[US Conspiracy] The most recent and, I think, accurate study of the world’s Muslims says the vast majority (the author repeated vast for emphasis) of Muslims believe that the US invaded the Mideast for two primary reasons. To control the oil and to support Israel.

I wouldn’t chalk that up to them living in the middle ages because that belief makes a lot of sense to those of us who closely follow the US’s history and politics.

Yes, you can play the Ukulele. It’s easy & fun. This Wednesday Coconuts will have Uke Nite. It’s is a hoot. Starts around 7ish. Video

Last week I went to the Motor Vehicle office on Big Pine Key in order to renew my drivers license. I couldn’t find my Social Security card but thought I would be covered by presenting my current FL driver’s license, a current U S passport, a utility bill bearing my name and address, my Medicare card, and my Board of Election registration.

The clerk advised that all of the above items were insufficient in the absence of a Social Security card.

I then traveled to the federal building in Key West in order to obtain a Social Security card. My passport and my FL drivers license, which were not sufficient to qualify me for a license, were sufficient to qualify me for the required Social Security card!

Go figure. It seems like the inmates have taken control of the asylum.

In the 1940 Horror flick The Mummy’s Hand the High Priest of Carnac predicted, “ I fear I shall not see the Moon sink behind the Valley of the Jackals.”  Bummer!

“The Plague Dogs” A classic movie tale of two dogs who escape from animal testing. Video

Marine sanctuary rules changes are firming up. The initial habitat-protection report, subject to change, notes some flats near existing management areas, like Rodriguez Key and Tavernier Key, have turned into “party zones” for boaters. “The ‘social gathering’ issue needs to be addressed,” says a summary. “A ‘no-anchoring’ or ‘no getting out of the vessel’ policy would help.”

Now the Sanctuary is treading our our freedom to assembly. If they enact it up the Keys, it will be enacted down the Keys. Goodbye to Picnic, Marvin, Snipe, and Contents Keys. The friggin water nazis will have more rights to ruin our day than to serve us as the public employees they are.

The current administration is encroaching upon our daily lives at an exponential rate. They are invading our privacy, our homes and now telling us where we can get out of our boats.

Here we go, I knew when they forced this sanctuary down our throats they’d slowly take our rights from us and eventually stop us from using the sanctuary at all. Bit by bit. Just give them time. I still have my “Just Say No to NOAA” pin. Link

[Drive-in]  I would think the Keys would be a better place for a “boat-in”. Large screen would rise from the ground at the appointed time, somewhere along the shore, boats lined up to watch the movie,  wifi signal having been pre-purchased with a code to sign on for your listening enjoyment. You’d have to change the code for every showing, but that isn’t too big a deal.  Vendors could cruise among the boats like the concession cart at a golf course.  I have a very active imagination.

[Gun Control] 5 dead, 5 hurt in Santa Monica, Calif shooting rampage. I sure hope he didn’t use an assault rifle because that could hurt the ’cause’.

[Cole Porter] “Live and let live, be and let be,

Hear and let hear, see and let see,

Sing and let sing, dance and let dance.”

Live and let live and remember this line: ‘Your bus’ness is your bus’ness and my bus’ness is mine.’   ~Cole Porter,composer, born on this date in 1891

Fanci Seafood will be closed on Sundays until August. Everyone have a great summer!

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that sexual assault should never be condoned or excused, but you have to wonder about the big brouhaha that’s currently taking place in the military on the subject. Let me see if I’ve got this right.  They dropped women into the middle of what is absolutely the most testosterone charged environment on the planet and then the act surprised that sexual assaults occur. The military should not be a laboratory for social experimentation.  It decreases the effectiveness of our soldiers and gets people hurt.  Go conduct your feel good, Kumbaya hand holding exercises somewhere else!

[Who’s on First] Just as Abbott and Costello used to say …

[Tiki Bar Shakeup] Meet the new boss … same as the old boss.  ~Pink Floyd

[Being Old] I hope we are not going to be sitting around talking about health problems during your visit. I went to a rather large party and moved from place to place trying to find a conversation about anything but health issues. I couldn’t, so I left. How depressing. Just because we don’t lead active lives any longer doesn’t mean the only thing we have left is to sit around and talk about are our operations.

The meaning of life is to have a good time when you can. Do what you feel like and have the best time you can.

