Sex Offender Begs For More Jail Time

"Marquez is just one of hundreds of sex offenders who are unable to find work or housing in Broward County. One local blogger describes his plight as being "under house arrest without a home."

"And the problem isn't just there. In Miami, a legal battle has erupted over a growing colony of sex offenders who have been forced under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. The vagrants live in shacks, creating a national dialogue over the unintended consequences of residency laws."

"Marquez was required to register in his Oakland Park neighborhood and carry a large GPS box to track his every move. He must observe an indoor curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and not live within 2,500 feet of a school, day care facility, playground or other place where children regularly congregate."

"That, in addition to the high cost of rent, has made finding a place to live impossible, according to his public defender lawyer, Cheryl Koewing."

"No one wants to employ him," Koewing told ABCNews.com. "How can law enforcement keep track of these individuals and not have them turning to other means to get food to live? They've served their time."

Health Care Details

"Some of you were nice enough to play "research team" for this correspondent, and search out a few things in the bill. Jason read my mind by searching for provisions that would authorize spending "such sums" as may be necessary for certain sections of the bill."

"There are a dozen of them:
* p. 120, to cover the start up costs of the government health insurance option
* p. 300, to pay for a study on why Medicare costs vary around the nation
* p. 404, to pay for a section on "Ensuring Effective Communication In Medicare"
* p. 610, for a study of large intrastate chains of nursing facilities
* p. 864, to increase funding for Community Health Centers between 2013-2019
* p. 869, to fund the National Health Service Corps Program for 2013-2019
* p. 892, to increase money for the Public Health Investment Fund
* p. 897, more on funding for the Public Health Investment Fund
* p. 931, "such sums" to fund a cryptic reference to public health law
* p. 1001, money to fund School Based Health Clinics for 2011-2014
* p. 1006, to fund the National Medical Device Registry
* p. 1018, to fund Grant Programs to Provide Education to Nurses"

"Since taxes are such a hot button issue, I thought I would also look at the tax hikes included in this bill, as a penalty for those not getting health care coverage."

"If you make $350,000-$500,000 in modified adjusted gross income and don't buy health insurance, then you would be subjected to a 1% surtax; If you make $500,000 to $1,000,000 and don't buy health insurance, you would be hit with a 1.5% surtax;"

"And if you make more than a million a year, you would see a 5.4% surtax. After 2012, the 1% rate would go up to 2% and the 1.5% rate would double as well to 3%."

More troops lost to roadside bombs: a familiar pattern

"The Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan are turning to a familiar tool to try to kill more Americans and allied troops: the roadside bomb."

"Allied troops reported 736 IED incidents last month, up from 234 in June 2007, according to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, a Defense Department group. "Incidents" include bombs that detonate and are effective, as well as bombs that are found and cleared and those that detonate but are not injurious."

"So far this year, 107 American service members have been killed in Afghanistan – compared with 155 for all of 2008, according to the website icasualties.org. Last month, there were 38 coalition fatalities, but so far in July, not yet half over, there have already been 40. British forces have lost 15 soldiers in the past 11 days."

JEA: Climate bill would raise rates by 10 percent

"Climate change legislation pending in Congress could translate into a 10 percent electricity rate increase for JEA customers within three years."

"JEA CEO Jim Dickenson said Tuesday the cost would trickle down to customers — many of them irritated already with a number of recent rate increases — if the city-owned utility has to purchase $130 million in pollution allowances in order to obey the law in 2012."

"By 2020, utility companies would have to be generating 20 percent of their electricity with renewable resources like solar and wind power. The JEA grid currently includes 1 percent renewable energy. Even with a 15-megawatt solar farm planned for a 100-acre plot in the Westside, the total renewable portfolio would be only 1.2 percent."

"By 2050, utility companies would have to either reduce carbon emissions to 80 percent of what they were in 2005, or purchase carbon credits from other companies meeting the demand."

"U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., the lone regional legislator who voted in favor of the climate change bill, released a statement saying it would cost the average American household 50 cents daily, a small price to protect the environment — including the 1,350 miles of Florida coastline in the crosshairs of global warming. Brown said the bill would also spawn needed green-energy jobs."

"Her Republican counterpart in the 7th District, John Mica, voted against the bill. He said it would cost the average American family $1,400 a year and force some businesses to send jobs overseas."

Chicago report says Obama misled public about Duncan

"New research from a Chicago civic group takes direct aim at the city's "abysmal" public high school performance — and suggests that President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who led Chicago schools for seven years, have misled the public about school performance during Duncan's tenure."

"The Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago, a supporter of Duncan and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's push for more control of city schools, issued the report June 30. It says city schools have made little progress since 2003."

"Its key findings stand in stark contrast to assertions Obama made last December when he nominated Duncan to be Education secretary. And though the findings are by no means as explosive, they're reminiscent of revelations from Houston in 2003, when state investigators found that 15 high schools had underreported dropout rates under former superintendent Rod Paige, who by then was George W. Bush's Education secretary."

