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2019 November

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Letters to the editor with pictures since 2002. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Raquel Welch USO show Vietnam 1970Raquel Welch USO show Vietnam 1970​

 

[Finally Our Own Sign] I know we all had the dream even though we didn’t really think it was a possibility. We thought the heavy competition in the crappy big cities up North that we had no chance. We have been working on this well before the underpasses for the Key Deer. We had many, many hurricanes trying to diminish our dream of success. As of two days ago our magnificent dream has become a reality. Big Pine Key has finally accomplished the one and only mile with the most flashing lights and road signs in the world. Please take a moment of silence to remember all the commissioners, and sign makers who have put so much effort into this. Be proud Big Timers!

[Hero Soldier] Thank you Ervin S Casper. If there was no you then there would be no me. Thank you and your family.
[Sea Level Rise] In preparation for sea level rise, we’ll raise the roads near Father Tony Way and Sands subdivision in Big Pine Key where it always floods in heavy rain. this will be paid for by an increase in our property tax and an increase in sales tax.

Once the road is raised 10’, where will the extra water go?  Into residents’ yards? We can’t have that, so we’ll pump it into an injection well, so that all the oil film and dirt from the roadway can quickly make its way to our canals and the coral reef.

According to Assistant County Administrator Kevin Wilson, the costs could exceed $300 million. “If we take the road up 18 inches, the property owner may not be able to access the road without raising their driveways, so we have to take that into account as well.” Wilson said.

Who are these idiots?

Mini deer thought to be extinct is rediscovered in Southeast Asia. Those aren’t rats in the video, they’re tiny deer! Video

 

 

[Stoned] Before I moved here “stoned” had a completely different meaning; and so did crabs.

[Crooks] Monroe County law enforcement and prosecutors are getting exposed for conspiring and fabricating evidence to get a conviction. “Inside Edition” filmed what they could. It took a team of high-priced lawyers bankrolled by a wealthy businesswoman to pull off the exposé. The accused has been held for 2 years without bond and no trial. What about the Constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial? How many innocent people have been held in jail and/or convicted in Monroe County based on the testimony of a paid or bribed witness? Link
[Chlorine Gas] At a Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar, one employee died and 10 other employees and customer were injured when chlorine bleach and another cleaner created poisonous fumes. Chlorine bleach is a lot more dangerous than you probably think. Even when chlorine just contacts dirt, chloroform fumes are produced. While unlikely to kill you right away, it is retained in your body. The typical swimming pool or hot tub is not where you want to be! Chlorine and some common home products are really bad news, as the folks at Buffalo Wild Wings discovered. FKAA poisons its tap water heavily with combined chlorine and ammonia to kill the bugs and you get the rest if you drink that crap without filtering properly first. That is reason enough for me to avoid tea or beer brewed in the Keys. Link
Why I lived on a tree for more than two years. Audio
[Medical Marijuana Scam] That’s the biggest scam since a long time. They’re trying to make pot a medicine. That’s like making alcohol a medicine, “He’s feeling no pain.” Can you imagine having to get a prescription for Rum? Sure, they both relieve pain, but that’s not why people use drugs. They use them to get high. Legalize pot an remove it from the Class 1 drug list. Deer clueless government: Pot is not the same as heroine.

 

[Long Receipts] It was getting pretty cold out, CVS gave me this free scarf with my purchase. When it gets really cold I add the one that Kmart gave me.

[Sewers] Research studies have determined that if a sewage treatment plant uses a shallow injection well for effluent disposal as most plants do in the Keys, and if the well functions as intended, then the effluent will emerge at coral patches and the main reef line. Due to specific technologies targeting phosphorus removal at the plant, plus phosphorus absorption by limestone underground, the main elevated nutrient emerging on the reef is nitrogen.
Here is a quote from a July 2019 NPR article sponsored by The Nature Conservancy that quotes Dr. Brian Lapointe of Big Pine Key.:
“Excess nitrogen feeds blooms of algae that block out the light. It also throws off the nutrient balance in the water in ways that disrupt the coral’s life cycle.
“The corals are assimilating nutrients from the water column,” Lapointe explains.
As the nitrogen has increased, it hasn’t been balanced by a similar increase of phosphorus, a mineral corals need to grow. The imbalance, according to Lapointe, is starving the corals of phosphorus.
“This [nitrogen to phosphorus imbalance] is what we now realize is increasingly stressing the corals at Looe Key, and probably other areas of Florida and the world,” he says.
It makes the corals unhealthy, and more susceptible to disease, to go through coral bleaching, and to die, he says.”
So basically, low budget central sewers are directly killing the reefs, and unless deep wells replace the shallow effluent disposal wells, you can kiss the Keys reefs goodbye and blame it all on Monroe County, City of Marathon, and FKAA. Link

 

 

[Faulty Brain] Is being an adult just repeatedly staring at a pill bottle in your hand like, “did I already take this or was I about to take it?

