Rebane's Ruminations

Pipe Dream – Candidates’ Full Disclosure Act

George Rebane

Chatting around the dining table the other night, we reviewed all the laws that require sellers to fully disclose to the buyer the condition and relevant history of what is being sold.  Such full disclosure provisions as apply to real estate, cars, firearm purchases, medicines, and so on.

But when it comes to politicians who will not only affect our lives, but the future course of a state, or region, or even the whole country (world?), we are pretty much encouraged to buy a pig in a poke.  In vetting candidates for office, we rely on a hide-and-go-seek game between the candidate and the press, or the ‘political operatives’ of their opponents.  For all too many good reasons, today people think very little of journalism and journalists.  According to the Pew Center for the People and the Press, two out of three people think press reporting is “often inaccurate”; four out of five believe the press “tends to favor one side” and is “often influenced by powerful people and organizations”.

So here we go again, voting for some smooth talking, slicked down Sam or Sally, and later we happen to find out that s/he has been fighting clinical depression for years, has a law degree from an online diploma mill, ran two businesses into the ground, smokes pot regularly, or mysteriously lost a spouse whose remains have never been found.  You get my drift.

Wouldn’t it be better if there were a Candidates’ Full Disclosure of Material Facts law that requires each candidate to fill out an appropriately revealing questionnaire, and publish its answers online?  The questionnaire would also ask if there were any other material factors or incidents in the candidate’s past that would bear on a decision by a reasonable voter to reject the candidate.  The law would stipulate that knowingly providing false, incomplete, and/or inaccurate information constitutes perjury, and its subsequent discovery would be prima facie sufficient cause to start impeachment proceedings against the office holder.

Would such full disclosure laws on the books of the several states and in the US Code result in our becoming better informed voters while getting a better slate of candidates, and consequently a better set of politicians in office?  Or would there be collateral effects that outweigh any benefits, advising us to just suck it in and be satisfied with being led by sleazebags and morons?

Fetus + 12 inches = Baby

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 17 May 2013.]

OK, if you’ve been habitually glued to the lamestream media, you probably just recently heard of the murder trial of late term abortionist and now convicted hat trick killer Dr Kermit Gosnell.  According to court testimony Gosnell ran a lucrative back alley abortion clinic right out in the open, visible from the street, and accessible from the sidewalks of Philadelphia.  His dilapidated storefront, cynically named ‘Women’s Medical Society’ with logos of a happily bouncing toddler between mom and dad, had not been inspected by a pro-abortion city health department for more than 15 years.   During this time the sleazy and filthy walk-in was the scene of hundreds, perhaps thousands of murders until some of his employees simply could no longer take it.

Gosnell was convicted for killing three live babies out of the uncounted thousands that actually died at his hands during the many years his death factory was in operation.  Babies, that he or his staff were unable to kill twelve inches before the point at which they exited the womb, were then immediately dispatched after their births.  These live human beings, as witnessed and testified by Gosnell’s workers, were then quickly murdered by jamming scissors into the backs of their necks to cut their spinal chords.  The defense unbelievably argued that the delivered and visibly viable babies were already dead, but it left hanging the question as to why they then had to be killed again.

Now consider that our current pro-choice understanding is that a baby, a universally acknowledged human being, a human who could go on to live a productive and rewarding life, can be just twelve inches and seconds from having been designated a fetus.  And as a fetus, it is legally only a lump of protoplasm liable for summary execution by one of a dozen ways.  Gosnell’s preferred method was an in utero lethal injection that did not always do the job.  But not to worry, the clinic’s ‘medical staff’ was twelve inches and seconds away, ready and waiting with the scissors.

So here’s the logic of the matter – if twelve inches separate a live baby from a formerly live fetus, does that not also mean that twelve inches separate a live fetus from being a live baby, a live human being?  This is what the legalization of late term abortions comes down to in our civilized society.  Twelve inches and seconds between an innocuous clinical procedure and a prosecutable murder.

I apologize for the brevity of this commentary, but there simply isn’t anything more to say beyond reminding you that there are still many more Gosnells out there.

