Rebane's Ruminations

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.

Breaking Bread – ‘2nd Amendment and Gun Control’ (updated 10may13)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 3 May 2013.  I have included an extensive addendum to memorialize the structure of the current gun control debate in our country’s widening ideological schism, and to illustrate key factors in the asymmetric understanding and approach taken by the Left and Right when they meet in a public forum such as was provided by the 1may13 edition of ‘Breaking Bread’ on NCTV.  To view this and past episodes go here and search archives with 'Breaking Bread'.]

Last month our community television station NCTV launched Breaking Bread, a new independently produced program airing monthly and available online.  Breaking Bread is an hour-long program featuring discussions of national issues and current events.  At the start I want to emphasize that the program’s objective is to present and clarify the different perspectives in our socio-political landscape from which people view the issues that “alter and illuminate our times”. 

The program will feature co-hosts and guests who as a group will represent a diversity of views and seek to make them understood.  And where possible, we will also try to reach some consensus.  Therefore Breaking Bread is not intended as a debate but an open, unformatted, and unrehearsed get together wherein the participants offer their own views on the topics discussed.

The program debuted on 5 April during which its five co-hosts were introduced discussing ‘Language and Labels’.  You can access the inaugural edition on NCTV’s website at nevadacountytv.org or from this commentary’s transcript posted on my website.  The same will be true for all subsequent editions of the program – after all, this is the 21st century.

We recorded the second edition of Breaking Bread, titled ‘The 2nd Amendment and Gun Control’, on 1 May, last Wednesday.  The program was co-hosted by Paul Emery, KVMR news director, and me, George Rebane, introduced as “a conservetarian blogger and commentator with a lot of birthdays and, some say, a contentious ideology.”

Joining as guests were Nevada County’s Sheriff Keith Royal, Mr Norm Sauer, a retired lawyer who lectures on constitutional affairs, along with Mr and Mrs Nick and Amanda Wilcox who tragically lost their daughter Laura to gun violence.  They are prominent gun control advocates and supporters of the Brady Bill.

In framing the discussion that followed, I reminded viewers that people of the Left, who advocate for stronger gun controls or even confiscation, approach gun ownership from an episodic or topical point of view.  Their stated objective is to reduce gun violence, or more specifically, gun deaths.  And the statistics they cite, along with descriptions of horrific episodes of murder and mayhem, are designed to grossly simplify the issue, and get the listener to focus on events that everyone wants to prevent, and wishes that had never happened.  Liberal academics have identified this common and effective tack of public debate as ‘issues activism’, basically a bottom up approach that the Left uses to induce the desired public opinion.

The Right approaches gun ownership top down through the 2nd Amendment, arguing the intent and writings of the Founders in their drafting of our Constitution.  They see the real purpose of grassroots gun ownership as necessary to keep government from going rogue, and if it does, then as a last resort, to launch a successful revolution.  This, after all, was the explicit intention left to us in the legacy of our country’s early years.  While the Right does admit to the need for some regulation in who gets to own what armaments, it points to history that records tyrannical governments killing their own citizens in the hundreds of millions during the 20th century - all as a matter of intended policy, and not related to wars or combat.  Such killing by governments is called democide, which took over 260M lives during the 20th century.

So, of gun violence one must ask, ‘Would you sacrifice ten lives to save 10M lives?’  Yes, of course.  Or ‘Would you sacrifice 10M lives to save ten lives?’  Of course not.  But for such a trade-off the correct answer for each of us lies somewhere in between, and in the realworld the numbers are never known for certain, but must be estimated using probabilities.  For those who don’t understand the role of probabilities in assessing realworld uncertainties, as is required in making public policies, then any reasoned discussion of such policies will be inaccessible to them.  Instead, we will hear from them nothing but their emotional outpourings on the matter.  But then, reasonable discussion has never been a necessary prelude to legislation or regulation.

My name is Rebane, and I expand on this and related themes on NCTV and on georgerebane.com where the addended 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.

Addendum:  The Asymmetry of Information and Tactics in the Gun Control Debate

With this addendum I want to reflect on the experience from taping the second edition of Breaking Bread (BB2) covered in the above transcript of 3may13 KVMR commentary.  The experience of that telecast both confirmed and expanded on the asymmetry of information and tactics used by the Left and Right in today’s gun control debate.

Ruminations - 26apr13 (updated)

George Rebane

Lady Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, I keep coming back to it.  The occasion was one of those rare opportunities to recognize a giant in the pantheon of modern world leaders, and nations sent their most distinguished there to honor her achievements for her country and for demonstrating to the world the art of the possible.  President Obama had the good sense to send former Secs State Kissinger, Shultz, and Baker, instead of selecting some subset from the current diplomatic dwarves that form the leading echelons of his own administration.  Kudos to the President.

