It's Alive.......

It has been months since his boycott website was suspended, but now Nate Livingston has a blog. He actually has two blogs.

So far they are, um, rather tame, for Nate that is. Now that I have noticed his blog, after he emailed the news to me, I expect his posts to get, shall we say, livelier.

The funniest thing on Nate's blog so far has to be this nugget:

Some of you may know I considered running for Congress this year and was discouraged from doing so by the Hamilton County Democratic Party.  During a candidate interview, I was told by Tyrone Yates, Tim Burke and others that whoever ran against Chabot needed to raise at least $1 million to be competitive.  They felt that Greg would do a much better job of fundraising since he ran with the Party's endorsement last time.  I could've still ran in the primary and beat Greg but I had other priorities at the time.  Greg Harris is not a serious candidate for Congress.  Democrats deserve better.

Now, that is an ego.

Nick Spencer Interviews Dan Lienert

Nick Spencer has an interview with Dan Lienert the Forbes reporter who wrote a hatchet job on single life in Cincinnati. Lienernt's answers I think prove most of the negative commentary on his article correct:

1. He did not do much relevant prep work on Cincinnati.
2. He is comparing Cincinnati with the likes of cities 2 to 10 times larger and expects Cincinnati to be similar.
3. He did a half ass job trying to find anything here.
4. He must have been paid off by the West Chester Chamber of Commerce or Peter Bronson.

It felt like this guy was sent here to fulfill his preconceived notion of Cincinnati and his existing bias lead him to find what he wanted to find.  A little more effort and he would have find that life here for singles is not great, but not the crap hole he paints it to be.  Lienart is a poster child for a horrid 'nationalized' media, a type of Wal-Mart Media where local news, culture, and society are ignored or belittled.
 
If Mr. Lienert is met with pitchforks and torches the next time he comes to town, I hope he is not shocked.

Should Have Known Better

Now, what will the hawks say about David Kay's comments?  It boils down again to the two general possibilities:

• Bush misled, lied, fooled or sexed up the reasons for going to war or
• Bush is incompetent and made a really poor choice in going to war.

Now, I am sure to hear that their are other "possibilities," but they are derivative of these two.  If you think Bush was "duped" by the CIA then he is incompetent.  How could a good President allow himself to be manipulated into waging war?  Can't have your WMD and eat 'em too.

Palestinian Civil War?

News like this suggests that as soon as Yasser Arafat is dead or forced out of the West Bank, then power is up for grabs to those with the most guns and people to use them.  Israel will have little influence, short of choosing sides.  I doubt they will want to get in the middle of that kind of a fight.

Well Meaning, But Doing Harm

It is difficult to for me to criticism and old woman, but based on what she wrote in the Cincinnati Enquirer I must.  This paragraph in particular:

Do you remember the terrorist attacks on our land in 2001? These aggressors are busy all over the world right now, attacking and destroying millions of innocent people. Until they and those of their mentality can be brought down, no one will be safe to live in peace. At this time, "universal peace" is only a dream of uninformed dreamers.

What Mrs. Frisch fails to grasp is that the Muslims of the world are not out to rule the world, at least no more than the fundamentalist Christians.  Who is attacking and destroying millions of innocent people?  Oh, other than the United States of course.  Now, speaking of these dreamers that Mrs. Frisch is attacking I have to say that she is more of a dreamer than anyone she criticisms.  Anyone who rattles of the many good things the American Military did last century without acknowledging the many horrors.  She lamented that kids today don't know the history of this country, but I think she lives in a fantasy land where the history she "knows" is a John Wayne war movie.  People all too often, myself included, deny that what they have thought they hade known for years was really just propaganda.  I find that today War Hawks are living this myth far too long.  Denying that BushCo mislead the country in the war has become an affliction that I think may someday be categorized as much as Gulf War Syndrome.

Political State Report - OH: Diebold Machines Blocked From Use

My latest Polstate.com post is up:OH: Diebold Machines Blocked From Use

Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell (R), announced this week that he is halting deployment of the Diebold Election Systems’ electronic voting machines in three Ohio counties. Officials in Hardin, Lorain and Trumbull counties had selected Diebold machines for use this November. Each county will instead use their current voting system. Full post

I have not posted to PSR for several months, so I hope to pick up some slack going forward.

