The Sanctuary people now want to charge us for using our ocean. They weren’t satisfied with closing off certain areas and islands or regulating uses. Just how far will they go?

[Grinder Pumps] The question we need to ask is how many, if any, grinder pumps have the other sewer districts used? That would be a true tell tale sign.

Big Pine Key controlled burn map for 2013

[Animal Shelter] I can understand how a grumpy dog or a dog with personality issues could be intimidating for a person not experienced in the animal shelter industry. But for those of us who value and embrace the no-kill philosophy, we understand that dealing with personality issues comes with the territory. In the past week I have looked at the statistics for SHARK in the months since my forced resignation. With shock I took notice that in May they euthanized 3 dogs. In my 8 years at that facility there was never a one month period which called for the euthanasia of 3 dogs. Of course these killings may not have been due to personality issues, but I have noticed that a couple of the dogs that I remember as being a bit “spirited” are no longer on their adoptable list on Facebook. It is a possibility that the dogs may have been euthanize because they were seniors and had a hard time getting around… (continued below under Long Winded Tomes)

[“The Continuing Sewer Fiasco”] If you count the parts in the Gravity System v. the Pump System, you realize the Pump System spin that the public has swallowed is the scam of the century. The costs of the Pump System are paid by the County except for the electrical feed the home owner has to supply. This is the spin, because the County is taking the money from the taxes the home owner pays. The installer is making a fortune on this scam, and will continue to for years with the maintenance program for the pumps. The Gravity System is only a few PVC lengths of pipe and some fittings, which the home owner has to buy or supply. The $4500 people paid for the installation is $3000 over priced. Any reliable contractor can do a Hook-Up for $1500 including the piping. What has to be done is to expose the Grand Installer to the public and demand he show proof of costs per property, then lock the pucker up for fraud.

[Homemade mosquito trap]
1 cup of water
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 gram of yeast
1 2-liter bottle

1. Cut the plastic bottle in half.
2. Mix brown sugar with hot water. Let cool. When cold, pour in the bottom half of the bottle.
3. Add the yeast. No need to mix. It creates carbon dioxide, which attracts mosquitoes.
4. Place the funnel part, upside down, into the other half of the bottle, taping them together if desired.
5. Wrap the bottle with something black, leaving the top uncovered, and place it outside in an area away from your normal gathering area.
Mosquitoes are drawn to the color black.

With warmer weather comes mosquitoes! with summer approaching I thought I’d share this again. Here is a homemade trap to help keep you and the kiddos from being a blood donor.

[VAcare] During October 2010 I filed a disability claim with the VA for a medical malady I was diagnosed with shortly after I returned from my “all expense paid trip” to Vietnam. According to the VA, diagnosis of this condition is “presumptive” proof that it was a result of my Asian vacation from the real world. In December, they denied my claim although they acknowledge all the facts set forth. I immediately appealed this decision.

In May 2013, almost three years later, I received notice from the VA that they received my 2010 appeal and I have 60 days to respond. I guess they impose deadlines on me, but not on the VA. Over the next 5 to 10 years I will keep you informed of the ongoing saga.

That being said, the VA office in Key West has been prompt, helpful and competent.

Wanted: high end acoustic cutaway guitar. Classified Ads > Wanted

[Grinder Pumps] Everyone is talking bad about the grinder pumps that nobody wants. They say it is being forced on us by the B.O.C.C. and they don’t care about the people in this county. Well your first clue was when they would not give No Name Key electric. They even went against state law. Nobody paid any attention because it did not concern them. Now it does because the dumbbells want grinder pumps. You need to change the commissions at next election because they do whatever makes them the most money. Sylvia Murphy is the ringleader. ~dean_thompson@bellsouth.net

[Government] If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools or greedy tyrants. ~Someone famous

Even if you do take an interest, you are still doomed to live under the rule of fools or greedy tyrants until they are restrained by term limits. ~Someone not famous

If you’re going to to the trouble to counterfeit booze, at least get the spelling right.

Fanci Seafood will be closed Wednesday July 10th do to death in family.We will be reopen Thursday July 11th at 8 am.

Fanci Seafood will be closed on Sundays until August. Everyone have a great summer!

Tell a smoker that smoking is unhealthy and nobody bats an eye. Tell a fat person that being fat is unhealthy and everyone loses their minds.

(Ed: Happy people exchanging a check.)

[Controlled Burn] With Mr Cohen stating that native vegetation is taking over, and if we don’t act the pine rockland will become hardwood hammock, this seems to be a poor reason at risking another burn that could very well become uncontrolled again.

Today in 1821 the United States took possession of Florida, which it had purchased from Spain.

[Pay to swim] The proposed sanctuary rules are CENSORED! Approving the sanctuary was CENSORED. The person who said we should shun county criminals may want to extend the shunning to employees of the State and Federal Sanctuary personnel. They are simply here to justify their jobs. They want to charge us for the use of the ocean as if they own it. Link.

