tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183440642024-03-17T23:15:09.394-07:00Strong As An Ox And Nearly As SmartMy younger brother Ron and I were very big for our age. When people told Pop, "You have really good looking boys," Pop would smile and agree: "Yep, they're strong as an ox and nearly as smart."Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.comBlogger978125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-83332087491861792982023-12-14T16:26:00.000-08:002024-03-13T19:52:42.884-07:00Our 2023 Christmas Letter<p>
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This has been a family and friends year as
evidenced by the numerous photos on our Christmas card. A picture is worth a
thousand words, but it helps if some words are added to give more
meaning. <o:p></o:p>
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Alice and I visiting her oldest grandchild Kevin and his girlfriend Alex in
Minnesota this summer.
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<span style='color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;'
>Celebrating my 81</span
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> birthday with Alice and good friends John and Mary Alice Bastian.</span
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<span style='color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;'
>Alice celebrates her Reseda High School 63</span
><sup style='color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;'>rd</sup
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> reunion with identical twin schoolmates Jeff and Greg Schaffer.</span
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<span
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>My younger brother Ron and wife Kathy at our Point Arena High School
reunion, his 62</span
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Celebrating our 34<sup>th</sup> anniversary
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>Alice admires a small portion of a mural that Point Arena artist Lauren
Sinnott created on </span
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(On a photo not on our card, Alice and Radar admire the self-portrait
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of Point Arena muralist Lauren Sinnott)
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<span style='color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;'
> Last year’s Vulcan Wire Christmas party includes eight
of its seventeen employees.</span
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>This year's Vulcan Christmas Party</span
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>Alice founded Vulcan almost 50 years ago and CEO Mike Graffio </span
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We celebrate friend James Hopenfeld’s birthday.
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Friends and family at our Point Arena High School reunion.
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Our only foreign travel took us to Speightstown, Barbados in late
February for ten days, our most relaxing vacation ever. Relaxing, that is,
until our flight back to Miami from Barbados. Alice and I were in the third
row from the front, left-hand side. We noticed that a fellow in the front
row, right-hand side, was noisily laughing. After a while Alice went forward
to the restroom, passing by the noisy fellow who had moved into the
flight attendants' serving area. Soon a female flight attendant came down
the aisle from that area with a roll of duct tape in her hand, and stopped
to talk to a large Polynesian fellow in the next row past me. She asked him
to help with an unruly passenger and he said he would, but first recruited
two other big guys sitting nearby to help.
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I was worried about Alice so tagged along, then saw her exiting the
restroom. A female flight attendant told Alice to go back into the restroom,
and of course she complied. Alice did see me standing behind the big guys
and said that she had never seen me look more worried.
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They then confronted the fellow and told him to get back in his seat. He
profanely refused, then suddenly the Polynesian grabbed him, moving faster
than I thought a big guy could, and threw him into his seat and advised him
to shut up, which he wouldn't. However, he noticed red liquid on his seat
and suddenly calmed. He was allowed to stand up when it was found that his
wine glass broke under him when he landed in his seat.
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A flight attendant went to Alice's restroom and said it was OK for her to
come out, although when Alice saw her holding a red-stained towel she wasn't
sure that she wanted to. But the red was only wine, not blood. First the
Miami police, then the FBI came on board after the boarding ramp was
connected. Questions were asked. It appeared that some witnesses would miss
connecting flights, but then arrangements were made to have smart-phone
videos emailed to the police.
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A moral to this story: Do something dumb like this guy did and forget having
your lawyer challenge the witnesses' memories, because there will be at
least half-a-dozen video recordings available to be called for evidence.
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If Alice wasn’t still working so hard on Vulcan
projects, each day here in Gualala would qualify as very relaxing since we
take Radar to Cook’s Beach and walk five miles or more through the woods, up
the hills, and across the sand every day. Alice also makes good use of her
heated (90 degrees) indoor pool and I just completed listening to all 60
hours of War and Peace while plodding away in our barn on my elliptical
trainer. <o:p></o:p>
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Remember the ant and the grasshopper? Alice
works, I play. Coming in late February, early March I’ll perform in “The
Greatest Show”, my fifth musical since I turned 71 ten years ago, a very
late bloomer. Among my seven numbers, my favorite is the duet from “Gigi”,
“Yes, I Remember it Well”.<o:p></o:p>
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Our PA reunion was so much fun that the next one will (tentatively) be on
July 26, 2025, at Ellington Hall in Santa Rosa, since most Pirates live
closer to Santa Rosa than Gualala or Point Arena. Our party is going to the
people! Here is the link to our
<a href="https://pointarenahighclassof1960.blogspot.com">Reunion Page</a
>.<o:p></o:p>
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Alice’s memoir “The Lady With Balls” consumed her time for seven years, and
now it’s Vulcan Wire, the industrial baling wire business she founded almost
fifty years ago, that keeps her very busy. Earlier this month we attended
Vulcan’s Christmas party in Alameda and all seventeen employees were there
for the happiest company holiday party you could imagine. <o:p
></o:p>
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<a
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFkPrFKbWYTMFU-vXqT3S7C1frCyYc3KqxY7dK6A7XBdOpWnjSWASlR7bOWEEwUqfHFAygyNiKHIsn5F1syt9chNKVYYdLS5caq5QEuX-WNzeYP6VLAHRT14_PcmEoGDyhAGWP26-R1anHk3bL1gSTZq903p8-C4XmZrLeqaTYNIiqdkYHsALd"
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><img
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data-original-height="1606"
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">2023 Christmas Eve in Lafayette</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Front - Josie, Debbie, Jack, Daniel</div>
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<o:p> Back - Kieran, Alice, Savanah, Kevin, Me, Jeanette, Hans</o:p>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: 18pt;"
>Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!<o:p></o:p
></span>
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Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-6850202544668808562023-05-06T15:04:00.002-07:002023-05-06T15:04:53.488-07:00Living on the Frontier of Civilization<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdcF_tKzFkDvTmV7Tf-mkbsM-9DEFghwbDJVzE3QxEVM40pMa-v0LHVoAmQUDUrJ73jh7MSbPXF78CP0AMhVa3tTyGsUEdYzxlewf0fFHDPZf3CV5eJeY_6U0rkI6QqIuY0nr5tnhVHkFkHmKrcY_zSnY9yGEWJ6xCeQWkYTSdof51afBJbA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdcF_tKzFkDvTmV7Tf-mkbsM-9DEFghwbDJVzE3QxEVM40pMa-v0LHVoAmQUDUrJ73jh7MSbPXF78CP0AMhVa3tTyGsUEdYzxlewf0fFHDPZf3CV5eJeY_6U0rkI6QqIuY0nr5tnhVHkFkHmKrcY_zSnY9yGEWJ6xCeQWkYTSdof51afBJbA=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Radar says that our road is open!</span></div><p></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">We lead exciting lives here on the frontier of civilization. We lost electrical power on Jan 4 and may have it restored by tomorrow – Jan 11 – but I lack confidence in PG&E’s estimates. PG&E keeps kicking it down the road. But not to worry. We have a propane-powered generator which comes on automatically when the power goes off and powers the whole house, except for the dishwasher. I power the dishwashing.</span></p><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And about roads, ours was totally blocked by two trees falling across <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>it a week ago and involving the power line which no longer was providing power. The trees didn’t break the line, just laid upon it and stretched it tightly while slightly bowing the power poles on either side.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The unpowered power line proved a problem because the Mendocino County road crew would not remove the trees until PG&E gave assurance that the power was off. I gave the road crew personal assurances that the power was off but that did not suffice.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When the trees fell we were fortunate in an odd fashion. We had driven to Cook’s Beach to play ball with Radar and were blocked by the fallen trees upon return - they fell minutes after we left for the beach. But by having one of our cars on the other side of the blockage we were able to walk to it and go to town for shopping and picking up mail – for all of our over 33 years of wedded bliss we have never had home mail delivery.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By far the most vexing issue, at least for Alice, was that over a week ago, before the storms hit, a part on our propane-powered hot water heater failed. When the replacement part arrived last Thursday, the plumbers would not walk through the downed tree area because of the proximity to the non-powered power line to install the repair part. I continued my daily exercise routine and took eight accelerated “Navy” showers – accelerated because, unlike normal hot-water conserving Navy showers, mine was taken with very cold water. Very water conserving. Alice conserved even more water – to my eight cold showers, she had one.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But more about the trees. After waiting patiently – we had no choice - for the county, PG&E, or AT&T to clear the road, I hired a tree cutter Sunday and in less than thirty minutes he cut a way for vehicles to drive through. Which enabled the sissy plumbers – Alice’s description – to drive here this morning and restore our hot water.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our weekly newspaper arrived in the mail four days late and brought the sad news that “Robbie” Robinson passed away. Robbie used to tell folks when we met at occasions, such as his band playing for dances at the Wild Pig BBQs, that he used to be my Scoutmaster, and so he was. In 1956 he arranged for Ron and I, Paul Greco, and others who I can’t recall, to go to Boy Scout Camp Navarro where we had a really fun two weeks.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jim Russell was the Scoutmaster prior to Robbie and we watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on his small-screen TV. It wasn’t live – it had been filmed and the film rushed to New York for broadcasting – but nonetheless a memorable occasion, especially since at the time I didn’t know that it wasn’t live. For years I told others that we had watched it live, and we all shared our ignorance.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Robbie and band were playing at the Point Arena Veteran’s Hall just after I had a bunionectomy – I think 1991 – and had a pin in my left foot at the base of the big toe to aid healing, so naturally Alice and I danced every fast dance. I almost knocked over Robbie's speaker while frantically protecting my foot from being stepped on by a heedless = inebriated dancer nearby.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, .SFNSText-Regular, sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is a digression - one of many. Alice usually sleeps with an eye mask to block out light and before going to sleep in a hotel room she roams about putting barriers on the little lights on the various electrical fixtures in the room. She envies that I just go to sleep anywhere, usually with her having a light on near me so that she can unwind reading a book. I unwind by quickly falling asleep.</span></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The forecast for this area weather is more rain and strong winds, but it’s been clear and dry the past twelve hours. Alice believes in Camelot weather, where “the rain may never fall ‘till after sundown…” Agnostics we are, but still we entreat God to do this bidding, and since the Sun set almost four hours ago, God has our permission to let it pour – but please spare the trees!</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s off to bed now to snore Alice to sleep.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stay warm and dry,</span></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Mike, Alice, and sweet little Radar – who doesn’t enjoy thunder</span></div>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-40623050696216525102023-03-21T22:54:00.003-07:002023-03-21T22:54:55.627-07:00Liberals are Selective about Diversity<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 27pt;">The opinion section of the March 10, 2023 ICO featured the ICO DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) tribe out in full force, as is usual. It reminded me of the ICO’s aversion to diversity if such includes conservatives, since this year is the tenth anniversary of the ICO informing me that henceforth any letters I submitted of a “repetitive” nature would not be published in the ICO. I’ve collected many of my ICO rejects in a blog icocensored.blogspot.com. The only thing repetitive about them is that they offended the ICO’s liberal sensitivities.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 27pt;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636; font-size: large; text-indent: 27pt;">Since many universities now mandate signing a DEI statement as a condition of employment, the ICO may soon require one to be published.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The ICO editorial lamented states’ policies concerning drag shows, favorite childhood books, and gender reassignment. About drag shows, I’m surprised that liberals don’t label them “cultural appropriation” in their quest to control intellectual activity. For example, one of my writing instructors, Myriam Gurba, accused Jeanine Cummins, author of <i>American Dirt</i>, of not being a legitimate author because she is not “Latinx”. I guess that would also apply to <i>Grapes of Wrath</i> because Steinbeck wasn’t an Okie. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><span style="font-size: medium;">About childhood entertainment, liberal banning includes some Dr. Suess books, <i>Little House on the Prairie, Barbar, Curious George</i>, <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, and a personal favorite, <i>Song of the South. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Concerning gender reassignment, many public schools allow students to socially transition — change their name, pronouns, or gender expression — without parental consent, to follow federal and state student privacy guidance. I doubt parents are told that some school policies prohibit parents to be informed of significant issues if their child requests it. I also doubt that schools are competent in such issues and could easily do more harm than good. So much for choice belonging to “the person and their supportive parents.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #363636;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-52945994899733452802023-03-21T22:28:00.002-07:002023-03-21T22:34:06.442-07:00Witnesses to Flight Rage!<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 22.5pt;">Our relaxing ten-day Barbados vacation ended March 8 when we boarded American Flight 1192 at 4 pm bound for Miami on a three-and-a-half-hour flight in comfortable First Class, row 3, seats A and B. The first two hours passed uneventfully. I read our Gualala Rotary book club selection, Ireland: A Novel, by Frank Delaney, on my iPhone, and Alice read a Barbados newspaper borrowed from a large, genial fellow, seated just in front of me. At sone point Alice remarked that a fellow in the first row, far left seat (seat D), was laughing often and quite loudly.</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just past the two-hour mark I stood up and stepped into the aisle to let Alice go to the restroom located forward on the left of the cockpit door. Alice asked the two fellows from row one, who were standing in the Flight Attendant galley area, if they were in line for the bathroom and they said they weren’t, so Alice continued to the restroom and entered. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then the fellow who had been laughing, now standing in the galley area, started arguing with the male and two female flight attendants who were trying to work there. They told him to go back to his seat and he loudly refused. Then he pushed towards the door to the cockpit and the flight attendants continued to order him to return to his seat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the female flight attendants left the galley area with a roll of duct tape and handed it to a passenger, a large man seated a row behind me. He took the duct tape and came up the aisle towards the front. On his way forward he recruited the big guy seated in front of me and an even bigger Polynesian guy seated across from me to go with him to control to troublemaker. As they passed I got up and stood behind them to see if Alice was in danger.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I saw the bathroom door open and Alice started out. She saw me and later told me that she had never seen me so worried. As she started to leave the bathroom she was afraid that there was a terrorist attack. A female flight attendant saw Alice exiting the bathroom and told her to go back in, which she did without asking the attendant why. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The three large men confronted the angry man and told him to either get in his seat or be put in it by force and duct taped to it. The trouble maker continued angrily and obscenely to refuse to take his seat and the three men replied – with a few choice obscene words of their own - that they would make him take his seat. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The impasse ended abruptly when the Polynesian guy suddenly grabbed the fellow and slammed him into his seat. This inspired him to protest very loudly while the three men demanded that he stay in his seat and shut up or be shut up. The shouting abruptly halted when the fellow realized that he was sitting on broken glass. The wine glass he left at his seat when he went to argue with the flight attendants shattered when he was thrown into his seat. He quietly got up and stood at his seat while a flight attendant removed the broken glass and wiped up the spilled wine with a white towel, then went to the restroom and told Alice to come out in order that the cleanup could be completed in the bathroom. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When Alice saw the towel she thought that it was bloody and was relieved to find that it was just red wine. Alice weaved her way through the “big guys” still standing in the aisle and returned to her seat next to me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The remainder of the flight was uneventful until we landed in Miami and taxied to the gate and the ramp was attached. When the aircraft door was opened a uniformed policeman entered the plane and stood in the aisle near the troublemaker. A wheelchair was then brought for an elderly woman in the right seat of the first row, and she and her attendant who was sitting behind her and just in front of Alice left the plane. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The policeman began asking questions about what happened, who was involved, and if anyone would volunteer to accompany him to an office area in the terminal to make a formal statement. Several passengers volunteered that they had videoed the incident on their smart phones and would transmit their videos to an address the policeman provided. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The policeman then told the perpetrator to stand up with his hands behind his back and be handcuffed. The Polynesian fellow identified himself as the person who physically acted and arranged to give a statement in time to make his connecting flight. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The process with the policeman lasted about twenty minutes and finally we were all allowed to exit the plane. When Alice and I left the plane we passed by the handcuffed fellow leaning against a wall in the hallway in the company of six policemen. His plight inspired me to think about his coming day in court. Not too many years ago, in similar circumstances, he could have denied doing what he was accused of and many people would have to be brought from far away at great personal expense and inconvenience to testify against him. Now everything he did and said is recorded in several videos; there is no need to have witnesses try to remember and describe all that they saw and heard in such a confused environment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.3in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It's plea bargain time!</span><o:p></o:p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-31788595866036200272022-11-19T21:49:00.160-08:002022-12-19T11:59:22.468-08:00 Our 2022 Christmas Letter<div class="separator"><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p></div><div class="separator"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj6MKPYpAqoa1D1cd4BMiOrVKSGNA20ceI_gvepXzLNqNdxiD6vwJC1UKiL3xb49OOHrITQmK4AyqXclSGp4H_xXH_vz5Rfb18V5rqXBAa1e2vtJtZkmDzy1KDM-71PI9XVf8iStlDLx_0QoXMbb3TUpIscNVQEKt0dcWFo1RPCSz5L7hig/s1106/IMG_7769.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj6MKPYpAqoa1D1cd4BMiOrVKSGNA20ceI_gvepXzLNqNdxiD6vwJC1UKiL3xb49OOHrITQmK4AyqXclSGp4H_xXH_vz5Rfb18V5rqXBAa1e2vtJtZkmDzy1KDM-71PI9XVf8iStlDLx_0QoXMbb3TUpIscNVQEKt0dcWFo1RPCSz5L7hig/s320/IMG_7769.jpeg" width="304" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;">A long time ago when the World was young, two momentous events resulted in Alice and I both reaching eighty years of age this year. Alice, being more impatient, reached 80 first in March, provoking her beautiful daughters, Jeanette and Debbie, to fill our Gualala home with celebrants. <span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> <img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="1612" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZhS0VNPolotUdMIFQzogQ1aTVOw7US2VwHdWkL077AmvBlY9OlD7no0INWqxQ0Hn7DIadz_dEnaCF5sLPpa24Qfmkc8WQbWXrQdkV3Zf9OV82Fy1JtDZBzT4d0VlMEjRnoSpnfKay69GX5ijZDnrSwsEmCppuzTn_3oyladQqYpeib23FLw/w640-h298/IMG_7423.jpeg" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Granddaughters Josie and Savannah, Me, Grandson Daniel, Alice, Grandson Kevin, Jeanette, First Husband Hans, Debbie, Grandson Jack, Son-in-law Kieran<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;">If asked about this family birthday photo, Alice would say that it “tickles her tummy.” Hans and I are retired, Hans from captaining the Larkspur ferry, me from the Air Force and sundry other activities. Alice is semi-retired from the very successful corporation she founded, Vulcan Wire. Jeanette, Kieran, and Debbie are gainfully employed, as is eldest grandson Kevin in commodities and landlording in Minneapolis. Savannah, Daniel, Jack, and Josie are in a variety of college pursuits. We recently visited Savannah in Charleston, South Carolina, where she is in a graduate nursing program.