Rebane's Ruminations

Tea Party Patriots welcomed Dr Anna Haynes

George Rebane

This evening Jo Ann and I, along with a neighbor, attended the monthly Nevada County Tea Party Patriots meeting that filled the Easterly Hall of the Nevada County Realtors Association.  We were happy to see Dr Anna Haynes sitting in the throng, listening with great interest to the speakers, and taking notes.  Dr Haynes is not a stranger to these pages (some background here).

Dr Haynes is also a recognized liberal voice in Nevada County who writes the blog Nevada County Focus  and is the creator/operator of Nevada County Voices, a true community internet resource, where even RR is recognized as one such voice (consigned to the rightmost ‘Denialism/Climate contrarians’ column).

What made her attendance noteworthy was that the lady is a dedicated investigator of all things tinged with conservatism.  And in that TPP is proud to be a bit more than tinged because of its unique grounding principles – small government, fiscal responsibility, constitutionalism, and free market capitalism – that derive from our fundamental belief in individual liberty as interpreted by our Founders.

From Dr Haynes’ previous writings and personal encounters one might come away with the distinct impression that she is a collectivist’s collectivist in her socio-political leaning.  So to now see her in attendance at a meeting of local folks who lean the other way is both hopeful and heartening.  Perhaps, her study of our organization’s core principles, grass roots structure, and non-partisan political action has inspired her to give us another look; and who knows, even consider becoming a member?  If so, I will be the first to celebrate her epiphany, and welcome her into our midst.

Ruminations - 29jun2011

George Rebane

MediaMatters.org has declared “war” on Fox News.  This far left organization, one of many such enterprises receiving funds from George Soros, is seeking to squelch speech with which it disagrees.  This type of political action is a common distinguishing feature of progressive tactics drawn from the Saul Alinsky play book Rules for Radicals (1971).  Can you imagine the howling on lamestream media if any conservative voice even suggested that a liberal voice be constrained?  But about such programs as “Drop Fox” the lamestream is dead silent.

Team Obama has declared that its plans for the economy have not worked, and that they are now bankrupt of any new ideas.  Instead of offering something concrete in its next step to fix the economy (starting, say, with a budget), Team Obama has reverted to that perpetual bamboozle of delivering stump speeches criticizing the specific conservative programs now on the table.  An example is the President’s call for America to again “take the lead in manufacturing”.

It’s a safe smokescreen since his constituents are too dense to figure out that this can only happen through massive technological advances that increase worker productivity to unheard heights, thereby reducing manufacturing jobs to an absolute minimum.  Obama voters instead have visions of jobs, jobs, jobs - thousands of factory workers with lunchboxes coming out of big factory gates heading home for the evening after a well-paid workday (remember the newsreels of 40s and 50s?).  And the Community Organizer in Chief will do everything he can to imprint this fantasy on every simple mind in the land that can be registered to vote.

Lt Gen John R Allen, slated to replace Gen Petraeus in Afghanistan, testified to Congress that Obama’s announced 10,000 troop drawdown was NOT among the alternatives offered by the Pentagon to the President as he had claimed (oops!).  That little political alternative was stitched up out of whole cloth by a White House responding to the hard left burr under its blanket.

But the puzzlement about Allen is his turnabout statement, "Although I was not a participant in those discussions, I support the president's decision and believe that we can accomplish our objectives."  (The next theater commander on the ground was not consulted on what means he would have left to carry out what kind of objective??!!)  And since there is no way to achieve any straight-faced objective in Afghanistan after telegraphing our departure, why would a senior Marine general close out his career overseeing America’s drawn out retreat designed by a politician for his own political gain?  An honorable alternative would have been, “Mr President if we are to leave, then let us be out of there before Christmas.”  Retirement would have been another one.

