"The peak of your civilization..."

11:29 Tuesday, 20 May 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 88.92°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 36

"Read the whole thing," as we used to say, back in the day.

(A little spoiler: It wasn't 1999.)

This is why I think it's madness when I hear people like Eric Schmidt. Just another 90GW.

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Little Victories

05:48 Tuesday, 20 May 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 74.16°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 4.72mph
Words: 560

I've been mostly trying to distance myself from issues and events in Florida. From my point of view, Florida is a lost cause. It's mired in corruption, extreme partisan politics, and growing more vulnerable to our changing climate. It used to be a leader in good government, now it's little more than a bad joke.

But good things still happen, just not necessarily for the best reasons. Just before I left, people in St Johns County learned that 600 acres of conservation land near the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve would be "swapped" for various parcels of land throughout Florida, totaling about 3,000 acres, designating them as conservation land, which was intended to make the swap appear advantageous from the standpoint of land conservation in Florida.

Well, these 600 acres contained a section of property owned by the Gate Petroleum company in Jacksonville, owned by the Peyton family and former Jacksonville mayor, John Peyton. The Gate Corporation has been trying to develop that land for years, and a local grass roots organization, Save Guana Now, successfully fought them, preventing the land from being developed.

The land swap was proposed by a shadowy LLC, which probably includes the Gate Corporation, seeking another bite at the apple. "Shadowy LLC," because, well, that's Florida. Forget anything you ever heard about it being "the Sunshine State." Everything takes place out of the light.

The biggest deterrent to Gate Petroleum is that St Johns County is the third wealthiest county in Florida, and the highest median income county in Florida. Here's where the interests of environmentalists and rich homeowners align. There's a lot of money to be made in developing that land, but rich people don't want new neighbors. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," and so on.

The Mad Orange King's chief of staff is notionally Susie Wiles, a Jacksonville political operative who ran Trump's coronation, er, presidential campaign. I think Stephen Miller is Himmler and Susie is Borman if you're playing along at home. Miller sets the agenda for ethno-nationalism, while Susie controls access to the Mad Orange King.

Anyway, Susie spoke out against the land swap and the deal was tanked.

The whole thing stank, because there was little public notice about this proposal, and it would have been approved tomorrow at the meeting of a little known committee in Tallahassee. But someone spotted it and sounded the alarm.

The bullshit coming from the shadowy LLC's lawyers is hysterical.

“The applicant remains committed to preserving Florida’s natural habitat and supporting the state’s conservation efforts,” the statement reads. “In that regard, we look forward to continued conversations on the preferred method of preserving Florida’s conservation lands and how we may contribute to that critical goal.”

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Happy to see this happen, but it's emblematic of everything that's wrong with Florida. If that 600 acres wasn't located within that area of exclusive and expensive homes, it would have been developed in a heartbeat. The major reason why Florida has grown more vulnerable to climate risks, beyond the extremes of our changing climate, is that developers keep building more homes in environmentally sensitive, vulnerable areas. But that's Florida, owned and operated by the Republican Party of Florida for more than a generation.

You have to be crazy to live there, and if you aren't already, you will be.

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