Wednesday, November 06, 2002

The Godless Americans March on Washington made it on C-SPAN3 taped delayed. I wish they would have carried it live, and carried it on C-SPAN2 at least, but this is better than no coverage. Second class coverage is what we second-class citizens tend to get.
Election opens up judicial, clerk positions
I hope these appointments are up to the voters at the next election. Nepotism is not something that should go over in politics, but around this part of the state it is par for the course.
18-year-old arrested in West End slaying
Most of the murders in this city could be solved if more people, like the person in this case, called into Crime Stoppers and turned in the wanted criminals.
Shots fired outside bar
No one can say that Jim Tarbell does not take action. He not only lives in Over-the-Rhine, he is a City council man who does not just let thugs try and ruin a viable business and residential area. Kudos to Tarbell for calling 911. I would like to know if the kid arrested has job or has finished high school. Why not go home when the bar closes, get some sleep and either go to work or to school.
Mike McConnell Advocates Feudalism
Yesterday on Mike's 700WLW program he agreed with a representative from the Cato Institute in advocating a system of government where only property owners could vote when property taxes were the issue. He referred to the original system created in the USA, where only property owners were permitted to vote. I am sure Mike would predict this type of system would not get the votes to ever occur, but his anti-democratic (small d) ideas are what I find indicative of many conservatives and neolibertarians. Mike wants to limit the right to vote to the public, except those more likely to think like he does. This disgusts me and makes me a bit nervous. I was unnerved by his matter-of-fact conclusion to the validity of such a feudalist system of government. It was not something he saw remotely as undemocratic. To him it was fair. Property owners, gun owners, business owners, and the religious seem to get special rights under Mike's Feudalist system, while the individual who does not conform to his plutocracy gets the shaft.
E-mails between mayor and monitor
I am not sure what to make of this. It is more entertainment than informative. It does provide an overall frame of the relationship between Luken and Kalmanoff. I would share Lukens luke warm and later harsh actions towards Kalmanoff. Based solely on these emails, and other published accounts, it would appear that Kalmanoff put forth little effort to work within he city. He instead came at the city very nonchalantly, charging the city money to talk to the media. Kalmanoff did not even say much of anything of value to the media, so did the city pay him money to create his own positive PR? The selection of this man as monitor appears to have been a mistake, but who is to say anyone else would be better. This position is one prime for making a buck at taxpayer expense. I applaud Luken for growing a pair and standing up to what looks to be a dog and pony show hack, looking to monitor the city out of millions of dollars. Demanding a new monitor sounds like a reasonable action for the city to take. I am sure the chicken-littles and boycott bigots will call into the Buzz and claim Luken is a out to destroy the collaborative. I hope Chaz will ignore their knee-jerk race baiting rants and continue standing up to a monitor looking for PR and a payday.
UPDATE: The Post's Take.
Light-rail plan hits a wall of resistance
Well, I for one hope that I will not being living in this city in 20 years. The city will either be dead, or a parking lot.
It looks like all of the Issues in the City went down, except Issue 8, which kills campaign finance reform in the City.

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

Brinkman has won. The Caveman liveth.
Get Out There and Vote!

Monday, November 04, 2002

Enquirer and Post Endorsements: Something is Missing
Please compare these two slates of endorsements from the Post & KY Post and the Enquirer.

What is missing from the Enquirer's endorsements? Can we say Ohio Assembly House District 34? What they hell is the Enquirer smoking? Tom Brinkman the incumbent caveman conservative, as the Post puts it, against Dave Schaff. The Post picks Schaff, but the Enquirer makes no mention of this race. Last I checked this district not only includes part of the city of Cincinnati, including Mt. Lookout and Mt. Washington, but it includes Anderson Township. In fact the entire district is in Hamilton County. The Enquirer also ignored districts 29 and 30, which also are located in Hamilton county. Here is a graphic the Post was nice enough to include in its opinion page:



