Category: Uncategorized

From abortion to affirmative action to public-trust-eroding, VIP treats. Imagine what the mood, atmospherics, and small talk are like around SCOTUS these days. No, you can’t Zoom everything.

* Intelligence can be Artificial, but stupidity is real.

* Why isn’t phonetic spelled with an “f”?

* A word that runs both ways—such as kayak or madam—is a palindrome. Still my favorite: “A man, a plan, a canal—Panama.”

* “If I have one foot in a bucket of hot water and one foot in a bucket of ice, on average I’m comfortable.”–Mark Twain.

* Veterinary hospital sign: “Free Belly Rubs With Exam! Sorry, Pets Only.”

* Give me coffee to change the things I can and wine to accept things I can’t.

* Pamplona: The “Running of the Bulls” is back. Tourists run for social media acclaim; bulls run to their demise in the bull ring. That’s why I root for the bulls.

* What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta.

 

* Flori-duh reminder: This state still has no restrictions on the sale or ownership of assault weapons.

* Like many governors, Ron DiSaster’s signing of bills is a high-profile, self-serving, staged political event. How interesting that his signing of the law that allows people to carry guns without permits was done in private. Sounds like the calculation of someone running for president who knows that this issue won’t play quite as well nationally.

* The Pasco County School Board has banned the use of cellphones in elementary classrooms. The obvious begged question: What took so long?

* “The politicization of weather”: How Gov. DiSaster recently responded to the issue of climate change and the role of government in combating it.

* Clean energy update: Gov. DiSaster vetoed a bill that would have added electrical vehicles to state and local government fleets. It could have saved the state an estimated $277 million over 15 years. More EVs would create less demand for ethanol, which is processed from corn in such states as the early presidential-caucus Iowa.

* When the Catholic governor goes on the Christian Broadcasting Network to talk religion, he’s courting the all-too-courtable evangelical vote. Too bad hypocrisy isn’t a mortal sin.

* “Gimme Shelter”: Mick Jagger and his girlfriend are selling their home in—the Lakewood Ranch area.

* Pro-choice, anti-DeSantis sign: “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries.”

* “Moms for Liberty”? How about “Mom’s for Self-Serving Censorship Euphemisms”?

* “In Miami, we stopped waiting for Washington to lead.”–Miami Republican Mayor Francis Suarez, in announcing his presidential campaign.

* “Cultivating the arts and realizing a wide range of housing options in Ybor City are two critically important goals for our community.” That was developer Darryl Shaw, who is donating land for the Artspace Tampa project that aims to offer affordable space where artists can live and work.

* “Imagine Clearwater”–with its impressive, new tourist-magnet Coachman Park–has opened. Finally. What’s next? “Imagine Clearwater without Scientology?”

* An independent, Pinellas County-commissioned analysis of a baseball stadium impact on the Tropicana Field site projected the generation of nearly 18,000 sustainable, annual jobs in the county over 30 years.

* Pinellas County is on track to add another 200,000 residents by 2050.

* “There’s always the option of going back to the people of Hillsborough to seek re-election for a third term.” That was former Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren, who was ousted by Gov. DiSaster. You go, Andrew.

* A Tampa-themed Monopoly board game is set to debut early next year under the Hasbro license. Suggestions are welcome. Here’s hoping they all start with Ybor City.

* Not a good sign for the Florida governor when he’s parodied–more than once–in Doonesbury.

* “Euphemisms are never to be ignored. They are rhetorical shields. The interviewer who points them out lays bare the propaganda that hides behind them.”–Ted Koppel.

* Meta’s new app, Threads, is now competing with Twitter. One big difference: The former is not owned by Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg never seemed so normal.

* In a recent study, 20 percent of liberal students, 40 percent of moderates and 54 percent of conservatives said they censored themselves in class because they were worried about “critical comments” or social media.

* Forbes has valued the Tampa Bay Lightning at $1 billion. The franchise was purchased in 2010 for $170 million by Jeff Vinik.

* The unprecedented growth of sports betting: Head’s up, the scandals are coming. It’s inevitable. Personally, I’d rather root for teams—than bet on them.

* MLB: The league minimum salary is $720,000. A minimum of players make that.

* Words you’ll never hear—from athletes who have spent their entire career with a single franchise before leaving as free agents: “I’ve really been lucky to have gotten rich playing a game I love in a community I’ve grown to love and call home. Because of salary cap reality, I’m going to take less so that I can stay here and help keep the team competitive and keep me happy and, yes, still rich.”

