In my last BLOG I did pontificate that the social turmoil and chaos shows no sign of abating and would at least be ridden solidly by politicians into the 2022 mid-terms. Unfortunately, this is proving true and if anything, deeds and misdeeds are worsening.

So, I want to begin here with a (happy) review of my recent trip to Alaska. 😊

If you visit there, you’d better be outdoorsy as that’s mostly the menu with everything happening in spectacular natural surroundings.

I was previously last in Alaska during September 2020. It proved to be a great escape from the Covid-plagued behaviors and restrictions of my California home. At least it was once the airport Covid clearances in Anchorage were completed, permitting entry to the countryside and greater State.

This trip, restrictions and checks were gone. The Season was the largest (by visitors) for the last couple of years and the Sockeye (Reds) Salmon runs were prolific. So, the agenda was filled with much fishing and more sightseeing of the massive State. This year the locals had businesses to run and clients to enjoy.

The visit was in early August 2021; Alaska starts backing down for mid-September. By end of month (Sept.) those providing the holiday services and support are often leaving for their own vacations and warmer climes.

It’s the same again this year. Once schools are in some form of session, the vacation traffic drops and the evening air begins to cool; time for Holiday Season to be cleared-away, everything cleaned and then stored during Winter.

We stayed in a lodge near Kenai. It backed onto a small creek that fed the rolling Kenai River just 300 yards away. On a couple of evenings moose swam across the water 25 yards below us as we relaxed after dinner. They wandered up alongside the dining area and eventually disappeared slowly into the wooded undergrowth.

I fished for Sockeye and Silver Salmon while there. Both proved plentiful and fun to catch. Only one day did we (just) miss our limits of whatever we were fishing.

The first few days out were on the easily accessible Kenai and then later the Kasilof River where the haul-out of the boat is via a >100 yard long, pick-up-truck powered towline that drags the drift boat 30 yards through a groove in the thick slimy brown mud of the tidal riverbank and up onto a wooden ramp. Interesting and aged technology.

Other days featured floatplane rides out to the remote Kustutan River (+30 mins away) and Crescent Lake (about 45 mins flight). The latter trip was sprinkled with constant views of and access to Brown Bears. Got some great pics of Moms with cubs and video of one sow that routinely swims under water, snagging salmon carcasses and slow-moving fish for her pleading and playful off-spring. And the Trout and Salmon fishing there was prolific, too. 😉

Managed a (Fjord) Cruise out of Seward for the obligatory views of Whales, sedimentary Rock Pinnacles (a la China South Seas kind), Puffins, Whales, Otters and then of course the great Glacier.

That giant blue piece of ice is a mile wide and hundreds of feet high where the gorge opens into the bay. It runs 14 miles back and offers a chilled and breezy micro-climate at its foot that makes eager passengers huddle for quick phot-ops and look to a speedy return for inside viewing opportunities. A single other passenger vessel sauntered up to join our viewing at the glacier’s extended base where resting harbor seals lay around in droves.

The return journey was delayed as one of two engines lost power aboard the spotless, 6-month-old ship. But the extra half hour journey addition back to Seward on the 400 passenger vessel passed easily as we enjoyed glacier-ice margheritas and sunset views.

We made a couple of day runs out of Homer, departing it’s massive (20’-30’) tide swings and the great spit that runs out into the ocean while providing convenient harbor access to the Gulf. The fishing delivered large Halibut the first trip and an extended second day out grabbed us more of the same plus a great haul of cod from further out to sea.

The vessel in Homer was skippered by a woman in her early 20’s and crewed by her younger sister. They certainly knew their trade. The second trip must have brought in well over 600lb of fish for the six of us fishing. All those fish were fully filleted and bagged before we completed the 2-hour run back into Homer. Impressive.

We did manage to visit the Salty Dawg Bar on the Spit and pin our obligatory signed $1 bill to the ceiling, joining the 70,000 other predecessors. The Café right across the road offering Fish and Chips was well worth a visit, too. 😊

If you’re ever in Homer, see if you can find that autographed (Ian & Vivian, Santa Cruz) banknote. And good luck!

