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Jim Ford gets silly; illegals get counted; government gets expensive
  Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 8:00pm

Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

Property Appraiser blasts Florida Today on official government website
This is just getting silly. Property Appraiser Jim Ford thinks he should be completely left alone and allowed to run the Property Appraiser's office however he wants to, and he gets annoyed every time Florida Today or any other media outlet runs a news story about the latest investigation into him and his staff. How dare we hold him accountable for following the law! So when Florida Today tried to get an official reduction in the tax-assessed value of their printing equipment, Jim Ford decided this was his chance to zing them. He released a
short but scathing press release criticizing Florida Today for their appeal. Then he tacked this onto the end:

"Ford also said the newspaper is probably wishing it had succeeded in getting its recommended candidate elected to the Office of Property Appraiser after their unending efforts to discredit his administration. Ford further said that it is unlikely that anyone will read about this situation in Florida Today."

Florida Today promptly responded with an article on their appeal and Jim Ford's press release, thus ensuring that anyone can read about this situation in Florida Today. Beautiful!

Jim, let's review. Your office has been the target of multiple investigations on both criminal and ethical violations. Allegations have been made that you have manipulated property values to benefit people who have helped you politically. The criminal charges were dismissed on a technicality which kept key evidence out of the courtroom but which was still available to the rest of us. The ethical violations have resulted in several admissions of guilt by your staffers. On top of it all, you also "resigned" after winning re-election in 2008 only to take office again at the start of your next term, all to take advantage of the the "double-dip" loophole in the state's government employee retirement plan, a truly despicable act that is wasting our money every day to make you richer.

And you think Florida Today is the problem here?

Gov. Crist takes credit for cutting property taxes by 7.5% over 3 years
Just the latest stop on Charlie Crist's Magical Mystery Conservatism Tour as he attempts to fool us into thinking he's not an overspending moderate. While it's nice to see that many homeowners are seeing their taxes drop, the results have been spotty overall thanks to the arcane and convoluted tax exemptions Crist helped put into place. And the property tax burden has now been shifted to business owners instead, prompting many to shut down and move to other states. And oh, hey, look, our unemployment rate now is above the national average. Gee, I wonder how that happened.

Should illegals be counted in the census?
Crist says yes, Rubio says no. Crist, of course, says we need to make sure the illegal aliens get counted to ensure that Florida gets enough funding for our benefits and entitlement programs -- programs which wouldn't need as much funding if we weren't allowing illegal aliens to benefit from them in the first place. And given the upcoming job-loss pain from the end of the shuttle program, shouldn't this state be spending less money right now instead of more?

Brevard courts running short on funds for court transcripts and expert witnesses
Cuts in state funding are getting blamed. Gee, maybe we should stop paying government benefits to illegal aliens so we can afford court reporters.

Federal government may pay $6,000,000 for local flood control upgrades
Once again... why are we making people in South Dakota pay for our local projects? And why do we have to pay for theirs in return? Seems to me there's some extra steps here that could be eliminated.

Senate raises debt-ceiling by $1,900,000,000,000; House could be next
Party-line vote, with the Democrats needing all 60 of their votes to get cloture. Good thing they did it before Scott Brown was sworn in as a Senator to replace one of those Democrats. The House of Representatives is next, but they need to hurry. The national debt will hit the current debt ceiling by the end of this month.

British intel says al Qaeda is trying out explosive breast implants for women
I'm not making this up. Just another illustration of the difference between the USA and Israel on security. We look for weapons. Israel looks for terrorists. That's why Israel can stop attacks like this more easily than we can.

City of Harrisburg may declare bankruptcy
They overspent during the boom times, and forgot that someday there would be an economic bust. Gee, that doesn't sound like the Brevard County Commission at all, does it?

Budget-strapped governments convert asphalt roads back to gravel
And I'm willing to bet that every single one of these governments has something stupid and wasteful still on their budgets.

Man in a "vegetative state" answers Yes/No questions with his mind!
The more we know, the more we find out what we don't really know.
 

Local races start heating up; federal payroll hits all-time high
  Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 7:35pm

AM-1300 WMEL is off the air at the moment for routine maintenance on the transmitter, but we should be back up before 8:00pm in time for me to bring you The Vince Young Show. So don't worry! I'm right here and ready to go, and in a few minutes I'll update this website with my program notes for tonight.

Talk to you at 8:00pm!

EDIT at 8:07pm: Hmm... still working on the transmitter. Should just be a few more minutes, and then we'll get the show started for tonight. Hang in there!

EDIT at 8:25pm: Okay, we're back on-the-air. Let's get this thing started! Thanks for your patience, everyone.

Anyway, here's what I'll be talking about tonight on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

Scott Ellis to leave Clerk of Court seat, might challenge Thad Altman
I've never been a fan of State Senator Thad Altman, a Republican-In-Name-Only who is infamous for being a consummate politician. Altman, for example, was a big driving force behind last year's state budget plan, which used the
sneaky political trick of raising fees on state services in order to be able to claim that you didn't actually "raise taxes."

That's why I'm thrilled at today's news that Scott Ellis might challenge Thad Altman in the State Senate District 24 Republican primary later this year. Ellis has been a bare-knuckles fighter for smaller government and responsible spending during his political carrer as a County Commissioner and as the Clerk of the Court, and nobody can legitimately question his conservative credentials. Ellis has already confirmed that he will not be running for re-election as the Clerk of the Court, but given the conservative presence of Trudie Infantini and Andy Anderson on the County Commission, having a fiscal watchdog like Ellis in that Clerk's seat is no longer as crucial as it once was.

Ellis could face a tough battle. He often takes a much harsher tone than he needs to in his campaigns and his budget battles, and his primary race against Mitch Needelman in 2008 got downright ugly. Altman is a savvy politician and will no doubt pull out all the stops against Ellis to paint him as too angry to be effective. But I think Ellis's fire is exactly what we need in Tallahassee. When he's done with the state budget, the rest of the Legislature won't know what hit them.

Amy Tidd to challenge Ritch Workman for State House seat
Local Democratic activist Amy Tidd has thrown her hat into the ring in the race for the State House District 30. She'll be taking on Republican incumbent Ritch Workman. Quite frankly, we need to replace Workman, who failed to live up to his conservative pledges when he voted for last year's fee-raising state budget and for the SunRail program. But Tidd's hyper-liberal record will be far, far worse than anything Workman's ever voted for.

I continue to hope for a strong conservative to challenge Workman in the Republican primary, because if my choices are the spineless Workman or the liberal Tidd, I think I'll have to leave that race blank on my ballot.

Democratic State House candidate arrested, then released!
Political newcomer Joseph Crowley was arrested yesterday on child-sex charges, but then was released today after the charge was dismissed. Bizarre. Crowley will be running as a Democrat against Republican incumbent John Tobia for the State House District 31 seat.

Largest-ever federal payroll: $2,150,000
Our federal government is far, far too big.

EDIT at 9:10pm: Actually, it's worse than that. It's 2,150,000 employees, not 2,150,000 dollars. Apologies for getting it wrong at first. I guess that's what I get for rushing my show prep. Either way, the point still stands: our federal government is too big, and it needs to be trimmed down big-time.

Obama admits he broke his "C-SPAN" pledge on the health care bill
But he apparently thinks it's no big deal. Check out these two quotes from the President:

"Look, I made that commitment and I probably should have put it on C-SPAN, although one of the tricky things is trying to figure out, well, if it is on C-SPAN, are people actually going to be saying what they think about trying to get the bill done or is everybody going to be posturing to say things that sound good for the camera. But I think it is a legitimate criticism to say, if you say that all of it is going to be on C-SPAN, all of it is going to be on C- SPAN."

"Have we gotten it perfect? No. Have we done better than any administration in recent memory? Absolutely. And we'll keep on trying to improve on it."

State legislators propose loosening class-size amendment
We need that change. The current limits sound good on paper, but are far too difficult to implement.

Lance Larsen to be reprimanded for campaigning for Jim Ford on work time
Where there's smoke, there's fire.

West Melbourne loosens restrictions on outdoor sales at stores
Good. Now is not the time to burden businesses with silly rules and laws. Let them make some money!

Cocoa Beach to hold image workshop on February 23rd at 6pm at City Hall
Want to clean up the city? Now's your chance!
 

Obama and Crist: spending goes up, popularity goes down.
  Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 8:00pm

Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

"We've got to spend our way out of this recession."
That's an actual quote from Rep. James Clyburn, the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives. He's basically the #3 person in the House. Our nation's debt is at $12,300,000,000,000 ($12.3 trillion) and growing. China is openly lecturing us about fiscal responsibility and is seriously considering no longer loaning us any more money. Financial experts worldwide are getting closer and closer to downgrading our debt rating, and the main reason it hasn't happened yet is because of the staggering impact such a move would have on the economy of the entire world.

And this clown thinks we should be spending more?!?

Sadly, he's not alone. President Barack Obama has revealed his proposed budget for fiscal year 2011, starting in October of 2010. Total price tag: $3,830,000,000,000 (or $3.8 trillion, if you prefer). This despite the fact that here in fiscal year 2010, our deficit is projected to hit a record $1.6 trillion, pushing our total national debt up to $13.9 trillion. Then the fiscal year 2011 budget would have a slightly smaller deficit of "only" $1.3 trillion, which Obama wants you to believe is a sign of progress worth celebrating. There's just one problem: that deficit would still add onto the national debt, pushing it to $15.2 trillion by October 2011. And the deficit would still be a hefty $800 billion (or $0.8 trillion) for fiscal year 2012, leading to a national debt of $16 trillion just in time for the 2012 presidential election.

And all of this is assuming that we can convince investors around the world to loan us another $3.7 trillion dollars over the next three years. That is by no means a guarantee. Not anymore.

Simply reducing the deficit is not enough. Having any deficit means that the national debt is still growing. It's far past time for Congress and the President to acknowledge the sheer reality that we can no longer afford a government that is this big. Government is doing too many things for people that they could (and should!) be doing for themselves, and I guarantee you people could take care of themselves for a fraction of the cost of the government doing it for them.

We cannot afford to settle for a budget deficit that will be "only" $800 billion three years from now.

Obama's split personality
Part of Obama's economic stimulus package includes tax cuts for small businesses in an effort to promote job growth. Okay, I'm with him there. But dig deeper... in an effort to reduce the size of the deficit and to make up the revenue, Obama is also proposing increased taxes on people making over $250,000 a year. Those are the same people who own the very small businesses Obama is depending on to create more jobs!

Crist: "Hey, let's spend $3 billion MORE next year in Tallahassee!"
Not an exact quote, of course, but why are we going to increase the state's spending in a year when we're about to lose the space shuttle program and all of its jobs?

Rasmussen: Rubio 49%, Crist 37%
I wonder if Crist spending like a drunken sailor has anything to do with this.

Local Democratic Congresswoman takes swipe at Obama's NASA plan
Not even Rep. Suzanne Kosmas can go along with Obama on this.

Palm Bay to get tougher on abandoned swimming pools
Good. Letting a mosquito pond sit in your backyard is a threat to your neighbors.

Cocoa man uses shotgun to defend his home and property
Fantastic! I love seeing law-abiding people use firearms to stand up for themselves against thieves.

Surprise! Cellphone driving bans have no affect on crash statistics
Gee could it be that the real problem isn't cell phones, but rather all forms of distracted driving?
 

Oil's clean record; Crist wants tax cuts; county waste watch
  Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 8:00pm

Tonight's State of the Union address doesn't start until 9:00pm, so that means I still get to do a show tonight! Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

Both governor candidates call offshore oil drilling a "threat"
I'd expect that from a liberal Democrat like Alex Sink, but
et tu, Bill McCollum? Then fall, Florida's economy.

(Sorry. I'm in a Shakespearean mood today.)

At a press appearance earlier today, McCollum, a Republican and current Attorney General of Florida, called himself a "huge skeptic" of offshore oil drilling in Florida and raised the specter of an oil spill that "would just completely terrorize our beaches." Sink, the state's Chief Financial Officer, agreed with him.

Obviously, neither McCollum nor Sink have ever read this Human Events article from 2008 which showed that offshore oil drilling is cleaner than Mother Nature -- literally! Every year, mankind spills an average of 6,555 barrels of oil. In contrast, the earth itself leaks an average 620,500 barrels of oil into the ocean from cracks in the ocean floor, over 94 times more than we spill.

But so what? Oil drilling is going to ruin our pristine beaches, right? We all know it will... except that it won't. Let me give you two more numbers: one is the number of barrels of oil we extracted from oil drilling off the coast of the USA between 1980 and 2008. The other one is the number of barrels of oil those drilling platforms have spilled during that same period:

11,855,000,000 - drilled
       101,997 - spilled

For the record, that's a spillage rate of 0.0008%. Not bad, eh?

Where did this idea come from that offshore drilling is icky, heavily polluting, dangerous, and an imminent threat to our beaches? The actual facts just don't back up that ludicrous dystopian vision. In fact, we face far more danger of oil spills from supertankers bringing in massive amounts of oil from overseas than we do from spills from offshore rigs. And don't forget the carbon footprint created from shipping huge amounts of heavy liquids halfway around the world. If you're concerned about the environment, offshore oil drilling here in the USA is light-years ahead of drilling it up from Saudi Arabia and shipping it here.

But what if the oil rigs are visible from shore, you say? Won't that keep tourists from going to the beach? Well, they can see oil rigs from the beach in California, and yet people still go to the beach out there. And thanks to the curvature of the earth, you can put an oil rig 12 miles offshore and nobody on the beach will be able to see it at all.

Look around. This state's economy is in trouble. Our unemployment rate is above the national average, and space jobs are drying up quickly. We need something to jump-start the economic engine of the state. Offshore oil drilling is not a magical cure-all panacea, but it will help, and it's a start. To oppose it for such ill-informed reasons is foolish, and I call on Bill McCollum to reconsider his opposition.

Oh, now Crist wants to cut taxes for corporations!
Governor Charlie Crist continues his conservative makeover, proposing a 1% cut in the corporate tax rate from 5.5% to 4.5% for the first million dollars of a corporation's yearly income. It won't help business that much, but it's a start, and anything we can do to reduce the tax burden of Florida's business owners is a good thing right now with our unemployment rate at 11.8% statewide.

But where was this version of Governor Crist before our state's unemployment rate topped the national average? Chained down in the basement of the Governor's Mansion, I guess.

Let's review Charlie Crist's record, shall we?

  • February 2009 - Crist embraces President Barack Obama and his government stimulus bill -- both figuratively and literally.

  • May 2009 - Crist signs the new state budget into law, including increased fees for state services across-the-board in the equivalent of a tax increase on every person who lives, drives, works or plays in Florida. He only vetoes two items from the budget, one of which is a pay cut for state employees to save money. That veto adds $30 million back onto the tax burden of the people of Florida.

  • October 2009 - With Marco Rubio rapidly narrowing the gap in the polls in the Senate primary race, Crist starts running radio ads touting his "conservative" record.

  • October 2009 - Critics pummel Crist over the contradiction between his past support of Obama's government stimulus bill and his new radio ads criticizing Obama for overspending. Crist's response: "I was happy and delighted to do so. I'm a civil guy. The president of the United States is the president of the United States. Especially when it's the first visit to Florida and I'm invited to be there. I have that kind of respect in my soul."

  • January 2010 - With his lead over Marco Rubio pretty much evaporated, Crist calls for the return of the school supply sales tax holiday after he refused to support the tax holiday in 2008 and 2009.

  • January 2010 - At a jobs summit, Crist says that when it comes to business, the state government should "get out of the way." Meanwhile, business owners are scrambling to deal with a surprise jump in unemployment fund taxes on Florida businesses that Crist seems to be unaware of. Fortunately, he gives an emergency order at the 11th hour to delay the tax hike, but not before freaking out every business owner in the state.

    Interesting that Governor Charlie Crist didn't start turning conservative until it looked like his moderate-to-liberal record as governor was costing him votes in his Senate Republican primary race with Marco Rubio, isn't it? Do not let this man fool you.

    County Commission delays vote on "heritage" land buy in Merritt Island
    We're facing an $18 million deficit in the next county budget, and yet three of our County Commissioners want to overpay for a plot of land -- just to preserve it for historical purposes? We don't have the money for stuff like this right now! Thank goodness this needed a 4-1 super-majority to pass and they only had three Yes votes.

    Sources: Obama to scrap moon flights, focus NASA on asteroids and global warming
    Are you reading this, Mary Bolin, Chuck Nelson and Robin Fisher? The economic picture in Brevard County is looking more and more dire. This is why we shouldn't be wasting money on snatching up plots of land right now. We may need that money later for far more important things.

    Florida will get federal money for high-speed rail lines
    And the pork parade marches on. Once again, Florida's state government uses taxpayers from other states to pay for stuff we should be paying for ourselves. North Dakota shouldn't have to pay for local projects in Florida, just like Florida shouldn't have to pay for local projects in North Dakota.

    "ACORN Pimp" busted for wiretapping senator's phone
    I loved the way James O'Keefe exposed ACORN's corruption last year, but he was technically breaking the law when he secretly videotaped people without their consent. He got away with it then, but it looks like he got greedy and thought he could get away with it again.
     

    Obama pays lip service to national debt. How about paying money instead?
      Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Official US debt for fiscal year 2009: $12.3 trillion
    $12,302,465,000,000 to be precise. That is how much money the United States government owes to the people and nations we've been borrowing money from to fuel our oversized government. And more and more people are growing more and more concerned about how we're ever going to pay all of that money back without defaulting on our debt.

    More and more Democrats in Washington DC are also growing more and more concerned -- about their grip on political power. Worries about the national debt are a big reason for the popularity of the Tea Party movement and for President Barack Obama's ever-shrinking approval ratings. And that is starting to erode the power base of the Democrats, most obviously in the form of Republican Scott Brown's upset victory to replace Ted Kennedy as a Massachusetts senator, but also in polling data for 2010 congressional races all around the country. As such, more and more Democrats are joining conservatives in decrying the size of the national debt.

    Now, talking about the debt is one thing. Doing something about it is another thing entirely. And what does President Obama want to do about the national debt? He wants to freeze about $15 billion in discretionary spending. Okay, it's a start... but not much of one. Remember, the national debt stands at $12.3 trillion right now. So how does $15 billion compare to that? I'll show you:

    $12,302,465,000,000 - national debt
    $    15,000,000,000 - spending freeze

    Now, people's eyes tend to glaze over when they see that many zeroes, so let me do some math and bring these numbers down to something you can understand better: an example from your real life. You're Barack Obama, and you've just discovered that you are $12,000 in debt, and you want to change that. So, you cut back your fast food budget by $15 a year.

    Won't do much good for paying off your debt, will it?

    The federal government and the American people are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that government cannot be all things to all people. The government does too much, and that makes it too big and too expensive. Government is going to have to reduce its role. That means shutting down programs. That means mailing out fewer benefit checks. That means less spending by the federal government on local projects. That means closing down entire governmental departments and buildings.

    One way or another, this is what we will do. Either we do it now in an orderly and controlled fashion, or we do it later in a panicked and uncontrolled manner when we run out of money and suddenly discover that the rest of the world is no longer willing to lend us more money.

    Or I guess we could always just tax the rich more, right? Just don't ask the Democrats for a definition of "rich." They won't tell you, because they're too afraid that their definition will be different from yours and that it will count you as "rich," whether you actually are or not.

    Pregnant Florida woman ORDERED by court to stay in a hospital
    Here's a frightening example of how out-of-control our courts are. A Florida woman was six-months pregnant and had been smoking all through her pregnancy. (Here's a hint, ladies: don't do that.) This led to complications with her pregnancy, and she ended up in the hospital. But while she was in the hospital, she decided she didn't like the doctors and the staff at that hospital and that she wanted to leave and move to another hospital.

    In response, her doctor went to court -- and got a judge to order the woman to stay right there in that particular hospital, under the guise of looking out for the well-being of her unborn child.

    Now, if the woman wanted to just go back home without giving her unborn child proper medical care, I could see the judge's point. I'm not sure I'd agree with ordering her to stay in the hospital, but I could at least understand the argument. But that wasn't the case here: the woman wanted to move from Hospital A to Hospital B, and the judge ordered her to stay at Hospital A. That is nothing short of gross interference in someone's health-care decision-making.

    Scary.

    Tebow's anti-abortion Super Bowl ad draws protests from NOW
    Can't they just run their own pro-abortion ad? I guess freedom of speech only applies to ideas the political left likes.

    Cocoa Code Enforcement allows restoration work on historic building to continue
    A happy ending... but keep in mind, the restoration work could've been finished a week ago if not for the city's pointless stop-work order.

    Oh, now Melbourne finds an alternate site for Daily Bread
    A little late, Melbourne. Daily Bread won their lawsuit, remember? They now have ZERO incentive to cooperate with moving to a new site.

    One temperature station in northern Canada?
    Yeah, that'll do for measuring ALL of Canada above the Arctic Circle. So much for actual science in the global warming debate.

    Unemployment rate for Brevard: 12.1% for December 2009
    And it's just going to get worse when the space shuttle program ends.

    County is actually prioritizing department spending in the budget? Wow!
    Why couldn't they have done that before?

    Titusville to hold public budget workshop
    Saturday, February 6th from 8:30am to 12:30pm at City Hall.
     

    Democrats finally listen on health care, but still can't stop spending your money
      Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Democrats reject quick House vote on Senate plan
    They're finally listening to you! But it took Scott Brown's Senate victory dealing a huge blow to their political power to make them remember who is really in charge -- you, not them. Now let's see how long it takes them to forget again.

    It might not take long. Although the Democrats are shelving the health care "reform" bill for the moment, their quotes to press show that they think the American people are angry that -- get this -- the Democrats haven't gone far enough. They couldn't be any further from the truth. The message from the American people is loud and clear in poll after poll, protest after protest, vote after vote: the Democrats have gone way too far.

    Senate Dems prepare to raise debt ceiling -- again!
    They want to increase the limit by another $1,900,000,000,000 (or $1.9 trillion if you prefer). That would put the national debt limit at $14,300,000,000,000 ($14.3 trillion). Yikes! And the fact that they'd rather go more into debt than to cut spending and reign in the budget really takes the sincerity out of their new "We're listening to you!" posture.

    Even more fun? In order to pass, they need 60 votes under the Senate's budget rules. With Scott Brown coming in soon, they're about to have only 59 Democratic votes... 58 if Senator Evan Bayh carries through on his recent threat to vote No. If it fails, Congress might be forced to default on some debt -- a move that would send an economic shockwave around the world.

    How did we get to this point? Because both the Democrats and Republicans allowed it to happen by continuously spending more money than we could bring in, especially over the past decade. The only difference is that the debt grows faster under the Democrats than under the Republicans. This has been a complete and utter failure on the part of our public "servants" to do what is in our best interests, and it may lead to the economic ruination of not just us, but the entire world.

    I'm honestly torn on this. I actually hope the Democrats do one last debt ceiling increase to stave off the immediate disaster of a debt default and then take immediate and drastic steps to cut the budget to reverse our growing debt. But just like it took Scott Brown's Senate victory to make the Democrats do the right thing on health care, it may take a debt default to force Congress (both parties) to do the right thing on the budget. Sometimes it takes a major shock to get someone to change their self-destructive behavior. So as difficult as a debt default would be, it may be a neccessary evil.

    Property Appraiser staffers are close to settling their campgain ethics violations
    And once again, Jim Ford himself is going to skate. How long will his cronies be willing to keep getting in legal trouble on his behalf?

    Shuttle program job-loss report finalized
    Brevard County could lose up to 6,000 jobs, and just central Brevard alone could lose 4,000 of those! This is gonna hurt, and hurt badly, and the hit to our tax base is going to make Brevard County's upcoming $18,000,000 deficit in 2010 look like chump-change.

    School Board finalizes south Brevard rezoning plan
    Some parents weren't happy, but too bad. Some students just had to get moved, which meant some parents were just going to be unhappy anyway. Kudos to the School Board for sticking to their guns and carrying out a thankless job. Up next: central Brevard's rezoning plan on February 9th.

    An all-white basketball league? Yikes!
    Some idiot promoter is starting up a 12-team basketball league just for white players, claiming that whites are becoming too rare in the NBA and need a place to play. He also claims that this league isn't racist. Let's check the dictionary, shall we?

    racism - noun - a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

    Yes, it is racist. He's saying that all blacks are inherently better at basketball than whites due to their race, and in response he's banning all blacks from his league. That's racist. Whites may be in the minority in the NBA, but there's no official rules banning them from the league. This guy needs to get a clue and a life.

    Surprise! Manatee count goes up
    But that couldn't possibly mean there are more manatees, of course. The cold weather just made them easier to count. Right.

    20% may not fill out Census Form at all
    Interesting poll by the Pew Research Center. Myself? I'm filling it out, but I'm putting down the number of people who live in my household: two. Under the Constitution, that's all they're entitled to know.

    Barefoot Bay may try to become a city
    Could be risky, but it's worked out okay so far for Grant-Valkaria.

    Supreme Court smacks down McCain/Feingold campaign finance law
    Mixed feelings from me on this one. On the one hand, viva la First Amendment! On the other hand, giving corporations free reign to pour millions of dollars into political campaigns is probably not going to end well. Unfortunately, I can't see any way to stop it without violating the Constitution, and that takes precedence in my mind.
     

    Massachusetts on red alert; new state tax hampers business
      Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Will Massachusetts replace Ted Kennedy with a Republican?
    Maybe. Republican State Senator Scott Brown has taken the lead in opinion polls over Democrat Martha Coakley, the state's Attorney General, in the battle to fill Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat. Right now, there's a governor-appointed Democratic place-holder in the seat, but today's special election will replace them. You can check the results as they come in on the official election website for the state government of Massachusetts. Polls close at 8:00pm Eastern Time tonight, right as my show starts.

    Why do you care? Because right now the Democrats have a 60-to-40 majority in the Senate, the bare minimum needed to shut down Republican filibusters and force bills through -- such as the health care "reform" bill. If the Republican wins today, it will be 59-to-41, and suddenly the Democrats will need to sway over a Republican to vote with them to shut down filibusters. And with even moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe growing ever more hostile to the Democrats, that's going to be difficult.

    It could also doom President Barack Obama's health care "reform" bill entirely. The House and the Senate have each approved two different versions, and any new compromise bill will have to be re-passed by both the House and Senate. With only 59 Democrats in the Senate, they won't be able to force a vote. That's why if Brown wins, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may go for a straight vote on the Senate's health care bill in the House, with no changes or amendments. Since the current Senate version has already passed in the Senate, passing it in the House too would send it straight to the President's desk to become law. Or the Senate could try to pass the health care bill using the budget reconciliation process, in which you only need 51 votes to close debate. Both moves are risky, though.

    So, I'm rooting for Scott Brown to win today. But forgive me for not being too excited about a guy who once posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine back in 1982... while describing himself as a "patriot." Granted, it was a while ago, and hopefully he's matured a lot since then, but it does give me pause.

    Sen. Lemieux asks for Constitutional review of proposed health insurance mandate
    Dare I say it? Lemieux has been an improvement over Mel Martinez so far.

    Unemployment fund business tax jumps by thousands of dollars due to rate hike
    Surprise! Is this what you meant when you said state government needs to get out of the way of business, Governor Crist? No wonder our unemployment rate is higher than the national rate!

    School Board votes first redistricting plan tonight; central vote on 2/9
    Tonight is the vote on south Brevard, and the vote on central Brevard will come on February 9th. About 1,100 students are going to be re-assigned to different schools coming up this fall, and needless to say a lot of those kids' parents are angry. Tough cookies. We have 15 overfilled schools here in Brevard, and state law says those schools have to be at or under capacity in time for the 2012 fall semester. That means moving kids out of overcrowded schools and into other schools that are already under capacity. Everyone understands this, but everyone is demanding that their kids stay right where they are. Move someone else's kid, not mine, the parents say. And when every parent is saying that, it means there's no way to make everyone happy.

    Sorry, but somebody has to be moved. Welcome to reality.

    Of course, one of the reasons we got into this weird situation with overcrowded schools is because of past efforts to assign kids to schools based on racial concerns in an attempt to make sure that every school is diverse. Never mind how much it costs to bus kids around. Never mind that kids are going to schools nowhere near where they live, making it more difficult for their parents to be truly involved in their child's education. Never mind that it leaves some schools overcrowded while desks sit empty at other schools. Gotta keep the NAACP happy, of course.

    Apartment residents freak out over gator next door
    Um... you're aware this is Florida, right?

    Bible verse codes engraved on US military rifle sights by the manufacturer
    Um... why? The US military is not a church army, and not all soldiers are Christians. And I know al-Qaeda will keep insisting that we're carrying out a new Christian Crusade against the entire Islamic religion no matter what we do, but do we really need to do things like this and hand them propaganda points on a silver platter?
     

    Happy MLK Jr. Day; Nye vs. Bolin; Crist vs. Crist
      Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
    Yes, yes, I'm well aware of his suspected communist ties, the accusations of plagiarism in his early academic days, etc. Nobody is perfect. But on balance, I believe that Dr. King did more than enough to help the nation and the world to balance out the wrongs in his life. And his message of true racial equality is one that should be heeded more by today's African-American political leaders such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and others who merely pay lip service to Dr. King's legacy and message today. Most of my fellow conservatives seem to understand this, thank God. But to those who don't, who for some reason choose instead to regard Martin Luther King Jr. with hostility, I urge you to reconsider.

    The Bible is full of deeply flawed men who were used by God to carry out important works of grace. Whatever his personal failings, Martin Luther King Jr. left this world a better place. That's why I celebrate him today.

    Matt Nye goes after Mary Bolin on county employee holiday
    And of course,
    Florida Today misses the point. Matt Nye is planning a Republican primary challenge against current County Commissioner Mary Bolin, a wishy-washy moderate, and Nye for some odd reason is focusing big-time on Bolin's proposal last month to give county employees a paid holiday on New Year's Eve, December 31st. The proposal passed unanimously, and now Nye and Bolin are squabbling over how much money this will cost the taxpayers. Nye says it's at least $750,000. Bolin counters that it's more like $132,000 due to overtime for some employees, but that since the county employees were originally going to be working on that day anyway, the money for their wages was already in the budget anyway. On that front, Bolin makes a valid point.

    But I don't think Matt Nye is entirely off-base though. Keep in mind, while the money was already in the budget to pay the county's employees on December 31st, they were going to be paid to work. Instead, they were paid not to work, and we lost an entire day's productivity from those employees. That's worth thinking about.

    It's also worth thinking about that county budget could be short by $18 million next year. Every $132,000 expenditure you can save helps in that sort of a deficit. It's nice to give the county employees a break, but what about giving the taxpayers a break too?

    Gov. Crist: state should get out of the way of businesses
    You first, Charlie. You can start by repealing all of the fee hikes you signed into law last year. Talk all you want about reducing government, bringing back the school supply sales-tax holiday, and other conservative ideas, Governor Crist. We know who you really are, and we know your record. You may sound conservative, but you don't act conservative.

    State considers tax on paper and plastic grocery bags
    I already see more and more people using re-usable bags every day. Why do we need to legislate something that is already happening on its own anyway?

    Melbourne synchronizes some US 1 traffic lights; more to come
    Kudos for improving traffic flow with this great idea, but why did it take this long? And why isn't it done more often?

    More info on Titusville's impact-fee moratorium
    Mayor Jim Tulley and Councilwoman Martha Long voted NO, putting them on the losing end of the successful 3-2 vote. Their quotes to Florida Today show that they just don't get it.

    How NOT to stop someone from breaking into your vehicle
    Jumping into the back of their pickup truck as they try to get away? Bad idea. This guy is lucky to be alive today.

    Fleeing defendant tries to jump through bulletproof window
    Needless to say, it didn't work. Don't forget to check out the security video too. Priceless!

    Palm Bay puts city finance info online
    Florida Today's story is here, and the website itself is at http://open.palmbayflorida.org if you want to check it out. Yay for open government!
     

    Obama takes aim at banks; Cocoa Beach installs red-light camera
      Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Obama wants to tax banks to replenish TARP funding
    President Barack Obama is proposing
    a one-time tax on the assets of every bank in the United States of America. He claims it's because so many banks haven't repaid their TARP loans back to the government yet, but are still giving big bonuses to their executives. To quote the President, "We want our money back, and we're going to get it."

    Now, if a bank begged for money from the government and hasn't repaid it yet, you know what? I can kinda see Obama's point. But what about banks who have already repaid their TARP loan? They'll still get taxed. What about banks who never borrowed a penny of TARP money from the government in the first place? They'll still get taxed. What about banks who were ordered by the government to take TARP money that they didn't need in the first place and who haven't been allowed to pay it back? They'll all still be taxed as well. How is that fair?

    If this were truly about responsibility or fiscal restraint, only those banks who asked for and voluntarily accepted government money would be getting hit by this. That's only fair; if you want help from the taxpayers, we're going to put some strings on it. But by also targeting banks that followed the rules and behaved responsibly, Obama has revealed his true motive here: control. He's sending a message to businesses all across the country: we're the government, and we are in charge, you peons.

    That doesn't mean I'm a big fan of banks handing out big bonuses to their executives in this environment, not while they're turning down worthy borrowers for loans and refusing to re-work shaky mortgages so they can just foreclose instead. I'm not here to defend the behavior of the banks. But Obama is missing a big reason why these banks behave so badly in the first place: because the government makes it possible for them to behave badly without facing any serious consequences. If a bank behaves stupidly, makes poor decisions, and wastes its money on things like big executive bonuses and then finds itself in financial trouble, every bank knows all they have to do is ask the government for help and get a big fat bailout check.

    In a truly capitalistic system, there's a built-in disincentive against making bad decisions and wasting money: the risk of failure. If bad decisions mean your business could shut down and you could lose everything, you have every reason to avoid making bad decisions. But when the government offers to "save" every business that has made bad decisions and is on the brink of failure, the government removes that built-in disincentive. The consequences of making bad decisions suddenly become much easier to handle. And in the end, that just leads to businesses being more likely to keep making those bad decisions.

