Florida

Florida: The Who Cares State • Florida Phoenix

Published

6 months ago

July 15, 2024

Florida: The Who Cares State • Florida Phoenix

Welcome to the Science-Free State of Florida, where facts are dismissed, obvious truths denied, and thinking discouraged.

Failed presidential candidate and professional pouter Ronbo DeSantis recently had references to climate change removed from state statutes.

Now his Department of (Mis)Education wants the phrase “climate change” excised from Florida school textbooks on the ground that it’s “ideology” or “indoctrination.”

Indoctrination? We’ve got your indoctrination: Last year, Ronbo and his DO(Mis)E goons approved the use of inaccurate, indeed dangerous, (but cute and cartoony) videos from Prager University (which is not a university) in Florida classrooms.

These little gems parrot oil and gas industry talking points, claiming green energy is a lie, and comparing climate change activists to Nazis.

Florida’s current regime (motto: “Ignorance is Strength”) operates on the theory that if you refuse to utter certain words — ”racism,” for example, “COVID,” or “climate crisis” — and pretend with all your might that what you see in front of you isn’t real, then the problem disappears.

There’s two feet of water in your living room, it’s over 100 degrees outside, the beaches are festooned with dead fish, and the coral reefs are dying, but hey, that’s just summer in the Sunshine State!

Ronbo, who isn’t even good at gaslighting, wants you to believe this is all perfectly normal.

Christina Pushaw, longtime DeSantis aide, blows it all off: “Welcome to the rainy season.”

Pushaw, who must be a great disappointment to her former teachers, says, “Do not fall for the propaganda that it’s a new danger or we can stop hurricanes by eating bugs, banning cars, mandating lab grown meat etc.” Bless her heart.

Taking it out on Florida

Ronbo’s still hopping mad about how non-Florida America took one look at him last year and went, “Oh, HELL no!”

So he’s taking it out on Florida, vetoing stormwater mitigation programs and a bill, passed unanimously in the Legislature, requiring the Department of Health to close dangerously polluted beaches — what’s a little fecal coliform between friends?

He’s also chosen to torture agricultural and construction workers, signing a law forbidding cities and counties to institute protections for the 2 million Floridians who build the condos and pick the tomatoes in the increasingly monstrous heat.

No required water breaks. No required shade breaks.

Planetary warming is fake, right?

Skin cancer? Heat stroke? Whatever.

It’s more important to keep the campaign donors from Big Ag and Big Development happy.

And while we’re in banning mode, let’s take a sharpie to any book in any school library and black out the words “gender,” “gay,” “race,” “slavery,” “Big Bang,” “evolution,” “ocean acidification,” and “Gaza.”

Speaking of children, the state has also rejected woke federal money to help feed poor kids over the summer.

Food only encourages them.

Anyway, if the kids survive the heat and the hunger and make it back to school in the fall, their souls will be nourished by those PragerU videos, not only the climate denial epics, but the ones in which an animated Christopher Columbus tells two white kids slavery was better than being killed and Frederick Douglass says slavery was “a compromise to achieve something great: the making of the United States.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to suspect Ronbo and those chuckleheads at DO(Mis)E don’t really believe in learning.

Not the reality-based kind.

Less Pride, more Prejudice

I mean, (Mis)Ed Commissioner Manny Díaz Jr. put out a reading list for American Pride Month (not the rainbow kind, the USA! USA! kind) which includes Jane Austen’s great novel “Pride and Prejudice.”

Poor bugger. Did no one tell him 1. Jane Austen was not American; 2. The novel has nothing to do with America; and 3. The novel satirizes rich, self-righteous, ignorant conservatives?

Ronbo should read it. Maybe Casey can find him an abridged edition.

But he’s too busy bragging about how U.S. News and World Report ranks Florida “number one” in education.

Thing is, the ranking is based on factors like cheap college tuition and low rates of student debt.

