Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Cooling | Coast Fog | Drowning Victim | Cemetery | TV Thieves | Boonquiz | Wagner Show | False Arrest | Whale Point | Scumbaggery | Hog Day | Center Fundraiser | Great Debate | Town Hall | Ed Notes | School Fencing | Fair Chickens | Grape Gripe | Kite Flying | FERC Letter | Housing Search | Covid Update | Yesterday's Catch | Climate Crisis | Bragg Mural | Water Vapor | Supermoons | Economic News | Broken Dreams | Fond Farewell | Growing Wrath | 1937 Presleys | U.S. Downgrade | Gobsmacked | Rain-Blo | Criminal Rematch | Bob & Howdy | Campaign Chaos | Valuable Skills | Nuclear Madness | White Water | Blobulation | Rock Thrower | Ukraine | Heaven's Gate

BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURE are expected today and Thursday in the interior, followed by hotter weather this weekend. Isolated thunderstorm will be possible in far northeastern Trinity County on Friday, otherwise dry weather is expected for the next 7 days. Widespread and more persistent coastal stratus is forecast today through Friday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 54F on the coast this Wednesday morning as expected. How much sun you see today depends on how far you live from the coast. Foggy into tomorrow then clearing. So they say....

EEL RIVER DROWNING VICTIM IDENTIFIED

On Monday, July 31, 2023 at about 4:40 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Deputies along with California Highway Patrol (CHP) and Fire Personnel were dispatched to the area of MM 12 on Highway 162 in Dos Rios for a possible drowning. Sheriff's Office Deputies began an emergency response with lights and sirens.

Prior to Sheriff's Office personnel arriving at the scene, a CHP and a Round Valley Tribal Officer arrived and observed a subject in the river. Both the CHP Officer and Tribal Officer immediately jumped into the river to try to save the individual. Sheriff's Office and Fire personnel arrived shortly thereafter. Officers were unable to reach the individual because he was in a very deep section of the river.

The Little Lake Fire Department's swift-water rescue unit responded to assist. At approximately 6:00 PM, the swift-water rescue team was able to retrieve the deceased individual, who was later identified as Anthony Sasso, 54 of Laytonville. Sasso's next of kin was notified as a part of this investigation.

During the coroner's investigation, Sheriff's Office Deputies learned Sasso had gone to the river with a friend. A witness observed Sasso jumping off a rock, about 25-30 feet above the river surface, into a deep section of the river (approximately 20-25 feet deep). After jumping from the rock into the river, Sasso appeared to be in distress and sunk to the bottom or the river. Due to there being no cellular services in the area, road workers working in the area were notified and emergency services were requested.

UKIAH COSTCO BUM RUSHED FOR TV SETS

A group of alleged thieves reportedly entered Costco this evening on Ukiah's Airport Park Boulevard and ran out without paying for upwards of six televisions. Law enforcement is converging on the area.

Scanner traffic indicated the theft occurred around 6:38 p.m. at 1275 Airport Park Boulevard. The suspects were described as two males, one with arm tattoos, driving a red Toyota 4-Runner.

Costco staff are reviewing video footage to provide law enforcement with more information about the suspects.

(Matt LaFever, MendoFever.com)

BOONVILLE QUIZ THIS THURSDAY

The big Boonville General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz will once again be held at 7pm at Lauren’s at The Buckhorn… $$$$$ in prizes; excellent beer, wine, and cocktails; dinner served until 8.30pm. What more do you need? Hope to see you there. Cheers, Steve Sparks, The Quizmaster.

UKIAH WOMAN ALLEGES FALSE ARREST

My name is Kamelle Leggette and as a Black female I have experienced overt racism with the Ukiah Police Department in Mendocino County. 

I was wrongfully arrested for domestic violence by Ukiah Police officer, Officer Christopher Mann, on July 25, 2023 for an incident that occured on July 22, 2023. The incident involved my daughter's father; we had a disagreement over the phone, and when the father entered my home; I asked him to leave and I took the video footage on my camera. 

That Saturday, several officers and the Ukiah Police Lieutenant Parker and Officer Rodello arrived and informed me that I would not be arrested, as the father had entered my home and stayed after I asked him several times to leave. No domestic violence happened at my home. Recorded video footage on my phone showed proof of what occurred during the incident in my home. 

Three days after the incident, Officer Christopher Mann informed me, on July 25, 2023, that I was being arrested for domestic violence, and while in the police car explained that he was arresting me to have time to investigate domestic violence.

I was distraught as he handcuffed me and I was sent to jail. 

The next day I was informed that the DA dropped the charges against me and the judge ordered my immediate release. My arrest was turned into a detention.

I informed the Sheriff's Department upon my release to not disclose my booking photo as I am innocent and a Black-female business owner and my reputation is a part of my business. I was informed by the booking release administration department clerk that it would not be released. The following day, I received several phone calls from community members and business contractors that they had seen my booking photo posted. 

I immediately reached out to the Lieutenant at the jail and asked him to remove my booking photo. He informed me that he did and that it should no longer be posted on the booking logs. I asked him why he would post it if it is not in compliance with AB1475 and he said, “We post all booking photos even those who were arrested and turned into a detainment.” 

A week later, I lost several business contracts because of the negative image that my arrest would cause their organizations. On August 1, 2023 I spoke to, and recorded the Lieutenant at the jail. He informed me that he took the booking log photo down, and although he is aware the jail works with several agencies and accounts that report information, he refused to contact those agencies to inform them to take my name and booking information off their sites. 

This has not been my first issue with the Sheriff's Department as I was wrongfully arrested on August 22, 2022 for violating a restraining order that did not exist at the time of the arrest. Again they changed the arrest into a detainment and took down my booking photo. Lieutenant Elmore informed me that they saw it in the CLETS system, but upon verifying there was nothing in the CLETS system it means I was falsely arrested. 

The racism that is involved in the Sheriff's abusing the law must be addressed as their job is to adhere to the law and not abuse their power, especially with people of color who are often targeted.

I am filing a lawsuit against the Ukiah Police Department for failing to comply with the law, being AB1475 and the harm it has caused to my reputation, my business, and to me as a person both financially and emotionally. The Sheriff's clear negligence not only affects me but so many other individuals who they have done this to and could potentially constitute a class action lawsuit against them for failure to adhere to laws that are meant to protect citizens they are supposed to serve. 

Furthermore, as a Black female in a predominantly white community, the issue of covert racism is the issue that makes the Sheriff's Department feel the need to abuse their power. If I were a white female business owner, I am sure they would have been more compliant. 

Kamelle Leggette 

CEO, WeThrive Consulting Services LLC. 

WILLIAMS & HIS RANCID CREW

Editor:

I see that Mendocino Coast Resident and former Ted Williams campaign manager Lee Edmundson managed to crawl out from under his rock and respond to my financial criticism of Supervisor Ted Williams. To review: I had stated that in the 2018 campaign when Ted was vying for the Fifth District seat along with myself and three others; the Supes had just voted themselves a hefty pay raise, bringing many County residents to a state of outrage, and putting a lot of pressure on us as candidates to declare a position. Williams arrogantly declared “I don't need the money.” So now as the County melts down with SEIU employees on the verge of a strike, it begs the question: Why isn’t Williams willing to share the pain? In Lee’s toady defense he extolled Ted as a self-made man referring to the usual “bootstraps,” “self made man” tripe, etc. But this never was about how Ted got his money. The point remains that Ted glammed his voter base. But now in the position of power is unwilling to share any of the pain.

