Note Gate or How Sink sinks Sink

Form : Henry Boxlor
I always knew the I-Phone was evil. Now we have the unadulterated on camera truth. This highly adept little piece of technology has blown a hole the size of a bulldozer in the election process. What next? An In The Voters Booth AP where the candidate or his/her aid can instruct you in the voting process. Steve Jobs and his bag of shiny cased gadgets are taking over. It is nothing short of a hideous attempt to totally usurp the political process. Wait a minute… was it an I-Phone or a Droid? Who cares? All of this technology is just screwing up everything.

What is really striking about all of this is that Alex Sink can’t figure out what to do when faced with a full frontal attack without some help from a cell phone packing soon to be college grad. What will she do when faced with a real immediate challenge as governor? Probably text one of the few people she didn’t fire at the bank.

I am not particularly enamored by either of these two political wannabes running for governor this cycle. I think they are both far from the best this state has to offer in terms of talent to get things moving and govern effectively. Given the nature of the political process it is not surprising talented people don’t step up.

When it comes to running a state too bad there’s not an AP for that. Oh wait there is that Steve Jobs guy over in the corner working on something…Politicians take note.

The Grey Wave- The Baby Boomers are Pissed Off

All of you 25 to 45 years olds better watch your back. The Grey Wave is rising like tsunami to take back the election this year. William E. Gibson, Orlando Sentinel reports “Pollsters and political analysts say that older voters — who have long preferred civility, stability and cooperation in Washington — are appalled by today's acrimonious political climate and increasingly convinced that the government cannot spend its way out of economic problems”. That’s what I hear; the old folks are pissed off. Those loud clicks you here when another attack ad comes on TV are the mute buttons being pushed.

They have had it with all of the political rhetoric, attack ads, party politics, war and failing economy. They are quietly talking in trailer parks, church meetings and at the coffee shop. They are going to vote, most likely Republican. Next time you see three or four of those golf carts clustered together, it’s the Grey Wave.

The batch of young voters that carried the last election may sit this one out, not much charisma here in Florida say between Sink and Scott. Crist, Meek, Rubio, no great reformer here, although Crist seems to stir some interest in those old hearts. Unless something very unique takes place in the next few weeks the baby boomers may well have it their way one more time. If you’re under 45 and want to have a voice in this election you better get your game on. Otherwise there are going to be a lot of smiling faces up at the club house on November 5th.

My Salmon and Me

The thought of a genetically engineered salmon is hard for me stomach. Remember all of the controversy about BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone). Bigger udders more milk. Well it started showing up in humans with some interesting side effects. Now they want to mess with my fish. The big concern seems to be a threat to the salmon population if one of these bad boys gets tossed into the sea and begins to procreate (spawn) with the normal salmon. What about me? If I eat this new fish will I become bigger, more fish like, develop an over powering urge to return to my natural home or maybe fail the mandatory drug test here at the Blog? What if these things mutate in the wild and grow to gargantuan size. Could we be threatened by an attack of the killer salmon attacking us with huge cedar bats?

And what about the trees? You know the cedar trees where we get the planks to cook the salmon. Will the bigger fish require bigger planks thereby threatening more deforestation? This is a big deal. It could lead to more global warming. Where the hell  is Al Gore? Does he eat salmon? The more I think about it the more upset I get.

I think I’ll just stick to my new five eyed Grouper sandwich, which resulted from the natural ingestion of the dispersant used in the BP oil spill.

What if the Little Engine That Could Can’t or Won’t?

You have heard it from the Republicans, Democrats and Independents. It is small business that will pull us out of the recession. It is small business that will create jobs. “Small businesses generally are regarded as companies that have fewer than 500 employees, but there's no widely accepted data that define America's small businesses, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and The Brookings Institution, two center-left Washington research centers.” Well, the recession has been with us for several years and there are more unemployed people, empty store fronts, for rent offices and empty manufacturing facilities than ever. What if the little engine of small business has run out of gas? Tired of being over regulated, over taxed and tired of paying endless fees. Every government from the local guys to the feds has their hands in the small business guy’s pocket. What if it’s just not worth it anymore?

More interesting is the growing thought that they have only given up for the moment. Unsure about health care, taxes and the current administration in general, they’re just setting it out for a while, holding off creating those precious jobs until things look a little more stable. Waiting till Obama is gone Could be. But what if they wait to long? What if they finally just give up?

Entrepreneurs are a curious lot. Independent, bull headed and stubborn. They get up everyday and go to work for themselves and create the backbone of our economy in the process. But even they have a breaking point. Politicians beware.

Droid, Blackberry and the I-Phone

If your Blackberry is leaving a bit blue or your Apple I-Phone experience has turned a bit sour or your Droid is dreadful here is an up date from The Hill and Author Sara Jerome: “Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs said the wireless industry did not anticipate the explosion in data traffic on their networks as people began accessing the Internet on their mobile phones. "Demand for data has grown so rapidly, it almost has caught the industry by surprise," he said. Stressing access to spectrum as a key solution, Jacobs said last year marked the first time data traffic exceeded voice traffic on the networks. "AT&T is talking about 5,000 percent increases in their traffic in a span of three years," he said. "But guess what, it's not stopping at all." Mobile is "dominating" the broadband landscape, according to Jacobs, who cited a "a perfect storm of innovation and opportunity." Seventy-five percent of total broadband subscribers will be mobile broadband subscribers by 2014, he said, calling wireless the "the largest platform in the history of mankind."

My greatest fear is a mutation of the thumbs causing them to become smaller as we attempt to perform ever more work on every smaller keyboards. Thumbs after all are one the things that set us aside from the other mammals. Smaller thumbs will make holding a beer difficult, hitchhiking impossible and displaying the old “thumbs up” a bit weird to say the least. Maybe there will be a AP for that.

The St. Petersburg Pier

I like the Pier. I go their a lot. I go by on my boat, I ride by on my motorcycle, I drive out there at night and enjoy the lights. It dawned on me, I never stop. I never go in and buy anything, I just sort of pass by. Take it all in and head out to Treasure Island for one of Beach hangouts. I was upset when the Council brain trust voted to tear it down. How dare they put the old wrecking ball to my one place of mental solitude, the old inverted pyramid? I’ll miss it.

Maybe I am part of the problem. I go, I look, it makes me feel good but I never really support the place by spending any money there. Well, maybe the occasional ice cream cone, but I doubt that counts for much in the great scheme of things. A lot of people are yelling about the Pier but I wonder how many of them are like me. Taken by the structural appearance, comforted by the view but rarely truly supportive. It’s true that the place is primarily a tourist draw, but anyone in the tourist industry will tell you that you need the locals to be really successful.

Whatever they build it just won’t be the same. I’ll miss the old upside down pyramid and the opportunity to make up some wild story when a tourist asks me, why did they build it that way? Flipped over when were brining it up the Bay and we just left it that way. They actually buy that!

Maybe I’ll stop by and buy a hat or something.