Wenstrup's Fear MongeringCongressCritter Brad Wenstrup offered this dire warning about the ACA:

Are you going to be denied care because of some of your political beliefs or your religious beliefs?

While, at first it might appear over the top fear mongering one need not look far to see how the GOP is hellbent on imposing it's religionist, anti-science agenda on us. Is he warning the people of us or them?

More GOP fear mongering & conspiracy theories here

If I had it to do all over again
I'd have been a phood fotographer
but I'd still find a horror angle.....

ok, when I heard the WalMart of funeral homes was buying Stewart Enterprises, the first thing I thought of were those nasty over-salted, over-preserved maybe-mummy-meat sandwiches they used to sell in schools & gas stations. It turns out they were just buying the KMart of funeral homes.
whew

huh? wha? Leslie Ghiz & ethics violations?Who would have thought?
And she invoked The Pope?

Fishwarp story here

And to the freak who found his way to this blog searching for "sexy pictures of Leslie Ghiz" - turns out she's going to be a DEEVORCEE pretty soon (and you know what that means!)

Roxanne Qualls
Roxanne Qualls for Mayor

The Coffinmaker
"I sand & sand & sand" - That's what I remember from woodworking in shop class. It's some tedious crap for a hyper teenager. But, I think I'd prefer one of these boxes than the crazy caskets they sell at funeral homes nowadays. What do I care if my body looks great in 100 years - heck, I don't care now…..
I kinda like the 'door" idea.

If Disney Songs Were Historically Accurate

from Cracked.com

Reds Choose Woeber'sThe Cincinnati Reds have ditched their Wisconsin based mustard provider for Springfield, Ohio's award winning Woeber's mustard. OK, the previous brand's company is also an award winner. Anyway, now maybe the Cincinnati stores will actually start selling more of Woeber's line of mustards & condiments. Honestly, I have never even seen the particular mustard the Reds are going to use.

Convoluted Fishwarp article here here
from the comments, it would appear a lot of folks around here just don't like change

More Proof Hollywood Can't Come Up With Anything New

Labor RelationsCincinnati Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan managed to work out a budget by asking union thugs to take a week of unpaid vacation sometime during the year. Head union thug replies - fuck you. Lay us off so we can sit on our butts & collect unemployment. Meanwhile, konservatives who backed Kasich's failed union busting efforts & whose own efforts in conjunction with Kasich caused the local budget crisis, laud the thugs' indignance & blame a non-existent streetcar for everything.
Meanwhile, the Windbag says that it's "shameful" for city employees to have city credit cards. He implies posh vacation resorts & mojitos for everybody. The city manager says it's more efficient than forcing employees to screw around with obtaining purchase orders. The Windbag has whipped his minions into a frenzy over the notion of rampant embezzlement that nobody has offered any proof of. As the names of the city employees with cards & their credit limit has been linked to by WCPO, any loon can now target them for whatever fantasy slight they can imagine.
And to top it off, the Windbag wants to take care of this now by Emergency Ordinance which his pals kinda just recently put the kibosh on.
Simply fucking amazing.

The Old Timber Inn
While I live about a mile from The Old Timber Inn I had not been there since I moved to my house & rented a UHaul truck there - at the bar. For years they have had a sign out front or to the side usually advertising Half fish logs & St Fries. While I vowed in my callow youth to never let such an abomination as a fish log pass my lips, it gradually found it's way onto my bucket list.
And I can now tell you, dear readers, fish logs are, well, ok.
I think mine was overcooked. It's a deep fried fish filet wrapped in mashed potatoes & batter (?). You can get a whole or half log (half is fine for a lunch).
The owner came in while I was there & it turns out he lives up around the corner from me. He told me the mural on the outside wall was originally painted in 1983 & he was able to get the same artist to recreate it after the building was repainted in 2009. it had become fairly ghostly. He was a lot more interesting than Dr Phil & Judge Judy but I think the waitress might disagree.
The bar takes up a surprisingly small part of the building. The kitchen looked ok, the bar area was a mismatched hodge podge of old crap. It was pretty much what you'd expect from looking at the outside.
The Old Timber Inn on Spring Grove Avenue @ Crawford is open from 10 - 8 Monday thru Friday.

