Month: August 2015

by William Skink

Too young to wax nostalgic on the past, yet too old to be carefree. That is my plight as a late 30’s Gen-X’er.

For many Baby Boomers, waxing nostalgic casts a comforting glow that stands in stark contrast to the present predicament of economic insecurity and foreign threats that seem to permeate our fear-stoked landscape these days.

In the Indy this week it was a book review of Naked in the Woods: My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune, by Margaret Grundstein. My quick takeaway is this: communes in the late 60’s were great places for men to grow pot, exploit free love to have as much casual sex with hippie chicks as possible, and money-created divisions eventually destroys the ignorant idealism of youth.

At Last Best News, Ed Kemmick writes about his Oly-dimmed memories of Aber Days, an annual kegger in Missoula that kicked off the school year during the 70’s. Here is Kemmick describing those long-gone days:

Between 1972 and 1979, the years of the kegger, the world was a different place. It was all in black and white or washed-out Kodachrome, for one thing, and it was a world of almost primeval innocence, in the sense that bicycle helmets had not yet been invented, most cars didn’t have seatbelts and driving back to Missoula from Miller Creek after downing two or three gallons of Olympia beer was not considered wildly inappropriate.

Sounds like fun.

For me, college wasn’t a realm of primeval innocence. There was still the alcoholic rite of passage featuring binge drinking and more binge drinking, but the innocence of deferred consequences came to a crashing halt when my friend was hit and killed by a drunk motorist after a night of drinking in Lawrence, Kansas.

Now, at the ripe old age of (almost) 37, I look at the downtown Missoula topography where I fermented the last days of my higher education and shake my head.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t have a lot of patience left for gun-toting gypsies with ferrets and alpacas traipsing through town. The link is to a Bozeman Chronicle article where “Tinker”, the self-described warrior-bard, offers some surprisingly insightful commentary on his fellow travelers:

“A lot of these travelers out here, they don’t deserve to be traveling,” he says, adding that many are into drugs and miss the point.

“The rainbows aren’t rainbows any more. The hippies aren’t hippies,” he says. “They’re hipsters and drainbows.”

Right on, Tinker. I agree.

When Tinker says drugs, he’s not talking about weed. He’s talking about drugs like Oxycodone, Meth and Spice. And then there’s the most destructive drug of them all: alcohol.

It’s the end of August, the end of summer. As I write this, students are flocking back to the Missoula valley to get educated and behave as carefree as possible. I hope they stay safe and enjoy the deferred responsibilities of adult hood for as long as possible.

by William Skink

Waking up this morning I quickly rejoiced at seeing the blue of sky and not the haze of smoke. If this holds, we will go to the market and spend money. If it doesn’t, we won’t.

Weather definitely has an effect on the economy, but the last few years weather has become one of the go-to scapegoats for economists. Here’s a Reuters article from March of this year:

U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in February as harsh weather kept consumers from auto showrooms and shopping malls, tempering the outlook for first-quarter growth and a June interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve.

Even accounting for the snowy and cold weather, which blanketed much of the country in late February, there is little doubt that consumer spending has slowed significantly after robust growth in the fourth quarter. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

And here is a New York Times article from 2014:

WASHINGTON — Retail sales unexpectedly fell last month and more Americans filed for jobless benefits last week in the latest signs that the economy started the year on a softer footing as unseasonably cold weather took its toll.

Large parts of the country have been gripped by freezing temperatures and snowstorms, which have been blamed for weak hiring in the last two months. Economists, however, are not worried yet and are looking for a rebound in the second quarter.

“Today’s data unequivocally show that the unusually cold winter weather is weighing on economic activity,” said Harm Bandholz, chief economist at UniCredit Research. “Consumer spending has literally frozen.”

It’s interesting how similar these two articles read. I’m particularly interested in how this seasonal dip in retail sales is described as “unexpected”. Are we to believe that if it wasn’t for winter weather, retail sales would be at the “expected” levels?

There is no weather rationale to explain the market slaughter that happened yesterday. The 3% crash in value is the biggest drop since November, 2011. Instead of blaming winter, economists are pointing to China as the scapegoat.

