Though encouraged by Scott's focus on creating jobs, stressing accountability and holding down public spending and taxes, many Florida conservatives say they are disappointed on other fronts. Though it was a major campaign promise, Scott has failed to crack down on illegal immigration. He also reversed last year's cut in education funding, despite promises to pare state spending.

The tea-party movement, dominated by conservative voters who champion drastically reining in government expenditures, sent Scott to victory in 2010. But since he has started to tone down his tea-party rhetoric, he has seen a slight uptick in his approval ratings.

John Goodman's defense attorney Roy Black, considered one of the top defense attorneys in the country, tried to convince jurors over the past two weeks — in Goodman's trial for DUI-manslaughter and vehicular homicide — that Goodman's Bentley malfunctioned, he suffered a concussion in the crash and his high blood alcohol level was because of liquor he'd gulped at a friend's barn afterward to cope with the pain.

Prosecutors Ellen Roberts and Sherri Collins shredded each theory, presenting witnesses who saw him drink at a charity event and after party the night of the crash along with investigators and experts who supported their claims that Goodman drove drunk, left Wilson to die and took nearly an hour to call police.

Miramar-based low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines has scored a spot in the top 16 on Consumerist.com’s 7th Annual ‘Worst Company in America’ tournament, according to a recent report.

Spirit, who made the tournament for the first time this year, beat out Delta Air Lines, a veteran tournament contender, as bracket favorite.

In this round of the basket-ball style tournament, dubbed the “Sweet 16,” Spirit is joined by Bank of America, Best Buy, GameStop, Apple and AT&T, among others.

I have been a senior citizen of Florida for two years. I lived all my life in New Jersey and never felt the need to carry a firearm. I carry pepper spray, which is neither lethal or permanent.

I know how easy it is to hit the wrong target with a gun. My biggest fear is living in a state that allows anyone to carry a gun. How do I know whether a person pulling a gun on me, for whatever reason, is licensed to do so?

I am thinking I would have a split second to decide whether or not to jump someone in the process of pulling a gun on me. In this case, who is the one "holding their ground?"

It's an archaic law. Now I must obtain a license to carry to protect myself from the other citizens who are licensed to carry. I don't want to be the one in a gunfight without a gun. Fear not, this will be a temporary measure until I can vote with my feet and move back to a civilized state like New Jersey.

WILLIAM DAMATO

MIAMI (WSVN) -- Residents in a South Florida neighborhood are on edge after spotting an unusual animal roaming their streets.

A wild coyote has been spotted running across driveways and streets in "The Roads" neighborhood of Miami along Southwest 11th Street and 12th Avenue.

from Geraldo Rivera, I think The Booman says it the best...

Some people, such has Geraldo Rivera, have claimed that Trayvon shouldn't have worn his hoodie that rainy night he was killed. They say his hoodie made him appear to be a suspicious person in that neighborhood and that his race had nothing to do with his shooting death by a 250-pound man named George Zimmerman. To which all I can say is this: I call bullshit.

A hoodie is a piece of clothing, nothing more. Millions of people wear them or have worn them. They are not limited to criminals of any race or ethnicity. They can tell you nothing about a person other than this: he or she is wearing a one. That's it. They certainly are not the defining characteristic of young black gang members or any other violent criminals. A hoodie doesn't define who you are or what you do. Should we claim that expensive Italian suits are the mark of criminals because Wall Street investment bankers convicted of securities fraud and some Mafia members favor them? I suspect persons who own an Italian suit would object to being categorized as a criminal simply because of what they wear, don’t you.

You know what makes someone suspicious to me. If that person (e.g., George Zimmerman) had a history of violent acts. If that person followed a young man in his car and made specific references to the race of the teenager, whom he considered "suspicious" to a 911 operator. If that person then got out of his car and shot the young man with a pistol after being told not to get out of his car by a 911 dispatcher. If the young man who was killed weighed 100 pounds less than the person who shot him to death. If the person shot dead had no weapons on him. If the shooter claimed he was justified in killing the smaller, young black teenager because he was acting in self-defense.

