Category Archives: Idaho

More economic decline for eastern Idaho: CoViD-19 shutdown 24hrs WinCo?

14 March 2020 / 05:15 (UTC-07 Tango 06) 24 Esfand 1398/19 Rajab 1441/21 Ji-Mao 4718

CoViD-19=CoronaVirus Disease 2019

No more “24 Hours of Savings WinCo Foods”, at least for a week.

After yesterday’s declaration of State of Emergency by Idaho’s Governor Brad Little, then followed by President Donald Trump’s declaration of National Emergency, the store I prefer to do my grocery shopping at, and the only remaining 24 hours operation in the Pocatello/Chubbuck area, halted their 24 Hours of Savings!

I’ve always shopped there after midnight because I don’t like crowded grocery stores.  I and several dozen people arrived after midnight, 14 March, to find the doors closed for the first time.  No signage was posted to explain it.

I drove back home and checked Boise based WinCo’s website and sure enough there is a message saying they’re halting 24hr operations at selected stores due to CoViD-19.

March 13, 2020

Dear WinCo Customers,

As we all deal with the Coronavirus fallout in these unprecedented times, WinCo Foods remains committed to taking care of our customers, our communities and our employee owners.

As we experience higher than normal demand on a variety of products, we are working around the clock to not only keep our stores open, but also clean and as stocked as possible. We are also ever-mindful of keeping our employee owners, our customers and our communities as safe as possible. To that end we are working with the CDC and local Health Agencies to make sure we follow all Coronavirus protocol, as well as our own internal hygiene and food safety protocols.

We at WinCo Foods understand that you are relying on us in these difficult days to continue providing you with quality food at the lowest possible prices. On behalf of our 19,000+ employee owners, we have no intention of closing our stores and every intention of keeping our shelves as stocked as we possibly can. To help this, we will be temporarily closing various locations between the hours of 12am and 5am for the next week, so the stores can clean and re-stock. We will re-evaluate this policy after this week has passed.

We appreciate your patience while we do this. WinCo remains committed to all of you, and to providing you with foods for your hungry families.

 

Thank you,

The employee owners of WinCo Foods”

I guess the ’employees of WinCo’ don’t realize that most people are not going to think of checking WinCo’s website before heading out to the store.

This was WinCo’s toilet paper isle several days prior to their overnight lockdown.

The only difference between a State of Emergency and martial law is that under martial law the military is in total control: “States of emergency can also be used as a rationale or pretext for suspending rights and freedoms guaranteed under a country’s constitution or basic law.” 

Going Viral, 11-12 March 2020: “STOP SAYING IT’S A BAD FLU!”

MORE ECONOMIC DECLINE: NO MORE IDAHO SHOPKO? THERE NEVER WAS A SHOPKO IN POCATELLO!

2013: ECONOMIC RECOVERY? WINCO ABOUT TO CLOSE STORE NUMBER 5 IN POCATELLO! 

Idaho, Kansas, Utah home bases for NASA’s FIREX-AQ!

08 November 2019 (15:40 UTC-07 Tango 06) 17 Aban 1398/10 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1441/12 Yi-Hai 4717

NASA-Armstrong DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory sits on the east ramp of the 124th Fighter Wing, Boise, Idaho, 23JUL2019. Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras.

NASA’s aged and heavily modified DC-8 airliner is conducting air monitoring missions in relation to the growing wildfire danger in the western U.S.

Idaho National Guard A-10Cs in the foreground, NASA’s DC-8 FIREX-AQ takes off from Gowen Field (Boise Airport), 30JUL2019.

President Donald Trump is portrayed by the ‘main-stream’ news media as being anti-climate, yet since he became President of the United States NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration) has seemingly increased its studies of the effects of pollution and wildfires (including prescribed burns and agricultural fires) on the atmosphere.

On 23JUL2019, NASA held an explainer day for Idaho news media, and as you can tell not many showed up. Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras.

The latest study is called FIREX-AQ (Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality), and from 22 July thru 18 August it called Gowen Field, Idaho, its home base.

Loading computers onto a Twin Otter.

FIREX-AQ also uses Twin Otter aircraft from NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration), as well as satellites.

NASA’s ER-2 ‘climate-spy-plane’ based in California is also used.

Prepping for Operation Ice Bridge, September 2009. NASA photo by Tom Tschida.

