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A Thousand Oaks (TO to us locals) pet store is requiring a “gun safety” pledge before it adopts pets. They are now national news and are enduring lots of negative attention from people who feel a need to give them a piece of their mind. Despite what one might think, I can’t be too hard on this shop. This position is a completely irrational emotional one that comes from a place of ignorance of firearms, propagandization by the anti-gun lobby, and emotion. The mainstream social narrative on gun control has been an entirely emotional one. Is it any wonder that something like this occurs? Guns and pets have no relation to one another. A child adoption service. Eh, I could see that. But pets? No way. This action is pure virtue signaling. These fools feel like they are doing something through this action because they have no meaningful recourse against horrible, infamous crimes. I say just ignore these people. They’re bleeding hearts, yes, but the blame for this stupidity should be on the media and the anti-gun people who peddled the drama. Push emotional arguments at people and you will get dumb emotional reactions. So the new county seal has been chosen. I don't like it because it represents nothing about the county. None of the history, culture, or industry about the county is represented. Even the geography isn't truly represented. A county's logo should be a representation of itself as a whole, not a piece of art. I guarantee you this seal was picked by the public specifically because it was the most picturesque. It "looked pretty." Democracy simply doesn't work. Arch Rock is a very tiny piece of Ventura County that most people don't even know exists, even though you can see it from Ventura if you have decent eyesight (see the header of this page). It's not representative of the county as a whole. The county shaped logo is more representative and evocative of our landscaping. See the rows indicating farming? Also that view has got to be south from the Oxnard Plain towards Point Mugu looking into the rising sun, symbolizing a brand new day or future. The new logo? The setting sun. It's not a new beginning, it's an end that is being symbolized. An end symbolized by a decadent new seal. And it's way too close to the Oxnard Police patch. Uncannily so. Credit for that obs goes to someone who shall remain nameless but he knows who he is. (Since I originally wrote this, someone pointed out that the perspective of arch rock is looking east, symbolizing morning and a new beginning. We are both wrong-the view through the hole is north/south. I would argue that my gut reaction is the correct one; us land-dwellers are looking out to sea, so we associate the islands with the sunset, not the sunrise.) Why did we need a new seal? Who knows. I see it as a waste of money and vanity. The supervisors have better things to do than waste time and money on the decadence of a new seal. Now a whole bunch of stuff will have to have new graphics slapped on. A decadent society is one that's in decay; pleasure matters most of all. Having a pretty little seal because all the other counties are doing it is just hedonistic. Even though the old seal may be dated by today's standard, the old style conveys a timelessness authority. Think of the LA County or LAPD seals you see on official vehicles in our neighboring county. Can you imagine an LAPD car without the iconic city seal? Our old seal not only showcases the industry and history of our county but it looks official. It looks like the government, not some corporate thing. Companies rebrand themselves and change logos all the time. Governments don't. Governments are supposed to be timeless things and this should be reflected in their symbols. What represents Ventura County now? Endless housing? Industry in any real capacity beyond agriculture is gone. Rocketdyne? Gone. Oil? They're trying damn hard to kill it. We've forgotten who we are. Ventura County's children can't even afford to live here anymore. Plus Padre Serra is racist or something. So why not rebrand it? We could have at least chosen one of the alternatives that better represented our county as a whole or place with history. Instead our symbol is a birdshit covered rock on a barren island. We couldn't do Mugu Rock instead, which people see on TV all the time? Folks, this is why democracy doesn't work; republic representation does. People clicking on "what's the prettiest" gets you things like this because normal people don't consider anything beyond appearances. But since we're in a decadent society not far from total collapse, who cares? Our old seal will go into the history books along with all the things our once great county did.
From Alex Wellerstein (NukeMap guy) on Twitter. As I figured in my own analysis, the Oxnard/Port Hueneme/Camarillo area is at risk from the Navy bases. Simi and Thousand Oaks are a surprise. Probably from megaton warheads over the San Fernando Valley or at Rocketdyne. The megaton warheads are gone as are Rocketdyne, so those cities are probably going to be okay. Source: High Risk Areas: For Civil Preparedness Nuclear Defense Planning Purposes
Related article: What the 1970s Nuclear Risk Maps Tell Us About Nuke Risks Today
Oxnard is looking into rent control, which isn't a brilliant idea because it distorts market forces and penalizes landlords.
