Rebane's Ruminations

California 1849 - 2009

[The following anonymous contribution, a la the Michael Jackson hoopla, was forwarded by a colleague and east coast correspondent.  Word has gotten out.  gjr]

Fans Flock to Mourn California, 1849-2009

LOS ANGELES - Millions of fans from around the globe gathered along Sunset Boulevard to pay final respects to California today, as a slow moving funeral procession transported the eccentric superstar state's remains to its final resting place in a Winchell's Donuts dumpster in Van Nuys.  The self-proclaimed 'King of Pop Culture' died last week at 160, in what coroners ruled an accidental case of financial autoerotic asphyxiation.  The death sent shock waves across the world and sparked an outpouring of grief by rabid fans.

"I don't care what the tabloids and the Wall Street Journal say," said a weeping Illinois. "I still love you, Cali!"

The 640-mile long funeral parade route was lined with flowers, candles, teddy bears, and IOUs from millions of mourners and debtors who made the somber journey to watch the passing of the state that had once ruled the box office and industrial charts.  Among them were current chart-toppers who cited California as a key influence.

‘Is it Time for the Turing Test to Retire?’

George Rebane

Definitely not.  This question is asked by Dr. Aladdin Ayesh in a brief but serious article with the above title.  I presume Dr. Ayesh is a computer scientist, but he seems to be confused about how Alan Turing proposed his test for machine intelligence or, if you wish, AI almost sixty years ago.

Ayesh states that - Back in 1950, Turing proposed that a machine can demonstrate and be proven to possess true intelligence through a simple test of conversation, in which a human user converses blindly with two entities: a machine and another human. If that user could not tell the difference between the two entities, the machine is considered to be 'intelligent'.

Turing did not offer his test as any definitive method to ‘prove’ that a machine is intelligent.  In fact, Turing did not even want to answer the seminal question, ‘What is intelligence?’  Instead, in his characteristic and deep fashion, Turing offered an operational answer to a difficult but related question that was posed to him – ‘Can a machine be intelligent?’ – by addressing the question ‘Can machines think?’

Nevada County ARRA Still on Ice

George Rebane

Well, the ARRA – aka SP787 - stimulus is performing sorta like history predicts (cf. FDR’s alphabet soup programs during the 1930s) – late, expensive, and ineffective.  Now, after launching TARP(SP700) and SP787, they’re starting to talk about “stimulus two”.  What again was that definition of insanity?

Meanwhile here in the woods we’re standing around the mailbox, with our ready shovels at port arms, waiting for some more of that ‘approved’ $4.17 million to arrive.  Hard to tell what’s really happening, except that the government bureaucracy for distributing and monitoring the stimulus funds is growing, so I guess the stimulus is working somewhere.  (All this experience will also be used as a blueprint for setting up and operating Cap n' Tax and Obamacare.  We live and learn.)

And as reported yesterday (here), it seems that we might increase the county’s take if someone called Geithner and company.  The message should be that we’re doing our damndest to turn into compliant collectivists as witnessed by last November’s election results.  All we need to become a solid blue county is a little more stimulus than the $60K they have sent us.  Our votes can be bought just as reliably as those in Detroit.

Early ARRA Results

George Rebane

USA Today reports ‘Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08’, specifically –

Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election. (emphasis mine)

The counter argument to all this is that this distribution result was either a coincidence or just normal redistribution of wealth through the usual channels.

That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.

Either way, to me it looks bad.  There either is a payoff for this president’s election, which is due process given the history of these things, or else it’s just recognition that these constituencies have been on the permanent government teat for a very long time, mostly to no avail.  In any case, and with the Peter/Paul Principle in full force, the correct name of the law truly is the American Redistribution and Re-election Act of 2009.  People who will be made to pay the bill should deport accordingly.

'Culture and Creativity at the Edge of Nature'

Gil Mathew

There were those who scoffed at that tag line, 'Culture and Creativity at the Edge of Nature', when it was first crafted at the ERC, and some with good reason.  However at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference in Las Vages last month, it was a phrase that rang true.  In the Broadcast industry, Nevada County i.e. Grass Valley is a world leader. As you stroll the aisles or sit among some of the 75,000 or so attendees at NAB everyone knows about Grass Valley, and almost all of them say the same thing.  “Of course, we know Grass Valley.  What a cool place that is and it’s pretty too”  Then when you probe deeper, you find that they not only know of the video companies that call this home, but also know the vibrant and creative talent that is collected here, and many that I spoke with wished they could live and work here.

