In this day and age of excessive greed by our political leaders, trusted investors, and big businesses are there any more stories out there that can anger us? Bailout after bailout, private jets,lavish parties, exorbitant bonus packages… have we had enough? Are we so saturated by the misuse of our money that we just don’t care anymore? Well, I think I have one more story that may be the apex on the ‘era of Greed’.

Brevard County Property Appraiser Jim Ford, who was re-elected last month, is using a clause in

state law that will allow him to retire his official current position in order to collect stateretirement benefits. Then, when he takes office again, he’ll receive his new salary.

Yes, you read that right. Our diligent property appraiser is retiring from his old job as property appraiser, so he can start working at his new job of… Property Appraiser. What’s the big deal about this?

Oh, you’ll love this…

Ford is using a program called DROP. He will get a lump sum check of $337,192. He will also get a retirement check of $6,892 a month.

and it’s not only a $7,000 retirement check he gets each month, he’ll also be getting his new salary for his new job (which is the same job he’s just retired from) that pays him $139,000 annually. .

Who is paying for this? We’ve had to cut $300 million from our school budget this year and if things don’t change, that number will soar to a total of $780 million next year. So who is paying for Jim Ford’s scam?

Maybe who is paying isn’t as interesting as why there is a loss of all this money. Among other things, $266 billion is how much statewide property values are expected to fall next year. Property values that were inflated by nefarious property appraisers.

What was Jim Ford’s title again?

Now, I am by no means blaming Jim Ford or his office for any of this. In fact, Lance Larsen Deputy Property Appraiser was acquitted on charges that he misused his office by giving tax breaks as political favors.

The last blow for prosecutors was when the judge would not allow them to have a witness testify that Larsen kept separate files for people he was allegedly favoring by lowering the value of their homes and property.

Prosecutors met with the judge in his chambers to discuss that issue and when they returned to court, the judge acquitted Larsen on seven counts of misconduct and one count of grand theft.

It must have been some other uncontrollable event that led up to this budget deficit that is going to effect every single aspect of our society in this state. What I will blame Jim Ford and the other 211 elected officials who have used the DROP law to charge the state $300 million since it’s passage, is being a part of the larger problem facing this country. Just because the law is there doesn’t mean you should take advantage of it. Especially in this day age when most American aren’t sure how they are going to feed and clothe their children this winter.

There is another Ford in the news these days trying trying to prove that they need a helping hand from Congress because of the financial abuses by Wall Street and her banks. That Ford is being dragged over hot coals and is as close to being drawn and quartered as you can get for not being more market savvy and fiscally responsible. When are we going to put all the corrupt players under the same microscope? From the giant banks who have broken their promises to the tax payer, to the bought and paid for property appraisers who were the first pebble that started this whole sub-prime mortgage avalanche, all of whom are still raping the system with our consent.

Sadly, Jim Ford may not have broken any laws but that doesn’t mean what he did was righteous either. This bleed needs to stop. This kind of cancer needs to be cut out. The days of extraordinary privileges, ridiculous ‘golden parachutes’ and unchecked greed needs to end, Rome is burning people… and we need to rid ourselves of the elected officials who are sitting and playing the fiddle while she cooks.

UPDATE

This is worse than I expected.. How much more corruption can this state pay for without going broke? How much more school funding can we take to pay for these rogue characters to live the life of Riley? Damnit this is my kids education as much as it’s yours. Isn’t it time to do something about it?

TALLAHASSEE — A growing number of elected officials are quietly taking advantage of a loophole carved into the state retirement law a few years ago that allows double dipping — collecting a state pension while still getting a regular paycheck from taxpayers.

Records indicate that 211 elected officials in Florida — including legislators, judges, sheriffs, circuit clerks, school board members and county commissioners — have taken advantage of the benefit. Thirty-one signed up in the past six months.

They are ‘quietly’ taking ‘advantage’… It’s time to bring this into the light isn’t?

What could that money have paid for?

Gov. Charlie Crist’s top budget advisers are floating lists of potential budget changes, including “saving” $436 million by suspending the Bright Futures college scholarship program, FLORIDA TODAY’s capitol bureau reported.

Well yeah, I mean it’s more more important that our elected officials recieve this money rather than letting poor kids get scholarships to college… But that’s probably ok though, since we we’ve run out of money to teach them while their in public schools.

To date, our district has been forced to cut programs/make reductions in the amount of $76.4 million ($31.4 million cut 2007-08 and $45.0 million cut thus far in 2008-09) in order to offset state and local revenue shortfalls, as well as budgetary shortfalls. An additional anticipated state holdback of $9.8 million, a loss of $1.4 million in school recognition/lottery funding, and a reduction of at least $2.9 million in lost state monies due to declining enrollment bring Brevard’s two-year loss to just over $90 million. Now, we were informed at a meeting last week that the state’s “per student allocation” may be cut by another $150 per student-this action may result in a special legislative session early next year, and will likely mean an additional $10.8 million cut prior to June 30, 2009, in addition to all of our previous budget reductions. All of these cuts total just over $101 million and more importantly, $70 million for the current school year.

