Key West & Other Fantasies

Waterspout, Far too close for comfort

2008-09-30T04:14:00.002-05:00

This amazing thing touched down VERY close to town, around 4pm yesterday. (click on them to supersize)

Some pix I found of Hurricane Ike in Texas

2008-09-22T15:35:00.002-05:00

I couldn't find the locations, but I believe most are of Galveston and the surrounding areas.

It will.

2008-08-26T11:21:00.001-05:00

FAY

2008-08-18T08:03:00.000-05:00

Fuck, damn thing is barely here and the powers already out. Have batteries, for now... My house is rockin' an a rollin' woo hoo!

Fay, moving in

2008-08-17T08:08:00.000-05:00

Cloned puppies may have exposed 31-year mystery

2008-08-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

Oh this story has it all HAHA!

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY -

A woman who made news around the world when she had five pups cloned from her beloved pit bull Booger looked very familiar to some who saw her picture: She's the same woman who 31 years earlier was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave.

Dog lover Bernann McKinney acknowledged in a telephone call to The Associated Press on Saturday that she is indeed Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 became a British tabloid sensation when she faced charges of unlawful imprisonment in the missionary case. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice.

Through tears, she explained that she went public with her efforts to replicate Booger, who died two years ago, hoping people would be able to focus on that story rather than the "garbage" of the past.

"I thought people would be honest enough to see me as a person who was trying to do something good and not as a celebrity," McKinney told the AP. "My mother always taught me, 'Say something good or say nothing at all.'"

"I think I gave people too much credit," she said.

British tabloids first recognized the blond woman's smiling face when she appeared in news photographs this past week with the five pit bull pups she paid South Korean scientists $53,000 to clone.

McKinney, who initially denied a connection between the two women, acknowledged that she was one and the same after the AP ran a story noting the striking similarities in arrest records and court documents for the names Bernann McKinney and Joyce McKinney. They had the same birth date and Social Security numbers, the same hometown of Newland, N.C., and Joyce McKinney's middle name is Bernann.

But the now-57-year-old McKinney said that, as far as she's concerned, the Joyce McKinney of 31 years ago doesn't exist. She maintains her innocence and says the woman of all those years ago is a "figment of the tabloid press. ... I don't want that garbage in with the puppy story."

The story of Joyce McKinney is the stuff of pulp fiction: a North Carolina-born beauty queen who moved west, won the title Miss Wyoming USA and went on to college at Brigham Young University, where she became obsessed with a Mormon fellow student.

When that young Mormon took a missionary trip to England, authorities say McKinney hired a private detective so she could locate and follow him.

She and a male accomplice were accused of abducting the 21-year-old missionary as he went door to door, taking him to a rented 17th-century "honeymoon cottage" in Devon and chaining him spread-eagle to a bed with several pairs of mink-lined handcuffs.

There, investigators say, he was repeatedly forced to have sex with McKinney before he was able to escape and notify police.

In a 1977 court hearing mobbed by the British press, Joyce McKinney said she'd fallen head-over-heels in love with the Mormon man and acknowledged tracking him to England. "I loved him so much," she told a judge, "that I would ski naked down Mount Everest in the nude with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to."

But she denied a sexual assault, saying the young man was a willing partner.

In her call to the AP on Saturday, McKinney repeated the same argument her lawyer made all those years ago: There's no way she could have overpowered the young Mormon because he was much bigger and stronger.

"I didn't rape no 300-pound man," she said. "He was built like a Green Bay Packer."

McKinney and her accomplice spent three months in a London jail before being released on bail.

Press reports at the time that said the pair then jumped bail, posing as deaf-mute actors in Ireland to board an Air Canada flight to Toronto and eventually a bus to Cleveland, where investigators lost their trail.

Joyce McKinney surfaced again in Utah in May 1984 and was arrested for allegedly stalking the workplace of the same Mormon man she was accused of imprisoning in England. News reports say that police found a length of rope and handcuffs in the trunk of McKinney's car, along with notebooks detailing the man's daily activities.

Set to stand trial for lying to police and harassment in 1986, McKinney again disappeared just before proceedings and the case was dismissed.

It now appears Joyce McKinney may have escaped justice in the long-ago British case also. London police told the AP they've consigned the case to the history books because of its age and won't seek McKinney's extradition.

"They don't have a case," she told the AP. "It's been 31 years. They don't care."

"It's taken years of therapy to get past this," she said. "We go to church and serve the Lord and try to lead good lives and do good things."

McKinney refused to say where she was when she called. While in South Korea, she told reporters she was a screenwriter and handed out business cards with a Hollywood, Calif., address. The AP found that address did not exist.

At the Avery County courthouse in McKinney's hometown of Newland in the western North Carolina mountains, a clerk said she instantly recognized the woman snuggling puppies as the Joyce Bernann McKinney who has been a frequent defendant in court cases there.

"She is a person of note in our little community," said clerk Julia Henson.

Avery County Sheriff Kevin Frey said there are several charges on file against Joyce McKinney, including an active warrant seeking her arrest on a 2003 charge of communicating a threat against another woman.

Other charges include passing bad checks, an assault on a public officials and an 2004 animal cruelty charge alleging she failed to take proper care of a horse. That charge was dismissed.

James Stamey, the husband of the woman McKinney was charged with threatening, said that McKinney left Newland about two years ago and that no one had really seen or heard from her.

Until she showed up in the news about the cloned puppies.

"That's our Joy," Stamey said from his home in Newland.

Years ago, Stamey said, McKinney was a beautiful girl worthy of the Miss Wyoming USA crown.

"She's ugly as sin now," he said. "But, sure enough, that's her."

«The Effect of Country Music on Suicide»

2007-12-05T15:54:00.000-05:00

"The greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate"

According to the authors, Steven Stack and Jim Gundlach, the paper "assesses the link between country music and metropolitan suicide rates. Country music is hypothesized to nurture a suicidal mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and alienation from work. The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability. The existence of a country music subculture is thought to reinforce the link between country music and suicide. Our model explains 51% of the variance in urban white suicide rates."

Alone, at last?

2007-11-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

So, tomorrow morning my daughter is leaving. Not just leaving on a trip but leaving to move to Seattle, for good. This is bad. We have been together, basically just her nd I, since before I brought her to the USA from London 18 years ago. We have gone through hell together and had the best fun. We have never been apart.

She is my daughter, my friend, my co party animal and I am going to miss her more than I can put into words. I am also somewhat concerned as to how I am going to live, as she has also been there to put the brakes on my behavior. Those brakes are now gone. She was the only thing keeping me in check, and reminding me that some things are not such a great idea to do.

I am a moron and have no self control, common sense or people skills. Hopefully I won't just succumb to my depression, which I have also found easy to control for years without meds or any help at all.

I feel like I might crash and burn, or I might find this is the best time of my life.

I am slightly lost at the moment. A feeling I have rarely had in my life, and have not had at all for 20 something years. I don't like it.

Ugh.

Great Gifts for Little Girls!!

2007-11-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

More gifts for kids...

2007-11-24T13:45:00.000-05:00

If you are a cheap fuck you can knit your gifts...

Wool Dolls of the Dead

Key West Fantasy Fest - It is Upon Us

2007-10-20T20:03:00.000-05:00

Some cute and just plain odd Ideas for the Pet Masquerade, Fantasy Fest - Key West ;)

How to be a good Democrat/Republican

2007-10-17T15:56:00.000-05:00

How to be a good...

..>..>

...Democrat:	...Republican:
You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.	You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread because people are evil and should be punished.
You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.	You have to believe that evolution is a myth (despite the evidence of biochemistry and the fossil record) but that Intelligent Design theory should be taught in schools.
You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese & North Korean communists.	You have to believe that there is no causal link between legal, easily-obtainable handguns and high murder rates.
You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.	You have to believe that unfunded arts and school programs are still subject to government control.
You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUVs.	You have to believe that global temperatures are completely unaffected by fossil fuel emissions, that the best way to save the national forests is to allow logging companies to cut down old-growth timber, and the best way to save endangered species is to allow trophy hunters and wildlife traders to import more of them.
You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.	You have to believe that homosexuality is evil (despite the fact that it occurs in nature) and that women should stay at home to cook and bear children.
You have to be against capital punishment but support abortion on demand.	You have to be against abortion but support capital punishment.
You have to believe that businesses create oppression, and governments create prosperity.	You have to believe that corporations never purposely hurt anyone to make money.
You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.	You have to believe that hunting requires an automatic rifle.
You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.	You have to believe that middle class income should be taxed, but capital gains and inherited wealth should not be.
You have to believe that the military, not corrupt politicians, start wars.	You have to believe that war is an acceptable solution to any economic or social problem.
You have to believe that the military is another political porkbarrel for wealthy campaign contributors of certain politicians.	You have to believe that everyone should support the troops - except when it comes to pay or benefits.
You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.	You have to believe the NRA is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.	You have to believe that taxes are for poor and middle class people, not the rich.
You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E.Lee, and Thomas Edison.	You have to believe that Oliver North and Monica Lewinsky are more important to American history than Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.	You have to believe that affirmative action is wrong, because everyone knows there's no more racism in America.
You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and really a very nice person.	You have to believe that Ann Coulter is normal and really a very nice person.
You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.	You have to believe that the only reason supply-side economics hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and sex offender belonged in the White House.	You have to believe liberals telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and draft-dodger belongs in the White House.
You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.	You have to believe that all Americans should be white heterosexual Christians.
You have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese government is somehow in the best interest of the United States.	You have to believe that illegal Republican Party funding by corporations is somehow in the best interest of the United States.
You have to believe that this letter is part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.	You have to believe that the media are biased toward liberals, despite the fact that all the major media outlets are owned by ultra-rich conservatives.

Free speech - unless you ask the wrong questions

2007-09-24T08:26:00.000-05:00

I have had a hard time posting anything on Blogger lately. Seems to take longer and longer for each page to load. Today it was a good 20 minutes between pages. This will get old real fast. But here's some Monday morning entertainment, courtesy of Brasscheck TV.

Brasscheck

A student in the US was dragged out of a
public meeting, tasered and arrested for asking
questions of John Kerry who ran against
Bush in 2004.

Notice how the new media's approach
to the story immediately distracted
viewers from the actual questions the young
man asked.

The AP (Associated Press) went so far
as to report on the comedy routines
this young man had on his personal
web site - but never even mentioned
what it was he asked about at the Kerry
speech...

In case you missed it:

He was asking about election fraud in
Ohio in the 2004 election.

The evidence is clear: Bush lost Ohio
and was given it using fraud, thus he did not
really win the 2004 presidential election.

So why did Kerry let himself be robbed?

Good question - and one you apparently
get tasered, and then ignored, for asking.

Bush's Private Army

2007-09-18T08:28:00.000-05:00

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/93.html

Coming to a city near you?
Produced by the US magazine The Nation.

No one knows for sure, but it's believed that as much as 40% of the military budget goes to private contractors including private armies.

There are thousands of private mercenaries operating on behalf of the US in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. Nearly 1,000 have been killed in Iraq alone, but their casualties are not counted. Nor has Congress been able to discover exactly how many mercenaries the US employs there.

One of these firms, Blackwater USA, a big supporter of George Bush, is now deploying in the US. They were present in New Orleans after the levee collapses.

Pavarotti. 1935 - 2007 Rest in Peace.

2007-09-06T08:14:00.000-05:00

I honestly cannot think of anything to say about this wonderful voice, that has not and will not be said over the next few days. I just know that I will be ever thankful that we have all the recordings he made over a long, and fabulous career. I will miss him terribly.

Mrco Island "We're beginning to look like Key West around here."

2007-08-31T08:41:00.000-05:00

Derelict vessels seem to be everywhere and recently Marco area residents have noted three abandoned sailboats in this area.

Capt. Jack Moran of SeaTow approached the one near Keywadin shortly after its grounding. He offered to pull the boat free and explained his fee.
The owner refused and tried to free it himself, but failed. Now, the boat will go into the legal process for removal.
"We can get them out of there, but it takes time and costs money," Moran said.
One person quipped, "We're beginning to look like Key West around here."
Mitts Mravic, a local resident and a lieutenant with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), said he would "like to say that we've got a good handle on" the abandoned and derelict vessel problem in our area.
We don't have a problem like Key West, but in addition to three sailboats aground in the waters near Marco, and two more boats aground near Goodland, there are currently 28 derelict vessels (DVs) in Collier County waters.
"Right now we have two in the criminal process," Mravic commented.
Most of the 28 DVs are small boats that have been derelict quite a while - partly because it has been impossible to identify the owners and partly because the system to remove them has not functioned efficiently.

Changes
But that is all changing as a result of new personnel as well as increased cooperation and coordination among the state, county and local governmental and law enforcement agencies.
Pamela Keyes began at the county Coastal Zone Management Department less than a year ago.
"She's made it possible for us to go back and take care of stuff (DVs) that's been there for years," Mravic explained.
Also, about six months ago, representatives from the FWC, the Collier County Sheriff's Office, Naples Police Department and Marco Police Department met to develop a process through which they would be able to work together on DVs.
Today, they all use the same procedure, communicating and coordinating on all cases.
When an officer on patrol discovers a possible DV, or when a call comes in to any one of the agencies reporting a possible DV, that agency takes the lead and the others support. An officer places an 8 ½-by-11-inch orange sticker on the boat, notifying the owner that the boat must be moved. That officer also notes VIN and other vessel identifiers.
If the owner is identifiable, a letter is sent to the owner, allowing 30 days to remove the boat. If the owner does not show diligent action toward removing the boat, the owner may be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor. Following final disposition of that legal action, the boat will be removed by the county at the owner's cost.
Here the law shows its teeth. If the owner does not pay for the removal, the Department of Motor Vehicles will be notified and the vessel owner will be prohibited from registering any vehicle in Florida - either sea going or land going, boat or car - until the costs for DV removal are paid.

Marine salvage
The Collier County Coastal Zone Management Department (CZMD) contracts with a marine salvage service to remove the boat. It will be taken to a marina, the engine removed, made environmentally sound, and disposed of - or possibly dismantled.
Mravic explained that the process takes time and can be drawn out by the defendant in court, or made difficult and slow if the owner is not easily identified.
"Sometimes, the boat has no identifiers on it. We can't track anything down."
He added that "some people remove the registration and cut the ID number off. Then, we work real hard because we know that guy intentionally did it."
Keyes expressed the two-fold objective of the CZMD as well as many residents' concerns regarding derelict boats.
"Not only are they an eyesore, but they are also a huge environmental problem."

Fantasy Fest Events 2007

2007-08-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

Friday, October 19
ROYAL CORONATION BALL
Meet Key West's Royal Family and vote for the King and Queen of Fantasy Fest 2007; a benefit for AIDS Help, Inc.; La Te Da; 1125 Duval St; 6-10 pm; 305- 296-6706; Suggested donation

GOOMBAY
Tastes, sights and sounds of the Caribbean in Bahama Village, located at Duval and Petronia streets. The lively street party continues Saturday! Noon - midnight; FREE
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Saturday, October 20
GOOMBAY
The party continues in Bahama Village! Noon - midnight; FREE
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Monday, October 22
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
A leather fetish party that’s definitely not for the timid or shy!; 801 Bourbon Bar;(305)304-2400;9 pm;$
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Tuesday, October 23
PARTY IN PLAID
Swing into Fantasy Fest(R)at legendary landmark Capt. Tony's Saloon! www.capttonyssaloon.com; Explore your fantasies in naughty or nice plaid attire. Meet good friends, enjoy live music and rum specials all night long; Capt. Tony's Saloon; 9 pm; FREE

REDDY ICE FANTASY FAÇADE ,, COMPETITION
Festively decorated homes and businesses compete for cold cash! To enter, call 305-296-5334

FREE OFFICIAL FANTASY FEST POSTER SIGNING PARTY
Meet the award-winning artist of this year's poster. Crowne Plaza La Concha Hotel; 5 pm; posters for sale.

25th ANNUAL HEADDRESS BALL
A gala where headdresses are the stars of the show; Prizes for Best Headdress: (costumes not judged) $1,000 first; $300 second; $200 third; Southernmost Hotel at Duval St. and South St.; 8pm; General Admission $30;Tables VIP for 4-$300 or for 4- $250; WWW.KEYSTIX.COM or 305-296-1520
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Wednesday, October 24
CELEBRITY LOOK-A-LIKE CONTEST
Imitators of the famous and fabled vie for cash and prizes; Crowne Plaza La Concha Hotel. Contestant sign up 8 pm; FREE to watch; FREE to enter.

RED NIGHT
Fogarty's Sixth Annual Red Party. Don't miss this often imitated but never duplicated Party; Costume Contest, Door Prizes, Live DJ; A benefit for Monroe County School; 227 Duval St.; 9PM; 305-294-7525; $

BEACH PARTY
Hog's Breath Saloon proudly presents the 20th Annual Fantasy Fest Beach Party, featuring the world famous Hog's Breath Homemade Bikini Contest. Details of contest at www.hogsbreath.com or 305-296-4222; 10 pm; $

WKEY PET MASQUERADE & PARADE
A magical carousel of frisky pets and playful owners delightfully disguised and ready to frolic for fame and fortune; Location TBA; registration for competition at 4:30 pm; show starts at 5:30 pm; FREE to watch; $ enter benefits Lower Keys Friends of Animals
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Thursday, October 25
GIT-R-WET T-SHIRT CONTEST
Hotmovies.com and Cowboy Bill's Honky Tonk Saloon present their first annual interactive wet t-shirt contest. Catch the hottest ladies competing for a 1,000.00 first prize in this over- the-top competition. Contestants and their personal assistant model the finest in creative cotton wet t-shirt apparel! See the action live at cowboybillskw.com; 610 Duval Street Contest begins at 10 pm; 305-295-8219; FREE

MONSTER'S BALL
Sea serpents, mermaids and other bizarre creatures of the deep! What lurks below and who's dancing on the reef? Dive into this annual costume party and explore some surreal fantasies and some-too-real fantasies that should perhaps remain submerged! Green Parrot Bar; 10 pm; FREE

PRETENDERS IN PARADISE-"SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW"
The legendary costume competition with $10,000 in cash and prizes! Combining extraordinary creative genius and performing energy, this year's event promises to by eye popping entertainment; Pier House Resort & Caribbean Spa, beachside; www.pierhouse.com; 8pm; $

SLOPPY JOE'S BAR 24th ANNUAL TOGA PARTY
Put on your most authentic bed sheets and laurel wreaths for the most outrageous toga party in town! Contestants compete to win $1000 in prize money in 3 divisions: Men's, Women's and Groups (2-8 people). All contestants must be in toga costumes. Even if you don't dare to compete, this is the place to be seen! For more information visit www.sloppyjoes.com or email info@sloppyjoes.com. Registration begins at 8:00 p.m.; Contest starts at 9:30 p.m.; Door $10; Enter Contest for Free

PLAYBOY PAJAMA AND LINGERIE PARTY
The hottest Playboy model in the world, Amy McCarthy, encourages you to dress sexy for this skimpy affair. Enter the $700 Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe look-a-like contest, plus enjoy guest D.J.'s Live. This event is guaranteed to sell out. Purchase advance VIP tickets online at WWW.KEYSTIX.COM. Mangoes; 700 Duval Street; 305-304-1188; 10 p.m.; $
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Friday, October 26
PIMP AND HO PARTY
America's #1 movie star, Ron Jeremy, invites you to come fulfill your fantasy at this exotic dance party. Enter the $700 Mr. Pimp and Ms. Ho costume contest, plus enjoy guest D.J.'s live. This event is guaranteed to sell out. Purchase advance VIP tickets online at WWW.KEYSTIX.COM Redfish Bluefish; 407 Front Street; 305-304-1188; 10 p.m.; $

WYLAND GALLERIES’ “FANTASY OF ART" EXTRAVAGANZA
Meet internationally renowned artists Wyland, James Coleman, John Pitre, Jim Warren and Walfrido as they unveil undersea visions, fantasy seascapes and dream-world art. Join them at Wyland’s 623 Duval St. and 102 Duval St. galleries — and watch them celebrate Fantasy Fest by painting fantastic new images on canvas. 6-10 p.m.; Call (305) 292-4998 or (305) 294- 5240; www.wylandkeywest.com; FREE

801 BOURBON BAR TATTOO CONTEST AND STREET DANCE PARTY
The Official Tattoo Contest Of Fantasy Fest! Show off your Ink to win $1000.00's of dollars in cash and prizes. Live DJ, celebrities and more! Sponsored By Key West Ink and Captain Morgan Tattoo Rum; (305) 304-2400; 801 Duval Street; 1 pm; FREE

ANNUAL STREET FAIR
Duval Street's mile-long extravaganza features arts and crafts, food vendors, lively libations and costumed frivolity; Duval St. from Noon to 10 pm; FREE

FAIRVILLA MEGASTORE MASQUERADE MARCH
Join the crowd as they parade through Old Town with music and noisemakers; thirst quenchers provided at selected guesthouses. Begins at the Key West Cemetery Frances Street entrance; revelers can join the mad march anywhere along the two routes; 5pm; All welcome; sponsored by Key West's costume headquarters - Fairvilla Megastore; www.fairvilla.com; FREE

7th ANNUAL OCEAN KEY RESORT & SPA “LIVING ART” AIR BRUSH EXPO
Contestants will use the human form as a living canvas for artistic expression in competition for more than $1,500; drink specials and live entertainment; Sunset Pier at Ocean Key Resort; painting and partying start at sunset; judging begins at 9 pm; for more information call (305) 295-7045; FREE

12th ANNUAL SOUTHERNMOST HOTEL & RESORTS PRE-MASQUERADE MARCH COSTUME CONTEST & POOL PARTY
Enhance your Masquerade experience and participate and enjoy the Southernmost Masked Mania Costume Contest, Poolside at the Southernmost Hotel, the pre- event to the Halfway Party of the Masquerade March. The most theme oriented costumes are encouraged to participate with chances to win great prizes including airline tickets, hotel stays and more; 4 pm to 6pm; (305) 296-6577; www.southernmostresorts.com; FREE

RUM BARREL PIRATES BASH
Dress and DRINK LIKE A PIRATE at the Rum Barrel! Key West’s resident pirate and rum experts --- Pirate Soul Museum and Rum Barrel Restaurant & Bar --- team up to throw the most outrageous Pirates Bash in the world! $1000 in cash prizes for the best pirate and wench costumes, great music on the rooftop stage, and awesome rum specials; RumBarrel.com or (305) 292- 7862; Piratical inspiration at PirateSoul.com; 9pm; FREE
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Saturday, October 27
EPIDERMAL ARTS AND TORSO TAPESTRIES CONTEST
Art lovers gather for this bona fide cultural event to determine the best- illustrated bodies. The battle of the emblazoned bods elevates this art form to something aesthetic, creative and maybe even poetic; Green Parrot Bar; 3 pm; FREE

DUVAL STREET PROMENADE
Sassy entertainers, enticing food and spirited libations tempt costumed merrymakers as they party from the Gulf to the Atlantic; Noon - 10:30 pm; FREE

CAPTAIN MORGAN FANTASY FEST PARADE
Join 70,000 exuberant partygoers as this year's parade rolls down Duval Street. Featuring glittering floats, marching bands and dancing groups, it doesn't get any wilder than this! Parade route includes Whitehead, Front and Duval Streets; www.captainmorgan.com; FREE

BOURBON STREET PUB TEA DANCE
A taste of New Orleans decadence in Key West's Old Town; D.J. Brad, beads, boys and booze. The biggest street dance party of Fantasy Fest; Contact Joe Schroeder (305) 747-0343; Noon; FREE
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Sunday, October 28
CHILDREN'S DAY
A family event featuring food, games, arts and crafts and a costume contest for children; Bayview Park at Truman Avenue and Eisenhower Drive; 292-8912; smonsalvatge@storktours.com

"THE FAT LADY SINGS" TEA DANCE
As the saying goes, “It ain’t over "til the fat lady sings”. Everyone will be at La Te Da from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm for the last official event of Fantasy Fest® 2007. DJ Junior provides the music for the last hoorah while local celebrity Sushi passes out free jello shots and beads. La Te Da Hotel, Restaurant, Cabaret and Bars; 1125 Duval Street; 305-296- 6706; www.LaTeDa.com ; FREE.

“THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE GNOME” FANTASY FEST SUNDAY BRUNCH
Join us for our eclectic and unique Sunday Brunch in the Land of Gnome! The spectacular view and scrumptious menu will provide the magical end to the week’s festivities. Indoor and outdoor dining overlooking the Gulf and Complimentary Champagne Hyatt Key West Resort; 601 Front Street; Reservations Recommended (305) 809-4000; $34.95 ; Twelve years and under $17.95 (sorry no discounts)

Annual survey finds Chicago is the most popular destination for Labor Day 2007

2007-08-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

Asphalt Over Sand: Priceline.com Finds Labor Day Travelers Are More Attracted To Big Cities Than Beaches

NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blame it on the recent rains, the storms, or maybe the sudden temperature dip in some parts of the U.S. Whatever the reason, big cities are out-polling the beaches in priceline.com’s (Nasdaq: PCLN) 5th annual survey of the 50 most-popular destinations for the upcoming Labor Day holiday.

To compile its list of the Top 50 Labor Day travel destinations, priceline.com looked at a sampling of more than 30,000 hotel room booking requests made by priceline.com customers for the September 1-3, 2007 period. Because the survey is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes its annual survey is one of the more accurate predictors of Labor Day travel trends.

Priceline.com also said it still has plenty of last-minute airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises available for Labor Day getaways. Visit www.priceline.com for full details.

Chicago was the big winner in the Labor Day 2007 survey, with the Millennium Park and North Michigan Avenue areas coming in #1 and #2 in popularity. New York City followed up with the next 4 spots on the list for its Upper Midtown, Midtown East, Soho and Midtown West neighborhoods. Las Vegas and San Francisco neighborhoods rounded out the top 10 spots on the list.

Beach areas weren’t totally shut out on the list. San Diego took six spots on the list, the highest total of any individual city, while other areas making the list included Waikiki, Key West, Virginia Beach, Hilton Head and San Juan. For most Americans, Labor Day is a long weekend, so almost no overseas international destinations made the list, with the exception of London.

Destinations recording the biggest gains in popularity over 2006 include Jersey City (+20 spots to #23), St. Louis (+19 spots to #12), New York’s Midtown South area (+19 spots to #30) and San Diego’s East County (+14 spots to #18).

Priceline's Top 50 Destinations for Labor Day 2007

Rank 2007      Neighborhood                    Rank 2006  Yr/Yr Change

1              Chicago, Millennium Park,              2          +1
              Loop & Grant Park Area
2              Chicago, North Michigan Ave/           4          +2
              River North Area
3              NYC, Upper Midtown/Central Park South  1          -2
4              NYC, Midtown East                      7          +3
5              NYC, Downtown/Soho/Financial District  5           0
6              NYC, Midtown West                      6           0
7              Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South        NA          NA
8              Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity              3          -5
9              San Francisco, Union Square West       12         +3
10             San Francisco, Union Square East,      11         +1
              Embarcadero
11             San Diego, Coastal Area                8          -3
12             St. Louis, Downtown                    31         +19
13             Boston, Copley Area                    15         +2
14             Seattle, Downtown                      9          -5
15             San Diego, Downtown & Harbor Island    13         -2
16             Vancouver                              14         -2
17             Boston, Downtown/Charlestown           16         -1
18             San Diego, East County                 32         +14
19             San Diego, Point Loma/Shelter Island/  21         +2
              Old Town
20             St. Catharines, Niagara Falls          19         -1
21             Montreal                               22         +1
22             San Antonio, Downtown/Riverwalk        17         -5
23             Jersey City                            43         +20
24             Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity North        NA          NA
25             Chicago, O'Hare Airport Vicinity       23         -2
26             Oahu, Waikiki Beach Area               NA          NA
27             Beverly Hills/West Hollywood           NA          NA
28             Philadelphia, Downtown                 34         +6
29             Las Vegas, Convention Center/UNLV      18         -11
30             NYC, Midtown South                     49         +19
31             Hollywood                              NA          NA
32             Orange County, Disneyland Area         26         -6
33             Austin, Downtown                       27         -6
34             Atlanta, Downtown                      NA          NA
35             San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf       NA          NA
36             Boston, Brighton/Brookline             35         -1
37             London, Mayfair/Soho                   NA          NA
38             Monterey/Pacific Grove                 36         -2
39             Oahu, Waikiki Marina Area              NA          NA
40             Virginia Beach                         30         -10
41             Markham (Ontario)                      37         -4
42             Washington, DC, White House/Downtown   33         -9
43             Toronto, Downtown                      24         -9
44             San Diego, Mission Valley              NA          NA
45             New Orleans, French Quarter            40         -5
46             San Diego, Coronado                    NA          NA
47             Orlando, Universal Studios/Sea World   38         -9
48             Key West                               NA          NA
49             Hilton Head                            47         -2
50             San Juan                               20         -30

NA - Did not appear on last year's list.

Obama's right on Cuba

2007-08-27T17:47:00.000-05:00

The candidate's call to end the U.S. ban on travel and remittances to Cuba should go even further.

Los Angeles Time editorial
Saturday, August 25, 2007

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, determined to cast himself as the Democratic presidential candidate most open to new ideas on foreign policy, raised plenty of eyebrows recently when he proclaimed that he would be willing to meet personally with such rogue figures as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But that was nothing compared with the opinion article he published Tuesday in the Miami Herald saying Cuban Americans should have unrestricted rights to travel and send remittances to the island.

The other Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who portrays herself as the experienced foreign policy realist next to Obama's cowboy diplomat, wasted no time in rejecting Obama's proposal. Her campaign released a statement saying the U.S. stance toward Cuba shouldn't be altered until a post-Castro regime cleans up its act. Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani, meanwhile, said Obama's plan would only strengthen Castro's oppressive government.

The astonishing thing here is that after the U.S. has tried for nearly 50 years to force a regime change in Cuba by way of economic embargo with no success whatsoever, Obama is one of the few presidential contenders who dares to suggest that it's time to try something different. Some might consider Obama's move courageous given the political power of Florida's Cuban American community, which helped put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000 and has cheered his efforts to tighten sanctions on Cuba. But the minority of Cuban immigrants who vote Democratic is deeply divided on the travel ban and would like to be able to send more money to relatives at home, so Obama may not be staking out such a bold position after all.

Regardless of the political implications, Obama is clearly right -- the only problem is, his proposal doesn't go far enough. The travel ban should be lifted for everybody, not just Cuban immigrants. It is the height of irony that Americans can freely travel to countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which represent genuine threats to our security and economic interests, but not to Cuba, whose government is a threat only to its own people.The ban has done nothing to weaken Castro, but it does keep U.S. tourist dollars out of the hands of Cubans, who might be less inclined to heed their regime's anti-U.S. propaganda if Americans were helping to raise their standard of living.

The U.S. shouldn't lift all economic sanctions on Cuba until the island's regime makes progress on democracy and human rights, but policies such as the travel ban and limits on remittances are simply counterproductive. Score one for Obama.

Gloria Estefan performs live in Key West

2007-08-23T11:31:00.000-05:00

Artwork for the cover of Gloria Estefan's new CD "90 Millas."

The Westin Key West is scheduled to be the broadcast site for a taped "Despierta America" television show that is to feature several songs sung by Gloria Estefan.

"Despierta America" hosts Fernando Arau, left, and Raul Gonzalez, are to be in Key West Aug. 25 to videotape most of a three-hour show that is to air Monday, Sept. 17.

KEY WEST, Florida Keys – Latin diva Gloria Estefan is scheduled to perform several songs from her upcoming CD release, “90 Millas” (“90 Miles”), live in Key West Saturday, Aug. 25, during videotaping of Univision network’s “Despierta America” morning television show.

According to "Despierta America" producers, the singer’s performance is to be a facet of the production from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Sunset Pier at the Westin Key West Resort & Marina, 245 Front St. The public is invited to watch Estefan and the rest of the show for free.

Key West is situated just 90 miles from the Cuban coast and on the CD Estefan revisits the Cuban music of her roots. Recorded entirely in Spanish and set for release Sept. 18, the 14-track set is led by the single "No Llores," (“Don’t Cry”) featuring guitarists Carlos Santana and Jose Feliciano, and percussionist Sheila E.

Hosting the show from Key West are to be Fernando Arau and Raul Gonzalez, two of the hosts from the morning show. “Despierta America” airs weekdays in South Florida on Channel 23 and is the Spanish-language broadcast version of such network morning shows as ABC’s “Good Morning America.” It also airs on 61 other Univision Television Group-owned television stations in major U.S. Hispanic markets as well as Puerto Rico and on cable television in Mexico and some parts of South America.

Producers have been coordinating with the Monroe County Tourist Development Council to facilitate the taping. The show is to air Monday, Sept. 17, from 7 to 10 a.m.

Schooner Liberty, docked in Key West Harbor, and the Westin’s Sunset Key Guest Cottages are to be the backdrops for the show.

Segments to be featured include performances by acts from Key West’s nightly Sunset Celebration, the Westin’s bartender creating a signature "Gloria" cocktail and a singing contest where aspiring artists take their turn at the microphone to belt out a famous Estefan tune. Additional segments focusing on Keys activities also are to be featured, including a visit to the Pirate Soul Museum, a kayak excursion with Lazy Dog Charters and a snuba session that combines scuba diving and snorkeling.

The resort is to have food and beverages available for purchase by the audience during the taping.

“Despierta America” is the second production of a network morning show in the Florida Keys this summer. On July 5, portions of the “The Early Show” were broadcast live on CBS to kick off that network morning show’s Great American Vacation series.

Who Givs a Crap News

2007-08-20T13:51:00.000-05:00

The hospitality staff of the USA breath a collective sigh of relief....

Hotelier Leona Helmsley dies at 87

BY JOSEPH MALLIA

10:45 AM EDT, August 20, 2007

Billionaire hotel owner Leona Helmsley, who was nicknamed the "Queen of Mean" for her treatment of employees and who was jailed for tax evasion, died Monday at age 87 at her summer home in Greenwich, Conn.

The cause of death was heart failure, said her publicist, Howard Rubenstein.

She was notorious for a statement attributed to her during courtroom testimony, when a former housekeeper said she heard the hotelier say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Helmsley denied having said it, but the damage was done.

Years before her death her name and face had disappeared from advertisements and Web sites for Helmsley Enterprises, a Park Avenue company she ran with her late husband Harry. Its holdings included the Empire State Building and numerous hotels.

Leona Helmsley's latter-year obscurity came after years of derisive front-page stories that depicted her as a tyrant in the workplace.

She was tried in 1989 on tax evasion charges, and disgruntled employees testified that she terrorized both menial and executive help at her homes and hotels.

She was also the target of a gay discrimination suit brought in 2003 by an ex-hotel manager; a jury award of $10 million to the fired manager was later reduced to $554,000.

A Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans in September put her at #117, with a personal fortune of $2.5 billion.

Newsweek - link

All I can think of saying about this epitome of evil hotelier is, thank bloody god she never made it down here.

Kudos to 915 the fab restaurant on Duval St.

2007-08-19T19:09:00.000-05:00

From Florida Keys online (link)

KEY WEST’S NINE ONE FIVE EARNS RAVE REVIEWS AT NEW YORK CITY CULINARY EVENT

Executive chef Chris Otten, right, has a conference with staff prior to dinner. Photos by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau

Chris Otten positions finishing touches on Roasted Mango Tartlet desserts.

Crispy Skin-on Yellowtail Snapper with Baby Beets and a Tarragon Aioli was one of several entrees.

Chris Otten, left, nine one five restaurant owner Stuart Kemp address Beard Foundation patrons.

NEW YORK CITY -- Executive chef Chris Otten and owner Stuart Kemp, of Key West’s nine one five restaurant and wine bar, earned widespread accolades after showcasing their sophisticated, innovative cuisine for 80 members of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Thursday night.

The nine one five team prepared a Key West seafood-themed dinner at the Beard House, an internationally recognized culinary center that was home to the late James Beard, chef, author and teacher widely acknowledged as the father of American cooking. The event was funded in part by the Monroe County Tourist Development Council.

An invitation to cook at Beard House has been called by food experts “the culinary equivalent of earning an Academy Award nomination.”

For the hors d’oeuvres and five-course dinner required by Beard guidelines, Kemp and Otten chose their menu specifically to showcase the subtle, succulent flavors of local seafood. Dishes included crispy skin-on yellowtail snapper with a tarragon aioli, seared Key West grouper over parsnip puree, and butter-poached Florida Keys lobster with thinly sliced beef tenderloin.

"It was incredible,” said Beard House maitre d’ Lauren Baladan following the dinner. “Everyone was raving about it.”

Attendees included Peggy Katalinich, a member of the Beard Foundation and food director of Family Circle magazine.

“The chef let the flavors come through,” said Katalinich, who recalled interviewing James Beard himself at the house years earlier. “He didn’t have to masquerade and hide the basic flavor.”

During the dinner Kemp, a 19-year Key West resident who opened nine one five in 2003, oversaw service of the six wines that accompanied the dinner.

Otten cited the excellent work of his team as a crucial factor in the dinner’s success. Surprisingly, he said, preparing the Beard dinner was less stressful than a typical night at the restaurant in Key West.

“Within the restaurant, there’s so many more menu items and people come in at different times -- but this was all one menu that goes out at all one time,” he said. “The plating was very easy, we were all very organized and it went very smoothly.”

One of Key West’s most highly acclaimed restaurants, nine one five is located in a restored Victorian mansion at 915 Duval Street. Standout offerings include flavorful tapas-style dishes, indigenous seafood prepared with a unique twist and an extensive wine list with an international flair. For more information on the restaurant click here.

Dean Update

2007-08-15T08:10:00.000-05:00

Statement as of 5:00 am AST on August 15, 2007

...Dean moving quickly westward with little change in strength...

Interests in the Lesser Antilles should monitor the progress of
Dean.

For storm information specific to your area...including possible
inland watches and warnings...please monitor products issued
by your local weather office.

At 500 am AST...0900z...the center of Tropical Storm Dean was
located near latitude 12.2 north...longitude 44.2 west or about 1170
miles...1880 km...east of the Lesser Antilles.

Dean is moving toward the west near 18 mph...30 km/hr...and this
motion is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.

Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph...85 km/hr...with higher
gusts. Some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours.

Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 50 miles...85 km
from the center.

Estimated minimum central pressure is 1000 mb...29.53 inches.

Repeating the 500 am AST position...12.2 N...44.2 W. Movement
toward...west near 18 mph. Maximum sustained winds...50 mph.
Minimum central pressure...1000 mb.

The next advisory will be issued by the National Hurricane Center at
1100 am AST.

$$
Forecaster Beven

Higgs Beach, Key West.

2007-08-14T10:06:00.000-05:00

Someone needs to explain this to me. Higgs Beach, last time I checked, was/is a public beach. The current uproar over it is based on the fact that the local KWPD find it seemingly impossible to rid it of the bums and other assorted stinky folk from hanging there day and day out.

The mayor of Key West has figured that if the City takes over the beach/park it can be turned into an area for children and locals to use. This is his logic.

OK, point 1. It is a beach. It is already available for use by children and anyone else. The only reason they don't use it is due to the presence of the bums.

Point 2. The kids, already have a park, Astro Park, 25 feet from the beach which last time I was there is in perfect condition, all shiny and new looking. There are Boccie courts across from Astro for more adult type fun, and of course, the beach itself.

Point 3. Once the city has control of the beach, the same useless cops who cannot maintain a bum free zone now, will be attempting this apparently overwhelming task again.

And finally, this non event is going to cost the city (that means YOU!), approximately $500,000 PER YEAR!!! to maintain.

I am obviously missing something here. Why are we going to spend a half million bucks a year, on something that is already there and requires nothing more than a clean up, and bum removal?

I am sure that if a call was put out, any number of locals would be happy to show up with a paint can and scrubbing brushes to clean up the area, paint some new murals and generally give it a spruce.

The only thing preventing locals from utilizing this particular beach are the bums and the perverts which the Key West Police Department refuses to deal with. What do they spend their time doing?

They don't seem to ever arrest anyone for actual crimes, like mugging, robbery and other violent acts. They do spend an awful lot of time arresting inebriated locals attempting to get home, or strippers doing, well the things you expect from strippers.

How about they put on some of those nice purple gloves and do their bloody jobs at Higgs.

Who the F*ck is This Guy??

2007-08-13T10:32:00.000-05:00

From the Perez Hilton Celbutard Site.....

Some People Don’t Do Drunk To Well

PerezHilton reader Hannah ran into Channing Tatum in Key West, Florida, this past weekend.And, ewwww. Ewww!!!

His drunk frat boy days are long gone. Boy is rusty. His sweat looks like piss and if he’s face was any more red, we’d swear we were looking at his asshole.

Speaking of Channing. What the heck happened?

Wasn’t he supposed to be the next big thing???

Too much drinky. Not enough box office!

Posted: August 13, 2007 at 11:24 am

White House aide Rove resigns.

2007-08-13T08:27:00.000-05:00

Top White House aide Karl Rove, seen by many as the brains behind George W Bush's presidency, has said he will resign at the end of August.

"I just think it's time," Mr Rove said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, adding that he was quitting for the sake of his family.

Mr Rove has worked with Mr Bush since 1993 when he ran for Texas governor.

As Mr Bush's chief strategist, he is seen as instrumental in delivering election victories in 2000 and 2004.

There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family
Karl Rove

For this he is highly regarded by Republicans, but at the same time equally reviled by Democrats.

"Obviously, it's a big loss to us," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino told the Associated Press news agency. "He's a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed."

"He will continue to be one of the president's greatest friends," she added.

Mr Rove has been accused of underhand political tactics since his teenage years.

As a student, he invited Chicago vagrants to turn up for free beer at a plush reception for a Democrat state candidate - an incident he later described as a "youthful prank" that he regretted.

He has continued to be dogged by controversy.

Last month, the US Senate issued a subpoena against him as part of an investigation into the sacking of eight federal prosecutors, but Mr Bush ordered him not to testify, citing executive privilege.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
KEY DEPARTURES

Karl Rove, chief political strategist, leaves 31 Aug
Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, quit after 2006 mid-term elections
Andrew Card, chief of staff, quit March 2006
Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, quit March 2005
Colin Powell, secretary of state, resigned after President Bush's first term, Nov 2004

SURVIVORS FROM 2000

Dick Cheney, vice-president
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, was national security adviser in first term
Alberto Gonzales, attorney general, was White House counsel

Mr Rove was also investigated in connection with the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame, though prosecutors decided he should not face any charges.

Mr Rove told the Wall Street Journal that he had first floated the idea of leaving last year, but had delayed his departure when the Democrats took control of Congress.

He said he took a final decision to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told aides that if they stayed after the end of August they would be obliged to stay in the administration until Mr Bush's own departure in January 2009.

"There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family," he said.

He said he expected Mr Bush's current poor ratings to improve, and that conditions in Iraq would get better as the military surge continued.

A Republican had a good chance of winning the 2008 presidential election, he said, because Democrats would choose the "fatally flawed" Hillary Clinton as their candidate.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6943814.stm

Bums? Thats Putting It Mildly.

2007-08-10T08:41:00.000-05:00

Weary of the homeless encampments, fights and filth that have kept families and tourists away from one of the largest beaches and parks in the city, the mayor wants to reclaim Higgs Beach — but first the city has to own it.
Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson will start that process Aug. 21 when he officially asks Monroe County officials, at a City Commission meeting, to give the park to the city to use, maintain, patrol and improve.

The area has long been under county control, and has been the subject of a hot-potato debate over whose resources should be expended to enforce laws there and maintain the park.

"The ultimate goal is to turn that into a world-class park," McPherson said Thursday, envisioning a small miniature golf course, and separate play areas for children of different ages. The building that currently houses Salute restaurant also would be owned by the city, and McPherson said he would love to see the high school culinary program use it as a student-run restaurant.

The cost of owning the park would run the city about $500,000 per year in law enforcement and maintenance, but, McPherson said, most of that money still would come from the Monroe County Tourist Development Council as part of a beach restoration and maintenance program.

"It would basically be a break-even situation," he said, adding that city resources already are being used to enforce laws, remove homeless people and stop fights that frequently break out at the picnic tables that line the beach.

"We have a huge park that we can't use," said business owner and father Jim Gilleran, calling the situation "absurd."

He said a committee of concerned residents has started circulating a petition asking for the removal of the picnic pavilions to discourage loitering by homeless people during the day.

Although strict laws govern what can be done to remove homeless people from an area, McPherson said he would like to see a nonprofit foundation eventually lease the park from the city so it could enact rules that would be a deterrent to loitering, such as charging families a dollar to "rent" the pavilions for a day.

"There are things other places have done that are possible if a nonprofit runs the park," McPherson said.

I am weary of the homeless in general. Having been homeless on several occasions during my life, I feel no qualms at all about voicing my feelings towards them.

For some reason the bums on Higgs beach have decided that their stinking, drunken, filthy dirty lives should be shoved in the faces of everyone and anyone who has a bath once a week or more. They have been left alone by the authorities for so long that they now feel that the BBQ pits and Tiki huts are their own.

They throw bottles and other garbage at anyone walking by, and god help you if they decide to demand money from you. They have sex in full view of the kids in the park across the path, and trust me nasty does not begin to describe it, but by the time the 'cops' appear naturally there is no sign of the offenders. They shoot drugs. They scream and yell at each other and anyone else in or out of earshot.

I find it incredible that there are apparently 'strict laws' governing how to get rid of these scum bags. I am going to look them up, because I simply do not believe that this kind of behavior is not more illegal that removing these 'people'. If I decided to set up shop there and hurl insults at passers by, I wonder how long it would be before a disturbing the peace arrest would ensue.looking them up

Little Shits Shoot Tourists.. ok not so shitty

2007-08-09T09:01:00.000-05:00

A 20-year-old Boca Raton woman was shot in the back with BB gun pellets that left welts on her back. Two teenagers, who police questioned and then released to their families, told officers they bought the realistic-looking weapons for $28 at a Duval Street store that opened on the Fourth of July. Key West State of the Arts owner Chris Robinson said his store adheres to federal law, which prohibits selling BB guns to anyone under 18 without their parents being present to give permission. He also said he reported a break-in with $1,000 of merchandise stolen soon after opening day.

