Thanks Readers

A big "Thank You" to whomever keeps applying our e-mail address to various left wing publications. So far, we have been involuntary members of MoveOn.org, the Democratic National Committee mailing list and half a dozen others. We NEVER would have been able to update our spam filters so thoroughly without your assistance. Keep up the good work and soon, we won't be receiving ANY e-mail whatsoever from the left.

In the meantime, we passed 63,000 total visitors sometime this afternoon and passed 360,000 total page views around the same time. A big thanks to all our readers. Yes, this does end up being a 21st century version of the bathroom wall, but if you go back to our first ever post on 31 May 2005, we warned that could be one of the possible outcomes, if not the appeal of the whole process. Everyone slows down at a traffic crash.

Is anyone else interested in helping us advertise? We got a few requests for cards to hand out at various units and we sent them out (write back if you haven't gotten them yet). We've got a bunch left and we know there are districts that haven't seen them yet. Our numbers keep making a run at the elusive 1,000 hits a day target (which we actually hit twice this week). We'd like to make it a regular occurrence if possible. Let us know.

UPDATE: Sunday morning, we went through and deleted 5 posts here and another half a dozen throughout the blog regarding the Washington DC trip. Evidently, the guy who got shut out in Washington is back from furlough (or his rubber doll is in need of a patch job). Listen bozo, you haven't gotten one informative response on the whole issue. Let it go. Your small minded pursuit of rejected love is amusing only in a pathetic sort of way. Like a clown dying. LET. IT. GO.

Do As I Say ...

Via Right Wing Howler:

Remember when Michael Moore said he did not own a single share of stock?

Well, technically he was right.

He owns tens of thousands of shares - including nearly 2,000 shares of Boeing, nearly 1,000 of Sonoco, more than 4,000 of Best Foods, more than 3,000 of Eli Lilly, more than 8,000 of Bank One and more than 2,000 of Halliburton (emphasis mine - SCC)

Go read the rest, for it is hilarious and follow up with this article at WorldNetDaily reviewing the new book, "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" by Peter Schweizer.

Saturday Quick Hits and Maintenance

Blogger is going down this afternoon for a few hours for upgrades and the like. Which, by complete coincidence, is what we were thinking of doing this afternoon. Here's something to keep you entertained in the mean time.

• Finally, someone nails all those dope dealing firefighters. (Not!) At the very least, it's always nice to see someone take the heat of the police department for a little while.
• Alderweasels get a 10% raise in their Ward funds for sidewalk, alley and curb repair. No word yet where this extra 10% is coming from as (A) there's still a $100 million dollar question mark in the mayor's budget and (B) they were already screwing taxpayers on the 50-50 program and NOW they can find $120K per ward? More Federal indictments please!
• NINE days of rioting in Paris and the surrounding country side. Read the sun-times article here and try to figure out what word doesn't appear even ONCE in the entire report. We'll give you a hint - it starts with "mu" and ends with "slim." The Yahoo report here prefers the words "...gangs of youth from low-income high-immigration neighborhoods" but finally says "muslim" in the 15th paragraph of a 16 paragraph story. This AP/Yahoo update reports that 897 cars were burned a night after 500 others had been burned. Hopefully, we don't end up having to save France from itself again.
  

ACLU Strikes again

The ACLU continues it's efforts to undermine the safety of New York City subways by again going to court to fight random bag searches as an "unjustifiable erosion of the privacy rights of the American public." Excuse us, but if you pay an admission fare to ride a subway, you ought to be subject to the rules of that agency. And if those rules include emptying out your bag and submitting to a search, then shut the hell up and do it. If you don't want to, you are welcome to walk. Or better yet, add your automobile to the teeming mess that is New York City traffic.

But the truly hilarious part in this whole story by the New York Sun is the ACLU hypocrisy whereby if you enter the ACLU headquarters, there is a large sign telling you that all bags entering the building are - WAIT FOR IT! - subject to search! So what makes the lawyers of the ACLU more deserving of protection than the working citizens of New York City? Hell, you can't even sneeze without getting snot on a lawyer in most of New York - they're like a dime a dozen.

Someone Enlighten Us

Maybe a Detective can answer this. If you've seen the Thursday Sun Times, Frank "crime reporter" Main writes about this new policy of informing witnesses that they are free to leave at any time during questioning.

Of course, defense lawyers are up in arms that police would dare try to solve any types of crimes by interviewing witnesses. God forbid someone should tell the police anything. And unfortunately, the clearance rate reflects this. Here's the question though: if you think someone has evidence or testimony that will be necessary or crucial to solving a case, why can't you just get a writ from a judge and hold them for obstruction? If Vice can get a warrant signed at two in the morning, there have got to be judges who'd sign a contempt order to hold some gang banger for a few days at County until he coughed up his story. There is no Constitutional right to withhold evidence that isn't self incriminating as far as we know. Is it the do-nothing ASA's? Is it a Department failure? Is it too much paperwork for a Detective Division buried in a detrius of deceased trees?