</span></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ici0MrcyLh2VepMVx5jWkwWCAEDCKf34Z7rL9h_aWAOwsRCzDjwGRoFiwi2XdgrjmdayU0zyBQCtAOBz6XOado_l1qydiZmlR_4H5APhQKQ8N2BHSXaGm-dPn1TDoH51ee3_vPzeHZRSCgyyYqGBUXQcZAPmA8fbEsP9NsqG4JhvlWcfCw/s4032/IMG_7438.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ici0MrcyLh2VepMVx5jWkwWCAEDCKf34Z7rL9h_aWAOwsRCzDjwGRoFiwi2XdgrjmdayU0zyBQCtAOBz6XOado_l1qydiZmlR_4H5APhQKQ8N2BHSXaGm-dPn1TDoH51ee3_vPzeHZRSCgyyYqGBUXQcZAPmA8fbEsP9NsqG4JhvlWcfCw/w480-h640/IMG_7438.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Birthday Girl</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh758UVbqD9EKAN0qa6uocsCqDLjzb_c1Mt8Br_lc2S3ZECI7HK6hxUfByGaR5h1dF7P9wjsaLUv3OVTzqsvVMNwJV-hcm05UGWXSl9OEgLzpX44srEbcMVOQ2_IXhNW5VQkHaA6ze9OZ2uwDgMFshvvHPkgovjXei2zqaUlrQYbg8CSSHkYA/s4032/IMG_7448.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh758UVbqD9EKAN0qa6uocsCqDLjzb_c1Mt8Br_lc2S3ZECI7HK6hxUfByGaR5h1dF7P9wjsaLUv3OVTzqsvVMNwJV-hcm05UGWXSl9OEgLzpX44srEbcMVOQ2_IXhNW5VQkHaA6ze9OZ2uwDgMFshvvHPkgovjXei2zqaUlrQYbg8CSSHkYA/w640-h480/IMG_7448.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Each candle is doing the work of ten!</span></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When my turn came in July, Alice pulled out all the stops, rented the Gualala Community Center, had Leslie Bates cater heavy hors d'oeuvres, and hosted a hundred of our friends and family. Almost all family from her birthday attended plus my younger brother Ron and wife Kathy. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiCBBRMNWX8sFzdWfpr2ua80wh5le-KTi47ph5rxaBVJfyHJmPbWFtyF0vQ6Ie6t347uEQM5SCVThoDLx0g6-DNk_Au59L9dH9QdRYL55Jn1pMBPSxOBvXLTvBJjxBAdQHkvFRBUDsIbDzNSIY2D9_2R6JNwxhwPJv3HYHwdOx9lZprvRWDg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiCBBRMNWX8sFzdWfpr2ua80wh5le-KTi47ph5rxaBVJfyHJmPbWFtyF0vQ6Ie6t347uEQM5SCVThoDLx0g6-DNk_Au59L9dH9QdRYL55Jn1pMBPSxOBvXLTvBJjxBAdQHkvFRBUDsIbDzNSIY2D9_2R6JNwxhwPJv3HYHwdOx9lZprvRWDg=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Andy Johnston telling tall tales about our Good Old Days</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Also well represented were my Lions and Rotary friends, fellow musical performers, neighbors, and buddy Andy Johnston, who I first “met” in 1958 as we knocked each other around playing high school eight-man football, Laytonville vs. Point Arena. Andy and I faced each other twice, in 1958 and 1959, and my team lost both times. Andy makes sure I never forget.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEfBSs0ITZDjkDF3jpPL5ppIJI04OfsY0oN6BFC19hOtJAC31xSOgKw9KL-hfLLQ5pLB7KXGTwHBb6tMMwwodcg6v6zzEqq02qNVFXEWJxBxMyQ96QpGddS3mvHO5MYLf5HsvuSMsN1N82iAlDbwwvqAf91yF4QhkDMdw4QtbnFgjmHafOXQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="545" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEfBSs0ITZDjkDF3jpPL5ppIJI04OfsY0oN6BFC19hOtJAC31xSOgKw9KL-hfLLQ5pLB7KXGTwHBb6tMMwwodcg6v6zzEqq02qNVFXEWJxBxMyQ96QpGddS3mvHO5MYLf5HsvuSMsN1N82iAlDbwwvqAf91yF4QhkDMdw4QtbnFgjmHafOXQ=w400-h381" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); font-size: medium;">Birthday Boy is undaunted by the huge candle </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); font-size: medium;">and enormous (full sheet) carrot cake</span></span></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidCXoAZdzECpTgRU1VL6pmN5-sz6FxuAMRfsnvF_u-1xzfrewF7DxOe3NIFn5KaPPjPnToe61zojRdDPkd7z2kUAWhm2JcLeis__sWcgBXzkFo51yiuullFoJ3DHlvgOZH_n-RypZdXibom9qkgxeQEKvpetDydKcf9bSyW8_8mX4dNZM6NA/s4032/IMG_3232.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidCXoAZdzECpTgRU1VL6pmN5-sz6FxuAMRfsnvF_u-1xzfrewF7DxOe3NIFn5KaPPjPnToe61zojRdDPkd7z2kUAWhm2JcLeis__sWcgBXzkFo51yiuullFoJ3DHlvgOZH_n-RypZdXibom9qkgxeQEKvpetDydKcf9bSyW8_8mX4dNZM6NA/w300-h400/IMG_3232.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><o:p> </o:p><div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="color: black;">Leading a Martinelli apple juice toast</span><span color="windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With help from Chucky at Gualala Market, guests could also imbibe wine and beer</span><span face="-webkit-standard, serif" style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In January my eldest son Bruce and wife Lisa visited us in Gualala for the first time. Bruce hadn’t been in the area since we all visited my Pop and stepmother Ruth in Point Arena when we came back from Hawaii in 1982. My younger sons Scott and Jeffrey haven’t been here since then, but we hope Jeffrey can visit in January.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">During the year we made frequent trips to our closest metropolis, Santa Rosa (75 miles away), for medical matters. Alice fortunately had minor cataracts that required cornea replacement surgery, as I had two years ago. Her eyesight is now that of a 26-year old. However, another problem, a pinched nerve in her back radiating pain to her right leg, is still in the process of repair.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">May was a busy month with trips to Chico for Savannah's graduation from Chico State's nursing school and then to Walnut Creek for Josie's graduation from Las Lomas High School.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5Ia9uM8Yyjomhr1OnjtlE48j3dNYt6V3M5PydjhoDr8tSE3fNLSuEsVy-uOhwP0OEbn5F8c12sFY6KT3Y-7_c8TIvb6Ciqyg4OH_bB2bWHayJySRsV6zyO-fsWaY4y8t4-Zzb05vlCPb77IVzjXrLAVUzV6yibCfiEbgHfUmu3CuQ4aPDgQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1895" data-original-width="2393" height="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5Ia9uM8Yyjomhr1OnjtlE48j3dNYt6V3M5PydjhoDr8tSE3fNLSuEsVy-uOhwP0OEbn5F8c12sFY6KT3Y-7_c8TIvb6Ciqyg4OH_bB2bWHayJySRsV6zyO-fsWaY4y8t4-Zzb05vlCPb77IVzjXrLAVUzV6yibCfiEbgHfUmu3CuQ4aPDgQ=w640-h507" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Savannah's boyfriend Eric, Hans, Jeanette, Jack, Josie, Me, Savannah, Debbie, Alice, Daniel, Kieran</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmIPG90FMHEBBx4zN4B_Ts4rp8LLjQdBzMSGIDaY1WEHMaJhqRm64VVWrT1rj-r2_2a9ZFpnb2JII5Sda9B_kPewaXMKrnD266hrM3uIBuk4-gRQlvHfqcpyUFBMJY6rnnHDxMIMVR2Ki5S7pmAoL78BboJP9qjXcz-u9SMYs2kWSjwTUq4A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2691" data-original-width="3217" height="535" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmIPG90FMHEBBx4zN4B_Ts4rp8LLjQdBzMSGIDaY1WEHMaJhqRm64VVWrT1rj-r2_2a9ZFpnb2JII5Sda9B_kPewaXMKrnD266hrM3uIBuk4-gRQlvHfqcpyUFBMJY6rnnHDxMIMVR2Ki5S7pmAoL78BboJP9qjXcz-u9SMYs2kWSjwTUq4A=w640-h535" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">Good friend and neighbor Donna, Josie the Graduate, Debbie, and Alice</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiHKBhLEnJSVTN2X40IX-bfTIJ2NvV9nyLixQVmtezMepGy8q-PtnffCksSkboD2U4tKVEOQrG4WsNl0bBLtsGhcf6SN-omE621Mvw2J-RNRrzM0cdHzqgksiNAEN0BnrgIlpfisBwP4waiuDfMfH1lTjBHWKWzQoQpdH7H0Cqq1McIr7kHQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiHKBhLEnJSVTN2X40IX-bfTIJ2NvV9nyLixQVmtezMepGy8q-PtnffCksSkboD2U4tKVEOQrG4WsNl0bBLtsGhcf6SN-omE621Mvw2J-RNRrzM0cdHzqgksiNAEN0BnrgIlpfisBwP4waiuDfMfH1lTjBHWKWzQoQpdH7H0Cqq1McIr7kHQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice, Jack, Daniel, Jeanette, Donna, Kieran, and Savannah</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhkG-UbeOz5eZZlYW7Rm8vxWsTarZf4aAhji9USu14HrsYP_Ie4pD4UwmP8ygxUlyx-NaZpfz6GwEgMrXGp5J5js92OymaVFCTcWAHppAS6AYEm19V7lFpQAWo3aCvTdMRR5zCOyd8bi7Lie_36zX3gMi70zi3KRMzBVatoIe-qqvJQb7po3A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhkG-UbeOz5eZZlYW7Rm8vxWsTarZf4aAhji9USu14HrsYP_Ie4pD4UwmP8ygxUlyx-NaZpfz6GwEgMrXGp5J5js92OymaVFCTcWAHppAS6AYEm19V7lFpQAWo3aCvTdMRR5zCOyd8bi7Lie_36zX3gMi70zi3KRMzBVatoIe-qqvJQb7po3A=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ron and I. I was much bigger than Ron - his nicknames were "Peanuts" and later "Runt" - until about age 13, then he passed me and grew to 6' 5" as I stopped at 6' 2". Some much shorter friends still call him "Runt"</span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In June we visited my younger brother Ron and his wife Kathy at their home in Eureka for his 79th birthday. Every year we spend almost a month the same age because the doctor told Mom that she couldn't have any more children after I was born caesarean. Mom didn't want me to be a lonely, only child, and told that doctor, "Put a zipper in that incision, I'll be right back." Eleven months and four days later brother Ronald was born, the most wonderful gift Mom and Pop ever gave me.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We ended this short trip with a visit to my middle son, Scott, in nearby Fortuna.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A very good friend, Dick Soule, turned 100 the day after I did 80, and my Gualala Rotary Club honored him and his sweet wife Ellen at a luncheon meeting in the Gualala Community Center.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In August we went to Claremont for a Celebration of Life memorial for Alice's dear friend of almost sixty years, Miranda Chan, hosted by her daughters Yun-Lan and Oi-Lan. Then we went to Beverley Hills and the La Brea tar pits that have fascinated me ever since I read about them in grammar school over seventy years ago. Although Alice was an early Valley Girl, living in Tarzana and going to school and college until she married Hans in 1962, and I was born in nearby Torrance and lived a couple of years in Long Beach, we didn't recognize anything but agreed that Hollywood had seen better days. And we had fun regardless. We continued our Gualala routine of walking about three miles every day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We went to Madame Tussaud’s and recognized almost all the celebrates depicted as long as they were famous over fifty years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHrJdqFJgzANFlaLBH4iU0hRGAtvmLT2GwQdv8Ny51VFhv0K1KLQS0pMcxH0mIfrCVLULoCJQ3L2KkL9lsvi9PtFjtaDR-KgjfVFrlCKyB-sa_Qz-ZApy5d46_L2CVweTYiWfaI-kRqvXmW444_VZFitxAH3B85ZmuSzWZsifNmA0AzBvzgg/s3057/IMG_7794.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3057" data-original-width="2544" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHrJdqFJgzANFlaLBH4iU0hRGAtvmLT2GwQdv8Ny51VFhv0K1KLQS0pMcxH0mIfrCVLULoCJQ3L2KkL9lsvi9PtFjtaDR-KgjfVFrlCKyB-sa_Qz-ZApy5d46_L2CVweTYiWfaI-kRqvXmW444_VZFitxAH3B85ZmuSzWZsifNmA0AzBvzgg/w532-h640/IMG_7794.jpeg" width="532" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As I was making moves on Marilyn – watched by Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart - Alice and John Travolta were steppin’ out.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIP9lD14bO1hi6C5pim35SljW9m72kBjoGecVe-nkp2GK05VbvjWdGhMPySGC4qbg7IWmLMiQ1OAgJLn7op2HCBDJB499lOUmfk5j2G3NMENOVop91TYCTQ7mrqHj5UCXVeNEnK_NLXrWS3c-xsCutld4sxtKlIjtirU56wP4uFWU9PpGVQ/s2587/IMG_7804.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2183" data-original-width="2587" height="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIP9lD14bO1hi6C5pim35SljW9m72kBjoGecVe-nkp2GK05VbvjWdGhMPySGC4qbg7IWmLMiQ1OAgJLn7op2HCBDJB499lOUmfk5j2G3NMENOVop91TYCTQ7mrqHj5UCXVeNEnK_NLXrWS3c-xsCutld4sxtKlIjtirU56wP4uFWU9PpGVQ/w640-h540/IMG_7804.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The travel bug bit again – it’s actually been attacking us since we got the first of our five Covid </span><span>shots in January 2021, so in September we went to Kiawah </span><span>Island near Charleston, SC. Besides many miles of sandy beaches, the island is composed of golf courses garnished with tennis courts. Since we don’t indulge in golf and tennis, we had the most interesting parts of the island all to ourselves – especially when Hurricane Ian arrived, as a tropical storm, and all the restaurants and the premier hotel closed. What was left of Ian passed directly over us with some strong wind gusts that blew a few branches off trees and delivered 3.5 inches of rain. A stronger storm hit Gualala in mid-September and did not cause us to change any of our daily walks and playing ball </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>with Radar</span><span> on Cook’s Beach. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i7-OXRNRtoxyNsrPpuwKhtMOusGHaDesK9lIhWAi0dG2kmfDBYEnK-Zkx1NAy3SXgfkf8IEk9-j_1Z46fcPjqneC9RGMzAdebdbg-uM1RiNdmz_Ilg2FAQ-NCvRN-7IfruItP823EcE8b_6A_6VPPRRiIvgD9CwFlpE702Vq-pM_j1yzHw/s4032/IMG_7862.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i7-OXRNRtoxyNsrPpuwKhtMOusGHaDesK9lIhWAi0dG2kmfDBYEnK-Zkx1NAy3SXgfkf8IEk9-j_1Z46fcPjqneC9RGMzAdebdbg-uM1RiNdmz_Ilg2FAQ-NCvRN-7IfruItP823EcE8b_6A_6VPPRRiIvgD9CwFlpE702Vq-pM_j1yzHw/w640-h480/IMG_7862.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With the empty prestigious Sanctuary Hotel behind Alice, we awaited what was left of Hurricane Ian on an otherwise totally deserted eight-mile sandy beach</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6R3ML3m5nhWB25qYj5gRvAnPdamSjAifON8LZ4q7ECzwSCUFUtdvMZ8u5rO1Nr2JYZXDWB7catsoxBns0Xc23lrAgrnYBDfnCrnqR-114OzW-THvvV5c4BUWKoVl12S1vmJaHFfA4jF8qUKBLYfiVu6ioRu4zrINZAe4WyPOLhcHjgA1kg/s4032/IMG_7838.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6R3ML3m5nhWB25qYj5gRvAnPdamSjAifON8LZ4q7ECzwSCUFUtdvMZ8u5rO1Nr2JYZXDWB7catsoxBns0Xc23lrAgrnYBDfnCrnqR-114OzW-THvvV5c4BUWKoVl12S1vmJaHFfA4jF8qUKBLYfiVu6ioRu4zrINZAe4WyPOLhcHjgA1kg/w640-h480/IMG_7838.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The view from our villa. Alice loved the screened deck, but especially valued having two bath rooms, so that will be a requirement for future trips like our Barbados vacation this coming February.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eJi90sMbkJW5rl9kyDS9Jz0o5KFemuHil91lzuugztIrx9lb1WR_2ZBUTJvRI_QfhEeOvuWp1bOgjKo5dPNU6KrWKiZOoaGzZcpEndObVicFqVcWFaTJ3EgoOWQY1W1fQVsoqDvPniKz7DsO8p4kKLVsKNoHC3BzwHVYTpJOwB8PKgvpFw/s4032/IMG_7867.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eJi90sMbkJW5rl9kyDS9Jz0o5KFemuHil91lzuugztIrx9lb1WR_2ZBUTJvRI_QfhEeOvuWp1bOgjKo5dPNU6KrWKiZOoaGzZcpEndObVicFqVcWFaTJ3EgoOWQY1W1fQVsoqDvPniKz7DsO8p4kKLVsKNoHC3BzwHVYTpJOwB8PKgvpFw/w640-h480/IMG_7867.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The view from our deck. The fawn didn’t molest the alligator.</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzUaKIw2n6AMRMO3lfINM7LCvMOUEUBVKHZhbKMGlyABaTw0mSpJsCGPvRAyIIHbc_nG3g-k-LhvsxKi0DZiSDXSKf7GUDG3BFDO_iFkyS1L1lYpnh6kaCwHrZDWnMcu3E_KEb-pMLrVr-mQRB5QNEf2riSHa3INbxjXTXWL52m6b6RPTgg/s2697/IMG_7881.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1494" data-original-width="2697" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzUaKIw2n6AMRMO3lfINM7LCvMOUEUBVKHZhbKMGlyABaTw0mSpJsCGPvRAyIIHbc_nG3g-k-LhvsxKi0DZiSDXSKf7GUDG3BFDO_iFkyS1L1lYpnh6kaCwHrZDWnMcu3E_KEb-pMLrVr-mQRB5QNEf2riSHa3INbxjXTXWL52m6b6RPTgg/w640-h354/IMG_7881.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><o:p><div style="text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">We spotted Albert sunning near a bike path as we peddled </span></div></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I assembled and mailed out over 225 Christmas cards and hope that none will be returned with the notation "No forwarding address on file."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Vulcan Wire, Inc., the company Alice founded in the 1970's, had its annual Christmas party at Paradiso Restaurant, San Leandro. hosted by CEO Mike Graffio. You can read all about it in Alice's memoir, <i><a href="https://ladywithballs.com">The Lady With Balls</a></i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiU18TgDA9BCE9SEEUvyvS7LiZ-N9Ipnd7lKqZslcfdVTelXAuVjoAqvOTMeudlE9ii2VeRMRu9sREcCsEOeYVtLlQJyF_mcfK_a7H7tHbI0xG1fhe4llHNZLhWHME8xZRbqsfuh0L47ru7EY-MzKOxGdwMTu8ASMAVxtv81P2Cq7_QA0fGw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1621" data-original-width="2044" height="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiU18TgDA9BCE9SEEUvyvS7LiZ-N9Ipnd7lKqZslcfdVTelXAuVjoAqvOTMeudlE9ii2VeRMRu9sREcCsEOeYVtLlQJyF_mcfK_a7H7tHbI0xG1fhe4llHNZLhWHME8xZRbqsfuh0L47ru7EY-MzKOxGdwMTu8ASMAVxtv81P2Cq7_QA0fGw=w640-h507" width="640" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From left, me, Alice, Jennifer </span><span style="font-size: large;">Stafford</span><span style="font-size: large;"> and Edward Valenzuela (across from each other), Nicole Clark and her Mom, Mike Graffio, Chuck and Teresa Rodrigues, Steve and Cindy Brandt</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinXZ3qD2kOzUYnvkhYPgfk2X6qAdRm30r3_CMjU6jMhkX_Ww-zAi8HFwebtz9mbSs4RjBIJ7__SCa5m5PoDjclEpjAlEdN8ObsmRNp3DqMamUZ41y0xrIHiWm8mr6pAHaNTvCFawIW3WpMpXD7WR6pS9MabOityeRBm9C5RGf4e6nRImLjPA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinXZ3qD2kOzUYnvkhYPgfk2X6qAdRm30r3_CMjU6jMhkX_Ww-zAi8HFwebtz9mbSs4RjBIJ7__SCa5m5PoDjclEpjAlEdN8ObsmRNp3DqMamUZ41y0xrIHiWm8mr6pAHaNTvCFawIW3WpMpXD7WR6pS9MabOityeRBm9C5RGf4e6nRImLjPA=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From left, Deena Shine across from husband Nick, brothers Salvador and Gerardo Martinez, </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">brothers Victor and Hector Hernandez</span></span></p><span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggWsnN5vFh_H8STOG3fjoPJGOL4Bo9VOIRI34v8_nG-OOiOMIbckNfnoC9ZmDWuJfMHopWutMBA2wNqmOHe6Ts8AQBETGVPr4f7iE3EkEXmeNksVy-DkJAXH9yVvQsm23CqhLiiYoyTPsstAkUuK0JlBzg9NZC2_gg4_bYS2EyoCTT5lySRg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggWsnN5vFh_H8STOG3fjoPJGOL4Bo9VOIRI34v8_nG-OOiOMIbckNfnoC9ZmDWuJfMHopWutMBA2wNqmOHe6Ts8AQBETGVPr4f7iE3EkEXmeNksVy-DkJAXH9yVvQsm23CqhLiiYoyTPsstAkUuK0JlBzg9NZC2_gg4_bYS2EyoCTT5lySRg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From left, Nate Rowland, Smita Patel and son, Kenji and Shauna Rodriguez, Pepe </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;">Balderrama</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Of</span> course I will be updating this Christmas letter as we celebrate Gualala Rotary and Lions holiday festivities, and wrapping up this Christmas with family cheer in Walnut Creek and Lafayette.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">To my schoolmates from Point Arena High School, I plan our reunion July 22 at the Gualala Community Center and hope to hear from all who can make it - and from those who can't.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good year!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXtSb0ZEPXSnZwYvhkCT3dMqbWUeiNfUiAc4IN65VQclEmN3N_JStxNXPspFErQgaaEw21v9hAj26HwcE62Jdhgl1fkz9AXCZyBTvNgt8cE5ZFis6kgdaghluKKabzx72uYqtTN7bRvKWc4rT8N1qAljefV050Hfz9Z3AYl2uT0MyVWEbyLw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="392" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXtSb0ZEPXSnZwYvhkCT3dMqbWUeiNfUiAc4IN65VQclEmN3N_JStxNXPspFErQgaaEw21v9hAj26HwcE62Jdhgl1fkz9AXCZyBTvNgt8cE5ZFis6kgdaghluKKabzx72uYqtTN7bRvKWc4rT8N1qAljefV050Hfz9Z3AYl2uT0MyVWEbyLw=w173-h320" width="173" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Radar says "Woof (Party!)"</div><p></p><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-65375074424078181852022-11-18T16:27:00.002-08:002022-11-18T16:27:35.965-08:00The Lancet response to Bjørn Lomborg<div class="crawler css-bsrkcm-Box e1vnmyci0" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Retina, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: var(--spacing-spacer-8);"><h1 class="css-1hch5ce-StyledHeadline e1ipbpvp0" style="--headline-font-color: var(--primary-text-color); --headline-link-hover-color: var(--color-blue); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-weight: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-weight); line-height: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-line-height); margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: var(--font-style-italic);">A </span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; text-align: center;">Bjørn Lomborg</span><span style="font-style: var(--font-style-italic);"> </span><i>Wall Street Journal</i><span style="font-style: var(--font-style-italic);"> article (</span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lancets-heat-death-deception-united-nations-cop-27-cold-study-population-growth-technology-energy-climate-11667580996?mod=Searchresults_pos4&page=1" style="font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-style: var(--font-style-italic);">Climate Change and the Lancet’s ‘Heat Death’ Deception</a><span style="font-style: var(--font-style-italic);"> </span><span style="color: var(--secondary-text-color); font-style: var(--font-style-italic);">With COP27 approaching, {Lancet} claims rising temperatures have killed people but ignores that they appear to have saved far more.) </span><span style="color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-style: var(--font-style-italic);">criticized a </span><span style="color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family);"><i>Lancet</i></span><span style="color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-style: var(--font-style-italic);"> study that found a increasing heat deaths among old people without adjusting for the fact that there are a lot more old people now, thanks to medical and environmental progress as a result of fossil fuel use.</span></span></h1><h1 class="css-1hch5ce-StyledHeadline e1ipbpvp0" style="--headline-font-color: var(--primary-text-color); --headline-link-hover-color: var(--color-blue); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-size: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-size); font-style: var(--font-style-italic); font-weight: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-weight); line-height: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-line-height); margin: 0px;"><br /></h1><h1 class="css-1hch5ce-StyledHeadline e1ipbpvp0" style="--headline-font-color: var(--primary-text-color); --headline-link-hover-color: var(--color-blue); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-size: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-size); font-weight: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-weight); line-height: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-line-height); margin: 0px;"><i>Lancet</i><span style="font-style: var(--font-style-italic);"> then <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/lancet-countdown-climate-change-lomborg-heat-deaths-11668119029?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1">responded</a> by going wildly off topic: "<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;">Behind this discussion lies an ethical conflict. Older generations have enjoyed enormous benefits from industrialization, mostly based on fossil fuels. But global heating from fossil-fuel greenhouse gases leads to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, wildfires, reduced crop yields, increased risk of infectious disease, biodiversity loss and sea-level rise, all with effects on health and survival. We are putting our children’s future in the balance. The generational injustice can’t be ignored."</span></span></h1></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Now it's not the old people, who are </span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">actually doing better because of fossil fueled progress, but the young in a distant future who are threatened by climate change events that, with all the <span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">scrutiny today, still haven't materialized. In fact, this chart shows that our children's risks caused by climate change have declined dramatically over the past 100 years of rapidly expanding fossil fuel use.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhakOOlLBlpe7ORZzcAbN6GJTdCUtUrcfGl9Heh_fYYt49baf0fbxRo6rTSKmu0CZHOyNuHXcwOYvvjgiUxW_g1b3KYrLZXQlGLRNOtBd_wsG7TfUYy4FNIK_qwKyPw-xydjPPxJIGpPW2chFQz9BxVOgEVPefCn9lNMxy1cUqQj5mRYcREtg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="1024" height="491" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhakOOlLBlpe7ORZzcAbN6GJTdCUtUrcfGl9Heh_fYYt49baf0fbxRo6rTSKmu0CZHOyNuHXcwOYvvjgiUxW_g1b3KYrLZXQlGLRNOtBd_wsG7TfUYy4FNIK_qwKyPw-xydjPPxJIGpPW2chFQz9BxVOgEVPefCn9lNMxy1cUqQj5mRYcREtg=w640-h491" width="640" /></a></span></div><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Heat and cold deaths?