The Political Whore

The McCain camp actually pulls off a decent viral video! I wouldn’t take a word of this at face value, but you have to admit the video is well done. If McCain knew what a computer was we might actually have a race here …

• Obama gives Clinton $2,300. (Side note: The Times should be shot for using that picture.)
• Novak says Colin Powell will endorse Obama at some point, but not because he’s a fan of Barack. No, he’ll do it to spite W.
• Speaking of traitors to their party: Time has a story on Joe Lieberman that made me puke in my mouth a little.
• Don’t blow your top trying to figure out the energy crisis, there’s a mountain of a solution out there.
• North Korea dynamites the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear power plant.
• One barrel of oil = 28 Subway footlongs.
• This weekend’s viewing: WALL-E is a “Pixar masterpiece.”
• “Six Crazy Hollywood Stories You Probably Haven’t Heard.”

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The Washington Post is reporting that the Supreme Court voted 5-4 along ideological lines to strike down Washington D.C.’s 1976 ban on handgun ownership. This marks the first time since 1791 that the Supreme Court has ruled on the second amendment or tried to sort out if gun ownership was tied to being in a “well regulated militia.”

Though some are sure to fears chaos in the streets, it is important to remember this simple fact: Though you have been unable to own a handgun in D.C. for the last 32 years, shotguns and rifles were still allowed. You read that correctly. Handguns, No way! Shotguns and rifles? A-OK. I take that to mean this decision will not result in immediate mass killings on the National Mall.

Best quote from the WaPo story:

The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.

Cheney needs to reconsider. If the people can get their hands on machine guns, ol’ Dick’s ass might be in some trouble.

(Photo Credit: Dubswede)

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It is nice to see today’s kids are taking advantage of our right to protest.

Two girls in Salt Lake City are protesting rising gas prices after their mom was forced to cut cable TV from the family’s budget because they could no longer afford it. The girls are upset because they can’t watch their favorite cartoons.

This is the way things work in America these days. Despite the world seemingly beginning to fall apart at the seams, there is little real uproar here in the US.

It’s because we’re all at home watching TV. Sometimes it takes something like cartoon deprivation to get us to take a stand.

Once we have to forego more of our guilty pleasures and distractions, we will all be on the streets protesting, despite the fact that it likely won’t force the price of gas any lower. Never mind the real issues; just don’t take away our Comedy Central.

I can see the signs that would be carried by the picketers:

“Beer should be an everyday thing, but gas prices have eaten away at my beer money! Stop the madness!”

“My Explorer runs on oil but my big-screen HD TV doesn’t! I can’t afford either!”

“My children deserve a future filled with electronic gadgets and video games! How can we leave them that legacy?”

We have become disconnected because we are so contentedly preoccupied. We find it easy to ignore what’s going on as long as we have something to distract ourselves with. It will be interesting to see the reaction once gas prices double again and we are forced to choose between paying for what we need and what we just really want.

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Gov. Charlie Crist tried to rebound from his horrible flip-flop on offshore drilling with a stunning, “Yellowstone”-sized deal to put a big chunk of Big Sugar out of business and save the Everglades.

From the NYT account:

In a deal that environmental groups said would be the largest ecological restoration in the country’s history, a plan for the state to buy the nation’s largest producer of cane sugar was announced Tuesday by the governor and officials of U.S. Sugar Corporation.

Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, with Robert H Buker Jr., the chief of U.S. Sugar, held up an agreement struck between the state and the sugar producer.

The intention is to restore the Everglades by restoring the water flow from Lake Okeechobee, in the heart of the state, south to Florida Bay. That flow had been interrupted by commercial farming and the Everglades have suffered as a result.

U.S. Sugar is one of two large sugar growers and processors in South Florida, but very politically connected (the Fanjuls and their Flo-Sun being the other), and in full disclosure, I have to say that I was a consultant to U.S. Sugar in the 1990s for one year. In all of this, though, I have yet to read where FLA is going to come up with $1.75 billion. From the Palm Beach Post:

The details of how the state will pay for the land are still unclear, as is the question of how exactly the state would use such a vast expanse of parcels scattered through Palm Beach, Hendry and Glades counties. The deal also includes some property U.S. Sugar owns in Gilchrist County.

The huge acquisition will require the state to refashion its $10.9 billion Everglades restoration plan, said Michael Sole, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection. The current plan relies on a complex network of pricey engineering projects, such as more than 300 deep storage wells, which critics have assailed as impractical and perhaps ecologically dangerous.

So maybe by not having to do the expensive engineering projects we can afford to buy out U.S. Sugar? Let’s hope so, because otherwise, last time I checked our state didn’t have a spare $1.75 billion. Didn’t we just slash the shit out of the state budget? Murderize funding for our higher education system? Gut our criminal justice system?

Crist’s oil drilling stance, widely viewed as a political ploy to assist John McCain’s presidency, was starting to hurt the Gov, as the Florida Democratic Party was more than happy to point out again today in an e-mail:

Crist has reason to worry about his support among the people of Florida. A Miami Herald report today cites a new Zogby International poll that shows the once-popular Governor’s approval rating dropping precipitously as he spends more time gallivanting around the country and less time attending to the state’s economic challenges.

A majority of South Floridians acknowledge that Charlie Crist is doing a fair to poor job, “the first time in Crist’s 18 months in office that more people give the Republican a negative rating than a positive one.” [Miami Herald, 6/23/08]

Previously, Zogby polls showed Crist’s rating at 54-36 percent in September and 54-40 percent in December in South Florida. The latest poll shows the tide has turned on Crist, 43-52 percent.

I’m not sure the Everglades pact will be enough to turn that around, especially once we see the financial details.

