TampaBLAB

I may not be the best teacher at USF, but I most certainly am the one to have the most students appear on the front page of Tampa's daily tabloid TBT*. So I advise the addressed to avoid doing things in the future that land you on the front page of tabloids.

And verily I should poop my pants soon over the amount of circular dialogue I have ... Coming April 3-20, 2008

TBARTA is hunkering down for a series of public workshops leading to the development of a regional transit master plan. Here's the list of times and places!

You are exposed to it no matter where you go. If you log on to the Internet or open a newspaper or turn on the television, you are exposed to news about the US Presidential race. I have to admit, I find it to be great entertainment. I mean, how could these talking head people not know that Hillary would tank if up against an articulate, bright newcomer who is smart enough NOT to go into specifics because the Clinton's would nail him on it.

All day long people ask me in my cab what I think about it. I tell people that it is not really that Obama  is a Western European style socialist, it is a matter of leadership. What? People want to know what leadership Obama has. None. It is not about him. It is about the old TV show Dallas. Let me explain.

American are individualist. They like a man or women to be a real fighter. And I don't mean at heart. I mean the get things done at all cost no matter what because all that ends well is well..It is about results. Bill Clinton could be seen as JR Ewing, Hillary as Sue Ellen.

Now let me ask you, Who do you want as Pres? The answer is easy because JR can't run again does not mean Americans will settle for weakness. They are gravitating towards two men, One with a heroic record of accomplishment and one with guts and vision. I would be happy with either man in this race.

Sorry Sue Ellen...It is not your destiny. Did you ever learn how to bake those cookies by the way.

For those of you who lived in the Bay Area from the 80's on, or if you live here and haven't heard the news...

Dick Fletcher, who was the longest-running active weatherman on the Tampa Bay airwaves on our Channel 10, passed this morning after suffering a stroke recently.  He was 65.

And yes, I've been around the area long enough to have my own "Fletch" story.

I've had to splash down in the center of a major controversy between HART and the streetcar board. I must continue to support the Teco Line Whiting Street extension, and therefore have sent the mayor's office a message. Hopefully you can do the same.

See a negative? Follow it with a positive… I can’t confirm this but Dan Boyle inked a six year deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Forty Million Dollars over six years almost guarantees Brad Richards will be heading out of town tomorrow.
Which really upsets me.
Boltsmag is four years old at this point late [...]

Vaclav “Vinny” Prospal’s second tenure in Tampa Bay is over. He has been dealt to the Flyers for Alexandre Picard. and a draft selection.
Prospal has paved hsi way out of town by performing well in a contract year as well as fueding with Lightning head coach John Tortorella. Of course, Jay Feaster lays [...]

Nader voters are not necessarily Dem voters

Common wisdom blames Ralph Nader for swinging enough Florida votes to cost Gore the election in 2000. The underlying assumption that Nader drained votes from Gore is just that - an assumption. Nader got voters to the polls who, in all likelihood, wouldn’t have bothered but for Nader. In the days running up to the 2000 election, I wrote:

there are a great number of Nader supporters… who would rather shave their eyeballs with a rusty blade than vote for Gore. Nader, like Jesse Ventura, appeals to many who would stay home otherwise. Without Ralph in the race, that six, seven, or eight point margin doesn’t shift to Gore - it shifts position on the couch and watches the whole thing on TV.

In this cycle, Nader’s supporters - while far less numerous - are less likely to be liberal Dems than truly out-there Green fringers. The folks who prefer Nader to Obama in this cycle are probably further on the fringe than Ron Paul supporters, and likely to believe that there is no substantive difference between Obama and McCain. (I know, I know. Hide the sharp objects.)

Nader gives Obama cover on his biggest vulnerabilities

Besides the attack on his inexperience - which hasn’t worked for Hillary and won’t work any better in the general - Obama’s biggest liabilities arise from his substantive positions on the issues. He’s one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate - in 2007, he even beat out socialist Bernie Sanders for the title of most liberal senator - and has several key policy positions that could hurt him in the general.

But Ralph Nader gives him cover in two ways. First, he makes Obama look like a moderate. Obama is liberal; Nader is anti-capitalist. Obama wants to regulate our economy; Nader wants to burn it to the ground. Obama thinks corporations are useful if properly restrained; Nader thinks them the root of all evil. And have no doubt about it - there are enough idiot savants out there, who, despite supporting Nader, are clever enough to put together a viral YouTube campaign that stakes out the very far left for Nader… leaving the “left-of-center” label for Obama.

