IMPORTANT - Call your State Rep. on Mon., Dec. 3

This alert from the Illinois State Rifle Assn. SB-681 started out as a bill to allow Illinois FOID cardholders to purchase ammunition by mail in Illinois; i.e., to allow it to be purchased from a seller in Illinois.

What did our "brilliant" governor do? He gutted the bill through the Amendatory Veto Process. He didn't just "amend" the Bill. He gutted it and changed it entirely.

The Illinois Senate has already over-ridden the governor's veto. Now it's up to the Illinois House. Call your State Representative on Monday, Dec. 3, because this bill may come up for a vote on Tuesday.

The danger is found in a careful reading of the Bill. For example, what is a "semi-automatic assault weapon"? Illinois already defines an "assault weapon" as a semi-automatic weapon that looks like an assault weapon. (Remember, "semi-automatic" means one round fired for each time you pull the trigger.) Generally speaking, assault weapons are thought of as automatic weapons (not semi-automatic).

Will the State continue to falsely define weapons to eventually include every firearm? Read Senate Bill SB-681 here.

I have an idea; let's define a person ineligible to be Governor of the State of Illinois as any person over the age of 60 who is a lawyer and whose last name has five letters, starting with "Q" and ending with "n".

The following is from the Illinois State Rifle Association:

URGENT ALERT – YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED

SCHEME TO BAN AND CONFISCATE MOST OF YOUR GUNS WILL BE UP FOR A VOTE IN THE HOUSE THIS WEEK!

As many of you know, Governor Quinn gutted a pro-gun bill, SB-681, and turned it into an “Assault Weapon Ban.”

This is very bad news for Patriots and lovers of liberty.

The Illinois Senate has already voted to overturn Quinn’s meddling with this bill.  Now the bill moves on to the Illinois House, which is controlled by the Chicago Gun Grabbing Machine.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO THE FOLLOWING TO HELP SAVE YOUR GUN RIGHTS:

1.  Beginning Monday, December 3rd, call your state representative and politely tell him or her that you are a law-abiding Illinois gun owner and you do not support the Governor’s plan to ban and confiscate your lawfully purchased firearms.  Advise your representative to VOTE TO OVERRIDE THE GOVERNOR’S VETO OF SB-681.  The phones will be busy, continue calling until you get through to someone.  Do the same on Tuesday December 4th.

2.  Pass this alert along to all your gun owning friends and family members.  Tell them to make calls as well.

3.  Post this alert to any and all Internet Blogs or Bulletin Boards to which you may belong.

4.  If you do not know who your state representative is, please go to the Illinois State Board of Elections website (click here for the link) to look up this information.

Remember, gun control is a disease and you are the cure!

Just what I wanted to know

Sometimes the internet is good for finding out what you want to know. And at other times ...

AARP has published a list of the ten worst states for retirement. Ready?

1. Michigan
2. (tie) Maryland/Maine
3. Illinois

Nice; huh?

You can read all about it right here.

The best states for retirement:

1. Hawaii
2. Idaho
3. Utah
4. Arizona
5. Virginia
6. Colorado

Beth Bentley - missing 132 weeks

Beth Bentley vanished on or about May 23, 2010.  Why "on or about"?

Because only one person knows for sure. Or could that be two or three?

Friend Jenn Wyatt's story (is she sticking to it?) is that she dropped Beth off in Centralia, Ill. on Sunday, May 23, 2010, at about 5:30PM near the Amtrak station.

About two weeks after that Jenn told me that Beth never intended to take a train north to Chicago.

Supposedly, best friends Jenn and Beth did not talk about what Beth was going to do when she got out of the rental car in Centralia (which must have been rented in Beth's name, since Jenn didn't have a valid driver's license (her California driver's license had expired)). That is virtually impossible to believe. Beth's car was stored in the garage of the house Jenn was renting in Woodstock.

As the story got to me, Beth and Jenn were going to meet back up so that Beth could retrieve her car on Monday and get home by the time her husband, Scott, got home from his law office on that Monday.

The timeline for Monday is quite vague. What time did Jenn leave Mount Vernon? What route did she take back to Woodstock? Where did she plan to meet Beth and at what time?

When you look at the phone records for Monday, well, they tell quite a story - most by the dialing pattern for the calls that were attempted and the absence of calls you might expect to see in the records?

The Woodstock Police must have gotten the details of the week-end and for Monday out of Jenn, but they remain tight-lipped even two and one-half years later. A retirement and assignment rotations have moved personnel active in the investigation off the case.

Remember now ... this is a Missing Person case at the Woodstock P.D. It's not a criminal case, if it's a missing-person case with no suspects and no "persons-of-interest".

Why aren't all the details being laid out for the public, so that maybe, just maybe, the public could start helping the Woodstock Police to fill in some of the blanks?