</span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhInxeEzjtOMTDJPp9DFc18AUNX5RxzycrjbHDQPrpZuq-kwbxUyCUm6fuzTffGa3wJT4bQYj1ST-OsjpfA8fMXqzWWUrInU3z-gnqJCADUpRZqdNtuppgtH07CXchBWDegb9UV0_VqAgz4HKkM0zru3toqjOcCTFNnleDGm9AYeqhpLImCIg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhInxeEzjtOMTDJPp9DFc18AUNX5RxzycrjbHDQPrpZuq-kwbxUyCUm6fuzTffGa3wJT4bQYj1ST-OsjpfA8fMXqzWWUrInU3z-gnqJCADUpRZqdNtuppgtH07CXchBWDegb9UV0_VqAgz4HKkM0zru3toqjOcCTFNnleDGm9AYeqhpLImCIg=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /><i>The Lancet</i> is hoist on its own petard.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Droughts?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipPflzWznDBfJdN9VzUBbycHUBNboxIi4O9iQ8qRAQfpgk9Hj-6-A475fTuvqp9A--v-Lnj9qaOBh6jCir_IaWBB-NIJGWTzp9HrznhRx-crV1uI1sHvf5qr44OTncuMAh10np57Q7KG6g3VQfveqkkp3chw8W-A6Y_sdDC6ID8-QLge2t3Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="1102" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipPflzWznDBfJdN9VzUBbycHUBNboxIi4O9iQ8qRAQfpgk9Hj-6-A475fTuvqp9A--v-Lnj9qaOBh6jCir_IaWBB-NIJGWTzp9HrznhRx-crV1uI1sHvf5qr44OTncuMAh10np57Q7KG6g3VQfveqkkp3chw8W-A6Y_sdDC6ID8-QLge2t3Q=w640-h344" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br />Floods and droughts?</span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD93XxnaZsHWWjeKLltN0KAQ0lOtIVGCNLG2fQVWr8EFcc6qEuausJ_ED216NvNFMohW2S3rj5mL48IP3Q6y1xQtIEz9hrOgHyW87VwL-A1Zulawxq-pK9mDDK2B7PxFWEo1K6VAaqrYNRKP_8snCpIvznaWVLRXt3mNcMGg5oMCQq8jaWXg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="610" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD93XxnaZsHWWjeKLltN0KAQ0lOtIVGCNLG2fQVWr8EFcc6qEuausJ_ED216NvNFMohW2S3rj5mL48IP3Q6y1xQtIEz9hrOgHyW87VwL-A1Zulawxq-pK9mDDK2B7PxFWEo1K6VAaqrYNRKP_8snCpIvznaWVLRXt3mNcMGg5oMCQq8jaWXg=w640-h450" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Extreme weather events?</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4oPtZBYUloGh2xDsv5FhILlzHLp0AxupVqYvcbl85YkI78-wV9kl8Ic3CK01MROlAGmrcGCRkMfGghsTUcAwGcFSouIFxOI0qVy-K4BuT6Nk1dqUFH3iz80t-1sxsDXPQjDN6tNw9EmJ5sF2chF55O53yxCEONepABA55GcPAANuLt2A4uw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="940" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4oPtZBYUloGh2xDsv5FhILlzHLp0AxupVqYvcbl85YkI78-wV9kl8Ic3CK01MROlAGmrcGCRkMfGghsTUcAwGcFSouIFxOI0qVy-K4BuT6Nk1dqUFH3iz80t-1sxsDXPQjDN6tNw9EmJ5sF2chF55O53yxCEONepABA55GcPAANuLt2A4uw=w640-h350" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Wildfires?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXV9wWZJqs02xrfvlSV8YDghVnTYYc1Oou62C0LyQYMdonr7MgVSOjGY64LpvMlx6YzylP2GeRsqbXfgjrtzgMgpFHAKCtkZO4VOSw9Hv_6q4LjM4nhrE4sJoqbmGR-5-QNfPOnWJLsxxHI3pCEg5fFAw-K4OQ2ozS2I8biR_ixGp5dwOWPQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="1038" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXV9wWZJqs02xrfvlSV8YDghVnTYYc1Oou62C0LyQYMdonr7MgVSOjGY64LpvMlx6YzylP2GeRsqbXfgjrtzgMgpFHAKCtkZO4VOSw9Hv_6q4LjM4nhrE4sJoqbmGR-5-QNfPOnWJLsxxHI3pCEg5fFAw-K4OQ2ozS2I8biR_ixGp5dwOWPQ=w640-h400" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br />Reduced crop yields?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); clear: both; color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXkX7hFI3xvef1aTHcjKwrIMD9ShARVvtlT13XJ9DGGW53HSr_4AOmVEThnAdHQWLMWJynek99pE65KK_fOgpf1jrks8PuZfcg0uL6m0-tfx532wA6mE50-iufoMrzngzhtULzyIjKpV-zOL-RIRtI8C3tDnR1pmxebnF6mL5nEZ6i1jgaVg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="698" data-original-width="720" height="619" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXkX7hFI3xvef1aTHcjKwrIMD9ShARVvtlT13XJ9DGGW53HSr_4AOmVEThnAdHQWLMWJynek99pE65KK_fOgpf1jrks8PuZfcg0uL6m0-tfx532wA6mE50-iufoMrzngzhtULzyIjKpV-zOL-RIRtI8C3tDnR1pmxebnF6mL5nEZ6i1jgaVg=w640-h619" width="640" /></a></span></div><h1 class="css-1hch5ce-StyledHeadline e1ipbpvp0" style="--headline-font-color: var(--primary-text-color); --headline-link-hover-color: var(--color-blue); box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-size: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-size); font-style: var(--font-style-italic); font-weight: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-weight); line-height: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-line-height); margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></span></h1><h1 class="css-1hch5ce-StyledHeadline e1ipbpvp0" style="--headline-font-color: var(--primary-text-color); --headline-link-hover-color: var(--color-blue); box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: var(--headline-font-color); font-family: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-family); font-size: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-size); font-style: var(--font-style-italic); font-weight: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-font-weight); line-height: var(--typography-headline-opinion-xxl-line-height); margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;">Increased risk of infectious disease?</span></span></h1><div style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Apparently the <i>Lancet</i> physicians never heard of the <a href="https://www.uc.edu/content/dam/refresh/cont-ed-62/olli/s21/history-of-pandemics.pdf">pandemics that killed hundreds of millions</a> in colder periods of past centuries: the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) that killed 200 million over six hundred years ago; </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;">Smallpox killed 56 million about 500 years ago; Spanish Flu killed almost 50 million only one hundred years ago; the Plague of Justinian killed perhaps 50 million 1,500 years ago; and AIDS/HIV so far has killed <span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">around 30 million. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Of the roughly 259 pandemics spanning the past several thousand years, the probable link to climate change is rapid increase in population and cities after the end of the last glacial period (Ice Age) about 11,700 years ago.</span></span></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Exchange, Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Sea level rise?</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggd0Oypyger0mGDrEKxt0MGfQwV52wXDMWkGF5ASaOETyPW7laICFOizAexMozh9UVZB0PTnbIQuJufeDrqkx4XChne4285iJxnADSCAzwaZOLrbdCcr2uuGsD3AYkeQ0xhXgG-zXVL4YY7eUVAj68iWV8LIq_iV-FAFROkcm71_A-jcob6A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="681" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggd0Oypyger0mGDrEKxt0MGfQwV52wXDMWkGF5ASaOETyPW7laICFOizAexMozh9UVZB0PTnbIQuJufeDrqkx4XChne4285iJxnADSCAzwaZOLrbdCcr2uuGsD3AYkeQ0xhXgG-zXVL4YY7eUVAj68iWV8LIq_iV-FAFROkcm71_A-jcob6A=w632-h640" width="632" /></a></span></div><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Historic sea level higher for most of the past 3,000 years.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAz2cZ7RTcZT68uP4BW-U7biyG5xHxHNzmUezB3etWLZMKCR-IU0doI7U3JEsAAEzkd2fVwSXWVnyjOO2q-Gy35fVCjNVaYZW0aCmohpldsq8KO3P3RsOhdkZrtzp4E8XkOD5iVeKjXIYPpJW7aVYpdhBubkcZ61w2F5429xxN9nFM1HwOQQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="720" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAz2cZ7RTcZT68uP4BW-U7biyG5xHxHNzmUezB3etWLZMKCR-IU0doI7U3JEsAAEzkd2fVwSXWVnyjOO2q-Gy35fVCjNVaYZW0aCmohpldsq8KO3P3RsOhdkZrtzp4E8XkOD5iVeKjXIYPpJW7aVYpdhBubkcZ61w2F5429xxN9nFM1HwOQQ=w640-h464" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Honolulu sea level?</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqBi5UEuv1Z9HbLeDLIr9FXySYDwJ3MEZrBJTxHB65yfXLChjIcdplnwmbKbeaRg5aylxGwtY6tORBxRoI-GSrV0A3oZneF9iq52ghGT1aNSRTyBjekqsog47Ql-Q6pXsBgmK755-_6-mo9qrO6cty-NckFtKqsBh2bjkhR1BcqO05L19pwA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="700" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqBi5UEuv1Z9HbLeDLIr9FXySYDwJ3MEZrBJTxHB65yfXLChjIcdplnwmbKbeaRg5aylxGwtY6tORBxRoI-GSrV0A3oZneF9iq52ghGT1aNSRTyBjekqsog47Ql-Q6pXsBgmK755-_6-mo9qrO6cty-NckFtKqsBh2bjkhR1BcqO05L19pwA=w640-h270" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Honolulu rate of sea level rise is six inches per century and steady.<br /><br />The key points of the <i>Lancet </i>response are all unsupported.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">So I wrote a letter to the Editor of the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>:</span></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">Editor</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Lancet response to Bjorn Lomborg’s article (Climate Change and the Lancet’s ‘Heat Death Deception’” was breathtaking in its deceptions. Its portent of fossil fuel doom didn’t acknowledge the 99% decrease in climate related deaths during the past 100 years due to wealth creation and development as a result of fossil fuel use. Placing the present in the context of the last 1,000 years, we find in the past greater weather events such as droughts and floods and over ten times the acreage burnt by wildfires annually. Rather than “reduced crop yields”, the world now produces record harvests without increased acres planted on an almost annual basis. Sea levels, now lower than during half of the past 10,000 years, are increasing at a rate of six inches per century with no signs of acceleration, per the world’s tide gauge records.</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Lancet letter then goes off tangent about deaths caused by small particulate matter air pollution. Unmentioned by Lancet, these deaths are primarily due to burning wood and dung to cook and heat in enclosed spaces and have been since humans mastered fire. The growing use of natural gas and electricity generated from burning fossil fuels reduces these deaths dramatically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“ Physician (Lancet), heal thyself!”</span><o:p></o:p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-49794808750337175322022-11-12T20:24:00.003-08:002022-11-12T20:24:48.092-08:00Violent Crime Highest in Blue Cities - Paul Krugman's Pants on Fire!<p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lately several liberal columnists – Paul Krugman is one – have written that the crime rate is higher in many Red than in Blue states. So I decided to check this out, and since in many large cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco many crimes go unreported or not charged – a Liberal thing that reduces crime rates while actual crime soars – I decided to examine murders.</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And I found that Krugman was right – in a way. Many of the highest murder rates are in Red states, Mississippi (20.5) and Louisiana (19.9) leading the way. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm#print">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">However, a nonstate, Washington, DC, has the highest murder rate by far, 32.78 murders per 100,000 people. I had already done some research about murder rates by race in 2019 and found that Blacks, who are 14.2% of the population, commit 49% of murders. <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On that basis, I created a hypothesis that a state’s crime rate – at least for murder, the most heinous crime – may have more to do with where persons who murder at a high rate reside versus whether those states are Red or Blue. That led me to tread on ground that only few would dare, the race aspect of the crime of murder.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A comparison of homicides with Black populations by state showed a strong correlation of density of Black population and murder rate. Washington, DC, Mississippi, and Louisiana were numbers 1, 2 and 3 on both lists, and only two states with murder rates over 12.3, Oklahoma and New Mexico, were outside of the South and Mid-West areas with high Black population percentages – over the US average of 14.2%. <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/states-by-race">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At this point I was tempted to add Krugman and several other Liberal columnists to a category “Liars by Omission.” But there’s more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Krugman et al also charged that crime was higher in many Red state cities, and again they were right – sort of. A list of the twenty cities with highest violent crime rates in 2022 included eight in Red states and a dozen in Blue, but eighteen of the twenty cities had Democrat administrations, one was non-partisan, and one (Anchorage) was Republican. More Liberal columnists lying by omission, thereby earning a place in the Liars category. <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-violent-cities-in-america">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;">By exposing the obvious racial component in violent crime, in the eyes of Liberals I’ve earned a place in the Racist category. Even if I’m right I’m wrong, judgmental, and thoughtless too. They are sure that White systemic racism is the cause and I guess that is why ninety percent of murdered Blacks are killed by other Blacks, and both victim and murderer are usually young males. Only eight percent of Black murders are by Whites, so “Black Lives Don’t Matter” seems to be the real Blacks’ slogan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And before Blacks can say, to paraphrase Flip Wilson, “The (White) Devil made me do it!”, about 90% of the Black vote goes to Democrats, and Democrats run those high violent crime cities. Black Votes Matter!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In 2019 the Blacks killed by police total was 251, or 10% of the total of 2,574 Blacks killed by other Blacks. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Washington Post disputes this statistic and publishes a study showing that police kill about 1,000 per year, of which about 270 are Blacks. The Post found that “The rate at which black Americans are killed by police is more than twice as high as the rate for white Americans.” That would seem justifiable, since Blacks commit murder at a rate 3.45 times the rate for all others. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/?tid=usw_passupdatepg">(Link)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It would be informative to know how many of the Blacks killed by police were in the course of violence being committed by Blacks on other Blacks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-14196167511008404932022-10-14T12:05:00.005-07:002022-10-14T12:05:53.865-07:00Blissful Intentional Science Ignorance - Encouraged and Promoted by Big Media<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over six years ago our local weekly newspaper, The Independent (big laugh) Coast </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Observer, emailed me that my letters would no longer be published. However, on rare occasions one of mine slips through, and this is the latest.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Editor</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Believers in human-caused climate change argue that they follow the science, but then don’t. For example, sea-level increase; many Bay Area scientists predict a six-foot increase by 2100, but these predictions lack mention of San Francisco’s tide gauge, installed in 1854, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. Its history is easily accessed online, as are those of all the world’s tide gauges, at <a href="http://psmsl.org">psmsl.org</a>. Per San Francisco’s 166-year record, sea level has risen six inches, at a steady pace of 3.6 inches per century. At the end of 2021 sea level was at its lowest for the past eight years, and 4.6 inches lower than its peak in 1983.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCJHMEm7MmmtVh_rTXvZjm2jEgKvNMckVRoJ2OVoLaEhJDxI_AlnnYJN7nX8g1panAHy5fyfWJJVKj-b0qGFWhooSGBY6mQklJaCZ3LXBbx1V6XVDMpyEvIK_OMyADMqGzJTOYps_90Ogxo0ltoyjBGaQ4GQtaY_rTguK9nS_9qDaDfe2ODA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="900" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCJHMEm7MmmtVh_rTXvZjm2jEgKvNMckVRoJ2OVoLaEhJDxI_AlnnYJN7nX8g1panAHy5fyfWJJVKj-b0qGFWhooSGBY6mQklJaCZ3LXBbx1V6XVDMpyEvIK_OMyADMqGzJTOYps_90Ogxo0ltoyjBGaQ4GQtaY_rTguK9nS_9qDaDfe2ODA=w640-h256" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">San Francisco tide gauge record since 1854 showing the 1983 peak </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">and lack of significant change since then.</span></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website shows sea level at Los Angeles increasing at a steady rate of 3.8 inches per century. Neither San Francisco nor Los Angeles show any increase in the rate of sea-level rise for the past century, and if their current rates are sustained the forecasted six-foot increase will be reached after the year 3800.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiaXtHxQFw7tEr8jg9my2rgVdWW446Xko_Z6aU01MvzUjFxe2EhQpLa43qBSnLgN9VDPQ-J3mpk35qaOwl9hPoTQ_807kaClFH64GH0XXnMp0MHbGUC2DomvXA8Bfwx6VXOohrsJJMap4jELFZ96X5jLiJvf0ePZ_tXpg8EA5qsyL35iMRhw/s1000/Los%20Angeles.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1000" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiaXtHxQFw7tEr8jg9my2rgVdWW446Xko_Z6aU01MvzUjFxe2EhQpLa43qBSnLgN9VDPQ-J3mpk35qaOwl9hPoTQ_807kaClFH64GH0XXnMp0MHbGUC2DomvXA8Bfwx6VXOohrsJJMap4jELFZ96X5jLiJvf0ePZ_tXpg8EA5qsyL35iMRhw/w640-h256/Los%20Angeles.png" width="640" /></a></div><div>The Los Angeles rate of increase of 0.96 millimeters per year is less than four inches per century (3.8 inches)</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXRq2tqSvjmwFAxRSqY_leG5_pXtdE8uCZj1ps6dFuN3_pZBp-6XMGPAeqrosK_c7-6XtoBz0HYHAnIocCNHZuPXJmPUCLcEyCDSNIM_8vqBl2dwYf_EAtYUv-c5mNAVE41B0UqooGezYGrL6818qfS0I29htnS4EFJVBvYjUnDHl1fQgVqw/s1000/San%20Francisco.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1000" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXRq2tqSvjmwFAxRSqY_leG5_pXtdE8uCZj1ps6dFuN3_pZBp-6XMGPAeqrosK_c7-6XtoBz0HYHAnIocCNHZuPXJmPUCLcEyCDSNIM_8vqBl2dwYf_EAtYUv-c5mNAVE41B0UqooGezYGrL6818qfS0I29htnS4EFJVBvYjUnDHl1fQgVqw/w640-h256/San%20Francisco.png" width="640" /></a></div>The San Francisco rate of increase of 1.94 millimeters per year is less than eight inches per century (7.6 inches ) and was achieved by a curious adjustment by NASA at ~1896 not found in the tide gauge data. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Many scientists also ignore Greenland ice core studies that indicate that we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTAl48ommufhrUgFxH61kMZWQdghHRg6q4RyPcIE9Hg5KjuHePN5cAWDFe40HW511YPUg41sJInl9B2QDUl3mGcA_0AMyYBPPB81W-KoO94hsuJRPJsan-7mbC85IhcmRL0VRzUoy7DZzi9wdtL4aMy2Yx9UTV16Qn341wKu0SZlP93YpUg/s996/7568D546-6DD7-489C-92E8-61F0AE7A7AC0_1_105_c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="996" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTAl48ommufhrUgFxH61kMZWQdghHRg6q4RyPcIE9Hg5KjuHePN5cAWDFe40HW511YPUg41sJInl9B2QDUl3mGcA_0AMyYBPPB81W-KoO94hsuJRPJsan-7mbC85IhcmRL0VRzUoy7DZzi9wdtL4aMy2Yx9UTV16Qn341wKu0SZlP93YpUg/w640-h520/7568D546-6DD7-489C-92E8-61F0AE7A7AC0_1_105_c.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(It's a pity that I wasn't able to put these charts and links in my letter to the editor, because as you can see, a picture is worth a thousand words.)</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">For (human-caused global warming) scientists, ignorance is bliss.</span></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-58880299712755283412022-02-28T22:41:00.001-08:002022-10-14T12:07:10.077-07:00Point Arena Time Capsule, 1950<p> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi31iHMV71PqbA4aEuPHCSqPLYHE9QxjQtbOS2qJJJyOMXAWU1JI3yVnb287mzJ0KybpL0BfUffPPuRWN9sMhovS0l9gZpjzjXdyeC3Majk77dRE7dJKGom9FpHi4hTHn7dl_sYSzmkiAvGigF8YM9bPokB9FRMX4zfKyxpYdmtkzm_drBiYA=s720" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="720" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi31iHMV71PqbA4aEuPHCSqPLYHE9QxjQtbOS2qJJJyOMXAWU1JI3yVnb287mzJ0KybpL0BfUffPPuRWN9sMhovS0l9gZpjzjXdyeC3Majk77dRE7dJKGom9FpHi4hTHn7dl_sYSzmkiAvGigF8YM9bPokB9FRMX4zfKyxpYdmtkzm_drBiYA=w640-h451" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">Facebook is often maligned, and I suppose rightfully so, but I'm grateful for Facebook more often than not. In the case of this photo, it's special to me in a way that it would be for few. It was taken by a family friend, Jimmy Morrison, from his light airplane flying over the south end of Point Arena sometime in late 1949 but more probably in 1950. So far I'm the one providing the estimate of when it was taken based on my knowledge as a seven-year old at that time with familiarity with certain Point Arena landmarks. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> But let me devote some words to Jimmy Morrison. </span>When we arrived in Point Arena September 10, 1949, Jimmy was an auto mechanic at the Union 76 station, owned and operated by Jack Pelascio and his son Jim. At the time the Pelascios owned quite a lot of Point Arena, besides the Union 76 station the Point Arena Theater on adjacent property, and the old high school building and its land. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> The picture was posted on </span>Facebook by Jimmy's stepson, David Weymouth, who added: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #f0f2f5;"><blockquote style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I couldn’t have had a better stepfather. His parents were so poor in New York City that they had to give him to a farm family in upstate NY to work for them when he was in the fourth grade. That was the extent of his schooling. But he always read a lot and saw a bit of the the world in and after the war in the military and Coast Guard. He never went far financially but was a fine person and wonderful for my mother.</blockquote><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505;">At the photo upper left, just above the open fields, stands the former Point Arena High School building. When we arrived from Southern California, we parked our trailer on the left (east) side of the building on a concrete slab which may have been a combined tennis and outdoor basketball court. I feel certain that the silvery object by the building is our trailer, which in 1951 we moved to the front of the </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5);">building after we had moved into one large room at the left front of it. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;"> I wrote about our life in the <a href="https://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/2006/02/old-high-school.html">Old High School</a> here.<br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;"><span> </span><br /></span></p></span></div><p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-48056773166443881232021-12-20T23:49:00.005-08:002021-12-21T19:40:14.474-08:00Our 2021 Christmas Letter<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZzLuFoO-HwSgTikPV01GnTecsQQYPjduXKI0m2pVTnzlmIAvg6FtXH-aABzc-Ihmz4F_-d90CKlRi4fTujmnP39yRdXQBJOfyWn1mcE8pJBExxmBbWjwF6Emjm4kRMtfk-34YHNo-uXZ2KLl3mGizUvcHPUIG5e2GTR6_xlR9JIf2ZUZg8Q=s735" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="735" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZzLuFoO-HwSgTikPV01GnTecsQQYPjduXKI0m2pVTnzlmIAvg6FtXH-aABzc-Ihmz4F_-d90CKlRi4fTujmnP39yRdXQBJOfyWn1mcE8pJBExxmBbWjwF6Emjm4kRMtfk-34YHNo-uXZ2KLl3mGizUvcHPUIG5e2GTR6_xlR9JIf2ZUZg8Q=w400-h340" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!</span></div></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">About 2021, as Yogi Berra was reputed to have said on a different matter, "It's deja vu all over again."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But years are like snowflakes; no two are alike. Maybe. But given an infinite number of snowflakes...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So where am I going with this? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Beats me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But I continue. At the first instance, with all that we didn't do we still continued to never being bored, a pattern of our lives that hasn't changed for either of us for 79 years. We both always have something that interests us and often wonder how retirement can be so busy. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe we can blame it on Radar, our little boy in a doggy suit. He wakes me in the morning - early - and I walk him into the trees so that he can do his necessaries. Then still in the morning it's time for his pee-pee-poo-poo walk for over a mile amongst the redwoods, taking us over a half-hour, and yes, Radar still talks baby talk. Then Radar has us take him to Cook's Beach at low tide to play ball for an hour and walk another mile+. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgX9HDb3kvsApWslMN5XDk1GJ05nnN1_p7KYOvDfTmC3oE4l4c3W4fGPeTPkS810ldbHyMuKDBIExOwdPzQjBgJ5JpkrfQSfTlDknGfp7sZo02LiPQ5jxK615qSf1gyMz2wBnj6GRnZLi9lv0Uegems0-qfYX63gcY76v_LERivyhTFsX-uIQ=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgX9HDb3kvsApWslMN5XDk1GJ05nnN1_p7KYOvDfTmC3oE4l4c3W4fGPeTPkS810ldbHyMuKDBIExOwdPzQjBgJ5JpkrfQSfTlDknGfp7sZo02LiPQ5jxK615qSf1gyMz2wBnj6GRnZLi9lv0Uegems0-qfYX63gcY76v_LERivyhTFsX-uIQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sunset at Cook's Beach</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally the sun goes down and we grab our mountain lion beating sticks for Radar's pee-pee-poo-poo walk, another mile and another half-hour roaming through our neighborhood. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">On our night walk we observe many animals - numerous deer, occasional foxes, raccoons, and too many skunks - Radar has been sprayed twice - but so far no mountain lions.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_9yuYpdwMxdOb-5AE9pQN_eht_rD6uiFtz-zPKnAPrLWXXqmJAtJsB4iIq0xVSGNNccC_qTswjn2QnG10uO1cCNlk_mL0bwR51shjVCvGslZj4Xk58cndMiU_dW3JAxLPsONenDw7h62o4h7n-K6kLt4hVKgMwsKXBZWUr9HapeWTBlaVBA=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_9yuYpdwMxdOb-5AE9pQN_eht_rD6uiFtz-zPKnAPrLWXXqmJAtJsB4iIq0xVSGNNccC_qTswjn2QnG10uO1cCNlk_mL0bwR51shjVCvGslZj4Xk58cndMiU_dW3JAxLPsONenDw7h62o4h7n-K6kLt4hVKgMwsKXBZWUr9HapeWTBlaVBA=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Radar in a Christmas party mood.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span><span style="font-size: medium;">esides indulging Radar, we've stayed</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">active doing "people" things too. Alice loves her book club meetings, reads a "good" book - a classic or best-seller - every five days -twice through if it's for the book club - and studiously tags key points, new words, interesting passages - each of the books she's read is festooned with colorful tags.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHHGrCsLTqGu2kCkzRmMV-3UhdxkJdv1gziaZKLaI6ijMebZU2HCDIliOHvRZc4A2LX6nZ50E_LCr3zArCH5jwQ6KrItT3xNozBs6BJAoRtZBjBcFAq8CgQSgcj5h4NdYEtTyh_CM0I3seuWKS_IEfbB6bM8FH_I0aaRSbINPrDnpY6DDwWA=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHHGrCsLTqGu2kCkzRmMV-3UhdxkJdv1gziaZKLaI6ijMebZU2HCDIliOHvRZc4A2LX6nZ50E_LCr3zArCH5jwQ6KrItT3xNozBs6BJAoRtZBjBcFAq8CgQSgcj5h4NdYEtTyh_CM0I3seuWKS_IEfbB6bM8FH_I0aaRSbINPrDnpY6DDwWA=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice's book club met outdoors</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The company Alice founded in 1975, Vulcan Wire, Incorporated, continues to operate successfully with very loyal work employees. Vulcan's Christmas party at Club Paradiso was attended by all sixteen plus spouses, dates, and other family, and the photos were taken at opposite ends of the table to feature everyone.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMoZudoAS8Wy3sbM3wsRTd0TpoUA4hy3wMqs7vGFUAwYjwRuPy-1IvS5mqIvkn8mS9ge6sK0bq73be5PwcA2B8Dx1G7AyyThR3NNckNHSFL25CEI1fnV5SP0ofA92-M_uOPcJWhZLn9Ev-hlcPjCN5dsuNmhCz87CTWPhx6cav7DMtZPL0IQ=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMoZudoAS8Wy3sbM3wsRTd0TpoUA4hy3wMqs7vGFUAwYjwRuPy-1IvS5mqIvkn8mS9ge6sK0bq73be5PwcA2B8Dx1G7AyyThR3NNckNHSFL25CEI1fnV5SP0ofA92-M_uOPcJWhZLn9Ev-hlcPjCN5dsuNmhCz87CTWPhx6cav7DMtZPL0IQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSC3_J5kxI2CT5fxoXRHXU17nQgrXXvUz1RxURC06Zq1JQhJwh6YyNiR68-Xb57pHz8Hxi10wrn14nVNhG3qXC6GqEMH9uezC0jXAh6ZqzSQBOimz9x_bn4DZp-fjXA1mMLEFIBDMk638B9_57VAnqk34y5re6jlxbmJCG1zlIqSmP3_aHtw=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSC3_J5kxI2CT5fxoXRHXU17nQgrXXvUz1RxURC06Zq1JQhJwh6YyNiR68-Xb57pHz8Hxi10wrn14nVNhG3qXC6GqEMH9uezC0jXAh6ZqzSQBOimz9x_bn4DZp-fjXA1mMLEFIBDMk638B9_57VAnqk34y5re6jlxbmJCG1zlIqSmP3_aHtw=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhF0cRe6-vIWbi77fLBSOwSzf1pv7u4FF-DvO3VEelOF9ZpfakJPmke8YV7Qkmq5tPgMb3RmoNmzinv6VM-YMmxwdHYs7cM2JJGEAD8ksTS0rhyyGhNb_EtMdgDhHVNCKYVwy24uGfGl9H-9Rw4FaPLYRH962Xcb1Lrw2yfwIJ7bgEleIaOzw=s2256" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1496" data-original-width="2256" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhF0cRe6-vIWbi77fLBSOwSzf1pv7u4FF-DvO3VEelOF9ZpfakJPmke8YV7Qkmq5tPgMb3RmoNmzinv6VM-YMmxwdHYs7cM2JJGEAD8ksTS0rhyyGhNb_EtMdgDhHVNCKYVwy24uGfGl9H-9Rw4FaPLYRH962Xcb1Lrw2yfwIJ7bgEleIaOzw=w640-h424" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice's company,Vulcan Wire, was central to her memoir,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Lady With Balls</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice signed copies of her memoir at Barnes & Noble Book Store in Santa Rosa.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLIDz9ejyPj4mDaBzhA-jPPWQknQOBYQ5VEIvwen4KVJoDe7Fz3nUrh46zbYZpR3y4GkDJArfnEc7laqIXGVODtGNnGZ6N5B8c7q-5X6Gf_uhIutSnyJV5cdmDW7OHSPX0xnZH_jNCggBkIrU0g5cKRbH67KEmwqUeFOHLVgy3No2-tT5Zww=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLIDz9ejyPj4mDaBzhA-jPPWQknQOBYQ5VEIvwen4KVJoDe7Fz3nUrh46zbYZpR3y4GkDJArfnEc7laqIXGVODtGNnGZ6N5B8c7q-5X6Gf_uhIutSnyJV5cdmDW7OHSPX0xnZH_jNCggBkIrU0g5cKRbH67KEmwqUeFOHLVgy3No2-tT5Zww=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our 2021 travels were modest but very satisfying. We attended two weddings. The first was my grandson Michael marrying Brittany, who is the mother of one of my great-granddaughters. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRu1QxjoZ4nnlezsUX6eF6fCQ3EpE9G3eSIJgtr6Volz5dB-Bs8SK1X5dNd6_RDetfCShE0VpJM0VNutvik0isVaCIGB9WBEUNkjvuNvwCTks7CzBfKf9nfHBRQT-m9VlCJf3XbSwRoYdWtINyzX2i0q15W55PU3J3-D757d27BMX_dNHXag=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRu1QxjoZ4nnlezsUX6eF6fCQ3EpE9G3eSIJgtr6Volz5dB-Bs8SK1X5dNd6_RDetfCShE0VpJM0VNutvik0isVaCIGB9WBEUNkjvuNvwCTks7CzBfKf9nfHBRQT-m9VlCJf3XbSwRoYdWtINyzX2i0q15W55PU3J3-D757d27BMX_dNHXag=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Michael and Brittany, and daughter, in Crescent City</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmhBabj2xpv_lOayw_YZGavWjbT_mOwX507SHiU4Nv1OifZUY6WEfr1zqvrrcNjjUa_w02dwMmmDa_7C1xbbbcv0GLgHJwGZqIRvnrOoo_fQQp-FNfVLAQKWyToJIFS4ZYabJTOPQB0ymOTNe6p6v6124dfWGNVL3_6YuKXzqAtNADqOFYmA=s3257" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3257" data-original-width="2195" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmhBabj2xpv_lOayw_YZGavWjbT_mOwX507SHiU4Nv1OifZUY6WEfr1zqvrrcNjjUa_w02dwMmmDa_7C1xbbbcv0GLgHJwGZqIRvnrOoo_fQQp-FNfVLAQKWyToJIFS4ZYabJTOPQB0ymOTNe6p6v6124dfWGNVL3_6YuKXzqAtNADqOFYmA=w432-h640" width="432" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Michael and I</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then Michael Bonham married Sarah. Michael invited us to his wedding because twenty years ago Alice tutored him in reading, and her efforts met with such great success that Michael wrote that "she changed his life."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhr_ANtbhybQ5XkEUnpvBH7xRIDd9NPjpzphVsw2dgqUi0zKl1fVcD5LI634gi9EymxOKH_ACRu713JU9geWwiUbR77t6OU0rx5y24a2muD1quUcbzmQG0AdXJqorlb4l5jmKWpTn2psSO167h4IjQAQ_TcwJQf2j4cV111wM__SQETMY1Fg=s2980" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2607" data-original-width="2980" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhr_ANtbhybQ5XkEUnpvBH7xRIDd9NPjpzphVsw2dgqUi0zKl1fVcD5LI634gi9EymxOKH_ACRu713JU9geWwiUbR77t6OU0rx5y24a2muD1quUcbzmQG0AdXJqorlb4l5jmKWpTn2psSO167h4IjQAQ_TcwJQf2j4cV111wM__SQETMY1Fg=w640-h560" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Alice and Michael Bonham</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_GRgXzbeJscmTK-F6ZgnJwTozWmJnM8o3RltPpGmNHid-ZA5Y3_62mOQ0q3L0cvnHVvKZ6n4WMAfKA5z7FuCIQNZCQ9VUURF0tbdNcoLOVXju8gacrwWFBpkx8bSaqK1K1H5qmyWo4mwBdBp1FkOyxaeL8Ql_NkLFSm2GAT20fN3ZHKdCzA=s2233" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2233" data-original-width="2124" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_GRgXzbeJscmTK-F6ZgnJwTozWmJnM8o3RltPpGmNHid-ZA5Y3_62mOQ0q3L0cvnHVvKZ6n4WMAfKA5z7FuCIQNZCQ9VUURF0tbdNcoLOVXju8gacrwWFBpkx8bSaqK1K1H5qmyWo4mwBdBp1FkOyxaeL8Ql_NkLFSm2GAT20fN3ZHKdCzA=w608-h640" width="608" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Michael and Sarah</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A highlight of our year was the family gathering in Lafayette to celebrate the 80th birthday of Alice's first husband and father of her two daughters, Hans Stiller. Their families were joined by Han's sister's family from Southern California. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCjZH0VGmzov3U4TnRHZKs_rzqh7zaqc9H_l9UAGsrBh49EobF1yA71QupdVXhfoeDfQk1um08KI2WEw25u16ao4m3IK8QHbrfxQm3V9L5nO9aJFT9t4g57HySFz8_3we2IGjyoE8l0MiDL-B0HBMQfnQvCGUF8Plopa3rra4a6utlnMtj5g=s3360" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2257" data-original-width="3360" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCjZH0VGmzov3U4TnRHZKs_rzqh7zaqc9H_l9UAGsrBh49EobF1yA71QupdVXhfoeDfQk1um08KI2WEw25u16ao4m3IK8QHbrfxQm3V9L5nO9aJFT9t4g57HySFz8_3we2IGjyoE8l0MiDL-B0HBMQfnQvCGUF8Plopa3rra4a6utlnMtj5g=w640-h430" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice treated her daughters and their families to a Black Friday dinner after a wonderful Thanksgiving at daughter Jeanette's home.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqVnsUrN5EYnYs41yyXIy-eIsGI9ml9KIOderCeYp7DoP_HdkgpVsPKDJBn40mpJFpMzSW7MYqCwkakUhnqibOU2ORzYonzZfkMlrWh9Wmw61QeF0XOAUDUEiVUMmJheJH5iVB1rDxPRNmxHTvK0PJ7HfaqKztg2CiTNN8vo8QDT7ceiYCBw=s2503" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1839" data-original-width="2503" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqVnsUrN5EYnYs41yyXIy-eIsGI9ml9KIOderCeYp7DoP_HdkgpVsPKDJBn40mpJFpMzSW7MYqCwkakUhnqibOU2ORzYonzZfkMlrWh9Wmw61QeF0XOAUDUEiVUMmJheJH5iVB1rDxPRNmxHTvK0PJ7HfaqKztg2CiTNN8vo8QDT7ceiYCBw=w640-h470" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Other good times were involved with my Gualala Lions Club and Rotary Club activities, as we find ways to have in-person meetings and activities. We just completed an outstanding Project Santa involving funds raising, then identifying about two hundred needy families in the area and delivering them toys for their children and vouchers for food of their choice at our local supermarkets. While wearing my Rotary hat I handle the money collected and issue checks, then put on my Lions cap and fill my truck and trailer with bags of toys to deliver to the Horicon Elementary School for distribution to the families. Project Santa is a complete community effort, from donations from over two hundred families, purchasing the toys and food vouchers, wrapping the toys, and organizing dozens to transport it all on the delivery day. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm writing diligently on two projects, a sort of a memoir, sort of a local history, about growing up in Point Arena in the 1950's, titled <i>Strong as an Ox and Nearly as Smart, </i>and another proving that climate change is natural and can be adapted to, entitled <i>It Ain't Necessarily So. </i>I've written a lot, the easy part, now I need to organize it all, which ain't easy. I need to crack the whip on me like Alice did on herself when writing her memoir. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice's website is <a href="https://ladywithballs.com">The Lady With Balls</a>. Mine is <a href="http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com">Strong as an Ox and Nearly as Smart</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I also hope and plan to have a Point Arena High School reunion of the classes of 1967 - my class was 1960 - back to the beginning of time. The reunion website is <a href="http://pointarenahighclassof1960.blogspot.com">Point Arena High School Reunion</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Maybe Alice and I can collaborate on a book about how to keep busy in retirement. But I'm afraid that we're too busy at the moment to take it on as a new item.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p><br /></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-46802273489476937862020-12-20T12:19:00.011-08:002020-12-21T21:43:24.527-08:00Our 2020 Christmas Letter<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnsb7Wn7mX-XuJVPy-eH91M1ffBZOxHzHIQILfwNKA5ZHLYF2cUHYShXoImwuHzEaxFxQKthfbmWuBFNVS7BXJrmk8LmVNdU0zGBca-OCUgdm93OfSzVk92a4bcSt3VjHtrmz/s2048/966D9685-B867-4291-ADC5-1129AF6EA44B.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQnsb7Wn7mX-XuJVPy-eH91M1ffBZOxHzHIQILfwNKA5ZHLYF2cUHYShXoImwuHzEaxFxQKthfbmWuBFNVS7BXJrmk8LmVNdU0zGBca-OCUgdm93OfSzVk92a4bcSt3VjHtrmz/w640-h480/966D9685-B867-4291-ADC5-1129AF6EA44B.heic" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Merry Christmas!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice and I celebrated our 31st Anniversary on August 5 at St. Orres Restaurant, as we've done for most of the years since we moved to Gualala in 1998. However, we dined outside on the deck and my mask strings are dangling from my vest pocket. Not quite Anniversary As Usual. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Two months later (October 20) we were walking on flat, sandy Cook's Beach with Radar and Alice fell. She said she was sore but OK, so we continued our walk, then Alice drove home, went up the steps to our second floor, sat down, and commenced screaming. She couldn't stand up so I called 911 and the paramedics and firemen came quickly, packed her up in a "burrito wrap", and took her to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital by ambulance. The next day Alice's left hip was replaced.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Seven weeks later, for the first time since her fall, Alice made the complete one-mile circuit nightly </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>peepee-poopoo </span><span>walk for Radar</span></span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we walk it every night.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Above and beyond that, it's been an exciting year. Did I just hear a "Duh"? Some good, some otherwise. Life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We'll start by counting our blessings.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Friends and family either are virus-free or have recovered with no problems. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">We live in an almost virus-free area.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Our firemen and paramedics are great.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Radar plays ball with us on Cook's Beach daily and makes us take long walks.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice's memoir "The Lady With Balls" keeps her busy with new and interesting activities.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Alice held her book club meetings on our deck. </span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">And a whole lot more.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I understand the temptation to try to forget 2020 but we're still enjoying life every day. Alice and I do everything together but this past year we have been in each other's company more than ever, and we love it. We don't watch TV; it's too passive and we nicknamed TV watching "brain poison" many years ago. We both read a lot, exercise, and talk about the many things that interest us, especially in our two daily and one weekly newspapers. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">It's wonderful when your spouse is also your best friend.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The latest Time Magazine had a cover "2020 The Worst Year Ever" that I found appalling. In the story itself, written by a film critic, she casually acknowledged that there have been many worse things such as World Wars and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic - which killed 50 million when the World population was only 1.5 billion - but that now we are suffering the most terrible thing, a feeling of helplessness. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In some way the author is a fit analyst of our times. She trivializes past tragedies, and exalts the damage that helplessness plays upon our tender psyches. Easily overlooked are the facts that the World has never been a better place for its masses than it is right now. All the needs of humanity are being better satisfied than ever before. Prosperity, health, longevity, creature comforts, democracy, peace - certainly there is ample room for improvement in lives everywhere you look, but now has to be compared to the past, not to a sought-after but not achievable standard of perfection. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good!"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">As I step down from my soap box in this best of all possible worlds...</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">We've also used the telephone more. What about Zoom? We're glad you asked. Alice hates Zoom because she is a perfectionist and feels that she has to achieve the perfect appearance - clothes, makeup, background features, lighting, noise. I think she does, but she's never satisfied and prefers the more casual communication possible over a telephone. Then she is totally relaxed and considers it a short call if she only chats for an hour. My calls now usually last half an hour, which is triple my former average time per call. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Our travels since March have been twice to Fort Bragg for photos and videos for Alice's website and book promotions, and thrice to Santa Rosa for her hip replacement and follow up medical exams. Over a year ago we had decided to cut back on traveling while Alice concentrated on promoting her memoir. However, we did think that we would travel to interesting places for book presentations, but that couldn't happen. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Here is Alice's "hero" shot (The shot featured on a website).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg37TXqG2IRdZkFE1sus_Bf0NvlHQZn1fNCRJyL0Qylo4zz8z6ykO3-z7caLgaI_m6_84-Eo-Sd61CZPVBvWQ9b_Rp6Kc-WBvYn3BfaXlOAJ7AuShYiP6wam1DMBaFM41gxAf8/s980/A8B098F6-7BBC-4334-9605-68C9B98D598B_1_105_c.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="761" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg37TXqG2IRdZkFE1sus_Bf0NvlHQZn1fNCRJyL0Qylo4zz8z6ykO3-z7caLgaI_m6_84-Eo-Sd61CZPVBvWQ9b_Rp6Kc-WBvYn3BfaXlOAJ7AuShYiP6wam1DMBaFM41gxAf8/w496-h640/A8B098F6-7BBC-4334-9605-68C9B98D598B_1_105_c.jpeg" width="496" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">However, our time is still very busy and well spent. Alice is always researching and posting to her website, <a href="https://ladywithballs.com">The Lady With Balls</a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And of course, I keep adding our annual <a href="http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas%20Letters">Christmas Letters</a> to my blog.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyA7xkxLENDqncv2fsavqUsjMBV8tyyD75JvYuOkFCb34SxG9eDOCEEdKTTMKLyrEcvvXsBlx_pp1k' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"Retirement"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(please click the full screen icon at the lower right and turn up your volume) </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">One of our favorite daily activities is playing ball with Radar on nearby Cook's Beach. Besides beach time, we also take Radar on other daily walks, including a night-time mile walk through our neighborhood. He's a great excuse for staying active. When our beloved dog Buddy died in 2013 we continued the same walks every day and then added Radar to our walks half a year later when we picked him from the Fort Bragg animal shelter. </span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirWGMd_2lhcholHulGpcHLcvuEgUL8A-gQXOV830GkpPDnhau7kRfWF0vTo4BcRyDEMiddNcAb3-0Ai5LWxbdig0xkxNUvPAIBgPR7qNfpzOO7ndXXqJfL-vJ-fWR0TaTRUPdv/s1440/4C7ACCF4-F575-438F-B2F9-AD6724BDF5C6.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1072" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirWGMd_2lhcholHulGpcHLcvuEgUL8A-gQXOV830GkpPDnhau7kRfWF0vTo4BcRyDEMiddNcAb3-0Ai5LWxbdig0xkxNUvPAIBgPR7qNfpzOO7ndXXqJfL-vJ-fWR0TaTRUPdv/w476-h640/4C7ACCF4-F575-438F-B2F9-AD6724BDF5C6.jpeg" width="476" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Radar discovers Cheetos!</div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">Photo by Cheryl Sidrian-Waters</div></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Lately there always seems to be a lot of people at Cook's Beach at sunset. I've nicknamed them "Sundowners" and this photo helps to explain why they are there.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNBzzRlY03WgLO58OTk6SmqCYXac6D2SZCT3QmeqKMvT4y2RCOcxyyFzd1BMhViQWsux3nBmqEUJoUCn_m4-j76Cli3m18JiQ6gdGachseyw0RNXAJhOPKs_CAsRqF_RizmTOE/s2048/7C2ED131-ABD9-46F5-A0E3-ECC93D8AB795.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNBzzRlY03WgLO58OTk6SmqCYXac6D2SZCT3QmeqKMvT4y2RCOcxyyFzd1BMhViQWsux3nBmqEUJoUCn_m4-j76Cli3m18JiQ6gdGachseyw0RNXAJhOPKs_CAsRqF_RizmTOE/w640-h480/7C2ED131-ABD9-46F5-A0E3-ECC93D8AB795.heic" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 0); color: red; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; text-align: center;">Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!</span></span></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-51908713968469626562020-10-23T20:58:00.146-07:002021-04-23T21:16:04.713-07:00A Simple Science Quiz<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">A science quiz. Science’s answer to each of the following questions concerning climate in the past 10,000 years is “yes.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Has Earth been significantly warmer?</span><o:p></o:p></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XUQ7XUER4wp6BloAAvEmZvVNYIEKwQznKUBixPmf61P6xac1eVqsBkbm3jyWEW8otcr4imqr4E8FWz-jmzjYb9AUh-YP8uT1y0DdHQLiCHRth3hYid3MZBCSeQ-TfgzkCDby/s468/Holocene+warming+1.png" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="468" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XUQ7XUER4wp6BloAAvEmZvVNYIEKwQznKUBixPmf61P6xac1eVqsBkbm3jyWEW8otcr4imqr4E8FWz-jmzjYb9AUh-YP8uT1y0DdHQLiCHRth3hYid3MZBCSeQ-TfgzkCDby/w640-h522/Holocene+warming+1.png" width="640" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Sea levels higher?</span><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLi_Y8QWmDbzj_v7n23NoRY7UWs9eohyphenhyphenpoxQhktnWgTsSRlZxhGNQ77B7Nic5CAMiyKW8hGCZoFyBIY3ZOYqBo0ynz5DeTM3nvKnts4IKtGIUMYM9pvrk3hJTf-kbK74Yl_7Fc/s468/Sea+level+2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="468" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLi_Y8QWmDbzj_v7n23NoRY7UWs9eohyphenhyphenpoxQhktnWgTsSRlZxhGNQ77B7Nic5CAMiyKW8hGCZoFyBIY3ZOYqBo0ynz5DeTM3nvKnts4IKtGIUMYM9pvrk3hJTf-kbK74Yl_7Fc/w640-h464/Sea+level+2.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Glaciers much smaller?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">This is a <a href="https://notrickszone.com/2020/02/25/number-of-studies-show-glaciers-internationally-were-smaller-in-recent-past-than-today/">link to many studies</a> that show that during the past 10,000 years glaciers were predominantly smaller than they are now. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Below is a US government chart of glacier retreat at Glacier Bay, Alaska, which shows that there was over 60 miles of glacier retreat from 1760 through 1900, and less than six miles of retreat since 1948.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR9MR60W7U2AcqA5M_jVchleB5wYQ54mAA7LSjQBDD7cZYlk9e2gHQ4aw7o6J8JXaQycEKoLZFfg790y3LmmTiL9eT3W1wHDRRkYE9WY_Sm_p6cQ1lj1_-lx_-Jvnuk7-lG6bt/s458/Glacier+Bay+3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="420" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR9MR60W7U2AcqA5M_jVchleB5wYQ54mAA7LSjQBDD7cZYlk9e2gHQ4aw7o6J8JXaQycEKoLZFfg790y3LmmTiL9eT3W1wHDRRkYE9WY_Sm_p6cQ1lj1_-lx_-Jvnuk7-lG6bt/w586-h640/Glacier+Bay+3.png" width="586" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Was the Little Ice Age (1300-1800 AD) the coldest period?