Besides a lack of scoring coming off the bench, the other reasons the Miami Heat have lost their way in their playoff series against the Indiana Pacers -palm tree karma, simple math and lack of attention to detail

Above, the electronic mesh advertising billboard sign on the facade above the entrance gates to the AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami around 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon before that night's Pacers-Heat playoff game. All photos on this post were taken Tuesday May 15, 2012, all  by South Beach Hoosier.

Besides a lack of scoring coming off the bench, the other reasons the Miami Heat lost at home Tuesday night to the Pacers in Game 2 -palm tree karma and simple math. 


The number of playoff games left for the Miami Heat to win the 2012 NBA title going into the best-of-seven series against the Indiana Pacers was 12, but on Tuesday afternoon, with under 4 hours to go before Game 2, already up one game to none, the total was 11, not the 12 that was indicated on the (illegal) signs placed on the palm trees in front of the arena on Biscayne Blvd., opposite The Freedom Tower.
There should've already been an "X" marked thru this number.

Above, looking west towards Biscayne Blvd. from in front of the AAA, and at bottom, looking south from there towards The Freedom Tower and downtown Miami.

Looking east and upwards towards the AAA from the sidewalk along Biscayne Blvd. 

I was in downtown Miami on Tuesday, a warm, muggy and overcast day that looked to be uncomfortable from the get-go when I left Hallandale Beach that morning.
It had glare written all over it, and the closer I got to downtown, the more it was obvious to me that it was one of those days that make sunglasses a must, even for kids.
And yet I saw plenty of tourists walking around near Bayside and the Port of Miami without them, squinting like crazy, which I'm sure will show up in many of the photos they shot that day, once they got home.

On a personal level, I knew the overcast skies and glare would play havoc with any outdoor photos or video I shot as I made my way from the Miami-Dade County Govt, HQ bldg, the Stephen Clark Building I hadn't been at since the Marlins Stadium controversy a few years. 


Having already read the illegal signage story in the Miami Herald the previous week about the Heat, largely owned by the state's wealthiest person, Micky Arison, once again throwing their weight around and acting like they were above local laws, as I went past the area in the morning, I knew I'd have to swing by later to take another first-hand look at what was what.

The Kumho Tires ad image above shows the numbers being crossed-out correctly, showing 11, but the actual sign in front of the arena was not touched, and thus, sports superstition raises its head, as does the palm tree karma for being f-ed with in the first place.
-----


http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/09/2791625/city-tells-miami-heat-to-remove.html

Miami Herald

City tells Miami Heat to remove tire ads wrapped on palm trees at arena

By Andres Viglucci

May 10, 2012

The Miami Heat must have missed the news: The Miami Commission killed a measure two weeks ago that could have allowed advertising banners to be placed on trees.

That didn’t stop the team from wrapping the trunks of 16 royal palms in front of the publicly owned American Airlines Arena on Biscayne Boulevard with ads for Kumho tires. City officials say the ads are illegal.

On Wednesday, just before game five of the Heat’s first-round playoff series with the New York Knicks, code enforcement officers ordered the team to take down the white banners, which carry the slogan “DRIVE to the CHAMPIONSHIP’’ printed sideways above the image of a car tire and a Heat flaming-basketball logo.

“Not very catchy,’’ opined assistant city manager Alice Bravo.

And not very legal, either, she said. The team, which manages the arena, didn’t apply for permits, Bravo said.

Even if it had, Miami-Dade County’s sign ordinance, which applies inside the city as well as in unincorporated areas, frowns upon signs of any kind on trees. Under a section entitled “Prohibited signs,’’ the code reads: “No sign shall be attached to trees.’’

The county owns the arena, but the city is supposed to enforce the Miami-Dade sign ordinance inside its own borders.

The team could be fined if the banners aren’t gone by Thursday, Bravo said, though the city prefers to achieve compliance first. She did not know how long the signs have been up.

The Heat, however, refused to take the signs down. In a statement Wednesday, spokeswoman Lorrie-Ann Diaz said the team would remove the “sponsorship message’’ from the banners but leave them up “until the end of the playoff run’’ while applying for a permit.

Bravo said she was uncertain whether the tree banners without an advertising component would be permissible on the arena property itself, but added that she believes draping banners on palms on the public sidewalk is not. The festooned trees are on both the arena steps and the sidewalk out front.

The Kumho tire ads, in any case, remained up as crowds of fans arrived for the game Wednesday night.

The ads-on-palms flap comes amid growing controversy over the proliferation and legality of LED billboards and other outdoor ads locally, especially in and around downtown Miami. Billboard opponents, county planning administrators and county attorney Robert Cuevas say the county ordinance bars electronic ad billboards, which the city has approved.

More recently, the city commission gave preliminary approval to LED billboards on the Gusman theater downtown, the Miami Children’s Hospital and the Knight Center, as well as in city parks. But on April 26, facing public criticism, the board killed a measure intended to allow ads on parking pay stations and bicycle-rental kiosks that was so broadly worded that it could have permitted them as well on fire hydrants, public buildings, bridges and even shade trees.

