IT’S RAINING VIOLETS…..

It’s raining violets!

Not really. Though it is raining.

This is saturday morning. Eta continues on its way. Perhaps to us.

Eta was a Category 4 when it went over Nicaragua. Then lost strength.

Eta presently moving over the Caribbean heading for Cuba. Regenerating. Will definitely be a tropical storm or hurricane when it hits Cuba.

Then Florida! Which means heavy rain, a tropical storm, or a full blown hurricane.

Yesterday it was reported to be prepared for 9 inches of rain beginning tomorrow night and into monday. This morning’s warning 10-15 inches with wind. How much wind no one seems to know at the moment.

All of South Florida is under flood watch.

My sense is few if any in Key West are worrying. I just ordered groceries and did not order any of the usual hurricane foods I normally do.

Going to be an interesting weekend and monday.

Key West seems to be the place people run off to who want to drink and raise hell, especially when they cannot do so where they live.

Last weekend 2,000 Miami college students arrived unexpectedly in Key West. To party, of course.

They came to Key West because Miami authorities had advised they were going to spend the weekend checking underage drinking.

Florida’s drinking age is 21. Confuses me why they would come to Key West to drink. Key West’s drinking age is the same as all Florida, 21.

Perhaps the 2,000 felt Key West would not be checking them as Miami intended to do.

I assume the bars made money. I assume some of the 2,000 brought coronavirus with them. Key West seems to be the ash can of the Keys regarding the virus. Significantly more confirmed cases in Key West than any other community in the Keys.

I have been informed there was a brawl on Duval involving the students. I know nothing else about it.

One case of coronavirus was reported this week involving a Key West High School student. All parents have been notified. Spot checking will be done to determine a spread, if any.

There was a time when shrimp was the Key West industry. No more. Not for years.

However 1954 was a big year in the industry. Monroe County’s shrimp production was 1,300,000 pounds. Heads-on shrimp. Dock side value $4 million.

I am concerned with the politicization of the Supreme Court.

Justice Alito is a far right conservative. He has been a Justice for many years. His approach to the law similar to Justice Scalia’s.

Alito’s public appearances are few. However most have left me with the feeling over the years that Alito respects no one but himself.

The U.S. has been divided into areas covered by one Justice alone. For emergency situations. The Justice hears the matter in person or by phone. If required, makes an immediate decision and many times if it is so deemed, directs the case to the entire Supreme Court for emergency attention.

Pennsylvania and ballot counting in the news. An important issue.

It came before Alito in one of these emergency situations. It involved mail in ballots received after 5 pm election day. An earlier order by the Supreme Court as a whole had decided that they could be received, but kept separate up to a certain point. I believe sometime yesterday.

The Republican Party said the order was not being followed. The ballots were not being kept separate. Such is the issue Alito had to entertain on a sole basis.

Initially, I was bothered that the Republican Party as an entity itself was bringing a violation case. It further concerned me that Alito was the one initially hearing it.

Politicization stuck out like a sore thumb.

After getting into it, I can say there was nothing out of the ordinary. Alito performed per law.

My one concern was that the Republican Party itself brought the lawsuit. It seems to me it might not be considered a proper party to do so.

The up front problem was that I was immediately uncomfortable. Thought politicization immediately. With justification based on Alito’s prior actions.

No one looking to the Court for help should ever get that feeling or have to fight a case where such is thought to be involved.

A primary reason Alito concerns me is his conduct in 2010 and since involving a President’s State of the Union address.

Obama was openly critical in his address of the Supreme Court’s decision the previous year in Citizens United v. FEC. The famous “corporations are people” decision.

The decision opened the door for corporations to spend as much money as they liked on indirect political campaign contributions.

All major federal officials attend the State of Union address. Not mandatory. However part of U.S. tradition and also out of a sense of respect for the event.

Supreme Court Justices attend in their robes. Are provided front row seats.

While Obama was saying what he wanted to re Citizens United, Alito was shaking his head in obvious disagreement and mouthing “not true.”

Alito has refused to attend all subsequent State of the Union addresses since 2010.

Actually, three Justices fail to attend.

One is Justice Thomas. He considers the addresses “partisan.” Even when the President making the address is a Republican.

Justice Scalia, prior to his death, refused for years saying the whole thing was “strange…..we sit there liked potted plants.”

The three forget some jobs/positions require attendance at certain matters out of respect or tradition.

Obama’s comments that night were short and to the point. He said the decision opened “the floodgates for special interests…..I don’t think an election should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by phony entities.”

Another Syracuse football saturday. My team plays Boston College at Syrcuse. Boston College is 4-3, Syracuse 1-6. Boston College favored.

I always enjoyed Boston College games. Every other year, the Syracuse/Boston College game was played in Boston. We would go! Several cars in a caravan. All friends. Couples.

