good news from the big lunatic tent in the middle

Cleveland Equanimous Philosopher: Top Ten Reasons Why I'm A Lunatic Who Doesn't Want Cleveland to Move Forward -- Great points here from Roger B. I guess we're all bozos on this bus, the lunatic fringe becoming mainstream. They've driven us crazy, and it's time to get our vote back, and then to get our money back.

Make sure you click through. The 10 points should be required reading for all who value a straight-up dialogue. Roger's keeping us all on task and sorting through the dross and the disinformation. We're up against progagandists.

One thing I want to find out is who is orchestrating the lies and the cheap-shot anonymous flyers, and who is renting the planes with the banners, and who's paying for it all? Even though it's working to our benefit in galvanizing the public, I still want to find out.

Yesterday, people paid the admission to get into the county fair, found us at our stall in building 20, signed the ballot, and left for their regularly scheduled Sunday.

Our county commissioners' stall at the fair was empty, according to intelligence brought back our scouts.

my solution: I'm just not going to play when it comes to paying the sales tax

Convention Center sales tax would end in 20 years - Cleveland Metro News – The Latest Breaking News, Photos and Stories from The Plain Dealer -- be sure to click through to look at the picture (respectfully called large_mart, not lard_mart) of the commissioners--perhaps the PD won't mind if we post it here as well. Tell me, are these happy campers?

Today, I took delivery from UPS of $112.22 worth of office supplies. They were exactly what I wanted, not what OfficeMaxx or Staples had on hand for me. I paid no county sales tax. I was ecstatic. I am doing my part to control my office's own little destiny and keep money out of the hands of the nefarious JimmyTimmy combo at the same time.

Just for spite and to put these jokers on notice, I'll go buy some fall clothes down in Wooster--Wayne County--next month. Perhaps we can even take a clothes-buying trip to Philadelpia, where there is no sales tax on shoes or clothes. Then we'll think where we should go buy the next car. Should I get my computers and peripherals on line? Of course. What other big buys can I shift out of Cuyahoga County?

Eventually, the only people who will be paying the Cuyahoga County tax will be those who have no internet access and those who can't leave the county to make their big buys. These boys are killing commerce to take care of short-term, self-declared solutions, bending us over and calling it a kindness. Let's face it, when we elected them, we put our money into the wrong hands. They're not trustworthy. They have no common sense. They do not respect numbers. They're withholding information. They're treating us as though we're stupid. Why are we putting up with this?

Of course, when the overall sales county-wide fall off and sales tax revenue heads towards the basement, they can always pick another popular target to tax, like smokers, and do it in the name of the arts, or the children. Maybe we can call it Issue 18-squared.

Consider, too, that if all the big-ticket sales leave the county, the only viable retail will be the Dollar Stores. Remember this the next time you hear JimmyTimmy mouth off about the benefits of their sales tax increase. Remember next time you go to the polls. The money's in the wrong hands. Fix it. Fix it good.

innumeracy running rampant in PD editorial

Push ahead on county building - cleveland.com -- Once again, the PLAIN DEALER, from its bully pulpit as the self-appointed arbiter of community values around here, comes down square on the side of innumeracy, spending sprees, bond issues, and cultural vacuity.

The cultural part is that they don't appreciate what tearing down a Breuer will do to our regional reputation across the country and internationally, especially if they're intending to replace it with "a Madison." Is that better or worse than "a Dicky" or "a Fleischman"? I guess the jury's going to be out on that one for a while. However, I don't think that demolishing a Breuer will enhance our collective reputations. But, the mark of a strong, self-sufficient, healthy mentality is that it doesn't take what others think overly much into account when formulating plans and actions. Let's assume the regional mentality is healthy, and let's move on to the numbers.

Numbers are bandied about freely in this dialogue, and they're broad-stroke numbers that are seldom correlated to anything else, or each other. Everyone here has been remiss in doing the due diligence required when it comes to net cost to the public--back then, now, and later. Restoration and rehabilitation will make for more jobs, but you don't hear that from our unions--there are way more man-hours in the re-do. Where is the comparison? Why don't they talk about the benefit for local labor?

Where is the side-by-side for acquisition cost, tax credits, demolition costs, abatement costs, and so forth? I've been to the hearings. It's not there. It's all just speculation. There is still no concrete plan for the new building. This whole thing reeks.

If you buy a building for $22M and then demolish it, what is left? The value of the land? The value of the other building? What is the difference between wasting an asset through demolition (let's face it, you just don't "deconstruct" anything from the raw-concrete "brutalist" school) and giving it away to another entity, an entity that could use the tax credits in a mixed-use-development (MUD) format? When you add up the cost of acquiring the asset, abating the asbestos, tearing it down, and building new at a time when construction costs are escalating and all that's available is non-Cleveland steel, doesn't it make more economic sense to give it away for nothing or sell it for a nominal sum to a developer experienced with MUDs who can use or sell the tax credits to lower the net cost, give the county an economic benefit in lease abatement equal to or greater than what their original cost of the acquisition was, and manage the property properly when we finally get around to reducing the size of county government, or when we go regional and all the smart management decides they want to be in Akron? (am I just kidding?)

Anyway, there's been no creative work done with the numbers, because the current two go-go boys on the county commission, Jimmy and Timmy, have no concern for what this will cost us, our kids, or our grandkids. (Heck, our kids, half our immediate family, have already left for Tennessee and Georgia, with our encouragement.) The go-go boys have no trouble with the concept of enslavement of the population to bond payments. They have no trouble with the concept of subsidizing the Kennedy family on our backs. They have no idea of the magnitude of the debt they create. All they do is talk about "too big" and "ugly" and "unadaptable" and "obsolete."

My mom used to say something about those who live in glass houses.

Mark Rosentraub: we need new immigrants

Fading away - cleveland.com --Hey, this article's a hoot. Mark Rosentraub, the very one who signed off on that half-baked study about tax abatement, now says we need new immigrants. It reminds me a lot of an old Richard Pryor routine.

Yep, Mark, without an underclass to live in the older structures and pay more than their fair share of the property tax, who's going to pick up the slack for all the new, tax-abated stuff?

we'd hate to see Google go the way of DR DOS, and OS/2

Microsoft Will Alter Vista Operating System - New York Times -- Finally, somebody has Microsoft's number. Bill Gates may be one of the best game players of all time, but sometimes he gets carried away and a bit ruthless--he has a sort of oriental approach to "all's fair" or winning at any cost. He probably took Sun Tzu's Art of War to heart, back in the day of The Masters of the Universe.

WASHINGTON, June 19 — Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of Vista is anticompetitive, lawyers involved in the case said on Tuesday.

The settlement, reached in recent days by state prosecutors, the Justice Department
and Microsoft, averted the prospect of litigation over a complaint by Google that Vista had been designed to frustrate computer users who want to use software other than Microsoft’s to search through files on their hard drives.

Google had made its complaint confidentially as part of the consent decree proceedings set up to monitor Microsoft for any anticompetitive conduct after it settled a landmark antitrust lawsuit five years ago that had been brought by the states and the Clinton administration.