Friday's Daily Pulse
Participants Sign up for Real-life Florida 'FarmVille'
FarmVille, Facebook's most popular game, allows millions to till digital soil and trade products in a virtual market. Now, University of Florida faculty are bringing social networking to real-life agriculture, and they want players. "Social networking is changing our personal lives and the business world in ways that we could have never predicted a few years ago," said Allen Wysocki, an associate professor of food and resource economics at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. "It only makes sense to bring that to agriculture." [Source: UF News]
» RELATED: Florida MarketMaker
Boeing Plans Space Taxis by 2015
The Boeing Co. plans to be ready to fly commercial space taxis from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station by 2015 and soon will decide where the spacecraft will be manufactured and assembled. Four test flights -- including three from the Space Coast -- are targeted to launch in late 2013 and 2014. Florida is competing with Alabama, Texas and Nevada for various parts of the spacecraft work. The number of jobs is still to be determined. Decisions on where work will be done are expected within three months. [Source: Florida Today]
Video Rendering of Boeing/Bigelow Crew Space Transport Vehicle:
OPINION: End Stalemate over Job-creation Bill
The Senate, to its credit, managed to overcome the bitter partisanship that divides the chamber on two important votes Thursday. First, senators voted 61-39 to approve legislation that saves the jobs of 300,000 public workers -- including teachers, firemen and police -- thanks to two Republicans voting with Democrats to break a GOP filibuster. Later, five Republicans voted to confirm Elena Kagan as a new justice on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for a pending bill that would create a desperately needed $30 billion government fund to help community banks increase lending to small businesses. Partisan discord has made it nearly certain that the Senate will adjourn for the customary August recess this weekend without giving this bill the straight up-or-down vote that it deserves. [Source: Miami Herald]
Grand Jury Calls Jackson a Big 'Mess'
Jackson Health System is a "colossal mess" that must be governed in a new way, a Miami-Dade grand jury said Thursday in a much-anticipated report after six months of investigation. "Those who had the responsibility of running this institution, as well as those who had the duty of oversight, have been irresponsible, complacent and reckless, and blindly relied on financial misstatements," the report said. [Source: Miami Herald]
» Children Facing Spill Stress Too [AP]
» Florida Builder Sues over Oil Spill [Florida Today]
» Oil's Economic Fallout Easing up in Florida [Miami Herald]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
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Award to Bring Top Tech to Tiny Myakka [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
A tiny Internet provider based in Myakka City has landed a long-shot federal award of nearly $8 million that will enable it to live up to its "Broadband to the Boonies" motto. Myakka Technologies requested the money as part of a federal stimulus program designed to give an economic and educational boost to the nation's rural areas.
› Busy Times for EA's Tiburon Studio [Orlando Sentinel]
Many of the rooms inside EA's Tiburon studios were dimly lit Thursday as workers played video games. Some met in hallways decorated with football jerseys. Others gathered around a circular conference table filled in the middle with hundreds of colorful plastic balls like a bounce house. Despite the playful atmosphere, EA's mission is a deadly serious business, as workers each day wrestle with sound, image, design and, of course, the fun factor, for some of EA's most successful sports video games.
» RELATED: Electronic Arts Tiburon
› Navy Vets Charity Founder Isn't Who He Says [St. Petersburg Times]
Lt. Cmdr. Bobby Thompson, who founded the U.S. Navy Veterans Association in Tampa in 2002, isn't named Bobby Thompson after all, and now stands accused of stealing that name from an unsuspecting resident of Washington state. "Our investigators have determined that this individual stole the identity of someone else and used that as a centerpiece of an apparent scam that has continued for seven years and involved tens of millions of dollars," said Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. "We don't know who this individual is yet, but we do know that he is not Bobby Thompson."
› Stripper Finds For-profit Degree Wasn't Worth It [Bloomberg]
Carrianne Howard dreamed of designing video games, so she enrolled in a program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, a for-profit college part-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered. These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma.
› Land Preservation Program Takes Hit [Florida Today]
When property values wane, so does preservation. Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands program faces almost $2 million in cuts over the next two years as the tax base continues to wilt under the housing slump and NASA layoffs. The cuts would close EEL's flagship visitor center, put two-thirds of the program's trails off limits, halt all its land buys, increase fire risk and lay off more than half the EEL staff, officials say.
