Don’t you think it’s time to pull the plug on Nelson Mandela.

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
(Munson Island photo by Joe Britz)

[Sunday Joke] (For those who think our Creator has no sense of humor) “And God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the earth.” Then He made the earth round and He laughed and laughed and laughed!

Come and visit Fanci Seafood at our new location 22290 Overseas Hwy in Cudjoe Key. Delicious Smoked Salmon & Kingfish is out in the case. We also have Key West Pink Shrimps, Fresh Fish and more. Chum, Bait and Ice too!

[A “Sidecar” is more than a drink] If I’m riding in that I want the tap inside with me.

[Downstairs Enclosures] If you had to tear out your apartment because of FEMA sue the bastards for all your costs. They might repay you with income tax deductions for the next 100 years.

[What Created These Mystery Radio Waves From Another Galaxy?] Scientists find more mysterious flares of radio waves emanating from far beyond the Milky Way. What could have caused them?

A single, gleaming flash of radio waves zooms toward us from halfway across the universe. Where it came from, nobody was sure, and it was gone in an instant. The Lorimer burst, named after the astronomer who discovered it in a stack of half-a-decade old records, has stumped scientists for the last six years. But today a team of astronomers has announced that they’ve found four more flares just like it.

Thornton and his colleagues think a good bet for the burst’s beginnings might be magnetars, which are rare and incredibly dense husks of past supernovae that are prone to occasional explosions of energy. “A magnetar can give off more energy in a millisecond than the sun in 300,000 years,” Thornton says. Link

“I Am Sorry That It Has Come to This”: A Soldier’s Last Words. If you thought going into Iraq was a good idea read this. If you believe the US should participate in preemptive wars, read this. If you care about our vets read this. WARNING. This will break your heart, but read it. Find the right time to click on this and read it. Please read this. If a future President or Congress ever wants to send our troops to war, email them and tell them to read it. Please. Link

[“If you respond to these things with hatred you are prejudiced”] If you hate people that destroy the earth, trash your ‘hood, steal your stuff, ruin your life, hurt or threaten your family you are not prejudiced. I call it self-defense!

Hats off the the Lower Keys Rotary Club for putting on a fabulous fireworks display at the Big Pine Community Park on Sands Road. It was wonderful!

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.

[“Tiki bar membership cards just like Miami”] I’m going to have to hang out at Coconuts more. They don’t use hi-tech membership cards, fingerprint or facial recognition. They just seem to remember their customers and welcome new ones as old friends. And they got great pool tables too!

Awesome fireworks display! Thank you Rotary.

[Only in America] Take a quick look at these organizations, associations, agencies, what ever they call themselves then after you do, continue. Just glance at them.

DOJ, IRS, GSA, ATF, EPA, DEP, DEA, FDA, TSA, NSA, FBI, CIA, DRC, DHS. Obviously I’ve left several out but here we go.

Now, is there one of these that you cannot remember being involved in a scandal? caught in some allegation of abuse of power? or generally screwing the proverbial pooch? I truly believe the day will come when you are either with these people or against them.

We continue to pay these people to look after our interests and they continue to lie to us, rip us off and waste the money they pretty much steal from us and call it tax. I think its time to truly examine selling off what’s valuable to me and getting the hell out of the good old U.S. of A. If I do it will be a sad, sad day when I look over my shoulder and think, We had it all and let those in power give it all away. Good luck to you all.

[FastStone Image Software] You might try this freeware photo program. I use it and it is great. Link

Freedom Park?

America’s worst charities. Link

Slaves of all races were not thought of as men or even humans back then. They were just property. Woman were too until they got the right to vote.

[“I’ve Made Up My Mind”] Sylvia Murphy’s Friday morning radio comment that the FKAA plans to install 2,800 grinder pumps would remain in place because, “That train has already left the station”, really irks me!

County Commissioner Sylvia Murphy, on US1 Radio Friday morning, stated that nothing could be changed in the FKAA proposal to use excessive grinder pumps as,  “That train has already left the station.”   There is still time to divert that train from the track which will go over the financial cliff, costing all taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in required maintenance costs if the proposed extra 2,000 grinder pumps are installed.  We are NOT “all aboard”  What train ever leaves a station without a clear schedule of where it’s going?  The train passengers are not being told they have to bear all the maintenance cost for the engineer’s screw up!