It was a friday to sunday thing. We drove to Boston friday. Stayed at the Wharf Hotel. I’m sure I have the name wrong. It has been many years. What I clearly recall is the hotel was magnificent.

We partied friday night. Attended the game saturday afternoon. Left from the game to party some more.

Those were the days!

Enjoy your day!

18 comments on “IT’S RAINING VIOLETS…..

  1. Congratulations to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Democrats everywhere. What I am about to say is not intended to diminish their victory in any way.

    It’s time to get rid of mail-in ballots. Balloting by mail began in this country in the 1860s when civil war soldiers filled out their ballots on the battlefield, and then mailed them home to be filed and recorded at their own local precincts. Fast forward 155 years and here we are, still sending paper ballots through the mail, using an aging, unreliable and often broken mail delivery system. This is happening at a time when the producers of “Dancing With the Stars” and American Idol” can tabulate 100 thousand votes in minutes.

    Complaints about this year’s mail-in ballots have reached extraordinary levels. Every day thousands of voters have been complaining about their ballots gone missing, misdirected, rejected or perhaps intentionally destroyed. Ballots supposedly have been found in dumpsters, car trunks and even in Canada! Some voters may be casting multiple votes. Others may be dead. These complaints and reports may be true, alleged, misleading or false. How are we to know? It’s time to get rid of the problem instead of trying so hard to defend it.

    Americans are skilled at creating high-tech solutions for technical obstacles. How about using some of that skill and knowledge to create a new way to cast a vote without standing in line for hours or turning it over to some guy driving a 26 year-old mail truck. Let’s take a closer look at blockchain technology with encrypted security over widely distributed networks. Is anyone talking to Elon Musk about a universal secure mail adaptation for Starlink? C’mon America. Someone among us knows how to replace mail-in ballots with instant and secure voting. Do it!

    • Mail in Ballots are NOT the problem.

      Voting suppression, IS the problem.

      Prior to the anti “Mail In” issue, the problem was voter registration, because repressing the vote was best done (or thought to be done) by repressing (or undermining) registration to vote. Before that by pole taxes, etc., etc. ALWAYS by those trying to control the voting.

      This time, we had the largest voter turn out EVER and it was accomplished, without any real evidence of any voter fraud and done during a serious pandemic.

      May I suggest we be ever so cautious of ANYONE calling for ANY form of voter suppression, and that means you John Galt, who ever you really are!

      • I really don’t know haw anyone could read my post and think “voter suppression”. I am advocating the opposite. We can build on existing technology to create a secure network for transmitting a vote from the voter directly to a tabulating center without ANY intermediary person involved. Not a poll worker, not an elections supervisor, not someone blocking an entrance, not even the guy driving that 26 year-old USPS truck. Vote instantly from your home, from a dugout canoe on the Amazon, from horseback in Montana or from a mid-east battlefield. Anywhere. Traditional stand in line voting would still be available, of course. Also absentee voting where necessary.

        Now go ahead and tell me that we can’t do that. Tell me that we don’t have the technology or the skills or the money or the desire to build a clean and efficient voting system. Tell me why we aren’t capable of it.

        Why remain mired in a cumbersome mail-in ballot system, more than 150 years old and easily disrupted or interfered with? Or is that exactly why we keep it?

        • Maybe we can build a better system for voting, but that will NOT stop the hue and cry about what ever that may for the purpose of undermining the voting process. As only you, FOX News and all Republicans are doing with Mail in voting, before that Voter Registration and just about anything else they can think of to cast doubt on the process, in what is basically their eternal effort to suppress voting.

          We have just had the best turn out EVER, under just about every possible obstacle thrown at the voter in the history of the United states, including all the nonsense surrounding the post office, etc., etc. That would suggest to me, and probably a lot of other people, that it’s critics, including you, STFU.

          Can we develop something better, sure. Can we develop something safer, sure but probably not without Republicans criticizing it as horribly fraudulent.

          I say we keep looking for a better way to vote, but NOT because mail in voting is the devil, rather because we can always do better. More importantly we need to develop a system where voter suppression is NEVER an issue, that voting is easily available to all and that all votes are counted.

  2. You can’t win John Galt. The person countering your every post is the moderator for this blog. If she catches even a whiff of a Republican, she will pounce. She uses different names, as you see she did today, but it’s the same person.

    • Well, I did ask why we can’t develop a direct voting system that eliminates vulnerable mail-in ballots, and allows the voter to cast a vote from anywhere at any time without any possibility of interference.

      I got an answer.

      The answer seems to be that I and FOX News and Republicans in general would still try to cast doubt on the voting process, which would somehow be considered intimidation, which would then translate to voter suppression. Did I get that right? The voter on horseback in Montana would be quite surprised to learn that he was being intimidated by…….um, someone….and that the vote he just transmitted via satellite was subject to suppression by……um, someone….and that Republicans consider his instant vote as “horribly fraudulent”.

