Is it Time to Embrace Our Prostitutes ?

Cities, counties, and states are competing for business and resident investment. Just look at what people are doing to recruit a new Amazon HQ. Ohio's Clark County, suffering population loss & declining wages despite the best efforts of Jim Jordan and Rb Portman. They recently unveiled a new plan to stabilise the county.
During the European colonisation of Africa, people sent erotic postcards home in an effort to entice new settlers.Perhaps it's time to stop demonizing and trying to 'cure' our prostitute class and embrace them as taxpayers and ambassadors for our communities.
BiC has long championed the legalisation, regulation, and taxation of 'the world's oldest profession'.
We could use them to market our cities, counties, and states as the European colonists did in Africa 100 years ago - except - we wouldn't be colonists. We would be helping our prostitutes and they would be helping the geater community.
WIN WIN

Happy Northwest Ordinance Day !

In 1787 the Congress of the Confederation of the United States passed the Northwest Ordinance that established the organization of the states north of the Ohio River & east of the Missouri making the midwest the White Castles of American states.
When people talk about the sameness of the midwest, it's a major contributor.
It called for the surveying of the territories & the establishment of counties & townships.
Read all about it

City Snow Job

A discussion in the Cincinnati Neighborhood Committee about clearing snow & ice from the streets NEVER mentions prioritizing bus routes.
TIP for cyclists: watch out for piles of salt in the road.

The Secret Government

Marie Laveau on The New $10

The treasury is redesigning the $10 bill and they have decided to put a woman on it.
I believe they should use Marie Laveau, the 19th century Vodou priestess who nursed the sick & ministered the criminals in jail and at the gallows.
She also had a good deal of influence on the rich & powerful for whom she worked as a hairdresser.
Back me up on this my minions!

Find out more at #TheNew10

Using the Village

After the Cincinnati city manager told the chief of police to come up with a 90 day plan to reduce street violence and after the Cincinnati city manager stated no 90 day plan would ever work some changes have been made to the plan.
Specifically, drop off centers for curfew violators were originally going to be a couple churches in Walnut Hills & South Cumminsville but that has changed to city recreation centers in Avondale & Northside (Northside also has a needle exchange center).
The clergy is still supposed to be involved but somebody thought bland government rec centers would avoid sending a wrong message that a place of spiritual growth might send.
As churches continue to lose population & close, we are losing what has traditionally been an asset to the community. Here we had an opportunity to use the assets, both human & real estate, the way they were intended. Hopefully we can still use the human part but the combo of the ministry & house would be more powerful than ministry & government facility.
ALSO - Wouldn't the Crossroads shelter in the West End have been a better spot? It's already a 24 hour facility. It was a PITA just to get McKie open on a Sunday afternoon for a community event. Now it's going to be open 24/7?

Supporting the Government

To help fund the Los Angeles Coroner's office they started a gift shop. Theoretically, the only coroner's gift shop in the USA, it is also online. They sell "ZOMBIE ZONE" crime tape!
Unfortunately, according to this article, it hasn't made a profit and, instead of subsidizing the office, the office subsidizes the store.
In New Orleans the police station in the French Quarter offers souvenirs like T-Shirts sold from a vending machine & other stuff.
Could Hamilton County agencies, the Cincinnati Fire & Police departments do this to supplement their costs? I'm sure Hamilton County Auditor, with his experience in radio could come up with some promotion to promote the Auditor's office. Cincinnati is supposed to be a hot marketing town. Could Cincinnati do better than Los Angeles?

More Personal Freedom

As a person who has bike camped I certainly see the merit to this product, Palcohol. As a person who has 'snorted' before, I can difinitely say the guy is right about snorting that whole bag vs. slamming down the shot.
Of course, our fearless leaders in Columbus are working on aborting Palcohol. Typical pro business, small limited government I guess…
Why don't we see how this works before we take on more prohibitions?
Probably tastes like crap, anyway.

An Audacious Proposal

In Cincinnati there were 2 elections that made major changes to how the government works. In 2001 we changed the way we elect the mayor & changed the mayor's duties. In 2013 we changed the council members to 4 year terms.
Both elections had big consequences and tiny voter turnouts. And, as usual, the politicians who get the majority vote always claim to have been given mandates.
So, here's my great idea.
Establish minimum voter turnout to make an election official. Maybe 30-40% turnout of registered voters should be required. If that isn't achieved, have another election or wait a year & try again.
It would screw with term limits but I don't care, I hate term limits
A toe head at UrbanCincy pointed out it would make ballot initiatives harder as more signatures would be required, but with some of the hare-brained ballot issues we've seen lately that might be a good idea. A city run by referendum is not a very attractive city to investors & business.
The big issue is - is this legal? It wouldn't require that people participate but if they didn't, they'd just wind up with councilmembers who serve for life & then appoint their replacements. Presumably people wouldn't want that so the rule wouldn't force people to vote, it would just really incentivize them.
Ideally it should be a minimum of 50% or more of registered voters, but that ain't gonna happen in Cincinnati any time soon.

