Letters to the editor with pictures since 2002.
Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.
The Un-social Media with 60,000 Followers
D-Day, June 6, 1944, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Link |
 [Landing Nose on a Bar Stool] Incredible jet landing on an aircraft carrier. AV-8B Harrier jet with no front gear landing on the USS Bataan. This is one creative way to land this plane. The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) AV-8B Harrier II is a single-engine ground-attack aircraft that constitutes the second generation of the Harrier Jump Jet family. Capable of vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL), the aircraft was designed in the late 1970s as an Anglo-American development of the British Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational V/STOL aircraft. Named after a bird of prey, it is primarily employed on light attack or multi-role missions, ranging from close air support of ground troops to armed reconnaissance. Video |
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[Fatsos] Is the courtroom where they put all the too fat cops to act as bailiffs? They can’t run or gewt out of their cop cars fast enough to catch a bad guy so they put them in the courtroom. |
| [Friday Joke] A husband and wife who work for the circus go to an adoption agency looking to adopt a child, but the social workers there raise doubts about their suitability. So the couple produces photos of their 50-foot motor home, which is clean and well maintained and equipped with a beautiful nursery. The social workers are satisfied by this but then raise concerns about the kind of education a child would receive while in the couple’s care. The husband puts their mind at ease, saying, “We’ve arranged for a full-time tutor who will teach the child all the usual subjects along with French, Mandarin, and computer skills.” Next though, the social workers express concern about a child being raised in a circus environment. This time the wife explains, “Our nanny is a certified expert in pediatric care, welfare, and diet.” The social workers are finally satisfied and ask the couple, “What age child are you hoping to adopt?” The husband says, “It doesn’t really matter, as long as the kid fits in the cannon. |
[Wetstock Video] Picnic Island rocked! A good time in the Florida Keys. Video |
| The June AARP calendar of events is here. Full Menu > Ongoing Events |
 [Government Efficiency] 60,000 stimulus checks sent to dead people have been returned, Treasury saysIn addition to funds that were voluntarily returned, another 668,277 payments totaling more than $872 million were rejected by banks or returned to the IRS as undeliverable. The federal government sent nearly 4.5 million payments to individuals who potentially didn’t qualify for the aid, according to the Treasury report. About half those payments, which totaled $5.5 billion, went to deceased individuals, according to the Treasury, which analyzed such data through mid-July. The rest were issued to dependents, nonresidents and others who erroneously received duplicate payments. About 59,500 of those payments to the deceased, worth $72 million, had been voluntarily returned by Oct. 1. Link |
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 [Yawning and Dogs] If you ever find yourself yawning during a long Zoom video call, you may soon see yawns spread to the other faces on your screen. Your pet under the desk may even join in. Yawns are contagious, even between dogs and humans, empathy — the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes — was one of scientists’ most probable explanations. But emerging evidence suggests this reasoning is wrong. People are both more empathetic toward and likely to contagiously yawn with friends and families than with strangers. Women, on average, report greater feelings of empathy than men, and catch yawns more frequently. Results are mixed on whether they’re more likely to yawn after a familiar human does than a stranger. Likewise, male dogs yawned just as much as females. Dogs caught yawns from both nice and anti-social experimenters. It seems that contagious yawning is not a sign of empathy in dogs. It’s still unclear why we yawn in the first place. One hypothesis is that yawning is a stress response that increases alertness by increasing blood flow to the brain and cooling it. Having yawns spread could help coordinate a group’s alertness. This isn’t to say your dog doesn’t have empathy at all. Instead, the study shows that animal minds are still a mystery. We don’t know what your dog is thinking. |
 [A Male Fairy Tale] Once upon a time a prince asked a beautiful princess, “Will you marry me?” The princess immediately said, “No!” and the prince lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and