On Edmundson: he hasn’t (outside of being Ted’s campaign manager) contributed anything to our coastal community on a political or social  level for decades now, his stepping forward to work with Ted can certainly be viewed as an attempt to escape complete irrelevance by becoming a Williams toady and enabler.

Edmundson closes his letter with “As for Chris Skyhawk, he should never forget, and forever remind himself of the fact that he scuttled his own campaign for Supervisor in 2018 by his own actions, he knows what they were; so do others.”

Clearly a reference that I had taken MDMA (aka Ecstasy) on the day of my stroke. Indeed ‘tis true; I have occasionally dabbled in the use of hallucinogens for self-reflection and emotional and spiritual insights, even before it became trendy like it is now. Well, the day of June 26, 2018 I took the Ecstacy, Ted and I were locked into a November run off. I had been severely shocked by Ted’s Campaign tactics against me. Since we had been been Allies in the Albion Little River Fire Protection District, I had expected a friendly, respectful campaign. I could not have been more mistaken. I was certainly prepared for political shenanigans. I’d been a part of numerous local campaigns over the years, and had engaged in numerous acts of civil disobedience. So I considered myself rough and tough. I was not prepared for the Machiavellian tactics of a man who had been an ally, and he has continued in this behavior since securing the office. So when I advised “beware this man,” I speak with some unique personal experience. 

As for Edmundson, this is a man who is unable to curb the nicotine addiction that is literally killing him (he has COPD). For a man who succumbs on a daily basis to his death wish to cast moral aspersion on myself or anyone else is the height of arrogance. I will not accept it, nor should anyone else in our County. This just further highlights the scumbaggery that Williams and his allies are willing to subject us all to. We can and must do better. Our County and our world need politicians that are honest and transparent. Williams and his ilk are neither. Since Williams is not up for reelection and easily dispatched his recent challenger by avoiding any discussion of his record, it is my hope that a credible challenger will arise the next time around, and until then that other districts elect Supervisors with competence and moral integrity to offset Ted.

Chris Skyhawk

Fort Bragg

BOONFIRE!

CCM Picnic in the Park, Boonfire

Grab your picnic blanket and basket and join us at Friendship Park on August 12th (Doors open at 12, music at 1) for the Community Center of Mendocino’s first ever Picnic in the Park Fundraiser featuring the Rock/Reggae sounds of Boonfire + DJ Lino. Tickets are $15 (Kids $5) and all proceeds directly support our children’s enrichment programs. In addition to live music, we will be serving up wine & beer plus charcuterie plates and pulled pork sliders! Gates open at 12 annd Boonfire takes the stage at 1. Advance tickets are available at ccmendo.org/picnic. Hope to see you there.

Amanda Ficili <disneygotogirl@gmail.com>

THE GREAT DEBATE

Hello Mr. Anderson,

Here are two possible dates for the Change Our Name debate: Tuesday, August 22 and Tuesday, August 29. Please choose the date you prefer, and the Change Our Name group will try to secure the community room at the Fort Bragg Library, 499 E. Laurel St., for 7:30 p.m. on the date you choose. This room seats 60. We plan to record the debate if you have no objections.

Regards,

Jane Person

ED NOTE: I told Ms. Person that the 22nd at the library was fine with me although given the level of interest a larger site might be preferable.

ED NOTES

ENCOUNTERED at Boontberry Farm on Tuesday, Gregory Sims told me, “I’ve just turned 90.” Dr. Sims was shuffling out to his car, a sight that so alarmed me, I blurted out, “You’re still driving?” The redoubtable psychologist replied, “Yes, I am still driving. In fact tomorrow I’m driving to Palo Alto.”

DID YOU KNOW that Duke Snider, the great Dodger outfielder from the days when ballplayers ran out routine groundballs and weren't instant millionaires, maintained a summer place at Ten Mile north of Fort Bragg? Or that Vince DiMaggio, brother of Dominic and Joe, and a pretty fair ballplayer himself, is buried in the Fort Bragg cemetery? 

AMONG the many characters who’ve come and gone from the Anderson Valley, Gerald Ren, was one of my faves. The Rens were Moonies, randomly paired off and married in one of the Reverend Moon’s Yankee Stadium mass weddings — “You the Italian lady will marry the German man” — and, in Boonville, seemed happy with each other. The Rens were in charge of Moon’s chinchilla farm deep in the west hills on property now owned by Sheep Dung Estates. High school kids worked part-time feeding the valuable little critters. The part-timers often smuggled a couple of chinchillas out for household pets, none of which survived for long away from the temperature-controlled trailers where they were born, raised and killed for fur coats. Last I heard from Ren, he sent me a card announcing his new career as a real estate broker in Daytona Beach. Ren asked me to alert anyone making a move to Florida to let him know and he’ll locate just the right house for them. 

HERE IN MENDOCINO COUNTY, we will recall, the sexual abuse of children — fairly rare in real life — took the form of Satanism, as in “Satanist child abuse.” Small children, you see, were being lent to devil-worshipping perverts who needed the little ones for their Beelzebub rituals north of Fort Bragg. Only a true perv could believe this stuff, but an array of official persons, who one would think would know better, included screwballs somehow employed by Mendocino County’s Welfare Department’s CPS and its laughably defective Mental Health bureaucracy, clambered aboard the non-existent Satanist phenomenon, the point being that drop-fall credulity isn’t confined to Trump voters. Great harm was done to at least a dozen women, and even worse crimes were committed against the children of these women by tax-funded Satanist “experts” like Mr. and Mrs. Robert Horton of Ukiah, none of whom were fired or even reprimanded.

HAM CANYON, not more than three miles north and west from central Boonville, is the site of an intriguing piece of Valley history. It was homesteaded some time in the last quarter of the last century by an emancipated slave named Jeans who, it is said, still bore the scars from his pre-Civil War master’s whip. Jeans married an Indian woman with whom he had two children, one of whom appears in old class pictures taken at the Little Red School House, now a local museum. 

JEANS was a skilled farmer who developed Ham Canyon into productive plots of orchard and garden. Old timers remember his sons, one of whom was nearly murdered by a Coast mob when he was falsely accused of rape (old story there, huh?) and went insane from the terror of the experience, finishing his days in the state hospital at Talmage. The other Jeans son, Albert, I believe his name was, eked out a living as an itinerant peddler and was a familiar sight on the old Redwood Highway, now 128. The Jeans’ homestead and its still-producing apple trees is still a fertile, peaceful place from a time when a fundamentally wronged person could still take up a piece of land and live on it, safe and away from the rest of the world.

UKIAH UNIFIED ADDING SECURITY FENCING TO SCHOOLS: Do good fences make good neighbors?

