The Dealer had a brief chat with Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, seeking some elaboration on his claim that he had been offered 30 pieces of silver to support a ballot proposal that could put casino gambling in Cincinnati.

DEALER:  Cecil, you explained your opposition to the Casino Amendment by saying that you wouldn't sell out for 30 pieces of silver. Did someone bribe you to support this proposal?

CECIL THOMAS:  Yes they tried, but I refused to sell out my messiah for some Ohio casino. I'm not going to let anyone be crucified like Judas did, no matter how many chips all that silver will buy me at the blackjack tables.

DEALER:  Alright Cecil, do you also condemn church festival gambling, or are casinos a bigger problem?

CECIL THOMAS:  Matthew 21:12 tells us that Jesus threw out the crooked money changers and card dealers who had turned the holy temple into a casino, so we know casinos are bad.   But church festivals are outdoors, so they're cool with Jesus.  Do you remember when Jesus was gambling for loaves and fishes and he kept on winning more and more? Well, that took place outdoors.

DEALER:  Cecil, where is your messiah now, or has your messiah already been crucified by Indiana and Kentucky?

CECIL THOMAS:  Why art thou asking of me the whereabouts of my savior Christ?  Thou art residing with the Devil's henchmen if thou asketh me to betray Him.

DEALER: Uh okay, fair enough. Your fellow council members overwhelmingly voted to pass this measure.  Are you calling them a bunch of sell-outs? 

CECIL THOMAS:  No, in their defense, they really didn't have anything to sell out. They're just unholy and demonic, that's all.

DEALER: Cecil, thank you for this thought-provoking interview. 

CINCINNATI - Last month, Cincinnati city councilman Jeff Berding pressured the state legislature to put a constitutional amendment (Article 15 Section 13) on the ballot that would allow casinos in Ohio counties that neighbor other states that allow casinos.

Berding says that a casino in Cincinnati could help alleviate the chronic depression of Cincinnati's blackjack-deprived, lapdance-deprived, indoor Marlboro-deprived, Roman Candle-deprived, adult bookstore-deprived, and decent multiplex-deprived populace.

However, the amendment may lose statewide support unless neighboring counties like Warren County can stay competitive with their own casinos.  In order to encourage these counties to support the amendment,  Berding is now pushing for an amendment to the original amendment (Section 13b) that would allow Warren County and other Ohio counties that neighbor Ohio counties, that neighbor Kentucky and Indiana counties to legalize casino gambling.

Unfortunately, amendment 13b would leave counties like Greene, Clark, and Fayette out in the cold - which is why Berding says he hopes the legislature will also put amendment 13c on the ballot, so that counties that are adjacent to counties that are adjacent to counties that are adjacent to Kentucky and Indiana counties can also stay competitive.

CINCINNATI - This week, Cincinnati gained notoriety among other cities, as having the only drug-free city water supply in the country.  All other cities tested positive because their residents were flushing prescription medications down the toilet.

Cincinnati passed the pharmaceutical drug test with flying colors, and only tested positive for caffeine, which was apparently flushed down the toilet during a local police cappuccino sting.

Water Works spokesman Rick Reynolds took some credit for the test results on Monday, while denying that he had spiked the water supply with Goldenseal.

Reynolds credited the Water Works's "pharmaceutical recirculation" program which helps residents who are burned out on a prescription medication to "share" their drugs with others, rather than flushing perfectly good drugs down the toilet.

 "Nobody in Cincinnati has flushed a single pill down the toilet since we started this pill sharing program, or we would've failed this drug test" claimed Reynolds.

Several Cincinnati residents expressed befuddlement at the news of other cities testing positive for drugs.

"Who in their right mind would flush a perfectly good bottle of Oxycontin, Vicodin, Percocet, Codeine, Lortab,  Xanax, Ritalin or Valium down the toilet?" said local resident Randall Jesse, "Don't tell me that other cities are doing that."

As a reward for passing the city water drug test, hundreds of thousands of area residents will be allowed to keep their jobs.

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." 

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."  

 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."

CINCINNATI -  Kenwood Republican Jerry Sanderson is so torn between voting for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the upcoming primary, that he is considering casting a Republican ballot on March 4th.

However, the combination of John McCain as the presumptive nominee on the Republican side, and a few boring county races doesn't give Sanderson much incentive to cast a Republican ballot either. 

"I really can't make up my mind between the two Democrats," says Sanderson, "I agree with the Ohio GOP that Hillary would be easier to defeat in the general election..  But what if I vote for her in the primary, and then she actually does win in November? I would never live that one down."

In an effort to keep Clinton out of the White House, Sanderson says that a vote for Obama is the safest bet.    But according to Sanderson, Obama has the least experience of them all, followed by Clinton and then McCain.

"What really gets me about Hillary is that she's this huge liberal who's been pretending to be a conservative for the last 8 years," says Sanderson.

"But then again, McCain has been pretending to be conservative for the last 4 years, so I guess Hillary does have more experience in that respect."