The AtPac Suit – More fumes ascending (updated 16jul2011)

George Rebane

Nevada County issued a professional services contract to SC Consulting in Pollock Pines contemplating work that started on 10 June 2011 and was completed on 24 June 2011.  The presumed purpose of the contract was for the consultant, Steven Steinbrecher, to conduct an investigation, comprised of a series of interviews with county management and staff, in order to finally get to the bottom of the server scrubbing issue that is so prominent in the AtPac lawsuit which names Nevada County, Aptitude Solutions (Florida company), and Clerk-Recorder Greg Diaz as defendants.  (For more background see my 21apr11 KVMR commentary and search RR with ‘AtPac’) 

I received a pdf copy of this contract that is also available from the Nevada County's website here.  It is more or less a standard professional services contract of the type I have both worked under and have myself employed consultants.  What caught my eye about this contract was the form of its “Exhibit A” that contains the Schedule of Services and Statement of Work.  The exhibit begins with a startling and gratuitously worded preamble that appears to limit the scope of the procured investigation from the gitgo, and thereby provides cover for everyone in the county above and including County Counsel Michael Jamison.  To wit, it reads –

Schedule of Services

(Provided by Contractor)

Information Systems employee Kathy Barale ordered the "scrubbing" of the Aptitude AS server that made unrecoverable certain data, that may have had relevance to pending litigation, after a litigation hold email was issued from the County Counsel’s Office. The County is interested in learning why Ms. Barale proceeded with the scrubbing process. If the issue surrounds procedural flaws, what steps, if any, can be taken to minimize the chance of a recurrence? The report is to be delivered to the County Counsel and should be treated as an attorney-client communication and attorney work product.

Statement of Work …

From this we see that Mr Steinbrecher is the attributed author of this remarkable preamble to his own Statement of Work.  Yet it is hard to believe that he could or would conclude that Ms Barale “ordered the scrubbing of the Aptitude AS server” before starting his work.  Furthermore, he also preemptively states that County Counsel issued a “litigation hold email” that presumably gave directions to preserve any and all materials that may be considered evidence in the case.  This seems to clear Mr Michael Jamison of any further responsibility in the matter, since by issuing this email he performed his duty in protecting evidence.  Did Mr Steinbrecher really supply all these a priori conclusions that were to become part of the baseline to his contracted work?

Finally, should the work product that the consultant delivered have been to someone who would reasonably have been one of the subjects of the investigation – what was the content of that “litigation hold email”, who wrote and sent it, to whom, when, … ??  And the conclusions of the investigation were then delivered in confidence to that same reasonable subject of the investigation in a manner and format that can keep it permanently from seeing the light of day.

One could further reasonably ask why Mr Jamison would not have recused himself from this effort, and have the Deputy County Counsel Ms Allison Barratt-Green receive Mr Steinbrecher’s report and determine its further disposition.

To me it seems that this contract adds yet another puzzling aroma to a case that has already amply stimulated our olfactory senses.  Now if we had a real Grand Jury … .

[30jun2011 update]  Opening this morning’s Union at breakfast revealed the belated but blaring headline ‘County orders investigation in AtPac case’.  With its usual policy of attributing primacy on this development, the newspaper goes on to review the case and append the latest maneuver from the Rood Center.  Apparently the unusual declaration in the Schedule of Services highlighted above was sufficiently odd as to require further explanation by Mr Jamison who, according to The Union, “couldn’t confirm Barale had ordered the scrubbing, from documents he has access to, and said the mention of Barale in the contract was a characterization of her actions, rather than an exact recounting of events”.  Really?

Let’s read that again; it sure looks like a pretty strong “characterization” that most English speakers would take for a statement of fact that Ms Barale did indeed “order” the scrubbing.  And just who did the 'characterizing' of Ms Barale - Mr Steinbrecher (as represented in the Exhibit) or Mr Jamison (whose emailed directive was disobeyed) or Mr Haffey (who signed for the county) or Mr Monaghan (Ms Barale’s boss) or …?  It just gets curioser and curioser.

Barry Pruett's Inside Nevada County Politics has more on this case.

[1jul2011 update]  Rick Haffey, County Executive Officer, announced in today's Friday Memo that county counsel has tendered his resignation effective 1 October 2011.  This was also pointed out and expanded upon by Barry Pruett and Russ Steele in the comments below.

http://www.theunion.com/article/20110702/NEWS/110709964/1066&ParentProfile=1053

[2jul2011 update]  In my conversations with the county’s CEO, Chief Counsel, and Risk Management Officer, as reported here, I urged them strongly to become more open in the information they supplied to the public on the litigation the county was involved in and about the AtPac case in particular.  Mr Jamison said that the county would take that under advisement, although at the time he could say very little about the AtPac case other than promising that someone from outside counsel would call me (they never did).

