Since 2002. Published Wednesdays and Saturdays
(Click here)
[Free Thanksgiving Dinner–Again!] Happy Thanksgiving from Coconuts! Family owned & operated for over 32 years. As always, Coconuts will be sharing a fine Thanksgiving feast with all our friends, there is no charge, there never has been one. Blessings from The “NUT” |
| In a recent Citizen article about Peary Court, I was quoted as being vehemently against the city going forward with its purchase. I would like to state the primary reasons behind my statement.
No one knows the approximate interest rate we would pay on the loan. We are constantly told 3.5%, but that is absurdly low. Given the inherent risks and uncertainties of the Peary Court repayment plan, it is unimaginable that a responsible lender would give the city a rate that is only half a percent above a Treasury bond for the same term. For comparison, a Collateralized Mortgage Obligation (CMO) would probably be the most similar financial instrument. Today’s Wall Street Journal shows that 20 year CMOs are issued at 150 or more basis points above a Treasury bond. That means the city would pay at least 4.52%. Increasing a $41m loan from 3.5% to over 4.5% is HUGE. That factor alone would necessitate either a large increase in rental prices or a significantly greater down payment subsidy from the city. No one knows if the financing will be for 20, 25 or 30 years. We can’t calculate how much it will cost to repay the debt when we don’t know how long we will have to repay it. No one knows the details about the Peary Court owners. In a proposed development contract between the Peary Court representatives and the city, there appear to be at least three levels of consultants, investors (including local, out of state and offshore) and management companies who are involved. Even the city’s own attorneys can’t identify the players. No one knows how the sales price number of $55 million was derived. Again, the city’s own attorneys can’t provide an answer that reasonably explains. They want us to believe that $55m just magically appeared out of thin air with no logic or reason, and everyone agreed to it. I am 100% in favor of the city providing affordable housing to needy citizens, but anyone who reads these points will understand there are more unanswered than answered questions about the Peary Court purchase. Until we have a concrete understanding of what it will cost and who we are dealing with, the entire matter needs to be postponed. |
This jewfish was hanging around my boat at the reef last week. |
| [Massive Erection] Congratulations to all residents, concerned citizens, and some County people who fought and prevented the massive erection of that corporate radio tower on Sugarloaf. Victories like that are heartening to win against a big corporation and sometimes County lacking accountability. |
Florida Wonderland |
| [Spam] I wish there was an app that would notify me what website or online business I did business with that sold my email address in order to send me spam. |
 I tell you, the mosquito population is so much reduced, with the new spermicide, that I just about forgot them. I remember way back when, in the summer, not being able to go outside my cabin to pee because of the mosquitoes, and having to pee in a jar instead. Pee-ew! |
| [Keys Gift Idea]Tabletop moonshine still. For the alcoholic who has everything. A great Christmas gift for the Keys diseased. Link |
This week is about getting together with family, having Thanksgiving dinner and trying not to be the one to clog the toilet. |
| [Anal Condo Associations] Some Florida condo owners are steaming after their homeowners association asked them to submit their dog’s DNA in order to fine owners who don’t pick up after their pets. A letter sent last week asked residents to register their dogs and cats with the association through a DNA test, citing a significant increase in the amount of animal feces found throughout the property recently, including inside the elevators. |
Painting by Susan O’Neill |
| Where not to stand at a rodeo. Video |
How to spot a terrorist in Amish country. |
| I have tried several times to read this history of Iraq on Wikipedia but just can’t get through it. If I can’t even read and understand it in the comfort of my living room how the hell are our enlisted troops supposed to understand what they are fighting for? Link |
To the person inquiring about the status of Kari Dangler. She is currently serving a sentence in the Monroe County Jail in Key West (Stock Island) and is scheduled for release sometime in April, 2016. I hope this helps. |
| [Chauvinist] I bought my wife a small laptop just for email and to search the web. Within one freaking week the poor machine looked like a kitchen junk draw and ran so slow it over heated. Never again will I let a woman near my computers and she is not even a blonde! |
[Spies Like Us] What ever happened to the eye in the sky towers built along US1 a few years ago? Do they do anything? |
