You ought to be, one way or the other. The U.S. House just  gave you 819,000,000,000 (that’s billion) reasons to be stimulated. That’s how many dollars in spending increases and tax cuts it says are needed to pull us out of recession.

$272 Billion

That is a lot of money, even by my high-living standards. In fact, it’s about $3,276 for every adult in the country.

Do you think we’re better off letting the government handle the funds, or putting the $3,276 into our hands to do with as we will?

(At left is a stack of $1 bills representing one-third of the amount of the stimulus package. This pile is 250 feet long, and 125 feet wide. It’s 320 feet high at the tallest point. That is a human being and a car at its base).

Post from: Cazual Conversation

He was essentially being accused of having a hand in how she ended up there. This is how it works.

As much we may abhor the idea, it is what it is and when people die mysterious deaths, their loved ones are immediately put under scrutiny by the police and, at times, the media.

God help the agency that doesn’t aggressively look at family members in such circumstances.

This understandably leads to hard feelings on the part of family members, which makes Garrett’s comments to The News Herald’s S. Brady Calhoun more noteworthy.

“I think the Bay County Sheriff’s people have been as thorough and as kind as they can be,” he said. “They are good people, and they are doing their jobs as diligently and as thorough as they can.”

How many would be so gracious?

On July 20, Nancy Garrett, 63, was reported missing from her Lisenby Avenue home. An extensive search of the property turned up nothing.

Two days later, deputies found her body, inside two garbage bags, in a shed near the home. They were sure it was not there during the initial search.

She was lying on top of newspapers, a .357-Magnum with her, and a bullet still inside her skull. She had one of her husband’s canes and a license plate resting on her hip.

Bay County sheriff’s investigators were left with three scenarios:

She was conscientious in planning her death, careful not to make a mess. Deputies somehow failed to notice the garbage bags containing her body on their initial search of the property. She simply shot herself inside two garbage bags placed on newspapers her husband collected.

Or, most of the above, but someone for some reason moved the body after death, either out of embarrassment or fear or bad judgment.

Finally, that someone else  killed her and put her in the garbage bags, hid the body from police and got caught when deputies found it in the shed.

Garrett is right, deputies were diligent. They climbed into garbage bags to see if you could do it that way. They sent deputies to hypnotists to see if a hidden detail might be revealed.

They argued possible theories amongst themselves. And this is good. If you don’t have the occassional heated exchange in your business, I suggest you’re not being creative enough.

The way this case was handled leaves us with this: There are no open questions that we can expect investigators to answer. It was thorough. There is nothing to second-guess.

Wayne Garrett was questioned hard and seems to understand. I’m guessing that’s much appreciated down at the Sheriff’s Office.

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The one-cent increase approved in the bed tax Tuesday is expected to generate $2.2 million for the Tourist Development Council.

One commissioner’s argument, essentially, seemed to be that the rest of us ought to be glad it passed, because it means we won’t be paying it.

Weigh that against what is happening in the economy right now, and the idea that many people collecting the tax (home and private condo rentals) aren’t reporting it to begin with.

Is any amount of advertising going to drive tourism right now?

Do we need the tax or not?

Post from: Cazual Conversation

Good or bad, people have something to say about the 44th President of the United States. Nearly everyone is ready for some sort of change in today’s economy downfall.

That is reflected at The News Herald as well as we plan and carry out unprecedented coverage, on a local level, for an inauguration.

A Freedom Communications reporter, Mona Moore, is riding a bus with locals to attend the event and is reporting via a live blog at newsherald.com as well as in the print edition.

Alvin Peters, chairman of the Bay County Democratic Party, also is blogging live for us (click here).

We also have Crystal Ouimet and Paulette Perman blogging live.

The News Herald offers a four-page commemorative edition Wednesday that will include a wide array of wire coverage, pictures, local stories and reaction from locals both here and at the ceremony Wednesday.

This is all to say that whether you like his politics, you have to admit this is a big deal.

Don’t you think?

Post from: Cazual Conversation

We were waiting on a table and the unsweet tea was calling my name as Manager Craig kept us up to speed on our table’s state of near readiness.

Axe works!

My sweetie was out of town, so my eyes were pretty much staying in my head, when the lady to my left made the following comment: “You smell good.”

Now, I’m used to being told I’m a handsome fella - I am a Cazalas after all - but this was new territory so I responded with my usual wit. “Are you talking to me?” I asked.

She was, it turned out, and she repeated the compliment. Spotting no hidden cameras, I inquired of the lass just what she meant.

“You smell really good,” she said. “My sister noticed it first.” Her sister, two seats over, was just fine by me.

