George W. Bush knows there are no limits for federal government anymore. Sports, schools, bedrooms – all of it is his business. You can tell he had a good time boosting the possibility of a Federal Marriage Amendment. Smirkin’ away as he promotes forcing government into bedrooms, while decimating one of the world’s greatest documents by tacking on something that is just about the intellectual opposite of the rest of the amendments.

But that’s just not far enough. Now he actually wants to be on our cocks and in our orifices, protecting us from each other. He wants to jump on the condom industry, looking at new warning labels and such.

But simply burdening another industry is never enough for the neocon big spenders. He also wants to juice the abstinence marketing budget up to $270 million.

Is it possible that W has some sort of an addiction? It’s as if he’s running out of things to spend money on. When people say he spends like a Democrat, that’s not really being fair to the Democrats. He spends our money like a compulsive gambler at a 3:00 a.m. roulette wheel. How any fiscal conservatives can still support this guy, I have no idea.

Frank Cerabino is our local funny columnist. Every paper has one – the WaPo’s got Gene Weingarten, our neighbors down at the Miami Herald have Dave Barry – but some are better than others. Cerabino’s one of the good ones. His politics may be hit or miss, but his writing is a like a funny bolar adorned with glittery rhinestones of snark. I love to stick my head in there.

So anyway, I went to John Kerry’s little rally in downtown West Palm Beach last week. Some people have said that he’s much more engaging in person. They are right, but that’s just not saying much. I think he’s pretty much a zero on TV. He simply lacks any discernable personality. In person, he’s an ought-point-one.

That’s not necessarily a criticism. I quite prefer a drip to W’s backslappin’ cowboy yee-haw bullshit. But it sure was boring.

But onto Cerabino. He ripped Kerry’s handlers for staging the thing in front of the WPB library. The symbolism is quite awful. The library, as he describes it, is “a tired old building that is functional, but nothing inspirational. And given the chance, people would prefer a more vibrant, exciting version of it – preferably someplace else.” Not the kind of place Kerry should want to be associated with his campaign.

In addition, it’s the worst library I’ve ever been to. I’ve never seen a worse book per square foot ratio. And it blocks the view of the water from downtown. And it’s likely to come down in the near future as part of the mayor’s plan to renovate the waterfront.

So, not only is Cerabino correct about the library reflecting Kerry as a tired, old dude in front of a tired, old building, he is also (if you follow the symbolism) empty, purposeless, obstructionist and ready to be put out to pasture.

Also, it smells.

It's hard to be impressed with scenery from around the upper 49, when you have sunrises like this each day. It was 84 today with puffy little clouds and a gentle breeze. Every now and again you have to take a step back and just bask in Florida's beauty.

The Virgin Ben judges college-age fornicators. Who could have guessed this was coming?

Young thug with knife attempts a carjacking in the parking lot of a West Palm Beach Walgreens. Old fogey gets wiley and fights back. Then, during the struggle, Beyonce's band rolls in (in what I have to assume was a black Escalade with spinning 24"s). They block in the fogey's car and join in the melee, holding the perp down until police arrive.

Florida's great. We get the best local news.

Miami Beach High School teacher Yrvan Tassy made a bet with one of his students that if the student jumped out the classroom’s 2nd story window, he would be injured. The bet was $20. The student then jumped out the window.

When the student returned to the classroom unhurt to collect his $20, Mr. Tassy didn’t even have the money on him. Weak sauce.

Tassy’s been reassigned to a non-teaching job.

So I was wrong in my hopes that George W would trash “wet foot / dry foot.” Oh well. History will judge.

He did skirt the letter of the law a bit by only repatriating 8 of the 11 car-boaters to Cuba. The other 3 were returned to Gitmo, which is a staging place for asylum in a 3rd party country.

Damn Canadians are gonna end up with this ingenious mechanic who can turn a vintage Buick into a boat and I can’t get a half-wit hack to make anything on the Saab work.

So I got an e-mail press release from the Bill McCollum for Senate campaign today. McCollum is a Republican running for the seat of the retiring Bob Graham, who is crazy.

It’s about tort reform and the usual stuff – moms can’t find docs to handle their deliveries, blah blah blah. Of course, he’s right, we do need tort reform, but this seems to be one of the quickest issues to drop from the agenda after a candidate wins an election.

I have really given up on any politician creating meaningful tort reform in my lifetime. The ambulance chasers have the money to ruin reform every time by creating an ad campaign about a dead baby or maimed child or something that gets old ladies to call their Senators and the whole deal goes in the shitter.

In my opinion, the genius of beating this drum throughout his campaign is that it not that it is the right thing to do, but that it does a great job of distinguishing him from Mel Martinez. Martinez is the Bush-pick to run for the seat. I used to think that ambulance chasers occupied the lowest concentric circle in Hades. But they are actually in the penultimate pit. The lowest of the low (where Satan himself performs Clap tests with a pointy heated branding iron) is actually occupied by the lobbyists who fight for trial lawyers.

