I-D-I-O-T (Corrupt Dems put the extra "I" in "IDOT")
This is short aside, but if you read and remember my traveling post, I said this about traveling through Illinois in the Chicago area:
"The drive up through Wisconsin was great in both directions. (You really need to stop at Kel's Diner if you ever wind up in Wausaukee!) The travel in the UP was terrific as well, smooth roads, beautiful scenery...in stark contrast to Illinois!
Driving to the north from Indiana, you either go up through Michigan, cross the Mackinac and then you are in the UP. It would be a very long drive West to arrive in the Hurley, Wisconsin area. So we had to drive through Illinois to travel through Wisconsin. But Illinois has had a very corrupt, Democratic administration for years, which in the case of the roads means lots of confusion and all sorts of toll booths. I like to say that the Democrats put the extra "I" in IDOT. (IDIOT, get it?) Heading up through Chicago, we figured, would be fine if we got there by 5:30 in the morning. NOPE! The Dan Ryan Expressway is down to one lane in one place and I cannot imagine what rush hour must be like these days! The very short expressway heading out north of Chicago demands $2.60 in tolls!
Coming back was worse! We came into Illinois far to the West, hoping to connect with the 294 bypass and then go around Chicago altogether. Haphazard road construction lengthened the trip as billboards bragged of "open road tolling" in which fewer toll booths would be employed. I don't know about that, but we paid $5.80 in tolls to slide around the city and head towards Indiana. Gotta feel sorry for the poor suckers who travel those roads every day! Then again, they voted the idiots in, didn't they?"
Okay, so today as lunchtime rolls around I check out the Yahoo Fantasy Sports site and read an article by Peter King. That is when his take on the same subject caught my eye...I suppose he must love Open-Road-Tolling-By-Blagoevich
just as much as I do!
"Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week
The Illinois Tollway must be run by a bunch of idiots. Last Wednesday morning I had to drive from north of Chicago, site of the commissioner derby on Tuesday, to Packers camp in Green Bay. Easy drive, a little more than three hours.
So around 6 a.m. I'm heading west on Lake Cook Road, a major thoroughfare in the burbs there, toward the tollway up to Wisconsin. As I get in the lane to enter the tollway, there's a sign that says you've got to have an automatic toll tag or exact change at this toll plaza. I did not have four quarters. I had, actually, 92 cents.
There was a sign saying if you didn't have the right change, call a number and report the time, the vehicle plate number and the tollbooth site, and you could remit the correct toll by mail.
Are you kidding me? In order to take this road without a pocketful of change, you have to stop, write down a phone number, call the number, report all this information, AND THEN mail a dollar bill WITH ALL THE INFORMATION YOU REPORTED WHEN YOU CALLED THEM UP! Kill me now. Please. Kill me now."
Because of the infamous Democratic Machine in Chicago and the surrounding area, the entire State of Illinois is held hostage by a bunch of legitimacized crooks who know how to bleed the victim slowly enough to avoid killing it. If a Republican does happen to get into office, he is usually a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who is just as crooked as the rest and will work with the usual suspects no matter what the part affiliation happens to be. Illinois still does okay and Chicago is largely thriving (especially if you don't look too close at the gang-dominated areas and the homeless population). The Daley Machine should have taught the East Chicago-Gary crowd better, however. That group has bled the victim dry and the entire EC-Gary region is falling apart in every conceivable way. Yet Democrats win every election like clockwork.
It seems many of America's major cities are held hostage by a Democratic Machine that has the poorer segment of the voting public fooled into thinking that the Democrats are the advocates of the downtrodden. Meanwhile, old-fashioned welfare programs help keep people down, voucher programs that would allow parents to choose their schools and escape the bad ones are denied to them and the political fat cats skim off tax monies to pad their pockets and those of their cronies in business. I wonder what it will take to change all that?
"The drive up through Wisconsin was great in both directions. (You really need to stop at Kel's Diner if you ever wind up in Wausaukee!) The travel in the UP was terrific as well, smooth roads, beautiful scenery...in stark contrast to Illinois!
Driving to the north from Indiana, you either go up through Michigan, cross the Mackinac and then you are in the UP. It would be a very long drive West to arrive in the Hurley, Wisconsin area. So we had to drive through Illinois to travel through Wisconsin. But Illinois has had a very corrupt, Democratic administration for years, which in the case of the roads means lots of confusion and all sorts of toll booths. I like to say that the Democrats put the extra "I" in IDOT. (IDIOT, get it?) Heading up through Chicago, we figured, would be fine if we got there by 5:30 in the morning. NOPE! The Dan Ryan Expressway is down to one lane in one place and I cannot imagine what rush hour must be like these days! The very short expressway heading out north of Chicago demands $2.60 in tolls!
Coming back was worse! We came into Illinois far to the West, hoping to connect with the 294 bypass and then go around Chicago altogether. Haphazard road construction lengthened the trip as billboards bragged of "open road tolling" in which fewer toll booths would be employed. I don't know about that, but we paid $5.80 in tolls to slide around the city and head towards Indiana. Gotta feel sorry for the poor suckers who travel those roads every day! Then again, they voted the idiots in, didn't they?"
Okay, so today as lunchtime rolls around I check out the Yahoo Fantasy Sports site and read an article by Peter King. That is when his take on the same subject caught my eye...I suppose he must love Open-Road-Tolling-By-Blagoevich
just as much as I do!
"Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week
The Illinois Tollway must be run by a bunch of idiots. Last Wednesday morning I had to drive from north of Chicago, site of the commissioner derby on Tuesday, to Packers camp in Green Bay. Easy drive, a little more than three hours.
So around 6 a.m. I'm heading west on Lake Cook Road, a major thoroughfare in the burbs there, toward the tollway up to Wisconsin. As I get in the lane to enter the tollway, there's a sign that says you've got to have an automatic toll tag or exact change at this toll plaza. I did not have four quarters. I had, actually, 92 cents.
There was a sign saying if you didn't have the right change, call a number and report the time, the vehicle plate number and the tollbooth site, and you could remit the correct toll by mail.
Are you kidding me? In order to take this road without a pocketful of change, you have to stop, write down a phone number, call the number, report all this information, AND THEN mail a dollar bill WITH ALL THE INFORMATION YOU REPORTED WHEN YOU CALLED THEM UP! Kill me now. Please. Kill me now."
Because of the infamous Democratic Machine in Chicago and the surrounding area, the entire State of Illinois is held hostage by a bunch of legitimacized crooks who know how to bleed the victim slowly enough to avoid killing it. If a Republican does happen to get into office, he is usually a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who is just as crooked as the rest and will work with the usual suspects no matter what the part affiliation happens to be. Illinois still does okay and Chicago is largely thriving (especially if you don't look too close at the gang-dominated areas and the homeless population). The Daley Machine should have taught the East Chicago-Gary crowd better, however. That group has bled the victim dry and the entire EC-Gary region is falling apart in every conceivable way. Yet Democrats win every election like clockwork.
It seems many of America's major cities are held hostage by a Democratic Machine that has the poorer segment of the voting public fooled into thinking that the Democrats are the advocates of the downtrodden. Meanwhile, old-fashioned welfare programs help keep people down, voucher programs that would allow parents to choose their schools and escape the bad ones are denied to them and the political fat cats skim off tax monies to pad their pockets and those of their cronies in business. I wonder what it will take to change all that?