January 31, 2004
Bring ‘em on Saddam captured Situation improving qWagmire
US deaths rise in wake of Saddam capture
US combat deaths in Iraq have risen sharply during January despite a drop in the number of attacks and the capture of former dictator Saddam Hussein over a month ago.As of Thursday, 33 American soldiers and one civilian had been killed by hostile fire during the month. That compares with 24 US combat deaths in December, and a total of 32 coalition combat deaths.
The figures appear to show that the security situation in Iraq is not improving, contrary to earlier claims from the US military and politicians.
At Least 12 Killed in Bombings in Northern Iraq
A car bomb targeting a police station in Iraq's third largest city killed nine people and injured 45 others Saturday, while three American soldiers died when a roadside bomb ripped through their convoy near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.Witnesses in Mosul, Iraq's major northern city, said what appeared to be a suicide attacker drove through a security barricade in front of the police station before blowing up his vehicle outside the building. Officials confirmed a car bomb but wouldn't say if it was a suicide attack.
In Kirkuk, a homemade bomb exploded as a 4th Infantry Division convoy passed by about 25 miles southwest of the city Saturday, killing the three soldiers, the U.S. military said. The deaths raised to 522 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq conflict.
January 30, 2004
W's recovery
A record-high 375,000 jobless workers will exhaust their unemployment insurance this month and an estimated 2 million workers will find themselves in the same predicament during the first half of the year, according to an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. ......The jobless recovery has become an issue in this presidential election year, and the report shows the jobless benefits will run out for large numbers of workers in several key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina and South Carolina.
While the unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in December, down from 6.3 percent in June, businesses added only 1,000 jobs that month. The country has lost more than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in a steady erosion over the past 41 months.
Congress voted in 2002 to give unemployed workers an additional 13 weeks of benefits and extended the program twice. But it expired just before Christmas. Congressional Republicans said another extension wasn't necessary because the economy was gaining strength and job growth was near at hand.
The Arts, fascist style
Did you notice that W just proposed increasing funding for the NEA? If he actually comes through with any money, expect more of this:
The play praises patriotism, but the judges only saw teens cutting up an American flag.It was enough to disqualify Archbishop McCarthy High students from a competition early this week for their performance of The Children's Story. In the play, first published in 1963 by Shogun author James Clavell, third-graders in a classroom in a United States that has been defeated by a powerful enemy, presumably Communist, cut the flag into pieces. Their new teacher tells them if the flag is so good, everyone should get a piece and tells them to hand out the shreds. It's a message about the dangers of mindless political indoctrination.
"The play is actually pro-American," said Erin Fragetta, 15, a sophomore at the southwest Broward County school who worked on the production. "It was intended to be an anti-communist message, and the judges just turned it around on us."
Zac Ensign, who acted in the play, added: "People just didn't look at what we were doing for what it was. We never intended for this to be a malicious gesture."
McArthur was competing against 10 troupes from Broward public and private high schools at the Florida State Thespians District 13 one-act play competition at Nova High on Monday and Tuesday.
After receiving complaints about the flag cutting, co-chairman Melody Wicht, who teaches drama at Pembroke Pines Charter High, disqualified the McArthur team.
"Some people came to me after the play and complained about the performance," Wicht said. "So I looked into it."
Wicht said she based her decision on Florida Statute 876.52, which says "Whoever publicly mutilates, defaces or tramples with intent to insult any flag ... of the United States shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree."
"I tried to stay as objective as possible as they performed," Wicht said. "My problem was that they took an American flag off the flagpole and cut it into pieces. They were disqualified based on Florida law."
Jim Usher, from American Heritage School in Plantation, one of the three judges, said while he was "grossly offended" by the flag cutting, he didn't base his rating of the play on it. He gave the play a fair rating -- the lowest -- based on overall performance, he said.
Wicht said until she hears otherwise, the disqualification will stand.
But constitutional lawyers and theater buffs say Wicht may have gone too far.
"For 10 years it's been clear that these flag desecration statutes are unconstitutional," said Bruce Rogow, a Nova Southeastern University law professor specializing in constitutional law and First Amendment rights. "What's especially ironic is that this is a pro-democracy, anti-totalitarianism play, and yet they're punished for using the flag as an example of what shouldn't be done in a totalitarian society."
Rogow cited the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down such a statute in the case of Texas vs. Johnson.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court's opinion that flag desecration is the ultimate expression of disagreement in a democracy
All the news that fits...
Haven’t been posting a whole lot this week, what with fundraising and starting fires, so let’s catch up a litlle:
Welfare daddies cash in: Centro Ybor bailout begins
Wannabe welfare daddies vow to come back: Civitas hoping that Tampa Housing Authority does not get its grant so that Civitas can move forward with Ed Turanchik’s plan to take over the world.
Jeb! hates democracy, appoints new Judge, nullifying scheduled election.
Republican program to privatize schools leads to theft and graft.
Struhs takes job with environmental rapist.
That should keep everyone busy for awhile. More later.
January 29, 2004
MD E-voting report slams Diebold
Electronic voting machines made by Diebold Inc. that are widely used in several states have such poor computer security and physical security that an election could be disrupted or even stolen by corrupt insiders or determined outsiders, according to a new report presented today to Maryland state legislators.Authors of the report - the first hands-on attempt to hack Diebold voting machine systems under conditions found during an election — were careful to say that the machines, if not hacked, count votes correctly, and that issues discovered in the "red team" exercise could be addressed in a preliminary way in time for the state's primaries in March.
Advertisement"I don't want to beat people up," said Michael Wertheimer, the security expert who ran the attack team for RABA Technologies, a consulting firm in Columbia, Md. "I want to get an election that people can feel good about in March."
Further steps could be taken to ensure a safe general election in November, the report concludes. But ultimately, the report says, Diebold election software has to be rewritten to meet industry security standards and called for limited use of paper receipts to help verify voting.
......Maryland has bought more than $55 million worth of the machines. Georgia has chosen Diebold machines for elections statewide, and they have been chosen by populous counties in California and Ohio, among other states.
The authors of the report said that they had expected a higher degree of security in the design of the machines. "We were genuinely surprised at the basic level of the exploits" that allowed tampering, said Mr. Wertheimer, a former security expert for the National Security Agency.
William A. Arbaugh, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland and a member of the Red Team exercise, said, "I can say with confidence that nobody looked at the system with an eye to security who understands security."
"Liar Liar..."
Pants on fire-mobile comes to Tampa!
Contact Information:
Norwood Orrick
813-226-2550
norwood@blogwood.com
BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering (local updates)
www.PantsOnFire.net (general info)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 29, 2004
Giant Statue of President George W. Bush with Pants Ablaze will be towed through Tampa
Tampa, FL - Local activists will tow a giant statue of President George W Bush with his pants aflame throughout the Tampa Bay area beginning Monday, February 8.
Sponsored by True Majority Action, the George W Bush Pants on Fire-mobile is in the midst of a cross country tour and will be visiting the Tampa area for about a week. The statue will be parked during the day in the 2900 block of N Tampa St., just north of downtown, and at night it will be cruising Tampa area streets.
The 12 foot high statue is mounted on a flatbed trailer and pulled by a Ford Crown Victoria with diplomatic style American flags waving from the fenders. The flames actually are artificial fire that looks very realistic. George is outlined in electroluminescent wire for a very spooky effect (and so he's visible at night).
The construction of the statue and the purchase of its tow vehicle were made possible by the members of True Majority Action.
####
For more information:
Tampa Contact:
Norwood Orrick
813-226-2550
On the web:
Local updates: BlogWood: Norwood's Fair and Balanced Nattering
National: www.PantsOnFire.net
January 27, 2004
WOW!
Just got back form WMNF. MorningWood had a modest goal of $500. I raised over $1250 $1325!
Thank You.
Thank You.
Thank You.
Oh, and you... Thanks!
January 26, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
Help!
Marathon is here. Winter Minithon, actually, but pretty much the same thing as our twice a year fundraisers which we call marathon.
For those of you who are scratching your heads right now and saying “huh?”, we’re discussing 70,000 watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5fm, Tampa.
Community Radio, as in no commercials, no Clear Channel, totally independent, volunteer programmers who decide what to play and when to play it. Cutting edge public affairs programming, eclectic music offerings, news and events from around Tampa Bay... wait... I’m starting to sound like a commercial.
Anyway, we need your support. Call 813-239-9663 in the next coupla days, or pledge through the web site, and let us know that you’re out there and loving what we’re doing.
And now for a personal pitch:
I do a show called MorningWood every Tuesday from 4-6am. There are approximately 2 people awake and listening to the radio during those early morning hours, so I can use all the calls and “absentee” pledges that I can muster during my show. See, each individual programmer and show is judged on their fundraising abilities. This is not the sole criteria for making programming decisions, but it’s right up there.
I am in the process of applying for an available afternoon slot. Afternoon, as in during the daylight hours. As in more than 2 people awake and listening. You get the idea. Anyway, the more pledges I can muster, the better my chances of beating out the numerous other qualified candidates.
So, PLEASE pledge to MorningWood. And, yes, I AM offering “Absentee” pledges this season. If you are not awake during my show, just email or call 813-226-2550 sometime before midnight tonight and I will take your pledge for Community Radio WMNF and MorningWood.
Thank You!
January 24, 2004
qWagmire update
Insurgents in Iraq killed or wounded scores of people in several attacks on Saturday, including two American soldiers who were killed by a makeshift bomb on a road near Falluja and three more who died in a truck-bomb attack in Khaldiya, military officials said.Another bomb went off near the city council building in Samarra, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding 33 badly enough that they required treatment at the local hospital, the officials said. In that attack, which occurred just after American soldiers passed the spot in their vehicles, three soldiers were hurt.
And in Mosul, four Iraqis in the local security forces were wounded in a spate of five drive-by shootings, one of which erupted into a brief firefight, the military said.
aWol lied
David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions "got rid of them."
Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, "That is correct."