Dive Medic has some better comments on why rent control is a bad idea. Some random thoughts. Both are good men and good cops. I worked under Jim Fryhoff for a while. Jim is a cool guy. Bill Ayub was a good cop and is a shooter; we got striker fired Sigs, slide mounted optics, and suppressors on ARs under him. Fryhoff is also very, very pro-2A. He'd be a shall-issue type of guy. I see a lot in Fryhoff that we saw with Geoff Dean.
Ayub is milquetoast. He's not a leader, he's just in charge. There were a few trivial things he got tight about; I want to say now it was facial hair or something. Maybe neck ties on detectives? Anyhow, not much of a dynamic vibe from the guy. Just another top bureaucrat to run the department. Sorta like Brooks but Ayub still remembers he's a cop. I think his pick of Monica McGrath for undersheriff was a power move to get a diversity hire. I'm not going into detail on McGrath, but she was going into retirement and I have this feeling part of his decision was to cater to California leftists. Seeing the two of them not kneeling, but bowing their heads to the leftist BLM solidarity protest in 2020 was disgusting. It made a lot of department people upset to see that. It's difficult for me to dislike Ayub. I think he was better off as a guy with one or two stars on his collar than four. He made some comments that were offensive to deputies and the public a while back reference closing gun stores in 2020 and I think he handled it poorly. His stance on Ojail is a pretty good one and I respect that. Fryhoff is naturally more charismatic. I'm curious though if he's saying certain things to get elected that he doesn't necessarily believe in. A few things here and there have made me wonder. All in all, I have to say Fryhoff for Ventura County Sheriff. If I'm wrong, it's not like the world is gonna end. Everybody who has a shot at sheriff is capable of keeping the county safe. The movement to abolish the time change is stupid. Going to Daylight Savings Time instead of Standard Time is even dumber. Idiots don't like the week long adjustment period of waking up earlier and obsesses about more light in the evening, even though they will probably be inside watching Netflix or not enjoying it anyway.
What people don't understand is that time zones vary. I visit a friend in St. George, Utah, on the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone, and it seems to stay light very late. 9 PM in the summer sneaks up on you. St. George should probably be on Pacific time or a half hour ahead. Go north, and things change, but we understand that. Seattle has very long days in the summer and it stays light forever in summer. Not having a time change works when you are closer to the equator. Arizona is pretty far south, all things considered. Hawaii is much closer to the equator. In fact, on the equator, days are consistently about 12 hours long. It gets light around six and gets dark around six, pretty much the year round. Not so much in the equatorial latitudes. The latest sunrise of the year, around January 1st, would be at 8:25 AM in San Francisco, to name one extreme. In Ventura, this is 8 AM. Twilight wouldn't even begin here until 7:30 AM. How depressing do you think it will be having to wake up in the dark and drive to work in the dark and start working when the sun is just coming up? One year of that and people will be demanding that we go back to changing the clock. Just watch and see. Adjusting schedules will be unrealistic. Besides, it would be the same as the time change without moving the clock. If you start work later, at say 9:00 AM in winter, you'll bitch come spring when you have to wake up early and come in at 8:00. Seasonal hours are out. It would be too complicated and confusing. We live in a world of "on time." Accurate clocks are everywhere and people expect businesses and stuff to be open at a given time. Showing up late or varying hours is not going to happen except for a very small number of highly paid salaried people; i.e. not the people who are complaining because they have to turn up at work at 8 AM. Senator Rubio said that teenagers should start school later in the day. True, but moving school back an hour is easier than asking millions of businesses to do it. The corporate world will resist moving start times back because it's too dark in the morning. You commute home in the dark, many people commute in while it's still dark, so you will commute in at the same time in the dark. They won't care. So stop complaining and deal with it. Try working a 12-hour Panama shift dark-to-dark for so long that you can't remember what time of the year it is and then you can complain. First of all, if you freak out and pay attention to them, they will keep coming back and acting out in more egregious ways to get attention. That is what they do. By calling the cops, demanding that the city council make some sort of statement, or getting all riled up on social media, you're playing into their hands. A reaction is what they want. Ignore them and they will go away. As far as calling the cops; Ventura County deputies will respond to anything. So there's that. Third, how do we know that this group is a bunch of real white supremacists and not some sort of leftist funded false flag, or worse, from the government.