All good things must end, so we eventually made the long spectacular ride back to Anchorage, boarded our flight and acknowledging the season was approaching an end, flew back to San Francisco and drove home to Santa Cruz.

We are already booked for our 2022 return; this time we’ll bring along our little family group to renew our acquaintance with the many good new friends we made in Kenai and on our trips.

Since then, I have completed a few weekend sails on the San Francisco Bay. The official sailing season is done and the Delta variant and time of year seems to have taken a toll on sailboat traffic hereabouts despite the spectacularly warm and generally clement late-season weather.

Sailing vessels are few again and the backed-up container ships littering the lower Bay and filling the Oakland docks all this year have disappeared. There are still the usual (for 2021) ten or so empty tankers anchored up below the Bay bridge. But the Container Ships are few and none down the Alameda channel as I write. Most odd.

I’m currently stationed on a boat at a club in Alameda. Yesterday I wandered down the docks and noticed an old man one third the way up a sailboat mast (where there is nothing of interest to repair or check) and apparently stuck in a Bosun’s Chair on its way up. So, I enquired and not surprisingly a little help was required.

It seems the man operating the (tail-less) winch was having trouble both pulling on the halyard that ran to the Chair from the masthead and simultaneously winding the winch. He complained that his knee surgery was impeding him (it didn’t work right) and not his 93 years.

He also pointed out the young guy was the one in the Chair; he apparently is only 89 years old. So, I helped and we hauled the Chair up for work to occur just at the first spreader, halfway up the mast.

Turns out the youngster is someone with whom I dined a year ago and didn’t recognize from this unusual angle. He is also a 3-time winner of the Trans Pac Race, the annual sail-fest that runs from Long Beach environs to Honolulu, Hawaii. It’s a small world.

And now to the News and record of recent, prominent News events…

As I have mentioned before I try to grab information from all sides of the Political spectrum. Now we are mostly focused upon a new Administration domestically as that is where much action occurs.

While having lunch today I watched an hour of MSNBC that was running in the restaurant. Wow. A few 10’s of minutes here and there is one thing, but an hour, ouch. Now I understand why a judge dismissed a suit brought against Rachel Maddow in the last six months because (paraphrase) everyone knows what she says is not really News and what she reports is more reality TV than credible News.

And this observation caused a valid and provable suit for Slander to be DISMISSED? Something here is very wrong. Do Maddow’s (newest) viewers KNOW that this is what they are hearing? My guess is that many do not. What I heard in my extended Maddow-less exposure earlier today was of the same ilk. Ouch, again.

I wonder, does exposure to today’s News Channels have a detrimental effect on listeners? Whatever your political persuasion I’m inclined to believe if you’re buying what’s been sold there is real risk of you losing all perspective and drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid.

So, let’s try here to pick out some demonstrably FACTUAL (if not universally popular) NEWS…

And I’ll try and keep it to one-liners to speed things for the reader.

By early August as many as six Governors had been stripped of powers by their Legislatures for overreach during the pandemic. Their States include Michigan, New York (no surprise here), Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Idaho.

The Afghanistan departure was a clueless unmitigated disaster. Biden still struggles to understand it’s his Execution not the Exit that is the issue. He left people behind and got others killed in a suicide bombing. His futile attempt at payback blew-up when even NYT admitted he’d killed a known Aid worker and his family in a clearly miscalculated over-the-horizon drone strike. MSM continues to ignore this, but it meets the bar as a war-crime and even ex-Obama officials are calling it out.

As for Austin (Secretary of Defense) and Milley (Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff) they are worthless co-conspirators in the Afghanistan debacle. They did nothing tangible to mitigate inevitable problems even when the disastrous so-called Exit Plan lay in front of them. Their previous service is of little consequence if they ignored what they must have known would occur. It is an issue of Duty, Responsibility and Personal Integrity.

