Sorry, took a few days off on this one because of my trip and because final exams are quickly approaching.
1. Florida Fund Crisis: Discourse.net – Florida Quarantines the Radioactive Securities, Miami-Dade Dems – Florida financial crisis meeting on Tuesday, Discourse.net – Citizens Insurance and Other South Florida Public Bodies May Lose Big If State Fund Collapses, Pensacola Beach Blog – Florida Fraud Files, Discourse.net – Florida Fund Crisis: The Jeb Bush Connection, Ybor City Stogie – Florida Schools Take Out Loans To Pay Teachers, Eschaton – Jeb’d, and Why Now? – Because They’re So Good With Money.
2. Ybor City Stogie – The Florida Marriage Amendment: “The Christian Family Coalition announced that it has filed the remaining 3,300 petition signatures necessary to place the Florida Marriage Amendment on the November 2008 U.S. Presidential ballot.” and Flablog – More ballot bait: “Gay marriage is not recognized by Florida statute but Christian activists and the Republican Party of Florida want to make it double illegal with a state constitutional amendment amendment.”
3. FCD turns Florida blue – Redistricting: “The map of Florida’s voting districts reminds me of a painting in a abstract art museum. Some of the districts are intertwined, some are drawn squiggly, some are drawn as a squares. At a glance it looks as random as many of the other pieces you’d find in the museum.”
4. Blast Off! – Surviving the Wingnut Family: “It’s taken me about three days here in my Undisclosed Location to recover from traveling, etc., enough to blog again. And it’s also taken me that long to detox following the holiday with my wingnut family.”
5. Draft Joe Garcia – Goal for the Week of 50 Petition Signatures: “The movement to Draft Joe Garcia is growing. At the moment, 41 people have signed the petition. Let’s get that to 50 by the end of the week and send a strong message that South Florida wants Joe Garcia in the race.”
6. New Science Standards: Florida Citizens for Science – News Release: Standards can go from F to high B, Florida Citizens for Science – Standards are getting a thumbs up, Florida Citizens for Science – We know what one vote will be now…, Florida Citizens for Science – Evolution research in the news, Florida Citizens for Science – Anti-science or anti-evolution?, over the cliff, onto the rocks – Is our childrens learning?
7. Eye On Miami – People: You are signing the wrong petition!: “Look at this picture AGAIN. The green petition is bad, it is the chamber ‘confuse you’ petition. Make sure the petition says HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY at the bottom. THAT IS CRITICAL. Theirs is the petition to petition. Hometown is the petition to call for a VOTE. Big difference.”
8. Tallahassee Leaders Forum – Eleven Tips for Reporting the Youth Vote: “It even gives a shout out to YDA a a model. Peer to Peer!Check the link above, here is the text, but the original post links to sources, in case you need to site them when you are telling people why we (young people) matter.”
9. Florida Netroots – Legislative Update: “Let’s hope our legislators were too busy enjoying the holiday to cook up any new schemes for legislative session…”
10. Change in Tallahassee – Advancement Project Seeks Florida Voter Protection Advocate.
11. the 13th juror – Lakeland abruptly turns on those who found refuge on its streets: “About a dozen Lakeland police officers ordered street residents to stay away from their belongings while a shovel on a city truck scooped them up. Blankets, clothes, mattresses and papers fell into a dump truck in a tangle.”
12. Eye On Miami – How can you fix Miami Dade County Government?: “Both Former County Commissioner Maurice Ferre and Former County Manager Merritt Stierheim think Miami Dade County Government can be fixed. Maurice wants to make the Commission larger and Steirheim want to make it smaller. Both men have had recent op ed pieces in the Miami Herald to prove their point. I respect both of these men but I disagree with them.”
13. Ybor City Stogie – Peace Group Barred From Manatee And Sarasota County Schools: “Public school districts in two Florida counties are refusing to allow members of a peace organisation to counter the presence of military recruiters by talking with high school students about options other than joining the service, according to a spokesperson for the group.”
14. Florida Citizens for Science – Science teachers need more than pay; they need guts!: “This news article in the St. Petersburg Times provides a decent analysis of one possible reason Florida’s students do so poorly in science: shortage of qualified teachers.”
15. Progressive Florida’s diary – FL-10: Bill Young is “An outright Hog”: “Well now we know that there is at least one thing Republican crumb-bum C.W. ‘Bill’ Young is good at: wasteful earmarking and spending.”
16. Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida – Environmental Justice, Injustice and Racism in St. Augustine, Florida, Nation’s Oldest (European-Founded) City: “Imagine dumping in a minority community illegally for decades, then finally removing the dump without required permits and secretly putting 30,000,000 pounds of contaminants in the Old City Reservoir, an open sore going straight down to the qauifer and groundwater according to former EPA Region 4 Regional Administrator John Henry Hankinson. Our City of St. Augustine city government must have influence with the State of Florida. Anyone else would be in jail.”
17. Eye On Miami – FPL and Nuclear Power, county department heads fail the public: “On December 20th, Miami Dade County Commissioners will hold a special hearing whether or not to grant an ‘unusual’ use permit to Florida Power and Light, to build two new nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear facility. Why is this December 20th hearing important?”
