Trying to save Cincinnati’s struggling pension fund, task force members are tossing out all kinds of possibilities: Sell or lease city-owned buildings, raise property taxes,or  sell the city-owned railroad. Lease the parking meters.

None of which will sail through City Council easily, if at all. Council has kept property taxes where they are since 2000. City Manager Milton Dohoney says while people keep pitching the railroad sale, no real buyer has ever approached him, much less offered a price for the Cincinnati Southern Railway. The railway – and anything else, for that matter – is only worth, he said, what someone will pay.

And which assets should the city sell? City Hall? The police target range? Westwood Town Hall?

“I feel like we’re looking under the cushions of the couch to find this money,” said Marianne Steger, who represents AFSCME on the task force. “I mean, we’re not going to sell the convention center.”

So after another two-hour meeting Tuesday, task force members remained clear on one thing: It’s difficult to decide what changes to recommend to City Council, and maybe more difficult to predict whether council will agree to any of it. But the pension fund faces insolvency by 2030 if major changes aren’t made. Its assets fell $854 million in 2008, to $1.83 billion. The fund made some of that up last year, rebounding to about $2 billion.

The task force likely will submit a list of options to council, possibly by the end of the month. But members first want to present the magnitude of the problem and their research on proposed solutions to people who would be affected – retirees and current city employees – by any changes. To get council to buy in to anything controversial, the task force first needs buy-in from those affected.

“I don’t care if these things are painful or not, politically,” said Chris Stenger, pension director for Cincinnati Bell.

Francis Wagner, retired city finance director, suggested cutting the amount of the city’s 2.1% earnings tax that goes to the Southern Ohio Regional Transit Authority. Now, Metro’s parent gets 0.3%. He suggested cutting that to 0.25% and giving half of the reduced amount to the pension fund. That might sell to council, he said, because it would mean a tax cut.

But that 2.1% isn’t all that certain to begin with – it makes up about two-thirds of the city’s total $330 million operating budget, so its decline is the biggest reason the city faced a $51 million deficit this year. And SORTA already cut its 2010 budget and raised fares to cover its own budget gap.

via:nypost.com

No matter what the city says, Lori Mason insists the breast milk she supplied her cheese-making husband is more wholesome than anything on the shelves at Whole Foods.

Her milk is 100 percent organic, free range, and foie gras-fed, she told The Post.

“I eat healthier than your average cow and I’m not pumped full of steroids!” Mason said.

When Mason’s husband, Daniel Angerer, blogged about making some of his wife’s excess breast milk into cheese, customers at his restaurant, Klee Brasserie on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, began demanding to have a taste.

But as The Post reported yesterday, even though expressed mother’s-milk cheese is not against health codes, city officials strongly advised Angerer to desist.

The cheese could pose a potential health hazard, the officials said.

That did not stop diners eager to sample the human dairy from showing up at the restaurant yesterday.

“We had some people who ordered the cheese plate and I had to tell them we don’t serve the breast-milk cheese in the restaurant,” maitre d’ Bari Musacchio said. “I told them if they wanted to try it, there is a recipe on the [Klee Brasserie] Web site.”

According to Liz Thorpe, a vice president of Murray’s Cheese shops in Manhattan, who reviewed Angerer’s cheese for The Post, they aren’t missing much.

“It was slippery, slightly crunchy and tasted like pickles,” she said. “I give it a thumbs down.”

But breast-milk cheese isn’t just a matter of bad taste, it’s potentially unsafe, city officials said.

“It’s not intended for adults, or for wide public consumption,” a Health Department spokeswoman said.

Risks would “depend on the health of the lactating woman,” she said. “If the restaurant was found distributing the cheese in the establishment for public consumption, the Health Department could issue a violation.”

Angerer said he has no intention of selling his wife’s cheese in the restaurant, but he insisted it’s actually a healthy food.

“I tried it and I’m still alive. The baby eats it all day long and she’s fine too,” he said.

Even though they’re barred from distributing it to customers, Mason said the couple may hold private tasting parties “at our apartment or in the park in the spring with wine.”

Mason, who has been propositioned by several creepy customers eager to sample her breast milk, offered one caveat.

“We may need security to stop the weird fetish people from coming in.”

The Health Department nixed the cheese-party idea, too.