Rating The Old Timber Inn from one to ten:
♠ Ambience 8 - dark, piles of junk, ancient wood paneling - the blue urinal was worth the price of admission
♠ Food 5 - it's exactly what I would have expected
♠ Service 6 - ok, I was the only one there, tho
♠ Hot Waitress 8 - jeans, sweatshirt & long brown hair…. can't argue with that

Planning a Summer Holiday in England ?
You might want to check the credentials of your trip planners & & lodging providers. A recent survey found:

Britain is a nation of curious cannibals, with 24% of people saying they would be interested to find out what human meat tastes like.

You might just be the exotic morsel somebody's looking for.

IB Times article here

A Better Represented CincinnatiIt's become quite clear the City of Cincinnati cannot rule itself and needs the leadership of the surrounding communities. These leaders refuse annexation so we need to come up with a better representational criteria than residency.
Home ownership in Cincinnati is about 40%. I don't know what the city real estate holdings by non residents are. Land ownership is an old criteria for voting rights. I guess we'd need some minimum amount of land to qualify a voter. People who couldn't afford that could possibly organize corporations that they could collectively vote. Presumably we could eliminate the lazy socialist renters (including transient college students) in the bargain, too.
This criteria was abandoned long ago because it excluded wealthy, educated people who opted to not participate in agricultural work.
Perhaps a minimum earnings? Average earnings of Cincinnati residents is a little over $30K. What the average wage in Cincinnati is, I do not know. As everything in the suburbs is a virtual paradise, I imagine these people who want a say in Cincinnati all make $100+K, so if we set the minimum wage qualifier at earning more than $50K inside the city limits, the people who want to rule the city but not live there could have their vote & the lowly, probably renting, Cincinnatians could be relieved of their disastrous voting legacy.
Or maybe it should just be where you went to high school. People who graduated from a Cincinnati high school prior to 1990 could vote in any & all Cincinnati elections. They could just use their old residences to define their precincts.
Cincinnati is a failed experiment in radical Marxism and is in sore need of some good old Christianistic, neo-Trotskyism.
What we need is

Victimhood - A Tea Party FortéAn article over at the Wall Street Journal traces the political usage of the IRS through history. It's a Republican slanted article that only cites one Republican president as abusing the authority of the agency, Richard Nixon. That seems to be the MO of a lot of right wing mouthpieces nowadays, using Nixon as a scapegoat to make it look like they are being nonpartisan.
Anyway, it points up the willingness to use the agency for political gain. The FBI has used the IRS a lot, too, for criminal investigations & prosecutions.
As far as proving you're a non-profit, hell, PayPal raked me over the coals when I set up an account for a neighborhood non-profit that was completely above board - something the tease certainly are not.
But this "scandal" gives them their time in the spotlight, wailing and gnashing their teeth over being poor defenseless victims. It gives them more "links" to the Marxist, Muslim, terrorist Kenyan. Nothing new, just another day on the schoolyard.

HamCoGOP Announces Cincinnati City Council EndorsementsThe local GOP announces 4 ~ count 'em ~ 4 candidates for city council. 1 incumbent, 2 losers & a newbie.

• Sam Malone
• Amy Murray
• Melissa Wegman
• The Windbag

Malone has served on council before & lost reelection as has Amy Murray who never actually won an election. The Windbag is a Republican even The Fishwarp can't endorse. And Wegman appears to work for her family's business. She cites her notable qualification as living west of I-75 (by a couple miles). Malone & Winburn were in cahoots in Winburn's prosperity theology Encampment Church that dissolved as soon as the Windbag got a gig on council. Malone can't seem to stay out of trouble. When he isn't beating the crap out of his kid, he's driving around town like a maniac.
Wegman hasn't got much on her website other than "we can't build a streetcar" & the populist "I support ALL the neighborhoods" crap. malone & Winburn are just pointless retreads. I couldn't find a Malone site. I'd had high hopes for Murray and even voted for her but she turned out to be a party shill with no real ideas. I can see why they don't want to run a mayoral candidate. Dunno why they didn't endorse Smitherman, technically everybody runs as an independent.
Pretty sad, all in all.

I really don't see any reason to impeach Obama, Bush & Reagan did far worse, I just like the idea of spamming Boehner's answering machine.