It’s this culture of creativity that also allows new products to be brought to market.  Witness the award winning products that were announced during the April show. Telestream, the Telestream Pipeline was acclaimed by the Broadcast Engineering Magazine as an NAB Pick Hit of the show along with Grass Valley’s Kayenne switcher and the K2Dyno and Summit.   AJA Video’ Ki Pro.  Over 15% of the 34 “Pick Hits” by Broadcast Engineering Magazine came from Nevada County and when you consider we are up against, Sony, Panasonic, Adobe, etc. that’s an accomplishment.

A big winner at NAB was AJA Video and their Ki Pro.  Ki Pro was awarded the Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit Award, the DV Black Diamond Award, the TV Technology Star Award, and the Videography Magazine Vidy Award. Products awarded are selected by a panel of industry experts, engineers and journalists based on the most innovative new technologies introduced at the annual NAB conference.

Grass Valley unveiled their new look, dropping the Thomson name.  The booth was spectacular and it was the first thing you saw as you entered the South Hall.
 
Nevada County can be very proud of the contribution made by these and the other business that call this edge of nature, home.

[Gil Mathew is CEO of the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, and a Nevada County entrepreneur.  This piece first appeared in the Nevada County Business News.]

Glenn Beck’s Uncommon Sense

George Rebane

Glenn Beck’s Common Sense – The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government has been #1 on NYT’s best seller list for several weeks.  In it he outlines the excesses of a rampantly growing government and exhorts his readers to apply common sense so that they can clearly see that things in our Republic are going to hell in a handcart.  The case he makes is plain enough and regular RR readers will not discover much new in Beck’s litany of government abuses and history of muddle-headed programs.

I read the book last night – it is a short book of only 167 pages that also includes Thomas Paine’s original 1776 classic Common Sense.  Beck goes through a very detailed litany of how things have gone and are going wrong.  He sprinkles blame on both parties, but the reader quickly senses that most of it will stick to those of the liberal persuasion who are referred to by their preferred label of ‘progressives’.  It is a good read and I recommend it to everyone, especially to those who see themselves firmly in the Republican or Democrat camps.  Buy it, read it, and pass it on.

I like Glenn Beck and his ministry, but my criticism of Beck’s book is not how it describes our problems, but the solution that he almost doesn’t recommend.  On top of that, he inconsistently sees the American people as compliant and unconcerned about the direction their political leaders want to take them, and a paragraph later as made up of a very aware and long suffering cohort, spread across the land, that is merely waiting for someone to form them up and lead them back to a non-partisan promised land.

… and then, where’s Hillary?? (updated)

George Rebane

Things are getting curiouser and curiouser.  Today everyone is hyper-ventilating on the portents of Sarah Palin’s resignation, President Obama making nice with the Russians, the Dems are on the air talking down the abject failure of stimulation, Iran is confirming it’s a totalitarian state, Madman Kim Jong Il is cutting back North Korea’s economy and rattling its bent saber, and the Chinese are starting to kill the Moslem Uyghurs in wholesale.  And that’s just a start.

Many think that Palin will somehow co-opt the Tea Party movement into a new political party that she will head for her 2012 presidential bid.  That will require a lot of ducks to line up just about perfectly.  Right now this little burp in her political career serves to fill column inches, blogs (like this), and minutes of air time.  As I said on NC MediaWatch ,  ‘She has some work to do before she can readily claim all Tea Party supporters as members of a new political party. The TP is now the standard bearer for a strong sentiment about governance that is drawing a lot of conservative support. But a sentiment – especially a sentiment with no focused leadership - is not by itself a political party. Let’s first see how she sets her sails, and then what wind will fill them.’