| [Charlie Sheen Has AIDS] I was just watching Charlie Sheen interview with Matt Lauer. I watched him every day on 2 1/2 men. When he got fired, I realized it was just the same shtick over and over. Anger management was a total waste of time. Now I think he’s a piece of crap and not really worth saving. He wasn’t anywhere near humble before this. You’d think when you make 2.5 million dollars an episode you could have better whores. He just sounds desperate now. Now how funny is that brand of humor, glorifying stupid behavior? He sounds like he’s looking down the barrel of a gun. Link |
 [BOCC is Evil] The FKAA, as a contractor, has no legal rights to extort your property. They are doing exactly what the BOCC is paying them to do. The only way they can force you to give them rights to own your property is thru a taking [or fines]. Monroe County verbalized to me that if I refused they would just bypass my property and then the health department would condemned my property. It seems that Monroe County & the BOCC forgot that ‘We the People’ still are governed by something called the US Constitution (I think). Perhaps the Commissioners need to review Civics 101 and pay particular attention to the 14th Amendment. There’s this troublesome term due process of law. And then something called Civil Rights and Discrimination (oh, that ugly term) will come into play. But Monroe County doesn’t want to have to take thousands of individual citizens and taxpayers to court because then they would have to spend money defending their actions. Instead they would rather be spending it on their pork projects. Folks, the BOCC is evil and they have misappropriated your tax money. Isn’t it time we put a stop to these crimes? |
| [Good Muslims] If all Muslims are not bad Muslims and the good Muslims know who the bad Muslims are then if the good Muslims do not turn in the bad Muslims then all are bad Muslims under the law by aiding and abetting. |
[Mosquito Control] If the director is not doing a good job, don’t just take away his raise; send him back to Colorado where he came from. |
| [Refugees] Canada is now letting in thousands of refugees and they are giving them the same goodies as the US gives the Mexicans and the US is now housing Muslim refugees to. So when the Shiite hits the fan will the governments defend the rest of us or just give our countries to the invaders and walk away? Anybody have a large metal sail boat for sale? |
Anna Marie Giordano |
| Watch Bill Maher‘s chat with Stephen Colbert discussing ISIS. Video |
 Has anyone else noticed that US 1 radio does not sound as good as it did when they were broadcasting from Big Pine? The sound quality is not as good and every minute or two the sound goes out for a few seconds. I have to change stations as it is irritating to listen to. To make matters worse the County Commissioners denied them a building permit for a 200’ tower to send the signal from the new Sugarloaf studio to the transmitter. Next time we have a bad hurricane don’t count on US1 to be on the air like in Georges. If the internet power goes out they are done. Wish they would just move back to BPK so we can have a reliable source radio station. And thanks BOCC for taking away our lifeline in an emergency. |
| CO2 ends up in the ocean, increasing acidity levels are devastating pretty much everything in the ocean. The CO2 levels in the distant past have been way higher than they are now. I guess the ocean was just a toxic acid pit, so no life could evolve. If this is true, where did we come from? |
Deer Ed, I see Johnson Insurance moved from Tavernier to Islamorada on Saturday’s Coconut. You have a paid ad at the bottom with their old location. (Ed: Thanks for letting me know. I’ll change it now.) |
| How do you stretch a cruise ship? When you need to fix a boat Blohm + Voss in Germany is one of the best places in the world to go since 1877. Video |
ME: “France is bombing ISIS.” |
| [Solar Choice on the 2016 ballot] I’d sign it because the word ‘solar’ is on it, but they don’t say what the petition is for. Link |
 |
| [Jewish Conspiracy of Missing Breakfast] For all you people posting about Muslims, you need to take a look at Zionist Jews. Look real hard at Larry Silverstein. He had breakfast every morning at Windows Of The World on top of the Twin Towers, except one day; you guessed it–9/11. He said he an appointment with his dermatologist. I suppose his kids had an appointment as well. You need to quit getting your facts from the mainstream media. Follow the money sheeple! |
 |
| [Crooks] A new daycare program at Horace O’Bryant School cannot account for about $20,000 due to an employee’s failure to follow procedures. |
 A feeding female Anopheles stephensi mosquito, crouching forward and downward on her forelegs on a human skin surface, is seen in the process of obtaining its blood meal through its sharp, needle-like labrum, which it had inserted into its human host. California researchers hatch malaria-resistant mosquitoes and use a groundbreaking technology to ensure the insects pass on the protective gene as they reproduce. It has implications far beyond fighting malaria. |
| [This Month at United Way of the Florida Keys] Throughout the month of November, UWFK visited countless local businesses for campaign season, participated in the Monroe County Continuum of Care Providers Fair, moved to a new office, and educated the public about our work at the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Business Expo!
