FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL ๐ซ๐๐บ๐ฝ️๐. This photo of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 classic "To Catch a Thief" is the large Twitter photo on my @hbbtruth account
Beautiful Strandvรคgen, the grand boulevard in รstermalm, in central Stockholm, Sweden, along Nybroviken. In my previous life, I was DEFINITELY born and raised there!
Memorial Stadium, Bloomington, home of the Hoosiers; Fernando Mendoza TD dive on 4th Down leads to IU's first nat'l football title; The Team; The Head Coach, Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers 2026 football schedule
Above, a photo I snapped of the red-light camera Warning sign on the north-side of west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. at NE 9th Terrace in Hallandale Beach, February 27th, 2011, a bit past sundown. The only reason you see it is because I'm standing on the curb, using my flash.
Below this three-hour old blog post from the Sun-Sentinel'sScott Wymanis a link from the Google Alert on Hallandale Beach I received yesterday to the most recent gullible newspaper that Mayor Cooper was able to peddle her self-servingFlorida League of Cities red-light camera talking points to.
By the way, the red-light camera WARNING sign on west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. -two blocks east of 1-95- is STILL almostcompletely hidden to passing traffic, hidden as it is behind the two trees it was placed between. The sign that also ISN'T near a street light.
I was there again last night, and it was as ridiculous as ever. But then they already knew the sign was hard to see even before it went operational on March 1st. On this issue in HB, as with so many, self-evident facts don't really seem to matter much, do they?
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics blog Fort Lauderdale accident data cast cloud over reliance on red-light cameras By Scott Wyman April 5, 2011 07:13 PM
The use of cameras to catch red-light runners may not be as effective at improving traffic safety as expected, according to an early review of accident data by the city.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department told city commissioners Tuesday that accidents increased in the last four months at two of the six intersections with cameras, compared to the same time a year ago. Collisions declined at three and remain the same at the sixth.
Look out NASCAR! The Rhesus macaques at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire have a car of their own to play with -they're 'grease monkeys' AND quick learners! And their sponsors love them -or rather, will. http://www.longleat.co.uk/ While they have learned how to keep making left-hand turns for 500 miles and how to pull into the correct spot in the pit-stop, there are certain things they still haven't quite caught on to, but give it some time.
For one, they haven't quite figured out how to do the celebratory donut in the infield after the race, an obligatory move in this day and age.
And most importantly for any professional automobile driver, they STILL haven't figured out how to start every post-race interview by thanking their sponsors and mentioning each one in declining order of financial investment. Next year at Bristol and Martinsville!
I should also add that like me, other than at the Indy 500 or the Daytona 500, races with real tradition, the monkeys in Wiltshire see little value in having military flyovers at automobile races. If it seems silly to them, imagine how it seems to those of us who can can add the taxpayer dollars involved...
I should mention here that one monkey wanted to put a Miami Dolphins pennant clip on his back window while still another wanted to put a bumper sticker on the back of the Mercedes that read "My child is a Honor Student at Jim Notter High School", but I talked them out of it.
While you're in the area, you may even want to visit a place that's even more famous, Stonehenge, which is why a friend is fond of saying, "Come for the Monkeys, Stay for the Druids."
Fox News Channel video: Sen. Marco Rubio on 'Fox News Sunday' with host Chris Wallace - April 3, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZRDCHGMILs Speaking of being articulate and specific about what your own personal policy positions are regarding the looming federal budget battle and the national debt, so that there's no confusion or misunderstanding, as we were the other day with Marco Rubio, the opposite take on that approach causes me to ask aloud whether Sen. Bill Nelson is still among us.
The South Florida news media seems not to be too keen to actually ask Nelson where he stands on any of these things and what he wants to do or cut or anything. No, they almost seem to be going out of their way to ignore Nelson, which causes me to ask whether that's for his lack of a cogent plan, strategy or framework, or whether it's just that they know in advance that, after eleven years in the Senate, he'll say absolutely nothing noteworthy in his usual earnest, plodding style, and they don't want to waste their time doing that, knowing that it's an hour they'll never ever have again.
Which is one of the reasons that while today is April 3rd, you CAN'T find a single story in the Miami Herald this year where Bill Nelson actually talks about the federal budget and the debt ceiling, and what he thinks should be done or how he will vote. Go ahead, I dare you. It simply can't be found -there isn't one.
