[Fence in the Deer] The county is in a tizzy over what to do about possible “takings” suits–and reasonably so. They have spent no small number of millions on suits that could have been resolved equitably in minutes if they only followed the law, rather than trying to duke it out with taxpayers in no win situations. Currently, they are stuck with a problem of protecting endangered species and imposing on people’s right to build on property they own and on which they pay taxes, and have paid for many years. I have offered a solution every year for at least 15 years, but apathy, and hands-off-our-free ranging-deer attitude has generated only a polite “no hum.”

I wrote the first suggestion in the Mangrove News fifteen years ago and have posted in the Barometer, Citizen and Keynoter since. In brief, all or portions of the Key Deer Refuge needs to be fenced back 15 yards from the boundary roads …(continued below in Long Winded Tomes)

[“Water rise–what you know just isn’t so”] Well dang it all, then my property must be a sinkin’!

[Decline of America] I think we are on the slide to bigger problems. Our greed and paranoia is eating us from the inside. Soon China will eclipse us as the greatest power. 

[“Farm raised fish is probably cleaner and healthier than local fish”] Uhhh no. Farm raised fish usually live in pens and graze on their own poo-poo. Part of their diet includes antibiotics as well. The only reason there is not more local catch in the restaurants is NOAA. NOAA wrote the new sanctuary rules that limited what could be commercially caught. That killed off the local commercial fisherman as a species, thus NOAA reduced the amount of local fish served here.

While Tilapia tastes great to the untrained palate, it has none of the good fish oils and fats that better and more expensive fish have. I’ll refer you to this video posted on Friday. Tilapia eat poo-poo. Video 

I’m not sure what this warning sign is about, but it seems to include glow-in-the-dark boobs and a large swimming penis. 

[A/Cs Cause Legionnaires’ Disease] Ohio’s largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease has killed five people and sickened 39 others at a retirement community since July. The state Health Department said the outbreak at Wesley Ridge Retirement Community in Reynoldsburg in central Ohio has been linked to bacteria in an air conditioning cooling tower and several water sources.

[Fish Carcasses Good For Canals] Fish die in the sea everyday and no one removes them to go into the garbage. You swim in the ocean, right? How about being sure to poke the fish eyes with a knife prior to throwing it into the canal and they’ll sink to the bottom of the canal and feed the crabs, lobster and smaller fish you swim with. When I was a kid, we used fish carcasses for fertilizer.

Remember a few years ago the scandal when some religious nuts deemed Proctor and Gamble’s logo to be satanic. Sales declined and the company was forced to change its century old logo due to the power of superstitious daydreamers. 

Springers 1st Annual Rib Cook-off

Come participate in our First Annual Rib Cook-off at Springers MM 31.4 on Big Pine Key Sunday, September 8th from 4:30 pm until 6:30 pm or until the ribs are gone!

Do you think you have what it takes to join the competition? Cook-off is limited to only 30 contestants. Come and see us at Springer’s for details or call Travis at 305-942-0093    Events

[Crook] Valerie Crespo a 35-year old Tavernier woman stole her neighbor’s credit cards and used them to swipe about $3,000 from bank accounts, according to the Sheriff’s Office.  She’s in jail.

Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel. Video

[“Regulations Killing Fishing Industry”] Oh yeah? The lobster fishermen are coming off one of the worst commercial seasons in decades. Last stone crab season, which ended in May, was equally dismal. Many fishermen pulled their traps out of the water early last year.

We need more regulations not less. Fisherman will fish every living thing they can sell until there is no more–then complain that the government didn’t do anything about it and want reimbursement for lost income.

Keys to Peace are looking for someone to shelter and feed the Tibetan monks  in the  lower Keys and  Key West for 3-4 days in January. They are trying to bring a sand Mandala to K.W.  and would bless your home.  If you know of anyone who could help, please contact these people. Thanks.  I see you smiling!     Please contact Frank Sheen sheenf@comcast.net or 305-924-1040

“Love yourself” This is a real Craigslist ad. The best advice I heard all day! Link

Does anyone know of an open stage in Key West where a band can play? Perhaps you could share, when and where?

Hey dear Ed, how did these people get my email address?  and also FTR’s? Do you have us  stored someplace that got hacked?  

I hope you do something about this – like send the company (seo) a warning to back off your CT email list.  Mention them to FL and US BBB,  and that you’ve forwarded their email address with complaint to FBI and DHS as promoting terrorist communications. Seriously,  who the hell do these people think they are.

A google search on Marsha – looks like she’s posting herself on every web page she can find,  even a news story about a sex offender. Link

http://wildabouttrial.com/one_off/5-years-for-iowa-high-school-teacher-convicted-of-sexual-contact-with-teens/

I think you should not repost her advertising.  Don’t give her the audience !  We’re your readers,  not victims.  If she wants to advertise tell her to pay you – and then triple her rate,  just because she bombed us via you.   I hope their business folds. Assholes. (Ed: I don’t know what or who you’re writing about. I’m not aware of any problem.)

