It’s yet another gloomy, rainy morning in Cincinnati, so let’s let our minds take a voyage around the Internet and see what is going on in the world during the last 24 hours.
House Speaker John Boehner is probably cringing at a CBS News poll that found an overwhelming majority of Americans like the proposals mentioned in President Obama’s State of the Union address. And by “overwhelming,” we mean a whopping 91 percent of respondents. (You read that correctly.)—-
Knowledge Networks conducted the online poll. It has a nationally representative sample of approximately 500 people who watched the speech, and has a margin or error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Almost a week later, when not nearly as many people are paying attention, a staffer for Newt Gingrich admitted that the combustible candidate lied when he told CNN anchorman John King during a presidential debate that he offered witnesses to ABC News to rebut claims by his second wife that Newt wanted an “open marriage.” Turns out he didn’t offer witnesses.
So, Gingrich fibbed: Huh, who would’ve thunk it?
In other Newt strangeness, the ex-House Speaker said during a campaign stop in Florida Wednesday that if elected president, he would build a permanent base on the moon by 2020 and possibly make it the 51st state. Maybe that’s his jobs plan, building houses on the moon.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced he is ready to revive multinational talks about his nation’s nuclear energy program. But Ahmad — uh, that guy said his nation would continue enriching uranium, regardless. His announcement comes three days after the 27-member European Union imposed an oil embargo against Iran, at U.S. insistence.
Conservative Republican Rick Santorum continues to shore up his credentials as a right-wing extremist by telling CNN that women who get raped and become pregnant should "make the best out of a bad situation" and not have an abortion. (We’re not making this stuff up, sadly.)
Locally, two Cincinnati city councilmen who are a minority on the Democratic-dominated group are complaining that they’re being disrespected and pushed around by their colleagues. Republican Charlie Winburn (a darling of Citizens for Community Values) and independent Christopher Smitherman (a darling of the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes) dislike a new council rule that allows committee chairpersons to have authority over what items are discussed in their committees. Always the one for over-the-top rhetoric, Smitherman called the others “dictators.”
UPS is laying off 433 workers at a supply facility in Hebron, Ky., near the airport. The site will still employ about 150 other people.
An anti-bullying bill approved by the Ohio Legislature is headed toward Gov. John Kasich’s desk for his signature. The bill was motivated by the death of Jessica Logan, a Blue Ash teenager who killed herself after weeks of bullying in 2008.
The city’s building inspectors went to Over-the-Rhine this morning after getting reports that bricks were falling from the fourth floor of a vacant building at 1822 Race St.