Ohio Sexual Politics Via the UK

Odd story to see in the Guardian. Ohio is the hotbed of the Presidential election, but to have a picture of the Lions Den sex shop as the lead? I am puzzled by one thing in the article. I have passed the Lions Den on the way to Columbus, but the article says it is in western Columbus. Is there more than one? And to answer the obvious question, no, I have never been inside it.

Good Stuff, Bad Drinks

Maggie Downs has another good topical column where she is allowed to give an opinion on a political issue. Good! Thank you editors for not killing this column. Please allow Maggie to give more opinions on political issues.

I don't like smoke. I however am very mixed on a law banning smoking in private businesses.

I think nicotinis will kill you, however. I am in favor of banning such a vile, vile thing.

Conrnhole and Beer on the Surface Don't Mix

Cliff Peale writes Beer site says cornhole IS Cincinnati. Now, to much of the rest of the country that sounds like a "Bevis and Butthead" episode gone amuck.

On a side note: This might be right up commenter Funnel Cake's alley though.

Bronson's Bigotry, Again....

Bronson emits complete anti-gay bigotry when he makes comments like:

Yes, it's divisive. Yes, it's uncomfortable. And yes, it's the moral issue of our generation.

Ah, no Peter is not. Hell, I thought Abortion was the most moral issue for fundamentalists. I personally give have a complement to DeWine and Voinovich for being smart enough to not want to change the Constitution because Christian Fundamentalists are anti-gay bigots.

When will Bronson or any other anti-gay marriage supporter come out and say why they oppose it. I will include Kerry on this in part, but he at least is for Civil Unions, which if was established nationally as part of the Constitution would have one in the Senate. Peter needs to understand that no matter how uncomfortable people feel around gays or home much they fear them, they don't want to use the government to make them legally second class citizens. That is not a great situation for homosexuals, but it beats a mandatory fundamentalists conversion process to try and "stop being gay."

Ohio Institutionalized Bigotry

Accept us as parents, pair ask in appeal

CinWeekly on Singles and CT and Cincy

Megan Pollnow and CinWeekly have weighed in on the Forbes ranking of Cincinnati as the #39 out of 40 metro areas on scale of the best cities for "singles."

Cin repeats much of the common criticism that has been floating around about the article, but Megan brings up great examples of people and groups who are seeking to make life for singles and all other people better in the city.

Barry Gee and Cincinnati Tomorrow where given special highlight including a GQ quality picture of Barry overlooking Fountain Square.

Beryl Love also provides an editorial.

QCF Split is Nearly Complete

We now have Queen City Forum on one hand that is a publication sitting in limbo and we have the Blue Chip Review. They look remarkably similar. More change is in store for QCF. Will the Blue Chip live up to the conservative viewpoint its name implies?

Steve Fritsch has announced that he was removed as publisher of QCF. QCF at this point is a publication non grata.

Why Bush is Wrong

Bush Tried to defend invading Iraq. What makes Bush so very wrong is the meaty quote he uses:

"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq," Bush told lab employees assembled in an auditorium. "We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."

Why Bush is wrong is simple: he shows that Iraq was no threat to the USA. Iraq had no ability to provide WMD to anyone and with UN attention and if need be force, we could have avoided killing thousands of people and toppled Saddam from within. There was no need to invade when we did, other than politics maneuvering.

What is the bottom line? The ends do not justify the means. The means of fighting this war were forged out of choice, not out of necessity. This basic concept is the foundation for every credible argument being made against the Iraq war, and it has not been answered by BushCo or any of its supporters.

I now will wait for the attacks: “do you want Saddam back in power?” “Do you support the terrorists?” There are other talking points that will be put back at a me, but none of them will address my point, that the ends do not justify the means.

We will get the WMD bullshit again by someone, “they found weapons, no really they did.” Sorry, folks, anything found was at a best left over junk someone found in by chance and used it with no effect, because the WMD was do degraded that it was not a significant danger.

If anyone really tries to play the Iraq-Al Qaeda, I will just laugh. That person is just never going to believe that they were lied to by the Bush Administration.

So, have at it, let the beatings begin.

Hate and Ignorance

This is what racism looks like and it is not absent from our society. We are lucky this does not happen more often, but a comment from a local official is anecdotal evidence as why this still can happen:

County Judge-executive Gary Moore said he had never heard of a cross burning or anything like it in the county.