As you know, we have been able thus far to maintain staffing and avoid layoffs. If this latest reduction comes to pass, reducing our budget without a reduction in personnel will be a challenge of enormous magnitude. It is my intention to make reduction recommendations to the School Board in January. We will communicate with you again at that time.

What are we doing? When does someone stand up and finally say “Enough!”

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Taxes.

John McCain keeps saying that Barack Obama is going to raise everyone’s taxes, redistribute the wealth and most of all that he is socialist…. Yes, McCain said the “S” word today. I think I finally see the problem. Somewhere along the way the Republicans have turned the word “socialism” into meaning Communism with despotic rule. This is bullshit scare-tactics at it’s finest. Democratic socialism is as much communism as Sarah Palin is a Rhodes Scholar.

Socialism is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the economy works. Democracy is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the government works.

Communism is conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just the Party Secretary) have any say in how the economy works. Republicans are conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just people controlling the Party figurehead) have any say in how the government works.

A common mistake is to confuse Socialism, the economic system, with Communism, the political system. Communists are “socialist” in the same way that Republicans are “compassionate conservatives”. That is, they give lip service to ideals they have no intention of practicing.

Or

Socialism is the grey area where some things are planned (Say Healthcare or Coal mining) but Communism is where all major facets are planned and controlled (Say Bread prices, Jobs, Land ownership), etc.

Our problem here is that we want better education, we want a space program that rivals china, we want our fire and police departments to respond quicker and get paid more, we want our soldiers to fight wars on all fronts and protect us from evil. We want roads without potholes and bridges that don’t actually crumble. But we don’t want to pay for any of it.

Somewhere along the way, Republicans have convinced their base and some of the independents that a magical fairy gives us all of these things..

and if Democrats ever get elected, that charming little creature will die.

In Florida we have a horrible school system. Why? Because we also have a retirement community that votes against raising taxes by a a penny to help our schools. Why should these retired transplants pay an extra cent for schools when their kids are either grown or living in another state. Our schools are on a bare-bones budget already this year, with having to cut $150 Million from their budget, only to look forward to another 10% cut next year. But hey, not my kid, not my school, not my problem. It’s the same thing with our roads or transportation. I want better roads and I want high-speed rail, but I damn sure don’t want to pay an extra penny for it.

What’s wrong with all of us paying a little bit to enhance our world for everyone, instead of letting the guy on wall street, who takes a helicopter to work everyday, keep his tax break.

I am so tired of reading the scare tactics from the right….. Obama wants to take your money and give checks to poor people. No, what he wants to do is to get the ones who can afford to, pay a little more. How much more? 39% instead of 36%. OH my God! The nerve of that uppity man asking Donald Trump and Warren Buffet to pay $39 dollars on every $100, instead of paying $36 dollars like I would.

Ask yourself, is that $3 difference going to hurt me or Bill Gates?

What McCain wants to do is let me and The Don keep our $3… That sounds great. But so does having an education system where the teachers don’t have to supply their own classes with outrageous things like paper and pencils. It sounds pretty damn good to have our kids taught with books from this century or SWAT teams across the country to have the same kind of firepower the criminals have so that they aren’t outgunned. It’s also a great idea if the fire department could have a portable communication device that actually works and lets them communicate dangers and evacuation orders to each other.

But really, to make the Don pay $3 more than me to get these things is Red Communism at it’s finest. It’s ok that our soldiers have to buy their ammo and body/truck armor. There soldiers, they’ve learned to overcome and adapt. Richard Fuld on the other hands needs his $30 million dollar Park Ave. penthouse and his $14 million beach house.

The problem isn’t wealth. The problem is greed. No, it’s not going to hurt Donald Trump to pay an extra $3 compared to me. It’s just going to piss him off because he doesn’t think he should have to pay more than me. I get that, those are his profits and he wants to keep them, but when they are his losses, well those he’ll gladly share with everyone.

The Washington Nationals.

Damn the republicans are good. There are really really good. We don’t torture anymore, now it harsh interrogations. When we unlawfully and secretly detain someone, it called rendition instead of kidnapping. We call it climate change instead of global warming because no one can agree whether global warming is happening, but they can agree that climate change is…Taking old definitions and making new one. It’s delicate and artful.. hell, it’s as masterful as anything Da Vinci did and the Republicans are good at this.

Obama want to nationalize healthcare which will be to the detriment of our medical community and our country. See how brilliant that is?

Here is what Obama has said, see if you can spot the differences.

He wants to let people join a national plan to help make healthcare affordable. If you have insurance now and you like it, you keep it. If you don’t have health care, he wants to open the congressional plan to everyone to buy into.

Do you see it?

He wants to Nationalize healthcare and give it to everyone.

He wants open a National plan, and make it affordable to everyone.