Also in violation of the rules, the critics say: The Heat’s digital mesh on the arena facade. The electronic sign, also permitted by the city, shows ads for Goya products, Kia cars, Office Depot and Kumho. But the county’s sign code explicitly disallows ads for goods and services unavailable at the site, Cuevas said in a recent legal opinion.

Cuevas’ memo said enforcement is up to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the county commission.

The elected officials, however, have not taken action.

On Wednesday, an anti-billboard group, Scenic Miami-Dade, filed a complaint with Gimenez’s office over the Heat’s palm-tree ads. The letter opened with a single word: “Disgusting.’’

-----
As we all know, this is NOT the first time the Heat acted like they owned the property and built everything themselves, when that is not the case. It's a county-subsidized building. 

WFOR-TV

I Team: County Receives Nothing From Heat, Arena Revenue

Reporting Jim DeFede

May 5, 2011 10:52 PM

Related article and video is at:

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/05/05/i-team-county-receives-nothing-from-heat-arena-revenue/

Biscayne Times

A Waterfront Park for All to Enjoy

REMEMBER “PARCEL B,” THE LAND BEHIND THE MIAMI HEAT’S ARENA? YOU OWN IT BUT CAN’T USE IT -- YET

Written By Erik Bojnansky   

AUGUST 2011

http://www.biscaynetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=939:a-waterfront-park-for-all-to-enjoy&catid=50:community-news&Itemid=223

Miami NewTimes

Banana Republican blog

Micky Arison and Miami Heat Get Audited by Miami-Dade Inspector General

By Francisco Alvarado 

January 13 2012 at 2:02 PM

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/01/micky_arison_and_miami_heat_ge.php

Well, my pre-tourney prediction was half-right: Sweden disappoints, but Slovakia will face Russia in IIHF World Championship Gold Medal Final in Stockholm Sunday afternoon; delayed telecast in U.S. at 9 pm Eastern on NBCCS, DirecTV Channel 603

Above, the Finnish first-class stamp that came out in March that features the official mascot of the Championship, HockeyBird. If you didn't already know, Angry Birds was created in Finland by Rovio Mobile.

Well, my pre-tourney prediction was half-right: Sweden disappoints, but Slovakia will face Russia in IIHF World Championship Gold Medal Final in Stockholm on Sunday; delayed telecast in U.S. at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBCCS, DirecTV Channel 603

Daily Recap 19th May  http://youtu.be/t2wQ_iyuX_0

Video of the goals in Slovakia's 3-1 second-semifinal game victory Saturday over the Czech Republic. 
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/sport/hockeyvm/article14850922.ab


Russia routed co-host Finland 6-2 in Helsinki in the first semifinal game. Finland defeated the USA in the Quarterfinals, while Slovakia defeated Canada in the Quarterfinals on Thursday.


Depending upon where you live around the world, you might be able to watch the Bronze Medal and Gold Medal matches today online at: http://www.youtube.com/icehockey


However, the U.S. is NOT one of those countries, as even the IIHF highlight videos on their YouTube Channel are off-limits if you live in the U.S., which is why I used the Aftonbladet video at the top.
That's real marketing genius at work!!!


TV4 Sweden's video includes highlights of Czech Republic's 4-3 victory over Tre Kronor in the Quarterfinals.
http://www.tv4play.se/sport/sporten?title=sporten_09_00&videoid=2193024&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se


The IIHF tourney has been the source of lots of serious -and some would say unrelenting- media criticism in Sweden over the smaller-than-expected crowds that have shown up for some games in what is a world championship tourney, after all.
More fans actually attended some of the Elitserien games this year than attended the tourney.


But whether you think it's the length of the tourney, over two weeks, or the high ticket prices, or both, there seems to be a lot of positing of the old chicken and egg conundrum.


Photo gallery: 
http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/hockey/landslag/hockeyvm/wixtromlive/article14732912.ab


Is turnout low because the ticket prices are thought by many to be higher than they should be, leading to a situation where the visiting fans who are able to get away from home for the tourney in Finland and Sweden are being overly judicious in what games they go to besides their own country's, and thus, spending the money at bars, night clubs and restaurants instead?


Is the tourney getting smaller crowds because the Stanley Cup playoffs are still being played in North America and many of the best players of those teams would be playing in the tourney if the NHL had reconfigured the schedule, so why see less-than-the best?
Or, is it the tourney getting lower-than-expected crowds because Swedish and Finnish fans the organizers thought would be attending just aren't really too interested in going to games where neither team is playing -at those prices?


-------


My pre-tourney prediction of Sweden vs, Slovakia came in my April 26, 2012 post titled, Instant Classic video! Romania's National Ice Hockey Team manager lets loose after tough loss to Poland; IIHF World Championship 2012 Finland/Sweden starts next week, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/instant-classic-video-romanias-national.html
which featured this amazing video that everyone who sees it just loves because it's so honest!
Warning -lots of expletives are flying in this video!