Who Supports John Cranley ?Doubtless the Fishwarp will, but poking around the bloggiverse, the boy ain't making many friends.
Clark Street Blog posts John Cranley's Own Words Show He Has Lost His Way
TAEstell criticizes him ovr at Superfluous Redundancy
The Cincinnati Business Courier has criticized his ads
The Cincinnati Blog posts John Cranley is Lying About His 'Plan'
City Beat has complained of his bad budget ideas
5chw4r7z asks Is Cranley channeling that unicorn lair in North Korea or something?
heck, even his newfound buds at COA T have Endorsed Jim Berns
No doubt the NAATP would endorse Sandra Queen Noble over Cranley if she were running - is she?
It's lookin' pretty bleak, pretty bleak...

I don't ask anymore...

Let's Do a Show !
Used to be, putting on a show was fairly easy - a garage, some old chairs & blankets, maybe a monkey…..
Nowadays, if you don't have a robo-cyborg chick threatening to destroy the planet, nobody gives a crap and rightfully so. But Photoshop, Maya, Lightwave, Media Composer all cost an arm and a leg.
Well, you're still going to need a small render farm & hours & hours of work & learning but you can do it all in Blender for free. This exercise shows off what the software, that runs on Lin/Mac/Win, can accomplish. Obviously, talent & skill are required and this kinda proves that but talent's free at least, sort of...Tears of Steel

Nah, baby, I meant your ass was fat in a good way…As people like the Cincinnati Business Courier call out John Cranley for spreading misinformation (lies) in his recent unprovoked attack ad, his shill, Jay Kincaid, explains it's just a misunderstanding

Sure, the ad deals with the streetcar, but it also deals with priorities and vision, which John mentions in the ad, Kincaid said in an email. The next three statements are examples of how they are taking away from neighborhoods and should be read as separate clauses.

That a professional journalist might have a problem understanding his native tongue is pretty far fetched but Cranley is a lawyer. Wonder how John defines "is" ?

Cincinnati Business Courier article here

How can the city spend money on a streetcar when they are laying off firefighters & police ?
This constant refrain from un/ill/mis-informed people seems eerily similar to what Mr Cosby used to get from his 5 little kids. Of course, it's not all their fault, Mrs Cosby lays the whole routine out but the kids can't comprehend - In Cincinnati the kids are bombarded with lies & fantasies from zombie newscasters, radio comedians & desperate controversialist wannabe journalists.
The only thing the streetcar has to do with firefighters & police is that it should realize greater tax revenue in the city to pay for them & a redeveloped downtown will mean less need for their services in that area so they can be deployed across the city neighborhoods more.

Were Mallory's Trips Worth It ?Kevin Osborne asks the question & has scant answers. Actually, the fruit of these efforts by the mayor probably won't be realized for awhile. Business analysts expect a lot more foreign investment in the US in coming years - paving the way to Cincinnati is really a very good idea. But are the connections with the right countries and right industries and just how good a job is he doing at making them? Cranley & Wenstrup both campaigned on being narrowly focussed, insular mayors. Charlie Luken spent most of his last term as mayor skulking around in the shadowy basement of city hall. That didn't do the city much good. Luken noted that Cincinnati had problems in Columbus but never did anything about it. When Mallory was first elected, the first thing he did was reach out to neighboring communities.
Cincinnati doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is affected by world affairs & economics. It must reach out and it needs to sell itself. I don't see Qualls doing it as much as Mallory just because of personality differences, not because she doesn't think it's important. Ohio's 1st district congressman is pushing legislation that might help small businesses a little bit - nothing like the radical changes Henry Wallace made when the Commerce Department only served giant businesses, but Chabot has never been too big on the whole vision thing. That's why we need representatives like Mark Mallory & Roxanne Qualls. The city cannot depend on the Federal & State governments. Chabot is better known for screwing his district and denying his home town. Schmidt didn't accomplish anything & it looks like Wenstrup is just going to be a GOP errand boy. Governor Kasich has created financial problems for the city for years to come. Don't get me started on Dale Mallory, Shannon Jones, etc….
Given that, Mallory's representing the city outside the city has been a breath of fresh air but his informing the public about his successes & failures has been a complete failure. For that matter the local media's coverage has also been a dismal failure. For Osborne's headline, he doesn't offer much. Maybe his bosses only gave him half an hour to write the story - I dunno. Regardless, any harvest will be reaped over the years to come but Mallory's basic strategy is right on - ya gotta plant the seeds if you want anything to grow.