[The End Is Near] The people who think the world will end all at once will be largely responsible for it ending gradually.

This is at least the second time in the last few years that a thread has sprouted regarding the issue of fresh Keys fish in our restaurants. No restaurants are named. So let’s call them out. If they don’t respond, well…

Huricane Hole
Hogfish
Geiger Key
Kayas
Zazas (Only kidding)
Mangrove Mamas
Square Grouper
Crab Shack
Wharf
Boondocks
Looe Key Tiki
Parrotdise (Only Kidding)
Big Pine Restaurant
No Name Pub
Bistro 31
Key Deer Bar and Grill (Only kidding)
House of Music (Only kidding)
Robs (Only Kidding)
Not Robs (still kidding)

Come on Restaurant owners, this is your chance. Tell us where the fish and shrimp comes from.

Signs that you are gluten intolerant. Video

Tonight at 8:58 the ISS will appear in the west and be brightest passing almost directly over the Keys at 9:00 PM. The site above will give you more details. It gives you all space station data plus a lot of other useful info such as sunrise, time, etc. Let’s hope we have clear skies.

“My family’s Google searching got us a visit from counterterrorism police. Officers showed up at our home on Long Island, New York, suspecting we were terrorists because we looked up info on pressure cookers and backpacks.”  Link

[Watching You] Samsung’s new Smart TV’s with video cameras can be hacked so anyone can see into your living room from any computer in the world.

[“Naval Air Station Noise–shut up and turn your TV up”] Spoken like a typical crass ignorant.  Over the long history of comments on CT about Navy plane noise,  the noise defenders have always been aggressive, ill-spoken, written their posts in very under-educated words, always ending with hostility. I’m just wondering if this poster is capable of expressing an opinion with civility.  Also wondering if this poster is in the military, or just related to a military employee.

Regardless, this poster is missing the big picture. We all know that the noise defenders’ bluster is actually the defense of their employment future.  There will come a time when NAS KW will be gone, or reduced,  as will all bases. So get used to the idea. NAS KW is not a golden idol,  protected in perpetuity.   And that is a fact, regardless how much the noise defenders spew.   

Want to see how business fails with road construction? Check Dominoes and Checkers on TripAdvisor. Sell a crappy product with bad service you are going to have problems. Add a major inconvenience like road and you are done!

[“Can’t Find One-Piece Snorkel”] Modern snorkels have a soft, silicone mouthpiece and options for clearing (discharge) of water.  If you are uncomfortable with your equipment, consult a dive professional at a reputable dive equipment supplier.  I have used my snorkel, a one piece, rubber, no vent, for most of 30 years.  I keep it in my vest (BCD) pocket until I need it on the surface and then just tuck it into my mask strap so it’s not flopping around while I dive.

Do you ever rip music from YouTube? I’ve been trying to find the Youtube to MP3 converter that I had before. I couldn’t find it, although there are lots of others. I don’t trust them because they all want to install stuff I don’t want. But I found one that did a fine job with one song, but when I tried to do another I learned that I had just 1 free use. Boo. They want a 1-time “donation” of $10 for unlimited use. I’m thinking about it. It was so easy & clean that it’s probably worth it. Not loaded with ads & they didn’t try to install lots of junk. Link

[“Homeless Report”] That was an interesting report from the consultant. Now who is checking his expense report? If he lived with the homeless, there shouldn’t be any hotel or restaurant charges. The liquor store, well that’s a different matter.

Farm raised tilapia eat poop – lots of it – and then you eat them. So do catfish, flounder, shrimp, lobster, and anything that lives in the sea. We all eat crap one way or another. 

[“Marathon man took Congressman Garcia to lunch”] Yeah, and I read in The Weekly that the good Congressman went fishing with the Worthingtons and held a fund raiser at the Plaza Grill, any questions? I have a few!

Congress sure has earned that vacation, just like my son has earned a Ferrari for mowing the lawn.

[In Leak Cases, We’re  Shooting the Messenger] I am totally flummoxed by the reaction  to the recent exposure of indiscriminate  high-tech spying on Americans by the  American government. What is going on?  Are we the people now the enemy of  us? The other burning question is why do we get hung up on the individual who delivers the bad news instead of getting fired up over the news?  

First Bradley Manning cast a light on  the murders of civilian noncombatants in Iraq. For his act of conscience he was tortured, Abu Ghraib style, for the first nine months of his incarceration, and as I write this has already spent more than three years in jail. His trial just ended and he awaits sentencing that could result in the 25-year-old soldier receiving 130 years.

