Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022

North Wind | 48 New Cases | 2 Deaths | Balloon Man | MCHCD Zoom | Milky Way | Heart Box | El Corazon | Defeated/Advancing | Donate Chickens | Chosen Woman | Lady Liberty | Drunk Dad | Mendocino Funnies | JDSF Review | 1913 Parade | Skunk Facts | Scholarship Money | Gaye's Advice | End Times | PG&E Increase | Yesterday's Catch | Soap Ad | Whole Person | Tender Love | Knowledge Quest | Grand Hotel | Housing Homeless | Chesty Says | Speed Wobble | Trump Library | Woke Wastrels | Pepperoni Cave | Weed Zooms | Dear Bob | Western Drought | Sweat Lodge

GUSTY NORTHERLY WINDS will increase along the coast and across interior ridgetops today and Wednesday. Interior temperatures will be on the increase again starting tomorrow, warming closer to the coast on Thursday. The next chance for rain will begin late this weekend. (NWS)

48 NEW COVID CASES and two more deaths (since last Friday) reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

TWO MORE MENDO COVID DEATHS

Two Mendocino County residents recently passed away with COVID-19. Our thoughts are with their families and friends. 

Death #118: 91 year-old man from the North Coast area; vaccinated with comorbidities. 

Death #119: 65 year-old man from the North County area; vaccinated and boosted with comorbidities. 

Public Health asks all Mendocino County residents to consider the best ways to protect themselves and their families from COVID-19. When in doubt, consult with and follow all CDC and CDPH guidance. Vaccination for everyone ages 5 and older, masking, and social distancing remain the best tools for combating COVID-19. 

Fully vaccinated people should strongly consider getting a COVID-19 booster to improve immunity. Boosters are available for everyone age 12 and older. If you have questions about boosters or vaccines in general, speak with your doctor, or call Public Health at 707-472-2759. To find the nearest vaccine clinic in your area, please visit the Public Health website at: www.mendocinocounty.org/covidvaccine 

COAST HOSPITAL DISTRICT TRUSTEE NORMAN DE VALL:

Mendocino Coast HealthCare District's Special Meeting 

Feb 17, 2022 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) 

Join Zoom Meeting: us06web.zoom.us/j/83181962239?pwd=bGg4aVhWUXU0SzNiSjRud2FwcCs5Zz09

Meeting ID: 831 8196 2239 

Passcode: 035135 

One tap mobile: +12532158782,,83181962239#,,,,*035135# US (Tacoma)

Dial by your location: +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

Agenda Item 2.1 Community forum on the future of healthcare in our community. 

Discussion will include an update on the Sherwood Oaks skilled nursing facility in Fort Bragg; community needs for skilled nursing and assisted living facilities; the District's options concerning the existing hospital campus in Fort Bragg, including seismic compliance through retrofit or new construction; and potential alternative uses of the existing facility if a new hospital is constructed (e.g., an additional skilled nursing facility on the hospital campus). Please join the board of the Mendocino Coast Health Care District to share your thoughts on the community's ongoing and future healthcare needs. Public comments on this agenda item will be solicited during the discussion. 

NIGHT LIGHT OF THE NORTHCOAST: MILKY WAY SEASON APPROACHES

I remember while camping with my folks as a kid how the Milky Way stretched so prominently across the night sky. It was a special feature of the night that I never saw from the bright lights of home, but it was always there when we went camping. I assumed it was there every night.

Later in life I remember looking into the night sky and sometimes not seeing the Milky Way. Its absence was vaguely vexing, but I wasn’t giving it much thought at the time. Was my mind playing tricks, or my eyes? I didn’t know, and for whatever reason, I didn’t trouble myself enough to figure it out. It was just an unexplained oddity; sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn’t. In the back of my mind, it was an inconsistency I’d eventually need to solve.

I’m not sure when it came together for me, but following the night sky around for a few years has certainly helped me find some patterns and relationships. We see the Milky Way some times of the year and not others because as Earth travels around the sun, each day the night side of the planet faces a slightly different direction into space. In summer, Earth’s night side faces toward the Milky Way’s densest region; half a year later, when Earth is on the opposite side of the sun, the night side faces in the opposite direction.

