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[Wings of Freedom Tour] Marathon airport. Free admission for World War 2 Veterans. Link

[Endangered Cucumbers] There are roughly 160 commercial sea cucumber harvesters from the Keys to Palm Beach County selling to Florida Sea Cucumber Corp on Ramrod Key. Link

[Shoot ‘em Up Wednesday] Just a public service reminder for you Big Piners out there.  Wednesday is the usual day for gunfire in one of your neighborhoods. 

FTR’s defense of Rick Scott only tells the partial truth as the governor did take the 5th amendment 75 times in a deposition he gave in a civil case concerning Columbia Health Care. If he’s such an honest man why did he take the 5th so many times? And he as being the boss of Colombia Healthcare should have know what his company was doing. Link 

[Potty Talk] Don’t chisel stains out of toilets, it scratches the porcelain. Try denture cleaners as they are made for cleaning stains off porcelain. Other remedies are Alka Seltzer tablets, WD-40 and CLR. Mind to let them work their magic and take your septic system needs in mind before using.

A brand new toilet is relatively easy to install also, instructions are online a-plenty. It’s awkward for one person to handle so use two strong people. However if bathroom tile was laid up to the toilet instead of under it like it’s supposed to be done, then that poses additional problems. In this case the toilet base has to be larger than the previous one’s. Risers and a proper seal is needed between the toilet base and the waste pipe or it leaks and slowly rots the sub-floor. If the toilet or bathroom upstairs leaks, it drips down to ruin your ceilings. It may be better to call a plumber on that one.  It’s also advised to replace the toilet seal every 5 years or so depending upon use. Large people and settling tend to break the seals, which causes a slow unnoticeable leak that can rot the entire floor and supporting beams. 

Happy Wednesday from Springer’s Bar and Grill. It’s comfort food day, and today’s special, which is favorite with our locals, is country fried steak in white gravy. So come on in and fill that tummy with some great food. It’s definitely a hug for your insides

[Potty Talk] We use The Works toilet bowl cleaner to remove that dreaded scale. It really works!

[Trail Guide] The Office of Greenways and Trails is in the process of developing an online land and paddling trails guide. Trail enthusiasts will have access to a plethora of trail information that’s easy to navigate and understand. The goal is to lessen the confusion and frustration of having to wade through unwanted information and ornate ads, that can sometimes be a deterrent on other sites. Offering the online guide will hopefully alleviate the need for users to surf multiple websites.

The Northwest and Northeast district data is now available. Three more regions, the Central, Southwest and Southeast, are being developed and will be accessible soon.  Link

[Dancing Around the Truth] So Rick Scott took the 5th amendment 75 times in only one of his depositions. Yeah, there’s honesty and transparency at its very finest. Everyone pays billion dollar fines for not breaking the law, right? Yep, at times 1/4 truth is all you need.

Next week we hear how the captain of the Titanic wasn’t the problem it was the iceberg in the way. 

[Speaking of Pee] What your urine says about you. Pick a color. Link 

An above average sized Snowy Grouper caught on the Funyet with spinning tackle in 650 feet of water.

[County Mulch] Grinding up the foliage waste was fine until people started getting sick from the poison plants and other nasties found in that yard waste. My wife got all kinds of skin stuff after trying to use the free mulch in our garden. Never again! 

[Church Sale] Annual President’s Day Sale on Monday, February 17th starting at 8 am at St. Peter’s Catholic Church MM31 on Big Pine in the pavilion.  We have just about anything you would want (clothes, books, furniture, tools, fishing, children’s stuff, household) and it’s reasonably priced.  Half price at 11 am and Dollar a bag at 11:30. Please no early sales or preview.  This benefits the Youth Group.

Happening that same day is a Flea Market in the soccer field and inside there is a Silent and Live Auction.  Auction Doors open at 9:30 for previewing.  The men will also grilling. Events 

[Potty Talk]  If a toilet sits unused long enough the water will evaporate from the bowl and all kinds of mineral deposits are left.  If you have really hard water it can be very colorful.  Easiest cleanup I’ve found is Alka Seltzer.  Drop about 4 tabs in there and add a half gallon of white vinegar.  Let it sit for about 20 minutes and all that deposit will wipe away easy as dust.

History of  Hurricanes By Keys historian  Jerry Wilkinson. Link 

[“You never know which vehicle the President is riding in”] Sure we do!

Valentine’s Day shrimp idea. 