This would not be much of a story, except for a couple of points. These idiot kids had taken the orange safety tips off the ends of these guns. In doing so they put themselves in direct line of fire from the Key West police department, *cough, cough* marksmen. An incident a few days ago on Stock Island, where a man brandishing an air rifle was subdued by not the Sherrif Dept, who were too busy (?), but good old KWPD has no doubt stressed their unusually incompetent talents to breaking point. He is very lucky to have survived. As are these kids. But then neither of them were in a vehicle, so they were luckier than you would first think. Read on.

Anyone who has been here more than a few years will not have forgotten the famous KWPD vs Pick-up truck shoot-out, in front of Sloppy Joes. The details are a bit fuzzy, but as I recall there was a slow speed chase between ALL the members of KWPD and a young couple in a pick-up. Eventually this farce, sped its way at all of 10 mph, down Duval Street, where the local SWAT (I kid you not) had set up a road block of sorts. Well, and here is the birth of a legend, apparently one member of this genius squad thought they saw a gun in the cab of the truck, and so the cops let 'er rip. Several smoking guns and bullet riddled walls later, it was discovered that among about 100 rounds fired, not a single one had hit the cab of the truck!

And so the legend of the safest place to be when stopped and fired on by KWPD is in your vehicle, was born.

Heres the rest of the BB story. Its amazing to think that the Tattoo Shops are still not allowed to open but this shit is happily sold alongside shiteous Tshirts and throwing knives.

The business was planned to be predominately a custom T-shirt shop, with a small offering of air guns, Robinson said. But they were an instant hit, with the first dozen selling out the first weekend, he said, adding that now he barely can keep them in stock. "They've pretty much taken over the store," Robinson said, explaining kids use them to play the equivalent of dodgeball, and the end of Government Road is a popular battleground. "I certainly understand [the Police Department's] concerns and know this is certainly controversial, but we don't sell to kids. "This is a sport," he said, "a hobby and no more dangerous than football or baseball." What can you shoot, legally? "Targets, that's about it," said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin, adding that if anyone shoots a person, an animal or property, they could face criminal charges. Officers did not charge the two suspects in the Petronia Street shooting, and reports didn't say why they released the 13- and 14-year-olds to their families. "If you shoot someone with a BB gun, you could be charged with battery or aggravated battery, but it's difficult, because being a law enforcement officer, if a misdemeanor offense doesn't occur in your presence, you have to refer it to the State Attorney's Office," Herrin explained, speaking in general because she was not familiar with the Key West police case. Hannan's father told officers he initially saw the kids firing the BB guns at power lines, but then turned to see the guns pointed at them from behind a fence that separates Petronia Street from the Robert Gabriel public housing apartments. That's when his daughter was hit in the back, he said. Hannan declined medical treatment, but officers said she was very upset, and remarked that her family, who have been coming to Key West for 10 years, is reluctant to return after the incident. Robinson said the majority of his customers are local kids ages 12 to 17, who purchase the guns with a supervising adult, of whom the store requires an ID.

Scumbags of the world, Unite

2007-08-07T15:51:00.000-05:00

Fred Phelps Is Coming

Tue Aug 07, 2007 at 10:27:54 AM
Rev. Fred Phelps at one of his protestsThe Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

The church and its pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps, have become notorious over recent years for their claim that the attack of 9/11 was an act of God's vengeance and their determination to make that case at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq.

In a press release issued the day after the bridge collapse, the church called for protests at the funerals and outlined its feelings about the relationship between God's plan and the sins of Minneapolis and Minnesota, which it calls the "land of the Sodomite damned."

Reached at the church, Shirley Phelps Roper, who is both the daughter of the pastor and one of the attorneys for the church, said that America, and Minnesota especially, have alienated God by its tolerance for homosexuality, and that the bridge collapse was an act of God's vengeance. She said:

"The bridge stood in place by the word of God and it fell by the word of God...Each of these little events is just a harbinger of the coming destruction of this American experiment. We are delivering the final call of the doomed nation."

She said, as they have done for years, members of the church would stand "lawfully and peacefully on the public right of way" near the funerals and "put in the air words of praying and instruction and warning."

The signs that the protesters will wave will read:

"God cast down the bridge... Thank God for 9/11... America is doomed... God hates fags... God hates fag enablers... God hates Minnesota."

500 Years of Female Presence in Art

2007-08-07T08:31:00.000-05:00

This is quite stunning.

A Short Break.

2007-08-06T13:24:00.000-05:00

Quite brilliant I think.

Cay Clubs and Other Parasites

2007-08-04T18:46:00.000-05:00

As if they didn't have enough problems not paying their current bills, or even beginning projects they have invested millions of dollars in, Cay Clubs plan for world domination shows very little sign of slowing down. Naturally no one in town will do anything until the time for noise making is way past, and then we will see the wailing and gnashing of teeth typical of our noisy but completely useless local 'activists'. Pitiful, really.

Cay Clubs will soon own Southernmost Restaurants, a Cay Clubs spokesman said. The restaurant group owner says otherwise in the latest chapter of a summer-long debate.

“Cay Clubs exercised their option to extend the closing date,” says Chris Brown, a marketing and advertising manager for Cay Clubs, via e-mail. “The new date of closing of the purchase of the A&B [Lobster House] property is scheduled for Sept. 24, 2007.”

Frank Rego, vice president of operations at Cay Clubs, said the acquisition and all other business operations were running smoothly, even though the company was going through a “slow period.”

“We're not going out of business,” he said. “We're not in trouble.”

Gene Smith owns the leases of Turtle Kraals and Half Shell Raw Bar, both of which are city-owned. He owns A&B Lobster House and marina complex outright, which includes Alonzo's Oyster Bar, White Tarpon and Berlin's Cocktails & Cigars. Smith said his lawyers stopped hearing from Cay Clubs' lawyers.

“I assume that things didn't work out for them,” he said.

Smith enjoys managing the properties, but said he will sell if presented with a good deal. Any such deal, though, has stalled, he said. Whoever takes over the leases for Turtle Kraals and Half Shell must maintain them as restaurants and cannot transform the property at all without approval from the Key West Bight Board.

The A&B area, including a marina, is more open to development, but Smith said he hopes any owner would give credence to locals' wishes related to any changes.

“If we had more people following the wishes of the city, we'd be a little better off,” he said.

“We're not here to do anything negative,” Rego said.

Good news for heroin addicts everywhere, the war on drugs is going along fairly similar lines as the war on terror, and to show what a simply fabulous job Prezzy Bush is doing in Afghanistan, the AP reports that the country is on track for a record setting opium harvest. Junkies across the globe tried to mobilize a party of sorts but it kind of fizzled pretty quick.

Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world’s near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.

As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies have delayed release of a $475 million counternarcotics program for Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.

U.N. figures to be released in September are expected to show that Afghanistan’s poppy production has risen up to 15 percent since 2006 and that the country now accounts for 95 percent of the world’s crop, 3 percentage points more than last year, officials familiar with preliminary statistics told The Associated Press.

Excellent job.

Prepare the Vomit Bag

2007-08-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Gordon and Hillary Show: stiff upper lips mandatory
Source

By Tom Baldwin
The London Times
Friday, August 3, 2007

Such is the emotional incontinence of so much American public life it was perhaps inevitable that the subject of Gordon Brown’s dead daughter would be raised — not once, but twice — when he visited the US this week.

President Bush was first out of the traps, at a Camp David press conference where his overfamiliarity with “Gordon, the humorous Scotsman” swiftly descended into rambling about how he was interested in a family which had “suffered unspeakable tragedy”. Mr Brown replied stiffly, thanking his host for a “compassionate” remark.

Then came an NBC Nightly News interview where the Prime Minister was asked more directly how he coped with the death of a newborn daughter and the cystic fibrosis diagnosed in his younger son. “I don’t really talk about it,” said Mr Brown, before muttering something about being a good father.

Neither the President nor NBC meant any harm, explained one of those political strategists that proliferate in Washington. “They probably thought they were doing Brown a favour in getting him on to a personal narrative and life experience.”

The idea is that if you can hear a politician’s pain, you might think he will feel yours. So Mr Bush has admitted being a recovering alcoholic whose “Goodbye Jack Daniels, hello Jesus” moment propelled him into the White House. John McCain rarely goes a full day without mentioning how he was tortured at the hands of the Vietcong.

John Edwards spent much of his 2004 presidential campaign talking about his dead son — and a good portion of this one going on about his wife’s breast cancer. Barack Obama has turned his life story into two books and a political movement.

Yes, birds do it, bees do it, even educated “OEs” (that’s Old Etonians, to those of us who didn’t go there) do it — with David Cameron making more references to his disabled son than might be deemed strictly necessary.

But, as America discovered this week, Mr Brown definitely does not do it. And nor, usually, does Hillary Clinton. These two politicians, hard and serious to the point of being brittle, have much in common. Both are emerging from the shadow of a troubled, even jealous, relationship with more charismatic partners in Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Both have had to wait an awful long time for a chance to succeed them. And both have sometimes received bad advice that they will not get the top job unless they lighten up and show a more human side.

The difference is that Mr Brown is now Prime Minister and Mrs Clinton is not (yet) President. As such, he appears to have lost some of the self-doubt that once afflicted his sombre style.

It was noticeable that, even as Mr Brown was deftly side-stepping invitations to discuss deeply personal matters in America this week, Mrs Clinton was getting into a lather over a “grossly inappropriate” article in The Washington Post about her cleavage after some recent sartorial diversions from her standard-issue Hillary trouser suit.

No matter how well her angry response plays with women Democratic donors, who swiftly received an e-mail from her campaign urging them to “take a stand” against the pettiness of American political culture (ie, send money now), she should not have risen to it.

While her husband can scarcely open his mouth without natural empathy dribbling from its corners, Mrs Clinton’s efforts to display emotion appear stilted and artificial. Her autobiography, Living History, is one of the most sterile pieces of literature ever written. Look at this from her similarly hygienic website: “The promise of America was very real as Hillary was growing up. She learned that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could provide a good life for your family.” Yuck.

Her friends insist that she is a big bag of fun in private but, even if that is true, it does not exactly come across in public. Mr Brown’s aides used to say the same about him and, occasionally, would buy him some leisure wear or issue a list of his top pop tunes on the ground that this sort of thing seemed to work for Mr Blair. It was mutton and lamb: Mr Blair looked comfortable in a Christian sort of way wearing jeans, and he really had been in a rock band; Mr Brown just looked weird.

As Prime Minister, however, he has put a stop to such nonsense. And so far, at least, the voters seem to like it. His strength is his strength.

The same is true of Mrs Clinton, who could learn from Mr Brown’s current popularity. In all three presidential debates this summer against her Democratic rivals, she has come across as the candidate with the experience, toughness, knowledge and intelligence needed to lead America. Her worst moments have come when she tried to laugh, giving off a scratchy clicking noise from her throat.

It may yet prove more difficult for Mrs Clinton, as she tries to become America’s first woman president, to win on qualities traditionally, if wrongly, associated with men. Some suggest there is a dysfunction between her core message of strong leadership and her core support among women. Mr Edwards’s wife, Elizabeth, has already effectively accused Mrs Clinton of behaving too much like a man.

Recent polls suggest otherwise: slowly but surely the seething resentment of those (mostly men) who regard her as some sort of Lady Macbeth figure appears to be diminishing while she has maintained high levels of support among women. Like Mr Brown, she does not need to pastel-shade her image to impress voters.

It could just be that on both sides of the Atlantic, we are ready for more serious leadership. We may not warm very much to Mr Brown or Mrs Clinton and they risk sending us all to sleep with a political style bereft of “narrative”. But at least we will know that those who turn the lights off and tuck us up are grown-ups.

Stampeding Congress, Again
Source

New York Times editorial
Friday, August 3, 2007

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks.

Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe, Congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House’s with-us-or-against-us baiting) aren’t doing enough to stop it.

The fight is over the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The test is whether there is probable cause to believe that the person being communicated with is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was no longer going to obey that law. He authorized the National Security Agency to intercept international telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans and other residents of this country without a court order. He told the public nothing and Congress next to nothing about what he was doing, until The Times disclosed the spying in December 2005.

Ever since, the White House has tried to pressure Congress into legalizing Mr. Bush’s rogue operation. Most recently, it seized on a secret court ruling that spotlighted a technical way in which the 1978 law has not kept pace with the Internet era.

The government may freely monitor communications when both parties are outside the United States, but must get a warrant aimed at a specific person for communications that originate or end in this country. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the court that issues such warrants recently ruled that the law also requires that the government seek such an individualized warrant for purely foreign communications that, nevertheless, move through American data networks.

Instead of asking Congress to address this anachronism, as it should, the White House sought to use it to destroy the 1978 spying law. It proposed giving the attorney general carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own that there was a “reasonable belief” that the target of the surveillance was outside the United States. The attorney general’s decision would not be subject to court approval or any supervision.

The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do this right away, before the August recess that begins on Monday — the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a sensible alternative law, as did his fellow Democrat, Senator Russ Feingold. In either case, the attorney general would be able to get a broad warrant to intercept foreign communications routed through American networks for a limited period. Then, he would have to justify the spying in court. This fix would have an expiration date so Congress could then dispassionately consider what permanent changes might be needed to FISA.

Congress was debating this issue yesterday, and the final outcome was unclear. But there are very clear lines that must not be crossed.

First, all electronic surveillance of communication that originates or ends in the United States must be subject to approval and review by the FISA court under the 1978 law. (That court, by the way, has rejected only one warrant in the last two years.)

Second, any measure Congress approves now must have a firm expiration date. Closed-door meetings under the pressure of a looming vacation are no place for such serious business.

The administration and its Republican supporters in Congress argue that American intelligence is blinded by FISA and have seized on neatly timed warnings of heightened terrorist activity to scare everyone. It is vital for Americans, especially lawmakers, to resist that argument. It is pure propaganda.

This is not, and has never been, a debate over whether the United States should conduct effective surveillance of terrorists and their supporters. It is over whether we are a nation ruled by law, or the whims of men in power. Mr. Bush faced that choice and made the wrong one. Congress must not follow him off the cliff.

The Total Perspective Vortex

2007-08-02T13:49:00.000-05:00

Written by Christopher S. Putnam on June 14th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

Most people think of the "mentally disordered" as a delusional lot, holding bizarre and irrational ideas about themselves and the world around them. Isn’t a mental disorder, after all, an impairment or a distortion in thought or perception? This is what we tend to think, and for most of modern psychology's history, the experts have agreed; realistic perceptions have been considered essential to good mental health. More recently, however, research has arisen that challenges this common-sense notion.

In 1988, psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown published an article making the somewhat disturbing claim that positive self-deception is a normal and beneficial part of most people’s everyday outlook. They suggested that average people hold cognitive biases in three key areas: a) viewing themselves in unrealistically positive terms; b) believing they have more control over their environment than they actually do; and c) holding views about the future that are more positive than the evidence can justify. The typical person, it seems, depends on these happy delusions for the self-esteem needed to function through a normal day. It’s when the fantasies start to unravel that problems arise.

Consider eating disorders, for instance. It’s generally been believed that an unrealistically negative body image is an important factor in the self-abuse that characterizes anorexia and bulimia. A 2006 study at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, however, came to a very different conclusion. Here, groups of normal and eating disordered women were asked to rate the attractiveness of their own bodies. They were then photographed from the neck down, and panels of volunteers were brought in to view the photos and rate the women’s appearances objectively. The normal women, as it turned out, evaluated themselves much more positively than the panels did, while the self-ratings of the eating disordered women were in close agreement with the objective ratings. The eating disordered subjects, in other words, had a more realistic body image than the normal women. However, it is important to note that the study was based upon the broad concept of "attractiveness" rather than body weight specifically—while the eating disordered women may have rated themselves poorly because they felt "fat," their weight was a controlled variable and not the basis of the volunteers' assessments.

Studies into clinical depression have yielded similar findings, leading to the development of an intriguing, but still controversial, concept known as depressive realism. This theory puts forward the notion that depressed individuals actually have more realistic perceptions of their own image, importance, and abilities than the average person. While it’s still generally accepted that depressed people can be negatively biased in their interpretation of events and information, depressive realism suggests that they are often merely responding rationally to realities that the average person cheerfully denies.

Lear's Fool speaks wisdom disguised as madnessThose with paranoid disorders can sometimes possess a certain unusual insight as well. It has often been asserted that within every delusional system, there exists a core of truth—and in their pursuit of imagined conspiracies against them, these individuals often show an exceptionally keen eye for the real thing. People who interact with them may be taken aback as they find themselves accused of harboring some negative opinion of the person which, secretly, they actually do hold. Complicating the issue, of course, is the fact that if the supposed aversion didn’t exist before, it likely does after such an unpleasant encounter.

As one might imagine, these issues present some problems when it comes to treatment. How does one convince a depressed person that “everything is all right” when her life really does suck? How does one convince an obsessive-compulsive patient to stop religiously washing his hands when the truth of what gets left behind after “normal” washing should be enough to make any sane person cringe? These problems put therapists in the curious position of teaching patients to develop irrational patterns of thinking—patterns that help them view the world as a rosier place than it really is. Counterintuitive as it sounds, it's justified because what defines a mental disorder is not unreasonable or illogical thought, but abnormal behaviour that causes significant distress and impairs normal functioning in society. Treatment is about restoring a person to that level of normal functioning and satisfaction, even if it means building cognitions that aren’t precisely “rational” or “realistic.”

It’s a disconcerting concept. It’s certainly easier to think of the mentally disordered as lunatics running about with bizarre, inexplicable beliefs than to imagine them coping with a piece of reality that a "normal" person can’t handle. The notion that we routinely hide from the truth about ourselves and our world is not an appealing one, though it may help to explain the human tendency to ostracize the abnormal. Perhaps the reason we are so eager to reject any departure from this fiction we call "normality" is because we have grown dependent on our comfortable delusions; without them, there is nothing to insulate us from the harsh cold of reality.

Faith-based initiative backfires

2007-08-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

Mental-health and addictions-treatment professionals are wary of spiritual interventions, which they associate with one religious brand: the conservative Christianity of Bush partisans.

By Christopher Ringwald
The Christian Science Monitor
Thursday, August 2, 2007

Once upon a time God, with some federal funding, was going to do so much.

In his early years, President Bush promoted funding for faith-based groups in order to blast social problems with the power of religious belief by unleashing the "armies of compassion." Bush predicted that his faith-based initiative would be his great legacy. And it does send an estimated $2 billion to religious charities.

But the campaign, ignored by Congress and challenged in court, has dropped off the White House talking points. After a brief mention in the 2006 State of the Union address, it was left out entirely this year.

The initiative did leave another legacy: It gave spirituality a bad name in social-service circles. Sad, since spiritual or religious beliefs and practices help millions of people recover from addiction, mental illness and criminality. Unlike other social services that provide a generic good, such as housing, rehab programs often invoke spirituality as the very means of recovery. But after six years of faith-based talk and funding by federal agencies, mental-health and addictions-treatment professionals are wary of spiritual interventions, which they associate with one religious brand: the conservative Christianity of Bush partisans. In reality, the spirituality of treatment and recovery ranges much more widely, from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to meditation, group confession, or yoga.

Bush wanted to fund social services whose key ingredient is faith, either in the program itself or as part of the treatment. Congress never signed off. So federal officials reached out to church groups and explained how to apply and win federal funding by keeping their services "faith neutral" or free of proselytizing.

And that's the hitch. If a program promotes one faith to its clients, the government cannot fund it given the First Amendment ban on congressional "establishment of religion." But if such a program sheds its religious character to qualify for public money, how important was that faith in the first place?

There is a solution. Addiction and mental-health programs can assess new clients for their spiritual and religious histories and interests and then tailor treatment accordingly. Courts have ruled that so long as a program offers a client "a genuinely independent choice," religious freedom is preserved. In March, the federal Bureau of Prisons recognized this distinction when it revised a proposal for private operators of "life skills" training programs. Those that offer a religious track would now have to provide a secular one as well.

In the addictions field, clinicians seem less and less interested in accommodating spiritual interests, given their discomfort with the current faith-based climate. They also know that judges in New York, Wisconsin, and other states have ruled that publicly-funded treatment cannot push AA only and must offer alternatives. Good idea, except many counselors now skip spiritual topics entirely to avoid any possible church-state conflict. Never mind that most clients are at ease with the topic and, in surveys, say they wish programs attended more, not less, to their spiritual needs.

Given this inattention, the real constitutional danger is denial of that other First Amendment right, free exercise of religion. For example, when psychiatric patients were in institutions, there were chaplains on staff who could attend to their needs. Now, living in group homes or supervised apartments, many clients have no recourse to religious activity, due to the indifference or uncertainty of administrators and staff. In interviews, ex-patients around the country told me they were never asked about their spirituality during years of treatment.

The answer is to guarantee freedom of, as well as from, religion. According to the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, "Spiritual assessment should, at a minimum, determine the patient's denomination, beliefs, and what spiritual practices are important to the patient." That's often done when you register for heart surgery at the hospital; it's much less likely if you're checking into a psychiatric unit.

Clinicians can easily incorporate spirituality into treatment. Simple, cost-free measures help, such as a list of volunteer visitors from local congregations. Atheists or spiritual-but-not-religious people can be offered alternative assistance. The key is to help people develop the strengths and methods best suited to their history, situation, and choice. Ignoring spirituality is the most dogmatic approach of all.

Christopher Ringwald is a journalist and a visiting scholar at The Sage Colleges. He is author of "The Soul of Recovery" and "A Day Apart."

Key West Ink - Evaporating

2007-07-31T09:11:00.000-05:00

After a seemingly endless battle and a lot of positive noise from all kinds of officials and regular Key West folk, it appears all is far from well on Duval Street.

We have skanky ex strippers, openly selling themselves in storefronts, T-shirt shops with some of the most offensive logos ever seen, front and central, some very seedy looking stores with 9 foot long triple bladed swords and throwing stars happily marketed alongside coke bullets and a wide assortment of drug scales, and of course the reason why the Navy has always loved our little bit o' paradise , more actual strip clubs per capita than downtown Bangkok. OK, so I exaggerate. A bit.

What we do not have, and it seems are unlikely to ever have, are tattoo shops. You can watch a zit faced coke whore push her nasty goods in your face whilst you down as much liquor as you can handle, but should you choose to have said ho's face permanently memorialized on your back.. you have to drive 3 miles to Stock Island.

From The Keynoter

After spending $500,000 to prepare his tattoo parlor, paying a down payment of $260,000 on a $1.4 million mortgage and attending city workshop after city workshop, Key West Ink owner Jim McAlhany is taking his case to a judge.

“Maybe I should turn it into a T-shirt shop,” McAlhany mused. “I could probably get an ordinance for that.”

A 43-year-old city ban prohibits tattoo shops in Key West proper and the City Commission has been trying to craft an ordinance lifting the ban.