One of the variables is that Earth doesn’t rotate around its own axis perpendicularly to its orbit around the sun; it is tilted. So in effect, as Earth orbits the sun, the night side of the planet will face “downward” relative to the orbital plane at one point in the year, and half a year later when we’re on the opposite side of the sun, the night side will face “upward” relative to the orbital plane (there is no real up or down in space, of course, but we can say that relative to the orbital plane, one view is above it and the other is below it). 

As Earth careens around the sun, the Milky Way swings into and out of our wobbling view from season to season. In February one can find it in the wee hours before first light as it stretches across the sky from the southwestern horizon to the northern skies, chased by the light of dawn. The accompanying photograph, labeled “A,” was taken at 5:30 am February 11, 2022. But the Milky Way’s position will be changing daily, rising earlier each morning until by the end of May or early June, it is rising around 11pm; at around 11:30 pm one will get approximately the same view of the Milky Way as the photograph labeled “C.” It’s no coincidence that 11:30pm is a quarter of the day earlier (six hours earlier), and the end of May is a quarter of the year later. Think about that.

By the end of June, the Milky Way will be visible as soon as it is dark, and it will continue to be higher in the sky each night. The summer months are the best for viewing the Milky Way in our hemisphere, but as fall descends, so does the Milky Way. For now, unless you’re an authentic early bird, the Milky Way is not yet ripe for most of us… but Milky Way season is coming.

(To read previous entries of “Night Light of the North Coast,” click on David’s name above the article. To keep abreast of his most current photography or purchase a print, visit and contact him at his website mindscapefx.com or follow him on Instagram at @david_wilson_mfx . David teaches Art 35 Digital Photography at College of the Redwoods.)

BETH SWEHLA: Did you get a delicious heart shaped box of chocolate for Valentine's Day? After enjoying the treat, would you donate your clean, undamaged heart box to the AVHS Ag Dept? The candy box can be dropped off at the high school office labeled with my name. Thank you!

DEFEATED & ADVANCING

The Anderson Valley Panther hoopsters played their last game of the regular season on Thursday, February 10, in Mendocino. Mendocino beat all of our teams, making Mendo the undefeated league champs. However, this was the only league loss for our varsity girls team, so they too will be moving on to our conference title and will be traveling to play against San Francisco Waldorf on Wednesday, February 16 to play their first postseason game in many years. 

CHICKEN DONATIONS

Hello Community,

For the last year our non profit Unconditional Freedom Project has been at work at the Mendocino County Jail. Our programs there include training the jail residents on the jail garden, planting and harvesting vegetables and working on bee keeping alongside Sheriff Kendall.

We are looking to add chickens there, and seeking a chicken tractor and 12 chickens to donate to the jail garden. If you have one or know someone who might be willing to donate or make one, please reach out!

If you’d like to learn more about our program the Mendocino County Jail, listen to the sheriff talk about it here on KZYX: https://jukebox.kzyx.org/index.mob.php (Scroll down to “Citizen U or TKO” Wednesday, February 9) or read more about our program here: https://prisonmonastery.org/

THE LONG WAIT IS OVER!

The Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition has endorsed Malia Cohen for California Controller. Her experience on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, on the Board of Equalization, and managing a $22 billion pension fund provides her with the knowledge, track record, and values to bring a brighter future to our state. Malia is proud to have broad support from leaders like State Controller Betty Yee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and more than two dozen labor organizations.

Malia Cohen’s career and work has been dedicated to bridging gaps in access and collaborating with leaders, unions, small business owners, activists and others to deliver results. She has developed policies to help create good-paying jobs, expand health care access, and protect our air and water from pollution. Malia has worked to uplift women and working families and fought for small business owners - all with the goal of building a California that works for more people. This experience delivering results for Californians makes her stand out in the field. Malia continues to focus on the opportunity we have post-pandemic to create greater economic equity in how we allocate our resources, how we make government more transparent and accountable, and how we ensure that all Californians can get ahead.

— Val Muchowski, Chair, Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition

I WANT TO TAKE THE KIDS...

On Saturday, February 12th, 2022 at about 0720 hours, Willits PD (WPD) Officers were dispatched to the 1700 block of Elm Ln regarding a reported verbal domestic argument. The female victim advised WPD Dispatch she had been shoved to the ground and her phone taken from her. The suspect, Derrick McCain Jr., 28, of Willlits, was screaming and yelling in the background. McCain was also reported to have been consuming alcohol. 

