Chicago is cool

I've been in Chicago since Sunday for training. Got to visit some friends in Northern Indiana on the way. I'd have taken pictures, but I forgot the camera... Oh well...

I decided to explore Monday morning before I had to go in, because I get up at an ungodly hour, and that's on EST... Unfortunately, I made too large of a loop and ended up booking it back to Arlington Heights to get back by 9am... Traffic kept getting worse and worse and worse. I'm such a dope. I made it back in time. My hotel is almost within walking distance, and I was almost late.

There's an awesome greek restaurant across the street from my hotel that does takeout. That just about made my trip...

Anyway... I was reading some of my newspapers online over dinner, since I have nothing better to do while I'm eating, and I caught this article. You know, I'm all for keeping our kids away from sex offenders and all, but I have two problems with this:

1. It seems like anytime lawmakers want to prove they're "tough on crime", it's time to kick the sex offender population one more time. This issue is far too black and white in the minds of the public. I am NOT disputing that child molestation is a terrible terrible thing. In fact, I'd like to see more being done about this problem. (Does that link bother you? Then I'm sure you'll agree with the following...)

What I am disputing that you or I are qualified 100% of the time to judge every person on a sex offender registry as being a terrible person that deserves everything our legal system puts on him/her. In fact, I will go so far as to guarantee, just by the laws of probability that there are people on a sex offender registry that don't deserve everything that has been piled on them. There has to be a line somewhere that protects these people, convicted felons that they are. I'm just not sure where that line is. Maybe it just bugs me when so many people blindly agree about a public policy issue.

2. I for one would be as interested to hear if there are any people who have committed hate crimes who live near me. Or frauds and scams, who knows who could be knocking on my door... See where this is going?

3. (This comes from the computing side of my mind...) A federal email registry based on zip code? Eh? Am I the only person reading this that has a giant red warning siren going off in my head? While I'm sure the federal government will do its utmost to protect the security of my email address,(cough, cough.) if I sign up for this list, I expect Illl get an email alert about male enhancements available in my zip code right after the alert about the pedophile...