    Want to get these banks back on the right track? Here's what you do: announce the immediate and total end of the TARP program, and demand that every bank that still has TARP money pay back every penny immediately. I guarantee, you'll see a lot of executive bonuses get cancelled as banks scramble to come up with the cash. And if a bank can't survive without the TARP money, hey, that's why we have the FDIC: to save the customers of the failed bank so they don't lose their money. The failed bank goes away, and the surviving banks learn a lesson: don't do what that failed bank did.

    That's capitalism. The free market already has incentives built into it for businesses to make the right decisions and avoid the wrong ones. Let those incentives work.

    Yuppie 911? What does that have to do with banks?
    I'll tell you. Wilderness rescue teams all across the country are dealing with a new phenomenon. Thanks to continued technology improvements for things like cell phones, GPS units, and emergency locator beacons, more and more people are going out into the woods and the mountains on camping and hiking trips. Unfortunately, many of these people have little or no wilderness survival experience. They get out into the wild, something goes wrong that they weren't properly prepared for, and they're immediately on their cell phone crying for help. Rescue crews have dubbed it "Yuppie 911."

    On that topic, there's a wonderful quote from the head of Search and Rescue operations in California, a guy by the name of Matt Scharper:

    "There's controversy over these devices in the first place because it removes the self-sufficiency that's required in the backcountry. With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn't have been in in the first place."

    Isn't this the exact same thing we're doing with the banks? And the car manufacturers? And the airlines? And every other line of business that has recently asked the government for a bailout?

    Cocoa Beach's first red-light camera is being installed
    And the City Commission keeps insisting it's for safety, not revenue. Never mind that Arizona wants to turn off their speed cameras because they're losing money. And never mind that many cities in Georgia have turned off their red-light cameras because they're losing money. Every single one of those governments also initially claimed their cameras were about safety and not revenue.

    Road projects don't help unemployment rate
    Great story by Matt Reed. Whenever a government official tells you that we need these government projects to create jobs, just remember: they had to get the money for those projects by taking it away from people and businesses. That leads to people spending less in stores, and it leads to businesses losing money, laying off workers, and shutting down. At best, it's a wash. And that's assuming the government doesn't waste any of that tax revenue along the way. Good luck with that.

    So... who's in charge in Haiti?
    The Haitian government is nowhere to be found in the wake of Tuesday's earthquake. Well, except for Haiti's president whining on CNN that his palace got destroyed.

    Obama's broken campaign promises
    Sadly, it's a pretty long list. So much for "change."

    Biden holds transparency meeting...
    ...behind closed doors. Yeah, that's transparent.

    8-year-old Palm Bay boy threatens teacher with a knife!
    It's the feel-bad story of the day.

    Hey cops: if you're gonna frame someone, turn off your dashboard camera first!
    They're fired, of course. Didn't these guys learn anything from Richard Nixon?
     

    County still bleeding cash; Cocoa shoots themselves in the foot
      Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Only a 30-minute show tonight due to Orlando Magic basketball at 8:35pm, but here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Cocoa orders stop to building restoration -- when it was almost done!
    So, let me get this straight. A historic but long-abandoned business building in Cocoa is slated for demolition. Last fall, a local family finds out, buys the building, and makes a deal with the city of Cocoa: if you give us some time, we'll renovate and restore the building for historic purposes. This will let the city get rid of an eyesore and hold on to a piece of its heritage at the same time, and everyone wins. So, the city says yes -- but gives the family a deadline of January 10th, 2010.

    Time passes. The family collects some donations and gets to work. Progress on the building is obvious, and it looks better and better every day. But the donations dry up, so the family takes out a loan. The loan takes longer than expected to get approved, delaying some of the work, but eventually it gets approved, and work resumes. In early January, the biggest thing left to do is some repainting, but there's just one problem: the Great Cold Snap of 2010. Paint can't set properly if it's too cold, so the family waits for it to warm up.

    And then the January 10th deadline comes.

    At this point, the family has about a week's worth of work left, maybe less. The building already looks a lot better, and once the weather warms up, they'll be able to do the painting and some wrap-up work, and voila! A restored building.

    Does the government of the city of Cocoa care? Nope. With only a week's worth of work left, the City of Cocoa has slapped the family with a cease-and-desist order. The weather is about to warm up, but the family won't be allowed to finish the painting work. Instead, the building will have to sit unfinished until the family can get a hearing with Cocoa's Code Enforcement Board on January 21st to get permission to finish the job. And keep in mind, if it weren't for the cease-and-desist order, the restoration work would probably have been finished before that date. It would've been finished one week after the original deadline. Now, it won't be finished until three weeks after the original deadline.

    Only a government can think that a three-week delay in finishing a project is better than a one-week delay.

    Let's say you have a project to do at your job, and your boss gives you a three-month deadline to get it done by. You work hard on it, but things go wrong, problems come up, and when the deadline comes up, you ask for another week to get it finished.

    Will your boss be annoyed? Absolutely. But will your boss give you that extra week? Almost certainly. What he won't do is tell you to stop working immediately and wait two weeks for a meeting to decide whether or not you should get that one-week extension. Why? Because that's stupid, that's why; you don't stop all progress for two weeks while you decide whether to extend a deadline by another week. That just leaves you with a project that's three weeks late instead of just one. And any boss who did that would have to answer to his boss for it.

    But government thinks it's okay.

    And we want that sort of thinking to be in charge of our health-care decision-making? Yikes.

    County tax revenue continues to shrink
    The next budget could be short by as much as $18 million. Still don't think we're spending too much money?

    Titusville votes 3-2 to suspend impact fees for 2 years
    Mayor Jim Tulley and Martha Long voted No. Apparently they haven't driven around Titusville lately. That city needs MORE businesses and residents to come in, and taxing them extra to come in will just chase them away.

    Pat McCrary steps down from Cocoa City Council due to illness
    I wish her well in her recovery. Now let's replace her with someone who won't waste our money on bringing the Cocoa Village Ice Rink back.

    More detail on County Commission's horse-dropping reversal
    Why aren't these horses already wearing dropping-bags? That's what other riders do in other parts of the state, and they can use them here too.

    Melbourne suspends "gated" street parties
    Nothing like handcuffing local business during a down economy. Who needs to make money, anyway?

    Melbourne leaves debate time limits in place for council members
    Mayor Goode laughs evilly, rubs hands together, looks menacingly at Councilwoman Joanne Corby. (Well, no, not really, but it wouldn't have surprised me.)
     

    Quake hits Haiti, ice hits Florida, race hits Harry
      Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 8:30pm

    Here's what we're talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Breaking News: 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti
    A
    7.0 earthquake has struck Haiti tonight, prompting a tsunami watch for parts of the Caribbean that was later cancelled. This quake is awful news for an impoverished island nation that can barely withstand a tropical storm, let alone a major earthquake centered 10 miles from the capital city. The only silver lining on this dark cloud is that no tsunami developed, so we most likely have nothing to worry about here in Brevard.

    But pray tonight for the people of Haiti. They'll need every bit of help they can get.

    Climate scientists: we may be starting a 30-year cold cycle
    The climate gets warmer and colder in regular cycles? Wow. Who would've guessed that? Probably the most interesting part of the article is the fact that many scientists who believe in global warming back up the idea that we're entering a 30-year cool period, though they insist that the overall trend of earth's climate over a longer-term scale is still upward.

    Here's what I think they're overlooking: temperatures world-wide were unusually cool in the 70s, prompting fears of a coming global ice age at the time. That would've been the end of the last 30-year cold-cycle. Then the temperatures warmed up worldwide in the 80s and 90s and leveled off in the 00s, prompting the opposite fear of permanent global warming. That would've been the 30-year warm-cycle. Now we're ending that and going back into the next 30-year cold-cycle again.

    Gee. Could it possibly be true that the warming in the 80s and 90s was nothing more than a natural, regular cycle in the world's weather? Nah, couldn't be. Our climate models insist that the world is going to keep getting warmer. Never mind that those same models predicted continuous and massive warming in the 00s that never materialized. Never mind that we can't even predict the weather three days with dependable accuracy. If our models say it's gonna happen, it must be true!

    But to turn off the sarcasm for a second, just a reminder: the recent cold snap in Florida and the USA is weather. Global warming or cooling or whatever is climate. Weather and climate are two different things. And a cold snap in the middle of winter (when cold snaps are known to occur) doesn't disprove global warming, just like a warm spell in the middle of summer (when warm spells are known to occur) doesn't prove global warming either. Both sides of this debate routinely get weather and climate mixed up, and it drives me crazy.

    Harry Reid opens mouth, inserts foot
    But does he really deserve the trouble he's in? I'm not entirely convinced he does. Basically, what Reid was saying is that the fact that then-candidate Barack Obama was lighter skinned and doesn't talk in an urban dialect would make it easier for him to win the Presidency. Certainly insensitive to say, but... isn't it sadly true? There are people in this country, sad as it is, who probably did find it easier to vote for Obama for precisely the reasons Reid listed. It troubles me to think about it, but I really get uncomfortable with the idea of punishing people for speaking uncomfortable truths.

    Don't count me on the list of people demanding that Reid step down as Senate Majority Leader. I don't like Reid's politics, and I'm troubled by his words, but that's as far as I can go on this.

    Crist loses straw poll 2-to-1...
    ...in his home county! I guess that's why he's suddenly pushing for a sales-tax holiday on school supplies. Where was he the last two years when the tax-holiday didn't happen?

    Horse pucky! County Commission reverses vote on horse-droppings
    Better clean it up, people!

    IRS commissioner can't understand his own tax code!
    He has to use a tax preparer every year. Time to simplify the tax code? Or better yet, implement the FairTax?
     

    Snow and guns in Cocoa; Greer bows out
      Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    "Best Of" show coming up on Monday night!
    I'll be taking the night off next Monday night, January 11th, to take care of some personal business, but don't worry, because I have a treat for you. I'm proud of the live show I did on New Year's Eve, but I'm fully aware a lot of you might not have been tuned in that night. So I'm giving you an encore presentation of my live New Year's Eve show next Monday night, January 11th at 8pm right here on the Talk-To-Me Station AM-1300 WMEL! And then I'll be back in the studio for a live show on Tuesday night, January 12th.

    Rep. Posey to hold town-hall meeting next Monday
    Just a reminder, south Brevard's Congressman Bill Posey will be holding a town-hall meeting for the public next Monday, January 11th, from 2pm to 4pm at the Holiday Inn in Viera, on Wickham Road right by I-95. If you can go, be there!
    Details are here, and you can RSVP here.

    Snow in Cocoa?
    And no, I'm not talking about cocaine. I'm talking about actual, real, honest-to-God snow flurries that could be falling on Cocoa on Friday night and Saturday morning. And not just Cocoa. Rockledge, Titusville, Melbourne, Palm Bay, all of Brevard County. It's in the official forecast:

    "Saturday: Cloudy. A chance of morning showers... possibly mixing with light snow or sleet. Highs near 45. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 30 percent."

    And you heard about it first on The Vince Young Show on Monday night. I brought it up before anybody else, because I saw the long-range forecast shaping up for it. And I am jazzed to see it may come true.

    Snow in Brevard. Gotta love it.

    Cocoa teen caught with AK-47 in trunk -- and gets sent home
    That's right. A student at Cocoa High School was caught with an AK-47 rifle and ammo in the trunk of his car while it was parked at the school. He was arrested and charged... and then released into "home custody" by the presiding judge.

    How sweet, huh?

    Especially entertaining is the statement from the police to Florida Today reporter J.D. Gallop that they don't believe the kid intended to use the gun to harm any of the students at school. Okay, then... who did he intend to harm?

    Now, you know me... I'm a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and responsible gun ownership, and I think our existing gun laws are actually too strict. But we're talking about a minor here, a 17-year-old with a gun on-campus in violation of multiple laws, and I somehow doubt he owned this gun in order to make a statement about gun rights. If he thinks he's mature enough to tote around an automatic weapon, then he's mature enough to be tried as an adult and thrown in prison, not sent home with a slap on the wrist while the legal system wrings its hands over what to do with him.

    Oh, and if this isn't an obvious enough sign to the Cocoa City Council of just how crazy the crime problem is getting in their city, then there's no hope for them. Remember, last year they thought it was more important to spend tens of thousands of your dollars on a stupid, undersized "outdoor" ice skating rink at a net loss for the city than it was to spend that money to strengthen law enforcement instead. Nice to see their priorities are straight.

    Greer is gone!
    Earlier this week, Jim Greer stepped down as the head of the Republican Party in Florida. Good. His wasteful spending of party funds and his repeated and underhanded attempts to wrest control of the party away from the grass-roots members in favor of his friends was destroying the Republican Party and was leading to more and more major donors holding back their money. The ouster of Greer may be the first step to bringing me back home out of the Libertarian Party and back to the Republican Party, but they still have a way to go. And it's still unsettling to see some of Brevard's elected Republicans reiterating their support for Greer even after he stepped down. Talk about being out of touch...

    Cell phone tower? Not in MY backyard!
    Okay, where then? EVERYWHERE in Brevard is someone's "backyard," and these towers have to go somewhere... unless, of course, you're ready to throw away your cell phone.

    IRS sets ambitious new customer service goal
    At the IRS's phone center, they want to answer 71% of all incoming calls. I guess that means the other 29% of you can go to hell.
     

    Cocoa ice-rink meltdown; redistricting fight looms
      Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Rep. Posey to hold town-hall meeting next Monday
    South Brevard's Congressman Bill Posey will be holding a town-hall meeting for the public next Monday, January 11th, from 2pm to 4pm at the Holiday Inn in Viera, on Wickham Road right by I-95. If you can go, be there!
    Details are here, and you can RSVP here.

    Cocoa falls through the ice -- again
    Looks like the Cocoa Village "outdoor" ice skating rink is going to lose money for the city again. This should not be a surprise. I laid out the case in late 2008 for what a bad idea the Cocoa Village "outdoor" ice rink was the first time it was tried. I told you last year how much money the city of Cocoa lost. And when the Cocoa City Council decided to try it again this Christmas, I warned you about what would happen. And what happened? Attendance at the Cocoa Village ice rink for Christmas 2009 is on-track to be lower than for Christmas 2008.

    Meanwhile, while the Cocoa City Council earmarked more of your money for this boondoggle, the crime rate in Cocoa continued to rise, the drug problem continued to grow, and more people were murdered. And I just can't help but wonder if using the money spent on the ice rink to hire another police officer instead might have helped things a little.

    Redistricting fight ahead for Florida
    One meandering State House district here in Brevard may get redrawn, and efforts are under way to how the federal House districts are drawn in Florida as well.

    Cash For Clunkers for appliances?
    Here it comes...

    Arizona may get rid of their speed cameras
    Why? They're losing money. Oh, wait, I thought these cameras weren't about the money!
     

    A look back, and then a look forward
      Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 8:00pm

    It's New Year's Eve, and I'm doing a live radio show tonight! I'm planning to keep things a little lighter than usual, so tune in and call in, and let's have some fun.

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Back at the beginning
    Back when I first revived VinceYoung.com as a blog on local news and politics back in July 2008, one of the first stories I went in-depth on was
    the saga of Thijs Stelling and his service station in Melbourne Beach. It was a story I'd been following for several years on my own anyway, and I felt it was a great example of a small-minded government run amok. A small business owner in a small town wanted to expand his tiny gas station in order to make more money and benefit his fellow townspeople at the same time. But the Melbourne Beach Town Commission saw it as an opportunity to flex their muscle and show Stelling who was the boss, under the guise of protecting the "small-town feel" of Melbourne Beach. They almost destroyed it instead. After they spent years tying up Stelling's expansion plans in red tape, Stelling decided he'd had enough and put his property up for sale... to Walgreens.

    Fortunately, the story ended up with a happy ending for all involved. The Town Commission finally agreed to stop holding up Stelling's expansion plans, and he agreed to halt the sale of his land to Walgreens. And now, as we get ready to ring in a new year, Thijs Stelling is getting a new start as construction begins on his new, expanded service station. It's ridiculous that it took this long to get to this point, but I'm absolutely ecstatic that personal freedom won out over government arrogance in this case.

    Here's hoping that trend continues in the year 2010 all across the United States of America.

    The legal blood-alcohol level for driving in South Dakota is 0.080.
    Why am I telling you that? So I can tell you this. A woman in South Dakota was recently arrested for DUI. Her blood-alcohol level? 0.708. That's over seven times higher than the legal limit. Put it another way: a blood-alcohol level of 0.400 would be fatal for about half of the general population. And it gets better too if you read the rest of the story.

    Fox-Bright House fight coming down to the wire
    Could be a lot of frustrated Gator fans on Friday night... a judge today refused to order that the Sugar Bowl be shown, and the FCC says they're hoping for a resolution but that they won't intervene either. Good. This is a private business matter between two private companies. And as frustrating as it might be that people won't be able to watch the Sugar Bowl, there is simply no constitutional mandate for a football game to be shown on television. Government's only role in this fight is to make sure that both Fox and Bright House honor the terms of whatever agreement they eventually reach.

    Don't forget, though... you can hear the Sugar Bowl (and all Florida Gators football games) right here on The Talk-To-Me Station AM-1300 WMEL! Pre-game coverage starts on New Year's Day at 6:30pm.

    Urban Meyer wanted his chest pains kept private
    What's wrong with that? Some people, especially in the media, are acting as if Meyer has something to apologize about for lying about why he went to the hospital in early December. It's a private medical matter. He doesn't have to tell anybody a darn thing about why he went to the hospital, just like you don't have to. And that's the way it should be.

    Florida legislature readies constitutional challenge to Senate health care bill
    Good to see a state government taking a stand against our over-reaching federal government.

    12 GOP donors urge Jim Greer to quit
    He needs to. Republicans in Florida have lost confidence in Greer's leadership of the state party, and it's hurting the party's fund-raising. It's time for him to leave.
     

    Unpaved roads, tasers restricted, and McCollum goes to court
      Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    John Mazziotti misses the point
    Interesting article from Palm Bay in Florida Today this morning... a resident living on an unpaved road off of DeGroodt Road put up a homemade sign reading "
    All I want 4 Christmas is this road paved." Interesting expression of frustration with the number of roads in Palm Bay that remain unpaved, but not really news, right?

    Well, this is. Florida Today went to Palm Bay Mayor John Mazziotti for a response. Here's his whole quote as it appeared in the paper, emphasis added by me:

    "It's sort of funny and sort of sad at the same time. I'd love to get the roads paved, but we pushed two referendums out there and they failed."

    Makes it sound like Palm Bay had two referendums to raise money to get more roads paved in Palm Bay but that the voters turned them both down, doesn't it? Only that's not what happened. Yes, there were two referendums. Yes, both referendums would've taken out bonds to raise money. Yes, both referendums included some money to get the roads paved. And yes, both referendums got rejected by the voters in Palm Bay.

    Why did they get rejected? Because both referendums also had other spending projects built in alongside the road paving projects. Some were worthy projects, things like stormwater drainage projects. But some of those projects were pet projects that wouldn't be much benefit to the city of Palm Bay, wasteful spending that didn't need to be in there and that wouldn't stand a chance of passing if it was in a seperate referendum on its own. The voters looked at the entire referendums and decided they didn't like the extra spending, and they voted them down.

    I guarantee you, if those referendums were only for getting the roads paved, the residents of Palm Bay would've approved them. But they weren't. The powers-that-be in Palm Bay have never once given the voters a referendum that only has road-paving projects in it. Never. Not once. Certainly not twice. In both cases, the city's leaders saw an opportunity to load up the referendum with other wasteful spending and then tried to get the voters to ignore the extra stuff and focus only on the road-paving part, in the hopes of exploiting the popularity of getting the roads paved. The voters were smart enough not to be fooled.

    I live in Palm Bay, and I have a challenge for Mayor John Mazziotti and the city council: give us a referendum to vote on that only spends money on getting the roads paved. Not one penny for anything else. No other projects. No other spending. Just road paving. I challenge you. You haven't done it yet. If you do, we'll vote for it.

    Court restricts use of police tasers
    Good to hear. Police now have to face a serious threat from someone before tasing them, and can no longer use a taser on someone who is resisting non-violently or giving the cop some attitude. I like tasers and I firmly believe they save lives, but some officers are too quick to use them sometimes.

    Florida Attorney General threats lawsuit over health care "reform"
    Interesting move by Bill McCollum. Certainly can't hurt his chances as he runs for governor.

    Why is Brevard bailing out a failed condo development?
    I'm sick and tired of taxpayer money being used to subsidize bad business decisions. Let the free market work. Sometimes it just means a bad businessperson goes bankrupt.

    SunCruz declares bankruptcy
    They finally made it official, but will it really affect the restaurants around Port Canaveral much? Maybe not.

    Couple blindly trusts GPS unit, almost gets killed
    Learn how to read a map!
     

    Pants on fire: Islamic terrorists AND Florida Today!
      Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Ominous warning from attempted plane bomber
    Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who ignited an explosive substance in his pants in a failed attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas, has an ominous warning:
    he is the first of many. A branch of Al Qaeda has already claimed responsibility for the attempted attack, which seems to have taken full advantage of more relaxed airport security rules in overseas airports. And if what the burned bomber is telling us is correct, there will be more such attempts in the future.

    There are still some people who claim the threat from radical Islamic terrorism is overblown and always has been. Sorry, but just look at the attacks that have either been carried out or the attempts that have been thwarted recently. The massacre at Fort Hood by a radical Muslim who sympathized with suicide bombers. The shooting attack on a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas by another radical Muslim in the summer of 2009. The failed plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey by a group of radical Muslim men in 2007. And the continued heartache of suicide attacks and bombings in cities all around the world, attacks that are so commonplace that they often get scant media attention here in the USA because we've simply gotten used to seeing them.

    This threat is not over. It is only beginning. And it's only thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that the threat posed by radical Islam isn't even more severe. Al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self, which is why it often struggles to carry out even relatively simple attacks on American targets. But they're still trying, and if we let our guard down, sooner or later they will spill more innocent blood on American soil.

    Do not even try to tell me this isn't a threat.

    Fear and loathing in Orlando
    Of course, at the other end of the scale is this interesting story from over the weekend. The initial story is that two Middle-Eastern men were behaving oddly on a passenger flight from Orlando to Phoenix, which led to the men being detained and questioned when their flight landed. They were quickly released and allowed to finish their trip after authorities determined they weren't a threat.

    So, what was their "odd behavior"?

    - They were talking loudly in a foreign language. Well, duh. They're Middle Eastern. They're speaking to each other in the language they know best. And some people talk more loudly than others. What's the big deal here?

    - They were watching what appeared to be footage of a suicide bombing attack in the Middle East on a portable DVD player. You know what it turned out to be? An American movie from 2007 called "The Kingdom," starring Jamie Fox and set in the Middle East about -- you guessed it -- Islamic terrorism.

    - One of the men stood up while the "Fasten Seat Belt" light was still lit. Okay, that's probably a good way to get tackled by an air marshall, and it's certainly not smart, but it happens more often then people realize. Typical response? A stewardess tells them to sit back down, and that's it.

    Vigilance is good, but try not to let it creep over into paranoia. 99.9% of the Middle Eastern people you meet in your life are not suicide bombers bent on killing you in a blaze of religious glory, y'know. And as much as it may shock you to realize this, more than a few terrorist bombs in history have been set off by white guys.

    Manatee statistics: guess the headline!
    Okay, two manatee statistics for you to consider. In 2009, a record number of living manatees were counted in Florida: 3,802. And in 2009, a record number of manatee deaths were reported: 419.

    Take one guess which statistic got the Florida Today headline, and which statistic got buried 11 paragraphs into the same story.

    If you have a record number of manatees, and if the manatee death rate stays the same, you're going to get a record number of manatee deaths. It's basic math. The story here should be that the efforts to save the manatee are working. This is good news. Instead, Florida Today can't bring themselves to admit it, so this is the story they run instead.

    Typical.

    Should Pete Townshend of The Who be banned from performing at the Super Bowl?
    Some say "Yes". Never mind the circumstances behind WHY he used to be a registered sex offender in the UK, or that he's not registered anymore.
     

    Rupe Request ends; Posey pulls a Paul; Crist slips
      Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Rupe Request sputters to an ending
    First of all, a hearty welcome to Florida Today for
    finally running a story on the Rupe Request. Welcome to the party, guys! We've been covering this issue here on WMEL and on my website since November 17th, of course, but hey, better late than never.

    I got a chance to watch the video of last week's County Commission meeting at which the Rupe Request was discussed. Yes, the Commissioners voted 4-1 (with Trudie Infantini casting the only No-vote) to waive Maureen Rupe's $595 fee for requesting 4,200 printed pages of public records, despite the fact that Maureen Rupe was told in an e-mail on September 29th what the total fee would be. The reason? Because on November 12th, Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten unilaterally decided to waive that fee, completely on his own and without legal authority or permission to do so. After Whitten waived the fee, that's when Maureen Rupe finally came down to Viera to pick up the printouts.

    Bear in mind, Howard Tipton had already taken over as the County Manager at that point, outranking Stockton Whitten. I guarantee you, if I gave away $595 worth of radio advertising on WMEL for free without checking with WMEL's owner first, I'd no longer have a radio show. And why did Whitten take this extraordinary step? Because he felt bad about how long it had taken the county to comply with Maureen Rupe's public records request. Believe me, I found the delay in fulfilling that request to be troubling, but six hundred bucks' worth of troubling? No way. No friggin' way.

    But here's the really great part. Check out this quote from Stockton Whitten at last week's County Commission meeting as he explained his mindset:

    "November 12th, she (Maureen Rupe) actually asked for the hard copies, and I actually advised Sally to provide her those, and that I would worry about whether she is to be charged and how much that charge would be at a later date."
    - Stockton Whitten, Assistant County Manager

    Lovely, huh? Here we have a county employee deciding on his own, Eh, maybe she'll get socked with a $600-bill later, maybe not. I'll just let her pick up the documents anyway without bothering to tell her that we might change our minds and bill her for them later after all. And if we don't bill her, hey, it's not MY money, right? How incredibly arrogant.

    I have to say, I can no longer say that I want Maureen Rupe to be charged for these documents. The last word she got from Stockton Whitten on November 12th is that there'd be no charge. If I were in her shoes, I'd think that was it, and I'd be hopping mad if I got billed later anyway. So while I understand Trudie Infantini's stance in voting No on waiving the fee, I think I'd have to vote Yes myself.

    But my next act -- my very next act -- would be to start moving to have Stockton Whitten removed from his position in the county government. He personally and single-handedly created a situation in which only two outcomes were possible: either a citizen was going to get a surprise bill from the county for $595, or the county was going to be stuck handing over 4,200 pages of printouts to that citizen for free with the taxpayers getting stuck with the bill. Both outcomes are unacceptable, and Whitten's choices ensured that only one of those two unacceptable outcomes would happen. He needs to be fired. At the very least, he needs to be disciplined somehow. At a bare minimum, he needs to be written up and chewed out.

    What happened to him instead? Commissioner Andy Anderson cracked a joke about wanting to bill Whitten for $595, and that was it. Whitten looks like he's off the hook for costing the taxpayers $595. Absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

    Posey pulls a Paul
    Before voting No on the latest spending bill in Congress, Congressman Bill Posey made sure to slip in some earmarks for Brevard County in a move similar to what Congressman Ron Paul has been criticized for doing in the past. That way, Brevard gets some federal cash, and Posey gets to claim he took a stand against the bloated budget. Sorry, Mr. Posey, but I'm not letting you slide on that.

    Crist is slipping!
    I almost feel sorry for Governor Charlie Crist. First came last week's news that Crist and Marco Rubio are dead-even in the polls as they run against each other for the 2010 Republican primary for the US Senate. Now today, Crist lost the endorsement of two Florida Congressmen! Crist is in huge trouble in this race.

    Want a landfill on 192?
    It could happen. That'll sure impress the tourists coming over from Orlando, but I guess it's gotta go somewhere.

    Bogus numbers fuel health care debate
    I talked about this on last week's show... Michelle Malkin showed back in October how the left was cooking the books on health insurance statistics to make it look like people are dying from not having health insurance. Check it out.
     

    Who the hell is Vince Young?
      Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 10:30am

    Okay, time to update my official biography for this website. The old one's kinda out of date at this point...

    Hi! My name is Vince Young, and as you can probably see from my photo, I am not the famous NFL quarterback who shares my name. If that's who you're looking for, try Google.

    So, who the hell am I? I'm a radio talk-show host, heard every weeknight from 8pm to 9pm on The Talk-To-Me Station AM-1300 WMEL in Cocoa, Florida, right smack in the middle of Brevard County and the Space Coast. I'm in my early 30s and I live in the city of Palm Bay, the largest city in Brevard County. I take a keen interest in news and politics, especially at the local level of city and county governments, but also state and national news as well. That's the focus of my radio show and of this website, but occasionally I allow myself to be distracted by such topics as Notre Dame football, the Orlando Magic, hurricanes and tropical storms, music, movies, TV shows, and everything from the ridiculous to the sublime.

    My full name is Edward Vincent Young, but my parents called me Vincent from the moment they first named me, and in the early 90s I shortened that to Vince to sound less stuffy in high school. So, I've either been known as Vincent Young or Vince Young for my entire fricken' life, so don't tell me that I'm not "really" Vince Young. I think I know who I am better than you do. :)

    My history with radio goes all the way back to my childhood, when several chance events led to me becoming "Vince Young, Young Meteorologist," a regularly-featured call-in guest on the Scott & Erica Morning Show on Mix 105.1 in Orlando for a short stint in the early 90s. Right around the same time, I started listening to talk radio and continued to listen all through my high school years. So when I went to Villanova for college, it only seemed natural to move from being a listener to being a host. I joined the panel on a political roundtable radio show on the campus radio station WXVU-FM, watched as the other panelists slowly got bored and dropped off one by one, and eventually turned the program into The Vince Young Show. I also discovered the local political talk radio hosts on WWDB-FM and WPHT-AM in nearby Philadelphia and became a regular caller on their programs, especially the legendary Rollye James.

    After shocking the world by somehow flunking out of college, I returned home to Florida in 2000 and pondered my future. It didn't take long for me to get introduced to John Harper, owner of AM-920 WMEL in Melbourne, the station that would later become AM-1300 WMEL in Cocoa. He took a chance, brought me on-board, and put me on-the-air, and the rest is history. I've joined and left and re-joined WMEL several times over the years, serving in a variety of roles both on-the-air and behind the scenes and meeting some great people and some awesome listeners along the way. And I'm absolutely thrilled to be back on WMEL, hosting a political radio talk-show every night and giving the people of Brevard a chance to have their say.

    But back to the year 2000... when I first joined WMEL, I decided I needed a website for my radio show and a domain name to go with it. I found out that www.vinceyoung.com was available and snatched it up, and I've owned it ever since. At the time, the "other" Vince Young was just starting his high school football career in Texas, was still riding the bench, and was not famous at all. Luckiest break I've had in my entire life. By the time he became famous enough to want his own domain name, I had owned vinceyoung.com for years and wasn't particularly interested in selling, and his agents weren't particularly interested in buying. And since I bought the domain first and run this site for a legitimate personal reason, it remains mine.

    I'm a political conservative registered with the Libertarian Party, because the Libertarian platform and track record comes closer to my own views than the Republican Party does -- at the moment. I'm not in 100% agreement with the Libertarians, or any political party for that matter. But the main focus of the Libertarian Party is a staunch devotion to reigning in the size and power of government, reducing the tax burden on everybody, and promoting increased freedom and liberty for all Americans so that they have the ability to take care of themselves. Those are all goals that are very, very important to me. The Republicans talk a good game and are still light-years ahead of the Democrats on these issues, but the Republican track record on making these things happen is -- at the moment -- piss-poor. Hence why I'm a Libertarian.

    Oh, and I'm 100% for the FairTax. :)
     

    Who would you prefer: Obama or Dubya?
      Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    This has been a busy week, so once again, no time tonight for detailed notes. But here's links to all the news stories I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    President Obama's approval number remains below 50%
    Scott Rasmussen has the numbers here: 47% approve of Obama's performance, 51% disapprove, and 2% think Tiger Woods shouldn't have crashed that White House party. A popular president is better for the nation's economy, so even though I don't like Obama or his policies, I wish he could at least straighten things out and get above 50%. Cutting spending and backing off on health care "reform" might help his numbers...

    Who would you rather have as President, Barack Obama or George W. Bush?
    A recent poll shows Obama only leads Dubya 50% to 44%. Tough one for me here... I'm actually tempted to say Obama, but I really don't like that at all.

    Should the Florida Supreme Court convene a panel on wrongful convictions?
    A prominent lawyer has asked them to do just that. I agree.

    Lamplighter Village protests $39/month rent increase?!? That's all?
    They literally picketed the office of the well-known mobile home park. Sorry, but if a rental company's expenses go up, shouldn't they be allowed to raise their rent price in order to stay profitable?

    Judges and lawyers in Florida can't be Facebook-friends
    Makes sense to me.
     

    Democrats order another round of debt!
      Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Okay, I ran way short on time tonight and only had enough time left for one thing: eat dinner with my wife, or putting up in-depth program notes on my website. Guess which one I chose. :)

    So, no notes tonight, but something is better than nothing, so here's links to the news stories I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Dems want to raise debt ceiling another $1.8 trillion
    New total: $13.9 trillion! Remember when it was going to be "just" $13.1 trillion?

    Norwegians miffed by Obama's Nobel Prize event snubs
    President Barack Obama went to Norway today to pick up his Nobel Peace prize, but some Norwegians are insulted that he's skipping some of today's events and skipping out on tomorrow's events entirely. Good. I'm with President Obama on this one. He knows he hasn't done anything to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, so it would be ridiculous for him to make a big deal out of it. But it would also be unforgivably rude to turn it down entirely. So, he's splitting the middle, and Norway needs to get over it. Next time, maybe they should pick someone who actually deserves the award.

    Palm Bay to consider community gardens
    IF they keep the expenses low and make the gardeners themselves pay for it, this could actually be a good idea. Worth a shot.

    Sen. John Kerry will fly commercial to Copenhagen
    Credit where credit is due, I guess. Now, if only he could convince other delegates to do the same. Gotta save the planet, you know.
     