[Term Limits] The only argument against term limits are from the politician’s and they’re all self-serving arguments.

[Downstairs Enclosure] What if you need a downstairs enclosure for a handicapped elderly family member who lives off a tiny social security check and has no other place to go?? Americans born and raised in America

[Arizona Solar Tower Project] Billed as a 200 MW electrical generation facility, its towering hot air chimney will be about 2,600 ft tall, making it the second tallest manmade structure in the world, and about twice as high as the Empire State Building. EnviroMission is progressing through the permitting process and plans to start construction late next year in La Paz Arizona. Link

[“New tiki bar membership cards”] A membership card? I remember when nobody had a real name down here. Will they put my alias on their card? Do they give you a free t-shirt when you spend a certain amount of money there now too? Do they take your personal data as CVS, Walgreens, Winn-Dixie and the other loyalty card places try to do? Are they going to put a gated entry up on Ramrod Key too?

The photographs of your junk will be publicized! Video

While my family is off in Ohio for the summer I decided to rent part of my place. I listed my first level for nightly guests on a website called airbnb.com. It’s a cool site. You can couch surf anywhere in the world affordabley. But the people who have been calling me are seriously the cheapest, most shallow people on the planet.

So go get em’ Coco crazies. Link

[Olive Oil] Bertolli introduces its hot sexy Italian chef, Alfredo Caldo-Freddo.Youa willa nevera thinka abouta olive oila ina the samea waya againa. Video

Don’t try to understand woman. Women understand women; and they hate each other.

Where’s all the cicadas we were promised?

[Captain Doom and Gloom] Amazing how many people are bored with the web and computers. Only the kids seem to be into their iPads because it is new to them. Older people already know everything and seem to care less about new input from the web. Or are we being conditioned to think this way?

“Sewers” It has been over three days – 3 days!- and it looks like the sewer fiasco is ancient history in the minds of the locals. Out of sight, out of mind, out of BS!

[“What Makes Good Propaganda”] Great points on propaganda. The current administration is doing this almost verbatim and the low info voters just eat it up. I especially like the part about using the main stream media to distribute the lies. Can you say CNN, AP, NYT and MSNBC? And don’t forget NPR.

Just a few years ago the righties wrapped themselves in the Tenth Amendment to fight against Obamacare. Where are they now when the President and Congress ignore the Fourth Amendment? Why no indignation from the FTR guy? Could it be that they revere the Constitution only when it is convenient? I call BS on them.

[Two Opinions] Hillary Clinton: I can give a pass as a strong willed woman, intelligent depends upon how you use the word intelligent. To cover her blunders she is intelligent, for the nation as a Republic, not very intelligent.

Nancy Pelosi: Strong willed yes, intelligent not a chance. “We have to pass the Obamacare Law to find out what is in it.” “I am a Catholic but for abortion.” “Abortion is the right of every woman and the Government should pay for it.”

If those are the poster’s definitions of intelligence, you should be happy FTR is around for you to kick.

All good propaganda begins with a kernel of truth. Joseph Goebbels knew this and practiced it well. The Nazi’s called it the big lie. What you do is take a kernel of truth and distort it just enough to prove whatever point you want to make. It’s very simple, but powerfully effective.

Here’s the kernel of truth: FTR quotes something as fact because he read it on the web. That’s simple enough. That can be verified.

The propaganda or the Big Lie: FTR quotes the source to buttress his assertion.

That’s the brilliant part. FTR makes a wild assertion under the guise of authenticity and the reader swallows it–hook, line, and sinker.

But what the reader won’t know there are many truly authentic web sites that contradict FTR.

A good example is the Texas abortion bill regarding fetuses feeling pain at 20 weeks and the Doc must have an “active admitting privileges at a hospital that

is located not further than 30 miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced. He attacked me with an abortion rant without noting these two provisions in the bill. Heck, if he acknowledged it, it would problematic.

