Monday, January 28, 2013

After falling in love with the Keys 40 years ago and returning for short visits many times over the decades I am finally visiting for a long term stay. I will be returning in spring to my Vermont home so I guess I have joined that inglorious group known as Snowbirds who invade your islands every year.  This troubles me, so:

I promise not block the boat ramp, gas pump, intersection, driveway and not to hold up the line at Winn Dixie.

I am not traveling with any Jersey girls. 

If there were tolls to pay for your sewers I would pay them.

I promise to respect the locals. 

I promise not to pontificate about the way we do things “back home”.

I promise to adhere to the speed limit on Key Deer Blvd. 

I promise not cause an accident gawking at the deer. 

I promise I am not staying in an illegal downstairs enclosure.

I will not subject the neighbors to constant loud music and partying.

I promise to run over any iguanas I see.

I promise not to molest any wildlife (except Yellowtail and Blue Crabs).

I promise not to purchase any stolen cell phones.

I promise not to fill up the trash barrels at the DogPark.

I promise not to make a drunken fool of myself on Duval St. (the only reason for me to go to Key West is El Siboney)

In general, I plan to park my ass and keep a low profile, do some fishing for yellowtail and some crabbing, enjoy the company of old Navy buddies from my days as a sailor at the sub base who never left the Keys, and enjoy what is left of the Paradise of the Keys we knew over 40 years ago.

[Immigration] I think giving the bazillion illegal immigrants a path to citizenship is the right thing to do seeing how there are too many of them to deport and locking them up is too expensive. But they have to earn it and that shouldn’t be easy! The first requirement is that they should have to serve honorably in the military.

ABATE Southernmost Chapter 12th Annual Chili Cook Off. Held at Coconuts, Pine Key last Saturday. ABATE has done another great Chili Cook Off. This is a short video, a walk through. As a lifetime member of ABATE, me & the Coconuts family are tickled silly to be part of this. We have been here since the beginning, 12 years ago, and hope to be part of it for a very long time to come. Coconuts has been a biker-friendly roadhouse from the start 30 years ago. We love you guys, we are always ready to help in any event ABATE is working on. Ride safe and have a blessed day and the best new year ever. ~Joe/ Coconuts     Video 

Kudos to the Mosquito Board for cutting its own pay. Link

Freshly made Crab Cakes made with Stone Crab Meat are in the case at Fanci Seafood. They are delicious!  

[Lobbyist proposal causes anger] The Key Largo Wastewater Treatment District has rejected the county’s proposal that it chip in $78,000 over a three-year period for a lobbyist to target sewer funds. Link

[Don’t throw it — Grow it] I’ve tried growing vegetables from seeds in the veggies I buy at the store. It seems that they are irradiated or genetically modified so the seeds won’t sprout, thus forcing me to buy more at the store.

I ordered Non-Genetically Modified seeds. The seeds that come from my veggies now do sprout. I dry them and save them and will never be without a source for food. 

City takes first step to help pet shelter expand.  2- legged animals versus 4-legged animals. Link

[Size Matters] People need to get real lives and stop eating and worrying about the length of their subs.

[Venture Out Sewer Plant] Just because they’ve been running their own plant for so many years doesn’t mean they do it well. Drive by there sometime on the wrong day and smell the “roses”.

Archie Bunker on Gun Control. Archie’s got it figured. Link

[Montage] Rita Hayworth Is Stayin’ Alive (BeeGees) Video

[Immigration] Illinois is the fourth state to allow illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license with a new law signed by the governor. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed the legislation Sunday surrounded by hundreds of supporters who say the measure will make Illinois’ roads safer and expand opportunities for illegal immigrants.

Quinn says people need a way to get to work, drive to the doctor and drive their children to school. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the new law should serve as a model for the nation.

[Programs offer student travel] Eligible Monroe county high-schoolers are being encouraged to participate in potentially life-changing summer programs that could see them learning to cook in Italy, enjoying eco-adventures in Australia, or gaining valuable leadership skills in California, among other educational excursions. The best education is garnered from travel. Link

[Free download] To convert eBook formats for any device. Link

As it passes full and starts to wane, the Moon moves down through the lair of the Lion.

[Size] No man has ever sued anybody for measuring  an inch to long when it comes to his … shall we say, manhood, but heaven forbid a man will lawyer-up as fast as a bullet train if his Subway sub is an inch short.

Fire museum in Key West opens its doors, finally after 21 years in the making. Link

[Comets] 2013 holds promise to be even better for comets than 2007. In early March, Comet PANSTARRS is ontrack to become visible to the unaided eye, while at the end of the year Comet ISON shows possibilities that include casting a tail that spreads across the sky, breaking up, and even becoming one of thebrightest comets in recorded history.     

