T-Mac's Smack

I've moved

2007-08-10T08:25:00.002-07:00

Hey folks, I don't know why our computer people didn't tell me I needed to do this sooner, (they're computer people, what can I tell you). But this blog site has moved. (Now the computer people told me where to tell you to go to find it, but they don't seem to realize that everytime they open their mouths I'm swearing some sort of Martian language is coming out.) I'll see what I can do to find myself.

HA. HA. A computer person slipped up and spoke English. I'm found..
Go here. Read my blog. Comment, banter, cuss computer people ... Woo Hoo
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/blog/user.php

I've moved

2007-08-10T08:25:00.001-07:00

Equal time for my GOP friends

2007-07-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Somebody recently responded to a blog I wrote that sorta questioned the sanity of those who worship Bill O'Reilly, by calling me a "good little Democrat."

To that person I say "I ain't a good little nothin'."

Anyway, I've got a little something to make you Republicans smile. 'Cause I do love ya. Really.

A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal.
Feeling somewhat hungry, he sat down and looked overThe menu...

+ Broiled Missionary: $10.00
+ Fried Explorer: $15.00
+ Grilled Republican: $20.00
+ Baked Democrat: $100.00

The cannibal called the waiter over and asked, 'Why such a price difference for the Democrat?'

The cook replied, "Have you ever tried to clean one? They're so full of (poop) , it takes all morning."

Good quote

2007-07-23T08:13:00.001-07:00

Good ol' Ben.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

More plastic stuff

2007-07-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

This article was discovered for me by someone who listens to NPR (try it sometime, you may give up Bill O'Reilly forever)

Anyway, it adds a little more information to the discussion we were having about all the plastic that is finding its way into our oceans.

Battle over Method Thwarts Bottle Recycling
by Nancy Cohen

Morning Edition,

July 23, 2007 · Companies that reclaim the plastic resin from empty beverage bottles say they can't get enough of the stuff. However, fewer than one-quarter of the billions of plastic bottles Americans purchase every year are recycled.
Some of the worst places for recycling are large public events. For instance, baseball games at Boston's Fenway Park draw more than 36,000 fans, but there are no recycling containers in sight.
A Little League park in Mansfield, Conn., may have a better game plan — a transparent receptacle with a recycling symbol stamped on the outside. The containers have increased the recycling of bottles and cans in town parks by about 60 percent.
"It was like 'Yes! This is the answer to public events!'" says Virginia Walton, Mansfield's recycling coordinator.
Walton says the key to getting people to recycle more is to give them a way to do it — and make it a no-brainer.
'Bottomless' Demand for Bottles to Recycle
Public recycling bins of any kind are rare in the United States, but the industry that recycles the bottles' plastic resin, known as PET, is hungry for more to make fabric, carpets and new bottles, says Michael Schedler of the National Association for PET Container Resources.
"The demand is almost bottomless at this point," Schedler says. "There's so much new demand coming on and existing demand can't be met."
Across the country, recycling programs for plastic bottles are a hodgepodge — each state and town does its own thing. Some recycle plastic at the curb; others at drop-off centers. Some don't recycle at all.
Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council says container deposit laws, also known as "bottle bills," give a financial incentive to recycle.
"People realize in bottle-bill states that throwing out a can with a deposit on it is, in effect, throwing out a dime or a nickel," Hershkowitz says.
Many Grocers, Bottlers Oppose Deposit Laws
The 11 states with bottle bills account for more than 60 percent of the PET plastic recycled in the United States. But many grocers are against deposits.
"It's somewhat dirty, it's inconvenient and it actually costs us money," says Ken Capano, who owns two ShopRite stores in Connecticut.
Capano says the deposit law in his state places too much of the burden of recycling on grocers, who have to provide space and machines to take the bottles back. It costs each of his stores about $20,000 a year, he says.
Bottlers, who have to administer container deposits in some states, also oppose the laws. Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, says curbside programs work better.
"The key is a comprehensive program that draws in not just bottles and cans but milk jugs and newspapers and magazines and detergent bottles and all the things that make up the waste in our communities," Neely says.
In California, the deposit program funds curbside recycling. Jim Hill of the California Department of Conservation says the state uses the money from bottles and cans that aren't returned. That adds up to $250 million a year.
"Curbside systems, drop-off systems all working together, I think, is the best approach to get the best bang for your buck," Hill says.
California also addresses some of the grocers' concerns. Instead of supermarkets taking back the bottles, independent redemption centers do. The state also puts a deposit on all beverage containers except milk and wine.
Some Say Laws Should Target More Than Bottles
Kim Jeffrey, president and CEO of Nestle Waters North America, says he's not against container deposits, but he says beverages should not be the only containers targeted.
"Everybody that sells a plastic container that's recyclable should have some deposit on it if we're going to do this thing the right way," Jeffrey says.
And he means everybody.
"If it's P&G with a detergent container; if it's ConAgra with a peanut butter container; or if it's me with a bottled water container; or if it's a dairy with a one-gallon milk container — this should be a level playing field on this," Jeffrey says.
Hershkowitz says that if Americans don't recycle more plastic, other problems will get worse.
"Petroleum-based plastics emit enormous amounts of hazardous emissions and greenhouse gases during the acquisition of the petroleum and the transformation of that petroleum into a plastic product," he says.
Hershkowitz says recycling avoids that pollution, but making recycling work isn't a national priority. However, the growing market demand for empties may trigger a new commitment.

Craig's response

2007-07-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well now I told ya'll yesterday that I was going to eventually talk to Toni Craig, the head of the Okaloosa County Democratic Party and get some thoughts from her on John McDaniel's candidacy for the 5th District House of Representatives seat.

I did.

Craig believes McDaniel's candidacy will represent her party's first real challenge of the Republican Party's complete dominance in this region.

Part of the challenge will be energizing Democratic voters in Okaloosa County, which owns about 35 percent of the total voters in the mostly rural house district that stretches from Fort Walton Beach to out by Marianna, where McDaniel, Jackson County's sheriff, is from .

Craig said the state Democratic Party is also enthused by McDaniel's candidacy ... maybe too enthused. "They're getting him out there sooner than he wants to be," she said.

Craig also said she believes Okaloosa County Commissioner Sherry Campbell will be the front runner in what is now a three person race for the Republican nomination in District 5.

A new day??????

2007-07-18T14:15:00.001-07:00

Strange as it might seem to you and I, the St. Petersburg Times is gotten all atwitter at the notion of a Democrat running for office in what they so boorishly refer to as "The Panhandle."

(For the folks that still call this newspaper the "Playground Daily News, our region is long past being called the Panhandle. We're the Emerald Coast, or Northwest Florida --- at least right up until the time the St. Joe Company gets into enough Chamber of Commerce pockets to convince us all that we really should be Florida's Great Northwest.)

Anyway, there's this Democrat, name 'o John McDaniel, who's announced his intention to run to fill the District 5 state House seat currently occupied by Rep. Don Brown, a Republican from DeFuniak Springs.

Mr. McDaniel is the sheriff of Jackson County. So he's a gun-totin' Democrat. That's got to be worth something. Former House Speaker Allan Bense though, told the St. Pete Times he thinks Jackson's got a major undertaking on his hands.

Toni Craig, Okaloosa County's Democratic Party chairman (Hee Hee. Okaloosa's Democratic Party, tickles me even to type it) obviously thinks Mr. McDaniel "Johnny Mac" has got a good chance. She's the one that notified me of the St. Pete story.

Ms. Craig could not be reached for comment for this particular blog, at least not yet.

(always evolving media that Internet.)

And you know, he could. There's a lot more Democrats over there near Marianna where McDaniel is from then there are here. Might be interesting.

By the way, in the interest of fairness, I probably need to mention that there are three GOPers' already chomping at the bit to replace Brown, who is leaving because of term limits. They are Brown's legislative assitant Brad Drake (who has been with the representative since he was first elected in 2000) Okaloosa County Commissioner Sherry Campbell and Andrew Dwyer, who the Times reports is the proud "owner of a janitorial company."

And one other little aside. I'm going to miss Rep. Brown when he's gone. I like his guts ... and ... to this date he is the first and only state representative to ever pull me out of a fire ant bed.

What do you think of Johnnie Mac's chances? What do you think of a member of this Okaloosa County Commission running for state office? What do you think about being referred to as the Panhandle? What do you think about having St. Joe Company shove "Florida's Great Northwest" down our throat.

And what do you think about the vast number of fire ant beds in this region and does knowing that Don Brown pulled me out of one lessen your opinion of him?

wonderful, just wonderful

2007-07-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a little breaking news from a group called Friends of the Earth

Make anybody feel like advocating for nuclear power?

World’s Most Powerful Nuclear Reactor Catches Fire
July 16, 2007

World's Most Powerful Nuclear Reactor Catches Fire, Leaks Radioactive Waste into Sea after Earthquake

Accident in Japan serves as reminder that nuclear power is not safe, says Friends of the Earth Executive Director Norm Dean

KASHIWAZAKI, JAPAN -- The Associated Press is reporting that the world's most powerful nuclear reactor caught fire and leaked 325 gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Sea of Japan today after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake in the northwestern part of Japan.
Friends of the Earth-U.S. Executive Director Norman Dean issued the following statement in response:
"This accident is a reminder that nuclear power is not safe," said Dean. "Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to natural disasters and unintentional human errors, as well as intentional sabotage such as a terrorist attack. There is also the long-term problem of transporting and storing radioactive nuclear waste once it is used. Like the disaster at Chernobyl and near-disaster at Three Mile Island, today's accident reminds us that nuclear power is hardly the safe panacea its supporters claim it to be. Energy conservation and wind and solar power are cleaner and safer than nuclear power, and they are a better way to fight global warming."

All good things ...

2007-07-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Found this on the World Wide Web. What is this world coming to?

Vt. Town Considers Banning Nudity

By JOHN CURRAN Associated Press Writer

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Topless women on parade? That was fine. Teenagers loitering in the buff, in a downtown parking lot? No problem. Naked sunbathers at swimming holes? It was just au naturel.
But a senior citizen in his birthday suit, walking through the center of town on a Friday night, wearing only a fanny pack? That's where Brattleboro draws a fig leaf.
After years of allowing public nudity, the town famous for its strip-and-let-strip attitude is considering banning it in parts of town, saying naked notoriety has begun drawing people here and is offending locals.
The town's Select Board plans to introduce an emergency ordinance banning nudity in some parts of town Tuesday.
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should," said Select Board member Dick DeGray. "You can't go into a store and buy an adult magazine until you're 18, and yet you can walk down the street in Vermont and see naked people. There's something wrong with that picture."
On July 6, a 68-year-old man showed up naked downtown, walking the streets during Gallery Walk, a monthly social event in which people roam downtown, stopping in art galleries and shops. Gallery owner Suzanne Corsano was locking up for the night when she encountered him on a sidewalk.
"Naked people don't impress me," said Corsano, 60. "But to be walking down the street like that. I just looked straight at him, and he looked down. He was trying to get me to look down there, but I wouldn't."
The man told residents he was from Arizona and had decided to vacation in Brattleboro after reading about its public nudity freedom on the Internet.
Vermont has no state laws against public nudity, although a handful of cities and towns have enacted anti-nudity ordinances.

Like a wise man once said. "You cain't make this stuff up."

I particularly like the "there's something wrong with this picture" quote. So apropo.

Idiot sighting

2007-07-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

A little Friday humor. Do you have any "idiot sightings" of your own?

The people you work with are actually smarter than you think!

IDIOT SIGHTING:
I had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us
that one of our problems was that we did not have a "large" enough
motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the
largest one Sears made at that time a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his
head and said, "Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower." I responded that
1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, "NO, it's not." Four is larger than
two. We haven't used Sears repair since.

______________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
I live in a semi rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the
local township administrative office to request the removal of the
Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason: "Too many deer are being
hit by cars out here! I don't think this is a good place for them to
be crossing anymore."

From Kingman, KS

____________________________________

IDIOTS IN FOOD SERVICE:
My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked
the person behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was
sorry, but they only had iceberg. He was a Chef?

Yep...From Kansas City!

______________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport
employee asked, and "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge. To which I replied, "If it was without my knowledge, how
would I know?" He smiled knowingly and nodded, "That's why we ask."

Happened in Birmingham, Ala.

_________________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street.
I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine.
She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it
signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded,
"What on earth are blind people doing driving?!" She was a probation
officer in Wichita, KS

__________________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker who was leaving
the company due to "downsizing." Our manager commented cheerfully,
"This is fun. We should do this more often." Not another word was
spoken. We all just looked at each other with that
deer-in-the-headlights stare. This was a bunch at Texas Instruments.