Although school shootings are a considerable factor, there are other circumstances that have created the need for the extensive security fencing presently under construction at Ukiah High School, Big Picture Ukiah @ South Valley High School, Eagle Peak and Pomolita Middle Schools and Oak Manor, Nokomis and Yokayo Elementary Schools. (Fences around Frank Zeek and Calpella Elementary will go up next year and Grace Hudson Elementary was fenced when the building was constructed in 2005 with additional side fencing put up in 2016.)…

ukiahdailyjournal.com/2023/07/31/ukiah-unified-adding-security-fencing-to-schools-do-good-fences-make-good-neighbors/

REDWOOD EMPIRE FAIR

We have one more day before we go to the Redwood Empire Fair!

Everyone is excited having worked very hard with their projects!

Nayely and Jose have raised Cornish Cross Chickens. They have extra chickens not going to fair that are looking to go to freezer camp for $20 each. These chickens are at least 6 pounds and are ready for processing. 

You can contact Nayely's mother, Sofia, at 707-272-9829.

Support these great FFA members and their project!

GRAPE GROWERS GRIPE ABOUT PENDING RUSSIAN RIVER SEDIMENT CONTROL ORDER

by Christine Souza

Winegrape growers in Mendocino and Sonoma counties say a proposed water-quality regulation establishes general waste discharge requirements for vineyards that are burdensome, costly and often duplicate work by growers participating in sustainability certification programs.

Rather than regulating all agricultural crops under one order—an approach taken by some other regions—Kari Fisher, senior counsel for the California Farm Bureau, said the North Coast regional board created a separate irrigated lands permit for all commercial vineyards regardless of size.

“The projections that the regional board put in their draft order underestimate the regulatory cost for growers,” Fisher said. “The requirements, such as those for turbidity monitoring, are going to be very costly given the many discharge points that growers have to monitor.”

Another issue, she said, is even growers with just a few acres fall under the definition of a commercial vineyard. “Vastly small growers are included under these regulations,” she said.

The North Coast is the last of the state’s nine regions to develop general waste discharge requirements as part of the state’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program. The purpose is to regulate runoff from irrigated agriculture to prevent discharges and protect surface water and groundwater.

In its June 30 proposed draft, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board creates new monitoring and reporting requirements for nitrogen applications and removals and lays out paths to compliance for individuals or use of third-party programs to help farmers achieve the order’s objectives.

Fisher said the state’s 2018 adoption of an order revising agricultural requirements for the East San Joaquin River watershed was precedential and required other regional boards to update their irrigated lands programs.

Mendocino County winegrape grower Frost Pauli said, “The biggest single issue is the individual grower monitoring and reporting requirements.”

“Under the draft, every grower must do individual monitoring of surface turbidity and of groundwater for nitrates and chemicals,” he said. “If you have four or five domestic wells on a vineyard, you have to test every single one of them for nitrates, and you have to test for 20 chemicals.”

Pauli’s vineyards in Napa County fall under the irrigated lands program adopted by the regional water quality control board overseeing region 2 and the Napa River watershed. For vineyards in region 2, he said there are no individual grower monitoring requirements.

“(In region 2), it’s all representative monitoring done in a few locations to make sure that there’s not a problem, and if there is a problem, the result is to go upstream to find where the point source of that issue is,” Pauli said. “We’re saying, ‘Why can’t we be like region 2? It’s the same crop.’”

Other aspects of the North Coast region’s draft regulation that growers said are unreasonable include an annual “winterization” period Nov. 15 to April 1, when any ground-disturbing activity is prohibited. In addition, during this time growers are not allowed to drive into vineyards unless traveling on “all-weather” roads.

Pauli called that “nonsense,” saying it means growers may not access vineyards to do routine cultural practices for almost half the year, including during a critical time when vines go dormant. “This is going to be a huge problem,” he said.

The regulation includes a setback requirement alongside creeks.

Growers must have a natural barrier, and depending on the type of stream and where it is, the barrier determines what the setback is, Pauli said.

“The setback can be anywhere from 25 feet to 50 feet, depending on the condition of the stream, size and when it flows,” he added.

Pauli knows a small winegrape grower in Mendocino County who has an 11-acre vineyard that borders a creek. Because of the setback requirement, Pauli said, the grower estimates he would have to remove three or four vines at the end of every row to comply, losing one of his 11 acres.

Noelle Cremers, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for The Wine Institute, which represents California wineries, said many North Coast winegrape growers realize there is a need to adopt an order but suggested regulations be based on risk.

Cremers said growers who are low risk should have a simple process for compliance, while those who are higher risk should have higher standards.

“Then you’re putting costs on people that will have a real impact on the environment and not on those who are just doing all this reporting and it’s not really going to have any benefit,” she added.

People are having a difficult time understanding why all the nitrogen requirements apply to them, Cremers said, because nitrogen application rates are lower for winegrapes than other crops. She said the risk of contamination “is pretty much nil.”

The Russian River watershed, where just 10% of land is farmed in grapes, has been designated by the state as an impaired water related to sediment. Cremers noted that the regional board has not yet developed a Total Maximum Daily Load program plan, which involves studies that identify sources of sediment discharge in the watershed.

“Because the Russian River doesn’t have a TMDL, it feels like the regional board is asking vineyards to take on the role of monitoring for sediment for the entire watershed,” Cremers said. “Why are we being asked to undertake all of that monitoring? That should have been done through a TMDL process.”

Sonoma County Farm Bureau Deputy Executive Director Robin Bartholow said, “Many growers are already enrolled in sustainable farming programs and are engaging in best management practices that are required to be certified, so it does get a little bit frustrating when they’re asked to do additional reporting.”

Many winegrape growers in Mendocino and Sonoma counties are sustainably certified through the Fish Friendly Farming Certification program, recognized as a method of compliance for the irrigated lands regulatory program.

Through the Fish Friendly Farming program, Laurel Marcus, author of the program and science director at the California Land Stewardship Institute, said scientific staff work with farmers to evaluate all sources and potential sources of sediment and to inventory chemical use.

She said the program “provides the grower a blueprint for what they need to do to maintain water quality and not contribute pollutants to waterways.” In Sonoma County, 54,600 total acres are enrolled in the program, and 40,000 total acres are enrolled in Mendocino County.

Winegrape growers affected by the draft order are hopeful they can work with the regional board to meet the regulatory mandate and improve the order to make it more reasonable, Bartholow said.

In addition to the vineyard requirements, in January 2021, the state adopted new wastewater discharge regulations affecting wineries that apply winery process water to land for irrigation and soil amendment uses.

“We’re getting hit by all sides,” Pauli said of the regulations.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board scheduled a public workshop about the order this Friday and the public comment period was extended to Aug. 30. The board could adopt the order in December. 

(Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert, a production of the California Farm Bureau. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)

MEMO OF THE WEEK

Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission

P.O.1247, Ukiah, CA 95482

mciwpc@mendoiwpe.com

July 28, 2023

Honorable Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

888 First Street, N.E., Room 1A

Washington, D.C. 20426

Re: Potter Valley Project No. 77-313: 

Comments and Motion To Intervene 

by the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission in response to the May 23, 2023 filing by Pacific Gas and Electric Company titled Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project, FERC No. 77-CA 2023 Flow Variance Request Due to Limited Storage Capacity.

