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Anonymous Letters to the Editor with Pictures. Published Daily by Noon Since 2002. No Saturday Edition
 [Big Pine Flea Market] (strange phenomenon happens again, here in Big Pine) One of the greatest things about living on this island is our local Keys characters. The place overflows with eccentric and unusual people. Our own beloved Deer Ed is one of them. He lives in a time warp. My ad here that has brought the local flea market a ton of new customers says Open October, gone fishing for summer. We forgot to tell Deer Ed that this is October, we are open now. (Ed: Oops!) I actually got a lot of phone calls because my ad contradicted itself. Customers asked how we could be Open and Closed at the same time. I made a list of things that might of happened to Deer Ed.The Mother Ship was hovering overhead during the full moon. He could be wrapped up in elections and was only counting the days till it’s time to vote. He just got back from a wedding and was honeymoon dreaming. He is still thinking that we have seasons here and he is sitting on the porch waiting for the leaves to change color. The wedding he attended was in Colorado and he thinks the leaves are changing in his yard. He could be busy doing the math to trim his mangroves and couldn’t figure whether it was 4 inches or 4 feet. Maybe he is waiting to buy the Vietnam vet a free drink, I would. He could be trying to figure out how you can tell if a mosquito is female that bites. It’s possible that he is Christmas shopping early while he works. I really am guessing that after a few days away from the Keys that he is just so happy to be home that he didn’t care what month this is.The Big Pine Flea Market is open every Saturday and Sunday from 8 am till 2 pm. Come see us. We have a lot of new vendors and all your favorites are coming in every week. It’s time to get out of the a/c and visit your friends and neighbors. Ask us what day it is, we might guess it right. |
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| [Wall climber par excellence] The ultimate cat burglar. Video |
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 [Gas Prices] I recently made a trip back from Missouri where gas was $2.98. at every corner and as low as $2.93. Non ethanol boat gas at marinas was around $3.80. I would like to know the real reason we pay so much more. I’m thinking we are supplied from the same terminal and the distance is pretty similar. |
| (Ed: Only 4 more Sunday editions of the Coconut Telegraph until we only publish five days a week.) |
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| Libertarian Party candidate Adrian Wyllie filed a federal lawsuit Thursday seeking to join the Wednesday Florida gubernatorial debate. Wyllie claims that his rights are being infringed upon because of a rule requiring participants to show at least 15 percent support in a reputable independent opinion poll. Wyllie says the rule he understood was 12 percent — including any poll margin of error — although the 15 percent figure has been in place since at least August 2013. |
 Trends in K-12 education since 1970 proving what many say that pouring money into schools does not improve education. |
| [“Licensed contractor”] The only reason to hire a licensed contractor is that you will have excellent recourse if he does shoddy work. The Construction Industry Licensing Board frown on shoddy contractors and so do the courts. If you hire an unlicensed carpenter you have no recourse at all except to break his leg, as a matter of fact, you are in violation of any number of rules and can be persecuted under the law. |
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| [“Hard drive security”] What a great idea about the zeros re: Always overwrite the file with zeros or ones and save it to the same name. |
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 The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. Everything we possess that is not necessary for life or happiness becomes a burden, and scarcely a day passes that we do not add to it. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. |
| [Injection Wells] Their is a motion on the Oct 17 BOCC Agenda to include about $7 million worth of deep injection well at the Cudjoe wastewater plant. FKAA knew over 6 years ago that they needed 2 deep injection wells–by law–to handle the amount of sewage just from hot spots in the Cudjoe project. Why did they piss away hundreds of thousands for shallow wells? The agenda item says that the plant was permitted for 0.84 million gallons per day (MGD) based on the expected three high consecutive month average daily flow (TMADF).. That is incorrect. Actually it is permitted for 0.84 MGD average daily flow which is only about 78% of the designed TMADF. However, 0.84 is all that the DEP thinks that plant can effectively treat. The low permitted capacity was a deceitful conspiracy with DEP knowledge and approval to try to dodge the deep well required by Florida law for a design TMADF of over 1.0 MGD. That plant was designed to treat 1.07 MGD TMADF and has always required deep injection wells by law. The above information came to light during Dump the Pumps’ investigations into how far the deceit extended past the obvious: the obvious being misleading people into thinking that a conventional gravity sewer system was to be built that might need a few grinder pumps in remote areas. Deceit and horrible engineering permeates the whole project. There is much more that is not being publicly disclosed yet, and it is way worse than you think it could be. At least the DEP had to admit in court that the system is not designed to even minimum standards, even though they are reluctant to say stop everything and do it right. They call that “environmental protection”? Dump the Pumps ran up a big legal bill fighting for you and the lower Keys’ quality of life. Help them if you can. http://dumpthepumps.com |
