I got up to cook breakfast this morning, and turned on Fox to see the results of the South Carolina primary. All I wanted to know was first, second, and third in the GOP, and among the Dems, whether Clinton or Obama was victorious (since everybody knew in advance who 3rd and 4th would be).

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I did not want to see the opinions on the various Republican campaigns by the Democratic strategists, or to hear the reasons why Huckabee was finished, Thompson was finished, or Giuliani was finished by the people that didn’t have any actual ideas on how to make America better or stronger but could only criticize others that were making the attempt. I did not want to see Hillary Clinton accused of “race baiting”. All I wanted to know was the results and not have my intelligence insulted by the various “experts” brought in because I am quite capable of making my own analyses of the various candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, thank you very much.

I switched over to the local station and instead of political coverage, learned how to make cookies from a store-bought cake mix. The news morning show website was supposed to have it posted online so I didn’t write anything down, but nooooooo. So here’s a link to cake mix cookie recipes if you feel the urge to experiment. The cookie recipe given was similar to #3 with the addition of 2 Tbs. of brown sugar and a half cup? of chopped cashews and a (forgotten) quantity of toffee chips. I would use a devil’s food or German chocolate cake mix and use pecans, but that’s just me.

I haven’t actually made a cake since I started getting rounder. Maybe I’m getting rounder because I have not been eating a sufficient quantity of cake (or maybe I’m suffering from a severe shortage of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts).  This begs for further research. I need to write a grant. Women everywhere need this information!

No, I did not actually make cookies for breakfast. The political coverage put me off eating entirely so I went back to bed and snuggled in the warm blankets for awhile longer. Hmmmmm. Watching Fox political coverage as the next weight loss strategy? It could work! (And another grant application is clearly in order.)

Albuquerque, NM — A New Mexico man believes he’s struck gold at an Albuquerque flea market. Collector Marcus Hudson paid $300 for what at first glance appears to be an old rock.

Treasure was often hidden in the ship’s ballasts to avoid paying tariffs in the 1600s. Hudson and a local museum are working to have the ballast examined to see if anything is inside. Even if the ballast is empty it is still worth tens of thousands of dollars.

What I would like to know is, how did he know?  If I were to stub my toe on a priceless Spanish ballast on the beach, I would jump around cussing and limp off.  I would never be able to identify it as something valuable.

Guess that’s why I don’t soar with the buzzards or something.

South Florida Records Two Driest Back-to-Back Years

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, January 8, 2008 (ENS) - The past two years have been the driest back-to-back calendar years in South Florida since rainfall recordkeeping began in 1932, meteorologists at the South Florida Water Management District confirmed today.

The 2006-2007 rainfall total of 83.63 inches district-wide displaces by nearly an inch the previous low of 84.59 inches that fell 50 years ago in 1955-56.

Last year was the ninth-driest year in the 76-year record with rainfall of just 42.88 inches, across the district, 82 percent of the historical average,

It followed rainfall of only 40.75 inches in 2006, the sixth-driest year on record.

The combined two-year total is nearly two feet less than the historical district-wide average of 104.5 inches for a typical two-year period.

“The district’s rainfall data confirms that South Florida is still in the grips of a severe regional drought, which has led to a multi-year water shortage the likes of which we have never experienced,” said SFWMD Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann.

“South Florida residents - as well as water managers - must live with limited water supplies this dry season, and we all must practice conservation and follow the one-day-a-week restrictions if we are to successfully minimize the impacts of this water shortage,” he said.

All during 2007, the district imposed one new water restriction after another in an effort to conserve scant water supplies.

Now, the most restrictive rules ever imposed in South Florida take effect next week.

In December and for the first time in the agency’s history, the district declared an extreme water shortage, and established a one-day-a-week watering schedule for residential landscape irrigation.

Water management is easier when plants with similar water needs are grouped together, advises the South Florida Water Management District. (Photo courtesy SFWMD)

Landscape irrigation accounts for up to half of all household water consumption in the state of Florida and totals more than seven billion gallons per day nationwide.

The new restrictions become effective Tuesday, January 15. Enforcement, including issuing of of civil fines and notices of violation will begin on that date. For information on watering days and times, as well as restrictions on specific use classes, visit www.sfwmd.gov/conserve.

Source:

In checking the rain gauge, I found that we had a hair over 7″ of that elusive wet stuff in my little area of NE Florida this week. 