Obama’s trip to Russia seems to have no clear purpose that serves US interests.  Putin is on track to re-exert USSR-style influence in Russia’s “near abroad”, and is showing Obama its respect by holding the largest war games since the Cold War right next to Georgia (where it still has troops from its recent invasion) while Obama is drinking tea with Medvedev.  They’re supposed to be talking about a new SALT treaty, as if that will make a difference?? A hell of a way to push the vaunted ‘Reset Button’ that Hillary earlier delivered to Moscow as an apology for the Bush years.

Flyover Fourth (6jul2009 update)

George Rebane

This Fourth was a special treat for me.  After launching our celebrations last night at the outdoor Music in the Mountains July 4th concert with friends Ellen and Russ Steele, I was invited to fly second seat today in friend and neighbor Jim Booth’s bright yellow ‘MYT-6’.  We were scheduled to do to flyovers today – the first at Lake of the Pines and then over the Grass Valley parade route to start the festivities.

Jim picked me up at 9am sharp and in no time we were at the Nevada County airport (KGOO) opening up Jim’s huge hangar.  There sat the retired warbird, all shined up and ready for showtime.  I say retired because the AT-6 had its first life serving as an advanced trainer of WW2 fame, the job it was designed and built for.  The T-6s then passed into civilian hands as one of the most popular single engine airplanes ever and saw a second career in the air racing circuits around the country.  Jim is also an ex-air racer, and now serves to train T-6 pilots in air racing and formation flying.  In recent years he has served as the official starter for the T-6 races in Reno.

Obama’s Numbers and the Austrian School

George Rebane

Team Obama must finally agree with Ludwig von Mises, famed economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics.  As reported here numerous times, von Mises advised in an economic recession like ours, that the government should “do nothing – sooner!”  Now with White House numbers standing embarrassed in the light of real world experience, I wonder if the Sierra Bravos will hold off a bit on their rush to inject big government into every corner of our lives on the pretext of “stimulus”.  Take a look at the new national unemployment numbers as plotted against what the know-nothings projected with the passage of ARRA (aka American Redistribution and Re-election Act).  The nation is following the lead of bankrupt California (here). I doubt that very many in this innumerate land of ours will pay much attention as they continue genuflecting toward Washington.

(H/T to Russ Steele for this update.)

NC Stimulus Trickle Stalled

George Rebane

This week our Congressman Tom McClintock met with county leadership on Monday and was requested to find out what’s keeping our stimulations so low.  McClintock promised to get right on it, and the appropriate information for follow-up was forwarded to his Washington office.  It will be worth watching if that and $5 will get you more than Starbucks has to offer.  Here’s the updated chart.

Note that we applied for another $260K or so of funds (details here ).  Thanks to Leann Whitaker in Rick Haffey’s office who emailed – “To view the State contract for the $60,000 in stimulus funds approved by our Board on June 16, 2009, go to the Clerk of the Board’s website (here is the link ).  Click on Board of Supervisors Resolutions / Click on 2009 Scanned Resolutions / then from the list choose resolution number: 09-240.”  We’re getting this information a day early because county offices will be closed tomorrow for the 4th of July weekend.

Ruminations - 2jul2009

George Rebane

Juan Williams of NPR surprised the living *#%@ out of me last night not once, but TWICE!  First, that Bill O’Reilly chose this dignified and sober liberal journalist to guest host his show.  And second, that Juan immediately launched into a relentless pursuit of a truth, the discovery of which would be clearly embarrassing to Team Obama and the Democrats.  Candidate Obama took McCain to task and promised numerous times that his programs (specifically for climate change and health care) would not raise taxes on any family earning under $250K a year.  Writhing on the spit, he mercilessly questioned Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, about this promise and had the poor weenie sputtering into the mike.  It now turns out that Barack Obama was lying through his teeth, so Burton wouldn’t answer the question.  But in the final moment he thought to rescue himself with a real whopper, President Obama “has brought about the biggest tax decrease in history with the passage of (ARRA).”  Wow!  I must confess, I have to re-evaluate my entire take on ol’ Juan.  This man may yet rescue journalism single-handedly.  (BTW, does anyone know of any liberal show which has had a conservative guest host?)