› OPINION: McCollum v. ObamaCare [Wall Street Journal]
'The brazen nature of this administration is undermining the basic rule of law, the confidence of the public, and taking away states' authority—creating an ever stronger federal government. My role is to make clear we're not going to put up with this." So says Bill McCollum, Florida's attorney general, now vying to be governor of the Sunshine State. It wasn't so very long ago that the job of a Republican governor was to promise lower spending, policies to encourage job growth, freedom in education, tax relief.
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› After Budget Cuts, Staffers Get New Jobs at Higher Pay [Miami Herald]
Miami City Commission Chairman Marc Sarnoff ordered furloughs and cut staffers to get his budget under control, but two of his employees have landed higher-paying jobs elsewhere in the city. Both former staffers now work at the city agency created to attack inner-city blight, the Community Redevelopment Agency. The recent job shifts add to a series of questions involving the CRAs and potential abuse of agency funds.
› Plum Creek Looking to Industrial Development [Florida Times-Union]
Plum Creek, the biggest timberland owner in Florida, is branching out into industrial development. Today, company executives will join state and local officials from Columbia County for speeches and a panel discussion about converting land owned by Plum Creek into a hub for distributing cargo that flows through global trade.
› Small Business Owners Fret over Health-care Reform Law [Gainesville Sun]
A lobbyist told small business owners and consultants that his organization is leading the legal challenge against the health-care reform law that he says will stifle their growth -- even while urging them to prepare to comply with the law. Bill Herrle, Florida executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, told about 20 people some of how the law will affect small businesses. He also encouraged them to get involved in NFIB's efforts to overturn the law.
› Fiat Returning to U.S., Looking to Open Florida Dealerships [Orlando Sentinel]
Italian automaker Fiat is recruiting dealers to sell Fiat products in 41 states — including Florida — with sales beginning in December for the Fiat 500, and a convertible version of the 500 in 2011. Current Chrysler dealers will have "preference," said Chrysler in a statement, over non-Chrysler dealers who want to sell Fiats.
› Jacksonville Community Council to Conduct Employment, Economic Growth Study [Florida Times-Union]
Jacksonville Community Council Inc. will conduct a study beginning in October that will explore ways for Northeast Florida to quickly create jobs and get in position for long-term economic growth. Titled "Recession Recovery and Beyond: Job Creation, Employment and Improving Northeast Florida's Competitiveness," the study will take 25 weeks and will include fact-finding visits to seven counties in the region. Elaine Brown, incoming president of the Northeast Florida Regional Council and former Jacksonville City Council president, will chair the project.
› Disney Volunteers Produce Musical Extravaganza for Charity [Orlando Sentinel]
It has been three decades since Clay Price and his twin brother Cliff produced variety shows for their parents and neighbors in tiny Wrightsville, Ga. They created a stage of sorts around the family fireplace and rigged curtains out of bed sheets. Back then, a big night meant a half-dozen grown-ups in the audience. Tonight, the brothers could bring in close to 1,400. And that's just the opener.
› 'Make or Break' Lobster Season for Florida Keys [Miami Herald]
Gary Nichols built Nichols Seafood of Conch Key from scratch in the 1970s with a crashed boat headed to the junkyard and scrap wood scavenged from a dump to make traps. On Friday, the 53-year-old begins his 38th spiny lobster season. It's a "make or break" season for his family business that now includes his 26-year-old daughter as captain of his second boat. The Nichols are optimistic that prices will be much better than last season's abysmal going rate of around $3 a pound on the global market, about the same price Gary Nichols said he got 30 years ago on the South Florida mainland.
› Electricity Usage Statewide Expected to Continue to Rise [Palm Beach Post]
Demand for electricity is projected to continue to increase in Florida over the next decade, but at a slower rate than previously predicted, an official with the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council said. In 2009 there was a decrease in the forecast growth due to the recession and lower customer growth for utilities, he said. Customers also reduced the amount of electricity they consumed. Energy efficiency, such as appliances that use less energy, also played a role.