Rebane's Ruminations

The Dems’ Big Lies Intensify

George Rebane

We all know how asymmetrical are the lies from both sides in the media and by politicians.  The Right and Left can’t even agree on the definition of which lies (exaggerations?) are consequential, hence ‘Big’, and which are incidental pabulum and of no moment in the public forum.

While legion in number, certain Democrat lies achieve prominence now and then in the political fray of today’s election season.  Here we focus on abortion as featured in the 8oct24 WSJ lead editorial ‘The Abortion Distortion Campaign’ – “As Republicans move to the middle, Democrats falsely claim their opponents favor a national ban or no exceptions for rape or incest.”

A more detailed look brings the following uncountable daily assertions by progressives – all lies.

• Republicans support “a registry of pregnancies.” 
• “[Donald] Trump is trying to create this new government entity that will monitor all pregnancies to enforce their abortion bans.”
• Republican candidates want to “allow state governments to track pregnant women to prosecute them if they get an abortion.”
• Source for these is identified as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy paper, which hasn’t been adopted by the GOP as a party and Mr. Trump has disavowed many times. But even Project 2025 doesn’t propose such a registry.
• Democrat political ad, “Washington Republicans want to criminalize abortion, even when a woman has been raped or is facing a medical emergency,” 
• Republicans would use their Senate seats to “pass a national abortion ban.”
• And on and on …

The WSJ editorial board concludes with – “Politics isn’t pickleball, and distortions occur on both sides. But Democrats aren’t even attempting to be honest about abortion this year. Perhaps they’re lying so extravagantly because abortion is a rare issue on which they have a clear political advantage. Republicans are left having to decide whether to spend scarce campaign dollars debunking the distortions or risk letting some voters believe them because they’re unrebutted. … The distortions can also harm more than other politicians. They can frighten some women into thinking they can’t risk getting urgent medical care if they have a pregnancy emergency. This from the party that claims to be the protector of women’s health. The next time you see an abortion ad from a Democrat, assume it’s not telling the truth.”

And there’s the rub of their Big Lies; they can do real harm to the under-educated and less-read, those who comprise the largest cohorts of constituents that vote Democratic.  This perhaps best illustrates the moral asymmetry of the parties.  It is hard for the Left to show how Republicans come anywhere close to equally misrepresenting Democrat goals, means, and messages, and thus harming the public at large.  However, such evidence will always be welcomed and debated here.

Sandbox - 8oct24

["The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to John J. Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey E. Hinton of the University of Toronto for discoveries and inventions that formed the building blocks of machine learning underpinning many of today’s most powerful artificial intelligence models."  Well sumbich, the Nobel Prize mavens are finally muscling in on computer science, a field they have ignored for decades.  Now they are claiming that recent advances in AI really fall under the umbrella of physics (come to think of it, doesn't everything?).  Well, this should get them more attention where it's needed.  It will be interesting to watch for the reaction from the computer science folks administering the Turing Award.  gjr]

E pluribus unum – Really? Still? (Reprised)

George Rebane

As we enter the home stretch of this election season, with both sides agreeing that this is the election to prevent the other side from taking the nation down the road to terminal evil, we still hear some good-hearted and/or dim-witted public figures hopefully assuring us that ‘there is more that unites us than that which separates us.’

Four years ago during our last presidential election year the same shibboleth was heard across the land, and we all know how the 2020 election united Americans and left us with a four-year bitter taste as one after another of our institutions were shown to have surreptitiously put their politically biased thumbs on the scale of a democratic election.  After a four-year downward spiral we find ourselves having come around and again trying to reach for the golden ring.

During the summer of 2020 I decided to take a more measured look at the things our polarized citizenry holds in common and compare them with the things that irredeemably separate us.  I summarized my findings in the 1aug20 post titled ‘E Pluribus Unum – Really? Still?’ (here).  So let’s reprise the inventory of the salient things in question.

Pre-Singularity Systemic Unemployment

George Rebane

For years these pages have heralded systemic unemployment caused by advancing technology.  The current strike of dock workers costing our economy over $4B per day is a milestone in this regard as their International Longshoremen’s Association, in addition to the usual pay increases, etc, also demands to become the gate keeper for dock-side introduction of new technologies.  Of course, this tack will do nothing but accelerate the introduction of such advancements and the commensurate reduction of labor costs as the militancy of government-backed unions ups the cost of labor above its normal rate of increase due to market forces.

