I just added TIM RUSSO'S NEW BLOG, Ohio Countdown 2004, to my blogroll.

Tim is a local writer and politics freak... see his recent Salon article about the Kerry campaign in Ohio (warning: some ad watching required).

Today's blog entry says Jerry Springer should run for Governor. Looks like fun.

LINUX FOR THE REST OF US? Yesterday I loaded the "open circulation" version of Xandros Desktop, a commercial distribution of Debian Linux, on an old P3.

The open circulation package, including a full load of Sun's Open Office suite, is free to download (though it cost me ten bucks to get it from their http site rather than Bit Torrent.) If I'd bought it in shrinkwrap it would have cost me $39. If I'd bought the Deluxe Edition, capable of running MS Office and other Windows programs with CodeWeaver, it would have cost $89. But I was just experimenting, so I used the low-price spread.

The entire loading process took about 45 minutes, most of which was just watching it load. At first Xandros didn't recognize the computer's built-in Intel video adapter (the old Linux video-card bugaboo), so I futzed around for fifteen minutes finding a low-resolution setting to load with. After that, it asked about ten questions and wham, it was off and running. Half an hour later, it was fully installed... and connected to the office Windows 2000 network, the office printer and the Internet. (The video fixed itself.)

So now, for the price of a used P3 plus $10, I have a fully functional, fully licensed networked computer that operates, for most purposes, like it was loaded with Windows and MS Office. It looks like Windows. It responds like Windows. The menus look like Windows menus. It connects painlessly to a Windows network. It reads and writes most of the common Windows file formats, even without CodeWeaver.

Is it a Windows computer? No, of course not. It's a Linux computer, which means fewer freeze-ups, and fewer problems with viruses and spyware. Plus, I just saved at least $300 in software licensing costs.

This feels like a breakthrough to me...

KERRY LEADING AMONG OHIO INDEPENDENTS? Guest-blogging at Josh Marshall's Talking Points Thursday, Democratic pol-analyst Ruy Teixeira had the following:

A very recent (June 21-23) ARG poll of likely voters in Ohio has Kerry ahead by 6 (49-43), even with Nader in the mix. (He has an identical 6 point lead (50-44) when Nader is not included.) Polls taken in the last month or so have tended to show Bush ahead in this key state, so this is welcome news for the Kerry campaign.

Especially good news is Kerry's wide 15 point lead among independents (53-38). That's up from a 5 point Kerry lead in May. In Ohio, independents very much hold the balance since the numbers of Republican and Democratic voters in presidential elections are roughly equal and tend to be roughly equally polarized in favor of their candidate. In 2000, Bush won the state by 4 points and independents by 15 points. If Kerry can maintain anything like his current lead among Ohio's independents, Bush will be toast in the state.

And, he should have added, if people turn out to vote in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

(Teixeira's own blog is Donkey Rising.)

MAKING THE CONNECTION: THE 2004 NATIONAL SUMMIT FOR COMMUNITY WIRELESS NETWORKS... at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, August 20-22.

Car pool, anybody?

Making the Connection: The 2004 National Summit for Community Wireless Networks will be the largest community wireless networking event to date and will bring together technology and policy leaders, decision-makers, students, researchers, and other participants in wireless networking and community networking initiatives for the express purpose of discussing policy issues and practical solutions to problems facing community wireless networks.

I heard about this event at the national Community Technology Centers Network conference in Seattle the weekend before last. It's being organized by Prairie Net, one of the best surviving "FreeNet"-style community networks, and the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network. I don't know how much of a "national summit" it's really going to be -- hopefully it'll at least include folks from Chicago, where the Center for Neighborhood Technology is building wireless community meshes in a couple of neighborhoods -- but I'd go just to see what the two sponsors are doing. What the heck, Illinois is just down the highway, right?

And speaking of the Community Technology Centers Network, it's official -- CTCNet's 2005 national conference is coming to Cleveland! It'll be next June at the Intercontinental. The conference draws 600-700 community technology leaders from all over the U.S and a few other countries as well. We'll have lots more information posted on Digital Vision's website as the plans develop.

NEW OHIO JOB NUMBERS... THE NON-RECOVERY CONTINUES: The Bureau of Labor Statistics posted its May employment numbers for states this morning.

Total nonfarm employment in Ohio in May (seasonally adjusted) was 5,385,600, compared to 5,384,500 in April and 5,385,200 in March. (The April employment figure is significantly lower than originally reported... see below.) That's just four hundred new Ohio jobs in the last two months... during which the national economy supposedly added over half a million.

The May figure is 19,000 jobs below May 2003.

Remember the supposed revival of manufacturing? In Ohio: 827,900 manufacturing jobs in May, compared to 828,800 in April and 828,900 in March.

Easy come, easy go: Last month the BLS reported (on a preliminary basis, as always) a gain of 4,300 nonfarm jobs in Ohio between March and April. This was widely interpreted as evidence that the recovery was finally reaching us.

This month, BLS has revised its April figure downward by 5,000, which means the state actually lost 700 jobs between March and April.