But McAlhany, along other hopeful tattoo-parlor owners, is tired of waiting and pressing forward with a lawsuit he previously put on hold.

It alleges the ban is unconstitutional, a violation of First Amendment rights.

A subpoena has been issued to city Planning Director Gail Kenson to appear before Monroe County Judge Mark Jones at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday with “all documents” relating to her work on the tattoo-parlor ordinance, including e-mails, staff reports, draft ordinances and communications with others.

The owners of Paradise Tattoo, which has operated on Stock Island for 15 years, filed a similar complaint and consolidated their lawsuit with Key West Ink's. Both have shops on Duval waiting to open, Key West Ink at 717 Duval and Paradise Tattoo at 627. Paradise owner Doreen Eppy sells merchandise out of her shop.

Attorney Wayne Larue Smith represents Key West Ink, Jerry Coleman represents Paradise and Nathan Eden is helping Goldie's Southernmost Tattoo Parlor on Stock Island, which has not sued.

Commissioner Bill Verge, whose district lies where the shops would go, doesn't see any ruling happening Tuesday.

“You can only work on it so fast,” Verge said. “I can't imagine Judge Jones ruling on anything until we vote on the ordinance.”

But McAlhany said the suit has nothing to do with the city, rather the “unconstitutional ordinance” itself, which was enacted to keep U.S. Navy personnel from getting tattoos in the 1960s, when there weren't the same sanitation measures there are today.

McAlhany, who said he has 1,500 clients waiting for tattoos from his shop, said he bought his Duval shop before the commission passed an ordinance because most city officials told him it would pass, and in a short time period.

“I believe that if the judge rules in line with the Constitution, it should then will be all right.”

Dining With Hitler In Asia: Hitler-themed Bars & Restaurants

2007-07-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

Adolf Hitler? In most western countries he is viewed as history’s most evil man, and almost all are aware of the horrific genocide he was responsible for, with many having had family fight and/or die in the war against Nazi Germany.

However, in Asia, Hitler is a far more distant figure. This distance might be an explanation for the bizarre case of Hitler restaurants and bars that can be found throughout Asia.

Here are some photos of these strange Hitler-themed establishments:

________________________________________

In 2006, the restaurant Hitler’s Cross opened in Mumbai, India:

From the Associated Press:

When Hitler’s Cross restaurant opened in a Mumbai suburb Sunday, local politicians and movie industry types were on hand to celebrate beneath the posters of the Nazi leader and swastikas.

“It’s really made people very upset that a person responsible for the massacre of six million Jews can be glorified,” Elijah Jacob, one of the Jewish community’s leaders, said on Wednesday.

But owner Puneet Sablok has refused to back down. Apart from Mumbai’s 4,500 Jews, there has been little controversy in India, where Holocaust awareness is limited, Adolf Hitler is regarded as just another historical figure and swastikas are an ancient Hindu symbol, displayed all over to bring luck. There are just 5,500 Jews in all of India.

Soon after the article was published the restaurant’s owner backed down and changed the name of the restaurant.

________________________________________

This Hitler Bar, which was located in Busan, South Korea, caused a lot of anger in the foreign community.

The website Pusanweb interviewed the owner of the bar, who said the following:

I wanted to design a beer bar with something shocking that would attract the young generation. Beer got me thinking about Germany (the home of beer) which made me think of Hitler.
[…]
….he is no different than Alexander the Great or Gengis Khan. They were all conquerors who killed many people and they are all ‘big men’ in the sense of their notoriety living on long after they died.

The owner eventually changed the name of his bar to Ditler’ and then to ‘Ceasar’.

________________________________________

Modern Bar Hitler (South Korea), photographed by Lynxsquared:

Inside Modern Bar Hitler:

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A charming sign for a Hitler bar in Korea, photographed by Oronzo:

A Korean Hitler bar in Daejong South Korea, captured by photographer Modrob:

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Another Hitler Bar in Busan, South Korea (From the The Gates of the Minjok, an article by Michael Hurt about the nazi roots of modern Korean national identity) :

From the same article:

The picture I should have taken was of another Hitler bar, this one way down on the coast in Sunchon, and which I ran across in 1994 – doesn’t exist because I was simply in too much shock at the time to have the foresight to take a picture. I tend to think, though, that since many trends in the big city get followed by small towns – and not the other way around – I tend to think that there were more Hitler bars peppered across the peninsula. And given that many other expats have told me stories of “their” Hitler bar from their own cities, I’m actually pretty sure of this.

________________________________________

Inside of a Hitler Bar in Busan, South Korea (from Flickr photographer Cfarivar)

A flier for the same Hitler bar:

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A Japanese tempura restaurant with a hitler-ish mascot (from Cityskip):

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A LOL-tastic Hitler costume, which can be found on the shelves of party stores across Japan:

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Round-up of Non-Events in and Around KW.

2007-07-30T08:40:00.001-05:00

A total of 64 Cuban migrants repatriated on Sunday

A total of 64 Cuban migrants were interdicted at sea in four different incidents last week and repatriated Sunday to the island by a Coast Guard cutter.

On Monday, the crew of the Cutter Drummond interdicted a go-fast vessel carrying 29 migrants and two suspected smugglers 35 miles south of the Dry Tortugas.

The two suspected smugglers were transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Key West, Fla.

Earlier in the week a go-fast vessel carrying 22 additional migrants was spotted 75 miles west of Dry Tortugas and as intercepted.

The suspected smugglers were turned over to ICE in Key West. One of the 22 Cuban migrants was be transferred to Guántanamo Bay, Cuba.

In another incident, 10 Cuban migrants were found aboard a rustic vessel 40 miles south of Islamorada.

Finally, the Coast Guard received a report that a Good Samaritan located a vessel with four Cuban migrants aboard approximately 15 miles south of Big Pine Key on July 21.

''Today's repatriations should send a clear message to smugglers and those who hire them,'' said Lt. J.G. Eric Pare, a Coast Guard Seventh District law enforcement duty officer.

``We will continue to aggressively patrol the waters surrounding Florida and we will interdict people trying to illegally enter the United States from the sea. Those who have violated laws will be held accountable in a court of law.''

At Hemingway's home, claws are out

The notion that Charlie Chaplin is putting on a show as he snoozes on the Hemingway Home and Museum veranda — well, that's enough to make a cat laugh.

But neither the fluffy feline, named for the Little Tramp because of his tuxedo-like markings, nor his 46 companions lazing around the late author's estate are likely to be amused if the U.S. government succeeds in designating them an animal act and restricts their freedom.

Pampered cats, some of them descendants of Ernest Hemingway's six-toed pet Snowball, have had the run of the leafy compound for generations.

They are named for the writer's wives, fictional characters, Hollywood friends and colleagues. Zane Grey and Truman Capote often can be found napping in the flower beds between the villa and the pool. Archibald MacLeish prefers the cool tile floor of the master bathroom. Emily Dickinson seems indifferent to the camera flashes catching her in repose on a predecessor's tombstone, rarely bestirring herself from the limelight.

Fed organic cat food, tended weekly by a visiting veterinarian, and petted, photographed and cooed at by adoring tourists, the cats have become a beloved quirk of this Key West landmark.

But the languid lifestyle of the Hemingway Home cats is threatened by proposals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that they be treated like performers in a zoo or circus. The feds want the museum to obtain an animal exhibition license, which would require staff to "protect" the felines from contact with spectators and cage them after their daily "performance" ends when the front gate closes at 5 p.m.

"Our cats do not do tricks. They don't do flips and jump through hoops. They're our pets!" said Jacque Sands, manager and 14-year veteran at the museum, where the cats can curl up in kitty condos scattered through the gardens. "They own us. We don't own them."

The trouble began as a spat with a neighbor several years ago. Now, the conflict pits the cats' keepers against two former members of the Florida Keys Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Motivated by concern for what they considered an excessive cat population on the property and the potential for the cats to escape and be run over, Gwen Hawtof and Debra Schultz are believed to have brought the museum to the attention of those charged with applying the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, said the museum's chief executive, Michael Morawski.

The Hemingway cats rarely strayed from the 1-acre property surrounded by a 5-foot brick wall until Schultz arrived about eight years ago and established a feral-cat feeding site half a block away, Morawski said. Cats began disappearing over the wall and turning up at the SPCA as captured strays, he said.

In October 2003, a USDA inspector posing as a tourist surveyed the grounds and later ordered the museum staff to get a license or face $10,000 in daily fines. Since then, a veterinarian from the USDA has made repeated inspections of the property, recommending increasingly restrictive measures each time, Morawski said. The cat population is down from its usual 60 or so, although museum managers are eagerly expecting a litter in early autumn to replace a generation succumbing to old age — including Mark Twain, whose cancer claimed him at 21 last year, and 20-year-old Trevor Howard, who was euthanized in July when his kidneys failed.

Most of the cats are spayed or neutered, but a couple of males and females are allowed to breed to maintain what museum staff consider the optimal population, Morawski said.

There are now Web-based petitions to Save the Hemingway Cats, and the Key West City Commission has exempted the museum from a city law prohibiting more than four domestic pets per household. The commission pronounced the cats "an integral part of the history and ambience of the Hemingway house," which draws 300,000 visitors each year.

Judge tosses condo lawsuit

A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit that owners of Santa Maria condominiums filed against the developer when the buyers were unable to "flip" their condos after ponying up a $230,000 deposit. Six people who paid the deposit said in the lawsuit that the developers and Realtors led them to believe they wouldn't have to come up with the balance of the $1.2 million sales price because they would be able to sell the condos at a higher price even before construction was finished. That was not the case, given the decline in the real estate market, and the owners now have to forfeit their deposit or close on the property. "The plaintiffs were assured by the defendants that once the building was under construction, prices would increase dramatically, as they were contracting at a bargain price, therefore there would be no issue with the plaintiffs being able to resell their investment contracts to somebody else at a profit," the lawsuit said. "The plaintiffs were assured that defendants had a program in place which would guarantee that the plaintiffs would make a substantial profit on their investment and would not have to close on the purchase of the units." The buyers also admitted in the lawsuit that they had not read their investment contracts, but had relied on their Realtors' claims. "The written contract was very clear and unambiguous," said Ed Scales, one of the lawyers representing Santa Maria. "The judge held that we didn't do anything to prevent these folks from reading their contracts. He said it was 'entirely unreasonable' for people to plop down [that amount of money] as a deposit and not read the contract." Scales pointed out how laughable the situation would be if the roles were reversed. "Let's say the market suddenly went up by 25 percent," he said Friday. "Would the developers then be able to say that the buyers owe us 25 percent more money because we had not anticipated the change in the value?" The final written order from the judge should be signed next week, and the plaintiffs then have 30 days to file an appeal, Scales said.

Are You On the 'Good' Lords Hitlist?

2007-07-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

The nuttiness of Christian American, evangelical born-again types, never ceases to amaze me.

This poor misguided boy has listed all kinds or irredeemable folks on his cute sandwich board and it does bear further examination. Sex Addicts and Mormons appear to be at the top of Gods hit list. As recent and not so recent news items tell us, the leaders of a variety of evangelical churches have been caught in a mind boggling array of sexual and drug fueled liaisons, which appear to get forgiven by god and the congregation, far quicker than those who commit the same acts, but are not church leaders or members. These "child molesting homosexuals" get 'cured' at a remarkable rate using only prayer and seemingly endless tears.

Atheists, of which I am one, are tiny by comparison. In fact are the smallest graphic on his board. Witches, racists and liars are a close second.

However, it is the Mormons who for some unknown reason, really get under skin of the (self) righteous. They have been called everything from Devil worshipers, to aliens and coming from a group whose entire belief system is based on ancient mythology, is curious to say the least. A Mormon is now running for Republican President. Given that the Republicans are run by severely right wing Christian fundamentalists, this is causing quite a stir.

IS AMERICA ready for a Mormon president? A few months ago the political commentariat of Washington was convinced that the Mormon former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, would remain a bit player because of his religion. Mormonism is still seen by some as a cult rather than a mainstream creed, despite its 6 million members in the US alone.

This was despite Romney's matinee-idol looks, sharp intellect, $US300 million ($A342 million) personal fortune and Wall Street background. The last two were acquired while he headed Bain Capital, now one of the five largest US private equity firms.

But Mitt Romney has defied gravity and may well be the dark horse of the 2008 race.

In recent weeks, he has overtaken Senator John McCain — once seen as the strongest Republican candidate, and has been steadily gaining on former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Last week a strategist in the Romney campaign claimed his boss was really the frontrunner in the Republican race.

Mr Romney's strategy — one that has been used successfully in the past — is to win at least one of the early primaries, in Iowa or New Hampshire, giving his campaign the momentum and credibility for the major primaries on February 5 in California and New York.

Winning Iowa worked for Jimmy Carter in 1976. He went from being a non-entity to winning the Democrat nomination. A win over Bob Dole in New Hampshire also revitalised then vice-president George Bush senior's campaign in 1988.

Aside from the polls, Romney appears to be winning the fund-raising race. He has led Republicans in the last two quarters, raising over $US40 million so far.

But the question of his religion continues to dog him just as it did John F. Kennedy, whose Catholicism was seen as a handicap in his presidential run four decades ago.

In a recent Pew survey, 30 per cent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate.

The Romney campaign also tacitly acknowledges it remains an issue. Yesterday, Mr Romney announced he was planning a speech to explain his faith and its role in his life — a task that is fraught with political danger.

Whether that will be sufficient to overcome the prejudice among the evangelical base of the Republican Party, which he is courting, and the broader community, remains to be seen.

A month ago Mormonism came up during one of Mitt Romney's frequent community meetings in Iowa.

Mary Van Steenis, a teacher at a local Christian school, took the microphone at an "Ask Mitt Anything" forum in Pella, Iowa. She wanted him to say where the Book of Mormon would figure in his presidential decision-making. "Where would the Bible be?" she asked. "Would it be above the Book of the Mormon, or would it be beneath it?"

"This is a nation where people come from different faiths, different doctrines, different churches," Mr Romney said.

"But, unlike the people we're fighting over in the Middle East, we don't have a religious test to say who should be able to run our country. It's over there where people say, 'You don't go to my church, you can't run our country.' "

There was resounding applause from his audience.

The role that the Book of Mormon plays in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, the church's formal name, is a fundamental difference between Mormonism and other Christian faiths. Mormons believe that the Christian church lost its way in the first millennium.

This wasn't rectified until 1820 when by God's power, Joseph Smith translated the book from an ancient record written on gold plates. Based on these prophesies, Mr Smith founded the Mormon religion, which is said to be the true course of Christianity.

This would be controversial enough but Mormons are still battling to distance themselves from the practice of polygamy, which the church banned more than 100 years ago.

The church's efforts haven't been helped by the HBO series Big Love which portrays a man who belongs to one of the breakaway cults in Utah, dealing with the none-too-pleasant realities of polygamy.

Einstein on Gandhi

2007-07-17T13:49:00.000-05:00

Albert Einstein

"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time.

We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil. "

Albert Einstein

Einstein's letter to Gandhi - Courtesy: Saraswati Albano-Müller
Letter by Albert Einstein to Mahatma Gandhi

Translation:

Respected Mr. Gandhi !
I use the presence of your friend in our home to send you these lines. You have shown through your works, that it is possible to succeed without violence even with those who have not discarded the method of violence. We may hope that your example will spread beyond the borders of your country, and will help to establish an international authority, respected by all, that will take decisions and replace war conflicts.
With sincere admiration,

Yours A. Einstein.

I hope that I will be able to meet you face to face some day.

Gandhi's letter to Einstein - Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 54
LONDON, October 18, 1931

DEAR FRIEND,
I was delighted to have your beautiful letter sent through Sundaram. It is a great consolation to me that the work I am doing finds favour in your sight. I do indeed wish that we could meet face to face and that too in India at my Ashram.

Yours sincerely,
M. K. GANDHI

Notes by Einstein on Gandhi - Source: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Einstein's writeup on Gandhi Translation:

"Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the conciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works.

We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come."

Our Clueless Intelligence System

2007-07-16T17:09:00.000-05:00

I have no real excuse for neglecting my blog lately, except for that annoying 'job' thingy. I had no idea working full time again would suck up so much of my time. Also, I have been posting a lot on my Myspace blog. Yeah I know, full of kids, but actually I have a lot of socially conscious and interested people linked to me and I get great feedback from them. But it is censored and I am sure watched fairly closely. I have had several posts 'disappear' strangely and others just lose pictures or paragraphs. Call me paranoid:) Anyway this is a very good piece on the ridiculous situation in the security business lately.

By Amy Zegart
The Washington Post
Sunday, July 8, 2007

The hunt was on last week as British intelligence officials searched for suspects in the attempted bombings in Scotland and London. After the attention fades, they'll examine what went right and wrong and how to do better next time. Let's hope that in doing so, they'll be more successful than the United States has been since Sept. 11, 2001.

Our national response to the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history has consisted chiefly of finger pointing and ax grinding. Some say Clinton administration officials were too wimpy in their response to earlier al-Qaeda attacks outside the United States. Others think that Bush administration officials were out to lunch, so preoccupied with Cold War bogeymen that they never noticed the CIA's memo warning of Osama bin Laden's determination to strike on U.S. soil.

We've become obsessed with the personal drama of failure. As Bob Woodward wrote in his book "The Commanders": "Decision making at the highest levels . . . is a complex human interaction. . . . This human story is the core."

Actually, the human story is irrelevant. Those who want to learn what went wrong and how to fix it need to understand something far less intriguing: bureaucracy -- the organizational weaknesses that cause smart people to make dumb decisions.

Many of the agonizing missteps and missed clues leading to 9/11 are now well known. There was the failure to watchlist or spread the word about Khalid Almihdhar, the 9/11 hijacker who first attracted the CIA's attention in January 2000 when he attended an al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia carrying a multiple-entry U.S. visa in his passport.

There is the FBI's "Phoenix memo," which warned that bin Laden could be training terrorists in U.S. flight schools but which never reached top FBI officials or any other intelligence agency. And there is the refusal by FBI headquarters to seek a search warrant for the computer files of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the United States for his connection to the 9/11 plot.

But these screw-ups are the tip of the iceberg, and they all stem from a handful of organizational deficiencies that have plagued U.S. intelligence agencies for decades-- and, despite intelligence "reform," still do.

Public government documents reveal that the CIA and the FBI missed 23 potential opportunities to disrupt the

9/11 attacks. In each case, failure stemmed from the same causes: 1. agency cultures that led officials to resist new ideas, technologies and missions; 2. promotion incentives that rewarded all the wrong things; and 3. structural weaknesses that hampered the CIA and the FBI and prevented all 15 U.S intelligence agencies from working as a unified team.

Case in point: Nineteen days before 9/11, the FBI got word that the suspected al-Qaeda operative Almihdhar might be in the United States. Its response was to put the manhunt on the back burner and call out the C-team. The search was designated "routine," the lowest priority level, and given to an agent who had just finished his rookie year.

Although a full-scale, first-string effort might not have found Almihdhar in time, the evidence suggests otherwise. He and fellow hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi were hiding in plain sight, using their real names on rental agreements, bank accounts, credit cards, auto insurance and telephone listings. They were also operating under the FBI's nose, living for a while with an FBI informant and making contact with several targets of counterterrorism investigations. On the evening of 9/11, an anguished FBI agent, suspecting Almihdhar, submitted his name to the bureau's information technology center just to see what a search of public records would uncover. A few hours later, he got Almihdhar's correct address in San Diego.

Individuals were not the problem. The FBI was. The bureau's highly decentralized structure -- which assigned all cases to a lead office -- meant that what should have been a nationwide effort was instead the focus of a few people in New York. The FBI's law enforcement culture, which prized catching criminals and investigating past crimes more than finding suspected terrorists and preventing future disasters, guaranteed that the manhunt would go straight to the bottom of the pile. And in an organization in which convictions made careers, finding potential terrorists went to one of the office's least seasoned investigators because it was one of the least desirable jobs.

These and other crippling organizational weaknesses were no secret before 9/11. Between 1991 and 2001, a dozen reports examining U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities found serious organizational problems and urged immediate action. The consensus was stunning. Of 340 recommendations, 84 percent focused on the same four deficiencies: poor coordination across intelligence agencies, terrible information sharing, inadequate human intelligence and insufficient attention to setting priorities.

But almost none of the suggested fixes were implemented before 9/11. Most recommendations -- 268, or 79 percent of the total -- spurred no action. Nothing. The

9/11 commission and the congressional intelligence committees found that these same weaknesses led to disaster on 9/11.

If you think these problems have been solved, think again. Despite the recent creation of a director of national intelligence, the U.S. intelligence community remains a dysfunctional family with no one firmly in charge. The "new FBI" is still fighting the old FBI's cops-and-robbers culture. Visit the bureau's Web site, where job postings are divided into two categories -- special agents who wear badges, carry guns and catch bad guys, and everyone else. Analysts, those dot-connectors who since

9/11 have been touted as equal partners in the FBI's counterterrorism mission, are still relegated to "professional support staff," alongside auto mechanics and janitors.

Meanwhile, incentives still encourage analysts everywhere to think in the short term. At his confirmation hearings last year, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden warned Congress that unless the United States gets serious about doing big-picture analysis, it will be "endlessly surprised." And not in a good way.

Even our successes aren't cause for celebration. The FBI's recent disruptions of terrorist plots to kill soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey and to blow up the Sears tower in Chicago and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were all in the early planning stages -- more pipe dreams than pipe bombs. In January, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III characterized the bureau's 2006 record as one of stopping "several unsophisticated, small-scale attack plans that reflect the broader problem homegrown extremists pose."

Intelligence reform is failing now for the same reasons it always has: Transforming any organization from the inside is hard, and imposing reform from the outside is even harder.

No organization changes easily by itself. Businesses often fail to adapt to shifting market conditions even when their corporate lives depend on it. Government agencies are worse off because they aren't designed to adapt. They're built to be reliable and fair, performing the same tasks in standard ways over and over again.

This isn't all bad. Standard operating procedures ensure that all military pilots have the same rules of engagement and that everyone stands in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. But the downside is that government agencies are hardwired to keep doing things the same old way even when they shouldn't.

Imposing intelligence reform from the outside has always been a political loser. There's a reason why no president since Harry S. Truman has gotten serious about overhauling intelligence agencies through executive orders or legislation. It's called the Pentagon. For decades, the Defense Department has controlled about 80 percent of the intelligence budget and housed most of the agencies. And for decades, it has fiercely resisted any move to realign power in the CIA or anywhere else. Pentagon officials and their turf-conscious congressional supporters have been torpedoing intelligence reform forever -- crippling the CIA when it was created in 1947, savaging intelligence reform bills twice in the 1990s and fatally weakening the powers of the new national intelligence director during the last reform round, after the release of the 9/11 commission's report in 2004.

There's no magic potion for fixing U.S. intelligence. Meaningful reform will take years, requiring bottom-up cultural transformation as well as top-down policy changes. Sadly, it may need another catastrophic failure to gain traction. We've known about intelligence problems and their solutions for years. What we've never had, and desperately need, is the political courage in the White House and Congress to take on the Pentagon, demand radical overhaul and see it through.

Now that's where individuals matter.

