“It’s Your City, Come Join the Discussion!” That’s the message from Mayor Ashton Hayward who will be hosting a town hall-style meeting Monday, April 11, 2011 from 6pm-7:30pm at the Gull Point Recreation Center on the corner of Spanish Trail and Creighton roads.
Mayor Hayward and the unelected and infamous “Pensacola City Staff will be on hand to take your questions, address your concerns, and listen to your comments and feedback.”
The Health Department has again closed Bayou Texar because of unsafe levels of fecal bacteria. Only now, they’re not even using the F word. Apparently it has become trivial enough to just call it ‘bacteria.’
The alert was issued after weekly sampling revealed the level of bacteria has exceeded the level established by state guidelines.
Additionally, a health alert remains in effect for Bayou Chico at Lakewood Park.
The Heath Department advises against any water-related activities in these locations.
I’d say that having shitty water ranks right up there with tar balls wouldn’t you? Especially since the Health Department closes Bayou Texar several times a year. For decades now. Yet, for whatever reason, the political class in Pensacola doesn’t seem to mind. And the environmental groups like the Emerald Coastkeepers and the Riverkeepers don’t care either.
Let’s be sure to put that in the ads to lure vacationers down here. “Visit Pensacola, You’ll like our shit!”
The department will continue to monitor the water quality in these areas weekly. For more information, call the Escambia County Health Department at 595-6786.
OK, so we know the Health Department is doing its job by telling us when we should not go in the water. But what are the politicians for?
This is what Speaker Pelosi meant by having to pass the (health care) bill to find out what’s in it. Who knew that the ‘Affordable Health Care Act’ was going to have taxpayers paying the health insurance claims for labor union, corporations, and government union employees who choose to retire early? Before they are eligible for Medicare.
The program totals $5 billion and is supposed to last until January 1, 2014 when ‘State health insurance Exchanges’ are ‘up and running.’ But there’s a problem already. Over $2 billion has already been spent, and at this rate the program will be out of money sometime in 2012. Two years earlier than ‘planned.’
Are you feeling secure now that you know your health care will be managed by the government? Do you still believe that Obamacare will bring costs down, and make the quality of care go up? We already know that we can’t keep our plan if we want to, and that we won’t be able to keep our doctor if we want to.
At this point in time, payments to individual states are dwarfed by the payout to the auto workers union, which received more than the states of New York, California, and Texas combined. Other unions also received government funds, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Mine Workers, and the Teamsters.
Nationwide list HERE. State of Florida list HERE. And you can do a search by Zip Code HERE.
Links: Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) | New $2 billion bailout in Obamacare
Pensacola had their version of the ‘We Are One’ public union campaign 
today. Lee Prior, the organizer of the event, said that the pro-union movement was ‘electrifying people across America’ like it did 43 years ago when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched to organize black sanitation workers in Memphis, and was later assassinated.
The crowd assembled was hardly a crowd at all. There were 30 people at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza, including the speakers and sound crew. Like all such rallies there was an activist sign-up list. They garnered 15 names for that.
The keynote speaker did not attend. The organizer read a statement from him instead, saying that he had to be in Tallahassee taking care of business there. Then Jerry McIntosh, the head of the local Movement For Change group spoke.
He tried real hard to lend some relevance to the labor movement and tie it in 
with Dr. King. It was labor unions that started a 40 hour work week, it was labor unions that got us sick pay, vacation pay, health insurance, retirement and pension plans, etc.. It was almost as though he was transported back to the 60’s. All of which was met with a ‘oh hum’ from the supporters. Fact is, all of what he said labor unions started are commonplace in non-union work sites today. They do deserve the credit for improving the workplace for ‘the workers.’ And because of their earlier success, all employers have learned to take care of their employees to where now, they have caused their own demise. Evidence of that is the shrinking number of union jobs in the private sector.
They were orderly and polite. But the reason they were there in the first place, the reason they were protesting, was kind of fuzzy. The CWA printed up some red signs saying ‘Stand Up for Workers’ Rights! Granted that public sector labor unions are in much disfavor with the American taxpayer now that money is tight and budget deficits are high. They have to realize, painful as it might be, that the public funds that pay them do not come from trees. And, like their private counterpart, they have to, or are being forced to, face the reality that like a private company, the government has financial limits too. 
A smart parasite knows not to kill the host. Private sector unions know that they won’t have a job or a future if their company has to close its doors. Labor unions are not dumb. But they know that the government isn’t going to shut its doors. They also know that they own the Democrat Party, who will stop at nothing to repay them for their campaign contributions and street mobs. As if granting exemptions from Obamacare to labor unions isn’t enough, the latest quid pro quo revealed today is $2 Billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. Including ‘Pensacola Junior College’ and Escambia County. The biggest single recipient of an early-retiree bailout is the United Auto Workers, which has so far received $206,798,086. They seem to be OK with that.
Their problem is that the taxpayers have reached the point, as have state budgets around the country, that things have to change if anyone is to have a future. Otherwise, they will remain One . . . boil on the butt of American taxpayers.
Links: Uncovered: New $2 billion bailout in Obamacare | List of health care bailout recipients
Who knew there was a reptile show at the Pensacola Interstate Fairgrounds over the weekend? Well I didn’t. I went there to pick up a deal on a laptop, which I think I did. Turns out that ReptileCon was also there in a different building.
Curiosity getting the best of me I checked out what the heck that could be. If snakes, spiders, turtles, alligators, and lizards turn you off, you don’t want to be there. And of course, there were vendors selling food for same. From live worms and crickets to frozen mice, chicks, and rats.
If you ever wanted to buy some of these for pets, then this is the place that has a selection you probably won’t find anywhere else. All kinds of snakes, spiders, and turtles for sale, with or without tanks to house them.