Not actual education as in critical thinking, exposure to ideas your parents hate, learning the actual history of this country, the inspiring as well as the hideous parts, and understanding that science is evidence-based and employs what those elite expert types like to call “data.”

Universities — the decent ones — don’t want to admit students from schools forced to lie about what’s happening to the earth.

See, science doesn’t care what you believe.

You can believe the sun revolves around the earth, the Bible is the literal Word of God, and gravity is merely a theory, but that doesn’t make it accurate.

Try this experiment: Take a step off a second-story balcony. See what happens.

Or maybe refuse to get your child vaccinated against measles and stick her in a classroom with a measles-infected child.

See what happens.

Who cares?

You might remember earlier this year we had a rather scary measles outbreak here in the science-free state of Florida.

Our chief health officer, Quack General Joseph Ladapo, leapt into action with a shrug, telling parents to go ahead and expose unvaccinated kids to the disease.

The tough ones will probably survive.

Doctors in the reality-based community have responded to Ladapo with a mix of horror, embarrassment, and ridicule pointing out the Quack relies on studies that haven’t been peer-reviewed or vetted, with results that can’t be replicated.

He seems to think the COVID vaccine can get into your DNA and do something sinister to you.

That ain’t how it works. As one immunologist said, “You have better chance of becoming Spider-Man than being harmed by DNA from the COVID vaccines.”

As of June, 2024, 2,740 Floridians had died of COVID.

Dying of COVID is preventable.

Climate change cannot be halted in its humid tracks, but we can tackle the emissions that cause it.

Ronbo simply doesn’t want to. He’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Energy.

Who knows how many Floridians will die of heat-related illnesses?

Who knows how many houses will be destroyed and lives ruined in a hurricane super-sized by the increasingly warm waters of the Gulf and the Atlantic?

Who knows how many towns will wash away in Florida’s unprecedented rainfall.

Ronbo’s answer: Who cares?

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Related Topics:Christina Pushaw Featured Joseph Ladapo Manny Diaz Jr.Prager University ron desantis

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Florida

Train collides with fire truck in Florida. Police say 3 firefighters and several passengers hurt

Published

4 minutes ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — A high-speed passenger train collided with a fire truck at a crossing Saturday morning in Florida, injuring three firefighters and at least a dozen train passengers, authorities said.

Train collides with fire truck in Florida. Police say 3 firefighters and several passengers hurt

The crash happened at 10:45 a.m. in crowded downtown Delray Beach, multiple news outlets reported. The Brightline train was stopped on the tracks, its front destroyed, about a block away from the Delray Beach Fire Rescue truck, its ladder ripped off and strewn in the grass several yards away, The Sun-Sentinel reported.

The Delray Beach Fire Rescue said in a social media post that three Delray Beach firefighters were in stable condition at a hospital. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue took 12 people from the train to the hospital with minor injuries.

Emmanuel Amaral rushed to the scene on his golf cart after hearing a loud crash and screeching train brakes from where he was having breakfast a couple of blocks away. He saw firefighters climbing out of the window of their damaged truck and pulling injured colleagues away from the tracks. One of their helmets came to rest several hundred feet away from the crash.

“The front of that train is completely smashed, and there was even some of the parts to the fire truck stuck in the front of the train, but it split the car right in half. It split the fire truck right in half, and the debris was everywhere,” Amaral said.

Brightline officials did not immediately comment on the crash.

A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was still gathering information about the crash and had not decided yet whether it will investigate.

The NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightline’s high-speed trains that killed three people early this year at the same crossing along the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.

More than 100 people have died after being hit by trains since Brightline began operations in July 2017 — giving the railroad the worst death rate in the nation. But most of those deaths have been either suicides, pedestrians who tried to run across the tracks ahead of a train or drivers who went around crossing gates instead of waiting for a train to pass. Brightline has not been found to be at fault in those previous deaths.