Amy Zegart is associate professor of public policy at UCLA and the author of the forthcoming "Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI and the Origins of 9/11."

Here is a little gadget with potential for, well frightening options. Yeah sure grandma can switch over the TV without moving, but I am sure the alternative uses are fairly clear to the more concerned viewer. Enjoy.

The World. Well some of it.

2007-06-14T09:21:00.001-05:00

So the Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq are finally agreeing on something. They both blame the USA for blowing up the al-Askari shrine . If you didn't know the shrine houses one of two tombs in Samarra for revered Shia imams. It has been hit before, and the chances are it will be levelled before all this is over.

Reprisals have naturally occurred, ssuspected Shia Muslim militants have destroyed three Sunni mosques near the Iraqi capital.

The overnight attacks bring to six the number of Sunni mosques targeted since suspected Sunni militants toppled the two minarets of the Samarra shrine.

If this is not to paraphrase Jack Sparrow, the opportune moment, I don't know what is. To get out I mean. If they are blaming the US for all their troubles, then leaving should solve all the issues. I predict the very next day, peace will erupt spontaneously all over Iraq, and the people will live happily ever after.

Er. Not.

Zombie News

Why is it that I just do not believe this. If the FBI needs an excuse (which it doesn't anymore) to search and seize peoples PCs, could they not have created a more reasonable one?

The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.

The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.

The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.

The agency said the zombies or bots were "a growing threat to national security".

Signs of trouble

The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.

This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.

The law enforcement organisation said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks. In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.

"The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited," said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.

Many people fall victim by opening an attachment on an e-mail message containing a virus or by visiting a booby-trapped webpage.

Many hi-tech criminals are now trying to subvert innocent webpages to act as proxies for their malicious programs.

Once hijacked, PCs can be used to send out spam, spread spyware or as repositories for illegal content such as pirated movies or pornography.

Those in charge of botnets, called botherders, can have tens of thousands of machines under their control.

Operation Bot Roast has resulted in the arrest of three people known to have used bot nets for criminal ends.

One of those arrested, Robert Alan Soloway, could face 65 years in jail if found guilty of all the crimes with which he has been charged.

In a statement about Operation Bot Roast the FBI urged PC users to practice good computer security which includes using regularly updated anti-virus software and installing a firewall.

For those without basic protections anti-virus companies such as F Secure, Trend Micro, Kaspersky Labs and many others offer online scanning services that can help spot infections.

The organisation said it was difficult for people to know if their machine was part of a botnet.

However it said telltale signs could be if the machine ran slowly, had an e-mail outbox full of mail a user did not send or they get e-mail saying they are sending spam.

So, basically you have no way to know if you have been infected, unless the FBI comes crashing through your front door, and they 'bots' do nothing to your computer to alert you that you are part of this 'botnet'. Riiight.

Kenny's Key West

2007-06-06T12:03:00.000-05:00

Nope, not a tale about some guy called Kenny. A tale of a truly low-life bar in Jefferson Parish New Orleans. Boy oh boy it sounds like it was modeled on the Key West of 75 years ago. It is in actuality a nightclub, with a very expensive sound system and all the other goodies required by decent to good dj's these days. The clientele however, leave much to be desired.

Here's a little history.

A Metairie bar a little more than a block from Lakeside Shopping Center exploded with gunfire early Sunday, leaving five patrons injured -- two critically, including a 17-year-old Harvey girl.

The shootings might be the worst violence linked to Kenny's Key West since Ivory Joe Guy, 20, of Westwego died May 2005 of multiple gunshot wounds in the hallway of the nightclub at 3012 N. Arnoult Road. In February 2004, Steven Stanford, 23, was shot dead across the street from the nightclub after an altercation.

Unlike black-owned establishments in the city, Kenny's Key West is white owned. It also has three video poker machines, which means the place puts $2000-$4000 cash into the pockets of the owners each week. That sort of revenue stream is hard to ignore, and also gives bar owners a lot of money to make political contributions.
This bar remains open despite its sordid past possibly because it provides a gathering point for lowlife. Without it, the folks who patronize Key West might scatter to other locations, shooting those up instead. I hesitate to adopt a "blame the victim" position on these shootings, but when you go to a bar that's had two fatal shootings on the premises in as many years, you do so at greater risk to your person than a more sedate establishment.
A top Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office official described Kenny's Key West as the top trouble spot in the parish among clubs and lounges.
Deputy Chief Tom Gorman, head of the Sheriff's Office Investigations Bureau, made the comment at a press conference called by Sheriff Harry Lee to discuss the early morning shooting outside the club in which two people were injured and 50 shots were fired.

And the latest buzz about this funky little death dive..

Sheriff calls bar in Fat City 'hellhole'
Bid to yank license unfair, owner says
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
By Michelle Hunter

Jefferson Parish officials are poised to drop the hammer on Kenny's Key West and other businesses with a history of attracting unruly patrons. But Kenneth Vincent, owner of the Fat City nightclub that authorities call "a hellhole," said their proposal to strip liquor licenses is unfair to business owners.

"How do you hold them responsible for what other people do?" Vincent said Tuesday, two days after more than 50 gunshots were fired outside Kenny's Key West.

Two people were wounded in the frenzy: a security guard who was shot by an off-duty deputy sheriff, and a 21-year-old Marrero man who was shot in the foot while standing in line to enter the club.

For the full story The Times-Picayune

Tuesday tidbits and stuff.

2007-06-05T08:24:00.000-05:00

WW3

In interesting news, President Bush is seeking to calm Russian fears by telling them that his new RADAR defense system will not only protect the entire continent of Europe and naturally the United States, but will also protect Russia. Yeah right, whatever.

This proposal of Bush's actually has both the Russian President and the Czech and Polish people on the same side! Congrats! That side of course being of mistrust, and in some cases seething hatred, of all things Bushy.

Mr Bush cannot grasp the concept that almost all of Europe believes he is a liar, and that he will lie to get what he wants, no matter who is killed in the process. The fact that Putin is threatening to point nukes at Europe is of absolutely no concern to Bush. He wants his missile silos in Eastern Europe and he will have it. To hell with anyone who opposes him.

Mr Putin quite naturally feels that US missile bases on his backdoor is unacceptable and will not tolerate it. This is going to be an interesting tug of war, an unfortunate use of word but appropriate I think. Will Bush not be satisfied until he has pushed the entire planet to the brink of annihilation?

Nigerian Hidden Bank Accounts.

In other news, the government of Nigeria has threatened pharmaceutical mega overlord Pfizer, over what it alleges are illegal drug trials the company carried out in Nigeria decades ago. These trials may have led to deaths and injury of the people involved so the government are suing.

This is far from the first time a Nigerian government has tried this. The evidence is almost non existence and any trials done, were done within the normal boundaries applied to any drug trial and with the full permission of the then government. Nigeria has just had a very dodgy election and yet another President is in place. Looking for a bit of cash he is playing the same game as many of his predecessors.

What I do not understand is why, with all the billions of dollars hidden away in secret bank accounts, the Nigerian government does not just write a couple of emails and ask a foreigner to transfer the funds for them?

Local Bits

Tattoo OK could come Tuesday

Jim McAlhaney, owner of Key West Ink on Duval Street, awaits Tuesday’s City Commission meeting on whether tattoo shops can operate within the city’s limits. If the city allows it, McAlhaney is ready to start business. If not, he will continue his lawsuit against the city.

Parlors already renting space in anticipation

The Key West City Commission is expected to decide Tuesday to either take a step closer to allowing tattoo parlors in the city proper or freeze the body artists' dreams of moving their businesses to the island.

Four potential parlor owners have plans to open up shop in Key West - some of which have current locations on Stock Island, like Paradise Tattoo and Goldie's.

According to owner Doreen Eppy, Paradise Tattoo, which already has space at 627 Duval St., is ready for action. The Stock Island location has been operating for 15 years, she said. Whatever the commission decides, she will keep that location.

Eppy's 2,000-square-foot parlor offers body piercing and a variety of body jewelry, along with tattoo-themed merchandise.

Another hopeful business is Key West Ink.

“We're ready, right now,” owner Jim McAlhaney said while he toyed with a new high-definition television already hung in his 717 Duval St. location. “We put $500,000 in expenses [for the parlor] so far.”

Painted on the walls of the vacant shop are scenes of Key West historical or cultural value - Ernest Hemingway, the southernmost buoy and old pirate ships, to name a few.

Five empty leather seats await their hopeful customers. Two would be used for appointments, two for locals and one for guest artists. A private room is tucked away on the second floor for customers wanting privacy.

McAlhaney said he already has appointments booked for two years, as he takes five or six appointments a day - though locals get first priority, he said with a grin.

After being turned down from the city in October, Key West Ink sued the city, citing a violation of First Amendment rights, McAlhaney said.

Paradise followed suit, literally, and the two groups have consolidated, Eppy said.

Key West Ink has postponed the suit until July, but it will be dropped altogether, McAlhaney said, if the ordinance lifting the band on the facilities passes. Tuesday marks the first reading; the second should come at the following City Commission meeting.

According to historian Tom Hambright, the ban on tattoo parlors in the city was implemented in the 1950s as an effort from the U.S. Navy to stop sailors from getting hepatitis from the old shops' unsanitary procedures.

Those days are long gone, McAlhaney said, revealing a fully stocked sanitation room.

All equipment is sterilized and needles are used only once. He's taken classes on blood-born pathogens, HIV training and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And his employee Bo Mencarli worked 10 years in the U.S. Army as a sterilization technician, he added.

He also said the kind of people getting tattoos has developed into what people in the past might've called an unlikely crowd.

“They're a different breed of people now,” he said. “About 32 percent of people getting tattoos are middle-aged, higher-class women with families.” He added that professionals like doctors and lawyers are also warming up to body art.

Tuesday's meeting will reveal if commissioners are too.

The city's Planning Board passed a revised ordinance May 30 that requires a 250-foot gap between parlors and libraries, schools, churches or parks. It also restricts the number of shops allowed on the island to 10, and those shops must be at least 150 feet away from each other.

Most commissioners agree that regulation is important when it comes to allowing the shops to spring up.

The City Commission meets Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Old City Hall on Greene Street.

Rossi Skates, By taking a Politics 101 Refresher Course

Charge will be dropped after he takes workshop

Key West City Commissioner Mark Rossi, charged Tuesday with a misdemeanor for allegedly violating the state's Sunshine Law governing open government, on Friday agreed to take a crash course in the law.

“We reached a plea agreement with Mark Rossi. We will drop the charges in exchange for his participation in a Sunshine Law workshop not unlike the workshop that the county commissioners did,” Monroe County State Attorney's Office spokesman Matthew Helmerich said.

“It's our goal to help our government officials learn the importance and the details of the Sunshine Law.”

Al Gore is a little odd, but is also often right

2007-06-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

We're the boobs in front of the tube

By ROBYN BLUMNER
Published June 3, 2007

Once again Al Gore is right. He was right about the dangers of climate change, even though no one wanted to listen until now, and he's right in his new book about the danger to our democracy of a citizenry that is underinformed and overtitillated.

"Wake up, America, " Gore calls out in his stuffed-shirt professorial way in The Assault on Reason. You are being manipulated by television news that is feeding you nonstop fear and infotainment. This empty-calorie diet is badly skewing our sense of national priorities and atrophying the "mental muscles of democracy."

Reasoned argument emanating from evidence-based knowledge is disappearing from our national discourse, exacerbated by millions of Americans discarding the habit of daily newspaper consumption, according to Gore. In its stead are the flickering lights of the boob tube that elevate image and aural stimulation over critical thinking and logic.

Gore quotes Dan Rather, who pithily said that television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up." We are bombarded with news 24/7. Yet never has so much been seen by so many to so little import. We know far more about Laci Peterson's disappearance, O.J. Simpson's glove size and Anna Nicole Smith's stomach contents than the financial crisis facing Medicare or the consequences of climate change and America's ongoing contribution to it.

Violent crime rates have plummeted over the last 15 years, but television news gives it outsized coverage, creating a climate of undifferentiated fear. Your probability of dying in a car accident is one in 83, compared with your one in 1, 300 chance of dying in a terror attack - and that's presuming a 9/11-style attack every year. Yet the drumbeat of ephemeral threats from jihadists is what dominates the airwaves.

The Manchurian Citizen emerges from his 4 1/2 hours of daily television, so overstimulated, fearful and flabby of brain that he is easy prey for politicians with simplistic messages.

This is Gore's other main point. A citizenry that abandons the dynamic exercise of reading and the reasoning process it engages, for the passive absorption of emotionally charged television images, is susceptible to choosing the worst kind of leaders. And it has.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney could never have held on to power and committed the wrongs they have against our constitutional system without a public too wrapped up in the happenings of Natalee Holloway in Aruba to care about domestic warrantless wiretapping.

Gore meticulously documents how Americans have been sleepwalking through their duties as citizens while this administration has been systematically destroying the pillars of our democracy. The Bush administration's torture of prisoners - an approach to war disdained by George Washington. The way it shredded the Geneva Conventions, and our international standing along with them. How it declared the executive branch supreme, emasculating the other branches. And how it used our national treasury as a piggybank for friends and supporters. Halliburton's stock price has doubled since Bush's election.

All this and the citizenry shrugged. I guess the destruction of foundational principles doesn't come with good visuals. Beyond abuses at Abu Ghraib - which the administration successfully blamed on some bad apples, when it was really an animation of its own interrogation policies -- television wasn't adept at telling these stories and didn't really try.

But finally, Bush did something spectacularly wrong, where the pictures could illuminate his arrogance, mendacity and incompetence. Iraq, of course. With television able to depict in a sustained fashion the carnage and chaos of a war without justification, the electorate discovered the real George Bush, calling him to account in 2006.

Right here, though, is the danger of which Gore speaks. If we have to wait for the pictures it's too late.

As if to drive the point home about the superficiality of today's media, Gore recently appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, where he was interviewed by Diane Sawyer. She repeatedly harped on whether the book was a campaign salvo. Gore, who says he is not a candidate for '08 at present and will unlikely be one, chided her on her focus on politics rather than substance.

But even after being admonished, Sawyer, like a drunk with a shot glass, couldn't let it go and asked Gore if he lost any weight, since that might signal entry into the presidential race.

"Listen to your questions, " Gore rejoined sharply, "the horse race, the cosmetic parts of this."

Touche. No one should care about Gore's body weight. Rather, our nation's future rests on the weight of his ideas and whether they can penetrate an anesthetized public. Read them; you'll be impressed. They will make you ponder what might have been.

St Petersburg Times

Welcome to Town Now F*ck Off!

2007-05-31T14:08:00.000-05:00

$34 Tab Brings Beating At Key West Waffle House

Patrons Beat A Customer Who Stepped Into A Fight Over The Tab

It’s one thing to be upset about the food or service at a restaurant, but in Key West two customers turned their anger into a fistfight, berating a cashier, beating a woman who came to her aid, over a $34 breakfast tab.

Police in Key West say the women became upset when they were handed the tab at the 24-hour eatery on Roosevelt Avenue, and told the cashier they wouldn’t pay. When a bystander tried to speak up for the cashier, police say the two women attacked the helpful customer, pummeling her with their fists.

Witnesses told police the women ran off, stiffing the cashier for the tab. Police are looking for the pair, who Waffle House workers told police are often seen in the restaurant.

There was no word over what made the diners so upset that they were willing to beat someone up over their bill.

Rossi in the Sunshine, alone.

Mark Rossi is I think, still a bit of a noob when it comes to being a politician in Key West. I am still A little surprised to find he got caught out in this particular no no. The County State Attorneys has charged him with violating the Sunshine Law by allegedly talking on the phone with the mayor. A year or so ago.

I can't help wondering, how the hell do they either find out about something that took 5 minutes, months ago, or worse take said amount of months to bring charges. Who bloody cares anyway? Rossi has not learned some of the most important lessons in Keys politics. Keep mouth firmly shut. Raise hand to vote. Put hand in pocket quickly with cash...nevermind.

The conversation was either about the Mayor wanting to buy a T shirt from In & Out Burger in Las Vegas. (???) or Top Secret Key West budget proposals. Quite the discrepancy. Personally I am going with the In&Out Burger theory.

So the situation so far. Rossi charged, McPherson NOT charged, both going to be wearing even more hideous shirts than available on Duval. Stay tuned.

Cay Clubs Falling Apart.. hehe

2007-05-25T08:32:00.000-05:00

From The Keynoter

A televised fishing-tournament series now owned by Keys developer Cay Clubs Resort and Marinas canceled plans for this week's scheduled competition in the Turks and Caicos.

“They kind of dropped a bombshell on us,” said Islamorada offshore captain Paul Ross, part of Team Galanti, last year's series champion.

Known as the BXRL, the league was founded by Norm Isaacs, a noted captain and fishing-show host.

Cay Clubs acquired the BXRL last year and announced plans to increase the total purse to $2 million in 2007.

Cay Clubs formed in 2004. In the Keys, it quickly acquired 14 hotels and marinas in roughly two years, with more than 2,800 units and 900 boat slips. Along with other properties, it's listed $108 million worth of real estate holdings in federal regulatory filings.

But the company also owed $87 million as of Dec. 31, and is scheduled to make $74 million in principal payments this year alone.

Two weeks ago, some 80 employees were suddenly laid off. And last week, more were let go as the company started merging some charterboat operations to save money.

OK I am not really laughing, more like the mad scientist guffaw. Cay Clubs cannot even come up with a paltry $2m for their new toy, er.. fishing contest? It is by no means a done deal yet, as the tournament is still proceeding, but I predict Cay Clubs in receivership within 6 months. Sell you shares now kiddies!

Truman Waterfront/Wisteria Island Combo

I have a suggestion to throw into the pool and it would fix two problems in one fail swoop. The Truman Waterfront is being fought over by just about every relevant and not so relevant group in town. Everything from a outdoor swimming pool, to a ferry station to an assisted living facility. At the same time, various concerned parties are fighting about how to carve up Christmas Tree Island. Ocean Properties who own next door fugly development, Sunset Key, want to turn it into another, well Sunset key. The city could care less they just want to squeeze as much tax revenue out of it as possible, and they don't much care how it is done.

Well, as a person who is dead against a bunch of old people being 'assisted' on one of the few open spaces left in town, NOT owned by some greedy pig, the Truman navy property, I highly recommend building the old folks home on Christmas Tree. Lets face it, they ain't going to want to go anywhere anyway. The tax breaks, both state and federal, will fatten up city pocke.. erm coffers and the people will be left with their bit of paradise unspoilt by the smell of lavender and pee.

Yes it may sound a tad shallow and possibly even a little cold hearted, I make no apologies for it. The land was donated by the Navy to the City of Key West. That means all of us, not just a small collection of special interest groups. I want to be able to ride my bike down there like I used to be able to, have a glass of wine at a reasonable price, watching the sunset, or just layout and relax without being bombarded by tour train/trolley amplified guides blathering on, or be constantly spied on by federal rent a cops.

Hahah yeah I know never happen, but I can dream.

The Race to be City Manager

I admit I have not paid much attention to this particular political race, because they are all as bad each other I thought.

Aha, I was wrong. Some are worse. Much worse.

Take a loot at this blog from Deerfield Beach circa 2004. Fascinating.

Larry Deetjen

This is his Topix Profile.. please note under favorite things "Developing Beachfront Property".

Why Bush Hasn’t Been Impeached

2007-05-22T19:07:00.000-05:00

Congress, The Media and Most of The American People Have Yet To Turn Decisively Against Bush because To Do So Would Be To Turn Against Some Part of Themselves.

By Gary Kamiya

05/22/07 "Salon" --- - The Bush presidency is a lot of things. It’s a secretive cabal, a cavalcade of incompetence, a blood-stained Church Militant, a bad rerun of “The Godfather” in which scary men in suits pay ominous visits to hospital rooms. But seen from the point of view of the American people, what it increasingly resembles is a bad marriage. America finds itself married to a guy who has turned out to be a complete dud. Divorce — which in our nonparliamentary system means impeachment — is the logical solution. But even though Bush cheated on us, lied, besmirched our family’s name and spent all our money, we the people, not to mention our elected representatives and the media, seem content to stick it out to the bitter end.

There is a strange disconnect in the way Americans think about George W. Bush. He is extraordinarily unpopular. His approval ratings, which have been abysmal for about 18 months, have now sunk to their lowest ever, making him the most unpopular president in a generation. His 28 percent approval rating in a May 5 Newsweek poll ties that of Jimmy Carter in 1979 after the failed Iran rescue mission. Bush’s unpopularity has emboldened congressional Democrats, who now have no qualms about attacking him directly and flatly asserting that his Iraq war is lost.

Some of them have also been willing to invoke the I-word — joining a large number of Americans. Several polls taken in the last two years have shown that large numbers of Americans support impeachment. An Angus Reid poll taken in May 2007 found that a remarkable 39 percent of Americans favored the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. An earlier poll, framed in a more hypothetical way, found that 50 percent of Americans supported impeaching Bush if he lied about the war — which most of that 50 percent presumably now believe he did. Vermont has gone on record in calling for his impeachment, and a number of cities, including Detroit and San Francisco, have passed impeachment resolutions. Reps. John Murtha and John Conyers and a few other politicians have floated the idea. And there is a significant grassroots movement to impeach Bush, spearheaded by organizations like After Downing Street. Even some Republicans, outraged by Bush’s failure to uphold right-wing positions (his immigration policy, in particular), have begun muttering about impeachment.

Bush’s unpopularity is mostly a result of Iraq, which most Americans now believe was a colossal mistake and a war we cannot win. But his problems go far beyond Iraq. His administration has been dogged by one massive scandal after the other, from the Katrina debacle, to Bush’s approval of illegal wiretapping and torture, to his unparalleled use of “signing statements” to disobey laws he disagrees with, to the outrageous Gonzales and U.S. attorneys affair.

In response to these outrages, a growing literature of pro-impeachment books, from “The Case for Impeachment” by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky to “U.S. v. Bush” by Elizabeth Holtzman to “The Impeachment of George W. Bush” by Elizabeth de la Vega, argue not only that Bush’s misdeeds are clearly impeachable, but also that a failure to impeach a rogue president bent on amassing unprecedented power will threaten our most cherished traditions. As Lindorff and Olshansky conclude, “If we fail to stand up for the Constitution now, it may be only a piece of paper by the end of President Bush’s second term. Then it will be time to be afraid.”

Yet the public’s dislike of Bush has not translated into any real move to get rid of him. The impeach-Bush movement has not really taken off yet, and barring some unforeseen dramatic development, it seems unlikely that it will. Even if there were a mass popular movement to impeach Bush, it’s far from clear that Congress, which alone has the power to initiate impeachment proceedings, would do anything. The Democratic congressional majority has been at best lukewarm to the idea. In any case, their constituents have not demanded it forcefully or in such numbers that politicians feel they must respond. Democrats, and for that matter Americans of all political persuasions, seem content to watch Bush slowly bleed to death.

Why? Why was Clinton, who was never as unpopular as Bush, impeached for lying about sex, while Bush faces no sanction for the far more serious offense of lying about war?

