Sites Reservoir Project

Well, I haven't really talked to any of my old school chums about it (many of whom, of course, are probably finding their lives HUGELY about the project -- and some of those may even welcome the distraction from their quotidian, mundane dramas, LOL!), but as it is, through January 2018, according to one schedule, engineering feasibility will continue to be the main thrust of any conversations about the Sites Reservoir and the niceties and conceivable horrors of the undertaking, engineering-wise....

Well, I too am del Norte (mainly), and though much of my online time is spent all around the world, I'm living (for now) solidly 4.5 miles from the Glenn/Colusa County line (and may end up back in San Francisco in a few months....) Not only are there going to be perennial environmental roadblocks (as there should be -- naysayers along the lines of John Muir, as such), but Sites is an historical area -- there was enough of a hassle, Laughing Lady Thalia, when the briefly re-opened quarry (origin IIRC of the stone from which San Francisco's Ferry Building was cobbled together) had to shut down as a consequence of destroying significantly historical stone building that had once been a stop on the Pony Express, just outside of Sites... But this paragraph was meant mainly as a selfish, off-the-cuff, 3AM digression...

Anyway, here is a list of Web sites one needs to familiarize oneself with before going all Monorail Salesman at the Springfield we call Maxwell, California, during a meeting at the old Well's Fargo near Caldwell's gas station and mini-mart (Highway 99, and railroad tracks -- can't miss it! Only a minute off I-5):

- https://www.sitesproject.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sites_Reservoir
- http://www.kcra.com/article/5-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-sites-reservoir/8593792
- www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article143202309.html
(To assist those who are gimlet eyed vis-a-vis the press: KCRA is now a Hearst affair, and no longer Kelly broadcasting, but maintains that old Sacramento conservatism; The Bee remains in the McClatchy stable, and browses in familiar pastures ever so conventionally...)
- www.norcalwater.org/efficient-water-management/surface-storage/
- http://www.water.ca.gov/storage/docs/NODOS%20Project%20Docs/Project%20Map&Features.pdf
(Nuts-and-bolts, and no hurtful brass tacks: It is clear just driving from Maxwell to Lodoga, through Sites, that several dams would be required to establish any proposed reservoir... I had some pics on my Amazon cloud but can not at the moment retrieve them -- what matters such in this day of Google Street View?)

ALTERNATE SEARCH TERM: North of the Delta Off Stream Storage

IN THE INTERESTS OF ETHICAL BLOGGING: I personally am in favor of the project, and know that this reservoir is necessary to the continued stability and viability, ultimately, of the world economy itself, to put it flatly -- I can support my thesis well enough in a rumble and/or bar fight. I do qualify my support of going ahead past the feasibility stage with an express desire to see some road -- the highway bridge through the Florida Keys comes to mind -- maintained from that I-5 exit to the Grade...

IN CASE YOU THINK I'M FLIGHTILY PERPETRATING IN AVOIDING IMPORTANT-TO-YOU STUFF: I shall make time to find out about this affidavit I must sign at the SF superior court -- my fellow San Franciscan's sworn testimony is most definitely mine, as well, I'm sure, but the law works the way it does, and I AM poverty-stricken, at that (HELLO, RIGHT? All those long faces at St. Anthony's dining hall earlier this Spring... GRR!) And of course, the awful diamond pendant I sold to Maxferd's (a harrowing story or several, I'm sure)... I will be following up!

********

Trump L'oeil

Over a month in, and though I feel for the man himself, knowing he is not commensurate with the position, I can't help but wonder what's in that cheap-looking suit that doesn't turn around when boarding Air Force One, and is twelve times more expensive to transport than the former President Obama...

URGENT House Renovation Campaign - Gofundme...

...Or donations can be mailed to:  WILLIAM R WAY PO BOX 206 STONYFORD CA 95979

Patriotism and Paranoia Sunday

January 15, 1943 – The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

The United States Department of War (the Department of Defense after 1948) had long been headquartered in the Old Exeuctive Office Building east of the White House. During World War I, two 18-wing temporary office buildings ("tempos") were built on the north edge of the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The War Department occupied these buildings, as well as more than a dozen others throughout the D.C. area. In 1939, construction started on a new office building in Foggy Bottom. But as war in Europe loomed, the War Department felt it was too small. So the building was assigned to the Department of State.

As war approached in 1940, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson became deeply alarmed at how inefficient the situation was. In May 1941, he told President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the war could actually be lost if something wasn't done. Roosevelt pushed Democrats in Congress to act, and they did: In July congressional hearings, Democrats pushed the War Department for an "overall solution" to the department's space problem.

