Darts & Laurels

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Updated: October 3, 2011 12:58PM

DART

Every year, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation publishes its Cost of Government Day report, which calculates the day on the calendar year until which the average American must work to pay for the full costs of government spending and regulation. This year, Cost of Government Day falls today, Aug. 12, meaning Americans labor a full 224 days into the year to pay for local, state and federal government spending and regulations. Americans have lost 29 days of the calendar year this year and 2011 marks the third straight year Cost of Government Day has fallen in August. And for Illinois taxpayers, the day is Aug. 17 because, well because we’re just Illinois.

LAUREL

Newly signed state legislation will provide more advanced notice about soon-to-be-built cellular towers. Illinois House Bill 156 will require telecommunications facilities to give state legislators and county board members 30 days notice before a permit is issued for the construction of a new telecommunications tower. The law went into effect Aug. 4 upon its signing by Gov. Pat Quinn. State Sen. Suzi Schmidt, R-Lake Villa, said the legislation came in response to several constituents who experienced situations where towers were being built nearby and they had not heard about its construction.

DART

To Gov. Pat Quinn who tapped Alexi Giannoulias to head the state’s community college board. Giannoulias, 35, served as state treasurer and narrowly lost a race for U.S. Senate last year to Republican Mark Kirk. He will lead the network of 48 community colleges, country’s third-largest community college system. While the part-time job is unpaid, there isn’t anybody else more qualified for the post than a former politician who happened to be on the Democratic ticket with Quinn last November? Um, this is a big state, there’s not anybody better?

LAUREL

The Department of Homeland Security is throwing in the towel on its much-heralded plan to develop a next generation of radiation-detection monitors that would not only signal the presence of radioactivity in cargo at U.S. points of entry, but also pinpoint the nature of its source. After spending about $200 million over five years to develop the devices, the department said technical flaws proved too much to overcome in a costly manner. The government had hoped to spend $1.2 billion to deploy 1,400 of the machines. Now, only the 13 of the devices that have been built will be put in use. Instead, DHS security personnel will scan cargo with hand-held detectors. A commercial competition will be held to come up with a replacement for the discredited machines. Perhaps the government should have first gone to private industry to develop the machines and saved $200 million. They also might be in operation by now.

LAUREL

The folks at Invisible Fence have donated seven pet oxygen masks to the Grayslake Fire Protection District to for use on animals caught in house fires. Although the number of pets that die in fires is not an official statistic kept by the U.S. Fire Administration, the company says an estimated 40,000 to 150,000 pets each year that die in fires, with most succumbing to smoke inhalation. The donation is part of a national effort called Project Breathe to equip fire stations across the U.S. and Canada with the masks.