Finally, what bothers me is that the city council and elected officials are getting in the act of condemning these people. Nothing wrong with that but it is incongruous. The idea behind free speech is you can say all kinds of ugly and unpopular things without the government stopping you. Official resolutions passing judgement on political beliefs or movements, good or bad, are wrong. Politicians are dancing monkeys who will do what the public want them to do, even if that means they must use the power of government to virtue signal. I also find it disgusting that the public can be lead around by the nose so easily. Damn a non-violent, non-obstructionist protest because you're told these people are bad, yet ignore or even praise the violent, destructive BLM rioters? The hypocrisy is galling to me. I will conclude with saying that the sheriff's department social media posts were pretty even handed. Although they shouldn't be using the term "hate speech." Under the constitution, there is no such thing. But please, I implore you, ignore these people. Don't give them fuel to keep coming back. Short answer? It's highly unlikely. First of all, Russia has about 1,200 deliverable nuclear warheads. Probably less than one thousand sit on nuclear missiles. China has maybe 300-400. North Korea perhaps a dozen capable of making it to California. Not all the warheads can be fired off at once because some weapons have to be reserved for a second strike or attacking another nuclear power. So perhaps 500 or so Russian warheads would be targeted on the US. In a Russian scenario, I'd say that major military bases will be targeted. China may only go for major West Coast military installations and population centers. When you can only shoot off say 200 warheads against an adversary who has that many to spend "freely" against an attacker like China, you want to do maximum psychological and political damage. That's done by killing civilians. This is known as countervalue targeting. "Will you trade Los Angeles for Taiwan?" Russia operates on this strategy too, but has the extra warheads to blast military targets. Going strictly after nuclear targets is called counterforce targeting. This strategy risks wasting a warhead on nuking an empty silo as the other guy got his missile off in time. Russia has the numbers to do this. Until the end of the decade, Russia doesn't. So what that means is some military bases and major metropolitan areas. Point Mugu Hey, it's an air base, right? A nice, long 11,000 foot runway would be perfect to park bombers on, right? Except the Air Force doesn't disperse bombers like it's 1952. Point Mugu has nothing strategic there. In a shooting war, several conventional cruise missiles with regular explosives could destroy the E-2 Hawkeye squadrons and any maritime patrol aircraft that might be parked there. Nothing you need a nuke for, although an airburst weapon would stop flat the sheet metal hangers and aircraft like crushing a beer can. Port Hueneme China might want to destroy West Coast ports to harm the Navy's operations. Destroying a port is more difficult than an airbase. A cruise missile can't put a hole in water, nor are they very good at blowing up the concrete quays. A nuke detonated at ground level will do that, creating a large crater and making the place too radioactive to use for a long time. An airburst will irradiate the ground and trash the cranes but leave the concrete intact. Now no important ships are based at Port Hueneme. It's a home for Seabees and testing. Target ships show up to be shot at or obsolete ones are used as test beds. Mainly, it's a commercial port. The only deep water port between Long Beach and San Francisco. That is a worthy target in and of itself. However, I don't think it would be nuked. In my book Late for Doomsday, I take some liberties with geography (like Oxnard has a hill) and I nuke Hueneme. In real life, the port is just too small. Major disruption could be done with cruise missiles and sabotage. Remember the ship that got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal? A ship could be sunk in the entrance to Port Hueneme. Cruise missiles could sink ships tied up along the quays or destroy important port facilities. Rendering the port unusable for several months would cause issues with American shipping and force Seabees and Marines to embark from LA or San Diego, creating a choke point. Nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort. Nuking Port Hueneme at the end of a war in desperation doesn't help China win the war. What's more scary is the thought of a Pearl Harbor in California. Chinese Navy SEALs hijacking a cargo ship and