Off the Record 6/24/24

WE PRINT a lot of stuff we disagree with, but I've always regretted not responding to the letter from an ACLU lawyer who said he thought it was wrong of us to toss NAMBLA's “right” to free speech over the side.

I QUIT THE ACLU because I finally got tired of them defending groups that should not be defended, many of them groups that get the ACLU a lot of publicity and probably lots of donations, but a group like NAMBLA that preys on children shouldn't have the right to proselytize. Defending organized chomos right to free speech represents an objective waste of scant civil rights money, especially in a time when anybody can walk into any courthouse or jail in this country and see for him or herself some unknown somebody's civil rights being seriously violated. But here's the ACLU rolling out for a small gang of pervs any other society in the world would put behind bars.

ANOTHER BEEF I have is with the people who argue that banning pornography is a step towards banning unpopular political views. There was a greater variety of unfettered political speech in this country in 1900 when there was a total ban on pornography than there is now, and the pornography then consisted mostly of fat ladies doing it with Turks, not crazy people doing it with midgets hanging off high rises. Ban all pornography, I say, and arrest its perps.

FREE POLITICAL SPEECH? Where's that exist in contemporary America or in Mendocino County? And what do films and photos of sex acts that systematically degrade half the human race have to do with politics or literature or anything else except to titillate voyeuristic men with nothing else to do?

I THINK pornography exerts a socially pernicious influence on what's left of American society. I think it poisons millions of young men. I think it's obvious that the epidemic of sex crimes can be directly attributed to the prevalence of pornographic images available to young men.

BY PREVALENCE I mean that every time that I, a half-dead man in whom the fires of spring are long extinguished, turn on my computer I get at least a dozen lurid advertisements that typically read, “Hello, Ava! Have you ever seen real Russian incest?” No. I can't even recall ever seeing a Russian of any kind now that you mention it, but is Russian incest different than incest any other place, and why would I want to see it? And “Fresh rape site. I bet you've never seen such cruel action, police materials included.” Nope, can't say that I have, but I hope I have my gun with me if I do. Pornography is bad for public morale generally and often fatal to women. It should be banned, its purveyors prosecuted.

WHEN MENDOCINO COUNTY was “discovered” in 1968, and re-discovered every year since, the county's small communities were family-oriented, close without being closed, and friendly. High school sports was weekend entertainment. It was country, it was community, and it was good. Now it's no community, the kids are on dope instead of playing ball, and the people who've made us the fragged tourist target we've become, lament the transient hordes invading Boonville every weekend.

THE NICE WEATHER communities of Mendocino County are now un-family oriented and urbanized, in that their social focus is on frenetic schedules of entertainments and activities for adults, a large portion of whom are single. There are more weekend events in Mendocino County than there are in half of San Francisco

PAUL MODIC: Gonzo Journalism Project

I’m having a book opening party, for my AVA essay compilation project: Friday, June 14th at 6:30pm in Redway in the backyard of Stevo and Rick’s Moosehead Lodge (The Tin Shed), 380 and 402 Birdie Lane, adjacent to the Little League Field. C’mon by.

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Ray Raphael Book Opening

Ray Raphael, our local historian, will be presenting his new book, "A Life in History" on Thursday, June 13 at 5:00 at Tooby Park in Garberville (by the playground). He will open the talk to a discussion about our lives and history here. The picture on the cover is of his first little cabin that still remains in Whale Gulch.

JOHN H. PERRILL, poet (June 15, 1938 - June 11, 2024)

WAY BACK I tried to get a look at the Satan files maintained by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department only to be informed, "Sorry, since there were accusations of murder the case is technically still open so you can't read the files."

SOME OF US will recall the Satanist national hysteria of the 1980s, which took hold big time in Fort Bragg. The allegation was that devil worshippers were molesting and even murdering children in their ceremonies. Freud might be able unravel the deep perv-brain that could imagine this complicated evil, but Fort Bragg hysterics, supported by County social workers and therapists (!), claimed local toddlers were being helicoptered from daycare up the coast, ceremonially violated, then flown back to daycare in time for their parents to pick them up after work.

THE SEQUESTERED FILES must certainly contain a lot of the names of the screwballs, many of them public employees, who were promoting the non-existent phenomenon, hence the secrecy.

THE COAST BRANCH of the Satanist hysteria resulted in a modern-day witch hunt that saw the very real persecutions of several local women, two of whom, the Orr sisters of Fort Bragg, were driven from the area by death threats; they lost everything they had, including one sister's young daughter whom the county's helping professionals saved from Satan by taking her away from her mother and placing her in Trinity School, Ukiah, where she was raped and otherwise severely abused by older "children."

