[Rib Cook-Off] Today’s the day! Join us at Springer’s Bar & Grill’s for Sunday’s Rib Cook-Off this Sunday, Sep. 8. Open to everyone – proceeds go to the local food bank. Live Music with Tim & Dawn.

NFL Sunday Ticket — 17 TVs for you to catch your favorite team. Game time food & drink Specials!

[Yeah God!] I’d like to chime in too. There is no judgement. We judge each other in the here and now. There is no heaven either. “Imaginary old man in the sky” This is a perceived reality by cultists. If you were to ask a bunch of them to draw an image of God most would draw an old man in the sky. I do good everyday, sometimes big good and sometimes little good. How dare you assume only the fantasy crowd does good.

[“Cheapo RV tourist”] Sorry you didn’t enjoy your time in the Keys and thought it was too expensive, but there is a price for paradise and believe it or not the price is a lot less in off season. Just because you want to visit a place, doesn’t mean is should be affordable for everyone (heck, I’d be in Monaco). There’s plenty of us that enjoy it here and just because we can’t cater to the WalMart crowd, doesn’t mean it’s bad. There’s an awful lot of folks who work hard to scrape by here, I don’t think there’s much gouging going on – there’s too much competition for that to last long.

[Mosquito Rip-off] Every other Mosquito Control commissioner in Florida earns $4,800 per year.  Florida Keys Mosquito Control Commissioners earn approximately $19,294.20 per year, plus free benefits and health care.  

It is true that the Florida Keys district is more complex than other districts because of the geography and the environmental concerns. Their salaries are almost two-thirds of those of BOCC commissioners when FKMCD budget is not even a tenth of the County’s budget!

Commissioner Bridges made a request of the FKMCD Commissioners to take a 10% cut in their salaries.  Commissioner Shaw said “he would not support the 10% cut in his salary and give a portion as a raise to Michael Doyle”, FKMCD, Director to help balance the budget.

Email your FKMCD Commissioner and ask for 10% decrease in their salaries; they have a meeting in Marathon on Monday Sept. 9th. Is it wrong to require the employees who have lifetime health care to pay $50 a month to help take that cost off  the backs of the taxpayers? Does your company pay your healthcare costs? One Commissioner stated his test for decreases/increases in the budget is “How does it benefit the taxpayers?”

Do you think you are sitting still right now? You’re on a planet that orbiting a star at 18 miles a second. Woosh!

That star is orbiting the center of the galaxy at 155 miles a second.
That galaxy is moving through the universe at a rate of 600 miles a second.

Since you have started reading this, you have traveled about 1,864 miles.

[Patsy Cline] Remembering Virginia Patterson Hensley, better known as Patsy Cline, born on this date in 1932. Her life and career were short,but her legacy is everlasting. Radio

If you truly want to keep the Old Seven Mile Bridge historic, then leave it the way it looks now.  How can it be historic if you modernize it by pouring in millions and millions of taxpayer dollars that could be used for more firemen on Sugarloaf Key, for instance.  Did you ever see a wooden house burn around here?  It doesn’t take long until it’s gone.

[“Never click on the highlighted link in email”] Capt Doom is again incorrect. It does matter. If you click in an email it is connected to your computer. If you paste the link from the email into a browser it is not connected to you and can do you no harm.

[Name that plant] I wrote in last week to see if anyone could help me identify this native bush. I’ve got them all over the place and would like to be able to name the plant. I hope Ed will re-post the picture as a kindness to us nature lovers. 

With the recent number of God and Jesus postings in the news section of the Coconut Telegraph, you should consider moving the Religion and Politics area to the top of the Coconut Telegraph.

Proof that redneck girls have more fun.

