ProgressOhio

If you're like me, you've heard and read enough from the pundits and politicians about the stimulus.  Look, when a country is where we are economically, no solution is going to be one that everyone can support because we know we don't all agree on solutions and we know we don't know what will happen - no matter who tells you otherwise.

Today, starting at 12noon, you can participate in a discussion with people like yourself and others about the stimulus.  Here's what you need to know:

What it is:

You're invited to participate in 24 Hours of Stimulus - an online bipartisan citizen discussion on the Economic Stimulus and Recovery bill, hosted by Political Voices of Women on Twitter, starting at 12n EST, Monday, February 9th. hashtags: #24stimulus and #pvow,

This schedules the tweetchat between the start of the Monday Senate session and the currently anticipated time of the stimulus vote.

It also gives everyone a chance to pop in and have their say at a time that's most convenient for them.

How to do it:

Follow the conversation: Go to summize.com or search.twitter.com and search on the #24stimulus or #pvow hashtags.  That will bring up the tweets that have been written as part of the discussion.

Participate: If you have a Twitter handle, just jump in with a comment or thought or reaction or question and be sure to add the #24stimulus hashtag to your tweet.

If you don't have a Twitter handle, get one - it's free and easy to set up at twitter.com.

I'm told that if you go to Tweetchat.com, you can enter the room with either hashtag and follow the tweets and contribute to the discussion there.

Looking forward to it.

Gov. Ted Strickland said Tuesday afternoon that Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher is the "best qualified" Democrat among those considering a run for U.S. Senate in 2010.

Brunner won't publicly discuss her thinking just yet and didn't respond to a call Monday. She is seeking the support of her close friend and political mentor, Sen. Sherrod Brown. Their relationship makes the whole scenario more delicious because Brown is also a close friend of Strickland's. Strickland said he had talked only briefly to Brown about the upcoming Senate opening.

"Quite simply, this blog is the ranting of a Cincinnati CPA"

Long before Enron and WorldCom, the ABO and The Ohio Society of CPAs were discussing the importance of making professional ethics education a part of license renewal. Professional ethics has been a requirement for initial CPA certification in Ohio but there was no ongoing focus once an individual was certified. The new requirement is intended to heighten the awareness and importance of ethics in the accounting profession—a profession whose foundation was built upon objectivity, integrity and trust.

                                                          - The Ohio Society Of CPA's

So he got caught in a direct lie. 

Here's how our  "ranting CPA" takes responsibility for his lie:

Better retake that Ethics Course this year. 

Ethical behavior is required by law in Ohio for CPA's.

Multiple Ohio blogs have posted entries in a foreign language today:

• American Pink Collar (French)
• Bad American (Polish)
• bitter-girl :: musings (German)
• Blogesque (Korean)
• Blue Bexley (Dutch)
• Blue Ohioan (Korean)
• Bring Ohio Home (Czech)
• Bring Ohio Home (German)
• Buckeye State Blog (Italian)
• Glass City Jungle (Hungarian)
• Gloria Ferris (Spanish)
• Ohio Daily Blog (Croatian)
• Pho's Akron Pages (Vietnamese)
• Plunderbund (Redneck)
• Rowsey Blog (Spanish)
• The Chief Source (Spanish) at The Point
• The Daily Bellwether (French)
• Tim Ferris (French)
• Writes Like She Talks (Portuguese)

And it's been noted that maybe, to some people, surfing from blog to blog and being unable to understand most of the posts (until you go here for the translation of each one) proves the point that Ohio and maybe even the United States should standardize, through legislation, the language most of us use and which is already being used by the state and federal goverment: English.

Why would we want our governments to do that?

Because everything we try to read otherwise is pretty incomprehensible and that's exactly what we want to avoid. It's torture to stare at something and not have any idea whatsoever as to what it says, what it argues, what it tells you to do, what it tells you not to do.

Sounds logical, right?

Wrong.

Why? Why is that logic wrong?

Because those of us reading this blog and those blog posts are primarily native English speakers. Of course blog posts in Polish, German, Croatian, Korean and so on look like gobbledyguck to us.

So what's the point of this little demonstration?

To non-native English speakers, blogs - and so many other forms of communication that native English speakers take for granted - look like nonsense. How does it feel, going to the most familiar places you know on the Internet to gather information about the day, about issues and policy that matter, about breaking news and urgent messages, and find that the shoe is on the other foot: you can't understand a word, you can't glean even the essense of what's being communicated?

