"Come Saturday morning, I'm going away with my friend..."

This is the first time in soooooo long I've actually enjoyed letting the windows up. The cool air feels soooooo good, and hopefully it will help my electric bill...but then reality sets in, because my utility is Lakeland Electric, one of the most expensive in Florida. But it'll be nice to walk a few blocks to Mickey D's and pick up a small breakfast in just a bit.

--- Mel Martinez may end up wishing he had never brought up the name Sami Al-Arian. After he tried to smear Betty Castor with inaction in his case while president at USF, she has been running ads featuring photos of the accused terrorist meeting with President Bush at the White House years later...when evidence against him was much stronger than when Ms. Castor was at USF. The President was rewarding Al-Arian for his work campaigning on his behalf among Muslim groups. Remember: Mel Martinez was chairman of Bush's 2000 Florida campaign.

Now Jeb! is getting into the fray, claiming Ms. Castor has stepped over the line, but the Gov has his own ties to Professor Al-Arian to explain. Read it all in today's Orlando Sentinel

--- Thanks to Mark Lane at Flablog for the link (I tried to find this on my own last night and was fustrated) to the latest Washington Post polling information on Florida. There were two seperate polls, one of overall voters, and a seperate poll of Hispanics. Some really revealing numbers here, especially among Hispanics. It goes to show you that we simply cannot afford to lump all Latinos into one basket.

--- If you get severely ill, you had better pray that you don't end up at Heart of Florida Regional Medical Centre in Davenport. No, there's nothing wrong with the quality of care, but you'll likely suffer a heart attack when you get the bill. HFH has the highest average daily charge last year among Polk County hospitals, adjusted by the state to reflect comparative severity of illness. That is according to a new report by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. It's acute care patients are charged an average of $6,224 a day, more than 71% more than the next highest, Lake Wales Medical Centre.

--- The Lakeland Ledger began printing it's candidate endorsements today (it had earlier in the week made it's endorsements on the amendments). Today and Monday they are announcing their picks for the four Polk County Commission races. So far, they are two-for-two in favour of the Republican incumbants, with Bob English in District 1 and Jack Myers in District 3, for no other good reason than to keep the experienced players in the game. But if you've got commissioners who haven't stepped up to the plate, haven't provided necessary leadership when it's been imperative, provided only drama with infighting among each other and with constitutional officers, and simply kept themselves in power by sucking on the breasts of the Builders and Developers Associations, isn't it time for a sweeping change? Apparantly the Ledger editorial board feels the status quo is OK for them. I would have expected this from the Polk County Democrat, a notably conservative twice-weekly out of Bartow which endorsed all four Republicans this week (also Paul Senft in District 4 and Sam Johnson in District 5) as expected (as did it's co-owned Lake Wales News and Fort Meade Leader).

--- And it's always nice to put in a positive note here. The Ledger this morning led with a feature about a marketing class at Lake Region High School in Eagle Lake that mixed learning the art of marketing with getting involved by helping out an LRHS graduate who has an aggressive, rare form of cancer.