First General Electric and now Wal-Mart, all of our big corporations are beginning to see the benefits of government run social and green programs.  Kinda takes you back to the days when old Europe became Old Europe.  Wal-Mart’s jumping on board the ObamaCare bandwagon is just another case of what I have modestly dubbed Rebane’s First Law of Capitalism – The bad thing about capitalism is that it will always seek to game the system; the good thing about capitalism is that it will always seek to game the system.

The big corporations are quickly realizing that the major impact of Obama’s socialism will be to punish the country’s small businesses and start-ups.  These new government programs continue to build up the barriers to entry, and hence, competition to the established giants who might get knocked down a notch or two or even made to go the way of dinosaurs by some spunky small fry.  How do you think the Siemens, Thomsons, and Krupps of Europe got that way, and why is it so difficult for European businesses to grow from small to large?  They have no Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, or Wal-Mart stories to tell.  Twenty years from now, will we?

Federalization of America is advancing on all fronts – the Tenth Amendment has become an atrophied appendage to our Constitution.  The latest insult quietly going through Congress now is the disguised Clean Water Restoration Act (S787) – it is up for a hearing today (video).  If this becomes law, then the feds will regulate EVERY body of surface water in the country – public or private – that is standing, flowing, or subject to intermittent runoffs.  You will have to get a permit to do anything on your land that may affect the water, even if you want to drain a ditch.  And soon, to the required permits will be added maintenance and monitoring fees, and, of course, expanded staffs to inspect, test, and enforce.  (Not in America?)

The Littoral Combat Ship – An Unlikely Canary

George Rebane

The LCS was designed and built to enable America to continue its projection of power in critical far-off coastal waters and strategic sea passages like the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca.  We are now about to set a new course for the country, the price of which calls for the reduction of our military budgets in order to fund new spending for what are shaping up to be projects and programs of hopeless yet calamitous change.

In this century the world will become a much more dangerous place when the US starts pulling in its horns.  Procurement of the LCS may be a canary in the mineshaft, telegraphing our intentions to remain as the world’s hegemon.  We can now count how many of the original 55 of these cost-effective seagoing combat systems we wind up building.  The piece below was sent to me by an RR reader in the Washington DC area.

The U.S.S. Independence (LCS) - A Triple Hulled, Weapon-Laden Monster

We've been hearing rumblings about the U.S. Navy’s triple-hulled ships, but here's one that was launched last month, the U.S.S Independence. Built by General Dynamics, it's called a littoral combat ship (LCS), and the trimaran can move huge weapons around faster than any ship in the Navy. Ironic that with all that high tech built in, the ship reminds us of the Merrimac ironclad from Civil War days.  Littoral means close to shore, and that's where these fleet-hulled babies will operate, tailor-made for launching helicopters and armored vehicles, sweeping mines and firing all manner of torpedoes, missiles and machine guns.  These ships were designed to be relatively inexpensive and this one's a bargain at $208 million, and the navy plans to build 55 of them. This trimaran is the first of the new fire-breathing breed, ready to scoot out of dry dock at a rumored 60 knots. It's like a speedy and heavily-armed aircraft carrier for helicopters.

Folks hereabouts in bankrupt California don't much pay attention any more to such strategic matters that impact the future of our nation.  We are too busy wiping out the world's most prosperous agricultural region in order to save(?) a very small and truly insignificant fish.  The critter may die anyway, but we will sacrifice all to be able to say that at least we tried.  First things first. 

Ruminations - 30jun2009

George Rebane

We read a lot around this house.  Breakfast invariably includes the WSJ and our local Union.  Periodically I get on my high-horse about the asinine columns written by financial reporters, and this morning WSJ’s Mark Gongloff piqued my ire with his ‘no information’ piece on the movement of bond and stock prices yesterday.  Like many of his ilk, he uses notions like ‘investors were buying’ and ‘bond holders were selling’ in the attempt to reveal some causal backing to price movements.  What these sophomores apparently don’t understand – or think that the reader doesn’t understand – is that if investors were buying, then other investors must have been selling.    And if investors were buying/selling from/to other investors, then there is no information in the article, most certainly not any revelation of the causal factors behind the published and now obvious price movements.  Who the hell do guys like Gongloff think is on the other end of the trade, the local neighborhood tapeworm?  All this sounds like stuff being composed (composted?) as editorial content straight out of the Tautology Central School of Journalism.

