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just returned from an over nighter to the old historic city of st augustine, florida...last time there was about 20 years ago.

happy to report that not much has changed. only negative i noticed was that there is now a way over priced hotel down town ...understand, rate for a night is $500, plus...and for what?

on the positive side, there are at least two relatively new and highly recommended restaurants in the historic district. the first is harry's, for lunch, where one will experience a new orleans style sound and menu. and then there is the columbia restaurant, a spin off of the original spanish/cuban style columbia restaurant, originally opened in 1906, in the ybor city section of tampa...used to be forced to go there with my family in the fifties...wish i would have appreciated it more when i was a kid...the food, service and atmosphere at the columbia in st augustine, is in a word: superb!


following are links:

https://hookedonharrys.com/

and

http://www.columbiarestaurant.com/st_augustine.asp

hope this thread helps some of you trapped in the jaws of winter to escape, even if for just a little while.

This is off topic, but it was also off topic where your pal King posted it in the "Is Obama a Closet Muslim?" thread. I thought you might like it here ed.

"I think our wires crossed on this one. I was referring to the kill-anyone-you-don't like, Americans or Muslims anywhere. You were referring to Obama's moral equivalency at the prayer meeting. His apparent absolution, the Christian hypocrisy etc made me wonder if it wasn't addressed to Tehran, not the general public. I negotiate with power through media all the time.

My Feb. 6 op-ed in the provincial newspaper of record, splashed black headline across top page "N.S. forestry sector hangs by a thread" drew comments from friends "Do you think the public will understand it?" Long pause when my response was it was peripherally for the general public, and aimed at the dozen or so suits who run everything, mostly outside government.

The conservative party leader invited me to address caucus this week. Also scheduled is Liberal caucus. Big Bug response in the forest and energy industries has been great, not the least shareholders raising hell with boards and management. All it took was plain old reporting. I don't know how to send image of the by-lined story but here's my negotiating-in-public copy:

"Forestry makes the case for Ray Ivany�s remedy to get Nova Scotia back on its feet. Overcoming what�s going on in our heads is as critical as raising capital, finding markets and making products. The industry is currently so finely balanced a decision in Shanghai could shut it down within 30 days, according to government and industry estimates. But there�s no sense of urgency, not a peep in the legislature, no discussions in party caucuses, no letters to the premier or DNR minister.

The industry is almost anonymous, one sector not speaking to the other and usually in their own interests. Environmental groups rarely offer solutions within a broader public interest of markets, the entire underpinning of our $500 million forest economy. The sole exception is the confidence and intelligent fertility exhibited by all provincial woodlot owner organizations meeting monthly for the last two years to initiate post-pulp-and-paper programs to strengthen our second-biggest GDP contributor employing 10,000 persons.

Our lassitude is killing a great opportunity. Everything looks jim dandy now. But improving lumber prices and markets, lower dollar, interest rates and oil prices, wood flying from our forests and biomass spinning turbines for electricity are masking a structural weakness as serious as removing a suspension cable from the Angus L. Macdonald bridge. Biomass alone is not working as it should in Port Hawkesbury. Our worst fears are being realized.

More serious is the precarious position of Northern Pulp and its relationship with dozens of lumber mills. Under heavy government and public pressure to fix environmental problems, including cutting practices, its Chinese owner says the company is paying $30 million more for its wood than newer equivalent-sized mills in western Canada (with larger trees and cutting blocks than here). The Province has cut NP off from further financial assistance. Consequences of lower costs at one of its other four Canadian mills appear obvious.

What is not speculative in this scenario is the result of NP closure, for which our organization initiated a regional transformative strategy a year ago to strengthen mills now dependent on the industry-lynchpin NP as a market for their sawdust and chips. Without that market or some technological fix--- a cellulose plant perhaps---to absorb and pay for mill residue they are facing closure by all accounts within a month. Their interdependence also includes an NP exchange of logs from its forests to the mills for chips.

Consider the consequences of Port Hawkesbury Paper taking their sawdust and chips, the sole source of supply for most pulp and paper mills. PHP is in great shape as one of the largest and fastest mills of its kind in the world with a supercalander-paper niche, arguably the most efficient mill in North America (in part because the owner bought it for practically nothing). It could get all the chips it needs at reduced price. It would not buy roundwood from private woodlot owners, who would be left out of the industry.