A WPD Officer arrived and heard the verbal argument continuing inside the residence, with McCain making statements that he would violently assault the victim if she kept him from seeing their children. McCain exited the residence on his own accord at which point the WPD Officer made contact with him. McCain displayed objective signs of alcohol intoxication and was belligerent while he continued yelling at the victim from the front yard. McCain attempted to walk away, at which point he was detained. 

The incident was precipitated due to the victim refusing to allow a heavily intoxicated McCain to take their children to the park. 

During the course of the investigation it was determined McCain had taken the victim’s cell phone out of her hands as she was actively speaking to the 911 operator (WPD Dispatch) before throwing the phone across the front yard. The victim’s account was corroborated by a witness. 

Two young children were present during the incident and a referral was made to CPS. 

McCain was ultimately arrested and booked into the county jail for Criminal Threats, Obstructing/Preventing a 911 Call, Domestic Battery, and Child Endangerment. 

(Willits Police Presser)

PRESERVING JACKSON STATE FOREST

Yet another victory for the movement to protect Jackson Demonstration State Forest today. 

On Valentine’s Day, the Mendocino County Board of Education passed a resolution asking Gov Gavin Newsom and Natural Resource Secretary wade.crowfoot for a scientific review of the CAL FIRE Jackson Demonstration State Forest management plan and mandate. 

Climate change is affecting everyone but will effect our youth now and in the future the most. It is not right or just for the profits of mills and timber operators to be prioritized over the health and we’ll bring of all future generations. It’s time for a change!

According to the Boards policies, “The Board shall identify issues that will affect its schools and the children in its community, establish goals and priorities for legislative advocacy, solicit community input, and adopt legislative positions.” Nothing will affect our children and communities more than climate change. 

You can read the resolution at https://savejackson.org

FROM THE SKUNK: 

Fiction: A development project that will permanently and detrimentally affect the Coast and Mendocino County is being quietly forced upon the City of Fort Bragg.

Fact: No development plan has even been suggested, much less advanced, for the southern portion of the millsite. A development plan for the northern portion of the millsite (which Mendocino Railway acquired with City approval in mid-2019) reflects the city’s own plan for the property and was submitted to the city as part of the city’s approval process. Mendocino Railway had intended to follow the same general path as to the southern portion of the millsite. 

— Mike Hart

---

COMMENTS ON MIKE HART:

Millsite development - Fiction v. Fact

Mike Hart received the awards in 2011 (Obama administration) for the the gasification project not for biodiesel. Sierra got lots of money to build - they built a unit, but testing reveals the project was not fully successful, more testing needed. Nothing seems to have happened on it for a few years. I wonder why.

Mike Hart did say that the garbage gasification project might come here. For that to work the railroad would be bringing in garbage, shipping out dangerous chemicals left from gasification, etc. But to even begin garbage treatment — the millions upon millions to fix tunnel and tracks — seems like a “pipe” dream.

GAYE’S ADVICE

Editor,

I read with great interest Mike Geniella’s piece on Gaye LeBaron, which to my ears and eyes read more like an obituary for someone who had passed rather than a news story or a feature about someone still alive. I have known Gaye for about 30 years. I have read many of her columns, appeared on panels with her and once declared her “the conscience of Sonoma County.” She heard me utter those words, raised her eyebrows and made no verbal comment. I think that Gaye herself would be the first person or one of the first persons to recognize and describe her limits and limitations. Her overall impulse was to be inclusive; she was a first-rate observer and had a phenomenal memory that went back decades. Still, she was much better at writing about some people rather than others. Sometimes, Gaye had a long reach. At other times, she wasn’t able to extend herself as far as some of her younger PD readers wanted. Mike says he’s “in awe of her contributions.” Others still to come will have to be a bit less in awe, read her work and evaluate it with more of a sense of balance. Will it last? I’m not sure. The world of her childhood, girlhood and young womanhood doesn’t exist anymore. It’s too soon for me to say whether anyone will want to read or reread her columns about the old days in Redcrest, Weott and Santa Rosa when the upper crust flocked to the Topaz Room. I’m glad she helped Mike along when he was a tyro. In his last sentence he writes that Gaye was a “friend to our communities in Mendocino, Humboldt and Lake.” I wonder why he didn’t include Sonoma, where she has lived and worked most of her life. What I learned most from Gaye is that you aim to let the facts speak for themselves and don’t embellish and exaggerate. When you embellish and exaggerate, she told me your readers don’t really trust you. I’m still trying to live by her advice. 