Eight Days of Rioting and Counting

Call us optimists if you will, but can anyone see any United States police force, let alone any politician, putting up with 8 straight days of rioting? Even during the LA riots, the Army had it clamped down pretty tight after, what, 5 days?

The French, however, displaying the type of backbone that permitted nazi armies to reach paris within 43 days, seem determined to ignore the continuing mayhem as THREE HUNDRED FIFTEEN cars were burned in 20 different suburbs last night and numerous civilians and officers were injured.

The mainstream media is beginning to notice, but few if any reports label the rioters as "muslim" or "islamic," preferring the more neutral description of "immigrant" or, in a pinch, "North Africans" (meaning Algerian) lest it seem that maybe George Bush was right about militant islam being the driving force behind this global war. We are likely seeing the very first stages of the dissolution of a major nation in Europe and no one is sure where it's going to end.

Whoops! It's OooPS!

We have long been of the opinion that the FBI is merely the second most incompetent investigatory agency on the planet. Number one all time champion in our book is the venerable Office of Professional Standards.

How about your beefs with OPS? Aside from the fact that they'll take ANY complaint, ANY place, ANY where, ANY allegation, with or without sworn affidavits, what stories can anyone tell about OPS, humorous or otherwise?

Once Again, FEAR OUR BLOG!

On Halloween, we posted about fugitive Randy Rencher being spotted sticking up banks in Ohio. We speculated that this was one of those situations that had the feel of ending badly. Well, we can only assume that Mr. Rencher reads our blog (Hi Randy!), realized he couldn't escape the long arm of the law forever and surrendered to a bartender in Cleveland. We will take full credit with frightening him into turning himself in and add Rencher to our list of quasi-celebrities who read SecondCityCop (joining local luminaries Frank Main, Fran Speilman, Michael Shakman, Noelle Brennan, retired Sergeant John Northern and FOP's Mark Donahue). Total blame will remain with Cook County Corrections, however.

Coverage of his surrender from the sun-times; Channel2; Channel 5; Channel 7; tribune.

In Case You Hadn't Heard

Remember those non-existent riots, imaginary murders, fantasy rapes and made-up mayhem in New Orleans that the media couldn't wait to report on, then quietly retracted weeks later? How come no one is reporting SEVEN STRAIGHT DAYS of rioting in France by "the religion of peace?"

Coverage here, here, and here. By blogs of course, not the Main Stream Media. Go figure.

The List

KARCZEWSKI, Michael 001; ROBERTS, Craig 001
MEDRANO, Patrick 003; CROSSLEY, Kirkland 003
NOTTOLI, Mark 004; HARNISCH, Frederick 004
ALLEN, Brian 006; O'’NEAL, Ricky 006
SZARZYNSKI, Timothy 008; LIELBASA, Charmane 008
O'’LEARY, Brian 008; HOWARD, Richard 008
EGAN, Michael 008; MAIDA, Charles 008
PIETRZAK, Stephen 009; MAJERCZYK, Gerard 010
MURRAY, Robert 010; ORTIZ, Doralicia 010
PATRIDA, Estanisla 010; MORAVEC, Richard 011
KOLASA, Matthew 012; RUBIO, Robert 013
MORENO, Raul 014; ASSAF, Majed 014
NEARY, Kevin 014; VERTA, John 014
LITTLE, Matthew 014; CIOLLI, John 015
JOYCE, Michael 016; COURTNEY, Brian 016
KING, Robert 017; LESNER, Steven017
TOKARSKI, Joseph 018; GIBSON, Woodie 019
LELAND, Thomas 019; WILLIAMS, Gary 021
NELSON-JONES, Nedra 021; JONES, Donald 022
GOLOSINSKI, Mark 024; BRANNIGAN, William 024
HAGEN, Gail 025; VALE, Denis 025
RIVERA, Noland 045; FLEISCHHACKER, Shaun 050
HERRERA, Carlos 111; CALDWELL, Galen 114
BARNES, Maurice 116; DUNIGNA, Dominique 116
GIUDICE, Thomas 121; SPAGNOLA, Michael 121
BIALAS, Maryann 124; KUSAR, Joseph 153
KAPPEL, William 153; MILIO, John 153
VOIGHT, William 153; STINITES, Alexander 188
HITNEY, Christine 188; ZAPRZALKA, Christine 189
MARKHAM, Donald 189; DAKURAS, Andrew 189
BUTLER, Darwin 189; FREEMAN, Scott 189
JOHNSON, Darrell 189; WILLIAMS, Brad 189
CORLETT, James 192; BLACKMAN Brian 193
COLEMAN, Laurence 196; ALLEN, Daniel 196
DIGGS, Gayle 196; MARTIN, Sean 196
MACHALIK, Jane 377

UPDATE: We didn't get this list up right away for a few reasons. One, it's a large list, 71 names. Two, it's incomplete - this is for the "Investigative Familiarity Training" only. It is NOT mandatory, so a number of people may have turned it down AND anyone who made it from the D units (legit or "merit") isn't listed here. Three, we certainly aren't going to post it from a city computer if we can help it. Four, family comes first here. This is a hobby. We had things to do when we got home and this could wait. So if anyone else had the time or inclination to type it, they'd be welcome to post it in the comments section and we'd just copy/paste it later. Otherwise, you gotta wait until we get to it. Such is life.