________________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into
itself and for the sake of her own life, couldn't understand why her
system would not turn on. A deputy with the Dallas County Sheriffs
office no less.

___________________________________________

IDIOT SIGHTING:
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up
our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the
service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock
the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I
instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was
unlocked. "Hey," I announced to the technician, "its open! His reply,
"I know - I already got that side." This was at the Ford dealership
in Canton, Mississippi!

Scary stuff

2007-07-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

This is one of the scariest things I think I've ever read. Call me a tree hugger if you will, but if these excerpts from Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" are as accurate as I believe them to be ... then it's past time to get off our collective rumps and do something to save the world from ourselves.

The excerpt describes an adventure undertaken by a Capt. Charles Moore of Long Beach, Calif. Moore sailed out of Honolulu into something known as the Horse Latitudes, or scientifically, as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The gyre is a Texas-sized span of ocean between Hawaii and California described as a "slowly rotating high-pressure vortex of hot equatorial air that inhales wind and never gves it back. Beneath it, the water describes lazy clockwise whorls toward a depression at the center."

"Moore had wandered into a sump where nearly everything that blows into the water from half the Pacific Rim eventually ends up," Weisman said in the book.

"For a week, Moore and his crew found themselves crossing a sea the size of a small continent, covered with floating refuse ... what was bobbing around them was a fright of cups, bottle caps, tangles of fish netting and monofilament line, bits of polystyrene packaging, six-pack rings spent balloons, filmy scraps of sandwich wrap and limp plastic bags that defied counting."

Note, everything was plastic in one form or another.

"The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic, he (Moore) found," said the excerpt, run in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, "was because most of it ends up in an ocean-fill."

Some things Moore later discovered, as related in the excerpt article.

By 2005, the Pacific dump was "referred to" as 10 million square miles.

Plastic debris, Moore believed, had become the "most common surface feature of the world's oceans."

All this had occurred within about 60 years, when plastics became prevalent in our lives.

There are six other major tropical oceanic gyres much like the one between Hawaii and California.

Thoughts?

Heeee's back.

2007-07-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away so long. Hope all of you haven't abandoned me. Here's a little something to catch your attention. And hopefully, induce a comment or two.

Pizzeria serves up a steamy side of porn

COMMENTARY
By Al Olson
Associate Editor
MSNBC
It’s not the secret pizza sauce. It’s not the blend of Italian cheeses. And it’s not the spicy pepperoni.
So, what is it that makes this pizza so popular? Porn.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sex sells. And Canadian entrepreneur Corey Wildeman is exploiting this well-worn business adage to its fullest by serving steaming hot pizza — with a side of steaming hot pornography. And he has certainly aroused attention.
[Marker]When you order a pizza from Porno Pizza in Winnipeg, Ontario, you get a pornographic photo on the bottom of the cardboard box. The racy image is revealed as you eat the pizza.
Wildeman opened up his pizzeria last month and wanted to create a buzz. He needed a marketing gimmick. He got his inspiration from classic porno flicks where "pizza delivery guys meet lonely ladies and deliver more than just pizza," he said.
According to the 30-year-old purveyor of pizza and porn, his enterprise is completely legal. Customers must show identification proving they are at least 18 before getting their pie.
Surprisingly, according to Wildeman, more than 75 percent of his clientele are women.
"I'm pretty pleased to see that a demographic that some people might think that we're offending is actually a lot more open to the concept than society would think," he said.
Not everyone in Winnipeg is pleased. "We live in a society that is so steeped in porn that people have it delivered to the dinner table," Roz Prober of child advocacy group Beyond Borders lamented in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Of red ears, yellow bellies and reptiles in the SEC

2007-07-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

This just in from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

New rules for red-eared slider take effect July 1

Beginning July 1, people no longer may purchase red-eared sliders -- common pet store turtles. A new rule passed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) prohibits selling the species. However, anyone who already has a red-eared slider may keep it, under the new rule.
“This exemption was included to allow owners of red-eared sliders to keep their turtles and discourage them from releasing this nonnative species into the wild,” said Scott Hardin, FWC exotic species coordinator. “We want to encourage people to protect our native turtles. Red-eared slider turtles interbreed with Florida’s native yellow-bellied sliders.”
Red-eared sliders already in captivity will not be allowed to breed, so any offspring will have to be surrendered to certified red-eared slider adopters or dealers, or euthanized.
People still can buy and sell albino red-eared sliders and others with unusual color variations, often known as pastels.

So what do you get when you cross a red-eared slider with a yellow-bellied slider?

I don't know what makes me want to say "A Florida fan." I don't know, doesn't really make sense. Probably just pure hatefulness or something. 'Course, yellow and red do make orange.

Maybe I should say "A Tennessee fan."

Fending off the drillers

2007-06-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

I for one, hope the senators win this fight.

(From Senator Nelson's office)

Florida’s two senators on Wednesday wrote a stern letter of warning to colleagues they will try to block efforts underway to direct or fund seismic surveying for oil and gas off the nation’s coasts.
Sens. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Mel Martinez, a Republican, said they were sharing their "strong objection" to the inclusion of such language into the Energy and Water Appropriations bill.
"We believe such attempts undermine the protections for states like Florida that do not wish to have oil and gas development off their shores," they wrote.
Their letter was addressed to Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, and Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
"If such language directing seismic surveys is included in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, or any other legislation, we will use our senatorial rights to prevent this erosion of our coastal protections," Martinez and Nelson warned.
Aides to Dorgan and Domenici did not return telephone calls.
Environmentalists and other critics of such seismic surveying for oil and gas say they agree it would be the first step to undermining and then removing the offshore drilling moratoriums that have been in place for a quarter-century.
The underwater explosions involved in such surveys are harmful to marine life, environmental groups say.

Romney bad. "What's her name" ... not as bad

2007-06-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

Funny when you write about somebody like Mitt Romney, folks step up to give you more information. A gentleman, who claims to be a Republican, said he'd rather vote for "what's her name" (whoever that could possibly be) than Romney. And this, as reported by the Boston Herald, is why.

Romney pardons: Then versus now
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Saturday, June 16, 2007

Don’t ask Anthony Circosta of Agawam about the "Romney Legacy" because he
might just tell you.

Circosta, 29, holds a Bronze Star for his recent tour of duty in Iraq,
where he led a 20-man platoon in the Sunni Triangle in 2005. What he really
wants to do now that he’s back home is become a police officer. But he has one
blemish on an otherwise clean record. At age 13 he was arrested and convicted
of assault for shooting another kid in the arm with a BB gun. The shot did not
break the skin, but the assault conviction remains.
Twice during Mitt Romney’s term as governor, Circosta made his case to the
Board of Pardons and twice they approved it and sent it along to Gov. Romney,
who rejected the recommendation.
"I’ve done everything I can to give back to my state and my community and
my country and to get brushed aside is very frustrating," Circosta told the
Associated Press.
It was nothing personal, after all. In fact, during his four years in
office Romney received 100 requests for commutations and 175 requests for
pardons. All were denied.
Rather than actually consider each of those requests on the merits,
Romney had a policy - the policy was to reject them all out of hand. Doesn’t
that make life simpler? That way he can’t make a mistake. Nope, there will be
no Willie Horton to come back to haunt his presidential campaign.
This is how Romney described that policy to the AP:
"I took a careful review during my term as governor of the people that
were brought forward. That doesn’t mean I pardoned them, but I took a careful
review."
And what does the man who granted no pardons think about one for Scooter
Libby?
"It’s worth looking at that," he said in last week’s presidential
debate. "I will study it very closely if I’m lucky enough to be president. And
I’d keep that option open."
Take that, Anthony Circosta.

So very true

2007-06-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost.
She reduced altitude and spotted a man below.
She descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I
promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I
don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering
approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41
degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the man, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically
correct, but I've no idea what to make of your
information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been
much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."

The man below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're
going.You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You
made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and
you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you
are in exactly the same position you were in before we
met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

see what I go through?

2007-06-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

NEWS FROM THE FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
For Immediate Release: June 26, 2007
(I've added a few notes of my own, as I'm apt to do.)

Urgent Memo to Florida Political Reporters Covering Romney

MEMO
To: Florida Political Reporters
From: Florida Democratic Party
Date: June 26, 2007
RE: Be Careful Covering Mitt Romney Today
The Florida Democratic Party today urges the state's political reporters who are covering former Governor Mitt Romney, Republican of Massachusetts, to be on the look out for paid campaign staff impersonating law enforcement officials who may try to inhibit your ability to cover Romney's frequent flip-flops.
This is no joke.

Darn right it's no joke. I don't want anyone inhibiting my ability to cover anybody's frequent flip-flops.

Hell, I'd even object to someone trying to inhibit my coverage of infrequent flip flops (or occasional sandals).

All Florida political reporters should be aware that a high-level traveling staffer for Romney is now under investigation in New Hampshire for impersonating a law enforcement agent when he allegedly pulled over a New York Times reporter, telling him his plates had been run and that he could not follow a Romney campaign caravan.

Probably, if he hadn't been a cop impersonator, the agent could have cited the New York Times guy for being a phony newspaper reporter, or a reporter for a phony newspaper.

Today, as Romney raises money in Florida, you may want to ask his donors if they are comfortable funding this sort of activity.

Of course. "Tell me donors, wouldn't you rather just make a check out to ME?"

Please note that the staffer in question continues to be paid by the campaign while under investigation.

And the staffer ... Drum roll please

Additionally, on a different occasion, the aide, Jay Garrity, or "Trooper" Garrity, also allegedly pulled over a reporter from a different publication, Fortune magazine. That reporter said that while trailing Romney in New Hampshire on Memorial Day for a forthcoming magazine piece, Garrity instructed her at one point to stop tailing Romney's car."

That's why they ought to give reporters tasers, to shield themselves against Mitt Romney's phony agents and get answers out of irritating county commissioners.

It's a tough job I got.

patriotism

2007-06-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

With thanks to Captain Skip Vogel (CHC) USN (Ret) (and Damon "Bloomin' SOB" Bloom) for passing this along.

From a Chaplain in Iraq.
"I recently attended a showing of "Superman 3" here at LSA Anaconda. We have a large auditorium we use for movies as well as memorial services and other large gatherings. As is the custom back in the States, we stood and snapped to attention when the National Anthem began before the main feature. All was going as planned until about three-quarters of the way through the National Anthem the music stopped. Now, what would happen if this occurred with 1,000 18-22 year-olds back in the States? I imagine there would be hoots, catcalls, laughter, a few rude comments, and everyone would sit down and call for a movie. Of course, that is, if they had stood for the National Anthem in the first place. Here, the 1,000 soldiers continued to stand at attention, eyes fixed forward. The music started again. The soldiers continued to quietly stand at attention. And again, at the same point, the music stopped. What would you expect to happen? Even here I would imagine laughter as everyone sat down and expected the movie to start. Here, you could have heard a pin drop. Every soldier stood at attention. Suddenly there was a lone voice, then a dozen, and quickly the room was filled with the voices of a thousand soldiers 'And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?' It was the most inspiring moment I have had here in Iraq. I wanted you to know what kind of Soldiers are serving you here.
===================
Written by Chaplain Jim Higgins on 5/14/07. LSA Anaconda is at the Balad Airport in Iraq, north of Baghdad"

don't say you weren't warned

2007-06-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

This just in from the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office

Getting drunk drivers off the road is always a major priority for the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. In fact in 2006 alone, deputies made 509 DUI arrests on our roadways.
On Friday, June 29th, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Traffic Enforcement Unit will take part in a countywide DUI enforcement campaign, putting out added patrols to enhance their ongoing efforts.

Asleep at the wheel

2007-06-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

Walton County officials learned recently that they were among the biggest sinners, the ones who, as state Sen. Don Gaetz often put it, "didn't leave any money on the table" when real estate valuations spiked during 2004-05. That's why the county is being forced to cut its ad valorem taxes by 9 percent.

Sooo what's their response to this news?

"Let's buy a $1.75 million park."

I just don't get it.

Here's something

2007-06-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Hi Everyone!!Hope all of you are doing GREAT!Wanted to ask a favor of my friends. PAWS is in desperate need of towels and sheets, blankets and comforters. Could you please take a look through your linen closet and gather any old, tired and unused items for us!? These towels and sheets are used for bedding for cats, kittens, dogs and puppies as well as for drying after bathing and for multiple uses in our veterinary clinic. We would be most appreciative if you could put an e-mail out to your friends, family and co-workers letting them know of the need as well! If you work for a company, can you please either send out an e-mail to your co-workers or just ask around? If a large amount of items are collected at a central location we would be more than happy to come pick up. If you have items for donation and would like to drop them off we are located right where the old back gate to Hurlburt used to be….752 Lovejoy Road.THANK you so much in advance from the wonderful animals at PAWS!!!