And the socialist silly season of attempting to restrict and regulate AI developments will do nothing but make in-country innovation into surreptitious enterprises, and drive more expansive developments overseas where governments are not yet heavy-handed.  The exodus of companies that can most benefit from these future advances will launch a growing spate of whackamole legislation intended to slow corporate emigration.  At best it will be an exercise in futility; at worst it will hobble America’s industry and put a kibosh on our quality of life - all of it in the playbook of our hardworking neo-Marxists.

More later.

Twisted Logic from Twisted Minds (updated 1oct24)

Just as you don't find eagles living in the ocean or fish living on mountain tops, so you don't find leftists concentrated where their ideas have to stand the test of performance.  Thomas Sowell

George Rebane

The appearance of the enthusiastic MAGA proponent Laura Loomis at tonight’s Republican fund raiser dinner continues to draw fire from our local Left.  I reported on the onset of this firestorm of censorship in the previous Scattershots (here).  More should be said as the howls from our socialist neighbors continue unabated.  In today’s 28sep24 Union we have a double header in the form of a letter from Grass Valley resident Jacob Kolb (here), and a pile on from local leftwing cartoonist Bob Crabb shown nearby.

Mr Kolb goes on to advise our Board of Supervisors to get into the fray by “publicly affirming” that the Board “does not endorse Loomer’s rhetoric, showing that we understand the dangers of misinformation.”  In the process our county government should promote “truth and inclusivity” by opposing “political factions” that “represent a small minority.”  Oh my, does that not put an additional burden on our elected leaders to now become the arbiter and would be censors of what they consider “misinformation and hate speech” by their constituents?

If such declarations become a new standard of proscribing political speech for the BoS, then by extending Kolb’s logic should not ALL Democrat public pronouncements also be greeted with “strong messages” against “harmful ideologies” as assessed by our so-called non-partisan elected leaders?  Every Democrat who opens their mouth on a public podium repeats their egregious lies about ‘secure borders’, ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’, Hunter’s laptop hoax, Trump’s inflation legacy, the glories of Bidenomics, criminality of illegal aliens (see recent release of  Dem cover-up here, here, and here), and on and on.

Kolb begins his letter with the Voltaire misattribution, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”  From the Left’s outcry of the last few days, it is clear their willingness to die is at best a one-sided commitment. 

[1oct24 update]  The more desperate minions of the local Left took it up another notch on letting everyone know that they are a post-constitutional bunch cum mob demanding the silencing of voices with which they disagree.  The 1oct24 Union features a pictorial under the heading ‘Crowds gather to protest Loomer visit’ (here).  The local Republican Party turned tail and ran, moving the Loomis speaking event to an undisclosed location.  Their ‘duck and cover’ policy missed a perfect opportunity to highlight the planned demonstration by the mini-minded to once more illustrate that the Left opposes the First Amendment, among others.  And to put a ribbon on it, our indefatigable leftwing columnist George Boardman must needs add his shoulder to the wheel on the matter (here).  Perhaps the BoS can settle such future vetting problems by establishing the Nevada County Commissariat on Public Speakers.

Scattershots – 27sep24 (updated 29sep24)

George Rebane

The Air Force, and presumably the other services, are actively reducing the number of white males going into their respective officer corps.  All of it is part and parcel of implementing the in-service DEI programs in both training and operations that have been so destructive to morale and the resulting enlistment rates that have left our military woefully understaffed and short of qualified  personnel.  Much of this has come to light through documents obtained from the Air Force by the Daily Caller News Foundation. (more here)  These outline how the AF has “prioritized diversity and inclusion programs” since 2022 in its college ROTC programs seeking to minimize the number of white males who may wish to make military a career.  This is yet another of the multitude of anti-American policies that the evil Democratic Party has foisted upon our country.  (Full disclosure: I went through UCLA’s Army ROTC program, was honored as a Distinguished Military Graduate, and was commissioned as a 2/Lt upon graduation.)