My name is Rebane, and I expand on this and related themes on NCTV and on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However these views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

Ruminations – 16may13 (updated 18may13)

George Rebane

The flowering Obamagate scandals are simply “controversies” as National Propaganda Radio spent a great deal of time this morning assuring its audience.  Nothing special here, the President always comes out to the formally prepared East Room in the evenings to remark on little kerfuffles or differences of opinion.  Everyone go back to sleep.

Pioneer aviator Lyman Gilmore was celebrated yesterday at the school of his name.  There was a big ceremony for students and speakers to recognize Nevada County’s contribution to early aviation.  The event included an organized overflight by a large group of local aviators, some of  them with national reputations.  The flight was comprised of 18 private aircraft led by Jim Booth in his now familiar yellow AT-6 warbird followed in close formation by three members of the Ryder Flight.  Getting all those airplanes in the air, oriented and lined up, and then back on the ground on a very windy day was a grand feat of organization and heads up piloting by all participants – H/T to our own Bob Hobert (Ryder Flight leader and RR reader, who also sent me the pic) for organizing and getting everyone briefed and debriefed.  I was happy to be invited by Jim to again fly in the rear seat of the T-6.

“Untruth” versus lie.  The media, led by Fox News, seems to have some problem with those terms.  Even the conservative Dr Charles Krauthammer (around our house known as ‘The Bonze’), their most noble of nationally syndicated commentators, dripping with gravitas, can’t bring himself to call a lie a lie – well, he did once last night.  On the air politicians aren’t lying, they’re telling “untruths”.  For us with simpler minds, an untruth is any statement that is not true independent of the intent behind its utterance – misreading a clock and then falsely reporting the time is an untruth.  A lie is a known untruth told with intent to deceive.  Most politicians are inveterate liars, it’s part of the job requirements – let’s call a spade a spade when their lies are obvious to the whole country.

Rosa Koire will present an update on Agenda21, and how this UN inititiative has been making progress ‘Behind the Green Mask’.  Here’s the info –

When:  Tuesday May 21, 2013, 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Where: Grass Valley Veterans Hall, 225 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley
Admission: $20 at the door; $15 in advance
Advance tickets: BriarPatch Co-op, online at www.cabpro.net (special events tab) or by calling CABPRO (530) 478-1331

Those of us a bit paranoid about government training guns on its own citizens (aka us), should keep their eye peeled on the first steps that our military has now taken in this direction.  Obama’s Pentagon has “unilaterally” granted itself powers to aid local law enforcement agencies to curb “civil disturbances” by changing some wording in the US Code covering ‘Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies’ (more here).

[update]  New  speech codes will be sweeping the nation starting with the college campuses and the revision of what consists of sexually harrassing speech.  This will not stop with either the campuses or sexual harrassment.  All the while our astute progressives are protesting, 'What new regulations? there're no more new regulations.  And let's talk about Bush instead.'  Obama's fundamental transformation is on a roll.  (more here).

[18may13 update]  Well, it looks like it's CYA time in embassy land, at least in the mid-eastern part of the world.  Now that everyone's attention is on the Benghazi debacle, tragedy, and cover-up, no ambassador in that part of the world is going to be left behind in alerting the mother temple (aka Foggy Bottom) that threats to their embassies and consulates are increasing.  (more here)  For sure Kerry is not going to hang on to Hillary's hand as he helps Obama throw her under the bus.  So we are sure to see some visible muscle deployed closer to where the action is anticipated.  And playing his cards right, maybe ol' John can emerge out of all this as the new, improved, and heroic hopeful for 2016.  Crazier things have happened.

Living in Obamastan – what’s not to like?

George Rebane

What was foretold has come to pass, he has delivered with a vengeance and a promise of more to come.