SHARI WEIR IN CRAIN'S ON THE FIRST ENERGY RATE CASE:

In the current case... the PUCO gave First Energy, conditionally, an additional $2 billion in exchange for nothing at all...

What if Gov. Bob Taft said his second-term economic plan was to pull $1 billion out of the northern Ohio economy in each of 2006, 2007, and 2008?

That's what Taft's appointee Mr. Schriber and a majority of the PUCO just decided to let First Energy do. The "Third Frontier" turns out to be our pockets.

Ohio Citizen Action has the whole Crain's op-ed posted on its website.

WASTE OF BANDWIDTH: Well, it's one week later. The Cleveland School District budget cuts, teacher and other layoffs, slashing of bus transportation, slashing of bilingual staff, etc. etc. are now final as of the School Board meeting Tuesday evening.

But there's still not a word about it on the School District web site... or on the Mayor's web site, either.

Should we conclude, charitably, that the District's PR office has been cut back and there's no one left to post press releases? But no, here's one posted on Monday. All about an administrator you never heard of who got a better job in Minneapolis, and how elated Barbara Byrd-Bennett is for her -- with five, count'em, five media relations staff listed as press contacts.

And here's another one, also posted Monday: "Six Students To Attend Camp Focus".

CLEVELAND, OH – Team Focus announced this week that four Cleveland Municipal School District students would attend Camp Focus Michigan on the campus of Concordia University in Ann Arbor, June 28th through July 2nd.

Additionally, two more students will attend the national camp in Mobile, Alabama, July 11th through 15th. Expenses are being paid by the national Team Focus organization.

With that kind of breaking news to handle, I guess you can understand why the District's five media relations professionals and its crack website staff haven't gotten around to the small stuff -- like the School Board amputating teaching staff and bus routes.

Geez, what a waste of bandwidth. Hey, I know where they can save some money...

SCHOOL BUDGET CRISIS INVISIBLE ON SCHOOL, CITY WEBSITES: Last evening at a School Board meeting at Garrett Morgan, the Cleveland Municipal School District administration announced its second big round of budget cuts for the coming school year, including hundreds of additional teacher layoffs. Everyone from CEO Byrd-Bennett to the teachers union to the press to -- well, everyone -- agrees that this budget-cutting process is an historic crisis for the schools. Everyone knows it's the prelude to a big tax levy this November. Locally, this is the most important public issue of 2004.

Here's the School District's "News and Information" webpage, with current news releases. And here's the news release archive.

Please note that there is still not one document with information about the budget crisis, cuts, or levy posted.

Mayor Campbell is the only elected official with responsibility for the operations of the CMSD. Here is Mayor Campbell's archive of press releases, current through today. Please note that here, too, there's not one document posted with information about the budget crisis, cuts, or levy.

I guess Cleveland citizens are supposed to get our information about our public school system from Channel 19.

A FERRY GOOD IDEA MOVES FORWARD: The Port Authority Board took delivery yesterday of its long-awaited feasibility study on Cleveland-to-Ontario ferry service. Bottom line: The market seems to be there for tourists and trucking; the economics look workable; let's move forward to bids from potential operators.

The PD's front page story is here:

A Cleveland-Canada ferry could shove off in two years - a ship that could carry more than 800 passengers and 400 cars and include restaurants, bars, shops and cabins to take a nap.

But no gambling, said Rose Ann DeLeon, director of strategic development for the Cleve- land-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

A $400,000 port authority study recommended a one-way fare between $45 and $55 per person, according to season, and between $25 and $40 for a cabin. The cost of a car would be an extra $50 to $60.

Cost would be about $100 for a tractor-trailer, including the driver's fare, and between $100 and $120 for an RV, but does not include the driver's fare.

The trip would take between four and 4½ hours.

The full 87-page TranSystems study is already posted at the Port's website here.

TranSystem's proposed $45-55 fares are comparable to other trans-lake ferries, but the projected travel time is significantly slower. The new Milwaukee-Muskegon "Lake Express", for example, covers a similar 90+ miles across Lake Michigan in two and a half hours, at $50 per passenger. The difference probably stems from TranSystem's proposal to combine passenger/car and truck service in one vessel, which seems like a good idea to me. But if the trip is going to take over four hours to Port Stanley, it probably needs to be cheaper -- which isn't a bad idea anyway, if the Port wants its ferry to become a routine transportation mode, not just a tourist attraction.

Stay tuned, this is getting interesting.

P.S. Who brought up gambling?

RECOVERY STILL JOBLESS: The Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly employment numbers for metro areas are out today. Nonfarm employment for the Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria metro area was 1,107,200 in April, up about 6,000 jobs compared to March. But these are "non-seasonally-adjusted" numbers -- meaning that they don't take into account the fact that employment always ticks up in April compared to March. Compared to April 2003, the April 2004 job count is down by about 800.

Bottom line: Cleveland metro-area employment is essentially unchanged from a year ago. And from two years ago, for that matter.