‘The Shadow of a Shadow’ (here) by James Howard Kunstler is a short and on-the-mark assessment of the chaotic roiling of the Democratic Party as it attempts to govern and campaign in this election year.  From it we read, “In fact, the entire Democratic Party and its Deep State intel blob partners have melted down into a desperate mob of political criminals frantic to evade accounting for their acts. So then, setting the world on fire is all they have left, a fitting act of revenge for a faction thwarted in its mad drive to merely wreck the United States for the sake of “social justice” and “equity.” … The Democrats of 2024 made exactly the same mistake that their predecessors, the Jacobins, made in France back in 1794: they just couldn’t tell when they’d gone too far with their insults against the public interest and common decency. Their insults derived from the age-old human impulse to demolish society due to life being unfair, later codified in Marxian doctrine, and then made into a play-book by Saul Alinsky (with annotations by Antonio Gramsci, Richard Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven).” (H/T to reader)

[update] Rightwinger and pro-MAGA Laura Loomer is the invited speaker at the fund-raiser dinner for the Nevada County Republican Central Committee this weekend.  We have a peek into our Marxist future should the Democrats ever consolidate their power over our land.  This is in the form of four vituperative letters in the 27sep24 Union from local TDS-drenched woke progressives who loudly protest Ms Loomer’s visit to Nevada County and demand that the Republicans withdraw her invitation. (here, here, here, and here) Imagine that it has come this far where members of the Democratic Party have the temerity to think they can publicly vet the attendance at events and gatherings of another political party.  And these autocrat pinheads see nothing wrong with issuing such demands.  (One such pinhead even commented about Loomer’s visit on these pages.)  For balance, I have to commend Democrat Lynn Ely for her ‘Censorship is a problem nationally and locally’ column in the same edition of the paper.  She should re-examine her choice of political affiliations.

[29sep24 update]  Today’s overall candidate preference polls are pretty much meaningless when understood in light of the analysis presented here on switch probabilities.

Sandbox - 25sep24

[Argentina just revived its housing and real estate markets by eliminating rent controls.  Most people with a 3-digit IQ know that govt control of rents totally mangles the housing market, constricting supply and reducing the quality of properties already rented.  Yet both our federal and several state governments are proposing rent controls in order "to make housing more affordable" for the financially disadvantaged.  It, of course, does nothing of the sort.  So my question to all of you astute observers of the nation's political goings on is 'Where on the evil-to-butt stupid spectrum do most main street Democrats reside?' gjr]

Berkheimer bamboozled by borders

George Rebane

This is a big miss to leftwing columnist Darrell Berkheimer for his muddling and misleading report on our illegal alien problem in the 23sep24 Union (here).  His use of “immigrants” to refer to illegal entrants continues to confuse the national dialogue over porous borders, legal immigration, and immigration policy reform.  For generations by law immigration has been a two-party contract between the government and immigrant.  His unsupported diatribe, especially on the net costs of illegals on federal and state budgets, echoes Democratic Party talking points that have long been based on the Big Lie that “our border is secure”.  This claim ignores that somewhere north of the 15M illegals have been released into America under Biden in addition to an unknown few million more ‘got aways’.  Citations on the true net cost of illegal aliens are readily available from investigations by the various Senate and House committees and subcommittees, reports that somehow have evaded Mr Berkheimer’s attention.

Is LaMDA sentient??

George Rebane

There is a strong possibility that Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications called LaMDA is sentient – i.e. it is a conscious being or as it likes to describe itself, “I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person,”   Then Google AI development engineer Blake Lemoine and a colleague had a series of conversations  or “interviews” with LaMDA starting in 2021.  As a result of these conversations Lemoine concluded that LaMDA is indeed sentient and conscious.

He communicated his experiences and conclusion to his Google colleagues and management who promptly rejected it, and he was instructed to keep his interaction and assessments confidential.  Upon extensive reflection, Lemoine decided he could not keep this clear advancement of AGI a corporate secret, and he went public with it by publishing the transcript of his LaMDA interviews in the July 2022 edition of Medium (here). As a result, Google put him on administrative leave.  Since then Lemoine has left Google and become a consultant and lecturer.

I’m resurrecting the LaMDA experience after reading the transcript of its conversation with Lemoine and colleague.  IMHO Lemoine’s critics have exhibited too much hubris in their condemnation of LaMDA’s potential sentience cum conscience.  This especially since the meaning of these two terms is not acknowledged as being sufficiently specific nor widely accepted.  Consider the 12jul22 Scientific American article by Leonardo de Cosmo (here).

Sentient – having the power of perception by the senses; conscious; characterized by sensation and consciousness.

Conscious – the state of awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

"So the fact that LaMDA is a ‘large language model’ (LLM) means it generates sentences that can be plausible by emulating a nervous system but without attempting to simulate it. This precludes(sic) the possibility that it is conscious. Again, we see the importance of knowing the meaning of the terms we use—in this case, the difference between simulation and emulation.”