There simply must be scapegoats for economists because without seasonal weather or foreign economies to blame, they might have to start reflecting on the failure of the entire recovery strategy, post-housing-bubble crash.

Anyway, got to go. Got to get the cabin-fever-crazed kids and despondent canines out while the sky is blue.

by William Skink

My oldest recently turned 7, and to celebrate we extended last weekend for a special trip to Triple Play, just north of Coeur d’Alene. What this hotel/fun-park offers is an over-stimulating array of activities that pregnant woman and people with high blood pressure should avoid. It was great.

For the uninitiated, here’s a list of the attractions: go karts, bumper boats, putt-putt golf, ropes course, arcade, Raptor Reef water park (you pay more for that wrist band, of course) and, last but not least, laser tag.

For both myself and my oldest, it was our first time engaging in laser tag combat, and we were no match for Red Team’s combat moms. The experience was actually pretty intense. Nothing like the 1986 laser tag I remember.

The reason I’m writing this is post is because Dan Brooks wrote this post about his recent laser tag experience in Missoula, at The Hub. It’s one of the best things I’ve read in a long time.

I’m going to piggyback on Dan’s dickbag girl theorem by describing an eerily similar experience I had at Triple Play last weekend, with the bumper boats.

Obviously, if I’m getting into a bumper boat, I should expect the possibility of getting wet. To set the scene, there were four spouts spraying water from the center of the man-made pond, and each bumper boat was equipped with a button to “go” and a button to “spray”.

Once kicked loose by the attendant, we were free to putter around and spray away. I immediately had this little girl glom on to my every move, soaking me directly in the face. I finally got aggravated enough to demand a ceasefire. Ironically, she got the boat the previous occupant warned our group had too short a range. By keeping on me as closely as she did, her short range soaked me while my return fire soared above her head.

Dan Brooks describes the strategy that confounded his competitive laser tag play as short-following strategy.

After my own personal bumper boat massacre, I know exactly what he means.

by William Skink

Providers of Cannabis for medicinal purposes still operate in legal limbo, which readers of the Missoulian were reminded of last week in an article you can read here. For this post, I’ll highlight this excerpt:

Medical marijuana has been the subject of debate, and seen fluctuating waves of public opinion, statewide since its legalization in 2004.

Massive traveling marijuana clinics, dubbed “cannabis caravans,” roved the state from 2009 to 2011, setting up camp in conference rooms at large hotels.

It was at these so-called clinics that hundreds of people received a recommendation for the drug after a very brief consultation with a doctor. Sometimes the doctor was from out of state, traveling with the caravan; other times, the doctor would see patients via Skype.

Many of the caravans were organized by an outlandish marijuana activist, Jason Christ, who made headlines by smoking marijuana outside the state Capitol and filing numerous lawsuits in Missoula County District Court and U.S. District Court, including one attempting to sue the city police, Missoula County Attorney’s Office and 9-1-1 for $50 million.

Christ is no longer in Montana, and is no longer associated with this state’s medical marijuana industry.

First, I think it’s just fantastic that the Missoulian is still talking about Jason Christ in 2015. For those of us who watched the medical marijuana disaster unfold, it was the marriage of that sociopath and the media that helped sensationalize this issue, which is one reason public opinion fluctuated away from the level of support medical marijuana had. Too bad Jason is no loner in Montana, because Lee Enterprises loved reporting on anything he did. They made him the poster boy for an entire industry, then reported his every move, which was a significant factor in destroying that industry.

There were a lot of blog posts about this issue during the controversial years that culminated in some of the worst legislation I have ever seen on any issue getting passed. I wrote this post critical of the media in 2010. Here is one great comment from someone directly involved, Montanafesto:

It is disappointing that the media is willing to feed Christ’s malignant narcissism at an entire industry’s expense. I too would appreciate seeing articles about the people whose lives have been improved by the medical marijuana industry. I doubt there are many more people using marijuana now than were before medicinal use was legalized in the state- the difference is that now most of the money remains in Montana instead of being smuggled in a backpack to Northern California. Warehouses, vacant for years, have tenants. Gardening supply stores are cropping up all over. Approximately 5000 Montanans have caregiver jobs. Does anyone know how much money it requires to successfully grow marijuana in Montana? I think many would be surprised. There is this stigma that caregivers threw some seeds in their backyards and suddenly became millionaires.