The locals have just been fortunate that the unusual ownership of the Tiki Bar in the past kept the place catering to us – the locals.  Plus the staff were locals who brought many of us in to hang out and spend our money.  But when the place was sold to someone who thinks they can make a lot of money, changes are coming my friends.  I personally heard the new owners say in the last two weeks that they do not understand or even care that the locals don’t like their changes.  For example I heard them say they cannot hire good dance bands during the off-season, after all only the locals show up.  And if the locals don’t like who they hire or fire who cares, they will just have to get over it.  Well, locals, the firing of one of the best (if not the absolutely best) bartender is my last straw.  I will take my business to someone who understands the locals, like our local friend Springer!

[New owners] What the heck is going on with the Looe Key Tiki Bar? Bathrooms first! Last week the ladies room had water (sewage?) coming up the floor drain so that your feet got wet with sandals on. It was absolutely, positively disgusting. I have lived in the Keys off and on for over 30 years and I love the crazy ambience, but this is ridiculous. Is a call to the Health Dept necessary to force them to get this taken care of?

I love the Tiki Hut and rave about it to all my visitors, but it may be time to move on to Springers.

I thought I had a problem with my subwoofer woofing when it wasn’t supposed to. I kept getting off the couch and putting my ear to it, but soon realized it was only Friday night’s distant thunder.

[Survival of the Fittest] People piss and moan when they have to pay the insurance bills, but never when they get all that free medical care and help. There would be a lot fewer people in this country if all insurance disappeared. It would be back to survival of the fittest. If you think about it, most of this world does not have such a thing as insurance, people are responsible for their own actions!

How is tomorrow Monday? It was Friday only a few hours ago…

Is Zaza’s still open? Did it change hands?

The NNK comments appear to be between two people who have different points of view- and what is funny is they probably know each other. Why don’t you both stop this public pissing contest and get on with your lives? If you want to discuss it further, do it face to face over a couple of beers.

[God’s Will] The building that collapsed in Philadelphia would have been a porn shop or a massage parlor rather than a Salvation Army store. He did get it right, you just ain’t with it, Dude!

[Sewer Stink] So a local “energy consultant” (that Google shows is an electrical power consultant) shows up after the sewer system which uses electricity,but is nowhere near an electric power utility, is designed and begun. They claim that the sewer system will cost an extra $30 million over the long run, with few details. I guess we sheeple are supposed to bring pressure on FKAA to hire the consultant. This doesn’t pass the smell test as far as I’m concerned.

[Friendly Bear] Did you think that such things exist only in fairy tales and science fiction films? No, that’s life in Russia. There, your friend can be a real bear! Video

The little tiki new owners keep doing things that seem to lower their chances of making any money off of that place. I wonder if their business plan is to hang on to it until prices rise and then dump it for a substantial profit? If they are using a business plan that has worked for them in other marinas on the mainland, they may be in for a rude awakening: the Keys and the people down here are different. And if the locals stop going there — goodby cash flow.

[Ghetto]  You gotta love South Central L.A. It certainly has its moments.

World War 2 museum tours. Video

[Cuba] I was married to a Cuban girl who came here so early in life that she spoke perfect English; I had no idea about Bay of Pigs or any of that stuff, but I switched to Republican on my voter reg. card just to keep the peace with her. Her dad was anti-black, she was anti-semitic. I worked in Hialeah for 20 plus years and find that the post about the Cubans was pretty much spot on.

On the positive side, they looked after their elders & kept their homes up nicely. Yes, many landed here with their hands out, but that is human nature. You really can’t blame them for accepting what our government threw at them.

[Sewers] Report contests planned sewer. Link

English pecuniary humor. Video

[Oil] The last Cuban offshore oil drilling project ending for now; but Russians pledge continued “prospecting” in Cuban waters. Link

[Cuba] Having lived through the Cuban missile crisis, I find any positive description of Fidel Castro offensive. It was Castro that urged Khrushchev to use the nuclear missiles already present in Cuba. That does not sound like a leader interested in his people or, for that matter, all the earth’s citizens. More like an egomaniac whose only claim to fame is he was a thorn in the side of the United States. Throughout the world communism and socialism are failures including Cuba’s version – all of these experiments are turning towards capitalism.

Should Leslie Van Houten be paroled? I have to vote probably yes, tho I don’t really know exactly what her involvement was in the murders. It would be cheaper for the taxpayer if she was simply given house arrest or ankle bracelet.

[Ropes that hold your sunglasses around you neck] The best I’ve seen so far is Cablz. They have 2 diff lengths. For sunglasses, get the shorter lenght; for reading glasses, get the longer.

[Monument To Nothing] The new monument that atheists have installed in north Florida maybe should have instead been installed in the Keys since many of your posters make angry ‘there is no God’ posts about my Lord and Savior.