Is Jenn feeling pretty smug now that she slid out from under the two felony charges lodged against her by the Woodstock P.D.? Does Jenn know more than she is letting on about?

I hope that anyone with any knowledge of Beth's disappearance or habits or friends or any other details of a private nature has written out all those details and given them to a person who can absolutely trusted to deliver the information to the police in case some untimely incident impairs the  ability to recall details. All the details, written up and signed, sealed and delivered to a trustworthy confidante (someone with whom she (or he) has only a professional legal and totally independent relationship - not a friend or drinking buddy) could be valuable "insurance" for anyone with knowledge of what happened to Beth.

A "voice from the grave" is better than no voice at all.

Merry Christmas from 2A

I saw this about a week about, and I might even has posted it then. It's so good that I am going to "re-gift" it and post it again. Many thanks to the reader who sent it tonight.

Merry Christmas from the 2nd Amendment…A very touching message.

View at  http://youtu.be/QYuYhDJ5Q-g

Don't you just love the part where she checks her nails as she comes out of the alley?

License plate reader leads to arrest

Thanks to a license plate reader in a Chicago PD squad car, a 20-year-old parolee was arrested Thursday night, but not before injuries to civilians and to a Chicago PD officer.

The parolee was driving a stolen car, and the ANPR system recognized the plate. You can read the story here in the Chicago Tribune.

The Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system reads the license plates of vehicles approaching the camera and also plates on vehicles ahead and parked. Software processes the numbers against stolen, missing and wanted vehicles and alerts the officer in the squad car.

Do you believe this?

Chicago Police had 301 vehicles towed off Chicago streets early this morning, as they enforced the seasonal parking ban between 3:00-7:00AM that went into effect at midnight.

I'll tell you. If they want to do stupid #%&@*$&@ like that, they deserve a revolution in Chicago.

If you saw the Chicago Tribune earlier, six people were killed overnight. And the cops think it's important to enforce the parking ban.

Thanks, (stupid) Mayor Emanuel and Supt. McCarthy. That's great "service" to the City residents. I wonder how many cars were towed in the upscale neighbors versus in the war zone. And how many cars will not be claimed by their owners, because they are unemployed or poor and feeding babies instead of paying tow bills. The tow bill was probably $150; storage will be $40.00/day; and how much for the stupid ticket?

The parking ban is designed to keep streets clear when it snows, but it is enforced from December 1 until April 1, snow or no.

According to the online Tribune article, the City thinks it is giving adequate notice of the parking ban through "... placing leaflets on the cars along the routes, posting reminders on social media cites [sic] and web and at ward offices. 

You did see all the snow last night, didn't you? Since there wasn't any snow, why didn't the City just hang warning notices on those cars?

That's just one more reason to hate Chicago, the mayor, the police chief and the ward bosses and city council people!

Save the courthouse?

Is it time for residents to get involved?

This building is the original McHenry County Courthouse, which was located on the Woodstock Square.

The City of Woodstock acquired it and is considering now what to do with it. Generally, the City hopes to put a little money into it and find a buyer who will put a lot of money into it.

A couple of years ago, when the Battle for Grace Hall was being fought (and lost, thanks to the City Council), I came across a video called Courthouse Girls of Farmland. Recently I was thinking about that video and purchased it; last night I watched it again. Want your own copy? Visit www.courthousegirls.com/ Whether you do or not, you'll enjoy that website. Drop by soon.

The "Courthouse Girls" were seven women in a bridge club in Farmland, Indiana. Their ages ranged from 74-93. Their battle began when the three commissioners of Randolph County wanted to demolish the old courthouse in Winchester and replace it with "new".

This excellent, award-winning video tells their story in less than an hour. It's a true feel-good story. The "Girls" made a calendar and raised money to fight the demolition. And they won.

The residents of Woodstock should get involved and not just leave it to the City. The old courthouse should be preserved. As should the rest of the Square, considering the damage to the Main Street section done by the Council's turning their collective backs on the historic nature of the downtown district. While no plans have been announced to demolish the old courthouse, as few as four-to-six people could make it happen.

Want to see this video about the "Courthouse Girls"? I may set up a showing at the Woodstock Public Library early in 2013. Interested?

NOTE: A Special Meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) is scheduled for Tuesday, December 4, 7:00PM at City Hall. For some reason, this meeting does not appear on the City Calendar on the City's website.

The Agenda lists consideration of two Certificates of Appropriateness (COA): façade renovations at 129 East South Street and new windows at 200-210 South Throop Street. If you have questions about anything else going on in the Historic Square District, show up and ask.

At the July 23rd meeting of the HPC, there was discussion about the South Street tunnel under the railroad tracks. It could be one of only five such rare architectural structures in the United States. Consideration is being given to trying to get it designated as a national landmark. The Union Pacific, naturally, objects. You may be surprised that the tunnel is actually in the historic district of Woodstock.