    Tiger Woods is news? NASA gets money. And Obama wants tax cuts?
      Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Apologies for the short notes again, but I want to make sure I have something up here for you. So here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    I could barely care less about Tiger Woods
    Congress is trying to take away our ability to make our own health care decisions. Government officials around the world want to restrict our lives over scientific conclusions based on faulty, manipulated data. Our national debt continues to grow, and despite this our nation's fiscal policy is to continue spending, printing, and borrowing money. Our state legislature is spending over a billion dollars that it doesn't even have on rail lines nobody's going to use. Our local animal shelters are falling apart, our School Board is redrawing our school districts, one local city is debating an important step for the future of their economy, and another city is considering wasting your money on a wasteful legal fight they will almost certainly lose.

    And you want me to talk about Tiger Woods?

    Ask yourself this. Can Tiger Woods take your money away from you at the point of a gun without any legal consequences for it? No. Can Tiger Woods arbitrarily change the way you live your everyday lives? No. Can Tiger Woods do anything that has any real impact on your life? No.

    I really can't believe how much attention the Tiger Woods story is getting from talk radio. You'd think nothing important was going on anywhere else in the world at all. Sorry, but I have more important things to talk about, and I'm going to talk about them.

    Congress agrees to boost funding for NASA and Ares
    It's about time Congress showed NASA some love. It seems like NASA is the only federal agency that is asked to do such important work with such little funding, and while I'm all for forcing government to do more with less, that idea has been taken to the extreme with NASA while other bloated agencies are held to very little accountability at all.

    Obama calls for tax cuts for small businesses
    Well, it's not much, but it's something. It's good to see a liberal president acknowledge that cutting taxes can spur economic growth. Now if we could only convince him to extend that thinking to the rest of the nation, and this economy might be able to get somewhere...

    Some parents still don't get it on school redistricting
    Some Brevard schools are overcrowded, and some are under capacity. Sorry, but there's just no way to keep every student in the school where their parents want them to be, and there's no way for every student to be in an A-grade school. The School Board is going to have to move some kids around, and this problem is not going away.
     

    SunRail passes while budget deficit swells
      Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Short notes tonight, unfortunately, but here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Haridopolos will be the next State Senate President
    Remember when he was just an "Aw, shucks!" modest community college professor? The transformation of Mike Haridopolos into
    a total political animal has been one of the most frustrating things I've watched here in Brevard politics. It's amazing what political power can do to a man.

    State Senate passes SunRail bill
    The vote was 27-10, and once again both of Brevard's state senators voted for it, both Thad Altman and Mike Haridopolos. This bill will spend over $400 million of our money on a new commuter rail system for the Orlando area, set aside even more money for high-speed rail lines between Florida's urban centers that nobody will ride, and bail out south Florida's cash-hemorrhaging Tri-Rail system. Total price tag: $1.2 b-b-b-billion, all while the state budget is staring down a deficit of $2.5 billion next year. We just don't have this money to spend!

    Swelling debt threatens USA's AAA bond rating!
    If the USA's debt rating is downgraded, it would send shockwaves through the world economy. So why does President Obama keep spending, borrowing, and printing money?!?

    Titusville considers impact fee moratorium
    Good. These impact fees do nothing but drive businesses away. And have you looked around Titusville lately? They need all the help they can get.

    Blizzard hits Midwest
    In other words, it's December. Blizzards aren't exactly rare in the Midwest in December, ya know. So why are so many global warming skeptics suggesting that this somehow disproves global warming? I'm a global warming skeptic too, but we're not going to get anywhere by taking normal, expected weather events and blowing them out of proportion. Besides, that's weather. The global warming debate is about climate. Weather and climate are two entirely different things... something both sides of the debate like to ignore.
     

    Rent-A-Cow costing us money? Plus Melbourne plans appeal
      Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 7:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    "Rent-A-Cow" saves developers from high property taxes
    Florida Today had a great article over the weekend on how developers in Brevard, stuck with large plots of land that can't be developed right now thanks to the real estate bust, are getting property tax breaks by
    declaring their land is used for agricultural purposes. Basically, agricultural land gets taxed at a lower rate than other land under our current property tax system. It's meant to help out family farmers and ranchers, who need to own large swaths of land in order to farm properly. But by planting a few trees or literally renting some cows, developers can declare their land to be agricultural and cash in as well. It can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on just one plot of land. And it's perfectly legal, thanks to the way the law is written.

    But it gets interesting when developers try to cheat. One developer in Orange County literally planted a few pine trees and declared their whole huge plot of land to be a tree farm, but their claim was denied when it was discovered that no effort was being made to properly cultivate or harvest the trees.

    Even more interesting... if you check Page 4 of the online story, you'll see the response from Brevard County's own Property Appraiser Jim Ford. He assures us all that his department inspects claims of agricultural use "when necessary to aid in the approval decision." How reassuring, especially since one of the things Ford's office was investigated by the state for last year was for improperly approving agricultural land designations for some highly-connected families and landowners here in Brevard. Contrast that with Palm Bay's City Manager Lee Feldman, who last year did his own double-checking of land that was getting a tax break for agricultural use -- and found a couple of plots that weren't being used for agriculture at all. And Feldman plans to do another double-check within the next two months. That means we have a city government doing Jim Ford's job -- and doing better at it than Ford does.

    Combine this with the confusion surrounding Save Our Homes, portability, and the recapture rule, and it should be clear to anyone who is paying attention that Florida's property tax system is a joke. It's too open to interpretation and abuse, and it's too difficult to police those who choose to take advantage of the system for their own illegal benefit. It is high-time to replace it with something more logical.

    FairTax, anyone?

    Melbourne may appeal Daily Bread court ruling?
    From the You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding Department... first, the City of Melbourne totally screwed the pooch on the Daily Bread issue. They tried to run out the clock, playing silly legal games with the soup kitchen and jerking them around for years rather than coming up with a real solution that would allow Daily Bread to move out of a residential neighborhood and into a bigger building with a better location. Then they got smacked down in court for using two different interpretations of their own zoning laws based on whatever interpretation helped them at the time.

    You'd think that Melbourne would've learned their lesson from this, but no. The city's staff has recommended an appeal. (Ignore the mistaken Florida Today headline, by the way... I guess the editor is on vacation or something.) I guess they want to waste even more of the taxpayers' money on legal fees on a court battle that they will still lose in the end. You don't get to decide that your own laws mean one thing one day and something else the next day based on whatever helps you more.

    Melbourne could've solved this whole mess years ago for a lot less money by being reasonable. Instead, they've saddled the city with the worst possible outcome: high legal bills and an even bigger homeless soup kitchen smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Cut your losses, Melbourne. Or even better: call the Daily Bread and see if they're still willing to work out a relocation deal.

    Fines pile up on Glass Bank Building in Cocoa Beach
    Get this thing cleared up somehow! I really don't have a lot of sympathy for the guy who owns the building, to be honest, since he sounds like he's just trying to weasel out of his responsibilities. But the city of Cocoa Beach shares some blame too. The city seems far too concerned with collecting its code-enforcement fines than with cleaning up a dangerous eyesore in the heart of the city's business district. Learn a lesson from Rockledge and use the carrot-and-stick approach: cut the fines in exchange for the building owner getting the building cleaned up and fixed up, so that he can start leasing it out and making money off of it... which in turn will allow him to pay the reduced fines later. A derelict building gets cleaned up, property values increase, the city gets some money, and everyone walks away happy. Compare that to what we have now, and this should be a no-brainer. Too bad that government all too often doesn't seem to have a brain...

    Virgin unveils private spacecraft
    This could be the future of space travel.

    Speaking of space... want to have your mind blown?
    Check out this video of the planets of our solar system shown in-scale with each other, with the sun, and with other stars. It's incredible how truly small we are in this universe.

    Entire Brevard delegation votes for SunRail bill in State House
    Good job, guys... you just voted to sink millions of dollars into a project that is virtually guaranteed to lose money, just in time to have to deal with a potential state deficit of $2.5 billion next year. Bravo!

    1,200 limos and 140 private planes at climate-change summit
    How, exactly, does this help the environment?
     

    Confederates sue, high-speed rail chugs on, and parents whine
      Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Confederate Heritage license plates? Why?
    The Sons of Confederate Veterans are moving forward with
    a federal lawsuit against the state of Florida. Why? Because they want a Confederate Heritage specialty license plate to be available to drivers in the state of Florida, but the State Legislature in Tallahassee won't approve it. The Confederate group says the approval process for specialty plates in Florida is unfair; hence the lawsuit.

    And this is why I don't like specialty license plates of any kind: too many opportunities for a group like this to get a plate like this on the list. When you allow groups you like to have specialty plates but don't let groups you don't like have them too, sooner or later someone is going to get upset enough to file a lawsuit. Tallahassee, do us all a favor and drop all of these plates, and then the Sons of Confederate Veterans won't have anything left to sue over.

    I do have something to say to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, however: get over it. You don't have a right or an entitlement to have these license plates be available in the state of Florida. There's only so many plates on the list. You're not the first group to be turned down, and you won't be the last.

    And why so eager to celebrate the Confederacy, anyway? Didn't you lose the Civil War? Oh, I'm sorry, the War Between The States? Yeah, yeah, I know, it was a war over states' rights, not slavery, and hey, I'm all for states' rights to be honest. But you need to face this fact: the reason why the Confederate States of America were so concerned about states' rights is because that was the only thing that was allowing slavery to continue in the southern states. Slavery is why you felt it was so important for states to have more rights. So don't tell me slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. Don't try that with me. Your side was fighting for many reasons, true, but one of the bigger ones was so you could continue the forced enslavement and persecution of an entire race of people just because their skin was a little darker than yours. Why look back on that with pride?

    Okay, okay, not everyone in the South was specifically fighting for slavery. But you know what else? Not everyone who fought in the German army under Adolf Hitler in World War II was specifically fighting for the forced extermination of the Jews either. And yet I don't see any "Nazi Heritage" specialty license plates being considered in Tallahassee either. Nor should there be.

    You're not going to get this license plate. Get over it.

    A high-speed train to nowhere
    So, the State Legislature has opened a special session on high-speed rail. But, uh, one question: where exactly are we going to get the money for new high-speed rail lines? Didn't State Representative Steve Crisafulli tell us a few days ago that we're facing a $2.5 b-b-b-billion deficit next year? Hard to build new rail-lines when you don't have the money to pay for them.

    Yeah, yeah, I know, it's about creating jobs. Except once these lines are built, all those construction jobs go *POOF!* Then what? Now you have construction bonds to pay down and maintenance costs to cover. Oh, you'll just let passenger revenues take care of that? Yeah, because that works SO well for Amtrak. Despite reaching record ridership numbers in 2008, Amtrak still has yet to ever turn a profit. The only place in the modern USA where high-speed rail has any success whatsoever is in the population-dense northeast. This will be nothing more than a money pit here in Florida, and we can't afford it.

    Parents of relocated students still don't get it
    Once again, the School Board had another local meeting for parents about school redistricting. And once again, the reaction from parents was predictably unanimous: "Don't move my kid!"

    Sorry, parents... here's the facts. We have 15 over-crowded schools here in Brevard, and yet we have empty seats at many other schools in Brevard that are under-capacity. 12,600 empty seats, as a matter of fact. The reason? Because we're trying to get fancy moving students around to try to make schools more racially diverse and spending lots of money to do it, money the School Board just doesn't have.

    The solution? Quit being stupid, and shift students away from the over-crowded schools and into the under-capacity ones. Makes more sense to do that than it does to build new schools that we don't actually need, especially with the county's student population dwindling a little more each year. And unfortunately, that might mean that your precious darlings might not be going to the same school next year. Yes, I know it's annoying, but there are more important things at stake here than making sure your kid stays in the same school. Live with it.

    Oh, and if your kids are getting moved from, say, a school with an A-grade to a school with an F-grade, do something about it. Volunteer at the school. Go to parent-teacher meetings. Get to know your principal. Organize with other parents at that school. Get involved. Don't just sit back and let that government school fail your kids. Fight for your kid's education at that school. And don't tell me you don't have time... you had time to show up at that local meeting to complain about your kid getting moved, didn't you? Take that time and shift it over into improving a school instead of whining. You'll actually accomplish something useful that way.

    Or I guess you could always downgrade your car, replace your "smart phone" with a regular cell phone, cancel your 500-channel digital cable package, and use that saved money to put your kid in a private school instead. But that would involve prioritizing your kids over your fancy toys, of course, so sorry. Ridiculous of me to even bring it up, I'm sure.

    Why was this abusive father still allowed to see his kids
    That's the question being asked in the aftermath of the kidnapping of Luke Finch from Cocoa last weekend by his biological father. Looks like the system moved too slowly to protect this child, and he's fortunate to be back home safely today.
     

    Obama FINALLY decides on Afghanistan; Sunshine Law; Climategate
      Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Obama to announce Afghanistan plans tonight
    Tonight at 8pm, we'll go live to President Barack Obama's prime-time address to hear his
    new plan for Afghanistan. I'll probably just carry the speech live from CNN for the first few minutes, and then cut back to my program and give you the chance to call in and respond.

    Looks like the plan is to send in 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan over the next six months. But remember, Obama's own hand-picked guy, General Stanley McChrystal, asked for 40,000 more troops back in August. So not only did Obama make his own general wait over three months just for a decision, but he's also giving his own general fewer troops than he asked for. And since Obama isn't exactly a military expert, that means he overrode his own general for reasons that aren't related to military strategy. Our President has now made a military decision based on political pressure, not based on what's best for our military and its mission. He's afraid of the reaction from the political left in his party if he sends too many troops, so he cut the number just to throw a bone to the anti-war liberals.

    The one glimmer of good news is that McChrystal asked to get his additional troops by next August, and Obama is going to beat that request, getting him those new troops by June or earlier. Hopefully, General McChrystal can make lemonade from these lemons and use the faster timetable to his advantage.

    Obama will also announce a "soft date" for withdrawal: he wants most of America's armed forces out of Afghanistan by the end of his first term in January 2013, a little over three years from now. I'm not sure that's going to be enough time, but Obama will also stress that this is a goal, not a hard date, and it's subject to change based on conditions in the field. So at least he's not making the mistake of handing the Taliban a date that they just have to outlast us 'til before we leave.

    But overall? Not a good job by President Obama on this at all. He took way too long to make up his mind, he's not giving his own general all the troops he asked for, and he allowed his decision to be dictated by political considerations rather than sound military strategy.

    Oh-for-three, Mr. President. Oh-for-three.

    (Oh, and on top of it all, the speech is pre-empting "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on ABC, which will now have to be shown next week instead. Good grief!)

    Climategate gets its first victim
    The head climate researcher at the British university at the center of Climategate has resigned in the face of an official investigation.

    Oh, you haven't heard of Climategate? Imagine that. The mainstream media isn't covering it much, but the Wall Street Journal has a great summary. Long-story-short, hackers got into the e-mail server of the main British university researching global warming and plastered their e-mails all over the place. An ugly picture has emerged as we've found evidence that these researchers have been manipulating data, deleting files and data to keep them out of reach of public records requests, and organizing to blacklist global warming skeptics who dare to challenge the notion that human beings are heating up the world. The researchers have basically admitted that these e-mails are legit, and they're in full damage-control mode.

    I still find one e-mail particularly damaging, since it highlights the arrogance of these scientists:

    The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

    Here we have a climate scientist scratching his head over the fact that his computer models are saying that Earth should still be warming up, but the actual observed data shows that Earth stopped getting warmer about 10 years ago. His response? Well, his computer models couldn't possibly be wrong, so that must mean that the Earth is still getting warmer and there's just something wrong with our data collection. Of course.

    We have a scientist faced with two possible explanations: A.) his computer models are wrong, or B.) ten years ago every single weather observer all around the world all spontaneously and simultaneously forgot how to properly read a thermometer. And he picked Scenario B.

    That should tell you everything you need to know about the global warming scientists. They have an agenda. They believe mankind is warming up the globe, and they are building experiments to try to prove that pre-decided conclusion. That's not science. Science is building experiments and watching what happens, not starting out with the answer you already want and then trying to prove it. Sadly, both sides of the global warming debate are coming at this all wrong, and very little actual science on this question is really being done.

    We need to know what's happening to the long-term climate of our planet. It's a valid question. But instead, too many clowns on both sides are pushing their own agenda rather than doing any actual science. Very, very frustrating.

    White House party crashers claim they were "invited"
    I'm loathe to give these attention-seekers what they're looking for. But in all the squabbling over who is to blame for two uninvited guests making it all the way into last week's state dinner at the White House, I think my fellow conservative pundits who are trying to use this to hit Obama are missing a key point. Every President chafes at the restrictions on their freedom and their social life that the Secret Service puts on them for the sake of their own safety. Every President tries to get the Secret Service to back away and let them breathe. It's perfectly understandable, it's human nature, and I can't blame anyone for reacting that way. But it's the job of the Secret Service to say, "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but no." That's their job. I don't care how much a President whines about it. The Secret Service's job is to tell him "No." In this case, the Secret Service obviously caved in and allowed themselves to be pressured out of doing their job, and the fault for that falls completely, squarely, 100% on the Secret Service in my mind, and nowhere else. Blaming Obama for this is just silly.

    Navy SEALS face courts-martial for roughing up terrorist
    Here's the story that "Mark In The Dark" called in about on Monday night's program, in case you wanted to see it. Make no mistake, our soldiers shouldn't be roughing up anyone in custody, no matter how despicable these terrorists are. But a court-martial? I'm sorry, but the military commanders who are putting these Navy SEALS through a court-martial over this are going way overboard. Have their direct officer give them a stern lecture and keep an eye on them. That should be just fine.

    There's campaign ads, and then there's campaign ads.
    THIS... is a campaign ad. It's for the 2010 mayoral race in New Orleans. I'll play the audio on my show tonight, but you really have to watch it for the full effect.
     

    Infantini on the show tonight; Steve Crisafulli wants to raise taxes?
      Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 7:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Looks like Tiger Woods needs a new driver.
    There. I mentioned
    Tiger Woods and worked in a golf pun. Happy? Good. Now let's talk about something that actually matters

    County Commissioner Trudie Infantini on the show tonight!
    The county commissioner at the center of the Rupe Request will be on the first segment of my program via telephone tonight. We'll ask Trudie Infantini about both of the serious questions that have been raised regarding Maureen Rupe's much-discussed public records request to the county.

    The Rupe Request: does Maureen Rupe owe the county $595 for photocopies of public records?
    In the past, Maureen Rupe has forwarded me a copy of an e-mail she got from county worker Sally Lewis on September 22nd, 2009, that seemed to imply that Rupe would not be charged a fee for hardcopy printouts of the large number of public documents she had requested. It got my attention, but it also made me curious about whether or not Rupe had gotten any other e-mails on that topic from the county that would provide a more complete picture. It's just too easy to take a single e-mail out of context.

    Alas for Maureen Rupe, her insistence that county workers promised her these printouts for free took a big hit today as Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten released this follow-up e-mail from Sally Lewis dated a week later, September 29th:

    From: Lewis, Sally A
    Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 4:07 PM
    To: Maureen Rupe
    Subject: Public Records Request

    Maureen,
    I have not forgotten you. It has taken a long time to print all of the records that you requested.
    Here is the breakdown.
    You already paid $30.00 for the disk with all of the e-mails on it.
    I printed all of the e-mails like you requested and they are ready to pick up.
    There was a total of 4,200 pages.

    4200 – 30(1st thirty pages are free) = 4170 total pages
    $30.00 dollars pays for 200 copies (4170 – 200 = 3970)
    Total copies at .15 page is 3970 x .15 = $595.50
    I did not charge you for the time it took to print the e-mails which was approx. 7 hours.

    Total amount due for copies is $595.50.

    Respectfully,

    Sally Lewis
    County Manager's Office
    633-2010
    sally.lewis@brevardcounty.us

    It's pretty clear from this e-mail that Maureen Rupe had not come in yet to get the documents, and that she was told ahead of time there would be a charge for the printouts. Does Maureen Rupe have any e-mails after that date to show that the fee was ever waived? She's going to need to produce those e-mails if she doesn't want to pay this money, but she has yet to do so for some reason. And regardless, even if a county worker tried to waive the fee later, they would not have had the legal authority to do so anyway.

    It's not looking good for Maureen Rupe on this front.

    The Rupe Request: did Commissioner Infantini conduct county business on her personal Gmail account?
    To me, this has long been the more serious of the two questions raised by the Rupe Request, and after an odd period of silence, County Commissioner Trudie Infantini finally got back in touch with me last week on this question. We'll talk about it with her on the program tonight, but long-story-short, early in 2009 she sent out a blast e-mail to a large number of county workers giving them the opportunity to anonymously contact her with any concerns they had over the organization of the county government. This was done in response to rumors of layoffs and office mergers, and in that e-mail, Infantini gave her personal Gmail address as a point of contact.

    Since all county business-related e-mails are supposed to be stored on a government server under the Sunshine Law, that right there was a technical violation of the Sunshine Law. However, let's look deeper. This was all done above-board and out in the open, and everyone in the county government knew she was doing it. I don't see any indication of corrupt intent here, just an incorrect solution to a legitimate problem. Infantini says she has not done this any other times, and she says she's made those particular county-related e-mails that she received at her Gmail address available as part of the public record. Given that intent often plays a large role in deciding whether or not to prosecute people under the Sunshine Law, I just don't see much here, though I'd still like to see the e-mails in question.

    As to Maureen Rupe's assertion that Trudie Infantini's entire Gmail account should now be considered public record, rather than just the county-related e-mails, I turned to my usual source for Sunshine Law information: the Government In The Sunshine Manual printed by the state government for elected officials. While Infantini's specific circumstance isn't covered, I did find this at the very top of Page 69:

    The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that private e-mail stored in government computers does not automatically become a public record by virtue of that storage.

    It's not an entirely settled question, but if private and personal e-mails that happen to be on a county server are shielded from the public, then I'd have to believe that so are private and personal e-mails that are on a PRIVATE server such as Gmail.

    We'll talk about this more tonight, but it's looking more and more like Maureen Rupe is not going to get her way on this question either.

    State Rep. Steve Crisafulli wants to increase your taxes?
    That's what he hinted to Matt Reed in Florida Today over the weekend.

    British climate researchers admit deleting raw temperature data
    The British university climate researchers at the center of Climategate have admitted to deleting the original raw temperature data from the past. Now there's no way to verify if their records are valid. Climategate is getting bigger and bigger, folks...
    (Edited for clarity on Tuesday, December 1st.)

    Obama will compromise, only send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
    It's about time he finally made up his mind, but his own general wanted 40,000 more troops. Which means Obama is making a political compromise on a military decision. Not good.
     

    Daily Bread wins expansion fight; global warming crowd caught fudging numbers?
      Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Tonight is the last episode of The Vince Young Show before Thanksgiving, and I'm going to use it to catch up on some other stories other than the Rupe Request. Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8pm on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Court rules in favor of Daily Bread soup kitchen
    The circuit court of appeals has ruled that
    Melbourne can't stop the Daily Bread soup kitchen from expanding. The nearby residents won't be happy, and neither will the City Council. But the Council has nobody to blame but themselves. Instead of working with the Daily Bread to find an alternate site for the soup kitchen to get it out of the residential neighborhood it's currently in, they decided to play silly legal games in a futile attempt to keep them from expanding at all. I really feel for the residents there, because having such a high homeless population in their backyard is a disruption and increasingly dangerous, but if the City Council had taken this issue seriously and looked for a longer-term solution, this all could've been resolved to everyone's satisfaction a while ago.

    Here's what the fight was all about. Daily Bread wants to expand, and they own a seperate vacant plot of land right next to the existing building. The two plots of land are zoned differently from each other, they have seperate addresses, and they're treated seperately on the property tax rolls. Originally, they wanted to build one big building across both of their plots of land. Melbourne's response: "Sorry, that's two plots of land. You can't build one big building on two plots of land."

    So, Daily Bread changed their plans. They'd keep the existing building as is, and then use the looser zoning rules on the vacant plot of land to build a new expansion building, avoiding the stricter zoning rules for the one plot of land they already had a building on. Melbourne's response: "Sorry, you actually own one big plot of land, and the stricter zoning rules apply to all of it."

    Two different scenarios, two completely contradictory responses from the city government, both designed to stop the Daily Bread from expanding by any means possible. It made no sense legally. It was as if Daily Bread was asking the city, "So, is this one plot of land or two plots of land?" and the city of Melbourne answered with "Yes."

    Then they started negotiating. Melbourne offered to help Daily Bread find an alternate site where they could move to and build a larger building, and Daily Bread agreed. But every single suggested plot of land was turned down by the city. And in the end, Melbourne said, "Aw, gee, sorry, we can't find a place for you to move, but we can't let you expand where you are either. Ah well. We're done!"

    Daily Bread wasn't done. They filed a lawsuit, and yesterday they won, because Melbourne's legal standing made zero logical sense whatsoever.

    If the city had been reasonable in finding a place to move Daily Bread to, everyone would've been happy. Instead, they tried to be cute and play legal games, and now they've lost. And so have the nearby residents.

    When government gets arrogant, everyone loses.

    Hackers expose the data tricks behind the global warming crowd
    Haven't heard about this from the mainstream media? What a surprise. Two great articles on this, one from the London Telegraph and one from the Washington Times. And it was the global warming skeptics we were supposed to be suspicious of? Uh-huh.

    Congressman Bill Posey asked World Net Daily visitors for campaign donations.
    And...? I'm really not sure why Matt Reed is so up in arms over this. He's usually a bit more reasonable.

    "Don't move MY kids to another school! Move someone ELSE'S kids!"
    Sorry, parents... when we have some schools that are overcrowded and others that are under capacity, guess what: it means we're going to have to move some kids around. What's so crazy about that?

    Senator Lieberman won't support public option
    Atta-boy, Joe! Stick to your guns!
     

    Maureen Rupe on the show tonight; fight back, get fired?
      Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 6:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Maureen Rupe on the program tonight!
    (To get yourself up to speed on the Rupe Request, please see my previous entries on this topic
    here, here, here, here, and here.)

    In the first segment of tonight's program, we'll speak directly with the person at the center of the recent Rupe Request debate: Maureen Rupe herself! She'll talk to me and you about how a simple public records request about Brevard County's budget got so complicated, why she says she shouldn't be charged the $595 in fees the County now says she owes them, and if she can back up her allegation that County Commissioner Trudie Infantini is conducting official county business on a private e-mail account to avoid the Sunshine Law.

    Speaking of, I'm still waiting for Maureen Rupe to e-mail that evidence to me. But she still has time before we go on the air, and she may just be busy, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt for now.

    So, why the big deal over $595 again?
    So, why am I making such a big deal out of $595 that may or may not be owed to a County government with a budget of over a billion dollars? I'll tell you why. First of all, big government budgets are broken $595 at a time. If a government makes it a routine habit of making stupid decisions that cost them "small" amounts of money on a regular basis, those "small" amounts will start adding up fast. That's money that could be better-spent on things like school funding, road maintenance or crime prevention instead of being wasted frivolously. And a government that gets reckless with "small" amounts of money is a government that will soon get reckless with larger amounts of money. Better to stop it early.

    There's more to this than just the money too. If the County Manager has employees who are literally forgetting to tell citizens they owe $595 for printouts of public records, then what other mistakes are being made? Conversely, if the County Manager has employees who will shy away from collecting money that is rightfully owed to the government just because the person who owes the money gets a little grumpy over it, that's literally the first step on the road to anarchy, and it's also unfair to the taxpayers of this county who will have to eat that expense in the form of higher taxes. One of those two scenarios has taken place. I don't know which scenario it was, but either way, action is needed from new County Manager Howard Tipton to get his employees back in line.

    There's also the issue of whether or not a County Commissioner is discussing official county business on a private, personal Gmail account. Maureen Rupe says that a couple of the e-mails she received as part of her public records request were sent from Trudie Infantini's Gmail address, and if that's true, it needs to be addressed. I take the Sunshine Law very seriously. We've tried closed government before -- heck, much of the legislative work by Congress in Washington DC is STILL behind closed doors -- and we've seen that it doesn't work. Instead, it promotes corruption and bad government. Assuming Rupe's allegations are correct, I want to know the full story. As I've said before, there could easily be an innocent explanation for this, and Infantini may just have been careless, not corrupt. But we deserve to know how deep the rabbit hole goes.

    And finally, there's a personal connection here. My radio program and website have been used to make potentially serious allegations against a sitting, duly-elected public official. If those allegations are legit, the voters deserve justice. If those allegations are baseless, then Infantini deserves to be cleared. Either way, it's time to get this resolved. And since this went down on my radio show and my website, it's up to me to make that happen.

    So, yeah... it's all a bit bigger than just a $595 bill for photocopies, isn't it?

    Should workers be fired for fighting back against robbers?
    Interesting story in the Orlando Sentinel today. Two masked men with a shotgun tried to rob a bagel shop in Orlando early this morning. The workers in the shop fought back by pushing a bagel cart at the robbers, and the robbers responded -- by running away at top speed. The robbers had a shotgun, they wore masks, and they thought it would be easy to intimidate the workers into forking over the cash. When the robbers got a different reaction than what they were counting on, it scared them off.

    Now, keep something in mind. All the workers did was to push a bagel cart at the robbers. That's it. No big heroics, no Jerry Bruckheimer-worthy back-and-forth gun battles with pithy bon mots being exchanged during pauses in the gunfire, no Jackie Chan-style martial arts attacks. They rolled a cart at the robbers. That's it. Try rolling a cart at someone menacingly. It can't be done. But when the robbers were expecting absolutely zero resistance, getting even a tiny, nearly insignificant amount of resistance instead knocked them out of their comfort zone -- and foiled the robbery.

    I've worked cash-handling jobs before, and you can't work a job like that without thinking about what you would do in the case of an armed robbery attempt. Heck, I've worked for a bank before, and almost every bank in existence has the same policy for dealing with robberies: do exactly what the robber tells you to do with zero resistance. Many convenience stores and other cash-heavy businesses have the same policy. I understand why; no bank wants to risk having an armed maniac opening fire and killing customers because a teller decided not to comply with a robbery note. But let's look at the flip side of this. Would-be robbers know what official bank policy is on robberies. They know they can walk into a bank and walk out with cash on-demand without any resistance at all. And they know they can do this without even needing a weapon of their own. All they have to do is walk in with a note demanding cash, come up with a clever escape plan to avoid the police, and they're home free.

    So, what happens if an employee fights back? As this bank teller who tackled a would-be robber after the robber admitted he wasn't even armed. The teller was fired. Never mind that nobody's lives were actually in danger. Never mind that this robber was probably going to keep robbing banks, getting bolder each time he got away with it and maybe even eventually escalating to using a gun. And this teller is joined by many other workers who have taken similar actions and lost their jobs for it too.

    Then there's this comment on OrlandoSentinel.com on the bagel shop robbery story, posted by doorworker on 11/23/2009 at 11:03am:

    Schmuck's willing to lay down his life for a peanut-pay food service job? And the lives of his co-workers and the customer too ('cause if bullets began flying, what's a perp got to lose at that point?). Some "hero". That's rank stupidity disguised in a big, dopey, wax-paper cape. I've worked plenty of retail in my day, and never, NEVER is the policy to get heroic against armed assailants with furniture... he deserves to get his walking papers. Go be play hero on your own time, goofball, when bystanders' lives aren't also at stake.

    Wow. Interesting choice of words, especially at the end: "when bystanders' lives aren't also at stake." Guess what: lives were already at stake. The workers' lives were already at stake the instant these guys walked in holding a shotgun -- specifically because the robbers knew this bagel shop, a national chain, would have a no-resistance policy. The instant the robbers faced resistance, they fled. That means if they'd known there was a chance they'd face resistance, they wouldn't have tried to carry out that robbery to begin with. That means that this store's no-resistance policy actually caused the risk to these workers' lives in this particular case.

    Contrary to popular belief, no-resistance policies don't eliminate the risk to people's lives. They just change the nature of that risk, while encouraging robbers to carry out more robberies and put more lives at risk with each robbery attempt. The only way to truly eliminate that risk is to eliminate the robberies themselves. And instead, we actively encourage them.

    Now, I'm not saying you should launch yourself over the counter if someone sticks a gun in your face. If the policy of your workplace is "no resistance," follow it. If you're playing the odds, that's usually the safest course of action anyway. But it's not always the safest course of action. And that's why I think employers should re-think these strict blanket rules and allow some flexibility for their workers in how they respond in situations like this. Not every robbery is the same, and they shouldn't all be treated the same. And if a quick-thinking employee somehow finds a way to stop a robbery and ends the risk to people's lives, I don't like to see them automatically lose their job over it.

    Let common-sense prevail, and let the good guys win.

    Senate moves one step closer to approving ObamaCare
    In another cowardly late Saturday night vote, the Senate voted 60-39 to open debate on President Barack Obama's health care "reform" bill. Doesn't really mean much, since they'll still need to win two more votes later: the cloture vote to end debate, which will require 60 votes, and then the straight up-or-down vote on the bill itself. Many Senate Democrats don't like the idea of the government-option (oh, sorry, I'm supposed to call it the "public" option), so getting 60 votes for cloture is not likely right now. And even if this bill passes the Senate, it still has to get reconciled with the House version.

    But the strategy from the Democrats in Congress is clear. Hold votes late at night on the weekends and hope we don't notice. Drag the issue out, and wait for those of us who want to keep control of our own health care choices to get tired of the fight. Fortunately, they're losing. The latest polling data from Scott Rasmussen shows overwhelming disapproval of Obama's plan: only 38% approve the plan, 56% oppose the plan, and 6% still think Bill Belichick should be fired for going for it on 4th-and-1 last week.

    Keep fighting! We can still win this.
     

    Sunshine Law issues pop up again; store owner defends himself with a gun
      Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 7:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Rupe Request round-up
    After I first talked about the Rupe Request on
    Tuesday night's radio show, I posted a follow-up piece the next day on reactions to that night's program. To gather my thoughts, I ended up posting up both sides of the story as they had been explained to me, both from the county's side and from Maureen Rupe's side.