dated thin, long-legged, full-breasted women and hunted and fished and raced cars, and went to titty bars and dated ladies half his age and drank whisky, beer, and Captain Morgan and never heard any bitching and never paid child support or alimony and dated cheerleaders and kept his house and guns and ate Spam, potato chips and beans and blew enormous farts and never got cheated on while he was at work and he had lots of dogs and all his friends and family thought he was cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up. I forgot where I was going with this. The end |
Wetstock 2021 at Picnic Island. A very good time in the Florida Keys as only the local can do! Video |
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| [Friday Joke] I woke up this morning with a terrible taste in my mouth, ears all clogged, chest gurgling, back in pain, and my legs and arms all cramped up. The hell with it, I’ll never cheat on my wife again, I swear! |
[Cheap Phone Service] I had an old phone that I wanted to get working in case mine went dead or it was lost or stolen and wanted to find it. I got a small plan from US Moblie.com for only $8.57 a month for full service. That’s cheap. The SIM card was a one-time cost of $4. If I go over my minutes they charge a reasonable fee for them automatically, no fuss. |
| [Privacy] If you have an Amazon device in your home, you have one week to opt out of an experiment that could put your privacy at risk. Amazon plans to share your internet with your neighbors. Here’s how you opt out. Your devices will automatically be included June 8. Link |
[Healthy Eating Tip #43] I pick fresh vegetables every day. I feed them to my pig and he converts them into bacon. |
| What’s happened to the CT? Last Tuesday edition is there, no Friday edition – at the bottom if you click for the last edition it goes way back in 2020. No Tropical photo banner. Header is way up and left. Did Darkside hack you with Ransomware? (smile) ~ I just checked the website and 28 May and 1 June are missing. Are we being canceled? LOL. ~  Something change with your security certificate? I got this when trying to access your page.~ (Editor: It was awful. I paid GoDaddy $500 to convert my website to a Managed WordPress site they recommended. They told me it would be better, so I paid. They totally screwed up my site and it took two days of endless phone support and chat to get it fixed. I had to spend another day repairing the missing files because GoDaddy deleted my backups that I paid $127.46 for. They deleted my backup the instant I switched to the Managed WordPress service. They didn’t wait to see if it would be need if they screwed up the migration to the new service. They did screw up and it sorely was needed. I asked what’s the point of me paying for backup when they deleted it when I really needed it. They suggested I pay them $80 to fix my site [that they wrecked]. Bigpinekey.com is working fine again although I’m still missing some images, but I’ll reload them as I find them missing.) |
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| There’s a blood drive at Bealles, Thursday, June 10 – 1:00pm-6:00pm. Click on the link to register. Donor gift is t-shirt & $10 eCard. Thanks for giving. Link |
[Polacca-Settees] A lateen sail on the foremast, a European-style square rig on the mainmast, and a gaff or lateen on the mizzenmast. |
| [Friday Joke] Some lines from comedian Steven Wright, the king of irony: If you choke a Smurf, what color does he turn? Is it okay to listen to AM radio in the afternoon? What do people in China call their good dishes? At a prison execution, why do they sterilize the needle for the injections? Why is the third hand on a clock called the second hand? Why is “phonics” not spelled the way it sounds? Why do you press harder on the buttons of the remote control when you know the batteries are dead? How come abbreviated is such a long word? |
There are a lot of zebra butterflies around lately. Beautiful bugs. |
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| [Best Soldiers] Madame Montholon having inquired what troops Napoleon considered the best, “Those which are victorious, madam,” replied the Emperor. “But,” added he, “soldiers are capricious and inconstant, like you ladies. The best troops were the Carthaginians under Hannibal, the Romans under the Scipios, the Macedonians under Alexander, and the Prussians under Frederick.” |
 [For Sale] Fender Mustang GT100 modeling amp. In addition to full controls and a 12″ speaker there are 100 different amplifier setups for you to choose from; or create your own in the extra space for 100 more. I paid $330 from Zzounds.com. I’m selling it for $165. I bought the the smaller 50 watt Mustang modeling amp because the 100 was too loud for my space. ~ b33043@outlook.com Link |
| [“Developers”] 280 new tenants on Stock Island is perfect for the slave trade and low renter. Help the realtors need to make their fortunes in Key West. Keep up the good work they need the help! Pay them high and you will get it right back. |
[Employment] It’s so hard to get people back to work after the plague that standards are being lowered everywhere. |
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