[Navy to attempt 1st unmanned carrier landing] Our robots can beat your robots.  Who needs people anymore? Link

What is the latest on the sewer project or are we being swept under the proverbial carpet by the officials again? All these pet projects make me feel like I live in old Rome and it is tumbling down the same way. Where do those money spending meatheads come from?

Fossilized conch shell.

“It was God’s will” is functionally indistinguishable from “Shit happens”.

[Peace] One can always win a war (unless you’re America), but how does one conquer peace?

The Humble Pie video the other day had a cool little tale accompanying it. I, too, was unaware that Peter Frampton had been in the band.

Apple’s App Store birthday means free apps for you. Link

The 50 most patriotic beers in America. You’ve got to try the Moose Drool. Link

[Violence] If you break into my home and I am there I will feed you 8 hot rounds of .45 hp. Whether you can digest it or not is up to fate.

[“What else has Obama done”] Obamacare, saved us from certain economic depression, ended two wars. Saved the American auto industry. You might say we weren’t going in to an economic depression, but the fact is if there wasn’t a bailout our country’s economy would have collapsed and we would have gone from recession to depression.

My family told me many stories of the horrors they experienced in the Great Depression. Their families couldn’t afford to feed them and they had to be sent to live with aunts and grandparents. My mother dropped out of high school because she didn’t have proper clothes. My father’s toes are deformed from wearing shoes that were too small for his feet. For those of us that never experienced a depression they are just words without meaning, but for those of us who’ve heard the retelling of Great Depression storied many times we know the horrors it would have caused. I thank Obama for having the guts to do what was right to save our economy.

How quickly hate makes one forget truth.

Well the right has talked themselves around a circle yet again. Conservatives say they are the party of self accountability.

We read it everyday here on the C.T. “if you are to lazy to get an education its your own fault if you dont get a great job” and “don’t blame the well off because you goofed off and didn’t learn a career”. Its their daily mantra.

Now the other day the right was discussing how black Americans unemployment rates have risen. Did they practice what they preach and say “Well its not our fault you are the ones lacking the drive to make yourself more employable”.

Nope,  they did a complete flip flop  when discussing their increased numbers they say “Its Obamas fault not yours”. What happened to self accountability? We all know that in major metropolitan areas their are large percentages of black American communities. In quite a number of those areas there is an over 50% drop out rate among Black American students. Those numbers end up growing into a large number of unemployable people. So why does the right give black Americans a waiver from the usual “You left school and now your unemployed so its your fault” speech? They take personal decisions by a group of people and take all of their self accountability away from the dropouts and try to stick their self responsibility to get training for a job on the President. As if hes the one that made them drop out of school or as if hes the one that put them in a single parent home.

If you preach to white, Hispanic or any other race or religion you want that its” not the governments fault you don’t qualify for a job” then you have to bear the exact same standard as the ones you set for working Americans.

Its getting old and a fools folly to tell a race of people that “they don’t have to be responsible for yourself its the President that’s holding you back”. Quit making excuses for people that have the same rights, responsibility and options we all have. Its up to not only the President but the schools, the kids parents and black community leaders to try and get them back in school and to get an education. I hardly think the President is walking door to door telling employers in the black and white neighborhoods that they shouldn’t hire black employees. Throw away the blame Obama glasses and hold the people themselves accountable. I guess the Conservatives only mean self reliant unless there is a Democrat in office. Then they switch the blame to democrats. How convenient.

Yep, they  always say they are for something but if you sit back and let them keep speaking they will turn away from it when they need the rhetoric. If 1 American is to be held accountable for their own future then we all are. Pick a side folks and quit changing to move your blame around as needed. 

[Border Blues Not Just a Song] “They started cutting our fences and they broke into my house and tore up our water sources, breaking the floats off. And it has just been escalating,” Vickers says. “The groups are getting bigger and the people are more combative.” Vickers’ wife, Linda, never leaves the house without her cell phone, a gun and her four guard dogs. Link

In South Texas, Ranchers Increasingly Fearful of Immigration – US News and World Report

Our CT left fielders never cease to amaze me, their postings are like a never ending trip through Alice’s Wonderland. Recently we’ve seen a spate of postings that assert that Republicans/Conservatives are “afraid” of women who are leaders or who are left leaning female politicians. Yesterday we were treated to a slam against an assertive and extraordinarily competent Conservative woman who is considering a run for Senate in another state. That poster did not slam her because of her beliefs or her qualifications, he slammed her because of her gender. That poster managed to slam two Conservative women in one posting.

Our left field friends are infected with chronic/acute  hypocrisy. Please think about Governor Palin. One can agree with or disagree with her political beliefs. But her accomplishments as the Governor of Alaska were extraordinary.  She was a magnificent campaigner who breathed new life into McCain’s faltering campaign.  Because she was such an existential threat to Team Obama, our left field friends engaged in a take no prisoner’s personal assault on Governor Palin.  They even called her the dreaded “c” word, they attacked her family, they engaged in the most vicious ad hominem assault on her and her family in memory. Their slanderous assaults were the epitome of dirty politics. Please remember that they never attacked her political positions, their assaults were directed at her personally and her family. The fact is that many of our left field friends are misogynists who direct their wrath at Republican, Libertarian, or Conservative women.