The main reason is obvious: The Democrats think it’s bad politics. Bush is dying politically and taking the GOP down with him, and impeachment is risky. It could, so the cautious Beltway wisdom has it, provoke a backlash, especially while the war is still going on. Why should the Democrats gamble on hitting the political jackpot when they’re likely to walk away from the table big winners anyway?

These realpolitik considerations might be sufficient by themselves to prevent Congress from impeaching Bush. Impeachment is a strange phenomenon — a murky combination of the legal, the political and the emotional. The Constitution offers no explicit guidance on what constitutes an impeachable offense, stating only that a president can be impeached and, if convicted, removed from office for treason, bribery “or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” As a result, politicians contemplating impeachment take their cues from a number of disparate factors — not just a president’s misdeeds, but a cost-benefit analysis. And Congress tends to follow the cost-benefit analysis. If you’re going to kill the king, you have to make sure you succeed — and there’s just enough doubt in Democrats’ minds to keep their swords sheathed.

But there’s a deeper reason why the popular impeachment movement has never taken off — and it has to do not with Bush but with the American people. Bush’s warmongering spoke to something deep in our national psyche. The emotional force behind America’s support for the Iraq war, the molten core of an angry, resentful patriotism, is still too hot for Congress, the media and even many Americans who oppose the war, to confront directly. It’s a national myth. It’s John Wayne. To impeach Bush would force us to directly confront our national core of violent self-righteousness — come to terms with it, understand it and reject it. And we’re not ready to do that.

The truth is that Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors, far from being too small, are too great. What has saved Bush is the fact that his lies were, literally, a matter of life and death. They were about war. And they were sanctified by 9/11. Bush tapped into a deep American strain of fearful, reflexive bellicosity, which Congress and the media went along with for a long time and which has remained largely unexamined to this day. Congress, the media and most of the American people have yet to turn decisively against Bush because to do so would be to turn against some part of themselves. This doesn’t mean we support Bush, simply that at some dim, half-conscious level we’re too confused — not least by our own complicity — to work up the cold, final anger we’d need to go through impeachment. We haven’t done the necessary work to separate ourselves from our abusive spouse. We need therapy — not to save this disastrous marriage, but to end it.

At first glance it seems odd that Bush’s fraudulent case for war has saved him. War is the most serious action a nation can undertake, and lying to Congress and the American people about the need for war is arguably the most serious offense a public official can commit, short of treason. But the unique gravity of war surrounds it with a kind of patriotic force field. There is an ancient human deference to The Strong Man Who Will Defend Us, an atavistic surrender to authority that goes back through Milosevic, to Henry V, to Beowulf and the ring givers, and ultimately to Cro-Magnon tribesmen huddled around the campfire at the feet of the biggest, strongest warrior. Even when it is unequivocally shown that a leader lied about war, as is the case with Bush, he or she is still protected by this aura. Going to war is the best thing a rogue president can do. It’s like taking refuge in a church: No one can come and get you there. There’s a reason Bush kept repeating, “I’m a war president. I’m a war president.” It worked, literally, like a charm.

And many of the American people shared Bush’s views. A large percentage of the American people, and their elected representatives, accepted Bush’s unlimited authority to do whatever he wanted in the name of “national security.” And they reaffirmed this acceptance when, long after his fraudulent case for war had been exposed as such, they reelected him. Lindorff and Olshansky quote former Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker, who justifies his opposition to impeachment by saying, “Bush obviously lied to the country and the Congress about the war, but we have a system of elections in this country. Everyone knew about the lying before the 2004 elections, and they didn’t do anything about it … Bush got elected. The horse is out of the barn now.”

To be sure, the war card works better under some circumstances than others. It is arguable that if there had been no 9/11, Bush’s fraudulent case for war really would have resulted in his impeachment — though this is far from certain. But 9/11 did happen, and as a result, large numbers of Americans did not just give Bush carte blanche but actively wanted him to attack someone. They were driven not by policy concerns but by primordial retribution, reflexive and self-righteous rage. And it wasn’t just the masses who were calling for the United States to reach out and smash someone. Pundits like Henry Kissinger and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also called for America to attack the Arab world. Kissinger, according to Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial,” said that “we need to humiliate them”; Friedman said we needed to “go right into the heart of the Arab world and smash something.” As Friedman’s statement indicates, who we smashed was basically unimportant. Friedman and Kissinger argued that attacking the Arab would serve as a deterrent, but that was a detail. For many Americans, who Bush attacked or the reasons he gave, didn’t matter — what mattered was that we were fighting back.

To this day, the primitive feeling that in response to 9/11 we had to hit hard at “the enemy,” whoever that might be, is a sacred cow. America’s deference to the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach is profound: It’s the gut belief that still drives Bush supporters and leads them to regard war critics as contemptible appeasers. This is why Bush endlessly repeats his mantra “We’re staying on the attack.”

The unpleasant truth is that Bush did what a lot of Americans wanted him to. And when it became clear after the fact that Bush had lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, it made no sense for those Americans to turn on him. Truth was never their major concern anyway — revenge was. And if we took revenge on the wrong person, well, better a misplaced revenge than none at all.

For those who did not completely succumb to the desire for primitive vengeance but were convinced by Bush’s fraudulent arguments about the threat posed by Saddam, the situation is more ambiguous. Now that his arguments have been exposed and the war has become a disaster, they feel let down, even betrayed — but not enough to motivate them to call for Bush’s impeachment. This is because they cannot exorcise the still-mainstream view that Bush’s lies were justifiable and even noble, Straussian untruths told in support of what Bush believed to be a good cause. According to this line of thinking, since Bush and his neocon brain trust really believed that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous tyrant, the lies they told in whipping up support for war were, while reprehensible, somewhat forgivable.

In Elizabeth de la Vega’s book on impeachment, framed as a fictitious indictment of Bush for conspiring to defraud the United States, she argues that from a legal standpoint it doesn’t matter that Bush may have believed his lies were in the service of a higher good — he’s still guilty of fraud. In a brilliant stroke, de la Vega compares the Bush administration’s lies to those told by Enron executives — who were, of course, rightfully convicted.

The problem is that the American people are not judging Bush by the standards of law. The Bush years have further weakened America’s once-proud status as a nation of laws, not of men. The law, for Bush, is like language for Humpty Dumpty: it means just what he chooses it to mean, neither more nor less. This attitude has become disturbingly widespread — which may explain why Bush’s illegal wiretapping, his approval of torture, and his administration’s partisan purge of U.S. district attorneys have not resulted in wider outrage.

This society-wide diminution of respect for law has helped Bush immeasurably. It is not just the law that America has turned away from, but what the law stands for — accountability, memory, history and logic itself. That anonymous senior Bush advisor who spoke with surreal condescension of “the reality-based community” may have summed up our cultural moment more acutely than anyone else in years. A society without memory, driven by ephemeral emotions, which demands no consistency from its leaders but only gusty patriotism, is a society that is not about to engage in the painful self-examination that impeachment would mean.

A corollary to the decline of logic is our acceptance of the universality of spin. It no longer seems odd to us that a president should lie to get what he wants. In this regard, Bush, the most sanctimonious of presidents, must be seen as having degraded traditional American values more than the most relativist, Nietzsche-spouting postmodernist.

All of these factors — the sacrosanct status of war, the public’s complicity in an irrational demonstration of raw power, the loss of respect for law, logic and memory, the bland acceptance of spin and lies, the public unconcern about the fraudulence of Bush’s actions — have created a situation in which it is widely accepted that Bush’s lies about Iraq were not impeachable or even that scandalous, but merely a matter of policy. Just as conservatives lamely charged that the Scooter Libby case represented the “criminalization of politics,” so the conventional wisdom holds that distorting evidence to justify a war may be slightly reprehensible, but is not worth making much of a fuss about, and is certainly not impeachable.

The establishment media, which has tended to treat impeachment talk as if it were the unseemly rantings of half-crazed hordes, has clearly bought this paradigm. In this view, those who want to impeach Bush, or who are simply vehemently critical of him, are partisan extremists outside the mainstream of American discourse. This decorous approach has begun to weaken. A recent U.S. News and World Report cover read, “Bush’s last stand: He’s plagued by a hostile Congress, sinking polls, and an unending war. Is he resolute or delusional?” When centrist newsweeklies begin using words drawn from psychiatric manuals, it may be time for Karl Rove to get worried. But it takes time to turn the Titanic. The years of deference to the War Leader cannot be overcome that quickly.

For all these reasons, impeachment, however justified or salutary it would be — and I believe it would be both justified and salutary — remains a long shot. Bush will probably escape the fate of Andrew Johnson and the disgrace of Richard Nixon. But he’s not home free yet. The culture of spin is also the culture of spectacle, and a sudden, theatrical event — a lurid accusation made by a former official, a colorful revelation of a very specific and memorable Bush lie — could start the scandal machine going full speed. Even the war card cannot be played indefinitely. If Bush were to withdraw the troops from Iraq, and the full dimensions of America’s defeat were to become apparent, all of his war-president potency would backfire and he would be in much greater danger of being impeached. Congress and the media both gain courage as the polls sink, and if Bush’s numbers continue to hit historic lows, they will turn on him with increasing savagery. If everything happens just so, the downfall of the House of Bush could be shocking in its swiftness.

© 2007 Salon.com

Monday Morning

2007-05-21T09:02:00.001-05:00

Coastie skipper arrested after Key West bar brawl

The commanding officer of a Boston-based Coast Guard cutter was arrested and charged with assault Tuesday following a scuffle during a port call in Key West, Fla.

Cmdr. Michael Sabellico, 42, of Scituate, Mass., the skipper of the 270-foot medium endurance cutter Escanaba, was arrested May 15 by Key West police around 1:15 a.m. The Coast Guard has temporarily reassigned him, officials said.

According to the police report, Sabellico and several crew members were drinking at establishments along the island’s famed Duval Street when they argued with a bartender at an Irish pub.

Sabellico and the crew members allegedly were loitering in an alley when the bartender at Irish Kevin’s asked them to leave. They left as requested, but according to the report, Sabellico returned and scuffled with the man. He then left the scene. Sabellico was apprehended later and charged with simple assault.

The Coast Guard is conducting an administrative investigation into the incident. According to Atlantic Area spokesman Lt. Rob Wyman, Sabellico has been reassigned temporarily to the Coast Guard’s 1st District but he remains the Escanba’s commander.

Cmdr. Chris Austin, currently the commanding officer of the Portsmouth, Va.-based Coast Guard cutter Northland, has assumed temporary command of the Escanaba while the ship returns to its home port.

Way ta go, pick a fight in an Irish pub. Look at this guy, would you be a scared?

The Deli, not good enough for the developers clients...

Another landmark restaurant is set to close in downtown Key West. The Deli, on the corner of Truman and Simonton has been there since the early 50's. Owner, Bob Bernreuter, seems to blame it on the lack of business over the last few years. Seems all the multi million dollar condo owners could care less about a lovely little historic eaterie, and failed to spend any of the cash we are constantly told they bring in, at the Diner. I am so sorry to see it go.

The Truman Waterfront

I have to say I am very concerned about the direction this last little bit of public land is headed towards. Hundreds of parking spaces, thousands of sq feet of retail (read tourist traps crap) shops and a ball park for children. Huh?

I really am starting to understand why Key West is the planning train wreck that it is, if this is the kind of things they do with our free spaces. The city also somehow wants to squeeze in an old folks home. Then theres Ed 'Swifty' Swift who thinks we need a ferry terminal there, (I guess the enormous Ferry Terminal across the harbor is not good enough), to take us all to and from Cuba.

For crying out loud! How surreal is this going to become. I will be watching this one closely.

Very cool, but I would have nightmares for weeks after perpetrating this much abuse..

You know, as a believer in Karma I can't help thinking that those bugs are going to be up for some serious payback.

And Finally, The President won't fire him but you can!

Reefer Madness!!

2007-05-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

In Michigan, a cop eats the brownies he spiked with pinched weed. Gets mega paranoid, blames his wife.. oh the lulzzzzz

Enjoy the Remix

Closing Down and Re Emerging..

2007-05-18T08:18:00.000-05:00

Ok, I had a thought to create a blog about Key West. Mainly because I was unhappy with the way the town is portrayed in most other media. The rosy tinted vision where we all live in hammocks and drink margaritas whilst listening to Jimmy Bucket.

But I have found it to be just too limiting. There are so many other things that I need to post, and frankly, I am bored with the way this blog is going.

I am not going to stop digging up and posting interesting tidbits on the Island. But I have to go where the news and interest takes me.

As far as I know, I have approximately 5 readers, (hello Mum), so I doubt it will make much difference. I look at the previous incarnation of this blog as the practice, hang tight for the real thing ;)

Kerensa

Cay Clubs

2007-05-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

Cay Clubs are apparently hugely in debt, relatively speaking, due to massive acquisitions and not a hell of a lot of actual business. None of the properties they have acquired lately have any work of any note begun on them, nor any date set for work to start. They have also laid off almost 10% of their employees due to slow revenues.

Great this basically means that they own vast tracts of the Keys, no one else can touch them.. and they are in the hands of a wonky corporation, that is having major financial difficulties. History repeats and repeats. No doubt said properties will be left to rot, sustain natures fury and end up an eyesore for years. Or not.

In other news, Commissioner Mark Rossi is backing Last Stand among others in trying to save the Pine trees at Fort Zach. Personally, as someone who is there several times a week, I hate them, the needles get stuck in places I really would rather they wouldn't, and they shed so damn many. But I do definitely see the need for shade and the protection of the beach from erosion. What worries me is that the now world famous Corps of Engineers, you remember the ones who built those fabulous levies, are in charge of preserving the park and prevently any erosion. Ho hum.

Hendrick - slap on the Wrist etc etc,

2007-05-09T08:06:00.000-05:00

Hendrick gets probation

Federal judge orders disgraced former county attorney to pay $50,000 fine

James Hendrick, the former Monroe County attorney convicted in February of obstructing justice and witness tampering in a wide-ranging, years-long Keys corruption case, was given five years probation and a $50,000 fine Friday in Miami federal court.

“An awful lot of people came forward on your behalf,” said U.S. District Judge Shelby Highsmith. A couple dozen filled the courtroom's pews: friends, business partners, Hendrick's wife and son. “Do not disappoint us.”

“I will not,” said Hendrick, who leaned over the bar to hug his wife. Her eyes brimmed and she whispered to him.

Hendrick, 59, was convicted in February of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and witness tampering involving a bribe paid to then-County Commissioner Jack London.

London had pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return for failing to report the $29,000 bribe and was facing three years in prison.

No charges in hotel death

Kohl closes probe into DoubleTree

Despite numerous blunders by DoubleTree Grand Key Resort staff that proved fatal for 26-year-old Thomas Lueders, Monroe County State Attorney Mark Kohl's office on Friday said the resort's actions cannot be considered criminal.

Lueders, of Washington, D.C., died from carbon monoxide fumes Dec. 27. His father, Richard, was in the same room, No. 416, but was hospitalized and fully recovered in a day, according to a report from the state Fire Marshal's Office.

The two were discovered by Grand Key General Manager Steve Robbins, who attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Thomas Lueders. Robbins later resigned.

Lueders' death spawned multiple lawsuits from other Grand Key customers who stayed on the fourth floor, where the boiler room is located. That room was found to be the source of the carbon monoxide that seeped into Room 416 and killed Lueders while he was reading in bed.

The city pulled its certificate of occupancy and the 216-room resort was closed from Dec. 29 to March 1.

I know a couple of people who work at the Grand Key Hotel and the stories about this are scary. Apparently the 'smoke' alarms were going off for days before the main incidents and because no one could find any fire, they just reset them and ignored the noise. The problem is that some of these monitors were combination smoke/carbon monoxide monitors, but the staffing situation was so bad that no one knew. Alot of those in charge have been fired or re assigned, but a basic English speaking maintenance crew is obviously what is needed over there.

Spottswoods get the go-ahead

Massive project to redevelop to start in '08

After hearing vociferous public comment against it, the Key West City Commission on Tuesday passed a resolution to launch developer Spottswood Cos.' 20-acre redevelopment plan, called the Key West Hotel and Conference Center, at the so-called triangle where U.S. 1 intersects with Roosevelt Boulevard.

“I think we are going to have to get used to these changes,” Commissioner Bill Verge said.

The plan includes a 450-room hotel, 50 workforce-housing apartments, 33 time-share units, 21 residential condos, a 20,500-square-foot conference center, 21,000 square feet of retail space, and a 250-seat restaurant and bar at 3820 N. Roosevelt Boulevard.

Vociferous? VOCIFEROUS.. gee whiz wonder why? Although I am actually weighing this hideous monstrosity up with what the town is losing. A Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Holiday Inn, Raddison Inn.. starting to see a creepy pattern here? Frankly losing those and a Waffle House just don't make me as uncomfortable as losing mom & pop B&B's downtown to massive over development. Yes I know, we are losing some of the cheap end hotel rooms and that is the one thing that is very very wrong with this deal. Those people are the ones who keep the economy going, not the rich bitches in their hermetically sealed, generic faux conch blockhouses.

So are the Spottswoods the children of Satan? Yes absolutely. I just don't care so much, what they do to an already ruined and depressing part of town. Its all over for us I know that, I just want to make sure that people know the names of those responsible.

Tampon and Other Oddities.

2007-05-02T08:32:00.000-05:00

TAMPOA, the Truman Annexe owners group are re-filing their old dismissed lawsuit. Somehow I missed this one. The are actually claiming that they own Southard Street. Or at least a big chunk of it. They also insist that they be allowed to regulate traffic on the bit they own. I thought they already wer regulating and owning the bit of Southard that flows onto the navy base and then down to Fort Zach. Except of course that is federal land and I cannot see the Feds giving up their access road to a bunch of yahoo condo owners. We shall see what happens to possibly the most litigation happy group of people in town.

Parents of the Year/Month Award..

The parents of a 10-year-old boy were arrested Tuesday morning on charges of child neglect after they allegedly left their son alone in a guesthouse room in Key West for several hours and went out drinking, according to police.Officers were called to the 500 block of Rose Lane after Key West Police got a call from a boy who they said was crying. He told police that his parents, Clinton and Amy Morris, had left the room around 9 p.m. and said they would return in an hour. Police arrived at 1:30 a.m. to find the boy alone in the room.The boy said he called his mother's cell phone, but could not reach her and did not know his father's cell phone number. A police officer was able to get in contact with Clinton Morris and alerted him several times before he agreed to come back to the room, said police.

When the parents arrived at the room, officers noted Clinton Morris, 37, smelled strongly of alcohol and had slurred speech.Amy Morris, 39, did not approach the hotel until officers ordered her to the room at which point police said she displayed slow movements and uneven balance, and then urinated on herself. Officers also tried to obtain Amy Morris' Social Security number, but police said she was too intoxicated to remember it.The couple is from Merrillville, Ind., and police said Clinton Morris is employed as a pipe fitter in Chicago.The Department of Children and Families took custody of the 10-year-old boy.

Fla. Legislature amends DUI law

Drunk drivers who leave the scene of an accident in which someone dies would have to go to prison for a minimum of two years under a bill passed today by the Senate and sent to Gov. Charlie Crist.

The measure is named for Adam Arnold, who was 16 when he was killed in 1996 as he was riding a mo-ped in Key West by a driver who was believed to be drunk.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, passed unanimously.

Keys Forum Bullcrap.

Are you kidding?If it wasn't for the vacationers you wouldn't have a middle class workforce in Key West.Who do you think they work for.The bars,hotels and attractions that the vacationers go for.Another genius that moved to a tourist spot and now wants the tourists to stop showing up.

A lot of people, myself included, moved here 16, 20 years ago, when it was most certainly NOT a major tourist spot. Also the kind of tourists that came back then truly respected the island and the locals. Now we have a bunch of yahoos with more money than sense who have caused multi million dollar rapist developers to destroy KW.

They have just announced we are losing another 500+ hotels rooms to $1.2m ++ condos. Rarely do any of the people who buy those condos use any of the facilities that employ the 'middle class workforce'. When they do bless us with their obnoxious presence, they don't tip worth a shit when they do emerge.

As for the 'attractions' they are all manufactured and owned by one man Ed Swift, and nobody here gives a shit if he lives or dies as he is one of the aforementioned rapists.

He is the McDonalds of attractions and working for him is just as demeaning.

Snippets From Around and About

2007-04-30T08:35:00.001-05:00

City mulls tattoo shops

The Key West Planning Board will have a special meeting Monday to develop recommendations on the number and location of tattoo shops that would be allowed to open on the island if the city's ban on them is struck down.

The city banned tattoo shops 40 years ago at the request of Navy officials, who did not want sailors getting tattoos. The investors in Key West Ink, 717 Duval St., are suing the city, claiming the regulation violates their constitutional rights to freedom of expression. One of the investors, Jim McAlhany, recently asked city commissioners to work with him instead of fighting him on creating a safe and healthy place for people to get tattoos. The shop now does body-painting and henna tattoos.

If the City Commission approves, Bethel wants no more than two or three tattoo shops on Duval Street, he said, adding that the city could hold a lottery for the licenses.

clipped from www.keynoter.com

500 RV spots planned

But the Navy has a problem in early going

The U.S. Navy this week released the newest rendering of its noise and safety contour maps, putting a potential obstacle in the path of Cay Clubs and others looking to develop a project in the vicinity of Naval Air Station Key West.

Navy spokesman Jim Brooks and Ron Demes, the Navy's business manager and top civilian employee, say conceptual plans by Cay Clubs to convert a 40-acre parcel of undeveloped land on Boca Chica into an RV park is not compatible with the AICUZ.

“The AICUZ is not meant to be anti-development,” Brooks said. “It's all about compatible use.

The chunk of land owned by the Alfred M. Sears Trust has seven deep-dredged canals known locally as the sub pens. The parcel is nestled in the middle of government land, accessible to U.S. 1 by a restricted access road across Navy land.

This Could Be Our Chance....

2007-04-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

... To rid the world of the foul uselessness that is Paris Hilton.

RACE OF THE FAMOUS

Paris Hilton will race in a new car for a week and party in a different city each day.

She was given a new Spyker C8 Spyder car to take part in a race from Montreal to Key West in Florida as part of the Bullrun race.

According to the organisers, the Bullrun is a race of good fun, driving and enjoyment. The famous race in their cars for a week and each day party in a different town. It seems that the sponsors picked the right person to promote their new car, TMZ says

I am pretty sure that this bitch just got busted for driving on a suspended licence, due to a dui. Yeah lets give a her freakin car, and pay her to do what she does best. Absolutely nothing.

Where shall will start the the line for those wishing to smash her in the face with a bat?

Sanitation.

2007-04-26T11:22:00.000-05:00

Ok I realize there are plenty of things going on that are ar more important than this. But it is really a great example of the signs of the times in the Conch Republic.

The Bloody Battle lost most of its fun element when they moved it out of reach and almost out of sight of anyone on shore, a few years back. Well now the sanitation of it is complete.

No one on shore is allowed to participate in any way, other than watching, through binoculars, as the throwing of rotten veggies, bread and hard boiled eggs is banned.

Heaven forbid a fucking touron gets wacked with a smelly cabbage. Of course those on boats, jet skis etc, can still pelt the docks with whatever they have.