Ignorance contributes to that attitude, but Christ’s behavior does as well. Obviously Montana has had substantial growth in the industry- which has exposed areas in the law that require at minimum, clarification. Blaming the media isn’t quite fair though- If Christ wasn’t placing himself in the spotlight with his bizarre and sociopathic behavior, the media wouldn’t have anything to cover. I agree that Christ does represent everything that is wrong with medical marijuana in Montana and should legislators repeal or enact massive regulations within the industry, I blame Jason Christ.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the legislature. There are already plenty of repeal and restrict bills being proposed and Republicans are looking to destroy medical marijuana rather than focusing on the fiscal promises that got them elected. What a shame.

Republicans did mostly get their way in destroying the industry, but in order to do so they had to pass legislation that violated all kinds of constitutional rights, which jhwygirl wrote about in this post in 2011.

And here we are in 2015, with the media once again reporting on a (up until now) quiet uptick in providers and green cards. Anyone talking to the media needs to be incredibly careful.

Anyway, I don’t have time for a more involved post right now, so I’ll leave readers with a little bit of good news, at least I think it’s good news. The Missoulian has a new editor, 37 year old Matthew Bunk. Bunk is replacing Sherry Devlin who has been an editor at the Missoulian since 2004.

It was way past time for a change.

by William Skink

Perusing my usual conspiracy haunts brings me back, one more time, to look at the Bernie Sanders Seattle disruption.

After a reactionary jab at the (mostly) angry white progressives, then a jab at the predictable Soros scapegoating, I’m exploring the rat-fucking trial balloon possibility of Cointelpro tactics being deployed against Bernie.

While the ubiquitous Soros smear seemed weak and perfunctory, this new wrinkle is more specific and technical. It builds on the BLM co-optation angle mentioned in my last post, derived the from the two agitators identification with a group called Outside Agitators 206. Not mentioned in the last post is the odd “former support” by the activist Marissa Jenae Johnson of Sarah Palin. Johnson also still refers to herself as a “radical Christian”.

At issue is the provenance of an IP address. My understanding of this is terrible, so I’ll leave it to the more technically minded to grapple with the implications:

But what specifically does Outside Agitators 206 stand for? Well, here is a public statement that doesn’t appear to hold the same goals as the larger #BLM movement. This is the relevant text of that statement:

To succeed, the Black Lives Matter Movement must transform the politics of Black America. By definition, that means declaring war on the Democratic Party, and forcing Black politicians and activists to choose between the Party and the people’s struggle.

As usual, the Democrats will try to make Black people more angry at the terminally racist Republican Party than at the police and local administration of their (typically) Democrat-run city. Hillary Clinton is already making noises of empathy with Blacks suffering under the urban police state. However, the Black Lives Matter movement has no institutional stake in the victory of either party, but is, in fact, locked in mortal political struggle with other Black people in the Democratic Party. These Black Democrats will insist on a truce, a cessation of agitation against national or local Democrats, until after the election.

In a recent interview, at about the 29 minute mark, Johnson seems to echo this sentiment by stating, “We actually need to keep pushing people to dismantle the system.” The larger question then is are these the genuine sentiments of quasi-anarchists or the underhanded machinations of agent provocateurs? Actually, it could be a combination of both: genuinely committed activists being manipulated by operatives with a vastly different agenda. The answer may lie in the quest that Deep Throat gave to Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men: follow the money. Are there any powerful interests that stand to lose billions during a Sanders administration connected with Outside Agitators 206? I’d like to thank alwyn from Rigorous Intuition (and Project Willow for posting the image) for posting what friend Lassiter Jones found through a traceroute of their IP address and a check of the ownership on cqcounter.com which revealed it was owned by Merck and Co.

There is some back and forth on what the date Merck and Co. relinquished the IP address means (April 22nd, 2015), made more confusing by an apparent back-dated social calendar on the website going back to February of 2015.

None of this is very conclusive, but one implication, at least to me, seems apparent: Bernie is making some deep pockets very nervous.

And that is a very good thing.