SHE MADE IT! Diana Nyad makes history swimming from Cuba to Key West. Video

The dirt in the dog park across from Lulu’s in Marathon makes my puppy filthy dirty and I have to give her a bath afterwards.  That extra chore takes the fun (for me) out of taking her to the dog park to exercise.  Who do I ask if some sod could be put down?

[Preservation Blues] If it is not enough that Piners and No Namers are responsible for saving our runt deer from extinction, I read that we must also shoulder the burden of protecting two endangered butterfly species. Henry David Thoreau said that man’s solutions to his problems are more complex than the problem calls for. In the dawning of this nation there were warring Native American tribes and peaceful tribes. The warring tribes raided other tribes because there weren’t enough women to go around. There weren’t enough women to go around because they raided so much. They never conceived of an easy solution.

Here we have yards that look like moonscapes except where the yards are fenced. Try getting a fence permit these days. We live in the sub tropics, but tropical flowers and vegetation is deer food that is consumed as soon as it is planted. The complicated solution is to restrict speed limits, and building permits. If the county would encourage fencing yards, and growing flowers we would have more butterflies than we have mosquitoes. If a contiguous part of the Key Deer refuge were fenced, we would have more deer than we have butterflies. 

[Speaking for Everyone] Another one speaking for everyone yesterday accused me (the poster of ‘large garden to water’) of being “sometimes” green.

Please speak for yourself. We don’t have A/C. We do recycle our water and we do have rain barrels. And we do have a large garden, one of the pleasures of our lives. What we don’t do is criticize other’s lifestyles.

[Oil Boom] We now produce 60% of our own oil, but yet we have overpriced gas. I know why, but is it right? is it patriotic?

Islamorada gets a $50,000 grant to complete improvements to the Key Tree Cactus Preserve. The 9-acre preserve is named for an endangered cactus that grows there. 

[The American liberal arts] Students at a Kentucky high school were encouraged to step on an American flag that had been placed on the floor as part of an art display, outraging parents and students. The display at McCracken County High School, was a re-creation of “Dread” Scott Tyler’s 1989 installation titled “The Proper Way to Display an American Flag.” A photograph shows a music stand on top of the flag that had been placed in a hallway. As part of the art exhibit, students were encouraged to stand on the flag and write their reflections on how they felt standing on the flag.

It is time for decency to reclaim our public schools. (Ed: Ban art I don’t like.)

Message to students. How did we get so far off track. Link

[“The idea of a sewer treatment facility is to recoup some of the water used in a household”] I would say this environmentalist is a bit off as to the reason we are getting sewers in the Keys. Last I heard was that the septic tanks were leaching into the canals and polluting the reefs. I don’t totally agree with this reason, but it is the one used to sell the sewers.

The real question is why do you care what others do? You may have a little room to preach if your home is 100% solar, don’t own a car, and drink you own urine, but somehow I doubt if this is the case.

[Fashion Police] Never wear white after Labor Day.

[“Sanctuary keeps having meetings until we get exhausted and they get to regulate us out of the Keys”] If the over regulation doesn’t get you, wait until you see how much flood insurance is going to cost you. One way or another, they will depopulate the Keys.

[“Commissioner  Sylvia Murphy is the reason we are getting grinder pumps instead of gravity sewers”] Oh really? Then how, pray tell us, did the other 4 commissioners vote?  Otherwise yours is just an anti Sylvia rant.

Celebrities when they were young. Photo: Martha Stewart 20. Link

That parking lot in Marathon at FedEx is the pits! Pun intended.

Verizon is buying Vodafone’s wireless stake. Verizon will own its wireless business outright after agreeing to a $130 billion deal to buy the 45 percent stake of Verizon Wireless owned by British cellphone carrier Vodafone. The buyout, the second-largest acquisition deal on record,  would give Vodafone PLC additional cash to pursue its  expansion ambitions in Europe. Those ambitions include its  push to buy up other cellphone providers and to expand into  the lucrative world of mobile services. The deal announced Monday would also give Verizon  Communications Inc., the opportunity to boost its quarterly  earnings,

Today in 1838 Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Baltimore, eventually leading the abolitionist movement and gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing.