On to brighter things.  This morning’s Union had a good piece of venting by Jeff Ackerman about the ongoing insanity in Sacramento and how it affects our local Empire Mine State Park.  What I wish Jeff would have explained in more detail was the apparent self-funding aspect of the park.  If it is cost neutral to the state, why close it as a cost saving measure?  Something is missing here.  Also Vicki Fortini wrote an excellent piece on the current Tea Party movement across the country that so irritates those neighbors who would like to see our taxes raised.  Jo Ann and I are part of the dangerous horde of Napolitano’s “right-wing extremists” as witnessed by our recent participation in Tea Party events.  But then you knew that.

Roger Altman, former Clinton Deputy Sec Treasury, advises us that we may soon have a national value added tax (VAT) to fund, in part, Obama’s program of hopeless change.  But more revealing in his 30jun09 WSJ ‘We’ll Need to Raise Taxes Soon’ are the latest economic projections that analyze the Obama budgets to pay for America’s great transformation.  It turns out that bloggers like me were on the money when we called out the White House fiscal propaganda artists a couple of months ago.  We will be running deficits close to 4% of GDP through the next decade (that’s about a trillion dollars a year) which will keep our annual GDP growth at about 2%, and give us a national debt of about 83% of GDP by 2019.  Now those of you with a handy ‘back of the envelope’ can join me in this little exercise – pencils ready?

Today’s GDP is about $14 trillion, so in ten years at 2% per annum growth, our GDP will be 14*(1+0.02)^10 = $17 trillion.  And our national debt will then be 0.83*17 = $14+ trillion.  This debt will be serviced at, say, 5%.  So the annual cost just to service the debt will be 0.05*14 = $700 billion which will be 700/17,000 = 4+% of GDP.  Remember, in all this we are not paying down one penny of the overall national debt.  We’re just making interest payments so the Chinese won’t get piqued (the more polite form of pissed).  The punch line is how all this will impact the hunk that the feds already take out of GDP every year.  During times of prosperity and growth, that fraction has been about 20%.  But as the good professor Art Laffer has shown, we’re on the back side of his curve, so taking out more of the GDP in taxes will most certainly increase our misery index (remember that from the 1970s).  Now you can crumple and toss that envelope. 

One thing you can bet the farm on though, reality will be worse, much worse if hopeless change becomes the law of the land.  (The astute reader can immediately see another compelling reason why the dollar must be inflated to smithereens during this interval.)  Compared to government, Madoff was a piker.

Congressman McClintock Comes to Our House

George Rebane

Where but in America can a poor immigrant boy just off the boat (in 1949) have the privilege of hosting his Congressman, along with many friends and neighbors, for a lunch at his house?  That is where over forty of us welcomed Congressman Tom McClintock and some of his staff for an al fresco affair under the trees on this warm day with a thankful breeze that kept the air moving.

Last spring Kim Pruett, Tom’s field rep in Nevada County, invited us to put on this little do, and then did a great job in helping get the word out and getting the congressman here on time.  Jo Ann and I are twenty-year fans and supporters of Tom, and we got a little excited about this gig.  Our previous experience was hosting candidates who spoke to smaller groups inside our house.  For us this was big stuff, and, as always, my sweetie-pie rose to the occasion.  Lots of discussions about alternative signage, sitting arrangements, food, drink, trash, parking of cars, it all came together – Ike would have been proud.

In the end, the thing was set up as Jo Ann wanted it, and when the all the folks arrived, they did pretty much what they wanted anyway.  It all worked out beautifully, thanks to the crew of stalwarts who arrived early to help, and help they did.  Thanks to all and to those who brought even more goodies.  It was a real neighborhood deal.

After everybody loaded their plates and sat down, Congressman Tom gave us an overview of some of the battles going on in Congress, especially with the recent action on the Waxman-Markey (cap n’ tax) bill and the upcoming healthcare legislation.  As always, Tom’s encyclopedic knowledge of American history and who’s on first was very impressive.  Then came the Q&A and group discussion part.