In other news this month, UWFK began selling raffle tickets! For $20, you could win a Publix gift card worth $1,000! All proceeds benefit UWFK food, education, and safety net programs. To buy a ticket, email kbauerjones@keysunitedway.org |
I watched this eagle flying over the mangroves this week. |
|
my tribe |
| [Critters] This cat wants to be an “only” when he knows there are many other pets in the house. He is beating up on another stray and peeing on the dogs new bed. Does anyone have any suggestions besides putting him in the den alone with the whisper lady? He has been a wonderful companion for a couple of years and just now needs a kitty shrink. My cat has been naughty and these videos help.
Gentle Whispering helps him be less neurotic. Video
Happy Thanksgiving and please be kind to animals, I guess, except for Turkeys and everyone at code enforcement and the building department. |
| NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary will hold a public meeting of the Sanctuary Advisory Council in Marathon, Fla., at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 8. The meeting agenda includes informative talks about water quality, a mooring buoy fundraising campaign, and the national saltwater recreational fisheries plan. |
A 212 hour exposure of Orion. |
| Top 10 most dangerous cruise destinations in the World. Link |
 [Bottle Police] Last Friday, Sea Center held their annual customer appreciation day with a bit of food and lots of bottled beer. It was a nice gesture, as they had cases and cases and cases of Bub Light in bottles.
What wasn’t so nice was that, once again this year, every single glass bottle but mine went to the landfill. I thought perhaps with our new huge recycle bins, they would use them, but they did not. I took my bottle home with me when I left and put it where it belonged. |
| Common tools explained. Link |
Just think, if the Indians had given the Pilgrims a donkey instead of a turkey we’d all be having a piece of ass this Thanksgiving. |
| What kind of music did the Pilgrims like? Plymouth Rock! |
 |
| [FKAA] It is another fraud. Infrastructure tax funds and our $4,500/EDU property assessment pays to construct a disastrously designed wastewater system that is absolutely certain to fail catastrophically and often in a few years when enough people are connected. Then, thanks to the terms of the Lease Agreement whereby FKAA leases the entire wastewater system from the County, it is FKAA’s responsibility to repair and probably replace the system… and to pay for it all with the sewer rates of everybody that is being billed by FKAA for wastewater. Meanwhile, the infrastructure tax monies can be used by the BOCC for “other stuff”, like acquiring new properties or making new commitments that will require more perpetual tax dollars to develop and maintain. If the Lease Agreement to FKAA did not exist, then infrastructure taxes could pay for the redesign and replacement of faulty sewers. The malfeasance in the implementation of this system is beyond imagination. The county can terminate the FKAA lease at any time, and that is what needs to happen- the sooner the better. FKAA has proven incapable of construction management or honesty and their continued involvement will cost us all. |
 [How The Internet Started, According To The Bible] In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the name of Dorothy, who went by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of breast, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called, slangly, Amazon Dot Com.
And she said unto Abraham, her husband, “Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?” And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a full camel load, but simply said, “How, dear?” And Dot replied, “I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS).” Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent. To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures – Hebrew to The People (HTTP). And the young men did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS. And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates’ drumheads and drumsticks. And Dot did say, “Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others.” And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known. He said, “We need a name that reflects what we are.” And Dot replied, “Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.” “YAHOO,” said Abraham. And because it was Dot’s idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com. Abraham’s cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot’s drums to locate things around the countryside. It soon became known as God’s Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE). That is how it all began. And that’s the truth. |
 |
| How to avoid buying ice bags for your fishing cooler ever again. Video |
Happy Thanksgivings to all my family and friends in the Florida Keys! |
| The Blue Angels will be flying at Boca Chica on April 2-3. They’ll put on a great show both days. |
[Free Bingo Thingy] Bingo system available. Free to the first taker. Bingo console, ball blower, number display board, connection cable and documentation. As is, needs minor repair. Call Bill at the Big Pine Key Moose Lodge 305-872 4063. |
| [Sewers] In case there’s someone around who still believes anything FKAA says about Cudjoe shallow wells, or anything else for that matter, please download this condensed 4 page Analysis of the last expensive well testing Report that FKAA presented as “proof” that the wells are “safe”. FKAA bought a testing report that has several serious errors and includes highly misleading statements and conclusions with no basis in fact. The testing actually proved nothing except that the injected sewage plant effluent is going to reach the surface waters… which is both illegal and counter-productive to improving water quality. FKAA strikes again. Link |
 Forgotten Felines of the Florida Keys will be holding its annual “Feed the Felines” fundraiser on Friday, December 4th from 8 a.m. til 8 p.m. The “call-a-thon” is designed to raise money to support the organization’s program that feeds and provides vaccinations, spay/neuter services, and medical treatment to homeless and abandoned cats in the Marathon/Lower Keys area. Of special note is the fact that local Marathon business owner, philanthropist, and animal lover Richie Moretti has pledged to match all contributions up to the amount of $5,000, so your donation can actually have double benefit.
