Save the Manatee Club is a non-profit located in Central Florida. The organization was founded 31 years ago for the purpose of saving manatees from extinction. Please click on the link above to vote for Save the Manatee Club and help us win a grant in the Chase Giving Campaign. The grants range from $10,000 to $250,000. The more votes we get, the higher the grant awarded. We need your vote. It only takes a few minutes of your time and will make a big difference for manatees.
Manatees are marine mammals found in Florida's waterways, in Central and South American waterways and off the coast of West Africa. They even have a "relative", the dugong, in Australia's waters. Manatees are vegetarians, eating seagrasses and other aquatic plants. They have no natural predators. Most of their injuries and deaths are human related, like strikes from speeding boats and other watercraft, entanglement in crab traps and discarded monofilament fishing lines. Save the Manatee Club needs YOUR help to protect these wonderful animals.
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I am full to overflowing with the continuous BULL$HIT that
has been flowing for the past year (or longer, it seems) and has solidified in
Tampa this week. I live not far from the
middle of the famed Interstate 4 corridor.
In case you haven’t heard of the pivotal political pull of Florida’s
Interstate 4, I have one question. Have
you been living in a cave? Interstate 4
traverses my lovely state from Tampa on the west coast to Daytona Beach on the
east coast. Orlando is smack dab in the
center of the state. And the westerly
winds, blowing in from the Tampa area, have carried the malodorous smell of
ripe, putrefying BULL$HIT that is being heaped by the tons in Tampa this
week. For you cave dwellers, you may be
asking “Why is there so much BULL$HIT in Tampa?” Well, the Republican National Convention has
been going on since Tuesday (delayed from Monday because of the threat of then
tropical storm Isaac). Isaac missed
Tampa, no doubt because of all the devout Christians in town for the convention
who prayed the storm away. Isaac instead
slammed into Sodom & Gomorrah, otherwise known as New Orleans,
Louisiana. I guess Republican governor
and evangelical Christian, Bobby Jindal couldn’t gather enough folks to help
with his prayers. Or maybe he just spent
too much time on television complaining to the world how President Obama wasn’t
doing enough to help the state recover from the storm that had not even hit
them yet.
I’ve
decided to throw in the towel and stop listening to the projections,
prognostications, predictions and multi-faceted interpretations of this
presidential campaign. The massive
amount of lies, half truths, and talking in circles by the various surrogates,
candidates, public relations puppets has finally pushed me too darn close to
the edge of the cliff. I know who I’m
going to vote for. In fact, I’ve known
for nearly a year. It is crystal clear
to me that those on the other side are not interested in facts or the
truth. They prefer listening to BULL$HIT
that supports their distrust and absolute hatred of the opposition. If these people can’t or won’t seek out
honest politicians who have integrity, there isn’t anything I can do to change
that. The dice have been cast. Minds are made up, except for a very
few. It is going to come down to how
many people will bother to show up to vote and, of those, how many will even be
allowed to vote.
With the new voting regulations in over 30 states, many
former voters – some who have been voting regularly for 40, 50, even 60 years –
will be turned away. Why? Because they don’t have a valid state photo
ID. Why?
Because not everyone drives a vehicle, not everyone has a checking
account so they haven’t needed a photo ID or they don’t have a passport. They
may not know they need such an ID. They
may not have the extra money to order a new birth certificate since they no
longer have their original one. They may
not have access to a computer to order the birth certificate, or a credit card
to pay for it online. Many rely on
public transportation, some may work two or three jobs and only have one day a
week – probably Sunday – off. Many of
those folks relied on transportation provided by their church following Sunday
services on the last Sunday before the official election day. However many, if not all, of those 30 some
states with new voting regulations have shut down weekend, early voting. They’ve cancelled evening voting in many places as well.
Let Freedom Ring.
America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. At least that is what we tell ourselves and
the rest of the world. Well, surprise –
that’s another load of BULL$HIT. These
states are worried about VOTER FRAUD. Of
course, during George W. Bush’s 8 years in office, about 196 million votes were
cast. Fraud cases? That was a whopping 86 cases. Who wouldn’t worry? Maybe the SANE people? Maybe the people who not only respect and
uphold freedom, but also believe that the right to vote is the bedrock of our
democracy? Those would be the folks who
remember that people were beaten, imprisoned, force-fed and even killed so they
could WIN the right to vote.
Aaron Sorkin can say all this much better than I ever
could. Here is a video from his latest
series, The Newsroom, which sums it all up.
UPDATE: I just wanted to add another Newsroom video about The Tea Party & the Koch Brothers:
