The Destin Log is the twice-weekly newspaper devoted to covering the crown jewel of the Emerald Coast.
Courtesy of Florida Trend, two newspaper articles on the state economy:
Tampabay.com looks at the causes of the housing bubble. The Orlando Sentinel studies economic incentives given to companies that hire a certain number of people and finds a lot of them aren’t making it.
Both stories are worth checking out.
First, anyone who’s getting storm-shutter discounts on their homeowners’ insurance should check out the Sun-Sentinel for a discussion of insurance companies’ efforts to get the discounts reduced. Apparently so many people are taking advantage of them that the insurers’ claim they’re losing money; some have also suggested that people who don’t install stormproofing should have a surcharge on their regular bill.
According to Florida today you do it by giving kids “templates” that provide them with words and phrases to regurgitate. Florida Blog discusses this as well (scroll down).
The Orlando Sentinel reports the case of an Orlando police dog whose handler claimed it could still track scents six months after someone had been at a crime scene. Several people were convicted on this basis (prosecutors apparently brought in the wonder dog whenever they needed to tie a suspect to a crime scene); one spent 22 years in prison before being freed on DNA evidence.
Neither Gov. Crist, the Florida Attorney General or State Attorney Norm Wolfinger want to make a general review of cases in which the dog provided evidence; Wolfinger’s office said it doesn’t have a record of such cases, or any way to compile one.
“Defendants have had rights in Florida to challenge their convictions through a well established post-conviction process,” the statement said.
And I’m sooooo sure the state will be behind them 100 percent when they do.
Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, on the bill he sponsored to end Florida’s drilling ban: “We worship a God who made (the oil), and if we ran out, I think he could make some more.” Oh, and allowing drilling is expressing “reverence in our Creator.”
And here I was thinking it expressed Van Zant’s reverence for oil lobbyists. Silly me.
“Come for the beaches.
Stay for the bonuses.”
Bradenton state Sen. Mike Bennett has proposed requiring random drug tests of anyone getting unemployment insurance, as described here and here .
Bennett’s rationale is that “We want to make sure the people that are using it are using it for the right reasons …I guarantee people are supporting their drug habits on your unemployment.”
Of course, there are constitutional problems with random drug testing, and Bennett also expects the unemployed to pay for the privilege of being tested to save the state the cost of testing.
As a couple of bloggers have pointed out, there are certainly people in the Legislature supporting drug habits on their salary. Why aren’t we introducing random drug testing for them?
That freedomblogging just rejiggered its interface again and I find it much more awkward to use. Though like the last change, it shouldn’t affect reading pleasure.
Now, as to the point of this post: John Stemberger, the religious conservative behind Florida’s no-gay-marriage amendment, is now proposing to hike marriage license fees in Florida by $100. To get it back, couples undergo a marriage counseling session from a qualified counselor; unsurprisingly, Stemberger thinks that should be faith-based counseling groups that mirror his views (living together before marriage bad!). If the couple declines counseling, the money would go as a grant to a similar approved group.
Pretty slick scheme. Stemberger also wants to eliminate or restrict no-fault divorce.
I’d agree with him that a lot of people marry to fast and divorce too fast. But even if this didn’t come across as a method of making people pay to finance one guy’s religious views, I think forcing it on people is wrong.
Republican State Sen. Ronda Storms has filed a bill that would allow governments to put all required legal notices up on the web, without any print form, according to Tallahassee.com .
As the editorial notes, this is a bad idea that will make following what government is doing that much harder. Heck, plenty of locals think even the printed legal notices aren’t big and noticeable enough. Moving it all to the Web is going to make things worse, not better.
So Okaloosa County’s response to Valparaiso suing the Air Force is to debate suing Valparaiso?
Our tax dollars at work.
