Sunday Montage

The Santa Rosa Press- Democrat takes a look at the increase in marijuana cultivation this morning. They focus on Northwest California and Humboldt County is included. They even quote Humboldt Sheriff's Deputy Wayne Hanson who opposes ending the war on pot. He also says controlling marijuana cultivation in Humboldt is like trying to control Baghdad.

No surprise to me that Sergeant Hanson would oppose ending the pot wars. He makes a good living doing it.

It did come as a bit of a surprise that recently elected Mendocino County District Attorney, Meredith Lintott, supposedly opposes legalization of marijuana. What little I heard from her during the pre- election debates seemed to suggest she would be somewhat sympathetic to ending the pot wars.

Then again, most of the debate dialogue concerned medical marijuana law and all candidates said they would follow state law regarding Prop 215- a slightly different issue. And, in fairness to Lintott, it's not really clear to me that she personally opposes legalization, at least from the way I read the article.

She's quoted as saying, ""It is the position of the district attorney to enforce, not make laws,"- any easy way to dodge the question. One has to wonder if the writer of the story simply took that statement as oppositing legalization when it might have just be an official position statement coming from the district attorney's office?

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Most of you have seen 299 Opine by now. This guy puts out some great stuff. I'm gonna add his blog to my local blog list right away, rather than give it a one to two month trial period as I usually do before adding a site to my blog list.

Fun stuff on that blog.

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And speaking of Iraq (which I rarely do here), I bumped into this blog by Michael Yon the other day. I've added that blog to my list too. Yon is a former special forces soldier, now a journalist that covers action in Iraq. I found his Death or Glory series good reading, but it probably wouldn't be of interest to pacifist types.

I'll admit I've only read part 2 of Death or Glory and having a hard time navigating through that blog. Can anyone find part 1?

But I did find this story: The Last Device. Another fun read, albeit a bit lengthy, where he talks about setting off a homemade bomb at a high school(?) party as a teenage prank. I guess it's just one chapter in a book he wrote called Danger Close. After reading that chapter, I'm damn tempted to buy the book.

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Reminded me of some of some of the pranks and experiments I tried as a kid and young adult although none of mine were anywhere near as dangerous.

Like the time there was a party in the house behind us when I lived in Tustin. We went around the block to the back gate and tossed M80s (maybe it was just firecrackers?) over the back gate to where the party was. We took off running back towards my house with many of the party goers chasing after us.

They were catching up with us so I ended up ducking into some bushes about a house away from my own. The were right on my tail but didn't see exactly where I was hidden. If I would of waited them out they probably would have left, but I got scared and gave up. They didn't do anything when I came out of hiding. They just wanted to know who we were and went back to their party.

It was fun for a few minutes, though.

Then there were all the stupid things I'd try to make playing with smokeless powder a few years after I moved to Eureka.

Back then I'd bought the Poor Man's James Bond, written by local author, Kurt Saxon. He used to live on Union Street in Eureka back then. I met him briefly at the post office on H Street, downtown, once.

He had all sorts of fun plans compiled for weapons and such. I tried and tried to get one to work. I forget what it was called, but it was something like a "nut buster". It was supposed to be a shotgun shell that could be turned into a flying bomb, of sorts, by adding a tail and fins to it. I tried and tried and, no matter how I did it, the shotgun shell would land on the top side where the lead shot is- the lead shot being the heaviest part of the shell. It was supposed to land, by virtue of the tail you add to it, on the primer side to set it off.

Never got that to work, but according to Saxon, when it worked right the shotshell would explode sending shot in all directions. Thinking about it now, I have to wonder if it would be much more than a firecracker since the shell really needs to be confined in the chamber of a shotgun to develop any pressure.

But it was fun trying.

Also tried to make my own homemade bottle bombs.

I'd get smokeless powder, used in reloading ammunition and put it in a small bottle. I'd insert some canon fuse and try to compress the powder so it would go BOOM when the fuse lit it. Never had a good one. Usually the top of the bottle would just pop off and then the powder would burn like a roman candle or any of the other assorted, lame crap we call fireworks on 4 July around here.

It's probably a good thing I never got any of my homemade boomers to work. I was living on the corner on Del Norte and Albee Streets in Eureka at the time. There was small dilapidated shack down at the end of Del Norte street near the bay. I believe it used to be the old ticket house for the ferry to the mill on the Samoa Peninsula.

I started thinking, if I could ever get my powder bombs working, maybe I should see if I could blow up that shack. I could see it from the living room window of my apartment. That might be fun and it's just sitting there wasting away.

Never would of happened, though. I got too nervous at the thought of lighting a long fuse, getting back to the house, and then seeing some transient walk into that shed just as my big boomer was about to go off.

Didn't matter. I couldn't make a decent bomb for the life of me. Wonder how Michael Yon made the bomb in his Last Device story? I guess I'll have to buy the book.