I bring this up because Mel will someday smolder in that unholy place. He was the official he-bitch of the sue-happy doc-cripplers in Tallahassee. While he will undoubtedly be quick at raising enormous mountains of cash through his connection to the Bush/Rove/Bush fundraising machines, McCollum could be the slow and unattractive guy who actually plods along wins the nomination race if he continues to show Martinez’s ties to the shady am-chasers and lobbyists who fellate them.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about college basketball, it’s the total lack of diversity. How can a brother catch a break and burst through that glass ceiling?

Das Moot forwards me this Onionesque article from our college rag, The D:

“College seeks minority athletes”

While Dean Larimore laments the existence of squash and pre-Tiger golf, track team member Ian Marcus '07 managed to squeak in a moment of clarity, saying, “we just want the best people we can get.”

Low flow, my ass. You too can have the luxury of a real toilet – 3.5 luxurious gallons that you can flush with authority. Made in the USA for the Canadian market and happily available on eBay with shipping to the US.

I’m getting one next time I renovate a bathroom.

President Bush has a bit of a political pickle on his hands with the latest batch of Cubans intercepted during their escape from Cuba to Florida.

According to the current “Wet Foot / Dry Foot” policy on Cuban immigration, Cubans are allowed to stay in the US if they make it here and set foot on dry land. If intercepted at sea, they are returned to Cuba to face more oppression (at best) and potential death sentences. I think WFDF is retarded (for a number of reasons I may go into in the future) and that we should just let them stay.

W’s been generally quick to send Cubans back, even negotiating with Castro’s peeps for their return. But now we’re in an election year. And as I’ve mentioned before, all politics is Floridian. Our 27 electoral votes may be the most important again.

Bush’s new immigration plan doesn’t really benefit Cubans, since they get asylum here anyway if they make it. So he needs to throw them a bone. He’s already done some little things like stepping up enforcement of existing rules against trading with Cuba and tourism. But this could be his big chance to lock in the Cuban-American vote. According to the MiHe, Bush got 80% of their 400,000 votes in 2000. That’s over 300,000 votes in a state he “won” by less than 1,000.

Some say Bush’s support is eroding over a few high-profile cases of Cuban émigrés being returned to Cuba to face punishment. It’s unlikely Miami’s Cuban population will vote Dem, but if annoyed, might stay home.

Enter the Car-Boat tinkerers. Luis Grass Rodriguez and 10 others make a break from Cuba in a 1950’s Buick he has modified to be a boat. The green-painted craft made it most of the way before being stopped by the Coast Guard. The creativity of the escape has captured the imaginations of Floridians and piqued an interest in the treatment of these folks at a time when Bush needs Cuban support more than ever.

Jeb wants them to stay. So do I. They were supposed to be deported today, but a judge granted a two-day extension of their case.

What should W do? Let ‘em stay and change WTDF so that any Cuban who makes it to our waters can stay. He’s already pissed off the Buchananite closed-border folks. He might as well slip this by while they’re steamed about the other thing. Not only would it get Cuban-Americans to the polls, it would solidify Republican control of the state house and the Governor’s mansion for years to come.

Put the crown on the hustle.

Café Mundo interviewed J.D. Talley of Bureaucrash and me during our counter-protest of the free trade protests. It’s all here. Check it out.

After getting my teeth cleaned today at the dentist, the hygienist passed me a new form to fill out. “Oh joy,” I exclaimed, “another form!”

Turns out this one is the official dental “Notice of Privacy Practices” from the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). Why they start using these forms in 2004 instead of 1996, I don’t know. But when I brought it up she opened up to how much she hates the forms and the entire crackdown on records sharing.

I’m all for keeping my medical records private, but HIPAA’s regulations just seem in contrast to common sense. She went into detail on two of the unintended consequences:

1. Pre-HIPAA, critical information (like an allergy to penicillin) would be written or stamped on the outside of a patient’s folder. That’s no longer allowed. It seems to me that most people with such an allergy would want their dentist and his staff to know that right away. As is often the case with federal regulation, it appears they have painted with too broad a brush – while I can certainly understand why you might want to keep your gonorrhea private from your dentist and others, an allergy to penicillin is the kind of information you want every one to know. At least, anyone who is in a position to administer the penicillin.

2. HIPAA dramatically complicates treatment of older patients who have caregivers. I see these folks all the time getting wheeled into TooJay’s deli. Barely holding on, they are completely cared for by an attendant who does everything for them – including brushing their teeth. But if there is an issue and they need to ask the dentist about their patient’s care, the dentist cannot tell them the information.

Of course, like most federal regs, HIPAA makes violations federal offenses, further criminalizing the practice of medicine.

Incidentally, I have no idea what this has to do with Health Insurance Portability & Accountability. I don’t have dental health insurance (it’s cheaper to self-insure if you have good teeth). I’m not planning on porting my non-insurance to another non-insurer. How my non-insurer needs to be held accountable, I can’t follow. Why do I have to fill out another damn federal form? The bastards are drowning us in paper and billing us for the printing.

Take note to the brand new dance.