That is what would make me suspicious that a person (i.e., George Zimmerman) had committed murder when he shot and killed a young black teenager wearing a hoodie (i.e., Trayvon Martin) on a rainy night. By the way, what was George Zimmerman wearing that night? Do you think his clothing would have made you more or less suspicious of what he might do to Trayvon Martin?

You tell me.

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A- City of Miami Police held afternoon roll call in the middle of the Grove yesterday and Coconut Grove Grapevine has the pictures.

B- Bark Bark Woof Woof posts a video made up of two-year old clips that show Republicans predicting the end of America if the Affordable Care Act passed.

C- Eye on Miami is feeling unappreciated.

Today I trekked back to the City of North Miami and went again to their City Hall and taped off the Clerk's computer screen. So I went WAY out of my way and spent plenty of my valuable time to bring you one 4 minute video, that will be posted Monday.

The least you guys could do is watch some of the videos I post. If you did you would learn a lot about how things work.

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A- Vultures dine on the corpse of a raccoon in Obalesque's neighborhood which, of course, prompts a post.

The vultures gathered at the end of my back alley are picking apart the fly-infested carcass of a rather large raccoon, struck, I suppose, by a vehicle. The first seating was attended by a lone diner, but within 20 minutes he was joined by eager companions who circled for a while before swooping down — very impressive display — to start gnawing.

B- Southern District of Florida Blog speculates about whether George Zimmerman committed a Federal crime.

There is quite a debate about whether Zimmerman can be charged federally for killing Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was not a police officer or acting under color of law, so there is no federal jurisdiction there. And the shooting did not occur on federal land and the victim was not a federal officer, so nothing there. But, there is one statute that may apply: 18 U.S.C. 249, Hate Crime Acts, which was just enacted in 2009.

C- Trayvon Martin was on the mind of the Miami Heat and The305.Com has the photo.

D- Shorter Gun Free Zone...

The word of a man who has just shot and killed a teenager is worth more than any other evidence that has been or will be developed in the future.

E- Jeff Eats calls Gamaroff's Bar and Grill in Hallandale Beach a "home run."

The steak and prime rib were as good if not better than the stuff hustled by the white table cloth joints- at twice the price. Throw in the fact, that the “help” was pretentiousless (if there is such a word)–and that shorts/tee short ensembles work beautifully here—and that spells homerun in Jeff Eats’ book.

F- Your Week #16 CSA share basket...at Redland Rambles.

G- Under the Sun posts a Jimbo's slide show.

Jimbo’s was a place where all walks of life came together. It was never legally on Virginia Key to begin with and so the place always had an air of that old South Florida pirate spirit.

H- Bark Bark Woof Woof links to a column on GOP paranoia and makes some observations.

If we could tap the energy that keeps paranoia going, we'd be able to power the world for eternity. It's a self-perpetuating phenomenon; the more you disprove one whacky theory, the more the True Believers are convinced that they're right. You'll never convince a Bircher that there isn't some vast Communist underground being manipulated by the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds just waiting to unleash the Islamists seething below the Mexican border (it used to be the "yellow horde," but they've updated their freak points), and you'll never convince a birther that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

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First up is A Hungry Artist ["an ADD blog for the foodiefirst-century"] and their post on "Food Blogging Personas, Characteristics and Truths."

Unhealthy eating is normal. If you’re practicing the art of indulgence, it is likely that you are not eating the healthiest of things. Foods that scream indulgence: chocolate, foie gras, quail eggs, pork belly, truffles. Food bloggers eat out a lot (more on this a few sections below). The food trends lately gear towards the overindulgent and fatty. How many restaurants have pork on their menu? Just to name a few in Miami: Sakaya Kitchen, Sugarcane, Blue Collar, Pubbelly, Gigi. Don’t forget that food items on restaurant menus include a higher use of oil, etc. and that portions are larger. And of course once you begin the pattern of unhealthy indulgence, it’s difficult to imagine your life without it. And while the piece of kale that’s staring at you from the kitchen counter is mighty tasty, nothing fills the void like a deep fried oreo cookie.