But won’t Obama’s actual liberal positions prevent him from appearing too moderate? Not if Ralph has his way, and that’s point number two: Nader gives Obama cover by attacking him from the left. Even though few will support Nader by voting for him, many will hear his message that Obama is “no different” from McCain. That message will reach some percentage of voters, perhaps some in swing states, and will help inoculate Obama from attacks from the right on his liberalism. The effect may not be large, if but if it resonates with a handful of voters in the right states just strongly enough to blunt the “Obama’s too liberal” charge, it’s not hard to see that it could decide the race by relieving the consciences of centrists who might not otherwise vote Obama. Stranger things have happened in politics.

How to handle a Nader run

The good news in all this is that Democrats still suffer from Nader Derangement due to his perceived effect on the 2000 race. They will do everything they can to keep him off the ballots, even though that will not blunt his message one bit. This can play to the GOP advantage, because it gives the GOP cover to lump Nader in with Obama. “Why are the Democrats trying so hard to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot?” the 527 ads could say. “They’re afraid of him draining liberal votes from their liberal candidate.” Perhaps follow up with a laundry list of how Obama and Nader are exactly alike in various positions they support. Someone with more skill than I can take that theme and run with it. But the one thing the GOP cannot do is what they are currently doing - gleefully sitting on the sidelines with buckets of popcorn watching the left do battle. Someone needs to remind the public that Ralph Nader and Barack Obama are two peas from the same lefty pod.

(Cross-posted at RedState)

The Tampa Bay Rays have been doing much to improve their image the last few eyars since Stu Sternberg took over the team. But you want to know one quick way to tear all that down with fans who are sick of the scandals, sick of the fact baseball has been sullied by BALCO [...]

Best actor: Day-Lewis in the best screaming-about-a-missing-son scene since Mel Gibson demanded, GIMME BACK MY SON! My pick: Johnny Depp.

Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem for just being... creepy. My pick: Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Best actress: Cate Blanchett. My pick: YOU KNOW IT'S ELLEN PAGE, SUCKAS

Best supporting actress: Tilda Swinton. My pick: Amy Ryan.

Cinematography: No Country For Old Men. My pick: ditto. Deakins manages to avoid splitting the vote and gets recognition as the greatest living camera's eye.

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen. This is the year they get their mainstream seal of approval. Let's hope they forget about it quickly. And yeah, they're my pick.

Documentary: Sicko. I didn't see the other four. But can't you wait to see what Moore has to say about Castro's retirement? Oh, man, I'm tense in the pants.

Editing: Bourne Ultimateum. They love Christopher Rouse, and he deserves it.

Music: Worst lineup here in decades. I don't care which song from "Enchanted" wins.

Best Picture: No Country For Old Men. I told you, they're going to lavish upon the Coens. My Pick: Juno.

Sound editing: Bourne. My pick: Ratatouille, and if you've seen it, watching and listening to what happens in the kitchen, you'll know.

Sound mixing: 3:10 to Yuma. Also my pick.

Visual effects: Transformers. My pick: I guess? That movie sucked though.

Adapted screenplay: No Country For Old Men. My pick: There Will Be Blood (what? Going against the Coens? Yes. Why? The Coens had an easy path laid for them by Cormac McCarthy, that's why. PTA adapted his from a book that was like 100 years old.)

Original screenplay: Juno. My pick: Duh. I can't wait to see what Diablo Cody has to say, and how many seconds of delay she'll need to avoid breaking any FCC regulations.

7:59, and I'm not editing a thing. Check your RSS feed if you don't believe me. Enjoy the show, kiddos.

Carl will need a total of 968 petition signatures by 12:00 PM EDT, submitted to the Supervisor of Elections and verified, in order to appear on the November ballot.

NOTE: Click on photos to see larger view!

Sandra with her electric scooter standing in front of our RV (Road House), and beside our “Toad” vehicle (Side Road Suzie).
Many of the campers here stay all Winter…some bring their fishing boats as well.
The view from the end of our lane in the campground…..beautiful as only the Keys can be!
We were again downtown, and watched this lovely sunset. Notice the much larger “weekend” crowd standin facing the departing orb.
After the sunset, and the accompanying entertainment of escape artists, acrobats, glass walkers, et al, we adjourned to “Cheese Burger”, the restaurant for a meal completely off our allowed food stuffs list! Dee-Lish-US!……The weather was fine, and we ate on the front porch of the restaurant, watching the crowds go by. Seeing the many, many types, sizes and life-styles so openly on display in Key West. At last it all became a blur of life….