In the aftermath of the Boston bombing, Bostonians celebrated their police cadres' service to the city – perhaps too prematurely.  Upon reflection, of which there is a lot going on now, in the 26apr13 WSJ Dr Judith Miller of the Manhattan Institute draws a distinction between what the NYPD has been doing since 9/11 and the dropped balls of Boston’s finest (and, of course, the feds).  In essence, the city fathers and mothers of Boston – the birthplace of 9/11 – decided not to do anything serious about tracking domestic jihadists.  Therefore, the contribution of their constabulary was strictly reactionary wherein, as from a Keystone Cops movie, we saw combat armed cadres trundle hither and yon while shutting down an entire city.  After all is said and done, it was the private citizens who fingered the terrorists, Muslim jihadists that weren’t even on the Boston PD’s radar before they set off the tragic explosions.  The police action ended with an entire platoon of Boston’s finest heroically pouring automatic rifle fire into a boat in which the surviving terrorist was already bleeding to death.

Helicopter Ben of the Fed is looking to raise interest rates because he has to.  No matter his promise to keep them low until our hoaky unemployment rate drops below 6.5%, or at least until 2015.   He is quietly checking with the big banks as to how/whether they might survive if their lending portfolios would suddenly be ‘marked to market’, and consequently plummet as interest rates took off.  Right now QE3 at $80B+ per month of Treasurys buying is keeping rates low.  That new money is actually not doing the economy much good (witness today’s disappointing 2.5% GDP growth update) since banks don’t want to lend the stuff at current low rates while anticipating the return of sanity when the markets actually start setting interest rates again.  Have seatbelts handy.

Econuts and divers sorts of animal activists are the leading phalanx of 21st  century luddites.  Two recent reports of their insanities highlight the cadre of terrorists that uniquely derive from the far Left.  One report – ‘Animal-rights activists launch a rodent rescue and set back research that might help cure Alzheimer's or autism’ – details of how these western moral equivalents of ragheads trashed years of research at the University of Milan, research that was heading to broadly benefit humankind.   Another reports on how American econuts have isolated King Cove, a remote Alaskan town, from its medical life line with the fiat-emplaced Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.  The administration's wildlife idiots will not even allow a gravel road through the ‘refuge’ (already laced with such roads) on which an ambulance or EMT vehicle can be used in medical emergencies.  The result, “A dozen residents have died attempting to reach medical attention since the preserve's creation.”  Details here of yet another chapter from the record of our fundamental transformation to socialism.

[update]  RL 'Bob' Crabb's cartoon in the 27apr13 issue of The Union draws our attention once again to the scumbags in Sacramento.

CTA on ‘cultural competency’ – a peek into the pus

George Rebane

Our society is covered with plenty of boils and pimples from our attempts to do the ‘right thing’ with all the political correctness we can muster.  A correspondent sent me a piece on the California Teachers Association website in which the union highlights the politically correct sensitivities and behaviors of teachers confronting students who come to their classrooms from different cultures – ‘Are You Culturally Competent?’  It is definitely worth a read for a better understanding of what goes on behind the curtain that ails us.

The American school is one place where a student new to our country should unambiguously learn what are our customs, language norms, behavioral protocols, dress codes, etc in the course of being taught the subject matter for which he is attending class.  There is already precious little time to get the lesson into the little darlings’ heads without detours to account for what may or not be familiar or acceptable to one or another student.  The lesson behind the lesson that the foreign student should learn is that when he’s in American society, then do as Americans do.  His home and relatives, not the classroom, are the place and people to teach, practice, and perpetuate his culture of origin. 

The fundamental lesson to be learned is that we Americans respect your culture to the extent that you learn and practice America’s culture when in our public arena.  We want you to become at one with us, and not the other way around.  Diluting that effort to acculturate foreign students in our schools in order to demonstrate ‘cultural competency’ works to impede, or at least slow down, assimilation.  And this goes doubly for students who come from global cultures which have already self-declared and demonstrated themselves to be inimical to traditional American values and mores.  (As a non-English speaker from Europe, I was among the tens of thousands of foreign kids fortunate enough to have been introduced to America in public schools at a time when such progressive impediments were not in vogue.)

In sum, this is yet another illustration from the catalog of crap that burdens unionized teachers in public education to the ultimate detriment of us all.

US Murder Rate History [Addended] (updated 27apr13)

 

George Rebane

In doing some research for the upcoming Breaking Bread episode on the Second Amendment, I found this clear summary of America’s murder rate.  It is compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center using FBI statistics. These numbers and the trend overwhelm the infrequent episodic mass killings that have occurred over the last years.

Guns account for approximately 75% of the means used to murder people in America according to factcheck.org (I thought it would have been higher).  The rate of guns used for murder has been going down for the last twenty years, while gun ownership has been steadily rising.  In 2007 Americans owned about 89 guns for every 100 people.  And other gun violence numbers also going down are ‘gun aggravated assault’ and ‘gun robberies’ which in 2011 were the lowest since 2004.  All this goes to illustrate and highlight the bogus nature of the recently failed gun control bill in Congress, and the misleading arguments used by the nation's gun control crowd even before the Second Amendment considerations are included.
 

