A More Business Friendly Hamilton CountyIn 2012 the Hamilton County Recorder's Office cost taxpayers $1,410,746 & in 2013 their budget will be $1,060,400, almost a 25% cut.
But in 2012 the office billed more than $7,000,000. Our government is not supposed to be a for profit entity. The Hamilton County Commissioners are using overly high fees to turn the department into a cash cow. It's on a par with speed traps to enhance revenue streams, but in this case, the victim isn't some scofflaw, it's businessmen following the rule of law. Fees collected by the government should only cover the administration of that department's duties. In this particularly vulnerable economic time we find ourselves in, the Hamilton County Commissioners should not be engaging in this immoral anti-business gouging. They should lower the department's fees to reflect the true cost of administering the office. They should not use one department to fund their pet projects & entertainment complexes.
UPDATEThe Fishwarp reports More gouging in the works.

Fishwarp's county budget breakdown here

Criminals, Irate at Getting Caught, File LawsuitSore losers bitch about city's superior gear.
Fishwarp story here

Horror Sells - Banned in Norway
An ad for a sporting goods store that depicts the practical use of sports paraphernalia in a zombie apocalypse has been condemned for being "irrelevant, disgusting and stupid".
Irrelevant now, perhaps, but if Barbara had had a cricket bat…..

VG Nett story here

Audio Ads on Metro
This sounds kinda crazy to me but it's Metro & it seems to work swell in the ad, so…..
The Biz Courier reports that Metro will start blasting ads out on buses every so often & that Commuter Advertising's tech can target times & locations along a route. If you get tired of hearing ads for the same businesses - take a different route!
Apparently, Commuter Advertising produces the ads - dunno if this keeps celebrities out or not. I imagine the same rules apply as with print ads to keep safe sex ads off the bus. That's unfortunate, because…..
Biz Courier story here.

Redistricting ReformWith the failure of the ballot initiative to reform legislative districts in Ohio, we have left it in the hands of the partisan cronies - no matter what hat they ear. Rebloodlicans & the Fishwarp indicated reform was needed but not that reform. So what's the new plan? A letter from the LWV says, essentially, nice try.
This is the kind of thing that should be hammered out by the legislature so the good & bad of ideas can be bounced back & forth till a best or most acceptable plan can be made.
But those guys ain't gonna do it.
If we can get some dialogue going maybe we can get a plan on the ballot every election. That won't cost much. Eventually we would wear down voters & get something passed - like the casinos did.
Another way to get reform going would be to do what the smoking ban folks did & offer a couple choices for the voters in one election. To this day I wonder how many people thought they had to vote for one or the other in that election.
Whatever, the cowards in our legislature are not up to the task.

The Perfect Girl

Floating Eternity - The Offshore Columbarium
ferreal
Due to a lack of land space for graveyards near Hong Kong, Bread Studio has concocted a floating columbarium complete with, ready? - rotating walls.
yup, the shelves full of urns will be on a moving track rotating along the deck on the oval shaped vessel. I guess when you go to visit, you need to follow your deceased loved on'e ashes around the boat.
It's also got a restaurant & hanging bamboo garden!
So, here's my question - would this be viable floating along the Ohio, Mississippi & Missouri Rivers (with or without the moving shelves) ?

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European Union Celebrates Pagan Sodomite !
The new batch of Euros will feature the visage of Europa in both hologram & watermark. Europa, Europe's namesake, was, of course, the Phoenician princess who engaged in bestiality with a disguised pagan god - Zeus.
Is this another indicator of the decline of western civilistion?
Well of course some people think so. In the US we plaster our Judeo Christian beliefs all over our currency & use it to idolize politicians & businessmen. Not exactly in line with some Judeo Christian precepts, ya know? But what the hell, the pyramid with the glowing eyeball is too cool. And all the pentacles? We need to get Venus in there.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY !

