Thursday, November 7, 2013

The Cudjoe wastewater project zone areas on Big Pine Key upcoming meetings: Region 1 North meeting at 6PM at the Vineyard Community Church. Plans available for viewing at 5:30PM on November 7th. The map link shows the different BP areas. Link

[Crooked Lawyer] Prosecutors will not file  criminal charges against Jim  Hendrick, a former county attorney and convicted felon,  or his role in organizing an illegal political mailer attacking a candidate for the Marathon City Council  election.  Hendricks said “Scott Miller” paid him for the mailers with cash, but Hendrick had no receipt or phone number of that person. “In hindsight, there probably is a good chance there is no Scott Miller,” he said.

In 2007 Hendrick was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering and conspiracy.

Since we voted to continue the one cent infrastructure tax, then those funds should not be used for the purchase of Rowell’s Marina. The wording on the ballot back then said that the funds would be used for sewer first and we should not get short shrift because they want to save money by using the grinder pump system instead of gravity. It may take an injunction to keep those tax funds from going to the Rowell’s purchase. Ultimately the County Commission  has to be convinced that they need to take another look.

We need a leader to fight the grinder pump issue for us like Cudjoe Gardens had. We all supported Cudjoe Gardens fight against grinder pumps, but now that they’ve won, they’ve adopted the attitude, “I got mine, how you doin’.”

[Corruption?] The constant refrain from FKAA is that they want to install gravity sewers but the County will not provide the funding. The money is available to give everyone a gravity connection. The County already approved $6 million as a Change Order to fully repave streets in gravity sewer areas. They are all set to squander $5 million on Rowell’s Marina to get it off the tax rolls and become a tax burden. They say they would develop Rowell’s with that infrastructure sales tax they conned us into renewing that was promoted as funding sewers only until they were fully paid. They are prepared to buy 2/7 of the old 7 mile bridge for $2 million so it will be a County burden instead of a State burden and spend $57 million over 5 years from the infrastructure tax to partially patch it.

Even without additional County funding, mini lift stations would provide a gravity connection for everyone at a savings of over $4 million compared to grinder pumps in your yard. No, it is not lack of money that is the reason for the insistence on individual grinders. We need a thorough legal investigation is what I think. Something here stinks even worse than a grinder pit. 

[Jiggly Butt] Hot chick, GoPro camera, yoga pants, motorcycle ride = ooh la la! Video

First Amendment Rally and Fundraiser Wednesday, November 13, 5:30pm to 7:30pm at Sippin’ Coffee House at 424 Eaton Street, Key West

Come and discuss with other concerned citizens problems with the Monroe County School District in compliance with Public Records Requests especially the levy of excessive.  Events

[Something Smells] The only issue citizens are worried about is not having grinder pumps and paying for the sewers. The only issue the Commissioners worry about is buying another resort or an old bridge.

We need leaders who are on our side not self-serving. Why won’t the Commission listen to us? We’ve made enough noise. It stinks! 

[How to Build A Bookshelf Using Bob’s Penis] Use this instructional video to make the bookshelf you always wanted. Video

The next meeting of our Big Pine Computer Club will be this coming Saturday, November 9, 10 am at the senior center.  Hope to see you there. Events

I’ve just returned home from an 8 day Caribbean cruise. Had a really good time, ate way too much and enjoyed the trip. Last port of call was tourist trap city (Cozumel). Rather than go to the merchants tourist traps my favorite wife and I found the last two seats on a three hour glass bottom boat snorkel trip. I think we could see 50-60 feet as the water was so crystal clear – and we were swimming distance from shore in downtown Cozumel near the cruise ship wharf. Fish, lobster, sea horses and quite a bit of coral and many sea fans. But crystal clear water – I’d forgotten what it was like.

I wonder if that city has sewers or grinder pumps?

This 1966 documentary explores the making of “2001-A Space Odyssey” and our high tech future–the present! Video

If it is OK to bully on a whim as some kind of perceived rite of passage,  why is it not OK for the bullied person to kill the bullier in the most convenient, safest way at hand.   Seems fair to me.

[New Job] I’ve had to take a job to afford my lifestyle. I’ve been forced to seek employment to help pay the bills! You take what’s available when it’s available. I never saw myself as a sales clerk helping out in women’s clothing, but you take what you can get on short notice.

Wal-Mart hired me on the spot with a choice of two openings. Wal-Mart Greeter or an assistant in the Women’s Jean Dept.

I just  wanted to tell you myself, just in case your wives or girlfriends comes to Wal-Mart to try on jeans. I kind of enjoyed my first day on the job and might make it full time employment!

