So It's Tuesday

I've spent the last couple mornings listening to Morning Edition from NPR. Driving home from Sarah's on Monday was pretty nice, I got to fill up on the usual NPR plus the news from two ends of the state. Then this morning, I got up at 6am with the sole purpose of listening to the radio and waking up slowly...which kinda backfired, but hey. It's all good.



The issue tho, is it's almost depressing to get to hear all that news. Not in the usual, "Oh the world's going to hell" sort of way, but in the "Man, I wish I had time to lookup the Cincinnati budget" or "I wish I had the time to go to the County Comissioner's meeting and see if they say anything else about the zoo levy." I wish I had the time to just...spend, doing this blog, for one thing. As it is, I've had to cut back drastically because once I start blogging in the morning, it's VERY difficult to stop...and that's just bad for business.



So I'll be trying to figure out how best to work around this time management crisis. Stay tuned, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.



Now for Some News...



The CIA interrogation tape scandal is just gearing up. NPR had a chat with a former Senate Intelligence Comittee Chairman Bob Graham. It was a little chilling to hear how difficult oversight can actually be when it comes to things like this, and how much like a rogue operation the CIA can still be.



The gunman in Colorado was an interesting story, considering I lived in Colorado Springs for a while and think I know where the New Life church is. It's a sad story, with the guy apparantly wanting revenge...but he seemed more than a little unsettled upstairs. I think the only lucky thing about this is only 4 people were killed. While it had appeared the security guard killed the criminal, it turns out he had killed himself.



Algeria had a couple of bombings...no one claiming responsibility, no apparant cause. The MO is apparantly consistent with the local branch of al-Qaeda, and the explosions took place near the Supreme Court and UN offices, respectively. 13 UN workers missing, 62 counted dead so far on the whole.



Cincinnati Schools approved 2 levies that could be placed on the March ballot. They had to approve them now to keep their options open, and so could still decide to put both or none on the ballot. One is an operating levy worth nearly $8 million, and the other a permanent improvement levy worth $3 million. The district needs money, badly, and after the last levy was shot down so thoroughly...I worry. If the citizens aren't willing to pay for education, where is the future going to come from?



Police Chief Streicher and the City Manager say they will follow the council's directive to spend $1.5 million on overtime for extra, high visibility police patrols. Streicher maintains he was able to provide the patrols last year without using overtime, and complained about not being able to stay flexible enough to react to trends.



The public hearing on the City's budget for the upcoming year took place Monday night. 80 citizens spoke their mind on a variety of issues, from desiring the city to keep funding humanitarian projects to asking the city to help fund sheriff patrols in OTR. Another large issue was the proposal to eliminate the building and inspections department, splitting up its duties among other departments. Council is expected to finalize a budget by December 19th.