"In December, Obama said that during a seven-year tenure, Duncan had boosted elementary school test scores "from 38% of students meeting the standards to 67%" — a gain of 29 percentage points. But the new report found that, adjusting for changes in tests and procedures, students' pass rates grew only about 8 percentage points."

"Obama also said Chicago's dropout rate "has gone down every year he's been in charge." Though that's technically true, the committee says it's still unacceptably high: About half of Chicago students drop out of the city's non-selective-enrollment high schools. And more than 70% of 11th-graders fail to meet state standards, a trend that "has remained essentially flat" over the past several years."

"Even among those who graduate, it says, skills are poor: An analysis of students entering the Chicago City Colleges in the fall of 2006 showed that 69% were not prepared for college-level reading, 79% were not prepared for writing, and 95% were not prepared for math."

More than 70 caseworkers lied about efforts to protect children

"During the past two years, more than 70 Florida child-welfare workers have been caught falsifying records -- lying about their on-the-job efforts to protect children, according to state and county records reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel."

"As a consequence, the Florida Department of Children and Families temporarily lost track of at least six children, sometimes for months. Fourteen children were left in unsafe homes, the Sentinel found in a review of agency records."

How budget cuts equal more spending in Jacksonville

A list of $993.8 million in expenses for Jacksonville's next fiscal year shows that despite departmental budget-trimming, spending at City Hall is projected to increase.

Although the city's projected $110 million in pension costs next fiscal year has been made a primary culprit, there are also concerns about the growing cost of health care and electricity.

The numbers remain fluid until Mayor John Peyton delivers his budget proposal Monday to City Council, but overall spending appears to be going up by $22.4 million.

The 2.3 percent increase for 2009-10 tops last year's 1.8 percent, which was heralded as the lowest since 1991, despite a multimillion-dollar public safety increase.

Next year's budget is growing despite $41 million in planned cuts, most of them to employee compensation. To prevent deeper cuts, Peyton is proposing a 12 percent property tax rate increase.

Although he gave department heads a directive to cut at least 5 percent from their operating budgets, total departmental expenses are expected to jump by $33 million, according to the latest figures released by the mayor's office.

However, $30 million of that increase stems from more spending by the police and fire departments, which were not directed to trim their budgets.

Although Peyton is proposing cutting $1.1 million from the libraries on top of the 5 percent reduction, the library budget actually is increasing by $3.3 million.

Since Peyton took office in 2003, non-public safety spending has dropped roughly $7 million, while the overall budget has grown by about $270 million.

Operation Valkyrie and the July Plot to Assassinate Hitler

Follow the above link (by clicking the title) to learn about the final failed assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler near the end of World War II.

It is an interesting story about a group of individuals who were willing to die based solely on their principals. It's failure shows not only the coup's military ineffectiveness but the failure of German citizens to rise up against a dictator.

Who decides how much White House staffers get paid?

"The Obama White House recently released the salaries of its 487 staffers. The highest-paid administration staffer, the president's director of public health policy, David Marcozzi, earns $193,000, while salaries bottom out at $36,000. The president himself makes $400,000, a salary set by Congress. Two advisers, Michael J. Warren and Patricia G. McGinnis, forgo pay altogether. How does the White House decide who makes what?"

"There's a rough formula for how much executive branch staffers make. White House salaries are on a scale associated with certain ranks. The top rank in the White House consists of those staffers who hold the title "assistant to the president." Twenty-two people in the Obama administration have that rank—including David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Jon Favreau—and they all get paid the same amount: $172,000. Marcozzi earns more than the assistants to the president because he's on detail from the Department of Health and Human Services, which pays his salary. (After six months, "detailees" have to switch to White House payroll.) The next level below the assistants are the "deputy assistants to the president," all of whom make between $130,000 and $150,000. Further down still are "special assistants to the president," who earn anywhere from $50,000 to $130,000. And below that are the staff assistants, legislative assistants, press assistants, secretaries, greeters, speechwriters, advance coordinators, and record keepers—i.e., the bulk of the White House staff—who make between $40,000 and $55,000."

"The total spending on salaries is determined by Congress, which has to approve the annual White House budget. In 2007, President Bush requested a total of $51.9 million for White House office salaries. (That's for the core of 500 or so staffers.) The numbers creep up every year. In 2003, the maximum pay for assistants was $151,000. Since then, it has increased between 1.7 percent and 4 percent annually. In 2008, it reached $172,000 and remains there, since Obama declared a pay freeze for anyone making more than $100,000."

U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report

"While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear."

"The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information."

"While the program obtained information that “had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.’s overall counterterrorism efforts,” the report concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots."

"The report found that the secrecy surrounding the program may have limited its effectiveness. At the C.I.A., it said, so few working-level officers were allowed to know about the program that the agency often did not make full use of the leads the wiretapping generated, and intelligence leads that came from the wiretapping operation were often “vague or without context,” the report said."

U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report

"While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear."

"The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information."

"While the program obtained information that “had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.’s overall counterterrorism efforts,” the report concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots."

"The report found that the secrecy surrounding the program may have limited its effectiveness. At the C.I.A., it said, so few working-level officers were allowed to know about the program that the agency often did not make full use of the leads the wiretapping generated, and intelligence leads that came from the wiretapping operation were often “vague or without context,” the report said."