Has this town really got this clean and sober? I almost want to cry, not over this, but at what this ban represents. Its over folks, get used to it.

I am too damn angry to type any more, but I will continue this a bit later.

Not a whole lot going on locally so.........

2007-04-24T13:42:00.001-05:00

clipped from www.metro.co.uk

'Captain America' arrested over pants-burrito

A doctor in Florida is facing charges, after being accused of groping a woman while wearing a Captain America uniform with a burrito stuffed down his tights.

The incident, hardly fitting behaviour for a superhero, happened after 54-year-old Dr. Raymond Adamcik went on a bar-crawl with a number of other costume-wearing medics.

Witnesses said that Adamcik was walking around with the burrito tucked into the waistband of his costume, asking women if they wanted to touch it.

When one woman refused to touch the burrito, it is alleged that the doctor removed the snack and groped her.

The police were called, and, according to the official report, 'there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at the time, all Captain America's [sic] were asked to go outside for a possible identification.'

Monday Morning, news.

2007-04-23T09:20:00.001-05:00

The aircraft accident in the Keys was apparently filmed by the blimp the plane hit. Look for it to surface on Youtube any day now. I also find the description of Cudjoe Key as "a remote island' a bit off.

clipped from www.miamiherald.com

SOUTH FLORIDA

8 killed in 2 separate crashes of small planes

The U.S. Coast Guard identified five friends whose plane went down off Fort Lauderdale hours after another crash in the Keys.

Five friends who were headed to the Bahamas on a fishing trip were among eight killed in two separate plane crashes off the South Florida coast this weekend.

U.S. Coast Guard searchers late Saturday had found some debris, but no survivors and no explanation for the crash of a Piper Aztec that dropped off the radar about 17 miles off Fort Lauderdale on Saturday morning, said Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Johnson.

The night before, off Cudjoe Key, three people were killed when a Cessna 182 crashed into Florida Bay. That plane took off from Key West and was in restricted military airspace when a wing struck a cable tethering a blimp. The pilot and two passengers were not identified.

Update, Mayor vs World

2007-04-22T16:17:00.000-05:00

Had a bit of a weekend and must catch up a bit. First off, I see the Rum Barrel oddness has flared up into a quite fantabulous, scandal. I hate to re post entire articles, but this one is just too good for me not to. From the current Keynoter:

McPherson says he'll use arrest to fire Avael
Key West Assistant City Manager John Jones was charged Friday with two misdemeanor counts of falsely impersonating a certificate holder.

Jones turned himself in and was booked at the Monroe County Detention Center and was released later in the day.

Jones is accused of illegally signing a temporary 90-day certificate of occupancy for Pat Croce's Rum Barrel bar and restaurant on Feb. 3, 2006.

But the unfolding investigation revealed a new charge stemming from an incident Jan. 17, 2006, when Jones signed a separate certificate granting the state Department of Children and Family Services trailers to serve as offices. The agency's previous offices were flooded by Hurricane Wilma, State Attorney's Office spokesman Matthew Helmerich said.

According to the arrest affidavit, Jones was not authorized to sign either certificate. A certified building official is the only proper signer for such a certificate.

A written statement from Robyn Barineau, executive director for building code administrators in the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, appears in the arrest affidavit:

“A thorough search of the board's official records pertaining to John Hugh Jones showed that he has not and does not hold a license issued by the Building Code Administrators and Inspectors Board,” it reads.

“There's a lot of hype about it,” Jones said in a phone interview Thursday. “If they don't accept my data, then they do what they have to do, but I don't really care. I didn't do anything wrong.”

Jones filed his report to BPR in February, describing in his words what happened. He was waiting to hear from the State Attorney's Office before publicly disclosing his reasons for signing.

Jones disclosed his reasons to the Keynoter Friday, revealing letters he sent to BPR Regional Program Administrator Guillermo Tejeda.

Referring to the Rum Barrel in the letter, Jones stated he went over a checklist with inspectors and the fire marshal and “it was determined that the building could be opened with a temporary certificate of occupancy without any safety problems if marshals were hired to be there when the building was opened....”

Jones also wrote he “received a call from Marc Cerceo of Pirate Soul on Feb. 2 complaining that he had not gotten his temporary certificate of occupancy and he had to have one by Feb. 1....” Pirate Soul is a museum and part of the Rum Barrel business.

Jones wrote he signed the certificate so the restaurant could have its opening Feb. 8. Joe April, the building official at the time, was out of town when he signed the certificate.

April was also under investigation due to complaints that he was obligated to inform the state licensing authority of Jones' action. The City Commission authorized the funding for April's legal representation during its April 3 meeting.

Jones' arrest affidavit notes that investigators questioned April, who refused to sign the certificate. He said, according to the affidavit, the “restaurant's construction was not completed and that several inspections (including electrical, FEMA, flood panels, elevators, etc.) were yet to be performed as final.”

April also confirmed that the temporary certificate for the Rum Barrel expired, leaving the facility without a license for “several months.”

April is now director of engineering.

In the wake of Jones' arrest, Mayor Morgan McPherson hopes he might have a little ammo in his quest to fire Avael because of allegations that he coerced Jones to sign the certificate. Avael is slated for retirement in November.

“If he told his subordinates to do something and they did it, and they're arrested, then I think he should be held accountable for it,” McPherson said.

McPherson plans to write a resolution for the May 1 City Commission meeting calling for termination of Avael's contract with cause.

Helmerich said “we have no evidence Julio Avael has committed a crime.”

BPR's findings would suffice in justifying disciplinary action against Avael, said McPherson, who will move for immediate termination.

Under McPherson's desired circumstances, the city would keep the $71,423 of Avael's severance pay plus a year's worth of his health insurance benefits, $7,872.

Juicy!

This was always going to be interesting, but an arrest? Wow. Almost unheard of, for a city employee anyway. What could this mean. Accountability for our elected officials and those they hire? Yeah right. We shall see.

In other news, local philanthropist and all round good guy humanitarian, etc etc, Pritam Singh, has trundled, in his charming and seductive way, all over almost every piece of legislation covering, housing density, transient licences, the planning dept and the city commission.

In one fail swoop. And if that was not evidence enough of the mans' mad skills, he uses convicted tamperer Jim Hendrick as his "land use consultant".

I said MAD SKILLS, did I not?

The whole story here, from a fishy perspective :
The FishWrapper.

Hickory House

2007-04-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

Looks like Dixie's little property flip is going ahead as planned. Of course nothing in this town is ever as it seems so I am naturally not holding my breath. The front runner in the non bidding war, is Kings Pointe, Oceanside Marina or the more charmingly named parent company Cortex. Does that not sound like something out of a bad 80s sci fi movie?

County Commissioner Dixie Spehar, who lobbied hard for the purchase of a Stock Island bar and restaurant last fall, says her push to sell it just five months later is financially driven.

But some wonder if there's more to the story.

“It goes from stupidity to premeditation when the request for bids is directed at just three or four people,” said Commissioner George Neugent, who has criticized the $3.12 million purchase and in fact voted against the 2006-07 county budget because the restaurant purchase was contained in it.

Here is Dixie back in March...

The former Hickory House is one of Monroe's first efforts to preserve public access to the waterfront - but it's a long ways from being the public park “where people can dip their feet in the water,” as County Commissioner Dixie Spehar envisions it.

Public park eh? Whatever. Fast forward to today.

Spehar initially proposed the purchase, arguing vehemently that the parcel represents the last opportunity for Stock Island residents to have public access to the water.

Now, she said in a statement released this week, she wants to recoup the cost of the property while retaining an easement to “ensure permanent public access to at least a modest piece of our historic and treasured Stock Island waterfront....”

Skeptics like Neugent question the parameters proposed for the bid request. As it is proposed, it suggests the building be converted to a bait shop and convenience store.

Surprise, surprise it it going to be.... drum roll please... housing. With a whopping 5 affordable units. This is just getting better and better. I would have thought a bait shop and convenience store would be far more in keeping with both the area and the physical attributes of the building.

Read the entire article here
Source

Look Out!!

2007-04-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

Something caught my eye the other day, that I find highly amusing. If you didn't know, there is another 'luxury development' planned for Stock Island called Kings Pointe. (Otherwise known as Oceanside Marina etc etc) No doubt more hideous faux Conch style plywood boxes with million dollar price tags. On Stock Island.

Pardon me while I titter.

This new thing though is definitely aimed at the ignorant wealthy. Not only are they going to have to fight their way through the forests of trailers and broken down vehicles etc to buy a gallon of milk from the gas station, they are now going to have to wear earplugs and/or head protection 24/7. The Navy ain't fer budgin'.

The Monroe County Planning Commission approved the King's Pointe Marina project at its meeting Wednesday, despite a Navy request to postpone the vote and discuss the noise issue. The commission approved the project after Chairman Jim Cameron said a decision was needed that day.

So basically the county has approved building a 'luxury' condo unit, in the potential line of jet crashes and insanely loud maneuvers! Gotta love it. I shall be watching this one with glee.

Ron Demes, business manager of Naval Air Station Key West, wrote to county officials before the King's Pointe approval, expressing concern over the redevelopment of the Stock Island marina because it's inside a safety buffer zone surrounding the military air base on nearby Boca Chica.

The military creates Air Installations Compatible Use Zones (AICUZ) for its air bases that outline where home development is discouraged due to excessive noise levels and to protect civilians from plane crashes.

Demes wrote that the King's Pointe property falls into the "very high noise area" and would require extensive sound abatement to the proposed condos, and that it is nearly impossible to soundproof boats.

"We are extremely concerned about an expansion of that use," he said.

Source - The Fishwrapper

Hahahahahahaha, oh man this is going to be a laughfest of epic proportions. Watch as everyone plays the blame game, in particular the rich bastards who bought into the "key west fantasy' on Stock Island.

I am currently digging around in the cess pool which is, Cay Clubs, Kings Pointe, The Real Estate Company of KW and a few other sordid players in the new Wreckers game. Much fun and laughter to ensue.

Update - Key West Ink

"As most know we have filed a suit in the circuit court of Monroe County that a complete ban on the artistic expression of tattooing is unconstitutional and violates the First amendment to freedom of expression of the Constitution of the United States and the State of Florida. We have have asked for an expedited hearing for Declaratory and injunctive relief. The circuit court of Monroe County, Fl has granted our request and we will have our hearing May 9th at 9 a.m. This is an open court so all are invited, We are quite confident that we will prevail. At this time I would like to thank everyone that has supported us. This has been a battle, but I belief our time has arrived."

Source - KW Ink

Hickory House.. Byeeeeeee!

2007-04-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

The concept of 'Land Grab' philosophy is very common here in the Keys. Basically, any spit of dirt, preferably on the water, is grabbed by any means necessary by big corporations, so that they can build ugly concrete blocks, to cram as many millionaires in as they can.

I just picked up the email bulletin from Dixie Speher, she of the total humour void, discussing a nice bit of oceanfront property on Stock Island. She rambles on a bit about how important it is to keep such properties accessible to the common man, etc etc...

Late last year the County Commission purchased what is commonly known as the “Hickory House Restaurant” property, located in my district on Maloney Avenue in Stock Island. It is no secret that there is in the Florida Keys, and indeed throughout the State of Florida, what is tantamount to an unabated “land grab” of waterfront property. This phenomenon is likely to continue, as Florida, our nation’s fourth most populous state—projected by the Census Bureau to rapidly overtake New York as the third most populous state—continues to see substantial population increases with people and businesses pressing to the land’s edge in order to enjoy direct access to Florida’s outstanding Gulf and Atlantic waters.

Unfortunately, these seemingly irrevocable demand pressures on limited shoreline property will, in perhaps too many cases, result in increasingly diminished public access to the waterfront throughout our state and here in the Keys, with escalating waterfront property prices leaving state and local governments, in these times of austerity, unable to buy waterfront properties on, or to secure long-term public access rights to, our scenic waterfronts. Stock Island had, until our Hickory House purchase, no direct routes to the waterfront guaranteeing public (in contrast to ‘private’) access down the road. It is also no secret that Stock Island, particularly its waterfront areas, are in the midst of an almost frenzied acquisition and redevelopment process, fueled by natural beauty, a true deep water port area and the looming opening of Cuba. We had to step in last year, and we did.

Now I have requested that the County Attorney place on the County Commission’s agenda and item for the approval to sell or go out for bid to sell the Hickory House property, wherein I hope to recoup our purchase price for the property while, in the context of a sale, reserve in our deeds of conveyance easements or similar rights that will ensure permanent public access to at least a modest piece of our historic and treasured Stock Island waterfront, while at the same time permitting a purchaser to make the best economic use of the property that our community’s character and our land development regulations will allow. I believe the Hickory House purchase was right for Monroe County when the purchase opportunity presented itself last year, and that my proposed sale plans are the right thing to pursue now.

Dixie M. Spehar,

Ok, is it just me, or does she end this piece by announcing that she is going to recommend SELLING this lovely bit of property? To the highest bidder? WTF?

This is without doubt a prime example of commissioners gone barking mad. I know she is going to try and turn this around, to make it somehow a good thing. She is after all recommending an easement. A fucking EASEMENT? Ok that means that no matter what ugly building/condo goes up, the developer must retain a path of some kind, accessible by the public.

Honestly, if Dixie had announced this on April Fools, I would have said kudos! Funny!

What a crock. This is screaming out for active protest. Enough of this shit already.

Its Done, Apparently.

2007-04-11T08:49:00.000-05:00

Its kind of sad when the realisation that Key West is officially ruined, is shoved in your face. Usually we are ignored by the media outside the lower keys, and that is half the reason why so much terrible behavior is gotten away with. No one is looking so bits get sold, remodelled or simply torn down so fast that by the time anyone realises it, they have lost another piece of town. I find it sad when I read comments like this, a letter to todays Sentinel,

It looks as though greedy developers are on their way to ruining another one of Florida's unique communities. I have been to Cedar Key several times to relax and enjoy an unspoiled place free of most commercialism. I fear that the residents of Cedar Key will experience what has happened to Key West.

People move to these towns because of the special "charm" of the place only to systematically destroy it. If people want a squeaky-clean, perfect copy of Old Florida charm, move to one of the many prefab communities and leave the few special places for the rest of us to enjoy.

Becky Witek

Orlando

As far as she is concerned Key West is done, over. She is worried that a community local to her is going to end up the same way. Hey, history says it most likely will. But maybe the fact that Cedar Key is not an isolated speck on the map, may help save it. I highly doubt it, but I will be watching.

Wet Foot, Dry Foot?

2007-04-10T09:09:00.000-05:00

This is not exactly hot off the presses, however its pissing me off.

Early last Thursday morning, while the Department of Homeland Security were eating pancakes at Denny's, over 20 Cuban migrants armed with homemade nuclear weapons showed up at Key West International Airport.

OK no nukes but no passports, visas or plane tickets either. Come to mention it, they were kinda damp, like they swam the last few yards ashore. Who'da thunk it, with our borders being so rock solid secure and all?

This is yet another wacky example of Homeland Security playing Keystone Cops. While mothers are being asked to drink expressed breast milk at airports to prove the milk is not in fact the secret liquid bombs now being used by terrorists, Cubans are washing up all along the South Florida coast with impunity. So are Haitians, for that matter, but because they are black and have no political power in Miami, they are immediately sent back to Haiti while the Cubans are given houses and benefits and the freedom to burn US flags.

They really need to rename the wet foot/dry foot policy White Foot/Black Foot.

SOLD!

2007-04-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

As predicted, the City has handed over the leases of Turtle Kraals and Half Shell Rawbar to Cay Clubs. Gone, under our noses and not a peep was heard from anybody. From Keynoter,

“Who is Cay Clubs?” Commissioner Harry Bethel asked. “I don't have any names. I don't know who the players are,” he added.

Amazing really, I guess Mr Bethel thinks the Internets Tubes are too complicated for him. A simple typing in of Cayclubs.com will give you all the players listed in alphabetical order.

City Attorney Shawn Smith conceded these were legitimate concerns.

Commissioner Bill Verge responded to public input that advised the commissioners to be wary of incremental changes in development, along with the dangers of pandering to wealthy tourists.

“Life changes,” Verge said. “I have a lot more gray hair but there is nothing I can do about it.”

Well no Bill, there's nothing you can do about it now, its a done deal. How did these idiots ever get into office? We simply must get rid of these dusty old fossils and get some intelligent, forward thinking people in government. Hey a girl can dream ok. It amazes me to think that these people cannot even use the most basic of office equipment.

They also, judging from their complete and utter lack of awareness as to what is happening around them, have zero interpersonal skills. I am thinking something along the lines of, "Hey (insert secretary/janitor name here), what's this CAY CLUBS business I keep hearing about?" How freakin' hard is that?

FYI, here are a few 'affiliated companies' of Cay Clubs.

The Real Estate Company of the Florida Keys
Tranquility Bay
The Singh Company

None of the City Commissioners knew this? Hello? Wake-up you bloody morons!

A Short Afternoon Stroll

2007-04-05T20:21:00.001-05:00

Federal Judge Rejects Venue Change for Men Accused of Smuggling Cuban Ballplayers

2007-04-05T08:30:00.000-05:00

Defense attorneys for three men charged with smuggling Cuban baseball players into the United States asked to move their upcoming criminal trial scheduled for Key West, Fla., to Miami.

Among other things, they figured that Miami jurors would be more sympathetic to their clients' efforts to get Cubans out of Fidel Castro's Cuba.

But last week, without explanation, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore denied the request. It was opposed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Daniel, the lead prosecutor in the case.

Miami attorney Susan Dmitrovsky, who represents Major League Baseball agent Gus Dominguez, a defendant in the case, argued in her motion that the trial, which begins today, should be in Miami because the defense attorneys, prosecutor and testifying agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are based in Miami.

Dmitrovsky also cited the high costs associated with transportation and lodging for the weeklong trial in Key West. She accused the government of "manufacturing venue" by asking for the trial to be held in Key West.

"The only nexus between the evidence in this case and any location within the Key West division of the Southern District of Florida is the allegation the aliens were detained by Monroe County and U.S. Customs officials," she said. "No other fact alleged to comprise the criminal conduct in this case occurred within the boundaries of the Key West division."

Dmitrovsky said in an e-mail that her defense team is not planning an appeal on the venue issue "at this time," but is preparing for the trial in Key West. "The expense and timing logistics for both parties to get all witnesses to Key West is quite daunting," she said.

Two defendants have taken plea deals in the case and will be cooperating against the three others.

Source

The Mayor vs The City Manager

2007-04-03T15:24:00.001-05:00

I do not know all the ins and outs of this current debacle. What I do find curious is the reason given why the Assistant City manager signed off on a permit that should only have been signed by someone from the building department.

The Rum Barrel is a bar, not a hospital or even a police station, why was there this apparent emergency that made the bars' opening "early" such a priority? Like I said, its a bar. I think the people of Key West would have been able to take the 3 or 4 week wait for the proper permits to be signed by the proper people.

Why the big rush, and why the big secret?

clipped from www.keynoter.com

It's no secret that Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson wants to fire City Manager Julio Avael without cause.

Surfacing now are questions about an investigation into permits issued last year that allowed an early opening for Pat Croce's Rum Barrel on Simonton and Front streets.

McPherson said there were some questionable actions taken by Avael and assistant city manager John Jones, and that if the investigation finds anything improper, he would push “a resolution that looks at suspension with charges,” he said.

The Rum Barrel permits date back to February 2006. Typically, only building officials are authorized to sign off on the certificates needed to open, but Jones said that circumstances - which he cannot fully divulge at this time - required the bar and restaurant to open early with his consent.

A bit of Sunday Sillyness

2007-04-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

You might be a Floridian if:

"Down South" means Key West.

"Panhandling" means going to Pensacola.

Flip-flops are everyday wear.

Shoes are for business meetings and church.

No, wait, flip-flops are good for church, too.

Socks are only for bowling.

Orange juice from concentrate makes you vomit.

Tap water makes you vomit.

Sweet tea can be served at any meal.

An alligator once walked through your neighborhood.

You smirk when a game show's "Grand Prize" is a trip to Florida.

You have a drawer full of bathing suits, and one sweatshirt.

You get annoyed at the tourists who feed seagulls.

A good parking place has nothing to do with distance from the store, but everything to do with shade.

Your winter coat is made of denim.

You can tell the difference between fire-ant bites and mosquito bites.

Anything under 70 degrees is chilly.

You've hosted a hurricane party.

You understand the futility of exterminating cockroaches.

You understand why it's better to have a friend with a boat than have a boat yourself.

Bumper stickers on the pickup in front of you include various fish, the NRA and a Confederate flag.

You know what the "stingray shuffle" is and why it's important.

You dread lovebug season.

You think a six-foot alligator is actually pretty average.

You can pronounce Okeechobee, Kissimmee, Withlacoochee, Okahumpka and Loxahatchee.

Well ok, I can pronounce 2 of them ;)

Happy April Fools! Except if you are a Commissioner.

2007-03-30T08:42:00.001-05:00

Ahh the explanations to why there is so much corruption and oppressive law enactment in the Keys. No fucking sense of humor at all. I hope Dixie Speher enjoys what remaining time she has in office. No one with such a lack of humor should be in ANY kind of position of authority in the Keys. Remember this behavior come election time kids. This is the original piece published on the SATIRE page of the fish rag. Click the link to read it in all his hysterical, and I use that word for all its subtle nuances, glory. Then follow our hard working politicians and they doggedly try to find out who pulled the wool over their eyes. Ho ho ho.. I will be tittering about this for days..

clipped from www.keysnews.com

County goes dry Sunday, as Keys pass alcohol ban

Residents of the Florida Keys are up in arms as the county prepares to enact a ban on the purchase, sale, transport and consumption of alcoholic beverages south of the Dade County line. The new law, which went largely unnoticed as a line item in a recent affordable housing bill, was unanimously passed by the County Commission leaving bar owners, liquor stores and many Keys residents pondering the future of their community.

"All alcohol is considered a contraband material under the new law," explained Sheriff Richard D. Roth. "Section III, paragraph five of the bill outlines penalties for violations and we are adopting a zero tolerance policy. People need to become familiar with the new law or suffer the consequences. As of April 1, 2007 anyone in possession of alcohol is considered a criminal in the eyes of the law."

clipped from www.keysnews.com

Sarcastic column gets boos

Paradise This Week columnist David Sloan, whose Key West 101 column appears with the label "The Satire Page," wrote of a new law in Monroe County banning "the purchase, sale, transport and consumption of alcoholic beverages south of the Dade County line," beginning on Sunday, April 1.

He suggested Sloppy Joe's bar was to become a clubhouse for Alcoholics Anonymous and that Capt. Tony Tarracino was in negotiations for a go-fast boat and returning to the world of rum-running.

County Commissioner Dixie Spehar did not view the satirical column as a joke, and Thursday morning directed her assistant, Les Boatwright, to call the Key West city attorney and Sheriff's Office, saying "the commission didn't vote on that."

The sheriff's aide, Val Marinello, had received more than 25 calls about the supposed law by 11 a.m. Thursday.

"It was a great April Fools' article," she said.

The Last But 1, Little Piece Of Old Key West Cya!

