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2014 March

Wednesday, March 20, 2014

CT-Banner7.3.13Published by Noon–No Saturday Edition

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12-angry-men[“Saga of jury selection”] I walked into the jury assembly room a half hour late. The sewerers or an accident had both lanes closed around Bay Point. I was stuck at Sugarloaf Key in the traffic so I couldn’t see what it was until traffic moved again and by then the problem was resolved.   

At Big Coppitt it was stop and go. At the N. Roosevelt construction it was stop and go again. Not surprisingly there weren’t any parking places near the courthouse.

My nervousness at being tardy was for naught. The Deputy in charge said that the other juror group was still being interviewed and we were to wait until 3 pm when the other group should be ready to join us.   And I was worried about being late.

When I walked into the jury assembly room there was a human bundle on the floor near the door like a bundle of rags. I sat next to it and overheard it speak on the phone in a young girl’s voice and say, “Yeah, I got to do jury duty, or whatever.”  How insecure can a fat young girl be to slump on the crappy floor, in the corner of a room with forty or so other people in it? And she’s going to decide the accused’s fate?

This waiting gives me a lot of time to think of the seriousness of the crime of premeditated murder! I sure hope they don’t pick me for a juror. A little after three the judge came in and said the other group’s interviews weren’t over yet and to go home and come back Wednesday morning at 11 am and start again.

advert-accurate-home-insp8.14.13
Key West has way too much litter floating around. The little street across from the old triangle bank that goes to the exit of Mallory Pier is the worst place due to the wind breezing down the lane. The City’s litter patrol could make that their headquarters.

indian war drum

[Silly Degree] I knew a woman in Key West who earned a degree in drumming. Drumming! What kind of a foolish degree is that? “Hello Dad, All your college tuition has paid off, I got a job at General Electric as their factory drummer.” She couldn’t even keep a beat, she really couldn’t. She’d play this simple drum like maybe the Indians made and practice different beats, but they all sounded the same.

[Broken Phone] Americans have spent $5.9 billion on damaged iPhones, according to a survey conducted by U.S. device warranty provider SquareTrade.
chamber-ad10.17.13
[Car Registration] Motorists in Florida will get a break in the fees they pay to renew their car registration, although many won’t see the benefit until next year. The Florida Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill (SB 156) that would lower auto tag and registration fees by about $25 a year for many motorists.
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vette20vette-engine20The Don McNamara Corvette coupe was purchased from the executors of the estate in 2012 by Dr. Mark Davis, who arranged for it to be unveiled and displayed in the entrance to the Bloomington Gold Great Hall in June of that year. At that time, as now, its odometer showed 2,996 miles. Until its unveiling there, it had been seen by only 12 people. It had only ever been driven by Don McNamara. Only two other people were ever known to have sat in the driver’s seat, and no one had ever occupied the passenger seat. It had never seen the rain or been washed with water and since its discovery had never been cleaned, sat in or touched.

The car instantly caused a sensation in the Corvette community. Numerous high profile Corvette experts including John Rettick have thoroughly documented the car with over 4,000 detail photographs, which along with the car itself serve as in-depth educational resources for Corvette restorers.

The Don McNamara Corvette is not only quite likely one of the most well-preserved, lowest-mileage and exceptionally original 1967 Corvettes in existence, it is also accompanied by exquisitely unspoiled documentation. The paperwork was kept by McNamara in a bank safe deposit box and remains in crisp as-new condition. It includes the original window sticker, showroom sales brochure, Chevrolet warranty book with Protect-O-Plate, the original keys and fob and a duplicate set of keys; the original owner’s manual and plastic pouch, dealer record book issued by Ray Motor Co., a cashier’s check for a deposit and a receipt for the balance of the purchase price, the original State of Colorado license registration and title issued to McNamara dated May 22, 1967 and the NCRS Shipping Data Report confirming delivery at Ray Motor Company in Lamar, Colorado 

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[Jury Duty] Deer Ed, I am curious. How much money are you paid each day for jury duty and can you order like a hogfish sandwich with onion rings for lunch?

(Ed: No, Virginia, they let us out to buy our own food. They do have a couple of vending machines with more greasy, salty, sugary snacks. I think we get paid $13 a day. It cost me $14.50 a day for gas. Duty before gas.)

animals geography class

 

Teachers are a little maturity challenged I think. The elementary school teachers I’ve known seemed happier than me. Could their outlook and attitude stem from their daily contact with innocent children and very few adults?

[Jerk] It appears someone intentionally sank a 50′ sailboat in the Northwest Channel off Key West to be rid or it. It is now a hazard to boaters as the jerk only sank it in 25′ of water and the mast sticks out of the water. Some people …
isaksen-flood-roof 4.23.13 
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beach Bahia Honda00

 

The beach area at Bahia Honda State Park in the Lower Florida Keys has been named among the United States’ top 25 beaches for 2014 by TripAdvisor, one of the world’s largest travel websites.

The Editor is going through with jury duty?  Everyone I ever mentioned jury duty to down here eagerly offered to tell me their favorite method of conning their way out of serving. (Que Ed singing America The Beautiful)
fanci-3.20.14
[Crooks] Sliders’ snatching valuables from cars across the US. Video

replica-wallEveryone is invited to the free display of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Replica in Key Largo Community Park April 11-14. Our small group of volunteers is working hard to bring The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall® to our community. This is no easy endeavor. The Wall itself is a 3/5-scale replica of the original V-shaped Vietnam Veterans Memorial national monument in Washington, D.C., and is six feet tall at the center and nearly 300 feet long. Many volunteers and two days will be needed to construct a platform for the Wall and then erect the 140 inscribed panels that make up the Wall. The exhibit will be at the Key Largo Community Park, Milemarker 100 oceanside, from April 11 – 14 and will be open to the public daily from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. Admission is free. We invite everyone to attend, and are reaching out to schools, clubs and groups to plan a visit to the Wall. For our young people and children, our hope is to build the bridge of understanding through education about the Vietnam war. For generations familiar with this war, we hope to bring a level of healing.