From 19 August to 05 September FIREX-AQ was based on Salina Regional Airport, Kansas.

The final stage of the FIREX-AQ mission will be in Utah. (Update on the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment)

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 23JUL2019.

On 08 August, while flying out-of Idaho NASA Made a Rare Flight Right Through a Thundercloud Formed by a Wildfire.

Looking like chaff/flare dispensers these are actually Airborne-Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR) antenna. NASA photo 26MAR1998.

NASA says their DC-8 flys at 42-thousand feet (12-thousand-801 meters or 12.80 kilometers) for as long as 12 hours, collecting air samples with the many antennae protruding from the fuselage.

FIREX-AQ sensors. Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 23JUL2019.

More sensors, Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 23JUL2019.

NASA DC-8 to Fly Low Over Los Angeles Basin and San Joaquin Valley

What It’s Like to Work in a Flying Smoke Laboratory

Video from 2018, NASA’s DC-8 super-particulate-sniffer in Germany:

NASA ER-2 ‘CLIMATE SPY PLANE’ PROVES CALIFORNIA’S STRICT ANTI-POLLUTION LAWS ARE A JOKE!

RED BANK & SOUTH FIRE HELICOPTER OPS

A-10C SNOWBLIND WALKAROUND IN IDAHO!

In 2016, the NASA DC-8 was in Korea conducting high-altitude monitoring of air quality, from Osan Air Base. U.S. Air Force photo by Technical Sergeant Travis Edwards, 27APR2016.

Video explainer of NASA’s DC-8 mission over Korea:

 

124th militia A-10 shootin’ & scootin’ thru Idaho Nevada California

Idaho National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing has been real busy this summer.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Mercedee Wilds, 19AUG2019.

19AUG2019, the ‘hawgs’ shot-up the Orchard Combat Training Center (back when I was ‘in’ it was called the Orchard Training Area) south of Boise.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Mercedee Wilds, 19AUG2019.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Mercedee Wilds, 19AUG2019.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Mercedee Wilds, 19AUG2019.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Ryan White, 19AUG2019.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Becky Vanshur, 19AUG2019.

Idaho’s Governor Brad Little arrived by Black Hawk and got strafed, just kidding:

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Becky Vanshur, 19AUG2019.

Idaho’s 124th Maintenance Group builds Mark 82s for Idaho’s 190th Fighter Squadron’s A-10C Thunderbolt-2s, during wargame Green Flag West-19-8, on Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in June 2019.  I edited together videos via Idaho Air National Guard’s Joshua Allmaras:

04JUN2019 Idaho A-10Cs during Green Flag West, Nevada, take-off and bombing:

08JUN2019, Idaho A-10Cs flying through Nevada mountains:

June 2019, Idaho A-10Cs on Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, flightline prep, taxi & take-off, return sans bombs:

09JUN2019, Idaho A-10Cs landing on dirt, Fort Irwin-NTC, California:

See more:  IDAHO A-10C warthogs wallowing IN THE CALIFORNIA DIRT, JUNE 2019

June 2018, funky music video, Idaho A-10s Operation Red Flag Alaska:

Operation SnowBird 2013: Idaho A-10Cs take part in bombing competition on Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona.

Idaho Black Hawks head south, down Central America way, you paid for it!

“We are going to have to stop being the policemen of the world.”-Donald Trump, August 2015 interview with Hugh Hewitt

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Thomas Alvarez, 27APR2019.

At the end of April 2019, Idaho Army National Guard’s 1-183rd Assault Helicopter Battalion deployed to Guatemala in support of operation Beyond the Horizon.

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Thomas Alvarez, 27APR2019.

Keep in mind this is the Central American country allegedly sending the most illegals into the U.S., forcing the U.S. President to make a deal with the leaders of Guatemala to make an effort to keep their people home (never mind that the U.S. Department of Defense spends untold tax dollars conducting massive military and natural disaster training ops in Guatemala).

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Thomas Alvarez, 27APR2019.

1-183rd Assault Helicopter Battalion will provide casualty evacuation support and equipment transportation for National Guard engineers and medics as they spend U.S. taxes building schools and medical clinics in Guatemala.

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Thomas Alvarez, 27APR2019.

 

The 1-183rd’s mission to Guatemala ended on 27JUL2019.