I BRING UP BEELZEBUB up simply to remind the smiley face mentalities how close we are to the tom-toms and chicken bones rattling in coffee cans, and to cite a salutary article that appeared in Science News ritten by Betty L. Bottoms, a professor at the University of Illinois, an expert in sex offenses committed by pedophiles. She writes: "…… the surveys uncovered no abuse by Satanic cults, a practice that received much publicity several years ago. More children are abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan."

MENDOCINO COUNTY Sheriff Tony Craver, a supervising sergeant with the Sheriff's Department in 1983, laughs as he remembers Fort Bragg's great Satanist hysteria. “Oh yeah,” Craver snorts. "To give you an idea of what we had to investigate, the mother of a 4-year-old told me her child, ‘who does not lie,’ up around Abalobadiah off Highway One, the boy was taken by submarine to an amusement park in a secret cavern under the bluffs where he was forced to perform in pornographic movies. It was all I could do to stay on my chair while mom told me all this. We couldn't find one shard of evidence to support any of the accusations going around. Kids — little kids — would say things like, ‘Debbie killed Bobby, and then she poured blood all over him and he would be ok again.’ Lots of mothers actually believed this Twilight Zone stuff. It was blown out of all proportion.”

The Great Fort Bragg Witch Hunt

JIM SHIELDS:

The new owner of the Laytonville Long Valley Market, Haji Alam, said on my radio show last Saturday that the store should be re-opened by June 24th. He also said that the Market will not carry hardware and tool items as was the case with Geiger’s Market. Instead, the new Market will offer camping, picnicking, hunting and fishing items. He explained it didn’t make any sense to him to compete with the existing Building Supply and Nursery operated by Lurane Dalton, selling hardware and tool items. I’ve been able to verify that most, if not all, former Market employees have been contacted regarding job offers. Alam also said he plans to apply for a County permit to open and operate a gas station on the Market property. He already owns the former Strider Real Estate property, located next door (immediately to the south) of the Market. He plans to demolish the old building and expand the Market’s parking lot. The gas station will be sited on the northwest corner of the parking lot. Of course, this proposed project will have to go through the County’s Planning and Building process for final approvals.

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Another quick note: It appears that Caltrans will not require a center turn lane for the proposed Big Daddy’s Garden Supply at the north end of town.

THIS ON-LINE COMMENT neatly sums up the huge public expense that DA Eyster is imposing on the taxpayers of Mendocino County as he pursues his personal vendetta against former county auditor, Chamise Cubbison: “700 pages of new documents to review at $400 an hour. And then the county will have to defend itself in a civil suit, all on the taxpayers’ dime. No matter the outcome, it’s a feeding frenzy for the attorneys involved.”

AND HUGELY UNFAIR to Ms. Cubbison with her worker bee, Ms. Kennedy, dragged along as collateral damage, as Ms. Cubbison, presumably a person of ordinary means, pays mightily for her own defense while Eyster and his jive “special counsel” run up monster legal bills they charge off to the County of Mendo, eternal victim to serial grifts.

ALL OF THE ABOVE might have been smothered in its conjured cradle if just one of the five supervisors had demanded of Eyster, “Show us your evidence against Cubbison" before we fire her.” Not a peep, which is what happens when irresponsible people are seated at the power levers.

WE’LL eventually discover that the evidence against Cubbison was and is non-existent. So five supervisors, without comment, suspended an elected official purely on the say-so of DA Eyster! Only in Mendo. It's too bad that the supervisors and Eyster can't be held personally liable for this cruel farce, enabled of course, by Eyster’s pals sitting as superior court judges.

JUDGE SHANAHAN, or is is Ann Moorman now?, or one of their interchangeable colleagues, will shove this expensive charade forward for trial when it should be tossed at the endlessly postponed prelim on July 25th, and note here the indefensibly long intervals between court processes, another crime against Cubbison and the public interest, the lawyer bills accumulating. So far, it has taken Eyster's special counsel three months to read 700 pages to see if she can find the DA's non-existent case. (It has taken me three weeks to read David Foster Wallace's 700-plus page masterpiece, Infinite Jest, downing it in random gulps of an hour here, two hours there, and it’s a lot more complicated than a non-case brought by an expense account chiseling, vindictive DA with more power than he should be entrusted with.)

