Blagojevich convicted on 17 charges of corruption.

Chicago versus Green Bay — the cities.

Cliff Christl — author of "Mudbaths & Bloodbaths: The Inside Story of the Bears-Packers Rivalry" — compares the Illinois city of 3 million to Wisconsin city of 100,000:

Chicago might have more skyscrapers than Green Bay has elevators. And while the Second City overflows with magnificent museums, five-star restaurants and renowned universities, in Green Bay, life centers around much simpler pleasures like Friday night fish fries and 25-cent rides at the Bay Beach Amusement Park.

Many Chicagoans would tell you that the differences basically boil down to urbane vs. hick.... But... Green Bay's shoulders might not be as broad as Chicago's, but both are Midwestern cities built long ago on paper making and meat packing by a wide range of European immigrants. They sprouted, albeit on different scales, as heavily Catholic, blue-collar and bibulous strongholds.

Then there's the other kinship they share: football....

Go to the link for lots of colorful details about the rivalry, which has been relatively "civil" in recent years, partly because since the mid-1960s "when he Bears have been good, the Packers have generally been bad, and vice versa."  This year, then, is a momentous exception — especially exciting for the people of the northern half of what — look at a map — is properly termed the Wisconsin column of the United States.

"Rich Whitey" — a misspelling that just happened to get onto the electronic voting machines in 23 wards in Chicago.

"I don't want to be identified as 'Whitey.' If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern. I don't know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened."

Rich Whitney is the Green Party candidate for governor in Illinois (where the race between the Democratic and Republican candidates is close). And the problem is not going to be corrected!

"Choose Life" — the license plate... the Supreme Court case.

The way Adam Liptak puts it:

Had the states not decided to make license plates a forum for a sometimes comical array of messages, the “Choose Life” cases would easy. But many states have turned their motor vehicle departments into a kind of souvenir shop. They may also have given up the right to decide what gets sold in them.

Mm... yes... it's called "free speech," and much of it is foolish and/or opinionated. Religion is one more category of expression. Deal with it.

The University of Illinois tells all its employees they can't wear political buttons or attend political rallies on campus.

And if their cars have political bumper stickers, they can't park them in campus lots!

ADDED: I understand the focus on bumper stickers. Too much transparency if the faculty parking lot has rows and rows of Obama stickers.

Republicans "have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West, like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W."

Writes Maureen Dowd. Dan Quayle was a Senator from Indiana. I guess that looks like "the West" when you're looking from New York City. (You already know what's at that link, don't you?)

If Quayle was a "fun, bantamweight cheerleader from the West," then Obama must be too. Illinois -- for the geographically challenged -- is one notch west of Indiana. And Quayle was a first second term Senator when he was picked for VP in 1988. But And he'd been in Congress since 1976.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage said:

I read that Maureen Dowd piece twice but I still don’t get it. Sarah Palin can’t have it all? Only a loser rube would believe what's uncontested and be charmed by early stage Palin? Dick Cheney’s a bantamweight cheerleader? Heck, I didn’t even know there were weight classes in cheerleading. Color me confused.

Paul Zrimsek said:

Was Quayle ever considered fun? I recall that he was the Devil incarnate for a while for having the nerve to suggest that Murphy Brown was unwise to try single motherhood. Since we now learn that a woman can't combine family and career even with the aid of a husband, it may be that Quayle's been forgiven.

Freeman Hunt said:

I am getting extremely offended by this liberal meme that attractive women are nothing more than beauty queens regardless of their accomplishments. Palin has accomplished more in her short time in office than most accomplish over entire careers. But none of that matters; she's pretty, so that's all she is.

Absolute sexism.

Yeah, and it reinforces that sexist meme that feminism is a plot to help unattractive women get ahead.

Maguro said:

So being president of Harvard Law Review is now an important qualification for POTUS, particularly if the the other party's VP candidate went to the University of Idaho? LOL, good luck with that one.

To which Bissage responds:

Yeah, really. This ordinary-people-get-to-vote thing's a real bitch.