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2014 January

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

CT-Banner7.3.13No Saturday Edition

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bike-path-cudjoe7

 

Wonderful morning on the bike path yesterday in Cudjoe.

chamber-ad10.17.13
[The Movies] ‘The next big thing’  Killing kids or punching them has always been taboo. Hollywood is running out of things to stir us up so I envision hurting children will be the next shocker and it will first appear in an independent movie to test the waters. 

salt and pepper

On January 7, 1896 Fanny Farmer published her first cookbook. The most exotic spices she used were salt and pepper.

[“Capitalizing on the new bike path”] Not in Big Pine Key, Monroe County. Zoning would stop any tents or camping. Unless you used the building that is on the property you would run into permits, permits and more permits. New plans, building, zoning, DCA, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish & Wildlife Service. The cost of the land is also very costly. On and on it goes. All for the privilege of doing business in Monroe County. Why would any sane person tie up a over a million dollars to be beat up over doing business. Nope my friend, save your money, time & heartbreaks. 
nira tocco realtor 9.12
[Crook] A  Big Pine Key commercial fisherman accused of forging stone crab trap paperwork in order to put more traps in the water was arrested Monday on four felony charges. Pedro Luis Lorenzo, 48, of Big Pine Key was charged with four, third-degree felony counts of forging stone crab paper­work, and four misdemeanor counts of filing the paperwork he knew to be false.

driver6

 

[Caption] “Heavy cleanup on aisle 5”

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[“Haven’t written 2013 once on a check”]  I usually do fine till about April or May, then I revert to the previous year.
isaksen-flood-roof 4.23.13
[Sewer Meetings a Farce] How does one make a motion to sue the officials and FKAA if they do not do as ‘we the people’ want?

pigmy rattle

[Pygmy Rattlesnake] We had a visitor Monday on Cudjoe Key, but only a little guy about 8 inches long. Wonder where Mommy and Daddy are?

[“Polar vortex”] It is a man made thing by the Chinese to freeze out the north so they can buy it cheap. Same thing is going to happen in the Keys! (humor)
fanci-11-2-13
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help wanted sm

[Help Wanted] Laborer. Cudjoe Key TARS (blimp site) has an opening for a full-time Laborer.  This is a union position with full benefits.  Applicant must be a motivated self-starter with some mechanical skills, be physically fit and drug free.  All shifts to include nights, weekends and holidays. To apply, email resume to … Classified Ads > Help Wanted

[Websites tracking your every move] They capture every mouse move, click, scroll and keystroke, by using a tiny piece of JavaScript embedded on their sites. The whole process is completely transparent to the end user. The shocking thing is some websites now depend upon JavaScript being enabled in browsers for their operation, being entirely hooked on spying on their users. Browser makers like Chrome (from spy prone Google of course) and others have removed the option to turn off JavaScript in the browser’s preferences. However with Firefox and the NoScript add-on, JavaScript and other security prone plug-ins like Flash, Java (shouldn’t be using anyway, very insecure) and Silverlight are turned off as you surf and only enabled if you click the NoScript Temp Allow All button when you trust the page you’re on. For a demonstration of the mouse tracking JavaScript, see this page. Link

(Ed: Using the Disconnect plug-in for my browser I was able to automatically block 7 advertising tracking requests just from this one email!) 

donuts7

I went ahead and broke all my New Year’s resolutions early so I could get on with enjoying the rest of the year.

Who’s got donuts?

Flea-Market-ad10.9.13
[“Bike Path Service Area Idea”] Amazing to see the first post about taking advantage of somebody for greedy profit on the bike path. Why not just stick all the junk shops in the BPK Fla market along the trails? Make the trails look like Fantasy Fest’s Food day. How about flashing lighted bill boards every 100 feet. God, you locals have no class at all!

shiver boy

It is 55 degrees in ‘paradise’ and I could not find my flannel pajamas or my wool socks this morning. With no heat in the box I live in, the only retort is to cook something in the oven and leave the door open. 