What kind of humans would legislate torturing literally hundreds of thousands of fellow Ohioans that way?

Here's a list of the Ohio state senators on the State and Local Government and Veteran Affairs Committee, which appears to be the one that has HB 477 right now. Please contact them and let them know how you feel about HB 477.

Gary Cates (R)
Chair

Teresa Fedor (D)
Ranking Minority Member

Democrats:

John Boccier

Tom Roberts

Republicans: 

John Carey

Robert Schuler  

Bill Seitz  

Mark Wagoner  

Dickipedia is a monolingual (English), Web-based, free content encyclopedia project with information about people who are dicks. The word "dickipedia" is a portmanteau of the word "encyclopedia" and the word "dick." Dickipedia does not contain information about people who are detectives.

Latest dicks:

Ann Coulter

Antonin Scalia

Jill Miller Zimon over at Writes Like She Talks is live blogging from Canton today:

“From Front Porch to Webcast: The History and Impact of Spouses in Presidential Campaigns.”

This session features:

• Eleanor Clift, contributing editor for Newsweek magazine

• Dianne Bystrom, Director for the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Iowa State University

• Evan Cornog, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs, Columbia Journalism School

• Connie Schultz, Cleveland Plain Dealer Pulitzer Prise winning Journalist

 You can participate in the live blog by clicking here

Congratulations Jeff!

DENVER - Democrats have chosen 55 bloggers who will be granted access to the national convention in Denver this summer.

The "State Blogger Corps" includes one blogger from each state plus the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and one blogger representing Democrats abroad.

Party officials say the list, announced Wednesday, includes some full-time professional bloggers and some part-timers and volunteers.

They were chosen from among more than 400 applications.

Democrats say other bloggers will get credentials as part of a general pool, but party officials haven't said how big the pool will be nor what access it will have.

Watch it:

Here's her acceptance speech

Watch it:

Today's Columbus Dispatch reports findings of a Central Ohio survey that documents discrimination aimed at the LGBT community.

The survey is the just latest evidence of Ohio's need to pass pending legislation that would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

On Tuesday, May 15th, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on Senate Bill 305, which seeks to ban such discrimination in housing, employment or public accommodation.

Survey's respondents report threats, intolerance

They are mostly healthy, in committed relationships and happy with central Ohio's social scene.

But people responding to a first-ever survey of area gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents also report high levels of depression, face threats because of their sexual orientation and often suffer discrimination in the workplace.

The findings show that Columbus, although known as a gay-friendly city, still has some work to do, survey organizers said.

"We have to create a community in which everyone feels welcome and everyone feels at home, now," said Bill LaFayette, vice president of economic analysis for the Columbus Chamber.

"I think it's important for the business community to take a look at this, and take a look at themselves."

LaFayette was a volunteer member of the steering committee for the "GLBT Census of Central Ohio," a project led by the Columbus AIDS Task Force, Stonewall Columbus and the United Way of Central Ohio.

Organizers said they opted for the anonymous, online survey to attract the most participants. It isn't possible to extract demographic snapshots of the entire gay and lesbian community from U.S. Census data because it does not ask about sexual orientation.

An estimated 35,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual residents live in Columbus, with about 68,000 in the metro area.

Read The Full Story Here

ProgressOhio has created a website "Do What's Right Ohio" in association with our friends and allies at Equality Ohio.

The website will officially launch next week.

Trader Joe's announced on Thursday it will stop selling eggs from Gemperle Enterprises.

A video was shot by a member of the 'Mercy for Animals' organization infiltrated the farm.

MFA says chickens there live in squalor, and are routinely brutalized.

Mercy For Animals has just released a shocking video from their latest undercover investigation documenting the routine cruelty, abuse and neglect found at battery cage egg farms.

This video made a major splash in today's LA Times and is now being featured on television stations across the state and country.

Help stop the growth of these social, environmental, and humanitarian nightmares known as factory farms, in Ohio.

• Watch the video here.
• Sign The Petition to Governor Ted Strickland urging him to ban new factory farms in Ohio.  We will hand-deliver your comments to the Governor and everyone who participates will be emailed a special video.
  