A MAJOR related faux pas lies in Biden telling no allies of his withdrawal intentions. This is incomprehensible. The previously privately reported international belief in his incompetence and senility is now in plain sight and openly discussed across allied Nations. He has lost friends as those countries must now seek alignments and reliable alliances other than with his Administration and Military.

And Dept of Defense Secretary Austin now says he thinks Al Qaeda may re-emerge in Afghanistan. Really? What an amazing statement of the bleeding obvious. Clearly, he does not possess adequate deductive skills for his position. CIA insight says that ISIS and Al Qaeda may re-emerge withing 1-2 years. Sadly, I will be shocked if they’re not enacting some crime on US soil well before a year has passed.

After Obama created ISIS v.1.0 from his actions in Iraq, now Biden is going for Al Qaeda reborn and ISIS v.2.0 with his incompetence in Afghanistan.

As for the surprise collapse of the Afghani Government, even my own readings in the month or so before exit identified there was at most a couple of months before total chaos. The Taliban were simply everywhere on the Map of Afghanistan and the installed Afghan president was an off-the-charts corrupt and weak leader.

At the time of US withdrawal, the Pentagon announced the Taliban were 90 days from Kabul. It was 90 hours. This is the SAME Pentagon that announced, for no apparent reason, out of the blue in the first weeks of 2020 that the Coronavirus was not an engineered virus nor was it from other than natural sources. I want what they’re smokin’. WE need a new Pentagon. ADVICE to The Pentagon: Many people will recall unprompted and strange misdirection.

I dread to think what human rights abuses are already underway in Afghanistan. When you have no feet on the ground and ZERO motivation to acknowledge the consequences of your actions, I am guessing MSM will stay quiet on this subject until some Domestic (or more likely Foreign) sources cause an outcry that is (i.e., SHOULD be) impossible to ignore.

The plight of Afghan women and girls is profoundly troubling. Their abandonment is simply inexcusable. Many have been raised in an era and culture where the constraints they are already beginning to experience were NOT the norm though the last 20 years.

Sadly, the rumors that the State Dept. was trying to charge Americans (and others) fleeing Afghanistan $2k / head for transport out, are true. Afghani’s that helped the US were often being asked to pay more. There was even some US Government attempt to justify this action… sigh.

Fortunately, in the early days of the evacuation, Brits were rescuing their own ex-pats and Americans, too. But they were approached by the American Army holding the Airport and requested to knock it off as you’re making us look bad. There were also a number of NGO’s operating to get 100’s of people out in the latter stages. They reported being routinely held up and refused right to depart flights by the State Dept for unreported reasons.

And in the more mundane recall of Gavin Newsome, voting was concluded and the Recall failed. Hard to imagine there would be any change in deep Blue CA. Dems own the cities (LA, San Francisco and San Diego) and yet there’s no love anywhere else around the State for Gavin.

Newsome’s flaws and failures are so numerous: He’s moved from being a Coke-Head Mayor to a (well-known) drinking problem, while diddling a top Aid, using money raised for critical Firefighting for other purposes, ignoring his own Covid restrictions, illegally grabbing Covid funds for his personal business, lying about his accomplishments with the ~29 essential fire prevention tasks (he completed 25% of one item, blew-off the rest and claimed success) he’d defined for fund-raising, continued the 40-year total neglect of water collection systems in the State, freed >40k prison inmates to save them from Covid as crime grew, Homelessness exploded and filth proliferated within the Cities, and on and on and on. Who needs this guy?

Yet in came the damaged crew of his Auntie Nancy, Beleaguered Biden, Laughing Do-Nothing Kamala, Lying Pocahontas, Obama and Communist Bernie to espouse his great worth (well, to THEIR cause, really). Honestly, you travel around CA and outside of the Cities and Gavin is NOT liked at all.

But that is what mail-in ballots are for! Yes, the same system as the French officially outlawed in 1975 as it was so blatantly and easily corruptible. Yup, EVERYONE in CA got a mail-In ballot.

Better beware. Gavin will be back much later, too, untarnished and running for President before you know what hit you.