Romania National Ice Hockey Team manager lets loose with tough love after tough loss to Poland; Tränarens utbrott efter storförlusten Polen - Rumänien. This was following a Group B qualifying game at Krynica, Poland. April 2012.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/sport/ishockey/article14728686.ab 

Here's the English language version of the official information webpage, which also has one in Swedish and Finnish: IIHF World Championship 2012 Finland/Sweden

http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/championships/world-championships/finlandsweden-2012/english.html

Aftonbladet's awesome hockey page: http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/hockey/

Here's the official tourney merchandise page full of lots of intersting goodies: http://62.20.67.28/wm2012/Servlet

Here's the Swedish Facebook page that has lots of photos of the arena and the preparation:

http://www.facebook.com/iihfvm

Branislav Kysucký's You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/8brano7
http://www.branno.tk/  

Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex monument, Hallandale Beach, FL. May 15, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by  Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers 


Most regular readers of this blog might recall that a few weeks ago I promised that I'd soon have some pretty jaw-dropping evidence to share about what's really been going on in this ocean-side city for years, thanks to consistently having the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Now, thanks to the diligent hard work and research of my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist, Csaba Kulin, the taxpayers of this city and anyone else truly interested in good government -or the lack of it- can finally wrap their heads around these galling and unbelievable numbers.


Csaba details for you in very stark terms what the true cost has been the past ten years for having elected officials in Hallandale Beach who did NOT pay close attention to detail, and who did NOT demand a reasonable level of scrutiny of public policy proposals or changes in personnel policy. 


The true costs of having so many inattentive and easily-distracted City Commissioners who did NOT ask probing questions, or make the financial well-being of this city and its taxpayers their first priority.
Instead, we've had people who were just happy to sit on the dais and almost eager to act as mere Rubber Stamps, lest they be required to do any real thinking.




Csaba and I have been talking and meeting about this particular pension change matter for many, many months.


Which is to say that even as former HB City Manager R.J. Intindola, up in Georgia, and his one-man peanut gallery in HB, Andrew Markoff, have continually sought to publicly malign and attack, in both print and at HB City Commission meetings, myself, Comm. Keith London, 
Change Hallandale's Michael Butler and many other HB residents who desperately want genuine reform, transparency and accountability in this city, I've kept quiet.


Why?
Because I had the satisfaction of already knowing that the cold hard facts were going to come out eventually, and rain hard on the three of them and Dotty Ross, Joy Cooper and William "Bill" Julian.


The truth that would show that even while South Florida's incurious news media has largely snoozed the past ten years on what was happening in Hallandale Beach, with the Miami Herald not even regularly covering public meetings in-person, facts would come out that showed how self-righteous and self-serving former City Managers Intindola and Good were.



(My Sept. 28, 2011 post titled, Holding a mirror to R.J. Intindola - May be time soon to publicly open-up on know-it-all ex-HB CM, and reveal 'inconvenient' facts he avoids really raised the hackles of former City Manager Intindola, since he doesn't like public criticism of any kind, so he accused me in print of being a liar, and thought he would embarrass me. But as you read the facts stated by Csaba below, you'll see that I was right and also see why Intindola's so sensitive -he's got a lot to be defensive about. And a lot to be embarrassed about!  

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/holding-mirror-to-rj-intindola-may-be.html )


Facts that would also show what a complete dupe Markoff was for continually singing the praises of someone like Intindola, who aggressively pushed a pension change to the City Commission one year before he retired himself, a change that he stands to personally benefit from to the tune of an extra $2.1 Million from HB taxpayers.


To paraphrase what I wrote last month on April 11th about former HB Commissioner and 2012 candidate William "Bill" Julian, "Ten years of NOT just being being wrong on the issues and facts that were important for Hallandale Beach's beleaguered  taxpayers and residents who wanted to see their city improved, but ten years of being stubbornly foolish and myopic in their bad judgment."
30 Weeks until Election Day, and candidate William "Bill" Julian STILL shows no remorse over his years of myopia, incompetency, apathy and bad votes that hurt HB taxpayers and made the city a laughingstock. Just like Comm. Sanders!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/30-weeks-until-election-day-and.html



It's taken much longer to post here than I originally planned, but I believe the wait was worth it to get the true facts out to the public who'll actually be footing this bill for decades to come.
And who will be voting in November.


-----
May 18, 2012



Dear Friends:


For a number of years, I have been very critical of the management and administration of our city of Hallandale Beach.
The Mayor and the City Commission, prompted by the City Manager, have made many terrible policy decisions over the past ten years that have put this city's residents and businesses on edge -and on the hook.


Today, I'm going to share with you a little of what I've learned and expose one of worst decisions ever made at City Hall, a decision that will continue to negatively affect the City’s finances and policy choices for the next 8-10 years.