Jonah Raskin

San Francisco

PG&E IS RAISING ELECTRIC RATES on March 1. Here’s how much more it will cost

by Jessica Christian

PG&E is raising its monthly electricity rates by more than 9% for the average residential customer, a move to generate revenue as the utility grapples with ballooning global natural gas prices.

The new rate plan, unanimously approved Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission and set to take effect March 1, would also include a 10% bump for small business and larger increases for industrial facilities, for an average increase of 12.69% across PG&E’s entire customer base.

PG&E and California’s two other investor-owned utilities — Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — present an annual forecast to the commission each year, estimating the cost of energy supply. Once the commission approves that estimate, the utility passes those costs along to ratepayers with no mark-up.

In its most recent application, PG&E said that costs last year exceeded forecasts by about $287 million, according to Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma, who presented the report Thursday. She pointed to a volatile natural gas market as one of the main factors stressing the utility.

Although PG&E also draws hydroelectric power from a system of pipes connected to dams and reservoirs, climate change and a persistent drought have diminished that supply, Shiroma said.

She noted that the new rates would increase residential customers’ bills by an average of $16.37 a month, or $10 for low-income customers. A PG&E representative said the average increase would be closer to $14.

All three of the state’s investor-owned utilities have raised rates over the past few months, prompting consumers to “justifiably” voice concerns and objections, Commissioner Darcie Houck said. She reluctantly supported the plan while voicing misgivings, saying the added expense creates hardships for California residents.

“We understand that any increase to our customers’ energy bills can be challenging, especially during this ongoing pandemic and (its) economic impacts,” PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo told The Chronicle. “We are here to help our customers manage their energy use and costs,” she added. “We offer a variety of tools, rebates, discounts, rate options and financial assistance programs to help them take control of their energy usage and lower their monthly bills.”

But Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, accused PG&E of misleading consumers by presenting every rate increase in isolation. The current change follows a planned PG&E rate hike at the beginning of the year, which raised monthly gas and electric bills about 9%.

“There is a trainload of increases stacked on top of each other here that’s not being talked about,” Toney said. His watchdog group is advocating for gradual rate increases tied to the consumer price index.

“Anything beyond that,” he said, “they would really have to justify it.”

(SF Chronicle)

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 14, 2022

ROBIN BRADSHAW, Eureka/Ukiah. Possession, possession for sale, transportation, furnishing of organic drug, narcotic, controlled substance, conspiracy, parole violation.

SEAN FLINTON, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANNALISE MCCLANAHAN-CALVERT, Ukiah. Vandalism.

JUSTIN MIXON, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

CUTBERTO ORTIZ-RAMIREZ, Ukiah. DUI.

JUSTIN SETTLES, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

JEFFREY WICKERSHAM, Tucson, Arizona/Ukiah. DUI.

CALIFORNIA LAUNCHES AMBITIOUS EFFORT TO TRANSFORM MEDI-CAL TO ‘WHOLE PERSON CARE’

by Kristin Hwang

At 66, Edward El has a new lease on life — literally. In two weeks, he’ll move into his own apartment in Berkeley after spending the better part of the past 16 years homeless.

Years ago, a back injury and pinched nerves in his legs made standing and walking painful, and he was laid off from his construction job. He ended up in “shelter after shelter after shelter.” 

But nine months ago, El moved into one of 12 Project Roomkey shelters in Alameda County designed to reduce COVID-19 among the homeless population. He was connected with a housing navigator, a counselor and medical staff. They helped El apply for affordable housing and rental assistance vouchers, and coordinated with landlords who would give homeless renters a chance. Now he’ll pay a fraction of the cost to live in an area where one-bedroom apartments often exceed $3,000 per month.…

lostcoastoutpost.com/2022/feb/14/california-launches-ambitious-effort-to-transform/

OUR QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE

Letter to the editor in today's NY Times:

Re With the Webb Space Telescope, Everyone Wins (Science Times, Feb. 1)

Thank you for Dennis Overbye's eloquent paean to the James Webb Space Telescope as an embodiment of humankind's insatiable quest for knowledge.

A fundamental aspect of human nature is to wonder how we came to be here. The Webb Space Telescope is to look back to the dawn of the universe more closely than any man-made instrument ever devised, potentially offering a glimpse at the formation of galaxies, stars and planets, and with it a better understanding of the origins of our own world, and perhaps of life itself.