sinking it in the harbor, followed by a cruise missile attack, is well within the realm of possibility for any war with China. I'd expect that. Camarillo Airport Yes, it was a former Air Force base. No, it is not going to be nuked. Bombers won't be dispersed there and nuking the airport that all the celebrities park their jets at isn't going to win a war. This isn't the early Cold War anymore. Vandenberg SFB The Air Force Base about 85 miles northwest of Ventura is a prime target. It launches and controls satellites. Yes, it also launches Minuteman III ICBMs, except those are demonstration tests and they are unarmed. No nukes are kept there. One airburst over the main base cantonment area would destroy a major chunk Space Force's military capabilities in space by destroying buildings and killing people. Again, the same thing could be accomplished with cruise missiles, although I'd think that cruise missiles would target the launch facilities rather than people. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know if Vandenberg has any secret underground bunkers. I also don’t know if Russia might take a chance and use ground bursts to take out the two Minuteman silos. Ground bursts may be called for at Vandenberg, but I don’t know. I have factored fallout coming from Vandenberg into my calculations as possibility. Edwards AFB and the Palmdale/Lancaster area Edwards? Not so much. Just a test facility. The outskirts of Palmdale where Boeing and Lockheed have their “Skunk Works” facilities? That’s a definite possibility. Although you could cruise missile attack those by flying a couple missiles over Malibu and up the 14. March Air Reserve Base Good chance that hitting March in San Bernardino County overlaps with anti-population countervalue attacks on the LA basin. I would not bet against Russia nuking March. Los Angeles I figure anyone nuking LA would drop around half a dozen warheads all over the city in a pattern intended to maximize death and destruction. This pattern would be unknown to all but the Russian or Chinese planners. If you live in the urban sprawl known as the Los Angeles area, get to the outskirts. Maybe a million people killed in the first day—one megadeath. But Ventura County is full. Try Barstow, Bakersfield, or Las Vegas. These scenarios are based on 150 KT yield nuclear warheads, which is the most likely size in the Russian arsenal, similar to the United States. China is believed to have 200-300 KT warheads as its most common size yield. The targets are as realistic as I could figure. Camarillo (Oxnard AFB) is not getting nuked and I doubt Point Mugu as well. Port Hueneme is a stretch but it does have strategic sealift value. Probably on LA and Vandenberg would be realistically hit. Images taken from: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ 150 KT airburst nuclear weapon over Port Hueneme, CA, to destroy the naval base and port facilities with overpressure and prompt radiation. 150 KT airburst nuclear weapon over Port Hueneme, CA, to destroy the naval base and port facilities with overpressure and prompt radiation. 150 KT surface burst weapon detonated at the missile silos at Minuteman Beach, Vandenberg SFB, CA. No nuclear weapon are stored in the silos, which are used to launch unarmed LGM-30G Minuteman III missiles on "glory trips" downrange to Kwajalein Atoll. These are regular tests and deterrence capability demonstrations. In this scenario, fallout is shown blowing towards Los Angeles. There are two silos; conceivably the fallout could be doubled. The red ring is 1000 R/hr, dark orange 100 R/hr, light orange 10 R/hr, and yellow 1 R/hr. Six countervalue airbursts over the Los Angeles metro area to kill as many civilians as possible. A likely scenario, but distribution and amount of warheads is unknown. Airbursts produce essentially no fallout.
Camarillo Airport, known as Oxnard Air Force Base, hosted Air Defense Command interceptor unites from 1951-1970. These aircraft were intended to protect the Southern California airspace from Soviet bombers making follow-up attacks behind the ICBMs. They would have been instrumental in stopping a second strike. However, that placed Camarillo and Oxnard at risk for nuclear destruction. Fallout probably wouldn't have happened. Having no idea what size weapon the Russians would have dropped, I picked 100 KT. Scenario and image taken from: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ |
AuthorNote: this an adaptation from my non-fiction book Suburban Warfare: A cop's guide to surviving a civil war, SHTF, or modern urban combat, available on Amazon. Archives
December 2023
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