Are these races just non-issues for the Mighty Enquirer? Do they want to depress turnout and help the incumbents? Are they lazy asses? Or are they just inept? Who takes the blame for this Wells? Bushee? Or Whipple? It is bad enough they don't put their Editorial Page on the web; can't they at least complete the simple task of picking all of the political races from their home county? In 2000 the Enquirer Endorced Brinkman, why are they not now? If this right wing extremist hell bent on recreating the old west here in Ohio was their man back in 2000, why not speak up about it now?
GOP Robot Telemarketers
On Friday I got a voice-mail at home from Bob Taft. Tonight I got a phone call from a fast talking George Bush, who barely sounded like George Bush "asking" me to support Republicans, but the taking the cake if the phone call from Steve Chabot on Saturday. Chabot's record phone spam also asked me to vote for him. That is all fine and dandy if I was a Republican, but not only am I not a GOPher, I do not live in his congressional district. I know they changed his district on him this time, but I was not in his district in 2000 either, nor any election since I moved to Cincinnati in 1994. Since I am not registered with either party I also have not received any candidate mailings, only Issue mailings.
Issue 8 backers again don't file finance report
From the Article:
"We're not trying to hide anything at all,'' Monzel said. "The money just hadn't come in yet by the last report. In fact, they're still collecting checks. But nothing's being hidden.''
Did Monzel say this with a straight face, or did he have his fingers crossed behind is back. In my opinion, and I think even to the casual observing, Monzel, another "values" champion, is lying through is teeth. His group is obviously hiding the identities of backers to his Issue effort by having the fat cat donors hold back their contributions until the last finance report must be filed before the election, when a blitz of media air time will be purchased. Is that illegal? No. Is that honest? Hell No.
Campaign ads for secretary of state say there's a conspiracy against him
Here is another article about the now infamous radio ads from Ken Blackwell's Campaign. You would not believe who sent me the link, none other than Nate Livingston himself, or at least someone using that email name. I wonder if Nate’s real motivation for pushing this issue is because he is jealous of Blackwell’s tactics. Nate is part of the crowd that normally talks about the “conspiracy” against the “black man.” Nate might not like Blackwell stealing his issue. It reminds me of the GOP’s anger at Clinton for stealing Welfare Reform from them, and then using it to get elected in 1996. What I am waiting Nate to do next is come right out and call Blackell a “house slave,” or something even more offensive. I don’t like Blackwell’s campaign, and I would not vote for him if these Ads existed or not, but Nate’s hypocrisy on this issue is just as flabbergasting as Blackwell’s hypocrisy.

Sunday, November 03, 2002

Police Crack Pepper Kidnapping Case
It appears however that they let one of the guys go. The other man reportedly confessed to the Pepper abduction. FOX19 reported the family of the at large man stated he will turn himself in early this week. If the family knows were he is and have not help police try and find him, then they should be charged with an obstruction charge. A member of his family actually had the gall to claim that the October 31st incident in Mt. Lookout was just a Halloween prank gone wrong. She stated on camera that they were using a "toy" gun. Mr. Watkins, the 18 year old at large, seems to have told one hell of a big lie to his family about what has done.
BRONSON: Answer Man rescues confused voters
Sorry Peter, you did not phrase your answer in the form of a question.
Pair charged in Pepper kidnapping, robbery
The Enquirer's take on the Pepper Kidnapping arrests.
Bengals 38, Texans 3


Nuff said.
Pepper Suspects Arrested
Ok, can we put any and all conspiracies to bed now? No more timelines, no more missing minutes, or delays in calling 911.

Saturday, November 02, 2002

Godless Americans March On Washington, Nov 2, 2002
I cannot find a single report how this march turned out today. I was able to get 2nd hand information that organizers believe there were about 4 to 5 thousand marchers there. A small group of 25 Christian fundamentalists protested the march. This news blackout is appalling. C-SPAN did not even cover it. They may show it taped at some point, but let this go to prove the conservatives wrong, there is no atheist bias in the media, unless you mean the incredible bias against atheists and other secularist groups.

The organizers may have picked a bad day for the rally. It would appear that it could have gotten more coverage if did not conflict with the news media's free campaign coverage of George Bush shilling for every Republican in a close election on the planet.