Apparently the “elites” believe that all problems can be solved with a better marketing campaign.

I saw a bit on one of the news sites that said that Obama thought the problem was the administration hadn’t been successful in “selling” their accomplishments.

Sorry, but not even the marketing powerhouse that is Coca Cola was able to convince people to buy “New Coke”, and there has never been an ad good enough to sell a Yugo. It is a lot easier to sell good products that meet needs than whatever happens to be in the warehouse.

I received a flier from from AMAPEF out of AMPAC, which are fronts for the 30% of doctors who belong to the AMA. They want people to call Congress to fix the Medicare cuts that will go into effect if Congress doesn’t act. Congress has tried to do this multiple times, but one party didn’t want anything to get fixed. Maybe if doctors stopped contributing to candidates who hate science and the government, they wouldn’t have this problem.

I figure that the Department of Homeland Security must have a ton of crayons, stickers, etc in primary colors that they used to terrorize inform people of the terror alert level. We should put them to work with ratings for political ads.

It would be like movie ratings, only it would only indicate the level of truth in ad. I don’t want to censor ads, just a little blurb indicating the BS to truth ratio in the ad. Just a couple of seconds of a basic color and a number between o and 4 to let people know the facts about what they’ve just seen.

According to my Mother, it will be mostly 1s and 0s as fact checking is not a feature of political marketing.

Steve Bates notes that the Third District Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that overturned Florida’s ban against gay adoption. The governor and attorney general have apparently decided not to appeal the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court, which mean that gay adoptions can take place in the areas covered by the Third District.

By not appealing, the ruling is automatically limited to this one area, so the battle will have to be waged in the other Districts until there is a ruling by the Supreme Court that would apply to all of Florida.

[Note, this is not a peculiarity of the Florida court system, the Federal system works the same way.]

A columnist for the Local Puppy Trainer, Wendy Victoria, wrote a related piece: I’ve seen too many police reports to condemn gay parenting

Every once in a while, someone makes the mistake of trying to start a discussion with me on whether gay people should be allowed to foster or adopt children.

And, here’s your warning, I always get angry.

It’s not so much that I’m passionate about gay people’s rights or that I think a family with two Moms or two Dads is better than a traditional family.

The anger comes from the fact that week after week, month after month, year after year, I’m assaulted by reports of what people do to their birth children in the name of love, parental rights, etc.

It occurred to me, in an attack of the obvious, that almost every child who is adopted or in foster care was the result of the “traditional” family setting. I say almost, because it is always possible that somewhere there is IVF child who was abandoned, so I’m avoiding the absolute.

While some of these children are probably orphaned, most enter programs for foster care and/or adoption while their parents are still alive. This would tend to make one think that the “traditional” model is the problem, not the solution… but that would be a baseless generalization, just like the ban that was in place in all of Florida.

The Pensacola News Journal carried this story by Lucy Morgan in the St. Petersburg Times: ‘Fiscal steward’ presides over ‘Taj Mahal’ project

TALLAHASSEE — Four times Paul M. Hawkes tried to become a judge, four times without success.

Success came on the fifth try, after then-Gov. Jeb Bush gained control of the nominating process. Bush picked Hawkes, a policy adviser in the Republican-controlled House, over five other nominees, including three judges.

On his application, Hawkes wrote, “A judge should be accountable to the public as a fiscal steward. A judge should not utilize practices that may be more convenient but would violate the stewardship responsibilities of the court.”

The “fiscal steward” then set out to build what is now derided as the “Taj MaHawkes,” a monument to profligate spending, with no taxpayer dollar spared, a courthouse outfitted with 20 miles of African mahogany, etched glass and, for each judge, a private kitchen and bathroom.

Chief Judge Paul M. Hawkes is on the ballot in the First District for a retention vote, and is the only judge I voted against retaining.

This is the Court of Appeals, not a trial court. These people need offices and a few conference rooms, not “august chambers”, because lawyers are the only “outsiders” who will see the inside of the building. Cases are appealed by paperwork being filed, and the Court of Appeals doesn’t even have the final word, they are just a filter between the trial courts and the state Supreme Court. Judge Hawkes suffers from a sense of entitlement and the voters should disabuse him of that fantasy.

Position: 18.4N 91.6W [10 PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [295°] near 7 mph [11 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [ 50 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [ 65 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1004 mb ↓.

Currently on land about 20 miles [ 32 km] Southeast of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico.

The storm is weakening rapidly this morning and may be a remnant low by the time it reaches the Bay of Campeche. Redevelopment is unlikely due to the high wind shear conditions over the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]