011	Senate	To Executive Subcommittee on State Government Operations
3/14/2011	Senate	Reported Back To Executive; 002-001-000
3/17/2011	Senate	Do Pass Executive; 014-000-000
3/17/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of 2nd Reading March 17, 2011
4/8/2011	Senate	Second Reading
4/8/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading April 11, 2011
4/14/2011	Senate	Third Reading - Passed; 055-000-000
4/14/2011	House	Arrived in House
4/27/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of First Reading
4/27/2011	House	Chief House Sponsor Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
4/27/2011	House	First Reading
4/27/2011	House	Referred to Rules Committee
4/28/2011	House	Assigned to Elections & Campaign Reform Committee
5/10/2011	House	Do Pass / Standard Debate Elections & Campaign Reform Committee; 004-003-000
5/10/2011	House	Placed on Calendar 2nd Reading - Standard Debate
5/26/2011	House	Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/26/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/27/2011	House	Final Action Deadline Extended-9(b) May 31, 2011
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Referred to Rules Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Rules Refers to Elections & Campaign Reform Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Recommends Be Adopted Elections & Campaign Reform Committee; 004-003-000
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Adopted by Voice Vote
5/31/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Fiscal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Mandates Fiscal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Balanced Budget Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Correctional Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Home Rule Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Housing Affordability Impact Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Judicial Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Land Conveyance Appraisal Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Pension Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Debt Impact Note Requested as Amended by Rep. Ron Stephens
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Referred to Rules Committee
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Land Conveyance Appraisal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Correctional Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Recommends Be Adopted Rules Committee; 003-001-000
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Home Rule Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Judicial Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Mandates Fiscal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 State Debt Impact Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Housing Affordability Impact Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Fiscal Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Pension Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	Senate	Chief Sponsor Changed to Sen. Don Harmon
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Balanced Budget Note Filed as Amended
5/31/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Adopted by Voice Vote
5/31/2011	House	Held on Calendar Order of Second Reading - Standard Debate
5/31/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
5/31/2011	House	Rule 19(a) / Re-referred to Rules Committee
6/21/2011	House	Final Action Deadline Extended-9(b) June 24, 2011
6/21/2011	House	Approved for Consideration Rules Committee; 003-000-000
6/21/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Filed with Clerk by Rep. Michael J. Zalewski
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Referred to Rules Committee
6/21/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Recommends Be Adopted Rules Committee; 003-000-000
6/22/2011	House	Recalled to Second Reading - Short Debate
6/22/2011	House	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Adopted by Voice Vote
6/22/2011	House	Placed on Calendar Order of 3rd Reading - Short Debate
6/22/2011	House	3/5 Vote Required
6/22/2011	House	Third Reading - Short Debate - Passed 082-022-000
6/22/2011	Senate	Secretary's Desk - Concurrence House Amendment(s) 1, 2, 3
6/22/2011	Senate	Placed on Calendar Order of Concurrence House Amendment(s) 1, 2, 3 - June 22, 2011
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Filed with Secretary Sen. Don Harmon
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Referred to Assignments
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Motion to Concur Be Approved for Consideration Assignments;
6/22/2011	Senate	3/5 Vote Required
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 1 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 2 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	House Floor Amendment No. 3 Senate Concurs 053-000-000
6/22/2011	Senate	Passed Both Houses
6/22/2011	Senate	Sent to the Governor
7/5/2011	Senate	Governor Approved
7/5/2011	Senate	Effective Date July 5, 2011; Generally Effective;Some parts effective on the Effective Date of Senate Bill 63 of the 97th General Assembly.
7/5/2011	Senate	Public Act . . . . . . . . . 97-0081

More scenes from yesterday's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade

Continued from this entry on Page One.


There were plenty of Scout groups represented. There was a large contingent from Immaculate Conception School.








Among the many other scout groups participating were these from St. Thecla, Norwood Park Lutheran Church and Norwood Park School:






The Onahan School group included the cheerleading squad:











The group from Stock School had a message for parade-goers.












Memorial Day is often cool and dreary in Chicago. Yesterday, though, the weather was sunny, hot and humid.

In other words, it was a tough day to be sporting a fur coat. Especially a spray-painted one:






One canine seems to have decided it was just too hot to walk:


The Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade always features dozens of old cars:




But one of the cars, in particular, seems to have caught the attention of a lot of people. Apparently, BMW was not always a luxury status symbol:



The Chicago Police closed the proceedings on horseback:


The message on the side of this last car through was quite appropriate to the occasion: "Thank You for attending to Honor Those Who Gave Their Lives for Freedom."


Photo credit: Brigid Leyhane.

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And if you need to see even more photos from yesterday's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade, see this page on the Norwood Park Chamber of Commerce & Industry website.