Jeb Bush bitch slaps Cruella's campaign.....

....and with friends like this..... Well, so much for loyalty. I mean she did arrange for our votes here in Florida to be purged in order to catapault his brother into the Presidency illegally and, according to the Associated Press, now turns around and throws down on her senate campaign to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson in her hour of need. There is no doubt the Governor is trying to distance the party from her campaign:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Republican Gov. Jeb Bush complained Thursday that Katherine Harris has made her struggling Senate campaign about herself instead of the record of the Democratic incumbent.
"I am the party leader. I've got concerns," the governor said in response to a reporter's question. "The campaign can't be about her. It has to be about Bill Nelson and the future of our state and so far, she asked my advice and I gave her that exact advice and it's gotten worse since."

Asked if the issues surrounding Harris' campaign have made it difficult for Republicans to win the race in November, Bush said, "You're right."

Then the hard drinking former Florida Republican Party state chair Tom Slade put his two cents in to really top it off:

Tom Slade, who led the Florida Republican Party's resurgence in the 1990s and is a one-time mentor to Harris, said the constant campaign staff reshuffling has been costly.

"The contradictions and the starts and stops just don't add up to anything but utter and total confusion," Slade said. "This here-we-go, now-we-don't kind of stuff is just not compatible for a campaign for the U.S. Senate."

I find myself conflicted because I really want her to hang on for a resounding defeat at the ballot box. OTOH, I couldn't be happier she is demonstrating just how incompetent she is. Either way, I should be enjoying these foibles as her nightmare seems to go on without end while reminding the voters daily how connected she is to the state GOP and the growing mess in Washington at the behest of her prize to the nation in 2000: George W. Bush.

Photo of the day......

I've found the internet to be filled with a wealth of sources for wonderful photos of our fair city on the river. For example there's a great source of photos in the Metajax forum in their photo album section. The current photo of the day is from a site I found on google called Donald's Linux Site. He's apparantly a local whose interests include photography. His collection is awesome. I highly recommend a visit.

As I get older I find my pride in my community and fair city growing. I regret not appreciating it when I was younger and I'm enjoying making up for the lost time now. I've started to collect the web photos I run across and I am contemplating putting together a little power point presentation set to music. In the meantime the photo I chose today is a shot of the north bank west of the Main Street Bridge. I'm come to really appreciate our skyline, especially at night. I eventually will go through the entire collection and share it with everyone and hope you can appeciate them as well.

Dead babies & hate groups?

Bzzzzzzz……There’s an interesting piece on Suzanne Jenkins over at The Financial News & Daily Record about her crusade for parking meter reform. Not bad Suzanne. But, I do wonder how she feels now about her favorite corporation, Wal-Mart, considering their recent reported attempts to circumvent port security, bzzzzzzzz……Sticks of Fire, a kick ass state blog, did an interesting post on hate groups in Florida via the Southern Poverty Law Center. I will do a more extensive post on this later, but the news for Jacksonville isn’t good. It seems Florida is second only to South Carolina (47) with 43 registered hate groups. Lovely. If you go here and take a look at their map you can see our fair city loaded up with several. How depressing, bzzzzzzzz………..It looks like Andy Johnson’s quixotic crusade to save the old Fuller Warren is officially at an end. The Florida Times-Union is reporting the DOT will start demolition of the underwater beams between December and February. Has it really been over five years since the EPA halted the dismantlement? Sometime in May they will start the above water dismantling. Actually, I’m glad to see it go. It’s unsightly and I’m not in favor of spending any taxpayer money to spruce it up. And who in the world would eat a fish caught off that bridge considering the pollutants swirling around it? Ugh, bzzzzzzzzzz…..I see Dist. 4 Congressional candidate Bob Harms’ web site is back up. It was down briefly last week and it’s good to see it up and running again. Mr. Harms is looking to challenge Ander Crenshaw, the three time current seat holder for the 2006 mid-terms. I’ll post a copy of it later but he had a killer ad in the FolioWeekly back in early March that’s a must see. I’m going to try and contact him and see if he would like to do a guest post on the site, bzzzzzzzzz…….What a disappointment to find out Jacksonville has the highest mortality rate in the state. WJXT is reporting the latest study out of the Health Department showing the death rate of babies being really high in the downtown area of Jacksonville. I think our fair city is better than that and the City Council needs to address it on at least some level, bzzzzzzzzzz……..Hate and dead babies sure are two subjects I didn’t expect to link with Jacksonville.

What Joey said.....

Urban Manifesto

[...]
"This city needs to wake up and realize that WE ARE THE NEW MEDIA. WE the bloggers of Jacksonville, WE the people who post comments on message boards and more so, we members of this community have a right to expose what is going on behind the curtain. I am talking about all of us, the citizens of this community. We have a right to report, publish and comment on any story that is news to us."