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| [“Seamstress on Big Pine”] Land & Sea. Bonita does great work. 305-923-1624. |
 Veterans push to smoke pot to ease PTSD. This is 2014. It’s legal to smoke marijuana for PTSD in 11 states. Vets can go to the VA and get any mind numbing and dangerous drug they want, but they can’t get a joint! Link |
| [Joke Friday] A guy is looking for a place to sit in a crowded library. He leans down and whispers to a girl, “Do you mind if I sit beside you?” The girl replied in a loud voice, “No! I don’t want to spend the night with you!”All the students in the library started staring at the guy; he was truly embarrassed and moved to another table. After a few minutes, the girl walked quietly to the guy’s table and said with a laugh, “I study psychology, and I know what a man is thinking. I guess you felt embarrassed, right?”The guy then responded in a loud voice, “$500 for one night? That’s robbery! All the people in the library looked at the girl in shock. The guy then whispered in her ear, “I study law. I know how to screw people.” |
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| Pink Floyd talks to 6 Music’s Matt Everitt. Audio |
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| Check out where your tax dollars are going by reviewing the BOCC Agenda for Oct 17th. It looks like a hell of a lot of dollars are going to companies and organizations that are not really benefiting the general population who are financing these items. Miss Gay Southernmost US of A? $300,000 for more renovations to the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge? $529,000 for cultural events that you have to pay to attend? $340,000 for fishing tournament events that you have to pay to enter? I could see the TDC funding some things, but most items look to me like gifts to special interests and friends. Link |
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| [Variations of this eRumor have been circling the web since 2008] There are more people on welfare in Illinois than there are people working. Link |
 Gun that makes and fires paper airplanes. Video |
| [Canal Cleaning] Instead of going after some trees hanging over a canal, which can hardly be described as a vital issue, how about the County cracking down on the people that let their shrubs grow up to block street intersection views, creating dangerous safety issues for drivers. |
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| [Paranoia] Where can we go to see what the plans are for the Keys that the State has all lined up and who is in charge of the development project and when will it push us into the sea? |
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 Pay the best teachers more not building contractors! |
| Willie Nelson is featured on a track on the new Engelbert Humperdinck Duet CD, “Engelbert Calling.” |
| [The Land That Made Me Me] Growing up in Jonesboro, AR in the ’50’s. We’ve come a long way baby! A look at a simpler time. Video |
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| Yesterday on US1 Morning Magazine FKAA spokesperson said they are taking care of business about bridges going out and other big problems cutting off our water. But he said nothing about what we do about the sewer if we all hooked up and we got no other place to take a dump because they took our septic systems away when we bought the new sewer. How about when we get to come back sometime later if we evacuate during a hurricane and the whole place doesn’t work or maybe we don’t get to come back for a while yet while they fixed it right? |
 [“Interview with God”] Get your autographed copy today! |
| [“Third round is a tracer”] It depends on which ammo you’re using. Any smart gunner never uses tracers because the idea works in both directions! |
 [Life is all about ass] You’re either married to an ass, divorced from an ass or trying to forget an ass. You’re either working your ass off, sweating your ass off, laughing your ass off, kicking ass, kissing ass, spanking ass, hauling ass, wiping ass, busting ass, trying to get a piece of ass, or are an ass! |
| [“Every third round is a tracer. Someone told me it was every fifth round”] It depends on how you load them. Putting a tracer in the sequence wherever you want to. Truth is no self respecting 11B (infantry) would ever use tracers. Why give them a direct target back to you? The only ones who used tracers were helicopters (so the pilot knew what the gunner was shooting at) and the stay-back-at-base-camp guys who thought they looked cool! |
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| It’s not that I’m more patient, I just don’t give a crap anymore. |
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| [Original Sin] If Jehovah is such a loving and forgiving God, then why doesn’t he forgive us for the sins committed by Adam and Eve? |
| [Kurdish Peshmerga] I certainly hope our Kurdish friends will fare better than did the Armenians at the hands of the Turks and that our hand in friendship isn’t a Judas kiss of death. |
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| [Scott Free] I never thought it would happen, but it did. I finally agreed with FTR when he said, “Scott in his private life has proven that he is a skilled administrator with great business acumen”. I had to agree. How else could Scott have bilked billions, literally billions, from Medicare and Medicaid and gotten away with it? Is that where the term getting away scott free comes from? |
 Did yesterday’s picture of Bill Murray have a blue left eye and a brown right eye? |