Official video explainer of Idaho UH-60 Black Hawk refueling ops in Guatemala:

Interview with Idaho Black Hawk crew concerning mass casualty training in Guatemala:

Operation Beyond the Horizon was started in 2008, under the George Bush Jr regime, as a U.S. taxpayer funded “humanitarian civic assistance” program.

U.S. Army photo by Sergeant Anshu Pandeya, 20JUN2019.

National Guard personnel from Virginia and Washington build a new school in Guatemala. U.S. Army photo by Sergeant Anshu Pandeya, 11JUN2019.

 

The Guatemalan City Fueling the Migrant Exodus to America

IDAHO WINTER WARFARE TRAINING

GREAT RENEGER: DEPLOYMENTS SO COMMON EVEN BEERS ARE NAMED AFTER THEM

Idaho’s Bridge to Nowhere?

“…already aware that our property taxes are among the highest in Idaho, I am increasingly wary of the wisdom of Northgate.”

27 July 2019 (02:51 UTC-07 Tango 06) 05 Mordad 1398/24 Dhu l-Qa’da 1440/25 Xin-Wei 4717

Bannock County-City of Chubbuck-City of Pocatello, Idaho, are home to numerous taxpayer sapping ‘white elephant’ projects, from Hoku to the latest Siphon Road-Interstate 15 connector (bridge to nowhere)/Northgate District.

Realize that Siphon Road only exists in Chubbuck, and doesn’t extend to Interstate 15, which means Chubbuck tax-fee payers are paying for the road’s extension to I-15.  (Massive taxpayer funded development in Chubbuck involves construction of up to 1,200 homes)

(Chubbuck plans to create an additional three taxpayer funded parks)

The tax-fee payers of Pocatello are paying for the annexation of farmland to the north of the northeast side of the city, and will also be paying for the creation of a Northgate District, as well as a road that will connect to the Pocatello side of I-15.  (Pocatello imposes  Northgate Tax Incremental Financing district on cash strapped residents)

(Pocatello taxpayers extorted for $750-thousand for Northgate roads project)

(Pocatello councilman partnering with developer to build Northgate retirement community)

State tax-fee payers are funding the I-15 to Siphon Road connection bridge (to nowhere?).

(State investigators says Pocatello’s water plan for Northgate falls short)

The following pics were taken 14JUL2019:

“Hoku and now Northgate are ample evidence for the proposition that few elected local officials have any facility for investigation, professional planning or even seeing the future for what it is.”

Storm clouds forming over yet another White Elephant for taxpayers?

All that farmland going to be torn up to build homes for…nobody?

Looking south along I-15, from the Pocatello side of where the Siphon Road-I-15 connector bridge is being built.

Looking towards Chubbuck, the Sun is already setting on the Bridge to Nowhere.

Chubbuck spent tax dollars putting in an intersection where Siphon Road ended, it’s now overgrown with weeds and you can hear the pedestrian crossing signals beeping in the wind.

This is the new part of Siphon Road, in Chubbuck, which still doesn’t go anywhere. The Road Closed sign has been run-over numerous times.

“He’s as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see….

…….Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody”-The Beatles, Nowhere Man

Bannock County scams: 609 hearings later, Bannock County is left with 2,188 unheard property assessment appeals on morning of deadline

State Attorney General’s Office investigating work of former Bannock County contracted property appraiser

Local appraiser files breach of contract lawsuit against Bannock County

Water-gate, 2019: The city of Pocatello has reached a $4.5 million settlement to a class-action lawsuit for assessing illegal fees on its water, sewer and sanitation services from 2005 into Fiscal Year 2014.

Chubbuck 2017: NO MORE XMAS LIGHTS? THE TRUTH ABOUT GENTRIFICATION

Bannock County, Chubbuck & Pocatello shenanigans, June 2016: Governor declares economy has “RISEN FROM THE ASHES”

School District 25 also screws over local taxpayers: Pocatello High renovations Raises Questions About Public Input from taxpayers

yet again school district embroiled in a controversy involving a hungry student seeking food

school cafeteria worker who says she was fired for giving a hungry student a free lunch was previously convicted of theft charges in 2013.

In March of 1969 Chris Murphy was called to the office of Mr. Evans, the vice-principal of Highland High School in Pocatello, and told to get his hair cut; Murphy refused and was suspended. The district was sued.