Prior to September 30, 2001, the City of Hallandale Beach employed a 401K type pension plan for its Professional/Management employees.
On August 8, 2001, encouraged by then-City Manager R. J. Intindola, the City Manager voted to freeze the 401K retirement plan and institute a new DEFINED BENEFIT (DB) plan for the Professional/Management employees.
This policy change was entirely OPPOSITE of the direction that most entities were moving towards ten years ago.


The most damaging part of this particular conversion, not easily found in the supporting documents that were provided to me, was in the “fine print” of these ten-year old records, and here's why it's so damaging to Hallandale Beach's taxpayers and why perhaps the city has NOT made these documents so easy to access.
As they entered the new DB plan, this class of city employees kept their accumulated 401K balances.
When you start a new DB pension plan, it's generally the case that every employee starts out like a “new” employee, with ZERO years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE.”
Plain and simple -a new plan, ZERO years of prior service.


But NOT in Hallandale Beach!


In Hallandale Beach, every one of these professional employee started out the new DB plan not with zero, but rather with the number of years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE” they'd worked for the City prior to the new plan.


This one item, as best I can determine, has cost the City about $3,602,389 at its start, and the costs have only escalated over the years.
Let me illustrate the unfair and devastating financial effects of this last point by using two well-known employees as examples -former City Managers R.J. Intindola, who was the mastermind behind the new DB plan, and Mike Good.
They were two of the approximately forty (40) employees who were the major beneficiaries of this conversion.


(As an interesting side-note, the incoming HB City Manager, Renee Crichton, served as R.J. Intindola’s Assistant City Manager during the conversion period. Given her position at the time, she clearly had some degree of involvement in the entire process, but nobody on the City Commission inquired into the exact details of her involvement prior to her selection as City Manager. It was yet another missed opportunity for the HB City Commission to get the facts out to the public about the true state of its finances.)


But despite the City Commission agreeing to the very unusual step of counting past service from the start, instead of starting off with ZERO, it was not quite enough of a “gift” to the Professional/Management Employees.


Soon after the new pension plan started, “to improve morale and help recruitment”, and with the full support of City Manager Intindola, the Professional/Management employees asked the HB City Commission to improve their own pension benefits so that they matched those of the Hallandale Beach Police/Firefighters, which would mean granting full retirement benefits at age 52 for all Professional and Management Employees at City Hall.


Despite the preposterous idea of comparing working indoors at HB City Hall with the myriad duties and often risky job responsibilities performed by Police Officers or Firefighters, the HB City Commission agreed to the proposal.


R.J. Intindola worked for the City of Hallandale Beach for 20.67 years, but only one (1) year and one (1) month was under the new DB plan.
When he retired on November 9, 2002, he retired with 20.67 years of service, plus 4 years of “service buy-back”, for a total of 24.67 years of service.


With his average salary of $9,990 per month, due to these changes that he supported and which the City Commission approved, R.J. Intindola now receives $8,107 per month or $97,284 per year that he would not have otherwise received.
That includes the $200 “additional benefit” and $400 “contractual increase” per month, for good measure, until the end of his life.


He retired at age 52 and his life expectancy is 30 more years, therefore Hallandale Beach taxpayers can expect to pay him $2,918,520 (30 times $97.284).


Not too shabby for 13 months of work under the new DB pension plan he managed to shepherd thru the 2001 City Commission, which then consisted of Mayor Dotty Ross and Commissioners Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Francine Schiller.


Now you may wonder, how much would R.J. Intindola have been entitled to if he did receive that 20 years of prior service years?
He would have been entitled to one (1) year of service plus 4 years of service buy-back equal to five years of service.


The 3.2% per year multiplier would have given him $1,598 per month, plus the $600 additional per month, which comes to $26,380 per year.
That total payout is $791,424 over his lifetime, but that is still $2,127,296 less than what Intindola is now scheduled to receive because the HB City Commission approved the changes without fully considering the long-term consequences of its vote in 2001.


Mike Good worked for the City for 20 years, but when he entered the DROP program on April 1, 2005, he had only 3.5 years under the new DB plan.
He purchased 5 years of service “buyback” to get to his 25 years maximum benefit of $8,672 a month.


Let me help you with the math: that's $104,064 per year, or $3,121,920 over the next 30 years.


Three Million, One Hundred and Twenty-One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Twenty Dollars.


Mike Good should have received 3.5 plus 5, for a total of 8.5 years of prior service.
His average salary was $10,840 a month, therefore he is entitled to $2,948 a month, $35,376 per year.
That is $1,061,280 over his lifetime but is actually $2,060,640 less than what Good is actually scheduled to receive now because of the City Commission votes.


So let's do the math.


