Stogie's Oscar Picks

Best Picture: Lincoln
Actor In A Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln"
Actress In A Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Actor In A Supporting Role: Robert De Niro, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Actress In A Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway, "Les Misérables"
Directing: Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln"
Foreign Language Film: "No" (Chile)

In Defence Of The Cuban Tomato

“On my dinner plate, there are not any tomatoes and there are not any potatoes,”....Yoani Sánchez

This is not true. I was in Cuba Feb. 2007. Not only were they plentiful but smelled and tastes wonderful.
 I could not stop  bragging about them after i got home.

Friends Of Stogie

At Gaspar's Patio in Temple Terrace

Small business owners bash Hillsborough Commission

Hillsborough County Commissioners approved a $6 million road project that will rein in a Bass Pro Shop in Brandon. During their meeting Wednesday, 12 supporters of small business spoke in opposition to the subsidy. Bill Place, owner of Ace Golf stores in the Tampa Bay area, was disappointed in the commission’s decision, but not surprised.

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“I mean, if you were required to pay for those improvements like many other businesses have been required to pay for your own improvements. It would just blow me away that you would walk away from this opportunity for $6.25 million.”..... Kevin Beckner

What Stogie Had For Lunch

Ropa Vieja With Moro And Yuca
$6.50 At LA Teresita Grocery, 3302 W Columbus Dr, West Tampa

Yoani Sanchez: Trade Embargo A Failure

what she’s had to say as the world’s best known critic of the Castro regime that was the most controversial, at least in the United States. She’s urged the end of the U.S. government’s trade embargo against her homeland, calling it a failure. she called the embargo “a fossil of the Cold War that does not have any sense in the modern world in which we live.” She added that its existence gave the Cuban government “the best argument . . . to explain its ineffective economy.”
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Cuba Journal is reporting that Secretary of State, John Kerry, is reviewing policy that could pave way for renewed relations.
here

Help, end the war on the Cuban people, they are being held hostage by a small minority in South Florida. End The Embargo, Stop The MCM.

Rick Scott Wants To Eliminate Business Tax

Ybor City Fiesta Day 2013

Fiesta Day is a free, family-oriented “street festival.”  Celebrated for 66 years, it features ethnic food and entertainment along famed Seventh Avenue.  Fiesta Day started out as a “verbena” or day of rest for the immigrant, cigar workers who settled Ybor City from Spain, Cuba and Italy.

info

Owlcatraz In Boca Raton

“It is so exciting to now have a name for our beautiful stadium, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than by way of philanthropy. This gift is a true representation of The GEO Group’s incredible generosity to FAU and the community it serves. It is especially meaningful because George Zoley, GEO’s chairman, is a two-time FAU alumnus and former chair of our Board of Trustees.”..... FAU President Mary Jane Saunders

here

The GEO Group, which runs especially controversial prisons and wants to name Florida Atlantic's football stadium, tried to scrub abuse allegations from Wikipedia. The internet struck back.

here

Friends Of Stogie

In Tampa

Corporate Welfare In Tampa Bay

Hillsborough County commissioners approve $6.25M subsidy for Bass Pro Shops

Hillsborough County commissioners have approved spending $6.25 million to bring a Bass Pro Shops store to the Brandon area. The vote was 6-1 with

Commissioner Kevin Beckner casting the only "no" vote.

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Again Mr. Beckner does the right thing. Remember these other folks come election time. We can start here
Mary Mulhern, for Hillsborough County Commission, District 7

Tampa Bay Bridges Are Falling Down

I-275 & Cypress St.
Florida Has 304 Structurally Deficient Bridges, Five Of Them Are In Tampa Bay.
Johns Pass over Boca Ciega Bay - I-275 & Kennedy Blvd.
Crosstown Expressway & SR 585 - SR 39 over the Hillsborough River (Has been rebuilt)
I posted this back on August 2, 2007 with all the talk in DC right now on our Infrastructure, here it is again.

here

The Llong Arm That Controls Them From Havana

In Spanish
Brazil’s most influential magazine, Veja, published a story this weekend alleging that Cuban diplomats were working with Brazilian leftists to organize protests against Sánchez during her stops in the country, where she is expected to stay for a week.