Modern day (court approved!) lynching
The story: A jury with a single black person deadlocks, so the judge declares a mistrial. At the second trial, the prosecutor sees to it that there are no black persons on the jury. The lily white jury takes 30 minutes to convict a black man for murdering a white man. Notice that in the Tribune’s story a “black man” punches a “white teenager,” despite the fact that they were both legal adults at the time of the death. Also, their ages must have been much closer before we stopped counting for one of them. Descriptions like this tend to subtly, er, color most readers’ opinions.
An all- white Tampa jury took about 30 minutes today to find a black man guilty of murder for killing a white teenager with one punch.The jury found Alan Thompson Jr., 23, guilty of third- degree murder and manslaughter for the May 19, 2002, punching death of Christopher Fannan, 18, in a Steak 'N Shake parking lot in the Town 'N Country neighborhood.
Fannan's family said they were pleased with the verdict.
``We've waited for this for a long time. I'm happy,'' said Cyndi Fannan, Christopher Fannan's mother.
Minutes after the verdict, Thompson's family criticized the fairness of the jury selection and the speed of the verdict.
``I don't think the jury was a jury of Alan Thompson's peers,'' said Latarsha Brown, Thompson's cousin who is also a student at the Stetson University College of Law. She said a more racially balanced jury would have at least taken more time to deliberate.
Thompson was tried in November, but the sole black on the jury would not support a guilty verdict and the judge declared a mistrial.
But in the second trial, which began Tuesday, there were no blacks on the final jury panel.
That is because one black man was removed during the jury selection. The prosecutor, Curt Allen, used a peremptory challenge to remove the juror.
Our aWol President
Hmmm... this old story about our aWol commander in chief (first broken by the Boston Globe in 2000... see Michael Moore’s site for tons of links) may finally be gaining some legs.
It seems that heads on CNN were talking about it tonight, with Wolf Blitzer admitting that he did not know the facts. With any luck, it could show up on the Sunday talk shows and really gain some momentum.
Here’s a really good article by Marty Heldt which concisely summarizes the known facts to date, and ends with this quote:
"In short, for the several hundred thousand dollars we tax payers spent on getting [Bush] trained as a fighter jock, he repaid us with sixty-eight days of active duty. And God only knows if and when he ever flew on those days," concludes a military source. "I've spent more time cleaning up latrines than he did flying."
It’s the truth: Bush Lies.
January 23, 2004
Bush the deserter
Peter Jennings went after presidential candidate Wesley Clark last night during the debate. Peter was upset that Michael Moore had pointed out that Dubya failed to show up for National Guard duty in the early 70's while he was endeavoring not to fight for his country.
Today, Michael Moore has an answer.
In last night's Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire, broadcast on the Fox News (Nuisance?) Channel and ABC's Nightline, Peter Jennings went after Wesley Clark -- and me -- because I said I want to see Clark debate Bush... "The General vs. The Deserter."Jennings, referring to me as "the controversial filmmaker," asked if Clark wanted to distance himself from me and my "reckless" remark. Clark would not back down, stating how "delighted" he was with my support, and that I was entitled to say what I wanted to say -- AND that I was not the only one who had made these charges against Bush.
The pundits immediately went berserk after the debate. As well they should. Because they know that they -- and much of the mainstream media -- ignored this Bush AWOL story when it was first revealed by an investigation in the Boston Globe (in 2000). The Globe said it appeared George W. Bush skipped out in the middle of his Texas Air National Guard service -- and no charges were ever brought against him. It was a damning story, and Bush has never provided any documents or evidence to refute the Globe's charges.
George W. Bush was missing for at least a 12 month period. That is an undisputed fact. If you or I did that, we would serve time.
Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii and a World War II veteran, joined with Vietnam vets Sen. Max Cleland and Sen. Bob Kerrey to challenge Bush on the gaps in his military record. "The question is, where were you, Governor Bush? What would you do as commander-in-chief if someone in the National Guard did the same thing? At the least, I would have been court-martialed. At the least, I would have been placed in prison," Inouye said.
Liar liar...
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The Pants on Fire-mobile is coming to Tampa!
This campaign uses a 12' high statue of George W. Bush with his Pants on Fire. The statue is mounted on a flat bed trailer and pulled by an official looking, very classy, American flag laden, American sedan with leather interior. It's a very cushy ride.The flames actually are artificial fire that looks very realistic. George is outlined in electroluminescent wire for a very spooky effect (and so he's visible at night).
The construction of the statue and the purchase of its tow vehicle were made possible by the members of TrueMajorityACTION.
We DEPEND ON VOLUNTEERS who agree to drive the Liar Liar Pants on Fire-mobile for one or more nights in their hometowns.
Look for George on a Tampa area road near you, starting Tuesday, February 3!
January 22, 2004
County caves on billboards
After a 20-year hiatus from Hillsborough County, new billboards sites are on the verge of staging a dramatic comeback.Two weeks ago, county commissioners settled a lawsuit brought by Maverick Media that challenged the county's 1985 ban on billboards on county roads The deal gives the company conditional approval to add 29 billboards in the county.
Eighteen billboards would be allowed along Interstates 75 and 275. In the next 60 days, commissioners will agree on another 11 sites - mostly along strips such as Dale Mabry Highway, Hillsborough Avenue, the Veterans Expressway or Ehrlich Road - before the lawsuit is officially settled.
This comes after the county settled earlier lawsuits with two of the largest billboard companies in the country, Viacom and Clear Channel, that allowed them to keep their 65 billboards in place despite the ban.
Commissioners Pat Frank, Tom Scott, Jim Norman, Ronda Storms and Ken Hagan approved the Maverick Media settlement. Commissioners Jan Platt and Kathy Castor voted no.
"I think it's too generous," Platt said after the vote Jan. 7. "We might as well not have a sign ordinance."
......Marion Hilliard, the executive vice president of Citizens for Scenic Florida, which opposes billboards, was stunned to hear about the proposed Maverick Media settlement.
"I beg your pardon?" Hilliard said. "How did that happen? When they passed their sign ordinance in the 1980s, it was considered a model for how to pass a ban in a heavily populated area. Now there doesn't appear to be much left of it."
......Last year, the 11th Circuit upheld billboard bans in St. Petersburg and Clearwater against the same lawyer, Atlanta attorney Adam Webb.
San Diego lawyer Randal Morrison specializes in defending bans on billboards. He said Webb has made a lucrative career out of challenging antibillboard ordinances.
"He has 40 of these lawsuits that I know of currently filed across the nation," said Morrison, who is involved in four of those cases in California. "He does it enough so that if he loses 80 percent of the time, he still makes enough. Billboard permits are worth huge amounts of money."
Morrison said Hillsborough had better odds than those handicapped by Allen.
"Without any possible doubt, they would have won," Morrison said. "But Webb is a smart guy. He's skilled at bluffing, I'll say that much."
January 21, 2004
USA Toady on SOTU
Weapons of mass destructionWhat Bush said: Search teams have "identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" in Iraq. "Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day."
Context: The Bush administration has struggled to explain why weapons hunters have found no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq in 10 months of searching. On the eve of the war, President Bush said there was "no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." He said terrorist groups could acquire weapons from Iraq and use them against the United States. A search effort led by CIA appointee David Kay has turned up no weapons and no evidence of any advanced weapons program, raising questions about the quality of U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration's justification for war in Iraq.
Cho moves on
Margaret Cho got a bunch of right wing hate mail after Matt Drudge published some out of context quotes from her appearance at the MoveOn.org awards.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff" To: margaret@margaretcho.com Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 5:26 AM Subject: Go HomeThere is a reason your once large fan following has
dwindled down to a fraction of what it once was.
Please go back to your native land your overweight,
fisting lesbian. America has no room for your kind of
intolerant hate-spreading. Why don't YOU fucking
apply yourself? You might find a better world that
has always existed without the rage which fills your
obsese veins.
This is actually one of the tamer ones. The website listed above published the hate mail, and the senders have been inundated with responses from supporters of Margeret. Some of them have even apologized. Here’s Margaret with a very reasoned response to one of the letter writers:
Or would you only prefer to see all non - liberals, non-democratic party members rounded up and executed?No. I would like to see them educated, on their own terms, with whatever they might need, an overhead projector, flashcards, crayons, markers that smell like fruit, rubber cement, #2 pencils - all that. I would give them all the finger paint and avocado seeds that they could sprout on the windowsill so they could learn something about the way things grow, then maybe bumping them up a grade, and then s-l-o-w-l-y having the idea introduced that maybe it would be possible we could actually allow for the separation of church and state, to live in the country that this is supposed to be, you know, that land of the free, home of the brave - all that shit.
Her post is much longer than this little excerpt, and much better in context. Follow the link!
January 20, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
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W pisses on Dr. King’s grave as Coretta Scott King tries but fails to locate the phantom bulge so prominently displayed during his flight suit sausage strut
Get Up with MorningWood, on Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org.
4 to 6 am every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239-9663. Call anytime!
Today on MorningWood
It’s the SOTU special. W will be giving the State of the Union speech tonight. I have a preview, along with highlights from previous speeches, a W debate classic, tons of great music, all related somehow to today’s theme, and lots more!
Listen up for a chance to win a compilation CD of GWB cutups. I’ll give away just one CD this week, but every single person who pledges during MorningWood next week (see below) will get a free CD as well as the usual thank you gifts.
Winter Minithon
As you may have surmised, WMNF will be holding its Winter Minithon fundraiser next week. We still need phone answerers (yes, we use volunteers, not paid phone banks) and other volunteer help. Call 813-238-8001 during business hours or 813-239-9663 at any other time and sign up to help.
WMNF relies on listeners’ contributions to stay on the air. WMNF is community radio. WMNF is not affiliated with any university. WMNF is not an NPR station. (We play NPR headline news and other programming, but we pay for that privilege.)
This particular Minithon is extremely important to me. Randy has yet to make a decision on who is going to take over the Saturday afternoon slot that DJ DDP is vacating. (see sidebar and below for details) A good showing for MorningWood can only help when Randy does eventually make his decision.
Please help me out by calling in your pledge during MorningWood next Tuesday from 4 to 6am. If you’d like to support MorningWood, but can not make it to your phone or radio next Tuesday, call me at the station during today’s show: 813-239-9663 or email me and we’ll arrange for an absentee pledge.