Dear Secretary Bose,

The Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission (MCIWPC), a Joint Powers Authority, representing the County of Mendocino, City of Ukiah, Redwood Valley County Water District, Potter Valley Irrigation District and the Mendocino County Russian River Flood Control and Water Conservation Improvement District requests to intervene and comment on Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PG&E) May 23, 2023 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) titled Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project (Project), FERC No. 77-CA 2023 Flow Variance Request Due to Limited Storage Capacity.

PG&E has based the variance request on the results of a simplified two-dimensional seismic study analysis of Scott Dam. The study suggests that Scott Dam may become structurally unstable when subjected to seismic loading based on new criteria using updated ground motion data. The study also determined that the potential for seismic instability is lower when the water level at Lake Pillsbury is at or below the spill crest elevation. Because of these results PG&E has determined that the gates at Scott Dam will remain open year round. This decision lowers the lake height by ten feet below the maximum reservoir operating level thus reducing available storage by 26% or 20,000 acre feet. The resulting reduction in storage means that, even in wet years, Lake Pillsbury storage will begin each water year in what now, under the current license, would be considered a Dry Year Classification.

PG&E requests in the Variance that Eel River flows at E-11 remain unchanged and classified as a Wet Year while East Branch Russian River (EBRR) flows at E-16 be reduced initially from 75 cfs to 25 cfs, which is a Dry Year Classification. As the summer progresses, depending upon the draw down rate and temperature of the water released from Scott Dam at E-2, E-16 releases may be further reduced to as little as 5 cfs or to a Critical Water Year Classification flow rate.

Water rights for all of MCIWPC member agencies, as well as communities along the Russian River as far south as Marin County are based in whole, or in part, on diversions of water from the Project. With current storage levels at Lake Pillsbury over 50,000 AF it appears that under current draw down rates, and all current required flow releases, storage at Lake Pillsbury will remain above levels of concern for the remainder of 2023. Therefore, we do not agree that there is a need for such a drastic reduction in the minimum EBRR flow rate at this time. The current minimum license required flow rate at E-16 in the EBRR is 75 cfs. and it will be reduced to 35 cfs on September 15". Instead of immediately implementing the Dry Year Classification flow rates at E-16 we believe that FERC should direct PG&E, in consultation with the Drought Working Group (DWG), to slowly reduce E-16 minimum instream flows based on observed changes in storage levels at Lake Pillsbury, and water temperatures below Scott Dam, over the next several months. This would protect the minimum pool levels at Lake Pillsbury, improve conditions for listed fish in the Eel River, reduce impacts to water availability for appropriative water right users and maintain minimum instream flows in the EBRR.

MCIWPC is a member of the DWG and supports continued discussion in that forum to determine if reductions in the minimum EBRR flows to protect storage in Lake Pillsbury and improve conditions below Scott Dam at E-2 for the fishery are warranted.

Changes to the minimum instream flow requirement to the EBRR at E-16 impacts water supply reliability within the entire Russian River watershed. The California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) has granted Appropriative Water Rights to hundreds of diverters along the Russian River from the Project downstream to the Pacific Ocean. These water rights are predicated, in part, on expected annual Eel River diversions that are based on Project license conditions and water year classifications. The water diverted through the Project is either collected into storage at Lake Mendocino or bypassed through the reservoir to provide domestic and agricultural water to communities from Redwood Valley in Mendocino County all the way down the Russian River through Sonoma County and into Marin County. Part of the water stored in Lake Mendocino is required to be used in the Russian River to maintain minimum instream flows determined by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 2008 Biological Opinion for species of anadromous fish listed under the Endangered Species Act. Arbitrarily changing the water year classification for the diversion at the Project has far reaching consequences.

In conclusion, for the reasons listed above, MCIWPC requests FERC to reject PG&E's variance request to implement the E-16 Dry Year Classification flow regime until updated predictions of storage levels at Lake Pillsbury are determined. Rather than grant the proposed variance, we request that FERC direct PG&E, in consultation with the DWG, to incrementally reduce flow releases at E-16 to a Dry Year Classification if it becomes necessary to protect the minimum storage pool in Lake Pillsbury or to improve conditions for the fishery below E-2 at Scott Dam due to water temperature concerns later in the summer and fall.

MCIWPC formally files these Comments And Motion To Intervene in the matter of FERC Project No. 77-313 Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Application for Temporary Variance of Flow Requirements.

Respectfully Submitted,

(ee Lal, Janet K.F. Pauli, Chair Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission

GIMME SHELTER

Hey Valley~

My partner and I are looking for housing. We're casting our net wide and hoping that what is meant for us will find us soon. We're looking at multiple locations in Mendo and Sonoma counties. We've both lived with community for years and have experience tending land, garden, and farm animals. Sky works as a hairstylist and with queer youth. I work as a caterer for community retreats and events. If you have anything or know of anything in your networks that might align, please share and reach out.

Jes Vee

551-574-1285 & 206-422-9636

thejesplease@gmail.com & skynebula206@gmail.com

FROM MENDO'S PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT

If you look at the Mendocino County death data on the California Department of Public Health COVID-19 dashboard, it will show 154 deaths instead of 146. The State of California has changed the way COVID-19 deaths are counted. The state now counts COVID-19 deaths based on the same criteria as other illnesses. The increase is the result of re-counting past COVID-19 deaths with new criteria. For the state, this is an increase of 0.3%, and for Mendocino County, it is a 5% increase. This change does not represent an increasing trend. COVID-19 deaths over the last 6 months in Mendocino County have declined and remain low.

COVID-19 is still in our community. People are testing positive but at low levels. We are not worried about a surge as we have seen in the past but expect cases to rise this fall and winter as we often do for respiratory illnesses like the flu.

Be prepared for the fall and winter respiratory illness season.

1. Now is the time to vaccinate if you have not kept up on your boosters. The single-dose bivalent vaccine is available to almost everyone over 6 years old, including those who have never had a shot. If you are over 60 or immune compromised, you may be eligible for a booster 4 months from your last vaccination. For children under 6, consult your healthcare provider.

2. If you are sick with respiratory symptoms, take a COVID-19 over-the-counter antigen test (mostly free). If you test negative, but your symptoms continue, test again in 2 days to be sure. If you have a positive test, you should isolate for 5 days. You can end isolation after a negative test if you no longer have a fever and symptoms have decreased. Wear a mask indoors if you live with vulnerable people. Be sure to have them test as well.

3. Medication can reduce your risk of severe symptoms, hospitalization, and long COVID. If you test positive, contact your healthcare provider, or call Sesame Care at +1 (888) 897-1244.

4. If you have been exposed to someone who has COVID-19 but are not sick, test with an antigen test as soon as you know. Test again in two days to be sure. Wear a mask when you are out or around vulnerable people until you know you are not sick. If you are not ill, there is no reason to quarantine.