    Basically, it looks like there's two questions. First, does Maureen Rupe actually owe that $595 fee for having that large public records request printed out? I'm getting disputed information on whether or not Rupe was told about that fee before she picked up the printouts (in which case she owes the money, hands-down) or after, and whether or not a county employee mistakenly told her there'd be no charge for the printouts. And the second question is this: is County Commissioner Trudie Infantini using her personal Gmail account to hide discussions of county issues from the public record? Rupe claims that she uncovered this during the course of this records request. I'd like to see if Rupe can back that up, and I also want to know if it actually means anything or not. Follow those links for the whole story.

    Grocery store owner shoots armed robber. Good.
    I always love to see stories of law-abiding citizens using firearms to defend themselves against criminals. Don't want to get shot? Don't commit felonies. Easy enough.

    Two West Melbourne city council members broke the Sunshine Law? Uh-oh...
    Fortunately, it looks like it wasn't much of a violation. It's worth mentioning though, especially since I endorsed John D'Amico for re-election earlier this month.

    Senate Republicans want Harry Reid's health care bill to be read-in-full... out loud!
    All it takes is one Senator to force it to happen. Official rules of the Senate. And the bill is so long it could take 34 hours to read it all. Why do we think bills that are this big are a good idea?

    Climatologists are still asking: what happened to global warming?
    The globe hasn't gotten any warmer for the past 10 years, and nobody seems sure why. Just goes to show you, we don't know nearly as much as we think we know.
     

    The Rupe Request: the view from Maureen Rupe
      Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Alright, yesterday I gave you the county's side of the story on Maureen Rupe's recent county records request and whether or not she owes the county $595 for the printouts of those records. I was hoping to follow up immediately with Maureen Rupe's side but simply ran out of time yesterday, and I'm short on time today. But I'll do my best. I'm also hoping Rupe can provide more clarification and more backing documentation when she comes on The Vince Young Show early next week, either Monday night or Tuesday night, but what she's sent me so far raises some interesting questions.

    To start, Maureen wanted me to correct the record on one point. I was under the mistaken impression that she's made several runs for political office in the past and I said so on the radio on Tuesday, but she tells me she's only run once, last year in the Democratic primary for a County Commission seat. It's a small point that's really not all that relevant to the overall discussion, and she's certainly been active in other ways, including serving on the Port St. John community advisory board for several years, and I'm also told she was active in the failed effort to incorporate Port St. John into a city. So it's not like she's a complete political outsider either. But I was incorrect to say she'd made several runs for elected office, and that was incorrect, so I'll correct it here, and I'll correct it tonight on the radio. Might as well get it right, right?

    She tells me I got other things wrong too, but it looks to me like they fall into the category of disputed versions of events, and I don't know enough yet to declare which version of events is correct, so I'll let those point shake out as I learn more on my own.

    Okay... the e-mailed account from County Manager Stockton Whitten says this all started in August, but Maureen Rupe says it actually began shortly earlier in late July with a request to the county for some information on the upcoming county budget. She soon heard back from the county's IT department that the information she wanted would be difficult to get to, so Rupe decided to simplify things by just asking for 3 months' worth (April, June, July) of the official county e-mails for County Commissioner Trudie Infantini so that Rupe could just search those e-mails herself to find the information she wanted. As Mrs. Rupe put it in her second e-mail to me, "I said I would take 3 months total emails as they do this all the time with no problem."

    Point of contention here... in Mrs. Rupe's first e-mail to me, she disputed my statement on the air that Mrs. Rupe has a history of making public records requests. (Which, by the way, I think is a good thing, not a bad thing. I like seeing involved citizens.) She wanted me to retract it, but from her second e-mail, it sounds like she certainly has some familiarity with the process of requesting public records. And again, I think that's good. I really don't know why she has a problem with me saying that.

    Another point of contention... Lindy McKinney's sources tell her the request was for all of Infantini's e-mails from since she took office, not just the previous three months. Mrs. Rupe says that's incorrect. And I don't know who is correct since the internal county e-mail from Stockton Whitten doesn't address that issue, so I'll lay that dispute out for you here and try to get an answer on it later. But again, I'm not sure it matters. Whether it was just three months of Infantini's e-mails or all of Infantini's e-mails, they're all public records anyway, and anybody can request them for whatever reason they want. So, continuing...

    Mrs. Rupe asked permission to go to Viera and just look through the relevant e-mails on a computer in Trudie Infantini's office, which she tells me we have a right to do in the state of Florida. I don't have time to run a detailed search through the state code to find it, but perhaps Mrs. Rupe can point me in the right direction. Anyway, she was refused permission to do that, but the county staff offered to e-mail the files to Maureen Rupe, which they did... as the aforementioned PST files, then later as the aforementioned PDF files, and then still later with the PDF files burned to a CD instead of e-mailed, which Maureen Rupe paid a $30 fee for.

    Remember, Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten says that Maureen Rupe was complaining that she couldn't open PST files or PDF files on her computer. Maureen Rupe disputes that, saying that she could in fact open those PDF files just fine, but that the PDF files were incomplete and didn't include any of the attached files that were sent along with those e-mails. In the process of wrangling back and forth with the county on that issue, Mrs. Rupe states that a county employee advised her that County Commissioner Trudie Infantini uses two e-mail accounts: her official county e-mail address, and a personal e-mail address on Gmail.com.

    Nothing unusual or nefarious there in and of itself. Plenty of government officials have personal e-mail accounts. But here's where it gets interesting. According to Maureen Rupe, the staffer went on to advise Mrs. Rupe that Infantini sometimes handles government business on that personal Gmail account, which the staffers don't have access to, so hence they wouldn't be able to meet Mrs. Rupe's request for all of Trudie Infantini's e-mails. Mrs. Rupe said she wanted access to Infantini's personal Gmail account to look for county-related e-mails, but Infantini refused to do so. Rupe says that Infantini later forwarded two county-related e-mails from her Gmail account to Rupe, but that's it. I haven't seen those e-mails myself, though I'd like to.

    As for the $595 fee, Rupe forward to me an e-mail she got from Sally Lewis, the aforementioned county employee who was working on the public records request, dated September 22nd, 2009 at 8:18am, with the subject "Public info disk," which seems to refer to the files burned to CD that Rupe had already paid $30 for.

    Maureen,

    Following is the response from our I.T. Dept. about your problem with I.T.
    Since you already paid, do you want me to just print this out?

    Sally

    (Below that was a forwarded e-mail about how to open PST files, but it's not really relevant.)

    The statement "since you already paid" seems to refer to the $30 fee Rupe had already paid for the CD. And notice there's no mention of a $595 fee for printing out the records. In fact, if that e-mail is correct, it seems to imply that the $30 fee Rupe paid for the CD includes getting the records printed out. That's very interesting to me.

    Unfortunately, this is only a partial look at the e-mail chain. Sally Lewis may have sent a follow-up e-mail advising her of the fee. Or when Rupe came to pick up the documents, Lewis may have asked her for the $595 fee, and Rupe may have refused to pay it. I really don't know, and that's a central question for me here: when was Rupe first told of the $595 fee for having the documents printed out?

    But backing up a bit, there's also the question of whether or not County Commissioner Trudie Infantini has used her Gmail account to discuss official county business. It's an important question, because I'm not sure whether or not that's allowed under the state's Sunshine Law, and I'm leaning towards "not allowed" from my understanding of how it works. But it still doesn't mean Infantini has done anything particularly bad either. I could easily see someone mistakenly sending her an e-mail to the "wrong" account, and I could just as easily see Infantini decide that's it's just easier to click Reply right then and there from her Gmail page instead of forwarding the e-mail to the "correct" account and then replying from her county e-mail Inbox. Careless, certainly, but not automatically corrupt. But it's still something I'd like to know more about.

    Hopefully, I'll learn more from Maureen Rupe on my show next week, but there you have it: Maureen Rupe's side of the story. And it certainly raises some interesting questions, especially if she can back this up with more documentation. We'll see how it shakes out.
     

    The Rupe Request: the view from Viera
      Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:30pm

    (Yeah, I decided that this whole deal with Maureen Rupe's public records request needed a catchy title, and nothin' says "catchy" like alliteration. So, it's now The Rupe Request.)

    With all the back-and-forth e-mails I've been reading and writing over the last 48 hours, I decided it might be a good idea for me to lay out what's going on with The Rupe Request, both from the standpoint of the county government and from the standpoint of Maureen Rupe herself. At the moment, I'm hearing vastly different scenarios from both sides about what's going on, and I can't really reconcile those two versions together, which means one side is either mistakenly wrong or is outright lying. I just don't know which side.

    I'll start with Viera's side. According to the county government, Maureen Rupe made a request back in August for a large number of e-mails that County Commissioner Trudie Infantini has been sending and receiving from her official government e-mail account. According to an e-mail from Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten, the county staff initially e-mailed the requested files to Rupe as a PST file (whatever a PST file is), but Rupe e-mailed back and said she couldn't open PST files on her computer. County staff responded by e-mailing the requested files to Rupe again, this time in the much more widely used PDF file format so it could be opened in Adobe Acrobat. But again, Rupe replied and said she couldn't open PDF files on her computer either. In response, the county burned a CD with all the PDF files on it and charged Rupe a $30 convenience fee, which she paid... but then she contacted the county again and said she STILL couldn't open PDF files on her computer and that she was getting tired of getting the runaround, since it was now November and she'd been waiting since August.

    At this point, according to Stockton Whitten, he gave instructions to just have all the documents printed out and to waive the normal printing fee due to Rupe not being able to open the PDF files. Due to the size of the print job, the fee would'vd been $595. Somehow, local conservative blogger Lindy McKinney found out about the fee being waived. (I swear, McKinney seems to have sources everywhere. I'd only be half-surprised if I were to find out she has my home bugged.) McKinney and Rupe have had some... clashes... in the past, so when McKinney heard that Rupe was getting a $595-discount on county records, she was not happy. She put in some public records requests of her own, got ahold of Stockton Whitten's e-mailed summary of what happened, and took the whole mess public on her site. And now the county is looking into the feasibility of charging Maureen Rupe for that $595 fee in direct response to McKinney going public with all of this. McKinney also e-mailed me, and that's how I got involved.

    A little further down, I'm going to print that e-mail from Stockton Whitten here, along with the official legal response from County Attorney Scott Knox. But before I do that, I want to address a point that I think is key to the question of whether or not Maureen Rupe owes the county $595. What I want to know is this: when was Maureen Rupe first told that these documents would cost $595? I'm basically getting second-hand reports (which, alas, I haven't yet been able to confirm) that Rupe knew about the charge all along and simply refused to pay it, and if that's true, then she probably owes the money. But what if she was told upfront that the fee would be waived? Or what if she was told up-front that she wouldn't be charged a fee? In a nutshell, that's what Rupe is telling me in her e-mails to me.

    It's an important question, and it's one that is only vaguely answered in Stockton Whitten's e-mail. What is clear is that the fee should have been charged and that Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten did not ever have the authority to waive that fee, and quite frankly I think he needs to answer for that at the very least. He clearly overstepped his authority. That said, if Rupe was aware of the fee before she picked up those documents, then I believe that would mean that she still owes the county $595 on the grounds that she convinced Whitten to do something he didn't have the authority to do: waive the fee.

    But... if Maureen Rupe is correct and a county employee told her that there simply wouldn't be a fee, then I'd have to say she has a valid complaint here. If I made a public records request, drove to Viera, asked how much the documents would cost, got an answer of "nothing," and took the documents home, I would be pissed if I got a call a few days later from some bureaucrat telling me that they had made a mistake that was going to cost me six hundred bucks. And I would tell that bureaucrat to perform a physical impossibility on himself. Why? Because if I'd known beforehand that getting those documents would cost me six hundred bucks, I would've immediately starting asking for cheaper alternatives since I can't afford to spend six hundred bucks on a giant stack of paperwork.

    So, if Rupe is correct, then who should pay that $595? Should the taxpayers eat it? That's not fair either. So in that case, I'd say send the bill to Stockton Whitten -- IF the county did indeed screw up on notifying Rupe about this fee. But if Rupe knew about the fee first and tried to complain her way out of it, well, then she'd need to hold a bake sale or something and come up with $595. In my mind, it all comes down to exactly what Rupe was told and when she was told it.

    Of course, that's all speaking from a moral standpoint. Good luck figuring it out from a legal standpoint. I am not a lawyer, and your mileage may vary.

    But anyway, with no further ado, here's the exact e-mail that Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten sent to County Commissioner Trudie Infantini, County Attorney Scott Knox, and a county employee named Sally Lewis last Friday, November 13th at 3:44pm. I initially got it from Lindy McKinney, but I have authenticated this e-mail on my own. It's legit.

    Commissioner,

    Sally forwarded to me your request as I am responsible for providing Mrs. Rupe with hardcopy documentation of the public records she has been requesting since August of this year. Mrs. Rupe has not been charged for the hardcopy records for the following reasons.

    - Information Technology provided Mrs. Rupe a copy of the requested records in PST format which she advised she could not open.

    - Information Technology then provided Mrs. Rupe a copy of the requested records in PDF format which she also advised she could not open.

    - Mrs. Rupe paid $30 for the CD referenced in the first bullet point.

    - Mrs. Rupe after being unable to open files formatted as referenced above requested hardcopies and expressed to me her concern that she was being denied public records as a result of the long delay in providing her files in a format in which she could open. Again, her original request came sometime in August of this year.

    - Mrs. Rupe on Tuesday again advised me that she was frustrated with the long delay in meeting her request and ask that she be provided hardcopies of the records. I advised Sally to provide Mrs. Rupe with the hardcopies.

    By copy of this email I am asking the County Attorney to advise as to whether or not Mrs. Rupe should be charged for the hardcopy records. Upon his response I will take the necessary action to invoice her if necessary.

    Stockton Whitten
    Assistant County Manager
    Brevard County, Florida

    In response, County Attorney Scott Knox sent this reply to Infantini, Whitten, Lewis, and County Manager Howard Tipton earlier this week on Monday, November 16th at 5:02pm. Got this directly from Trudie Infantini.

    Stockton:
    Your question is as follows:

    "By copy of this email I am asking the County Attorney to advise as to whether or not Mrs. Rupe should be charged for the hardcopy records. Upon his response I will take the necessary action to invoice her if necessary."

    The short answer is yes.

    The county has satisfied its duty to provide the documents in the format in which the records are maintained (PST), as well as a format available in the county(PDF). Another manner of providing the documents is by hard copy. If that is the only alternative requested by an individual, the applicable BCC policy requires payment for every copy in excess of 30 at the rate of $.15 per copy. BCC-30

    However, it should be pointed out that the Attorney General has also opined that: "an agency may respond to a public records request requiring the production of thousands of documents by composing a static web page where the responsive public documents are posted for viewing if the requesting party agrees to the procedure and agrees to pay the administrative costs, in lieu of copying the documents at a much greater cost." AGO 06-30

    Scott Knox, County Attorney
    2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way
    Melbourne, FL 32940
    (321)633-2090

    So, there you have it. The official version of events from Brevard County. I just wish they were clearer about exactly when they first told Maureen Rupe about the $595 fee.

    Next up: the view from Maureen Rupe.
     

    My Lawyer Made Me Change The Name Of This Entry So I Wouldn't Get Sued
      Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 9:45am

    Bonus points if you got the reference to the band Fall Out Boy and their similarly-titled song. And don't read too much into it... I'm pretty much just amusing myself. :)

    Speaking of fallout, wow, my Inbox blew up after last night's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL, with e-mails from Lindy McKinney, Trudie Infantini and Maureen Rupe. McKinney, of course, was on the show last night to help me introduce the topic of Maureen Rupe's recent public record information request to the Brevard County Commission and the questionable decision to waive the usual fee for printed hardcopies of those records.

    Having McKinney on the show was quite literally Plan D. Plan A was Maureen Rupe so I could get her side of the story, but she turned out to be out of town on a day-trip and didn't get my e-mailed invitation until the show was over. Plan B was Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten, the man who waived the printing fee, but no response from him at all. Plan C was County Commissioner Trudie Infantini, whose e-mails are at the center of the information request, but she didn't e-mail me back until 7:45pm, and I didn't get the chance to read her e-mails until I took my first commercial break at about 8:20pm, so we just couldn't coordinate things well enough to get her on the show by telephone. Complicating matters was yesterday's County Commission meeting, which tied up both Whitten and Infantini for much of the day.

    When my microphone goes hot at 8:07pm after the top-of-the-hour news break, I have a show to do, and my listeners expect me to talk about something. Rupe's information request was my planned topic, but none of my preferred guests for that topic were available. Sadly, that's not unusual. The vast majority of my on-air invitations to people in the news are either ignored or rejected, so I had every reason to believe the same thing was happening once again in this case. So I moved forward with the information and the guest that were available to me at the time, in the hopes of opening up the conversation and starting the process to learn more. I'd say I accomplished that.

    Maureen Rupe is now upset with me for not giving her side of the story, but I couldn't give her side because I didn't know her side. Now I do, and I'll still give her a chance to tell it. But when that microphone goes hot at 8:07pm, I don't have the luxury of saying, "Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I had a great topic lined up for you tonight, but since I haven't heard both sides, I'm going to avoid it completely and just play marimba music for you for the next hour. See you Thursday!" Instead, I worked with what I knew, and I did my best to make it clear that I was still working to get a more complete picture. Anything else would've been a dis-service to my audience.

    There's clearly more to this story than just a disputed $595 bill for some photocopies... much more. My next show is this Thursday night, November 18th at 8pm, and I'm repeating my invitations to both Maureen Rupe and Trudie Infantini to be on the radio with me, preferably in seperate segments so that both sides can be heard fairly. In the meantime, watch this site throughout the day as I try to lay out the information I had both before last night's radio show and what I've learned since then.
     

    Public records request questioned; code enforcement goes wild
      Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Short notes again today, but you'll live. :) Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    County employee waives $595 bill for copies of county records
    Local conservative blogger
    Lindy McKinney has all the details and e-mail quotes... just go to her site and then run a text search for the name of Stockton Whitten, the Assistant County Manager of Brevard County. But here's the important bits. Local liberal activist Maureen Rupe recently put in a very LARGE public records request with the Brevard County government. After a bit of a delay, they e-mailed her the requested records in the form of some large PDF files so that she wouldn't have to pay through the nose to have them all printed out. But Rupe then claimed that her computer can't read PDF files and started complaining rather vocally that she felt the county wasn't properly complying with the state's public records laws... a pretty clear implied threat of a lawsuit. In response, Stockton Whitten agreed to have all of the requested records printed out and given to Rupe as hard-copies. Because of the size of the request, the County normally would've charged Rupe $595 in fees for printing those records, but Whitten waived that fee on the grounds that Rupe's computer can't open PDF files.

    Except that, you know, PDF files are one of the most widely-used document formats in the world. In fact, the PDF format was specifically designed to be accessible on pretty much any computer. Most people already have the main PDF reader, Adobe Acrobat, on their computers right now. You probably do. And there's a link to download it right on the bottom of the county's website. Why didn't someone just tell Maureen Rupe to install Adobe Acrobat?

    And what about people who don't own computers? They can't read PDF files either. Does that mean they should be able to get copies of thousands of pages of government records for free just by complaining that they can't read PDF files? If I want to get out of the records fees, should I just get a friend who doesn't own a computer to go do the records request for me?

    Whitten was clearly trying to treat this as a customer service issue and was trying to make Maureen Rupe happy, and I'm somewhat glad to see that he erred in favor of government openness and accountability. But by waiving a $595 fee that the rest of us would still be expected to pay, Whitten opened up all sorts of issues about equal treatment under the law. He clearly didn't think this through.

    Oh, and to Maureen Rupe? Send me an e-mail. I'll be glad to come over and help you install Adobe Acrobat.

    Code enforcement is out of control in Palm Bay!
    We've seen some interesting stories this year in Palm Bay regarding code enforcement violators who claim that they never got any official notice from the city that they were committing a violation, which in turn has led to fines and late fees piling up for literally years without the homeowner even knowing they were in trouble. Now, the city government has admitted that they weren't sending out any notice of these fines or fees at all from 2004 to 2008! They've since changed that, but in the meantime, they still claim that the fines from that time period are all still valid, even though the people being fined never got proper notice of those fines. How incredibly arrogant.

    In stark contrast, the city of Rockledge recently slashed a long-standing code enforcement lien on a blighted home, clearing the way for a new buyer to buy the property, pay the greatly recuded lien, and get the home fixed up. Problem solved. Imagine that... common sense from code enforcement! Palm Bay needs to learn a thing or two from Rockledge.

    Of course, it could always be worse... how about a fine of a thousand dollars a day for an overgrown lawn? Down to our south, the city of Jupiter is considering it.

    Government website claims jobs were "saved or created" in fake congressional districts!
    Looks like nobody is fact-checking these jobs-created claims in Washington DC. What a surprise.

    Obama bows to Japanese emperor!
    What is with this guy?

    Teen gets Guillan-Barre Syndrome after swine flu vaccine
    Story here. And yes, that's the same syndrome some people got from the swine flu vaccine back in 1976, resulting in 300 deaths and thousands of injuries.

    Mary Bolin new Brevard County Commission chairwoman
    Could be worse... it could've been Robin Fisher.

    Palm Bay police still trying to get a paraglider.
    What a waste! Oh, sure, no taxpayer funds are being used on it, but they are using forfeiture funds that could be used for something far more useful instead.
     

    Steele-d for a fight; bridge breaks again; environmentalists fibbing
      Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Brevard GOP chariman takes on state party
    To be honest, I've never been the biggest fan of Jason Steele, but I'm definitely on his side in his ongoing fight with the Republican Party of Florida. Steele is the chairman of the Brevard Republican Executive Committee, and almost from the get-go, he's been publicly critical of state GOP chairman Jim Greer and his heavy-handed interference in local Republican primaries. That led one of Greer's local cronies, Travis Clinger, to file a formal grievance against Steele earlier this year in an attempt to have him stripped of his chairman's role. Brevard's Republicans rallied behind Steele, and in the end Steele was placed on probation instead.

    While that fight was going on, a Twitter account sprung up with Steele's name and photo attached to it, with insulting tweets that portrayed Steele as a drunken buffoon intent on destroying the Republican Party. Of course, Steele himself wasn't the one posting those tweets. When Steele found out about the fake account, he had it shut down and asked law enforcement to investigate who started it. Turns out it was none other than Tim Nungesser, another Greer crony living in Palm Bay. Before the fake Twitter account was created, Nungesser was a lower-level cog in the party machine. Shortly afterwards, he was promoted to Director of Field Operations for the state Republican party. Interesting... a low-level party member tars the reputation of a political enemy of the state chairman, and gets a promotion afterwards. I wonder if there could possibly be a connection there...

    It gets better. After Nungesser's involvement with the fake Twitter account came out last week, Steele and Nungesser had a little chat, and Nungesser apologized for his little stunt. But Steele also claims that Nungesser gave him two juicy little tidbits of information. First, remember the grievance from Travis Clinger against Jason Steele? Nungesser helped Clinger draft that grievance. And second, Nungesser told the state party's Executive Director Delmar Johnson about the fake Twitter account back when it first went up -- and Johnson wasn't bothered by it at all. See, Delmar Johnson is yet another crony of Jim Greer, so he wasn't about to come to the defense of one of Greer's political enemies.

    So, we had a state-level party leader (Delmar Johnson) who was aware of an active and ongoing smear campaign against a county-level party leader (Jason Steele) and allowed it to continue. That smear campaign was run by a soon-to-be-promoted low-level party cog (Tim Nunguesser), who also helped another low-level party cog (Travis Clinger) write a formal grievance against the same county-level party leader (Jason Steele), all to curry favor with the state-party chairman (Jim Greer), who was angry about being criticized by that county-level party leader (Jason Steele).

    Interesting, eh? Jason Steele criticizes Jim Greer for interfering in the operations of the county-level parties. And what does Jim Greer do in response? Interferes in the operations of a county-level party. Attaboy, Jimbo! Because when somebody criticizes you, there's no better response than to do exactly what you're being criticized for! In response, Jason Steele is now asking the state party to reimburse him for his legal fees from the grievance hearing, on the grounds that the hearing itself was trumped up to begin with and was part of an apparent campaign to try to destroy Steele politically. We'll see if that goes anywhere.

    Oh, what's that, you say? There's no evidence that Greer himself was involved in any of this? Oh, we'll see. Greer is smooth enough to try to keep his fingerprints off and to let his underlings do his dirty work, but the truth is starting to come out. This may all be the tip of the iceberg.

    Waiting for the feds
    The Max Brewer Causeway drawbridge in Titusville broke down again today, prompting authorities to close the bridge to all traffic. This is one of the oldest bridges in Brevard and is sorely in need of repair. It provides access to the north gate of the Kennedy Space Center and to Canaveral National Seashore.

    So why hasn't it been repaired yet? Why does it keep breaking down, causing major traffic tie-ups and lost productivity? Because Brevard County keeps waiting for federal funds to repair it.

    Now, I want you to pull out a map of Brevard County. Maybe you can pull it up on Mapquest or Google Maps or something. Zoom in on Titusville. See the bridge? More importantly, see the little rectangle with the number 402 in it? That little rectangle means it's a county road: County Road 402, to be precise. This is a road that is owned, operated and maintained by Brevard County for the benefit of Brevard County.

    WHY are we waiting on FEDERAL funding to repair a COUNTY road? Why should we expect the citizens of, say, Fargo in North Dakota to pay for a bridge in Titusville, Florida?

    But this is the system we have right now. Instead of paying local taxes to our local government to fix our local roads, everybody at the local level pays through the nose in federal income taxes to the federal government. The government slices some of that money off the top for their own expenses (gotta pay for those cushy pensions for former Congressmen somehow, right?), and then doles it back to the local governments as it sees fit, usually according to which Congressional districts have a representative from the "correct" political party and have the most seniority, with no regard to actual need. It's ridiculous and inefficient, and it's wrong.

    Sue Hann will remain on the EELS advisory board.
    Good. The environmentalists in Brevard had this one wrong. Hann might not be an experienced environmental expert, but she knows how to spend money wisely. And if EELS wastes its money on stupid things, it will end up doing LESS good for the environment in the long run.

    And speaking of Brevard's environmentalists...
    Amy Tidd and Tony Sasso sat down with Matt Reed at Florida Today and promptly showed they don't know much about offshore oil drilling. Note to Tony Sasso: you might want to double-check which direction the Loop Current flows in over in the Gulf of Mexico, for example.

    A tale of two cities
    In crime-plagued south Melbourne, things are getting better because the citizens, the police and the city government all give a darn. Meanwhile things in Cocoa are getting worse because nobody's bothered to learn anything from south Melbourne.
     

    Fort Hood aftermath, EELS fight, and health care "reform"
      Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 7:15pm
      (edited Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 11:30am)

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Hasan was an Islamic terrorist. Period.
    He shouted "Allahu akbar!" before he opened fire. He moved around the building
    methodically finishing off soldiers who had been merely injured during his initial attack. For quite some time, he's been openly critical of the United States and the Army, making positive comparisons between suicide bombers and soldiers who jump on grenades to save their comrades, and declaring the War On Terror to actually be a war on Islam. He made attempts to contact Al Qaeda online before his attack, and now some Muslim extremists are praising his actions.

    Make no mistake about it. When Major Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down his fellow troops at Ford Hood last Thursday, he was carrying out an Islamic terrorist attack against the United States military. There should no longer be any doubt of this. We need a full investigation, and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman has promised one, but a lot of the facts are already out there, and the initial picture is quite clear.

    So why are we still bringing up the possibility that job stress had anything to do with this terrorist attack at all?

    Hasan's upcoming assignment in Iraq was going to be a support role behind the lines, not in any sort of a combat role. Hasan has never been in combat. Hasan has never been anywhere near combat, not until last Thursday night when he chose to put himself into a combat situation. He was a psychiatrist, and he had a difficult job helping other soldiers cope with the horrors of fighting a difficult and costly war. That's a difficult job in and of itself, but it pales in comparison to actually fighting in that war. And though he's not the only Army psychiatrist to experience job stress, Hasan is the only Army psychiatrist to open fire on his fellow soldiers.

    This was not about job stress. This was a terrorist attack, plain and simple. Hasan allowed his mind to be polluted by the most radical aspects of his Muslim faith, and he decided to carry out his own little personal jihad.

    And now we get word that the Army's chief of staff, General George Casey Jr., is worried about a backlash against other Muslim-American soldiers. I'm sorry, Gen. Casey, but maybe if you'd spent more time trying to prevent Hasan from carrying out this attack, you wouldn't have a backlash to worry about! Instead, your staff and your Army officials overlooked increasing evidence that Hasan was a clear and present danger because you were more worried about looking politically incorrect than you were about the safety and security of the soldiers under your command. And that, sir, makes me question your fitness for duty.

    We need to get our priorities straight, man up, and face the facts of this situation. We can't treat Muslims with fairness and equity if we're dead, can we?

    Health care "reform" passes House
    By a narrow 220-215 vote, the House of Representatives passed a trillion-dollar health care "reform" bill late on Saturday night. Both of our local representatives, Kosmas and Posey, opposed the bill. Now it needs to get through the Senate, but may face a tougher time there.

    ...

    Other news tonight, but I'm out of time for now. I'll try to get more links up on the website later tonight.

    (EDIT: Tuesday 11/10 at 11:30am)

    Okay, didn't have time to update this last night, but here's the other things I mentioned on my show last night.

  • Don't forget the Brevard County Commission meeting later today. A time-certain of 1:00pm on Tuesday, November 10th (today!) has been set to discuss the recent appointment of Sue Hann to the oversight committee for EELS, Brevard's Environmentally Endangered Lands program. The EELS program has not been living up to the mission it was supposed to carry out, buying up land of questionable preservation value, often overpaying for that land for no good reason, and then fencing it off to keep the citizens of Brevard out rather than turn that land into parks for us to enjoy. Sue Hann was brought in to apply a more business-like approach to EELS and get it to be smarter with our tax money. That runs counter to the radical environmentalist agenda of liberal activists like Amy Tidd who want to use our tax money to bring any sort of development to a grinding halt here in Brevard. So she requested a time-certain to discuss Hann's presence on the board, no doubt hoping to round up as many environmental activists as possible to descend on Viera today to get Hann kicked out as soon as possible. If you have a chance, try to get to the County Commission Chambers in Viera to be there in support of Sue Hann later today.

  • Okay, let me get this straight. Back in February, Governor Charlie Crist literally hugged President Barack Obama on stage and said that Obama's government-stimulus bill needed to pass, that he would vote for it if he were a Senator, and that Florida's Congressional delegation should vote for it... but he didn't actually endorse the bill. Yes, that's what he's actually trying to tell us now. What an amazingly craven politician.

  • A few months ago, Brevard County Republican Party Chariman Jason Steele was the target of a fake Twitter account that was set up in Steele's name with the goal of making Steele look like a drunken buffoon. Steele had the fake account shut down when he discovered it, but given that it popped up during Steele's running fight with Jim Greer, the chairman of the statewide Republican party, Steele was suspicious. Now an investigation has revealed that the account was set up by a high-ranking member of the state Republican party! Tim Nungesser of Palm Bay has had close ties to Jim Greer and Charlie Crist in the past and recently got promoted to the post of director of field operations for the state party, though he's now been fired. Steele believes that some of Nungesser's bosses knew what he was doing and failed to stop him. There could be criminal charges filed soon in this case, so this could get interesting...
     

    Breaking news: massacre at Ford Hood
      Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL... everything else is on hold tonight as we deal with the breaking news of today's massacre at Fort Hood, an Army base outside of Killeen, Texas. The shooter, a major named Nidal Malik Hasan, shot 42 people, killing 11 of them, before being shot and killed himself by a civilian police officer. The victims are a combination of military soldiers, civilian police, and civilians. Two other people are "in custody," whatever that means, and it's unclear how they were involved.

    With a shooter named Nidal Malik Hasan, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that this is some sort of Islamic terror attack. I don't go looking for Muslim terrorits behind every tree, but I'm not an idiot either, and I'm not going to hold back my speculation for some silly reason of political correctness. On the other hand, there are also reports that Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq, and it's not out of the question that he simply snapped over that. Wouldn't be the first time, and there have certainly been non-Muslim soldiers who have carried out attacks like this in the past. Heck, we don't even know for sure if Hasan was actually Muslim or if he was simply born with the name Hasan. There's just so much we don't know right now.

    I'll tell you what though... when I first heard this terrible news, the first thing I thought of was the 2007 Islamic terrorist plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey, and the attack on a military recruiting center in Little Rock by a lone Muslim gunman earlier this summer. Islamic terrorists have gone after military targets on American soil before, and it is not out of the question that it happened again today.

    Call in tonight at 321-631-1300 and let's talk about it. And of course, my thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims and their families.

    More details on the program tonight.
     

    Election results from November 3rd, 2009
      Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 4:00am

    Here's the results for yesterday's city elections across Brevard County! Got the numbers straight from the Supervisor of Elections website, then cleaned 'em up to look a bit better for you. Kudos to Supervisor of Elections Lori Scott for getting the totals out by 8:50pm election night!

    (Note: right now, these are the results with all the votes counted except for provisional ballots. I'll update this entry with the final totals when the provisional ballots get processed, but in the meantime, it doesn't look like any of the races were close enough for the provisional ballots to make a difference.)

