Friday, July 31, 2009

Still $137,775 in Central Florida from recovery.gov


Not much progress in Central Florida from the Acme Recovery Engine purchased for $787 billion by Congress.
  1. Still contracted for the big $137,775 paving project.
  2. Under grants, there are millions of dollars going to internet diploma factories like Everest College, owned by Rhodes Colleges, Inc., which is a California for-profit corporation.
  3. There are many Central Florida "loans" to aid small businesses which are unable to obtain financing in the private credit marketplace, like $135,000 Steve Ruff et al. at Floridel LLC, principal address at a rough neighborhood in Chuluota, Florida, pictured below.



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Steve Ruff's hard luck neighborhood, between House B which is a 4/4 home selling for $1.65 million, and house A which is a 4/4 home going for the bargain rate of $599,900.

Other businesses at this neighborhood of so many small businesses which are unable to obtain financing in the private credit marketplace:

It is good to know how alert the federal government is to patriotic small businesses which are unable to obtain financing in the private credit marketplace. I am so happy to support this set of businesses with my future tax money obligations.


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Martinez, Nelson, Kosmas, Grayson have fiduciary responsibility to us.

Postcards to senators and representatives today.

Main idea:

You have a fiduciary responsibility to us.


So these trillion dollar health care takeovers and cap trading schemes have to be NO GO.

You have to cut up Nancy Pelosi's credit cards.

And even if we could afford it, I do not want Barney Frank running my health care. And that cap trading seems like Enron on steroids. NO GO.

Congressman Conyers, another snowbird from Michigan

It appears that another snowbird will soon be heading down Interstate 75 from Michigan to the Sunshine State: Democrat Congressman John Conyers. He would be welcome in Palm Beach County, Theresa LePore's old stomping grounds, because he surely has the political acuity. Just listen to this video.



Yep. Honorable Conyers has the chops for PBC. According to the traditional Old School PBC Democrat Party Ethics Training Camp Checklist®, Conyers is a stone cold lock:

  • Cant be bothered to read 1000-page bill affecting millions of people?
  • No observable sense of fiduciary responsibilty toward constituents?
  • Has frequently screwed up a cup of coffee?


Check.

You're in, Congressman. PBC needs you. When you are ready to semi-retire to PBC, you'll follow the illustrious footsteps of political genius Theresa LePore. Situation normal.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

University of Central Florida eliminates four programs.

It was inevitable. The UCF board of trustees cut several academic programs today, some of them fairly large.
  1. cardiopulmonary sciences
  2. radiologic sciences
  3. engineering technology
  4. management information systems
Also, the actuarial program was suspended, but the statistics program was NOT cut or suspended.
College budget crisis:
University of Central Florida
eliminates four programs
Luis Zaragoza
Sentinel Staff Writer
July 23, 2009
OrlandoSentinel.com


UCF trustees voted today to eliminate four academic programs and suspend a fifth within the next two years to cut spending by more than $4 million a year.

The cuts will lead to 33 faculty and four staff layoffs and affect more than 1,000 students who will have to switch majors or transfer to another school if they can't graduate before their degree programs close.

Officials say the cuts are needed because of anticipated budget deficits at the 50,000-student school within the next two years caused by reductions in state funding.

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It is inevitable that such a huge and fast-growing university will have to cut some programs that are judged expendable.

However, now that I look over that list again, I see that no humanities programs got the axe, only technical programs. That seems unusual.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Fatherless thieving SOBs at recovery.gov

The links on Drudge Report for ham and cheese look nice, but you might go to the recovery.gov site and try to replicate that ham and cheese data through the search feature.

The search 'cheese'
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=search/node/cheese

yields no results.

But Drudge's link to Bongard's Creameries in Norwood MN,
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/contracts-recipient-summary&id=12-AGDPDVVDOC02502&mode=details&primeid=35

returns you a big page of data, with the

OMG! They changed it already!

At 8:30 AM this morning it had a field "Description of Work/Service performed" containing the text 'PROCESS CHEESE' but now you can't get that field's contents.

