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

Only 39 and Due To No Fault of Mine Another Dream Sails West...

This is the year of the Rooster, and I am a Snake in Water... Grumble -- this was supposed to be a gangbuster year for me! I'm fresh out of debt, with a clean credit history, and was just starting my savings plan so that I might travel to Mexico and to Morocco, to learn Spanish and Arabic (respectively.) But with Trump in office, how can this come to pass? Already, Iran slams its doors shut in response to our legislating America's making mandatory that we as a country all agree to commit the very sin of Sodom itself.

Ma, shou ga nai ya na...

More Gay Bareback Breeding Tomorrow...

Why do people march on D.C.?
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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).
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Save Us, President von Munchausen!

I'm pretty sure that nothing can save (as it wants to be saved) today's military-industrial complex, which by the way has become the very abomination Eisenhower warned us about -- many of the up-and-coming young turks of "The Community" are keenly aware of this, even as old-guard factions grasp at straws or are in denial...  (And of course, the latter -- poor saps, how my heart kind of goes out to them, though I stand for so much that they typically hate -- would expect much from a presidency that basically jack-knifed coming out of the gate.)

"Forest and Contrail," November 2016

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."

MAKE AMERICA DO IT AGAIN!

* WHO * DARKO *

2016

Hey! That Homeless Marine Just Alger Hissed At Me!

Goddammit.  Maybe I'm personalizing something because I'm gakked.  Or maybe there's enough ire to go around -- enough guff even for friendly fire victims like me, who are faking it.  Or maybe it's just his time of the month.

(LAURA C.:  God, not another stupid American period joke.  Gracie Allen is spinning in her grave!)

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."

Um, WhatEVER, Nicky Parsons...

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

Fall In!

"How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time." - Morgan Freeman

To all those demented, delusional, out-to-lunch fruitcakes who advocate for the deportation and exclusion of Muslims, here's a glimpse at the real world we all have no choice but to inhabit as best we can:  Last month, I was in San Francisco, walking along McAllister towards Jones.  Before me, against the South wall of the California Check Cashing branch, across from the neoclassical Hibernia Bank, bearing in English a written request for assistance was a beautiful young woman in chador, tasteful dress, and flawless, minimal make-up.  Beside her was her quiet young daughter.  Obviously, she was a recent arrival -- judging from her features, mos def a Syrian refugee who had received approval from the nearby, mostly Yemeni mosque, local upright citizens brigade, and other Tenderloin powers-that-really-be to work that corner for a shift.  As soon as a passing OG who was walking his bicycle had passed her a buck with a word of blessing and moved on, I in turn grabbed the loose bills that were change from my lunch (probably $12 or $14) out of my pocket, and handed them to the young lovely with a demotic "Salaam alaykum."  She took them, and responded demurely and heartbreakingly, "Shukraan."  And with that I carried on to rush through my errands on that day trip to the city.

All of this took but a minute or so:  That's reality, asshats.  That is why when it comes to what matters, what we cannot avoid indefinitely -- that is why our side will always win.  The rest of you Trump-ettes and shit stain bigots can just eat it.  You're lucky if you're even privileged enough to this (or are someone I agree with - hi fans, freaks, friends, and fellow fools)...

No Justice, Just Us

Doing my itty-bitty part to help raise awareness, and to try and point out some possibilities for helping fight the good fight:

http://www.orangecountyfl.net/FamiliesHealthSocialSvcs/VeteransServices.aspx#.V18notQrJxA (the services to which they refer clients could probably always use mention or donations...)
http://www.shelterlistings.org/city/orlando-fl.html
http://www.foodpantries.org/ci/fl-orlando
www.thecenterorlando.org

While we continue to abide and continue to be appalled at our government's and law enforcement's response to gun violence and hate crimes, and while we continue to blog, protest, hold vigils, write letters to the editor, and so on, we have above (for starters) real, immediately achievable opportunities to put an answer to atrocities like what happened in Orlando, Florida.  The links in this post are listings or connections to services that can always use volunteers, money, in-kind donations, or simple promotion; doing such sends a clear message that love is always more powerful than hate.  Even $10 to a food pantry or a gift of children's clothing to a shelter for homeless families can make all the difference in the world to promoting the causes of love for one another and social justice.

Help Orlando, and help us all.

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."

America, 2016

The nerve...

Peripheral Stupidity Agency

How do you keep America safe when American civilians en masse can get the drop on you in the long game?  (And won't it be humiliating when you find out just what happened...?)

The Department of Homeland Security

Holy shit.  That guy was gorgeous.  He was chubby (which I like), he had cute dimples, a kind personality, a nice ass, and a pretty package (all I could think about when looking at him was taking his fat, sweet balls in my mouth and sucking that cute, thick bone.  He was so wonderful.)  Whoever you are, guy, I really appreciated you a lot.  I know you and your also handsome partner were down on your way to help with security at Super Bowl City, but I hope you come back this way and meet me.  You're a beautiful man, and I'd love to spend time with you.  You looked so good in your uniform, and you seem like a wonderful guy.  I love you, and really am grateful to you for keeping my friends safe (even if they're irritated by the security checkpoints and overall production...)