    In each race, my endorsed candidate is marked with an asterisk. (*)

    ROCKLEDGE - City Council Seat #6 The establishment candidate Kimberly Prosser won easily, but Ted Hartselle's conservative campaign got some attention. Meanwhile, Edward Newell refused to take strong stands on anything, so the electorate refused to take a chance on electing him.
    Kimberly Prosser 1,117 50.41%
      Ted Hartselle - * 794 35.83%
      Edward G. Newell 305 13.76%
    COCOA BEACH - City Commission Seat #2 The incumbent Griffin won pretty handily. It's always difficult for a newcomer like Malik to topple an incumbent, but I hope he runs again.
    Ken Griffin 1,208 56.61%
      Ben Malik - * 926 43.39%
    CAPE CANAVERAL - Referendum Cape Canaveral said yes to allowing tax exemptions for new businesses. This will keep Cape Canaveral on an even footing with other cities.
    Yes - * 388 56.48%
      No 299 43.52%
    WEST MELBOURNE - City Council The top-3 vote-getters get in. D'Amico fought the hardest to keep the tax rate down and got rewarded for it by the voters. Meanwhile, Hazlett and Jones were punished for raising the tax rate. Hazlett is out, Young is in, and Jones is lucky to keep his spot.
    John C. D'Amico - * 1,010 28.62%
    Andrea B. Young 950 26.92%
    Andrew B. Jones - * 819 23.21%
      Mike Hazlett - * 750 21.25%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Mayor Ferrante in a landslide! He did a much better job of saying what he stood for, and the voters liked his message.
    Joseph R. Ferrante - * 1,103 60.21%
      Martha Kirby 729 39.79%
    SATELLITE BEACH - City Council The top-2 vote-getters get in. Rhodes and Higginson highlighted plans to improve the city, and they got the nod from the voters. I thought Montelione's conservative vision would resonate more, though. And Omler's message just didn't come through clearly enough.
    Scott P. Rhodes 1,084 33.72%
    William Higginson - * 778 24.20%
      Frank Montelione - * 705 21.93%
      David Omler 648 20.16%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Amendment #1 Residents clearly approved clarifying the city charter and removing obsolete bits.
    Yes - * 1,519 84.53%
      No 278 15.47%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Amendment #2 Matching up the city's elections with the Congressional and Presidential elections makes sense -- and saves money. Glad this passed.
    Yes - * 1,331 73.01%
      No 492 26.99%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Amendment #3 This one mystifies me. Why would the voters want unexpected council vacancies to be filled by the council instead of the voters? Odd.
    Yes 1,200 66.26%
      No - * 611 33.74%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Amendment #4 Now one council member can be expelled if the other 4 vote to do so. This is a valid safeguard against misconduct.
    Yes - * 1,391 77.19%
      No 411 22.81%
    SATELLITE BEACH - Amendment #5 It only takes 3 council votes to hire a City Manager, so why should it take 4 votes to fire that same City Manager? Strange choice.
    Yes 1,282 70.75%
      No - * 530 29.25%
    INDIALANTIC - City Council Seat #3 The incumbent went down in flames here! Interesting result. I wish I knew what made the voters turn on Benevente like this.
    Chris Campbell 323 63.33%
      Vincent Benevente 187 36.67%
    Indialantic - Amendment The voters liked the idea of having more flexibility in selecting an Acting Town Manager during emergencies.
    Yes 348 77.16%
      No 103 22.84%
    MELBOURNE BEACH - City Commissioner The top-2 vote-getters get in. Evans kept her current seat, but incumbent Guglietta was chased out due to nervousness about his past campaign dishonesty, replaced by Jean Marshall. Gowdy had a strong showing but fell short, and Femina just went nowhere.
    April Evans 359 26.22%
    Jean Marshall 353 25.79%
      Gail Gowdy 292 21.33%
      Paul Guglietta 244 17.82%
      Robert Femina 121 8.84%
    MELBOURNE BEACH - Amendment You want to make it easier for the city government to spend your money?!? Um, okay...
    Yes 440 65.38%
      No 233 34.62%
    BAREFOOT BAY - Trustee The top-two vote-getters get in. The two incumbents won re-election with relative ease. Not surprising, since I haven't heard of any big problems from the Barefoot Bay Recreation District.
    Tom Guinther 957 30.74%
    Louise E. Crouse 929 29.84%
      Wilma C. Weglein 635 20.40%
      Stephen A. Rice 514 16.51%
      Daphnia M. Missad 78 2.51%

     

    This is it! Elections on Tuesday, health-care vote on Friday!
      Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Short program notes again today, but short notes are better than no notes. Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    House could vote on health care "reform" bill by Friday
    The new bill is
    1,990 pages long and will cost us over a trillion dollars, and will be by a combination of tax increases and Medicare cuts. Change you can believe in!

    Jim Ford's office in trouble again
    A state ethics panel has accused 3 of Jim Ford's staffers of campaigning for him from the Property Appraiser's office during work hours to get Ford re-elected as Property Appraiser. Ford himself was cleared by the panel, but Ford says this is all about legal technicalities and "minor errors in judgement."

    REPUBLICAN drops out of 3-way New York congressional race!
    The official Republican nominee was only slightly less liberal than the official Democratic nominee, prompting a third-party candidate to enter the race to the cheering of Republicans nationwide. NOW will you all quit telling me that third-party candidates can't win elections?

    Florida Today provides more info on Tuesday's elections
    Check out their articles on the Rockledge city council candidates addressing the Aquifer Storage and Recovery well issue. There's also articles on various referendums up for a vote, and articles on the city commissioner races in Cocoa Beach and Melbourne Beach. And of course you can check out my take on the city races as well right here on VinceYoung.com!
     

    Info on the 11/3 city election candidates
      Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Tonight at 8:00pm, I'll be holding my Local Election Special on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    So often, city elections get overlooked because people underestimate the impact a city council member can have on their lives. But this past year has shown that's not the case, as various city councils here in Brevard have grappled with issues like budgets, tax rates, code enforcement laws, red-light traffic cameras, water rights, and even an outdoor ice skating rink. These are all things that can affect your day-to-day life in the city you live or work in, and these city council members have just as much power to reach into your pocket and take your money away from you as a member of Congress. These elections matter. City governments matter. And you need to pay attention to them. If you live in Rockledge, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, West Melbourne, Satellite Beach, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach or Barefoot Bay, make sure you vote next Tuesday, November 3rd!

    It can often be difficult to find good information on the candidates in city elections, but I'll do my best to make that easier for you. The Supervisor of Elections website has a list of all the candidates along with e-mail addresses and phone numbers so you can ask the candidates directly about whatever issues you're most concerned with. You can also check out sample ballots which will include any referendums or charter amendments being voted on in your city. And both Florida Today and News 13 have put together candidate profile pages for you.

    And of course, some of the candidates also have their own campaign websites, which I'll link to further down in this entry. As always, though, I continue to be amazed by the number of candidates who don't have a website. C'mon, people... it's 2009! HTML is really not that difficult to learn, and even if you can't figure it out, find someone who can throw together a site for you. It doesn't have to be fancy or pretty or have animated pictures or music or Java applets; heck, it's probably better if it doesn't. Just put down a few paragraphs about who you are, what you stand for, and why we should vote for you. It's the single most-effective way you have to get your total and unedited message out to as many people as possible. Why pass that up?

    But anyway... here's my take on the city election races for next Tuesday:

    ROCKLEDGE - CITY COUNCIL SEAT #6
    My pick: Ted Hartselle

    Three good candidates in this race, but of those three, I believe space-flight engineer Ted Hartselle would be the best for the Rockledge City Council. Hartselle has easily done the best job of expressing his viewpoint and making sure people know what he believes. He claims to have attended every city council meeting this year to learn the issues, and also served on the Brevard County Budget Citizen Review Committee in 2009. He touts himself as a fiscal conservative who wants to find a balance between keeping taxes low while providing adequate funding for the most vital parts of government: the police, fire department, and public works. He hopes to attract more engineering and light industrial jobs to the city, and also wants to get Barnes Blvd. widened to help with future growth. And this isn't just campaign rhetoric either. Hartselle serves as the Rockledge coordinator for the Campaign For Liberty, a conservative activist group. A quick check of his profile page there shows he's a Ron Paul-Republican, which should give you a solid idea of his overall philosophy. Hartselle's brand of conservatism is exactly what the Rockledge City Council needs right now.

    The other candidates in the race are Brevard County spokeswoman Kimberly Prosser and Rockledge planning commission member Edward G. Newell (who doesn't have a website). Newell seems qualified, having served on the city's planning commission for 11 years, but he hasn't done much to get his message out other than saying that he opposes raising the property tax rate, so it's hard to know exactly what he stands for. Prosser also seems well qualified, having served on the planning commission for 4 years and the city's citizen advisory committee for 6 years. But her website doesn't go into much detail on her views or philosophy. She also opposes raising the tax rate, and she wants to maintain Rockledge's quality of life and small-town feel by managing growth and protecting the environment, but it's all pretty vague and lacking in specifics. Either Newell or Prosser would probably be okay, but Ted Hartselle has both the clearest message and the message I agree with the most.

    COCOA BEACH - CITY COMMISSION SEAT #2
    My pick: Ben Malik

    Ben Malik is the challenger in this race and works as an assistant vice-president for a local bank. His campaign is focused on cleaning up the city's image by getting rid of abandoned business buildings in the downtown area, which in turn will pave the way for continuing to develop downtown. It's a solid vision, one that I like. He also gives the usual promises to keep taxes low and control spending, promises I believe he'll keep. His campaign website also takes the unusual step of attacking what he says are untrue rumors about his views, and Malik goes out of his way to deny claims that he wants to ban drinking and smoking on the beach or force bars to shut down at midnight. It's hard to say whether or not there really is an organized rumor campaign against him, but on the plus side, it's nice to see a candidate taking definitive stands in a race like this.

    The incumbent in this race is Ken Griffin, and his website says he wants to lower the property tax rate and reduce costs. He also supports Cape Canaveral Hospital's current expansion plans. But Griffin also voted to bring red-light traffic cameras to Cocoa Beach, an issue I've criticized him for, especially since none of the camera supporters showed that they had even taken 5 minutes to research the issue on Google. (If they had, they would've learned that making yellow lights last a second longer does far more to reduce red-light running and crashes than cameras do.) I'm greatly troubled by anyone in government not doing their homework, so I just can't support Griffin in this race. That's why my support goes to his challenger, Ben Malik.

    CAPE CANAVERAL - REFERENDUM
    My pick: Yes for tax exemptions

    The race for mayor of Cape Canaveral has actually already been decided, since challenger Jim Morgan has withdrawn from the race, meaning that incumbent mayor Rocky Randels automatically wins re-election. Morgan's withdrawal came after the ballots had already been printed, so the race is still on the ballot, but no votes will actually be counted.

    So that just leaves the Referendum on whether or not the City Council should be allowed to grant property tax exemptions to new businesses and expansions of existing businesses. I don't like these sorts of tax exemptions, but since other cities are already allowed to do them, Cape Canaveral needs to be able to offer these exemptions as well if it wants to compete with other cities for new businesses on an even footing. So I recommened a Yes vote here.

    WEST MELBOURNE - CITY COUNCIL (Vote for 3)
    My picks: John D'Amico, Mike Hazlett, Andrew Jones

    This is an odd race... there are 3 spots open on the West Melbourne City Council and 4 candidates running for those spots: 3 incumbents and 1 challenger. You get to pick any 3 of those 4 candidates, and the top-3 vote-getters will win those seats. Unfortunately, none of the candidates has a website, but you still have time to look up their phone numbers or e-mail addresses from the Supervisor of Elections website to contact them directly.

    I wish there were more challengers; out of the 3 incumbents, only Deputy Mayor John D'Amico gets my enthusiastic support. D'Amico was one of only 2 no-votes on the city's most recent budget vote in which the city's millage rate was jacked up to provide extra revenue to the city. (The other no-vote came from Bill Mettrick.) The city only needed a millage rate of $1.7747 to keep their revenue the same from last year, but instead the city council voted to increase that millage rate to $2.3982 anyway. I was angry at the thought of the city moving to grab extra money from the citizens during such a difficult economy, and I was glad to see D'Amico take a stand against it.

    Alas, all three incumbents have so far endorsed the recent plan to declare a large chunk of West Melbourne a "brownfield" to take advantage of state redevelopment money, a truly laughable and dishonest idea. And of course, incumbents Mike Hazlett and Andrew Jones both voted for the tax-hiking budget plan, making me loathe to support them. Unfortunately, they don't get much of a challenge from challenger Andrea Young, an employee for Chase Bank and member of the citizens advisory board. The main info I could find on Young is that she lead the recent effort to re-name the city of West Melbourne, an idea that pretty much got laughed out within 5 minutes of being proposed. If that's her big issue, then it's hard for me to take her seriously as a candidate.

    So, that leaves me with a hearty endorsement of Deputy Mayor John D'Amico, and reluctant support for fellow incumbents Mike Hazlett and Andrew Jones.

    ...

    And that'll have to do it for now. I don't have time to write up my thoughts on the Satellite Beach races, and there are other races taking place in Indialantic, Melbourne Beach and Barefoot Bay. But stay tuned to the program tonight, because I will address those races if I get the chance. I'll also finish updating this website with my take on those races later tonight or tomorrow.
     

    Common-sense on red-light cameras; offshore drilling IS clean enough
      Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Ugh, another day where I just don't have time for full, detailed notes. But I can at least give you links to the stories I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Local Election Special on Thursday night!
    Just another reminder for you to tune in to The Vince Young Show this Thursday night at 8:00pm for my local election special! I'll be sharing everything I can find out about the candidates in next Tuesday's city elections across Brevard, as well as letting you know who I would vote for if I lived in each of those cities.

    Kristine Isnardi fights for us on red-light cameras
    On the Palm Bay City Council, Kristine Isnardi was the only council member to vote against bringing red light cameras to Palm Bay. Now that they're about to go up, Isnardi is
    holding the camera supporters' feet to the fire. She's pushing for information about how the cameras work and how to avoid getting a ticket to be posted on the city's website. And she's absolutely right. These cameras are all about safety, not revenue, right? And the only way to avoid a ticket is to not run red lights, right? Therefore, if you teach people how to avoid getting ticketed, everyone will be safer, right? Of course, that'll cut down on the amount of money you'll make from the cameras, but of course, they're not about the money, right?

    So why is it that in Orlando, they aren't putting their red light cameras up at the most dangerous intersections? Guess it's not all about safety after all.

    By the way, you know what works better than cameras for reducing red light running and crashes? WAY better? Making yellow lights last a second longer. But you can't make money off of that, so I guess that's out of the question. ACTUAL traffic safety be damned!

    Offshore oil drilling: still cleaner than you think
    As the debate about offshore oil drilling heats up in Florida, I thought you might be interested in an article from last year which points out that humans are cleaner than the earth itself when it comes to oil!

    Did you know that when you tax rich people too much, they leave?
    Just ask New York state and New York City. Now they know what the rest of us already knew.

    October 2009 is now the Afghanistan war's deadliest month
    And Obama still hasn't made a decision on General McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops. Change we can believe in, I guess.

    Fly-by pilots lose their licenses
    I still don't buy their stories about the "heated discussion" or being on their laptops. Something screwy is going on there, but at least they won't be flying again anytime soon.
     

    Crist's Obama hug was just being "civil"; a simple solution to school overcrowding
      Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Sorry for the short notes, but it's all I have time for today... here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Local Election Special on Thursday night!
    Tune in to The Vince Young Show this Thursday night at 8:00pm for my local election special! I'll be sharing everything I can find out about the candidates in next Tuesday's city elections across Brevard, as well as letting you know who I would vote for if I lived in each of those cities.

    "Civil?" You HUGGED him, Charlie!
    Governor Charlie Crist is
    on the defensive for his February embrace -- both figurative and literal -- of President Obama. Check out this quote from Crist:

    "I was happy and delighted to do so. I'm a civil guy. The president of the United States is the president of the United States. Especially when it's the first visit to Florida and I'm invited to be there. I have that kind of respect in my soul."

    "Civil"? "Respect"? You HUGGED him, Charlie! You ENDORSED his government stimulus package! You know, the one that most of your own party opposed? Doing just one of those goes far beyond being just "civil" or "respectful." You did BOTH!

    And need I remind you how we got into this economic mess in the first place? Part of the reason why is because we've spent decades borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China to spend on stupid things with little accountability or oversight. And what was Obama's "stimulus" plan again? That's right: to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from China ($787 billion, to be exact) to spend on stupid things with little accountability or oversight. And you supported that plan, Governor Crist.

    And now you're taking out radio ads attacking Obama for carrying out a plan you endorsed? Shameless.

    School Board is confused over their own employee health insurance numbers
    Why, exactly, is the School Board having trouble with math and numbers?

    Some Brevard schools are over-filled, while others are under-filled?
    Hmm... I think I have a solution...

    State Senator Thad Altman wants to ban texting while driving
    Don't we already have laws against driving while distracted? Pretty sure that already includes texting. Why do we need ANOTHER new law? Just enforce the laws we already have!

    Y'know what's a really bad idea?
    Fining people for not speaking English.

    Y'know what's another really bad idea?
    Climbing down from a 5th-floor balcony to a 4th-floor balcony. And then doing it again. What, cheating death once wasn't enough?

    Y'know what's yet another really bad idea?
    Pulling the trigger on a gun you THINK is unloaded. Repeat after me: EVERY gun is loaded!

    New website links!
    I've added a few new websites to the links list on the sidebar:

  • Campaign For Liberty: Brevard County
    A local group of conservative activists. Get involved!

  • Florida Capital News
    News directly from the state government in Tallahassee.

  • Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories
    Witty and insightful rebuttals to 9/11 conspiracy theories.
     

    Obama vs. Cheney; national debt ceiling could hit $13 trillion!
      Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Cheney and Obama square off once again
    Why can't the Obama administration stop blaming the Bush administration for all of their problems? It's getting old, guys. You've been in office for a little over nine months now. Yes, you inherited a lot of problems from the previous president, but now it's long past time to stop whining about it and start solving some of those problems.

    Case in point: Afghanistan. On one of the Sunday news shows on CNN earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel dropped this line about whether or not to increase troop levels there: "When you go through all the analysis, it's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift, that we're beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years."

    Now, I'll be the first to tell you that I agree President George W. Bush lost focus on the war in Afghanistan and allowed victory to slowly start slipping away. But he's not the President anymore. Barack Obama is, and Rahm Emanuel works for him. And this current White House has made exactly two changes in Afghanistan, both back in the spring: putting General Stan McChrystal in charge, and putting in a small troop increase. That's it. Since then, McChrystal has been putting together a new plan to move forward, and in August he sent that plan to the White House. In it, he asked for 40,000 more troops so he could go win the war.

    That was in August. It's now October, and it's almost November. And Gen. McChrystal doesn't have any decision yet from President Obama. In fact, what we're hearing now is that Obama wants to wait until Afghanistan's run-off presidential election is over before making any decisions, which means we might not get a decision until DECEMBER.

    But instead of answers, we get finger-poking back at the previous administration.

    And there's only so many times someone will put up with being poked before they poke back.

    Enter Dick Cheney. The former Vice-President fired back in a speech last night. "The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger. It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."

    To be honest, I'm kinda tired of seeing Cheney keep popping back up in the news like this, but it's also hard for me to blame him. If I felt like the President of the United States was trying to use me as a scapegoat for all of his problem, I'd be a little defensive too.

    Now, did the White House take this as a sign for today that maybe, just maybe, they should knuckle down and look for solutions instead of scapegoats? Let's ask White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs!

    "What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform. I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

    Uh-huh. Any further comments, Mr. Gibbs?

    "I think it's pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the Vice-President's, for more than eight months."

    Seriously. You're playing that card now? The "look how long a troop increase request sat on their desk" card? Like I said, Bush's record on Afghanistan was not good, but Obama's record is not looking good right now either. Remember, Obama may not decide on McChrystal's troop request from August until December. That would be four months. That's still far too long.

    President Obama, you do indeed have a solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform. That's why you need to live up to it by quitting this partisan bickering and finger-pointing, approving your own general's troop-increase request NOW, and do what the previous administration couldn't do: win the war in Afghanistan.

    You want to impress us again? Look for a solution, not a scapegoat.

    By the way...
    Anyone who thinks the only mean people in politics are on the right needs to do a Google Image Search on "Cheney" sometime. Geez.

    Senate Democrats wants to raise the debt ceiling to $13 trillion?!?
    Yikes! Oh, and if you're surprised that they're going to slip it into a defense-spending bill to sneak it through, well, then there's really not much I can do for you, quite frankly.

    Judges hear arguments in Daily Bread vs. Melbourne
    I'm not a big fan of the Daily Bread's expansion plans, but man, the City Council of Melbourne has had so many opportunities to resolve this issue over the past two years and has continually dropped the ball. They have nobody to blame for this lawsuit but themselves.

    Palm Bay council to vote on new rules for vegetation on vacant lots
    At issue: leaving adequate fire-breaks between built houses and scrub and brush on vacant homes. I'm not normally a big fan of telling people what to do with their own land, but letting scrub grow right up next to someone else's house is a fire hazard to them. When your private property rights threaten someone else's private property rights, something's gotta give.
     

    Crist's numbers drop; more sanity for our property tax system?
      Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Sorry these notes are so short today, but it's all I had time for. Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Charlie Crist's poll numbers continue to drop!
    Trouble for the incumbent? Governor Crist's overall approval number as governor
    is down to 48% in a recent poll, with 41 percent disapproving. Gee, I wonder if Crist embracing Obama's government stimulus bill in February or jacking up our driving fees had anything to do with that. Meanwhile, another poll shows the Republican primary race for next year's Senate election is tightening up as well. Crist still leads with 50% compared to 35% for former State House Speaker and true conservative Marco Rubio. A 15-point lead seems big... until you realize that Crist's lead was 29 points two months ago.

    Lawsuit challenges overly-complicated property tax structure
    Good to hear. I just wish the lawyer who filed the suit didn't sound like a nutcase. He literally made his argument to the court in the form of a fairy tale. I'm not making that up. But I wish him luck, because our current property tax system in this state is even nuttier than this lawyer. I hate property taxes anyway... they're the only tax that can go up while your income goes down, even when the government leaves the tax rate the same. FairTax, anyone?

    School Board and union clash over health care trust fund numbers
    Who's got it right? Good question. I actually talked about this on the air with School Board member Amy Kneessy last Thursday, and you can listen to that interview right here on my website!

    Fire inspector shuts down a private business's haunted house
    Or did she? It's a he-said-she-said argument over private property rights. I could easily see a fire inspector over-reacting and ordering everything taken down, but I could also easily see someone who fears government agents over-reacting and mis-interpreting what they said too. Hard to tell what really happened here.

    Are you ready for Viera to get even bigger?
    Viera sure is.
     

    American flags are "offensive" now? And make a decision already, Obama!
      Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    American flag remains under attack
    I didn't get to this story on the show yesterday, but I posted it up here on the website. A suburban Philadelphia firefighter was
    suspended without pay over an American flag sticker on his locker. Someone else had recently put an offensive poster up on their own locker, which prompted the fire chief to declare that nothing could go up on lockers without the chief's permission. Firefighter James Krapf figured that his tiny little American flag sticker was safe, since they also fly the flag outside of the fire station and wear it on their uniforms. But nope. According to the chief, it was an unapproved locker decoration and had to come down, even though nobody else had complained about it. Krapf refused, and boom! He was suspended without pay.

    Today, there's an update. The firefighter immediately appealed the case, and with the help of his union, Krapf got re-instated and will be paid his docked pay, and he gets to keep the flag sticker on his locker door. But I can't believe it took a two-hour negotiation to resolve this. This is what happens when authority figures choose to bring down the hammer on everyone instead of applying logic and common-sense to resolve issues. One person puts up an offensive poster on their locker? You tell him to take it down. Problem solved. If it becomes a repeat issue, then you make a rule saying any locker decorations have to be pre-approved. And if someone puts up something without permission but it's not offensive, you grant them permission on-the-spot but also warn them not to go around you again.

    Stupid blanket rules like this just cause authority figures to back themselves into a corner. Let the sticker stay up? It's seen as a challenge to your authority. Order the sticker to come down? You look like an overbearing jerk. There's no way to win when you impose a blanket rule like this. That's why you don't impose blanket rules like this in the first place!

    (Oh, and in case you missed it on my website yesterday, remember that Oregon apartment complex last week that tried to ban all American flags? They've backed down. Good.)

    Obama STILL doesn't know when he's going to make a decision on Afghanistan?
    You HAVE to be kidding me. Your own general asked for these troops in AUGUST, Mr. President! Don't tell me it's going to take less time for Afghanistan to hold their runoff election than it will take for you to make a troop decision! This is getting ridiculous.

    Rep. Bill Posey wants single-issue-bills in the House of Representatives
    Bill Posey continues to impress me. It's an uphill battle for sure, but requiring that each bill in Congress address one topic and one topic only is something I've wanted for a while. The Florida state legislature already has this rule in place, and it seems to me that doesn't stop them from doing the state's business.

    NOAA unveils high-speed satellite video of 2008 Atlantic hurrican season
    I just love things like this. Enjoy!
     

    Crist re-writes history, Obama relaxes on medical marijuana, and more flu vaccine news
      Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 7:15pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Charlie Crist wants you to forget the past
    Okay, I know it was a LOOOOOOOONG time ago -- February 2009. Eight long months ago. Ancient history, right? But unless I'm mis-remembering, didn't Governor Charlie Crist
    endorse President Barack Obama's stimulus package? Wasn't he one of only a handful of Republican governors to do so?

    So why is Crist now running not just one but two campaign radio ads attacking Obama for trying to overspend our way out of the recession? Does he really think we're this stupid?

    This is how desperate Charlie Crist is to win the Senate seat in 2010. He's willing to try to re-write history that took place earlier this year, because he knows his record and reputation with conservative Republicans is rock-bottom right now. Primary challenger Marco Rubio has far more credibility as a conservative and is quickly closing the sizeable gap in the polls that Governor Crist's name recognition once gave him. The more attention people pay to this Senate race, the lower Crist's poll numbers are sliding, and that's never good for an incumbent.

    Crist has to win the Republican primary first, and if he loses to Rubio, his entire political career could unravel right there. And for a man like Charlie Crist for whom politics IS his career, that's unacceptable. So the list of things Crist won't be willing to do to win the primary is going to start getting shorter and shorter as his lead in the polls continues to evaporate and as he starts getting more desperate.

    Another laughable claim in Crist's radio ad is that he held the line on taxes, refusing to let them go up and actually cutting them. Let's review, shall we? The state sales tax rate is still 6%; it didn't get raised, but it didn't get cut either. He pushed through a legislative change to the property tax system in 2007 that was supposed to cut what we pay to local governments, but the results were mixed at best. Some people are paying less, some are paying more, and the whole property tax system ended up far more complicated than before. He's also trying to take credit for the "Save Our Homes" portability amendment vote in early 2008, but it was the voters who passed that, not Crist, and again the results have been mixed on that too.

    Then there's the latest state budget... you know, the one that included a huge increase in cigarette taxes? The one that jacked up the fees that we pay to the state government for car registrations, driver's licenses, business permits, and pretty much any little piece of paper that gives us permission from the government to live our lives? Those fees all went up. Crist would respond by saying that, hey, those are fees, not taxes, and our state taxes didn't go up. Sorry, Charlie, but if I have to pay money to the government in order to drive, that's a tax on driving. And if you make that cost more, you just increased my taxes. Call it whatever you want, Governor Crist, but at the end of this year there will be less money in my wallet and more money in the state's coffers thanks to your actions in Tallahassee. This budget was your baby. You pushed for it. You pushed HARD for it. And you signed it into law. It's yours, Governor. And now you're gonna own it.

    Obama to loosen federal stance against medical marijuana?
    Good. I think California gets way too loose with medical marijuana, to be honest, but marijuana is both less addictive and less potent than legal painkillers like codeine and morphine. We trust doctors and pharmacists to dispense powerfully mind-altering and horribly-addictive drugs already; there's no reason not to add marijuana to that list. I'm not saying throw the doors open entirely and legalize everything. But if there's a legitimate medical use for a substance, it should be available for that legitimate medical use. Period.

    Woman gets rare nerve disorder from seasonal flu vaccine
    Is everyone who gets the seasonal flu vaccine going to be left horribly disabled? No, not even close. But cases like this do happen -- rarely, yes, but they happen. You need to know about it so you can make an informed decision for yourself on whether or not the risks of the vaccine outweight the risks of the seasonal flu. Knowledge is power.

    Brevard judge agrees to pay fine for negative campaign flier
    Interesting story. I remember this campaign from last year, and I remember getting that flier from Michelle Baker's campaign and being turned off by it.

    Melbourne Councilwomen accuse each other of violating state's must-vote law
    People are talking about this, but it's not much of a story. Kathy Meehan did the right thing abstaining from a vote that could've benefitted her financially, and everyone knew Joanne Corby's stance on the city budget when she walked out of the council meeting after her argument with Mayor Goode -- an argument in which Goode was in the wrong, by the way. This is a distraction, and both Meehan and Corby need to get over it and move on.

    Oregon apartment complex reverses flag-ban
    Common-sense prevails!

    Pennsylvania firefighter suspended over American flag sticker on locker door
    Why? Because he didn't get permission. Okay, simple solution: grant him permission and move on. End of argument!
     

    Audio of the Amy Kneessy interview is available!
      Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 9:45pm

    Last Thursday night on The Vince Young Show, I interviewed Brevard School Board member Amy Kneessy over the telephone about the deficit in the school employee health care trust fund and the School Board's recent decision to avoid that deficit by charging school employees more for their health insurance. She provided a lot of good information. In case you missed it or want to hear it again, I'm making it available for download as an MP3 file right here on VinceYoung.com! Just right-click on the link below, and then click on "Save As."

    VY-101509-1.mp3 - Vince Young interviews Amy Kneessy on WMEL on 10/15/2009
     

    Amy Kneessy on the show tonight! And is health care a right?
      Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 6:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    School Board member Amy Kneessy on the show tonight
    I've just received word that School Board member Amy Kneessy will be on tonight's episode of The Vince Young Show. She'll be on with us in the first segment of the program to shed some light on
    yesterday's topic of what happened to the school employee health care trust fund and how it ended up with a deficit of $12 million, and I'll ask her what she thinks of the reaction of the employee unions and their proposed solution of raiding the emergency fund to cover the deficit. Don't miss it!

    Skeptical crowd at health care forum
    Last night's health care forum in Cocoa by the Tiger Bay Club drew some interesting quotes from attendees. Just read through the Florida Today article on the forum. Lots of skepticism, even from the people who would supposedly be helped the most by reform. One woman with a pre-existing condition and already sky-high health care costs told Florida Today she was afraid the reform proposal would make her health care cost even more! It's clear that we the people do not want a huge government solution to the legitimate problem of skyrocketing health care and health insurance costs in this country. Scott Rasmussen's latest polling data backs that up: 50% of respondents oppose the reform plans in Congress, while only 44% support those plans.

    Is health care a right?
    One argument I keep hearing in this debate is whether or not health care is a right. Many liberals say health care IS a right, while many conservatives argue it's not a right but is actually a privelege, and that nothing in the Constitution or any of the Amendments specifically mentions any right to health care. To be honest, I cringe when I hear my fellow conservatives say that, because it sounds too cold-hearted and callous, and risks turning people off who we need on our side to stop this mess from passing Congress. But more importantly, I think many conservatives have this wrong anyway: health care IS a right.

    Check out the 9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Just because a right is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution doesn't mean we don't have it. We absolutely have a right to health care as citizens of the United States of America.

    But what, exactly, does that mean when you say we have a right to anything? What it means is that government is not allowed to stop us from getting things we have a right to get. What it DOESN'T mean is that government has to PROVIDE it to us.

    Right to free speech? Congress can't stop us from expressing our views. But that doesn't mean Congress has to provide us all with printing presses, microphones, or websites. We have to do that ourselves.

    Right to practice our religion? Congress can't say any religion is the official religion of the USA, or pass any laws banning us from practing our religion. But that doesn't mean Congress has to build our churches or give us free bus rides to Sunday services.

    Right to bear arms? Congress can't ban us from owning firearms. But that doesn't mean Congress has to buy us a semi-automatic rifle, a Glock, or that Red Ryder BB Gun.

    Right to health care? Absolutely. Congress can't ban us from going to the doctor or a hospital, or from taking medicine. But that doesn't mean Congress has to pay for everyone's health care.

    Why doesn't Congress have to provide us with these things, even though they're rights? Because Congress doesn't have any money on its own. The only way Congress can get the money to pay for these things is to take it away from us by force in the form of taxes. So, it wouldn't be Congress paying for any of those rights anyway. WE would be the ones paying for them.

    What do you prefer: buying a health care plan of your own choosing with your own money? Or having the government take your money away from you, skimming some off the top for "operating expenses," and then choosing and buying a health care plan for you regardless of whether or not that's the plan you want?

    It's your choice, America. Choose wisely.

    Florida's got a brand new bag?
    Florida's Department of Environmental Protection wants to ban plastic AND paper grocery bags within the next five years, and tax those bags in the meantime. Now look, I care about the environment as much as the next guy. In my household we try to use re-usuable cloth bags when we shop for groceries, for practical reasons as much as for environmental reasons. The cloth bags hold more, they're stronger, they're more comfortable for me to carry, and I just prefer them over plastic bags overall anyway. I also see more and more people doing the same thing on their own, for their own reasons. But why is government getting involved in this decision? The only proper role of government is to preserve, protect and defend our rights to life, liberty and property. How, exactly, is my choice of grocery bag included in that at all? A government that can tell you what sort of BAG you are or aren't allowed to use is a government with far too much power.
     

    Health care forum tonight, school employees protest, and Titusville goes overboard
      Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 6:45pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Health care forum is TONIGHT!
    I'm hoping for a strong showing from the WMEL audience at tonight's Tiger Bay Club Health Care Forum. The forum is free and open to the public, and it runs from 7:00pm to 8:30pm tonight at the BCC Cocoa Campus in the Simpkins Fine Arts Center.
    Details here. President Obama's health care "reform" plans are starting to gain traction in Congress again, so our work in averting this disaster is not over yet. Matt Reed from Florida Today will be there along with several "experts," and it's important for these people who have the ears of lawmakers to hear from us too. Be polite, but be firm. And if you attend, be sure to call in to The Vince Young Show tonight with a full report! The phone number is 631-1300.

    Employees to School Board: show me the money!
    Back in late September, the Brevard County School Board voted 3-2 to jack up the cost of health insurance for all school employees: teachers, administrators, janitors, bus drivers, everyone. The School Board will now cover less of the cost of each insurance policy, forcing each employee to pay more to cover the difference. (Amy Kneessy and Barbara Murray cast the 2 No-votes.) The vote came in response to a projected $12 million deficit that was about to open up in the employee health care trust fund. The school employees and unions have reacted -- of course -- angrily, wearing all-black to work on Tuesday as a protest and getting loud at School Board hearings. My gut reaction was to write them all off as whiners who didn't understand we're in a tough economy and that everyone is having to cut back. But I held back on my radio show, because I had a feeling there was something to the story I was missing. I'm glad I did.