General Brehon Somervell, head of the War Department's construction office, was told to come up with a plan in five days. Somervell decided to keep costs low by seeking land close to the city but relatively undeveloped. This limited the site search to Arlington County, Virginia. To keep the use of steel low, the building could be no more than four stories tall, which meant it had to sprawl over a large area. This limited the possible sites two just two: the Department of Agriculture's Experimental Farm (now the eastern half of Arlington National Cemetery) and Washington-Hoover Airport (the newly-abandoned city airport just south of the Experimental Farm).

The Experimental Farm was chosed for the site. Since it had a roughly pentagonal shape, the War Department building was planned as an irregular pentagon. Concerned that the new building would obstruct the view of Washington from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ordered that the building be built on the Washington-Hoover Airport site instead. The building retained its pentagonal layout because a major redesign would have been too costly.

On July 28, 1941, Congress authorized funding for the new building. An additional 287 acres of land (including the notorious Hell's Bottom neighborhood) around Washington-Hoover were acquired to fill out the site. Additional land was created by dredging a lagoon north of the site, and using the dredged material to create the new land. Contracts totaling $31.1 million ($506.4 million in 2017 inflation-adjusted dollars) were issued on September 11, and ground broken the same day.
Because the Pentagon was built on an uneven floodplain and newly-created (and unsettled) reclaimed land, its foundations had to be remarkably strong and extensive.. Two retaining walls were built and dredged material used to even out the site. 41,492 pressure-injected concrete footings 165 feet down were surmounted by stainless steel rebar cages. These pilings helped stabilize the ground and kept the building from sinking.

Architectural and structural design work for the Pentagon proceeded simultaneously with construction, which proved immensely costly but dramatically cut down construction time. Initial drawings were ready by early October 1941, and nearly all the design work complete by June 1942. Because racial segregation was the law in Virginia, the Pentagon had to have separate eating and bathroom facilities. Thus, there are dining rooms in the basement and top floors, and twice the number of toilets for a building its size. (President Roosevelt ordered racial segregation in the military ended in June 1941. Roosevelt discovered that it lasted in the Pentagon building, and ordered it ended there in February 1943.)

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Somervell demanded that at least one wing of the Pentagon be available for occupancy by April 1, 1942.

Construction was completed January 15, 1943. It had taken just 16 months, but cost a whopping $83 million (nearly triple the original estimate).
URGENT House Renovation Campaign - Venmo...

...Or donations can be mailed to:  WILLIAM R WAY PO BOX 206 STONYFORD CA 95979

ॐ

As many of us in the loyal opposition continue to petition the DOJ to audit the 2016 vote, and others disrupt and protest...  My advice to President-elect Donald J. Trump comes from Marcus Aurelius, and it is this:  "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be -- be one."

Shabu Madness II: Thrillah in Manila

I know I risk sounding like some Cebu Sally on her bomb-bearing moped, but...

Dear Philippines:  I have this hunch -- yes, just a hunch -- that instituting pogrom against people who use drugs (and let's face it:  isn't it always just against 'certain' people who use drugs?  But I digress...) is not going to turn out well for anybody.  Moreover, the least you could have done was run this policy proposal by, say, any archbishop.  Or fuck, even a nun...

(Also, could somebody please remind Duterte that Hitler was one of the most massive tweakers in history, slamming five times a day.  And in point of fact, his evil life did end due to Allies bombing his bunker -- no, smart-asses, not because his high was too good...)

Mr. President, you have no alibi!

American Woman, Mama Let Me Be

TRUMP SUPPORTERS BE ALL LIKE:  "What is Hillary hiding?!? [huff]"

AND CLINTON SUPPORTERS BE ALL LIKE:  "Not her dewlap, girl, okay! [sissy snap]"

...Anyway, darling, how are you doing your hair today?  Because I can't stand you at all...  [BREXIT STAGE ON GURNEY]

BREAKING (My Political Hymen)

LEWINSKY REFUSES TO ENDORSE CLINTON

Monica Lewinsky released the following statement on Hillary Clinton's run for President:

"I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.  The last Clinton Presidency left a bad taste in my mouth.  As we get closer to November of this election year, citizens must remember that they cannot trust Hillary Clinton on jobs.  The last time she had a meaningful job, she outsourced it to me, and I blew it."

Apropos of Brexit... (Blech. Sit.)

Fee fie FOE fumble...

(My favorite part, of course, is when the party that fell flat on its face then pops up with a triumphant TA-DA!!!)

Now I May Not Be Some Uppity, Assassinated Venezuelan Beauty Queen...