“He can’t do that either,” the spokeswoman said.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/human_cheese_ma_don_have_cow_mspd5ZGAOOcFwi48jnErwN#ixzz0hmP0lrYz
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/human_cheese_ma_don_have_cow_mspd5ZGAOOcFwi48jnErwN#ixzz0hmOfecy0

Someone with the Republican National Committee got a little bit careless down in Florida recently. He – or she – left behind a presentation during a fundraising retreat at a Boca Grande hotel that basically confirmed what many people already know.

The RNC, it seems, believes its best bet for stirring up voters is by stirring up fears of the black man in the White House.

According to Politico, the 72-page presentation lays out a strategy to scare people into believing that President Barack Obama is moving the country toward socialism. It is filled with cartoonish images of President Obama as the Joker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as … Scooby Doo?

What’s that all about?

And, in a stroke designed to tap into paranoia more than passion, it describes the small donors that the RNC is aiming at as being motivated by “fear,” “extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration,” and “Reactionary.”

They forgot to add “racism.”

Then again, I guess they didn’t need to. Fear is kind of a proxy for that. And the Republicans are banking on riding the ridiculousness that comes with fear to victory this fall.

How else does one explain Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose organization recently resorted to attacking the patriotism of Justice Department officials who formerly represented terrorist detainees?

As if people don’t understand – or at least, ought to understand – that ensuring that all defendants have an adequate defense is a principle as old as the Constitution that Cheney and the Tea Partiers have discovered a newfound affinity for?

How else does one explain Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who constantly tells outlandish, verifiable lies designed to vilify Obama?

One of the GOP congresswoman’s lies, according to Politifact.com, was one in which she claimed that the last time swine flu broke out, it was under another Democratic president, Jimmy Carter.

Apparently Bachmann, in her typical wing-nutty way, was trying to imply that the election of Obama had brought a plague upon the land. No matter that when swine flu broke out in 1976, Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president.

Politifact rated that statement as a Pants-on-Fire lie – as well as three other statements out of eight that it rated.
 
The other four were simply rated false.

And how else do you explain conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, who, among other things, once claimed that Obama’s director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population?

That too, was rated as a Pants-on-Fire lie.

The explanation for Liz Cheney and her father, as well as Bachmann and Beck, is woven in the GOP strategy that someone left behind in Boca Grande. Make Obama scary. Make him look psychotic and cartoonish, and intertwine his image with fears of disease, death and dictatorship.

And hope that his blackness and otherness invokes more skepticism than their claims.
 
Unfortunately, that strategy might work for the some of the small donors that the RNC is trying to reach. Some of the large GOP donors, however, are already appalled – the strategy suggests that they can be reached by appeals to their egotism – and are distancing themselves from it.
 
Good for them.

But the Democrats ought to see an opportunity in that leaked document – an opportunity to craft a strategy to persuade voters who may be leaning Republican to feel insulted instead of wooed by the RNC’s plan.

They ought to find a way to appeal to people’s pride; to get them to feel offended that …..

We are launching a new column called “Ask Lincoln.” This daily blog of common sense will answer some of life’s burning questions, as will attempt to help those of you desperate enough to seek Lincoln’s advice. This column is for entertainment purposes only, although, Lincoln thinks it’s for real.

To ask your question: Scroll down to the comments section of this page and click on “Login” or “Register.” After logging in or creating your account, you can then ask your question!

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding question #9 on the 2010 census regarding race. Many were outraged when the census had an answer box, asking citizens if they were black, African-American, or negro.  Some people do not find it a need to address their race, and will skip the question. Well some people, on the internet, are suggesting another idea of checking the “other” box, on question 9,  and writing themselves as “American”.

According to Mark Krikorian of the National Review, he believes it’s an honest answer.

It’s a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, “American” was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.

Joe Snider of news-leader.com believes  most people do not care how they are classified as, and this question will continue to divide our country.

“We don’t care!” When I make that statement, I’m not talking about white people, I’m talking about the American public in general. And I’ll go a step further to tell you that I have enough American Indian in me to make a case that I’m American Indian. The difference is that I don’t find a need to yell, “Look at me! Look at me!”I’m American and that’s the bottom line.

However as people are making a political statement with this idea, this could actually keep certain laws from being enforced.  In a USA Today article, the reason that the census asks about a persons race is so that federal agencies have the information to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination laws such as the voting rights act, the civil rights act, fair employment practices, and affirmative action mandates.

So i want to ask : Do you agree with this movement, or do you believe this is silly and will you be honest with the Census form so that you’re counted?

Blacks spend more time in bed without sleeping than any other ethnic group, according to a poll released Monday by the National Sleep Foundation.

The survey also found that blacks and Hispanics are 10 times more likely to report having sex every night than Asians or whites.