    The central question that keeps coming up is this: why was there a $12 million-hole in the employee health care trust fund to begin with? Who took that money out? What was it spent on, and why? And who knew? I'm hearing all sorts of accusations back and forth, with both School Board members and employee union officials claiming the other side has the facts wrong. There's also confusion over the School Board's emergency fund, which the unions want to raid in order to shore up the health care trust fund... which is exactly the sort of fund-raiding that tore a $12 million-hole in the health care trust fund to begin with.

    I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm not sure I agree with the unions on raiding the emergency fund. And their protest methods and overheated rhetoric pushed me away from their side at first and have probably done more to harm their own cause than to help it. But the more I look into this, the more sympathetic I get towards the frustration of the employees. Something doesn't smell right to me. Plus this basically amounts to a pay-cut for teachers. I'm not nearly as concerned about the pay of the other support staff, to be frank, but I've believed for a long time that teachers are grossly underpaid: $44,586 per year on average here in Brevard County. That in turn leads to many of the people who could be our best teachers to pursue more lucrative careers instead. And that leaves us with an uneven mix: some dedicated teachers who do it for the love of the children, and some who become teachers simply because they don't have the job skills to compete in the private sector and who enjoy the near-immunity of being a government employee. That's not what's best for our kids.

    I do know this: I'm not done with this topic. I'm just getting started, and I hope to get more answers soon.

    (EDIT at 9:05pm: I know one thing that'll help the school budget: being smarter about school renovation projects. Nice statue, Merritt Island High School! Too bad it won't help one student learn a single thing about math, science or history.)

    Titusville City Council goes overboard with new car repair restrictions
    I talked last night about Titusville's overly-strict restrictions on car repair in residential neighborhoods, and it looks like it got final approval last night. The vote was 4-1, with Mayor Jim Tully casting the lone No-vote. Look, I agree that loud, prolonged car-repair projects are a legitimate problem, but so is sending code enforcement officers over privacy fences and into people's back yards to fine citizens for doing things that aren't harming their neighbors one bit. I'm fine with the noise limits between 8pm and 7am, because people need to sleep. I can go with the 72-hour limit on repair projects, though I'm iffy on that. I understand limiting the number of cars that can be under repair at the same time so that people aren't running a car repair business in a neighborhood, but why not a two-car limit instead of the one-car limit Titusville just passed? God forbid you might have two cars that both break down at the same time, I guess.

    But telling me the car has to be in a garage and CAN'T be in my yard, even though it's behind a privacy fence where nobody can see it? What if I have an old house that doesn't HAVE a garage? I'm sorry, but if I've put up a fence so that my neighbor doesn't have to be troubled by the horrible, horrible sight of me fixing my own car, the least my neighbor can do is stop going out of their way to look over my fence to see what I'm up to so he can sic code enforcement on me. Mind your own business, and don't tell me what I can do on my own land if it's not hurting you.

    Just another classic example of government over-reacting to a legitimate problem and hitting more than just their intended targets.

    Governor Charlie Crist wants a grand jury to investigate corruption in South Florida?
    Good. Hey, I may not love the guv'nah, but when he gets one right, he deserves credit.
     

    Code enforcement! Grumpy prosecutors! The Senate Finance Committee! RUN!!!
      Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 6:30pm

    (Whoa, two updates in a row. Wow, huh?)

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Titusville Code Enforcement: coming soon to YOUR backyard!
    That's right, Titusville! YOU could soon have Code Enforcement officers
    right there in your own back yard -- literally! Exciting, huh? The Titusville City Council is set to vote at their meeting tonight, Tuesday night at 6:30pm, on a new city code which would make it a violation to store cars outside in your side yard or back yard. Have a privacy fence? Can't see the car from the street at all? Sorry, doesn't matter. All it would take is one phone call from your crabby next door neighbor, and you could have a Code Enforcement officer hopping your fence to write you a ticket. The new rules also restrict noise levels between 8pm and 7am, and that part I have no problem with. But come on, Titusville... if it's on my property and it's behind a fence where nobody can see it, how am I harming anyone? Government's proper role is to preserve, protect and defend people's rights to life, liberty, and property. That's it. And silly rules like this go far beyond that role.

    Health care co-op bill passes Senate Finance Committee
    Oh, goodie. With a single vote from RINO Olympia Snowe and united Democratic support, the Senate Finance Committee has passed the health care co-op bill by a 14-9 vote. This bill alarms me slightly less than the House bill, but only slightly. The good news? The Democrats still have a LOT to overcome just to get these bills to the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate, let alone actually getting the bills to PASS. And THEN they have to find a way to merge the two bills into a final version, get THAT bill to the floor of each house of Congress, and get THAT passed. The bad news? It's been a while since the Democrats have had any good press about health care "reform," and today not only gives them a marginal sign of progress, but it also allows them to claim this effort is "bipartisan" thanks to Senator Snowe.

    Tiger Bay Health Care Forum at BCC Cocoa Campus tomorrow night
    So, did the Senate Finance Committee vote today make you nervous? Here's your chance to do something about it. I want a great showing from my audience at tomorrow night's health care forum from the Tiger Bay Club at the BCC Cocoa Campus tomorrow night, Wednesday, October 14th, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm. It's free, it's open to the public, and Matt Reed from Florida Today will be there with some health care "experts." Let's fill the Simpkins Fine Arts Center and push back this health care "reform" bill! Details here. And if you go, I expect you to call me tomorrow night on the program with a full report. 631-1300 is the phone number, of course.

    Did you know that the swine flu vaccine "doesn't cause flu"?
    Florida Today needs to study up on how vaccines work a little more. That's just the nature of vaccines. Every now and then, when you intentionally inject people with live, weakened viruses, they'll get sick from it. That doesn't mean you should avoid all vaccines entirely, but geez, how can a supposedly well-researched newspaper get such a basic fact wrong about vaccines? And that's not even considering the fact that the clinical trials on the swine flu vaccine aren't even done yet! How can anyone say with ANY certainty right now what this swine flu vaccine will or won't do? We just won't know until the clinical studies are done.

    Prosecutor Norm Wolfinger doesn't want any compensation for William Dillon?
    Jerk. Yeah, let's convict a guy thanks to gross police and prosecutorial misconduct, keep him in jail for 27 years, and then not pay him a penny when we discover he didn't commit the crime. "Oops! Sorry. Our bad!" That's not good enough.

    Oregon apartment complex bans American flags!
    But it's not working. Good.

    So, what do you do when a judge orders you to stop filing frivolous lawsuits?
    File a lawsuit, of course.
     

    Swine flu! Global warming! The Nobel Prize committee! RUN!!!
      Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 7:00pm

    (Whoa, a website update. Wow, huh?)

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Swine flu vaccine! Getchyer swine flu vaccine heeeaaah!
    The CDC says we should all be good little boys and girls and get our swine flu vaccine, because
    it's perfectly safe. Never mind that it was rushed into production and is still going through clinical trials that haven't even been finished yet. Never mind that the 1976 swine flu outbreak led to 301 deaths: 1 from the flu, 300 from the vaccine, with thousands more left partially paralyzed by a rushed, untested vaccine.

    President Obama won the Nobel Peace prize
    So? That prize has been a joke since Yasser Arafat won in it 1994 for promising not to blow up quite as many Jews. (He broke that promise, by the way.) I'm supposed to be outraged over someone winning a worthless award that they didn't even earn? Sorry, got more important things to be upset about.

    Tiger Bay Health Care Forum at BCC Cocoa Campus on Wednesday night
    The event runs from 7:00pm to 8:30pm and is free and open to the public. It'll be held in the Simpkins Fine Arts Center, and Matt Reed from Florida Today will be there along with some health care "experts." If you've been itchin' for another town hall meeting to make some noise at, this should do. Details here.

    Obama wants to end the military's Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy
    Is it time? Maybe... IF the ability to recruit and keep good soldiers who happen to be gay outweighs the damage to morale among the current soldiers in the military. Given our slowly-relaxing moral attitudes on homosexuality, that day will come some day, if it hasn't already. But make no mistake: the ONLY consideration that should go into this decision is whichever outcome will help us fight and win wars better. There's no room on this topic for anyone's moral attitudes, either from the left OR from the right. If it will save soldiers' lives, do it. If it won't, don't do it.

    BBC asks: what happened to global warming?
    EXCELLENT article, and once again it's left to the British media to ask difficult questions and deal with difficult facts that the American media doesn't want to face. But keep in mind, the global warming debate is about CLIMATE, not weather. There's a difference. I don't care that Montana and Idaho are having record cold temperatures; that's weather, not climate. That doesn't prove global warming false, just like the record highs in Florida at the exact same time don't prove global warming true either.

    Roman Polanski is depressed in jail?
    Aww, poor baby. I wonder if his lawyer was just as concerned for the mental and emotional well-being of the 13-year-old girl his client drugged and raped.
     

    The City of Rockledge and the Sunshine Law
      Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 3:30am

    (No, I'm not dead. Just busy.)

    The city government of Rockledge is in for it now. Why did they think they could get away with breaking the Sunshine Law? I believe they tried to, and I intend to do something about it.

    If you've listened to The Vince Young Show on WMEL with any regularity, you've heard me talk before about Aquifer Storage and Recovery. (Links here, here, and here if you want more details.) In a nutshell, ASR is the insane plan by the City of Rockledge to take partially-treated sewage water and pump it directly underground to be stored and used later for irrigation purposes. No, not in an underground tank. Directly underground. Right into the soil. Right next to the aquifer. The city's engineers say it's perfectly safe and that the treated sewage won't pollute the aquifer, but there are enough scientists who disagree with them that I oppose the city's ASR plan. So do many Rockledge residents.

    But anyway, you probably already know what I think about ASR, and this post isn't about ASR. It's about the Sunshine Law.

    See, here in the State of Florida, there's a law called the Sunshine Law. (Section 286.011 of the Florida Statutes, if you're curious.) If you boil down all the legalese, it's pretty simple. If you're an elected or appointed government official and you want to discuss public or governmental business with another government official, you have to do it in public; "in the sunshine," as it were. That means you have to hold that discussion in a public meeting that anybody can attend, you have to advertise that meeting ahead of time so that people will know when and where it is and what will be discussed, and you have to have minutes of the meeting taken down and made available to the public afterwards.

    Now, there's exceptions and loopholes meant to safeguard personal privacy and other concerns in there, of course. And there's even some leeway in there for information-gathering, such as if a city council member has a factual question about an upcoming issue they'll be voting on and they know the City Manager can answer it. But that's basically the Sunshine Law.

    Of course, since politicians are weasels, ever since the Sunshine Law has been in effect in Florida, politicians have been looking for clever ways around it. Hey, sometimes it can just be so darn pesky for the public to find out what you're up to. And that's why, over the years, the courts here in Florida have had to continuously slap the hands of politicians who have tried to come up with clever and original ways around the Sunshine Law. The message from the courts has been clear. If you're trying to get around the Sunshine Law without actually breaking it, you're actually breaking it. So don't try.

    That didn't stop Rockledge City Manager Jim McKnight from trying.

    Florida Today reporter Rebecca Basu donned her investigative journalist hat recently and made a public-records request with the city of Rockledge for Jim McKnight's e-mails. Last Friday, July 24th, she reported on what she found. Last month, Rockledge City Manager Jim McKnight organized a series of successive, rapid-fire, one-on-one meetings between each member of the Rockledge City Council and a city engineer to discuss Aquifer Storage and Recovery, one meeting for each Council member. The meetings were not publicized in advance, they were held in secret with no public notification whatsoever, and they were only made known to the public thanks to Rebecca Basu's excellent reporting. Were it not for her, we the public would never have found out about these meetings at all. Keep in mind, they happened in June. It's now almost August. When, exactly, was anybody from the City of Rockledge going to mention that these meetings took place? Probably never.

    Now, of course, City Manager Jim McKnight and the City Council members are scrambling to explain why this is all legal and why it doesn't actually violate the Sunshine Act. Their main argument is that it's okay due to the technicality that the City Council members never discussed the issue with each other, just with the city engineer, and that the City Council members met one at a time with the engineers. As such, they claim the Sunshine Law doesn't apply, and oh, gee, that means they didn't have to publicly announce these secret meetings ahead of time or deal with the anti-ASR protestors who would've shown up at those meetings if they were held in public. In short, they weren't actually breaking the Sunshine Law.

    Remember what I wrote above? If you're trying to get around the Sunshine Law without actually breaking it, you're actually breaking it.

    I went on MyFlorida.gov on Monday and found the Government In The Sunshine Manual, a manual published by the state government each year to explain to city and county government officials what they are and aren't allowed to do under the Sunshine Law. Not exciting to read, no, but whoever wrote it did a reasonable job of staying in plain English and keeping the Legalese to a minimum. It's 139 pages long, but I'm going to direct you to page 19 in particular.

    Page 19. That's the page that gives three examples of various governmental bodies trying to sneak around the Sunshine Law and getting caught at it, with judges eventually ruling that what these governments had tried to do was illegal. All three examples are virtually the same. An appointed government official (a school superintendent or a city manager) held a series of successive, rapid-fire, individual meetings with elected government officials (from the school board or the city council) to discuss an issue in secret, without any public disclosure of those meetings before or afterwards. The judges all held that the appointed official was acting as a go-between for the individual elected officials, and that since all of those one-on-one meetings were pre-arranged for the purpose of discussing the same topic, they actually constituted a school board meeting or a city council meeting -- which means they should've been held "in the sunshine," not in secret.

    See, not only were Rockledge City Manager Jim McKnight's actions illegal, they were also unoriginal. You really think nobody's ever tried this stunt before, Jim? Nice try.

    Now I'll direct you to Page 43, which talks about the penalties for violating the Sunshine Law. If convicted in a court of law, the City Manager and each City Council member could face 60 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both. It's just a misdemeanor, after all. But more importantly, Governor Charlie Crist could suspend or even remove every last one of them from office if they're convicted. That would probably sting worse than any fine or jail time.

    I could be wrong on all of this, by the way. I Am Not A Lawyer. My sole legal qualifications consist of obsessively watching reruns of Law & Order and CSI. There could very well be some technical wrinkle in the Sunshine Law that helps the entire city government of Rockledge skate on this. But even if that's the case, the mere fact that the City Manager and the City Council tried to hide these meetings at all, legal or illegal, should be a major red flag to every citizen of Rockledge. All of these officials have clearly forgotten that they work for us. They don't get to decide what we the people do or don't need to know about.

    Come election time, if they haven't already been kicked out by Governor Crist, every last one of these arrogant clowns needs to be kicked out by us, the voters.

    I'm taking all of this to the State Attorney. Stay tuned...
     

    Radio schedule for this week: June 1st through June 5th
      Monday, June 4th, 2009 at 12:30pm

    Looks like I'll only have two three episodes of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL this week: tonight (Monday 6/1), and tomorrow night (Tuesday 6/2), and a shortened half-hour show on Thursday night 6/3. On Wednesday and Friday nights WMEL will be covering high school sports, and on Thursday night we'll be carrying Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Orlando Magic and the LA Lakers.

    But as always, I'll make the best of what I have. Remember, my show is your best chance to make your opinion heard on the big news stories of the day, both local and national, so call in during the show at 321-631-1300 to get on the air! And you can hear WMEL online from the website at http://1300wmel.com.

    Talk to you tonight at 8pm!

    EDIT (6/4 at 6:15pm): I've been told that Thursday night's pre-game show before Game 1 won't start until 8:35pm, which means I'll be able to squeeze in a half-hour version of The Vince Young Show on Thursday night at 8:00pm as well. Hence, the edits above. Hey, I'll take it!
     

    Crist sides with state workers over taxpayers: radio links from 5/27
      Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 12:15pm

    I swear, one of these days I'll be caught up enough to be able to update my website with news links on the same day that I talk about them on the radio, but anyway... here's what I talked about on the previous edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL, last Wednesday night, 5/27.

  • Governor Charlie Crist signed the state's $66.5 billion budget last week and only used his line-item veto to get rid of two things. One of them was the planned pay cut for all state employees making over $45,000 a year, a pay cut that would have saved the taxpayers $30 million. As State Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson put it, "It sends a message to all other lawmakers that state workers are important." I guess it also sends a message that we the taxpayers are NOT important, especially since he left in all of the increased fees for car registrations, licenses and other state services. He also left in the cigarette tax increase that will somehow miraculously increase revenue and simultaneously get people to quit smoking. Never mind that you can't have both... it's one or the other. If fewer people are smoking after the tax hike that means fewer people are paying the tax... which means lower tax revenue. Just ask New York.

  • Remember, that pay cut proposal was the same one that prompted state employees in Tallahassee to stage a massive protest back in April. On a workday. In the middle of the day. To demonstrate how important they were, I guess. Meanwhile, with a large percentage of the state's employees skipping out on their jobs that day, the entire state of Florida somehow managed to survive the entire day without them and miraculously avoided descending into chaos and anarchy, thereby showing that we don't need most of those workers to begin with. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: government is not a jobs program. Government employees have no right to demand that we the taxpayers continue to pay them to perform unneeded tasks. And I refuse to be called "greedy" for wanting to cut them off. They are the greedy ones for forcing me to pay them to do things that don't need to be done!

  • Brevard School Superintendent Richard DiPatri's proposal for a school-funding property tax hike was approved 5-0 by the School Board. Okay, it will only add $8.40 a year to the average tax bill in Brevard, and if I'm going to have to pay an extra $8.40 in taxes anyway, it might as well go to the schools. But the School Board isn't the only branch of government that wants a second chance at reaching into my wallet. City, county, state, federal... all levels of government are hurting for cash right now, and since cutting spending is hard and raising taxes is easy, they're all looking for ways to raise taxes. If all of them take an extra $8.40 each out of my wallet, that's gonna start adding up. Credit to Dr. DiPatri for also cutting some fat out of the school budget along with this tax hike. But I still don't like that he framed this with the usual false choice of either we raise taxes or we'll have to lay-off teachers, as if he had already found and trimmed every last ounce of fat from the school budget. There's plenty more we can still cut before we have to lay-off teachers... how about eliminating those redundant middle-management "area superintendents" from the payroll, for starters?

  • Something every government official should keep in mind before they reflexively try to raise taxes to balance their budgets... the state of Maryland last year tried to solve their budget deficit by creating a new, extra-high state income tax bracket for millionaires. But instead of paying the extra tax, one-third of Maryland's millionaires simply moved out of state, taking themselves off of the state income tax rolls and leaving an even bigger $100 million gap in the state's budget. Oops. When will government learn that the only viable option to get rid of budget deficits is to cut wasteful spending?!? Raising taxes does not always lead to higher tax revenues, something that anyone with a basic grasp of economic theory already knows. Why doesn't government know this already?

  • And finally, here's the old story I mentioned from Europe about parked cars getting ticketed for speeding by automated speed cameras. But yeah, nothing can ever go wrong with speed cameras or red-light cameras. They all work perfectly, with zero errors. Nothing to worry about here.
     

    Red light cameras come to Cocoa Beach: radio links from 5/25
      Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 10:00am

    Here's what I talked about on Monday night on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL:

    Cocoa Beach City Commission approves red light cameras
    Still no story on this from Florida Today, but you can see
    video of the debate here: just pull up the video for the May 21st meeting and then skip ahead to the 36:45 mark. The vote was 4-1, with Vice-Mayor Kevin Pruett once again giving the only NO vote, so it's a done deal now. Red-light traffic cameras will be coming to Cocoa Beach. At least it's a video-based system instead of a photo-based system, but the videos will still be reviewed by a private company, which means anyone who drives through Cocoa Beach will potentially be vulnerable to abuses just like this, or like this.

    Of course, the City Commissioners who voted YES all said this was about traffic safety, not revenue. But if it was really about traffic safety, they would've taken the action that would've reduced red-light running and red-light crashes by 80% and has proven to be far more effective than red-light cameras: making yellow lights last a second longer. Norcross, GA, Denver, CO, and several other cities in Georgia can all tell you: making the yellow light a second longer does far more good than putting up red light cameras. But you can't make any extra money from adding a second to the yellow light, so no surprise which option Cocoa Beach picked.

    Oh, and five City Commission members, and not a single one of them did any research to find these stories? Not even the sole NO-voter, Kevin Pruett? Shame on all of you. When you're not even willing to spend a few minutes on Google to research something before you vote on it, you're failing your citizens badly.

    Other stories:

  • It looks like the long fight between Courtney Roberts and Brevard County may be over soon, and this is not a happy ending. Remember, a county employee carried out an illegal personal vendetta against Roberts that halted the construction of his new house for almost two years and directly caused immense to that house and to his financial stability -- all facts that nobody disputes, by the way, not even the County. Despite all this, state law apparently caps his damages at $200,000, which doesn't come anywhere close to reimbursing Courtney Roberts for what he's been through. The only way around it at this point is either a court appeal or getting Tallahassee to approve a one-time exception to that cap, both long-shots. It just goes to show how throughly screwed you can get due to just one government worker with a grudge. And some of you out there want that same government employee to be in charge of your health care? Yikes.

  • President Obama says, "We are out of money now." Tell us something we don't know, Mr. President!

  • North Korea joins the nuclear club. Oh, goodie. What's the over-under on how long before they start selling nuclear warheads to radical Islamic terrorists?

    Oh, and of course, I'll be back live on the air tonight, Wednesday, May 27th at 8:00pm on AM-1300 WMEL for another episode of The Vince Young Show. Talk to you then, and be sure to call in at 321-631-1300.
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/18, 5/19 and 5/21
      Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 11:30am

    First of all, Happy Memorial Day! For most people, today will be a fun day of rest or recreation, and there's nothing wrong with that. But at some point, please take some time to remember the true purpose of this holiday: to honor the memory of all the soldiers who have fallen in battle to defend freedom, to defend this nation, and to defend innocent people around the world.

    The Vince Young Show will be live tonight at 8:00pm on AM-1300 WMEL, so don't worry; no pre-taped holiday show here! Tune in tonight... my brother Andy is in town, and I'm trying to convince him to do the show together with me, and trust me, you won't want to miss that. You can also call in, of course, at 321-631-1300.

    Speaking of the radio show, wow, I was a bad webmaster last week, but better late than never! Here's what I talked about last week on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL:

    Richard DiPatri wants to raise your taxes!
    Tomorrow night, Tuesday May 26th at 5:30pm, the Brevard County School Board will have their next regular meeting. You will want to be there, because on the agenda is a proposal for a property tax increase for school funding. Florida Today ran several stories on this last week (
    here, here and here), but I found it interesting that Superintendent Richard DiPatri is resorting to the ol' political blackmail trick: "Let us raise your taxes, or we'll have to lay-off teachers!" How 'bout trimming more fat from the school budget instead? Dr. DiPatri's budget proposal does actually include some worthwhile spending cuts that will make Brevard's schools run more efficiently, but DiPatri needed to go further along those same lines in order to close the funding gap. Instead, he decided to stop short, because it's always easier to ask us to pay more taxes than it is to make the hard decisions to cut spending. We're taxed enough already. Head to Viera on Tuesday night and make sure the School Board knows it!

    Other stories:

  • For the first time ever, Gallup's poll on abortion opinions showed that a majority of Americans now call themselves "pro-life." Interesting news, coming on the heels of President Obama's speech at Notre Dame, but as always, the devil is in the details.

  • Note to the Palm Bay Police: I know you're upset about the unpaid days off that Palm Bay is forcing on detectives and support-staffers to easy the city's budget crunch, but is filing a lawsuit really the answer? You're just going to cost the city more money in legal fees and make it even harder for the city to meet its budget! How about just trying to get new people elected to the City Council instead?

  • Attorney General Bill McCollum announced he's running for governor in 2010. I do not understand why so many people are declaring their candidacy for statewide elections that are 18 months away!

  • President Obama calls our current budget deficits "unsustainable." NOW he tells us!

  • President Obama still wants to close Gitmo by the end of the year, but not even the Democrats in Congress like his plan. Is a 90-6 Senate vote veto-proof? I think so...

  • The office of Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker forgot to tell the State Attorney to extradite a violent sex offender back to Brevard from Oregon. Oops! He got released instead, and it's the second time this has happened this year. Get your office straightened out, Sheriff!

    Talk to you tonight on AM-1300 WMEL!
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/13
      Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 12:30pm

    Here's the belated links to the news stories I talked about on last Wednesday night's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL:

  • I'm sorry, but I still think people are getting too worked up over the swine flu. Last week's one-day closure of Golfview Elementary in Rockledge was strictly precautionary, nothing more. The only student at that school with a confirmed case of swine flu had already recovered from it by the time the test results came back. In fact, so many people with simple colds, regular flus and seasonal allergies are running to the doctor declaring "I have swine flu!" and demanding to be tested for swine flu that the state health department last week had to suspend all swine flu testing except in extreme cases. Swine flu has the potential to be serious and possibly even fatal even for healthy adults, but let's face it: for the vast majority of adults who get swine flu, the symptoms will be the same as the regular flu, the treatment will be the same as for the regular flu, and the outcome will be the same as for the regular flu. Do not panic!

  • Very glad to see last week's Palm Bay Works vote resulted in a resounding "NO." We didn't need to go into debt for 30 years to pay for road improvements that would only last 20 years, and other aspects of the bond issue were just way too vague. Some advice to Palm Bay City Councilman Milo Zonka... want this thing to pass? Make the bonds shorter, make the bonds smaller, and break this up into three seperate votes for road repaving, flood-control improvements, and "economic development" (whatever that meant). The first two will probably pass. You simply tried to bite off more than you could chew this time. Palm Bay has survived with crappy roads for the past 20 years, and there was no need to go massively into debt just to rush all these repaving plans into completion within the next 3 to 5.

  • In light of the news that Massachusetts is buying cars for welfare recipients who get jobs, I've got to say this. Just because an act is good doesn't mean government has to be the one to commit that act. For one thing, if the government doesn't have the money to pay for it, that should end the debate right there. (Not that either party in Congress gives a damn about that...) And even if that government has the money, often times there are private organizations and charities who can do the same good act far more efficiently. A government that just willy-nilly buys cars for people is just ripe for leeches to abuse the system. Government is a blunt instrument, a large and powerful tool that can accomplish big changes on a grand scale but is lousy for getting things right on an individual, person-by-person, case-by-case basis. If you had to go in for open heart surgery, would you rather the surgeon use a scalpel or a chainsaw?

  • State CFO Alex Sink is running for governor in 2010 as a Democrat. Watch out, Republicans... she's smart, she's crafty, and she's going to give you one hell of a fight.

  • Since when is it government's job to protect a business from having to compete for market share? Kudos to the Melbourne City Council for getting this one right.
     

    On the air tonight, 5/13; plus WMEL is now streaming online!
      Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 5:45pm

    First, a reminder that The Vince Young Show will be on the air tonight, Wednesday, May 13th at 8:00pm on AM-1300 WMEL for another hour of live-and-local talk. Call in at 321-631-1300 if you want to talk to me on the radio!

    But even better... AM-1300 WMEL has a new website up at http://1300wmel.com, and the station is now streaming online!

    I won't have a show Thursday night or Friday night due to WMEL's coverage of Orlando Magic basketball and high school baseball, so make sure you catch tonight's show. After tonight, I won't be on their again until next week, probably next Monday or Tuesday night.

    Talk to you tonight at 8pm!
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/11
      Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 5:00pm

    Here's the links to the news stories I talked about on Monday night's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL:

  • First of all, at their meeting last Thursday night, the Cocoa Beach City Commission voted 4-0 to postpone the final vote on bringing red-light traffic cameras to Cocoa Beach due to an absent City Commission member. The final vote will take place at their next meeting, next Thursday night, May 21st at 7:00pm right there at the Cocoa Beach City Hall. Update your plans! If the Orlando Magic playoff schedule allows, I'll see if I can be at that meeting to let them know what a bad idea this is. If you truly care about traffic safety and not just extra ticket revenue, forget cameras. Instead, make your yellow lights last one second longer. Just ask the city of Norcross, Georgia.

  • I've been pretty hard on the Brevard County School Board and on Florida Today for the confusion surrounding the possible pay rate for the new Superintendent of Schools. But now, we finally have an answer in the form of a specific contract offer to the new incoming super, Brian Binggeli: a base salary $202,000 per year, not counting retirement benefits. In contrast, Dr. Richard DiPatri's current base salary as super is $217,000 per year, so Binggeli will make less money. Good. Also, Binggeli will NOT be eligible for performance bonuses, and he'll only get a raise if Brevard's teachers also get the same raise themselves. Also good. The School Board will vote on this contract at their meeting on Wednesday night, and I hope it passes, because I like what I'm seeing.

  • Rockledge has been on edge this week after a small handful of confirmed and suspected cases of swine flu popped up at two nearby schools, leading to one school being shut down for cleaning on Monday but re-opening on Tuesday. One thing I noticed in the story is that by the time the confirmed results came back from the two students who turned out to have swine flu, they'd both already recovered. The CDC is just that far behind on testing for suspected swine flu cases right now, because too many people with a runny nose from their usual annual allergy fight are running to their doctor and saying "I've got swine flu!" Swine flu is more serious than the regular flu, the symptoms are pretty much the same: fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat. And the treatments are also the same. I just don't get the panic over this... if you do actually get the swine flu, odds are you're going to ride it out just fine unless you also have something else medically wrong with you already. Don't freak out. Go see your doctor, of course, but otherwise just get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids, and don't rely on hyperventilating TV news reports for health advice. (Come to think of it, don't rely on me either... but that's why I said to go see your doctor.)

  • Looks like Governor Charlie Crist is running for the US Senate in 2010. Oh, goodie. Since he's running for Senate, that means he won't be running for a second term as governor. Who will run to replace him? Hopefully not Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, who apparently is too stupid to be careful about personal travel when he's already under investigation for using state-owned airplanes for personal trips.

  • When you click the link for this story, you'll need to scroll down, but it looks like a judge has ordered Property Appraiser Jim Ford to pay for the legal fees of former Deputy Appraiser Lance Larsen, who was indicted on corruption charges last year during an investigation into Ford's office. The evidence against Larsen was ruled inadmissable in court which led to the charges being dropped, and state law required Ford's office to cover Larsen's legal fees as a result. Ford tried not to... no huge surprise, given his record of shady dealings as our Property Appraiser. Remember, the evidence didn't meet the judge's admissability rules for the narrow confines of that criminal case, but that evidence still painted a pretty damning picture of Jim Ford and his office, and has yet to be refuted as false by anyone. Always remember that.

  • And finally, I briefly mentioned this story on Monday night's show about an argument in one Cape Canaveral neighborhood over feral peacocks. Hey, I love those birds, but I understand the problems they create and the property damage they cause, and stopping that has to trump the pleasure of having pretty birds walking around. If the other residents want peacocks so badly in their neighborhood, they can build pens for them in their backyard and keep them out of their neighbors' yards. Sounds reasonable to me. Otherwise, get those birds out of there and into a more suitable habitat.
     

    On the air tonight, 5/11!
      Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 1:00pm

    Just a brief reminder that I will be on the air tonight, Monday, May 11th at 8:00pm for another live-and-local edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL! I'll be bringing you an update on the plans to bring red light cameras to Cocoa Beach and letting you know what happened at last week's Cocoa Beach City Commission meeting. I'll also take a look at the Palm Bay Works referendum. And I'll ask this question: if a government can spend money to accomplish something good, does that mean they should spend that money? Or should they get out of the way and let the private sector do it instead? That's all coming up tonight on The Vince Young Show.

    Call in at 321-631-1300!
     

    Vote "No" on Palm Bay Works
      Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:45pm

    Tomorrow, the residents of my home town of Palm Bay will vote on a special election for the Palm Bay Works bond referendum. The city wants to take out a $75,000,000 30-year bond to pay for a raft of road projects, infrastructure improvements, and economic development projects. I'm voting "No," and I encourage all Palm Bay residents to reject this massive spending plan.

    I'm not even going to get into whether or not these proposed projects are worthwhile. On the surface, spending money to pave roads, build sidewalks, and attract more businesses to Palm Bay all seem like good things to spend tax money on, though as always the devil is always in the details when government is involved. But for the sake of argument, let's just assume that there aren't any hidden turkeys in this plan, and that all of these projects are good ones.

    No matter how good these plans are, they are not worth going into $75,000,000 worth of debt for. Close to $5,000,000 of that money will be spent just on paying the interest on that debt over that 30-year period. Over 6% of that bond money, poof. Gone. Spent on interest payments while doing absolutely no good whatsoever to the citizens of Palm Bay.

    Consider, too, that this bond will last 30 years. We will be paying for the next 30 years for a road resurfacing that will likely last only 10 years, maybe 20. If you were to buy a car with the intent of keeping it for 5 years, would you agree to a car loan that would have you making payments for the next 15 years? I didn't think so. And whatever businesses get attracted to Palm Bay from the economic development spending, there is absolutely no guarantee that any of those businesses will still be around in 30 years.

    And of course, how will this bond be paid off? Increased property taxes. According to Florida Today, a homeowner with a $130,000 home and a $50,000 homestead exemption would see their property taxes go up by $80 a year in Palm Bay if this bond passes. Eighty bucks is no small amount in this economy, especially for someone already struggling to keep their mortgage paid up.

    I also don't understand the hurry here. Palm Bay City Councilman Milo Zonka, a staunch supporter of the bond, says this bond is the only way to get such a large chunk of Palm Bay's roads repaved in the next three years. Who says it all has to be finished in the next three years? Large swaths of Palm Bay have been dealing with potholes and dirt roads for over two decades now, and while it's annoying, people have found ways to deal with it. The city of Palm Bay has done just fine with a slow-but-steady repaving plan that has methodically gotten more and more of Palm Bay's roads up to par, and there is no pressing need to speed up that process right now. If you're going to go this far into debt as a city, it should be for something the city needs and cannot wait to finance through traditional means. Those conditions simply don't exist right now.