PaveGate 2015: POCATELLO TAXPAYERS ASKED TO CLEAN UP THEIR OWN STREETS, WHILE PAYING MORE TAXES!

Promises of jobs, July 2015:  Pocatello administrators have revealed their hyped up deal to bring a major employer to Pocatello Regional Airport is dead.

Main stream news reports on the never ending taxpayer sucking White Elephant called Hoku;

East Idaho News, 2018: “There was no action taken on the Hoku property. They entered into an executive session where they discussed a number of different things and unfortunately as much as I wish I could, I cannot speak about or respond to anything, disclose anything that happened in the executive session.”-Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad

Idaho State Journal, 2018: Two years later, lease with Indian company amounts to nothing for abandoned Hoku 

New York Times, 2013: “So what if the company wanted breaks and concessions? The decision by the city [Pocatello] to buy the land and lease it back almost free seemed like a bargain at $1.4 million…”

Read the history of the Hoku saga starting with this report (the Blind Bat News reports go back to 2010):

 IDAHO’S FAILED HOKU LEADS TO 1ST CHINESE COMPANY TO DEFAULT ON LOAN PAYMENTS

In this report, which chronicles the destruction of iconic Green T, the mayor of Chubbuck boasts it’s “…the beginning of some real good things coming in.”: POPEYES QUIETLY SHUTS DOWN FOUR IDAHO RESTAURANTS!

IDAHO’S DOCUMENTED ECONOMIC DESTRUCTION FOR 2017: “CLOSED INDEFINITELY”

Hoku-Gate, PaveGate now Amy’s-Gate!  It’s been revealed that Bannock County administrators were under investigation by the Idaho Tax Commission over massive local tax breaks given to California based frozen veggie food maker Amy’s Kitchen.

MORE ECONOMIC DECLINE: EAST IDAHOANS OBLIVIOUS TO SHUTDOWN OF THEIR ONLY POSTAL PROCESSING CENTER!

MORE ECONOMIC DECLINE: IDAHO POLITICIANS GIVE AWAY MORE THAN $1-MILLION IN IDAHO TAXES, TO FRANCE!

EXCEPTIONAL FAILED STATE: IDAHO POLITICIANS GIVE AWAY TENS OF MILLIONS TO COMPANIES THAT SHUT DOWN!

Idaho Wild Fires 2019: MD-87 water bomber, new King Air FAC

23 July 2019-23:43 UTC-07 Tango 06 (02 Mordad 1398/21 Dhu l-Qa’da 1440/22 Xin-Wei 4717)

The fires keep burning in eastern Idaho.  Things got so hot today that evacuations of ‘non-essential personnel’ were ordered near the Idaho National Laboratory’s nuclear jet engine and EBR-1 nuclear-disaster-reactor,  due to the rapid expansion of the ‘Sheep Fire’ (about 85-thousand acres, 34398 hectares).

MD-87 (foreground) and DC-10 (background) tankers rolling in from their latest east Idaho mission. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

The Sheep Fire is just one of dozens of wild fires in Idaho right now so, once again, the little used Pocatello Airport was put to good use by water bombers from 10 Tanker Air Carrier and Erickson Aero Tanker.

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

A little bird water bomber heads out. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

A new U.S. Forest Service King Air 250 FAC (Forward Air Controller) taking off. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

King Air ‘FAC’: Forest Service buys its first lead plane in almost 40 years

The King Air passes by the incoming DC-10. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

A familiar sight ever since the big fires of 2012. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Home for the night. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

WILD FIRES 2019: DC-10, IDAHO’S 911

VooDoo redeux: Pocatello Airport

In April 2012, I published a series of pics of the F-101B Voodoo ‘gate guard’ at Pocatello Airport, Idaho.  That was before it underwent renovation, when it was surrounded by a fence, faded and dirty.

Before you go on to look at the pics, I was allowed to see a secret room in the main airport building where a very nice 1/48 scale Monogram model diorama of the very same F-101B was gathering dust.  The diorama showed tail code AF-90 PO-417 on the flightline in Germany during the Cold War.  Today’s gate guard is painted to match that diorama except it doesn’t have the Native American chief in his warbonnet painted on the nose of the aircraft, near the cockpit.  There was a small plaque on the diorama explaining the aircraft history, but I didn’t get much time to read it.  I asked if I could get my camera and take a pic of it, but was told I shouldn’t even be in the ‘room’.  So, supposedly PO-417 was an actual F-101B, yet a quick internet search revealed no such thing (apparently ‘PO’ isn’t a real USAF tail code).

