45' BAYFIELD COAST GUARD RESPONSE BOAT

THE COAST GUARD 45' RESPONSE BOAT

Friday, 8:30 AM.  4.5 degrees F at the ferry dock, 3 on the back porch.  Wind SSW, mostly calm with light to moderate gusts (and considerable wind chill).  The sky is partly cloudy to clearing, the humidity 83%.  The barometer has begun to fall after being quite high, predicting somewhat warmer weather, overcast skies and snow; flurries on Saturday and snow on Monday and Tuesday.

   The Station Bayfield patrol boats are out of the water for the winter.  The Bayfield Coast Guard Station has two fast patrol boats, this 45' response boat and a 29'  response boat that looks very  similar.
   This boat has two diesel engines and is water-jet propelled, eliminating propellers for safer rescue operations.  It has a top speed of 42.5 knots and a range of 250 nautical miles at 30 knots; a beam of 14'7.75", a draft of 3'4" and a displacement of 36,500 pounds. It has a crew of four and a five-person rescue compartment. It has fenders all around that allow it to access other boats with less chance of damage to either.
   Its mission is coastal patrol and rescue, and interdiction of drugs and migrants. It has gun mounts fore and aft, but I have never seen it armed, although it does go out for target practice.

OFF THE CUFF

University of California Berkeley Riots

   The University of California Berkeley riots that cancelled a scheduled Young Republicans sponsored speech was a despicable, cowardly act that destroyed free speech on campus and caused much property damage.  Were these students, or Leftist provocateurs? We don't know at this point, and probably never will, because arrests evidently weren't made.

   Such acts are a major escalation from kids getting out of hand, to true anarchy.  Our society does not tolerate anarchy, and there will eventually have to be a serious response to it.  One would hope that the Left will scale its destructive tactics back before there is loss of life, such as occurred at Kent State in Ohio on 5/04/1970, and in the bombing of the mathematics building at UW Madison on 8/24/1970.  

   How do you tell parents that their child, whom they sent away to college  to be educated at great expense, has lost his or her life in a shameful, senseless act of anarchy?  If my children were still of college age, I would boycott the schools that allow the suppression of free speech and encourage through tolerance acts of extreme violence. 
   Riots have nothing whatever to do with free speech or with education, and administrators and professors who encourage  or tolerate hate and violence should be fired.