Illinois is one of a few states where sales tax also applies to purchases of gasoline. That means there's an additional 6.5% tacked on to the price per gallon.

On the local level, analysts say Chicago may be the only major city that imposes a flat tax, 5 cents a gallon, on the sale of vehicle fuel to a retailer doing business in the city. That's on top of a 6-cent-per-gallon tax levied by Cook County.

Lastly, as most states do, Illinois slaps a small tax on gas stored underground to help pay for the environmental impact.

"Add it all up at today's prices, and the privilege of living in Chicago costs you 50 to 60 cents a gallon," said Sykuta.

Labels: Inflation, taxes

Labels: Friday Music

Empire Carpet man is dead.

Labels: sad

Scientists studying the Inuit in the 1970s found that as a group, they suffered much less than their European counterparts from certain diseases, such as coronary heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes mellitus. Yet their diet was very high in fat from eating foods like whale, seal, and salmon. Discover Magazine called this the “Inuit Paradox.”

Labels: diet

The seven men and three women who vote on the Fed's rate-setting panel will decide whether or not to extend a $600 billion stimulus plan that is scheduled to end in June.

Until recently the choice had appeared straightforward. Growth was picking up nicely and the recovery was, in the Fed's own words, "on a firmer footing."

But amid higher oil prices and government spending cuts, the economy now appears to be slowing. [Emphasis added.]

...

At best, Chicago-area home prices are bouncing along the bottom or getting less bad as the depreciation rate slows. At worst, they continue in a free fall.

...

The 3.3-square mile North Shore community is home to 5,000 residents. The plan calls for 44 cameras to eventually be installed at the village’s 19 entrances. That’s about one camera for every 120 people. Mayor Michael Kalnick said the project is needed to protect residents.

...

"The one employee there -- I think it was the manager -- said to me, 'You do know that's not a woman. That's a transvestite.' And I said, 'So? She's human,'" Thoms said.

Brown's mother called 11 News on Monday afternoon and said, 'My daughter does not hate transgender people. This is not about gender. That's not Teonna. She would have had to be agitated to get into this." She said there's more to the story, but didn't elaborate.

...

A cold-blooded murder on a New York street was caught in graphic detail on a video from a nearby surveillance camera.
Trevonne Winn, 24, was gunned down as he stood outside his uncle's fast food restaurant in Brooklyn.

Labels: The New Dark Age

Vicky Thoms said she walked into the restaurant to find the two teens beating Polis. No one was helping the woman and one bystander was even recording the attack with his cell phone camera, she said. When she stepped up and asked the girls to stop, Thoms ended up getting punched in the face herself, she said.

"She hit me like a man would hit and she was 14 years old," she said.

...

“‘Daddy, is it really true that people used to fly to the Moon when you were a boy?’ It shook me, because that’s how a Dark Age begins.”

Labels: Depression, The New Dark Age

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end

"The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s."

Labels: China

Labels: Friday Music

I'm not sure if the four tips offered are necessary but I think the women who lost 232 pounds was on to something:

"I've always walked, no matter how hard it was," says Mills. "Then I used Richard Simmons' 'Sweating to the Oldies' because it's low-impact. Now I Zumba, which is like Richard Simmons on speed."

She doesn't go crazy with her workouts. She walks about five times a week, sweats to Simmons twice a week and fits Zumba in when she can.

"I still go out to eat and I still eat junk," says Mills. "My guilty pleasure for the last 8 months [has been] Breyers fat free ice cream -- half cup a night."

What you eat matters but I think working out is more important.

Bill C: There is conflicting evidence that exercise leads to weight loss. At best, it helps with overall health and stress reduction.

I am pretty sure I have posted this before but it is such an outrage that it deserves a second look.

Almost all welfare programs have Web sites where you can call up "benefits calculators." Just plug in your income and family size and, presto, your benefits are automatically calculated.

The chart is quite revealing. A one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.

...

If the one-week-a-month worker maintains an unreported cash-only job on the side, the deal gets better than a regular $60,000-a-year job. In this scenario, you maintain a reportable, payroll deductible, low-income job for federal tax purposes. This allows you to easily establish your qualification for all these welfare programs. Then your black-market job gives you additional cash without interfering with your benefits. Some economists estimate there is one trillion in unreported income each year in the United States.

Hey John O, do you remember Rammel? Rammel, who we nicknamed the General, worked with us a few days a week in Palos and then dealt drugs out of his apartment in Englewood. This explains why he bothered with the side job.

Diego notes: To some this is a success story: Equality. Yes, equality of result, not opportunity but that matters little. It is Equality.

Labels: our awful government

Bill O will get a chuckle out of this.

Ritholtz

I ask, no, I demand that you watch this video. To do less would be financially irresponsible.



Via Zero Hedge.

"there will be a lot of suddenly - 4 or 5% let us say...So much of our speculative apparatus is powered on these zero percent interest rates... Think how hard it is to hold back a cash reserve in this economy... Your stupid neighbor who is watching this program is making a lot of money in the stock market: how hard is it not to participate? You can't do it... But 4% inflation would mean that the party is over... Everything would fall out of bed... Gold and silver would right themselves, because they are money that would come into their own at the end of the cycle of disillusionment but for a time there would be terrific chaos in investment markets."

Labels: Inflation, interest rates, invest

Stuart Rothenberg does the analysis I did last November.

Labels: Senate

Federal prosecutors today unsealed a sweeping indictment against Isai Scheinberg and Raymond Bitar, founders of the world’s biggest online poker companies, and moved to try to shut down their businesses.