U.S. commander: Afghan forces insufficient

"Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials."

"Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said. "

"Obama has voiced strong commitment to the ongoing Afghan conflict -- which this year surpasses Vietnam as America's longest combat engagement -- but has been cautious about making any additional military resources available beyond the 17,000 combat troops and 4,000 military trainers he agreed to in February. That will bring the total U.S. force to 68,000 by fall."

"The Afghan army is already scheduled to grow from 85,000 to 134,000, an expansion originally expected to take five years but now fast-tracked for completion by 2011. Several senior Pentagon officials indicated that an adequate size for the Afghan force may be twice the expanded number."

Study: 50% borrow money for college

"College students are borrowing more and taking on riskier forms of debt than ever before, according to a national analysis released Thursday."

“Drowning in Debt: The Emerging Student Loan Crisis,” released by an independent education policy think tank called the Education Sector, analyzed 15 years of data through the 2007-2008 academic year."

"The study found:

• The cost of attending a public university has doubled over the past two decades, causing previously unseen costs of higher education.
• Family income and student financial aid haven’t kept up with the increasing costs, forcing students to borrow more money for their education than ever before.
• More students are finding those funds in the form of risky, unregulated, private student loans, where they pay the highest interest rates.
• Minority college students appear to be borrowing a disproportionate share."

"Some of the specific stats included in the report include:

• Borrowing has gone from being the exception for undergraduates in 1993, at only 32 percent, to the rule. As of 2008, more than 50 percent of students at public, four-year universities borrowed for their education. In for-profit education, the percentage of borrowers rose to 92 percent in 2008 from 53 percent in 1993.
• The average annual debt for borrowers at four-year private universities increased by 70 percent over the study period, while the average debt for students at for-profit colleges increased by 57 percent, to $9,600 a year.
• Only 5 percent of undergraduates borrowed private loans in 2003-2004. In four years, the percentage grew to 14 percent.
• Between 2004 and 2008, the percentage of African-American students who took out private loans tripled, giving that group higher participation levels than white or Hispanic students.
• At private, four-year institutions in 2008, the wealthiest students received institutional grants of nearly equal size to those earned by the poorest students."

'Shocking' Security Breaches at Federal Buildings

"Investigators from the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, were able to penetrate all 10 of the undisclosed federal buildings it tested across the United States."

"The Federal Protective Service, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for securing more than 9,000 federal buildings and, among other employees, utilizes 15,000 contract security guards. "

Cops threaten to boycott Peyton family business

"How a police boycott of Gate would hurt the business is uncertain. A veritable empire built by the mayor’s father, Herb Peyton, in the 1960s, Gate has 225 locations in six Southeastern states."

"The company also has a stake in $21 million worth of contracts to fuel the city motor pool, including police cruisers, which officers take home after work."

Reading The Bills

"Earmarks are usually listed in what's called the "report" which accompanies the bill, where the legislative intentions of the Appropriations Committee are spelled out. They are just recommendations, which some argue don't even have the force of law."

"If you think it is time consuming to read a bill, it is much more time consuming to read the report, which can be hundreds and hundreds of pages of explanation."

Green nonsense

"Global temperatures have declined -- extending the current downtrend to 11 years with a particularly rapid decline in 2007-2008," said a draft report written in March by an expert at the Environmental Protection Agency."

"We'd pay a lot for that tenth of a degree, though how much is hotly in dispute. Cost estimates range from about $100 per family when the bill would go into effect in 2012 to $3,900 per family."

"Mr. Obama calls Waxman-Markey a jobs bill, on the specious assumption it will create more jobs building windmills and solar panels than it will destroy in the coal, oil and natural gas industries and in the industries dependent upon them. But Charles River Associates, a Harvard-based economic consulting firm, estimates the net loss of jobs at about 2.5 million a year."

"Waxman-Markey contains unpleasant surprises for Americans, including a provision which could prevent homeowners from selling their homes if they aren't retrofitted to meet federal "green" guidelines. But the House passed the 1,400-page bill before its members had an opportunity to read it, much less ponder its implications. Let's pray the Senate is more responsible."

Quote of the Day

"We cannot retaliate on indifference by asserting truth, only by casting doubt." (Piscali's Island, 192).

Herr Gesing: "How have you arrived at this confident knowledge of what is lies and what is truth? I envy it." (Piscali's Island, 70).

Highway deaths at lowest level on record

"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday the number of motorists killed from January through March 2009 declined by 9 percent, to 7,689 motorists, from the same period a year ago. Motor vehicle fatalities continued to fall to levels not seen since records began being kept in 1961."

"An estimated 37,261 motorists died nationwide in 2008, the lowest number since 1961. If this year's trends continue, fewer than 31,000 people will die in 2009. However, motorcycle deaths have increased for the 11th straight year in a row and account for 14 percent of all highway fatalities."

Mississippi's Still Fattest but Alabama Closing In

"In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline."

"The report provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese boomers, and its implications are sobering. This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese."

"Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they're much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese, Levi said."