1.    Benghazi – ineptness, tragedy, cover-up, lies, demonstration of weakness, …
2.    Syria – inattention, ineptness, tragedy, loss of prestige and confidence, …
3.    Obamacare – national healthcare and economic disaster, ultimate partisanship, ineptness, uncertainty, lies about implementation, effect, costs, …
4.    Iran – ineptness, uncertain ally to mid-east friends, meaningless ‘red lines’, invitation to war, Islam’s war on west promoted, …
5.    Iraq – inept withdrawal, total loss of influence, waste of sacrifices made, bolster Iran
6.    Afghanistan – confusion, withdrawal guaranteed to leave region unstable, wasted sacrifices, Taliban will triumph, …
7.    North Africa – Al Qaida expands and triumphant, no clear policy, leading from behind in the wrong direction, relinquishing an entire continent, …
8.    IRS politicized – responsive weapon to target opposition groups, institutions, and individuals, agency radicalized, cover-up, lies, …
9.    EPA – rogue agency, congressional bypass, executive hammer, economic brake, fear in the land, uncertainty, disastrous impediments to a beneficient national energy policy, …
10.    Immigration reform – borders remain porous, amnesty, Democrat voter fast track, Reconquista, …
11.     US Economy – on permanent slow track, regulatory hell, uncertainty, inept/perfidious economic policy, systemic unemployment growth, constructive nationalization of business and industry, …
12.    American culture – in last stages of destruction, war on Christianity and European heritage, massive loss of freedoms, replaced by growing mass of government regulations, education system propagandized, class warfare ignited, …
13.    Fundamental Transformation of America – Agenda 21 provisions adopted while denied, military being castrated, intelligence/security apparatus remains stovepiped and compromised to combat homeland terror, government arming to combat Americans, goal to become a compliant peer member of the new global order, progress to mediocrity is on track.

This list is incomplete.

‘In Defense of Carbon Dioxide’ (updated 14apr13)

George Rebane

That is the title of a short but extremely important column by Professors Harrison Schmitt and William Happer that appeared in the 9may13 WSJ.  Readers know that I am a longtime skeptic of the ongoing climate change hysteria (especially the AGW part), and for technical reasons believe that results from data diddling and climate modeling have been at best questionable to incompetent science, or at worst blatently formulated to achieve political ends.

Schmitt and Happer present a science side of the CO2 phantasmagoria that IMHO has not received anywhere near the consideration it should have in the ongoing debate on the global insanity and local trans-hysteria (witness California’s AB32) that is going on.  The piece starts –

Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a "pollutant" in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

The whole article, from which the graphic was filched, can be read here.  Such information will make little impact on the lay reader whose beliefs about AGW are already well calcified.  But they should be an eye-opener for the serious intelligent reader still seeking direction on whether or not to support the steady “carbon footprint” diet that we are fed daily.

To keep up on the overall developments in the climate change forum please visit Russ Steele’s ‘The Next Grand Minimum’ and Anthony Watts’ ‘Watts Up With That’.

[14apr13 update]  Reasonable people who made a case before t₀ that Observable #1 may have been the cause of Observable #2, would reexamine their premises, let alone their conclusions, at some point after t₀.  The rest will be unfazed by the observed data.

 

The Senate’s Amnesty Bill (updated 10apr13)

George Rebane

The Senate will “mark up” and pass their version of immigration reform, probably tomorrow.  What is turning out to be an amnesty bill has drawn a lot of fire from the Right for a lot of reasons, not all of them flying in tight formation.  For example, the Heritage Foundation has published a report outlining some of the bill’s shortcomings and delivering the punch line that the net life-cycle cost of the legislation to the American taxpayer will be $6.3T over the 50-year time horizon covered.  Full report here.

The Cato Institute has declared the report to be bull pucky because Heritage did not use "dynamic modeling and scoring" when they simulated the impact of putting 11M+ illegals through the Senate’s immigration process.  Instead, Cato's analysis says the Senate bill would “increase U.S. GDP by $1.5 trillion in the ten years after enactment.”  Yes, you got it right, they’re talking past each other comparing apples and oranges.  More here.