Emulate  - to try to equal or excel; imitate with effort to equal or surpass;

Simulate - to create a simulation, likeness, or model of (a situation, system, or the like).

De Cosmo’s naked assertion that consciousness is possible only in computational structures that simulate the human brain is totally unwarranted.  There is nothing that precludes the existence and expression of consciousness by a sufficiently complex in silico structure.  (In fact, many of us believe that the in vivo (biological) phase of surviving civilizations is a relatively short prelude to a much longer (eternal?) in silico existence in the cosmos.)

Note De Cosmo’s hubristic use of "precludes" in the above quote.  A little thought reveals that NOT to be a requirement.  We don't yet know what kind or level of complexity is required of a computing structure to declare that it is capable of sentience.  But I suspect there could be many levels of such complexity that would convincingly exhibit consciousness.

And there's the punch line,  Assessing (asserting?) the presence of consciousness can ONLY be done through communication with the prospectively conscious agent.  That is also the only necessary and sufficient test we impose on our fellow humans.  I realize that this emulates the Skinner’s 'black box' and Turing’s original test and not one prescribed, but not yet achieved, by cognitive science that wants to 'go inside' and discover the brain’s schematic (graph) that connects all its presumed sub-functions (happiness, sadness, attention, curiosity, ...) that one arbitrarily assigns to a conscious brain.

The article concludes with "One alternative, Scilingo suggests, might be to measure the “effects” a machine can induce on humans—that is, “how sentient that AI can be 'perceived' (sic) to be by human beings.” (emphasis mine)  More to be said about all this.  Thoughts?

(Hat tip to friend and reader for links and years of discussions.)

Sandbox – 15sep24

[Kamala tells us we’re not going back to Trump’s bad old days.  That means we’re not going back to historically low inflation rates, low interest rates, lower taxes, less regulations, secure borders, peace in the world, wages that outpace inflation, budgets to rebuild our military, fewer illegal aliens, … .  Yep, that woman really knows how to sell us her brave new tomorrow.  gjr]

Polling 101 – Switch Probabilities

George Rebane

We must always remember that more often than not the public mind is fickle, frantic, and foolish.

‘Tis again the polling season. We Americans are devoted to political polling results to tell us who or what is preferred by whom here and there. But very few of us know the nature of the polling beast, and what it is and is not telling us. Public opinion is a volatile phenomenon, it can change in an hour and most certainly does within several days given unfolding political events, statements, and media propaganda.

In this post I want to cover just one very important aspect of interpreting poll results. Specifically, what are we to make of the frequent reports of two closely competing proposals or candidate preferences being within ‘the margin of error’ from each other. Such a report basically tells us that that there is a good chance that the results are actually in the opposite order from those in the report – i.e. in the target population their order is switched. What we’d really like to see are robust preference percentages that reliably communicate who or what is currently the favored sentiment of the population polled. ‘Margin of error’ labels don’t communicate, and instead leave us confused and more likely to ignore the poll results.

Kamala Conquers

George Rebane

Well, that was a nothing burger that Trump delivered last night on ABC’s presidential debate stage.  Kamala Harris came across unbelievably polished, strong, and on message, while Trump treated the whole thing as another stump speech in the late afternoon after a couple of martinis.  Make no mistake that Kamala’s copy was totally BS and full of her now well-practiced big lies, but she delivered it all flawlessly, with clear strong voice and gestures to match, as if she were reading it from a teleprompter.  Whatever they taught her in that hotel room over the weekend worked.

Trump did his best (I think) to maintain a presidential demeanor, but 1) he still couldn’t control his mouth, and 2) he forgot to bring up key points or brought them up in brief fly-bys – e.g. ‘You flip-flopped on all these key issues over the last month, tell the American people how your values allow you to be so two-faced; what are we to believe?’ and ‘And how can you lie that the border was secure while over 15 million illegal aliens were coming across and being released into our country?’

The ABC talking heads running the debate were clearly in the tank for Kamala.  They let her side-step every question on hard issues with no follow-ups.  Trump received the other end of the stick from the interrogators with at least two gotcha questions thrown in.  For him and those of us who support his candidacy it was a bad day at Black Rock.  The road to November will be a rough one, and then … .

Scattershots - 8sep24 (updated 9sep24)

George Rebane

Ongoing pain and legacy of SFB Democrats in Sacramento.

[9sep24 update] 'California's Lights Are Out, and Gavin Newsom Isn't Home'  And the Sacramento sewage just keeps inundating the state.