A lot of candidates pop up for the City Manager job. At the wages that the job pays the right man must shine above all the others. When the applicant is asked the question from the City Councilman, “How much is 2 and 2?” The candidate should get up, close the door, pull down the shades and reply, “How much do you want it to be?”

He will get the job right away. 

ad-manley-deboer6.27.13

Getting rid of the political section got rid of the ad hominem aargumentswhere a poster countered an argument by attacking the person who used it. Now lets get rid of the false equivalence arguments.

Remember the Monty Python movie where villagers were trying to prove that a woman was a witch so that they could burn her? Their logic went like this, witches burn and so does wood, wood floats because it is light, a duck floats which means that it is light like wood which burns like a witch. They then weighed the woman and she was lighter than a large duck, proving, by false equivalence, that she was a witch.

Yesterday a poster argued against extending unemployment compensation by making recipients falsely equivalent to Key Deer. This is the same ridiculous argument as in the witch and the duck.

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hope-bob

[Bob Hope] Wonderful memories, especially during the Christmas holidays. I am sure we are all thankful that we had Bob Hope in our lives & the lives of our military. He was a great American. Video 

[Citizen Of The Day Says] She loves the weather, the security Key West offers and the overall friendly atmosphere. 
advert-dennis-ward8.16.13
[“Charged 50 cents for 2 glasses of water”] I wonder if the restaurant charges you to pee in their toilet. If so, you pay for the water going in and going out. That would be double dipping.

an_Spaghetti_fork

It’s Italian Tuesday at Springer’s Bar and Grill. Today’s special is spaghetti and meatballs, just like grandma used to make. So come on in for a plateful of Italian lovin’, and don’t forget the vino. Molto Delizioso!

The difference between movie formats MPEG2 and MPEG4. Link
Radio-Shack-1.2.14
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al jazeera logo

[“Al Jazeera News”] They do a great job with their world news. They are fair and show you both sides of any story and do not take political sides. Also they don’t go on & on about what’s on tonight or what was on last night. Plus they have good documentaries on quite a bit of the time. 

[“Charged 50 cents for 2 glasses of water”] Get real. Nobody charges for water in a restaurant! Only in the Keys.
coconuts-ad-11.13
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drink7

 

The perfect drink? This stupid gizmo is only for sissies not pro drinkers. Video

[Many Internet Routers ‘Backdoored’] The SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center reports a surge in probes. Check port 32764 on your router for free using ShieldsUP website from Gibson Research Corporation. Click the Proceed button and under ShieldsUP Services is an entry field. Type 32764 there and click the User Specified Custom Port Probe button. If the port is active, turn off the router and contact a local IT professional or replace the router or upgrade its firmware and retest. Active probes by malicious types are being massively executed to reset routers and compromise the devices using it. Professional IT folks can check all 65535 ports using a Nmap scan. Link

The Doors – Back Door Man

springers-ad12.30.12

bread7

 

Dear Florida Keys, Please stop bitching about everything.

[ACA premiums] Insurance premiums are based on date of birth and tobacco usage (4+ times in a week).  They no longer ask health related questions other than tobacco use.  The insurance companies take you blindly, other than for those 2 questions.

help wanted sm

[Help Wanted] Painters and painter’s helper needed. Classified Ads > Help Wanted 

johnsons-ad-7.25.13
[“Al Jazeera News”] I’ve been watching it since they started. I noticed that not one American politician has ever appeared. It seems they are afraid of what their ignorant constituents would say if they went on a program owned by rich Muslims in Qatar.

