Published Tuesdays and Fridays. Letters to the editor with pictures. Since 0202.
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 [Job Opportunity] Busy insurance agency on Big Pine Key is seeking a full-time licensed agent or customer service representative. 4-40 or 2-20 license preferred with at least three years experience. Knowledge of EPIC a plus. Experience preferred but may consider training the right person. Competitive salary and excellent benefit package. Call 305-872-2888 to schedule interview. |
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| Affordable housing issue solved: downstairs enclosures. Cost to county: none |
 [Polluted Plugged Canal] This is way beyond the BOCC maneuverings to tax us all to improve select canals by perpetually flushing the rotting fish carcasses, bilge drippings and yard run-off pollution into the waters we swim in.The good people on the plugged swimming canals in the Cahill Pines and Palms subdivision (oceanside between Seacenter and the Big Pine Shell station) were gagged by the smell of raw sewage in their interconnected canals on Monday. By Tuesday morning, fish of several varieties were belly-up on the surface. Small fishies were gulping air on the surface. The stench was not as bad Tuesday as Monday, but still nasty. The water is poop brown and murky. The color changes beyond the dam. These canals did not stink, ever, before, and they have never been brown. There were no noticeable fish kills in the long extreme cold snap of several years back. The water had cleared from the surge run-off discoloration from Evil Irma. For the first time, the previously safe and inviting swimming canals now appear to be a big cesspool.These canals were alive with tarpon, snook, snappers, jacks, pinfish, grouper, needlefish, crabs, two green sea turtles and a hawksbill turtle prior to Irma. They are deep, but there is plenty of life resident on the bottom. You could hear the snapping of mantis shrimp wherever a mini reef has grown on something hard on the bottom. Bottom muck is not deep, but the bottom is mostly just lime, possibly from shore erosion of decades. I drove along the canals looking for a pollution source, but did not discover it. However, there are numerous “springs” flowing into the canal bottom. My guess is that an FKAA sewer forcemain has burst from the extreme pressures generated by the E/One grinder pumps, and is flowing underground into the canals. These pumps can generate pressure far exceeding the working pressure of the pipe fittings, and far exceeding the test pressures used to verify initial integrity. FKAA and the County were warned of this danger years ago by Dump the Pumps, but they ignored the warnings and recklessly proceeded. The gravity sewer pump station behind the Shell station also uses these residential pumps and is continually in alarm, and already has had pump replacement to no avail. How does one mitigate the damage to these canals once the source is repaired (if ever)? About the only way to ever clean these canals is to dig out the plug dams and open them to North Pine Channel. Even then, it may take pumping into the ends to push the crap (literally) out to dilute it. We are talking roughly 30 million gallons of contaminated water that can only escape on an outgoing tide through holes in the rock. FKAA has denied responsibility and their brother DEP is trying to blame the stench, brown water and dead fish on something else. Is this the beginning of a national news story and class action lawsuit for huge property value losses? Stay tuned. The plot thickens, just like the canal water. |
 [Net Neutrality Dead] A victory for internet service providers such as AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc and hands them power over what content consumers can access. The small website will no longer stand a chance of getting viewed, only the big players will be able to afford to pay the ransom to bee viewed. The new rules give internet service providers sweeping powers to change how consumers access the internet. Service providers can block, slow access to or charging more for certain content. |
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| [Friday Joke] A man was riding on a full bus minding his own business when the gorgeous woman next to him started to breast-feed her baby. The baby wouldn’t take it so she said, “Come on sweetie, eat it all up or I’ll have to give it to this nice man next to us.”