[Addendum]  Apropos to the ongoing gun control debate, the following is a verbatim extract from one of several such emails that are circulating among conservatives, and fueling the polarization of Americans.  I post the email in its entirety to let our liberal readers understand what also fuels the emotions of the Right; emotions that go beyond the more reasoned and measured arguments usually made by conservatives in defense of the Second Amendment, and the private ownership of arms and the concealed carry of guns.  The Brunswick, Georgia mother most certainly could have used one, and should have had one to protect herself and her baby.  The murder is reported by CNN here, and the Crime Library site gives some background here on the alleged killer’s family.

Ruminations – 4apr13 (updated 5apr13)

Have just a touch of the commercial in you.  Do not merely shop, but trade a little.  Gracian #232

George Rebane

Been on travel with some friends for the last couple of weeks.  We attended the Mercatus Institute’s annual retreat in Scottsdale.  The big issue discussed was socialism’s onslaught on capitalism – ‘Can American Capitalism be Saved?’ – and who is doing what to bring it down.  I’ll cover more of that in a future post.  But here I just want to include an observation gleaned on our way to Scottsdale.

We stopped overnight in a Needles, CA RV park, and were pretty much shocked at the state of that once prosperous gateway town to California that lies on I-40.  The town is an economic disaster area, a relic of former times, and a step away from being a derelict or even a ghost town.  What made the sight of Needles so stark was its comparison with Arizona that lies a stone’s throw across the Colorado River.  We wanted to eat out and also buy some RV items.  Nothing available in Needles.  But a drive across a little bridge brought us into a dynamic and bustling commercial area that was an extension of Bullhead City, AZ which lay twenty miles to the north.  It was like driving back to West Berlin through the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie in the days when communism ruled East Germany.

The most telling part was instantly apparent from the bridge looking northward.  The Arizona side was filled with well-kept and landscaped riverside houses, each with their own boat dock; the California riverside was weeds as far as the eye could see that continued a good piece inland.  Huell Howser, RIP, could have done one hell of program on Needles and what happened to ‘California’s Gold’.

Governor Moonbeam and entourage are heading to China.  Their purpose is to talk the Chinese into making investments in California that people more knowledgeable about the state won’t.  They also want Chinese to buy more stuff made in California that we can’t sell elsewhere at prices that bring a profit.  I can’t imagine China buying anything that we are selling save some technology that they still don’t have and want to copy.  The same goes for making investments.  They would like to take major positions in high-tech companies dealing in IT and genomics.  One thing is for sure, they will not be buying any ‘green technology’ from us.  There they have us beat on both price and performance, and will continue selling the stuff to us.

But come to think of it, they may talk Team Moonbeam into mandating and/or subsidizing the purchase of Chinese green stuff.  Nothing like getting a twofer from being America’s creditor.

Connecticut has now taken the lead in nutty gun control laws, while again demonstrating that all states were not created equal in their ability to sensibly legislate.  Today their Governor Malloy signed the “most sweeping” gun control bill in the nation that is supposed achieve new levels of “gun safety”.  It will, of course, do none of that.  (more here)

Meanwhile, despite President Obama’s national campaign to disarm America, more states are easing gun regulations than are bolstering them (more here).  The message there is clear – don’t disarm sane, stable, law-abiding citizens, but do more to identify and intercede with people who are clearly not qualified to possess firearms, and maybe not even to walk on the sidewalk.  To be fair, Connecticut’s new law also attempts to address that part which was the only germane factor in their Newtown massacre.

[5apr13 update]  Here's a Quote of the Day from the Los Angeles Times about something I strongly believe and wish I would have said.

"Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're Number One. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."

-- Columnist Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles Times

The Liberal Mind on Choices and Fortune

George Rebane

Capitalism works best when corporations must woo their customers instead of government.

There is something in the liberal mindset that does not understand ‘choice’ when applied to individual responsibility.  In a recent comment stream one such reader stated –

“Do people actually choose to be poor? How many poor people would refuse a million bucks if handed to them by their daddies? Do people choose to die young because they can't afford proper healthcare? Do people choose to be hungry or watch their children starve? Do people choose to be homeless and sleep under a tarp in the snow? Do people choose to be miserable? I think not. "Individual choice" is corporate double speak for the freedom to pollute, sell us products that are unsafe, and use our children as cannon fodder to rid the world of leaders and economic systems not to their liking, all in the name of profit. Don't you get that you are being conned?”

Since the apparent answer to such ‘choose’ questions is NO, then that is sufficient reason to 1) require those not so afflicted be forced to sustain the afflicted, and 2) that there is a mysterious yet substantial connection between the notion of ‘freedom to choose’ and a nefarious catalog of corporate misbehaviors.  Before going further, I want to emphasize that such a belief and its follow-on reasoning is a common thought pattern among our liberal brethren – the above commenter is not flying solo.

Astounding as it may be, it is clear that the liberal does not consider or understand the causal sequence of mediating events/states that is usually involved between a decision to do/be or not, and the resulting state of misfortune.  They see it as a one step process – you either chose to, say, “watch your children starve”, or it was visited upon you by fate.  And since no one would really choose misfortune, it had to be the result of spontaneous and pernicious fate, or worse, the inevitable outfall of capitalism, corporatism, Christianity, greedy enterprise, free markets, and other divers trappings of social injustice.