[Bad Apple II] Apple Says It Isn’t Interested in Your Data, but it collects it anyway and enables it’s exposure to others (NSA, political and business adversaries, hackers) by constantly employing new methods that erodes one’s ability to control their own data privacy.

The most recent uproar on the Apple Support forums is the sudden policy change to require computer to iOS device syncing to occur only through iCloud/Internet, removing the more private and secure computer to device via cable option for those who require it for their business and personal contacts, calenders (where one plans to go) and other private information like previous location data.

Apple and other companies who employ encryption have to provide the NSA with a key, that’s a given. The default password of four characters that most people opt for because it’s easy to recall, is unfortunately extremely easy to crack by other users computers, or even by other cell phones. So the strong encryption is essentially worthless for many if the password is weak, however long complicated passwords are harder to recall. Also eventually as computers get more powerful, botnets get more powerful as a result, past captured traffic with a previously strong password/encryption of 24 random characters or more will eventually be cracked. So many savvy users opt for the direct cable sync option to defeat all methods (past, present and future) to keep their private data secure, however Apple is having none of that. Link

Is there anywhere in the middle or lower Keys that will sharpen chainsaw chains? I haven’t been able to find anyone, and new chains have gotten expensive. 

[Sewer Meeting] I have FKAA’s October 11 letter stating that a meeting for “Big Pine Key — Region 1 North, Residential Neighborhood Meeting” will be held on November 7, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. at Vineyard Community Church, 100 County Rd., Big Pine Key. As per the FKAA letter “The meeting is specifically tailored to your neighborhood and will provide the most up-to-date project, including project design, scheduling, and general connection information. The wastewater plans will be available for viewing beginning at 5:30 P.M.” So I guess this is for my neighborhood (Koehn), Port Pine Heights, and Pine Heights subdivisions. Residents should call FKAA to confirm which neighborhoods are in Region 1 North. Regardless, please attend the meeting and say “hell no” to grinder pumps anywhere for anyone. Thanks.

At the FKAA sewer meeting that LKPOA hosted, many of the questions were from people wondering if they were slated for a grinder pump. Folks, it should not matter what your house is getting, you should still be supporting your community neighbors by fighting for no grinder pits on private property. The more grinders there are, the more everyone will be paying for sewer, including you. You really need to help stop the abuse and the insanity. You can call FKAA to read their map anytime to see if you are targeted for a grinder. Ask the questions everyone needs answered. For example: “In LPS sewer areas that already have the sewer forcemains in the ground, those forcemains could be taking the discharge of collector manhole pumps. Instead, the current design spends far more money by putting individual grinder pumps in people’s yards and forces them to power the pump. Why are the plans not revised to save homeowners the expense and aggravation of individual grinders and save the whole project money?”

How big is the galaxy? Just as we rotate around the Sun, the Sun rotates around the core of the Milky Way; moving at an average speed of 143 miles per second, it takes 225 to 250 million terrestrial years to complete one rotation around the galaxy’s core. 

To those burned up about the Church Lane shortcut. Go through the Centennial Bank lot. It’s quicker and safer. For the person who hasn’t figured it out since 1998, duh.

The 1st Anniversary of Springer’s Bar & Grill is this Saturday, November 9th and we will be featuring the Doerfels family band.

Happy Hour All Day Long
50 % off Wings
50 % off Pizza

Come and see us for our special day!

“A significant amount of debris has already arrived on U.S. and Canadian shores, and it will likely continue arriving in the same scattered way over the next several years,” NOAA officials said in a statement. “As we get further into the fall and winter storm season, NOAA and partners are expecting to see more debris coming ashore in North America, including tsunami debris mixed in with the ‘normal’ marine debris that we see every year.”

I saw the above on the NBCNews webpage.  Can NOAA do anything to help, versus create panic.

Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hear My Train A Comin’ traces the legendary guitarist’s remarkable journey from his hardscrabble beginnings in Seattle, through his stint as a US Army paratrooper and as an unknown sideman to R&B stars until his discovery and ultimate international stardom. With previously unseen footage of the 1968 Miami Pop Festival, home movies, and interviews with those closest to Jimi Hendrix. Video

[Citizen of the Day] Enjoys working with a variety of charities, feeling that Key West has a good sense of community.

How well do you know the US Constitution? What form of government does the Constitution establish for the United States of America?

A Socialist State
B Constitutional Democracy
C Oligarchy
D Constitutional Republic

Answer will come tomorrow. If you want a free copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence they are available at Jigs on Big Pine.

[“The Bad Apple”] You can sync by cable and not use the cloud. Was this written by Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft (but not for long). What sources are you not quoting?