In addition to the massive Traveling Memorial Wall itself, a traveling museum will exhibit artifacts and photographs from the Vietnam conflict, and two related memorial displays may be added if donation funds allow.

More information is online at www.vietnamwallfloridakeys.com

chicken dumplings

Hi there and Happy comfort food Wednesday from Springers Bar and Grill. Today’s special is a favorite and back by request, Chicken and Dumplings. Its a big bowl of love for your belly, and definitely a favorite so come on in and get it before its gone.

Flea-Market-ad10.9.13
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firewood20

 

Look very carefully, this is not a fallen tree. This very carefully stacked firewood.

[Spies like US] New NSA toy exposed records 100% of a nation’s phone calls for later playback. Link
ad-manley-deboer6.27.13
[“Fred and Jan Belland”] Fred lives in Nicaragua now and Jan lives up on the mainland somewhere.

an_forest-fire

 

[Fire] I was on Mallory Pier as I watched the fire start just before noon on Christmas Tree Island. It was still burning at to pm. I wonder why no one put it out? Could it have something to do with the ownership controversy? Will one party use this fire as an excuse to claim the island for development?

Crimea should be left to Russia and the US should butt out. Crimea has always been part of Russia until 1954 when Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine. The people of Crimea all want to be a part of Russia. Let them be.
advert-dennis-ward8.16.13
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award oscar man

 

Today in 1953 the Academy Awards were first televised.

[“How long will it be before UFO theorists try to convince us that missing Flight 370 was due to alien abduction?”] It was!

grinder-pumps-waiting

 

Dastardly grinder pumps waiting o do their dirty deeds on Cudjoe Key (I think).

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[Peary Court] Hendricks is practicing law without a license – almost,  and his company,  sarcastically called  “Critical Concern ” is hardly concerned about us at all. What a sense of humor he has – laughing at us all. He  claims he will get a house at Peary Court like he did with Pritam Singh’s  gated development, where he made a lot of promises and did not keep them.  I do not trust a guy who lost his law license for obstruction and witness tampering. His wife and business partner used to work for Don Craig, City Planner. Small world (sarcasm). Better keep you eyes open.

sale dancing

[Shopping] I thought I was being so smart:  hopped in my car at 7 am to beat the crazies shopping at Winn-Dixie.  But alas, it’s only Wednesday, so none of the sale prices were posted.  Hi ho, hi, ho, it’s off to Publix I go!

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meeting20While watching the KW City Commission meeting Tues evening:

The city’s video feed sucks

Rossi doesn’t care about sunsets

Yaniz hates Vitas

Wardlow doesn’t understand English

Cates finally grew a pair

Is Rossi drunk?

Yaniz is a cry baby

Rossi needs a bigger chair

Young was not prepared

Rossi likes loud music/noise

Why have microphones, the commission doesn’t listen to anyone

Does Wardlow ever talk?

No one follows Robert’s Rules of Order

7 monkey’s talking in circles

And the biggest lie of the night was from Yaniz, “What makes Key West a great place is we care about and love each other.”

canal-cleared00

 

[Canals] It looks like code enforcement made the owner of this lot on Little Torch Key cut the trees that were trying to block the canal. Kudos to code enforcement!

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free sex flash

 

Sluts are just hookers with no grasp of economics. 

[Secede where others have failed] I wonder if the Russian-Crimea issue will inspire Texas to leave the USA like they have been threatening to do?
politics-zone2
from the right

tip hatKudos and a huge tip of the FTR fedora to our Deer Ed for doing the right thing and not trying to avoid jury duty. We all know what a huge pain in the butt it is, it takes us away from our jobs or our leisure, and places us in a rigid setting where we have no control whatsoever over the proceedings. It can be deadly dull, it can fiercely interesting, and sometimes the jury will learn about human behavior that will scare the crap out of them. Nonetheless, I envy those who have the privilege of sitting on a criminal jury, because I was a police officer, it is nearly a sure bet that I never will.

Accepting jury duty is one of the most important public service duties that any American can shoulder.  We all know how very, very easy it is to avoid jury duty. During the initial group interview of the of prospective jurors, even a sea cucumber will be able to figure out what answers to give that will result in him/her going home early. Frankly doing that sucks.

Our entire judicial process relies on citizen jurors giving of their time, their life experiences, and the discomfort of deciding for or against the defendant. Our Constitution and the very fiber of our society is protected by the service of citizen jurors.

There is no more powerful means of finding truth than our adversarial system of justice with the outcome being decided by a group unbiased jurors who bring their common sense into the jury room.  The give and take between the prosecution and the defense are not evidence, the judge will fully explain the process that a jury must follow to reach a verdict. Serving on a jury is a privilege and a duty.

suicide20Part 2) There is something very-very strange going on in the halls of high finance. For some reason there has been an epidemic of suicides of the best and brightest stars in the firmament of high finance.

Since January there has been 8 suicides from the ranks of the fiscal whiz kids, a majority of which were a very, very public act such as base jumping without a parachute.

That has suicide-prevention experts puzzled. “Jumping is much less common as a method for suicide in general, so I am struck by the number that have occurred in recent months in this industry,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  The suicide-research literature doesn’t help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open,” she added. Can it be that these now dead whiz kids see a future that they want no part of? Or perhaps they were privy to information that we are not, and it simply scared them to death? Link

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