12 Questions in the Ages Quiz. Link

 

[Veterans Day From a Different Perspective] My wife and I have been discussing Veterans Day today. She followed her mom’s profession of being a nurse since she was 15 (graduated from HS early). During her initial career at a VA Hospital, she simultaneously served US Veterans of 4 wars: WWI veterans (truly!), WWII Veterans, Korean War Veterans, and Vietnam Veterans. She brings this up every Veterans Day, showing how much it means to her. Her uncle died in WWII and her brother died in Vietnam. Now she retired in the Keys and puts all her efforts to helping Key Deer. Nurses have always been sub-recognized, and many of our armed forces individuals would be acknowledged on the much more somber Memorial Day, rather than Veterans Day if not for the efforts of our nurses. Raise the flag for them as well!

 

 

 

[Redneck Mini Blinds] No need to clean or dust them, just tear off what you need and then toss away.

We had our first cold front of the year Sunday. It went down to around 80.
[Word of the Day] Pareidolia. ever caught a glimpse of the man in the moon? Then you’ve experienced pareidolia — the tendency to perceive patterns where there are none. Faces are, the most common shape people see, likely because mugs matter so much in our social species. But the phenomenon, pronounced “parr-i-DOH-lee-uh,” goes beyond faces. We humans can spot just about any shape in nearly anything: Maybe you see a deformed version of your state in your latte foam, or perhaps those clouds are two dinosaurs duking it out. Pareidolia even extends to auditory stimuli, when people misinterpret arbitrary sounds and noises as something meaningful, like voices or music.
[Coral Cure] What would happen if scientists dosed threatened reefs with “coral probiotics” — strains of beneficial bacteria known to support coral health? It seemed plausible that the right mixture of bacteria might fortify reefs against stressors like ocean temperature spikes and disease epidemics. And after a bleaching event, the microbes might help coral colonies recover better than they would otherwise.

The team harvested seven helpful species of bacteria from natural Indo-Pacific Ocean colonies of Pocillopora damicornis coral. The scientists sequenced bacterial genes to locate species with the traits they were looking for. Some of the chosen bacteria, for instance, make anti-microbial compounds to ward off disease, while some protect against heat stress. Still others reduce the number of certain molecules that damage coral cells’ DNA. Once the bacterial cocktail was ready, Peixoto and her team dripped a liquid solution containing the microbes onto some wild coral samples in the lab, and then put both treated and untreated samples through stress tests. In one set of tanks, they cranked the water up to almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit — a blistering temperature for coral. They infected some of the normal- temperature and warmed tanks with bacteria known to cause disease.

After about a month, the untreated stressed corals had bleached into skeletons. But those treated with the microbial cocktail had thrived.

 

 

[Light Commands] Burglar, “Alexa, I’m going to use my laser to communicate to you to open the front door. ”  Check this out. Video

Our National Anthem by the Academy Choirs. Video
[“Thermal imaging deer”] “see how she even peed on her legs” It’s a buck, Doe’s squat
Ethanol is clear, right? Have you noticed that typical E10 gasoline is generally more colored than Rec90? I thought maybe they used a dye for some reason. Wrong. I just watched a video where the author has done some research and found that the gas companies are getting rid of waste chemicals by slipping them into your gasoline. He does a burn test where 5 minutes of combustion products from a small flame are collected on a filter cloth. He burns regular E10, Rec90(E0), E15, E30, and E85. Your typical E10 is by far the dirtiest and E85 is the cleanest. Just like with fluoride in water, industry, with the support of government, sells you its waste instead of paying to get rid of it. And your health and the environment are harmed in the process. I searched for BTEX: “BTEX is a highly volatile contaminant, usually found in gasoline, with high solubility and toxicity, thus, it represents a high risk for public healthHere is the burn test video
Today, many Baby Boomers are reaching retirement without having enough saved to fully retire. What worries me most about this scenario is that being so cash-strapped means they’ll have little recourse if a financial emergency arises

 

[Cuteness] Virtually every academic study published on cuteness references his idea of kindchenschema, or “baby schema”: Infants of many mammal species have a suite of features, such as a large head, large eyes and a small nose, that prompt a caregiving response.

 

 

 

 

[Redneck Lawn Service] Who but a redneck would chop a lawnmower?

 

[Remote Control] Why, oh, why do they make the bottoms of remote controls round? Why don’t they make them flat so when it’s lying on a table, I can change channels without it rocking or overturning? Due to poor design you have to pick up the control in your hand instead of leaving it on the table where you could just push buttons..

 

 

Raquel Welch USO show Vietnam 1970.

[Political Correctness] It had been snowing all night. So at 8:00 am I made a snowman.
8:10 A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.
8:15 So, I made a snow woman
8:17 My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman’s voluptuous chest saying it objectified snow women everywhere
8:20 The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snowmen instead
8:22 The transgender person asked why I didn’t just make one snow person with detachable parts
8:25 The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.
8:28 I am being called a racist because the snow couple is white..
8:31 The Muslim gent across the road demands the snow woman wear a burqa
8:40 The Police arrive saying someone has been offended
8:42 The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needs to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role
8:43 The Human Rights officer arrived and threatened me with eviction
8:45 TV news crew from the CBC shows up. I am asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I reply, “Snowballs” and am called a sexist.
9:00 I’m on the news as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobic sensibility offender bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.
9:10 I am asked if I have any accomplices. My children are taken by social services
9:29 Far left protesters offended by everything are marching down the street demanding for me to be beheaded.