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdMT8HP-ol76-4anw0OtqWDFzJUEvIDC2zttASLdHS3iq4H2wpkk5zo1_MoEGCAfr38aLT3fJCSi5ZOUQUuvzRw3iC6mPHq9u2s97STBs9246_YUO-TEJUXQK9eDIHOGHZ6ygd/s468/Little+Ice+Age+4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="468" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdMT8HP-ol76-4anw0OtqWDFzJUEvIDC2zttASLdHS3iq4H2wpkk5zo1_MoEGCAfr38aLT3fJCSi5ZOUQUuvzRw3iC6mPHq9u2s97STBs9246_YUO-TEJUXQK9eDIHOGHZ6ygd/w640-h522/Little+Ice+Age+4.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Has Earth had a cooling trend for 8,000 years?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">See above.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Were wildfires more frequent and burn far more acreage before 1900 than now?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 15.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Fire ecologists say that far more land burned each year during the 1800s and earlier, than in recent years. In the preindustrial era, from 1500 to 1800, an average of 145 million acres burned every year nationwide — about 10 times more than the nation’s recent annual burns. In the West, it was estimated that 18 to 25 million acres burned each year, as recently as the 1800s. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 15.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 15.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/251/13986">Click this link to go the study.</a></span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Globally, more recently NASA satellite systems have been able to determine a decreasing trend in global burned area.<o:p></o:p></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdeEz4DOmjOOwgVvO_18RqZNr_h5MQAFlX-GhIE5dkh5A3SpjXne5u_UIGcqV2HPsSoAcVUC0Kqldp6M_U3ZZ1MBeQY4hrCxsnNxHc-cMczWuuzM540D0pRrOBQL2gD27FxUv/s468/Wild+fires+5.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="468" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdeEz4DOmjOOwgVvO_18RqZNr_h5MQAFlX-GhIE5dkh5A3SpjXne5u_UIGcqV2HPsSoAcVUC0Kqldp6M_U3ZZ1MBeQY4hrCxsnNxHc-cMczWuuzM540D0pRrOBQL2gD27FxUv/w640-h356/Wild+fires+5.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f0f0; font-size: 10pt;">Source: Nasa Earth Observatory </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire</span></b></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Were there megadroughts that lasted over 200 years in North America 1,000 years ago?</span><o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3zkUlT5wFwJwuJ3OnR_LVH58dqcw_cLG27BymkY-wi1wKfUt1FDWon8zpeNhRnOuonMYp6JussPQYNElI8btYKuOLFIXBsKUdvIsnOfGDB1aSdEzDhUVdf8HluKS_hCYFE90/s458/200+year+droufght+6.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="458" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja3zkUlT5wFwJwuJ3OnR_LVH58dqcw_cLG27BymkY-wi1wKfUt1FDWon8zpeNhRnOuonMYp6JussPQYNElI8btYKuOLFIXBsKUdvIsnOfGDB1aSdEzDhUVdf8HluKS_hCYFE90/w640-h208/200+year+droufght+6.png" width="640" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">This <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/09/14/sorry-solar-panels-wont-stop-californias-fires/">Bjorn Lomborg article</a> succinctly describes the California wildfire problem and why, even if California, even if all the United States were suddenly carbon neutral, the wildfire problem would just get worse. Logic and critical thinking demands that the forests be managed regardless of climate. Just 200 years ago a lot more of California (and the US) burned annually when average temperature was over a degree lower.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3su06YDavB8huBKMyUcBV1N9RjsI3XEkwzlYtkonywdOROD850pcsfxFEJ1WhlqM6CtpGWqs3S793MuPl2n488FYrMKDweI97KtiKRQ9feNCaUewj0m8uZX3a05OgCqoGyKJE/s400/Drought+7.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="400" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3su06YDavB8huBKMyUcBV1N9RjsI3XEkwzlYtkonywdOROD850pcsfxFEJ1WhlqM6CtpGWqs3S793MuPl2n488FYrMKDweI97KtiKRQ9feNCaUewj0m8uZX3a05OgCqoGyKJE/w640-h324/Drought+7.png" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Has the Greenland icecap grown?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">These diagrams determined from ice core and satellite studies show it has.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="468" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4sOylZmt4mCRhIXa2LY-4Weu1DHJ_fLCG0ArZVekQHoV3KFfUYt1giLV3UgK8HFLOHcHb8oo8MrG_EmV2K8oKcSaihGpv-oszVOl_Yr6ejLG35W1JpOvsQunZAbd9NwHNPSH/w640-h360/Ice+core+8.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="468" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLv9ruoK12hyphenhypheno4YxKH4BIEfHipaEvWn1JV6mRI_YqcTYbAx-G71j7LHeWE_Gb6EVb-QozfJXpaXjURsOasnGsWv8Xmu5pbFphgR3B5x-jz1ch8iQMOJHNDcNJepVaz4eq6wYf/w640-h360/Ice+core+9.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Have temperature increases preceded CO2 increases?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">“<a href="https://climatechangeconnection.org/science/what-about-lag-time/">Ice core analysis</a> does reveal that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><strong style="caret-color: rgb(38, 38, 38); outline: 0px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt; padding: 0in;">increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels did lag behind increasing temperatures at the end recent ice ages</span></strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">. Although there is a certain degree of uncertainty regarding the lag time, it is generally accepted that at the end of an ice age, temperatures began to increase, and then carbon dioxide levels began to increase.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">Of note, during all the times this has happened there has never been a single case of unstoppable global warming. In fact, at each temperature and CO2 maximum, cooling began and the next 100,000-year glacial period was launched.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCOvyAIFbz7MK9wifkfzspG5DRoKfLk1qVx87eLhk1pzaq_47HERjppChNLVK4WH-6UQ-s_unovcHLBAR_s-vbQWiMzI1FlBSfFju8O7S4oVL9xPMdq91ch6Rq5MKvTZi6uV4/s300/Ice+Age+cycle+10.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="300" height="629" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCOvyAIFbz7MK9wifkfzspG5DRoKfLk1qVx87eLhk1pzaq_47HERjppChNLVK4WH-6UQ-s_unovcHLBAR_s-vbQWiMzI1FlBSfFju8O7S4oVL9xPMdq91ch6Rq5MKvTZi6uV4/w640-h629/Ice+Age+cycle+10.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><span class="apple-converted-space"><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><br /> </span><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">This chart below shows that for the past 600 million years, CO2 at times was over 15 times the current level and that cooling oceans absorbed CO2 as temperature fell. It also shows that for most of the past 100 million years, temperature was 10C (18F) higher than now, even as vast numbers of photosynthesizing organisms removed CO2 from the atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZirwofNpzIyEUzZlbo1JYXusbgN0xy9onwCjrVjGLf06vvZ1_Eo4prapFBqeTJZHPg8Cc-DtAc2EEsisAmW1M1ybQwBvPosNkYtpfAyapQMp2abU7ws-pYMk9Wd48Qb_xyofg/s468/600+million+years+11.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="468" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZirwofNpzIyEUzZlbo1JYXusbgN0xy9onwCjrVjGLf06vvZ1_Eo4prapFBqeTJZHPg8Cc-DtAc2EEsisAmW1M1ybQwBvPosNkYtpfAyapQMp2abU7ws-pYMk9Wd48Qb_xyofg/w640-h404/600+million+years+11.png" width="640" /></a></div><o:p> </o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"> <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Is food production setting record highs?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="215" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRIQDhWd4SZBPEji6lX2GTkYreXYHO464seFOllNwkcWjnXeZsLCQCgBfeeYR6lUA1nS1GNRVm8GjIC-rEo1Pd9G-ryH9EhyiAbQ1bnS-Hgt0szadCn1sGVO4oiA1qOEMZrhv1/w400-h381/Food+production+12.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="400" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">This <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/11/global-agricultural-production-demonstrates-ramankutty-et-al-is-just-more-global-warming-hot-air/">article has links</a> to studies showing global record harvests.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Do wind and solar combined only produce three percent of total energy consumption?</span><o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="132" data-original-width="168" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_opm2Yv4qTZiVrXhMX2kZsknU2U-gay5V4mG7S9tTPrKNgaG54eGjCmWBEORgQH8f9S26KIFlAtijgnWk9fMkik__5RgikT4ehOIPfp-ZDMCCco_Y3QpcTQSgp82tsUNYfXx/w400-h314/Energy+13.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="400" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Was half of current warming before the rapid increase in CO2 after 1950?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6bYyM_uHVBIL9PJBFDLheWL1kqS8OmixjDjC7hyIs9KKYRADEDR1vfpmFHZD4z-ZOP8ybosw92j6z9NqIdIPmegy9ZCh-tatWBgk8-tfpNxzdyrt_rZclQozT64S0FZA4uYv/s468/Earth+temp+14.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="468" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6bYyM_uHVBIL9PJBFDLheWL1kqS8OmixjDjC7hyIs9KKYRADEDR1vfpmFHZD4z-ZOP8ybosw92j6z9NqIdIPmegy9ZCh-tatWBgk8-tfpNxzdyrt_rZclQozT64S0FZA4uYv/w640-h392/Earth+temp+14.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">The NOAA chart below shows no temperature trend. The temperature spikes are in <b>El Niño years.</b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="468" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJbuLIknr2LZvETEEWI4z6HB_KRIJrhFNCpC3wgDCowanI9Wrabr_HJTtyu9zVTbX5BbyuFYcP219Dd9TRWEmRfpyC_CBPZcPU-1fmJj5ihckcy6auJMixGNbt1nRHXuSMov2N/w640-h362/US+temp+15.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">The chart below shows that 11 of 12 hottest years were before 1960.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviwQqtWRC22mBGwbVFqf5h2yQCOZiJ5kox3nqwcuncPpzvL3R2-EVHcy4AC7MeZhmxoQ3MIVRTAyNImnFXb269X_-MqOY3ZhRaByk-1UX6mFyLVN8C_HIRjQNWOZzZoezy5lf/s468/Hot+days+16.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="468" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviwQqtWRC22mBGwbVFqf5h2yQCOZiJ5kox3nqwcuncPpzvL3R2-EVHcy4AC7MeZhmxoQ3MIVRTAyNImnFXb269X_-MqOY3ZhRaByk-1UX6mFyLVN8C_HIRjQNWOZzZoezy5lf/w640-h480/Hot+days+16.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">This NOAA chart shows Santa Rosa average annual temperature, a cooling trend, for over 100 years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEk9soe5IxVHS2ciSHYyMcN_-WihKyhcPZ9j7UWLXP7pdog31dCzsHKLKEg-nrx2RRV1yPH_i0i53A2vApBQE3FZtDE-8JevGJLFxjwcpzu7rhgEwxlbXNmAdWVX6RkkDUrVS7/s468/Santa+Rosa+17.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="468" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEk9soe5IxVHS2ciSHYyMcN_-WihKyhcPZ9j7UWLXP7pdog31dCzsHKLKEg-nrx2RRV1yPH_i0i53A2vApBQE3FZtDE-8JevGJLFxjwcpzu7rhgEwxlbXNmAdWVX6RkkDUrVS7/w640-h494/Santa+Rosa+17.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">The answer to the following questions is “no.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">During the Eemian interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were up to 30 feet higher and global temperature eight degrees Fahrenheit warmer, was there runaway warming?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Obviously not, or we wouldn’t have had a 100,000-year glacial period following it. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Is carbon dioxide the most significant greenhouse gas (hint: water vapor at 96-99% is)?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Both water vapor at 0.4% of the atmosphere and CO2 at 0.04% are trace gases. Temperature changes resulting from orbital variations periodically (every 100,000 years) cause temperature to increase with resulting increases in both water vapor and CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The pattern of the past million years show that the Sun – via its position relative to the Earth – drives climate change and that CO2 and water vapor changes are a result, not a cause, of the climate change.<o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="468" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwGdEXjwUxDBEeFvADlZX_wRtPrk3gXSOOti5h3A7ng9BDYKaLGDwM40kxgirzPChOpF0_p14CbDdtvZS5shtpF5wAHUMXwxfq97QO7oRIBBLasswN2siR-eUhJu9CbF00kAW9/w640-h446/Earth+atmospere+18.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Is a colder Earth more productive?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">It wasn’t for the 100,000-year period glacial period that lasted from the end of the Eemian interglacial until the current interglacial began 11,700 years ago. At one point atmospheric CO2 was at 180ppm, barely above the level of plant starvation of 150ppm.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Are storms more frequent and powerful?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">From 2006 through 2014 no Category 3 or stronger hurricane struck the continental United States, the longest such period since the Civil War.<o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="468" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW528EIXVZasbXx_Rb91a6kqohhpLBLGFTJaqI6VchrrrNeaGQOQG4jxyy1ehJx4fvseEc8CyAuaiP5Ie53c_vhgNmnnNt_gYfe6AGO1R2ysxw8r_UF-AMNV1xyyJsnIIo-ZYF/w640-h328/Storms+19.png" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">The science behind each of these questions is robust and irrefutable. Climate change is natural and unstoppable. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-43195041890971912020-10-13T21:55:00.002-07:002020-10-13T21:55:34.050-07:00A Natural Climate Change Debate Challenge<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirRpsm8WyW4hat7gRIrkjpyDPz9qxgkuIb20pKQu089n_u4GBJeTh6vQFrxGmRQEKgqTEkQv2yHFviAbnsnNEmoSo9vMicbqOXgFlmRyg0NbC0SGLGSFX4gSQpHZW4zFbvdhWz/s700/fullsizeoutput_7d44.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="700" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirRpsm8WyW4hat7gRIrkjpyDPz9qxgkuIb20pKQu089n_u4GBJeTh6vQFrxGmRQEKgqTEkQv2yHFviAbnsnNEmoSo9vMicbqOXgFlmRyg0NbC0SGLGSFX4gSQpHZW4zFbvdhWz/w640-h464/fullsizeoutput_7d44.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Franz Kafka described individuals who were powerless to understand or control what was happening to them. I have the feeling that Kafka is writing today’s headlines about climate change. Authorities accuse sceptics of rejecting science while displaying their own profound science ignorance and proudly parade it before an equally ignorant public. Apocalyptic predictions are breathlessly proclaimed, then studiously ignored when they don’t come to pass.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">A case in point is our reaction to recent wildfires. The prescription for solving the problem begins with stopping climate change by reducing California CO2 emissions. Overlooked is that if California totally eliminated CO2 emissions and returned to Horse & Buggy days, over five billion people in the developing world would still be rapidly accelerating their CO2 emissions as they pursue our prosperity. China and India would still be bringing an average of one new coal-burning power plant on line each week for years to come, and China would be assisting African nations to solve their energy poverty. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidrDfHznawl4jxpd9dLPwJgUWRoht3VM6e7LAnRAe-rIGiwZfVeMIE-dqIE8SE1H62wzuogIy6IXGDdljWFymuFGxR-tw6fjDg_L39AaBX8dn1lpDTmPM8NV9kqmQl7A103T3r/s1078/fullsizeoutput_7d3f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="1078" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidrDfHznawl4jxpd9dLPwJgUWRoht3VM6e7LAnRAe-rIGiwZfVeMIE-dqIE8SE1H62wzuogIy6IXGDdljWFymuFGxR-tw6fjDg_L39AaBX8dn1lpDTmPM8NV9kqmQl7A103T3r/w640-h382/fullsizeoutput_7d3f.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Also overlooked are statistics showing that neighboring Canadian wildfires have decreased in number and acreage burned in the past three decades, with the most acreage burned in 1994 and 1995. Acreage burned in 2020 is only at eight percent of the average of the past ten years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Fire ecologists say that far more land burned each year during the 1800s and earlier, than in recent years. In the preindustrial era, from 1500 to 1800, an average of 145 million acres burned every year nationwide — about 10 times more than the nation’s recent annual burns. In the West, an estimated 18 to 25 million acres burned each year, as recently as the 1800s.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Our current natural climate change is totally unremarkable in the context of the eight major cycles of the past million years. Exhaustive studies of Earth’s orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles) during that period determined that they were responsible for alternating 100,000-year glacial periods with short 15,000-year warm periods. It will shock many to learn that Earth’s climate changes have been dramatic; only a bit over 20,000 years ago, all of what is now Canada was covered with ice sheets over a mile thick; Earth’s surface is still rebounding in many places after the ice sheets melted and our current warm period began only 11,700 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">The previous warm period, the Eemian, peaked about 125,000 years ago with temperatures 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and sea level 20 to 30 feet higher than present. This sustained warmth enabled the hippopotamus to range as far north as the rivers Rhine and Thames. The atmospheric level of CO2 reached 280 parts per million (ppm), then fell to 180 ppm (below 150 ppm, plant-life dies on a massive scale) as temperatures dropped and the next glacial period began 115,000 years ago. Both the increased and decreased levels of CO2 followed, not preceded, temperature changes, since cooling water absorbs CO2 and warming expels it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">There have been five warm periods in the past 10,000 years and the first, the Holocene Climatic Optimum (9,000 to 5,000 years ago), was the warmest. Fortunately for skeptics, evidence of its higher temperatures than present left features that are abundant and easily observed. The northern latitudes of Europe, Asia, Alaska, and Canada display tree stumps hundreds of kilometers north of where trees can now grow. Glaciologists have determined that glaciers are now larger than they were then. Studies of features such as coral mounds up to six feet above present sea level are irrefutable evidence of prior warmth because coral cannot grow above water. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Unlike assurances by Al Gore and his “apocaholics,” current climate change is far from unprecedented. Besides the first and warmest period of the past 10,000 years, there have been four other warm periods including the present. After the Optimum came the Minoan, Roman, Medieval, and Modern, each of which was less warm than its predecessor. For roughly the past 8,000 years, Earth has experienced a cooling trend, and studies such as Greenland ice core samples show that the past 1,000 years are the coldest in 10,000 years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9N2wUDSx8mqzY5ujtOO27bSdpxYQi3zkWfDMqMBBV9P2GqwGMHnaa7oJ0Hc9ARb0kmv5cH8_j419VjfsTt2Pf8VA-2Uvl3z7gTE3DixrsBAzpOGnPSqFUPOjZ57-PtpuMo2D/s598/1570p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="598" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9N2wUDSx8mqzY5ujtOO27bSdpxYQi3zkWfDMqMBBV9P2GqwGMHnaa7oJ0Hc9ARb0kmv5cH8_j419VjfsTt2Pf8VA-2Uvl3z7gTE3DixrsBAzpOGnPSqFUPOjZ57-PtpuMo2D/w640-h432/1570p.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Current discussions of climate change lack scientific and historical perspectives. It is irrefutable that past greater warming did not result in runaway temperature increases, even millions of years ago when CO2 levels were ten to twenty times higher than now. Natural catastrophes such as droughts, powerful storms, and wildfires have all been intensively studied and found to have been much worse during earlier periods. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">In California, 1910 to 1940 was much drier than any 30-year period since. However, the past 100 years have been much wetter than the previous 7,000 years, which featured several 200-year mega-droughts. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">Every one of the items I’ve mentioned is easily accessible and clearly demonstrates that our present climate change is a part of natural cycles that have persisted for the past two million years. For over twenty years I have made a debate challenge that hasn’t been accepted: “Proposition: Climate change is natural and always has been.” I’ll take the affirmative. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;">I welcome any and all who wish to debate the negative.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #181818; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-8087577593414004452020-09-18T11:24:00.001-07:002020-10-13T22:03:39.878-07:00 My review: Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeuruqT8t_u2VJmgqdSkrnmzXhzSnhM1K_xA63unKJGJnV35C4wfAN8U-A7dc2VlQt9QqA6efloruBlfplmw6cmcbijEbUGBM03G1u2yi9UUcWTOVAXXbRnJZkoRlZNgGt0F8/s276/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeuruqT8t_u2VJmgqdSkrnmzXhzSnhM1K_xA63unKJGJnV35C4wfAN8U-A7dc2VlQt9QqA6efloruBlfplmw6cmcbijEbUGBM03G1u2yi9UUcWTOVAXXbRnJZkoRlZNgGt0F8/w265-h400/Unknown.jpeg" width="265" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p><p><span class="fn"><a class="bookTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18909648-power-hungry" itemprop="url" style="color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.3; text-decoration: none;">Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future</a></span> </p><span class="by" face="Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 13px;">by</span> <span itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><div class="authorName__container" style="display: inline-block;"><a class="authorName" href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7094.Robert_Bryce" itemprop="url" style="color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><span itemprop="name">Robert Bryce</span></a> <span class="greyText" style="color: #999999;">(Goodreads Author)</span></div> </span><br /><div itemprop="reviews" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Review"><div class="big450Box" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; float: left; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 450px;"><div class="big450BoxBody" style="background-repeat: no-repeat repeat;"><div class="big450BoxContent" style="overflow: hidden; width: 430px;"><a class="leftAlignedImage" href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/100450351-michael-b" style="color: #00635d; float: left; margin-right: 10px; padding-top: 2px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="U 50x66" src="https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png" style="border: 0px;" /></a><div><span class="reviewer"><a class="userReview" href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/100450351-michael-b" itemprop="author" style="color: #382110; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Michael B.