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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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?
 

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.
 

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!
 

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.
 

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?
 

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.
 

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:

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.
 

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:

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:

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.
 

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!
 

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:

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.
 

(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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.

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.
 

"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:

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.
 

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.
 

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!
 

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!
 

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

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.
 

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.
 

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 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.
 

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...
 

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:

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.
 

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:

Talk to you tonight on AM-1300 WMEL!
 

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.
 

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 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.

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Talk to you tonight at 8pm on AM-1300 WMEL radio!
 

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.
 

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.

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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?

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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.

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(EDIT: 3/8/2009 at 9:45am - Here's a few more stories I mentioned on the show last night.)