UPDATE: We heard they got down to number 320 on this part of the list. Can anyone confirm?

List is out

Investigative Familiarity Training list is out. We'll type it maybe later. Tis a largish list.

It's Official

We know that everyone isn't the political junkies what we are, but we feel 99.9% certain that today, Karl Rove is completely clear of all wrongdoing, won't be indicted and probably ought to be get his visage cast in bronze or carved in granite. How do we know this?

Because of the stunt pulled in the Senate Tuesday. Hop over to the following links and read all about the Democrat's temper tantrum when they forced the Senate into closed session: Breitbart; National Review; AnkleBitingPundits; Strata-Sphere. It's a desperation move by the Left - Iraq is going well with the recent constitutional plebiscite; Iraqi army units are coming on line; the economy is up for the 12th straight quarter at a 3.5% clip IN SPITE of Hurricane Katrina; Katrina coverage has completely fallen off the radar as the truth seeps out about incompetent local authorities; Bush has completely smoked the dems with the Alito nomination; and gas is below $2.40 a gallon in the suburbs today. In fact, the two week trend of Bush's popularity ratings are headed upwards again (but no one is reporting it).

Not only that, Tom Delay will probably be cleared of all charges shortly as his lawyer's request for recusal of the sitting judge (who made regular donations to MoveOn.org and various leftist causes) was granted yesterday. The dems have nothing to hang their hats on. No ideas to promote. So Harry Reid and Dick "Turban" Durbin force the Senate into closed session to attempt "secret talks" about pre-war intelligence when it's been proven time and time again that Joe Wilson was a liar and the entire government apparatus (Dem and Rep) believed saddam had WMD. If Bush can start bringing home troops before the 2006 midterms, watch for him to hold both majorities in congress.

Fun and Games

Someone calling themselves "sos goof" has posed a challenge to us and our readers: Name the five exempts that currently hold the career rank of Sergeant or below. We were aware of two, so this ought to be interesting.

Someone already named Sgt. Keating, former CO of the mayor's detail, later commander of TRU and current boss of 001.

No one named G/S Cronin in the comments section, though we've written a bit about him after his accident. Anyone have updates on him or Commander Murphy?

Who can name the other three?

Sergeants Monday & Exempt Changes

Just got info that the Personnel Division is/has been making phone calls to all the "merit" picks and telling them they are starting Monday. Look for a list Wednesday or Thursday. Still looking to see how big a class it is. Heard it could be as big as 120.

As far as the exempt changes go, we've corrected the spellings and ranks on the errors pointed out to us. Thanks. Further corrections can be noted in this thread.

Exempt Changes

:::shaking fist at readers again:::

In another stunning breakdown of the rumor system, numerous exempt changes were made in the past hour or so and NO ONE TOLD US! Thanks to those who posted in the comments section to let everyone know. Here's what we sort of have so far:

McCotter out of Special Events over to ADS of Patrol Bureau
Lanuti out of Traffic to Special Events
Frank Limon to Chief of OCD
Capt. Kolman (018) to Traffic
Capt. Bob Evans (022) to Commander of Field Monitoring
Capt. Price (016) gets 016
Skahill shunted to ADS of CAPS.

The odd one out here seems to be Skahill. Everyone knows Starks got pushed off into a CAPS role as punishment. Is Skahill being pushed aside too? We'll publish again when we get a hold of the press release.

Your Opinion on Promotion Exams - Legit?

Maybe Noelle Brennan will find this post enlightening. Someone tell her about it.

As we understand from stories we've heard, late last century (or early this century), the city gave a promotional exam for lieutenant. The test was in two parts, a few months apart. By some miracle, 100% of the people taking the exam passed. Every single one of them made the "merit" eligible list. This test cost about $4 million dollars. There have been about 200 total promotions off the list, meaning the city spends about $20,000 to find a Lieutenant.

The #1 score came out of Patrol Division Administration.

Earlier this century, the city gave a promotional exam for sergeant. It also, was a two part test, scheduled a few months apart. Around 4,500 people took part one, 3,000 or so passed and the city has yet to take even 450 people off of the resulting list. The test cost about $4 million dollars, meaning it costs about $10,000 to find a Sergeant.

