Category — Florida

The Pensacola News Journal reports that our orange governor, Charlie Crist has vetoed the latest attempt by the Republican majority in the legislature to interfere in doctor-patient relations in the state, and to order doctors to perform what may be unnecessary medical procedures, which will raise the cost of health care. [They don’t understand that’s what they are doing because they are pandering to their base, not thinking things through.]

The Republican leadership accuse Charlie of willfully and maliciously pandering to the voters by doing what a majority of them wants done, rather than doing what a minority of voters who will never vote for him want done.

It has never ceased to amaze me how many Republicans think that doing what the majority of people want is unprincipled.

Because the winds have shifted and are bringing the oil East, the local NPR station, WUWF, was talking to the tourist development officials along the coast about how Memorial Day went [not as bad as had been feared] and what the approaching oil means.

It was interesting to hear these marketing people make the point that you had to be honest with people and tell them the truth about the situation. They said that if you lie to people to bring them down to the coast, they’ll leave angry and won’t be back. But if you tell them the truth, they will believe you when you tell them it is alright to return.

Too bad major corporations haven’t figured that out.

On a happier note, A.B. “Tony” Hayward is toast. BP will dump him as soon as this is resolved, and he knows it, because he replaced the last CEO after the disaster at BP’s Texas refinery. BP dumps the CEO, tells the world they have reformed, and goes back to business as usual.

Just in time to make today complete the St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Oil spill may reach Florida Panhandle beaches by end of week

The latest projections say the Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s leading edge could ooze onto Pensacola’s beaches sometime late this week, marking the spill’s first official landfall in Florida.

Winds that kept the spill 50 or more miles away from the Panhandle for the past six weeks have now shifted and are pushing the oil back toward Florida, said state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole. Federal officials have now banned fishing off the tip of the Panhandle, meaning 31 percent of the gulf is now closed to both commercial and recreational fishing.

The oil is arriving just in time for hurricane season. This is also when Florida is supposed to kick off its $25 million advertising extravaganza — financed by BP — touting how clean the Panhandle’s beaches are.

“Obviously if that happens we’ll have to pull the ads and rebrand,” said Gov. Charlie Crist.

Rebrand?!?!?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?! Call ourselves South Alabama? Become the “Land of black sticky beaches”?

This is what we get when we start running government like a business – everything is marketing, a façade. All problems are solved by the correct ad campaign. No need to actually fix anything, or do anything, just tell people it is “morning in America” and they will buy it.

In order to generate “local excitement” [sell stuff] the chamber of commerce is once again annoying people with the Billy Bowlegs Festival. This year the unavoidable part runs from Friday, June 4^th and finishes up on Monday with a really annoying parade that screws up traffic and sends a lot of noisy people through my neighborhood.

Almost at bad as the Monday traffic jam are the Friday fireworks. I know a lot of people enjoy fireworks, but they probably have not seen what loud noises and flashes of light can do to people and aircraft – I am definitely not a fan. OTOH, with the oil situation this might be only time this year that they can set off fireworks, as it’s done from a barge on the water for safety reasons. At any time the water could be flammable which would cancel the show, if anyone wanted to brave the fumes to watch.

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The Pensacola News Journal reports on our governor [independent orange running for US Senate] slicing away at the Republican legislature’s budget bill:

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist cut $371 million in spending Friday with line-item vetoes of the $70 billion state budget.

Crist’s actions continued his conflict with lawmakers, particularly Republican leadership. He rejected language prohibiting state funds for human stem-cell research, cut spending on projects he said were inserted into the budget late and wiped away a poison pill lawmakers inserted in an effort to protect a $160 million sweep from a transportation trust fund.

Legislative leadership said they’ll consider a lawsuit to challenge Crist. Crist’s vetoes drew the wrath of Senate President Jeff Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican running for chief financial officer. He said Crist’s criticisms of college building projects were unfounded in what Atwater characterized as an open budget process.

Ah, yes, the “transparency” of the Florida budgeting process – so transparent that no one knows it is happening. You would think that after Ray Sansom’s problems and the grand jury report the legislature would make an effort to look legitimate for at least the year following, but they still don’t get it.