The Senate bill does have the usual Democratic flaws – no secure border, early start of government benefits, and shortened path to citizenship.  But I have a couple of concerns to add to these.  First, I don’t think that the 11M illegals will behave any differently from Americans with the same education levels enjoying the same benefits.  I don’t think that these new immigrants will continue ‘doing the jobs that Americans refuse to do’, instead they’ll behave just like Americans.

Second, I think that to keep their snouts in the trough, they will work and vote for candidates who promise to keep that trough filled.  (Their pardons will also motivate the rest of the Hispanic Americans to vote for their munificent providers.)  In short, as these people become franchised voters, they will provide the Democrats with an unassailable majority to pursue the provisions of Agenda21. 

Speaking again of systemic unemployment (an enduring topic on RR), this cohort of illegal aliens has nothing to recommend it in alleviating the current levels of under- and unemployed.  The cited dynamic models don’t account for the dynamism of accelerating technology; these ever hopeful models don’t recognize how the workforce now ratchets downward with every recession leaving a lower fraction of eligible workers participating in the workforce.  When the smoke clears from immigration reform, we will have just added to the level of systemic unemployment in the country.

With runaway debt levels, unfunded liabilities, mounting regulatory burden, insane healthcare, unabated green initiatives, and mounting tax burdens, the country is headed for its next economic shock that will most likely occur before 2016.  None of this is being discussed or even anticipated in the design of a reformed immigration law that will serve Americans’ interests.

[9may13 update]  The nearby photo of the Verizon ad in today’s WSJ is apropos to the discussion of immigration reform.  It shows a STEM worker contemplating a whiteboard full of squigglies.  I spent a good part of my time in harness in that position, either alone or with colleagues.  In those sessions time disappeared and reappeared only when the janitor stuck his head into my office or conference room where we were huddled, or the inevitable call from one of our wives informing us that we had missed dinner since the children had to be fed.  All that came with the territory.

The text at the bottom of the ad is not readable in the photo, but it is relevant when we consider how to prioritize whom we should attract to these shores.  It reads - Brains matter.  Particularly when you’re dealing with robots and algorithms.  But at Verizon’s Innovation Centers, you’ll see another constant.  Passion.  Smart people working overtime.  Running on fumes.  Because they know what technology can solve.  They know it can help doctors make a more informed diagnosis in seconds instead of months.  They know if we think long and hard enough, we can help insure a constant supply of clean energy.  Or help a fire fighter see through a blaze.  The hours are long.  But great.  Because we believe the world’s biggest challenges deserve even bigger solutions.

[10may13 update]  In my 'Teach Them to Code' post I argued that learning a programming language was a critical skill for young people to acquire.  Learning the elements of programming requires the student to be able to take a specification (or objective), break its achievement down into parts (or tasks), and understand the sequence and content (process or work required) in each of the parts.  In short, programming skills are transferable to countless other job areas beyond writing code.  And also vice versa; if a person has trouble learning to write simple code, they will probably have trouble organizing a job assignment.

In the 10may13 WSJ, Kirk McDonald, president of PubMatic, writes an open letter to this year’s new baccalaureate graduates telling them not only why he won’t hire them, but why they will have trouble getting a job anywhere – ‘Sorry College Grads, I Probably Won’t Hire You’.  His message is summarized by “If you're at all interested in media, technology or related fields, please learn a little computer programming."

McDonald reviews an oft ignored stat – in the next decade(!!) the US will produce only 40K computer science BS degrees, and also 120K new jobs requiring that degree.  And that’s only in computer science and not the entire STEM field of jobs in which the equivalent stats are even more distressing.  We all know where these jobs are going, and from where the needed people to fill them are coming.  In short, Americans will not be able to fill such gratifying career jobs, and McDonald’s point reinforces one often made on RR that such graduates with deficient degrees will not be able to fill very many positions that require college degrees.

The bottom line here is that our immigration policy should be heavily weighted toward attracting the talent needed to fill the burgeoning STEM and other wealth producing jobs versus inviting in people to do jobs that Americans have been taught are below their station in life.  A much needed national initiative should focus on getting Americans to do all jobs available in our land, and not further burden the country with more welfare programs and eager illegals willing to take any available job.