To Serve CincinnatiIn an effort to promote vacationing in Downtown Cincinnati, Cincinnati
Mayor Mark Mallory recently tried out the service of Staycate, a business with a terrible website and strange & expensive packages.
I agree that a vacation in downtown Cincinnati can be a great idea. I spent the weekend there a few years ago when my house died. I remembered local blogger, 5chw4r7z, saying "Not living downtown is for suckers. Who needs to get away from it all, when you got it all right here?"
Now, I don't want to live downtown. I like having a yard, but 5chw4r7z has a point. I enjoyed my stay thouroughly & even met up with family (Oakleans) for dinner one night.
But I don't think you need ovrpriced travel agents.
Cincinnati USA, DCI & the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce could pool their data into one site linking hotels, entertaknment venues & their schedules together with transportation options & reservations to offer the potential visitor with all the info they need. Another planning help would be to give distances between hotels & entertainment venues.
Metro should look into more tourist type routes, signage & schedules.
2, 3 or 5 day passes for tourists would help, too. Helping the downtown visitor get around downtown as well as out to places like the Cincinnati Gardens, the Zoo, the 20th Century, Covedale Theater & Northside Tavern should be in the mix. And again, Metro should look into later & more frequent routes on weekends - at least on routes to popular entertainment areas.
The downtown area is pretty flat & fine for bicycling. We already have bicycle rental. Adding multiple day rental and hotel pick up & delivery would make a visit even more friendly. The new Zipcar service will help visitors with memberships & hopefully, the city's emerging taxi regulation will help visitors but I'm kinda skeptical on that one. Regardless, hotel personnel need to be educated on all this stuff.
One thing Cincinnati should have is something they have in mega touris oriented New Orleans - a 24 hour self promotion channel on TV. This is in the hotels & consists of 10 / 20 minute mini documentaries on local places of interest & 30 / 60 second ads for businesses. These could be produced pretty easily at home or utilising students at, at least, 3 local colleges & the local access cable studios. This can help the business traveller as well as the tourist.
As far as marketing to the township dwellers goes - beats me. Those guys hear so much crap from the nattering naybobs of negativity on the radio & TV, it's going to be hard to convince them to visit. However, every time I have had jury duty, the big discussion in the pool is about 'how long it has been since I was downtown - it looks so different'. Maybe that's the place to advertise as most jurors go home not murdered, raped, robbed & mutilated.
Whatever, making downtown more tourist friendly shouldn't be too hard.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Dumb Ways to Die
Everybody sing!

See Yourself Naked
This is some of the fun stuff you can do with a CT scanner & a 3D printer. After the guy recreated his skeleton he plated the 'printed' bones in metal. JUST LIKE WOLVERINE !!
Now it's just a matter of puttin' the dang things back in.

Boycott Papa John's ?The Fishwarp is asking if people should boycott Papa John's since the owner threatened employees with layoffs if Obama got re-elected. Essentially telling them to vote Romney.
The Papa John's by me used to have a great manager. A young man who 'got it' & produced great pies & maintained great service.
Nowadays, they suck. Last pie I got was garbage. The delivery sucked. Their insane desire to force you to order online drives me up a wall. So I will be boycotting them for awhile - til they figure out how to do their job at least.
However, for all you people supporting the douchebag who runs the chain? Bear in mind he doesn't pay for shit & his employees rely on tips. So when you flood the stores with orders for pizza, please be prepared to tip well & be ready for the delivery so you don't waste the delivery person's time. Quantity of deliveries = $$ to the delivery guys. Papa John's boss doesn't support his employees. That's up to you.

America - Love It or Leave ItThe White House has this goofy Petition Page where anybody can make a petition & anybody can sign it. A number of petitions are asking for the right to peacefully secede from the United States. There's also a petition to Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them.
Interestingly, quite a few signatories of these petitions are not from the states desiring secessions. That is - if you don't like a state, you can pretty much set up a petition to kick 'em out.
A number of the states with petitions are top receiver states, like, Alaska #5, Louisiana #8, Mississippi #6, Missouri #4. New York, a top donor state but currently receiving billions in disaster aid & set to need more as ocean levels rise is on the list. Louisiana is in a similar situation but already a top receiver state. If you look at electoral votes, a Democrip might want to off Texas & a Rebloodlican might want to drop off California.
Dunno why Cincinnati isn't on there trying to become it's own nation. THAT would be cool.

crazy
cra•zy | kărāzē |
1 doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
2 Cincinnati Tea Party