Tricia Panhandle Animal Welfare Society"

All my new friends

2007-06-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Amadou Diop, a barrister from Senegal of all places, contacted me today. A client of his just died in a tragic automobile accident. For some reason, out of all six billion people on the planet, he decided I should be the guy he need to "assist" him "in repatriating money left behind by his client before they get confiscated by the security $ finance company where this huge deposit($19.5million)."

Good English there Amadou buddy. Well, you are from Senegal.
Amadou promises he'll pay me handsomely, I'm thinking millions here, if I help him hide his bucks. He said our deal would be "mutual beneficial."
(Don't laugh, not all American "barristers" are good at grammar either.

Amadou's going to have to wait in line though, that's because ...

James Tamey contacted me recently about the death of a guy named David McLaughlin ... no lie. I'm reckoning he's got to be a long lost relative. Here's what Mr. Tamey had to say:

"I wish to notify you that I listed you as beneficiary to the total sum of (Twelve Million
Eight Hundred Thousand British Pounds) in the codicil,last testament of the deceased.

"Until his death he was a private contractor and a great philanthropist during his lifetime,
he died on 9th January 2006 at the age of 68.

"He was buried on the 3rd of February and although he is a foreigner living and working here,
he requested before his death that he be buried here in his words ...

as opposed to the dirt, I guess ...

"I therefore reckoned that you could receive this funds as you are qualified (now this is funny) by your name i
density

(I'm qualified to make $12 million thanks to "i density." Wonder if that's supposed to be "eye density.")

"all your necessary information's
(My necessary information's, what a hoot) will be passed to the bank which the funds are deposited on
your response."

On the same day Mr. Tamey contacted me, another guy, Ahmed Kamokai, emailed me too. He wanted me to help him launder several million too, and promised to reward me handsomely for doing so.

I must have been in a funk when Mr. Kamokai emailed me. I sent him a nasty email, called him a sleazy crook and promised I'd put him in my blog.

I'm a man of my word.

Funny thing about my new friends; Amadou, Ahmed and James (Danged if there isn't a country song in there somewhere). They all needed info from me. The SAME info.

Full name.........................
Detailed address..................
Occupation.......................
Work status......................
Marital status..................
Age.............................
Your Telephone & Fax:............................

I'm sure they would have gotten around to ask for my bank account number eventually.

I love the Internet

history repeats

2007-06-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

These couple of paragraphs appeared in a story this newspaper published in August of 1994, 13 years ago.

However, said Caseli, the agencies charged with regulating aquatic facilities are not doing their jobs at the Gulfarium or at any other aquatic park.

``The federal government needs to be prodded to do their job,'' she said.

On May 17, this newspaper made a request to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a division of the United State's Department of Agriculture, for several years worth of reports compiled following what are supposed to be annual inspections conducted at the Gulfarium on Okaloosa Island. Several requests for production of these reports have been made since. No reports have been released.

On May 22 APHIS, as it is called, led a surprise three agency inspection at Gulfarium, compiled a report and has made that report available to Gulfarium staff and to the National Marine Fisheries Service, another agency involved in the investigation. APHIS officials have refused to release that report to the public.

Know what I think?

The federal government needs to be prodded to do their job.

That's what I think.

made following several annual inspections

some shots

2007-06-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Wasn't long after the legislature adjourned following its special session dedicated to cutting property taxes that our Republican friends started cracking on the state's Democrats for opposing a constitutional amendment that would create what's being called a "super-exemption" for homestead properties.

Tax cuts are a "core issue" said state Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.

"The Democrats fell back on their core belief that it's the governments money," Gaetz said. "Republicans believe that people are better off with their money."

"For anyone who wanted to know the difference between a conservative and a liberal, a Republican or a Democrat, this was the debate," Gaetz said.

State Rep. Ray Sansom, R-Destin, echoed the comments of his good friend.

"The true colors of the Democratic Party came out this week," he said. "Republicans want to cut taxes, Democrats don't."

Tote that party line and keep it on message, fellas. Keep it on message.

Say it ain't so ...

2007-06-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said a couple times this week that "When you become a homeowner you become a Republican."

ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

I think it may be happening to (GULP) me.

Have I mentioned ...

ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH?

All I know for sure is that I bought a townhouse last September and ever since then have been really interested in seeing somebody cut property taxes.

(And don't try to defend not doing so with cuts in services. I am very intimately aware of the growth of government numbers we've been seeing over the last few years.)

Now the damn I mean Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent state Republicans from making the proposed cuts they want to make.

I stand to see 7 percent knocked off my county property taxes, 5 percent knocked off my city property taxes and 75 percent of my homestead exempted and these bums want to stop me from getting that based on some fabricated losses to school funding.

Wake up Dems and quit playing politics.

keeping you abreast

2007-06-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

TALLAHASSEE -- A five-year, $31.6 billion plan to cut property taxes inched along today, with a House panel voting overwhelmingly to approve the first part of the plan.
The House Policy and Budget Council approved HB-1B, which would immediately roll back taxes this year and cap future tax revenue growth for local governments.

A travesty

2007-06-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Do you realize people, that there is not a single registered member of the American Poor People Party in all of Okaloosa County.

I mentioned that in the newsroom.

We, to a man and woman, decided that was the party for us.

Only one problem.

None of us has the money to make a campaign contribution.

Woe is us.

Mr. Gaetz assesses Day 1

2007-06-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

HA HA. GOT IT IN THE FIRST TIME

State Sen. Don Gaetz sent this update on the first day of session. Way I'm reading it, the Democrats are fighting this legislation and saying they won't support it with a primary concern being reducing the state's schools' budget by like $7 billion.

P.S.
(Gaetz said last week that if it wasn't for the forever burdensome Class Size Amendment, the schools wouldn't NEED so much money.)

Now to the Senator:

June 12, 2007

Here’s how the tax reform issue is developing
as the Senate and House begin work

A few minutes ago on the Senate floor legislation was introduced to implement the property tax cuts Northwest Floridians say they strongly support. Because of your interest, I wanted to get the details to you as soon as possible.

Attached to this email (and posted on www.gulf1.com) is a point by point analysis of the statutory provisions and constitutional revisions being proposed, as well as a history of property tax increases and an explanation of how the changes would affect families and businesses. You can also go to www.flsenate.gov and read the language of the legislation.

The first day of the special session brought the first partisan attacks against tax reform. Frankly, it was discouraging for me to see politics being more important than policy for some legislators. My hope is that the need to solve the inequities and stop the dramatic increases in property taxes will compel cooperation.

During the days leading up to the special session I spent many hours listening to people express their concerns, criticisms, and suggestions about this critical issue. With the great help of Mike West from gulf1.com, we surveyed over a thousand people from Bay, Walton, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Escambia counties. Our survey tested public response to a series of potential policy changes.

I’m encouraged that the legislation introduced today conforms to a large extent with the views I’ve heard from Northwest Floridians. If adopted, the proposals now before the Senate and House would:

· Immediately cut property taxes for all categories of property owners – homesteaders, second home owners, young families, retirees, businesses, and investors. Cuts in each city or county would be tied to the past taxing behavior of the local government. The deepest cuts would be required from those who raised taxes the most during the past five years

· Going forward, local governments would be limited in their ability to raise property taxes. Increases would be capped by the annual increase in the average Floridian’s per capita personal income, which has been about 4 percent per year in recent years

· In extraordinary circumstances, local governments could exceed the caps. Our gulf1 survey suggests that people in our area want a direct say in that matter. Over 80% of Northwest Floridians surveyed say tax caps should either never be exceeded or only by a referendum of the voters. The legislation currently before both chambers would allow 2/3 of the members of the governing body of a taxing authority to exceed the caps.

The foregoing tax cuts can be enacted by the Legislature this month and be effective for the tax bills that are payable in November of this year.

The following actions are included in a separate bill that must be passed by ¾ of the Legislature in order to be placed on the January, 2008, Presidential primary ballot. These constitutional measures have to earn 60% voter approval:

· A "super homestead" exemption is provided. The new exemption is a substantial increase from $25,000 under current law to $150,000 on the first $200,000 in value. An additional exemption of 15% of the next $300,000 would be allowed, as well.

· Under current law, if homesteaders downsize or upsize, they lose all their Save Our Homes benefits and gain only a $25,000 homestead exemption on the new property. The "super homestead" exemption is provided under the proposed legislation for those who move. That is a significant portability advantage and goes a long way towards smoothing out inequities.

· Homesteaders with "Save Our Homes" benefits could retain them if they would do better under the current system.

· Businesses would be exempt from tangible personal property taxes up to $25,000. That eliminates this tax – and the cost of recordkeeping and preparation of returns – for 80 percent of Florida businesses.

· Certain affordable housing (Section 8, HUD, community land trusts, etc) will be taxed based on actual rents collected not on property values. That will help affordable housing investors and assist in keeping rents low for lower income families.

· Low income elderly will receive an expanded exemption.

Tomorrow Senators will meet together to further discuss these provisions and hear testimony from the public. I’ll report to you again tomorrow.

Please feel free to stay in touch. It means so much to me to hear from you, to have the benefit of your thinking and to be able to speak and vote on behalf of the priorities and values of Northwest Florida.

Respectfully,

Senator Don Gaetz

Poor Scooter dos'

2007-06-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I keep hitting a button that publishes my blog before I put any thing in it.

HA HA. Funny. No, it's not BETTER with no writing.

Why do I get all the smart alecks anyway?

What I was going to say before this stupid computer screwed me all up and then ya'll started me on this tangent was this.

When Bill Clinton was getting impeached and anyone would say incredulously "You want to throw him out of office for a B$%^ J%#?, those who wanted Clinton out would say, "It's not about sex in the Oval Office it's because he lied under oath."

Now we got poor Scooter Libby.

He's facing jail time. Not because he outed an undercover CIA agent, but because he lied under oath.

His defenders are saying, incredulously, "Scooter Libby has to go to jail because he told a lie???"

But the really confusing part of all this to people like me who, admittedly, aren't clever enough to figure out how not to publish a blog with no writing in it, is that the who wanted Clinton so bad for lying, are the ones saying "All Scooter did was lie."

And the people saying "that sorry so and so needs to go to jail" were the ones saying "Billy was just having a little fun, boys will be boys and everybody lies about sex stuff anyway."

Is everybody a hypocrit? Or just partisan people?

Poor Scooter

2007-06-12T10:50:00.001-07:00

Another worry

2007-06-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

As if we didn't have enough to worry about with hurricanes, sharks and state legislators ... look at this.

Jumping Sturgeon Injures Woman in Fla.

ROCK BLUFF, Fla. — A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on the Suwannee River, officials said.
Tara Spears, 32, of Bell, was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.
She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported.
The large, prehistoric-looking sturgeon have hard plates along their backs. They can grow up to 8 feet long and up to 200 pounds.
In April, a leaping sturgeon severely injured a 50-year-old woman from St. Petersburg who was riding a personal watercraft on the Suwannee River. She suffered a ruptured spleen and had three fingers reattached by surgeons, but she lost her left pinkie finger and a tooth.

Maybe those guys up North County are right. If we dam up the Yellow River it'll keep those pesky sturgeons out of our rivers.

(tongue in cheek people, tongue in cheek.)

Brown's input

2007-06-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

2007-06-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students...?"
"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."

"Test of Three?"
"That's correct," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test what you're going to say.
The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
No," the man replied, "actually I just heard about it."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not.

Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him even though you're not certain it's true?"
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued, "You may still pass though because there is a third test - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really..."

Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"
The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more.
This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

But you'll never believe what ol' Plato said about him ...

More Fred

2007-06-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is from a blog called Disboards.com; the link to the page this stuff came from is:
www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1468611

(Our next president (good Lord, not another damn actor)) Fred Thompson’s ex-girlfriend is country singer Lorrie Morgan. Here are quotes from her book found in her Wikipedia entry...

