FPL Black-outloud

I was in NYC for the great Black-Out of 1979 and 2003, they were awesome.
But today's power outage in miami was kind of a dud. One nature's pranks, a freak tornado... right? If you read between the lines, news reports call it an "unannounced event" a "practice drill" emergency plans worked like clock-work.


Brings back memories of the 2003 California black-out that got the ever-clever Greg Palast to write about the deregulated electrical industry... by candle-light.
"Power Outage Traced To Dim Bulb In White House"
"... It was like a committee of bank robbers figuring out how to make safecracking legal."

And here from a republican blog some relevent/scary FYI:
An FPL spokesman told BayNews9 that the outage occurred after FPL shut two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant near Miami."

Just Doin' Ma Job

this sign says it all, bureaucracy is void of common sense.
Back in the good old days, some parking authorities used "meter-maids" to help the motoring public get used to the shock of new parking meters- where there once were none. http://www.metermaids.com/
Not long ago one could park just about anywhere in Miami, for free. Today the motoring public is all but silent as we slide down the slippery slope of an ever diminishing quality of life, one sitation at a time. People can't help but take notice of the aggressive grab for cash by the local parking authority's "you deserve this ticket" attitude. This agency exists less for the public good than to serve itself- the courts are treadmills for humiliation. Bottom line is local communities, trendy hoods in particular, are a targeted for the generating of another revenue stream for big gov, technology and authoritarian follower types do the grunt-work. swamp calls it legalized extortion.

Here is one dude who not only has the insiders take on how miami meter-maids tic but he also has garnered the ire of "the hand that fed him" using some petty web domain savy annoyance. http://www.miamiparkingauthority.com/

0ooooooooobamamamia

From the ever thorough Orcinus blog:
David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle.

The Obama haters
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
-- by Dave

It's not really news that Barack Obama's candidacy is drawing out the worst tendencies of conservatives, including the way they're painting Obama's white supporters as race traitors.

Are the american people ready for change ?
I hope so... otherwise it's "More-Of-The-Same- McCain"

cuba gets an oil change...

...same old jalopy.
Today was a big day (not) for the cuban people anywhere. Here are two highlights that are worth their words, one in gold the other in 'mierda'.

Democracy

by digby

I just heard Bush give one of his officious lectures about democracy with the news that Castro is stepping down. He said that he expects the Cubans to hold free and fair elections --- "and I mean free and fair, not those staged elections the Castro brothers try to foist off on the people."

I laughed when I heard that. Two political brothers staging elections and foisting them off on the people --- where have I heard that before? I guess he's saying that the 2000 election was a real exercise in democracy with the Supreme Court stepping in and saying they couldn't count votes that hadn't been previously counted because it would disenfranchise people whose votes had been. Funny stuff.

INDEED.

AND FROM THE WTF FRUITCAKES:

http://killkasstro.blogspot.com/

This is where Obby stands....

"Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama advocated normalizing trade relations and ending the embargo as a Senate candidate in 2003. He has since moderated that view.

Today he called Castro’s resignation “the end of a dark era” but cautioned that it was “insufficient” in bringing about democracy."

Really? The Che-O-Bama is saying that?
He still has more up his sleeve, let's see:

Obama said that the U.S. can only end the embargo if Cuba makes significant steps toward democratic reforms, including the release of political prisoners. “If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades,” he said. “The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.”

The only problem is that Obby's handlers are the Castros and their own people here in the States, so, scrap that talk, until he explicitly condemns the "unappropriate flag" for what it represents, and until he officially backtrack of his intentions to be friendly with Castro and Chavez in his first year of office. It sounds really like the clatter of the jaws of a closet communist.

Takling about closet commies, let's read what the HillBillies.......

OBBY AND HILLBILLIES?@#$%, SERIOUSLY WTF

2008 a community garden oddity

This charmless fenced-off thing has been installed where an otherwise perfectly good open commons once was. It is what a golf-course is- artificial, man-made, people unfriendly, closed most of the time. in other words the opposite english landscape theory- But most regrettable it just look like " all tax-dollars and no soul". Notice the sign reads "for info and Plot Reservations..." is that cemetery talk? MB model of late is to pseudo privatize public spaces with concessions and such. The thing folks grow most in miami is old.