Yes, with every passing day, collectively, the Miami Herald and the rest of the South Florida news media just continue walking deeper-and-deeper into the black hole of utter irrelevancy...
Fox News Channel video: Rep. Paul Ryan, Chairman of U.S. House Budget Comm.: on Fox News Channel's 'Sean Hannity Show' - March 1, 2011 -"House GOP Will Lead Where the President Has Failed" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bgVl7EhNI
Rubio is right to push for cuts to senior programs
Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY
9:49 PM EDT, April 2, 2011
Marco Rubio says he isn't interested in running for vice president in 2012. And to confirm that, he then said we have to scale back senior entitlement programs.
That got him lots of national attention, and a resounding round of silence from his Republican colleagues in Washington.
They didn't win the U.S. House this year, with an eye on the White House next year, only to risk it all by alienating the people who comprise the biggest voting bloc.
You will not see a Republican pointing to the retirees at a Tea Party gathering and saying, "You're the biggest part of the problem.''
Does anyone remember "A Roadmap for America's Future'' put out by Paul Ryan, the whiz-kid, budget-slashing congressman from Wisconsin who wanted to overhaul Medicare?
Or how about that report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that recommended entitlement cuts?
Associate the word entitlement with the words cut or reform and off you go to the Bermuda Triangle.
I hope Marco fares better.
He says he would keep existing entitlements intact for those older than 55, an attempt to appease what former Sen. Alan Simpson calls the "greediest generation.''
This might work for Social Security, where there is time to fix it.
But Medicare is dragging us off the cliff now. It is so daunting and so complex that Washington is paralyzed.
Tackling Medicare not only means taking on the seniors, but the entire medical industrial complex that depends on Medicare's billions. Sending old folks for body scans is a huge part of the economy.
Taking money away is very hard for a political system designed to give it away.
Making matters worse, many seniors believe that since they have paid into Medicare their entire lives, they have earned their benefits. Reducing benefits equates to theft.
But the cost of medical care has risen so sharply that, on average, seniors now pay for less than half the benefits they receive.
This is what differentiates Medicare from Social Security, where workers indeed have paid for most of their benefits.
With Social Security, they get a single check each month for the same amount. That makes planning relatively easy.
But Medicare is an open checkbook that pays for an unlimited amount of services.
The medical industry has adapted by creating a system based on quantity. More specialists. More tests. More procedures. More medications.
Outcomes and cost-effectiveness do not matter.
This has driven up costs while at the same time we have an exploding population of seniors. Medicare is, by far, the biggest driver of our long-term national debt.
Medicaid, which provides care to the poor, would be right there with it but states share this burden. And a growing percent of the Medicaid budget is directed at nursing-home care.
Sure, we can cut fraud and waste, as the refrain goes. But any savings will be dwarfed by the sheer number of baby boomers entering the system.
During the next 20 years, we will add eight beneficiaries to the Medicare rolls for every new worker. And these seniors will be more obese and laden with more self-inflicted chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Help, we need more immigrants!
I am 56. And as much as I'd like Marco Rubio to include me in the existing system, I don't want to make my kids my indentured servants by having to pay for it.
A worker making $20,000 a year should not have to subsidize health care for snow birds sitting in their Palm Beach condos. We need to adjust premiums, deductibles and co-pays according to income.
People are too disconnected from the cost of their health care. And that encourages abuse of the system.
We need more gatekeepers. We need fewer specialists, and they need to make less money. We need more general practitioners and they need to make more money. We need nurses to diagnose the flu instead of doctors.
We need longer wait times for non-emergency procedures.
We need more docs in Walmart and more Solantic clinics in strip malls.
We need more end-of-life planning to avoid the onslaught of machines that only delay the inevitable.
We need more plans and cheaper options.
We need what we can afford.
We have no choice. The Chinese are going to stop buying our debt.
The longer we put this off, the worse it will be.
It is why Marco Rubio is one of the most important people in Washington right now.
Leicester Square TV video:Interview with Rich Johnston at Forbidden Planet Megastore, London, on his new lighthearted graphic novel comic book from Markosia Comics titled Kate & William: A Very Public Love Story, presaging the royal wedding in a month. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvb55MmCUlg
How many times as a kid did you ever heard the maxim, "Don't judge a book by its cover"?To which we now add the comic book corollary -or a sexy Superhero by her costume.