Here They Come! Is Cincinnati Ready?

While the goons over at UrbanCincy are carrying on about whether the city is ready for echo-boomers, we, here at Blogging isn't Cool & our pals at the Bilderberg Group, are more concerned with whether the city is ready for the billions in European investment in the USA or not. These guys have already decided to invest in the country, but do they even know what Cincinnati is? Where Cincinnati is? What it's strengths & weaknesses are?
Our last mayor might have had the right idea by representing the city abroad but how well he did it & how good his aim was, I don't know. Did he go to Romania? One third of the Romanian companies, mainly from manufacturing, technology and consumer goods industries, are considering international expansion in the coming year, according to a study conducted by Citibank. The most popular areas for expansion are the Middle East, Europe and the U.S.
We have Globili - that's a start, but most of the international businesses that are interested in coming to the US already have English speakers. We have a website but so does everybody else.
What we need are people out scouting for businesses abroad that are a good fit with Cincinnati, it's location, people, skills, assets etc.
As the PIC @ UrbanCincy points out

As Cincinnati’s new leadership settles into their self-empowered roles of merely paving roads and keeping streetlights on, how does that position the city and region in an ever-changing economic landscape…

And it's not just foreign investment, American businesses are re-shoring, too.
A greater portion of the United States population is expected to move to urban areas in the coming years. The fastest growing segment of the population is immigrants as US birth rates have slowed.
Is Cincinnati prepared to reap anything from these trends? Or is Cincinnati, like a child, just going to stare out the window while chewing on the lead paint on the sill?

In 48 hours, Cincinnati area motorists managed to run into 5 buildings. The buildings were not moving. At least one had been sitting in the same spot for about a hundred years.
Ohio legislator's response? Raise the speed limit.
yeah! That'll show those damn buildings!

Rearranging the Deck ChairsFailed Hamilton County Commissioner, Chris Monzel, has decided to actually do something in office - redefine the Hamilton County Commission's mission statement. What does this mean to Hamilton County residents? Nothing.
City Bleat article here.

North Carolina Joins a Majority of U.S. States Abandoning Spirit of the Constitution
North Carolina voters have decided that the notion of the state not interfering with the freedom of religious practice is just so much hooey. In restricting churches from performing marriages the way they choose, they have abandoned the intentions of our founding fathers and basic tenets of conservatism. How long before they ban Catholics from performing mass?

Al Jazeera story here

Car Culture

What happens when you have a car adducted centric culture? You go crazy. You think you have to drive. And many people let their dependence on cars paint them into a corner, making them truly dependent.
The Dayton Daily News reports that 20% of fatal car crashes involve people driving with suspended drivers licenses.

Nearly 1 million Ohio residents have a suspended license; many having multiple suspensions at a time — the average is 2.8 per driver, according to Lindsey Bohrer, public information officer for the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

People just gotta drive. It seems necessary to live. It seems to be a right.
But,

Lt. Anne Ralston, public affairs commander for Ohio Highway Patrol said, "Driving is a privilege and licensed drivers are required to go through testing, a renewal process, and have insurance."

How do people get their licenses suspended? It's not just bad driving. In fact, there are 46 ways you can get a suspension - not all of them involve driving. One really dumb way is to not pay child support. Dunno how that helps matters. 116,000 suspensions in Ohio come from drug possession with or without car in the picture.

The federal government requires states to suspend your license if you’re convicted of a drug offense, but a state’s governor and legislature can opt out by certifying that they oppose such a law, something Ohio leaders have not done.

Hard to believe our current legislature & administration wouldn't opt out of this - they are so eager to sever ties with D.C. & give us smaller less intrusive government & all.
It just shows how much of an addiction it is. Like a dope dealer teasing an addict by withholding his fix, the government teases people by withholding their driving privileges.
Are you an addict?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot smoke?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot drink?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot park your car?

Kasich's Alcohol Problem
If Ohio's governor, John Kasich, really wanted to make the state a leaner, more business friendly place, a really good place to start would have been it's draconian liquor laws.
Ohio directly controls hard liquor sales & through a maze of laws & price controls manages to screw up beer and wine sales, too. While the state "allows" entrepreneurs to sell alcohol in retail outlets, everything up to that point is under strict control.
Kasich's hints at TEAism might have led one to believe he would want to embrace free markets and reduce government regulation, making it easier for Ohio entrepreneurs to realize the American dream. But, no, Kasich has decided to keep the cash cow under soviet-style state control and lease it to his semi-private, oversight-free JobsOhio outfit to fund their statist venture capitalist adventures.
The mandatory price markups will stay in place. The uncompetitive wholesale purchasing will go on - continuing to give Ohioans higher prices and fewer choices. The uncompetitiveness may not be an issue in Dayton & Columbus but border communities that must compete with the free markets in other states, especially Kentucky, are hit hard by these anti-competetive policies. Apparently, promoting competition & free markets seems pointless to Kasich's JobsOhio guru, Mark Kvamme & Ohio TEA doesn't seem to have a problem, either. Given TEA's constituency, they might prefer prohibition, anyway.
Ohio's path to corporatism marches on. Unfortunately, the trains won't be running on time.