Enter Edward Snowden, a technical  contractor hired as an “infrastructure analyst” for an NSA contractor with the  amusing name, Booz Allen. Here again  we have an individual willing to go out on a limb to inform the folks in our fading republic that they are being spied upon and in a massive everything-we-do way — emails, phone records, computer  searches, websites frequented by you,  etc.  

Neither Manning nor Snowden did  it for money, the old fashioned reason.  No, they did it for us. Because Bradley  Manning did, the war in Iraq ended sooner. Because Edward Snowden did, there is now a conversation on domestic data gathering and when does it stop being national security and become illegal and unconstitutional, aka un-American.  

Perhaps if Ted Nugent had divulged the news that the gubmint is spying on us, the anti-government wing-nuts could have united with us regular lovers of the Bill of  Rights. Hey guys, there are more amendments to our Constitution than just the second one.

Putin feels comfortable thumbing his nose at the U.S. by granting Snowden asylum because he sees Obama as weak.  Much the same as the genesis of the Cuban Missile Crisis when Khrushchev perceived JFK in the same way.

How terribly sad and shameful it is that the GOP have slipped so far so fast (paraphrrasing FTR).

I agree with FTR. Obama doesn’t have terrorism on the run. Bush said he didn’t care about Osama Bin Laden and  told us years ago “Mission accomplished”. There isn’t any terrorist left Bush got them all remember?

Then right after that Bush went on a 5 month vacation. yep, a 5 month vacation.

[Ron Paul] We would have been crazy to elect this man. Look at all of his awful attributes. This man has been married to the same woman for, like, 40 -something years. He was in the military and has a birth certificate. This fool actually believes in the Constitution. The polls were rigged. If he would have gotten in office he would have cleaned house and kicked all the bums out. Birther or not — something smells rotten in Denmark!

FTR’s comment should be engraved on Americas’ tomb stone: “How terribly sad and shameful it is that we have slipped so far so fast. “

A lot of us take our Mosquito Control Board for granted. We are only vaguely aware of the helo or fixed wing plane that occasionally zooms over our home. Occasionally we hear the sound of the mosquito fogging truck working our neighborhood, but we usually tune it out. But we sure do get annoyed when we have to suffer through airborne assaults from those little winged blood sucking disease carriers.

We may not think about it, but Mosquito Control is a big deal. Their efforts make our Keys habitable. Without them, summer life here would be like hell on earth.  

Along with a staff of about 75 employees, the MCB has an air force consisting of 4 helicopters and 2 fixed-wing aircraft.  They operate about 80 vehicles and boats throughout the Keys.  All of that costs money, your money — and lots of it.

Deer Friends the MCB is a big deal and they chew up huge chunks of tax dollars. They even have the ability to levy taxes.

Mosquito Control has an $11 million operating budget. That’s serious money.

Mosquito Control is overseen by an elected board of Commissioners. They currently have no term limits.  Each Commissioner represents a certain portion of the Keys.  I urge you to check out the Mosquito Control website at: keysmosquito.org. You owe it to yourself to keep an eye on your tax dollars.

Without term limits some politicos see public office, such as a position on the Mosquito Control board, as a career choice. Unfortunately tenure can sometimes breed complacency.

It wasn’t too many years ago when we learned of serious problems in Mosquito Control, including alleged corruption.  At that time all 5 commissioners then serving had been around for 3, 4 and 5 terms.  Today two commissioners are in their 5th term on the board.  That’s too long – fresh minds are needed.

Term limits would return MCB Commissioners to the ranks of publicservice rather than providing long-term careers.  If term limits are good for our President, our Governor, our State Legislators, and a host of other public servants, term limits should be good enough for our Mosquito Control Board.

Term limits will allow more people to participate on this board and allow a better chance for generating more and new ideas to solve problems.  Many long serving commissioners on any board can run out of fresh ideas, which can result in their reliance on the all-too-common default answer – throwing more tax dollars at problems. This can include salaries and benefits at Mosquito Control which are now among the highest in the county.

Phil Goodman, pgoodman@keysmosquito.org, is the Commissioner for District 2, which includes Big Pine Key.  He intends to present a resolution to institute term limits at the Board’s August meeting.  It is an idea whose time has come.  Send Phil an email with your thoughts.  If the resolution passes, and it should, it will be only the first step in a lengthy process that will involve the Florida legislature.

The list of Commissioners and their email addresses follow. Please take the time to send each of them a quick note urging their support of the resolution.

· District 1- Jill Cranney-Gage jcranney_gage@keysmosquito.org

· District 2- Phil Goodman  pgoodman@keysmosquito.org

· District 3- Steve Smith ssmith@keysmosquito.org

· District 4- Bill Shaw wshaw@keysmosquito.org

· District 5- Jack Bridges jbridges@keysmosquito.org

Term limits make perfect sense.  Hopefully some heavy hitter politico will champion term limits for our Senators and Representatives.