Don’t forget: a FREE CD of GWB cutups to every single person who pledges to MorningWood next week!
Playlists
DJ DDP is leaving Saturday Asylum, so there is an opening for a programmer on Saturday afternoon. Call or Email WMNF Program Director Randy Wynne and ask him to pick Norwood for this slot from 2-4 PM on Saturdays! (Phone number is 813-238-8001, ex 16) I know: I’ll have to come up with another catchy name, since MorningWood seems somehow inappropriate in the afternoon, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice.
The saga continues
I want to thank everyone who has already called or emailed Randy Wynne. He has noticed and your efforts are making a big difference, but there are lots of qualified candidates. Randy told me last week that his final decision is still a few weeks away. So please keep the calls and emails coming. Let Randy know that it’s time for Wood in the afternoon!
FREE Stuff!
Free GWB cutups on CD! One CD will be given away on the air this morning, so listen up! You can also get this CD by pledging during MorningWood next week. (details above)
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
We need volunteer help for our Winter Minithon! If you can help with phone answering or other jobs on January 26 and 27, call 813-238-8001 and sign up!
January 19, 2004
100,000 Florida kids left behind
"I always thought that as Americans we were much more ethical and merciful ...”
Over 100,000 sick and needy Florida kids are being denied critical care by Jeb and his heartless henchmen in the Legislature. These children have hard working parents, but like a lot of families these days, maintaining health insurance coverage is literally impossible.
Jeb! could help all of these kids right now, simply by allowing federal funds that the state already has to be spent. Don’t hold your breath, though, ‘cause it aint gonna happen.
Last year, facing budget trouble, state lawmakers halted enrollment in KidCare, the umbrella health insurance program for children from lower-income families.The waiting list grew quickly.
By Dec. 24, 89,770 children, some with life-threatening illnesses, were waiting to get KidCare coverage.
Last week, the list stood at 100,840, said Rose Naff, executive director of Florida Healthy Kids Corp., which handles eligibility for KidCare.
Some lawmakers and child advocates have been pressing the Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush to funnel some of a federal economic stimulus package to KidCare, with no success so far.
Bush, who said funding for KidCare has grown 85 percent since 1999, said he doesn't support pouring "one-time nonrecurring" federal money into the program. He promised to increase funding in the next fiscal year.
"It is not possible to tell you where your child is on the wait list or how soon he or she will be enrolled," a recorded male voice on the KidCare information line tells callers.
......For 2-year-old Abigail Confalone, sleeping can be scary, and not because of a boogeyman. Abigail suffers from cherubism, a rare genetic disorder that dissolves jawbones and leads to an overgrowth of fibrous tissue.
......Abigail needs a CAT scan every three months to make sure the tissue isn't cutting off her optic nerve, which would cause blindness.
The girl, who loves the stuffed horse one of her older brothers gave her for Christmas, last visited the doctor in November. So far, she has no appointment to see the doctor again.
In December, the Confalones lost their Medicaid health insurance after their income rose by $3,000. That same month, Confalone, who runs a home day care, and her husband, Donald, an air conditioning technician, applied for KidCare for Abigail and their two sons, Michael, 3, and Jacob, 11.
"They said it would be a very long time" before the Confalone children would be enrolled in KidCare, Debra Confalone said. "It's been very stressful because we don't know where this tissue is going in her head. We don't know if she's going to wake up tomorrow and not be able to see or if the pressure in her brain is increasing, which could cause brain damage. We're just watching day to day to see how she is.
"I always thought that as Americans we were much more ethical and merciful and wouldn't withhold this intensely needed health care from a 2-year-old little girl."
* * *
Matt Hawkinson said he and his fiancee, Jennifer Morgan, applied for KidCare for their nearly 2-year-old daughter, Jolina, the day before the state stopped enrollment. They were told to call back the next day. When they called back, they learned enrollment had been suspended, Hawkinson said.
"They just gave us the runaround," he said. "It was a big fiasco."
The couple - she delivers pizza and he works in construction - already had been turned down for Medicaid.
Jolina, who has hydrocephalus, an abnormal amount of spinal fluid in the brain, has been on the waiting list ever since. She has missed at least three appointments with the geneticist and the neurologist because she has no insurance, Hawkinson said.
"If it doesn't get fixed, it could cause serious brain damage," he said as Jolina played near him in their Sarasota home. "It's pretty hard. It's way too expensive to pay out of pocket."
* * *
Since Aryanne Koch Kraavi was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in June, life has changed.
......Her father, Andy Kraavi, has spent much of the past year pretty upset, too. Last January, he lost his architectural design job. He and Aryanne have since given up satellite TV, a home telephone, the Internet, dinner outings and frequent trips to see friends in Sarasota.
They also lost their health insurance. Six months later, in June, Aryanne was diagnosed with diabetes. She will need insulin shots every day for the rest of her life, her father said.
Kraavi applied for Medicaid but didn't qualify. So in July, he applied for KidCare for Aryanne.
In August, the same month Kraavi's unemployment benefits ran out, one of the programs under KidCare began paying for Aryanne's diabetic supplies and visits to a specialist, but she doesn't have full health care coverage.
"I went from making $38,000 a year to $10,000 a year," Kraavi said. "There's no way I could have (paid for) the supplies and doctor visits. There's something wrong with the system if you make too much money to get Medicaid and not enough to pay for your own health insurance. There should be something to fall back on."
......"I have to hope nothing happens," her father said as Neeko, their yellow Labrador, sniffed out a visitor. "That she doesn't get a cold or the flu or a cut or break a bone or nothing. Otherwise, it'll put me in big debt, and I'd probably never recover from it."
January 18, 2004
Boca Raton Rep. Wexler stands up for democracy
As I wrote yesterday, a paper trail is exactly what is needed.
Arguing that he's exhausted other options and that time is running out to ensure an accurate 2004 election, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, turned to the courts Friday in his quest to require paper printouts from electronic voting machines.In a lawsuit against Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood and Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, Wexler asked a judge to conclude that both officials are violating their duties to ensure votes are counted accurately.
Wexler's desired fix is a printed duplicate of all ballots cast on electronic voting machines used in Broward, Palm Beach and other Florida counties. He said such a paper trail is the only way to guarantee fair elections because it's the only way to conduct an accurate recount in a close race.
Wexler said he's long been concerned about the lack of a paper record for touch-screen machines, and his fears were confirmed by last week's special election for Florida House District 91 in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Ellyn Bogdanoff was declared the winner by 12 votes. Voting machines showed that 137 people who went to the polls that day cast no ballot even though it was the day's only election.
The outcome prompted him to go to court because he's been writing letters to Hood and LePore for months and nothing has happened.
"It is mind-boggling to me because there is nothing partisan about this issue. There is nothing Democratic about it, and there is nothing Republican about it. This is as American as apple pie," he said.
Actually, there is a partisan edge to the debate. The push for ballot printers has largely come from Democrats, with Republicans and election officials offering resistance or raising questions.
And why is it that Republicans are against an accurate counting of our votes?
More on e-voting
January 17, 2004
500 and counting
But don't worry. W and Karl have a cynical plan to make everything look alright before November. Expect to hear less about combat deaths, though they will still be happening, and more about our troops "coming home" amidst plenty of election year pomp and circumstance.
Orwellian proclamations of "Victory" and hard-won "Iraqi Freedom" will follow.
The number of American service members who have died in the Iraq conflict since war started last March reached 500 Saturday after a roadside bomb exploded near Baghdad, killing three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civil defense troopers.Two Americans also were wounded when a Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit the explosive device and caught fire on a road near Taji, about 20 miles north of the Iraq capital, said Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division.
Those killed and wounded had been part of a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol looking for roadside bombs, a frequent attack method by insurgents targeting the U.S.-led occupation, MacDonald said. Three men fleeing in a white truck were detained, and soldiers found bomb-making material in the vehicle, he added.
Also Saturday, the military said a U.S. soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound south of Baghdad. The incident occurred Friday evening near Diwaniyah south of Baghdad, the command said in a statement. No further details were released.
The deaths raised to 500 the number of U.S. forces who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq started March 20. Of those, 346 died as a result of hostile action and 154 of non-hostile causes, according to Defense Department figures in addition to those reported Saturday.
Most of the deaths - both combat and non-combat - have occurred since President Bush declared an end to major fighting on May 1.
The loss of American life in Iraq has surpassed the U.S. death toll of the first Gulf War of 1991, when about 315 Americans died in the operation to drive Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. That figure includes combat and non-combat deaths suffered during the military buildup and the war itself.
Demand a paper trail!
Last week's special election in South Florida has pumped up a growing debate over whether touch screen voting machines need a backup paper trail.The House district race in Broward and Palm Beach counties was decided by 12 votes, but 137 people cast ballots without voting for anyone.
Since all but the absentee votes were electronic, a traditional manual recount was impossible. The only paper that could be produced was printouts of the electronic ballots.
That prompted Palm Beach County commissioners to ask the state for the authority to retrofit touch screen voting machines at a cost of $2.2-million so they produce paper ballots that voters can place in locked boxes for use in a manual recount. Palm Beach is one of 15 Florida counties with touch screen machines, including Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco.
U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Palm Beach this week urged Gov. Jeb Bush to push for paper ballots to ensure that "another national election debacle does not occur."
This is exactly what needs to be done. A voter will vote on the touch screen, receive a paper receipt showing the candidates she voted for, and if everything is correct, the voter will then deposit the printed receipt into a traditional ballot box. Easy to read, no hanging chads, these receipts would provide a trusted and verifiable way to recount a close election.
As things stand now, a recount consists of the machines re-tabulating the same numbers tabulated originally. There is no way to check the accuracy of the vote as it was originally recorded.
As a computer guy, I know that right now the only way to ensure that your vote is being counted the way you want it to be is to vote absentee, the old-fashioned way, on a piece of paper. Touch screens get out of kilter, and could record a vote for the wrong candidate. Many questions have been raised regarding the lack of security in these systems, which claim to be proprietary and secret, but which seem to use a simple and easy to hack Excel spreadsheet for tracking votes.