The only people who maligned the FEMA downstairs enclosure inspection program were the people who don’t really understand where it is they live and don’t give a crap about the other people who live around them, mostly the latter.

Frog chorus has been happening every nite in the wetlands across the street from Fern Ave on BPK for the last week. All of the rain we’ve been having turns them on. I think they are mostly our native green frogs.

When I get older I’m not going around knitting. I’m going to be clicking my Life Alert button to see how many hot firefighters show up!

[Volunteers Wanted] Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is seeking volunteers at the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center in Key West to interact with and educate visitors about the Florida Keys marine environment. Interested applicants should be able to contribute a minimum of four hours per week, have an outgoing personality and enjoy meeting people from all over the world. Duties include greeting visitors and answering questions about Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and adjacent national parks. For more information and to apply, contact Center Manager Craig Wanous at Craig.Wanous@noaa.gov or 305-809-4700 x276. Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center is located at 35 East Quay Road, on the Truman waterfront in Key West. Center hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. For more information on the center, visit Link

My bed is a magical place where I can suddenly remember everything I was supposed to do.

[Sewer Stink] If you do not want to have your home hooked up to the FKAA sewer system or if you do not want to pay to have your home hooked up because it will never really be hooked up because of where you live and you think that is wrong, pay heed.

You must have an elected board on the FKAA that will stay the process because it is an unfunded mandate under their control. There is no scientific reason to have your home on sewers. You are not polluting the environment with nutrients because nutrients don’t go more than 20 feet before they are grabbed up and used by biological organisms like plants. So the reason to hook you up is moot. Your septic systems work OK. Think of nutrients like 100 dollar bills. Once released they are grabbed up quickly. Nutrients are not pollutants. So we have to have sewers because of nutrients – not true. So we have to have sewers because we voted for sewers – nope. So we have to have sewers because NOAA says we do – there you go.

Did we vote for NOAA to have dominion over us? Nope, they lost the vote that we took on that. So we have to have sewers because the FKAA says we do – yes I’m afraid so. Did we give them the power to do that?No “we” did not. The Monroe County Wastewater Committee formed and met over the issue for over a year and unanimously voted to NOT to give the FKAA power over the people and sewers.

Our State Representative Debbie Horan took it on her own and slammed it through the Florida legislature despite the fact that everyone back home, with the exception of FKAA board members and NOAA, were against it. Check out where she landed after doing that little deed[?].

The State legislature voted to give the FKAA the power to make you hook up. Sen Bullard just went against our overwhelming popular vote to keep the FKAA from having an elected board. The House voted unanimously for an elected board, but the Senate didn’t even hear about it from our Senator. Why?

The FKAA board has more power than the people in Monroe County and they know it. They have muscle on that board and they use it against all of us. Don’t want an unfunded mandate like sewers? Get an elected board. Elect the FKAA board with elected anti-sewer board members and it will be a problem solved, but you will need a Senator in the State to bring it forward – our’s won’t.

There have been too many deals flying around over this billion dollar boondoggle because it is a billion dollar boondoggle. So now that you have to come up with the money your attention is focused on this factoid. It took a while. Nobody ever cares until it is time to pay up. 

[Essay Contest] The Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce recently sponsored its annual essay contest for the eighth grade class at Sugarloaf Middle School.  The topic the students were asked to write about this year was “If you were stranded on a deserted island (in the Keys) what three things would you bring with you and why?”  Forty-six (46) essays, a great turnout this year, were read and evaluated by the Board of Director’s Essay Committee. The essays were creative, interesting to read, and we are proud of each entry submitted. It was a difficult decision to pick only four.

First place: $100 gift card – Carlie Meehan, Second place: $50.00 gift card – Jason Sonnenfeld, Third place: $25 gift card – Meagan Cassidy

What Big Data is giving to Big Brother. Link

[“Downstairs enclosures”] You sound like a government official. Pay this and pay that.  The flow of flood waters? Ever see a mobile home in flood waters? Maybe they should be illegal too? or do you just want to charge them extra, to help build up your coffers? The point is there’s just too much nickel and diming of homeowners. It use to be owning your own home was the American dream. Now you’re penalized for having that dream. Sad, greedy, indeed.

[Doctor Who] “The birth of the United States was created by this very mysterious figure known only as the Doctor”  Well, cool!  I’ve enjoyed his show since I discovered it in the 80’s on PBS in Denver.  These days he’s up to his 11th or 12 incarnation and I watch him on BBCA.

[Fat] More people are dying in the world from obesity than starvation!

