From NBC4i:

A local police officer was put under investigation Monday after videos of her making anti-Semitic remarks were found online.

Authorities said Susan Purtee, a 14-year veteran Columbus police officer, and her sister were heard on YouTube.com blaming the Jewish population for problems in the United States, NBC 4’s Lauren Diedrich reported.

Here’s The Jews Part II, where the sisters compare Ashkenazi and “Shepardic” Jews. (Hint: the Ashkenazi’s purpose is to dominate the world. Or was it the Shepardic? I can’t tell.)

It’s a good thing the sisters weren’t complaining about Muslims in their videos. YouTube would have removed them. Anti-Semitism is just fine though.

Fraternal Order of Police President Jim Gilbert said Columbus police might not become involved since Purtee did not identify herself as a police officer.

Columbus Division of Police representatives said their legal department would review the tapes to determine if an investigation should begin.

UPDATE: The Dispatch has a little more on this:

Disparaging remarks about blacks, Cubans and Jews are found on amateur online videos co-produced by an off-duty Columbus police officer.

The videos were created and distributed on the Internet by Officer Susan L. Purtee, 60, and her sister, Barbara Gordon-Bell, 52, who call themselves “The Patriot Dames” and the “Subie Sisters.”

I didn’t watch enough of the videos to hear about blacks and Cubans. I’ll have to remain unenlightened on those topics.

A group I’ve never heard of before issued a report today:

More than a quarter of Ohio adults are obese, and nearly as many say they never exercise, according to figures released Monday by a group tracking America’s climbing obesity rates.

Obesity rates are on the rise in 31 states, including Ohio, according to a report from the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention. No state showed a decline.

Well at least this group has no agenda and are just releasing this info so that we’re all better informed. (Yeah, right.)

Federal and local governments should play a larger role in preventing obesity, said officials at the Trust for America’s Health. People who are overweight are at an increased risk for diabetes, heart problems and other chronic diseases that contribute to greater health care costs.

That health care cost argument is the gateway to much government control of our lives. From the group’s site:

TFAH recommends a comprehensive approach for helping individuals make healthy choices including support from families, communities, schools, employers, the food and beverage industries, health professionals, and government at all levels. Some key recommendations include:

* Think big. The federal government should develop and implement a National Strategy to Combat Obesity. This plan should involve every federal government agency, define clear roles and responsibilities for states and localities, and engage private industry and community groups.

Hmm. Not too invasive.

From the Dispatch blog:

Former Mayor Greg Lashutka said today he will not seek the GOP nomination in 2008 for the 15th Congressional District seat being vacated at the end of next year by retiring Rep. Deborah Pryce, an Upper Arlington Republican.

Lashutka ruled out a run about an hour after former Attorney General Jim Petro said he will not seek the congressional seat, leaving local GOP officials scrambling for a candidate against Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, the favoried Democrat who narrowly lost to Pryce in 2006.

I have an idea: draft Pryce!

(Previous post: One less name for Rep’s OH-15.)

From an article in the Cleveland Free Times:

Online, ODP Web master Todd Hoffman defended the firing [of Megan Pappada] in his own letter to a local blogger. “As an employee of ODP, any statements, past or present, in the public domain reflect upon the Party so we let her go within hours of learning of the situation,” he wrote.

Speaking of public domain, Mr. Hoffman, the Free Times discovered some online court documents your employers might have overlooked. In 2001, you got two OMVI’s (operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated), a hit/skip, and a resisting arrest charge that was pleaded down to disorderly conduct. Damn, that was one crazy summer, huh?

But the ODP apparently is less interested in dangerous actions than it is impure thoughts.

Hit/skip is a very serious offense. Not that OMVI’s aren’t. Anyway, Matt Naugle wrote a post in response: “Todd Hoffmann… Another Democrat Criminal Boozer“. There’s a crude photoshop. (Go see.)

And then Buckeye State Blog’s Jerid Kurtz posted:

In my opinion, Matt seems to take sexual pleasure out of inflicting pain on individuals personally - it’s a far cry from anything even minutely related to politics. And as long as Republican candidates are frequenting RAB and/or taking out ads at RAB, it’s going to reflect poorly on the Ohio GOP. And trust me, the chickens are coming home to roost on this one very soon. If I were the Republicans, I’d be distancing myself and denouncing Matt and RAB as soon as possible - he gives decent folks on the right a bad name.

Helpfully, Jerid gives us the definition of “sexual sadism”, and does the old psychiatric diagnosis from a distance schtick, long favored the left. It’s pretty funny.

A I have a couple of points on this. First, unlike a few other of Matt’s posts that I disagreed with, this one is totally fair game from a political standpoint. Hoffman’s a player, this stuff is on his record, that’s all there is to it. And the photoshop is fair, though again crude, as well. Whether or not it’s wise is another thing. OMVI’s are non-partisan, and there will be a Republican busted on one pretty soon, I’m sure. The hit/skip thing though is more serious.

