Rebane's Ruminations

Ruminations - 31mar2009 (updated)

George Rebane

A correspondent brought my attention to an excellent article (‘On the Urgency of Restructuring Bank and Mortgage Debt, and of Abandoning Toxic Asset Purchases’) by John Hussman of Hussman Funds about what’s not going on in Washington but should be.  Hussman’s bottom line is that “(t)here is far too little debate about alternative responses to this crisis.”  This dissertation is worth wading through to get an understanding of what could and should be but isn’t in the national debate on fashioning an effective response to the current financial crisis which by no means is over. 

The Wearin' of the Tea - Today I dutifully pinned a ‘plain old vanilla’ Lipton tea bag under the Old Glory pin on my lapel, and wore it to the Rotary's Student Speech Contest luncheon this noon at the Nevada City Elks Club – it’ll be on there through Tax Day.  The only response that I got was someone informing me ‘did you know you have a teabag stuck on your lapel?’  Perhaps everyone else already knew about the National Tea Party demonstrations scheduled at the country’s state houses for 15 April 2009.  Jo Ann and I are planning on being on the bus from Broad Street to Sacramento that morning, clutching our hand-made signs.  We’ve never been to a demonstration in our lives, and the way this one was publicized by the county’s Republicans, it doesn’t look promising – their email announcement has the wrong phone number with no follow-up correction.  Maybe the other counties are doing better, but I suspect it just goes to show you that conservatives are no good at putting together a big hoot n’ holler on some sidewalk.  The liberals can do one of those in a second, even with their brain tied up behind their back.  [update] The correct number to call for making your bus reservation is 530-265-9478.

“… Skype coming to the iPhone marks the beginning of the end of the phone as we know it. And I feel fine--even if Apple and AT&T don't.”  writes David Coursey in PC World.  Big changes for the better are on the way for cell phones, read more here. 

Tea Party Time

George Rebane

 

Well, April Fools Day is fast approaching, and on that appropriately named day many Americans will join the national tea party tax revolt by sending our electeds a simple yet elegant message that they are now spending us all into an egalitarian poverty.  To join the party, just drop a tea bag into an envelope and mail it.  Repeat the process until all your representatives have the wherewithal to brew a cup of tea, and quietly ruminate about what they are doing to our country.  

Here is a little inspirational message before you send your teabags to Washington to arrive on or before 15 April 2009.  Jo Ann and I are putting our return addresses on the envelopes, so that we will be counted.

And here is a website that will give you the snailmail addresses of your congressional electeds.  President Obama can be reached at The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC.

Ruminations - 29mar2009

George Rebane

A bit of financial crisis history from a 24sep08 Fox News broadcast - this link is from an RR reader in Oregon.  It was originally posted on YouTube but then removed.  I guess we’re not supposed to see it, but now it has been reprised here as a repost on YouTube from a Canadian site.  Hard to tell when the powers that be have it pulled again.

Here is General David Petraeus speaking to the World Affairs Council on the much talked about ‘surge’ now planned for Afghanistan by President Obama.  This is a recent (13mar09) talk that the CINC Central Command gave before the White House announcements of sending lots more troops to that primitive and fierce battleground.  Short, but worth a listen.

“The constitution that I am interpreting is not living, but dead.” – so maintains Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia here in a brief conversation with the Hoover Institution.  For those concerned with the maintenance of the American Republic, this is a reminder of the rising tide of change that is engulfing us all while we sit on our thumbs.

Last night’s Earth Hour 2009 power consumption curve on Russ Steele’s NC Media Watch tells a story of its own.  But I’m not sure the politicians with the stimulus bucks and the corporate suits with their hands out are listening.  One redistributionist poverty-ridden world, here we come!

Earth Hour 2009

George Rebane

General Chuck Fixes a Kitchen

George Rebane

The Sportsmens Club of Nevada County has a kitchen that’s a mite rickety and long of tooth.  The club’s board appealed to General Chuck Yeager, its most celebrated member, to lend a hand in raising some funds to upgrade the kitchen, and ‘A Night with General Chuck Yeager’ was put on everyone’s calendar for tonight.  The clubhouse at the range was packing fast when Jo Ann and I arrived a little before 630pm.  I had never seen the place decked out so fine with every corner filled with tables covered with blue tablecloths, silverware, and even patriotic centerpieces – after all we are a gun and archery club.