• Make a difference by incorporating some of these delicious egg-free, vegetarian recipes into your menu

WASHINGTON DC – Scoring a big victory for American taxpayers, Congressman Zack Space (OH-18) announced today that his Coin Modernization and Taxpayer Savings Act of 2008 has passed the House of Representatives. 

This measure will save an estimated $1 billion over the next ten years by mandating that the Mint change the metallic composition of coins to a cheaper substance.

Most immediately, this bill will require the Mint to switch over to a copper-plated steel penny.  This change will now ensure that the penny costs only .7 cents to produce each penny – a substantial savings over the current 1.7 cent price tag.

“This legislation represents a fiscally responsible solution to a situation that grows worse with every penny minted,” Space said.  “It is an insult to American taxpayers that we are manufacturing coins at a rate more than their face value represents.  This bill will ensure that we reverse that situation.”

“The American taxpayer will see savings of a billion dollars over the next decade, a move that just makes sense,” Space continued.

By dramatically reducing the cost to produce pennies, this bill will also remove the impetus for the Mint’s ban preventing Jackson Metals in Jackson, Ohio from operating.  That could lead to Jackson Metals again providing jobs for an area of the state that is severely depressed.

Columbus, Ohio: You boldy predicted that Bush’s approval ratings would rebound — instead he is, according to Gallup, the most unpopular presdient [sic] in history. Will you finally admit that your vision for this nation has been overwhelmingly rejected by the majority of the people?

Karl Rove: Get your facts right — there are at least three president who had worse approval ratings, Truman, Johnson and Nixon. I’m absolutely positive history will be kind to this president, who made the right decisions in a difficult time for this nation.

Rove needs to get his facts straight. The questioner is right. While Bush’s approval rating is not the lowest in history (but still near the bottom), his disapproval rating is actually the worst. According to the recent Gallup poll referenced by the questioner, Bush is indeed the most unpopular president in history — beating Truman, Johnson, and Nixon:

A recent poll of professional historians also found that “98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.” More than 61 percent of the historians “concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history.”

Rove says he is still “absolutely positive history will be kind to this president.” How positive is he? As positive as he was that Republicans would win the 2006 elections?

Original Content From Center For American Progress

Remember the Pepsi-Coke Challenge?

Here's a new twist: Try the Bush-McCain Challenge—our new online quiz—and see if you can tell the difference between Bush and McCain!

Take the Challenge »

Actually we don't expect the cheers to start pouring in from the Ohio GOP, but Secretary of State Brunner and Ohio voting documented another big win that you may have missed in the furor over AG Dann.

Cuyahoga vote audit matches primary results

CLEVELAND (AP) - The elections board in Cuyahoga County says a hand-count audit of votes from the presidential primary matches the results from scanned paper ballots.

A sample of 30,000 paper ballots from 99 precincts were hand-counted by teams composed of Republicans and Democrats last week.

Board of Elections Deputy Director Pat McDonald said Monday that the voluntary audit was part of a pilot program of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to help determine consistency and performance of high-speed optical scanning.

I guess the Ohio GOP just forgot about what happened in the Cuyohoga Primary in 2006 under Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell:

In the 2006 primary, Cuyahoga County used the controversial Diebold touchscreen voting machines. These machines suffered a well-publicized meltdown, in which many malfunctioned. A report from the Election Science Institute (ESI) documented significant differences between votes actually cast on the machines as opposed to those officially counte

Immediately following the election, 562,498 votes were reported cast in Cuyahoga County, with 30,791 listed as absentee or provisional ballots. But the official results show just 468,056 counted. This means that 94,442 ballots cast in the unofficial total disappeared in the official tallies, representing a shocking 16.8% of all the votes cast in Cuyahoga. 

We expect to hear "three cheers for Secretary Brunner" from the OHIO GOP any day now, but we're just not going to be foolish and hold our breath.

Barack Obama issued a response ad this afternoon answering Hillary Clinton's final spots in IN and NC.

In her ad, Clinton asks: "What's happened to Barack Obama? He's attacking Hillary's plan to give you a break on gas prices."

Obama counters: "A war that should never have been waged. An economy in turmoil. Record prices at the pump. America held hostage to foreign oil. And what does Hillary Clinton offer us? More of the same old negative politics."

First, HRC's spot, "What's Happened?" ...

And Obama's "Hometown" ...