As Carl Sagan observed, "Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark." Our investment of time and treasure to study the universe is a testament to the value we place on knowledge and our confidence in the amazing technological achievement of our scientists and engineers can produce.

Stephen A. Silver

San Francisco

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It does no good, but then they could all be living in tents on the sidewalks…

Dangerously psychotic persons, living on the streets of Ukiah, are a pretty big problem…

Plenty of new apartments for farmworkers, seniors, disabled and mothers/children, but nobody built anything for the crazy indigent (unsheltered)…

Calling them unsheltered is a stretch, they got bus shelters and the porch of the Social Services Building, and a whole lot of old motels that take vouchers, and, the indigent all have SDI/GA/VA/Social Security, and they all have Medicare/Medicaid that they pay nothing for…

You could build villages of “tiny homes” down by the freeway, but more would just move in…

Q: How many homeless people live in Ukiah?

A: All of them!

Like London Breed says: “Take a homeless home and give him/her a spare bedroom…”

“SON, when the Marine Corps wants you to have a wife, you will be issued one.” 

— General Chesty Puller, USMC

SPEED WOBBLE

by James Kunstler

Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survivial — even in the degenerate halls of government….

If the ads on the Superbowl each year are like a Rorschach test for the nation’s mental condition, then this year’s ad-roll was a cavalcade of frantic hallucinations suggesting a near-complete detachment from reality for an audience of ADD-disabled cell phone slaves locked into a Big Tech induced consensus trance. You could barely tell what these advertisers were trying to sell in their commercials, the psychotic dazzle of half-second jump-cuts was so ferocious. One interesting note, though: people of non-color (PONCs) seem to have been magically sucked out of the universe. There, that fixed things for everybody else.

Snoop Dog’s half-time house party — Hollywood’s G-rated version of a BLM riot — heralded a real riot later on in downtown LA after the Rams’ victory. Fans lit-up a metro bus and tagged it with spray-paint. The police moved in… objects were thrown at them. I’m just sorry that Snoop didn’t bring out his friend and sometime co-star Martha Stewart to twerk for the multitudes — while, say whipping up a pumpkin mousse. That might have brought the country together after all these months of rancor. But, like I said, sorry, PONCs need not apply. Nor did Da Dawg invite onstage my favorite new pop star, Ski Mask the Slump God, composer of the hits “Faucet Failure” and “Foot Fungus.” Maybe next year… if there is a next year….

All this hearty good fellowship marks the journey of our country from a convocation of be-wigged founding fathers wielding quill pens in defense of liberty to a security-and-surveillance state of hebephrenic zombies lurching to a kind of failure that will make the fall of the Roman Empire look like a lawn sale of someone’s dead uncle’s chattels and effects. The drain-pipe beckons… but will America answer that call… or take a different turn?

Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survivial — even in the degenerate halls of government, state-by-state. The armature of Covid-19 tyranny is getting rapidly dismantled by politicians close to running for their very lives. The home-folks have had enough of their insolence and they’re sharpening the tines of their pitchforks. Events also conspire to put the schnitz on the alleged Globalists dream of digital tyranny — if there even is such a cabal of Globalists, which I’m not sure about, or just a coterie of feckless hacks swept along by a malefic zeitgeist, Canada’s Justin Trudeau being the poster-boy for that breed.

“Joe Biden” has so far failed to deliver that war with Russia over Ukraine he promised us — which would be like two Craig’s List customers fighting over a twenty-year-old Jeep Wrangler up on blocks with the engine missing. Ukraine president Zelensky is a professional comedian, of course, so one must admire his gag of inviting “Joe Biden” to visit his country, the Gem of Eurasia, “in the coming days,” Mr. Zelenski said, “which will be a powerful signal and contribute to de-escalation.” Plus, all the pierogi and cabbage the US president can eat. All this made National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gnash his teeth for the trouble he has gone to in prepping the sore-beset American people for World War Three.

