Chicago Daily Observer

A group of US and Chinese business people on Wednesday unveiled the first US financial services firm to be co-owned by Chinese interests.

HuaMei Capital Company, as the joint venture firm is known, will be based in Chicago and Beijing, highlighting the growing links between Chinese business and the US Midwest.

It will offer risk management and private equity investment services for US and other investors, as well as for “the growing number of Chinese firms with authority to invest offshore”, its founders said.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

So I thought as I read the just released “The Cubs: The Complete Story of Chicago Cubs Baseball” by Glenn Stout (photographs by Richard Johnson), Houghton Mifflin press.

Stout opens by recounting that as the 20th century opened, the Chicago Cubs was, in fact, THE powerhouse baseball team. They had won three straight National League Pennants and two consecutive world championships. “The Cubs were kings.”

“So,” Stought asks, “. . . what the hell happened?”

What indeed? As I write, we are two down to the Diamond Backs. I just asked a knowledgeable friend if any team has come back from this far down in post-season playoffs to still win. “Yes” he said. “Against the Cubs.”

Or at least mostly against the Cubs. (One instance? 1984, the Padres. The Cubs were up 2 games in the post-season play offs, the Padres came back ... Read More...

I bet that Oak Lawn school district 122 beats the ACLU lawsuit boiling on the back range to the scald. Folks shocked by the fact that the Oak Lawn schools will ban Christmas should come as no shock. I, for one, applaud the superintendent for having the foresight to pre-empt an ACLU press conference.

Dear Reader, for the sake of space, please read ACLU as progressive mind-set; they do, after all help etch its doctrinal blueprints.

Essentially, district 122 has a 30% Muslim population of offended parents worried about the celebration of the Christmas holiday – a Crusader holiday secularized with coded messages of peace, sharing and Christian good- fellowship: “Can’t have that. Must afflict the comfortable and get on Bill Maher!”’

Dear reader, for road -rage progressives, please read Muslims as “some’ Muslims.
The ACLU and the progressive agenda must always take the ... Read More...

To the surprise of absolutely no one in state government, Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office is declining to get involved in a political and legal dispute between her father and Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

In a letter released Thursday, Ms. Madigan’s office said it won’t rule on whether her father, House Speaker Michael Madigan, has a conflict of interest in working as a property tax appeals lawyer at the same time the House considers legislation to cap annual tax hikes for homeowners in Cook County at about 7%.