Changing the subject…

A Harvard Economist broke the bad news to CNN: Inflation has already voided Biden’s Covid Relief bills. In fact, the massive Kroger empire has advised that the back end of 2021 will see another 3-5% of what is likely escalating inflation (*).

So, Biden has self-inflicted crisis with the Southern Border, Gas Prices, Inflation, Afghanistan and Covid control. Am I forgetting something? I know the government is TAKING DOWN Trump fencing in Arizona which is to presumably facilitate Illegal Immigration and enhance the Human and Drug Trafficking industries. In Texas they’re BUILDING their own wall.

What could be the rationale for removing an existing wall? Walls are KNOWN and PROVEN highly effective in securing borders and limiting trafficking.

Looks like recent Mandates to enforce Vaccination in the workplace will keep the courts busy. This is simply NOT popular and NOT supported by Polling as I write. Clearly even many vaccinated people (like myself) would like to see more people vaccinated but DO NOT SUPPORT mandatory declarations for the workplace.

Many States are mandating vaccinations for workers. Fauci wants travelers without Vaxes to be grounded and the Army has just mandated vaccination for all. A couple of top FDA people recently resigned as they do not support boosters; the argument is that there is nowhere near the data available to mandate or even recommend that action at this point. Ahhh… yet another contradiction in medical advice.

The UK says it will not waste time on Vaccination Passports as it would be doing this for the sake of it and it has questionable real value. Tell that to folks in NYC and other places where it is already actively pushed.

And that tenacious little devil, Fauci is now being unambiguously exposed as a liar and a liar to Congress, to boot. Nothing will be done about this, but the truth is Fauci (under Obama permissions) funded a 3^rd party Company which channeled funds to the under-prepared Wuhan Lab for research on Gainer (proteins were added to beef up the original virus) Bat Viruses.

At the time Fauci said the work was worth the risk of a pandemic. Hmmm. Hope he doesn’t run into a victim’s family in a dark alley.

Even Hillary’s emails had her trying to ensure we (the US) got all the details of the research that was funded and as for China, well, it’s a case of we HAVE the Bats. 😉

In mid-August Scotland announced it will allow 4-year-olds to change sex w/o parental consent. Nobody could make this stuff up.

At around that same time Polling showed that ~80% of voters blame Biden for what he insists is just an Inflation Spike… not as per Krogers’ Supermarkets (see above, (*)) warn, or other economists foretell.

And what is the deal with Kamala? Her toxic work environment and do-nothing, vanish-when-there’s-an-issue persona has got her mostly acknowledged across party lines as unfit and seriously underqualified for any office, especially the Presidency. It’s 50 years since a VP was so despised and thought to be this incompetent.

The FBI has announced that despite claims made no coordination is evident on Social Media Platforms that facilitated the Jan 6^th incidents. I HAVE seen the video of Ashli Babbit’s shooting and cannot rationalize the action with the suggested risk to Capitol staff. If her family is able (as currently intended) to sue and a jury sees what I viewed they will have a field day. The claimed situation, shooting and timing all look very wrong and highly questionable.

Falling back to the Covid action… a LOT have people have died around the world and still no accountability is even remotely on the horizon. It is certain by their lockdown actions domestically and from satellite imaging around hospitals that China absolutely understood the infectiousness of the disease in 2019 and yet were pushing the rest of the World to stay open, travel and ignore what was going on there internally. I expect Cuomo’s’ lies and lack of accounting for 12,000 nursing Home deaths would have made him a popular visitor there, had he not otherwise been occupied with sexual harassment, assault and authoring his (now withdrawn) book.

Luv-Gov Cuomo resigned and stuck around the 2 weeks following to lock-in his $50,000 /year pension before avoiding the swinging door hitting him is the ass when he left. He still may yet face criminal charges for his female-assault work.

Antifa have established another Autonomous Zone in Portland and police decided to not attend the planned riot between them and right-wingers when it was scheduled in later August. The politicians favored this (lack-of) Action Plan. The residents? Not so much.

