OK, the first two-thirds of that speech: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

McCain’s just never going to be anywhere nearly as good an orator as Obama, and everyone knows that. I did actually agree with many of the cultural/political positions he laid out, which was good. It’s a reminder that even if the right disagrees with John McCain on several controversial issues, there’s still a lot of reasons for the right to prefer him to the collectivized Democratic Party candidates. I’ll never completely get over McCain-Feingold though.

His own telling of the Hanoi Hilton years was quite strong- better than Fred Thompson’s telling of it. I do think they need to give that story a rest, however. Then the very end with the whole Country First bit was also very strong. I loved the ending with McCain’s exhortations to “fight, fight!” right through the crowd’s cheers.

I missed Cindy McCain. After watching speeches for two weeks, I’ve become exhausted from listening to them, so I wanted to save myself for John McCain’s speech. I like Lindsay Graham, but he’s no speechifier. He doesn’t seem to have the gravitas to hold a crowd at all.

What was the deal with Keith Olbermann cutting off Tom Brokaw in order to apologize on behalf of MSNBC for showing the RNC’s 9/11 video? Apparently, according to Keith, no television network should ever show any events from that day. He didn’t even say that the problem was the Repub’s politicizing of it- an objection which I would understand, if not agree with- the problem was showing anything at all, assuming he meant what he said.

I know the lefty mindset on the matter is that 9/11 footage makes Americans angry and gets them into a “Let’s roll!” spirit and that everything must be done to avoid that. It’s just weird for a media person to be so blatant about it. Meanwhile, footage of dead bodies floating in Katrina flooding- no problem. The RNC video didn’t have anything nearly that graphic.

From Business First:

Dispatch Printing Co. in a filing with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services posted Monday said tentative plans call for work-force reductions for its production operations at 5300 Crosswind Drive beginning Nov. 3. Targeted for cuts are 112 workers at the facility, most of whom are machinists or mailers.

Newspapers are not doing well. (Obvious statement of the day.)

I missed this on Friday when the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Metro blog broke it, but both Plunderbund and blogger interrupted posted the wrong phone number when they tried to make people like John Quinn “think before they do these kinds of disruptions.” The phone number has since been removed from both posts. In case you don’t know, John Quinn was the credentialed photographer who disrupted a recent Obama Ohio campaign event with a demand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The posted phone number actually belongs to Jonathan Quinn, not John Quinn. From Tom Benning’s Metro post:

The calls have started to subside, but Jonathan, an undecided voter, just wants the harassment to stop.

“I really don’t appreciate it,” he said. “I did nothing wrong.”

Jonathan said he isn’t related to the heckler Quinn and doesn’t know him.

The blogs have since removed Jonathan’s number. Tim Russo of the Web site Blogger Interrupted declined to comment.

Eric Vessels, whose blog is Plunderbund, apologized for the mistake, but defended posting what he thought was the photographer’s number.

“I want people to think before they do these kinds of disruptions,” he said. “I don’t intend people to call and harass. I don’t ever ask them to do that.”

Quite plainly, Eric’s being weaselly there. He doesn’t ever “ask” people to harass. I guess his position is that if his readers choose to do that on their own, it’s not his issue. But without any harassment, how would publishing home phone numbers cause people to think about disrupting events- which is his claimed motivation. Or is it the threat of harassment that’s supposed to accomplish that? I don’t see how he can reconcile the two points.

Here’s Tim Russo at blogger interrupted:

First things first. I got his phone number wrong, and I’m sorry. I tried my hardest to identify the right phone number, and screwed up. We got everything else right, his address, his voter registration, and his employer. So, my apologies to the other Jonathan Quinn.

However.

I am not going to apologize for attempting to publish the real John Quinn’s phone number.

In other words, sorry for the error, but there’s nothing wrong with the policy. I think that’s wrong. Is it a good thing that saying things in public that some disagree with means that you become the victim of a virtual flashmob of harassment? I’d say no. Buckeye State Blog had earlier published John Quinn’s apparent home address, which I posted about here. In the comments, Tim Russo seems to think that because John Quinn was engaging in a “smear”- that is, propagating an untruth about Barack Obama- that that makes the publishing of contact info more appropriate. But of course, on many issues there will be disagreement on what the facts are, so that rationale will just lead to a situation where everybody’s doing it. To the detriment of the free exchange of ideas, in my opinion.

Previously this publishing of personal info had been nearly universally frowned upon, but I think with the nature of partisan politics, and the particular fierceness of Democrats’ desire to win this year, the envelope’s being pushed in ways we might later regret.