To make a tax-deductible donation on that day, individuals and businesses can call (305) 743-6969 or (305) 743-2520 to make a pledge. Additionally, a check can be dropped off at the law offices of Richard E. Warner on Overseas Highway in Marathon or donate through PayPal at keys forgottenfelines.org. Forgotten Felines is an all-volunteer organization which provides food and veterinary care to homeless and abandoned cats in the Middle and Lower Keys. They also place adoptable cats in loving homes and strive to educate the public about the importance of proper care and spay/neuter of pets. In the nearly two decades of its existence, Forgotten Felines has spayed/neutered more than 3,000 cats. They also maintain a number of daily feeding stations which service several hundred homeless cats. |
[High cost of Drugs] Pfizer, Allergan $160B deal forms world’s largest drugmaker that will not be good for any of us. |
| Deer Ed, Please list Keys Boat Tours in your Boat Charters business listings. Thanks very much! Capt. Brian 305-699-7166. Business Directory > Boat Charters/Rentals |
 |
| This Saturday after you visit the Big Pine Flea Market come on over to the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce Island Art Festival. Vendors have everything from glass art to jewelry, clothing to paintings, home accessories to leather goods. Come out to the Chamber grounds from 9am – 2pm, MM 31, Big Pine Key and browse the booths, grab a bite to eat and enjoy some great local entertainment. Free admission. There are also vendor spaces still available. Call for more info 305-872-2411. |
The tide was so high Monday that these great white herons had to wait in the mangroves before they could go fishing ads their legs are too short for high tides. And just right for me to take this beautiful photo. |
| Anne Frank and her family were also denied entry as refugees to the U.S. I thought you might like this story from The Washington Post. Link |
Happy bird-day to you, |
| [No Name Key Sewers] It’s just greed, not concern for the environment or the people. We saw the County Commission decide to proceed with putting sewer grinder pumps on No Name Key and to hell with those who are not on KEYS electric. Tough if it costs them a bundle to power the pumps with alternative energy. Meanwhile, Pigeon Key is still on a cesspit that was confirmed to be leaching into the surrounding water. Pigeon Key is advertising that it can house 70 guests overnight. All 70 flushing along with the day visitors into the cesspit that could have been a grinder pump station pushing the crap to Marathon’s system. Difficulty and high expense is okay for constituents, but not for the County. Meanwhile, 2-3 months ago, FKAA’s Board voted to approve payment of connection fees to Marathon’s sewers, but have not lifted a finger to actually connect and abandon the cesspits their Marathon offices use now. Hypocrites. |
 |
| What is it with these employers that say you have to “pass the drug” test, then never give you any drugs to pass? Puff-puff pass. Everybody knows that. |
 [FTR] A poster woofed that those who are worried about Islamic fundamentalism and the danger that it poses to our shores are “xenophobic” and “stupid.” The poster lectured us that no mass murders have been committed on our shores in the name of “Daes/Isis.” The poster lectured that those who believe to the contrary are “stupid.”
To quote Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does”. Deer friends that poster is dead wrong. Stupidly wrong. Thousands of Americans have been killed on our shores by radical Islamic fundamentalists. The tag they wear when they kill means not a damned thing. AQI, ISIS, ISIL, etc. etc. etc. are but different badges on the same beast, ala GM and Chevrolet trucks. (continued on the National Politics page…) |
| Submit anything but National Politics to island@bigpinekey.com For National Politics go directly to that page, log in, and post your comment. NATIONAL POLITICS |