We are enjoying Key West and have a day left…..thinking of a submarine ride to see the coral and fish. We were going to take one of the fishing boats, but it turns out the only good fishing right now is way off shore…..cost runs about $400 per person. I don’t like fishing quite that much, unless of course it is on my boat!

Duke

The people getting off the planes from up north were confronted with the blinding rain from an approaching cold front. That will make things a little uncomfortable today. Just today. Sunday should be 70+ with sunshine. That has to be better than New York.

- The NFL's Annual Meat Market and best example of the dangers of group think kicks off this weekend. Few events are more overrated than the NFL Combine, where NFL scouts throw all logic out the window and fall in love with the guy with the best 40 time. It's the time when analysts preface their statements with "of course college games are the most important factor" but then do the exact opposite and rank players based on their combine results. Mike Mayock of the NFL Network ranking's going into the combine partially reflect this backwards logic (although critics could argue I'm putting the cart before the horse here).

Mike Mayock is the latest hotness in NFL Draft "experts" and in his rankings not only does he have Sedric Ellis ranked ahead of Glenn Dorsey but he has Rashard Mendenhall ranked over Darren McFadden. Never mind that at the end of the season both Dorsey and McFadden were widely considered possible number one overall picks. If I'm a scout or NFL GM I'm taking into account both Dorsey's and McFadden's better and more consistent track records, not only are both players considered two of the best collegiate players right now, they were considered two of the best players at the beginning of the season. The problem with NFL scouting is the same problem with the media's coverage of the Presidential race, everyone falls in love with the latest hotness, aka contestant/player. For example, the media fell in love with Fred Thompson when he first entered the race but we all know how that ended. The same can be said of Barack Obama who the media has treated with kid gloves. The NFL Draft analysts are guilty of the same failing, falling in love with the latest hotness which in this case would be Ellis and Mendenhall. I could very easily turn this into a diatribe on the obvious media bias despite supposed journalistic integrity but I will avoid the Rush Limbaugh go to move.

Also, as long as I'm throwing stones at the NFL Combine it's worth mentioning that a cottage industry has sprung up in the last few years centered on training players for the Combine. As this Sun-Sentinel article explains, there are a variety of camps that train prospects how to excel at the Combine. (By the way, that's just one of dozens of articles which popped up when I googled "nfl combine cottage industry.") The argument can be made that very little advantage is maintained if everyone has the same training but much like the SAT prep courses which train people how to take the test but fail to actually measure their intelligence, the end result of the NFL Combine is that prospects are tested on their ability to run through hoops and around cones instead of measuring their ability to play football.

- As BucStats has pointed out the Falcons finally had some luck and won a coin flip giving them the third overall pick. The buzz is that the Dirty Birds would pick Matt Ryan, the underwhelming quarterback out of Boston College. I'm assuming the thinking behind this is that Atlanta needs the "franchise quarterback" and Ryan is considered the top quarterback in the draft. I'm really hoping Atlanta falls for this fallacy and drafts Ryan, a player who has consistently failed to impress me when I watched him play (and since I'm in ACC country I've watched a few of his games). Without going into the detailed argument against taking a quarterback in the first round there is more value in players like McFadden and Dorsey. There are typically only a half dozen or so guys that are not only great athletes but also great college players. (Last year those players would have been Calvin Johnson, JaMarcus Russell, Joe Thomas, Gaines Adams, LaRon Landry, and Adrian Peterson. With the exception of Russell all these guys will eventually be multiple Pro Bowlers barring injury and/or pulling a Pacman Jones.)

Since the new Atlanta GM is a former Patriots guy (although I may be wrong about that) I'm inclined to think the Falcons will NOT draft Ryan. The Pats draft strategy has been to ignore the hype and draft value players who fit the franchise. This is also where it would be convenient to spout some crap about drafting Tom Brady in the 6th round. As a Bucs fan my biggest concern is that the Falcons make the "smart" move and draft an offensive lineman (Jake Long) or a defensive lineman (Ellis, Dorsey, or Chris Long) as lineman typically make the most immediate impact on a team.