[Peary Court] In retroflect, the common theme among my informants as I looked into the parking lot at Peary Court was, “Corrupt all the way up.” Speaking with a retired judge last week, he was highly critical of the military’s private partners for their skullduggery :
1 – refusing to play by the rules of the open market,
2 – specifically by holding back critical information about transfer of assets that would require them to compete fairly in the open market (open bidding)
3 – and pay their share of the ad valorem taxes (like all other participants in this experiment in democracy).

The judge hearing this matter between Balfour Beatty, the U.S. Navy’s new private partners, and the Monroe County Taxing authority, representing the original private partners of the U.S. Navy, the civilian population of the U.S.A. in Monroe County, is supposed to give his ruling this month.

Is Balfour Beatty behaving badly in all 25 States in which they now own what used to be military assets on U.S. government land? Is Balfour Beatty liquidating other U.S. taxpayer assets to build up their books while failing to pay their fair share of the taxes in this civilian based, capitalist, open market? Balfour Beatty has already demonstrated that their ethics statements are puffery, no substance in Monroe County.  Do they have any kind of moral / ethical standing in the other States? What kind of accountability does Balfour Beatty and the U.S. DoD have toward the U.S. civilian population regarding stewardship of U.S. taxpayer assets? Does no compete, preferred bidding really support the open hand of the free market?   How does this fit into democracy? Are we being transformed into a non-democratic nation with an elite class based on military, political and economic connections?  How does this fit into market based capitalism.  Are we trading democracy for a hungry, ambitious, rabid form of military industrial government?  What happened to, “Walk softly, and carry a big stick?

Didn’t our founding fathers seek to be away from the ongoing wars of Old Europe?  (correction:  an informant pointed out that our founding fathers had no objection to war, they whipped the redcoats, then turned on the indigenous people to kill them and steal their land.  This nation’s original settlers were allegedly seeking religious freedom, and land ownership. We are now resuming a role as a colony of a large British for profit organization, circling back to where our founding fathers initiated revolution to reform a system insensitive to the needs of the inhabitants of the colonies.  Hmm.  Not much has changed there, I asked for use of a U.S. parking lot for U.S. citizens to be able to park by the Historic Armory, and the British wanted only to sell that piece of land to bolster up their books and restructure their bonds.  There you go, a resumption of the British rule and their lack of concern for the real needs, of the real people who live in what is now thought of as the U.S.A.) 

[Captain Doom and Gloom] Fighting back against mass surveillance is a lost cause because just the fact of anyone raising their head above the foxhole will give Big Brother more data on you. Not to sound paranoid, but what the heck, the advertisers are doing this to make a profit, the military to guard against bad guys, and the entertainment industry to sell tickets, so where does that leave us poor citizens? Anywhere they want us to be. Follow the money. 

When I saw that picture of the Jersey girl and the shark, I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants- very funny stuff, kudos to whoever did it. We need more of this on the CT and less of the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

By now you certainly must know that Mr. Obama has given a pass from some of the rules of Democare to certain employers. They no longer will have to provide healthcare (Democare) to their employees next year. Obama has once again moved the goal posts. Now employers will not be forced to provide Democare to employees until 2016. It will affect employers who have 60 to 99 employees.

Deer Friends that is one of the most cynical and craven political moves he has made to date. Before the change employers would have had to provide coverage during the lead up to the Presidential election. Apparently Obama agrees that the employer mandate will be devastating to jobs, and he does not want Dems to face that fact during the election. But it goes even deeper than that.

Once again, the president is giving a break to corporations while individuals and families are still stuck under the mandates of his health care law. And, once again, the president is rewriting law on a whim. If the administration doesn’t believe employers can manage the burden of the law, how can struggling families be expected to? This continued manipulation of the law and his disregard of the rule of law by the president breeds confusion and erodes Americans’ confidence in him and his health care law. We need fairness for all, with relief from ObamaCare for every American.

Do you recall a few years ago when the Repubs were working long and hard in the halls of Congress to change Democare. They were labeled as terrorists, where are those voices now that Obama is acting outside of the law?

This is the 27th time Obama has kicked the can down the road for his political benefit.  

It has now become routine for Obama to change and ignore the enforcement of laws that he disagrees with or simply finds to be inconvenient. His cavalier attitude toward the rule of law is dangerous as hell. That is reprehensible, it is the tactic of a tin pot dictator in a banana republic. It’s easy to understand why so many Democrat politicos are shunning Obama in the campaigns.

Part 2) I’m ashamed of Republicans in Congress for passing an increase in the debt ceiling without cutting spending. I understand the political reasons for their votes, nonetheless I’m ashamed of them.

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