WCPO article here

Camp Washington Nails ItCamp Washington is calling out the unbalanced councilman Smitherman & his radical jihadist allies and their ruinous political games.

Joe Gorman says that budget cutting city solution rests squarely on the shoulders of one councilman. "I'm pretty disgusted right now. I think the city council and Dohoney did a great job with the parking plan. Then we have Councilman Smitherman and COAST coming in saying we can't have the Democratic process work, we have to circumvent that with our weird politics so we're gonna shut it down."

With this, the neighborhood joins in with area business leaders in condemning the NAATP/COA T scorched Earth policies.

WKRC article here

Best TV MomsOK, the Fishwarp has their Favorite TV Moms - obviously picked by some very troubled interns & I have mine. They got one right.

Previous

Next

oh crap, how could I have forgotten Gemma ?

nah, I'm Not Offended…
Stigmatic chicks are hot!

Cranley Concedes Election to Qualls
In ethics challenged John Cranley's latest ad, he appears to realize Qualls is the candidate who is going to be elected in November and, instead of making empty promises, he asks the citizens to lobby Qualls instead.
Of course it still doesn't stop him from lying - something we have all come to expect from John.
Leaders don't give up 6 months before the election. Cranley is not the right choice for mayor of Cincinnati and he seems to know it.

Smithermans LegacyThe Fishwarp looks at the results of the extracurricular actions by Chris Smitherman:

"unmowed grass, fewer hotlines, more rats"

The Fishwarp also warns of the elimination of grants to help artists and funding for over 30 social service agencies.
But waging war on the city isn't enough, The Cincinnati Black Blog reports Smitherman intends to attack the NAACP as well.
Good luck on that - Hitler certainly didn't fare too well when he took on 2 fronts.
Fishwarp not too In Depth coverage here

Westboro Baptist Wannabees Protest Funeral Home
Taking a page out of the Westboro Baptist Church playbook, haters in Boston protest the funeral home that took Tamerlan Tsarnaev's corpse. If Boston still had gates I guess they could put head on a stake outside of 'em but I think it would get kinda lost on a giant highway sign.
What's strange is that there hasn't been outrage like this over other burials. heck, The Boston Strangler got buried in Puritan Lawn.
Nowadays we're all angry. Welcome to the modern world.

FWIW, that is one cool lookin' funeral home

NPR story here

MUSTARD !
Springfield's Woeber Mustard takes the Gold for their Supreme Honey Mustard & the silver for their Genuine American Mustard in the 2013 World Wide Mustard Competition.

Wieners list here

Cincinnati's Radioactive Subway Tunnels
Built under the guise of a transit system, the Cincinnati subway tunnels were actually built as a bunker to warehouse the undead radioactive cannibals created in a secret military experiment that went terribly awry. Here is a glimpse of the subterranean labyrinth of terror and grisly horror.

Bikes in the City
Discussing the joys of riding bikes. Interestingly, Campus Cyclery is missing from this vid…..
While flooring a 4WD sports car is fun, there's nothing like flying down a long hill in Cincinnati on a bike going faster & faster and knowing one little bit of road debris will send you flying, rolling & sliding across the road - it's just   fun.

Cincinnati Mayoral Candidate Supports "Re-Legalizing" MarijuanaCincinnati's Libertarian candidate for Mayor, Jim Berns stated in a press release that he supports legalizing marijuana in Cincinnati and that he also supports Ohio Representative Robert F. Hagan’s proposal to legalize marijuana for medicinal use and a second proposal which would allow people 21-years-old and older to purchase and use marijuana.

The vast majority of Americans do not realize that the USA became a great country before marijuana was criminalized in the 1930s as a way to discriminate against Mexican-Americans and Blacks moving from the south to the north.