Apparently the county has started to open their litigation portfolio door a little bit as reported in today’s Union (here).  Given the information from this article, it would be of great interest to compute the net present value of the AtPac litigation costs taking also into consideration the significant increase in our liability insurance premiums that would most like result from this case’s settlement.

[16jul2011 update] County CEO Rick Haffey reported the following in this week's Friday Memo to the Board of Supervisors.

CSAC-EIA Reimburses County for Atpac Litigation Costs: Peter Cheney, our Risk Manager, reports that the County has received $618,758.10 from the County’s insurance carrier CSAC-EIA. This is reimbursement for defense costs in the Atpac litigation matter.

Democracy Bound on the Ship of Fools (updated 28jun2011)

George Rebane

Lately our American ship of state has taken an historical pummeling, and the beating literally goes on as you read this.  The remarkable part is that our country was designed and built so well that it can take a decade (generation?) or two of utter mismanagement, and still provide a world class home for its citizens, most of whom don’t know and don’t care what is happening.  You see, the pummeling is coming from the inside, we’re doing it to ourselves.

Our leaders in the aggregate are fools who were sent to the capitols by their equally foolish constituents – that’s us.  So today we see them monkeying with the machinery of state, pulling levers and turning knobs the effects of which they have not a clue.  They do it for the show that we expect to see from our leadership – don’t leaders always pull levers and turn knobs on the ship of state?

In recent days we have seen everything from “leadership from behind”, to the breakdown of the national fisc, to buying votes with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to admission (by the Bernank) that no one within the beltway really knows what is happening.  The only real game that is being played by all the electeds is ‘How can I make sure the crap doesn’t hit me so that I can get re-elected?’  We really are putting to the test the question ‘are people in the aggregate capable of governing themselves?’  The historical answer by princes and philosophers has been a resounding NO.

Yes, Liberal Nostalgia

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my bi-weekly KVMR commentary that aired on 24 June 2011.]

Many of us small time political philosophers have long maintained that progressives are really not all that progressive.  That most of their ideas are pretty moss-backed, have been around for more than a few centuries, and have been tried again and again since at least the French revolution in the late 18th century – all to no avail.

For such thoughts we backwoods conservetarians – yes, that’s a new feather in our political plumage describing a conservative with a dash or a dollop of libertarian thrown in – we backwoods conservetarians have been pilloried by collectivists of all hues.

This week Michael Barone, a big media gun and fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a piece entitled ‘The Surprising Roots of Liberal Nostalgia’.  In it he draws a taut line between the American ‘Midcentury Moment’ – the years from the late thirties to the early sixties – and the longings of today’s progressives working once more to fundamentally transform our country.

Unified Field Bank – like a bad penny

George Rebane

… it just keeps coming back to Nevada City.  Last March I did a KVMR commentary on what obviously looks at best like the blind leading the blind, and at worst like a scam.  (‘Community Partnership Banking – Worm Farm 2?’)  Their nearby poster (click to enlarge) announces a “follow-up” to the “enthusiastic response” they got a few months ago.  It is not clear when this next enthusiastic response occurred or is scheduled since there is no “Tuesday, June 23, 2011”, and the Sierra Commons does not answer its phone.

In any case, they’re baaaack!

Employment and Income Inequality

George Rebane

[This piece is the last of a four part series on taxes, jobs, and income that includes, in order of posting, 'The Administration Discovers Shortage of Engineers', 'Higher Tax Rates = Lower Revenues',  'More Green Companies Heading for Greener Pastures', 'Employment and Income Inequality'.  It was motivated by two articles, one that appeared in the June 2011 IEEE Spectrum and the other in the 23jun11 WSJ on the need, disposition, and importance of technology workers to our country’s economy and future - a future which is being compromised by progressive politics and policies in the name of the misguided notion of ‘social justice’.]

Predictably when the economy is in the dumps, the usual voices on the left unlimber their class warfare guns and launch another assault on capitalism as the evil that has caused all the world’s problems.  Even a pseudo-free market has what are known as business cycles, always have and always will have.  A market is a dynamic complex system that is hard to control, and more so when centralized control is attempted.  Appropriately trained technologists know that distributed adaptive control is the best (and nature's) way to achieve semblances of stability – even Adam Smith taught us that back when we declared our independence from Britain.  The collectivist is forever ignorant of this, and sees vindication in his distorted belief in every slowly failing socialist economy – but the dots are never connected when crunch time comes, and blood is in the streets as we see in Greece and the countries now enjoying Arab springtime.