Viva Florida 500

In 2013, Florida reached a significant milestone, the 500th anniversary of Juan Ponce de León's arrival on Florida's east coast. What makes this anniversary so unique is that Ponce de León's convoy of explorers was the first group of Europeans to document such a landing and give a name to Florida—La Florida.

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.City of Tampa's 25th Annual Black History Celebration .

The Miami Cuban Mafia

La Familia
here
Help, end the war on the Cuban people, they are being held hostage by a small minority in South Florida.
Stop The MCM.

Friends Of Stogie

At Gaspar's Patio in Temple Terrace

The Sugar Reform Act

You don't normally see DWT championing bills introduced by anti-Choice fanatic and far right extremist Joe Pitts (R-PA). But when he introduced H.R. 693 last week, a new day of bipartisanship may not have dawned. Congress has tackled this before but between Fanjul DC consiglieres Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the legislation has always been derailed. Now the grotesquely corrupt Wasserman Schultz has accumulated even more power than ever before and she is working assiduously to shore up the interests of her benefactors, regardless of what it costs the very people who vote her into office year after year after year.

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Yoani Sanchez: Rude Welcome In Brazil

Small groups of protesters met Sanchez when she arrived earlier Monday at two airports in Brazil's northeast. They called her a "mercenary" who was being financed by the CIA and tossed photocopied U.S. dollar bills her way. One protester got close enough to pull her hair.

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At Cuba Journal
At Babalu
 "Send out mobs of thugs to yell insults and physically threaten your opponents."
Wait isn't that what the anti-Castro folks in South Florida do to pro-Castro people all the time?

Stogie Recommends: Hubris The Iraq War Hoax

Hubris: New Documentary Reexamines the Iraq War Hoax

A decade ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq that would lead to a nine-year war resulting in 4,486 dead American troops, 32,226 service members wounded, and over 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians. The tab for the war topped $3 trillion. Bush did succeed in removing Saddam Hussein, but it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and no significant operational ties between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda.

here

I was never fooled ny the Neo-Cons or the MSM back then. I started this effort on March 19, 2003 to try to show my friends and family the mistake we were about to make. Now here we are 10 years later. Thank You to Rachel Maddow,  Michael Isikoff
and David Corn for their efforts.
Howard Dean's Statement

I Want A Job With Citizens Property Insurance

As Insurance Premiums Rose, Citizens Execs Got Big Raises

>Traveling and dining at four-star locations across the globe.
>Weekends at a $633-a-night resort in Bermuda.

> booze-filled company outings. Dinner at Ocean Prime, an upscale seafood and steak restaurant that boasts of "an award-winning wine list." The tab: $918.34 for seven or eight officials, who dined on gourmet meals and gulped down $369 worth of Grey Goose vodka and red wine.
here
All on the company credit card. Sounds good to me, where do i apply? 

Melinda Gayle McCready RIP

How Sad
November 30, 1975 – February 17, 2013
Fort Myers, Florida
We have lost one of our own.I will miss her.

Marco Rubio Water Bottle

No Tiene Vergüenza

Republican Marco Rubio of Florida., has hauled in some serious cash since his water sipping moment Tuesday during the Republican response to the State of the Union. Reclaim America, Rubio's PAC, has raised more than $100,000 by selling more than 3,450 water bottles since Wednesday. the white water bottles, which bear the name "RUBIO" in bright red letters, come with a minimum donation of $25.

"Send the liberal detractors a message that not only does Marco Rubio inspire you … he hydrates you too," 

here

Pic thanks All Hat No Cattle

The Citrus Taliban: Hillsborough County Bigots

We all know someone who lives within Hillsborough County's borders. We should feel sympathy for those people, regardless of their sexual orientation, for having to live under the leadership of uninformed individuals only act as if they truly care about the well-being of all of Hillsborough County's residents.Four commissioners became tools of the far-right group The Florida Family Association,

Plans to unseat the four dissenting commissioners have already began
Steve Blanchard