Five minutes later the baby was still not feeding, so she said, “Come on, honey. Take it or I’ll give it to this nice man here.” A few minutes later the anxious man blurted out, “Come on kid. Make up your mind! I was supposed to get off four stops ago!” |
 To report illegal dumping call 305-289-2351. It’s illegal for anyone to dump along US1. It’s illegal for contractors (commercial) to dump anywhere, but the dump aka Transfer Station. Only residents can dump between MM16 and MM40, but not US1. Let’s be vigilant and call anyone dumping. Three months post-Irma. please take it to the dump! Its free for Monroe County residents. |
| [Operation: Coral Rescue] The team: A group of Special Operations veterans and coral scientists. The mission: Restoring thousands of coral damaged by recent hurricanes. It might seem like an impossible mission, but NOAA found the right team to handle the job. Link |
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| Incompetence annoys me. Overconfidence terrifies me. |
The following attachment is a non-compliance system report for China Garden Rest. located at 209 Key Deer Blvd Big Pine Key, FL 33043. If you have any questions please feel free to call or send an email.Best Regards, Cassandra |
Well it’s that time of year, when you need to practice the surprised look when you get the present you never wanted. Video |
| Time to resurrect the Iguana Killers Club (IKC).”A young iguana scales the chain link fence at the Monroe County jail. Whether they are basking in the sun along U.S.1 or wreaking havoc in someones garden, the Florida Keys have become a major stronghold for iguanas. The nonnative species are the bane of existence. |
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| There’s another solar system out there with 8 planets like ours, finds NASA’s Kepler. Scientists have discovered an eighth planet around the star Kepler-90 — breaking the record for the star with the most exoplanets and, for the first time, tying with our own. Link |
 [Conquistadors 1518 Mexico] We found houses built of wood, in the shape of cages, in which numbers of Indians, of both sexes, were confined, and fattened for their sacrifices and feasts. We never hesitated a single moment to break them down and liberate the prisoners. These unfortunate beings, however, never durst leave our side, and this was the only means of saving them from being butchered. From this moment Cortes gave orders to break open these cages wherever we came, for we found them in every township. We all showed our horror of these atrocities, and earnestly reproved the caziques [chiefs] for it, who then promised no longer to kill and devour human beings. I say they promised, but that was all, and if we were but an instant out of sight the same barbarities were committed. |
| [Friday Joke] A doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next check-up, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her. As the doctor was looking through these his eyes grew wide as he realized Grandma had a prescription for birth control pills.
“Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are birth control pills?” “Yes, they help me sleep at night.” “Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely nothing in these that could possibly help you sleep She reached out and patted the young doctor’s knee and said, “Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16-year-old Granddaughter drinks. And believe me it definitely helps me sleep at night.” |
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| I have a very active anti-social life. |
[Christmas Wisdom] Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do. Ho ho ho! |
| House GOP leaders are now preparing to take up a stopgap spending bill next week that would not include any money for hurricane relief. Link |
[New Recipe] Maple breakfast sausage. Recipes > Breakfast Maple Sausage |
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| I always wondered why politicians are so adamantly working on getting re-elected. I realized that it was their realization that they didn’t want to have to get a job in a country with the laws that they passed. |
Lighting of the Fleet at the Marathon Yacht Club. Video |
| [Housing Costs] The price of housing is like everything else, demand vs. supply. In the Keys, the supply is kept artificially low because of high building costs or expensive land or historical preservation or ROGOs, etc. Actually quality housing could be built for reasonable costs, on much available land by replacing dilapidated units or building on vacant lots in higher density.
The real reason supply is kept low is that the landlords want high rental and real estate prices, and have paid off the local politicians with campaign contributions. |
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| [Friday Joke] A woman and her 12-year-old son were riding in a taxi in Detroit. It was raining, and all the prostitutes were standing under awnings. “Mom,” said the boy, “what are all those women doing?”
“They’re waiting for their husbands to get off work,” she replied. The taxi driver turns around and says, “Geez lady, why don’t you tell him the truth? They’re hookers, boy! They have sex with men for money.” The little boy’s eyes get wide and he says, “Is that true Mom?” His mother, glaring hard at the driver, answers “Yes.” After a few minutes the kid asks, “Mom, if those women have babies, what happens to them?” She said, “Most of them become taxi drivers.” |
Walt Disney buys Murdoch’s Fox for $52.4 billion in stocks. Yikes! Link |
| [Net Neutrality Dead] “Your internet plan doesn’t include access to www.bigpinekey.com. Visit www.comcast.com/info/plans to purchase a plan that includes this service. |
| Submit anything but National Politics to island@bigpinekey.com For National Politics go directly to that page, log in, and post your comment. NATIONAL POLITICS |