These two city employees will cost the City of Hallandale Beach and its taxpayers $4,187,936 more than than they would have cost if our 2001 City Commission of Ross, Cooper, Julian and Schiller would have been smart enough to recognize the terrible misrepresentations of City Manager R.J. Intindola and his paid co-conspirator, consultant Rocky Joiner of The Segal Company, and voted NO.


(City taxpayers paid Mr. Joiner $15,000 for this marvelous retirement option for the very people who recommended him.)


If you were to analyze the rest of the employees covered by the same Defined Benefit pension plan, including our current City Manager Mark A. Antonio, you would be amazed to see the cost of that one obscure little clause in the pension documents.


The total unearned excess cost will be well over Ten Million Dollars.


As we have all watched with increasing dismay and genuine concern what has been taking place at HB City Hall over the past few years, we've all talked many times about the law of “unintended consequences” with respect to actions and votes by the City Commission.


But in my opinion, it was NOT simply an “unintended consequence,” rather it was the intention of the direct beneficiaries of the change -former City Manager R.J.Intindola and his then-assistants- to greatly benefit themselves at the expense of all the taxpayers of Hallandale Beach.


The recent special audit performed by Marcum LLP uncovered some 260 exceptions, mostly in the CRA, but as I have often stated publicly, in my opinion, we desperately need to have an “audit” done of the City Manager’s office.
In the past ten years alone, there have been so many “exceptions” made there that one could write a book about them.


My limited look at personnel decisions made by the City Manager's Office have raised a lot of troubling questions in my own mind, and I happen to be someone who firmly believes that HB taxpayers are entitled to have honest answers to those questions, since the HB City Commission, as presently constructed, is NOT interested in providing reasonable and logical answers to taxpayer's financial questions.


Whether answers to questions about why over-sized raises were given to “special” employees, or what precisely was behind a decision to make a $400,000 settlement with a former city employee to “make someone whole” at retirement time, or many others we still do not know the full answer to.


That's NOT by accident.


Many of us in Hallandale Beach know from personal experience that getting "public" information we're legally entitled to from HB city employees -and City Hall- is like pulling teeth. And it's equally true that unless you know ahead of time precisely what it is you want, very little information is voluntarily offered.
As if that weren't frustrating enough, it frequently seems as if the city intentionally misunderstands or misdirects your questions to further frustrate you.


Though I wish that it weren't true, because it's clearly contrary to this community's best interests, I am confident that the “word” comes down from the very “top” to keep information away from the public like it's a “nuclear secret.”


Csaba Kulin

Years of Service Prior to 10-1-2001

R.J. Intindola     19.67

Mike Good        16.50

Years of Service After 10-1-2001

R.J. Intindola     1.00

Mike Good        3.50

Years of Service Purchased

R.J. Intindola     4.00

Mike Good        5.00

Total Years of Service

R.J. Intindola     24.67

Mike Good        25.00

Average Monthly Compensation

R.J. Intindola     9,989.97

Mike Good        10,840.37

Monthly Benefit (years x average compensation)

R.J. Intindola     7,886.48

Mike Godd        8,672.30

Additional Benefit

R.J. Intindola     200.00

Sub Total

R.J. Intindola     8,086.48

Mike Good        8,672.30

Pre-retirement death benefit reduction

R.J. Intindola     7,965.18

Optional form of conversion rate

R.J. Intindola     7,706.93

Contractual Increase

R.J. Intindola     400.00

Current Total Monthly Benefits

R.J. Intindola     8,106.93

Mike Good        8,672.30

Current Total Annual Benefits

R.J. Intindola     97,283.16

Mike Good        104,067.55

Current Lifetime Benefits (30 year)

R.J. Intindola     2,918,494.80

Mike Good        3,122,026.56

Corrected Monthly Benefit Should Be

R.J. Intindola     1,598.40

Mike Good        2,948.58

Additional benefits

R.J. Intindola     600.00

Total Monthly Benefits

R.J. Intindola     2,198.40

Mike Good        2,948.58

Total Annual Benefits

R.J. Intindola     26,380.74

Mike Good        35,382.97

Lifetime Benefits Should Be

R.J. Intindola     791,422.27

Mike Good        1,061,489.03

TOTAL LIFETIME OVERPAYMENT

R.J. Intindola     2,127,072.53

Mike Good        2,060,537.53

Richard Mourdock: Precursor or anomaly? Greg Garrison and Charlie Cook adroitly pinpoint where Sen. Richard Lugar eventually lost his way, started losing the trust of Hoosier voters, then lost in a landslide due to the dis-connect. Points largely lost on a predictably apoplectic Beltway MSM

Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate campaign video: It's time.... for Richard Mourdock. March 3, 2011, http://youtu.be/0EE8jJ2Jhu8

Richard Mourdock: Precursor or anomaly? Greg Garrison and Charlie Cook -separately- adroitly pinpoint where Sen. Richard Lugar eventually lost his way, started losing the trust of Hoosier voters, then lost in a landslide due to the dis-connect. Points largely lost on a predictably apoplectic Beltway MSM

The best reasoned analysis I've read thus far of why Sen. Lugar lost in the GOP primary last week -and lost badly- is by the one-and-only Charlie Cook last week and Breitbart.com's  Greg Garrison today.