I was disgusted with Bill Frist, the former Republican majority leader in the senate, when he snuck the UIGEA into law in 2006. I had some hope that this would be reversed with the likes of Harry Reid and Barney Frank opposed to restrictions on online poker. It looks like they are going through with this travesty.

Labels: idiot, politics

I can't wait to see the movie but I want everyone to remember what the actor who plays Ellis Wyatt, Graham Beckel, says about his career. He is being black listed because of his politics. Of course, some liberals are just fine with this. After all, payback is perfectly moral.

Labels: Atlas Shrugged

Seemed appropriate for the premiere of Atlas Shrugged.

Labels: Friday Music

Crystal Gail Mangum is a murderer.

Family members of a man who was stabbed in his home April 3 say he died Wednesday evening. Crystal Mangum, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006, has been charged with assaulting him.

Durham police confirmed Thursday morning that Reginald Daye, 46, had died.

Mike Nifong couldn't be reached at his van down by the river for comment.

For laughs you can go to Jezebel.com and read their comments on this story. Such as:

Wow. I didn't realize the stabbing was that serious. (Edit comment)

Labels: Duke fake rape case

Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government, freedom and federalism, but it was under a Republican administration—and a Republican transportation secretary, Elizabeth Dole—that states were forced to raise their age limits or face financial penalties. That was before the tea party, though. Perhaps today, when Republican leaders across the board are singing the praises of limited government, it is time for them to put their money where their mouths are and support an end to the federal drinking-age mandate.

This would be a great issue for a Republican nominee for president to take up. Besides, 18-20 year old girls women in bars would be a very good thing.

As of January, the average interest rate paid on relatively safe vehicles such as short-term savings accounts, time deposits and money-market funds stood at only 0.24%. That's one-tenth the level of late 2007 and the lowest on records dating back to 1959. Such depressed rates don't come close to compensating for inflation, which was running at an annualized rate of 5.6% in the three months ended February.

Labels: deflation, interest rates

Labels: Feminism

Unless he is a professional athlete.

Labels: Friday Music

Obama needled one questioner who asked about gas prices, now averaging close to $3.70 a gallon nationwide, and suggested that the gentleman consider getting rid of his gas-guzzling vehicle.

“If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,” Obama said laughingly. “You might want to think about a trade-in.”

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, funny

Our son attends pre-school and we received the mid-year evaluation which also included comments left by parents. This was one of them.

Regarding Daddy/Daughter Dance, please don't play "You Shook Me All Night Long."

Labels: funny

The best practical joke this year.

Labels: funny

I find the experiment in this documentary fascinating. That some people have a lower set weight and they can eat what they want seems like a reasonable idea and it corresponds to my experience. Mike O I know that I will have to give up beer drinking, cake, cookies, cupcakes, and anything with processed sugar and wheat. In fact, to loss weight I will have to be exceedingly fastidious about my diet since I have discovered that mayo has sugar in it. The pre-shredded cheese I buy has corn and potato starches used to prevent the products from sticking together.

It is a shame that I did not know as much as I do now 15 years ago. I certainly wouldn't have bothered buying lean cuisine. That so many professionals: dietitians, doctors, nutritions don't understand that humans vary in body type and that the diet of a lean person which keeps them lean might cause a fat person to gain weight is a scandal.

One point I make in Why We Get Fat is that we all respond to this carbohydrate/insulin effect differently. Some of us can eat carbohydrate-rich meals and burn them off effortlessly. We’re the ones (like Oz) who partition the carbs we consume into energy. (This is the fuel gauge metaphor that I use in WWGF and that Oz’s producers reproduced wonderfully on the show.) And some of us partition the carbs we consume into fat for storage, and that partitioning depends on a lot of different enzymatic and hormonal factors — mostly relating to insulin and LPL as Williams Textbook of Endocrinology said).

There are a few obvious dietary means to reduce the amount of insulin we secrete and ultimately the level of insulin in our circulation day in and day out. One is to eat fewer carbohydrates; one is to improve the quality of the carbs we do eat, which means eating carbs that are less refined (their glycemic index is low or at least lower) and carbs that come with a lot of fiber attached (green leafy vegetables), and then eating less sugars, by which I mean both sucrose and high fructose corn syrup.

And this brings us to the point of controversy on the show – where Oz and I disagree. (Okay, one of the many points on which we disagree, but the one that needs clarification sooner rather than later). This is also the point that public health authorities, physicians and nutritionists almost religiously refuse to accept or even understand, because one implication of what I’m saying is that the good Dr. Atkins was right all along, and they just can’t get it through their head, as Oz can’t, that a diet of the kind Atkins recommended might be not only healthy but the medically appropriate treatment for the condition – in this case, obesity.

Diego adds: I encourage the study of such things and realize that weight is much easier to manage for some than others for a variety of reasons. For me, inactivity sometimes feels like consumption of a toxic substance. I'm grateful for that. It doesn't just get me off the couch, it also allows me to enjoy 'earned' couch time more. However, something must be said about all of this reasoning regarding diet: it sure seems that the people who make the most of the studies like the one referenced are the people who exercise the least. There are other factors involved, I know, but it wouldn't hurt to walk, ride, run, swim or something.

Bill C responds: So what is the cause and what is the effect. Does the person who exercises do so because they have a metabolism which expends rather than stores energy easily? The experiment in the documentary as well as the Vermont prison experiment would suggest that some people are predisposed to obesity and must be very careful about what they consume.

Labels: diet, stupid

Labels: Friday Music, funny