Go read, now....

Update: I almost forgot. Major league kudos to Metajax's Jax Investor [Kevin Conner] for his activisim. Go Kevin.

Suzanne Jenkins get's some mayoral candidate ink...

Urbanjacksonville is reporting the first stirrings of the Mayor's race for 2007 via the Jacksonville Business Journal. As a former Democratic Executive Committee member from District 1 it's only fair I acknowledge the bias in any posting I might have concerning Suzanne Jenkins. Her hard fight for Wal-Mart over on Atlantic Blvd. was so touching when one considers the GOP mindset for corporations over people. If this is how she really felt I only wish she had left the Democratic Party sooner. I'm always amazed how people put more trust and faith in corporations than their own government, which was designed to be of the people, for the people and by the people as opposed to a corporate entity of the dollar, for the dollar and by the dollar. I can't imagine a more unfriendly company moving in and desroying the economic ecosystem of a neighbood. The talk within the DEC at the time of Ms. Jenkins' hgihly publicized departure was her stand on abortion finally being the main impetus forcing her to jump. There was no secret that one or two members of the DEC had the same position on abortion. The main difference being they did not want to force thier position on anyone else. Its a personal matter. So she left and headed off for her fight for Wal-Mart. Good riddance.

Her actions regarding that fight only leaves me to beleive she would be one of those local pols that would advocate huge tax breaks/incentives as a lure for corporate entities to settle here in Jacksonvlle. Don't you just love that? They get these sweetheart tax break deals but they still expect the roads to be paved in front of thier business, the trash to get picked up off their street, the fire department to show up when there is a fire and the local police department to keep a watchful eye on their company. Yet, me the home owner, gets to fork over higher property taxes to make sure the big ol' company that just moved in gets a free ride on our infrastructure at my property tax expense. It doesn't take rocket science to guess where her sentiments probably lie.

I loved how Urbanjacksonville passed along some of those sentiments about Ms. Jenkins:

"An article in the Jacksonville Business Journal, Mayoral election talk starting up, touts the possible candidates for Mayor in 2007:John Peyton, "Big Business, as his friend Mike Hightower calls him; Mike Weinstein, Republican, no Democrat, no Republican; Suzanne Jenkins, Walmart lover/Downtown activist; Jack Diamond, never run for an office in my life...don't know why I would."

'Indecision 2007' is about right. Tell me again which one of these candidates represent the needs of the individual citizen? If Mike Weinstein is supposed to be the 'populist' in this bunch than heaven help us all.

Be Worried. Be VERY Worried.

Ok. It's official. Time Magazine now says global warming is real. REAL. Got that? REAL as in "We really mean it this time." I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This past hurricane season we had a 1-2-3 punch of Cat 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic basin and we lost a major U.S. city. LOST. U.S. CITY. And the ideologues at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are still in denial. I'm glad Time magazine finally decided to write a cover story on this since they refused to hold the current WH resident's feet to the fire on any number of issues, especially global warming, while they cowered in fear less they lose their "access" to spin press conferences. I think I'm going to be sick.

I'm actually amazed that Time acts like this is some kind of revelation. It's as though a Homer Simpson slap to the forehead with the requiste, "Doh!" just happened as they give us a cover story screaming with Chicken Little headlines, "Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. Ok. We're worried now you imbeciles. Actually, denizens of the reality based community have been worried for quite sometime now. But Time acts like it's news:

"No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us."

Suddenly and unexpectedly? What morons. This is just another example of how the MSM, embodied by "reputable" enties such as TIME have ceased to serve a public function. Sometime ago they started to become nothing burt mouth pieces for the right wing noise machine and now the global community is going to pay for it in spades.

A belated welcome home.....

Canofworms had a post back on March 21st that I wanted to recommend as a must read. It's not often we can get the insight, especially from someone so articulate offered from an on the ground perspective, first hand. As a brother to an "Operation Desert Shield" vet and a son to a father who served in WWII, Korea AND Vietnam (he used to tell me, "son, I hit the trifecta on military service) I can appreciate the service and commitment from returning vets and I'm always interested in valuing what they have to say. Reading this particular post from Canofworms, I think his name is Jack, really affected me when he discussed his thoughts on the invasion and his body armor:

"At this point in the invasion (which I had been against even as a soldier whether they had WMD or not, and I suspected they didn’t) this was a real war. We even stopped and acted all GI Joe like and tried to detect where gunfire was coming from that was being fired at our convoy. We all assumed defensive positions around the vehicles, where the magical canvas that covers a humvee would have blocked anything being shot at us. (sarcasm)

I remember thinking that since they only issued me one ceramic plate for my body armor, if I had been shot in the back, would I have any chance at all? It seems as if the bullet would go into my back and bounce off the back of the plate I had in the front, and exit out the side or back, surely hitting vital organs."