[Married to a Doll] Why one man advocates synthetic love. 40-year-old Davecat (a nickname acquired from videogames that he now prefers to go by) and others who call themselves iDollators see their dolls as life partners, not sex toys. Davecat and Sidore (or, as he sometimes calls her, Shi-chan) obviously aren’t legally married, but they do have matching wedding bands that say ‘Synthetik [sic] love lasts forever,’ and he says they’re considering some sort of ceremony for their 15th anniversary. Link

Rosemary Clooney – Oh! You Beautiful Doll

[Helmetcam] Motor officer pursuit. Video

The next time believers tell you that ‘separation of church and state’ does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word ‘trinity.’ The word ‘trinity’ appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin.

If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural, Transcendence, Immaculate Conception, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, Sunday School, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Apostasy, Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.

[“Jesus Loves You”] The outcome of events will always be the same weather you believe in god or not or pray or not. I can prove it. Uncle Johnny has cancer and if I pray for him he’s still going to die. If I don’t pray for him he’s still going to die. Either he gets better or he doesn’t, that’s Fate. I can believe in Fate or as reality calls it: coincidence.

Warren Zevon: the man behind the demons. The singer/songwriter, best known for Werewolves of London, died 10 years ago yesterday . His family and friends, including the writer Stephen King, explain why, despite his dark side, they still miss him. Link
Detox Mansion-Warren Zevon.

[Bait Capital of the Keys] Fanci Seafood on Cudjoe Key has 4 lb and 12 pack Ballyhoo!  

Venus is bright, but bring binoculars to help with the faint objects low in the twilight. The Moon is positioned as it’s seen from the middle of North America. The blue 10° scale is about the width of your fist held at arm’s length.

Believers are always surprised when they find a truly good person who is an atheist. They believe that you can only be good if you are a believer. By implication, that means they think humans are bad and unable to take responsibility for their lives and make the right decisions without their bible. We atheists take responsibility for our lives and actions. We are not weak to the point where we have to give our lives to “God” in order to have a good life.

Roger Waters [Pink Floyd) turned 70 this past Friday. He stayed,under an alias,at Little Palm Island roughly 20 years ago.Upon strolling into The Quarterdeck, it was asked of him if he knew the barn door is open, John Thomas is out, and bollocks are dangling freely? He responded,”Of course! I wrote that song!”

[Protein] Despite the stereotype of body builders and boxers slugging back raw eggs to build muscle, it’s actually a very ineffective way to consume an egg; the body can only use around half the protein in a raw egg compared to almost one hundred percent of the protein in a cooked egg (and with less risk of salmonella poisoning, to boot).

Cheap tourist or snowbird resident. I don’t know what category I fit as I am all. As a cheap tourist I hate it when the price for a shot of booze went up. I hate telling my friends who want to come to the Keys that everything is overpriced and see their faces fall. I am a snowbird. I also have a home in central Florida in which I reside 5 months of the year until I get the “Call of the Isles”. I like to feel that I am a resident. I have contributed a lot to the economy of the Keys. For six months of the year, I rent out space to 40 other snowbirds. We make large donations to the Police, Fire Dept. and our local mail carrier, and pay a lot of taxes. The people who come here are upper-middle class and spend a lot. After doing this for 25 years I still feel lucky to have found this place.

[Grinder Pump] You probably will need a bad-ass lawyer in order to take on the grinder pump debacle. Just make sure the lawyer isn’t somehow connected to the FKAA. I would suggest looking in Miami or northward for representation.

[Believer] It’s the need of “believers” to evangelize and pontificate that is most repugnant to the rest of us who choose not to wallow in delusion. Also labeling rational thinkers (in another poster’s reply) as liberals is convenient but not necessarily accurate. I am quite conservative and supportive of liberty of conscience. I do not denigrate others’ beliefs or right to worship and hold certain beliefs dear. Having said that, I will not under any circumstances allow others to label mine as vainglorious or to accuse me of being a “sinner” because I do not tow their line.

Shreck–I’m a Believer

[“Cheapo RV tourist”] Sorry you didn’t enjoy your time in the Keys and thought it was too expensive, but R/V tourists think everywhere is too expensive.

A gold star, smiley face and kudos to Deer Ed for getting the CT up early on Friday! (See, we do notice when you do good stuff.) Now, enjoy your Saturday off.