Those SOBs have rigged it up and out of view. Now those links make Drudge look like a liar.

Wait, you can scroll over the 'PIID' link and it shows 'PROCESS CHEESE' but this morning it was out in the open.

And none of it will show up in Google cached pages, I am guessing.

These guys are thieving fatherless SOBs.

Florida largesse from recovery feds

According to recovery.gov, the Florida master plan includes just $137,775 in the Orlando area. That is one raindrop for a fair-sized desert.



Unbelievable! $137,775 would not get you one median-priced home in Orlando.

In the diagram above, most of the big circles represent work scheduled at military bases and ports, e.g., Jacksonville, Cape Canaveral and Eglin.

Recovery.gov is unsearchable.

The seach method on Recovery.gov is disabled significantly. One can enter a keyword but it does not effectively search their database for "Description of Work/Service performed" information. Today Drudge Report published some links to boondoggle recovery grants.
DRUDGEREPORT 2009
June 20, 2009

LINK: RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $5,708,260 FOR 'PROCESS CHEESE'... The Bongard Creamery, Minnesota


The link above to the Bongard Creamery grant contains 'PROCESS CHEESE' as description of the work performed.

However, when I looked at the recovery.gov site, I could not use "cheese" in their search box and get back a link to the Bongard Creamery page, even though their database obviously has a field for "Description of Work/Service performed" among others. My attempt seach for "cheese" returned no results.

It should be a basic seach feature -- make a query based on kind of of work performed.

There is no advanced search method.

What this means is that they have disabled their search function. They do not want people searching on the "Description of Work/Service performed" field. I consider that dishonest.

I also typed in "coffee" and "Orlando" -- nothing returned. A bad business.

Friday, July 17, 2009

A Congress Full of Michael Jackson Wannabes

Ben Shapiro comments on Congressional goofing and spoofing with their House Resolution 600 concerning global humanitarian and musician, Michael Jackson, viz.

A Congress Full of Michael Jackson Wannabes by Ben Shapiro on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

Their resolution runs a full 1,539 words, almost six times as long as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. And it's just as eloquent, tracing the entire course of Jackson's life... "Whereas Michael Jackson began his stellar recording career as the featured member of The Jackson 5 … Whereas, on Jan. 10, 1984, Michael Jackson visited the unit for burn victims at Brotman-Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, and demonstrated his concern with people suffering from grievous injuries... " The resolution finally concludes by labeling Jackson a "global humanitarian and a noted leader in the fight against worldwide hunger and medical crises," as well as "an accomplished contributor to the worlds of arts and entertainment, scientific advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and global food security." According to Congress, Jackson is the Madame Curie of 1980s rock.

Congressmen, like Jackson, are sitting on piles of cash they can spend at will. And Congressmen, like Jackson, live in Neverland.

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The key here is that Congress is also piling up the debt, just like Michael Jackson, but it looks like there is no credit limit on THEIR Visa card.

CBO is calling. Florida voters are calling. Senator Martinez, are you listening? Senator Nelson, can you figure out how to stop the credit binging? Representatives Kosmas and Grayson, are you going to start voting NO on some of this credit card mania?

Somebody, anybody: spend your $61.95 and get a cattle prod so you can pry that card out from her clutching fingers!

Congressional Budget Office: borrowing is unsustainable.

CBO Director's blog
Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.
Coming from the director of the Congressional Budget Office, that is fairly sobering news. Can we somehow beam this directly into Nancy Pelosi's mind, by mental hypnosis or something? How about Florida senators and representatives?

Now letters to Senator Nelson and to Senator Martinez

Now my letters to Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez:

Please snag a few generals and colonels from that high tech coffee wagon behind the Pentagon, and go storm the House chambers to clandestinely secure Nancy Pelosi's mad money credit card and, on behalf of Florida civilians that have credit limits and must pay their own credit card bills,

CUT UP NANCY PELOSI'S CREDIT CARD!

Please! Before it's too late.

If nobody restrains this mad credit card binge up there in D.C., the rest of us civilians will get the chop: no job, no home, a global depression.