It was great to go out with an older man [Fred Thompson] who was very successful on his own. I felt very secure with him, and he became a wonderful friend, a caring, inspirational man who would encourage me not to doubt myself (which, maybe you can tell by now, is one of my best things).
Fred is an extremely generous man. He wined and dined me and bought me presents --- furs, earrings, Chanel shoes with real high heels.
For a while, I enjoyed my first exposure to politics. It was interesting to hear about political conversations, and people even began talking about Fred as a potential president. It was inevitable that I would be sitting at a glamorous party and would have the flickering thought, So, this is what it's like to be a First Lady. Hell, I could handle that. Then I would say, "Oops, better drop the 'hell'"
[...]
I put myself to the task of being a great companion to a stimulating and important man, and as a result I become boring. I lost my spunk, my spontaneity, I had to stop and think about the political implications of everything before I uttered a word in public. Was this a Democratic issue? Was this a Republican issue? I could not trust my best asset, my gut instincts. In other words, I could not be myself.
Fred let me know that it was important how I dressed. Sedate was in. Even if I felt like a little flair that night, forget it --- we might be with men who had big wallets and insecure wives, wives who were a little older than I was. So get that basic black dress out of the closet. And no cleavage, baby.
Fred's senator buddies loved me, and some of my friends said that they never seen me happier. For a while, I wanted to marry Fred, but I knew he could not accept me as I am.

I LOVE POLITICS

Open mouth ... insert foot

2007-06-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

Today's Stories

(from The Hill)

Joe Scarborough's comment about Thompson's wife

By Betsy Rothstein

June 07, 2007

On Monday’s MSNBC simulcast, host Joe Scarborough, filling in for the recently fired Don Imus, talked about the wife of former senator and possible presidential hopeful Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), pictured above. Scarborough said, “Have you seen Fred Thompson’s wife? Think she works the pole? Look at that guy. Bless him. I love his voice, but he ain’t Robert Redford in ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’” What was he thinking?

Speaking of Fred Thompson. I went to a little press conference the other day and when I walked in our own state House Speaker Designate Ray Sansom and House Speaker Mario Rubio were talking about Thompson's potential presidential candidacy.

As I left the building following the press conference I walked past a little Honda SUV and reconfirmed what I THOUGHT I'd seen. A "Thompson 2008" bumper sticker.

Allen Boyd

2007-06-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

Congressman Allen Boyd put in a call today. That gave me the chance to ask the Democratic representative for Florida's District 2 how it felt to be in the majority party.

"I like it," he said.

"I've always said a divided government works better," he said. "When you have one party in power you get a level of arrogance and corruption and that's exactly what's happened."

"The American people told us we're firing the Republicans. We're not hiring you."

Speaker Rubio II

2007-06-04T14:40:00.002-07:00

Sorry, hit a wrong button or something on that last blog.

I was just going to tell ya'll that I had the opportunity to meet and actually speak with Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio Monday.

I gotta tell you I was impressed. Like Rep. Ray Sansom, the man who will replace him, Rubio is down to earth and easy to talk to.

He said he had two "goal" options when he took over the reigns of House Speaker this year. "I could have worked to get a new stadium for the (Florida) Marlins or work for property tax reform."

Fortunately for most of us who don't, as Rubio does, live in Miami, he decided to shoot for property tax relief.

(Nobody goes to those Marlin games anyway.)

Rubio is definitely passionate about lowering property taxes. The way he looks at it is like this.

"My wife and I go out shopping and we see a lot of things that we could spend money on that might better our lives or even make us better parents, but we don't buy a lot of those things because we can't afford them."

He thinks cities and counties ought to be run the same way he and is wife manage the family pocket book.

With the state Senate firmly against the idea and with the need to do something when the Florida Legislature convenes in special session June 12, Rubio has given up trying to push the concept of using sales tax dollars to replace local government funds lost to the lowering of property taxes, but he still clearly favors that approach.

“I still believe a local option consumption tax is much fairer than taxes on your home. I don’t think you should tax home ownership,” he said. “But it’s not on the table for the special session. We don’t have the luxury of a philosophical discussion on that this session.”

Speaker Rubio

2007-06-04T14:40:00.001-07:00

Can't wait to start using these

2007-05-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do a "guest caddie" thing out at Sandestin, where they're holding the Boeing championship this weekend.

Now that I've been properly trained, I can't wait to start using all the new lines I was taught (actually pulled them off the Internet)

Golfer: I've played so poorly all day; I think I'm going to go drown myself in that water hazard.
Caddy: I don't think you could keep your head down that long.

Golfer: You've got to be the worst caddy in the world!
Caddy: I doubt it, that would be too much of a coincidence.

Golfer: I'd move heaven and earth to be able to break 100 on this course!
Caddy: Try heaven, you've already moved most of the earth.

Golfer: Do you think I can get there with a 5-iron?
Caddy: Eventually.

Golfer: Well Caddy, How do you like my game?
Caddy: Very good, sir! But personally I prefer golf.

Golfer: Well, I have never played this badly before!
Caddy: I didn't realize you had played before, sir.

Golfer: Caddy, Do you think my game is improving?
Caddy: Oh yes, sir! You miss the ball much closer than you used to.

Golfer: Please stop checking your watch all the time, caddy. It's distracting!
Caddy: This isn't a watch, sir. It's a compass.

Golfer: Caddy, do you think it is a sin to play golf on Sunday?
Caddy: The way you play, sir, it's a crime any day of the week!

Golfer: This golf is a funny game.
Caddy: It's not supposed to be.

Judge: Do you understand the nature of an oath?
Boy: Do I? I'm your caddie, remember!

Golfer: That can't be my ball, caddy. It looks far too old.
Caddy: It's been a long time since we started, sir.

Golfer: That's good for one long drive and a putt.
Caddy (after ball travels only one meter): And now for one hell of a putt.

Friendly golfer (to player searching for lost ball): What sort of a ball was it?
Caddie (butting in): A brand new one -- never been properly hit yet!

Golfer: Caddiemaster, that boy isn't even eight years old.
Caddiemaster: Better that way, sir. He probably can't count past ten.

calling B.S.

2007-05-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

I got this from the folks that run this Web site.

Apartments.com recently conducted a survey on what renters and property managers do to help conserve and protect the environment and would like to share the results with you.
Some interesting facts we discovered:

• More than 63% of renters currently recycle.
• 26% of renters state they would pay more to rent in an environmentally friendly building.
• 50% of renters who recycle live in buildings that provide recycling programs.
• Plastic is the most commonly recycled material by renters.

Were it that we all felt the same was as these surveyed renters. But I gotta tell you, having been a renter for years I'm calling B.S. on that first bulleted item. In my experience renters don't recycle and apartment managers don't encourage recycling. At least not around here.

And we wonder ...

2007-05-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

why so many folks are fleeing Mexico.

Ethanol boom may fuel shortage of tequila
Mexican farmers burning agave fields and replanting them with corn

MEXICO CITY - Mexican farmers are setting ablaze fields of blue agave, the cactus-like plant used to make the fiery spirit tequila, and re-sowing the land with corn as soaring U.S. ethanol demand pushes up prices.
The switch to corn will contribute to an expected scarcity of agave in coming years, with officials predicting that farmers will plant between 25 percent and 35 percent less agave this year to turn the land over to corn.
"Those growers are going after what pays best now," said Ismael Vicente Ramirez, head of agriculture at Mexico's Tequila Regulatory Council.

I've got gas

2007-05-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why gas station attendants don't trust us at all but some gas station attendants trust us less than others?

Have you ever wondered why I'd call anyone a "gas station" attendant in the year 2007, when the gas station addendant is all but extinct?

Anyway, have you ever wondered why convenience store clerks don't trust us at all but some convenience store clerks trust us less than others?

Last week, through no one's fault but my bank's, the folks that don't pay me nearly enough to support my lavish lifestyle and mine own inherent inability to spend frugally, I found myself buying a lot of gas in little bitty (50 cents, a dollar, five dollars) increments.

To do so I had to pay before pumping.

This is because gas station attendants don't trust us. And with all the people in the world who are willing to drive off without paying for their gas, I can't say I blame them a bit for taking this little precaution.

But you REALLY find out which convenience store clerks don't trust you when you get somewhere close to finishing the pumping of your ... say ... $3.35 in gas. A convenience store clerk that slows down your pumping at $1.50 obviously doesn't trust you as much as the one who lets you run right up to about $3.

I have found that most of the convenience store clerks I've enountered trust me to about $2.80 on the $3.35 gas purchase, and I take some offense to that. I believe I'm trustworthy to at least ... Well hell, I ain't gonna shoot past $3.35 to rip some poor convenience store clerk out of a dang dime. And if I do, I'll scrape 10 pennies out of my cupholder and bring them in, so I'm perfectly trustworthy.

Those clerks are just out to get me. They know I'm in a hurry and they're slowing me down on purpose.

I'm going back to using my debit card.

Until, at least, I'm back to blaming my bank, the people who don't pay me nearly enough to support my lavish lifestyle and my own inherent inability to spend frugally for forcing me to buy $3.35 worth of gas.

This sounds interesting

2007-05-29T11:55:00.003-07:00

For you history buffs out there.

Florida Memory Photographic Collection
~ Department of State encourages Floridians to continue to visit, update, and contribute to online history of Florida ~
TALLAHASSEE, FL – The Department of State's Florida Memory Project, a comprehensive collection of historical Florida images with over 134,000 images, recently added photographs from the (Bonifay Rodeo). These images are available for viewing free of charge at http://oss.dos.state.fl.us/communications/press-releases/www.floridamemory.com
Thanks to the Florida Memory Project http://oss.dos.state.fl.us/communications/press-releases/www.floridamemory.com, you can now experience history at your fingertips. The site features over 450,000 digitized sound recordings, documents, photographs, and film clips from days gone by. Sponsored by the Florida Department of State, State Library and Archives of Florida, the Florida Memory Project, http://www.floridamemory.com/ , provides free and credible Internet access to these irreplaceable, historical resources. The grant-funded project brings materials from the State Library and Archives of Florida to users in their homes, offices, libraries, and schools, enabling them to use primary source materials easily without ever leaving their computers! Researchers are surrounded by Florida history in the form of early photographs, Confederate pension applications, World War I service records, early constitutions, downloadable audio recordings, and video clips. They can watch and listen to presidents, governors, soldiers, and celebrities in real time. The Florida Memory Project has won four Davis Productivity Awards for innovation, dedication, and commitment to excellence.
The Department of State is encouraging the public to contact the State Library and Archives (archives@dos.state.fl.us ) if they are able to identify someone on the site who is not currently named. Additionally, to continue to enrich the site, the State Library and Archives welcomes photographic donations, preferably those that include the image information. New resources are added and updated on the site daily, continuing the expansion of this unique online resource to archival materials. Users can use Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds to get updates on the latest additions to the Web site.
Contact: Brad Drake @ Rep. Don Brown's Office - 850.892.8431

This sounds interesting

2007-05-29T11:55:00.001-07:00

Florida Memory Photographic Collection
~ Department of State encourages Floridians to continue to visit, update, and contribute to online history of Florida ~
TALLAHASSEE, FL – The Department of State's Florida Memory Project, a comprehensive collection of historical Florida images with over 134,000 images, recently added photographs from the (Bonifay Rodeo). These images are available for viewing free of charge at www.floridamemory.com
Thanks to the Florida Memory Project www.floridamemory.com, you can now experience history at your fingertips. The site features over 450,000 digitized sound recordings, documents, photographs, and film clips from days gone by. Sponsored by the Florida Department of State, State Library and Archives of Florida, the Florida Memory Project, www.floridamemory.com , provides free and credible Internet access to these irreplaceable, historical resources. The grant-funded project brings materials from the State Library and Archives of Florida to users in their homes, offices, libraries, and schools, enabling them to use primary source materials easily without ever leaving their computers! Researchers are surrounded by Florida history in the form of early photographs, Confederate pension applications, World War I service records, early constitutions, downloadable audio recordings, and video clips. They can watch and listen to presidents, governors, soldiers, and celebrities in real time. The Florida Memory Project has won four Davis Productivity Awards for innovation, dedication, and commitment to excellence.
The Department of State is encouraging the public to contact the State Library and Archives (archives@dos.state.fl.us ) if they are able to identify someone on the site who is not currently named. Additionally, to continue to enrich the site, the State Library and Archives welcomes photographic donations, preferably those that include the image information. New resources are added and updated on the site daily, continuing the expansion of this unique online resource to archival materials. Users can use Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds to get updates on the latest additions to the Web site.
Contact: Brad Drake @ Rep. Don Brown's Office - 850.892.8431

B.S.

2007-05-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a little AP article. I've done some highlighting and added a little commentary here and there. Don't tell the FCC.

ORLANDO, FL -- A Florida couple says they have a winning lottery ticket and they want their money, but the the Florida Lottery Commission isn't paying.
Ocala resident Joe Curcio thought he hit the jackpot on a scratch-off ticket that shows a prize of $500,000.When he tried to claim his prize he received nothing at the lottery office.Curcio said he bought a legitimate lottery ticket at the Turnpike rest area at Fort Drum.

The state said the ticket had a misprint on it.

Curcio and his family said it's not their fault the ticket has a misprint and that he should be paid what he's owed. "A deal's a deal," Curcio said.