[Expedition 38 Lifts Off] The Soyuz TMA-11M rocket is launched with Expedition 38 Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency onboard, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (Nov. 6 in the U.S.). Tyurin, Mastracchio, and, Wakata will spend the next six months aboard the International Space Station.  

[“What’s this new fee on our property tax bill? MO CO WW: Cudjoe Outer Islands for $310.29”] How about that stands for Monroe County Waste water fee?

You have got to be kidding me. We have been reading on this BPK website, in the local newspapers, and watching the meetings on TV; or going to the meetings about the sewers coming to the Keys. This has been talked about and fussed over since 2005 when it was mandated the Keys had to have municipal sewers in 2010 nothing was done as no funding was available so they gave us till 2015 with no ifs ands or buts. You will be billed this and probably lots more in later years if you did not pay the $4,500 bill sent to you last summer. Pay now or pay later. Now you have to have it on your tax bill for ever more. I know this is Paradise, but every now and again put the glass down, and read!

In 1994,WXYC in Chapel Hill, N.C., became the first radio station to offer a 24-hour simulcast on the Internet.

A first encounter is happenstance, a second — coincidence, and a third is significant.

The Island of Key Largo Federation of Homeowner Associations (The Federation) is stunned, and strongly objects to the Board Resolution of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) which allows eligible full time employees to be paid up to twenty four hours for performing volunteer activities.

Paying people to volunteer flies in the face of the concept of volunteering.  The basic tenant of volunteering is to perform a service without remuneration.  Rather than calling it volunteering, it would be more appropriate to say that the District is authorizing thousands of dollars to be spent without Board approval on activities that have nothing to do with the District’s mission.

The approval of this recent policy creates multiple opportunities for concern and criticism by your constituents on how it will be implemented which need to be answered prior to funds being spent and could result in legal challenges to the board and individuals for activities utilizing public funds:

-What guidelines exist to determine who and what are “qualified” volunteer activities?

-What restrictions if any are going to be employed for “paid volunteers” who may be supporting political candidates, religious groups, or other non-profits with diverse and very biased and discriminatory social and economic purposes?

-Where in the District’s Charter have the citizens authorized FKMCD to select “qualified” organizations?

While it is understandable that the FKMCD Board may have a desire to instill a sense of community service and provide encouragement to develop a culture that promotes community service among its employees, a policy of “paid volunteerism” using public funds for organizations or activities that may not serve the interests for the betterment of all constituents in the district is not acceptable.                

The Federation, composed of all volunteers (who are also volunteers of their homeowners associations), does not agree with the FKMCD paid volunteer policy and finds it offensive and demeaning to all those Monroe County volunteers who spend thousands upon thousands of hours for our community and not receive one cent in payment.  We ask the FKMCD Board to readdress this policy and remove the VOLUNTEER AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH POLICY completely.

[Period]  If you now have insurance and like it, you can keep it, period. Anyone that is not named Period, will do as I say!

“Only the closed mind is certain.” ~Peter O’Toole in Dean Spanley 2008. (FTR please note)

So Obama‘s miscalculation, ie., “lying” to the American people about Obamacare somehow equals Bush’s actual lying to us about Iraq and getting 4,000 of our heroes killed?   Oh really?

[“McAuliffe wins”] Very funny one by FTR: The candidate who won the election “suffered a crushing defeat.”

What do they call the other guy? Oh, that’s right, the loser!

[“Affordable Grinder Pump Act”]  This law will ensure that everyone in the Cudjoe Regional Wastewater system will have access to their very own grinder pump, whether they want it or not.  Requirements will include forced participation, giving up part of your property for an easement for installation and maintenance , purchases of a handful of permits, hiring of a slew of contractors, apprehension about trouble-free operation and severe anxiety during an emergency event.   

Several plans will be offered to all homeowners that are to receive grinder pump units to fit their needs and budget:

Tin: you get a grinder pump and pay all the inherent permits, fees and contractors.

Nickel:  Several homes will hook into a grinder pump located on a county easement for ease of access, maintenance and to greatly reduce homeowner’s expenses . Sorry, plan currently unavailable.

Aluminum:  If you are financially challenged this plan will help defray some of your costs through subsidies if you qualify.  Sorry, plan currently unavailable.

A dedicated website will allow you to compare plans so you can be better informed about your choices.  Sorry, website currently unavailable.

A solemn guarantee of “if you don’t like your grinder pump, too freakin’ bad, you’re stuck with it. Period.” will accompany every property designated for this system.

The expression “Tea Party thinker”  seems like an oxymoron to me.

