CINCINNATI - Much of the local media hype about Ohio being a deciding factor in the Democratic primaries turned out to be overblown.  Tuesday's results left the delegate score relatively unchanged, but gave an opening to an extended May vacation for local Cincinnati Enquirer reporters Howard Wilkinson and Jane Prendergast.  

Indiana's primary is on May 6th and Kentucky's primary is on May 20th.  Since both states are part of the "Tri-State", both states are fair game for feature stories. Both states could also potentially be the deciding factor in the Democratic primaries. 

And as Howard Wilkinson and Jane Prendergast discovered this week, both states could have the exact same articles published about them, through savvy use of Microsoft Word's 'Find and Replace' function, all while Wilkinson and Predergast bask on a sandy beach in Hawaii, sipping pina coladas.

"Wow, this 'Find and Replace' function is just the coolest," said Wilkinson, "Just a few clicks of the mouse, and I've already finished all of my articles for May."

"Yippee," said Prendergast, upon learning about the 'Find and Replace' function,  "Honolulu, here I come." 

NORWOOD - First-graders at Allison Elementary in Norwood signed a historic peace treaty this week in an effort to end a grueling 130-day history of name-calling, temper tantrums, mean boys, and not sharing. 

Several clauses of the peace accords provided for good-faith efforts on everyone's behalf to cooperate and share with others. 

Signatories agreed that sanctions  would be levied against offenders, in the form of "quiet time-outs", "silent treatment", and the dreaded "embargo on Mike 'n Ikes".

A prominent clause of the peace accords declared the school playground a demilitarized zone.  Peace talks between the 6-year-olds centered around the historic agreement to ban water balloons, hair-pulling, slingshots and super-soakers from all jump-rope, tag and hopscotch activities during recess. 

However, there was one glaring omission: spitballs were not included in the arsenal ban, possibly due to their popularity in Mrs. Michaelson's classroom. 

Whether the historic peace treaty will help preserve last week's uneasy truce between Billy and Randy (when they shook hands and made up) remains to be seen.

CLERMONT COUNTY - Ohio Election officials took great pride in the primary this year, as a shortage of paper ballots across Ohio turned Ohio an earth-friendly green on Tuesday.

Clermont County Election Official Mary Jo Niebernaber says that the planned ballot shortage was just the first part in their "Reduce Ballots, Reuse Ballots, and Recycle Ballots" Initiative.

"I think we really were most successful in reducing the number of trees killed with our ballot shortage initiative," said Niebernaber, "But we also tried to convince people to reuse those wasted discarded ballots - all you really need is a little bit of white-out."

Election officials were also reusing some of the thousands of Republican ballots, with some quick changes to the ballot text (see ballot pictured at right).  

And the recycle part?  Niebernaber says that the remaining thousands of unused Republican ballots will be on the curb in her green bin this Thursday morning.

"I don't know why we even printed any Republican ballots this year," she said, "Think of all the trees that were killed, and so needlessly.  After all, I think everybody's gone Democrat this year." 

Sample our archives:

Who knows?  Katie in Northside (March 29, 2001) might still be looking for a roommate.  Call her at 470-8185 and find out

Are Amy and Dave at www.thebang.xs3.com still looking for a bad-ass guitar player?  (December 14, 2000)

Does Andy Baker still have any great deals on VHS tapes? Because he sure did back in 2002 (December 5th, 2002)

Citybeat.com classifieds -
Because a classified ad should be forever.

"Saddam Hussein Obama, Saddam Hussein Obama," chanted Cunningham in a sing-songy voice at the John McCain rally on Tuesday, "Boy, is he going to regret letting us know his middle name."

Cincinnatians are known for their sophisticated humor, and a person's embarrassing middle name can be the primary target of the Cincinnatian's rapier wit.

Local Cincinnatians with especially embarassing middle names, such as David Milosevic Akadjian, have to endure constant teasing, and rightfully so.  

"I refuse to be censored,"  Cunningham told reporters, "It is my right as an American to make fun of someone's extremely hilarious middle name."

PETERSBURG, KY -  Ken Ham defended dinosaurs against racism this week, as the director of Kentucky's Creation Museum promoted his new book "Darwin's Plague - Evolution's Racism Against Dinosaurs".   According to Ham, the theory of evolution has caused the worldwide besmirching of the dinosaur, into a being "unworthy of coexisting with humans".

"At one time, humans did indeed enslave dinosaurs," concedes Ham, "We forced the triceratops to pull our wagons, and the brontosaurus harvested our food for us."

However, in 3873 B.C., Abel and Cain had a dispute over Abel's treatment of his velociraptor slave, so Cain killed Abel.   This action ended the enslavement of dinosaurs, since there were only 25 other people on the planet at the time.  Soon after Abel's death, humans and dinosaurs coexisted peacefully, without racism.

