SP Times: The federal government has sent millions of dollars in aid to areas largely unaffected by disasters, even after local officials warned of possible fraud, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent $29.2-million to people in Miami-Dade County for Hurricane Frances, the Labor Day storm that struck 100 miles to [...]
Archive for December, 2004
The reason for the season?
December 20, 2004
One word: Solstice. This kind of crap is getting very tiring. With slogans like ”He’s the Reason for the Season” and ”Bring Jesus back to Christmas,” Christian activists are taking up an old battle with renewed energy this holiday season. Emboldened by the heavy turnout of ”values” voters on Election Day, Christian organizations are lobbying [...]
GOP welcomes state sponsored religion
December 16, 2004
As lawmakers shape and debate Florida’s new pre-K plan, some disturbing trends have emerged. One of the most troublesome points in the legislation is the reliance on religious schools to take up the slack and provide classroom space to many of the 100,000 or more 4 year olds who are expected to be enrolled in [...]
Bibles in every classroom!
December 15, 2004
Since gaining office, Jeb! has proudly cut billions of dollars of tax revenues from the state budget, benefitting mostly wealthy individuals and businesses. Now, when it comes time to deal with pre-K education and kids health care, the state cries poverty and wrings its hands as
Florida 4 year olds to get religion
December 14, 2004
Florida’s Organized Religion Welfare Act of 2005 pre-K legislation is progressing as planned, with GOP leaders belittling or simply ignoring pleas for quality. Calls for safeguards against state-sponsored proselytizing and recruitment are likewise falling on deaf ears. When voters passed the mandate for pre-K education in 2002, they wisely demanded a quality program. Unfortunately, it [...]
Churches to prey on pre-K kids
December 13, 2004
Herald.com The voter-mandated pre-K program, the centerpiece of this week’s special lawmaking session, likely won’t meet the number of instruction hours or qualified teachers called for by early-childhood development advocates. The proposal, expected to pass with few changes, doesn’t bar religious discrimination, either. …… But early-childhood development advocates, and Democratic lawmakers, complain the legislation is [...]
GOP planning Rape of the Gulf
December 12, 2004
Two years ago, we paid some big oil companies lots of money as part of a widely touted agreement to keep oil and gas drilling far far away from Florida’s coasts. Well, now that both Jeb! and his brother have retaken their respective offices, it seems that ANWR may not be the only target for [...]
Ronda’s, uh, right again
December 10, 2004
UPDATE – I’ve learned that Ronda’s problems with the recent Korn concert include lyrical content. I’m actually relieved to hear this since it gives me an excuse to state that Ronda is a prudish moralist who would have free expression censored in order to avoid even the most remote possibility of overhearing a word that [...]
Felonious Junk: Jeb! makes token changes
December 10, 2004
Jeb! and his buddies on the Florida Clemency Board made some cosmetic changes to the state’s backward, racist felon disenfranchisement rules yesterday, and the changes should help some select people who have served their time to rejoin the ranks of voters, but the rule changes are minor, and Florida remains one of only 7 states [...]
Troxler does some blogging
December 9, 2004
The SP TImes’ Howard Troxler takes on the arrogant attitude shared by many GOP leaders that the people of Florida really don’t know what the fuck we are doing. Today’s column is written like a blog, complete with quotes form his own newspaper, as he skewers the various proposals to repeal existing citizen initiatives and [...]