* The rule of law must trump the rule of politics.

* “I think (Trump’s) a coward, and I think he’s a puppet of Putin.” That was Chris Christie—now, not then.

* Mike Pence has checked a presidential wannabe box by visiting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine. As for former President Donald Trump, he’s more likely to visit Vlad Putin.

* Trump, of course, is entitled to a jury of his peers. But it still sounds kind of creepy.

* One question that could have been asked of Rudy Giuliani by Justice Department investigators: “You sold your soul to support Donald Trump, would you like to buy it back?”

* “To Russian tyranny, I say the world needs more, not less, American exceptionalism.”–Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

* “We should not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that needlessly worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationships.”–Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in her meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

* “Truly a tragedy for us all.”–How SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson referenced the Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action in college admissions.

* “Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision-making.”–Andrew Young, the late civil rights activist and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

* “Kevin McCarthy has no control over his conference. The race to the extreme is now running the House of Representatives.”–Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff.

* “The great paradox of American politics today: You can get what you want if you win more elections, but to win more elections you need to ask for less.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

* “When men are elected to Congress, they’re given the presumption of competence. Women have the burden of proof.”–Geraldine Ferraro.

* “Women, families and doctors are the only people who should decide when to have children, not politicians.”–Florida Congresswoman Kathy Castor.

* “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”–Fannie Lou Hamer.

* “What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots. I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”–Former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

* “EVs (electric vehicles) are no longer a niche.”–Coner Sen, Bloomberg.

* “Literature is a way for us to experience the world in a safe place.”–Author Zoraida Cordova.

* “La pluma es la lengua del alma.” (“The pen is the tongue of the soul.”)–Cuban proverb.

* “Sincerity is the secret of success. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”–George Burns.

* “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving is definitely not for you.”–Comedian Steven Wright.

* “Expanding work-base college alternatives would go a long way toward filling skills shortages, boosting economic opportunity and reducing household debts.”-–Bloomberg Opinion.

* “We are experiencing a legal revolution in Florida in which constitutional values that have been taken for granted are being trashed.”–Howard Simon, former executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

* “I don’t know what’s more embarrassing—(DeSantis’) recent scorecard in the courts or his cratering poll numbers.”—Florida Democratic Chair Nikki Fried.

* “When politicians need to speak of their faith to court votes, they do it.”–Former Florida Republican Congressman David Jolly.

* What a campaign needs to be successful—money, messaging and a new brand, because the Democratic brand in Florida, for better or worse, is a damaged brand.”–Miami-based, Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi.

* “We don’t want to negotiate in the media.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch on the ongoing redevelopment plans for Tropicana Field.

Gov. Ron DiSaster’s ultimate challenge: How, as an official presidential candidate, do you hit back at your main rival, Donald Trump, without alienating his MAGA-movement minions? This constituency, especially, wants white-knuckle performance art, the sort that lashes out in their perceived populist-punk interest. But they don’t want their cult leader attacked by a GOPster. That’s what they expect from “libtards” and other socialist lefties. Talk about threading a needle.

So far, that means continuing his anti-”woke” agenda, including the subsidizing of immigrant flights to California and Massachusetts, and noting that the multi-count, indicted Trump has been “running to the left” or that the next president will need more than four years (that a lame duck Trump would be limited to) to really accomplish stuff.

So, Gov. DiSaster is mostly throwing jabs–not sucker punches–because he doesn’t want to insult and unfriend that always ready-to-smolder Trump base. So, no, he won’t be leading a “Lock him up” crusade. But he does want to “Make America Florida” and is playing the family card against Trump. Think Ozzie Nelson vs. Archie Bunker—even if it’s more like Murdoch vs. Manson. But, yeah, look for DiSaster to promise to pardon insurrectionists.

* “No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse.” That was President Joe Biden on the last-minute budget agreement, the one that no pol or party wants to be targeted for catastrophic blame. It’s also beyond disgraceful that Washington still doesn’t get how dangerous it is to play the brinkmanship default game.

* “We have only one truly sacred obligation: to prepare those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home and when they don’t.”–President Joe Biden at Arlington National Cemetery.

* No, it’s not a game changer, but it makes Florida a little less red-meat Republican. Jacksonville elected its first female mayor, Democrat Donna Deegan. No less notable: This now means that three of Florida’s largest jurisdictions—Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami-Dade County—are now run by Democratic women.