    I'm particularly disappointed to see Milo Zonka pushing this plan so hard. He wasn't my first choice in the last election, but he didn't seem like a bad candidate to me, and I looked forward to seeing how he would do on the City Council. But if this is his legacy -- a 30-year $75,000,000 debt for projects that can absolutely be done later without going into debt -- then I can't see supporting him for re-election, or supporting him for any other public office for that matter. A recession is not the time to plunge a city into massive debt.

    If these projects are worth doing, then they're worth doing the right way: slowly, carefully and responsibly over time, not in a pell-mell rush that needlessly ups the price-tag with a debt-repayment plan that outlasts the improvements themselves. Vote "No" on Palm Bay Works on Tuesday, May 12th.
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/7
      Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:15pm

    Here's what I talked about last Thursday night, May 7th, on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL:

    Forum shows ASR plan is all wet
    My goodness,
    last week's public forum on Rockledge's Aquifer Storage and Recovery was an embarrassment to the city of Rockledge. The city's panel of experts, particularly James McLellan from the engineering firm that designed the ASR project, really didn't seem all that interested in convincing people that ASR was safe, preferring instead to rely on a dismissive attitude towards all those who oppose ASR. I single out James McLellan because I caught him openly sneering at skeptical Rockledge residents on several occasions, and he showed a troubling over-reliance on computer models and scientific theories to explain how things should be, rather than evidence or data to show how things actually are. And even as Jim Egan from Save Our Aquifer rattled off example after example from other parts of the state where models and theories failed to accurately predict how water would flow underground in other situations, McLellan continued to insist that Egan was misguided and that the city's engineers had a nearly perfect grasp of how the treated sewage water will behave once it's pumped underground.

    Particularly laughable was McLellan's assertion that the treated sewage water is actually safer to drink than the aquifer water currently drawn from private wells in Rockledge. According to McLellan's computer models and theories, the aquifer water in Rockledge should be too salty to drink or to use for irrigation, and using it anyway should have dire consequences. Never mind the multiple private-well owners in Rockledge who have used their private wells for drinking and irrigation for quite some time with no ill-effects. If the computers say it, it must be true! There's no need for pesky reality in this discussion!

    But try this on for size... did you know that Cocoa has already tried an ASR well as an experiment? At a site a mere two miles away from Rockledge's ASR site? And that it failed miserably? And that Rockledge's panel of experts were totally unaware of Cocoa's ASR attempt until Jim Egan brought it up at the forum? You'd think that when attempting a potentially risky and expensive water conservation experiment, a city's engineers would make a few phone calls to neighboring cities to find out if anyone else has tried it before. But Rockledge didn't think of taking that simple step. If they had, they'd be aware that Cocoa tested their ASR well with several million gallons of drinkable-quality water to be on the safe side, and was only able to pump 25% of that water back out of the soil. The remaining 75% remains underground, untouchable and unrecoverable. Imagine if Cocoa had done that test with treated sewage water instead of drinkable water.

    Now consider that Rockledge's first ASR test will be with treated sewage water, because testing with drinkable water would be "too expensive." Never mind that Cocoa figured out a way to do it anyway.

    Pumping treated sewage water directly into the soil underground is simply too risky to the aquifer and local water supplies. And considering that the only benefit is that it will now be a little easier to water some lawns during the dry season, taking such a huge risk for such a minor benefit is the very definition of insanity. And yet the city of Rockledge still seems to be charging onward, full speed ahead. That's why I'm staying on this case, hoping against hope that we can get the Rockledge City Council to finally come to their senses and pull the plug on this plan.

    Scott Ellis gets it: we have to spend less money!
    Clerk of Court Scott Ellis has always been one of Brevard County's most reliable voices against wasteful government spending, and two recent stories confirmed that once again. Ellis announced that due to budget cuts, he will lay off 50 court staffers and close two Clerk of Court branch offices. It's never fun to see people lose their jobs, but government is not a jobs program, so running a more efficient government has to take priority over ensuring paychecks for unneeded government workers at the expense of the taxpayers. And while closing those two branch offices will undoubtedly inconvenience some people in our long and narrow county, keeping extra offices open is a luxury that is simply not needed in tight financial times. Having extra branch offices is a good thing, but it's not a necessary thing, and necessary has to trump good when tax revenues are shrinking.

    That brings us to the second story: Ellis's proposal to cut back on the county's funding of redevelopment districts in Brevard. Hey, I'm fully aware of how beneficial redevelopment districts can be: see downtown Melbourne or Cocoa Village. But as beneficial as those programs are, there are more important things to spend money on: fire services, the Sheriff's office, road maintenance, stormwater projects, schools, the basic services that protect our rights to life, liberty and property. Once you've funded all of those necessities and have some money left over, a redevelopment district can be a valid use of that money if it will benefit the public good and provide a good return on the investment down the road. But redevelopment districts are niceties, not necessities. Government spending should be prioritized, and right now these redevelopment districts should be lower on the funding list until the national economy and property values start to rebound, which in turn will increase the county's property tax revenues. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money.

    Which reminds me... the city of Palm Bay is getting ready to go $75,000,000 into debt to pay for projects that could do some good, but which don't need to be done right now. But I'll talk about that tonight on WMEL.
     

    ASR forum is tonight!
      Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:30am

    With the Orlando Magic playing Game 1 against the Boston Celtics in the NBA Playoffs tonight, The Vince Young Show will be pre-empted tonight on AM-1300 WMEL. That means I'll be free to attend the public forum in Viera tonight to discuss Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR), Rockledge's insane plan to take partially-treated sewage water and pump it directly into the soil underground next to our drinking-water aquifer, storing it there for lawn irrigation during the dry season. The forum will be held at the county's Government Center in Viera, 2725 Judge Fran Jamison Way, Building C, right there in the County Commission's Meeting Room, from 6pm to 9pm tonight, Monday, May 4th.

    I've talked about this before on this website and on my radio show, and I remain convinced that when government engineers insist that nothing could possibly go wrong, it's time to run hard and fast in the opposite direction. The city's engineers are relying on the very same soil and rock that allowed rainwater to seep through them to form the aquifer in the first place to now suddenly become waterproof to prevent this partially-treated sewage water from seeping into the aquifer and polluting a major source of drinking water for the county. And despite telling us nothing will go wrong, the city has banned the use of private wells for a mile around the ASR site, which tells me they're worried about the wells getting polluted. City representatives have also declined to appear on my show on WMEL, citing lawsuit concerns, but the only way they could ever face a lawsuit is if the ASR site polluted the aquifer and began harming people, the very scenario they insist won't happen. When you tell me nothing could possibly go wrong but then take multiple precautions against things going wrong, that means you're lying to me and that you do actually believe something could go wrong after all.

    So, why is the city of Rockledge lying to me, and to you? I'll try to find out tonight. Hope to see you at the forum!

    ...

    Also, it occurs to me I never did post any of the links to the news stories I talked about on my last radio show. Due to WMEL's sports programming, I only made it on the air once last week, last Monday night. And speaking of, I'll only be on the air once this week as well: Thursday night, May 7th at 8:00pm on AM-1300 WMEL. Man, I can't wait for the sports schedule to calm down again, because I'm getting antsy from not being able to talk to all of you, but I shall persevere.

    Anyway, this Thursday night, May 7th at 7:00pm, the Cocoa Beach City Commission will hold their final vote on installing red-light traffic cameras in the city. (Read up on the plan here.) Since I'll have a radio show that night, I won't be able to attend, but I'll see about e-mailing the City Commission members a copy of the study by the Texas Transportation Institute in 2005 showing that the single most-effective way to reduce red-light crashes is to make yellow lights last an extra second longer, far more effective than red-light cameras, hands-down. But of course you can't make any money from making yellow lights last longer. So that's why cities go with red-light cameras instead, allowing some red-light crashes to continue to happen anyway that could've been prevented by going with the solution that actually works better over the solution that makes money... blood money, quite literally.

    It also opens up law-abiding drivers to inexecusable abuses at the hands of the private companies that monitor these red-light cameras and mail out the citations. Check out this story from Canada, where police at the scene of an accident at a major intersection started directing motorists by hand through the intersection against the traffic light. You guessed it... 17 drivers ended up getting red-light camera tickets in the mail despite the fact that a police officer had waved them through the red light to keep traffic flowing. The monitoring company broke its own rules and sent the tickets out anyway, hoping to still get their cut of the revenue from each ticket. And the police and the courts refused to intervene until local media blew the story wide open and shamed the police into voiding all of the tickets.

    And we want to voluntarily open ourselves up to this sort of madness here in Cocoa Beach now? Unreal.

    For last week's arrogance-in-government award, check out Cocoa City Councilman Clarence Whipple, who last summer sicced city Code Enforcement officers on an out-of-towner visiting a friend in Cocoa whose parked pickup truck partially blocked a sidewalk. I guess just politely asking him to re-park his truck was just too arduous for the esteemed Councilman. Oh, and when the truck's owner called Whipple out for his arrogance, Whipple ginned up a bogus assault charge against the truck owner. Fortunately, a jury of his peers only needed half-an-hour of deliberations to see this case for what it really was, acquitting the truck owner of all charges. And that's just part of the story -- I didn't even mention the part where the Councilman got the City of Cocoa to spend taxpayer money to buy him security cameras and fight a restraining order against him in court. Somebody needs to take Clarence Whipple down -- politically, I mean, in the next election. Gotta be careful... don't want the Councilman charging me with assault now, do I?

    I also told you about a local church that rents space in a public school auditorium every Sunday for their services, and the pastor's three-week sermon series about how married Christian couples can spice up their sex lives and strengthen their marriages. Brevard County Schools responded by threatening to kick the church out! Apparently, they have no problem with bringing experts onto the school grounds to talk to unmarried underage teens about having sex with each other (also known as sex-ed classes), but they draw the line at a preacher talking to adult Christian husbands and wives about having sex with each other. The situation was still unresolved when I talked about it last week, but now Brevard County Schools appears to be backing down, and they won't kick the church out after all. Glad to see common sense won out in the end.

    And finally, it sure was funny to see state government employees protesting proposed cuts to their salaries as if they're somehow entitled to our money, even in a down economy. As I've said before, government is not a jobs program. If you are a government employee and your job is not vital to protecting the citizens' rights to life, liberty and property, you have no right to demand to remain on the payroll to continue draining money from the pockets of the taxpayers of the state of Florida. Notice how all of these protesting employees skipped a day of work to attend this protest, and yet somehow the state of Florida didn't come crashing to a halt? That tells me every single one of those protesters is completely and totally unneeded and serves no vital role for the citizens of Florida whatsoever. Fire them all, and see how much money that frees up against the state's budget shortfall.

    See you at the ASR forum tonight in Viera, and talk to you on the radio on Thursday night!
     

    Only one show this week
      Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 8:00am

    Due to a plethora of sports programming this week on AM-1300 WMEL, there will only be one episode of The Vince Young Show this week: tonight, Monday night, April 27th at 8:00pm. Tuesday night will be Game 5 of the Magic-Sixers NBA Playoffs series, Wednesday night will be a double-header of high school baseball from the Friday Night Locker Room, Thursday night will be Game 6 of the Magic-Sixers series, and Friday night will be high school softball coverage from the Friday Night Locker Room.

    No idea on next week's schedule yet. Depending on whether or not the Magic can finally put the Sixers away (how the hell did Orlando lose Game 1 and Game 3?), they might have a game on Monday May 4th or Tuesday May 5th, which would pre-empt my show, and the Friday Night Locker Room may still have some baseball games to cover as well. Watch this space for updates.

    Thanks to everyone who stopped by WMEL's booth at the Melbourne Art Festival this weekend! It's always nice to meet WMEL's listeners face-to-face, and a big hello to anyone who tunes in to my show for the first time tonight after meeting me on Saturday or Sunday.

    Talk to you tonight at 8pm. Call in at 631-1300!
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 4/21
      Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 5:15pm

    (EDIT at 8:20pm... the high school softball game is running later than I expected tonight, so I'm still not on the air. If the game ends before 9:00pm, I'll try to sneak in a few minutes on the air tonight, but it's not looking good. Stay tuned...)

    I know, I know... I'm prepping for tonight's episode of The Vince Young Show (8:00pm on AM-1300 WMEL!), and I still haven't posted the links to the news stories I discussed on the last show two nights ago! My apologies, but it's been a crazy week. Not much commentary with these links, just the links themselves so you can make sure I'm not feeding you a total line.

  • Red light cameras may be coming to Cocoa Beach! The Cocoa Beach City Commission voted 4-1 on the proposal last week, and now it just needs to pass a second vote at the Commission meeting on Thursday, May 7th. Only Vice Mayor Kevin Pruett seems hesitant at all, while everyone else seems to be claiming in public that this is about traffic safety, while believing privately that these cameras will be a great source of revenue. I guess they haven't heard that the runaway number one way to drastically reduce red-light running and the resulting crashes is to make yellow lights last one second longer according to a 2005 traffic study by the Texas Transportation institute. I talked about this on my show back on March 14th. The city of Norcross in Georgia started losing money on their red light cameras this year when a new state law forced the city to make their yellow lights a second longer, reducing red-light violations by 80% from last year, which in turn cut the number of tickets, which in turn cut the ticket revenue. Other cities in Georgia have been running into the same situation as Norcross, as has Denver, Colorado. Making yellow lights one second longer will do far more to prevent red-light violations and crashes than those cameras ever will. But of course, there's no way to make money off of making yellow lights a second longer, is there? So given the choice between saving more lives and making more money, guess which one cities like Cocoa Beach are choosing?

  • Brian Binggeli will be Brevard's new Superintendent of Schools, replacing Dr. Richard DiPatri when he retires this summer. Binggeli was the outside choice between the two finalists, and I'm looking forward to seeng how he does. Hopefully he remembers that he works for the School Board, unlike Dr. DiPatri who often seemed to think the School Board worked for him.

  • After this Sunday's Brevard Tea Party capped off a week of similar rallies in Brevard and across the nation, it looks like President Obama is quietly responding to the pressure to cut spending. Of course, he's responding by making a nearly meaningless gesture meant simply to fool people into thinking he's doing something to cut spending, but still, it shows that the White House has finally realized that we "teabaggers" aren't going away. This is just the beginning.

    Okay, so that's everything I talked about Tuesday night. So, what will I be talking about tonight? You'll just have to tune in to The Vince Young Show tonight at 8pm on AM-1300 WMEL to find out! Oh, and of course, call in at 321-631-1300. Talk to you tonight!
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links from 4/16
      Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 10:00am

    Whoops! While I was preparing for tonight's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL, it occurred to me that I never updated this website from the previous episode! Time to remedy that right now. Here's the stories I talked about last Thursday night on the radio:

    Program schedule
    I got pre-empted last Friday night and Monday night for high school baseball. I'm back on the air tonight, Tuesday night, April 21st at 8pm on AM-1300 WMEL. Wednesday night, April 22nd, I'll be off again to make way for Orlando Magic basketball, but then I'll return for another show on Thursday night, April 23rd.

    Tea parties!
    Did you go to a
    tea party here in Brevard? I sure hope so! I was at two of them, the one in Cocoa last Wednesday evening that drew a couple hundred people, and the Brevard Tea Party at the Wickham Park Event Pavilion on Sunday afternoon that pulled in 2,000 protestors! I had a blast at both events, especially getting the chance to meet some of my listeners and readers face-to-face and uniting with like-minded people. Thanks to everyone who came out!

    The White House tried to ignore us, then tried to label us as extremists and potential terrorists while MSNBC and CNN tried to nickname us with a crude and sophomoric sexual pun. But in the end, we were heard loud and clear. Thinking of a billion dollars as a lot of money is quickly becoming a quaint notion thanks to President Obama's runaway spending in the trillions. And we thought George W. Bush was bad on spending! And make no mistake, Dubya was awful on spending. But Obama is worse.

    Now there are signs that President Obama has finally realized we won't be ignored and we won't go away quietly. But we'll talk about that more on the radio on Tuesday night's show.

    Who needs government? These people didn't...
    So you think you just can't get along without government being there to take care of you, huh? Well, when a flash flood washed out a state road in Hawaii, the state government dragged their feet on rebuilding the road, even as the tourism businesses that depended on that road began to wither and die. But rather than waiting for a government bailout, the nearby residents and business owners all banded together and rebuilt the road themselves -- without a single penny or an ounce of help from the state government!

    Following up on Courtney Roberts
    Last week's public hearing between Courtney Roberts and the County Commission was a disappointment to be sure, on multiple levels. And after the muddled presentation from Roberts' attorney, lots of people suddenly have the misconception that Courtney Roberts is trying to rip off the taxpayers of Brevard County. They're missing the point. The only reason Brevard County and Courtney Roberts are even having this debate at all is because back in 2002, a handful of miscreants working on the staff of Brevard County's government acted on personal vendettas and intentionally fouled up the construction of Roberts' retirement dream home, breaking the law and causing incredible damage to the home. That's a fact. The County continues to admit this and confirms it to be true to this day, seven years later, and they've already agreed to make Courtney Roberts whole. But they still have yet to fulfill that promise. And I will continue to stand up for Courtney Roberts on this issue, no matter what a bunch of nattering nabobs with only half the story want to say about it online.

    That doesn't mean I don't have some questions and some doubts, and I'm starting to understand more why the County Commission didn't open up their checkbook last week. But this story isn't over. Hopefully I can work out my schedule with Courtney Roberts to bring him into the studio here at WMEL so he can address your concerns and answer my questions. Courtney Roberts is the victim in this, and people need to keep that in mind.

    ...

    Talk to you tonight at 8pm on AM-1300 WMEL radio!
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links for 4/14
      Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 2:15am

    Aw crud, is it April 15th already? Guess I gotta go do my taxes. But first, here's what I talked about earlier tonight on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL!

    Tea Party!
    A variety of "Tea Party" tax protests
    will take place in the next few days. I'm planning to be at the Cocoa event on Wednesday, April 15th from 5pm to 6pm at the Ramada Inn on 900 Friday Road in Cocoa, near the intersection of I-95 and State Road 524. And time-permitting, I'll try to make it to the main event as well on Sunday, April 19th at the Wickham Park Event Pavilion on Wickham Road near BCC in Melbourne from 1pm to 4pm as well. To find other events near you, check out the Brevard Tea Party website.

    No show on Wednesday night
    With the Orlando Magic playing their final regular season game, The Vince Young Show will be pre-empted on Wednesday night. I'll return to the microphone on Thursday night at 8pm for another hour of live, local talk. Talk to you then!

    Courtney Roberts: still buried in red tape
    If you haven't heard anything about Courtney Roberts and his battle with the Brevard County government, do yourself a favor and go read up on it. That site will give you all the details, but here's the basics of this fight.

    In 2002, Courtney Roberts began construction on his oceanfront retirement dream home just south of Cocoa Beach, but a small group of county employees with a personal grudge against Roberts started pulling out every bureaucratic trick in the book to slow down construction of the home. They "lost" permits and paperwork, altered documentation, "misinterpreted" some laws and outright broke other laws, with everything eventually culminating in an improper Stop Work Order against construction of the home before it could be completed. The home stood incomplete and unfinished for close to two years and was still exposed to the elements when Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne rolled through Brevard, severely damaging the vulnerable home.

    During this fight, Roberts filed a lawsuit against the County, and late in 2004, Roberts was finally able to get a hearing with the County Commissioners. The Commissioners were apalled at the behavior of the county employees who had intentionally worked to thwart Roberts at every turn, and they voted 5-0 that the county needed to pay money to Courtney Roberts to make him whole. Roberts and his attorney sat down with County Attorney Scott Knox and hammered out an agreement: Roberts would put his lawsuit on hold, and the county would reimburse Roberts for all of the additional expenses he'd incurred thanks to the gross misbehavior of the county's employees.

    The County paid Roberts a little over $300,000 -- and then stopped. Roberts insisted he was owed far more, but the same county government that had so egregiously mistreated him in the first place now tried to ignore him, hoping he'd go away. But Roberts didn't go away. He went back to court, and ever since 2004, Roberts and Knox have been battling each other in the courts over whether or not the county still owes Roberts any money. And in the meantime, Roberts' expenses have continued to balloon higher, most recently reaching a total of $4.9 million, significantly more than what the county would've had to pay Roberts if they'd simply lived up to their agreement in 2004.

    On Tuesday morning, Courtney Roberts was back in front of the County Commission, imploring them during a 3-hour hearing to honor their agreement from 2004 to make him whole. Instead, the Commission sorely disappointed me, offering Roberts a mere $100,000 and telling him to take it or leave it. Commissioner Robin Fisher even had the temerity to tell Roberts, "I think we already overpaid you." The county government tore Courtney Roberts' life apart, and now the county is acting like Courtney Roberts is the one who is being unreasonable for asking to be reimbursed. They should be on their hands and knees and thanking him for not asking for punitive damages as well!

    Of course, some argue that Courtney Roberts is inflating his figures, and Matt Reed has had two recent articles in Florida Today that explored that angle of this issue. So I don't know if Courtney Roberts deserves the full $4.9 million he's asking for. But I'm pretty sure he deserves more than the $437,000 the county thinks he should get: $337,000 they already paid him plus the $100,000 more they're offering now. And bear in mind, none of this would even be an issue if it weren't for the grossly illegal misbehavior of a handful of county employees with personal grudges in 2002. The County started this, and Courtney Roberts is the victim here. Don't lose sight of those facts.

    Courtney Roberts did nothing wrong in 2002. He didn't deserve anything that happened to him, and there is simply no excuse for making him wait seven years for a resolution to this miscarriage of justice. And now it's all but a certainty that Courtney Roberts will turn down the $100,000 offer and will continue to fight this in court, and in the meantime that figure of $4.9 million will continue to grow. In the end, he will almost certainly win, and the county will end up paying Roberts even more money. And where does the county get its money? From all of us who pay taxes in this county. The arrogance of this county government is going to cost all of us in the end.

    President Obama: credit where credit is due
    I'm sure you're already aware of the successful resolution to the Somali pirate drama over the weekend. The American merchant ship captain was rescued unharmed after one pirate surrendered and US Navy snipers simultaneously shot and killed the three remaining pirates. President Obama gave the Navy clearance to proceed as they saw fit late last week, and reiterated that permission later. He could've easily gotten in the way and tried to micro-manage things as other presidents have done in the past with the military, or he could've gotten all weak-kneed and tried to avoid a violent outcome at all costs. Instead, he showed the world some spine and let the military do their job, and they did a great job.

    Now, I'm not saying that Obama is the second coming of Winston Churchill, nor am I suddenly going to vote for him in 2012. But geez, would it kill all the conservative pundits and talk-show hosts to give the guy a little credit for getting this one right? The only one I've heard give Obama any credit is Neal Boortz, and he's a Libertarian like me, not a Republican. Almost everyone else out there is bending over backwards to explain away Obama's role and to find things to criticize him for anyway.

    Seems to me Obama got this exactly right. He empowered the Navy to do their job, and in the meantime while the Navy patiently waited to seize the perfect opportunity to act on, negotiations for a peaceful resolution were attempted. Yeah, it was starting to feel like this drama was taking too long, but now we know why: the Navy was waiting for just the right moment to take out the pirates. That moment came on Sunday, and it was well worth waiting for.

    My side sounds like a bunch of putzes right now. Obama made the right call, and we're still looking for ways to criticize him. That's a mistake. All this will do is undermine our credibility so that later, when we need to criticize Obama for making obscene grabs for more government power and spending us all into the poorhouse, people will write us all off as a bunch of naysayers who do nothing but complain.

    Even a liberal can get things right now and then. Nothing wrong with admitting it, people. The truth doesn't have a partisan label.
     

    The Vince Young Show: news links for 4/9
      Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 6:30pm

    Here's what I'll be talking about tonight at 8:00pm on The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. Call in at 321-631-1300!

    Jim Ford in the news. Again.
    Looks like our ol' buddy Property Appraiser Jim Ford
    is in trouble again. Ford's former right-hand man Lance Larsen is suing the Property Appraiser's office to be reimbursed for the legal fees stemming from his corruption trial last year, the one where the judge ruled on a technicality and said the jury couldn't look at much of the prosecution's computer evidence. The charges against Larsen ended up being dismissed, and not long after that the state had to drop their corruption investigation against Jim Ford. Since Larsen was never found guilty, he's now saying that Florida state law entitles him to be reimbursed by the Property Appraiser's office.

    Combine this with the fishy property tax breaks he's given to politically-connected people, plus all the other legal expenses he's racked up that you and I will have to pay for, plus the way he took advantage of the state's retirement plan and its "double-dip" loophole back in December... this man has cost Brevard County a ridiculous amount of money. And we're stuck with him for the next four years. Great.

    (Want to know more about Jim Ford's legal messes from last year? Here ya go.)

    Speaking of "double-dipping"...
    The state legislature is finally working on ending this ridiculous practice. Good. It makes no financial sense whatsoever to allow an incumbent like Jim Ford to run for re-election, win, "retire" from his post a week later to start collecting retirement benefits, and then take the exact same job back again a month later when his new term of office begins while allowing him to keep collecting his retirement benefits and his paycheck for holding office. That's not retirement. And we shouldn't have to pay for this nonsense. Kudos to the state legislature for finally trying to put a stop to this.

    Other stories:

  • Yet another story from Florida Today that says the new Superintendent of Schools will make a yearly salary of $240,000 including benefits. Florida Today is starting to show some consistency now on reporting this story, so it's starting to look like School Board member Barbara Murray was the one who had it wrong when she chided Florida Today on-the-record and insisted the yearly salary would be $240,000 plus benefits. I'm still going to watch this story though... but if Barbara Murray didn't understand what she was voting on back in February, she doesn't belong on the School Board. Period.

  • Have you heard the hissing over President Barack Obama bowing to a member of the Saudi royal family at the G-20 economic summit? The White House insists it wasn't actually a bow, but Politico.com has the video. Take a look. The White House claims Obama was significantly taller than King Abdullah and was simply bending over to clasp the king's outstretched hand with both of his hands. But the video doesn't support that. Start watching about 50 seconds into the video. Obama walks up to the king, only reaches out with his right hand to shake the king's hand while his left hand remains at his side. And that's when Obama bows. American presidents should not bow to royalty. Period. And I'm disturbed that the White House is trying to deny what happened, rather than coming clean and admitting they made an understandable mistake in erring on the side of politeness. And it's all one more sign of what an amateur Obama is at foreign affairs.

  • Now that Lt. Governer Jeff Kottkamp has been caught using state airplanes for personal trips, it looks like he's decided to lawyer up. This should be fun.

  • US News says housing in Cocoa is affordable. I wonder if the fact that nobody wants to live in Cocoa has anything to do with the housing being so cheap there.

  • Woman calls 911 because her take-out meal didn't have enough shrimp in it. People who make these frivolous 911 calls need to be arrested and taught a lesson.

  • A Port St. Lucie man went running down the street naked so that he would be deported back to Mexico. Well, if you insist...
     

    The Vince Young Show: program notes for 4/6
      Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 2:15am

    Tonight marked the debut of the weekday night edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. I was on from 8pm to 9pm and enjoyed the chance to talk to you... but I'd prefer the chance to talk with you as well! I'll be pre-empted on Tuesday night 4/7 and Wednesday night 4/8 for Orlando Magic basketball, but I'll return on Thursday night 4/9 at 8pm for another edition of the show. Call in at (321)631-1300, and I'll give you the chance to make your voice heard on the air!

    Here's what I talked about earlier tonight:

    Rockledge will FINALLY allow public debate on ASR
    I've talked before about the insane plan from the city of Rockledge to pump undrinkable wastewater directly underground into the soil -- not in a storage tank, but directly into the soil itself -- and store it there for future use for lawn irrigation. It's called Aquifer Storage and Recovery, ASR for short. The idea is to save drinking water during dry spells, but they may end up polluting our drinking water in the process, since this undrinkable sewage water will be stored underground right next to the aquifer. That's the same aquifer many residents and cities get their drinking water from! City engineers claim that the bedrock and clay down underground will keep this wastewater from seeping into the aquifer, but clay is not even close to waterproof, and much of the bedrock here in Florida is limestone -- which actually dissolves in water! The idea that this wastewater can't possibly end up seeping into the aquifer is pure foolishness.

    Rockledge's city attorney has been telling the city council not to discuss this plan in public for fear that public comments could hurt the city if they get sued. But the only way the city could get sued is if this undrinkable wastewater ends up seeping into the aquifer and polluting drinking water, which of course the city engineers are saying can't possibly happen. And if it can't happen, then that means the city has nothing to fear from a lawsuit and shouldn't have any problem discussing this. And yet they didn't want to discuss it. Hmm.

    Fortunately, sanity may be about to prevail. The Rockledge City Council has now agreed to hold a public forum about ASR on May 6th. (Details coming soon.) This will be everyone's chance to show the Rockledge City Council that the opposition to ASR isn't coming from a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing hippie environmentalist wackos, but rather from concerned citizens who understand full-well that limestone and clay are not waterproof, no matter how much the city's engineers claim otherwise. Pumping undrinkable wastewater directly into the soil and right next to the aquifer is a bad idea. Period. Hopefully we can get Rockledge to back away from this now.

    Florida Today flip-flops on the new superintendent's pay -- again!
    This is another story that I've talked about before, both on-the-air and on this website. Brevard County School Superintendent Richard DiPatri will be retiring later this year, so the School Board has begun the search for a new superintendent. But there's been some confusion over how much the new superintendent will get paid. It gets a little involved, so I'll break it down for you as a timeline.

    February 8th - Florida Today reported that the new superintendent will receive a yearly salary of $240,000 including benefits, compared to Dr. DiPatri currently making $277,000 including benefits.

    February 10th - At a regular meeting of the School Board, School Board member Dr. Barbara Murray criticized Florida Today for getting the facts wrong in their February 8th article. Murray stated for the record that the new superintendent would get a yearly salary of $240,000 PLUS benefits, not $240,000 including benefits as Florida Today had reported. Click here for the minutes of that meeting and scroll down to section G to read Dr. Murray's comments. You'll also see that the School Board voted 5-0 to set the superintendent's pay at "$240,000 plus benefits." (Emphasis mine.)

    February 12th - Florida Today reported, "This past Tuesday, the school board voted for the new superintendent's salary to be advertised in the range of $240,000, which does not include benefits and retirement." This contradicted their original story from February 8th, but put them in agreement with Barbara Murray's explanation and with the meeting minutes from the School Board. In another story the same day, Florida Today reported, "DiPatri's base salary is $217,941." This would mean that the new superintendent would get a base salary $22,000 higher than DiPatri's current base salary!

    February 24th - School Board member Amy Kneessy responded to an e-mail from me asking for clarification on the new superintendent's pay, telling me that the new superintendent will make $240,000 including benefits. I e-mailed her back to point out that Florida Today and Barbara Murray were both saying the new superintendent's pay would be $240,000 plus benefits. Kneessy responded the same day and said that she disagreed with Barbara Murray.

    April 5th - Florida Today reported, "The new leader could be offered as much as $240,000 in salary and retirement benefits." So now they're back to saying that the $240,000 figure includes benefits. That's what Florida Today originally reported on February 8th, but contradicts their follow-up report on February 12th and contradicts Barbara Murray and the School Board meeting minutes.

    In summary: Barbara Murray, the School Board meeting minutes from 2/10, and Florida Today from 2/12 all say that the new superintendent will be paid $240,000 plus benefits. But Amy Kneessy, Florida Today from 2/8, and Florida Today from 4/5 all disagree and say that the new superintendent will be paid $240,000 including benefits. Since Dr. DiPatri's current benefits and bonuses add up to $60,000 a year right now, there's a big difference between "plus benefits" and "including benefits." And yet two School Board members who both voted "Yes" on the new superintendent's pay can't agree on what it is they voted "Yes" for, and Florida Today has now flip-flopped twice on what the new superintendent will get paid.

    This shouldn't be difficult. Why can't anyone at the School Board or at Florida Today figure this out?

    Other stories:

  • Tolls have increased by 25 cents at most expressway toll booths in the Orlando area. The reason: fewer people are driving the toll roads, and revenue has been dropping. But increasing the tolls is just going to push toll revenues even lower because now even fewer people are going to drive the expressways in Orlando because they don't want to pay the higher tolls! Just watch: a year from now, they'll be asking for another toll increase because revenue has dropped even more. People are suggesting all sorts of ways to protest the toll hike, but my favorite is to pay all of the tolls with nothing but nickels. It's perfectly legal, it's easier for you to handle than paying in all pennies, but it will still be a pain for the Expressway Authority since they'll still have a lot of extra coins to handle.

  • Federal cigarette taxes are also about to increase, and the state of Florida is considering their own tobacco tax hike as well as a way to increase revenue. (New York City and New York state have also tried this in the past few years.) But in response, smokers nationwide are making plans to cut back on smoking or quit outright since they won't be able to afford the new tax. And instead of being happy that fewer people are smoking, the government will be unhappy because this will lead to lower tax revenues. Remember, they raised the tax in order to increase revenue, not to make people quit smoking. Only government can find a reason to complain about people quitting smoking!

  • I sincerely hope this was an April Fools' Day joke. If this woman is really this stupid, she has problems.
     

    I'm moving to weeknights on WMEL!
      Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 9:15pm

    The Vince Young Show is moving to weeknights, 8pm to 9pm on AM-1300 WMEL! I'm thrilled to be moving to a nightly timeslot where I can stay on top of the news on a daily basis, and I'm looking forward to the chance to talk to all of you every night.

    Just like on Saturday nights, I'll keep taking your calls live on-the-air as well, so you can have the chance to make your voice heard on the news and events that affect your life in Central Brevard. The phone number is (321)631-1300.

    As part of this move, I'm going to discontinue the Saturday night version of the program. WMEL is also going to continue carrying Orlando Magic basketball, so if the Magic are playing, that means I won't be on the air that night. But overall, it's a better timeslot, and I'm excited about this move.

    Talk to you on Monday night at 8pm!
     