5. People over 65 years old and those with compromised immune systems should consider wearing a mask indoors with other people to prevent exposure. N95-type masks are the safest. If you are with a group of people indoors, consider increasing ventilation with open windows, doors, fans, or air conditioners.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, August 1, 2023

SHANNON ARNOLD, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

BHAKTI DILLENBECK, Ukiah. Burglary, trespassing.

JAMES MCCLEAN, Lakeport/Ukiah. Parole violation.

DANIEL PEREZ, Manchester. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation.

CHERRI ROBERTS, Ukiah. Under influence, resisting, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

CLINTON SALLEE, Fort Bragg. County parole violation.

JACE SCHNABL, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Obtaining personal ID without authorization.

WILLIAM SLAGLE, Hayward/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ATTENTION, HUFF

Jared,

This is THE END OF EUROPE kind of stuff. 95% chance of that by the end of this century. COULD POSSIBLY START IN TWO YEARS!

This is what the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was about, although everything in that movie was wildly sped up to happen over a matter of weeks and it had these bizarre collapsing holes in the atmosphere.

But the Gulf Stream is why Rome doesn't have the climate of Chicago. They're both at 41 degrees N Lat. And why London doesn't have the climate of Calgary. Both are at 51 degrees N Lat.

The freezing Canadian air, until when this happens, passes over the Gulf Stream and then the North Atlantic Drift, which is a giant ocean river of hot water (got to over 100 degrees last week) that runs up the east coast of North America starting in the Gulf of Mexico and warms and moisturizes that frigid Canadian air as it crosses the North Atlantic. So by the time it gets to Europe, that air is mild.

That is what will stop when AMOC shuts down. So the Canadian air will still be really cold when it hits Europe. Best statistical estimate is that will happen in 2050, 27 years from now. But 95% chance that it will happen between 2025 and 2095. And it could happen as soon as two years from now, as the headline in the Guardian article states.

So essentially, Europe is going to very suddenly, over a decade or two, go from having a climate like the US to a climate like Canada: an 18 degree F avg temperature drop. The difference? The climate Europe has had has allowed the growth of a population to ¾ billion people, while Canada's climate has allowed it to increase to only 40 million. And everyone in Canada pretty much lives within, what, 100 miles of the US border?

So everyone in Europe is going to have to move to the Mediterranean nations, or to Subsaharan Africa, or... to here. Yes those same nations like Spain and Italy that have been on fire this summer. ¾ of a billion people... It's not going to be hordes of climate refugee people of color who flood our shores, it's going to be hordes of white people.

And still #TraitorJoeBiden hasn't cut back on any US fossil fuel production and is unlikely to do that any time between now and January 2029 when he leaves office.

Do your science homework, Jared. You can not say you haven’t been warned for a dozen years about these catastrophes. History will condemn you as Jared “Too Little Too Late” Huffman. There are no incrementalist solutions to the climate crisis. Too little too late, is as good as no action at all.

Andy Caffrey

Garberville

JOHN REDDING:

Is Climate Change (aka anthropogenic global warming) a hoax that is consciously being perpetrated on the public? To even ask the question invites rebuke and mockery. 

But what else can you conclude when the media and the entirety of the climate change industry ignores pertinent developments that might explain recent temperature increases?

I learned this weekend that on January 15, 2022, a huge underwater volcano, named Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (don't try saying that at home, leave it to a speech specialist) erupted and spewed an enormous amount of water vapor into the atmosphere. So much so that it increased atmospheric water vapor by 10-13%. Moreover, little Sulfur Dioxide, which blocks sunlight, was emitted.

You won't learn this from the climate change industry, but water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas than CO2. It accounts for 50% of the greenhouse effect. So, a 10% increase is a big deal and the likely cause of recent temperature increases. 

But what do we get from the dishonest media? Hottest temperatures ever thanks to the evil use of fossil fuels which must be stopped by government coercion.

For all the money that has and will be spent in the US to head off global warming, we could have better infrastructure and healthcare (my next post). 

TWO SUPERMOONS IN AUGUST

by Kellie Hwang

The first of two August supermoons will rise over the Bay Area on Tuesday, kicking off a “very unusual” month featuring two full moons at their closest distance to Earth along their orbit, according to astronomers. 

The first one, on Tuesday, is traditionally known as a full sturgeon moon because of the giant fish in the Great Lakes readily caught at this time of year. The second, on Aug. 30, is called a blue moon because it occurs in the same calendar month as another full moon.

It will also be the closest supermoon of the year.

“A supermoon happens when a full moon occurs within 24 hours of the moon reaching lunar perigee, the point in its orbit where it is closest to Earth,” said Gerald McKeegan, adjunct astronomer for Chabot Space & Science Center.

Supermoons are not unusual, McKeegan said — they can happen more than once a year, or not at all in other years. However, “the fact that both full moons this August are also supermoons is very unusual,” he said.

In addition, the public is “often fascinated” by them because “the full moon will appear larger in the sky,” he said.

“The moon’s average distance from the Earth is about 239,000 miles,” he said. “But its orbit is elliptical, so it can come as close as 221,337 miles, or as far away as 252,567 miles. When the full moon occurs closest to the Earth, it appears 14% larger than when the moon is farthest from the Earth.”

Tuesday night’s full moon will occur at 11:31 a.m. Pacific time, with the lunar perigee happening about 12 hours later, according to McKeegan. 

“The full Moon will rise on August 1st right at sunset, and will be easily visible throughout the night,” he said.

Perigee for the supermoon on Aug. 30 will happen at about 9:15 a.m. Pacific time, and it will reach its full phase around 6:35 p.m., McKeegan said. This moon will also appear full all night, beginning as soon as it rises at sunset.

(SF Chronicle)

BILL KIMBERLIN: 

“It’s hard to overstate how good the U.S. economic news has been lately. It was so good that it didn’t just raise hopes for the future; it led to widespread rethinking of the past. Basically, Bidenomics, widely reviled and ridiculed a year ago, looks a lot better in retrospect. It’s starting to look as if the administration got it mostly right, after all.

About the economic news: First up was the employment report for June, which didn’t just show continuing solid job growth. It showed that once you adjust for population aging, the employed share of American adults is at its highest level in decades.

Then came the Consumer Price Index, which showed inflation falling to its lowest level since spring 2021. Thanks to falling inflation, most American workers now have higher real wages than they did before the pandemic — in fact, nonsupervisory workers are earning roughly what we would have expected if the pandemic had never happened.

Economic growth, as measured by gross domestic product, came in above expectations, once again defying predictions of recession.

Finally, an alternative price measure favored by the Federal Reserve also gave solid evidence of falling inflation, while employment costs moderated — that is, there’s no hint of a wage-price spiral”

— Paul Krugman

SONNET “THE BROKEN HEART,” JOHN DONNE

Only broken dreams are beautiful and useful. I don’t know the useful part, and I just aspire.

Whatever troubles and dreams upset you.