THE COOK REPORT

Lugar’s Downfall

Don’t just chalk up the Indiana Republican’s primary defeat to the tea party. It’s more complicated than that.

By Charlie Cook

Updated: May 11, 2012 | 1:39 p.m. 

May 10, 2012 | 4:00 p.m.

One way to explain Sen. Richard Lugar’s loss to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in this week’s Indiana Republican primary is to attribute it to a tea party takeover of the GOP. A second explanation is that a venerable public servant overstayed his welcome and ran for reelection one time too many. A third is that Lugar was too focused on international relations and grew too distant from his state—that he didn’t keep his political fences mended back home.

Read the rest of the column at 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/cook-report/lugar-s-downfall-20120510

-----

Breitbart.com 

LUGAR: 36 YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

by Greg Garrison

May 16, 2012

He was 16 when I was born, Mayor of Indianapolis (my home town) when I was a student at IU, and off to the US Senate when I was a ripe old 28; been there ever since.  And a few hours after having seen him take a beating most uncommon in American politics—he lost to Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock by 21 points in yesterday’s primary—the confetti has just stopped floating to the floor and empty beer cans have barely stopped rolling around as we look with mixed feelings at the phenomenon just experienced.  

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/16/lugar-36-years-enough

-----

Both before and after I first moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1988, where I lived and worked for 15 years, other than maybe Sam Nunn in Georgia, Daniel Inouye in Hawaii or Teddy Kennedy in Massachusetts, I don't think there was another senator more firmly linked in the minds of both voters and the local and national news media with their own home state than Dick Lugar was with Indiana, who was already a U.S. Senator when I first moved to Bloomington from North Miami Beach in August of 1979 for my freshman year at IU.

Then, and for 25 years afterwards, it was simply inconceivable for anyone who knew anything about Indiana politics and the people of the state to imagine any logical scenario where he would ever lose an election, even if he should've retired after his last term ended in 2006. 

Thirty years was long enough, though, and lots of voters who had voted for Lugar their entire life had become disenchanted with both him, his policies and his increasingly-curious priority choices.

As I've mentioned here previously, too, I was actually at the televised Birch Bayh-Dan Quayle Senate debate at IU in 1980, sitting in the second row of sweltering Whittenberger Auditorium at the IMU, where I usually sat to watch films on weekend nights, glad to be somewhere where people cared about ideas and public policy, even if they weren't always the ones that I agreed with or thought were most logical or reasonable.

After growing-up in the completely unrepresentative South Florida of the 1970's, with no Black or Hispanic congressmen and everyone on the Dade County Commission voted in at-large, the best-case scenario for lobbyists, I was happy to be somewhere where every vote counted for something.

A place where actual political debates took place, even if they didn't exactly match the lofty rhetoric of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858; the election Lincoln lost in case you forgot, before he was elected president two years later.

On Election Night 1980, I spent a lot of time going from one place to another for various election return parties, on and off-campus, in retrospect, the news about Bayh losing to Quayle was merely the precursor.

I eventually made my way tothe dorm room of a friend there at Briscoe Quad where I lived that year, a friend who just happened to be the IU Student Association president.

As first, George McGovern, John Culver and other well-known Dems bit the dust, and then Reagan was acclaimed the winner over President Carter, the large crowd became the very personification of an election wake, filled with gallows humor -and clever remarks about someone making a race competitive by only losing by ten percentage points!

The next time I was in a place that Blue and sad following election returns was at The Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill for the mid-term 1994 elections, when I thought the GOP would take the House, but my friends on The Hill told me that my famous intuition was wrong, something it rarely was.

By the end of the night, many of my friends were actually crying real tears as they saw their always-interesting Capitol Hill jobs get eliminated before their eyes, when their bosses lost in the Gingrich Revolution, while people who for years had been on the Majority Staff of House committees realized that the new math would get them gone, in part, because of how they'd run things and treated the Republican staffers.

Karma, it's not just a chameleon.

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Howey Politics Indiana: http://howeypolitics.com/

NPR Audio: The Bigger Picture Of Indiana's Senate Race: 

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Hoosier political analyst Brian Howey of the Howey Indiana Politics newletter about Richard Mourdock's landslide defeat of Sen. Richard Lugar last Tuesday in the GOP Senate primary

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/12/152561169/indiana-senate-race-the-bigger-picture

http://www.youtube.com/user/MourdockforSenate

Summer 2012 is officially here as Timoteij's new album, Tabu, drops today. And they also celebrate a new-and-improved website that's delightfully more-colorful, engaging and pleasing to the eye -and more intuitive!

Summer 2012 is officially here as Timoteij's new album, Tabu, drops today. And they also celebrate a new-and-improved website that's delightfully more-colorful, engaging and pleasing to the eye -and more intuitive!