The NSF conducts polls each year on various topics that relate to sleep behaviors, said Tom Balkin, chairman of the Washington, D.C.–based organization. This year’s report reveals significant differences in the sleep habits and attitudes of Asians, blacks, Hispanics and whites.

It is the first poll to examine sleep among these four ethnic groups, Balkin told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“As the leading voice of sleep health, we are committed to better understanding people’s sleep needs,” says David Cloud, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation. “By exploring ethnic and family sleep practices, we have gained new insight into why we sleep the way we do.”

Blacks spend 54 minutes on weekdays/workdays and 71 minutes on non-workdays/weekends in bed without sleeping. Among the other ethnic groups, Hispanics reported spending 42 minutes in bed without sleeping, 36 minutes for Asians and 25 minutes for whites.

On weekends, time in bed without sleeping ranged from 71 minutes for blacks to 57 minutes for Hispanics, 43 minutes for whites and 41 minutes for Asians, according to the survey.

When it comes to sex, 10 percent of blacks and Hispanics report having sex every night, compared with four percent of whites and one percent of Asians.

Balkin said the survey included questions about sex because of the impact it can have on sleep.
“Sex is relaxing, and it enhances sleep onset,” Balkin said. “Reading also helps people relax before going to sleep.”

The survey did find that among married people or couples living together, all ethnic groups report being too tired for sex frequently21 to 26 percent of the time.

Balkin said the average person needs to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. “Most don’t get the recommended amount of sleep,” he said, maintaining that most sleep just over seven hours.

A large percentage of blacks in the survey said they don’t need as much sleep as people in other ethnic groups.

Blacks reported getting the least amount of sleep on workdays/weekdays – six hours and 14 minutes. They also say that they need only seven hours and five minutes of sleep each night to perform at their best during the day, which is significantly less sleep than Asians and Hispanics – seven hours and 29 minutes each.

One theory is that people sometimes condition themselves to survive on less sleep, so it becomes a habit, Balkin said.

“The brain can forget how it feels to be optimally alert,” he said, adding that this can be especially true for people with sleep apnea or those conditioned by their work shifts.

“The finding that blacks/African-Americans say they need less sleep and get less sleep is instructive for public health professionals,” says Jose S. Loredo, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. “Their total sleep time and attitudes regarding sleep may be associated with blacks/African-Americans’ higher rates of sleep apnea, hypertension and diabetes and provide sleep-related insight into how to improve awareness and education programs and, very importantly, how to improve therapy compliance rates.”

The survey also reported:

- Most blacks, 71 percent, report praying every night. That’s more than four times the reported frequency of Asians at 18 percent, twice the rate of whites at 32 ….. ….. percent and 1.5 times the rate of Hispanics at 45 percent.

- Blacks and Asians are more likely than whites and Hispanics to report doing job-related work in the hour before bed. Among those employed, 17 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Asians reported doing work before bed, while 13 percent of Hispanics and nine percent of whites reported doing the same.

- A larger percentage of blacks reported losing sleep every night over personal financial and employment concerns. Twelve percent of blacks reported losing sleep over financial concerns, and 10 percent reported losing sleep over employment concerns. Only six percent of whites reported losing sleep over financial concerns, and seven percent reported losing sleep over employment concerns. The numbers were lower for Asians, at one percent and four percent respectively. The percent of sleep loss for Hispanics in this category were similar to blacks, with 11 percent losing sleep over financial concerns and nine percent losing sleep over employment concerns.

- Asians report getting the best sleep, report the least amount of sleep problems and infrequent use of sleep aids.

- Whites are the most likely to report sleeping with their pets and/or their significant other/spouse.

- Among those married or partnered, 14 percent of whites reported sleeping with a pet, compared with two percent in each of the other ethnic groups.

The National Sleep Foundation began surveying sleep health and behaviors in 1991. The 2010 Sleep in America Poll was conducted for NSF by WB&A Market Research, using a random sample of 1,007 adults between the ages of 25-60 and identifying themselves as white, black, Asian or Hispanic.

The mission of NSF, Balkin says is to promote public awareness of sleep disorders and the affects of inadequate sleep.

“If you are experiencing problems sleeping,” says Balkin, “take charge of your own sleep. You should critically examine your bedtime routines and pre-sleep activities and make time to ensure your bedroom is conducive to your sleep comfort.”

The National Sleep Foundation suggests the following to improve your sleep:

· Go to sleep and wake at the same time every day, and avoid spending more time in bed than needed.