[“Cheapo R/V Tourist: Vacations in the Keys used to be great until you people raised the prices of everything so high no one can afford to go there now”] “You people”? Who is “you people”? There’s a lot of us who live here who can’t afford to go out because of you people, the crazy tourists who do pay these high prices. The bigger issue is they are pints of beer sold at $8. I’m drunk after two beers without eating.

We’re not “expecting to make a full year’s wage in only four to six months”. It costs us that much to live and be able to afford to come to work and wait on you and your family. The cost of living here is probably 30-50 per cent more than where you live.

I’m sorry to see you all go. I have fond memories of the Keys as a child alas, those days are gone and paradise now has a high price.

[Free Dog]  Female Lab mix  2-3 years old, fun, sweet, loving girl.  She is very calm in the house, but has the energy to play outside and would make a great jogging partner. Excellent on a leash, needs to be in a home with no cats. Loves to play ball and is learning to play Frisbee. She will come with free private training. Please help me find her forever home so she doesn’t ever have to go back to the shelter, we only have 2 weeks. Classified Ads > Pets

[Reverse Mortgage] In a move to help HUD manage risk to the Federal Housing Administration’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF), HUD makes major changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program, including consolidation of the HECM Standard and HECM Saver programs into one.

The changes were initiated after homeowners selecting lump-sum payments rather than periodic payouts strained the MMIF.  Seniors depleted their assets quickly and could not keep pace with property taxes and insurance payments.\

The changes authorized by the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act of 2013 include updates to the initial mortgage insurance premiums and principal limit factors and restrictions on the amount of money borrowers may draw down at closing and during first12 months following closing.

Changes also include requirement of a financial assessment for all borrowers to ensure they will have the capacity and willingness to meet all their financial obligations and terms of the reverse mortgages, and a requirement of a set-aside at closing for payment of property taxes and insurance based on the results of the financial assessment.

The financial assessment and property charge requirements become effective for all loans with case numbers assigned on or after Jan. 13, 2014. Changes to initial disbursement limits, single disbursement lump sum payment option, initial mortgage insurance premiums, Principal Limit Factor Tables, and initial mortgage insurance premium calculations for refinance transactions are effective for case numbers assigned on or after Sept. 30, 2013.

[Sleep in Shifts] Maybe your grandparents probably slept like you do. And your great, great-grandparents too, but once you go back before the 1800s, sleep starts to look a lot different. Your ancestors slept in a way that modern sleepers would find bizarre – they slept twice.

We didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.

References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep. Link

It looks like someone is trying to incorporate Key Largo.  The business people and real estate agents tried to pull that down here in the Lower Keys so they could take over our neighborhoods.  We voted it down big time.

Term limits are not about liking or supporting a particular candidate. They’re about good governance.  The founders of this nation never wanted a permanent ruling class. They wanted a periodic rotation of all elected officials. Along with the fallibility and imperfection of our elected officials, the corrosive nature of power often rationalizes their deluded and detached decisions. With term limits, politicians are more responsible toward their constituents, as they’ll  soon be constituents themselves, bearing the burden of laws they created.

The need to concentrate on developing financial liaisons with special interest groups determined to keep them in power will no longer be necessary. Candidates will more likely run for the purpose of serving the people, as they will leave office before corruption can dominate their decisions.

The need for re-election will no longer be the driving force behind most of their decisions. An emphasis on action that will make a positive difference in the lives of the people they serve will have become a priority.

Political arrangements and allegiances made for the acquisition and maintenance of power would cease to be a prime directive. Money and favors would not be the driving force for aspiring politicians.

Becoming firmly entrenched with the governing elites, incumbents often lose sight of the daily struggles faced by working and middle class families. The gap must be reduced between savvy career politicians and ordinary candidates who are better able to understand the daily realities of the American people.

Partisan ideologues would have the opportunity to set aside their indoctrinated  beliefs and actually work with their colleagues to enhance the quality of their constituents lives, as the party bosses’ stake in political outcomes will have been diminished.