The top of the new website, which changed slightly from the original template a few weeks before their participation in the 2012 Melodifestivalen two months ago, now sports new photos for both the website and the blog, and I must say that in the week since I first saw the photo of the new album over at Swedish Stereo blog in Damian's description of the songs and their order, http://swedishstereo.blogspot.com/2012/05/timoteij-tabu.html which seems to be fresher, more upbeat and dance-friendly but with all of the Timoteij folk and authenticity trademarks we love, I've been eager to see what it looks like in a new and improved online environment.


Well, in my opinion, the new features and photos really POP off your computer screen in a way that the old pinkish/purple ones really didn't after awhile because... well, we just got so used to them.  http://www.timoteij.se/


The new group photo for the website now is, left-to-right: Elina Thorsell, Johanna Pettersson, Cecilia Kallin and Bodil Bergström, and the photo is the same as the album but in the header photo, you don't see their instruments, while the header above the blog text 
http://www.timoteij.se/category/timoteij/ is a variation of that: Cecilia, Elina, Johanna and Bodil.


I also saw that last week's news also had this great teaser: Buy the new album and enter a contest to have Timoteij perform at your home/place of work -in Sweden: http://www.ginza.se/product/timoteij/tabu-2012/11863/


Correct, it's remarkably similar to what the amazing Full of Keys (Anni Bernhard) did on her tour in February for her winning fan, Victor: http://fullofkeys.com/blog/?p=228
I was so envious!


On Monday, the girls were still busy promoting the new album and swung by the Sveriges Radio (SR) studio in Skovde, and fortunately for us, the folks at P4 recorded a bit of what happened, which is how I can share it with you here now:



SverigesRadio P4 Skaraborg video: Nytt sound men ändå  som vanligt på Timoteijs nya. May 14, 2012. Related article at: 
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=97&artikel=5107583


I also came across this great SR photo from this past January which I hadn't seen before:
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=789&artikel=4312611


Here's the text of the interview:
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=399&artikel=4312609


Not to give away too many teasers about some future posts you'll be seeing here soon, but as some of you reading this particular post already know, I actually have hopes of seeing these talented ladies perform -as well as the fabulous Florrie, whose new album drops next week- in a few months in their native habitats, though I'm still working on exact dates and logistics.


My original killer post about Timoteij and Melodifestivalen 2012, scheduled to run the morning of the Second Chance competition, with a complete recap about what happened to them and other acts like Molly Sandén during the competition, was actually killed by a freak power outage one night when my electricity didn't come back on for quite a few minutes, and Blogger lost what I'd written.


Hours of work down the drain!
I was so beyond frustrated! 


Below are some odds and ends from that the draft of that post which I'd thought to save to an email draft before I started trying to finish up and the electricity went kaput, my post going adios! Obviously, there were lots of what I thought at the time were some well-chosen words, photos and videos that ought to be below but which aren't.


-----


Today is D-day for Timoteij and its fans: Clear sailing to next week's Melodifestivalen Finals in Stockholm, or, Stormy Seas? (Stormande Hav) 


It's the day we've all been waiting for... "Andra chansen." The second chance. 
One last chance to make the grade for the chance to represent Sweden at Eurovision.


Yesterday the band posted this short acapella version of them singing an excerpt of Stormande Hav in one of their hotel rooms onto their official YouTube Channel.



Timoteij - Videoblogg - Stormande Hav -acapella. March 2, 2012.
http://youtu.be/s7wk3p0Y8hg


Like many of you out there, I've wondered, too, why they and the record company still hadn't posted a HQ copy of their performance at the Second Heat as good as the one that uris1 posted two weeks ago, or done a series of occasional updates on their YouTube Channel since then on their preparations the past few weeks, a variation of what they've been writing on the blog.
But now at least, somebody finally decided to do something positive. 

uris1 video: Timoteij - Stormande Hav. Second Heat of Melodifestivalen 2012 in Göteborg, Sweden. February 11, 2012. http://youtu.be/Nw73WHckdNY


Meanwhile, over at SVT's Minimello, where Ylva Hällen and sidekick Skvallerbyttan have good seats to watch all the performers -and keep the laughter coming...
http://svt.se/2.140234/minimello
http://svt.se/2.140629/


SVT video: Jag är lik Timoteij!!!! 
Skvallerbyttan hittar likheter mellan henne och Timotej.
So funny!

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http://www.youtube.com/user/LionheartSweden
http://www.youtube.com/user/TimoteijOfficial


Fans of the band may want to start looking at this page to see what's also being written about them on Social Media: http://whotalking.com/flickr/Timoteij 

Can anyone save egotistical Lauderhill mayor and amateur mind-reader Richard J. Kaplan from himself? The chronic Internet crank continues showing his true colors and ignorance at BrowardBeat, and other readers have finally had enough of his twaddle, too

Can anyone save egotistical Lauderhill mayor and amateur mind-reader Richard J. Kaplan from himself? The chronic Internet crank continues showing his true colors and ignorance at BrowardBeat, and other readers have finally had enough of his twaddle, too. Or will an intervention be necessary?