I think you will be strong and wise to say,

Only broken dreams are beautiful

And Beautiful exists

— Quincy Steele

JACK KEROUAC ALLEY was happily packed last evening as we celebrated the 125th issue of ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine, and bid a fond farewell to longtime Editor-in-Chief Laura Kogan. 

We were joined by Oscar Villalon, the magazine’s new senior editor John McMurtrie, contributors Matthew Zapruder and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and many subscribers. 

John McMurtrie read a poem by Joyce Mansour, excerpted in the issue. Yesterday was the pub date Mansour’s EMERALD WOUNDS: SELECTED POEMS, translated by Emilie Moorhouse, edited by Garrett Caples, and proudly published by City Lights! 

Thanks to the staff at Vesuvio Cafe for their support, as well.

THE WORKS OF THE ROOTS of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit - and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate - died of malnutrition - because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

― John Steinbeck ‘The Grapes of Wrath’

FITCH DOWNGRADES US CREDIT RATING OVER RISING DEBT, REPEATED STANDOFFS

Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. on Friday, saying the country’s growing debt and repeated standoffs over the borrowing limit make it less trustworthy then before.

Fitch downgraded the U.S. from a rating of “AAA” to “AA+” after several years of high-risk partisan battles over the debt limit. Those battles, Fitch said, have led to a spiraling national debt and a lack of faith in the U.S. government to handle it.

“There has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” Fitch wrote.

“The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”

— Sylvan Lane, ‘The Hill’

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

When I had a minor in English, my school dropped the requirement for a full semester of Chaucer. That must have been around 1997. I was gobsmacked. Glad I took it. And Donne, and Shakespeare. I had wanted to teach Spanish and English, but discovered how unrigorous the latter had become. I could not respect myself and teach how to deconstruct cereal boxes and condom wrappers as “found texts.”

TRUMP-BIDEN REMATCH IN 2024 WOULD BE CRIMINAL

by Piers Morgan

Dear America,

Have you gone completely bonkers?

I say this as a Brit from across the pond with a deep and abiding love for your country and its people.

But seriously, what the hell is going on with your 2024 presidential race?

A stunning New York Times poll shows Donald Trump surging ahead in the Republican nominee battle despite facing a slew of criminal charges and the imminent likelihood of more to come.

It seems the more charges he faces, the more his party embraces him as their candidate.

Incredibly, 22% of Republican voters polled even said they preferred Trump to his nearest rival, Ron DeSantis, in a head-to-head contest despite believing the ex-president has committed serious federal crimes!

So they’d rather have someone they think is a crook in the White House than a non-crook, despite knowing that if Trump wins, he’ll be so tied up in court cases, he won’t have time to run a bath, let alone the country.

And should he lose one of those cases, I have two questions:

How do you make America great again if you’re convicted of serious crimes?

How do you serve your country if you’re serving a prison sentence?

Trump supporters can blame the Department of Justice all they like for their hero’s legal woes, and I’ve no doubt there’s some validity to their belief that the DOJ has been heavily politicized.

But evidence is evidence, and the more actual evidence I see presented against Trump, including both alleged crimes and cover-ups, the worse his situation looks.

At what point do even his most die-hard fans understand that Trump’s primary motivation right now is winning the presidency so he can pardon himself?

And thus, he’s the complete opposite of the Joan of Arc-style martyr he’d like them to believe he is?

It emerged yesterday that Trump’s political action committee Save America, which fundraises mainly through small donations from regular Americans, has spent over $40 million on legal fees this year.

That’s more than double what the PAC spent on legal fees in the whole of 2022.

So Trump’s literally using his supporters to try to bail himself out.

When he says, “They’re not coming for me, they’re coming for you,” he knows that’s nonsense. They’re coming for him, and he is using them, his supporters, to protect himself.

Do they know this?

Do they care if they do?

I fear we’ve reached the point where Trump’s “joke” in 2019 that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters is now probably true.

Certainly that’s the only explanation I can think of for why none of the indictments seems to diminish his appeal to his base.

We’ve also reached the point when deluded Democrats must take off their own blinders and admit Hunter Biden’s conduct wasn’t just shameful but also criminal, and that despite all his indignant protestations, his father, President Biden, was up to his neck in his errant son’s sleazy, scheming and corrupt shenanigans too.

As The Post’s editorial said on Saturday: “BOTH Trump and Biden can be crooks.”

Exactly.

Which begs the question: How on Earth can these two deeply damaged, divisive and unpopular men be heading toward the least wanted rematch in political history?

And that’s before we even get to the issue of their advanced ages.

Both men — Biden’s 81, Trump’s 77 — would be octogenarian presidents if they win next year.

In Biden’s case, his physical and mental well-being is already a real and present problem.

If he’s not falling over, he’s talking gibberish or falling asleep, and it seems like every time he appears in public, something embarrassing happens.

It’s not a question of his actual age.

I was at the England/Australia cricket match in London on Saturday with Sir Mick Jagger, who has just turned 80.

As we chatted, I saw firsthand that the Rolling Stones frontman has got the energy and vitality of a man half his age.

Biden, by contrast, has the energy and vitality of a man of 100.

Yet as things stand, he wants to serve another five and a half years as president of the United States.

This is insane.

As is the idea of a convicted criminal being leader of the free world.

But this increasingly seems the most likely choice facing the American electorate unless the Republican and Democratic parties both wake up and put the interests of the American people before their current partisan inaction.

For common sense to prevail, it’s going to take a viable presidential alternative to emerge on both sides.

None of the other Republican candidates, including DeSantis, has yet made a dent in Trump’s poll numbers despite all the mayhem engulfing him. They need to raise their game.

As do the younger, more dynamic Democratic contenders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

They all know Biden can’t possibly do another term in office, so Carpe diem.

CAMPAIGN 2024, OFFICIALLY CHAOS

America enters an unprecedented political unknown, and our leaders appear helpless to find a way out

by Matt Taibbi

At this stage of the cycle three elections ago, on August 1, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a controversial debt deal and headed back on the trail, starting with a pair of birthday fundraisers in Chicago. Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann left the stump in Iowa to return to Washington and vote against Obama’s deal, saying it “spends too much and doesn’t cut enough.” This was considered campaign excitement once. Boring is too mild a word for those mechanized non-dramas of yore.

A dozen years later, the campaign is pure chaos, Pompeii after the blast. In the annals of presidential races we haven’t experienced many days like yesterday, July 31, which ended with the futures of all major candidates appearing hopelessly clouded. Forget the national debt; there are now not-improbable scenarios in which the main issues in next year’s debates, which could easily involve both nominees in ankle monitors, are nuclear fallout and alien visitation. Our leaders, who once had the election process reduced to scripts more predictable than Everybody Loves Raymond, now seem to have no clue what will happen beyond the next few minutes.

If not for the fact that the disintegration of American society might be imminent as a result, I’d be laughing harder. It might be funny anyway. Consider: the establishment plan for the Republican Party this cycle was clearly Ron DeSantis, but a New York Times/Siena poll published yesterday shows he’s plunging like a stone, falling to 17%, a.k.a. 37 points behind Donald Trump.