18. ricksblog.biz – Don’t drink the water: “The Escambia County Health Department has issued health alerts for parts of Bayou Grande and Bayou Texar because bacteria levels are above state standards. Health officials advise against swimming, fishing and other water-related activities in Bayou Grande at Navy Point south of the Sunset Avenue Bridge and south of Gibbs Road and in Bayou Texar at Bayview Park.”
19. Smashed Frog – The Case for Megan Meier: “What pathology stirred Lori Drew–a mother herself– to assume an identity to target and methodically ‘break’ fragile Megan Meier?”
20. Talk To Me – Heart or Head?: “Do people vote with their hearts or their heads?”
21. Blast Off! – Shine on, you crazy Wangâ„¢: “Florida tourism officials to offended minorities: ‘Suck. On. This.’ Well, no, not really. But the state tourism office, known as Visit Florida, seems to have a limited historical memory, at least when it comes to racist epithets.”
22. Incertus – Eric Schlosser: “Is one of my favorite writers. Yes, I am one of those people for whom reading Fast Food Nation was a life-changing event. (I never saw the film; was it good?) I also read portions of his newer book, Reefer Madness — the portions on migrant laborers. His new op-ed in the NY Times strikes especially close to home, being as it is about a local corporation (Burger King is a SoFla Co, if you didn’t know), and a major local issue: the near-enslavement of migrant workers — most of whom are here illegally, making them vulnerable to abuses unimaginable to those of us whom fortune has bestowed with ‘legality.’”
23. Broward’s Blog – Black Journalist Blast Gov. Crist For Appointing A Democrat: “Columnist Barbara Howard, writing in The Broward Times newspaper, is going after Gov. Charlie Crist for one of his recent appointments.”
24. Pushing Rope – Adam Putnam’s Minutemen Problem: “It is time the media ask Adam Putnam is getting cozy with Minutemen president Chris Wilcox. The Minutemen rank and file is filled with white supremists.”
25. Change in Tallahassee – Dealing With Ellyn Bogdanoff, Is Like Dealing With The Devil: “State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Broward Republican Chairman Chip LaMarca, have bamboozled Darin Lentner, a GOP political neophyte and Republican lawyer.”
26. Florida Netroots – You Tube Candidate: Bill Ramos: “I did a quick search on You Tube to see if I could find any candidates for state office and I found one for the Florida House who recently posted some campaign videos: Bill Ramos. Bill Ramos is running for District 81 which consists of parts of Martin and St. Lucie Counties.”
27. Change in Tallahassee – Is Freda Sherman Stevens Running a Scam On Broward Democrats: “A challenger to state Rep. Evan Jenne (D) Dania is, in fact, running a scam. Freda Sherman Stevens had planned to run against Jenne as a Republican, the party she is registered in. But she decided instead to challenge Jenne within the Democratic Party, after switching parties.”
28. Talk to Me – Too Soon: “The routine of life has a way of blending one day into the next. We rise before dawn, rush about the morning routine to get to where we need to go, only to return home at the end of the day to rush around some more before finally calling it a day. Bone-tired and weary, we fall into bed and shut our eyes against our accomplishments of the day, only to wake the next morning and repeat the same scenario all over again.”
29. Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller – An Exclusive Interview with ‘Gay General’ Keith Kerr: “I was at the GOP debate in St. Petersburg, Florida, with my video camera in hand, happily chatting with Chuck Norris (yes, that Chuck Norris) and Fred Thompson’s lovely trophy wife, Jeri, when Gen. Kerr happened by. Naturally, I shoved my vidcam in his face and asked him a couple of questions — including, “Which Republican candidate do you support?†Watch the video to learn the answer.”
30. Pushing Rope – Breaking News: High School Still Sucks: “Skylar Stains started Peace Shirt Thursdays at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High. Stains and fellow student Lauren Lorraine recruited 30 students for the Peace Shirt Coalition. They then started receiving harassment from fellow students.”
31. Miami-Dade Dems – New stuff on TV front: “This first one may actually be old, since I see in Wikipedia that it was launched in 2005. This is not bad for me, to be only two years behind. It’s Current TV, and for the never-say-die fans of Al Gore, this is his (sorta) network. Different stuff.”
32. Draft Joe Garcia – Mario’s Vote Against SCHIP: Something to Think About: “There was a post made a while back by Larry Thorson at the Say No to Mario blog that I think is worth thinking about. This concerns Mario’s No vote on SCHIP. The bill would have covered children’s health care and the catch is it would have been paid for by cigarette and tobacco taxes. Well apparently big tobacco companies in Florida didn’t like that and so Mario Diaz-Balart had to make a choice. Either stand with big tobacco lobbyists who fund his campaign or stand with children who don’t have health care coverage. We all know which side Mario chose.”
33. Blast Off! – For Ron Paul, the fundraising starts here: “By ‘here,’ I mean America’s Wangâ„¢. Yes, the online fundraising frenzy for Ron Paul’s narrow-minded campaign to win the hearts and minds of Americans unable to think for themselves has its roots in south Florida, specifically South Beach. (And don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming …)”
34. Here are the sites in our Candidate Watch Network that have been updated: The Bill Young Dispatch and Florida House Watch.
35. Also check out CG Radio and In Your Head Radio.
36. For more, as always, go to the FLA Politics daily round-up and the Spencerian’s Political Newsclippings.