| [Mosquito Control Is Out Of Control by Walter Drabinski] How do you know if you are getting value from a public utility or taxing district that is not regulated by a Public Service Commission? Over the last few years that question has been asked by many regarding the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD). The answer has always been that the FKMCD is the most advanced, effective and admired agency of its kind in the US! The Management and some Board members have worked hard to convince us that they are both operationally and cost effective in performing their function. It is generally difficult to prove that this is not the case; however, recently the free market has demonstrated just how expensive our service in the Florida Keys really is. After fifty years of contracted services, the Navy went out for bid for its mosquito control services and the results are eye opening. The competitive bid, from a company that does not even have an office in the Keys, was 40% below the price offered by Mosquito Control. In other words, a private, national competitor can come in, open up a new operation and still charge 40% less. Now, maybe this private company bid low to get in the door, but 40% is a big differential in a business where costs and risks are known. What is the reaction to this loss of $600,000 in annual revenue? District 3 Commissioner Stephen Smith and District 2 candidate Roger Cousineau both argue that taxes should be raised to make up this revenue shortfall. Really! When you are overpriced, and losing customers, you do not charge other customers more, you examine your cost structure and determine how to achieve a competitive position or you go out of business. Mosquito Control must examine it operating and capital plans. The FKMCD is an $11 million utility organized and staffed as if it was ten times larger. A cursory review of its organization shows it has at least 14 management and administrative personnel for a 75 person organization. This is a 4.3 to 1 ratio of employees to management; large by any measure for a small utility.! FKMCD must reconsider the foolish idea of operating out of a partially vacant Marathon headquarters location while building new facilities for the Finance Department on Big Coppit for the simple reason that a few employees do not want to commute. Mosquito Control has spent significant amounts on four helicopters and two fixed wing aircraft, improved communications, and high efficiency mosquito control techniques that should lower operating costs. It is now evaluating genetically modified mosquitoes, and using barrier sprays, truck traps, adulticiding and long term larvacide products. These are all technologies that reduce personnel costs, yet, the management and a few Board members seem set on expanding the cost structure with an inefficient organization, unnecessary construction, and an expanded payroll. Yes, the risk of Dengue Fever, West Nile Virus and Chikungunya are serious and must be planned for, but you do not build excess buildings and keep extra staff on board for future risks. Now that we have two suppliers of mosquito control services in the Keys, we can react by contracting out emergency actions without being inefficient. No one should be surprised if other parts of Monroe County that contract services from the FKMCD begin to look elsewhere, leaving us with an albatross around our necks. |
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| Smoke weed, recreational or medicinal, all you want, just don’t jeopardize others by driving or doing jobs where public safety requires full attention and a functional thought process. You can also pay higher health premiums for the lung disease caused from unfiltered spliffs. |
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| [Ebola Is Airborne] CDC changes it’s rules! Don’t remain within 3 feet of a infected person for prolonged periods without respiratory protection or come into bodily contact. Since you don’t know who’s infected, you better assume anyone is. Link |
| [Pinnacle of Writing] “You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.” (Hemingway is awesome.) |
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| [“Overwrite the file with zeros or ones and save it to the same name”] Sorry, but that method will not work. Read up on the technical details how data is written to a drive for your particular operating system to see the reasons why. To scrub a hard drive (SSDs can’t) use something like the free CCleaner which has a drive option to securely erase all the free space on the drive. There is no need to destroy the HDD, there is free software like DBAN that will wipe an entire hard drive and overwrite all the data (operating system, programs and everything) at once so the drive can be reused. If you’re worried about magnetic recovery that Uncle Sammy or the FBI will use, then simply take it out back and use a sledgehammer and pound it flat. But if they want you, they likely would “backdoor” your machine long before you even got suspicious. |
 TGIF from Springer’s Bar and Grill. The weekend is around the corner and coming fast. What better place to kick things off then here with us. Today’s special is beer battered fish and chips. Golden crunchy outside, light and flakey inside. Definitely a favorite you don’t want to miss. Happy Hour 2-7 daily with great drink specials and happy hour menu. There’s always something special at Springer’s. |
| F.T.R., must you continue with your blatant expose of reality, can’t you see the effect you are having on these young posters of the liberal persuasion, their posts as any one can easily see are becoming more hilarious and spacey by the day, I shudder to think where such scribblings will end. We all know they are still in their formative years, but such steady streams of factual information could have a deleterious effect on these kind souls that could very well carry over into their adult years. |
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| I hate rap music because it is monotonous and profane. It also causes its listeners to wear their hats backwards and their pants 20 sizes too big. |