Railroad safety has been a concern since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023, spilling toxic chemicals that caught fire. Regulators urged the industry to improve safety and members of Congress proposed a package of reforms, but railroads have not made many major changes to their operations and the bill has stalled.

Earlier this month the two operators of a Union Pacific train were killed after it collided with a semitrailer truck that was blocking a crossing in the small West Texas town of Pecos. Three other people were injured, and the local Chamber of Commerce building was damaged.

Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Chevel Johnson in New Orleans and Julie Walker in New York contributed.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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Florida

2024 Fall Report: Florida Gulf Coast • D1Baseball

Published

8 hours ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

2024 Fall Report: Florida Gulf Coast • D1Baseball

Fall Report
Walter Villa – December 28, 2024

In these days of baseball analytics, it’s time to create a new statistic for Dave Tollett, and, in his case, it’s 52 WA.

In other words, Tollett – in 35 years of coaching – has attended the weddings (WA) of 52 of his former players.

“When the young man wants you there on one of the most important days of his life,” Tollett said, “you know you’re doing something right.”

Tollett – the only coach in the history of the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles baseball program – has done a lot of things right as he prepares to enter his 23rd season at FGCU.

Over[…]

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Florida

Florida Lottery Mega Millions, Jackpot Triple Play results for Dec. 27, 2024

Published

16 hours ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

Florida Lottery Mega Millions, Jackpot Triple Play results for Dec. 27, 2024

The Florida Lottery offers several draw games for those hoping to win one of the available jackpots. Here’s a look at the winning numbers for games played on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024

Winning Mega Millions numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

03-07-37-49-55, Mega Ball: 06, Megaplier: 3

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Jackpot Triple Play numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

08-18-21-23-34-39

Check Jackpot Triple Play payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash4Life numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

10-11-21-28-51, Cash Ball: 04

Check Cash4Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Fantasy 5 numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Midday: 09-16-17-21-27

Evening: 04-07-11-31-35

Check Fantasy 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash Pop numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Morning: 15

Matinee: 11

Afternoon: 12

Evening: 07

Late Night: 11

Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 2 numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Midday: 8-9, FB: 6

Evening: 8-0, FB: 7

Check Pick 2 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 3 numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Midday: 2-3-9, FB: 6

Evening: 4-7-0, FB: 7

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Midday: 3-8-3-8, FB: 6

Evening: 5-5-0-3, FB: 7

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 5 numbers from Dec. 27 drawing

Midday: 0-8-9-4-2, FB: 6

Evening: 6-4-1-2-5, FB: 7

Check Pick 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Where can you buy Florida Lottery tickets?

Tickets can be purchased in person at any authorized retailer throughout Florida, including gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. To find a retailer near you, go to Find Florida Lottery Retailers.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize

Prizes of $599 or less: Claim at any authorized Florida Lottery retailer or Florida Lottery district office.
Prizes for $600 to $1 million: Must be claimed in person at any Florida Lottery district office for games that do not offer an annual payment option.
Prizes greater than $1 million and all prizes with an annual payment option: Must be claimed at Florida Lottery headquarters, except Mega Millions and Powerball prizes, which can be claimed at any Florida Lottery district office.

You also can claim your winnings by mail if the prize is $250,000 or less. Mail your ticket to the Florida Lottery with the required documentation.

Florida law requires public disclosure of winners

If you’re a winner, Florida law mandates the following information is public record:

Full name
City of residence
Game won
Date won
Amount won
Name and location of the retailer where the winning ticket was purchased.

When are the Florida Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 10:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 11 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
Florida Lotto: 11:15 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday.
Jackpot Triple Play: 11:15 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
Cash4Life: 9 p.m. daily.
Fantasy 5: Daily at 1:05 p.m. and 11:15 p.m.
Cash Pop: Daily at 8:45 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 2:45 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 11:45 p.m.
Pick 2, 3, 4, 5: Daily at 1:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Florida digital producer. You can send feedback using this form.

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