Meanwhile Trump, indicted in multiple jurisdictions and the recipient of a target letter two weeks ago about a new January 6th-related charge, was by late last night reading headlines about a pending new indictment, coming as early as today (Trump just posted that he believes it’s coming). Prosecutors keep applying new charges to him like leeches on a medieval convalescent, and news audiences need a CNN case tracker to follow Trump’s charge count (76, with more on the way). The punchline? The man facing death in prison is in the strongest position of the major candidates.

Incumbent Joe Biden not only has the lowest approval rating in history — he “shouldn’t” be this unpopular “but he is,” mused a mortified Washington Post — but as of Monday, when his son’s former partner Devon Archer testified in Congress, he appeared to be careening toward withdrawal due to impairment, scandal, or both. As dire as Trump’s legal situation may be, the political panic on the blue side is as striking. CNN’s numbers guru Harry Enten woke up Democrats yesterday with a piece explaining that Trump “is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.” Enten cited a “number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden,” a situation he called “arguably… more amazing.”

It’s not amazing at all, but papers like the New York Times and Washington Post keep pounding the idea that it is. These outlets are suddenly filled with baleful criticisms of Biden, appearing to notice flaws for the first time. Pamela Paul in the Times compared her dread feelings about a Biden-Trump rematch to Lars Von Trier’s film, Melancholia, whose premise is an inexorable collision of a rogue planet with Earth. As if surprised, Paul wrote that Biden “appeared to actually wander off a set on MSNBC after figuratively wandering through 20 minutes of the host Nicolle Wallace’s gentle questions.”

Philip Bump at the Post meanwhile mourned the administration’s bet on “Bidenomics,” which polls show the public overwhelmingly associates with inflation and tax increases. The sudden stream of criticism from outlets that not long ago were in lockstep support of the administration advances a delusion that’s apparently widespread in elite circles, to the effect that Biden’s troubles are the result of traditional policy decisions, as opposed to the more obvious problem that the party in 2020 nominated a corpse with a slew of known corruption issues. 

It’s written on the faces of Democratic politicians that no one expected a multiple-indicted Trump to be competitive in polls with Biden this late in the game. This is causing messaging paralysis. No one knows what to say or think. 

Democratic congressman and ex-Mueller deputy Dan Goldman, present during Archer’s in camera hearing and usually a font of viperous overconfidence, looked like an elk taking a bullet yesterday as he stammered out the admission that Biden was on the phone with his son’s “potential business partners — or business partners.” Watch this agonizing sequence as Goldman tries to thread a needle between Archer’s testimony about the phone calls and Biden’s former comments that “I’ve never spoken to my son about his business dealings.”

The press explanations for Trump’s Jason Voorhees-like refusal to die are amazing. In one desperate CNN article, “Even Trump’s indictments haven’t shattered the deadlock between the parties. Here’s why,” Ronald Brownstein supposes the problem is that America’s two parties represent “such divergent visions of America’s future, particularly whether it welcomes or resists racial and cultural change,” that not even herding the other side’s candidate to prison will change minds. What a shock!

A BBC article from yesterday, “Why Trump’s Poll Lead Went Up After Criminal Indictments,” was even more tortured. The British news service quoted pollster Clifford Young:

“[Trump] said on Friday that he would not end his presidential campaign even if he were found guilty and sentenced.

That's uncharted territory in US politics, but Mr Young says the key “leading indicators” to watch will be whether Mr Trump’s favorability standing in polls and his “electability” — the view as to whether he can win back the White House — take noticeable shifts.

If that’s the case, it could presage an erosion of his support in a way that the string of indictments, as well as all the other controversies over his eight years in the public sphere, have not.”

This argument is a circle: Trump’s indictments haven’t eroded his support to date, but if we keep watching polls hard enough, we may see a change that would “presage an erosion of his support.”

The cognoscenti never figured out or accepted that the support for protest candidates like Trump or Bernie Sanders even is rooted in wide generalized rage directed their way. To this day they don’t accept it. They keep thinking they can wish it away, describe it away (see Bump’s description of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as “not at this point serious competition”), indict it away. If you drop 76 charges on a candidate and he goes up in polls, you might want to consider that you might be part of the problem. But they can’t take even that heavy a hint.

This race is turning into a parodic repeat of 2016, the difference being the shock waves that rippled across Washington on Election Day that year are already here, with all conceivable counter-measures already deployed. Instead of starting up a Russia investigation leaders hope will end in indictment, this time the guy is already indicted many times over, and voters have already signaled they’ll be unfazed by conviction. 

Democrats meanwhile are repeating the process of cooling turnout by blasting their own protest candidate, and instead of an alert-if-off-putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket, the standard-bearer is a half-sentient, influence-peddling version of Donovan’s Brain, with no one behind him but Kamala Harris — who just got asked by a trying-to-be-friendly reporter at ABC if “race and gender” were a cause of her own historically low approval rating. Absent a big switch, our future is either Donald Trump, who by next year will be in more restraints than Hannibal Lecter on the tarmac, or this DNC dog’s breakfast. Other countries are surely already laughing. It’s getting harder to resist joining them.

DECADES LATER, THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CALLED HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI ‘NUCLEAR TESTS’

by Norman Solomon

In 1980, when I asked the press office at the U.S. Department of Energy to send me a listing of nuclear bomb test explosions, the agency mailed me an official booklet with the title “Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through December 1979.” As you’d expect, the Trinity test in New Mexico was at the top of the list. Second on the list was Hiroshima. Third was Nagasaki.

So, 35 years after the atomic bombings of those Japanese cities in August 1945, the Energy Department -- the agency in charge of nuclear weaponry -- was categorizing them as “tests.”

Later on, the classification changed, apparently in an effort to avert a potential P.R. problem. By 1994, a new edition of the same document explained that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “were not ‘tests’ in the sense that they were conducted to prove that the weapon would work as designed . . . or to advance weapon design, to determine weapons effects, or to verify weapon safety.”

But the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually* were* tests, in more ways than one.

Take it from the Manhattan Project’s director, Gen. Leslie Groves, who recalled: “To enable us to assess accurately the effects of the bomb, the targets should not have been previously damaged by air raids. It was also desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb.”

A physicist with the Manhattan Project, David H. Frisch, remembered that U.S. military strategists were eager “to use the bomb first where its effects would not only be politically effective but also technically measurable.”

For good measure, after the Trinity bomb test in the New Mexico desert used plutonium as its fission source on July 16, 1945, in early August the military was able to test both a uranium-fueled bomb on Hiroshima and a second plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to gauge their effects on big cities.

Public discussion of the nuclear era began when President Harry Truman issued a statement that announced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima -- which he described only as “an important Japanese Army base.” It was a flagrant lie. A leading researcher of the atomic bombings of Japan, journalist Greg Mitchell, has pointed out: “Hiroshima was not an ‘army base’ but a city of 350,000. It did contain one important military headquarters, but the bomb had been aimed at the very center of a city -- and far from its industrial area.”