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 [“Rap music”] I’m 62 and have always like the beat of rap music, it’s the moronic lyrics I can do without. |
| [Wedding Photos] This photographer covers all the bases. Video |
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| Licensed contractor is the same as any professional which is a person who makes money for doing something. It is a myth that a pro has greater skills than someone else. In fact, a con man, a politician, a hit man, a priest, a medicine man are all professionals. Point taken? |
 [More bar wisdom] “Well obviously when I get drunk my intelligence level surpasses yours and that’s why you can’t understand me.” |
| [“Hard Drive“] I have the deepest sympathy for anyone who wastes even one second of their life trying to peek into my hard drive. |
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| [Joke Friday] My wife asked me if her new jeans made her ass look fat. I said, “No dear, it’s your big ass that makes your ass look fat.” Living in my car isn’t too bad, the stitches come out tomorrow and I see the dentist on Friday. |
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 The bands down here only play Jurrasic rock that is geared towards old people. I want to hear some current songs by great singers like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and the best of the best Lorde- she is so awesome. Lorde — Royals |
| [Friday Joke?] At my senior age I have just realized that woman are here for the following reasons. To support men, to maintain the lives of men, to obey our orders, and to keep their mouths shut until spoken to! Where did this crap about equal rights come from? Where did we men delete our control of these inept subliminal creatures? It is time we men took back out destiny and made rules for the women to follow. Muslims are a sick bunch of perverts, but some of their rules for woman make sense. The only way this planet will survive is to allow men to rule and woman to serve. Children? Only if men need more workers or drinking buddies. |
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| Inner peace comes when you finally have had enough and kick out the girl friend. |
 I am really liking that new big blue recycling bin with the wheels. Those smaller containers were pretty hard to lift when filled with empty long necks. |
| [Time] I am now 75 and just last year I was 50 and a year before that I was 25 and suffered from a terminal hard-on 24/7. What happened? |
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| [Sewers] So who are the payola hook up installers we have to hire and who are the greedy permit pimps we have to kiss ass with? |
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 [Parking A Ship Fail] Always check your rear view mirror before backing up a ship. Apparently, someone wasn’t paying attention. This occurred in 2013. Video |
| What I really want to know is which flights don’t have Ebola on them! |
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| [“Tracer rounds”] Traditionally on belt fed weapons the tracer is every fifth round, although individuals can load magazine fed weapons in any fashion they like, or may be ordered to load the magazines in a specific manner. |
 [“Handyman blues“] While you are correct that having a license does not guarantee the contractor’s competence, there are distinct advantages in doing so, not the least of which is that if there is a screw up you have some recourse. Licensed contractors are subject to discipline from the Florida Construction Industry Licensing Board. They have the power to revoke or suspend a contractor’s license to do business and take other steps including reimbursement for damages to the person who hired him. You can also call the Board’s contractor hotline to find out if there have been any other complaints filed against them.Another advantage of hiring a licensed contractor is that he is much more likely to have Workers’ Compensation insurance. Without such coverage you are liable for any injuries suffered by a worker doing a job on your property. Licensed or not, it is wise to verify Workers’ Comp coverage for any contractor you hire. |
| What is happening to our tax money that was appropriated and transferred to the old bridge project? Do we get a federal income tax deduction for the donation? What else can we deduct from our IRS taxes that we were forced to pay to the state and the junta? |
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 Yesterday’s posting concerning Ballast Key was a fascinating read. It certainly made this Olde Fart think a lot about sea level rise. I can only assume that the University of Miami has little or no concern over sea level rise, or they certainly would not want to acquire a nearly sea level spoil island that was created 125 years ago, and then spend long tons of money building a major research facility on that low lying land. I wouldn’t make any sense to waste all that money on an island that is “certain” to disappear.Then of course it also appears that a host of really big money developers also have little or no concern for sea level rise or they would not be interested in investing millions in a super luxurious resort on nearby Wisteria Island, also a low lying spoil island that also is supposed to be doomed to drowning by impending sea level rise. Perhaps the shrill panic chatter about sea level rise is more political or ideological than anything else.We’ve been repeatedly told that sea level in rapidly rising in Key West and that the rise began in the mid 19th century and has been rapidly increasing ever since. Does anyone have any idea where the 19th century measurements were taken and by whom, and where the most recent observations have been made and by whom?
By the way, the Rutgers Climate Laboratory has just released data that shows that the September snow cover was highest on record in North America. Yesireee, the climate she is sure changin’. |