Secondly, Jerid seems to be suggesting that Todd Hoffman isn’t political:

Last I checked, none of these folks entered into the political fray personally to warrant these types of attacks. It might be fair for folks to point out a hypocritical point with a staffer not synching up to a party’s platform which they work for, but in Todd’s example Matt’s post is entirely mean spirited spite topped off with an awful picture - there’s nothing political at all.

Hoffman is id’d as a mere “ODP staffer”, sort of like the person who answers the phone over there. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. Isn’t one of Hoffman’s jobs to put out the ODP message to the Ohiosphere and keep the Democratic blogs in line? Seems like a political role to me.

Whatever it is, Hoffman apparently has a close relationship to BSB. Jerid ought to have disclosed it in his post defending Hoffman and attacking Naugle.

From 10TV News:

Come Friday night, tailgating in campus parking lots will not be permitted as it had been in years past. The university has decided to keep recreational vehicles out of designated RV/camper parking lots until 5 a.m. on Saturdays.

Mobile tailgaters who show up before that time will be redirected to the state fairgrounds. There will be no vehicle staging permitted along Fred Taylor Drive or other roads adjacent to the RV lots, which are located northwest of the Schottenstein Center between West Lane Avenue and Ackerman Road….

University officials said the change comes in an effort to reduce crowding on the campus lots. Longtime fans told 10TV News they don’t care for the change.

Also, the CPD weighed in:

Along with the new rules from the university, the Columbus Division of Police was reminding everyone that having an open container of alcohol in a parking lot in the city of Columbus is against the law. Anyone found violating the city ordinance could be cited and fined.

If you can’t enjoy the game the way the university and city authorities want you to, then go home everyone! Nothing to see here. I swear, you’re all acting like children. Why can’t you be more like the city’s YPs and go to an art gallery opening?

Here’s the OSU parking rule sheet. I wonder what that committee meeting was like.

From the AP in the IHT:

Gov. Ted Strickland toured the region Sunday with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, as residents removed waterlogged carpets and couches from their homes, beginning the cleanup from the flooding.

“It’s difficult to exaggerate or embellish upon what’s happened here. It’s absolutely devastating,” Strickland said.

Strickland said he wanted the U.S. government to declare a major disaster in the parts of Ohio inundated by the past week’s powerful storms and record floods that were blamed for at least 18 deaths in the Midwest. He said a declaration could come early Monday.

Six tornadoes touched down in Michigan on Friday. Also, there were tornado warnings on Saturday in central Ohio, including for Columbus.

Hundreds of thousands of people were without power after their homes were battered by fierce winds and flooding rainstorms that slammed the rain-soaked Midwest.

Tornado warnings were issued Saturday afternoon for parts of central and southeast Ohio. Downed trees and power lines were reported in the southern part of the state, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Hatzos.

The old one-two punch. Beautiful weather today, though.

Here’s the Dispatch on Buckeye Steel Castings, that big foundry at 104 and South High:

A South Side foundry still faces state accusations of air pollution but has agreed to fix a water-pollution problem that dates back 18 years.

Columbus Steel Castings will recycle the water it uses to cool red-hot metal instead of letting it drain into a creek. The company also will pay a $75,000 fine, under a pending settlement with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Columbus Steel has been in the news since 2005, when neighbors filed complaints with the Ohio EPA over foul odors from the plant.

I used to be able to smell the foundry up here by Schiller Park a couple of days out of each month. But I haven’t noticed it recently. Either it’s improved or I’m desensitized to it.

I hate these stories:

The 2-year-old daughter of an assistant school principal was found dead Thursday inside her mother’s sweltering sport utility vehicle, its windows rolled up, police said.

The girl, Cecilia Slaby, was strapped in a car seat in the rear of the vehicle, which was in the parking lot of Glen Este Middle School near Batavia, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati, police said….

Investigators were trying to determine what happened, and there is a possibility that the child was left accidentally, White said….

Police said they received several 911 calls about 3:15 p.m. from people who spotted the girl in the vehicle. Police did not say who placed the calls.

Should people just smash their way into the car when they see this happening in addition to calling 911?

The Dispatch has a graphic on Ohio’s August rainfall that explains the floods pretty well: a lot of rain. Ohio gets 2 to 4 inches of rain in a normal August. Findlay, Ohio, which has some of the worst flooding, had over 10 inches this month. More rain is expected there today and tomorrow.

The photo is from MyFoxToledo (obviously) and was taken in Bluffton, which is about 20 miles from Findlay. More pics here.

Jim Hughes, currently a State Rep from Columbus, was one of the names bandied about to run in Deborah Pryce’s stead for the OH-15 seat. The Dispatch blog has him removing his name from consideration:

Hughes’ exit narrows the potential field of GOP candidates to replace Pryce, now in her 15th year in Congress. Former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro remains the leading GOP candidate, but former Franklin County Commissioner Dewey Stokes also is interested in the seat. Former Columbus Mayor Greg Lashutka also is gaining traction in some Republican circles. Lashutka, an executive with Nationwide Insurance, has been unavailable for comment on whether he is entertaining a bid for Congress.