If you read the article, you will find that Lake Okechobee is at very low levels and you may infer that this is due to the drought, which is not entirely correct.  The level was reduced to make room for the record number of hurricanes (and heavy rainfall) predicted for the summer hurricane season (which never materialized) as there were concerns with whether or not the dike would hold.

BY CASTO OCANDO

El Nuevo Herald

The Venezuelan rancher was kidnapped in broad daylight in early 2007, while he was going to his ranch in the central state of Yaracuy. His captors kept him ”blindfolded for many hours on the road,” he said.Forty-five days later, he was released just outside the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, after an agreement to pay a $465,000 ransom in Venezuelan currency — and put up one of his sons as collateral.

The kidnappers had demanded one billion Venezuelan bolivares. When the 60-year-old rancher told them he only had 600 million bolivares on hand, they agreed to exchange him for one of his sons while the father rounded up the remaining 400 million.

The man, who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety, told El Nuevo Herald he believed his kidnappers were Colombian guerrillas — either the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known for its Spanish acronym as FARC, or the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN.

The son was eventually released, but the case is one of many of ranchers abducted in Venezuela and taken to Colombia to negotiate their release with kidnappers who appeared to be representatives of the FARC or ELN.

”They spoke with a Colombian accent” and operated from ”a command center that gave and received orders from other command units in [three Colombian areas],” the man said, recalling the phone and radio calls he overheard in captivity.

Witnesses and authorities interviewed by El Nuevo Herald say such groups recently have been widening their operational range beyond the Venezuelan-Colombian border zone and now penetrate deeper into Venezuelan territory.

Read the rest here:

So FARC is operating openly in Venezuela, hmmmm?  Interesting.  Wonder if the cattle ranchers are on Hugo’s shit list.

Cuba has extended its intelligence-gathering capabilities beyond the United States and Latin America to places where vital U.S. interests are at stake — like Iran, Turkey, India and Pakistan — a former top U.S. counterintelligence official told lawmakers Thursday. Chris Simmons, a former counterintelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said a series of intelligence setbacks for Cuba between 1995 and 2003 — such as the dismantling of a network of spies in Miami, the closure of an intellingece center in Canada and the arrest of former DIA Cuba analyst Ana Montes in 2001 — forced Cuba to tighten its intelligence operations.

Today Cuba puts trusted top intelligence operatives in charge of key embassy postings and operates more with allies like Iran and Venezuela, Simmons said in a briefing organized by Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, considered one of the world’s most formidable, numbers more than 11,500 agents, he said, of whom about 3,500 are focused on international operations.

Cuba has resorted to employing more of what he called ”ambassador-spies” — top intelligence chiefs who have become diplomatic envoys.

Before, Cuba placed such persons in the United States and with a few of Cuba’s closest allies, like the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

NEW APPROACH

”We’ve seen a change in how they use ambassador-spies,” Simmons said, to ensure that their intelligence centers “never again get closed.”

Such top intelligence officers are also being dispatched to places where the United States has active military operations, he said.

”They feel compelled to work against every major U.S. military operation for their own interest and because it is vital to their allies,” he told the lawmakers. He said the information is then shared with U.S. rivals like Russia.

He said Cuba has established four new ”regional intelligence centers” — in Iran, India, Pakistan and Turkey.

Simmons, who worked on Cuba for the DIA for a dozen years, has founded the Cuban Intelligence Research Center, based in Leesburg, Va.

Ties with Iran’s current authorities have always been close, but the cooperation has become tighter, especially after 2006. The two countries work together on jamming TV and radio broadcasts and on dual-use biotechnology.

Read the rest here:

Castro is still determined to be a hemorrhoid in international affairs.  Too bad he wasn’t removed years ago.

Actor Wesley Snipes enters the Golden-Collum Memorial Federal Building on Tuesday for his tax-evasion trial in Ocala, Fla.

Stephen Hudak | Sentinel Staff Writer  

OCALA - Wesley Snipes’ lawyer described the star as “the boy who made good” and a victim of anti-tax schemers during opening remarks Wednesday in the actor’s tax-evasion trial.

“He has never, ever been a cheat,” defense lawyer Daniel Meachum said of Snipes, who has Orlando roots. “He has never, ever been a tax protester.”

Snipes, 45, star of films including White Men Can’t Jump, Jungle Fever and the sci-fi trilogy Blade, faces up to 16 years in federal prison if convicted of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and other tax-related charges.Interim U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill outlined the government’s case using computer-projected graphics that charted the actor’s earnings and a timeline of his relationship with co-defendants Douglas Rosile, 59, and Eddie Ray Kahn, 64.

