Cocoa Beach: Candidate Forum Today.
Don’t forget that the Candidate Forum for the Cocoa Beach Commission is today at 9:30 AM at the Cocoa Beach Public Library.
Forums like this can cure “low information-itis” for voters.
Hope to see you there!
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 23, 2016
Housekeeping.
Over the next few days, we are going to try to make some changes to the back end of the site. New plugins, some changing of the CSS, and other things to make the site hopefully run better and give us more control over the site. We hope to address some maintenance issues as well. None of these changes will affect what you see on the site down the road, but they may affect what you see this weekend as the site may be up and down from time to time as we test the new modifications out.
So if you come here and get a message saying, “unable to connect” or some 404 error message, we hope you will understand.
We aren’t going away, but we may have issues as we install and fix some things.
Sep 23, 2016
Oops.
Via our friend William Teach over at the Pirate’s Cove, comes this:
California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock opened a congressional hearing by reading a Washington Post article detailing the “unheard of” impacts global warming had on the Arctic ecosystem.
“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and some place the seals are finding the water too hot,” McClintock read in a Wednesday hearing, adding that reports “all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard of temperatures in the Arctic zone.”
McClintock went on, then asked President Barack Obama’s top climate adviser Christy Goldfuss if “this the crisis you’re referring to?” — referring to a new guidance her Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) staff issued on accounting for global warming impacts of federal agency actions.
“It is a crisis we’re trying to address,” Goldfuss said, totally unsuspecting of what was about to happen. “I’m not familiar with that specific report…” Goldfuss added.
Turns out, Goldfuss should have been familiar with the report as it has been out awhile.
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Sep 22, 2016
Cocoa Beach: Candidate Forum This Weekend.
The Citizens Action Committee of Cocoa Beach will be hosting a candidate forum this weekend. The forum will take place on Saturday at the library, and will feature candidates for the City Commission.
Editor’s Note: We are not associated with the Citizens Action Committee and are only advertising this event as public service so people can met, greet, ask questions of candidates and listen to their responses.
The above image has not been approved by the CAC.
Sep 21, 2016
Satellite Beach: City Council Meeting Tonight.
Satellite Beach will hold a regular City Council meeting tonight starting at 7:00 PM. Lots of things on the agenda (found here.)
The big item on the agenda is probably the approval of the budget on the second reading. According to pages 39 and 40 of the support packet, Satellite Beach is reducing their millage rate from 8.2900 to 8.1518 mills:
The budget reduces the City’s millage rate from 8.2900 to 8.1518 mills and the City’s budget is balanced with total revenues and expenditures of $16,682,134.
Congratulations to Satellite Beach for lowering the millage rates as the increase in property values will more than offset the drop in millage.
The City is looking to ban polystyrene containers being used as food containers by the City and City vendors at City events and on City property. We won’t get into the reasons given as they are not quite accurate, but we understand the general intent of the ban.
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Sep 20, 2016
Let’s Talk, Shall We?
The post was going to be a simple one of this video from Prager University:
What are the five biggest problems facing black Americans? Where do things like racism and police brutality rank? What about the absence of black fathers? Taleeb Starkes, author of Amazon #1 bestseller “Black Lies Matter,” lists the five. They may surprise you.
The video is an interesting one and makes many good points.
What makes this video even more relevant to us is that just today (as we write this post) we had a conversation with one of the staff members on the Star Spangled Banner “protest” that is taking place in both the NFL and with Megan Rapinoe of the US Women’s National Soccer Team.
The staff member to whom we were speaking said they had lost a lot of respect for the NFL because of their allowing players to disrespect the National Anthem. This was quite a revelation to us because as long as we have known this person, they have been a die hard Miami Dolphin fan. (They even walk around on game day humming the Dolphins’ fight song.)
When they said that they had not even watched all of the Dolphins’ game this past Sunday, it was quite a change from the undying fan of past years.
Part of the reason for his walking away from the NFL is the league’s refusal to do anything about what he sees as the disrespect of the anthem by players. Unlike the NBA which has a rule that players must stand for the anthem, the NFL has no such rule so the league has no authority to order the player to stand or punish those who do. Yet as the staff member notes, a player still is employed by a private company and that company has the right to say “stand or you’re fired.”
It is the lack of guts and intestinal fortitude from the teams and specifically the Dolphins, that has the staff member riled up and abandoning the NFL. (He may not be the only one as NFL game viewership is down this year from 2015.)
Then you have members of teams that represent the United States such as the women’s soccer team where Megan Rapinoe again “took a knee” during the playing of the National Anthem. The staff member noted that Rapinoe would stand for the national anthem of Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and other oppressive countries, but would not stand for the US national anthem.
While US Soccer released a statement saying they expected players to stand during the national anthem, the head coach of the US team playing in the World Hockey Championships had a different message: “stand up or don’t play.”
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Sep 19, 2016
Deplorable Me.
We remember back in 2016 when Mitt Romney was killed for talking about the percentage of people who don’t pay federal taxes.
Hillary calls voters “deplorable” and there is not a peep from the mainstream media.
Double standard perhaps?
Hillary lables people who vote for Trump deplorable. You know, your every day hard working American taxpayer.
(From the mind and colored pens of A.F. Branco at Comically Incorrect.)
Sep 18, 2016
Artist Sues California Over Civil War Painting.
Timothy Desmond is a retired teacher and Civil War buff. He is also an artist and author of a book called “The Doc“ (Black Opal Books, 2014).
For the 2015 and 2016 State Fair held at the Big Fresno Fair, Desmond submitted a painting for the art exhibition depicting an attack by Confederate forces during Sherman’s March on Atlanta. The painting is seen below.
The State of California told Desmond he could not display the painting because the painting shows a Confederate flag. The flag in question is the second official flag of the Confederacy and is sometimes referred to as the “stainless flag” due to the large expanse of white on the flag.
In 2014, California passed a law which reads, in part:
The State of California may not sell or display the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, also referred to as the Stars and Bars, or any similar image, or tangible personal property, inscribed with such an image unless the image appears in a book, digital medium or state museum that serves an educational or historical purpose; and
For purposes of this section, “sell” means to transfer title or possession, exchange, or barter, conditional or otherwise, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, for consideration. “Transfer possession” includes only transactions that would be found by the state board of equalization, for purposes of the sales and use tax law, to be in lieu of a transfer of title, exchange, or barter.
The heads of the fair admit that Desmond’s painting meets the requirements for inclusion in the art exhibition. However, they asked the State Attorney General’s Office if the depiction of the flag violated the state law on the Confederate flag and were told that it did.
The Center for Individual Rights is representing Desmond and they note:
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