The history of elections in America is rife with cheating and fraud. It is too easy to “fix” these electronic voting machines and skew the results. Without a paper trail no one would ever be able to find out that an election was stolen.
To request an absentee ballot for every election this year from the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections, click here. If you reside in another Florida county, click here and follow the links to your county Supervisor of Elections.
Remember: in Florida, it is legal to vote absentee even if you are not out of town. Read the simple rules, request an absentee ballot, and make sure your vote counts.
January 16, 2004
Big Welfare Daddies in space
The Big Welfare Daddies are lining up to feed from the Space Odyssey trough that President Moonbeam announced this week: (I think I keep mixing MLK and space stuff together simply because those were the 2 big photo-ops this week? The common thread is disingenuous vote mongering)
Industry officials said yesterday that they see a huge boon to business in Bush's "renewed spirit of discovery," which set a mission to Mars as a long-range goal after astronauts build a science base on the moon. Among the companies that could profit from the plan are Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Halliburton Co., which Vice President Cheney headed before he joined Bush's ticket."Going beyond the moon is big news for us," said Ed Memi, a spokesman for Boeing, which is NASA's largest contractor.
As an example of private industry's hunger for a Mars mission, Steve Streich, a veteran Halliburton scientific adviser, was among the authors of an article in Oil & Gas Journal in 2000 titled "Drilling Technology for Mars Research Useful for Oil, Gas Industries." The article called a Mars exploration program "an unprecedented opportunity for both investigating the possibility of life on Mars and for improving our abilities to support oil and gas demands on Earth," because technology developed for the mission could be used on this planet.
W's jobless recovery
Cathy Wyatt is putting the finishing touches on her trendy coffee shop, Carpe Diem, opened just eight weeks ago. She is paying meticulous attention to her upscale clientele, complete with offering hard-boiled eggs marked for the Atkins-conscious crowd.It may not fit with northeastern Ohio's hardscrabble image, but, she said, industrial Canton's old downtown is in a bit of a renaissance. "It's nothing for people to spend three and six dollars a day on their coffee," Wyatt said.
Just around the corner, however, the Stark County Department of Job and Family Services waiting room is standing room only. In the lobby, escaping the cold snowfall outside, a forlorn Monique Simmons, 21, waited for her ride, baby asleep at her feet.
"I've been looking for a job for two years," she said, recounting her last work at a local telemarketing firm, a job she left and now can't get back. "It's always, 'We'll get back to you.' I just hear a lot of excuses."
The contrast between the pulse Canton's economy is starting to feel on the high end and the stagnation painfully evident in the lower tiers points out a significant national trend: After three years of fits and starts, the economy is revving back to life, but at least so far, its fruits have gone mainly to those who least need them.
"If you have investments already, and if you have a job already, the last 12 to 18 months have been very nice to you," said Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution. "The stock market has done well. You can refinance your mortgage. You can finance your new cars at very favorable rates, and prices haven't been rising.
"But if you are looking for a new job or had the misfortune of losing a job, for those folks, life is much, much tougher. It's just so damned hard to get employment."
......Nationally, the two-tiered economic gains appear to be playing out on a grand scale. Holiday sales at Neiman Marcus department stores were up nearly 13 percent over the holidays compared with the previous year. Tiffany's sales jumped 16 percent, as the affluent rewarded themselves for their upturn. Dana Telsey, chief retail analyst at Bear, Stearns & Co., calls it "self-gifting."
Yet Wal-Mart, which serves a less glamorous clientele, posted gains of only 3.9 percent, barely meeting analysts' expectations.
On Wall Street, bonuses will be up 20 to 30 percent from last year, according to industry experts. Alan G. Hevesi, the New York state comptroller, recently said he expects Wall Street bonuses to total $10.7 billion for 2003, an average of $66,800 per employee.
But for hourly workers elsewhere, average wages last year rose by 26 cents, or 1.7 percent, the Labor Department said last week.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 25 percent in 2003, a boon to those with investments. At the same time, consumer debt such as credit cards and auto loans hit a record $1.98 trillion in October, $18,700 per household, the Federal Reserve reported this month. The number of past-due credit card accounts rose to an all-time high of 4.09 percent from July through September, according to the American Bankers Association.
The number of personal bankruptcies during the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2003, rose to 1.66 million, up 7.4 percent from the 1.54 million filings in fiscal year 2002 and another record.
The economy grew at a remarkable 8.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2003, but by October, there were 2.8 unemployed people for every job opening, up from 2.51 a year earlier and 2.25 in 2001, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Unemployment rates for managers and professionals stayed steady last year, at just under 3 percent.
But jobless rates have risen steadily for lower-paid service occupations, from 6.4 percent in 2001 to 6.6 percent in 2002 to 7 percent last year. Unemployment in production and transportation jobs finished the year at 7.2 percent.
......"We used to have a middle class in this country, a blue-collar worker," Larry Shade lamented. "Now, those blue-collar workers are working fast food. There is no middle anymore."
County Commission Kills Civitas?
The SP Times is reporting that the Civitas deal is be dead, but I’m not holding my breath. Secret meetings are still taking place, and lots of promises are being made. Don’t be surprised if a last minute deal is announced with much fanfare and confusion on Friday or Saturday.
A sweeping redevelopment project that promised to revitalize one of Tampa's poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods appears to be dead.The Hillsborough County Commission refused Thursday night to agree to terms that developers, the head of the Tampa Housing Authority and Mayor Pam Iorio said they needed to apply for a $20-million federal grant to redevelop Tampa's Central Park area.
Without the vote, the project cannot go forward, they said.
Developer Ed Turanchik said afterward his company will withdraw its proposal.
"I think we may not have the maturity to be the kind of community that people say they want us to be," Turanchik said.
See, if we were a mature community, we’d be open to being raped by a bunch of white developers while they displace all of our coloreds to anywhere but downtown.
As of now, it looks like the Tampa Housing Authority will apply for a grant on its own. They still plan to raze the downtown projects, and they still plan to “temporarily” move residents during reconstruction. Questions need to be asked:
Will the Housing Authority strive to provide clean, safe housing to Tampa’s poor, or will it be business as usual, locking out many residents, and forcing those lucky enough to get a roof over their head to dodge rats and bullets on a daily basis?
Unfortunately, the latter is the more likely answer, and once the abhorrent conditions become apparent, they will once again be used as an excuse to move the undesirable class out of sight.
January 15, 2004
Happy Birthday Dr. King
Several hundred protesters greeted President Bush Thursday as he laid a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. to celebrate the slain civil rights leader on what would have been his 75th birthday.Some demonstraters pushed past the barricades set up by the Secret Service to protest Bush's brief visit.
Two people were arrested as some crowd members pushed toward the street in front of King's tomb, abandoning a designated area several hundreds yards away.
Authorities responded by parking three city buses on the street to block the protesters from the president's motorcade. Some protesters pounded on the side of the buses.
No one was injured and the crowd remained peaceful, dispersing soon after the president's 15-minute stop. Bush placed a wreath on King's grave before heading to a $2,000-a-head fund-raiser in downtown Atlanta.
......"We believe this is purely, purely political," the Rev. Timothy McDonald, president of the Concerned Black Clergy said. "That this particular visit has more to do with his fundraising and it just happened to be on Jan. 15. It is an insult to those of us who are committed to justice and an insult to those of us who believe in the life and legacy of Dr. King."
"He has the right to come, but there should have been some consideration on what's going on locally," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta. "That's quite insulting. This is not the appropriate way to honor Dr. King."
The MLK March Committee, a group of area civil rights activists who worked with King, has worked for months on a program at Ebenezer Baptist Church, across the street, which was planned to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"They told us that the Secret Service wanted us out of there by 2 p.m.," said the Rev. James Orange. "We are not leaving the church."
Earlier this week, W announced a new space odyssey. He has vaguely said that this might cost, oh, $50 billion or so, but experts say $1 TRILLION is much more realistic. He has not actually budgeted any money, and he may never have to, as much of the costs are slated to happen well into the future. This proposal is widely seen as a shallow attempt to curry favor with space geek voters. It is full of holes, there is no way to pay for it, and W has never shown any interest in space before this.
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.
The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,The junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.Her face and arms began to swell but Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.
Ya know, I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon.I think I'll send these doctor bills
airmail special....
to Whitey on the moon.
- Gil Scott Heron
Speaking of rat bites, current residents of Tampa’s Central Park showed up at City Council this morning to say that anything is better than their current conditions. What they don’t realize is that they wont be allowed back in to the nice new white neighborhood once they are moved out.
Why can’t the Tampa Housing Authority improve the living conditions right now? Are rat infestations unavoidable? Is the forced displacement of thousands of residents really the only way to cut crime? Of course these residents want something better. Unfortunately, they are likely to be dislocated right into an area just as bad as the one they are leaving.
Mayor Pam Iorio is backing the project, however, and the City Council voted to back her backing. This means that the city keeps negotiating with Ed Turanchik and his cohorts and that the Tampa Housing Authority will feel free to jointly apply for a HOPE VI grant with Civitas.
Mayor Pam Iorio recommended Thursday that the city and the Tampa Housing Authority move forward on the Civitas redevelopment proposal, but Hillsborough County commissioners voted not to act likewise until Iorio comes to speak with them. ......Iorio's long-awaited public response to the Civitas plan unveiled more than a month ago was far from a full endorsement or detailed analysis.
The mayor simply recommended that the Tampa City Council vote Thursday to move forward with negotiations about the proposal.
The housing agency has been waiting for a city and county signal on the plan before deciding whether to apply jointly with Civitas for a $20 million federal housing grant.
More on Civitas.
Ed Turanchik's land of imagination
Didn’t I see this story in a movie somewhere?
Here’s the setup: Con men form Civitas a front organization and purport to have a bridge, or perhaps some slightly swampy land for sale. They want to cut a great deal on the land, but they can’t let anyone see the land or know where it is. These guy’s seem perfectly honest, though: they are pale of skin, they dress like wealthy businessmen, and they use really big words when they talk. Why, people like this (people like “us”?) would never dream of selling anyone a lemon.