Comet McNaught of 2007 has been, so far, the most photogenic comet of our time. In this image, Comet McNaught was captured above Santiago, Chile.

Sarah Palin is off FOX News as her candle dims.

I always thought of the space shuttle as being a rather large space vehicle. It flew over my home once when I lived in Central Florida on the back of another plane. It looks rather small on the back of the 747 passenger plane.

The first testicular guard, the “Cup,” was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1474. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important (ladies, quit laughing).

[Save My Life] We have all walked by the Red Cross sign in airports (and now theaters, stores, lots of places) indicating where a heart machine is located. Do you know what is in them and how to use it? I did not. Watch this video and see what you think. If you pick the wrong choice—-the man dies—-choose wisely – you may save a life. I Just watched this video and was impressed. (In the video they tell you to find and AED, but they don’t tell you what an ARD is until someone brings one–stupid) Video

[Voting] Since banks and some ATM’s are making us use fingerprint scanners in order to cash a check, why don’t we use fingerprint scanners in order to vote? It would keep felons from voting and it would keep people from voting more than once. The software for the device would digitize the print and would not be allowed to store fingerprints of any individuals, even those charged with a crime. Under no circumstance would this be allowed to be submitted to any state or federal agency. This is already the law and is the only reason why police and banks are allowed to scan fingerprints now.

[Landmarks] In the days before Loran C and GPS I had a compass, but I looked for this guy and the American Shoals lighthouse to find my way back to port. He looks like a big goldfish in this morning’s sun. I’m going to miss Fat Albert.

[Another Coo-Coo Cat Lady] 67 dead cats, 99 live at home. Officials said 67 dead cats and 99 living ones had to be removed from a filthy home in upstate New York. Authorities said they removed the animals Wednesday night from a home in Wright, near Albany. The Times Union of Albany reported the dead cats were packed in plastic bags in the freezer and the live cats were in crates stacked from the floor to ceiling. Deputies reportedly went to the home after a neighbor called to complain about the odor of cat urine and feces. Possible charges are being weighed against 50-year-old Irene Vandyke, an office worker at a local Walmart store.

Prime Rib Dinner    Live Music

FDA panel to look at genetically altered mosquitoes. Link

Humpback Whale gives a great show after being freed from a net. Video

Stephen King, “NRA should  clean up blood, brains and chunks of intestine after next massacre.” What drivel. What about having the person who made the mess clean up the mess? It’s called personal responsibility.

I’m having fruit salad for dinner. Well, it’s mostly grapes actually. Okay, all grapes. Fermented grapes. I’m having wine for dinner.

[Least Competent Criminals] Peter Welsh, 32, and Dwayne Doolan, 31, weren’t the first burglars to try breaking into a building by smashing through the adjoining basement wall, but they might be the clumsiest. Their target, on New Year’s Eve, was Wrights Jewellers in Beaudesert, Australia, but trying to smash the front window failed, as did smashing the rear doors, which were actually those of another store. They finally settled on the basement option, but absentmindedly broke through the opposite-side wall and wound up in a KFC restaurant. Undaunted, they robbed the KFC of about $2,600.

If you live anywhere near Venture Out you would know that “their own sewer plant” never works right and stink’d up the whole neighborhood.

[Bah, humbug] Marathon is a dump!  They need to clean it up.  Forget about the traffic, clean up the place. Marathon will never be a world class airport or community.

How to get to Mars. I don’t think this video will ever get old. Video

[No Deposit Bags] Florida statutes prohibit charging for or banning single use plastic bags. Take the pledge with Got your Bags? Florida Keys and take reuseable bags with you whenever you shop.

Dead serial killer leaves investigators a mystery. What a story! Link

[Capt Doom and Gloom] So much grief and pain in the news and online, what happened to the nice news, the happy news, the good news? Oh, it doesn’t sell anything, now I understand. It used to be when a person or family had a devastating happening, it was their business and everybody left them alone to greave, but not today. Most want the lime light of pity and charity.  This shows a weakness in character and a laziness to live with your own responsibilities. Like everything else, people are getting sheepish more and more. It is no wonder we are crashing, our manhood is gone!

Idea: If we pass a law that all Lawyers have to pay 75% of their gross income to the IRS, with no deductions, that means no poor person will be able to afford a lawyer, only the rich will.  That puts 90% of the lawyer’s out of business because they are not worth the high costs the great lawyers charge the rich. Now all the cheap lawyers can get real jobs in car washes and burger joints like they are fit for.