Here is a nice enough community garden in NYC... i like round things.

eye (sores) on miami

Dumbtown Miami is shaping UP real nicely.... for phallus challenged developers and their officials. Here is my version of the tallest building ever, towers up beyond the ozone layer n space-junk, where the elite will meet in hermetically sealed condos.

For the bricks-n-mortar on substantive things local, go here.

Do-buy and buy

Fortune-tellers,tin-foilers, reporters and gold-diggers say 'follow the money'.
A wise gal said 'there is a barrel of oil at the end of the rainbow... but if you want a rainbow you gotta put up with the rain (0f terra).

You want to snowboard in the desert... no problem. Escape from the ugly world of people without money... no problem, but it's gonna cost ya. Dubai today is the epitome of unapologetic excess and social inequity.


Dubai makes Sunny Isles look like a trailer park. Go see your oil dollars at work , it is beyond flabbergast. A brief history reads like the beverly hillbillies of the middle east, up comes the bubblin crude n next thing ya know ol'UnitedArabEmerate's a brazillionair. On the up side, our resident/chief W, in his love affair with sheiks, said he wants to move there, good riddance. What the hell is going on there?

everybody needs somebody

Gabriele Corsos and Bebi Mazar have the sexy-tuscan-hollywood-mambo thing down. hava mm-mm-good Valentine's Day

The love is in the act of cooking, not necessarily just in the dish you decided to prepare.
So, if you feel like handling the beans tonight....there you go, have fun!

MAM goes soft on Pinkos

My Lam look-alike is not for sale.

MAM has a big show of Wilfredo Lam ... the picasso of cuba.

Lam, a Chinese-AfroCuban who settled in Paris, where he became Picasso's friend and contemporary, had a life of almost cinematic drama: a long, productive interlude in Spain, Italy and France; visa denials from the United States when he tried to leave war-torn Europe; acclaim as an icon who elevated African and Cuban culture to the world stage.

"Like Picasso, Lam is one of the most forged painters, and some Miami collectors unknowingly have purchased fakes."

As Cuba's totalitarian state assumed a greater profile, Lam ''had resentments. but he was not going to turn his back on the Cuban Revolution,'' Eskil says. ``He was not a rabid activist, but he did feel that more social justice for Cuba was the right path.''

What makes is possible for Miami's Cuban-American gop bigwigs to set aside political ideologies and embrace the work of Wilfredo Lam in spite of his support of Castro's revolution? Is it because it's really good art or is it the money and prestige?

More cubanity from our very own Bubba-lu...

Every time I hear of a “Cuban art exhibit” somewhere, I cringe because almost invariably it brings out the misguided, the impervious, and the apologists. Jim Lowe of the Barre Montpelier Argus Times probably falls in one of these categories. In this article about “¡Cuba!: Art and History from 1868 to Today” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, it’s apparent that he may or may not know his art, but he certainly doesn’t know his history.

Babalu reads like a moldy hard-boiled zealot...

Romance with Errosion

Not certain who painted this but here is another nice mural in wynwood 28th n Miami ave. writing on theforehead reads:

$ THE IGNORANCE, ARROGANCE, AND OBSTINACY OF CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS, WHETHER THEIR INTENTIONS WERE GOOD OR EVIL, HAVE BEEN AT THE ROOT OF ALL TRAGEDIES OF HISTORY 'DOLLA LAMMA' $

sometimes i feel like nobody is watchin me...

... n i have no privacy. The 178th, 191st and 199th street intersections with Biscayne Blvd. will soon to have cameras to catch red light runners.

individually wrapped jesusingles

could not resist this image compliments of the otherwise very serious Ornicus blog.
... and this one is the logo for the original Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506. No hidden meaning here.

a day in the life...

Dear brother, some contrarians ain't so lucky. Here is a lovely painting for your contemplation. Like the current visa card ad campaign says 'life takes'. More on this later.

at odds with 'progress'

Access For Our Taxes read one sign. People gathered today on the bridge in Bal Harbor to show their support for the public's right to access the beach.

The protest organized by the surfer dudes from http://www.surfrider.org/ is focused on the abuse of public property by mega-developers and their town officials.

At least 100 honk-n-wavers of all persuasion were surprised when one of the many concrete trucks that passed by began to "dump a load" at our feet as if to say dang-rebels.

Whether intentional or not that goof should not be driving a monster truck. When will working class people figure out what is in their best interest.