"I believe there's something wrong with the lottery," Annemarie Curcio said.
(you can say that again)

The lottery said it prints about 550 million tickets per year and there is the possibility of a misprint. There are manual, computer and visual checks of tickets submitted for prizes, and the lottery said it uses various layers of security. It also reminds people that the ticket is printed with a warning that all winnings are subject to verification.

Back to me:
Here's a question for you:

Do you think a credit card company, your mortgage holder, any stinkin' bank or anybody else that holds their foot on your throat would let you get away with this kinda crap? A deal IS a deal.

Misprint smishprint Florida. Pay the Curcio's their money.

What's wrong with you people?

Silly bureaucrats.

Oh, and while I'm on bureaucrats, ya'll leave McGuire's alone about the signs for cryin' out loud.

And about that sign thing.

I'll bet Holly Benson (who, just so's you know, heads the agency that's giving McGuires all the grief, and lives in Pensacola, has visited the very bathrooms ...

Wait a minute!!

You don't reckon she walked ...

No, course not.

And then this complaint just came out of the blue ...

No way. No way.

Silly bureaucrats.

mindboggling

2007-05-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Say this three times fast.

U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced that former Florida state Senate President John McKay will support the Arizona Senator's bid for the White House.

Wonder if the McCain Campaign ... dang another tongue twister ... is going to recruit the former USC football coach to the team. Remember him? John McKay.

I see the stories now.

McCain, McKay and McKay were in South Florida today, campaigning in cane country.

Ugh.

I think I'll stop now.

Hee's back

2007-05-23T14:56:00.001-07:00

Sorry I've been away so long. Doing some super secret type reporter stuff. Extra, extra read all about it and that sorta thing.

Here. Enjoy this, along with the accompanying comment from the funny young lady who sent it to me. We'll get back to serious stuff ... NEVER.

Homer Simpson appeared on the Late Show With David Letterman to present the
"Top Ten Reasons Why I (Homer Simpson) Should Be the Next President":
10. I'm smarter than the last guy.
9. With an oval office, I can't bump into anything.
8. Fox News is already on my side.
7. I will take full advantage of the free food that comes with the job.
6. I have enormous experience apologizing for failed decisions.
5. I will appoint a Secretary of Donuts.
4. I will be the Secretary of Donuts.
3. My middle name isn't Hussein ... anymore.
2. My vice president will be Mayor McCheese.
1. Kick-ass inauguration party! Bring a six pack and you're in

And here's the extry suppleeementry snippet of humor. (Don't read it if you're a humorless Republican)

The number one plus one reason Homer should be president:

"I'm more life like than the last guy."

FarWright

2007-05-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Found this on a Website called The Far Wright:

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you. Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

Thoughts?

happy mother's day ... as always ... belated

2007-05-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day Story

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years
old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves
chapstick. LOVES IT. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then
losing it.

So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my
chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and
try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up.

Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.
We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am
looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the
corner to go into the bathroom.

And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was
the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

Tern tern tern

2007-05-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to work with wildlife? Do something that will make you feel good AND have an actual impact on the world you live in? This is soooo easy to do and soooo significant. If you got a little free time ...

This came from Nonie Maines, whose contact info is at the bottom.

It’s that time of year again! The least terns are nesting now and we will need to schedule drive-bys beginning June 1st for "down chicks". If you or anyone you know is willing to drive by your neighborhood colony once or twice a day or week to check, please let me know. I haven’t done a complete count of all the roofs that are active this year but I would appreciate any help identifying them. You can enter data about rooftop and ground colonies at www.myfwc.com/shorebirds/BNB . I’ve attached a schedule of regular rooftop sites and you can sign yourself in wherever you can and send it back to me. I’ve attached old data also so you can check other sites that are not listed. Notice that there is a special note on June 4th!!! I need many volunteers to patrol when the Bowlegs Parade Floats arrive in the parking lot of Kmart. DOOMS DAY for any scarred chicks who can fly!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about please see this presentation… http://choctawhatcheeaudubon.org/shorelines/LIPShorebirds.pdf or http://choctawhatcheeaudubon.org/press.asp

Please folks, these chicks need our help, don’t let them cook on the pavement! Last year only one volunteer monitored Destin’s Old Time Pottery and he rescued over 56 chicks! What would have happened if Timothy Maher hadn’t stepped up to that challenge? Thank you Defender!

There are other ways you can help if you can’t drive by. Please contact me for additional info.

Thank you for your support!

Nonie Maines
President, Choctawhatchee Audubon Society
www.choctawhatcheeaudubon.org
Nonie's Ark Animal Encounters
www.noniesark.com
850.862.9588

Gaetz's plan

2007-05-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

I noticed a couple of our Spouter Offers this week were cranking out comments about our recent spate of fires and opining that if the state legislature rolls back property taxes we won't have the number of firefighters we need available to battle so many blazes in such a short period of time.

I'm guessing a city, county or fire department employee is sending those things.

There is a good argument to be made that municipal governments do not always spend the money they have on hand wisely. For instance, how many feasibility studies has the city of Crestview authorized for that piece of property where its library and community center now stand. And how many dollars were expended conducting those studies.

State Sen. Don Gaetz thinks wise spending, as opposed to cutting off the nose to spite the face spending, can work for most local governments. He's fond of telling the story of Riviera Beach, a Palm Beach County town that actually paid $200,000 to study the feasibility of building a bridge from it to the Bahamas.

Gaetz wants to put a little something in the property tax reform bill to be discussed in June that would make any city or county that wants to start cutting first responders or some other essential item from its budget bring its books to the state's auditors before doing so. He says, very nicely, that the state could help these overstressed municipal officials find other means of spending their so badly stretched dollars.

What Gaetz thinks is that the state guys could limit any thought on the part of the cities about cutting out some essential service just to make the state look bad for rolling back property tax rates.

"Some local governments have become addicted to spending habits they developed during a spike in property valuations (in 2003-04-05). Now they're saying they can't come off a dime," Gaetz said. "All we're asking county government to do is to slowdown the rates of taxing and spending."

Mother's Peace Day

2007-05-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

I received this via MySpace from a friend and asked for and received her permission to post it. I know this will probably illicit some comments of the "You're a bleeding heart liberal commie pinko" variety, but that's all right. Thinking is a good thing, and if this makes a few of you think a little I'll take all the abuse the rest of you wanna dish out.

Dear friends and family,

Lest we forget...Mother's Day was originally "Mothers' Peace Day" before it was turned into a celebration of motherhood. "Mother's Peace Day" was meant to be a commitment to end war. Mothers got together and refused to send their husbands and sons off to kill and be killed. Let us each, in our own way, help to make war obsolete and peacemaking ordinary. Let us be reminded of our potential to speak truth to power and say "no" when our government is wrong. Let us find the grace to be the love and peace we want to see in our world.

Happy Mothers' PEACE Day.

Sen. Mel's bringing home the bacon.

2007-05-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded $205,200 in grants to two Florida fire departments and rescue services. The grants are part of DHS’s 2006 Assistance to Firefighters Grants program.

At least he's getting some pork for Gulf Breeze.

Department: Orange County Fire Rescue Department
Amount: $ 144,000
Location: Winter Park, FL

Department: Midway Fire District
Amount: $ 61,200
Location: Gulf Breeze, FL

Funds under the Assistance to Firefighters grants program are intended to support first responder training, provide adequate firefighting/EMS equipment – including rescue vehicles, protective gear, as well as support the wellness and fitness of firefighters, Martinez's spokespeople say in a press release.

sappy maybe, but cute

2007-05-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

Got this from a friend (Please no one call asking if I'm a veterinarian in another life. I'm not.)

The Purpose of a Dog from a 4 year old perspective.

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for the four-year old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understo od what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.

The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animals lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly piped up,I know why. Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right? The four-year-old continued, well, dogs already know how to do that so they don't have to stay as long.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

charettes and mini charettes

2007-05-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

For reasons no one has ever bothered to fully explain to me, the term "charette" has been allowed to creep into our local consciousness.

Why? What happened to the good old fashioned "meeting"?

Charette appears to have slipped into the popular lexicon, (to use a big word almost as dumb as charette), around 1995 when Ray Navitsky, the then-Destin Area Chamber of Commerce's executive director, came up with the idea of having a city workshop he called "Visions 2o00." For reasons never fully explained, he decided to call his gig the (say this in a booming radio voice) "Vision's 2000 Charette."

Beth Chacey the then-Destin Bureau Bureau Chief for the Northwest Florida Daily News, must have broken the news to Navitsky that a charette was actually "a carriage drawn by a horse" so he decided to ditch the term and go with a Vision 2000 "program." The Daily News reported this development.

Way back in 1995 though, Chacey probably didn't have access to the kind of junk we here in the modern era have. Because with one gander at a Web site called -- and I'm not making this up -- Library ArchArch, I have dug deeper into the meaning of the word Charette and learned a thing or two.

"What is a Charette?" Library ArchArch asks.

Then answers:

The term “charette” evolved from a pre-1900 exercise at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (Artsy Boys with Ecoli) in France. Architectural students were given a design problem to solve within an allotted time. When that time was up, the students would rush their drawings from the studio to the Ecole in a cart called a charrette. Students often jumped in the cart to finish drawings on the way. The term evolved to refer to the intense design exercise itself. Today it refers to a creative process akin to visual brainstorming that is used by design professionals to develop solutions to a design problem within a limited timeframe.

So you CAN call a meeting a charette if you want to, as long as you're referring to "a creative process akin to visual brainstorming."

Creative? Local leadership?????? Brainstorming? Local leadership??????

Oh well.

It seems the Emerald Coast Bridge Association, which itself was brought back from the dead in 2001, could be responsible for pulling "charette" out of mothballs. Under the guise of "creative" or "brainstorming" I suspect it did so for one of two reasons A.) It wanted a sissified word to replace "meeting" with, or B.) It figured no one would attend a "charette" and bother them while they were planning to build a new bridge between Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa Island.

In 2003 the association announced it would have a "design charette."

Twenty people showed up, and a new meeting concept was born.

Charettes are now all the rage. Everybody has them these days. And no one ever shows up for them.

But get this (be still my tempermental gag reflex), the term is evolving.

It's true. I received an e-mail just today from a Walton County organization called "Friends of Scenic 30A" who are calling for something called a "mini-charette" to present the current status of the group's quest for designation of County Road 30A as a Florida Scenic Highway.

It's Monday, May 21, at 6 p.m., in the Coastal Branch Library in Santa Rosa Beach for all those of you who won't be attending.

A mini-charette?

Does this involve Shetland ponies?

And at a mini charette can the local leadership be a leeeedle less creative? Or use a leeedle less of their brains to storm with?

I'm guessin'.

A gander at our newspaper library,

hey dummy, wake up

2007-05-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

We had a major brush fire Tuesday at Willow Bend Lane and Schneider Drive that burned up 50 acres and required firefighters from 17 departments to respond.

Three homes were destroyed Tuesday in Walton County by a fire that has torn through thousands of acres.

300 homes were reported evacuated across North Florida as wildfires burned 130,000 acres.

A state of emergency has been issued because of the severe threat of fires in drought conditions ....

So

I'm driving to work today and a guy in a pickup truck, one with a cute "Pluck You War Eagle" bumper sticker on the back, drops a cigarette out of his driver side window as he's turning into a gas station on Racetrack Road.

I don't know about you, but it scares me to be sharing the road with such people.

meaningful all right

2007-05-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

State Sen. Don Gaetz, who, by the way, gave an inspiring speech last week in welcoming home judge/general Patt Maney, had the distinction of getting the last bill passed before the state legislature adjourned for the month of June.

Here's a stunner. It had nothing to do with property tax reform.

Gaetz (R-Niceville) won approval for Senate Bill 1748, which allows self-insurance funds regulated by the State of Florida to offer coverage to contractors and subcontractors, a press release told us.

"This bill will help thousands of employers throughout our state," Gaetz said. "The availability and affordability of workers comp coverage is essential to our housing and commercial construction industry."

Gaetz’s bill prohibits rejection of coverage not issued by nationally recognized rating services just because the rating services aren't nationally recognized.
It permits groups of employers to pool their resources to provide workers compensation coverage to their employees, the release said.

Gaetz said in his release he was prompted to introduce and pass the legislation after talking to people in the building trades in Northwest Florida.

"Good, reliable, hard-working subcontractors have literally been thrown off the job site or had their payments held up because they couldn’t get coverage from a nationally-rated carrier," he said. "This legislation fixes that problem, lets employer groups establish their own self-insurance funds, and gives small businesses a break."

I know this is important to a lot of people in this area. I've heard from them.