See also takes on this from Political Outsider and Naugblog. (Unfortunately, Matt Naugle at Naugblog publishes Tim Russo’s phone number, which rather undermines the case.)

And as a final note, both Digg and Barack Obama’s official website have published comments which recite the wrong phone number. Once something’s on the web, it’s hard to scrub it, even if it’s totally wrong.

Here’s a pdf of Mayor Mike Coleman’s request for a review of CPD officer Susan Purtee’s behavior. It’s at 10TV News’s site.

Meanwhile, Purtee has been given desk duty:

On Tuesday, the department confirmed that Purtee was reassigned to a non-enforcement position until an Internal Affairs administrative investigation is completed.

There’s video at that link, where Maureen Kocot, who originally broke the story, interviews the mayor, who says:

“I was appalled. I was offended, both as an African American, but also as a mayor.”

Ann Fisher has a good column in the Dispatch:

Columbus Police Officer Susan L. Purtee can be as racist, bigoted and hateful as she wants. No law against that.

But would you want to watch her back while she’s patrolling neighborhoods? Would you want her watching yours?

And has the YouTube broadcast of videotapes depicting her views inflamed stereotypes and, therefore, harmed the ability of the police force to do its job?

This debacle, by the way, will not do anything to help the force’s flagging minority-recruitment program.

That last bit is a good point (my post on that here.)

The ADL has called for an investigation.

And the story has gone somewhat global- rather unfortunately for Columbus and Ohio- as the Guardian picks up the AP article.

(Previous post: The Columbus cop and the Jews.)

UPDATE: Jill Miller Zimon has a roundup here as well.

Here’s a story I can fully get behind:

Sales of hard liquor in Ohio hit a record $672.7 million this year, led by greater consumption, higher prices and a strong demand for pricier scotch, vodka and other spirits.

Statewide, sales of spirits higher than 21 percent alcohol, or 42 proof, rose 5.3 percent, while volume sales rose by 2.5 percent to 10.2 million gallons, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Liquor Control’s report for the fiscal year ending June 30.

So judging from recent media releases- and of course you should live your life according to media releases- Ohioans are a bunch of fat drunks.

Columbus’s local TV news doesn’t cover much state politics:

Although Columbus, Ohio is the state capital and where most of the state government resides, there does not appear to be any governing in Columbus. There are murders, rapes, and robberies a plenty; sports and weather and that’s it. Additionally, the local news readers cannot be expected to work five minutes every half hour. They replay the local “news” over and over.

One recent trend I’ve noticed is for the TV newsers to report on the weather once every 15 seconds (that’s an approximation).

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.

YouTube’s number 1 video of all time, both in views and in favoritedness, was made by a guy from Cleveland, it turns out. Nearly 56 million views- that’s not bad. The video, embedded below, is pretty awesome. It’s called Evolution of Dance.

From the Sydney Morning Herald last year:

Uploaded in April [2006], Judson Laipply’s creation has amassed an astonishing 36 million views. The clip shows the comedian and motivational speaker from Cleveland, Ohio, dancing a six-minute routine encompassing 32 songs spanning more than 50 years of music and dance. “I just love the fact that people enjoy the dance and use it as a pick-me-up to their day,” he told Icon. Following his YouTube success, Laipply says he has received loads of exposure for his business and has begun “leveraging my success into other ventures that I hope will be big”.

(Via Read/Write Web.)

Jeff Coryell at the Ohio Daily Blog had a post up a little while back on Ohio’s mayoral elections and the difficulty of finding information on them:

Bonobo at Blue Bexley has an intriguing post up today, listing the people who have pulled petitions for Bexley mayoral and city council races. Coincidentally, I spent some time yesterday visiting county party and board of elections web sites, and googling for media stories, trying to assemble a list of significant mayoral elections on the ballot in Ohio this year….

Unfortunately, I find that the info isn’t so easy to compile! The county party and BOE sites are very inconsistent and not necessarily up to date.

I’ve found that that’s frequently the case, and not just concerning elections. That’s one reason why I’ve set up OhioWiki- to be a good source of information on Ohio. One that will drill down to a much more local level than Wikipedia does.

So I’ve taken Jeff’s list and put it in a table on a page in the wiki I’ve called Ohio elections 2007. I’ve also started a page on the Columbus mayoral race- it’s bare-bones at this point.

Hopefully the wiki can be become a good place for information on Ohio’s elections. If you have something to add, go right ahead. Registration is optional.