THE ALL-TIME most spectacular Mendo traffic disaster occurred on the Albion Bridge nearly 30 years ago. It was a Monday morning at 10:30 when a double-trailer log truck, its driver frantically braking to avoid the Toyota Celica that had suddenly appeared in the truck's lane near mid-span of the bridge, struck the Celica, and then plunged over the side, falling 150 feet before landing on its roof on the river's southeast bank only a few feet from the water.

THE NORTHBOUND Celica, driven by Neil Wood, 53, of Fort Bragg, driving drunk, was struck by the oncoming log truck and upended in the middle of the two-lane bridge, the last wood bridge in the state in use on a state-maintained highway. With Wood pinned inside the wreckage of his Celica, Albert Oompling, 51, also of Fort Bragg, was sailing over the side in his airborne log truck to the Albion River below, his eerily slow-motion fall witnessed by a horrified number of motorists, campers and fishermen at Albion Flat, and several residents of nearby homes on both sides of the river whose attentions had been drawn to the bridge by the ominous sound of screaming brakes.

MR. OOMPLING, the driver of the log truck, said he was conscious throughout his terrifying fall; he was alert and talking to the rescuers who immediately boated across the river from the campgrounds on the Mendocino side of the river to offer him whatever help they could. But Oompling was pinned in the wreckage of his cab amidst a pick-up stick array of scattered logs he'd been carrying north to the Gibney Lane mill in Fort Bragg. A jaws-of-life apparatus from the Mendocino Fire Department soon appeared on the north bank of the Albion. It was ferried across the river by boat where it was put to work to free Oompling, alert and talking to his rescuers, from what might well have been his death chamber.

THE TRUCKER, fortunate to have survived the fall had, however, suffered major injuries. He was first taken to Coast Hospital before being airlifted to Memorial Hospital, Santa Rosa.

MR. WOOD, the cause of the accident, also had to be cut from the wreckage of his crushed, upturned Toyota, and also sustained major injuries. He remained at Coast Hospital. Both men were expected to recover.

CALTRANS FEARED that the bridge's south wooden support had been struck by the log truck as it fell, perhaps thus imperiling the bridge's structural integrity. As a small army of Caltrans personnel, emergency services workers and policemen swarmed the closed bridge, through traffic was turned around and routed through Comptche the rest of the day.

AH THE HIPPIES. Kinda miss the shaggy beasts and their odd experiments, among the oddest of which, I'd say, was an announcement by a Comptche woman called Bloodroot that she'd developed a unique restorative she once marketed as a “penis soak.” As described in the straight-faced if not straight-jacketed but counterculturally-crucial New Settler Interview, for a few bucks a guy could dip his wick in a kind of penile mud bath whose magically invigorating ingredients were known only to Bloodroot. I waited for years for testimonials from satisfied customers that they'd limped into Comptche with their exhausted members hanging dejectedly in their jockeys for a quick header into Bloodroot's mysterious Mason Jar Peenie Pond and presto! Mount Priapas! But I never heard another word, and darned if I was prepared to risk mine rotting off to the elbows merely for the sake of investigative journalism!

JOKE OF THE DAY

Guy boards the airplane, takes his seat, gets settled in and looks up. Just coming down the aisle is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. An absolute show-stopper, and as luck might have it she’s pausing at his row, and in fact is taking the seat next to him!

Trying to break the ice he takes a deep breath and blurts out “So, are you traveling for Business or Pleasure?”

“Oh, I’m going to Boston for Business,” she says. “I’m going there to address the National Nymphomaniac Society of North America.” Trying to maintain his composure he asks nonchalantly “And what will your role be at the convention?”

“Well, I’m scheduled to give the keynote address. I’ll be using information I have learned from personal experience to debunk some popular myths about sexuality.”

“Myths?” he asks.”What kinds of myths?"

“Well, one popular misconception is that African-American men are the most well-endowed, whereas in fact it is the Native American man who holds that distinction. Another popular but mistaken notion is that men of French descent are the best lovers, when in reality I have found that trait belongs to Mexicans. And when it comes to the lover with the greatest stamina by far the most impressive are the Southern Redneck men.”

Blushing slightly she apologizes. “Oh, here I am talking about all this with you and I don’t even know your name.”

“Tonto,” the man answers. “Tonto Gonzales, but my friends all call me Bubba."

DOMPELING RECOVERING (2002)

On Monday, Aug. 19, a fully-loaded Roach Logging truck driven by Albert Dompeling went off the Albion River Bridge landing nose down wedged into the river bank 125 feet below. Dompeling has been in the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital trauma center since the accident, but family members say his condition is slowly improving.