If you want to contact Nelson or Martinez, here are the links.
  1. Contact Bill...
  2. Please use the following form to contact the Office of Senator Mel Martinez with your comments and concerns.


To get information on legislation or share an opinion, call Senator Nelson’s office at (202) 224-5274. Senator Martinez has a phone in D.C., (202) 224-3041, and several Florida offices.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Letter to Kosmas and Grayson: enough with the credit card buying!

I am going to write a simple letter to Congressman Alan Grayson and Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas.

CUT UP NANCY PELOSI'S CREDIT CARD!

No more of this spending they are enacting willy nilly, like the $787 billion stimulus bill that nobody read before voting it.

And I thought this stimulus bill was supposed to avert imminent disaster. So far, it hasn't done JACK. And unemployment is still going up.

So all these nice program makeovers for the nation, they sound good but they are running up the bills. No more credit card buying!

Start using your head, you members of Congress. Cut up that credit card and voters everywhere will love you. Keep hitting the plastic, and when it all comes apart, your name will be on the bill and you'll be voted out of office.

If you want to contact Kosmas or Grayson, here are the links.
  1. Contact Representative Alan Grayson
  2. Contact Representative Suzanne Kosmas

Pharmaceutical companies get tripped up, now need Grayson and Kosmas

Now the tables are turned on the pharmaceutical companies. The Congress is double crossing an under the table deal, and playing the pharmaceutical companies for patsies.
Big Pharma Gets Played
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
JULY 16, 2009
Mr. Tauzin -- the former Democratic Congressman turned Republican turned pharmaceutical frontman -- has been assuring his CEO employers that he can get them a good deal if they negotiate with Democrats instead of opposing them on health care. And to show its bona fides, the drug lobby announced in June an agreement with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, promising $80 billion over the next decade to defray drug costs for seniors and to finance the Obama plan. Mr. Tauzin believed this giveaway would spare his industry from price controls and the reimportation of cheaper foreign drugs that would reduce company margins and profits.

Mr. Tauzin should have demanded a pre-nup. House Democrats declared last week that they aren't bound by Senator Baucus's deal. And this week they released a health-care bill that pocketed the industry concessions for senior drug coverage, and also imposed the very price controls Mr. Tauzin thought he'd shelved...

In case this isn't enough of a doublecross, Senate Democrats are also considering hefty new taxes on health insurance and . . . pharmaceutical companies. Price tag: $100 billion. Let's just say the companies' return on their investment in Mr. Tauzin's political strategy is looking negative.

Now Hon. Kosmas and Hon. Grayson can charge a higher price for their vote, and the pharmaceutical companies will have to pay or be shut out. Meanwhile, regular citizens get the shaft.

My plan is to only support health care reform if
  1. The Senate and House have to go on the same medical plan as we civilians get, or
  2. we civilians get the same medical plan that Senate and House have right now.


Otherwise, it is a ripoff.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Why are pharmaceutical companies puffing up Kosmas and Grayson?

A big pharmaceutical lobbying firm has been running commercials to re-elect Rep. Grayson (8th) and Rep. Kosmas (24th) on local television in Central Florida. The fine print at the bottom of the screen names

  1. the Healthcare Leadership Council and
  2. another outfit whose approximate name is Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturies of America, which might be a misspelling of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
  3. [Click links for board of trustees and membership lists.]
I presume this is the HLC's Health Access America (HAA) Campaign.

Both outfits are in Washington, D.C., and they seem to be lobbying about health care reform. Former member of Congress, Hon. Billy Tauzin, is in charge of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

They want voters to think of Kosmas and Grayson as white knights defending grandmother and homeless children. How does that help the pharmaceutical companies?

I am guessing that Healthcare Leadership Council and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturies of America want to hard wire the health care "reform" mechanism so that the pharmaceutical manufacturers continue to get well paid by the Medicare prescription drug system. For instance, the PRMA is against importation of drugs to the US from countries where they must sell at lower prices.

Kosmas and Grayson, so compassionate and caring, are they stacking the deck for the pharmaceutical companies? More light fingers in D.C.?