I was going to send in the comment below about an hour after seeing Lauderhill Mayor Richard J. Kaplan's initial smarmy comments to attorney and frequent contributor Sam Fields ill-informed essay, but I decided to just wait. 

BrowardBeat

Mitt Romney’s Lost Lesson On Tolerance  

By Sam Fields
May 13

http://www.browardbeat.com/mitt-romneys-lost-lesson-on-tolerance/

Good thing I did, because just like Hallandale Beach's own chronic Internet crank -whose name and multiple Internet identities I will try my best to avoid mentioning here to give him even more attention- Mr. Ego, Kaplan, couldn't help himself; he HAD to write yet again.
And again!
And yet again!


Yes, he's comment #1 -and #11 and #15 and #17.
http://www.browardbeat.com/mitt-romneys-lost-lesson-on-tolerance/#comment-698876

Here's what I know and what has already been independently confirmed -and mentioned here previously on Friday- though you would never know it by what was written in the  BrowardBeat post or by Mayor Kaplan's initial comment: the family of the individual at the center of the hair-cutting controversy, John Lauber, says that The Washington Post completely mis-characterized him and got major facts about him wrong.

His sister further says that she didn't know anything about the story, and as if more was needed, the so-called "witness" in the original WaPo, Stu White contradicted WaPo's reporting in an interview with ABC News and has since admitted that he was NEVER physically present at any such incident and did NOT know about the story UNTIL it was told to him by the WaPo. 

This year!

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/romney-friend-stu-white-says-campaign-wants-him-to-counter-prank-accusations/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/sister-of-alleged-romney-target-has-no-knowledge-of-any-bullying-incident/

Yet White was initially used by the newspaper to authenticate a story he was neither present for or aware of. 

A perfect snapshot of the American Mainstream Media in 2012.

Given his own inconsistency, lack of personal knowledge on the matter in question and what we all now know is his giant sense of arrogance in making claims about Gov. Romney's honesty or lack thereof, from a thousand miles away, Mayor Kaplan should cool it and accept that considering how frequently he finds the need to post at Buddy Nevins' BrowardBeat blog in ways that strike so many well-informed people as the very definition of utterly self-serving, we DON'T put any stock into what he says. 

If he said it was raining, we'd check the window to see for ourselves.

As a prominent member of Broward County's status quo I've-got-mine society, where taxpayers are always at the bottom rung, he in particular is hardly in a position of lecturing or hectoring others about matters of morality or scruples. 

(Seriously, he's been on the Broward MPO for about twenty years? No wonder transportation issues in this county are discussed at a Junior High level and taxpayers who pay attention are so f-ed with geniuses like Kaplan making policy -garbage in, garbage out, with taxpayers left holding the bag for bad ideas.

In the near future I'll have a scathing post here on the blog for you all to chew over re the clique of geniuses over at the Broward MPO that details not only how truly ineffective they are in getting their "message" out, if that's what they're calling it these days, but how completely ignored they are by anyone who pays attention, whether concerned Broward taxpayers, bloggers or the sleepwalking South Florida news media. I thought that so-called "independence" the MPO was given was actually supposed to make things better. It's NOT! 
Especially for taxpayers in Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.)

A little more hubris and a lot less self-serving comments would do real wonders for Mayor Kaplan, but I doubt it'll take with him.

He sounds remarkably like many of the well-educated and smug upper- middle class Adams Morgan liberals I met in D.C. twenty years ago, who thought that they were down with the struggle because they voted Democratic, and had a Guatamalan gardener, a Honduran housekeeper and ate at a Salvadoran restaurant.

Yes, they were like their very own Model United Nations, and were so full of their own goodness.

But in 1991, when there was a riot there shortly after a Black female Metro cop arrested a drunk Hispanic man in a public park, and the liberals saw that their political sensibilities didn't prevent their neighborhood from being damaged or looted, some at least had the common sense to take off their blinders, stopped being so cowed by their friends PC ways and tried to stop being so oblivious to their own past condescending attitudes towards others.

Which is to say, people who had different opinions than them.

Me, I bet that Mayor Kaplan can't go two entire months without writing something on Buddy Nevins' popular blog.

And I will let you know how long he goes, too.
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Updated on May 16th at 3:54 to add Kaplan's fourth comment, #17

Meet and Greet with Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie tonight in Hollywood at 6:30 p.m. at Fred Lippmann Multi-Purpose Center, 2030 Polk Street

Meet and Greet with Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie tonight in Hollywood at 6:30  p.m. at the Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, 2030 Polk Street, three blocks north of Hollywood Blvd., one block east of northbound N. 21st Street, i.e the FEC train tracks.   

Disregard what time the notice says, it's at 6:30 p.m!