Beginning this week, information on the condition of Dompeling, and all other patients, is no longer available due to implementation of a federal act, enacted in 1996, protecting patient rights and privacy. The act covers any information that could identify a patient, even their room number. The government has established heavy fines for infractions of the act. Hospitals must have a written statement from the patient or close family member in order to give out patient information.

The California Highway Patrol has completed its accident report concluding that Neil Wood, driving a 1977 Toyota Celica, was at fault having crossed the center line on the bridge and hit the truck.

CHP Officer Rusty Smith said the results of Wood's blood test are not in, but it is suspected that the accident was alcohol related. Wood is also a patient at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Smith said he especially wants to thank the people of Albion. He said there were many heroes that day, people who put out a fire that erupted in the truck, those who cleared brush for firefighters and skippers who ferried people across the river to rescue Dompeling.

A trust fund has been established for Dompeling at Washington Mutual Bank, account # 4906006980, 120 E. Alder St., Fort Bragg, CA 95437.

Besides damage to the railing of the bridge, some structural damage was sustained. Caltrans has done two assessments. They have repaired the damage to the railing and replaced a couple of minor cross bracings under the bridge that were damaged in the truck's fall. After a brief closure and one-way traffic only, Caltrans opened the bridge to two-way traffic, deeming it to be structurally sound.

The Albion River Bridge is the last wooden trestle bridge remaining on the coast. It was completed in 1944 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

ON MONDAY, Supervisor Elect Madeline Cline made her priorities clear by rolling out in a prominent letter to the Editor to local media outlets (not including the AVA, interestingly) for the Ukiah area Cheap Water Mafia in her first public statement since being elected with Big Wine money last March.

In the letter Cline describes a proposed fee agreement for the Ukiah Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) as an “unfunded state mandate” imposed on places like Ukiah by former Governor Jerry Brown.

Although having had no role in the development of the Agency or its agenda or its finances, in a very reasonable tone, Cline takes partial credit for reducing the originally proposed unreasonable fees by saying, “Fortunately, we as a community have been able to form our own local agency, the GSA, to lead the management of our groundwater.”

But the people who deserve whatever credit is due are the Board members of the Agency: Glenn McGourty, Doug Crane, Theresa McNerlin, Eddie Nevarez, and Adam Gaska (Cline’s opponent in the March election).

Now that a reasonable fee accomodation has been arrived at in the wake of the State’s discontinuance of support for these state-mandated “agencies,” here’s Cline trying to convince her wine industry followers that she’s involved and cares about the “fees” that “none of us are excited or happy about.”

One could easily argue that the GSA has been an ineffectual and near-wasteful exercise in bureaucratic futility and an attempt to forestall restrictions on water usage in the Ukiah Valley, as we have in the past. Their prime objective has been to slow-walk the development of a speculative computer model of the Ukiah Valley aquifer.

But since the Cheap Water Mafia now has no choice but to pay a fee for this ongoing pointless exercise, apparently Ms. Cline now feels the need posture in solidarity with those who financed her election by belatedly taking an interest in the subject by requesting their attendance a meeting about a subject that has already been resolved.

Given the many issues the Supervisors are facing these days — the budget deficit, high staffing vacancies including in senior positions, a controversial gas station proposal in the district she’s inheriting, grand jury reports of personnel mismanagement, homelessness and mental health, underfunding of public safety, etc. — the fact that Cline chooses to make her first official statement about an issue that is of minimal importance and after the fact, is telling. To the outside observer, it looks like an attempt to insert herself into a wine-industry priority sybject that is more proof, if any is needed, that she’s an inexperienced candidate pushed into a county-wide position by people who care only about their water for their grapes.

(Mark Scaramella)

A READER ASKS: I’ve seen several posts for Real Estate in the Greenwood Ranch HOA that is apparently just west of Redwood Valley. These places are mostly off grid but have lots of property and very nice houses. The ads always say “Tenants in Common”.

Does anyone know about this development and this HOA? I can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t exactly kosher here.

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Scott Ward: My understanding is that it started out as a ranch that was purchased and subdivided by back to the land folks without going through the Mendocino County Planning Department and Planning Commision as required by state law and the Map Act. My understanding is that many of the Greenfield parcels have fractional ownership. Suggest you talk to Mendocino County Planning and Building Director Julia Krog to get a fuller explanation.