They stole $160 million from the transportation trust fund, and stealing it was because those funds are designated for transportation projects only, to hide their underfunding of the public schools.

They put together a package worth hundreds of millions of dollars to attract bio tech firms, and then pass this stem cell research ban to pander to their base. Bio tech firms would be insane to relocate to a state that could ban their research at any time because of pandering to religious whackos.

Speaking of the whackos, they still haven’t sent Charlie their latest attempt at messing with women’s health issues. It passed, but they are sure he’s going to veto it, so they are mounting an e-mail campaign to influence his actions.

A couple of fun items in the Local Puppy Trainer:

Man charged with feeding hot dogs to alligators

PORT ST. LUCIE — Florida wildlife officers have charged a Port St. Lucie man after allegedly watching him feed hot dogs to alligators in his back yard.

The problem is that the ‘gator got a death sentence for what the fool did. They should have “jailed” the ‘gator, i.e. sent it to a zoo, and fed it the fool.

Weather Channel’s Cantore: Oil’s not coming here

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was in town Wednesday with some good news for potential beach-goers.

The oil ain’t coming.

I have been hoping that the oil wouldn’t be coming ashore here, but if Cantore says it won’t be, it’s only a matter of time until the black flood arrives. Cantore is on the Weather Channel’s hurricane team and is known to storm watchers. He still hasn’t figured out that sending him out to stand on beaches in the middle of hurricanes coming ashore is not an indication that his bosses like him.

If you are from this area the headline in the Local Puppy Trainer tells you everything you need to know: Peaden defends Crist after Gaetz blasts him over tourism.

State senator Durell Peaden, MD, Ob-Gyn, Esq., NRA, GOP represents North Okaloosa County, and was born in the area. He has sponsored most of Florida’s whacko gun legislation.

State senator Don Gaetz BA [religion and political science], GOP is Florida’s third wealthiest elected official and a retired health care industry executive from North Dakota via Jacksonville.

Charlie Crist is Florida’s orange Governor who recently became an independent when the RPOF [Republican Party of Florida] decided he was actually a communist for being publicly happy about receiving Federal stimulus funds, that enabled the Republican legislature to balance the state budget while pretending they weren’t actually raising any taxes.

The rest of the country when reading about this probably thinks it has something to do with the Gulf Gusher, but that’s the excuse, not the reason. Gaetz was acting as the spokesweasel for the state senate leadership who remembered at the last minute to pull the bill that would have authorized drilling within the 10½-mile limit in state waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Charlie has proposed a special session to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban drilling in Florida’s waters. The leaders of the legislature are counting on income from selling drilling leases to close the humongous gap in next year’s budget while still pretending they aren’t raising taxes. They are hoping that everyone forgets about the oil spill by next Spring, so they don’t want to go on the record as supporting oil drilling while BP is still poisoning the Gulf.

Peaden said it was about politics, and this is a rare event – he’s right. Gaetz knows that the state doesn’t have any money, and couldn’t do much in the way of media unless BP ponied up the cash. Charlie really squeezed to get Visitflorida to steal from another campaign to put out the ads it did. Hell, Gaetz was the one who told the local media that BP hadn’t sent the cash, despite promises. Florida finally got the cash yesterday.

Because I am cursed, Gaetz is my state senator, and his spawn is my state representative.

Rick Outzen, the editor and publisher of the Pensacola Independent News a local weekly, where he blogs, also writes for The Daily Beast. His Beast post, BP Tries Damage Control, got Rick an invite to Keith Olbermann’s show tonight.

If not the first, Rick was one of the first to report on BP’s efforts to get people to sign away their rights to sue, an effort directed mainly at fishing boat operators.

Go read the whole thing about the problems local people, governments, and organizations are having trying to deal with BP. The people in this area aren’t the most sophisticated in the world, hell, they vote for Republicans, but they know how to deal with disasters. Our emergency management people are experienced professionals who know how to plan, and execute those plans. The current head of FEMA is the former head of Florida’s emergency management agency. BP is the choke point in the system, and they have to approve before plans can be implemented.

BP has contracted with a Delaware wildlife rescue group to take care of oil soaked critters. I’m sure they are fine people, but what do they know about sea turtles and dolphins, or any of the other inhabitants of the Gulf? That was an insensitive decision that will cost BP in the end.