...But I dare let slip this audacious gobbet of Morgan Freeman-magnitude speechifyin':

Give a man a fish, and he'll have fish for a day.  Teach him how to fish, and chances are he'll be more polite to you than you deserve -- he probably already knew how to fish, and fish better.  Nevertheless, he was raised with different, more human, more realistic, more pragmatic values.  But don't be too put off if he seems to ignore you altogether; you might be presuming to try to do him a favor right at the moment he's thinking it a higher priority to jump food lines with other looters because, hey, let's face it, the world is a little more complex than you first thought.

#Venezuela #yotambiénsoyhumano #tengosed #tengohambre #tengomiedo

One of the Last of the Black Hats

Um, tangentially and apparently, Ed, when you hide from the world you miss a few things. Did you know there is a nationwide judge shortage? It takes about a year for a criminal case to see the inside of a courtroom for trial, and about three years for a civil case. I mean -- God! -- I am a drug-addicted loser who lives in the middle of nowhere with his mom, and even I know what's going on... (By the way, adding to stressors for the too few people on the bench, you're increasing the chances that yet more judges might resign. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.)

And from Tim:  "Essentially, Ed Lee blamed 'those liberal judges' for letting super-preadators (ahem) off the hook and back into 'our communities.' By arguing for mob rule in courthouses -- where pitchfork-carrying rural folk (William! Pay attention!) can pressure the judge to rule the way 'people's justice oughta' -- he's entered Trumpland."

Peripheral Stupidity Agency II

I really don't have the patience to sit here and listen to what you think are your image problems.  I mean, you guys have had decades to perfect the racy, scintillating art of perception management.  But here's the thing:  you get too much into that, and you start to look like a whore...

Looking Back...

...(and hoping it doesn't get me turned into a pillar of salt.)

Anyway, when I reflect on the last several years, leading up to the events of October 22, 2014 and the days after, I have to say I don't feel too bad about being ejected from Isengard by Sauron just because he harbored a petty hatred of me, and being forced to move to the Shire.  Besides, orcs are annoying.

Was that a couple of them I saw passing by the other day?  If it was, they probably got their asses handed to them by whoever they bothered in Bag End...

I Blame Barack Obama...

...For everything that embarrasses me or mortifies me in my quest for attention.

Maybe The Pot Is Calling The Kettle Black, But...

Look, I'm bipolar II, with hypomania, depression, uncontrollable emotional outbursts. and psychosis.  I'm crazy as a shithouse rat.  I think telepathy and telekinesis are real, and that I've been the subject of secret government experimentation.  I've had visions, hallucinations, conversations with the dead, clairvoyance, satori, epiphany, theophany, have been inducted into mystery, and I've survived mind-rape.  I've been visited by ghosts, shadow people, various "thems," and the local sheriff's deputy who was serving a restraining order.  I dip my french fries in my chocolate shake and am convinced I'm the biblical Antichrist.  Sometimes I feel like a boddhisatva starring in a Dr. Who episode penned by Philip K. Dick.  I'm fucking out-to-lunch most of the time.

That said, I don't get libertarianism.  Professed libertarians call themselves pragmatists and realists, but they rely on and believe in (or want to be true) absolutely fanciful, delusional ideas that are completely at variance with the way people and the world actually behave.  As boneheaded as many American voters are, we will never have a libertarian president.  Most of my fellow countrymen are at least that in touch with objective reality...

I wouldn't consider libertarian notions irritating or a peeve, but the existence of libertarian candidates is amusing, IMHO.

Sanders For President

"Our country is not going broke from feeding the poor and caring for the elderly, it's from all the huge tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and subsidies for their corporations."

Honesty

Does an honest candidate stand a chance?  Historically no.  Still, this makes me optimistic.  Bernie Sanders:  strong on foreign policy and national defense.

It felt good to write that.

Myanmar

Honestly, how in the hell could little old me have had anything to do with that?  I mean, you've been watching me the whole time, and I've been ever so good and perfectly under thumb.  If anything, it's your fault.  Prove that I did that.  (Neener, neener.)

The Best Candidate

This is the most helpful, most substantive interview I've seen during all of this hullabaloo, from either the Democrats or the Republicans

Quickly Sharing A Good Article...

...On why Joe Biden would be a bad president:

"Just for starters: Biden is a war hawk, a drug warrior (one of the very worst), and committed to "no changes" in old-age entitlements that are not only unsustainable but rob young, relatively poor Americans to give stuff [to] old, relatively wealthy ones. And then there's the logorrhea and the plagiarizing..."

"SPEAK AMERICAN!"

Thank God Sarah Palin is from Alaska.  I'd be embarrassed if she were from California, and we've elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarznegger as governors.  Republican governors.  Yeesh.