Giant Wheel will offer bird's eye view of Central Florida

Wow.. lots of stuff coming to the area..

Wheel offers bird's eye view of Central Fla. | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY [This Post Continues after the jump...]

FPL plans solar power facility in Brevard

This is cool... except for the 31 cents per month part..

FPL plans solar power facility in Brevard | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Florida’s Marriage Amendment - Part 1

Ok it’s time for me to stake out a position on the Florida Marriage Amendment. Florida4Marriage.org has gotten enough signatures to get this proposed Amendment on the Nov 2008 ballot.

“Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

As far as I understand it has passed all the usual challenges and WILL be on the ballot.

Let me first say that I did NOT sign the petition even though I had an opportunity to do so. The reason I did not sign is that I thought this was TOO STRICT. I firmly believe that we need a constitutional amendment to define “marriage” as “legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife”. This is to prevent the Florida courts from doing what was done in Massachusetts, which is to read into the constitution a meaning that was never intended. This is badly needed.

However, the 2^nd part of the amendment does not limit the courts; it limits “the people” as represented by their legislature. It would prevent any kind of “Civil Union” or “Domestic Partnership” from being created or recognized in Florida. Even if was passed by the state legislature and signed by the Governor (and therefore supported by a majority of the people). This is what I think is too strict. Don’t get me wrong, all things being equal, I would only vote for representatives that would promise to vote against this sort of law. But do I have a right to stop a future majority from defining marriage as they see fit? (More on this later)

One reason I did not sign the petition is that I don’t think it will pass, mainly because it is too strict like I said. I even emailed the organization pushing for this asking them to rewrite the language of the amendment. Doing so would increase the chances of it being passed. We are in desperate need of passing a amendment to define marriage and control the courts, there is not as much of a need to control the legislature because it is more directly controlled by the people.

Even with the amendment, we are not fully restricting the will of the people in the future to pass any given law. They simply would be required to pass another amendment to allow Civil Unions or even “gay-marriage” if they have a 60% majority. In a way, this is good because it prevents the legislature from quickly passing a law like this without real public debate on the issue.

So I have to decide how to vote for this. On the one hand I think it is desperately needed to be a check on the power of the courts. On the other hand I think it is a little bit too strict in that it prevents a mere majority (50.1%) of voters from establishing “Civil Union” type relationships. However, it would not prevent a large majority (+60%) from doing so, and it would require enough time and public debate that it would only pass if people really supported it.

When I started writing this I was thinking I would end up saying I was going to vote against this amendment. Not signing the petition was in a way a “vote against” it, so I was leaning towards actually voting against it. But I’m not so sure now….

MarriageProtection.org

Opposition Groups
Florida Red and Blue

News Stories
Florida to vote on gay marriage ban amendment [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Police collecting DNA samples During Traffic Stops

I'm not sure I like this. Just because you are being pulled over for a traffic violation, doesn't mean you should be forced to give a DNA sample. It just seems too open for abuse. Police can claim to have seen you roll through a stop sign when you really didn't. I trust the vast majority of police officers and will take there word for it for a $30 or even $300 fine. But there has to be a limit for what a police officer and do just on his word.

If we want to give police the right to collect DNA from anyone, then give them that power. Don't tie to to some observation of some minor violation. That puts too much pressure on police to make up a violation to collect information. They should not be put in that position.

I trust police at their mere word for a LOT of things. But there has to be a limit. And DNA collection goes past that limit in my mind.

Police Swabbing Mouths During Traffic Stops In Serial Killer Hunt - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando

*** UPDATE ***

Daytona Cops to take DNA in all Arrests

This Orlando Sentinel story says DNA is collected in all ARRESTS which is much different from just a traffic stop. It doesn't make it clear that is is ONLY for arrests, but that is implied. This is better and not that much different from finger printing that also happens when a person is officially arrested.

My only concern with DNA use (which is an entirely different issue) is how the common man (myself included) cannot see or examine DNA. Fingerprint match is an art and a science too, but at least I could see both fingerprints and see the similarities and the patterns. I might still be fooled by someone claiming two prints match, but only if they are close to matching. If they were grossly different, then that would be spotted. With DNA you simply have to take the expert's word. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Florida Property Tax Amendment Passes

After detailed analysis and scientific exit polling (of my wife and myself) I'm predicting the amendment will pass. Which is odd because I voted against it and my wife didn't vote one way or the other.

I'm surprised this passes (or looks like it will). For one thing, it needed 60% which was supposed to make amendments harder to pass. Second, it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. It would not help people that already own an expensive house (bought within the last few years of this real estate bubble) with their high taxes and it doesn't put seem to help future "first time" buyers very much.

Since more people will be saving more money from their "caps", the tax rate will have to go higher and higher to make the money counties need. Maybe it shouldn't, but this amendment doesn't stop them, so I'm assuming counties will continue to tax and tax. Since more people are covered by the "cap", the gap between what they pay and what first time home buyers will pay will continue to grow and grow.

How is this fair? How is this sustainable?

Plus there is the Federal Constitutional issue of this puts an unfair burden on people moving to Florida (like a struck down car "impact fee").

I vote against it because I wanted to send a strong message for them to TRY AGAIN. Now there will not be as much pressure to do anything.

Property Tax Amendment 1 still getting 60 percent of 'yes' vote -- OrlandoSentinel.com

***UPDATE***

Well, lets see if this works...
Amendment 1's approval deserves smart response from government
(http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-ed30108jan30,0,4602339.story) [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Fence is orange; neighbors see red

I don't know all the facts of this, but it seems like the HOA didn't allow this guy to connect an entrance to his property to a road on their property. As a result the land owner can't sell or lease his land to a Bank, or to any other business for that matter because of access, parking issues. Again I don't know all the facts and maybe he has options. But I assume the land is "zoned" for business, but the HOA won't allow what is a reasonable use of the land. The HOA certainly is within it's rights to grant or not grant driveway access to/through it's land, but they should reconsider. A bank might no be as bad as a orange fence. The HOA must accept the fact that they don't own that land and can't control it. They can't use their control of access as leverage, but they have to allow this guy to use his land from something, or they will get something worse.

The city should stay out of it. As long as neither side does anything clearly against code, the city should not put them under a microscope looking for minor violations. Let them work it out themselves.

Fence is orange; neighbors see red | floridatoday.com | Serving Brevard County and Florida’s Space Coast [This Post Continues after the jump...]