In the old kitchen they were cooking up what turned out to be the best corned beef and cabbage ever.  You had to hustle your own drinks from the bar.  Most of the seats were already taken except for two right up front which we snagged just in time.  After some lubrication, introductions with table mates, and good talk, the General and Mrs.Victoria Yeager came in and sat at the head table.

Then they started serving these wonderful plates of food which after a bite or two made everyone ask why the kitchen needed fixing if they could turn out good stuff like this – you know, if it ain’t broke … .  With all that food going down, the evening got into high gear.  Finally, General Chuck and Victoria were introduced, and a very professional and previously aired video of the aviator’s life was shown to remind the younger people that they were in the same room with a living legend of our times.

Nevada County Economic Forecast – 2009 (9apr09 update)

George Rebane

Nevada County’s economic prospects were the subject of a 200 person gathering this morning at the GV Holiday Inn Express.  Always interested in things economic and financial, Jo Ann and I were there munching breakfast with the movers and shakers of our community - I think we were allowed in on a forged hall pass.  This year’s Nevada County Economic Forecast was a worthwhile event that was hosted by Gil Mathew, President/CEO Nevada County ERC, and Judy Hess, President/CEO Citizens Bank of Northern CA.  The featured speakers were Mr. Gary Zimmerman, Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Dr. David Gallo, Professor of Economics, Cal State Chico.

TechTest2009

George Rebane

The third annual merit scholarship examination for Nevada County's high school seniors pursuing technology careers is scheduled for 4 April 2009 at the Nevada Union High School.  The merit part of this scholarship is somewhat unique today since the measure of merit is given by the students themselves instead of a committee looking at the candidate students’ resumes.  Sponsored by SESF (Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation), TechTest is a four-hour written examination of math and science questions which requires a student to apply skills learned in the classroom to new problems usually not encountered at the high school level.  In other words, if you’ve learned to use a hammer and saw to build a dog house; can you now use the same tools to build a gazebo?  You can get a better idea by examining last year’s TechTest2008 here.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what your gender or ethnic background or community service history or … is, your chance to win a scholarship is based solely on how you score on that examination.  Kinda like real life used to be.

This year SESF will again award $15,000 worth of scholarships with the top three scores pulling down $6,000, $4,000, and $2,000.  The next ten highest scores will each get $300.  The test will be administered and graded by the TechTest Academic Committee of high school teachers chaired by Mr. John McDaniel, NUHS’s award winning physics teacher.  The only requirement for a county high school senior to take the test is that s/he be qualified by his/her science or math teacher.

The test will be administered in the NUHS Science Lecture Hall between the hours of 9AM and 1PM.  In addition to calculators and blue books, students are allowed and encouraged to bring two hand-written letter-sized ‘cheat sheets’ containing any material they deem important (The intentionally busy background of the TechTest2009 poster nearby is a real cheat sheet that I composed and was allowed to bring to a final examination at UCLA.)   Thus armed, the scholarship candidates will bend to their considerable task on an exam designed to yield top scores in the 50 to 60% range.  This allows the students to concentrate on problems they can do the best on, and it lets the eagles really soar.  The exam’s four hour length assures that the candidates will ‘run out of brains’ before they run out of time.

TechTest was launched by SESF to fill a void in the county’s considerable scholarship programs.  The wealth generation that ultimately determines the quality of life in our nation derives primarily from the development and application of science and technology.  This scholarship program is a local grass roots effort to encourage and aid our qualified young people as they launch careers in this critically important area.  For more information, please contact your local science/math teacher or Mr. John McDaniel (jmcdaniel@njuhsd.com).  And please spread the word about this unintentionally best kept secret in Nevada County. 

Socialists in Denial

George Rebane

The intellectual Left seem to be the only holdouts on the now obvious direction of Hope and Change.  Their mantra, when confronted with a serious discussion about the country’s left turn, is ‘There’re no socialists here, oh no no nooooh!’  Meanwhile the socialists over the remainder of this planet are celebrating ‘America’s first socialist president’ (Kevin Rudd) while both wings of the media are acknowledging America’s new destination.  According to the latest survey by the liberal Center for American Progress, 43% of the country’s electorate now believes that government can manage the economy better than the private sector.  But the educated segment of our Left is not yet ready to hoist its true colors, and in private its members are still using the clintonian ‘what is is?’ cover when the telltale signs of socialism are pointed out to them.  Perhaps that insecurity is the only sign of hope left for the rest of us.