[Captain Doom and Gloom]  “What will the Atheist Monument monument be, a big Zero” Nah, just plain old grass with nothing on it, which is reality to the point!

They are about to control the web completely, anything electronic and now this will wipe out cash. There goes the fun and games of being a crook. What is left? To develop a 100% barter system and pillage and rob material objects. We never needed cash or gold in the first place. Hans the Road Warrior PS Get ready for the Big Click and that knock on your door! Sig Heil!

[Phone Taps] Didn’t Obama say that he wanted to be a President who listens to all the people?

[Susan Rice] If you think that all her accomplishments are so great, what about her obvious lying to the American public on the murder of three American government employees. You can be brilliant, many criminals are ( they run very big scams by lying ).

Anyone who repeatedly relays false information to the American People is either very dumb or very obsessed with her source (Boss). I have yet to see where she admitted her error? Have you? Sorry, she may be brilliant, but she blew all her credibility on television.

Poor FTR or as he should be known as From The White. He gives us all sort of statistics from ultra conservative groups that are against the United States. He forgets that those groups are nothing but anti. These groups cry that they want their country back, forgetting that they are the ones who gave it away. When George W and Dick C (noted war zero) wanted a war, for oil they all said yes. And when they said we have to take some of your liberty, we will just tell you that we are making you safer. We will just tell you that we need these things, you know … wiretaps, library records, etc the Right said yes, just tell them that it will be called The Patriot Act, they will swallow anything.

Now we have a president who is trying to rectify a lot of what they have done. Is he making mistakes? Most assuredly he is. But compared to George and Dick he can almost walk on water. He has one huge problem that he will never be able to overcome, or be forgiven by those conservatives, he is not lily white. They will deny it over and over but they lie.

Psst! FTR, the government surveillance started with GW Bush.

Hallmark of Democracy: Press scrambles to get access to Manning trial. Ironically we need Wikileaks to tell us what’s going on in the trial. Link

Somebody ought to kick Fox News right out of this Country. They are doing more damage to us than anything else.  And they can take those Republican ring leaders along with them. They are all disgusting.

[Secret Ribbon Cutting Ceremony] We held a closed-press ribbon cutting ceremony and tour on May 30th, 2013 in celebration of the completion of the exterior building construction. We invited our most loyal partners at the local, state, and federal level who have had the vision and fortitude to enable us to build this powerful Intelligence Community data center “for the good of the Nation”. We are on track to open in October! Link

Just last week was it? Isn’t that special?  Wonder who their “most loyal partners were” – Team  Balfour Beatty who built it? Now I know who to go to when my hard drive crashes and I need to retrieve my data. “For the good of the Nation”. How Orwellian!

[Susan Rice]  My dear fellow, why should we bore each other with such nonsensical drivel indeed! Let us just say, indeed the world is awash with educated fools. That’s quick and to the point.

[Militia] The next time someone tells you that the militia referred to in the Second Amendment has been “superceded” by the National Guard, show them Section 311 of US Code Title 10, entitled, “Militia: composition and classes” in its entirety : “(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are — (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.” Here is the cold hard fact of the matter that will be evaded and denied but which must never be forgotten in these discussions: Often — whether on an airplane, subway, cruise ship, or in a high school — only self defense by the “unorganized militia” will be available when domestic or foreign terrorists chose their next moment of murder. And here is the public-policy implication of this fact: It would be better if the militia were more prepared to act when it is needed.

The percentage of each past president’s cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is; a real-life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages.

T. Roosevelt 38%, Taft 40%, Wilson 52%, Harding 49%, Coolidge 48%, Hoover 42%, F. Roosevelt 50%, Truman 50%, Eisenhower 57%, Kennedy  30%, Johnson 47%, Nixon 53%, Ford 42%, Carter 32%, Reagan 56%, GH Bush 51%, Clinton 39%, GW Bush 55%, Obama 8%

This helps to explain the incompetence of this administration: Only 8% of them have ever worked in private business!

That’s right! Only eight percent – the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business?

We are Homeland Security and here to protect you by removing your privacy. Oh, you don’t mind as long as your safe? That’s good.

Yes FTR guy the NSA is recording your phone calls and tracking your movements, but you are a boring person leading a boring life, so the revenge is yours.

Even republicans are starting to see that the right in America is turning so far right they will drag their own country thru the mud before they support anything other than what their own agenda.

Dale Schultz a Republican Senator from Wisconsin is going as far as to say that his party has gone to the extreme and is comparing the party’s decision making to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yes, the very same Communist President that Bush told us he “Looked into the eyes of” and saw his soul. It seems the Russian ways of governing is now the template for the Republican party. Even their own party is seeing the similarities.