I guess affected isn't the right word on second thought. It's more like anger. What kind of governmentwould spend millions on 'pych opt" programs like propaganda news articles for local consumption pumping up the 'positive aspects' of this war from the pentagon's pov at the expense of proper body armor for our troops in the field? It's not too hard to imagine that Harry Truman's conscience wouldn't even dare to allow this to happen.

Since I've been reading Canofworms for a while now I will do something that should have been done on my earlier visits. Give a hearty and hale, though belated, welcome home. Thanks for your service to our country.

Oh Please,....I'm just doing my job!

Though I don't quite know why, I was somewhat amused by FolioWeekly's "bouquets & brickbats" feature in this weeks [03.28.06] issue. The point is I shouldn't be. A bouquet was thrown Suzanne Jenkins' way for her participation on www.metjax.com a community minded discussion forum for the Jacksonville area and northeast Florida region. Jenkins is a District 4 Jacksonville City Council Representative who started out in her political career as a Democrat until a highly publicized party switch in 2003 to the GOP (I may be wrong on the year). I found myself a bit at odds over my feelings regarding FolioWeekly's laudatory plug because I value this local weekly progressive alternate news source and enjoy reading it regularly.

My problem with this 'bouquet' awarded to the queen of the Wal-Mart backers league is the same I would have with one of those roadside inns that proudly proclaim on their marquee "clean rooms and sheets." When one decides an overnight stay is required at one of these inns these are niceties that should not be only a given, but something that should not have to be advertised. In Ms. Jenkins' case I feel the same way with her 'bouquet' awarded to her by FolioWeekly. These 'bouquets' should not be awarded for actually doing your job, whether it's through a discussion board or the old fashion way: by phone, mail or in person. Usually, the 'bouquets' awarded by FolioWeekly are for extrodinary deeds that are above and beyond the call of what is expected of a community citizen. At this point, this is the only time in my memory a bouquet has ever been awarded by FolioWeekly for something so mundane as someone actually doing thier job. I'm not sure in the end what to make of it. Is this FolioWeekly's backhanded way of saying the rest of the Jacksonville City Council isn't? If so, something is terribly wrong here and FolioWeekly's editorial responsibiliy lies in doing a rather extensive piece on that fact. So how about it?

Go Gators!

This morning's Florida Times-Union had a nice front page spread on the final four with some interesting facts about each school. As a UF alumni (I graduated in August, 1980) I am compelled to reproduce the facts given for UF in the FTU simply because I found them interesting if not for any other reason. In my senior year our football team went 0-10-1. The one tie that year was, ironically, against George Tech who had Steve Spurrier on their coaching staff. I attended every home game that year and even went on a road trip to watch the Gators get waxed by Mississippi who won all of two games that year. So my loyalty eventually was paid off though it needn't have been as I love the school regardless) in spades by Steve Spurrier and Billy Donovan.

Now to the subject at hand. It seems of the four schools represented at this years Final four the Gators have the largest enrollment: 34,000 (undergraduates). A short drive from Jacksonville (about 90 minutes) is all I have to endure to get my Gator fix. The academic fact the FTU gave for UF (as oppposed to UCLA, LSU & George Mason) I found interesting: "There's a good chance your kid's not going to get in." Wow. So much for legacy's. It seems the most popular majors are Business (Marketing) and engineering. The basketball legend listed for UF was Neal Walk. (As opposed to LSU's Pete Maravich and UCLA's John Wooden - George Mason doesn't really have one yet). The BMOC for UF was listed as Dwayne "I can tear exterior mirrors off cars" Schintzus. One fact that surprised me was movies that were filmed on campus: "Parenthood & Doc Hollywood." The hangout listed for UF was the Reitz (or more comonly called "Union Hall" when I attended). I laughed at the best quote from the reference guide given: "Freshman girls dress like they are going clubbing to class." I was the most impressed with the "Did you know?" fact: 'Eighteen of the 20 seniors who played for coach Donovan have graduated, a 90 percent rate. And last but not least they lested a couple of famous alumni: former senator and governor Bob Graham and (ugh) Buddy Ebsen.

Prediction: that glass slipper won't be fitting so well on George Mason at game time this evening (6:07pm). Though it will be a very close game.

UPDATE: Well I was wrong! The game wasn't even close - but that glass slipper George Mason found sure wasn't even close to fitting and "poof" they turned into the proverbial pumpkin. Gators win 75 - 58! I hope the Gators wind up playing LSU over UCLA simply for the fact the Gators know LSU and what to expect. Wow! What a run - 10 straight wins!

GO GATORS!