ED NOTES: FROM THE ARCHIVE

DOPE TALK FROM 2002: During the week just past, 16,072 marijuana plants were uprooted from 55 gardens in Laytonville, Branscomb, Covelo, Potter Valley, Hopland, and the Masonite Road out of Navarro. The confiscated plants weighed 8895 pounds.

ACCORDING to Sgt. Rusty Noe of the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team (Commet), "During the past two weeks Commet team members and CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Production) Team One have eradicated gardens from various locations in the county. Two Mexican male suspects were arrested for a garden in the Covelo area. This investigation continues and more arrests are expected. During the year Commet has eradicated 101,661 marijuana plants from 265 garden sites with an estimated weight of 37,000 pounds. 23 arrests have been made and 14 firearms were seized."

THE ANNUAL MENDO POT RAIDS are a 9-5 enterprise seemingly choreographed to avoid arresting only the most unwary (or confident) gardeners, and almost all of those who do get caught are snared on public property or on ranches so large their owners truly don't know they're raising cows and marijuana. There are also people who own large properties who share crop pot on handshake agreements that go like this: "You can grow on my ranch if you give me a third of what you make, but if you get caught I've never seen you before and I sure as heck didn't know you were growing on my place because my ranch is obviously too big for me to patrol."

THE OVERALL prob, though, is a frazzled society peopled by folks who badly need to soften the prevailing realities of life to survive them, hence what Allan Greenspan might call the "elastic demand" for marijuana. Put the increasing demand of millions of customers for a proscribed substance, and you've got Mendo Mellow going for upwards of $5,000 a pound and a lot of people saying to themselves, "Hmmm. If I can bring in ten pounds of bud for 50 grand, I can get me a 27 inch TV and maybe even a girlfriend."

MENDOCINO COUNTY'S futile annual effort to take out a few of the larger gardens only serves to keep pot prices artificially high and to attract more and more people to the business. Also kept high is the Northcoast's annual fall anxiety as thousands of armed growers guard against thieves, driving hikers out of the back country for fear they'll be mistaken for harvest rats. But so long as demand "remains elastic," and so long as there are millions of people who need to zone out for long periods of their waking day, and so long as the stuff is illegal, thousands of Mendolanders will continue to grow marijuana.

ITS MILLIONS of propagandists aside, marijuana has been developed to a truly narcotizing strength, hence its agreed upon medicinal properties for adults suffering from terminal diseases, but also hence its status as contra-indicated for young people. Of course if you prefer young people fatter, lazier and dumber than they presently are, you probably think it's better that they're sedentary and inert and smoking pot than careening around drunk at a hundred miles an hour on weekend nights. In Mendo, our nation's future do both. The answer? Beats me. Short of revolution, what can be done about mass pathology?

SPEAKING OF lotus eating, this e-mail wafted in out of cyber-space the other morning: "Is it true that you can legally grow enough pot for a one-year personal supply in Mendocino, California? I just wanna know because I may choose to live there."

YES, but don't run out for a U-Haul just yet; the rents in Mendocino Couty are higher than primo bud.

KIRK VODOPALS (Navarro)

Confirmed Tuesday morning that the mouth of the mighty Navarro is indeed flowing out to the Pacific. This seems very late based on my twenty years of observations. Congrats Mother Nature, you don’t seem to need the omnipotent assistance from the likes of Philbrick and Beacon…. until next year, perhaps.

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] What’s way more interesting and expensive for the County was an obscure special meeting they had a week or two ago. With no robust discussion, written reports, financial or critical analysis, the Board signed off on a master tax sharing agreement, countywide. After one meeting. Ukiah, no doubt salivating at the chance to annex the Thurston Auto Plaza is now poised to make that grab, and transition to take that tax revenue stream in whole in as soon as five years. The County, protected by state law, can only lose this tax revenue through a “tax sharing agreement” which they just did! It’s now in the hands of LAFCo and out of the Board’s! It’s a sure financial loser for the County, but the water will only get to a boiling point as early as 2029, when most of the current clowns will be replaced by a new set of amnesiac clowns. Big win for Ukiah, and good for them. If you don’t already, move into one of the incorporated cities quick! The current Board has basically given up on trying to make the County system work on any level.

MS NOTES: Supervisor Haschak explained to Karen Ottoboni on Wednesday that 14 of the County’s top 25 sales tax generators are in the area north of Ukiah which is slated to be annexed under the one-sided tax sharing agreement that his colleagues (Haschak dissenting) approved. Ottoboni wasn’t sure but the annexation area could also include the big box stores in the Ukiah airport area would also be subject to annexation and additional loss of sales tax.