More at WCPO

What Can 52 Do For You?Cincinnati City Council candidate Mike Moroski asks What Can 52 Do For You?
He proposes that the city allocate money to neighborhoods not equally as is now done but based on population of the neighborhood. Neighborhoods are now all given $2,500 apiece (down significantly from 10-15 years ago). My bistro math indicates payouts would look something like this:

• English Woods - $177
• Hyde Park - $5,536
• Mt Adams - $647
• Northside - $3,263
• Oakley - $4,557
• Over the Rhine - $2,645
• Pendleton - $393
• Queensgate - $62
• South Cumminsville - $350
• Westwood - $13,088

What these various neighborhoods need, what they can afford on their own & what they pay in taxes could all come into play as well. This might be a start, although I don't know why you would even write a check for Queensgate's $62…

Nobody Likes You When You're Dead
Well, it appears terrorist & mass killer / mass maimer, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, went from being one of America's most wanted to the stiff nobody wants overnight.
Funeral director Peter Stefan took the body for funeral arrangements but now he can't find a cemetery for a burial. Cemeteries may just not want the guy but some don't want a grave that would attract both people who might revere and vilify the guy. Russia doesn't even want him.
Obviously an unmarked grave is in order - where? I dunno. Cremation is out due to religious reasons. The mean guy in me says cut him into parts & feed him to pigs - the nice guy in me says the torment in him that filled him with such hate and drove him to commit such atrocities is over and he should be laid to rest.
Maybe somebody wants to carry his ass up a mountain & give him a sky burial?

NYT article here

Greg Hartmann - Kool Aid for Everybody !
In a recent LTE to The Fishwarp, Failed County Commissioner, Greg Hartmann, advocated for a second term for John Kasich whose financial policies have bedeviled Hartmann's county and hometown.
He makes the fallacious statement that previous governor Ted Strickland was responsible for job losses in the state and that Kasich is somehow responsible for some job creation. Similarly, one could argue that Strickland made the sunset & Kasich made the sunrise.
When the bubble burst on the global economy, financial, business & economic wonks all predicted a similar scenario & timeline for hitting bottom & subsequent recovery. A couple years later, they all agreed recovery would be slower and less robust. NEVER ONCE did they say the recovery was hinged on a particular party or candidate. Political hacks know they can assign blame & take credit for whichever way the wind blows, however and so, like rainmakers, they perform their songs and dances for the gullible. The false hope they sell being most attractive to the most desperate.
Hartmann praises Kasich for balancing the state budget on the backs of County, township and city governments forcing them to raise taxes or cut vital services like police and fire. Frequently this tactic is called, "kicking it down the road".
Hartmann credits Kasich for reducing the size of government which is just bizarre. he credits Kasich for cutting regulation. Again - bizarre.
Maybe Hartmann has missed his true calling - writing children's books.

Just Say NO to Old Fashioned Political CronyismWhile the Rebloodlican Party seems to be circling Saturn, the Democrips seem to be circling the drain. While the local party has, as is their practice, endorsed 9 candidates for the 9 Cincinnati City Council seats, there are now advocates to add an old Democrat who wants back in after some years out of the picture. While the Cincinnati City Council post is considered a part time job that just happens to pay about twice the average Cincinnati resident's earnings, it's not a hobby for retirees. Tom Luken's return to city council in the 90s was a disaster. While the Democrips' 9 endorsements are not the greatest in the world, they could have ndorsed David Mann. Adding him as a tenth after the fact is just political cronyism & not a good faith effort to lead the city into the future.
Of course that's not what the parties are about, so…..

Old NewsThe Springfield News Sun is the latest of Ohio's Cox Newspapers to enter into an agreement with a local group to handle the papers' archives. The Clark County Historical Society will handle & digitize the paper's assets which go back to the 1820s.
The Dayton Daily News archives, for example, are housed at Wright State University, and the Middletown Journal’s collection is handled by the Middletown Historical Society.
Hopefully they can get this stuff online.

Noose Son article here

One Eyed Monster
This movie is actually kinda funny. A lot of potty/sex humor - no porn, dumb jokes and Ron Jeremy's alien possessed dick (minus Ron) on a rampage make for a pretty silly flick. Probably best viewed while intoxicated.
In Amazons Best selling Movies & TV it's ranked #68,356. How bad could it be?
With Charles Napier, Veronica Hart & Ron Jeremy

Getting People Into The Casino
Not everybody's happy about the giant sign erected by the Cincinnati Horseshoe Casino that has made it's place in the local skyline. Apparently big ads for banks on top of Carew Tower are different...
Still, Another alternative might have been using robots to just drag passing autos into the parking lot - sort of like the way guys drag pedestrians off the sidewalks and into strip clubs.
This would have been a more unique solution with some distinct Porkopolis charm that, IMHO, would have drawn tourists from near and far.

More from WLWT here

Revenge of the Remake
A lower budget remake of an already low budget film? This should go well….