Mitchell added: “Perhaps 10,000 military personnel lost their lives in the bomb but the vast majority of the 125,000 dead in Hiroshima would be women and children.” Three days later, when an atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, “it was officially described as a ‘naval base’ yet less than 200 of the 90,000 dead were military personnel.”

Since then, presidents have routinely offered rhetorical camouflage for reckless nuclear policies, rolling the dice for global catastrophe. In recent years, the most insidious lies from leaders in Washington have come with silence -- refusing to acknowledge, let alone address with genuine diplomacy, the worsening dangers of nuclear war. Those dangers have pushed the hands of the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to an unprecedented mere 90 seconds to cataclysmic Midnight.

The ruthless Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 quickly escalated the chances of nuclear war. President Biden’s response was to pretend otherwise, beginning with his State of the Union address that came just days after the invasion; the long speech did not include a single word about nuclear weapons, the risks of nuclear war or any other such concern.

Today, in some elite circles of Russia and the United States, normalized talk of using “tactical” nuclear weapons has upped the madness ante. It can be shocking to read wildly irresponsible comments coming from top Russian officials about perhaps using nuclear weaponry in the Ukraine war. We might forget that they are giving voice to Russia’s strategic doctrine that is basically the same as ongoing U.S. strategic doctrine -- avowedly retaining the option of first use of nuclear weapons if losing too much ground in a military conflict.

Daniel Ellsberg wrote near the close of his vital book The Doomsday Machine: “What is missing -- what is foregone -- in the typical discussion and analysis of historical or current nuclear policies is the recognition that what is being discussed is dizzyingly insane and immoral: in its almost-incalculable and inconceivable destructiveness and deliberate murderousness, its disproportionality of risked and planned destructiveness to either declared or unacknowledged objectives, the infeasibility of its secretly pursued aims (damage limitation to the United States and allies, “victory” in two-sided nuclear war), its criminality (to a degree that explodes ordinary visions of law, justice, crime), its lack of wisdom or compassion, its sinfulness and evil.”

Dan dedicated the book “to those who struggle for a human future.”

A similar message came from Albert Einstein in 1947 when he wrote about “the release of atomic energy,” warning against “the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms” and declaring: “For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world.”

BLOBULATION

by James Kunstler

“Biden has restored the integrity of the Department of Justice” — Dan Goldman, Congressman from New York

Surely Merrick Garland is not running the Department of Justice, but which gloopy pseudopod of the Blob is? My guess would be some Intel Community politburo made up mostly of people you’ve never heard of. The trouble is these geniuses confuse political fuckery with the operations of law.

So, Saturday night when the lights were supposedly off at the DOJ, and much of America was tuned out — getting new tattoos, arguing with the re-po man, watching the Orioles — the Blob told a lawyer from the Southern District of New York, one Damian Williams, to send a letter to Federal Judge Ronnie Abrams asking her to set a date for one Devon Archer to report to prison on a bond fraud conviction that Mr. Archer is appealing on the grounds of DOJ sentencing misconduct. Like, can you hurry that up, please?

Devon Archer, you recall, was the college room-mate and later close business associate of R. Hunter Biden, First Son, who is in a bit of trouble for laundering money from foreign companies and governments through a score of shell companies that then made large payouts to Biden family members, including the so-called Big Guy currently living in the White House. Mr. Archer, who has been in hiding (wonder why?) is scheduled to be deposed by the House Oversight Committee today. It is believed that he knows a thing or two about the Biden family business doings, enough, say, to corroborate the shit-ton of documentary evidence already in the Committee’s possession that lays out a pretty stark template of bribery with adumbrations of treason.

Sounds serious, a little bit, especially since it’s become ever more obvious that the whole federal law enforcement apparatus has been aware of the Biden family’s activities since well before “Joe Biden” was selected to be elected president. Of course, Mr. Archer’s testimony would only be the cherry on a well-baked cake. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) of the Oversight Committee says his investigators have rooted out new banking shenanigans on top of the over one hundred suspicious activity reports already in their files, despite obstruction and obfuscation from the Blob’s IRS and FBI arms. He seems determined to press forward and I daresay the Blob will find it very difficult to stop him.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared last week that all this roguery was “rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry.” D’ya think? What I wonder is: would such an inquiry begin to unravel the secret of who has been running “Joe Biden” lo these many months of face-plants, preposterous utterances, morning “lids,” and other indications that the commander-in-chief of the USA is not much more than a media apparition? One might also ask: was this really the best that Blob could come up with? Really? Him? This ghastly load of damaged goods?

Five House members: Matt Gaetz, Mike Johnson, Chip Roy, Harriet Hageman, and Dan Bishop, are calling for an emergency return from the August recess to get the impeachment process rolling. Let the case be made in an orderly and comprehensive process. See if The New York Times and its allies in the captive Blob media can ignore the proceeding. It will probably shock their readers-and-watchers to learn that the Biden family bribery and racketeering scandal actually exists. Will any of them ask: how come we never heard about this?

Behind all these blobulations looms the specter of Mr. Trump’s attempted return to power. What would he do in the remote case that he escapes the Blob’s mendacious prosecutions? Chop the Blob into a million gelatinous fragments, expose it to enough heat to vaporize it all, and recalibrate a US government back to the task of operating the few things it might arguably be competent at. Such a program would obviate the Blob’s drive to destroy everything worth operating in the human project of remaining civilized.

Alas, Blobism has become the religion of the deranged intellectual / managerial class in America. The chief concern of this crypto-gnostic religion is summoning demons to harass those it regards as heretics to Blobism. Thus, it is well within the historic tradition of fanatical / hysterical paroxysms that shake ordinary human doings and end up needlessly and wrongfully killing a lot of people.

No doubt Blobism is a product of the Intel Community run by that mysterious politburo, with assists from partners in foreign lands such as the WEF, the WHO, the CCP, and a coterie of essentially stateless super-rich guys with axes to grind. It was designed to derange the people who do most of its on-the-ground dirty work. They already have a lot of blood on their hands with the Covid-19 trip laid on the world, the pointless war in Ukraine, which it started deliberately, and now the forced de-industrialization of the West with a crusade against farming on the side, to make sure that those who don’t die of vaccine-related immune system disorders just starve to death.

Beginning a process to expel “Joe Biden” would be like cutting the head off a chicken. The head doesn’t have much going on inside of it except the eat-and-sleep-scratch-and-cackle algorithm, but without that head, the rest of the chicken just staggers around in circles for a minute before it drops dead. Our government needs to go through that for the country to become itself again. And remember: the government is not our country.

(kunstler.com)

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, 1st AUGUST 

A Moscow building was struck on Tuesday by a second drone attack in as many days as Russia says it thwarted a Ukrainian attack on two of its Black Sea vessels. 

Back in Ukraine, Kyiv accused Russia of shelling a medical facility in the southern port city of Kherson, killing a doctor and wounding a nurse. This latest attack comes after Russian shelling in the region killed at least four people and injured 17 others.

Russia launched a deadly missile attack Monday on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, officials said.

The White House criticized senior Russian official Dmitry Medvedev for suggesting Moscow may resort to nuclear weapons if Ukraine is successful in its counteroffensive.