To update this story, I was recently ‘gifted’ a little red book called The First Fifty Years: Michaud Flats, U.S. Army Base, Pocatello Regional Airport.  It explains the Pocatello Voodoo was originally slated to be burned up as a fire trainer for the Utah Air National Guard.  It was one of two such planes that were already fully dismantled, the Utah Guard decided it wasn’t worth the effort to put them back together just to set them on fire.  Around 1988, Idaho Senator Jim McClure used his pull to get one of the dismembered Voodoo’s to the Pocatello Airport.  Funding for the project came from several donors including the J.R. Simplot Company (which at that time had its corporate HQ in Pocatello, along the border with Chubbuck), and the actual rebuilding of the plane was done by Idaho State University (ISU) Aviation Mechanics School (still located at the airport today).  It was the ISU students who decided on the paint scheme, and created the fake afterburners as the real afterburners were missing.

The 238 paged, hardcover book was published in 1993, it’s available directly from the Pocatello Airport (208) 234-6154.  I was also told the Idaho Unlimited gift shop carried the book, but it didn’t show up when I searched their website.

Click the pics to make bigger:

Wild Fires 2019: DC-10, Idaho’s 911

15 July 2019-21:32 UTC-07 Tango 06 (25 Tir 1398/13 Dhu l-Qa’da 1440/14 Xin-Wei 4717)

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Another year, another round of wild fires, and Pocatello Airport is temporary home (once again) to DC-10 water bombers.  Two were spotted, numbers 911 and 912.

Click the pics (by AAron B. Hutchins) to make them bigger:

SMOKE ’EM IF YOU GOT ’EM, 2017!: POCATELLO AIRPORT FIRE BOMBERS ARE BACK!

U.S. WILDFIRES 2016: DC-10 POCATELLO AIRPORT

IDAHO WILDFIRES 2015: POKEY AIRPORT DC-10 WATER BOMBER

Vehicle I-D: 1-148 Field Artillery gate guards

Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

M1 57mm Anti-Tank gun from World War-2 (clicking the pics makes them bigger:

World War-2 M4A3 Sherman:

Cold War era M109A5(?) Self Propelled Howitzer:

Related: POKEY AIRPORT, IDAHO ARMY NATIONAL GUARD M109

Cold Ware era M548 cargo carrier:

Cold War era M60A3:

116th Cav, 1-148th FA, Pocatello, Idaho. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins.

Armored Gate Guards: ARMOR MUSEUM FORT LEONARD WOOD, MISSOURI

Idaho A-10C warthogs wallowing in the California dirt, June 2019

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Sergeant Mason Cutrer, 13JUN2019.

Idaho’s Air and Army National Guard, as well as a unit from Oregon’s Army National Guard, took part in U.S. Army NTC wargames from the end of May to the middle of June, 2019.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Mercedee Wilds, 11JUN2019.

The U.S. Army’s OpFor (Opposition Force) used UH-72 Lakotas against National Guard ground troops.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 11JUN2019.

Brazilian Air Force TACP (Tactical Air Control Party) allied themselves with the Idaho Air Guard TACPs.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 11JUN2019.

Brazilian A-29 Super Tucanos took part in the invasion of California, as well.

Video (by Master Sergeant Joshua Allmaras), TACP calls in A-10 airstrikes, unfortunately you don’t see the A-10s, just their bombs impacting on the ground (also video of M1A2 and M2 live fire):

Idaho Army National Guard photo by Sergeant Mason Cutrer, 05JUN2019.

A-10C Thunderbolt-2 assigned to the 190th Fighter Squadron, Idaho Air National Guard, lands on the NTC desert.

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 11JUN2019.

Video (by Private First Class Bailey Breving), dirt field landing and take-off:

Idaho Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Joshua C. Allmaras, 11JUN2019.

Not only did Idaho’s A-10s take part in wargames in California, but at the same time took part in Green Flag West at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada!

January 2019: A-10C SNOWBLIND WALKAROUND IN IDAHO!

Vehicle I-D, 2016: A-29B SUPER TUCANO, GREEN FLAG EAST