Some people attending brought their pets with them to show them off.
All the vendors had their ‘merchandise’ out there for you to see, and hold.
There was a ‘demonstration’ area or more correctly an education area where people brought out some samples and discussed them. That was interesting and a favorite of the kids, of all ages.
Then there’s this 100 pound snapping turtle that could take a limb, or your whole head, in a flash.
Maybe it has something to do with the pets, but some of the people there were also free-spirited. Like this woman who showed off her tats for a picture.
Heard on my satellite radio feed last night that Tab Benoit is coming to Pensacola. Playing at the Vinyl Music Hall, Wednesday, April 6, 2011.
Appearing with the Voice of the Wetlands Allstars, it’ll be New Orleans blues by, as their website says, ‘legendary musicians who are at their musical prime.’
From his website . . .
Tab Benoit has assembled a stellar ensemble of fellow New Orleans musicians (including N.O. Legends which include Meters and Neville Brothers Cyril Neville, fellow roots-man Anders Osborne, fiddler Waylon Thibodeaux, influential New Orleans drummer Johnny Vidacovich, harmonica/ accordion player Jumpin Johnny Sansone, and New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Monk Boudreaux. to forge a musical plea about the fragile eco-system that is the increasingly depleted wetlands surrounding their hometown.
Cheap tickets ($20-25) for what ought to be a super show.
A 15-year-old student, Gabe Carter, passed away suddenly in class on Thursday. The official cause of death is not yet known.
What is known is how much this young man was loved by his classmates and family.
The NorthEscambia.com website has a post about the tragic event, to which there are 128 comments (as of right now) left by his classmates and relatives.
Please pray for his family and classmates.
Link: Tate High Student Passes Away
Maybe this sounds like something new to you and City Councilman Diane Mack, but it is old news to City Councilman Johnson (a board member of Emerald Coastkeepers) and DEP representative Sherri Myers, the Health Department and the ECUA.
Carpenter’s Creek empties into Bayou Texar. And for decades now, Bayou Texar has been periodically closed by the Health Department as unsafe for use by humans due to fecal contamination. ‘Chronically’ is a more accurate description than periodically. And the reason is because of what is coming out of Carpenter’s Creek.
To bring you up to date with this severe yet overlooked water quality issue, this post recaps it all. Cleaning up Bayou Texar became my interest in November 2007. Four years later and we’re still kicking the can down the road.
That is why I read with amusement this Viewpoint by Chasidy Fisher Hobbs, executive director for Emerald Coastkeepers of Northwest Florida, rehashing the drinking water issue from 2009.
The Dept. of Environmental Protection knew about Bayou Texar’s condition. It was Sherri Myers that pulled the money out of the study that could have led to fixing the problem. Who knows if this effort to examine Carpenter’s Creek will have positive results or, just make for some good press for a while before being set aside for another decade?
Links:
More waivers from participation in the now unconstitutional national health care law, aka Obamacare. The waivers were granted to 4 states. Not companies, states. They are Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, and New Jersey.
Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed the news under questioning from Rep. Cliff Stearns at an oversight hearing for the House Energy and Commerce committee.
Considering that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a majority of union members in America (52 percent) now work for the government, giving waivers to the states is tantamount to labor union bailout. And we already know how tight Democrats and Obama are with BIG LABOR, and why.
So we have waivers to individual companies and waivers for entire states, so far encompassing 900 health plans, four states and counting. What do we have? Strip it all away we have waivers issued to stop rising costs of a program that’s supposed to reduce them. All predicated on the notion that everyone participates. What?
Link: CMS Official Confirms That Four States Have Been Granted ObamaCare Waivers
You won’t find this in the local paper. A search in the Pensacola News Journal (a trade union shop) comes up empty for an organizing attempt of city employees. The only place I saw it mentioned is in a local blog called Progressive Pensacola.
The literature from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has a catchy phrase. ‘AFSCME – We make FLORIDA happen.’ I have another take on it. It’s more like ‘We help make FLORIDA broke!’
On Progressive Pensacola, City employees voting on union Thursday.
Now there’s a really bad idea. Unions, aside from being useless nowadays, only spell more costs for the city. And consequently, more costs for the taxpayers that currently pay their wages and benefits. As if we are flush with cash. If working for the city is so bad, why are applicants falling over themselves trying to get a job with the city? The high demand and desirability of getting a city job seems to belie the need, as far as employees are concerned, for a union. On the other hand, it’s not hard to understand why AFSCME would not want to get more dues paying members. They are a business and an industry just like any other.
This move, like all union attempts to raid and then soak an employer, serve only to take your money, if you are one of the employees, and give some of it to the union. And increase the cost of whatever it is that is produced. Which is ultimately paid for by you, the consumer. But you are rich. You can pay it, right?
In general, labor unions had a useful purpose 50, 60, 70 years ago. But since then, employers got the message and don’t treat their employees like indentured servants. Instead, that’s what the unions intend to make of their members.
Consequently, they have contributed to their own demise. Because of their efforts and due diligence in improving working conditions and employee relations decades ago, employers nowadays got the message. Due to their successes decades ago, they have made themselves obsolete today.
But BIG LABOR does not care that unemployment is high. And that their collective bargaining, combined with their spending employee’s money on political campaigns, mostly to save their sorry underfunded benefit packages has caused states and cities all over the country to look at insolvency, if not another government bailout. Are you ready for another government bailout? Andy Stern and Barack Obama are.
Let’s be thankful that the city can employ as many people as they can right now. Raise the cost more and see if layoffs don’t occur.
So who benefits? Not the employees. Not the taxpayers. Just the labor union.