The irony is landowners have implemented programs and a strategy to turn Nova Scotia into the greenest and most sustainable forest constituency on the continent, restrained only by an ennui-soaked polity. There�s no lack of political will, only advocacy to back it. The Province delegated its private lands responsibilities to our association to make a pilot program for all of Cape Breton. Ottawa, citing our work as a �model for the world,� is providing start-up money. The international Rainforest Alliance�, founder of the Forest Stewardship Council� certification system, chose eastern Nova Scotia landowners for the 2014 Sustainable Standard Setter Award, �to provide global recognition to industry champions who have the vision to make sustainability a priority and the dynamism to make it a reality.�

Landowners are continuing what is now provincial policy by setting up a second Service Area comprising Guysborough, Antigonish, and Pictou counties, autonomous but similar to the successful Cape Breton Privatelands Partnership, financially self-sustaining within five years, at a total annual cost of $900,000 including 10 persons to provide woodlot owners over half the province with extension and management planning and support, FSC� certification, harvest and silviculture inspections and access to recommended contractors and references. We can�t keep up with demand.

One freshly cut green tonne from our private woodlots provides $143 to our GDP, $411 in manufactured goods and sales, $14 to provincial taxes. The cost of doing what we should be doing for our forests over half the province doesn�t come near what governments shell out for acknowledged pleasures of a rink and mega concerts on the Halifax Commons, without the Black Eyed Peas. But that�s Nova Scotia, isn�t it? Mr. Ivany politely asked us to remove the �psychological barriers� from our heads.

Kingsley Brown is president of the Nova Scotia Landowners and Forest Fibre Producers Association."



Your buddy King will probably be along soon to tell us how he got shot down over St. Augustine in a helicopter by Florida Seminoles with RPG's.

Why do you think King is too chicken to comment on fellow Journalist Brian Williams Lies ed?

well keith, we can certainly agree on your opening statement above:

"this is off topic"...

and a tip, if you really wish to communicate with others, you need to take a creative writing course, where one of the skills you will learn is brevity. no one really cares what others have to say and like me, do not have the patience to wade thru your verbose rhetoric...

in other words, what the hell is it that you are trying to say here? and who cares anyway, so make it brief, succinct and to the point, please...otherwise, your posts are soooo boring.

ed, this was King Brown's verbose and boring words. I thought perhaps you might be a little homesick for his attempts to take threads off topic, so I copied and pasted them here for you.

Are you saying that nobody really cares about King's attempts at self-aggrandizement?

Where is your gratitude and appreciation for bloviating?

keith: it sounded so much like so much of your verbose nonsense that i naturally thought it was of your creation...and the fact that you are now apparently quoting king word for word sounds obsessive, similar to mikies lets ban ed fetish...

tell us where you are an how much snow you got?

If I included a bunch of lies and anti-2nd Amendment rhetoric, I'll bet you would have known it was from King.

You don't seem at all concerned about King's obsessive posting of Liberal Socialist lies and Bullshit and his support for anti-gun politicians like you yourself exhibit. Why is that?

And why do you suppose King has avoided comment on the serial lies of fellow Libtard Journalist Brian Williams? Do you think Brian Williams should have stuck with some other Bullshit like claiming that he took Jackie Kennedy on lunch dates, or maybe wrestling and getting frisked by Dr. MLK?

I'm in the United States and we have about a foot of snow on the ground with a little more on the way. It's about 15 degrees right now, but the snow slumped quite a bit when we got above freezing the last couple days. Typical of February weather here all my life, and no sign of global warming yet.

Enjoy your vacation my friend.

keith: if you can, escape and come to florida...life is good here...

and you are not my friend.

I happen to like the snow and winter ed. I've been down South and it was nice to visit, but I'll remain right here.

And I'm the closest thing you have to a friend here. I kindly let you know how stupid and annoying you are so that you might attempt to change your ways. Buddy.

I sure hope none of those young criminally inclined minorities has disabled your alarm system and stolen your guns while you are away. I didn't think it was too smart of you to advertise your name and the fact that you'd be going on a long trip on the internet. You do have insurance, don't you?

Enjoy your vacation ed.

keith; only a mean spirited malcontent like yourself would bring up this topic. but then should i expect otherwise from a child like creature? anyway, unlike you, i am an adult... when i leave my room, the bed is made and my clothes are put away..and when i shut down for the winter i take precautions...

pipes are drained down and antifreeze is in the traps.

all valuables, including firearms are off premises and in secure storage. plus, local and state policemen are among my good and watchful neighbors.

i figure you do not consider policemen as friends, like i do...but keith, do you have any friends, like at school or in your neighborhood?

It sounds like you took all precautions ed, including telling the whole world via the internet that you would be out of town until April. Smart... very smart.

I wonder how many people know about your "secure" storage, and just how secure it really is. Maybe you moved everything you own to Ft. Knox, but I doubt it.

You are my only friend ed. I have no others. That's why I don't want you to worry about your precious valuables after you informed every creep and crackhead on the internet that your house is open for business. It was considerate of you to drain the pipes for them. Are they copper or did you go cheap and use plastic?