Prior to this week’s dining recommendation, a correction to our comments about the Ozona Pig a few weeks back. Their go-to irresistible dessert is not peach cobbler but another southern delicacy – banana pudding as we were reminded during a recent visit. Now, this week’s dining suggestion: (see back story in Jan. 1 RANTS) our kids’ favorite special occasion place – Outback. It’s hard to beat a good steak and, of course, a bloomin’ onion.

The art of selective reporting

First, to our knowledge, we have never met the director of the Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board, Rod Fisher. And all the local newspaper has written about him and his organization might, emphasis might, be true. But here's the rub. What is attributed to the board headed by Fisher can be found in numerous other county and city organizations across the bay area - supervisors playing favorites with certain employees, office romances and much more. But it goes unreported. It's kind of selective reporting - for what reason we don't know. It could be old scores to settle or "maybe we can get some sort of award" for this particular story. There can be numerous reasons why some things like this get coverage and others don't. We're just not sure the reasons are always honorable.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Taxi companies want TIA to change the way they charge the cabbies fees. As it now stands, they are charged a modest amount for every passenger who lands at TIA. Cab companies want to base it on actual fares carried out of the airport. There’s a reason the fees are set the way they are. The alternative would make it way too easy to “cook the books”.

2. Suffice to say that this blog and U.S. Rep. Kathy (still trading on Mom’s name) Castor and U.S. Senator Bill (empty suit) Nelson seldom agree on anything. But we appreciate their reaching across the aisle with Republicans in an effort to stop the ridiculous government proposals that would crush the Tampa cigar industry and put hundreds out of work.

3. Quote of the week from ultra liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren: I will not be silent while the Republicans rubber stamp an AG who will never stand up to the@POTUS when he breaks thelaw. True, unless POTUS happened to be a Democrat. Warren was notably silent on our most recent AG’s airport meeting with Bill Clinton. Now she is being portrayed as some sort of martyr by left wing pundits like Gail Collins and others.

4. Just once on Fox News Sunday, Meet the Press or 60 Minutes, when the host says “welcome to (fill in the show)”, wouldn’t you like to see the guest be honest and say “I really don’t want to be here”.

5. Ah, fan day at the Tampa Bay Rays. You could get an autograph from a Rays player if you are a season ticket holder. But you don’t have be a season ticket holder to buy one of their new $40 spring training caps. And we wonder why the Rays are the weakest draw in baseball.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. Add us to the long list of people who at 28-3 said “the heck with this, I’m going to get some shuteye”.

7. Word floating around major league baseball is that the Marlins have been sold for approximately $1.6 billion. There are two big howevers – (1) most reputable sources value the team at just slightly more than half that amount and (2) the purported purchaser is a little light in liquid assets -something that major league baseball looks at very closely.

8. Some push back on last week’s (RANTS – Feb. 5) list of five managers we would hire in that there was no mention of former Ray - Joe Madden, World Series winner. First, you or I could have managed the Cubs roster last year and won. And Joe is just a little too kooky for this baseball traditionalist. And perhaps we should have given some recognition to the Yank’s Joe Girardi who does a very good job under a huge microscope.

9. Our Rants and Raves focus group, comprised of four old, cranky people, made a recommendation over a year ago that a trap door spring open when a counting-challenged grocery patron tried to have the 11^th item rung up in the ten-item aisle. They now have another astute idea - a trap door that swallows up the entire car of someone who brings a transaction requiring more than three minutes to the drive-in teller.

10. You’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you ever dined at the Careless Navigator on Treasure Island – a first class restaurant.

This Bud is not for us

We guess Budweiser thinks they are off the hook for their commercial that continued to fan the fires of the immigration issue during the Super Bowl. Their explanation is the commercial was conceived long before the controversy over illegal immigrants. That is like saying we were already in the North Atlantic when we spotted the iceberg, so we did nothing. The company that used to warm our hearts with Clydesdales and spotted dogs should have put the brakes on the controversial commercial and perhaps substituted the ads America looked forward to each year. We are not beer drinkers but if we were, we would never touch a can of their sugar-laced alcohol again. This is what happens when an American company is gobbled up by foreign interests. And a coda to this story – thanks to Synovus, an American banking company based in Columbus, Ga., for including a Clydesdale in their commercial.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK – GOVERNOR JACK - WILL FLORIDIANS SALUTE THAT FLAG?