“Rising Tide of the Florida Keys”  So what are these goodie-two-shoes going to do when the waters start flooding the Keys, backfill everything or jack up the properties like Venice? Keep an open eye on any too good to be true outfits, to make sure they do not empty your wallet like most do.

For those of you who like to use Torrents to download movies and music, suggest reading up on the latest gossip of how the ‘Industry’ is fighting back to grab you and sue the hell out of you or stick your ass into the slammer for a hot DVD!?  It isn’t worth it. Link

How do you completely turn off the wireless in a computer and just use the wire cable to connect to the web to be as safe as can be? Just uninstall the driver to the wireless and it will never work no matter what:    control panel / device manager / right click on it and disable it. No one can tap into your system then, but they can through the cable if they know what they are doing, which is rare with the idiots out there.

AT&T has their web site run by Yahoo, which is so full of advertisements and BS, that I tried to sign in and pick Op Out to delete all the trash they send. Am I missing something. I could not delete any ads or ad place holders. It took an hour to try and figure out how to do this and you cannot. I pay these bastards for a ISP web connection, Direct TV, House phone, Cell phone, and some other stuff, but they still want more! I think I’ll go back to smoke signals!

You might be a Liberal if:

You want to Save Darfur’ but aren’t willing to do anything more than slap a bumper sticker on your car.

You want to ban guns – except for those carried by your own kid’s bodyguards (like Rosie O’Donnell ).

You are against school vouchers for public school students, but send your own kids to private school.

You support alternative energy, but don’t want windmills to spoil the view from your own backyard.

You think that consenting adults can engage freely in every activity except capitalism.

You want to outlaw cigarettes and legalize marijuana.

You have no problem with Hollywood movie stars flying around in private jets to give speeches on the evils of Global Warming.

Deep down you believe 3,000 American civilians deserved to die on 9-11.

You think Israel is a criminal state, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad aren’t criminals,

You support killing the unborn innocent but oppose killing the condemned.

You think marriage is obsolete -except for homosexuals.

You uphold a woman’s right to choose, unless a woman chooses adoption, chooses to be a stay-at-home mom, chooses to homeschool, or chooses to start a business.

You believe that nativity scenes should be banned from public view, but that anyone objecting to pornography only has to look the other way.

You value tolerance except for opinions that you dislike.

[Women In Combat] Newt Gingrich once said that woman shouldn’t be in combat because they’d have to leave the foxhole once a month when their time came. Is he a Republican, sounds like one.

Chicago: 7 murdered on Saturday night. Some of the toughest gun restrictions in the nation and crime is rampant. It’s Obama’s “home city” and Rham Emmanual’s the mayor–he was a DC Obamanite in the first term. This is microcosm of Obama’s America. Link 

1. Still waiting for our Conservative propaganda machine to show me the quote where our President has said he wants to take away your guns. Hmmmm maybe someones not as informed on the issue as they pretend to be.

2. Sarah Palin FOX contract was not renewed. Her 15 minutes of fame has elapsed.

3. I agree with FTR about Nagin in New Orleans but did you see what Republican Governor did to the finances of California? That gem never gets mentioned in his rants.

4. have 1 comment about the silliness of gender diversity and how it upsets some.  If I go to Hooters I dont want some fat hairy guy bringing me my wings in a cheerleaders outfit. I must be a pinko communist. Im cool with that.

5. Didnt Republicans also just push thru the budget increase?

Sorry I didnt mean to let fair and balanced enter into the conversation. Those Democrats dammit did it all by themselves.

6. Somewhere Clint Eastwood is talking to a … nope, not going there anymore. 

[Liberals Bad] I urge all members in the CT community to read the appended article from the Wall Street Journal. The article is spot on. This is a liberal leftist/progressive/Democrat agenda. I’d bet a 10oz Springer’s Prime Rib that if we polled those who voted for the current administration along demographic and geographic lines, we’d find those who voted ideology only are those who want to restrict guns, while those who voted for Obama strictly because of race do not want them restricted.

This is meted out by crime statistics using those same metrics. Besides, rap songs without AKs and extended clip Glocks wouldn’t have the same tone if they were about bolt-action rifles, revolvers and 10-round magazines.

GOP is the Grand Old Party.  The key word here is OLD and that says it all!

[Immigration] Illinois is the fourth state to allow illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license with a new law signed by the governor. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed the legislation Sunday surrounded by hundreds of supporters who say the measure will make Illinois’ roads safer and expand opportunities for illegal immigrants.

Quinn says people need a way to get to work, drive to the doctor and drive their children to school. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the new law should serve as a model for the nation.