Stokes or Lashutka would be “interim” until reapportionment when presumably things would change drastically (Ohio is expected to lose 2 seats), but that would be sufficient if one of them won.

(Previous post: Turned tables for OH-15.)

Following on yesterday’s story about Open Left’s targeting conservative Democrats, Cadillac Tight has an interesting response to Matt Stoller’s response.

Matt says:

And of course, the wingnuts are freaking out, it’s always a nice bonus to hear them squeal and defend conservative Democrats.

Now I don’t use the term “squeal” in this manner as it strikes me as a bit homophobic, but if anyone’s squealing it’s Democrats. Republicans are squealing with delight, maybe. Here’s what Stoller has to say to the two Ohio Dem bloggers who complained:

(By the way, Left in Ohio and Buckeyestate Blog, there’s nothing stopping you from writing a positive profile of Charlie Wilson and Zach Space putting their Bush Dog votes in context.).

Note that he gets both blogs’ names wrong- on purpose? Anyway here’s Joe at Cadillac Tight (a great blog name by the way):

I’ve never been a liberal or a progressive, and much as Stoller might hate it, neither are many other Democrats. If resisting efforts like this one from OpenLeft equates to “squealing” and membership in wingnuttia, then let me tell you, there are hosts of squealing, wingnutty Democrats out there today — At least as many as there are members of the “progressive movement”. Being liberally inclined in social policy matters certainly doesn’t obligate me to support the current antiwar, hard left proposals of OpenLeft or the netroots. In fact, I’d argue that in terms of electoral reality, I’m doing the Democratic party a much better solid than Bowers and Stoller are.

That’s pretty much how I see it.

(Previous post: National lefties telling our lefties what to do.)

A Business First story extols the virtues of wind:

The Environment Ohio report examined the economic and environmental effects of the state requiring 20 percent of its electricity be produced by wind sources by 2020. The report projected Ohio would:

* Gain 40,000 man-years of employment through 2020, the equivalent of 3,100 permanent jobs, with an added $3.7 billion in wages paid.
* Increase its gross product by $8.2 billion.
* Generate up to $1.5 billion in property taxes for county governments.
* Supplement rural landowners’ incomes by $200 million.
* Avoid the release of 170 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking more than 2 million cars off the road, and other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury.

The report accompanies Environment Ohio’s proposed law that would mandate that 20% of Ohio’s electricity come from “renewable sources” by 2020.

The fact is that if wind were so wonderful, power companies would be adopting it on a large scale without any prompting from the state legislature. But wind will be more expensive than what we have now, hence the need for a mandate. And boasting about all the new jobs it will create is a bit perverse; we’ll all be paying those additional salaries through our electric bill- $3.7b according to the report.

In fact everything’s backwards. Higher gross product, higher taxes, etc. What you want to hear about an energy program is that it will reduce the number of man-hours, the state’s gross product, and taxes because it will do more for less. It’s an energy program, not a jobs creation program.

The report didn’t address the effect a 20 percent renewable energy requirement by 2020 would have on electricity rates in Ohio.

You bet it didn’t.

Another problem with wind in Ohio is wind’s seasonal nature. A wind speed map on the organization’s site maps average wind speed over a year. But like most places, Ohio has great variation in wind over the course of a year. In this winter map from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, most of Ohio is rated a 3 out of 7 in wind “Power Class”. In summer, it drops to a 1, the lowest rating. So most wind will need to be generated on Lake Erie and we’ll need to retain nearly all of our on-demand energy production capacity anyway in order to supply electricity when there’s almost no wind. And that’s in the summer, the period of peak demand. Wind is not on-demand.

None of this should be taken to mean that I’m against wind power or other renewable sources. We should be spending money on increasing it’s efficiency and finding areas where it can work. But a 20% mandate for the state is the wrong way to go, and will be too expensive.

Here’s Environment Ohio’s report.

ThisWeek reports on Bexley’s scanning of city documents:

For the past two years, Bexley city staff has been scanning current and historic documents to create a digital library that dates back to 1908.

“I had a passion and vision for it when I began working for the city two-and-a-half years ago,” said Bill Minckler, technology director [who’s also running for mayor].

To date, 7,500 current and past documents have been digitally scanned into the system….

The ordinances from the early 1900s cannot respond to word searches, said Minckler. When they are scanned, the information is processed as a photo rather than as text, but Minckler said they are adding key words to those files that will aid in searches.

Kind of cool. I think they can do better than just keywords though. Google, for instance, sells an appliance that can index all of an organizations documents Google-style. If you just OCR the docs in addition to scanning them, you can make all of the words searchable. But that’s just armchair indexing on my part.

Bexley’s site is at www.bexley.org.

Columbus ought to spend a few bucks on this themselves.