- A quick note on the Bucs and the NFL Draft as we begin the marathon to the NFL Draft in April. Gruden and Company have typically kept the players they like close to their vest and refuse to release any information to the media. As far as I know the Bucs refuse to even take phone calls from reporters during this period although I'm basing that on heresay and may be wrong. The exception to that is when Gruden clearly goes ga-ga for a player as he did for Calvin Johnson last year. One great press conference from last year comes to mind where Gruden went out of his way to praise all the top players not named Calvin Johnson but never mentioned the Tech receiver except for some very light praise. I did the same thing in middle school when I really liked one girl I would ignore her and talk to all her friends. Needless to say that strategy only made my crush all the more obvious and failed to work.

Anyway, my childhood embarrassment aside looking at Gruden's previous drafts one of the obvious trends is that Gruden loves him some receivers as well as offensive lineman. And since the Bucs are fairly full at the offensive lineman position it makes sense to predict Gruden will draft a receiver, considering the lack of depth at the position. Although Gruden's previous success or lack thereof in drafting receivers is a concern, Marquise Walker and Michael Clayton have been busts and Maurice Stovall is heading in that direction.

This restaurant is just one block off Duval, on Whiteside. It is named for and owned by Kelly McGillis, the striking blonde from “Top Gun”…..The place is all open air, not unusual for Key West, but the entire eating area is outside as shown here… Eating what proved to be our best meal so far among palms and flowers beneath the starry sky!
Did this guy write a book or two. NOPE! He is me…..Sandra snapped this one. YES, I had had two “Havana Red Ales”!!!
The Bar is called Kelly’s Hanger….meals & drinks include “Kelly’s Ceaser”, “The Top Gun”, and “Kelly’s Cosmo”. The story from our trolley driver is no one would today recognize the lovely woman from the movie…..and not only has she deteriorated a LOT, but also she has been banned from her own restaurant/bar for conduct unbecoming a lady!
YES….It is one of Ton Cruise’ jackets from the movie. It is in a glass case above the bar. I knew he was small, but I have a grandson going on 12 who could not come close to getting into this little thing!

Duke

Well, it was two hours til sunset and we were tired of walking/riding the trolley…
S-o-o-o-o-o……Off to…….
Hogs Breath is an experience. We loaded up with a pair of 17 oz drinks, and headed off to see the sunset and the crowds and entertainment…..this fellow’s songs were from the 60s…..so was he!
No where but Key West at sunset could you snap a picture of a sword swallower plying his trade and a departing cruise ship (Enchantment of The Seas) all in one picture! The crowds were not too large, and every square in the entire area had some form of entertainment, each vying with the other for crowds and money!
S-U-N-S-E-T
It was all it was said to be…as are most West Florida sunsets! & NO, not in nearing 30 years here have I ever witnessed the “Green Flash” rumored to show up…
It was a fine time…..and then we walked to dinner at Kellys….that will be the next story!

Duke

Downtown I snapped this pic of Sandra with her new buddy, Sponge Bob….made entirely of sponges. The industry was big here til the sponges were killed off…then the industry moved to Tarpon Springs, near Tampa/St. Pete.

Seems most Key West industry has moved to Tampa over the years. This was the largest cigar manufacturing place in the world (bigger than Cuba) in the late 1800s…then it moved to Ybor City in Tampa.

Duke

You know you’re there when you arrive at…..Mile Marker “0″

Soon enough you’ll find the truth about transportation here. Electric! Electric scooters, some gas scooters, electric cars for two-four-six passengers, etc. Small streets make them a natural. There are free parking slots for scooters/bikes/electric cars. All others pay A LOT! $.25 per 10 minutes at meters….$25 per day in the parking garage.

Mallory Square, trolley stop, shops, etc.
Ate lunch at “Red Fish Blue Fish….per their sign some here are only half-lit also…..some, particularly in the afternoon are fully lit if you know what I mean! Below, the hen and chicks roamed the restaurant (as they do most here) picking scraps which many threw to them. The chickens are all over Key West.
I’ll post two more today…..One on the sunset area and activities, and one on our dinner spot……think Top Gun!

Duke

I'm in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania right now, but I've hobbled together a pretty bad dialup connection to call everyone's attention to a major anti-rail decision at HART.