In a near state of confusion, it hit me: A friend, fired from a hotel chain in Atlanta, loaded me up with “extras,” and one of those was “Axe” shower wash.

You’ve seen those over-the-top commercials where the women melt on the men who wear it, haven’t you. It is true.

By evening’s end I had conqured a Queen’s Filet, a loaded baked potato and a salad with tomato-based dressing.

Had it not been for my promise to my keeper to behave in her absence, I am quite confident, there would’ve been more conquering going on that evening.

As it was, the woman ended up regaling me with a tale of dumping her boyfriend over Christmas, and said she had purchased an entire Axe gift pack for him. And she wanted me to have it. It was in her car outside.

Having seen the Axe commercials, I knew better than to accompany her there, so I asked that she bring it inside. I now have Axe shampoo, hair conditioner, body lotion, some cleanser that exfoliates and an after-shower Axe spray.

I have put it in a safe.

So the lesson is this: Eat at Outback and get some ridiculously good steak for the price, wear your “Axe” and look out!

And ask for Manager Craig when you do go in. He’ll be the one asking to borrow my Axe.

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Surely, I thought, readers with time on their hands (unemployment is higher than it has been in years here, you know) would throw off their afghans (can’t afford to have the heat too high right now) fire up their computers (can’t afford the electricity to keep them running all day) and absolutely scream for justice.

I was kind of right. They screamed, and it was kind of for justice, but the gist of it seemed to be they thought cold inmates were kind of getting justice by being cold.

“Good to hear that the Sheriff is making the place uncomfortable,” blackwalk wrote. “I’ll bet none of them want to go back.”

While the original poster noted some people are simply being held pending trial, she found few supporters.

“They may not be ‘convicted’ yet but I promise that they are not there for feeding stray animals,” lhgirl wrote. “Whatever landed them there was not a good thing I am sure. I feel for everyone but life is what it is.”

They seem to think that because these people are in jail, it  doesn’t matter.

What do you think?

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Marc Schrenker, an Indiana businessman, must have thought it was pretty bad. The picture of Schrenker and his wife posing in front of hundreds of thousands of dollars of toys, belies the inner turmoil.

Like most material things we can gain through chicanery, bravado and outright theft, the outside appearance we see rarely correlates to the inner self.

Schrenker, most would think, had it all. He had mansions, planes and a beautiful wife. He also was under investigation for defrauding people out of money entrusted to him for investments.

The wife said she wanted a divorce and the government was investigating, so an ill-formed plan apparently developed.

Schrenker rented a storage shed in a fake name and paid cash, police said, stashing a get-away motorcycle there. He flew his plane to oblivion Sunday  night after reporting he was in trouble.

The plane, minus the pilot, was found airborne by military jets scrambled to assist. It crashed some 200 miles away from the initial distress call, within a mile of a home.

Schrenker was found wandering  a road, wet and ruffled, but he disappeared before police put two and two together.

The man with the jets and wife and money and stuff was found in a campground Tuesday with just about nothing.

His life was a facade, but how many people envied him for it prior to last week?

Remember this: What people show you on the outside is the result of a lifetime spent building defenses so you only see what they want you to see.

If you fall into the trap of comparing how you feel on the inside to what people show you on their outsides, you will lose every time.

For me, I’m happy to be employed today, with health insurance, a car on which I owe no money, a place to hunt, my son and a roof over my  head.

How about you?

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As long as it doesn’t affect OUR children.

What’s a superintendent to do?

Bill Husfelt is on the right path. He is floating trial balloons to the board in January so there is plenty of time to shoot them down and float some new ones. The tact last year by the former superintendent was to float a hindenburg in the summer only to watch it explode, leaving the district without alternative transportation, so to speak.

Husfelt floats one recommendation involving the repurposing of Springfield Elementary, for example, and the community reacts with emotion, just as I would if it invovled my child.

Husfelt related a story when he visited The News Herald last week of a woman who wanted her grandchildren to attend the same school her children attended, which is the same school she attended.

The school absolutely could not be closed, she said, and Husfelt needed to turn elsewhere.

Husfelt said, sure, he would go find a school that no one’s parents ever attended, where no one had any history, and where there were no emotional ties to the community.

He was being facetious but it is true. Someone is going to be hurt emotionally to benefit the masses.

The question here is if we really want the cuts, we must be willing to bear some of the burden.

Post from: Cazual Conversation

They hit him at least once and the arguments begin.

According to Dano55 story’s comment online: “If he is still alive those Deputies and the person who certified them with their service weapon needs to be at the range tomorrow morning to recertify! It is called the use of deadly force for a reason.”

It would seem Dano would be happier if the suspect were dead, no longer around to clog the system.

I wonder how many folks find it easy to agree?

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