SECOND STATE

Illinois may have beat NY state to legalizing civil unions for gay couples, but that still makes gay couples in Illinois second class citizens. NY state just trumped Illinois by giving them The Full Monty...MARRIAGE! We Illinoisians should not rest as long as a single couple has to explain to their fellow citizens that they weren't married...they were only civil unioned. That is disgusting.

Speaking of seconds, Chicago may always be the Second City, but Illinois blew a great chance last January in the humanitarian sweepstakes with their Empire State rival... of being the First State.

5 MAKES UNCLE SAM AN "ACE"

Let's see, we're still killing and being killed in Iraq and most likely won't leave on the scheduled December 31st Yankee Go Home date.

Afghanistan is a catastrophe. Three suicide bombers struck today in Kabul just a few blocks from the Presidential Palace, killing nine. Six hundred seventy-six US soldiers have been killed there in the last eighteen months. The war will be ten years old this October with no end in sight.

Our drones are killing civilians like there's no tomorrow in Pakistan and that country is naturally starting to push back against Uncle Sam's atrocities.

Yemen is the fourth target for our high tech drones and only God knows how many civilians have been obliterated by them in that forlorn land.

Today, we dropped bombs on the rebels we're supporting in Libya, injuring sixteen in our obsession to oust Moammar Kaddafi in a war the President refuses to consult Congress about.

When a fighter pilot destroys five enemy airplanes in aerial combat he gets the revered designation of Ace. Uncle Sam, with his five senseless, murderous and unwinnable wars in the Middle East and North Africa is now the Ace.....Of Losers.