It wasn’t too long ago that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,  Chair of the Democrat National Committee, made a sexist fool out of herself when she called the female speakers at the Republican National Convention ‘shiny packages’. Apparently to Wasserman-Schultz a former Secretary of State, three sitting Governors, a Mayor, an Attorney General, a U.S. Senator and a former Lt. Governor, all talented and powerful women are nothing more than shiny packages to have on parade. Wasserman-Schultz has the typical mentality of the loons at NOW who aren’t feminists but just another arm of the left wing. Suggested reading for our liberal friends who have the stones to read it Link

Part 2) A Republican, in a wheelchair, entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee.  The Republican looked across the restaurant and asked, “Is that Jesus sitting over there?”  The waitress nodded “yes,” so the Republican requested that she give Jesus a cup of coffee, on him.

The next patron to come in was a Libertarian, with a hunched back.  He shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress for a cup of hot tea.  He also glanced across the restaurant and asked, “Is that Jesus, over there?” The waitress nodded, so the Libertarian asked her to give Jesus a cup of hot tea, “My treat.”

The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Democrat on crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down, and hollered, “Hey there honey! How’s about getting me a cold mug of Miller Light?”  He too looked across the restaurant and asked, “Isn’t that God’s boy over there?”  The waitress nodded, so the Democrat directed her to give Jesus a cold beer. “On my bill,” he said loudly.

As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Republican, touched him, and said, “For your kindness, you are healed.” The Republican felt the strength come back into his legs, got up, and began to praise the Lord.

Jesus passed by the Libertarian, touched him, and said, “For your kindness, you are healed.” The Libertarian felt his back straightening up, and he raised his hands, and he began to praise the Lord.

Then, Jesus walked towards the Democrat, just smiling. The Democrat jumped up and yelled, “Don’t touch me … I’m on disability.”

For those who understand, no explanation is necessary.

(Thanks LB, dinner?)

Respectfully submitted: FTR@bellsouth.net

(continued from above …) I remember one girl named Vida that is also missing from the adoptable dogs on FB. She had pneumonia not long before I resigned. I spent many hours in the med room where we were keeping her. In those hours I hand fed her, hugged her or just sat with her to make sure she knew she wasn’t alone. She was an achy old girl but I was lucky enough to see her up and walking around before my last day. Sure she needed some help getting up from time to time but I was happy to do that because she still had that fire in her eyes and still had plenty of life left in her. It saddens me if she fought that disease for such a length of time and came out the victor that she may have been killed not long after. The public was not notified or given the opportunity to step in and help find a safe place for her to go. I know if I had been notified that she was at risk of being killed I would have found her a place to go. The fact that their photos are no longer available along with the fact that they euthanized 3 dogs in May leads me to believe that they were the unfortunate ones whose futures were decided upon by inexperienced shelter personnel. I was devastated to hear of this happening under the no-kill organization that I formed and that the animals that I loved as my own may no longer be housed at a no-kill facility. A no-kill organization is what the community insisted upon. The people that have been left in control of the shelter obviously do not possess the knowledge, the patience or the time it takes to give some of the more challenging dogs a second chance at a safe life. The statistics for the entire year of 2012 in which I was Executive Director show 5 dogs being euthanized in that one year period. What could lead to the euthanasia of 3 dogs in just a one month period? The person that has loved those animals as her own has been gone less than 3mos and this has already happened. I shudder to think what will happen during the remaining year and a half of SHARK’s contract, being run by people that just don’t have the experience nor desire to work with difficult animals. Immediately after finding out these facts I sent a public records request to SHARK asking for the breed, name and reason that these animals lost their lives. I have not heard a peep back from them. However, I did get a response of a very devious nature. About an hour after sending my public records request I received a photo on my phone from the volunteer that openly admitted he was the driving force behind my forced resignation. The photo was of several shelter dogs, volunteers, employees and board members happily enjoying the 4th of July parade. I was shocked that anyone would send me a photo they knew would obviously upset me. This person knowing that there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of each and every one of those animals. This same volunteer is the person who said most of the Pitbulls would be shipped to “anyplace that would take them” because they were an “undesirable” breed. So not only is there concern that some of the dogs have gone to “kill” shelters but in fact our own small town shelter may no longer be a no-kill. So where are Dahlia, Scooby, Zeus and Vida? I deserve to know because I miss them and loved them deeply. The public deserves to know because they were housed our “no-kill” shelter. If they have been adopted, where is the happy picture of them with their new families? I knew that when I left the shelter it was not being taken care of by people with experience, but I never had concern for hidden euthanasia taking place…This brings a whole new concern to an already devastating series of events. Maybe there is a legitimate reason for these killings, but the lack of response from SHARK only leads me to believe they do not want anyone to know the real reasons. ~kbentley305@yahoo.com