Another unexpected day of trying to figure out how to shield our bodies from the blast of Canadian air we're currently experiencing. It's Florida, so we own one pair of pants if you don't count workout pants, which are capris anyhow.
It won't get above 60 today, which is unfortunate, given that we have to get out from under the covers. And come the weekend, when we can stay under the covers well past 8 a.m., it will be warm enough for beach time, and pants will thus not be needed.
The water off the beach may not exactly be swimmable, in places, though, which is why on Wednesday tourism industry leaders told Governor Rick Scott and a handful of legislators to stop pretending that serious investment in environmental protections isn't directly tied to the success of Florida's top industry: tourism. And perhaps they'll listen this time, and actually invest in preventing those nightmarish Lake-O releases (presumably by eminent-domaining the shit out of some Big Sugar land south of the lake). After all, they can't blame Obama anymore.
Speaking of tourism, a big mahalo to the Hawaii judge who struck down Trump's second attempt at more or less banning Muslims (or, travelers from a seemingly arbitrary list of predominantly Muslim countries). A Maryland judge issued a similar ruling overnight. President Trump is reportedly fuming over the opinions. Seeing how aides apparently used drafts of the revised travel ban to cheer him up when he was upset about Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself from an investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russian election interference, one wonders what terrifying, draconian measure they will conjure from the shadows to cheer him up with this weekend after he storms off to Mar-a-Lago at 3:30 p.m. Friday? And which paranoid ramblings will he tweet out Saturday morning before his first tee-off? Stay tuned!
Although, maybe he's already cheering up. The administration early Thursday morning also released the most alt-right bonerific $1.1 trillion budget proposal imaginable. It boosts defense and law enforcement spending while deeply cutting budgets for the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and more. Officials are calling it a "hard power budget," which in NO way screams compensation for insufficient rigidity somewhere else.
Closer to home, the News Service of Florida reports that a couple of pro-gun measures advanced in the State House Wednesday, including one that reduces the penalty for "accidentally" exposing a concealed firearm from a misdemeanor charge to a $25 fine on the first offense. Another would allow guns in religious schools...? A bill that has surprisingly not yet been filed would grant First Amendment rights to the guns themselves, because that is how the disproportionately rural good ol' boy leadership in our legislature rolls.
And, finally, assuming that it fared all right in the cold weather overnight, the lost pet cobra in Ocala has become a celebrity akin to the once-itinerant Tampa Bay Mystery Monkey, complete with its own social media pages. It's a poisonous snake that may have made its way to a nearby school by now, but it's adorbs.
