Akkam’s Razor

The movie the Untouchables [IMDB] has two hallmark scenes speaking to the culture of corruption in Chicago (and Illinois) - Sean Connery’s character explaining to Elliot Ness’ ‘the Chicago Way’, and DeNiro’s Al Capone brutally demonstrating his enthusiasm for baseball to his underbosses.  What is it about  Chicago that cultivates corruption?  Is it something to do with urban politics?  Transactions of capital?  Systems theory and networks?  Sociology, pyschology, and demography?  A search on Google for “Why is Illinois so corrupt?” points the way, but delivers no definitive answers.  One thing that’s certain - Illinois’ contemporary history is riddled with corruption - 79 convicted elected officials since 1972!  Both Politico and Slate attempt to explain, and a search at Google Scholar has some academic research explaining the same.

• Con Law: What the University of Chicago right thinks of Obama.
  (tags: Obama politics law Chicago history university)
• The BRAD BLOG : Rove Threatened GOP IT Guru If He Does Not ‘Take the Fall’ for Election Fraud in Ohio, Says Attorney
  Karl Rove has threatened a GOP high-tech guru and his wife, if he does not “‘take the fall’ for election fraud in Ohio”.
  (tags: politics rove bush corruption election)

• NY 2008 Preview: Production Pontiac ST pickup to appear - Autoblog
  It may appear at Chicago, not NY, and may be a GMC, not a Pontiac, but a lighter-duty, unibody pickup is a much better idea given that pickups are image vehicles (not work) and cheap gas is OVER.
  (tags: NY Chicago unibody GM GeneralMotors pickup truck ElCamino)
• Winding Road » Archive » What’s it Worth in Three Years?: J.D. Power Figures
  Retained value is a ratio, including the dealer cost of a 3-year-old used vehicle in the numerator and the original transaction price less customer cash rebate of the same vehicle when sold as new in the denominator
  (tags: rebates new automobiles values residuals leasing)

The New York International Auto Show (which humbles the Philadelphia show, and is easily the equal of Chicago or Los Angeles, and is only eclipsed by Detroit) starts this week.  You can find more NYIAS coverage at Autoblog and Jalopnik.

Please tell me I'm reading this wrong - from the NYTimes via Economist's View:

A 96-year-old rule that treats as an automatic antitrust violation any agreement between a manufacturer and its retailers to adhere to a minimum resale price is considered archaic and out of touch by the Bush administration and economists of the Chicago school.

[...]

[F]our justices [defending the rule, incl. Breyers, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter], include two with substantial expertise in antitrust law: Justice Stevens, who made antitrust his specialty as a practicing lawyer before he became a federal judge, and Justice Breyer, who taught the subject at Harvard Law School.

The most important story that most people know nothing about is the Scooter Libby perjury trial.  This trial delivers - Freedom of the Press, Undercover Spying, WMD, Iran, Iraq, the cozy and manipulative relationship the Bush White House has with the Press, bloggers…and well, everything, including possibly the kitchen sink.

The grand jury from whom these charges sprung was charged with determining if a crime had been committed by the disclosure of the name of an undercover CIA operative doing WMD research against Iran and Iraq in an attempt to smear her husband, war critic of former Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson, in response to an OpEd he wrote asserting that Iraq never made an attempt to acquire "yellowcake uranium" as mentioned by the President in his notorious SOTU address regarding the "16-words".

The subpeona list was literally a who's who of the government and press, and in the end, the machinations and statements of Scooter Libby, and their contrast with "the truth", ended in perjury charges for "Irving".

But the nagging question remains - is Patrick Fitzgerald, Republican US Attorney from Chicago, Roman Catholic, Jesuit Educated, "relentless" prosecutor done?  Not based on this statement, as recapped at Rawstory, from his rebuttal of the defense closing argument:

While rebutting the closing argument by the defense at I. Lewis Libby's trial, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spoke of a "dark cloud over the White House," due to the alleged obstruction of justice by the former White House aide. At the Washington Post's website, columnist Dan Froomkin points out that for the first time, as many have speculated, the prosecutor wasn't just accusing Libby, he was also referring to "them."

According to Froomkin, Fitzgerald "at long last made it quite clear that the depth of Vice President Cheney's role in the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative is one of the central mysteries that Libby's alleged lies prevented investigators from resolving."

"There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice," Fitzgerald said. "There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?"  More…