Biden’s Pandemic Plan execution features increased disease spread and more death. There were 2x more people in hospital beds Labor Day 2021 when there WAS a vaccine than in 2020 when there was NO vaccine. Not really what he’d promised in his campaign even after Trump left him the Vax. Ahh, those mutations just keep on giving.

As for the Biden Vaccine Mandate, it may be hitting more problems than just legal and social opposition. It appears the Dept responsible (Occupational Health and Safety Administration, or OSHA; part of the Dept of Labor) for the implementation and tracking of such a program is something of a ramshackle and traditional mess.

Apparently, even if $Billions were thrown at OSHA it may be years before it could effectively support the Mandate. Ah Ha, more Administration Planning at its finest, a la Afghanistan Execution. If the Government can’t operate and implement its dictates anyway, what’s the discussion about? What IS the threat?

And Government funding for Covid-related workplace absences goes on. There are >10 million US jobs looking for workers and the data shows that once people are getting at least 75% of what they would from working, they will NOT be looking for a job.

Where I live in CA there are open positions everywhere, especially in service industries. I hear some prospective workers demand employers pay compensation to relinquish Government hand-outs, PLUS an incentive on top. Even then folks jump ship quickly to other jobs that spring up after they have already started in their new positions.

Unsurprisingly, Locked-down Blue States with such payouts are bottom of the economic recovery charts, which are topped by opened-up, Red States.

In late August, hundreds were arrested in Australia as violent clashes with police occurred during protests about renewed Lockdown restrictions. Similar demonstrations have occurred around the World, notably in France, Italy and the UK. I’m pretty sure the MSM in all these places will play down the issue to avoid escalations. But globally, people are registering their frustrations with the local controls and mandates.

By mid-September violent protests in France against Vaccinations and Mask Mandates had already been running for eight consecutive weeks.

China has been pointing out to the likes of Taiwan and others that they can no longer rely on the US to protect them given the recent performance in exiting Afghanistan.

It seems that Obama is the gift that keeps on giving. His 60^th birthday bash was said to be cut back to a few friends and family from the 700 guests originally planned, once public outrage grew. Well, the cutback was untrue; the guest count was reportedly higher than first proposed and the super spreader Covid-count from the event totaled some 74 guests. The normally very quiet local hospital had several extra beds occupied by associated local attendees, too. Unwanted and suppressed photos momentarily posted and escaping from the event showed a mask-less encounter for all.

And as for the FIVE Guantanamo prisoners Obama traded for the later-convicted American collaborator and deserter Bergdahl, well, they turned up again. Surprise! They did NOT vanish quietly into Qatar (or Bahrain, or some other such place) and disconnect from terrorism as we were promised. Rather, FOUR of them now feature very prominently in the current, new Taliban Government… such leadership, care and foresight.

Next, we have the on-going saga of the 2020 elections and voting. Things clearly went awry in Georgia and Arizona (large scale Ballot Harvesting), by any measure. But the legal firm Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) that is dedicated to Election Integrity has recorded that around 15 million mail-in ballots simply went astray in the US. It is unknown where they are, and they are wholly unaccounted.

We can see how the failed Mail-In Newsome recall panned out and now must wonder what will be the impact of such ballot anomalies on the 2022 mid-term elections? Sigh.

On the vaccination front, the FDA approved the Pfizer shot, paving the way for Vaccination Mandates, which arrived shortly thereafter despite repeated claims from Biden (often, since Dec 2020), Pelosi (April 2021), Psaki (multiple times) et al that they could not and would not happen.

And guess what? The Pfizer vaccine approved by the FDA is NOT for the same vaccine as the one administered to millions. It is somewhat different and there is really NO data on what this might mean for recipients and boosters.

Well, this is an interesting, lightly publicised twist. Its almost as bad as getting buyers remorse from using the now-recognized, far-less-effective-versus-mutations (and in general), 1-shot J&J vaccine and then wondering when a booster or even a somewhat proven cocktail mix might be available to fix the situation.