Part of the con is a hard sell. The Ed Turanchiks con men manufacture a great false sense of urgency about the whole affair, implying that if the deal isn’t done now that the pigeons might realize they are being conned the whole thing will fall through and everyone will miss out on a huge pile of riches.
There’s often a big pile of something involved in these deals, but it aint riches. And if the cons are real professionals, they will blind their marks with bright lights and smoke and mirrors, and the mark will be sure that the big pile of, uh, whatever, that the mark is buying is actually a nice big shiny bauble piece of valuable urban real estate. The Welfare Daddies con men will take their cash and run away even as the bauble starts to tarnish con begins to become apparent, but often it is years before the mark realizes the full extent of the fraud.
That’s pretty much what happened with Centro Ybor. The city is now on the hook for $16 million, even as the con men private developers who sold us this big pile of mall continue to draw their 6 figure salaries from the companies that now claim poverty.
Which brings us to a new group of cons Civitas, a group that wants to bring this con kind of deal to a whole new level. Civitas proposes to dislocate thousands of poor people of color so that they can build a gilded palace for thousands of rich white people. A big part of their proposal is a land swap with the Tampa Housing Authority. The dislocated would be relocated into “temporary” housing on this new parcel.
One problem: Civitas does not own any land to swap:
A proposed partnership between the Tampa Housing Authority and Civitas is in jeopardy because the redevelopment company has not produced any evidence it owns land it wants to swap.Civitas said it would give the authority land to build replacement housing before it tears down Central Park Village, a public housing complex. Without the land, the housing agency would be forced to scatter the 1,316 residents while a new complex is built.
The housing authority board is scheduled to vote on the deal Friday.
``We have a serious problem,'' board member Gerald White said. ``Someone will have to do some talking and convincing in a hurry to get my vote.
``That was one good selling point Civitas had. It gave me a sense of ease and comfort to know no one would be displaced. This is a serious stumbling block.''
Uh, yeah, I would say that if Civitas does not actually own any land to trade that perhaps the trade should not go through?
This land swap is a new twist, but I think I’m starting to figure out some of the details of Ed Turanchik’s secretive Plan to Take Over the World: Ed wants the city to trade real land for imaginary land. We can then build pretend houses on the imaginary land. Maybe we can even have some imaginary friends over to visit once we move in. Anyway, we’ll tell all of the current residents of Central Park to just close their eyes and picture clean, safe, affordable housing. Then we’ll dump them out in the swamps of Suitcase City and let them fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, once the darkies current residents are gone, Ed and his cohorts will be able to sell the real land for real money. The city will help out by paying for virtually every improvement in infrastructure and by providing amenities like new parks and playgrounds. Wealthy white people will move in and just marvel at the transformation as they enjoy a cocktail on the balcony and watch the sun set over Lake Turanchik. Cheers!
What's not to cheer about?Pushed aside
To answer that, let's go back to September, on the sweltering afternoon when the Tampa Housing Authority held a grand opening ceremony for a development that had been in the works for five years.
The homes weren't ready to live in - the first residents wouldn't move in for another six months, as it turned out - but grass had been laid that morning, the clubhouse was open, and officials were ready to celebrate.
Fanning themselves with programs, more than a dozen federal, state and local officials praised the innovative housing program known as HOPE VI. The federal program had provided the $32.5- million grant that wiped out dreary College Hill and Ponce de Leon and gave birth to Belmont Heights Estates, which ultimately will cost upward of $85-million.
"This was an eyesore for so many years," then-Mayor Dick Greco said. These new homes, he said, "will allow people to live in dignity."
Bob Greer, president of Michaels Development Co., which oversaw the project, said "HOPE VI is . . . about tearing down the barriers that isolated a community of low-income residents from the rest of the city."
As proof of who would be living in dignity, reconnected to the rest of Tampa, officials called Brenda Washington to the podium. Washington, a 35-year-old hospital cafeteria worker who had lived in College Hill for three years, was going to be Belmont Heights' first official resident.
In her speech, Washington spoke to the many women who would soon be returning to this oasis as her neighbors.
"We need to respect this property," she said. "This is our future. We need to keep it looking nice."
Someone in the audience might have concluded that the people who would benefit from the development would be the 1,300 families that used to live there.
But nine months later, it's not that simple. Most of the new residents never lived here before, and many never lived in public housing.
Brenda Washington has not come back to Belmont Heights. When it came time to sign a lease, she decided that the rent was too high. Of the 109 new tenants, 37 are former residents of College Hill and Ponce de Leon. That ratio likely won't change much when the last of the 860 units is done late next year; more than half of the housing is set aside for people who can pay market-rate rents or close to them.
Critics of HOPE VI have long complained that the program is contributing to a shortage of affordable housing by tearing down more units than it rebuilds. Tougher readmission standards make it harder for former residents to get back in.
Across the country, as few as 11 percent of former residents are living in neighborhoods that have been revitalized by HOPE VI developments, according to a study last year by the National Housing Law Project.
Many of the displaced residents are not much better off than when they moved out several years ago. Many live in poor neighborhoods with higher crime than the rest of the county, like they did before. Many are still unemployed, still on welfare. Their credit is still bad, and so is their health.
"You didn't solve their problems," said Larry Keating, an expert in public housing policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "You just swapped out a better class of poor people."
......The project that was supposed to solve a crime problem in one neighborhood ended up moving it to another.
In 1999, state Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, thought that the area west of USF had finally shed its seedy reputation as "Suitcase City."
Crist wasn't that surprised to see an influx of young women pushing strollers in the midday sun as they walked from apartment complex to apartment complex. The women were displaced residents from College Hill and Ponce de Leon looking for a place to use their new Section 8 housing vouchers.
Soon Crist started getting reports from Hillsborough County sheriff's officials about spiking crime in an area that was being vigorously patrolled as part of the federal Weed and Seed program.
From the fall of 1997 through the fall of 2001, shootings and stabbings increased 22 percent. Vehicle theft was up 26 percent, robbery 24 percent. Some kinds of crime dropped just as significantly (burglary and theft, for example), but the jump in violent crime was alarming.
"Cities across the country are using HOPE VI to displace their problem," Crist said. "I don't have any problem saying that."
Susan Greenbaum, a professor of anthropology at USF who directed the study, does not mince words about the real motivation of HOPE VI.
"I think this is a poverty dispersion strategy. The notion that (HOPE VI) is for the population that has been displaced is disingenuous," she said.
"Nobody would argue the projects were a good place to live. But they were the most affordable alternative for people of low income."
January 14, 2004
Ed Turanchik’s Plan to Take Over the World
An update:
Civitas has given the Tampa Housing Authority a partial list of the properties it wants to trade for prime downtown real estate. Many of the lots are of questionable value and some are too small to build on.
``We're giving up prime property that's worth a lot of money,'' board member Hazel Harvey said. ``None of those properties on that list are worth any money.''
Everyone is waiting for the city to act. The Housing Authority and the Hillsborough County Commission have both put off any decisions until after the Tampa City Council meets on Thursday.
Ed Turanchik continues his used car salesman routine: “I wont reveal any real information about what I’m selling you, but you can trust me. Really!”
When pressed by council members, Ed Turanchik, managing director of Civitas, refused to divulge details about who bankrolls the company and how much money it has invested in the plan.City Councilman John Dingfelder said a company asking for so much aid should be more forthcoming.
``We need to find out who we are going to bed with,'' Dingfelder said.
Acknowledging some questions will have to remain unanswered, Turanchik said city leaders have to trust that Civitas can deliver.
The Centro Ybor mortgage is looming large. City Council may be running scared now that we are paying the mortgage on a mall with no customers.
Bottom line: The city should not get in bed with Ed. These wealthy developers will invest in a money making opportunity regardless. That’s capitalism. Investment comes with risk. It is not for the city to shield investors against loss.
If there wasn’t so much secrecy and if Ed was not in such a hurry and if there were solid guarantees against taxpayer losses, and if we knew the names of all the investors and if we were not callously and permanently dislocating thousands of poor people then I might not be so leery of this project.
Call (813-274-8131) or email the Tampa City Council before the Thursday meeting. Tell them you want lots more information before you will support tax dollars going to wealthy Welfare Daddies!
January 13, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
Get Up with MorningWood, on Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org.
4 to 6 am every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239-9663. Call anytime!
1984
Free copy of George Orwell’s "1984"! Be the first listener to call the WMNF studios at 813-239-9663 and say you saw this offer on BlogWood.com. You must call during MorningWood, between 4 and 6am Tuesday, January 13, 2004. I’ve only got one copy of "1984" to give away, but everyone who calls can get a free copy of the WMNF program guide just by asking!
Winter Minithon
WMNF will be having a Winter Minithon fundraiser in 2 weeks. Help out by volunteering or through a monetary pledge. Call 813-238-8001 during business hours for more information, or call 813-239-9663 during MorningWood and I’ll be happy to tell you more than you really want to know.
WMNF relies on listeners’ contributions to stay on the air. WMNF is community radio. WMNF is not affiliated with any university. WMNF is not an NPR station. (We play NPR headline news, but we pay for that privilege.)
Playlists
DJ DDP is leaving Saturday Asylum, so there is an opening for a programmer on Saturday afternoon. Call or Email WMNF Program Director Randy Wynne and ask him to pick Norwood for this slot from 2-4 PM on Saturdays! (Phone number is 813-238-8001, ex 16) I know: I’ll have to come up with another catchy name, since MorningWood seems somehow inappropriate in the afternoon, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice.
The saga continues
I want to thank everyone who has already called or emailed Randy Wynne. He has noticed and your efforts are making a big difference, but there are lots of qualified candidates. Randy told me last week that his final decision is still a few weeks away. So please keep the calls and emails coming. Let Randy know that it’s time for Wood in the afternoon!
FREE Stuff!
Free MP3s: Dept. Of Corrections stuff that I found at DIYmedia.net. Hopefully, their server will be up soon.
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
We need volunteer help for our Winter Minithon! If you can help with phone answering or other jobs on January 26 and 27, call 813-238-8001 and sign up!