2007-03-29T12:19:00.001-05:00

clipped from www.answers.com

Key Hospitality Acquisition
(OTC:
KHPA)

Contact Information

Key Hospitality Acquisition
4 Becker Farm Road
Roseland,
NJ
07068
UNITED STATES
Tel. (973) 992-3707

Industry: Nonequity Investment Instruments

Blank check company whose objective is to acquire.

clipped from www.cayclubs.com

The above 2 corporations are awaiting your thanks for their heartfelt job of saving the Key West harbour, basically the Turtle Kraals/Half Shell waterfront. Since the existing buildings have stone carved-ish leases that prevent them from being turned into condos, naturally these companies are merely taking over this beautiful area, out of the goodness of their hearts.

The Fat, bloated by greed city commissioners have given away possibly the last little bit left of Old Town Key West. Gone. Ta Ta, Bye bye. These people, voted in mind you, have no souls. They are evil and selfish incarnated and need to be removed.

At some time down the road when ALL has been said and done, the locals will have made their chirping noises. otherwise known as complaints, the Big Corporations will have wrung their hands when Turtle Kraals has a strange unexplainable fire, and low and behold we will all wake up with a 3 storey concrete bunker stretching along the waterfront.

To paraphrase Georgette Green in the fishwrapper, The new brochures may proudly read

"The Key West Harbor Cay Club; a condo-hotel and marina with historic restaurants."

Nauseating.

Don't say I never warned you. If you want to be truly afraid, click on the Cay Clubs link and look at who is on their list of Affiliated Companies. Same names, same hellish faces. Read it and weep.

A Nice Concise Letter

2007-03-28T12:39:00.001-05:00

A very eloquent letter to the fish wrapper from George Halloran.

clipped from www.keysnews.com

The mayor is right: Fire the city manager

A recent "Today in Keys History" column stated Key West's waste-to-energy plant opened in 1987 and "was unsuccessful and later closed." Your writer may be confused with a '70s attempt by the city to compost its garbage, which was a failure. The Montenay plant referenced was successful from the start, producing 12 percent of the city's electricity for 18 years by burning our garbage in a safe and legal manner.

In 1983, under state and federal orders to close its landfill, the city avoided huge fines by building the Montenay plant. It was still producing electricity when it was shut down two years ago. The problem was not its efficiency, but the complaints of condo owners who had built new homes near the plant.

Their attorney, Jim Hendrick, threatened lawsuits, and convinced the City Commission to close the plant rather than refit it, despite a $100,000 study that showed rebuilding the facility was the most economical path.

Well one thing is certain, Jim Hendrick will not be writing any threatening letter to any one. Well he may, but they will have a prison return address, kinda takes the edge off.

FEMA Still Useless

2007-03-28T12:27:00.001-05:00

Great, so people have to be out regardless of whether they have anywhere to go or not.

clipped from www.keynoter.com

FEMA deadline looms

The last 79 Keys families living in travel trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency have less than a month to make other arrangements.

But remodeling after the storm has taken a lot longer than some people hoped, and Homstad says FEMA has a program in which occupants can purchase their trailers.

Hurricane Season is Fast Approaching

2007-03-23T09:56:00.001-05:00

We were, here in Key West, and the rest of Florida very lucky last year. A fluke perhaps.

Trust the bloody British to muck it all up.

clipped from www.reuters.com

Forecaster sees active Atlantic hurricane season

London-based forecaster Tropical Storm Risk on Tuesday said the six-month season, which begins on June 1, was expected to bring 17 tropical storms, of which nine will strengthen into hurricanes with winds of at least 74 miles per hour.

The United States emerged unscathed from the 2006 season after it spawned a below-average nine storms, of which five became hurricanes. Experts had universally -- and erroneously -- predicted 2006 would be a busy year for Atlantic storms.

But TSR said current and projected climate signals indicate that Atlantic basin and U.S. landfalling hurricane activity will be 75 percent above the 1950-2006 average in 2007.

Tattoo Parlour Set To Open on Duval.

2007-03-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

I just got a message on myspace, from someone I don't know. The message was letting know that a new tattoo shop is opening on Duval Street.

Bloody hell whatever next ;)

Tattoo shop owners challenge Key West ban
Keysnews.com

BY MANDY BOLEN
Citizen Staff KEY WEST

The owners of a would-be tattoo shop on Duval Street filed a lawsuit last week against the city of Key West, calling the city's ban on tattoo parlors unconstitutional. Jim McAlhany, who is opening Key West Ink in the 700 block of Duval Street, said he has been working to have the city's ban overturned since October. "We're going to see what the judge says, but Key West is the last city in Florida to prohibit tattooing," McAlhany said on Friday. "I think the city has 20 days to respond." The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, states that "a complete ban on the artistic expression of tattooing is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment ..." Attorney Wayne Larue Smith argues that the Key West City Commission, in a public meeting on July 18, 2006, acknowledged that tattooing is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment and stated that the ban does not serve a compelling government interest. The lawsuit acknowledges that the initial ban, enacted in 1966, may have been intended to protect the health and safety of Navy personnel and the general public. "However, the state of Florida already requires medical precautions be taken before a tattoo artist may apply his art on another person," the lawsuit states. "Those procedures are widely accepted and effective. Therefore, a complete ban on tattooing is excessive, arbitrary and is no longer reasonably related to meet its intended purpose." City Commissioner Bill Verge said on Friday that he had heard the lawsuit had been filed and said that in his opinion, the city is unlikely to prevail in maintaining its ban on the tattoo parlors. Verge has been polling his constituents about their opinions on tattoo parlors for the past several months and said an overwhelming majority are opposed to tattoo parlors on Duval Street. "I think the city's going to have to make some provisions, but if it comes to a commission vote, I'll have to vote based on my constituency," Verge said. "They put me there to pull the lever for them." City Attorney Shawn Smith could not be reached for immediate comment late Friday. mbolen@keysnews.com

So anyway, this I find fascinating.. they have allowed the Israelis to sell their insanely offensive t shirts for years, but banned legitimate business's from opening.

All thats left now, is to lift the ban on alcohol sales before 12 noon on Sundays and we will almost be the tourist trap nightmare we are trying desperately to be! Woooot!

Her is the link to the website.

Key West Ink

I know where I'm getting my next one done. Check out the pix of the new shop, not quite sure why Inga is there, girlfriend ain't got no ink that I've noticed ;)

MCSO Busts Cock Ring.

2007-03-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

Whoulda thunk it?

Rockland Key man arrested for cock fighting

Rockland Key - An anonymous phone call led to the arrest of a Rockland Key man Friday night on charges of cock fighting and animal cruelty.

One hundred sixty eight birds were found on property located at 571 Beach Drive on Rockland Key, which belongs to the suspect 67 year old Lorenzo Miralles. The SPCA removed 80 of the birds immediately where were the most seriously injured or those who were prepped for fighting. The rest will be removed today.

arrived, but they were able to stop and identify 23 people. All but two of them were from the lower Keys. The other two were from Cape Coral, Florida and Hialeah, Florida. Miralles came forward and admitted to being the property owner. He agreed to a search of his property and denied being involved in cock fighting.

A search of the property revealed an octagonal arena, where the fights most likely took place. They also found a large amount of medical equipment, including suture kits, antibiotics, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and betadine solution. Approximately 60 spurs were found of numerous sizes along with spur covers which appeared to be stained with blood. A book that appeared to be a betting ledger was also found.

A number of the birds had been prepped for fighting. They had been shaved on the back, the underside and many had the combs on their heads cut off. One was bleeding from the remains of a comb which appeared to have just been removed or had been injured in some other way. A number of the chickens were injured; some had open wounds, some had missing eyes and some had scabbing and scars.

Miralles was arrested and charged with violation of the animal fighting act (Florida Statute 328.122) and with animal cruelty. Both charges are third degree felony charges. He was booked into the Monroe County Detention Center.

and here are about five thousand cages etc, and additional pics of the raid. Pix Gallery

Anna Nicole Smith Judge Popped for Dope

2007-03-20T14:48:00.000-05:00

Hahaha, like you thought the soap opera was over. Nooo it is just in commercial.

Posted Mar 19th 2007 4:30PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Celebrity Justice, Anna Nicole Smith
Judge KordaA judge in the Anna Nicole Smith case has been busted!

TMZ has learned Hollywood, Florida Judge Lawrence Korda, who heard evidence on the DNA paternity test, was busted on charges of possessing marijuana.

We're told Judge Korda was at Stanley Goldman Park in Hollywood, Florida at 2:00 PM yesterday. Two officers smelled marijuana in the air, which led them to Judge Korda sitting on a bench, allegedly smoking weed.

Judge Korda was given a notice to appear in court.

The offense is punishable by a maximum of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Naturally, this being Florida he will most likely get A. Death Penalty or B. Get appointed to the Supreme Court.

News From The CessPool/Miami

2007-03-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

I love reading about the Cuban migrants in Miami getting all hot and bothered. They are nauseating in their ignorance and quite scary in their power. This is just beautiful though.

Mitt’s Commie phrase sparks rage
By Dave Wedge
Boston Herald Chief Enterprise Reporter
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Cubans in Miami are steaming mad at former Gov. Mitt Romney for shooting his mouth off in stumbling Spanish, mispronouncing names and erroneously associating a notorious Fidel Castro-spewed Communist catch phrase with freedom fighters.
Politicians in South Florida have lashed out at the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential hopeful for describing the socialist saying “Patria o muerte, venceremos” as “inspiring” and for claimingthe phrase was swiped from liberty-seeking Cubans by leftist admirers of Castro.

The phrase, which means “Fatherland or death, we shall overcome,” was bellowed as a political speech sign-off by the dictator for decades. At another point in the speech to the Miami-Dade Republican Party, Romney bungled the names of prominent Cuban GOP politicians, referring to Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio as “Mario.”

Romney also garnered criticism for his hard-line stance on immigration and ending the talk with the phrase “Libertad, Libertad, Libertad,” a revolutionary saying made famous in the gangster movie “Scarface,” which many Cubans feel plays on cultural stereotypes.

But it was the former Bay State governor’s use of an infamous Fidel Castro line that sparked the most controversy. “Hugo Chavez has tried to steal an inspiring phrase - Patria o muerte, venceremos,” Romney said. “It does not belong to him. It belongs to a free Cuba.” But scholars and prominent Cubans contend the saying has always been a Communist rallying cry and that it represents the very essence of Fidel Castro’s oppressive regime.

It really is quite pointless to bring anyone to speak in Miami if they are not Cuban. No matter what they say, right or wrong, they will be heckled by these people.

“It means communism. It means Fidel Castro,” said Florida state Rep. Rene Garcia, a Republican who was at the March 9 speech. “It’s a Communist catch phrase.”

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said of the flap: “The point is, the phrase belongs to liberators, not oppressors. It doesn’t belong to Fidel Castro. It doesn’t belong to Hugo Chavez. It belongs to a free Cuba.”

But Garcia said Romney was “ill-advised” to mention the saying at all, especially speaking in Miami, the epicenter of the Cuban-American struggle.
“When you come into our community, you should be a little better-prepared,” Garcia said, adding that the incident “left a negative taste with local officials.”

Ana Navarro, a Miami-based former United Nations Ambassador who was at the event, called the quote “a mistake” by “an empty suit.” “It’s a Fidel Castro phrase. I’ve never heard it from anyone other than Fidel Castro or members of his government,” Navarro said.

Sandra Levinson, executive director of the Center for Cuban Studies in New York City, said the Castro quote “was never a cry of the old Cuba” and was coined by Castro and his supporters.

While acknowledging that Romney had only “best intentions” with his remarks, Levinson said he needs “someone knowledgeable” to advise him on Cuban affairs.

Whatever you do, never mention Castro's name in Miami unless you include the phrase "kill him" or some such nonsense. A Viva Freedom.

Water Restrictions? Not In My House!

2007-03-20T08:44:00.001-05:00

This is an perfect example of the little person getting shit on again. This time we are going to be fined whilst watering our yards or rinsing off our boats unless this is done at specified times.

On my way in to work this morning, struggling as I do through the sinkhole filled bike 'path', I happened to glance across N Roosevelt at the hideous nightmare that is Fairfield condos, or hotel or whatever the hell anyone would call such an eyesore. They appear to have 20 + fountains happily evaporating away, without a care in the world. Water shortage? Pah! We OWN this town!

I intend to spend this week photographing and filming, with time and date stamps, ALL the corrupt fucks properties that are wasting thousands of gallons of water, while I will be fined for chucking a bucket on my boat.

This little person has just about had enough.

clipped from www.keynoter.com

Drought forces water restrictions

Already among the most conservative water users in the state, Florida Keys residents must cut back even more.

Mandatory restrictions on water use, caused by a year-long drought, go into effect Thursday for all South Florida, including Monroe County.

County and municipal code-enforcement officers are empowered to write citations for violations. The FKAA focuses on conservation education, Reynolds said.

Another Bloody Study

2007-03-19T09:33:00.001-05:00

Wow, more fat cats being paid to sit on their fat asses and think about donuts for a couple of years. Don't hold your breath for this 'study' to proffer up any results, any time soon.

clipped from www.keysnews.com

The city has not conducted a survey on the need for affordable housing in 10 years and the information is not complete, Clayton said. At that time, there was a need for between 3,000 to 7,000 homes for workers, he said.

KEY WEST — The city plans to step up efforts to enforce restrictions placed on houses and condominiums that were built under affordable housing guidelines.

City commissioners declared an affordable housing crisis shortly after the new commission took office in the fall of 2005. The commission has made creating and maintaining affordable housing the top priority in the city.

More Housing Rants

2007-03-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, Regina printed this column in the Key West Citizen concerning affordable housing.
http://www.keysnews.com/313978296565846.bsp.htm
Today, a local woman unloaded on Regina in the Letters to the Editor:
http://www.keysnews.com/letterstoeditor.bsp.htm

Housing column was not based in reality
The "re-evaluation of affordable housing" provided in Ms. [Regina] Corcoran's column on March 4 absolutely made my blood boil.

Her reckless disregard for the plight of firefighters, law enforcement personnel and teachers in obtaining affordable housing is unpardonable. To blatantly state affordable housing actually serves as an endorsement and encouragement of irresponsible behavior, and categorizing those who "can't pay" as those who "won't pay," is unpardonable. Get real. A "Walt Disney" staff? That same newspaper listed 200-plus jobs — in the private sector alone. Who's going to do all the work?

Ms. Corcoran used a lot of numbers to come up with an average sales price of $377,500 for a home. She stated a buyer could qualify with a monthly income of $7,200 — then said she "heard" a single teacher "could" make $65,000. There were over 300 properties for sale in that same paper. I won't even try to calculate the average price, but the national average home loan to income ratio is 28 percent (FHA won't go over 29 percent). This includes all costs associated with the house (taxes and insurance). Ms. Corcoran's monthly payment of $2,885 (100 percent financing, no less — did this include mortgage insurance?) would necessitate a monthly income of at least $10,000.

She is basing her numbers on two-income families, and suggests taking in a boarder? This is the American dream? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one out of two children will live in a single-parent family before the age of 18. In 2002, a full 28 percent of homes in the U.S. were single-parent homes. This is the American reality. The median salary for a teacher in Monroe County (Florida Department of Education) in 2002-2003 was $38,972 with a bachelor's degree, and $42,648 with a master's. This is a local reality.

Finally, it would be really nice to be able to afford to spend $40 bucks a day on lunch. I'm assuming Ms. Corcoran didn't stiff her waitress when she left a $6 tip. Her calculations of this poor server's income — $8 per table times 10 tables equals $480 per week means she has her working six days a week. (Was this what you meant by saying potential buyers need stable employment and the maturity to "show up for work most of the time"?) Even at that — $480 times 52 is less than $25,000 a year (not $26,840). Add in a meager hourly wage? Team up with another person? That will get you qualified?

I think [her] comments are self-serving, self-centered and mean. I think [her] primary concern is to keep those real estate sales commissions rolling in, not to mention monies earned by giving poor advice to potential mortgagors.

Marcia Studley, Key West

Me, in a good mood ;)

I read both the original Corocan article and the letter rebutting it. I think it shows clearly the divide between the haves, and the don't have quite as muchs. The haves are in turn split into two groups I think. There are those like Ms Corocan who are simply oblivious to the realities of life and live in the bubble of the Key West fantasy. They insist that this is a paradise where you should be proud to spend $1 million plus on an 800 sq ft 'conch' home. The people who do not live in such splendor are here merely to do your bidding for minimum wage and are happy to serve you.

The other haves, are the ones responsible for building this fake paradise. The people who see no problems with turning people out of long owned homes, or removing small local owned hotels and turning then into the aforementioned 'palaces'. Each is totally convinced that they are doing nothing wrong, and that as business people in a free market they should be allowed to continue this destruction. Fortunately the bubble is indeed bursting and hopefully they will all end up in the pastel colored shoebox hell that they have spent so long trying to put everyone else in.

More Crap In The Water

2007-03-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

Its been 5 weeks now since the 'beach' at Higgs began registering poor on the shit scale. Naturally this fabulous news has been safely hidden away in the back of a mostly unread local rag, or ignored altogether.

I feel it is my duty to inform. So here's the newsflash! Don't swim in the waters off Higgs 'beach'. It has been found to contain unacceptable levels of enterococci bacteria. Yes that is as gross and smelly as it sounds. You will acquire a nasty staf infection to take home, as a lovely souvenir.

Personally I wouldn't even stop anywhere close to Higgs. The Bum Mafia pretty much runs the joint and the constant drunken screaming emanating from their stinking, toothless maws, should be enough to warn all but the stupidest of tourists, to stay the fuck away. The cute painted cabana type things are usually covered in a variety of bum scum. Everything from blood covered broken Majorska bottles to, well blood covered bums.
Avoid this place like the plague you are very likely to contract from it.

In other news, I posted this on Craigs, but here 'tis for you.

Oh this is beautiful. The 'Affordable' housing czar for Monroe County, Jerry Coleman, is quitting because he cannot live on the $250 PER HOUR the job pays him. The county has agreed to renegotiate his contract with a "fair, but not outrageous fee". I'm sorry but paying someone $100 per hour to sit on his ass and tell local retar.. politicians that the county needs affordable housing, is too much. I can tell them for free!

HEY! ASSHOLES, we need about 15,000 affordable RENTAL units. NOW.

There, hows that.

Something of a Non Event.

2007-03-13T15:31:00.001-05:00

Wooo its highly amusing to read this report. Really? Not enough breakers to fill drunk court. Well if the island didn't smell like shit and charge $400 an night for a poky hotel room, perhaps a few more might have come, instead of heading once again to lovely free and easy (and dirt cheap) Cancun. The same news was printed last year and the year before, although fortunately the city had an excuse for no springbreak back then. I believe she was called 'Wilma'.

clipped from www.keysnews.com

Spring Break Court canceled

BY TRACI RORK

Citizen Staff

KEY WEST — Lacking a docket of the usual suspects — hungover college students who have distinguished themselves in ways they'd rather not remember — Key West's Spring Break Court has been canceled.

It appears those who crowd the beaches and frequent Old Town bars this year are doing so in a more constrained fashion and in fewer numbers, say police and prosecutors.

Spring Break Court, which adjourned early last year as well, began March 5, but County Judge Peary Fowler called it off after four days passed without a single case.

The court was designed to give out-of-town spring breakers the opportunity to plead "no contest" to minor alcohol-related offenses. It allowed them the option of spending eight hours picking up litter on Key West streets and beaches instead of facing legal fees and a criminal record.

First and Last Visit To KW

2007-03-12T20:51:00.001-05:00

From craigslist.. this kind of sums it up I think...

First Time Visitor's take on KW

Date: 2007-03-06, 5:46PM EST

I visited Key West for the first time over the past weekend. I'm sorry to say it will be my only visit. The island is just too small for soooooo many people. There were so many beautiful old homes and buildings but then there were also so many dilapidated houses and trashy yards - all mixed together. All the tropical flowers and lush flowering trees in old town were enchanting but then a stench of urine or rotten fish seemed to intrude every block or so. There are stray cats everywhere and just about every other property has a for sale sign in front of it. Is everybody bailing out? I have never seen so many morbidly obese, hairy, gray, staggering old drunks in my life. And what is it with all these bloated pigs on Harleys? The noise from all those superloud motorcycles is totally out of control! The taxi cabs all stunk and were filthy. The Airport is a mess - maybe they could spend a little money on some chairs? Why in the world couldn't they have at least one porta potty on the tarmac past security for departing passengers? My flight to Miami got delayed and of course they don't allow you to take water through security so I drank it all - then the line back into security was unbelievable. Am I supposed to either pass out from dehydration, piss my pants or miss my flight?
WTF? The clothing store that I shopped at on Duval -called Graffitti - wouldn't even allow me to return a shirt the following day after I bought it - "All Sales Final" it says in microprint on your receipt - After you pay for the item! Key West may be for you if you want to get someplace by car and walk the streets drunk with your "Go Cup" but it's definitely not for me. Some of the antique stores were nice and the weather was plenty warm and some of the architecture was beautiful but for the money....I'd pass. The best part: Seven Fish - a restaurant at Olivia and Elizabeth..the worst part: way, way too many people...ugly, fat, loud...okay Typical American people.

To be fair, here is a locals rebuff, kinda.

Date: 2007-03-06, 7:06PM EST
As a resident I can agree with you on many points. But how can you not have a good time based on "ugly fat" people? That's pretty shallow and not the way that people with substance think. Post a picture of yourself so we can judge for ourselves what we think about you.

Yeah 'Cos We Don't Have Enough Real Tourists...

2007-03-12T14:07:00.000-05:00

Give me a bloody break. I like art, I like a lot of art. My preference is for pictures of 20 something guys playing pool naked, but thats really unimportant. Apparently the Southernmost City feels it does not have enough tacky decorations scattered randomly about the place, so, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to 'rent' some lovely and truly tasteful statues to dump next to the Buoy. Greeeeat.

Mar 7, 2007 5:27 pm US/Eastern
Key's Southernmost Point Gets Some 'New Friends'

(CBS4) Key West, FL Some "New Friends" have arrived at the Southernmost Point in Key West.

"New Friends" is a multicultural sculpture in bronze by acclaimed artist J. Seward Johnson. It was installed Wednesday in front of the Southernmost Point Marker.

The artwork depicts four adults and three children, dressed in casual clothes typically worn by Florida Keys visitors, grouped around the Southernmost Point as though posing for a photograph.

“Two figures have their arms extended for living visitors to nestle into,” said Johnson, “Both are looking at the people, who are nestling, welcoming them into the picture."

"New Friends" is on loan to the city from Johnson. The sculptures will remain at the Southernmost Point for the next 2 months, but may become a permanent if approved later by the Key West City Commission.

Pretty nice eh? I googled 'acclaimed artist', J Seward Johnson, and found that he is famous for making bronze life sized castings and then painting them to look real. You may have seen them in your town. Weird guy sitting on the bench staring at you, no matter how much you yell at him, he just keeps on staring with those cold dead eyes? Yeah well now you know. Don't kick him. Oh and here is Mr Johnson with one of his 'friends'.