Speaking on the Joy Cardin show in Wisconsin Republican Dale Schultz went on to say he was upset the majority Republicans went into “10 hours of secret negotiations among majority republicans” in the middle of the night. The meeting ended at 6AM.

Im thinking that Their must have been a phone teleconference the party had to take part of with Vladimir the new Republican hero. Heres some interesting reading. Search out Bush and Vladimir Putin and see for yourself  the close relationship they had . Now we can understand why the party of “NO” is so much against American progress.

FROM THE RIGHT

It’s no surprise that my Friday’s critic misquoted me when s/he wrote that I had written that Susan Rice, now Obama National Security Advisor, nee UN Ambassador “is as dumb as a box of rock(sic).”  Far too many CT left fielders refuse to accept the truth.  The fact is that I had criticized her for blatantly lying to the nation and to the world to provide political cover for the Obama administration on their abject and purposeful failure to protect our people in Libya. My comment was offered as an alternative reason as to why she would attempt to convince the world that the terrorist assault on Benghazi was simply mob violence when all the evidence spoke the contrary, and indeed Obama himself had labeled the violence as being a terrorist attack prior to her Sunday show(s) appearance. In fact I actually wrote that I hoped that she wasn’t as dumb as a box of rocks. It strikes me that simply being stupid is much less damming than being a patent liar, and a bad one at that. The nation will rue the day that Obama selected her as his National Security Advisor.

Part 2) I sincerely hope that you are closely following the various scandals that are currently rocking the Obama administration. We are living in times that are of tremendous historical import.

We are witnessing near daily revelations of more and more instances of the IRS attacking organizations simply because they hold different political views than the party currently in power.  We know that it’s true because the IRS has admitted it.  But, the IRS initially blamed these offenses on “rogue” employees in the Cincinnati office.  Now, nearly every day, we’re learning that the instructions to engage in the assaults were generated much higher in the IRS chain of command. The worker bees are revolting and handing p their bosses. Now it is appearing that the hub is in Washington DC.

The Tea Party, Pro Life Organizations, Organizations with the words Patriot or Liberty or Freedom  in their title, Jewish Organizations, and sundry others were forced to submit a near endless chain of information about their organization, its goals, its practices, it contributors, its members, its lesson plans, it speakers, background information on members and principles,  and its goals. During one 27 month period not a single Tea Party or targeted organization was granted non profit status while scores of liberal groups sailed through.  One must wonder what effect this had on the the ’12 Presidential election.

Of course we know that the Obama administration is aggressively spying on certain political news casters and even their parents. Of course we know that the Obama administration had to lie on an affidavit in order to get court approval necessary to require the phone company to give Team Obama the records.  We know it because Team Obama has admitted it. We know that at least 100 other reporters are under similar surveillance. We know it because Team Obama has admitted it.

But what we just now are beginning to learn may even be more frightening and enraging. We’ve learned that a top secret government national spying operation known as PRISM sorts through and reads millions of telecommunications every day. Some are kept, some discarded or ignored. The parameters that decide what to keep and what to discard are set by the government. Now, today, this instant, the government has the ability to know every facet of your life. The only limit now being that that knowledge is limited to what you enter into your computer. It knows it as you type it. It knows what you buy, what you write, your web chats, your YouTube contribution, it knows that FTR is authoring these humble postings. In fact the snooping has become so pervasive and so invasive that believe it or not, the NSA just published an internship listing for a ‘Digital Network Exploitation Analyst’. It  appeared Thursday on the National Security Agency’s job-opening Twitter feed

PRISM is the biggest contributor of information to President Barack Obama’s daily intelligence briefing, known officially as the President’s Daily Brief (PDB. In the last year, PRISM data was cited in Obama’s PDB 1,477 times.

Verizon call data.

We learned Wednesday that the National Security Agency is collecting phone records of Verizon customers under a secret court order issued in April. The order requires Verizon to turn over data on all calls going through its system, including phone numbers for both sides, location, and time and duration.

That order was made through section 215 of the Patriot Act. Representative James Sensenbrenner was the author of the Patriot Act, but this application of the act, he says, went over the line of the balance between constitutional rights and national security interests.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, Sensenbrenner wrote that collecting all Verizon call data was far too broad a request under the law. “How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?” he wrote.

In a press release, Sensenbrenner wrote, “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.” Sensenbrenner is flat out right. It’s no wonder that overall, only 30% believe the feds today are a protector of individual rights.