And make sure you also check their list of the South Florida Food Twitterverse.

Next, Sex and the Beach has a new gig and it involves writing for the South Florida Real Estate Blog. Her recent piece on a property called Taj Miami in Brickell shows us a luxurious listing that not many Miamians probably know about.

One of Miami’s most unique properties, this three-story glass house, perched atop the Palace Condominium on Brickell Avenue, has a quirky cultural history. In 1981, Leona and Harry Helmsley were about to call this their sky residence when Saudi Sheik Saoud Al-Shaalan purchased the property and converted the already stunning structure to a Mughal Palace.

And, finally, a onetime SFDB blogroll mainstay, Boom or Bust: Miami, compares "legacy buildings" to "destination retail buildings" and what roles they play in Miami-Dade neighborhoods.

Destination retail zones are quite different from their legacy counterparts. They are big, alluring, pedestrian magnets. Mary Brickell Village is an ideal example.

Cookie-cut by an architect, a destination retail center is scarcely more than a contrived shopping mall despite, as with Mary Brickell Village, attempting to look village-like.

Enjoy.

You might be seeing more of these blogs soon on the SFDB blogroll.


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How about you? Are you planning on attending any games this year?


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A- Sun-Sentinel: Total run of the place.

RIVIERA BEACH— A 2-year-old girl has been reunited with her family after being left alone inside a daycare center for more than two hours Thursday evening, city police said.

Officers found the girl inside the Life Span daycare center in the 1400 block of North Congress Avenue shortly before 8 p.m., city spokeswoman Rose Anne Brown said.

The girl's father arrived at the daycare center to pick up her up around 5:45 p.m. and discovered that the gates were locked. The father then went home and discovered that no one else had picked up the child, Brown said.

Police were notified and officers went to the daycare center where the girl was seen through a window standing inside the center. WPTV-Ch. 5 reported that police had to break a window to enter the facility.

B- Sun-Sentinel: And you wonder why the rest of the U.S. considers Miami a third world country sometimes.

A TV crew filming a reality show at Miami International Airport must have been beyond shocked when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found two human fetuses in the luggage of two women returning home from Havana.

The fetuses were to be delivered to someone in Miami and used in one of the mixed Catholic and African religions widely practiced in Cuba, such as Santeria, according to two people knowledgeable about the case.

C- Palm Beach Post: Green energy.

WEST PALM BEACH — Florida's first wind farm can be built on 12,900 acres of agricultural land east Belle Glade, Palm Beach County commissioners unanimously agreed Thursday.

[...]

St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group plans to build a 114-turbine, 200-megawatt wind farm on the land. The project, known as Sugarland Wind, will be located about seven miles east of Belle Glade and three miles west of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.

D- WSVN: Video, Life in South Florida, man snatches computer from woman's hands as she gets on bus.

E- WPTV: You know you're a redneck when...

A man at the recent St. Lucie Mudjam said he and his wife "were watching the strippers dance on the buggies with stripper poles attached" when his wife grew upset with him.

Tony Freeman, 40, then told St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputies March 16 that he and his wife, 38-year-old Erica Freeman, got in an altercation, recently released arrest affidavits state. Tony Freeman was bleeding from scratches to the face.

Erica Freeman, who had a knot on her eye, said she argued with her spouse "at the stripper poles about wanting to leave," an affidavit states. She said her husband hit her and she hit him.

"Both subjects were very intoxicated," affidavits state.

The St. Lucie Mudjam is "500 acres of mud & party," a website states.

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A- Bark Bark Woof Woof has yet another example of a conservative ideologue who loves to distort the truth in order to score a few political points.

B- Blogging Black Miami continues their coverage of the Trayvon Martin killing.

Once again, Floridians look like idiots and/or racists in the eyes of the world. To make matters worse, the questionable investigative tactics by the Sanford Police taint the entire case. So much so, Trayvon Martin’s family were left to enlist their own investigative tactics to discover key evidence. That’s just messy.

C- The Cuban Triangle discusses the Catholic Church's use of dialogue and debate in Cuba's political evolution.