Teddy speaks

2007-05-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Bob Fischer, the former chairman of Okaloosa County's Republican Executive Committee, forwarded this item. Sort of a the more things change the more things stay the same thing eh?

ON IMMIGRATION

“Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to
the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Good friends ...

2007-05-01T14:36:00.002-07:00

send good stuff to put on a blog site. Take this one:

Late Show w/David Letterman Top Ten for 4/30/07
Top Ten Signs Your Paper is in Trouble
10. Covers all news that happens within one block of the office
9. Today's exclusive -- "Nixon Dead!"
8. Reporter sent to jail for refusing to divulge a source... Oh, and he also killed a dude
7. All horoscopes: "Now would be a good time to get out of the newspaper business"
6. Paper's motto: "Suck it"
5. Every "hot" gossip item is about Jack Klugman
4. Managing editor and guy who wheels around breakfast? Same guy
3. Under "Weather," it just reads "Yes"
2. Instead of "Garfield," has a comic strip called "Garfunkel"
1. You endorsed Dennis Kucinich

Lucky Gov

2007-04-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

The governor's job just keeps looking better and better to me. Look what Gov. Crist is doing today at 2 p.m. (this from his official schedule)

2:00pm-2:15pm VISIT WITH ALLISON KREIGER, MISS FLORIDA
Location: The Capitol

Wonder if she's a Republican or if she'd come visit a Green Party governor?

Ol' Don has an offer

2007-04-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Remember a while back when I did a blog post about a little courtroom incident that involved Circuit Court judge G. Robert Barron, attorney "Ol" Don Dewrell, lots of itchy fingered court bailiffs and a cell phone?

The jist of it was that the good judge warned all in attendance in court that they'd best turn their cell phones off because the bailiffs had been instructed to shoot "at" any cell phones that started ringing while court was in session.

Well ol' Don, who was outside during the instructions, didn't get the word about the cell phone shooting policy until he came into court and his phone rang. The judge yelled "Don't Shoot" and everyone had a chuckle.

Except maybe Ol' Don.

Actually though, Mr. Dewrell did take my pickin' at him with a degree of humor. When I said "Hey Don" the other day he chuckled and said "That's Ol' Don, isn't it?"

Dang, I didn't think anybody actually read this blog.

At any rate, Don made me an offer to pass on that was kind of intriguing. He's offered to give up the name of the person that called him that day in court if ... someone will agree to donate $1,000 to a fund that's been established for Fort Walton Beach police officer Bruce Bankston.

Bankston is a 27-year police veteran who has terminal cancer. He is three years short of getting his full retirement benefits and will leave behind a wife and three children. He's so worried about providing for them he's sold off his house and emptied it of most of his possessions. He's even sold off his gun collection, ancestor's photos and other personal items, including his father's wedding ring.

So here's your chance to step to the plate and find out who a high powered local attorney gets calls from, and actually takes calls from, before 4:30 p.m. on a work day.

Could it be a high dollar client? You know Willie Nelson's got that dope charge hanging over his head.

Could it be a high powered political figure? George W. could use some sound advice.

Maybe it was his wife. Maybe a child. Maybe an old college buddy. Maybe some damn reporter (making prank calls from the back of the courtroom just to get ol' Don in trouble.)

We'll never know until someone steps up with the big bucks. Which, I might add, couldn't go to a more worthy cause.

Flying Dems

2007-04-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

I received this from a Republican friend. The Associated Prss did the story.

A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.
For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall.
No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.
All but Biden, who flew on a private jet, chartered their flights -- a campaign expense of between $7,500 and $9,000.
Federal Election Commission rules allow candidates to pay only the equivalent of first-class fare to fly on private jets owned by corporations or other special interests. But a Senate ethics bill approved earlier this year would require senators flying on corporate jets to pay full charter rates. The legislation must still be reconciled with a House bill and has yet to become law.
Several senators running for president are abiding by it anyway, either paying charter cost or avoiding corporate jets altogether, as Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain have done. Dodd pays full charter rates when he flies on private planes. The Clinton and Biden campaigns did not immediately explain their policies.
Candidates who follow the more lenient FEC rules have a financial advantage.

thought for the day

2007-04-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

I didn't write it, so if you find any particular word offensive, don't blame me. If you find the entire thing offensive, then by all means yell and moan (see, I leave the bad words out of these things.)

Thought for the Day;Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical ultra-liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

A Friday giggle

2007-04-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Where do I sign up?

2007-04-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

This ad appeared in the classified of the Eglin Dispatch.

4bed/3bth house in Shalimar $600/mo include util. (OK that's boring. Here's the good stuff)

"Prefer male roommate to live w/ 3 females.

"MUST LIKE TO HAVE FUN." (my emphasis added)

Do you reckon they're getting any calls????????

Twain wisdom

2007-04-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Nobody said stuff quite like Mark Twain.

--If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

--Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself.

Well?

2007-04-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

The Moyer documentary ran last night. Anybody watch? I missed it myself. Be interested to hear what ya'll thought.

O'Reilly -- no factor

2007-04-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

So I was listening to that goober Bill O'Reilly today and he's all over Bill Moyer, the guy who's doing the documentary on "the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq." (discussed that in the blog post just below this one)

Well Ol' Bill had lots to say about Moyer "he's a liberal. He hates me blah blah blah blah" and he defended his own reasons for supporting the invasion of Iraq "(insert more pompous blather here") but didn't say anything at all about "the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq" which, in my mind, is a topic worth discussing ...

as opposed to what I was hearing on the radio.

I swear, If it weren't for Jim Rome ...

Uh oh

2007-04-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

This sounds intriguing. It's a article sent to me from a reader. The article was written for Editor and Publisher by a guy named Greg Mitchell. I went ahead and left it in it's entirety because it's kinda interesting. Note the vague reference to your own Daily News (here's a hint, we're the sister paper)

I'm interested to know what all you "liberal media" folks, the ones who reckon all we do is "Bush hate" think of this article. And are you gonna watch the show? It airs tomorrow night.

The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.
While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.
The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."
Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, "The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should've all been doing that."
At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.
But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war…We didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way." Bob Simon, who had strong doubts about evidence for war, was asked by Moyers if he pushed any of the top brass at CBS to "dig deeper," and he replies, "No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas….nope, I don't think we followed up on this."
Instead he covered the marketing of the war in a "softer" way, explaining to Moyers: "I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light – if that doesn't seem ridiculous."
Moyers replies: "Going to war, almost light."
Walter Isaacson is pushed hard by Moyers and finally admits, "We didn't question our sources enough." But why? Isaacson notes there was "almost a patriotism police" after 9/11 and when the network showed civilian casualties it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and "big people in corporations were calling up and saying, 'You're being anti-American here.'"
Moyers then mentions that Isaacson had sent a memo to staff, leaked to the Washington Post, in which he declared, "It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan" and ordered them to balance any such images with reminders of 9/11. Moyers also asserts that editors at the Panama City (Fla.) News-Herald received an order from above, "Do not use photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties. Our sister paper has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening emails."
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post explains that even at his paper reporters "do worry about sort of getting out ahead of something." But Moyers gives credit to Charles J. Hanley of The Associated Press for trying, in vain, to draw more attention to United Nations inspectors failing to find WMD in early 2003.
The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web -- with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with "plagiarism."
Phil Donahue recalls that he was told he could not feature war dissenters alone on his MSNBC talk show and always had to have "two conservatives for every liberal." Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue's firing that claimed he "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Moyers also throws some stats around: In the year before the invasion William Safire (who predicted a "quick war" with Iraqis cheering their liberators) wrote "a total of 27 opinion pieces fanning the sparks of war." The Washington Post carried at least 140 front-page stories in that same period making the administration's case for attack. In the six months leading to the invasion the Post would "editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times."
Of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news in the six months before the war, almost all could be traced back to sources solely in the White House, Pentagon or State Dept., Moyers tells Russert, who offers no coherent reply.
The program closes on a sad note, with Moyers pointing out that "so many of the advocates and apologists for the war are still flourishing in the media." He then runs a pre-war clip of President Bush declaring, "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." Then he explains: "The man who came up with it was Michael Gerson, President Bush's top speechwriter.
"He has left the White House and has been hired by the Washington Post as a columnist."

spousal abuse

2007-04-23T14:54:00.001-07:00

From the calls and e-mails I'm getting, it sounds like spousal abuse might be something of a dirty little secret in this part of the world. If so, that's a tragic thing that needs to be aired. Here we have a forum for just such a discussion. Let's talk.

Friday, Friday

2007-04-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's five minutes until the weekend. Here's a little poem a friend just shared with me. Be careful out there, but damnit, have some fun too.

Without further ado

As I look into the future, what do I see?
Lots of empty beer glasses in front of me!

Red Friday

2007-04-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here's another little something that flew in over the Internet. Another excuse to wear my red socks.

As a Company, Southwest Airlines is going to support "Red Fridays."
Last week I was in Atlanta, Georgia attending a conference. While I was in the
airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and
cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest acts of
patriotism I have ever seen.
Moving thru the terminal was a group of soldiers in their camos. As they began
heading to their gate, everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their
feet with their hands waving and cheering.
When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered
for, it hit me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only red-blooded American who
still
loves this country and supports our troops and their families.
Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes
who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school,
work and home without fear or reprisal.
Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service
men and women, a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of
the male soldiers. He kneeled down and said "hi."
The little girl then asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her.
The young soldier, who didn't look any older than maybe 22 himself, said he
would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Then suddenly the little
girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster
and then kissed him on the cheek.
The mother of the little girl, who said her daughter's name was Courtney, told
the young soldier that her husband was a Marine and had been in Iraq for 11
months now. As the mom was explaining how much her daughter Courtney missed her
father, the young soldier began to tear up.
When this temporarily single mom was done explaining her situation, all of the
soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen
pulled out a military-looking walkie-talkie. They started playing with the
device and talking back and forth on it.
After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to
Courtney, bent down and said this to her, "I spoke to your daddy and he told
me
to give this to you." He then hugged this little girl that he had just met
and
gave her a kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying "your daddy told me to
tell
you that he loves you more than anything and he is
coming home very soon."
The mom at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier
stood to his feet, he saluted Courtney and her mom. I was standing no more than
6 feet away from this entire event.
As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their
applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, there were very few dry
eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of selflessness,
turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.
We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank
God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it's good to be an
American.
RED FRIDAYS ----- Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every
Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the
"silent majority". We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for
God,
country and home in record breaking numbers.
We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media
coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many Americans, like
you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of
America supports our troops.

Good Ol' Gaetz

2007-04-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am scraping for a blog item and, lo before my wondering eyes, is a press release from state Sen. Don Gaetz. That's government in action.

Here's what it said. Kinda interesting. What do you think?

Organizations wishing to solicit on local roadways for charitable contributions will have to be insured, follow a safety plan, and operate in a non-harassing manner under legislation passed by the Florida Senate and House this week.

Senator Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) sponsored the proposal in order to allow responsible and lawful groups such as firefighters to continue their support of research and care for children with muscular dystrophy. However, the bill sets standards that all organizations have to meet in order to conduct solicitations on city and county roadways.

"There’s a difference between our firefighters who once a year invite us to put money in their boots to help children with muscular dystrophy and other groups with vague or illegitimate causes, unsafe methods, and harassing manners," Gaetz said. "Our firefighters’ motives are entirely charitable. They give of their time, their skill, and their sweat equity to raise funds for a cause that touches the hearts of us all and they do it safely, courteously, and effectively."

Conan's cool

2007-04-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter has filed papers to run for president, but in his official filing, he misspelled the word 'president.' Political experts say it's all part of Hunter's plan to attract Bush supporters." --Conan O'Brien

He's back

2007-04-16T10:16:00.002-07:00

Sorry to run out on ya'll. Thanks for the 'we miss you' comments whether sincere or otherwise. (You know what they say, the only thing worse than people talking about you is ... people not talking about you.)

And speaking of talking, state Rep. Don Brown has been doing some more of that. Don't know if you heard, but he sent out an e-mail that said something along the lines of 'Pay your taxes, there are 12 million illegal aliens who need your support."

That got the Miami contingent of state legislators mad. They called for an apology. Brown issued an apology. It wasn't deemed satisfactory. Sooo... Brown has issued a statement.

Here it is.

Rep. Don Brown issues statement on e-mail regarding "Illegal" aliens

I regret the e-mail which I sent on Thursday, April 13, offended my fellow members and that it has become such a distraction from the important business of the day. However, state government has a budget crisis and the Legislature is talking taxes – cuts, shifts and increases. We are looking for ways to adequately fund our children’s education, stop classroom over crowding, deliver quality healthcare to Floridians, equip our law enforcement to keep our streets safe and construct enough prisons and jails to keep criminals off our streets.