January 11, 2004
Herbert on Welfare Daddies and sick kids
The State of Florida really knows how to hurt a kid. It has money for sports stadiums. It lavishes billions of dollars' worth of tax breaks and other goodies on private corporations. It even has money for a substantial reserve fund. But, in an episode of embarrassing and unnecessary tightfistedness, it has frozen enrollment in a badly needed state health insurance program for low-income children.Some 60,000 to 70,000 children who are eligible for KidCare, Florida's version of the popular and successful children's health insurance program, have been put on waiting lists. Even kids who already have serious health problems are being placed on the lists, which are lengthening every day. No one knows when — or if — the children will get coverage.
......Most of the children on the waiting list are from families whose incomes are just over the poverty line. (The children of the very poor are covered by Medicaid.) The freeze was imposed at the end of July, ostensibly because of state budget problems. But the Florida budget problems are not as bad as those in many other states. Since last July Florida has qualified for nearly $1 billion in help from the federal government, which has come up with $400 million in increased Medicaid matching funds and more than $500 million in a fiscal relief grant.
The cost of providing the authorized coverage for the tens of thousands of youngsters on the KidCare waiting lists is estimated at just $23 million for the remainder of this fiscal year. The money from the federal government could be used for that purpose, but Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature have not been willing to take that step. These kids are not part of a particularly favored constituency. Their parents do not have much political clout, and may not even vote. Some of the kids may end up desperately ill (some may die), but as a group they are not the kind of kids who get a lot of attention or sympathy from the powers that be in Florida today.
A spokesman for Governor Bush, Jacob DiPietre, told me yesterday that no immediate action is planned to provide health coverage to the children on the waiting lists. "Be assured that the governor and his entire administration are concerned about the waiting list," he said. But he added, "This is a problem that requires a long-term, sustainable solution."
And he made a point of noting, "The KidCare program is not an entitlement."
......On Thursday President Bush and Governor Bush made a joint appearance in Palm Beach, where the president picked up a quick million dollars for his re-election campaign. There was plenty of laughter and glad-handing, and little talk about such unpleasant matters as the denial of health care to low-income children.
January 09, 2004
W's indentured servant immigration proposal
Billmon says exactly what I was gonna say, only he actually wrote something down, and did it much more eloquently than I would have.
January 08, 2004
"Mommy, I don't like this"
Centro Ybor joins growing list of Tampa Welfare Daddies.
When are we going to stop coddling these shiftless rich white men and start making them earn an honest living like the rest of us? Centro Ybor sucked the last remaining life out of Ybor city by forcing out many of the last small independent merchants who were fighting fate by struggling to remain in an area which they helped to make cool and hip.
Centro Ybor is no more than a glorified generic mall full of the same shops and restaurants found literally everywhere else. Once inside this colossal mistake, visitors realize that they could be in any unimaginative corner of our country. There is nothing, aside form the location and name, that sets Centro Ybor apart from any other mall.
Now, the developers are just flabbergasted that their mall, the one that is just like all the other malls that are easier to get to, is not doing so well. Luckily, our former Mayor Dick made sure that his developer friends would not be stuck with anything as inconvenient as having to pay a mortgage or anything like that.
Uh, yeah, that means that we, the taxpayers will be stuck with the aforementioned mortgage, but that’s ok, ‘cause this mostly empty mall is contributing greatly to our economic well being.
Centro Ybor, the shopping complex that was supposed to drive the revitalization of Ybor City, will wind up costing taxpayers $16.3-million in a multiyear bailout.The project's owners cannot pay the rest of a federal loan guaranteed by city tax funds, and have asked Mayor Pam Iorio for help.
Iorio said Wednesday the city will take over payments on the loan, beginning with a $300,000 payment on Feb. 1. The cost to taxpayers this year will be $760,000.
Over the next 14 years, the total price tag, with interest, will be more than $16-million.
......Former Mayor Dick Greco struck the deal in 1997 to back Centro Ybor's birth. It was the signature project of Greco's eight years in office, and was touted as the engine to rebuild Ybor City, where Greco grew up and worked in his family's hardware store.
......The city invested millions more in Centro Ybor: $1.5-million in streetscape improvements and two parking garages to serve Ybor's entertainment district. The city also pledged to run its electric streetcar system past Centro Ybor.
......The developers included the Sembler Co. of St. Petersburg, led by national Republican Party fundraiser and developer Mel Sembler, who is now ambassador to Italy.
Steiner+Associates was led by Yaromir Steiner, who created CocoWalk in Miami's chichi Coconut Grove area. Both groups had 25 percent stakes in the project.
The remaining 50 percent was backed by German investors. The group initially put up about $7.4-million and has contributed at least another $1-million.
......The mayor couldn't remember a time she bought something at Centro Ybor, but "I am not much of a shopper, period."
At lunchtime Wednesday, a trickle of customers filled Centro Ybor's red brick plaza, once home to Ybor's cigar workers and ethnic clubs. There was no one at Adobe Gila's, about three tables were full at Dish, and Fresh Mouth was about half-full.
Even (Tampa City Council member Linda) Saul-Sena sees the problems. She took her took her 13-year-old to Centro Ybor to shop at the American Eagle store recently. But when they arrived, American Eagle was closed. Strolling around, they heard shouts across the street. It looked like some sort of disturbance. "Mommy, I don't like this," Saul-Sena's daughter said.
Civitas secrecy starting to ruffle feathers
Finally, others seem to be taking note of all the secrecy behind Ed Turanchik’s Secret Plan to Take Over the World:
Hillsborough commissioners say the people hoping to remake central and east Tampa into a hipster haven better start producing some facts soon if they want anything from the county - real soon.They can start by telling commissioners just what it is they want from the county, they said.
"It sounds like a lot of people have a lot more information about this than I do," said Commissioner Jim Norman. "I haven't seen one piece of paper, and I haven't talked to one single person."
The board was reacting to the proposal from former Commissioner Ed Turanchik and his investment group, Civitas, to raze the Central Park public housing project as part of a massive east-side redevelopment project.
Turanchik has been promoting the project for weeks, after his investment group spent two years gobbling up more than 200 parcels of property as part of the project. But he has released little in the way of documents or details about what he wants to do with it all.
A centerpiece of the project is teaming up with the Tampa Housing Authority to seek $20-million in federal HOPE VI money to demolish the Central Park public housing project and replace it with a mixture of low-cost and high-end housing. The poor people who live at Central Park would be moved to new housing while the project was being built, then be able to move back to low-income units at the new development if they qualify.
......Turanchik has been meeting or seeking meetings with individual commissioners and top county staffers during the past two weeks. Bean said she met with representatives of Civitas last week. They gave a presentation, but not with enough detail for her to provide an analysis for commissioners and nothing in writing to share with them.
"They took all of the papers with them when they left," Bean said.
Meeting with only one public official and leaving no papers means that there is little or nothing that can be gleaned by the public under Florida’s Sunshine Laws.
This scam known as Civitas is just too much. Look at it this way: Ed Turanchink is a car salesman. He wants to put you in a new vehicle today. Sign here. Now. Just sign. Don’t worry about which model you’re buying, what color it is, whether or not it is used or flood damaged. No need to talk price or financing or gas mileage. Trust the car salesman. Everyone knows that car salesman are an honest lot. Ed would never sell you a lemon in order to earn a commission. Hurry. Sign now, or you might miss out on this great deal!
More on Civitas.
January 07, 2004
Republican AG does his job; GOP leaders pissed
Charlie Crist may actually be an ok AG, despite the crowd he runs with.
Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist sought Wednesday to block an unprecedented $355.5 million increase in local phone rates statewide by appealing the Public Service Commission's ruling to the state Supreme Court.The legal maneuver forces phone companies to put their rate hikes, which vary by region, on hold while the high court reviews Crist's challenge. Crist also has formally asked the Public Service Commission to reconsider its December ruling in favor of the increases sought by every major phone company in Florida.
``I strongly opposed this increase because it does not provide Florida consumers with any benefit to offset higher telephone bills as required by state law,'' said Crist, a Republican whose opposition to the rate hike has angered GOP leaders.
Iraq WMD plans uncovered!
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These drawings were found on Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi's mother's refrigerator, adorned with a gold star.
Jeb! steals $400 million from the tired. the poor, and the huddled masses
Jeb and his Republican cohorts are scheming to take $400 million from the sick, the elderly, and the poor:
To protect Florida in tough economic times, Congress sent more than $400-million in extra Medicaid money last year.The state still has that money, but Gov. Jeb Bush does not want to use it to plug a $113-million deficit in its health care program for the poor.
Instead, he wants to cut Medicaid payments to more than 900 hospitals, nursing homes and group homes for the developmentally disabled.
The $400-million, meanwhile, will be shifted from agencies that serve the poor, the elderly and children to an all-purpose account that can be spent on anything or saved for a rainy day.
Some lawmakers are fuming.
"It's morally wrong," said Senate Democratic leader Ron Klein of Boca Raton.
Klein noted that the state just spent $369-million to lure the Scripps Research Institute to Florida. He said he was comfortable with the Scripps expense as long as the $400-million went to Medicaid.
......Klein said the federal money should go to urgent health care needs, such as paying hospitals what was promised and ending a waiting list for a popular children's health care program.
"These are real expenses right now that affect people's lives right now," Klein said.
Civitas details hard to find
A local activist complained to the state ethics commission Monday that the Tampa Housing Authority attorney has denied him public documents about a downtown redevelopment plan.Terrance Neal of Temple Crest said attorney Ricardo Gilmore has stonewalled requests for maps and other papers regarding the Civitas company's plan to replace public housing with private development.
Gilmore said Tuesday that he is not the ``custodian of records'' designated by the housing authority to respond to such requests.
The ethics commission keeps complaints confidential unless the agency finds probable cause to investigate. Penalties include fines, suspension or removal from office.
January 06, 2004
Tampa's Welfare Daddies only want $53 Million to dislocate poor.
Civitas is being forced to finally throw some numbers around.
Government financing would be on the hook for about two-thirds of an $80 million infrastructure tab in a company's plan to replace public housing with private development.Civitas offered that estimate Monday in its latest proposal for the city and the Tampa Housing Authority to join in the redevelopment of 157 acres between downtown and Ybor City.