But Mr. Sullivan has, perhaps, other things to think about. Like… what are all these offstage noises Special Counsel John Durham is making in the grand jury chambers? Something about Hillary Clinton, and the helpmeets surrounding her in the 2016 election (including especially Jake Sullivan), alleged to have fabricated the Russian collusion whopper that deranged the nation for four years and disabled a sitting president. They even managed to enlist the FBI and the CIA in that task. How’d that happen? Could Hillary have been that peevish? Anyway, it looks kind of bad for the National Security Advisor to “Joe Biden” having such an epic political fraud tacked onto his resume, with perhaps an indictment to follow. Standing by on his resignation….

Our NATO allies must be enjoying the rise of natgas prices beyond the level that many middle-class households in Euroland can afford to keep the heat on in the dead middle of winter, since they have to get so much of the stuff from Russia. Maybe jamming Ukraine into NATO, as America’s Deep State has been wishing and hoping to do, wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe NATO itself isn’t such a great idea anymore.

If World War Three doesn’t pan out for “JB,” there’s always a global meltdown of financial markets, banks, and currencies waiting in the wings to amuse and distract everybody from the post-Covid call for a long, hard look at what the pandemic was actually about. The story, in all its multiple, gruesome levels, has gotten away from them. So many public officials are standing naked that Washington looks like a nudist colony.

I DON’T ALWAYS AGREE with what Rogan or his guests say, but why should I?

We’re not living in North Korea, we’re allowed to hold different views from each other.

But what I like most about him is his fierce curiosity and refreshing willingness to admit when he’s wrong or has simply changed his mind.

Yet today, he’s at the center of a ferocious firestorm driven by the permanently outraged woke brigade that is designed to cancel him from his $100 million Spotify deal and silence his supposedly “dangerous” thoughts.

Specifically, the furor surrounds interviews he conducted with two doctors who have opinions that counter current thinking about COVID-19.

Unlike, I suspect, most of Rogan’s furious critics, I’ve actually listened to them and found them very interesting, just as I did when he interviewed my former CNN colleague Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who holds very different views about the pandemic.

As Rogan — who’s made it repeatedly clear he’s not himself an anti-vaxxer, saying, “I believe they (vaccines) are safe and encourage many people to take them” — explained in an Instagram post last night about his decision to book the two controversial doctors: “They have an opinion that’s different to the mainstream narrative, which is why I wanted them on. I’m interested in finding out the truth and having conversations with people who have different perspectives.”

Rogan added that given that the science has changed repeatedly throughout the crisis over everything from whether cloth masks are effective, to the ability of vaccines to stop infection or transmission, and if COVID-19 started in a Wuhan lab, then why is it wrong to challenge it?

Following protests of Spotify kicked off by Neil Young over the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, the music streaming service said it will add content advisories before podcasts discussing the virus.

But for doing so, he’s been lambasted in an open letter from 270 doctors and scientists, once-liberal but now-censorious rock dinosaurs Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have quit Spotify in protest, and in a new low, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have demanded the Swedish streaming platform — which paid them $25 million last year to do their own podcast — do something about Rogan’s “rampant misinformation.”

Sorry, WHAT?

A pair of two-bit minor British royal family renegades best known for spewing outrageously harmful misinformation to Oprah Winfrey are trying to suppress an American’s First Amendment right to free speech?

I wouldn’t trust Meghan “Princess Pinocchio” Markle — who last year pressured UK company ITV to fire me for calling out her lies — to make me a cup of tea, let alone preach to the world about truth and honesty.

How dare she and her equally hypocritical husband, Harry, make any demands from a company that’s paid them a fortune to so far produce one podcast that was so bad, I needed urgent brain cell restoration surgery after enduring it?

If the choice of whom to listen to in America is a curious, smart man who listens to myriad views to get to the truth, or a pair of fork-tongued, woke wastrels whose only currency is trashing the royal institution that gave them their titles to exploit for vast financial gain, give me the former anytime.

Spotify should do us all a favor by tearing up Meghan and Harry’s contract and giving their money to Joe Rogan for more of his shows.

— Piers Morgan

LOCAL EQUITY ENTREPRENEUR PROGRAM UPDATE - FEBRUARY 16

Greetings, 

Local Equity Entrepreneur Program Update

The County of Mendocino Cannabis Program in partnership with Elevate Impact Mendocino will be hosting a webinar that will provide an update of the Local Equity Entrepreneur Program on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. (PST). Please connect to this webinar using the following link: https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/82848105499. 