battleship firing

[Tribute to the Fallen] Gun barrel from the battleship Arizona. Video 

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I miss the political section. It was the only part of this blog that was inteligent! (Ed: Intelligent? Were you reading the same Political Section as the rest of us?)
advert-accurate-home-insp8.14.13

smoking skull

[2 Hour Quit Smoking Program] Keys AHEC will be offering a free two hour “Tools to Quit” Tobacco Cessation program on Saturday, January 18th from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM at the Monroe County Health Department 50 High Point Road, Tavernier.  Participants will receive two weeks of Free Nicotine Replacement Patches and Counseling from a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist. If you’re ready to quit, we’re ready to help. To register please call 305-743-7111, or just show up. Events

[Not above the law] 16 year head deputy sheriff puts ‘key-logger’ on soon-to-be-divorced wife’s work computer, pleads guilty to federal wiretapping charge. Link
soylant-brown-ct
politics-zone2
from the right

We can’t avoid hearing bad news from the feds concerning jobs and unemployment. On the one hand our Democrat friends tell us that the economy is well on its way to recovery. On the other hand they tell us that the situation is so bad that they want to expand unemployment compensation. At some point you’ve got to wonder if the Democrats are really concerned about increasing the number of jobs or simply increasing handouts to buy votes.  There are several studies that show that making unemployment compensation easily available has the effect of actually increasing unemployment.  A basic tenet of economics is that when an activity is subsidized, people do more of it.

dole-stThe Democrats tell us that handing out unemployment compensation is actually good for the economy. They claim that it is rapidly spent.  What they don’t tell you is that the money that is paid out is taken from the pockets of those who work, thus actually reducing consumer spending. All of the foregoing are the result of Democrat national governance.

Let’s bring down our national unemployment rate by creating jobs. If we can do it here in Florida, certainly the rest of the US can follow our lead. Unemployment compensation has never created a single job.

Just for a moment let’s think about Republican governance in Florida by Governor Rick Scott. In 2012 alone, more than 426,000 Floridians were placed in jobs, with 111,173 former u/e claimants finding employment.  Since December 2010, Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has dropped 4.7 percentage points, from a rate of 11.1 percent to November’s rate of 6.4 percent. The current rate of 6.4 percent represents the lowest statewide unemployment rate since July 2008. It is also a decrease of 1.6 percentage points from November 2012, when the rate was 8.0 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate has now declined year-over-year for 37 consecutive months. Florida’s job growth month-to-month has been positive for 27 of the last 29 months. It keeps getting better and better. Florida job postings compiled by the Help Wanted OnLine data series from The Conference Board showed 279,789 openings in November 2013. This was an all-time high in the data series that began in May 2005. Florida added 6,000 private sector jobs in November 2013 and the state has created a total of 446,300 private sector jobs since December 2010.

All of that directly impacts us here in Monroe County. The US Census is reporting a major influx of new residents to Florida.  As a result Florida median home prices were up 13.3 percent over the year in November 2013. Governor Scott’s tax cuts and reigning in of regulation have made Florida a much more attractive place to do business.

The New York Post reported that an increasing number of financial firms, especially private equity and hedge funds, are fed up with New York’s sky-high city and state tax rates and are relocating to business friendly Florida. Federal tax rates are the same in Florida and New York.

But there’s no state income tax in the Sunshine State. Compare that to New York, where the state and local governments took $14.71 of every $100 earned in 2010, according to state records.  And Florida residents lost 3.31 percent of their income in total taxes, versus New Yorkers, who pay just over 5 percent. Link

If you ran a business in Democrat controlled, New York, wouldn’t you move shop to Florida where your bottom line can prosper.  The by product of those business moves is more jobs for Floridians. All of that makes you wonder why our local pols don’t try and woo financial sector businesses to our sunny Keys shores. The internet works as well here as it does in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach, plus it’s a helluva nicer place to live.

Even with no industry in Monroe County, with Republicans controlling our Legislature and our Republican Governor Scott, we’re doing pretty durned well. Our unemployment rate is the lowest in the state at 3.7%. Deer Friends, that is one great record of governance. Link

Please send me your comments at 1776ftr@gmail.com