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 Say no to truck driving school in the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge. Take down the fence at the old jail and make it part of the refuge. We don’t have to develop every bit of land in the Refuge. Wake up before it’s all gone and we have to wear ear plugs from all the noise the trucks make. You ever hear diesel trucks idling? They don’t shut them off for mechanical reasons. It’s constant noise that the folks in the neighborhood didn’t sign-up for when they moved here. Imagine those big tractor cabs then imagine them connected to a 40 foot trailer lumbering around Big Pine. |
| My homesteaded ad valorem taxes for the county went down $1573.22. What’s wrong? Taxes always go up! |
 [Burger Vending Machine] White Castle, America’s first fast-food hamburger chain, has automated vending kiosks in select airports in the US, but airport customers are urged not to use before they fly. Link |
| [Why your dog eats grass] It’s not because they’re sick—probably. Whether dogs were fed raw food, kibble, or a vegetarian diet had no bearing on whether they ate grass. Link |
 [Hair-Loss] Has Donald Trump stopped taking hair-loss medicine, and, if so, is it because of the possible side effects? Those are the questions people are pondering following a Washington Post report that during Trump’s first term of office his doctors routinely listed the hair-loss medication finasteride (marketed as Propecia) in his medical records. But now, it’s missing from those same reports. |
| Bolognese Sauce (authentic) 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 small/medium carrot 1 small celery stalk 1 small onion 10 1/2 ounces ground beef (70-80%) 10 ½ ounces ground pork 1/2 cup dry red wine 2 tablespoons tomato paste 2 1/4 cups tomato puree 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 whole bay leaves 1/3 cup milk (2% or whole milk) 1. Cut the carrot, celery and onion very fine. 2. In a medium to large heavy pot add the olive oil and chopped vegetables, cook covered on low heat. (stirring occasionally) until onion is transparent. 3. Increase the heat to medium and add the ground beef and pork. Stirring as the meat is cooking to break up the pieces. Once the meat has browned turned the heat up to high and add the wine. 4. Cook until the alcohol has evaporated (about 20-30 seconds) and the liquid has evaporated. Decrease the heat to medium/low and add the tomato paste, puree, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Decrease the heat to the lowest setting, cover and let simmer for three hours (the mixture should not boil). Stir occasionally. 5. Remove the bay leaf and add the milk, heat thoroughly for a couple of minutes, taste for salt. Serve over cooked pasta. Recipes > Main courses > Bolognese Sauce |
 [Raw Milk] Dozens sick in Idaho outbreak tied to raw milk. Two dairies have been implicated. Link |
| Florida Legislature OKs property tax cuts; now it will go to the voters. The ballot initiative, if approved, would slash billions from local governments; where replacement funds would come from, if at all, is a question mark. Link |
 [Fake News] No matter how much you want to believe everything that you read on the internet to be true not everything is. For example, last week this story made the rounds on social media, turns out that this story was completely false made on a comedy media platform. Too bad knowing Florida I could absolutely see this happening. |
| NIH ebola virologist arrested by the FBI for smuggling deadly pathogens into America from the Congo. Link |
 [Asian Carp] 50 million pounds of invasive fish removed from Illinois River. Asian Carp can grow over four feet-long and gobble up resources. Video |
| [Don’t Believe Anything] Since AI can copy anything realistically, be it your voice or image, we can no longer believe our eyes or ears. From now on we must assume everything is fake. |
 [AI] We need to stop AI developing without humans, says Anthropic co-founder. Note to co-founder: Dude, the genie is already out of the bottle and Pandora has already opened her box. |
| [Crook] Prince Andrew sublet three cottages while paying ‘peppercorn rent’ to crown estate. Report into royal property affairs reveals disgraced ex-prince generated private income from Windsor Royal Lodge. Link |
 The average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961. A UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising. Link |
| [Opt Out of Those Damn Ads] See the bottom line and be careful picking ones you think might be bothering you. I saved this link to my Favorites and if I delete a sender, I can go back and reconnect. There was another way to block senders that only allowed email from your Address Book, but Windows 11 and the new MS Office doesn’t seem to have that tool. I will search for a program for this. The WebChoices Consumer Choice Tool allows you choose whether or not you receive interest-based advertising from companies participating in the AdChoices self-regulatory program. Link |
 [Dating Crisis: episode 3] In many countries, dating seems to be on the decline, with many young people either dating less, or finding it harder to have meaningful relationships. In 2024, one in five of South Korea’s 52 million citizens were living alone. In the third episode of our series, reporter Haeryun Kang is in Seoul on a journey to find out what’s stopping people from coupling up. Video |
| [Irony] Thrift shops in England are closing because it is too expensive to stay open. Link |
 [Smoke and Mirror Lies] US tobacco companies used their extensive experiences from their tobacco businesses to maximize the successes of their international food businesses in disseminating ultra-processed foods globally. Regulation of the multiple addictive products that tobacco companies have disseminated to markets globally may be needed to protect public health |
| Mexico City liquefied petroleum explosion killed 8, injured 90. Video |
 [The Mouseless Advantage] Repetitive mouse clicks or prolonged trackpad use can lead to serious pain and strain — Mouseless protects your health and ability to work by distributing click-work across the keyboard. Video |
| [School Sucks] Isn’t it obvious that school sucks? That we should be teaching critical thinking and problem-solving skills instead of useless facts and theories? That school should be more like real life, with real-world projects and experiments and collaboration? That there should be less of that stuffy work of sitting at a desk and memorizing things? |
 The IsUpMap lets you check the status of over 100 major sites at once. IsUpMap |
| [Raffles] Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore Story. One man more than any other is associated with Singapore’s remarkable 20th-century success. Who was Lee Kuan Yew, and how did he do it? Stamford Raffles stands – according to the plaque attached to the plinth – on the ‘historic site’ where he first landed as an agent of the British East India Company on 28 January 1819 and, thereafter, ‘with genius and perception changed the destiny of Singapore from an obscure fishing village to a great seaport and modern metropolis’. Raffles – who is officially recognized as the ‘founder’ of modern Singapore – had a strong conviction that the tiny trading outpost he founded at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula would fulfil a destiny larger than its physical size. Link |
 [Samurai City] For three hundred years, Japan enjoyed enviable stability and peace. All it took was locking up its warlike samurai elite in the world’s least efficient city. The peasantry was directly taxed by the government, at rates varying from 15 to 70 percent of the harvest, with 40 percent as a rough norm. The authorities distributed most of their tax receipts to the samurai, a hereditary, quasi-noble class making up about six percent of the population. Link |
| [FreeNet Monster] Honest monitoring of Russia’s internet. What you can and cannot see. Link |
 [Spying] Reports of mysterious Chinese characters on block screens began coming in from various regions of Russia and from clients of completely different telecom operators. We decided to investigate where this digital footprint leads and how Chinese characters ended up inside the Russian sovereign traffic filtering system. |
| The current Coconut Telegraph was published on 6/5/26 at 9:49 am. |
| Snapshots taken from Big Pine Key looking North between Annette Key and Mayo Key every Friday evening since 2023. You may hover to view a photo, see the date of the photo, or use the left or right arrows on the images. |