Since then, our gal Adrianne has been busy going thru her Diana Prince paces, knowing that the whole world was watching, watching and watching some more, with lots of the recent commentary being on her evolving costume, much of which was decidedly negative.
This episode from two months ago might've been THE scariest episode yet of Criminal Minds because it also seemed like the most realistic -spree killers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1782019/
Speaking of TMZ, they still haven't mentioned Adrianne yet. C'est la guerre!
Fox News Channel video: Sen. Marco Rubio on 2011 federal budget and why he'd vote against raising the federal debt limit on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" -April 1, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WzzhgH_wzA
In my email inbox today comes confirmation of what I've known since November's election, which is that despite all the predictable paint-by-number "Rally in Tally" stories locally, and the Tweets, blog postings and warnings of doom from liberal interest groups and the predictable pleadings of the government employee class and their friends in the MSM, that the Tea Party, such as it is, will overplay their hand, the reality is that voters want smaller government budgets and more cuts. Rasmussen Reports 57% Okay With Government Shutdown If It Leads to Deeper Budget Cuts Friday, April 01, 2011
A majority of voters are fine with a partial shutdown of the federal government if that’s what it takes to get deeper cuts in federal government spending.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think making deeper spending cuts in the federal budget for 2011 is more important than avoiding a partial government shutdown...
Fox News Channel video: Rep. Jeb Hensarling on 2011 budget battle and prospect of government shutdown on Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk0Hla0VAH0
There will be no continuation of the rather-heated discussion on red-light cameras in Broward County at the County Commission until AFTER the current 90-day legislative session in Tallahassee is concluded -if then.
Basically, at Tuesday's Broward County Comm. meeting, in reference to another question, Comm. Sue Gunzburger, acting in her role as the presiding officer or "mayor," said that there wouldn't be a meeting to follow-up on that rather amazing March 1st meeting that I -unfortunately- missed seeing in person but watched via streaming, that had so many people amused and appalled in equal measures.
(That was the meeting where large mayoral egos collided, as Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooperand Pembroke Pines mayor Frank Ortis continually jockeyed to respond via the public microphone to various commissioner's hardball questions and prodding for more information about their respective city's program, and what was and wasn't done in the name of safety. And, of course, the larger issue of whether or not it was all just a smoke-screen to conduct a money-grab in the case of Hallandale Beach's infamous red-light camera on U.S.-1 and Hallandale Beach. Blvd. My post on that March 1st meeting: My own little red-light camera 'rainout' at the Broward County Commision this morning; HB begins phase two of red-light camera money-grab today http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-own-little-red-light-camera-rainout.html)
The reason is because the whole issue could well be moot by this summer since there is a very reasonable chance that given the sentiment towards outlawing them, the FL legislature will make that law allowing them a one-year wonder and repeal them. Florida SB 672, sponsored by Sen. Rene Garcia of Hialeah, would repeal last year's law allowing red-light cameras, moved out of the Senate Transportation Comm. in a 4-2 vote on Wednesday. http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/672 Voting to keep red-light cameras: Arthenia Joyner and Lizbeth Benacquisto.
Comm. members include: Chair -Senator Michael S. "Mike" Bennett (R) Vice Chair -Senator Jim Norman (R)
* Senator Paula Dockery (R) * Senator Anthony C. "Tony" Hill, Sr. (D) * Senator Garrett Richter (R) * Senator Jeremy Ring (D) of Margate * Senator Ronda Storms (R) * Senator John Thrasher (R) * Senator Stephen R. Wise (R)
Sen. Garcia is widely-expected to run for mayor of Hialeah later this year, as current mayor Julio Robaina is among those actively running for Miami-Dade County mayor in the race to succeed recalled mayor Carlos Alvarez.
Local10.com video: Sen. Marco Rubio speaks with Channel 10's Michael Putney on his Sunday morning TV show, This Week in South Florida, about the federal budget gimmicks currently in place, i.e. continuing resolutions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iGaPvq16Zo
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen speaks about Libya, new troubles between Israel and Palestine and the conviction of an aid worker in Cuba. Plus, what are the Miami-Dade County charter changes that will be on the May ballot?
Above, a photo I snapped of the red-light camera Warning sign on the north-side of west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. at NE 9th Terrace in Hallandale Beach, February 27th, 2011, a bit past sundown. The only reason you see it is because I'm standing on the curb, using my flash. 