Part 2) We learned last week that our national GDP is in the pits. The sorry fact is that U.S. GDP growth, post-recession, peaked in Q4 2012 and has declined in nearly every fiscal quarter since then.  We’re not standing still – we’re going backwards.

This week there is new evidence of that.  On Friday the employment stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) were published.  Those statistics showed that the unemployment fraction was now 7.4%.  On the face of it that looks like good news but it isn’t.  The fact is that the civilian labor force actuallydeclined in July.  And the “participation rate” actually decreased. That’s why there was a decline in the percentage.

BLS, in its press release, reported that we had only created 162,000 new jobs.  Deer Friends, that was fewer new jobs created than in April, May, or June.

Even the Huffington Post, a very liberal organ, bitched about the report. The lead line in their article was ‘WASHINGTON – The 162,000 jobs the economy added in July were a disappointment. The quality of the jobs was even worse.”  So far this year, traditionally low-paying industries have provided 61 percent of the nation’s job growth, even though these industries represent just 39 percent of overall U.S. jobs.  Mid-paying industries have contributed just 22 percent of this year’s job gains.  Even worse, 77 percent of the jobs created this year have been part-time jobs. Link

Obama’s vaunted economic policy has resulted in Americans’ pay not even keeping up with historically low inflation since the Great Recession ended in June, 2009.  Average hourly pay fell 2 cents in July to $23.98 an hour.

There were 988,000 discouraged workers in July, up by 136,000 from a year earlier.  Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

Even Ben Bernanke said that the economy clearly lost momentum in the first half of the year.  He warned of “dire” consequences. Bernanke also said, “U.S. fiscal policies are on an unsustainable path, and the development of a credible medium-term plan for controlling deficits should be a high priority.”

Let’s hope we can endure another 3½ years without long lasting damage to the American ethos. Obama’s fiscal policy is designed to transform us into a nation of burger flippers.

Part 3) It’s Sunday, and at least 22 of our embassies and consulates in the Arab world have been closed.  That’s a shameful first, and a huge win for terrorism.  American travelers have been warned to take extra precautions in any global travel.  All of that coming from our State Department, despite O’s speechifying that AQI is dead meat, their threat gone.  Bin Laden is dead; victory is ours he told us.  Now we learn there have been very credible threats from Al Qaeda.  How can that be? 

(continued from above …)

… unlike the hideous black fence that greets locals and tourists going and coming from Big Pine Key. Ugly as it is, it has done a fine job of reducing traffic deaths on what used to be the most offending stretch of highway. Some say you can’t fence them. They need to roam. Others say that they will escape. Of course, even chickens, pigs and horses, escape, singularly, and occasionally. Deer management requires more than hoping to have 100 fauns for every 100 highway deaths. In fact, that isn’t management. Management would provide a petting zoo for motherless fawns, and injured deer while recuperating. Management would require film loop educational material concerning endangered species. Management might require separating young bucks to their own refuge section to grow and learn to become bucks without unfair competition.

Are our Key Deer wild animals? Hardly, but admittedly moot. Before the 1947 range laws, cows, horses and pigs ranged freely on Florida Highways. People, my grandmother for one, were injured when they encountered a cow, horse, or other grazing animal at night, or in a fog. Florida enacted Range Laws, as did every other state. Senate Bill NO. 34, Chapter 25236 states: “An act relating to livestock running at large or straying upon public roads, providing for liability of the owner of such livestock, providing for impounding, redemption and sale of such livestock, providing a penalty, providing certain exception, repealing all laws and parts of laws in conflict herewith.” In definitions, section 2. Livestock shall include all animals of the equine, bovine, or swine class, including goats, sheep, mules, horses, hogs, cattle and other grazing animals. 2. Owner shall include any person, association, firm or corporation, natural or artificial, owning or having custody of or in charge of livestock . 3. Running at large, or straying shall mean any livestock found or being on any public roads of this state and not under manual control of a person. The above technically does not apply to Key deer, but the intent applies. People need protection from deer, and deer need protection from people. The Key Deer refuge consists of 8,500+ acres. It is convenient to suggest there are 800 deer. There are likely more. When the Texas A&M study was done a few years back, one of the graduate students told me they were over populated. I suggested, somewhat in jest, that they take some back to Texas. He replied, “Oh, we will.” In Texas you get a tax break if you fence your property to deter deer from crossing the roads. Here you can’t get a permit, nor can you grow flowers. I shall spare you the severe penalties for carelessly endangering others by allowing animals in your charge to access public roads. Anyone who wants, can pet a Key Deer. You don’t have to have food in hand. Countless others before you have fed them hamburger buns and fried chicken, so they approach with hope. It is feasible to fence portions of the deer habitat. The downside is only that the deer would soon exist in such numbers that they wouldn’t qualify as endangered. Wouldn’t that be a shame? Look at the refuge boundaries, and image some reasonable fencing.