Who ever wrote about the “Affordable Boat Act” must be a genius. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

I think that the initial problems with the launch of Obamacare is rooted in Obama’s flawed fundamental assumption that all Americans are fair, invested, and involved in the daily functioning of this Country when in reality Americans believe, or assume, that the USA has some kind of magical life of its own that will take care of itself without them having to think about it or do anything about it and will go on forever. Actually, they really don’t even think about any of  that when it comes down to it, only being concerned with the tiny space around themselves, like the ostrich who hides his head in the sand to feel safe while the rest of him is exposed to danger.   I think a lot of adjustments have to be made to our basic thinking or the party is coming to an end.

Why is this administration afraid of real leaders? According to reports, President Barack Obama decided to force a Marine Corps legend out early because he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way, and forced them to answer tough questions regarding Iran. Link

The FTR guy  has no equal when it comes to making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear as he valiantly tries to explain the Republican loss to the Democrat in the Virginia election for governor.

[Crack] GOP adopts Montreal Mayor,  Robert Ford, as one of their own. And tell everyone to calm down, he was just smoking crack it’s not like he got a bj from an intern. Link

Yesterday a very strange poster continued his/her rant against this Olde Fart. S/he wrote: “FTR disagrees day in and day out with everything America does while throwing daily blessings on Putin the former KGB chief but you consider him the wonderful American?  “Great reader logic. I must be a Commie because I disagree with FTR daily.”

The poster is so divorced from reality that his/her home base must be in another dimension. My thanks to the person who slapped the delusional dude the other day that prompted yesterday’s nonsense posting.

First of all, if arguing for upholding our Constitution and arguing against the current administration and D/L/P politics assault on it is “un American”, then I plead guilty. If arguing that Obama and the D/L/P mob are gutting our great nation is “un American”, then I again plead guilty. If exercising my constitutional right to free speech is “un American”, then I’m guilty again.

I am of the deep and firm conviction that persons like yesterday’s daft poster are at the core of the Obama support structure. They seem to be committed to an America wherein all you do, say, or think must be cleared by an all-powerful and omniscient Government. That is not my America. That is the failed East Germany, the failed USSR, Germany of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, Cuba, and so many other nations in today’s world.

As to the bizarre claim that I’ve ever praised Putin, it is simply untrue. The poster is either intentionally lying or is delusional. I believe that it is a deep, deep tragedy that Putin, an ex Colonel in the dreaded Soviet KGB, now has more influence in world affairs than does our deeply flawed President. I believe that that fact is truly an existential threat to the wellbeing of our nation.

I believe that the USA is still the greatest nation that this world has ever seen, but I also believe that our current leadership erodes that standing each and every day.

I also believe that the surge in Republican and Conservative voters yesterday strongly suggests that we have turned a corner and leftist power is waning.

That is evidenced by the fact that even though Cuccinelli was narrowly defeated in Virginia, the Republicans fielded 400,000 thousand more votes in the combined New Jersey/Virginia elections than did the Democrats. That is very revealing because the number of registered Democrats far outweighs the number of registered Republicans.

In the Virginia House of Delegates, with all 100 seats up for re-election, the GOP won a total of nearly 1.1 million votes, compared to slightly more than 810,000 votes for Democrats. Even though the Dems held control of the NJ Senate, the GOP won more than 950,000 votes, or 100,000 more than Democrats’ total.

Deer Friends, the times are a-changin’.

Part 2) It’s now nearly certain that Charlie Crist will have an opponent in the Democrat Governors Primary. Nan Rich will likely be his opponent. Crist has tons more money and the slavish attention of the glitterati of the D/L/P crowd. But it looks like Rich has something that Crist lacks. Character.

Crist now claims to be an ardent Democrat. Like those cute little green chameleons we have here, he is adept at changing his color as the situation changes.  Probably not many of you D/L/P readers will remember that it wasn’t so long ago that Republican Governor  Crist proclaimed that Sarah Palin would be a better President than would Obama.  On that, Chump Change Charlie and I agree, but I doubt that our D/L/P fellow travelers will.

In  2008, Republican Governor Charlie Crist campaigned for Sen. John McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin. In a CNN interview, Crist suggested that Palin was the “most qualified” of the four because of her executive experience.  He said: “I think she’d do a great job.” “Realize that she really is the only executive that’s running, the only one that has been the head of a government….. She’s held an executive position as a mayor, an executive position as a governor, and made those kinds of decisions.”  “Hey I think she’s ready,” Crist concluded.

D/L/P true believers and especially D/LP Crist fans, watch it and weep,  but have a barf bag at the ready. Link