They’ve taken the word “National” and changed the meaning to “Nationalize”. Military life is ‘nationalized” you go where they tell you, you eat when they tell you, you dress and look the way they tell you, you wake up and go to sleep when they tell you. What we did for Wall Street and the banks to help them out is Nationalization. Making a healthcare plan ‘nationwide’ and ‘affordable’ for people to ‘buy into’ is not nationalization.

Consider, If all the Disney Worlds Parks across the world went to Blue Cross/Blue Shield(BCBS) and said “We want a healthcare package for all of our employees to buy into”… The plan would be huge, how could it not be when Disney employees hundreds of thousands of people. But the cost of that plan per person is almost nil. Why? Because the more people in the plan the more ‘affordable’ it is.

Ya see that? ‘affordable’. It’s as plain as day. Obama want affordable health care. Meaning people will have to buy it, meaning he’s not giving it to everyone, meaning he’s opening the pool to more people so it’s more affordable for everyone.

This whole time I, and others, have been letting the Republicans get away with this play on words. We need to stop!

“He wants to nationalize it and all you have to do is look at how Medicare is run to know the Government would fuck it up.” Only a Republican can get away with condemning their government’s ability while saying how proud they are of it and noone says “what?”. We have allowed the word play between “National” and “Nationalize” to go on. We need to stop.

John McCain wants to give your insurance company a check for $5000. He’s made you believe that he wants to give this to You…. But he doesn’t. You won’t get a check every year for $5000, your insurance company will. Remember, McCain doesn’t like cutting checks to people, but he’s happy to cut them to BCBS. I guess this sounds good to some people, the people who like to change definitions, but lets apply Mickey’s Buoyancy theory here.

The buoyancy theory is that if everyone started off with a $1milliion dollars, then the cost of everything else would rise. Joe the plumber will charge you $80,000 to snake your toilet because money is no longer a ‘rare’ product.

So what happens when all across the country insurance companies start getting a $5000 check? Buoyancy happens. They raise their plans up by $5000. So not only are you not getting the money, McCain is giving money to insurance companies.. He’s against redistributing wealth, but not when that wealth is going to Big Business, only when Joe the plumber might get a rescue. McCain’s plan doesn’t lower healthcare costs, it actually raises them. His plan isn’t to help you, it’s to give more money to another wall street company! But maybe they need it more than we do.

Would you like to Biggie size that…

For so long we have heard the cries of “we don’t want more government in our lives” This is a joke! An absolute joke and we Dems have been too stupid to be in on it. No, they don’t want more government. Not when it’s to benefit every class. But for despotic rule? Sure. The Republicans/conservatives are more than happy to have government protect us with surveillance and wiretapping, torture and the Pat act. They want the government to tell us in writing that gays cannot marry, they want the government to tell us that we can’t burn an American flag and they want government to tell us what we can or can’t do with our bodies. No, they don’t mind having a huge government in every aspect of our lives and we need to stop letting them get away with saying the opposite. If we are going to allow the government the right to suspend habeas corpus and then torture us, then we should also allow the government to open a nation-wide healthcare plan for everyone.

Stop letting them lie. Start calling them on it when they say they don’t want bigger government in their lives, change the argument and tell them that asking for an amendment to make it illegal for 2 men to marry is letting a bigger government in their lives. When they said Barack would nationalize the medical community give them a dictionary and help them understand the difference between nationalization and a Nationwide plan. And finally when they scream “No new Taxes” tell them that you are OK with paying $3 dollars more to help employ more teachers, police, firefighters, and ambulance divers and you are OK with not only giving them the proper equipment, but also giving our soldiers who are fighting for us, the proper gear that they need.

There’s no need to get angry and hostile. No need for attack ads. We just need to learn to stay on topic and not let them change the argument into one we can’t argue, like we all, including me, have done for too long. The Republicans aren’t opposed to Socialism or Nationalization. They are only opposed to you and me having them. We’re, you, me and Joe-taxpayer, are paying off the debts of the huge corporations, while allowing them to privatized their profits. We pay off their bad loans and they keep the money they make off them. .

Like the skewering of words in Baracks plan, it’s time stop letting them get away with changing the words around to make it sound better or worse to enhance their arguments. Damnit, . It’s not a ’rescue’ It’s Socialism for cooperate America and free-market capitalism for everyone else, and it’s time we call them on it.

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The guys from SomaCow decided to visit a local radio station. 1190 AM in Orlando is the home of 0000. It is hosted by Curtis Earth of Earth Trivia.

I would like to attend, but unfortunately, I work on the day they have in studio guests.

In two outings, the guys from SomaCow have obliterated the competition. The question then becomes, is that bad form… bad sportsmanship… being sore winners? Is it better to annihilate your opponent and let them know that they are not suppose to be in this league? Or is it better to lie to them and string them along, and allow them the glimmer of hope that they are competing in a fair fight?

I personally feel that trouncing is proper when applicable. My son played soccer last year… without a goalie… without a score… without a ref. What the hell is that? Might as well just had a pickup game on the playground.

Trivia is a sport for the lazy… but it is still a sport.