"The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve in His image as Caucasians," said Ham, "It was only later that He created Hispanics, Africans, Asians, Arabs, and of course, dinosaurs."

"If we are to believe that Darwinism is correct, then God in His infinite wisdom thought that the dinosaurs should be created first," he continued.

Ham claims that dinosaurs only died out because Noah didn't have enough space on his ark for the dinosaurs, and not because dinosaurs were "unfit".. 

"Racist Charles Darwin claimed that the dinosaurs came first, and were somehow unworthy of life," said Ham, "As if God makes mistakes."  

Last year, the year the Cincinnati Dealer reporters went on strike, I realized how our influence was missed (Actually they are still on strike - Burt and I are just scabs).

Just think - Had we released endorsements last November,  Justin Jeffre and Sam Malone might have won seats on city council.   I don't want to let a missed opportunity like that to happen again, do you?    In order to have a little influence over this November's election, we offer the Dealer (Scab) Primary Endorsements, for the Republicans and the Democrats...  

Republicans  

Court of Common Pleas

Pat DeWine
Kathy King

If you look at his website, it appears that Pat DeWine is running for County Commissioner.  I honestly can't tell why he's running for Judge if he's already a County Commissioner, but whatever.  It seems like Pat just likes running for stuff.  I really have no idea what he's up to nowadays, and I like that in a candidate.  

In our (my) opinion, King seems to be WAY too qualified for this position, over-qualified, even.  When my time comes to face a judge, I hope that judge has absolutely no idea what's going on.  King has judicial experience and her website actually relates to the current campaign. She also wastes her time filling out online forms.  King is like one of those teacher's pet types - she disgusts me.

Meanwhile, Pat cheated on his wife, has no judicial experience, and can't be bothered to update his website.  If and when the law ever catches up with me, I would definitely prefer to face DeWine in the courtroom.

Dealer endorses: Pat Dewine

CINCINNATI -Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals CEO Steve Warshak of Forest Park was convicted Friday on four counts of non-aggrandizement and three counts of conspiracy to not engorge members.

Warshak's company sold Enzyte as it's premier "nutraceutical", a word that Warshak totally made up.  Enzyte's ingredients consisted of dehydrated molasses and maple syrup, at a precise ratio which Warshak claims gave him the penis he has today.

Berkeley made Cincinnati the penis enlargement capital of the world, and some say, put the "Forest" back in Forest Park.  However, federal prosecutors claimed that they didn't see results of Enzyte's advertised gains in length and girth. 

Although he faces 20 years for failing to enlarge penises, Warshak contends that he is personally responsible for over 150 miles in national manhood expansion.

"I stand by every mile," Warshak told reporters, "If anyone purchased Enzyte and still didn't experience at least a 24% gain in penile cubic centimers, I'd like to see photographic proof." [keywords berkley premium nutriceuticals steven warshack stephen worshak enzite]

 CINCINNATI - City Council member John Cranley submitted a plan (Cranley's concept illustration shown above) Wednesday that he says will give the city the best of both worlds: a fleet of streetcars that run all over the city, but without any of the infrastructure issues or the multi-million dollar price tag. 

 "No need for a debate about a route to OTR or Uptown," said Cranley, "We can have rubber-tire streetcars running all over the city at a fraction of the cost.  All our Metros need is a fresh coat of paint."

 A representative from SORTA immediately told Council that Cranley's idea would deplete bus advertising dollars, and asked council for another 50 cent increase.   Council immediately voted to approve the fare hike, and then opted to research Cranley's proposal.

CINCINNATI - Campaign headquarters for Hamilton County Commissioner candidate Ed Rothenburg are abuzz this week as Rothenburg looks forward to March 4th - his first win after about 200 unsuccessful campaigns, including losing runs for city council, state representative, key grip, senator, dogcatcher and real estate agent of the year.

Never mind that it's just an unopposed primary "win",  and the Republican Party still won't endorse Rothenburg, and the campaign headquarters only consists of him and his wife Rita alone at home - there was definitely excitement in the air.

"Yeah, I am the champion," says Rothenburg, "Who cares that it's just a primary.  I feel like somebody, I feel like declaring my endorsement for President."

And to further mark his historic win, Rothenburg plans on starting 3 more spam blogs to add to his collection.

Rothenburg has already teamed up with local spam blogger Vintage Corvettes, and together they have started 4 spam blogs, "Ed Rothenburg",  "Ed Rothenburg, Candidate for Hamilton County Commissioner",   "Ed Rothenburg Candidate", and "Ed Rothenburg 2008".

"All you have to do is start enough of these websites they call blogs," says Rothenberg, "You can look forward to my 3 new blogs coming soon, 'Ed Rothenburg for Commissioner' , 'Ed Rothenburg - Commissioner Candidate', and 'Vote Rothenburg for Commissioner'."

"Once I take over the internet, I can easily crush Todd Portune in November."