Special interest groups oppose term limits because they do not want to lose their investments into incumbent law and policy makers. Encouraging citizen legislators rather than career politicians is a rising priority for many Americans.

As we are strangulated by the oppressive weight of an over-reaching government, nothing is more important than to reverse the pernicious rise of a professional political class.

[Syria] If we must do something in Syria, let it be sending in the good old B52s to demolish every Syrian airfield.  That would even the odds there and help get this mess over with.  Eventually Assad will have to  leave or hang from a street light pole.  He is a US educated eye doctor who could open a clinic in Miami so he would still have a job.

Rubio’s star fades. Who needs that hysteric.  Almost as crazed as Palin and Bachman and some others I could mention. Link

[Carbon Tax Repeal] Australia liberated from their long national green nightmare. Today is a great day not only in Australian history, but also in world history. It marks the day when people of character and sensibility pushed back against an overwrought and pointless green agenda, and pushed back in a big way. They’ve had enough, and they’ve scraped the Krudd off their shoes and are moving forward.

Tony Abbot has won the Australian election in a landslide, and vows to abolish the carbon tax as a first order of business. Abbott has declared Australia is “once more open for business” in claiming victory in Saturday’s election.

No more regressive, anti science, leftist government for our friends down under. Now Americans must take their own country back.

[FTR: “paying twice as much for gas than 4.5 years ago”] FTR, that’s because you had to pay more than twice what you paid 4.5 years ago, 4.8 years ago! Gee, I wonder why that was? Tell them FTR.

[Wounded Warriors] I feel that Wounded Warriors is a terrific program for those that  need it. What is burning my ass big time is that these unfortunate people have to depend on charity to get what they need. That is a God-damed shame. Washington could and should stop this from happening today.   We can send billions to other countries (most is absconded) but Americans cant get a G-D aspirin, and that is very wrong.

Boy oh Boy! Whoopee! What great news! Our unemployment rate has dropped to 7.3%.  Proof positive that Mr. Obama has worked his magic on our economy — Donkey dung.  The August employment report from Team Obama was abysmal.

Sure, the unemployment rate dropped, but after 56 months of the Obama regime it has dropped only one half of one percent and is nearly four points higher than it was in January 2007. Even worse that drop was only because of the ever growing number of people dropping out of the work force and a big jump in government hiring.  Under Obama 10 million people have dropped out. Today there are 90+ million who have dropped out. Need I say that is a record, a shameful record? Certainly a part of that is people who have retired, but that is a small fraction. People dropping out coupled with a sharp increase in government hiring resulted in the one tenth of one percent decline from July.

The real kicker is the fact that the employment-population ratio–has declined significantly under Obama. From July to August, it dropped from 58.7 % to 58.6 %. In January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, it was 60.6%. In January ’07 when the Democrats took control of our spending and economic policy, it was 66.3%. The employment-ratio is the worst that it has been in 35 years. That is tragic! Our nation is in deep deep trouble. The Democrat/Liberal/Progressive ethos embraced by Obama has dealt the American work ethic a horrible wound.

In August we only added 169K new jobs, dramatically less than had been forecast. Even worse, according to Team Obama’s Bureau of Labor Stats, there were 115K fewer people who actually had jobs during August than there were during July. Think about that, in August we went backward.  Then we have to consider the fact that BLS has revised sharply DOWNWARD the new jobs numbers for June and July. The 162,000 seasonally adjusted jobs gain the BLS reported for July was revised down to 104,000. The 188,000 for June was revised down to 172,000.

As of August, there were 7.9 million Americans who wanted to work full time but could find only part-time work. When these workers and people who want a job but have stopped looking are included, the total underemployment rate rises to 13.7 percent.

Even the Daily Kos is fed up with the lack of progress. They wrote “If the economy maintained the 148,000 average gain in jobs we’ve seen for the past three months, it would take until May of 2028 to return to the unemployment levels when the recession began in December 2007.” Link