Tooleedoo Blade article here.

Clevo Pain Dealer article here.

Wright Pat Shows Off It's New Computer

Wright Patterson Air Force Base, outside historic Dayton, OH, will show off it's new Cray "Raptor" system Friday. Cray Computer is probably best known for supplying Batman with his Batcave computer system.
The liquid cooled Raptor with petascale technologies checks in with virtually 89,805 gigabytes of memory and can scale to over 1,000,000 cores using AMD multi-core processors. The lucky bastards intend to use this Linux box for weapon systems design, modeling and simulation studies.
For more info on this beast click here.

Noose Son story here.

Collective Bargaining

The State of Ohio is looking at doing some union busting. Governor John Kasich has made it a priority & Senator Shannon Jones has introduced legislation to the same end. They want to end collective bargaining for some unionized employees (teachers) & binding arbitration for others (police).
Approximately 36% of public jobs are unionized while only 7% of private jobs are unionized. Why? First off I would guess that private companies usually employ fewer people and, with under 25 employees in a business, why bother with organizing the labor? Simply looking at employees v businesses, the average comes out to only 16 employees/employer. With a small number of employees a manager or business owner can be somewhat intimate with his workforce & labor / management can have a fairly open dialogue.
With governments, you are dealing with levels of bureaucratic administration an a much higher number of employees. The police force of Cincinnati consists of over 1,000 employees. Getting a dialogue going between labor & management pretty much requires using proxy type representatives.
So who's to blame for the contract agreements that cannot be paid for?
In this most recent case, good bit of blame could fall on "Wall Street", but that's a whole 'nother story.
Wild and lavish contracts are awarded to unions with no respect to reality. Is that the fault of the unions asking? Cincinnati recently awarded the fire fighters a contract & within months, asked for concessions. Seems to me the people to blame are the administration's negotiators. granted, the union leaders should poke their heads up once in awhile & take a look at the real world.....
A lot of the union busting going on right now appears to be neo-conservative reactionist vindictiveness. Their brunt of their assault on teachers & lower paid workers v. their relative slack on police & fire is telling. Shannon Jones' bill is scattershot, and unfocussed. Her introduction of the bill can be found here. Her shrill & defensive explanation on Newsmakers on 2/13 can be found here. (Her segment is the 2nd one & I don't know how to link to it directly - sorry)
Is killing collective bargaining guaranteed to save us? David Pepper cites states that don't allow collective bargaining, Arizona, Nevada & North Carolina, have worse deficits than Ohio. Again, the administrations have to be held accountable.
Cincinnati's contracts with the police unions allows for massive numbers of sick days but doesn't provide short term disability. These guys have dangerous jobs and are prone to injury. We absolutely should take care of them when they are hurt. The way this is set up, tho, promotes the officers to tough out injuries and save their sick days which can accrue over their entire career and be cashed in upon retirement in a lump payout. Not only is this possibly bad for the officers health, he an save sick days from his first year on the job & cash them out on retirement at a much higher rate of pay. With his pension guaranteed for life & the possible debilitating health problems caused by not properly treating injuries over the years, the city is on the hook for millions of dollars and huge one time payments that screw up the city's cash flow. Fishwrap source
Who agrees to these contracts? I can't believe I had to applaud the city for not giving the unions their requested free pet insurance.
Todd Portune blames city and county woes on unfunded mandates by state & federal governments. Of course, Hamilton County is on the hook for a stadium deal made with an under-achiever.
The problem is not exactly with the unions, even tho their requests are frequently childish and unrealistic. The elected officials & their administrations need to show leadership - not throw temper tantrums.

More from the Noose Son here.

Atlantis Located in Dayton?


$14M is targeted to maybe get the space shuttle Atlantis to the Air Force Museum in Dayton after it gets retired.
That's cool and all, but 14 million bucks for space junk?

Noose Son story here.
UPDATE: No wait! It's $28M!
Noose Son story here.

Go TEA!
County Commissioner, Chris Monzel, who campaigned on promises of cutting waste, spending & finding efficiencies, suspects there might be some extra cash floating around & has decided to spend it to create a new county job - thus increasing spending and, more importantly, adding a brand new layer of bureaucracy to county government.
yay!
The position? A red tape cutter.
I am sure Monzel's florist will decorate this person's office beautifully.

WVXU story here.

HEY! I know! Let's do something completely pointless and see if somebody files a lawsuit! Whenever other people do it, they usually get sued and LOSE!
Clermont County commissioners have decided to lead meeting attendees in prayer before commission meetings.
It's generally accepted to have various religious leaders from the community lead prayers but not the elected officials.
In support of freedom of religion, commissioner Archie Wilson stated, "You have to open it up, but when somebody starts chanting, I’m probably going to have a problem."
Commissioner Humphrey stated that he didn’t think atheists would have to be allowed.
Class act.

Fishwrap story here.