Microsoft is buying Nokia’s struggling mobile business in a $7 billion deal, a bold move to try to catch up in a fast-growing mobile market that is now dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple.

The deal comes on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement that Chief Executive Steve Ballmer will retire as soon as a successor is found. As part of the deal for Nokia’s devices-and-services business, Microsoft will bring aboard 32,000 Nokia employees including CEO Stephen Elop, who is believed to be among the contenders for Mr. Ballmer’s job.

Stock: Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.45%

[“Jesus loves you”] Instead of lamenting about a misguided and angry contributor to the CT, I suggest you waste your time on your knees and pray with all your might for the control freaks that make Capt Gloom and Doom go crazy. That would achieve higher ends and purposes than anything you could attain via pious wishful thinking. I too get angry, especially when I see sheep trying to beef-up their submissive flock for the slaughterhouse. Pray if you must, but stand up and be counted, as wolves won’t care about your inner peace.

As dawn brightens, watch the waning crescent Moon passing Jupiter, Mars, and company in the eastern sky. (Positions are drawn for the middle of North America.)

Ever wanted to live in Paradise? You can you know. Build your own dream home. Video

[Happy 9/11 Day] What kind of mental emotional sickness thinks 343 firefighters, and a total of over 2000 people dying in a single event and the word holiday (celebration) go together? This country celebrates birthdays,  not death days. What’s wrong with you?   And even if you respond you were joking,  same question – what kind of sickness would ever think that’s a joke subject?

[Wetstock 9] I want to take a moment to thank Flip Flop Bob and Jeff Parker for working in the hot sun yesterday for free to make WETSTOCK 9 not only one of the best gigs I have played down in the Florida Keys, but also my favorite. It was great to hear Phoenix and Category 4! Thanks to all the people who were out there. I have only been here a short while and yet yesterday I felt like I had been here much much longer. It was so great to play for the people I see everyday who have welcomed me into their community. You guys made me feel like a rock star and for that I cannot thank you enough. ~Ray West

Jesus is a nice Jewish boy so he’s A-okay in my book.  After my goyem ex, molested our young son, he turned to Jesus which led him to another zealot and they were fruitful and multiplied and he had some more kids to molest while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.  My bridesmaid visited me up on the mainland a few weeks after I gave birth and she engaged in sexual relations with my husband while I slept.  Their secret came out, she became re-born and I became divorced.  

Jesus attracts addicts and bad people who should not even be in the gene pool.  Have you ever met a sincere, kind genuine, religious zealot, who was not interested in sex or money?  Like George Carlin said, “He needs money!”   

[“Wars are started by people that do not know the word of God”] Wow! You must live on a different planet than I do.

Check with FKAA before spending any money on separation pipes or additional metering.  If FKAA will only bill based on water in, then there’s no point in separating.  Spend your money to set up a rain water storage system instead.

The first person to get it in writing from FKAA, make sure you post it here. You will be the hero.  And whenever anybody goes to any sewer meeting or public info event – stand up and ask how FKAA will bill those who don’t have city water or do have large gardens, etc.

[“The fact is road memorials distract drivers”] Fact?  What fact? Where is the fact that these markers distract?  in what document?  All road signs attract driver attention,  but the signs with words – which require reading – take driver attention for a longer time.  And really, what’s wrong with individuals’ expressing their personal grief?

[‘Tisn’t the Season] Costco, it’s the beginning of September! This is not festive. This is horrifying. 

[Lusty Lady] America’s only Unionized strip club closes because it can’t generate enough revenue to pay rent. Link

[Weather] We may now finally have a candidate for significant tropical development. “Invest 97L” near the Lesser Antilles, a wave that emerged from Africa a week ago (and was written off by computer models days ago), seized the attention of the weather community Sunday as it took advantage of favorable conditions caused by a split-in-half upper low system and started looking unexpectedly robust. As the convection fired up, 97L also started producing some attention-grabbing long-range computer model forecasts. Link

There is a church outside of Key West that a steeple. With a cross. With a lightening rod atop it. Is that really necessary?