To convince ignorant audiences, the easiest targets for the socialists are the high earners in a capitalist economy.  Free market capitalism is a ruthless meritocracy that has constantly witnessed creative destruction – the new replacing the old as we distance ourselves from the cave.  Conservatives and libertarians celebrate this process in proportions equal to the energies progressives expend in their attempt to stifle it.  It is only in the ironic juxtapositions of their names that confuses the ideologically innocent – there is nothing progressive about the progressive.  To the socialist, the railroad brakeman’s job is socially just and forever.

But in the real world of technological advance, those with the brains, vision, and courage to invent and build things and methods that deliver to humanity products cheaper, quicker, and more capable, to those belong inordinate rewards.  And the more their products and services can be scaled, the more inordinate are such rewards which come from newly created wealth, and not, as claimed by the class warriors, from the pockets of the poor.  But the result is there for all to see, the people who can and will are the high earners, and those who can’t or won’t will be at the other end.

‘Estonia, the little country that could’

George Rebane

A friend and RR reader emailed me the link to a Washington Times article by Richard Rahn that summarizes the economic history of Estonia.  Readers may recall my posts from our 15-29jun08 visit back to the old sod (see posts under ‘My Story’, right column).  Misplaced modesty prohibits my adding anything to the Rahn article.  I only draw your attention to it as a part of the larger apologetics that may be seen to underpin my socio-economic biases expressed in these pages.  As such, the source may all be in my double-helix, or perhaps in the water I drank as a young child.  Hard to tell.

Keachie Again Misreads Rebane

George Rebane

Mr Douglas Keachie is a loud voice in the community and on local blogs.  A man of progressive persuasion, he is also a sometime commenter on these pages.  In his latest effort he attempts to reveal “three fatal flaws” in my 11jun11 Union column ‘Entrepreneurship 2011’.  His revelation was published as an Other Voices submission in the 21jun11 Union (here).

Mr Keachie launches his piece with the devastating deduction that I claimed the tax rate to be 100% (confiscatory) for all earnings above $250,000 – “The tax on net income above $250,000 is not 100 percent.”  It is easy to verify that nowhere in my column do I make such claim or anything that remotely resembles it.  From that point of departure Mr Keachie proceeds swiftly downward in his displayed comprehension of what I wrote, and in his understanding of the entrepreneurial enterprise in general.

There are two possible explanations for such errors.  The first is that Mr Keachie is among the many who have been short-changed by our public educational system.  And that would explain why his remarkable conclusions fall into the lower categories as documented in the longitudinal National Adult Literacy Survey   that is conducted every ten years by the National Center for Educational Statistics.  As the record shows, this is not the first time that Mr Keachie has had trouble understanding what I write.  (I have reported extensively on adult numeracy and literacy on these pages – RR keywords ‘numeracy’, ‘adult literacy’.)

The other explanation is that Mr Keachie is taking a page from Saul Alinsky’s manual of political discourse, and simply fabricating a set of ‘facts’, attributes, or other characteristics that can be ascribed to a person to be denigrated.  Such characteristics, derived from whole cloth, go on to serve as the ridiculed targets for the remainder of the presentation.  The reader, unfamiliar with the original, is then at the author’s mercy.

As to why The Union so prominently published Mr Keachie’s article, one can only guess.  Perhaps, through their over-worked editorial filter, my column represented an ideological bias that had to be ‘balanced’, and the Keachie piece was the only one at hand – any port in a storm.

More Green Companies Heading for Greener Pastures

George Rebane

[This piece is the third of a four part series on taxes, jobs, and income that includes, in order of posting, 'The Administration Discovers Shortage of Engineers', 'Higher Tax Rates = Lower Revenues',  'More Green Companies Heading for Greener Pastures', 'Employment and Income Inequality'.]