    The Vince Young Show: program notes from 3/28
      Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 8:00pm

    Okay, I've put together the links for the news stories I talke about on last Saturday night's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL. But first, I wanted to let you know to watch this website tomorrow, Thursday, April 2nd for some very big news... so big that I want to make sure I don't confuse anybody by delivering it on April Fools' Day. This is no joke, and I don't want anyone mistakenly thinking it is. So, be sure to come back tomorrow!

    Okay, now for the program notes:

    Crime in Cocoa: what's being done about it?
    Late last Friday night in Cocoa, a 17-year-old girl named Maranese Ross was
    shot and killed in a drive-by shooting, an accidental victim who was unrelated to the target of the shooting. Stories like this are getting far too common in the city of Cocoa as drugs and drug-related violence take over more and more of the town.

    And what is the Cocoa City Council doing in response to this problem?

    They're voting on outdoor ice rinks and dog parks.

    It's always wonderful to see city governments who have their priorities straight, isn't it? Sure, innocent people are suffering violent deaths in the streets of the city, but at least we'll be able to lose tens of thousands of dollars on an outdoor ice skating rink in the "nice" part of the city this Christmas. I'm sure the drug dealers will enjoy it a lot once they've chased the last law-abiding person out of town.

    When a problem needs to be addressed, you can usually count on politicians to at least pay it lip service, to talk about how seriously they're taking this issue and what they're going to do to fix it, even if they never actually get around to fixing it. In this case, however, we're not even getting that. Is anyone on the Cocoa City Council even talking about the city's out-of-control crime problem? I sure don't hear it.

    And this problem is fixable. Just look at Melbourne, specifically two areas, South Melbourne and the Booker T. Washington neighborhood north of Eau Gallie. The residents, police and City Council down in Melbourne over the past two decades have worked well together to try to take back South Melbourne, and similar efforts have been under way in Booker T for the past year. There's a lot of work still to be done, but both parts of Melbourne have improved noticeably.

    Cocoa is different. The police officers on the street seem to be trying, but they're not getting any help. And because the City Council doesn't seem to care, the residents are taking their cue from them and don't seem to care either. And people are dying who don't need to die.

    If the members of the Cocoa City Council won't take any action to save the lives of the residents of the city, they need to get out and make way for people who will.

    Ron Sellers pulls one last fast one on us
    It's certainly appropriate for this story to have broken on April Fools' Day, but the news in the saga of Brevard's Section 8 Housing chief Ron Sellers was looking a lot better when I covered this story on Saturday night. Last week, the three Housing Authority boards here in Brevard County voted on and approved a compromise deal regarding the termination of Sellers for losing $2.5 million in federal funds and bankrupting the Brevard Housing Authority. Under the deal, Sellers would be allowed to resign rather than being fired, but his last day would be April 1st instead of May 26th as he originally asked for in his resignation letter. And he would only get $26,000 for unused benefits instead of the $107,000 amount that had been previously mentioned. It should've been an immediate firing with $0 for unused benefits, but hey, I'll take what I can get. And kudos to the Cocoa Housing Authority Board in particular for pushing the Melbourne and Brevard Boards into taking a harder stance on Sellers.

    But as of today, April Fools' Day, it looks like Ron Sellers has once again made us all fools. Attorneys for the Housing Authority have advised the Board to keep Sellers on the payroll until the original resignation date of May 26th. Turns out his employment contract entitles him to 90 days' notice before his employment with the Board ends. His contract basically pays him $50 an hour, and he's going to keep getting paid to do nothing until May 26th.

    To anyone who is using public housing assistance, I say to you this: do whatever it takes to get off of that assistance as soon as possible. Work a second job, improve your educational status, cut back on your extras. The stability of your housing situation is entirely dependent on people like Ron Sellers who will "lose" $2.5 million in federal funds and try to hide it without a second thought, and on oversight boards who take weeks to finally decide to pay a guy like Ron Sellers tens of thousands of dollars to go away quietly afterwards. Do you really want to depend on people like that?

    Lies, damn lies and statistics
    Did you know that if you live in a trailer park, you're actually homeless? Same if you live with relatives or in a hotel, even just for one night, or evacuated for a hurricane that ended up missing your town and caused no damage to your house whatsoever. Mickey Kaus at Slate.com and James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal helped blow this open, and proved that the next time someone tries to tell you that 1 in 50 children in the USA are homeless, you'd better ask them what they mean by "homeless." Always define your terms.

    Other stories

  • These atheist parents think they deserve lots of money because a government school teacher taught their kids a religious song. Does that go for any situation where a student is taught something their parents disagree with? I think a lot of religious fundamentalists just got a great precedent for suing schools that teach evolution. Be careful what you wish for...

  • This senator thinks newspapers should have the option of operating as non-profit educational organizations, tax-exempt and everything. What an awful idea.

  • A Senate committee has approved a plan to extend the shuttle program. Still a long way to go, but it's a start.

  • What sort of a malcontent moves in next to an airport and then complains about helicopter noise? Don't these people know what the rest of us think of them?

  • Brevard's unemployment hits 10%... highest since 1977!

  • If you're about to get away with a crime, you might want to wait until you've left the police station before you call your friend on your cell phone to brag about it.

  • So, you think parrots are just mimicing words and don't actually know what they're saying, eh? Think again. This parrot actually saved a toddler's life.

  • I love these stories... armed robber walks into a Burger King and gets shot and killed by a customer with a gun and a concealed-carry permit. Think about all the tragedies over time that could've been prevented by a well-timed shot from a good man with a firearm. It's cliched because it's true... guns don't kill people. People kill people.

  • Does fast food just make people stupid or something?

  • Mystery: barrels of gasoline and detergent are washing ashore in Central Brevard.
     

    The Vince Young Show: program notes from 3/14
      Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 10:15am

    Sorry for the delay, everyone, but here are the program notes and links from last Saturday night's edition of The Vince Young Show on AM-1300 WMEL!

    Go learn CPR. Don't wait.
    If you heard the 7:00pm hour of my radio show last Saturday night, you already know why this is so important to me. Here's the website for the
    Space Coast Chapter of the American Red Cross. Go there right now and sign up for a CPR course. You already know it's something you should do, so why keep putting it off? You never know when you'll be called upon to try to save someone's life, so make sure you're ready. Learn CPR. Thank you.

    No radio show for Saturday 3/21
    Due to the Orlando Magic tipping off for a game this Saturday night, March 21st at 7:00pm, there will not be an episode of The Vince Young Show this weekend since AM-1300 WMEL is contractually obligated to carry all the Orlando Magic games live on-the-air. Fortunately, I'll return to the microphone the following Saturday night, March 28th at 7:00pm for three more hours of live, local talk on AM-1300 WMEL!

    After March 28th, it gets weird though... WMEL has sports programming lined up for the first three Saturday nights in April, the 4th, the 11th and the 18th. So right now it looks like I'll pre-empted on all three of those nights. If that changes, I'll let you know here on the website, but that's what it looks like for now, which means that after my show on Saturday 3/28, I won't return to the microphone until Saturday 4/25. Stay tuned...

    Holiday On Ice, Part 2: This Time It's Personal
    Oh, goodie... the Cocoa City Council voted unanimously to bring back that stupid "outdoor" ice skating rink in Cocoa Village for Christmas 2009. I guess losing $46,700 in taxpayer money on the damn thing in 2008 wasn't enough.

    Remember, they said last year that it would turn a profit and would draw in 18,000 people, but they only got 8,600 skaters, less than half of what they were projecting. Why? Because Cocoa ignored the fact that the Space Coast IcePlex in Rockledge is just a 10-minute drive away from Cocoa Village with a rink six times bigger than the temporary one in Cocoa Village, plus has far superior supporting facilities. And despite all that, Cocoa decided to charge the same price for admission and skate rental as the Space Coast IcePlex!

    But this time, they think they can get it right! And even if they still can't get Holiday On Ice to turn a profit, hey, Councilman Jake Williams, Jr. isn't worried according to Florida Today. "If you talk to the citizens, they think it was money well-spent. You will have some who say it's a waste. You will have that if something doesn't break even or if there's a slight profit. I look at the positive side. We can put on a nice event and still maintain the same level of service throughout the city and not have any layoffs." Emphasis mine, just to make sure you don't miss the fact that Councilman Williams seems to think that losing money on badly-run city events won't have any consequences.

    By the way, I'd love to know which citizens he's talked to, because I haven't met a single Cocoa resident yet who liked this "outdoor" ice rink. I called it right last December, and I'm calling it again: this will be a financial fiasco for the city of Cocoa. Just watch.

    Red-light cameras: they're about money, not safety
    Want to know how the city of Norcross, Georgia reduced red-light running by 80% and slashed the number of red-light traffic crashes? They made yellow lights last an extra second longer. That's it! They were required to do so by a new state law in Georgia which says that if you put up a red-light enforcement camera at an intersection, you have to make the yellow lights at that intersection last one second longer than the federal minimum standard. When that law went into affect in January, red-light running in Norcross plummetted, and the city actually had to scrap their red-light cameras because they were no longer profitable! The city of Denver, Colorado saw similar results from making their yellow lights longer as well.

    Turns out that according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute, the vast majority of red-light camera tickets are issued in cases where the light has been red for less than one second. Make the yellow light one second longer, and all of those violations disappear. Oh, and by the way, the vast majority of actual crashes caused by running a red light occurred when the light had been red for five seconds or longer, which means that the people getting ticketed by these cameras aren't even the same drivers who are causing these accidents!

    Even more importantly... if you compare making the yellow light one second longer versus putting up a red-light enforcement camera and see which one does better at reducing red-light running and red-light crashes, it's not even close. Making the yellow light a second longer is the clear winner. If your true goal is to reduce crashes from drivers running red lights, the single best thing you can do is make your yellow lights last a second longer.

    Oh, and when was this study released? 2005. It's been out there for almost 4 years.

    So, why did Palm Bay ignore this data when they voted to start installing red-light cameras at some intersections? And why are other cities in Brevard considering cameras as well, such as Titusville, Melbourne and Satellite Beach? Because you can't make any money off of making the yellow light longer... but you can make lots of money off of red light cameras, even though their record of reducing crashes is spotty at best.

    Congratulations, Palm Bay: you just sacrificed traffic safety in order to rake in more cash. Enjoy your blood money!

    Other stories

  • An attorney for the Brevard County Housing Authority Board has confirmed that, yep, losing $2.5 million in federal money and running Section 8 Housing in the red for months is in fact a fireable offense, clearing the way for the termination of Chairman Ron Sellers. I still can't believe they needed a lawyer to figure this out for them. If that's not a fireable offense, pray tell, what is?!?

  • According to a federal judge, I apparently have the power to set legal precedent on any issue just by blogging about it. Good to know! Yes, yes, it was one of those lawsuits alleging that President Barack Obama isn't actually a natural-born American citizen and thus isn't eligible to be President, and no, I don't buy into that crazy theory, but that's beside the point. This judge truly believes that if an issue has been debated enough online, it doesn't have to be settled in a court of law. By that standard, we can just go ahead and shut down the entire court system right now, I guess, because every court is now totally redundant. Who needs judges when ya got bloggers? I don't know who's crazier... the guy who filed this lawsuit, or the judge who picked that reason for throwing it out. Yikes!

  • Speaking of, Republican Congressman Bill Posey from south Brevard has introduced legislation that would force all future presidential candidates to prove their eligibility to be President. Good. Right now, there is no such requirement in place! Hugo Chavez could move up here right now and run for President, and if he could somehow get the votes, there'd be no way to stop him from taking the oath of office and becoming President. You'd have to wait for him to take office, and then you'd have to wait for him to take an executive action that directly affects you, and then you'd finally be allowed to file a lawsuit to have him thrown out of office on the basis that he's not qualified to be President... at which point his hand-picked Vice-President would take over. This is insane! There needs to be a process in place to verify eligibility before someone takes office, and right now there is no such process. At all. Nothing. Kudos to Bill Posey for taking this issue seriously.

  • Never mind... looks like General Motors won't need a second federal bailout after all. When the Obama administration responded to GM's request for more cash with a decided lack of enthusiasm, GM had no choice but to find other ways to keep themselves open somehow... ways that were there all along but that GM wouldn't have bothered to find if they'd been given that second loan. Interesting how staring total failure right in the face suddenly motivates you to make the correct-but-difficult choices you've been trying to avoid, eh? Now, how about applying this same principle to, oh, every other company that's trying to get bailout cash from us right now?

  • Here are four great recent examples of the amateur hour that is President Obama's foreign policy. So much for the grown-ups being back in charge...

  • Word of advice: unless there's a hurricane on the way, leave your hurricane shutters open. You're welcome.

  • New from Dairy Queen: the Chocolate Ajax Malt! It's hot!

  • Palm Bay man gets in trouble for calling the police about a phony noise complaint... 20 times in 5 minutes!

  • Virginia man pays his $350 electric bill... every penny of it.
     

    The Vince Young Show: program notes for 3/7
      Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 6:00pm

    After a break last weekend to make room for coverage of Orlando Magic basketball, The Vince Young Show returns tonight! Tune in to AM-1300 WMEL at 7pm for three hours of live, local talk. And be sure to call in to make your voice heard! (321)631-1300.

    Here's what we'll be talking about tonight.

    A whole new County Commission
    I can be very negative when it comes to politics, both on the air and on my website. I don't like being that way. But it's been so easy over the past -- oh, really my entire life -- to look at our politicians in Washington DC, in Tallahassee and in Viera and come to the conclusion that they're all nothing but a bunch of corrupt crooks making decisions that are bad for us and good for them. And that goes for both parties and all ideologies.

    That's why it's been so refreshing the past several months to watch Andy Anderson and Trudie Infantini change the entire face of the Brevard County Commission since their election last November. Last week they were finally able to get something added to the agenda for the next Commission meeting that they've been pushing for since November: a moratorium on transportation impact fees on new business construction. And earlier this week, the proposal passed unanimously. Neither one of those would've been possible under the previous tax-happy County Commission, and it got me thinking about how different the Commission has been ever since Anderson and Infantini joined the board.

    Under the old Commission, with RINOs like Helen Voltz firmly in power, the County Commission was constantly looking for new and creative ways to take more of our money away from us through higher taxes, new fees including the new fire fee, and increasing existing fees. They would then turn around and waste that money on frivolous new programs with little oversight, and basically acted as if our growing economy would never end and that our booming tax revenues would never stop growing. Brevard County's budget is now over $1 billion a year; did you know that? You can thank the previous Commission for that. They also wildly overspent on the EELS program, buying up huge tracts of land with dubious environmental value and paying far more than the appraised value, then fencing it off and doing nothing with it. And as a final gesture of contempt for all Brevardians before they left office, they ignored an advisory panel and voted to keep the same auditing firm in place for the County, despite questions about the quality of their work and despite lower-cost firms being available to take over. They literally did that in their final week in power, with Florida Today running stories on this fiasco on November 17th and 18th, stories that have alas expired from their website since then.

    The tone has changed dramatically in Viera since then. Both Trudie Infantini and Andy Anderson campaigned on a platform of reigning in county spending and bringing down taxes and fees, and they've been pushing those ideas with vigor ever since. They're only two members on a Commission with five members, with moderate Republicans Chuck Nelson and Mary Bolin and liberal Democrat Robin Fisher rounding out the rest of the board, so Infantini and Anderson aren't always enough to get things done on their own. That's why the fire fees are still seperate from property taxes instead of lumped into the overall County budget where they belong (Florida Today, 12/28/08), and why we're still occasionally doing things like paying an analyst $5,000 to point out the obvious fact that our jails are overcrowded (Florida Today, 12/26/08).

    But when Infantini and Anderson can pressure Nelson or Bolin or even Fisher to join them on an idea, good things happen. The two-year moratorium on impact fees on business was their idea, and it was their tireless pressure since November that finally got the idea brought up for this week's successful vote. They helped to nudge the holdover County Manager Peggy Busacca into resigning in January to make room for someone more fiscally responsible, and helped kill efforts to name another member of the old guard, Tom Jenkins, as the interim manager. The Commission as a whole has also looked into restructuring the county employee health insurance plan to save taxpayers money, as well as delaying construction of the Centra-Plex agricultural center as an unneeded luxury in a down economy, both signs that the Commission's attitude on freely spending our money has changed dramatically. And they ended the saga of the Wickham Park horse stables, finally getting them open so we can at least get some return on the millions in taxpayer money that has already been spent to build the darn things.

    The fight isn't entirely over, not with Robin Fisher suggesting higher county fees and adding beachside parking meters to raise revenue, two horrible economy-killing ideas that couldn't come at a worse time. But Infantini and Anderson have publicly vowed to continue fighting any such propsals, and all they need is one vote from Nelson or Bolin to save the day. Given how often Nelson and Bolin have been siding with Infantini and Anderson on votes, it's clear they've heard the message from the voters loud and clear: it's a new day in Viera, and the old days of wasteful spending and inflated fees are over.

    Impact fees suspended for two years
    In an excellent move to spur the local economy, the Brevard County Commission finalized a plan on Thursday to suspend impact fees on new business and residential construction for two years. Can you imagine the previous Commission approving this? Make no mistake about it: the election of Trudie Infantini and Andy Anderson to the Commission last November showed a profound shift in the will of the voters, and Chuck Nelson, Mary Bolin and Robin Fisher have heard all of us loud and clear. That's probably why both the initial vote last week and the final vote this week were unanimous. Nobody wants to be seen as opposing this idea.

    These impact fees were first put into place a few years ago as a charge on new business construction projects to be spent on transportation funding. The idea was that new businesses and shopping centers increase the traffic load on our roads and make new transportation projects needed, so the new businesses should have to foot the bill. Never mind that they already pay a huge portion of the County's property tax revenue thanks to things like Save Our Homes and Amendment 1. And never mind that the fees were charged anyway, regardless of the actual impact the new business would eventually have on traffic, but anyway. There were also some people who thought growth in Brevard County was out of control and needed to be curbed, and they saw impact fees as a way to do just that.

    Problem is, now we're in a down economy. The people who wanted to curb growth seemed to think the economy was never going to slow down and saw growth as the enemy, and they got these impact fees put into place. And I guarantee you there were potentially business owners and developers who decided not to build in Brevard County and went elsewhere to avoid those impact fees, taking jobs with them and leaving behind undeveloped land with lower property values, which in turn led to lower property tax revenues for Brevard. And now, with Brevard's unemployment rate hitting 9.5%, we're seeing what happens when lots of people move to a desireable area and find that there aren't any jobs waiting for them there.

    Let's face it: Brevard County is a nice place to live. People want to move here. The weather's nice, the schools are relatively good, pollution is low thanks to our clean industrial base and beach tourism, taxes are relatively low, and traffic, while aggravating, is a far cry from the massive snarls in Orlando, Tampa and Miami. People are going to want to move here and live here, and there's little we can do to stop them. And when they get here, we need to have jobs for them. I don't understand why we ever made the foolish decision to stand at the gates of the county and guard against the people who want to build the businesses that will provide those jobs.

    So, kudos to Infantini and Anderson for pushing this proposal and forcing Nelson, Bolin and Fisher to go along with it. Suspending impact fees on new businesses is the right thing to do right now. We need businesses to come here, set up shop, and provide jobs, and developers who avoided Brevard County before due to those impact fees are going to give us another look now. They'll turn low-value undeveloped plots of land into high-value developed plots that bring in more revenue in property taxes, and they'll provide jobs for Brevardians who need them. And we'll stop treating all new businesses as if their impact on traffic is going to be exactly the same regardless of location or business type, which was a truly foolish and unfair way of treating the people who help drive our economy forward.

    Oh, and if you're worried about the impact this will have on the County's tax revenue, don't be. In 2008, the grand total of all impact fees collected in Brevard County was $5.8 million, a drop in the bucket of the County's $1 billion-plus budget. So it wasn't even raising all that much money for Brevard anyway, and was probably doing more damage to our budget thanks to lower property values from vacant land that never got developed because the impact fees chased potential businesses away.

    School funding notes
    The Brevard School Board members voted unanimously last week to cut their own yearly pay from a little over $38,000 down to $36,000 to match what a first-year teacher makes. It's pretty much a symbolic move and it won't save the school district much money, but I applaud the School Board for doing it anyway. Every little bit counts! And it's probably a big reason why the union for the school district's support staff approved a wage freeze for their workers earlier this week, meaning that people like cafeteria workers and bus drivers will see their pay stay the same for the next two years. The teachers' union in Brevard also recently accepted a two-year pay freeze, so I guess some unions are able to actually understand economic reality and common sense once in a while.

    Also, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago on-the-air, and it looks like it's going to happen. A bill has been introduced that would allow schools to use the school-wide student-to-teacher ratio instead of a stricter class-wide ratio to determine compliance with the state's class-size amendment. The switch to class-wide ratios was supposed to happen a few years ago, but the legislature keeps stepping in and extending the use of the school-wide ratio to make things easier on the schools. And I think that's fair. The purpose of the amendment was to lower class sizes in Florida, not to strangulate schools with yet another burdensome rule to follow, and using the school-wide ratios has been working just fine. I'd be okay with making that easier ratio permanent, to be honest, if not repealing the class-size amendment altogether.

    Oh, and as if there was ever any doubt in the matter, a recent Florida Today article pretty much confirmed the shell-game that is the Florida Lottery when it comes to funding education. For every dollar of Lottery money that goes into school funding, the Legislature pretty much takes a dollar away from the state's own funding of education to spend on something else. Don't believe me? Three years before the Florida Lottery started, education spending was 61.5% of the state's budget. Five years after the Florida Lottery started, education spending was 50.8% of the state's budget. The Lottery is just another general revenue source for the state government, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

    Other stories:

  • Here's a genius idea: let's take sewage water, run it through some water treatments so that it's not as nasty, and then pump it underground and store it right next to the aquifer for later use for irrigation during the dry season. No, not in an underground tank or anything, just right into the ground. See, there's bedrock and different soil types and stuff like that down there which will keep the treated sewage from ever mixing into the aquifer or the Indian River Lagoon. Nothing could possibly go wrong! Sure, it's all experimental, and yeah, we don't have a complete picture of exactly how things look down there, and no, rock and soil aren't entirely waterproof, but we're certain nothing could ever possibly go horribly, horribly wrong with this idea! Okay, sarcasm off. The City of Rockledge is seriously considering this insane idea. This needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. When someone tries to tell you nothing could possibly go wrong, be very afraid.

  • Brevard Housing Authority Director Ron Sellers has tendered his resignation to the Board, effective late May. Sellers has been under a LOT of pressure after losing $2.5 million in government funds and trying to hide the fact that the Housing Authority has been running in the red since last year. And it's still not over, with the Housing Authority board members looking for a way to fire him and get Sellers out of there even sooner. Good.

  • The City of Cocoa is looking into buying a vacant tract of land to turn it into an off-leash dog park. In this economy, is this really the best thing to be spending money on? Why can't they wait for the economy to improve and then just convert some park land that they already own into a dog park? But hey, this is the same city government that lost money on an outdoor ice skating rink and wants to do it again next year, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

  • The Miami abortion clinic owner who took an accidentally-born premature baby and threw it out with the garbage has been charged with two felonies, practicing medicine without a license and tampering with evidence. It oughta be murder charges, but this is at least something.

    (EDIT: 3/8/2009 at 9:45am - Here's a few more stories I mentioned on the show last night.)

  • President Obama's earmark-loaded $410 billion omnibus budget bill passed the House of Representatives this week... Republican Rep. Bill Posey voted no, while Democratic Rep. Suzanne Kosmas voted yes. No surprise there. Fortunately, the Republicans have the bill tied up in the Senate and aren't letting it get through without a fight.

  • "This is an emergency! My McNuggets are an emergency," she said to the 911 operator.

  • Former state representative Bob Allen has finally dropped his appeals of his conviction for sexual solicitation. Good. Maybe there's still time for him to salvage some of his dignity.

  • The state of Washington is mailing out checks for $1 each to hundreds of thousands of needy residents. Why? So they can claim they receive assistance from the state, which will in turn qualify them for more assistance from a federal program. Only government...

  • Dude. You followed some guy for 30 miles on the interstate after he cut you off, and then sicced your dog on him at a gas station? Grow up!

  • How sad is this? At only 8pm, this guy was so drunk that he passed out in his car while sitting at a red light and slept through 6 light changes. Time to reconsider the course of your life, man.
     

    Reminder: The Vince Young Show returns this Saturday night!
      Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 8:30am

    If you tried to tune in to The Vince Young Show last Saturday night, you heard Orlando Magic basketball instead. WMEL is contracted to carry all the Magic games, so that meant I got pre-empted.

    But the schedule is clear for tomorrow night, Saturday, March 7th, so that means I'll be back on the air on AM-1300 WMEL at 7pm for three more hours of live, local talk! Be sure to listen, or better yet, call in! (321)631-1300.

    I'll try to get some preview notes up here on the website later today or tonight. Watch this space...
     

     
     

    « Archive: February 2009
     


  • vince.young@gmail.com

     
    About Me
    My name is Vince Young, and I am NOT a football player. I'm a young resident of Palm Bay, the largest city along the Space Coast in Florida, and I'm a local radio talk-show host on AM-1300 WMEL in Cocoa, a bit north of Palm Bay. This site serves as a companion to my radio show as we discuss news and events in Brevard County, local politics, and state and national news, as well as whatever random stuff catches my fancy. To learn more, click here.

     
    Recent posts
  • Obama pays lip service to national debt. How about paying money instead? (1/26/10)
  • Democrats finally listen on health care, but still can't stop spending your money (1/21/10)
  • Massachusetts on red alert; new state tax hampers business (1/19/10)
  • Happy MLK Jr. Day; Nye vs. Bolin; Crist vs. Crist (1/18/10)
  • Obama takes aim at banks; Cocoa Beach installs red-light camera (1/14/10)
  • County still bleeding cash; Cocoa shoots themselves in the foot (1/13/10)
  • Quake hits Haiti, ice hits Florida, race hits Harry (1/12/10)
  • Snow and guns in Cocoa; Greer bows out (1/7/10)
  • Cocoa ice-rink meltdown; redistricting fight looms (1/4/10)
  • A look back, and then a look forward (12/31/09)
  • Unpaved roads, tasers restricted, and McCollum goes to court (12/29/09)
  • Pants on fire: Islamic terrorists AND Florida Today! (12/28/09)
  • Rupe Request ends; Posey pulls a Paul; Crist slips (12/22/09)
  • Who the hell is Vince Young? (12/14/09)
  • Who would you prefer: Obama or Dubya? (12/11/09)
  • Democrats order another round of debt! (12/10/09)
  • Tiger Woods is news? NASA gets money. And Obama wants tax cuts? (12/9/09)
  • SunRail passes while budget deficit swells (12/8/09)
  • Rent-A-Cow costing us money? Plus Melbourne plans appeal (12/7/09)
  • Confederates sue, high-speed rail chugs on, and parents whine (12/3/09)
  • Obama FINALLY decides on Afghanistan; Sunshine Law; Climategate (12/1/09)
  • Infantini on the show tonight; Steve Crisafulli wants to raise taxes? (11/30/09)
  • Daily Bread wins expansion fight; global warming crowd caught fudging numbers? (11/24/09)
  • Maureen Rupe on the show tonight; fight back, get fired? (11/23/09)
  • Sunshine Law issues pop up again; store owner defends himself with a gun (11/19/09)
  • The Rupe Request: the view from Maureen Rupe (11/19/09)
  • The Rupe Request: the view from Viera (11/18/09)
  • My Lawyer Made Me Change The Name Of This Entry So I Wouldn't Get Sued (11/18/09)
  • Public records request questioned; code enforcement goes wild (11/17/09)
  • Steele-d for a fight; bridge breaks again; environmentalists fibbing (11/12/09)
  • Fort Hood aftermath, EELS fight, and health care "reform" (11/9/09)
  • Breaking news: massacre at Ford Hood (11/5/09)
  • Election results from November 3rd, 2009 (11/4/09)
  • This is it! Elections on Tuesday, health-care vote on Friday! (11/2/09)
  • Info on the 11/3 city election candidates (10/29/09)
  • Common-sense on red-light cameras; offshore drilling IS clean enough (10/27/09)
  • Crist's Obama hug was just being "civil"; a simple solution to school overcrowding (10/26/09)
  • Obama vs. Cheney; national debt ceiling could hit $13 trillion! (10/22/09)
  • Crist's numbers drop; more sanity for our property tax system? (10/21/09)
  • American flags are "offensive" now? And make a decision already, Obama! (10/20/09)
  • Crist re-writes history, Obama relaxes on medical marijuana, and more flu vaccine news (10/19/09)
  • Audio of the Amy Kneessy interview is available! (10/18/09)
  • Amy Kneessy on the show tonight! And is health care a right? (10/15/09)
  • Health care forum tonight, school employees protest, and Titusville goes overboard (10/14/09)
  • Code enforcement! Grumpy prosecutors! The Senate Finance Committee! RUN!!! (10/13/09)
  • Swine flu! Global warming! The Nobel Prize committee! RUN!!! (10/12/09)
  • The City of Rockledge and the Sunshine Law (7/28/09)
  • Radio schedule for this week: June 1st through June 5th (6/1/09)
  • Crist sides with state workers over taxpayers: radio links from 5/27 (6/1/09)
  • Red light cameras come to Cocoa Beach: radio links from 5/25 (5/27/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/18, 5/19 and 5/21 (5/25/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/13 (5/18/09)
  • On the air tonight, 5/13; plus WMEL is now streaming online! (5/13/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/11 (5/13/09)
  • On the air tonight, 5/11! (5/11/09)
  • Vote "No" on Palm Bay Works (5/11/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 5/7 (5/11/09)
  • ASR forum is tonight! (5/4/09)
  • Only one show this week (4/27/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 4/21 (4/23/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links from 4/16 (4/21/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links for 4/14 (4/15/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: news links for 4/9 (4/9/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: program notes for 4/6 (4/7/09)
  • I'm moving to weeknights on WMEL! (4/2/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: program notes from 3/28 (4/1/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: program notes from 3/14 (3/20/09)
  • The Vince Young Show: program notes for 3/7 (3/7/09)
  • Reminder: The Vince Young Show returns this Saturday night! (3/6/09)

     
    Search-o-Matic

     
    Ex Post Facto
  • What is Ex Post Facto?
  • Well, THAT was useful... (2/24/09)
  • Gun paranoia strikes again (2/21/09)
  • Penny-wise, pound-foolish (11/19/08)
  • Why I won't miss Dave Weldon (10/13/08)
  • September 12th (9/12/08)
  • "I'm suuuuuuuuuing!" (9/3/08)
  • Jokers with screenshots (8/25/08)
  • A word from the Odd Bird (8/25/08)
  • A good, clean fight (8/11/08)
  • Who's greedier? (8/5/08)
  • VINCE SMASH!!! (8/4/08)
  • The First Church of Al Gore's Beard (7/30/08)
  • Melbourne Beach versus Walgreens: a fight that never had to happen (7/18/08)

     
    Archives
  • December 2009
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  • July 2009
  • June 2009
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  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009 (no entries)
  • December 2008
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  • October 2008
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  • July 2008
  • 2007
  • First Church of Al Gore's Beard

     
    Links
  • Brevard County Supervisor of Elections
  • Brevard County Government
  • Brevard County Schools
  • Florida Today
     - Opinion section
  • Hometown News: Brevard County edition
    You know that free local newspaper you throw away every week? Yeah, this is that one.
  • Brevard Watchlist
    Matt Reed and Jeff Schweers, investigative reporters for Florida Today.
  • Florida Capital News
  • House of the Odd Bird
    A slice-of-life blog from my wife, Cake Buzzard.
  • Campaign For Liberty: Brevard County
    A local group of conservative activists. Get involved!
  • Brevard Political Journal
    Ed Dean's new Brevard news digest.
  • Talk To Me
    Sheree Shatsky's often-updated take on news and life in Brevard County.
  • The Offlede
    Florida Today editor Andrew Knapp goes off the beaten path.
  • Space Coast Politics
    Written by Matthew Nye.
  • Space Coast Conservative
    Written by Linda McKinney.
  • Least Significant Bits
    Jam writes about news, politics, and whatever's on his mind.
  • Port St. John, Florida
    A roundtable blog about Port St. John.
  • Drudge Report
  • Neal Boortz
    America's rude awakening.
  • Rollye James
    Direct from the edge of the lunatic fringe.
  • Every Day Should Be Saturday
    Orson Swindle's hilarious take on college football news.
  • The Blue-Gray Sky
    Simply the best blog about Notre Dame football.
  • Weather Underground: Tropical Weather
     - Dr. Jeff Masters's blog
  • Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories
    Witty and insightful rebuttals to 9/11 conspiracy theories.
  • Libertarian Party
  • The FairTax

     
    My representatives
  • US Senate - George LeMieux (R)
  • US Senate - Bill Nelson (D)
  • US House 15 - Bill Posey (R)
  • FL Senate 26 - Mike Haridopolos (R)
  • FL House 30 - Ritch Workman (R)
  • County Commission 3 - Trudie Infantini (R)
  • School Board 5 - Andy Ziegler
  • Palm Bay - City Council
     - Mayor: John Mazziotti
     - Deputy Mayor: Milo Zonka
     - Council Member: William Capote
     - Council Member: Kristine Isnardi
     - Council Member: Michele Paccione

     
    Notre Dame football
    2009 Schedule
  • 9/5 - vs. Nevada
    WIN! 35-0
  • 9/12 - at Michigan
    LOSS! 38-34
  • 9/19 - vs. Michigan State
    WIN! 33-30
  • 9/26 - at Purdue
    WIN! 24-21
  • 10/3 - vs. Washington
    WIN! 37-30 (OT)
  • 10/17 - vs. USC
    LOSS! 34-27
  • 10/24 - vs. Boston College
    WIN! 20-16
  • 10/31 - vs. Washington State
    (at San Antonio, TX)
    WIN! 40-14
  • 11/7 - vs. Navy
    LOSS! 23-21
  • 11/14 - at Pittsburgh
    LOSS! 27-22
  • 11/21 - vs. Connecticut
    Loss. Meh. 33-30 (2OT)
  • 11/28 - at Stanford
    Loss. (Yawn.) 45-38

    © 2000-2010 E. Vincent Young. All rights reserved. So there.