Rosile, an accountant who prepared a tax return for Snipes seeking a $7 million refund, was associated with American Rights Litigators, an anti-tax organization founded and led by Kahn from a second-floor office on Donnelly Street in downtown Mount Dora.

“Its focus was to thwart the processes of the IRS,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill said the group — and its later hybrid, the Guiding Light of God Ministries — espoused a “gibberish kind of idea” that Americans are not required by law to pay taxes on wages and income earned on U.S. soil.
Read more:

The old “I thought I didn’t have to pay taxes” defense has been tried before.  Unsuccessfully.  Plus, it’s a little difficult to believe that he did not know when his former advisor told him most emphatically that he did have to pay taxes.  Maybe it’s a case of selective hearing in that he only listened to what he wanted to hear.

Surf Expo reveals the new wave of sun-worthy fashions

Designer Lawrence Markx says his looks vary from ’safe to crazy.’ A pair of rubber-ducky board shorts and a matching T-shirt are 2 of his wackier creations.

Men and women have completely different approaches to beachwear, says Lawrence Markx. Women coordinate. Men don’t.

So Markx, who does product development for InGear Fashions in Miami, decided to try his hand at designing several sets of board shorts, T-shirts, caps and sandals, each with graphics and colors that work together. For fall, he will add coordinating walking shorts and hoodies. He calls the line Surface Surfwear.

Markx was one of several young designers whose creations stood out from the sea of surf, skate and beach fashions at Surf Expo, the mammoth trade show held Thursday through Sunday at the Orange County Convention Center. Their designs will start showing up in surf shops and resort boutiques this summer.

Read the rest, and think about how your 300 lb. neighbor will look in the fashions.

TALLAHASSEE – Cranking up the heat, Florida regulators will suspend Allstate’s license to sell auto insurance in the state until the company cooperates with an investigation into why its homeowners rates haven’t fallen.It’s an unprecedented move for the state Office of Insurance Regulation, which is on the warpath because homeowners’ premiums are still high despite passage of an insurance overhaul law in January 2007. The office is seeking information concerning how Allstate sets its rates and pays claims, and the company has refused to provide it.

Speaking as somebody who has never had a (house) insurance claim, who lives in an area relatively safe from hurricanes but whose homeowner’s insurance has quadrupled anyway, I’d like some answers, please. 

This week’s agreement between China and India to dramatically boost their economic ties will have a major impact on Latin America, and it may not always be good news for the region.

This week, the leaders of the world’s two fastest-growing major developing countries met in Beijing to end decades of bilateral tensions and upgrade economic ties.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said they would increase the bilateral trade target for 2010 from $40 billion to $60 billion, and that the two countries will start talks for a preferential trade agreement.

While international summits often produce ambitious joint declarations that never materialize, most experts take the China-India commitments seriously. Since China and India signed a ‘’strategic partnership” agreement in 2005, bilateral commerce has skyrocketed: their $20 billion trade target for 2008 was achieved in 2006.

”Records are tumbling when it comes to India-China trade,” The Times of India newspaper said Wednesday in an editorial. “China may soon become India’s largest trading partner.”

SOME GOOD NEWS

The growing China-Indian trade ties, as well as a 3-year-old, free-trade agreement between China and the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations is likely to change the map of world commerce. And it will impact many Latin American countries that have become heavily dependent on trade with China.

The good news is that growing trade between China and India will boost Asia’s economic growth, which will require ever growing quantities of Latin American oil, copper, iron ore, soybeans, and other raw materials.

That will be a boon for countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, which in recent years have become major commodity exporters to China.

Over the past five years, China’s massive purchases of Latin American raw materials have helped the region grow at an average annual rate of 5 percent. This has helped Latin America enjoy its best five-year economic growth cycle in the past 40 years, according to United Nations estimates.

In addition, a steadily growing Asian economy will mean a potentially bigger market for Latin American non-commodity exports, Asian diplomats say.

”India and China getting together and increasing their business is going to make them more prosperous, and that will open up more opportunities for Latin America,” India’s ambassador to Argentina, R. Viswanathan, told me in a telephone interview. “What Latin America needs is growing markets, especially at a time when the U.S. economy is slowing down. This is a win-win situation for them.”

Or is it?

Does Latin America have the necessary investment in education and infrastructure to successfully compete in manufacturing?