</a></span>'s review <div class="right dtreviewed greyText smallText" style="color: #999999; float: right; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"><span itemprop="datePublished">Sep 16, 2020 </span><span class="greyText"> · </span> <a class="smallText greyText" href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/18909648" style="color: #999999; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none;">edit</a><span class="value-title" title="2020-09-16"></span></div><br /><div style="clear: right;"></div><div class="rating" itemprop="reviewRating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Rating"><span class="value-title" title="5"></span><span class="staticStars notranslate" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; display: inline-block; font-size: 0px; height: 15px; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap; width: 75px;" title="it was amazing"><span class="staticStar p10" style="background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 15px; float: left; height: 15px; width: 15px;">it was amazing</span><span class="staticStar p10" style="background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 15px; float: left; height: 15px; width: 15px;"></span><span class="staticStar p10" style="background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 15px; float: left; height: 15px; width: 15px;"></span><span class="staticStar p10" style="background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAB4AAAAeCAYAAAA7MK6iAAABvUlEQVR4Ab2WNZDXQBTGcWtxd+173PYFh5bJ5uBK3B0q3N3d3RvkoMalb6hw6DY5yQ8np5v8s5l5sfe+7zezXi/tVa7HDSDqub5CX60knIONlleEU2h58Zh+xlflBO/umlmrZb/BvDsDx8AXv8G8u2nm6RP6APw3+OdgNMuSJJh/DppZniXB/Mu3mYvG9gJUVZDLr5kDtag6MDkrsyjwpka+bI+07DVaDhnfO260OhtquRRqdSN+3o3jfhyP4++P1YHJUUMtGrR44IUn3jBgwWQxaGF8OYPYRcCC+U8zytzQlygvIN4wqu7DIm9oXPAhB+gHvGsZuaqr0eppoaB44Vm3aTN7SnOj5URWKB542S8WgcwKtQptgWjQZlwixw63BaPJvmhM8wbZgtEUYu9dZwtGU5gjjiU465GIk2TntCMabWqwCaS4OuMokF1EdXm0GfpXrlaxCn2KAm/C7xre+ZesQ5uumVdNaRKLvyfMHlfVhPwjl6j9joc1mLX1H5PS0Jc15eenNKyunhw11P7W4ZFm09/0C/rOZl5SiwYtHmmm0Vs283jvbGWrRYMWD0vhxPbG92bWy3jhgVdVuQp3XI5mu1kSTwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=="); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 15px; float: left; height: 15px; width: 15px;"></span><span class="staticStar p10" style="background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,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"); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 15px; float: left; height: 15px; width: 15px;"></span></span></div><div></div></div><br class="clear" style="clear: both; display: block; font-size: 1px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px;" /><div class="reviewText mediumText description readable" itemprop="reviewBody" style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Power, the ability to perform work, not the ability to control others, is directly correlated to prosperity. At the moment and for the foreseeable future, prosperity will be powered by fossil fuels. Electricity is not going to effectively move airplanes, ships, and large vehicles, but electricity is vital for performance of all other productive functions. In that regard, the author illustrates the world-wide innumeracy that results in policies that depend on wind, solar, and biofuels (renewables) to replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy. When the rapidly increasing world need for power is examined in terms of the scope of the need, it is obvious that renewables cannot do the job; "There ain't no way to get there from here." Using wind generation as an example, an enormous area of land and sea is required to generate what is in essence a tiny amount of world energy requirements which requires huge quantities of steel, concrete, fibrous materials, and rare earth resources to erect ecological eyesores that have very short lives. In addition, since wind is erratic and intermittent, it requires fossil fuel backup generation and/or power storage, the methods of which are 1. currently nonexistent and 2. uneconomical if ever developed. I can only highlight the excellent analyses that Robert Bryce develops and communicates clearly and effectively. As applies to many of the books I've reviewed recently, this book should be read by everyone, but especially by those who thing a Green New Deal is possible. Many a foolish thought or decision is a result of the innumeracy that prevents understanding relevant information. </div><div id="review-like" style="float: right; margin-top: 8px; text-align: right;"></div><div id="review-follow" style="margin-top: 8px;"></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-21005483046050942152020-07-28T22:08:00.006-07:002020-10-13T22:00:42.024-07:00"False Alarm" Should Be Required Reading<div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhklmtRGxsFJLOY5jbFmGfd04J8xWEwizycWu_cuU7N51Zbk-KDSlzzgR_J63fxaI6wDjC7_r_SAb498j8KeWWuMo2bLeU30wmPba5z6z7-pb8zWC5uPahwwYwg4r50zROb-9El/s280/fullsizeoutput_7d4d.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="180" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhklmtRGxsFJLOY5jbFmGfd04J8xWEwizycWu_cuU7N51Zbk-KDSlzzgR_J63fxaI6wDjC7_r_SAb498j8KeWWuMo2bLeU30wmPba5z6z7-pb8zWC5uPahwwYwg4r50zROb-9El/w206-h320/fullsizeoutput_7d4d.jpeg" width="206" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> I would not give five stars to a work that contains a fundamental error, but "False Alarm" is so pertinent that everyone on Earth should read this book. Whether climate change skeptic or alarmist, there is much that both sides will find valuable and useful, but before I indulge in fulsome praise Mr. Lomborg does have a fundamental flaw in his presentation: being ignorant of or overlooking thousands of prior periods of natural climate change that warmed Earth far more than even the most unlikely climate model forecast. If while reading "False Alarm" you mentally eliminate all of the scenarios of human actions to causes and combat climate change, the rest of his presentation becomes even stronger and timely. One word it sums up: adaptation. </div><div><br /></div><div> Personally, I would like to take Mr. Lomborg and the rest of the world into the light of reason and science by debating; Proposition: climate change is natural and always has been. The obvious result is triumph for the affirmative and then Mr. Lomborg's positions on economic progress such as improved education, innovation, and health becomes foundations for the rapid and dramatic betterment of humankind. This would place Mr. Lombard in the company of the greatest humanitarian of all, who he mentions, Norman Borlaug. Leadership like theirs validates optimism for us all.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-37432486071561767172020-07-18T11:28:00.003-07:002020-07-28T22:55:03.811-07:00Before Michael Shellenberger "Saw The Light"<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19192611-break-through" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386205515l/19192611._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19192611-break-through">Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/811161.Ted_Nordhaus">Ted Nordhaus</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3431675853">4 of 5 stars</a><br />
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This is extremely well written and contains a lot of information about climate change that the author now completely repudiates in "Apocalypse Never." I was intrigued by his former position on wind turbines, particularly on the failed Cape Wind project, compared to his present understanding of the waste and futility of wind, solar, and biomass energy generation. Just to say "he saw the light" would be to understate the brilliance of his transformation. Still, this book is so well written and original, and his treatment of limit-constricted environmentalists so accurate, that it should be read after reading "Apocalypse Never" to give the reader an appreciation of the thought that has gone into both endeavors.<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/100450351-michael-b">View all my reviews</a><br />
<br />Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-61343121945182079112020-07-07T20:48:00.005-07:002020-07-18T11:30:49.133-07:00Apocalypse Never - Everyone Should Read<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49772727-apocalypse-never" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1577113075l/49772727._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49772727-apocalypse-never">Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/77403.Michael_Shellenberger">Michael Shellenberger</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3422284185">5 of 5 stars</a><br />
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This book is must reading for everyone, but particularly environmentalists. Each concept - energy generation, plastic waste, adaptation, natural disasters, prosperity vs. preservation, and many others - are treated clearly and thoroughly, with copious footnotes. Of particular interest is Shellenberger's treatment of environmentalism as religion substitute, where each can feel that they by doing some small thing are performing heroic service to the world. He contrasts that with the needs of poor people to gain enjoyment and meaning from their lives, not be inhabitants of an elites' back to the-way-it-was vision of earthly paradise. He shows how agricultural modernization using machinery, fertilizers, and GMOs create food surpluses while freeing people to stop being low production farmers and to be city workers and dwellers. The economic clarity of his illustrations are among the most valuable contributions of this book to approaching and solving the environment of panic created and spread by environmental alarmists. Malthus, Ehrlich, McKibbins are all honored by the left and are all monumentally wrong. Shellenberger gives them the attention they deserve.<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/100450351-michael-b">View all my reviews</a><br />
<br />Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-1165909864555579762020-04-12T11:50:00.000-07:002020-04-12T16:47:25.412-07:00Our Income Taxes Are Not Progressive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLdCqvTYFWgvXGdbj5KpppbIankMBHgubWQlj-QHcVRkgEa7mxfChYavuqJRoOkPj1Znkj-IrzQSO95GdMTNpLVDz08j9yrFsjY8QCLwemtsx1-GMTLHLPHTUOMyuDYsilWvH/s1600/irs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="364" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLdCqvTYFWgvXGdbj5KpppbIankMBHgubWQlj-QHcVRkgEa7mxfChYavuqJRoOkPj1Znkj-IrzQSO95GdMTNpLVDz08j9yrFsjY8QCLwemtsx1-GMTLHLPHTUOMyuDYsilWvH/s400/irs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong><em>Progressive?</em></strong><br />
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<br />
The claim we have progressive income taxation has been accepted with no thought given to whether it is true.<br />
<br />
It isn’t. Although the wealthy are paying a larger share of total income taxes than ever, they are also wealthier than ever, and Liberals are constantly whining about the growing wealth gap. Far from being progressive, income taxes discourage savings and the accumulation of wealth, and place obstacles in the path to closing the wealth gap. It’s easy to maintain wealth, hard to accumulate it.<br />
<br />
To begin, what makes an income tax progressive? The probable answer is that the higher the income, the higher the tax rate. The intent of progressive taxation is to have the wealthy carry the tax load, because: “They should pay their fair share. They need to give back. They receive the greatest benefits. Yada, yada & Etc.”<br />
<br />
Because of the “progressive” nature of our income tax system, the wealthy make a lot of tax lawyers and accountants wealthy too by paying them to devise ways to beat high taxes. Even government has leaped into the tax avoidance business, by promoting schemes like tax-free municipal bonds.<br />
<br />
Since the top 5% in terms of adjusted gross income pay 60% of income taxes (the top 5% share of the total has increased steadily, up from 37% in 1980 when the top tax brackets were at 70%), and the bottom 50% pay only 3% of the total (less than half of the 7% they paid in 1980).<br />
<br />
You can see by the trend, the wealthy need all the help they can buy to avoid fulfilling the Democrat’s dream of wealthy Republicans eventually paying all the income tax. As it is, almost <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes" target="_blank">half of our “taxpayers” no longer pay any taxes</a></span> to the IRS.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the Internet, you can also easily find entire nations that provide tax avoidance services, offering <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://nomadcapitalist.com/2019/04/27/best-offshore-banks/" target="_blank">off-shore banking</a></span> in British Virgin Islands, Belize, Dominica, Seychelles, Panama and Gibraltar, and in other less favored states.<br />
<br />
As is usual, the unwealthy need not apply.<br />
<br />
Can an income tax be regressive? Look no farther than FICA (Social Security) and Medicare payroll taxes for the answer, a resounding “Yes!” The <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751" target="_blank">FICA and Medicare rates</a></span> are the same for all, and FICA is paid equally on the first dollar earned up to the 137,700th dollar, after which the marginal rate is zero. Therefore, the total FICA tax rate for someone earning $275,400 falls to 3.1 percent, exactly half the 6.2 percent rate for anyone earning $137,700 or less.<br />
<br />
You do realize your "employer contribution" comes out of your wages too, don't you? It's a sneaky way politicians try to make you think you're only paying 6.2 percent into Social Security. If you were self-employed, you would know you pay 12.4 percent into Social Security, and 2.9 percent into Medicare.<br />
<br />
The total FICA tax rate continues to fall once taxable wages pass $137,700 For example, for someone earning $413,100, the tax rate is only 2.07 percent. At $550,800, it falls to 1.55 percent, or approximately the 1.45 percent Medicare tax. Get the picture?<br />
<br />
FICA is also regressive because it discourages savings and wealth accumulation. The 12.4 percent of income paid into Social Security earns at about a 2 percent rate, less than the rate of inflation. After a lifetime paying into FICA, mortality tables show that a black male born before 2000 will die just about the time he would collect his first check at about 66 years of age. He will <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/incarceration-unemployment-and-black-white-marriage-gap-us" target="_blank">probably be unmarried</a> when he dies, so his Social Security benefits will cease with his last breath. The return on his working lifetime investment is worse than 0.00%, which would be the return if someone was paid what he put in. No, his return on investment is a negative 100 percent (-100%).<br />
<br />
Opponents of privatized Social Security accounts don’t spend much time on this feature of the present system, or on the fact it went <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/lets-talk-about-social-securitys-80-billion-negative-cash-flow-crisis/2019/05/03/814b4028-6c5a-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html" target="_blank">cash income negative</a> in 2010 and goes bankrupt in 2035.<br />
<br />
As added frosting on the wealthy’s tax avoidance cake, a person making a million dollars a year from investments only pays FICA at the 0.00% rate. If, following the example of Ross Perot, the million dollars was all income from tax-free municipal bonds, his federal income tax rate is also 0.00%. Therefore, the wealthy can legally pay FICA and income taxes at the same rate as the drug dealer, who pays none of either unless he is caught, arrested, and convicted, and then only if the government can then find where he stashed his loot (see British Virgin Islands, Belize, Dominica, Seychelles, Panama and Gibraltar), and then find someway to collect from it.<br />
<br />
Lots of luck collecting, G-Men.<br />
<br />
Not only FICA is regressive, but our “progressive” income tax system is too. It also discourages savings and wealth accumulation, by taking a portion of the income before it can be invested, and then taxing interest and profits which, during inflationary periods (i.e. most of the time), means the IRS is reducing your capital base.<br />
<br />
Taxing both interest earned on investments and capital gains are particularly regressive and oppressive forms of taxation. In the first instance, interest usually doesn’t keep up with the rate of inflation, so taxing interest earned just adds to capital shrinkage.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, capital investments usually increase with inflation, and often at a faster rate. However, that still means that most of the value of the asset is original cost plus inflation. If the value only goes up by the amount of inflation, and the asset is then sold, the investor has not made a profit, he has just gotten back the value of his original investment.<br />
<br />
“Not so,” says the IRS. "You have made a profit, i.e. selling price – original cost = profit, and on that profit you will pay capital gains tax." In other words, your investment not only did not beat inflation, but after paying tax on the “capital gain,” you lost money. Such a deal! Courtesy of your IRS.<br />
<br />
I am waiting for a Liberal to explain to me why a system of taxation that discourages savings and investment is considered “progressive.”<br />
<br />
The most illogical and regressive part of income taxation is the double taxation of corporate profits. Corporations are taxed at a very high rate (basically 21%, formerly 35%, with possible add-ons) when profits are earned, and then those profits are taxed to individuals when distributed as dividends.<br />
<br />
Liberals have justified this double taxation by once again clothing it in the mantel of “fairness,” declaring that corporations must pay their fair share. Either through deceit or ignorance, the Liberals don’t admit that corporations don’t actually pay any income, property, or any other form of taxes; we who buy their products pay their taxes.<br />
<br />
That’s right, when you’re calling for corporations to take on more of the tax load, what you are really demanding is government to tax us more. To a corporation, corporate taxes are just another cost of business to be passed on to their customers along with the costs of labor, materials, and overhead.<br />
<br />
When the government collects corporate taxes, it reduces the capital the corporation can use for investment. Therefore, instead of funding growth internally through increased retained earnings, the corporation has to replace the funds lost to corporate income taxes by borrowing.<br />
<br />
I’ve heard many Liberals dispute this, but without demonstrating to me how corporations could pay their taxes unless they receive money from their customers when they sell them their products. Some have told me that corporations sell a lot to other corporations, and to government, as if that proved a human being was not the ultimate link in the tax paying chain.<br />
<br />
For the accounting illiterate among you, I would like to explain that corporations who buy anything from anyone include those costs as material or overhead charges, and recover them through charges such as depreciation, amortization, professional services expenses (such as tax lawyers and accountants), & etc. The only time they “eat” the taxes instead of passing them on is when they are operating at a loss. However, at that point taxpayers subsidize their loss because tax law provides for corporations to carry losses back against prior period taxes paid, and then forward against subsequent year profits.<br />
<br />
The bottom line is there is nothing progressive about “progressive” income taxation. It is an artifact created from class envy and taxpayer ignorance by legislators to fool taxpayers. While the taxpayers are gloating and celebrating how politicians have “socked it to” the wealthy and to the evil corporations, the politicians are gloating about how easy it is to fool ignorant and envious citizens and get their votes.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, instead of benefiting from the stronger and healthier economy that sensible taxation would promote, the taxpayer congratulates the politicians for distributing tax misery equitably.<br />
<br />
Income taxation problems such as discouraging investment, wealth accumulation and savings, slowing economic growth, and placing American business at a competitive disadvantage in the world marketplace, would be solved by a national sales tax along the lines of the Fair Tax proposal.<br />
<br />
Just as regressive income taxation has been called “progressive,” the progressive <a href="http://www.fairtax.org/"><span style="color: red;">Fair Tax proposal</span></a> has been labeled regressive.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak"><span style="color: red;">Newspeak</span></a> lives.<br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: red;">Please click on the label below to see all my articles on this topic.</span></em>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-32228059795902010542020-04-10T15:51:00.000-07:002020-04-12T17:23:31.126-07:00Tax Day Lament<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Day after day in years past I have struggled against waves
of remorse to sit before my computer and painstakingly compose Alice and my income tax returns. My sole objective every year is to arrive at
all ways this side of outlaw to reduce our tax “contribution”. However, I
realize that our efforts to minimize our contribution might seem selfish to
many: “Where’s your spirit of sharing?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oddly though, before I plumb the depths of guilty feelings
too deeply, I rationalize that it’s only me and trusty TurboTax against a
well-paid IRS army; in years past Democrats like John and Teresa Kerry, John Edwards, and
Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were generous to a fault with public funds, were known to sic
armies of tax lawyers and accountants onto the IRS to make sure that they too contributed as little as possible. Then, if still burdened by feelings of selfishness, I
take solace knowing we donated more to charity in a year than Joe and Jill Biden
did in a decade.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point waves of smug, self-satisfaction wash over me,
until I realize that I live in a community where generosity takes many forms,
and is a way of life. Whereas the taxes we pay leave our community to be
frittered away, in our communities the Lions, Rotarians, Soroptimists, Gualala
Arts volunteers, school boosters, restaurateurs, and donations by generous
businesses and individuals do what the bureaucrats won’t and can’t: find our real
needs and fill them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For over twenty years it’s been my privilege to work
with many other Lions and Rotarians to round up donations for our fundraiser
raffles and auctions, so I am constantly made aware of the generosity of
neighbors and business owners. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We render unto Cesar, but our hearts give voluntarily and
happily to friends. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-19359500368648857462020-04-09T19:59:00.000-07:002020-05-31T11:55:49.188-07:00Social Security Privatization Made Easy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitm7AfTFFF7PqOhYZoK3IsqCeDZFidE2qEbs5gAMB3GADJNejQzDXxV-YfxtXbBhHCJaZ450aliAdaP-jrPQXvqyStMM0RSxbnUVHMjONeaZNo3lHnAeG91mus1JJgKE_uFS8L/s1600-h/socialism.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5235751253956715762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitm7AfTFFF7PqOhYZoK3IsqCeDZFidE2qEbs5gAMB3GADJNejQzDXxV-YfxtXbBhHCJaZ450aliAdaP-jrPQXvqyStMM0RSxbnUVHMjONeaZNo3lHnAeG91mus1JJgKE_uFS8L/s320/socialism.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div>
Privatization of Social Security is still a hot topic in the Combs house. I started drawing Social Security at my normal full entitlement age, in my case 65 years and 10 months (I was born in 1942). However, Alice waited until she was 68 before starting.<br />
<br />
Both of us knew that Social Security wouldn’t pay me much, even though I earned above or near the maximum for FICA contributions for almost all of a working life now approaching fifty years.<br />
<br />
Over the years Alice and I have heard Democrats putting down Social Security privatization, saying that it wouldn’t pay as much and was too risky. As a test, I thought it would be a good idea to use real income and contribution amounts to get an accurate estimate of how a person would have fared if Social Security had always been privatized. Fortunately for my project, Alice had “Your Social Security Statement” in one of her voluminous files (she never throws anything away) and I copied her Social Security income by year onto an Excel spreadsheet, beginning with the $40 she earned in 1959.<br />