      Therefore, we should doggedly hang onto the outmoded concept that the best way prevent voter suppression is to stuff our paper ballot into an envelope, give it to the guy in the 26 year-old truck to be sent several hundred miles and handled by who knows how many people. And if it makes it to the processing center it will again be handled by several people, each of whom will look to see who you voted for and with luck your vote might actually be tabulated correctly.

      I hope I got all that right.

      • That is not what was said. You are twisting what Danny Taggert said and now trying to play the victim.

        Sometimes it seems like you are nothing but a political operative hiding behind a thin veneer of moderate credibility pushing political memes then twisting and spinning any reasonable response that comes your way to look like some kind of wronged victim.

        Grow up and stop thinking Lou and his readers are idiots.

        and tell your alter ego Sandy, that he keeps bad company and not believed by anybody.

      • JG – You really are slippery aren’t you? Trying to put words in my mouth.

        Let me remind you what I really said was, and I quote “Can we develop something better, sure. Can we develop something safer, sure but probably not without Republicans criticizing it as horribly fraudulent.

        I say we keep looking for a better way to vote, but NOT because mail in voting is the devil, rather because we can always do better. More importantly we need to develop a system where voter suppression is NEVER an issue, that voting is easily available to all and that all votes are counted.”

        I am happy to try and find a better way and said that. What I also said was that no matter what it will be criticized and I now would add, by people like YOU.

        What we SHOULD be focusing on, is how REPUBLICANS are doing everything they can to suppress any vote and one way of doing that is by attempting to delegitimize any vote, with tactics like undermining it’s validity (as you are doing with your phony “Mail in” delegitimize campaign.

  3. This is why it is so difficult to harness creativity and innovation in this country in order to find new ways to do old things. Notice that no one here seriously addressed my plea for a new high-tech voting capability that could eliminate the sorts of problems we are seeing in this election. Instead, it’s all about political advantage, voter suppression and whatever else. Edison had the same problem while he was inventing the electric light – laughter, derision, this will never work, why are you wasting your time with this, etc.

    If it is possible for anyone here to set politics aside for a moment, why not take a quick look at what can be done from a strictly technical point of view. Do you know about blockchain technology and what it can do? Did you know that the Space X company in in the process of launching 4000 satellites onto low earth orbit (yes, that’s 4000j. They have already launched more than 800. Do you know why? Do you understand that replacing old ways of doing thing can improve the lives of us all?

    ‘Ideas without action aren’t ideas. They’re regrets.’ –Steve Jobs

    • No it is NOT possible to set politics aside on this subject, especially right now. This IS a political subject, by definition.

      Nor is it your call to make? You want a survey on this, get your own blog and stop trying to hijack Lou’s blog.

  4. It looks to me this John Gault poster does not want any argument with any opinion he posts, even those with his alternate facts. That is called arrogance, plain and simple. Either that or he is just trying start a fight so he can play the victim and do his crying act.

    • Okay. I give up. Dr Wayne Dyer once said that “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” He must have been talking about this blog, where rejection is the singular form of communication and nothing matters more than partisan political ideology, real or imagined. Perhaps I may see you out and about someday. I’ll be in the BMW. You can park your horse and wagon behind me.

      • Why you would ever bother to deal with the rest of the world, anyhow, is beyond me, John. After all we’re all dummies that don’t know enough how to answer your questions when asked. But you keep doing this, you know, coming on Lou’s blog, making pompous statements, demanding answers to your pejorative or trick questions, then chastising everybody for not answering according to YOUR wishes, then pronouncing your disgust with having to deal with idiots.

        You are getting to be a bore with this same old same old routine. No wonder no one listens to you, you are just tossing ‘gotcha’ grenades to try and improve your own self image anyhow. Must be tough having to deal with that.

        Bet you don’t get invited this Thanksgiving, again.

  5. JG, you come on this blog with pathetic;y transparent political push stunts, then jump up and down when you can’t get your own way and pretend to be the victim of some conspiracy that simply does not exist.

    Your defense is almost always to change the subject or deflect, instead of hearing what other other people have to say. Your way or the highway?

    You got a proper response, on point, from others and you then went on ignoring that and instead attack them, not their points or arguments.

    You are a bully and a pathetic one at that. If you don’t like this blog, then please go someplace else with your elite motorcycle innuendos and immature manners and pout to your hearts content. Like Lou Petrone once said “Stop being an Azzhole”

  6. John Galt – Don’t you think you would have been smarter to have just shut up and been thought a fool by some, than your belligerent replies proving it, beyond any doubt?

  7. I do not see why anyone feels the need to attack the post office, or anything about the mail in voting process we just went through. I think they did an admiral job, especially considering it was done under duress and such scrutiny and during the time of a national deadly pandemic.

    Kudos to them and shame on their pretentious critics.

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