Does anyone out there have any good bottom fishing GPS numbers off Big Pine they’d be willing to sell?  Contact me at tryin2findit@aol.com

[Obamacare Primer] Maternity and Newborn Care. The law classifies pre­natal care as a preven­tive service that must be provided at no extra cost. And it requires insurers to cover childbirth as well as the newborn infant’s care. These maternity benefits are a welcome breakthrough for young people, as two-thirds of individual plans have traditionally excluded this type of coverage.

What the Hell is that gal in all of the Progressive car insurance commercials on TV supposed to be dressed up as?  She creeps me out for some reason, and I have Progressive.

Wetstock 9 was awesome, but I have heard rumors that the classic rock band Mad Dog and the Road Whores will be performing at Wetstock 10. I can’t wait!  ~Mad Dog and the Road Whores

[Syria] For President Barack Obama’s new foreign policy advisers, the first test of their willingness to undertake military action wound up being a stark lesson in the president’s ability to overrule them  all. Obama’s abrupt decision to seek congressional approval  before striking Syria also overshadowed what had been a surprising level of consensus  among the second-term team members about how to respond to a deadly chemical weapons attack against civilians in Syria.

We do not need to hop into a war in Syria after Afghanistan, after Iraq, like a checker game. It’s ok to shoot your people,  torture your people, but its not ok to gas your people. Who cares, let them kill each other in the name of Allah just like we should have let them do in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have been in that hellhole part of the world for over 21 years and 15 trillion dollars, with no results, while our troops have been used for nothing but religious policemen.

Republican Congress make up your minds. Bring your asses back from vacation and make a decision on Syria. I mean you ranted and raved and screamed bloody murder about Obama going on vacation and hes still working. Heres the chance for the Republicans to make up their minds and have a stake in this countrys future. You wanted Obama to come to you concerning action you got it. Whats it going to be tough guys

[Bad Obama] Little did the Platters know in 1955 that their song would be so appropriate today,

58 years later. The Great Pretender

[“Obamacare Primer”]  Thanks for pointing out all the freebies we’ll be handing out to those new Syrian, Mexican, and otm (other than Mexican) “immigrants” Obama wants to buy votes from.

[Syria] In 2011, Professors Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas published a study titled: The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization Of The Antiwar Movement In The United States 2007-2009 which looked at nearly 6,000 surveys of anti-war demonstrators between January 2007 and December 2009. one chart basically tells the whole story. The percentage of Democrats attending anti-war protests collapsed at the end of 2008, and in early 2009.

If you guessed that this had something to do with the fact that Obama is a Democrat, you’d be correct!

For years, Miami-Dade County, bastion of Democrat power and governance, has had the reputation of being an artesian well of graft for politicians to drink from. Now, Miami-Dade has attracted the attention of the New York Times.

In an article yesterday, the Times reported the very recent arrests of a passel of Miami-Dade politicos, and chronicled some of the sordid history of Miami-Dade’s official corruption. The sad fact is that since July, five suburban mayors and sundry public officials in Miami-Dade County have been arrested on corruption charges; three of them within a month. Miami-Dade is not Florida’s only corruption pit, but it certainly seems to be the most noxious.  

Florida currently leads the nation in convictions of public officials, 781 between 2000 and 2010; which leads to the question, is Florida so awash in official corruption that it bubbles to the surface like… well, you know, or are we simply better at catching it?  You decide.

Whatever your decision is, you should know that Governor Rick Scott and the Republican legislature have been aggressively addressing the problem.  Our Monroe Rep., Holly Raschein, was instrumental in the passage of two ethics bills and six other bills that focus on government transparency and accountability.  Deer Friends, our Republican governor and legislature have passed ethics legislation for the first time in 36 years.  That’s progress you can count on.