Tax Revolt In Pinellas County - Tax and spend city and county officials are hearing from citizens. What they are hearing is not good news for elected officials.
Citizens are tired of tax increases and soaring government spending.
One group of Clearwater citizens said they plan to vote for the opponent to every current city official, "I'm fed-up with their spending habits and how they have messed-up Clearwater Beach," stated one citizen from Island Estates.
Citizens' anger over increasing taxes and higher insurance premiums is being heard across Pinellas County. "If I sold, if I could, I would need to move out of Florida," explained a retired mid-Pinellas County taxpayer. "Who can pay the taxes, the high insurance premiums, and other increasing costs in Pinellas County?"
Tax revolt throughout Pinellas County.
Penny tax renewal for Pinellas County?
Should be interesting to see if this tax renewal passes voter approval.
Largo Making Much To Do About Nothing - Largo's city manager needs to bite his tongue and move on to address more important issues in Largo than how a certain young woman dresses at city hall. Does it really matter if a citizen shows-up at a city hall meeting to speak for three minutes dressed in her military clothes? Probably not, unless you did not like what the citizen was saying in a public meeting and wanted to cause her some trouble, any kind of trouble, even if it meant talking about her attire.
It is a joke to think a military person's attire has become newsworthy; you would think what they said was more important.
I wonder how this military nonsense would be accepted by a national news organization, like Fox News!
Look, the woman has a right to be heard at public meetings, dressed in her military fatigues or not.
Sen. Hillary Clinton Begins To Show Spending Habits - Most folks who have followed Hillary Clinton's radical ideas for national health care realize the financial costs for such a social program would increase taxes for every working American to record highs. The novel idea failed to gain support from both Democrats and Republicans when she tried to have this idea passed in Congress. The idea sounded good at political pep rallies, but was clearly unrealistic. Much like wishing everyone could retire with money.
Now that Hillary is a U.S. Senator, she has proposed giving $2 billion of federal funds to 9/11 New York City victims who have respiratory problems due to smoke, etc. Two billion dollars of federal tax dollars!
I can only imagine how much money Hillary would spend for other social programs if she were president. As I mentioned last week, there are many American workers who have health problems due to smoke inhalation or other pollutants. Perhaps Hillary should allocate $10 billion of federal tax funds for other hard-working American citizens (notice, I said citizens) who have contracted lung and other health problems due to hazardous environmental job conditions.
Money is never a problem for politicians.
Jimmy Carter Should Remember His Presidency - Former President Jimmy Carter must have forgotten the shortcomings of his presidency. Clearly Jimmy Carter was an honest man, a religious man, but his presidency was plagued with his lack of leadership. The nation's economy under Jimmy Carter was in shambles, international diplomacy was weak, our military needed leadership and more funding, and the list of on-going crisis issues with Russia, China and other communist nations continually plagued the Carter administration. Ronald Reagan soon offered hope and new ideas for a better America with unpopular tax cuts to help bolster a lagging American economy. The rest is history.
Ronald Reagan is known as a great president who stopped communism and created a boom economy that was enjoyed by later President Bill Clinton.
Now Jimmy Carter criticizes Sen. Joe Lieberman, a fellow Democrat, in his Connecticut re-election bid.
The reason given by Carter? Lieberman supports the war in Iraq. Carter, of course, would not have gone after the terrorists
If voters in Connecticut are swayed by comments from Jimmy Carter, then they are more liberal than I once thought. Retired presidents should stay . . . retired.
Folks, another 9/11 will occur on American soil. Many innocent Americans will die in the next 9/11. American anger will overflow with talk of revenge. Elected leaders who might lead us into that battle? Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Nelson, Nancy Pelosi, Tammy Baldwin, and a host of socialist Hollywood actors. Imagine.
How many terrorist attacks can we afford to have before we go and confront the enemy?
President Bush has done some things in defending America that are unpopular. He is not a weak leader and terrorists are afraid of his military decisions. Terrorists want Bush out of office as well as anyone else who supports a strong America.
In the next election we might elect people who offer ideas to confront terrorism. We'll hear criticism - but will not hear solutions. That was the problem when Jimmy Carter was president, no solutions, only talk and compromise.
Here Old Ships Go To Die - Ever hear of places called Alang or Chittagong?
If you have not, then welcome to the large list of people who rarely think of places where old ships go to be dismantled.
You would never think of visiting those cities since they are fraught with oil pollution and other dangerous contaminates leaking from discarded large cruise liners or old military ships.
Nations bring old ships with pollution problems to be dismantled on beaches in India and Bangladesh. Uneducated Indian workers are hired by ship-scrapping companies to dismantle large, beached ships for as little as one or two dollars a day. Within four months workers would dismantle a polluted ship into piles of scrap metal and miscellaneous ship parts for salvage. With rising steel prices, ship-yard owners are getting rich.
But what about the workers?
Since 1982 there have been 372 deaths in Alang due to boat-stripping. In Bangladesh there have been 180 deaths and 700 injured in the past 11 years. (If anyone could believe the reported numbers.)
Women tear-out asbestos by the hundreds of pounds on a daily basis. On one old French aircraft carrier (Clemenceau) over 1,000 pounds of asbestos was removed by workers.
How are these beach towns described? "Hell on earth," stated one ship-scrapping expert.
Since no other country in the world would dare take these old ships into port, only places like Alang and Chittagong have opened their arms to this risky and unhealthy business.
Can you imagine international health agencies allowing women to work tearing out asbestos in old ships and not warning them of the health danger? Imagine allowing poor workers to use blowtorches to dismantle oil-laden old ships that are fire-traps (and have caught on fire and killed many workers!)
One or two dollars a day.
Now you know where old polluted military and ocean-going ships go when they can't be sunk into the sea to make an artificial reef. And so-called civilized nations around the world, like France, allows this work to continue on their ships.