Mr. Moore, dude, you are living in a southern state. It has happened there before, I think I am safe to say that. Mr. Moore may be ignorant of it and it may have been years since something like this was reported, but it still happens.

Now, how many times will I be called names for posting this? Anyone care to start a pool?

Theocrats on the March: Episode #47

Why don't the theocrats stop wasting their money?

Is there not a poor family in Adams County who could use a new roof or a new car instead of paying conservatives to push religion on everyone else?

I-Team Whining?

This is what the WCPO's I-Team comes up with? No local wine at the Taste of Cincinnati? You might think this would have been better promoted like say over a month ago when the festival was going on?

No Elkington story or something on the police? Hell, why not a story on the plans for government reform? I expect we’ll see something on the absence of local paper towels at Oktoberfest come November sweeps.

'We don't do them'

Josh Marshall points to the best rationale as to why we don't need any new policy on election delays: "We don't do them."

The idea of needing to postpone a national election is preposterous. If we can have plans to collect taxes after a nuclear exchange with the USSR, then I think we can have an election without any delay after a terrorist attack.

One issue that does cause problems: electronic voting. No power, no voting. This is another reason to have printed ballots, at least as an alternative. Some of the electronic systems might have battery power to keep the polls open for a time, but do all of the systems have that ability?

Ignorant Perceptions or Stupid Old People?

This struck me as funny, from the Enquirer's letters to the editor:

"Tax cuts help lots more than richest
I have good news and I have bad news. According to writer of the letter 'Nation should indeed repay veterans' (July 9) and many others, President Bush's tax cuts only go to the wealthiest Americans. As a retiree living on a monthly pension check, it sure was good news to learn that I am one of the wealthiest Americans. This year, thanks to Bush, I was able to use the short form to do my taxes for the first time in 33 years.
Now for the bad news. If I am one of the wealthiest, this country is in deep trouble. After all, when the wealthiest Americans are driving 3-year-old Fords, all those people driving new Lincolns and Cadillacs must be foreigners.
Ray Voegele, Anderson Township "

What I find funny is that Ray judges tax burdens by what form he has to fill out. Compare that to not having to fill out forms for welfare and I bet Mr. Voegele would happily take the long form.

What I find funnier is that if just this year he switched to the short form, for the 2003 tax year. I then have to wonder how big is his monthly pension if the tax cuts that went into effect for 2003 caused him to switch forms would be those on one of the higher tax brackets, since the 10% was created for 2001, and then every year the upper brackets were getting cut. The 15% was not cut, but the rest above were.

Did I mention that I am still in the 15% tax bracket and that I have yet received any additional tax cut since the 2001 cut, while the rest of the upper rates have fallen like bricks? So I guess the middle class is just getting everything. Oh, I wonder how much income Mr. Voegele got from investments? I bet he did not include that along with his monthly pension. I wonder if the changes in the tax code enabled those with investment income to make filing taxes easier, thus allowing him to file a simpler form.

Oh, if we all could file an easier form. Oh, the horror of earning $80,000 and having to buy a tax software package to compute it for you. How horrible that is. Oh, the burden on the rich for wasting a few hours of their time on that tax program, or even worse, wasting it on a tax accountant. Oh, the horror!!!!!

The Atticus Defense

John Edwards is being attacked left and right by the GOP for being a trial lawyer by profession. The attacks are targeted mostly towards the burbites and small business owners who go postal over anything related to making a buck.

There is a simple retort that I would use if I were John Edwards. I would come out strong and reply:

Yes, I was a trial Lawyer before being elected to the Senate. I spent years fighting for justice. I spent years trying to be Atticus Finch.

Now, Edwards or his speechwriters could say it in a much better way than I could, but that is the gist of what could hit home.

Atticus Finch is one of the best characters in 20th century literature and film. Whether you visualize Gregory Peck facing down a racist mob or you take Harper Lee's character directly into your imagination, no lawyer has more honor, more dignity, or more grace.

It may not be best for Edwards to say this himself, but many of his advocates could wield this meme out on the airwaves and in the Blogosphere.

Now, if you want be a bit more edgy, then one phrase comes to mind:

I'm Atticus Finch, bitch.

That might work well for David Chappelle, but I don't know if I would use it on the campaign trail.