Before Civitas can replace public housing with new town homes, lofts and apartments, it needs taxpayer help to build new roads, parks and parking garages.
Civitas contends private money can pay for about one- third of the infrastructure costs.
But the company wants bonds backed by future tax revenue, as well as fees to be paid by home buyers, to cover the rest of the projected $80 million price tag.
``That number is too big of a number for any private-sector developer,'' said Ed Turanchik, the former Hillsborough County commissioner leading Civitas.
After two years of working in secrecy, Civitas has had to make more of its plans public as it tries to reach agreements with the city and the housing authority.
Adding urgency to the negotiations is a Jan. 20 deadline to apply for a $20 million federal grant to build replacement homes for public housing Civitas wants to
Don’t believe these preliminary numbers. Corporate welfare daddies always end up taking much more from the public till than they originally ask for. The Sp Times spins this story much differently, portraying Civitas as backing down in their demands, but there is a very interesting little nugget buried deep in their article:
On Monday, City Council chairwoman Linda Saul-Sena sent a memo to council members encouraging them to meet with developers one-on-one to ask questions."It is a very big, complicated project, and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered," Saul-Sena said.
Saul-Sena said she wasn't trying to circumvent Florida's government-in-the-sunshine law, which requires open meetings when more than one public official discusses government business.
Well, sure that’s what she’s gonna say. Just like I would say that I never got a blowjob from that intern. Saying it does not make it true, and there’s no way we will ever know what goes on in those private meetings.
We’ll never know, but here’s a prediction: city leaders will be bending over backwards to sell out to Ed, hoping to feast on whatever secret crumbs he throws them. Ed’s Plan to Take Over the World will move forward far enough to make the principal investors gads of money. We ,the public, will pay through the nose. Poor people will be moved out of sight of downtown, and their homes will be torn down. They will never come back, because Civitas has no intention of letting the wrong kinds of people move into Civitas’ empire neighborhood and bring down property values.
See, Civitas is tearing down “public housing” units and replacing them with a smaller number of “subsidized” housing units. The subtle difference in wording means that the poorest residents will be permanently dislocated to make room for rich people who can afford trendy $250,000 new construction “lofts”, but who don’t want to be troubled by living in a diverse urban environment.
The end result, if anything is ever actually built, will be a homogenized Genericity, marked by inoffensive architecture, with gates, walls, and security to keep the old residents from bothering the new. Genericity will be populated by unimaginative upper middle class Genericitizens who wish to buy into a (new and improved) Disneyfied version of urban living, people who want to be able to say they live in the city, but who really prefer it if the city is very much like the safe and quiet and predictable suburbs from whence they sprang.
Unimaginative Genericitizens will generically describe their new digs as “nice” and will be awed at the general transformation of an area that used to be “bad.” They will whine a bit about the difficulty in finding a maid who can get to work on time. The maid will have to spend 2 or 3 hours riding several HARTLine busses in order to reach her old neighborhood and take on menial work. The redevelopment will be hailed as a great success.
This payment is completely voluntary. Now, volunteer... or else!
Confusion continues over Florida’s attempts to extort money from the poor in the form of prescription co-payments. Sunday, it was widely reported that the state was having individual pharmacists decide who could and could not afford to pay for their prescription drugs. Now, the state is saying that the program was actually voluntary all along and that no one will be forced to pay. Of course, the state still “strongly suggests” that patients voluntarily pay, ‘cause statistics show that voluntary payers have their legs broken 95% less often than those who choose not to pay.
The federal government, which pays more than half the cost of Medicaid, said poor people who can't afford the fees can't be forced to pay them.So the state made the co-pays voluntary, and rushed to notify pharmacies in time for the program to take effect Jan. 1. Many of the pharmacies began collecting the fees.
But patients and their advocates immediately cried foul, saying the state hadn't notified Medicaid participants of the additional costs or that the fees were voluntary.
The state suspended the co-pay program Friday until it figures out what to do.
Get Up with MorningWood
Today on MorningWood, on Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org.
4 to 6 am every Tuesday!
Music Music Music
No themes this week. No specials. No monologues. Lots of good music, including plenty of new releases. See the playlist links for details.
Playlists
DJ DDP is leaving Saturday Asylum, so there is an opening for a programmer on Saturday afternoon. Call or Email WMNF Program Director Randy Wynne and ask him to pick Norwood for this slot from 2-4 PM on Saturdays! (Phone number is 813-238-8001, ex 16) I know: I’ll have to come up with another catchy name, since MorningWood seems somehow inappropriate in the afternoon, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice.
Thanks for your help. Let’s have one last day of calls!
I want to thank everyone who has already called or emailed Randy Wynne. He has noticed and your efforts are making a big difference, but there are lots of qualified candidates. Today is the last day to call or email Randy before he makes his decision. Let Randy know that it’s time for Wood in the afternoon!
FREE Stuff!
This article was popular last week, so here it is again. How to record your favorite radio show on your computer (from an article I wrote for my Norwood's Computer Newsletter)
Free MP3s: Tons of song poems from The American Song Poem Archives!
Free copy of George Orwell’s "1984"! Be the first listener to call the WMNF studios at 813-239-9663 and say you saw this offer on BlogWood.com. You must call during MorningWood, between 4 and 6am Tuesday, January 6, 2004. I’ve only got one copy of "1984" to give away, but everyone who calls can get a free copy of the WMNF program guide just by asking!
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
We need volunteer help for our Winter Minithon! If you can help with phone answering or other jobs on January 26 and 27, call 813-238-8001 and sign up!
January 05, 2004
Feel safer?
I feel so much safer knowing that Tom Ridge is watching over me like a Big Brother!
New US security regulations are coming into force that will see most foreign visitors having their photographs and fingerprints taken.The rules apply to visa holders and cover all but 28 countries.
Those arriving under the visa waiver programme - which includes most Europeans - are not affected.
Sounds great... white Europeans are exempt, since everyone knows that terrorists are swarthy types who read almanacs. I guess this Federal Judge from Brazil must just love the terrorists:
Brazil on Thursday began fingerprinting and photographing US visitors on the orders of a judge.Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva, furious at US plans to fingerprint and photograph visitors on entering the US, ordered Brazil’s authorities do the same to US citizens, starting Thursday. ‘‘We’ve begun doing this,’’ said a federal police spokeswoman at Brazil’s Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo.
The order came after a Brazilian citizen rights agency filed a complaint in federal court over the US measure.
‘‘I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis,’’ said Sebastiao da Silva in the court order released on Tuesday.
January 04, 2004
State to needy: "Pay or die!"
Good news: An outrageous Republican plan to put pharmacists in charge of determining need has crashed and burned. See, our esteemed Governor and his legislative cohorts thought they could extort $27 million from poor people who could either pay up or die. Florida’s Medically Needy program helps with health care costs for those with a catastrophic illnesses who have exhausted their own insurance but who do not qualify for regular Medicaid.
The state has ended a new program, just a day after its inception, that forced private pharmacists to decide whether poor and medically needy patients should pay a fee for prescriptions that have been free.Late Friday, state officials ordered a temporary halt to the fees after questions were raised about whether they violated the law by failing to notify patients of the charges.
A number of chain pharmacies and independent drug stores reported they were charging the co-payments before being told to stop at 8 p.m.
......The prescription fees were part of a legislative compromise last year that restored funding for the medically needy program in the state budget. State figures show Medicaid expected to collect $27 million from the co-payment.
Health advocates and state lawmakers said the system was illegal and could have forced poverty-stricken people to pay fees they can't afford - or, at worst, deny lifesaving drugs to critically ill patients.
``We've made pharmacists the gatekeepers,'' state Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, said. ``They're deciding whether people live or die.''
Under the system, which went into effect Thursday, Medicaid and medically needy patients were to be charged a co-payment of 2.5 percent of the prescription price for drugs costing up to $300, and a flat charge of $7.50 for medication costing more than that.
``They say, `I can't give you the pills you need to stay alive. Reach in your pocket and pull out seven bucks.' It's wrong,'' said Mary Ellen Ross, executive director of the Florida Transplant Survivors Coalition.
Gannon said she never heard of the plan to let pharmacists decide who can afford to pay for drugs. She said she intends to demand answers.
``Why is the state giving the pharmacists authority to decide that?'' Gannon asked. ``I mean, why do we even do a budget if the pharmacists decide?''
......State health officials defended the arrangement, saying pharmacists are better equipped than the state to decide who can afford to pay.
So, a pharmacist is supposed to simply size up a customer and decide if said customer is worthy of having the co-payment waived. The pharmacists were not notified of this change. They were not trained. No criteria was issued for determining who would qualify to skip the co-pay.
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The owners of David's Pharmacy in Tampa were surprised by both the new program and its reversal. They didn't realize until Friday - when they re-opened after the New Year's Day holiday and saw changes in their online billing instructions - that they were to start collecting co-payments from some people, co-owner Carmen Cartaya said.``They didn't notify us, they didn't notify the patients,'' said Cartaya, whose business is at 2302 W. Martin Luther King Blvd.
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See, I don’t want people like the owners of this pharmacy deciding weather or not I will have to pay for my prescription. Judging by the sign in front of their business, these folks are right wing Christian anti-abortion crusaders. If I’m not of the correct religious persuasion, how can I trust that these apparent fundamentalists will overlook their religious bias and make a fair decision regarding my ability to pay?
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Long a target for mean-spirited Republicans, this program was cut to the bone in 2002, and partially restored in 2003.
Medically Needy serves catastrophically ill Floridians, such as organ transplant recipients and AIDS, cancer and dialysis patients, who have exhausted their own insurance and whose incomes would be depleted by their bills. In many cases, the patients' bills range from $1,500 to $3,000 a month.During last year's budget crunch, lawmakers decided that Medically Needy participants would have to spend all but $450 of their monthly income on their medical care before the state would help with the bills. But they delayed the cuts until today.
The issue quickly ballooned into the biggest humanitarian issue in the Capitol after participants were formally notified of the cuts in letters from the state. They flooded lawmakers with letters, e- mails and phone calls in which they said they could not live on $450 a month and would have to leave the program or lose their homes.