The left controlled lamestream has long touted the spawn of California’s AB32 as being the salvation of an economic new age for the state.  Well, as some of the shouted down voices attempted to inform the public (RR being one), not only has the heralded venture capital pulled out, but now we have the green companies themselves doing everything they can to minimize their California footprint.  They are either relocating, or expanding their subsidized operations in friendlier climes.  Consider the following from Kurt Brower’s Marketwatch Blog

1. Aptera Motors:

…the North County Times reported that Aptera, “which once had big plans to hire thousands to design and manufacture ultra-efficient cars in Oceanside, is trimming costs by moving its headquarters to Carlsbad while it searches for a factory in the auto-rich region east of the Mississippi River. ‘We are really scrutinizing our business,’ said Paul B. Wilbur, president and chief executive of Aptera Motors …. Wilbur said Aptera is likely to end up in a factory east of the Mississippi River …. Wilbur had previously said that Aptera would eventually employ 2,500 people. He also said 10,000 jobs would be created indirectly for component suppliers, retailers and other companies involved with Aptera. Source: North County Times story, May 17, 2011, “Manufacturing: Aptera to move headquarters to Carlsbad, place car factory out of state.”

2. Calisolar Inc.

…Calisolar Inc., a “green” company, is making a $750 million investment in Ontario, Ohio… Construction is expected to begin by October at a former General Motors plant. The Bucyrus Telegraph Forum reported that the company “would create 831 full-time positions at an average wage of $45,000, generating $37.3 million in annual payroll” with priority given to hiring local workers. Also, “About 1,000 construction jobs will be needed to ready the former GM plant” that will “marry an industrial process into a green energy solar sector .… Source: Bucyrus Telegraph Forum April 6, 2011 story “Calisolar in final stages of talks for Ontario site.”

3. Fallbrook Technologies Inc.

…The Austin American-Statesman reports that Fallbrook Technologies Inc., a company offering “green” technology improvements, which “has run its operations division from Cedar Park since 2002 , would agree to spend $5.5 million on a larger corporate operations center that would add at least 65 jobs by 2013 …. The company would use it for light manufacturing, engineering development and testing …. Fallbrook currently employs 60 people in Cedar Park …. the company will agree to maintain a combined payroll of $9.5 million by 2019 …. the company has two facilities in Cedar Park, one housing a test lab and a second for design engineers, both of which it has outgrown. “They’re both extremely crowded,” said a company spokesman. “We’re hiring people every month and we’re wondering where we’re going to put them.” Source: Austin American-Statesman, May 25, 2011 story, “Cedar Park to weigh $1.68 million incentive package for Fallbrook Technologies.”

4. Sharp — Solar Energy Solutions Group

…According to The Columbian, this “green” group will relocate from Sharp’s western regional office in Huntington Beach to its campus in Washington State…. Sharp Corp. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of solar cells and has been mass producing solar cells since 1963. It produces solar cells at two factories in Japan, and uses the cells to manufacture solar modules in five factories around the world, including one in Tennessee. Its website says the company created the world’s first solar-powered calculator and that its products power more homes and businesses than any other manufacturer.” Source: The Columbian, June 10, 2011 story, “Sharp Solar to move to Camas.”

5. WindStream Technologies, Inc.

…The company created small wind turbines designed for residential energy use, and Bates said WindStream is on pace to produce more than 40,000 units in three years …. New Albany could benefit from the 105 new positions WindStream plans to add …. A California native, Bates said several states vied for WindStream when the company launched. Source: New Albany News and Tribune, June 6, 2011 story, “Vote on Windstream loan likely to be tabled by New Albany council.” Additional Information: The New Albany News and Tribune reported earlier WindStream Technologies, Inc. will develop a multi-million dollar investment production facility in the New Albany and Purdue Research Park of Southern Indiana … by 2012. “The company — currently located in California — manufacturers wind turbines called TurboMills.” Source: New Albany News and Tribune, Nov. 23, 2009 story, “WindStream Technologies bringing 260 jobs to Purdue Research Park in New Albany by 2012″

And your Lucky Strike Extra is that California companies’ bums rush for the exits has now become a gallop.  Today there are thriving companies consulting to the state’s businesses wishing to relocate elsewhere – talk about a hot sunset industry that you might want to get into.  The exit rate today has grown to five times the 2009 rate, and it is still increasing as reported by The Business Relocation Coach.

Meanwhile, as these pages witness, the progressives are all arguing for raising more income tax from the state’s ‘rich’ who already account for about 70% of state revenues.  Anyone have any idea when the left will get a clue?

(H/T to RR reader for the latest heads-up.)