[2] I can turn my wood heater into a power source for a big slow cooker. I’ve cooked on it many times making stews, soups, crockpot dishes etc. But a real wood fired cook stove would be better and easier to cook on as well as having the capability of baking pies, biscuits, potatoes, etc.

A clothes dryer? It’s been 30 years since I’ve owned one. In winter I have the clothes on drying racks in the living room where the wood heater is. They dry real quick. In summer I dry clothing either inside or outside depending on the weather. Clothes driers are really not necessary. But I’d bet most of the climate change worriers and cultists have indoor clothes dryers powered by either gas or electricity.

[3] Yup. There are NO viable candidates for US President. Reckon that Kennedy would be better than these two… but the Crips (Dems) and Bloods (Reps) won’t allow that. Can’t think of any good candidates… some are too old and some are not old enough. USA is facing a critical time in world history… with nobody to take the helm.

[4] How can anyone be fine with an incapacitated President…..how can his family watch and allow it…..if you're fine with this…..you ain’t human…..period

[5] Mendocino weed was always better- even back in the 70’s. The only reason Humboldt got the famous name was because Humboldt County did not eradicate or prosecute as hard as Mendocino County so more was grown in Humboldt. I remember in ’83 0r ’84 when CAMP really started busting hard in Humboldt all we heard was Humboldt Humboldt Humboldt…so when we went to lot with our pounds from Laytonville and Leggett we just called it “Humboldt” too. Why not let Humboldt catch more flack? They were already getting all the copters and busts….The growing environment was always better in Mendocino that Humboldt and our weed was always better than the early pull or moldy stuff up in Humboldt- back when early rains were a real concern. Indeed I’d wager that Mendocino grown is STILL better- people in Humboldt just still trying to float on their name. Anyways Humboldt with it’s lax enforcement caught the biggest part of the greenrush and all those greedy posers blew up low quality mids- THAT is Humboldt’s legacy now the commercial mega-grow mid market. Ha Ha! And now this article is telling everybody down south they don’t have to drive extra hours to get the finest weed on earth. Sounds about right and Humboldt (thanks to it’s idiot supervisors) is toast in the weed game. Enjoy that “legalization” everybody! Hope y’all are feeling “free” and “safe” now ha ha ha!!

[6] ON LINE COMMENT neatly sums up the true state of affairs:

These ARE very dangerous times.

And the US government has played a major role in creating these dangers.

The US government precipitated the war in Ukraine.

The US government gives Israel a free check to do whatever it wants.

Setting aside the grotesque lack of morality and decency in enabling the Israelis to kill tens of thousands of native Palestinians, both these current events are fraught with a lot of risk, since they may lead to “unforeseen” consequences that could directly affect life in the Big PX.

This weekend, the pathetic, but still infinitely better, choice for President told the faithful (I paraphrase) for the nth time that “Putin would not have ‘invaded’ Ukraine if I was President”. The Donald said “Russian subs off the coast of Florida and Cuba shows how little respect Putin has for Biden” and insisted it would never happen if he was President.

Really Mr. Trump? Is that why you expelled all those Russian diplomats and raised the ante in Ukraine, giving them military assistance? (something the even worse Obama did not do)

Well, maybe if Biden, and Trump and Obama before, had not pushed for Ukraine to join NATO and park missiles next to Russia, 6 minutes from Moscow, Putin would not feel compelled to remind the US Russia can finish off the “Land of the Free” if things get out of hand.

Of course, a war could have beneficial side effects–insurers can weasel out of contracts (look at Nordstream pipeline and Lloyd’s of London), maybe the government can forgive its own debt, and people will be more preoccupied with the war as the government imposes martial law.

And if somehow, the US muddles through these crises (I didn’t mention the US stirring up Taiwan) without a big hot war that leads to US military, or civilian casualties, well, if some folks are correct about fracking in the US running out soon, the end of that oil and gas, plus the end of the dollar, that should make for interesting times.

[7] You should realize that what people say on internet sites is in no way indicative of what they’re likely to do out in the real world where there are considerations and consequences. Many people claim they’d do things that, in fact, they would never do, and are just letting off steam. No one knows what they’d actually do in extreme or threatening circumstances until those circumstances arise. They can, however, make trouble for themselves and others by making rash statements that they will never act on.

[8] FRONTIERS OF FREE ENTERPRISE, an on-line comment: I know a woman who is making dream pillows filled with weed now. Everytime you roll over in your sleep you get a fresh new waft of great smells. It’s cheap enough now and her pillows are popular. Talk about some good dreams!