As we heard, the #1 score came out of Patrol Division Administration.

Now, here's the rub. The city already gets 30% for their "merit" choices. The remaining 70% is supposed to go to people who score well. The theory that we hear bandied about is that certain study groups (or "connected" persons) acquire keywords, phrases or access to material that would raise scores. If they score high enough, the people making the "merit" choices don't have to burn a "merit" pick on them. So the 70% legit spots you were shooting for is actually a bit smaller, maybe A LOT smaller.

Do you see where we're going with this? However improbable it seems, it could be that testing is on the up-and-up and this is all conspiracies run wild. But the mere appearance of impropriety in a city that exists in a state of impropriety, lends credence to otherwise impossible theories. Does anyone know the odds of two #1's coming out of the same office? It could be that both were just very intelligent and the chief liked to surround himself with smart people. Does anyone know the rate at which certain bosses surround themselves with intelligent people who are completely capable of scoring #1 on two successive promotional exams? Anyone know a good statistics person? Far fetched? Plausible? Business as usual?

Some Monday Quick Hits

For the reader on the go:

• Local fugitive goes national. Randy Rencher, the escaped convict who posed as a robbery victim and got a case report & ride to the "el" by some unwitting coppers, has resurfaced in Ohio, suspected of, what else? More bank robberies. This thing has the feel of one that might end badly at some point.
• If they were smart, we'd be in trouble. Seems someone has worn a wire in the ongoing investigation of Governor Blago's administration (Channel 5; Channel 7; sun-times). That source we mentioned months ago who said Blago was a one-term seat warmer for Lisa Madigan is looking more and more prophetic by the hour.
• Democrats are shocked! Shocked that Bush nominated a conservative to the Supreme Court (sun-times; tribune; Channel 5; Channel 7). Actually, so are we, seeing as how Bush has expanded government at a rate unseen since Johnson, doesn't care about border control, and is launching the costliest government program since FDR was in office. The funniest thing is the Dems are already on the defensive as the National Italian American Foundation is demanding apologies from liberals intent on smearing Alito as "Scalito."
  
• Did anyone catch this story on Drudge? Seems CBS's John Roberts described the selection of Alito as "sloppy seconds" during a press conference today at the White House. One must wonder at the hatred the left holds of Bush that they will regularly bring in pornographic nomenclature to describe conservative nominees to the highest court in the land (like Howard Dean saying Bush is playing "Hide the salami" with the Miers nomination).

Over/Under Results

Unless something happened in the past couple of hours, everyone who had Starks over Halloween, wins! Congratulations!

Rumors abound once again of a Sergeant's class this week and the "merit" letters for Detective are due in next Monday. 100 or so new recruits started the Academy today so there are around 300 in the pipeline, which will just about cover the retirements from 2003, meaning we're still about 1,000 bodies down.

Hope everyone enjoyed the $40 bucks the city cut you all checks for when they screwed up the duty availability. Just once, wouldn't it be refreshing to see the city institute some program that didn't manage to f%&* everything up nine ways to Sunday? We think we have it figured out though - somebody, somewhere in the political process has a brother who's an accountant and somewhere around February, he's going to have posters up everywhere saying, "Remember how f#$&ed up your checks were this year with the retro and the federal taxes and the duty and uniform allowances? Well, for a mere $49.99, my firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe can keep you out of Federal prison. Contact us today!"

More Democratic Fantasies

Senator Harry Reid has said that the President and Vice President should apologize for the actions of their aides in the CIA leak case. They should also pledge not to pardon anyone convicted in the investigation.

What?

Firstly, no one has been convicted of anything yet. For all we know, Scooter will be found innocent of all charges.

Secondly, why would Bush and Cheney have to apologize for the conduct of another person who appears to be over 21? Maybe Libby ought to apologize to Bush and Cheney for putting them in an unintended position, but to whom does Harry Reid expect Bush and Cheney to proffer this apology? Probably seventy percent of the American public couldn't pick Scooter out of a line up and couldn't identify his job title. If Bush has to apologize for Scooter, we want the democrats to apologize for Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Dick Durbin and the Clintons.

Thirdly, we'll spare lefty and shady of the time explaining away Clinton's last minute pardons of just about every administration official who sneezed in the presence of an FBI agent. Suffice it to say that the leader of the minority party in Congress ought not be making outrageous demands on the President or his people.

UPDATE: Now Harry Reid says Rove should resign. What a maroon.

Where You At?

Just out of curiousity, who is checking out this site from Jackson, Wyoming? Is it really Dick Cheney?

We were just cruising some of the site statistics and we noticed the Jackson visitor along with Leesburg and Sarasota, Florida; Caledonia, Wisconsin; and some people from Springfiled who seem to monitor the site for 3 and 4 hours at a time, reading dozens, sometimes hundreds of pages at one sitting.