And the current unpopularity contest continues…

Kamala is attacking the Texas Heartbeat Law as an affront to women’s right to control their bodies and health concerns. Apparently, this logic does not apply to the Vaccination Mandate that’s now on the table for ~100 million Americans and which she is promoting vigorously.

Joe is in more trouble after the discovery by Genealogist Bannerman and Presidential Lineage expert Gary Roberts that he has a couple of slave-owning ancestors. As the woke mob wants George Washington cancelled for similar ownership it will interesting to see if this blemish is attacked. Let’s face it, Biden is no Washington. 😉

However, President Biden is already facing growingly antagonistic crowds. College Campus football games are commonly featuring F..k Biden chants and his September trip to CA in support of Newsome brought out disparaging banners for his motorcade. He was also roundly booed during this Long Beach College visit.

And the lying continues with Joe. Last month he claimed he had a job as a trucker and this month he claimed his first job offer was as a lumberjack with an Idaho Company. Surprise, there are no such records to support either of these claims. Its just more lies on a very LONG and diverse list; several other such claims were listed in my last Blog.

Son Hunter seems to have lost a third laptop which is reportedly now in the hands of Russians and likely has similar naked pictures of himself featured prominently.

As for Nancy P., her Agenda is polling so toxically she is perceived as hurting the Dem cause heading towards 2022 mid-term elections. She also heads the Most Hated Politicians List by a country mile.

Southern California closed all National Forests in their territory through Sept. 17^th, citing wildfire concerns. This adds to the nine forests already closed in Northern CA and at time of writing there are almost 2 million acres that have already been burned in the State by wildfires, just this year.

Iran has been confirmed Nuclear by the UN. Details suggest sufficient weapons grade material can be produced to arm a warhead within two months. And their new President and other hardliners have declared no interest in sitting down to talk with the US. I doubt Israel can sit still for too long.

The very SAME data that has Europeans Mask-less in schools has Dems calling for masking everywhere in the US… especially in Red States where their control is mitigated. Such different scientific opinions… sigh. ☹

And back in San Francisco a new scheme is underway to minimize the doubling (to 119 total) of gun-related crime incidents that occurred in the first half of the year (2021 versus 2020). They have chosen to PAY gun-bearing criminals $300 / month to NOT shoot innocent people or one-another.

San Francisco has already begun their pilot program and NYC is underway with their equivalent $1,000.00 / month offering. I await the results with bated breath. 😊

Interestingly, the support for gun control is falling dramatically, especially in the important Young (18-29 years) and Minorities Demographics. Less than HALF of these groups are now supportive per a Mid-September Poll completed by ABC News/ Washington Post.

When this Poll was last completed in April 2018, 65% of these young Americans supported Gun Control Laws. That support has now fallen to 45% as reported by Newsweek. The degree to which people have turned against these Laws is dramatic. I’m guessing the riots, looting and protests throughout 2020 and broadly across the US has changed many minds?

Again, switching subjects…

It seems that Joe’s propensity for short workdays, weeks and extensive breaks continues running at full steam. Even when at work he short shifts his activities. Turns out in his first nine months of office he has never once attended the weekly telecon with State Governors. Hard to imagine that communication channel holds much value with him.

And Joe has a habit of going off-script with the result that WH communication feeds featuring him have been abruptly truncated several times in the last month. He’s being MUTED and folks in Congress are asking WHO has the authority to do this? A very good question.

As for myself, I now typically receive notice of 4-5 Nursing Job Openings and associated employment solicitations each day. I have no idea how or why this could have started and am without any formal medical training. It looks like somebody’s algorithms and/or personnel monitoring system has gone woefully astray. 😉

Well, that completes a record for many of the messy news items that flew around since my last Blog. Quite a troubling offering for anyone to digest. 😉

Hope this synopsis proves useful to you staying current with the torrent of events within which we live.

As for myself, I feel up-to-date and ready to move onwards into the onslaught. Do you?

Keep your face to the wind and embrace the storm we must all endure. And Good Luck!

Ian R. Mackintosh is the author of Empower Your Inner Manager Twitter@ianrmackintosh.