Armistice Day 1918
When armistice talks started, Springfield's city leaders devised a system to alert the citizens of the results. There was no television. Radio was virtually non existent & phones were expensive & rare. A signal system was set up that factories would blow their whistles once every hour if armistice was reached & twice if rejected. When the whistles blew once at 1:45 AM, the town woke up, celebrations & parades erupted as everybody went downtown to rejoice. Businesses shut their doors, factories shut down, somebody left a sign on the door to city hall saying, "Nobody Home". Church and school bells rang and every kind of noisemaker was pressed into service. An official parade began at 3 PM.
This level of spontaneous organization is hard to imagine today when we have so much better communications technology. Thing is, it kinda isolates us, too. Sure, the Twitter servers would probably overload but would a broad swath of people actually physically come together? Would people tolerate the street closings? This wasn't a flash mob - it was a whole town.
The description of the events came from Tamara Dallenbach's Ridgewood in the Country Club District

DOOM + GLOOM
As Rebloodlicans wail, gnash their teeth & take swipes at each other over their recent losses, it's interesting to see their ideas for solutions.
Reinvent conservatism? Dunno, sounds kinda oxymoronic to me.
A crew of right wing special interest groups on C-Span were babbling about getting even crazier. And then there's all the end of humanity crap.
Get a grip, people. Maybe younger people & dark skinned people just don't like your militaristic, religionist, sexist, racist, fascist BS getting rammed down their throats.
My recommendation? No, don't retire & walk off into the desert like the Lebanon Tease beg Democrips to do - get back to what conservatism originally was. You know, when people embraced liberality?
Or how about being old school Republicans? Instead of raping every inch of the nation, maybe try conserving the place ala Teddy Roosevelt? Maybe, like Roosevelt & Eisenhower, make some long term investments in infrastructure?
Yeah, I know - not gonna happen, because the Republican Party is now the party of disaffected right wing southern Democrats. There is no 'getting back' unless you employ Victor Frankenstein or something.
oh well, embrace you extinction.

Warren County Tease Go Emo
Warren County, Cincinnati's representatives in Washington, mourn the loss of the USA - set to become socialeist 'within months'.
Fishwarp posts the melodrama.

Quimbob's Predictions
Per my endorsements, here's my predictions

U.S.
President
Barack Obama ♦
Senate
Sherrod Brown ♦
Congress 01
Steve Chabot (no contest) ♦
Congress 02
Bradley Wenstrup (no contest) ♦

Ohio
State Senate
Bill Seitz ♦
State House 28
Mike Wilson
State House 30
Louis Terhar (no contest) ♦
State House 31
Denise Driehaus ♦
State House 32
Dale Mallory (no contest) ♦
State House 33
Alicia Reece ♦

Hamilton County
County Commisioner
The usual suspects (no contest) ♦
Sheriff
Sean Donovan
Recorder
Wayne Coates ♦
Treasurer
Robert Goering ♦
Coroner
Lakshmi Sammarco ♦

Issues
Issue1
fail ♦
Issue 2
fail ♦
Issue 4
fail
Issue 42
succeed ♦
Issue 50
succeed ♦
Issue 51
succeed ♦

Decoding Dacia
Decoding Dacia, a film or series about ancient Romania & Transylvania by Kogainon Films & National Geographic is scheduled for release sometime soon. Scheduled being the key word. Any word on the BBC's Brittain's Wicca Man?
UPDATEThe Romanian Insider reports the movie (not series) will make it's US debut 11/15/12 in historical Boston. Still no word on widespread release.
Romanian Insider article here

Ohio Issue 2The Republicrats have given us Romnabama this year for president. Romnabama has promised millions of new jobs in the next 4 years. But economist & business wonks have predicted millions of jobs over the next 4 years as well. Romnabama might as well be predicting the sun will return in the morning.
What's more important in this election is congressional races but with 87% of them being uncompetitive due to gerrymandering there's not much to vote for. In Cincinnati there is absolutely no point to vote for a congressman - it's been decided.
Ohio Issue 2 is very important in opening up the districting process by taking it out of the hands of the people who benefit from it the most. Currently it's tantamount to giving an alcoholic night watchman duty at a liquor store.
It may not be perfect but currently our system is fucked. We can tweak a new system later - now it is run by unaccountable politicians in back rooms.YES ON ISSUE 2