FROM THE RIGHT

I’ve got to admit that when Obama announced his intentions to gut the Republican Party, I was pissed.  Not so much anymore.  If you take just a quick peek at the facts you’ll understand why the Democrats/Liberals/Progressives have their collective panties in a wad. They’re scared.

I’ll bet that you didn’t know that 30 of our 50 States have Republican Governors. That’s the highest number since 2000. Republicans control 27 state legislatures but Democrats only control 20. The balance (5) is spit and one is officially nonpartisan.  Four of the five governors who are identified as being minorities are Republican. There are twice as many female Rep governors than there are Dem’s. The roster of Republican governors is chock full of potential super candidates for the Presidency in 2016.  Each has a solid record and an engaging personality.  Any of these Republican Governors would be a formidable presidential candidate.

Seven out of ten of the states with the lowest unemployment have Republican governors. The Rep Govs are working mightily to balance their states budgets, and they are succeeding. One of the best examples is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin who, working with his legislature has slashed state spending without slashing state services. Walker is reviled by Democrats and especially by unions. Public employee and private industry unions wasted millions of members’ dues trying to get him recalled, but his margin of victory in the recall election exceeded his first win. 

Unions were once a major pillar of the Democrats. They were street soldiers and the muscle of the Democrats,  but now they are now withering. Now they are little more than a shriveled husk of what they once were. The union share of our work force has fallen to a 97 year low, now it’s only 11.3%.  But it’s even worse than that, in the private sector, only 6% of private sector workers are union members, that’s down from about 35% in the ‘50’s.  So, the only real power left for the unions is government employees.  Even there, union membership in the public sector — long a labor stronghold has plummeted by 234,000. Currently only about 35.9% of public workers are unionized, that’s down more than a percentage point from last year.

Deer Friends,  you can be certain that the Dems recognize these trends and facts. That most certainly will trigger a torrent of invective against all things on the Right. Obama’s popular national vote win in 2012 was by a scant 3.84%, but in stark contrast in 2008 he won by 7.2%.  His ’12 win was by only about half as his ’08 win.  That’s a precipitous drop. Here in Monroe County he won by a hair thin .41%. That too is a stunning drop; in ’08 he won by a solid 5%.  That decline in his popularity is huge. 

Plus we have to consider that the Liberal/Democrat/Progressive constituency does not actually reflect mainstream America.  Their base is in urban areas that have crushing entitlement spending and crushing state/local taxation. 

Gallup recently released a poll that found that 40 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative; 35 percent consider themselves moderate; and 21 percent see themselves as liberal. Independents are mostly moderate (41 percent), but skew more toward conservatism (35 percent) than liberalism (20 percent). Yessir, our liberal friends have a lot to worry about, America remains a moderate right leaning nation.

Certainly our left field friends will crow that all of the foregoing is pachyderm poop (thanks to an anon critic).  But it’s not: Obama is a fading rock star. His policies and practices have been repeatedly been proved to be without merit. While he promised to be a “uniter”, he has proven to be the most divisive President in the last 60 years: Link

Obama is and was an aberration.

Nope, Obama’s rock star persona has grown long in the tooth, and his announcement of his intentions to gut the Republican party will only exacerbate the public’s negative views of him.

Deer Friends,  you can be certain that the Dems recognize these trends and facts. That most certainly will trigger a torrent of invective against all things on the Right. Bring it on.

Part 2) Yesterday an easily amused poster suggested that 40% of all Reps believed that Obama was not a native born American.  Frankly I don’t know if that’s true or not, I can find no validation for his claim. But, in researching I did find some other very interesting data.  Did you know that just the other day a Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind survey revealed that fully 36% of Americans of all stripes, Dem, Rep, and Ind, believe that Obama is: “hiding something important about his background and early life?”  How about that!

Then I stumbled on an interesting article concerning The National Newspaper Publishers Association. It is an organization that is affiliated with the hundreds of newspapers across the country that caters to the black community or, in the words of the NNPA, “The Black Press of America”. An adjunct is The Northeast Publishers Association. It is a smaller association that best characterized as the trade association for black newspapers in the Northeast.

Well, it damned sure looks like that in 2011 those folks didn’t think that Obama was a native born American. The NPA prepared the advertisement below to go in black newspapers across the country. Walter Smith, a director of the NNPA, blasted out the advertisement to many on their email list with a note saying, in part, “We can educate our readership by either running this ad or making a similar statement in our newspapers.”

You’ve got to read the ad. It screams: “STOP THE BIRTHER RHETORIC,  The US Constitution does not require a candidate for the Presided of the United States to be born on American soil.”  You’ve got to read the whole shebang at: Link

It damned sure is not a good thing for Obama when it looks like even his staunchest supporters doubt that he is a native born American…..Now that is funny.