Google the 20 week abortion issue. Then go to Link1, Link2, or Link3 

FTR doesn’t care when he may be wrong. He has a point to make.

I am Obamacare

To the writer in Friday’s CT of “Only in America” congratulations. You understand us well. We need you in Washington at the top. I totally agree with your post and what it implies. Too bad there are not enough of us to turn this good old USA around.

[Obamacare] It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

I say we make abortion available like it is in the European Union. For example here is how Sweden handles “abortion rights”:

Between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker. After 18 weeks, permission must be obtained from the National Board of Health and Welfare. Abortions must be performed by a licensed medical practitioner and, except in cases of emergency, in a general hospital or other approved healthcare establishment.

Yes permission from the National Board of Health and Welfare. You gotta love socialism. If only Texas were more like Sweden.

FTR guy, on a scale of 1 to Fox News, how myopic are you?

Last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report for the month of June was released.  It wasn’t pretty.  Some media talking heads are saying that “while it was not impressive, it still was a pretty good performance”. That’s nonsense.

The unemployment rate is unchanged at 7.6%. That’s higher than it was in April. As of now, we have had 54 straight months with the unemployment rate at or above 7.5%.  That’s the longest stretch since the Democrat governance of Truman in 1948.

A look at Team Obama’s stats, reveals that there are some really unsettling data.

The unemployment rate for blacks and women actually increased. For blacks it is now nearly twice that of the entire population. The number of unemployed increased by 17 million, and the number of people who have abandoned the labor force has again grown, this time by 12 million. In June, the number of Americans who wanted to work full-time, but were forced into part-time jobs because of the economy, jumped 352,000 to over eight million. Even worse, that’s higher than it was June of ’12. The report also showed that the labor force participation rate has declined over the last year. That in and of itself clearly demonstrates that we are not progressing, we are sliding back. Please think about this: the Democrats took control of our economy nearly 7 years ago. At that point our economy began to decline, our debt blew up.  At the rate we’re adding jobs now it will take us nearly another 5 years to return to the rate in existence when the Dem’s took over. Can we survive 12 years of Democrat governance?

Incredibly  we are being led to believe that the current state is the new norm. The new norm delivered to us by Democrat governance. We must not accept this new norm.

Part 2) Deer Friends I am deeply pained by Friday’s postings that suggested that I “hate” Mr. Obama.  I’m cut to the quick, to the bone by that accusation. Oh the pain! I’m a crusty, cranky, opinionated Olde Fart, but I do have feelings, I’m really a very sensitive person. I really worry about what other folks think of me. So, in the humble spirit of comity, I promise to do my very best to love what Mr. Obama has done for us.

I’ll now praise Mr. Obama for his marvelous work in not hindering the global expansion of Muslim fundamentalism, some folk’s brag that he’s helped the MF cause. Now, I’ll congratulate Mr. Obama for his record breaking handling of our economy. Just think about it, last month we broke an unemployment record that has stood since record keeping began in 1948. Mr. Obama and the Democrats deserve so many accolades for their performance in increasing our debt to such monumental proportions.  How can I not admire Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clintons “reset” of our relationship with the Russians? Yes sir, they’ve managed to take us back to the good old days of the ‘50’s. As I recall it was in the ‘50’s when the Russians were far ahead of us in reaching space. They now are again, good for them.  Mr. Obama is  brilliant. Only he could think that global warming could be could be chilled  by a new Cold War.

The Obama administration has just spent at least $630,000 to get us more “likes” on Facebook. Isn’t that so very special, so very “today”! Yep, no angry old white man would have thought of that! The news that the unemployment rate for youths (18-29) has been double digit since 2008 just makes this poor old heart swell with pride. It’s now at 16.1%, another record.  That’s nearly as high as Europe. Even better is the fact that the unemployment rate for 25-34 year olds is higher than France, Britain, Germany, Japan and Canada.  By golly Mr. Obama and Democrat governance sure do have a lot to be proud of, they’re setting new records nearly every day.

Yes Deer Friends, I’ll do my best to now show love and respect for Mr. Obama and Democrat governance. Like hell I will.

Respectfully submitted: FTR@bellsouth.net