MCP Weekly Public Meeting

The County of Mendocino Cannabis Program will also be hosting it's first weekly public meeting on Friday, February 18, 2022 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. (PST). No registration will be required for these meetings and the following link will be used weekly: https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/87694156954. The agenda for our Friday meeting is as follows: 

Website Update Tour

Fallowing Discussion

Future Agenda Items

Sincerely, 

Mendocino Cannabis Program Staff

LT. COL. ROBERT STIRM, is greeted by his family, returning home after more than five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. 

(Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had cheated on him with numerous men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage proposals from three of them.)

HOW BAD IS THE WESTERN DROUGHT? WORST IN 12 CENTURIES, STUDY FINDS.

by Henry Fountain

The megadrought in the American Southwest has become so severe that it’s now the driest two decades in the region in at least 1,200 years, scientists said Monday, and climate change is largely responsible.

The drought, which began in 2000 and has reduced water supplies, devastated farmers and ranchers and helped fuel wildfires across the region, had previously been considered the worst in 500 years, according to the researchers.

But exceptional conditions in the summer of 2021, when about two-thirds of the West was in extreme drought, “really pushed it over the top,” said A. Park Williams, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led an analysis using tree ring data to gauge drought. As a result, 2000-21 is the driest 22-year period since 800 A.D., which is as far back as the data goes.

The analysis also showed that human-caused warming played a major role in making the current drought so extreme.

There would have been a drought regardless of climate change, Dr. Williams said. “But its severity would have been only about 60 percent of what it was.”

Julie Cole, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the research, said that while the findings were not surprising, “the study just makes clear how unusual the current conditions are.”

Dr. Cole said the study also confirms the role of temperature, more than precipitation, in driving exceptional droughts. Precipitation amounts can go up and down over time and can vary regionally, she said. But as human activities continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, temperatures are more generally rising.

As they do “the air is basically more capable of pulling the water out of the soil, out of vegetation, out of crops, out of forests,” Dr. Cole said. “And it makes for drought conditions to be much more extreme.”

Although there is no uniform definition, a megadrought is generally considered to be one that is both severe and long, on the order of several decades. But even in a megadrought there can be periods when wet conditions prevail. It’s just that there are not enough consecutive wet years to end the drought.

That has been the case in the current Western drought, during which there have been several wet years, most notably 2005. The study, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, determined that climate change was responsible for the continuation of the current drought after that year.

“By our calculations, it’s a little bit of extra dryness in the background average conditions due to human-caused climate change that basically kept 2005 from ending the drought event,” Dr. Williams said.

Climate change also makes it more likely that the drought will continue, the study found. “This drought at 22 years is still in full swing,” Dr. Williams said, “and it is very, very likely that this drought will survive to last 23 years.”

Several previous megadroughts in the 1,200-year record lasted as long as 30 years, according to the researchers. Their analysis concluded that it is likely that the current drought will last that long. If it does, Dr. Williams said, it is almost certain that it will be drier than any previous 30-year period.

Tree rings are a year-by-year measure of growth — wider in wet years, thinner in dry ones. Using observational climate data over the last century, researchers have been able to closely link tree ring width to moisture content in the soil, which is a common measure of drought. Then they have applied that width-moisture relationship to data from much older trees. The result “is an almost perfect record of soil moisture” over 12 centuries in the Southwest, Dr. Williams said.

Using that record, the researchers determined that last summer was the second driest in the last 300 years, with only 2002, in the early years of the current drought, being drier.

Monsoon rains in the desert Southwest last summer had offered hope that the drought might come to an end, as did heavy rain and snow in California from the fall into December.

But January produced record-dry conditions across much of the West, Dr. Williams said, and so far February has been dry as well. Reservoirs that a few months ago were at above-normal levels for the time of year are now below normal again, and mountain snowpack is also suffering. Seasonal forecasts also suggest the dryness will continue.

“This year could end up being wet,” Dr. Williams said, “but the dice are increasingly loaded toward this year playing out to be an abnormally dry year.”

Samantha Stevenson, a climate modeler at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was not involved in the study, said the research shows the same thing that projections show — that the Southwest, like some other parts of the world, is becoming even more parched.

Not everywhere is becoming increasingly arid, she said. “But in the Western U.S. it is for sure. And that’s primarily because of the warming of the land surface, with some contribution from precipitation changes as well.”

“We’re sort of shifting into basically unprecedented times relative to anything we’ve seen in the last several hundred years,” she added.

(nytimes.com)