The Miami Herald reports on next year’s Republican leadership and their oil dilemma

For months, Rep. Dean Cannon and Sen. Mike Haridopolos had envisioned using oil drilling leases off Florida’s Gulf coast to fill a $6 billion budget hole expected next year. But as the oil slick washed closer to Pensacola last week, Cannon — on tap to be the next House speaker — conceded: “I think it definitely is a game changer.”

The “game” was to pass a bill authorizing leasing in state waters, i.e. the area within 10 miles of the coast, this year, but these two “service station attendants” had to pull their bill when the gusher happened. Since nothing was done to actually fix Florida’s revenue problems, [in fact, the situation was made worse by a series of incentives and tax breaks for businesses and people who want to buy yachts and private airplanes], and there is no more Federal stimulus money to plug holes, as has happened in the last two budgets, the next legislature is going to be looking for revenue. Anyone who thinks that drilling leases are off the table now, doesn’t understand the Florida legislature.

Cannon and Haridopolos will introduce a bill to authorize oil leases in the next session, if they don’t do it in a special session. They will try every short-term solution they can imagine to avoid having to actually fix Florida’s revenue problem, because they have been pushing constitutional amendments for years that all depend on growth in the state for the funding of the government.

The legislative session finished last night and people headed home for a break until the special session is called after people realize that what got passed won’t work. It’s the same every year, although, since Charlie became an “independent”, the legislature may decide it doesn’t want to return to fix things.

Here’s the AP list of the bills that the Republicans thought were necessary, including some that violate the state constitution, but that’s traditional.

Because Florida likes to be on the leading edge of bizarre, we now have a political party called the “Florida Tea Party”, and they are selecting candidates. As The Hill reports: First elected official from the Tea Party

The newly created Florida Tea Party announced Friday it is nominating Polk County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson in the race for retiring Rep. Adam Putnam’s (R-Fla.) seat.

It would be wonderful if “Howdy Doody’s” seat in the US Congress went to a Democrat because of the Florida Tea Party. Putnam was one of the sponsors of the bill to open coastal waters to drilling. He quit to run for Agricultural Commissioner. [He is Cruella de Harris’s cousin, a grandchild of Ben Hill Griffin who was the king of Florida politics for years]

That rusted shut long ago.

The Pensacola Beach Blog covers the reaction to the oil spill by our Congresscritter, Jefferson Miller, the Chumuckla Chucklehead.

Miller prefers:

• Corporations over Cobia
• Tar balls over Turtles
• Petroleum over Porpoises
• Natural Gas over Nature’s Grace
• Profits over Paradise

He voted for drilling in Florida’s coastal waters before, and the huge oil spill hasn’t altered his opinion in the slightest.

Update: the BBC is now reporting some oil has come ashore in Louisiana.

The BBC reports that US military joins Gulf of Mexico oil spill effort. This is to some extent the result of the revised estimate on the amount of oil coming from the leak from 1000 barrels per day to 5000 barrels per day, but what is a 500% increase among friends.

The article also reports that the well didn’t have the remotely controlled shut-off valve required by some countries because the US regulators didn’t think it was necessary. After all these huge spills are rare… well relatively rare… OK, not widely reported, in the Gulf of Mexico. You see, only two of the top five oil spills have occurred in the Gulf [See the sidebar near the bottom of the article. The Exxon Valdez is number 5].

I guess it would have been too expensive to have included an old fashioned gate valve at the well head, one that was over-sized so you could move the drill through it. Something that ROV could shut with just force and a long bar if necessary.

The Miami Herald is reporting Crist goes it alone in his bid for Senate.

Charlie was too moderate to win a Republican primary, so now we have a three way race: Meek, Crist, and Rubio.

[If you don’t get the allusion this video makes it clear.]

The BBC reports that US to set fire to oil rig leak. They are going to attempt to burn off as much of the oil as they can, converting it into air pollution and green house gases. This is heavy crude and rather tar-like, so it won’t be easy to light.

I located NOAA’s National Ocean Service official site on the DEEPWATER HORIZON Incident and NASA’s Earth Observatory is continuing to provide satellite images of the spill.

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