<br />
The next part, calculating how much Alice contributed to Social Security each year, took a little research. Happily, such research in the Age of Google is the essence of simplicity, and I immediately found a Social Security page on JustFacts.com that provided a <a href="http://www.justfacts.com/socialsecurity.asp"><span style="color: red;">table of Social Security tax rates</span></a>:<br />
<br />
<u><span style="color: #006600;">Year</span></u> <u><span style="color: #330099;">Social Security Tax Rate</span></u><br />
1950 <strong>3%</strong><br />
1960 <strong>6%</strong><br />
1970 <strong>8.4%</strong><br />
1980 <strong>10.2%</strong>1990 <strong>12.4%</strong><br />
2000 <strong>12.4%</strong><br />
<br />
By multiplying Alice’s Social Security earnings each year by the tax rate for that year I calculated how much Alice contributed each year. Since Alice earned more than the Social Security ceiling since 1977, I projected her income and contributions through the end of 2008 and found she had contributed a total of $220,254.56 from 1958 through 2008.<br />
<br />
The next part was simple, but a bit tricky since it required me to select a table of values for stock market investments covering at least a half century. I selected a table of the <a href="http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm"><span style="color: red;">Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the S&P 500</span></a> for two reasons. The CAGR gives about a one percent lower rate of return than using simple averages, but avoids the valid criticism that a simple average method mechanically distorts the effects of year-to-year fluctuations. The other reason I chose it was that an index of the S&P 500 reflects a simple, inexpensive mutual fund investment option that has been available for a long time.<br />
<br />
I used the date range calculator for each of the fifty years 1958 through 2007 (I valued 2008 FICA contributions at face value). It was laborious work, but now you don’t have to do it, because I’ve done it for you. </div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
(For example, a dollar invested in the S&P 500 in 1958 is worth $32.57 today. Multiply your FICA contribution in 1958 by $32.57, and you would have its value now.)</div>
<div>
<br />
<u><span style="color: #006600;">Year</span></u> <u><span style="color: #330099;">Compound Annual Growth Rate</span></u><br />
1958 $32.57<br />
1959 $24.78<br />
1960 $23.22<br />
1961 $24.19<br />
1962 $20.18<br />
1963 $22.88<br />
1964 $19.28<br />
1965 $17.06<br />
1966 $15.65<br />
1967 $17.98<br />
1968 $14.97<br />
1969 $14.05<br />
1970 $15.87<br />
1971 $15.85<br />
1972 $14.37<br />
1973 $12.43<br />
1974 $15.00<br />
1975 $21.29<br />
1976 $16.23<br />
1977 $13.63<br />
1978 $15.37<br />
1979 $15.42<br />
1980 $13.71<br />
1981 $10.90<br />
1982 $12.12<br />
1983 $10.53<br />
1984 $8.98<br />
1985 $8.85<br />
1986 $7.01<br />
1987 $6.07<br />
1988 $5.92<br />
1989 $5.27<br />
1990 $4.14<br />
1991 $4.43<br />
1992 $3.51<br />
1993 $3.36<br />
1994 $3.14<br />
1995 $3.18<br />
1996 $2.37<br />
1997 $1.97<br />
1998 $1.51<br />
1999 $1.19<br />
2000 $1.00<br />
2001 $1.11<br />
2002 $1.27<br />
2003 $1.66<br />
2004 $1.31<br />
2005 $1.21<br />
2006 $1.17<br />
2007 $1.04<br />
2008 $1.00<br />
<br />
Now all you have to do is post this to your Excel spreadsheet, and multiply your contribution each year by the CAGR value for that year. When you’re finished, just sum the total and you will find how much your contributions would be worth through 2008 if they had been invested in an S&P 500 index fund. (This fund would be much larger if you assume that dividends are reinvested.)<br />
<br />
Alice would have had a fund worth $765,722.90. If she drew on it now, at the rate of the $2,000 per month Social Security would pay if she started now, it would last her 32 years, or until she was 98 years old, even if she never re-invested a penny. That’s a good thing, since Alice, then at age 66, had a life expectancy of another 18 years to the age of 84. If she only made it to 84, by drawing out $2,000 a month she would still have about $333,000 left to pass on in her estate.<br />
<br />
(Unfortunately, in our current government-run system, as soon as you die, your Social Security disappears unless you have the unlikely situation of a spouse who does not qualify in their own right, or unmarried minor children.)<br />
<br />
Alice, being a very successful businesswoman, would of course re-invest her privatized Social Security funds, and would probably just leave it in an S&P 500 index fund.</div>
<blockquote>
<a href="http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/05/mapping-sp-500-performance-since-1871.html"><span style="color: red;">The average rate of return for all holding periods</span></a> beginning in 1926 (the year the S&P 500 was actually founded) is 11.0%. The average rate of return for all holding periods beginning in January 1945 is 11.6%, and since January 1980, the average rate of return for all full-year increment holding periods is 13.9%.</blockquote>
<div>
<br />
Let’s keep it simple and say that the market can only do 10.0% per year, so in each month of 2009 Alice leaves the principal alone and only takes out as income the average monthly increase of $6,380 ($76,560 per year), which is about 3.2 times larger than she would have been paid under Social Security.<br />
<br />
Don’t forget, Alice can keep drawing on her funds at this rate for years and still have over $765,000 untouched to pass on tax-free one day to her heirs (assuming that politicians don’t get greedy, as they usually do, and levy an exorbitant Death Tax on these previously taxed funds).<br />
<br />
So why don’t we have privatized Social Security? To answer this question, ask another question. Why aren’t there any funds in the Social Security Trust Fund?<br />
<br />
There aren’t any funds in the Social Security Trust Fund because Democrat politicians realized that historical Social Security surpluses could be diverted to finance current spending through the simple device of replacing the Trust Fund surplus dollars with special Treasury Bonds (or government IOUs).<br />
<br />
In essence the government said, “I’ll borrow from myself, spend the money, and when Social Security goes into deficit spending in 2010, I’ll increase payroll taxes plus borrow from the General Fund – excuse me, sell back the IOUs, causing the General Fund to borrow and increase taxes to make up the deficit - while pretending the whole time that Social Security is solvent until 2035. By then I’ll be long retired, and some other poor suckers will have to try to clean up the mess.”<br />
<br />
Our government has always trusted that we are primarily too stupid, and secondarily too greedy, to privatize Social Security. Too stupid to realize Social Security is a horrible investment for workers, but a great cash cow for politicians to tap for funds to spend to buy our votes. Then we have to be too greedy to stop them from buying our votes and to phase in privatization to pass down a better system to our descendants.<br />
<br />
As a final point, and one deserving of a post all its own, if we all had been paying into a privatized account, an S&P 500 index fund (the S&P 500 contains 70% of our stock market capitalization), instead of a government deep in debt, we would have an economy awash in capital. All of our contributions invested in our economy instead of frittered away by politicians would be powering economic growth, and high levels of research, development, and innovation.<br />
<br />
As an incidental consequence, the high level of economic activity would also be generating high tax revenues, especially at reduced tax rates.<br />
<br />
We would have universal health care through personal Medical Savings Accounts, not a bankrupt Medicare system and Medic-Aid that has been cut so much that doctors are refusing Medic-Aid patients.<br />
<br />
We have seen the future, and it works, but only if we can take back control of it from the politicians.</div>
Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-1156744919894284852020-03-15T15:59:00.002-07:002023-10-30T15:51:15.236-07:00Alice And Vulcan Incorporated - Only In America<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cgHBWkoHpnr2_-lA1jQBUJFUuwVV9OhfA_-Q-1KYmNZfexDtAFNx1FEgrCqngpIEPTcMZKBADOUxHgRegRyFQcNKnPuiBVjxJL6BrNVfZzjnN1052FQTg8y4G1ZDNLlQMSt60lJncHQgZuOtEQvqFWz5sfKVGWLS_oGbM3uoOPFYgGS5IRIr/s1044/Alice,%20Proposal%201988.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="759" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cgHBWkoHpnr2_-lA1jQBUJFUuwVV9OhfA_-Q-1KYmNZfexDtAFNx1FEgrCqngpIEPTcMZKBADOUxHgRegRyFQcNKnPuiBVjxJL6BrNVfZzjnN1052FQTg8y4G1ZDNLlQMSt60lJncHQgZuOtEQvqFWz5sfKVGWLS_oGbM3uoOPFYgGS5IRIr/w466-h640/Alice,%20Proposal%201988.bmp" width="466" /></a></div>
<em>Vulcan Incorporated President and Chief Executive Officer at Vulcan's Christmas party, 1988. I proposed to Alice that evening after the party, five weeks after we met.</em><br />
<br />
Belatedly following the advice of my buddy, Sam, I joined the <a href="http://www.gualalarotary.org/"><span style="color: red;">Gualala Rotary</span></a> several years ago. As with new members, they quickly scheduled me to do a presentation, presumably about myself, at our lunchtime Friday meeting at <a href="http://www.saintorres.com/"><span style="color: red;">St. Orres</span></a>. Without spending much time thinking about what I would say, I chose to talk about Alice and her company, Vulcan Incorporated, plus how we met through <a href="http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/2006/01/great-expectations.html"><span style="color: red;">Great Expectations</span></a>, a video dating service. Many Rotarians have since remarked that they were surprised, and pleased, that I chose to talk about Alice instead of myself. It’s not that they’re not interested in my All-American Boy story; it’s just that Alice’s story is much more interesting and compelling.<br />
<br />
First things first, Alice and I met through <span style="color: black;">Great Expectations</span> in 1988, the year that my first wife, Marilynn, died of breast cancer at the tender age of 43 less than two months after our 25th anniversary. When we met, Alice already had a very successful small business, Vulcan Incorporated.<br />
<br />
Over a decade before we met, Alice divorced her first husband and went back to college while raising her two daughters and working as a waitress in Dublin, the town where they lived in northern California about thirty miles east of San Francisco.<br />
<br />
After she completed her degree in Political Science at Cal State-Hayward, her first job was as a Pre-Trainee at Mervyns, with the goal of becoming a Buyer. She soon found each day on the job was a miserable experience, because she had to stand for long periods on her very flat feet. The pain in her feet hurt her concentration and performance, and soon Mervyns informed her that she was not management material.<br />
<br />
For her future success, being fired by Mervyns was one of the best things that happened to her.<br />
<br />
While a divorcee she had several boyfriends, none of whom were serious marriage material. One boyfriend introduced her to selling, primarily of industrial products like welding rod. She soon realized that she was better at selling and was a much harder worker than the boyfriend. He did make one valuable contribution to her future in sales, when he introduced her to such principles or clichés of selling as: “Find a need and fill it.”<br />
<br />
As Alice worked hard, much harder than the boyfriend, she took “find a need and fill it” as her gospel of selling, and one day while visiting Karl, the plant manager for a major boxboard manufacturer, she asked him if there was something the company had difficulty buying.<br />
<br />
He was an Italian-American, a flirtatious but fatherly figure, and looking at the leggy young blonde, who was looking back at him with an intense and serious expression, he replied: “Honey, baling wire. Even the farmers are having a hard time buying baling wire.”<br />
<br />
“Karl, stop joking, be serious,” she told him, but he just said “follow me,” and showed her the automatic baler that was fed cardboard box scrap through a pneumatic system that gathered scrap from wherever box board was trimmed throughout the plant. She watched as wire was dispensed from hundred-pound spools, threaded around the baled cardboard, and automatically tied when the bale was formed.<br />
<br />
The reason baling wire was in short supply was that our government, in October 1974, under the “big government” tendencies and inept leadership of President Ford, was in the throes of one of its usual mindless schemes to do something it had no business doing. In this case it was attempting to control inflation through voluntary and mandatory actions, such as price controls. Do you remember “WIN”? “Whip Inflation Now”?<br />
<br />
As is the usual result of unwarranted government meddling, WIN just made matters worse. In the case of baling wire, the price controls on steel production penalized producing low-margin products like baling wire, and favored diverting production to high-margin products. Very quickly baling wire was in short supply, and Alice was unknowingly knocking on the door of opportunity.<br />
<br />
She seized the moment, and told Karl she would get him the wire he needed. Soon she found some wire, bought it with a check on funds she knew she didn’t have in her account, and had her boyfriend drive the truck to deliver it. She also prevailed on Karl’s company to pay her immediately, instead of paying through the usual accounts payable cycle, so she was able to get the funds in her account before the check from her supplier hit.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, her wire did not work properly in the automatic baler. Fortunately, Karl did not request a refund and gave her another chance. The second batch of wire worked, but it wasn’t on spools. The third batch was the charm, because Alice worked very hard researching and phoning to get spooled wire. Thus was Alice’s industrial baler wire distribution business launched.<br />
<br />
During the Vulcan start up period, her office was her guest bedroom (she replaced the bed with a cheap used desk) in her Dublin home. Before hiring any employees, Alice didn’t want Vulcan to appear to be the little “shoestring” company it was, so she employed a telephone answering service to take calls and transfer them to her home. A sixteen-year old local bakery girl was soon lured away from her cakes to become a part-time employee. The business quickly progressed from purchasing wire directly from suppliers for delivery, to renting warehouse space and services.<br />
<br />
While still in her home office, Alice had to worry about cash flow because one of Vulcan’s customers was always slow in paying their account. Alice called the owner, and he promised they would have a $5,000 check for her after work. Alice went to the company’s office to get her money and was told it wasn’t ready. She then demanded to see the owner and was told that was impossible because he was in an important meeting. That was the wrong thing to say to Alice and she immediately walked past the receptionist, banging doors open, then went up the stairs, barged through a door into the meeting, and demanded: “Who is Bob Sherman?”<br />
<br />
“I am,” a slight man at the head of the table answered. “What do you mean by this?”<br />
<br />
“I came for the check you promised.”<br />
<br />
“Then was then, and now is now, and now we don’t have the money.”<br />
<br />
“I’m not leaving without my money,” Alice shouted, then threw her portfolio briefcase at Sherman, narrowly missing him as it curved in flight like a boomerang. “Pick it up!” she shouted after the near miss.<br />
<br />
“You pick it up!” Sherman shouted back.<br />
<br />
One of the bystanders picked it up and rearmed Alice.<br />
<br />
“Get out now,” Mr. Sherman demanded, “or I’ll call the police.”<br />
<br />
“Give me the phone,” Alice replied, “and I’ll call them myself.”<br />
<br />
"Not on my dime!" Sherman roared, and ordered his men to: “Get her out of here!”<br />
<br />
Two big men picked up the chair with Alice in it and carried her out the door to the top of the stairs, but didn’t know what to do next. Then Sherman came to their rescue, pulled Alice out of the chair, and started to carry her down the stairs. Although Alice only weighed 135 pounds, she was bigger than Sherman, and he only carried her down two steps before he dropped her.<br />
<br />
Alice bounced down the steep stairs on her shapely rear, her slick polyester dress speeding her descent, and landed at the bottom with aplomb and without physical damage, with her papers and briefcase still clutched in her arms. She stood up, glared at Sherman, and shouted through clenched teeth: “See you in court!”<br />
<br />
She then grabbed the door to slam it on her way out, but the pneumatic door closer dampened the drama of her exit.<br />
<br />
When she returned to her home office, her receptionist said Sherman’s company had called and said they were mailing a check, but that they wouldn’t be doing any more business with Vulcan. “I told them there must be some misunderstanding,” she told Alice, “and that I'm sure Alice will straighten it out.”<br />
<br />
Alice thought Vulcan would be finished when word got out about her confrontation with Bob Sherman, but it was the opposite. The Bay Area refuse collection and recycling industry was abuzz with the story of the “little lady with balls.” In fact, Alice was soon invited to join the <a href="http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/2006/03/alice-was-california-can-carrier.html"><span style="color: red;">California Can Carriers Association</span></a>, made up of former garbage men who had worked their way up to management and sometimes even ownership of their garbage companies. Alice didn't have to seek out contacts. Due to her new notoriety, men came to her and introduced themselves. Vulcan's sales then increased rapidly.<br />
<br />
As sales rapidly increased, a second and then a third employee was added, and then all began tripping over the waste baskets and bumping into the desks. The former guest bedroom no longer sufficed, so Alice rented an office nearby. It was an attic space over a regular office, and was not air conditioned. During the summer the heat was unbearable, and Alice quickly relocated Vulcan before her employees left her. She moved Vulcan to a recently abandoned Red Carpet Realty office, which still had the red carpet.<br />
<br />
While there, a competitor sent an employee to intimidate Alice into selling her business to him cheap. The first of many competitors learned that Alice can’t be intimidated.<br />
<br />
Although Alice’s father, George, at the time had never had a computer of his own, he came up from his home in southern California and helped install Vulcan’s first computer system. At the time the business was growing so fast that George asked Alice to tell the newly hired salesperson to slow down because the computer couldn’t keep up. His request fell on deaf ears, and eventually the computer caught up.<br />
<br />
In the course of the fourteen years that passed before we met in 1988, Alice moved Vulcan into increasingly nicer office space. When I met Alice on October 30, 1988, Vulcan was an all-female company located in a very nice office in Pleasanton. The office space was so desirable, Vulcan sublet space to an attorney and to a medical supply sales representative.<div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQO0ZLR0R_NXnMX59aKFznPXtVlNoK90z5mmsfl09fWlSt-UHdey2Xsy4XKR4hLvsb9jWpNjbmSHAWo4BdTt7cXuLpAToEAq_uYjsRgMOKNlVX3Ba_BPEewZtySf9y7l9ztvXVFYVAHx9k_s4INEkPLvmQctUbsytGzA0oGZ67Nw7PoNoYwhR/s322/Santa%20Catalina%20c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="322" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQO0ZLR0R_NXnMX59aKFznPXtVlNoK90z5mmsfl09fWlSt-UHdey2Xsy4XKR4hLvsb9jWpNjbmSHAWo4BdTt7cXuLpAToEAq_uYjsRgMOKNlVX3Ba_BPEewZtySf9y7l9ztvXVFYVAHx9k_s4INEkPLvmQctUbsytGzA0oGZ67Nw7PoNoYwhR/w640-h438/Santa%20Catalina%20c.jpg" width="640" /></a><em>"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"<br />1992, Santa Catalina, Alice and I celebrate mass 50th birthdays with her Reseda High classmates, with Vulcan on a roll. Casino (with Avalon Ballroom on top) behind us.</em><br />
<br />
However, in the early 1990’s Vulcan lost their biggest customer, which had reorganized its purchasing and warehousing in northern California and started purchasing wire directly from the manufacturer. Alice gave herself and everyone in Vulcan a pay cut, and soon rented a combination office and warehouse in the industrial part of Hayward, bought a forklift, and added a warehouse man/forklift driver.<br />
<br />
Alice also learned computer spreadsheet formulas, and worked many hours on the computer in our Livermore home designing a spreadsheet that her employees could use to predict when and how much of what type of wire a customer could be expected to need soon. Alice’s customer order prediction spreadsheet replaced a manual system she had developed years before. Alice was inspired to create the spreadsheet system when she and her office manager tired of teaching new employees simple algebra. She had only been able to hire one employee who didn’t need training in simple algebra, an elderly gentleman already drawing social security.<br />
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Alice copyrighted her spreadsheet, which made it much easier for Vulcan to bring on new employees to handle routine customer reorders. It also gave Vulcan a very good tool for managing its inventories of various lengths, widths, and types of wire in order to meet customer requirements on a timely basis.<br />
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During the “lean” period that led to the move to Hayward, I was laid off in 1994 after ten years at Lockheed. As we say in Defense Contracting, “Peace is Hell,” and Lockheed was losing one direct contract after another as I labored in an overhead position as an Environmental Protection Auditor. While drawing unemployment pay, I started working in small business brokerage at Business Team in Walnut Creek, quickly listing seven businesses, but couldn’t find any buyers. Luckily for me, I soon found a position as Accounting Manager with a small defense contractor in Sunnyvale. Alice volunteered to take over my listings, and began working at Business Team but soon tired of the mind-numbing paper shuffling she had to do without any clerical assistance.<br />
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The Business Team office manager soon noticed that Alice was not enthusiastic about the work, and suggested it would be best for all concerned if Alice moved on to other things. Alice was glad to be asked to leave, and as she packed up her things, she told another agent she had been fired. That upset the other agent, but Alice reassured her she was happy it happened. At that point the agent told Alice that she was the type of owner small business brokerages hate. When Alice asked why, the agent explained that good businesses like Vulcan, with a healthy owner, no divorce or family squabbles, and not suffering any other major afflictions or catastrophes, would not go on the market at a sacrificial price, and therefore would be very hard or even impossible to sell. Buyers are looking for businesses in distress to buy at bargain-basement prices. No one wants to pay what a successful business is worth.<br />
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Working at Business Team and gleaning this piece of information was another of the best things that happened to Alice. Up to that point, she had often and seriously thought of selling Vulcan, but now she realized that she couldn’t get good value for Vulcan by selling it to a buyer. This inspired Alice to creatively find another way to “sell” Vulcan, and she began investigating “sweat equity” schemes.<br />