Today’s article says that this policy was halted because patients were not notified of the fees, a possible violation of law. The state is still defending the policy, however, so it will probably be reinstated. Let Jeb know what you think. Find your legislators and let them know too.
War on poor update
Key West bans homeless from tourist areas, now wants to house them in tents in order to legally enforce the ban.
Key West and Monroe County officials have proposed building a small tent city near the jail on Stock Island by the end of the year.Until then, they propose erecting a temporary version along the Bridle Path.
The City Commission will discuss the plan Tuesday.
Dozens of new transients flock to Key West each year, attracted in part by its climate.
Over the years, the city has proposed various ways to deal with the influx, including a failed plan to send transients 150 miles north to shelters in Miami.
Key West is trying to preserve the laid-back, worry-free image it projects to tourists.
The city essentially banned homeless people from an area that includes the famous Duval Street bars Sloppy Joe's and Hog's Breath Saloon, several hotels and restaurants, and the main stop for a popular tourist train that winds through the city.
But city officials said a legal case makes it hard to remove homeless people from streets and parks if there is no housing alternative, such as a shelter, for them.
City commissioners this week also will review City Manager Julio Avael's plan to fingerprint and photograph homeless people sleeping in city streets and parks.
Assistant City Manager John Jones said the fingerprinting and photographing are necessary to identify people who continue to trespass after being told to leave parks.
But civil liberties groups objected to the order, as did several city commissioners, who said they are not in favor of taking such information from someone who has not been charged with a crime.
Avael bypassed the commission when he signed an executive order enacting the plan last month, but attorneys advised him to seek the commissioners' review.
Civitas to dislocate poor
Firecrackers, frogs, pheasants, and France
So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm? How relevant is a man's childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult? And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States?
In an administration in which the (unelectable) President is known to have a penchant for torturing small animals, I doubt that Dick Cheney will get much flack for personally killing over 70 small birds that were released from a net in front of him for target practice.
When Dick Cheney and a hunting party that included several Texas Republicans, among them U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, bagged hundreds of ring-necked pheasants at a private hunting club in Pennsylvania last week, animal-rights activists denounced it as a slaughter.They were especially outraged that the vice president shot more than 70 himself. But Cornyn said Wednesday that the birds had a sporting chance, even if they were farm-raised and released from nets for the hunters.
"It was a good shoot," said Cornyn, who figures he shot dozens of pheasants himself. He conceded that bagging the birds was so easy, at times it seemed "kind of like how Tyson's and Pilgrim's Pride and other people do it. I must tell you that people don't necessarily hunt the same way in Texas that they hunt in Ligonier, Pa., but it was enjoyable," he said.
......Cheney hunts and fishes often, and his excursions rarely attract notice. But on this one, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the 10-man hunting party killed 417 of 500 pheasants released from nets for the morning hunt.
The Humane Society of the United States says that smacks of a mass killing.
"These birds were just planted right in front of this group of hunters. It was a bloodbath and it was a blaze of shotgun fire," said senior vice president Wayne Pacelle.
......One dog handler did describe the hunt for WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh last week.
"We release pheasants off a hill, and they shoot them...”
Many commentators have linked this episode with the Cheney Christmas card which quotes Ben Franklin: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" In fact, Cheney is in more trouble for the verboten word “Empire” than for “hunting” small captive animals. Thanks to those freedom hating French, though, Dick could still get what’s coming to him. A French Judge might soon indict Cheney for his crooked corporate leadership:
Yet another sordid chapter in the murky annals of Halliburton might well lead to the indictment of Dick Cheney by a French court on charges of bribery, money-laundering and misuse of corporate assets.At the heart of the matter is a $6 billion gas liquification factory built in Nigeria on behalf of oil mammoth Shell by Halliburton--the company Cheney headed before becoming Vice President--in partnership with a large French petroengineering company, Technip. Nigeria has been rated by the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International as the second-most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Bangladesh.
One of France's best-known investigating magistrates, Judge Renaud van Ruymbeke--who came to fame by unearthing major French campaign finance scandals in the 1990s that led to a raft of indictments--has been conducting a probe of the Nigeria deal since October. And, three days before Christmas, the Paris daily Le Figaro front-paged the news that Judge van Ruymbeke had notified the Justice Ministry that Cheney might be among those eventually indicted as a result of his investigation.
This is front page news in Paris. Orange you wondering why you haven’t heard more about this explosive story?
January 03, 2004
More Neil Bushit
If this guy's last name was Clinton, this would be bigger news than Iraq. Orange you kinda curious as to why we hear nothing about this on Fox?
President Bush's brother Neil made at least $798,218 on three stock trades in a small U.S. high-tech company where he had been a consultant, according to his tax returns, including $171,370 buying and selling the company's shares in a single day.
American Royalty
As an adulterous failed business man, the only way for him to make money is to take government handouts and live off of friends of the family (and people who want to be friends). Neil seems to have a lot in common with his unelectable draft-dodging party boy brother:
When you're Neil Bush, rich people from all over the world are eager to invest money in your businesses, even though your businesses have a history of crashing and burning in spectacular fashion.When you're Neil Bush, you'll be sitting in a hotel room in Thailand or Hong Kong, minding your own business, when suddenly there's a knock at the door. You answer it and a comely woman strolls in and has sex with you.
......In 2002, for instance, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor -- a Shanghai-based company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Bush's contractual duties consist solely of attending board meetings and discussing "business strategies." For this, he is to be paid $2 million in company stock over five years, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.
"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked.
"That's correct," Bush responded.
Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to provide "miscellaneous consulting services."
......In 1982, Neil and two co-workers quit and formed an oil exploration company, JNB Exploration. His partners were geologists; Neil was in charge of raising money.
"Neil knew people because of his name," one partner, Evans Nash, said later.
Among the people Neil knew were two high-powered Denver real estate barons -- Bill Walters and Ken Good. Walters was a flamboyant Rolex-wearing, Rolls-driving mogul known as "the Donald Trump of Denver." Good owned the largest home in Colorado, a $10 million mansion with a special plumbing system that pumped Scotch, gin and vodka throughout the house.
After listening to Bush's sales pitch, Walters invested $150,000 and set up a $1.75 million line of credit for JNB at a bank he owned. Good invested $10,000 and pledged loans worth $1.5 million. Good also lent Bush $100,000 to gamble in the commodities market and said Neil didn't have to pay it back unless he made money.
"It was," Bush later admitted, "an incredibly sweet deal."
He set up an office, decorated it with a bust of his father and paid himself $66,000 a year -- double his Amoco salary. But JNB floundered. In five years, the company drilled 26 wells in four states, but it never found a drop of exploitable oil. JNB would have gone bankrupt if not for the money from Walters and Good.
But Bush was able to help the men who helped him. In 1985 he joined the board of Silverado Savings and Loan, which had already lent millions to Walters and Good. Over the next three years, Silverado lent an additional $106 million to Walters and $35 million to Good, although the two men's real estate empires were collapsing.
Good used some of that money to buy JNB, although it was still losing money. He raised Bush's salary to $120,000 and awarded him a bonus of $22,000. He also hired Bush as a director of one of his companies, at a salary of $100,000.
Neither Good nor Walters ever repaid a nickel of their Silverado loans, and in 1988 Silverado went belly up, leaving U.S. taxpayers holding the bag for $1.3 billion in debts.
Picking through the wreckage, regulators from the federal Office of Thrift Supervision concluded in 1991 that Bush's deals with Good and Walters while serving on Silverado's board constituted "multiple conflicts of interest." Bush became a public symbol of the $500 billion savings and loan scandal. Protesters picketed his home and pasted mock wanted posters around Washington: "Jail Neil Bush."
Bush proclaimed his innocence, declaring at a news conference that "self-serving regulators" were persecuting him because he was the president's son. But when he appeared before the House Banking Committee in 1990, he admitted that some of his deals looked "a little fishy."
Ultimately, Bush paid $50,000 as his part of a federal lawsuit against Silverado and was reprimanded by the OTS. Good and Walters ended up declaring bankruptcy, and JNB, which had never found oil or made money, quietly perished.
Orange you scared?
British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations.The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
Hmmm... don’t those insolent Mexicans know that one simply does NOT question Emperor Bush in times of impending national elections? After all, his crack leadership has led to the discovery of children and insurance agents aboard international flights.
Air France's grounding of three transatlantic flights over Christmas was a mistake, based on FBI information that in one case confused a child's name with a suspected terrorist, the Wall Street Journal Europe said.Citing French officials, the newspaper said on Friday the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation gave French police on December 22 a list of six suspects' names and information indicating militants linked to al-Qaida were planning to hijack an Air France jet.
French officials said that when French agents detained the passengers on the Paris-Los Angeles flights with names matching those on the list, Air France (AIRF.PA) found the name matching that of the head of a Tunisian-based terror group was a child.
Another "terrorist" was a Welsh insurance agent while a third was an elderly Chinese woman who once ran a restaurant in Paris, the newspaper said. The other three on the list were French citizens, it said.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sure sleeping a little easier now. I’m just so thankful that we have strong and fair Father George protecting us from evil:
Intelligence pros say the White House is manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and to keep President Bush's approval ratings high, Capitol Hill Blue reports.The Thursday report said that the administration is engaging in "hysterics" in issuing numerous terror alerts that have little to no basis in fact.
"Unfortunately, we haven't made a lot of progress against al-Qaida or the war on terrorism," one FBI agent familiar with terrorism operations told CHB. "We've been spinning our wheels for several weeks now."
Other sources within the bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency said the administration is pressuring intelligence agencies to develop "something, anything" to support an array of non-specific terrorism alerts issued by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.
......Last year, the FBI issued alerts that terrorists may attack stadiums, nuclear power plants, shopping centers, synagogues, apartment houses, subways, and the Liberty Bell, the Brooklyn Bridge and other New York City landmarks, reported Knight-Ridder newspapers. The bureau also advised Americans to be wary of small airplanes, fuel tankers and scuba divers.
CHB reported that FBI and CIA sources said a recent White House memo listing the war on terrorism as a definitive political advantage and fund-raising tool is just one of many documents discussing how to best utilize the terrorist threat.