With this in mind, I am calling for a state investigation into the following regarding the possible abuse of our tax dollars in the funding of illegal aliens:

1. How many illegal aliens are currently in Florida and has there been an increase in recent years?
2. Are taxpayer dollars being used to fund illegal aliens?
3. Are illegal aliens receiving state funded healthcare at taxpayer expense? If so, how many and what is the cost to the taxpayer?
4. Are illegal aliens receiving state funded housing at taxpayer expense? If so, how many and what is the cost to the taxpayer?
5. Are illegal aliens attending our public schools at taxpayer expense? If so, how many and what is the cost to the taxpayer?
6. Are illegal aliens receiving publicly funded scholarships, grants or any other funding to attend our state colleges or universities?
7. Are illegal aliens housed in our jails and prisons? If so, how many, what is the cost to the taxpayer and why aren’t they being handed over to the federal government and deported?
8. Do our local or state police have a catch and release policy after apprehending an illegal alien? If so, why aren’t they being detained, handed over to the federal government and deported?
9. What penalties are currently on the books for business that hire or subcontract to illegal aliens and what can we do to make the penalties severe enough that companies from small construction firms to the large retailers fear the hiring of illegal aliens?

Furthermore, I am proposing a joint resolution from the Florida House and Senate calling for the Democratically controlled Congress and Republican President to craft a nationwide deportation program and full funding and construction of the fence between the US and Mexico. I request a roll call vote in each Legislative chamber, not a voice vote.

I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do demand an answer. I expect to hear from President Pruitt, Speaker Rubio and Governor Crist on how they will proceed in solving Florida’s illegal immigration problem.

What do you think o' bloggers o' mine?

Vacation time

2007-04-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

All right kiddies. I've vacated the premises for a couple of days. Ya'll talk amongst yourselves ...

And be nice to each other.

Geez

2007-04-09T12:41:00.001-07:00

This comment appeared on Pat Rice's blog site. The commenter, "anonymous", was talking about Mr. Rice's statement that the "surge" tactics employed by American armed forces in Iraq seem to be showing some signs of succes.

"That’s the first time anybody in the media acknowledged that," anonymous said.

Then there was this:

"The problem here is that the media has a vested interest in seeing America fail. Everything they’ve reported about the administration or Iraq in the past 3+ years has been negative."

Where in God's name do you get that dude? I happen to be employed in "the media" and I take great offense to you accusing me, by proxy, of having a vested interest in seeing America fail. What the hell good is that going to do me? Can you answer that Mr. Anonymous? I happen to have lived here a long time and have grown kinda fond of the place.

Just where did you pull that stuff out of?

I've got a guess.

But wait, there's more.

Anonymous opines:
"The media in this country will not air anything favorable about Iraq, no matter what. Most of you media types are actively rooting against the United States and are incapable of reporting fairly on the situation."

A. I have personally logged nearly every comment U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller has ever made about positive developments in Iraq, most just days after his return from a visit there.

B. The "most of you media types are rooting against the United States" is another one of those pulled out of somewhere special comments this person seems way too capable of making. Stop it. It's not fair. I'm as good an American as you'll ever be and so is most every other reporter you'll meet. You think we went into this business to get rich? No, we went into it because we have a sense of right and wrong and want to make a difference. And we do make a difference, even if it's not in a way you might find studly and patriotic. "Rooting against the United States." What flippin' garbage.

C. "Incapable of reporting fairly on the situation."

More crappola. I think if you'd open your eyes dear "anonymous" you'd see that there is a great deal of truly (as opposed to Fox News) fair and balanced reporting coming out of the war zones. Also, many of us in Fort Walton Beach are kind of "incapable" of reporting anything of substance about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because WE'RE NOT THERE. And yet you still want to lump me and my cohorts at this paper with the rest of the media you've decided to label liberal because we don't march to the same drummer you do.

Grrrr.

Bogia

2007-04-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I drove through a little town called "Bogia."

I thought, "That would be a good town for my golfing buddies Lee and Richard to live in."

Me?

I'm still looking for Triple Bogia.

Catering to the GOP masses

2007-04-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this one all you Republicans out there.

President Bashar Assad
Damascus, Syria
Yo! Bashar,
We are in receipt of your communiquÃ©, dated April 4, 2007, in which Syria announces that Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the United States has been taken captive and is being held by your government.
Although we appreciate your desire to cooperate with the United States in this delicate matter, your offer to release Speaker Pelosi unharmed is categorically and firmly rejected.
To begin with, it is, and shall remain, the policy of the United States to never negotiate with terrorists.
Based on her recent attempts to force my administration to surrender to the enemy in Iraq, Speaker Pelosi is now officially considered a terrorist, at least by this office. As such, Ms. Pelosi is no longer welcome in America.
We believe that Ms. Pelosi's anti-American attitudes and behavior are a perfect match for Syria, and most especially your administration. We encourage you to work with Ms. Pelosi to find a suitable position for her in your government.
Moreover, your offer to terminate all financial, military, and tactical support to terrorists in the middle east is unacceptable and is also rejected.
Again, your demand that we take Speaker Pelosi back is just too steep a price to pay for peace.
We are encouraged by the fact that Syria has chosen a diplomatic and peaceful course of action in this matter. Although we cannot accept either of your offers at this time, conditions may change after the November, 2008 elections.
I have asked my Secretary of State, Dr. Rice, to contact you directly in mid-November, 2008 to discuss the matter further.
In the meanwhile, I wish you all the best in dealing with Speaker Pelosi.
Please advise the speaker that we hope she finds herself in Syria. Please also tell her that Laura compliments her on that Maple Leaf-studded headscarf.
Sincerely,
G.W Bush
President of 'Merica

John W. Lillpop

That Charlie

2007-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Once again ... All together now ... IT'S GOOD TO BE THE GOV.

MEDIA ADVISORY
Governor Charlie Crist will throw out the opening pitch at the opening game for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays tomorrow, Friday, April 6, 2007.
The details for this event are as follows:
Date: Friday, April 6, 2007
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Tropicana Field
Address: 1 Tropicana Drive
St. Petersburg, FL

2007-04-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

This tidbit, which appeared Tuesday in a publication called Military Times, was forwarded by a little birdie up in Washington.

No more GWOT, House committee decrees

By Rick Maze - Staff Writer

The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.
This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.
A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.
Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”

I dunno. Kinda tugs at the gag reflex, doesn't it?

strange stuff

2007-04-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

One of our employees was driving along White Point Road near Niceville when it was at its busiest Friday afternoon. She spotted a gentleman holding a sign that read: "As a Democrat I apologize for my party's anti-USA stance."

Intriguing phenomenon this. I don't know quite what to make of it.

Sorta like poking yourself in the eye as punishment for ogling an attractive person of the opposite sex maybe?

Anybody seen any apologist Republican sign holders out there? What did their signs say?

What YOUR governor is doing today

2007-04-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what your hard working governor is doing today.

GOVERNOR’S SCHEDULE

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2007

8:30am-9:30am ST. PETE TIMES ED BOARD

Location: St. Pete Times

OUR BRAVE GOVERNOR GOES HEAD TO HEAD WITH THE LOONY LEFTIST LIBERAL NEWS MEDIA.

10:00am-11:30am COMMUNICATIONS BRIEFING

Location: Tampa, Fl

"BLAH BLAH BLAH," says the Gov.

1:15pm-1:25pm GOVERNOR’S WORK AND CALL TIME

Location: The Capitol

Address: 400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399

TEDIOUS PAPERWORK, BUT IT MUST BE DONE (keep going, this will get better, I swear.)

1:30pm-2:00pm PRESS CONFERENCE

Location: The Capitol

"BLAH BLAH BLAH," said the governor.

2:05pm-2:30pm VISIT WITH BRITISH CONSUL GENERAL KEITH ALLAN

Location: The Capitol

I SAY OLD WAT. SPOT O' TEA? (I've been practicing)

2:35pm-2:50pm MEETING WITH STEVEN DIACO

Location: The Capitol

TELL STEVE WE SAID "HEY."

3:00pm-3:10pm VISIT WITH THE MILLER FAMILY

Location: The Capitol

JEFF? ZELL? STEVE? REGGIE? JOHNNIE? SO MANY MILLERS, SO LITTLE TIME.

OK, you get the point. The governor's day ain't a whole lot more exciting than yours and mine.

OR IS IT?

SKIP DOWN PAST THE REST OF THIS CRAP AND LOOK AT WHAT GOV. CRIST HAS PLANNED FOR 9 p.m.

3:15pm-4:15pm GOVERNOR’S WORK AND CALL TIME

Location: The Capitol

4:20pm-4:50pm CABINET BRIEFING

Location: The Capitol

4:55pm-5:15pm MEETING WITH RODNEY BARRETO

Location: The Capitol

9:00pm-TBD NCAA BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Location: Georgia Dome

Address: 1 Georgia Dome Drive NW
Atlanta, GA 30313

AHA.

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE GOV.

April 1

2007-04-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Monday's "Find Richard" guy was located next to the information that runs at the end of stories that I've written telling readers how to get in touch with me.

(I believe this was a cleverly contrived April Fool's Day joke on someone's part.)

When I got into the office this morning I had six calls from people who had found Richard.

Nobody had called about the story.

I don't know what to make of that. You?

I'm insane?

2007-03-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Karen Thurman, the president of the Democratic Party of Florida, e-mailed me this week to let me know that, and I quote, "Republicans think you're insane."

She didn't have to tell me this. You see, I run with this group of hard cores, and every time I see them they tell me I'm insane, daft or some variation of that state of mind. I was a registered Republican (I got better) and these folks were still introducing me as their "favorite Democrat."

Just so's all of you know. I think I'm closer to insane than to being a Republican or a Democrat. As I've said before. I'm an equal opportunity despiser.

Happy April

Miller time

2007-03-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller has found T-Mac's Smack. He sent this out today.

MILLER SAYS ‘NO’ TO LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN US HISTORY

Congressman Jeff Miller (R-FL-01) today voted against the H. Con. Res. 99, the De-mocratic written Fiscal Year 2008 Budget. The average Floridian will pay $3,039.71 more in taxes each year if this budget becomes law, according to American for Tax Reform. The measure passed 216-210.

“I simply refuse to vote for the largest tax increase in this country’s history,” Miller said.

This Budget would increase non-defense, non-emergency spending by $22.5 billion for next fiscal year, with such spending to rise 2.4 percent in each of the next three years. To pay for these increases, the resolution would raise taxes by close to $400 billion over five years -- about $100 billion more than what was passed in the Senate.

“I think the federal government needs to balance the budget and retire the national debt,” added Miller. “But we need to do it by cutting wasteful government spending, not raising taxes on seniors and hardworking American families.”

shoot all the lawyers ... and their cellphones

2007-03-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

There was almost a lawyer killin', or at least a lawyer's cellphone killin', Wednesday at the Okaloosa County Courthouse annex in Shalimar.

The shootin' woulda been jusified I reckon. The bailiff warned all us defendant, cop, reporter AND lawyer types to turn off them dern phones before Judge G. Robert (can't we just call you Bob?) Barron ever entered the courtroom, and then hiz honor done repeated the warnin.' In fact, he told us "The bailiffs have been instructed to shoot at the first cellphone that goes off."

(And if they're shooting "at", can we pretty much take that to mean they ain't gonna hit?)

Anyway, along comes ol' Don Dewrell, who is a lawyer and who must be a favorite of the judges, because as soon as Don's client joins him down in front of the judge, Don's cell phone starts clangin'.

AND HE ANSWERS IT.

Well Judge Barron, quick as you please, screams "DON'T SHOOT!!!!!" and the Bailiffs re-holster their guns and the crisis was averted. (OK, the bailiffs' didn't really re-holster their guns, they never pulled their guns, though one of them did lift an eyelid like he was thinking about waking up to pull his gun.)

((Oh there I go, picking on the poor hard working bailiffs, in double paragraphs no less.))

Actually, everybody kinda knew Judge Barron was just joshin' around, or at least everybody who had been in the courtroom when the judge told everyone to turn off their cell phones.

Aha.
So where was Mr. Dewrell? He didn't say, only admitted he was not in attendance when the shoot to kill pronouncement was made.

Hmm.

But I guess everyone came out of the whole incident all right. Mr. Dewrell turned off his phone and the bailiffs didn't have to shoot "at" anything and general mayhem was mostly averted.

Of course,

I've been wondering all day what whoever that was calling Mr. Dewrell wanted.

It's like a song going through your head or something. Just can't get rid of it.

I'll go away now.

If I'm wrong, tell me

2007-03-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

In a story I did that ran today the news media comes out looking kinda dumb (say it, I know you want to "What's new?")