Happy Bonfire Night, Everybody !As we all go out to celebrate Bonfire Night tonight - on the eve of an election, well, the end of an election period, we should take some time to reflect on what we are celebrating.
On November 5, 1605, Catholic militant Guy Fawkes was thwarted in his attempt to commit mass murder - his primary target being the Protestant royal family of England. His secondary target - pretty much anybody. His hatred & political zealotry led him to not give a crap about anybody but his own faction's narrow interests.
In America, George Washington prohibited his troops from celebrating the anniversary as American Catholics who served under him were offended. It was the first act of American political correctness, I guess. But America was going to be a nation not bound to a religion and political assassination for religious gains has not been something in our history. In England, it seems to have lost it's religious connection, too, unless, maybe, you worship Lance Armstrong.
But around the world and in the US, religionists are constantly trying to weasel their way into power mixing nationalism & religion into a potent brew. It's a potent force. It's how Dutty Boukman freed Haiti. It's how Iran toppled the Shah. Now it's spread across northern Africa. Russia is cozying up with their previously shunned orthodox church on the highest levels and Chrysi Avgi is trying to get in good with the Greek Orthodox Church to marry religion with their nationalistic movement.
Can't happen here? Baloney. The far right are pushing a religious & nationalist agenda, manipulating people, frequently Catholics, into doing their dirty work. When they get control? Catholics will probably be as welcome in the US as they were in the colonies. We may not have a national religion now but that's the goal of quite a few people.
The nationalism will probably turn ugly along racial lines, too, like in Greece. Some folks like to say the Democratic party is the party of racism. Maybe 150 years ago, but those Democrats have been hemorrhaging for decades & have infiltrated another party with their racist, religionist, nationalist, elitist tory mindset.
Let's just have a nice community bonfire tonight & concentrate on unity and what we can do in the future instead of trying to light a primitive, tribalist fire of hatred in one another's hearts that could send our society back hundreds of years.
what the hell, sing Kumbaya & make S'mores.

The Dobbseian Romney Revealed
The parallels between the Holy Order of the GOP's idolatry & their belief in wheeling & dealing over work and the Bob Dobbs' Church of the Sub Genius & philosophy of slack are amazing.

Battle of the Waynes
A slightly amazing debate. Wayne Coates has cut costs & improved access in his office that brings in almost 7 times their cost. Wayne Lippert's bold ideas? Open the doors 5 more hours a week & create new fees/taxes that may not even be legal. Can you say RINO? Most of the users are on the clock anyway so lunch hours don't really matter. Lippert is just spouting populist crap to get votes.
Seriously, fees should only cover the administration of the office. Government is not a for profit entity. Unfortunately the county commissioners need every last cent to pay for their stadia. A true small government plan would be to improve access & reduce fees. Nothing the Rebloodlicans intend to do.

John Boehner's Identity Crisis

Ohio's Culture of DeathDid you realize Ohio has 4 funerary type museums?
The Peoples Mortuary Museum
Sturgis House Bed & Breakfast
Famous Endings Museum
William Lafferty Memorial Funeral and Carriage Collection
For not a whole lot more info check out USA Today
HT to Morbid Curiosity

Quimbob's Endosements
U.S.
President
Gary Johnson
Senate
Sherrod Brown
Congress 01
Jim Berns
Congress 02
William Smith

Ohio
State Senate
Bill Seitz
State House 28
Connie Pillich
State House 30
Steven L. Newsome
State House 31
Denise Driehaus
State House 32
Ron Mosby
State House 33
Tom Bryan

Judicial
Justice Ohio State Court of Appeals District 1
Bruce Whitman
Judge Court of Common Pleas
Anybody but Ghiz

Hamilton County
County Commisioner
Whatever
Sheriff
whatever
Recorder
Wayne Coates
Treasurer
Robert Goering
Coroner
Lakshmi Sammarco

Issues
Issue1
no
Issue 2
yes
Issue 4
yes
Issue 42
no
Issue 50
yes
Issue 51
yes

I don't ask anymore…..

Issue 2
The politicians & their parties aren't going to do it - we need to. The arguments of the committee formed by this issue not being accountable are ludicrous. The politicians in 'fixed' districts are already unaccountable.

The John Gamble House
A slide show & fly around animation by Graeme R Daley that he asserts is unfinished & rushed due to the urgency needed in preserving what's left of the house that has been carpetbagged by Carter Randolph & his cronies.