That’s an unpopular posture among those who want all Cubans on the island to take on greater militancy. But my guess is that Cubans on the island want changes that improve their daily lives and support the church or anyone else who promotes them. Which is not to say that Cubans don’t cover the complete spectrum of opinions about the kind of government they would like to have and the kind of policies they would like it to adopt. But they don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. And militancy is easy from Miami.

D- Eye on Miami endorses several local candidates.



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A- Miamism looks at another Miami modern home that maybe only .01% of the world's population can afford.

The house has over 10,000 sf of interior living space with 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. The lot size is 22,192 sf and has a 2-car garage and private dock. It was built new in 2009 and has been listed since September of 2010 with a starting price of $15,900.000.

B- Transit Miami sets up shop on a Miami street for nine minutes armed with a video camera and a radar gun and records what unfolds.

C- Rakontur goes back to the beginning.

That September, shortly after BellSouth installed my first DSL line, I got a call from our buddy Larry Janus, a recording studio engineer who worked at Criteria Studios in its 1970s heyday and was now a nonlinear video editor: "download Napster."

That changed everything. All of sudden, virtually the entire history of recorded music was a click away. It seems so quaint now, but it's impossible to describe what a radical, eye-opening concept this was.

D- 17 new photos at The Street.

E- Salty Eggs wonders how Dick Cheney scored a heart in seemingly record time.

At 71, Cheney is part of a tiny group — just 14 percent of the 2,300 heart transplants performed each year — of people who receive heart transplants over the age of 65. Due to several factors, especially the toll such a surgery can take on a body and the relative time left of such a patient (Grim, I know, but that’s triage for you.), people over the age of 65 are rarely considered good candidates for heart transplants. Most of the handful of senior citizens who receive such transplants do so in emergency situations, where their immediate necessity moves them higher up the list. But that wasn’t the case with Cheney — an aide told news outlets after the surgery that the man had been waiting for 20 months.

F- If you plan on being in Key West during the next 2 weeks, Florida Keys Girl has some theater you might want to catch.

During the bee, members of the audience are brought up to the stage to participate, adding to the fun. Each speller – cast and audience member – asks for definitions and for the word to be used is a sentence. To me, the absurd, strange and inappropriate sentences were the best part of the show. Delivered with a straight face, they kept us laughing for the entire two hour production.

G- Obalesque weighs in on Stand Your Ground.

You properly comprehend that Florida voters will tolerate spinelessness more readily than softness, and that when it comes to our own safety we’re too stupid to differentiate knee-jerk idiocy from sensible policy.

H- The YouTube of the Marlins gaudy home run thing seemed to make its rounds in the South Florida blogosphere...at Suntanned Mumford and Random Pixels.


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does a nice job looking at the way the Marlins plan on using a shuttle to move fans and stadium workers from a remote lot and questions why a dedicated bike/pedestrian route from the Metro Rail to the stadium wasn't made a reality.

There are certainly more creative approaches to provide a long-term solution to the parking problem faced not only by the fans, but also by the stadium’s neighbors (also in a low-income bracket) who will have to live with it. Like a permanent bike/ped route from the rail station to the stadium. It cannot possibly be that much harder to get legitimate funding to install a one mile-long bike lane with proper signage, and optimized timing of traffic signals. Right? After all, most bike lanes installed by the county are only about a mile or two long.

Implementing a bike-share program, even on an experimental basis, would help promote healthier ways to get around. It would reduce pollution and traffic congestion, and preserve some of the livability the neighborhood has had since the demise of the Orange Bowl. How about offering some sort of discount or incentive to fans using bikes to get to the games? The possibilities are endless.

I think folks are living in a pipe dream if they think the city, the Marlins or anyone else is going to start building dedicated paths for pedestrians and bikes through the City of Miami. This isn't Boulder or Portland or Eugene. This is South Florida where cars are king and everything else revolves around that fact.

But if you plan on biking to the new stadium then good for you. Just make sure your deodorant is fresh and your will is complete and advise a loved one where you're heading. And for Pete's sake, carry ID of some kind.


- photo via the San Francisco Chronicle



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