· Use bright light to help manage your “body clock.” Avoid bright light in the evening and expose yourself to sunlight in the morning.

· Use your bedroom only for sleep to strengthen the association between your bed and sleep. It may help to remove work materials, computers and televisions from your bedroom.

· Select a relaxing bedtime ritual, like a warm bath or listening to calming music.

· Create an environment that is conducive to sleep that is quiet, dark and cool with a comfortable mattress and pillows.

· Reduce or eliminate your intake of caffeine, nicotine and alcohol.

· Save your worries for the daytime. If concerns come to mind, write them in a “worry book” so you can address those issues the next day.

· If you can’t sleep, go into another room and do something relaxing until you feel tired.

We want to know!

VIA: Cincinnati.com

After a quiet weekend, the Bengals got involved with free agency on Monday, re-signing defensive tackle Tank Johnson while getting set to welcome wide receivers Antonio Bryant and Terrell Owens on Tuesday.

Johnson took to Twitter Monday evening and announced: “Cinci we got a deal! Very grateful to The Browns and all the Who Dey Nation!!! I’m Baaaaaaaack!!!! Now let’s win some more.”

The deal is for four years with the team expected to announce it Tuesday or Wednesday.

In the search for a wide receiver who can stretch the field, it will be an interesting day with Bryant and Owens visiting Paul Brown Stadium.

When it comes to receivers who are unrestricted free agents, Bryant and Owens are the top two. Bryant, an eight-year veteran, was hampered in Tampa Bay due to two knee injuries that happened during training camp. He played 13 games and had 39 receptions for 600 yards, an average of 15.4 yards per catch, with four touchdowns. In 2008, he enjoyed a career year with 83 receptions for 1,248 yards and seven touchdowns.

Bryant, who turns 29 today, arrived in Cincinnati Monday night. He was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 2002 and has also played with Cleveland and San Francisco.

Owens, whose visit was reported by ESPN, is a 14-year veteran who had 55 receptions for 829 yards and five touchdowns last season in Buffalo.

As for their own free agents, Johnson was one of the Bengals’ top offseason priorities.

At the NFL Scouting Combine, defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer said he was happy with Johnson’s first season in Cincinnati. Brought in as a pass rusher, the six-year defensive tackle played 14 games (starting 13) and had 39 tackles with two sacks.

Although Zimmer was disappointed in Johnson’s sack numbers, he was pleased with other areas of his game.

“He’s got a lot of things that can help us defensively and he did,” Zimmer said. “He wasn’t the pass rusher that I thought he might be but everything else was probably better than I thought.”

Things did not appear good last Friday when Johnson’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, posted on Twitter for his client to pack his bags because they were going to visit other teams this week.

Johnson is the first Bengals unrestricted free agent to re-sign. Safety Roy Williams, guard Bobbie Williams and tight end Reggie Kelly remain priorities.

Read more…

A person was in custody Tuesday after a shooting inside a maintenance building on the Ohio State campus that left one dead and two others injured, authorities said.

 According to a news release issued by Ohio State, all of the victims were university employees.  No students were injured.

The shooting occurred about 3:30 a.m. inside a maintenance building on Tuttle Park Place, located near Ohio Stadium, ONN Affiliate 10TV News reported.

Police officers were seen entering the building and conducting a search with their weapons drawn.

Authorities said three people were shot, one of whom died from their wounds. Two others were taken to The Ohio State University Medical Center; one was in critical condition and the other was in stable condition, 10TV News reported.

The university did not identify the victims, pending notification of their families.

University police said during a news conference that the person believed to be responsible for the shootings was in custody.

Police did not elaborate further.

The university said Tuesday’s class schedule would not be affected by the shootings.

Authorities Discuss the Shootings

VIA : gospelflava.com

The 41st Annual GMA Dove Awards are asking fans to weigh in on their two significant awards categories. Fans can now vote for the categories of “Artist of the Year” and “New Artist of the Year” once online and via text message. Nominees for the “Artist of the Year” category include Mary Mary, Francesca Battistelli, Casting Crowns, Jason Crabb, Jars of Clay, tobyMac, and Skillet. “New Artist of the Year” nominees include Kari Jobe, Crystal Aikin, Brian Courtney Wilson, Jonny Diaz, Revive, Sidewalk Prophets, and Bluetree. Voting takes place at the GMC website, with polls closing on April 20, 2010 at midnight ET. This year’s GMA Dove Awards airs on April 25, 2010 at 8p ET on GMC.