(photo by Craig O’Neal)

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Greatest toy ever: The Dude (Unemployed) 8-Inch Action Figure.

• McCain adviser Charlie Black sees more dead Americans as a quality election strategy.
• Outrageous quote of the week: “I think [Obama]’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.” —James Dobson, gay-hating [i.e., probably gay] Christian wackjob and founder of Focus on the Family.
• Really? Really? We’re going to talk about how Obama is on the wrong side of the “emotional” Elian Gonzalez issue? Really?
• If the Florida state budget is in such dire straights, how can we possibly afford what Time Magazine calls “the $1.75 billion deal to essentially purchase U.S. Sugar”?
• Eulogizing George Carlin.
• “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.”
• First it was those spoiled writers. Now, the Screen Actors Guild prepares to go on strike.
• R.I.P. Wilbur Hardee.

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R.I.P. George Carlin. The brilliant, subversive, hilarious, precedent-setting comedian was 71. In his honor, here is one of Carlin’s all-time classics: Baseball & Football.

• Obama in bed with Big Ethanol?
• Newsweek has it 51%-36% Obama over McCain.
• Tom Brokaw to host Meet The Press through the election.
• The Mississippi River appears to be cresting.
• Is Bob Barr Nader 2.0?
• So far, Amendment 1 has failed to live up to Crist’s hype.
• 49% think government should regulate in the Internet like TV or radio. In other news, 49% of the population just pooped and need the government to help them wipe.
• The Love Guru tanks. You’re welcome.

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I have some face time with Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio later this morning for an in-depth interview, so what do you want me to ask her? I will put your query to her if it is relevant and interesting.

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Ever wonder how to make a viral video? The process has been boiled down to these nine easy yet mostly duplicitous steps.

• Reintroducing Michelle Obama.
• The All-New Barack & Hillary Show to debut next week with a joint appearance to (what else?) rally donors.
• Obama up by six over McCain. That stat leaves ABC News wondering if it’s panic time … for Obama.
• Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi disassembles the Straight-Talk Express.
• Florida prepares to overhaul the method of tabulation of high school graduation rates. Want to bet the numbers go down?
• Lock up the pharmacists? Prescription drugs do far more societal damage than illegal ones.
• R.I.P. Cyd Charisse. If you’re under the age of 50, you just went “who?”
• The Celtics bury the Lakers in six.
• In an ongoing effort to piss of the AP* and get them to sue us, I will be running long quotes from AP stories for the foreseeable future. Today’s quote is from a story about Gov. Charlie restoring voting rights to 150,000 ex felons:

More than 115,000 former felons who completed their sentences have had their civil rights restored since a new state rule went into effect 14 months ago, Gov. Charlie Crist said.

The rule by the Board of Executive Clemency, which Crist chairs, restored rights almost automatically, ending a policy of requiring the panel to act individually on every restoration of rights request. The rights include voting and the ability to get state and local licenses for certain types of jobs.

“Once somebody has truly paid their debt to society, we should recognize it,” Crist said Tuesday. “We should welcome them back into society and give them that second chance. Who doesn’t deserve a second chance?”

The 115,000 former felons Crist cited account for more than half of all former felons in the state who have had their rights restored during the last 14 years, according to the governor.

The governor made the announcement at a two-day summit of state officials, lawmakers, community activists, prison ministers and others to brainstorm ideas for keeping former inmates from returning to crime after their release.

* - I had originally put periods after the A & P in AP. Fortunately, AP’s #1 fan sent me an e-mail informing me of my mistake. Thank’s #1.

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It started at noon Monday and ends at noon on Friday, but it is the biennial spectacle of Qualifying Week, during which campaigns for local and state offices (minus the judicials; they’re already qualified) must officially put their candidates on the ballot in a process called qualifying.

The dailies don’t cover this stuff much any more; plus, with state candidates qualifying in Tallahassee and locals qualifying in their respective counties, you have to have several reporters making the rounds, and there just aren’t that many political writers left ’round these parts.

Locally, The State of Sunshine has a good wrap-up of Tampa Bay legislative seats and who is (and isn’t) qualified so far. The only surprise so far is to see local Democratic and Obama activists and fundraiser Yvonne Yolie Capin throwing herself into a race against the practically unbeatable Faye Culp, a Republican who represents a South Tampa district in the Florida House. It won’t help that Capin didn’t open a campaign account and fundraise early — unless she has a wad of personal fortune she wants to throw into the race.

In Hillsborough County, the following incumbents have qualified: Property Appraiser Rob Turner, Tax Collector Doug Belden, County Commissioners Al Higginbotham and Brian Blair, and School Board Members Susan Valdes, Jack Lamb and Doretha Wynn Edgecomb.

In Pinellas, the following incumbents qualified: Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark, Clerk of the Courts Ken Burke, County Commissioner Karen Williams Seel, School Board Member Carol Cook and Sheriff Jim Coats. The following challengers have qualified: For Elections Supervisor, Democrat Jack Killingsworth; for County Commission, Democrat Paul Matton; for School Boar, Jennifer S. Crockett, Nina Hayden, Ken Peluso, Robin Wikle, and Chris Hardman.

We’ll keep our eyes peeled for any more last-minute challengers or dropouts.

Bonus cuts: Qualifying elsewhere in the state, in Orlando and  West Palm Beach.

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Today is Firefox 3 release day. If you’re still using Internet Explorer, we really have to talk.

• “Crist. Oy. Brought in as the keynote speaker because he’s on the short list of potential McCain running mates, his performance Friday night truly did help his party. By showing unequivocally he would be a complete disaster for the GOP – the worst running mate since Dan Quayle.”
• The Dems