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By far the most significant change Alice brought to Vulcan was “sweat equity” ownership for her key employees. One of her competitors had been hurting the sales of all the other wire manufacturers and distributors, including Vulcan, by aggressive price cutting. Unfortunately for the competitor, he cut prices too aggressively and didn’t fully cover his selling costs, which landed him in bankruptcy. Suddenly, Alice had an opportunity to hire Mike, the competitor’s best salesman, who had done such a good job of selling that he had almost destroyed Vulcan.<br />
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Alice couldn’t immediately offer Mike, who still lives and does most of his work in southern California, the kind of money he had been making at his bankrupt former employer, but she thought of a better deal. She would offer Mike the opportunity to earn shares of Vulcan each year, and to one day become the majority shareholder. In exchange for giving up her shares, Alice accepted a salary with annual inflation adjustments, good until age 110.<br />
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Alice also extended the offer of Vulcan ownership to other key employees: her loyal and reliable office manager, Pat; and Theresa, her personable salesperson for the northern California territory. The sweat equity system Alice established enabled her to keep her “Big Three” running Vulcan with expertise and stability rarely seen in a small business. Mike soon led an expansion of Vulcan into manufacturing, followed by the purchase of a 14,000 square-foot building in Hayward to combine office functions, manufacturing, and warehousing. Later a 7,000 square-foot building was added to serve as office space and extra warehousing. During Mike’s tenure at Vulcan, gross sales have increased from roughly a million dollars a year to approximately $10 million.<br />
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Vulcan is prospering well into its fifth decade, and is the industry leader in California for sales of industrial baler wire.<br />
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Alice and Vulcan Incorporated are truly an “only in America” story. She saw an opportunity and went after it holding nothing back. Along the way she found she had abilities that even surprised herself. She started a business in a historically all-male industry, and succeeded when other larger, more experienced competitors found it easy to fail.<br />
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Along the way she showed a remarkable ability to turn setbacks into successes:<br />
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She may not have been Mervyns management material, but she’s a great manager when she’s the boss.<br />
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When she was thrown out of Sherman’s meeting, she landed on her feet and gained a big reputation and instant respect in a tough, all-male industry.<br />
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When she lost her biggest customer, she started doing her own warehousing.<br />
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When she couldn’t hire employees who understood simple math, she developed a computer spread sheet for predicting sales that has kept Vulcan far ahead of competitors’ systems.<br />
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When a competitor tried to destroy her, the competitor went bankrupt, which enabled her to hire the top salesman of her dreams.<br />
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When she was fired from Business Team, she developed a way to “sell” Vulcan to its employees, and receive a generous salary.<br />
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It seems each setback Alice faced resulted in her doing better than she would have done otherwise. “When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.” “When things look darkest, that’s your chance to shine.” “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”<br />
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Each of these describes Alice, but the one that fits best is the one she earned from a real tough audience many years ago. She’s the “little lady with balls.”<br />
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And her memoir, <i><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Lady-Balls-Single-Mothers-Triumphant/dp/0998785415/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1586747982&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Lady With Balls</a></i>, provides all the details and drama.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgwDVbdaLUIUfGmRtHCHg71TadqizFvpPmfNcZl45-IPMnAXqIXjSO0eBz6WK4ofukVGmJ0zyIPZ2b95IFi1S_NGSvfn8CY8AO03EWcoaTqKRq3bSsadioj0fC3XpmSIwWDw1s/s1600/Alice+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1068" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgwDVbdaLUIUfGmRtHCHg71TadqizFvpPmfNcZl45-IPMnAXqIXjSO0eBz6WK4ofukVGmJ0zyIPZ2b95IFi1S_NGSvfn8CY8AO03EWcoaTqKRq3bSsadioj0fC3XpmSIwWDw1s/s640/Alice+cover.jpg" width="426" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-29315959105112420142020-03-08T20:49:00.000-07:002020-04-13T18:51:29.509-07:00Earth is an Anthropogenic Climate Change Denier<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
It’s worth revisiting NASA’s Gavin Schmidt’s claim, as reported in your ICO <i>Editor’s Reply</i>,<i> </i>that now “…could be the warmest period since the dawn of civilization.” In my two previous letters on this subject I referenced studies of trees growing in far northern latitudes 9,000 to 5,000 years ago where they can’t grow now, and of coral mounts from the same period that are several feet above present sea level. Both are obvious signs that we couldn’t be in a warmer period now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For other examples that totally debunk Schmidt’s statement that now is probably the hottest period in the Holocene – the past 11,500 years - we should add Alpine glaciers and tree lines. Prof. Gernot Patzelt, an internationally renowned glaciologist with numerous publications and lectures, authored (title translated from the German) “Glaciers: Climate Witnesses from the Ice Age to the Present.” Patzelt found that for 70% of the past 10,000 years, glaciers were smaller that now. This finding supports studies of Greenland ice cores (“The Two-Mile Time Machine,” Richard Alley) and a variety of ocean and lake sediment cores that indicate that 90% of the past 10,000 years were warmer than the present.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Concerning tree lines, Patzelt noted: “Around (10500 BP - Before Present) the temperatures were lower, <b>from (10200 BP) they were already above the level of the present temperature conditions</b>… <b>the postglacial warm period reached a first peak shortly after (8000 BP), followed by a second peak around (6200 BP)</b>. During this time … the timberline was 100-130 meters (328-426 feet) higher than what is currently possible, which means that a summer temperature of 0.6-0.8 °C (1.0-1.3 °F) higher can be derived…” (<b>Bolding</b> added by me for emphasis; dates changed from BC to BP for clarity)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Trees, corals, glaciers, ice sheets – we can learn from them.</div>
Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-76398517607562838602020-03-08T20:44:00.003-07:002020-03-08T20:44:45.365-07:00Earth's Experiment Continues<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
The <i>Editor’s Reply</i> to my “Earth’s experiment” letter emphasized the lack of precision and uncertainty of scientists’ estimates of ancient global temperatures. While I would strongly differ with you alleging imprecision in the two-mile Greenland ice cores that indicate that we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000, the purpose of my letter was to show that tree-rings and other proxies of temperature are not relevant to the determination that Earth was much warmer and sea levels significantly higher during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (9,000 to 5,000 years before present). <o:p></o:p></div>
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However, since you quoted NASA’s Gavin Schmidt speculating that “…the Earth as a whole is probably the hottest it has been during the Holocene – the past 11,500 years or so…”, so I Googled “Holocene Climatic Optimum” and clicked on the Wikipedia link. There I found many references to hotter periods than the present without the use of Schmidt’s “probably” to convey Holocene climate change. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Getting back to the Earth’s experiment, many signs of earlier hotter periods in the last 10,000 years are scattered all over the Earth’s surface. In Northern Europe, Asia, and Canada scientists found and carbon-dated tree stumps that proved that forests advanced to or near the current arctic coastline between 9000 and 7000 years ago and retreated to their present positions by between 4000 and 3000 years ago as Earth cooled.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Changes in sea level serve as Earth’s thermometer. Studies of fossil corals worldwide show that sea levels were much higher during warmer periods. During the most recent past interglacial period (125,000 years ago), sea level was over 26 feet higher than now, proof that temperature was also much higher. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The NOAA U.S Climate Reference Network shows no significant warming since NASA created it in 2005. Mr. Schmidt “probably” doesn’t want to know.</div>
Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-25307740739188873352020-03-08T20:38:00.000-07:002020-03-08T20:38:26.421-07:00The Earth's Natural Climate Change Experiment<div style="line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 3.75pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Earth conducted an experiment over the past three million years that charted climate change against atmospheric CO2. After comparing glacial and interglacial periods to CO2 levels, Earth’s finding was that there was no correlation. Several interglacials were noted that were warmer with much higher sea levels than the Holocene interglacial with atmospheric CO2 levels of 280ppm. Slightly lower CO2 levels were noted during glacial periods which ended before CO2 levels increased moderately. For the past three million years interglacials began when CO2 was low and ended when CO2 was higher.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The same proved true for shorter periods since 1900; temperature rose rapidly from 1920 to 1940 with little or no change in CO2 from 280ppm. Then as CO2 rose rapidly after 1940, global temperature fell rapidly until 1980. The rise in both temperature and CO2 from 1980 to 2000 was followed by a pause in temperature increase that persisted almost twenty years while CO2 continued to steadily rise.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Looking at just the past 10,000 years, Greenland ice core and lake and ocean sediment cores show we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000 years, and that the greatest warming and corresponding higher sea levels were found 6,000 to 8,000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum. The following three warming periods before the present – Minoan, Roman, and Medieval – were each cooler than its predecessor and current warming is the coolest of all.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Proof of warmer periods in the past 10,000 years are also evidenced by ancient tree lines further north and at higher altitudes, coral mounts several feet above current sea level, and ancient beaches above present ones.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thousands of studies exist that prove earlier warming was significantly higher and globally distributed. The Earth gives evidence that none of the models can refute.</span></div>
Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18344064.post-29103034256841393842019-12-19T22:32:00.000-08:002019-12-23T11:05:55.508-08:00Our 2019 Christmas Letter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Alice with packages of bale ties at the company she founded, Vulcan Wire</div>
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One of the many pleasures of my life is the annual rite of Christmas Card sending and receiving. After much experimentation over many decades I have finally arrived at an arrangement through the Costco Photo Center that is simple and straightforward: I compose the card on their site, order 300, then print and affix address labels and stamps, insert the cards, and admire a job well done. It has worked so well that I have felt immune to the machinations of Mr. Murphy and his law.</div>
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No more.</div>
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My order from Costco arrived December 2. A busy early December schedule of projects prevented starting work immediately. When I did get started I failed for several days to notice that the stack of 300 cards seemed small beside the 300 envelopes. It was then I realized that Costco had only sent me 80 cards to go in the 312 envelopes. I then phoned Costco and explained the problem. They said I would have the cards in three business days. UPS delivered the Costco parcel three business days later as promised. I opened it and found 130 more addressed envelopes. No cards. I phoned again. With luck - I'll update this soon - 220 cards will arrive on Monday, December 23, just in time for me to work hard all evening to get them in the mail the day before Christmas. </div>
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Merry Christmas, with new respect for Murphy and his unyielding law.</div>
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We haven't planned next year's travel yet. Alice's memoir, <i>The Lady With Balls</i>, was published July 19 and Alice made her first book presentation to a full house at our local community owned bookstore, The Four-Eyed Frog. Since then our daily routines and travel planning includes consideration of book promotion activities. </div>
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Watch out, we may appear soon at a bookstore or library near you!</div>
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On June 20, 2020, my Point Arena High School Class of 1960 will be hosting a reunion for the classes of 1964 back to the beginning of time at the Gualala Community Center. I'm hoping that we will have a big attendance and early commitment to help plan the menu, decorations, and all the rest. Send checks for $50 per person made out to me and mail them to PO Box 1639, Gualala, CA 95445. The $50 per person covers dinner and most drinks and all the costs associated with like decorations, hall rent, mailings, &etc. </div>
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Alice was impressed by Amsterdam's Centraal train station, only a block from our hotel</div>
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It was very handy for our trip to Bonn, Germany, to board the riverboat cruise</div>
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Our 2019 travel was very ambitious. In April we went to a friend's beautiful wedding on a marvelous horse ranch in Virginia. </div>
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We spent all of May in Europe starting with several days in Amsterdam, then boarding a Vantage riverboat for a 26-day cruise up the Rhein and then down the Danube. </div>
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Fore view of our long, lean Vantage ship, <i>River Splendor</i></div>
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Aft view of <i>River Splendor</i></div>
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Along the way we visited a dozen cities in Germany, then Vienna, followed by Budapest and four other cities in Hungary, then onwards through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and ending in Rumania. Through it all we shared unforgettable sights with even more unforgettable new friends.</div>
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They don't build town halls like this one in Bamberg, Germany, anymore</div>
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We were really rocking in Markheidenfeld, Germany</div>
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Bike exploring was fun and vaguely reminded Alice and I of the <a href="http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com/search/label/Europe%20bike%20trip" target="_blank">four months we biked through Germany, the UK, and Ireland in 1998.</a> Click on the link to find out more. </div>
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Alice making a sheet of (recycled) paper in the ancient way and displaying the finished product to the delight of Bonnie and other observers</div>
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Here I get to lead a visiting band through a stirring rendition of German music</div>
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Bonnie's husband Tom thoughtfully videoed it for posterity </div>
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You meet wonderful people on long cruises that you're sad to say goodbye to. Above are Tom and Bonnie, he a former Major Leaguer and she a dancer. Both are dedicated to finding a cure for ALS.</div>
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Below are Terry and Diane. Terry's the first Air Force Major General I've met that I didn't have to tell all my good reasons for overspending the budget for my base (RAF Bentwaters, UK, 1970 to 1975)</div>
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The pictures below were taken at a wonderful concert in Vienna which was part of our cruise...</div>
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Vienna knows how to make you smile...</div>
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And keep smiling...</div>
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So does Budapest. We were guests to operatic arias presented on the staircase of the Budapest Opera House.</div>
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Budapest by night</div>
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Alice relaxing with a book...</div>
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I tried to figure out selfies...</div>
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We saw exciting horsemanship in Hungary and here in Bulgaria. This fellow is "riding" a team of ten horses. Earlier they passed at a gallop and he was as calm as can be.</div>
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This was a marvelous piece of machinery in its day, undoubtedly better than the Eastern European products that followed under Communism</div>
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Taking a spin in Bucharest...</div>
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This is the Palace of the Parliament, or the People's House, in Bucharest, Romania. It's the heaviest building in the world and a fitting Cold War monument. And it's gorgeous inside and out.</div>
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In early August we spent three stimulating days at our annual attendance at the Mendocino Writers' Conference in Mendocino. It ended just before we celebrated out 30th Anniversary on August 5, by far the easiest thirty years of our lives.</div>
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Later we went to two Independent Bookseller conventions, first in Burlingame and then in Portland. My lasting impression is that there are far too many good books being written. The creativity and variety in children's books alone is astounding. So long, <i>Dick and Jane, </i>although I still remember how good I felt when I read "See Spot run" the first time. Alice too. She said that reading gave her a feeling of power, and she still reads a book a week (or more).</div>
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One of our trips only took us as far as the Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino for Alice to give a presentation, but it took Alice back over forty years to the early days of Vulcan Wire and the pivotal event in her memoir where she is dropped down a flight of stairs when she tried to collect a $5,000 debt owed her by an Oakland business owner. As Alice began her talk, a fellow in the front row informed her that he was in the room when Alice barged into the Board meeting to attempt to collect the debt.</div>
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When Alice and I went to the Hayward Library to arrange another book presentation, the fellow at the second floor desk, Hector, recognized her from when he worked for her in her Hayward office thirty years ago.</div>
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Small world, isn't it?</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">I'm still working on my deathless prose... What old movie did I steal that line from? And trying to help Alice on online projects opened a way for me to do what I've played around with for many years, publish my own books via direct Kindle e-book. So it may not be long before the world gets </span><i style="text-align: left;">Strong as an Ox and Nearly as Smart, </i><span style="text-align: left;">my coming of age story about growing up in Point Arena, and </span><i style="text-align: left;">It Ain't Necessarily So, </i><span style="text-align: left;">which clearly and completely destroys the myth of human-caused climate change. I've written hundreds of pages for each; now I need a little - maybe a lot - of organization and editing.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIajQ1yXt-oxRfN3U2Cf93ozvfnge_cQjKLNZ5jpKjsYaCKwic4SVyT9NSJ9D8bQPFf2f2G-WSdq31m4SbbySATUJEVJktX26wR-bZGKAhs3wgVkUTKcICTGZuMHdZq7ypQen/s1600/fullsizeoutput_76a9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="322" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIajQ1yXt-oxRfN3U2Cf93ozvfnge_cQjKLNZ5jpKjsYaCKwic4SVyT9NSJ9D8bQPFf2f2G-WSdq31m4SbbySATUJEVJktX26wR-bZGKAhs3wgVkUTKcICTGZuMHdZq7ypQen/s640/fullsizeoutput_76a9.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Radar knows what's important. Playing ball on Cook's Beach...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0EU4mDz9xqUdY_BQCY90BapSjWJlzg42I7DJ05h-d2Yt36QGTFtgYS9EL8iSyMgF3QW6pXG-5tFM1TEWpkrzVkmqXeAsUWCmXzeD7FdHbKvGfZq9nYPLWHKhvpjdJlRub8Kv/s1600/IMG_0032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="889" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv0EU4mDz9xqUdY_BQCY90BapSjWJlzg42I7DJ05h-d2Yt36QGTFtgYS9EL8iSyMgF3QW6pXG-5tFM1TEWpkrzVkmqXeAsUWCmXzeD7FdHbKvGfZq9nYPLWHKhvpjdJlRub8Kv/s640/IMG_0032.JPG" width="354" /></a></div>
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And Cheryl's snacks.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEXKEEB_Jc1vnr58HJgKLTMl6Imc3RNwzhm4sBUgDFkFWUyUmEY3hJartVBxs1IoTty82CTlMkEQX-q88Rz9CA1KGzGkhjaMtvWi57uUMSLQRfV0Q_USrkFlDownhfk9C96Nv/s1600/71153224_10215739216015788_2497929374213341184_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEXKEEB_Jc1vnr58HJgKLTMl6Imc3RNwzhm4sBUgDFkFWUyUmEY3hJartVBxs1IoTty82CTlMkEQX-q88Rz9CA1KGzGkhjaMtvWi57uUMSLQRfV0Q_USrkFlDownhfk9C96Nv/s640/71153224_10215739216015788_2497929374213341184_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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Kelly Mason and I enjoying the fruits of our labors on Gualala Rotary's annual Oktoberfest fundraiser.</div>
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Our community's Christmas spirit blossomed again as the Gualala Lions, Rotary, Soroptimists, and neighbors completed Project Santa for another year: buying, wrapping, assembling, and delivering Christmas presents and food boxes to over 174 needy families. </div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!</span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 24px;">Every day, every night, all year long!</span></div>
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Major Combshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06581635770370383975noreply@blogger.com0