Both the governor's office and the Office of Insurance Regulation said that residents of this great state were led by incorrect reporting to believe that an executive order laid down by Gov. Charlie Crist was going to protect them from insurance rate hikes, cancellation or nonrenewal through not only June 1 but all the way until the end of hurricane season Nov. 1.

"We never understood how they were getting it so wrong," said Crist spokeswoman Kathy Torian.

"There has been some confusion in reporting," added Jonathon Kees, spokesman for the Office of Insurance Regulation.

The governor's executive order, the state spokespersons explained, was intended to give insurance companies time to make rate filings which would, thanks to legislation passed in a January special session, lead to rate reductions. Once those rate filings were approved it was open season on canceling policies once again.

It's hard for me, from here, to attempt to gauge the damage this uninformed reporting ultimately did. I know of at least one lady here who was surprised to see a nonrenewal notice in March because she'd read in the paper she wasn't going to see one before November. I suspect there are quite a few cases like hers.

I don't want to play apologist for the news meda. I think all of us who played a part in disseminating bad information ought to take it on the chin. But I can't help wondering, if the governor's office, the Office of Insurance Regulation and, presumeably, the insurance companies knew all this misleading reporting was occurring, why didn't they say anything?

justifiable anger?

2007-03-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Roy Parker of Destin received notification that his Allstate insurance policy was going to be cancelled during the week of March 12. The cancellation becomes official sometime in July.

The letter, standard issue from Allstate Floridian, says "Allstate Floridian and your Allstate Floridian agent have aranged for another insurance company, Royal Palm" to offer you property insurance for your next policy period."

The letter also says, get this, "Despite our decision to non-renew your property policy, Allstate wants you to know that it offers a discount of up to 6 percent on auto insurance...."

I asked Roy if he intended to take Allstate up on its "sorry we can't insure you but ..." offer.

"Absolutely not," came his reply. "I've got all my insurance, including my life policy, with Allstate and I'm cancelling everything. There's no point in dealing at all with Allstate."

I got to tell you, he's not the first person, not by a long shot, that I've heard express this sentiment.

A little Dem bite

2007-03-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Not only have our local Democrats come out of hiding, they're starting to show a little spunk, and taking on no less a foe than our own U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller . Check this out.

It came from ... the Okaloosa County Democratic Executive Committee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miller Morass Highlights

One definition of "morass" is "any confusing or troublesome situation, especially one from which it is difficult to free oneself; entanglement." Miller's Morass has begun. His rant in the Daily News on March 24 is indicative of a defensive, caustic, partisan attitude that is simply dishonest and has led to his power demise in the House of Representatives.

According to congress.org, Miller's power ranking is #410 in the House and #174 among Republican members. Whose interest is he really representing? In the Daily News editorial, Miller claimed "the liberals in Washington are not really trying to let more sunshine into government. They are simply trying to score points with voters and the press with quickly passed and ill-conceived legislation." What he does not say is that his votes against HR 985, HR 1255, and HR 1362 were also against his own Republican majority! His votes were in the extreme minority, unaligned with his own party!.

Ouch.

Miller and the Washington Post

2007-03-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

Congressman Jeff Miller forwarded this editorial from the Washington Post with this comment.

"I very rarely agree with a Washington Post Editorial; however, today they are right on the mark and I would like to share their editorial with you."

The editorial discusses HR 1591, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act. It passed today. Miller voted against it. U.S. Rep. Allan Boyd, D-Monticello, voted for it.

Without further ado, the editorial

Retreat and Butter
Are Democrats in the House voting for farm subsidies or withdrawal from Iraq ?

TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California . The legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans .

Altogether the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger: Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August 2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.

The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq . Yet the leadership is ready to piece together the votes necessary to force a fateful turn in the war by using tactics usually dedicated to highway bills or the Army Corps of Engineers budget. The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States, the outcome of which could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.

Congress can and should play a major role in determining how and when the war ends. Political benchmarks for the Iraqi government are important, provided they are not unrealistic or inflexible. Even dates for troop withdrawals might be helpful, if they are cast as goals rather than requirements -- and if the timing derives from the needs of Iraq, not the U.S. election cycle. The Senate's version of the supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan contains nonbinding benchmarks and a withdrawal date that is a goal; that approach is more likely to win broad support and avoid a White House veto.

As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of MoveOn.org but excludes the judgment of the U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat the bill mandates. It would heap money on unneedy dairy farmers while provoking a constitutional fight with the White House that could block the funding to equip troops in the field. Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations. They should not seek to use pork to buy a majority for an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support.

2007-03-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

Linda Young, the director of the Clean Water Network of Florida, has provided the list of candidates her organization supports to serve on the Northwest Florida Water Management District. This is an organization that has HUUUUGE influence over drinking water issues and land management issues in this area.

Her candidates are these:

Victor Lambou - At large
Chad Taylor - Basin 4
Larry Keefe - Basin 2

Young says:
"Please contact the Governor's office and let them know who you are supporting, and thank you for considering the above people."

To send letters of support, use this address:
Mailing Address:
Governor Charlie Crist
Governor’s Appointments Office
LL10 The Capitol
Tallahassee FL 32399-0001
850) 488-2183

VA hospital?

2007-03-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Our Congressman, Jeff Miller, has asked the Veterans Affairs Committee to consider taking $600 million it was going to use to build a veteran's hospital in New Orleans and instead put it in lil' ol' Okaloosa County -- on Eglin Air Force Base to be exact.

Miller decided to make his move after the Louisiana Legislature got squeamish about throwing $300 million of the state's money into the deal. It was asked to cover the cost of a part of the building that would be run by Louisiana State University.

"Many share with me a grave
concern about the fiscal irresponsibility of (the New Orleans) project
as well as the haste with which it was conceived," Miller wrote in his Feb. 22 letter. "The New Orleans area had a declining veterans'
population prior to Katrina. Why then should a VA medical center of
unprecedented size and cost be placed right in that same area when
elsewhere there is a more pressing need?"

Whatcha ya'll think about that?

Marine mammal protection anyone?

2007-03-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here's another example of what comes over my e-mail every day. This notice came from the office of U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the ranking GOPer (pronounced goober) on the House National Resources Committee.

The Marine mammal Rescue Assistance Act Amendments (H.R. 1006) extends the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program, first authorized in 2000, to address the funding needs of facilities assisting the National Marine Fisheries Service with the recovery and rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals.

"This program has been very successful in supporting facilities around the nation to rehabilitate marine mammals and return many of them to the wild," Young said. "For those animals that cannot be returned to the wild, due to illness or other factors, the facilities have taken on the responsibility of caring for those marine mammals."

Facilities, like the Alaska Sea Life Center, which is the only permanent stranding facility for marine mammals in Alaska, apply for grants to help cover the cost of rehabilitating stranded marine mammals. In addition, the Administration will be authorized to enter into cooperative agreements with qualified individuals to respond while at-sea to marine mammals entangled in floating debris to prevent the stranding and or death of the animal.

Now a literal libertarian, I believe, would be obligated to call this pork spending and say private companies should do this sort of thing. That makes some sense, but I'll let my bleeding heart liberal side show itself and say I think any time we're saving animals, particularly those that are in danger solely because of something stupid or mean we humans have done, I'm all for it.

But the thing that really caught my attention in this press release was this sentence.

"While the Prescott Grant Program has been successful in these areas, there are still some areas of the country that do not have appropriate coverage. The Alaska region and the Southeast region are two examples."

Soooo

Marine mammal protection is properly funded everywhere but in Alaska and the Southeast ... that means those Idaho and North Dakota marine mammals are being properly protected but Alaska and Florida marine mammals aren't.

Hmm.

One more example of Congressional leaders in Idaho and North Dakota overstepping their authority?????

Got to be.

Let's give 'em hell peeps.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, R-North Dakota, (202) 224-2551 or senator@dorgan.senate.gov

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, (202) 224-2752.

P.S. You might want to mention that drilling thing too.

Partying month, this March

2007-03-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Between Honen Matsuri and St. Patrick's Day, March is a pretty happenin' month around the world.

Honen Matsuri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Honen Matsuri (Japanese for Harvest Festival) is a fertility festival celebrated every year on March 15 in Japan. The most well-known of these festivals takes place in the town of Komaki, just north of Nagoya City. Honen means rich harvest in Japanese, while a matsuri is a festival or holiday. The Honen festival and ceremony celebrate the blessings of a bountiful harvest and all manner of prosperity and fertility.

The festival's main features of interest are Shinto priests playing musical instruments, a parade of ceremonially-garbed participants, all-you-can-drink sake, and a 280 kg (620 pound), 2.5 meter (96 inch)-long wooden phallus. The wooden phallus is carried from a shrine called Shinmei Sha on a large hill, to another shrine called Tagata Jinja.

The festival starts with celebration and preparation ... Sake is also passed out freely from large wooden barrels. At the start of the procession Shinto priests say prayers and make blessings on the participants and mikoshi which are to be carried along the parade route, as well as the large wooden phallus.

When the procession makes its way down to Tagata Jinja the phallus in its mikoshi is spun furiously before it is set down and more prayers are said. Everyone then gathers to wait for the mochi nage, at which time the crowd is showered with small rice cakes which are thrown down by the officiates from raised platforms.

Can anyone say ROAD TRIP?

2007-03-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

This story ran on the Atlanta Journal Constitution Web site today.

Valerie Plame, the CIA operative at the heart of a political scandal, told Congress Friday that senior officials at the White House and State Department "carelessly and recklessly" blew her cover to discredit her diplomat-husband.
Plame, whose 2003 outing triggered a federal investigation, said she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments.

"It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover," she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I keep hearing comments from our readers that Ms. Plame was not a covert agent. Was she or wasn't she?

Free manure

2007-03-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

I drove past a little horse farm today that had a sign out front advertising "Free Manure."

Let's think outside the box a little bit here. Who, do you think, could put "free manure" to best use? And how much of it would that person, persons or institution of government ... oops, there's that quiet voice speaking out of turn again ... need.

did you know?

2007-03-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

A chicken up in Georgia was ... I guess employed would be the right word, to pick the winner of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

As reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the bird brain henned and hawed, and even had to be replaced by three or four substitute chickens before finally pecking (you're catching all these really witty play on words ((or maybe that's plays on word)) right?) ... drum roll please

Florida.

Ugh.

Oops.

I think I just typed in my quiet voice.

I believe this is just something all of you needed to know as you fill out your brackets tonight. Remember, first game is tomorrow.

And one other thing you ought to remember

"When you find yourself in danger and you're threatened by a stranger and you think you're gonna take a lickin'. There is some one you can call on who will come and rescue you just ca-a-ll on Super Chickin' (bawk bawk bawk) ca-a-all on Super Chickin'.

I think the Super Chicken cartoon song applies here.

Dopey senators

2007-03-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Somebody needs to shove snow, or whatever the major economic product of North Dakota and Idaho is, into the respective exhausts pipes of Sens. Larry Craig and Byron Dorgan.

These ... these ... these ... politicians have introduced legislation in Congress that would wipe out all the concessions Florida's legislators made last year to halt the annual national assault on the oil and natural gas reserves hidden beneath this state's waters.

They want to move the 125 mile buffer for offshore drilling to 45 miles off our coastline, the AP reports. Their proposal doesn't even take into consideration the military training areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

As a reporter you try to be objective in matters like these, but I can't help thinking 'These goobers, a Republican and a Democrat by the way, are from Idaho and North Dakota. Where do they get off attempting to dictate policy that will impact our beaches and our economy?'

I say go back to your respective states, Sens. Craig and Dorgan, and find a way to harness all the methane gas floating around up there.

I loved a comment made by Mark Ferrulo, the executive director of Environment Florida.
"Looks like some senators are so in the pocket of big oil that they want another bite at the apple when the first bite hasn't even been swallowed yet."

If you want to let these guys know how YOU feel, Sen. Dorgan can be reached at 202-224-2551 or senator@dorgan.senate.gov <senator@dorgan.senate.gov>

Sen. Craig can be reached at 202/224-2752.

2007-03-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

For all of you who can't go another day without knowing just what month April is ...

"Governor Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet today recognized April as Water Conservation Month."

Woo hoo. And what does our lucky winner get ... why a ringing endorsement of course.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), together with the Florida Section of American Water Works Association, endorsed the proclamation, reaffirming the state’s commitment to protecting and preserving Florida’s water supply and quality.

You gotta admit though, dedicating a month to conserving the state's water is a lot more valuable than oh, say:

Financial Literacy For Youth month

or

Investor Education Month

or

National BiotechnologyMonth

or

Pot Bellied Pig Appreciation Month