Ruminations - 18mar2009 (21mar09 update)

George Rebane

The Clinton Reset Button show sure had an impact.  A week later the Russians escalated their standoff with the US by announcing a new military build up and signaling a harder line with Washington, in the process making our new Sec State look like a clown (more here). The Russians have now shoved that little device into a place where the sun don’t shine, which may explain Hillary’s stiffer gait of late.  Put together with the recent antics of Iran, North Korea, China, …, Russia's response sure makes clear the changes we can expect with our new foreign policy.

This little video of Rep Corrine Brown on the floor of the House was sent by a correspondent asking ‘how do these people get elected?’.  The direct and probably correct answer is that we send to Washington people who are reflections of ourselves – a frightening commentary indeed when we consider the makeup of that crowd.

Can’t get the guns from us fast enough? - then go after the ammo.  The Sierra Bravos on Capitol Hill have a new tack on removing 2nd amendment rights - make ammo hard to get.  How about just doing it above board and passing a gun ban law that makes plain the Left’s agenda?  More here.

When Help Does Harm.  Dead Aid by black African Dambisa Moyo is the latest entry on the growing pile of compelling evidence that Africa has not benefited from the thousands of aid programs.  It joins ex-World Bank economist William Easterly (The White Man’s Burden – Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest have done So Much Ill and So Little Good) and others in a condemning assessment of the harm we have been doing overseas with government and private sector projects.  I believe it is a reflection of the same effect we have had in our land with the launch of social engineering programs that destroyed minority families, and the ongoing corporate welfare programs that destroy the ability of businesses to compete in open markets.  Disagreeing with Dambisa Moyo’s analysis puts one in the awkward position of concluding that there is something seminal in the make-up of black societies that prevents them from forming governments beneficial to their people.  More on a closer-to-home example here.

[21mar09 update]  Today the WSJ published a synopsis of Dead Aid in an article by Dambisa Moyo.  Here is the link for those who want to read the short form. 

Ruminations - 17mar2009

George Rebane

Happy Saint Paddy’s Day to all!  Kinda wish folks from Estonia also had enough of a presence in America to have an annual celebration of our ethnicity and contribution to the country.  But we are such a minority that if we were to be recognized, so would the folks from East Timor - and then where would we be?  Every day we’d have to pay homage to another foreign culture, leaving little time for our own.  Someone recently reminded me that we Americans don’t have a culture any more; at least not one that you’re supposed to celebrate.

Everyone’s frothing about the $165M of AIG bonuses.  Seeping out bit by piece, it now turns out that our government, with the loyal MSM in tow, has been doing a big cover-up on the real AIG story – how they got into the mess, what they did there, and how the bail out is being conducted.  The Capitol Hill hooligans and their regulators have a lot to answer for since at least 2005, and now they’re wanting us to keep focused on the bonuses so we don’t accidentally look under the wrong rocks.  Good overview here.

The full court press by the unions today on the country’s workplaces is cause for concern according to a retired executive from the US Postal Service.  He cites chapter and verse – ‘Going Postal with the Economy’ - how the USPS has been permanently done in by its employees’ union, and warns of initiatives like ‘card check’ (aka Employee Free Choice Act) that will ease the spread of the disease into other segments of American industry.  The basic game is the same, decouple reward from performance.  It doesn’t matter where it is played – private or public sector – the result is always the same, more money for minimal output.  Here the retired USPS executive writes, “If the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law the experience of the USPS will be magnified throughout the economy, creating a rigid labor market not unlike what is found in Europe.”  Don’t you love the way the ‘honorables’ in Washington name their handywork?  You can bet the ranch that if it includes ‘free choice’ in the name, it is designed to eliminate the same.

Here’s one that gets two birds with one stone.  Increase the H1-B visa quotas to attract more foreigners educated in the needed skills our kids now avoid, and ease their way into permanent residency if they purchase a home here.  A couple of capitalists, LeFrak and Shilling, detail the benefits here.  What do you think the chances are that the congressional clowns will actually make this happen?

White House comment line - 202/456-1414; Sen Diane Feinstein - 202-224-3841; Sen Barbara Boxer - 202/224-3553.